#i wonder if the writers know EXACTLY why this scene is so messed up

[mollysunder]

The biggest tragedy of Jayce's raid on the shimmer refinery wasn't just that he killed Renni's son, it's that that kid died slowly without any sort of comfort or aid. That boy was alive and wheezing by the time when Jayce and Vi slowly (kind of reluctantly) made it down to the ground floor and was still alive enough for Jayce to look directly at him as the light left his eyes.

What's worse is that he died surrounded by shimmer, a single drop could have saved his life! Anybody at the refinery that could have helped him, even in theory, was held at gunpoint by the Enforcers Jayce and Vi brought and could only watch him die. And then his body's just left there for his mom, Renni, to see. This boy was the kid that pulled the alarm on the Enforcers in the first place, he absolutely knew why shimmer was so important to their operation and once Piotover got involved he's deprived of it's aid.

[redwing4life]

Ashes to Embers Chapter 4 teaser cuz i feel guilty that it’s taking me so long to finish the damn thing

WARNING: Sexual content, MDNI, 18+

(i am not responsible for you media consumption)

series masterlist

“Bucky…” You breathe, the wavering sigh rolling from your tongue like a stray secret.

“Yes, doll?” Bucky smirks with glinting eyes and you bite back a whimper.

Opening your eyes, you keep them trained on where your hands rest on his. “I can’t focus with you looking at me like that.”

Bucky knows exactly what you mean but he can’t help but toy with you. “Like what?” He cocks his head with faux innocence that fools no one.

You turn to look up at the firefighter, eyes meeting his half lidded ones, the blue of his eyes barely visible behind his lust-blown pupils but the blue you can see is so impossible dark that you wonder if they were ever light in the first place.

Taking a breath, you wet your lips so briefly that Bucky nearly misses it. Nearly. “Like you want to kiss me.” You say, barely above a whisper.

“Oh,” Bucky sighs, leaning in closer, “I want to do much more than that.”

Your body is alight with need. Craving his touch, a breach of the barrier between you, you practically whine your reply. “Then why are you just staring?”

“Well, I wanna remember you like this; sweet, angelic, so perfect in your little sundress.“

With the back of his hand, Bucky nudges the hem of your dress higher till his whole hand is spread against your thigh. You quash the aching desire to glance at where your bodies meet and lock your eyes on Bucky’s, whose lips are turned into a knowing smirk.

“Gotta savour it while I can.” He says as he pushes his palm further to your inner thigh, his pinky finger mere inches from your heat.

“Why?” You ask, heart racing.

It dawns on you that you may actually pass out when the firefighter leans in close to you, nose pushing your hair aside to expose the soft skin of your neck which now sits defenceless to his advances. The heat of his breath is electrifying, lips nearing your pulse point eagerly.

Bucky’s lips ghost over your skin as he explains, “Cause once I’ve had my way with you, you’re gonna be a hot fucking mess, sweets.”

A breathy moan tumbles from the depths of you chest at the crude insinuations of his words; your eyes flutter shut, an unintentional reaction that you’re grateful for as it hides the way your pupils roll to the back of your head.

Through the dark span of your eyelids, you picture exactly how Bucky will make you a ‘hot fucking mess’. Spread legs with his tongue delving through your folds, back arched as he pounds into your pussy with vigour, his hands guiding your hips back to meet his as he fucks you from behind. The images bear too much for you yet you can’t stop picturing the salacious scenes, not when your neighbour is pressing open-mouthed kisses to the side of your neck.

“James…” You sigh, voice carrying the weight of a thousand pleas.

“Yeah? Is that what you want?”

Nodding your head desperately, you whine, unable to form any words beneath his sinful tongue.

“Words, doll.” Bucky says, lips hovering over your ear. He’s struggling to hold back but can’t let himself touch you the way he wants to until he hears you spell it out for him.

Turning your head slowly, you peer at Bucky with half-lidded eyes and a slack-jaw. “I want you, James. Please.”

please accept this sort-of-pretty-much-borderline-filth smut scene as my dearest of apologises for taking a silly amount of time writing this chapter. i’ve had a rough couple weeks and writer’s block has been a bitch. let me know what you think, full chapter will (fingers-crossed) be with you in a week maybe hopefully thoughts and prayers.

love, red ❤️

taglist: @armystay89 @rabbitrabbit12321 @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @harrystylesandthegoobs @zannemes @noonespecial90 @pank0w @blackbirdwitch22 @wintrsoldrluvr @pingpongfingfong @belleofthebooks @larienjenova @chaosbarelycontained @mostlymarvelgirl @trustworthy-jellyfish @ozwriterchick @nervousnerdwitch @suz7days @bethexo07 @ace-27749 @bellabarnes1378 @angelbabyyy99 @selella @itvy5601 @noonespecial90 @differenttyphoonwerewolf @ordelixx @krispybearbouquet @matchat3a @cl7ire @sunglasses-in-the-bentley @julvrs @anghstybean @eah-marvel-trolls

[nephilimeq]

Hey, I was just wondering what age you thought Derek was in season one? Cause it’s a heavily debated and unknown piece of information. Me personally I always thought he was 19 in the pilot, and this was before I had read anything about the writers wanting him to be that age in the pilot. It was just the way he acted, to me, it doesn’t seem like a mid-20s man. Also stiles says the fire happened “ like ten years ago” but then a few episodes later Peter says he’s been in a coma for 6 years. So I was just curious what you thought. Also stiles saying that is always made out to be taken as it literally happened exactly ten years ago, and people always bring it up but they never talk about how long Peter said it had been.

Sorry if this is long I just enjoy your blog and your thoughts. I wanted to share mine while also hearing it from your perspective. Hope you have a wonderful day, you deserve it!

This is a very tricky subject to handle, because the writers made mistakes in their own timeline so they switched things around.

But in the very first episode Stiles says that Derek is only a few years older than them. I always figured that Derek was around 19 in Season 1, while Stiles was 16.

The reason why they messed everything up so horribly is because they hadn't actually created a timeline for all the events when they started writing, and to me, it made the show feel like a fan fiction writer who was just making it up as they went and then all the reviewers were saying, "Hey, you have a few continuity errors," and instead of trying to make it work, they just made something up and didn't really try to go back and adjust anything.

There's a scene that happens when Stiles is asking Peter and Cora about Derek's past (Season 3, Episode 8 "Visionary"), and he is trying to find out how old they are, and this train wreck section of dialogue occurs:

Stiles: Okay, if Derek was a sophomore back then, how old was he? How old were you? ...How old are you now? Peter: Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you might think. Stiles: Okay, that was frustratingly vague. How old are you? Cora: I'm seventeen. Stiles: See, that's an answer. That's how we answer people. Cora: Well, seventeen how you'd measure in years. Stiles: Alright, I'm just gonna drop it.

This dialogue made me so pissy when I heard it the first time because I knew that this was the writers' response to the viewers and fans. The fans are Stiles in this conversation, and the writers are Peter and Cora being purposely "frustratingly vague" in the hopes that we'll just "drop it", which a lot of us did because they wouldn't give us any straight answers.

They messed up and they know it.

In my head canon -- because it makes the most sense to me -- Derek is three years older than them. Canonically, Derek is actually only ten days older than me, as seen in this enhanced screencap right here (from Season 1, Episode 11, where Kate has him kidnapped and held up in chains):

So according to this he would have been around 22, about to turn 23 in the first season...but here's something to take into consideration. This driver's license isn't for California -- it's for New York. I have a theory that he got a professional fake I.D. so that he could do more jobs (such as bartending) while he was out of state.

Now, when Stiles mentions the fire was "like, ten years ago," I genuinely think that he was just generalizing. Derek was sixteen when Kate took advantage of him raped him, which means that the fire happened when Stiles was around twelve/thirteen (as he has a canonically April 8th birthday, so it all depends on the months).

Regarding anything Peter might have said...please remember that it has been firmly established in the show that Peter is an unreliable narrator. Stiles openly admits that to Cora in the previously mentioned Season 3, Episode 8, "Visionary".

A lot of these issues are because of the lack of consistency from the writers.

I think the biggest problem was when they cast a younger Peter and totally threw the timelines off, trying to make him only a few years older than Derek -- which he wasn't. Peter is Derek's uncle, for crying out loud! The man would have been in his late twenties, early thirties when Derek was a teen, barely looking any different than he does in the show...and yet the writers and producers thought that making him look almost like a teenager was the right call.

I do think it was a last ditch attempt to try and make Derek waaay older than Stiles because they didn't like the shipping -- but they had already established too much of their timeline at that point and simply messed up and didn't have the guts to admit it.

Simply put, I genuinely think Derek was nineteen and turned twenty during season one.

Hope that answers your questions, anon!

[williamrikers]

Some Personal BL Highlights of 2024

i made this post a year ago, so i'm going to do a retrospective this year, too! let's go! (i am including shows that started airing in 2023 but finished their run in 2024)

Best Show

i thought long and hard about this, but i think the title needs to go to century of love this year. this show knew exactly what it wanted to say, told its story without ever losing sight of the big picture, used every single minute of its runtime wisely and was just a wonderful experience overall.

Most Rewatchable Show And Best Main Couple

that said, jack & joker gripped me by the throat and hasn't let me go. is this show perfect? no. will i be obsessed with it for the foreseeable future? yes. this is definitely the most brainworms-inducing show of the year, and it has a very special place in my heart.

Best Sensuality

THAT SAID, i would be remiss if i didn't mention love sea anywhere near the best shows of the year, because whew! what an offering! the final battle in the sensuality bracket this year was yinwar vs fortpeat for me, and as much as i love and adore yinwar... fortpeat did That. so. yeah.

The Scene That Came For My Life The Most

uh, the fox spirit scene on century of love. need i say more? 😵‍💫

Best Premise (That Was Utterly Ruined By The Show)

congratulations, wandee goodday! this year, you had the chance to become one of my favorite shows, and then the actual plot was so badly written that i ended up not watching the final two episodes. this isn't even the largest bone i have to pick with p'golf this year, because among the new categories, i am introducing

Worst Sex Scene

... and the rebound has got this one in the bag. it's not even so bad it's good, no, it's just dumb! this show is also the reason why going forward, i won't watch anything made by p'golf anymore, which is an achievement in and of itself, i guess?

Best Side Couple

moving on to greener pastures, who could forget jj and methas bickering on this love doesn't have long beans? their enemies to lovers storyline was everything to me.

Most Beautiful Brown Eyes

one thing i can say for wandee goodday, i had to make this category for my man podd, because that one shot of him in the sunlight? yeag. gave me immediate psychic damage because he was too beautiful. absolutely incomprehensibly beautiful brown eyes. that one shot has lived in my brain rent free for months now and i still think about it regularly.

Best Confession Scene

battle of the writers was a fascinating mess of a show, and as much as none of the plot made any sense, they somehow managed to write the best confession scene ever conceived for pie and ozone. i wish i could recommend this show just for that, but no, i really can't.

Most Poetic Cinema

hands down, peaceful property episode 7 should go down in gmmtv history as the best and most tragically poetic story ever told. once again, forcebook showed us the kind of magic they can do when they are given a good script, and i for one am awaiting melody of secrets with baited breath.

Most Unhinged Watching Experience

this list would not be complete without mentioning pit babe. was pit babe "good"? i honestly don't know. but it was definitely wild. it was so much goddamn fun watching this from week to week and definitely one of my favorite watching experiences of the whole year.

Best Toxic Yaoi

where 2023 lacked toxic yaoi, 2024 gave us a beautiful tableau of toxicity that i enjoyed immensely. the highlight i want to point out here is my stand-in, although the runners-up dead friend forever and 4 minutes deserve to be mentioned as well.

Best Actor

i feel the need to include this category this year because fuaiz thanawat just blew me away. out of all the great performances in the aforementioned toxic yaoi, he truly stood out as the young actor to watch. rumour has it that he and jjay are going to headline their own show soon (-ish?), and i am absolutely thrilled at the prospect! fuaiz deserves the world. he is just absolutely brilliant.

Wildest BL Moment

uh, nude uncensored dick on 4 minutes. i literally still cannot believe they did that. once again, boc is out there casually redefining the limitations of the genre.

Most Anticipated Show Of 2025

somehow, still my golden blood??? i have been waiting for this show for OVER A YEAR NOW, and i NEED IT 😭😭😭😭 thank god this is actually going to air soon, otherwise i might implode.

[nightimedreamersworld]

20 questions for fic writers

Big thanks @artsyunderstudy and @prettygoododds @confused-bi-queer @bookish-bogwitch tagging me in this! And to everyone else who's tagged me in a tumblr meme recently. It's been a while since I've done one of these.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

33!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

Around 370k, but of those about 40k aren't mine. So in reality, something like 330k?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Only Carry On! I don't have the attention span for more of one at a time lol

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. How I wonder what you are aka baby fic

2. Mess is mine aka secret dating fic

3. Every little helps aka snickers fic

4. You and I will not be shaken aka huddling for warmth fic

5. From across the room aka my FIRST fic

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

I don't 😭 which makes me feel guilty and ungrateful, but alas. Every time I've tried to in the past, I'd run out of steam after half a dozen comments or so. Don't get me wrong, I love comments, they fuel me etc etc. Replying just makes me unreasonably anxious

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Technically it's Love of Fate because it doesn't have an ending. It was supposed to be a prologue to something longer that would eventually have a happy ending, and that I simply never wrote lol

That said, the true angstiest ending is probably my All there's left is a ghost of you series - same moment, one from Simon's pov, the other from Baz's. Set between carry on and wayward son, which tells you everything about why it's here :) (Although arguably, those are hopeful endings. Kinda.)

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

Almost everything I write has a happy-ish ending, but the one indisputable happiest ending is probably How I wonder what you are

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not necessarily hate, but one time I did get someone mocking my fic for a mistake I made. Which, like, I deserved, for straying so far out of my comfort zone lol

Anyway. I have upped my research game since, so. Lesson learned?

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

Yes! The kind I want to read lol

Seriously, though, I tend to write weird stuff I can't find elsewhere. Someone once mentioned there's little mirror sex fic in the fandom, and BAM! I got the itch to write one. I've also tried my hand at web cam sex, body modification, and... [reads smudged handwriting] cemetery sex?

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

I haven't yet, but never say never, right? Although I'm much more likely to just write AUs instead. As in, take the world of the original, chuck the characters and just replace them with snowbaz lol

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Probably not? I mean. I hope so lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. I've thought about doing it myself, but there's roughly any engagement with fics in Portuguese on AO3, so it doesn't feel worth the trouble

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

Birthday man! Though I might be open to it if a) someone with a compatible style is interested, and b) I find some free time to actually write lol

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Do I even need to say anything? (It's snowbaz)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Sigh. It's probably Let your colours bleed, because It's been 3 years, so I've just... sort of grown past the story? Which makes me sad, because I still like the concept, I just can't connect to anymore

There are a handful other WIPs still hanging on my ao3, but I still have hope for them.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like writing plot! And also actions scenes. And banter, maybe a bit too much lol

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The beginning of a fic. And also the ending. And also the mid-

Seriously though, I find that I tend to be either too verbose or too succinct when I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say. Like, I either charge through it and the thing falls flat, or I drag it on for several paragraphs that amount to barely anything. Hopefully, I can mitigate that with the power of editing and beta readers

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

I think it's cool depending on context! Like, is this a situation in which this character would simply switch to another language? Also, why?

I haven't done it yet, though.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Take a guess. (It was actually Harry Potter)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Dance Like a Flame! My specialest baby. My little darling. My magnum opus.

I'll jump at literally any chance to talk about this fic, so beware.

Phew! Can't believe I actually answered one of these for once... now, I'm pretty sure almost everyone has done this already, but I'm going to tag a few people anyway just so this doesn't get lost in the abyss

@palimpsessed @captain-aralias @cutestkilla @larkral @aristocratic-otter @hushed-chorus @whatevertheweather @ivelovedhimthroughworse @whogaveyoupermission

[readnburied]

Book Review: If We Were Liars by M. L. Rio

Date of Publishing: April 11th, 2017

Author: M. L. Rio

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Genre: Dark Academia, Mystery Thriller

This is a standalone novel and follows Oliver who has been released from jail after quite a long time and finally starts to tell the truth about what happened in college with his friends ten years ago. With Shakespeare taking center stage, Oliver and his friends go through quite a miasma of emotions and circumstances before the truth finally comes to light and that the thirst for power can sometimes lead to death. 

When I started reading this book I thought I wouldn’t like it. I only read this book because people on social media were labeling it as dark academia which is a genre which I practically live in and fantasize about. And when I started reading it, it took me a couple of chapters to get into it but once I did, I couldn’t stop. It captured me and didn’t let go until I forced myself to close the book once I reached the end. And even then I was left with a heavy heart and a hangover so bad, I’m still suffering from it as I write this. 

Starting off with the characters, I have to say there’s so much depth to each and every one of them. One can’t put them in one category and till the end you wonder what their motives are. Does he love her? Does she love him or just playing around with him? All the questions and more keep you guessing as the book continues. Which just gives proof of the author’s talent. 

I especially loved the setting of the story as I love books with an academic setting. The drama college and its prestige makes me wish I lived and studied there because everything feels so exclusive and alluring. And the drama studies feel so unique to me because I’ve never attended drama school and I especially loved the class where they drink tea while studying. And I have to say the writer knows their Shakespeare and how they weave it within the story is impeccable. 

Though the characters try to be friends and act like a family, it is evident that the thirst for power is there in each one. They want to support each other but they don’t want them to be better than them. And if the threat is there, then they’re not afraid to eliminate them and that’s exactly what happens when one of their friend ends up dead. And when it comes to taking the blame and calling the police, the fight for survival increases and the hope of altruism is nothing but a miracle. 

Another thing I loved was the formatting of the book. I loved how the book was formatted as a sort of a play with acts and scenes and how every prologue was a narration of the present and the rest of the chapters were a story of the past. Though it wasn’t anything unique I still found it interesting, which just makes me give some extra points to this story. 

Oliver was a beautiful and complex character and his reasons for doing what he did might seem stupid to some people but I could understand why he made the choice he did even though he had to suffer for ten years because of it. And I hated how the group broke apart but that was to be expected considering the circumstances they were dealt. 

The detective was another favorite character of mine. I liked how understanding he was and despite the evidence presented before him, he was able to see the truth and knew who really was innocent. And I liked how he was able to establish a relationship with Oliver. 

However, the ending was what blew my mind. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it and I’m still not sure if I’m right. Was it what I think it was or is the writer just messing with me? As much as I wish for a gift wrapped ending I’m glad the writer ended it the way they did because till the end the author maintained the mysterious atmosphere of the story, so hats off to them. 

I was surprised to see this book was released in 2017 because I’ve only started seeing it recently but I’m glad its finally getting the fame it deserves and I look forward to not only reading more works of the author but for reading more books like this. It really is one of the best dark academia books I’ve had the pleasure of reading. 

If you’re thinking about giving this book a chance, please do so as soon as possible. I recommend everyone to read this book because it’s worth your time and energy. So do go and purchase this book and you will not be disappointed. 

[wcrriorhearts]

Episode 2 debrief after the cut

one thing concerning Rhaenyra this episode: SLAY! She slayed. She looked so pretty all episode, her mind was far more focused, I loved her

I am glad the writers kept Rhaenyra out of B&C because her reaction was EXACTLY what I had hoped for. She would NEVER seek revenge on an innocent child and her exasperation was so genuine, I loved that scene

her fight with Daemon was SO good! Obvs bad for my poor shipper heart, but it was so well acted and damn, my girl didn't hold back

loved Baela's dynamic with Rhaenyra and Jace! That scene with Jace and her was so sweet :') how she asked him about Harwin, acknowledging that he was his dad

Rhaenys growing into a supportive bestie, love that

actually really liked Aegon this episode too. He was so broken and vulnerable at times, it made him human. Unlike other men like Joffrey, you understand where Aegon comes from. Doesn't mean everything he does is good, but he is understandable

I like how they keep the balance between both sides. When Rhaenyra was called out to be the murderer of Jaehaerys, it seemed like nothing could save that, but then Aegon keeps doing stupid shit that people will not like and he is basically inadvertently leveling the playing field

the funeral was so bad >.< poor Helaena! She was so overwhelmed and then that poor little baby boy with his head sewn on. Terrible!

Cripy Coleslaw reached new levels of cunt and not in a good way

the Aemond scene in the brothel was so uncomfortable and yucky. It made me shudder xD

I hate to say it again: Alicent is a bad mother. She neither comforted Helaena and only cared to know whether her daughter had said anything about her fucking Cole and then she walked away when Aegon was very obviously in need of comfort. No wonder those kids are so messed up

the fight between the twins was heartbreaking but I loved how it was done, especially with Rhaenyra being caught in the middle of it

we were tortured once again by Alicent and Cole. Why. Just why. Good for her, but I don't want to watch it over and over again

Helaena and Aegon meeting each other on the stairs hurt me, because she clearly wanted to speak to him and the small nod she gave when he just walked past was like "Yup, okay, he doesn't care either..."

[ncisfranchise-source]

It’s been, as Brian Dietzen puts it, “a tough few years” for Dr. Jimmy Palmer on NCIS, but fortunately, his character is also quite often optimistic.

“He’s lost his wife. Then, with the shakeup of the team and Gibbs [Mark Harmon] leaving, our team went through some changes. That said, Jimmy’s also fallen in love,” Dietzen tells TV Insider. And like us, he’s a fan of Jimmy’s relationship with Special Agent Jessica Knight (Katrina Law). “I love doing scenes with Katrina Law. She’s just one of the most terrific actresses, and we tend to play together very, very well.”

Their romance is going so well that it’s now time for one of the next steps: meeting the family. Specifically, her father (Russell Wong)—an NCIS agent in the Far East Field Office—is coming for a visit. “Everything doesn’t necessarily go according to plan, without giving too much away about what’s going to happen, but that’s NCIS, right? Nothing can go exactly as planned,” Dietzen previews.

“But as we’ve seen with Jimmy and Jessica over the last year and a half, there have been a few roadblocks along the way, and there have been a few bumps in the road on their journey towards blurting out ‘I love you’ in the squad room,” he continues. “This could be one of the more important times within their relationship that we’ll see to say, what is going to come next and who are we together? This episode and meeting her family is going to bring up a lot of questions of, what are we going to do? And while I won’t answer what their conclusions are—in fact, I don’t think the episode does, if I’m being honest—it does open a lot of doors and opens a lot of questions for the future.”

Before that, and after the heavy, heartbreaking tribute to Ducky and the late David McCallum (co-written by Dietzen), the team is going to engage in Walk-a-Mile Day, which sees them switching jobs at work, in the February 26 episode. That has to lend itself to some fun moments. But what about Jimmy? It’s not like just anyone can do the medical examiner’s job.

“Here’s the thing: If you’re going to walk a mile in Jimmy Palmer’s shoes, the good part is you’re a doctor, but you’re not going to kill anybody, so if you mess up, what’s the worst that can happen? You’re going to misplace an organ or that sort of thing,” says Dietzen. “But yes, Jimmy’s going to try out a different job on Walk-a-Mile Day, and I won’t reveal what it is, but it’s something that you wouldn’t really suspect Jimmy would do or enjoy or do well, and I think that’s why it’s was chosen and it’s quite fun.”

Beyond that, Dietzen promises that “there’s going to be a lot happening” for Jimmy. “What’s great about this character that I’ve always loved is that there’s always optimism in this guy’s heart, and the glass is always half overflowing. So you’re going to get that optimism. You’re going to get that ‘yes, we can’ sort of thing. And that’s going to be challenged a few times over the course of this season in potentially some pretty big ways. We got some big stuff coming up for our guy, and it’s going to affect him hugely, but I know Jimmy’s going to be trying to see the bright side of things, even though there’s going to be a lot more challenges thrown his way.”

Also coming up is the 1,000th episode in the NCIS franchise, airing April 15. “Is that nuts, or what?” Dietzen says in disbelief. “We’re not like a daytime soap where we get a couple hundred of these a year. We only get 19, 22, something like that. It’s wild.” The episode is written by Christopher Waild, “who’s one of our best writers,” Dietzen raves. “A lot of our writers are the best writers, but Chris is just wonderful at this, and he’s also very encyclopedic when it comes to our show. He really loves this show, its history, and everything. So I think he’s just the absolute perfect person to write it.”

[mayasdeluca]

I think Leah is an excellent writer and she has produced one of my fav eps of the show in 6x08 it was so beautifully done. I'm just so confused as to how she has written 2 excellent episodes yet co-wrote 5x16 which is one of the worst grossest most disrespectful things I've ever seen. Like was she held at gun point? On drugs? Possessed? I guess I'll give her the benefit of the doubt as all the writers must've been smoking something when they came up with that sl. Clearly "comedy" isn't her forte. Didn't she co-write 6x17 aswell? In terms of marina that was kind of..off but that episode wasnt really about them and the vic and beckett stuff was great. The captaincy drama wasn't terrible just a bit old considering this drama has been going on since season 1 but I get they had to have it in there.

It really doesn't make sense and makes me wonder what the writing process is when two people write an episode together. Like do they both work on all the scenes together or is it divided into different parts? Because the difference is so drastic that there's no real explanation as to why she would be so great on her own but then with someone else...not great. Maybe comedy isn't her strong suit because she has definitely been great at doing serious subjects and romantic stuff as well (5x07) but I would be curious to know what exactly she wrote in those co-written episodes and what she didn't. Like for 6x17 as an example, I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who wrote the Beckett/Vic stuff because that stuff was written really well and then the Marina stuff...maybe she had nothing to do with since it was a flat out mess. And then 5x16 I just try to forget completely.

[sordidmusings]

Man why tf some of the best writers on this site get shorted on interaction dude like this needs SO MUCH MORE ATTENTION

Grabbed me right away and had me entertained the whole time!! The characters really live in it, some of my favorite I’ve read!! I also enjoy the reader and their motivations and where they were set up in the crew for a split to make sense and hurt the least (thank u my heart is weak in making the straw hat Captain sad lol) there’s so much personality in the authorial voice too and I just adore it

The additions to canon are really sweet and fun too and I truly enjoyed them!!

Made the dumb meme for this lol cuz it’s TRUE

Annotations/thoughts/yada yada below the cut because I think imma try and do this for some of my reblog as best I can! I do it if I read someone’s stuff on docs and it’s usually liked so why not here 🤷🏼‍♀️

The first thing that struck me was that you dONE IT you’ve got the personality of the chara in focus in omniscient perspective which is a favorite tone of mine! It immediately brings me in and makes the read an engaging experience! It’s very smart to show that card early to hook readers 👌🏻 and Buggy’s perspective is so fuuuuuuun I love that over reactive fucking mess with my whole heart 😩 you’ve done him wonders. And also multi-tasked - the humor told us exactly where to orient ourselves in the plot so that’s a real good use of word count!!

Also Buggy. Sir. May I offer myself as a replacement bendy little shit?? Not as bendy as Luffy but I can work on it-

Also I would like to fuel Cabaji’s conspiracy theory that Buggy dual wields devil fruit - we could get a head start on that propaganda to really build up that large than life persona for his adoring fans and enemies alike. All hail the King of the Clown Cult, long may he reign 🙇‍♂️

CACKLING AT THE “This is Shanks’ fault” cuz at first I was like lol I bet that dumbass blames everything on Shanks and then .5 seconds later it hit me HES KINDA RIGHT

The family heirloom thread caught my eye 👀 good restraint at leaving us wanting more

Dudjdhdjbdkdbdk “you dead?” “That’s a no then” has got me CACKLING

Koby being nervous is so cute I adore the sweet boy but got distracted from that cuz ITS SO BIG BRAINED TO HAVE LUFFY THINK SHES A CLOWN OMFGGGGG i love that you thought of that!!! And that it’s a fun turn on the obnoxious insult shitty people use when they aren’t comfy with the amount of makeup a woman wears when Luffy says it with no ill will and total acceptance and simple misunderstanding lol

“A smile wider than the grand line” is such a cute and perfect description for Luffy and I’m in love with it, it’s pretty simplicity, and the sweet man himself. Truly I’m eating up this whole meeting. It’s so heartfelt and endearing and full of character. You captured Luffy so well in all the scenes he’s in and it’s making me even more eager to read your fic for himmmmm

The reader’s plight in feeling out of place is something I struggle with a LOT. Due to many factors I sometimes have issues communicating with other for a variety of reasons on sliders between both my own inherent flaws and the gap of understanding from others and it can be disheartening and you show it well. Neurodivergence a bitch 💀 time to run away and be an AuDHD clown 🤘not knowing your dreams is its whole other can of worms too and yet another great choice.

The detail of Luffy pilfering your food during Real Talk is exceptional and so on brand and I love it sm 💀

NOT KNOWING WHAT YOU TRULY ENJOY AND RESONATE WITH BECAUSE YOU WERENT ALLOWED IS ALSO SUCH A VIBE 10/10 READER

The moment you mentioned a hat from the two boys I perked up hoping that we had a dream summer with Shuggy because I would KILL FOR THAT O M L makes me real eager to get to the introduction to Buggy and see if they recognize each other 👀👀👀 you’re very good at building interest/anticipation!

Oh boy howdy is reader’s trust in Luffy poorly placed because yeah he wouldn’t intentionally spill the beans but he’s only ever kept like one secret well 💀 tho the odds are on her side because seeing someone’s emotions about a thing is usually how he sorts the importance of it

Yet again, I am in love with your Luffy and Need Him to shower me too with that blind and unbending hopefulness and encouragement 😭😭😭 what a treasure

OOOOOOOOO IT WAS THE DUMBASS DUO THAT WE MET IF YOU KNEW ROGER-

Yet another OOOOOOOOOOO went off in my brain that we know of Buggy 👀 first thought was that we’d recognize the nose but at the same time if seeing a wanted poster one would probably assume the nose and hair were just part of the getup and there’s also enough people in One Piece with funky colored hair including blue 🤷🏼‍♀️

Loving reader’s consistent protectiveness of Luffy 😩 great character trait 👌🏻

“This I was not the time to think the enemy was funny” first off Zoro it’s always time to think the enemy is funny, second it’s Buggy the fuckin Clown dude, and third Luffy is at one of his biggest buffs when he finds enemies funny So There

YES SIMP FOR THIS MANS EYES they really stole all our hearts man they’re too fuckin pretty holy sHIT the soliloquies required to capture their essence 🤌🏻

I love your tone and sassy asides - it’s something I love to try to do because I enjoy reading it so much and I admire your skill in it!!! They keep me giggling and you put them at the right moments around and it helps keep the mood dynamic throughout because serious things feel more serious by contrast to the humor

Damn, Buggy, your roast of our clown status cuts deep 😭😭😭 a girl is trying to fill shoes she didn’t even sign up for my guy and you’ve seen clown shoes that’s gonna take some damn TIME

GDIDBDKDJ Luffy’s question about Buggy’s nose setting off Mom Mode in reader is sending me 💀

I enjoyed how you recounted the show scenes!! It’s hard to keep readers interested when telling them things they already know but your recounting is engaging and chooses good details to include and exclude. The interjections help a lot 👌🏻

I adore Nami BUNCHES but still loved the vicious call out for her cuz while I get her reasoning it does fall squarely under the category of “Dick Move” 💀 also shows some real viciousness in reader and in conjunction with the concept of loyalty 👀 something I admire Much and that would be VERY GOOD for our dear clown

Ooooooooooo very smart of reader (and you) to start up the ploy she has the map to keep her in the room with Buggy instead of taken out with the others. All around you’ve made many good decisions on why she’d be around him and grabbing his attention too!!

Oh the things I’d do to have Buggy call me Dollface and whine at me 😩😩😩 he gets a free pass for all the complaining and griping in the world as long as I get to stay in his presence (I’m totally not down bad at all no sir 🤡)

READER DROPPING THE DEEP LORE IS SO GOOD AND THE DRAMATIC IRONY OF THIS WHOLE SITUATION IS DELICIOUS

AAAAAAAAAA AND SHOCKING HIM BY FLIRTING WITH HIM OH MY GOD THATS ONE OF MY FAV TROPES EVER PLEASE MORE I AM BE G G I N G

The beats of their interaction after this are just perfect all the little details like the eyes widening him trying to get back on his game and his fluster and just all of it are so good!! (Also totally barking at getting up in his personal space, you know but like Casually)

The whole paragraph beginning with “Buggy’s eyes were blown wide again” has me so SOFT so prone to kickin my feet so GIDDY it’s so suddenly tender and genuine and oof just my heart 😩

AND MY HEART EVEN M O R E AT HIM ASKING IF ALL OF IT WAS A LIE AND THE TREMBLING GRIP I JUST

I NEED HIM HE NEEDS KISSES AND I CANT GIVE THEM TO HIM AND AHSHXBSJZN 😭😭😭

✨STARSHINE✨ what a wonderful choice for a pet name from dear Bugs!!!!

The plea for him to not kill Luffy is so sweet and I love it and having that hold over Bughy is so good and I’m thinking to the future when Cross Guild is a thing and they gotta fight Luffy and Buggy is just there sweating under the piercing gazes of his cohorts being like “so no problems with the plan right, clown?” And he musters up all his courage to warble out “w-well actually…” because he can throw almost anything away to save his skin but you begged him. You begged him. Too bad that might get him killed at the moment - that sword and that hook were looking so shiny and so so sharp

Thank you for keeping up the real Straw Hat Tradition of the crew copying Luffy’s nickname for allies 💀 zoro saying “clown lady” was just too perfect lol also Zoro needs to loosen up cuz her humor is great 😤

“Luffy, ever the little shit” PREACH lol such a beloved little shit 💕💕💕

🚨BUGGY IS SWOONING OVER READER I REPEAT BUGGY IS SWOONING OVER READER THIS IS A CODE PINK READY THE PILLOWS FOR SCREAMING IMMEDIATELY🚨

Never fear, dear reader, you will be seeing the failclown again 🤍

IM LOSING MY MIND AT LUFFY ENCOURAGING READER TO BE A CLOWN FULL CIRCLE AND BEAUTIFULLY ABSURD 💀💀💀

The use of government name had me snickering ngl

“He talked about a lot of girls” ah Shanks you fucking dog I love you with all my heart you sleazy beach bum 🥰

BEING BUGGYS FIRST CRUSH HOLY S H IT IM LOSING IT IM-

GALE CARDINAL AND PEACOCK ARE SUCH CUTE NICKNAMES WTF I ADORE THIS SO FUCKJNG MUCH OTS SO SWEET THE ADDED LORE IS SO GOOD

THE LAST LINE RIPPED MY HEART OUT HOW DARE YOU BUT ALSO THANK TOU FOR IT AND THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD 🙏🏻

The Princess and her Fool (Buggy D. Clown/Reader) 1/4

Inspo: GOSSIP-MÅNESKIN

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Word Count: ~7.9k

Warnings: Cursing, canon typical violence, insecurity, descriptions of peril.

A/N: MÅNESKIN is Buggy coded, no I won't elaborate, it just makes sense. So is Ashnikko, esp Cheerleader. Listen to it in context then judge me. All the chapters are inspired by different MÅNESKIN songs.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Buggy was furious. First, he woke up on the floor because it stormed during the night. Second, no one had their shit together during rehearsal. And third, worst of all, soME KID STOLE HIS FUCKING MAP! HE WAS GOING TO INVADE IN TWO DAYS, ACTIVELY FINISHING HIS PLANNING WHEN HE SAW THAT BENDY LITTLE SHIT MAKING OFF WITH HIS MAP! UNCALLED FOR! OUTRAGEOUS! IT’S BULLSHI-HIS. FUCKING. MAP?!?! FUCK!

Buggy snarled as he threw one of his throwing knives at the mast in front of him, “We’ve got a fucking show to do fellas! Hop to!” he sneered, aiming a dagger for the feet of the closest crew member. The crew scattered to their positions, Cabaji staying by Buggy’s side.

“What exactly is the plan, Captain?” the unicyclist asked.

“Get. My. Fucking. Map, Cabaji.” Buggy hissed, poking out another knife from seemingly nowhere, resting the tip on Cabaji’s nose. Cabaji often wondered if the captain had eaten two Devil Fruits, a secret one that let him be such a fiend with those knives, a paranormal, infinite number of them at his disposal. “Board their ship, knock them out, and find my map.”

Cabaji sighed, wheeling backwards, away from the knife’s tip, “Yes, Captain.” He said, wheeling away to bark orders at a few out of place “freaks”.

‘Somehow…this is Shanks’s fault.’ Buggy thought bitterly, slinking back toward his throne, ready for a performance of a lifetime.

You felt a little out of place. You couldn’t help but shuffle your rice around your bowl as you thought about where you were.

You had run into the one and only Monkey D. Luffy when he was on his way to steal the map to the Grand Line from Ol’ Axe Hand. You were on your own little mission, searching the sea for…let’s call it a family heirloom. You were out for blood, but forced to run out of gas as you floated along the expansive seas. Your skin burned and blistered as you stared at the horizon line of nothing but blue all around you. You had been lost at sea for days, no food or water, nothing but the torn-up gown on your back. You were losing hope of surviving. That’s when you heard it.

“HEEEEYYYY!! YOU OKAY?!” you could barely drag your head to look in the direction of the loud screaming, a small rowboat, little more than a dot in your blurry vision. You sighed out a breath of relief, flopping an arm over the edge of your own rowboat. A small sign that, yes you were alive, yes, you need help. “DON’T WORRY! WE’RE COMING!” you felt your eyelids close against your will. A small wave of peace washing over you.

“You dead?” a voice asked tentatively from beside you, what you assumed to be an oar poking your backside a little too hard, drawing a pained groan from your dry throat. “That’s a no, then.”

You peeled your eyes open with a wince, two young men? Boys? Were in front of you in their own little rowboat. You’d later come to find their names to be Luffy and Koby.

“Whatcha doing out here, lady?” Luffy asked, almost tipping his boat over by hoisting himself up on the edge to see you better.

“W-“ you sighed at your scratchy voice, “Water?” you rasped, reaching your sunburnt hand out toward the boys.

Koby flinched back, scrambling to grab a large canteen of water from his feet, thrusting it into Luffy’s hands. “You-you do it.” He whimpered, shifting further away from you in his seat. Luffy laughed a bit, unscrewing the cap, but extended his arm out to you, the open canteen’s rim meeting your greedy lips. The water flowed too fast, covering your face, but you didn’t care, reaching a hand up and taking the canteen from your face. Luffy grinned wide and sat back.

“So, why are you out here, Clown Lady?” Luffy asked, eagerly shifting in his seat.

“Clown Lady?” Koby asked.

“Yeah, that big frilly thing she’s wearing, and the paint on her face! She must be a clown!” Luffy justified, crossing his arms.

You huffed a laugh, mustering all the strength you could to sit up, “Not a clown.” You explained, the gravel in your voice quelled only slightly, “Just a big poofy dress and messed up makeup. I was chasing some Marines, got stranded.”

Koby recoiled, “Why would you be chasing Marines?”

You snarled at the thought, “They stole something of mine. I need it back.”

Luffy’s grin stretched even further, “I can help with that!” you eyed him down, looking for deception in his pure, wide eyes. “Join my crew! I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates!” he exclaimed, giggling a bit.

You blinked at the boy in front of you, taking in his scrawny frame, the little scar under his eye, his straw hat, a hat with a complete sense of Deja vu you couldn’t get rid of, and a smile wider than the Grand Line. King? Well…actually…maybe. The boy didn’t look like much, but the fire in his eyes, the pull in his chest to adventure that you could practically feel, the love and care and hope oozing from every pore. A pirate? Yeah. In the hazed light of the afternoon sun, in your dehydrated mind, your heart skipped a beat. You thought you saw Gol D. Roger in front of you. You felt his warm smile, his laughter ringing through your ears. Yeah…he could probably do it.

You set your jaw, trying to chase away the sting of tears, “Okay, Kid. I believe you.” You said, holding out your hand to shake. Koby’s eyes bulged, and Luffy all but cackled, “I’ll join you, but I have a few conditions.”

“Fine by me!” he had said, shaking your hand immediately, dragging you into their rowboat, and the rest is history. You had been pretty useless in helping get the map, but your knowledge of Marine’s bases and ships’ construction and layout helped more than you’d know, dangling from first Luffy’s back, then eventually Zoro’s.

So, there you sat, mulling over your rice. It hadn’t been long since you joined Luffy and became a “Straw-Hat”, and as much as you believed in the kid, and even though you got along with Zoro and Nami, you couldn’t help but feel unwanted, a little on the outside. Even if you had technically been the first one to join, you kinda felt like you were tacked on, like this wasn’t where you belonged.

You had three conditions in joining Luffy, 1. He and the other Straw-Hats were to help you find your heirloom, 2. You would stay with Luffy until it was found, 3. When it was found, you would be allowed to leave whenever you were ready, to make your own path, your own life. Until then, you would be the most loyal crew member the Greenhorn Captain had ever heard of. You would ask how high, you would “bark” on command, kill without hesitation. You hadn’t had to prove it, nor the chance to yet, but you could feel it coming. Something’s brewing. Something’s on the horizon, and it wasn’t a rowboat.

“Hey, Clown Lady! Whatcha up to?” Luffy asked, plopping next to you, already stealing a clump of rice from your bowl. You sighed and handed the bowl over, resting your head on the table in front of you.

“I’m thinking and I’m sad, Luffy.” You had long given up on correcting him that you were not, in fact, a clown. Luffy’s face scrunched and he paused his ravenous shoveling of the rice into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a moment, “Why are you sad?”

You hesitated, but relented, knowing this would only nag at you until you talked about it, and raised your head, but only half facing your rambunctious captain. “I feel like…I don’t belong here.” You finally spat out, shoving your face into your hands so you didn’t have to see the younger man’s expression. “I feel…different. I’m not…special like you guys.”

Luffy went to interject, but you slammed your hands off your face, pushing yourself to face him fully, “I don’t have a devil fruit, I’m not a great swordsman, or a great navigator. I’m some lady you found in a rowboat on the verge of death who has very little that’s spectacular or at all interesting about her other than some family heirloom that I don’t even know if I fully want to tell you about.” You exclaimed, grabbing the captain’s shoulders, “Don’t you ever just-just-” you huffed in frustration, shaking Luffy a bit, “-feel like something’s missing?!” Luffy looked at you with wide eyes, his arms pinned to his chest, a weird expression on his face. You sighed loudly, letting the poor man go and turning back to the table, suddenly infatuated with the wood grain, heat rising to your face.

Your captain called your name softly, “What’s your dream?” he asked.

You shrugged, “I don’t really have one. I have…goals I guess.”

“What are they?”

“I want to find my father’s-um my family heirloom,” you stuttered, revealing a touch more than you had before, “I want to carry on his mission, I guess. Keep it safe. After that, I don’t know. I’d like to fall in love maybe.” You rambled, all rather noncommittal in your tone.

Luffy nodded thoughtfully, setting aside the now empty bowl you had your rice in. “What do you like to do?”

You thought for a moment. God, it had been years since you thought about what you liked, what you wanted. You had to set it all aside for your father, for your family. The last time you remember having fun was when you were fifteen, when two boys that were your age came to visit your island, they taught you knife throwing, tried to show you how to sword fight, showed you the ship they lived on, but most of all, you thought of the way they showed you how to perform. They weren’t able to steal around the island, for fear of your family overpowering their crew and kicking them off before they had their fill of fun and food, so they needed money.

They had you bring them to the town square and set one of their hats on the cobbled ground and for hours the three of you did little tricks, danced, sang, told stories, or showed off some of the skills they had been teaching you for tips. The echo of your laughter and glee bouncing through the city, chorused with the boys’ joyous hoots and hollers into the sunlight. You had scrounged the tips together and used the money to have a ball that night at the summer festival, running through crowds with fried dough and masks of monsters and beasts of old, only stopping to watch the massive fireworks in the night sky, dancing under the colorful sparks for nothing but yourselves, cheers from all around.

Your eyes threatened to well up at the thought, not a day goes by that you don’t think of those boys, hoping they’re doing okay, that they got to grow up as carefree and happy as they were with you. That was the last summer you were allowed to be a kid, “I like performing.” You whispered, barely wanting to voice such an absurd thought. That everyday could be like that summer. That you could feel the thrill of all those eyes on you, all that joy directed at what you can do.

Luffy sat up and grinned, “Is that your dream? To perform? What do you do?” he asked, genuinely happy to have helped you down this train of thought. “C’mon, tell me!”

“I learned how to do a few things over the years, I’m good at acrobatics cause of all the ropes I’ve dealt with on ships, I love to dance, I-“ you laughed as you said the rest, “I learned how to fire breathe and throw daggers really well too!” you grabbed a worn, old throwing knife from your side and tossed it in your hand, Luffy’s eyes sparkled in wonder as you went on, “You weren’t the only one with a weird childhood, kid.” You teased, nudging him with your shoulder, before grabbing the blade at the end and launching it straight at the wall where it stuck with a light twang.

“Why don’t you do that?” Luffy exclaimed, gesturing to you, your face more specifically, “Just talking about it has you smiling more than I’ve ever seen you!”

You chuckled a bit, but the sad gleam returned to your eyes, “I can’t. I have to protect the Kaku Kaku no Mi.” you explained. Luffy furrowed his brow, and horror dawned your face, “Forget I said that! Luffy, this doesn’t leave this conversation.” You whispered, holding his face in your hands, eyes boring into his.

Luffy’s eyes widened in excitement and awe, “You’re looking for a Devil Fruit?!” he exclaimed, your hands over his mouth muffling the last two words from leaving his mouth.

“Yes!” you whispered, tears close to falling, “And no one can know! I trust you, so it’s okay that you know, but you must promise me you won’t say anything to anyone. Not even Zoro and Nami.” You pleaded, hands still covering the captain’s big mouth. “Please, Luffy. As my Captain, I’m begging you.”

Slowly, your captain’s eyes softened, and he nodded, gently taking your hands away from his face, and in a pure moment of sobriety, Luffy spoke, “I’ll keep your secret, Clown Lady,” he said, a small smile spreading over his lips as he added, “Only if you promise me that you’ll follow your dream. Go perform on the biggest stages you can find. If not for you, for me.” His words were punctuated by a hand being raised; pinky outstretched in a childish pact. One that you hadn’t seen or made since you last saw one of those boys that summer, vowing to see each other again.

Tears fell down your cheeks as you choked out, “I can’t just-!”

“Yes, you can.” He chortled, “I just told you that you could. You have permission.”

You froze, the tears coming harder, but you felt a weight falling off of your shoulders as you wrapped a shaky pinky around his. You yanked Luffy by the join and pulled him into a deep hug, his arms wrapping around you twice with his rubber abilities. “You’re such a good kid. Roger would be happy to have you as his successor.” You whispered into his hair, laying a quick kiss onto the crown of his head.

Luffy pulled back a bit, eyes shining, “You knew him?!”

You giggled, swiping a stray curl out of his face, “Not for long-“

You were cut off with a BANG and a LURCH. You held Luffy to your torso as you were both flung to the floor, shielding him from potential impact.

“We’re under attack!” you exclaimed, already rushing to your feet, the captain not far behind. You both ran out to the deck, Zoro and Nami already there, weapons drawn.

“Who the fuck is that?!” Zoro roared, looking in all directions through the grey smoke.

You felt woozy all of a sudden, red overtaking the grey, “Luffy! The map!” you yelled, pushing him over toward Nami, coughing and trying to balance against the railing of the ship, “INCOMING!” you yelled, dropping to the floor, clinging to the rails. Another BANG and a LURCH cut through, the red smoke billowing farther. You peered through a gap in the sea of crimson and saw a curious jolly roger. “Is that a clown?” you mutter. The last thing you see before you pass out is Luffy swallowing the map, Nami and Zoro already passed out. With your last moments, you reached out to the barely conscious Luffy.

“Wake up!” came a hiss from next to you, you tried to rouse, your eyes barely blearing open. A harsh kick to your foot made you jolt to attention. Your eyes met Zoro’s as you tried to blink the drugs out of your system, finding all four of you in a large wooden crate. The other three were already standing, looming above you.

“What the fuck?” You mutter, trying to stretch the soreness out of your neck.

“Where’s the map?” Nami whispered.

Luffy waved her off, “Don’t worry about it! It’s somewhere safe.” He assured cryptically. You two shared a look, and you gave him a small nod, you weren’t saying shit.

“Marines must’ve found us,” Zoro huffed.

You and Luffy shook your heads, “Pirates.” You droned.

“Yeah, I saw a big, weird Jolly Roger.” Luffy explained.

You nodded, “Uh-huh. Kinda looked like a-“

“-clown.” You both finished. After a moment, you blanched. You knew who a clown in the East Blue was. “Oh shit.” You whisper, standing up and trying to find a way out of the crate, futile as it was.

“What’s your problem?” Nami asked.

You looked her dead in the eye, “We might’ve pissed off the wrong guy already.” You mutter, cryptically.

With that, the crate’s walls fell to the ground, all of you squinting under the harsh spotlight. Circus music played all around you as performers swung above you, cycled past, fire breathers a little too close for comfort, all the while a chorus of flat applause echoed over the music. When your eyes adjusted it took you a second to notice the audience and their distress, taken by the barrage of talents all around you. When you do, you lock eyes with a woman who’s jaw trembled and eyes widened, tears threatening to fall as she mouthed a small, “Help.”

Nami lowered Luffy’s clapping hands next to you, “If we die, Luffy,” you locked eyes with the young captain, “I’ll kill you.” You hissed, pushing the younger man behind you. You, Nami, and Zoro forming a bit of a triangle around him.

You whipped your head toward a backstage entrance, a resounding voice demanding attention, “No, no, no, NO!” the pirate yelled, rushing into view, “Stop clapping! Stop clapping!” he insisted, marching into the ring, “No! This is all wrong!”

You squinted trying to get a proper look at the source of the voice, but he was in the dark, not quite lit up enough to see his face. “The spotlight was late.” He exclaimed, “You completely missed my entrance!”

‘Ah, that’s why I couldn’t see him.’ You thought with a smirk.

The man gestured wildly, getting the spot tech’s attention, physically guiding them to find him. The comedic timing and absurdity caught you off guard, and you found yourself suppressing a laugh, just a soft snort coming out. Zoro glared at you over his shoulder, this was not the time to think the enemy was funny.

“-And where was the dancing lion?!” you got a good look at him now; he was a clown. A handsome clown. The first thing that struck you was the way his eyes caught the light. They shone in a way that struck you, your heart skipping a beat, a sense of nostalgia washing over you. His makeup was perhaps a little worse for wear, but he looked pretty stressed. Pissed might be a more accurate word, really. Nonetheless from where you stood, he was a very attractive man, a squared off jaw, stubble peaking through along it. His face was screwed up a bit in annoyance, but you couldn’t help but think he was pretty. He had blue hair and a colorful getup, topped off by an orange captain’s hat, his clown-y jolly roger positioned proudly at the center. There was no question about it, this was one of the most prolific captains in the East Blue, Buggy D. Clown. You all were fucked.

“Hey!” You whipped around to grab Luffy by the arm, try to stop him, but he persisted, “I know you! I saw your wanted poster in Shells Town!”

“Don’t say something stupid, Luffy!” You whispered, pinching his bicep.

He barely flinched, brushing you off, “You’re the clown guy!” Luffy turned to you briefly, “Hehe! How bout that, Clown Lady!” He chimed.

Buggy’s face screwed up in confusion, ‘She’s not a fucking clown.’ He thought. ‘If she is, she’s a shitty one. Out of costume and everything.’

“Your name’s uh-uh” Luffy trailed off already moving on.

“Buggy!” you whispered.

“Binky!”

“No!”

Buggy was unimpressed, “Buggy.” He corrected. “Buggy the Clown. Buggy, the Flashy Fool? Buggy, The Genius Jester?” Buggy offered, looking for any sign of recognition on the young captain’s face. He found none, just unabashed…well. Luffy.

“Wow!” Luffy exclaimed, he looked at your little crew with a grin, genuinely excited to meet a famous pirate. “I bet everyone in the East Blue knows who you are!”

Buggy’s eye twitched, and you took a step closer to Luffy, widening your stance, “What did you just say?”

“Just that everyone knows who you are!” Luffy said innocently. He didn’t know. He really didn’t. You didn’t even know about what was going on, and you actually knew who Buggy was.

Buggy snarled, pushing past you and the other crewmates, grabbing Luffy by the face, “NOSE?!” You stumbled but stood close, eyeing the clown pirate’s hand on your captain’s face. Your fingers twitched to deck the guy, but you had to be patient. You had to wait. Your priority was keeping Luffy safe, not pitching a fight with other pirate captains.

You saw the other circus folk step forward, a menacing threat hanging over all of you. “Are you making fun of my nose?” Buggy seethed.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Luffy started, struggling to speak through Buggy’s grip. “But now that you mention it��” Luffy’s hand rose from his side as he spoke, “Is that thing for real?”

You clenched your jaw as Buggy slapped Luffy’s hand away. “Don’t be rude, Luffy!” you hissed.

Buggy regarded you for a second, taken aback, but his attention was quickly grabbed by Luffy again as he tried to reach back toward his nose. Buggy slapped Luffy’s hand away again, “What’s real is, I’ve been scheming for MONTHS!” he exclaimed, “to steal that map from that Old Axe-Hand Moron.” Buggy emphasized the insult, swinging into Nami’s face, who regarded him coldly as he indicated for a laugh. You frowned at the mention of the Marine, displeased by the few interactions you’d had with him. Buggy shrugged at Nami’s nonresponse and backed away, “-only to find out I had been upstaged by four little nobodies! Who stole it from right under my nos-“ he cut himself off, that clearly being a sensitive subject for him. “-NO! IT’S IN MY HEAD NOW!” he yelled, groaning in frustration before marching away from your crew.

You took a deep breath as you watched him go, approaching Luffy again, resting a hand on his shoulder, trying to ground him to reality for one damned second. “Hey!” Luffy shouted, and you clamped your hold on his shoulder, nails digging into his skin. You hissed, trying to get him to shut up, but Luffy persisted as if you weren’t even there. “I’m not a nobody!” he proclaimed, a resolute tone in his voice. “I’m Monkey D. Luffy! And I will be King of the Pirates!” you tensed even further, letting go of your vice grip and biting back a lecture on time and place.

Buggy let out a weak, piteous laugh at your captain’s statement, “Oh! Now that’s funny!” he pointed at the man who was supposed to oversee the lion, who held up a LAUGH sign. The crowd followed directions hollowly, and you found yourself locking eyes with that woman again, the tears falling slowly down her cheeks. You sent her a determined nod. If you could do nothing else today, you’d protect Luffy, and get her out of here. The laughter rang for a moment, until the unamused clown gestured to stop, the tent falling to silence on a dime. “My bounty poster graces every marquee of every Marine outpost for miles.” Buggy carried on, talking up himself and his crew, but at that moment, you noticed something. Buggy had throwing knives in his coat. If you could just get your hands on one…a plan began to form in your mind on how to get one as the two pirate captains argued about who would be king.

You scanned the room when your plan was as fully formed as it would be, looking for all exits and possibilities you could. Just when you felt solid, Zoro opened his big mouth.

You could see Buggy’s rage build at the swordsman’s arrogance, a vein on his forehead popping out a bit, the tendons in his neck tight. “Now,” he muttered. “Maybe we should skip right to the finale.” Buggy raised his hand, each finger interlocking with a knife, one shoved between each knuckle. Your focus lasered in on them, barely registering the other pirates as a threat as they readied themselves for a fight.

THEN NAMI STEPPED UP. FUCKING HELL. Your brow twitched as you resisted the urge to shove her back, “Wait! Wait. What if I have something to offer you?”

You snarled, “Oh hell no.” you knew exactly what she was gonna do. And it wouldn’t work.

“Something more valuable than the map.” Luffy eyed Nami, confused as to what she could be talking about, stepping closer to her. Nami goes on to set up offering one of you as a freak, stepping around Luffy.

“Go on.” Buggy insisted, curiosity something he couldn’t seem to resist.

Nami smoothed her resolve, turning and snatching Luffy’s hat, tossing it high above you and tried to bolt. Luffy used his rubber abilities to try and grab the hat.

“Fat chance!” you yelled, sprinting after her. You made it out of the tent when she stumbled in her path, shocked by the destruction around her. You, did no such thing, tackling her around the middle. You two rolled in the dust for a moment, when you landed you had her pinned under you, straddling her, holding her arms above her head, “We die, you die. You signed up for this shit.” You hissed, leaning into her face, “Try something like that again and I might have to kill you. Only thing that could save you is that rubber boy you just tried to sell out.” Nami’s eyes were wide under you as you were quickly surrounded by circus performers, picking you two up and dragging you back to the tent.

Buggy eyed you with renewed wonder. ‘You chased down your crewmate who was…getting away? All because of this…rubber dude?’

Nami’s horrified expression hadn’t left her face, “What did you do?! What did you do to their town?! You destroyed everything!” she cried to the clown. Buggy just rolled his eyes and twirled a throwing knife in his hand. You had become used to such destruction over the years, and used that to your advantage, compartmentalizing those feelings for later and focusing on getting one of those damned knives.

“Not everything.” Buggy chided, cutting slices into an apple he had retrieved in light of Nami’s escape attempt. “I let em keep their hands.” He joked, pointing to the guy with the sign again, provoking applause from the crowd.

“Okay,” Buggy started, “Here ends the theatrics.” He said walking over to your group again, but more specifically over to you, the lights shifting with his path. His eyes landed on you, looking you up and down, trying to take you in. You met his gaze without issue, even quirking a small smirk at the man. Buggy narrowed his eyes at you before turning to your captain, “I know one of you has my map, and I’m gonna get it back.” He said, Buggy’s eyes flicking to you briefly. “What was it you said, rubber boy? That it was in a safe place?” All of your eyes shot wide. Amendment to the plan. You were going to be grabbed. You have the map now. At least they’ll think you do. You have to help Luffy. “Don’t act so surprised. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”

You shared a look with Luffy ‘Go with it.’ You tried to telepathically communicate with the boy, “So please make our guests uncomfortable in the Greenroom!” He said, motioning for the circus pirates to descend onto you, trying to drag you into the back. You immediately held your arms over your torso, pretending to have the map under your shirt, he doesn’t know it’s in a damned cannister, writhing to keep your hands in place. ‘Please think I’m stupid enough to do that.’ You prayed, meeting Buggy’s eyes for a moment.

His eyes narrowed, “Leave her.” Buggy called, pointing right at you. You struggled less, darting your eyes around, ‘panicked’ you and Luffy were left in the circus tent while Nami and Zoro were dragged into the dark of the backstage. You two were ushered forward, inches away from Buggy. “I am going to have a little chat. With my stretchy new pal, here.” He said, eyes flicking to you, “But first, I’m, gonna need to talk to this pretty little Doll Face right here.” His gaze bore into you as he flicked his head to the side, the crew grabbing Luffy and dragging him one way, Buggy guiding you in another. “Let’s chat, babe.” He rasps into your ear.

‘Please let this work.’

“Come ON, Doll Face!” Buggy whined, the two of you in one of the off shoot store rooms. He had stuck you both into a large cage, not lion big, but big enough. “Work with me here! I mean, what are you even doing with a bunch of snot nosed little babies, huh?” he asked, plopping to the ground in front of you. You sat across from him, your arms crossed over the area you were pretending to keep the map.

You gave the clown another grin, “Why? Jealous?”

Buggy’s brows knit in confusion, “Huh? Why’d I be jealous?” genuine perplexed questioning all over his face as he began fiddling with one of those throwing knives you were so ready to get your hands on.

“Because he’ll do it.” You said frankly, checking your nails, frowning at a break.

“Do what?” Buggy challenged, holding the knife level with you.

You simply hummed into your smile, making it grow, “He’s gonna find the One Piece and become King.” You said, speaking like you were talking about the weather. “I see it in him every day.” You locked eyes with Buggy’s annoyed gaze. “I swear sometimes he might be the reincarnation of Roger himself.” You barreled forward, riling Buggy up, “I haven’t heard of a pirate like him since Joy Boy!”

Buggy was almost growling, “Don’t you talk to me about Gol D. Roger.” He hissed, fingers twitching around the knife’s hilt. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

You shrugged; arms still wrapped firmly around yourself. “How would you know?” you lilted, leaning forwards into the clown’s space. “You don’t know anything about me, Buggy.” You said, emphasizing his name. “You don’t even know who I am.” You giggle, cocking your head to the side, looking the seething clown up and down.

Buggy ran his tongue along his teeth, sucking in a breath, “What’s your name then, Doll?”

You bit your lip to keep down another laugh, “I don’t know if I want to tell you, I kinda like it when you call me Doll.” Buggy was physically taken aback for a moment, his head jerking back a bit, not expecting any flirting. Your eyes softened a bit, extending out your leg to bump your foot with his. “Come on, pretty boy, don’t be so serious.” You laugh at his bewildered expression for a moment before announcing your name with a grin.

His eyes widened further, making you laugh harder, “You’re cute when you’re not trying to kill my friends.” You joked, nudging the clown’s foot again, trying to illicit a laugh or any reaction now other than the frozen, almost afraid man in front of you.

Buggy swallowed the lump in his throat, fighting off the heat rising to his face by clearing his throat, “What about when I am?” he joked, trying to get the higher ground back.

Your smile never left you as you rose to your knees, ‘It’s been long enough for Zoro and Nami to have figured something out to get us all out of here. I want to use the little time I have left to have a little fun.’ You thought to yourself, crawling over to Buggy, grabbing the bars to the cage next to his head, settling between his legs.

“Well, I thought you were kinda hot, but I’m sure you’d be even better trying to kill someone I don’t like.” You lilted, face only inches from Buggy’s.

Buggy’s eyes were blown wide again, his long lashes tempting you a bit. After a moment of sharing the same space, you raised your hand up, stroking his cheek with the back of your hand, your knuckles brushing those feather soft eyelashes. You watched as his pupils overtook his beautiful blue green irises, raising your hand further to tuck a stray strand of hair back into Buggy’s bandana. You smiled again and his whole face softened.

Buggy brought his own hand up and grabbed yours from his face, whispering “You don’t have the map, do you?” you looked to the side to avoid his eyes, feeling a bit bad for the deception, and shook your head. His fingers caught your chin, and he made you look at him, a pained look on his face. “Was all of it lies? Just sweet little things to distract me?” he asked through grit teeth, and you couldn’t help but notice a slight tremor to his grip.

Your eyes shot wide, immediately holding Buggy’s face in your palms, heart straining a bit when he wouldn’t meet your eyes. You could never be so cruel! “Hold on, now Bugs! This wasn’t even my plan, honestly,” you started, moving your head into his field of view every time he tried to dart those pretty eyes away from you, “I was just gonna stall, piss you off a bit.” You chuckled, “Anything I said in here,” you said with a soft smile, “I meant, pretty boy.” His eyes searched yours for deceit, confusion flashing over his face when he found none. “I don’t have to lie to get what I want.” Buggy felt an impossible pull closer to you, and so did you to him. Just as you were close enough to brush your nose against his-

“HAHAHA!” Luffy’s cackling rang out through the whole area. You flinched and tried to find where the sound came from, and Buggy blinked a few times, taking in your beautiful features as you searched for your captain, only realizing you were real when he felt the pressure of your fingers still on his face.

He shook himself out of it, “Duty calls, Starshine!” Buggy chuckled, grabbing you around the waist, placing you to the side. You worried your lip between your teeth as you listened to the loud sounds coming from Luffy. Buggy hummed and stood up, taking a key from his hat and letting his hand detach while you weren’t looking, letting it unlock the cage door before slipping through and closing it back up, locking it quickly.

Your eyes snapped to Buggy, standing in the cage, watching him as he walked away from you, “Buggy!” you called. The clown captain stilled, only turning his head to listen to you, “Promise me something!” you could barely see his brows furrow, his ear twitch, “Don’t kill him. Just-he’s a great kid and he deserves a shot. You don’t have to share; you can fight to find the One Piece all you want. Just-just don’t kill him.” You were even shocked yourself at the desperation in your tone. Buggy’s shoulders tensed before he straightened out, with a deep breath. You didn’t know for sure if he agreed of not, but something deep in your heart told you Luffy would be okay.

You were spinning the throwing knife on your finger, threading it through your fingers over and over as you sat and waited. You had already tried picking the lock to little success, and there weren’t enough weak points to exploit in the cage, so you sat, and you fiddled with the blade, waiting for one of your crewmates.

“Clown Lady!” you heard Zoro’s gruff call travel low through the room. You licked your lips and whistled a practiced bird call, hearing two sets of footsteps move direction and come find you in your sturdy, iron bar cage.

You leaned against the bars, waving at your crewmates, a wry smile on your lips, “I don’t know if this is the right place for that nickname.” You joked.

“Damn, what’d you do to get locked up like this?” Nami huffed, already trying to work the lock.

You shrugged, “I think he likes me,” you chuckled, to the dismay and slight disgust of the two pirates, “Maybe he wanted to keep me!”

Zoro grimaced, “You have a weird sense of humor, woman.”

You rolled your eyes, a glint in the sand catching your eye, a glint in the sand catching your eye. You beamed, pointing at the swordsman’s feet with a wide smile, “I told you he liked me! Look,” both crewmates’ eyes followed your finger to the dusty ground, “He left me a key!”

Zoro and Nami took a moment, blinking to process this information, looking at each other to confirm this was real, nodded, and then Nami grabbed the key.

“Let’s go, Luffy was running his mouth, I could hear him,” you said, rushing through the tent, you and Nami running ahead while Zoro made quick work of any circus folk you ran into.

You turned the final corner and sprinted through the hallway, coming into one of the ring entrances. Luffy was in an escapologist’s water tank full of seawater, Buggy arguing with him through the glass.

Your eyes met Luffy’s as he was fully submerged in the water tank, and you gave him a wide smile, Nami running up behind you. Luffy, ever the little shit, points behind Buggy at you two. Just as Buggy turns, Nami launches the staff she’d been holding straight at the glass with enough power to crack it.

Buggy dodges it, looking up at you two. Just when his eyes met yours, the glass broke out, all the water and Luffy himself spilling out onto the ground. And in that moment, the world paused.

He was in peril, sure, but Buggy couldn’t help but marvel at your wide smile, the grin crinkling the corners of your eyes. You tossed something in your hand, catching it again. One of Buggy’s throwing knives. Buggy felt a smirk pull at his lips, no one manages to steal his knives from him. Damn you’re impressive.

When the world resumed, he and Luffy were fighting off the effects of the sea water, and Buggy heard an absolutely awful gagging sound, eyes shifting to the rubber captain. ‘HE ATE THE FUCKING MAP?!’ Buggy almost cackled at the insanity, but one thing overpowered it all. He needed “My map-” “My hat-“ he and Luffy began to crawl, dragging themselves toward their respective treasures. When they had reached them, Buggy laughed, God could he fail upwards.

That’s when you three made your advance, you, Zoro, and Nami circling Buggy like sharks, “You want a piece of me?” Buggy called, “Let’s see what you got!”

Zoro tried to chop off Buggy’s head, but it just popped off then back on again, causing all of your faces to scowl in confusion. “Chop Chop Fruit.” You called.

“Very good, Doll Face!” Buggy exclaimed, “Surprise, Shithead!” Buggy began to separate into smaller and smaller pieces, flying around you three.

“Cutting him won’t work.” You stated, twirling the knife in your hand, thinking. Thinking of nothing good, of course, a wicked grin appearing on your face.

The flying limbs and body parts flew all around you, pushing Zoro and Nami out of the ring. You tried your best to dodge them, but you got hit back by a few before finding Buggy’s rhythm, bobbing and weaving with him. Unfortunately, he noticed, and sent a hand out to drag you to the ground, away from the others. You landed hard against a supply of chests and crates. Perfect.

Luffy rose to the challenge, invoking Buggy’s Chop Chop Cannon, and dodging expertly, pinning the clown’s torso to the ground before one of his fists came flying in from the side, toppling Luffy off of him. Luffy popped right up, only for Buggy to send a fist full of knives at his head, catching Luffy’s hat when he ducked.

‘Oh, shit.’ You thought. ‘Buggy might be fucked. What a shame. I kinda wanted to see him again.’

Luffy’s eyes were wide, panic and rage flickering through them as he tried to pick it up, only to be tripped and pinned by Buggy. Your captain met your eye, which you immediately swung open one of the chests, and he got the hint, that brilliant boy. “Nami! The crates!” he choked out.

Nami’s head whipped to where you were, ready to go, knife in hand. Luffy stood tall, ripping Buggy’s hand off of his throat and whipping it towards Nami, who batted it right at you, who slammed it into a crate, closing it tightly before prepping the next one. And so that’s how it went, the other Straw-hats sending you pitches and hits, and you making sure they found their homes in individual crates. One particularly sneaky leg tried to go back to Buggy, but you whipped your throwing knife right at it, barely nicking him, but pinning it to the ground by the pants. You grabbed it and shoved it into a chest, sitting on it with a satisfied grin. All that was left was his head, feet, and hands.

“What did you do?!” Buggy roared, outraged.

Luffy chuckled, dusting off his poor hat, “Cut you down to size!” he laughed, infuriating the clown.

Buggy sputtered and yelled, “-you’re just a sad, lonely little boy wearing another man’s hat!”

You lowered your gaze to Buggy’s, a narrow glare. “I know who I am.” Luffy started, placing his hat back on his head. You glowed with pride as he spoke, “I am Monkey D. Luffy. And I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates!” he announced, readying himself for the final blow.

You met Buggy’s eye one more time as Luffy wound up, and you sent him a quick wink and a smile.

“GUM GUM! BAZOOKA!” and with that, Luffy slingshot the clown’s remaining pieces out of the tent.

‘Wonder when I’ll see him again.’ You wondered. ‘Hope it’s soon.’

You kept your eyes on the hole in the tent as Luffy picked up the map, handing it off to Nami. You stiffened for a moment, apprehensive with her after the stunt she pulled.

“You’re trusting me with this?” Nami asked, taking the map into her hands.

“You’re the navigator.” Luffy insisted.

They shared a little moment, holding each other’s eye, a passage of understanding between them.

Zoro cut in, puffing out a quiet, “Let’s get out of this clown show.”

You smirked, “Should I take offence, Zoro?” you teased.

Zoro rolled his eyes, “Quiet, woman.” He barked, all of you heading towards an exit.

“Wait!” Luffy exclaims, and your eyes landed again on the face of the woman in the crowd. “We have one more thing to do.” You and the woman exchanged smiles.

“Hey, Luffy.” You said, sitting next to your captain on the deck of your small “ship”. The young captain was wearing the straw hat again, repaired by Nami.

He smiled up at you, watching the waves. It was just you two out there, the other two working inside. “Should I stop calling you Clown Lady?” Luffy asked, peering up at you, squinting in the evening sun.

You smiled, teeth and all, stroking the young boy’s nape, “You don’t have to.” You start, poking his cheek with your free hand, “I don’t mind being Clown Lady. Especially not for you, Captain.”

Luffy sat up and his eyes got that sparkle, he had an idea. “Maybe that’s what you could do! Be a clown!” he volunteered, gesturing wildly with his words, your shoulders shaking in laughter. “Clowns do all kinds of stuff! You could do all the stuff you wanna do!”

“I could also…just do them and not be a clown.” You chide, pinching his side, “Besides, you don’t have to worry about me and my silly dreams. Okay, Luffy? Focus on yours. You might actually achieve yours.” You say, taking the boy into a side hug, his head under your cheek.

You could feel him scowl under you, “You’ll achieve your dream,” Luffy said, using your government name to prove his point.

You barked out a laugh, “That might’ve been the first time you said my name!” Luffy shrugged and chuckled, wrapping an arm around you too, a comfortable silence filling the deck, the only sound was the sounds of the sea, calm and cool. You took a moment to look at Luffy, specifically that hat. That hat niggled at the back of your skull like a song you couldn’t remember the name of, why was it so familiar? “Say, Luffy.” He hummed in acknowledgment, “Where’d you get this hat from?”

Luffy smiled wide and began telling tale of the Red-Haired Shanks, a man he looked up to in every way, who took care of him. As he spoke you couldn’t help the feeling of familiarity grow stronger. “Luffy.” You stopped him suddenly, craning your neck to look the boy in the eyes. “Did this Shanks guy ever tell you about a girl he met when he was young?”

Luffy shrugged noncommittally, “He talked about a lot of girls.”

You pursed your lips trying to place your words, “What about a girl who beat him in a fist fight when they first met?” you asked with a chuckle.

Luffy sat up suddenly, straight as a board. “Was that you?” he asked, wide eyed.

You shrugged, “I think so. Remember those boys I told you about?” Luffy nodded eagerly, “I’m starting to think one of them was your Red-Haired Shanks.”

Buggy froze where he was being held by Arlong’s pirates, the itchy bag rubbing against his sensitive nose.

‘Remember those boys I told you about?’

‘I swear sometimes he might be the reincarnation of Roger himself.’

‘What about a girl who beat him in a fist fight when they first met?’

The knife.

It all made sense. It was you. The girl. Right before it all went to shit, when Roger was still around. The first girl he had a crush on, the girl he promised to see again. It’s you.

“Well, I didn’t know their names!” you exclaimed to an incredulous Luffy. “They called me Gale. Like Nightingale, one was Cardinal, and the other was Peacock! We thought we wouldn’t miss each other as much after they left if we didn’t know names. Didn’t work, but it’s what we thought.”

“Why didn’t you go with them if you liked them so much?”

You sighed, taking a pause before speaking. Buggy straightened up a bit. “I wanted to. I always liked being a pirate and everything. I just…I had-still have responsibilities. I have my duties; I must serve my family.” Lame excuse, if you ask Buggy, but what can you do?

‘I…think one of them was your Red-Haired Shanks.’

And of course, you remembered Shanks, not him.

[sadboi-in-a-sweater]

Interfandomal Power Scaling is a Pointless Mess

Plot summary: Sadboi uses general physics and creativity to explain why Deathbattle shouldn’t be a valid measure of a character’s crossover strength, while slowly going feral.

Alright, you were curious enough to expand this post. Sit down and buckle your fxckles ‘cause I’m going to go INTELLIGENTLY *FERAL*. SENTO HAZARD OVERFLOW MODE IF YOU WILL.

I have a bit of an issue with interfandomal power scaling. You know, the kind that people have made into memes. I have an unironic problem with it, specifically when people legitimately try using it as a measurement of a character’s strength.

For one, I do not have the time to argue for/against your case for many reasons, for two, most of these measurements are probably estimates or approximations done by other fans and are probably not exactly canon (and while I’m all for headcanons and fanon that make sense, in franchises not open to fanon changes then I simply can’t take those numbers as complete, confirmed canon), and for three, “[X character] could/could’ve/should’ve beat [Y character] in a fight” isn’t my thing, because bro IT’S STORYTELLING, the writers do what they want with/without the director’s whim. Interfandomal power scaling is a mess because most of it is done by many fans of many series.

That isn’t to say I advise against pitting two characters each from two different franchises against each other in a fight, it’s just that trying to use such things as anything but entertainment comes off as... I can’t think of the word if it exists, but a word similar to pretentious but about pop culture stuff.

Anyhow, onto the part where I explain how infinitesimally pointless using deathbattles as a legitimate measurement is with physics.

Using Kamen Rider Agito Ground Form as an example, according to the Kamen Rider Fandom Wiki (Source: https://kamenrider.fandom.com/wiki/Kamen_Rider_Agito_(Rider)#Ground):

  - The rider’s weight is 95kg

  - The rider’s maximum jump height is 30m

  - The rider’s maximum running speed is 100m/5s

  - The rider’s kick finisher has 30T of force exerted on the target

Assuming that the example scene is the typical setup for any good ol’ rider kick: then the target (which is Panthera Cyaneus for our example) is standing, staggered and staying still on the ground; while Agito is 30m in the air and is rapidly approaching at ~20m/s (100/5=20, with some wiggle room for gravity as acceleration), finally colliding with the Lord some seconds later at a FRIGHTENING contact force of 249,199.5N (converted from 30T). With some thinking and MSPaint magic, we get Diagram A:

If you’re like a lot of people, then you’re struggling to comprehend that number. So for reference, most everyday actions like walking exert contact forces that’ll probably never reach those numbers (feel free to correct me though since physics isn’t really my thing).

How hard was poor Cyaneus rider kicked, you might now be wondering? And if you aren’t, too bad I already did the math and I got this number.

Again, feel free to correct me because I only know how to clearly do this because I’ve been taking general physics recently for college, and my main passion is being that one friend in the group chat who crushes fandoms together and has the drawing skills to decently back it up.

Again, most people (like myself) tend to struggle with visualizing numbers greater than like, 20 or 30. So numbers large enough to be 4+ digits long tend to become abstracted in the human mind to be just a number and is unable to truly understand the magnitude of values that great.

In my opinion, spitting out numbers that long with a unit tagged onto the end goes through the brain without being fully registered in the brain.

If you’re like me (if the Kamen Rider Agito example didn’t already give it away), you’ve probably hovered around the Toku fandom, specifically the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai sides of it. And since this is a long post about power scaling, then you’re already anticipating what I’m going to bring up:

Kuuga’s Rising Mighty Nuke Kick.

Those five words would be the ones I would use if I were asked why interfandomal power scaling is pointless in a limited amount of letters. Some franchises just go on for so long that the stakes are eventually going to get mind-bogglingly intense.

For context (because I know this is going to reach people that otherwise wouldn’t understand), Kamen Rider Kuuga has 12 forms: Growing, Mighty, Dragon, Pegasus, Titan, Rising Mighty, Rising Dragon, Rising Pegasus, Rising Titan, Amazing Mighty, Ultimate, and Rising Ultimate; so there are 6 tiers of form strength (Growing, Standard, Rising, Amazing, Ultimate, and Rising Ultimate). Rising Mighty is a form on the second form strength tier, however of any first upgrade tier for any primary kamen rider that I can think of, Rising tier is probably the most insane I can remember in terms of power gap. To be fair, Kuuga was the true testing ground for kamen rider forms as we know them today, so I could imagine that not everything was ironed out back then (because off the top of my head, I can’t think of any riders with a true “base form” aside from Kuuga and Den-O: Kuuga having Growing Form and Den-O having Plat Form. Both are practically useless in combat and are mostly used as a base to put another, stronger form onto, like a nice paint primer.)

That out of the way,

As the complex noun “Kuuga’s Rising Mighty Nuke Kick” might suggest, it is the rider kick finisher that is available with Kuuga Rising Mighty Form which has the strength of a nuke. Otherwise, I consider it a statement to how mind-numbing trying to make a character stronger than one that is nigh already destruction itself is. I don’t even know what to talk about anymore.

If you made it all the way down here, then thanks. I needed to get this out of my system. qwq

[noir-renard]

batburger AU is an absolute masterpiece, and I was wondering, if you don't mind sharing, what is your process like for coming up with these incredible plotlines? It's a skill I want to work on, and you, my friend. mmmmMMMMM

ougghhh thank you so much!! ❤️🥰🥰🥰This is a delightful and very flattering question, so I'll do my best to answer it.

I, like many writers, enjoy rotating things in my mind like a rotisserie chicken. (I say "enjoy", but I don't have much say in the matter. These thoughts be roasting and turning 24/7 Costco Style and I'm helplessly standing in front of the chicken rack, warming myself up with the oven heat because I got cold going into the giant refrigerator room to get some berries)(this is a metaphor but it also happens literally to me pretty often. Costco cold. Rotisserie chimken warm.)

Sometimes something good will result from this; sometimes during the more productive sessions of "rotate that thought like a tether ball", neat sentences will form from the ether in my brain.

IYGABAB, for example, was birthed from the randomly generated mind-typewriter paragraph: In a way, it was almost funny. It certainly sounded like a joke—Batman, Bruce Wayne, and Red Hood walk into a bar. Only it wasn't a bar, it was the Iceberg Lounge, and Batman swooped down from the skylight rather than walking in. You might recognize that as the first sentence of the story.

Because I was and continue to suffer from incurable DP x DC Brainrot, my first thought about this paragraph was, heh, that sounds like something Danny would say.

My second thought was, wait, why is Danny at the Iceberg Lounge? And what are Jason and Bruce doing there? And who is wearing the batsuit, and why?

I thought about this scenario for most of the day, coming up with possible answers. When I'd been thinking about it long enough that it was clear Iceberg Lounge Time wasn't going anywhere and the daydream plot was actually kind of interesting and Hey, I'd love to read that story, I started writing it down and kept writing.

The first scene I actually wrote down in full was the one where Sal asks Danny to cover for him at work. Of all the possible answers I came up with for "Why is Danny at the Iceberg Lounge?" the answer I liked the best was "He's covering for a co-worker/friend from his actual job".

Which generated a new question: what's his actual job? Does he work at a coffee shop? At a diner? At a grocery store?

And then I realized the chaos, the beauty, the delightful mayhem that having him work at Bat Burger would be. Like yeah yeah we all know Danny looks like all the Robins already, but to actually make him dress as a Robin for work? I couldn't pass that up.

That's when I knew this story had legs. There was a place for it to start and a place for it to go.

Returning to that initial paragraph helped me generate a lot more questions that needed answering if I wanted to continue the story. Why is Red Hood at the Iceberg Lounge (other than looking for Danny)? What is Bruce doing there (and why does he need to be there as Bruce and not Batman)? Who is wearing the Batsuit (and why are they wearing the Batsuit instead of their regular suit)?

Answering those questions generated a lot of the plot threads, after which I had a general idea of what Bruce, Jason, and Dick were up to (Duke's presence at the Iceberg Lounge came later).

I could have left it at that, but like Marie Kondo I love messes, so I made up some problems for the rest of the batfam and found ways to link them together in obvious and not-so-obvious ways. (If you come back and ask me again after the story is over, I can give a more in-depth answer about this, but I don't want to spoil anything for anyone!)

side note: I wrote the story out of order; when scenes came to me, I wrote them down, even if I didn't know where exactly they fit into the story. Keeping momentum up was more important to me than having a story that made perfect sense right from the start. (I did have to put it in order eventually, and I chose to do this by making a calendar of events as well as document with all the characters and what they were up to at any given point in the story. Was this the best way of doing it? Probably not. But it worked so I'm not going to question it too much)

In this way, I kept building and building the story, layer by layer. I think this method is technically called the "snowflake method", but because I did it kind of haphazardly it didn't really feel like a method 😅

In short, the answer to "what's my process" is this: I find a question so interesting that answering it generates countless other questions that demand an answer, and in the process of answering them all hopefully a story will fall into place.

I hope this is helpful! My mind is a chaotic place that's hard to parse (even for me), but I did my best to describe it in a way that's informative.

[delopsia]

I'm not done. The writers also do this wonderfully hard-to-watch thing where we can see Rhett's struggle to lie. He's such an honest character that he can't hold the truth in for too long.

He lies to Sherrif Joy about seeing Trevor, but in the process, his smile is wobbling up and down, his eyes are distant, he's struggling for words, chewing on his lip (or something in his mouth, it's hard to tell), and he hardly blinks for the entire scene.

Later in the night, when he's in the police station, and Joy pushes him just a little harder, he cracks before she can get out of the cell. When Joy asks if anyone was in the lot with him and Trevor during the fight, he visibly needs a moment to answer and sounds a little distant when he tells her no.

I think this is exactly why Joy goes so hard on questioning Rhett when she brings him in for further questioning. He's a horrible liar, and she knows he's still hiding something. He's blinking less, fidgeting with his hands, he's breathing through his mouth and his jaw looks shaky. And right before Royal shows up with a lawyer, Rhett's getting ready to talk. He's horrible at keeping the truth down, and I bet you my left foot he was going to tell her something before he was interrupted.

Then Maria asks if he's covering for Perry, and he takes a deep breath and looks away from her. It's such a bad coverup that Maria immediately knows the answer is yes. His lips are a little shaky, he's messing with them again, his eyes are watering, and he can't look at her when he gives his choppy, "No, he didn't have anything to do with it. Neither did I." Maria hasn't seen Rhett in years, and even she can tell he's lying.

Rhett's such an honest character that it's not even funny anymore. If the writers were going with a stereotypical cowboy archetype, he wouldn't have struggled to lie and certainly wouldn't have spit up any information.

But that's the wonderful thing about this character, he's a good man deep down. He's honest, remorseful, lovesick, even. He isn't written as this stone-cold, hard-headed cowboy that we see too often, able to cover up a murder and never speak on it again; he has realistic, moral struggles that make him human. It's every bit of what I expect from a character who made a mistake, knows the legal consequences, but still struggles with the truth.

That fight he has with Perry isn't just about how covering for Perry cost him a relationship with Maria; he's been bottling up the truth and his own feelings for so long that the moment Perry reveals he confessed, Rhett explodes.

And in that, he reveals everything he's been lying about and keeping in; he sees Perry as selfish, and he believes Perry is the reason why Rebecca left. That's why he suggested Perry move on from the relationship when they were at the bar. Because in his mind, he's certain Rebecca has done that herself, and has no intention of returning. But he's been keeping those things in because, clearly, saying those things would upset those around him.

You really have to squint to find these things about Rhett, but they're there. It's raw and it's human and it's beautiful to see that he didn't get chalked up to a simple "rebel cowboy" archetype.

ALSO alsO the way the writers made sure to always include scenes of Rhett apologizing and taking fault for when he was wrong? Ugh.

He makes a mildly annoying comment when Perry learns they're going to quit looking for Rebecca. He apologizes the next night.

He drunkenly suggests Perry move on from her, then backtracks, apologizes, and admits it was a stupid thing to say.

He lets Maria tell the police she was with him the night Trevor disappeared, and even though she went back on her word, didn't warn him and put him in a really awkward position in front of Sherrif Joy; what does he do? He finds her and apologizes for letting her do that.

It's SUCH a small detail about his character that I absolutely love; they could have easily left these minute little characterizations out, but someone took the time to make this detail about his character crystal clear. He doesn't double down when he's in the wrong, he sucks it up and apologizes, and I hate that it's charmed me as much as it has.

[rocorambles]

Mission: Seduce Kuroo Tetsurou

Pair: Kuroo x Reader

Genre: NSFW, Slight Angst, Fluff, Porn With Plot

Warnings: Degradation, Master/Pet Dynamics, Sex Toys, Overstimulation, Cum Play, Nipple Play

Prompt: "Guess I'll just have to cum inside you."

Summary: You really should have just spoken to Kuroo about your insecurities instead of letting everything spiral out of control. But that’s okay, your husband is more than happy to thoroughly remind you that you’re the only woman he’ll ever want.  

Author’s Note: This is my contribution for my HQ Discord Server’s NSFW collaboration. There are so many talented writers on the server and I highly encourage you to check out the collaboration masterlist here to see how everyone decided to run with this spicy prompt. (Masterlist goes live Monday 31st August 11:30pm U.K. time!) 

You stretch your arms over your head as a big yawn rumbles throughout your entire body. It’s too early for any sane person to be up, even the sun is barely creeping in through the windows of your apartment, but your husband has hardly been sane recently with the crazy amount of hours he’s been pouring into work. You’re lucky that you even woke up before he left and you smile as you hear your overgrown house cat rustle around your bathroom and bedroom, getting ready for the day. 

“Tetsurou, hurry up so you have time to eat at least a little breakfast before you head out! You’ve been skipping it too much recently. You wouldn’t want me to leave you for one of those pro-athletes you work so closely with when you become just stick and bones, would you?” 

You bite back a laugh when your husband’s messy bed hair peeks out from around the corner and hazel eyes narrow at you, but you’re not laughing when he finally saunters over to you in his suit and traps you against the kitchen counter between his long arms, leaning in so close your noses are brushing and just when you relax and close your eyes, waiting for him to kiss you, you rapidly blink your eyes open as he gives you a quick light peck before ambling off to pour himself a cup of the green tea you’d brewed. With a pout, you warm up the rice balls you’d bought last night and place them on the dining table, wrinkling your nose in displeasure at the smirk on Kuroo’s face, but it’s all forgotten as the two of you lightly chat over breakfast, Kuroo’s long legs spreading into your space across the table, your calves gently rubbing against each other as you laugh and eat. But all too soon it’s time for him to go and he gives you another loving peck before racing out the door and with a sigh, you wash the dishes before getting ready to leave for work yourself.

You love Kuroo with all your heart. Your feelings for him have only gotten stronger over the years and even after tying the knot with him, you can’t help the way your heart flutters and warmth fills your chest whenever the two of you lock eyes. But when your mind replays the teasing scene from this morning, your thighs clench and you bite your lips. Kuroo’s always been a tease and you love it as much as you hate it. No one knows how to rile you up like he does and he uses that to his advantage, rendering you a desperate, needy mess before finally making good on all his dirty promises. But lately, he hasn’t been following through. You can’t even remember the last time you’d done anything more than heatedly make out. 

At first, you had tried to be patient. You know far too well exactly why he hasn’t been in the mood recently. It’s so obvious to you. It’s obvious in the ever growing and darkening circles underneath his eyes. It’s obvious in the way he can barely stay awake when you do manage to spend some time together when he comes back home from work. It’s obvious in the way he immediately passes out as soon as his head hits the pillow. Hell, even his messy bed hair that usually defies gravity seems to slump more and more with every passing day. He’s exhausted. You’ve always loved how dedicated and hardworking Kuroo is. It’s one of the many reasons you’d fallen for him and you know how important his job is to him, but you wonder if it’s time to intervene as you watch your husband walk around your shared apartment like a zombie. Also, more selfishly, you have needs and it’s been months since you’ve been stuffed full by him and really, this is all Kuroo’s fault for training your body to constantly yearn for him after all the years he spent pleasuring you over and over again. With a determined glint in your eyes, you begin to scheme. Let Mission Seduce Kuroo Tetsurou begin.

You scan yourself in the mirror pleased with how you look in a strappy lingerie set you know drives Kuroo crazy. It’s a delicate and intricate creation of lace and ribbons that barely covers you, only accentuating the curves of your figure, but you know it’s the one strip of ribbon that travels in a single bold line between your breasts and leads up to a delicate lacy red collar wrapped around your neck that will specifically catch Kuroo’s eyes. Checking the time, you excitedly perch yourself on the bed, positioning yourself seductively, candles flickering and enhancing the mood as you wait for him, but a hour passes and you unwillingly succumb to sleep, ignorant of the way your phone buzzes with an apologetic text from Kuroo, letting you know he’d be home even later than usual. Blearily you open your eyes and wince as daylight sears your vision. Wait...daylight? You scramble to sit up and check your surroundings and your shoulders sag in frustration when you find yourself still in your lingerie set, but carefully tucked into bed, blankets wrapped around your body, Kuroo’s side of the bed empty and cold. You reach over to look at your phone, getting up to get dressed for work, when you see a new text from your husband. 

Sorry, kitten. You must have been waiting a long time for me last night. You looked absolutely beautiful. Look! I even took some pictures so I could remember. But maybe next time try not to fall asleep while the candles are still lit ^.^  

Your face heats up at the lewd pictures he’d taken of you while you were fast asleep and your heart warms at his compliment, but you stubbornly shake your head. There’s no time to be distracted. You’re still a woman on a mission. 

Attempt two takes place that weekend and you watch your husband from the shadows, lurking behind him before finally pouncing on him as he sits at his desk, answering a work phone call. You saucily wink at him as you saunter into his view and you smirk at the way he clears his throat and gulps at the sight of you dressed in nothing but his old Nekoma jersey and black thigh highs. And when you sink to your knees and arch your back just so, you almost snicker at the way he hisses when his jersey rides up and your bare ass is displayed. But he collects himself enough to firmly, but gently shove you away from him as you try to pull his boxers down and despite a few more attempts on your end, you instantly stop when he puts his phone on mute and sternly says your full name. 

But Kuroo’s always been weak against your puppy dog eyes and with a slight roll of his eyes, he beckons you to sit on his bare thigh and as he calmly and professionally continues his call, you heavily pant with your tongue lolling out, drool dripping from your mouth as you grind against his strong muscles like a bitch in heat, smearing your arousal everywhere until you’re almost sliding back and forth against the taut surface. And as he clenches his muscles and digs his leg further up into you, your body convulses and he barely has time to end the call before you loudly moan as you ride out your orgasm. He whispers filthy praises into your ear about what a good slut you are, what a desperate pet you are, what a mess you’ve made all over master’s leg, but when you finally exhaustedly slump onto his chest, he peppers butterfly kisses all over your face and holds you for a few minutes before carrying you to the bathroom and washing both of you off despite your protests that you still want to play more. 

He at least has the decency to apologetically kiss you for ending things so abruptly as he throws on slacks and a button-up before rushing off to work to take care of the emergency he had just been on a call about despite the fact that it’s a weekend, but you can’t help the growing insecurity that begins to eat at you as you spend the rest of that Saturday alone. Were you not as attractive as you used to be? Was Kuroo getting tired of you? Why does it feel like you’re trying so hard to get his attention? Does touching you feel like just a husbandly duty for him now? Thought after crippling thought sears through you and you have to hold back the tears that threaten to spill when Kuroo returns late that night and, thinking you’re already asleep, turns on his side with his back facing towards you and instantly falls asleep.        

You muster what little resolve you have left with the last few scraps of your self-confidence for a final attempt. Raking through your mind for memories of what would hopefully bring some passion back between the two of you, you perk up as your eyes scan a black box crammed underneath the bed. Kuroo hates it when you masturbate, when you touch yourself, when you make yourself cum without him being physically present or at least on a call with you to hear all the pretty sounds you make. Surely this would be enough to finally have him fuck you senseless like he always used to. But when you purposefully time everything so that Kuroo enters your bedroom and finds you stuffed full with your favorite dildo, a wand vibrator pressed against your clit, and your back arched as broken cries fill the room, he just gives you a tired smile and sits on the edge of the bed before helping you by thrusting the dildo in and out of your gushing cunt. And it feels so good, but when you see how dull and lifeless Kuroo’s sleep deprived eyes look despite the fact that you’re laid out in an erotic display of lust, you can’t stop the sobs you let out as you climax. 

Thinking you’re just crying from the overwhelming pleasure and too tired to dig further into it, Kuroo absentmindedly tosses the toys to the side and cradles you in his arms as he falls asleep, finding comfort in your familiar scent and figure, ignorant of the way your body continues to tremble as you cry yourself to sleep. And as you try to keep your sobs and sniffles as quiet as possible, you decide to abort this mission, deeming it a complete and utter failure and you struggle to fall asleep that night as self-deprecating thoughts claw at your insides. Of course Kuroo didn’t find you sexy anymore. Your body has changed a lot since your younger days. You should be grateful that you still have a loving husband, a husband who works tirelessly to help provide for the two of you, a husband who always takes care of you, a loyal and devoted husband. And despite the longing pang for something more, something primal, for your base desires to be filled, you tentatively turn in Kuroo’s arms until you're face to face and you nuzzle into his toned chest and finally find peace in the rhythmic rise and fall of his sleeping figure. 

Life goes on normally after that. At least for Kuroo. He's too distracted and exhausted to notice the way your smiles are a little more forced, the way you're more hesitant about touching him, the way you wear more clothes to cover your body as self-consciousness plagues your mind. So it's just business as usual for him to excitedly tell you about the Japan Volleyball Association's annual summer beach party, but he blinks in confusion when you don't return his enthusiasm, mumbling a feeble excuse about not having a swimsuit for the occasion. Brows furrowed, he digs through the drawers of your wardrobe and triumphantly holds up a black bikini set you still have, waving aside your worries that it won't fit and that it won't look good on you anymore and that's how you find yourself a few weeks later, exiting Kuroo's car and walking side by side with him in said bikini, feeling like an ugly troll next to your stunning husband whose lean and toned muscles are on full display with him just sporting a red pair of swim trunks. 

But your insecurities are pushed aside as a loud "hey, hey, hey" echoes even over the sound of the waves crashing on the beach and you can't help but grin as Bokuto runs over slapping Kuroo hard enough on the back to leave a red mark before picking you up and spinning you around as he hugs you. "Alright, that's enough, stop manhandling my wife, you big dumb owl!" Kuroo pretends to grumble at the two of you, but you can tell by the amused glint in his eyes as Bokuto finally lets you go and the reassuring hand he places on your lower back as the three of you mingle with everyone else that he doesn't really mind. But as soon as you reach the thickest part of the crowd, Kuroo quickly kisses your forehead before running off to network with some players and coworkers, leaving you alone with Bokuto. 

The two of you have fun. Bokuto has always been the life of the party and you laugh the hardest you've laughed in a long time. But many drinks later and unable to keep up with his crazy stamina, you excuse yourself and find a quiet corner, drinking a glass of cold water to cool down and sober up a bit. It's been hours and you still haven't seen Kuroo since he separated from you and you're so focused scanning the venue for him that you don't notice the person drawing near you until you feel movement right next to you. Surprised you turn around and are met with a vaguely familiar face. Blond dyed hair. An ever present smirk. You don't realize how long you've been staring, trying to remember where you recognize him from, until he snorts and waves a hand in your face. "I know I'm good looking, but don't you think it's a little rude to just stare at me silently?" 

You try to stutter out an apology as you finally come back to your senses, but he laughs it off and introduces himself. Atsumu. Yes, now you recognize him. Bokuto's teammate. You've seen tons of pictures of him on Bokuto's social media accounts. He's a little rough around the edges and you can feel your face heat up as he blatantly looks you up and down, eyes lingering a bit too long on the swell of your breasts, but you can feel your confidence growing, feeling truly desired for the first time in months. What's the harm in a little flirting? 

The two of you banter back and forth and maybe it's the heat of the sun mixed with the alcohol still running through your veins, but you don't notice the way Atsumu inches closer to you until your thighs are pressed tightly against each other or the way he rests one arm behind you, slyly pressing it against your upper back. And you definitely don't notice how he suddenly swoops in to crash his lips against yours and you move to shove him away from you only to be interrupted by a flurry of motions and you stare in shock at Atsumu sprawled out on the ground and your husband furiously glaring down at him, fists clenched so hard his knuckles are turning white. 

You react just in time to lunge at Kuroo and you tightly wrap your arms around his tense figure as he takes a step towards the blonde setter, holding him still as realization finally dawns on Atsumu when he spots your matching wedding bands and he scampers off with a rushed apology. But even when he’s long gone and nowhere in sight, you still clutch your husband, not letting go until you feel his muscles relax. You let him shake you off as he turns around to tower over you and you whimper at the fire burning in his eyes, hazel eyes almost glowing as they pin you down. You’re thankful for the loud music and lively atmosphere, ensuring no one’s paying any attention to the two of you as he tightly grips your chin and forces you to maintain eye contact. 

“Someone’s been a naughty kitten. I leave you alone for a few hours and you let some other man just place their dirty paws all over you? Let them taste your pretty little mouth? If I hadn’t stopped him, would you have let him fuck your tight cunt too? Mark you up inside and out?” 

You hate the way you grow wet at his words, trembling when Kuroo notices your growing arousal and narrows his eyes in disdain. But it’s the brief flicker of hurt in his eyes that finally has you digging your hands into his waist as denial and reassurances come pouring out of your mouth. 

“Tetsurou, I had no idea he was going to kiss me. It happened so fast. I’m so sorry. Of course I would have stopped him if you hadn’t stepped in! I love you. I only want you.” 

You stare intently into his eyes, trying to portray all your love for him through your gaze and you sigh in relief when his eyes soften at your words, but your breath catches in your throat when his eyes sharpen into a familiar gleam and a dark smirk curves onto his lips. He finally releases your chin and leans down until his hair brushes against the side of your face as he purrs into your ear. 

“Prove it to me.” 

Kuroo has a reputation to uphold and, not wanting to risk anyone seeing what’s about to happen, he grabs your hand and guides you through the dancing crowd, laughing and greeting a few tipsy faces he recognizes in passing, but not once does he stop leading you towards the exit and you’re quivering in anticipation by the time the two of you reach the parking lot and he roughly shoves you into the back of his car. The door has barely closed before he pulls your bottoms down, not even bothering to fully remove them as he also hastily shoves his boxers down just enough for his cock to swing out. And you almost moan at just the sight of what you’ve been lusting for all these months, a small part of you taking pride in the fact that he’s not as unaffected as he makes himself seem behind his angry facade as you unconsciously lick your lips at the sight of his already fully hard length. 

You attempt to sit up and move towards him, desperate for a taste of the pre-cum leaking out of his tip, but you yelp when you’re shoved back down by a hand on your chest and you whine, only for that to quickly turn into a wail as Kuroo slams two of his fingers inside of your throbbing cunt. He growls as he rapidly pistons his digits in and out of you and you should be embarrassed by the way your cries of ecstasy and the sound of your squelching wet pussy fill the car, but you can’t bring yourself to feel any shame as you lose yourself to the delirious pleasure of your husband’s long fingers filling you, stretching you, always sure to rub against that spongy spot inside of you that makes you see stars. But when your hand instinctively reaches down to rub your clit, you’re startled back to reality when it’s slapped away and his fingers are yanked out of you. 

He sneers down at you, a wicked smile twisting his face as he shoves his drenched fingers into your mouth and you obediently suck, making sure to clean every remaining drop of yourself that coats his skin. Satisfied, he finally removes his hand from your mouth and he quirks an eyebrow in amusement as you beg and plead for him to fuck you.

“Tetsurou, please. I need your cock inside of me. Please, I want it so badly. Please fuck me. Please please please. I miss it so much.” 

He mockingly coos down at you as desperate tears well in the corner of your eyes. “Aww is my little kitten crying for my cock? You’re such a fucking whore. You want my big fat cock inside of you so badly that you’d cry and beg for it like a desperate slut? You sure it’s my cock that you miss? I think you’d be happy with any cock fucking you. You’d let anyone stuff you full and moan like a whore, wouldn’t you?” 

And the tears finally fall as you sob and shake your head rapidly. “Only you, Tetsurou. Always only you. Please please please.” You’re still crying and incoherently babbling as he slams his entire shaft inside of you in one swift motion and Kuroo darkly smiles at the way your crying instantly turns to wanton moans at the sudden intrusion. But it’s been far too long since either of you have done this and both of you are so worked up that he knows he doesn’t have much time before you both reach your ends. And sure enough after just a few strokes he can feel your body begin to tighten and he grits his teeth at the sight of your eyes rolling into the back of your head, your head shaking back and forth, and your mouth wide open. But even as dazed as you are, when you feel the way your husband’s thrusts become uneven, you try to voice as much reason as you possibly can, fully aware of your husband’s tendency to paint your body with his fluids. 

“Tetsu-Tetsurou AH- Feels so good. Hngh D-don’t cum on me. Don’t have anything to- AHHH clean it up with and- OH we need to go back to the party.”

Kuroo grunts in displeasure at your words, but he knows you’re right and as much as he loves to see you covered in thick spurts of white, the thought of anyone else seeing that incites rage in him. You get ready for him to pull out and cum down your throat like you always do when you mess around in similarly inconvenient places, ready to swallow down any evidence of your sinful deeds, but you scream when his thrusts get even harder and faster. 

"Guess I'll just have to cum inside you."

And those words are the final shove you need to fall over the peak and Kuroo follows shortly after you as your pussy walls clench and milk his cock. He stays buried inside of you for a few more moments, wanting your tight walls to soak up as much of him as possible, but when he slides out of you, he quickly pulls your bottoms up, not letting a single drop escape, and you whimper as he purposefully tugs them up just a tad too tightly, teasingly wedging the fabric between your folds before finally having some mercy and letting you rearrange them. He opens the car door and steps out first, offering a hand down towards you and you grab it, gingerly standing up only to be pulled swiftly towards him and you stumble into his chest. But before you can fully find your balance, a large hand tugs your hair until you’re forced to stare up into cat-like eyes. 

“I want you to keep my cum inside of you for the rest of the party. I’m not anywhere near done with your punishment. I’ll be checking at home tonight to see if your pretty little pussy is still painted white.”       

The rest of the party is torturous. Kuroo doesn't let you step even a foot away from him as he continues mingling with the crowd and in any other scenario you'd love the attention he showers you with as he affectionately introduces you to countless faces, but not today. Not with your pussy desperately clenching in order not to spill a single drop of the white liquid coating your insides. Not with your touch starved body only yearning for more after getting a taste of what you've wanted all these months. And Kuroo only makes things worse with his subtle teasing. 

You know better than to think any of his touches are accidental or innocent and your body is so in tune with his that it reacts to every single bit of contact he dishes out. His arm grazes over your nipples as he reaches over to grab a drink. He leads you with a hand that just happens to slip from your lower back and land squarely on your ass. He wipes your mouth for you, claiming you have a piece of food on the corner of your mouth, but that doesn't really explain why his fingers briefly slip past your lips. But all hell breaks loose when he reapplies your sunscreen for you and his hands blatantly slip under your bikini set, teasingly close to where you want him most, but always just missing your clit and nipples and when he reaches your neck, a moan escapes you at the feeling of his hand subtly wrapping and tightening around your throat. 

"Tetsurou, stop teasing me! Can we go home? Please take me home. I need you inside of me again. I want you to ruin me." 

Kuroo's the one who's turned you into a needy slutty mess, but it's his turn to feel flushed at the sight of you lewdly begging him to do whatever he wants to you in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of people and finally losing his self-control, he brusquely grabs your hand and once again the two of you are leaving, but this time for good. The car ride is silent, the atmosphere thick and tense between the two of you as you clench your thighs together and Kuroo tries to ignore the growing bulge in his shorts. It's silent as both of you enter your apartment and Kuroo seats himself on your couch. But you break once you close and lock the front door and Kuroo impassively stares at you as you drop to your knees in front of him and beg him to fuck you again. You know you're barely making any sense, fueled only by your cock hungry thoughts, but you pause when Kuroo raises a hand to silence you. 

"Let's see if you were able to follow the one rule I gave you today, kitten." 

Eagerly you nod your head and you raise yourself on your knees, spreading your thighs apart before pulling your bikini bottom to the side and you think you could cum right there and then just from the way Kuroo unabashedly stares at the white trail dripping down your inner thigh as he pushes down his shorts enough to languidly stroke his cock. 

"Good girl. Did you like being my little cum bucket today? Did you like being filled by me? Bet if it were possible, you'd always want your little cunny to be drenched in my cum, right? Come sit on master's lap." 

Kuroo chuckles at the way you clumsily stumble in your haste to reach him as you blather affirmation after affirmation in response to his questions and he lowers his head to affectionately kiss you, lightly nipping your lower lip before he pulls back. He moves one hand to his cock to angle it as his other hand grabs your waist and urges you to move, but you hardly need any encouragement and you both groan as you sink down on his length until you're completely bottomed out and sitting in his lap once again. Immediately you try to bounce, but you whine when strong hands hold you still and you can feel tears of frustration forming as you pout at your husband's smirk. But any annoyance is forgotten when his hands fondle and pinch your nipples through the fabric of your top. 

"Look at you. I've barely done anything and you're already so worked up. Stop moving! Just sit there and take what I give you." You yelp when he roughly pinches your nipples and you cease your attempts to ride him, but you can't help the way your hips roll and grind as he continues. 

"Your nipples are already so hard, kitten. Look how obvious they are even beneath your swimsuit. Were they like this all day? Is that why Atsumu couldn't take his eyes off you? You think every player there saw how slutty your nipples are? Realized what a horny desperate whore you are? I bet they all wanted to get a taste." 

You wail when Kuroo shoves the fabric aside and latches a mouth onto one of your sensitive nubs, while experly flicking and rolling the other between his fingers. He alternates between the two sides and your frazzled mind can barely keep up with his actions as he switches up the motions of his fingers and mouth. He pulls off briefly and sharply tugs at your nipples. "Think you can cum just from your nipples?" You try to deny it, pleading for him to at least rub your clit, but your protests are ignored and you gasp when he dives back down and harshly sucks at one of your puffy nubs. Kuroo knows your body even better than you do and he continues to stimulate your nipples even when you topple over into an orgasm that takes you by surprise and you tightly clench around his cock as your back arches and only when you weakly paw at him to stop does he release your nipple with a lewd pop. 

You playfully smack him when he teases you about what a slut you must be to be able to get off from just your nipples and you hide your face in his neck as he shamelessly thinks out loud about all the nipple clamps, suctions, and vibrators he can use on you to train you even more. But you raise your head in alarm when you feel yourself being repositioned, Kuroo's erect cock still inside of you as he lays you on your back and hovers over you. 

"Tetsurou, st-stop NGH TOO SOON!"

"What did you say, kitten? Sorry, it's hard to understand you when you're moaning like a whore. Weren't you begging for this all day? Shouldn't you be thanking me?"

Kuroo thrusts sharply into you with every word and you can't think of anything other than how well he fills you, how perfectly he fits inside the cunt he's molded and shaped for himself after years of using it, how amazing the drag of his cock against your insides is. You babble thank you, thank you, thank you mindlessly over and over again, incapable of doing anything else as your breasts bounce and your body writhes underneath him. And when his hips finally stutter and he furiously rubs your clit as he adds to the mess inside of you, you break apart once again, your mind going blank as you feel the warmth of his cum sloshing inside of you.

But exhaustion slams into you as you come down from your climax, exhaustion from your third orgasm, exhaustion from being teased all day and all the barriers you’d put up finally come crashing down and Kuroo stares in horror as you sob, nothing like the pleasure filled sobs he usually wrings out of you. No, these are heartbreaking anguished cries for help and he immediately answers the call by tightly clutching you to his chest, your lower bodies still connected as he murmurs words of praise and love into your ear. 

“Hey, what’s wrong, sweetheart? I love you. You know that, right? I love you more than anything or anyone else in this entire world. I’m so lucky to be your husband. You’re so good to me, so loving, so supportive, so loyal, so beautiful.” 

The last word catches your attention and with a sniffle you hesitantly remove your head from his torso and look at him through watery lashes. 

“You think I’m beautiful?” 

Kuroo flounders for a second, disbelief choking the words in his throat, unable to understand how you could think otherwise. But when he sees the insecurity and doubt flooding your eyes he gently cradles your face in his calloused hands. 

“Of course I do. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, inside and out.” 

Your heart flutters at the sincerity you see in his eyes and that’s all it takes for you to break down in his arms, wrapping your arms around his neck as you tuck your head under his chin, and he silently listens as you reveal all the internal suffering you’d put yourself through over the past months as you let your anxiety and worry mix with your doubts and insecurities, letting them fester and ferment into a self-destructive time bomb. A slow-moving process he’d been too daft to notice, that you’d been too scared to talk to him about for his sake, not wanting to be a bother or another item he needed to check off his to-do list. And while you continue shyly speaking, tears stream down Kuroo’s face and his heart clenches at the thought of how long you’d quietly suffered, putting on a happy facade for him, taking care of his every want and need during the few hours of the week he was home and awake. 

Surprised to feel liquid drops plop down on your face, you quirk your head upwards and panic when you see your husband’s teary eyes and the two of you become a blubbering mess as you both try to wipe each other’s tears and soothe each other. It’s so silly to see two adults trying to out comfort each other that you accidentally snort at the strange image the two of you must make and there’s a slight pause, but then your laughter is joined by Kuroo’s trademark cackle and before you know it, the two of you are wrapped in each other’s arms, feeling the rumble of each other’s laughter through your connected bodies. 

Yes, there’ll be serious conversations later about being more open and transparent with each other when something’s troubling either one of you and discussions on how you can both work on your communication. You’ll jokingly complain that Kuroo is hovering over you too much for weeks after this breakdown as he practically scrutinizes you with those perceptive eyes of his, always making sure you’re really fine. And he’ll never give you any more opportunities to doubt how much he loves every part of you when you’re screaming his name on every surface of your home. But for now, feeling infinitely lighter with all your burdens finally shoved off your shoulders with the help of your husband, you’re content to close your eyes and relish in the warmth of the lean body pressed against you.     

[being-of-rain]

Legal notes from my court-appointed Classic Who watchthrough. This time season 23, The Trial of a Time Lord.

The Trial of a Time Lord reminds me of Flux in New Who in a lot of ways. Both are shorter seasons that have a unique and more prominent story structure. And idk if it’s the neurodivergent in me or the writer in me (or both), but I really love an interesting and strong story structure that shows itself off, so I really love Trial and Flux in theory. I like some of them in practice too! But oh boy do both stories have their weaknesses, especially in their endings, that could’ve been fixed with some planning and editing and good writing. Though to be fair, both had reasons that accounted for some of their messiness- Trial’s final story saw the death of its author partway through and his first replacement quitting, and Flux was made during the COVID pandemic. So yeah, I have a soft spot for Trial of a Time Lord. Putting the Doctor on trial so they watch videos of his adventures to debate is perhaps a little on the nose on the meta level... but I’m fine with on the nose themes, and it’s a great premise just on its own, so whatever. I’ve heard people say they get sick of the trial scenes and I can’t say I’ve ever agreed. It’s a fun gimmick and there’s not that much of it compared to the rest of the story, it’s just a shame that eventually they stop having anything particularly interesting to say in them. But honestly I’d always be happy to watch some Doctor Who that randomly pauses sometimes to have Six give commentary on how good he’s doing or how much the Time Lords suck.

The Mysterious Planet isn’t the most gripping story ever and goes a bit slow, but honestly it’s a solid start to the series. The introduction to the trial is a great build-up, and the shot of the space station at the start is obviously wonderful. Six and Peri’s relationship being a little softer is nice (though, like most of their soft moments last season, it kinda looks like that character development was down to Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant working hard to deliver the script in a way that makes the characters watchable. I’ll never understand why the writers thought the Tardis team fighting and bullying each other all the time would make for a fun show). Glitz and Dibber are very funny, so are a lot of the Doctor’s interactions with most characters. Setting up the mystery of the sleepers and why the Time Lords want to censor what they found is the sort of story arc Classic Who had never really tried before, and I love it. And its eventual answer of people stealing secrets from Gallifrey itself is a cool payoff. But it does raise the first of many, many questions/holes in the trial plot: why on Earth did the Valeyard choose this story to show as evidence? Out of the history of Doctor Who, he chooses the only one the High Council wanted him to keep secret? Also, I don’t like season 23′s theme music. Maybe it fits the court intrigue better than the action-packed early-80s theme, but damnit I just love that action theme. SO catchy.

Mindwarp is.. a mess! I mean it’s meant to be a mess, but apparently nobody working on it knew exactly what was supposed to be happening in it. And that’s not how you make a deliberate mess! Because it shows, and it means I don’t know what was supposed to be happening either! Specifically, the bits where the Doctor goes evil. Was he acting evil to earn the trust of the bad guys, was he actually evil because of something their machine accidentally did to him, or did the Valeyard edit the footage to make him look evil? Or a combination of those? According to Tardis wiki Colin Baker asked the script editor, the writer, and the producer for the answer, but they all said they didn’t know. How is that even possible. The way the Doctor at the trial says he’s starting to half-remember what had happened makes things even more confusing. So... yeah. The story reminds me a lot of Vengeance of Varos. Obviously it’s by the same author and features the same villain, Sil, who still just doesn’t do it for me. Again story feels like it’s being very meta (even more than the rest of the Trial season) and I’m sure you could make some clever observations about it and the way season 22 plays Six as very unlikable, but again it just doesn’t interest me a lot. It’s a bleak serial without a lot to enjoy watching. Brian Blessed is one of the most fun things in it, but I’d rather he was in another story. Peri’s departure is... well, I guess it’s the right story for an exit as brutal as that. I think I prefer making a happy ending out of it, but being left to marry a random warlord is still pretty rough. Still, if there’s one thing that I love in this story, it’s the Doctor’s reaction to her death. Colin Baker’s acting in that part (and at the start of the next story too) kills me every time, and the moment of silence before his delivery of “you... killed Peri?” is heartwrenching in a way that I love.

First of all, I love any story that follows the structure of A Christmas Carol with past, present, and future, so kudos to the three stories used in the trial as evidence for that. And it’s a very fun way to introduce a new companion. But if the trial was starting to confuse itself a little in Mindwarp, it completely loses its focus in Terror of the Vervoids. Calling the Doctor’s argument in his defence ‘flimsy’ feels like it’s giving him too much credit. He chooses it so he can point at one adventure and say “in this case I was explicitly asked to interfere,” something that has already been made clear isn’t always the case, and something that I’m not sure would even matter in Time Lord law! And why this adventure specifically? Obviously he didn’t see it coming that it would get him saddled with a charge of genocide too. In the next story it looks like the Doctor would’ve genuinely been executed if the Master didn’t intervene, and honestly... it makes the Doctor look like an idiot more than any other time in the show. It’s bad writing lol. Another thing that seemed silly- its made clearer in this one where the Valeyard had tampered with the evidence, but his two edits are wildly different. One of them is writing the Doctor out of a certain scene so it looks like he let Mel investigate something alone- not particularly damning and not very unbelievable either, with the Doctor thoroughly edited out of a certain sequence of events. The second edit is a quick scene where the Doctor sighs in satisfaction while holding an axe and looking at the wreckage of the radio room, which is so absurdly out of nowhere and nonsensical that it makes me laugh every time. The way the Inquisitor is willing to believe it makes her look very gullible, especially when she was quite ready to consider the idea that the Matrix had been tampered with when it was the Valeyard suggesting it, but pooh-poohing the idea as impossible when the Doctor suggests it. Anyway, I can enjoy watching Terror of the Vervoids, and not just because of poking fun at it. Mel’s strong personality matching the Doctor’s makes a nice change after Peri (sorry Peri), and a love a murder mystery so setting up the characters then watching them sneak around and suspect each other is also fun. ...Though that said, I think the mystery gets a little too complicated. There’s a few different parties up to no good who are all facing double-crossing in their own ranks, making things very hard to keep track of, so the trial scenes on top of that is quite a lot of plot that isn’t executed very clearly. Maybe I was just happy for an all-round brighter story after Mindwarp. I think the most interesting character was Travers, the guy who’d met the Doctor before and had both a healthy respect for his ability to root out the truth, and a healthy wariness of the chaos that he causes. Oh, and the scene where the Doctor pauses and rewinds the Matrix to explain how he made a deduction was kinda fun, like a peak into the thought process of the Doctor that might turn up in Moffat’s Doctor Who, if a little rough and smarmy. It’s a peak at the kind of entertaining things that could be done with the trial format. It’s this kind of thing that makes me wish they reused the trial format for another season in modern Who, with better writers who’d actually work together to make a coherent story.

The Ultimate Foe is a lot! Just so much. From the moment the Master turns up, the trial premise that’s been building (and then decaying) for twelve episodes collapses into an absolute shambles. I don’t know why so much of these episodes are set in the Valeyard’s Victorian England-themed Matrix hideaway, or why the Valeyard spends it pretending to be a completely random character he made up. Maybe the funniest moment in the story is when, in the middle of everything, the Keeper of the Matrix runs into the court and announces, with no build up, that the High Council has been deposed by insurrectionists. Are these insurrectionists allies of the Valeyard, the Master, or just random people who have somehow been following the trial and realising just how shit the High Council is? I don’t know, because it isn’t mentioned again until the Inquisitor mentions that she guesses that they’re going to have to elect a new Council. One day I’m going to make a post going through the politics of Gallifrey in Classic Who, because oh boy is it a hell of a mess. Another moment that I always find very funny is the reveal that the Valeyard is the Doctor, which is written and delivered like it’s supposed to be a super casual line from the Master, but the most talented actor in the world couldn’t deliver that line and make it sound casual. Actually, that’s something I could say about a heck of a lot of lines in this story, especially for poor old Mel. Bonnie Langford you tried so hard with the script they gave you, and I respect you for it. Oh also, shout out to the Keeper of the Matrix for looking the Doctor in the face and telling him that no one could possibly get into the Matrix. As if The Deadly Assassin and basically every other Gallifrey story didn’t happen. As if the Master and Goth didn’t have a DIY bootleg Matrix link in their sewer lair. I feel like so much of some Gallifrey stories are Time Lords saying very dramatic things that are demonstrably false, but I guess that’s an empire for you.

I’ve really spent most of this post dunking on The Trial of a Time Lord, but I’ll say again that I always enjoy revisiting it. It’s partly because of the little great moments sprinkled throughout, partly because of nostalgia, and largely because of the fantastic premise that they had to work hard to make such a mess of. It becomes more and more of a disaster as it goes on, and by the time the Valeyard turns to the camera in the Keeper’s clothes and laughs I’ve completely given up caring about questions like “how does that make any sense at all,” but I enjoy the ride every time. They even managed to write Six in a way that isn’t aggressively unlikable and rude all the time! Good for them. As always, it’s a shame that Colin Baker was treated so poorly by the show in so many ways, but I’m grateful he got a chance to play the role with such better scripts in Big Finish (and specifically I’m grateful for Jac Rayner and The Marian Conspiracy for writing the blueprint for Six and Evelyn. I’ll never not stan that audio.)

[hoenn-hakase]

Yes, exactly that! Do whatever!!

You're not being ignored, but what can anyone say?

I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I sometimes go on the downward spiral when finishing a chapter going "What will people think??? This is so dumb! It's so bad! It's too weird! God why do I make everything so complicated!? People are going to look at the wall of text and just leave!!! How many of those views are people who only looked at the first page and noped out?!" So on and so forth. And I've really been feeling that "what's the point?" bad brain vibes a lot lately. But at the same time, again I can only speak for myself, often the only way I have the courage to actually post an update is to remind myself no one is reading this anyway.

So dance like no one is watching~! Finish the story because your characters NEED someone to tell it and that someone is you! Do it bad! Do it full of spelling errors! Do it in whatever format you like! Because any progress is still progress.

And.

I can not emphasize this enough.

There is no wrong way to write.

THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO WRITE.

THERE. IS. NO. WRONG. WAY. TO WRITE.

Even if you're planning to publish something, people are always getting creative with how a story works. The only thing that matters is the bare basics for to read, such as "some" <signifier> (that someone) =is talking= *is separate* from the action.

Other than that, go nuts. There are books written like love letters, like a Discord chat, with changing narrators every chapter, purposefully misspelled and exaggerated like it's straight from a middle schooler's diary. Books where the words are choppy, books that read like a medical journal, books that play with the format by being written in a spiral or crawling up the margins and sometimes only have ten words in the middle of the page and call it a chapter.

That's not to say you can't write well. If you want a normal story looking ready to be graded, neat and proper and every T crossed, that's wonderful too. But even when writing like that, obsessing over the errors or driving yourself nuts looking for problems that aren't there, that's not good. And the perfectionism in most artists is enough to drive everyone crazy: the creators getting angry it's not flowing like it should, the readers wondering what's taking so long as they scream it doesn't have to be perfect just tell them what happens, and the friends listening in on this who have run out of advice when no amount of pep talk can counter the Bad Vibes.

Do or do not.

I know that's a Star Wars reference but truer words were never spoken. You can weigh all the factors that go into a decision, but in the end, only you can decide. Do you continue? Or do you stop? Do you want to keep writing even if no one is reading? Do you have ten thousand people you're going to disappoint if you decide this isn't fun anymore and shelve the project? Do you have a different story you're itching to get to but tell yourself you need to finish the current one first? Then do that instead because you might as well get the ideas down while it's hot instead of reaching it later and grasping to remember how that initial scene went. (I should take my own advice on that one). But it's your decision in the end. It NEEDS to be your decision in the end. You're the writer, the god of this universe, and only you know how it works. If there's anything "wrong" often times the only one who knows you messed up is you. So either you write or you don't.

Sometimes a break is in order, but I personally have a hard time doing that because my characters never leave me alone, and then when they do I feel empty. But that doesn't mean you have to post the stray musings if it's just your own toying. Think of it like an artist doing practice sketches where it's messy and have multiple things going on in the same page. And if you do post, remember: THE EDIT BUTTON IS YOUR FRIEND. I have gone back and fixed chapters years after the initial posting. No one is likely to notice, but progress was made and I will feel better knowing it's going to be better if and when the next stranger passes through.

I say this as someone with multiple novels going on and having only received two legit (not bot or advertising) comments on my stories in the last five years. And I see the viewer numbers and go crazy because I'm dying for someone to tell me what I'm doing wrong OR what I'm doing right because I'm scared I'll lose what potential readers I have. And that's when I need to step away for a bit because it's only getting me upset. Reader interaction may feel good, but it is NOT a gauge for how good you are. Remember, there are authors out there who may have the most beautiful piece of fiction but it's niche so only a hundred people have read it, and there are bad fanfics that are SO BAD they've become internet wide legendary.

I... think this may have turned into a rambling mess and I'm probably not helping. The point is, no one is going to tell you what's wrong when there's nothing wrong. But if you really feel like everything is wrong and you should just trash it all and there's no point to a work existing, then you need to decide if it's worth continuing for your own mental health. Writing is hard and often not fun but struggling doesn't mean you're bad at it. It means you care and want it to be good. So be good. Or be bad. Or leave it unfinished. Just don't be too hard on yourself, okay?

another day another time where i think i should give up writing