#even after the main stories are all done I feel like I'll still come back to write one shots and stuff-

[fnafawoundleftbleedingau]

One thing I hope, is that once AWLB, WWLWWF and Through the Static are finished. That I'll think of more AU's that I can write long fics about afterwards too.

[missnxthingg]

𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄, 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 - 𝑂𝑁𝐸

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 - Lando Norris x Single Mom!Reader (Best friends to lovers) 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 - Lando and Y/N have always been the best of friends, always there for each other through thick and thin. After years of sharing the paddock and building their own silly little family, both of them just can't hold their feelings inside anymore, even though they're are both afraid it would ruin their friendship. So who'll take the first step? 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒 - 4.1 K | 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 - None (so far) 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒 - All chapters come with a social media version. Click bellow and find more about this story!

smau version | series masterlist | main masterlist | taglist

“My hair is absolutely fine”, Lando complained. He had just woken up from his usual nap before the race and would’ve much rather have used the past five minutes sleeping then getting his hair fixed. Y/N ignored his whining and kept fixing his curls, making sure they fell perfectly into place. “Y/N, I'm literally putting on a helmet five minutes from now”.

“Shut up”, she furrowed her eyebrows and kept herself concentrated on his hair. “You’re gonna look perfect for the pictures before getting in the car with this hair”.

“Y/N L/N, full-time groomer, part-time comms girl”, he joked, making her open a small grin. It’s always nice to have small moments like those in the middle of all the mayhem that is the Formula 1 paddock, specially after so many years knowing each other. Lando and Y/N always found a way to make it even more fun by being there together.

“My job is to get the best image of you out there”, she dusted off his shoulders and winked at him. “Excited to be back?”

“Very”, he smiled at her. “Missed me over the winter?”

“Haven’t had the chance to miss you since you insist on us having a friendship outside work and keeps stopping by my house all the damn time”, she joked, pulling him to walk along with her. “Also, have you forgotten the headache you’ve given me on New Year’s Day?”

Lando went to Bali with his friends on the New Year’s and ended up partying a little too hard, which resulted in Y/N having to work all day as everyone else was enjoying their holiday. She had to stay at her hotel room all day in reunion with his PR team, trying to come up with solutions to his mess. When he found out, he even paid her dinner to apologize for the mess he made.

“I already said I was sorry”, Lando nudged her away with his elbow, making Y/N giggle. Then she toughened up and rolled his eyes at him. They soon were inside the McLaren garage, almost ready to start the first race of the year.

“You can apologize properly by doing great today”, she helped him close his suit, feeling his gaze burning on her face. Lando lowered his sight to pay attention to his friend, making her whole body tingle just with the looks.

“I'll try my best”, he shrugged. And Y/N knew that he was going to be good anyway, even if he didn’t really believe in himself. Lando had done great all weekend, so she knew he was also going to do great on track. She was known to have a sense of when her best friend was going to do good on the race, and today was one of those days. She just didn’t tell him.

It’s been like this since the very first moment they met. Lando and Y/N got to know each other when he was still in Formula 2, but already looking into enrolling in Formula 1 with McLaren. She had just got an internship at the team, working in communications, focused on their social media, and was starting to get into the motorsports world as she worked her way through a degree in college. Lando was also building his career, starting as a test driver and growing into a rookie. With both of them being new into this world, being friends made this entire experience less lonely.

“All good?”, she asked, opening a comforting smile at him to make sure Lando was cheerful enough to kick off the season. 

“Does my hair look good for the balaclava?”, he joked as he took his last pieces of fireproofs to wear. Y/N rolled her eyes and nudged him away. “Yes, curly king”, she giggled, earning a quick hug from the boy, who was now ready to get into the car. He sneaked a tiny kiss on her cheek and buried his nose on her neck. “Good luck, champ”.

“Thank you”, he winked at her, walking towards his engineers to have a quick chat before the race.

Y/N’s job was basically on hold for the rest of the race. She already knew the procedures of the media pen after the race, so all she had to do was wait and cheer for her team. It felt good to be back on track, and beginnings of seasons always give her a little bit more of power to do her job. And Bahrain was a solid start for McLaren, with both Lando and Oscar finishing above P6, getting good points for the team. 

“I knew you were going to do good”, Y/N commented when she saw Lando walking towards her; his suit already hanging low on his hips and with a tired smile on his face after he finished the countless post race interviews. He wrapped his arms softly around his friend as he stole her bottle of water. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you”, he held her a little tighter and immediately felt relaxed next to her. For years, Y/N has been the calm after the storm for Lando. “Tired?”

“Not really. Just a little bit”, she shrugged, as they walked back together to the McLaren motorhome, ready to get her things and walk away from the paddock.

“Want to grab something to eat before heading back to the hotel? I’m starving, and I really could use some time without talking to anyone but you”, he giggled, knowing his best friend knew how to respect his silence when he needed. Also, they had been working non-stop together for the past month, without a single time to just enjoy their time together. It would be nice to do absolute nothing next to each other.

“Oh, I’m heading back to London tonight. I have to be at the airport in… two hours”, she said, looking at her watch with a sad smile. “Little one needs me. She has a ballet presentation tomorrow, and I have to be there for her”.

“Of course”, Lando said, feeling the endearment on his chest with her words. “Ollie has the best mom in the world. She’s the luckiest little girl”.

Y/N got pregnant shortly after she started her second year in Formula 1, after being very careless with a college boyfriend, who took off the second he found out they were having a baby, only helping financially every month, but not being there to help her with anything. On the first years, when she was mostly required to be in England, it worked. But now that she grew on her job and was asked to travel the entire world, it was getting harder and harder to stay away from her daughter. So she always comes for the weekend and goes back home as soon as she can.

“You’re heading back to England tomorrow for the post-race debrief, right? You should come have dinner with us after the ballet presentation”, Y/N suggested.

“Am I banned from going to the ballet as well?”, Lando arched his brows, making Y/N's cheeks heat up.

“I mean, I thought it would be quite boring for you”, she shrugged, making Norris laugh.

“Are you joking? Olivia can never be boring. I always want to see her, especially on nice days like these”, he said. “I'll be there. And then I'll take you to her favourite restaurant”.

“She’s four, Lando. Her favourite restaurant is McDonald's”, Y/N rolled her eyes, but he shrugged.

“McDonald's it is!”, he giggled. “I'll see you tomorrow. Have a safe trip back home”.

“You too, Lan”, he pulled her for another quick hug and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

Lando has been there for Olivia since before she was born. After her boyfriend took off, Y/N was left pregnant, completely scared for her future. She didn’t know how to keep doing her job and her studies. Norris was the one who stuck by her side, did everything in his power to not get her fired, or not to quit her job, and pushed her to keep going with her education. He was there to take her to doctor's appointments whenever he could, and he was there to hold her hand when the time came. Lando was one of the first people who ever had the opportunity to hold Ollie in the arms. And for everything he did for both girls, he immediately became the little baby’s godfather. There was no one else in this world Y/N trusted more.

She has been more than special in his life as well. Y/N understood him better than anyone, and was his home away from home. She made him laugh, and she made sure that he felt comfortable, loved and happy all the time. And if things weren’t alright, having her support always made things better. So before she left, Lando took one last glance at his best friend and thought: “How lucky I am to have her in my life”. But he kept that thought to himself, trying hard not to think too much into it. Deep down, he knew there was something more on the way his heart raced every time he looked at her.

For the next day, Lando felt anxious to finally get home and be with his tiny second family. He hasn’t seen his goddaughter since the pre-season started and was looking forward to being in her presence again. It was his favourite way to relax after a full weekend, being with the people he loved the most in the world. So it felt good once the meeting at McLaren back in Woking was over, which meant that now he could go to the ballet presentation and be with his girls.

He arrived at least twenty minutes before the presentation started and found Y/N among the crowd, sitting right in the front, using her Instagram as a pastime to wait until Olivia was on stage. She updated her social media with a few shots from the weekend in Bahrain before she was pulled out of her thoughts by Lando, who found his spot next to his best friend.

“Hello”, he greeted with a beautiful smile on his face. Norris was wearing an all-black outfit, trying not to catch much attention to his presence, not wanting to deal with the public eye in such an intimate moment between family. “Am I late?”

“No, don’t worry”, she smiled softly at him. “Ollie will on go on stage in a few moments, so you’re fine”.

“Good. I’m glad to be here”, he elbowed his friend and got comfortable next to her. “How was your flight back home?”

“It was fine, a bit tiring. I got home just in time to have some breakfast and get Olivia ready to go to school. My mom drove her and I knocked out on the couch until lunch. Then I got her from school, we had lunch at a restaurant, and then I took her home to get our ballerina ready”.

“Cute”, his cheeks tinted in a pretty pink shade. “At least one of us had some proper sleep. I woke up at four, then flew here and went straight into MTC. I got changed there, had a nap, and now I’m here”.

“You should’ve gone home to rest, Lando…”, she started, but he cut her through her sentence.

“I told you I wanted to be here. I always want to be here for Ollie’s big days, you know that”, he assured, and Y/N knew he was telling the truth. After all, he has always been there for her daughter, coming to see her whenever he could, never forgetting to get her gifts on Christmas and birthdays, always calling to make sure his goddaughter knew how much she was loved by him. Lando cared about Olivia as if she was his own daughter.

“I know”, she smiled, searching for his hand in the darkness of the room to give it a squeeze. “You’ve always been here for her big days. But I worry about your health”.

“Oh, shut up”, he laughed. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me”.

Then Y/N noticed that Lando was holding flowers in his hands, and her heart immediately felt full at the sight. He definitely is a treasure in her daughter’s life. 

“You brought her a bouquet?”, she commented, making her friend blush with the comment. “Oh my God, that’s so cute!”

“Of course I did! She deserves it”, he smiled, pulling the bouquet to show it to Y/N. “Do you think she’ll like the daisies? I thought roses were too boring and Ollie is never boring”.

“Obviously. She loves everything you give her”, she giggled, finishing just before the music started and the presentation began. 

Y/N obviously cried to see her daughter dancing beautifully on stage, knowing she was on the right path to provide the best life for her little girl. But her heart actually melted to see Lando’s smile as he sat next to her, admiring Olivia’s movements with a hug smile on his face. 

“She’s really good”, he commented, not tearing his eyes away from the girl. “Look at her, wow!”

Y/N threw her arms around him and snuggled close to his body, hugging him from the side. She just couldn’t contain her happiness by him being there for her family. Lando only tore his eyes away from Ollie to look at his best friend for a second. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and rested a hand on her knee. That was his way to tell her that she was doing a good job.

After the presentation was over, the duo went backstage to pick Olivia to go out for dinner. The little girl was still dressed in her ballerina attire, now with a huge smile on her face as she ran excitedly towards them. But there was only one person she had her eyes for.

“Uncle Lando!”, she shouted, rushing her pace to him, who squatted to hug her. Norris waited for the impact and relaxed once he felt her tiny arms wrapped around his neck. “You came!”

“Of course I came! I wouldn’t miss the best ballerina in town doing her beautiful performance on stage”, he leaned back to look her in the face, the smile never faltering from his face. “You look so beautiful, wow. I’m so proud of you!”

“Thank you”, Ollie giggled, her tiny hands landing on his cheeks, making his smile even wider. Then he pulled the bouquet in his hands and showed it to the girl, who sparkled her eyes at the sight of the flowers. 

“These are for you”, he said, and Ollie quickly wrapped her hands around the bouquet, pulling them closer to her face to smell it. She started jumping in excitement before pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Oh, that’s nice”.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”, Olivia said. “I love you, uncle Lando”.

“I love you too, baby”, he declared before picking her up from the floor, walking towards Y/N, whose eyes were welled up with tears from watching the interaction between them. He whipped it off with one of his thumbs before pulling his best friend for a group hug.

“Why are you crying, mummy?”, Olivia asked, her cheeks pressed between Lando and Y/N’s body. 

“Oh, it’s because you look so beautiful. I’m so proud!”, she giggled. “These are happy tears, I promise”.

“I love you too, mummy. Just as much as I love uncle Lando”, the girl declared, making Lando’s heart warm up with the comment.

“I love you too, Ollie”, Y/N pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead. “Are you hungry, baby? Uncle Lando is taking us for dinner”.

“And you get to choose where”, he smirked, making Olivia even more excited with the proposition. 

“McDonald’s!”, she shouted, making Lando laugh. Then he looked at Y/N, who had that ‘I told you so’ look on her face. “I want a burger, nuggies, fries and ice cream. Oh, and the little toy”.

“Your wish is my command”.

Lando always bent over backwards to see Olivia smile. He bought everything she wished to eat, and she was stuffed with goodies that made her belly warm. Then she filled him in with everything that was going on in her life, making Y/N sit back, eat her burger, and admire the interaction between them. He had been helping her with food as he listened carefully to every single world she was saying. It was good to have someone else taking care of her, lifting the weight off her shoulders for a second. By the time they were done, Norris held both of his girls' hands and walked to his car, ready to go home with them.

Olivia fell asleep on the way home as they had a very quiet ride, only listening to some of Lando’s chill music. Then he helped carry her inside when they arrived, as Y/N opened the door and got her daughter’s bed ready for the night. She changed the little girl’s clothes and tucked her in bed, not forgetting her signature forehead kiss before leaving. Norris watched it from the door with a tender smile on his face. He pulled his friend by the elbow, engulfing her in a comforting, long hug. 

In the quietness of her house, everything felt perfectly into place. Lando rarely gets those moments alone with his best friend when they are rushing around the paddock. So whenever he sees the opportunity, he takes it. And they stood there, holding each other for a few minutes until he pulled Y/N out of the room. She takes care of both him and Olivia all the time. It’s only fair that he took care of her sometimes.

Norris sat her down on the couch and quickly picked a few items from her room, such as a soft blanket, along with some skincare to take off her makeup and make her relax. Then he sat next to her and patted his lap, just so she could lie down and rest. Lando softly ran wipes across her face, removing her make up before putting a relaxing face mask on her skin. Then he massaged her scalp as she sighed in comfort, enjoying every second of that treatment. He finished the skincare with moisturizer and a little kiss on her forehead, making her smile.

“I don’t deserve you”, she commented as Lando blushed. “Seriously, Ollie and I are so lucky to have you in our lives”.

“I’m just taking care of the people that I love”, he shrugged. “Do you want some tea?”

“I want some wine”, she giggled, making him tag along. “I think there’s a bottle in the fridge and the glasses are still in the same place”.

Lando shot up from his seat, but quickly came back with the bottle, an opener and two glasses. He wasn’t someone to drink much, but he would never refuse this bonding time with his best friend. Still, he poured just a little in his glass before toasting with Y/N.

“God, I’m so tired”, she vented. “I can't sleep when I'm away from Ollie”.

“I know”, he squeezed her knee and Y/N leaned her head into his shoulder. “It sucks having to be away all the time. But I promise you’re doing great in this parenting thing”.

“If you think so”, she shrugged. Most times, Y/N second-guesses herself, wondering if she was being a good mother by leaving her child every other week with their grandmother, only to travel to another country. But she knew that was the only way to provide Ollie with the best life she could have; after all, the salary is very good.

“I know it”, Lando assures. “Olivia is the sweetest kid of all time. She’s kind, funny, very talented and polite. And she absolutely loves you, because you are the best mother in the world”.

“Thanks, Lan”, she smiled at him. “I’m glad she has someone like you in her life. I’m glad to have someone like you in mine”.

“I’ll always be here for you and Ollie, you know that. I’ll take care of you both until the end of my days”, he promised, pulling his best friend for a quick kiss on the crown of her head. “And in the end, everything is worth it, right?”

“Olivia is always worth it”, she assured him, opening the biggest smile. “She’s everything to me. And it’s crazy how much someone can mean to you. But I guess motherhood is always like this”.

“I can’t wait to be a dad. I know I’m going to love it just as much as being a godfather”, he said. “You’re going to enjoy being a godmother someday too”.

“I will be the proudest auntie in the world! Your kid will love me because I’ll pamper them with all the love I can give”.

Deep down, Lando knew he didn’t want Y/N to be the godmother of his children. He has known for a while that he wanted her to be their mother; to be the one he raised a family with through the years. He was very happy whenever he was with her and Olivia, loving more than anything that little family he built with his best friend, so he wanted that to grow even more, maybe with some children of their own.

But confessing his feeling for Y/N tonight, or any night in the near future, wasn’t in Lando’s plans. He would rather just enjoy this little family without taking the risk of losing it for unrequited love. After all, if it didn’t work out, he loses both of the loves of his life.

“Are you staying the night?”, she broke the silence after a few minutes just listening to the sound of television, as they finished their wine together.

“Of course. Did you think I was going to pass the opportunity of cuddling with you?”, he frowned. “I was pissed when McLaren didn’t book us at the same hotel, so I could have an excuse to sneak into your room”.

“Well, you’re the famous driver, McLaren golden boy. I’m just the comms girl. Not all of us can stay at swanky hotels”.

“You deserve the swankiest of them”, Lando said, making Y/N flustered with his comment.. “Come on, you barely can keep your eyes opened. Let’s go to bed”.

He swiped her off her feet and carried her to the bedroom as she tried to laugh quietly to not wake Olivia up. Lando threw her in the mattress as he laughed along, but immediately went into ‘take care mode’ when they were inside those four walls. He chose a comfortable pyjama for Y/N and picked some of his clothes, which he conventionally left in her house for nights like these, then went into her bathroom so they could have some privacy to change.

After they were both dress, Lando hopped into bed too and quickly found his favourite spot: his head resting on her chest, with his arms engulfing her in the most comfortable hug. He felt the tiredness of the weekend crash his body, but he felt relaxed to be in his favourite girl’s arms.

“Does Ollie have school tomorrow?”, he asked, feeling Y/N nod, even with her eyes closed.

“She does, I have to be up very early tomorrow”, she groaned, already feeling too lazy to wake up early tomorrow. 

 “I can take her to school, don’t worry”, he said, wanting to take this weight off Y/N’s back. After all, he could very much take care of Olivia for her, as he had done countless times before. “And then after classes, we can all do something fun, like going to a park or something. Maybe I can take her to a toyshop and she can buy anything that she wants”.

“Don’t spoil my child too much. I don’t want her to grow as a spoiled kid. You’ll ruin her!”

“I will”, he giggled. “But Olivia deserves everything in the world and more”.

They fell quiet for a moment, and Lando was sure that Y/N had already fallen asleep. That until her fingers rolled in his curls, making him hum in satisfaction. He wanted that feeling for the rest of his life. He wanted to sleep next to her every night until the end of days.

And then came the three words he always adored hearing from her.

“I love you, Lan”, she mumbled. “Thank you for being the best friend one could ever wish for”.

Even after being friend zoned, Lando didn’t care about anything else, feeling his chest burning in adoration for his favourite girl. “I love you too, baby”, he whispered back, his words carrying more than he actually wanted to mean. 

⋘ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 // 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 ⋙

𝒔𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 . 𝐚𝐝𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 - @celestialams @kapsylia @igotnorrrizz @hiireadstuff @bishhhitsaurion @mrsmaybank13 @bborra @sltwins @riccdannyf1 @67-angelofthelordme-67 @ctrlyomomma @lan4cha16 @alltoomaples @ellen3101 @hellyesjaehyun @tastebaldwin @sweate-r-weathe-r @carmenita122 @m0cha-bunny @lqvesoph @itscrzy @fangirlvibez @poppyflower-22 @livelovesports @logischeroktopus @happy-jj @saturnbloom77 @formulaal @secretgal66 @taisferrari-blog @sunsshinesunny @eclipsedcherry @tems13 @readingbringsjoy @timmispeach @kenzeyeballs @alilcloudy @rchitect-2015 @tillyt04 @eringaitskill @Honeyhatty12 @dreamercrowd @demig0d0fapollo @mxmtewnz @whatamidoingwithmylife-ramdom @beyond-the-ashes @ijustgomessitupx @floraav @laiba26mindflay3r @marialovesf1 @sltwins @lizaschronicles @katieschry1 @loveofmylife12 @diaa-20 @urfavsgf @likedbygaslyy @notturlover @c-losur3 @brizzy-xo @gorgrussell @ellasaddiction2 @morketheduck @kravitzwhore @darkacademicvibes @jenna123456789 @crispymcniall @arsyao @phantomxoxo @noobmaster6931 @ohlahlaa @c0rpsecore @rafegirly @darleneslane @annalisenelson @nataliambc @amorydsmt @slytherinholland @hstylesmermaid @harrysdimples05 @xxbaby-dollxx @neilakk @xxx-betty

[theoncomingchaos]

Who loves Rook: Spite or Lucanis

I've been seeing a lot of discourse about this, and I just want to add my thoughts.

I might be totally wrong about this, but here we go. When Spite was put into Lucanis, he was still Determination. The fact that he changed throughout the torture, forced insertion, and imprisonment suggests to me that they have been put into a speedrun of a similar situation to Anders and Justice/Vengeance where they have started to meld. (As Anders put it, you wouldn't know where one begins and the other ends). Just like Anders and Vengeance, Lucanis and Spite can have separate consciousnesses and even disagree about things, but their core values have started to influence one another and become a part of one another- heightening certain aspects.

I think this melding is why we see some dialogues where Rook tells Lucanis that he sounds like Spite and similarly it's also the reason for the shared attraction- which I fully believe is coming originally from Lucanis.

I'll be honest my first time through I romanced Lucanis and was very disappointed. I didn't even see him and Neve ever flirt (she only ever encouraged us!) But still, it seemed to go from 0 to 60 with him. Now, I am on my second playthrough and I only just met him, but I am starting to see some really subtle looks and dialogues that suggest that Lucanis wasn't lying later when he said he was attracted to Rook from the beginning, but was afraid to really pursue anything or even acknowledge the possibility of being with them. With his fear of trusting people, ptsd from the prison, failed history in romance, and his new situation with Spite that he still hadn't worked out yet, he never thought anything would or could ever come of his feelings. We know Lucanis loves romance stories and likely longs for one of his own, but in such a situation it must have seemed truly impossible and terrifying to let someone else in. Especially someone you really care for and are starting to trust. So, he pushed it all down. Rook flirts? Maybe a small smile, but then quickly lock it all up with everything else he can't handle. Focus on work. Don't think about Spite, or Rook, or anything difficult.

However, if the melding has already happened as I suspect, then the feelings Spite is expressing are shared with (and likely sourced from) Lucanis, he's just better at expressing it directly- which makes sense for a spirit that was once Determination. When you first talk to Lucanis after the rescue, the thing Spite says about Rook changes accordingly to your tone, but to me the responses still sound like they come from Lucanis and are then echoed in Spite: "He doesn't want to hurt us." Even the "He's more fun than you" is something Lucanis seems to think about himself as he is fully aware that much of his life has not been his own and believes "all he knows is death."

Leading back to the main point, Lucanis's trust and interest in Rook would be heightened by Spite the way Anders' anger towards the templars was heightened. Even though they are finally free from the prison, their is a sense of constant suffering from still feeling trapped by fear, regret, and pain- Spite feels that suffering too. The elements of determination are still within him the same way justice is another side to vengeance. Both spite and vengeance are the results of failing to achieve their goals of Justice and Determination. Spite sees Rook as a way to free them from pain and restraint, a glowing and beautiful key to the prison door, and he is determined to do what needs to be done to solve the problem. That's why he doesn't hesitate. He has no fear. He wants to talk to Rook. He wants Rook to come in and free them.

After Rook has freed them, they become a source of comfort and safety, once they encourage Lucanis and Spite to find a way to cohabit comfortably, the two continue to meld, and the need to protect Rook, to love Rook, to keep them, is very deeply shared. Now, IF Spite was somehow removed or even somehow restored (Both of which I think are impossible) that would likely change. Determination outside of Lucanis would likely become more like Compassion. He would likely forget the horrors he experienced to return to his original purpose.

So, that leaves some final questions, particularly one Hawke helpfully asked Anders- Is Spite an unwilling party in the threesome?

That's up to everyone's own morality. While both Spite and Lucanis didn't have a choice to become like this, it is the situation they are in and the way they have to find a way to accept and live with because there really doesn't seem to be any real way to change it. Through their time together, Lucanis and Spite have influenced each other and grown into something new. Part of that is Spite also loving Rook. In that way, for those who are feeling (rightfully) underwhelmed by Lucanis's romance, Spite can almost be seen as a symbolic expression of Lucanis's love.

All that being said, I think there were some small things they could have done to make the romance more satisfying over all...but I'll save that for another post.

[morbethgames]

Halloween Special, Current Projects, New Patreon Content

I am so sorry about the radio silence as of late. Between the stuff earlier this week (yes, that stuff), dealing with deaths of people, and university; I've been very busy and mentally drained. However, the good news is, you can play the mini game of The Bureau, "Witchy Woman" right now! The link is at the bottom of this post! Eventually I'll integrate it into the main game, or put it out as potential free DLC or something, but for now there are no stats and it's not tied to choices from the base game.

Tonight is a special case. The MCT has been called in as a favor after finishing up our most recent case. A friend of Kris's reached out, and the local P.D. has let the MCT take the lead on this one. A house party in the beginning of October up in Maine has turned sour. A party-goer has been reported deceased.

We just finished a job, but in this line of work, there's always another case to solve. So here I am, approaching the residence with my team, about to find out exactly what happened on this cold, damp night.

Because it's not part of a bigger game or story, and the only pacing I had to worry about was that of the investigation, this is much more freeflow than other investigations in the main story. Go back and forth between the crime scene, the perimeter of the house, interrogations, and more! The more you discover evidence, the more new options will unlock in conversations, and you have an evidence log in the stats section that updates every time you find out something relevant to the case.

I'm only promoting this now, even though it's been done for a couple of weeks, because it was part of a Jam and I didn't think it would be fair if I got votes from a community built over a few years when others in the Jam would not have had that same benefit. I wanted it to be an even playing field, even if it meant holding out for a bit. So, I apologize for making you all wait.

There are still things I'd like to do for this game, things I'll end up adding, but it is at the very least ready to play. It's 40k words, so have at it!

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Right, next up, something I'd like to announce. I'm working on a serialized fiction that I'm (hopefully) planning to turn into a book. The first 3 chapters are going to be posted for free, both here on my blog and on my Patreon, though not quite yet. Chapters after that will be released on Patreon for the people who pay the $5 tier.

I'll be honest, it has been extremely cathartic to go from writing an IF where the chapters are all pretty much the length of a book themselves, to writing an actual book where a chapter is about 4k words. It's a very nice breath of fresh air, and it by no means, entails that I will stop working on Bureau. In fact, it may even help speed up rate of production, funnily enough. Having something to keep my mind turning while having writer's block about a scene in the IF will help me constantly generate ideas, and that's really nice to think about.

A small college town is rocked by a horrific murder. In wake of the events, a couple of friends begin investigating this personal tragedy, determined to get to the bottom of what happened at the Scribe City college. The lesson is quickly thrust upon them that loss leads to pain, but pain is temporary, and loss can be forever. So what comes after the pain? They need to explore that journey together, and in the process, navigate the complicated things feelings that have started to bloom.

The book (serialized fiction for now) , called Love In Stasis, is going to be a 'WLW romance small town college murder mystery'. You will explore the relationships that these characters have and continue to form, and just how messy things get when tragedy sparks love. I have almost 25k words done for it, about six and a half chapters, and I'm going to try to get 50k words done with it by the end of the month. A writing challenge that's totally not tied to the name of any organizations.

If this works out, I could reward patrons with static fiction while not having to worry about providing everyone with constant things tied to the IF itself, and I could work on The Bureau at a pace I'm very comfortable with.

I'm still learning as a writer. I'm still learning new things I like, and how I like to produce content. All I know is that I like producing art in the form of writing, and I most certainly will not stop doing that anytime soon, and now that the Halloween Special is done, I will be getting back to the base game.

Which will start with a complete recoding of the gender variables. I've already started on that process, so no more multiple versions of each chapter. One version. One set of gender variables. Much more condensed coding and script. So, people out there who said that wasn't going to change, I just have to say what I'd said all along. My coding was indeed bad. However I will also say something else I've said all along. I do take criticism.

That being said I'm never using multi-replace and you can't make me. I like being able to read what I'm writing.

More to come in the near future.

Stay Brilliant,

-Vi

https://cogdemos.ink/play/viisbae/the-bureau-halloween-special-witchy-woman

Patreon Link

[quirkwizard]

Final Chapter: A Look at the Ending of MHA

With the manga of My Hero Academia finally coming to a close, I thought I'd give my opinions about how the series ended. I will be covering everything from Chapter 424 to Chapter 430. This is going to mix my thoughts on the ending, a proposed rewrite, and a lot of responses to people's criticism towards it. Because I'm going to be real with you all: the past two months have been the most frustrating and exhausting experience I've had with this fan base. 

I have been writing this since the finale ended. In that time, I've been listening and taking in all the discourse of fans in order to make a more informed opinion. It's been miserable trying to read through all the thoughts people had about the finale. The sheer amount of opinions that were based off misinformation or misreadings of the series has been staggering. So, if I sound more exhausted or if the writing comes across as more scattershot then when I normally do something like that, that's the reason. And, as always, if you have anything you want to discuss, whether it be about the post or the ending, feel free to ask about it.

Review

Miscellaneous Notes:

So there are some bits of the story I wanted to talk about, but didn't feel the need to include full on diatribes about.

-Oh hey, Koichi from Vigilantes is here, that's so- and he's gone.

-Even when Izuku is his peer, Aizawa still finds time to be a jerk to his students.

-Mirio is the number one hero. Makes sense, but it does feel out of nowhere with how little Mirio has been relevant up until now.

-How on Earth is Miriko still working, let alone as a hero? She's down three limbs and in arguably worse shape then Enji.

-Man, they are really taking Kai to task these past few arcs, aren't they? I mean, I get why, but jeez. It's honestly sad to see what's been done with his character.

-I like how All Might's light returned to his eyes. It's a good way to show him getting his spirit back after all this time and reigniting hope in himself..

-So if Eri's horn is back, does that mean her power is back? Kind of wish we had something saying about why she isn't healing people. I get if it's her choice or the recipients choice not to do so, but there needs to be something for that.

Hospital Visit

This works as little cool down from the big battle, especially since we really needed to see some of the immediate consequences on the main characters. I actually like a lot of the stuff with Bakugou. After all this, he finally understands Izuku, shown by them getting similar injuries, and lets himself be emotionally vulnerable about wanting the two to be rivals. And we finally got some thoughts on part of Izuku here, like his regret about seemingly failing to save Tomura and how he doesn't feel hurt about losing out on "One For All". How he's glad that he even got this chance in the first place. I do feel the need to mention All Might saying that Izuku saved the "soul" of Tomura. I think a lot of people missed or ignored that line. It's important to Tomura's death, but I'll get more into that later.

Speaking of consequences, I don't mind Izuku losing out on "One For All". In the grander scheme of things, "One For All" doesn't need to be a thing anymore. With "All For One" gone, it no longer has a purpose to exist. And as we've all seen with All Might, someone holding that much power over he world is a problem, regardless of whether it's used for good or evil. Having it gone helps even the playing field and will push for the idea that people should rely on themselves and each other instead of focusing all on a single symbol. What's more, I think Izuku having to sacrifice it and lose it gives the ending a lot more weight. Because Izuku sacrificed the thing that made him a hero in order to stop Shigaraki. To me, that's one of the most defining aspects of a hero: the willingness to sacrifice something important to themselves to help others.

UA Stuff

All of the things happening at UA are fine.  I do like that Aoyama chose to leave 1-A of his own volition instead of being forced out. Plus, now Shinso is in the Hero Course. Good for him. I've never been all that invested in Shino's story, but this is a good way to get him into Class 1-A without making an exception or replacing any of the core cast members. I liked Mirio's graduation speech. I think it works with his arc of trying to inspire other people and trying to honor Sir Nighteye's memory. And they got to have their own little party. That's nice.

Honestly, I find myself having very little to say about all of this, at least the parts within the school itself. I'm all for a calm after the storm to talk about what happened and to build up characters. I'm honestly glad we're back at the school to help ground things after that massive battle. But I think there may have been too much time spent on this. It just feels a little longer than what's needed. Like the bits with the cotton girl feel like they weren't needed for the story and could have been better used setting up or wrapping up something else.

Todoroki Family Prison Visit

The Todoroki family drama has always been one of the stronger plotlines, especially in the latter half of the series. And I believe that it ended on a pretty strong note. It's to the point where I struggle to really say much about the resolution of it.  I do like how Shoto asks for something as basic as his favorite food. I also like how Dabi let go of his hatred towards Shoto, who was as much of a victim as he was in all of this, but still held on to it for Endeavor. Because in spite of what a lot of fans seem to think, the manga does take Enji to task and isn't saying he should be forgiven.

Dabi being in this condition is pretty awful, but I concede that it was necessary for him to have a resolution with the other Todorokis. I'll get to my thoughts on the condition of the villains later in the post. So for now I'll just say the metal coffin looks equal parts cool and horrific. I think it's too long at least in the wrong places. I understand that this is an important part of the story. But when it takes up so much of the chapter it's in, I feel like at least something should have been given to the other family members. They aren't the main players of the subplot, but they still could have used some resolution.

Afterburn

Now, there are those who say Enji got off too easy. Uh, no, he didn't. The man lost everything he strived for in the number one position, something that turned out to be totally hollow, and is left severely injured after the battle, due in large part to Dabi. Now the only thing that would bring his life purpose, his family, is all torn apart by his own actions. Now he's resigned himself to seeing his dying son, who hates him with every burnt fiber of his being, every day until Dabi dies. Enji's punishment is to live on, knowing what he did and failing to ever put his family back together. That's not a happy ending, that's a sentencing.

Which is something I do find frustrating about the end of their arc. While we get solid conclusions with Natsuo and Dabi, how Shoto, Fuyumi, and especially Rei feel about all this and their relationship with Enji is ambiguous at best. At least with Shoto and Fuymui, we had some idea of where they stood with their father before now, but Rei is still not clear. I'm not sure about the implications with Rei and whether she's still with Enji. I choose to think that she isn't just trying to help him out in the few panels we see them together, but it's not exactly clear. Which certainly does leave the door open for some... less than favorable interpretations.

Commissioner Hawks

I'm not sure how to feel about Keigo's conclusion. On the one hand, I don't mind where he ended up as the head of the Hero Commission. It's still a way for him to help heroes to make their lives easier without getting involved as a hero. And if there is anyone that can clean up the Hero Commission, it's the guy that's worked under them his entire life. On the other hand though, it does kind of feel like he did got off scott free for a lot of the stuff he did while under the Hero Commission, namely killing Twice. It never feels like Hawks personally was taken to task for his part in all of this. So now we have a murderer as the head of the Hero Commission. 

It doesn't matter if he was under orders to do it or not, nor if there were extreme circumstances that pushed him to such actions. The pragmatic side of me does see the reasoning of that, but the story enforces that what Hawks did is a bad thing and does so constantly. Nothing about the manga takes Hawks to task for what he did or makes it feel like he's been punished for that. He may have lost his Quirk, but we don't really know how he feels about that. Which is weird considering how much of his life came from having that Quirk. Unless his comment about not being ashamed of his "filthy wings" as long as he got to help Tokoyami? Maybe it will make more sense on another read.

Spinner and Izuku

I feel like this scene is pretty underrated. Heck, it may even cemented Spinner as one of my favorite villains. To me, it really goes to show the tragedy at the core of Spinner's character. That, for all of his desire to change things or help out his friends, he was too weak to see any change made for himself. So he attached himself to idols like Stain or Tomura. He was always manipulated or pulled by something else. Whether it be the radicalization of Stain or the machinations of All For One, his hopes were used against him, his mindless actions given meaning by peons. All it did was lose him everything. He was, ultimately, a kid who was in over his head and was turned into a monster because of it. The monster everyone saw him as.

And while I've heard some people complain about Tomura only having a message for Spinner, I think that's more about the relationship Tomura had with the rest of the League. They were aligned together for a mutual goal and had some care for one another, but I don't think they ever understood or were close to one another. Spinner is the only one Tomura had any kind of real closeness. That's the whole point of the gamer line, as silly as it was. So, while to the rest of the League, he was Shigaraki, the force of destruction and change, to Spinner, he was Tomura, a friend who he wanted to fight for. My only issue, again, is some unfortunate openness with the ending. Spinner writing a book to spite the heroes is fine, but it leaves this unfortunate implication that this book will be used to radicalize more people. I don't think that is the intention, but again, it's not very clear.

Everyone Do Your Share

I was originally frustrated by how much of the final chapters spent on the cleaning up of things, especially since there were so few chapters left. However, looking back, I do feel it's pretty important to reinforce the idea of everyone trying to help in their own way, no matter how big or small it may be. And in doing so, show the changes on every level possible. It's there to show how things are changing by how people act and see heroes. We've got the civilians doing their part to help the heroes, and we've got the next generation changing their perspective on heroism. All thanks to Class 1-A and their efforts. It's just a nice and efficient way to show things changing from a broader perspective.

Which leads me to the stitch mouth kid. I saw people begging that this kid would be the new Tomura and show that society is still bad and broken. As if something like that wouldn't undermine the entire point of the ending. The whole point is that anyone can be a hero in any way, as long as you are willing to reach out and help others. And people who see a problem can and should do something to help people. They should help when they have the chance before it is too late. So having the old woman reach out to help another lost child is a nice way to tie up that point. And the whole point of all this is that the heroes, especially Izuku, don't need to do everything themselves. 

The More Things Change

Many people were upset of the idea of aspects like hero rankings and the Hero Commission not being abolished by the time the series ended. I disagree. I never thought that the rankings themselves were bad or wrong, nor did I think the story ever shows that the rankings are bad. That only seemed to be an issue with Enji and that had a lot of personal issues behind it. Every other hero seemed to be perfectly content to do hero work regardless of the rankings. Now, the Hero Commission, I can understand more. It's shown to be morally gray with its power. However, I don't think the existence of this kind of system is inherently wrong. Having oversight to heroes isn't a bad idea. It's just that the usage of it use to a lot of problems. And most of those people that propagated it are dead and gone.

Further still, there are people that say nothing has changed in the setting. That, since these systems are still in place, it's always going to be like this. Again, I disagree. Because of the massive devastation wrought by Tomura, it gave Japan a fresh start with the current generation. This gives the country the chance to overhaul those systems, even if they are still around. At the end of the day, systems are made up of and by people. The story makes it clear many times how important it is to win the crowd over. And if you win the hearts and minds of the people, it could go on to propagate massive change to the system. If enough people want to change and push for it, things will change. Saying that "things didn't change because systems can't be changed" is such a horrifically pessimistic take on the ending.

The Death of Villains

I've mentioned it before, and I'll say it again: I don't mind Toga dying. By extension, I don't mind the villains dying either. While it may seem tragic and pointless for her to die, I do think that is kind of that point. And no, I don't think this means that she "couldn't be saved". I think it's more of a tragedy. She was the one that people could have been saved before, but it was far too late to help her given how far she had gone. And her dying isn't a failing of that. Because Toga's ultimate goal was to live and die on her own terms. Specifically, being able to express herself and her "love". And to a lesser degree, to have someone try to understand her. I think her dying to save Uraraka is a good end to her character. By extension, that's how I feel about a lot of the villains' deaths in this. They got what they wanted, tragically died in order to see it through to the end. At least there's some peace for them, in that respect.

There's also a matter of "saving". I think a lot of fans took this too literally. To me, "saving" was more about reaching out and trying to understand villains rather than simply fighting them. "Saving" was never going to be the same as "redeeming". Because let's be real, there is no redeeming these people. Not because they can't be redeemed, it's because they don't want to be redeemed, and I think it'd betray their characters to do so. They are unapologetically bad and have hurt a lot of people. Every member of the League is complicit in the deaths of thousands and throwing an entire country into chaos. They aren't wrong for fighting the system, they're wrong for killing countless people to do so. And I have to ask what the other options are? You either have them be forgiven and turn good, which would be insane given the crimes they committed and their characters, or have them locked up forever, which is a fate worse than death. At least in death they can have some form of peace by escaping the consequences of their actions and all the suffering they went through.

Izuku x Uraraka:

Yeah, I'm kind of confused about why it turned out like this. I'm ignoring all the shipping concerns that come from it. I'm more focused on the story and characters. The whole idea of Uraraka and Toga's shared story was about understanding your feelings, both towards yourself and other people. Especially how bad it is to repress and hide your feelings. The whole catalyst of Toga's story was her being forced to repress herself. So having this whole subplot end like this is really odd if Uraraka doesn't express her feelings. That's not mentioning all the hints, setups, and teasing that pushed these two as a potential couple that fell through by not having any conclusion. I honestly wonder why Hori, or his editors, decided to back down like this. 

Which, hey, now may not be the best time for a confession, but it's still jarring not to see anything come of it after all this time. Especially since so much of the chapter is about the two talking about their feelings. So why is it written like this? Now, I want to dismiss the popular concept that Hori changed this because of death threats between the two. While it's not something I'd put past obsessive fans, there hasn't been anything to substantiate the claim. So, barring rogue translators, my only guess is that Hori or an editor didn't want to do the reveal now and wanted to focus more on the important parts of the two's connection about inspiring one another. I can understand that, but it feels like a part of their dynamic is missing without any real acknowledgment of the two's feelings.

Izuku and Uraraka:

And I say all that to preface that I do like a lot of this scene and I do think it's important to each of the characters. Because Ochako is being open with her feelings here. It's just not the feelings that were being set up all the way in the first chapter. It's the two trying to connect and come to terms with their own failings with their villains. Only to have Izuku reach out his hand, reaffirming that sometimes all people need is a small act of kindness. Though it's hard to always do that, he's willing to do it because he's just that good of a guy. And having Izuku say that Uraraka is his hero is more heartfelt and important to these characters and the story at large then any confession could have been. 

And then we have the rest of Class 1-A coming to help as well. It works as a good parallel to Uraraka saving Izuku back during the Dark Hero Arc. It fits with the idea of heroes saving and helping one another. My only major issue is that I kind of wish we had gotten a little more with Izuku talking about his own feelings regarding Tomura, but we already got that back in Chapter 424. All and All: am I still disappointed that Izuku and Uraraka didn't have any romantic resolution? Kind of. It's less that I wanted them to get together and more I wanted some kind of resolution for it. But I still think what we got is good and that people are focusing way too much on what isn't there than what is there. Which I feel like is a problem with a lot of the ending, but we'll get to that.

Class 1-A Futures:

I do wish we got to see more of the future of Class 1-A, even if they were brief snippets. There are glimpses of Shoto and Bakugou. Bakguou's is alright, and I do like the final bit about no one connecting Shoto and Endeavor. I think that's a good ending for him. The most we get with any kind of detail are Shoji's and Urarak's groups. And I guess Shoji had a good future? Look, the Heteromorph plotline is arguably one of the worst parts of the whole manga. It may even be worse than the Stars and Stripes arc. So I can't exactly muster a lot of enthusiasm seeing it resolved by Shoji in the end. I suppose him thanking the people at the riot was nice? That whole part of the story honestly deserves its own post talking about it.

On the flip side, I'm fine with Uraraka's ending. Because I think people tend to conflate a lot of what makes up "Quirk Counseling", mostly thanks to people like Curious and Toga. One is part of a cult that wants to destroy society and the other most grievously targeted by it. From what we've actually seen of it, such as Tamaki's flashback, it just seems to be a lot of training and understanding your Quirk. Toga was just an unfortunate case where the system as it was couldn't help her and could only try and fit her into a niche. So I don't think expanding it is that big of a problem. Plus, expanding could include more extensive counseling that is more tailored to each child. I do think it's kind of odd that Iida and Momo seem to be stapled on to this ending, though. I'm not sure how this works as an end for either of them. I guess their roles as leaders of the class?

Great Teacher Izuku

Look, I don't mind Izuku having this job. Do I think there could have been other choices for this? Yes, but this is by no means bad. Being a teacher is a lot more respectable in Eastern cultures. Especially since he's teaching at the best hero school in the country, if not the world, it is certainly a high-profile job. And he is still being a hero in his own way and helping out the next generation as a teacher. More importantly, I still think that Izuku achieved his dream of being the greatest hero. The man brought down the greatest villain in human history and was one of the two people responsible for causing a massive shift in the way the world of heroes works. He is truly the world's greatest hero. There is no debating that. This is like some kid wanting to go to space to be the greatest astronaut. They not only go to space, they're the first person on Mars. They also stop the martins from invading Earth, killing the king of the martins, and save humanity. Now injured, they instead teach other cadets how to be astronauts. Would they not have success in their goal of being the greatest astronaut? I don't think anyone could match up with that.

However, my issue is with everything surrounding it. There isn't any set up for him becoming a teacher. It gives us the sense that this was the back-up option for when his real dreams feel through. Especially since Izuku gave everything he could to try and be a hero, and it doesn't happen until the very end of this manga. Which doesn't seem like the intention, since Izuku seems happy enough, but I heard a lot of people saying that. It's lacking in that catharsis and satisfaction that you'd expect from an ending. But you can have an ending that's not exactly happy and still be cathartic, and I think that still applies here. And another problem I have is that he's teaching at UA. Yes, he's helping out the next generation of heroes, but he's not helping out the people that need it most. The kind of people who don't make it into UA. The kind of people like Tomura, Spinner, and Twice. Those are the kind of people that should be getting help like this. Why not put him in a position with a much greater ability to help people? Finally, wasn't the whole point of All Might's arc? That there are other ways to be heroes and life outside of hero work? Why not have that aspect of the story be resolve with him instead of Izuku? He was already going down that route to begin with. Why repeat the same idea?

Walk and Talk

Again, I'm going to have to counter a major talking point I've seen in the fanbase. No, Izuku is not unhappy in his job. He seems to enjoy it and is in fact very good at it, as seen when talking to his students and the plate kid, Dai. He's only unhappy in one panel, in which he's being talked down to by Aizawa. No, Izuku is not forgotten by the world. He's mentioned in the same breath as some of the greatest heroes in the series, has his own statue with the rest of Class 1-A, and is so famous that people know his real name and is of such mythical status that people question if he is real. No, Izuku's friends did not abandon him. The most that Izuku says about that is that it's difficult for all twenty members to get together. He's still probably seeing them in smaller numbers. And I can tell you as someone who has had trouble even getting a quarter of that number of people into a single time slot, it's going to be difficult to get twenty people with separate schedules and lives together.

As for everything with Dai, it's fine. His perspective is pretty important as we get to see the changing worldview. With the demystification of heroes and the elevation of other roles in helping others, young people are now all getting into different fields. The talk around the statue is pretty good as well. Having Izuku effectively talk to a younger version of himself is a good way to close out his arc and all the insecurities he's had over the manga. However, part of me feels like this kind of talk should be done with the stitch-mouth kid. We do actually see him as a part of UA students with Kota. I think having Izuku end up talking to him about his Quirk could have been a good way to end his arc by having him be able to help someone similar. Not to say that the Dai stuff was bad or pointless. It just feels odd to include the guy that's supposed to be the metaphorical spirit of Tomura, put him in Izuku's class, and have them not interact.

The Suit

Again, this is another point where I don't have a major issue with it. At least, I don't have an issue getting the suit itself. I have some issues with the semantics. Did it take too long to build? I wouldn't say that. It was revealed in a piece by Horikoshi that it took all of All Might's vast resources to build, and it lacked a lot of the proper safety features. Having it take some time before it's battle ready for Izuku makes sense. However, that isn't in the manga, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe this makes more sense in the volumes, where stuff like this is included all the time. For real though, these people built this in secret for eight years, and they are just now letting him find out. Was there really no explanation you could have added to make that make more sense?

It creates this odd juxtaposition of endings as well. It gives the feeling of the story wanting to have its cake and eat it as well. Someone wanted Izuku come to terms with being Quirkless and to have a life outside of hero work. The other person wanted Izuku to still fight and be a hero. I also wonder why not just have be both at the same time instead of doing this twist. Make it clear that heroes have a lot more time, both thanks to Hawks and the contributions of the many heroes in the world all working together. Izuku doesn't need to be a full-time hero to save people and chooses to be a teacher to help people in a way that only he can do. That way, he can still be a hero that isn't necessarily the profession while being a professional hero without a Quirk.

Final Thoughts

Now, what are my final options for all of this? I think that ending was pretty solid, leaning good. I do agree that it's better than what is on offer than a lot of shōnen series and a good enough ending for the story. I'm not saying it's amazing or perfect. Though I do find myself more satisfied than frustrated. I get a lot of what the story is going for, and it makes sense. It just needed some refinement to really work. As for what everyone else has said about it, I honestly think that a lot of people are overreacting. I wouldn't go as far as to say people are "lacking media literacy" or that they are "reading in bad faith" like others have on either side of the debate. I just think this as a case where the context and delivery of it resulted in a lot of confusion. And more often than not, people will tend to go with the worst version of the implications. This is not helped by the leaks and bad translations which fans ran away with, as well the built-up hype and headcanons, which poisoned the well for a lot of people.

However, I cannot deny that there is part of the fanbase that is simply not getting the manga. I don't want to use the word "tourist", because that's a No True Scotsman fallacy, but it's starting to feel applicable here. The people who simply aren't reading the manga, whether it be through engaging with it solely through other people talking about it, or trying to look at it anything beyond the most kneejerk and surface level reactions. Because a lot of people tend to conflate what My Hero Academia is about or what its story is conveying. And unfortunately, those are the people with massive followings. Anyone with a differing opinion is drowned out in the sea of angry comments. And I think we really need to get away from that. What I'm saying is that you read the story as it is. Focus on what is happening and what it is trying to say. Don't force a meaning or headcanon on something that wasn't there and don't rely on word of mouth for what the manga is about. Just focus on what the story is trying to say.

My only hope is that this will pass, and calmer heads will win out. That once it's stepped outside the zeitgeist, people will be able to analyze it as a whole. If not, then I'm terrified to think that this will become My Hero Academia's legacy: a bunch of stupid jokes made by people who can't bother to read the official version of the story or try to understand a culture outside their own even when it plays a vital role within the story. If not, then I can hope that maybe something else will come to replace it. Because I'm not sure if this is truly the end. I've heard rumors that there's going to be something akin to Naruto: The Last or the Naruto Wedding Special coming out after the anime ends. If not that, who knows who other kinds of side material will come out to follow up on the world or characters. Which would make sense. The ending doesn't feel like an ending as much as it does "And the adventure continues." Which could be why I'm not as affected by this ending as other people.

There's certainly the cultural side and how that surrounds the manga. I'll always stand by the fact that this manga is a Japanese story by a Japanese author for a Japanese audience. And there's a lot of cultural context that goes into the series. I keep thinking about how a lot of Japanese fans seemed to like the ending and how much I wished I had the context to understand it. Another part of it is how much I'm thinking about Hori. Because for all the popularity of it, being a mangaka is one of the most stressful jobs in Japan. One where the artist has much less say over how their story goes. I'm so curious about what went on behind the scenes to make My Hero Academia turn out the way it is. Was all this Hori fumbling his own story, whether that be through incompetence or failing health, or were there outside forces pressing on him to do things a certain way? It's like how people became more forgiving of Kubo or Toriyama once they found out how hamstrung they were by their higher ups. I suppose only time will tell.

Rewrite

Now, time for the Rewrite portion. As a reminder, I do try to keep to what the manga does as close as possible. For example, I personally would just let Izuku keep some version of "One For All" if the ultimate conclusion was him still being a hero. However, it's obvious that Hori didn't want to go that route with it, so I'll be sticking to him getting with the suit.

Starting things off, we'll be in the hospital with Izuku and All Might recovering. We're told about "One For All" leaving him, and we'll get some reaction from Izuku about it. He will be sad but resolved. He may not have "One For All", but he's still alive. He's got the skill and will to help people without it. And he still wants to do that, even in his own way, because he still has value without "One For All". This could help soften the blow of Izuku losing out on "One For All". That and it's at least something to try to tie up Izuku's self worth issues. This will also be something confirmed by Inko, putting a nice little bow on all this with her being more properly encouraging of Izuku as opposed to how things were in Chapter 1.

Then we're going to reveal how many people want to talk to Izuku. Reporters are going to be hounding Izuku for his story, considering how he was key in stopping Tomura. Which he obviously can't do right now due to his condition. After some time, he will eventually recover enough to give a press conference. This will also be where we get the varying opinions on Tomura, having a panel overwhelming Izuku with questions and thoughts. Izuku is now going to use his newly found position to try and change things for the better. He's going to emphasize the importance of the role of the other heroes and not have it all focus on him. He's going to use it as a platform to talk about who Tomura was and why he did what he did.

It's going to be something emotional and vulnerable, something propping up Izuku as a person rather than the hero Deku, working to prevent another situation like All Might where everyone keeps putting them on pedestals. This way, we have both the validation of Izuku saving everyone and wanting to bring about change on the societal level. It shows him being a hero in the traditional way with the defeat of All For One, now he's being a hero in the non-traditional way. This will be cutting into some of the time we have at UA, but to me, I don't think a lot of what's in that part is ultimately necessary to what the story is trying to say.

For the sake of this, Hawks will still be working as the head of the Hero Commission. He'll talk about how he feels free now that his Quirk is gone and everything that came with it, more so than ever before. However, he still wants to make life easier for heroes so that they can feel this kind of freedom. He initially didn't want the position, but felt the need to take it on after everything that's happened and make things right, implying the guilt he feels over his actions. Plus, it has some nice irony of Hawks still being trapped within the Hero Commissions. So him taking the role is more of his own penance and a punishment.

So while Izuku is fighting on the public front, changing the hearts of the masses to enact change, Hawks will be fighting on the political and systematic front, using the devastation of the country as a fresh start. He'll encourage groups of heroes to work together rather than focusing on the individual. He'll push for a greater level of training or vetting when it comes to people who can get a license for hero work. Most importantly, a greater level of accountability and transparency in both heroes and the Hero Commission as a whole.

Lady Nagant will remain in jail, but it's more for reasons of atonement rather than wanting to wait and see how things play out. Hawks will try to offer her some deal or reduction as a way to make things right, but she feels like it's the right thing to do rather than trying to pretend it never happened. This will also be the part where we explore some of the points with Hawks we talked about earlier. Lady Nagant can even question if the Hero Commission is needed, but Hawks can talk about all the reforms he wants to do with it.

For Chapter 426, we're shortening the Todoroki family time, and it will only take up half of the chapter. I will have some confirmation on whether or not Rei was able to move on from what Enji did and do more to cement how Enji is alone now. He may be resolved to change and make things right, but he is not getting his family back. That ship has sailed. Instead, we'll be sticking to everything involving Hawks and Toshinori in the latter half of this, with him talking to Lady Nagant and him discussing his plans for changing the ranking systems in general. I think it'd flow a lot better, works with tying up another character so closely tied to the Todorokis, and gives us more time for other stuff.

However, we're keeping 427 mostly intact. I think Spinner's material is good, and everything that got brought up needed to be mentioned one way or another. The most I'd do is cut down on the ending gag, since it frustrates me so much, and some of the interviews since we may not need them as much with how I'll be changing things in those sections. I am removing the Kai part of the chapter as well. I like Kai, but this honestly feels pointless in the grand scheme of things.

The biggest change will be that I'll include a bit where, instead of Izuku saying to make it a comic book, he'll remind Spinner to think about what would happen if someone like Spinner read it. About how important a book like that could be and how it should be written, but also how it could hurt someone who reads it. Spinner will remain silent in response, thinking back on how he saw Stain and how he was puppeteered around by the likes of One For All and the PLF during the Final War.

I think you could do a nice parallel between Izuku and Spinner here. They were two young men who were ultimately racialized and hurt by their idols and their lack of self-worth. Again, it's showing Izuku thinking about himself more with what has happened to him and tying that to Spinner's own situation. Plus, it prevents something like Spinner's book from having the unfortunate implication of turning out to something like the MLA book.

We're cutting Chapters 428 and 429 in half and stitching them together. Specifically, all the stuff with the new Class 1-A and the Old Class 1-A will be removed. I just feel like we don't need to focus on this as much as other parts of the world or story. Preferably, I would want them to get together. With the Bakugou and Shoto being seen bit, we're throwing in Izuku as well. There needs to be some confirmation that people did in fact see him as a hero as well and confirm that the three are in fact the new Big Three of UA. I'm not asking this to be the norm of it like they do in Naruto. I just feel like there should be some external validation.

The fight between Toga and Uraraka will be around and released to the public. Her death will be seen as something tragic to the world and help spark the change we see later on with people empathizing with villains like her. This could also lead to Izuku seeing it and being the impetus for Izuku and Ochako talking about their feelings. Yes, this chapter will include a confession for Ochako to Izuku. It won't be during a breakdown, but it needs to be put in somewhere and might as well be here. I'll even settle for an implication. Up to you on whether or not you think this should solidify them as a couple, but I feel like you have to include that in order to complete all of the set-up in the series and especially with Toga.

The new Chapter 429 will instead be a two-year time jump into the future before everyone is graduating. We can still start it off with some of the "where are they now" bits, but not have it take up too much time. With the final embers of "One For All" starting to fade out, Izuku knows this is the end of him as a proper hero, but it doesn't matter to him. He got to be the greatest hero in history who literally saved the world. He doesn't define himself by having a Quirk or not and knows that he can still help people without a costume on. Izuku plans on either going into counseling, charity work, or even trying to get a job at the Hero Commission. Up to you on this one. He still wants to help and stop the various hurting people of the world from ever becoming like anyone from the League ever again. Make it clear this is something Izuku wants.

This is when Toshinori gives him his graduation gift: the suit. Between Toshinori's remaining resources, gifts and gratitude from the various people across the world, and contributions from members of 1-A, they were able to build him the suit. Toshinori kept it from Izuku because it wasn't ready until a few days ago, needing to be properly prepared and built as opposed to the rush job that was the dangerous prototype he used. Izuku, of course, has notes and ideas for improvements on the suit. Toshinori reaffirms that Izuku earned this, and he will still be a worthy hero and successor, Quirkless or otherwise. The chapter ends with Class 1-A and 1-B graduating. I know that two years seems short, but I think that the timespan is enough of a time gap to get the suit together, at least with how I am setting it up, and to have the embers of "One For All" fade. 

The alternative route is that, knowing that the embers are running out, Izuku still wants to be a hero. So he's spent the last two years trying to prepare himself for that, putting as much time into training and learning how to use equipment made for him. He doesn't care if he isn't going to be the top hero. He's going to do what he's already been doing: helping people, because that's all he really wanted out of life. That this whole experience changed how he saw himself and hero work. You could even say that it's the prototype for him, eventually becoming the suit. Maybe even combine them both, with the former being a backup plan after hero work. And while I have never been the biggest fan of the whole "Quirkless Hero" concept with how little it's supported in the world, I think we can let it slide because it's the finale. But I wanted to mention it because I thought it'd be an interesting path for the story to take.

Then the real chapter 430 will cut to the future, roughly five to six years. I could take or leave Izuku being a teacher, but for the sake of this, let's say that he is one. Heroes have more time off, so he decides to help educate people. We'll get a similar series of panels that will focus more on the world with how it is now, mainly in relation to Class 1-A. This will show a lot more of how the 1-A kids have grown and the affects they have on the world, like Uraraka actually interacting and helping a kid like Toga come to terms with their power to show how Quirk Counseling has become a tool to help people. I think we really need more scenes like that to really show that things have grown and changed with the world. Izuku's suit will have changed as well, commenting on how much he's been involved with the modeling and planning throughout his most current iteration.

Toshinori will be living his life and still teaching at UA. He talks about how all the kids want to be like Izuku, especially with Kota, and that they never stop talking about him. He jokes to himself about how he feels like he's been forgotten. Cut back to Izuku's old school with the kid in the back. Events will happen similarly to what they did in Chapter 430, with Izuku meeting a kid similar to himself at All Might's statue. There will be the usual stuff he said, trying to encourage the kid, making comparisons to himself, maybe even showing the photos All Might took of him when he was training. He gets a call about an incident and needs to leave. He tells the kid to never forget about the hero he can be and to never stop striving to be that hero. The final words of the series are the ever-iconic "Plus Ultra".  This is beyond cheesy, but if we're going to end the series, we might as well end it with some cheese.

[runabout-river]

Thoughts on JJK chapter 269 (spoilers)

(TCB still doesn't have their own translation but some parts of this need to be cross checked with more translations. I'll do that tomorrow.)

We start the chapter with an ominous flashback that brings Mei Mei to an old woman before we make a hard cut back to where we left off last chapter

To my pleased surprise Yuta managed to get his body back though truth be told I did NOT understand the minute details on how that happened. Need to read up on that.

Megumi still feels the aftereffects of Gojo's UV that had crippled Sukuna's DE. This could mean Megumi himself will have trouble expanding his domain but would that be a short term problem or possibly even a long term problem 👀

(Way back when, I had also made a speculative post that Gojo's UV that hit Megumi's soul might've left Megumi with Gojo's ultimate knowledge from all his life but that doesn't seem to be a thing in the end.)

The first years are told not to feel guilty about anything and to be teenagers again. This echoes what Gojo said in the beginning on how children should be able to enjoy the spring of their youth.

We learn then how Yuta survived: because of Rika who independently kept his body alive. When Kenjaku's CT burned out after Yuta used Gojo's DE, he should've died because he couldn't keep the connection to Gojo's body.

Kenjaku shouldve had the same problems but they speculate that he circumvented that with barrier techniques.

Now comes the part where I need better translations because what's said here is too confusing: which CT recovered and was Yuta now dead or unconscious when Kenjaku's CT burned out?

The next question is: how did his consciousness end up back in his body? All this time I thought Kenjaku transferred his entire brain from body to body but that's not the case apparently? 😄

Also, the biggest question right now: what happened to Gojo's body?

I made a speculative post on how this body hopping through Kenjaku's CT might actually end up reviving Gojo.

The main point for that theory is that Kenjaku revives the bodies he transfers into. Second and third points are that the revival is a one time thing and isn't bound to the continuous use of the CT (speculation) and that Yuta "dies" through the end of the CT and through other means

Say what you will but this about Miguel and Larue was extremely funny but also give Larue some respect, Sukuna was in love with him for a few seconds.

The part where everyone discusses their battle strategies is interesting. Gege does sth here I have done while writing fanfics as well: acknowledging how varied and complicated the choices in the plot where and have the characters discuss it.

This gives the chain of events that did end up happening in the end a grounded feel and here it also gives the characters room to interact with each other.

My complaint about these scenes are that they downplay Sukuna's threat and power

Talking about what they should've done differently and how they could've won more easily is ok, but for me this entire conversation was too couched in "we won because of course we did, this was easy but it could've been easier"

Higuruma is alive though but I had that on my bingo card already, his apparent death was pretty vague

It's a funny reveal how the watch room was Rika this entire time, and apparently Yuta/Maki is basically canon

We also learn that it was indeed Miwa who clung to Maki and used Simple Domain against Sukuna to stop his MS. Todo managed to get her and Maki out with his CT at the end.

Without Ui Ui the battle would've been lost, so he really is the MVP

Now comes the part about the New Shadow Style: Simple Domain that was interesting but also added unneeded elements into the story this late in the manga

Some parts of this was mentioned previously like how you made a Binding Vow to learn NSS. There was a woman in a wheelchair once that resembled Miwa in parts who was probably one of those people who's lifespan was sapped away by the Shadow Head.

But did we really need to give this so much panel time? I guess with the mention of Tengen (who was apparently the one who told the good guys who the Shadow Head was) we'll go back to what happened to her and the merger in the next chapter.

What we also got was commentary on how JJ society hindered itself from becoming better because of the greed of people who wanted more power.

Mei Mei speaks of sorcerers who could've survived with Simple Domain and she probably means Nanami. Their stories in Shibuya acted like foils to each other (without that or them being in conflict with each though) so it's relevant to Nanami what she said here.

Overall I think some parts of this chapter should've been cut so close to the finish, especially when this really is the end of the manga. I still have hope for Part 2 though, this chapter was (as I expected) ambiguous about that happening or not.

[shunin-gumis]

L4mps Main Story Translation

Designs of Happiness A01

Title: ep.1 Well-being by myself

Characters: Nagi

Summary: One night, an interesting radio show could be heard at the Flower Laundry...

JP Proofreading: aca @463ce6 on twt EN Proofreading: jes @arcanecrayonn on twt

No matter how hard I try, a worthless person like me could never trace after the path to "happiness" that everyone else gets to experience.

As the gentle loneliness of the night envelops me, I drift between fleeting moments of happiness, barely holding on to see the next day.

-It was one of those days.

Location - Flower Laundry

Voice from the Radio: Coming to you live from HAMA Studio no.3-

Arisa: It's Arisa and~

Teresa: Teresa's~

Arisa and Teresa: Intelli-radio: Aristotle~*

Nagi: Sonia, could you turn up the volume?

Sonia: Okay~

Teresa: The rain sure isn't letting up huh?

Arisa: True~ It's quiet but it's perfect for getting some me-time in, whether it's to study or get some reading done.

Arisa: As we were talking about before the commercial break, forgive us if we go on too long on the mechanisms of achieving Happiness, just blame it on this lovely night we're having~

Sonia: ...

Sonia: Nagi-shan, you've been working on your bike all this time, but you made sure to eat dinner, yesh?

Nagi: Eh? ... Ah.

Nagi: Now that you mention it, I might be really hungry right now.

Sonia: Geez~

Sonia: You're still in the middle of work, so I'll get you shumthing you can eat with one hand.

Nagi: Thank you, Sonia. If you weren't around, I'm sure I would've ended up a mummy by now.

Nagi: "A mummy was discovered in the middle of the city!" Could Flower Laundry possibly be the next new hot spot...

Sonia: Don't say shumthing so ominous. It's exactly to prevent unfortunate people like you from ending up in such sad situations that helper robots like me were created.

Sonia: Pleash wash your hands and wait there.

Nagi: When did it get so late...

Nagi: I should get the bike back in the garage for now...

Arisa: While countries and corporations were competing between themselves for economic growth, the end result was that most of our environment was destroyed, and resources dried up in the blink of an eye.

Arisa: Did humanity manage to achieve true prosperity after this? Was it worth the cost? The answer is a resounding "No". Although the country's GDP* has increased four, or even five-fold, the happiness-index has flatlined for the past 100 years or so.

Teresa: Wait, really? A 100 years ago, people couldn't even have their clothes dry automatically, right? They also had to wash the dishes by hand... No way, that reminds me, they even had to vacuum the dust off the floor themselves or something right..?

Arisa: I think they'd still be using brooms about a 100 years ago?

Teresa: No way~ That's way too retro for me! I can't imagine life without all the smart appliances we have now. I mean, a world with no food-printers? Yikes.

Sonia: Here you go, "fresh" off the food-printer...

Nagi: Right on time.

Sonia: On time?

Nagi: I was just talking to myself. Thanks for the meal.

Arisa: Okay, I get how much you love your smart appliances, but do all these materialistic things truly fill your heart? Does it really let you sleep better at night?

Teresa: Hmm, you do have a point. The more convenient things get, the more it feels like the world is telling me to be time and cost-efficient, but before I even realize it, I'm already doom-scrolling on dazzle*...

Arisa: "More convenience! More income!" Such concepts are shoved in our faces constantly... How about trying to remove ourselves from this endless equation? There's quite a few factions amongst the younger generation who never expected much from society nor themselves...

Teresa: Sorry, that's just not for me. Chasing after your dreams, working towards your goals: those are the things that make life worth living. Growing as you compete with others is part of it too. And then when you finally get your hands on the things you've always wanted with your own effort... It doesn't get better than that.

Arisa: That's right. That's why people have come up with a strategy guide-

Arisa: The era of learning the Psychology of Happiness is upon us!

Teresa: The Psychology of Happiness?

Nagi: What's that?

Sonia: Oh! There's a response on the shop's PeChat*, hm...

Sonia: Nagi-shan, we just got an order. The customer will be coming by in ten minutes to pick it up.

Sonia: They're requesting a bouquet that can cheer up their girlfriend who's feeling down about making a mistake at work.

Nagi: ―

Sonia: Nagi-shaaan.

Nagi: Ah, sorry. Can you ask them what her favorite color is?

Sonia: I already did. Apparently, she likes the color blue!

Nagi: Blue... Blue, huh.

Nagi: I think we can use the nemophila we just got in earlier today. Add in some large calla lilies and sky-blue baby's breath...

Nagi: Maybe some delphiniums and blue stars could work as accents...

Sonia: And what about the ribbon?

Arisa: To explain, the Psychology of Happiness is the study that aims to help anyone, of all ages and gender, understand how to engineer and replicate the mechanism of happiness in their own lives.

Nagi: Replicate... happiness?

Sonia: Nagi-shaan, are you listening?

Nagi: I'm listening. Could you bring out the thin, light blue ribbon from the back?

Sonia: Got it. I'll leave the card here too.

Nagi: Okay, thank-

Teresa: Wait, some people find it easier to be happy because it's hereditary!?

Nagi: What!?

Sonia: Huh!?

Sonia: Geez, don't scare me like that. What's got you sho worked up?

Arisa: That's right. 48% is already determined by our DNA.

Nagi: .....

Sonia: Nagi-shan?

Arisa: Just like how some people might find a dish spicier than others, some can experience happiness easier than their peers as well. This is a hereditary factor, determined by our genes from the moment we're born.

Teresa: No way! So what you're telling me is that half of the happiness we can experience in life was already decided while we were in our mothers' womb!?

Nagi: ......

Sonia: Are you okay now? The customer will be dropping by soon.

Nagi: ...! Right, I need to get this done quickly...

Sonia: I'll go ahead and cut the flower stems under water.*

Nagi: Thank you. Could you also get the blue gift-wrapping paper-

Sonia: I've already spread it out for you!

Customer: Um... I'd put in an order just earlier.

Nagi: ...Ah.

Nagi: Sorry, could you please wait for just a moment? There's just the finishing touches left.

Teresa: So, what about the remaining 52%? Don't tell me it's influenced by the environment we were born and raised in.

Arisa: Not at all, the influence from your environment makes up only about 10% of it. As for the remaining 42%...

Teresa: ... Is it based on our actions?

Arisa: Correct! This means that, out of 100% achievable happiness level, about 42% of it is within our control.

Nagi: Wow. I've never thought about it that way.

Customer: Huh?

Nagi: No, if I think about it, is that really possible?

Arisa: Just as how the right diet is different for each person, once you figure out the method, anyone can achieve happiness. How it comes to bear fruit for you, is up to you yourself.

Nagi: If half of it is determined by fate, and the other half is uncertain... Could it really be that simple? Then maybe it's also possible for me to.... No, it's probably just a waste of time in my case. I shouldn't get my hopes up. Just thinking about it is making me depressed.

Customer: Erm... Are you alright? You've been muttering to yourself for some time now...

Nagi: Ah... Sorry about that. Don't mind me.

Customer: Right...

Nagi: Thank you for waiting. This is the completed bouquet. Is it to your liking?

Customer: Wow...! It's beautiful... It's just how I'd imagined it, I'm sure my girlfriend will be happy with it.

Nagi: I'm glad to hear that- Ah.

Nagi: That's right, I almost forgot... Excuse me, would you mind handing the bouquet back to me? There's one last thing I need to do.

Nagi: Mu....

Customer: Mu?

Nagi: Mu.....nn!

Customer: Um, what exactly are you doing...?

Nagi: I've instilled some energy* into it. In other words...

Nagi: It's something like a good luck charm. When your girlfriend receives this bouquet, she'll be so happy that she'd be skipping along the pavement.

Customer: To the point of skipping...

Nagi: Oh but, even without my little charm, I'm sure she would be plenty happy just knowing she has someone who would get her a bouquet when she's feeling down.

Nagi: In any case, I hope the two of you can skip along merrily.

Customer: I-I see... Thank you...

Nagi: Thank you for your patronage.

Sonia: Thank you very mush!

Teresa: Whaat, is it time for us to go already? Too bad, I really wanted to talk some more~

Sonia: Phew... I'm glad we finished it in time.

Nagi: Yeah, it's all thanks to your help Sonia.

Sonia: It's a piece of cake!

Arisa: Arisa and Teresa, your guides for psychology, signing out!

Nagi: Anyways, good job. Let's do our usual thing.

Arisa: Let's meet again when the fountain of knowledge wells up again!

Sonia: A high-five right? 3, 2, 1..!

Arisa and Teresa: See you again!

Play Ivory MV

Notes:

Sonia has a bit of a lisp so I changed a few words to match her speech

Intelli in Intelli-radio is short for Intelligentsia

dazzle is a social media site in the 18trip universe

PeChat is a messaging app in 18trip universe

GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product.

Cutting flower stems under water prevents air bubbles from going up the stem and helps in keeping the cut flowers fresh for longer.

'Muuun’ is the sound he makes when he’s instilling his happiness energy/thoughts(念) into the flowers, literally.

Flower Language:

Flower Language is important to Nagi's character and a way for him to communicate his thoughts, so I'll always note it down whenever any are mentioned.

Nemophila Lovely, Wish for success, I forgive you, Clear heart

Calla Lily Gorgeous beauty, Purity, Gracefulness of a young maiden

Blue Baby's breath Gratitude, Luck, Innocence, Kindness

Delphinium You spread happiness, Clear and bright, Generous, Precious

Bluestars (Amsonia) Trust in one another, Abundant love

Fun fact: The flower passed around in Ivory is a Delphinium! Meaning Nagi spreads happiness, which is what he does by sharing his happiness 'energy' but also that he brings joy to those around him by simply being himself.

Next -> | Masterlist

[velocesainz]

Hii I saw you asked for ideas, it might sound weird but maybe a max x reader story about him falling in love with reader when hes with Kelly still and them breaking up and choosing reader? Idk fluff,smut whatever i would be interested no matter what😌

Sounds quite interesting, hope you enjoy!

We're meant to be

F1 masterlist | Main masterlist | Taglist

Summary: Max and y/n are co-workers and good friends. Max develops feelings for her while he is dating Kelly. What happens when Kelly finds out about Max's feelings?

Warnings: none, fluffy

Pairing: Max x driver!fem!reader

Third person POV:

Ever since y/n joined Red Bull racing, there had never been a single moment of sadness.

Y/n was loved by one and all. She was an icon in so many people's eyes.

Her and Max were the greatest duo the paddock had ever seen. Winning races upon races, most with a 1-2 finish with both alternating top position.

They were an odd pairing for sure. Fiery rage paired up with calm and collectedness? Unheard of.

Max POV:

I was walking around the paddock when I bumped into y/n who was holding a massive camera in her hands and interviewing people around her.

"Oh hey Max! Are you excited for today's race? Who do you think will win?" She asked me in her most 'formal' voice.

I chuckled and responded "I am quite excited for today's race, Belgium is like my second home. I would say I will win today but something tells me otherwise" I added that last line since she was looking at me as if she was going to murder me if I didn't say she would win.

"Thanks Max! Catch you later" was all she said before she skipped away happily.

God she's so beautiful. She's kind. It gives me butterflies.

Wait...

Am I...

In love?

I've never felt this with anyone, not even Kelly. I mean she's nice and all but I don't think she's the one for me.

How will I break the news to her? I'll have to figure out.

Kelly POV:

I was looking around for Max when I saw him talking to y/n, who was interviewing him by the looks of it.

After she left he kept staring at her and started blushing. Was he in love with her?

It wouldn't be very unlikely. He hasn't really been very affectionate lately and he's been spending more time with either her or Penelope.

I feel like he's falling out of love with me.

How can he recklessly fall in love like that? I'm his girlfriend!

I have to get him to stop interacting with y/n, otherwise I'll lose him. I need him for the money, I can't lose him at any cost.

Y/n POV:

I felt Max staring at me as I left or maybe i was imagining things. I am so madly in love with him I might be delusional, but he loves someone else.

I sigh and continue interviewing people as I was told by Martin Brundle who was trying to make a fun behind the scenes episode for sky sports.

Timeskip:

I got out of the car and stood proudly on top of my car, my 5th race win this season and I was officially in the lead in the drivers championship.

After podium celebrations I was making my way to my driver's room to relax for a bit before interviews when I heard some yelling coming from Max's room.

Being the curious person I was, I eavesdropped.

Max POV:

I was relaxing in my room after a decent race, P2 was a pretty good result.

Suddenly the door slammed open revealing my angry girlfriend, oh god this was going to be hell.

"Stop talking to y/n from this instant on." She said curtly.

"Who are you to tell me who I can talk to and who I can't huh?" I snapped back

"IM YOUR FUCKING GIRLFRIEND. WHO IS LOOKING OUT FOR YOU! I SEE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT HER-" she screamed.

"WELL JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE MY GIRLFRIEND DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU GET TO CONTROL MY LIFE! AND YEA MAYBE I LIKE Y/N SO WHAT?" I yelled. This girl is getting on my nerves.

"SEE YOU ADMIT IT YOURSELF! YOU LIKE HER! EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND! HOW SHAMELESS CAN YOU BE?" She continued

"You know what? I'm done. Done with this relationship. You've never been supportive ever. It's as if you're with me for my money and that it. So kindly get the fuck out, gold digger" I was so happy to get all the feelings against her off my chest.

She looked at me in disbelief and walked out.

Y/n walked in right after Kelly left. Did she hear the argument?

"Are you alright Max? That argument sounded intense" she asked with concern showing in her eyes

"Yeah. I'm alright. Did you..uhm hear what we argued about?" I questioned

"Uhm...yea" she replied shyly

God I loved this woman so much

I walked up to her and kissed her.

The world seemed to fade away. I had the woman of my dreams in my arms I was never going to let her go.

[0daylighthours0]

(part 2) A Deep Dive into Milkvan and Byler's Development: If Milkvan's Destined Endgame, Why's it Written Like This???

The decision to confirm Will to be in love with MIKE is wild, and I'll tell you why.

When you add a third party to a t.v show relationship, if the first relationship isn't perfect, people gunna start rooting for the third party. Take Stancy for instance.

Throughout s2, we got the vibes that Jonathan held feelings for Nancy. This was clear. But Nancy was still with Steve. This means, in order for us not to sympathize more for Jonathan, Nancy and Steve gotta be ✧ tight ✧. I mean, their issues must be kept at a low, and at the end of the day it's gotta be clearer to us that Nancy does in fact love Steve. Welp, that wasn’t the case. Stancy's relationship ✧ struggled ✧, justifying intimate moments between Nancy and Jonathan - making us feel as if he'd be better for her after all. A smart writing choice, as Duffers intended Jancy as season 2's endgame pairing.

Now, I'd like to point out the foreshadowing of this development.

Come the wrapping up of s1, and it seemed Nancy had retreated back to Steve.

They'd clearly reconciled and - to an outsider - all would appear to be going smoothly. But us as the audience know that not to be the case.

One reason? Well, she'd just shared a suggesting moment with Jonathan.

So our minds weren't on Steve and this show of his with Nancy. Rather, we read into Nancy's slight discomfort, and wondered if perhaps she'd prefer being with Jonathan instead.

This was of course intentional. I'd like to briefly bring to attention the similarities in these moments to ones at the end of s3 - between Mike and Will, and then Mike and El.

Here a conclusion to milkvan's seasonal drama is made, them seemingly staying together, parting on good terms. Hm. And milkvan's moment is.. kinda like stancy's. They got back together because, well, El said she loves Mike. And Steve loves Nancy. And Mike loves El right? The way Nancy loved Steve- But just, coincidentally, we have byler's reconciliation too.

This came before the guy's makeup with El, because, why? This was quite the interesting decision mates. It means that whilst he spends that moment with his girlfriend, our minds are fresh off of Will. People might read into the way he's acting in contrast, just maybe, the way they did during stancy. And people did. That's a bit of a fumble on the writers' part, if you ask me. I know you're trying to let us know that Mike's now on good terms with both members, and his and El's goodbye needs to be the dramatic finishing of the season, but, man, did byler even have to make up at all here you guys? I mean this miscommunication of theirs lasts through to s4 (just like janc-). Why not sort their good terms out later or earlier on, so that we have more mindspace here to focus solely on milkvan, our main main? Or at least, why not just have Mike apologize to Will and be done with it? He could even apologize alongside Lucas, making the moment less personal. And Will could simply forgive him, give a dudely pat it out, and that's it. We wash our hands.

But nah. There's this electricity in the air. The swelling music, the prolonged looks, this doesn't.. seem like a simple make up. It's startlingly short, making us feel as if there have been things left unsaid. And that line,

".. Not possible."

It's so... implying. What do you mean? Why are you looking at eachother like that? What am I meant to get from this scene?

And it isn't a closing reconciliation either, they haven't properly ended their season's drama. I mean no one even apologized for the argument, we're just sort of left with this. Left with the hint of a story that might be further explored - their moment coming off more as anticipation for what's to come than a conclusion. Maybe just a bit like Jonathan and Nancy s1.

But so what? That does not have to mean anything romantic between them is to be told. After all, El just expressed to Mike that she loves him. This means that these sweethearts are practically fortold as endgame, right?

Alright I'll stop stalling.

Season 4.

So. Will is in love with Mike now. Huh. Well, I don't recommend this. As I said, you risk people rooting for Will beyond their hopes for Mike and El as a couple. If this is a plotline you desire, it has to be navigated with precision. So this means that milkvan must be on their A game. Struggle between them has got to be handled delicately. As we see in stancy, and as we saw in s3, just making up at the end of it all isn't good enough. You can risk this mistake once, but we must like these guys together throughout season 4, more than we sorrow for Will. Infact, Will's feelings must not be made too big of a deal. Mike and El are going to stay together, so we should feel a bit sorry for him, but not gather any hope that things will actually work out to his favour.

Like Dustin in s2. He sprouted small feelings for Max, and so did Lucas. Lumax were the endgame, so Dustin's feelings were craftly navigated and not made more important than Max and Lucas' bond. We don't really feel that Dustin is in love with Max, moreso that he likes her and has some moments of jealousy aimed at Lucas. Noone really wanted him with her more than they rooted for Lumax, though we did sympathize for him and feel bad for him regardless.

So yeah, this can easily be written out for Will too. If his story's purpose is meant for the exploration of a gay kid navigating a still homoph#bic time, then there's a lot that can be done without even having to spare much screen time between him and Mike. Focus on his fear of judgement from Jonathan moreso maybe, or have Argyle say something - it can be whatever, mention something homoph#bic, mention something not homoph#bic and give Will hope, whatever - which sets off a thought or idea for Will that prepares his arc for the season.

Back to Mike and El - so we want a 'scared to say "I love you"' subplot. That's good, that good. Fleshes out Mike, plays into El's fears. Shouldn't be too hard.

There's already a mild problem though. This plot is playing out twice at once. We have our boy Will hosting this same fear of rejection by Mike - at least that's how things have been shot. His dread is portrayed through his restraint and timidity in revealing his painting to Mike. Will's painting is basically his version of a confession - the guy too selfless, shy and afraid to express his love outright.

So playing out this storyline at the double is.. a choice. I mean, Mike telling El he loves her is a big deal for the milkvans, shouldn't this romance dominate as much screen time as possible in order to be fully pumped up without any sidetracks to other insignificant in comparison feelings? S3 was already quite clumsy, why not have Mike and El's activities soak in all viewers' engrossment without any departures? Maybe spend a bit of time demonstrating how likeable and wholesome they actually are together. Now that we have Will's affection ontop it all, what's important is that Mike and El's camera time spent matters. They can be angsty, they can withhold some misunderstandings, but they still have to be a good. couple.

Oh yeah, also, Mike should blatantly display feelings for El and El only - duh.

.

..

huh ?

huh ? ? ?

[the-eeveekins]

Why The Witch From Mercury is Important to Me

This will be a long, somewhat rambling and mostly personal thread. It's not about the show's quality or any issues I had about it (and YES, the show is flawed and has issues), but about why G-Witch's characters and themes were important to me and I think many others. Most of this I've already shared to a degree, but I wanted to expand my original thoughts, and put them all into one post.

I've been a Gundam fan for over 20 years, I got into the series with Wing on Toonami and have watched the vast majority of the animated series. As a woman, I longed for the day Gundam would have a female main character in the spotlight of a major show, but honestly at some point I'd given up on it. I just thought that if they hadn't done it by now, they never would.

Then, last March, they released this short 30 second trailer revealing The Witch From Mercury, and showing off Suletta and Aerial, and I was ecstatic! Finally, a female MC in a Gundam series, I was so excited for a new Gundam series for the first time since 00! I watched that short clip countless times over the months in anticipation of the series airing, I even grew addicted to the little song that plays during it.

Over time, the characters and key art were revealed and I saw some people float the idea that maybe Suletta and Miorine would be love interests. I didn't pay it any mind at the time. I was sure they'd milk their relationship for bait along the way, but there was no way they'd commit to Gundam's first female MC being gay. Even after the first episode aired I was still skeptical: There was the bait I was expecting, they're not seriously going to go through with it though.

And here we are, almost 10 months after G-Witch started airing, and Suletta & Miorine are married. It not only wasn't bait, but they committed to it in a way I never would have imagined coming from a franchise I loved like Gundam. It was done with care and respect for the characters, it didn't feel like it was exploitative or added just for fanservice, but was a very real relationship.

I'll admit, I was initially among those disappointed we didn't see a kiss or the wedding at the end, but my greatest fear was the ending would be as ambiguous as possible, or even worse, walk back what we'd seen, so as not to offend people. Instead we got the sister-in-law line, the matching wedding rings, how close they were and they way they looked at each other with love and talking about going home together. We didn't see them kiss or see the wedding, but we got to see them married, and I think that's incredible.

As a gay woman, and a Gundam fan of over 20 years, Suletta is an immensely important character to me. Suletta and Miorine's relationship, and it being a central focus of the story, is immensely important to me. They're things I dreamed of having in Gundam, but never really thought would ever happen. I've been so happy about them for a long time now, but these last two days I've been so unbelievably happy that I was given their story. I love them so much and I'm never going to forget these two.

And this ties into why I think G-Witch has been important to so many people, regardless of how they feel about it's quality, because of it's representation and themes. Suletta, the main character of the show, is a queer, neurodivergent, disabled woman of color. She was well written, and she got to have a happy ending married to the woman she loves, where she's thriving and happy despite her mobility. She's not treated with pity or remorse, and she's still pursuing her dreams of making a school.

And not just Suletta, there were so many characters belonging to different minority groups that got strong representation and happy, satisfying endings. If you're a woman, if you're queer, if you're a POC, if you're any sort of ND, if you're disabled, The Witch From Mercury not only gave you good representation, but also said you're deserving of love, empathy and happiness.

With regard to it's themes, I absolutely love how G-Witch stressed love, empathy, compassion, acceptance and forgiveness over hate, vengeance, punishment and karma. Suletta and Miorine made many mistakes during their journey that they could never take back, but they accepted each other, including their mistakes, and resolved to move on together and makes amends for them if possible. Suletta never got mad at Miorine, Prospera or Eri for the things they did to her and she never blamed them, all she did was understand and accept why they did the things they did, and move forward with her love for them. She accepts the people she loves, mistakes and all, because of her unrelenting love and compassion for them.

Even Prospera, the main antagonist, ultimately rejected revenge for the sake of saving her daughter. She was a less than stellar parent to Suletta, and her actions lead to a heavy death toll, but ultimately Suletta accepted her and her actions to save Eri. And rather than go for an easy karmic death, she was allowed to have a happy ending: Eri was saved, and she's living a peaceful life with her family. A life that was robbed from her 24 years prior.

And ultimately, those themes are why we had an ending where literally no one died, and nearly every character got to have a happy ending. Gundam has always said that violence is bad, but The Witch From Mercury was the first to say "Alright, then we'll solve the problem without violence." We got a big magic spell that was a Gundam Pride Parade in space, and combined with Miorine's actions, events were resolved peacefully.

That's why G-Witch is important to me. It gave me and many others representation in ways you almost never get from a major franchise like Gundam, and without feeling like it was doing it to just check boxes off on some executive's diversity list. It stressed themes of love, empathy and acceptance and rejected hate, revenge, karma and even death. And I think that's incredibly important in this day and age. Representation Matters. Love Matters.

I've been very emotional over this show the last two days because I've been loving it for a while now, and while I'm sad to see it end, I'm so grateful that it happened, flaws and all. I've been crying on and off since the last episode ended and I've had trouble sleeping, but I've been so unbelievably happy over what this one show did and how much it's meant to me. The characters may not be real, but the happiness Suletta & Miorine have brought me is very much real.

For me; Suletta, Miorine, and The Witch From Mercury were truly a blessing.

[moontyger]

Ink and Intrigue review

I bought this IF game, Ink and Intrigue, when it came out this weekend. I had liked the author's previous game, so I was really looking forward to it! But... I am honestly not sure i like it. Maybe I made all the wrong choices? But...

It has a lot more worldbuilding than the previous game and I was fine with that. That's great! I love lore. Give me all the lore. (Also the worldbuilding is really interesting. I'd like to see more of this setting.) Slower pace? Sure, that's fine, too. I actually think a lot of these have too many time skips and go too fast.

The problem starts with the fact that just over halfway into the game, there's a sudden hard turn into an entirely different genre. Suddenly instead of a fantasy game about bonding with magical creatures and getting mystical tattoos, it's an action movie in a modern-ish setting. And your character, who is from the fantasy world and has never seen a gun before this, can go along on this extremely violent action movie part, but that just made me feel like someone's little sister. Allowed to be there because of her relation to someone else, but not really understanding what's happening and definitely not as good at anything and kind of a burden everyone else has to protect. Even worse that your character has not finished training at this point, so they aren't even a rookie; they're less than that. At the very least, this part of the game should wait until your character is no longer just an initiate.

You do go back to the original setting after this section, but it still permanently changed my view of the game. I'd like to think this part is somehow avoidable and I just made the wrong choices, but it's tied in enough to the main plot that I doubt that's the case.

While I have yet to do it, you can instead choose to stay behind for this. But I doubt staying behind during this feels any better. I can't imagine how being left behind and just, idk, waiting for the other characters to return or not could possibly feel better. Also the fact that of the possible love interests for this game, the women stay behind and the men go on the mission feels not great.

This part of the game has a ton of violence and seems like it should be very traumatic, but while characters being traumatized after is described to us, I feel like conversations characters should have about it are kind of skipped over and it's dealt with more lightly than it should be. I really expected some hard conversations here about what my character had done and they did not happen. There's not really even any scenes of our character comforting any of the others and it definitely feels like there should be.

But the worst part, to me, is that this part of the game is when I really realized that my character was not the main character. The actual main character is stronger and more special than our character can ever be and we're just playing the love interest or friend. This realization then made everything that character did after that I think the author meant to feel supportive instead feel patronizing, like "You'll never be as good as me, but it's cute that you're trying and of course I'll support you in that." I don't think the author intended it to come across that way, but it does and I doubt I'll be the only one to feel that way.

Interestingly, I think Choice of Games knew this, because this is the first game of theirs I've played that allowed you to go back and play previous chapters again whenever you finished one. At first I thought this was meant to be a quality of life change, but having finished the game, I think it's more that they know that if people replay at all, they're going to want to stop partway through.

I'd have fewer problems with this setup if this were just a book. I'd think "Oh, interesting choice to tell this story from the viewpoint of someone other than the protagonist." But for games, I feel strongly that the player character should be the main character. If the player character is just watching other characters do cool stuff, that's a bad game and should probably just be a movie or an anime or something that doesn't involve the player interacting with the story. There's nothing wrong with movies or books and I'm not trying to shit on them here! They just aren't the same thing as games and I have different expectations because of the more personal involvement in the story.

(One can argue that IF is more like a book than a game, but with both the name of their site and selling their works on Steam, Choice of Games is definitely marketing them as games. The existence of a player character who you name and make choices for makes it feel more gamelike to me than a more passive form of entertainment as well.) And while it's true that a video game protagonist does not have to be the most powerful character in their world and it can be very interesting if they're not, I just didn't like it here. I guess I just don't like playing the sidekick and there being nothing your character could ever do to be as good made it feel worse. Like you're stuck forever as Robin and will never get to graduate to being Nightwing. (The fact that IF games use second person makes it feel more personal than if they used third, which very much does not help with something like this).

Lastly, since I've listed this as a review instead of just my criticisms of the game, I should mention that despite being listed as an explicit game (4 chili peppers rating on the Heart's Choice portion of Choice of Games' site) and the author's previous game, Their Majesties' Pleasure, having quite a lot of explicit sex, this game, despite being much longer, does not have nearly as many sex scenes. I feel like they were mostly a bit shorter and less explicit as well, though YMMV on that. (That might just be my perception or it may depend on who you choose to date.) This isn't my main complaint, but merits mention because of course explicitness is part of how this is marketed.

At some point just before or just after the first possible sex scene, the character you chose to have it with will ask if your character wants to commit to only them. This is on the third day after your arrival, so you've know them about two-and-a-half days. You can, at least, say you aren't ready to commit yet, but it still feels really weird that they even ask at that point.

Overall, I didn't hate it, but I was very disappointed. I'd been really looking forward to it and my best reaction was "I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the first part was okay." Unlike most of the other IF games I've played, I have little desire to replay to see other choices and if I do, I am unlikely to want to play the second half of the game again, which is unfortunate.

Edit to add: A Steam review mentioned something about the game's ethics that I really should address here, but it requires more extensive spoilers, so I'll put it behind a cut.

While you are in the action movie segment of the game, you find prisoners who have been experimented upon. Your team plans to blow up the building and you have to argue to convince them to save even some of these prisoners (other than the two with a personal connection to one of the characters). They will then agree to take the ones who can still walk, but leave the rest of them to die when the building explodes. This is never addressed again and is not really even treated as a great tragedy and especially not as the worst thing that happens during the mission. (After your return to the main setting, you can say that you're upset about the amount of violence in general, but there's no response for saying you are specifically upset about leaving helpless innocents to die. Either you're fine with all of it or upset about all of it.) Even when one of the trials asks you ethical questions that relate to this sort of decision in the abstract, it is not mentioned, and your character never seems to experience any doubts or guilt about it.

[musings-of-a-rose]

I'll Always Wait For You - Chapter 18 (Final Chapter)

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader

Word Count: 6900+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

Notes: Well, this is it. The final chapter. I’m feeling very emotional about this one, as these 2 are my babies. This fic was the second thing I ever started writing AND my first series. I started it in November of 2021 and now I’m ending it in June of 2023. Thank you to everyone who has read it, left comments, reblogged it, talked about it off of Tumblr (I am still FLOORED that this has happened!). This is what keeps people creating. Even if you think you have nothing important to say, or if all you say is just a keyboard mash of letters, I can promise you ALL of it means the world to us. So I dedicate this fic to you, the reader. You’re the real star here and I can’t express my love enough. If you’re ever wanting more, I am always down to write one shots, drabbles, character insights, what ifs, etc for this fic (and any of my others).

Now excuse me while I go cry

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**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

I'll Always Wait For You Masterlist

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<&lt;Chapter 17

“You look so beautiful!” Olivia gushes over you after she tucks the last braid into place, watching you stand and do a little twirl in your white dress.

“You think so? It’s not too much?”

“Too much? Girl, it’s your wedding day. You can’t be too much!”

Smiling, you smooth out your dress as you take in your reflection. You’re marrying Frankie. Your Frankie. Frankie, whom you’ve been in love with since you were 19. This is real. It’s happening.

Ok, technically, in the eyes of the law, it happened a few weeks ago at a courthouse. But there’s something special about gathering in front of your close friends and family, wearing a beautiful dress, and getting to repeat those vows in front of everyone. A soft knock at the door brings you out of your head and Olivia walks across the room to peak her head outside. 

“Mosa, it’s the photographer. Are you ready for the first look?”

“It’s HERmosa!” Frankie’s muffled yell comes from behind the door and Olivia smirks. 

One last glance in the mirror at your reflection and you nod, turning your back towards the door. You hear some shuffling as Frankie is ushered in backwards and the photographers get into place. 

“Turn in 3..2..1..Turn!” Olivia says and then steps back.

You turn, your eyes finding his almost immediately, as if they were drawn there. He’s dressed in a tailored suit, fitting his form perfectly, his grandfather’s kerchief folded and poking from the pocket. But what you’re really interested in is his face, his eyes growing wider and glossier the longer he looks at you.

“Hermosa, you…you’re beautiful,” Frankie says, awestruck.

“You’re just figuring that out?” You say behind a smile.

“No, I mean I always knew but…wow.”

He walks up to you and cups your cheek, running his thumb across it as Olivia hisses something about makeup from the corner of the room. But you couldn’t care less. Frankie was here, marrying you. This is all you’ve dreamt of for well over 10 years. A tear runs down Frankie’s cheek and you wipe it away.

“Are you ok?”

He sniffs and smiles. “I’m the best I’ve felt in a long time. I just…I only wish we would’ve done this sooner.”

“We did. We got married in the courthouse, remember?” 

He smiles at you. “I meant more that we never…that we stayed together since that first kiss.”

“Me too. But we can’t dwell on what-ifs. We can only think about the here-and-nows.”

Frankie tips your chin up and presses a light kiss to your lips, the clicks from the camera going crazy. You pose for photos for several minutes before Olivia ushers everyone from the room, winking at you when she says she’ll give you 10 minutes of alone time before she came to get you. The second the door closes, Frankie pushes his tongue in your mouth, pulling you as close as he can. 

“I can’t mess this dress up, Frankie,” You say pouting.

“That’s ok. I can work with that.” Frankie grips your hips and spins you around, bending you over the back of the chair and clasping a hand to your mouth as he takes you, your hands desperately trying to reach behind you to pull him in closer. 

15 minutes later, Olivia knocks on the door and enters hesitantly, smirking when she sees you smoothing down your dress, Frankie’s face more pink than when she had left. 

“It’s time,” she says, tossing her thumb over her shoulder and looking at Frankie pointedly. He turns to you and kisses your cheek.

“See you out there?”

“Raging sharks couldn’t keep me away.” 

He kisses you once more before Olivia starts clearing her throat. When he straightens up a curl falls on his forehead and you softly push it back to where it was, feeling Frankie’s eyes on you the entire time. He opens the door and looks outside befire turning back to you. 

“Your gift is here.”

“You don’t have to get me a gift, Frank-”

Santi walks through the door, dressed in a nice tux and smiling from ear to ear. You hadn’t seen him since the day he confessed his love for you and you had missed him terribly. Frankie was your best friend, but Santi was a close second and you’d hated the idea of getting married without him there.

“Santi?”

“Hey, Hermosa.”

You catch a glimpse of Frankie’s smile before he closes the door as you wrap your arms around Santi, feeling him squeeze you back just as hard. Separating a few moments later, you dab under your eyes as you try to choke back tears. 

“If I smudge my makeup, Olivia may kill me.”

Santi laughs. “She’s Benny’s girl, right? She’s perfect for him.”

“She’s really great…but how are you here?”

“I uh…Frankie called me a few weeks ago and told me…well, everything. I’m sorry I was screening my calls, Hermosa. I just…I needed time.”

“I understand. But…you’re here now! Are you ok?”

“I’m doing alright, Hermosa. Actually, pretty good.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about her.”

He laughs. “I will. But uh, hey - do you need a Man of Honor? If…if that would…be ok?”

“I would love to have to as my Man of Honor! But…Benny already agreed and I don’t know how to tell him -”

Santi waves his hand. “Benny was in on this. He knows and already said it was ok with him as long as you wanted it.”

Your eyes go wide. “Wait. Benny knew you were coming and he didn’t tell me?”

“Yeah.”

You gasp. “That bitch!”

Santi laughs his hardest yet. “So…”

“Let’s go, Man of Honor.”

The next thing you know, Frankie’s kissing you, everyone whooping and cheering, Aurelia throwing more flower petals into the air as they announce “Mr. and Mrs. Morales.” The rest of the night was like a blur, between photos and eating, first dances and cake, you barely had time to sit until things started to wind down long into the night. When you tried to help clean up, Olivia literally slapped your hand away and glared at you.

“Absolutely not. Benny!” He walks over and play groans when she says she’s recruited him to help clean up. She pretends to twist his nipple when he starts to complain and he yelps, high pitched and smiling as they play fight for a few moments before he gives in, grabbing plates and stacking them to wash. 

Frankie looks exhausted and he’s limping a little, so you beg him to not carry you over the threshold. “You did that when we got courthouse married.”

“Yeah but-”

“No. I’m not having you throw your hip out on our wedding day. Not from this.”

He chokes and smiles, giving in, a dark twinkle in his eye. “Alright. If you insist.” But by the time you’d made it upstairs and gotten your clothes off, both of you were too exhausted to do much of anything aside from a shower and literally fall into bed. But Frankie made up for lost time the next morning, waking you with what he claims was already your third orgasm of the day, his curls mussed up from being buried between your legs. He presses his body to yours, swallowing your whimpers before he adds his own, hips shaking with release. 

You spend your honeymoon at the Miller family cabin upstate, the only clothing you wear being one of Frankie’s shirts and sometimes his hat, which drives him wild. He celebrates another sobriety milestone while there, smiling wide at your praise. When you get back home, you can see he has an extra pep in his step, always a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, always wanting to touch you, whether a hand to your wrist, a touch to your lower back, or a smack on your ass, chuckling as you yelp and smack him back. When you ask him why he looks exceptionally happy, he credits you. “I finally got the girl of my dreams, the love of my life.”

—-

Frankie and you settle into a comfortable routine. You were no strangers to living together, the adjustment taking no time at all. Life goes on as normal, except now, you get to live it with Frankie, no longer separated by a stupid argument, misconceptions, or a bitch of an ex wife. This was exactly where you were meant to be. 

Several months later, Frankie follows you into the family restroom at Target, slinging your purse over his shoulder as he rifles through the bag of stuff you’d just purchased.

“Pink dye first, right?” He asks, raising his eyebrows as he looks at you.

“Yeah. They’re more accurate supposedly.” 

Frankie tears open the box and studies the directions, as if he hadn’t done this several times already. He opens one of the sticks and hands it to you, turning around to give you a little privacy. 

“Start the timer,” you say as you zip up your pants. Frankie hits go on his timer and turns to face you, a pregnancy stick held face down in your hand. He can see your nerves, your worry and concern on your face.

“It’ll be ok, Hermosa.”

“Yeah I know. But what if it isn’t?”

“It will be-”

“We’ve been trying for months, Frankie. I know the OB said to try for a year before fertility testing but-”

Frankie walks up to you and pulls you to him, applying a gentle pressure as he hugs you close, kissing the side of your head. “If it’s negative, then we keep trying, ok? It hasn’t been a year yet and sometimes these things take time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Will told me that it took them months to conceive Liam. And they were trying too. Just…breathe. In….out…”

You breathe with him for a few breaths. “You always were annoyingly calm in a crisis.”

He smiles. “Wouldn’t help to freak out behind the joystick.” 

You open your mouth to reply, but his timer cuts you off. Your mouth jams shut, nerves taking over your body as Frankie holds your gaze. 

“If it says negative, we can keep trying. Remember that. I love you no matter what, Hermosa.” You nod, taking a deep breath. “Ready?”

“Ready.” You flip the test over and look, 2 bright pink lines staring back at you. Tears immediately fall as you laugh, turning the test around to show Frankie, who yells, grabbing you up in his arms and hugging you tightly. He kisses you for a moment, pressing his forehead to yours. 

“I fucking love you, Hermosa.”

“I love you, Frankie.”

He yanks the door open and whoops loudly, people turning to look at him as you follow him out of the bathroom. 

“I’m going to be a father again!” He pumps his fists in the air, smiling from ear to ear as people cheer, clapping and congratulating you as they finish their purchases, one older couple handing you a gift card on their way out, telling you to spoil that baby. 

—-

Frankie was hesitant at first with your pregnancy, despite being so supportive and actually wanting a child with you. A couple months in, you finally ask him why he seems afraid to touch you, that you won’t break. He finally confesses to you that when Elizabeth was pregnant, she did nothing but yell at him, belittling him and wouldn’t let him touch her at all, not her belly, not even to rub her back or feet. She called him horrible names and would blame it on the hormones. Your heart breaks for him and you have no words. Well, you have words but they aren’t nice ones. Instead, you sit next to him on the bed, leaning back onto one arm, and take his hand with the other, gently placing it on your lower belly. His eyes light up as he looks at your tiny for the moment bump, tears welling in his eyes as he brings his other hand up to take the other side. He pulls your shirt up just enough to see your belly skin, giving it a tiny kiss.

“Hey, little one. You grow strong in there and don’t give your mom too much of a hard time.”

From then on, Frankie is all in. Whatever you need, he gets it, even if it’s a ridiculous request at 3am. He’s constantly touching your growing belly, talking to it as much as you do. He finds Aurelia’s old crib in the attic, a few boxes of baby stuff and a bassinet up there as well. He sets up the nursery under your instruction, letting Aurelia help with the decorations when she comes on the weekends. You decide to wait to find out the sex of the baby, thinking it would be something fun to do. So instead you call it “Bean”.

“Think Bean will like this?” Frankie asks, pointing to a baby swing. 

“They might, but Frankie, that swing is nearly $150. We can’t afford that.”

His shoulder’s slump but he agrees. “Maybe we can check the thrift shop. It’s the one thing Will didn’t toss our way.”

He was there for all of the classes too, birthing ones, breathing ones, even the hypnobirthing ones. He signed up for a “birthing partners” class, learning the best ways to support you not just during labor and delivery, but during the 4th trimester, or immediately postpartum. He helped you practice your meditations, making sure you had everything you needed and that you remember to take your prenatal and drink enough water. 

When you’re 8 months pregnant, getting winded from walking down the hall, Frankie gets a call from his boss at Flyboyz on his day off, asking him to come in. He grabs his hat and gives you a quick kiss before leaving, reminding you to drink water. He’d been working a lot lately, trying to make extra money so he can stay home with you and the baby for the first month. You’re not sure how long he’ll be gone, so you plop yourself down on your bed, pulling over the basket of baby clothes that still have to be sorted and you get to work, separating the sizes, long sleeve vs short, nightgowns from onesies. A couple hours later, the front door opens and Frankie slams it behind him, the picture frames rattling on the walls. You set aside the footie pajamas you were folding and go to stand up, but Frankie comes storming into the bedroom before you can move, anger coming off of him in waves.

“Frankie?”

He yanks his hat from his head, tossing it onto his dresser, knocking some things off of it. “I can’t fucking believe her!”

Struggling a little, you manage to get up and cross the room to him, placing your hand on his mid back. He recoils, anger flashing in his eyes but it’s not directed at you. Unsure of what happened, you know he needs to calm down before he can tell you. You grab an ice cube out of your glass of water and turn to Frankie.

“Give me your hand.”

He looks at you, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Just do it.”

He stares at you for a moment before shoving his hand out. You flip it palm up, opening his fingers and place the ice cube in his palm. He yelps, but you hold his hand firmly so he won’t drop the ice.

“What the fuck, Hermosa?”

“The cold will help reset your nervous system.”

“I don’t think- it’s too fucking cold, Hermosa.”

“Just another few seconds.”

His chest, which had been heaving a moment ago, has slowed down, the anger still there but at a manageable level. You tip his hand and grab the falling ice into your own palm, putting it in the sink in the bathroom before coming back to the bed and trying to sit on it. Frankie is there, taking your hand and helping you into bed. He goes to stand but you squeeze his hand and pull him until he sighs, sitting on the edge, his shoulders slumped.

“How do you feel?”

“Fucking angry, but…the edge is gone. Ice…who fucking knew?”

“So..may I ask what happened?”

His eyes darken with repressed outrage. “I thought I was getting extra work. Instead, my pilot’s license has been suspended, pending a review.”

You sit up quickly, eyes going wide. “What??”

He nods, his jaw clenching. “Apparently, someone made a claim that I was using when I flew some clients and now they have to investigate.”

You knew that Frankie had been clean over a year, that he wasn’t using at all. “Oh, Frankie. Wait..who made the claim?”

He looks at you. “It was anonymous but I know it was Elizabeth.” He says her name with absolute disgust and hate that you nearly pull back from him. 

“Elizabeth? Would she-”

“Oh come on, Hermosa. You don’t think it was her? I’ve been clean for well over a year. She’s the only one who would have known that I used that would make claims.”

“What about Rick?”

Frankie shakes his head. “Nah. He left Flyboyz while you were…out of town. I told him he had to leave or I would report him for selling. He started to threaten to bring me down with him, but then remembered you were…not in my life and he could see the rock bottom in me, I guess. So he backed off, just left to go elsewhere. There’s no way it’s him. It’s her. It’s always her causing shit. I’m so fucking sick of it!”

Placing a hand on his back, you start to rub it, adding in little scratches here and there like he likes. “She is a bitch.”

“I just got my license back. I worked so hard on that.” He puts his face in his hands, resting his elbows on his legs. You scoot towards him wrapping your arm around him. 

“I know you did. But you said suspended? That doesn’t mean revoked, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

“So…what does it mean?”

“It means, I can’t fly until it’s reinstated. I have to pee in a cup at random times during the week for 6 months to prove I’m clean before they will lift the suspension.”

“Well there you go!”

He looks up at you, his eyebrows pulling together. “There I go, what? We can’t afford for me to not have this income, Hermosa.”

“We’ll be ok-”

“You’re about to have a baby. Your income won’t happen for a bit, and that’s fine, but we needed this extra money and now I can’t provide that. All because of my bitch of an ex!”

“Frankie, we’ll be ok. If we have to borrow money, we can.”

“I’m not borrowing money.”

“Fine. Then I will borrow it.”

“No, I’ll…I’ll figure something out.”

“Frankie-”

“Just…can we just stop for tonight? I’m trying to process this.”

You open your mouth to argue but then see the exhausted look on his face. “Sure. Why don’t you come talk to us? That always makes you feel better.”

Leaning back against the headboard, you watch as Frankie scoots up the bed, getting level with your belly as you turn on your side so you’re not being squished. He chats to the baby for a while, about everything and nothing and by the time he’s done, his shoulders are relaxed and he’s not as angry anymore. 

Elizabeth never fully admits to being the one to make the claim, but you see the look on her face through the car window when you make your next exchange for Aurelia after Frankie confronts her and you know she did it. There’s nothing you can say or do except wait it out. Frankie getting his license back will be all the revenge you’ll need.

—---- (Skip to the next line if you don’t want to read about labor. It’s not terribly graphic at all, but I know it’s not everyone’s thing)-------

“I never thought I’d have to beg you to have sex with me!” You stomp your foot, furious that Frankie won’t follow the doctor’s advice. 

It had been a few weeks since his license was revoked and you were a week past your due date and not happy about it.

“Hermosa, I don’t-”

“Want to hurt me, I know, I know. But the midwife even said that sex is the best way to induce labor because of the prostaglandins in your semen.”

“You make it sound so sexy.”

“Frankie,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, taking a deep sigh. “I am the size of a house. I am miserable and sweaty and I haven’t seen my feet in months and I just want to have this baby already. If it’s my belly, I can turn around-”

“You are fucking gorgeous.”

“Then please?”

Frankie studies you for a long moment, his shoulders starting to slump and that’s when you knew you had him. “Alright, fine. We can try it. But we’re going slow, taking our time, ok?”

“No arguments here.”

Contractions started within an hour of Frankie cumming inside of you. You weren’t sure at first what you were feeling, but it sort of felt like a bad period cramp, so you assumed this must be it. Frankie timed them all for you, helping you breathe as they got more intense and closer together, and when they were close enough apart, Frankie helped you to his truck and drove to the hospital. In between contractions, you watched him as he drove, expertly winding his way through traffic, a look of focus on his face, a little furrow between his brow the only indication that this was not a normal day behind the wheel. How lucky you were to have this man, who can be calm in stressful situations, want to spend his life with you. 

“What?” Frankie glances sideways at you before turning back to the road.

“You’re cute when you focus.”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Remember how cute I am when you’re in transition.”

Before you know it, you’re in a labor and delivery room, barely spending any time in triage before they whisked you away. Hospitals can be a frustrating place to have a baby. Each nurse walks in and tells you to rest between contractions, try to get some sleep when you can, but then a new nurse comes along within an hour, always rousing you from sleep to take your blood pressure or put their fingers where you didn’t want them. You’d finally had enough of the latter and told a nurse to kindly fuck off, and denied internal exams unless it was a medical emergency. Frankie was by your side the entire labor, putting counter pressure on your hips when you needed it, pulling your hair from your face, sneaking you snacks because they forbid food and you said you’d chomp off your own fingers if they didn’t let you eat. Transition was hard, but all of a sudden, you knew it was time to push. Following your body, you get on all fours, taking your calming breaths, but then realizing that Frankie was not next to you. Turning your head, you see him, wide eyed and backing towards the door.

“I’ll just-” He points his thumb over his shoulder at the door.

“No, please. I need you here with me.” Another contraction has you breathing again and it’s a minute before he replies.

“You want me here?”

“Yes. I need you, Frankie.” 

His eyes start to water over and it doesn’t occur to you then, but later that night it’l come to you - he wasn’t trying to dodge out of the delivery. He was having a flashback to when Elizabeth kicked him out of the room right when Aurelia was making her way into the world, and your heart hurt all over again. Frankie is at your side in an instant, turning to yell for the nurse who had surprisingly not come in for some random check.

“No time!” You yell, letting out a low groan, a technique you learned to help move baby down and out. Frankie’s face slides into focus mode and he moves behind you, just in time to catch the baby as it comes sliding out. He gathers the baby up, holding it close as it screams into the world. The nurse comes running in then, having heard the baby crying as you turn onto your back, arms outstretched to hold your baby, skin to skin.

“Baby is here! I didn’t even know you were transitioning! You were pretty quiet.”

The nurse bustles around and does her thing while Frankie transfers the baby to your bare chest. Tears stream down your face as you look at Frankie, who has tears of his own. He kisses the top of your head. “I am so proud of you, Hermosa.”

A few moments pass, the baby calming against your chest. “Hey Frankie? Is the baby a boy or girl?”

He slaps his hand to his forehead. “I forgot to look! I was so focused on catching the baby and whether it was breathing and not dropping it that I don’t think I looked! Here.” He lifts the hip of the baby and smiles.

“We have a son. I have a son!”

—---No more labor/delivery details—---

Luis Christian Francisco Morales was born perfect. 10 little fingers and 10 little toes, skin glowing. He was the perfect combination of you both, although you say he favors Frankie mostly. 

You both settle into your roles as new parents, a lot of it being new to Frankie too, since Elizabeth had denied him so much. He was determined to not miss out on things this time, making sure you both had everything you needed and watching Luis when he stayed awake between feeds so you could have a nap. Aurelia cries the first time she sees Luis, big ugly sobs, and when Frankie finally calms her down enough to ask what’s wrong, she simply says “He…he’s…s-so so cute!” She happily takes up the mantle of “Big Sister” when she’s with you. Once, you wake from your nap only to find all 3 of them sleeping, Luis curled up on Frankie’s broad chest, Aurelia tucked onto his other side. You snap a photo and then quietly leave the room, taking the time to actually shower. 

About a month in, Frankie comes back from dropping Aurelia with her mom. His eyebrows were pulled together in confusion as he stares down at his phone.

“Everything ok?” You ask, shifting the bottle you were feeding Luis with so it was a better angle.

“Yeah. Uh…Santi just texted me.”

“Oh yeah? Everything ok?”

“Uh..he says congrats on Luis, that he’s the cutest, and that he was out of service for a bit and he’s sorry he didn’t text earlier.”

“That’s ok. I know he’s busy.”

Frankie is quiet for a moment. “He offered me some work.”

“Work?”

“Well, not just me. Benny, Will, and Tom too.”

“What kind of work?” When he doesn’t answer, you look up at him. He kicks his shoes off and sits next to you on the couch. 

“Consulting.” His eyes don’t meet yours, focusing instead on his fingers, where he starts to pick at the skin around his nails.

“Consulting.” You say in disbelief. 

“Yeah.”

“Wait, like a mission?”

Frankie shrugs. “No? I mean, it’s just scoping out a place and looking for weaknesses. We give our report to the government he works with and then come back. Easy peasy.” 

“If it’s so easy peasy, why aren’t you looking at me?”

He takes a deep breath and let’s it out slowly before looking at you. “It’s for a week. Just trying to find holes in a fence.”

“And why do they need you?”

“They need a pilot.”

“You don’t have your license.”

“It probably doesn’t matter over there.”

“Frankie, I don’t-”

“I’ts $17k, Hermosa. We need the money.”

“I don’t like it. So much can go wrong. Who’s house is it? Definitely no one that’s a stand up citizen. What happens if they find you first? No, I don’t like it.”

“Just..he’s coming to town tomorrow and we’re going to chat about it at Benny’s fight. Let me ask some more questions.”

“I don’t like it, Frankie.”

“I know. Just..let me talk to Pope.”

—----

It’s late the next night and you start to pace the floor of your bedroom, wondering when he’ll be back. He’d texted you to tell you Benny had won the fight and they were stopping at the bar for a quick drink before Olivia takes him home to play nurse. 

That had been 2 hours ago.

The door finally opens downstairs and you quietly make your way to the kitchen, where you were hearing Frankie move around. 

“Did I wake you?”

You shake your head. “I was awake. Luis is asleep.”

“Good, good. He go down ok?”

“Yeah, actually in his bassinet, but Frankie? How did it go?” 

He gets a glass of water, chugging half of it before setting the glass down on the counter. “It’s just a recce. No live fire.”

“There’s a possibility of people shooting at you??”

“I mean, we are casing a place. It’s always possible if guards see you or-”

“No.”

He looks at you. “Hermosa, we need the money.”

“No.”

“I don’t have a job. We need this.”

“No money is worth your life, Frankie. None of your lives.”

“I won’t be in any major danger. I’ve done worse.”

“Yeah but you didn’t have a family then.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No. No, I don’t like this, no.”

Frankie puts his hands on his hips, cocking one hip back as he looks at you. “We’re behind on bills.”

“So? I’ll borrow some money and you can stay.”

“Hermosa-”

“Or I can get another job? A new client. I can-”

“You just had a baby, so no.”

“Then I can-”

“Hermosa.” He says it firmly, that hip still cocked back as his eyes find yours, resolve in them.

“You’ve…you’ve already said yes, haven’t you?”

His tongue comes out to swipe across his bottom lip. “We leave Thursday.”

Silence stretches between you both as you stare at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you made that decision without me.”

“I made the decision for us. We need the money.”

“Oh, fuck you and the money! I said I could borrow it. You’re just being stubborn!”

“I’m taking responsibility! We needed money and this just happens to come our way? I have to take it.”

“So you’re saying it’s fate that Santi texted you to lure you down there with the promise of $17k? You’re telling me that it’s just consulting and nothing else? Can you promise me that?”

He shrugs. “That was the original deal.”

“But can you promise me?”

He studies you for a moment, his eyes lingering on yours. “I’m going, Hermosa.”

And with that, you turn on your heel and walk out of the kitchen, closing the door behind you, wishing you could slam it. 

The next couple days were torture. You kept trying to convince Frankie to stay, convince all of them to stay. You didn’t want any of them going. But they all said the same thing that Frankie said. “It’s just consulting.” Thursday morning, Tom comes to pick up Frankie pretty early. He leans over to kiss you in bed and you take one more shot at trying to get him to stay. Your fingers wind into his curls as you pull him to you, deepening the chaste kiss he had started. 

“You can still stay,” you say, your voice barely a whisper.

“I’ll be back in a week, Hermosa. I love you.”

Tears streaming down your face, you reply. “I love you too. Please don’t die. Don’t any of you die.”

Frankie chuckles. “We’ll be fine. I’ll call you in a couple of days once we’re settled, ok?”

—----

Except, Frankie did not call in a couple of days. Neither did any of the others, nor had they reached out to Stacy, Molly, or Olivia. There was no one to call, no contact. They needed it that way for whatever consultation they were on. Stacey brought the kids over and Olivia came too, all of you opting to stay together and support each other at least during the day. As the few days stretched into a week, which stretched into nearly another, Olivia split her time between you and Stacy’s, offering to watch the kids so you each could have a moment to yourselves. She was at Stacy’s tonight, Luis snuggled and tucked in beside you as you channel surf the tv, landing on nothing in particular. It was day 10 and about 2am so all of the infomercials were on. You landed on one for some random kitchen gadget when your phone rings. You jump, grabbing for your phone to quickly hit the silent button before it wakes Luis. It was an unknown number, but definitely foreign and so you pick up right away.

“Frankie?”

“Hermosa,” he breathes a sigh of relief, his voice wavering on the last syllable of your name. 

“Are you ok? Is everyone alright? Fuck, I’ve been terrified out of my mind.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Things got…out of hand. I can explain more when I get home.”

“I understand. But you’re ok?”

“I’m ok. A little banged up but ok.”

“Everyone else?”

The way he’s silent has your throat closing up, making it difficult to speak. “Frankie?”

“It’s Tom.”

While Tom and you never were best friends, there’s no way you would’ve wished death on the man, nor would you have wanted to have his girls without a father. 

—----

Frankie’s mom takes Luis while you drive to the airport, there to pick up Frankie as Olivia and Stacy were going to get Benny and Will. You had experienced all of the emotions these past 10 days, mostly anger and fear, but when you heard his voice, a part of you caved. You just wanted him home and were grateful that he was alive.

You spot Benny first, towering over a majority of the crowd as people file out security and head towards baggage claim. Then you see it - a dark blue standard heating oil cap bobbing next to Benny and suddenly, you’re running, pushing people out of the way as you run towards him, Frankie seeing you at the last moment, dropping his bag to gather you in his arms, burying his face in your hair. Olivia and Stacy copy your actions, Will hissing when Stacy throws her arms around him. He mutters “I’m ok.” before pulling her to him. Pulling back, you look up into Frankie’s black brown eyes, taking in all the features of his face, his laugh lines, the spot where his one dimple pops up, the fact that he had the audacity to shave his beard. 

“You shaved,” you said simply, running a finger along his jawline.

“Yeah. But I’ll grow it back just for you.”

His lips crash to yours, his hands cupping the sides of your face as you press your body against his, fingers twisting in his shirt. 

“I’m still mad at you,” you breathe out between kisses.

“Fair enough.”

Hugs were exchanged all around before everyone went to their homes. On the drive home, Frankie tells you everything, how it was just a consult but then they decided to try and do it themselves, how it would’ve all been fine if they hadn’t missed their window, or if Tom had listened when he said it was too much weight for the helicopter. 

“Wait..you crashed?” 

“Yeah. It was just a little crash.”

“Frankie!”

“It’s me. I landed us…mostly fine. We all walked away.”

He explains about the money and the people from the village, and how they had to trek up the fucking Andes mountains and down the other side. How a young man from the village had wanted revenge and got it, dying himself in the process. How they carried Tom down the side of the mountain, leaving a ton of money there, only to make it to safety and come back with a new chopper to get the money and safely make it back in a whole other country, which is where he called you from. By the end of the story you’re silent, tears quietly falling down your face as you realize how easily they all could’ve died on the side of those mountains. How one of them did. 

“We each put about $5mil in a trust fund for Tom’s girls, made sure Molly was taken care of. It’s what Tom would’ve wanted and it’s…it’ll never be enough.”

“Hey,” you squeeze his thigh and he looks at you, tears on his cheeks. “You are not to blame. Every one of you knew what you were doing, knew there were risks. And while I can’t say who shot first as I wasn’t there, Frankie, it was self defense. And, I’m sorry, but knowing you and knowing Tom? I’d bet money on him shooting first.”

Frankie nods. “Yeah I guess so…. are you mad at me still?”

“I was all prepared to be so pissed at you, but honestly? I’m just glad to have you here and alive.”

Frankie spends the next hour between your legs and you spend the hour after that washing his hair and tending to his arguably minor wounds. Once you were clean and dressed, you made him something to eat, as you’d have to go get Luis shortly. When you set his glass of water down, he grips your wrist, pulling you into his lap.

“How are you feeling? Do you need to call your sponsor?”

He shakes his head. “Surprisingly, no. I think I’m just so grateful to be alive. And there’s one more thing.”

“What?” You ask nervously.

Frankie leans in closer, speaking low in your ear. “We got the rest of the money.”

“The $17k?” You said stupidly.

Frankie smiles and shakes his head. “A lot more than $17k.”

Your eyes widen. “What?”

“Millions, Hermosa. Each. Millions. We’re set for life, as are Luis and Aurelia.”

“Can we stay here?”

Frankie chuckles. “What?”

“I don’t want some giant mansion. I want to stay here. In our house.”

Frankie smiles and kisses you lightly. “We can do whatever you want to.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Besides take care of my family?”

“Besides that.”

“Once I get my license reinstated, I want to start my business.” His eyes light up as he talks about it, how he had already looked into getting retired choppers, and had gathered up some possible contacts, even scouted out some property. The only thing that had stopped him was the money, which was no longer an issue. 

—----

6 months later, Frankie’s license gets reinstated, the owner clapping him on the shoulder and apologizing for everything. A month later, Frankie opens Chopperz, his veteran owned and operated helicopter tour business. It’s a instant success - apparently people really want to experience flying in various retired military equipment being flown by actual veterans. He even has repeat customers, although a lot of them are women and you catch more than one of them blushing when he talks to them. 

Will and Stacy build a new house, much bigger to fit their expanding family, ecstatic that they were finally having a girl. He quits giving speeches almost immediately, staying home with his family and helping Frankie out when he needs it. 

Benny and Olivia confessed that they had actually gotten married the day after Benny’s last fight, not able to wait any longer. When he came home, they took off to travel the world while their dream house was being built just down the road from Frankie and Will. 

Santi went to Australia to find Yovanna and her brother, following them around until they got settled. He and Yovanna stayed together for a while, and he took some time for himself, wandering the world to see things when he wasn’t in a uniform. He eventually came back, building a house down the road from Frankie and the Millers. But to his first get together with everyone, he brought a girl, which wouldn’t have surprised anyone, but you could see the way he looked at her, constantly touching her lightly, pressing kisses to her head, shoulder, lips, anywhere he could. And she was doing the same, her eyes lighting up every time they looked at each other, so when you asked him later, away from everyone else, he scratches the back of his neck and admits that he thinks she’s the one, that she gets him, understands him, and doesn’t give a flying fuck about his money, which she didn’t even know about until now.  

Frankie and you were finally happy, after all these years. Elizabeth finally stopped her shit, leaving you and Frankie to be happy and only communicating when it regards Aurelia. Instead of moving, you decide to expand your house, adding another couple of bedrooms because you want to eventually expand your family. Frankie is beyond happy, smiling at Luis and Aurelia as they run around their new treehouse in the backyard, feeling you wrap your arms around him from behind, kissing his broad back before moving to stand next to him, his arm around your shoulder as you both watch your kids.

“What are you thinking about?” You ask, turning your head up to him.

“How happy I am. How I wish we had started this all sooner, that it didn’t take such a shitty road to get here, and that it didn’t take us this long.”

You reach up and cup his face, pulling him to you as you kiss him, his soft lips lightly nibbling at yours. 

“I’ll always wait for you, Frankie.”

—----  

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[yeetmeoffjueyunkarst]

Would you by any chance be willing to do Lynette being given a flower from reader? But like instead of it being a real flower its glass? They made it themselves for her and it has all these different colors of glass to try and make it look as pretty and real as possible?

👌done.

lynette x gn!reader fluff, whether they are together or not, i leave it up to you. Reader is not Traveller, small spoilers for Lyney story quest

A flower for you.

To say making a glass flower is a challenge is an understatement.

When you signed up for a glass flower making workshop that was held by a local glassblower, you did not know it was this hard.

It's not that it isn't difficult, it's just that... You wanted it to be perfect for Lynette. Sweet, quiet, but absolutely wonderful Lynette.

As to how that happened...

flashback 2 months ago

'Say, wouldn't this show on September 30 be your 100th show with Lyney?" You casually ask over tea, as Lynette sips her tea. Today's tea is Earl Grey tea, one of the classics. "Exiting Standby Mode. Yes, it would be. Lyney has been thinking of celebrating afterwards." She replies softly.

"How do you feel about it?"

"Much happy, actually. We've come a long way since our first show." Lynette replies simply, before eating a macaron.

You go silent at her words. Having met at a back alley while feeding some alley cats, the both of you have fostered a budding friendship over feeding cats, and over time, drinking tea as well.

"Perhaps I should take you up on your offer to reserve a ticket to a show after all." You state softly to Lynette.

"Really?"

You nod.

"Alright then, I'll pass you a ticket the next tea session."

What you don't add is the fact that you'll be bringing a small gift for her to celebrate her 100th show with Lyney.

Much thought had been put in place for the gift.

To buy it? To make it? The thoughts plague you. She can't have anything strong smelling because she's sensitive to scent, so no perfumes, no flowers...

Wait a minute...

And that's how you're in the workshop for a private studio session, trying to ambitiously make a rainbow flower.

The first time you went for a workshop, you made a decent simple flower.

And you were going along with that until...

"My brother gave the Traveller a Rainbow Rose during a private magic show for them." Lynette once offhandedly mentioned to you.

"He was probably imitating Mr Cesar, but even I can't deny that was rather smooth of my brother."

And that's how you're trying to make a glass rainbow flower for her.

Sitting down, you take in a deep breathe, trying to calm down.

After lots of money, time spent on this, and only a week left to that 100th show, This was literally the last chance.

With that, you begin shaping the petals, petal by petal. Even though you had decent practice, you still unfortunately burned your finger a little, causing you to take a short break when you were making the green petal.

After a while, all 7 petals are done, and set to cool.

Next up, the stems and leaves, in the color of silver, just to somewhat match her outfit during shows.

Slowly, slowly, you combine everything.

It wasn't the most ideal compared to what you had seen others do, but it'll have to do.

At least it wasn't like the 2nd try where everything went wrong.

"Welcome to Lyney and Lynette's magic show!" Lyney warmly welcomes the audience, you among them.

Most people would keep their eyes on Lyney, for he is the star of the show. However, your eyes were always on Lynette, watching her throughout the show.

The first time you went to watch the show, while most of your friends focused on Lyney, your eyes always focused on Lynette, causing you to miss out the main show every single time.

Call it infatuation, but you were smitten at the start. Daydreams of hugging her, kissing her, cherishing her filled your mind.

You never thought you'll see her outside the show, that day you were feeding cats.

But ever since, you've been blessing the cats, least to say.

In a blur, the magic show was over. Your mind focused on Lynette all the time, the way she'll simply pop out of nowhere, her stoic demeanour, sharp and calculated movements aimed at being a shadow in the presence of the overwhelming light that was her brother.

The show ends, and you head backstage to find Lynette.

"Ah, and you are?" Lyney appears with a polite smile, but what it does not betray is his deep suspicions that you have insincere motives.

"Y/N. I'm looking for your sister. Do you know where she is?" You ask gently, knowing from Lynette's mentions of her brother that he's very protective of her.

"Ah, Y/N." The twins ring out at the same time.

So that's the friend Lynette has been mentioning lately, Lyney muses to himself.

"How was the show?" Lynette asks, internally glad that you, someone close to her, made it for such an occasion.

"It was great! And I, well, have something for you." You awkwardly take out the glass flower, embarrassed at giving her this in front of her brother.

"I'm sorry if it's not very beautiful compared to real flowers, but you told me before that you were sensitive to the scent of flowers, so I thought I would get you another type of flower. I hope you like it." You state weakly, feeling more and more embarrassed.

"Any.. anyway, congratulations for your 100th show, and um, all the best for future ones!" And with that, you left backstage, leaving the twins with each other.

"So... Y/N..." Lyney cheekily asks, with an underlying hint of suspicion and concern.

"They're fine." Lynette replies, stroking each glass petal of the flower. "They had a small burn on their finger." She states softly, face turning red at the realisation that it wasn't bought, but made by you.

"Sounds like you like them, sister." Lynette eggs her on for an answer.

"How about you worry on how to gain back more of the Traveler's trust first? Wouldn't want to lose their affections, would you?" Lynette rebutts back softly, still recalling your blushing face.

She knows of your eyes on her throughout the show, ever since the first one you attended. While she was initally... scared because of past experiences, her personal interactions with you, and all the things her feline friends have been telling her about you when you're feeding them...

A small smile creeps onto her face. Lyney watches, not used to seeing his calm sister a little lovestruck.

Perhaps she would ask Lyney for some advice to be more bold in expressing her affections for Y/N.

Or maybe not, I'm still not sure about how I feel for Y/N. All I know is that Y/N is special to me, friend or more.

"Still, be careful, Lynette." Lyney warns her softly, in reference to their Fatui ties.

She sighs.

"I know, don't worry. We will be alright."

I spent 15 minutes considering what a glass flower was and googling how to make a glass flower.

You can use the link here

As always, likes and reblogs appreciated, Requests are still open as usual

[wito-chan-bla-bla]

"Silence!"

 Kalego is not used to working in noise. And at the same time, he is used to shouting his favorite "silence!" even when it is not quite appropriate. And you… You just couldn't sit still.

Kalego knew what he was agreeing to when he got married. He knew what kind of demon his partner was, whom he had chosen, as he hoped, for the rest of his life. Perhaps this loud personality caught his attention once (not in a good way), and gradually falling in love with the demon came to terms with the fact that there is someone so loud and energetic next to him.

And yet... it was impossible to work like this!

 Kalego sat and checked his students' homework. It was evening, and he wanted to get it over with and get back to you, his spouse. After you moved in with him, Naberius slept next to you every night and only fell asleep when he touched your body. (Well, or you've touched his. The main thing is physical contact). The demon couldn't remember the last time he fell asleep without his arm, wing, or tail wrapped around you.

It looks like the same thing happened to you. Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that you came to him even though you should have had the tenth dream? You rather loudly (not intentionally) rustled your slippers on the floor and sat down on the sofa, next to your husband's desk. You held your tail to your legs and watched Kalego work, but it didn't last long as the demon turned to you with a tired but loving expression.

–Can't you sleep, (Y/N)? – he asked softly, feeling all the stress he had accumulated from checking his homework evaporate just by looking at you.

–What do you think? – you chuckled and gave him a cheeky smile. – How can I sleep soundly when no one is throwing their legs over me and trying to sniff my neck?

–As if you were against it, – he turned away from you and continued to write. – I'll be done in about half an hour, you should go back to bed."

–How can I sleep when my handsome husband is working? – you walked over to the demon and put your arms around his shoulders, pressing your lips to his temple. – I'll wait until you're done.

���(Y/N), I love you, but if you keep interrupting me, I won't be able to complete everything in half an hour as planned.

Despite the words, he turned to plant a small kiss on your lips. You giggled and kissed his face, whispering how much you loved Kalego.

You've always been so... loud, energetic and loving, emotional. Was it related to your ancestral magic? Or with your character? Naberius had no idea, back then he just wanted you to finally stop talking, shut up and let him learn.

Gradually, your behavior started to seem a little less annoying to Kalego. It took him many years to start finding more pros than cons in your high-profile personality, and in the end, he was so successful that he married you.

–Kalego-o-o, you need to sleep more! – you were whining in his ear, jerking the demon back and forth in your arms. – Why don't you just join me in bed? I'll hold you and tell you stories until you fall asleep in my arms…

–(Y/N), I need to work, – he quickly kissed you on the cheek and moved away from you. You seduced him too much... in different ways. – I'll come to you as soon as I'm done.

–Then I'll wait for you here as planned!

You walked away from him and plopped down on the couch with a loud and displeased sound. Naberius rolled his eyes, sighed, and continued his work. Just looking at the scribbled papers brought his bad mood back. His class today once again caused problems for the whole school, and Kalego was forced to deal with all this! And then he was forced to stay even longer!..

You quickly became bored, and therefore you began to twitch back and forth, which made the sofa creak. You sighed, touched the upholstery loudly, and swished your tail… Of course, you didn't do all these actions on purpose. But… it all annoyed Kalego so much!

 Naberius always worked in silence (at least as long as he was given the opportunity). He usually managed to finish all his tasks before you got home from work, but this time he didn't succeed... the demon turned to you and almost felt ashamed when you looked at him with hopeful eyes.

–(Y/N), can you be... quiet? – he asked, as gently as he could. – You're interrupting my work.

–Oh, I-I'm sorry! – you froze and laughed awkwardly. – I'll try not to move again. Oh, I'll go and water your cacti for now!

You ran off to the bathroom and Kalego had five minutes of silence. He hadn't managed to do much in that time. When you came back, stomping loudly again, and started watering the flowers, the demon's eye twitched. Was it due to lack of sleep? Or because he had to stay late at work because of the fault of his beloved boss? Naberius didn't know. But he knew he was going to throw something at you! (Just like when he was at school).

Kalego loved when you were chatting with his cacti. That was one of the reasons he fell in love with you. You cared so much for his little plants, always telling them about your day, the good news, and telling them to grow tall, healthy, and beautiful! Sometimes the demon would stop in the doorway to the living room and watch in silence as you chatted with his cacti, not seeing your husband genuinely enjoying himself.

But now... why do you have to speak now?!

–Oh, son, you've grown so much! Soon you will have such a cute flower blooming! You'll make your parents happy, won't you?

Your whisper, full of tenderness, just now seemed like a cry to Kalego. He usually found it cute that you were hanging out with your "son" - that is, the cactus you gave Naberius when you declared your love for him. Your careful attitude to the plant made Kalego remember his youth and think about how to expand his family... in one way or another.

But right now, your words sounded like the sound you make when you run your claws across a green chalk board. The demon couldn't take it anymore.

 Kalego turned to you to ask you to leave. You've been with him long enough to understand him and not be offended. (And even if you're offended, he'll make it up to you as soon as he gets back to your bed.) But instead of a calm and quite a bit irritated "(Y/N), please, you're interrupting my work", you heard a well-worked out for years:

–SILENCE!

You froze, almost dropping the watering can. Your eyes suddenly filled with tears at the sharp cry from your husband. Your heart ached and beat faster, and you hid your eyes in shame. You were so nervous when you confessed your love to him that the cactus almost flew out of your hands. Therefore, Kalego was not surprised that you were ready to cry at his harsh and loud words.

Your miserable face caused the demon to mentally slap himself on the forehead. He didn't want to yell at you like he did at his students! He did it out of habit! Still, it couldn't be used as an excuse.

You stood up and awkwardly mumbled an apology. You were always running too fast, so Kalego had to work hard to catch up with you. He stomped down the hall and almost fell on top of you to hold you in his arms. You swung your legs and squeezed your eyes shut, causing tears to fall from your eyes.

Your husband... never spoke like that to you. If he didn't like how energetic you were, he would either sigh and roll his eyes or ask you to be quiet. You've never heard him yell at you. Perhaps this time you went too far? Maybe you really should have gone to bed…

–(Y/N), I…

–I-it's fine! – you were dangling in his tight embrace, trying to get out. – I-I really can be too loud and emotional a lot... uh, I should have left you alone…

 Kalego hugged you even tighter and held you close with a sigh. Sometimes he was surprised by your energy, but it was because of the way you took every event to heart and always reacted emotionally to it that the demon's life was so much brighter than it could have been. In addition, every time you laughed too loudly or enthusiastically talked about your favorite things, his heart was filled with warmth, love and calm, even if at that moment you shook him with delight and shouted almost in his ear.

 Kalego leaned down and covered your wet, salty cheeks with kisses. You tried to move away from him, muttering apologies, but Naberius wouldn't let you. He made you turn around to face him, but you immediately hid in his clothes. The demon grunted as you clutched at his home T-shirt, clearly not wanting him to go anywhere.

Your husband put his arm around you and pressed his face to your neck. You rubbed your cheek against his bare skin in embarrassment and made a pitiful kitten sound. Kalego turned his head and covered your cheek with kisses until you stopped breathing raggedly, sobbing constantly, until your heart stopped beating so loudly and fast, as if hitting his chest.

–Have you calmed down? – you nodded, still not looking up at him. – (Y/N), are you ready to talk to me like an adult demon?

–W-what should we talk about? I-I realized I was interrupting your work. Um... s-sorry to distract you…

–(Y/N), I just want you to know that I'm not mad, – he rubbed the top of your head with his cheek.

–Are you sure?

–At least not enough to yell at you like that. I should have... asked you to calm down in a more... acceptable way.

You looked into his eyes and then pressed your lips to his. Your tail whizzed back and forth before you pulled away from him and wrapped your arms around his body, pulling him closer to you.

–I'm sorry, Kalego-o-o. I won't make any more noise and interfere with your work. But you have to promise me that I can sit next to you until you're done! I promise I won't move an inch!

–You don't need so much to be happy, – he chuckled. – Come with me…

He picked you up easily and dragged you back to the living room. Leaving you on the couch, he went to the table he usually used when he was sitting up in bed reading a book. (He was putting a lamp on it.) Naberius sat down on the sofa and called you over. While he was putting the papers on a wooden surface, you crawled under the object without any problems and lay down on your husband's chest. (Previously, you couldn't do this because the blanket always got in the way.)

You hugged Kalego and closed your eyes with a happy purr. The demon couldn't help but chuckle at your behavior. You hurriedly looked up at him and returned his gaze with delight.

–I love any expression of your joy so much!

–Sleep, – and he closed your eyelids with his fingers.

 Kalego continued to check your homework while you were napping peacefully on his lap. Tomorrow, you'll definitely be chatting with him nonstop, sticking to him and telling him that you missed him, even though he just didn't fall asleep with you in the same place at the same time.

 Kalego didn't like noisy demons. But everything changed when you got involved.

 Naberius magically put away the documents and looked down at you, who was sleeping on his lap. He patted your head and called your name softly. You opened your eyes and stared at him sleepily before sitting down, hugging your husband and murmuring how much you love him.

The demon smiled happily and kissed you on the cheek before picking you up and carrying you to bed. It's time to give you your obligatory hugs and send you to the realm of dreams.

[alma-amentet]

Why do you dislike the DLC main story so much?

Not to argue or something, just wondering after seeing you ranting in the tags.

I just don't like it. It didn't meet my expectations. In the end, yeah, it comes down to preferences... Though I agree on 'bad writing', and it's just good to know I'm not alone in this.

You know, I'd like it. After all, I knew what I was messing into and didn't expect a happy ending, Age of Abundance (though it was in cut content, so...) or something. It could've been a beautiful tragic story of Miquella loosing parts of himself as a last desperate attempt to fix things but failing.

There are good rewrites, this is one of my favorites

But there are major things that I'll never accept as canon.

Promised consort Retcon. Makes no sense. Bad writing, and I will really die on this hill. Bc no evidence of this in the base game and a weird idea in general. Also how drastically they ruined the battle of Aeonia. Like... really? This feels like fanservice/trollery (assuming fandom's past fights). Horseboy's story should have ended with the festival (for me it did).

'Mohg beating allegations' and all that evil charm thing. First of all, no way he did, he's still an evil bloody cultist. Secondly, him being charmed makes it actually more problematic in some ways. I liked him as a well-designed villain acting on his own and Formless Mother's behalf, the new reveals ruin his character for me. Third, there are known plotholes (like others not acting this way under the charm or why would he travel to the Haligtree and back - could've stayed there or something). In the end, I think it's Ansbach who's a real charmer, charming the fandom. Luckily I'm not into handsome old men, so not buying it. He's devoted to his lord, that's all, no matter how wise and reasonable he may seem (still devoted, mind you).

There are other new bits of lore that look more OK... Though they have plotholes and contradictions, too (questioning ideas of godhood and the Shattering itself - that's what I can remember).

Much's been said in general, not gonna repeat (you can find it in my older posts and reposts). I see people analyzing and rationalizing new lore, enjoying the DLC. Good for them. Even envious at some point. As for myself, no matter how I miss my prev happy times in the fandom, now I see not much sense in discussing it, finding deep meanings etc. Loved to watch lore vids, now I mostly can't even if I want to. Maybe rewatching my older fav ones, but not most new ones. Some content is just upsetting. I'll need it anyway for my own AU and headcanons, so hope I'll find strenght, but not now.

Again, It feels like a joke or trollery, and if the authors themselves treat it this way, why should I bother wasting my time/energy?

There are some other details that are still interesting (like Marika's backtory n stuff), yet again, could've been a beautiful tragic story... but oh.

I used to be in kids/tween fandoms, which were silly by default, neither deep meaning nor dark complex philosophy. Yet some of them were making even more sense in writing, while others were not given high expectations right from the start, that's it.

Not leaving the fandom bc it's not done so easily, will even do some fanarts (finally. hopefully). I think I'll dwell solely on AUs / fixes / rewrites and some visuals without much context. Also on things I liked before the DLC and things I still like (like Maliketh/Marika), and filtering unsettling content as much as I can. But yes, you'll see me venting and supporting other people's rants. Untill my passion fades naturally and switches to something else.

I'll pick up the base game back when I can (my current PC won't run it by any chance), but will notbe buying the DLC. At least, for now.

[theink-stainedfolk]

Writer Questionnaire Tag

Thank you @drchenquill @the-golden-comet and @paeliae-occasionally for the tag

how long have you had your writing tumblr/writeblr? a fast and loose estimate is fine!

It's been at least 6 months or more I believe.

what led you to create it?

I actually had it from before but i never really posted anything. The thought that there might be people willing to read my works more than my own family and friends led me to create it. I was done shying away.

what's your favourite thing about the writeblr community?

I absolutely adore the supportive and inclusive nature of the writeblr community! It's a space where writers from diverse backgrounds and genres come together to share their passion for storytelling. I love how everyone encourages and uplifts each other, offering constructive feedback and celebrating each other's successes. The community's enthusiasm is infectious, and it motivates me to keep writing and improving my craft. I also appreciate the wealth of resources and knowledge shared within the community, from writing tips and prompts to editing advice and publishing insights. It's amazing to see how writers willingly share their expertise and experiences to help others grow. Most of all, I cherish the sense of belonging and connection that comes with being part of this community. Writeblr feels like a virtual writing group, where we can discuss our projects, share our struggles, and rejoice in our triumphs together

what's one thing you'd like your mutuals to know about you?

That i really love talking about my WIPs and OCs aand everything related to my story. I feel happy, seen and appreciated. If you like anything i woorte, please don't hesitate to ask or just tell me how you feel.

is there anything you'd like to see more of on your dash?

Uh..memes? More aisan drama related things? More HSR stuff everything about my interests etc.

which wips or writing projects are you noodling about, lately?

Very wrong question lol. I've been going back and forth between my WIPs. But the most recent one I've done, or am thinking about is The Masque of Murder .

how long have you been working on them?

Hahaha.... Since months, years and i still haven't even written a chapter for some of them. I hate myself for that. But since The Masque of Murder is recent, it's been a week or so.

do you remember what inspired them/ what got you started?

Yeah i remember reading a manhwa which had this crazy but mad genius doctor as a minor villan. It got me thinking that it was a waste of his abilities and damn good looks and he would have been surely protected by the plot armour had he been the main character instead. This forced me into making it lol.

how much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them?

🎵Every hour, every minute, every second. And night after night, I'll thinking 'bout you right, 7 days a week.🎶

name any characters you created. side characters, protagonists, antagonists, characters who've never been written, the first original abomination you ever pulled from your ass; whomever you'd like!

Uh... every single one of them? I created everyone, if that's what you're asking haha.. I'm not sure if i understand it correctly but i created everyone on my own. I'll mention the one that comes to my mind first then.

Side character- Emrys from In The Silence, Strength

Protagonist- Dr. Phineas Abel Thorncroft from The Masque Of Murder

Antagonist- Dante from Beyond The Pages (but he is also the protagonist)

And i can't really remember the last two.

when someone asks the dreaded, "what do you write about," question, what do you usually say?

Yknow, fantasy stuff with magic and murder mystery with actual murder and blood and stuff and all that hahah none of the stuffs that you like or understand or are interested in right? Hahah it totally doesn't have queer peoples. Just fictional stuff you don't wanna know hahaha.

Deadass.

who's the most unhinged?

Dr. Phineas Abel Thorncroft (from The Masque Of Murder), Acheron (from Legacy of Creation), Dante (from Beyond The Pages) and Eitenne Lumiere( from Wicked Games, Wicked Fates) from what i remember .

who comes the most naturally for you to write?

Vesperine, Cleo, Pareen

do you ever cringe at them?

Hahaha... sometimes..

how much control do you feel you have over your characters? do they ever "write themselves," refuse to cooperate, or do things you didn't expect? to what degree? are some less cooperative than others?

I feel like i have 70% control and 30% is something they do it themselves because i give them the freedom to do so. Because that is the story of my character and not of me, even if I am the one who wrote it. Sometimes the decision i make for them is not what they'd do.

do you enjoy people asking questions about your characters? and do you have a preferred means of receiving said questions? for example, as asks, as replies, as reblogs, as tag notes, as comments on ao3, etc.

Yes i absolutely love it please ask. Doesn't matter how just ask♡♡♡

what makes you want to follow another writeblr account? do you follow 'em as you see 'em, or take time scoping out the blog to make sure you align with its content? do you follow based on wips, or vibes?

I take time scoping out the blog to make sure i align with it's content. And i follow based on both, wips and vibes but mostly vibes.

what makes you decide against following?

If i don't align with the content or i don't fond the story interesting, i don't follow.

do you interact with non-mutual often?

Not often but i do.

do your mutuals' characters occupy space in your noodle?

There are so so many characters of my mutuals that i love love loveee but my memory rn isn't functioning at its best so i will just write whom i can remember rn.

The Madness, the lady and that guy from Foliè written by @drchenquill, my friend. Whose writing always leaves me with surprises and cliffhangers. She supports me so much i almost feel guilty 💕💕💕💕 i love you so much💖💖💖

@paeliae-occasionally Xanren, Marsh and Paeliae. I love their stories it captivated me. I hope you can tag me on their journey 👍, @cssnder, my first mutual whom i talked with so much courage that i almost didn't open tumblr the next day due to embarrassment and nervousness. Her works are like renaissance paintings, truly mesmerizing and beautiful. Thus Saith The Lord is truly a work of art and i hope i get to read it soon.😭 And also, @roarintheheavens , my new friend, I'm so happy. Vron Carson, he is very interesting and i can't wait to know more about him. And of course, @the-golden-comet, I'd very much like to read more about peter hart.

Just because i didn't mention everyone doesn't mean i don't appreciate your works, it's just that i haven't read them yet. I hope you all can send it to me. I'll definitely read it.

I'll tag @finickyfelix @willtheweaver @ascotwriting @agirlandherquill @leahnardo-da-veggie @illarian-rambling @winglesswriter @graveyardshift111