#i know this dynamic was all but canon for them already but seeing the cut scripts was still fun for me! 🥹

[ironmansbay]

…and I need a shovel to love him.

[eupheme]

— common ground [into the fire, part iii]

part i | part ii | masterlist

cooper howard / the ghoul x f!reader

rated e - 4k

tags: dubcon, power dynamics, vault dweller!reader, bounty hunting, pwp, sex for favors, 1 spank, sub/dom elements, light degradation, use of chems, shotgunning chems, riding, PiV, canon-typical violence and death

a/n: the scene where he complained about doing all the work had me like 👀 (reimagining), so here we go! 💖

“S’that right? Need me to fuck you? Fill up that greedy little cunt?”

His head tipping back as he hums, as if disappointed. Each word exaggerated, with his slow drawl, “Well, I’d sure like to sweetheart… but it seems to me like I’ve been doing an awful lot of work around here.”

“Findin’ this place. Cleanin’ it out. Gettin’ you clothes.” A sigh, before his voice drops, “Makin’ you come.”

“Think you oughta return the favor, don’t you?”

(Or - you take the Ghoul for a ride)

"Fuck!”

You crouch outside as another loud shotgun blast fires - the wooden door next to you peppering with bullets.

This wasn't what you had in mind.

You had thought you'd find a chem station in the next town. A pharmacy, an old hospital. Something somewhat respectable - not standing watch as the Ghoul blew his way through a long-abandoned two-story home.

The layered yelling dies off with each pull of his trigger, until everything going silent.

He finds you there a moment later, still curled in on yourself. A roll of his eyes when he sees you - still unused to the violence.

"It's clear." The Ghoul beckons, "Let's find that station."

You follow him inside, your gaze boring a hole into his back. Trying hard not to look down, nose wrinkling when you almost trip over a set of legs that sprawl across the floor.

A hand pinches at your elbow, keeping you upright.

"What?" He asks, at your expression.

"Did you have to..." You start, as he checks down the hallway.

It's empty - the doors leading to two bedrooms. The bed frames bare and rusted, the rooms already picked through.

A shrug, "They shot first."

"You goaded them."

You could hear him, even from outside. That knowing tone - some kind of warning. A rough laugh, and then the firefight had started.

"We're looking for a chem station, sweetheart." He scoffs, head cocking as he backs you up against the door he just closed, "Think they're gonna share with you like you’re on a goddamn play date?"

"They-" You blink up at him, "They might have."

He clicks his tongue, giving you a long look,"You still got a lot to learn, Vaultie."

A second, before he steps away.

"These weren't those kind of people."

You find it in the basement. A man slumped just outside the cracked-open door, the weathered lab coat stained and splattered red on the left-hand side.

Anything salvageable from above must have been brought down here. Three threadbare mattresses behind a makeshift wall. A long couch that faces a television that still runs, the picture blurry with static.

The station sits along the back wall. A beaker still bubbles over the burner, the smell acrid. Bottles litter the surface - something being made in a batch.

Your mind is already racing ahead, eyes scanning for things you'll need. Too-large gloves shoved on, disposing of the burnt mixture while you search for an empty glass.

Missing how he angles the couch to watch, feet propped up on the wooden coffee table. That ever-steady wariness waning with your focus, the tension in his shoulders easing as he sinks into the cushion.

You're too busy to notice. Sorting the different ingredients, littered across the counter.

There's an excess of toxic soot flowers, their petals papery between your fingers. Opened packages of Med-X, a spilled pile of Buffout. A jar of acid.  

Psycho. Cut with something else, something stronger. You think the Ghoul was right - maybe you had been foolish to underestimate them.

You try to shake the thought away, as you gather what you need. Antiseptic, from your own bag. Three jars of glowing fungus, found beneath the sagging counter. Ground up and tipped into a dusty beaker, the heat turned down low.

"Can you get me some water?" You call from over your shoulder, a jar held in your hand.

There's no answer. Silence, until something hard presses into your back, pinning you against the table.

It feels familiar, the way his hips nudge against yours, and it sends your mind back. An urge to arch - bend low. Mimicking the days before, where you can still feel the twinge of him with the stretch of your thighs.

"You think you're callin' the shots now, sweetheart?" His voice is low, the brim of his hat brushing your head as he leans over your shoulder.

"No," You squeak - caught off-guard, "I just-, I can't leave this until it thickens."

"Mm.” His hum is low. “Too bad. Would've liked to see you try.”

Heat blooms in your cheeks at his words, that rough drawl, even after the last couple days. A thin layer of suggestion in his tone, as he shifts closer - his chest bumping into your back.

Your mind flickering through possibilities, before his voice cuts through.

“Said you need water?”

"Yes. Please," The nod you give is small - you have to start your stirring over, losing your rhythm, "I saw a few cartons in the kitchen. If you don't mind."

"Polite little thing, when you're distracted," He husks, "I'll have to remember that."

The Ghoul makes no effort to move, though. Fingers wrapping around the glass. His other hand gripping the edge of the table, boxing you in. You wonder if he can hear the way your heart thuds in your chest, eyes fixed firmly on your work.

“Where’d you learn to do this?”

It takes you a second to answer - he’d had never offered many questions. Responses that were no more than a couple of words, over the stretch of long hours on the road.

“Uh, my Vault. We were short on hands, my mother was a chemist.” Your words are slow - a still-painful topic, “Used to make all kinds of stuff. Medicine and… and chems, alike.”

People who left were always brought back. Dazed and half-sick from the world above, whatever they had seen. Left at your doorstep to be patched up, if they made it that long.

You always told yourself that wouldn’t be you.

That when you were gone, you’d stay that way.

“Hm.” His tone flattens, “Wouldn’t have guessed. Don’t seem the type.”

“Yeah?” You head turns, catching his shadowed ones. Leaning into the welcome diversion, “What type do I seem like, then?”

The Ghoul’s eyes narrow, an unconscious flick down to your mouth.

“Trouble.” He husks, with a shallow roll of his hips. You can’t help the short inhale that he’s certain to hear, the way your fingers tighten around your instruments.

“Though I’m still workin’ out what kind.”

It’s there that he leaves you. Flustered and silently revisiting evenings before, a familiar anticipation curling low inside you.

The steps creak behind you as he slips upstairs. Returning some time later with what you need - twirling a dented pot found in the kitchen, so you can purify it. Folding himself onto the couch when you tell him it will be a while.

A cut glass decanter salvaged as well, that he drinks directly from. A rough gasp as the bitter alcohol floods through him. Helping himself to the chems that litter the tabletop - before his feet kick up, the hat tipped low over his face.

You think he does rest - a rarity.

You examine him then - as you wait for the water to boil, and then cool, before you can use it to mix with the other components.

Taking the rare chance to do it freely.

In the Wasteland you’ve learned to stay cautious. That you can’t fall behind. That surely he would notice, if your gaze lingered on him for too long.

But here, time seems to slow for a moment. Nothing to do but wait, as your fingers drift to your neck. Pressing into the bruise, as if you could feel the indents of his teeth.

His presence feels the same.

A mark left on you. Something you can’t help but want to touch, even if it aches. A reminder that lingers, and there’s a part of you that wishes it would stay.

It has you wondering, as your eyes sweep across him. Over the long-faded clothes, hiding rough and reddened skin - every inch of him wrapped away.

If you got close enough-

Would you find that he bore a mark of his own?

You make enough for a little over two weeks. Carefully poured and sealed into a variety of small bottles and tubes you’ve scavenged, scraping out every last bit that you can.

In the less-than-stellar conditions, it didn’t turn out so bad. The vials you had seen him buy was a thin, piss-yellow that had made you cringe. Poor work to begin with, and that was even before it was cut with more water.

What you offer out to him is thick - a sheen clinging to the glass as it sloshes, when it passes from your hand to his.

Liquid gold, in comparison.

“Mm.” The Ghoul hums - eyes greedy, as he examines, holding it up to the bit of light.

Before they’re focusing on you. Flickering from head to toe - considering - before his legs spread a bit wider. A hand clapping down against a thigh.

The look you give him is blank. A squeak when his fingers hook around one of your belt loops and pulls - hauling you onto his lap.

“You think I’m just gonna take somethin’ you cooked up?” His brow lifts, hands pinching against your hips, “Not a chance, sweetie. I think we oughta try this together.”

The Ghoul’s fingers slip up then, rucking up the hem of your shirt. His tone turning knowing.

“And I don’t think you’ve got enough in you.”

Your cheeks burn at his insinuation. More than aware, your breath catching as the rough tips of his leather gloves drag across your skin.

“Bet I’ve been leakin’ out of you since last time.” The Ghoul rasps, “Wouldn’t want to waste this, would we?”

He’s solid beneath you. Your thighs splitting on either side of his waist, knees digging into old cushions. Close enough to kiss - if you weren’t so certain he’d bite.

Lost though, on how to proceed. You don’t know the rules to his game. Always keeping you at arms-length - wrists bound, caught in his grip.

Would he let you touch him?

He mistakes your hesitance, his brow pinching.

“Spent enough time starin’. Lookin’ like you wanted to take a ride.” Acid slips into his tone, teeth bared, “Change your mind, now you’ve got a front row seat?”

That knocks you out of your thoughts - embarrassed that you were caught staring at him. Annoyed by his assumption. A scoff, as your hips start to move, a slow roll. Hands coming up to rest against his shoulders, meeting his eyes.

They’re pretty, like the rest of him. Shades of light brown - looking like they’re caught the sun, even underground. Thick lashes, above the deep hollow of sunken eye sockets, the split cavern of his missing nose.

Something that had startled you, the first time you saw him. Now, you hardly even notice. And his mouth -

“I’m not scared of you.” You murmur, watching the way his lip curls in a sneer. A soft sound bitten back as you grind down, feeling how he’s stiff beneath you.

You wonder how long he’s been this way. Hard, from watching you work. Waiting.

Another exchange, though you wish you could tell him it doesn’t have to be that way. You had meant what you said, when you had made your offer - even if you mean it a little differently, now.

Maybe you still could.

“You should be,” The Ghoul growls - hands ghosting over your sides, up to the thin cotton, “If you had any goddamn sense. Letting me touch you like this-”

A hand is cupping your breast now. A hard swipe of his thumb against your stiff peak, your fingers biting down into his jacket.

Your hips jerk against his. A soft moan, when the seam of your pants catches against your clit - leaving you clenching around nothing.

“I want you to.” You confess - catching the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your head, “Told you, whatever you want.”

The Ghoul makes a rough sound in his throat, watching as you tug the cups down to fit beneath your breasts, putting yourself on display for him.

“Haven’t learned, have you?” He warns, his voice low, “Don’t make an offer you can’t follow through on.”

The pinch of his fingers sends an ache down to settle between your thighs, the hint of pain pairing with your pleasure.

Your own hand wandering, wanting to see more. Sliding against a leather vest, the stained shirt beneath that was once as blue as your suit. Frayed, looping embroidery on the faded collar.

Feeling the warmth of his skin as you tug at the snap at his throat. An inch, and then another, before he’s catching your hand.

Dragging it up to his shoulders, fixing you with a look, “You best keep those right here.”

“You don’t want me to touch you?” You ask, eyes flicking down to the peek of skin at his throat.

“I want these off.” He tells you instead, snapping the waistband of your pants against skin.

You have to leave him to do it. Watching the way his arms stretch across the back of the sofa, as you kick the pants off, then your underwear beneath.

Bare again, as you settle. Fitting yourself against the curve of his cock. Leather and metal kissing your skin as you move against him, until his lips are parted with a ragged breath.

You can feel your muscles clench. The slick slide of your pussy against his bulge, barely nudging at that deep-seated ache to be filled.

“Makin’ a mess, sweetheart.” He husks, his hips lifting to meet yours. Gloved hands moving to curl around your waist - pulling you down to meet him, coaxing a lazy rhythm from you.

“Rubbin’ up against me like a bitch in heat. Should make you clean that up.”

It coaxes a whine from you, as you let him move you. The sound does something to you - the layered approval in his tone, the low rasp of his voice. Not so unaffected as he seems, with how hard he is beneath you.

He must see it in your expression, a hand leaving the couch to grasp at your chin. Flexing up and into you, letting you feel the hard ridge of him.

“This what you want, sweetheart?”

Making you meet his gaze, as you answer. All dark eyes and the flash of teeth, under the brim of his hat.

“Yes.” You keen, “I need you, please-”

“S’that right? Need me to fuck you? Fill up that greedy little cunt?”

His head tipping back as he hums, as if disappointed. Each word exaggerated, with his slow drawl, “Well, I’d sure like to sweetheart… but it seems to me like I’ve been doing an awful lot of work around here.”

The hand leaves your chin to drop down. Slowly loosening a belt buckle, letting it pool on the cushions. Your cheeks heating when you see the slick shine to the front of his pants, where you’ve rutted yourself against him.

“Findin’ this place. Cleanin’ it out,” His eyes are on yours - your breath short as he tugs the zipper down. “Gettin’ you clothes.”

A sigh, before his voice drops, “Makin’ you come.”

You moan at that, a soft sound caught behind your teeth - fingers pinching into his shoulders.

Waiting for him to draw his cock out - fist wrapped around the base. Flushed and thick in his palm, inches away from where you need him.

The Ghoul does grin then, a wicked thing that shows his teeth.

“Think you oughta return the favor, don’t you?”

He’s giving you an inch - seeing if you’ll try to take a mile. A firm handle, still wrapped around a fist, but loosening the reins.

Letting himself watch.

“Seems fair.” You manage, breathless.

“Then go on,” He husks, “Show me how you can take it.”

Your hand reaches down, but then he’s clicking his tongue - fingers fixing back on his shoulders.

Leaving you to lift your hips. His cock slipping against your slick core, your teeth biting into your lip as you line yourself up - the rough head catching at your entrance.

It’s different this time. Sinking down on him, feeling each inch as it splits you open - instead of suddenly filling you to the hilt.

“Fuck,” You sigh, with the stretch. It twinges deep inside you, where his hips fit against yours.

Lifting yourself only to sink back down, his arms flexing beneath his coat as he lets you ride him, your pace slowly picking up until you’re bouncing on his cock.

As much as you enjoyed last time, there was something about this. Fully able to watch the way his lips part, hear the rattling groan when you tighten around him.

See the way his eyes skate across the bruise on your neck, only to drop down to watch the sway of your tits as your fingers lace behind his neck.

“Goddamn, sweetheart.” His hand flattens against the small of your back. The other gripping your hip, tugging you towards him, “You sure know how to ride.”

Not giving you time to answer, before his head is dipping. The brim of his hat knocking back when it hits your chin - the tips of your fingers just catching it. Slipping it on your own head for safekeeping before he can protest.

It earns you a sharp nip against the curve of your breast, before his lips close around the tight peak of a nipple and sucks.

You cry out, chasing the pressure that builds in your belly. Growing even more wet with the slick swirl of his tongue and the scrape of teeth - his cock grinding against a spongy spot inside you as you arch into his mouth.

“Please,” You whine, fingers flexing and then curling. Needing more friction against your clit, where your heartbeat has dropped and settled.

Trying so hard to listen, a whine between your gritted teeth. Your tits glossy with spit when he leans back, giving you a knowing look.

“You wanna come?” He husks - his eyes dropping, as you nod, “Only if you lean back and show me, sweetheart.”

Relief sings in you, as you adjust. Thighs spreading, as you grip onto his shoulder. Leaning back until he can watch the way he spears into you. How he shines, all slicked up, with each roll of your hips.

Your other hand loses its grip in his coat to slip down, press where your bodies meet.

Fingertips circle, a low moan at the much-needed touch. Your rhythm grows sloppy until his hands hook beneath your thighs. Guiding you into a harsh rhythm, each pound of his cock winding you higher and higher as the couch creaks beneath you.

“Come on, cowpoke.” He rasps, his hand cracking down against your ass, “Is that the best you can do?”

It builds - your fingers pressing harder against the slick bud. Whimpered noises that are more sound than words, as his thighs spread, feet planting so he can drive up into you.

“I said come on.” He growls, “Wanna feel you come on my cock again.”

Like before, it feels like the control slips through your fingers. Your own touch brings you close to that edge, but it’s the pounding of his cock that makes you fall.

Your back arching, crying out as your core clenches. Pleasure bursting deep inside you, racing up your spine and down to the tips of your fingers and pointed toes.

The quick thrust slowa into a lazy grind. A low “atta girl” that he grits out, as he feels the way you come hard around him.

Eyes dropping from your face to watch the greedy press of your fingers as you draw it out - until his own hand is wrapping around your wrist.

Tugging your hand away as the pleasure still courses inside you, hips still chasing the last ripples as you ride his cock.

Bringing your fingers to his mouth. Fitting them against teeth and tongue as his lips close around, tasting the slick that clings to them.

It makes goosebumps raise on your skin. The briefest thrill of fear. Certain that if you pulled your fingers free right now, the flesh and muscle would peel from you - leaving only bones behind.

He groans loudly around them, teeth indenting your skin. Tongue swirling against your knuckles, his hips rocking up to meet yours.

Freeing you, only to grasp at your hips - urging you to move faster. A loud slap of skin until his jaw is clenching - and he’s bringing you down once more against him with a rough sound.

Coming inside you again, but this time you get to see the way his head tips back with his snarl. How his fingers bite into your skin as you feel him throb - throat bared as he spills deep inside you with each rough jerk of his hips.

A flare of something flicking to life in your belly, knowing you did this to him. The groan he made when he tasted you echoing in your mind, giving you something to keep.

You make to move when he goes still, but a hand grips at your hip - holding you in place. Keeping you full of him, as the afterglow still glitters in your veins.

His eyes are dark, fixed on you. Taking in your shadowed, half-lidded gaze - sweat-dewed and bare skinned against him. His hat, still perched on your head. Looking like it belongs there.

A hand digs around in his bag. Pulling out the inhaler for his serum. Snapping it together without his gaze leaving you.

Bringing it to his mouth after - sucking in a deep, held breath. Those eyes closing with a low, contented groan.

A broad hand slips from your hip to splay across the back of your neck, fingers digging into your throat. Pulling you down to him - just as his head tilts to press his lips against yours.

Just as you soften, he exhales - the RadAway flooding through your parted lips. A stinging, metallic taste of iodine that makes you shudder, before you realize he’s deepening the kiss.

You lean into it without thought. The ache in your gums fading with the brush of his tongue. His grip anchoring you in place as he takes, licking into your mouth while his cock still fills you.

Leaving you breathless. Letting him, as your own arms wrap around his shoulders to keep him close. Meeting the messy scrape of teeth and swirl of tongue. The sharp taste fading, layered with the whisky and a hint of you that still lingers.

Before he’s pulling back far too soon, eyes dark as he pants.

“Fuck.” He rasps - his tongue tasting where yours had been, flicking across a lower lip. Before he’s looking at the inhaler - shaking it for another use.

“Looks like I might just have to keep you around.”

You make what you can with the rest of the supplies afterward - waste not, want not. An extra stimpak. Swiping the rest of the mentats, keeping the grape and berry ones for yourself. Refilling your canteen with more of the purified water.

The rest of the chems you gather - packing them in a tin. Tossing them his way, a low whistle when he sees what’s inside.

It’s late enough that the Ghoul decides it’s best to stay here, and leave at dawn. Certain that he will catch up to the bounty tomorrow, already sure of two places where he might be offloading the stolen wares.

You don’t mind. The uneasy thought of sleeping in a house with corpses quickly overshadowed by the real mattresses waiting in the basement. Stained but there’s still bedding - patched up blankets.

A fire, that he coaxes to life in the fireplace upstairs. Dinner, roasting over it.

It almost feels like something. A moment you can play pretend - that these walls will keep you safe.

That maybe you could clean it up.

That maybe he didn’t despise you, and maybe he’d want to stay.

It’s a foolish thought, a sigh as you push it from you. Digging a spoon into the rusted can of Pork ‘N Beans you had scavenged - not trusting the look of the skewer he had been tending.

A thumb running across your lower lip, as you chew. Remember how his had felt. Examining the angry marks pressed into your knuckles. 

His shadow crosses over you, then - you have to crane your neck up to see him. His hat back where it belongs, much like your own clothes.

The tilt of his head, as he considers you again. Before his hand is slipping into the bag that slings across his shoulder.

Gloved fingers curling around something - tossing it silently into your lap, before he’s disappearing upstairs to finish his sweep of the house.

It’s golden, in the light of the fireplace. Seems like he’s already done a little looting of his own. A rolled up bag, the tube and needle tucked inside.

And a bottle of the RadAway you made for him.

save a horse, ride a cowboy and all that 🤠💖 (thank you so much for reading! would love to know what you thought if you enjoyed!)

[florenceafternoon]

━。゜✿ jily fic recommendations ✿ ゜。━

These fics are set in the wizarding world but aren’t necessarily canon complaints.

A while ago I posted about how one of my favourite part of reading canon jily is when they're a bit older and Lily is looking back in retrospect. The part where James shows her how he gets that this war that's looming over them, it's bigger, older, than they are and even though the world feels like it's ending his top priority is that they remember to enjoy the happy moments. To live in those moments.

Jily has always been a hot cup of tea on a cold and rainy day for me. I hope these fics give you a short break from life, even if it's just for a moment.

For reference, anything in italics is taken from the summaries.

These first few fics are all by @gigglesandfreckles-hp. Abi's characterisation of Lily and James as individuals are so special to me. How she writes jily is perfect - I mean the banter, the tension, the overall dynamic between them is just on point!

basic maths

Euphemia cuts Sirius off sharply. “I was simply verifying whether this is indeed the same Lily Evans whose name is written under my dining room table with a heart around it.”

or: Lily meets the parents and James tries not to hyperventilate. over and over and over again.

we suffer in silence

"It's fine, Evans," James interrupts, waving off her apology and offering a reassuring smile. "You've always been an exception to the rule." A hint of warmth spreads through Lily at his words. "You've never liked rules." He chuckles softly, his lips quirking up in a lopsided grin. "Which is why I never had a difficult time liking you."

or: James has had a bad day and Lily gives her best go at cheering him up

I've already made a whole post about how much I love this fic with my favourite quotes and everything, but god please if you read anything today let it be Abi's jily fics because they are legendary.

star light, star bright

It's seventh year, somehow, that clinches the case, claiming the grand prize in the annals of Lily Evans's misfortunes. Because, as it turns out, harbouring feelings for James Potter while also navigating the precarious terrain of friendship with him is a fate crueller than death.

or: James keeps accidentally touching Lily and she's about to lose her mind

amenable parameters

“Truth or dare, Lil?” “Dare,” she replies without hesitation, leaning back into the worn leather booth. “Obviously.” Hestia’s eyes gleam. “Go snog Potter.”

or: lily gets brave and james's patience is rewarded

here lies

James can't hold his drink, or his affections

the start of (something) new

“Oh, really?” Petunia crosses her arms. “What’s his name then?”

Lily pauses here, but only for a moment as her mind flashes back to the field at Jubilee Gardens. “James,” she says confidently. “James Potter.”

TW: this fic does depict a slightly descriptive panic attack.

Lily you are so valid for looking. For those of you who've seen the AU rec list I just posted, please know that this fic is the reason why I added all those footballer!james fics (well this fic and the euros).

common ground

Lily pauses, suddenly aware of James’s intense gaze. “What? Why are you…” Heat rushes to her cheeks, and she hates it. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s just…it’s a good look on you, Evans.” “What is?” she asks, self-consciously. His grin widens. “Mischief.”

sidewalk chalk, covered in snow

She didn’t mean to get used to any of them.

or: Lily Evans is strictly anti-Marauders…until she isn't. one by one.

waiting for the light to take us in

James removes his glasses again. “Evans…” He searches for something to say and settles on, “You don’t even like flying.”

“I could like flying,” Lily says, shrugging. “I like you.”

He doesn’t take that bait in the way she wants, and her heart sinks just a bit more. Instead, he chews at his lip, considering and considering and considering some more. Lily wants to scream.

A reminder that even though it seems like others may have it harder, you deserve a break too.

Questions and Answers by lizardcookie (on ao3)

The simple question of whether or not they're dating doesn't exactly have a simple answer. Seventh Year Jily.

A Very Sick Dear by Nostalgicdragonfly (on ao3)

It's a very rare disease, but James gets it anyway and he has to endure the pain of having the favorite flower of the person he loves growing in his chest. He's been hiding his struggles. Lily loves roses yet James is the one getting cut by their thorns. But when a new healer arrives and things get out of hand, a lot would depend on whether or not James accepts his only treatment.

or James has hanahaki disease

Thank You For The Music by @thelighthousestale

Lily Evans is homesick during her first year of Hogwarts. Then she hears a familiar tune.

Erasmus Lovegoods’s Guide to Brewing Love Potions also by @ /thelighthousetale

At the start of every school year, the Ministry of Magic distributed leaflets to all students taking potions classes regarding the regulations and legality of highly controlled potions.

Lily Evans thought the Ministry would probably have more success in decreasing illegal potions brewing on the castle grounds if they didn’t give such detailed instructions about the potions in its published propaganda literature.

Of course, every year's most popular leaflet was the one warning about the dangers of brewing love potions.

Or how an accidental explosion in NEWT-level potions finally forced Lily and James to confront their feelings.

falling into place by @charmingwillow

Lily overhears something that maybe she shouldn't have.. things sort of happen from there.

Limbo by Random-Musings (on ff.net)

Lily's sour Hogsmeade weekend takes an unexpected turn.

The next few fics are all from it's about the Gazing collection by @firefeufuego. I recommend this collection to my friend who doesn’t read jily and the first fic alone had her texting me "I get why you love them so much and I also get why you want James Potter"

(get on out of your seat) all eyes on me

As James stops to catch his breath, he also catches Lily’s eye, already fixed on him in the blatant, unblinking way he hasn’t seen since she used to verbally eviscerate him for minutes on end. It hits with the same mortifying heat as it always did then, when he used to stand there watching her yell at him and imagine her mouth doing everything else. He’s ridiculously grateful for whoever throws the ball straight towards his face for saving him from the fate of just standing there, watching her watch him with his dry mouth open for the rest of eternity.

In a movement of pure reflex, he grabs the ball out of the air and starts back towards the end of the pitch before Orie comes out of nowhere and takes his legs out from under him. Winded and disoriented, James sighs at the universe’s rather unsubtle visual metaphor. Is it even worth getting up again when he just keeps falling and falling and falling for her?

(soft spoken in the dead of night) all eyes on you

Lily has watched him do this multiple times before and it’s just tea and it’s just James and there should be nothing special about this particular moment, except that the sight of him, the fact of him, is suddenly earth-shattering.

Something like nostalgia fills her in a flood, only it’s the future she’s longing for, a future she can see with absolute clarity. The features James inherited from his parents are so faithfully recreated on him that it’s easy to imagine him at their age, with a shock of white, still unfairly thick hair framing a face lined by a lifetime of laughter, making her a cup of tea exactly the way she likes it and smiling as she teases him.

Don't be fooled by the summery, this is pure self indulgent smut. I complain a lot about pretentious people but the Austen and Keats reference had me swooning. The myth of Eros and Psyche is probably one of my favorites so…

in the morning when i wake or the morning after

With trembling hands, James brings the smaller piece of parchment closer to his face and starts to read.

To the love of my life,

You idiot. Get back here.I’ll be in your room.

Lily.

Surface Pressure by @eastwindmlk

Lily dealing with the weight of her own expectations in 7th year

no, i could never give you peace by @kay-elle-cee

James blinks. “Are you breaking up with me, Evans?” he jokes softly, resting his hand on hers. It’s a joke, but her body tenses and it immediately puts him on edge. The silence that follows is excruciating.

“I’m not doing anything.” Her nails begin to tap on the mug again—a nervous habit that James spots immediately. “I just think we should have a conversation.”

Trust Kels to serve Order!jily angst and pair it with one of my favourite songs of all time

bury it and rise above by @startanewdream

"James? Do you believe in magic?"

Or Lily is a Witch. James is a Muggle. It's not easier.

When It's You by idreamofjily (on ao3)

James is naturally affectionate and Lily really isn't. But maybe she can make an exception, if the way her stomach drops every time James touches her is any indication.

desiderium by @missgryffin

Sometimes all it takes is champagne and a slow dance, and then there's no going back.

The Vow also by @ /missgryffin

When he was thirteen-going-on-fourteen, James Potter did something truly, unbelievably stupid. Now that he’s seventeen-going-on-eighteen, he has to deal with the consequences.

Accidental Magic also by @ /missgryffin

What else is there to do after confessing feelings in the middle of the night than spend a lazy Saturday in bed?

Are You Experienced? by @annabtg

James Potter decides to ask Lily Evans to a Muggle live music show. This noble mission, however, requires a series of steps he is entirely clueless about: from procuring the tickets to finding the correct outfit, and most importantly, to spending an evening with Lily Evans without making an absolute fool of himself.

Also including the gorgeous cover art by @constancezin

by the lake by @possessingtheproperspirit

james finds lily by the lake.

not in need of a knight by @thejilyship

“If they start something, I’m going to finish it.” James said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And if it ends with you in the hospital wing?” “What do you care?” “Do you really think I’d bother to argue with you so much if I didn’t care?” Lily said, breathing sharply through her teeth.

[lynaferns]

FNAF Steampunk AU

That I never finished because I couldn't figure out what was going to be the story and character dynamics, and the role of each character, and yeah… I also spend many days writing, rewriting and changing thing, I didn't even get to finish the first draft and I got artblock.

I think my problem in the first place was that I wanted to make this AU stick to canon. A mistake, I know lmao. Later I thought of just making up most of the things but having to rewrite what I had already done dismotivated me.

So I thought of at least showing this character height chart I made a year ago. And maybe, idk, some of the wips that I never finished.

Maybe some notes and interactions I wrote under a cut.

If you ever want to ask me about what I had planned for this AU go ahead! Some main things about this story are:

All of the events of the story happens in a week (or so).

Gregory acts a little more scared than what is shown in the game.

DCAs arms can stretch up to 100 ft (30 m). He bends them to write or make shapes in the air.

Sun has some nowlege in animatronic repairs and maintenance due to being abandonent, having to repair himself.

Vanessa/Vanny have a biger role than in the game.

Burntrap also apeared more.

All animatronics are equiped with dart guns (for safety!). There are some places that require to leave the dart guns behind to continu.

Pizza is scuare (this is not important, I just felt like adding it).

Also, first idea and some doodles.

Edit: Now Cassie is in the AU

Gregory gets to escape to the locker rooms leaving Chica behind him. While searching for an exit Gregory gets surprised by Sun who was searching for him, and out of fright takes out the camera and flashes his bad eye damaging him for a few seconds.

Sun- "you were carring an object capable of blinding animatronics with you and you didn't use it against Chica to escape?!"

Gregory- "I didn't remember! I was more focused on running than taking a camera out of my pocket!"

Sun-pointing at himself with his hands- "And you had to remember when you saw ME?!"

Monty grabs Moon by the neck and throws him like a stick doing a spinning motion on the air, Roxy chases after him. She comes back carrying Moon with her mouth.

Freddy has an existential crisis by seeing endos. Moon is there awkwardly watching him. He gives him a pat on the back.

The auxiliary arm of the protective cylinder is broken, Gregory has to repair Sun manually. Trying to put his face plate back the nose falls off and Gregory nervously catches it juggling. They look between each others and the nose.

Sun-"..." "Gregory"

Gregory-"..."

Sun-"come on, say it"

Gregory-"..." "Got your nose~"

Vanessa is explaining something to the group. Moon is behind her copying her movements. The others are trying not to laugh. She notices and throws a flashlight at Moon.

They divide in groups. Moon gets on Monty's backs like a gremlin.

Moon-"go gator boy"

Monty-"I hate you"

One last, this is a whole scene that needs a bit of context. The current team members are Gregory, Freddy, Sun/Moon. They have figured out that the safe mode prevents animatronics from acting weird/hostile (found out the hard way in an encounter with moon and a fuse box). Though Moon seems not to attack Gregory anymore they wanted to test it with the rest of the band and found Chica, some things happened, they left her in her room in sleep mode and went to roxy raceway. This begins when they head to the west arcade to repair the service bot's head and on their way they encounter Chica out of the sleep mode but more normal.

(Forgive my poor writing, this was more of a script)

The four of them stare at each other until one decides to react.

Sun–”HELLLLO” Chica– holding her left arm–”A- Hiii, umm” Freddy– “He-hello Chica! What got you here??” Chica– “I-uh…patrol? I- think?? There… There is a child lost in the pizzaplex and we were, like- told to go find him, remember?” “Actually, wait, why are you out of your room? I thought maintenance put you on lock down- And what is the Daycare attendant doing out of the Daycare? it’s not the end of the hour yet- Oh!”–she just saw Gregory behind Freedys legs–”hey! you got the kid-”–flashback of the garbage compactor–”GET HIM”–she points at him with a dart gun– Sun–gets in the way–”WOAH WOAH WOW easy there!” Freddy–”Chica- wait! It’s ok he’s with us” Chica–”T-that-that kid is a menace! He- we should-HAVE to take him to the officer Vanessa–” Gregory–*gasp * Freddy & Sun– “NO!” Chica–”????wha-?

Freddy– “We must not take him to her.” Chica- “You guys kidding?” “These are literal-plain-instructions that you are- just-” “That kid threw me through the garbage compactor!” Gregory–”You tried to kill me!” Chica–”what?! No! I couldn’t do that, that’s against my programming!” Sun–”Uuumm, about that miss-” Chica–”YOU”–points at Sun with the gun– Sun–”?!” Chica–”You were there too!” “You have been with this kid all this time!” Sun–hands up-”Iwastryingtostophim” Freddy–”Chica, calm down, I know what this looks like but-” Sun–”OHMYGOSHWAITGUYS, she’s not hostile!” Chica–”wha-?” Freddy–”what…?” Gregory–”what??” “She’s literally pointing at us with a gun” Sun–standing next to Chica, pointing at her while looking at Freddy and Gregory–”I just noticed! her behavior changed-!” Chica–redirects the gun to re-target him–”you’re getting too close” Sun–ignores that–”She’s back to normal! That means the safe mode worked, we can use this!”

Chica–”What are you talking about?” Freddy–”You’re right! That’s a relief” “right Gregory?” Gregory–”...Yyyyyeah? I guess, yeah” Chica–”seriously, what do you all mean?” Freddy–”Well, It’s a little long story-” Sun–”And we will explain it to you!” “BUT not now, we are in a rush!” “To repair this bot-head so Gregory can ride the racecar” Chica–”...” “‘you serious?” Sun–”yep!” “Say, Gregory! You still want to ride?” Gregory–”uh-yeah” Sun–”Then let’s go!” “TO THE WEST ARCADE!”–grabs Freddy and Gregory and takes them there–”You can come if you want~!” Chica–”...” “OH- GOLLY, WELL” “I guess I’ll just go with you even though I don’t understand what is happening! And no one is going to give me an explanation!” Freddy–”-I promise that I’ll give you a wide explanation once we are done with all this… But in a more private place”

There are actually a couple more of scenes before this one (and after) but I'm not very confident of showing those (or any actually but I don't want this to be buried in my documents and forgoten because I really want to at least make a decent story)

Also, I know that the canon heights for the animatronics are like 6 ft but I prefered my height variety headcanons. Maaaaaybe they are a little too tall looking at it now that I look at it again but, eh.

[pachimation]

redrawing my very first chiscara comic/art i ever did for chscr day!!

old comic under the cut!!

lol a bunch of sappy semi serious stuff below bc i cant help but be a bit genuine about this ship today :’3

i cant possibly put into words how important this silly little ship and its community mean to me haha,,,, this comic was made in 2021 but i didnt really get serious about chscr until late 2022 after a bunch of pretty bad interpersonal stuff happened and i needed an outlet,, COINCIDENTALLY a certain someone was announced to be playable around then and i was already thought chscr was Pretty Neat™️ so i ended up diving headfirst into the ship. it also gave me a good excuse to work on more comics too!! i’d done a pretty big zhongven comic earlier that year in the summer, but in terms of lore there was only so much i could have worked with at the moment.

childe and scaramouche have that perfect combination of silliness and angst and violence that could be explored or expanded in so many ways and i love love love seeing other people’s interpretations of their dynamic and relationship. they’re so complex,,,,they’re narrative foils,,,they’re narrative parallels,,,they’re trans allegories,,,they’re flies in the spiderweb of the games lore,,,they’re my stupid little meow meows,,, they’re just two losers i want to see make out,,,

in a nutshell, they’re everything to me. well, i hope i get that kind of sentiment across in my own comics,,,,

and i cant get started on all the people ive met through chiscara or the way that having something i can call “my thing”, as in, the thing that i like and that i will spend a lot of time and effort (and money, but lets not talk about that) to surround myself with because it makes me smile. its stupid to say, but being a nerd about these two stupid guys who have never had a single canon onscreen interaction in some random game has made me a much happier and confident person that i could have ever imagined back in my freshman year of college,,, when i say i dont know who i’d be if i hadnt gotten into chiscara, i really do mean it lol

i’m actually surprised i’m making it to over a full year of regular-ishly making art, especially for the same game and ship! thats never happened before and my art has improved so much over this past year!! more than anything else, i’m happy! i get to be excited talking about these characters with my friends and i love to see art of them pop up on the tl. i make stickers of them and decorate my phonecase with them and have little figures of them in my room that i look at when im up late at night working on schoolwork. sometimes just the thought of finishing a comic or daydreaming about a scenario or seeing what my mutuals are up to are some of the few things getting me through a tough day.

,,,,so believe me when i say, to both childe and scara and to everyone else as obsessed with these pathic losers as i am, thank you! i’m having a lot of fun!!!

(also i just found out tumblrs copy/paste doesnt work on my ipad??? idk if this ends up legible i may or may not have deleted smth by accident and im not in a mood to proofread haha)

[holy-puckslibrary]

━ 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥.

──────────── 𝐰𝐜 — 1.9k 𝐜𝐰 — everyone is aged up / non-canon compliant ages bc i said so; rafe being an emotionally constipated, toxic douche-canoe 3000; an unhealthy dynamic; suggestive moments but not explicit; w*rd + substance mention, wheeze bein' a savage; and a potential cliffhanger? 𝐚/𝐧 — this is a lil nugget from a mini-series i have in the works :) lmk if you’d like to see more in the future! 💌 ────────────

main masterlist | MDNI

IF EVER THERE were a time when a human being might actually be capable of blowing steam from their ears, it would be this one.

Rafe Cameron has been pacing the length of the chapel's private lot since he dragged you out here who knows how long ago. Mumbling crudely configured sentences and half-baked schemes under his breath, he looks every bit the loose canon he's been branded as.

While not ideal, things could be worse—a lot worse. At the very least, he hasn't punched anything yet; concrete wall, tree trunk, or otherwise.

The "otherwise" in this situation (and most, to be frank) is JJ Maybank's pretty face.

Apparently, Rafe doesn't appreciate the way he's been touching you all afternoon.

"If that fuckin' pogue knows what's good for him, he—he'll keep his filthy hands off what's mine."

Strong words for someone who refuses to even attempt exclusivity, or make any sort of commitment whatsoever.

You gnaw on your cheek until copper stings your tongue.

JJ has to touch you, it's unavoidable.

Sarah, his younger sister and your lifelong best friend, has asked you to be her Maid of Honor and, to absolutely no one's surprise, John B, her fiancé, asked JJ Maybank to serve as his Best Man.

Sarah's older brother doesn't see it that way.

And why would he? That would involve rational thinking and a modicum of maturity—two things Rafe is allergic to.

In his perfect world, you would walk in the procession having left a him-sized gap, and, even then, he'd probably decide that wasn't enough. Knowing him, there would need to be an ocean between you two before Rafe was finally satisfied. And still, you know for certain he'd find something else to bitch about.

It's almost like he enjoys getting himself all worked up.

"Rafe, I'm not a pet or a toy to play tug-of-war with on the playground."

At your sudden burst of exasperation, the pacing comes to a screeching halt. And thank god for that; the repetition was starting to make you nauseous.

Just as firmly as his jaw, Rafe's fists clench at his sides.

"When did I say that you were?" he spews his venom at you, but his fervid attention remains fixed on the cracked pavement baking in the late afternoon rays. Rafe kicks a pebble into the side of a parked car, then continues, "—because I don't recall saying that. And you know how I feel about words being put into my mouth."

"No," you all but growl. "—but that's what you meant."

Your teeth ache from grinding them together. A migraine is forming at either temple, but you're already too exhausted by this conversation to massage it away before it takes root. You have your hands full with one headache right now, there's no room for another on your plate. But, like the eldest Cameron's emotional maelstrom, landfall is inevitable.

Rafe glares at you, but doesn't say anything to the contrary.

This begrudged acquiescence is the closest you ever come to Rafe admitting that you were right about something.

Or apologizing.

"Well, whatever you are, you're still mine. Something he doesn't respect and you seem to have forgotten—and I think we're overdue for a little reminder, sweetness."

He reaches for you, and you halfheartedly bat his hands away.

"Rafe, can we just... can we please do this some other time? I have to get back to—"

"—to your side piece from The Cut?"

"—to Sarah. Your sister. Y'know, the one who's getting married this weekend?" You cross your arms over your chest. Rafe rolls his eyes, clearly irritated you decided to cock-block his ogling. "—in case that bit of information got lost in your ego."

"Wow, you're really antsy to get back in there." His eyebrows jump, somehow unfettered by his audacity. The supplemental away from me is omitted, but deafening. "There's no need to be so defensive—if you have nothing to feel guilty for, that is."

You don't dignify his badgering with a response.

His tongue punches his cheek, and he looks away, as if depriving you of eye contact is a punishment in and of itself.

Rafe is trying to bait you into an actual fight so that he can exercise his big, bottled-up emotions without having to acknowledge their existence or their cause. There's too much left to do before the ceremony; you don't have time to spare for something as juvenile and pointless as feeding into his emotional scapegoat.

"If you're spreading 'em for Maybank, at least give me a head's up so I can get tested. It's common courtesy, sweetness."

Cold and debilitating, like a scorpion's venom, his accusation is devoid of the familiarity you've grown fond of. Under Rafe's prickly carapace of indifference, he is spiteful and chronically insecure.

This is what happens when you don't purge yourself of whatever is bothering you. Pent up, the negativity builds and builds day in and day out. The knot gets bigger, stronger, and harder to ignore the longer it's left undealt with. The conflict between inner turmoil and externalized chaos, often projected onto an underserving substitute, is harsh and bitter, persisting until there's nothing left to leverage. Denial is a dreadful opponent and an impenetrable armor.

You are the frog today, and you are more often than not. Perhaps there was a time when turns were frequently taken, but you can't remember.

In shooting to sting, he'll kill himself just the same. Yet, despite the assured detriment to your livelihood, you put your faith in rational deterrence and permit the arachnid to crawl onto your back.

A sense of duty is easily preyed upon, and a desire for benevolence can leave you blind to the true nature of things. Instinct, natural or nurtured, doesn't have to be a death sentence. Nor is it a prescription for life. Villainy, like goodness, is a choice.

The frog may not be able to sting or fight, but it can leap.

"Would you just shut up?"

You bring his mouth to yours before any more garbage can spill out.

He's keyed up on jealousy and, most likely, something else. Rafe's intent on pushing you away with tired cheap shots in a fit of anger. You've known him long enough to know that, in the absence of control, he does and says the exact opposite of what he feels.

He refuses to be vulnerable in any healthy way, instead preferring to throw double-edged rocks at your window from behind a wilting bush.

Words are incompatible with Rafe's trauma-soaked mind. He'll hear whatever it is you have to say—Hell, he might even believe it for a few minutes—but a life of too many broken promises and poorly disguised lies depreciated their value.

Action—that's what Rafe can grasp. For something to click and stick, it must be tangible. You kissed him to express your loyalty in the only way he understands.

And to make him shut up. Definitely that, too.

"I should've ignored Sarah when she said a spray bottle was a bad idea."

Your eyes are slow to open, but you jump away from Rafe anyway. As if you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, or like you betrayed some great conspiracy. Like he burned you.

It may not have a label, but your charged relationship with the Cameron heir is an open secret on Kiladare. Still, you're not too keen on public displays of affection—if anything you subject each other to could even be considered gentle or loving.

Intimate, sure. An attachment, definitely. The jury's still out on the health of such a volatile symbiosis, but such an entanglement is a bitch to bury.

You've tried.

Rafe's jaw clenches, annoyed by the irksome interruption now more than any slight you've perpetrated. "Wheezie, can't you see we're in the middle of something?"

"Something I saw a little too much of," she retorts with an exaggerated gag.

You bite down on your cheeks to keep your laughter at bay. You're in no mood to poke the bear further than he's already stabbed himself.

"Run along, the adults are talking."

Again, Rafe reaches for you. This time, you step out of bounds.

She means well, but the youngest Cameron has a big mouth and a propensity for gossip. She's also a compulsive eavesdropper. Wheezie might butt in and stir the pot far less now than she did a few years ago, but when it comes to Rafe, all bets are off. They may be each other's preferred sibling, bonded by their inability to best Sarah in the rat race for their father's attention and approval, but in their household, it's everyone for themselves.

And she's had her eye on the special edition Animal Crossing Switch console for weeks; she'll throw you both under the bus without a thought. Especially, if it means not waiting 'till Christmas to have it in her tween-age hands.

You throw her a bone, and yourself a lifeline. "What's up, Wheeze?"

She gives her brother a final glare, then turns to face you fully. Her features are twisted with exasperation, an understandable feeling considering who her siblings are and the family she's had the misfortune of being born into.

"Sarah wants to practice the rings. Again. So, hurry up and finish sucking face, adults. We have more important things to do."

Wheezie stomps off before either you or Rafe can get a word in. For her, the conversation ran its course. No need to stick around.

"Can I ask something stupid?" Rafe asks once his sister is out of earshot.

His voice is a bit wobbly, and while you know he'll make you regret it later, but you just can't help yourself: "Don't you always?"

Rafe clears his throat, then rubs his jaw like it might grant him the right words.

"We only... y'know with each other, right? I-I mean, I just figured since you're stuck to me like fucking velcro you're in the same boat. I mean—talk about stage five clinger. And, don't get me wrong, I would've unstuck you, but this," Rafe gestures to what little space remains between you. "—is way more convenient than all the hoops and shit of getting with someone else."

You know what he's actually asking—you've been fluent in "Rafe" since the fourth grade. Just one of the many, many joys of your fathers' life-long bromance.

He wants you to spill your guts before he does. He wants certainty; a safety net of prior knowledge.

—Rafe wants power.

"Totally," you drawl, humoring him with half the effort you normally would. Rafe squirms under your knowing gaze. "All for convenience, babe."

"Are you mocking me?" 

"Don't I always?" you counter through a smirk that makes Rafe feel as though he's staring into a splintered funhouse mirror.

Rafe watches you slip back into the chapel, wishing that he said more... wishing he'd said less. He follows your figure down the hallway until the metal door shuts with a rancorous thud.

When he shuts his eyes—a lukewarm attempt to calm his racing heart in the relentless summer sun—all Rafe can think about is your parting wink.

And the God-awful churn of emotion it triggered.

──────────── 

💌 if you liked it, pls lmk! 💌

⬸ back to the catalog  (masterlist) 

⬸ back to the main blog 

[multimousenette]

bkdkbk longfic recs

for @miss-multifandom-mess, who wanted fics that are:

Long & completed ☑️

Good balance of genres: angst, comedy, romance, the package deal

Accurate bakudeku (as a pair and individually)

Great dynamic 👍

Izuku is not ‘feminized’ or made uwu

I'll give title (linked to the fic) & author, word count, rating, dynamic if relevant*, content warnings, major tags and a synopsis.

I'll also put them in the following categories:

Canon compliant: this does not disagree with canon in any way (eg. character study of Kacchan during dark hero arc, anything during the 8 year time skip that has Kacchan saving up/Deku teaching)

Canon consistent: yeah that could more or less be canon (eg future pro heroes especially where deku keeps OFA)

Canon divergent: something during canon actively changes, but the world is the same (eg. becoming friends in middle school, one of them is on a different course, pro heroes but my gut says it's too far away to be really canon consistent)

Canon adjacent: feels like canon except for one Major Thing (eg. omegaverse, (non-quirk related) hanahaki but still heroes)

Alternate Universe (AU): completely different universe (eg fantasy, sci-fi, or no quirks)

*it ended up being mostly either bkdkbk (ie switching) or dkbk -- I've highlighted these red just in case, but I've included them cos people tend to use bkdk for the ship generally if they don't have a preference, and I couldn't see anything saying you were fixed bkdk on your acc

... and I'll put them below the cut cos this is already so long oh my god

In order of word count (high -> low):

I Will Find You by Purple_Insomniac (174k, T, canon consistent)

CW: Alt universe character death

Major tags: Parallel universes, angst w a happy ending.

Deku disappears in the middle of a rescue mission. Turns out, thanks to some OFA weirdness, the person who sent Izuku into an alternate universe… doesn’t know which one he’s in. Somehow, Izuku and Katsuki can speak in the OFA Vestige Realm, but it’s still a total nightmare trying to find which universe Izuku’s in — let alone bringing him home.

For it is Something That We Lost by TheGraveyardChild (160k, E, top Deku, canon divergent)

CW: past domestic abuse, past child abuse.

Major tags: Kidfic, angst with a happy ending.

Number four pro hero Dynamight returns to his hometown, but — to (number five pro hero) Deku’s surprise — he’s kind of flaky now. Turns out, this is because he has a daughter, and they’ve only just escaped his abusive ex. Slowly, Katsuki and Deku grow close again, but everything’s complicated when they start work on a child kidnapping/trafficking case — especially when Katsuki’s daughter is caught up in it.

Halfway to the Moon (But the Sun is So Bright) by Catsired (105k, T, canon divergent)

CW: Graphic depictions of abuse and self harm; depressed & suicidal Izuku; physically, financially, emotionally and verbally abusive Hisashi; bullying; mild homophobia.

Major tags: Middle School AU, Slow burn, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending.

Izuku has a lot on his plate. It’s his final year of middle school and between his training with All Might, the part time job he’s picked up to help his mum with bills, and Kacchan… being Kacchan, he’s about ready to drop. And then his dad comes home, and his mum is so happy he can’t bear to tell her that Hisashi hits him. Meanwhile, Katsuki notices there’s something up with Shitty Deku and somehow decides it’s his responsibility to fix it. And maybe, as they grow closer, he finds that doesn’t hate Deku so much anymore. Maybe he never really did.

Surprise Reunions and Childhood Rekindlings by ladyofsnails (90k, G, AU)

Major tags: Slice of life, no quirks AU, uni/college AU, mutual pining, FLUFF.

Izuku and Katsuki haven’t seen each other in five years, but it turns out their friends are friends — and incredibly shocked (and concerned) when the first thing Katsuki and Izuku do upon meeting is start roughhousing. The two of them fall straight back into their chaotic childhood dynamic… and in love. Obviously.

After All We’ve Been Through (You get turned into a fucking rabbit) by TigerLilies64 (88k, E, switching, canon consistent).

Major tags: crack treated seriously, fluff, hurt/comfort.

Pro hero Deku gets hit by a quirk that turns him into a rabbit hybrid. To make matters worse, he shapeshifts into an actual rabbit when his heart rate gets too high. Kacchan... helps. 

Tidal Hearts by macksmilesback and SamIsNotLegend (83k, T, AU) 

Major tags: h2o just add water/early 2000s mermaid AU, high school drama, mild angst, fluff.

Izuku and Katsuki were best friends as kids, but that all changes after they nearly drown while swimming in the ocean and Inko moves her and Izuku away. Years later, they reunite, and after Katsuki saves Izuku from a nasty hazing prank, end up… growing a tail any time they get wet. Well, that’s one way to spend their senior year of high school!

The Spell in Her Name by MerryWeatherWeather (62k, E, top Katsuki, canon divergent)

CW: Past OC teacher/student relationship, past minor character death, past child abandonment.

Major tags: kidfic, domestic fluff, mutual pining, angst. 

Pro hero Katsuki returns from working in the US and due to some complications, has nowhere to live, so pitches up at Deku’s house — and is shocked to discover that Deku has a child. Turns out, she was abandoned on his doorstep as a baby, and he took her in. When her mother initiates a public custody battle, Deku will do anything to keep his daughter — and Kacchan will do anything to help.

just for your love (I’ll give you the world) by thwnderpoint (52k, E, top deku, canon consistent)

Major tags: idiots to lovers, (light) angst with a happy ending, mutual pining.

Katsuki confesses to Izuku, and Izuku doesn’t want Kacchan to suffer or feel like he has to hold back his feelings. So he tells him not to. Kacchan takes this offer and runs with it. Izuku quickly realises that while he hadn’t considered Kacchan as a romantic option, he is in fact absolutely in love with him… but Kacchan thinks Izuku deserves better than him. Izuku, of course, can’t let that stand. And now they’re engaged in some sort of psychological flirt-off, much to the dismay of everyone around them.

Photo Op by whitetail (50k, M, top deku, canon adjacent)

CW: transphobia, gender dysphoria

Note: I LOVE the characterisation of Deku, he’s an absolute disaster, but I can see that it might be love it or hate it as the author does exaggerate his social issues a lot. This Deku is explicitly, intentionally autistic and it's a close third person POV so we're very much in his head... which is kind of a mess.

Major tags: trans izuku, autistic izuku, massive simp kacchan, comedy of errors, miscommunication, light angst.

Pro hero Deku has PR crisis after PR crisis and now the whole world knows about his Dynamight thirst blog and he’s newly insecure about his bottom surgery. And for some reason, Kacchan won’t stop asking him (him!!) to join him for a photoshoot, as if Deku’s stupid ugly face won’t ruin everything again. Still, he can’t say no to Kacchan… 

In Another Life by hollyandvice (44k, M, canon consistent)

Major tags: Parallel universes, grief/mourning, angst with a happy ending.

While fighting a villain, Kacchan disappears. Turns out, the villain has a parallel universe swapping quirk, and he was aiming to swap number one hero Deku for a quirkless civilian. Except, the only world the villain could find where Deku isn’t a hero is one where Kacchan is dead — so when Katsuki took the blow, no one swapped with him, and now no one knows how to get him back. Meanwhile, Katsuki discovers a dystopian world where half his friends are dead or injured — not to mention this world’s Deku, who is all sorts of broken up over meeting an adult Kacchan. Will he be able to fix the problems with this world before he gets home? And which world will he choose to stay in?

last days of war by antisora (44k, M, AU)

Major tags: Pacific Rim AU, Sci-Fi/Dystopian, angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, misunderstandings.

Note: I've never watched pacific rim and had no issues with understanding what was going on. Author said there were lots of references, but you don't need existing knowledge to enjoy this.

All Izuku’s ever wanted is to save the world with his best friend… but his life doesn’t seem to be headed in that direction, especially when he doesn’t make it through the physical entrance exam for the best Jaeger pilot training school, UA. But after seeing him ace a Kaiju simulation, the world’s greatest ranger, All Might, intervenes, and Izuku is able to enrol at UA after all. Unsurprisingly, Kacchan’s there too — and their drift compatibility is through the roof. Much to Izuku’s dismay, even piloting a Jaeger together isn’t enough to regain their close friendship as children. Will almost dying (twice) be enough for them to finally be truly honest with each other?

The Time Between Our Lives by Fitzrovia (36k (56k inc. sequels), E, switching, canon divergent and AU)

Major tags: Hurt/comfort, angst w a happy ending.

Deku and Kacchan are sent back in time by a villain’s quirk and end up in an abandoned temple, quirkless. In order to escape — and return to their old lives — they must rake the gravel in the garden into a design that shows the beauty of all life. It takes a very, very long time.

Spacewalk by SamIsNotLegend (35k, M, AU)

CW: Major character death

Major tags: Sci-Fi/Horror, angst w a happy ending, grief/mourning.

Astronauts Izuku and Katsuki are set to co-lead the first manned mission to Jupiter… but a year and a half before launch, Izuku is hit by a car and dies. Katsuki has to lead the mission — their mission — alone, and sure enough, everything goes wrong. And keeps going wrong… until it starts going right. 

and a bonus totally-not-a-longfic-but-it-slaps:

Vertigo by Cyhyr (15k, T, canon adjacent)

Major tags: hanahaki, angst with a happy ending.

Pro hero Deku has hanahaki. He makes a plan to run away and just... die (when it gets too severe to keep working), but he didn’t account for Kacchan. 

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 致命游戏 / The Spirealm.

The Spirealm is a 2024 drama about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This show/book combo has gripped my entire ass. The second I knew I wanted to watch this, almost immediately after it started airing, I muted the tag. I was so right to do this, because this is worth not spoiling yourself about. If you are a Guardian fan in particular, you owe it to yourself to watch this for reasons I think will become clear as you go about watching it.

So! If all you need to know is that I think you need this show in your life, great! You don't even need to scroll down to the end of the post for the links; go to Viki and press play. In case you need more convincing than that, though, I'm going to give you here five reasons to watch it that are as spoilerless as I can make them.

Before we start, though, I'm going to take a moment to note that I had to torrent the video files so I could make screenshots of my own, and if I hadn't, this would have been a much uglier rec post than the others I've done. Not only were there not many promotional materials or official stills released, the show itself barely stayed up two hours on iQiyi, and that's because this drama is a...

1. (Barely) Censored Adaptation Of Same-sex Original Work

Ah, you know that MyDramaList tag well, don't you? Yeah, the original novel, Kaleidoscope of Death (which has a rec post of its own!), is supernatural story about grief and loss built on the love story between the two male leads. Now of course you know already that a mainstream Chinese television adaptation of something like that is going to straighten up everything and turn the horror romance into the sci-fi platonic love of besties.

...But damn, folks, it's still real gay.

Ling Jiushi, the sweet-faced newbie, is a canonical virgin and loving cat dad who plays the mysterious video game once, then finds himself suddenly able to enter the game worlds bodily -- and of course, if you die in the game, you die in real life. He's pretty much doomed, until he meets...

Ruan Lanzhu, the cool-as-a-cucumber veteran of the door worlds, who falls pretty much immediately for the completely oblivious Ling Jiushi, then has to spend the rest of the series consumed with lust while trying to keep him and a couple other dipshits alive.

The show preserves so many overtly gay beats and declarations of affection from the novel, to the point where it's just this side of suggesting that the romance is actually, textually happening just offscreen, every time the camera cuts away. I am forever grateful that working with Zhu Yilong on Reunion seems to have perfected sweet baby Junjie's ability to look at a man with nothing but love in his eyes.

I adore so much the dynamic they have, one where a man who has never told the truth a day in his life encounters a man so sincere and naive that you cannot seduce him with anything but absolute honesty or he's never going to get it.

There are three (3) separate door worlds where they share a bed, and in every one of them, they both sleep with their shoes on. Like the absolute freaks they both are.

2. It's puzzle solvin' time!

So if you've read some of my rec posts before, you know that I am critical of stories that center around cases that are unfollowable, uninteresting, or both (e.g., Mysterious Lotus Casebook and White Cat Legend). I am therefore thrilled to tell you that the door worlds are actually (largely) thoughtful mysteries with reasonable solutions, where you care about what's happening and why.

The way each door world is set up is that you have to solve the puzzle to find a key and unlock the door that will let you leave. One of the challenges is each world's door ghost, who has the key and does not want to give it up. The other challenge is the world-specific set of taboo conditions, where violating them means the door ghost can kill you -- and you are not always told what those taboo conditions are. That means that solving a door involves 1) figuring out what will insta-kill you, 2) not doing that, 3) finding where the hell the exit door is, 4) placating and/or scamming the door ghost long enough to snatch the key from them, and 5) running like hell to the exit door with that key before the door ghost fucks you up about it.

As the show goes on, you get introduced to the concept of door-passing shepherds, which are experienced door-finishers who take through lower-level players, building them up in the process. A lot of these shepherds work for organizations, such as the one Ruan Lanzhu runs. And a lot of them are ready to reach the exit by climbing over everyone else's corpses.

That's part of the fun of the setup: You're not just thrown in alone. You show up with a random number of other players, some with very different levels of experience. At least one of you will make it out; not everyone will. So you can add a step 6) to the list above, which is: surviving all the other players who will gleefully stab you in the back in order to be the first player out the door.

The door worlds are also lovely. They all feel like sets -- and I know that's a weird thing to say about places that are literal sets, but they manage it feel it even on film. In fact, even the show's uses of clunky-ass greenscreen feel appropriate, because of how unreal everything is supposed to be. Everything looks like a dream, which is only amplified by how beautifully everything's shot.

(What's that you say? You say the guy who directed this was the editor on Infernal Affairs? No kidding.)

From a fandom perspective, what's great here is that even though there are technically just twelve doors, there are canonically way more than twelve door worlds out there. That means that whatever worlds you want to create are valid. The best pieces of fanfic I've read are the ones that dream up their own door worlds, complete with taboo conditions, key puzzles, and world-specific perks that lead to gay sex, because come on.

3. A good middle ground of horror

So at this point you are perhaps wondering: How scary is it?

And the answer is, kind of as scary as you're willing to let your mind go with it. Everything has been science-fictioned real hard, including the video game premise that "explains" what's happening with these doors. It relies on dread way more than jumpscares. The blood/gore/gross content is extremely low, again on account of Chinese content censorship. Most icky things are done with offscreen sounds and shadows. I'm pretty squeamish about pain and injury, and I can't recall a time I had to look too long away from the screen.

However, that means the show works some real conceptual horror. That picture up there is of a man forcing three young girls to hold raw eggs unbroken in their mouths. There's nothing about that image that's not technically G-rated, and it's awful in context.

The best bits are when the monsters don't need a lick of CG to become horrors. They cast a contortionist in the Waverly Hills door world, and she absolutely earned her keep.

I have a lot of critiques about how the show handles things, especially in terms of defanging the horror elements (which it does), but one thing I think it absolutely gets right is that it understands that ghost stories are first and foremost tragedies. That's a thing I've always liked about Asian horror in particular, how often you wind up siding with the ghost. Yes, sure, she tried to strangle you with her hair, but have you ever considered she's the real victim here? There's always a bit of a calculus: Can you negotiate with the door ghost, or do you just need to stab them and run? The Spirealm prefers negotiation, and frankly, so do I.

So yeah, it's about as scary as you let it be. If your horror tolerance is low, watch it in a well-lit room and focus on the unreality of it, and you'll be okay. If you're looking for something genuinely spooky, spend some time thinking about the existential dread of the entire situation, and that'll be good for a couple good spine tingles.

4. The Obsidian Family (& Friends!)

In a show where death is always an option, you have to have characters where you actually care if they live or die. Fortunately, all your allies are charming and loveable enough that you are going to be real upset every time they get put in danger!

Obsidian is one of the organizations I mentioned earlier. It's run by Ruan Lanzhu, and it includes a cool and collected doctor, a mom friend who cooks for everybody, a guy who's maybe not having the best mental health day of his life, and two identical twins who could not be more different if they tried. They all live in the same amazing big fancy house, which is where Ling Jiushi too goes to live when he joins the group. They have big family meals, they look after one another, they hang out together -- I mean, if this is the kind of setup you love, then you will love this setup.

There are also plenty of allies who aren't technically part of Obsidian, but who are our friends nonetheless, and who come over to hang out in the Obsidian house from time to time. Some of them are rivals turned friends, some of them are clients turned friends, and some of them were just friends all along! Surely nothing bad will happen to any of them, and they'll all live happily ever after, right? ...Right?

5. Toast and Chestnut!

Of course, the true heroes of the show are Toast the Corgi and Chestnut the Kitty.

Animals are so good.

Truly, I love that one of Ling Jiushi's defining characteristics is that he is a Cat Dad. He is a simple man with simple needs, and one of those needs is to pet his kitty or he'll explode.

caveat: Some thoroughly bad adaptation choices

Yeah, so I keep talking about the novel (and talk even more about the novel in its own rec post), but I assure you, you don't need to have read the novel to feel the degree to which this is an adaptation -- and one that's had its rough, nasty, spooky, gay edges all sanded off in the desperate hope of ever seeing daylight.

Now, sometimes I consider batshit nonsense janky creative decisions to be a selling point for a show (see: Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Legend of Fei, Sand Sea)! In this case, however, I'm going to have to take points off for how incoherently bad they are here. We're talking Psych-Hunter levels of Why Would You Do That-- and the answer, as always, comes down to how you write around what censorship won't allow on television.

The novel says the doors are supernatural. The show says they're a virtual-reality computer game. Now, on the surface, this move sort of makes sense -- you can't have ghosts, but you can have computer games that make digital ghosts, which, sure, okay. But then the problem quickly becomes that the plot of the novel is not remotely built to support a sci-fi premise, so a lot of things have to be grafted awkwardly on. Like, say, a bad guy who stole his corporate logo from Even Worse Twitter. Or a game-designing bestie whose face is never seen. Or [late-stage spoilers about a major character].

The eventual explanation is that this whole setup is a righteous and good game that has somehow been corrupted by evil game-designing capitalists from the West, and that's why it can abduct you in broad daylight and kill you if you fail it. There are good people who want to purify (???) the game, and evil people who want to make money off the game. And I don't mind spoiling you for that part, because it's garbage nonsense. You will be deeply unsatisfied with the show's half-assed attempt at resolving it all. (You may, however, have that disappointment tempered with the amazing concurrent display of heterosexuality that is apologizing to your best bro by coding his perfect man for him. The Spirealm is a land of contrasts.)

Look, I consider myself a mild to moderate socialist, and even I was yawning and making jerk-off motions every time someone started to wax halfheartedly poetic about how evil American capitalism is. Like, yeah, but not because some college student made a vile and wretched video game that eats people! This show is a critique of capitalism like a five-year-old crying because he doesn't get ice cream before bed is a critique of authoritarianism.

And even this, I can't be too mad at it about, you know? I just assume that this was some absolute Hail Mary attempt at getting past censorship -- you know, maybe if we make all the right "grr, USA bad!" noises, they'll let our gay ghost story slip by? And it worked! I mean, just barely, but it did.

So yeah, fair warning that the Spirealm is a show that, if you love it (and I do), you will have to love despite some glaring flaws that haunt it all the way through and hit especially hard during what should otherwise have been an amazing endgame. But hey, we're c-drama fans! We're good at loving janky things, right?

Want to enter the World of Doors?

As I said at the start of the post, Viki's got it -- and only Viki. I'm not sure what circumstances got it up on Viki after iQiyi pulled it, but I'm glad. Watch it quick, before Viki changes its mind!

Hug him! Hug that boy!

[andrea-lyn]

Roswell New Mexico - Master Fic Rec Post

See under the cut for thirty-four total recs, predominantly Malex. There's also 10 additional in the "Recs Less Travelled" project here.

a few drinks and some conversation by @christchex

Michael Guerin makes a friend who isn’t his sibling, an ex, or a sibling’s ex.

Astriferous Sea by hrhbrittany, Sismyn

Alex has always been the baby among the sirens in the Dead Sea. Michael is performing beard services for his sister. Communication is a little wishy-washy.

This AU came out of nowhere and smacked me right with the ‘I’ve always wanted this and I just never knew’. It has sirens and rescues and bad guys and false relationships and real marriages and rings and drama and romance. It honestly reminds me (in the best way) of an exciting romance novel and I’m so jazzed there’s still one part left to it.

The Bachelor by Sweetgirl2019

After the events of high school, Michael, Isobel & Max moved to California while Liz, Maria & Kyle stayed in Roswell and Alex went to war overseas. Once his enlistment period ends, Alex gets thrown into something that brings him and Michael back together again.

So I think this might be my favourite to see updated right now. It should be a run-of-the-mill fluffy AU, yet the author threw this incredible curveball by using the alien background in a canon divergence to turn The Bachelor into both a romantic dramedy for the boys, but also keeping the looming threat of people finding out about aliens in the background. Also, I think this is top tier pining that you will actively feel in your own chest, that’s how good it is. 

blink back to let me know by haloud - Roswell New Mexico

Alex doesn’t have important conversations over the phone when he can avoid them. It feels too much like going in blind. But in some ways, the phone makes it easier–it’s easier to break when no one’s looking.

It’s Mylex and the 5th in a series, and every part is worth reading, but I definitely re-read parts 4 and 5 a lot. It’s so well written and the dynamic is mwah and I love how Kyle fits into this. One of my favourite pieces in this is how Kyle reacts to his father in relation to Michael & Caulfield and it’s an amazing read.

built this house on memories by @villanellve

He wakes up eight years in the future, and everything is strange, but Alex is there.

YOU GUYS. If you were to write a list of tropes I adore, this would be way up there at the top because of how much I love it. I am a sucker for a character having to be removed from their situation to learn (whether it’s an alternate universe or the future or the past), but this one is so achingly painful and perfect and hopeful. I love the callout that the situation is almost too hard for Alex, I love the resolution at the end on Michael’s part, and you could just soak in the happiness and comfort of their future lives if you let yourself.

Can’t Get No by one_flying_ace

“They’re on round two already,” he says, tilting his head towards the truck again, “or maybe three.” Guerin grimaces, and that’s fair; it’s his brother, after all. “You know how they’re feeling. Could I handle it, if you stopped-” being in control, he doesn’t say, but Guerin shudders. “I’m good, Alex. Just keep the hell away.” (Or: alien sex rocks don’t make them do it, but they sure do help.)

Sex pollen/sex-or-die fics are pretty much a requirement, but this is my absolute favourite and I have re-read it more times than I can tell you (let’s put it at six or seven?) The restraint that Michael has in this is amazing, but the mental images of it are incredible as well. I loved Max and Liz’s secondary presence as well and how each character was tonally perfect down to the little things (like Max not noticing Michael’s sex marks). What a good. What a hot. What amazing.

Constant as the Northern Star by celzmccelz

Michael stares at Kyle. “But I’m a guy! How can I be pregnant?” Kyle looks embarrassed. “Well, you appear to have a fully functioning set of female reproductive organs—or, I mean, like, the kind of reproductive organs that are associated with a double X-chromosome in humans, so I’d assume that you probably became pregnant when semen was introduced into your reproductive tract—” “Jesus Christ, Kyle!” says Michael. He could have happily lived the rest of his life without ever hearing Kyle Valenti say the words “semen” and “reproductive tract.” Kyle’s eyes widen. “Have you been having unprotected sex?” “Oh my God, I am not having this conversation with you!”

Yes, going in, there are some warnings to be cognizant of. It’s mpreg, there’s a lot of medical stuff to go through, but I think this is my absolute favourite of the mpregs I’ve read and it actually comes down to Michael’s support system outside of Alex, namely in Kyle. There’s no sudden BFF bracelets being given, but that morality that makes Kyle Valenti who he is, that’s right there. Also, given that this is an mpreg fic, it delves into family and plot in a way that I haven’t often seen. Plus, you get the ‘getting back together’ Malex that I so deeply crave.

Contigo me encontré by beautifulcheat (Katalyst), ladynox

The Lockhart House was once a home, although it was never a happy one. Steeped in tragedy, it still stands today, in the heart of Old Town Roswell, attracting ghost hunters and those seeking to catch a peak of something from beyond the veil.

Contrary to popular myth, it wasn’t currently haunted (except by one paranormally talented docent). It was Michael’s favorite job and the best part of his summer home from UNM. Or at least was until Alex Manes was hired to man the gift shop, complicating an otherwise fun and easy job.

everywhere on earth you go - @evepolastried

Across the room, he can still see how Michael Guerin is looking at him. And that’s something different, something new, something so very familiar. The thrill of nerves, of guilt, of want. Alex smiles, and he starts to sing. (OR: Alex Manes grabs his guitar and gets the hell out of Roswell in 2008, and he leaves behind a letter. Here’s what happens ten years later)

I love this. This one has something incredible, and it’s something I called out, but it has this amazing work with pace. There’s a frantic moment at the bar and it’s chaos, and you feel it. It’s rushed and wild and crazy, but then everything slows down and it gets perfect. There’s Michael, there’s Alex, there’s music, and it’s such a great ride.

Family Matters by @bestillmyslashyheart

Isobel is telepathic. Most of the time she ignores it. She used to pick up on other’s people’s emotions but she’s long since learned to tune that out. Until one night she can’t. Someone, somewhere is in such a state that it’s spilling over and she’s left to deal with the brunt of it. Or, Michael keeps things close to the vest until he can’t. The night after Alex leaves him at the drive-in, everything he’s feeling bubbles up inside until it spills over onto Isobel. Suddenly he’s left with no other choice but to open up.

This is an early fandom piece, but I still think it’s held up to an immensely amazing rate. Not only that, but I love how it delves into powers, Michael and Isobel’s relationship, and the incredible idea of spillover, which I still actively wish would become canon because of this fic. I think it’s so IC, especially with Michael’s active wish not to talk about it that he screws himself over in his sleep and seriously, it’s such a good read for both Isobel & Michael stuff, but also Michael & Alex.

the first who ever did - nostaljinks

Five times Michael saves Alex + 1 time Alex saves Michael back.

I feel like there aren’t enough words that I can heap onto this of praise. This fic is well-written, well-plotted, well-thought out, well-everything. It’s a beautiful emotional roller coaster and will make you ACHE, but in a great way. It also is the right amount of long that you want more, but you also get it, and it’s just as quality as the rest. ABSOLUTE must read.

fish bowl by @sabrinachill

Alex makes a series of phone calls and bad choices that lead him directly here — an Airstream on the edge of a junkyard with a distractingly attractive mechanic showing him how the dining table converts into a bed that he can sleep on for just $75 a week. It is, of course, completely absurd. But there’s something cozy about the fuzzy yellow blanket on the bed/table and the sparkling sunlight streaming through the mostly-clean windows, in the smell of leather and motor oil and aftershave and summer storms, in the hopeful half-smile on Michael’s face. That’s his name — Michael. Alex’s potential new roommate and landlord. (AKA An AU About Quarantined Roommates Who Fall in Love)

I highly recommend anything by @sabrinachill, but this fic is a really clear argument about why. It’s an AU that involves quarantine, and you might think ‘oh, I’ve read that before’, but then it will take you down the unexpected road that you didn’t expect to go down, but as soon as you take that twist, you instantly realize how much better it is that way. Hats off to the clever plotting not just in Fish Bowl, but other fics! 

Funny How Things Never Change - @waroftheposes​

“What can I do for you?” Michael asks, turning to face Alex. Alex can tell the moment that Michael’s mind registers who he’s addressing, because the polite smile drops from his face and the hat falls from his hand. He stands there, eyes wide and unbelieving, looking at Alex. Alex takes a deep breath, willing his racing heart to settle. “Well,” he begins and is his voice shaking? “For starters you can get your stubborn ass over here and give me a divorce.” – (A Sweet Home Alabama AU)

Yooooo, guess who was bereft when she thought she lost this link. It was absolutely me. This AU makes me happy in so many ways, especially the storms in the desert motif that keeps coming back around, and also that it’s messy. I like that it’s not cut and dry, that it goes right up until the wedding, and that it takes some real talk for them to get back together. I love fics where they all get to be human and this one is just so good. 

I Know Nothing Stays The Same by aewriting

“Alex doesn’t believe in miracles until one happens to him. His father has a hammer in one hand and Alex’s throat in the other. As Alex’s consciousness fades, he’s dimly aware of movement. His father’s about to swing the hammer, and this is how Alex will die.” When an unexplainable force puts a stop to Jesse’s attack in the shed, Alex and Michael are forced to go on the run. Leaving Roswell is an easy decision, but navigating the consequences of that choice months and even years later proves to be much more complicated.

I think this one became a must read very early on, but then it’s continued to deliver. There’s been a few stories that delve into the characters getting therapy, but there’s a whole chapter here where it genuinely feels cathartic as we go through the process with Alex. This fic also is an excellent and long version of an AU I think that we’ve all wondered, about what would happen if they ran away, and it’s so well written and so real that I know I will be re-reading this a ton. Like many of the others, why I love it is because it’s not perfection, but it’s the kind of real where I want to wrap myself up in it. 

i won’t go, i can’t do it on my own by @queersirius

alex tries to let go by giving back the pieces of michael he’s kept

Millie has a bunch of AMAZING AUs (guys, the 10 Things I Hate About You is something I never thought I’d get, especially from a favourite author), but i think this one is actually my favourite, especially when it comes to the ship piece that Alex has. Again, when I talk about ‘fics that make me want to be better’, this one was one. The writing is engaging, the characterization is fabulous, and the emotions are so honest and real. Then there’s this line, like a gut punch:  “Because it’s the last thing I have of you,” he admits. “The last piece of you I have to let go of.” which I love because it’s still Alex’s journey, an honest attempt to offer closure (if closure is wanted). 

in some other life - @spaceskam​

michael tries to build a time machine, but ends up in a different reality all together

There are a lot of these that have been written and they are all quality, but I love this one especially because of how we get into Alex in the other universe, get the glimpse of this unknown Michael, but also the scene that strikes this one out for me is that Alex doesn’t want to let him go. I love that Alex gets to be selfish, that he begs for him to stay, and that we don’t get the automatic happy ending in that, but there’s still the hope for it. Also, Alex the Angel, unf. 

intimate encounters of the third kind by @alexmanes

Three years after Antar and its people take Earth under their wings, Roswell becomes the epicenter for human-alien relations between both planets. It doesn’t take very long for Alex Manes to find himself embroiled in a scandal that threatens this intergalactic partnership, all thanks to a beautiful man named Michael Guerin who is not nearly as human as he claims to be.

Okay, so, if you like No Love Like Your Love, the truth is that you have this fic to thank. This was my first introduction in RNM fandom as to what a really amazing fic could be that incorporated the royalty elements into the pairing. Once 1x12 aired and we met Michael’s mother, it was pretty much a done deal that I wanted to do something that played with that, but this is the actual inspiration. It’s well plotted, it has a great ensemble cast, and plays with the kind of care that it takes to know your plot inside and out, but also to leave breadcrumbs that guide the reader along. It’s very methodical in the sense that nothing is by accident and it has you on the edge of your seat.

It’s a long road back to you by @magsthemagical

Michael finds out that Alex is dating Forrest and he’s okay with it, until he’s not. Maria suggests a double date to show they can all hang out as friends. But they can’t… not really. [OR the one where Michael & Alex realize that they belong together and so they say goodbye to their respective relationships and start anew]

Honest truth time - in terms of ‘ships, while I always love people to ship and let ship, my personal preference for both Michael and Alex is one another, so both Maria/Michael and Forrest/Alex aren’t things that I usually seek out when trawling Ao3. This fic is so good to all parties involved. No one is a villain and I appreciate that they get to talk about things like Alex’s reticence to do certain things in public, but also being aware that Alex deserves to have something new as much as Michael.

Last Stop: This Town by @ubiestcaelum

Someone asked what it would have been like if Michael had gone home with the Evan’s and I couldn’t let it go.

Am I cheating because I requested this? idk, maybe, because another one I requested will end up here too. I am addicted to the idea of Michael getting the support system he needs, but THIS FIC takes it to the most impossibly amazing level and fleshes out the Evans parents in such an incredible way. I love that it’s not super sunshine and rainbows, but it’s an honest telling of raising kids (and maybe too many kids versus what you expected). I know this is only in progress (several today will be), but even as it is, it’s worth reading multiple times, because I know I have.

let me count the ways by @queersirius

liz ortecho isn’t allowed to date until her snarky, determined-not-to-date brother, alex ortecho, does. luckily, one of her suitors has a plan. well, max goes to isobel for a plan, which involves getting their brother, michael, to woo alex. or, the 10 things i hate about you AU

Obviously this needs to be here as I desperately pleaded for it to exist, but it’s so beyond what it might be as a mini tumblr ficlet and has become a whole world. It’s not just a great Malex story, it’s an amazing story for all the characters and really fleshes out a world, but weaves in the RNM characters perfectly, but also gives me a dynamic I want more of, in Alex being an Ortecho. It’s not quite finished yet, but Millie has never steered us wrong and I can’t wait for more.

Loathly by @aewriting

When King Manes and his sons are caught illegally hunting on Antarian lands, King Noah gives King Manes a choice - correctly answer a riddle or accept death. A year-long search for the correct answer ensues, leading the youngest son of the king, Alex, to strike a bargain with a mysterious woman who claims to know the answer. This is an AU of the Arthurian legend “Sir Gawain and the Dame Ragnell.”

Love at First Sass - @daffietjuh

Taking a class of 30 high school kids on a school trip to an Air Force base was about as exhausting as it sounds, luckily, the Captain giving them the tour is perfectly capable of handling a group of rowdy teenagers. Michael may be slightly in love Okay, so first of all, if you haven’t read any of the author’s other work, you should. The AUs are fantastic and the hockey one is still one of my favourites ever, but this one also just was exactly what I needed. It was sexy and flirty and fun, but also fit their personalities perfectly!

Everything in the Michael Sanders AU, by prouvaireafterdark which is a fantastic series that gives us what we all wanted, which is Walt Sanders giving Michael the home he deserved (and getting one right back).

My love is a life taker by @jocarthage

By the time he turned 15, Captain Alex Manes had been to every war zone and unofficial conflict the United States of America was involved in. It wasn’t regular practice, or even heard of, for a Colonel to bring his son along on combat missions; the exception was if the child had been identified as Time Aware, able to travel in time along their own timeline using stolen alien technology. So here Alex Manes was, 28, and ducking bombs, killing who he’s told to. On his way back from a mission, Alex slips into another timestream. It should be impossible. But he can hear a child crying and he heads towards the sound. This is the story of how Alex saved Michael and Michael saved Alex, with lots of time travel shenanigans and angst.

This story is incredible for so many reasons and one of them I continue to praise is the balance. It’s an Alex driven story, but you can break his life down into friends, mission, family, and Michael, and often those elements combine, but there’s never any update that doesn’t give you enough (imo). It’s excellent writing with engaging OCs and wonderful plot, and the most incredible love story.

not in this world (or the next) by @hannah-writes

It isn’t until he realises he can’t find the keys for his fucking truck anywhere and that there’s mail on the table addressed to Mr M Evans that Noah called him ‘Evans’, too. He fumbles inside the wallet that he’d managed to locate and pulls out a New Mexico licence with his picture on it; he doesn’t have a black eye and a split lip in this one, his hair’s tamed and he doesn’t look like he’s gone three days without showering. His date of birth is stamped, clear and correct, but then where his name should read ‘Michael Guerin’, it reads “Michael Evans’ and the address registered on the license is that of Max and Isobel’s childhood home. Noah had also said ‘your mom’s’. Not ‘Mrs Evans’. It feels like a bucket of ice water’s dumped over his head as he finally accepts that something is very, very wrong. (aka, the fic spawned from a tumblr prompt about Michael waking up in a parallel reality.)

This one, guys. This is an absolute beast of angst and love and a really well plotted story, but also is really amazing for how it creates Mikey, but also creates motive behind what drives both Michael and Mikey in ways that are the same, but also different. Genuinely, this fic is a great read because you get so much attention to the characters while also driving along the relationships, and who they are. 

nursery sharks by christchex

Six firsts in the Sanders household and a second.

Otherwise Engaged by JustAsSweet

Alex Manes was perfectly happy with his job at Colden Records but when his visa is rejected and deportation looms, marrying his assistant Michael Evans is his only option. And when they make a trip to Alaska to see Michael’s family, everything becomes a lot more complicated.

AKA: The Proposal AU that no one asked for but I wrote anyway.

Shadow Work - @myrmidryad

After his discharge from the Air Force, Alex Manes is working as a shade - a professional ghost hunter - when Michael Guerin tracks him down. Alex left Roswell thirteen years ago and never went back, but overnight Michael’s family has vanished and the supernatural activity in Roswell has exploded, and he wants Alex’s help. Featuring: ghosts, more ghosts, metaphorical ghosts, and a lot of sex without talking about feelings. Also missing family members, government conspiracies, and gratuitous worldbuilding.

No, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. I can’t rec this enough. Literally, this is a novel-type rec. If this were a book on a shelf, I would be shouting that you need to go read it, because it is literally good enough to be a published work on a best-selling list. It’s so fucking good. Every time you think it can’t get better, it does. It has nuance and plot and world-building and it is So. Fucking. Good. I could sit here and sing praises all day and it still wouldn’t be enough. Please give yourself a holiday treat and read it.

The World Forgetting, By The World Forgot by Anonymous

Michael and Alex erase each other from their memories. It does not go according to plan. [Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Roswell style]

I mean, I could rec anything by Anonymous and it would be worth your read. They’re so good and so in character,  but this one is my favourite. It’s angsty as fuck, don’t get me wrong, but it plays with the movie plot in such a Roswell-specific way that makes sense that I honestly never even compared or contrasted it to the movie past the first few beats. The pain is visceral, and the memory loss segment is incredible, but also delivers on a positive ending. 

To Trust Love by @laughsalot3412 

The prisoner’s voice sounded like home. He could have been raised in Roswell, the way his accent stretched his vowels. He definitely hadn’t been. Alex would have remembered eyes like those. (AU where Alex Manes goes on an undercover rescue mission in Caulfield Prison and forms a bond with one of the prisoners in the process.)

I don’t have enough words in the English language to praise this one. Honestly, I don’t. For one, the pace and the length is perfect. That we got the parts as quickly as we did was honestly such a treat, but then every part was just as high quality as the last. There are chapters in this one that made me go, “holy shit, this would’ve been a novel I read”, and then there are little emotional impacts where the tone shifts, but it works so well. It’s SO HOT, and the AU is so perfect, and also helped inspire the one that I wrote last night with the “genie”. 

Unwind Me - delgay

“Think you can manage that? Sitting next to me, without picking a fight?” Michael challenged. “Can you?” Alex returned. “No idea,” Michael admitted with a sideways grin that never failed to make Alex’s stomach turn over, “But I’m eager to find out.” Alex is avoiding everyone, but he can’t seem to escape Michael.

This whole fic is intensely amazing, but it got on my rec list for the absolutely electric scene with the dancing that was absolutely beyond incredible. You also get Michael courting Alex, which is something he utterly deserves and I love the way Michael goes about it. 

we feel so american by thepredatorywasp

“Papa’s on the spaceship again?” River asks, his bright green eyes welling with tears and his face growing red. “Comin’ back?” “Of course he is,” Alex says, smoothing down the son’s hair and adjusting the Mickey ears atop his head. “Always.” There is no easy way to explain to your three year-old that not only is he an alien, but his Papa is an alien and that apparently, Michael loves leaning hard into irony because he has gone on Space Mountain approximately ten times over the course of four days.

LOOK. I LOVE A SWEET KID FIC. The next rec will prove this, but this one will melt your fucking heart. I love it because it’s not perfect and easy. There’s difficulties, there are issues, but it’s Michael and Alex and their baby boy in Disney and if you do not come away feeling warmer from this, then I just don’t know. 

We’re Waking Up Slow by myrmyriad

“I think need a little time to process all of this. Um. Storm’s getting closer and I don’t really wanna get snowed in here, so…let’s just talk later, okay?” What if the storm that blew in during S01E10 came in a lot faster and heavier, and Alex was snowed in at the junkyard?

Again, fic that makes me wish that I could write as well as this. This one makes you feel it all. You’ll feel the cold, the wet, the storm, the pain, the hope, the healing. You feel the connection between Michael and Alex, and you’ll be left wishing at the end that this had been how canon went, but also that it’s justifiably not that far off from how it could have, had they taken a different tack, because of how well it’s written. 

What’s Up, Pregnant? by Marie_L

Michael Guerin is broke, practically homeless, and a knocked up secret alien. What now?

Speaking of kid fics, this mpreg is one that I really like, because if nothing else, it introduced the concept of mpreg using pods to me in the fandom, and I kind of went, “YES, of course”. I love that it’s got everyone rallying, but I mostly love the psychic connection between Michael and his baby, and the softness of loving sugar and Alex. 

With Love Overflowing by Nestra

"We both agree that this is not the place we belong, right? Please say yes."

Michael tossed his hat on the coffee table and dropped onto the couch. "If you mean that your dad's been dead since CrashCon and some kind of crazy shit is going on, then yeah, I agree."

(This one was for me for Secret Santa, it is just THAT GOOD that I want everyone in the world to read it)

x marks the spot (where we fell apart) by catching_paper_moons, preciousthings

“Don’t write it off,” Alex says, and Liz is so relieved someone is coming to her defense, even if it’s someone who already knew beforehand. “Liz and Kyle have ideas, and there are people in this room with literal superpowers. It’s pretty much our only option.” “Our only option?” Isobel scoffs. “What are we, Ocean’s Eleven?”

[blacklegsanjiii]

So I've had a thinking about mom!robin and child!sanji au and was wonder what are some of your head canons! Maybe robin picked up a 7-8 sanji when she was 16 or 17. This could maybe fit under nico!sanji but where robin actually adopts sanji. Feel free to make as fluffy or as angsty as you want I'm just looking for ideas :)

The first ever Nico!Sanji was them staying together and working in Baroque Works together and she did find him around eight. Instead of sending him to the Baratie to work. However I love the idea of Nico!Sanji and Robin just having a child/parent dynamic of overprotective Robin who found Sanji lost at age eight, starving and alone and she's not in much better shape at age seventeen. Sanji is so small and fits so well into Robin's arms and Robin who hasn't had companionship in so long, he holds her hand or one of them as they walk in deserted parts, when they camp for the night Robin wraps him in many arms and holds him close to her.

I feel like Robin would rarely let Sanji out her sight for years to come, between the Navy and whoever may or may not be after Sanji she likes to play it safe. Sanji is eager to please and follow her every word. She sings to him and tells him stories because she will not lose him like she lost everyone else. Sanji lets her, the first set of soft touches that he's had in years. He still flinches sometimes, involuntarily. It's not that he wants to, afraid he'll offend her or hurt her feelings. That she'll leave him, he doesn't want her to leave him, he likes her a lot! She's so nice and loving and caring, like his mom! He accidentally calls her mom about a year after they start traveling together and when Robin starts crying he thinks he fucked up and apologizes and says he can go! He's been alone before it's fi-!

But she cuts him off and pulls him to her and just says she's happy, hasn't been this happy in a very long time and that she would like it if he wants to keep calling her that. He nods and says he would like to, if she really doesn't mind. They stay sat together for a while and he does get used to calling her 'mom' more often than not. She loves it and smiles so fondly whenever he does it. They're inseparable basically.

When they make it to Alabasta, Sanji is fifteen and Robin is twenty-four, the coup has already happened and they begin to work for Sir Crocodile. Miss All Sunday and Mister Prince working together. It weirds some people out this teenager is calling this woman who definitely isn't actually old enough to be his mom 'mom' and she goes along with it and smiles so fondly to him. Crocodile doesn't bat an eye, the kid cooks well enough to make him not care and Miss All Sunday is on the hunt for Pluton so he really doesn't care as long as he gets results. If anyone does try to pick a fight with Sanji they do have to deal with Robin though, it doesn't happen often but Robin is known for being protective of him.

Sanji still cooks, he cooks for all of Baroque Works when he sees them or they're around and not off fulfilling their duties. He still wants to find the All Blue but he fights with his hands and he listens to Robin as she explains the difference in the poneglyphs to him. Their both multilingual and he knows how to read some of the language the poneglyphs are written in but not all, it's a tricky language to learn to read let alone put together. The other members of Baroque Works tend to tune them out when they start speaking other languages they don't understand, Crocodile sighs in irritation every time it happens.

Sanji is sent to Little Garden to help Mr. 3 ahead of the Strawhat's arrival and he finds it rather interesting that they're helping the princess of Alabasta, finds it hilarious the princess had to get help from pirates but then he watches them take down Mr. 3 and well, it would be nice to have company on the way back to Alabasta so he offers the Ever Pose in exchange for a lift, and he offers to cook for them as well. Only to be roped into the shenanigans of Drum Island and shit is his mom going to be pissed when she finds out he broke his fucking back kicking these idiots out of the way of a fucking avalanche. He's going to be in so much trouble, he's going to get glared at and talked to in several different languages oh no.

When they're in Alabasta, overthrowing his boss for pete's sake, he avoids Crocodile because he'll be in trouble otherwise, great trouble, but Crocodile falls and Alabasta is free. To keep appearances he pulls a gun on Robin on when she boards the ship, him having been fully invited into after Drum Island. She smiles sweetly at them and during the night, during Sanji's watch after the galley is cleaned, she finds him and they speak in a language only they know. She strokes Sanji's hair as he leans his head on her shoulder. No one really clocks it as they sail together, at least not until after Ennies Lobby and Water 7. When they get the Thousand Sunny and Robin is free for the moment and wants to live and has the freedom to live now. I feel like Usopp stumbles upon them sleeping together, just passed out curled up around each other and he fucking tells everyone their dating. Despite the visceral reaction from most of the crew. Robin and Sanji are asked about it at lunch the next day, Franky wiggling his eyebrows and then bawling when they say they're not an item, far from it. Everyone does notice they are close but can't figure out how close. They hear them talking in the other languages and falling into a mix of languages that no one else can understand.

After Thriller Bark and all the parties Sanji finds her and it's rare, he's taller than her now after all, but she pulls him into her lap and cries quietly as she pets his hair. He doesn't say what happened, but she knows he's keeping whatever promise he made to the swordsman but still. She doesn't begrudge him, never, not after what happened with Cipher Pol and Aokiji. Not after working in Baroque Works for a warlord. When he apologizes later she shushes him and makes sure he's calm and the tear stains have calmed before he leaves. She's so soft, still creepy but he's creepy right back. But then everything keeps going wrong and they're separated on Sabaody. The pacifistas, the quick vanishing and appearing in a random place, rushing to get back together, only to fail, only to see the note in the paper, only to rely on whisperings to see how their crew is doing. Ivankov and Dragon seem to be questioning of the relationship between the two of them after their meetings when they have tea with Koala and Robin. Robin simply says Sanji is her son which makes Koala lose it as Iva looks confused and Dragon shrugs it off because yeah, sure.

When they all come back together she checks Sanji over and nods approvingly in private, fussing over him publicly would only lead to the crew questioning them again when that wasn't the case. They could just come out and say it but they don't need to, not right now. Their convictions towards each other are strong and unyielding. Which is why Robin also goes to WCI, she doesn't dissuade Nami from going but does ask that she give Sanji grace. Nami gives her a questioning look but agrees hesitantly. There's so many questions going through her mind but she leaves without asking any, Luffy and them promising to bring Sanji back to them. When the crew is headed to Wano it's Usopp who asks Robin why she asked Nami to give Sanji grace for leaving. Robin clarifies that it's not for him leaving but what he's going to do while gone, what he feels he'll have to do to protect the crew. Zoro asks why she didn't go if she cares so much and Robin says every parent must let their child make mistakes, she's no different and that if she goes she will not listen to Sanji or Luffy and it could end just as badly as Ennies Lobby if she had. When everyone, Heart Pirates included, ask what she means when she said 'parent' she laughs and says she and Sanji's relationship is much more of a mother and her son than siblings, he was so small at age eight that it was easy to fool people while they ran and it became less of an act over time. Franky asks what Sanji would do while he's gone and Robin answers that she wouldn't put much past him, they were in Baroque Works for a while and have been running from the Navy for most of their lives so there's not much they wouldn't do to protect those they care about. Everyone just stares at her and Robin laughs lightly to herself and bids them all a goodnight and goes to bed.

When they're all in Wano again and Sanji is concerned about what Robin will do to him but she simply hugs him and says she's happy he's safe. Sanji nods and hugs her back and Franky is bawling saying it's SUUUPER to see mother and son reunited after everything that has happened which makes the rescue team balk at them in surprise and start questioning them. It's a long and awful conversation because Sanji didn't really tell Robin about his family either. When he's done though Robin simply hums and says it's a good thing she wasn't there because she would have defied his wishes because hell hath no fury like a scorned mother.

[neopoliitan]

RWBY Evermorrow Ep.7 Director's Commentary (or something)

The newscast segment was a late addition, we decided it was best to move a scene to a later episode for a better sense of narrative. I even already animated that whole scene so we don't need to worry about it!

We were gonna use Lisa Lavender here, but decided it was better to use Cyril due to availability of existing cast members as the scene was kind of last minute. We see it as Cyril being the guy in the studio, and Lisa being the reporter in the field.

Khaki's prison number is funny if you can decipher it.

Originally this episode was a big ol scene of RWBYCRDL recounting the mission to Oz and Glynda, then the punishments being dished out, but I was having such a dull time writing it that we decided it was best to cut the recap of the immediate previous episode and hope the teams' reactions did the work. I think it was for the best, a glorified recap episode seems like it would've been a waste of production; if it wasn't fun to write it wouldn't have been fun to watch.

It was a good time to bring in Glynda as she's always been Beacon's voice of reason around Oz's more whimsical tendencies. She's to-the-point and will make no excuses, which sells the teams being reprimanded more. Plus the added questioning of what exactly Ozpin is saying to Cardin offscreen is an interesting question in the viewer's mind.

(Also our Ozpin VA was kinda unavailable but for a very good reason lol)

Let's talk Dove. You've probably noticed he's very much the reasonable one on EM CRDL at this point, which is very intentional as going in I wanted to make them more interesting than Cardin and the Cardins. CRWBY once said Dove was the most skilled of CRDL, which is an interesting angle, and Doves are a symbol of peace which inspired me to make him the """nicer""" one, albeit a bit embittered by his lot in life. This episode has a montage of the moments in ep5-6 that really lay it all out that he's a little better than the others on his team, which is why Ruby vouched for him.

There was going to be a decent focus on family in this episode, but eventually we whittled it down to just Russel's and Dove's. Being like "oh and here's a character's parent being funny and mad" worked twice, but three to eight times might have gotten old lmao

Why did I pick Bertilak for Russel's guardian? Green. Mohawk. Moody. Not a big Faunus fan.

Okay so that's only part of it. Russel has been consistently portrayed as a bit of a doormat in EM, following Cardin's orders or deferring to the next biggest fish if he's not around. His actions around Bertilak imply that the latter is the source of all that behaviour.

Dove offers Ruby an "Olive Branch". I don't know if I can get more unsubtle than this.

Don't ship them they literally feel nothing about each other. That's canon.

Why did I pick Shopkeep for Dove's grandpa? Closed eyes, and Shopkeep is everywhere. That's literally the joke.

Pyke Rite from The Grimm Campaign.

There were a few characters I really wanted to get involved sooner. Can you believe it took us till Ep7 for Ren or Nora to say anything? It felt good to have all of JNPR and OP(A)L fully animated in the same scene, and was fun to set up dynamics like Oscar being a fanboy, Alyx being a little shit and the two teams generally getting along.

In comparison to 6 this episode was a lot calmer and a lot more talk-y, but hopefully we managed to make it fun. The animators and VAs did amazing as always (the former has basically eclipsed my efforts at this point), and I'm looking forward to ep8 very much! Bigger and better!

If you have extra questions about this ep you can shoot me an ask, I'm always down to self-indulge lmao

[vaxieth]

because something really did ask, have a much too long post about my thoughts on laudna’s individual dynamics with the rest of bells hells.

under the cut because it’s almost 3000 words.

laudna/imogen

i struggle to find something to say about imogen and laudna that hasn’t already been said a million times before. the core concept—the thesis—of their arcs, together and separately, is choice. so much of their backstories are defined by helplessness. laudna was chosen and killed because she happened to look like someone else, she was resurrected because she happened to be there. imogen’s mother left, she was burdened with powers she didn’t understand and meant constant pain and isolation. so, they make sure to constantly emphasize that the other person has a choice in everything. imogen tells laudna she only has to come back if she wants to, even though it would have devastated her to lose laudna forever. laudna tells imogen that the gods can’t control her, that no matter what her “destiny” is, if she wants, they can leave and live in a little cottage and raise horses together. the way they love each other unconditionally is all the more incredible given how cruel the world was to them for so long. laudna’s “you make me better” is true for both of them. they give each other a place to be vulnerable and feel all their messiest, worst feelings because they know the other one won’t judge them. they’ll support each other no matter the choices they make.

something i’ve mentioned quite a few times but never gone in depth about is that imogen and laudna do have a fairly significant age difference, and i do think that affects their dynamic. on the one hand, they both have a bit of arrested development—imogen due to her isolation from the rest of gelvaan from 18-26, laudna because she died at 20. on the other, laudna has so much more life experience than imogen. she spent almost 30 years traveling and interacting with the world even if was mostly people trying to kill her, maybe even because of that. the “laudna is imogen’s aunt/mother/older sister” takes were obviously ridiculous, but laudna does canonically look at imogen and see someone young who she wants to protect in a way she never was. she said as much to fcg after the gnarlrock fight. laudna acts as imogen’s rock, her tether if you will, a lot of the time, and part of the reason she can counterbalance imogen’s anxiety is because of the experience that comes with age. for example, during their conversation in episode 49, laudna is able to stay more “rational” and level-headed even when imogen is scared and overwhelmed. 

one of my other favorite things about them, specifically from laudna’s point of view, is that with a few exceptions (the gnarlrock fight, her jealousy of frida), she doesn’t seem insecure about their relationship. again, during episode 49, laudna mentions that she knows they haven’t talked in a while, but she didn’t worry because they “transcend words.” she didn’t need outside assurance from imogen because she felt confident in their love for each other. something i love about that episode 39-49 period is that they didn’t interact a lot, but when they did, they slipped right about in the same kind of intimacy they’d always had—imogen holding launda’s hand when they went into her dream together, laudna’s protectiveness of imogen after she interacted with ludinus. but anyway—that confidence is why i believe the transition from friends to lovers was so easy for laudna. laudna’s unsure of herself, of delilah and what she might do, but she’s absolutely not unsure of the love between her and imogen. that’s why as soon as imogen tells her she’s not a bad person, that she wants to be with laudna in that way, she lets herself embrace it entirely.

in conclusion: they invented romance, they’re the best canon pairing critical role has ever had and one of the best dynamics in general, etc., etc.

laudna/orym

oh my god, WHERE to begin? i feel like my take on their dynamic is slightly controversial. at the very least, i get more push back from people when i post about it than anything else, so let me start with this: orym cares deeply about laudna, i will never dispute that. however, orym is uncomfortable with laudna and has been since the very beginning of the campaign. she’s his friend and he recognizes her beautiful heart and resilient spirit, but he’s uncomfortable with her appearance and her messages in his head, with her macabre humor and her deadness. he can’t reconcile that laudna his friend and laudna the dead woman can’t be separated. laudna’s deadness is a part of her, one laudna embraces. orym, for better or worse, is “normal.” he grew up with a loving family and he had a husband and a career. will and derrig’s deaths were an unbelievable tragedy but one that never challenged his place within the status quo. (sidenote: i’ve always wondered if part of orym’s discomfort with laudna come from the fact that her proximity to death is a reminder of the resurrections will and derrig never got.) he sees himself as a follower, someone that doesn’t stand out, then there’s laudna, who does nothing but stand out. 

something i find fascinating is that orym is the first person to find out laudna’s backstory, and it affects him so much he can’t sleep that night and takes a point of exhaustion. he even explicitly recognizes the dehumanization she’s gone through and how laudna’s relationship with puppets like pate and sashimi mirror that. yet, he still never apologizes for trying to disguise her appearance, something without even asking. yes, i get it’s tactical and for “safety” (though that argument falls a bit flat for me when there’s also a glowing rock person and a fully conscious automaton in the group, but whatever), but it still hurts laudna. even beyond that, orym always qualifies his friendship with laudna to other person, making some mention of how she’s dead-looking and isn’t that crazy, wow, almost as if he wants some validation that it—laudna—is weird (one he, interestingly, rarely ever gets, given how enraptured most of the other pcs, including guests, and even some npcs, are with her). he does this even in situations he absolutely doesn’t need to like, for example, when maeve says laudna “looks cooler than i thought.” all this just sucks. it’s not that the love isn’t there, it is. it just isn’t unconditional, and laudna deserves better than that.

finally: the delilah in the room. no, it isn’t orym’s “fault” delilah is back. yes, he was also having an extremely bad time during the bor’dor fight and it wasn’t his “responsibility” to save laudna from herself, but laudna is orym’s friend. he listened to laudna tell him the trauma delilah put her through, he fought through hell to save laudna from her, and still nodded because part of him thought maybe delilah could help him and that was selfish. the fight against ludinus is important to of the bells, but for orym, it’s personal. it’s been his mission for six years. meanwhile, laudna is the one with the least enthusiasm about this. she has no connection to the gods. in fact, she actively thinks they dislike her, but he’s willing to sacrifice not just his safety, but the safety of her and all his friends for a cause they never set out to fight for.

in conclusion: i want to put them in a salad mixer together and watch them go around and around and around and around and around, then let them out to scream at each other a little.

laudna/ashton

if i had to explain laudna and ashton’s dynamic in one word, it would be “projection.” i adore their relationship, it’s one of my top 5 c3 dynamics, but oh my god, so much projection, and it’s so interesting because of that. ashton thinks he understands laudna, but in reality, he doesn’t at all. i’m an absolute sucker for characters that look very different on the surface but in reality are much more similar than they know, and ashton and laudna are that to a tee. they are very much narrative parallels especially regarding their feelings of “brokenness” and how their traumas are physical, visual parts of themselves, but the ways they diverge are almost more interesting.

certain people have said that her conversations with ashton are the only time laudna is “honest” or that, at the very least, she’s more honest with him than she is with anyone else, and i couldn’t disagree more. laudna can be a joyful, optimistic person and deeply traumatized with a core anger she hasn’t truly processed. laudna is a high-charisma character, and in my opinion, part of how that manifests is her ability to adapt her demeanor to the person she’s talking to. she speaks gently to imogen the same way she matches chetney’s hyperactive energy when they go sky-sailing. of course when she’s with ashton, who makes no effort to hide his anger and bitterness and doesn’t want her to be soft, she isn’t. none of these laudnas are more “real” than the others, they’re all laudna. what those people, and ironically, ashton themself, don’t get, or won’t let himself get, is that all those things can be true at once.

with ashton specifically, i don’t think they want to believe that because then they’d have to admit that growth and healing is a real possibility because anger is so much easier to deal with. people talk most about orym’s choices during the bor’dor fight most, but i’m fascinated by ashton’s as well. i wouldn’t be surprised if there was a part, no matter how small, that wanted laudna to break, to prove to himself that he was right and laudna was just as broken and fucked-up as them. so, laudna killing bor’dor was almost vindication, evidenced by their “what have i done?” “nothing i haven’t done.” exchange afterwards.

i don’t want this to sound like ashton doesn’t care about launda, they do. ashton cares about her so much, and besides imogen and fearne, is the most unabashedly into laudna’s aesthetic. i love how much they love all the weird shit she does. i love how protective ashton is of laudna, especially during battles and their willingness to go above and beyond for her—he carried laudna when she was dead despite his chronic pain without complaining once and were willing to make a deal with hexum after going through an entire museum heist to repay their debt. i love the moments when ashton sees how much laudna is struggling and tells her, as gently as he can, to take a moment and do what she can to ground herself. i love that when laudna way too dramatically assumes they kidnapped imogen, their response is “that’s very fair.” it’s all wonderful, and i love them.

in conclusion: I LOVE THEM SO MUCH AND I WANT TO LOCK THEM IN A ROOM AND FORCE THEM TO TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS FOR HOURS.

laudna/fcg

laudna and fcg have been getting more attention in the past few days for obvious reasons and that has me rubbing my hands together maniacally because even though they have very little actual interaction, the subtext is delicious. 

besides ashton, fcg might be the character laudna parallels the most, especially their struggle with their humanity (if they’re even human at all), which isn’t helped by the constant dehumanization they face from outsiders, including the almost continuous comments they get when they meet someone new. people look at launda and see a horror while they look at fcg and see a novelty (he’s a robot with personality??), and those both suck. i think, for fcg, laudna is an uncomfortable reflection of himself because everything they’re afraid is true about themself is true about laudna. finding out they had a soul was such an important moment for his character (also remember his early campaign habit of calling other people “soul-touched folks”). as a hollow one, who knows if laudna even has a soul. if i’m honest, fcg seems to think less of laudna than the rest of the party (see: him calling her a “former person,” his speech before casting turn undead including, “no offense to laudna but can you please shine your light and wipe these evil, dead souls off the face of this flat planet?”) and that’s probably why. they have such strict ideas about “good,” which has become “godly,” and “wrong,” (“ungodly”), and within that framework, everything seemed to point to laudna as “ungodly,” which is why their empathy towards her is lacking. 

the biggest conflict between fcg and laudna right now is obviously their feelings on the gods. the changebringer brought fcg purpose and tangibly helps them on a daily basis. of course they want to share this incredible thing with everyone they meet, especially his friends. yet, time-and-time again, the world has shown laudna the gods don’t seem to care about her. before someone says anything, pike resurrecting laudna doesn’t automatically mean she has to trust the gods. clerics and paladins spent 30 years running her out of towns for existing and trying to kill her in the name of their gods. if the circumstances were different, there’s a good chance fcg could have been one of those people. for fcg, the world is black-and-white. for laudna, it’s all gray. laudna was able to have a conversation with imogen about the ruby vanguard’s message and the purpose of the gods because she understands the need to question things and thinks that’s a good thing even if she doesn’t agree with the conclusions. fcg’s not there yet, and until he is, their friendship with laudna will never be able to progress past where it is now.

in conclusion: please have a conversation, maybe even two or three. it’d be so good for fcg to learn the world’s incredible nuances and for laudna to see how faith in the gods can be an empowering force for good, not just something beyond her grasp.

laudna/fearne

out of all launda’s dynamics, this is the one i desperately want more of. we’ve gotten so little! almost all their moments are interactions between the three witches that tend to center imogen (making the red-string friendship bracelets and comforting imogen after she talked with relvin come to mind) OR center imogen and fearne’s mutual appreciation for laudna’s… everything. one of my favorite about fearne is that, like imogen, she doesn’t think laudna is gross and creepy, she thinks laudna is gorgeous and charming without any caveats. even ashton, who also loves laudna’s laudnaness, tends more towards “yeah, you’re disgusting and THAT’S why it’s great.”

the other main part of their dynamic i want to sink my teeth into is the coin-toss, more specifically fearne’s guilt over the coin toss. regardless of whether you think fearne lied (i personally find that headcanon FASCINATING but to each their own), she clearly feels so many emotions about having to pick whether to save laudna and orym that she hasn’t even begun to unpack. one of the few sole moments we’ve gotten of them was in episode 42 when laudna asked fearne to help teach her to cast fireball, and in it, fearne, unprompted, blurts out, “how’s it feel being alive again?” almost immediately. she also apologizes to laudna, says they’ll fight any piece of delilah that’s still in there, and tells her, “i missed you terribly for that moment in time.” even when laudna gives her the chance to make the conversation light-hearted, fearne stays so genuine, which is all the more-noteworthy because she’s usually so flippant and almost always keeps her real feelings close to her chest. 

some other examples of fearne’s guilt include: the 4sd where ashley said part of why she was so protective over imogen during their separation arc was that she couldn’t bear having to tell laudna anything happened to her and just this past episode when fearne’s protectiveness after laudna made her only cast first-level cure wounds on fcg after they cast turn undead.

in conclusion: PLEASE LET THEM INTERACT MORE. THERE’S SO MUCH JUICY POTENTIAL AND I WANT TO SEE IT EXPLORED.

laudna/chetney

i don’t have that much to say about them except that their dynamic is absolutely delightful. i love that we’ve gotten to see more of it in recent episodes, and i hope that continues. 

chetney exists at an interesting place between orym’s genuine discomfort and fearne and imogen’s complete enchantment with laudna’s undeadness. he is sometimes grossed out, but he also seems to accept it as a thing about laudna without too much judgment, or at least, that “judgment” is light-hearted in a way orym’s or even fcg’s isn’t.

i love that they’re the characters with the most life experience (even if laudna is technically the fourth oldest, fcg only has two years of memory and fearne is a 100+ but spent 99% of that time in one place) but also embrace being “childish” and silly together, like the entire sky-sail sequence! 

in conclusion: *gently holds* i just think they’re neat!

that’s all! if you read this whole thing, you get my eternal love and gratitude. thank you.

[fumifooms]

I've reached a certain point in the manga now where Sissel heckles Marcille and mentions how "half breeds" are sterile.

And now I can't get out of my head the idea of a Marcille who can't become a mother herself, but ends up being able to experience something of the sort through meeting Chilchuck's daughters (even if they are all grown already.)

And allow me to go further, but also imagine that there is a point where Chilchuck does finally bury the hatchet with his wife, but have come to accept that they just don't work anymore, and decide to divorce formally on amicable terms.

The daughters therefore all slowly get to know Marcille, and even without the intent of being motherly, she dotes on them all anyway (because they're just so cute and so sweet!), and they see how their crabby father's eyes goes soft when they see Marcille interacting with them that by the end of it, they corner their father and tell him they approve.

Yes!!! YES!!!

You seem to not have finished the manga yet so I want to avoid spoilers… But no if I’m going into this topic I’ll absolutely end up spoiling some things lol. So beware, spoilers in the links I put and under the cut! I also talk about this topic/dynamics headcanons a bit here, and here, and specifically about his wife and him reconciling or not here, and my fanfic Grind Me Down Sweetly has bits and headcanons like these, but it’s an aspect of marchil with lots of potential!! Not obligatory reading btw lol, I just like to keep things as tidy as I can with things I cover many times plus there’s more stuff I won’t say here. I’m gonna be talking for a while though!!

I feel she could genuinely get along great with Flertom and Puckpatti, their personalities seem pretty compatible! Meanwhile Meijack’s more reserved, but Marcille would grow on her too. Meijack 100% would be the one who sticks more around her father as Marcille and her sisters chat enthusiastically when she first meets them, and out of nowhere she goes "She suits you." and Chil spits out his beer, but he swallows back the urge to deny it and then agrees.

One of my marchil timelines is that they stay close friends for a long time after post-canon, before maybe or maybe not dating. I like to think that after they meet, Marcille starts exchanging letters with Flertom sometimes because they hit it off and Chilchuck is like "Why are you on first name basis with my daughter!!! WHY ARE YOU ON FIRST NAME BASIS WITH MY DAUGHTER!! WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN, STOP INFILTRATING ALL OF MY LIFEEEE-" <- Man who has her on his mind 24/7 and is kinda going mad over it. Hehe I’ll let you read the fic I linked in the beginning if that sounds fun to you!

I know that in my fic wips where confessions or proposals happen I tend to bring the topic of the daughters up. Here’s my favorite that lowkey guts me

Post-canon spoiler but I like the idea that when the Toudens die from age or one thing or another, if one of them forms a family and has kids (through adoption or anything) then at least over the centuries she’d still overlook the lineage of royals and would find a sort of solace from that, always being surrounded by lots of caring people. I think this is a bit healing for her single child self as well! Her notion of family and childhood are very tainted by loneliness and loss, and though she needs to accept that all hellos end with goodbye and find closure and happiness even through that, something can definitely be done about the loneliness! And as you can see with my fanfic wip, in a perfect marchil world I also think that she would fully become a part of Chilchuck’s family and generations down the line either people at family gatherings call her "great-auntie", or inversely no one really knows and just goes "oh her? Yeah that’s Marcille. She’s in the family -shrug-". The family dinners would be awkward at first since I imagine Chilchuck’s prejudices on elves come from somewhere lol, but it’d be so sweet.

But yes, back to the daughters! Marcille is 100% a mom friend who loves caring for her loved ones (I have a post examining that a bit here), there’s how she likes to bathe Izutsumi and Falin after all (Kui has said it herself that she loves when characters care for others in ways like that, which reflects in Marcille, and with Milsiril & Kabru or Mithrun & his caretakers, etc~), but I don’t think she’d actually want a kid herself if she had to choose, maybe she’d grow to want it one day but I think what kind of bonds she’s looking for currently are more platonic and such than familial in nature, that she wouldn’t want ro raise a child herself quite yet. She likes spoiling people she loves and caring for them in domestic ways, but not the ‘everything else’ part lol. So I actually think this works out great!! She 100% dotes on them as you said, but in many ways I think their dynamic would be a lot like gal pals chatting every once in a while, Flertom and her share in the latest gossip and they talk about fashion amongst other things! With Meijack being more akin to the usual stepmother dynamic where what ties them together is Chilchuck, until they grow to have a bond based on familiarity over time (I feel like due to these she’s the one that would have a mother-daughter relationship with Marcille the most since Flertom and Puckpatti would be more casual with her, but I basically think all the daughters and Marcille see each other as equals). Their common point above everything is caring about Chilchuck, and though of course Marcille would be ready to offer motherly comfort or support for them if they wanted it, the girls are pretty past that age so I don’t see it happening all that much, at least not in the first 5 years or so~ I think once Chil dies (probably not very late with how he drinks a lot of alcohol and was malnourished/"strict dieting" for what’s implied to be a very long time) the reverse is gonna happen, where Marcille is gonna be absolutely gutted and will reach out to the girls a lot to grieve together and spend time recovering together. Talking about him and whatnot. If his wife goes to his funeral and they meet, Marcille and her could potentially also have very interesting interactions.

Girl sure wishes she wasn’t right here :( Unbeknownst to him she’d be giving him lifespan buffs ad infinitum if she could

And! It was so easy for me to miss this detail when I first read The Adventurer’s Bible (the world guidebook) but Marcille’s mom remarried! Marcille has a stepfather herself! It’s interesting that Marcille’s relationship with him or her stance on her mom remarrying is left so open, but she certainly acts enthusiastic about families and kids so doesn’t seem like there’s a complex there. I think this would give her a lot of thoughts about potentially being a stepmother though! I think it might influence her in her casual attitude, where she doesn’t want to push herself as ‘the new mother’ and whatnot, and I think honestly if the girls ever wanted to vent to her about how their family situation made them feel, Marcille and them could have really heartfelt and understanding conversations.

Ah yes ah yes, might as well unload my ‘Chilchuck has a second family of clingy asses’ timeline I adore: Marcille and Izutsumi, + the rest of the gang to a lesser degree~ I already linked a post in which I talk about how Marcille’s somewhat of a motherly presence for her, and Izutsumi’s relationship with Chilchuck is def rather father-like too (post going into that here)! A post-canon Marcille hc I love is that Marcille gets a cat~ A black one to fit with her witch aesthetic, and with how the cat hairs are black like the dresses she now wears all the time so it’s less apparent that she’s covered in them lol. It reminds her of Izutsumi a bit as she goes on her journey, it’s kinda like the chickens she had around her as a kid, she loves having things to care for and spoil AND also it’s the end place of her character arc about appreciating loved ones even if they’re short-lived, and having the courage to want to know and love them anyways… It always comes back to marchil and his stupid only 20 years left to live I swear 😭 I genuinely feel like Marcille tends to keep some emotional distance from others during canon to try and minimize that effects of loss would have on her, but more on that in another upcoming post. But yeah I feel like every time she sees a stray cat while strolling out she starts tearing up a little… She wonders if Izutsumi is okay and eating well and all… But she learns to live with not fully knowing, and optimism & being hopeful are her trademark thing so she puts them to good use! Sometimes her and Chil will hang out of his shop and they’ll see a stray cat. They start leaving some food out for them. Chil is all "Bad idea! They’ll become overly reliant on our food and it’ll be bad for them!" at first but he caves. So then they watch it feed on what they gave it, and she brings up what was both on their mind. "Do you ever wonder where Izutsumi went, if she’s alright…" "You say that as if she didn’t visit three months ago. Aren’t you supposed to be the one for who long periods of time mean little here?" And a silence falls, but then after a bit he finally replies, without snark. "… I do." Marcille’s cat would 100% be a stray she decided to adopt actually. I am seeing how a marchil fic being written centered around this would work~ Before she brings it to the castle and officially adopts it, she sees it standing out in the rain all pitifully in front of Chil’s shop once and she invites it in (to Chilchuck’s despair), and from then on it’s still a stray but it has a home to go back to. And it can showcase Marcille and Chil’s relationship alongside that metaphorically and it’s like… Domesticating love… 😭 I think I hold a Grind Me Down Sweetly sequel here~ Chilchuck is so the ‘doesn’t want a cat dad who ends up being the cat’s favorite’, both with his cat daughter and the actual cat lol, and Marcille’s not a cat but he certainly wasn’t looking for another romance so hey!! Chilchuck expected to live alone forever after his wife didn’t get back together with him, but surprise!!! Ok cat tangent over I promise <3

Meeting the stepmom energy… Plus the dwarven bachelor. And the king. Maybe he didn’t make up with his wife "like how well it goes in stories" like he hoped for, but her wish sure did come true!! She met his family!! :] I’m planning a huge character arc post about this part of their interactions in canon, but optimism and hope did at least half the job <3 Especially since he hadn’t seen his daughters in years too. She’s good for him!!! And he’s good for her!!!

<3

[sixstepsaway]

I don't get why people want to pretend Ed wasn't abusive. Why do people insist on making everything into binaries? Yes, Ed has been a victim of abuse. Yes, he has been abusive. Both things can be true. I love him because I think he's in interesting and I understand where his pain is coming from (even if I think S2 was a missed opportunity in terms of character development). But anyway, thank you for writing about this because maybe some folks genuinely don't recognize abusive trends.

I think it has a lot to do with the fandom culture of only being allowed to like "wholesome" ships.

Look at it this way: when season 1 was airing, Ed and Stede were, in fact, very wholesome. Sure, they had some moments of lesser wholesomeness, but overall they were pretty wholesome and sweet and gentle. They were sweet and finding love in middle age and it was adorable. They had a general stamp of fandom approval that they were, in fact, Wholesome And Good To Ship™.

If you look at other fandoms, you'll see a lot of times there's the Good And Acceptable Ship and then there's the Bad Ship (or ships) and the Bad Ship is always slapped with the "oh that's actually incest!" label when they've, idk, grown up together, or "oh it's abusive!" because one of them one time made a bad joke or something, or "power dynamics!" because one is 27 and one is 25 or one is short and the other is tall or whatever, and yeah sometimes the Bad Ship is actually toxic or whatever (which is not a reason to not ship and enjoy it!), but they're put in neat little boxes: Good and Bad.

And for a lot of people, those boxes keep them safe. Last year, someone who was an Izzy Hands fan got doxxed because...? They liked Izzy Hands and shipped him with... I don't know actually. Ed? Stede? It doesn't matter, all I know is they got doxxed.

The side of fandom that thinks you should only ship the Good Ship are toxic and downright dangerous. It's happened again and again in numerous fandoms and just keeps happening.

So when at the end of s1, Ed turned around and cut Izzy's toe off and fed it to him, I think a lot of people panicked because shit, now Ed was Bad too, and if he's Bad then you can't like him or relate to him or ship him with the Good guy of Stede, so what the fuck do you do?

Obvious answer: Blame Izzy. Izzy's already classed as Bad, so put all the responsibility on Izzy for Ed's darkness and then it's safe to ship Ed and Stede again and no one can call you an abuse apologist or whatever for liking them together.

(To be clear: Shipping says nothing about your real morality. This is very clear for many reasons, one of which is... spend thirty seconds watching fans of the Wholesome Ships dox people and abuse people online lol)

So they spent all this time saying Ed was just scared and lashing out, and now s2 has come along and Ed is... well, abusive, canonically.

And for most of us, that doesn't really matter. We can still enjoy Ed and Stede or Ed and Izzy, we can throw ourselves into fanworks and enjoy the show for the things we like, and we can critique the things we have issues with (my problem is not Ed being written as dark and twisty and having a villain arc, my problem is the show writing it badly, exploring it badly, and then handwaving it, because it's shitty writing) and still really enjoy the vibes we got from the show.

But for people who are scared because they spent all this time saying Izzy fans should kill themselves for liking an abuser, well... now they have a choice: either admit Ed is an abuser and admit that liking a character doesn't dictate your irl morality, nor does it say anything about you aside from what you enjoy in fiction, or excuse away his actions, insist he's just a lil meow meow and continue feeling safe in their little bubble.

In a lot of ways I can't blame people for wanting to duck and cover from it. I mean, look at the shit people get for liking characters who aren't perfect, or talking about the imperfections of characters, or just enjoying complex narratives!

But what genuinely concerns me isn't anything to do with the fiction really, it's when people look at Ed's behavior in 2x01 and 2x02 and go, "Nah he's fine," because oh, honey, no, you are making yourself so vulnerable to real life abuse. That is what worries me, which is why I answered that one ask saying Ed wasn't abusive, it felt important to point out why he is.

Anyway, that's what I think is happening here. I think people are just scared that if they admit their fave has multitudes and isn't a perfect character who never does any wrong, they'll get doxxed and abused and harassed online.

I get that.

[bigtittiecomitte]

What are your thoughts on this video?? This was recommend to me and I watched it and I didn't really care for it..maybe it's just me but it feels like this person seems more salty about V not getting together with N instead of giving actually criticisms of why he didn't like the finale, in fact I've seen most people act act this way when it comes to the finale..it's been mixed since it released and more people have lately been finding reasons to find Nuzi *Problematic* and a bad ship with saying the whole N is dating is "sister" (Cyn) because of Uzi and the solver being in one together in the same body even though that's NOT the case!! Idk, part of the reasons I was never able to fully ship Envy was because of some of the toxic fans and V fans and how they treated Uzi as a character..even after the finale Uzi is still getting undeserved mistreatment and hate and it's truly unfortunate. People need to see and realize that although Nuzi is canon people are still allowed to ship whatever they want canon or not, and just because Nuzi is canon doesn't mean anybody can be a dick and jackass. People also shouldn't be sending threats to Liam and Glitch because of the finale, yes the finale was flawed but that doesn't make it okay to to doxx or hass the studio or creator, MD is Liam's show and he should allowed to do whatever he wants with this show, I've said this in my own post but I think many in this fandom truly took this show for granted and didn't really deserve it..although I'm grateful for Murder Drones and will forever cherish it as it's my comfort show, this fandom is truly a mess and I know that's all fandoms..but the MD community is just so toxic and I wished it was a much better and healthier fanbase. :(

https://youtu.be/mQ5xnKYHGoc?si=6bSwQpiPV10beX-b

I saw the video and holy fuck Media Literacy is DEAD

I’m all for hearing people’s opinions but it really does piss me off when people just start saying crap without properly understanding the characters they’re talking about

For anybody not wanting to check out the video, basically the guy is saying that N and V should’ve gotten together and N and Uzi should’ve just stayed friends or even have a “sibling dynamic” (pretty much stuff we’ve already heard before lol). The issue is that if you have been watching the show with your two eyes you would know that N and V getting together in the end would actually be WORSE for N and V

N and V’s relationship is very catered to the past, present and future. In the past, N and V had a thing for each other in the manor (maybe even dated) then we have the present where N and V are now genocidal robots with the intent of killing worker drones for oil. N still has a crush on V prior to meeting Uzi while V tries to protect her and N by continuing on their path of death due to her trauma of Cyn and everything that happened in the manor, she tries pretending to forget his name and hides secrets from him, which makes him upset and lash out on her. Then we cut to the future, N and V are now friends and living in the bunker with the rest of the worker drones, they’re healing but they’re doing alright now that there’s finally no hiding secrets from one another

The problem with a lot of people complaining that Envy should have been canon instead is the fact that their entire relationship throughout Murder Drones is all about moving on and the fact that not all romantic relationships end with them being happy together. N and V could never have what they had in the manor again because not only have they moved on from each other but they’re also building up their platonic relationship brick by brick. N and V were never proper friends and never got the chance to rekindle until Uzi came along, which another thing I want to talk about

I see so many people hating on Uzi for being the reason as to why N and V didn’t become endgame but if it wasn’t for Uzi. N and V would’ve never ended up where they are today like if they never met Uzi then they would just end up killing all the worker drones and dying after all the oil is gone, N and V wouldn’t even get to rekindle their relationship because it would be stuck to how it was before Uzi came along. The reason as to why Nuzi became endgame and not Envy wasn’t because Liam favoured one ship than the other but because N and Uzi were actually communicating. They were friends and understood each other’s trauma and feelings, which is what made them work. N and V didn’t have that until N lashed out on her and she got her character growth

The only part I can somewhat agree with is that we should have seen V apologise to the real N (she did apologise but it was to a fake N instead) but I’m at least happy that real N was there to know that she was being sincere with her words. They’re all traumatised characters, none of them deserved what they went through

He says that Uzi should’ve stopped having a crush on N which leads to N and V getting together and I just full on stopped the video because how are you seeing the interactions between N and Uzi and thinking that Uzi should have just stopped having a crush on him when N’s feelings for her were also the same, them not being canon would have actually made no sense because of all the moments we had got of them, hell even them implied to be dating in Episode 7 lol. N and V getting together in the end would have been way more rushed than the ship of what some envy shippers actually claim to be rushed

Not only that but him calling V “jealous” of N and Uzi being in love because apparently that’s what she wanted with N, like hell did V tell you that? She’s happy for them even if she doesn’t look like it (I mean I don’t like seeing couples in public either lol)

Nuzi being canon doesn’t mean you have to stop shipping other ships that you find better and it’s totally ok to be disappointed that Envy wasn’t the main ship. But it doesn’t give people the right to just make fake screenshots of Liam’s twitter and blaming Nuzi shippers for the reason as to why Nuzi became canon (apparently we all did a meeting and pay for Nuzi to be canon lmao). Remember that fanfiction and fanart exist my dudes, support your local AU’s too

Basically Envy is a very tragic ship and it was always written that way and guys please stop mischaracterising V it hurts

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

i wonder if u agree, but sometimes when i read old man rust x younger oc, it's weird to me picturing somebody in early/mid twenties bc, realistically, that would make the oc around his daughter's age, and i don't think rust can go for that. i say that as somebody who's 23, so i don't mean to exclude younger women or whatever. anyway, that's why i really like your oc bc she seems like an actual match for rust and not bc of age, but bc she's just the type of person i can see him falling for, i guess? like directly canonically in the series, so yeah, thank you for your work!!! but that got me wondering: when u started to write, did you have somebody in mind already and thought of how that sort of oc will work with rust, or did u ask urself what sort of person compliments rust best? sorry if this is too much trouble.

NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE i think this is acc a super interesting ask!

my opinions below the cut…

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

RIGHT so i wanna preface by saying EVERY SINGLE rust oc story ive read so far has meat to it, like the authors know their shit and they should get their due snaps and kudos

i think i read younger ofcs with like a pinch of salt in the sense that i know it’s a bit crazy — btw this is coming from someone who had a “relationship” with a much older man at the ripe age of 16 — but i think it’s still good to read

things we experience can be ugly and uncomfortable but it’s still real and a part of me appreciates like keeping it real 💀 this is going to sound a little femcel of me but let’s be honest, sex is about power and the dynamics of that power give intricacies to stories that make them interesting! rust is a man (😔) and have you ever seen that one study of like ages of women men find most attractive and it’s a consistent 20 even as men get to like 70

yeah

keeping it uncomfortably real but real nonetheless

true detective is southern gothic and what i love about southern gothic is that it doesn’t shy away from touching on the less palatable corners of human existence/nature/WHATever. do i see why a daughter woman child thing as a love interest to a middle aged man with a dead baby is off-putting? YES. do i still read things along those lines because it’s interesting? ALSO YES. because more often than not creators are self-aware and explore these topics with nuance, which i respect massively

now onto like the sort of second part of you ask, beautiful anon…

when writing The Idler Wheel, idk if i was thinking as deeply when creating an oc as i was fixated on the weirdness of rust and ocs like yearning 😭? for each other, and the fact that he felt anything at all was a massive woaaaahhh for them both. the way we experience / act on desire (not even sexual just any kind but actually maybe especially sexual) says so much about a person and i guess that’s the single point from which i branched out, and every other aspect of her came later

the reason she/oc is not like twenty is because, similar to what you said, i cannot picture 1995–2002 (around that time) rust with a youngYOUNGGGG woman becaaaause holy shit i think he’d just die, like out of sadness or hurt, i think he wouldn’t be able to look at her at all 💀

old dog rust on the other hand does not give a shit about doing what’s “right” imo if that makes sense, like he’s who he is and he feels what he feels and i think this version of rust would be much more receptive to a younger woman, even if it’s “wrong” because he literally just doesn’t care anymore

i think the only reason The Idler Wheel girl was able to sneak her way in around that time is because she’s grown and a part of his workplace and therefore she should be “safe”, no more than any of his coworkers. so he lets her in his space and he lets her bring him coffee and he lets her do him favours because she’s just like the others and he just has to tolerate her, just has to see her

but of course she’s not like his coworkers and he can’t place why he wants her so bad, only that he does, which is bad because she should be mundane and she should be nothing and yet unfortunately he wants to be her dog

does this answer your q or did i go off on a tangent

i love you anon 💕💕💕💕