#i love these two so much because they were originally OCs from different fandoms (when i was like 13)

[rurinnfane]

Finally semi-finished a sketch of both my old OCs that I started working on weeks ago 😩 plus I'm learning to draw eyes a little differently/more multidimensionally!!!

[breyito]

Fear your sins, not your monsters: Part Two: Tortured Souls

@painlandweek Day 2: Leyends

Part 1 Part 3 Chapters: 2/4 Fandom: Dead Boy Detectives (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence Relationships: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Charles Rowland, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace Characters: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Charles Rowland (DCU) Additional Tags: Protective Edwin Paine | Edwin PayneUnhinged Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Violence, Torture, Hurt Charles Rowland (DCU), Sickfic, love language: acts of service, painlandweek, BAMF Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Angst with a Happy Ending

A/N: Goodness gracious. This chapter is a behemoth. I think I have not written so much in one go since...2019? When the fires of wrath at Tony's death still lived within me lmao (im still mad, but im also tired now) Anyways!!! This took so long because the scenes just kept needing to be written out and out! And the dialogue! So.much.dialogue. Also, WARNING: there are some descriptions and threats of rape/non-con (about ocs and towards Crystal), so, *please* be careful. These ghosts are some real scumbags. As always, English is not my first language and I have no beta. Also, it's near 5AM, so. Any edits that need doing I'll do later. Enjoy!

Part Two: Tortured Souls

“What-t the fuck do you even want!? ” screamed Charles, after the thirteenth time he was transported from the rocks on the shore onto the cold concrete floor. He punched the floor in frustration but it didn’t make any difference: he wouldn’t feel it even if he tore out chunks of it. He’d tried that, digging his way out, but it was no use; the fucking room returned to its original state no matter what he did. 

(He’d also tried to break the iron bars on the window, but no matter how much of his hands he burned while trying, it was useless. The only thing it did was multiply the pain when he got thrown into the freezing depths again.)

He clenched his teeth while clothing himself again. He heard a giggle that sent another shiver down his spine and to the very core of his essence. 

“Oh, I’m just softening you up, kid.” the witch answered, an incorporeal voice just in his ear. Charles jumped and whirled around, but there was no one. 

“Softening me for what !?” he insisted. “How long do you plan to keep doing this for!?”

“Well…until you no longer have any fight in you, of course.” She giggled again. “That’s the best way to break in a new toy.” 

“I’m not a bloody toy !” he yelled, incandescently furious. The first dregs of a new kind of dread were emerging, and he didn’t like that one bit.

“You are now. Mmm, the things he’ll do to you when he comes back…”she teased, like the mere thought gave her pleasure. She sighed. “It’ll be delicious .”

Charles choked on his helplessness, and tried really hard to be more angry than scared. He almost manages to convince himself he succeeded. 

“See you later, baby. The lake needs time to freeze over, you know.” Just like that, the heavy presence was gone. 

Dawn had come while they talked. Still shivering, Charles curled up on the concrete floor, trying to place himself on the faint rays of sunlight. Not for the first time in his afterlife, he wished he could feel their heat as well as he could feel this permanent cold. It felt like he had never known warmth. Like the golden light of a lantern reflected on a pair of soft green eyes had only ever been an illusion.

Still, he kept Edwin’s face on his mind. The furrow of his eyebrows, the twitch of his nose when he wanted to say something and knew he shouldn’t, the sharp angle of his cheekbones….the tempting bow of his lower lip, just begging to be kissed. 

God…I wished I had just told you. I’m sorry, Edwin. I’m so sorry.  

—- —-- —--

—- —-- —--

By the time Crystal’s alarm went off, it was far past noon already. A part of her wanted to yell at Edwin for letting her oversleep when they were in a crisis, but as she looked around the office and noticed the complete state of chaos it was in, the words died in her throat. 

Edwin was dressed impeccably, though, sharp and without a hair out of place. Somehow, despite being only in his vest and coat, he seemed…more put together than usual. When the light hit him just right, he looked like a threat . It was unsettling, and made her feel ill at ease. But she pushed through it, because this was her friend, worried sick about their other missing friend.

Still, the way his fists kept meeting one another, and the now black gloves he wore gave away his agitation; and choked her up a bit. He had Charles’ necklace around his neck, and he was squeezing it between his fingers after every third time he smashed his knuckles together.

“Hey” she said, as she stood up from the couch.

“Good morning.” Edwin said, turning. “We have plenty to do today, but since the places we need to get to are not open before sundown, we have time for you to grab a bite.”

“I’m fine-”she tried to say.

“Crystal.” he interrupted. “You are alive , and thus have certain basic needs that have to be met for your presence to be beneficial to Charles’ rescue.” He took a deep breath. “If you insist on becoming a hindrance by refusing to take those necessary steps; I have no problem leaving you bound here in the office, until I get him back.” The tone of his voice left her no doubt he was completely serious, and would, in fact, leave her trapped in this room.

“Fuck, fuck , allright.” she conceded, as she put on her shoes. “But you will fill me in on what you found in the meantime.” Edwin tilted his head. 

“Very well.” with that he turned around and crossed through the door. Cursing under her breath, she hurried to follow him.

—-- —-- —--

 Once they were situated in a caffe with her meal in front of her and her earpiece very visible to avoid unwanted attention, she gestured for him to explain. Edwin, sitting across the table, cleared his throat and started.

“As we suspected, I cannot find him through usual tracking spells. This magic user has hidden their signatures too well for that.” He shifted in the seat, looking around before taking out his notebook. “However, I can track the ghost that hired us and lead us right to the trap.”

“Why haven’t you done that already then?”

“Because, first of all, at least back in the church, he had items that made him stronger and managed to escape after hurting Charles but just before he was taken and all the mirrors shattered.”

“So he’s tricky, is what you mean.”

“Exactly. We have no way of knowing if the witch provided him those items solely for the trap or if he has more of them. I’d hate to be ill prepared to face him, especially with you in tow.”

“I can handle myself.” she refuted, tone harsh.

“Crystal.” Edwin waited until she looked him in the eye, which was rare for him so she did. “I may not be very good at social interactions, but I did notice the way he was looking at you. It made me uncomfortable, so I can only imagine what it was like for you.”

“Well.” she said with a strained smile, eyes focused on her plate. “It’s not like it's the first time.” Crystal saw him hesitating on the corner of her eye, and then felt a slight pressure on her sleeve. She looked up and saw him give her a pained smile back.

“I am under no impression that what I experience when I use my disguises is anywhere near the real life, constant feeling of being under scrutiny and threat from those kinds of…men. And while the hardships I suffered when I was alive may give me some insight, it is not the same. But it is not normal and it is not okay.” He looked away for a tick before looking back at her. “In the future, we’ll try to screen these types of clients better. If they cannot treat you with the appropriate respect, they do not deserve our help.” He squeezed her arm once before letting go.

Done with sentimentalities for the time being, he leaned back and busied himself with his notes. Crystal, feeling like she had been punched in the throat, focused back on her meal and tried not to cry.

When enough time had passed that she felt she could speak without sounding choked, she set down her glass and tapped the table to get his attention back.

“You said we needed to go somewhere that wouldn’t be ‘open’ until night. Where is that? Some sort of library, a supernatural store…?”

“Not this time. Are you familiar with the term ‘black market’?” The ghost asked.

“Are you kidding? There’s a black market for magical stuff?” she hissed. “Wouldn’t that just be a regular magical market or whatever?”

“Oh, no. The supernatural world works on complicated networks. Usually, for regular cases, we can go to above board individuals or shops. But sometimes, less… moral objects are needed, and the Obscure Mart is the ideal place to obtain them.”

“Obscure Mart? Damn, you guys really love your theatrics, don’t you?”

“Of course.” he smirked. “That’s half the fun of all of it.” She was tempted to ask what the other half was, but feared getting off track.

“What do we need from this black market then?”

“Ideally, truth spells talismans. The iron chains to contain him are already inside the bag.” he pointed to Charles’ backpack. “Then, maybe some holy oil. Our reserve is quite small, and I’d rather have a larger circle than a small one.”

“Wait a minute. Holy oil? Isn’t that the stuff that can disintegrate a ghost if they touch it?”

“Indeed. Do you remember the abandoned warehouse of the Mc’Call case?” at her nod, he continued. “My plan is to catch unawares, and push him through a mirror into the building. I have already set up a salt circle to avoid him escaping, but I believe a holy fire around that circle will be better.”

“Isn’t that super dangerous?”

“It has its risks, but I think it is worth it. Besides, once you get there, you’ll put out the fire.” He adds.

“I mean, the warehouse is not far from here, but  how do we know that this guy won’t be in, like, Tanzania?” 

“These types usually have a pattern. As we’ve seen, he’s lazy, a pervert and from London. I don’t think he’s gone far at all.”

“Fine, ok. Also, truth spells? Couldn’t you just” she waves her fingers “do one?”

“Not at all. As a form of incantation, truth spells are useless. Truth spells talismans are one of the trickiest bits of magic and do work. The runes need to be in a specific pattern, written down in a special paper, with a particular ink, prepared in a confluence of the ley lines and only in certain phases of the moon.”  

“Well, damn. Off to the black market we go, then.” 

Ignoring the alarmed look from the waitress, she left a tip and got up to follow the ghost boy. 

—-- —-- —--

—- —-- —--

The entrance to the Obscure Mart was hidden in an ancient alleyway, behind a brick wall. Crystal had to bite her tongue not to make any Harry Potter related comments. (She had no desire to listen to another rant about how Rowling did the whole community a huge disservice, since she’d have to defend the world of Harry Potter but not the author because fuck that terf; and she hasn’t got the energy for that).

The market was a lively place, if a bit well, dark. Actual-for-realsies torches were the main source of light. The fires were of multiple colours though, which is cool. There were some stores she could see, but it seemed to be mostly tables and tents at the sides of the very long alley, with some narrow corridors on both sides. It’s not empty, but it’s not packed either. The first person that waved at them smiled, then looked behind Edwin at Crystal, and swallowed.

“Hi, Edwin!” They look behind the teens again. “Where’s Charles?” They ask, barely keeping the smile on their face.

“Taken.” Edwin said, curt. The person talking to them paled and then cursed softly. Crystal bit her lip not to question the wisdom of admitting such a thing, keeping in mind the ghost’s warning before going in: she was not to speak unless directly questioned.. “I need you to point me in the direction of Garreth Gadget?” he asked. Crystal blinked twice and tried not to snort at the name. 

“Y-yeah, sure. He’s on the seventh entrance tonight.” With barely a nod in acknowledgment, Edwin kept walking. 

The psychic girl saw the person that was just talking to them whisper something in the ear of their neighbour, and how this kept repeating as they walked down the road. As she turned to see the reactions of the beings around them she wished she could take the time to gape at all the crazy stuff. There was a giant ass tank with a giant ass glowing and mean looking octopus wearing a tophat that suddenly pulled all his limbs into a little ball and tried to hide behind his tophat . 

“-but who would be this stupid ?” asked a green girl with wings, fluttering agitatedly around her equally colourful friends. Crystal was calling her fairy for now and save the terminology for another day.

  “...yeah, probably someone new…” a sinister matronly ghost whispered to the man next to her, fussing over her wares.

“-ou think we’ll have another Bog Witch situation?” asked a… spooky talking tree?? Everyone that heard him shivered in unison. 

“ -uck, I hope not. That’d be…horrific.” answered the black cat with the equally black kittens.

Seeing as Edwin had gotten ahead of her anyways, she turned around to question the cat. That was the creature she was most used to, even if they were usually very rude.

“What ‘Bog Witch situation’?” she asked, intrigued. 

“Shhh!” The kittens shushed her in unison, eyes wide. They all hurried to hide behind their mother.

“You don’t know about the Bog Witch?” the cat asked, tilting her head.

“ What Bog Witch?”

“Exactly!” the green fairy answered, nodding. 

“No, really. What Bog Witch? And why is she so important?” Crystal was starting to lose her patience. There was a very awkward pause. “I’m new to this supernatural shit, alright? Is it some sort of legend or lore I don’t know about? Does it have anything to do with Edwin?”

“... it’s more like an urban legend. About what happened to her.” whispered a goth human boy. She assumed he was either a psychic or a warlock. He kept looking around, like Edwin would suddenly pop up out of nowhere.

“More like what that boy did to her.” muttered the ghost of a firefighter. 

“It’s not like it wasn’t deserved.” defended the matronly ghost.

“And what happened to her? Did Edwin… kill her?”Crystal asked, apprehensive.

“Oh, no.” the boy snorted. She relaxed slightly. “ Way worse. He erased her from existence. She and her Bog.”

“Which was an overreaction, in my opinion.” added the tree. 

“Erased her from existence…? That can happen? Wouldn’t people notice a whole ecosystem disappearing one day to the next?”

“Not in this case. When we say he ‘erased her from existence’ we mean completely . There are no traces, no records, no memories of them. Us supernatural creatures are the only ones that remember the Witch or the Bog.” Explained the fairy.

“Only faint traces, tho.” The firefighter added. “I assume as a warning.”

“You assume correctly.” Edwin stated, suddenly at her side. Everyone jumped back and quickly scampered away. He grabbed her arm and began leading her back down the road.

“Wait, wait, wait.” she said, stopping. Edwin sighed loudly and turned around, one eyebrow raised. “A warning about what?” she asked.

“About what I am willing to do to get Charles back. There are not many things that fall outside that list.” Crystal shook her head, incredulous.

Before she could question him further Edwin turned around snarling and grabbed a ghost by the shoulder, slamming him against the wall with a single hand. Said ghost was a guy, maybe in his thirties, and looked like the cartoon of a dealer, big brown trench coat and everything.

“Trying to avoid me, Garreth?” Edwin asked.

“Look, kid-”the man started, before yelping as said boy pressed his thumb deep into his clavicle. “Wait, wait-! Whatever you need, okay? I wasn’t sure I’d have what you wanted-”

“I need some truth spells talismans.” Edwin interrupted him. “I’m prepared to pay you handsomely for them.”

“ Truth spells ? I’m afraid I can’t help you there, mate. You know they are incredibly hard to come by-”

“I do. Which is why I know only you would have them tonight.”

“I’m sorry, lad, but-”

“I’ll trade you the immersive copy of the Kamasutra you always try to get your paws on.” The man’s eyes darkened immediately, but he shook his head.

“ Very tempting offer but-”

“Or I can just steal your coat and slice it open until it spills everything you have in there.” Edwin extended his free hand, and swallowing, Crystal put the knife he had given her earlier in it.  

“I’ll take it! Of course I will.” Edwin backed off to let him search the inside pockets of his trench then. “I was planning on using it on my lass, but fuck it. These birds can’t mouth off, can they?” he said, licking his lips. 

Crystal saw Edwin’s shoulders tense in disgust, but knew he couldn’t grimace; so she grimaced for both of them. Garreth finally took a single sheet of paper and gave it to them.

“It’s the only one I’ve got!” he defended himself at their unimpressed looks. “The wife is tricky, alright? Can never get her with these…”he mumbled. 

Edwin inhaled deeply and took a book from inside his own pocket, waving it in front of the man. 

“Holy oil, then, for the rest of it.”

“Hey-!”

“I can always give you just half the book and you can see if it still functions as intended.” he threatened.

“Fine, fine!” the man conceded. “Jeez.” He took a little clay pot from another pocket, tapping the waxed seal as he handed it over. “Straight from Jerusalem.” 

Edwin pressed the book against Garreth’s chest and turned around, pocketing the talisman and the oil. They both began walking, ignoring the wet sounds as the man licked his lips over and over.

They also ignored the way the rest of the beings in the Obscure Mart hunched over, some even hiding under their tables. On the corner of her eye she saw the octopus still in a little ball, just with ink spilled around it. As they left the market and arrived at the normal alley, Crystal stopped Edwin with a hand on his arm.  

“This isn’t like you, Edwin.” she said, softly. “This…brute force? The constant threat of violence? It’s like…”

“I’m Charles?” he finished, sarcastic. “We are not so different in our devotion as it might seem, Crystal.”

“I don’t buy that.” she said. Edwin let out a dry chuckle. “He’s our friend, but-”

“Crystal, you've seen him without me. You have never seen me without him .” he interrupted, eyes stone cold. “I know you think you know how our dynamic works. You think I keep him contained when I’m around, don’t you? Leashed , as some would say?” he smiled, and it was terrifying.  “Oh, dear Crystal....You have got no clue how savage I can be in the shadow of his absence.” 

Crystal took a step back, and Edwin seemed to become smaller. He turned his back on her and rubbed his hand all over his face. 

“I don’t like what I become when he’s threatened, Crystal.” he admitted, looking at the sky. “I’m aware that I can be quite brutal, and that regret is not in my vocabulary when these things happen.” He inhaled. “But this is the only way I know to get him back.”

“Edwin…” she whispered, tearing up.

“He’s always protecting me , saving me . Just yesterday he got injured and distracted because I couldn’t defend myself. Now I have to be strong for the both of us, and be tough enough to do whatever is necessary to save him.” 

Edwin wiped off a teardrop from his cheek, but more just kept falling. Crystal thought ‘Fuck it, they are my boys and I’m not about to lose either one of them’ and hugged him tight. Surprising her, Edwin hugged her back.

“I can’t lose him, Crystal, I can’t .” he whispered, voice trembling. “If you can’t stomach my methods I don’t blame you, but-”

“No, no. ” she interrupted him. “This is for our friend, and as long as you don’t hurt anyone innocent-”

“I promise.” Edwin said. 

“Then you do whatever you need to do to find him.” They separated and smiled weakly at each other, wiping the wetness off their faces. “Now, c’mon, we have a perv ghost to find.”

—-- —-- —--  

—- —-- —--

After finishing the holy oil circle and doing the tracking spell, they had an address. They found their perverted ghost perving on some girls in a club’s bathroom downtown, of course. Crystal setted off the fire alarm so that the bar emptied as Edwin surprised the man. As soon as she saw them disappear through the surface, she turned around and left. Fortunately it was the middle of the week, so her Uber should get to their location quickly enough.

Edwin pushed the ghost through the mirror with a surge of magic, right into the warehouse’s trap. The circle of holy fire was already alight. Edwin quickly followed suit and broke the mirror to prevent an escape. While getting iron shackles to bound the other ghost with, the man shook off the effects of the spell and got up. 

“You again, little boy?” he mocked. “Didn’t get enough of this, did you?” he laughed as he threw a marked stone at Edwin. The boy knocked the stone off course with the chain, and took advantage of the extended arm to get the cuff around it. “ Bloody hell !” the man cursed, trying to shake the metal burning him loose. He desperately patted his pockets with his other arm, trying to reach another stone loaded spell. “Why isn’t this burning you!? ” he yelled.

“It is.” Edwin answered, before reciting an incantation in Latin. “I just don’t care.” He let go of one of the chains as it seemed to become alive, and sent them in the direction of the other ghost. 

The man dodged and tried to run, but Edwin pulled from the chain already around his arm and he fell to the floor. The enchanted chain snaked around the man until he was covered in them, then pulled both arms behind his back and locked them there. The man fell to his knees, and Edwin couldn’t stop thinking how much he looked like a worm. 

Once that was done, he waited for Crystal so she could snuff off the fire. Ignoring the snarls and the cursing, Edwin took off his notebook from his pocket and revised his notes once more. The list of questions he needed to ask hadn’t changed, but it made him feel better. 

About half an hour later, Crystal arrived. Immediately, she broke the salt circle with her shoe and snuffed the oil with the short incantation Edwin had taught her. Edwin nodded in thanks and opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“I’m staying.”  

Edwin agreed to it, shighing. 

“Fuck” laughed the ghost. “The black bitch is here too? What a party!” he whooped. They both ignored him. 

Taking the talisman out of his pocket, Edwin slapped it against the other ghost’s throat. The ink burned off the paper as it transferred to the man’s skin.

“Do you know where Charles is?” was the first and most important question Edwin had. The man smirked and opened his mouth to give some bullshit answer.

“Of course I don’t, that wench gave me one job and I did it.” Instead, he answered honestly. “What was that?” he asked, alarmed. “What the fuck was that!?” he yelled as he got no response.

“What is your connection with the person that took Charles?” Edwin continued, not letting the disappointment choke him. Of course this lackey didn’t know, it would have been too easy otherwise.

The man tried to bite his lip, but it was useless. The runes glowed and he had to answer.

“That witch?” he laughs. “She was my late mate’s girl. Awesome catch, she is.”

“Why?” asked Crystal.

“Lil’ bit hard to find a bitch that knows how to enjoy herself, huh?” he winked at her as he licked his lips and the blood he spilled. “Hell, sometimes I think she enjoyed it more than we did.”

“...enjoyed what?” asked Edwin, confused. The man laughed as the runes glowed, head thrown back.

“All the girls and boys we completely destroyed.” He said, proudly. Both teens froze . “Fuck, we had such a good run too! There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do, wouldn’t get, for him. Chains, chain saws ? Done. Knives, blowtorches, pliers? Easy. Even got us a speculum once.” he kept on, a sickening longing look on his face. “That was…a hell of a week.”

“Stop.” said Edwin, feeling nauseous. Fortunately, the runes glowed after that command too, rendering the man silent. While the other ghost silently laughed at them, Edwin checked on Crystal. She nodded at him to continue, swallowing. 

“What happened to your…friend?” The man bit his tongue again, but the words kept coming.

“I told you, didn’t I? He died. We both did. Went in a fucking gaze of glory.”

“The police killed you.” Edwin stated. “I don’t remember anything about them stopping a pair of…serial rapists.”

“Oi, have some respect for our skills, we also killed them.” he laughed again at their faces. ”And the pigs never found out!” he howled. “Thought we were just robbers, didn't they?”

The fact that these two monsters were still undiscovered sat like lead on the teens' stomachs. They looked at each other and nodded at the same time. They would get the names of the victims, try and give their families some closure. (Make sure those poor souls went to rest in Heaven.)

“And where is your friend now? Is he working with the witch?” Edwin asked. He lasted longer this time, a trickle of blood getting to his chin. 

“Nah. I saw him get dragged down by something inside a red light, didn’t I? So I ran. Ran back to our flat, and there I found her. Turned out the shite she spouted about energies and magic and whatever bollocks was true.” He shook his head and tilted it to the side, leaving it there.

“And then what happened? What does she want with Charles?” As the rapist’s ghost bit his tongue, the blood finally reached the runes, and cut through them. They glowed once, twice and then dulled. “No!” Edwing screamed. “What does she want with Charles!?”

The other ghost just kept laughing. 

“What are you gonna do now, little boy!? All outta spells already!?” he mocked. He spat on the floor and looked at them with a predatory smile that centred on Crystal. “If you want to hear me talk so much, I can sure tell you what I’d do to this black wench.” He licked his teeth. “Usually my tastes aren’t so exotic , but I’ll make an exception for you, birdie. You look…just so -” he’s interrupted by said ‘birdie’ kicking him in the balls. He wheezed, still laughing.

Edwin, very calmly, walked Crystal back a few steps and stood in front of her, so she wouldn’t have to see that monster’s face.

“It seems I will be extracting the information physically.” he stated, taking off his coat. “You should leave, Crystal.” he said as he took an ornate dagger from his pocket.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to…read him?” she asked, wanting nothing more than leave this place where this monster felt so fucking comfortable. The last thing she wanted was to read this fucking jerk and fill her head with the horrors he had committed, but she would if Edwin couldn’t do it.

“It’s not necessary-” he started.

“Yeah!” the man screamed behind them. “Sure you don’t want her to do this?” he laughed. “Your iron knives don’t scare me, boy.”

Edwin lifted an eyebrow in question to Crystal and she nodded. She started walking away as he turned around and smiled at the bound man.

“Oh, this isn’t iron.” he said, clicking his tongue. Edwin waited until the sound of the door closing before continuing. “This is cursed silver . This is not just going to burn you. This is going to ground you in your body in a way you haven’t felt since the day you died.” He carefully traced the edge of the man’s right eye with the blade. “And then, it’s going to turn each and every one of those sensations into agony .” He laughed. The other ghost swallowed, paling. 

“You think I can’t take a little bit of pain?” he still asked, full of bravado.

“ You took my partner away from me .” Edwin snarled. “Do you think I’m only going to inflict a little bit of pain on you?”  

“You wouldn’t.” he objected “You’re not corrupt enough.” the man stated, trying to sound certain but looking wearily at the blade.

“Haven’t you heard? I spent 73 years in Hell.” He slowly walked around the bound ghost, to stop behind him and whisper. “And among my own suffering, I learned many, many things there.” Edwin took off his gloves and let them fall to the floor one by one as he kept walking.

“How to unmake someone apart piece by piece is just one of the lessons.” He caught the terrified gaze of the rapist ghost. “I bet you think you know all about that, don’t you?” He stopped and looked him dead in the eyes. “Only you never had the chance to do it all over again. And again. And again .  So why don’t you let me show you?”

—-- —-- —-- 

Crystal walked outside feeling defeated. She hated it, but she thought that perhaps Edwin would not be able to do it, after the talk they had earlier. And then she would have to read that disgusting mind. She jumped on top of a pile of pallets and shoved her headphones on her head, putting on a metal playlist, just in case.

Not too early, either.

Some really ear-shattering screams begin a few minutes after she leaves. She tried very, very hard to convince herself the screams she heard were coming from the artists.

—-- —-- —-- 

By the time the screams had turned into choked whimpers, hours had passed. Crystal had resorted to putting on her headphones and turning her music to the highest volume, to ignore it. She knew the man inside was the worst kind of scum on this Earth, but he was still a person. He deserved to be punished for all he had done before and what he had done to Charles. This was all for information, she kept telling herself. She would do a lot of things not to lose another friend.

As Edwin walked out of the warehouse, just in his vest and shirt, she noticed he was… covered in blood would be an overstatement, but not by much. His sleeves were dyed red in places and his bare hands were bright pink. As he approached her, he did a movement with one of his hands and the same black smoke she had seen earlier as they did the tracking spell cleaned it all up, almost… devouring the blood he had had on his person.

“You learned anything useful?” she asked, hopeful.

“Yes, rather.” Edwin answered, before his coat wrapped him up and he fixed his gloves. “We should be going, though, we have no time to lose.”

“What? Why?” Crystal said as she jumped down the pallets she had been sitting on to follow him. Red light spilling from the broken windows of the building was her answer. “He’s moving on? Why?” she asked, completely baffled, as she reached his side. The dude had seen his rapist BFF being dragged down to Hell.

“I…convinced him that it was in his best interest to not be within my reach when this case is through. I suppose he thought his chances of surviving Hell are greater than his chances of surviving me .” 

She swallowed a few times, shocked. Noticing she had stopped, Edwin turned around.

“Shall we, Crystal?” he asked, eyebrow lifting.

[saph-y]

Tagged by @dingoat♥ A while ago BUT today I have trouble getting to work grading some students so thank you for the procrastination instead xD

3 ships (did the first that came into my mind !)

Siv(my oc)/Archibald(selkys's oc) : Truly The Ship, at the core of the story I'm rp-ing with Selkys. They fought the plot AND tons of shit in-universe to be together. How to sumarize them... ha, picture an evil genius Sith Lord suddenly switching his whole reason of living from revenge to absolute devotion toward his fiery sunshine smol wife and you get and idea !

Hazel(OC)/Sycamore (Pokemon) : Basically started because I wanted to explore a ship with Sycamore and Hazel was my only Pokemon OC at the time - I didn't even knew much about him except I liked his design and vibes immensely. I actually managed to write a deliciously complicated story around them and I really hope to explore more♥

Willow(OC)/Grimsley(Pokemon) : Willow is my pokemas protag and in a game were you basically meet all pokemon trainers, I do have many ships with her and that is originally why she was created, just a character to be indulgent and explore different stuff. But Grimsley is my fav pairing for her because I imagined such a """fun""" (for me 8D) dynamic between them ! Two word : trust issues.

First Ship

I can't really remember my first FIRST ship, but growing up I wasn't too much into romance stories I think. But I do vividly remember my first "holy shit you can do THAT??" when playing Mass Effect 2 for the first time and discovering you could romance Garrus. Thus, my first "active" ship was born (meaning I was actively searching/producing works around it) Guess I was a monsterfucker all along Thank you Bioware for expanding my imagination 🫶

Last Song

At this very moment I'm listening to Wild Child by The Black Keys (love vibing to this band.)

Currently Reading

Just started Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett and I'm delighted to be finally reunited with the idiots of the city watch♥ I waited for MONTHS to get to a proper library that had it...

Last Film

...Not sure ? A silly spy film I forgot the title I think ? ...If I can offer a serie instead, I'm currently watching Lupin the Third part 4 and 5 ! It's funny how every Lupin thing I watch feels like meeting with long time dear friends even tho it's not a universe I've been aware of for that long... is that weird ? xD But given how fanartists for this fandom influenced my artstyle for years before I even saw a single film (yep, do you understand some stuff about it now ? :p) it might be the reason !

Currently Craving

Hum... idk ? ...Maybe another coffee xD But that would not be a good idea and thus I must resist u_u

[mdhwrites]

When it comes to fanfiction, what are your thoughts on OCs/self-inserts (I'm aware there's a difference between the two)?

So I know both of theirs reputation. In many's eyes, one is just a more extreme version of the other. Both are seen as wish fulfillment on the writer's part and thus are written poorly by default as a part of making them the most special thing that special'd. What is interesting to me in this regard is that this is actually just the same problem that the writers of the OG content face when introducing a new character but the writer doing it doesn't realize the landmine they're potentially walking onto.

Have you ever seen a long running show, even maybe just a couple seasons, and when they add a new character they get a bad reception? "They're just a copy of this character!" "They aren't nearly as deep as the cast that's already there!" "What purpose do they serve to this story except to let the writers... Add their own OC." This is because the audience is going to be inherently biased towards the characters who are already there. Trying to add a new MAIN character is always going to be difficult because it inherently means shifting the balance of the work, especially because the new character is going to need a lot of time to flesh out their place in the ensemble. Starlight Glimmer is an example, where the season after her started with a lot of episodes that were in someway focused on her so she could prove her good girl status or show how she was different from Twilight Sparkle because that's just what needs to happen with a new character.

But I want to emphasize this: OCs/Backlash on a character like this is predominantly a MAIN character problem. You want to throw in a random self insert who gets two lines and then dips out? Few, if anyone, is going to care because hey, you needed a rando there so why not just a quick cameo? This is the style the Marvel movies took with Stan Lee. His cameos were never that much a problem because they were usually a quick joke. They didn't detract from the characters you were there to see.

Which brings us to why this problem is SO. MUCH. WORSE. when it comes to fanfiction. One of the strengths of fanfiction from a novice writer's perspective is that a lot of criticism is going to be softballed because the audience is primed to just enjoy the work regardless because they just are there for more time with the characters they love. For an experience writer like me, I could theoretically be experimental with my stories more on Ao3 as a test bed for if those would work in general because I'm not going to get a one star review for the formatting, I'll get a comment going "This was weird but MAN I loved seeing X do Y." Your audience being inherently primed to enjoy your work is one of the joys of being a fanfic writer because it means it's so much easier to find your audience.

That also means it's really easy for original elements to be seen as hostile. As invading the space, especially if they're overshadowing the rest of the cast. The audience isn't here for your original characters after all. They're here for the characters they already enjoy. It makes me think of how the most famous OC of MLP's fandom... Is Nyx, at least from fanfiction. That or Pip but both use sleight of hand in order to get away with this. Nyx is not a wholly an OC. They are a mix of two characters explicitly. Nightmare and Luna, just turned into a filly. So instead of "Check out my OC," it's "Check out my alternative version Princess Luna/Nightmare Moon." Littlepip meanwhile is in a Fallout AU in an Equestria that is, well, a post apocalypse. That isn't MLP at that point. That's just original fiction and so your expectations change because you don't actually know from go if your favorite characters are going to be there so you're more there for the blending of media. Any appearances by canon characters becomes a treat and so Littlepip doesn't have to compete with them. I've also never read either of these stories, I'm just going off of what I've absorbed since I know these characters are commonly liked and what their concepts are. This is also not a condemnation of either character, both need to be well written to be as popular as they are or else they would have been discarded, just that they don't have as much of an uphill battle as literally just dropping a new character in the media world you enjoy has.

The other way you can bypass this is to make them narratively subservient to a character. What I mean by that is that they clearly are there to push another main character's arc and the like. As such, they don't feel as much like a main character, they feel like interesting supporting cast to one of the characters already is primed to like. Pretty much any Apple Family OC is going to fall into this so long as the story also heavily includes Applejack or Apple Bloom. Babs Seed is literally just this where her connection to the Apples and how she challenges them makes her immediately compelling to the audience because we want to see that. A looooot of one off characters honestly fall into this category, with the added bonus that they're not main characters, they're supporting cast.

So with all of this, I think it begs the question: Are OCs/Self Inserts treated unfairly? Well... That's really fucking complicated. As I pointed out above, the well written and the well conceived can absolutely be liked. It has maybe fallen a bit out fashion post MLP but a lot of fandoms probably have semi-famous that just got popular enough to start being passed around. An OC can be well received so long as they're done well. The reason so few are done well is honestly tragically simple: You have now taken one of the hardest parts of original writing and added the biggest downside of fanfiction with none of the strengths of fanfiction.

I have said that I became an original writer because I found myself limited by fanfiction. That the AUs I made were essentially irrecognizable, or not materially added to, by being fanfiction. This is because the one mandate, the one restriction, of fanfiction is that you have to work within the boundaries of the media you are in. Those boundaries are looser than an original story but there are limits. You make an alicorn OC in MLP fanfic will ask questions because doesn't that make them a princess? So now you have to add someone entirely from whole cloth, robbing you of the bonuses of fanfiction, while making sure they contort to the rules of the fiction, rather than ever being able to bend those rules for the sake of the character and their story. This can actually make it really good practice for making original characters for an original story because of those extra challenges but that's not how most fanfic authors look at it. It's just adding a character, or themselves, into a story because they're excited to do so. That is a recipe for disaster.

I also think it is given too much shit for the same reason. Unless the person touts their OC as perfectly written... Let them enjoy their trash. Fanfiction is for the writer before it is ever for the reader after all. If you can empathize with why a person adds themselves into a story, which is an entire blog on its own, then it can help you see a poorly written OC and go, "This isn't for me." And then leave. You do not have to be a dick about it, they're just trying to enjoy themselves.

As a note: This is why I so very, VERY rarely go after fanworks. I do not want to shit on people just for wanting to create and play. It's just discouraging so unless I have a larger point I can make through the work, an actual lesson to teach rather than just dragging it through the mud, I'm not even going to bother talking about it. I'm just being a dick then.

And a lot of the push against OCs and Self Inserts in fanfiction fall into and I hope that hasn't discouraged people from making the stories they want to like it did for me with my first ever piece of fanfiction. See you all next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[cha-melodius]

Which fic are you most proud of and what inspired you to write it?

Hello and thanks so much for this lovely ask! I'm gonna give a slightly more complex answer than just "pick one", because I've talked a lot about the first fic (although that was mostly back when I had less than half the number of tumblr followers I have now, which is kind of crazy to think about), and the others are more recent.

So, the fic I'm most proud of remains Love is a Losing Game (napollya, E, 101k), which I wrote back in 2021! Hard to believe it's been that long. This is a whole-ass novel, and I still think it's my most original and well-developed work. It's a Cold War competitive chess AU, and was inspired by @eavos dropping the idea of a competitve chess AU in the tmfu discord chat one day because he'd watched The Queen's Gambit. Once I finally watched QG too, the concept completely took over my brain. It ultimately shares pretty much nothing with QG other than the competitive chess setting, but it turned out to be the perfect setting for these two. Also includes my favorite ever OC (Zaytsev). It's also a fic that is late in a fandom and is kind of a strange concept—college coffee shop AUs people jump on, but competitve chess? Definitely not going to draw people in as much. So it's certainly not my highest kudosed or most popular fic, but I've gotten some effusive comments that really show how much people who have read it loved it.

But that was also 2021, and I don't want to discount my more recent work. So, among those, I'm probably most proud of Please Don't Let Me Be So Understood (firstprince, E, 20k). This was a work that took it's basic concept from another fic I happened across in a different fandom that I'm not even part of lol. I thought it would make a great firstprince story, but writing it was very daunting because it's almost entirely a bunch of therapy. I've said it before but I'll say it again that this fic never would have gotten written without @celeritas2997, who gave me the confidence to pull it off and helped me make sure the therapy sessions were realistic and sensitive without losing our boys. This was maybe the most challenging fic I've ever written, even though it's not that long, and for that reason I'm very proud of it.

Honorable mentions to my spy novels Nova, Baby (firstprince, E, 66k) and A Good Man is Hard to Find (lokius, M, 81k). I absolutely love both of these stories and am super proud of how I built these stories and how they played out.

I've definitely yammered on long enough about this, but thank you again!

[angelanimedesaray]

🍄🍓🎲

AAAH!!! HELLO!!! I always see you in my feed, I wasn't expecting you in my inbox, but I'm happy to see you here XD

Sooo, the questions. Yes. I am so sorry these are so long, I can't be short and sweet and to the point for anything, I swear, it's always just word vomit and -- I'm rambling again, let's get to it hahaha XD

🍄 A Headcanon for one of my favorite ships/Pairings. Sooooo I don't have a favorite ship/pairing, not really, for the AOT fandom, I'm just kind of vibing over here with most of them XD I'll enjoy Erwin/Levi Content one second, scroll two more posts down and oogle over a Hange/Levi, and then gasp and jealously drink in an OC/Levi art the next second while scribbling down the artist for future reference for the day I can finally afford to request some Levi and my OCs art (I have an OC in mind for every Levi x Reader Fic I've written that I imagine while I write). So it's more like a Levi x Anyone kind of headcanon:

I have always been a sucker for the thought that when Levi get's really comfortable with whoever he's with, and he's letting his guard down more and is cuddling regularly with his SO, that this is a common and favorite position:

Just, the hand running gently through his hair at the nape of his neck, arms wrapped tightly around one another, head pillowed on n their chest, it looks so comfy and warm and comforting for him and uuugggghhhhh I'm a sucker for it, it's my comfort soft thought/headcanon and I love it.

🍓 How did I get into fanfic. Soooo I was already known IRL for loving writing, mostly poetry at the time, and being a huuuuge star wars fan (I was usually the one people went to if they had a character or event question cause I KNEW MY STUFF). And a friend of mine came up to me one day at summer camp and asked for some help with a star wars fanfic she was writing since i knew character and canon/EU stuff so well, and she explained WHAT fanfic was to me, and after talking for a while we wrote it together, though we kind of parted due to creative differences/complete opposite styles, but I'd created a fanficnet profile putting the original character names from the story together with plans to post the fanfic we were writing, and I decided to just keep it and start writing my own stories, and that's how I started writing fanfic--and also how I got the penname AngelDesaray, two OCs that didn't really see the light of day. Well, Desaray got revamped into Zelina for my Star Wars fanfiction baby I still work on slowly to this day, but that's besides the point, heh.

🎲What stops me from writing more in my free time? I usually get in my own way a lot. My attention span has been really shot since college, it's hard for me to focus on one thing for a long time--it's part of why I started having multiple things going on at once, it helps me to focus if I have a video running or music playing, and three or four word documents and a social media website I can easily jump away from again open, because then there's enough going on that I oddly enough can focus (I used to get teased all the time by my parents for having my laptop open on my lap, texting someone on my phone, playing a NintendoDS Game, and watching a show all at once). Another issue is that I think I haven't 100% bounced back from my college burnout, but I really really miss my writing and stories, which puts me in this weird catch 22 where I'm just mentally tired and don't want to do anything, but i've been daydreaming of my story for literal hours and really want to get something on paper. Also sometimes I'm cursed with wanting to write plot heavy stuff but I'm in the middle of relationship building, or wanting to write action but I'm doing dialogue heavy chapters, or wanting to write relationship steamy stuff but there's a lot of plot stuff going on--etc etc. Its usually me and my attention span getting in the way, pretty much. Doesn't mean i don't want to really really bad or that I'm not thinking about it 24/7, cause I usually am, it's just hard for me to FOCUS these days once I have the white sheet in front of me.

Ask Game Here

[sotwk]

SotWK's Favourite Piece of Tolkien Fanart

From the Writer's Truth or Dare Ask Game, @hobbitwrangler "Ace Reporter" asked me one of the questions I was really hoping to be asked! XD

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

I know and follow a lot of amazing Tolkien artists, so it's almost impossible to zero in on one favorite, but I know which one is personally most valuable to me.

I've been on Tumblr sharing my Thranduilion OCs for just about a year and a half now, and I've been lucky enough to get just ONE artist friend to draw one of my Thranduilion Princes for me, based on a request I made!

@missiemoosie is a super talented artist, and back when we were just starting to be Moot-friends, she drew my suggestion of Prince Gelir Thranduilion sharing a meal with her Hobbit OC, Baylee:

(Moosie, I hope it's okay to repost it here; I wanted people to view it immediately.)

Here is the link to that post: Original Link. I gave her only a brief description to work with, but I think she NAILED Gelir. I love the design of his Mirkwood "Ranger" outfit! And seeing him in a scene with cute little Baylee just made my heart melt. It's still in my (perpetually growing) wish/goal list to write a ficlet that puts them together.

Besides this drawing being spot-on, thorough, and gorgeous, it's so very dear to me because it's two Tolkien OCs from two different writers coming together. This kind of sharing and exchange between creators is the epitome of healthy fandom activity and community. When we create together, we inspire each other and it's so much more fun!

I'm always looking for opportunities to work with my writer friends whose OCs, headcanons, and styles harmonize with mine, and I'm fortunate to already know a few who are willing to put up work with me. <3 XD I wish I had all the time in the world because there are SO many possibilities!

But yes, @missiemoosie has so far been the only artist who has willingly drawn one of my OCs for me without being commissioned or assigned to due to an event. I'm very grateful for her generosity, and I hope more artists AND writers can emulate that community spirit!

[ourdramaqueen]

Fic Tag Game

I was tagged by @suchaladyy 🌸

20 questions:

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

55, divided into fandoms as follows: Wednesday (TV 2022) (24) The Boys (TV 2019) (21) The Lord of the Rings (8) Sin City - All Media Types (1) Almost Human (TV) (1)

2. What’s your AO3 word count?

368,862

3. What fandoms do you write for?

See #1. Currently only Wednesday, though I do hope to get back into The Boys soon, and I still have some unpublished LotR WIPs that I'd like to actually finish sometime...

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Private Tutor

Kinktober Day 8: Shaving (The Boys, Butcher/Hughie)

Kinktober Day 2: See-through (The Boys, Butcher/Hughie)

Kinktober Day 18: Rough Sex (The Boys, Butcher/Hughie)

How do I passive-agressively say ‘fuck you’ in flower?

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I really appreciate when readers take the time to post a comment, so I always answer at least with a brief "thank you".

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Defintiely the whole Closer series (LotR, Frodo/Éomer) because it is mostly canon compliant, so it ends with Frodo going into the West. 😭My Rough Sex series (The Boys, Butcher/Hughie) is also fairly angsty by its nature as a series of mildly canon divergent gap filler fics following through the episodes of S1 and S2 (so far).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I think pretty much anything apart from the above two series? Well, apart from the Struck by a Bolt series (The Boys, Butcher/Hughie), which has the potential to go either way.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't gotten outright hate, but certainly a few rude/entitled/"clearly hasn't read the tags or the end note despite me recommending to in the a/n at the beginning" comments.

9. Do you write smut? What kind?

LOL! All kinds. Soft, kinky (probably more kinky), some a bit dark. I seem to enjoy my ships a little fucked up.

10. Do you write cross-overs?

I don't have a proper crossover on my AO3 (see #12 for the reason why I specify it like this), though I'd love to write one sometime since I love reading them. The closest I've come is Kinktober Day 15: Monster Fucking (The Boys, Butcher/Hughie), which is heavily Beauty and the Beast inspired.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Little Brother was translating Private Tutor into Russian, though they haven't updated it in a while.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Oh yes! In fact, the first fics I posted online were cowritten with two (originally three, but one of then dropped out shortly after we'd started) friends, though under a different pen name and in a crossover of two small fandoms (with additional ones sneaking in here and there). I haven't written for that series in at least 15 years, though I still have fairly extensive notes for a trilogy of stories centered around my OC and I'd love to get back to that eventually.

But more recently, I've cowritten Line Without a Hook with erraticallyinspired (holyfudgemonkeys), who afaik isn't on Tumblr, and An Addams Family Guide to Kidnapping with @nonamemanga. I'm currently working on something with @suchaladyy, and who knows what and who will be next? It's a lot of fun!

13. What WIP would you like to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oof! I only have unpublished WIPs which I'm not sure if I'll ever get to finish them. Mostly for LotR.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I really can't choose. Go look at my bookmarks on AO3, LOL!

15. What are your writing strengths?

Oh boy. Um. I think I've figured out quite well how to show character through smut, as well as to distinguish characters from one another by how they behave and talk.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Hmm... Sometimes I get bogged down in details, though I've gotten much better at catching myself now. Oh, paragraphs of really long sentences, but again, I've improved a lot there. 😆

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Absolutely, as long as I'm confident in the language or have someone who's a native/fluent speaker to help me with it.

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Are we talking wrote for myself, or published? Because I started as a teenager in the 80s, writing your typical Mary Sue self-inserts starring my favorite celebs, like Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, by hand on notepads...

19. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Nope, still can't choose, sorry!

20. What fic would you want to rewrite one day?

There's one story from my first cowriting experience I mentioned in #12 that I would dearly love to rewrite because the constant POV changes are driving me nuts when I read it now! I don't think there's anything that's currently on my AO3 that I feel the need to rewrite.

I don't know who's been tagged or not, so if you haven't been but want to participate, consider yourself tagged!

[inquartata30]

Parallax

Fandom: Mass Effect Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Politics Relationship(s): Lexi T’Perro/OC (Thaia Kallistrate), Benezia/Aethyta, Benezia/Aethyta/Shiala Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate (OC), Aria T’Loak, Matriarch Benezia, Suvi Anwar, Nakmor Drack, Vetra Nyx, Cora Harper, Matriarch Aethyta, Shiala Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Fake Dating, Slowburn, Original Characters Summary: 55,000 years ago, the protheans won a Pyrrhic victory over the reapers. From the ashes of the Prothean Republic and the rusting hulks of the reapers, the ancient asari grew into a galaxy-spanning empire. Two people on opposite sides first meet during an abduction that threatens to upend the tenuous armistice between the Asari Empire and the Terminus Systems. Decades later, they face each other again as forced allies and unwitting political pawns when the galaxy’s three major factions collide.

Chapter 1: High Salinity

It was bugging the ever-loving fuck out of her. The dossier Thaia and the rest of her squad had been given indicated that their target, Lexi T’Perro, was a pirate. But Thaia had met a lot of pirates over her centuries of service to the Empire, and Lexi wasn’t anything like any of them. Something was off. And it bugged the fuck out of her. After getting the attention of her squadmates, Thaia gestured toward the smallish cell holding their irate captive. “I’m telling you, she doesn’t look like a pirate.” “Why’s that?” asked Paion, their sniper. She was a Specialist Third Class a couple centuries younger than Thaia, but still had the full set of commando face tattoos like everyone else. Hers were red where Thaia’s were white—the only element of the mandatory tattoos that was theirs to pick. “Pirates don’t usually wear lab coats, for one,” Thaia said. Lexi finally spoke up for the first time since they’d reached the prefab base. “I’m wearing a lab coat because I’m a physician. Tell me, do you each possess one lonely brain cell? Or do you share a single cell between the three of you?” Lovely as Lexi’s voice was, the things she said hurt more than getting fucking shot. “Also,” Thaia said, “pirates usually eviscerate people with sharp knives, not sharp words.” “I’m good with a scalpel. Would you care for a demonstration?” Lexi asked.

Read the rest of Chapter 1 on AO3

Note:

This started with an “enemies to lovers” prompt from@skyllianhamster for Thaia and Lexi. Right after came a ton of brainstorming for a situation that would have these two start as Actual Enemies, which is how this AU was born. Initially, it was supposed to be more Mirror Universe like, but I discovered that the constant dark anxiety of getting backstabbed (often literally) that is the atmosphere of a mirror universe was too much for me to handle. Trust doesn’t really exist there, and I wanted an alternate universe where there could be trust and love that wasn’t practically guaranteed to be duplicitous. Well, once the work’s put in on both sides. So the asari are an Evil Empire, but we aren’t talking something like Star Trek’s Mirror Universe. More like adjacent to it. Some characters are still fundamentally themselves despite changes of circumstance or at first glance (and second or third, in some cases) appearing different from how we know them in whatever canons they exist. Others are absolutely the complete opposite of who they would be in other stories. Matriarch Benezia, Liara, and Skyham’s OC Fejla Na’vis in particular. As in, canon Fejla would burst into tears if she stepped on a bug, which, well. Not at all so much here. This fic was also supposed to be a one shot and so I’d started it on a writing app on my phone. Even though it grew beyond a one shot, its first draft was still exclusively written on my phone, writing time on my laptop being reserved for my main fic.

Anyway, on re-reading it, I figured it’s time to share.

Benezia, Aethya, and Shiala draw from the Trinity (@dr-jekyl and @theivorytowercrumbles) versions of themselves—and then deviate toward mirror universe-type tendencies. Musahir Ordaca and Farizah T’Soni belong to @theivorytowercrumbles, Fejla Na’vis and Nefraellynx T’Sein to@skyllianhamster. While Fejla is the opposite of herself, Nef is more “like she always is, except now she’s trustworthy.” In another AU, Nef once sold an unwitting Thaia a ship she’d stolen from the leader of the Blood Pack—without informing Thaia of the shuttle’s original owner—so this was quite the change.

[h3artf3ltint3nt]

☮♦♣☀

Get to know the rper - RP related

-Send me a ☮ for me to describe an amazing rp experience: I don't think any rp experience can beat the one I discussed here

-Send me a ♦ for me to describe a plot that I’ve been wanting to do: oh jeez. There's so many. For Kexin specifically I do have two kind of specific ones. So the first has to do with A-Yao. So I couldn't decide if I wanted her to find out the truth or not before Huaisang revealed it at first but I finally decided that I didn't. Instead I figured it would be interesting for doubts to somewhat creep in but her desperately push those thoughts away because she didn't want to believe it and then everything coming to light and seeing that those doubts were valid. It's painful lol. The other is romance plot with JC (because she's a self insert and I love him lol). In my mind and the fanfic I'm writing they become close friends during the Gusu lectures and discuss the possibility of courting but then Sunshot happens and the rebuilding of Lotus Pier. Once things finally settle and the idea comes up again the stuff with WWX happens and she has a hard time accepting that everyone thinks it's best to get rid of him, which causes strife but eventually they come back around and finally get to lol. This one I know is very very specific xD

-Send me a ♣ for me to describe a favorite rp ship of someone else’s: Hmm. Well I don't focus a lot of other peoples' ships aside from "oh that's cute!" or huh interesting. But I am very invested in my friend's ship of her oc with Billy Hargrove from Stranger Things. Billy becomes a better person because of her and I really enjoy when that's a thing in ships. I also think that @adversitybloomed 's ship with Sizhui is super cute!

Send me a ☀ for me to talk about someone I’ve met through rp: Once again, SO MANY. The majority of my online friends are my friends because of role play. But it would be a disservice to not discuss my first ever online friend for this. In around 2009-2010 I got into the book series Vampire Academy. A year or so before that was when I started role-playing on the internet. My website of choice at the time was something called bebo that no longer exists. Well, one of my rl best friends and I loved Vampire Academy so much that we not only role played two main characters: Rose & Lissa but we also made ocs that were their children and shipped them together. We decided to make bebo accounts for them and one day I found an account that was a daughter of Rose, which would make her my oc's sibling. We started talking and decided to make them twins and my friend also became friends with her. We started talking more and more and eventually my irl friend and I video chatted with her. We had already become friends at the time and that just cemented it. We continued role playing together, coming up with new storylines for our original ocs, as well as role playing in different fandoms together such as Star Wars, Supernatural, Yu-Gi-Oh, Descendants, etc. And I'm talking almost a decade. At one point she and I got into a bit of a disagreement and stopped talking for a little while and I regret it a lot because shortly after we started talking again she unfortunately passed away, in 2019, before I got to meet her in person. I miss her a lot and haven't been able to write in the Vampire Academy verse since.

[cryingforhyo]

i guess it's safe to say that I'm one of your old readers in this fandom. 😅 I've been a reader since you drop Push and Pull out on that holiday night.

I read most of your fics too. there's only one or two fic that I haven't read in the past year because life is a bit hectic now.

this is not a subtle request btw, but I'm curious if you have a 'verse focused about coming-out or realizing one's sexual orientation. I don't exactly remember every detail but, iirc, most of your fics' characters have implied sexuality which are lesbians.

It will be cool to know how you guys write about the experiences of coming out from your time period. ( I don't mean to make you feel so old 😭 but I know you two are in your 30s and are wiser and more experienced than we are (early 20s) ) I remember reading a post that it was really a different social scene compared to now.

maybe I'm also curious how you two became friends, then roommates *cough* *coughhhhh* and then wives because tbh I'm surrounded by hetero couples irl that reading about you two fascinates me.

I'm sorry for this ramble. feel free to ignore it too if it's borderline invasive. and sorry if you'll see this on a Monday morning

first off, thank you dear reader for being with us for so long! time surely flies when you're having fun, because wdym push & pull is approaching its 3rd anniversary??? creating for this fandom has been such a joint delight for the both of us, and we're just happy to share the journey with friends like you :) take your time re the new fics, esp if they're wips! we're working on them relatively slower, because life has also been hella hectic hereabouts.

onto your second query: i think this question is very interesting, actually! to address it head on, for this particular fandom i don't think i've written a 'verse where the specific challenge for any of the characters is coming to terms with their sexuality. i quite like living in this fantasy world where people are simply as-is-where-is lesbians haha. for example in our childhood best friends to lovers stories, when someone realizes their attraction, the realization is not so much about falling in love with another woman, but about falling in love with this specific person.

this way, it's the characters' shared context and history that makes their dynamic compelling, instead of the much more global milieu of lgbt relationships existing alongside all these issues and history, etc. which i also think are interesting stories to tell! but for purposes of this fandom in particular, which i think exists in a sociopolitical context that is beyond my expertise--i leave those stories to better-positioned storytellers :) in the true spirit of creating in this era, i do not want to get anything so egregiously wrong it will detract from the reader's experience.

but seriously, i have been obsessed about writing coming out/ coming of age stories for the longest time, mostly for my original work, which are set locally with local OCs. they were all i wrote about back in the day, so i guess for fanfic i figured i could instead try all the other tropes that weren't so close to real life, where coming out can be fraught and complicated. it's for the same reason that i don't write compulsory heterosexuality (comphet) or i avoid writing men as third parties in general... i've already spent a significant chunk of my writing life writing /that/ story, or at least that’s how it felt like.

but you make a good point! i'd love to try revisiting that coming out/coming of age trope and give it some aged-up flavor. let's see about that :)

on a personal note, many times when i look at today's digital landscape, I often go, thank god [this or that] did not exist just yet back in the day [or at least not in this manner] when i was figuring my shit out, because oh boy. the clout i could have chased and cancellations i could have booked haha.

suffice it to say i'm happy the digital footprints of past egregious mistakes are now buried with the deaths of old platforms. we were very lucky to have lived and loved and lost in an age where the internet could still afford some measure of forgetting.

(i know there's probably no going back to that kind of landscape, but i hope it's not too late for us to be a little kinder to each other, and definitely more forgiving of ~youth and elderly~, given how fast information cycles around these days and how wide the age range of users concurrently using the same digital spaces right now can be. it's NUTS.)

that said, c would like to clarify she is still in her twenties! hahaha. i confirm this. i also confirm that you're right to say i (k) am already out of my twenties haha.

we actually became friends through fandom! we met on tumblr lmao because that's where you met other wlw back in the day (idk if that's still where people are, istg i would not survive the current dating landscape either!) so i would not be exaggerating when i say fandom brought us together, and we're still cycling through fandoms together, having been to various ones in the past handful of years. that said we look forward to more fandoms to add to our list lol.

thanks for this ask - it's actually the PERFECT thing to see on a monday morning, in fact. hope your week goes well!

[practically-an-x-man]

For Talk Shop Tuesday: Have you ever had any fandom OC concepts that transformed into original OCs? What about recycling scrapped OC and OC concepts into other OCs?

Thank you so much!!

Talk Shop Tuesday

So for fandom OCs that became original OCs... not exactly? Sometimes I get the first nudges of a new OC or concept and I have to decide whether I want to place them into canon or come up with something new, but that usually happens very early on in the process. Here's some examples:

"What if there was a character who could see the threads of the future and was paralyzed by indecision because of it?" - still not sure what I'm doing with this one

"What if there was a character who's on a sort of individual looping timeline, where the world keeps moving forward but they can never die because their internal clock will just reset - but when it does, nobody else will remember that they've died?" - I'm thinking maybe an X-Men fic?

"What if a siren had their throat damaged in a fishing accident and couldn't sing, and therefore couldn't hunt to survive?" - original fiction

"What if werewolves were originally destined to be not monsters but protectors of their hometowns - designed to be strong and agile when non-wolf and able to defend the town from threats, and then the townspeople would return the favor by caring for them through their transformation periods?" - premise for a future fandom OC, though... I might just make this one an original idea since the fanfic would be obscure as all hell lmao

It doesn't always happen this way, I've definitely got some ideas that are purely original and some characters that I create with the intent of fanfiction, but sometimes I'll get a spontaneous idea and have to decide which world it belongs to. I've never had a finished character transfer from fandom to original fiction, just those first concepts.

As for recycling OCs into other ideas or fandoms? Oh yeah. Usually it happens either when my writing skills have outgrown the original concept for the character, and the revamp leads to some ideas being scrapped or recycled; or when I have an idea but the fandom turns out to be toxic, so I migrate the OC elsewhere.

I've talked about how Rae and Mira both stemmed from the same scrapped X-Men OC, back when I first started writing. That's the first example. I created the original OC and had her floating around in my brain for a while, but by the time I actually got comfortable enough to start writing, I revisited the idea and it ended up splitting into two different characters and plots, just for clarity and sophistication.

And for the second example: back when the Wednesday show first came out, I watched it and wanted to write for it, I had an OC built up and two chapters written... and then all kinds of things popped up about some of the actors, offensive dialogue choices, whatever else. I decided it was safest just to abandon that fic and leave it unposted, but I still love the OC idea (a very unique and dynamic person magically cursed to fade into the background no matter what they try) and I intend to recycle them into a future AHS fic I plan to write at some point.

That's a really interesting question, thank you for the ask!! <3 <3 <3

[honeylavender27]

first is the art I commissioned from my awesome friend and wifu @asm0s, and the second is also commissioned art from the equally awesome @stellawolfe30. thank you both so much for loving Apis and listening to me ramble about her and other ocs!

finally getting around to making a OC post for Apis, she doesn't belong to any particular fandom and is manly a comfort OC. she's a teddy Bear demon or Bearkin the teddy part being added due to her smaller-than-average size for her kind. (also because I was partially inspired to make her after watching clips from the Sleepy Princess anime) she knows minor illusion magic to glamor her appearance in public, her main ability is Volukinesis the manipulation of insects (specifically Bees and Hornets/Wasps) a trait she gets from her mother's side. as such she makes a living working with bees, selling honey and honey-related sweets at farmers' markets. later adding special plants and flowers after meeting her partner Chunhua and occasionally mentoring others wanting to take up beekeeping. she found that her talent could extend to hornets/wasp species and after a few years of trial and error was able to raise a colony of her own. thanks to being able to change their behavior over time, she was slowly able to get them to co-inhabit with her main bee colony as extra protection from outside pests as well as security to her home. she's married to a Monkey demon named Chunhua, and lives together on a small farm. originally their marriage had been an act to keep Apis's father from trying to arrange a marriage but the two ended up making it official. Chunhua does most of the farm work so Apis takes care of the housework and of course, handles the beekeeping. Extra Facts!: Apis is the middle child of 5 siblings, two older twin brothers, a younger brother, and a sister. her father makes his own mead, operating a small meadery with his eldest sons, with her stepmother running a connected store/bar. Apis's biological mother originally opened the storefront, and like Apis was a voluketic beekeeper, unfortunately, she passed away due to an accident. she's closest with her twin brothers and still keeps in contact, but she is in low contact mainly with her father and stepmother due to her decision to leave home, as well as marrying Chunhua. her younger half-siblings and she never had much of a relationship due to age differences and thus aren't really a part of the drama. her older brothers originally did visit and tried to convince her to return home but changed their tune after seeing their little sister thriving and happy. they were 100 happy in supporting the marriage lie and were just as happy to hear when they tied the knot officially. (although they were sad there was no wedding, but Apis and Chunhua made it up to them by letting them plan their first-anniversary party.) Apis and Chunhua honestly aren't PDA at all preferring to keep most if not all affections in privet. It's largely cause of that they preferred a courthouse ceremony over any kind of wedding, followed by a short road trip to various botanical gardens, fairs, and markets. Their "wedding bands" are literally just two painted metal rings they got at the souvenir shop at one of the gardens they visited. There are more but i feel like this post is really long so imma end it here, idk maybe if there's more i want to add i'll do another smaller post or i'll reblog an addon maybe. i will be doing a post for Chunhua soon to go with this one!

[madlad-sadgal]

Intro Post

Did I just now realized I haven't made one? Yes. But here it is now!

My Blog/About Me

My blog is a safe place for practically everyone (except for TERFs, get off my page). I don't care if you're here just to look around, or if it's because you're interested in one of the things I talk about, you're welcomed here and I'll gladly talk with you about whatever it is you might want to! <3 I'm active in a few fandoms on here, mostly Nimona, though I also like RWRB, LOTR, and a bunch of other stuff.

About me, I'm bigender and mostly use he/him and she/her, though I'm comfortable with pretty much anything. I also think I'm pan, but I've kinda been doubting that recently? Eh, I'll get through it. I live in Quebec so you might catch some works written in French (I'll probably add the translations under cuts though).

Writeblr

I've been meaning to get more into Writeblr and share more about some of my writing, fanfiction and original works alike. The things I like to write most about is fantasy and also LGBTQ+ stuff. So here are two original works you might catch me talking about:

Life after Life (Undefined Title) Tag: Life After Life(:OC/Plot/Etc) This is a story of two soulmates, reincarnation, immortality and betrayal. One is immortal, while the other one is mortal. The immortal one has to watch as their lover dies, but they always get reincarnated and always manage to find each other, usually when the mortal one is around 20 years old. Except this time, it takes until the mortal is 27 years old for them to find each other, and the immortal doesn't think much of it at first, but they can't help but notice that their lover is acting differently than they did in their past lives, which isn't inherently bad, but they can't remember a single time when their personality wasn't the same at the base. But it as time keeps passing, it becomes clearer and clearer that their lover is not the same, and someone seems to know of their immortality. Someone they may have met in the past. Now they have to try and protect themselves and their lover from this person, but what can this mortal be hiding from their own soulmate? What shall they do when war and love collide? Will they forgive each other for these hidden secrets? More importantly, will they manage to stay with each other this time, or will they be forced to wait until the next life once more? (Also ending line idea: Mortal, dying: I'll see you in the next one, yeah? Immortal, crying, and holding them: And every single one that follows.)

Love is a Fantasy (Been working on this one for over a year now, the one I'll be talking about the most because this is one I am very passionate about. Also don't get fooled by the title, this isn't just filled with unrequited love.) Tag: Love is a Fantasy(: OC name/Plot/Etc) LGBTQ+ story exploring how teens go through questioning their gender and sexuality and how people may pride themselves differently on this stuff.

Alex is a gay teenager who isn't ashamed of his sexuality, but keeps it to himself mostly. He is lucky enough to have accepting parents and friends, but the crush he has on one of his best friends may complicate their friendship, which terrifies him. He uses he/him pronouns.

Ava is a non-binary lesbian teenager who uses they/them pronouns. They are proud of their sexuality and gender and never hesitate to correct people who misgender them. They've been friends with Alex since the two were young. Their parents aren't exactly weirded out by them, but more so confused by all this, but Ava gladly answers all their questions and doesn't let that stuff get to them.

Ethan is a bisexual teenager who turned Ava and Alex's duo into a trio, but lately, he's been wondering if maybe he's not as attracted to women as he originally thought. This terrifies him because his parents aren't the most accepting people, and he also has a girlfriend whom he doesn't want to break the heart of. But of course Alex just has to complicate everything, doesn't he? ;)

Avery is Ethan's girlfriend, but she's dealing with a lot at home, and now on top of that she doesn't know where her feelings stand. She thought she was pan her whole life, not feeling a difference in romantic attraction towards gender, but all of this comes to a half when she meets one of the new kids who explains she doesn't feel any romantic or sexual attraction, and now she doesn't know where anything stands anymore.

Evelyn and Chelsey have been friends since they were young, often helping each other hide their sexuality and genders from their Christian parents. Evelyn is pansexual and bigender, often stepping way off of the gender binary and just having fun with her looks, though a certain Ava catches her eye once she meets them. Chelsey is aro-ace and is open to pretty much any pronoun, and they have a pretty feminine style.

All these kids meet in an LGBTQ+ club (created and hosted by Ava), and are now helping each other figure out their sexualities, helping each other hide certain things from Christian parents, and just trying to get through the horrors of the teenage years.

Other Socials

Just my AO3 for now:

[ainulindaelynn]

[20 Question Fic Writer Tag]

Thanks for the tags, loves! @brasideios @whereforartthoumisthios

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

1, technically, as they’re all connected.

2. What is your AO3 word count?

Currently 12k-ish. I pulled a bunch down a few months ago to rework things that were half-edited and bothering me. They haven’t returned yet, but I’m optimistic.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

AO3 will tell you only AC Odyssey, but in my active drive I have WIPs for AC Valhalla, Red Dead Redemption 2 (which I need to lure more of my AC mutuals into playing... ;)), Stardew Valley, and BG3. There maaay be a few pieces I'm reworking from fanfiction.net also. Those ones are for Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age Origins, and maybe even a Snow White & the Huntsman (xD). As a teen I wrote a bit of LoTR and Star Wars (old republic era OCs mostly), but that's been ages.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Fewer than five posted, so I'm skipping this one!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, mostly because I know most writers love comments, so I try to reward people who take the time. Honestly, if not for that I would blind-post everything and opt out of seeing kudos/comments. I love them, but it's too easy to depend on the reassurance. I'd rather drop them into the internet abyss and interact with people who seek me out on tumblr. I’d never give up the chance to connect over them though. You all are too kind and awesome <3

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

KotOR probably. It’s about Revan recovering her memory and reconnecting with the purpose of her fall, which leads her to walk the same way again, but with more care and less hope. Also going alone, as repentance for Malak’s fate.

ACO's has an angstier storyline (Brasidas Dx), but the actual ending is long after that wraps up, so it doesn’t quite count ;)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

SDV probably. How could anyone write Shane without giving him a happy ending? That guy needs a happy ending!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, mostly by accident. There's a lot of chemistry exposition there and I always cave to that. Probably equal parts F/F and F/M.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nope! Open to it, but my brain doesn't leap like that.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. Although if anyone wanted to take my old ideas and run with them, I' it'd save me a lot of work reconfiguring! xD I also love re-writes. Everyone picks up on different nuances and I love to see the same idea expressed different ways. Direct theft not so much.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

When I was a young teen, but not since. My co-writer and I reconnected last year and its funny the kind of bond (and friction) that forms.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I'm not capable of answering that question. Genuinely. Pass!

15. What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will?

I'm happily in denial about all of them, thank you very much. Leave me and my 25 fics alone! xD

16. What are your writing strengths?

Oh gosh. I've been told action, but if that's true it's entirely by luck. Writing it is like pulling teeth. I'm going to join this question with the next, because I think strengths and weaknesses are often two sides of the same, and say introspection and body language minutia, because I LOVE those, but could easily write entire chapters of that, so I'm constantly cutting that down. Blessing and a curse, ya know?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The above, because it's to excess, but also OCD editing tendencies. I have a thing about cadence, varying paragraph and sentence-length, and (most oppressively) magnetizing my sentences. I'm not sure what the actual term for that is, but when you tie the end of one sentence to the beginning of the next with a common thought or word. We’re taught to do it with paragraphs, obviously, but on a tighter level. Every sentence. It's fun for reader fluidity, but way too much work.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have no skills for it, but as long as it's translated, I enjoy reading it!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably LotR. I had an OC who insisted on following two steps behind the fellowship, intersecting with them a few times. Third Age, the game, was built on the same premise, so I eventually abandoned it in lieu of that.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Imagined or written? Because the answer is different. Imagined is probably DA:O. Written is ACO, by far. I've never put so much time in on a story. Someday I'll make it cohesive enough to post! xD

I’m still emerging from my hermit cave and don’t know who’s done what, so I’m going to skip tagging this time, but I missed you all and am glad to be back(ish) 😂

[tibby]

Hi Tibby! I saw your post that Casey McQuiston was originally a prolific fanfic writer of AG/JE rpf. I had heard that they were a prolific rpf writer…but for a different fandom. More specifically Harry/Louis from 1D. And that they were one of the mysterious authors of the legendary These Inconvenient Fireworks.

I find it interesting that it’s a well known rumor that they wrote rpf, but there are differing details about which fandoms they wrote for. Though in this case, they heyday of the social network fandom was ~2010 (afaik) and 1D fanfiction peaked closer to 2014 (though TIF was written in 2012). It’s definitely possible they wrote for both.

Just curious about your thoughts on the matter 😏

hi ariel! i have never been involved in the 1d fandom, so i can't say if i know anything about the (in)famous fics within it. my knowledge begins and ends with the after films being based on harry styles/oc rpf. so i cannot offer any answer there.

i WILL also say that i cannot say with any certainty that rwrb is in fact jesse eisenberg/andrew garfield fanfiction. i just know that casey mcquiston was a prolific tsn writer back in the day, and the american guy and british guy falling in love is a very funny coincidence to me. and also that reporter guy had STRONG justin timberlake energies. honestly i've spent enough time in tsn fandom to pick up on which character was meant to represent who, but for all i know the same can be said for 1d fic or whatever.

i've also had people in the tags of that post claim that rwrb was based on a merlic fic, so who knows for sure. i personally don't think that the story itself was originally fic, but that casey was simply inspired by. certain actors or characters when writing their leads.

anyway. i didn't expect my posts to get any kind of attention outside of my immediate mutual circle, which is primarily compromised of people i know and many of whom already had the rpf knowledge. i just find the whole thing funny, and as a tsn stannie it's just something i like bringing up because it makes me laugh. i don't particularly care about fic writers becoming authors or rpf being made into movies, because. well. shit happens, it makes money, tsn is virtually rpf and one of my favourite movies of all time. there are much better hills to die on.

i am just of the opinion that if rpf/fanfic IS going to continue to be made into movies then they need to commit to the bit. cast the actual person it was based on. if that meant we needed jesse and andrew, or harry and louis, or the two guys from merlin to be the rwrb leads...then so be it. we all know it's fanfiction and possibly rpf anyway. why not take it all the way?