#i feel like every month you come up with a new rarepair

[zukkaoru]

it has come to my attention that i have not been talking about wlw ships enough, and for that, i am sorry. i apologize for flooding my mutuals' and followers' feeds with nothing but rarepair yaoi; as a lesbian myself, i should know and act better. i should simply like the most popular ship between two canonically female characters in every fandom i'm in, regardless of whether or not i personally feel they would get along or enjoy the majority of the fandom's characterization of them and their dynamic. and i should stop talking about rarepairs with male characters, instead only talking about mlm ships if they're popular, like real lesbians do.

since i first created my Ao3 account in december of 2016, nearly eight (8) years ago, i have only tagged fifty-four (54) fics with the f/f category, and an entire four (4) of those fics were also tagged with the m/m category. this is unacceptable behavior on my part. and while my span of time creating for the f/f category goes from january 10, 2017 with my first fic ever posted on ao3 to september 25, 2024, i realize this means it has been over one full month since i have posted a f/f fic, and none of my five most recent fics on ao3 are tagged with the f/f category. this is a huge misstep on my part and i will work my absolute hardest to rectify it as soon as possible. i understand, too, that my total word count of 266,147 words for f/f fics over the span of these past ~8 years puts me at only approximately 36,018 words of f/f fics posted each year, which is not nearly enough in any way, shape, or form. from the bottom of my heart, i apologize.

in the future, i will work to write more f/f fics, and i will do my best to make sure those fics are only the ones most widely accepted by the fandom, and most easily digestible for anyone who may come across them. this, of course, is simply the duty of a lesbian in any fandom, and i cannot express enough how sorry i am for failing in my job. i will no longer create new tags for sapphic rarepairs and instead pour my energy into making myself like all of the most popular wlw ships in whichever fandom i may find myself in. i will also refrain from going too heavy on the niche headcanons, so as to entice the maximum amount of readers. i have seen the error of my ways, and i accept that i am entirely in the wrong.

please bear with me while i work to better myself. any current wips i have of ships that do not fit the acceptable criteria for a lesbian in fandom to write about will be scrapped, and i will be dropping out of all events i have chosen to take part in if i cannot mold my work to fit these terms, since giving up on rarepair yaoi entirely is clearly the only way i will ever be able to redeem myself.

thank you all for your patience.

grace zukkaoru ❤️

[aerodaltonimperial]

Insights I've gotten from my spreadsheets with fic stats I've been keeping since December 2022, but I can tell you, that at least in regards to this fandom:

The worst stats I have are on smut fics - bar none, they have the highest hits, but the kudos rate falls between 5-10% of the current average, and the comment rates will decimate you. People straight up will not comment on them. If you want little interaction and tons of hits, that's what you should post lol or maybe you just need to be better at writing smut than I am HAHA

F/F pieces carry some of the lowest hits (unsurprising...) BUT come with some of the HIGHEST kudos/comment percentages. F/F readers in this fandom are very interactive, though low in number! (YAY LADIES)

From Sept of '23 to Feb of '24, the interaction levels across the board crashed, dropping at least 2-5%. This means that hits remained where they were, but all kudos and comment percentages dropped. I know other authors saw and felt this, so it was definitely widespread; I felt pretty validated when the stats ended up looking the way they did.

I had my fics archive-locked for about 2.5 months. This did not impact percentages. It DID heavily impact numbers overall. Since the percentages stayed the same, I can tell you that guests DO leave kudos in the same ratios that logged in users do. To me, it's worth leaving things open so those readers can still be part of things.

Right now, numbers are back up for me following the big six month low, which is especially surprising given that I have lost 80% of the people who used to read my fic lol

Things to note are: I only track one-shots, because chapters mess with hit and comment numbers, so my stats are one-shot only in terms of comparison. This is good for numbers, because long fics are where my words go to die and not get read LOL.

Also, old fics SHOULD, by virtue of the percentages, have lower stats across the board because people re-read over time and can only leave kudos once. Despite this, my worst stats remain in the Sept-Feb time frame. THAT IS HOW NOTICEABLE THE DROP WAS. I see authors like me talking about this so much, but it was so bad it actually NEGATED the time-induced stat drop that should have happened haha.

Some of the best stats I have are my "one-off" pairings: pairings that I wrote one fic of, that aren't big. Those have the highest percentages (not hit numbers! Just interaction ratios). Good news for rarepair writers maybe?

And I cannot overstate how awful the smut ratios are. Just devastating. It's the thing I am the MOST insecure about (I assume many of us are who write it!) and every time I post it, I remember why I don't write more of it LOL. Like OUCH. People will not put their names to it. I did some sleuthing and apparently this is across the board with fandoms. Readers want smut but don't comment on it, which feels counterproductive to getting more, but haha.

Also, logged in users who leave kudos all the time? I see you!! I recognize your usernames! Even if you don't leave a comment, I know you are there and reading when I see your username pop up!! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND I SO VERY MUCH APPRECIATE YOU. 💚 You are by and large my biggest readership. It used to be friends, but it's almost entirely AO3-names-only for me now. THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE, I LOVE YOU WITH MOUTH.

[thrillofhope]

Oh my god. I will never be calm about this. I feel like I've been staring at it for hours. Thank you @scriberated for this most beautiful gift!

So I had a silly thought a few months ago: "What if Gil-galad and Celebrían were in love?" It would be doomed, and tragic, and right up my alley. (Naturally from there I devolved into chaos and now I have a new favorite rarepair.)

Into Darkness Fell His Star was my exploration of that question and my love letter to Gil-galad (the best High King of the Noldor).

Here is an excerpt that leads into the scene so stunningly illustrated:

“I want to dance with you beneath the stars,” he says, and then the words come rushing forth. “I want to see you smile as you once did. I want to shelter you from every manner of darkness, every shadow. I want—” He is a selfish bastard for saying these things out loud, for offering something that he cannot give. His life is not his own, his fate is not his own, and yet… “I wanted to lay you down and make love to you until despair and shadow were but faint, passing memories and there was nothing before us save for the very vision of our hope: a home in this world so bright and beautiful.” 

Tears shimmer in her eyes unshed and he hates so much that he could be the cause of a single one of them. But better that she weep now for a time than all the long days of her life when he is not there to comfort her.

“But you cannot,” she says softly. 

“I cannot.”

The words lie heavily between them and he finds himself wishing she would respond in anger because her sorrow is almost too much for him to bear. But she does not spare him her sorrow; she holds his gaze as though begging him to remember this moment. And he will. He will remember it always when he thinks about what might have been in a world without darkness. 

Finally, she takes a step back, toward the stone wall of the garden maze. But she does not turn away from him. She holds out her hand to him. “If this is to be the end, will you not dance with me beneath the stars, my king?”

And because he is so very weak, he takes her hand.

Needless to say, I am obsessed with this is will be forever. It is wild to see something that existed only in your brain come to life.

Art by @ssuzu. Seriously incredible.

[fadingplaidlibrary]

You asked for rare pairs.

Gunther x Wizard lives in my brain on rainy days.

Elliot x Clint is a weird rarepair.

hello my darlinggg yes yes yes!! here’s a lil bit of both just for you <3

a fluffy drabble double feature baybeee. canon-typical mention of minor injury and alcohol consumption in the second one. word count: 979 for like-minded (gunther x wizard), 294 for a happy accident (elliott x clint). no beta, we die like men. i do not consent for my work to be reuploaded elsewhere. have funnnn ;p

like-minded

gunther had been desperate for a job when he took the position as pelican town’s librarian. it wasn’t ideal, of course, to be suddenly in charge after the last owner had robbed the town blind, but he was up to the challenge. a small life in a small town was his real goal, and at least the seemingly impossible task of replenishing the shelves around him (while also staffing the front desk on his own) keeps him occupied

rasmodius can’t help but feel impressed by the ambitious newcomer. the wizard had never liked the last librarian, found them arrogant from the start. but this new guy, gunther, is different. he seems resolute about the work he’s chosen, what will surely be a years-long restoration project. and despite his reputation as a mysterious, aloof figure, all alone in his tower, the wizard wants nothing more than to share the company of someone who loves and craves knowledge like he does

the wizard’s mentors had passed their wisdom to him with the promise that he would one day pass it to another. they meant that he should one day seek an apprentice, but rasmodius was sure that sharing his personal collection with the small town library would count towards that aspiration. and to be honest… he would have traded his entire tower just to ease this clever new docent’s burden, to make him smile, even. maybe in that easygoing way that deepens the dimples in his cheeks. hm…

one morning when gunther arrives at the library, he finds a box on his front step. inside are three beautiful hardcover books of poems — first-editions, no less! the anthologies are clearly well-loved but still in excellent condition. the next day, he finds a small dwarf-script scroll wrapped in waterproof canvas. the week after that he finds a single perfect ancient seed in a glass jar. every package comes with a small handwritten note, with a brief description of the contents, and signed M. R. in scrawling cursive. maybe these old shelves would be filled sooner than anyone could have predicted…

penny and the children are thrilled to explore the new additions to the library. gunther never reveals the true source of the materials, but he can’t help but wonder… months pass, then a year, and slowly the shelves of both the library and the museum are filled up with fascinating new books and specimens. the new farmer has certainly contributed a fair share, but the majority of the new pieces have come from that same unnamed benefactor

one night, rasmodius finds an envelope on the front step of his tower. inside is a letter from the pelican town library and museum, on official stationery, but handwritten in gunther’s small, neat script. it looks to be… an invitation? to our generous anonymous benefactor - g. von roemer, librarian

when rasmodius breezes into town that night and lands in front of the library, he finds gunther sitting on the bench in front the humble building. “i received your letter,” the older man begins. “you need not trouble yourself with any repayment. i only…” the sentence trails off. he only what? wanted to share his knowledge? yes, but there was more to it. selfishly, secretly, he had hoped that the new docent would connect the dots and… notice him. as pathetic as that sounded, this almighty magician wanted to be noticed by the librarian. and now that he had gotten his wish, he didn’t know what to do with himself

“well now…” gunther’s voice is soft, awestruck. “so it really is you.” his deep brown eyes search the wizard’s face, now glowing with a self-conscious blush even in the weak moonlight. gunther hadn’t expected his anonymous benefactor to be so… so easy on the eyes, as they said back home. he rises slowly to his feet and removes his hat, then continues in his low drawl. “i wanted to thank you in person, mister...” “rasmodius.” the wizard clears his throat and repeats, “mage rasmodius.” gunther nods slowly, eyes still fixed on the man in front of him. “it’s an honor to finally meet you, mage rasmodius,” gunther nods. he swallows hard and adjusts his glasses before continuing. “your generosity has, uh… well, it means more’n you know. i-i’d like to give ya this.” gunther reaches into an inner pocket of his coat, then extends his right hand to the wizard. there, in the center of his gloved palm, lay a gleaming silver key. rasmodius holds his breath. “i had clint make this a few weeks ago.” gunther explains gently. “don’t worry ‘bout clint, he uh… he ain’t the type to ask too many questions. your secret’s still safe with me,” he says with a wink. “go on then.”

the wizard looks down at the key, then up at gunther, then back down at the key, before hesitantly reaching for it. on the handle of the key is a carving of an open book, with the letters M. R. on the pages. rasmodius runs one callused finger over his initials, speechless

“you can stay anonymous if ya like,” gunther says, fixing his hat back onto his head. “but if ya ever need anything, that key’ll let ya in anytime.” the gentle librarian smiles from ear to ear before adding, “and i’ll be here if ya ever need me.” rasmodius briefly worries that his thudding, stuttering heartbeat will wake the whole neighborhood. he closes his hand around the key, still warm from gunther’s pocket, and simply replies, “the honor was all mine.”

years later, clint found himself melting down that same silver key into a pair of matching rings for an off-record special order. gunther was right, clint didn’t ask too many questions, but he didn’t need to. the initials engraved into the rings — R. M. in one and G. V. R. in the other — told the whole story

a happy accident

elliott has always had a thing for strong working men. he enjoys his own foppish aesthetic, of course, revels in his theatrics and melodrama, but nothing gets him going like a down-to-earth man with big arms and strong hands. all of his bravado melts away when clint is around, but he’s sure the blacksmith doesn’t feel the same way

clint is slouched in a booth at the saloon now, one hand wrapped around a glass of pale ale and the other wrapped haphazardly in bandages. the writer sits across from him, offering fumbling apologies which clint waves off. elliott hadn’t meant to startle the blacksmith when he breezed into the shop that afternoon, but when his unexpected arrival led the blacksmith to accidentally drop a heavy-looking iron bar and injure himself, elliott insisted on making it all better — first by wrapping the blacksmith’s sore hand in gauze, and then by buying him a drink. one drink leads to another, and before long clint and elliott are ordering dinner together

clint has always had a soft spot for the poetic types. his own life is full of hard labor, sore muscles, and more than a little loneliness. he’s always felt drawn to people who could look at a rock and see a crystal, who could maybe look at a tired, awkward blacksmith and see someone worth holding close. as he nurses his drink, he wonders if elliott, with all his flowy hair and flowery talk, and who can describe anything like there’s some magic in it, gets lonely too. he watches his companion swirl his wine glass, effortlessly poised and pretty, long flaming locks spilling over his shoulder. one day, clint resolves to himself with a little smile, one day i’ll buy him dinner too

[emeraldspiral]

More TATR propaganda for the rarepair poll:

Imagine after Tak fails to take Zim's mission she asks the Tallest for another chance, but they laugh in her face for being such a loser she couldn't even beat Zim. So Tak gets the idea that if she can take over a planet the Tallest actually wanted and assigned to a REAL Invader, she can redeem herself.

So she travels to Meekrob thinking Invader Tenn was just a loser who couldn't hack it and she's going to show the Tallest they were wrong for underestimating her. She meets Tenn, who thinks Tak has come to extract her from Meekrob after she lost her means of transport and communication and has been dodging the Meekrobians for months, barely managing to stay alive. At first Tak's plan is just to play along and pretend she wants to help Tenn salvage her mission, but she's really just pumping her for information so she can formulate her own plan. But when she learns that Tenn's mission failed because of a bunch of SIRs going nuts on her, (just like Mimi did when Tak was on the verge of defeating Zim) and sees how resourceful Tenn has been in the face of adversity (just as she had to be to escape Planet Dirt and make her way to Meekrob after getting her ass kicked by Zim) she decides she'll help out Tenn for real. That way, they can both get credit for conquering Meekrob and redeem themselves in the eyes of the Tallest.

The two of them manage to succeed, but then find out that just like Blortch, the Tallest didn't even have a plan for what to do with Meekrob after it was conquered. Not only did they forget what they wanted it for, they forgot they ever even wanted it at all after Tenn's mission was compromised and they wrote it off as "Oh well, you win some you lose some." To rub extra salt in the wound, they give Tak and Tenn both a pity reward to placate them, just like Zim's sandwich. They're both shocked and dismayed that after all the work they put into accomplishing their dreams their victory could feel so hollow and unsatisfying. They can barely process it.

The Tallest don't even know what to do with them now and suggest retiring them from active duty, but they both object to being put out to pasture. The Tallest then suggest some menial task and this causes Tak to snap at them that she wants to be assigned a real mission. But the Tallest have already assigned Invaders to every planet they care about and when they suggest places Tak and Tenn could conquer, it's obvious they're just picking names off the top of their heads like;

"Oh, what about Vort?"

"We've already conquered Vort."

"Okay, how about uh... I don't know, why don't you conquer Aksdjfoi?"

"Is that even a real place?"

"Oh! Oh! I know, how about Plookesia? Home of the universe's most... Uh? I forget, what is it they have?"

"Packing peanuts. The universe's most shock-absorbing packing peanuts. That's what they're known for. The very best for minimizing the risk of damage to fragile items."

"Yes! We must have those peanuts! They're a vital commodity, essential to the continuation of our Empire!"

Tak and Tenn both fake a smile and pretend to graciously accept the honor of being assigned to conquer Plookesia, but they're both dying inside. They head to their ship together and try to cope by deluding themselves into thinking that they'll get all the acclaim and personal satisfaction they were hoping for when they succeed in their mission THIS time around. But en route they both decide "Fuck this" and go AWOL together. If the Empire doesn't give a shit about them or anything that they do, then they're not going to give a shit about the Empire either.

They end up joining the Resisty to get revenge and give themselves a new purpose, but along the way they realize that becoming Resistance heroes isn't what really gives them purpose. They give each other purpose because they see each other's value regardless of any achievements and have learned to fight for each other, rather than their own glory.

So anyway, vote for Space Lesbians in the rarepair tournament!

[rinastray]

Update/Upgrade

Prompt: Kiss of Life (twst rarepair halloween 2023, 11/02)

Pairing: Ace/Ortho

Rating: Teen

Ortho keeps staying late in the Pomefiore ballroom.

⁂

With a sigh Ace laces his fingers together and raises his arms, stretching to loosen the tension in his spine.

Vil is such a taskmaster, honestly! It's not like Ace even needs to be at the practices, given he wasn't going to be walking the runway, but the upperclassman had insisted that Ace attend every session in full couture even though he did nothing but stand there as Ortho and the other two ran through their performance again and again and again to satisfy the perfectionist tendencies of Vil and Professor Crewel.

…Okay, yeah Vil wasn't quite as anal this time as he was in the lead up to the SDC, but still!

At least Ace is finally free for the day. He'd promptly gone off to change the moment Vil had dismissed them, and is on his way out back to Heartslabyul when he walks by the ballroom and sees that Ortho is still inside taking advantage of the space to do lifts and turns, just missing the ceiling; he’d been doing this a lot lately.

So Ace raps on the open door and Ortho pauses upside down, head turning towards the intrusion. “Hello, Ace Trappola-san. I thought you had already gone back to your dorm.” “Nah, not just yet,” he says stepping in enough to lean against the door frame proper. “You’ve been staying late pretty much every night since we got dressed up. Enjoying the extra height compared to your… what were they again?”

“My gears?”

Ace snaps his fingers. “Yeah! Those!” He grins. “This one’s taller then your other gears, so it’s probably no fun going back to the others.”

“I did not think anyone would notice… but yes. I adjusted Divus Crewel-sensei’s blueprints some because…” Ortho almost looks a bit sheepish beneath his visor as he rights himself, dropping to the floor proper. “Because…”

“Because you want to grow up some?”

That gets Ace a smile that still sits just a bit too awkward on Ortho’s mouth. “I do. Nii-san knows I switched my teeth out for something more like his, but I haven’t properly shown him this gear yet. He has the original blueprints, but not my modifications.”

“Ehh, Idia-senpai’ll probably be really happy. Big brothers are always happy to see their little brothers grow up.”

“Really?”

“Yup! Least that’s what mine told me.”

“I see.” Ortho tilts his head with another smile. “Thank you for your advice, Ace Trappola-san!”

This time Ace is the one who definitely feels sheepish as he rubs the back of his head. “It’s nothing, really. Any other serious existential problems bothering you?”

"I would not consider it ‘existential’, but there is one thing I would like to try," Ortho admits, "but all my research says that it is not something one should ask of anyone but a partner."

"You mean sex?" Ace asks, voicing the first thing that pops into his head; the thought doesn't surprise him as much as he expected it might, but Ortho is basically 16 and seven knows Ace has had enough thoughts along those lines since he hit his teens. It's probably about time for Ortho to hit that point. Especially given everything that happened last month…

A frown crosses Ortho's mouth, lips pressed against those too new teeth and barely showing a row of sharp points against the android's lower lip. "No but yes?" he says. "I am curious about that topic in a practical sense, but I was wondering more about what it would be like to kiss someone."

"Wait, that's really it?” It really does seem like a simple thing to want. “Well, that's easy enough to do." Ace steps into the ballroom proper towards his yearmate and leans in once he’s in front of him, brushing his mouth against Ortho's. "Like that?"

The android goes quiet and still for a long moment, a faint hum coming off him that Ace would swear anything is the other processing at full speed, before Ortho tilts his head, meeting Ace's gaze fully. "...Might I request a more thorough demonstration?"

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" It’s not hard offering to help, and it’s not like Ace really has all that much experience himself either way; this would be a good learning experience for both of them.

Ortho's answering smile is brilliant as Ace leans back in, grateful for the extra height the android has added to his newest gear as it leaves him just much closer to Ace's level.

(Looking back Ace thinks it’s maybe just a little unfair how quick Ortho can pick up new things. In more ways then one…)

[troutfur]

what are your favorite rarepairs, and least favorite?

First of all: SORRY I TOOK SO LONG! My job's been kicking my ass as of late and I wanted to dedicate this ask proper attention. Only now that I am on my way to a little vacation I have time, energy, and attention span to answer.

ANYWAY, Top 3 fav and least fav rarepairs go!

FAV

Berrynose/Honeyfern/Lionblaze — HONEYFERN HAS TWO FRONT PAWS! Any time I see a love angle I just SMASH that polyamory button. Plus I like the idea of a very homoerotic BerryLion rivalry that evolves into romance. And I'm a big fan of Fernsong, Hollytuft, and Sorrelstripe so playing around with their parents situation is fun.

Crowfeather/Harestar — Before anyone comes for my throat for the age gap, this is squarely about them after Hare becomes leader and starts spending more time with Crow. I just find the idea of Hare as this young gay guy falling for this gruff older guy who in his younger days was quite popular with the girls (just see his two gfs he got in quick succession) to be really compelling. Bonus points if it's unreciprocated on Crow's part, all because Hare can't bring himself to confess.

Briarlight/Ivypool — This one was from a fic I read and, well, I dunno. I think it's a really cute alternative to Blossomfall/Ivypool which is one I get like intellectually but emotionally doesn't do it for me. What else do you want me to say? Also I like Ivy better as a lesbian GF for Briarlight over Dovewing which is someone I truly, genuinely don't get why it's caught on.

LEAST FAV

Squirrelflight/Sol — Fandom stop picking a new random ass man for Squirrelflight every few months challenge! I find it honestly grating how this cycle operates with her and Sol feels the most egregious because I see no reason ever she'd want to ever interact with him. Even if fucking like Shrewpaw or whoever is also annoying to see at least there is a shred of a justification there. (Also little perfect angel Shrewpaw is honestly a fun icon to irreverently smash to smithereens so he has that going for him.

Ivypool/Jayfeather — I've seen it once or twice before and I'm sure it was just the one author and it was just peak "He would not fucking say that" from both sides of the ship. Utterly infuriating how any shred of personality or personal history was just straight up ignored.

Jessie (or Moonlight)/Squirrelflight — By the same token as the first one I am also not a fan of the Squirrelflight's random woman of the month trend. BUT! It gets somewhat of a pass from me because at least it's not het. I will also freely admit I have read neither Bramblestar's Storm nor Squirrelflight's Hope so I may turn around on them if I do. (Also this got me scrapping the bottom of the barrel for a third because tbh? I don't have strong negative feelings about all that many ships let alone rarepairs.)

[heroinejinx]

‘One Fine Day’ - Songbird, part 1 of 6 (Seraphine x Jinx AU)

So, um... I have a new rarepair hyperfixation. Definitely didn’t write this when I should’ve been focusing on uni work due in less than 2 weeks, what’re you talking about? 

Anyway, Seraphine is an aspiring popstar working full time in her father’s music store, Songbird. Life is good but kinda lonely, and then Jinx comes along...

Chapter title, ‘One Fine Day,’ is based on the song by The Carpenters.

Also, big shout out, love and kisses to my handsome wife Babs (@lesbian-batman)who beta’d for me <3 love youuuuu

TW: extreme cuteness and fluff. That is all. 

(1,181 words)

AO3 link

Enjoy!

Dreamy vintage pop drifted through the music store’s speakers, bringing life to the rainy Zaun afternoon outside. The takings from the morning were low, especially for a Friday, and the bout of bad weather had driven away any hope of more sales. Might as well have closed up for the day, there and then.

Seraphine idled behind the counter, passing the time by singing along to each song, adding her own trills and high notes where she felt like it. While she belted out tune after tune, she doodled flowers and love hearts on the notepad allocated for ‘work purposes only.’

Her father would’ve flipped his lid if he found out how Seraphine spent her downtime at the store. Songbird was his pride and joy, in part because he’d named it in honour of his daughter, his only child. He’d called her Songbird ever since she was born; said even her crying sounded like an aria.

She took great care of the store for him, of course, but he wouldn’t have approved of her methods. There’s always something to do around here, he’d say. Make yourself useful instead of daydreaming. As a former rockstar and current sound technician for one of Runeterra’s most famous bands, he was hardly one to talk; he dreamed of success back then, just like she did now. Whilst he had the freedom to make his dreams come true, he’d also seen how the music industry corrupted people. He didn’t want the same for her, no matter how much she protested. Since he’d left to join K/DA on tour, she found herself shackled to the store with almost no time to pursue what she loved most.

Music...

Seraphine strived for the spotlight. Over the past couple of years, she had played dozens of open mic nights and gigs at small venues and clubs. Her reach and popularity grew every day. In the last month alone, she’d gained over five thousand new followers on social media and music streaming platforms. It was only a matter of time before a scout from a record company realised her potential and scooped her up.

Until then, life ticked by. Eight ‘til late at Songbird six days a week; studio recordings in the evenings, or at the weekend if she could find someone to mind the store; writing sessions crammed in wherever and whenever she found the time and inspiration. It was hard work, but anything regarding music barely felt like work at all. Music occupied all of her time, mind, and heart. It informed every aspect of her life, even her relationships.

To Seraphine, people were like songs. She’d never tried to explain it to anyone else – had met no one who would’ve understood – but everyone had a melody to them. Strangers gave off waves, impressions. At first, most people sounded like white noise or a continuous low-fi beat. She had to know someone on a deeper level to really hear them; for them to feel open enough to let her listen. It was a long time since she’d gotten close like that.

Between running the store and cultivating her fledgling pop career, she had no social life. Most of the people she’d met through music were acquaintances, transactional connections. In a crowd of fair-weather friends, voices blurred and distorted in the din. Everyone sounded the same.

Seraphine gazed out upon the shop floor filled with CDs, vinyls, and cassette tapes, with no one around to take them home and play them loud like they deserved. A cold loneliness seeped into her soul. She hated days like those, nothing to do but entertain herself and ignore the boredom itching beneath her skin. Music was a lovely companion, but sometimes she needed more than it could give.

With a wistful sigh, she tore off the decorated page of the notepad. Tacked it onto her father’s cork board of concert leaflets, old photographs, music lesson advertisements, and Janna knew what else. The cheerful rumblings of a new song played overhead, as she picked up her favourite bubble-gum pink gel pen, the same colour as her hair, and started on a new page. She drew a dainty love heart so cute she couldn’t help but beam with joy.

Admiring her creation, she didn’t look up when the bell chimed for a new customer. No one had come in for at least two hours; she was out of work mode, in her own little world. Chances were, they wouldn’t need her help, anyway. They were probably stepping out of the downpour, grabbing shelter where they could. It happened a lot around that time of year, heading into fall. So, she ignored the customer’s presence. Even kept singing, albeit under her breath.

‘Hey, do you have any other Bikini Kill records in store?’

Wow, that voice...

Seraphine met the customer’s eye immediately, desperate to find the owner of such an instrument. A petite young woman glared back at her with quizzical impatience, waving a copy of the band’s 1993 album, Pussy Whipped. A navy boiler suit dwarfed her frame, while ocean blue braids swung around her booted feet, frayed and scruffy like they’d been under a hat all day. She had the most distinctive eye colour Seraphine had ever seen. They weren’t quite purple or pink, but some inscrutable shade between the two. Under the store’s artificial light, the colours seemed to switch and swirl.

The music of Bikini Kill seemed to suit her aesthetic, raw and full of rage at the world in that feminist punk rock way, but there was more to her than that. Something unreadable lurked behind those ever-changing irises. Rather than the white noise of a typical stranger, she was a mess of pitch and frequency; a cluster of songs overlapping and battling each other.

What an enchanting cacophony of a person...

Seraphine yearned to hear more, to know everything about this captivating woman. What was her name, her story, her purpose? What were her fears and dreams and fondest memories? Did she have family in Zaun, or was she from out of town? What did she do for work and in her spare time? Did she have a lover? What was her type? Did she like girls...?

‘Well? Do you?’ She spoke again, raspy and sweet. A smoker’s rasp, no doubt.

The image of her posed with a cigarette between her plump, open lips, danced across Seraphine’s mind before she could stop it.

Blushing and hot all over, Seraphine shyly shook her head in reply and returned to the comfort of the notepad.

Janna, it was all so surreal. She had never felt so compelled by a person, and from such a tiny interaction, no less. She couldn’t follow this woman’s song at all, and she... well, she loved it.

‘Okay... I’ll be back.’

With that, the new object of Seraphine’s fascination turned heel and left.

She thumped her head onto the counter and groaned. All she could do was hope that she wouldn’t miss the next visit. And, if the woman bought something, maybe Seraphine might catch her name?

[lietpolski]

0.) for bulgaria,,,,,u knew this was coming

ur the king and i'm the court jester doing a little hws bulgaria jig for your entertainment 🫡

1) what would their social media page/activity be like: i hate to say this... but this guy is on facebook!!!! maybe he has a twitter but he tweets like once every 9 months and it's like "Hi. I'm hungry". if this is canonverse where humans know nations exists he gets caught liking romania fancams (he doesn't know likes are public) old man bulgaria u mean the world to me

2) what animal they remind me of: your drawing of him as a black bird is the first thing that comes to mind!! :O

3) my thoughts on their design/aesthetic alone: BABYGIRL his canon uniform is SNAZZY and i just,, like how plain he is ig :,) it suits him and it's a great contrast next to ro's design!! 10/10

4) physical headcanons: i think he's a foodie!! especially when he's sad, he gives off the vibes that he curls up on the sofa with a tub of pistachio ice cream and cries the night away.... idk if this counts as a physical headcanon but i think he's physically older than ppl think!! i don't have a concrete age for him but smth like 26-29! he has a bit of a baby face though bless him (and i'm just VERY soft for romania finding him pretty,,)

5) social headcanons: he def keeps to his social circle i think!! he has a decent number of friends buuut he probably hasn't made new ones in decades :,) i think people often overlook him and don't think much of him because of his more meek disposition around new people and not being very flashy!

6) psychological headcanons: HE'S SUCH AN EMOTIONAL GUY,, which is so sweet considering i think that a lot of these characters have grown tough skin from their old age but bulgaria is so baby... he is resilient ofc!! but he shows a lot of emotions!! he wears his heart on his sleeve you can read him so easily :,) i also live for bulgaria with a,, weird fractured sense of pride? he's insecure about a lot of things, but at the same time he's prideful and a bit egotistical at times in a naive unintentional way. i feel like he also idolizes people and concepts very easily!

7) ship(s) with them that I like or at least consider: he and romania are an on-and-off married couple made for each other!!! but but but you've made me think about things like ro/bul/hungary and ro/bul/greece and those r super fun too! :O and i have this weird rarepair of him and england :,) for personal and deeply emotional reasons i also need him and serbia to fuck

8) made-up connections with other characters that weren't in the canon (friends, enemies, whatever): he likes russia a lot! and if i dare push my yugotalia agenda real quick... he adooores macedonia!! ALSO his relationship with hungary is so underexplored!! they don't have the same feud that she and romania do, but i think (at least historically) they get on each other's nerves and there's been a lot of tension there (hatefuck threesome when?) england likes to vacation at his home and b annoying. he kinda hates turkey but they're also friends (in typical balkan fashion) & he and greece would be good buds!! skiing friends too :D

9) headcanons about their past: fella has been through a shit ton!!!! if u ever ask yourself "why is he like this" the answer is what 500 years of ottoman occupation does to a mf hgjfg... and i like the hc i mentioned in my fic of him trying to get ro to marry him in the late 1800s to early 1900s :) ALSO him and greece's feud during the byzantium era!! he was scary back then!! i also loooove it when he's depicted as having been older during the ottoman years and so feeling some sense of responsibility for the other countries around him :,)

10) content about them I'd like to see more of: aaah him during either of the bulgarian empires!! under ottoman rule!! more balkan war stuff!! historical human aus!! i love him being pathetic but i want to see him angry and happy and powerful and in love and heartbroken and 🥺 also i. can never have enough vampire aus im weak

[rai-knightshade-art]

"I missed you."

"....I missed you, too."

Prompt #2, Pitch Perfect RarePair Week

This scene now has a Part 2! Check it out here!

Artist thoughts, links to the other prompt days, and a Close Up under the cut, Image ID in the alt text!

*drags myself in out of sheer force of will, collapsing immediately on the floor, holding this post aloft like a hard-won trophy* I did it. I got the drawing for today's prompt done. Here you go.

So, backstory: this is technically related to what will now be three posts later this week (because there's supposed to be a second part of this drawing based on Prompt #7, "I can't say it so I'll sing it", that will now be posted along with my original unrelated idea for #7 on Sunday), all of which are based on a fanfic I've been writing for a couple months now. Said fic (and two of the three posts) is Jeca-centered, but it's based in a little pocket verse that has a LOT more going on in it than just their whole... Thing, and that includes other RarePairs hanging out and generally being adorable in the background. (This includes all of the rarepairs I'm featuring this week, btw.)

Enter Chaubrey, who have their own side story going on that includes at least one gay panic (Aubrey), years of pining (Chloe, literally from their freshman year at Barden onwards), a mutual realization of "holy shit there might be something here, actually!" (Seen above, more on that below), a few months of hesitant flirting and maybe-sorta-kinda dates, and, finally, a reveal of feelings through meaningful glances during a duet featuring the rest of the Bellas (and a subsequent mutual decision to sneak off and talk things through after... Which may or may not lead to smooching in a broom closet somewhere. Maybe. Yes, Fat Amy finds them, and, no, she never lets them hear the end of it, even at their wedding a year later). It's a lot, is what I'm getting at here, that unfortunately goes mostly unsaid in-story due to the POV(s) I'm writing in, but I felt it was important that y'all know about it anyways because they live in my head rent free. Constantly. So.

Now, as for this scene specifically: set roughly 1 and a half years after PP3, Aubrey and Chloe are helping Beca pick out a wedding outfit as the Chief Bridesmaid and Maid of Honor, respectively (a position that Chloe threatened to fight Fat Amy for until Beca, in fear of "the Kraken has been unleashed!", declared that Chloe was Maid of Honor and Fat Amy would officiate, end of story), a month or two after Beca announced her engagement via a group zoom call (and Chloe's excited reaction subsequently provoked a Gay Panic™ in Aubrey as she suddenly had the realization that "I want to see her smile like that for the rest of my life", a Totally Normal and Measured Reaction to have for your best friend of course). Stacie would help but she's trying to wrangle a flower girl dress for little Bella across the country in New York, and Emily is splitting her time between song writing and helping with other logistics ("I've been researching venues, did you know there's actually an old movie theatre here in LA that can be rented out for weddings?" "rEALLY?!?! 😍" "NO." "Come oooonnnn, Becs, you gotta admit that's cool!" "Not. Happening."), So it's down to Chloe and Aubrey to help find the perfect wedding gown suit for Beca, because, and I quote, "Just because I agreed to a wedding does NOT mean I'm gonna be like every other bride on Say Yes to the Dress or whatever, if we're doing this we're doing it my way, and I'm not wearing a poofy overpriced dress that I can only use once, got it?" ("But, Beca, don't you wanna, I dunno, dress up for your husband-to-be? Go the whole nine yards?" "Are you kidding?! Jesse offered to just go up to the courthouse and be done with it, he's still amazed I said yes in the first place. It was only after I reminded him that you pitches would hunt us down and murder us if we got married without you that he agreed to do an actual wedding." "...Damn. You two really are made for each other huh." "You're also correct, there would be nowhere on this planet you could hide from our wrath if you'd eloped. Fat Amy has connections.")

Anyways.

In the midst of the chaos of trying on outfits and assuring the sales associate at each shop (because there are multiple shops visited, by the way) that, yes, she really does want a suit instead of a dress, and no, she won't be persuaded otherwise, and in trying to find matching bridesmaid outfits for the rest of the girls, Chloe and Aubrey find some moments to just... Talk. They haven't been able to talk much since the tour, at least in person, and they've missed that. They've missed each other. (Hence, the prompt!) Herein comes the realization that they're both single (rip Chicago you'll debatably be missed), and the mutual blushes and unusually shy glances start clueing them each in that, huh. It's almost like... She might... Reciprocate??? My feelings??? But they don't quite get to unpack that because there's still suit shopping to do!

But they'll get there, don't worry! We'll get the resolution to this little storyline on Sunday, because what better way to finally confess your feelings than with the same mashup that first truly brought you and your friends together! 😎

In the meantime, I've got bonus posts going up tomorrow and Thursday (because I couldn't come up with anything for either of those prompts, though I did try), then we're back with the last 4 true Prompt Entries™ starting Friday, with two entries for Sunday!

Days I've participated in (and Entries I've posted):

Day 1 (This is me trying): Link

Day 2 (I missed you): You Are Here!

Day 5 (if honesty means telling the truth... Well then the truth is I'm still in love with you): Link

Day 6 (there's no way that it's not going to happen with you looking at me like that): Link

Day 7.1 (I can't say it, so I'll sing it): Link

Day 7.2 (part 2): Link

Plus a relevant bonus Post for this particular scene can be found here!

Close Up:

[yiling-laozu-is-loml]

Am just curious.. you seem to like a lot of Wei Ying and others. Each to their own, but I wondered if you didn't like Lan Zhan or Wangxian as a couple or something?

ok so there's two issues with me writing wangxian:

1- I have read so many wangxian fics its insane and that means after reading every five or so fics, I'd come up with a new wangxian fic idea and i'd get scenes and perfect dialogue snippets in my head and they will make me salivate over the very brilliant fic I am planning. And then I get lost in planning an the fic stops being a oneshot and becomes a very fucking longfic instead. So i either start collecting bits and pieces of the fic in a seperate doc until I can completely write the fic before i post. Which is hard. WIPs are hard, I get carried away and then I hit a writer's block for a particular fic and its over.

The reason why I dont post multichapters? Because for the last three fandoms I left, I had big dreams and expectations of my very brilliant multichapter fics and my fandom shifts are so abrupt I have no time to finish a fic i've been working on for months and they end up being abandoned because if i end up in a new fandom, I cant go back and write the characters from my previous fandoms the way i wished to. I can no longer do them justice or put my heart and soul in them and my perfectionist ass thinks thats unfair to my readers. So I stop posting. So now I wont ever post a multichapter until its fully written because its better for people to not know what they're missing out on instead of see an abandoned fic and know EXACTLY what all they are missing out on. I've been hurt like this in my first fandom and istg it was bad. It was a slowburn, angsty 100k worded fic and the main pairing hadnt even kissed yet. the MMC was lusting after another chara while the FMC was catching feelings and the fic just...stopped there, with MMC imagining fucking someone else. I cant tell you how badly my mind refused to do anything but hope and wait for that fic to update and it never did. I was in the fandom for a year before I got into a new thing and ig the pain of that never left?

2- Even if I deprive wangxian-ers of a uniquely plotted new fic, they wont miss out much. There's well over a thousand wangxian fics in various settings, using various tropes. But for rarepairs? There's barely enough full-fledged fics or oneshots. A lot of fics tagged with a rarepair have that as a past ship or one sided thing OR a drabble collection which is cool but not what I am looking for if I go in the tag. So I do this for myself mostly, for rarepair readers, there's not many I cant disappoint by writing oneshots, they're just so happy with anything. I'd know, I am one of them.

Bonus reason: most of my wangxian ideas come to me when I CANT write. like 5 minutes before i pass out into a dead sleep or during an exam or when I am in class or basically any time I cant write and by the time I can, I've lost the drive I had and put it in the back burner for 'fics i may write someday'.

I hope that answered your question. I knew this was coming lol so I answered in as much detail as I could. I do hope to write wangxian fics, actually i am surprised my first fic wasnt a wangxian one tbh because i've been planning several of those but oh well.

Have a great rest of the day and thank you for being kind! <3

[polafairy]

SAKUATSU (and other rarepair ships) FIC MASTERLIST!

saw someone do this and i just had to give my 2 cents because i have way too much love for these! some of these recs are no stranger to sexual intimacy for a heads up! One thing guaranteed is that all of these are completed, and HEA despite the angst that may come through :)

SAKUATSU

1. smoke and mirrors

ohmygod. i read this in the plane to new york and MY was i seated reading this whole thing. this sneaky little fic gave me all the domesticity & fluff my heart couldn't handle but alas, as most fake relationship aus do, it also fucking broke me BUT picked the pieces back up very nicely. 10/10.

(msby jackals, r-rated, CUTE)

2. the affective presence of our black and white reruns

lord have merthy. literally pining at its best!! they are both idiots and bad at feelings but good at.. very good at /it/. also you should keep in mind that this fic is inspired by paramore's all i wanted was you and let me tell you nothing bad ever comes out of being inspired by paramore. ever. skts from u-18 camp up until msby jackals.

3. bound

AHHHHH. LITERALLY the crème de la crème of slow burn. Actors au? Check. Killer banter? Check. Gratifying cast of characters? CHECK. ao3 user internetpistol is VITAL to the sakuatsu fanfiction circle, all her works are must-reads! very r-rated. as in this is equal amounts porn and feelings.

4. hand study

THIS IS CRACK. If you need to believe in love again this is literally all you need. It also breaks you for extra measure on the realness. This is also Atsumu with hand fetish reserved only for Kiyoomi but accidently injures it during practice so now he decides to take care of Kiyoomi in his apartment where they do sexy domestic couple shit and slowly fall in love and fuck it up but resolve it again. The perfect ingredients list as u can tell.

(MSBY jackals, fluff, r-rated)

5. play among the stars

I usually take a hard pass on sci-fi material BUT HELLO??? SEXY BODYGUARD KIYOOMI AND SEXY CRIMINAL ATSUMU STUCK ON THE MOON FOR 2 MONTHS?? What insane person would pass on that. Also very easy to pick up on despite its content surrounding on space. r-rated.

6. again, until it's perfect

this is utter perfection. I have so much love for skts stupidity and top tier banter and this is just all of that but also gives satisfaction to the heart.

(easy one-sitting read, msby teammates skts, fluff)

7. three sheets to the wind

this is literature. like miss ao3 user fairycake can write romeo and juliet but shakespear will never be able to write three sheets to the wind by ao3 user fairycake. lil bit r-rated

(pirate au, heaven sent, witty as hell, impressive humor)

RAREPAIRS

1. persephone by batman

kageyama/tsukishima. arranged marriage. strangers to lovers. lyrical writing it almost ALMOST puts t swift to shame. feelings dripped in gold.

2. venus planet of love by fatal

kageyama/kunimi. again with the lyrical writing this is literally the integration of love and poetry.

3. hunger by iphido

akaashi/osamu. even more beautiful writing. 2 souls trying to pick up the pieces of their hearts together i love them.

4. questionnaire by iphido

kageyama/oikawa. poetry through an interview and it's very short but just very sweet.

5. the contest between by batman

akaashi/osamu. this fic has my soul in shambles. it has so much care, research, and love for food and feelings. the chef miya osamu (side dilf) agenda is also just excellently done. yearning seeps through every word and i just love this so much please give it a chance.

[wolfpants]

one year in fandom? surely not?

But yes, technically, that's what today is for me! A year since I posted my first fic, a year since coming out of the murky shadows and into somewhere a bit less shadowed (I'm a soft goth, it's a lifestyle)? In that time, I've published 21 fics, and almost half a million words, something I never thought I'd be able to accomplish this time last year when I shyly asked my friend if my writing was decent enough to post online. Those first few months were so tentative, so quiet honestly, and I can't believe where I am today, but the most rewarding thing, besides sharing all of those words, has been meeting all of you talented folk! I wanted to pay tribute to those who have helped lift me up, who have welcomed me into this sprawling corner of the internet with open arms, who have encouraged me to do more, to be more me, to grow as a writer and as a participator in fandom. You have my eternal love and gratitude. My confidence only began as a tiniest seed - you all have helped it grow. 

@academicdisasterfic - my best boy n twin flame; your writing is a revelation of authenticity, of heart, of what it is to be human in the real world and a world full of magic. You are a very special person, and I hope you know this.

@wrapped-up - one of my first connections here and my fellow beer lover! Your writing is so effortless, so beautiful, and I feel like I’m hanging with best mates whenever I read your words.

@oknowkiss - are we each other’s evil twin? Maybe. You write the most genius, sexy, witty fics all wrapped up in the most pretty, pretty words, I am in constant awe of you.

@moony-saraneth - the most dedicated cheerleader I know, you mean so much to so many people here, and I’ll never forget how you’ve helped me grow my confidence with your warm and generous encouragement.

@lou-isfake - Licurici is basically my personality these days. What an insanely beautiful fic from start to finish. Your words, like you, are brimming with so much generosity and consideration and kindness.

@nv-md - your talent blows me away every time you post something new, and what’s more, you are full of so much heart and grounded wisdom and do so much good in this fandom. We’re so lucky to have you.

@lqtraintracks- your talent needs no introduction really, your vivid characterisation and scorching smut is legendary. But you also welcome everyone here with such open arms, you give incredible advice and support (all of which has been invaluable to me), and your force in this little corner of the internet is unparalleled. Thank you for being so kind to me.

@coffeedrgn87 - a fellow caffeine fiend and one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met! I love our chats about Dronarry and all of the possibilities and scenarios these three boys can end up in. Thank you for being so lovely.

@the-starryknight - I am so in awe of your masterful prose. You write so stunningly, so thoughtfully, so lovingly. I still pinch myself every time I see a comment from you on ao3. I feel so lucky to have met you here.

@getawayfox - you are such a ray of gorgeous sunshine. Your art is so stunning and I still pinch myself every time I remember that you were inspired to make art from my fic! I’m not worthy. 

@krah18 - I have so much enjoyed all of our book chats and reminiscing over early MLM, Blockbuster and old movies! I can’t wait for another year of nostalgia and chatting fic!

@sitp-recs - your rec lists are so thoughtful and so carefully curated. You bring so much community not only to Drarry, but all of the rarepair readers, writers, and fans that you lift up. I am so thankful to you for giving The Hollow a platform and a spot on your blog.

My discord sprinters, banterers, and all round good eggs with talent overflowing from you all in waves - @tackytigerfic you are an absolute legend and your words have literally kept me up to the wee hours; @sweet-s0rr0w my fellow Ron stan and crafter of such evocative fics that stay with me for weeks after reading them; @skeptiquewrites you write romance like no other, my good lord; @sorrybutblog you paint such vivid and gorgeous pictures with your prose, I could live in every world you create; @corvuscrowned, the spooky storyscapes you cook up are absolutely out of this world, and your characterisation is always so insanely good; @m0srael, it’s been an absolute joy being in your orbit, your writing is so incredibly delicate and expressive; @ghaniblue Human made me breathless, absolutely one of the best fics I’ve ever read; @basicallyahedgehog whenever I see you pop up on my feed or in my comments my heart swells with joy, you are the best cheerleader ever; @phoebe-delia what can I say - you are one of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever met, so sweet, so charming, so willing to go full caps on comments, you absolute legend; @phd-mama you are a master of sweet fluff and hot smut; @pineau-noir your characterisation is always so full of heart and authenticity; @maesterchill - what can I say? Your fics haunt me (in the best possible way), your writing is so soulful and romantic; @thebooktopus- your reclists literally got me through the year, so thoughtful and full of dedication - you are so dearly loved here; @makeitp1nk- I adore seeing your cleverly crafted microfics pop up on my feed!; @teacup-tai- a kind soul and a champion of rarepairs and incredible femslash, I’ve loved getting to know you!

To the artists who brighten up my feed, @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm, @bluebutter-art @short666bread - every time you post something new my heart sings. I am blown over, constantly, by your talents, and the way you can bring to life images only I could have dreamt of before.

I am missing people. I know. But just know that, if we’ve interacted here - squealed over fic, over headcanons, art, or music (!!) - please know that I appreciate you, I cherish you. Thank you for a year of joy.

[bnha-more-like-bnh-gay]

Rarepair headcanons because I am ignoring my problems

Serodeku:

Izuku reenacts the Spider-Man movies with Sero. Izuku is MJ. They also alternate being Spider-Man sometimes

They skate together

They get very protective when people call their boyfriend “plain”

They play dnd together

Sero tries to make sure that izuku gets some rest

They’re both kinda insecure, izuku more than sero, but still; and they make sure to reassure each other as often as possible

Sero likes listening to Izuku’s ramblings and finds them cute. He has told izuku this, only for the poor boy to imitate a tomato

After Izuku has been particularly reckless, Sero takes advantage of his quirk, wraps Izuku in bubble wrap, and tapes it there

Tokodeku:

Jocknerd bf and goth bf, we love to see it

Tokoyami teaches izuku how to sword fight

They start a dnd club at U.A.

Izuku talks to dark shadow a lot, Dark Shadow approves of him, and has claimed the spot of best man at their wedding

Izuku comes up with ideas to help Tokoyami gain control with Dark Shadow

Dark Shadow is very protective over Izuku, no matter how many times Tokoyami tells him that he can take care of himself, Dark Shadow will put himself between Izuku and any form of danger as often as possible

Dekoyama??? Aoyama/izuku:

Aoyama gives him makeovers, obviously

Aoyama drags izuku to the mall and tries to revamp some of his wardrobe, but he actually finds the “pants” and “flannel” type shirts cute

They help each other train their quirks

Aoyama is trilingual, and teaching izuku English and French.

Izuku always brings Aoyama home some new cheese

Y’all, I love them so much. There needs to be more aodeku content

Monoshinsou:

They have people watching dates. They come up with stories for the people they’re watching; their job, family, background, etc.

They judge people together

They call each other “love”

They’re both dramatic bastards, who will flop onto their lovers lap and proclaim their death due to a minor inconvenience

They jokingly sh*t-talk class A

Shinsou said “I love you” first, and it was because Monoma brought him coffee to class

Monoyama:

Like monoshinsou, they’re both dramatic bastards, who will flop onto their lovers lap and proclaim their death due to a minor inconvenience

They go shopping together and pick out the most dramatic pieces of clothing for each other

I love them so much, please 😭✋

They have tea parties every week, where they sh*t talk everyone else and gossip

They are both fancy bastards, and they wear the most exquisite outfits to go grocery shopping, and the outshine everyone

They both actually make clothing, they’ll go fabric shopping together. Gift exchanges are often articles of clothing that they’ve made for each other

Momomei:

They work on gear together!!!

Momo makes sure that mei gets some sleep

Mei helps redesign momo’s suit

They often work together with izuku to work in gear and such

They actually got together after izuku introduced them. He had been working on gear with mei, and studying with momo and he thought they’d hit it off. He was correct

Shintsuyu:

Dude they’d be so cute

Tsu is a vent gremlin, and you can’t change my mind. So she and shinsou will play a game where they try to find each other. Tsu is in the vent and shinsou is in the classrooms. Shinsou will try to find whichever vent she’s in, or she’ll find whichever classroom he’s in, in 20 minutes or less

I always headcanoned tsu as a dog person, so they’d have two cats and two dogs, and a bunny that they named Deku

They like comparing their friends to animals, hence the bunny, Deku

Kamideku:

Kaminari is a flirt, and izuku does n o t know how to handle it

Kaminari likes listening to izuku’s ramblings, and can keep up with them. He’ll ask questions on things too, and Izuku has never felt more appreciated

I don’t know why I feel like they’d have so many animals, but I do. They’d have so many, man. Three cats, two dogs, four sugar gliders, a hamster

Adhd power couple. They hyperfixated on complimentary things at the same time one time

Kaminari tutors izuku in English, and izuku turots kami in some other subjects. He’s also teaching kami JSL on the side. Kaminari has a live of languages

Momochako:

Study dates, Momo asks ochako to quiz her a lot

Ochako takes to floating momo’s things when she wants attention. Especially when Momo is studying. She makes a game out of how many things she can float until the other girl notices

Uraraka’s confidence does wonders for momo’s. Uraraka always makes sure to reassure momo that she is strong and that she can do this

Momo makes Uraraka whatever her heart desires. Uraraka blushes all the time, and momo takes great pride in getting her girlfriend to blush

Minatoru:

Mina clings to everyone, but especially to toru

They give each other stuffed animals so often. They’ll go to the store to get food, and come back with three stuffed animals that reminded them of each other

Please, they’re so cute 😭✋

They will play hide and seek, I stand by this.

Mina helps toru design a new costume. I hate hers, it’s horrible, and sexist, and not suitable for a fucking child

Toru says that pink is her favorite color

They flirt with each other all the time. Half the class thinks it’s cute, half of them used to think it was cute.

Iidamomo:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but study dates. they quiz each other, and it actually gets pretty competitive

They also have rage room dates. I will not budge on this. Iida tried to murder someone, and I am excited to see momo finally snap. She deserves it

They alternate paying for dates, don’t try me.

The go hiking a lot

They started liking each other after one late night, both having nightmares. Momo had tea, and offered some to Iida. They talked until the early hours of the morning

They can’t flirt. They try. But they’re horrible at it. They’ll compliment each other all day long, but they cannot flirt.

KIRIDEKU, MY BELOVED:

Y’all,,, y’all, I love them so much

They train together, obviously

They ran into each other one night in the common room after both having nightmares. They talked about middle school, how they were both bullied, izuku’s quirk coming in late, katsuki being abusive, kiri being bullied because his quirk wasn’t “cool.” After that, they were practically inseparable.

They started going on dates, not that either of them knew they were dates. The entire class knew, so did the teachers, so did the rest of U.A. Kirishima picked up on it first after a comment from Mina, he had is realization.

So, he started courting Izuku. Not thag izuku realized this. He brought him flowers on most ‘dates,’ he bought him hero action figures whenever he could, he complimented him until Izuku was red in the face (which was honestly very easy.) Still, izuku remained ignorant to the fact that he was indeed dating Kirishima.

The final tipping point, was due to Uraraka’s help. She was quite tired of watching the two of them pine for each other. It was amusing for the first couple months, watching Kirishima try so hard, and Deku being totally oblivious. However, she took pity on her friends after a while.

So, Uraraka devised a devilish plan to get the two together. She involved Mina, Sero, and kaminari in this plan. What was the plan, you ask? Oh, simply to trap the two in one room until they broke through izuku’s obliviousness.

Kirishima finally “straight” up admitted his feelings, to which Izuku had the sudden realization of “oh my gods, have we been dating this whole time??” Yes, Izuku. Yes you have.

They have two anniversaries after that.

Let’s be honest, they are really, annoyingly, horrifically lovey dovey. Kirishima brags about having “the manliest and bestest boyfriend in the world.” Izuku flaunts his many PowerPoint presentations on how talented and incredible Kirishima is

Uraraka doesn’t know if she did the right thing by helping them. She is so tired

Tsujirou:

Jirou makes playlists for tsu

The few sane ones in class A, I swear

They go on walks in the rain as often as they can

They go for dates in the bookstore too. They each pick out an album and a book for the other to listen to and read

Y’all, they make so much sense togetherrrrr, I’m love them 🥺

Jirou started liking tsu after the crew saved bakugou. Jirou sat with tsu after momo, Iida, kirishima, Todoroki, and izuku apologized and sat with her. They had movie night, and Jirou joined the Bakugou saving crew and tsu with taking well into the night. She just appreciated how much tsu cared

Tsu started liking Jirou after she helped Iida, momo, and izuku try to keep the class in order. She appreciated how diplomatic and calm she was

Jirou would talk to izuku all night long about how gay she was, and how adorable tsu was. So, izuku decided to try and suggest ways for Jirou to ask her out.

She did not end up getting to ask her out though, as Tsu walked up to her the next morning f and asked if she wanted to go on a date. Jirou said yes. Izuku cried

Izujirou:

They make playlists for each other

They go for runs on the beach a lot

They both have insomnia, and often spend time making blanket forts and talking, or FaceTiming and listening to music

Jirou walks into the common room once a week looking for new music. She started liking Izuku after he made a playlist for her for one of these occasions.

They’re both quite awkward when it comes to romance, but neither of them will shy away from facing the truth. So, Jirou made izuku a playlist filled with love songs that reminded her of him and sent it to him. Sadly, izuku is dense as hell.

So, then Jirou wrote a love song and told izuku that the song was for him. Sadly, izuku is dense as hell.

So, then Jirou write analysis about izuku’s quirk for him. Sadly, izuku is dense as hell

So, then, after thinking that Jirou had done so much for him, izuku made her a playlist filled with love songs. Jirou took this to mean that izuku had finally picked up on her feelings, and accepted them.

So, they started to go on dates. Not that izuku knew this, as he is dense as hell. All leading up to izuku finally confessing his feelings on one of their ‘dates,’ to which Jirou responded, “dude, we’re already dating? Aren’t we? I- I thought that was obvious??”

May this awkward couple be forever blessed

Tokoyama:

Goth/prep boyfriends, we love to see it

At least once a day, Aoyama will proclaim that Tokoyami “shines almost as bright as he does, in his fabulous emo way”

They sword fight, and come up with really dramatic scenarios and scenes that they’re in

They bond over being in the izucrew and their shared love of swords. Aoyama took fencing classes in middle school, and Tokoyami got into sword fighting after watching it in pirates of the Caribbean as a young child. He is self taught and watched countless videos on the art of sword fighting

Tokoyami asked Aoyama our by dramatically presenting him with a dagger and going “will you accompany me on a formal outing as my lover?”

Shinyama:

They flirt constantly

No really, it’s getting quite annoying. Someone please stop them.

They both plop down in random areas and proclaim their deaths, the difference between them, is that Aoyama will burst into shinsou’s room, and yell “love, I’ve been murdered. Mourn for me” while plopping down on shinsou’s lap. Shinsou can be found laying face down outside aoyama’s door, and when Aoyama goes to open the door, he just goes “I’ve been murdered.”

^^ one time, shinsou did a very fun Halloween prank for this, where he poured fake blood all over himself for Aoyama to find him an hour later, asleep.

Nap dates. Aoyama get glitter all over shinsou’s room

Iiyama:

Aoyama enjoys making Iida blush, obviously. But he takes joy in doing it specifically when class is about to start. Aizawa is tired of his shit

Here is how I think an iiyama conversation might go:

Aoyama: I ask for one thing in this relationship-

Iida: Aoyama, you know that’s a lie-

Aoyama: for my boyfriend to carry me around all day-

Iida: Aoyama, I cannot feasibly do this with class-

Aoyama: and I don’t think that’s too much to ask for 😤

Anyway, Aoyama got carried around all day that day, despite Iida’s blush and Aizawa’s eye twitch

Everyone in the izucrew is close, but Iida and Aoyama started to get close after Iida told the crew about Stain. Aoyama wanted Iida to know that he wasn’t alone, and that he wanted to help him. So he started packing extra cheese for lunch and giving it to Iida. Iida was very confused at first. But this was Aoyama trying to court him. This was only made apparent by momo and Jirou telling Iida that this was aoyama’s attempt at expressing romantic interest.

Aoyama flirts with everyone, that’s just who he is. But with Iida? Oh it was tenfold. The poor boy was red in the face constantly. Aoyama was a persistent little bugger too, following him around and calling him ‘mon amour’

Kirikamideku:

My dearest traffic light trio, I’m love them

They train together, and kiri and kami always appreciate izuku’s analysis snd ideas

Kiri falls even more in love with izuku and kaminari when they go off on rants. Izuku rants and kami can keep up with him so he asks questions about it. Kiri loves to watch his boyfriends go on rants, I don’t make the rules, but I do enforce them

They started to get closer after kami and kiri found bakugou causing a ptsd flashback (could be on purpose of an accident, up to the reader.) they stated with him and tried to talk him through it. After this, izuku started to tell them about having been a “late bloomer” and being bullied, etc. (I don’t know, man; I tend to over share after flashbacks and after panic attacks)

Izuku tutors them in several subjects, but kami tutors them in English. Kiri just falls in love with his smart boyfriends

Izuku is teaching kami JSL and kami is helping izuku with English and Italian (personal headcanon that Italian has been one of kami’s special interests) kiri loves to listen to them, and finds it relaxing and calming to hear them do this. When he has panic attacks, he’ll ask them to tutor each other in different languages

[reinvent-and-believe]

saying your names

Prompt: hallucination Relationships:  Geralt & Visenna  Rating: T Content Warnings: unintentional but constant misgendering by a parent; depiction of gender dysphoria in a small child; reference to child self-injury (scratching); abandonment issues; minor book spoilers Summary: Visenna's child is claimed by a witcher through the Law of Surprise. When she bears a daughter instead of the promised son, she thinks she's cheated Destiny. But Destiny rarely accepts such defeat. (Or - the trans Geralt mommy issues fic)

@witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo​

-

i. The Brave Knight

There’s an old fairy tale from far-away Toussaint, one Visenna remembers her grandmother telling her when she was little more than a babe, of a cohort of the bravest knights who gathered at the behest of the first duke to slay monsters and defeat villains and protect the land from all manner of evil. They were five in total, but none rivalled the gallant Sir Geralt, who defended the innocent and the weak, who perfectly embodied the Virtues, who fearlessly and faithfully loved the beautiful maiden Liliana. It’s a story like no other, full of heroics and chivalry, grand quests and epic romance. Visenna remembers sighing as a little girl, of braiding flowers into her shining copper hair and pretending to be Lady Liliana, rescued by that most puissant and most chivalrous of knights.

She hopes that her own daughter will love the tales as much as she did, so she recounts them while Greta lies in bed, wide dark eyes barely blinking as she soaks in every detail. She’s two now and obsessed with stories, any silly rambling thing Visenna remembers from childhood or improvises about the forest creatures near the village, but none have captivated her quite like this tale.

The next day, Visenna hears her daughter whacking at the swaying cattails at the bank of the river with a stick. “I defeat you!” comes the tremulous cry. “I Sir Geralt! I brave knight!”

It’s a small thing, and silly, yet Visenna goes cold.

ii. The Babe

When she realizes she’s with child, Visenna knows it will be a boy, feels it as sure as she feels the wind on her face, the blood pounding in her veins. She’s happy for a time. She knows the horrors women face, has seen, has felt firsthand the cruelties the world inflicts on beautiful little girls. Better a boy, then. Better a boy with a chance at a good life, a boy she can teach and train, a boy who won’t beat or violate or torment.

A mere month before the babe is due, the man returns, and finds her with child, and tells her what he’s done. He blames Destiny and the Law of Surprise and Tradition as Visenna learns a new type of cruelty men can inflict.

And so she hardens herself, tells herself that she will not become attached to what’s growing within her, this life promised to pay a life debt. “Don’t be absurd,” her friends tell her, through nervous glances. “You always assume the worst. It may well be a girl. The witcher won’t have need of a girl.”

But Visenna knows it, feels it with every spark of chaos within her and every pulse she sends out. The babe will be a boy, and she will have to give him up to the witchers, to be trained and transmuted into something other, something more and something less than the child she’ll birth.

And so Visenna grows cold.

When the midwife puts the squalling red girl with dark hair and wide dark eyes in Visenna’s arms, she sobs for days, sobs until she has no tears left and her eyes are raw and swollen. She won’t let the tiny thing out of her sight, barely lets others hold the babe, even in her utter exhaustion. Destiny may have promised her child to the witchers, but Destiny made the folly of giving her a daughter instead of the promised son.

iii. Greta

Greta will not wear her clothes.

At first, it’s almost a game. Visenna dresses her in a frock while the three-year-old protests then glares in turn when she’s overridden. She moves stiffly in the garment, pulling at the sleeves and tugging at the skirt, but she complies. But the minute she’s out of her mother’s sight, the dress comes off, and Visenna finds her naked, regardless of the weather. And the process repeats.

The struggle over clothing is only the beginning. Generally obedient, respectful, intelligent, Greta is nonetheless not an easy child, prone to inconsolable fits of panic and distress, prone to disappearing if not constantly monitored. It’s as though Visenna has birthed two different children. There’s the sullen, timid girl who hates wearing clothing, who barely speaks, who flinches at the sound of her own name, who stiffens in panic sometimes when she’s called, who cries at the slightest provocation, who goes missing only to be found after a frantic hour of searching lying on the floor in the narrow space between her bed and the wall, staring blankly, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Then there’s the other child, the one who cuts dark curls short with the pruning shears from the shed, who runs fearlessly through the woods, slaying invisible monsters all around, yelling and laughing and breathless.

When a young couple with a son not much older than Greta moves into a nearby cottage, Visenna hopes that companionship will stabilize her daughter’s volatile, inexplicable moods. Instead, it leads to an immediate altercation: on the first day Greta and the boy Marek play together, the boy’s father shows up on Visenna’s doorstep, furious, with a wide, bleeding gash in his hand. He’d found them wearing each other’s clothes, he tells her. Greta had refused to surrender Marek’s clothes, and when he moved to force her out of them, she’d bitten his hand. “Like a rabid beast,” he spits out as Visenna runs past him to the small shack where Greta makes herself as small as possible, shaking all over.

Visenna shoves a few coins at the man with a glare. “Buy your son another outfit,” she snaps, and when she kneels down to Greta’s level the terrified child’s arms wrap immediately around her neck. She takes her child home in the roughspun tunic and trousers.

(Maybe she should punish the child for biting, but Visenna knows the ways men can be cruel, had seen the terror in her child’s huge brown eyes. Even if he meant no harm in trying to retrieve his son’s clothes, she can’t help being glad the child bit him rather than permit his touch.)

Visenna has never listened to Greta’s thoughts before, rarely listens to anyone’s on purpose, hates the uneasy sense of violation the act stirs up in her. But as she carries the silent, shaking child home, the thoughts ring so loudly she can’t keep them out.

Not an idiot girl. Not an idiot girl. Not an idiot girl. Not an idiot girl.

Then:

Not a girl.

Not a girl.

Not a girl.

Not a girl.

iv. The Child

The morning after the incident with the neighbor, Visenna lays two outfits side by side on the bed: the tunic and trousers nicked from the neighbor boy, or the dress most frequently tolerated, a plain shift of soft linen, comfortable and loose.

"Which would you rather wear today?" Visenna asks, making the beds as usual. She hears the sharp intake of breath, sees out of the corner of her eye the hesitation, and then the child grabs the boy's clothes and cradles them in trembling arms.

Visenna visits a tailor and trades in little frocks for breeches and shirts. She watches her child’s face light up when she presents them, watches the child run reverent fingers over each garment, little hands doing their best to neatly fold each piece.

She stops calling the child Greta; stops calling the child anything but child. The child doesn’t seem to mind this namelessness; on the contrary, the child thrives. The too-thin frame rounds out with healthy, nearly chubby development as the child begins to eat more than a few bites at each meal; weak, skinny arms and legs grow strong with constant running and playing in the woods near the house. Banished is the pale, terrified little girl; only the rambunctious, talkative, joyful child remains.

"When I'm a knight," the child tells her one day, coming in from the yard wearing a bucket as a helmet, "I'm going to ride a big horse."

"Oh, a big horse," Visenna echoes, ladling the soup into a wooden bowl and blowing gently to cool it. "What will you name the horse?"

The child considers this. "Does it have to have a name?"

"All creatures need a name."

The child doesn't speak for a long while. Then that piping, gentle voice rings out. "What if the horse hates its name? It won’t be able to tell me."

Visenna sets the bowl down on the table. She doesn't ask any of the questions pounding through her head as she looks at her nameless child, lost in thought. She doesn’t think about Destiny, how a witcher may well show up at her door at any moment looking for their payment, doesn’t think about taking the child there herself. "Helmet off," she says instead, running a hand through dark curls when the child obeys. "Come, eat your soup."

v. The Butcher

She first hears whispers of the Butcher of Blaviken when she’s traveling through Poviss, brought north by an outbreak of smallpox needing healers. She hears of the vile, deranged, white-haired witcher who slaughtered nearly an entire village unprovoked, even women and children. She thinks little of it. The child she left with the witchers over half a century ago had brown hair, and the years would not have turned it so quickly, not on a witcher.

If he’s even still alive.

She puts the thought away, carefully, as she has for decades.

She thinks of it a little more in Kovir. “You’re one of them!” shrieks a woman in the tavern, pointing at a bulky man sitting in the corner. “One of them witchers like that Butcher! I seen your wolf necklace!”

All eyes train onto this disfigured witcher who is not Visenna’s child. (Does her child bear scars like this? Do his shoulders stoop in such defeat?) He scrubs a square hand over his face, looking almost pained, before he shoves away from the table in silence and leaves.

School of the Wolf, then, just like the witcher she’d surrendered her child to with naught but a letter left at the inn where he was staying. Your Child Surprise will be at the crossroads by the river at midday. A few brief, stilted sentences explaining that the child was different from other boys but Destiny had chosen him nonetheless. A terse plea that the witcher treat the child with kindness, to protect him if he could. A postscript, written in a shakier hand than the rest of the letter. My son’s name is Geralt.

Vesemir. The child’s father had called him old, grey-haired even then. Is Vesemir this Butcher, the ruthless, barbarous old witcher who leaves a trail of fresh corpses in his wake? Had she entrusted the helpless child to a merciless brute all these years ago?

It’s not until the notice board outside of Tridam that she understands. It’s a fairly standard notice concerning some vague, nondescript monster that’s caused disappearances, pleading for help from any witcher, excepting the butcher Geralt. Show your face in Tridam and we’ll finish you off like they should have done in Blaviken.

Her child, the Butcher of Blaviken.

She doesn’t know what happened in Blaviken, can’t find a clear telling. Killed a woman, some say, killed an army, killed all but three people, killed everyone down to the dogs and cows and sheep in his rage. Tales grow in the telling, she knows, but she can’t dispute it. Perhaps he is evil incarnate, perhaps by sending him to the witchers she doomed the continent to bloodshed, perhaps he is the monster in these furious whispers.

But she can’t help remembering the tiny, terrified body, rocking in the corner of a shack, those wide eyes staring up at her in panic. “Like a rabid beast,” the man had said, but Visenna found only a petrified child shaking in the corner.

vi. The White Wolf

The young man swaggers towards Visenna. Between the bright turquoise doublet, the enormous feather swooping dramatically through the air on his jauntily tilted hat, and the self-assurance of his stride, he looks like a veritable peacock.

It’s her own fault. She knows she’d been staring, but the sound of that name on his lips…

“Lovely evening, isn’t it?” His smile is bright and surprisingly genuine, reaching all the way up to his eager blue eyes. He’s younger up close than she’d imagined from across the tavern, barely more than a boy. “Though not half so lovely as you, I daresay. Might I interest you in a drink?”

She nods, silent. Watches him charm a passing barmaid who blushes and quickly returns with the desired ale. He slips into the chair across from Visenna, resting his elbows on the table and lacing his long fingers together beneath his chin, fixing her with a wide-eyed, adoring smile.

Before he can speak, she asks, “Your song. About the witcher.” She pauses, unsure what she means to ask. “Did you write it?”

Somehow the boy looks even more delighted. “Indeed I did! By the gods, it’s wonderful to chat with a fan. It’s one of my most recent compositions. How did you like it?”

“Hmm.” The boy’s song had been so jarringly different from any reference to the child she bore than she’s ever heard. In the bard’s honeyed voice, he sounded almost heroic. She hesitates. “Do you know him?”

“Only a little,” he admits, but there’s a slight flush on his childish face that he attempts to cover with bravado. “The song is the true telling of our grand adventure. I accompanied the White Wolf on his quest to defeat the Devil of Posada, the most terrifying monster to ever...well, terrorize the good people of the Valley of the Flowers.”

“And he’s...he’s not what people say?” Those huge brown eyes staring up at her, tiny body trembling. “Not a butcher?”

“Oh my good lady, not at all!” The bard’s expression of dismay is guileless, earnest. “He saved me, put himself between me and harm’s way when we were captured by the elves, offered his own life for mine.”

A life debt. Just as the child’s father had promised the Law of Surprise to the old witcher, the vow that had set the course of Geralt’s life before he was even born. And now this strange boy owes Geralt a life debt of his own.

“So that’s why,” she confirms cautiously. “Why you write songs for him. Make him the hero when men would be more than happy to remember him as a monster.”

The boy hesitates, his charismatic blustering slipping as he bites at his bottom lip. He reaches distractedly into his pocket, finding some trinket he rolls about in his palm to occupy his busy, nervous hand before he slowly answers. “Even if he hadn’t saved my life I would have written about him. Well, not if I hadn’t survived that particular encounter, of course. But if I’d gotten away myself, or if I hadn’t followed him into the wild in the first place, I would still have written about him.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I…I don’t think he’s known very much kindness.” The bard doesn’t look at her, quite, as he speaks, slower and softer than before. “You ought to see the way he responds to a simple compliment, you’d think his head might explode, he twitches and looks bewildered and grunts angrily. It’d be amusing if it weren’t so very sad.” He’s quiet for a moment, tracing the wood grain in the table with his eyes as he gathers his thoughts. “But he’s kind, even if the world isn’t. He gave his reward for the contract to the…well, to someone who needed it more. And before that, he…” He glances down at the dull gold coin between his fingers, rubbing absently at worn, beveled edges, his face flushing prettily. “He liked my singing.”

She watches the bard, lost in thought and fiddling with a lone coin, for a long while.

vii. Geralt

A slip of a thing running through the woods. Frightened. Alone.

A fight. Gruesome, brutal, fast.

The stench of decay.

“And me? What did I do? I bandaged a wounded man who’d fainted away and put him on my cart and didn’t leave him to expire. It’s an ordinary matter.”

“It’s not so ordinary. I’ve been left...in similar situations...like a dog.”

Blood. Not running, red and healthy and clean; slow. Thick. Dark. Foul.

Infection.

Youths dancing in lusty delight on a warm spring night. A woman with raven curls, naked and wistful in his arms, the warmth of a bonfire lighting her face a beautiful gold. Children screaming, playing in a dried moat. A queen, formidable and sneering, full of contempt.

Hideous wounds, threatening the leg. Amputation may be necessary, without immediate intervention.

Resin in the air.

Ashen hair matted over the clumped, drying cake of blood deforming half of a pale face.

Black potion with a green seal. And then darkness.

Visenna awakes with a start.

The druids’ campsite is still, the last embers of the fire the only light in the darkness of the forest. She pulls the woolen cloak around her thin shoulders, grabs her medical bag, and goes to find the witcher that was once her child.

She finds him a pale and bloody mess on the back of a cart, eyes open and unseeing. He’s racked with feverish chills as his body desperately attempts to fight the infection poisoning him.

She helps the merchant move Geralt carefully onto blankets on the ground. She tends to him, as she’s tended to thousands of others. She cleans his wounds, scraping destroyed, decaying flesh away from healthy tissue, pulling the gentle pulses of chaos from the earth to purify his blood, draining infection and necrosis and narcotic alike from him.

She’d cleaned blood and dirt and debris from scraped knees, once, the too-fast beating of a little, huge heart pounding so loudly she could feel it. The wounds of childhood.

His pulse is slow, the drumbeat of a dirge.

She’s warm all over, suddenly, then cold. Her vision swims before her eyes.

A little more. The pulsing wanes, wavers as she begins to join him in the dark void beyond consciousness.

No.

She breathes, her eyes closed, then returns to her work.

She feels him stirring before he makes a movement, senses him swimming to the surface, coming to. He’s quiet, still, blank. When his eyes open, he’s staring at the treetops above them. His face is impassive. Lifeless.

The way she would find him, sometimes, after he went missing as a child. Staring at nothing. Trying not to be.

She can hear it in his voice. He knows.

His leg will heal, now. She’s done all she can.

She moves on to the bedsores, massaging ointment carefully into the open wounds. His body is stiff and unyielding beneath her touch.

She gives him what she can. “It’s my profession,” she says. Her voice is steady, cool. It’s no excuse, no answer, but it’s what she has. “The only thing I’ve ever been good at.” This much at least is true. This much she can give him.

She’s always known she would meet him again. She never sought him out, never avoided him. “People linked by destiny will always find each other.” She hears it, as though it’s someone else’s voice.

“I want you to look at me.” It’s a snarl. Not a sound she’s heard from those lips before. “How do you like my eyes? Do you know, Visenna, what they do to a witcher to improve his eyes?”

She knows enough. She meets his gaze.

Those eyes, the greatest marker of his difference, his inhumanity. They’re golden, now, instead of brown. His pupils are wide, round, black, pained. They aren’t so different. So monstrous.

Just the eyes of a terrified child lashing out in desperation.

“Do you know it doesn’t always work?” he demands.

“Stop it, Geralt.”

And something breaks.

“You don’t get to use that name!” There’s a frantic rage dripping off every syllable, hatred and agony, like a festering wound ripped open and left to bleed. He glares at her with a wild fury. “Vesemir gave me that name.”

And he’s a child, he’s three years old and screaming like he’s being tortured when she calls his given name. He’s five and distraught over the thought of a horse who hates its name and can’t tell anyone. He’s four and he’s a trembling mess with blood beneath his fingernails, shaking and unable to stop ripping at his own flesh.

“You trusted Destiny rather than trying to find me yourself,” he begs.

A child with nothing in the world running through the forest and into the arms of a witcher.

There’s a tear running down her face. It’s the only thing she can feel. “Don’t ask me any more questions,” Visenna says softly.

“Why?”

She’d known since before he was born that she wasn’t to keep him. That Destiny had other plans.

When she thought she had a daughter, there was hope.

“The answers will only hurt us both.” Carefully, Visenna presses him back into the makeshift sickbed.

“Yen was right.” His voice is low, barely audible, a broken murmur. “It’s not enough to be destined for each other.”

A child runs through the woods and finds a witcher waiting.

Brown curls become ashen locks. Eyes swirling brown and gold and green.

“Something more is needed.” He’s not speaking to her anymore. He’s staring up, at the treetops and through them to the stars above, his eyes losing and regaining focus. “I...I want…”

“No.” Her voice is soft, and she sees him relax into the smooth cadence in spite of himself. “Go to sleep, Geralt.” She hesitates as his eyes grow heavy, begin to drift shut, and she can’t help leaning toward him to gently whisper, “And just between us, Vesemir didn’t give you that name.” She lets herself reach out, carefully brushing white hair off his sweating brow. “It doesn’t change anything, but I’d like you to know that.”

“Visenna…”

“Sleep. I was just a dream.” She hesitates, watching silently as he fights the exhaustion, like a child fighting to stay awake past his bedtime, begging for one more story. “Sleep, Sir Geralt.”

He does.

viii. Sir Geralt

She does not see him again.

She travels to Sodden and heals the injured, soldier and mage alike.

She hears tales, as she has for years.

Geralt’s kidnapped a young Cintran princess for unspeakable, nefarious purposes.

Geralt died on Thanedd, caught up by chance in the mages’ bloody revolt.

Geralt led the forces of Lyria and Rivia against Nilfgaard, earning himself a knighthood and a position in Queen Meve’s army.

(She doesn’t believe any of them, doesn’t let herself care either way, but she hopes the latter is true. Hopes he lives out the rest of his days a brave knight, as he always dreamed of becoming.)

Visenna works. Cleans and stitches and bandages wounds, wanders from battleground to battleground. There’s no shortage of work for a healer.

So many tales of Geralt the witcher, Geralt the traitor, Geralt the butcher, the knight, the outlaw, the hero, the father. Of his victories and defeats, his loves and enemies, his transcendence, his demise.

Visenna listens to them all. Collects the stories, the lies, the praises, the calumnies. She draws them carefully within her. Carries them with her as she continues on the path.

For all the rumors and speculation and ballads, of all things, for all the different Geralts, there’s one that’s hers and hers alone. A skinny, adventurous child with brown curls and a bucket-helmet falling into his eyes who swings a gnarled oak stick as a sword. He’s ever vigilant, ever ready to defend the weak against the unrelenting onslaught of monsters only he can see.

[failedintsave]

I tried the MTL pairing generator for rarepair month...aaaand it told me to stay in my lane lol. And then it told me to write some Rachel/Roy Cornickleson which I just don't think I'm ready to take on 🙃 So here's some Skwistok set just before Doomstar that I've been fiddling with.

(gets just a little nsfw near the beginning)

Stages

Everyone handles grief differently.

Skwisgaar groaned as muscular arms pushed him against the wall, the reinforced metal door to his room on the submarine banging shut as they cleared the threshold. Hands tangled in his hair, holding him in place while lips and tongue and teeth worked over his neck. He clung desperately to the body pressed against him, fingers twisting in blue cotton material and yanking it upward. The mouth latched onto his throat pulled away as the t-shirt was hauled over his head and Toki's fevered eyes found his before rushing forward again, mashing their lips together with sloppy abandon. He gripped Skwisgaar by the belt, half dragging him as they stumbled their way to his bunk and collapsed. Breathing came in gasps and sighs as Toki's weight pinned him down into the mattress, the pressure both exhilarating and mollifying, an anchor to hold onto as the life he'd known for so many years turned upside down and twisted away in the wind.

He'd never given much energy to grief. Life was just a punctuated string of losses in the long run. Loss of innocence, loss of trust, loss of opportunities. It was all meaningless, really. In his experience, something new always came along to fill the space so why dwell on mourning what you couldn't have back?

Boots thumped to the floor, kicked off in haste. His shirt was peeled away before sturdy hands lifted his hips to free him of his jeans, calloused fingertips gliding back up his thighs and making him shiver. Toki climbed up to kiss him again, hungrily, as if trying to swallow him whole, their teeth knocking against each other. Skwisgaar ran his hands over every inch of skin he could reach, the hard lines of Toki's shoulders, the raised ridges of overlapping scars on his back, hip bones where they ground down against his own. Heat pooled low in his belly like magma aching to erupt. He wanted this, needed this right now, more than he'd ever needed anything in his life. How long had they danced around this, stealing moments and blaming it later on booze or post-show adrenaline, walking right up to the line and peeking over before backing away again? In the name of preserving band dynamics? A lot of good that had done, they'd still ended up where they are now, Dethklok tipping over the precipice into self-destruction.

Another loss to add to the list.

Toki pulled back, glacier blue eyes raking over Skwisgaar's features with manic light, chestnut locks of hair falling in disarray to frame his face. Skwisgaar reached up and tucked a strand behind his ear and Toki's expression shifted, the wild yearning softened into something gentler, less wolfish. He sat up to kneel between Skwisgaar's legs, hand skimming from his collar bone to his navel and leaving a trail of fire, over the inside of his thigh and dipping beneath, pausing until Skwisgaar breathed his assent, whispered his name.

Fingers tested gingerly, gradually increasing in depth and pressure before he gripped him by the waist and hauled him onto his lap. Skwisgaar canted his hips, lip catching between his teeth at the feel of Toki against him, his pulse hammering in his ears. His head angled back into the pillows and a wordless moan escaped his throat when Toki eased forward, back arching as lightning raced up his spine. Skwisgaar's fingers knotted in the bed sheets as Toki released a shuddering breath over him, rocking into him slowly, building rhythm into a steady push and pull.

Loss of professional boundaries. Definitely not something to be mourned.

The devastating sensation of fullness where they joined drove all coherent thought from Skwisgaar's mind and his eyes rolled back under closed lids, panting nonsense and expletives, begging for release. His toes curled as Toki matched stokes with his hand to the tempo of his thrusts, coaxing him through his climax until tipping over the edge after him with a whining sigh. Call and response, Skwisgaar thought dazedly as his superheated skeleton melted into jelly. When he could open his eyes again, his gaze landed on Toki's face above him, watching him with an openly heartsick expression.

"I… hads to do dat… at least once before dis ams all over." The broken whisper settled over him like a burial shroud.

Skwisgaar shook his head, holding out his arms. "Come heres."

Swallowing thickly, Toki obeyed, winding his arms under Skwisgaar's shoulders and burying his face in the crook of his neck. Skwisgaar shifted to find a comfortable position, their sweat-slick chests sliding against each other as he angled slightly onto one side, hand cradling Toki's skull to keep him near.

"Seem pretties stupids we aments been doing dat dis whole time, honestlies."

Loss of time.

Toki held him tightly and Skwisgaar felt the tremor in his grip. He rubbed his cheek against the crown of the other man's head, humming tunelessly as he waited for him to speak, knowing already the fears plaguing his mind. He'd faced them often enough in his younger days, even if the scenario now was more complicated. It was hard to compare wondering where your next gig, your next meal ticket, might come from to wondering where to go after you'd already stood at the top.

Sniffling preceded the feeling of wetness against his shoulder, Toki mumbling against his skin. "What happens now? Ams we all just gonna says 'fucks you, see ya laters' now dat de band ams done? Even now dat dey tells us we gots to plays music to saves de world?"

Skwisgaar fiddled with a strand of brown hair for a moment before answering. "Well, I don'ts know abouts all dis saves-de-woirld business. But whats I do know ams band break ups. And, euughh, ja dat ams a pretty standords opseratings procedures."

"But does it has to be likes dat? We coulds all stays pals, right?"

"Dat ams...compslickateds." He dropped the lock and let his hand fall to Toki's shoulders. "Somet'ing like dis...people tends to ezpecks yous to euughh, picks sides. It ams messy. And it never warks out, t'ings always comes apart in de end."

Loss of the longest working relationships he'd had in his life.

Toki said nothing, so Skwisgaar continued if only to fill the silence. "But it coulds be worse, you knows? We gots more moneys den god, what's so bad what cants be fixed wif dat?" The statement produced a cold feeling trickling down behind his ribs, like swallowing a heaping spoonful of snow. "Nones of it acktualies matters. Just goes on to da next t'ings."

"I just... don'ts know what to does if dere aments a Dethklok."

"Whatevors you wants! You coulds buy de whole stores of airplane models, or you coulds builds you own splasharoonies water parks. Hell you coulds probablies starts a new bands wif dose guys from dat T'underhorse group."

"No," Toki murmured, face still compressed against Skwisgaar's neck. "I don't wants a new band. Dis was da one."

The possessive satisfaction he felt at those words tied his stomach in guilty knots.

"Ja it ams was a pretty good gigs…"

Toki shifted, laying his head on the pillow next to Skwisgaar's, his forlorn gaze searching his face for answers. Skwisgaar rolled so they were laying face to face, legs still twisted under the sheets.

Not everything was tied up in the feud that caused the band to split. What if it didn't have to be a total loss? Surely there were parts here that could be salvaged.

"Okej...so who says we haves to do anyt'ings at all?"

Toki's brows cinched. "What you means?"

Maybe, just this one thing, he could keep.

Skwisgaar's lips curved with the ghost of a smile. "I's already mades it to de top, ams de fastest guitarist alives...coulds be I shoulds just quits while I gots de title, ja? Retires, takes my ball and goes home wif it."

Toki snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Builds mineself a giant house up in de mountains or somet'ing. Or travels and just fucks off on de resgiduals forever, not worries about a deadlines or demos ever again. Plays guitar just for funs."

He saw his grin mirrored on Toki's face as the other man nodded dreamily.

"Maybe you...comes wif me?" Fluttery nerves tickled behind his sternum. "If you wants to."

Toki's eyes widened. "Wait. Whats?"

Just this. He could be happy with this.

"Y-you means it? You aments just messings with Toki?"

He shook his head. "How long dids we waste before nows? For not'ing. I'm sick ofs waitings. Let's just goes."

A heartbeat passed, and then Toki's mouth was on his again. Less frantic this time, hopeful rather than desperate. He cradled Toki's jaw, taking his time as he returned his affections, deepening the kiss and tracing languid strokes over his neck, his shoulders, his chest. Their limbs wound together in a twisted bramble, bodies drawing tightly together, fitting like puzzle pieces.

A repetitive, discordant riff sounded from the pile of clothes abandoned on the floor and Toki's head jerked away. Flashing an apologetic grin, he rolled away to fish his phone from his pocket, sliding his pants up loosely around his hips.

"Sorries, be rights back!" He whispered, pressing the screen to answer. "Oh hei, Rockso!*

"Hows do you even has signals down here?" Skwisgaar called after him as he stepped into the hall, then flopped back onto the pillows to stare at the ceiling, counting the shiny rivets in the metal plating.

This was doable. Tomorrow they would bury more than just a mentor, they would lay to rest their careers as the biggest metal band in existence. The world at large would mourn their passing, but Skwisgaar wouldn't dwell on what's done and over. Not if he had new prospects to look forward to. Something always came along, and he never looked back.

"I tolds Magnus dat I woulds sit wif hims tomorrow." He heard Toki's muffled voice through the crack he'd left in the door.

A shadow passed over his thoughts at the name, like someone walking across his grave. It was uncomfortable to say the least, to have their former guitarist back in the fringes of their lives. Toki had a habit of finding friendship in questionable places, but where the clown was mostly an annoyance and sometimes a financial drain, his relationship with Magnus left Skwisgaar apprehensive. It didn't ease his mind when Toki insisted the older musician was different now. How could he know? He hadn't lived with the man, hadn't walked on eggshells during every rehearsal or songwriting session, hadn't watched as he plunged a knife into a bandmate.

But Magnus had also saved Toki with his insulin. He'd been there for Toki as a shoulder to lean on when the band had started to fall apart, too preoccupied with their own issues to spare a minute for their youngest member.

So maybe Toki was right. Things change; he'd never expected that a wedge could be driven between Nathan and Pickles far enough to end their friendship in such a catastrophic way, but here they were. And if Magnus still harbored any resentment for the band, their breakup was probably a balm to the old wound of rejection. What else could he wish on them? He was probably loving this.

The door scraped shut and Toki slipped back into the blankets gingerly, as if expecting Skwisgaar to be asleep. When he saw that he was still awake, Toki leaned in with a grin.

"Sorries...now, where was we…?" He murmured, capturing Skwisgaar's lips tenderly. "Oh ja, you was tellings me how we's gonna runs away togedders into de sunsets."

"Pfff. Dat am hardlies what I saids."

More kisses peppered his cheek and jaw. "Dats what I heards."

"Well I always knew yous was tone deafs, I didn'ts realize you ams just all de way hards of hearingks." His arm encircled Toki's back as the brunette nestled in again.

"Tells to me about wheres we gonna goes. Tells me about our house on tops of de mountains."

Skwisgaar snorted. Of the two of them, his was not the more vivid and fanciful imagination. But staring up at the blank canvas that the brushed metal panels of ceiling created, he envisioned a future for them to share. They squabbled playfully over locations and home design styles. They named off outlandish things they would fill their home with, like an even bigger ruby metronome or a trampoline room or an indoor pool shaped like a guitar and filled with champagne. They listed places they'd toured that they wanted to visit again, and locations they hadn't been yet but had always hoped to see.

"Can we gets a cat?" Toki asked suddenly, making Skwisgaar laugh airily.

"If we haves to?" He laughed again as Toki nodded against him. "But I'm not cleaningks up after it, dat ams all you, pal."

"Okei." Toki sighed deeply, settling in more comfortably. "Okei. I feels a lots less scareds now about all dis."

His hand glided up from where it had been resting at Skwisgaar's hip to lay warm over his heartbeat.

"I'll miss Dethklok. A whole lots. But now I t'inks I ams acktualies looking forwards to what comes next."

Still staring at the steel plates above, Skwisgaar grinned at the pictures they'd painted in his mind.

"Ja, me toos."

He covered Toki's hand with his own. However much they stood to lose after tomorrow, his heart felt lighter at what they were about to gain together. There was no reason to dwell on what was gone.

Everyone handles grief differently.

Laying on his bunk, Skwisgaar's eyes roamed the scuffed plate ceiling overhead, lingering on rusted rivets and water stains. The imperfections seemed to move and writhe like crawling insects under the influence of whatever handful of pills Pickles had given him. A half-drained bottle of vodka lay cradled against his chest, the mouth stoppered by his thumb. Fire burned in his belly from the alcohol, but cold fury pulsing through his veins tempered it.

He'd been prepared for Dethklok to end, had even accepted the idea that his career as a guitarist was over, diminished to a hobby. Playing guitar was his lifeblood, his purpose, and he'd been about to let that go. What had he been thinking? How had he gotten so wrapped up in fantasy that throwing away his entire self had seemed like a plausible course of action.

Loss of objectivity. Fortunately it seemed to be temporary.

He took a long pull from the bottle, dribbling a little and not bothering to wipe it away. Stupid Toki, needing to be comforted like a child with make-believe bedtime stories. He couldn't just man up and move on like everyone else, like Skwisgaar had been doing since he was a teen, finding his next audition, his next couch to crash on, his next temporary alliance with subpar musicians to make ends meet. It couldn't have been an easier landing for him either, no concerns about hunger or homelessness or deportation hanging over his head. He was set up for success and still couldn't handle it.

Fucking idiot needed so much attention, so much coddling, he'd even run straight into harm's way to try and make a friend. Of all people, he'd had to choose Magnus, that vindictive bastard. Of course he'd still been carrying a grudge, when had he ever let anything go in the past? And they'd known it.

A pair of divots on the ceiling stared back at him, one dark, one catching the light. Glaring back at him mockingly, winking at his impotent rage.

They'd known. They'd known, they knew, they knew.

Skwisgaar knew. And he'd said nothing.

Then he'd watched again, frozen, as Magnus drove a knife into someone close to him.

Skwisgaar thrashed upright, a strangled roar bursting from his lungs as he flung the bottle at the wall. He kicked at the bedside table bolted to the wall, denting it from below, then spun around to tear the sheets from his bunk and hurl them across the room. This wasn't the trade he'd prepared for, this wasn't the deal he'd made with himself.

His eyes fell on his Explorer propped in the corner. He reached for it, wrapping both hands around the ebony fretboard, holding it like an axe and swinging it against the wall. He bashed it into the floor, the dresser, screaming until his throat was raw and the guitar was cracked into useless chunks of wood and fiberglass connected by twisted strings. He dropped the pieces in a heap, sinking to the ground to lean against the side of his bed, his shoulders heaving with labored panting.

The door of his room scraped open, and in his periphery he saw a figure standing, backlit by the dim red glow in the corridor. Broad-shouldered, straight hair dangling about their head. His heart seized for a moment before the figure spoke, shattering his hallucination.

"What are you doing in here?" Nathan's gravelly voice was cautious.

Skwisgaar didn't turn, eyes still focused on the debris ahead of him. The stainless steel guitar strings seemed to wriggle like worms in grave soil, consuming the corpse of his instrument. He waited until he caught his breath before trying to respond.

"What does it looks like I'm doingks?"

Nathan shifted in the doorway. "Losing your mind."

He chuckled mirthlessly.

Loss of sanity? Maybe.

"You've been locked up in there a while. Maybe you should, you know. Come out here. With the rest of the band."

"Fucks off."

Nathan didn't move. Skwisgaar felt the urge to rage at the other man rise in him, to shout in his face, demand to know why it had taken him so long to patch things over with Pickles, why he let it go so far that he'd upset all of their lives so horrifically. But the feeling passed, his body drained from his previous outburst and from trying to filter a pharmacy's worth of substances through his liver.

"We're gonna find him, you know. Charles has people everywhere looking already."

One shoulder rose and fell in a halfhearted shrug. "Whatevers. Who cares."

They could have been a four-piece. If he really wanted to rage at someone it would be his past self. How different would things be right now if he'd never given that gutter rat a chance after missing his audition time? How much of what they achieved would they have really missed out on? How many rerecording sessions and stupid arguments and publicized blow outs could have been avoided? What would they really have been missing?

He certainly wouldn't mourn the loss of a constant source of annoyance. Of an immature tag-along with a hair trigger temper. Of a loud and boisterous whirlwind of silliness and color and sincerity.

Loss of his shadow. Loss of his muse. Loss of his best friend. Loss of his future. Loss of…

Loss of…

He couldn't breathe.

"Just leaves me alone. Please." He gritted out, proud of the steadiness of his voice as his stomach began to roil and his eyes prickled with tears.

Nathan hesitated. "Should I...close this?"

Skwisgaar nodded and after another moment the steel frame clanged shut. His vision blurred as tears welled and spilled over, his breath returning in short gasping puffs which rolled over into sobs that rattled his frame.

They'd had one day. Not even a day. An evening. Hours.

He wept until he was sick, vomiting clear liquor and not much else onto the floor next to the remnants of his guitar. He wept until his tears were spent and his head throbbed in tandem with his heart, even though he didn't understand how the muscle still carried a beat when the rhythm had been taken away.

Eventually he had nothing left. His face felt swollen, his eyes were gritty. Skwisgaar rolled to his hands and knees, avoiding the puddle of sick as he rocked up onto wobbly legs. He looked at the door, wondering if the others were still awake. If they were sitting in the lounge, drowning their sorrows. He felt like he wore a lead weight around his neck, bowing under the pull of it. It might be better just to sleep.

He turned to the naked mattress, but a scrap of blue on the floor near the foot of the bed caught his attention. A faded cotton t-shirt lay where it had been discarded. Skwisgaar stared at it for several long moments. He stepped closer to the bed, to the shirt.

And kicked it underneath the frame and out of sight before turning for the door.

He'd never given much energy to grief. Life was just a punctuated string of losses in the long run. Loss of purpose. Loss of self. Loss of connection. Loss of…

It was all meaningless, really. So why dwell on mourning what you couldn't have back?