#he’s one of my top favourite fictional characters

[artsy-imogen]

I wanted to quickly delve into the inspiration behind my Faust design before I post anymore art of him :D I’ll do my best to write out my thoughts, I’ll definitely ramble a lil haha

So for his outfit’s palette (the main ones I’ll go into being “teal” and “yellow”) I looked into a bunch of colours and the meaning behind them. Teal (from the info I found on it) represents morality and renewal, which for this au I believe complements his appearance as he’s changed himself for the better and has learned a lot from his past trauma and mistakes. The colour teal also represents logic, sympathy, calmness and enlightenment, which I believe would suit Faust a lot with his growth and self acceptance. The colour also has it’s negatives though, with privacy and apprehension, which again correlates to his tragic past.

For his tie it was a pretty simple addition. I wanted to add a splash of yellow to it which represents positivity, energy, joy, and his secure/warm personality :)

Moving onto his style. His fingerless gloves and brown vest were inspired by his scrapped strive design. The stitches decorating his coat and the leg of his pants represent him “putting himself back together again.”

The broken heart locket pinned to his chest symbolises him feeling alive and like his old self again, but it still has him carrying the burden of a damaged past. The “crack”symbolises that while he’s moved on and is in a better place, he won’t forget what he’s been through.

He still wears his paper bag, especially in combat, but he does walk around with it off, on occasions. It’s become a strange signature for him, how he’s both learned to accept himself and the lives he’s lived. He’s become a symbol of inspiration at the new hospital he works at, inspiring the hearts of many and gaining their trust.

[bambiilooza]

is there a meaning to your pfp btw?

there's a story

when i showed my little sister (3 now, 2 at the time) the lion king, she really liked him and i told her his name is timon and did his voice to make her laugh. she called him 'teemo' and kept calling me 'teemo' for the next few weeks

also i'm gay

[theterrornaut]

Mean Angel fan art

[spitdrunken]

man. still have NOT managed to get my hands on the book of bill because it's sold out literally everywhere over here, but have any of you seen the new 'how not to draw' vid on the disney youtube channel that features bill? it really got me thinking.

notes: fourth wall breaking, obsessive behaviour, unhealthy relationships, implied sexual content, implied mind control

it's heavily implied that the video takes place in a world where gravity falls is supposedly fictional, like our own. bill literally says he's going to break the fourth wall! because i'm a sucker for fourth wall breaks and characters being aware of their own fandom (to an extent), i simply just HAD to run with this scenario.

i just like the idea of 'you' being just a person, some totally, in the large scheme of things, insignificant human walking the earth. you have a tendency for escapism, perhaps. you have always been drawn to stories. you like gravity falls. maybe it was something you watched while you were younger and recently rewatched, or an interest that had never waned. regardless, bill cipher, charismatic and unapologetically evil villain that he is, is one of your favourites.

you doodle him on the edges of paper when you're supposed to be doing anything else. (regardless of anyone's artistic skills, it's not difficult to draw a triangle with a top hat and an eye, is it?) and in this world, you are hardly the only one who likes him, who, perhaps, ships himself with him, who thinks about him a lot. who makes drawings and writes or reads fic. you don't think it's all that unusual.

in a stroke of luck or, depending on how you look at it, the exact opposite, the universe's idea of a cosmic joke, you are the one to catch bill's eye. (it's, after all, much easier to infiltrate the dreams of someone who already has you on their mind. makes sense, doesn't it? a tentative, wavering link had been formed already.) there, in your dreams, he tells you what to say--triangulum, entangulum. meteforis dominus ventium. meteforis venetisarium--and the next morning, you remember it clear as a memory.

you do it. for funsies. why wouldn't you? you don't expect it to actually work. he's a fictional interdimensional demon. why would it work? but much to your surprise, and horror, because surely a screw must've gotten loose for this to be happening, one of your little doodles has life blown to it. as a response to your summon, a tiny little bill cipher darts across your paper, alive but still confined.

(you've given him an in. now, he only has to take the crack you've opened for him, dig his fingers in, and tear it open.)

oh, he'll be funny! he'll be exactly what you thought of him. perhaps he even voices a line of dialogue you swore you wrote down somewhere days prior. yes, he's read whatever you wrote or read, whatever you looked at. he's keeping it himself for now. it's not easy to inflate his ego further, but you might have succeeded. rather than a meatbag, bill first looks upon you with the eye of someone presented with a puppy. fundamentally lesser, but capable of being something with the right training.

he urges you to make a deal with him and the promise he'll act out whatever fantasy you've been cooking up in that brain of yours, even if it's gross and weird and physically impossible!

he'll warp your dimension to make all of it possible!!! it's great!!! don't worry about it!!!!!!

…you don't do it. you don't touch the paper. you've seen the show, and you aren't stupid. bill nearly balks. he'd expected you to be the easiest mark of all time, but he suppose he forgot that even puppies have teeth. that's fine. he can work with this. because even though you have not let him in yet, and you refuse to shake his hand through the paper, you don't seperate yourself from him just yet.

you could oh so easily take the piece of paper he's on and throw it in the nearest shredder. or set him on fire. in you, he recognises lingering curiosity, and the excitement at having stood out, at being chosen, in one way or another. it's not hopeless yet.

he can play a bit of a longer game, then. he's been at this for a long, long time. he'll tolerate the paper he's on being folded into a little square and tucked into your breast pocket, granting him a view of your life and the world you're living in. (all the time, his hunger grows.) your decision not to throw him away ends up being your downfall. spending so much time with bill, letting him joke around with you, complaining about your problems… it takes a while for you to realise that, for a while now, he has not been speaking out loud anymore, but instead through your mind.

a connection that cannot be cut has been formed in between two of you.

on bill's part, he had thorougly expected to be bored. but perhaps it's your genuine interest in him, not the things he's offering, which he does not often see. (he's been down this road before. won't end well. but...) the sheer mundanity of your life that makes him wish he could twist and turn it all around. or just a random alignment of the stars. the heart doesn't always follow logic. in this scenario, at some point, bill realises that he has become genuinely invested in you, too. and at that point, you'll never manage to slip away. he's already dug in his heels in your mind far enough. you had no adequate protection.

he still wants to take over your world. he still wants to escape the discomforting flatness of the paper you've summoned him in. but, perhaps, you two could share that meatsack of a body of yours, before things get that far.

[beamorgan]

Favourite Reads of the Year

I will not be ranking these, because that would hurt my heart. Buckle up folks, there are a lot of amazing books out there

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

I know, I KNOW, I'm late to the party but omg this whole series is just as good as people say!!! I know I said I wouldn't be ranking, but if I was these would be fighting for the top spot. I have already relistened to all the audiobooks. I anticipate rereading them literally every year from now on. I would die for Murderbot, which it would think is a stupid thing for a human to do when there is a SecUnit right there. [adult, scifi]

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

Sequel to last year's fav Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, this follows a bullheaded academic trying find the magical door that will let her faerie boyfriend back into his faerie kingdom. Chaos ensues in the Alps. It's fabulous, and the author's approach to using folklore is very similar to my own writing, which I love and also get imposter syndrome about. 10/10 recommend [adult, historical fantasy]

Model Home by Solomon Rivers

Would you like to be repeatedly punched in the gut? Look no further than this story of racism and child abuse in a Texas McMansion, with gorgeous prose and a genderqueer protagonist and the laundry list of content warnings you can expect with the genre. It hurt so good. [adult, contemporary gothic horror]

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

This love affair between a baseball play and a sports reporter was recced to me by the lovely @colubrina and boy was it worth the two-day binge it inspired! Romance can be very hit-or-miss for me, but this knocked it out of the park (please enjoy my pun). I didn't even have to know anything about baseball to love it! [adult, historical (1960s) romance]

The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir

Another tumblr fav, FOR A REASON. Gideon is hilarious. Harrow is an absolute mess. Nona is BABY, my beloved. (Camilla and Palamedes have my whole entire heart). Also, the audiobook narrator is fantastic. In the words of the author, the buns are also fried chicken. [adult, sci fantasy]

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

This one is @elodieunderglass's fault. Historical buffoonery on boats. The main characters are ridiculous. The sailing jargon is incomprehensible. It's great. [adult, historical fiction]

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

This is a gorgeous memoir of an interracial adoptee trying to make contact with her birth family while pregnant with her own child. It grapples thoughtfully with reconnecting to a lost culture, the complexities of family history, and the social and legal barriers adoptees face to learning about themselves. [adult, memoir]

Death in the Spires by KJ Charles

I devour everything Charles writes, so I was EXCITED for this mystery. She made it very clear on social media "It's not a kissing book!!" (it's kinda still a kissing book). She wrote a stonking book, as usual, with an underdog protagonist revisiting the murder that happened during his toxic time at Oxford university. [adult, historical mystery]

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

My favourite literary fiction read of the year, this meditation on Iranian diaspora identity is written by a poet and you can tell. I would suck the prose up through a straw if I could. The protagonist is an addict and also quite suicidal. It was fun :) [adult, literary fiction]

She Who Became the Sun by Shelly Parker-Chan

and the sequel, He Who Drowned the World. I don't even know how to sell this, all I want to do is flail incoherently about how amazing it is. IT'S AMAZING. JUST READ IT. (wait I know: this satisfied the part of me that was obsessed with Mulan as a kid) [adult, historical fantasy]

A Little Trickery by Roseanna Pike

The voicey-est book I've ever read. I screenshot like every other page. It follows an orphaned girl trying to survive in Tudor England through various means, such as faking a miracle in the church where her gay best friend is priest. [adult, historical fiction]

At the End of the River Styx by Michelle Kulwiki

My friend wrote a book! It made me cry!!! They were delighted with this!!! Please give this to any teenager in your life who needs to see thoughtful representation of grief and depression and boys in love. [YA, contemporary fantasy]

[ailoda]

ᯓ★ favourite writers

@luveline

@whirlybirbs

@pellucid-constellations

@aquaticmercy

@wkemeup

@intrepidacious

ᯓ★ favourite fics

Undisclosed - @pellucid-constellations

Desperate to outrun a secret that could cost you your life, you seek refuge in a small mountain town. Its deep forests and small cabins make it the perfect place to hide, but the travel website hadn’t mentioned anything about the quiet, burly lumberjack that wouldn’t leave your thoughts. No one had warned Bucky about you either.

I remember this being one of the first series I read after coming back to Tumblr. I wasn't one for Marvel AU’s at the time, as I preferred to read canon or adjacent fics, but I took a chance on this one and it completely changed everything. I absolutely loved it. It has the perfect amount of fluff and angst, and a plot to rival some of my favourite published work. The story and background are so well-placed and developed that it was too easy to fall in. I devoured this in I think two days - non-stop reading until I finished. It completely opened me up to AU’s. I come back so often as a sort of comfort read, and no matter how many times I’ve read it, I still get excited and devour it like I’ve never read it before. One of the first fics I thought of when compiling my 2024 favourites.

Just One Kiss - @sarahwroteathing

Bucky Barnes has been chasing after you since he was ten years old, but you’re determined not to give in. How long can you hold out when all he’s asking for is just one kiss?

This was the first 40s!Bucky fic that I read and is to blame for my 40s!Bucky obsession that has lasted all these months. I was completely enthralled from the first paragraph, and it stands as my favourite 40s!Bucky fic and easy my top 3 series overall. I religiously come back when looking for a comfort read or for getting my 40s!Bucky fix. It's amazing how well the characters (both canon and not) have been interpreted and developed, and as simple as the plot feels, it just works so well. There's no need for any plot twists or big moments to push the story along; the characters and the way they all naturally feed and contribute to the overall plot are more than enough. It's written so well that, despite reading it well over 10 times, I still feel all the emotions and feel just as empty finishing it as I did when I first read it. I really wish this was a printed book that I could have on my shelf; that I can always reach for and never be deleted (pls don't ever delete it!). It’s the cutest fic that has me laughing, crying, and kicking my feet no matter how many times I read it.

Twin Flames / Two Sides of The Same Coin - @anonymityisfunwriter

Grumpy x Sunshine Series

I couldn't decide on one - they both HAD to be included. These are to blame for my falling completely in love with fan fiction after a decade away. I hadn’t had Tumblr in so many years and decided to re-download during my Masters for some escapism, and boy did this deliver. The dynamic is amazing - the way they bounce off each other is a testament to the amazing writing and character development. The way they manage to create a sunshine!reader with so much backstory without it feeling childish or forced is, again, a testament to the amazing writing and planning, and just…*chef’s kiss*. Despite taking some plot points from canon films, I really enjoyed how these scenes didn't feel boring or repetitive. Similarly, I love how the reader is able to fit in seamlessly into scenes that we had already seen and bounce off an already established dynamic between Sam and Bucky. The thought and effort that must have gone into the reader's character development, never mind the series as a whole, is so evident. I have re-read and re-read these for months and will continue to do so until the end of time.

By Any Other Name - @wkemeup

When Agent Barnes is assigned undercover within Hydra, he finds himself drawn to the woman who doesn’t seem to belong in this world of violence, the wife to the head of Hydra… you. 

I re-read this quite recently and it felt like finding an old song that you loved hidden in your playlist. I've now re-read it twice in the span of a week, it's just so good. This fic stood out to me partly because of its writing and interesting and well-thought-out plot, but also because of how well-written I feel the reader is. The reader is multi-faceted and far from one dimensional, which I've found is a barrier for me reading these types of fics. While the reader embodies typical traits associated with feminine protagonists in this genre - such as submissiveness and other conventionally 'feminine' attributes - these are not portrayed as weaknesses in the typical sense. What I mean is that they are reframed to be strategic strengths. She wields her femininity and perceived lack of power in a wholly make-dominated environment to her advantage. At the same time, her 'true' strengths compliment these qualities, creating a balanced and complex character that also has room for the development we see throughout the fic. A defining aspect of the reader's personality that I really enjoy is her self-awareness; they know when and how to act, and when to hold back, making her a compelling and empowered figure in a story and genre where that is so difficult to achieve.

From the Void, with Love - @whirlybirbs

Watch two forever-lovers fall in love again. 

This was my first Loki series, and boy was it a good one to start with. I'm not one to read Loki fics usually as I can never usually find ones that entice me, but I was so happy to have stumbled upon this! A testament to the planning and writing ability was the way the reader’s involvement in the TVA storyline was interweaved without it feeling unnatural or forced. I love how the inner-workings of the reader's mind is included, and how their thoughts and feelings are so seamlessly interwoven into scenes without it feeling clunky or taking away from what's going on. I also really enjoyed the comedic elements, particularly the thoughts and reactions the reader had to things happening and how they bounced off Loki's dialogue so well. I found myself laughing so many times. It's one of those fics where you wish you could go back and read it for the first time again.

When It All Falls Apart - @bucky-bucket-barnes

The fate of the universe was in your hands. Bucky and you had been sent to retrieve the soul stone, a seemingly simple task. Unbeknownst to you, there was a hefty price to pay for such an exchange. You’re able to return to Earth, but it’s soon apparent part of you was left in Vormir.

This has to be one of my favourite fics of all time, but I also hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It feeds my deepest, most love-deprived soul. I personally feel that angst is so challenging to write and write well. Part of why I feel that way is because I feel that good angst needs to convey emotions and feelings effectively because it's about expressing the character's inner world and guiding how they feel to drive and guide the plot forward. A difficult aspect of this is ensuring the reader feels and understands the character's emotions rather than letting their own feelings cloud their perception and misinterpret the character's rationale and journey - keeping the story's emotional trajectory clear and true to the characterisation you have set. This is something that this writer can do so so very well. I cried the first time reading it, and the emotions still hit me after reading it over and over again. If anyone watches K-Drama’s, this has Uncontrollably Fond vibes. Such a good read if you’re looking for that heart-ripping angst.

My Own Soul’s Warning - @aquaticmercy

You, an immortal being, fall in love with the very mortal Bucky Barnes. You would do anything for him, even if it meant you had to strike a deal with Death herself.

This is another fic that I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time. I fell in love immediately. It's the fic that cemented @aquaticmercy one of my favourite writers. Well, that and the fact that they have some of the most intriguing and well-thought-out plot ideas that I've seen. It's difficult to choose a single fic really, but I cannot not choose 'My Own Soul's Warning' - it's a difficult one to compete with for me. The writing is one of the best I’ve read and the flow and feel of the story is second to none. It seems that with every new addition to this story, it just gets better and better (which I thought was impossible). They are able to narrate feelings and emotions so beautifully that it's impossible to not feel what the reader is experiencing. One of my favourite aspects is how they are able to think of things I would never have even thought of, and how they are able to write and explain these things and communicate feelings so well. Another aspect as to why this is so beautifully written, and why @aquaticmercy is a favourite, is when a writer can - without being explicit in their writings - craft a story where the depth of emotions is palpable without needing to be spelt out, leaving readers to grasp and feel them on their own. Where the reader is feeling more than their own emotions and feelings in response to the story, but also what the writer has curated and intended them to feel. Being able to do this without explicit writing is so difficult, and part of the reason why they are one of my favourite writers in general. I've tried to explain my deep feelings for this fic in a way that hopefully makes sense, but it's difficult to write everything I love because there is just so much to say. I am in love and we are married.

[makeitmingi]

When Flowers Bloom In The Dark [Chapter 8]

Genre: Romance, Mafia!AU, Violence, Angst, Slow burn

Pairing: Hongjoong x Reader (y/n)

Characters: Florist!Reader, Mafioso!Hongjoong, Mafioso!Seonghwa, Mafioso!Yunho, Mafioso!Yeosang, Mafioso!San, Mafioso!Mingi, Mafioso!Wooyoung, Mafioso!Jongho

Summary: When you appeared and wept at his mother's funeral, Hongjoong found himself wanting to find out more about you. A regular girl, who owns a flower shop in his territory and has a relationship with the mother that he hasn't spoken to in years, why hasn't he ever noticed you before?

[Warning(s): 18+ for violence, use of weapons, smoking, alcohol consumption, slight gore, gang affiliation, tattoos and character deaths. Minors DNI. This is a work of fiction and does not represent the Ateez members in real life.]

Word count: 3.2K

"You can add a layer of natural compost to provide the plant with the nutrients its missing. Then add a layer of this mulch right at the top, it'll help keep the moisture in. Your plant should be fine right after." You smiled, handing the bag of mulch and natural compost to the customer after she paid.

"Okay, I'll go home and repot it properly. Do I stick to my regular watering schedule?" She asked.

"Water it every alternate day instead. Since we're retaining moisture, there's no need to water it every day now. Or it might drown the plant." You informed.

"Ah, I don't want that to happen." She giggled and you nodded with a laugh.

"Come back if you need any other help." You told her, walking her to the door. She bowed her head and left your store.

Once she left, you went back to working on online order pick ups. You recently received a big order for a huge event so you were trying to clear orders and you were not able to take in anymore new orders.

"Excuse me. Are you open?" The door opened.

"Yes, I am. How can I help you?" You wiped your hands and went out to greet the customer.

"I need a bouquet for a friend in the hospital. Do you do that? Maybe a small teddy bear, I don't know..." She smiled in embarrassment. But you knew what she meant and what she wanted so you waved her further into the store.

"Do you know the person's favourite flower? If not, there are sunflower bouquets, those are popular because of how bright they are." You chuckled.

"She doesn't have a favourite flower... Let's just go with the sunflowers. I know she likes blue, can that be added?" She asked.

"Of course. I'll wrap the flowers in baby blue tissue, there'll make it really pretty." You smiled.

"Thanks." She sighed and sat down to wait. You hummed softly to yourself as you picked out the sunflowers and began to trim the stems, remove the excess leaves and arrange them.

"I'll add some extra flowers on the side if that's okay, just to bulk up the bouquet." You checked with the customer.

"Sure." You nodded.

She watched as you laid everything out in a bouquet arrangement and tied the stems together with a rubber band first. Then you wrapped the bottoms with wet tissues and began to wrap the whole thing in decorative tissues. The girl watched you as you worked, securing the bouquet together with a ribbon.

"These are the designs of small animal plushes we have. You can pick one and I'll add it to the bouquet. Also, you can write the card." You placed the box on the counter for her to pick.

"This one. She likes cats." The girl explained. You placed a holder and positioned the flowers while she wrote the card.

"All done. Is there anything else I can do for you?" You asked as you walked her to the counter.

"No, that's all. Thanks for all your help, the bouquet is beautiful. I don't know anything about flowers. I just know you get it for people when they're sick." She shrugged.

"Of course, happy to help." You showed her the bill and processed the payment on her card.

"Thanks again." She bowed and walked out of your store.

"Now, where were we?" You continued to work on your online orders. Suddenly, someone tapped you on the shoulder, making you flinch and jump, letting out a small yelp in surprise.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you, I forgot to ask for a name card." The girl from earlier asked.

"Sure, sorry about that. I overreacted." You tried your best to maintain composure as you went to retrieve a name card for her before she left again. Your heart was racing, you didn't know why you reacted so badly to someone touching your shoulder.

Who were you kidding? Of course you knew. Because it was like the guy that was at the club. You shivered as a flash of what happened passed in your head.

And at the same time, you wondered if the guy would come back and sought revenge against you. Or was he even alive?

"Don't think about that." You scolded yourself with a frown. You didn't know the state Hongjoong left the guy in, he could be dead or alive.

"Focus on work." You let out a long, shaky exhale and proceeded to throw yourself back into your work. Hopefully, that will be the last that you encounter Hongjoong.

You didn't know what he did and what he was but at this point, you'd rather not find out.

"Hi. I'm here to pick up order #2140?" A male came in.

"Yes, sure. Let me help you get that. Can I see the order confirmation? Just to be sure." You wiped your hands against your apron. He nodded and showed you in email.

"That's great. Here it is, order #2140. You can check that everything is to your liking. Then you can pay." You told the customer. He scanned the bouquet and nodded in approval, going to settle the payment. It was a standard bouquet that you had on the website, an anniversary bouquet that was quite popular.

"Have a nice day." You wished as he left. Since there was a little bit of lull time, you stopped working on orders and worked on your botany.

"Tincture." You opened your botany book. Tinctures were made of dried and/or fresh plants and herbs, steeped in either vinegar or alcohol to extract their properties.

"This, this and this." You sought through your collection to find what you needed.

Following the recipe, you picked out the herbs that you needed and placed them into a glass jar then added concentrated alcohol.

"Ready in 4 weeks? Wow." You wrote the date and type of tincture on a piece of tape and taped it to the jar. Then you placed the jar on the shelf to let it mature.

"Hi (y/n). Here for today's pick ups." The delivery man came through the back door like always.

"Hey, Mr Kim. Let me see which orders are for delivery." You went to the area where all the prepared flower orders were.

"Looks like it's all these here." You gestured. He nodded and began to bring the flower boxes out to where his truck was parked in the alley. You helped him carry the bouquets while he picked up more of the wreaths and flower boxes.

"You've got the addresses already right?" You confirmed. He hummed and scanned all the barcodes on the order invoices against his checklist to make sure everything was there.

"There's a bouquet missing it seems. Order #418?" He showed you the screen.

"Hmm. Let me check, it could be mixed up with the pick up orders." You went back into the store and looked for it.

"Roses bouquet with black and grey tissue." You checked the description on your order list. Maybe you had missed out on the order while wrapping the flowers.

"Sorry, Mr Kim. Let me quickly put that bouquet together." You bowed and apologised.

"No worries. It happens." He waved you off.

"Feel free to have some tea while you wait." You gestured to the pot of tea that you always brewed in the shop, it's usually for yourself or familiar visitors like delivery men. You quickly picked out the flowers that you needed and made the bouquet. It was a standard rose bouquet with baby's breath surrounding the red roses.

"There, sorry again for delaying you." You handed him the bouquet once it was done, all wrapped in the layered tissue and secured with a thick, silver ribbon.

"No need to apologise, (y/n). Thanks for the tea. Have a nice day." He patted your shoulder and left to make the deliveries.

"You too!" You waved as the truck drove off. After that, you went back to getting orders sorted.

Finally when you sat down, you winced as you lifted your leg. It was a sprained ankle, nothing too major but you've been hiding the bandage under pants and the pain with a smile.

"Hello~" Jihoon entered through the back door and you quickly put your leg down, making sure your pant leg covered the bandage.

"Jihoon, what are you doing here?" You blinked in surprise.

"Well, hello to you too, neighbour. I'm here to deliver you a warm lunch! You're welcome." He held up the paper bag and the iced drink that he was holding.

"Thanks, Jihoon. Let me know how much everything is and I'll wire it over." You smiled gratefully as you stood up. At your words, Jihoon shot you a flat look. He knew you would insist on paying but he didn't want you too.

"Hush, just eat. Don't worry about paying." He sat you back down and cleared your table so he could put the sandwich and drink down.

"Hmm..." You shot him a look but sighed in defeat and patted the seat beside you. Before sitting down, Jihoon poured himself a cup of tea from your warmed tea pot.

"This is nice. What is this?" He pointed, taking a sip.

"Mixed dried berries with raspberry leaf." You replied, taking a bite of the warm sandwich.

"Isn't that what pregnant women drink?" He raised an eyebrow. You shot him a surprised look but nodded in confirmation.

"Yeah, my mom gave a lot to my cousin when she was pregnant with my nephew. Supposed to make birth easy or something. I swear she even bathed in it once." Jihoon scoffed.

"It'll help with muscle cramps too, it's an anti inflammatory and anti oxidant." You explained.

"Hopefully it'll get rid of my calf muscle pain then." Jihoon chuckled and took another sip. You laughed and continued to eat your sandwich, enjoying your chat with Jihoon. Mrs Kim was always your lunch time companion, Jihoon must know that you would feel the absence of her presence and come.

"Do you miss her?" Jihoon asked. Your hands stopped and you paused your chewing before nodding your head with a hum, knowing he was referring to Mrs Kim.

"You know that she was the closest thing to a mother figure that I have ever had." You replied.

"Mhmm. I also know you didn't even give yourself a break." Jihoon stated.

"I don't need a break, Jihoon. Continuing and distracting myself with work is what helps me, not sitting at home and crying." You shrugged, standing up and going to toss the trash.

"Don't you have a cafe that needs running?" You chuckled, changing the subject so you wouldn't harp on that topic for too long.

"They'll survive without me." Jihoon waved you off. You laughed and shook your head.

You and Jihoon continued to chat until your lunch break was over and you chased him out. No doubt his workers were good but you didn't want to be the reason why their boss slacks. So after giving him a bouquet of flowers to decorate his shop with, he left.

"Welc- Hongjoong sshi." You blinked, stopping in your tracks. Having heard the bell, you thought that there was a new customer. You didn't expect Hongjoong to come in.

"Good afternoon." Hongjoong bowed his head as he entered your shop.

"W-What can I help you with?" You blinked.

"I... wanted to make sure you got your ankle looked at." Hongjoong cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Oh! I'm fine, it's just a sprain. Nothing big. Please, have a seat and make yourself comfortable." You forced a small smile and gestured to the seats by your work table.

"I'm glad. Thanks." He unbuttoned his jacket and sat down on the stool. You poured him a cup of tea and offered it to him.

"Please, don't let me stop you from your work." He gestured to the materials that were scattered around.

"So, how have you been Hongjoong sshi?" You asked to try and prevent an awkward silence from falling down on the both of you. You kept your head down, focusing on the bouquets you were preparing to put in the display and fridges for walk in customers. Hongjoong watched you, sipping his tea.

"Same as always. What about you?" He asked back. You had stated clearly the last time you met that you didn't want the incident to be brought up again but Hongjoong couldn't help it.

"Fine. Same as always, too. Just here, running the shop, fixing orders, you know..." You shrugged.

"Hongjoong sshi, I don't mean this in any way at all but what's the real reason you came here?" You finally asked him.

"(y/n) sshi, I feel like I owe you yet another apology." He confessed with an honest look on his face. The way he looked at you, it just reminded you of Mrs Kim.

"If it's about what happened last week-"

"No, I mean, yes. Partly. I... I know we're practically strangers but I've been treating you unfairly." Hongjoong sighed

"Okay, now you've lost me." You chuckled. Hongjoong was relieved that you laughed, making this conversation a whole more lighthearted than he thought it would be.

"Like I said when we first met here... Whatever my relationship with my mother was shouldn't have clouded my view or attitude towards you. It's just... I don't know... It seems like we knew her as a different person entirely." He rubbed his temples.

"I get it..." You nodded your head with a hum.

"But that shouldn't excuse how I've been towards you. I have to deal with my demons myself." He confessed.

"It's okay, Hongjoong sshi. I know it can't be easy with everything that's been happening. And honestly, it's conflicting to me too." You empathised with him.

"So I'm not crazy." He cracked a smile.

"Far from." You giggled, fixing up the bouquet. You momentarily left the conversation to put the bouquets in the fridge.

"But still, I apologise." He insisted.

"There's no need to but if you insist, apology accepted. And I think at this point, we can drop the formalities." You turned your head to say to him as you arranged the bouquets.

"I'd like that." He smiled kindly as you returned to the work bench. You noticed his ears turning a light shade of pink. Dropping formalities didn't immediately mean a friendship but at least you two were no longer just strangers. Whether you liked it or not, the universe keeps making your paths cross.

"(y/n), I have another request, if it's okay with you." Hongjoon gulped as he mentioned. You nodded.

"I'm not ready to talk about my mother. My relationship with her, your relationship with her. I'm not ready... But when I am, I hope you'll help me." He looked at you with desperate eyes.

"Of course, Hongjoong. Any time. Whenever you're ready." You smiled softly.

RINGGGG

"Ah, hang on." Hongjoong clicked his tongue, annoyed that his phone broke that moment you were having. He looked at his phone to see Yunho calling.

"What?" He hissed, turning away slightly. You weren't gonna eavesdrop so you just continued your work.

"Look, Yunho. Just... hire another gardener, you don't need to tell me this! You make decisions too, all 8 of us do. If you need some sort of approval, ask Hwa." Hongjoong threw his head back with a groan.

"Fine, fine... Yeah, sure. I'm not sure why you want to add to my workload with this but I'll look when I get home later... Yeah, whatever. Goodbye." Hongjoong hung up with a grumble, glaring at his phone as he did.

"Everything okay?" You stifled a laugh.

"Oh, yeah. It's nothing. One of my brothers can't seem to hire a gardener himself all of a sudden." Hongjoong clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes.

"Well, if it's not too much. If you're too busy to find a gardener now, I could help you in the mean time." You offered.

"What? Really? I don't want to make you busier, I'm sure you have a lot to do with the shop." Hongjoong shook his head.

"I wouldn't have offered if I couldn't. My shop is closed Sundays and Thursdays anyway, I could go once a week on those days to tend to the plants." You shrugged.

"Just until I have the time to find a gardener." Hongjoong said.

"Sure, whatever you're comfortable with. Do you have a picture of your backyard?" You asked.

"Oh, let me see. Although, I don't know what plants we have." Hongjoong took his phone out and scrolled through his pictures, trying to find the last time he took a picture of the backyard garden. When he finally found one, he showed it to you. Your eyes widened at the huge backyard. The fenced garden only took a portion of it.

"Wow... That's a big garden..." You couldn't help but be in awe.

"It is. But you'll just need to tend to the fenced area. The rest of the field behind it is not necessary." Hongjoong informed. That was where they killed or practiced weapons sometimes.

"Sure, I'll be there on Monday." You smiled, excited to be working in such a big garden space.

"Here's the address." Hongjoong took the small piece of paper from the table and scribbled it down for you.

"Thank you." You took the paper and tucked it into your pocket.

"When I came in here, I didn't think I would leave after having offered you a job." Hongjoong admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. You nodded in agreement.

"You never know what the universe has in store for you." You chuckled and cleared your work table.

"Thank you, (y/n). I have to return to work now but I'll see you soon." Hongjoong slid off the stool.

"You're welcome, Hongjoong. Thank you for stopping by. I'll see you Monday." You walked him to the door. He nodded and bowed politely before exiting the shop. You watched as a chauffeur opened the door for him to enter a luxury car before returning to drive off.

"What just happened?" You asked yourself in disbelief as you walked back to your shop counter. You told yourself you should steer clear but here you were, offering to work for him.

But it was too late to regret now, what's done is done. You knew you couldn't go back on your word.

You'll just go, tend to plants and leave. Simple.

"I'm not ready to talk about my mother. My relationship with her, your relationship with her. I'm not ready... But when I am, I hope you'll help me."

Hongjoong's words from earlier replayed in your head. It was so different, he looked and sounded so involuntarily vulnerable.

To be frank, you were not ready too. You were fond of Mrs Kim, she took care of you, cared for you.

But were you ready to hear how sour Hongjoong's relationship with her was? No, you were not ready to hear any of that. Especially since that wound still felt so fresh.

"I hope I don't regret this." You muttered to yourself.

~

Series masterlist

[glitter-stained]

A fun, happy dc story for a change

Look I can be very critical of Winick's writing because I'm so ambivalent about it but damn if it isn't, on a meta level, a really satisfying spite story.

At the core of this story, there is Jim Starlin. Now Starlin's writing has many flaws, not least of all the blatant racism and sexism. And if there's one thing Jim hates, it's Robin. He wants to kill that little boy so bad, oh how he hates that bright coloured child in tights that's just holding Batman back from reaching his true potential as an absolute badass... And hey, good news! Dc, in trying to bring a second Robin after the first got a new identity, has dropped the ball, and the new boy is unpopular amongst the fans who miss the previous iteration! This is his opportunity to kill Robin, definitely!

But how? People may not have voted him dead yet, but Jim is already planning, setting up plots and trying his damndest to get him killed. And the thing about Jim- the thing that makes him a good writer, you see, the thing that separates him from those losers who fail to see Batman's true potential, is that his writing is gritty. He's not afraid to write a true dark knight facing the grimdark horrors of a town laden with crime, to shy away from the real dark, gritty topic that are mature and dark like rape. And uh, sexual violence against women. And uh, serial raping and killing women. (I'm kidding, of course, I didn't forget the native american cult leader who bathes in blood to prolongate his life. Or about the kgb agent Batman straight-up kills after he tries to kill Reagan. Or about the suicides, god I haven't forgotten about that. Don't worry.) But anyway, sexual abuse in general is a big theme for Jim. It shows how serious and dark and gritty he can be. So he has an idea: why not make Robin a child sexual abuse victim and give him AIDS? That way that's a justification to write Robin unlikeable (by making him emotional when exposed to situations of sexual abuse, unable to restrain his anger when defending a prostitute...) and at the same time it's the perfect way to kill Robin! DC has been considering giving a character AIDS, it's perfect! It will show everyone how dark and gritty Jim's writing is, he can make Robin even more unlikeable on top of how people are upset about the transition between Robins, and then he can finally kill Robin! It's perfect! Jim is a genius!!!

Now, of course, we know that plan failed: first because dc rejected Starlin's idea for Jason to die of AIDS, and second because as soon as Jason (as a character, which is what DC apparently had a problem with) died, they fired Starlin as a Batman writer and introduced a new Robin, making Starlin's vehement campaign against a fictional fifteen years old completely vain.

So that's it, right? Crisis avoided, we almost had some even worst writing that what already was, everyone sigh in relief and go home?

Enter Judd Winick stage left.

Now, remember how DC wanted to give a character AIDS? In 2003, Green Arrow #43 reveals that Mia Dearden, Oliver Queen's ward and a csa survivor of underage prostitution, is HIV positive, and in #45, she takes on the mantle of the second Speedy, becoming, according to Wikipedia, the most prominent HIV-positive superhero to star in an ongoing comic book. (And also one of my favourite comics characters, but that's unrelated.) An important thing about Winick, who wrote those issues, is that he is personally invested in education about AIDS, continuing his friend Pedro Zamora's educational work after his death of AIDS-related progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. (He also wrote a graphic novel about it, called Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss and What I've Learned). So kudos! We finally got someone who has done research and actually holds respect for HIV+ people writing HIV+ characters. And Mia is so cool, man- but not only is she a really interesting character, she is, first and foremost, a survivor. That's how she characterizes herself, sees what happened to her: she did what she had to do to survive, and now she's a fucking superhero and she's here to help others and you know what she's not gonna do? Die "of AIDS."

Yeah, I haven't forgotten Starlin's terrible writing. And, if Winick's writing is any identification, it seems like he hasn't either. The idea of making the second Speedy a parallel with the second Robin isn't groundbreaking, but it's cool that it's there (and also, incidentally, a reminder that parallels are interesting and fun and backstories are not a finite resource characters can run out of or steal from eachother.) Anyway, this includes Winick altering Mia's backstory and making her a street kid to make it more similar to Jason's, as well as Mia's on-screen murder offering a nice parallel to Jason's ambiguous murder in Starlin's Diplomat Son (a parallel I can't help but regard with vindicative snark, because that's how you handle a teenager who has just caused, directly or not, a man's death out of hopelessness in a situation that felt impossible. A little snark of See? Now this is how it's done. Yeah, Starlin's Bruce isn't winning any parenting against Winick's Ollie, that's for sure.) So there it is! Our fun spite story, Winick taking on Starlin's terrible ideas, a teen vigilante and survivor taking on a hero identity to mirror a teen vigilant's loss and death, a good old fashioned schooling. Cool? Cool!

And then, in 2005, Winick buries Starlin's last remaining impact on DC by bringing back Jason Todd, in a move so audacious in the back-then landscape it would be kinda akin to bringing Ben Parker back to life in Spiderman's life as a villain (please don't tell me this happens in the comics I don't read Marvel and if someone wrote that I would honestly prefer not to know). Now, of course, the impact of Jason's death on the narrative can't and shouldn't be undone by that move, but that's not important, because that's not what Starlin wanted when killing Jason - he wanted to kill Jason/Robin, not give everyone grief-induced hallucinations where Jason/Robin had an incredibly salient place in the narrative, so he didn't get what he wanted anyway.

Personally, my view on Winick's writing of Jason is contrasted (and the fact that there are some elements of Starlin's characterization of Jason that I prefer to Winick's deeply amazes me, incredibly ironic situation. Which only serves to point that even Starlin' goal of making us hate his version of robin failed drastically, as me and my jaybin fan mutuals can attest. Sucks to suck!). But as much as some of the decisions frustrate me, do you understand how much of a power move it is to take this child, this victim who has been victim-blamed for years, and bring him back to life with a vengeance and a demand that his life mattered, that his death was a bad thing that shouldn't be tolerated? Do you know how good that story feels, especially to victims when reading it and see that indignation validated, that rebellion against the status quo and victim-blaming, how good it feels to see a "bad victim" that refuses to stay down ? And in the context of Starlin's intent to write Jason a CSA victim, Winick writing Mia, the HIV+ plot for them both- do you understand the genuine and violent glee I feel, that it's Winick that wrote Jason coming back to life and hunting down the narrative with a machine gun?

So yeah. This is the context in which I talk about acknowledging the csa subtext in Green Arrow: Seeing Red, but this post isn't about lecturing you to accept it as canon or imply that you're bad for not sharing that interpretation. It's about spite -towards Jim Starlin specifically. And it's about that interpretation, but the context in which it was written in general, is not just a victory against Starlin, that guy lost long ago, but the narrative equivalent of that Green Arrow meme about taking a funny selfie over a gravestone. In Seeing Red (specifically in the line that's discussed when questioning the csa headcanon), Jason tells Mia they are similar because of what they had to do to survive, framing the sexual trauma on Mia's part (and thus allegedly also on Jason's) again firmly on the side of survival rather than victimhood. Whether it's by becoming a villain or a hero, there's this rebellion against being an object to the violence, which is at the core of Starlin's treatment of sexual violence. This is fun. We're having fun. I'm repeating myself, but do you understand how satisfying, electrifying it is? I'm filled with unreasonable amounts of glee. You don't always need the context in which a story was written to enjoy it but in this case, doesn't this make it so much more enjoyable? (And on top of that, kudos to Winick for killing Captain Nazi, I hope it was as satisfying to write as it looked.) Anyway, Mia Dearden and Jason Todd, the characters that you are. I love them so much.

[suzannahnatters]

Let Your Knights Weep

One of the big things I've had to train myself out of when writing medieval historical fiction?

The stiff upper lip.

This used to really bewilder my editor, who for some time attempted to nudge me away from having my grown men weep and wail and blubber, but for me it's an essential part of the setting. Whether in grief or fear, medieval people did not hold things back.

Here are some of my favourite quotes to explain.

First, a couple from two great 20th century medievalists:

CS Lewis in his Letters put it this way:

“By the way, don't 'weep inwardly' and get a sore throat. If you must weep, weep: a good honest howl! I suspect we - and especially, my sex - don't cry enough now-a-days. Aeneas and Hector and Beowulf, Roland and Lancelot blubbered like schoolgirls, so why shouldn't we?”

Dorothy Sayers, in her fabulous Introduction to her translation of THE SONG OF ROLAND, speaking of Charlemagne discovering Roland's body on the battlefield:

Here too, I think we must not reckon it weakness in him that he is overcome by grief for Roland’s death, that he faints upon the body and has to be raised up by the barons and supported by them while he utters his lament. There are fashions in sensibility as in everything else. The idea that a strong man should react to great personal and national calamities by a slight compression of the lips and by silently throwing his cigarette into the fireplace is of very recent origin. By the standards of feudal epic, Charlemagne’s behaviour is perfectly correct. Fainting, weeping, and lamenting is what the situation calls for. The assembled knights and barons all decorously follow his example. They punctuate his lament with appropriate responses:

By hundred thousand the French for sorrow sigh; There’s none of them but utters grievous cries.

At the end of the next laisse:

He tears his beard that is so white of hue, Tears from his head his white hair by the roots; And of the French an hundred thousand swoon.

We may take this response as being ritual and poetic; grief, like everything else in the Epic, is displayed on the heroic scale. Though men of the eleventh century did, in fact, display their emotions much more openly than we do, there is no reason to suppose that they made a practice of fainting away in chorus. But the gesture had their approval; that was how they liked to think of people behaving. In every age, art holds up to us the standard pattern of exemplary conduct, and real life does its best to conform. From Charlemagne’s weeping and fainting we can draw no conclusions about his character except that the poet has represented him as a perfect model of the “man of feeling” in the taste of the period.

OK, now let's dig into some quotes that I found just in Christopher Tyerman's Chronicles of the First Crusade and Joinville's Life of St Louis:

Truly you would have grieved and sobbed in pity when the Turks killed any of our men....

As for the knights, they stood about in a great state of gloom, wringing their hands because they were so frightened and miserable, not knowing what to do with themselves and their armour, and offering to sell their shields, valuable breastplates and helmets for threepence or fivepence or any price they could get....

When Guy, who was a very honourable knight, had heard these lies, he and all the others began to weep and to make loud lamentation....

They stayed in the houses cowering, some some for hunger and some for fear of the Turks....

Now at vigils, the time of trust in God’s compassion, many gave up hope and hurriedly lowered themselves with ropes from the wall-tops; and in the city soldiers, returning from the encounter, circulated widely a rumour that mass decapitation of the defenders was in store. To add weight to the terror, they too fled…

In the course of that day’s battle there had been many people, and of fine appearance too, who had come very shamefully flying over the little bridge you know of and had fled away so panic-stricken that all our attempts to make them stay with us had been in vain. I could tell you some of their names, but shall refrain from doing so, because they are now dead.

I could go on looking for quotes in all the other medieval literature I've read, but that would be beyond the scope of this Tumblr post.

In the meantime, this leads me to make some comments on how trauma was perceived.

In Jonathan Riley-Smith's The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, the author discusses the mental breakdowns suffered by the first crusaders during the second siege of Antioch, which caused many of them to flee at the moment of direst need:

In these stressful circumstances it is not surprising that the crusaders were often very frightened. At times, indeed, they seem to have been almost paralysed by a terror that they themselves could hardly comprehend. … When the crusade was bottled up in Antioch by Kerbogha's relief force it was gripped by such blind panic that there was the prospect of a mass break-out and on the night of 10 or 11 Juney 1098 Bohemond and Adhemar had the gates of the city closed. It is worth noting that many of those whom later chroniclers, writing after the events in comparative comfort in Europe, vilified for cowardice and desertion seem to have been treated more charitably by their fellow-crusaders, who must have understood what pressures they had been under.

--

In conclusion: the way we feel about things today in the English-speaking isn't necessarily the way people felt about things in the past (and this goes for other cultures, real or imagined, too). I'm continually catching myself writing people with stiff upper lips and emotional reservations, and having to remind myself that the culture was different back them. If a grown man wanted to weep, he could. That's a good thing. (Oh, and my medieval historical fantasy? Check out the Watchers of Outremer series on Amazon or wherever books are sold!)

[di-42]

2024 fic roundup

Finally getting round to doing this! Just in time for the end of the year!

Many, many thanks to @curiouspupsicle and @bellisima-writes for tagging me all those weeks ago, ant to @cheeseplants for creating the questions. Enjoy curious's answers here, bellisima's answers here, cheeseplants's answers here.

What fandoms do you write in?

Good Omens, only Good Omens, nothing but Good Omens.

How many words have you published in 2024?

133k. Huh! Me?

What is your greatest achievement this year?

In the context of fandom and fanfiction, being brave enough to put myself out there and share my work is probably my greatest personal achievement. But I'm also quite proud to have plotted an 85k fiction while working 55 hours a week (and being lucky enough to have a husband and friends to spend my free time with).

What are your favourite top three fics you wrote this year?

That's an easy one! None of my favourite three are the ones with more engagement, strangely enough!

And I Did, rated E, 85k.

While I know this could have been written much better, I am incredibly proud of this fiction. It's whole season 3 fiction where I managed to pour all my headcanon in a way that hopefully doesn't feel too forced. I think it has an original plot, good side characters and tension. I tried to throw in some humour wherever possible as well. It features Supreme Archangel Aziraphale and Grand Duke of Hell Crowley. They haven't talked for almost two years. The end of the world is approaching. They are on opposite sides. And they both know neither of them was ever going to make a different choice to the one they made.

Only Ever Meant For Someone Else, rated T, 9k.

My first human AU, wheee! It was so much fun to write! I think writing human AUs allows so much freedom, although one shots and shorter stories can be a bit harder than canon compliant short stories. But I had a chance to explore some versions of the characters that I don't really see in canon, but very much enjoy in fictions, and wanted to try my hand at that. And I liked the result! Written for the Scribbling Vaguely Downwards advent calendar.

Every year, the night before Christmas, taxi driver Aziraphale drives passengers to and from the hospital for charity. On the Christmas morning of 2023 he was ready to go home and rest with a cup of tea, a mince pie, and a book after a long night.

Guess who?

“No, you may not!” Barked the other. Then he started pacing up and down the pavement, rambling to himself. “Anathema’s going to kill me. She’s actually going to kill me! She had to go into labour on fucking Christmas day, just my luck!”

Oh, dear.

“In-into labour?”

The stranger stopped pacing and, yet again, looked at Aziraphale sternly. He joined together the tips of his right thumb and forefinger, and punctuated his next words with a gracious movement of his hand.

“Yeah. It means she’s about to give birth.”

“Does it, now.”

Angel! Angel! They're At It Again! rated M, 5k

I really love this little story of mine. I've been told that it made some readers cry and laugh at the same time, and it doesn't get much better than that.

It's the year 2030. The world never ended. Aziraphale and Crowley are living happily and safely together as a married couple. Everything would be well, if it wasn't that lately Aziraphale has been a bit busy. A bit distracted. Now, Crowley can't have that, can he? He seeks the advice of his girlfriends, who unwittingly give him an idea on how to liven up his marriage.

A fluffy story about how we get to a certain cottage.

What was your biggest pit of despair moment?

Tying up all the loose ends in And I Did. Sometimes it felt like I was just hitting a wall and I couldn't possibly ever go through. I felt so embarrassed -mortified, really- that some people had read the story up to a certain point and I had just to let them down, because I couldn't possibly write anything that would make sense with the rest of the story. Even though the main points were planned from the beginning, there were still all those little details that write themselves, basically, and I had no idea what to do with some of them towards the end. I still don't know how I managed to pull it off, honestly, but somehow I did it in a way that I found satisfying enough.

What have you learned?

That people are so much better than I am. Really. And I don't mean at writing fiction. Well, people are better than me at writing fiction, but that's not what I mean here. The amount of people who are ready to read about someone else's ideas and headcanons with an open mind, enjoy stories that they don't necessarily agree with, is astounding. I have very much to learn from this community.

What fic did you want to do but never made it off the ground?

I could tell you. But then I would have to erase your memory.

A fiction that has never made it off the ground is a fiction that has yet to make it off the ground.

Did you beta any fics? Any favs you want to shout out?

I was asked a couple of times, but due partly to my lack of time, partly to English not being my first language, I had to reluctantly decline. I do offer my thoughts on my betas' fictions, though. One of them hasn't published her work yet, and the other has a fantastic one shot on Ao3, called The Corset.

Aziraphale never understood just why he had been issued with a body likes his. He was the Guardian of the Eastgate, after all! So when in the 17th century corsets for men were fashionable again, he had an idea ...

What three fics have you read this year that you love?

Hah! We both know it's not going to be only three, don't we?

Some of these fics were written before, some long before, 2024, but I only read them this year. It's quite hard to pick my favourites among so much talent and creativity, but I'll do my best. I also can't help but notice that my all time favourites are not among the superpopular ones, so please don't be shy and check them out! (And leave kudos and comments!)

The Beginning Of The End (Again), rated M, 78k.

Season 3 fiction full of plot, great characterisation, humour and pining. It has of course a happy ending. It is beyond me how this fic didn't get more engagement, especially when it first came out, closer to the end of season 2.

The Anon Before Christmas, rated E, 66k.

One of my favourite human AUs. The characterisation is spot on and the slow burn is just absolutely perfect. But I did love the whole array of characters surrounding Crowley and Aziraphale. I love how this story is as much about friendship and chosen family than it is about love and romance.

The Bookseller And The Garden, rated T, 13k.

Canon divergent fiction where Crowley is a demon stationed on earth, Aziraphale is an angel stationed on earth, but they have never met until present day. There's no end of the world in sight, only an angel and a demon falling in love and not knowing how to break it to the other that they're not human. I laughed all the way through.

Wrong Turn, rated T, 37k.

Honestly, I don't know why this fiction touched me so much. I just couldn't stop thinking about it for days after I finished it. It's a post season 1 fiction where Crowley suddenly finds himself in a parallel universe at the time the apocalypse is just about to happen. The Crowley and Aziraphale in that universe have a different history to our Crowley and Aziraphale. All our Crowley wants to do is to go back to his universe and his very own angel, but how? As you follow the main plot and focus on Crowley's thoughts and actions, you'll start slowly feeling the other story get hold of you, and it won't let go until the very end and beyond.

Happiness, More Or Less, rated M, 21k

This human AU moved me so very much I cried. Crowley moves into his new flat in Soho, only to discover the flat in haunted by the ghost of the owner of the bookshop downstairs. I won't tell anything else about the plot other than it does have a very sweet happy ending, and it gets there via a rollercoaster of emotions. This is really one of those fictions that leave me in awe of the fandom's talent and creativity. Read it, read it, read it!

One last one that I haven't finished reading yet, but I know it's one of my all time favourites, is The Last Angel, rated E, 162k.

Canon divergent fiction where Crowley and Aziraphale were never assigned to earth, Armageddon happened and hell won the war. I've said many things about this fiction, among which that I can't believe the writer does this in her spare time and writing is not actually her job, and this is the most Good Omens-y fic I have ever read. It's astoundingly good.

What ideas are percolating for next year?

Watch out for The Angel Horror Show! When I learned that Peter Hinwood, the actor who played Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show didn't have a long career as an actor, bout instead went on to become an antiques dealer, I knew I had to write this fiction with Aziraphale as the actor who many years ago played Angel/Rocky in The Angel Horror Show and subsequent film The Angel Horror Picture Show and is now living a comfortable life as a book and antiques dealer, and Crowley as the actor who played Demon/Frank, and went on to become a successful movie and theatre actor and director. I've just started writing it and I'm extremely excited about it!

Who do you want to thank?

Without the shadow of a doubt @sabine-smitten-obviously and IneffableShortCake who have been so incredibly generous with their time and support in the past 8 months! But also everyone who's ever left me a comment making me feel like my stories were liked, from the long comments to the ones with just enthusiastic syllables, from the incredibly witty ones to the more personal ones, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Tag, answer any Qs that suit and play along!

I think because I'm so late in the game that most of the writers I would usually tag have already been tagged by someone else, but perhaps a few haven't done this yet.

@smua70 @ngk-668 @ineffable-duck7

And anyone who wants to answer!

This was fun!

[thehyperfixationcorner]

Phineas and Ferb S1 observations (after rewatching for the every episode review video):

Isabella doesn't appear nearly as much as I thought she would! In fact, she really only has one and a half focus eps (even one good scared not really about her). As an Isabella enjoyer, I was kinda disappointed, but it did improve by the end so I assume S2 does the legwork.

Baljeet and Buford also appeared less, though that definitely improved by the end too!

Phineas was way more likable than I remembered! Not that I disliked him, but I found him boring as a kid. Now I see the appeal. He's such a nice, kind kid! Plus super autistic we love it 🥰

First seasons usually feel like they take time to find their footing, but I'd say the show was pretty good from the getgo! Barely a rough patch! Very impressive!

In fact, there was ONE episode I found kinda mid. Not even bad. Just mid. ONE. ONE! YOU KNOW HOW IMPOSSIBLE THAT IS???

I was surprised by how many specials there were early on! Usually a show like this waiys for a second season, or at least does only one! Phineas and Ferb did 5 (It’s About Time, Dude We're Getting the Band Back Together, One Good Scare, Phineas and Ferb Get Busted and Out to Launch)! To use an apt comparison, Spongebob had 5 specials (Christmas Who, Party Pooper Pants, Ugh, Lost Ep, Have You Seen this Snail) by Season 4! The confidence is astounding (and fair, since every special got a pretty high ranking!)

The A and B plots have yet to intersect like I expected! Good idea, though, sets things up first before breaking

Insane how many iconic songs and eps have already happened, I'm shocked at how many top tier ones there are that will seemingly be ranked low by the iconic eps of future seasons! There could genuinely be episodes at 70th or 80th place that I adore!

Perry got more emotive and interesting as time passed

Only two episodes showed other agents!

Vanessa really doesn't appear that much huh

You can see how Norm was a one episode gag that slowly turned into a brilliant running bit XD

Candace joined in or had a whole different motivation or only got into the busting at the very end way more than I expected too, which I'm happy about but still, wow!

I thought it would take a bit for Candace to be written really well. Scratch that. She's now one of my all time favourite fictional characters and we're only at S1

Stacy. That is all.

[wanderingmind867]

Ranking the Seven (plus Nico):

1. Nico di Angelo: Just…ever since I was a nine or ten year old boy reading Rick Riordan's books, Nico di Angelo was my anchor into the world of Percy Jackson. Lonely, an outcast, the one person everybody else shunned…he was always just a vessel for all my real pain and fear. He still is. All my loneliness and sadness and stress and anxiety…it can all be channeled into him.

And to think more about it, he really is just like me. He never opens up to others (same as me, he probably has a fear of judgement), he's got no real friends for most of the books (which is still true of me at 20, no friends except my dad), he's just…god, Nico di Angelo is the character in these books i've always loved most. And I wish he got all the happy things that I feel i haven't had yet.

Frank Zhang: Frank was like the second main character who always spoke to me. Not just because he was Canadian (although that certainly helped), but because he was a heavier set kid who didn't have many friends. His mother died; whereas mine was more just dying (dead now, of course). And I always did like how he was good with a bow and arrow. A ranged fighter with a preference towards support (despite how his looks make him appear), Frank Zhang had a lot of relatable aspects too.

Honestly, nobody in these books ever had a 1 for 1 backstory line up with me (it'd be incredibly bizarre if there was one, I suppose). But Frank and Nico are two of the ones who come closest to hitting me right in the heart. I definitely can see myself in them, and I love them both a lot.

Jason Grace: Jason is a character i've heard be called bland many times. But are you all reading the same books!? Jason Grace is not bland! He is the paragon of virtue, a great kid who always does what he thinks is right. And I really relate to his existential issues. He's a confused person. Is he Greek or Roman? Who is he? Where does he belong? Will he ever belong? A great many of those questions feel like they apply to me as well as to him, and that makes him all the more relatable.

Also, Jason seems to value order and fairness. I respect that. I, too, value order and consistency in my actions. Who doesn't? I'm that weird kid who liked my teachers ten times more than I liked my fellow students. I never got along with other kids. I always felt like I was somehow more mature in some ways. So that's why Jason Grace and Cyclops are like some of my favourite fictional teenagers. They remind me of myself.

Leo Valdez: I almost put Leo in front of Jason, but one thing changed my mind: I hate machinery and mechanics. Don't get me wrong: I like machines. As someone who's wasted way too much time talking to AI chatbots (and who always relates to characters like Vision or Red Tornado), I definitely like machines. But I don't like getting my hands dirty. Mechanics and hands on work was never my thing. So, you know, that was the deciding factor here.

Still, I really relate to Leo. His avoidant streak (which is super relatable), his insecurities about being the most useless member on the team (which is also relatable), even the fact that he covers his insecurites by acting overly confident and personable gets to me. Because while I don't do that one, I do understand all of Leo's insecurites. He's definitely one of my favourite characters.

Hazel Levesque: A girl from out of time. She doesn't quite fit in with this time period, and I can relate to that in some ways (i've always felt like an old soul myself). She's from New Orleans (possibly the one locale in the US that I really like, due to watching Disney's Princess and the Frog as a kid). She's even got magic powers, thus putting her in with the group of people I tend to like most in fiction: mages.

Hazel is a great character. She makes my top five because she appeals to almost all of my many interests. She was never my number one favourite, but she's definitely up there.

Piper McLean: I loved Piper's story. I don't like how native american stuff is never explored in US media (while up here in Canada, we at least get frequent documentaries and sitcoms stuff about indigenous people and culture). So just…whether it's fully accurate or not, props to Rick Riordan for even giving us Cherokee representation. I can't think of any other native characters in american media off the top of my head, so he's already succeeding because of that.

But I also really liked Piper for her struggles with being aphrodite's daughter, and with being a famous celebrity's kid. These things aren't all too relatable on the surface, but the way Rick Riordan wrote about them…god, you know it's good writing when i can grow to feel empathy and love for a character (even despite our many differences). So Piper is cool.

But I do have at least one minor complaint with her story: did her dad really have to forget she was a demigod? That part of the Lost Hero really let me down, and I still don't see the logic of having it happen. So that's why she's number six here.

Annabeth Chase: Annabeth is often relatable, but mostly just when i'm reading from her perspective. From her POV, I really do feel her. I really do love the chapters from her perspective. But when it's other characters talking about her or dealing with her…she is a lot less likeable. She can be downright rude to many characters.

I remember how she hated Tyson. She had decent reasons, but it still really got to me. I didn't like how her and percy started with a bit of an antagonistic attitude towards each other. I also never really felt too much of her issues in regards to her home life. I always kind of related to Frederick Chase, and so I never saw the issues with her home life. When we see it in The Titan's Curse, it seems downright pleasant. So I never understood her.

But let me make something kind of clear: Annabeth is way better following the Mark of Athena. In the Mark of Athena and House of Hades, i've loved her every scene. In all the previous books…it was a lot more love/hate. So I don't despise her (I would never go that far), but I just have some hangups that seem to be personal to me.

8. Percy Jackson: Oh, boy. This opinion is gonna be controversial, I already have that feeling. But i'm gonna stand firm here. Percy Jackson isn't that great. His supporting cast usually always outshines him. He's funny sometimes, sure. But think about his actions. He was just as judgmental towards Tyson as everyone else, at least initially. We read about him admitting he didn't like being related to him! And that action is just the tip of the iceberg.

He abandoned Calypso to rot on Ogygia (while Leo actually had the decency and moral fiber to rescue her). He didn't fulfill the dreams he said he believed in, either. He said he wanted the gods to claim all their kids, yet Camp Half-Blood only added maybe seven new cabins. That's not nearly good enough. That's half assing it. Look what Jason Grace did! He honoured all the gods, even if they were minor ones like Kympoleia! Anything Percy did, someone else did it ten times better!

And let's not forget Nico's treatment here! Percy also didn't seem to like Nico that much, considering he was way too easily annoyed by him (when there were far worse kids out there). Nico got screwed over by Percy, and I won't let that one go! Only one who screwed him over worse was his own sister (abandoning him for the hunters when she knew she was all he had)! But I digress. I just… Percy doesn't live up to any of the high potential set on him. Especially not when compared to the other seven.

So there are my rankings. I kind of feel like mine are probably going to end up sort of uncommon, but this is legitimately my opinions on each character. If anyone else wants to share their rankings, feel free to. At this point, i'm kind of interested to see what other people's opinions are.

[tavyliasin]

Villain-Fucker Angst Hours

Good timezone, darlings~ Are you ready to get all up in your feelings? No? Me neither, loves, but here we are regardless so the words are going to flow as they usually do... This is focused on Raphael from Baldur's Gate 3 and his fandom, but the latter section can easily apply to any villain fandom.

Self-Analysis of Devil-Fuckery, Or Why Do I Adore Raphael When He Is Very Obviously Evil: A Short Essay by TavyliaSin (Who Still Cannot Name Anything With Less Than A Full Paragraph) ((NSFW)) (((Game Spoilers)))

The following may discuss heavier topics, but without specifics, so whilst it should be safe for most to read without triggering any difficult memories please be aware of Raphael's entire vibes, the content and context of his story, and I'd also like to mention that this isn't a "woe be us for we are terrible people" piece, it's actually more about:

"There is an inherent kindness and warmth to much of the Raphael fandom, and I think there could be some common threads behind that, pulling us all in closer in a comforting blanket that we wrap around each other to keep out the cold of the world."

So, what in the nine hells am I on about? Well. Raphael-fandom is a wild and wonderful place to be. The rest is in sections, so feel free to skip through to what you feel is relevant to your interests. I am so prone to waffle I should open a restaurant~

Who Are Fans Of Raphael? What Do They Want?

We are feral, unhinged, all sheets to the wind "I want that devil man, carnally, and there is no force in all the planes that could stop me". There's the vanilla to the extreme and every level in between, tops, bottoms, versatiles, Doms, subs, and switches - there are a whole lot of people who would love to get their hands on either (or both) of Raphael's forms, for a simple smooch or something far more spicy~ [edited in] To add on to this, not all of us even desire him in a sexual way, for many it is romantic, soft, or even just the rather pleasant thought of spending an evening with drinks by the hellfire because he would be fascinating company. Aces, Aros, and AroAces may all find themselves well within the devilish corners of fandom too~ which is a whole other essay~ [end edit] So, I see you. I'm one of you. Extremely loud and utterly hingeless in my fan appreciation for Raphael. He's one of my favourites to write about, I seek art of him, and the same goes for his mirrored other half, Haarlep, who I arguably love more despite there being far less content of them in the game.

And the Fandom? The Vibe?

From my experience in the Raphael Fandom areas, we have a very deep and abiding understanding of consent, respect, and treating each other with an absolute and uncompromising kindness. We've had talks about keeping each other safe in fandom, exchanged details of people we have encountered who need to be avoided, even shared details between moderators of different fandom servers to pre-ban people proven to be creeps and/or art thieves. We've also discussed consent, including the issues with it in the game, and how areas of the story can only really be considered dubious at best and could easily be triggering for people. And these discussions have been open, honest, fair, and with the acknowledgement that most of us love these scenes anyway. So there's a sense of care that runs through everything, behind the horny-posting and fan content, behind the endless thirsting after our favourite fictional characters. We have a depth of kindness that warms my sinners soul every time I see it.

What Does This Have To Do With Self-Reflection, Raphael, or Villainy In General?

Well let's look at Raphael. He's a villain, obviously. He's manipulative, devious, and inherently evil by his very nature. He keeps Hope chained in his basement, constantly subjected to endless torture. There's also mention of how Gortash was sold into his service at a young age, clearly not an enjoyable experience given the other details and how things turn out (particularly as Raphael would need Gortash's own plans to fail entirely in order for him to succeed in his own and get that crown). And as fans, we accept that. We don't sit making excuses, or trying to say "well actually Gortash is a little shit and Hope probably deserve it", and we don't shy away from or conveniently ignore those darker sides of him with malicious intent to enable more evil to flourish. What I noticed, when I allowed the thoughts to continue, is that there is a theme here.

If Evil Can Be Loved Then So Can I

That's the core. Of course, darlings, I am not claiming to be a heinous monster. I certainly do not have a laundry list of crimes that would make the devil himself say "Uh, that's a bit much." But I sure as fuck treat myself like I do sometimes. You see, I think a lot of us have that tendency, to judge ourselves far more harshly than anyone else. Our patience, understanding, and forgiveness for others runs deeper than the Mariana Trench, but when it comes to our own flaws? One minor mistake and we think ourselves to be the worst beings ever to disgrace the earth. Thus, the villainy we see reflects how we are treating ourselves. So by loving and accepting all of those things that should be terrible, hated, we are actually learning that no matter how poorly we think of ourselves that we can be worthy of that same love and acceptance. We are extending the affection we are unable to show ourselves to someone we see the worst parts of ourselves amplified within. And that's why villains attract the people with the most kindness. The most forgiveness. Because it takes someone with a truly huge amount of empathy to find love for the embodiment of evil.

Or, IDK, maybe villains are just hot and we're too far down to care.

But wait, before you go!

THERE'S SOMETHING WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT.

All of this is about FICTION. We should never be accepting of the kinds of evil we see in the game irl. We do not owe anyone kindness if they do not show it to us.

What is hot in fiction is not always OK IRL.

Look after yourselves out there, remember that consent is key in all things, and please do try to learn to love yourselves, darlings, you are worthy of it and you should judge yourself by the same standard you judge others. If you are in doubt, if you are worried, if you feel afraid - reach out, talk to someone. There are many who will listen.

Treat yourself as you would treat a friend. You deserve that much.

Oh, and all Raphael fans who understand kindness are welcome around me, any hour of the day, I adore our little fandom circles and would gladly collect all of us together. I'm following a lot of you as soon as I find you, like hunting shiny pokemon~

See you in Avernus, my darling Little Mice, may we all find joy in the Cambion's Embrace~

[mullermilkshake]

The rose garden - Chapter 3

I will be uploading the whole thing here, it's just going take a little time, but if you want to read more right now, there's more on my AO3 <3

Summary - You are just an author wanting to put your writing out there and carry on with your life, but when two people end up murdered, things you write about seem to be more real than just pure fiction.

Pairing - Yandere!Suguru Geto x Fem!Reader / Detective!Satoru Gojo x Fem!reader (Sort of one sided)

Word count - 3.9k

Tags (master list for the entire fic, will add TW for significant tags) - DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT!!! PLEASE READ THE TAGS!!!,NSFW,SMUT,NO USE OF Y/N,Yandere!Getou Suguru, graphic depictions of violence, major character death,Porn With Plot,Porn with Feelings,Established Relationship,PleasureDom,Codependency,Murder,Torture,Conspiracy,Cunnilingus,Orgasm Control,Multiple Orgasms,Minor Original Character(s),psychiatry,Medication,Power Imbalance,Vaginal Fingering,Disembowelment,Manipulation,Gaslighting,Rimming, Praise Kink,Grinding,mentions of blowjobs,Dry Humping,thigh riding,Dark,Autopsy,Aftercare,Hunting,Guns,Perceived infidelity,Body Horror,Smoking,Vaginal Sex,Misogyny,Public Stimulation,One sided sexual tension,Invasion of Privacy,Strangulation,Reader-Insert,Serious Satoru Gojo,Orgasm Edging,Obsession,Accidental Voyeurism,Angst,Questions of masculinity, stabbing, shooting

One case after another.

Satoru Gojo just needs a little sleep.

Tags for chapter - Detective!Gojo, Smoking, Grahphic depictions of gore and murder, body horror, Shoko my bby, Ino my bby, Crime scene, Serious Gojo

“Gojo…” 

“Wake up man…” 

“Jesus christ- Wake up!”

Satoru Gojo shot up from his desk and banged his head on the overhanging desk lamp. “Fuck!”

Takuma Ino perched himself on his desk as Satoru rubbed the stale sleep from his eyes. “You slept here again? You should really go home and shower. It’s kind of sad.”

Satoru groaned and did his best to sit up straight and stretch as best as he could. “Yeah, I had to finalise the details of this case I just closed. I figured it was just easier to sleep here so I could speak with Nanami and go home early.”

He’d worked tirelessly over the last week, all he wanted was a little bit of paid time off and he was sure Nanami would give it to him.

Ino adjusted his position and looked away from him, his hand rested over his tack vest. “Yeah… About that.”

“Give me some good news, man. I’m too tired for this shit in the morning.” He slumped his head back on top of his folded arms.

The overhead light was too bright, the stagnant office air far too stuffy and Ino’s voice a pitch too loud. Satoru hadn’t had a solid night's sleep in two weeks and now there was something else?

“I came to wake you because there’s something Nanami asked me to ask you to go see.”

“So instead of coming to get me himself, he sends his lackey to do it for him?” Kento Nanami would be the death of him if he sent him on any more errands before a hot shower.

“It’s important. An odd homicide… you’re favourite.” He sang that last part.

And odd cases were his favourite. There was a reason Satoru’s record of arrests was perfect. Because he could see parts of a crime scene that no one else could. Sort of like a sixth sense.

He tried to ignore Ino and fall back asleep. “Not today.”

“C’mon, Nanami gave the all clear for me to come with you. We never get to partner up anymore. I heard it's particularly gruesome too. That’s like a candy shop for you.”

Satoru didn’t move.

“Let’s go!” He was shaking him now. Idiot. “We have to go before the regular beats leave their dirty paws all over the crime scene. C’mon!”

“Fine.” Satoru got up and narrowly avoided his head on the lamp again. “Fine. One scene and I’m off to bed, I just want a few hours that aren’t sitting up at my desk.”

He needed to buy a fancy new chair for his office and not that god awful sofa. Harder than rocks and smaller than a cardboard box. But first he needed his own office.

Shit. What he would have done for his own office not to get bothered by Ino day in, day out.

“Awesome, just like old times eh?” 

Way back, when Satoru belonged to part of a specialist unit. Now he was somewhat of a rogue. He performed better on his own, that way no one could slow him down and he wouldn’t need to watch out for others. It was better that way in his specialist field that he stayed on his own.

“Yeah.” But he would be lying if he said he didn’t miss it from time to time. “Anything we should know goin’ in?”

Ino kept his pace and shook his head with a quick withdrawal. “Nothing. Shoko said it would be better if we saw it when we got there.”

Wasn’t she the one for puzzles this early in the morning? “Where is it?”

They made it to the elevator and took it all the way down to the ground floor. “Some place over the other side of town, up near the lanes.”

“That narrows it down.” Satoru rifled through the pockets of his jacket and pulled out his cigarettes and put one to his lips.

He hated the taste, the horrid smell it left lingering on his clothes, but it was the only thing that seemed to help clear his mind. His mind could read a crime scene thoroughly from top to bottom in minutes. His clear mind could do it easily in under a minute. Less if he really wanted to show off. 

“She requested you by name if that is anything to go by.”

Satoru and Shoko had not been in the same room for the better part of a year, she had pursued a career in forensic pathology, and one would think they would have crossed paths more being in their respective fields. Most of the time she was already gone when Satoru got there.

Life just went on and things got in the way. Part of him looked forward to seeing an old friend. The other half was intrigued by the fact she would still be there waiting for him.

Gruesome. What an interesting word. “Did Shoko say that it was gruesome? Or did Nanami?”

“Shoko did.”

That meant something entirely in comparison to Nanami. If the forensic pathologist was using a descriptor such as that for the scene, then it would have been more than just bloody. Satoru went into the scene with a mind to prepare for something worse than the town had seen for some time.

And of course, he was right on it.

A large house off of the lanes, big and obvious enough that the occupant wanted to hide in the trees totally oblivious to the house with more money than they knew what to do with, stuck out like a sore thumb against the greenery.

A house with a dead body inside.

“Holy shit.” Ino’s mouth dropped.

Satoru was already reading the place as he stepped in and saw what Shoko was talking about.

No mud tracks. 

Dust lines are non existent 

She’s still fully clothed. 

“I need everybody out for the time being.” Satoru pulled out a pair of gloves from the little pack in his jacket pocket.

Shoko was right over by the body taking photographs, the flash filling up the entire corner of the far east wall. Everybody, besides two people slowly filtered out of the room, slower than Satoru would have liked, trudging and dragging their feet past him with looks full of ruffled feathers and annoyance.

“Always need to command a room, right Gojo?” Shoko had her back to him. She held the camera out to one of the other men and they promptly left with it in hand.

“You know me. I prefer being one of the only guys in the room.”

“A big headed one at that.” It was like they had picked up where they left off.

“Maybe. But you did call for me . It kinda gives me the right to have a big head, doesn't it?”

“Yeah, something I’m starting to regret.”

The body was an odd one, and it continued growing in that oddity the closer Satoru got to it. But, it truly was gruesome.

Shoko finally faced him, leaning against the wall in ther white overalls and mask, a tilted head in amusement. “So… What do you think?”

“Well, whoever it was, was already inside, they didn’t break in. This was for control, not for sexual gratification and they cleaned up afterwards. You’ll need ultraviolet light to look for evidence, but I doubt you’ll find anything.”

“Cleaned up?” Ino came up alongside him and knelt down. “There’s no signs of wiped blood smears and I don’t smell any cleaning products.”

“There’s no dust lines. It would have taken time to clean up, but they cleaned up all of the surfaces too so it stopped the dust in the room from being disturbed. Dust can gather very quickly, especially in a room with so much stuff in it.”

The room was packed out with carpets, ornate sofa throws and pillows, the entire place was a dust factory, yet there wasn’t any signs of dust anywhere, except from the slither of sunlight poking through the closed curtain.

The killer used the large open floor length windows to funnel the smell and pungent chemicals out to nullify that theory. Quite clever.

“What about her?” Shoko nodded to the body.

The body was posed, like a doll, sat up along the chaise lounge in a seductive pose to inhibit a reaction from officers that this was for sexual gratification. But it was not.

There was no bruising about the neck, eyes or mouth meaning she didn’t die from asphyxiation, but rather the large gaping hole in her chest. Even an idiot would have been able to figure that one out.

It was the fact that her body was still entirely dressed.

This had been thought through far more than most scenes Satoru had stepped foot into. The most riveting part being her eyes were missing and stuffed full of organic matter. Like leaves? Grass clippings?

So was her mouth, like they were put there to keep her quiet. Upon further inspection, Satoru noticed no bruising or creasing on the matter which could indicate that it was all put there after she died.

Though there were blood drips down her cheeks when her eyes were removed, the killer made a conscious choice not to clean them up like the rest of her body, which by now, looked spotless.

“Who the hell does something like this? Shoko, do we know who lives at this address?” Ino got back up and approached her, pulling out his little notebook.

Satoru didn’t need a notebook. His mind was his notebook.

“Yeah, It’s-” Satoru faded them out and concentrated.

This was a well integrated woman. Popular. Well received. By the awards nearest to the kitchen, she was an accomplished author. Dark fiction going by the scripture on the bottom, the many lined photographs hanging on the walls and over various surfaces containing mostly dogs and friends.

Well received but not fully accepted going by the document stuck to the refrigerator with the wine bottle magnet. A messy divorce? Or a business deal? He wasn’t sure.

It was clear there was a party last night based off of the overflowing trash can full of red wine bottles and soft cheeses left out on the counter top. 

Satoru looked further, still remaining by the body but observing everywhere else but the body. Confetti under the sofa and parts clung to the longer fibres on the shag carpet.

“Any news of the party last night? Were there any complaints; has anyone started to contact those who were here?”

“A party? Uh,” Ino rifled through a booklet Shoko had given him. “There was a party the night before, around thirty people came… they were celebrating something… uh.. They came from somewhere, but we’re still actively getting information.”

The night before? “Good. Have them question everyone and send the minutes of each call to my desk.” Satoru stood up and moved away from the body.

There was not one hint of bleach or cleaner in the wood, not even the fabrics. Satoru smelt everything. Unless, she was brought here after death, but it could not have been far.

“Has anyone checked the surrounding area for blood splatter?”

Shoko nodded. “They got nothing, even the cadaver dog turned up empty.”

That didn’t sound right. “Time of death?”

“I put it around midnight the night before, to two o’clock yesterday morning.”

A two hour time window.

How did no one see if there was a party

Satoru doubted whoever was still here either with the barrage of police vehicles at the bottom of the hill lighting the whole driveway like a christmas tree.

“Someone local maybe. If they didn’t kill her and bring her here, how the hell did he not get caught by the others?”

Ino shrugged his shoulders and wandered into the kitchen, pulling away the document papers in his gloved hand. “Maybe they were drunk, thought she was asleep or something. What makes you think he did it where there were people present?”

No. No, that wasn’t right. “Whoever this was, had to sit and hold her like this until rigour mortis set in so the body held its shape.”

Shoko seemed to agree. “Rigour mortis is precise enough. If she died at midnight at the earliest, whoever killed her would have needed to sit there with her for at least six hours, then clean the entire place, leave no smell and get out without being caught by anyone who came knocking the next day. But by now, rigour mortis would have softened her up.”

But there was still no smell which led Satoru to believe that there might have been some sort of embalming solution inside her.

“Oh that’s right.” It seemed Ino was on the same page too. “Rigour mortis disappears twenty four hours after death. So maybe the time of death is wrong and she was killed last night. So when she softens up, we’ll know when she died definitively and piece together the timeline…”

“The estimated time of death isn’t wrong. Whoever did this had plenty of time to get everything cleaned. They mustn’t have been disturbed.” 

If the killer did all that, then Satoru needed to find out when everyone left the house, but as of right now, “Everyone who attended this party is a suspect. We need information on all of them.”

“Sounds good; see I missed this… us guys all together again solving crimes.”

Satoru leaned against the wall and thought hard. What even was the motive? There was always a motive, always a reason despite the most depraved crimes.

Ino took himself off to the next room as his phone rang. It was probably Nanami giving him some other boring job to do, though Satoru would class this as an interesting day. Well worth the lack of sleep.

His head was still clear. The most important part.

“So how you been holding up, Shoko-”

“Uh, Gojo?” Ino popped his head round the corner.

“God you can really read the room, idiot.” Shoko climbed to her feet and adjusted her overalls.

“What is it?”

“There’s another case, you should really take this.”

Good grief. Now Nanami was dropping stuff on Satoru’s lap as well? “I’m good, thanks.”

“It’s a hit and run.”

“That’s not my area.” Satoru waved him off, his tiredness setting in. “Tell Nanami to get someone else to study tyre tracks and skid marks.”

“You’re gonna want to take this. Shoko you too… It’s just down the road aways, we could walk there actually.”

Jesus christ. “One more,” Satoru raised his voice so he knew Nanami could hear him over the phone line. “Then I’m taking paid time off or you’ll run my ass into the ground!”

“Uh… Yes sir; yes- yes I’ll tell him…. Gojo, he wants a report on his desk after this too, then he said you can negotiate paid time off. A-and he said stop sleeping in your office, you know how he feels about overtime.”

That was laughable. “My whole life is overtime, man. Let’s get this over with then.”

By the time they had reached the next crime scene, Satoru had smoked two more cigarettes. Shoko swiped the smoke wisps away and upturned her lip. “God those are so strong, why do you smoke those?”

“You smoke too, or have you tried giving up again?” Ten months went by quickly.

“I do, but those aren’t menthol, why don’t you smoke menthol?”

Satoru shrugged with no care and stubbed the end out on the floor. “I don’t like the taste of these ones, let alone that minty crap.”

“Guys? Doesn't this look similar to someone we know?”

Satoru looked near the side of the road along the lane where a body was. An outdoor crime scene yielded different results to those indoors. The environment could wash things away, indirectly hide evidence and just be a bastard to work with, even with Satoru’s eyes on the case.

A crime scene was never a two dimensional affair. There were the walls and ceilings to work with, but outside with the elements, it was genuinely more case by case.

This body. This defied all two dimensional logic. “I wonder how our friend got all the way up in that tree there.”

It was as though he was hovering with his head all caved in like that, the only way really from this distance Satoru knew who he was looking at, was by the way his genitals blew about in the breeze through the trees, his broad frame held up by nature.

The tree was embracing the body, sort of placed like a crucifixion, but it wasn’t what stumped him that drew him closer, that he didn't even study the heavily leaf ladened floor at his feet.

Red roses, stuffed into his mouth and his side where a large portion of his waist should have been, where observing now, was in a pile on the floor along with his intestines like a long dodgy balloon string.

“Yummy…” Shoko’s humour was ever present. “Better get the camera out.”

This bared a striking resemblance to the woman in that house not half a mile away. Now, Satoru could not say at all if they were linked, not definitively until the forensics came back, and there was more readily available information to him.

Hang on… “Why was this called in as a hit and run?”

“They found blood splatters off on the road and linked it here.”

So the man was hit by a car, then dragged all the way through the woods and strung up like a decorative christmas turkey. Two in one murder, or a planned calculated move.

Curious.

Calculated. Or maybe it was last minute and rushed? No, not rushed for the time it would have taken to put him up there. 

“There could be two killers?” Ino sat on the same page, flicking through his little notebook and turned to Satoru with a small subtle glint in his eye.

“Go on.”

“If the rigour mortis is anything to go by, then whoever did the lady in the house would have time. It could be the same person a day apart, but I’m thinking there's two people, because, how else would someone get that guy up there, he’s easily… what, two hundred pounds, two fifty soaking wet is my guess.”

Maybe Satoru had actually rubbed off on him all this time. “What if this guy was done after the woman on the same morning? It’s still tight. If there was a party not half a mile that way, then he’d have to avoid the cars coming down the lane. So If I was going to kill two people at the same time, I'd do it in the early morning when most people are asleep.”

Shoko disagreed. “I’m certain that this guy was done last night. Much later after that woman.”

As soon as they found out the time when the autopsies were finished, then it would spell things much clearer.

“I’ll put a rush on the call backs or something to get a basic timeframe.” Ino then rushed off to speak with another officer along with the big old smile on his face.

“What do you make of this, Shoko?” Satoru’s arms were folded, bored now that the initial shock had worn off.

“It reminds me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it.” Her little tool kit was out, dusting the man's toes for prints. “I’ll remember after the autopsies I think.”

“How so?”

It was like she was stuck for words. “I’m not sure. Back at the house, she sort of looked like a doll. That’s the only way I could describe it, her skin was way too smooth for how her decomposition record is.”

“A doll?” His eyes wandered up to the body above him. He sure didn’t look like a doll, but the roses were a nice touch.

“Yeah, like I’ve read it somewhere, in an article or something.” Carefully folding the clear plastic over itself, she tucked it into her little belt and pulled out a pair of long needle nose tweezers.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” It was time he left back to the station for that report.

“One last thing before you go…” She yanked her glove off, rummaged through a pocket of her overalls and presented Satoru with a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke menthol for goodness sake, it might save your life. And get some sleep, you look like shit.”

And here he thought it was going to be work related. “Thanks for being such a considerate friend, Shoko. Don’t be a stranger now. Let’s go out for dinner sometime after all this blows over, I get the feeling we’re goin’ to see a lot of each other.”

“You’re buying though.”

“Don’t I always?” He grinned at her and left after she turned her head back towards her work.

Ino was already waiting at the car for him and upon leaving and reaching the station, Satoru came to the conclusion that it was two different people. He just wasn’t sure whether they were linked and knew each other.

Or there was a possibility, albeit rare and exceptional, that there were two separate and completely unlinked murderers in the immediate area who knew nothing about the other.

The latter didn’t seem too likely.

Still, he wouldn’t jump to conclusions until the facts were all put in front of him. And just like that, some of them were. A sheet of paper with the minutes of one of the phone calls made to the attendees from the party that night.

“Seems like she was definitely popular.” It took the interviewee ten whole minutes to calm down before continuing the phone call after learning of the woman’s death.

“Yeah, well liked and everything. Apparently she attended an event that night. An author’s ball thing- I dunno. And they all left after to go to hers.”

“An event…” Satoru studied the words in front of him. 

[All of us came from that event to celebrate the nominees and those who won awards… Oh my god. Oh my god.]

[Did everyone who was invited go?]

[Well… Some people weren’t invited. But I don’t know if they came anyway, we all got really drunk, we were celebrating. Oh god… I don’t even know where she went off too most of the time, we were all having such a good time. Oh my god! (Sobbing.) This is horrible…]

“So she wasn’t sure who came then?” It sounded utterly simple what the next move was. “Ino, get me a full roster of everyone who attended that event, staff, cooks, valet and an entire guest list… Also see if there’s anywhere nearby that might have security cameras we can check for that hit and run and try to identify him.”

“Sure thing.”

Someone in that list would be one of the two people they were looking for, in a rare circumstance, the only person they were looking for. And that footage, if it existed, was paramount, even if it was just a few minute little pixels in the corner, anything was better than nothing.

And when Satoru picked up a scent that made his intuition go haywire, he wouldn’t stop until he caught whatever was giving it off.

Because Satoru couldn’t leave well enough alone and strove to deliver justice to keep his record perfect. No one was going to escape him.

Though he hoped he could escape the station without giving that stupid report to Nanami.

He didn’t bet on it though.

Prev <- -> Next

(Master list)

DISCLAIMER - I do not own any of the characters of Jujutsu Kaisen. This is a work of fan fiction and is absolutely not representative of the views or intentions of the original creator(s).

The side characters and advanced plot is my own work. A gift for @vampir-queen and original idea for this fic is their own.

Also Please don’t post any of my work without permission thank you!

[youraverageaemondsimp]

your fic are really well written, you describe a part of aemond (which is more present in the book) in a fantastic way, delve into all the shadows of the character. that is valid for all of you fic, especially in the scenes where scenes are present yandere/non con/dub con. May I ask what are your favourite fic on this topic (of yours and other authors)?

Thank you so much!! You're so kind and sweet 🥺🥺💗💗💗

My favorite fics are definitely "Consequences" by @targaryenrealnessdarling and "Smoke, fire and Ash" by @asumofwords

Funnily enough, my account was originally created to discuss/share my views on SF&A, because I really enjoyed the fic sm and i wanted to be active in the tumblr community (I've been a silent reader of that fic for soooo long but it was actually useless cause I was sooooo shy to respond my thoughts because I didn't think she'd reply to reblogs 😭). It was one of the first tastes of Dark!Aemond I've ever gotten, which left quite an influence on me.

And Consequences... That fic still lowkey haunts me (both the fics do). It was a literal masterpiece, I remember eagerly waiting for the chapters to release everyday 😭.

Obviously there were many Dark!Aemond fics that I love, but I chose those two because they've definitely left quite an impression on me, and I've kind of adapted my own version of Dark!Aemond from the book description and just what I'd like to believe in the way he would behave. Those two variations definitely pushed me forward to adapt my own since I never knew that we could write fiction like this.

So sorry for yapping, ik you've just asked me to show you the fics i like but I'M LIKE, RANTING CAUSE my appreciation for those fics is still extremely high, they legit altered my brain chemistry 😭

And here are also some of the other fics i remember from the top of my head which I also love!! <3

The greater of two evils @the-common-cowgirl

A snake in the bosom @barbieaemond

Silver sobs @dolicekiss

Sweet kiss, sweet blood by @flowerandblood

And for the fics from myself, I'd definitely say my most recent fic, "A chance for salvation" and "Ensnared in lies" + "Seven above."

[yingdu-lover]

people comparing eiden and aoba pls stop like-

ik aoba this aoba that yaoi jesus agree ok calm down

but nu carnival is that classic "came for the corn, stayed for the lore" thing. I am not kidding, eiden is one of my top favourite fictional characters ever. corn maybe the thing that lured you into the game but bro...eiden is different. if most anime/donghua viewers didn't have that "purity" bias, nu carnival lore would actually be discussed like...the way we very enthusiastically and intellectually™ discuss link click. corn is not diluting your plot if your plot is strong enough. my link click fever and nu carnival fever started simultaneously and there are reasons why I adore eiden as much as I adore cheng xiaoshi. (lmao their character design sometimes feel so similar)

Eiden's story is a nuanced social commentary, not on your face shit. He is an overworked young man who often works overtime to afford good food. He is struggling to get a satisfying permanent job, his financial hardships are so relatable. IK we can't have (lmao it's 2024) the portrayal of the life narrative of a realistic queer character who scrolls through grindr, hooks up with hot partners and struggles to have a work-private life balance in mainstream anime media so yaoi otome game it is!

(like if it were an overworked heterosexual single woman with identical issues, the feminist lens would have been enough to keep it as a convincing main plot, but a gay young man pursuing his desires no way! I won't even talk about queer women here)

idk what I initially wanted to say but overall mainstream media is very heteronormative and puts way too much premium in monogamy. I think the perks of being an aro-ace-spec is that you can feel how the allosexual essentialist culture is SO bothered by sex and it renders them insane, they almost have an allergic reaction.

y'all who moralise and do 'purifying' rituals for your queer ships - " oh no they are so pure, their they can't have sex-" fuck you. honestly. queer representation is not your weird personal aesthetic and it's problematic!

1. Fetishizing queer characters

2. Doing 'purity rituals' on queer characters

both are equally damaging and tbh queerphobic. They need to have sex to validate they are queer and their love is spiritually higher™ because they have no carnal desire - bro 😭 one thing I can say and that is you are pathetic.

Eiden's vibrant sex life is IMPORTANT to know him as a queer character. It's simply a part of him and the way he bonds with his clan members is important too. But that's simply not the entirety of nu carnival. Eiden as a character just stands out...you distinguish him as that nice fella you would strike a nice conversation and 10 minutes later he is holding you in his arms when you are bawling your eyes out and he is giving you life advice as your personal therapist because...that orphan self made man has seen the cruelties and absurdities of the world and STILL believes in empathy, still wants to fulfill someone's last wish, small or big not because he is naive but he is mature and knows a simple truth : life already throws a lot of shits upon us, let us not create more trauma for us and others.

cheng xiaoshi and eiden would be bestfriends really

same empathy level. both orphans. both struggling young men. The former is naive, the latter is mature but both know how hurting others just logically doesn't make sense. both would do those poignant little things or endanger their own lives to make people believe why against all odds, they matter, their emotions matter, the bondings they had mattered, their last wish before death mattered. this is such a simple trait but in my opinion, one of the most powerful and humane traits a protagonist can ever have.