#i will refrain from tagging as ship because its not really. but know things are happening in my mind

[clowniconography]

I'm not gonna keep adding to that shapeshifter post but i also wanted to say that even though it is kind of discouraging that chilchuck's version of laios is so overtly stupid, the whole point of the chapter/episode is laios proving himself to party after they've clearly started losing faith in him, and since chilchuck's known him the longest it would make sense for him to be the most critical after recent plot events, especially considering he's already expressed doubts about laios' people skills recently

[mecachrome]

landoscar ao3 stats — 2023 overview

notes

retrieved ~sometime in march 2024

methodology: scraped metadata for every fic in the landoscar tag and...... that's it. however one important constraint is that all temporal data is date updated (not posted), so the above timeline isn't exactly a true representation of fic growth but rather how many fics were last-updated at that time. of course this is still its own reflection of fandom health in a way since dead fandoms don't update old fic but well... it's just not quite the same!

this is just info about general trends, fic content, tags etc... so nothing about kudos/comments or any authors specifically

i decided to focus solely on fics last-updated in 2023 (unless otherwise mentioned) because i wanted a tidy set that i can maybe compare & contrast in a year's time, because i expect a lot of details to look different then (tho as stated above this set isn't exactly static... 🤷‍♀️)

ngl i had to re-scrape a bunch of times because i forgot about it for like 3 weeks and then there were 100 new fics 😭 so if there are some minor discrepancies across the post it's because of that halfskh.

also i wanted to include more global comparisons (aka how 814 stack up against the f1 rpf tag in general), but this is also considerably difficult in some contexts since i can't exactly scrape 31,000+ fics can i... or i didn't even want to entertain the thought of trying to do so!!!

why did i do this? who knows.

anyway here's some viz T__T

ship growth

as evidenced in the opening graph, landoscar have been a very fast-growing ship over the past year — although interestingly enough they didn't really start growing substantially until july / the ~better half~ of the 2023 season. here are two views showing their "growth" (by date updated) alongside two other ships on the fringes of the f1 rpf top 10 (sebchal & galex):

landoscar are very much on-track to surpass them and officially enter the top 10 soon, likely before mid-april ❗️ :o

ship characteristics

onto the ship content — another thing i was mildly curious about was how landoscar differs in certain areas from other f1 ships, or the f1 rpf "global" average you could say. for example, here's a breakdown of rating popularity in their ao3 tag:

seeing as explicit is their most common rating, and that i don't necessarily expect this to be true for all ships/fandoms, i compared these percentages with the general f1 rpf tag to see whether some ratings are more commonly represented in 814 fic than average, which produced interesting results:

do lando ships simply skew more HornyTM in general? is it oscar? a secret third thing??? who knows... actually i think it would be fun to do more analysis in this direction but that can wait for another time!!!

similarly i also wanted to see which ships are the most "public" on ao3, as in have the highest share of fic that isn't user-locked... i will refrain from peppering in my feelings about the 4th wall too heavy-handedly but i was curious to see whether some sort of perhaps... er, generational gap (?) of sorts between ships that are more public vs. not could be identified. however i don't pretend to have any takeaways from this LOL i conclude absolutely nothing. (for ref landoscar is currently 72% public, vs. a global avg of 63%)

note that this graph is current stats, not filtered for 2023

looking at relationship tags, i also wanted to know whether landoscar suffer noticeably from Second-Ship Syndrome, so i tallied the first-tagged ship of every fic to find out. i know this doesn't necessarily mean that it's always the "main" ship but it's a good enough approximation. the results were quite positive!

filtered to top ships with count of >1 only

i then also calculated the number of ships tagged for each fic to discern the profile of multi-shipping in 814 ficdom; i did have to do a little bit of string standardization (all instances of implied / background / hinted collapsed to hinted for simplicity's sake + removal of other redundancies), but otherwise i left everything mostly untouched.

as you can see, landoscar also have a fairly promising amount of OTP: TRUE fic:

by the time you get to the fics with 10+ ships tagged, landoscar are less likely to be the primary ship, which makes sense just on a basic statistical level... this is also a very small sample size though

i also lazily tallied the 10 most common ships that weren't NOR/PIA or NOR & PIA to diff their shares of the 814 tag vs. of the general f1 rpf tag, to see which other pairings are more represented in the 814 tag than on average (because lestappen are the most popular by pure count but this is also true of fandom in general, so it would be a misrepresentation to say that their popularity is out of the ordinary):

maxiel's gap isn't really that surprising since i think that, generationally, in terms of when both pairings were teammates there is quite a gap; with carlando—actually let me tally this again but including all instances of "implied" and "past" as being part of the same ship, since that's how ao3 tag-wrangles as well:

Aha ! obviously as a direct ship there is competition between 814 and other lando or oscar ships, but this difference is somewhat less pronounced once we include all formats. tbh none of this really means anything but i thought i'd add it anyway... (it's also very possible that there are several errors in this, in which case my b 😔)

before we move on to additional tags, there are a few more basic characteristics of 814 fic we can calculate. i realize i never offered an overview of Super Basic Stats, so here are a few:

plus, looking at word counts, here is a distribution of those in 2023-updated fic, which shows that a majority of 814 fics were under the 5k mark:

85% of landoscar fics were under 10k & nearly 97% under 25k

i don't really have any reason to believe that landoscar's wc stats differ significantly from average ? so this is kind of just Data To Have Data, and it most likely reflects normal ao3 trends in general... but i thought i'd include it anyway because i already made it lol. similarly, here are word count distributions but stratified by rating:

& same info but heat map view:

i feel like this is also probably something you'd find across fandom in general — that gen fic is likely to have a higher share of under 1k works, since Building Up to sexual content often takes... Literal & Metaphorical Foreplay ! and the longer a fic is the more opportunities an author has to include a sex scene or other explicit content (ofc, not necessarily just porn but also graphic violence & so on). but i thought this was fun to visualize haha

additional tags & aus?

back in my old f1 rpf stats post, i made a table comparing fluff/angst "ratios" (not exactly a direct ratio because of how tag wrangling works, but an approximation) of the most popular f1 ships, and now that landoscar are somewhat popular i thought i'd first do an update:

also current data, not 2023 to make things easier

just like before, simi are one of the most fluffy ships and brocedes are by far the most angsty, but it's interesting to see 814 also extremely high up on the charts, with far and away the lowest % of angst. will be exciting 2 see how that holds or changes as the seasons progress !

finally, i also wanted to do a bit of au/additional tag analysis because you can kind of see this when you use additional filters on ao3 but the previews are limited and get bogged down by the prevalence of *checks notes* Fluff, Angst, PWP, Anal Sex and what have you. which are nice stats to have and all but what of the rest !

disclaimer that the set for these tables is a biiiit outdated because by the time i'd wrangled everything i was like I Am Not Changing It Again. unfortunately i clean my data with shoddy queries and regex functions in googsheetz...

there were 48 tags with at least 10 instances from 2023 fics, shown below, with ones that are (some ~vaguely) nsfw in red just to kind of get a rough sense of which tags get commonly used in M/E fic:

getting a bit too much into small sample size / specific fic territory so if you're an author i sincerely apologize for that... do not mean 2 put u on blast... TT__TT but i also tried to tally the most popular aus people write for 814, which is a bit dubious because people tag in really different ways and i had to accommodate for a lot of string formats but ... it's close enough ! (?)

i feel like this is very little interesting info but idk what else to add so i will stop here for now... well!!! if you made it to the end i hope u learned something or even vaguely enjoyed reading T__T and most of all thank you :')

[kiigan]

⇾ Main rule: ㅤPlease be nice and respectful. I try my best to make this blog a safe space for everybody, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, etc., and I expect the same courtesy in return.

ㅤMore info in general about how I run this blog and how I am as a roleplay partner can be found [here] and [here].

⇾ Followers and Mutuals: ㅤI don't do follow-for-follows and I'm not here for numbers. If I follow you, I want to interact with you and I assume that is also why you follow me. I reserve myself the right to unfollow/block blogs that I cannot see myself interacting with and/or that make me uncomfortable in any way, and I highly encourage you to do the same to me if it's ever needed.

ㅤFor personal blogs: I usually do not follow back personals because I like to keep a focused dash or else I get easily overwhelmed. Personals are welcome to interact, however! Feel free to send questions, anons, memes/promts, etc. Personals are also welcome to like and leave comments on my posts but, please, refrain from reblogging roleplay threads (it messes up the notifications).

⇾ Interactions: ㅤAlways feel free to come poke at me in the DMs (or to ask for my Discord!), tag me on a starter, ask me for a starter, send something to my inbox. Unprompted asks are always welcome and the memes/prompts I reblog don't have expiration date, feel free to send at any time. Also, always feel free to continue asks. And I don't really care for reblog karma, reblog all the things directly from me if you wanna.

ㅤI prefer plotted interactions, but I'm also open to winging stuff. Also, I do prefer interactions with at least a half-paragraph of content, because honestly I am very bad at one-liners. Multiple threads with the same person are welcome, as well as interactions with different muses from a same multi-muse blog. Fair warning: I sometimes get wordy in my replies! Please never feel like you have to match reply length. Provided there's content to work with and we're having fun, that's what matters to me.

ㅤI add some formatting to my posts (mostly, different colors and font sizes) and I don't use icons, and I'm okay with any style in my partners' replies. If you need me to keep my own replies looking simple and unformatted, just let me know.

ㅤLast but never least: please don't ever feel like you owe me anything. I'm very patient when it comes to replies (also I can be incredibly slow myself) and roleplay is for fun, not to add to irl stress. Take care of yourself and always put your well-being first!

⇾ Content: ㅤThe following themes feature heavily in my portrayal: children as soldiers, children expected to act as adults, blood and injuries, death, (progressive) chronic/terminal illness, (progressive) blindness, mental illness symptoms, genocide represented by the Uchiha massacre, segregation and discrimination perpetrated on the Uchiha clan, canon-typical violence, canon-typical eye gore, manipulation associated with the use of genjutsu.

ㅤThese themes will NOT be tagged, because they are integral to Itachi as a character. Other potential triggers are tagged as: [insert trigger] cw. Sexual content is tagged as nsft cw and will usually be placed under a Read More cut. If you need something in specific to be tagged, let me know. As for myself, please tag anything related to animal harm/abuse/cruelty. I’m open to exploring dark/ angsty/ dead dove themes, provided both muns are of age, rightfully consent, and are comfortable with it.

⇾ Relationships: ㅤYes please. Developing and exploring dynamics between muses is actually one of my favorite things to do! I'm open for all sorts of bonds: romantic, platonic, family, friends, friends with benefits, exes, enemies, rivals, hateships, crackships, all of it. This blog is multi-ship and each thread happens in its own universe, unless plotted otherwise. Regarding sexual content, I personally feel comfortable writing it explicitly, however I will always respect what my partners prefer (like making it vague or fade to black entirely).

[nitrokiraru]

since i've been a lot more active on this acc i figured i should make a pinned ^__^

welcome to my accounttt!

you can just call me ren! i like to be referred to by she/they pronouns. im an adult (20 y/o).

my main interests that i'll talk about on this blog: nitro+chiral visual novels, bl visual novels, prolly bl in general. ive accidentally turned myself into a n+c updates blog i also like non bl visual novels as well, but will probably mainly talk about blvns

list of my vns on vndb, just for reference of the ones i have played and will play in the future: vndb

main favs include:

-the entirety of nitro+chiral (dramatical murder, slow damage, sweet pool, togainu no chi, lamento)

-you and me and her

-saya no uta

-uuultra c

more favs soon to be added as i play more!

might also reblog other interests from time to time or aesthetically pleasing pics, but i will mainly post things myself about n+c visual novels or updates from ones im currently playing

byf:

i like the "controversial" n+c LIs/ships such as madatowa, minao, and shiaki. it's completely fine if you don't, but that sort of stuff will be on this account! i do like all n+c ships though, and will reblog/post abt all of them. (also by ships i mean canon to the game, i dont have strong opinions on the crack ones. although noiz x koujaku is and will always be the shit)

i don't really tag stuff like triggers, not because i dont care but because im not nearly as active on here to even know ;; i just sort of come on here post about my usual brainrot about some yowie man and reblog things from the tags i follow. honestly i dont really tag reblogs period unless its to add a comment

since most of the visual novels i play have pretty mature themes and stuff that probably needs trigger warnings, just let it be known that if you have certain triggers this blog might not be that safe! i just want everybody to be comfortable ^_^

dni:

the basic dni criteria, pls refrain from interacting if you are racist, homophobic (it would be ironic if you to be here-), terf/transphobic, etc.

if you hate anything i regularly post about. pretty self explanatory i dont wanna hear abt a character i posted abt is bad or a series i like is problematic or something you are free to have this opinion i just would prefer you not have it on my account <3

thats pretty much it! (unless i think of something else to put later lol) overall thank you for reading and i hope you enjoy my blog full of blvn/eroge brainrot. i hope u can also be equally as insane as me about these various characters and vns/media

also let it be known all fujoshi, fudanshi, and fujin are welcome on this page. BL is for everybody (real) <3 the world should all become yaoipilled

[starless-nightz]

Just because you don't care doesn't mean that you should make other people's experiences worse by putting hate in a tag that people go to in order to see non-hateful things about their ship.

Not into Arcane, nor any of the ships, but I just don't think it's nice to put that sort of thing into tags.

I ranted recently about how much I hate the new ZZZ story because three of the characters that I had liked up to that point I began to hate because they were acting like literal children just so that people could project their UwU Yanagi-Mommi fetish onto her for having an unhealthy relationship with her co-workers.

I used the Yanagi tag, because my stance on Yanagi was pretty neutral, and I refrained from using the tags for the characters that I was putting down throughout my venting, because I didn't want someone exploring the tag to stumble upon what is essentially me bashing what could potentially be their favorite character.

What was your goal with adding that tag? What was the reasoning behind it? Are you tired and weren't thinking and you're too stubborn to change it now? Did you want to tick people off? Did you want more people to find your post and account?

Just explain to me why you went through the trouble to add a tag for a ship you hated, and I'll chill out for a bit.

I'm a regular on this blog, and I don't want to start a fight with someone who does creative asks, doesn't put up with bs, and seems to want to try to have a good code of conduct and is trying to help out their mental health.

I just want to know the why.

Its basicly a reflex atp to add like the tags for things related to the post and i'm just too lazy to change it, it wasn't even a hate post towards the ship more so towards the shippers.

As i said I'm personally not a timebomb shipper, it just isn't my cup of tea, but the shippers are making me start to dislike the ship.

^ Thats quite literally everything i said in the post, it wasn't hate towards the ship at all.

If its really bothering ppl so much i will remove the tag.

[jean-meowreau]

Meow or M.

Used to be @/bokuakamazing.

I'm gonna set up a proper info post for myself but for now I'm sharing my simple one from Twitter just bc I want to make sure everything is a safe space for anyone following me!! I try to do my best to give tags for certain content but I may mess up and if it's not for you please feel free to take care of yourself first and foremost and unfollow ♡

A note: I do not personally consume or share non-con content but some people consider high sex, heat/rut sex in A/B/O, and somno between consenting partners to be non-con so I have that there. I don't consume or share explicit assault content, including content with minors in NSFW situations at all. I do support CNC, which is an established BDSM setting between consenting partners who've set up limits before a scene.

Adding incest to this list. Never really had to think about it until now.

I am not a furry but some of the art is stunning but ik it can be an ick for some. I do share content like death, suicide, self-harm, eating disorders - exploration and also some trauma exploration. I write and may share content around torture because learning about it was a special interest when I was younger and I do still find it intriguing.

I share trans content that some young trans peeps can find triggering: bottoming from the front, non-op trans art/fic, and maybe some pregnancy content. (Pregnancy is triggering to me so this is very rare but I may share content discussing why telling trans men they can't get pregnant is transphobic and also informative posts/graphics about pregnancy and how to keep yourself safe should you become pregnant and are heading towards birth.)

I'm queer and ig agender, I kinda don't care. Preferred pronouns are it/its but as someone who's grown up half my time in Texas I understand that using them can be triggering, so he/him is also okay. My romantic labels depend on my partner(s) gender orientation. I love everyone in a gay way, so sometimes I'm a girlfriend, sometimes I'm a boyfriend, sometimes I'm a partner. I'm not here to debate it. If you can't handle that just leave now.

I'm a cult survivor, still deconstructing but 8 years free. I'm agnostic and do often share sacrilegious content so if that is something you're uncomfortable with I recommend muting tags like "sacrilege" and/or "sacrilegious" if you want to keep following. I respect religion and everyone's preference/practice, please respect my decision to not know who/what is in charge and not really give a fuck about it rn.

My interests atm(Aug. 28 2024) are: AFTG, Call of Duty, Haikyuu, Teen Wolf, Good Omens, Dead Boy Detectives, Our Flag Means Death, Interview With a Vampire, What We Do In The Shadows, and other medias I see every so often from mutuals. Sometimes I share art/writing of fandom I'm not even in because I like it. I'll usually try to copy in OPs tags for fandoms and characters and ships where applicable so hopefully tag mutes work.

My Twitter and Instagram are the same username as my blog title.

My AO3 pseuds(by fandom)

- ErlKönig (Call of Duty)

- WretchedLittleRunaway (AFTG)

- SquishySterek (Teen Wolf - very old)

- BokuAkAmazing (Haikyuu - old, not as old as TW)

I do have an Etsy store:

I sell my own merch designs/jewelry and also run my charity projects through here. At the moment I am running:

@sunshine-soap-zine - A huge appreciation zine for John Soap MacTavish (Call of Duty)

@aftg-pinups - an AFTG Pinup Calendar

@cobooty-pinups - A Call of Duty pinup calendar (second year)

My DMs and ask box are always open. I'm autistic so please use tone tags/clarify tone when you can. I'm happy to discuss things I'm in opposition towards but please know I do not owe you my mental or emotional health and can stop/refrain if I so choose.

Thank you ♡

[reanimationstation]

Which batim/batdr ships you dislike or are uncomfortable with?

anon do you want my body to be found in a ditch /j. nah i think the bendy fandom is chiller than that. but i do have a list for you! i'll try not to be too critical of any of them, so in no particular order (also my definition of "dislike" is very broad):

Ink Demon x Sammy: i dunno, its just an angle i never enjoyed! i just dont think its interesting. But if you ship it, you do you. i know i follow at least one person who ships it. though if you do ship it please refrain from using those tags on my art of them, since thats nearly exclusively a father-son dynamic in my AUs

ok tbh Ink Demon x Anyone: honestly i just dont see him having romantic relations with anyone lol. just not my cup of tea

Constance x Brant: ok disclaimer i dont DISLIKE this ship i just dont like it in a casual sense. i am a TLO trio polycule truther (or rather, QPR truther), though this alone just kinda makes me wonder. they barely knew each other. honestly she had more chemistry with Bill, if any! good on you tho if you ship it, i guess

Dot x Buddy: shrug. theyre more compelling as friends to me.

i'm not putting the obvious ones on this list because that would make my list long and boring. also this is not an invitation to come into my inbox defending any of these, im not interested in further discussion.

FADE TO BLACK SPOILERS UNDER CUT

Rose x Evan: unpopular opinion, maybe? Look, her crush is cute, and I support her being adorable about it. But the age gap........makes me really uncomfortable. I know its the 50s, "things were different" and all that jazz, but its still fully within my right to be uncomfortable with it. shes 17, hes 20, its.....well its certainly something. Also, I really don't feel like Evan reciprocated the feelings at all? Hell, if he even noticed them. He treated her very little sister like, or just plain good friend, to me. regardless, i just plain don't like it. none of yall better come into my inbox defending it ill block you for being annoying

Dot x Evan: if i stumbled upon a REALLY compelling argument for it, exploring both their characters, then sure, good for you. but sometimes it feels like yall are just shoving any male and female together and calling it a ship. also Evan's a bit young ngl

Dot x Archie: same as before, though strangely i feel like it'd be easier to convince me of this one? They at least interact with each other.

[senshi-9]

Tag Game

Thank you for tagging me, @touchoffleece! This was a pleasant surprise!

Three Ships:

-Sulemio (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury) - Gosh, this was one of those that took me by surprise. I was already interested about the 'new mainline Gundam series with its first female protagonist!'. The whole 'Witch from Mercury' title also sounded so cool. And after watching the prologue which left me in tears, I was already sold. Come first episode, I was absolutely not expecting the Utena inspirations, and my jaw dropped at that end with Miorine calling Suletta her groom. Seeing how their relationship changed from beginning to end was wonderful, and I love how much they complement each other. -Kumirei (Sound! Euphonium) - This one I know is a bit prickly nowadays, but I was keeping up with the anime as it aired, and it was something I wasn't expecting at all out of Eupho. The trailers and promo images had me going, "Okay, so KyoAni's doing K-On but with concert band. This'll be a cute slice of life to keep up with!" Wrong. I found Kumiko to be such a relatable protagonist with the whole being kind of scarred from pursuing something she enjoyed and growing to come off as nonchalant about it (playing the euphonium and then with what happened in middle school, wanting to distance herself from it), and then when given that spark (in the form of Reina), she grows to find the drive to genuinely want to stick with her craft and improve. That scene where Kumiko runs to the bridge repeating "umaku naritai" was so powerful, I felt. I loved the dynamic between her and Reina, and while I understand a lot of frustrations people felt with season 2, I do enjoy re-watching the series seeing how they grow and influence one another. Special shout-out to the other Eupho ships, AsuKao and NozoMizo (have you SEEN Liz to Aoi Tori??? One of my all-time favorite movies) -Widowtracer (Overwatch) - This gets a mention because while I was always a fan of things, I never really participated in fandom until getting into this niche part of the Overwatch fandom. While my excitement for OW2 died after all that had happened, I'm happy to have made some close friends during what I felt was the height of all the OW excitement, and it was through there that I got a similar drive to Kumiko (mentioned in the above ship) in that I got back into drawing and wanted to seriously improve.

First Ship Ever: oh gosh, I think it was back in high school? Haruhi and Mori from Ouran High School Host Club.

Last Song: Black Classical Music ft. Venna & Charlie Stacey by Yussef Dayes. From Yussef's latest album. If you're into jazz, definitely give this album a listen.

Last Movie: Joyland.

Currently Reading: Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places. It's a collection of talks, essays, and more from my favorite author, Ursula K. LeGuin. I always enjoy her talks and essays, and while not my favorite collection, it's still a good read (highly recommend The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination - that would be my favorite collection of her talks and essays)

Currently Playing: Baldur's Gate 3

Currently Watching: For the currently-airing season of anime, Sousou no Frieren (been reading the manga, so this was my most-hyped for the fall season of anime!) and Overtake!. Also waiting on Apothecary Diaries to start airing. Had recently wrapped up Undead Girl Murder Farce from last season, and that was such a fun series.

Currently Consuming: trying out this mango mead from B. Nektar

Currently Craving: a burger from my hometown

People I want to know better but don't have to participate: I'm a bit shy to tag some people, so I will refrain

[heckcdup]

Guidelines

1. Please no god-modding (Aka controlling my character without my permission) I will auto not reply to you. 

2. Please no hate, I can take criticism, if you have ANY kind suggestions, please be…kind about it! Hate will cause an instant block

3. Keep in mind that I am a person, real person, I have a life, I work full time (over time), I run another blog, a personal one, and I have a million other role plays off of tumblr that I have been doing for years so if I owe you something don’t pester me. If you haven’t heard from me in say…a day or two then send me a reminder, but otherwise, I don’t want to hear every hour that I haven’t replied yet. Thanks!

4. NSFW- yes, smut included (mun is over 21– over 35 actually), I will tag nsfw, as nfsw.

5.I try to tag, sometimes I forget, sometimes I’m lazy. I’m working on it though- if there is something that you wish to tag please tell me and I will usually prioritize tagging that. (spoilers tag is usually -insert show/movie here- spoilers, example: arrow spoilers that being said this is not a spoiler free blog) 

6. This is a multi-ship, multi-verse, multi-everything. muses crossover okay blog so all threads will exist in alternate universes unless stated otherwise or discussed between muns. 

7. I am a shipwhore, 9/10 times If you ship it I ship it, .5 times if you don’t ship it I probably ship it and the other .5 times if I don’t ship it I can be convinced to ship it. There is only one small catch to this- chemistry. Chemistry between muns and muse is important to me. If my writing doesn’t flow with yours then I’m sorry I can’t promise the ship will work out (this goes for any ship, friendship, relationship, enemy-ship…) I usually don’t turn people away. I try to give everyone a chance, but I make no promises. In reverse though, being a shipwhore I will never force a ship. If you don’t ship something that is FINE, even if its just with my portrayal, let me know if that’s the case! Really I’m not going to get offended or upset or freak out. Felicity could use friends- enemies? family? I just love to rp in general. If I ever seem to be making you uncomfortable with a ship than tell me please. I would hate to do that to someone just like I would hate for it to happen to me, all I ask is that you tell me nicely and I promise I won’t bite, really!

8. THIS BLOG IS SELECTIVE PRIVATE AND MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. I do have mains and will make a mains page but anyone I follow and follows me I will interact with regardless of being a main or not, otherwise if I don’t follow you please refrain from sending me things. Breaking this rule to the point of making me uncomfortable will lead me to blocking you. 

9. Just because I’ve been having trouble on and off the last few months with this I want a reminder, while I am mutually exclusive I am NOT fully exclusive. I WILL interact with multiples of the same character. I WILL have multiples of the same character on my mains list if I feel like it. This is not done to hurt anymore or because I don’t like certain portrayals. If I follow you I like you. It’s as simple as that. I just cannot and will not be limited or held back with who I want to write with. 

10. I reserve the right to change any of these rules at anytime. If I do I will post a PSA.  

11. This is more just a side note not so much a rule but…Not all gifs or icons are mine. They are found on icon/gif hunts which can/have been credited by liking and/or reblogging (tagged: icons or gif hunt) or made for me. If you see something of yours and wish me to either credit or not use please let me know I don’t bite and I would never intentionally take something that wasn’t meant to be shared! 

[viscountessevie]

Cousin Hack😭😭😭😭😭😭

Related to this post

[Official Goodbye Post]

Babes I fucking hate him. I fucking hate the Allergy ship. I dunno why they called it Bridgerton when it should have been Lady Whistledown. I fucking hate this show I'm so over it. Every day I wake up and going on the blog and tag makes me miserable:

You know what I guess this shall be my official announcement post: @ My followers and Moots I love you all though and thank you for being such a special part of my life and giving me the safe space and community for the last two years. I will forever be thankful for the friends I got out of this fandom but I have to leave now. I don't when exactly it started but the fallout and how awful S2 was has officially gotten to me.

I genuinely adore all the time and effort everyone in my asks takes to write in to me but it has just gotten so overwhelming and I get so drained just looking at some of them and stressing over how to answer them. And I promise it's not on any of you! It's just the content of the show and how we as fans have been fucked over and that's taking a toll on me and my mental health. And it shouldn't be doing that! Which is why it is for the best that I step back from this blog.

The blog will still be up and preserved because this was a really good time in my life when it was good and I want yall to still be able to access my fics and asks but I just won't be on it anymore. You can find me on my alt blog @allkinds-oftrash (no Bridgerton content ofc lmao but its a multi-fandom blog) and if you really need to talk, my DMs are always open but I think I need a break from discussing S2 for a while so it would be great if yall can refrain from that.

Some housekeeping: I currently have 13 asks in my ask box so if anyone wants to take them I'll be posting screenshots of them and if you want to answer let me know, I'll publish it, tag you and you can reblog with your answer!

As for my Ongoing Fics: 10 Things I Hate About You - I only have written 6 chapters in full so I'll be uploading those three tonight and tomorrow and unfortunately the fic will be marked an incomplete but honestly it's a straight adaptation; it's literally 80% the same dialogue as the movie except the cast is our Bridgerton characters.

Again, thank you all for a great last two years, while it pains me to say goodbye to all of you I am glad to be done with the show and cutting off this toxic relationship from my life.

Masterlist

[robininthelabyrinth]

part 3 of Escape Your Destiny (Star Wars Wangxian AU) - on ao3 or tumblr part 1, part 2

-

He had been right to reject seclusion, Lan Wangji thought grimly. The sweet siren call of calm contemplation had nearly seduced him, the Dark Side seeking to eat away at him through other means now that anger and hatred had not done the work – he would have meditated himself into a stupor, becoming little more than a vacuum within the Force, a black hole of deathly intent.

More than that, though, he would have missed – this.

This disaster.

Wei Wuxian’s lips were pale from blood loss and hypothermia. Two of his limbs were at odd angles, probably broken, and Lan Wangji feared that there were more like them beneath the body that was bruised like a tender peach – he had been shielding as many people as he could, Lan Wangji knew, because he knew his Wei Ying too well to think that he might have done anything else.

Lan Wangji still didn’t know all the details, what exactly had been the disaster or why Wei Wuxian’s starfighter had crashed when he knew (with painful recollection) exactly how good a pilot Wei Wuxian was, but it hadn’t really mattered. Xue Yang had rushed into his chamber shouting excitedly - not exactly a rare event - saying something about an alarm and a disaster and a crash and can I have one of these gadgets? possibly two, maybe, I’m thinking two but haven’t really committed yet, it’s a big decision you know, and Lan Wangji’s blood had run cold when he realized what alarm he was referencing.

(A proper Jedi would never have tagged the object of his affections like an endangered bird or a criminal, injecting the tracking chip so deep into bone and muscle that standard scans wouldn’t pick it up and even in-depth scans might register it as a naturally occurring aberration. A proper Jedi would think of such intimate surveillance as cruelty, dehumanization, the caging of a free bird –

A proper Jedi wouldn’t have known what happened.

A proper Jedi wouldn’t have been able to rush over at once, wouldn’t have been in time to retrieve the body from the wreckage, finding it still warm and breathing but swiftly fading into the Force.

A proper Jedi would have been worthless.)

“That looks pretty bad, Master,” Xue Yang said, the comm crackling in his ear, and for once his tone was almost solemn. Perhaps the lessons on empathy were working, following the introduction of the rancor Xue Yang had named Chengmei with an expression so pained and vicious that Lan Wangji had refrained from asking. Perhaps it was that he’d grown so obsessed with his pair of bounty hunters and their foundling assistant, a little not-blind Bothan girl who liked to mouth off at him. Or perhaps it was just something as simple as knowing that if Wei Wuxian were lost, Lan Wangji would have no reason to –

No reason to anything at all.

“It is within the limits of what a bacta tank can heal,” Lan Wangji said, because it was, it would be, as long as he got him there in time. 

Time that was swiftly running out.

Later, when Wei Wuxian was safe, Lan Wangji would return to that obscure little space station that had nearly caused his beloved’s death and he would find out what had happened properly. He would find out, and he would slaughter every one of them that caused it, torment them for days if he needed to in order to know who to blame – it didn’t matter if their contribution were accidental or deliberate, major or slight. He would offer up a sacrifice of their suffering to the Dark Side, as solemn as lighting a stick of incense at a temple –

When Wei Wuxian was safe.

Because he would be. He had to be.

Lan Wangji’s Wei Ying would not die so easily.

“Uh, Master? We don’t have a bacta tank.” Xue Yang was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know that many people around here that do. This is Outer Rim, remember? Not even the Hutts have one.”

“There is one in an outpost in the Quiberon sector,” Lan Wangji said. His attention was split between piloting their stolen ship as fast as he could and monitoring Wei Wuxian’s vital signs. He had transferred a certain amount of energy into him already, but the Dark Side was poisonous in overly large quantities, especially if one was not accustomed to it; a pure Jedi like Wei Wuxian couldn’t tolerate it, and Lan Wangji would not risk making him worse. “Inat Prime system. I’ve entered the coordinates. Set us up for a jump to lightspeed.”

“Inat Prime,” Xue Yang repeated, instead of doing as he was told. “Isn’t that – near Rothana?”

Lan Wangji said nothing.

“Rothana’s a manufacturing planet. Heavy engineering – warships. It used to belong to a subsidy of the Jin Engineering Corps, maybe still does, I don’t know, but either way manufacturing planets like that are where those sleemos keep their precious IP. And that means it’s going to be guarded and booby-trapped up your chubba. Who in their right mind would set up an outpost anywhere near there?”

Xue Yang was descending into Huttese slang again, Lan Wangji noted to himself, keeping his calm only by sheer force of willpower even as the Dark Side screamed in his mind that now was the time for rage and pain and blood. Given his hatred of the entire species, Xue Yang only did that when he was especially anxious and didn’t want to admit it.

Later, when he didn’t have more pressing things on his mind, Lan Wangji would have to inquire of his apprentice – which he had previously believed was as transparent to him as a sheet of transparisteel – how he had learned about things like top-secret Jin Engineering manufacturing planets and IP and such things like that.

Later. Right now, he didn’t care.

“Prepare for jump,” he said again, the threat in his voice clear, and this time Xue Yang scrambled to obey, mumbling curses as he went. This was more typical of Xue Yang, but in this case it signified that he was concentrating, and that was all Lan Wangji cared about.

The rest of the trip passed as if in a daze, time counted in the beats of Wei Wuxian’s heart. Still strong, because Wei Wuxian was strong – this wouldn’t be the end of him. It wouldn’t.

Lan Wangji would make sure of that.

“We’re here,” Xue Yang said, breaking through Lan Wangji’s extreme focus on the rise and fall of Wei Wuxian’s chest. “I’m going to guess that our destination is the third planet? If you can call those other ones planets, they’re barely more than asteroids…”

Lan Wangji hummed, affirming.

“So, you going to tell me what this place is? Some super-secret Sith hideout?”

“No.”

“Smuggler’s base? Bounty hunter lair? Mandalorian terrorist cell? Clone factory?”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes. Xue Yang had been reading too many historical action comics again.

“No, but seriously, Master! I deserve to know what we’re getting into, don’t I? What is this place?”

Lan Wangji was tempted to say you deserve nothing but what I give you, you filthy-tongue swamp-rat, but that was the Dark Side speaking, not him, and not only because the Gusu Lan Jedi order in which he had been raised did not permit cursing. It was simply anathema to him - he was Sith, but not a Lord, and he had encouraged this self-same insolence because it was better than having Xue Yang cringe before him like a kicked dog.

No matter how irritating it might be at times like this.

“It’s Jedi,” he said shortly, and to his amusement that actually shut Xue Yang up for a solid minute.

“I’m sorry, Master, I think I temporarily went insane due to Dark Force poisoning,” Xue Yang finally said. “But did you say that we’re planning on popping over and ‘borrowing’ the bacta tank of a bunch of Jedi?”

“Mm.”

“Master. Master. Please tell me you remember that we’re Sith, right? Sort of the sworn enemy of the Jedi? Arrest-on-sight orders? Any of this ringing any bells here? No? In short, have you lost your mind?”

Lan Wangji took Wei Wuxian’s pulse again. It was getting increasingly thready; he frowned.

“Take us in,” he ordered, and Xue Yang made a whining sound not unlike an especially agitated cat, but he obeyed, finding the planetary base and flashing them with a urgent medical attention required signal and transmitting the passcode Lan Wangji recited to him.

The base opened its doors in silent invitation.

Xue Yang took them in, apparently resigned to his fate and determined to pointedly suffer and judge him without saying a word.

This determination cracked the second they passed through the gates.

“Master!” he shrieked. “Master, Master! That’s the Qinghe Nie emblem!”

“It is,” Lan Wangji agreed. Foreseeing Xue Yang’s next question, he added, “It is here because this is an outpost of the Qinghe Nie Jedi order.”

Xue Yang sounded a bit like a rusty door when he hyperventilated, and even more so when he started laughing hysterically. How had he ever survived being a Sith before, if this was how he reacted to stress?

“Great, right, yes,” he said, nearly howling. “Sure, why not? Let’s go knock on the door of some Jedi and ask them for a bacta tank like we’re borrowing a cup of sugar, sure, okay, we can do that. Jedi are chumps, they’re all about mercy and sympathy and bantha fodder like that; we can con ‘em - it’ll be tricky, but it can be done when you’re in a pinch. I’m fine with that, up for it, it’s cool, all cool. You know who we can’t con? Qinghe Nie, that’s who. ‘Suppress evil no matter the cost’ Qinghe karking Nie.”

Lan Wangji ignored him, scooping Wei Wuxian into his arms and heading out into the saber hall.

Three grim-faced Jedi dressed in the immediately identifiable colors of the Qinghe Nie were waiting there, hands on their lightsabers and droids lingering in the corridors, but they did not attack. Instead, they led Lan Wangji, a nervous Xue Yang dogging his heels, to the medical bay, never uttering a single word.

The medical droids took Wei Wuxian from his arms – Lan Wangji forced himself to recall the Lan sect mantras on restraint and allowed them to do so without ripping out their wires for daring to touch him – but it wasn’t until Wei Wuxian was firmly encased in the bacta tank, the oxygen-rich liquid flowing into his lungs to heal him, the colors on all the screens all showing positive signs, that he was finally able to release the breath it felt that he’d been holding since he first saw the broken starfighter that encased Wei Wuxian’s broken body.

This was fine.

“Wangji,” a low voice said from behind him, and Lan Wangji’s back stiffened.

This was not fine.

The Qinghe Nie were a strange order of Jedi – almost heretical, really, by any traditional measure. The orthodox Jedi order, for the most part, valued calm and serenity and selflessness, prioritizing the logic of the mind over the yearning of the heart, preaching detachment from worldly concerns and attachments…

Qinghe Nie, in contrast, valued righteousness, and cultivated rage.

Halfway to Sith, Lan Wangji’s uncle had once remarked after a glass of something stronger than tea. He’d regretted it later, of course, and tried to walk it back, smooth over his uncharacteristic rudeness, but Lan Wangji still remembered.

The adherents of Qinghe Nie were of the view that for every virtue there was a fault – that the Jedi’s emotional remove would at times render them passive, that self-control could too quickly shade into indifference. They argued that it was the duty of the virtuous to be enraged by evil, intolerant of it, and that only through that anger would they be motivated to act to eradicate it.

Their philosophy often led to their deaths, whether through reckless action or through the corruption of rage into madness, but even their harshest critics had to concede that they were devastatingly effective. 

Lan Wangji had always thought that there was something heartbreakingly sincere about all the Jedi that took the harsh vows of Qinghe Nie, each one willingly trading away long lives for the sake of righteousness, for the ability to make a change in the world, each one unable to tolerate life if it meant they weren’t striving to make things better. Perhaps they did not match the Jiang for creativity or the Lan for elegance, perhaps their techniques were more brutish and less refined, their diplomacy little short of appalling, but no other Jedi order could match them for sheer power.

Very few people wanted to be between a Qinghe Nie Jedi and their target, and still less if they had allowed themselves to succumb to the beserker rage that sometimes took them on the battlefield – indeed, in a crisis that called for force of arms, most people who knew what they were about would rather have a single Qinghe Nie on their side than an entire battalion of war-droids from the Jin or Wen engineering corps.

Still, even that efficiency might not have been enough to convince the ancient sticklers of the Jedi Council to condone such a Sith-like view of the Force, but the Qinghe Nie also had an unsurpassed connection to the kyber crystals that were essential to the creation of lightsabers – the mines under their hands were far more numerous and more fruitful than any other order, and for all that they seemed to have dubious connections to the lightsabers they crafted and wielded, with their highly unusual one-sided edge, they were always open-handed and willing to let other Jedi pick freely from their stores. 

With the ancestral weapon of the entire Jedi order at stake, even the Jedi Council unwillingly bowed its head to reality and compromised.

Not very happily. Especially since the fierce young head of the Qinghe Nie order – the great Chifeng-zun, Nie Mingjue – had been constantly causing trouble for them ever since he had been admitted to their deliberations.

More relevantly, though, was that Nie Mingjue was also a good friend of Lan Xichen, Lan Wangji’s elder brother by blood, and it had been the gift of his token, his passcode, never revoked, that they had used to enter through the gates.

(Look what happened to the Twin Jades you prized so much, my old clansmen, Uncle, Father, Grandfather. Look at me now. Begging for scraps from a Nie -)

Lan Wangji turned and saluted, bowing deeply and ignoring Xue Yang, who had progressed so far into hysterical laughter that he was now hiccupping.

Nie Mingjue caught his hands and raised him up, just the way he always had, and that grim face surveyed Lan Wangji from top to bottom, those searing eyes seeming to pierce into the depths of his corrupted soul.

“You look well,” he said, which surprised even Lan Wangji, who had thought himself beyond surprises. “That’s good.”

“What the fuck,” Xue Yang muttered. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck – you guys are with me here, right? This is kriffing insane…”

The Qinghe Nie Jedi ignored him.

“Chifeng-zun,” Lan Wangji said politely, and ignored the man’s raised eyebrow. He was not about to fall back into calling him da-ge the way he’d done back when he was in the Jedi crèche, no matter how tempting – everyone had called Nie Mingjue da-ge back then, too young to be afraid of his fierce and barely leashed energy. “Thank you for lending us temporary use of your base.”

There wasn’t really a polite way to say I wasn’t expecting to run into you here under the circumstances, but from the way Nie Mingjue snorted, Lan Wangji suspected he’d understood regardless.

“Checking up on the Jin,” he said, an explanation that Lan Wangji didn’t deserve to hear. “Treasonous svapers, the lot of them. Is this Wei Wuixan?”

Lan Wangji nodded. His heart was unexpectedly in his throat as Nie Mingjue studied the other Jedi through the glass of the bacta tank, though he wasn’t sure why.

He was Sith now, after all. Why would he care what Nie Mingjue thought?

It would have been easier if Nie Mingjue had been angry at him, full of rage the way he so often was. Easier if he’d turned his tongue as sharp as any lightsaber to scolding him, or turned his face away in coldness. Nie Mingjue notoriously despised the Sith, had probably meant to call the Jin Sithspawn instead of svapers earlier, had probably switched the word only in deference to Lan Wangji’s current occupation – which meant he knew, because of course he knew, there was no way Lan Xichen hadn’t told him even if his position on the Council hadn’t already entitled him to all such secrets.

He knew, and he still persisted in acting like – like –  

“Cute enough,” Nie Mingjue commented, and Lan Wangji covered his suddenly burning face with both hands. “You have good taste.”

“Please stop,” Lan Wangji mumbled, mortified beyond all belief. Xue Yang was looking back and between the two of them with his jaw gaping wider than a Gungan’s.

Nie Mingjue snorted, amused. “I carried you around on my shoulders when you were knee high, Wangji. I think I’m entitled to torment you a bit about your crush.”

Xue Yang looked like he was going to forsake the ways of the Sith, convert to Qinghe Nie, and start logging prayers at the temple of Nie Mingjue, and Lan Wangji couldn’t even blame him.

“Don’t you have anything to say about –” Lan Wangji shut his mouth with a snap. 

He didn’t actually want to hear Nie Mingjue exorcising him for his choices, no matter how little he regretted them.

Nie Mingjue was silent for a moment, contemplative. “No.”

Lan Wangji blinked, not understanding.

“I don’t have anything to say,” Nie Mingjue clarified with a shrug. “I can’t say I entirely understand why you chose what you did, but we all choose our own paths in the Force, Wangji. I have faith that even though your path leads you to the Dark Side now, it will eventually lead you back to us once more. If you keep your sense of righteousness about you and continue to stand up for what you believe is right as you always have – and avoid engaging in the wholesale slaughter of innocents the way so many Sith do – I will never be disappointed in you.”

…maybe Lan Wangji would allow the people in that spaceport to live.

But only because it would hurt Wei Wuxian to know that he had sacrificed so much for nothing, of course. It was pure selfishness, nothing more. 

(The Dark Side hissed in his head, bitter-angry-vicious-hate-hate-hate, but Lan Wangji hadn’t been Hanguang-jun for nothing. He controlled himself, allowing for only the influences he chose to accept – it was his independence that had led him to the Dark Side, and his independence, he believed, that would allow him to forge his own path, as Nie Mingjue had said, even inside the ways of the Sith. His uncle would say that such thoughts were pure arrogance, pride before the fall, but, well. He’d already Fallen, hadn’t he?)

“Would you like to stay with him until his vital signs have recovered?” Nie Mingjue asked, and Lan Wangji nodded, grateful despite himself.

Grateful, too, that Nie Mingjue did not speak of Lan Wangji reconciling with the rest of his old order.

“I will not stay longer,” he added. “I know it must be a burden to you, opening your doors to one such as me –”

“Ridiculous,” Nie Mingjue scoffed. “This is a secret base, Wangji. If you don’t say anything about it, who’ll know? And before you ask, I’m going to tell Wei Wuxian that you saved his life whether you’re here for him waking up or not, so take that into account when selecting your leave time. And I’ll exaggerate.”

He would, too, Lan Wangji thought fondly. Nie Mingjue had always been big brother to all the Jedi younglings, no matter how grown up they eventually got, and he never let them forget it.

“I’ll consider it,” he allowed, and settled into a meditation pose at the side of the room.

“As for you,” Nie Mingjue said to Xue Yang, who straightened up so quickly that he might as well have attached a ruler to his spine. “I hear that you’re the one that’s been attacking Hutt palaces?”

Xue Yang glanced at Lan Wangji, who sighed. 

“You shouldn’t encourage him, da-ge,” he murmured. “He gets into enough trouble as it is.”

“Comradery does more to defeat evil than any amount of solitary philosophizing,” Nie Mingjue proclaimed, certain as ever in his own righteousness. It would be unbearably irritating if it was anyone less sincerely bullheaded about it, earnest but full of flaws. “Anyway, it’d be good for some of our padawans to see a Sith in action without needing to go up against one right off the bat. You in?”

“…in? I don’t – there aren’t any Hutt palaces around here..?”

“They take their travelling palaces on the Quiberon Line,” one of the Qinghe Nie Jedi said, and Xue Yang’s eyes lit up at the promise of what he undoubtedly thought was an opportunity for wholesale slaughter. It wouldn’t be, of course, not when he was going to be fighting alongside the strict Qinghe Nie, but it would keep him busy for the time it took Wei Wuxian to stabilize and recover.

Maybe Lan Wangji would even stay long enough to speak with his Wei Ying before retreating to be his silent and unwanted protector again.

Maybe.

[midrashic]

your tag system is so intricate! how did you develop it and do you have any favorite tags or ones with good stories behind them?

ahh thank you so much!! i've been getting a lot of compliments about my tagging recently & i'm glad people seem to be interested in it.

honestly i started doing it because i wished other people would use unique tags so i wouldn't have to see their opinions on things other than what i followed them for lmao. the supernatural / marvel cinematic universe cold war of it all... you can still see some of my early supernatural tags are pretty silly, & right now my tag system is pretty broken because i'm trying to revamp the whole thing to make it more aesthetic and less me-as-seventeen-year-old.

developing a tag system like this is really just... figuring out what tags you will actually use. there are some tags i stopped using because it was too much trouble to try & squint and figure out whether this post fell into this category or that category. i used to have a tag called #just geek girl things, and it was supposed to be for trivia that was kind of academically oriented, but i kept getting it confused with #trivial pursuits, which was supposed to be more like those maps that say the most searched-for animal in each u.s. state. it would stress me out, trying to figure out what belonged in each category, & eventually i dropped them. tagging shouldn't really activate your ocd (i say this as someone with ocd). & the other big part is keeping track of it. i have all my tags in a note to myself which i'm trying to transfer over to a spreadsheet.

fun tag names can come from anywhere! some highlights:

steal! both #relship: we'll always have cuba & #ch: heavy metal broke my heart are both cribbed from this post. (i figured the chances of someone following me & the originator of the tag and the originator still being in the cherik fandom are pretty small, plus i think relship instead of otp: or ship: also adds a level of remove, so if you wanted to filter me out you could lmao); #temp directory: the pornbots are coming from inside the house is a quip someone made about a tumblr problem from, like, years ago, when someone noticed that the only notes ads got were from porn blogs, & hypothesized that tumblr staff ran the pornblogs to artificially inflate post engagement numbers; #hyperfixation: the leveled geocities stretch away is from that "ozymandias" parody that was circulating on here a while ago

some small detail from canon, like logan uses shane to frame its themes so my laura kinney & logan tag is #relship: there aren't any more guns in the valley; my monica rambeau tag is a line from the story carol is seen telling her in captain marvel, #ch: aloutte flew up throughout the night; my yelena belova tag is a line from "american pie," #ch: when i read about his widowed bride

some cool meta someone wrote about a character or pairing that sticks in your brain. like i thought the recurring joke of logan stealing scott's motorcycle in the original x-men trilogy was hilarious, because i'd actually read all-new x-men first & baby scott steals logan's motorcycle in that one, so my scott & logan tag is #relship: a history of motorcycle thievery. #ch: the never-queen of alderaan is from a few fics that dwelt on how leia is forever the princess of alderaan, who will never be a queen, because there is no planet to crown her so. #ch: writers are the enemy for chuck shurley / god is from a refrain that gets repeated throughout postfinale supernatural meta

tags in pairs! like janet van dyne's tag is #ch: float like a butterfly; hope's is #ch: sting like a bee. fitz's tag is #ch: the left hand doesn't know & simmons' tag is #ch: what the right hand is doing

a spin on famous titles or phrases. #hyperfixation: love in the time of amatonormativity is a play on love in the time of cholera; #filed under: your mental health's a joke you're broke your brain chemistry's d.o.a., is, you know, the friends theme; #fandom: unusual medical investigations: princeton plainsboro is of course a spin on those csi titles

lyrics from songs strongly associated with a character or pairing (#relship: the person that you'd take a bullet for (is behind the trigger)), or songs you associate with the character or pairing. my jean grey tag is #ch: gonna change you like a remix, from fall out boy's "phoenix," & my steve + peggy tag, and this is one of my favorites, is from a song from the bonnie and clyde musical that hits all the notes i think of when i think of them

honestly a lot of it is just seeing what associations hit! like my new linguistics tag, #hyperfixation: cunning linguistics, is, you know, an old joke, a middle school joke, but it was what came to mind when i asked myself about phrases i associated with the word "linguistics." #ch: the problem that has no name is an iconic quote from friedan's the feminine mystique, so i used it for mystique. #hyperfixation: and i bless you more life is for queer culture & art, the ur-example of which is, for me, angels in america.

favorite tags... i do have tags that i would never, ever change, because they just make absolute sense to me. & i actually had a whole list typed up of some of my favorite tags, and then i realized... my favorite tag is my greg house + james wilson relationship tag, #relship: amazing how fire exposes our priorities. that quote is actually from a different sherlock holmes adaptation, but house's finale conflagration is much more dramatic than sherlock rescuing john from the guy fawkes fire.

thank you so much for the ask!! if you're curious about any tags in particular, i can expound then, but... i have a lot of tags slkdfjsdf.

[ace-oreos]

You must be so sick of alpha and Fordo asks but you’re latest fic has given me angst potential- maybe a one-shot with alpha working with the bad batch to find Fordo post order 66 an him just breaking at the seams when he finds his Vod because he thought he lost Frodo like he lost Sev. Tears and man hugs ensue

Oh I am NEVER sick of Alpha and Fordo asks - they’re such a fun chaotic duo to write for. :D Also, Alpha working with the Bad Batch is something I never knew I needed until I saw your ask and I would absolutely write something with all of them again. I cannot express how difficult it was to not go off on a tangent about Hunter.

In true Sev style, I chose Kashyyyk as the main location for this one. It’s just so useful for these kinds of things.

Also. Y’all. I did not realize until I was four pages into this that I forgot Echo. So uh... whoops?  😅 😂 With that in mind, let me warn you that this is WAY longer than the other fics. I have no idea what happened. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Also also, thank goodness for Wookiepedia lmao

Edit with tags: @dudewhynotthis @merspots @the-mandalorian-clone-lover @delta-the-mando (taglist is open!) 

“Captain.” The sergeant keeps his distance even now, face inscrutable as he surveys Alpha. 

“Alpha,” he corrects half-heartedly, more for the sergeant’s sake than his own. 

“Alpha,” Hunter amends. “We’ll be entering the Mid Rim soon - maybe an hour, hour and a half tops.”

“Good to know.” Alpha knows he sounds despondent at best, but he’s hit enough dead ends by now to know all too well this will likely be a fruitless endeavor. There’s nowhere in the galaxy safe from him - not when his brother’s life is hanging in balance.

But it’s a big galaxy, with little regard for individual yearning or emotion. Alpha can vow to upend the galaxy as much as he likes, but the fact is they’ve only so much time, and only so many resources, and...

And maybe Hunter picks up on that, in that way of his as he observes Alpha without further comment. The sergeant is as much his vod as anyone else Alpha has encountered. Still beyond him sometimes, a little too other for Alpha to ever fully mesh with him or his brothers, but he’s a good soldier. A good man. 

“We’ve always got room for another,” are Hunter’s parting words as he makes his way back to the cockpit. 

If you find out your brother was dead all along. 

Alpha doubts it was anything less than a genuine offer, but it isn’t the only route. Not until I’ve exhausted every other option. And even then....

It doesn’t do, to let himself become so intertwined with a brother until he isn’t entirely sure he knows who he is without the other. He’d tried, both for his brothers and for his own peace of mind, to put a stop to it before it went too far. And maybe that was Jango getting in his head more than Alpha ever should have allowed, but he’d thought it was the right thing to do.

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder...

________________________

“ - you know as well as I do we’ve been going in circles for weeks now - ”

“Yeah, you might’ve mentioned that once or twice…”

“You said it yourself - we’ll get ourselves killed if we aren’t careful.”

“So we’ll be careful.” Hunter’s voice holds a note of finality. “We can keep rehashing this conversation, or we can help a vod.”

Alpha doesn’t catch the muttered reply, but it’s hardly amenable, if Hunter’s sigh is anything to go by. He can’t blame them, really - Fordo isn’t their brother, and outside of combat they’ve little common ground. And it’s only natural for Crosshair to raise the questions none of them are yet ready to face. Alpha thinks he could learn to like the man, given time. 

He reigns in his thoughts before entering the cockpit. The least he can do is put on a rational front. This whole thing isn’t at all rational, but the Bad Batch seem to understand better than others. It runs deeper than brotherhood here, whatever it is, and Alpha is irrepressibly reminded of Fordo, somehow - 

(And osik, does that thought burn, dig under his skin to remind him once again that he failed, that should he redeem himself it will be not on his terms but likely an inconsequential whim of a galaxy that cares nothing for them or everything they’ve fought so hard to hold on to - )

“Y’know, I’m not sure we’ve ever been to Kashyyyk,” Wrecker muses. “That’s a first.”  If he’s trying to divert Alpha’s attention from Crosshair, it’s a skillful effort that almost takes Alpha aback. “‘Course, I only remember the fun parts,” he adds as an impish afterthought.

“Anything with explosives, you mean?” Alpha asks drily. 

Wrecker grins. “Something like that.”

You and Fordo would get along fine.

What leaves his mouth is, “I don’t suppose anyone has any relevant information about this place?”

Right on cue, Tech pipes up from his position alongside Crosshair. “Actually…”

Tech is just as much of an efficient distraction in his own right. It’s not exactly the height of strategy on Alpha’s part, but once again it redirects attention. He has no doubt Hunter sees right through it; still, the man has enough tact to refrain from commenting.

You understand, I think, Alpha decides, watching exasperation and amusement play across Hunter’s face in turns as his brothers’ bickering fills the cockpit. You would go to hell and back for them, wouldn’t you, Sergeant? 

Hunter casts him a wary glance. Alpha holds his gaze.

There’s too much we can’t say. It’s okay, vod - I think I’m starting to understand too.

________________________

Kashyyyk is dishearteningly vast, all sprawling jungles and endless island chains set on a swath of ocean that dissects the planet’s hemispheres. Getting in was no easy task, what with the Imperial blockade cutting off the planet from others in its sector. But Tech’s adroit piloting had come through, and they’d slipped past the blockade with little disturbance.

“You really think your buddy is here?” Crosshair asks dubiously, surveying the area with a distinct air of displeasure.

“I’ve seen the records,” Alpha says, as much to reassure himself as the other man. “The Empire’s tighter with the book-keeping, I’ll give them that. Fordo’s unit lost contact not long before Order Sixty-six went down. If they made it out, it would be on record somewhere.”

“And if they didn’t?”

Alpha battles his temper into submission before replying. “Then they would be confirmed KIA. But they’re still listed as missing as of two weeks ago.”

“Sounds like you’re leaving an awful lot to chance,” Crosshair opines. There isn’t malice in his voice so much as an unmistakable note of disapproval. “What’s your plan if it turns out they were just waiting for reinforcements and pulled out days ago? That leaves us here in the heart of Imperial occupation.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Alpha says grimly. “But if they lost comms before the order came through, then there’s a chance they aren’t with the Empire. Their main focus would be survival, not falling in line nice and neat like Palpatine expects.”

It’s clear there are a number of objections rising to the forefront of Crosshair’s mind, but the man keeps them to himself. There’s a conflict brewing there, Alpha knows, but that’s a matter to address at another time. 

“There’s an area south of here where all comm signals go dead,” Tech announces, tapping furiously at the device mounted on his vambrace. “According to intel, the Wookies call it the Black Forest.”

“Sounds inviting,” Hunter says. “What’s the deal with it?”

“A prison ship crashed there centuries ago,” Tech relays. “The Wookies believe it’s cursed, so they avoid it whenever possible. It’s possible Fordo and whoever was left were driven back by the Seps - or it was a desperate bid and he was banking on the droids not following somewhere they can’t maneuver well. But why cut himself off from allies…?”

“The forward operating base was set up in Kachirho,” Alpha muses aloud “There was another commando squad deployed here, but they were retasked shortly after Order Sixty-six. If Fordo’s here, I doubt he would hang around anywhere with high Imperial activity.”

If he were operating alone, the decision would be simple. But he has the welfare of four other men to consider now; one wrong move, and they’ll all end up on the business end of a blaster.

With that in mind, Alpha looks to Hunter. “Sergeant. What do you think?”

“It’s your call,” Hunter answers. “If you have reason to think your brother is hiding out here, then I think it’s worth taking a look. So long as we go careful, I don’t see why the Imperials should notice us.”

Wrecker’s chuckle fills the comms. “Famous last words.”

_________________________

For all that they have a reputation for being unorthodox - a reputation that is doubtless justly earned - the Bad Batch can pull off stealth pretty well, too. It comes as a bit of a surprise, if Alpha is being honest, but if nothing else the overarching threat of Hunter’s wrath is enough to keep them in line. 

“Keep an eye out for slavers,” Tech warns. “The whole planet has been a hotspot for them ever since the CIS first let them in.”

It’d be just our luck to run into slavers, Alpha thinks wryly. Individually they’re not much of a threat, but a group of Trandoshans spells trouble for anyone. Even without the training to back it up, their brutality can overpower even an ARC trooper. ‘Course, it’d be just like you to get into a mess like that, Fordo…

“We’ll be a bigger target if we travel as a group,” Hunter says. 

“If we split up we might as well ask for a death sentence,” Alpha cautions. Typically his first choice would be to operate alone, but between the slavers, the Imperials, and the remnants of the Separatist forces, he’s starting to think their strength might lie in numbers this time. 

Alpha mulls it over. Greater numbers means slower going. If we split up, we’ll be able to cover more ground. It’ll be risky, but - payoff is worth it. 

“We’ll move faster this way,” Hunter says, echoing Alpha’s thoughts. “Wrecker, Tech, you’re with me. Cross…” He fixes his brother with a stern stare. “Don’t do anything stupid. Alpha has my full permission to stop you by any means necessary.”

Alpha rewards the sergeant with a wolfish grin. “I’ll hold you to that.”

He can’t read Crosshair half as well as the others, but the sniper doesn’t appear altogether displeased. He merely shrugs when Alpha jerks his head towards the route they’ll be following, and trails after him without argument.

Silence lays thick over the jungle. There’s an odd rustle here and there, interspersed with faint growls from time to time, but progress is relatively smooth. Alpha takes pains to remain on guard; just because he can’t see a threat doesn’t mean they’re in the clear. 

Before long the silence is disconcerting. Given the planet’s Wookie population, there should be regular movement around them, or some sign of existence. But this stretch of the jungle is oddly lacking. 

“This doesn’t feel right,” Crosshair mutters. 

“Guess no one’s home,” Alpha answers absently, scrutizining the terrain. “Look - there’s no sign of a fight. Maybe no one was here to begin with.”

“Kachirho isn’t too far from here,” Crosshair points out. “You don’t think it’s a little odd that this path hasn’t been used at all?”

“It is,” Alpha allows, “but look at it this way. We’re traveling the way we’ve been trained to in this kind of setting. The Wookies probably have their own methods for getting around.”

“It’s still weird,” Crosshair decides. “And if your brother really was here, we’d have found evidence of that, too.”

He isn’t wrong, but it nonetheless stings to hear the man voice the doubtful thoughts that have been creeping up on Alpha. Still, we’ve come this far. What have we got to lose?

(More than he’s willing to surrender. But Crosshair doesn’t need to know that.)

“Let’s keep moving,” Alpha says, sharper than he intends. 

“Hang on,” Crosshair says suddenly. “Contact - ”

Alpha pivots in time to see a Trandoshan emerge from the surrounding foliage. The lizard is taller and more solid than he previously anticipated; instead of hitting it head-on like he initially planned, Alpha redirects in order to avoid being gutted on the lizard’s knife. 

He hears the shot and the telltale thump of the lizard falling to the ground. As Alpha picks himself up, Crosshair scans the area through the scope of his rifle. 

“Oh, shab,” the sniper hisses. 

It doesn’t take long for Alpha to locate the cause of Crosshair’s disgruntlement. A group of Trandoshans lurches towards them. Alpha does a rapid assessment: each lizard is packing some sort of ranged weapon - including slugthrowers, he notes unenthusiastically - and most are carrying an assortment of knives.

“Ideas?” Crosshair asks tersely. 

“They’ll just follow us if we run,” Alpha says. “It’ll save us trouble in the long run if we take them now.” 

“I can see why Hunter likes you,” Crosshair says, oddly nonchalant considering the circumstances, and fires. 

With Crosshair covering ranged attacks, Alpha elects the more up-close-and-personal option. The slavers have the advantage of size, but Trandoshans aren’t renowned for their intelligence. As long as he stays in motion the risk of having his throat slit is greatly reduced. 

Alpha targets a straggler first. He hits low, knocking the lizard off balance and sending it staggering into another. The other makes a grab for him, but Alpha is already ramming his vibroblade into the first slaver’s exposed neck. Using the limp body as a buffer, Alpha pushes against the other lizard, trying to force it onto its back foot. 

Just as he feels his opponent’s defense start to give, another three descend on him. Cursing, Alpha throws himself aside before they can hem him in. One of the slavers has enough presence of mind to bring his knife down on Alpha’s unprotected back; the force of the blow has him crashing to the ground. 

Alpha scrambles for a foothold, but one of the lizards seizes his leg in a vicelike grip. He writhes instinctively, kicking out with his other foot. He feels the impact more than sees it and wrenches himself free. 

Just as a third lizard fills the other’s place, there’s a crack from Crosshair’s rifle, and the lizard topples. Alpha springs to his feet to avoid being crushed by several hundred kilos of Trandoshan. The others are wary now, trying to divide their attention between him and Crosshair. 

Alpha doesn’t give them time to choose. This time he uses his blaster to put a round through the closest target. It’s not quite enough to put the lizard out of commission entirely, so he follows up with a quick succession of bolts. 

It’s not exactly an even match, but things aren’t going as badly as he first feared, Alpha thinks. No sooner does the thought cross his mind than his helmet flashes a warning. He turns to deflect the attack coming from behind, but he moves too late and steps directly into the strike. 

The slaver’s curved knife skids off Alpha’s breastplate and sinks into his bodysuit in the gap between the cuirass and the shoulder bell. Alpha manages to pull away, but not before the knife catches the underside of his arm and slices a gash halfway down his bicep.

A line of pain sears through his arm. There’s no doubt the Trandoshan cut deep into the muscle. That arm is effectively useless now; Alpha grimly switches his knife to the other hand. 

He doesn’t have eyes on Crosshair from his current position, but the rasping breaths and occasional curses over the comms suggest the sniper isn’t having an easy time of it either. Time to fall back and reassess.

“Let’s pull back. We might be able to lose them.” Alpha bites the inside of his cheek to suppress a hiss of pain when his wounded arm is jostled. “We can’t take them now, at any rate.”

“You might want to rethink that, alor’ad…”

Crosshair jerks his head to indicate the slavers pouring into the area. There’s a slim chance they’ll be able to slip by, but not without risking serious injury. Slowing down to accommodate a bad hit would mean certain death or capture.

Pinned down. Shabla brilliant. 

Alpha makes an effort to keep his rapidly rising alarm in check. “We’ll have to hold them off, then.”

“There’s no way,” Crosshair objects. “We’re outnumbered eight to one.”

Alpha sends a slaver sprawling rather than answer. He can see it as plainly as Crosshair, but he’s not going to lay down and die, not when his brother is still out there somewhere, not when there’s still a chance they could pull this off -

He hasn’t been this close in weeks and it isn’t his place to gamble anyone else’s life but his own, but even now he can’t bring himself to give in and he understands in a sudden flash of clarity that this is where he will always fail - because he has a foothold, now, and even though all logic points to turning back for once he can’t give in - 

An arm clamps around his neck. Alpha thrashes, trying to throw his attacker off, but now that he’s been caught off guard the lizard has an advantage. His vision begins to blur at the edges and he redoubles his efforts, fueled in no small part by panic at being unable to draw breath. 

He doesn’t know where Crosshair is anymore. He can hardly see beyond his own hands, scrabbling desperately at the arm locked around his neck. 

No sooner does his vision begin to fade than the crushing pressure on his neck abruptly loosens. Alpha hits the ground gracelessly, coughing violently as he tries to inhale. His breath rattles in his throat, but his vision gradually returns. 

He lurches to his feet and assumes a defensive stance as best he can. He’s lost track of how many slavers are still standing - too many is his best estimate.

But the man standing before him isn’t an enemy. He’s -

“Vod,” Fordo says softly. 

Alpha can only stare at his brother in stunned silence, momentarily deaf to the ongoing struggle around them. Fordo....

“Later,” his brother promises. 

______________________

“So how’d you end up running with them?” Fordo asks with a nod towards the Bad Batch. 

“It’s complicated,” Alpha says lightly. “Too much to unpack now, at any rate.”

Fordo laughs. He’s battered and weary, with something lurking in his gaze Alpha can’t quite decipher yet, but it’s Fordo, and that’s more than enough. 

“It’s quiet here,” Fordo remarks. “I like that.”

“‘S nice,” Alpha agrees. 

They’re still hovering just above the surface. Tentative. It’s not exactly what Alpha is accustomed to, but for Fordo’s sake he lets his brother take the lead. 

“Everything’s gone sideways, hasn’t it,” Fordo says suddenly. 

“It has,” Alpha admits. There’s no use pretending otherwise. “But we’ll find a way through.”

Fordo flashes a small smile. “You’re good at that.”

Alpha merely shrugs. There’s a thousand other things he wants to say, but he hasn’t the faintest clue where to begin. Finally he ventures carefully, “Y’know, for a while now I thought this mission did you in.”

Fordo lets out a long sigh. “I was starting to think it might, myself.”

“I…” Alpha breaks off, startled by the sudden pressure behind his eyes. It worsens when he tries to continue. “I don’t know what I would’ve - ”

He falters again. I care more than I should. I never should’ve let that happen, but even now I don’t know if I regret it.

“Alpha,” Fordo says softly, and pulls him into an embrace.

Alpha doesn’t know how much time passes before he finally disentangles himself from Fordo as gently as he can and scrubs at the hot trails on his face. He can’t quite bring himself to feel any shame over it. He’s never been given to such displays, but… Fordo is his vod. 

“So what’s the plan, alor’ad?” Fordo asks with a familiar note of mischief in his voice.

Alpha smiles despite himself. “It’s a big galaxy.”

“We’ve got time.”

“Yeah,” Alpha laughs. “We have time.”

[justanother-unluckysoul]

Working My Way Back To You 11/11

Killian gets captured. When Emma finally rescues him, he’s traumatized and nearly broken from the torture he endured. Thankfully Emma is close at hand to help him through it.

Heavy on the hurt/comfort, with some whump because I couldn’t help myself lol

A/N: And with that, my first multi-chapter fic is complete! I hope this ending is satisfying to you, some light and fluffy stuff to leave you feeling good after the angst and misery of earlier chapters lol 

Thank you all so much for your support and your kind comments - every one of them brings a smile to my face. And I still cannot believe this story got over 100 kudos before I even posted this final chapter.

Unbetad as always so mistakes are all mine.

Tagging @cocohook38 as requested.

Read this chapter on AO3 

Working My Way Back To You

Epilogue: Recovery

The weatherman’s knowledge of the weather so many days in advance is impressive. The conditions are perfect, the sun shining warmly but not too warmly, and enough wind to carry the ship smoothly out to sea with the tide. Exactly as predicted. As promised, Killian takes them out far enough that the sky and the water are all that be seen in any direction, giving instructions to Emma and Henry who are having a bit of a debate over which of them should be titled first mate - not that either of them really care, of course, it’s just a running joke at this point, the ‘argument’ interspersed with laughter and a lot of quotes and references Killian doesn’t get.

“Alright, calm down,” Killian orders, tossing a grin their way because he doesn’t mean it, “I don’t tolerate fighting amongst my crew.”

He loves hearing them laugh. When he joins them on the main deck for the picnic lunch Emma has brought, his heart feels even lighter. Henry talks almost constantly these days, whether he has food in his mouth or not – much to Emma’s eternal consternation.

“Killian, say something,” she insists, when Killian just keeps snickering about all the crumbs Henry keeps accidentally spitting out, “Tell him that’s bad form or whatever.”

“That’s bad form,” he says obediently, and he refrains from adding the or whatever, though he gives Henry a wink in full view of Emma which makes her roll her eyes.

“You two are just as bad as each other.”

“Sorry, love, in future I shall endeavor to set a better standard for your boy,” Killian says, with a bit more gravity than the situation requires.

Because he means it. He only wants the best for his family. Bloody hell, he’ll never get used to that thought – Killian’s family. He has a family. He never thought he’d be so lucky. As if she senses the emotional turn of his thoughts, Emma gives his cheek a chaste kiss that makes Henry dramatically cover his eyes with a sound of feigned repulsion, and the situation immediately regains its playful ambiance.

 -\- 

They spend hours out there on the water, just appreciating the sense of camaraderie and of freedom.

“We should sail away some day,” Henry says, looking almost longingly at the horizon, where sea and sky meet in a barely discernible seam, “For a vacation, you know, spend a few days at sea. Just for fun.”

“Got a taste for the pirate life, have you?” Killian teases.

“Maybe,” he says, a bit shyly, like he’s admitting something big, “I just want to know what it’s like, I guess. Being out there, just sailing around.”

“There’s a lot more to being a pirate than just sailing around.” And hell if Killian isn’t thinking of some of those things right now, not all of them pleasant and even less of them suited for Henry’s young ears.

“I know that,” Henry says, a bit of that teenage attitude coming out, “But I don’t think mom would approve of the other pirate stuff.”

They both spare a glance at Emma who is lazing on their picnic blanket on the deck, appreciating the sun. She might even be asleep. Killian feels a bit of guilt, for he suspects she’s tired from helping him deal with his nightmares, though she’d never admit it.

“Aye, that’s probably true. Well, let’s see about getting that vacation organized, shall we?”

 -\- 

When they finally sail back into Storybrooke’s harbor, the sun is getting quite low and the temperature is dropping. It’s a combined effort to get the Jolly Roger tucked back into her berth, helped along by the ship’s own enchantments as always, and Killian gives her a grateful pat before going ashore.

“She’s a good ship,” Emma says, her hand finding his as they walk along the dock, Henry’s attention firmly on his phone as he wanders ahead of them.

“Aye, that she is.” He can’t help the pride in his voice, both for his ship and for the fact that Emma has remembered to correctly refer to the Jolly as she.

“Thank you for taking us out. It was a good day.”

“For me as well. Let’s not wait too long before we do it again, alright?”

“Alright.”

She squeezes his hand a little tighter as she smiles at him, the setting sun casting her face in a beautiful light. Gods, he loves her so intensely it almost hurts. There is so much he wants to show her. And Henry as well. So many plans for their future together.

“Yeah, that was awesome,” Henry interjects like he’s almost forgotten to say it, his strides shortening to allow them to catch up, “Thanks, Killian.”

His hug catches Killian by surprise, but it’s just surprise that makes him hesitate, makes him gasp a quiet oh before he returns Henry’s embrace. Some time ago the sudden movement and unexpected touch would have alarmed him, sent his mind racing away into his memories. The way Emma’s hand has come up to rest against his back, bracing him, says she knows it as well. But he’s okay. This is okay.

“It was my pleasure,” he says, “We make quite the sailing crew,” and Henry disengages from the hug, grinning at him.

“I still think I-”

“Alright, fine,” Emma interrupts with a grin of her own, knowing what Henry is going to say because they’ve been having this mock dispute for weeks, “You can be first mate. But I’m the Pirate King.”

Killian tilts his head a little, eyebrows lifting, feeling rather perplexed at Emma’s comment. It’s probably another modern world reference, he thinks.

“Pirate King? I can’t say I’ve bestowed such a title on any of my crew before. And shouldn’t it be Pirate Queen, in your case?”

“Oh, yeah, we haven’t got to that movie yet,” Henry says, confirming Killian’s thought, “It’s on the list, though. Hey, mom, can we watch it tonight? Killian’s already seen the first two.”

Emma’s still got her hand against his lower back. He can feel the warmth from it now, somehow creeping through his clothing, through the layers of leather and cloth to settle against his skin. She glances up at him searchingly, checking his wellbeing, ensuring he’s okay with Henry’s plan before she agrees. Sometimes he’s too on edge by the end of the day to sit still, or too drained from fighting his own mind. But Killian can’t imagine a better ending to this perfect day than curled up on the couch with his family, making fun of a probably silly movie about make-believe pirates, and he gives a barely perceptible nod.

“Okay,” Emma says with a smile, “Movie night it is.”

Her hand slips back into Killian’s as they walk back to her vessel – her car, Killian mentally corrects himself. And he thinks for probably the hundredth time today that he’s so bloody fortunate to have found such a place in the world, so surrounded by love and support.

END

[found--family]

We were waiting so many years for something to happen between Dean and Cas, for something to prove we are not imagining this and all those people who abandoned the show years ago now are shitting on that scene because Dean didn’t immideately said it back?! 12 years of incredibly complex relationship and they really think it could be resolved with usual hetero “I love you” - “I love you too”? If that has happened they would be the first to tell how unrealistic it was. I’m so done with antis 😤

(sorry this got so long, also sorry for my lack of links! if anyone's after something in particular i can probably help you find The Thing.)

Your anger is valid nonny 💙

A lot of the hate going around and the jokes being made at the expense of these characters and their journey is coming from people who have never watched the show or who don't ship Dean/Cas, but that doesn't bother me much. It's frustrating but haters gonna hate so best to just ignore the outsiders.

What does bother me, just as you mention, are the shippers who either stopped watching years ago OR who are up-to-date with season 15 but they view That Scene in a negative light and are bitching into the digital void, dampening the celebratory mood of shippers who view That Scene in a positive light.

I feel sorry for the shippers who feel disappointed or angered by the dialogue in That Scene, Dean's reaction, and Castiel's "death", because honestly what show have they been watching? TBH i think if they were more involved in the fandom they would've come across informative content (in its multitude of forms) that would help them see there's So Much to be positive about.

Let's work backwards:

We will see Cas again. afaik Misha has one more episode on his season allotment contract (possibly 2? which would probably mean a brief cameo in 15x19) if you want some hard facts - i don't have links but Google is your friend here. Also, the entire cast + crew have been pretty damn quiet in the wake of 15x18 (bar a few Twitter interactions and the DarkLight Convention livestream), which is a Big Damn Clue that they're holding back because Something More is yet to come; even Misha has refrained from posting about it on his social media accounts - i think there was 1 post? - which is very unlike him (plus we hear he's written an essay about Cas' coming out which he's yet to share, possibly waiting until after his Real final episode airs, ie. 15x20). Then there's Castiel's story: it's not over. We know The Empty is compromised due to Jack's cosmic implosion, we know there are ways into and out of The Empty, and with cosmic Entities meeting their end this season maybe The Shadow will too? Plus, Cas being left in The Empty isn't a peaceful ending for him (as Ruby mentioned, those trapped there relive their greatest regrets on a loop) and also: Been There Done That In That Place so it's not a good ending writing-wise. Not to mention what we've seen of grieving!Dean means he won't find peace either as long as Cas is in The Empty/dead. 15x18 was exclusively Castiel's love confession, so Dean's is surely on it's way, which means More Cas!

Dean’s reaction was very much in-character for him. Dean's a volatile smelting pot of Anger and Too Much Heart, especially this season, and while we've seen him blow up about some matters (Chuck's machinations, failing, losing people, etc.) and be honest and vulnerable about how he's feeling (with Sam, with Jack, with Cas - usually in regards to Chuck's BS, although I'm not just talking about season 15) Cas' love confession was something else altogether, something personal just for him, for them, something Brand New: Dean's best friend reveals he's in love with him, which is unprecedented for Dean on both counts. Losing people and losing battles and suffering because of trauma and his upbringing and The Ongoing Hunter Life - that's not new. But he has zero experience with receiving genuine love confessions, which also happen to come from his best friend (who he is also in love with if the past 12 seasons are anything to go by). So his shock/tongue-tied reaction is justified, it's expected really, because like you say an "I love you, too, Cas" just wouldn't feel organic for Dean or his years-long relationship with Cas (plus it's too soon, story-wise). While Misha gave us a stellar emotional outpouring for Cas (appropriate, since he was spilling his heart) Jensen did what he does best: micro-expressions, the nuance acting he's imbued into Dean's character since season 1 and one of the top reasons He Deserves All The Awards. Anyone who complains about Dean's "lack of reaction" isn't taking into account his shock and are apparently not fans of the show because again, that's Dean/Jensen, the subtle emotional shifts in his expression that have (skilfully) conveyed Dean's state of heart and mind through the years (when his contrasting emotional outbursts weren't on display). I understand wanting more from Dean in that moment, that folks feel cheated because they didn't get More, but.. we did: Tears steadily filled Dean's eyes as the scene progressed; Fear added to his Shock as Billie and The Empty showed up and as Cas was stolen away; and OFC the curled-up-and-freakin-sobbing moment at the end as everything sunk in, as he realised he couldn't even answer Sam's call (even if something else had gone wrong) because he would've broken down - which he did.

@ the folks who wanted more from Dean in That Scene: It's There. It's in the micro-expressions, meta, parallels, subtext, symbolism, callbacks - because this show has always needed more than a passing glance; it's about the layers, the story which every cast and crew member has always had a hand in enriching by giving the audience Something More to think about, More to feel. It's in the 15 years of Dean's character journey. It's in that closing scene. It's in the 2 whole episodes we're yet to see. It's there, you just gotta look for it. You're watching Supernatural, after all.

Once again, I encourage folks to read the brilliant meta that's been coming out in the wake of 15x18 (and all of season 15) as well as the insightful thought-posts of shippers who understand the layers and the journey of Dean and Cas' relationship and manage to sum-up canon happenings so beautifully in a hundred words or less.

And you're 100% right nonny 💚

We deserve this love story because we know Dean and Cas deserve this love story, because those involved in making the show have been building towards this for 12 years, that The Slowest Burn To Ever Slow deserves acknowledgement, closure, and a happy ending.

I know it can be hard to stay positive when your dash is littered with negativity, but remember you control the flow: use that block function for tags and post content. Unfollow and block the blogs you need to. If others get their rocks off criticising and hating The Things You Love, just ignore them. They're gonna live mad about Stuff but you don't have to. Pity the haters, but don't let them get you down. Also, post/like/reblog as much positive content as you can find; drown the haters in love.

You deserve happiness just like our beloved OTP.

[themangledsans0508]

Is this Okay?

Read on Ao3

Summary: Marceline learned a lesson from her mother, the Vampire King, and Simon. Everything Stays. No matter what you try to do to change it.

Words: 1713, Oneshot

Warnings: None

Characters: Marceline Abadeer, Bonnibel Bubblegum, Peppermint Butler

Ships: Bubbline

Additional Tags: fluff, mild hurt/comfort

It had been two weeks since vampires returned to Ooo and Marceline had slain them all again, in the process getting turned again. She thought non-stop about the Vampire King’s words, how their cycle would continue forever if she didn’t try to change their outcomes.

But she did try, and nothing changed. She was still a vampire.

In all honesty, she didn’t care anymore. She forgot how nice it was to be mortal, but how horrible it was at the same time. The cons outweighed the pros, and she was resigned to accept it. She’d live forever, watch all the people she loved die, except for two.

Simon and Bonnibel.

Simon, she had mixed feelings about, because while he was immortal, he wasn’t himself. One day, she’d save him. Saving him might make him mortal, and then she’d lose him.

Against her better judgement, she reached for her phone. She tapped before she could change her mind and let the fish circle her ear. It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey Bonnie,” Marceline said quietly.

“Marcy, what are you doing still up? It’s almost one in the afternoon,” Bonnie asked. Marceline felt under the spotlight, but there was no backing down now. She had called and now she had to ask.

“I haven’t slept. In a few days really. Do you remember a few weeks ago when you said that if I wanted, I could move into the castle?”

“Yeah?” Bonnie’s voice sounded hopeful, and Marceline felt guilty.

“I’m sorry, this is misleading. I wanted to ask if I could drop by sometimes. I like having my own space, but like I also want to be,” she hesitated and cautiously continued “I want to be living with my girlfriend. Sometimes, but just keep my house. In case or whatever.” Marceline heard the clicking of something being put down and the shifting of clothes and she figured she had called while Bonnie was doing an experiment.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind. Honestly, I miss you. Miss how we used to be. Like, domestically. Not everything else. That was bad. You’re welcome over whenever you want, I don’t know if you want your own room or-”

“Bon, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to share your room,” Marceline requested. She braced herself for dismissal or decline but she was met with silence.

“Colour stays in my clothes,” Bonnie ordered. Marceline’s ears perked up and she practically jumped off her bed. “No going in the lab while I’m experimenting, something could go wrong and someone could get hurt. It’s a safety issue, not because I don’t want you there. Unless you’re careful, then you can hang out there.”

“Those are some pretty easy rules to follow,” Marceline stated.

“They’re supposed to be, I’m not going to strap you down and tell you that you can’t do this or that.”

“Are you doing anything important right now?”

“Besides cleaning the last remaining remnants of the King of Ooo ruining my lab? No.”

“So I could come over right now?”

“Yes, except it's daylight.”

“I have an umbrella.” She heard Bonnie laugh on the other end.

“You are so stubborn. Be careful, okay? I don’t need a crisp staining my hallways.”

“Pff, it’ll be fine. See you in a bit, Peebles.”

Marceline may have been too hasty, and in her rush accidentally stuck her arm out of the shade and got burned, but that was fine because of her healing powers. She flashed Finn and Jake a wave when she came across them to raised eyebrows in the Candy Kingdom. She slipped into the castle without the Banana Guards noticing due to their own lack of attention and closed her umbrella, leaning against it.

An angry mint stalked towards her and pointed a gloved hand at her.

“If you are here to be turned mortal again, you’ll have to wait! The Princess has not even begun rebuilding the machine, and I hope you have prepared properly for the potential consequences of your actions after you were poisoned and almost perished! May I also request you refrain from placing the Princess in harm’s way?”

“Move over, candy man.” Marceline nudged him out of the way with the tip of her umbrella. “I’m a vampire for good. If I catch you trying to stake me I’ll drain all the red from your body. Where’s Bonnie?” Peppermint Butler huffed and adjusted his suit.

“She’s organising her lab. If you do her any harm I will make sure your fate is worse than death.” Marceline rolled her eyes.

“Heard that before, Minty.” She walked across the floor, her heels clicking against the solid candy floor. She could hear Peppermint Butler mumbling things under his breath but she elected to leave well enough alone. She navigated by memory to the lower halls, pausing at the lab doors. She hesitated before knocking.

“Come in!” Marceline stepped through the doorway and quickly reacted when she saw a glass beaker falling. She dived down and caught it, rubbing her neck sheepishly when she handed it back.

“You gotta be careful Bonnie, that could’ve shattered.” Bonnie carefully put the contents of her arms into the sink and dusted her hands together, leaning against the counter.

“I have plenty more, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world,” Bonnie said calmly. Her body language was a different story, her hands fidgeted and her eyes looked everywhere but Marceline’s. She tapped the toe of her shoe against the floor. “How long do you think you’ll be staying?”

“Want me gone already?” Marceline joked. Bonnie frowned.

“No, I’d love to have you here full-time, I was just curious how much time I’ll have with you before you go back to your house.”

“I don’t know, I just want to be here with you for a while. Even if Mints wants me gone.”

“Peps just doesn’t trust you, he’s skeptical of everyone,” Bonnie explained.

“I’ve literally been around you longer than he’s been alive, if I was going to do anything I would’ve done it seven centuries ago,” Marceline deadpanned. Bonnie pushed herself away from the counter.

“I know you would’ve and I trust you completely.” She placed a tender hand on Marceline’s cheek. “I’d trust you with my life.”

“Same. And I have multiple times. But if the little dude comes for me I will shatter him into a million pieces and throw him out the window.”

“Please do be careful with him, it’s such a pain to have to put him back together piece by piece,” Marceline grumbled something under her breath and reluctantly nodded in agreement.

~

She was fidgeting.

That in and of itself wasn’t usual, Marceline was typically always moving in one way or another. This time, however, she was nervous.

Not because she was sleeping next to Bonnibel, on the contrary sleeping beside her was actually comforting. It was the fact that she had a question to ask that she wasn’t sure she had her own answer to.

“Bonnie?” she spoke quietly in case her partner was asleep. She felt shifting beside her and didn’t have to turn to know Bonnie was looking at her.

“Yeah?” She took a few deep breaths and felt a warm hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Bonnie, are you okay with me being a vampire?” The words hung in the air for a time, and Marceline could tell Bonnie was choosing her words carefully before saying them. The fingers on her shoulder tightened its grip.

“Marcy, look at me.” She did, her eyes meeting Bonnibel’s. Her face was unreadable, which was normal but did little to put Marceline at ease. She took Marceline’s hand and held it in between them. “When I first met you, you were a vampire. It didn’t bother me back then, why would it bother me now?”

“I don’t know, I just,” she sighed, leaning back slightly, “I’m a freak. I have to drink the colour red, I can’t go outside during the day, I can’t eat garlic, your butler was so worried I could go crazy he’s been getting things to stake me with! My heart doesn’t beat unless I make it, I’m basically permanently cold, I don’t need to breathe ever. I committed genocide on my entire species except for one other vampire!” She broke eye contact before whispering, “I’m a freak. You’re a princess. At least when I was human, I was able to be normal. Like we could be a normal couple.”

“Marceline, I’ve always loved you for you. I don’t care if my sleep schedule gets thrown off, I don’t care if my entire kingdom goes pale. We haven’t used garlic here in centuries I can barely remember what it tastes like. And us being a normal couple?” she laughed and smiled, “I’m a sentient piece of gum that rules a kingdom she made from scratch that is also a lesbian. You’re a half-demon half-vampire who’s a rockstar and a queen and also bisexual. The word ‘normal’ and ‘us’ go together like two electrons.” Her smile faltered.

“If I’m honest, I didn’t want you to turn human again. For entirely selfish reasons. I didn’t want to lose you one day. But that was unfair to you, and it’s your life. I hate to say it but I was happy when you got turned back. It saved me a lot of work. I was going to try and find some way to prevent ageing, just because of my own fears.”

“That kind of defeats the point of being mortal,” Marceline pointed out.

“I know. That’s why I said it was selfish. For my own reasons I never wanted you to die. Either way, you would be ageless either naturally or by my doing, so in the end, I didn’t mind. Vampire or human, you’re still Marceline. That’s all I care about.” Marceline smiled at her.

“Bonnibel Bubblegum showing emotions?” She leaned forward and pecked her lips.

“Don’t make me regret it.” She started to turn away before pausing, looking back at Marceline with a sly grin. “Actually, there’s one thing that being a vampire has over being a human?”

“What?”

“It’s kind of hot.” Even dead, some hue came to Marceline’s cheeks as she playfully shoved Bonnibel off the bed.