#i legitimately do not know if it's considered bad form to post your own fics on tumblr? i hope it's not

[tinyrobotic]

After Jowd turns himself in for Alma's murder, Cabanela confronts him in the interrogation room. Cabanela wants the truth and Jowd needs him to leave.

The resulting conversation doesn't go the way either of them want it to.

“I’ve seeeen you punch a fella clear across a rooom, Jowd. And now you’re claiming you kiiilled Alma.” Cabanela’s hands were shaking again. “You’re saaayin’ you murdered Alma, my friend and the looove of your life, and after murderin’ your wife you caaan’t even hit me like—” Jowd’s fist connected Cabanela’s jaw.

[fozmeadows]

race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.  

[libsterslobsters]

Whole Lotta Love

Synopsis: For some people, Valentine’s Day is another word for "stress", especially when you don't know what the other person is expecting. Several years into their relationship, Bucky’s pretty sure he has a good understanding of the Reader, until a word from Sam makes him question everything he thinks he knows. The race is on to make their first Valentine’s Day since saying their vows a special one, but as per usual, fate has it's own ideas about what will make the holiday truly memorable

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem! Enhanced! Super-soldier Reader

(Reader can see bits and pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)

Warnings: Smut, Fluff

Author's note: This fic contains references to earlier stories. For more information, click the series masterlist link. As always, the reader is unnamed so that this can be read as a self-insert, but at this point, I think of her as an OC.

The song referenced is Hearts Don't Break Around Here by Ed Sheeran

Series Masterlist

A The Song Remains The Same Fic

---------‐-----------------------------------

“So, Valentine’s Day.”

Bucky doesn’t look up from his laptop (or more specifically, the field report he’s typing) at Sam’s words. Despite his concentration, he can tell that his partner is staring at him, boring holes into his back with his gaze.

“Uh-huh.” He’s listening, but so far, he doesn’t care.

“What are you doing for it?” For Valentine’s day? Um…

“Not much.” It’s a Tuesday this year, right? Then probably working, like most other people, he’d imagine.

The room is silent as he types, so Bucky assumes that settles the matter. That is, until Sam mutters a quiet, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“About what?” How many paragraphs does he have to type before he can pass this off as a full report? When he joined the Avengers, he thought the hardest part of his job would be the bad guy of the week, not doing paperwork!

“You’re really not doing anything for Valentine’s Day? Seriously?” He nods absentmindedly and clicks the save icon. He’ll finish this tomorrow. It’s five o’clock. Time to head home. Home to-

“What’s your wife gonna think about that?” He shrugs and cuts the power to the laptop.

“She thinks that the whole holiday is a rip-off. See you Monday?” He turns around for confirmation, only to catch Sam staring at him, mouth hanging wide open. “What?”

“A rip-off?” Is he just going to be stuck repeating himself?

“Yep.” Told him that the first February 14th they spent together.

“And you actually believed her?”

He nods. “She’s not one to lie.”

Sam nods incredulously. “Uh-huh. And are you planning to ever have sex again?”

He’s not going to dignify that with an answer (because really, isn’t it obvious?).

“Fine.” Sam shrugs. “You do you, man. All I’m saying is, if I had a wife who looked like that-” he indicates the lock screen of Bucky’s phone (a picture of her laughing, telling him to put away the damn camera after wrestling the dog for the tie to her favorite robe). “-I’d have my V-day plans set up a month in advance.”

Normally Bucky would take what Sam says with a grain of salt, but he is after all a man out of time, so maybe it’s worth considering that his partner may be right.

“What would you suggest I do?”

“Outside of the bedroom?” He narrows his eyes at the Falcon. “Okay, bad joke.” Sam scratches at the back of his head, thinking. “I don’t know, man. That’s your girl. You know her best, but flowers are always a good place to start.” Good to know that hasn’t changed since the 1940s. Although, last time he brought her flowers, she spent the afternoon sneezing until he eventually convinced her that it was okay, he wouldn’t be offended, she should throw the damn things out. Then again, that was before she was a super soldier.

“Flowers.” He repeats, earning a nod from Sam.

“You can get creative. Do a little research. But I’m just saying, when a woman waits five years for you to reappear, the least she deserves is a few flowers.” On that, they can agree.

He must bid Sam some sort of goodbye and make his way through the Avengers compound, but he’s unaware of anything until he’s in the parking lot, sitting behind the wheel of his car, googling “What to do for your wife on Valentine’s Day.” There’s a web page that boasts twenty different selections. Might as well give it a look.

___________________________________________________________________________________

She’s nearly home when her phone dings with a text from Barnes. “Just got in. Forgot to get milk. Can you swing by on your way, or should I go to the gas station and pick up a gallon?” A frown forms on her face. It’s pretty rare that Bucky forgets things. Must’ve been a hell of a day at work, then. Either that, or his brain has completely turned to mush thanks to typing out field reports. Either way-

“I got it. See you in twenty.” She thinks about tacking on a “love you”, but the light turns green before she can.

The grocery store is packed thanks to so many people getting off work. There’s only three carts left, all with bad wheels. She chooses the least squeaky option and, grabbing an add on her way, heads into the grocery store. Milk, and if she remembers right from this morning, they’re running dangerously low on coffee and tea. Despite caffeine having absolutely no effect on their enhanced bodies, both of them are nightmares to be around in the mornings without their beverages of choice. Force of habit and all.

She’s halfway to the checkout when she sees it. A sign, decorated in garish shades of red, pink, and purple. “All Valentine’s Day chocolates 10% off.” Shit. Yeah, that is coming up. To tell the truth, she’d completely forgot all about that day halfway through February. For most of her life, it only meant giving homemade cards at school when most kids had store-bought. Then, once she reached adulthood, it was a reminder that she was destined to be alone. Who would want someone who’s on the run, and what’s more, sees the future? Once she and Barnes got together, it didn’t change much. That first Valentine’s Day, he mentioned the holiday, and she shut it down immediately. They were both broke (or at least, he had no legitimate way of making money while she was broke), and celebrating a mostly commercial holiday seemed like a waste. Plus, she didn’t want to put a strain on a new relationship. Over the years, the subject never came up again, and she’s content for it to stay a non-starter, thank you very much. In her opinion, you should show your partner you love them every day of the year, not shoe-horn it into one twenty-four hour period. Call her unromantic if you must.

She’s completely immune to the various displays of cheap chocolate in heart-shaped boxes and overly sentimental cards as she approaches the register and starts to unload her items. Milk. Tea. That one specific brand of coffee that he likes because, “It tastes like what we drank in basic training. Terrible, but I kinda got used to it, so now everything else tastes like it’s trying too hard.” whatever that means. He’s right; she’s tasted it, and it’s fucking awful. Still, every morning, he drinks at least three cups while she drains her pot of tea.

“You got a hot date for Valentine’s Day, hun?” The cashier asks her, never breaking her rhythm as she rings up the items.

She chuckles. “As a matter of fact, yes.” The cashier’s eye go wide, and she holds up her left hand. “And every other day.”

“Ooh, nice. How long have you been together?”

“Nine years.” Wait… “Or four years, depending on which of us you ask. He blipped, I stayed.”

The cashier nods. “So are you older than him now?”

Physically? They’re not completely sure, but if you calculate the times he was off the ice with HYDRA and add that to the age he was before the serum, then they’re not far off. But chronologically- “No, he’s still older.” And yes, it will always be funny that Sam responds with “Okay, boomer” whenever Bucky makes an outdated reference (even if he’s off by a good twenty years).

With a little more light chatter, she pays for her items and leaves. Now, for home.

As soon as she opens the front door, she’s greeted by their dog, Sarge, barking excitedly and hopping around like he’s on a trampoline despite missing a leg. Bucky’s not far behind, placing a quick peck on her forehead before taking the bags from her and unloading them in the kitchen. Tonight’s his night to cook, but unless her nose has suddenly decided to give out, he hasn’t started dinner yet. She doesn’t mind taking over tonight, and when he sheepishly apologizes while she begins her preparations, she brushes it off. Although, for the second time in an hour, she’s seen proof of his unusual absentmindedness. Oh well. She’ll ask him about it later.

Despite being relieved from tonight’s chef duties, Bucky stays in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar scrolling through his phone as she cooks. His expression is neutral, which can mean one of two things; a) he’s just killing time and there aren’t any interesting posts or articles vying for his attention, or at the opposite end of the spectrum, b) he’s deep in thought, possibly angry, sad, or even frightened, but he’s gone into Winter Soldier mode and shut down so that she won’t pick up on his mood. Damn the man and his poker face.

Eventually dinner is served and she sends him off toward the fridge in search of two beers while she serves their plates. Just as she’s spooning a generous helping of salad into her bowl, it happens. A vision, but a limited one. All she’s seeing is a phone. Well, that and the hand holding it. She’s not sure whether to be proud or embarrassed that she immediately recognizes the hand as Bucky’s, but that goes by the wayside as she takes in the article he’s reading. “Should you do something for Valentine’s Day even is she says no?” It’s a thread on some anonymous discussion board. The reply that has his attention is in reference to a now divorced individual who “was dumb enough to believe that, on our first V-Day as a married couple, she didn’t want anything.” Oh boy. Not good. This will be their first Valentine’s Day since exchanging vows, and if the fact that he’s read this reply (if not already read, will read soon) means that it’s at least crossed his radar that she might be feeding him bullshit. That’s not the case, but after his research, she knows from experience that no matter how much she tries to convince him otherwise, a small part of his mind will be stuck on, “But what if this is a big deal?” Which means-

“Doll, are you just gonna stand there with the salad tongs in your hand?” That snaps her out of it.

“No. Just a vision.” He frowns as she passes him his plate.

“Anything important happen?” Should she say?

“No.” She’s not sure if the smile or not, so she takes a bite from her roll to cover it. “Random sneak peek.” It’s not a lie. What she saw really isn’t important. Still, if he’s in that mindset, she should probably go on and do something for him just in case. After all, why should it only be the ladies who reap this holiday’s benefits?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Not flowers. That’s the one thing that, after copious amounts of research Bucky is one hundred percent certain about. They may still be a common romantic gift, but since they were also a go-to back when he was courting girls in the 1940s, it’s safe to say they’ve been overdone. Plus, he doesn’t really want to remind her of that time she had such a severe allergic reaction to the flowers he picked her on a walk through the park in Bucharest that her eyes nearly swelled shut and she sneezed herself sick. That doesn’t exactly seem like prime romance.

Chocolates or other candies have the same issues as flowers. Contrived and predictable. A bottle of wine is nice, but neither of them can so much as get mildly tipsy thanks to the super serum. The fourteenth is his day to cook, so he guesses he could do some reading and try to create something a little more special than spaghetti (he thought about going to a nice restaurant for dinner, but there’s a few issues with that, not the least of which is they’re likely to be recognized without their disguises, and he’d rather not look at his wife through sunglasses on Valentine’s day), but that seems a little underwhelming.

As he loads the dishwasher (she fell asleep half-way through the third episode of whichever nonsensical comedy they’re watching this week, so he sneaked back downstairs to clean up the dinner dishes), he thinks back to the dozen separate articles he read on the subject of Valentine’s Day gifts. Jewelry was a common theme, but that’s out. She’ll say thank you to his face, but worry about the cost behind his back. Plus, he has absolutely no idea what she’d like, and there’s no sense in purchasing something only for her to hate it.

Another common one was lingerie. Bucky almost choked on his tongue when he saw some of the examples given with that option. None of it looked comfortable (in fact, he’s still scratching his head about how you even put on one of the pieces that popped up on the web page) and he doesn’t want to give her the impression that she has to dress up for him. Even putting all that aside, he has no idea what size she’d even wear. He likes to think that he knows his wife pretty well, but somehow, in all their years together, it never occurred to him to ask her for her clothing sizes. That, and have you even seen the bra sizing system? Does it make sense to anyone, because to Bucky, it’s all gibberish. 32 B? 36 DD? What the hell? Somehow, when HYDRA was training him to extract information, they failed to go over the translation of a woman’s bra size. He supposes he could ask, but he’s not sure there’s a non-suspicious way to work, “Hey, sweetheart. What size are your breasts?” into casual conversation.

Sam said to get creative, so he tried to think outside the box. What’s something she really needs? A new vacuum cleaner is the first thing to come to mind, but he’s not stupid enough to think that would make a good gift. He knows she’s had her eye on a set of throwing stars, but that doesn’t seem to correlate well with what this holiday is all about. That’ll keep until her birthday.

He’s still wracking his brain for anything at all that might work when he feels a wet nose poking at his hand. Sarge. “Hey, boy. Has your mom gone to bed?” The response is a quiet “woof” and lick to his palm. He scratches the mutt behind the ears, smiling to himself as Sarge’s back leg thumps at the treatment.

“What do you think we should get our girl? Huh?” There’s no reply (of course not, he’s talking to a dog), but he nods, pretending all the same that Sarge has offered up a suggestion. “A bone. Yeah, somehow I don’t think that’s her thing. Try again.” The dog blinks at him lazily. “No, you’re the one who wants new tennis balls. Not Mom. Although you’re right about her liking peanut butter.” At this rate, he might as well get her a bone and some tennis balls, because he’s sure not coming up with any ideas.

She likes music. The thought pops into his head while he’s brushing his teeth. All sorts of music. Over the years, he’s tried to make sense of the songs he’s heard her listen to, but has yet to find a discernible pattern in her listening habits. She doesn’t seem to stick to just one genre or era. More like she picks songs by how they relate to what she’s feeling at the moment. Wait a second-

“A mixtape.” His reflection mouths the words back at him. Despite technology having moved on from the days of burning CDs, she still has a thick stack of the disks stored in a cabinet and plays them on the regular. He’s even seen a few that she made herself, pasting together the songs she likes to make a “Cleaning mix”, “Workout Mix” and “Pissed off Mix”. Bucky’s sure he could figure out how to burn a CD, but it’s not like she’d be able to listen to that everywhere she went. That leaves a playlist. She uses one of those apps to listen to music on her phone, right? Surely he can put something together for her using that.

Quietly, he climbs into bed next to his sleeping wife and pulls her back against his chest, slinging one arm over her waist as usual. He closes his eyes, but his mind is alight with activity. A playlist. Of course. He’ll put some extra effort into whatever he cooks that night, stop by a bakery and pick up some sweet treats for dessert. Hell, maybe they’ll both dress up and act like they’re on a date. Then, once they’re sitting down to their meal, he’ll pull out his phone and hit play. It’s perfect. At least, he hopes it is.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Putting on a lacy bra and panties set underneath her regular work attire seemed like a brilliant idea this morning. Today’s a short day; she’s only got three classes to teach, and Rhodey called last night to tell Bucky that he’s suspending work hours at three pm “Since most people have holiday preparations to make.” Her plan was to be waiting on the sofa in the living room when he arrives home, professional button-down blouse open just enough for him to get a good look at what’s underneath, pencil skirt pushed up enough to reveal the stockings and garters she’s donned for the occasion. It’s fun, with just enough cheesiness to match this whole holiday. And, well, it’s a guarantee that by the end of the night they’ll be in bed together, both rumpled, sweaty, and satisfied. Perfect, right?

Wrong. On her drive to work, her skimpy underwear began to ride up, giving her a wedgie, and there was no way to adjust without running the risk of wrecking. She was so distracted by her discomfort that she missed her exit, and by the time she arrived at the college, she was running so behind that she didn’t get the chance to run to the bathroom and readjust. Her lecture on sentence diagrams was pure torture before the underwire from her bra decided to join in the fun and poke her directly in the ribs, but with that addition, she was especially impatient with her students’ tendency to joke around a little too much in class.

Luckily, she had just enough time to wrap the exposed metal bit in tissues before her next class, which eliminated the pain in her chest, but did nothing to alleviate the discomfort once her stockings began to slide down, having at some point disconnected themselves from the garters. She taught like that for the next two classes, but as soon as they were over, she pealed the whole ensemble off in the teacher’s restroom and changed into her gym clothes. Alright, screw the whole seduction routine. She needs to blow off some steam and fast, or else she’ll be in a bad mood all night.

That’s why, thirty minutes later, she finds herself in the training room of the Avengers compound, working over a punching bag. “Fuck-” Her fist connects, making the bag swing crazily from it’s hook. “-this- whole- day!” It goes sailing, and she feels a little better.

“Ouch!” The voice comes from behind her and she whirls around, gaze resting on-

“Sam.” The man in question holds up his hands in an “I surrender” gesture.

“Don’t shoot! I come in peace.” Rolling her eyes, she holds up her middle finger, receiving a snicker in acknowledgment.

“Just working off a little frustration before I head home.”

“Good.” Sam chuckles. “’cause otherwise, I’d be worried that when Barnes pulls out his dick tonight, you’ll bite it off.” She thinks about telling him that there’s no chance of that, but she might just cut off his if he crosses her. However, that jogs her memory.

“Has he left yet?” Sam nods.

“About an hour ago. Said he had to pick up groceries.” Shit. There goes her plan to shower, throw the damn lingerie back on and proceed as planned.

Bidding Sam a hasty reply, she makes tracks towards her car and, once inside, heads for home. Fine. New plan. She’ll shower once she arrives and then when the evening is drawing to a close, wait for him in bed. Nodding to herself, she puts the car in park and climbs out. Now, to psych herself up enough in the next few hours to put the damn lingerie back on.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Where did he go wrong? It takes all of Bucky’s self control not to spit out the spoonful of sauce he just tasted. This was supposed to be an easy recipe for Chicken Alfredo (or at least, that’s what the website boasted; he should’ve known better than to get his information from the internet and stuck to a good old-fashioned cookbook from the library). Not… whatever the hell this is. Maybe even if the sauce is nauseating, the chicken is okay?

He pulls open the oven door, and immediately smoke billows out, making his eyes water. Okay, chicken’s a little well-done. Who is he kidding? Black. The chicken is burned black. And the pasta… he lifts the pot lid and stirs, only to come to the realization that the pasta is completely stuck to the bottom of the pot. Wonderful.

It’s inevitable; over the years, he’s had his fair share of cooking disasters, but usually he does okay. Tonight though… who the hell up there did he piss off, because the only explanation for how badly this is going is his karma coming due.

Still holding the offending spoon, he looks over at Sarge, who’s staring at him, long pink tongue sticking out as he pants. “Trust me, boy. You don’t want any of this.” There has to be something else he can pull together on short notice. Normally he’d be worried that she’s running late without so much as a text, but today he’s relieved. At least if she’s running behind he’ll have time to… what? Maybe order takeout? Before she gets-

“I’m home.” Shit.

Sarge yips, shaking with excitement, and starts towards the kitchen door, then turns back, uncertain. “Go on. I know you’re dying to jump on her and lick her face.” Something they really should be training out of him because he’s getting too big for that sort of behaviour but, well… there’s a reason they call them “puppy dog eyes.”

Not needing to be coaxed, the dog takes off, tripping a little in the momentary lapse in his memory that he’s a tripod, but easily catches himself and goes on his merry way, leaving Bucky to clean up his mess. From the sound of things, a game of fetch is going on in the living room, so she should be distracted for a while.

He manages to pour the sauce down the drain and scrape most of the pasta into the trash while Sarge is acting as a decoy, but there’s absolutely no way he can dispose of the chicken without tipping her off (damn enhanced senses, it’s a wonder she hasn’t already smelled it). Finally, he decides to just go for it. She’s going to notice whether he throws it out now or two hours from now. Might as well get a head start on cleaning.

Sure enough, not ten seconds after he empties out the oven, he catches a movement in his peripheral vision, and the familiar sound of her breathing tips him off that he’s no longer alone.

“Hey, Doll.”

“Hey, Bucky. Did something burn in here, or-” He holds up the pan for her inspection before continuing his scraping.

“That’s one way to put it, yeah.” He slams the lid back on the trashcan and turns on the tap, intent on rinsing out the pan. “Another is whoever the god of culinary arts is has it in for me today.”

She chuckles. “You know, that would be funnier if we didn’t actually know a god.”

“Yeah, but he’s in control of thunder.” He meets her eyes, smirking slightly. “Although it did look like I electrocuted the bird.” Her lips quirk up into a smile, and he takes the opportunity to kiss her, cupping the back of her head gently to hold her in place when she tries to move away, muttering something about being sweaty.

He’s not entirely sure how it happened, but by the time they come up for air, her back his pressed against the wall and he’s got her pinned in place. Not that he’s complaining.

“Anyone ever tell you that the tip of your nose turns pink after you’ve been kissed?’ Her cheeks go rosey in response.

“I think so. One guy did. I told him it’s only when I’m kissed properly.”

He really would like to continue the playful banter, but there’s still the small matter of whatever it is they’re going to eat.

“What do you feel like for dinner tonight?”

“Apart from electrocuted chicken?” He responds with a swat to her ass, which earns him a snicker. “Let’s keep it simple. Pizza. Your choice of toppings.” Right, that’s easy enough. Plus, if they have to wait longer than thirty minutes, it’s free.

“Okay. I’ll order while you shower?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He’s just pulled up the menu on his phone when the sound of her clearing her throat attracts his attention. She’s standing in the doorway, combing through her freshly let down hair with her fingers, a playful look in her eyes.

“Or you could join me. Just a mild suggestion.”

Dinner can wait for a while.

___________________________________________________________________________________

The Brooklyn townhouse they live in has many nice features. There’s a functional if small screened in back porch, big enough to hold a table for two and a grill. Two bedrooms, on the off chance someone from work needs to crash for a night or two. A kitchen with a dishwasher. A working fireplace. Good closet space. And an en suite bathroom.

Maybe it’s a little ridiculous to call a bathroom luxurious, especially when, in comparison to what’s featured in many brownstones, it’s more than modest, but she can’t help but think of it as such. There’s a double sink so that in the morning rush to get ready, Bucky’s able to shave and brush his teeth without having to wait for her to finish applying her makeup. Shelving above the toilet makes certain that even if the last person to shower took the towel with them, another one is on hand. Speaking of the shower, it’s not the largest one in the world, but both of them can fit in comfortably at the same time, which is what’s lead to their current situation.

She’s just finished allowing the water to course over her body, easing the sweat from her skin, and is about to begin the process of washing her hair, scrubbing her body, but she hesitates. She might as well ask. It’s only practical after all.

“Do you want to start now or get cleaned up and have dinner beforehand?” It’s obvious what she’s referring to, so she doesn’t bother to spell it out.

His brown knits, and if she didn’t know him as… intimately… as she does, she’d actually believe he’s confused.

“Oh, so you’re just assuming there’s gonna be sex involved at some point tonight?”

She shrugs, wringing out her hair.

“Seemed like a safe enough bet.” She glances pointedly between the two of them. “After all, we’re already undressed. “

His laugh is a quiet huff, barely discernible over the sound of the water. “Then I’d say start now, have dinner, then go for round two. Sound about right to you?”

She nods. “Solid plan.”

“Then get over here.”

Unlike the welcome home kiss they shared not half an hour ago, this one is less tender, more electric. Hands twist in hair, bodies press together. Tongues begging for entrance quickly give way to teeth nipping at bottom lips, an unspoken sparring match for who’ll be in control this time around. Ultimately he wins, grasping her hips and lifting as she wraps her legs securely around his back.

There’s no need for prep; the teasing of their earlier words is foreplay enough. Back pressed against the wall, her body easily welcomes him in as she braces one arm against the glass shower doors for balance. Any concerns about slipping and falling wash away as they move together like so many times before. She’s sure her nails will leave marks on his back, fingertips digging in for purchase and it’s a guarantee her hips will be littered with fingerprints from his grip, but she can’t find it in her to care, and if the desperate, bruising kiss assaulting her lips is anything to judge from, neither can he.

“So damn good, Doll.” It’s panted against her neck. “Always. So damn perfect for me.” All she can manage is a moan in response.

She feels him twitch inside of her and knows he’s close. So is she, but she can’t quite get there without-

As if he’s read her mind, he reaches between them to touch her where she needs it most, and on instinct, she readjusts, locking her arm around his neck to stay in place. “Let go, sweetheart. Can you do that for me?” She couldn’t disobey if she wanted to.

“Fuck.” As her walls contract around him, he pulls out just in time to paint her middle with his release.

“That’s one word for it.” She’s still fighting to catch her breath, but she shoots him a shaky smirk, which he returns.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Barnes.” Snickering, she releases him to stand on unsteady legs and pecks his legs.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. Barnes.” Maybe there’s something to this holiday after all.

___________________________________________________________________________________

“You want the last slice?” Bucky considers it for a moment before deciding-

“Nah. You can have it.” It may not be exactly what he planned, but it’s been a good night. Between the two of them, they’ve gone through two large pizzas while watching the new version of Beauty and the Beast (she rolled her eyes when he asked if this was her way of saying he reminds her of a certain hairy, horned character) in their pajamas.

“No, really. You take it. I don’t want it.” She nudges the mostly-empty pizza box towards him. The noise makes Sarge lift his head from where he was snoozing beside her on the sofa. That gives him an idea.

“I don’t want it either, but I can think of someone who does.” He cocks his head towards the now-drooling dog. “How ‘bout it, boy? Wanna help us out?”

Snickering, she picks the pepperonis and pieces of sausage and ham from the pizza, forming a pile. “Here, Sarge. Catch.” She tosses a coveted treat in the air, and Sarge’s jaw snaps, swallowing it whole. “Good boy.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes before she speaks again.

“You know, I actually did have something planned for you.”

“Oh, yeah?” She nods.

“Absolutely. Had a whole seduction plan laid out. Tiny underwear, lacy bra, and stockings with garters included.” Huh. Guess she wouldn’t have taken the “lingerie” option the wrong way. He’ll file that away for future use… along with a mental note to ask her bra size. “That is, until I tried wearing the damn things for longer than an hour. Turns out, hiding a dirty secret under your clothes is more itchy than sexy.”

He can’t help it. He laughs, producing a pout from her which quickly turns into her own quiet laughter.

“Well, that fits in perfectly with my fancy dinner going up in smoke.”

“We really do have shitty luck with the whole “romance” thing.” She’s joking, but he decides to respond anyway.

“I don’t know about that.” Entwining his fingers with hers, he lifts their hands, twin wedding bands catching the light. “You waited five years for me to reappear after the blip, and I convinced you to elope with me. Seems pretty romantic.” Although, that reminds him…

“Don’t move.” Releasing her hand, he stands and goes in search of his phone.

“Bucky, what-”

“Don’t move, Doll. Stay right where you are.” Ah. On the kitchen counter, just where he left it. Jogging back into the room, he resumes his place on the couch next to her. Ignoring her questioning gaze, he pulls up the app and, selecting the correct playlist, hits play.

Immediate recognition blooms on her face at the opening lyrics. “She is the sweetest thing that I know. Should see the way she holds me when the lights go low.” He’s not one for modern music, but when he was googling “songs for Valentine’s Day” and this one popped up, he couldn’t help but think that the lyrics were fitting.

“I didn’t know you’d heard this one.”

He chuckles. “Even old men have a few tricks up their sleeves. That, and a wifi connection.” She rolls her eyes but leans closer, which he takes advantage of to show her the playlist.

“This is the app you use, right?” Receiving a nod, he continues. “Feel free to scroll through and add whatever you want. I haven’t listened to all of them the whole way through, but they seemed to fit the mood.”

Her hand closes over his, covering the phone. “Thank you, Bucky. It’s perfect.”

As the singer goes on about how hearts don’t break around here, he presses his lips against hers.

“I love you, Doll.”

“Love you.”

Not bad for a disastrous Valentine’s Day. Not bad at all.

[paper-n-ashes]

I... am probably going to get some kind of hate or backlash for this but... it’s kind of been sitting on my mind and I think it needs to be put out there.

This is going to be an essay. And I am not a confident or confrontational person so this is real scary for me.

I know how easy it is to take this - all of this blogging, writing, any creative outlet really - a little too seriously. For a lot of us, it’s a lifeline of positivity and a wonderful distraction to the shit show of daily life in 2020/2021. Certainly saved my ass last year. And I spend a lot of my waking hours thinking about it, because it’s my hobby and I adore it.

But (and I remind myself to do this CONSTANTLY) can we collectively take a breath and chill a little bit?

Let me explain.

I’m just seeing little hints poking through of toxic judgemental attitudes regarding how ‘legitimate’ someone’s fanfiction or writing is. That there’s somehow this divide between ‘real’ writing and ‘fast food’ fanfiction. I, for one, really dislike the term but I’m using it here to prove a point.

All of it, every piece put out into the public space, is valid. And I think it’s good to be reminded about that concept every so often.

We are all different people. With different experiences and preferences. We all seek out and consume different things, sometimes surprising even ourselves when we discover something new we didn’t think we’d enjoy.

Some people like more plot heavy and meaningful fanfiction. Those pieces or series’ that effect you and move you, play on your emotions in any and all ways. Some are short, some are 300k novels written over long periods of time. Some are canon, fix it fics or prequels, some are brilliantly imaginative AU’s involving our favourite worlds and characters we know and love.

Others enjoy (sometimes) quicker, sexually charged fanfiction. Fantasies played out in written form. Explorations of sexuality on a vast spectrum of more ‘vanilla’ (whatever that means to you) and more hardcore themes outside the regular realm of sex you might be used to. Characters we find attractive in places of canon or AU territory to thrill ourselves and others, or even just simply to scratch an itch.

Some enjoy both, on differing days. Dependant on moods or needs at the moment in time.

No matter what - All. Is. Valid.

None is better. None is worse.

When you read something you consider exactly or close to what you’re looking for from fanfiction, it is absolutely normal that you consider the piece, and the writer, of a higher standard. But this standard is subjective. Please remember this.

Don’t look down on others who enjoy something you don’t consider as having this standard. And certainly don’t have a lower view of the writer who put themselves out there to write it and post it.

We’re all judgmental fucks at times. I’ll easily admit I am, and have been. I’m in my late 20’s and still learning to be an emotionally intelligent human. I definitely have moments I’ve had to catch myself out. There are things I could rant on for days because of how much they irk me. And I believe it’s healthy to express your emotions about anything. But I do not put it into the public arena. I try my absolute fucking hardest not to let it colour any of my online interactions.

(This is the first time I’ve really put out a significant opinion in my own post and it’s fucking frightening. Seriously.)

Anyway,

If something is bothering me enough in terms of irks, that are completely subjective and my own, I speak to a trusted friend, to get the thoughts out and move on. And even then, some of those thoughts I’ve eventually pondered over and regretted the judgments I made.

But I will ALWAYS defend the right in this fanfiction realm for every writer to write about whatever the hell they want and not be looked down on or belittled for it.

If you are annoyed that certain pieces or writers get ‘popular’ or receive adoration you don’t believe they deserve - STOP YOURSELF RIGHT THERE. You can be annoyed. Go for it. Let yourself feel. But do not spread that negativity. Do not make yourself feel better by bringing others down in public view. It is not an appropriate coping mechanism.

Popularity is a whole other concept I do not have time to fully delve into. But it seriously happens by a decent combination of hard work that people don’t see, the right timing and LUCK. You cannot control it, and it will seriously help your mental health to not attempt to pursue as your goal. I speak from experience.

Whatever your reason for reading or writing fanfiction is, take a moment sometime to remind yourself we are at the end of the day just... fans. Fans of characters, actors, movies, TV shows, all of it. To be a fan is to be an enthusiast of anything that truly captures your interest. We just... like something or someone so much we read more about it, talk with others about it, even create more content about it.

Fandom is one of the coolest things I think humans have ever brought into fruition. People from all over coming together to love and discuss something that brings them joy or challenges their mind. And I’m sorry but I’m just getting a little tired of the competitiveness and superiority complex that works to make fandom a fucking shitty place to hang around in sometimes.

I am not saying everything has to be sunshine and roses, because there are lines that can be crossed and every good thing has it’s bad side. But... this is for happiness. At least, for me it is. Some days, writing out somewhat incoherent, horny thoughts and shorter stories brings me happiness. Sometimes writing out emotional turmoil and long, plot driven novel work brings me happiness. It’s just how my brain gives me that serotonin I crave, and I can’t excessively control that.

When people like one and not the other, I don’t care. I really don’t. I don’t need an explanation. It’s not personal. It’s just what brings THEIR brain serotonin, and I will never judge them for that. I’ve at least brought them a little bit of enjoyment in whatever way and that is just... fucking cool when you think about it.

Can’t it just be as simple as that? Fuck all the ‘popularity’ and legitimacy and notions of what is ‘better’?

Just do what brings you happiness, and give love/support/whatever to others who have done the same for you in what they’ve written.

That’s... it really. That’s all I needed to get out.

Okay. Anons. Yes feel free to counter me and make me feel poopy for my opinion because this is Tumblr and I’m not naive. Just know I probably won’t answer any hateful messages because I’m a wuss and can’t think of good witty replies.

[veliseraptor]

2020 Fanfiction Round-Up

I do one of these every year! And have since I think 2016. Can’t break a tradition even if it’s been a clusterfuck of a time and filling this out was in some ways an exercise in remembering the ways I have failed myself as a writer this year. 

But oh well!

Total Year-Long Wordcount: I’ll post the final final number tonight after I finish the writing I want to do this afternoon (and plan to do this afternoon), but it’s currently 451,803 words written this year. Guessing I’m going to land somewhere around 453,000ish. (AO3 claims a higher number than that but that’s because it is counting the entirety of fics where I posted chapters this year.

This year I wrote and posted: I wrote a fair number more than I posted (there are five fics finished but for various reasons unposted on my hard drive) but based on Tumblr I posted 78 posts in my fic tag, which, not including chapter specific updates and three sentence meme answers (but including at least two Tumblr-only longer fics), probably comes out to about 60 or so “full length” fics that saw the light of day in 2020.

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? 

Well, I wrote more than I did last year, which is sort of a surprise to me (all things considered) but also maybe not, because I was doing a lot less of most other things that could’ve been occupying my time, including two hours daily of commuting. 

But still less than I did in 2018. Which is fine.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? 

Lord, I don’t know. It depends on when you ask me. Lately I’ve been in a bit of a “I hate everything I’ve written ever” state of mind, so that makes it sort of hard to do any kind of...reasonable assessment. 

I know I’m proud of With Absolute Splendor but I have all these reservations about it and I can’t reread it for the most part because I always notice new things I wish I’d done differently. I feel pretty good about efforts in a common cause but something about it still makes me cringe, which I suspect has to do with my general self-consciousness. I have a hard time feeling unreservedly proud about...anything I wrote this year, really. 

I feel like the closest I get is maybe nor autumn falter which I am pretty pleased with and also which does hurt me a lot personally. Or I did end up overall pretty pleased with what came out of By Proxy.

But also the more I look at this question the more I start hating all my own work, so...guess this is kind of coming at a bad time.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

I mean, I started writing in my first non-English fandom in many years, and specifically one where I was trying to engage more with the cultural background of the setting (in a way I wasn’t with, say, Death Note, when I was writing Death Note fic). So that was a risk. And I learned that it’s very stressful and there’s so many ways to make mistakes and I am, in many ways, a coward. But also I think I’ve learned a fair amount thanks to a lot of very patient people on the internet, so...there’s that.

Otherwise...I mean, I got ambitious with a few projects this year (the Big Bang fic and With Absolute Splendor stand out), but I’m not sure how much I really tried new things. 

I feel like I had to fight myself a little on writing straight up bad sex for By Proxy - I planned on it being hot, and it really wasn’t. It was mostly just miserable. Which made for a better fic, but was a new experience for me as far as ‘I thought I was going to write porn and that isn’t what I wrote.’

From my past year of writing, what was….

My most popular story of this year: 

By far, With Absolute Splendor. In fact, it has now become my second most kudosed fic of all time, behind only fuckin Life in Reverse. So like. That’s a thing.

(It is still less than half as many as Life in Reverse, but for context Life in Reverse has been around for going on eight years.)

Most fun story to write: 

Most fics where I feel like “I’m having so much fun writing this!” also go through a “oh god I hate this it’s terrible” phase which makes this sort of hard to assess. But I did have overall a lot of fun writing Mutual Friends despite all my frustration with the canon-wrangling I had to do to make it work in my head. 

But also I feel like both Retributive Justice and Embedded were in different ways deeply iddy fics that were just fun to write. That actually goes for a lot of the Whumptober fics. That was a very self-indulgent month. Excited to do it again in February (hopefully, if I can write things in a timely manner at all).

Story with the single sexiest moment: 

I feel like the beauty of your repair might be my personal favorite smut I posted this year, but I think my personal favorite that I wrote is in the big bang fic nobody will see until January. 

I feel like most of the sexiest moments I’ve written this year are in the porn fics I’m going to start posting in January also. But just generally I feel like the beauty of your repair is the sexiest thing I wrote and posted.

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: 

I mean, I Come With Knives is definitely up there. It’s not that wrong or anything, but it got pretty intense in some ways I wasn’t expecting. Mostly in how much blood got involved, which was actually more than I’d had it involved in a sex thing before! Kind of surprises me that I haven’t previously done more with bloodplay stuff but. Well. First time for everything!

I don’t think this was a year that really had any “wow, what the fuck, Lise” things in it. Nothing on the level of last year’s winner. I’m almost disappointed in myself.

Abattoir was definitely the story that generated the weirdest conversation and creepiest search questions, though, so it does get points for that. 

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: 

I feel like the writing of everyone else is spring bound was a lot of...me thinking through my Jiang Cheng feelings and specifically my Jiang Cheng post-canon feelings. 

the martyr, the victim was pretty formative in shaping how I think about both Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji and their relationship with each other. It was the first fic I wrote that really dug into them in any way, I think, and definitely one that informed how I thought about writing Lan Xichen later.

Hardest story to write: 

I was thinking it was the one that I haven’t posted yet but I did technically finish, aka my Big Bang fic, the terrible threesome fic, the massive “I’m gonna keep everyone in the Yi City arc alive” AU that I started shortly after finishing The Untamed and finished in December. So I spent most of the year writing it.

But then I was like - no, I’m going to have to go with we live until we die even though it’s technically been ‘in progress’ for five years and really kicked into gear in 2019 and I just finished it and posted it this year, because that fic was like. The culmination of a big arc in an enormous verse dealing with a whole lot of balls in the air and trying to tie up a whole lot of threads. It was ambitious and the stakes were high and it was full of plot and action which are not two of my strengths...frankly I’m still amazed I pulled the damn thing off.

Biggest Disappointment: 

I think it is better if I refrain from going too in depth on this because it would just end up as me listing a bunch of my perceived failings. But I think off the top of my head I’m frustrated by the fact that I still haven’t really managed to write a XueXiao smut fic that quite hits the spot for me, myself. I’ve written two and for various reasons I don’t really like either of them. 

Biggest Surprise: 

The fact that my Jiang Cheng fic took off the way it did. Legitimately did not see that coming! At all! I mean, I’m delighted by it but it wasn’t what I saw happening as far as “niche I’d find in this fandom” or “thing I’d write that people would really enjoy reading.”

Particularly with By Proxy. That fic got a lot more attention than I would’ve expected. 

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: 

I feel like every fic I write with Xue Yang in it tells you something about me and most of those things are things that make me, on some level, deeply self-conscious, but I try not to think about that too much.  

I feel like the most telling story is maybe we all drift sometimes because I literally wrote it out of a depressive episode about a bad brain day but that wasn’t unintentional.

Favorite Opening Line(s):

1. So it turned out that if you touched the tendons of a dead person’s wrist and channeled a little bit of spiritual energy just right, it made the fingers twitch and curl like they were still alive. (Abattoir)

2. Here’s the thing: your Daozhang is glorious when he kills. (tear out all your tenderness)

3. Turned out that a sect leader’s head came off like anyone else’s. (Unnatural Selection)

4. The first hint that anything had gone awry was the letter from Lan Wangji (His Excellency Hanguang-jun, pardon me) that simply said have you heard from Wei Ying? (some good mistakes)

5. What Jiang Cheng wanted to do, more than anything, was to go home and take a nap. (everyone else is spring bound)

Favorite Line(s) from Anywhere:

I usually keep this to 10 but because I’ve been in such a :| place about my own writing I indulged myself this once.

1. Sometimes it felt like all he had done since descending the mountain was shatter his own dreams and accumulate regrets. (nor autumn falter)

**

2. It felt like she was holding all the components of a bomb in her hands, half assembled. If she moved the right way they would stay just that: components. But if she moved the wrong way… (til my judgment day)

**

3. He should have killed him. Should have been the one to strike that blow, in revenge for Jin Zixuan and their sister and everyone else dead for Wei Wuxian’s pride. Maybe then there would not be this gnawing, aching thing embedded in his chest; this itching, unfinished feeling. Maybe then he would not feel torn in two, sometimes like he should have reached out with his other hand and sometimes like he should have struck truer and sometimes both, in the same moment. (Interstitial)

**

4. He owed Wei Wuxian more than he could ever give back in this lifetime. Forgiving him felt like betraying his sister’s memory. Not forgiving him felt like trying to walk with a thorn in his foot. He was just - stuck, caught like a demon in a spiritual net.

Jiang Cheng thought of the way Wei Wuxian looked at Lan Wangji, with warmth and trust and love, and the aching, sick jealousy he had no right to feel returned. He felt a little like a child watching someone pick up a toy he’d abandoned and suddenly realizing that he wanted it back. (everyone else is spring bound)

**

5. You close your eyes and think about how he looked back in that town, Shuanghua slicing clean through a man’s neck, opening it to the spine, and think dizzily that he could open you like that and it’d be good, as long as it lasted. (tear out all your tenderness)

**

6. When Wangji loved, he loved with his whole being, without reserve. And now he had been placed between the rock of his convictions and the hard place of his devotion to Wei Wuxian. (the martyr, the victim)

**

7. He spent a week turning the idea over in his head. Studying it like a corpse he was going to dissect, poking at it, cutting it open and examining its insides. (dead reckoning)

**

8. When the world hurt you, that was the only thing to do, after all. Hurt it back, harder, worse. Spill rivers of blood for every drop it squeezed from you.

And when the end came, never go quietly. (the blood in your mouth)

**

9. I would stand with you through the end of the world, said Loki’s voice in his head, and Steve’s heart wasn’t in his chest anymore, was somewhere off on another planet where Loki was lying dead in a ruined city. (we live until we die)

**

10. Was it always going to be like this? Stumbling into traps, tripping over familiar skeletons, slicing himself open on the edges of old hurts. Was there really such a thing as leaving the past behind? He still felt stuck in it, unable to move, and every time he thought he might be finally dragging himself free something pulled him back. (With Absolute Splendor)

**

11. His chest was full of poison. His throat was full of grief. And he was still a little drunk.

Jiang Cheng went to his room, sat down on his bed, put his face in his hands, and cried until he couldn’t breathe. (By Proxy)

Top 5 Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated:

I think the scene from nor autumn falter of Xiao Xingchen just crying his heart out over Xue Yang’s dead body would be up there.

The Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian hug from the end of With Absolute Splendor.

Okay, just gonna say it: Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao having sex by the table with Nie Mingjue’s headless corpse on it. So sue me.

The scene in the blood in your mouth where Song Lan has stabbed Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen is following the line of Fuxue to the latter. I have a very clear visual of it in my head and if I could art I’d art it.

Xue Yang with the hallucinatory Xiao Xingchen from liberate spirits, liberate souls.

Fic-writing goals for 2021:

Finish Walking Far From Home.

Maybe I’ll finish some of these MCU WIPs? I’d kind of like to, on an abstract level if nothing else.

Become a more well-adjusted human being about the relationship between my productivity and my self-worth.

[jcmorrigan]

blakeworther- I personally I love your hc’s so much- any au’s or anything ya got for them? I really wanna know more about what goes on.

This was once again a BAD QUESTION TO ASK

Aside from the Skyward Sword AU, which I never went back to again, there’s only one AU that I like for Blakeworther, which is the AU that I like for everything ever. I’m not even sure I consider it a true AU, even though it absolutely is. So, okay, I have this thing called the WHAM ARMY, which is a massive crossover group of my favorite villains (led by the eight who make up the acronym but this ain’t about them). Obviously, because Victor, Vincent, and Albert are all pretty firmly villains (even if they lean “those weird morally bereft people we end up being friends with somehow”), I want them to join the WHAM ARMY. So my thoughts for them here are pretty much how they’d react in a multicrossover setting, which of my other villain loves they’d get along with, and what the intro arc is for them. Keep in mind I haven’t gotten here in the fanfic yet, so some of this could change in practice, but here are my plans right now.

Cringe ahead.

-They aren’t the originals. I want to make something that doesn’t trip over canon’s current trajectory, even though I don’t know exactly where canon is going, so what happens is that Vexen (Kingdom Hearts) is going to rebuild the three of them as replicas, since he can easily find memory cores for Victor and Vincent in Myers’ storage rooms and there’s just going to be an Albert core there for no reason.

-Vexen then pulls some Chain of Memories magic and restricts the memories they have access to. They will only remember things we have literally seen in VTSOM/TWDAK, and then I can have him release more of their memory banks to them as we get more chapters. (Even if they all three get redemption arcs, my replica versions can stay little shits!)

-He DOES NOT tell them that they’re not the originals! For all they know, they fell asleep at the last day they remember and woke up here. But they figure it out on their own despite his best efforts. They still want to get their memories back anyway so they know what the people they were replicated from were like and have a framework to build their personalities from.

-Yes, of course they’re cyborgs! Cyborg replicas. Since they’re operating by KH rules, they prooooobably don’t need to eat human meat? But also I like when villains do fucked-up things and I have jokes about the others packaging “cyborg chow” to embarrass them so maybe they still do engage in a little cannibalism, as a treat

-Each was engineered with a different specialty. Vincent’s is raw physical strength; he can walk into a gunfight without even needing a weapon and still have a chance of winning. Victor’s arms have been upgraded to hold a variety of cannons; he’s the team sniper. Albert is the team “mage”; he can conjure Dream Eaters. In this AU, TWDAK Dream Eaters and KH Dream Eaters are basically the same thing. Albert has mastered a strange art of being able to draw Dream Pieces out of the Realm of Sleep and implant them in physical forms of creatures in the waking world, creating his army. They look like they do because he hates the pastel aesthetic of KH Dream Eaters and redesigned his personal ones to look more fitting with his aesthetic. He’s also a speedster.

-The intro mission involves Vexen attempting to track down a newly-rebuilt Xion (this AU is divergent from KHIII) in Radiant Garden so he can bring her back under his control with some brainwashing. I’m also bringing in the Tsviets as past experiments of Vexen’s, so he’s basically pitting his newer models of experiment against his old ones.

-The party he already has built by this point is going to be Demyx, Simon Laurent (Infinity Train), Tsumugi Shirogane (DanganRonpa), skekSil (The Dark Crystal), and a couple other people I haven’t hinted at instory yet and don’t quite want to spoil. But Simon, Tsumugi, and skekSil will all also be Vexen’s creations - Simon and skekSil are replicas and Tsumugi is an android.

-Vincent, Victor, and Albert wake up for the first time, and while Vincent and Victor remember each other as friends, they’re just like “And why is our nemesis from RMU also here?”

-Albert probably fights with Vincent for dominance of the trio and I’m not sure which one of them is the trio leader at this point.

-I moved Nine Bean Hill from World of Final Fantasy to Radiant Garden because Radiant Garden needs a coffee shop and first of all, thanks to Hunger Games Simulator fuckery, my friends and I have an in-joke about Vincent Edgeworth having an eternal grudge against Dunkacino, so I’m going to use the coffee shop to reference this somehow without having to put actual Corporate Brainwashed Al Pacino in this ‘verse

-But also I like to think Lann and Reynn play a lot of bubblegum pop, so catch Victor and Albert dancing to the PA like idiots and then getting Demyx, skekSil, and Simon in on it while Vincent and Vexen are like “Oh God why are these our friends”

-(There are reasons this particular Demyx goes by a different name instory and it’s weirding me out to type “Demyx” for this post)

-Without spoiling too much of the arc, there IS a part where Blakeworther beats up the Tsviets, there IS a part where they battle the Anima summon from FFX and win, and there IS a part where despite all of this, Xion kicks their asses across the city

-They go through this mission seeing each other as partners and friends (though Vincent and Albert are reluctant to use the “friend” word at first), but after they all get back to base, they’re just...suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that they’re strangers in a strange land missing half their memories.

-They room together, and they end up crawling into the same bed for solidarity reasons. This is actually where I first envisioned the “rough day” sleeping position - Vincent and Victor are chest-to-chest, then Albert just snuggles in behind Victor and the other two are like “Okay, we’re gonna just let this happen” and Vincent and Albert touch at one tangent point where their arms cross.

-The days might get a little rougher after they realize they aren’t even the originals.

-Eventually they assimilate into the chaos house with no problem.

-Vincent tends to hang out with the party poopers of the house. Especially Mozenrath (Aladdin: The Animated Series). (P.S. If there are any VTSOM fans out there who also know the 90s Aladdin TV series...I CAN’T be the only one who noticed the surface similarities here, right?)

-Victor Blake and Roman Torchwick (RWBY). Oh, God, this is the hell duo. They’re party animals who love to dance and drink and dance drunk. It was not a good idea to let these two redheads meet.

-Albert and Neopolitan (RWBY)! They both love stabbing people and Victorian button boots! I actually kinda have this idea that they would pick up more fucked-up serial killer types to hang out with them - Mad Madam Mim (The Sword in the Stone) is their patron despite being a much tamer example, but Albert also decides he really likes Scaramouche (Samurai Jack), Junko Enoshima (DanganRonpa), and Jerome Valeska (Gotham).

-For a real deep cut, Albert also opens up a joint Dream Therapy office with Dr. Cheshire Broach (Crypt TV). It’s either called “Krueger & Broach” or “Broach & Krueger” depending on how long it takes either to notice that the other moved his name to the front of the sign again. You should ABSOLUTELY not trust either of these men to give you legitimate therapy (though if you’re good friends with them, they can and will use their dreamon powers to help you best your nightmares in a bloody fashion).

-Actually this ‘verse is the entire reason I thought of them doing drag karaoke to “United We Stand” by Amberian Dawn because the WHAM ARMY is all about karaoke, drag, and any combination of the two

-I haven’t decided yet if their romance will be a slow burn or a faster affair. I’m expecting them to tell me as I write out the fic. But I think in a lot of respects, it’s going to be more of a friends-to-lovers story than their original forms had. The three of them are forced to become an elite cyborg warrior unit created by the same mad scientist, they had a big bonding mission together where they became ride or die (whether or not they want to admit it), and eventually...we can start revealing that they’re CATCHING FEELINGS.

-The WHAM ARMY has many, many power couples and ships of various numbers of people but Blakeworther ends up becoming yet another POWER THROUPLE around base, and it’s understood that messing with one of them will earn the wrath of the other two

-They go on to assist in many, many missions with the purpose of taking over various worlds and kingdoms and just fucking them up

-Vincent Edgeworth will kill the TBTC equivalent of Dunkacino

You have to understand that TBTC is my hyperfixation to end all hyperfixations. Every piece of fiction I touch ends up related to it in some way. At some point the majority of how I interact with Blakeworther is going to be through this AU. I’m just a sucker for crossovers and villains having a place to be bros and party.

[greycappedjester]

Hi I'm so sorry I'm just too shy to ask this on ao3 but I was wondering: how is Slade's relationship with Dick? I don't mind them as a ship in general but in the story sometimes I feel like Slade gets too close to Dick and I thought if there was something platonic on his side? I'm sure you wouldn't do that in the story that's why I'm asking if it's only on Slade's side. Sorry if this is a stupid question lol. Maybe it's just because I've read sl/adedick fics before. ^^D

Nah, I’ve actually been waiting for someone to ask about that. So....it’s complicated and will take awhile to explain so I’m putting it under a Read More before I get too long winded with my character headcanons:

This is going to get soooooo long, lol, so feel free to skim. Warning for Gotham in general and Gotham being naturally a bad place for kid vigilantes to grow up in. Also because this explanation gets somewhat dark in character interpretation....

Bonus short story at the end after a really long post.

-------

Alright, so first, I feel like I should mention again that I never watched the Teen Titans animated show past maybe the first two episodes and the movie my friends wanted me to watch that I don’t really remember. (I meant to watch that show, just never got around to it). I say this because I heard that the Teen Titans TV show portrayed the Dick and Deathstroke relationship much differently in a way that’s cool and fine but not something I can see myself really wanting to write about. I know their relationship more from comics where Dick was already an adult (albeit a young adult) when he first met Slade. 

So. Back to my After the Fall of Olympus universe and yeah, I’m slowly getting to my answer. The thing is....the story is entirely in Dick’s POV right now.

And Dick’s absolutely terrible at reading and picking up any form of affection others have for him. He understands it abstractly (he knows people care) but when assessing, he critically underestimates it if he remembers to account for it at all. This goes even worse with people he’s closer to--which is why it took him forever to realize why Jason actually did want to stay with him at the manor and why he still has no idea Barbara is in love with him. Even Kory who was really, really direct about liking him, it took him years to fully emotionally process and respond to that. He’s getting better...but remembering his own value (in others eyes) isn’t something he’s overwhelming good at doing.

My headcanon, he is abnormally good at reading people and picking up basic sexual attraction. He’s good at telling when he’s being flirted with or when people are attracted to him and, honestly, Dick’s charismatic and instinctively a flirt, too.With that, partly from growing up in Gotham with its weird and supremely dark villains, I think Dick very much divorces the two concepts of romantic attraction and sexual flirting in his mind--he’s aware they can go together, obviously with Kory--but he doesn’t naturally pair them as other people probably would. It’s also part of why he just doesn’t get the level of concern Tim has about Catalina.

Okay, back to my point.

The way I write Slade and Dick’s relationship is actually mostly done off screen. But, I think Slade started with approval of Dick’s skills and potential in a clinical/objective view, growing respect and interest (personal but not at all romantic) in him as a person, and much more recently in the story (as in that last conversation he had in Ch. 18), I think Slade realized he has some legitimate attraction and cares a lot about Dick in a way that’s probably romantic.

Slade also is very, very aware immediately that he’s not going to do anything with that and, in a way, doesn’t want to because Dick ever responding to that would be jeopardizing his relationship with his family, his team, his view of his morals (which are so integral to Dick) in a way that would be exceptionally out of character and concerning coming from Dick. In other words, something happening would be a lot more terrifying than nothing happening and Slade cares.

For Dick, it’s a lot more simple. He does not have any romantic feelings there. He does in a somewhat analytical, unconscious way recognize that Slade’s probably attracted to him (probably before Slade noticed honestly) but he’s....well, kind of used to that at some level. More so, Dick doesn’t connect it to emotional care and--like with everyone else--vastly underestimates that Slade does care about him in a way that’s actually pretty selfless for a mercenary. For a romance, your guess is absolutely right, it’s not going to go anywhere in this series but I wanted the undertones and implications to be there in the final third of the story

....But, that’s also more of a later/recent development in that relationship. For most of the story that’s posted so far, Slade sees his relationship with Dick as a lot of respect and even care but not as romantic in any way. I can promise no romantic undertones at all until Dick was already in his 20s because I really, really am not interested in writing underage. (for those curious about Slade’s age in the story, I think of him as mid-20s in his introduction in Year 3 and pretty early 30s here to Dick’s early 20s)

Above everything, they respect each other and would be almost friends if that were possible.

The team and his family doesn’t know any of this.

Anyway, that was long, so here’s a bonus short story from Slade’s view. I write a lot of After the Fall of Olympus short stories in other charcter’s views that I’m not planning on posting until After the Fall of Olympus.

This one’s between Year 5 and 6 and is titled “October 7th”:

-------

It’s October 7th, almost two in the morning, and Slade’s camped out in a somehow still standing bombed out apartment in a no-name village in the middle of a war-torn country.

He’s not exactly expecting visitors.

There’s a knock on the apartment door.

Slade cocks his gun and puts two rounds in the door before, for good measure, adding matching ones on either side of the frame.

He has two seconds to let himself pretend that’s the end of it before the door knob turns to the unmistakable sound of a skilled lock pick. 

Fuck, he’s too tired for this shit today. 

“Geeze, Slade, what if I’d been an innocent civilian?”

Slade’s hand stills on the gun in surprise then consideration before slowly slipping it back into the holster. 

“Kid,” he greets. “There’s no innocent civilians left around here. ‘Specially ones that can make it to my door without me hearing any footsteps.”

“I’ve been working on that.” Dick says, walking into the apartment. He isn’t even wearing his uniform, just plain black military style clothes with the lower half of his face covered by a piece of cloth. He pushes it down and smiles as he presses the door shut behind him. “You did tell me to get better, after all.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” he mutters without much heat. “You getting better almost left me out of a job.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Please, as if both of us don’t know Luthor could’ve gotten out of those charges in months. If the Light didn’t erase them for him, anyway.”

Slade shrugs. Maybe another time, he’d find the energy to banter back. But not today. Never today.

“Why are you here, Dick? How’d you find me?”

The smile slides off of Dick’s face, leaving behind those far too heavy eyes to belong to an eighteen year old.

“You know I have your file, Slade.” Dick clears his throat. “I know what day it is.”

….Fuck.

It’s not like he expected anything else. Not since the moment he saw the kid. But, still...he doesn’t want to deal with this. Doesn’t want to deal with anything. Today, he just wants to crawl back into the worst, most deserted corner of the world he can find until the hours creep passed and he can find the energy to move.

Instead, he glares. “Good for you. Now get the fuck out, kid.”

Dick grimaces but shakes his head. “Not until you answer a question for me.”

Slade groans and, for a handful of seconds, honestly contemplates just killing him, considers it in a way that he hasn’t since before he even met the kid, back when he was first handed a file by a practically no name organization called H.I.V.E.

He’d regret it later. Sure. He has too much he wants to see out of the kid to kill him in a shitty, dusty apartment. But, that regret would come later. Later, once this day had finally passed.

That alone is almost enough to have him reaching for his gun. Almost

“Grayson,” he finally grounds out, “if you know what day it is, you know I’m not exactly inclined to play our game of hero and villain right now. You want information, find someone else.”

“Good, I’m not here to play either. Only problem is I can’t ask anyone else, you're the only one who knows the answer.” Dick lowers himself to sit on the floor across from him, like a particularly stupid mouse in front of a viper.

And then, he looks up and his eyes are too steady to belong to prey.

“Here’s the question: Do you really want to be alone today, Slade?”

The breath catches in Slade’s`lungs, harsher than if the kid had just punched him.

He pushes the reaction down, already knowing it’s too late, and says in the steadiest voice he can manage, “Yes.”

Dick stares at him, unmoving. “I don’t believe you.”

The air around them is too tight, too burning, and Slade’s being pushed down under it to suffocate. 

He can’t fight it, so he takes it and pushes it back into anger. “The fuck, kid! What do you know?  You said you have my file, yeah? How long have you had it? Because I’m betting you’ve had it since we first met!” He lunges forward. “So, why are you here now, Dick? What makes this year so special? What’s made you decide to pretend to care now? Because whatever it is, kid, I can promise you, I’m not worth it. So, leave!”

By the end, he’s gripping Dick’s shirt, pulling it tighter until the collar has to be digging painfully into his neck. 

Dick doesn’t look away. “No.”

Slade doesn’t look away either. “You know I really think I might kill you right now.”

“You won’t.”

 One of Slade’s hands moves until it’s pressing into the kid’s neck. A single sharp twist and he could snap it. “So sure?”

Dick nods.

“And why’s that?”

“Because I brought your favorite whiskey.”

A brown bag is pressed into Slade’s ribs and the man feels something rising in his chest that could possibly be laughter if it was some other time.

He drops the kid.

He takes the bag.

“Pretty sure heroes aren’t supposed to be contributing to alcoholism, kid.” He gestures to a half empty bottle of much cheaper stuff beside him.

Dick coughs, rubbing at his throat. “Please. With your metahuman metabolism, I bet you can barely feel it for an hour.”

“Depends how much I drink,” Slade counters, eyeing the bottle. “How’d you know my favorite?”

Dick shrugs. “Gotta keep some secrets to myself.”

He fishes out a spare shot glass from somewhere in the black folds of his outfit and pours a small glass for himself. 

Slade raises an eyebrow. “Last time I checked, you’re still 18, kid.”

Dick gives him an incredulous look in return. “Last time I checked, this place doesn’t have a drinking age...or a government, actually.”

Slade hums, amused, using a larger glass for himself. “True, but thought you’d be following the laws of your own birth city a little closer, hero. Gotham’s still at 21...on the record at least.”

“Technically, Gotham’s not my birth city.” Dick snorts and takes the shot. 

Slade tilts his head. “Where were you born?”

Dick pauses, thinking, before offering a sheepish smile. “You know….I actually have no idea. Somewhere in Europe, probably? I came early, the circus was still on tour. One of the lion tamers helped deliver me, used to be a doctor.”

“Always a surprise, kid,” Slade shakes his head, draining his glass. Tasting it in his mouth and pretending it’s enough to wash away the ash.

The next words come before he can stop them.  “...Adeline always wanted two kids.”

Dick goes quiet.

“Of course,” Slade says to his glass and fuck it, just fuck it,  “turns out we didn’t even get the one. Turns out I didn’t get either my wife or my son.”

Fuck, he hates October 7th.

He reaches for the whiskey, ignoring how his hand shakes. “Addy was a soldier, you know? A good one. Of all the stupid fucking ways she could go, I never thought it’d be childbirth. Maybe I should have. Always knew I’d kill her somehow.”

“You didn’t kill her, Slade,” Dick says softly.

“Sure. Whatever,” he agrees, too tired to argue. It’s not as if he hasn’t heard every variation sometime or another. It’s just right now, he can’t quite bring himself to debate about the cause when the end of it’s always going to be the same.

Dick drops the subject and the relief that Slade feels  is immense enough that it’s close to gratitude.

“What was your son’s name?”

“Grant. We were going to name him Grant.” He takes another sip. “If we had another one, we were going to name him Joseph. Or Rose for a girl.”

“Those are good names.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

Slade doesn’t answer, looking up to eye the kid over his drink. Dick sees it, holding up his own glass in acknowledgement before knocking it back.

“Why are you here, kid,” Slade asks again. “We’re not friends, pretty far fucking from it last time I checked.”

“I’ve got my reasons,” he answers calmly.

“If you’re here to make your usual sales pitch about the virtues of heroism, I really will kill you. Whiskey or not.”

Dick shakes his head. “....is it so hard to believe I just didn’t think you should be alone?”

Slade thinks his skepticism is loud enough without him needing the words.

The look Dick gives him is steady in return. “Think what you want to, Slade, I know what grief feels like. It’s a poison. It’ll kill you unless you find a way to drain it.” 

Dick looks down at his own glass and Slade gets the feeling the kid’s no longer talking about just Slade. It’s still a tossup whether he means himself or the Bat.

Either way, Slade makes sure his next smirk is particularly pointed. “And, look at you. Tracking me all the way down here to try and save my tortured soul. Such a hero.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dick says with an eye roll, pouring himself another drink

Slade cocks his head. “Speaking of, don’t all the good little heroes have school right about now.”

Dick looks up, almost sheepish. “I’m ditching my classes. Don’t tell my brothers, I’m still trying to be a good influence.”

Slade snorts and takes a particularly long swig.

A good influence. As if a single one of his stupid, fucking team doesn’t think the fricking sun shines out of the kid’s ass.

Fuck. What is Slade even doing? Sitting in a run down apartment in the middle of a warzone drinking whiskey with a too trusting kid a decade younger and that he probably should have killed years ago.

But, then, it’s always been exceedingly difficult for him to do what he should---what’s the sane and logical thing--when it comes to Dick Grayson. And, one day--when he doesn’t have the burn of booze sitting in his gut and his chest doesn’t ache like he’s been shot--Slade’s going to take a hard look at why that is.

For now, he’ll just leave it like he usually does. The kid’s too interesting to die yet. 

Dick eyes his shot glass, contemplatively. “This whiskey’s way too overpriced, Slade. It’s practically aged vodka.”

Slade finishes his off steadily. “Shows you have little taste, Grayson.”

Dick laughs and slides the bottle over. “I brought another one anyway.”

....Far, far too interesting.

[sourbat]

i'm always always always curious about your magnus and toki dynamic because it seems so fleshed-out and lovingly considered. can you talk a bit about how you write their relationship? :D and what is the appeal of them specifically that made you ship it and start writing it?

Oh, wow. There is just now way I’ll be able to answer this to the extent i want, but I’ll give you a brief intro???

I’ll be working backwards with this one. 

what is the appeal of them specifically that made you ship it and start writing it?

Specifically? I really like that they’re more a reflection of one another, with Magnus being a massive “warning/”what if?”” for Toki, if he was denied the same opportunities for love and/or success, kicked out of the band, etc.. They share a lot of similarities, both good and bad, so there’s also a potential “invest now and guarantee a better tomorrow” that both men, to some extent, are aware of. The fact that Toki is also objectively far from perfect also helps. I know with some ships, it’s not always clear that both characters have problems, and I know there are ships where it’s mainly one person helping the other. I think for this ship, it’s not about redeeming one character here, it’s about two characters trying to get past various obstacles and becoming better for it. To continue that reflecting theme, everything that Toki does for Magnus can be returned later, ranging from Magnus eventually taking care of Toki post G2, and even bringing Toki back to life.  It’s the fact that they’re one in the same, it makes it so interesting and fun to write! 

I know, with the basic power dynamic within the canon universe, not to mention established characteristics clearly stated in the show, it means that a lot of the burden is going to be on Toki using his resources to help Magnus first. I kinda dig it. Give power of (emotional/mental) healing to Toki, and make the god of death a savior. Personally, there’s a lot of really nice, untapped worship material here that I definitely want to explore. Or, you can. I definitely wouldn't mind. 

i'm always always always curious about your magnus and toki dynamic because it seems so fleshed-out and lovingly considered. can you talk a bit about how you write their relationship?

Thank you!! Well, this is going to be long, but I’ll try to keep it...kinda shortish? (In order at the very least.) 

To begin, I know someone who does live with mental illness, and over the course of our six year friendship, have experienced a lot of ups and downs. But we’ve been friends for six years, and looking at it as a whole, it’s crazy to see how much they’ve improved compared to when they first emailed me a billion years ago. But things weren’t always as good as they are now, and these things took time to get to that point. A lot of the things Toki’s said to Magnus aren’t too far from some of the things I’ve suggested to them, and some of the really messed up things Magnus has thought or said regarding himself, his mood swings, shifting attitude towards Toki, that’s all based on real moments, feelings and arguments. 

I think we agreed there were stages to this relationship, and mine are pretty much based on a combination of what I experienced, plus what I realistically think these two would go through. Since everything is, to some extent, planned out, and because I have a somewhat visible end goal in sight (already hinted at in other fics), it makes writing the harder parts leading up to it easier, and makes pulling memories and old emotions all the more fruitful. 

So there are four stages in their relationship, and when I write I try to figure where it's taking place. I’m not going into the nitty gritty, but if you want more I can elaborate. They are the following: 

Codependent stage: I legitimately think the first stage would be a codependent one. At this stage, Magnus cannot refuse Toki’s attention. It’s partly out of guilt, partly because Toki’s one of the few constants in his life, one of the few people providing him attention and with his illness, it’s some he craves. He wants attention without having to expose himself too much, and Toki’s providing just that. In turn, Toki receives validation and attention, something we know he wants from others. Neither want to talk about DR because they’re scared, and they both secretly hope the other will do it for him, but also dread it. Magnus is afraid that once the talk happens, things will “move on,” and he loses Toki, and Toki’s afraid he’ll fear Magnus again, and that everything everyone said about him is true. 

Communicative 1: The second stage really is just about communication, but it’s also the longest stage, which is why I break it into two. It’s  Magnus and Toki coming to terms with what happened, taking their time out of fear of what will come next, and facing that cathartic, but frightening sense of relief when they realize they don’t hate one another, and that are still bearings to their relationship. Toki now has evidence Magnus feels bad and cares about him, likes him for the joy it brings in his life, so there’s more incentive to return, even if it means asking more questions and getting painful answers. And Magnus now knows Toki will not leave him (for now), and starts to open up more, starting with things he thinks will continue keeping Toki around, then eventually moving on to other personal aspects of his life. 

Communicative 2: Magnus starts picking up slack, and Toki can start easing back with bearing the emotional/mental burdens. Magnus begins to share personal information he normally wouldn't, and Toki starts to feel more confident as his hard work starts to take form in Magnus being kinder, trying to stick with a plan regarding his mental health, creating goals and listening to Toki’s advice. Towards the later end, Magnus starts picking up on Toki’s issues more, and begins asking about them and slowly adjusting to avoid those triggers (Toki’s an alcoholic, has Panic Disorder and suffers from Depression). Eventually, guilt ceases to be the reason they’re together. 

Equilibrium: Magnus is regularly taking care of himself without needing to be reminded, and is now looking after Toki. Magnus CAN take care of Toki when needed, and can successfully put his own thoughts aside to help another person. Post G2 Magnus repays Toki back and basically takes care of him in the similar manner Toki did before. At various times during this stage Magnus believes Toki will never leave him, but considering his age chances are the doubt  will never vanish, only subdued when it arises. Toki eventually heals from some of his past traumas, beats depression, but still struggles with nightmares and panic attacks, though they are few and far between. They take care of each other.

[naomitess]

Dear Yuletide Writer 2020

Dear Yuletide Author,

Thank you so much for writing a story for me! Yuletide has become one of my very favorite parts of Christmas; I love that we come together to tell each other stories and celebrate the fandoms we love, it’s amazing.

Things I love, in general: witty dialogue. Fic that gets the voices right. Everyday moments that mean more than they seem to on the surface. Characters who initially hate each other but come to love, like, or reluctantly respect each other. Female friendships. I like crossovers and AUs.

Things I’m not wild about, in general: Female characters being catty for no reason other than “girls are just awful.“ Mpreg stories are also a really hard sell for me. (Not completely out of the question, just a hard sell.) Rape, torture, dismemberment are generally not what I’m looking for in a Yuletide story. 

Specifics for the fandoms (and all optional details are optional; as a Yuletide writer, I love getting fairly specific requests for prompts, but don’t feel like you have to stick with mine):

Chalion series, Lois McMaster Bujold

I really love the Penric series, but Prisoner of Limnos set a whole new bar for me with these stories, because I adored Tanar Xarre and Surakos Bosha, and immediately wanted to see more of their complicated, intimate, not-exactly-romantic, not-exactly-not-romantic relationship. (I particularly love that at the age of six, she found him hiding terrified and bleeding in her treehouse, stitched him up with a sewing needle and cared for him, and this was in fact legitimately typical for their relationship going forward.) Anyway –  I really want them to get their own story. Some possibilities:

* Tanar does, as Bosha has suggested, run off and become a pirate queen.

* Or a bandit or a saint or a self-appointed ambassador to some country that apparently needed an emissary or the leader of a secretive cabal of assassins dedicated to taking out all the creepy-ass leaders of her country (they’re clearly awful on every possible level). Several of these could actually have been happening in the background when Nikys and Penric showed up.

* A story set when Tanar is younger, about some danger she gets into and how Bosha gets her out.

* A story in which Bosha is in danger and Tanar gets him out.

* The two of them rescuing each other.

* Curtainfic. (I mean, I have to figure that Bosha would spend the whole shopping trip waiting for someone to show up who he gets to has to kill.)

* Tanar goes on a pilgrimage and Bosha goes with her.

* Tanar and Bosha arrive in Orbas so that Tanar can marry (or at least have some serious opportunity to consider) Adelis. I kind of think that Tanar is too good for Adelis so by all means feel free to have her do this only to ditch Adelis for someone else. Or she could do this and Adelis could be off on some battle front or whatever. 

Calpurnia Tate

I want what I think everyone wants on reading The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate: I want Calpurnia to go to college. I’d love a story about that – fighting to go, going, being there, graduating, any element of it. Or, if you’d prefer, any story where she takes an important step toward getting a real education will make me happy. Or any story where she does science with her Grandfather, because those are my favorite parts of the books. Or you could use any item on that bucket list she writes at the end of the first book as a prompt. I would prefer not to get a story where Calpurnia’s grandfather dies in the story. If he’s died before the story starts (even quite recently) that’s OK. One of the things I really appreciate about these books is that Calpurnia never surrenders to the demands of femininity. She learns to cook and knit and do various other mandatory tasks because her mother forces her, but never says to herself, “oh, this isn’t so bad,” and the book never presents “becoming a LADY” as the inevitable response to maturity.

I love all the side characters and their relationships with Calpurnia, so feel free to use your favorites or make up some OCs for her to hang out with in college or whatever.

The “You’re Wrong About” Podcast

When I describe this podcast to friends I tell them that listening to it feels like being at brunch with two people you really like, and one of them has just learned all about something ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING and is going to tell you all about it while you sip a mimosa and eat French toast and periodically chime in to say things like “no!” or “that BASTARD” or “please tell me she got away from him???” I really enjoy it and have listened to every episode other than the one about the 2000 election.

So, what I would like is a pretend version of this podcast where Sarah and Michael unpack something that in our world is fictional but in the story world actually happened and is getting explained in basically the same form that they explain everything else (so, like, this could in fact be episode 8 of who-knows-how-many where they’re going over some tangential detail of whatever it is). FEEL FREE to cross this over with ANYTHING, and it’s totally fine if it’s a fandom I’m not particularly versed in. Alternately, feel free to just make something up. Or use an urban legend and either have them debunk it or say that in this fictional world it turned out to be true. 

Alternately, I would like a pretend version of the podcast where Sarah and Michael are debunking a weird story that in our world actually happened but in the fictional universe of the story did not. 

Humans are Space Orcs (meme)

I signed up for this because I saw it in the tags and thought “oh, I always love the Tumblr collective-fictionating-in-stacked-posts stuff like this.” I am honestly not sure how to prompt it, other than to say, “you know, like the meme, but ... something new.” 

Things that would make me happy: a series of thoughts on the ways in which humans might be the weird ones / scary ones (not necessarily in orc-like ways). A story where a bunch of aliens are sitting around something like a bar, topping each others’ stories about humans. I don’t know. Part of what I love about the meme as it circulates are people kicking ideas around, so feel free to just kick a bunch of ideas around.

[2ofswords]

🔥 Go wild, king

(Trigger warning: discussion of misogyny (first and foremost), sexualization of minors, transphobia and also some classism sprinkled in here because this list wasn’t long enough. Some really gross shit tbh, I am going full vent mode with this one! Please proceed with caution!)

Oh well, I will annoy everyone who follows me and vague about people who will probably never read this by stating that the Hunger Games participation fanfiction (or how it is called in English, I’m not sure, please tell me if you know “^^) on fanfiktion.de is really fucking misogynistic and I hate it even if I write for the fandom. (Like not you my three homies, who follow me here, I am mostly talking about other writers. Also if you are weirded out by me talking past tense: The people in the community I interacted with aren’t really active on there anymore and there is a lot of distance by now.) Like… I don’t only mean the basic stereotypes or shit mostly male writers do, not knowing that a female character can have actual agency and their own thoughts. Oh no! It’s worse! It was growing out of proportion to the point it became unbearable.

Statements like “females have by nature worse chances in the hunger games” were just like… casually thrown around and also written like that in fic. There was a writer who said that female characters – which other people could send in as part of the participation – are worse written than male ones (which as a writer I do not perceive as true and even if it would be, forming a community where creating females becomes uncomfortable it can worsen the characters and/or ward of people who actually want to engage with female characters creating a very vicious circle) and that she cannot write them (which like… is already very misogynistic. It’s not hard, I promise, just write them as FUCKING PEOPLE!) and only accepted male characters at all for a while. And like… one time she made an exception for an all boys arena where there was only one female and she just complained all the time how she wouldn’t make it because she was a girl and got infantilised horribly. That got to the point in the story, where the girl in the story one time slipped on soap because she couldn’t use a shower properly and a male character had to help her because she fell unconscious. I am not making this up! It was… utterly horrible. She also very unceremoniously got literally vaporized the first day in the arena so that was… telling.

There are other problems. There is a lot of the classical weird sexualization which yes, can reach even higher levels of… problematic… if we consider that there are mostly minors in the hunger games. I would love to be fair, a lot of changed rulesets only allowed for older characters, that were more around 20 years old... That wasn’t always the case though and I do remember a fic, where an underage girl provided sexual favours for a higher chance at survival… I think she was sixteen and the guy eighteen… It wasn’t explicit but still… fucking gross! Most of this got sorted into the edgy side of “realism” which tbh is just a very shitty argument in general. You can decide what you fucking put in your story and this shit is entirely unnecessary! It didn’t even further the plot in any way or was discussed healthily, just to make sure, I also check these boxes in my explanation. (Hate, to even feel the need to defend myself making this statement.) So that is probably the height of grossness I remember.

The weird hunt for Mary Sues was also a thing (though who would have guessed?). And since Mary Sue means “I don’t like this character” for many and we do not like the females here, it got thrown around a lot for really minor offences. There was a bad tendency to joke about other people’s characters (and since it is fandom you can guess that some of these people, who send characters in, were very young…) but there was an especially bad trend of female name calling and ridicule, to the point that sometimes you would get female characters send for your story, that were made only to be ridiculed (be it because they acted bitchy (aka were female and had attitude, god forbid!) or too manly (which yes, also has some very bad transphobic implications but let’s spare us this debate right now. This is its own entire can of worms and I could make an entire new post about how transgender and nonbinary people got treated there. Let me just say that there also was a lot of toxic masculinity and gender identity there just fucking sucked). Truth to be told this also was true to other minorities (there was a character whose social accent was the entire joke aside from him being depicted as overtly horny and degrading towards – you guessed it! – female characters, so… that was horrible!). Male characters getting allowed a higher skillset is so normalized that I got numb to it. Like... this legitimately is a hot take for this fandom! Honestly, I got numb to a lot of this shit, in retrospect it is really scary how accustomed you can get to some of this stuff. Like… the ones here are the worst and not the only offenders (and thankfully I was never that blind to notice that this shit is completely fucked up! Thank god!) and like… I could make this post about entirely different topics too, but this issue is by far the… let’s say the most blatant one, and made me realize how bad this shit can get and how awful fiction and real issues can interlock with each other. In hindsight it’s horrible to see.

If one of you finds my tumblr through my fanfiktion.de profile and reads this: Good. Fix your fucking problems! This isn’t okay!

[sharkfish]

ps i loved this one

(rereading bookmarks edition)

i’ve been rereading stories from my bookmarks as a comfort thing. i’m getting real deep in there to stuff i haven’t (re)read for years, and damn do i have good taste. the ones i’ve read recently that you should, too: 

(under the cut so i’m not that asshole that makes you scroll past an endless post) 

A Change of Scene by SurlyCat

When Dean goes over to see his Dom on Christmas Eve, he isn't expecting Cas to play naughty Santa, and neither of them is expecting how it turns out for them.

ooooomg fuck me up with that sex to lovers thing featuring bdsm. yessssss 

A Room of His Own (or not) by Valinde (Valyria)

Dean took a deep breath and reassessed the situation. He was in bed with a guy, sure, and technically they were snuggling, but it was Cas. The guy had absolutely no reference on what was appropriate physical contact between two dudes sharing a bed in the... normal, completely unsexy, no-funny-business, way.

cas is fallen, dean is confused (what else is new), A+ cuddling. that’s the fic. 

Boys On Film by LoversAntiquities @tragidean​ 

But maybe that’s what it is—maybe Castiel’s finally realized something Dean is too chicken to admit, despite the fact he’s been jerking off to the idea of Castiel fucking him for the past few weeks. The idea warms him as much as it pains him to think about, his friend not being able to talk to him about something like that. That has to be it—it’s the only explanation. Castiel likes him.

“Or maybe he knows you do cam shows.”

Dean chokes on his burger.

idk what to say, i love a good sex worker fic and here you go. @tragidean​ is always here with that first-class content. 

Castiel's Angel by Valinde (Valyria) @valinde​

The angel took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. He was fidgeting Cas noticed. Usually he was so bizarrely at ease in his human form, lounging around and tossing winks and smirks at anyone with a pulse. That more than anything had Cas straightening on his stool and wishing he was a little less tipsy.

“Ineedyoutogroommywings,” Dean muttered in one long, almost unintelligible, string. He was blushing.

all my fellow wing hos should flock* to this fic. i also love me a good switcharoo with angel dean (and hunter cas, as this is an alternate canon universe). and dean gets all claim-y, which is also my jam. 

*this was unintentional but a pretty funny joke 

For Science! by pm_lo 

Selected transcripts and supporting materials from Dr. Castiel Williams and Dean Winchester’s seminal study on physiological and psychological sexual response by gender designation.

i believe this was the first abo fic i added to my bookmarks. story time: many, many moons ago, i kept track of my reading list. i was doing that “50 books a year” thing so it was mostly for tracking that, but i had another tab for fics, because i read few enough that i could track them. i rated things and sometimes left notes, and by all the abo ones i was like “don’t tell anyone i read this.” yes, i shamed myself for liking abo. it was a dark time in my life.

anyway, then i read this, and was like, all right i can see what’s going on here.

this is a great fic for multiple reasons, and the format is one. it’s written as dialogue-only transcripts from their experiment. it’s hard to make that kind of format work, but pm_lo ain’t fucking around. 

Just a Stranger On the Bus by Amelia_Clark 

December 31 9:32 PM When Castiel boards the bus in KC, they think it’s empty at first—but when they toss their backpack onto an aisle seat and climb in after it, there’s a muffled yelp from the dimness at the back of the bus. They turn in time to see a man in a faded Carharrt jacket, sitting up and yawning as he rubs sleep out of his eyes. The man’s hair is greasy and matted down on one side, and there’s drool on the side of his face; nonetheless, he’s ridiculously good-looking.

“Hey man,” he says. Castiel does not correct him. “This can’t be Chicago.”

the non-binary tag, just like the trans tags in general, are a house half-built and left to rot in the rain. even if that wasn’t true, this series is goddamn amazing. also there’s rimming. also there’s a line in there that said something like “they don’t dislike their body, it just never felt like theirs” and i had a lightbulb moment irt my own experience. did dean ever wear carharrt in the actual series? if not, mistakes have been made. 

Just Turn Around and Go by PorcupineGirl @porcupine-girl​

Dean should be happy. His best friend and housemate of five years, Castiel, is moving out to live with his boyfriend, Balthazar. Dean's career is going great, so he can easily afford the house on his own now. This is just growing up, moving forward to the next phase of their lives.

It would be awesome, if he weren't in love with Cas.

Well, here we go, he thinks as he opens the refrigerator and digs around for sandwich supplies. First day of the rest of your life. Time to move the fuck on. As he slams his meat and mayo and pickles down on the counter, he considers adding the bottle of whiskey he knows is hiding in the cabinet, but decides that he has enough self-respect to wait 'til five. Then he'll get fucking blackout drunk. Yep. Awesome.

y’all, do i even have to say anything about this? roommates to friends to a pathetic amount of pining without saying shit to disgustingly in love. also i think i cried, but i’ve been in tears so many times in the last week, who’s to say. 

Plus One by ceeainthereforthat @ceeainthereforthat​ 

Castiel Novak might have to attend three weddings in two months, but he’s not about to let his brother play matchmaker. His family’s Internet streaming company is too important to let a relationship steal his time, but he knows exactly what to do–hire someone to pretend to be his boyfriend.

Dean Winchester has worked five-star hospitality long enough to know how to fit in with Castiel’s crowd, and this job could score him the connections to make his acting career take off. It’s a business deal, no matter how they’re drawn to each other. When the lines of their contract start to blur into real feelings, can they withstand Castiel’s family and jealous fans working to split them up?

there are a lot of great fake dating stories out there, but this one takes the cake (or, at least, a slice of it). also, i cried a lot rereading this, both “ohhh god i love their love” tears and also “ohhhh god this hurts so bad” tears. 

Should've Just Asked by Annie D (scaramouche) 

Despite their age gap and differing social circles, Castiel has struck up a warm friendship with Mary Winchester, a wealthy widowed socialite. When Castiel needs a place to stay, Mary invites him into her house, where there’s loads of spare room. Castiel’s aware that they make an odd pair, but he doesn’t fully realize how things look to outsiders, especially to Mary’s eldest son. All Dean Winchester sees is that his mom has apparently hooked up with a hot young guy (who is totally Dean’s type) and that makes things… weird.

they’re both oblivious idiots in love, cas is grey-ace, dean’s a total dork, it’s all just very lovely (and frustrating in the way oblivious idiots can be!!!). 

PS - annie d is writing marvel fic lately and i’m sure it’s fantastic if you’re into that kind of thing. 

Support Your Local Gay Beekeeper by Powerfulweak

It’s not like Dean goes on Grindr very often, just when he’s bored and alone. The blue-eyed guy's profile reads "Beekeeper, 29, 5'10, Single, I watch the bees." Dean is intrigued. He has to send a message.

this is a series that starts with some great phone sex and then goes on to very, very awkward sex injuries. a goddamn cringefest that had me in complete horror imagining it. but it’s fun! they persevere! people so rarely write about Sex Going Wrong and i love @powerfulweak​ for taking the bullet for us on that one. 

Take Me Home Tonight by Persephoneshadow @persephoneshadow​

“Come on, we’re finding you someone to…engage with sexually or whatever,” Dean explains, chancing another swig of beer before going on. “Anyone in this bar, no limits, who would you would be your top choice to bang?” “Well, you, ideally.” Dean spits out some beer before collapsing in on himself, legitimately choking this time. “Excuse me?!” ---- Or the one where Cas wants to have sex and Dean is there to help.

your classic denialist “i’ll be your wingman” turning to “actually imagining someone else touching you makes me want to punch someone.” which is dumb, because cas actually wanted dean all along. 

Words with Friends by betts

"Dean Winchester is as straight as an arrow. He’s a lady’s man of epic proportions: the king of the one night stand, the messiah of the friends with benefits paradigm, the emperor of perpetual bachelorhood.

Except, apparently, when it comes to his best friend, Castiel Novak."

***

Wherein a longstanding acquaintanceship leads to friendship, then best friendship, then sexting, then dirty talk, then mutual masturbation, then, inevitably, fucking.

look i think you’re always in good hands with @bettsfic​. but this one has some good sexting and phone sex right at the start, which i’m totally into, and then it gets even better. cas is a lil bossy, by which i meant to say he’s the kind of bdsm geek who has equipment installed in his bedroom for sex purposes. 

You're The Only Stranger I Need by lyndsie_l

When Castiel receives a text from a stranger, he finds himself engaging in conversations daily. He's drawn to the outgoing college student and longs to interact with the other man as often as he can. Slowly, he finds himself falling in love with the other and can't imagine ever meeting a more beautiful person.

The only problem?

He's never actually met this other man.

be still my heart! a long distance/texting/phone sex thing! i want to read it again right this second. cas is such a cool nerd, dean is a brat, it’s a good time all around. 

if you enjoy these fics (and you should), please give the writer some love via kudos and/or comments. <3 

ps - as always, if i didn’t tag the writer and you know their tumblr, please tag in the comments. i don’t think there’s a writer alive who wouldn’t be happy to be on a rec list. :) 

[whoslaurapalmer]

for the directors cut thingy what are you doing the rest of your life? this is one of if not my most favorite warm fuzzy lemonberryice fic so any part of it you want to talk about, but especially the bit starting with “‘I wouldn’t run,’ I said. ‘And I will thank you not to point out my previous track record of doing just that’”

thank you!!!!!!! also, true to form, this is, so long, cause i just did the whole thing. what else would i do. the tl;dr of it all is that when i write fic, i am always thinking about writing structure and individual characterization and what the point of any given story is above all else, and that consumes a lot of brain power. and that you could give me any line in a fic and i will have an incredibly specific anecdote for it. 

the first lemonberry ice i wrote!! what a time. i specifically tagged it as ‘very little angst and no one dies!!!’ because i’d just posted beatrice like. three months before??? and i said to myself ‘hmm. i don’t want people to think all i can write is angst......’ so i wanted the fic to be like, look! nothing bad happens here this time!! it’s all good!!!!!!!!! and i had wanted to write something happy!! i like fluff a lot!! 

like bertrand, i was also searching for the right sinatra song for this fic. if it isn’t obvious, by now, three years later, i love sinatra a lot. on my previous laptop, the file for this fic was still titled after the first song the fic was supposed to be about, but when i backed up everything in googledrive i titled it properly, so the file name is the proper one now, but i’m, 99% sure the original song was i get a kick out of you (specifically this super jazzy one, not the one with the opener, it’s slower and doesn’t sound the same). but LIKE WITH EVERY CHOICE I MAKE IN A FIC i wasn’t sure it really captured what the fic was about. especially the “you obviously don’t adore me” line, because the fic was certainly more upbeat than that. so i dug around on youtube for one i thought fit better and found what are you doing the rest of your life. for three people, living such turbulent and unpredictable lives, to hear this song about always wanting to be there, for everything, no matter what it is, and for the rest of their lives, to admit that’s possible............ i couldn’t find a recording of young!sinatra singing it, though, which bummed me out a little. nothing wrong with old!sinatra, but you can start to hear more of the.....age his voice, you know? 

since this was 2017, only the first netflix season was out, and we all still had such high hopes for it, and i sure did, and tito puente was mentioned in miserable mill and because s1 was so good i didn’t mind making a couple references to it because EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL, and i just wound up sticking him in beatrice and what are you doing the rest of your life because his music was great and it was a fun callback! simpler times indeed........

my main goal with the fic was, i think, to try and figure out how i thought the three of them worked in a relationship, since it was my first time writing them. which is why there’s really specific lines like, “A year had gone by and I still wasn’t used to how free Bertrand was with his affection.” and “I grinned, because after all this time I knew when she was kidding. Beatrice’s razor-sharp wit, and the touches of playfulness behind it, was one of my favorite things about her.” they’re lines that i still think are absolutely in character for lemony, and i probably wouldn’t change them if i wrote it now, but i do feel they’re a little too, on point. or not on point, just.....obvious. like, not only did the lines have to make sense in the style, but they had to make sense, for me, as i was writing, as i was trying to figure out their characters and what would show lemony’s nerves alongside bea and bertrand’s habits and their relationship as a whole, and that’s a lot to try and do

“‘Sonnets,’ I said. ‘Beatrice will write sonnets.’” truly. i am truly haunted by this line now. it will keep me up at night. 

oh boy, that section is. a lot. i gotta go through the whole thing. i do. 

“I wouldn’t run,” I said. “And I will thank you not to point out my previous track record of doing just that, because they were all for relatively legitimate reasons.” I liked to think that I wouldn’t do it again, if the sort of situation arose where it was something I had to consider. (i think every writer in this fandom will admit that one of the hardest things to do, when writing a happy fic, is trying to find the line between, ‘i cannot avoid the legit canon events that have happened to these characters and turned them into the people they are, and i need to address that, no matter what i’m doing’ and ‘i want them to be happy and they deserve it’ and i think that’s a lot of what this section is. referencing how in canon lemony runs to not necessarily avoid his problems, but also, mainly, i think, because he believes 1) that’s the only way to protect the people he cares about and 2) that they’re better off without him, and how there’s definitely a gap between him leaving stain’d-by-the-sea and returning to the city, where anything happened, that counts as ‘leaving,’ and it was also supposed to reference one of the giant fics i was working on at the time, where the climax was, of course, and like any good slow burn fic, a misunderstanding that involved lemony leaving before reconciling with bea and bertrand. this fic would’ve taken place after it.) I liked to think that marriage wasn’t one of those things, because it was something I genuinely wanted. (2017!me had no idea what 2019!me would do......) But the uncertainties of the world sometimes made even that lovely thing seem so far out of my grasp that, if I was honest with myself, I had considered slipping away into the night so that I wouldn’t ruin anything else. It was an upsetting thing to think, but I had thought of it as much as I had thought about those musical numbers. (i still think about that, sometimes. lemony and bertrand, proposing like true theater nerds.) 

Bertrand looked out over the water. “Do you think I’m not scared too, Lemony? About the things we do, the positions we put ourselves in, whether this assignment or the next one will be the one that takes one of you away from us?” (my mental checklist of things i write include ‘lulu, is there a moment in the fic where like, The Point Of The Fic Is Made,’ like the moment where it all comes together and, this is what the fic was For an What It’s Supposed To Say, and that’s what this scene was for, and it’s definitely in what bertrand’s saying here.) (but because it’s 2017, like some of the earlier lines, i feel as if The Point is Too On Point. but it’s something i still struggle with, even now.) (it’s still important for bertrand to say it, though.....) 

“No,” I said. “I’m not that much of a fool to think that my fears aren’t universal.”

“Sometimes you act like you do,” Bertrand said quietly. “And I am under no delusion that our feelings for each other will fix any or all of our problems. But they can be a little easier to deal with that way, when you know you aren’t alone. You know that, don’t you?” (i had a lot of characterization notes around this fic (and the giant fic i was writing) since i was, again, just writing them and trying to figure out how they all worked, so i had a little list of like, what each of them do for the other, and parts of it were “bertrand prevents beatrice and lemony from being too dramatic, bertrand prevents lemony from being too self-deprecating, lemony allows bertrand to feel less self-conscious (and probably less worried because bertrand knows someone else shares his terrible anxieties)” and there are things i write differently now, because i’ve been at it for a while, but it was important for me to figure out how they connected with each other and....not what they offered each other, and certainly not how they fixed each other, but how each of them lessened certain canon elements that would make their relationship go differently. because again all my lemonberry ice fics (with the exception of the letter) are written from a standpoint where they would rewrite canon, especially this one. anyway, that’s.....that’s what that dialogue was supposed to do. when all three of them are together, they’re capable of being that support for each other and evening each other out.) 

I wanted very much to believe that, but every time Beatrice or Bertrand said it, it never seemed to sink in the way it should. It is one thing to love someone, or multiple someones, to love them so much you often can’t think of anything else, but another thing to trust them and the things they say and yourself, especially when you live the kind of lives that we lived. (i hate to keep bringing up years i know it’s like. weird but it’s how i sort where my brain was, and 2017 was a great year for analysis in this fandom and i don’t remember who exactly had brought up, that lemony sees a difference between love and trust, especially after ellington (he loved her but he didn’t trust her), and that’s something that’s so true that i’ve never forgotten and that gets brought up in other fics too (bea in the letter loving lemony but not trusting him.....). there are certain headcanons, of my own and of others, that i tend to just get, attached to, so they just. keep. happening.) Perhaps I did forget about it sometimes, the terrible recklessness with which Beatrice occasionally acted, how Bertrand tended to be much too quiet at times, the things all of us did when we forgot we weren’t alone. (yet another ‘line that has to work in the narrative and Say The Point’ because that really is a big thing in how i structure stories. i feel like it’s so necessary for there to BE a point to each thing i write, ESPECIALLY in shorter pieces, otherwise, why???????? and you know what, i need to be less strict about that, really.) The three of us were not perfect people, not by any means, but three imperfect people doing what they can for each other in a turbulent world is sometimes better than three perfect people going through life without a care about anything else. (i rewrote this line a few times, but it’s one of my favorites. this fic really has aged well, especially with lemony’s narration, this line in particular.) 

I squeezed Bertrand’s hand and didn’t say anything more.

speaking of lemony’s whole love vs. trust thing and my rewriting, i tend to keep most of what i cut out of a fic, especially while i’m trying to figure out a certain line (although sometimes i’ll just rewrite over it and then it’s lost to time), and the file has my original attempts for this scene, which still had some good lines -- 

I think it is a universally accepted truth that if you love someone, you trust them, in one way or another, but I have never felt that way. there have been quite a few people whom I loved a great deal but didn’t trust them, or people that I knew I could trust to act a certain way but certainly didn’t love at all. I believe it comes with the sort of upbringing that involves a great deal of suspicion for even the people around you.

the circumstances around you meeting them. but sometimes also because of the things they do. or you can not love someone at all and trust them, because you know them to be a horrible person and trust that they will continue to act in horrible ways, and that at the bottom of every root beer float you drink in their presence there will be a small collection of thumbtacks.

bertrand looked out over the water. “we love you very much, lemony,” he said, “and I don’t expect that to fix any or all of our problems. but do you trust that we feel that way?”

I did. or I wanted to. the thing about trust is that it is a very difficult thing, and as much as I wanted to spend the rest of my life between the two of them, the amount of uncertainty I felt about myself and our lives and even about that uncertainty was a heavy thing.

“what if it’s not enough?”

“maybe it’s not,” bertrand admitted. “but it’s good enough.”

“‘Hey, hey!’ Beatrice said, snatching the plate from him. ‘Don’t be like that with the good plates.’” still one of my favorite actions. still makes me laugh, even though now i think bea would be the one to be reckless with dishware. 

and beatrice talking about their apartment being too small for children is a top favorite fic ending. i love her. so much. 

[applekitty]

how kitty writes nightmare; brief overview

okay so last post got 8 notes which is surprising so i’ll try to explain how i write nightmare / what i use to write nightmare, which involves explaining main characteristics i’ve gleamed from the anime as well as shoving in my own for personality’s sake. 

i’ll be focusing on post-war nightmare here

in terms of backstory

i’ll be brief here since i have a whole fic explaining it, but nightmare did not have exactly the happiest time back in the day. a lot of stuff happened (betrayal, death, etc) due to him killing two demons that the star warriors hailed, making those gods martyrs and him accidentally making himself the fallguy for them. if he goes around hurting things and destroying things, and the star warriors stop him, there’s nothing but clout for those star warriors and their god. if he doesn’t go around hurting and destroying things, he’d get found and killed anyways because the star warriors hate him for literally killing their two demon gods.

nightmare got it into his head that the only way for him to live, or at least live comfortably without fear of being betrayed (as offers of redemption made him paranoid about their ‘true intentions’), was to be a full villain with no friends. every time he’d given the benefit of the doubt he’d get betrayed or the star warriors would find him and kill him because he’d usually end up doing something shitty in the process (like ally with a planet destroyer or kidnap people, etc). people needed a reason to like him because he was evil and wrong, and there was no such thing as unsolicited kindness. at least, not towards someone like him.

at least if he was evil, he could fight back without fear being something that affects him.

main principals

optimism

nightmare’s optimism is very egotistical, as he’s always 100% sure things will work out for him with the risks he takes. he usually gets smacked for his optimism, but his perspective that everything works out daisys for him is completely unfaultering so long as nightmare has his ego about him. even when things eventually get tough for him (post-anime, no company, no cs), he’d still be positive and willing to work at getting all his stuff back. or. well. try to. 

nightmare’s main appeal here is his goof factor. he is a goof. he does the stuff because he’s having fun, so when he’s having fun, the reader (supposedly) has fun too.

this is arguably nightmare’s most important trait as a villain, because unfaltering optimism and ego makes him who he is and allows everything else in his personality to function.

..to the point of idiocy

nightmare is an idiot. he is always doing stupid shit purely because he’s an invulnerable moron. when nightmare is happy, he’s stupid, and he is supposed to be kept that way, according to characters like meta knight. removing nightmare’s happiness also means removing his stupidity, and the only thing that keeps nightmare at bay at the moment is his overwhelming lack of braincells.

nightmare can be classified as very childish and almost naive in a sense because he has absolutely no common sense whatsoever. he’ll do things for the sake of doing them, piss off people for the sake of pissing them off, etc

loyalty above all else

due to nightmare’s fear of betrayal, he is ungodly loyal. he refuses to betray people. he wants those who he likes to like him back. those he values, truly, are treated like solid gold to him and he would do anything for them.. other than say he values them. because he’s still evil, he doesn’t say he has friends or people he likes. he’ll call them ‘allys’ or ‘pets’ or ‘assets’. asset is the nicest word he could use and it’s hard to get him to say that. he wants to keep his close allys as close as possible and liking him as much as possible in order to quell betrayal. 

when nightmare likes you, for whatever reason, he will do anything for you. well, next to anything.

betrayal aka the only time to feel bad

nightmare’s reaction to explicit betrayal that isn’t immediately rectified or explained is.. well, something. nightmare can’t handle the thought of being betrayed, so his mind sorta shuts down and he goes into autopilot ‘war mode’ wherein he tries to kill his traitor as quickly and painlessly as possible. 

post betrayal there’s a grieving process that nightmare uses to spend alone, typically one day long, then afterwards he’s done because his memory will repress the betrayal, the person, and everything. however, he will be more paranoid of betrayal after it’s happened, and be more suspicious of people’s intentions.

enemies are enemies, really

when nightmare knows someone doesn’t like him, and he knows there’s no point in saving the relationship for his reputation, it’s destruction time. these sorts of people are few and far between, because nightmare / his company is able to pacify most protesters or warmongers. but for the few that exist, nightmare knows no mercy. he very much enjoys getting declared war on, because that means he can go out and have fun destroying things again.

boredom

nightmare is extrodinarily lazy. he sleeps a whole bunch and, well, does effectively nothing in his whole company. he just sits around. this has caused him a fair amount of restlessness, which he takes out on employees. he’ll often hatch stupid schemes to entertain himself (as seen in nightmare’s cat) for a while, or he’ll complain that he’s bored. nightmare needs constant stimulation and constant company. lots of nightmare’s dialogue usually is formed around him being bored and wanting something to do. instead of doing something himself, he’ll usually want someone else do to something for him in order to make him not bored. if that does not work, he WILL start a situation and it WILL be bad for everyone involved.

in the case of characters, he complains a lot that cs is boring because he’s so buisness oriented. he never thinks, however, that meta knight is boring despite mk being much more apathetic and flat than cs is. it depends on how he sees a person or a situation.

‘benevolent’ corpocracy

nightmare is still a very evil man, he’s a warlord. however, he feels incredibly constrained by the current society he himself has fostered. he wants to be as evil as possible, but if he’s evil in his own society, his workers will rise up and kill him. people will develop ways to kill him en-masse due to his overarching affect on their lives, and he does not want that. he is constantly conflicted between good pr and being as evil as he wants. a content populous doesn’t rebel, and rebellion now, when he’s at his best, with the threat of everything he worked for doesn’t just up and poof away in smoke

in terms of blatant evil, he does not allow child labor, general crime, or anything that anyone with any common sense would say is unethical business practice.

nightmare’s buisness model is ‘make sure the employees are happy’, but he does like to have a lot of evil stuff happen. he’s got a whole batch of questionable decisions he makes in terms of other planets. he actively destroys economies on other planets to make them fully rely on his company, he’d sabotage entire galaxies and powerful families just to take their things. though he does this with the ‘illusion of choice’ that impoverish people have. it’s either work until you’re dead or die on the street. which will you choose? you can work for nme, the thing run by the evil space wizard which destroyed lots of the galaxy and is ruining your planet specifically to line his pockets, or you could die on the street. 

nightmare’s fear of betrayal does not line itself to these people and their planets, as he finds them so insignificant that they aren’t worth the effort to worry about. he gave them jobs, he’s giving them money, he lets them have benefits and unions, so they have nothing to complain about. it’s moreso the people in the company, on the actual ship base, that he is worried about.

this is gleamed from the show, as.. aside from a monster every week which dedede specifically requests, things can be seen as peaceful. even on popstar, which is where nightmare seems to be focusing his attention. granted, we dont see much outside of popstar. that, and cs seems to be pretty happy (yes don’t @ me he fuckin does look happy because in the finale he’s smiling and laughing while not on the job and if there were any place to express discontent it would be there) with his job, and yamikage too considering how he’s working with them, even the otakings seem pretty happy which is awful.

i’ve specifically chosen to characterize nightmare’s reign like this because i find it leagues more interesting than ‘nightmare just squashes all rebellion instantly with his big metal fist’ (which is what he most likely is doing in canon) and it allows nightmare to have some nuance to how he does things

egotism

after the war, nightmare got a gigantic ego that’s mostly hooked to meta knight and how meta knight perceives him. if meta knight legitimately does not think nightmare is threatening or in some capacity scar, nightmare takes it as a personal offense. no one other than meta knight’s opinion on nightmare matters to him. he only wants meta knight’s disapproval and anger towards him. that’s the main thing that matters to his ego. disapproval and anger from others can make him laugh and make him feel better, so long as it doesn’t risk betrayal.

forgetfulness

nightmare has an incredibly bad memory due to the past not affecting him the best. bad things will be seared out of his memory, but at the same time so will good things. he can’t remember much of what went on in the war other than ‘meta knight was there and i want to kill him a lot’, that it happened, and that it was cool and he totally liked it. if he can’t remember something, he does not care that it happened.

the part where i talk about meta knight

i already did lol

main fears

isolation

betrayal

powerlessness

captivity / internment 

all of these main fears spark from something that has happened in the past, though nightmare doesn’t remember what. nor does he care. they are things nightmare absolutely positively wants to avoid, and all his actions towards others center around trying to prevent these things. 

nightmare is able to quell these fears, usually, by at least having contact with someone. the most debilitating fear of his is isolation, as if he doesn’t have the ability to talk with others who can talk back, he will undergo a steep dive straight into a pit of despair. his desire for company all the time is partially why he decided on a.. well, company. people always working, people always doing things, he can always see people. always busy. always able to talk to him. it’s comforting, the noise and the bustle.

yeah

i cant think of anything else to say as of the current moment

[greenandhazy]

man this is going to sound like I’m deliberately trying to stir shit and I’m not, but I feel like... so far I’m doing pretty good at staying in my little corner of the Umbrella Academy fandom and I’m glad for it, because every once in a while I get a glimpse of some of the... woobiefication of Klaus that’s going on and I’m not a fan. like, don’t get me wrong, he has a lot of childhood trauma to deal with and addiction is a serious thing and those are real issues.

but he also has flaws and they can be pretty serious and dismissing them all because of his trauma feels cheap to me? like, if Klaus hadn’t been careless in throwing away his father’s papers, Leonard wouldn’t have been able to manipulate Vanya so easily. and he shirks responsibility like whoa. I can think of at least three times where he has the chance to help stop the apocalypse and he chooses not to. or how about at the concert where he goes across the street for a burrito? when Patch comes to save him and he 1) doesn’t warn her there’s a second hitman and 2) just fuckin’ books it without so much as looking back at her? (granted, I’ll admit he was probably delirious and concussed at that point, but iirc he doesn’t express guilt for it at all in the rest of the show.)

these flaws may be exacerbated by Klaus’s substance abuse, but they don’t... go away just because he gets sober. especially when you consider that he’s been an addict for--as far as we can tell--16 years, more than half his life and including his formative years. he has a lot of growing up to do and a lot of unhealthy habits to unlearn even aside from the very basic “stop putting drugs in your body” habit. owning one’s flaws is a pretty major part of most recovery programs for a reason, and there are a lot of interwoven issues he’s going to have to sort through.

like, I don’t think anyone gets credit for being kind to Vanya except Allison. period. Allison is the only character we see who actually, legitimately, makes an attempt to repair her relationship with Vanya over the course of season one. sure, Klaus isn’t hostile towards her the way Diego and Luther are at times, but he and Five are pretty indifferent towards her for most of the show, and Allison is the only one who walks the walk in those last two episodes in terms of acting in Vanya’s best interest. and that’s important. that’s plot-relevant and character-relevant.

(actually I think Allison is a really great example of a character who seems to be aware of her flaws and is pretty far ahead in her attempts to address them, whereas Klaus only begins that journey in like episode 5 or 6, and fumbles a couple of times along the way. I know Robert Sheehan is a very pretty white boy and that half of Allison’s storylines makes people uncomfortable because of the whole Luther thing, but still, it’s kinda telling that Allison doesn’t get idealized the same way despite putting in the work.)

yeah. idk. I’m not super involved in the fandom on tumblr so my perspective might be skewed, but I’ve seen some posts and some fics where Klaus seems to be a lot less selfish and irresponsible than he is on the show, and a lot more self-aware, and So Much More Traumatized than any other character, and I think that misses the point. I feel like the tragedy of the show is that all these characters had traumatic childhoods, that their shared trauma led them to hurt each other rather than support each other, and that they built a lifetime of bad coping mechanisms based on those early experiences. they’re complex characters and I really enjoy it when people fully engage with that complexity instead of glossing over it.

[luxexhomines]

Confessing is Hard.

Kokichi Ouma is confessed to by you. How will he react?

Fluff with a dense reader. At least, I think it’s fluff. Barely. This is a long one with an alternative (and longer) ending in the making currently, which will include our favorite white-haired boy. This is the short one, and it’s sitting around a word count of 6.8k right now. Cut under preview.

If you like this, chances are you’ll like one of my other Ouma fics, so feel free to swing by (at this point, I’ve almost only posted Ouma fics and desperately need to write for other characters).  Requests are open for any of the 48 students in Danganronpa! Check the rules here.

You put a hand over your mouth and yawned, your lips stretching an absurd amount to suck in the desired oxygen.

“Wow! That sure was a loud yawn,” Kokichi popped in front of your face, sitting on the seat in front of you backward in order to face you.

You chuckled and somehow maintained your composure. Probably more because you were exhausted rather than because you had learned to get used to him.

“Well, I guess that’s what happens when I only get three hours of sleep…” And you yawned again.

You could feel his purple eyes slowly dragging their gaze across your worn-out body, which was dressed plainly in a form-fitting, white v-neck t-shirt and droopy black sweatpants clinging loosely to your hips, sending tingles over the aforesaid skin. You couldn’t help it, but you sure hoped he didn’t notice as you crossed your arms and leaned them on your desk, letting your head rest on your forearm.

“I don’t know why, but you seem more attractive than usual dressed in these ratty clothes,” Ouma said, almost looking serious for once. And then he laughed viciously. “Nishishi, just kidding! Who would want to see your ugly ass in even uglier clothes?” And he stood up and strolled away casually, carefree, hands interlocked behind the back of his head.

You could only sigh and close your eyes, defeated. His daily assault of words didn’t really get kinder as you got to know him better. You had thought once he and you were closer, he might be less nasty toward you. But there appeared to be no difference in his treatment of you, no matter how much time the two of you had spent together now, whether in the presence of others or alone.

That’s why you thought you had probably been cursed.

After all, why else would you like a mischievous, malicious, purple little gremlin like Kokichi Ouma?

“Himeko~” You moaned in agony as you wrapped your arms around the girl from behind. “Did you cast an All The Men You Fall In Love With Will Be Despicable Demons curse on me?”

The red-haired witch nearly jumped, startled.

“Nyeh?! Why would you think that? I wouldn’t curse someone as nice as you,” she blushed, making a little cross with the tips of her index fingers.

“Ooh, you’ve got someone you like?” And the subject in question seemed to pop out of nowhere again, jumping in front of you as the two of you walked in the hallways, and you used her as a shield.

“Kokichi! It’s a bad habit to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. How much did you hear, anyway?”

You tried to keep all the blood from rushing to your cheeks and ears, futilely and pursed your lips in irritation.

He seemed pretty apathetic either way, though.

“Whelp, you caught me! I heard all of it, duh. How would I know you have someone you like if I hadn’t been here for the start of your conversation? And you had only been talking to Himiko for, like, two seconds, anyway. Also, the school hallway is a public area, so this isn’t even considered eavesdropping!” He rattled off excuse after excuse for listening to the two of you talk. And you couldn’t really refute any of them, either, because they were all legitimate.

You groaned, putting a hand to your head like you had a headache. It wasn’t too far off, really, because usually when you talked to Kokichi, either you could hardly make heads or tails of what Kokichi was saying, or your heart was pumping out of your chest because he was so close to you. Or both. He always had to get in other people’s personal space like that.

“Whatever! Just don’t listen to my conversations with other people.”

He put a finger to his lips mockingly.

“Well, then maybe you should have your conversations in more private settings. Not that I wouldn’t find a way to overhear you, anyway, being the leader of a secret evil organization. I have my ways, you know.”

You stamped your foot in frustration.

“Kokichi! I’m serious,” you growled.

He threw his hands up in the air, smirking.

“So am I. Or maybe I’m not. I am a liar, you know? But don’t get your panties in a bunch. It’s not like who you like has anything to do with me, anyway.”

And with that, he walked away, whistling some happy-go-lucky tune that you were sure was going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Partly because it was Kokichi whistling it, so you couldn’t keep eyes or ears off him, and partly because it was Kokichi whistling it, so of course he would pick a song that was an earworm just to antagonize everyone within his general vicinity as much as possible.

Oh, the irony of his words. You had a vague, nagging feeling that he knew just who you liked and just how he had exactly everything to do with the object of your affection, but you also didn’t want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Hey!” Himiko pouted, her nasal voice carrying in the empty hallways. “How long are you going to hold me for? Kokichi already left five minutes ago!”

You took your arms off of her, flustered.

“Oh, sorry, Himiko…”

But rather than being irked, she seemed rather angry and disappointed as she averted her gaze from yours pointedly.

“Is it him?” she asked.

Caught off-guard, you could barely formulate a coherent answer.

“What? Is what him?”

Frustrated seemingly because she had to spell it out, she put her hands on her hips forcefully and spoke loudly while looking you straight in the eyes with her round eyes.

“Is! The! Person! You like! Kokichi!”

You could only put your hands to your burning cheeks, horrified.

“I… Uh… Well…” But you couldn’t figure out a way to evade the question, and it seemed like she knew by now, anyway. She was just confirming her suspicions.

“Just answer me,” she said, the words coming out fast and heated.

You bit your bottom lip nervously and looked around for any signal of life in the hallways, especially the tell-tale bouncing air purple strands of purple hair.

“I mean… Yes,” you admitted, putting your hands over your eyes in shame. “Ugh,” you groaned.

She looked crushed, and tears seemed to spring from her eyes.

“Why? Why is it him?”

And before you could even give her an answer, she turned around and fled the scene on both hands, both feet and both nipples. You had to give her credit. She was pretty fast for a lazy, short little girl who rarely exercised. But what you didn’t understand was her melodramatic reaction to your confession. Wouldn’t someone who was the object of your confession be more troubled?

Puzzled, all you could do was walk through the hallways in silence toward the exit of the school so you could go home. And then you felt a hand plop down on your shoulder.

This time it wasn’t Kokichi, luckily enough.

You turned your head, and your eyes immediately caught those of the person who also owned the hand resting on your shoulder.

You tilted your head.

“Hajime…? What is it?” you asked.

He seemed somewhat out of breath, panting and bent forward before he straightened up and held out a piece of paper to you.

“I think you forgot this,” he said.

You didn’t recognize the tattered slip of folded paper, which had clearly been worn and worried by a pair of hands repeatedly and for some time. But even so, you reached out and took it.

“I don’t think this is mine,” you replied belatedly as you unfolded the paper to read the contents.

But you didn’t see any marks on it. At least, not at first.

A cheesy, spiraling red heart began to shift around on the paper and stretch out with crimson, curling tendrils, emphasizing the neat cursive words in black appearing on the paper, which showed evidence of repeated practice to make the shaky and messy writing beautiful and round.

“I love you,” Hajime mumbled aloud.

Your head lifted slowly to look at him.

“Ah, no!” he said, taking a step back in surprise. “I was just reading the note, I wasn’t the one who wrote it.”

You nodded in understanding.

“I wonder who wrote it, and who it’s addressed to? Either way, this seems like a really elaborate way of confessing, what with the pretty patterns twirling on the paper.”

He only shrugged.

Curious, you held it up to the sun and looked at it closer, your breath floating over it softly, and then you saw a name after the three words.

To be exact, your own name.

“What?! It’s to me?” You exclaimed in shock. You turned to Hajime. “Where’d you find this, anyway? Why’d you think it was mine?”

He rubbed the back of his head, thinking back.

“Well, I saw it on the ground and then looked down the hallway to see you walking away, so I figured you had dropped it on the ground by accident or it had fell out of your pocket.”

You looked pensive, eyes narrowing in thought.

“Who could have written this, though? You only saw me at the time, anyway.”

Hajime’s olive eyes pierced straight through yours.

“Well, did you talk to anyone before that? They could’ve dropped it.” And then he sweat nervously. “Well, really anyone could have dropped it… But it probably would have been stepped all over if someone had dropped it when a lot of students were still around. And although the paper looks pretty crinkled, it doesn’t look dirty, and there are no shoe-prints or anything.”

Something clicked in your head. How could you be so dumb, anyway?

“Oh! I was talking to Himiko before she suddenly ran away. Does that mean–” you laughed happily, and Hajime’s eyebrows raised to hear your answer, “–that Himiko magicked a confession from someone else into my name because she was bored?”

Completely and utterly defeated, Hajime almost staggered as he attempted to answer you.

“I-I… I hardly think Himiko’s the type to do that. She rarely ever uses magic in the first place, much less as a way to entertain herself. She’s much too lazy,” he said, stumbling over his words.

Another lightbulb went off in your head.

“Oh, that’s right! Did she want to console me, then? Since I told her I like Kokichi and anyone could tell he doesn’t feel the same way.”

Hajime almost fell down like in the gag mangas. He was sorely tempted but tried not to try his luck. With his luck, he’d probably roll down a flight or two of stairs.

“No, I don’t think that’s it…”

You pouted at his lackluster answers to your brilliant ideas.

“Then you think of an idea, Mister Ultimate Detective!”

He sighed.

“First of all, don’t call me that. Don’t you think that’s an insult to Kirigiri and Saihara, who actually earned the title?”

You smiled, grin spreading wide.

“Hey, you should be right up there with them! Your investigative skills are surprisingly overly adequate whenever we hold mock trials or do escape rooms in school festivals. And Saihara can’t even take himself seriously, much less an Ultimate title.”

He could only sigh a second time.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment? That’s the first time I’ve heard someone use the phrase, ‘surprisingly overly adequate’ to describe someone else’s abilities. And you shouldn’t point out things like that, even if it’s true!”

Your face was calm, and you stared into his eyes, unwavering.

“Why shouldn’t I? Even Saihara admits it. You shouldn’t be afraid to state the truth, you know, Hajime,” you replied ominously.

He looked away from those penetrating eyes of yours.

“I...know that already. I don’t need you telling me that,” he said with a note of–what was it? Sadness? Anger? Resentment? Whatever it was, it wasn’t too pleasant, and you recoiled.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t underestimate you,” you said with a pleasantly sad smile plastered on your face. “In any case, could you tell me why this piece of paper has my name?”

He glanced at the paper, seeming to have forgotten it had even existed at any point.

“Isn’t it obvious? Himiko wanted to confess to you.” For several moments, the thought didn’t register in your hand. You simply couldn’t understand the notion–the idea or its implications. You had to do a double-take and look at the paper in question again, furrowing your eyebrows in overpowering confusion.

“Wait, what? Confess to me?”

Hajime pinched the bridge of his nose, looking fed-up with your dense demeanor and personality.

“Yes. Himiko likes you that way. We all are aware of how she feels toward you, by the way. Everyone knows except for you.”

You blinked several times in succession, trying to understand.

“Himiko...likes me?”

Hajime rolled his eyes.

“God knows why, with a personality like yours. I’ll bet she’s tried confessing before but just couldn’t break through your dense mind. If I were her, I would have given up on you and moved on to someone else already, especially being as lazy as she is. She must have wasted so much time and effort trying to tell you already.”

You puffed up your cheeks in annoyance.

“Hey! That was unnecessary and unkind. Didn’t you ever learn the acronym THINK in elementary school? N stands for necessary and K stands for kind, you know. I thought I could count on you to be chiefly rational rather than spiteful.”

He shrugged.

“Hey, you’re the one who told me to tell the truth.”

Now you were frustrated.

“Okay, cut the back-talk already,” you groaned. “I don’t need another running speech about how unworthy I am of receiving affection when I’ve already got two of them, one from myself and one from Kokichi. Since when has Himiko liked me anyway? And how do you all know this for sure?”

He threw his hands up.

“How do we all know? It’s painfully obvious! You’re just extraordinarily dense. Or maybe you’ve got super resistance to telltale signs, words, or actions of love.”

You put a hand on your hip and sassed him right back.

“Well, excuse me for not having a love-radar sticking up from my head like you do,” you said while pulling hard on his ahoge threateningly.

“Hey, that hurts!” Hajime smacked your hand away from the piece of hair sticking up from his head. “And what did you just call it? A love-radar? That’s just a strand of my hair that happens to naturally stick up! There’s nothing weird about it! Naegi has one, and so does Saihara! For that matter, even Akamatsu and Iruma have one. It’s completely normal,” he complained. “Why does everyone always have to point it out?”

You rolled your eyes.

“Oh, maybe because a single strand of hair sticking up from your head isn’t completely normal in the least?”

He grimaces, but doesn’t further divulge into the topic.

“Anyway, let’s not talk about my hair. Let’s go back to your love affairs. Has Himiko ever said that she likes you? Or given you something romantic in nature? Or maybe given you a private magic show, even?”

You thought back, eyes looking upward in contemplation.

“I mean, platonically. Everything was platonic. At least, I thought it was!” You said, putting a hand to your chin.

Hajime only groaned in response.

“It’s official: you’re the worst human being alive. And if not the worst, at least the dumbest one. She didn’t mean any of that as friends. And how could you even think she’d give you a private magic show while just being a friend? She doesn’t do that for anyone, period. She’s way too lazy to do something like that, setting up all her props and using her energy to do magic just for one person. She only gives magic shows like...twice a year.”

You shoot finger guns at him, grinning.

“Wait, you’re right! That is true about Himiko. She’s the laziest girl I’ve ever met. Or person in general. I guess I need to think about it from someone else’s perspective if I want to understand them better…”

Hajime rubbed his head.

“You should consider the character of other people more carefully if you want to discern truth from lies, or their intentions from how they act toward you. You can even understand how they feel about you if you take their personality into factor more often. After all, everyone has a different ‘normal’ way of going about things and treating people.”

You nod, taking his words into your stride.

“Okay, okay… So that’s how you’ve got so many friends,” you beamed. “You understand them best, don’t you?”

His cheeks turn pink, unexpectedly.

“I’m just a normal person, and you’re just abnormally dense,” he replies. “You should be the Ultimate Dense Love Target.”

You shake your head.

“Nah, I’d never get that kind of thoughtful advice from my friends. Hajime, you shouldn’t ever think that you’re just a normal person. There are so many things in this world that only you can do,” you say, keeping a straightforward gaze and making eye contact with him.

He puts a hand to the back of his neck bashfully.

“I am, though. I’ve got no Ultimate Talent, either.”

You shake your head again, more adamantly.

“That’s wrong, Hajime. Hope’s Peak Academy isn’t flawless, isn’t a god. They can’t discern all talents, and some talents aren’t conventional. But no matter what, you should know that you’ve got something in you just as special as any Ultimate here.”

His eyes light-up for only a second before turning dark again, and he breaks eye contact with you.

“Don’t say that. Don’t give me any false hopes about myself. I know I’ll never be anything more than this, and I’m tired of being disappointed, most of all by myself.”

You slap your hands on his cheeks, pushing them to the center and squishing his lips as he cries out, muffled.

“Stop being mean to my friend!” You shout at his bewildered expression, squashed toward the center of his face. “I rely on you all the time for your calm logic, and I’ve told you face-to-face just how big of an impact you make every day. You are the only person in this goddamn school that has literally befriended every student! All these Ultimates have bizarre, contrasting personalities that clash just being in the same room as each other, but somehow your presence calms them down, and somehow you manage to get along with them all. You might as well be a part of Nagito and Chiaki’s class, for god’s sake!”

You start crying for some reason or other, let go of his face and wrap your arms around his torso tightly.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, only becoming more supremely confused by the minute.

“Because my friend doesn’t love himself, even though he’s so loved by everyone in this entire building! And especially me! I love you, Hajime Hinata!” You manage to say amidst your wobbling voice cracking and another bout of tears falling from your eyes.

He puts his arms around you gently.

“Hey, stop yelling like that. You’re going to damage your vocal cords,” he says, but his voice is getting a little shaky, too. He can’t help it. He’s a sympathetic crier, after all. A boy as empathetic as him would definitely absorb the onslaught of the emotions of others around him. Especially when their head was snuggled right into his chest.

He sighs.

“So what do you want me to do about it, anyway? I’m not an Ultimate. I can’t change that.”

You grasp him tighter.

“And you never may well be an Ultimate. In all honesty. But you don’t need that acknowledgment from a third-party to know that you’re loved for a reason. I just wish you would love yourself, too,” you respond.

He smiles, doubtful.

“So you want me to change my attitude toward myself?”

You nod, head buried in his chest.

“Yes, please. That’d be nice.”

Hajime seems to hesitate for a moment before answering.

“Well, no guarantees...but I can certainly try.”

You look up at him from your hold on him, face only inches away from his.

“That’s all I need right now,” you say, a warm smile coming out on your face like the sun comes out from behind clouds of rain.

He pats your head resignedly.

“Yeah, yeah. I thought you needed love advice?”

You let go of him reluctantly.

“Oh yeah, that’s right. What do I do now?” You look at him pleadingly, searching for an answer.

He smiles.

“Well, you should know better than me how you feel. If you don’t like Himiko in a romantic way, you should just reject her outright, so she doesn’t have to suffer as much or worry about it. And if you do like someone else, you should confess, because our time here is so short. Three years go by so quick, and our first year is already almost over.”

You nod, drying your face of the wetness from earlier.

“Okay… That sounds like a good plan of action. Except that I might as well not confess to the person I like, since there’s a 99.99% chance I’m getting rejected,” you laugh wryly.

Hajime puts his hands on your shoulder firmly.

“Hey, you should believe in yourself. And if the person doesn’t like you back, you shouldn’t be too disappointed because everyone is different, and the person you happen to like is pretty…” he trails off. “I mean, it’s Ouma, so… Well, let’s just say that I don’t understand your choice, but I’ll fully support you!” He says, clapping you on the back in a show of this support.

You pout.

“I don’t control who I like!  And how do you know who I like, too?! Maybe you’re an Ultimate Love Advisor!”

The two of you look at each other and burst into uproarious laughter.

Wiping his tears from his eyes after laughing too hard, he manages to choke out a couple words.

“I’ve got a lot of Ultimate talent suggestions, but none as ridiculous as that!”

The two of you manage to calm down eventually, and you link your arm around his, as you two walk out of the building together.

You look at him from your vantage point of height and offer him a grateful smile.

“Thanks so much for being here for me, Hajime. What would I do without you?”

He strokes his chin in mock thoughtfulness.

“Hmm… Never find out that Himiko likes you? Or that anyone likes you in the future? And remain single forever?”

You punch his arm lightly, tsking.

“Geez, I wasn’t asking for a serious answer! But I told you, didn’t I? You’re probably about the most helpful and reliable person in this whole school, and trustworthy. Must be why all those Ultimates gather around you, dontcha think?”

He opens his mouth to reply, but then catches himself before saying anything self-degrading.

“Well, I guess I must be doing something right, in that case,” he sputters.

You laugh.

“Something right, indeed.”

Hajime walks you to your house, like a gentleman, and you wave goodbye from the safety and comfort of your home until he disappears into the horizon of the orange, setting sun.

It was time for a plan of action. You spend hours on the computer, writing out what you can say to talk to Himiko and later on Kokichi, trying to imagine their reactions and prep for the worst while hoping for the best.

At some point in the night, you figure you had better get some sleep before the next day arrived. You were never going to execute your plan well if you were sleep-deprived. You tuck yourself into your bed, safe and sound, and fall asleep.

The next day, you had to pump yourself up some more. You made sure to spruce up your uniform more than usual, spraying a hint of your favorite scent in body mist on your neck and wrists, and made sure you felt well-prepared for whatever was coming next today.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, you placed your hands on your hips and held your chest high, repeating some affirmations to yourself and trying to shake the anxiety wracking you from inside.

You looked good.

With that, you started walking to school, and when you arrived, you sought out the Ultimate Magician.

“Himiko?”

She jumped in her seat, unusually shaken. Sweating slightly, she avoided your gaze.

“Y-yeah?”

You placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

“Can I talk to you about something before class starts?”

She looks hesitant, but her head bobs up and down in response, her red hair fluffing up.

“Okay...but make it quick, since we’ve got class.”

You smile reassuringly.

“Great. Let’s head up to the roof?”

She nods again, and the two of you traverse through the hallways and up to the peak of the academy, greeting other Ultimates on your journey up.

The wind is pleasantly warm, a spring wind, and you take a deep breath before starting to talk to Himiko, who looks like she’s shaking in her boots.

“First of all… I want to let you know that I’m incredibly grateful for your friendship this past year. I hope we can continue to be friends now and in the future, even if that sounds selfish after I say what I’m going to next.”

You reach into your pocket and take out the tattered note, unfolding it and holding it out to Himiko.

“I found this yesterday,” you say, gauging her reaction carefully. “This is yours, right?”

Sure enough, her complexion turned white.

“Did you already see what was written on it?” she asks, voice quivering.

You nod in confirmation, looking at her golden eyes directly.

“Thank you for loving me,” you smile warmly. “I don’t know how or why you’d like someone like me, especially seeing how dense I am, as Hajime pointed out, but I’m thankful for your love,” you say, putting a hand over your heart tenderly. “I wish I could do the same for you, but I will always love you as a friend.”

Himiko says nothing for a moment, her short skirt blowing in the wind, and her eyes gaze off into the distance.

“...That wasn’t the way I wanted to confess,” she finally says. Her voice is more nasal than usual, and you realize that she must be suppressing tears. You open your arms, and she collapses into your chest, sobbing. “That wasn’t the way I wanted to confess! But you were so dense, I knew you’d never get it unless I spelled it out that clearly.”

You pat her head, feeling a bittersweet guilt rise to your smile.

“I’m sorry I’m so dense. You’ve worked hard, haven’t you? I’ve caused you a lot of trouble,” you replied, holding the little witch firmly.

She didn’t respond, only crying harder, her tears soaking into your top.

After a good amount of time had passed, she finally calmed down, and her eyes were rimmed with red and somewhat puffy.

“I don’t have ice to make the swelling of your eyes go down,” you say. “But my hands are pretty cold. Is that okay?”

She nods, still shivering. You gently place your hands on her eyes, and she melts at your touch but doesn’t cry.

When she’s finally ready, the two of you walk to class together. There was hardly a minute before classes started for the day.

You were relieved that you had gotten one item on the checklist done for the day, at least. It was probably the most difficult thing to do–for you, probably even more difficult than confessing to Kokichi. Or not. You guessed you’d have to wait and see how that would go, although you were sure you’d be rejected.

You ended up spacing out for most of the class, doodling on your notebook pictures of Kokichi’s lively, twirling purple hair, and trying to prepare yourself for whatever reaction you would get by visualizing possible scenarios. You sighed for the fourth time in a row, considering the low success rate during the homeroom time.

“Eh? What’s wrong? Nishishi,” the purple leprechaun in question laughed, putting his face way too close to you for comfort and examining your downcast expression.

You jerk your head back abruptly in surprise, feeling your ears tinge red, and slam your notebook shut.

“K-Kokichi! You’re too close.”

He makes a hurt looking face, his bottom lip sticking out and wobbling as his violet eyes filled with tears.

“Wow, was that mean. I’m so hurt!” he whined. “You don’t wanna be close to me that much, I get it,” he pouted.

You rubbed the back of your neck sheepishly.

“No, it’s just that you surprised me. You always end up surprising me, somehow,” you reply. And then you remember your plans. “Oh yeah! Perfect timing, though. Can you come to the roof after class is over? I want to talk to you in private.”

His eyes are surprisingly devoid of emotion before he gives you a smug smile.

“Oh? You’re calling me out there? Is it to beat me up or something? Well~” he sings. “If it’s you calling me to the roof, I guess I can’t refuse!” And he skips back to his seat, just like that.

He seemed to change at the drop of a hat–and that was part of what made you so attracted to him, despite his…lively antics that would disrupt your train of thought or even class, and his lies that made you unable to read him.

You could hardly wait for homeroom to end so you could go to the roof. You just wanted to get this over with, and you gripped your pencil tightly. You had no idea what to expect, given Kokichi’s unpredictable and volatile nature. He was like a bomb waiting to explode. The whole confessing situation was like a bomb waiting to explode, after all.

The moment class was dismissed and the bell rang, you shot out of your seat and sprinted to the roof. You knew he wouldn’t get there that quick unless he ran like you did, but even so, you felt like dawdling on over would only serve to make you even more anxious.

You leaned your folded arms on the iron handrail lining the roof, looking down at the buildings below and the students slowly filing out of the school. The sun felt good on your skin after a day of being stuck in class, and you looked up into the endless stretches of blue, clouded minimally with streaks of white that only enhanced its beauty.

You heard the door to the roof opening, and then closing as soon it was opened and turned to face the person walking toward you from the door.

He had a devious smile pasted on his face.

“You sure rushed to get up here,” he laughs, putting a finger to his remarkably pale cheek. “Were you that excited to see me? Even though you see me in class all the time anyway.”

You steeled yourself. Best just get it over with, no beating around the bush.

“As a matter of fact, I was,” you say, biting your lower lip nervously. But before you could continue to speak, he interrupted, holding his hands out in a show of grandeur and grinning.

“Wow! That makes me so, so happy…” he trails off. “Or does it?” He started to twirl a strand of hair around his finger, and you start to realize why his hair curls upward like that so whimsically. In the pause, you open your mouth to speak, but he cuts you off again. “Why’d you call me here, anyway?” he says, looking disinterested. “Is it something you can’t say or do normally in the classroom? If it’s something boring, I’m not going to forgive you, ya know?”

For some reason, you felt an oppressive aura coming out from his lithe frame and suddenly felt like he didn’t want you to confess. But you had come this far. You weren’t going to give up.

Noticing your change in expression, his eyes meet yours.

“Fine. It seems like you’re not going to give up on saying whatever it is you want to say. So just spit out then.”

You didn’t even know why he was being so prickly about it. But you had decided to say it.

“I like you, Kokichi,” you manage to say. “As more than a friend.”

Somehow, the moment was less world-changing than you thought it’d be. No horns blowing in celebration of the fact that you’d finally spit it out, exaggerated reactions, or any of Kokichi’s fake crying.

He simply adopts a blank expression, silent for a couple of moments. Then he sighs and looks at the ground, the corners of his mouth sinking down.

“I’m disappointed in you,” he replies. “I didn’t think you’d be so boring as to do something like this.”

He turns to leave, but you dart forward and grasp his hand before he can open the door. He’s agile, but when you come at him unexpectedly, his reactions aren’t as fast.

“Wait! What do you mean by that, Kokichi?”

You desperately call out, and slowly, his head swivels and his plum eyes meet yours once again. He looks completely apathetic–as if he weren’t involved at all, even though you had just revealed to him that he was, in fact, the object of your love. And it’s all you can do to keep yourself from breaking down on the moment, feeling hurt gathering in your heart, confusion swarming in your mind.

“You know, don’t you?” he says. You never thought a face of his could make you feel so wounded before. You were slowly realizing the gravity of your attraction to him. A simple change in facial expression could so gravely hurt you.

“Know what?” You tried to convey your true confusion to him, but he wasn’t having it.

“You know what I mean. Someone put you up to this. Or maybe, in some sick and twisted side of you that I never knew you had, you thought it’d be fun to confess to me, see if I believe it and laugh if I do.” He offers a bright smile with bitter undertones. “I never thought I’d be on the receiving end of such a cruel lie.”

You shake your head adamantly, feeling tears come to your eyes.

“No! Never! I… I’m telling the truth. Why won’t you believe me?”

He seemed to lose all sympathy for you at that one moment.

“Your tears aren’t going to convince me, ya know. It’d take much more than that. I see right through things like that,” he replies with a hardened look. “You should remember who you’re talking to. Are you going to let go of me or not?”

You avert your gaze, but don’t let go of his hand.

“I can’t. Not until I get a proper answer from you. I don’t even know exactly why I like you,” you stumble over your words. “I mean, I love that you’re so full of contradictions, the way you’ll dole out lies like candy, but tell the truth unexpectedly when it’s needed most. I love that you’ll always give off the impression of a trickster, a troublemaker, that maybe you’ve done things that belie your appearance, but at heart, you’ve got morals and principles you stick to no matter what.”

He seemed genuinely surprised, and with no interruption this time, you lifted your eyes to take in his self. A boy with deep purple eyes and equally purple hair, dressed in a white uniform that has extra buttons and buckles just for fun, and a checkered scarf around his neck.

“I love all the different faces you make, even when you make them at a time like this and hurt me so. I love the way your hair lifts out and upward like that, and your…” you blush. “Your thin frame.”

He seems to have frozen in shock. It was your first time ever seeing him like this. You took another breath and finished off your little speech.

“I love you, Kokichi Ouma, and goddammit if anyone, especially you, is going to tell me that I don’t know my own feelings for you,” you shout, scaring away the birds on the wires nearby.

Kokichi stood there like a statue. It was so rare to see him not have some kind of exaggerated response to something, especially something as charged as this.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, and he put a hand to his mouth in bewilderment. Another moment passed, and he finally spoke, his voice coming out in a whisper.

“So you’re not lying, after all?”

You shook your head again.

“My only question is why you’d think I was lying,” you say honestly, throat slightly hoarse, and let go of his hand now that you’re sure he won’t escape.

He bites the nail of his thumb in frustration.

“Well, maybe it was you hugging Hajimeme at the school entrance and shouting that you love him at the top of your lungs so loudly that I could hear it a block away.”

Your eyes were wide open now.

“You heard that? I don’t think I was that loud. Also, that was completely platonic. I was just trying to convince him to love himself, too, since basically our whole school loves him.”

He blinks his eyes rapidly and lets out a mix of a groan of exasperation.

“How could you do this to me?” he whines, and tugs on your sleeve persistently. “And, I mean, before the whole Hajimeme thing I didn’t think you could like me anyway. You spent a lot of time with Himiko, who obviously liked you, so I thought it was mutual.”

You pull him into your arms, feeling guilt stabbing at your chest.

“I’m sorry… I feel like I’ve been hurting a lot of people recently.”

Kokichi doesn’t speak for a moment and then replies quietly.

“Between you and me… I didn’t think it was possible for someone to like me. Because I’m me, after all. The Ultimate Supreme Leader,” he says, withdrawing and cackling, making an otherworldly, sinister expression. But then he looks vulnerable again. “But I’m just a high school boy, too. I’m human, as loathe as I am to admit it,” he confesses.

You think about his words before saying anything back.

“Well, I was super surprised Himiko liked me. I didn’t find out until yesterday, even though Hajime said that just about everyone knew that she liked me.”

He seems to be back to his usual self as he cracks up, tears dropping from his eyes in pure amusement.

“You didn’t know this entire time? Wow, you really are denser than I thought.” He then gazes into your eyes, looking somewhat serious again. Until you hear the next words emerging from his mouth, that is. “So then, how long did it take for you to figure out you like me, in that case?” he smirked.

You start coughing, taken by surprise and embarrassment bubbles up and overflows from inside you.

“That’s.. That’s not fair, you can’t ask that now!” you reply, trying to regain your senses.

He cackles.

“You’re embarrassed now after you confessed to me and listed off everything you liked about me? Oh, boy. Looks like I’ve got a troublesome s/o on my hand.”

You don’t register those words at once. Motionless, you feel the heat rising up again and put your hands to your cheeks in both giddiness and embarrassment.

“K-Kokichi? Does that mean what I think it means?”

He looks contemplative for a moment before replying.

“Aw, it accidentally slipped out,” he sighs. “I wanted to tease you a little longer since your reactions are so amusing. But I guess this expression is pretty nice, too,” he says as he steps closer and closer to you.

You close your eyes out of shyness and feel soft lips land on your own, surprisingly gentle–until he bit your lower lip lightly, and you opened your eyes, only to see his face right in front of yours.

“Kokichi! You’re… you’re too close!” you say, backing up.

But in response, he only walks closer until you hit the wall of the storage room on the roof, seeming to have fun cornering you, as a cat might play with their prey.

“Oh? But you’re my s/o now, doesn’t that mean I can do whatever I want to you?”

You shake your head, blushing deeply.

“Of course not! Don’t tease me like that…”

He only laughs.

“Trust me, there’s gonna be a lot of that going on now that you’re my s/o. Best get used to it,” he says smugly before leaning in for another kiss.

[mal-likes-biscuits]

More Diablo Character Head-Cannons

[Continued from here, so I don’t hijack the poof.]

I have pretty detailed head-cannons for most of the characters, including their personal habits. Some of the material makes it into stories when it’s relevant, whereas most of it doesn’t. But after talking with @fishyfiash about Inarius’ hair poof, I wanted to share some of the more relatable ones. Mostly about Malthael. And a few others.

Content after the break, because this is loooooong.

Malthael Discovers the Mortal Pool(s) of Wisdom

I have two Tales from Tristram chapters that I never posted, mostly because they were a bit too disjointed and they didn’t entirely fit into the series-cannon I was developing. The first one, though, went into details about when Malthael first moves in with Tyrael, and how they adjust to that. The Nephalem in town don’t find out right away because Tyrael bans him from going outside until he can figure out exactly what to do with him.

This goes marginally well until Malthael discovers that Tyrael has a bathtub. Up until this point, he’s been bathing in rivers, ponds, etc. because he’d mostly been living outside. He takes care of himself, but you know, Sanctuary isn’t exactly known for working plumbing. But some of the wealthier residents of Tristram do have a proper claw-foot tub, including Tyrael.

And, well…you probably should just read the best part of that canned-chapter excerpt:

However, the one habit Tyrael absolutely could not abide was Malthael’s obsession with the bath. He did not understand how a man who seemed to care so little about his physical appearance could waste endless hours soaking. He was not entirely sure Malthael even washed while in the tub, for he continually looked as though he had spent several days rolling about in the woods. He suspected his brother spent most of his time floating and staring at the rafters, perhaps trying to reclaim some sort of communion with nature in place of his previous use of the Pools.

What it meant was the bath water needed to be changed often. And since only Tyrael could leave the house, he spent a gratuitous amount of time heaving buckets from the town well back to his home. After which he would go to use the bath himself, often to find it occupied again. Try as he did, there was no dislodging Malthael from the room once he entered. He locked the door and responded to Tyrael’s annoyed pounding with terse apologies or, sometimes, simply, “Busy.”

Thus, it was not through any sort of redemptive behaviour or earned trust that Malthael gained himself permission to walk about Tristram. It was because Tyrael was tired of doing chores for two adults, and he knew that Malthael was damn well capable of caring for himself if given the opportunity to do so. It was not his responsibility to ensure his brother was fed or watered, and he could carry his own bath water.

This probably isn’t a surprise, given Malthael’s habits when he was immortal. There’s canon descriptions of him being elusive, quiet, and spending a great deal of time just staring into the Chalice. He loses some of that, plus his access to the Pools, when he becomes mortal. And though there isn’t actually any indication of what you do with the Pools, I’ve assumed the experience of looking into them (and the Chalice, by extension) is pretty similar to being in a sensory-pond and just…floating.

Which is what he discovers as soon as he gets over his initial “wtf is this giant bucket of water” reaction. The tub is one of the few places he can block out external noise. I imagine he soaks with only his nose and eyes sticking out, and just lies there and lets everything else go away. I would also imagine that if you really wanted to try and “woo” him, your best bet would be to present him with an already-prepared hot bath. Possibly with some oils or potpourri thrown in. Nothing too flowery, though. Something earthy, or spicy.

I’ve alluded to his preference for bathing before in a previous cannon-short. Unfortunately, as much as I love it, it’s never made it into a story proper, even if I consider it a critical part of his early-series character.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Ya’ll thought you were going to get through this post without a pun, didn’t you? Pfffft no.

In terms of mortal angels, I would assume their hair closely reflects the head-covering they use in their immortal form. Tyrael, for example, has a tight-fitting hood, which becomes his very bald (shaved?) head later. For this reason, Malthael has long hair, because his cowl has damn long ribbons on it.

The guy has a love-hate relationship with his hair. He would never, ever cut it short, because he likes being able to hide his face behind it. It’s comforting to him, the same way he likes the feel of it cascading over his shoulders. It’s a fundamental part of his body-image.

But, of course, long hair has its disadvantages. It tangles, for one, especially if it’s too long. It’s harder to wash. (Regardless of how much time he spends soaking in the bathtub, it’s not time he spends washing his hair.) It flies in your face when you’re trying to swing your swords.

Which means that there is an optimal length for his hair. This is approximately around or just past his shoulders. Long enough to cover his face, but short enough he’s not at risk of getting it caught in his weapons. Or his armor. And it tucks into a hood well enough. And he doesn’t have to spend hours trying to maintain it at a waste of his precious time. Don’t even suggest that he tie it up, because that completely ruins the cowl effect.

So far, so good. Until winter hits, and it gets cold. And it snows. Tristram is a fairly temperate climate, from what I can tell. It wouldn’t get too hot in the summer, and I assume it would snow in dumps in the winter. Anyone with long or curly hair knows that humidity of any kind is…bad.

The very precise drapes of hair that he carefully maintains develop their own internal gravity. They become frizzy. They stick out at weird angles. And no matter how much time he spends trying to keep his hair out of his eyes, it always ends up back in them.

Malthael, of course, refuses to do the simple thing, which would be to cut his hair in the winter. Instead, he packs up his bag and goes someplace warm. If you’ve (for whatever reason) been tracking his travels in the series, he always disappears for long stints over the winter months. There are multiple reasons for this, including that he legitimately dislikes being in the cold for too long, because, you know: death. Also, he’s no idiot, and he’s figured out that people always seem to get ill when it starts to snow.

But, going someplace warm and dry also conveniently puts his hair back where it should be. Mostly.

Malthael’s OCD hasn’t gone anywhere since he became mortal. If anything, he now has more things to become OCD about.

When your BFF Knows Hair Better Than You

Farah and Malthael talk quite a bit, whether it’s through letters or, eventually, in person. We’ve seen a bit of what they chat about, but it also extends to occasionally more mundane topics. Including hair.

Both Farah and Aya are blessed (or cursed, they might say) with extremely thick hair. And since they both wear theirs long, they’ve learned all kinds of ways of keeping it up out of the way, and also of keeping it healthy. Aya is a lot flashier with her hairstyles, but Farah is practiced in all sorts of braids, buns, you name it. You can’t carry books around if your hair is always falling in your face.

She notices early on that Malthael doesn’t do anything with his hair. Of course, she also doesn’t say anything, because she knows he’s particular about his looks. They have to be just so. But eventually, one night, they’re sitting and talking in front of the library fire, while listening to a torrential downpour that’s been going on outside all day.

And he keeps trying to blow hair from his face. Repeatedly. He’s clearly annoyed. And Farah has had enough of their conversation being interrupted with “pfffffft” every twenty seconds that she has to say something.

This is how Malthael learns about proper hair care. I mean, Tyrael isn’t any help. He doesn’t have any. But Farah certainly does. And she’s familiar with hair oils, and all the things you need if you have thick, long hair and you live in a desert oasis.

She never does convince him to let her braid his hair, or anything of the sort. But he does end up with substantially less frizz when it gets rainy outside. And he becomes quite the expert at braiding her hair if she asks. Because, fair is fair, and if she wants to do something weird like that with hers, then he isn’t about to judge.

Coffee is the Drink of the Gods…

The other Tristram short that was canned, which I might post eventually just as a joke-fic, had to do with Aya bringing Farah a coffee set from Caldeum, and Malthael absconding with it because Farah absolutely can’t stand the taste or smell of it. The fic was canned because it was just too tongue in cheek and because I didn’t like working coffee into the story that much, though they would likely have some sort of equivalent there.

But yes, for anyone who is wondering: Malthael does drink coffee sometimes. He prefers tea because it keeps him awake without absolutely wiring him. But sometimes, you’re working late, and you just really want to finish something, and the only thing that will help with that is a good, dark cup-o-joe.

Tyrael hates when Malthael drinks coffee, because it makes him jittery, and he also starts. Talking. Incessantly. Coffee removes his mental filter almost as much as alcohol does, at least in terms of conversation. And it also makes his conversations even harder to follow, because his brain is jumping around at several times the speed of its already remarkably fast pace. Any conversation with him while he’s had coffee is just a relentless string of non-sequiturs that make perfect sense to Malthael and no sense to anyone else.

…Unless You’re Tyrael, and then the Drink of the Gods is Alcohol

Tyrael is one of those work-hard, play-hard kind of guys. In a completely respectful, kind-hearted way. But, in short, his favorite thing to do after a long, stressful day of work is to get hammered and sing raucous drinking songs until the wee hours of the morning. He makes no apologies about it. He likes being mortal at this point. He likes all the emotional, giddy, messy parts of being mortal. He likes dreaming, he likes eating, he likes drinking, he likes banging.

If you think Malthael hates when Tyrael comes home four sheets to the wind and proceeds to slam around cupboards and doors and everything while Malthael is trying to read quietly, then yeah. You’d be right. (They’re brothers with completely different personalities, they find all sorts of ways to piss each other off.)

Most of the time, they co-habitate fine, because Malthael is often not home, or not even in Tristram. But he’s been subjected enough to Tyrael’s boisterous, happy-drunk-mode to know that it’s best to just nod, fake a smile, and let his brother talk until he passes out. Hopefully on a chair, because Tyrael is a LOT bigger than Malthael, and regardless of physical fitness, Malthael has a 21 in dexterity and a 12 in strength, and he’s not lifting his bro into bed. No way.

Now, Tyrael must drink a lot to get to that point. Which is why he’s at the tavern all night.

Malthael does not drink. Well, he shouldn’t drink. He’s a cheap date. One beer, and he’s getting a bit chatty. Two, and his filter is gone. Three, and he’s probably hanging off your shoulder and either arguing about some completely esoteric philosophical principle, or he’s laughing about the shape of the tree leaves.

Lyndon vastly prefers Tyrael drinking to Malthael, because Tyrael is fun. Malthael isn’t exactly aggressive, but he can get kind of argumentative, especially if you prove him wrong about something. Which is not hard to do when he’s drunk. You only think you’re wise when you’re drinking.

Which Takes us to How They Know This (Also Known as, the Time Malthael Drank Mead)

The story of Talm’s wedding has been referenced a few times, mostly in the Tristram stories, but it never really gets expanded on beyond that lots of mead is imbued. The real truth is that when Malthael tells them he doesn’t drink, he’s never tried until that point. All he knows is it makes mortals act stupid. You don’t need it to survive. So, why bother? (Biscuits are superior.)

But, sometimes he succumbs to peer pressure. He’s happy for Talm, and he’s feeling pretty content, and they really want him to have fun. He’s only going to sit with them to talk. That’s it.

Except, research. Hey Malthael, how do you know what alcohol is like if you don’t try it? How can you even appreciate how it affects other mortals if you haven’t even experienced it a little bit? He’s watched random people drink enough to assume you have to drink a lot for anything to really happen.

Oh. Poor guy. They have mead. It’s probably a good 15% at least. And he is the world’s. Cheapest. Drunk.

So now, they’re stuck with him at their table, and he really just wants to talk about stuff. He has a lot to get off his chest. He’s only been mortal for a year, and really doesn’t understand social conventions yet, and all of these emotions he’s been bottling up this whole time want to get out. All at the same time.

They’re relieved the farmers have no idea what Malthael is talking about, because he’s blathering on about cups filled with light, this incessant noise that still follows him around everywhere, and how he doesn’t get why this all makes so much more sense now when he’s stupider compared to when he was taller and brilliant.

Lyndon isn’t nearly hammered enough to be listening to all of this. He’s still skeptical that they didn’t just stab Malthael in Salvos and be done with it. But he’s also kind of…amused. Because this is the guy they spent days tracking down in Westmarch. Whose deep, terrifying voice was blathering on through the Soulstone about Murder and Souls and Deeeeeeeeath.

And now he’s in an argument with Jerem’s cousin about the proper way to season biscuits.

This is clearly not the same person. Or, at least, he’s a mortal, healthier version of the angel they happened to stab many, many times through the chest. Healthy is relative, Lyndon guesses. If it doesn’t include being really intoxicated. And from what he can tell, Malthael is still an impatient, sarcastic know-it-all. He’s just shorter and eats things now.

The whole party really jumps the shark after Talm and Lena disappear for the night, and the relatives get rowdy. Someone starts up a little sparring competition with practice sticks. Tyrael, of course, jumps right in, because holy shit, drinking and physical activity? He’s all for that. The farm hands put up a very good fight, but he eventually comes out on top.

But, you know, drunks can be drunks, and someone starts razzing the little skinny guy to go and challenge his brother. Hey, are you really brothers, even? You don’t even look the same. But, whatever. No can do, says Malthael, he’s not getting involved with that. At least, until someone calls him a coward.

And then he gets mad.

Oh Hells, Lyndon thinks. But also, Hells yes, because this is going to be hilarious. It is, for most of it. Neither Tyrael or Malthael is sober enough to swing the sticks properly. It ends up being a great show of them stumbling around and taunting each other. Too much taunting, probably. It gets personal. It’s good for them, right? They still have a lot to talk out.

Tyrael isn’t the best at talking at this point. He takes all his immense frustration at his stupid brother, puts it in his fist, and punches Malthael in the face.

Which is how the party ends.

Jerem watches the whole thing perfectly sober, because he’s the responsible host, and he’s really confused at who the hell these two actually are who have spent the night arguing about angels, and demons, and related things like they exist. Now one of them has a bloody nose, and the other is apologizing profusely, and there’s a lot of adult tears happening about betrayal, and bad decisions, and Jerem figures neither of them is going to remember any of this in the morning.

But, brothers are brothers, everyone has troubles, and he’s not going to get involved, other than to get some ice from the cellar, and a few rags to mop up the blood.

Malthael wakes up on the floor of the barn, covered in hay, spilled mead, and pastry crumbs, and decides he’s died again because his head hurts so bad. He also decides that drinking is the dumbest thing in the world, and he’s never going to do it again.

Probably.

But that’s a story for a different time that you’ll actually get to read.