#can be about characters or magic systems or even ships

[annabelle-creart]

Dear Trollhunters, Wild Robot, Dragon Prince and Rescue Bots fans

I have this concept of multiverse in my head where all the characters of series, games and movies I have watched exist in different universes, completely separated but united my magic

One of the many characteristics of this multiverse is the fact that some characters share something named essence, this is what souls, sparks and spirits are made, and if someone of another universe has your same essence, is because they are variants

What is my point?

I’m a fan of the four series and movie I just told you, and based in both canon and headcanons, I truly believe Arrrgh, Rozz, Aaravos and Boulder are variants

And the rest is pure headcanons, analysis and shit like the ships across the multiverse I did time ago, so, read if you can or want and if not, oks

I will also talk about Heatwave, Sissi and Salvage’s variants

Also, is stupid to say that this includes spoilers for the ones who doesn’t know about the other media

Ok, so, I think with Rozz, Boulder and Arrrgh is pretty obvious, the three of them didn’t knew a single shit about life, stayed two days and ended up liking it, even getting friends and families out there, so, why Aaravos? The motherfucker who, because of the death of his daughter, made an entire sea with his tears and later got up to fuck the lives of the ones who made that possible, including all the beings who crossed on his way

Well, it’s actually because of that

Let’s remember Arrrg wasn’t always a pacifist, he was a gum gum before, Rozz first was made to be just a robotic maid with programed responses and (mostly headcanons because we never got any info of the bots back on Cybertron) Boulder lived on a society that constantly denigrated the classes depending on the job, Aaravos literrally said “fuck you” to the system and did whatever he wanted, for both love and revenge, Arrrgh, Rozz and Boulder did the same, Arrrgh leave the gum gums and befriended Blinky, Rozz adapted to became mother of Brightbill and Boulder leave behind their past on Cybertron to start a new life painting and gardening, the difference is that Aaravos committed murder and magic crimes while Arrrgh, Rozz and Boulder preferred to be good people :v

So, yes, I truly believe those four are variants and I love them that way so much, and Aaravos could learn a lot about those three, same for the rest from Aaravos, I want to believe Aaravos can still be good but he gave so much priority to his plan revenge that forgot that and now uses his good part to manipulate people

Wrath: you can’t be actually serious

Writer: OH I CAN! WATCH ME, DRAWER!

Drawer: gimme a sec…

(Reminder this was made in a rush with 0 references or sketch, only quick lineart)

Drawer: Done!

Writer: IT’S SO CUTEEEEEE!

They also made a grupal therapy to see if they could help Aaravos with his angry issues!

Even Aaravos was puzzled about looking at Arrrgh act so chilly and laugh about his own trauma as a gum gum general, not even Boulder knew what to say or what to do about it. Rozz could only share a listener shoulder

But hey! They shared a lot of funny tales! And they even discovered their respective partners were also variants!

Because yes, I believe Heatwave, Fink, Blinky and Avizandum are variants too

Researcher: but Avizandum is not Aaravos partner

Writer: not their normal partner, their hate partner! Aaravos was so dammed angry when he found out he’s friend with Avi in another universes! Like, play it please!

——

Aaravos: you can’t be serious!

Boulder: why not?

Aaravos: because we’re not even friends! He caged me in a magic pearl at the button of the sea I did myself!! He’s egotistical and believes he’s more than anyone else for the mere fact he’s a damn dragon!!

Arrrgh: …am

Rozz: Well! Not because we are variants our stories are the same, haha

Boulder: exactly! I’m sorry Avizandum did that, but Rozz is right, my Heatwave would never caged on a pearl… it sounds weird when I say it out loud

Aaravos: I know, right? It took me some centuries to get accomplished to the fact and say it out loud normally

Rozz: Fink had the chance to leave me at my luck but he didn’t… well, whatever, the point is, yes, he did bad things and hurt you but now he can’t, right?

Arrrgh: the best is to let go

Rozz: Exactly!

Aaravos: …hm, you’re right, he’s dead after all, is not like he can do much

Rozz: Exactly- wait, he’s dead?

—

Drawer: Rozz definitely didn’t expected that

—

So… yes, that’s mostly of what I can say about them, I just think they’re cool and I love them, I wanted Rozz, Boulder and Arrgh to be friend and Aaravos deserves to heal. I mean, a domestic robot, an alien transformer, a troll and a touchstar elf in the same room is all I wanted to see today(their dynamic remembers me a lot of those comics where Bill Cipher is sent to Gravity Falls to pay for his shit and heal his traumas)

And also

Aaravos with braids and flowers in his head because of those three is so 🌟 🌟 🌟

And then we have Heatwave fighting the flames Mandrake made because Fink won in poker while Blink is hidden behind the table in the other room :v

And I decided to use Mandrake from the movie Epic instead of Avizandum because I truly believe he and Aaravos are the drama queens of the club and definitely I think they would be good friends (and they both lost a child, so…)

And also because Avi is dead

…

Writer: guys-?

All: no

Writer: But-

Researcher: THEY AREN’T EVEN FROM THE SAME STUDIO, MANDRAKE IS FROM BLUE SKY AND AARAVOS IS FROM WONDERSTORM

Reader: you’re intrusive crack ships thoughts scare me sometimes

Writer: WELL, WHATEVER! THE POINT IS THAT THOSE FOUR ARE SO DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER AND THAT’S FUNNY

Like, can you imagine the hothead of Heatwave, Blinky who is such a nerd, Mandrake who is an edgy bitch and Fink the sassy fox?

I just can think of them like (featuring Avi’s ghost)

And then we have Sissi and Salvage talking and playing Five nights at Freddy’s with Brightbill, Zym, Toby, Jim, Dagda and Leola because the fuck, the little girl likes terror and the teens had passed through a lot to get scared easily-

[marvelousmagicalaura]

This is the weirdest combination of tags I’ve done yet 😂😂😂

So going back to my last post, I want to write a Mistborn fanfic where Ruin is the god of chaos and change, while Preservation is the god of order and stagnation. But I need to get used to writing this type of conflict. What other property do I know has this, and also has gods who see into the future? Wizard101. I want to rewrite Wizard101’s lore and worldbuilding even more than Mistborn ☠️

Whoever sees this, you can give me prompts about Mistborn and Wizard101’s gods. If you’re not interested in gods, you can request anything. And I will try to write a story about the prompt. I’m using this to practice writing.

[isabelguerra]

because the thing, when you really get down to it, is that youve had this au for 8 years. and there’s very few things you can say that about. the time you spend on something like that is more than passing interest, when you have something for that long it’s a companion. maybe something that was there when you were completely alone. but the thing is, really, is that the end of the day, you look yourself in the mirror and find yourself faced with the reality that one of your biggest creative outlets is a fffffffffffffffucking . HARRY POTTER AU PAIRANATURAL FANFICTION . in TWENTY TWENTY THREE.

[nona-gay-simus]

Some days I truly feel like TLT has ruined... books for me. Like, I don't even like ACOTAR but I can think of at least four series that are basically ACOTAR with dragons, ACOTAR with gods, ACOTAR with vampires, ACOTAR with witches, and that's just off the top of my head.

But there's truly nothing out there that captures all or even some of the elements that enthralled me about TLT. The characters, the character dynamics, the magic system, the voice, the mix of science fiction and fantasy, the prose that knows exactly when to be funny and when to be serious, the queernorm world-building and variety of lesbian genders... It does not exist. Even if I find something with similar themes it will be bland fantasy voice and (most likely) boring straight ship of fem4fem.

It's even ruined audiobooks narrators because no one can compare to moira quirk and her sexy accent and wonderfully animated narration that makes the characters come to life.

And it makes me really sad to think i might never discover another series I love as much as this one. Not even close.

[alpaca-clouds]

The Punk-Factor of Punkpunk Genre

So, when I posted my history of Solarpunk, someone (probably not in good faith) asked: “So, what about the punk in all the other punk genres?!” towards my request to put the punk back into Solarpunk. And given that my autistic brain obviously cannot just let that stand… You know what? Let me talk about the other punk genre and in how far they are “punk”. I tried to be as exhaustive as possible, though there is a good chance, that I might have missed some of the punkpunk genre. So feel free to add.

Trying to judge the punkiness I do not assume punk as simple counter culture, but a specific ideology. Quote from Wikipedia:

[Punk ideology] is primarily concerned with concepts such as mutual aid, against selling out, hierarchy, white supremacy, authoritarianism, anti-consumerism, anti-corporatism, anti-war, imperialism, conservatism, anti-globalization, gentrification, anti-racism, anti-sexism, class and classism, gender equality, racial equality, eugenics, animal rights, free-thought and non-conformity

Most of the artwork here has been taken from concept art of either of the examples listed.

Sorted from most futuristic to pre(historic). Yes, the list is long.

Cyberpunk

We start with the OG punk genre, the one after which all other punk genre were named. Yes, you could argue that in fact the two genre following are more futuristic – but Cyberpunk kinda just had to start the list.

As a genre: Given that Cyberpunk had its start completely in literature it is the best defined in this regard. Taking place in a late stage capitalist dystopian world in which most is owned by megacorps who don’t follow anyone’s laws but their own, the protagonists usually are social outcasts fighting against their own oppression, trying to keep themselves alive in a world hostile to them. With cybernetics always being a core of the genre, it also tends to deal with the question of humanity in a “ship of Theseus” sort of way. How much can the human body be altered, before the human vanishes?

As an aesthetic: Cyberpunk is the most punk in terms of aesthetics, really. There is a lot of punk and grunge going on in terms of character design. Neon hair colors, fishnets and thorn up jeans jackets can be found here. As well as of course cybernetics on the characters. The world usually is a megacity with a stark divide between rich and poor, tons of neon signs, a slight Japanese influence, flying cars and somehow a constant downpour of rain.

Punk-Factor: Cyberpunk is the one punk genre, where the “punk” was chosen very knowingly as a name. Usually the protagonists are “punks” fighting for their place in the world against a suppressive capitalist system. (Also, they usually fit the punk aesthetic, if they don’t wear leather dusters.) It should be noted however, that especially in newer western Cyberpunk often the punkiness vanishes more and more – for the same reason we have so little Solarpunk: media that outright confronts the problems of capitalism is just less supported.

Examples: Neuromancer (1984), Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986), Snow Crash (1992), The Matrix (1999), Dredd (2012)

Biopunk

As a genre: As a genre biopunk is still fairly ill defined, as it mostly shows up as a subsection of Cyberpunk. Rather than the characters having cybernetic implants (or additionally to it) they are augmented on a genetic level. This can be all sorts of augmentations, changing anything from appearance to giving characters higher strength and agility, giving them claws or night vision, or in some cases even “magic” powers. Usually the genre tends to be set in worlds similar to Cyberpunk. In fact it might well be set in a cyberpunk world, only that characters with bioaugmentations exist parallel to those with cybernetics. Additionally, though, there is a subsection of this genre, that concerns reproductive rights.

As an aesthetic: Ironically biopunk is even less defined as an aesthetic. There is not a lot of biopunk art out there and most that exists can go in different directions. As such it often mixes elements from other punk aesthetics – like Cyberpunk, Steampunk or Dieselpunk – with an assortment of bodyhorror elements.

Punk-Factor: It is hard to define the “punkiness” of a genre, that barely exists for the most part. Usually, when it is set against a Cyberpunk backdrop, it might be very punky, but in other settings those punk elements vanish.

Examples: Ribofunk (1995), Altered Carbon (2002), Bioshock (2007), The Windup Girl (2009)

Nanopunk

As a genre: Like Biopunk Nanopunk mostly exists as a subsubgenre to Cyberpunk, often being set in a mostly Cyberpunk world, only that instead of or additionally to Cybernetics, the technology used to alter the human body is nanites. These serve the same function as the genetic manipulation in Biopunk, giving the human in question more strength and agility and at times more or less magical abilities. There is one common plot that comes up again and again, with an AI or megacorp turning the nanites against the people they inhabit or trying to control them.

As an aesthetic: Aesthetically Nanopunk does not have much in terms of its own identity. Most artworks relating to Nanopunk feature a similar aesthetic to Cyberpunk, with megacities and lots of neon.

Punk-Factor: This genre is so small, that it is kinda hard to judge the exact punkiness.

Examples: The Diamond Age (1995), Prey (2002)

Solarpunk

As a genre: Being another genre, that started as such, Solarpunk is a bit better defined. Solarpunk usually takes place in a world post-strive. It is post-capitalist and decolonial in its settings, usually featuring a world that has either formed against the backdrop of preventing climate collapse or in the aftermath of it. A lot of it features people rebuilding – or alternatively building communities. It always features elements about living in harmony with nature or trying to do so. So far, the genre is mostly defined by short stories, partly because there is still disagreements within the movement, how far a conflict can be taken to still qualify as Solarpunk.

As an aesthetic: Solarpunk has a very strong aesthetic definition, mostly featuring all sorts of cities and urban areas, that incorporate natural elements into the urbanity, with greenery growing on roofs and concrete car-centric streets being replaced with more natural, walkable areas. The character design aesthetic is not quite as clearly defined, but usually features natural materials and patterns usually seen within indigenous art.

Punk-Factor: Contrary to what many say, Solarpunk is fairly punk, as it very much embraces the entire anti-hierarchical, anti-capitalist mentality. With the big difference, that the punk mentality is no longer counter culture, but the mainstream culture.

Examples: The Dispossessed (1974), Nausicaä (1984), Laputa – Castle in the Sky (1986), Princess Mononoke (1997), The Summer Prince (2013)

Lunarpunk

As a genre: Lunarpunk is pretty much a subsubgenre of Solarpunk, just as Nanopunk and Biopunk are sprung off from Cyberpunk. It is so far ill-defined as a genre, but the general consensus is, that it is set in solarpunk-esque worlds, but with a heavier focus on mysticism or spiritualism, at times outright including magic. It also tends to feature a lot darker places, being set in underwater or underground settings – or alternatively at night.

As an aesthetic: Lunarpunk is far more of an aesthetic than a genre so far. It features dark places, often with bioluminescent elements in it. Often featuring a mixture of black and dark blue with lighter blue, violet or light green elements shining in the middle of it. Mushrooms – especially glowing mushrooms – feature repeatedly in artwork.

Punk-Factor: Given that Lunarpunk is barely defined as a genre it is hard to estimate the punkiness in it. If it gets more stories, will those still feature the anti-capitalist and anti-hierarchical messaging we see in Solarpunk? This should be the defining factor. Some of the artworks use little aesthetics from the punk scene, but nothing much more.

Examples: Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology (2023)

Hopepunk

Honestly, I had no idea where to put this one, given that it might technically be set at any time and place.

As a genre: Hopepunk is very much a genre, not an aesthetic. It has been defined as the opposite of grimdark by its “inventor/name-giver” Alexandra Rowland. The basic idea is to create fiction that instead of taking a dystopian, defeatist and violent approach, takes one defined by hope and to some degree pacifism. As such the genre can be set in any setting, real or fantastic. It mostly is defined by the protagonists taking opposition to cruelty and violence, fighting for a better world and, crucially, also partly archiving it. Other than in usual Cyberpunk, where the best possible ending, tends to be, that the protagonists get to live a somewhat better life themselves, Hopepunk aims to better the life at least for groups of people.

As an aesthetic: Being fully a genre, Hopepunk has no aesthetic associated with it.

Punk-Factor: Hopepunk is punk less in the sense of the protagonists or things happening within the story, which might or might not be punk, but was named such rather because it is considered counter cultural towards the gross of media at the moment, that often strives for a “realistic, gritty, grimdark” outlook on the world. Basically it is saying: “Hope is punk.” I will not make any judgement on whether or not this is true.

Examples: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2014), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), The Good Place (2016)

Mythpunk

As a genre: Another one, that does not really fit into a temporal sorting system, because once again it can be set anywhere between the stone age and the far future. The basic idea is, that the story interweaves postmodern storytelling with elements from mythology or folklore. This can mean mythological, genre-traversing retellings, but it can also mean, that mythology seeps into any given story bit by bit. As such the genre with probably the most media in the subgenre is Urban Fantasy, which often borrows from mythology and incorporates these elements.

As an aesthetic: Mythpunk as an aesthetic is a bit strange. There is definitely a mythpunk aesthetic that exists, often mixing familiar elements with elements from mythology and folklore (at times also including quasi-folkloric works of literature, such as Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz). Often just a bit dark and twisted.

Punk-Factor: To be perfectly frank, for the most part, there is not a lot of punk to be found in this genre. While there have been definitely punky stories told within the genre, this is more a story decision than something inherent to the genre.

Examples: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Over the Garden Wall (2014), Inscryption (2016)

Dustpunk / Rustpunk / Desertpunk

As a genre: Kinda grouping those above all together, because people argue about what they might entail and in some interpretations they kinda are similar: Post-apocalyptic stories set in a world of sand and rust. Often featuring a loner character, having to go up against everyone to ensure his own survival – and at times being forced to learn, that the lonerness might not win him (and most often it is a him) anything.

As an aesthetic: Aesthetically this tends to be very much post-apocalyptic, maybe in some cases with some more classical punk elements added to characters and surroundings.

Punk-Factor: Given that there is neither a system to rage against – nor a new, less hierarchical system – usually there is not that much punk outside of some aesthetic choices. Neither tend those stories go into constructing worlds of mutual aid or working against oppression.

Examples: Anything Mad Max should count for this.

Atompunk

As a genre: Atompunk usually deals with themes connected to the cold war – in some cases directly, in some indirectly. Often it overplays the American ideals that were pushed for during the cold war era and portrays scenarios in which American Exceptionalism slowly reveals itself as the dystopia most punks already know it to be. Outside of this vague idea for the setting, the genre is less described, as there is less of a clear script an Atompunk story might follow. So, little description of who might be the protagonist and what their role is.

As an aesthetic: The aesthetic of Atompunk borrows heavily from the Raygun Gothic aesthetic. So, futurism, as it was imagined in the 1950s and 1960s, with heavy influences from late pulp age science fiction art.

Punk-Factor: The aesthetic in this is definitely not punk. The stories often have some vague punk ideas of recognizing how fucked up the world has become, but given the genre is fairly wide in terms of stories, it is hard to give a definite answer to how “punk” it is. One can definitely tell punk stories within this genre, though.

Examples: Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (1978), Fallout (1997), Futurama (1999)

Dieselpunk

As a genre: Dieselpunk is once again an example of “strong aesthetic, but no clear genre identity”. Generally, Dieselpunk is concerned with the interwar period, but might cover either of the world wars. In some cases the genre features alternate timelines, in which one war happened and not the other, or in which another faction won, with the technological development being influenced by this as well. But as a genre it is not much defined. A lot of stories building on Lovecraft’s legacy feature Dieselpunk in some regards. And there is definitely a subsection of Dieselpunk stories centered around “what if Nazis won” or “what if Nazis somehow went underground and did their own technological development after the war”. Also, there are a lot of stories about pilots of war planes in this genre.

As an aesthetic: As an aesthetic Dieselpunk is more clearly defined. A lot of bare metal and the sorts of technology you would expect from this era, often with retro-futurist and art noveau elements in between. A lot of the fashion within the genre is defined by pilot and military clothing of the times, but at times also dipping into “roaring 20s” fashion styles.

Punk-Factor: In this genre I would generally say: “If the story involves punching Nazis, you might get a couple punk points – but otherwise this is not really punk.”

Examples: The Iron Dream (1972), Brazil (1985), Dark City (1998), Iron Sky (2012), Bitter Seeds (2010)

Teslapunk

As a genre: Yet another one of these, that exists mostly as a vague idea, with no clear definition. The basic idea is a world, that works on Tesla’s inventions. And as those of you, who watched Doctor Who, might know, Tesla sorta, kinda already invented the internet or had an idea of what it could be and how it could work. So a Teslapunk world is based in an alternate timeline, but might in fact go into light futurism. There is not much in this genre though with a unique thematic identity, as stories that use Teslapunk as a backdrop rarely have coherent themes.

As an aesthetic: The aesthetic of Teslapunk is basically “Steampunk, but with Tesla-coils and electricity”. Which is not a big surprise given that Tesla came from the same era that would also be the inspiration for Steampunk. So, we have a lot of Victorian fashion, maybe some light augmentation, airships, and – again – all the tesla coils you can muster.

Punk-Factor: As, again, I think punk is more about themes than aesthetic, this is once more not really possible to judge, because there do not seem coherent themes within the genre so far.

Examples: The Prestige (2006), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), Bioshock Infinite (2013)

Arcanepunk

Another one of those that do not neatly fit into the timeline…

As a genre: Arcanepunk takes place in a world, where both magic and technology have developed. In some cases both developed side by side, in others, we might have a technological world, that suddenly discovers magic by some happenstance. The fact is, though, that both exist parallel to each other or might at times be intertwined, with technology being powered by magic. This can exist at different technological stages, usually featuring settings inspired by the late 19th or early 20th century. But usually futuristic stuff that includes magic might be considered Arcanepunk, just as might stories that mix 18th century technology with magic. While also a vague genre, there is a repeating theme of magic being hoarded by those in powers and the poor and downtrodden finding ways to still use it in their own advantage.

As an aesthetic: Given that Arcanepunk’s setting is defined by the co-existence of magic and technology, rather than a specific technology, Arcanepunk has less of a defined aesthetic. Never the less, we have a part of punk aesthetics that often come up, as a surprising amount of Arcanepunk features characters with neon colored hair.

Punk-Factor: Another genre that is rather thin, yet, there is a surprising amount of stories featuring some punk ideas of fighting against an oppressive system and being counter culture to a main culture build around suppression.

Examples: Too Many Magicians (1966), Shadowrun (1989), Bartimaeus (2003), Arcane (2021) duh

Steampunk

Steampunk was the second genre to pick up the “punk” suffix and hence is as much responsible for the punk-punk as Cyberpunk as the originator.

As a genre: Being named as early as it has been, Steampunk kinda suffers the same issue as Cyberpunk itself. There is a lot of ideas there, but some are only vaguely defined. In general, though Steampunk always takes place in a world where the steam engine became the defining technology and was never replaced with the combustion engine. As such cultural aspects from the steam era, especially Victorian England and the Belle Epoche, still carry over for longer, than they did. So often we will see noble households based around similar values as the puritan Victorian English families, while the very poor are made to work in workhouses. At times we might also see themes of colonialism here. In some cases magic might exist in these worlds, as might electricity for some aspects. There is often a heavy inspiration from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Though it is still hard to define the “stereotypical steampunk story”, given that Steampunk offers a wide variety of stories, from adventure stories and romances, over to stories where people rise up against the Victorian-esque society.

As an aesthetic: Steampunk as an aesthetic is very much influenced by Victorian aesthetics and the time period of the late 19th century, mostly in the USA, Great Britain and France. But as all other punk genres it knows very well: “If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing,” so steam-related elements are added to everything. Could

Punk-Factor: In the original idea for Steampunk was a lot of punk. “What if we took Cyberpunks ‘rage against the unjust system’ and made it 19th century” they asked. But given that the genre branched out so much, it is not necessarily there in all the stories. There is a ton of stories where people rage against that steam powered Victorian machine – but also a ton in which the Victorian world gets idealized and romanticized.

Examples: Thief (1998), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999), Wild Wild West (1999), Clockwork Century (2008) – also half of all Sherlock Holmes adaption made after 2000 in any medium usually use Steampunk elements

Silkpunk

As a genre: Silkpunk is hard to define, despite there being a clear definition. The reason for this is, that the person who coined the term – Ken Liu – had a very specific idea in mind. He explains that the idea is of a world that has technology as language. In which form is as important as function, is made to speak a language all of its own. Inspired by ideas from W. Brian Arthur and Chinese philosophy. However, what the wider Science Fiction and Fantasy community made from it was “Steampunk but East Asian!” But given he coined the term (and also the alternative feels vaguely racist) I am going to go with Ken Liu for this. While Silkpunk will usually be set in an East Asian inspired world, the central idea is about the duality of technology, which will also be addressed within the stories.

As an aesthetic: As said above, the idea Liu had for it was a world that features some technology, but technology that is as much about form and communication through it, as it is about function. So the technology here has strong visual ideas. At least that was, how Liu intended it. Once again, the wider community made “Steampunk, but East Asian” out of it.

Punk-Factor: There is not a lot of stuff in this genre for now – however so far I do not manage to see a lot of punk ideas in it, even though some of Liu’s stories definitely feature the concept of challenging a higher power.

Examples: Dandelion Dynasty (2015), The Black Tides of Heaven (2018), The Tea Master and the Detective (2019)

Clockpunk

As a genre: Once again storytelling in this genre is not really defined, but the worlds diverge a bit before the wide adaption of steam, instead featuring mechanical devices powered by coils and springs and somehow kept alive, often at least implied through some form of arcane magic that gives “live” to these mechanical inventions. Most examples of Clockpunk, however, tend to show up as settings for parts of fantasy stories. Any fantasy world might have this “Clockpunk” area, where protagonists might travel. Especially games tend to feature this. While there is definitely a trope of the “mad inventor” often going along with this, few other tropes stand out.

As an aesthetic: The aesthetic of Clockpunk tends to take some inspiration from the early 19th century, but tends to add a lot of gears to everything, with even city wide gear constructions keeping things working. We often will find mechatronic characters, such as wind up soldiers or wind up dancers.

Punk-Factor: Once more, there are so few stories told, that it is kinda hard to speak about how punk this is. Most stories told so far, however, do not feature punk elements.

Examples: The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Hugo (2011), Clockwork Planet (2017)

Whalepunk

Please note: This is one of those genre, I would love to see more in, though so far it is barely explored.

As a genre: And you might ask: “Why do you even name those genre, that exist mostly in theory?”, to which I might answer: “Because I am a nerd.” As all these retrofuturists genre, Whalepunk imagines mostly an alternate historical timeline, where the technology that became defining was based around whale oil. This means that in Whalepunk often whalers or harbors play a big role, though as the genre is again very thinly spread, it is hard to say what “THE whalepunk” formular is. It seems there is a tendency, to mix some mysticism or magic into the genre, though, as the idea of hunting sea monsters often plays into it as well. Good chance that it could at some point merge with Cthulupunk (which I did not name separately, because most of it is either covered in Whalepunk or Dieselpunk).

As an aesthetic: The aesthetic of Whalepunk is basically “Steampunk, but with more sailors, ships and sea monsters”. There is definitely a bit of Oceanpunk mixed into it as well, with some aesthetics being somewhere between Steampunk and Dieselpunk. (Which is kinda ironic, because whale oil was mostly used in the early 19th century.)

Punk-Factor: And again. There so far is not a lot of connective thematic tissue within that genre, so exploring themes is kinda hard.

Examples: Dishonored (2012), Dredge (2023)

Oceanpunk / Piratepunk

As a genre: It really is hard to divide the Piratepunk out of the Oceanpunk, though some might call it different. The idea here is that this genre features stories mostly set on the ocean and often more heavily leaning into fantasy, than science fiction. While the worlds might feature technological elements, they will almost certainly feature magical elements of some sort. The characters will usually be seafaring one way or another and stories might involve any sort of adventure. There might be a storyline, though, about one company or nation trying to control the seas – often times through magical means – with the characters often unwillingly being made to oppose them. This genre might also take place in a post-apocalyptic setting with a flooded planet.

As an aesthetic: While the aesthetic is not clearly defined, there is a good chance that it borrows heavily from the late 17th and early 18th century and the golden age of piracy, when it comes to both ships and fashion sensibilities.

Punk-Factor: Pirates, at least as far as modern media imagines them, tend to be very punk, as they tend to inherently oppose any sort of government and what not. While the punk is not there in all of the stories, a lot of the most popular stories from the genre will feature at least lightly punky elements.

Examples: One Piece (1997), Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013)

Dungeonpunk

As a genre: So, the idea of the genre is basically “What if Cyberpunk, but Dungeons & Dragons?” Usually set in a vaguely medieval world, this world still shows the same corporate corruption as your usual Cyberpunk world. Adventurers are just another resource to be exploited by the system, their day job involving going on yet another dungeon crawl. For this there might be some technology entirely powered by magic, with those magic items taking over the same functions technology might have in a Cyberpunk world. And yes, indeed some brave dwarf, elf or halfling might rise up and challenge the corporate dungeon syndicate. (As you might sense: Yes, this genre tends to be at least partly a bit of a parody of the punkpunk idea. Though it also can be played straight as “Cyberpunk conflicts, just that all technology is somehow magic.”)

As an aesthetic: This is once again one of the examples, where there is a clear idea behind it – but absolutely no clear aesthetic, as this genre might cover anything from medieval settings to a lot more modern stuff.

Punk-Factor: The base idea, being heavily inspired by the base idea of Cyberpunk, just from a very different perspective. But too many people read the genre as “Magic Technology, yay”, in which case, no, it is not punk.

Examples: Dungeons & Dragons can be played this way, also Final Fantasy VI – XIII definitely counts.

Sandalpunk

As a genre: I mostly include this for the sake of it, because this genre tends to boil down to “fantasy set in ancient Greece or Rome, but with vaguely anachronistic elements”. It might also include alternate history stories (even going so far as Science Fiction) based on the idea “What if Ancient Rome/Ancient Greece never fell?” There is no real overarching themes, even though I could imagine some interesting way one could build those up. So far, though, it is mostly a vague gesture towards: “SciFi Fantasy, but with more ancient civilizations.”

As an aesthetic: The aesthetic is usually just Ancient Rome or Ancient Greece, but with more magic or anachronistic elements.

Punk-Factor: Given the super vague nature of the genre and the fact that it seems more like a genre of hindsight (with most media being declared this having been released even before 2000)… Nobody wrote those stories to be punk. The one punk thing I can see about several of these stories is people challenging Gods, but… That’s about it.Examples: Hercules: Legendary Journeys (1995), Xena: Warrior Princess (1995), God of War (2005)

Stonepunk

As a genre: The basic idea of Stonepunk is, that it is set in a stone age world, but with the technology being pressed towards a very anachronistic end, which is often played for laughs. Basically it gives stone age people a modern seeming world, though not really. Often enough this is used to make a point about the modern world and parody it in some regard. An argument can be made for stories, that feature stone age technology people being somehow subjected to modern technology (for example through time travel or space travel) also possibly falling into this genre.

As an aesthetic: Usually the aesthetic of Stonepunk is one of an overplayed stone age setting. The clothing characters might wear are not what we know is historically more accurate but really just “everyone wears a pelt around their shoulders”. Meanwhile stone age tools get spun to be used as all sorts of modern technologies.

Punk-Factor: The genre does usually not feature punk themes. However, the nature of parodying and challenging the modern world tends to be punk in its own merit, I assume?

Examples: The Flintstones (1960), The Croods (2013), Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017)

That's it. That's the list.

Feel free to add to it.

[physalian]

In Defense of Fanfiction (Or the perfect starting point for your original novel)

Fanfic gets a bad rap pretty much everywhere except Tumblr. It’s misunderstood and misrepresented by its average works, seen as juvenile and cringey, or a banal point of contention between a famous person or piece of media and its fans.

Outside of fanfic that writes about real people, especially smut fics of real people, I support the art wholeheartedly. Fictional characters are one thing, but personally, caricaturing a celebrity’s life for public consumption and writing or drawing them in compromising content without their consent is a little weird. You do you. Don’t like, don’t read, as they say.

Fanfic is the perfect starting point for a few reasons:

It places you in a creative box and forces you to work within those constraints

It does all the worldbuilding and character concepts for you

It lets you write way outside your comfort zone

When published and receiving feedback, it boosts your self-confidence

It's incredibly flexible

It’s practice. All practice is good practice

—

Behold your creative box

When I was little I had no idea the majority of fanfic was shipping fics. I always pictured and looked for canon-divergent alternate universes. Like, what if X happened in this episode instead of Y? What if this character never died?

Fanfic demands you work within someone else’s canon, whether it’s an OC in the canonical world, or the canonical characters in an AU. These are like little bowling bumpers saving you from the gutter, but also keeping you on a straight-ish path toward the pins.

The indecisiveness of too many choices can be too intimidating when you’re first starting out. You want to be a writer but you have no idea where to begin, what genre to pick, what characters you want to chronicle, what themes you want to explore.

Even if it sits on your computer never to see the light of day, you still got those creative juices flowing.

Pre-packaged worldbuilding

Sometimes all we want is to get to the good stuff. Maybe I want to write a story about elemental magicians but Last Airbender already exists and I just want to play in a pre-existing sandbox. So I write some OCs into that world and have a free-for-all.

I don’t have to come up with my own lore, world history, magic system rules and mechanics, politics, geography—any of it. I get to just focus on the characters.

Even if you’re writing an AU, like say a coffee shop AU, you don’t have to think about brand new characters, you can just think “What would M do?” and go from there. The trade-off is your readers will expect canonical characters to behave in-character, but I think it’s worth it.

Stretch beyond your comfort zone!

Do you hate writing action scenes? Go practice with a shonen anime fic. Need work on dialogue? Write some high-fantasy fic, or a courtroom drama. Practice a fistfight by watching fistfights and writing what you see, and do it over and over again until what you read makes you feel like you're watching what’s on screen.

But beyond that—practice genres that you aren’t super familiar with. If you’re new to fantasy, write fantasy fic. Or a mystery novel/show, thriller, comedy, satire, adventure, what have you. The nature of fanfic still gives you those “guardrails” and you can get some brutally honest feedback on how you’re doing.

And, of course, the realm of M-rated romance and smut fics. I haven’t because I think I would die of embarrassment if I tried and I never intend to include sex scenes in my works anyway, but if you do want to, use the internet as your test audience. Post it on a throwaway account if you’re nervous.

Build that self-confidence!

The fandoms I used to write for are super dead, so it’s insane how I still get email notifications that so-and-so liked my fic to this day. Comments are as elusive as ever, but random strangers on the internet telling me they liked my work is a magical reassurance that my writing isn’t actually awful.

Random strangers on the internet are, as we all know, beholden to no moral obligation to be kind to your little avatar face, or be kind to be polite. So a rando taking the time to like my work or even leave a positive comment can feel more honest than one of my friends telling me what they think I want to hear.

I tend to avoid the more present aspects of fandom like online communities, forums, social media, what have you, so I get a delayed and diluted aspect of any given fandom through completed works. Which means, in general, I get to avoid the worst and most toxic aspects of fandom and get to sift through positive feedback and critique.

Even if your fanfic isn’t written with stellar prose, it’s fanfic. We don’t expect Pulitzer-prize winning content. And if your work isn’t up to snuff, people are more likely to just ignore it than put you on blast (at least in my experience, I never got a bad comment or a “flame” in the old FFN days).

Fanfic doesn’t care about the rules of published literature

On the one hand, try not to practice bad habits, but with this point I mean that your layout, punctuation, formatting, paragraph styles, chapter length–all of it is beholden to no rules. I get as annoyed as the next reader with giant blocks of paragraphs, or the double-spacing between pages of single-sentence paragraphs, but if the story’s good enough I might ignore it.

There’s more than just straight narrative fics, though. People write “chat” fics, or long streams of text and group chat conversations. The scene breaks can come super rapidly–I’ve seen fics with a single sentence in between line breaks to show the passage of time. And without the polish of a traditionally published novel, I’ve never seen a purer distillation of author voice in any medium more than fanfic.

All practice is good practice

Even if it’s crack fiction, or a one-off one-shot, or something meant to be lighthearted and straightforward and free from complex worldbuilding and intricate plots. It really helps break writer’s block when you can shift gears and headspaces entirely and you can get relatively instant feedback to keep you motivated.

Beyond that, the “guardrails” help you stay consistent as far as character growth and personality if you struggle with designing rich characters.

The most recent fanfic I wrote was just a couple years ago, for a dead fandom I didn’t think would get any traffic whatsoever. It wasn’t my original works, but the feedback on that fic gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get back into writing more seriously.

—

In short, I support fanfic. I may not be proud of my earliest fics' prose now, but I am proud that they walked so I can now run.

[alexanderwales]

One of the software concepts that I found useful to bring over to writing is the concept of technical debt.

Technical debt is the additional work that gets created when you choose a fast option over a good option. It's "debt" because there's a very good chance that at some point you're going to have to repay it: you hardcode in some variables, deciding that you'll figure out the proper way to do it later, and eventually, surprise! It's later. You have to implement the solution you were putting off. And because you've been using the kludge for so long, sometimes that kludge has become load-bearing, and you have to spend quite a bit of time unraveling and refactoring. One of the reasons it's called debt because you have to pay interest on it.

And the thing is, it's not always wrong to accrue technical debt. Sometimes it helps you get to working on the important thing, and can clarify design details or implementation concerns, and sometimes you can just ship without ever having to do it the "right" way. Sometimes you can wriggle out from under that debt and never suffer any consequences from it, even if there were theoretical consequences when you made the decision to do it the fast way.

The way that this applies to writing is mostly in terms of worldbuilding, character building, and plotting. You can sit down and map a whole novel out without writing a single word, whipping up character bibles and setting details and everything that you might possibly need, all before you write a single word.

... or you can accrue some debt and just gun it, writing as you go, making things up, adding them to some kind of tracking document or just not even doing that.

And as with code, there will come times you have to pay that debt back with interest.

Sometimes you skimp on a character's backstory, and then a few chapters down the road you need to make a decision about it, and suddenly there's a bunch of editorial work as you have to make sure that everything you just decided on matches up with what you've already written. A more extreme example would be writing a mystery novel where you haven't decided on what the answer to the mystery will be until very very late: it would either produce a bad mystery or require tons of rewriting.

As with code, the difficulty is knowing when you're incurring technical debt for a good reason and when you're shooting your future self in the foot.

Here are my rules of thumb for writing, in terms of what's acceptable technical debt:

Plot stuff should not wait. You should have a resolution for your story within the first few chapters of writing that story, and ideally, before you even start.

Everyone (and everything) gets a name the first time it appears. You cannot say "the gardener" a dozen times because you don't want to think of a name for the gardener.

All magic systems and superpowers and whatnot should be rigidly defined before they come onscreen. This doesn't need to be known to the characters, and "soft" magic has less of a requirement, but having rules be thought up midway through a fight scene is essentially the definition of generating technical debt.

Descriptions take little effort to bring into alignment, so can be skipped on first draft, so long as there is a description there. Having descriptions written afterward can help to understand mood and requirements of the scene.

Backstory is really variable, depending on how relevant to the plot it is. If it's going to be driving conflict, it needs to be worked out ahead of time. If it's flavor, it can be winged.

I am, of course, not the best follower of my own advice, and sometimes for very long webfic it's impossible to plan that much in advance. And of course I never go into every work having had every idea I'm going to have, and some of those ideas are good enough to include even if they disrupt a plan and require some refactoring.

[moltengoldveins]

honestly I’d like to see more weird interesting interpretations of the effects a magical or ‘humans are space orcs’ environment could have on a chronically ill character. Like, I have a Ton of random sensitivities that could absolutely screw me over should I end up in Fantasy/Space/Pandora Land, such as:

Mold sensitivity absolutely SCREWING with someone in Bioluminescent Magical Mushroom Land. They walk through the archway or up the path or whatever into the magical tree place and just Immediately pass out. If they’re brought there unconscious, they simply don’t wake up, and eventually when their friends wake up they puzzle together that the illumination for the whole building is just Mushrooms in the Walls.

Someone dealing with a detox issue who currently has a ton of heavy metals in their system walking underneath a floating island being held aloft by magnetism and just bowling over in agony as the current pulls the metals from where their body stowed them into their bloodstream. I’ve sorta had this happen to me, I tried one of those “run a magnetic current thru your body so the metals are dislodged and your body can flush them out” things, but I didn’t know I was dealing with a complete shutdown of the systems that remove toxins from your body (kidney and liver and sweat and more all of it was in complete shutdown I was actively dying dw about it-) so all it did was shoot a bajillion little capsules of poison into my blood with nowhere for them to go and I almost passed out and felt like crud for the next week.

Moon sensitivity being So Much Worse on a planet with multiple moons. People’s hormones and periods and chronic pain spiking randomly with basically no warning or schedule it would SUCK. A character with bipolar is So Much Worse on that planet and none of her alien friends know what’s happening.

Spikes and drops in barometric pressure due to magically summoned storms causing severe chronic pain flare-ups in either the mage summoning the storm or one of their allies whom they didn’t know had joint problems. Same with a planet with a very unstable atmosphere.

Vitamin or nutrient deficiency, or genetic conditions that prevent someone from metabolizing the nutrients in their food and necessitate supplements. This would be HUGE. Can you imagine a human character with anemia, or low vitamin D, or an issue metabolizing folic acid in space? Or in a medieval world that can’t accommodate their needs? Just an alien crew watching in worried confusion as their human slowly grows sluggish, twitchy, forgetful and snappish during an unexpected long haul to a distant outpost. When asked what’s wrong, they say they’re fine, or that their nutrient intake has just been low recently, but they’ve been eating the same things they always have. The ship medic does a brain scan and realizes their grey matter is cannibalizing itself, and he can’t figure out why. The human stops exercising, and when they do, one of their crew mates notices they aren’t sweating anymore. One day they run into the room of another crewmate with a padded floor nest, curl themselves into it, manage to stammer out a “don’t worry, don’t tell others. I’m ok” before they start thrashing. Finally they arrive on base and the human medic is like “Oh dang. You didn’t refill your folinic supplements before you came here did you? Dang. we’re gonna need to keep you on a higher dose for a bit to try to make sure your immune and detox systems don’t crash. How bad were the seizures?” and every alien in the crew is Horrified.

Someone who needs assistive devices but only occasionally has a bad day halfway through the Magic Quest and realizes in horror that they forgot their cane/ can’t currently access their chair. Someone who takes muscle relaxers or painkillers thrice or so a month having a huge flare-up and being immobile for an entire day while rushing to Stop The Evil Lord.

Someone who needs excess oxygen always walking around in an atmospheric suit, even in human-friendly atmospheres, because they’re self-conscious about the breathing tube.

Someone with POTS trying to keep their salt intake up in fantasy medieval Europe where salt is tricky to get, or a space setting where salt is a minor poison to most species.

[harzilla]

*slaps hand on table*

Tell me about your Yuusona. Your twst protag. I love seeing people's ideas and concepts. Are they just you? That's awesome! Are they twisted from a Disney character? Sweet! Are they your way to work through your trauma? More power to you!

One of my favorites is @ilmacore 's Maria. Blessed adorable abuelita Yuu.

I have four currently rolling around in my head. Each one is based on a type of genre.

The first is chubby!Yuu, the shoujo/magical girl type. My darling lil chubby gal who is another member of the sunshine team. The best damn support these boys will have. Her nickname from Floyd would be capybara(I originally had it as manatee but capybara fits her more because she's genuinely nice and tries to get along with everybody). I see her wearing a lot of cottage core, florals, etc... soft feminine clothing. Her ending would have her finding a way back home but being able to travel back and forth between Twst and her home world. You can guess which boy(or boys) might have a crush on her based on these pics.

The next one I call punk!Yuu. The one who fits the shonen archetype. Had a shitty life growing up and was a homeless teen. They ended up in Twst after dying from being hit by a car. Most likely to throw hands for pissing them off. Floyd calls them pistol shrimp. Climbed on and smashed the head of an overblot. Threw Jade at Floyd during book 2's investigation. Protective of those they care about. Lots of piercing and punk style clothing. My favorite ship with them is actually Riddle. Very opposites attract situation. But they have a lot in common(Yuu's father was a worse version of Riddle's mother) Yuu teaches Riddle to live life more freely, and Riddle teaches them to be less rebellious. This Yuu stays in Twst when they find out the truth of how they got there because they're genuinely happier then they ever were back home.

The third Yuu is adopted!Yuu. The one from my previous musings. A Yuu that fits the reincarnated! Archetype. This Yuu originally died in the bad ending timeline where Yuu overblots and becomes a calamity class monster who destroys the world. They were given a second chance at life when they finally died in the first timeline. They reincarnated as an infant and was adopted by Crowley. This Yuu is fairly mellow, when asked why they did something the answer is just they felt like it, but is also good at pulling at Crowley's strings to get what they want. They have a preference for loose, casual clothing. Preferring to wear things like oversized t-shirts and hoodies. Their ending is they almost repeat the calamity when their past life memories begin to overtake their current life after all the overblots including Grim's. But the difference is the previous life Yuu has nobody, but this Yuu has their friends, Grim, and Crowley to save them.

The fourth Yuu I call Author!Yuu. They're pretty much a Yuu who gained so much magical power they became the equivalent of a god. Because they were the first anomaly, they don't age at all and have lived thousands of years accumulating magic and knowledge, even out living Malleus. Their life is lonely and they actually don't want to see another person end up like them. Their magic allows them to manipulate the timelines within a certain limitation. They can't rewrite timelines completely, but they figure out a loophole by finding the alternate versions of themselves they think will give the best outcome for the "story" of the world. This Yuu is the one who figured out the precognitive dreams system to help each Yuu out. This version of Yuu exists in a world where ALL the stories of Twst are true. Fanfics, fanart, game, manga, novel, etc... every story is its own world and this Yuu records every one of them within their great library. Every book in the library of their soul is a story somebody has written about the world of Twst.

So, tell me more about your Yuus.

[stationintern]

Hello all!

This month was, truly, a beautiful month for me reading-wise. The birds were chirping, I found smut that made me sweat, and I revisited some old favorites. Let's jump right in. I am so excited to share these with you. (Hence why I am posting this a day early.)

Strap in!

Dwelling On Dreams by @the-sinking-ship for H/D Big Bang 2021, 135k, E

I reread this fic this month, and it was just as delicious as I remembered. There are aspects of this fic that felt burned into my memory, so it came as a shock to me when I realized that the last time I'd read this fic was over a year ago. Everything about it feels so vivid. Harry's magic, his raw sexual energy. Draco's ability to make me scream at my phone and throw a mini temper-tantrum. I love flashbacks, and this fic has them in abundance. If you're looking for a thick read with complex characters and an interesting case to solve, look no further!

Hear Me Out by @rainstormradish for @dronarryfest 2024, 5.2k, E

I am pleased to announce that I have officially bought my ticket and jumped on the Dronarry train. You've all convinced me. This fic, in particular, is what really got the ball rolling. This was... immaculate. When I said I found smut that made me sweat, I MEANT IT. I had to, like, physically reconnect with my limbs after I read this. A bit of fake dating to start you off, and it only gets better from there.

The Way You Say My Name by InnerLilith 5.3k, E

Ya'll ever just bark at your phone? Sometimes, a girl just wants to read about Harry Potter going absolutely bonkers over Draco Malfoy calling him sweet little names. Very hot, very important to me.

Please hold. Your call is very important to us./Bloodlust and Bureaucracy by @goblinmatriarch 5k, T/8.5k E

DOUBLE FEATURE! I love the smell of wizarding bureaucracy in the morning. What a little world you have built! Authors who can create a new little piece of the wizarding world to explore mean the world to me. Very interesting in regards to how the medical system in the wizarding world relates to its real-world counterparts. Also, some biting action. Very smart, very hot.

Crossed Wires by @skeptiquewrites 11k, E

Critics are raving. "Literally ripping up the wallpaper in my home," says one reviewer. "Gnawing at the bars of my enclosure," says another. Bureaucracy lovers win forever and ever. Also, Draco gets to wear many suits. Harry Potter the reluctant politician. I couldn't have wished for more.

Our Objective Remains Unchanged by @citrusses 46k, E

BOATS, REPRESSION, MORE BOATS, EDGING (for sports purposes), EVEN MORE REPRESSION, AND WILL YOU BELIEVE ME IF I SAY THERE'S MORE BOATS. I don't know how you've done it, but you've managed to parallel the epic highs and lows of college rowing with the literal wizarding war. If that isn't talent, I don't know what is babe.

Truth or Dare? by @lettersbyelise 3.4k, E

There is truly nothing more intimate than jerking off your childhood rival while a party goes on around you. THAT, my friends, is the key to post-war, inter-house unity.

Borrowed Time by @the-starryknight for @dronarryfest 2024, 7.6k, E

Oh this was fire. What do you know about body swapping threesomes? Would you like to know more? Yes. Yes, you would.

Alrighty, I think that's all for now, folks. Very thankful to be in a fandom with so so so many talented people. You all blow my mind. Here's to another month of fantastic fiction!

See ya!

XX, Moon

[artist-issues]

So if you could tell everyone about your favorite movie, what would you tell them about it?

PS I love your blog and your media deep dives

Thank you! So kind! Anything good I have to say is really just because of Jesus, not me. I'd tarnish and ruin good things, left on my own.

I keep trying to tell everyone about my favorite movie, but I get so choked with all the things I want to say—and knowing that the more deep I make it seem the less they'll like it because they're not accustomed to deep-diving into children's media and that'll skew their enjoyment of it—that I wind up falling back on the tried and true "it's so good, you have to see it, I can't believe you've never seen it before, we have to watch it!"

It's Lilo & Stitch.

Lilo & Stitch is incredible for so many reasons.

It was an underdog in the Disney Studio. One of their lowest-budget movies, in their B-Team Shabby Florida Studio, and only a handful of higher-ups really believed in it. And now it's one of their biggest, longest-lasting, farthest reaching worldwide franchises.

Disney was stuck in a rut of making only a certain handful of movies; Triumph-of-Humans Adventures, or Princess-Fantasies. And Chris Sanders, the guy who basically invented their Story Department during the "renaissance" period, came along and said, "let's break the mold. Let's just try something small, quirky, bold, and new. Let's flip the script on everything except good storytelling." Instead of Princesses, you get Normal Humans Living in a 2002 rural beach town. Instead of Magic you get Sci Fi—but only like five minutes of Sci-Fi. Instead of a Romance you get Family. And when we say "family," no, we don't mean, "Epic Lion King or Tarzan Coming-of-Age Destiny Stories—" we mean "orphans about to be split up by the foster care system, needing a friend." Instead of Lassie (pet movies, like 101 Dalmatians or Lady & the Tramp.) you get something closer to Gremlins meets E.T. Instead of an Epic Adventure, you get Smalltown Sister Tries to Find a Job. Instead of Dashing or Loveable Main Character you get Mildly Disgusting Main Character who picks his nose and pushes little orphan girls down, for fun. Instead of a Namable Famous City on Earth, like New York or London in their old movies, you get Nameless Town in Hawaii. Instead of Hero Triumphs, you get Villain Redeemed.

The style. All the alien ships look like fish, all the alien creatures look like some take on small-town animals like armadillos or pigs or bobcats, or more aquatic life. And then it matches with what? Small Town Hawaiian Imagery. So you get the idea that not only, stylistically, do the visuals of the movie blend well, but, Stitch not only doesn't belong in outer space among those aliens—he doesn't belong on Hawaii, where even the locals have something in common with the Galactic People, and he does not.

Watercolor backgrounds. Nobody was doing that. Nobody is doing that. They didn't have to do that. It's just beautiful, and soft.

Stitch. As a character. Name one other character whose arc starts with "you can never belong; there is nothing inside of you that is good." and then ends with "loved unconditionally, adopted into a family that loves him in spite of the trouble he brings them. In spite of his inability, at first, to love them back."

Lilo. Lilo is loved that same way by Nani. Nani willingly invites trouble into her already fraught life if it'll make Lilo the tiniest bit happier. Even though Lilo already makes Nani's life hard. Lilo, too, is about to go into the next phase of life with nothing—if the social worker takes her away, she'll have lost her parents, her sister, her home, and her hometown, which she's shown to know and love—and we've already seen how feeling lost and like she doesn't belong causes Lilo to act destructively, because her classmates treat her like she doesn't belong and Lilo beats the crap out of them. The directors said it like this: "Lilo is a future Stitch," if she's taken away.

All these characters have holding them together is this commitment to this definition of family: "Nobody gets left behind or forgotten." Lilo and Nani were "left behind" by their parents, because their parents died. Or they could think of it that way. But Nani doesn't. She does whatever she can to keep Lilo with her, and refuse to "leave Lilo behind." She's eighteen, nineteen—she could go on to college, live in a dorm, while her troublemaking sister goes to foster care. She has all these surf trophies on her nightstand—she could've been somebody if she'd left her family behind. But she doesn't. Whether Lilo loves her back or not, she won't leave Lilo behind. And guess what? Whether David, the surfer boy, gets Nani's love back or not, he loves her and is there for her. Whether Stitch loves Lilo back or not, she sticks with him—until she almost doesn't, but guess what, by then it's okay, because he's learned. He's been transformed by the idea "nobody gets left behind," which is just another term for "unconditional love."

The commitment to FOCUS. Chris Sanders is always good at this. But this movie could've been about, or addressed, DOZENS of social issues. It could've picked up the "government worker" flag. It could've picked up the "racism" flag, or the "classism" flag. It easily could've picked up the "feminism" flag, or the "be yourself" flag, or the "find who you truly are," or the "you're worth everything" flag. But it didn't. It CUT OUT previous scenes that would've addressed racism or classism. It JUST later-focused on one, universal, unifying theme that every human on this planet can understand, and relate to, and needs to be reminded of: "family loves unconditionally."

This movie is why I looked into being a storyteller. Just this movie; no other movie did it for me.

[cassimothwin]

So you're looking for a system other than D&D...

Have you tried solo RPGs? Because it's not just "how can I play D&D alone" there's a whole world of cool stuff out there….And I want to tell you about it.

(I'm quite sick today so please forgive any incoherence or typos.)

First off, it's totally fine if you're more of a party person over a solo person. I just know a lot of people aren't aware of solo games, how they work, or the breadth of diversity you find among them.

If you ask about solo games, the first one mentioned is almost always Ironsworn. It's freeeee and comes with a lot of resources. The PDF is over 200 pages, so I understand if you don't want to dive in with Ironsworn quite yet.

Ironsworn has a large community, including support for Foundry and Roll20, along with many derivative works. It offers a gritty default fantasy setting, but encourages you to ignore that if you prefer another world… maybe one from another RPG you enjoy the lore from…?

BUT maybe you want something that isn't as much of a commitment (and maybe a little sad)?

Many Wretched and Alone games use a tumbling block tower to simulate a random ticking clock. It might represent your failing mental health, the barricade crumbling, the ship sinking…

One of the creators of the system has a great thread highlighting their favorite games. Just search Wretched an Alone on Itch.io to find even more.

And if you don't want to go buy a Jenga tower, there are some great random simulators out there. I've been able to play W&A games on road trips, using a deck simulator, a dice simulator, and a tumbling tower simulator. Here's tower replacement I like. It replicates the odds of a tumbling tower falling without being too complicated.

Carta is another cool system where you use a standard deck of playing cards to create a map that you explore. As you explore, you usually have to manage resourses to avoid something bad, but not always.

Here's a collection of several games made using Carta.

Dead Belt takes this concept and RUNS with it. You have a few things to track as you explore abandoned randomized ship decks, searching for a good payload. Upgrade your gear and do it again.

Does the thought of managing your character sound exciting? Do you enjoy soulslike games, like Elden Ring and Bloodborne?

Rune is a fresh release with a lot of third-party support already. It's pretty easy to pick up and play too.

Apothecaria and Apawthecaria have you making potions for the local village. Go out exploring, collect ingredients, and see if you can solve the greater mysteries of the land.

Interested in horror, but want a more narrative-driven experience? In Dwelling, you'll spend the night sleepless and alone in a haunted house. This is a very neat game.

Songs of the City is a delightful tarot game that you play once a day for a week. It's another narrative-driven game where you draw cards and cast magic to see small neat changes in the city you reside in.

Anamnesis, Anamnesis, Anamnesis. I talk about this game a lot because it's magical in its simplicity. There's nothing to track and it's an incredible way to generate character ideas or tell a story.

And now there are more Anamnesis games coming out (including mine) You don't need the original games to play any of the games you see here.

There are so many more games I want to talk about, but alas, this cold is making me stop there.

If you've written a solo game, streamed one, reviewed one, or have one you really like, I invite you to share it!

[fountainpenguin]

☁️ Cloudlands AU ☁️

Fairly OddParents

A serious deep-dive into FOP's worldbuilding, with a focus on sewing seemingly conflicting canon together to create consistent lore. Heavy emphasis on non-human biology and complex magical cultures.

#ridwork guides

What Is Cloudlands AU?

An FOP series ft. detailed lore and character relationships. The goal is fanfics that expand on the show's canon without conflicting it if at all possible, even if that means wild explanations.

Why does Crocker's portal to Fairy World have a completely new design every time it appears? Who's that anti-fairy kid Jorgen claims H.P. and Anti-Cosmo raised together? What's up with the Sacred Silver Pencil Sharpener of Canada? And are you telling me Cosmo and Wanda were assigned as godparents to Erg 40,000 years before they were married, presumably while Wanda and Juandissimo were dating? What was that like? We talk about it all!

A carefully considered magic system does a lot of heavy lifting. ❤️

AO3 Series: 130 Station, Rainbow Train, and Other Arcs

FOP blog tag - #FAIRIES!

Tone

Mostly drama with fluff and angst mixed in.

Characters

Mainly Pixies (H.P. & Sanderson), Anti-Fairies (Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, Foop), & the late modern kids (Poof, Goldie, Goldie's counterpart Anti-Marigold).

Cosmo, Wanda, Timmy, Chloe, and other humans (such as Denzel Crocker, Kevin Crocker, Gary, Betty, and Ed Leadly) also have arcs and messy backstories.

Ships

Canon-compliant, but expanded on. Ex:

- Anti-Cosmo married his childhood betrothed while Anti-Wanda was dating Anti-Juandissimo.

- H.P. and several OCs across his long life. Those romances go... great!

- Shout-out to Mark/Vicky, Poof/Goldie, Foop/Anti-Marigold, Foop/Anti-Coriander, Timmy/Molly & Chloe/Kevin (My beloveds...)

- Also worth mentioning that I treat Wanda/Juandissimo as a sincere and pleasant part of their backstories. They went their separate ways, but had a non-abusive dating life. They were friends :)

- Sanderson has a ton of will o' the wisp dating life issues, but we don't have time to unpack that right now.

Setting

Most works take place in the cloudlands, which include Fairy World, Anti-Fairy World, and Pixie World. Some works takes place in Dimmsdale. Rarely works take place elsewhere, such as alien planets or Unwish Island.

Is It For Me?

This AU is highly detailed. It clings to canon to the point of being ridiculous. It can be tough to get into due to long works and a heavy focus on less popular characters (such as Pixies), but there's a lot to read.

This AU focuses more on magical beings in the supporting cast than it does the main cast, but there are still notable pieces about the mains.

For a breakdown of detailed lore, see the Orange Train post

Major Themes

Growing up, making mistakes, pushing through hard times, recovery, revenge, forgiveness, growth, change, and letting go.

Plot Highlights

- Origin of the Pixies - A young H.P. contracts the real-world bacteria Wolbachia pipientis, which causes wasps to reproduce asexually. Now he's caring for an exponentially increasing amount of pixies he never wanted in the first place, on top of drama like his wife accusing him of cheating and him being kidnapped by Cupid's family because he's the holotype of a brand new species.

- Frayed Knots - Anti-Cosmo, raised in the anti-fairy baby ban era, experiments with Anti-Fairy biology in the hopes he'll discover a loophole to achieve his dream of being a father. In doing so, he finds a breakthrough that could possibly flip biology around so Anti-Fairies are the hosts and Fairies are their reflective counterparts bound to their whims... and he becomes obsessed with fathering a generation whose biology is exactly that.

- 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash - Happy Peppy Gary and Betty were raised as Pixie tools since they were 10. At age 18, Betty opts to wipe her magical memories, cut ties with Gary, and move to Brightburg. Gary, blindsided and desperate, throws himself down a trainwreck of bad decisions in an attempt to retrieve her memories from Fairy World. Everybody clap for him. (And other stories.)

- Come What May - Kevin Crocker spends the spring with an uncle and grandmother he's never met. Ghosts, the popular kids, an anti-fairy, and his uncle's talking cat make it their personal mission to bother him. It's a good thing he's dead inside.

Ongoing?

This long-term passion project began in March 2016. It is ongoing with intent to wrap up the existing projects in the next several years. Updates tend to come in bursts with breaks in between.

- Want AO3 emails? Subscribing to both the Rainbow Train & 130 Station series will cover everything in Cloudlands AU.

- Or, subscribe to specific plot arcs. Find the list HERE.

Warnings, notes, and explanations below so readers can learn more about this AU. Proceed with caution. Don't like? Don't read.

- There are abused children, neglectful adults, and non-human characters in fanfics for the show about abused children, neglectful adults, and non-human characters?? Scandalous. (Seriously though, this one's a doozy)

👀 Take a Peek

New here? You might like to start with these:

- "Mama's Boy" (G - 3000 words) - A back-and-forth comparison of Cosmo's upbringing against Anti-Cosmo's. Quick and easy read, and definitely a fan-favorite.

- "Make You Proud" (G - 4700 words) - Anti-Wanda is excited that she won a gold medal at the Fairy World Games. She tries to get Anti-Cosmo's attention while he's distracted with the event. Fluffy, silly character study.

- "Step Back" (G - 5600 words) - Foop gets overwhelmed at a party with his extended family. A brief glimpse into Anti-Fairy World and who Foop is shaping up to be as a person. Foop is my favorite to write character studies for and this is an oldie, but a goodie.

- "Solo" (T - 6000 words) - A young pixie answers phones as part of his coming of age trial. Things go awry when Gary and Betty call for help from Florida and the inexperienced pixie is at a loss about how to get them back to California. Takes place during the S4 episode "Baby Face." Huge personal favorite of mine; this is where plot really kicks off. Good introduction to the drama you can expect in a lot of my work.

- "Sentry" (G - 6000 words) - The start of a 3-part arc about Poof, Foop, and their pixie classmate (Finley) at boarding school before transitioning to spring break. The arc starts with Poof getting in trouble for fighting, then moves to Poof reflecting while on the bus, then moves to the three kids spending time with their grandparents.

- Very soft drama with some fluff; a good taste without getting overwhelmed. Also, this arc is more recent than the pieces above, which were posted in 2016. - Takes place at the end of 130 Prompts Arc 2, so it does contain very minor plot spoilers.

Start Reading

Recommended ways to get into the full AU

🌄 First Written - Baby, You're a Rich Man

H.P. and Sanderson got their hands on a baby clown. Now they just have to get him safely back to Pixie World when they've been deprived of magic and damaged their truck.

- Based on the Season 4 episode "School's Out! The Musical" - An introduction to magic basics, biology, and world lore through Sanderson's eyes. - Throws readers directly into the thick of things with Sanderson's meandering thoughts and extremely unhealthy fixation on H.P. and/or taking over as Head Pixie someday

🗑️ 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash

The 130 Prompts project is a series of one-shots that explores my FOP character ideas and worldbuilding.

- "Excitement" (G - 7500 words) - The first piece written for my series 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash. It's about the Pixies traumatizing 10-year-old Gary and Betty at an amusement park so they'll cling to safety in the future. From here, you can read the 130 Prompts series in recommended order if you like.

If you're new to my worldbuilding, I recommend reading the prompts in the suggested order instead of chronological order. This way, you'll be given worldbuilding info in order instead of jumping to a piece where that info is assumed.

📅 Chronological Start - "First Things First"

A 10k-word piece (G-rated) about nature spirit OCs, featuring cameos of canon characters like Mother Nature, Father Time, and the Grim Reaper. This piece sets up lore for the Fairy zodiac, which plays a role in Frayed Knots especially.

- Each piece in the 130 Prompts series has Previous and Next links so you can either read in recommended order or you can follow the chronology from start to end. - Reading chronologically is not recommended unless you're already familiar with the worldbuilding - Full timeline chronology (Entire Cloudlands AU)

🗺️ Worldbuilding - So, You're Studying the Cloudlands...

A collection of worldbuilding and meta essays covering subjects like biology, culture, history, holidays, magic, maps, and a handbook on new godkid assignments.

You may also like my @riddledeep blog, where I first posted this meta. I'm currently moving things to the guide linked above. This way, the content is backed up and accessible to those who don't use Tumblr. Posts will remain on the blog.

📋 AU Notes & Warnings

Author writes villain encounters & villain backstories about complex non-human societies and does not inherently condone any viewpoints presented by characters or the societies they live in.

- This series focuses heavily on Pixies, Anti-Fairies, and cloudland or Fae culture. There is less focus on human godchildren or the main characters in the show (like Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda).

- This series is built so that many intricate storylines and worldbuilding elements weave together. There's no shame in skipping pieces you don't want to read, but you may miss plot or worldbuilding details important to the larger story. It can be intimidating to get into such a big project.

- This series does have fluff, but relies on drama. Content may be upsetting, and the order you read things may limit the chance for mental breaks.

- Lots of drama and complicated things going on. I recently changed the rating of my longfics to Not Rated & Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings due to the sheer variety of things, such as:

- Fantastic racism (Fairies, Anti-Fairies, Pixies, genies, and others disliking each other)

-> Show canon heavily implies these races have conflict. Jorgen faced no pushback for calling Norm a "filthy genie" on international TV. Jorgen and others refer to Pixies with rude terms such as "cone-headed freaks", etc.

- Social ladder/caste system (Cupid's ancestors organized fae in a list many generations ago to help Fairies find species with heat cycles that overlapped theirs, but the system has been corrupted into legal discrimination)

- Biologically assigned status (Male Fairies who eat a lot of jelly at a young age will develop into gynes: big, tough, freckled Fairies who fight with each other to defend their turf and drone companions. Think how H.P. and Big Daddy have unique body shapes compared to the other Fairies. They're gynes!)

- Some young bees are fed royal jelly so they develop into queens. The name for these "princesses" is gynes, so I yoinked that

- Most of the pixies are drones, apart from a few gynes. Vice President Longwood is due to succeed H.P. as Head Pixie someday, which Sanderson (a drone) absolutely despises.

- Fairies lick each other in greeting to spread pheromones, mirroring a hive of eusocial bees that gather near the queen to lick her

It's basically a non-sexual A/B/O dynamic, which was completely unintentional and I got a good laugh out of it when I realized what A/B/O was years ago. Convergent evolution...

- Mpreg - It's canon in the show that male Fairies give birth. I don't have anything to say about it; just that it's canon in my work too and treated with the same sincerity as everything else.

- Injury - Includes long-term injury, temporary injuries, and self-harm (Ex: Cutting your palm to stop using magic so you won't age). I don't consider this series bloody or gory. Fairies do have rainbow blood that's mentioned occasionally, but they're very elastic and heal quickly. The humans don't really have bloody moments.

- Character death - Most common when gynes fight to the death, but I've written other deaths as well, such as one where the Pixies caused a car crash on purpose because it benefited them.

-> Fairies are very resilient. Anti-Fairies regenerate if they're killed, as they can't die if their host counterpart (the Fairy) still lives. Death isn't overly common in my 'fics, but I'd feel weird warning for other things and not mentioning this one.

- Sexism (Anti-Fairy World tends to look down on women; Anti-Cosmo in particular tends to parrot the sexist beliefs he grew up with and gets annoyed at pushback)

-> Male bats often mate with many females (up to 30 sometimes). I built Anti-Fairy society around the idea that females outnumber males, but males see it as a sign that many women should be subservient to them because "it's nature." Anti-Cosmo is a product of his culture. Diversity loss! The villain has harmful views!

-> Anti-Fairies tend to be less racist and more sexist than Fairies while Fairies tend to be less sexist and more racist.

- Honey-lock - Anti-Fairies get flooded with hormones and magic 3 months after their counterparts mated. The pair are driven to locate each other, mate, and produce children in reflection of their counterparts.

-> what do you mean that's traumatizing? Dang, you guys live like this?

-> Anti-Cosmo's underlying goal in Frayed Knots is to beat the system so the next generation of Anti-Fairies will be born without the honey-lock's effects.

- Sociosexual Anti-Fairy culture - Anti-Fairies have a touch-based society themed around bonobos because I thought it would be interesting, particularly in a society where pregnancy is out of your control anyway (i.e. you can't accidentally get pregnant- It's in your counterparts' hands).

-> I do think "It feels good and we have few consequences, so why not?" is a reasonable direction for their culture

-> I'm not sure I would make that same choice years later, as it can be quite off-putting, but I'm glad I got to worldbuild with such unique building blocks. I enjoy it, but it's not for everyone.

- Infidelity (Anti-Cosmo cheats on his wife before Anti-Wanda and is implied to sometimes cheat on Anti-Wanda)

-> You're telling me the sexist sociosexual culture has infidelity and the evil villain fell into it? Bummer...

- Iris Virus - Having colored eyes in Anti-Fairy culture is played as an STD that's ceremonially passed to new individuals (because... sociosexual culture).

-> Also, what was I supposed to do with almost every Anti-Fairy having red eyes but Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, Foop, and the occasional background Anti-Fairy have other colors? Genetics? No way! 😃👍

-> RIP Anti-Cosmo. I'm sorry I find it hilarious that you cheat on all your partners and then sob like your trust's been shattered when your wife chooses to pass the virus on to secure allegiance with a valuable ally. Her body, her choice, dude.

- Child, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse (Frayed Knots in particular is not a hunky-dory story; Anti-Cosmo was often hit as a child. Some characters are cruel to Anti-Cosmo and he is cruel to others as well.

-> There are abuse themes in the Fairly OddParents 'fics?? The TV show about abused kids? what won't they think up next.

-> Cosmo's mother is doting in canon, so I portray Anti-Cosmo's mom as abusive to him.

-> Living in a sexist sociosexual culture sometimes leads to sexual abuse?? Also, belonging to a species that is magically forced to reproduce when your counterparts do even if you didn't consent is probably also sexual abuse? wild.

-> In Origin of the Pixies, H.P. was kidnapped by a will o' the wisp in his younger years and pressured into sex while she was producing milk for newborn Sanderson.

-> H.P. is emotionally distant and not the best at coping with what happened to him. He doesn't necessarily pursue help or get the best closure to this story. Don't hold the villains up as role models.

-> Foop has an alternate personality. This is canon; here's a compilation video I made of his appearances in the series (Note, this compilation includes Foop's Terrific Twos and some scenes where his alter is implied with eye highlights and a high voice to be there, but not confirmed). It's heavily implied he gained this personality due to being isolated in Abracatraz since the day he was born.

-> Cupid's family kills any children that aren't born triplets due to a sacred oath his ancestors took to uphold love all hours of the day. Tradition requires three children to split the magic by way of Morning, Afternoon, and Evening.

-> I would say it's also child abuse that Jorgen was raised with all the pressures of being Keeper of the Rules from the moment he was born, including being pressured to cut off his own wings in line with the tradition of "noble self-sacrifice."

- Young characters & implied offscreen sex - Are you seriously telling me the popular teens might've had sex when they were something like 150,000 years old and they'd been together since childhood? What on earth.

-> In Anti-Fairy society, you're recognized as a full adult at age 150,000.

-> In Fairy World, you're recognized as an adult when you moult your juvenile wings and grow your adult wings. This is generally between ages 140,000 and 180,000.

-> In Pixie World, you're recognized as a full adult at age 250,000. H.P. keeps age of majority high to encourage his pixies to establish themselves in Pixie World instead of leaving. These are non-human cultures that each have their own views.

-> Poof and Goldie have an arc about Goldie having Harm OCD over the fear that she'll fall into her will o' the wisp species stereotype and take advantage of Poof. Meanwhile, Poof has panic attacks because he's pretty sure she did, but blames himself for not being more self-aware. 😬

-> Foop gave his lover Anti-Marigold the iris virus when they were considered young adults in Anti-Fairy society (but still in school) to see if his dad would notice. Years later, he has a breakdown over the fact Anti-Cosmo never did, nor does he seem to care if his son is being reckless.

-> The sexual part of the Celebrity Kids arc is kept off-screen throughout the 130 Prompts. This arc is about the stress of being high schoolers treated like celebrities, ambassadors, royalty, and sports stars.

- Implied incest in H.P.'s family line before he was born (In the old days, it was common to marry cousins to preserve money. This custom has ended in modern times, but comes up on rare occasion)

-> It's implied this family history led to the genetic mutation that gave him wasp biology; that mutation plays a big role in his story.

-> H.P. talks about how he admires his counterpart, whom he considers a cousin. Sometimes other characters mock his admiration because of his infamous family history. It's not even important in his present-day life; it's just that my 'fics are full of jerks.

Some topics may make you uncomfortable. You don't have to read them, but that's part of fleshing out these very detailed, long-lived cultures and their messy underbellies. They're Fae. Were you expecting giddy fluff?

- Summaries for my multi-chapter FOP 'fics

- Summaries for 130 Prompts (with emoji guide)

- Want more info? Send an Ask!

You can create works based on this AU. Please cite me and/or the AU as appropriate (i.e. for things very specific to this AU). You are free to expand on ideas you've thought of thanks to my AU as a jumping off point. I'd love to reblog or link things to my AO3 works if I see them!

I write drama content with morally gray characters. Please don't portray my story events or worldbuilding out of context with intentional malice. In other words, I request you do not post things created for the specific intention of mocking me or the AU. It's not to everyone's tastes, but it's built with sincerity and it is loved <3

[is-today-tomorrow-in-nz]

OMG that Rule of Wolves ending was a total Deus Ex Machina! Leigh Bardugo really destroyed ALL the magical system's balance so her favorite could become a God, Avatar, mindreader, emotion reader, and dragon (ironic because LB was a Dany anti for GoT) with no consequences! But Alina, with ONE power just trying to take down the Fold = GREED = STRIPPED OF ALL POWERS. It makes no sense, and causes migraines to think about how LB destroyed all the worldbuilding for poorly thought out wattpad ending.

Thank you! I was beyond frustrated too. Her magic system is like a mirage in a desert- it exists one moment and then vanishes the next minute. It does not help that she plays favouritism with her own characters. Zoya, Nikolai and the crows are clearly her golden children. Aleksander is her scapegoat child. For the sake of her golden children, she bends the plot and swathes them in plot armour. However she refuses to offer any sort of redemption or even decent plotlines for her least favourite ones.

Just the other day, I was lamenting about this in another post. Let me share my fav deus ex machina other than the ones mentioned in the original post.

1)SoC: Began well- foreign country, jurda, everything at stake, heist etc etc. After the disaster of the trilogy, I was excited to read something different. However, the climax just made me want to fling the book to a corner. So Jarl Brum knows the partial truth from Matthias, knows why the crows were there. But somehow they got away scott free. Like yes, Nina made some soldiers fall asleep, but doesn't Fjerda have a navy? Isn't Djerholm not a harbour? Do they not know the ship name? Do they not know how long the jurda effects last in Nina? And yet all Brum did was stomp like a villain at the end of scooby doo saying, "If it weren't for those meddling kids!" and did nothing. They literally attacked one of the most powerful country's capital, blew up a part of their palace, and stole a tank! Somehow destroying a bridge was all it needed to stop an army! And at the final standoff, the soldiers were just put to sleep not killed. even if Kaz was just a day ahead, the fierce Fjerdan navy should have caught up to them. 🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️ But no... Nina attacked them with parem. Suddenly nothing can be done. It's like Fjerda is this formidable enemy when LB needs it to be and then become a bunch of helpless idiots when her favourite characters need to escape!

2)S&S: Ivan's death or literally any Grisha death on the Darkling side. They were very dangerous and battle experienced one moment but somehow were nothing compared to two sword weilding mercenaries. With convenient plot devices, the man who is literally the oldest and the most powerful Grisha in Ravka, was defeated and left at sea- no doubt hit by LB's idiot hammer. The man literally created THE FOLD for god's sake!!! And yet he and his army of well trained Grisha were defeated in a matter of minutes.

3)Nikolai: The whole Nikolai spiel was that he is the 'good' guy. He desperately wants the throne but instead of doing anything about it he was literally waiting for his big bro to get bored of it and throw it to him. That was the 'most clever fox's' brilliant strategy. Because that's what good boys do. Only evil, dark wizards create a coup.

And when the plot doesn't move forward, the easily-defeated-at-sea Darkling, is suddenly a raging powerful villain who conveniently kills Vasily and hands the good boy his throne.

I could go on and on. She butchered her own universe and is fixing them with cello tapes.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/impossiblycolorfulpanda/761923322763214848/in-my-experience-the-zutara-community-was-very?source=share

What do you think about this??

Once again, Zutarians are kings and queens of missing (or deliberately mischaracterizing) the point(s).

The issue is not "Katara would be paranoid that everyone in the Fire Nation hates her and see them all as her enemies that she hates back." The issue is "Zutarians conveniently pretend that Zuko marrying a foreigner would make racism disappear AND act like it's Katara's job to make them not racist when Zuko was the one who signed up for that job."

The issue is not "Katara is afraid of a challenge", the issue is "Katara did not sign up for this challenge and it's weird to make it her problem"

The issue is not "Katara hates everything about the Fire Nation's culture", the issue is "Katara clearly doesn't feel any strong attachment to said culture, but instead is still very attached to her own and has already said the words THE FIRE NATION CAN'T SEPARATE OUR FAMILY AGAIN."

The issue is not "Why does Katara have to marry Zuko as soon as the war ends instead of waiting until all the racists magically become good people (which is already absurd of zutarians to expect)?" but rather "Why do zutarians push Katara marrying Zuko as the ONLY acceptable endgame when these characters never even had feelings for each other in the first place?"

Also Zuko absolutely NEEDS to spend at least the first few months or first year of his reign in his nation. He literally has to reform the entire system to actually end, and then remedy the effects of, the war. He is far more useful to the South Pole, and the entire world, if he's there.

And can we talk about this: "I see Aang marrying Azula"?????? QUE? These two are not each other's type AT ALL and a political marriage is out of question because, again, racism won't magically disappear when people see the royals marrying outside their race - if anything, it'll just make a ton of racists go "THE FOREIGNERS ARE TRYING TO DOMINATE US BY SLEEPING THEIR WAY TO THE TOP!"

Zutarians would rather jump off a cliff than admiting that fixing racism on a societal scale is not that easy - no wonder 99% of Fire Lady Katara content is so fucking racist.

Which brings me to the LAUGHABLE claim that Katara stans are more likely to ship Zutara. The overwhelming majority of zutara stans HATE Katara and are just interested in mutilating her character and beating her into submission until she becomes a completely different person as I've explained here:

Fuck that condescending bullshit. Zutara has NEVER been about caring about Katara as a character - it has always been about replacing her with an OC.

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 17.4k ❧ warnings: cursing, like... grossly adorable petnames just abandon ship now if you’re going to be a hater about it ❧ genre: fluff, modern magical creatures au, fantasy au, college au, dragon jisung, human reader, ft. various other magical dreamies and human!renjun, fake not dating/secret dating trope, same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: here’s dragon jisungie too! this one was so much fun to write and idk y’all i think he’s just the loml now. anyway, cue the shenanigans &lt;;33

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“Isn’t it always the dragon that the princess needs to be rescued from in the fairytales?” You teased, bumping his shoulder with yours.

“Well maybe in this one, the dragon’s the hero—” Jisung wrapped his arms around your waist, picking you up and spinning you around. “—and rescues the princess from the crazed madman.”

“Do you like Jisung?”

Renjun’s deadpan question in the silence of the library nearly made you do a spit take all over your laptop.

After choking through the sip of your pink Gorgonade you’d just taken, you set the bottle down and looked at your human friend with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Park Jisung. Our good dragon buddy. Do you like him?” Renjun repeated with an inquisitive tilt of his head.

“Yeah, sure, he’s cool.” You kept your voice as level as possible, returning your fingers to your keyboard.

“You know what I meant.”

“And clearly, I’m not answering,” you retorted. “Now can we get our project done?”

You and Renjun were both Magical Creatures Studies majors at your college and had met up at the library this particular afternoon to work on a project together. The two of you also had lots of mutual friends, including the aforementioned Park Jisung. And sure, maybe you did have a little bit of a crush on the dragon, but there was no way you were just going to start yammering on about it in the middle of the library after being asked so abruptly.

Your friend narrowed his eyes at you, but ultimately relented. “Fine. But this isn’t over.”

“Of course it’s not,” you sighed.

Finally done with your PowerPoint slides later that evening, you sent a quick text before shutting your laptop. Renjun flopped back in his seat with a groan.

“Thank fuck, my eyeballs are burning.” He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“Have you tried out those enchanted blue light glasses that fairies use?” You suggested, resting your cheek in your palm to watch your friend sympathetically. Fairies’ eyes were more sensitive to electronic screens than humans or other magical beings, so they had to wear special enchanted versions of the blue light lenses that some humans wore for eyestrain. Renjun was a human, but if the screens were hurting his eyes this bad, it was worth a shot.

“I would except they’re so goddamn expensive, and Chenle won’t let me touch his even to try before I buy.”

“What about that other fairy that Mark and Donghyuck know? You’ve met him before at a study session, right?”

“Who— oh, right, uh… Jungwoo. Maybe… but I really don’t want to be asking a fairy that I don’t know for a favor, even something so small. I barely ask the one that I do know for anything, and when I do, I always regret it.”

You snickered. “That’s fair. Seems like you’re just going to suffer for the rest of your life then, Renjun.”

“Oh, woe is me,” he sighed dramatically, taking his hands off his eyes to start packing up his stuff.

“You know who I bet could help you with your whole eye problem?”

“Who?”

You shouldered your backpack, looking your friend in the eye very seriously. “The aliens, obviously.”

“Hey, you know what! They probably could!” Renjun huffed indignantly, grabbing his bag to follow you out of the library.

You were laughing as he kept ranting at you.

“Listen, you guys shit on me way too much for this. And aliens probably could help me with my eye problems if they ever came to Earth, because then they’d have very advanced technology and could very well have the engineering capabilities to make me a screen or a pair of glasses—”

“Or a new pair of bionic eyeballs.” You offered up.

“Exactly!” He threw his hands up as you spotted a familiar figure waiting at the bottom of the library stairs.

Park Jisung was standing there, tapping his hands against his thighs as he looked around awkwardly. You could see the glint of gold chains and pendants around his neck, and even more gold adorning his ears, wrists, and fingers. Dragons were a lot like magpies, you always thought to yourself, they liked shiny things. If magpies could breathe fire, of course.

You were nearly out of breath laughing as you slowed to a stop next to Jisung. Renjun was red-faced, still huffing and puffing.

Jisung’s slit pupils flicked back and forth between the two of you, bewildered, “What—?”

“I just can’t believe you literally breathe fire and have wings,” Renjun jabbed a finger against Jisung’s chest. “And yet it’s sooo crazy and funny and weird that I think that there could be aliens out there in the grand unknown infinite expanse of the universe that we’re in.”

Your dragon friend rubbed a hand over the spot that Renjun had poked, looking personally wounded. He turned to you for an explanation. “What happened this time?”

“Don’t—” You got cut off by another round of laughs. “Don’t worry about it, Ji.”

The human was starting to calm down, and seemed to have finally processed that Jisung had apparently miraculously been waiting outside the library when you two walked out. After all, the dragon didn’t have a backpack, laptop, or seemingly any school supplies on him. “Wait, what are you doing here, Jisung?”

“Oh, I was just waiting for Y/N.”

“Well, we’ll see you tomorrow, Renjun.” You waved goodbye to your human friend before he could say anything else, grabbing Jisung’s arm and pulling him off in the opposite direction.

Jisung spoke up a few seconds later. “Uh, Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Boba’s the other way.”

“Right. Sorry.” You made a face, awkwardly letting him change course and lead the way. “I was just trying to get out of there.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know, Renjun was going on another one of his alien rants,” you fibbed a little, biting on the inside of your cheek.

Jisung snorted, and you watched a small puff of smoke shoot out of his nose, curling up into the air before entirely dissipating. “Thanks. How’d he get going this time?”

“Blue light glasses.”

His brow furrowed, the corner of his lip pulled up, and his nose wrinkled as he seemed to be trying to figure out how the jump was made from blue light glasses to aliens. Several of his sharp fangs were visible before his mouth relaxed again. “How—”

“You know it’s better not to ask with him.”

He sighed. “You’re right. I’m just glad we got out of there unscathed. Or at least I did. How about you? Are you in one piece still?”

Then Jisung’s two big, warm hands were on you, jokingly inspecting your hands, your arms, your neck, and your face for any harm done. You giggled, letting him turn over your arms and hold your hands and run his thumbs over your cheeks until he seemed satisfied, finishing it off with a pat to the top of your head.

“Yeah, I think I’m all here.” You absolutely knew that you were looking up at him with heart eyes. “Thanks for coming as quick as you did, any longer and I don’t think I would’ve made it this time.”

You were referring to the quick few minutes that had passed between you texting him that you were done with your project and when you actually laid eyes on him outside the library. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes, and it wasn’t like he had come from anywhere on campus: today was Saturday.

“Of course, I’ll always be around to rescue you from Renjun’s rants, you damsel in distress.”

“Isn’t it always the dragon that the princess needs to be rescued from in the fairytales?” You teased, bumping his shoulder with yours.

“Well maybe in this one, the dragon’s the hero—” Jisung wrapped his arms around your waist, picking you up and spinning you around. “—and rescues the princess from the crazed madman.”

You couldn’t help the cackling laughter that poured from your mouth, holding on against his supernaturally strong arms as he spun you once, twice, three times for good measure. Once you were back on two feet again, you had to clutch onto his upper arm to steady yourself as you regained your bearings. When you were sure you could walk in a straight line, you resumed your journey down the sidewalk together.

“And then the princess and the dragon fall in love and live happily ever after instead?” The words were out of your mouth before you could process the implications of them.

The dragon’s midnight blue eyes blinked at you a couple of times, and you opened your mouth to start the fastest backpedaling of your life, but then he just slung a casual arm around your shoulders.

“Yeah, something like that.” He shrugged. “Why not? I think that’s a pretty great ending. Almost as good as the dragon eating the crazed madman, which is what I was thinking.”

“Could do both,” you suggested, eyes glued to your feet.

Jisung laughed, and you looked up at him to make sure you caught his bright smile as he did. “I like that even better. Both.”

At Jasmine & Pearls, you happily accepted your drinks from Shotaro, the siren working behind the counter, before taking them to go. There was a small waterfront park just around the corner, and fall was starting to descend, meaning that it wouldn’t be too hot to just sit out there. You two walked a couple minutes down the trails away from the noisier playground to a secluded area, and found a nice soft patch of clover, wildflowers, and grasses to sit down on. Taking a sip of your boba and tilting your head back, you relished in the feeling of the warmth of the sun’s rays on your face. This was just a perfect Saturday. You had finished up your project, it was beautiful weather, and now you’re hanging out with Jisung.

“Hey, Jisung?” You pulled your head back up to look at him.

“Hm?” He raised his eyebrows, lifting his straw to his lips.

“How did you get to campus so fast?”

The dragon coughed on his drink for a second, and you were momentarily afraid of him actually choking on a tapioca pearl, but he thankfully pulled through. He scratched at the back of his neck, looking down at his drink as he mumbled something so quiet that you couldn’t make out a single word of it.

“What?”

“I was at the bakery,” he admitted, enunciating much clearer this time.

You immediately knew which one he was talking about. Half Moon Bakery, where your werewolf friend Jeno worked. It was just around the block from campus, not even a two-minute walk.

“Oh, were you and Chenle bothering Jeno at work?” That was one of Chenle’s favorite pastimes: causing mischief and having Jisung tag along. Not that Jisung didn’t often participate too, but it was typically the fairy’s idea.

“No, just me. I was… I was waiting for you to finish up at the library.”

A happiness swelled up in your chest, and your fingers itched to do something with all the extra energy suddenly coursing through your veins. So you started plucking some of the clover and flowers in front of you.

“Well I’m glad you did, Ji,” you smiled softly at him. “After all, it made your dashing rescue a lot easier.”

Jisung just kept gazing at you for a few more seconds before he suddenly looked down, picking up his boba and sucking down half of it in one go. You swore his ears were pink as he went to ask you, “So uhm, what was the project that you and Renjun were working on?”

“Well it’s for our Special Topics in Magical Creatures Studies class. This semester Dr. Kwon is teaching it, so of course you know what it’s about.”

He stared blankly at you, and you suddenly remembered that not everybody you know is a Magical Creatures Studies major like you and Renjun.

“Oh, sorry. Well, Dr. Kwon was the first human to have an interspecies marriage legally—”

This time a dribble of milk tea came out of the side of Jisung’s mouth as he coughed on it, and you unzipped the front pocket of your bookbag to grab a couple napkins you had stashed in there at the shop. He took them from you gratefully, wiping at his mouth.

“Sprung a leak, Ji?” You asked with an eyebrow raise. “You alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Go ahead, sorry.”

“Anyway, Dr. Kwon technically had the first marriage certificate for an interspecies marriage between a human and magical being that listed each as such. Obviously, there’s been a long history of romantic relationships between species as long as everyone’s existed, and as long as people have been getting married. It’s just that within in the modern history of our current society and laws, Dr. Kwon was the first that we know of. There were definitely couples that got married before her but had to falsify their species on the certificate at the time, unfortunately. And the fact that Dr. Kwon is still you know, alive, and plenty well enough to be teaching a class on this stuff… it’s really humbling. I’m honored to learn from her but it’s also a little harrowing that it hasn’t even been one lifetime yet, you know?”

“So the class is about…” Jisung prompted you again.

“Right, it’s about specifically the history of interspecies marriage. Both between different kinds of magical creatures and between magical creatures and humans. Every time it’s Dr. Kwon’s turn to teach Special Topics, this is what she teaches.”

“And, what is her spouse?”

“Siren. Mrs. Kwon will come in and guest lecture sometimes, too.”

“So… your project?”

“Just a five-minute presentation on a topic of our choice that relates to the unit we just did. She gave a list of topics, or we could come up with our own and get it approved. Renjun and I chose the role that religion plays in interspecies marriage. Because different creatures have different belief systems, gods and goddesses, and marriage rituals in their faith. Like dragons, for example.”

“Huh?!” He squeaked. Thankfully, he was out of boba tea, and therefore didn’t do a spit take all over you or something.

“Many dragons—I’m not saying you in particular, just historically—have worshipped the Sun and fire. Their marriage rituals often involved making offerings to the Sun by burning said offerings on a pyre. Now imagine a dragon and a siren want to get married. Sirens that usually not only have their weddings underwater for one, but believe that burning wedding offerings instead of throwing them into the water will offend the Sea. It’s not impossible, it’s just fascinating to witness the compromise, especially as it gets more common with integration. And I find it beautiful, every single time.”

Jisung rested his elbow on his knee, then his cheek in his head, mindlessly running his fingertips over the clover. “Yeah? And what’s the divorce rate like for interspecies marriage?”

“Better than intraspecies, actually.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.” You added in another flower to your weaving. “Fifty percent intraspecies, fifteen to twenty percent interspecies depending on the study you’re citing. The numbers on interspecies are obviously newer, and a bit harder to measure due to varying lifespans, but those are the ones that we work with in the field.”

“Interesting.”

“You want to know my theory?”

“Sure.”

“This one’s not peer-reviewed or anything, so don’t tell the other MCS majors, okay?”

“My lips are sealed,” he promised.

“Now, I’ve never been married, but… I think that if you’re too focused on what makes you the same, you’ll completely miss your differences and only realize them too late when those differences are eventually driving you apart. But if you start out already with these glaringly obviously differences and then find what makes you similar in addition to the differences—not in spite of them—then you get a clearer picture of who you’re with.”

You’d been so focused on your little task that you hadn’t looked up at Jisung a single time as you talked, but now you did, wondering why he was so quiet. He had gone still, staring at you, mouth parted, head tilted.

“What?” You looked around anxiously. “Did that not make sense? I thought that made sense?”

He shook his head. “No, no, that made sense. You just… gave me a lot to think about.”

“Careful, don’t hurt yourself with all that thinking,” you giggled, getting up onto your knees.

“Hey!”

“Shh, I’m kidding,” you reassured him, taking a couple kneeling steps closer to him and holding the clover and flower wreath you’d been weaving up towards his head.

“And when did you make that?”

“While you were staring at the ground. Now hold still.”

You gently set it down on his head, scooting it around and readjusting until you were content that it wasn’t going to fall off too easily. Sitting back on your feet, you admired your work. If it weren’t for his vertical slit pupils focused entirely on you as he gazed up at you, Jisung would’ve looked like a beautiful fairy prince. Enchanting, a clover and flower crown nestled atop his hair, faintly rosy cheeks, skin seeming to glow in the dappled light from the late afternoon sun shining in through the trees.

“There you go,” you murmured, realizing how close you were to him as you caught a familiar smoky smell like a campfire.

“Can you show me how to do that?” He asked, his eyes shining.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at his enthusiasm, plopping back down onto your bottom. Well, there goes all that tension dissolved.

“Sure, Jisung. We’re going to start with three clovers and a flower. Whatever flowers you can find around here should be good.”

And so you guided the dragon through the steps of weaving a clover crown of his own. You yourself had learned this from Jaemin the first time you’d ever hung out with the dryad without Renjun around. Renjun had been the one to introduce you to all of his friends, Jisung included. You’d met Renjun in your Intro to Magical Creatures Studies class on your very first day of college two years ago, and your life had never been the same since. Your own hometown was mostly human, in fact there was exactly one family of basilisks there and that was it. That’s why you chose the major you did, to expand your world. And man, it had been expanded since.

Jaemin had invited you out to the park with him that particular day to “exercise Jeno” in the dryad’s words, which meant sitting in the grass and throwing a ball for Jeno to catch— with his hand. Except the ball was enchanted to change direction and run away from Jeno for a certain amount of time, then he’d finally get it, and toss it back to you or Jaemin to throw again. At the time, it felt wrong to be pretty much playing fetch with a werewolf—derogatory, even—so you had asked Jeno about how he felt about it after. He explained that the ball was invented by werewolves, for werewolves. Since werewolves don’t hunt their prey for sustenance anymore, they tend to have a lot of extra energy. Most days he would go to the gym or go on a run or bike ride to get it out, but today was such a nice day that he wanted to go out with his friends instead. While some werewolves didn’t like comparisons to dogs (such as Jaemin’s offer to “exercise Jeno”), Jeno didn’t mind them usually, as long as it was from friends, and truly in good fun.

It was on that park trip, while sitting in the clover with Jaemin, that the dryad had shown you how to weave a clover crown by hand. Even now, every time you saw a patch of clover, you thought about Jaemin and Jeno and that day at the park, and how to weave clover crowns.

“How are you friends with two dryads and you don’t know how to weave clover crowns?” You asked with mock disappointment as Jisung was about a third of the way through his.

“Do you honestly think they’re going to be jumping to teach me their secrets? Probably too afraid I’d set the whole patch of clover on fire,” Jisung grumbled, adding another flower to the crown as he continued his weaving.

You frowned, gently stroking the back of his head as you watched over his technique. “You know Jaemin and Donghyuck don’t think of you like that.”

He scoffed, “Yeah, they think of me like Chenle’s pet.”

“Hey!” You flicked his ear, earning a hiss. He rubbed his ear with one hand, pouting at you.

“They are your friends,” you said sternly. “I think you might realize that if you eased up on your little hermit dragon schtick.”

“Dragons are solitary creatures. Didn’t you learn that in Intro to MCS?”

“I’ll believe that you’re solitary as soon as you and Chenle detach from where you’re currently fused at the hip.”

“He’s not here now!”

“To my knowledge. He could be hiding in a trashcan or something, I don’t know.”

Jisung rolled his eyes. “His Highness would never hide in a trashcan.”

“Point taken,” you snickered.

“Well…” The dragon held up his finished clover crown for you to see. “What do you think?”

It was clearly his first attempt at one, crooked, with holes in several places, and a couple of the blue flowers he’d chosen falling out as he set it in your hands. But you still found it absolutely adorable, endearing.

“It’s great, Ji!” You praised him, turning it around to look at the weave patterns on the inside more closely. “Here, do you want to wear this one, and I can—”

“No, this one’s yours.” He took it right back, getting up on his knees like you had before to place it on your head.

You sat utterly still to let him do so, watching him with bated breath. He was perhaps even more focused on placing the clover crown on your head than he was on making it, his nose scrunched with concentration, mouth pouting just the slightest, and brow furrowed. Then, once he’d set it atop your head, he smiled to himself in satisfaction.

“So? How do I look?” You asked quietly, in the small space between the two of you.

“Like… like a princess,” Jisung answered breathily, in the narrow space between the two of you.

“Ji?” You said his name, in the minute space between the two of you.

“Yeah?” He replied, in the meager space between the two of you.

“Can I kiss y—” You didn’t even get to finish your request, as the infinite space between the two of you became a finite zero.

Kissing Jisung was warm, but not warm like the end-of-summer-turning-fall day you were enjoying before, warm like you were just feet away from a volcano, like you were kissing the very heart of a mountain. His hands cupped your cheeks as his lips meshed with yours. You had been propping yourself up with one hand behind you, but you felt the need to grab onto his arms to ground yourself. This was apparently just enough to throw your joint center of gravity off, as the both of you went toppling backwards—or, more precisely, you fell onto your back, with Jisung on top of you.

The dragon barely caught himself with a hand next to your head to keep from completely cracking his forehead against yours. You two still bonked noses, breaking the kiss, and giggled almost exactly in sync.

“Oops,” you laughed, reaching up to feel for your clover crown, happy that it was still kind of in the vicinity of your hair.

Jisung was using one hand to prop himself above you, and the other was readjusting his own clover crown to now sit on the back of his head. He was still grinning as he dipped down to kiss you again, and you held his face this time, running a thumb over his cheek.

Squished into one side of a booth in the student union with Jisung, you fervently read over your notes for your test in your next class.

“Fry,” Jisung murmured, holding said food up against your lips.

You opened your mouth without taking your eyes off your page, and he fed it to you. As you read about climate change’s effects on sirens’ native habitats, you chewed and swallowed the food without even tasting it. A moment later, a straw was pushed against your mouth too.

“Water.”

You took a sip to wash down the fry, humming contentedly as all the material in your notes was familiar to you. The test should be an uncomplicated A. Not an easy A, per se, but there shouldn’t be anything on it that surprised you, at least.

“What the hell?” Someone asked from beside your table, but you didn’t even look up. After all, you still had four more pages and only half an hour.

“What do you want, guys?” Jisung sighed. Oh, so more than one person. The first voice sounded familiar, probably some of your friends.

“What, uh, what’s going on here?” Different voice.

“Y/N’s studying. So if you don’t mind doing whatever this is later.”

Another fry. You chomped it down. Siren advocacy groups.

“Uh… sure. Yeah. You two… have fun. Come on, guys.” Third voice.

Water. Sip. Local community outreach.

When you came to a good stopping point in your notes—not quite done, but between topics—you finally looked up, setting your notebook down for a second. Jisung raised his eyebrows at you.

“Done already?” He asked, popping a fry into his own mouth.

You shook your head, taking a sip of your water on your own. “No, almost. Who was that?”

“Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck.”

Hearing the names made the voices click into place. Donghyuck first, then Jeno, then Jaemin.

“Huh. Weirdos,” you scoffed. “Anyway, we still on for movie night at my place?”

“Absolutely. Chenle’s letting me borrow his box set of the director’s cut of those movies you wanted to watch.”

“Does Chenle know he’s letting you borrow these?”

“Yes, they’re hexed. If he weren’t letting me, they’d play the porno knockoff.”

You let out a full-body cackle. “Oh, that’s a good one. You can say a lot about His Highness, but you can’t say that he doesn’t have a sense humor.”

A couple weeks later, and all eight of you were meant to be having a study session together at the library. Seven of you were already there— Jisung was coming late from a class. You had been one of the first in the room, and immediately put a bag down on a chair next to you to save it for him.

You were so innocently humming along to your music in your headphones as you took notes when you saw a hand reaching to tap the table in front of you. Pausing your music, you took one headphone out to look at the owner of the hand—Donghyuck—inquisitively. “Yes?”

“So you and Jisung have been hanging out a lot recently…” He rested his chin in his hand.

You narrowed your eyes, “Well, yeah…”

“Her heartbeat went up when you mentioned Jisung,” Mark added oh-so-helpfully.

“Gee, thanks, Mark,” you scoffed at the basilisk. “You want to go ahead taste the air for my pheromones or whatever too while you’re at it? Really complete this bonkers supernatural interrogation?”

“And then there was the fry thing,” Jaemin added, pointing at you from his seat next to Donghyuck. “I haven’t forgotten that.”

Jeno shivered beside you, “I don’t think I ever can.”

“He’s going over to her apartment a lot for movie nights. He keeps asking to borrow my nice collector’s edition box sets,” Chenle added, not looking up from his laptop. He readjusted his blue light glasses. “I think he’s trying to impress her.”

You looked around at all of them incredulously. “Uh, guys, seriously? I think Jisung and I are allowed to hang out, watch movies together, and eat together considering we’re—”

“Y/L/N Y/N, I swear to god you better not say because you’re ‘besties’ right now,” Renjun cut you off, throwing air quotes up around the word ‘besties.’ “Seriously, how can two people be so oblivious?”

Oh. Holy shit. They all thought you and Jisung were still friends. Somehow, apparently none of them knew that you and Jisung had started officially dating since that day in the park three weeks ago.

You were just staring blankly between all six of them, not sure how to respond. Thankfully, the door to the study room was opened then, Jisung rushing in.

“Hey, I’m here!” His bright demeanor fell as soon as he noticed the tension in the room. “What’s going on? What’d I miss?”

“Nothing, Ji,” you turned to him with a smile. Taking your bag off the last chair in the study room, you told him sweetly, “Here, I saved you a seat next to me!”

“Oh, thanks, Y/N!” He happily took it, plopping his bag down on the table to take out his laptop.

After the study session was concluded, you all filed out together, you and Jisung right beside each other.

“Come on Jisung, I’ll drive,” Chenle called for his roommate, spinning his keys around his finger.

“Sure, hold on!” Jisung said back, waiting up to say goodbye to you.

“Renjun, you still up for ramen and ranting?” You clasped your hands together hopefully as you looked at your friend. It was ritual for you and Renjun to get together and rant over extra-spicy ramen whenever some drama had gone down within your department at the school. There’d been some going on this past week, and you and Renjun decided that late-night after studying was the perfect time to talk shit.

Except, he and Chenle seemed to lock eyes for a brief moment. And then, Renjun was checking his phone, throwing up his other hand, and sighing.

“Ah, Y/N, you know what,” he clicked his tongue. “I am so sorry, but I got a text from my dad while we were in that study session and he says the cat is sick. I’ve really got to go.”

“Your parents live three hours away—”

“Uh, Jisung! You like ramen!” Renjun gestured at the dragon that was still waiting next to you. “Why don’t you take Y/N for some ramen? Just- just you two?”

“That’s it! You’re taking too long, Jisung! I’m leaving you!” Chenle yelled dramatically from the front, giving his keys one last jangle before he quite literally ran off through campus.

You were too distracted watching Chenle incredulously to notice that Renjun had escaped too until you turned back around to talk to him. Then you realized that all of your friends had mysteriously dispersed.

“What just happened?” Jisung asked, looking around confused.

“I think… I think they set us up,” you scratched at your head.

“Like, a date? Don’t they…”

“I think they think they’re plotting to make us date.”

He blinked at you. You grabbed his arm to start walking down the sidewalks. “Come on, we can at least talk about this over some ramen.”

“Didn’t you tell them?” Jisung’s face seemed as though it was permanently stuck in the same bewildered expression. You two were side by side at your favorite 24-hour ramen bar by the university, and you had finally filled him in on what he missed in the study room.

You slurped up a noodle. “I thought you did.”

“I thought you were going to!”

“They were your friends first!” You retorted indignantly.

“Hey, I only claim Chenle,” he held up his chopsticks and spoon defensively. “The others just came along.”

It was true that Jisung had befriended Chenle first, and the others just sort of came with the fairy. After all, dragons did tend to be solitary creatures, and on top of that, you’d be hard-pressed to find one hanging out with a dryad on purpose, much less two.

“Speaking of Chenle, how did you not even mention it to him? You live with him!”

“Well, every time I was going somewhere with you I’d be like ‘Oh, I’m going to wherever with Y/N’ or ‘I’m going to Y/N’s place.’ It’s not like I could call you something else.”

You tilted your head curiously. “Something else?”

“Like… you know… my girlfriend,” Jisung mumbled, very focused on stirring up some of his broth.

“Well… you could.” You were getting warm, and not from the spicy ramen.

He looked up at you, a smile growing on his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay, on one condition.” He set down both his utensils, holding up the number one.

“What’s that?”

“You call me your boyfriend.”

“God you’re dumb sometimes,” you shook your head, but still had fondness in your tone and your actions as you brought your hand up, all five fingers up. “Yes, duh.”

Jisung got the idea, opening the rest of his hand back up to lace all of his fingers with yours. You squeezed his hand, your stomach doing flips at the softness in his eyes as he looked at you.

The two of you brought your hands back down to keep eating, and your boyfriend circled your conversation back around to the entire reason you were here in the first place.

“Anyway, our friends.”

“Our friends,” you repeated unenthusiastically. “So… how are we going do it? They’re going to be annoying no matter how we go about it.”

“Good point. You know… they’re going to keep meddling if we don’t say anything. What if we just… let them?” He suggested.

“You’re proposing we fake not date and let them all run themselves in circles trying to connive us into dating?”

“How long do you think it’ll take them to notice?”

“A month,” you snorted.

“A month?” He scoffed. “Come on, they’re a bit dumb but they’re not that bad. Like, two weeks.”

“I think part of it’s going to depend on how stupid they think we are.”

That looked like it changed Jisung’s mind. “You’re so right, a month at least.”

“They’re going to kill us when they find out.”

“Don’t worry, the big scary dragon will protect you from their wrath, princess,” Jisung teased, throwing an arm around your shoulders to pull you closer and kiss your cheek.

You laughed, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Ji, never call yourself that again. Please. Even as a joke.”

“So how was ramen?” Renjun asked before you could even open your mouth for a ‘good morning’ the next day.

“So how’s the family cat?” You shot back, taking your seat next to him in the lecture hall. “I was expecting to have to send you the notes for today since you had to drive to your parents’ three hours away in the middle of the night to see it.”

“You know, funniest thing happened. I had just gotten back to my apartment to pack, and my dad called me back and said the little guy made a full recovery. The vet called it a miracle. So I got my beauty rest in my own bed.”

You rolled your eyes. “Glad to hear Mr. Mittens is doing better.”

“So how was ramen?” The human repeated.

“Oh, it was really good!” You gushed. “I got a different bowl than I normally order, extra spicy still even though you and I weren’t gossiping, and I really, really liked it! I might make it my go-to order now instead of what I usually get.”

Renjun looked at you stone-faced. “Not the food, Y/N.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You and Jisung…”

“Ate ramen.”

“And…”

“Then we went home?”

“Separately?”

“He walked me home if that’s what you’re asking?” You raised an eyebrow. “He always offers to, especially at night. It’s really nice of him.”

“Yeah,” Renjun said knowingly. “He’s so nice.”

That afternoon, you met up with Jisung between classes in the student union, tucked away in an oversized armchair. You retold the story of Renjun asking about ramen to him, and your boyfriend giggled with delight.

“I’m telling you, Sungie, he looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel when he heard that we apparently didn’t magically fall in love over a bowl of ramen,” you snickered.

“Serves him right,” Jisung declared.

“What do you think they’re going to do next?”

“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“In the meantime… movie night tonight?”

“I don’t know, I’m running out of Chenle’s box sets to impress you with.”

You laughed, gently nudging him in the side. “Guess you’ll just have to—”

“Hey… guys… what’s up?” Someone sputtered out from behind and just off to the side of the armchair.

Both you and Jisung whipped around to see Mark standing there, fountain drink in hand. He pulled his over-ear headphones off then, hanging them around his neck.

“Oh, hey Mark,” you waved at him, trying to play this off as casually as possible.

“Why are you two— you know,” he gestured vaguely to you and Jisung.

Jisung sat forward a bit, making the posing a bit less intimate with your faces further from each other. “Y/N and I both have time in between classes now, so we’re hanging out. I’d invite you on, but I don’t think there’s room. You can definitely pull up a chair or something and sit with us if you’ve got time though.”

“No, no, I’m good man,” the basilisk rejected the offer quickly. “Besides, I’ve got to meet up with Johnny for a thing, so, yeah. You two have fun… hanging out. Looks comfy.”

“Bye Mark!” You waved goodbye to him too, watching as he practically ran out of the building.

“Chenle asked me point blank if this was just a movie night,” Jisung informed you, plopping down onto your couch.

“Observant of him.” You sat down beside him and grabbed your remote to queue up the first movie. “And what did you say?”

“I asked him what else it could possibly be.”

“And that worked?”

“Yes,” your boyfriend huffed, a wisp of smoke shooting out his nose. “I don’t know if I should be relieved or offended that everyone is so willing to believe that I’m this stupid.”

With the DVD previews now playing, you set the remote down to get settled in for the movie. Jisung lifted an arm up for you to snuggle into his side, and you let out a contented sigh at the familiar warmth and smoky scent that enveloped you. It was like cuddling your own personal furnace.

“For now, be thankful, Ji,” you patted his chest. “After all, we’ll never know this kind of peace after they find out.”

He stroked a knuckle up and down your arm lazily. “Yeah... you’re right.”

“Of course I am.”

“Hey, look at me?” He requested, his voice a murmur. “You’ve got something on your mouth.”

You lifted your head up, confused. Just as you’d complied, the dragon swooped in, pressing his lips to yours in a dizzying kiss.

Your head was still spinning as he pulled away, running his thumb over your bottom lip, where his fangs had just been nibbling the moment prior.

“I-I thought there was something on my mouth?” You asked breathily.

“There was.” He smirked, still holding your chin in place. “It was my mouth.”

“Eep!” You let out a squeal as you nearly lost your balance, grabbing onto the shoulder of the closest person to keep from completely wiping out.

Jeno thankfully wasn’t very easy to knock over, and held your elbow to help you stay upright as you struggled to get reoriented. All your friends had gone ice skating today, and you were now realizing that you couldn’t even remember the last time you’d gone. You were a bit out of practice.

“You got it, Y/N?” The werewolf asked warily as you took a couple more cautious steps forward.

You wobbled a little. “Uh. No. Sorry, Jeno, just put me on the wall.”

“Here, you got her?” Jeno was talking to somebody else, but your eyes were glued to your skates to make sure you didn’t slip. So you weren’t even looking as the werewolf’s shoulder disappeared from your grip and was replaced by somebody else’s.

A warm hand was taking and moving yours, encouraging you to hold onto his upper arm for support. You immediately recognized it as Jisung’s, the only other person who would be this warm in the freezing temperature of the ice rink besides the werewolf who just left you. Pulling in closer to Jisung now, you felt a little bit more stable, and finally comfortable enough to look up from your feet to your boyfriend.

“Thanks, Ji,” you said genuinely, squeezing his arm.

“You’re welcome.” He smiled down at you. “Do you think you’re ready to start skating? The other guys have kind of abandoned us.”

Focusing your gaze ahead of you, you saw that your other six friends were way ahead of you on the rink. In fact, you couldn’t even see some of them at all, suspecting that they were about to be coming up behind you to lap you.

You nodded, preparing yourself mentally. “Yeah, I think I’m ready.”

And so you and Jisung started slowly moving along the ice together. Despite Jisung helping you stay upright initially—you still weren’t sure if he volunteered or was volunteered by your little matchmakers—he wasn’t really too adept of an ice skater either. He was truly only marginally better than you, so the two of you were slow going, and had a couple close calls in regards to stumbles. But you didn’t mind, you were spending time with your boyfriend and your friends. It was shaping up to be a really good day.

“Sorry, be right back. Bathroom break,” Chenle excused himself from the conversation you three were having at the moment, skating off at the next exit you passed by.

Craning your neck around, you realized that none of your friends were on the ice anymore. Renjun went to switch his skates out for a different size fifteen minutes ago, Mark and Jeno went to get food ten minutes ago, Jaemin and Donghyuck needed a water break five minutes ago, and now Chenle’s bathroom break.

“Huh…” You caught Jisung’s eye knowingly. “Looks like it’s just us now, Sungie…”

“Miraculously it is,” he agreed sarcastically.

“You think they’re coming back?”

Then both your phones went off, a text tone. Jisung stopped the two of you skating to take his out, showing that it was a text in your group chat with everybody.

[donghyuck: the concessions stand nachos gave mark food poisoning and he threw up everywhere so we’re all taking him home! you guys stay and skate though! have fun!]

“Guess not,” you sighed. “For Mark’s sake, and the poor employees’ sake, I hope that’s a complete lie.”

“Well, now that they’re gone…” Jisung turned to you, taking both of your hands in his and bringing them up to his mouth, blowing hot air over them. Your numb fingers quickly warmed up, and you watched his every move lovingly. He brought your hands back down from his mouth, eyes pleading, as he asked, “Can we go? I hate the cold.”

You laughed, nodding as you squeezed his hands. “Of course, yes.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you.” Jisung practically dragged you to the exit, lifting you with an arm around your waist to help you down the big step down from the rink to the main floor.

[jisung: did donghyuck ask you to meet him at the coffee shop in the student union in ten minutes?]

[you: no, but mark did]

[jisung: well, i'll see you in ten]

With a fond shake of your head, you pocketed your phone and started your journey across campus. Looks like you were going to have an impromptu coffee date with Jisung. You had to admit it, while their meddling could be annoying, it was a little fun sometimes to see when your next spontaneous date with your own boyfriend would be, as arranged by your six little matchmakers.

As you arrived at the small but extremely busy campus coffee shop, you surmised that you were the first one to get there, and hopped in the obscenely long line to at least order for yourself. You took out your phone to text your friend that you were supposed to be meeting.

[you: hey, i’m here! i’m in line, what do you want, in case i order before you get here?]

Mark did immediately text back his coffee order—which was actually an order for one of the “refreshers” that you were pretty sure was just a mix of various juices. Coffee was too bitter for his extremely sensitive snake tongue.

Your basilisk friend found you while you were still waiting for the drinks to come out, and once you had them in hand, the two of you went to find a spot to sit down together. You raised an eyebrow when he suggested a table with four chairs instead of the two-seater that you had spotted, but you shrugged and accepted his reasoning that it was in a quieter area. Sitting across from him, you put your bag in the seat next to you.

“So how’s your day going, Mark?” You asked him brightly, taking a sip of your drink.

“Hm? Oh, good, good.” His eyes flitted around the student union almost anxiously, as if he were anticipating something.

You pushed on in the conversation, however. “That’s good. And how are your powers coming along?”

Most natural-born magical creatures started developing their powers practically at birth, but basilisks didn’t come into theirs until after their first molting—which Mark just had last year. The last you’d heard, he’d partially petrified his human roommate Johnny back in the spring and had been working on getting them under control as they got stronger since.

“It’d be a lot better if Johnny would just let Taeil and Doyoung make him a protection charm so that I wouldn’t keep accidentally compelling and petrifying him,” Mark covered his face with a groan. “But no, he’s got this whole deal about wanting to make sure we all know he doesn’t think we’re monsters and he’s not afraid of us. Which is all well and good but like come on, maybe he should take at least some precautions when he’s like getting petrified by his basilisk roommate every week! So now I have to wear sunglasses around the apartment like I’m hungover 24/7.”

You winced sympathetically, not realizing the situation was that bad. “Maybe start sprinkling some weasel fur into his morning coffee?”

“Eugh, weasel fur coffee. I think you’ve described my actual worst nightmare.” Mark wrinkled his nose and looked like he was genuinely holding back a gag. “Anyway, I think he might notice if there were suddenly furs in his iced Americano every morning.”

“Maybe the witches can put it in something else innocuous that he’d use every day? It’d just be until you got a handle on your powers, remember.”

“If I ever do,” he sighed, stirring his straw around in his drink.

“You will, Mark,” you tried to reassure him. “It’s only been a year. These things take time.”

“Yeah, MCS major? Want to give me some statistics on basilisk powers to make me feel better?” He retorted, and you knew your friend well enough to understand that the words were meant to be light-hearted, despite the bitter and biting tone that they came out with instead.

You gave him a frank look. “I’m not Renjun. I’m not a walking, talking encyclopedia of magical creatures. But if you insist on making me think back to Intro to MCS… On average, basilisks take two to three years to reach full development of their powers after molting. You just molted a little over a year ago, you can’t put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect already, Mark.”

He ran a hand through his hair, forked tongue flicking in the air before he spoke again. “Fine, fine. You’re right. I knew all this, it’s just… it’s a lot more of a relief to hear it from somebody else.”

“I know what you mean, don’t worry,” you smiled at your friend.

He smiled back at you, genuinely, a flash of his two sharp snake fangs that hadn’t finished descending yet, then it turned sort of weird, before the smile fell entirely from his face. Mark sat forward in his chair, looking a bit more businesslike now. “Y/N, I’ve got to tell you something, and I don’t have very long, so please don’t say anything, just let me talk, okay?”

Your eyes widened with alarm at whatever the hell could be coming next, but you just slowly nodded.

“Thanks. I didn’t just ask you here to get coffee and hang out. I’m really sorry. You see, Donghyuck and I—”

“Mark! Y/N! Hey!” The very dryad that had just been named suddenly emerged from the crowd, with your boyfriend in tow.

Mark gave you an apologetic look before he turned to Donghyuck and Jisung. “Oh. Donghyuck. And Jisung. What a… surprise.”

The two newcomers each had their own coffee orders in hand, and you smiled at them.

“Hey, guys! Did you two get coffee too?” You did your best to pretend both like you had no clue something was up because Jisung told you about it, and because Mark had just almost told you about it.

“Yeah, we did!” Donghyuck replied cheerily.

“Well, we have a couple extra seats, if you want to join us,” you offered of your own volition this time, taking your bag off the chair next to you.

Jisung remained standing for a moment, looking to Donghyuck for his cue. The dryad was absolutely beaming.

“Of course!” He slid right in next to Mark, who looked like he wanted to die. “Thanks, Y/N!”

The dragon took the seat beside you with no further prompting.

You turned your focus back to the basilisk, doing your absolute best to feign obliviousness. “So, what were you saying, Mark?”

Donghyuck looked at him pointedly. “Yeah, Mark, what were you saying?”

“Never mind, I forgot,” he waved it off. “Wasn’t important, I guess.”

You shrugged, taking a sip of your drink.

“What’d you get, Y/N?” Jisung asked curiously.

“My usual. You want some?”

“Sure.”

You held yours out to him at the same time that he handed his over to you in return. As naturally as you could with the two pairs of dumbfounded eyes glued to you, you took a sip of Jisung’s drink. Yep, it was his regular order, same as always. You handed it back, holding out an expectant hand to receive yours again.

Jisung didn’t let either of your two slack-jawed friends recover to ask questions or make comments, though, immediately engaging them in conversation. “Donghyuck, how’d that report go, by the way?”

“Oh, don’t get me started on that Panforsaken assignment!”

Jaemin threw the ball as hard as he could, and you watch as it sailed in a perfect arc, then suddenly changed direction midair, leaving Jeno to have to turn on the spot and run to catch up. You three had all gone back to the park again today, you and Jaemin weaving endless clover crowns in between throwing the ball for Jeno. It was another lovely day, a bit crisper than when you and Jisung had gone. A single, puffy white cloud floated by overhead as you hummed a tune to yourself, fingers mindlessly weaving in another blue wildflower.

“Y/N...” Jaemin said, reminding you of your dad who had caught you sneaking in after your curfew.

“Jaemin...” You mimicked his tone.

“So... what’s going on with you?”

“Spit it out, Jaemin. You clearly want to ask me about something specific.”

“Y/N, I’m a dryad. I’m in touch with nature, you know. The plants, the trees, the dirt, the animals, all of it,” he explained, setting his weaving down. “And that includes humans. As much as you humans don’t want to admit it, you’re a part of nature, too. And I know I can’t feel your emotions like a unicorn can, but I can tell that you and Jisung clearly care for each other.”

“Yeah, Jaemin, I love all of you guys. We’ve become really good friends over the years.”

“No, Y/N. Differently than the rest of us care for each other.” The dryad patted your cheek, a wistful look on his face. “I don’t know if you’re just lying to yourself, or if you haven’t realized it yet, but you and Jisung… it is different than the rest of us.”

You had to bite down on your bottom lip, cover your mouth, and hide your face in your chest to keep from laughing right in Jaemin’s face and entirely blowing your cover right then and there. The dryad clearly misinterpreted your actions, as he scooted closer and wrapped his arms around you, shushing and cooing at you.

“It’s okay, Y/N. It’s okay.” He rubbed your back. “I can’t feel dragons as well for… obvious reasons, but he likes you too. I promise. It’s all going to work out.”

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak without giggling then.

“I got it—! Oh, uh…” Jeno’s excited cheers cut off as his voice got closer and closer. “Are you... okay?”

You felt Jaemin take one of his hands off your back, and could only imagine whatever silent conversation the two of them were having with gestures. After “composing yourself” again, you sat up straight, looking up at Jeno and holding your hand out.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Jeno,” you reassured him. “Come on, dude. It’s my turn to throw.”

You drummed your fingers on the table beside your book, the highlighter nearly falling out of your other hand as you were about to fall asleep. Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck weren’t faring any better than you, seeming about ready to fall asleep over their own textbooks and laptops too. The only member of your little study group who didn’t seem to be on the brink of a boredom-induced coma was Renjun. The human was chugging along through the assigned reading for one of your classes as per usual, dutifully taking his color-coded notes. You watched him through half-lidded, tired eyes, trying to figure out if he was maybe a robot, or was on Adderall, or was on the magic equivalent of Adderall, to be this committed of a student.

Renjun’s gaze slowly lifted from his textbook to you, then he raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Yes, Y/N?”

“Okay. What is it?” You narrowed your eyes at him. “Drugs? Aliens? Because I’ll believe in the little guys now.”

“What?”

“How can you not be—”

“Hey, Y/N.” A soothing voice, warm hand on your head, and familiar cup from the campus coffee shop being placed in front of your face cut off your rambles right as you had begun to pick up steam. “Brought this for you.”

You looked up at Jisung, offering him as much of a smile as you could in your frazzled state. “Oh, hey, Ji. Thank you.”

“Also grabbed you these.” He unzipped the front pocket of his bookbag, taking out a holographic box of candy and setting it next to the drink on the table.

“Oh, Sungie…” You sighed, feeling the tension in your shoulders dissipate at the sweet gesture from your boyfriend. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Jisung gave your shoulder a squeeze. “‘Course. Well, I should let you get back to studying. I’ll see you later, princess.”

“Bye, Ji.” You gave him an unamused look, earning only a cheeky little smile in return. He got to walk away and leave you to deal with the aftermath of that nickname drop.

After he left, you were smiling to yourself happily anyway, basking in the warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest when you turned back around to see the looks on your friends’ faces. It took everything in you not to burst out laughing.

“He’s calling you ‘princess.’” Donghyuck deadpanned.

“Oh that? That’s just an inside joke.” You tried to play it off with a light, nervous laugh. “It’s not—”

“Inside joke?” Jeno repeated, as if there were any way for him to mishear you in the dead quiet of the library.

“Oh we would love to be enlightened to how this joke came about.” Jaemin requested sweetly, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them.

Donghyuck leapt back in to take the lead again. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s hilarious. Jisung is really known for his sense of humor. You know, like all dragons.”

You went to crack open the box of gummy candy Jisung had brought you, enchanted to change color and flavor based on your mood. This time the gummies were yellow and pink, lemon and strawberry flavored.

“Yeah, it’s a long story but that’s it. He doesn’t…” You trailed off sheepishly, giving them a look as if it were the most impossible thing in the world to imply that Jisung could possibly have romantic intentions behind calling you that.

Donghyuck’s eye twitched.

You weren’t alone with Jisung again until the next night. Laying on your bed in your room, you heard the sound of your front door unlocking, then Jisung calling out to announce his presence. You yelled back loud enough so he knew where in the apartment you were.

As soon as he poked his head into your bedroom, you shot up in bed, pointing at him accusingly.

“You are a menace,” you declared, sitting up fully.

He snorted a puff of smoke out in disbelief. “What?”

“Donghyuck about exploded trying to explain the concept of petnames to me after you called me ‘princess’ yesterday.”

“I’ll do you one better.” Jisung challenged you, slinging his backpack around to his front.

“Oh really?”

He unzipped the main pocket of his bag to start rooting around in it. “I got a Renjun lecture of epic proportions today about human dating rituals.”

“No.” You covered your mouth with your hand in horror.

“He made me a PowerPoint and everything. I had to take notes.” Jisung dropped a spiral notebook onto your bed, and you scrambled forward to grab it.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, eyes skimming over the page. There, in Jisung’s messy scrawl, were little notes about how human dates work: gifts, flowers, the whole works. It was definitely a Renjun lecture, because it was phrased from an academic viewpoint, and absolutely did not read like just a friend giving another friend dating advice.

You looked up from the page to your boyfriend. “How did this even—”

“I really should’ve been more suspicious of his offer to study buddy up since you guys just studied yesterday, because I was then falsely imprisoned in a study room.”

“Oh, Sungie,” you cooed, tossing the notebook aside and reaching out for his face instead. “I am so sorry you had to be subjected to that.”

“I tried to tell him that I grew up around humanoids just fine, but he said that Chenle didn’t count,” Jisung sighed, letting you cradle his cheeks in your hands.

You chuckled. “Well, I do sort of have to agree with Renjun there. I like Chenle, but a fairy prince isn’t exactly representative of humans.”

“What?” He gave you a thoughtful pout.

“I mean, my aunt married a basilisk, so I grew up with basilisk cousins. But you wouldn’t want me to say that I know about dragons because of that, right?”

“Well… I guess, yeah.”

“That’s all I mean, Sungie.” You reassured him, looping your arms around his neck. “That doesn’t mean I wanted you to be locked in a study room all by yourself with Renjun for who knows how long being lectured on supposed human courting.”

“I wasn’t by myself, Jaemin was there too. He was the one keeping the door locked.”

You nodded solemnly, easily able to imagine how the dryad could do that any number of ways with any number of plants. Pulling him closer to you, you pecked his nose, then the apples of his cheeks.

“Seems like the dragon needed rescuing from the crazed madman this time, hm?” You teased as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Yes, unfortunately I think the school would have frowned upon me eating him or his leafy accomplice.”

“Presumably.”

He let his head fall forward into the crook of your neck with a groan, his hot breath washing over your skin.

“Well, you’re all safe here in my tower now,” you promised him, threading your fingers through his hair.

Reclined into a corner of Jeno and Jaemin’s couch, you happily munched on your snack, feet propped up in Jaemin’s lap. Everyone was meeting at their apartment for a video game night, and you were still waiting on a couple more to arrive before you could officially start your mess of a tournament. Everyone’s schedules fluctuated so much that you always planned on having at least one required full-group hangout every month. Usually the activity chosen was a bit more exotic, but after Renjun's submission for last month’s “weirdly niche PowerPoint night” that was supposed to be ten minutes at most ended up being over an hour, it was decided that something easy and mundane was in order for this month. So, pizza and Super Smash Bros.

Chenle had arrived a couple minutes ago, unfortunately without his roommate. You knew that Jisung had ended up staying at the library much later than he intended—his assignment took longer than he expected to complete—but he was on his way now. The fairy was sitting sideways in an armchair, legs dangling over one arm and head supported by the other as he scrolled on his phone.

There was a knock at the front door, and Jeno got up to get it, as his roommate was currently preoccupied being your footrest. Not that the dryad seemed to mind, he was perfectly content to scold and correct Renjun from afar on how he was (apparently incorrectly) setting up the gaming system to accommodate all the additional controllers the eight of you would require to play at the same time.

Renjun was sat directly in front of the TV, bickering back with him. “Oh, you want to come get up and do it yourself, Jaemin? It’s your fucking Switch anyway.”

“Don’t need to get up,” Jaemin replied smugly, shooting a vine out to smack Renjun on the back of the head.

His reflexes were quicker than the human’s, as the plant had snapped back out of Renjun’s reach before he could grab it. What he was going to do with it if he got it, you didn’t want to know.

“Hey!” “Hi.”

You looked up from the building tension at the cheerful greetings. It had been Mark and Donghyuck at the door, the basilisk wordlessly squatting down next to Renjun to take a look at the gaming system too. You gave the newcomers a wave from your spot, which was slightly hindered by the sleeves of your oversized sweatshirt.

“I like that hoodie, Y/N.” Donghyuck sat down next to Jaemin on the couch, grabbing a chip out of the large bowl on the coffee table.

“Yeah, looks comfy.” Jaemin grabbed the end of the big sleeves and shook them around for emphasis. “Where’d you get it?”

“Huh?” You looked down at exactly what you were wearing. Well, shit. It was a plain black hoodie with a small simple embroidery of the brand’s logo on the front. It wasn’t yours, and you’d specifically worn it here so that you wouldn’t forget to bring it with you to give it back to the actual owner. “Oh, I don’t know, you’d have to ask Jisung, it’s his.”

“What?!” Donghyuck crushed his chip in his hand. Jaemin put a hand on his arm to encourage him to calm down.

“Yeah, we were hanging out yesterday and I got cold, so he let me borrow it. He accidentally left my place without it, so I’ve actually got to return it to him when he gets here.” And that was the truth. Not even carefully chosen words, or twisting of the narrative.

Donghyuck’s outburst had drawn the attention of everybody else in the living room—save for Chenle, who was still flicking through his phone.

“Wait, wait, let me get this straight, Jisung let you borrow something of his?” Renjun clarified.

“Yeah, Ji lets me use his stuff sometimes.”

Your human friend completely set the pieces of the gaming console down, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Y/N. You’re a Magical Creatures Studies major. Think. A dragon let you borrow his stuff? And even forgot to ask for it back? Allegedly.”

“Oh my G— Renjun, come on! A bit stereotypical, don’t you think?” You crossed your arms defensively.

“Stereotype or not, Jisung doesn’t share,” Chenle cut in dryly. “He’s very protective of his hoard.”

“See?” Renjun gestured at the fairy vigorously.

You looked to the others for help, the panic in you real this time. Donghyuck looked like he finally had the last piece he needed to connect to finish his conspiracy board; Jaemin gave you a pointed, but satisfied look; Mark refused to meet your pleading eyes; and even Jeno, sweet Jeno, could just shrug at you.

“Dragons are kind of like werewolves, right?” He added casually. “We scent our pack. Or, I guess dragons have a nest?”

You could barely hear Jeno’s pondering at the end about the proper terminology for dragons, as nearly everyone else in the room about lost their damn minds at you. Their victorious cheers, jeers, and jokes went in one ear and out the other as your hands felt at the soft material of the inside of the hoodie.

As an MCS major, you always tried very hard to not treat your friends simply as their species, but as individuals, too, and learn about them personally in addition to whatever was covered in class. That was especially true for Jisung, who you knew didn’t really grow up around other dragons, so the habits and customs of dragons that you studied weren’t so easily applied to him. So when he offered you his hoodie last night, it was easy for you to just be giddy and happy because your boyfriend was sharing clothes with you. But it wasn’t just a hoodie, really. You and Renjun hadn’t taken your class on dragons, basilisks, and wyverns yet, therefore the only stuff you knew was from Intro to MCS and personal experience. But this was still—

Then, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it!” Donghyuck shot to his feet and ran for the front door before anybody else could.

“Speak of the dragon and he shall appear!” The dryad announced cheerfully just a second later, dragging Jisung in with an arm around his neck.

“Hey, Jisung!” Jaemin brushed your feet off his lap to stand up as well. “Here, sit. I’ll grab you something to drink.”

“Uh, hey, guys.” Jisung shook Donghyuck off to straighten up and look around at everyone. The dragon sat down beside you. “Hi, Y/N.”

“Hey, Ji. I’ve got your hoodie, sorry about accidentally stealing it last night.” You grabbed the hem, about to take it off to give it back.

“It’s okay, you can hold onto it. It’s a bit drafty in here.” He waved you off nonchalantly, accepting a drink from Jaemin, who had just returned from the kitchen.

“Oh. Thanks.” You pulled your knees in to your chest, too overwhelmed to say much else.

Renjun was right, you were well aware that dragons were possessive over their belongings— gold or otherwise. The gravity of Jisung offering the hoodie to you in the first place and now letting you keep it was not lost on you. And then there was of course Jeno’s insightful comment.

“So why were you talking about me without me around?” Jisung asked the others, not sounding very thrilled at the idea.

“Y/N was just telling us that you two were hanging out last night.” Donghyuck happily informed him.

“Alone.” Jaemin added.

“Again.” Jeno coughed.

The first dryad continued, “We’re hurt that we weren’t invited.”

Jisung scoffed, “Well considering you guys just disappear all the time now, we figured you didn’t like hanging out with us anymore.”

“But since you want to hang so bad, we should all do something this weekend!” You leapt in to suggest.

“Great idea, Y/N.” Jaemin was beaming at you.

Chenle tapped a couple things on his phone as he offered, “Isn’t the student activities board hosting that movie screening on the lawn?”

“Yeah!” Mark perked up, looking up from all the wires and controllers he was still messing with. “Taeyong’s on the board this year and he’s really excited for everything they’ve got planned. I know he’d love it if we all went.”

Taeyong was another friend of Mark’s; a unicorn, if you could recall correctly.

“Sounds like a plan.” Jisung nodded.

You pointed a threatening finger at everyone except your boyfriend, “And I swear, if a single one of you bail in the middle of the movie, I’m going to think you hate me.”

“Y/N! I could never hate you!” Jaemin gasped, throwing a hand over his chest in offense.

“Then stop leaving me!”

“C’mon, Renjun, we’re gonna miss the start of the movie!” You were practically dragging your friend through campus.

“You mean you’re going to miss precious time with Jisung,” Renjun retorted, but nevertheless gave in to your tugging on his arm, starting a light jog to keep up with you.

“And what do you mean by that?” You asked. Honestly, you were kind of hoping that he was onto you. It was funny at first to see your friends run themselves in circles, but now it was just a bit saddening—and annoying—to not interact with your boyfriend how you really wanted to all the time.

Your human friend sighed. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Finally, the two of you arrived at the front lawn, and you craned your neck around to look for your other friends. You and Renjun were the last two to arrive. There, off to the side and up towards the front of the open space, several blankets overlapped, and your other six friends were sprawled out on them. Jeno and Jisung had spotted you two already, waving to get your attention.

A large white screen had been set up to one side of the university’s front lawn, the chosen movie being projected across it. Thankfully, it hadn’t started yet. You could see a stand where the student activities board was handing out popcorn, and students were scattered about the lawn. Your friends had gotten a spot opposite from the snack stand, and you and Renjun traversed your way around other attendees to get to them.

“Hey!” You smiled at everyone, plopping down beside Jisung without a second thought. “Sorry we were almost late—”

“But somebody forgot the candy.” Renjun cut in as he dropped a convenience store bag onto the center of the blankets, pointed glare fixed on Chenle and Jisung.

“We remembered the chips!” Jisung defensively pointed to a pile of bags of chips and other salty snacks that were sitting in the middle of everyone.

Mark patted a cooler beside him. “And Hyuck and I remembered the drinks. And nobody’s late. So everything’s fine, Renjun.”

You chuckled, overturning the bag to dump out all the boxes and bags of candy onto the pile of snacks as well. Everyone grabbed what they wanted and settled in for the start of the movie. It was cool outside, and though you were already wearing Jisung’s big hoodie, you also wrapped one of the extra blankets around your shoulders.

“Are you cold?” Jisung asked you quietly. There was a steady hum of chatter from the crowd, which had become a little softer with the beginning of the movie.

“‘M alright, Ji,” you reassured him. “Just... don’t move too far away. You’re like a portable space heater.”

He shifted around to lay down, his head and most of his upper body in your lap. You weren’t sure how much of the movie he could actually see from this angle, with Mark, Jeno, and Renjun in front of you, but you weren’t going to be the one to point that out. The two of you were towards the back corner of the blankets, Jaemin and Donghyuck to your left, Chenle on the other side of and in front of Donghyuck; Mark and Renjun were properly sitting up at the front of the blanket, with Jeno sprawled out across their laps—reminding you just a little bit of a happy puppy looking for ear rubs.

You fondly brushed some of Jisung’s hair out of his eyes, contemplating the pros and cons of just kissing him on the nose right now. Yeah, there’d probably be no way in hell you could play that off, but he was scrunching it up very adorably as he concentrated on reaching for a small patch of clover that was just off to the side next to the blanket.

You were still weighing your options when he changed his focus to a point just past your head instead. His eyes flicked between the weaving in his hands and the sky as he got the clover crown started, but once he’d gotten the rhythm down, he just kept gazing upwards.

“Pretty stars...” He murmured.

“I know.” You looked up at the sky, at all the stars twinkling and winking back at you. “What do we think? Are there aliens up there with them?”

“Mm... Maybe.”

You looked down at Jisung, mouth quirked up in an amused but affectionate smile. “Yeah?”

“Well, space is pretty big.”

After a pause, you nodded. “Okay, sure. Why not?”

“Seriously?” Renjun was looking at you over his shoulder incredulously. “I’ve done actual research on this, I’ve tried to succinctly make real arguments for you multiple times since we met, I chose it for my PowerPoint night topic with actual scientific studies and facts. And Jisung just bats his eyelashes at you and says ‘space is big’ and you’re convinced?”

He looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel. You froze, looking around at all of your friends that had turned to witness this interaction like you were the movie instead.

Jisung frowned. “I didn’t bat my eyelashes. Did I bat my eyelashes?”

“You kind of did, Jisung.” Chenle reached over to ruffle his hair, and the dragon swatted his hand away, earning a cackle from the fairy.

“Uhh...” You scrambled to think of a way to placate your human friend. “I think I just needed some time to get my head around the idea, Renjun. You know, I think the next time you really would have persuaded me, but Jisung just beat you to it, sorry.”

Renjun didn’t seem convinced, but just rolled his eyes and looked back to the movie. “Yeah, I’m sure I would’ve gotten you next time, Y/N. Tin foil hat and all.”

The others all turned back to the movie now that the spectacle was over, except for Jaemin, whose attention was still on your boyfriend.

“Jisung? When’d you learn to make clover crowns?” He asked curiously, head tilted.

“Hm? Oh, Y/N showed me.” Jisung replied absentmindedly, looking down at his hands as if he hadn’t even realized he was doing it.

Jaemin looked at you with wide eyes, and you looked back at him sheepishly in a silent conversation, as you both were definitely thinking of the exact same thing.

The day that Jaemin had shown you how to make clover crowns, he’d told you an oral tradition that was passed down among dryads about them. Your friends were always happy to indulge your interest in the folklore and religious/spiritual aspect of Magical Creatures Studies, especially in contrast to Renjun’s sometimes militant laser focus on the current socioeconomic-political structure of modern society.

It was a story about two dryads who were in love. One had to leave—depending on who was telling the story, it was a trip, a war, or a kidnapping; Jaemin opted for a dangerous trip—for an indeterminate amount of time. The other dryad waited, and weaved a clover crown every day until their lover came back to them. Nowadays, dryads will weave clover crowns for their loved ones, it’s a treasured tradition for older members of families to show young relatives how to do it, and elaborate clover crowns with specific flowers will sometimes be given as confessions or special gifts to romantic partners. Clover crowns are connected to the idea of love for dryads.

And judging by the look Jaemin was giving you, he was not going to ascribe this one to cultural differences.

Donghyuck had whipped around at this revelation as well, and smacked Jaemin’s arm to get his attention. The two dryads leaned their heads together to have a hushed conversation of fervent whispers, and you desperately hoped that whatever they were saying was both quiet enough for your friends with super hearing to not be able to distinguish, and vague enough that if it could be overheard, it wouldn’t make any sense to them. Well, specifically Jisung.

You were walking a very narrow tightrope of wanting your friends to find you two out so you could get it over with, while also not needing them to find out this way, since Jisung didn’t even know about the meaning behind the clover crowns. Your relationship was still new, fresh, bubbly, and good; you two hadn’t even said ‘I love you’ yet. Based on how the dragon had reacted to just you discussing the societal concept of marriage in an academic context before, you wanted to approach the whole ‘I love you’ situation with a lot more tact than your friends would surely have.

You’d been nervously watching the two dryads when a tap on your shoulder stole your attention back. You looked down at Jisung attentively. “Yeah, Sungie?”

“Here,” he said simply, holding up the finished clover crown for you.

Despite the anxious pretzels that your stomach was knotting itself into, you couldn’t help but smile fondly at both the crown and Jisung. “Ah, you’ve gotten a lot better, Ji.”

You were just moving a few of the buds aside to inspect his improved weave pattern when he spoke up again.

“Are you going to put it on or give me a grade on my clover crown weaving?” He pouted at you.

“Sorry, sorry,” you apologized, placing the crown atop your head. “There. Happy?”

He sighed melodramatically. “I suppose...”

“You want your own?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Hush and watch the movie, I’ll make you one.”

At the end of the movie, you were satisfied with the fact that all of your friends had ended up staying with you this time. After holding out the convenience store bag for everyone to throw their trash into, you momentarily left the group to throw that bag out in a large campus trash can. The others stayed back to pack up all the blankets and such.

You weren’t alone for long, as Donghyuck sidled up next to you and fell into step with you.

“Great Pan, you’re practically betrothed!” He sighed, putting a hand on his chest.

You gave him an unamused look, but didn’t reply, continuing your route through the mass of other students.

“Y/N, seriously,” he sighed, leaning against the wall by the can as you tossed the bag in the trash. “What’s this whole song and dance about? How can we be more obvious? You two like each other. Do you need to hear him say it? Will that finally convince you?”

You opened your mouth, about to just blurt it out, finally end this whole stupid charade, be done with it, with everything. But Donghyuck was still. Talking.

“I mean, I thought I’d had my fill of playing matchmaker for the oblivious and hopeless on spring break—” He laughed to himself, seemingly remembering something funny, which you had no clue what on earth he was talking about. “—but you two are really something else.”

Setting your jaw, you spun on your heel and walked away, leaving him to scramble his way through the crowd to catch up with you.

“Hey! Y/N! Wait! Was it something I said?”

Knocking on the door of Jisung and Chenle’s apartment, you bounced from heel to toe as you waited for your boyfriend to answer the door. Usually, you two didn’t hang out at his place unless he knew Chenle was going to be out all day, or for several days. It was just a lot easier to relax at your apartment with no roommates. But he’d texted asking you to meet him ASAP, so you’d yanked your shoes on and hurried over.

You heard the familiar sounds of the door unlocking, then it was swung open. Except Jisung wasn’t on the other side.

“Y/N.” Chenle greeted you with a curt nod, not seeming very surprised that you were there. Well, they did have a rather robust security system thanks to His Highness here in front of you, so he had probably checked the front door camera before answering it.

“Oh hey, Chenle.” You smiled at the fairy as he stepped back to let you in, and followed him further in towards the living room. Looking around, you couldn’t spot your boyfriend. In fact, in the back of your mind, you realized that a pair of his sneakers were missing by the front door. “Where’s Ji?”

“Grocery run.” 

Weird. His text made it sound like an emergency, or at least extremely important. To text you to meet him ASAP and then just go to the grocery store... Maybe he had gotten a new game in and just wanted to show you immediately, then realized he was out of snacks. That definitely sounded like Jisung. Deciding that it was probably something like that, you looked back to his roommate, a little sheepish, “Uh, do you mind if I wait for him, then? He texted me to meet him here.”

“No, he didn’t. I did from his phone, right before I asked him to go get me some cough drops for my sore throat that I don’t have.” Chenle admitted freely, perching on the arm of a leather armchair and focusing an unreadable expression on you.

“I see.” You nodded, leaning against the couch opposite the room from him. “So, what did you want to talk to me about that you had to use such methods to do so?”

“Y/N. We both know that Jisung is stupid.”

“Woah, tell me how you really feel, Chenle,” you chuckled, trying to keep your voice light.

“And you’re not.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“So, at this point, either you’re being intentionally obtuse, or you’re stringing Jisung along. And I’m not going to sit back and let anyone do that to him.”

Your eyes widened at the hard edge Chenle’s tone had taken, and the faint lime green glow emanating off of him. “Uh—”

“Jaemin and Donghyuck are always talking about being in tune with nature, sensing humans, knowing what’s in a human’s heart. They’re into all that crap. I know humans. You’re more like fae than you like to think.” He was practically spitting his words out now, unable to sit still, pacing the floor in front of the armchair. Slowing to a stop again, he pivoted on his heel to set his sharp eyes back on you—except they weren’t his usual dark brown, they were an electric, glowing, burning neon green. “So you’re going to either actually make the first move on that moron, or reject him. Today.”

Oh the jig was so up. Just as you were about to figuratively spill your guts—in order to keep from having them literally spilled for you—the click of the front door shutting echoed through the apartment. You didn’t dare take your eyes off the fairy in front of you, though.

“Chenle, stop it.” Jisung sighed from behind you, and you did finally snap your head around when you heard his voice, relief flooding your being when you saw your boyfriend.

Chenle’s eyes immediately flickered back to a chocolate brown, all glow gone, and he offered a placid smile to the dragon. “Oh, Jisung. Quick grocery trip. And you didn’t even get my lozenges.”

“I was all the way at the store when I realized I forgot my wallet,” the dragon deadpanned, clearly not believing his roommate’s act, which the fairy was well aware of. He made his way over to you and wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “Leave her alone, Chenle. She’s not deceiving me.”

“We’re kind of deceiving all of you.” You confessed to the fairy, bracing yourself for what was to come.

“Yeah, we’ve uh, we’ve been dating for two months,” Jisung confirmed with a nod.

“You… what?” Chenle’s jaw dropped, genuine disbelief on his face this time.

You added, “We wanted to see how long it would take you guys to notice.”

“And see how far you’d take your meddling. I’m honestly surprised it took this long to escalate to threats from you, Chenle. But I was expecting them to be aimed at me, not Y/N. Something along the lines of ‘actually ask her out or I’ll hex you,’ not this.” Jisung then looked at you, features turning concerned and voice softer. “I’m sorry, by the way, if I thought this was even a remote possibility, I would have called this off sooner. Are you okay?”

“I know, Jisung, I know you would’ve. I’m fine, I promise,” you reassured him quietly, tilting your head closer as he pressed a quick peck to your temple.

Chenle didn’t seem to be paying you two much attention anymore, stumbling towards the other end of the couch that you and Jisung were standing at. “You not only played a trick without me, but you played it on me?”

He dramatically clutched at his chest like he’d been stabbed. “You caused mischief and strife without me? Wreaked havoc and I was none the wiser? Pulled the wool over my eyes?”

He finally sat down on the couch, falling back against the plush cushions as if he were going to perish at any second, throwing a hand over his face for good measure.

“Is he okay?” You leaned over to ask Jisung quietly.

“He’ll probably continue these theatrics for another five to ten minutes, then we can have a real conversation,” Jisung informed you.

“I heard all of that!” Chenle pointed an accusatory finger at you two.

“Chenle, how about we make it up to you?” You offered.

Your boyfriend looked at you with wide eyes, making a slicing motion over his neck with one hand, clearly signaling you to back off of doing that. You were well aware that making any kind of deal with a fairy was a bad idea, especially one that would put you in their debt.

The fairy didn’t move, instead letting out a fake sob.

“Help us play one last trick on the rest of the guys. A grand finale.”

Jisung squinted at you, clearly having no clue what the hell you were talking about. Which was fair, because you had just come up with it on the spot.

Chenle shot up into a sitting position, looking alive and well now. He laced his hands together over his lap. “Do tell.”

“I do have to say Jisung, you chose well. She’s practically a fairy,” Chenle declared, patting his roommate on the shoulder. The three of you were hiding behind a building on your college’s campus, peeking around at the main courtyard to spy on Mark, Donghyuck, and Renjun standing and having a conversation.

“I hate this.” Jisung huffed, crossing his arms.

You rubbed his other shoulder with a concerned frown, “We don’t have to do it if you really don’t like it, Sungie.”

“No, I mean you two getting along. I know the prank is fake.”

“Aw, afraid that I’m going to replace you with her as my partner in crime, Jisung?” Chenle teased. “Don’t worry, I think I’ve just found another accomplice. We’ll be a trio instead of a duo.”

The fairy’s eyes seemed to glitter at the prospect, and not just with the usual amount of magic that was in them.

“You are not roping Y/N in, too,” Jisung insisted.

“I don’t know, Sungie. Kinda sounds fun.” You shrugged, always hearing the two of them recount their misadventures together—or witnessing the odd one here or there—but never having the opportunity to join them properly before.

“See?” Chenle grinned smugly.

Jisung huffed again, this time a puff of smoke coming out of his nose. “Like I said. I hate this.”

“Anyway, there they are. You go in first, Jisung.” Chenle had finally spotted your last two targets, Jeno and Jaemin, joining the others.

“See you in a second, Sungie.” You gave him a final double thumbs up for encouragement before he took off towards them.

After a beat of silence, Chenle suddenly proclaimed, “I like you for Jisung.”

“Uh, thanks, Mr. Park, I have to say, you look great for your age.” You joked, arching a bemused eyebrow at your friend.

“That would be funny if either I or Jisung were human,” he replied humorously. “But I’m being serious. You know how Jisung and I met, right?”

“Yes, I do.” You nodded solemnly.

Chenle had found Jisung on the outskirts of his kingdom back home, a little dragon curled up all alone under a bush in a rainstorm, no other dragons in sight. At the time, Chenle himself was only a boy as well. Jisung didn’t talk much about his life before Chenle, and you didn’t know if he could even remember a lot, if anything, about it. The two of them were pretty much brothers; you knew what it meant for Chenle to say that to you.

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Your words could have been joking, or even an insult, but you hoped he could hear the sincerity in your voice as you bumped your shoulder with his. The fairy nodded, and bumped you back.

“Anyway, you think it’s been enough time?” Chenle craned his neck to peer around the corner again.

“Probably.”

“Alright, showtime,” Chenle held his hand out for you, and you grabbed it.

The two of you emerged from around the corner hand-in-hand, striking up a nonsense conversation about Chenle’s latest assignment in one of his classes. You pretended like you just happened to spot the cluster of all of your friends, delight, surprise, and recognition coming to your features as you lifted your other hand to wave to them. You watched as all their jaws dropped in unison—minus Jisung’s—and they started looking around at each other. You and Chenle walked right up to them, and you offered all of them a bright smile.

“Hey guys!” You greeted them cheerily.

“Chenle this has got to be the lowest you’ve ever gone,” Donghyuck shook his head in disgust, completely ignoring your hello.

“Yeah man, Jisung’s your best friend,” Mark scoffed.

“You raised him!” Jaemin wrapped an arm around Jisung’s shoulders.

“You fed him from your hand!” Jeno stepped in front of Jisung protectively.

“Just because you’re some high and mighty fairy prince or whatever where you’re from doesn’t mean you can treat people like they’re disposable,” Renjun crossed his arms. “Here you’re just some guy like everybody else.”

“Woah!” You let go of Chenle’s hand to step in front of him with your hands up. “Guys, that’s enough!”

“I bet Y/N’s not even in control of what she’s doing,” Renjun entirely ignored you. “He’s probably got her under some fairy spell or something.”

“What the fuck?” Chenle cried out, offended.

“Yeah!” Jaemin nodded firmly. “Because she’s totally into Jisung, I know she is. I know her heart!”

“Guys!” You yelled again for their attention.

“Don’t worry, Jisungie, we’re going to get her out from under that spell,” Jaemin cooed, stroking Jisung’s face as he currently had what was practically a chokehold on the dragon that definitely looked less than comforting.

“Jeno, grab her!” Mark ordered, and the werewolf immediately started advancing on you.

“Oh my god stop it, guys! Stop! I’m not under a spell! Chenle and I aren’t dating! Jisung and I are! We’ve been dating for like two months and we pretended not to because we wanted to see how long it would take you to notice!” You yelled out, squeezing your eyes shut to brace yourself.

But there were no super strong werewolf arms grabbing you. Instead, it was silence that became one chuckle, then a giggle, then two giggles, then you were surrounded by raucous laughter. You cautiously opened your eyes to see all your friends doubled over with laughter around you, clutching their stomachs and holding onto each other for support. You and Jisung were the only ones standing up straight, immediately realizing what was going on when you made eye contact.

“Seems we’ve been made, Sungie,” you deadpanned, wading through the sea of cackling bodies until you got to your boyfriend.

“It appears so…” He sighed, looping an arm over your shoulders, and you wrapped an arm around his waist.

As they all sobered up, a few were quite literally wiping tears from their eyes, others fanning themselves, and some still clutching their sides.

“How?” You looked around, then saw a very familiar, exceptionally devilish grin. “Chenle?”

“What better trick is there to play than being a double agent?” The fairy confirmed.

“Oh, you suck,” Jisung glared at him.

“You guys tricked us first. It was much more satisfying to get one over on you than to keep making the idiots look like idiots.”

“Hey!” Donghyuck cried out indignantly.

Chenle caught your eye to say, “I do mean what I said, Y/N.”

You nodded in understanding. “Thanks, Chenle.”

“Alright, I think we all learned some very important lessons,” Mark announced, getting everyone in a disjointed huddle. “Like…”

“Don’t be so nosy,” Jeno started off genuinely.

“Make sure the people you’re setting up aren’t already dating, or they might make you look like idiots,” Renjun added.

“Double check human emotions with a unicorn if you’re having doubts,” Jaemin sighed wistfully.

“Never go out to eat with Y/N and Jisung. Especially if there’s fries involved,” Donghyuck shivered, and you rolled your eyes. He was seriously never going to let that go.

“I’ve got two partners in crime now, so everybody else needs to sleep with their third eye open.” Chenle grinned.

“That I’m never getting into a prank war with any of you people again. This was too stressful, school’s bad enough,” you groaned with a shake of your head.

“Chenle’s an asshole,” Jisung hissed at his roommate.

“I think Jisung needs to do his over, he already knew that about me,” Chenle drawled with a facetious whine.

“Fine. Chenle’s an asshole who needs to understand that if he threatens my girlfriend again, he’s going to get burned to crisp.”

The fairy shrugged, “I’ll take it.”

“Great, you guys.” Mark beamed at you all proudly.

“What about you, Mark? What’d you learn?” Donghyuck prompted him teasingly.

“That Y/N and Jisung are dating. Duh.”

“Right. Yeah, yeah.” There were murmurs of agreement from the gaggle of creatures around you.

“So, truce?” You offered a hand out in the middle of the huddle to nobody in particular.

All six of them grabbed your hand at once and shook it. “Truce!”

“So…” Donghyuck fluttered his eyelashes at you. “How’d it happen? What’s the story?”

You scoffed, “No.”

“What? You lead us on for two months and now you won’t even tell us how you got together?”

“It’s not some big dramatic thing, sorry,” Jisung admitted. “Just kind of finally happened.”

“What do you mean ‘finally happened?’ Like, how did it ‘finally happen?’”

You exchanged a look with Jisung. With an eye roll, you indulged the dryad a little. “We were hanging out at the park one day and just sort of... I don’t know! Confessed! Got together! Whatever you want to call it!”

“Lame.” Renjun yawned. “Call me when you two get married.”

Jisung started forward in surprise. “Wh—”

“Because there hasn’t been a recorded human-dragon marriage, Sungie.” You patted your boyfriend on the chest reassuringly. “He’s just being an MCS major.”

“Oh. Right.”

The human abruptly gasped. “Wait! Can I write my final paper for Dr. Kwon’s class on you two?”

“Hell no.”

A few weeks later, and you were reclined against Jisung’s headboard, waiting for him to get back from the kitchen with snacks. You two were playing a new two-player game Jisung had gotten, and as soon as you had showed up, Chenle loudly announced his intention to go hangout at Jeno and Jaemin’s and very probably sleep over too, since they also planned on gaming until very late. You figured your friends’ “matchmaking” behavior would stop once they knew that you and Jisung were together, but apparently not.

At the reappearance of your boyfriend in the doorway, juggling several different containers, you set your phone aside. He managed to put them all down on his nightstand without dropping them. You scooted forward and re-fluffed the pillows behind you to make room for him and his wings.

Jisung’s wings weren’t out frequently—you yourself had only seen them a handful of times in the couple years that you’d known him. Dragons either had to be entirely shirtless or wear specially cut shirts in order to have them out comfortably. Most stores didn’t carry shirts in a style that allowed for dragon wings, allegedly since there were so few dragons it “wasn’t profitable” to make them. So dragons were then forced to make their own, have their clothes altered, or order from online specialty shops. Jisung usually just didn’t bother with it, as he claimed it was more of a pain to get the shirts than it was to just keep his wings away. But you and Chenle had started a master plan of slowly sneaking the dragon cut shirts into Jisung’s wardrobe until it was 50/50. You two also had a bet going of how long until Jisung grew suspicious of the rising number of shirts. So far, both of you were still in the running at two weeks.

Tonight, it seemed Jisung had found one of the new dragon cut shirts, just a simple black tank top from the front, but the back was cut into two side panels and a middle section that draped open to allow plenty of space for his midnight blue wings to rest behind him.

Except Jisung didn’t scoot on the bed behind you like you expected. He just kept standing next to it, looking at you, one hand fidgeting with the gold chains around his neck.

“Sungie?” You said his name quietly. “You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he shook his head as if to shake himself from a trance, though that same pensive look didn’t leave his face. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“What about?”

“Y/N, I want you to have this.” He grabbed one of the necklaces by the chain and took it off. With no hesitation, he reached forward and put it around your own neck. Your breath hitched in your throat as you watched his every move, and the intense look on his face as he did so.

The necklace was beautiful, an immaculately kept dazzling gold chain of medium thickness, and hanging from it, a simple, shining gold sun pendant, about the size of your thumbnail. The metal was warm from already touching Jisung, and sat heavy against your skin.

“Y-You’re giving me this?” You held the sun with delicate fingers, as if afraid it would actually burn you, looking up at him in shock.

“Yeah. I don’t know, it just... makes me happy seeing you wear it.” He said, sounding almost confused at his own actions.

Letting you borrow a hoodie was one thing—a big thing, but still, only a hoodie. Giving you a piece of jewelry that he was wearing—part of his hoard—you didn’t know how to compute this. Jisung wasn’t around a lot of dragons for most of his life, so you knew that the exact cultural significance of the action wasn’t there. But that significance came from dragons’ instinctual hoarding nature, which was still ingrained in him. For it to make him happier to see you wearing a piece of his hoard than to keep it for himself… you really thought your heart might explode.

“Y/N?” Jisung lightly touched your arm, worry coloring his tone. “D-Do you not like it?”

“No! No, Sungie. I love it, thank you,” you beamed at him genuinely. You caressed his cheek with the backs of your fingers, eyes going a little misty as you looked up from the glinting gold of the necklace to the midnight blue eyes of your dragon. You were happy, so happy that if you didn’t say something, do something, it felt like you really might burst.

You turned your hand over to cup his cheek, pulling him closer and pressing your lips to his. He made a small noise, and suddenly dropped down to sit on the bed with you. Jisung kissed you back just as ardently, one hand trailing down from the back of your neck to your collarbone then below the hollow of your throat, tracing the path of the jewelry along your skin.

When you had to pull back from the kiss for air, you shifted back fully to look him in the eye, still cradling his face. You inhaled, “I—”

“Wait!”

You stopped mid-sentence at Jisung’s outburst, snapping your mouth shut and looking at him with big, confused eyes.

“Sorry, uhm, I know what you were about to say, and I also know that I’ve been weird whenever you or Renjun brought up your Interspecies Marriage class.” Jisung seemed to notice how your expression became more and more alarmed as he spoke, and he grabbed your hand that had frozen on his face, holding it with both of his. He rubbed soothing circles into the back of your hand as he continued, “I don’t want you to think that I’m not serious about you, because I am. N-not marriage or anything like that right now. But I’m serious about this, about you. I am. So I just, I wanted to say it first.”

“Okay.” You let out a breath of relief and smiled at him encouragingly.

Jisung just kept gazing at you, mouth slightly parted, thumb rubbing circles into your hand. The only indication that time hadn’t literally frozen was the slight shift of his wings adjusting behind him, and when he eventually blinked.

Finally, you couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Jisung?” You said his name, wetting your lips awkwardly. “Like, you wanted to say it now, or not yet?”

“Sorry, yeah, no, now.” He reassured you, taking a deep breath. His eyes still seemed to be drinking you in, though, gaze lingering on the sun hanging from your neck. “You’re just so beautiful… It really does make me so happy to see you wearing that. More than happy, I don’t know how to describe it, but—”

Then suddenly you were on your back, and all you could see was Jisung and midnight blue with flashes of gold. A surprised giggle came out of your mouth as Jisung nuzzled his face in the crook of your neck. You felt a hot puff of air wash over your skin, and you reveled in the comforting, smoky smell surrounding you.

“But now I think I understand all those fairytales where the dragon keeps the princess in their tower and never lets her go.”

You stroked the back of his head, running your hand down his neck and shoulders, stopping just above where his wings start, then back up to weave your fingers in his hair. With a content sigh, you said softly, “I love you, too.”

Your dragon pushed himself up to hover above you so you could see his disgruntled pout. “I wanted to say it first.”

“I think you just did.” You laughed giddily.

“Well... still, I love you.” Jisung brushed his nose with yours for a tender moment before slotting his mouth with yours in a searing kiss. You truly felt like you could never get used to kissing Jisung, a child of the Sun, someone with the very heart of a mountain inside him. In between kisses, he murmured seemingly absentmindedly, “My princess...”

You smiled against his lips, indulging in one, two more sweltering kisses before you mumbled back, “My dragon.”

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