#i'm not talking about AUs either because those are in way different circumstances and all that

[moreespressoformydepresso]

Been sitting on this AU for a while and a discord conversation brought it back to my attention (thanks @felixravinstills) so here I am, typing it out on my one free day instead of writing like I should be doing.

The Capitol speaks in Panem's version of "standard" English, while the districts all have dialects that are so different from standard that they may as well be different languages entirely. Now, the districts can understand one another's dialect due to similarities and influences left over from the rebellion days, as well as due to inter-district trading and stories passed down through generations. However, the Capitol views these dialects and the accents they cause when a district citizen speaks standard English as a sign of being "lesser" so they stay as far away from it as possible, so they don't understand a word of it.

Come the 10th games where the mentors are forced to interact with the tributes, this seemingly random factoid about Panem turns into the thing that stops the games for good and brings Gaul's life to ruination. At first, the mentors are very snooty and classist about the tributes' accents, but when they start to care about their tributes it becomes an endearing thing to them. Slightly infantilizing but it's better than dehumanizing so the tributes that notice decide to take it. Now, I could go the depressing route and tell you the mentors try to learn their respective tribute's dialect post-games because it's the only thing they have of their tribute that isn't stained by the games. The stories they shared are nothing but memories, any item they have is sent back to their families. Anything they may have made for them was created with stuff from the zoo where the tributes were forced to stay and humiliated daily in the leadup to their brutal death. But their dialects? That's something the mentors can learn, and it's the only concrete thing they can have of the child that died on their watch that's from before they were forced into these horrifying circumstances. However, I'm gonna make this a fix-it instead :)

Now, this whole situation happens because none of the mentors die during the bombing, which means the Capitol is far less up in a tizzy about rebel activity. It doesn't mean much, but it leaves them just the tiniest bit more open to hearing positive things about the districts. While in the zoo, the tributes talk to each other in dialect because they can understand one another and it feels more like being at home that way. They won't let the Capitol force them into speaking standard when they don't have to and nobody cares if those Capitol pricks can't understand what they're saying. It's a positive, if anything. Some mentors are visiting and when one (probably Arachne because I'm ignoring the stabbing bit) gets prickly about them not speaking "proper" English with a comment about it being "a sign of lesser beings," Brandy responds by snippily asking her which one of them can understand the other either way. "If only one of us can speak both, who's the stupid one again?" Arachne is affronted (though her ego gets out of the way the next day and she realizes Brandy has a point, causing her to try to start over with her tribute by being a little nicer) but the other people present stop immediately to think about that. Especially those who know a lot about language. That whole dialect thing means the tributes know more vocabulary, more grammar than the Capitol citizens. And they have to seperate them too so they're not mixing languages! Clearly they're not that stupid then, so even if they are still lesser beings... Maybe it's worth being a little more nuanced?

Of course it never stays at just a little, in fact it starts spiralling quite uncontrollably. If the district kids are smart enough to essentially speak two languages... What else are they smart enough for? And with the extra scrutiny on the tributes their individual personalities and interests, and even more so their interpersonal dynamics and relationships, become utterly unavoidable. Coral's care for Mizzen despite how game-faced she is in every other facet of the games, Reaper's concern for Dill despite appearing to be the most dangerous amongst the tributes, Bobbin's anger that only seems to be gone entirely when it comes to Wovey, Treech and Lamina's complicated road of trying to figure out where they stand with each other when they clearly both know they'll have to leave one another eventually and the way it so obviously eats at them both, Marcus and Sejanus and whatever it is that's going on between the two of them. As all of this starts gaining traction in the Capitol, it becomes harder and harder for Gaul to keep up her narrative of "undressing humanity" and the districts deserving this. Especially when her biggest supporter, the president himself, ends up paying a visit to the zoo at Felix's insistence and sees first-hand the way these kids interact with one another as well as the visitors in the zoo. Their obvious disdain for their situation and those who came to oggle at them while they're literally being treated like animals, but also their small soft spots for the kids who don't know any better. The way they can't quite bring themselves to be mean to small children, even when those children see them as dumb animals put there for their entertainment.

President Maximinius Ravinstill is not a kind man. Nor is he a gentle, merciful one. He's cold and he's vicious. President Maximinius Ravinstill is a cruel man. But at the end of the day, he's just that. A man. One who has a son himself, though he's not been the best father he could have been. And while at first he'd thought he'd stay for five minutes to satisfy Felix and go back to his life again unaffected... Maximinius stays for hours, noticed only by those from the Capitol. Entirely unnoticed by the kids, though they watch him with curiosity at first due to the reactions of everyone outside the cage upon his initial arrival. Most of them don't even know who he is, and not a single one of them cares. That's how little they've been allowed to know of the outside world, and that's how little they care for the Capitol. All any of them are to these kids is the cause of their misery, and President Ravinstill may be a cold dictator, but Maximinius is a father who can only see his young son, hurt and bleeding and starving, in the faces of these young children. Especially in young Mizzen, whose face lacks the youthful chub it should have due to lack of nutrition the same way his son's had all those years ago. In Otto and Treech, who are of similar age and share just enough features with Felix to be discomforting, despite the district characteristics that had let Maximinius and everybody else in the Capitol write them off as "other" for a decade now. Long before that too, if he's honest with himself.

And President Ravinstill shouldn't care, but Maximinius can't help himself. For so long he's allowed differing physical appearances and a lack of education he himself reinforced to let him believe these kids were somehow lesser, but now that he's seen the parallels and the similarities he can't unsee them. And Maximinius is just a man, with the emotions of one and a heart that beats no matter how cold he's allowed it to become over the years. Part of him wants to go back to delusion, to ignorance and cruelty, but his heart won't let him. It aches and screams for him to do something because he knows he can. If anyone can it's him, and he'll never go back to the way he used to be before this realization. Since he already knows what Gaul will tell him, he talks to Dean Highbottom, the creator of the games, in hopes of solving this dilemma. It becomes the final straw that pushes him to accept the truth: he'll never truly live again if he allows this to continue, so he doesn't. He puts a stop to Gaul's machinations and ends the games right them and there.

Naturally, the situation in the districts also improves due to this shift in perspective, though it's a far slower and less sudden change. The tributes are finally given medical care, which saves Otto, Ginnee, Panlo and Sheaf from death. They all have to stay in hospital or under close supervision for about a month due to the drastic impact staying in a zoo enclosure, with no protection from nature while not being properly fed, has had on their health. When they're let out of hospital but deemed too unstable to travel they get to stay with their mentors. Of course, once they're finally deemed healthy enough to go home they're positively ecstatic but sad enough about leaving their mentors that they find ways to stay in contact and offer to show them around their home district at some point in the future, which the mentors of course happily agree to.

[illuminatedferret]

Hey your coffin prayers au ask got me thinking and, sorta side thoughts. The blessing lanterns, am I crazy for remembering there are three ways to make a blessing listed? Was it something like, be super wealthy, be a priest? And have true faith (but those people usually ascend themselves and thus rare or something)? Did I imagine that in the book?

If not, obviously Hua Cheng is super wealthy and has true faith in Xie Lian. So 2/3. But would he be a priest? Was I even remembering the second possibility right? Trying to figure out if Hua Cheng is an all rounder, 3/3 blessing lanterns devote. Just curious on your thoughts.

Ah, I remember what you're talking about! That's not to do with Blessings Lanterns, it's "grand believers", who are either the rich responsible for constructing temples, buying incense, and conducting services, missionaries who spread the religion, and believers with "absolute faith in both heart and body." The confusion makes sense, because as far as I'm aware these 'grand believers' are only mentioned in the lead-up to the Bridegroom mission (pg. 35, specifically) and never again.

What it means to be a grand believer is never really explained, but I imagine it's that these are 3 groups of believers the gods pay closer attention to because of their power, value, and/or rarity. But I never thought about how Hua Cheng fits those requirements! The only place he's technically lacking is in missionary work, but I bet that if the circumstances were different and it was considered less inappropriate to proselytize for a banished god (who you, the Scourge of the Heavens, are in love with, and who doesn't know you exist) he would have talked Xie Lian up all over the place. All hail the scrap god!

For Blessings Lanterns, they're special basically just because they're super expensive. Well, that's not just it, but it basically boils down to two things: one, Blessings Lanterns are "hard to buy even with a thousand gold" (Vol. 3, pg. 269) and two, apparently Blessings Lanterns are difficult to extinguish, which is why their full name is Blessings Lanterns of Everlasting Light. This doesn't seem significant, but it's likely why the lanterns are able to reach the heavens- a special build and a long-lasting flame, enabling the lantern to reach a high altitude.

Anyway, I'm taking this mostly as an opportunity to ramble about cool facts, but we don't actually know how Blessings Lanterns are constructed, is what I'm saying. We do know they're special, as Shi Qingxuan emphasizes when people question whether or not Xie Lian's lanterns are the real deal. But what goes in to making the lanterns so they can achieve these things is unclear.

[maverick-prime]

fanfiction is worth way more than you might think it is. here's why.

something i don't think anybody ever talks or thinks about is how fanfic helps writers develop incredibly useful skills and tools in the same way that prompts, worksheets, and studying literature does. (i actually think it's much more accessible than many of those types of supposedly helpful methods to build good writing skills. fanfiction makes the possibilities limitless while building upon media that people love and really connect with. you can find whatever you want if you use the right tags in AO3.) to illustrate exactly what i mean, i present these points:

*NOTE: if you're not familiar with fanfic terms, i'll define them as i go! i'm also an AO3 user, so i'll be using that as a basis for a lot of my thoughts.

it’s a really helpful way to get a grasp of how to keep characters consistent in a piece, since you have to work with characters that already have established personalities, backstories, habits, and character traits that carry over from their source material. this can get a bit tricky when writing AUs (alternate universes) or canon divergences (hopefully self-explanatory) in particular, but if you acknowledge that characters are OOC (out of character), this can solve that issue pretty quickly and as long as you make everything make sense within context, you're golden. not only that, but you can fix any flaws that you perceive in a character by adding in your own headcanons (personal ideas/beliefs about a character) or by creating realistic traits in that character that don't exist in canon but make sense for the character. this also works for expanding upon canon traits that are never explored to their full potential in canon.

a great example of this would be tony stark in the MCU. a lot of fanfic interpretations of his character put a stronger focus on his anxiety and PTSD, since the movies hint at those traits existing, but don't do them a lot of justice. another good example that's a bit more broadly applicable is LGBT+ or neurodivergent headcanons. if you really identify or kin with a character and feel that they have a certain orientation, gender identity, or mental disorder/condition, you can make it happen! this often has the great side effect of opening up a lot of possibilities for writing those traits into that character and how they affect the world and other characters around them differently than in canon.

you can think of an almost infinite amount of different scenarios to put characters and story events in. i mentioned AUs and canon divergences above, but there are also fanfic tropes like everybody lives/nobody dies, kidfic, time loop/time travel, role swap, missing scene, and even omegaverse (i'm not explaining that one to you, you're on your own pal) that offer different possibilities for putting characters and story events in all sorts of circumstances and contexts that differ from canon. (continuity soups are one of my very favorite examples of this technique. in a continuity soup, an author working with a franchise that has multiple different continuities can cherry-pick aspects of each continuity they like and smash them all together into a single world. this technique works especially well with transformers, which has, at this point, almost a dozen different continuities that are in fact all canon at the exact same time.) a writer doing this learns how to translate certain necessary story events into a completely different world, or can come up with a whole new world, storyline, or context on their own to play with plot, conflict, characters, and story events.

there are a near-limitless number of AUs out there, and every AU that is widely used comes with its own set of tropes. tropes are another useful tool for writers, because they can either be cliche or they can actually be very helpful for building a compelling plot or for introducing characters in a certain way. there are even fanfic genre tropes that exist, like hurt/comfort, fluff, whump/angst, slow burn, enemies to lovers, dead dove do not eat, crackfic... the list goes on!

writers who have difficulty writing things like romance, intimacy, emotional turmoil, injuries, sci-fi, or magic can easily learn a lot from how different fic writers write those topics (and many others). there are tons of fics that focus a lot on one specific genre and whose authors have developed a really great understanding of how to write those genres. not only can you learn a lot in terms of how to write genre, but you can also learn to develop your own writing style. this is one of the reasons why i think fanfiction is a lot more accessible than traditional books and classics. sure, you could read danielle steel novels or fifty shades of grey (which is itself fanfiction!!) or 1984 by orson welles, but unless you're really invested in the worlds being created, you'll find it harder to appreciate the prose. and, a lot of fic writers are not professional writers, so they don't even care about prose! (this is a broad generalization, and i mean "prose" in a more academic sense because i am literally studying rhetoric and prose for my bachelor's degree. not a lot of fic authors are breaking down writing styles for dialogue, diction, or sentence structure. they just write what they love writing and often develop their own styles out of that, which is also just as valid.)

i myself have definitely not been reading as many books in recent years as i've read fanfics. i go through fanfics like wildfire through a dry field. finding fic authors i love reading has really helped me improve my writing style! not only that, but i feel confident to try writing real romances with kissing scenes, to use actual scientific language to describe in-text phenomena, to describe magical objects and worlds with more clarity, and even to try my hand at writing smut. i've learned to break out of my comfort zone thanks to fanfiction, and it's helped me become a much better writer.

developing a writing style through reading other authors' work is much like developing an art style. any artist knows that you're encouraged to create your own style by mashing together traits from other artists' styles you really love and making them into something that's wholly your own. writing works the exact same way. one of my professors last semester had us do an "apprenticeship" with a short story collection written by a certain author to open us up to styles we like and don't like. she said that's how you create your own style, by figuring out what you like and what you don't like. i've been doing this with fic authors for years, and let me tell you, there are some real literary geniuses out there.

fanfiction helps writers learn to accept criticism as well as suggestions for what to write next. one of the hardest parts of being a writer is having someone read your work and tell you there's something wrong with it. your peers do it, your professors do it, editors do it, publishers do it. i've had the great privilege of participating in multiple writing workshops as part of my university education, but it can be really, really hard to find or create writing workshops outside of an academic setting. sites like AO3 cut out the middleman and bring authors right to their audiences. anyone can leave kudos on a fic if they liked it, and anyone can comment on a fic and chat directly with an author. i know for a fact that most authors regularly check and read the comments sections on their fics for feedback, criticism, and requests for what to write next. you can't necessarily do that with big-time authors like stephen king; you’d have to send a letter that may never be read.

the closest thing this system of interaction comes to is voice actors hopping on twitch streams and taking requests from viewers to say all kinds of things in-character. (this actually has the added benefit of inspiring new and interesting fic ideas.) the community on AO3 is genuinely one of the most accepting and welcoming internet spaces i've ever existed in, with possibly the exception of tumblr. fic authors really value feedback, and they love when people leave comments. sometimes they write fic just for themselves, but sometimes they do it for their audiences too! there's a really deep appreciation for source material and fanon (fan canon) alike in the world of fanfiction, and a lot of that is fostered in the author-audience connection. this is invaluable as a beginning writer, because it can help establish criticism as a valuable tool and not something to fear.

it can be scary when you put so much love into something and people don't like it. but fic readers are some of the most encouraging, wonderful people ever. you can trust them to offer valuable feedback and actually constructive criticism.

in short, fanfiction is a bit like placing a kid into a sandbox that only has a select few toys in it and letting them play however they want. so much creativity can come out of working within certain restraints, and it can really help you develop a lot of skill you might not develop otherwise. more aspiring writers should write—or at least read—fanfiction so they can reap some of these benefits. i wish it were more widely discussed in universities, at the very least, because there is so much to learn from fanfiction.

and if you really think fanfiction is only for gross internet weirdos, i remind you of fifty shades of grey being fanfic of twilight, or that city of bones, the first mortal instruments book, was originally a ginny/draco fanfic. i don't even need to mention the sheer number of more recently published romcom books that are based off of reylo from the star wars sequels. plus, if you really think about it, most modern shakespeare adaptations and homages (10 things i hate about you, leo dicaprio's romeo and juliet, the lion king) are fanfiction! there's no shame in making media of what you love. there's no shame in loving anything in the first place. do what makes you happy, and chances are you'll learn something along the way.

[starryybugs]

i just wanna know more about the worldbuilding in demonoier au, literally whatever occult lore you wanna share. are there different kinds of demons, or angels for that matter? hierarchies? different planes? how do they feel about human beliefs about them, any superstitions they find funny or annoying? (you absolutely don’t have to answer all of these, also i hope you feel better soon!!)

moth I owe you my life for this strap the fuck in. ^_^

okay so! demons and angels used to be like one species, and they split like thousands of years ago. heaven and hell used to be more of what people think of as an afterlife, but now they're really just where demons and angels are born.

because of angels and demons stemming from the same source, it's easy for one to become the other under the right circumstances. like roier just leaving and being happier not being an angel was what turned him from a more feathery fallen angel and into how he is now.

demons and angels integrated into mortal society around 500 years ago by the time the au takes place, so everyone's pretty used to them hanging around. and there's a lot of people with angels or demons in their family trees

heaven and hell aren't accessible unless you've got a portal or a spell to get there. they used to be, like thousands of years ago, but it's not a good look for mortals to somehow fucking stumble into them so they're hidden.

okay so onto types of angels and demons!

so for demons what you are is more of just how you came to be, there's not a lot of demons who are the way they are for a job so to speak.

like roier is officially classified as a fallen angel, he used to be an angel and now he's not. or dapper and ramon who are twin demons, demons who used to be one singular being before they were born. there are demons of lust but nobody in the story is one of those, cellbit just thinks melissa is but she's not.

bad is one of the few demons who is a demon because of what he does, he's a reaper. technically anybody can become a reaper but they're usually demons or angels.

phil is like his angel counterpart, an angel of death. he does the same job as bad, the only difference being he's an angel.

etoiles is another type of angel, a guardian angel. he's a protector of the people around him, they used to be sent down specifically for certain people but now they usually protect an area or their families.

antoine is an Angel with a capital A. his true form is always hidden because it would probably drive any mortal who saw it to insanity. he's honestly just hanging out and there's not a lot of angels like him.

there's also risen demons, aka demons who became angels. that's what kameto is even though I've literally never spoken about him before

there's not really hierarchies in demons and angels anymore, there haven't been since heaven and hell became more like earth.

I'm also gonna talk a bit about summoning, since it's a huge part of the story.

summoning is basically speed dial for demons and angels, and depending on how you do it it's either like facetime or there's now a man in your house. (looking at you cellbit)

roier thought he closed his summoning line ages ago, back when bobby was born, so he was pretty fucking surprised when he showed up in cellbit's attic. he did eventually shut that one down and make a new one, and another one that won't pull him out of his house randomly.

roier's favorite superstition is the idea that he can steal souls. he absolutely can't, but he loves scaring the shit out of people who think he can. getting someone's soul is basically fucking marriage, and there's really only one soul he even wants.

[fire-fira]

20 Questions for Writers

I was tagged by @linzerj for this, so without further ado:

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

On Ao3 I currently have 70 (though that number is going to increase soon), and on ffn (all my oldest stuff) I have 34. (Dear lord I need to eventually move my older stuff to Ao3. Maybe under a secondary pseud at some point... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

201,448

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Looooots of DC stuff, some TMNT, and with my older stuff I also wrote for Sonic, DBZ, Legend of Zelda, FMA, Gargoyles, Peter Pan, and Megaman. (I also have some early-stages fic and plans for Planet of the Apes fics, but I haven't posted any of that yet.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Head Trauma - One of my earliest Bluepulse OT3 fics. YJA-based; Jaime gets knocked out on a mission and the team gets their first exposure to Khaji Da directly.

Loving an Alien Shouldn't be this Complex - Another Bluepulse OT3. YJA-based; Bart's part in what's intended to be a trilogy of fics about the same circumstances/events. Crushing on Jaime is one thing, but realizing he's crushing on Khaji Da is a whole different ballpark.

If You Think My Truth Is A Lie, You Can Get Bent - Bluepulse OT3 yet again, though background in this case rather than front and center. Mostly YJA-based; Bart is trans, in college, and entirely fed up with an obnoxious classmate who was perfectly fine with him and the fact that he's a guy up until she found out he's trans.

The Weirdness That You Know - Pre-Bluepulse OT3, pre-finding-out-Khaji-Da's-name. YJA-based; During some downtime on base after the events of season 2, Jaime winds up finding out that Bart and Khaji Da are very similar in terms of their sense of humor. The two of them getting along should probably be concerning.

Familia: Not Simple, but Needed - Bluepulse OT3. Mostly YJA-based; What happens when you have a sleep-deprived scarab who stubbornly has stayed awake for about three weeks? Nothing good and nothing the three of them would have ever expected if Khaji Da was coherent enough to think through the consequences of their actions before doing something.

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

I try to. Sometimes I wind up replying waaaaaayyyyyy later (when my emotional energy tanks it takes a lot for me to drag myself into talking to people in general, but I try to reply when I'm in a better spot), but if I have my way then I'll eventually reply to everything (unless there's literally nothing else to say).

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

That would honestly have to be either my Bluepulse OT3 poem I Am Your Loss or my La'gaan-centric fic I Tried To Warn You. I Am Your Loss is focused on Khaji Da outliving Jaime and Bart and all the feelings involved with that, and I Tried To Warn You is an examination of La'gaan's emotionally abusive relationship with M'gann and him coming to terms with the fact that he was manipulated and abused. So yeah. Heavy.

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

That's a tough one. The Name That Calls You Home is one contender, along with Fatherhood Isn't Easy, and Trusting Again Can Be The Hardest Thing. Two of those are focused on family and finding home (TNTCYH and FIE), and two are La'gaan-centric (FIE and TACBTHT). So yay for one of my TMNT AUs and two of my La'gaan fics meeting the mark? (Though all three have some painful circumstances that make the good that much more pronounced. Yeah, that was unintentional.)

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

The only time I've ever gotten any 'hate' was someone trying to be pissy about an old poem series I wrote back in highschool because they didn't feel it was a 'serious poetic work' and was 'amateurish'.

That. On character-based poetry. For freaking Sonic characters. Seriously just-

9. Do you write smut?

Almost never. (I can't say never because I did publish one fic on Ao3, but by a lot of people's standards it's really tame.)

10. Do you write crossovers?

I'm not opposed to crossovers, but I very rarely do. Usually I find my mind playing with multiverse iterations of characters meeting each other, but it's very rare my mind goes to wildly different stories getting a crossover-- in no small part because it usually tends to devolve into a case of 'Wouldn't it be cool if these characters met? Look how cool this character is!' in my head with no real decent plot. (That said, thanks to some old RPs with a friend of mine I am fond of Mass Effect's femshep and Voltron's Allura as a ship. It was a chaotic RP. lol)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

As far as I know, NOPE. If I'm fortunate it'll never happen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes actually! Both I Tried To Warn You and Unstoppable Until I Break that I know of. (Unfortunately I can't read Chinese, so finding them on the site they're hosted on is difficult for me, but I do know they're there somewhere.) La'gaan keeps winning. lol

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Only one, and it's Devilfish. Beneath the Surface was a fun collaboration between me and onyxdragonx back before tumblr's purge in 2018. I have no idea if he left tumblr entirely, but I'm glad we wrote it.

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

Ngl, it varies by series/franchise and how I'm feeling. I used to be pretty solid in single ships for characters for a long time, but as time has gone by I've drifted more into multi-shipper territory. At the moment though, the one that's eating at my brain the most is Devilfish-- La'gaan/Eddie-- because hell yes for my crack ship.

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

Maybe it's over-optimistic of me, but I don't look at any of my WIPs as 'abandoned' or as something I'll 'never' complete. Back when I was posting my writing only to ffn I used to joke about my trademarked 'delays of doom'. It's always a case of I will get to said stories eventually and I do work on old things from time to time, but due to shifting interests/life junk/life-junk-that-causes-a-low-creative-battery/etc. it can take me a long time to get back to something.

If I was going to narrow it down to the one that I'm not sure when precisely I'll get back to and is the most likely to take me a while to get back to (more than anything else), then it'd probably have to be an Elfquest fic with Leeta/Cutter/Rayek as endgame. Either that or the Planet of the Apes series kicking around in my head that I haven't quite figured out how to frame yet.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

FEELINGS. Emotions, getting into characters' heads and hitting that emotional gut-punch that makes people feel things.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Aside from my delays-of-doom™️, I can get SO damned wordy. And cerebral. Which isn't always a bad thing if I want my readers to know what's going on in a character's head, but it's a royal pain in the ass if I want to give a decent description of the space characters are in or have actual conversation and events happening while a character is getting lost in their head.

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

YES. I WANT. GIVE.

lol Seriously though, while it might be rare for me to write full-blown conversations in a different language, if a character is multilingual then I personally prefer including indications of that with their word choices. Usually that results in an offhand word or several here or there in places where it flows naturally, but unless I'm confident in how things flow with that other language (whatever it is) then I'm unlikely to go for a full on conversation. If I am confident in the translation of what I'm writing and the switch into that other language makes sense for the characters in context then it's highly likely I'll go for it-- albeit with including the hover-over translation thing that Ao3 offers so readers don't have to bounce back-and-forth between where they're at in the story and the translation at the end of the chapter/fic. (Though I don't mind when other authors take that tactic.)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Sonic, and though I didn't put any online until 2003, I wrote a whole convoluted series back in middle school and on up into early high school I think (I suspect most of it's lost because it was all on an OLD computer), and even before that I remember a script-styled Sonic fic that I never finished that I was writing back when I was like... 5? ...7? Somewhere in there. Point is my first fandom is from a LONG time ago.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Yeeeeeet another hard one. If I don't cop out with Unstoppable Until I Break and I pull in my older stuff, then I guess it'd have to be Two Sides. It's a Legend of Zelda fic playing with the concept of Zelda and Sheik as simultaneously being and not being the same person, and while I'd probably write it differently now (dear gods I published it back in 2008) I still love the concept and think it's intriguing as hell. Just the very idea of Zelda and Sheik having once been the same person and remembering it in subsequent lives is just... There is a TON of potential there.

Will I ever revisit the idea? Maybe one day. For now, it is what it is.

As for who I'm tagging: @sounddrive, @brightlotusmoon, @radioactive-earthshine, and whoever else would like to do this. n.n

[morroodle]

Morro's Redemption

Morro deserved a redemption so now I'm giving him one. I love playing with morro redemption stories and this is how they generally go though the circumstances differ (I have so many aus help me). I'm calling this my Morro redemption au but note that it's not one consistent story and there will be plot holes and contradictions when I eventually decide to make more. Bonus this is the au where all my headcannons come from/can go

Requested by @dontlookforme00

It starts when he's possessing Lloyd. Being in his head, Morro has a chance to see some of Lloyd's memories and thoughts, and he starts to understand. Lloyd is just a kid. Lloyd never wanted to be the green ninja, nor did he do any work to get that title. He was forced into this role and has been hurt because of it when he never deserved any of this. It's not his fault, and Morro's anger towards him fades.

Just as Morro can see some of what's going on in Lloyd's head, Lloyd gets a peak at Morro's brain too, and he starts to understand. Morro was a kid, alone and scared and unloved. He was desperate to be a good student, to somehow repay the man who showed him kindness. When he was told he could be the green ninja he was filled with hopes and dreams and for the first time someone thought of him as something more than a street rat. He would be the best green ninja possible and make Wu so proud! He would be a great hero and make people safe and happy! When the day came and the weapons didn't react he was crushed. He thought he had done something wrong, that he had failed his dad master, that he really was just a worthless street rat. He had to prove destiny wrong, he just had to. He would do anything to prove that he was the green ninja, that he was a good student and not a waste of Wu's time. He got himself killed like that, desperate to prove himself to the person who loved him most.

*vague plot timeskip* this isn't actually one solid au so basically anything can happen here, heck even day of the departed can still happen. All that matters is for whatever reason he's stuck with the ninja/wu in the monastery.

Morro regrets what he's done and he hates himself for it. He wanted to be a hero, to help people and protect ninjago, how the hell did he end up like this? He still carries the aggression learned in the cursed realm, and tends to hide in his room, avoiding Wu most of all. It takes time but eventually him and Lloyd get to talking (replace with Cole for a slightly different situation). Morro apologizes, and they talk about the green ninja prophecy and how it affected them (see above, trauma bonding woo). There are tears and elemental powers but they end the situation doing a little better.

The other ninja are... wary of Morro. They understand that he's good (ish) now or else he wouldn't be living with them, but with how aggressive and closed off he is they haven't really talked to him or tried to understand him, and Lloyd can only share so much. While most of them are at least tolerant of Morro, Kai fucking hates him. He is pissed that he hurt his baby brother and he won't just ignore his attempt to destroy the world. Kai confronts him and it goes... questionable and definitely not mentally healthy. Essentially Kai is giving Morro shit about it when Morro interest him with a "I know and I hate myself for it" type thing (tempted to actually write this) and there's a whole lot of screaming and crying. They are by no means on good terms but Kai chills out after that (the other ninja either overhear or are told about this later) and from there they can at least start building relationships.

After this point my solid thoughts start to break down and there aren't any more major events but the general idea is Morro slowly getting more comfortable and building relationships with the ninja (and Wu but way slower). I plan another post about just those relationships but at this point his redemption is pretty much complete and my aus start to go different directions.

Morro is avoiding Wu like the plague. He still hates him and is extremely angry but he wants to be good now so he can't just kill him and he dosent know what to do so he just hides from his problems. After quite some time and definitely after the Morro Kai thing Wu confronts him and it goes absolutely horribly. (I've played out this scene in my head a dozen times a dozen different ways but there is a general idea). Morro is so so hurt and practically screams his throat raw yelling at Wu, full on mental breakdown ugly crying. When Morro is done Wu hugs him, and he lets it last for just a moment before punching him and breaking his nose. After this Morro goes back to avoiding Wu but things start to get a little better. Wu is trying to make things better and help Morro heal but it is going very slowly.

[galactic-feelins]

Finally got back into a drawing mood and my apple pencil went ahead and died on me! Yippee? So it's traditional pencil on notecards time until that's fixed <3

For now I figured I should at least share some of my thoughts lately, if not for people that are interested then at least as a reminder I'm not dead on this blog yet!

So I've talked vaguely about the 4-way crossover that's somehow become a 5-way, but I really wanted to get a reference chart for the gang and give basic summaries and stuff about each of the characters involved. Unfortunately with digital no longer an option that's probably going to take a bit. For now I'm gonna talk about the local Phantom in the mix.

Danny Fenton in the crossover crew is the same as the one in my Clueless au (that's what I'm calling it for now until I have a better name for it) because it's easier for me to keep track of that way and also it's more interesting to me. This au is not quite an everybody knows au, but not quite canon-adjacent either. Everyone knows SOMETHING but not enough for the whole picture, often jumping to conclusions that are detrimental at best. Due to other circumstances as I've decided, it's also a ghost king au, which is the catalyst to him joining the crossover crew to skirt those responsibilities entirely.

What I have so far is that Sam and Tucker know due to being present for the portal accident, while Jazz finds out about Phantom in the same way she does in canon. Danny's mom is the most noteworthy discovery as she comes home just late enough to see Phantom transform without him noticing, thus coming to the conclusion that her son is missing and Phantom stole his place for unknown reasons. Other classmates find out through individual circumstances and keep silent out of worry, either believing they're seeing things that aren't real or believing that saying anything would inadvertently kill their classmate. Ghosts find out through their own means, but after the king Dark incident things get messy.

After defeating Pariah Dark in a 1 on 1 duel and stealing the crown, the title of king gets a little... muddled. He did not kill Pariah, only sealing him away for presumedly eternity, but he also quite literally stole the crown from him in a duel to the death. From that point on it seems the crown itself is drawn to Phantom, and the moment the rest of the ghost zone catches wind of Phantom as the king to be, Amity Park's peace is thoroughly out the window. By the time Danny's aware of what he's done it's far too late, as he wakes up one morning he finds the crown sitting right next to his bed as if placed as a warning, and that's the first he ever hears of this issue at all.

Anyway so I can draw small snippets of ideas on note cards (which is what I'm doing tonight apparently) but I can't get anything big and lengthy for a bit! I do have some ideas for different designs and ghosts to have show up, some new some old, but maybe that's for a different post

[whatudottu]

Hello! Just here to say that I love all of yours and anon's DID Blitzwing related thoughts!! I adore Blitzwing and they're (he?) what got me researching DID again after so long (my little autistic brain loves them <33). I'm not a system (or if I am, everyone else is really well hidden!!), but I love learning about all the things minds are capable of doing to protect themselves and I think it's fascinating - though I know that obviously I'll have some misconceptions so I'm always very happy to learn more :)

Do you have any other ideas/ headcannons about them? I would love to hear them /gen

Oh I'm not infallible either, not a system myself but I am fascinated with psychology (looks at my therapist Ben 10 character). Besides Blitzwing is an interesting character to have DID because they're not human and so with our human (and audience) perception, it can be easy to connect Blitz to DID even if that's not what the TFA writers intended- the added bonus is my intrigue in xenobiology/psychology so... Blitz's the perfect sample for that asjdhgblsjfkl-!

As for headcanons, those may need to be under the cut they got a bit much haha-!

You can take some of these headcanons as little hints towards a canon!Blitzwing, but because I've been rambling with the anons about Bot Experiment Triple-Changers these are kinda more focused on that little au rather than the original-

I like to imagine Random would totally eat organic (non-metal) food if given the chance/no one else fronts to stop him. With the power of fire and ice, he at least has assurances for the others that Random can and will ingest flaming fuel and liquid nitrogen just to get rid of any residue of authentic Italian cuisine. It seems to really be his thing idk- Probably doesn't help that Octane would totally be on his side if she ever fronted (certainly eggs him on when they're both in the headspace).

There's a pretty common headcanon that Blitzwing sculpts, but I like to pin the sculpting hobby onto Hothead because metal sculpting would work far easier with a little heat. As a bonus BETC!Blitz exclusive I like to say that Private actually had a passion for carving, his little area of the headspace decorated with what he remembers making, so Hothead took a little bit of a peak at that and got interested in it's complement; building something from nothing as opposed from revealing something from another something.

And Icy I feel is just really intrigued by alien cultures (that little commentary on how fascinating human cities are like nano-bots WILL NOT ESCAPE ME), perhaps a little more so than being interesting in Cybertron itself. I mean he's not gonna say that OUT LOUD with Decepticons around, but he finds the different ways different planets and different countries ON those planets create homes and lifestyles unique to their own individual circumstance. Astrotrain would feel a kinship to that, considering the bot had previously worked in cargo transport across Cybertron and getting to experience the different cultures of it's citystates, but Astrotrain also understands VERY WELL why Icy might not have the best connection to 'home'.

I also think that, out of the hosts, Hothead is the most affectionate towards Private and despite not having any wings in their headspace, Hothead speaks to Private like an older warframe does to a young(er) war bot. Random when not fronting fucks around with Octane if Astrotrain's covering Private's six, the two of them being chaotic little gremlins that spells disaster for any bot unlucky enough to be around the next time Random fronts with a prank idea. And to round this off if Octane is being the wine aunt to Private (or about as responsibly irresponsible like one), Astrotrain and Icy take a moment to sit and breathe, talking about traveling and other more silent contemplations.

And I think that might be all from the top of my head? Only saw this ask about nearly 12 hours after the timestamp says I got it so hopefully you weren't waiting to long asjdhfgaslkfkl-! But nah, I love Blitzwing, just needed to sit on my thoughts haha-

[not-poignant]

Re: your - totally valid! - feelings on writing more Augus & Gwyn as MCs. Do you find still writing the Nascent Diplomat emotionally taxing bc of that? Like, I adore that story and would love to read more ofc, but if it doesn't bring you any joy that would dampen my own enjoyment too. Personally, I'd much rather you put TND on pause and maybe pick it up again in a few years, but just write the stories you are excited about for now! Idk, just, pls write what makes you happy, Pia💗

Hi anon!

Let's talk about this in more detail and hopefully you'll understand better at the end of it. :)

I can still write The Nascent Diplomat partly because it's not a conventional romance story (Gwyn is developing relationships not just with Augus, but also with Kimerrin and Temsen), partly because I started it before I burnt out on Gwyn/Augus as a couple, and partly because the feel of the story is so different to general stories where Gwyn and Augus are present.

Augus' sadism has been muzzled by Gwyn's traumatic past, and putting Gwyn with the vench means he can't use his stoicism and his stubbornness in the same way anymore without literally disabling himself and suffering, so they've both had to become as much different people as they could possibly be within the scope of who they are.

I've found a lot of the time, the things most folks want from Augus and Gwyn is - understandably - when they are most 'themselves' in new stories. So Augus as a sadist, potentially taking Gwyn (or another character) down or taming him or being an incredible dominant. Or Gwyn being stoic and repressed and having a traumatic family background and needing to be hurt until he has no choice but to accept comfort and being a submissive in denial that he's a submissive. And I've now written versions of that narrative about 6 or 7 times. Gwyn being with Temsen would be a similar enough dynamic to classic Augus/Gwyn, that while it's fun to think about, I just can't write that same journey again with either of those characters any time soon?

And The Nascent Diplomat isn't that journey either, it's one of the reasons I do enjoy writing it still (though I don't think I could write more than one chapter a month, which is why I...only release one chapter a month, so I stay fresh with it and can stay present with the characters).

And one of the comments tND gets most as an AU, is that it's incredible how different this version of Augus and Gwyn are, compared to all the other versions, because of circumstance/s.

But any time a new AU idea or something similar comes up, what folks want most - say even with Gwyn/Temsen - is very classic Augus/Gwyn dynamics, and I'm just... not writing those with Augus/Gwyn because I've done it 6~ times now across over a million words, and I no longer feel fresh with it, with those characters specifically, as a concept. And I feel like if I kept forcing myself to write the dynamic people ask for the most from them, or expect from them, that's when I would really truly burn out. And tbh anon, I did just...stop writing them in that dynamic actually years ago. Even the epilogue that Augus/Gwyn are in, within Fae Tales, is very different from COFT and GT content. I had 'Gwyn is too traumatised for sex' to fall back on, but I deliberately could not write something similar to what they used to be. In some ways that was a win (we got to see a different kind of love between them, and a different way of coming together for them), but... *thinks* it's been years since I've written 'classic' Gwyn and Augus and my burnout hasn't gotten any better. To me, The Nascent Diplomat isn't very classic Gwyn and Augus at all. And it makes me happy to know that Augus will likely never be able to be truly sadistic to that version of Gwyn, because it means I can't be sort of...driven back into that version of that story for those two.

So while I appreciate your concern, anon, I wouldn't write a story I didn't want to write or didn't know how to write. I'm not that sacrificial and I care about my mental health too much to do it, which is why I constantly say I won't be (or will not likely to be) doing it anymore in new stories, lmao. Even if that risks the displeasure or dislike of other people.

The Nascent Diplomat gets to sit in its own window. It helps a lot that it only demands 12 chapters a year from me, so it never really trips off that burnout in the same way. I'm sure if I had to write more of it more often, I may have put it on hiatus, but I don't need to because I found the sweet spot for it.

[little-red-fool]

No problem, thank you so much Red! I really dont mind longer posts, but does take a bit longer for me to write up my reply in turn.

I was also the same until quite recently! I didnt know it wasnt an alias for a long time! Iirc it might be confirmed in dlc content, and I haven't yet read all of the journals that were added then.

I felt a little weird about that post, as I don't like harshly criticizing what others do in their fics (the only way I might step in is if a fic is written by an openly cis/straight person writing a trans character in an obviously transphobic way and was open to criticism too. I know I'm unfortunately not going to get through to bigots/dont want to waste my time tbh)

I'm not super strongly opionated on it either. I generally hc higgs as trans masc, but Im open to trans fem and other headcanon/interpretations too ( less so of cis higgs, its just not as interesting to me)

With that in mind, higgs would likely not have been named something as masculine as "peter" and in that case would have a different name thats likely his deadname. If we're talking transfem higgs, then "peter" could be considered a deadname for sure.

Higgs and peter both being names/aliases that he readily uses feels more in line with kojimas previous games like mgs, where he does this a bit. A character will have several names that they will go by, depending on the circumstances and time period, but to close loved ones they share a true name with, usually a first name. I usually use Higgs more frequently too, partly to not spoil newcommers to fandom on the suprise twist, if they havent played the game yet. Both feel like equally his name to me. The only uncertainty i have is that he may not in fact use "englert", because it has far more baggage depending on who from his family he got it from.

The majority of fic writers ive seen that use peter englert for higgs are either doing an au where the events that make him higgs haven't/didn't happen yet, or its a post DS au where he is rehabilitated, and using it so the UCA/regular people don't recognize that its him, so that. He can live in relative anonymity then after his crimes, and without the burden of them affecting new connections he might make.

(Personally I havent finished the book yet, but it does makes some strange divergences from the game? Like cutting out entire cutscenes that happen and making higgs really irationally angry all the time? Its very off for a novelization of a modern videogame where major parts of the story are far more acessible than like 60+ year old novels of tv and movies. I'm taking anything it with a heavy grain of salt, and just letting it add to the story if there's something that interests me and doesnt entirely contradict the game)

It’s alright! Honestly I’m in a similar boat to you, generally I prefer to HC Higgs as trans too because it feels quite fitting to me, although I’ll also swing between that and him being cis so yeah the deadnaming thing again depends on how the writer views him, but I wasn’t aware that Kojima sometimes gives characters several names in that manner as well, so thank you for that! It definitely solidifies my interpretation of the usage of his names a bit more, but the redemption fics/AUs that call him Peter make a lot of sense and I quite like those interpretations too.

[griseldabanks]

For the WiP asks: Rosie Runs to Rivendell 1, 3, 11, 22

Summarize this AU in 1 sentence.

Sam and Rosie get married and have Elanor before the Quest, and they join Frodo as he leaves the Shire.

3. Did anything inspire this AU?

Yes! This actually came from a vague dream I had a while back, where Frodo, Sam, and Rosie drove up to Rivendell (which looked like one of those large suburban mansions with an immaculate lawn) in an SUV. Elrond was either turning on his sprinklers or mowing the lawn, I think. The dream was very silly and nonsensical, but I found myself thinking about it upon waking, wondering what would have happened if Sam and Rosie got married before the story properly starts, and circumstances transpired that led to Rosie and Elanor joining them as they left the Shire. I ended up with enough cute/angsty/interesting scenes that I decided to go ahead and try my hand at writing it.

11. Is there any relationship that's different in this AU than in the source material?

Mostly it's a bunch of relationships that don't even exist in canon, because Rosie is in the Shire the whole time and we barely see Elanor at all. For example, we know from the appendices that Elanor goes on to become Arwen's handmaiden eventually, but there's no indication Rosie would have met her or Aragorn at all. But in this AU, she does! I'm actually really looking forward to writing their interactions - Strider holding tiny little hobbit-lass Elanor in his lap, Arwen speaking kindly to Rosie, who feels extremely out of place in Rivendell, etc.

I suppose you could make an argument that I'm fudging Frodo and Sam's relationship a bit, because they grew so close primarily because of the peril they went through together in their travels, so it makes less sense for Frodo to have Sam and Rosie live with him in Bag-End before they've gone on their adventures. But I don't care! I'm interpreting them to be best friends already, by virtue of being neighbors, and Bilbo teaching Sam to read and write, and both Bilbo and Frodo not treating anyone differently just because they're from a different class.

22. What was the hardest thing to write about this fic?

Well, I haven't written very much yet, but already I'm finding myself very insecure about the way I have the characters speak. Characterization-wise, I feel pretty confident because I've been reading and watching LotR since I was ten. But this is actually my first LotR fic, and I'm scared of getting their voices wrong. Particularly since I'm American, and the hobbits in particular are very British, even in the way they speak. It's easier to write a gentlehobbit like Frodo, because I just have to have him speak more or less "proper." But Sam and Rosie are more down-to-earth, and I always feel like there's some dialectical nuances I'm missing simply because I'm not used to hearing people talk like they do.

[unseelie-grimalkin]

how drastically does coming through to Tír na nÓg change your MCs’ story arc? Like would triona still have the same arc (but caused by different events) if she never went through the portal, for example?

Tríona

If Tríona never went through the portal, never met those on the other side (I specify that because I've an AU or two where she ends up being spirited away regardless), I think she'd end up living a very stagnant life, metaphorically swallowing teeth. I think, eventually, at her funeral (if she survived an Gorta Mór), whoever her husband ended up being would talk more about his own life than hers, and everyone would talk about how she made their lives easier, but not really...anything about her personality, even from her children.

Tír na nÓg, for Tríona, is very much the Land of the Youth because...she gets to reclaim opportunities that were stolen from her throughout childhood. She gets to make friends, she gets to learn new things for her own joy, she gets to understand who she is as a person (like...to really emphasize this point, Tríona does not have a favorite color before coming to Tír na nÓg. It's only after some time and some developments that her favorite colors become orange, red, and blue-purple).

With both her circumstances and overall suppression in Inisfáil, it would frankly take heroic circumstances for her to still have her arc of healing without a "gentle" shove into Tír na nÓg.

I do have other timelines of her, with her finding her way into Tír na nÓg without Daonna's intervention, where she does still get that healing, even without Flannán being involved: like, truly, the key to her healing is that she's allowed to make her own choices, uncollared, and have companionship.

So...yeah, Tír na nÓg is life-changing for Tríona. Hard to imagine her without it (and when I do, it's usually because the characters from TNN have been transplanted into the same reality as her).

Ronit

Ronit's arc would...hmmm. Oh, that's hard. Ronit and Tríona are inversions of each other, both are sort of built to have their arcs with what Tír na nÓg has to offer.

Ronit's arc, as it stands now, is all about figuring out how to be vulnerable and how to care about others. This is done largely because she instantly gets emotionally compromised by Shae's desperation to find the princess because the whole thing makes her curious: how can anyone be that devoted to another person? Why not just bounce? You have to look out for number one because if you don't look out for yourself, who will? And, mind you, she does actually care about people regardless of Shae. She just doesn't admit to it (giving a bit of food to the less fortunate here and there isn't about caring for them, you see, it's about covering her tracks, mmhmm, it'd be suspicious if she had too much money on her, after all).

Without that catalyst of self-reflection, in curiously helping Shae, I'm...I think she'd figure it out eventually, but the dramatic stakes with Shae's plot are what really get her to understand herself and others consciously, making her very dangerous after that. I don't think she'd have a romance either, without Shae; she's not the type to get married for the duty of it and would probably forge marriage certificates to get around societal expectations.

Lachtna

No clarity. No wisdom. He would simply continue being a semi-modern "example" of the Werewolves of Ossory, local helpful cryptid who got noted in history by how helpful and handsome he was.

He'd probably end up as the muse to a modern novelist years later, and we'd have a Twilight-esque romance novel of his exploits, mixing suspicions about him with his name with some unearthed letters from between him and a merchant that would've been a topic of academic debate. I'm sure somebody would draw him with yaoi hands and mischaracterize him as a dominating top simply because werewolf.

[xhanisai]

Was discussing this with the lads in the LO server and thought that I might as well drop my thoughts here too.

One of the reasons that I rarely read aged up ML fanfics (other than the spicy stuff UwU) is because often, writers strip Marinette of her anxieties, unhingedness and her overthinking habits and they sugarcoat Adrien’s depression and make him very rebellious against his father because ‘that’s what adults do’. (Especially pre reveal and pre relationship)

It just makes it seem like that all those negative feelings and sadness that they go through in canon is just a childish thing. I know ideally, everyone would love to be a cool and collected adult but unless you’re super rich, have everything you want and barely struggled as a child, that’s unlikely.

[kdj-225]

oh yay you're on tumblr now!! i've been following and enjoying your joongdok stuff on twitter for awhile now so thank you♡ saw you were looking at fic requests, so... maybe some joongdok high school au shenanigans, where everyone thinks they're pining but they've actually been together for awhile? you don't actually have to write anything of course lol i just appreciate all your hard work on your stories!!

[ I'm happy to know that you enjoy my joongdok content on twitter, thank you so much!!! 💕🥰💕 I hope you like this short fic fill for your prompt!! ]

※DO NOT REPOST / HOST MY WORK ON OTHER APPS OR SITES

“You keep staring at him like that, you may as well just ask him out.”

Kim Dokja sighs. The few times Joonghyuk isn’t looking over and squinting at him, someone else (in this case, Jung Heewon) has to come over and disturb him. He really can’t eat his visual fill in peace no matter the circumstances, it seems.

“Yoo Joonghyuk,” he calls out.

He gives a little wave when the other student looks over with furrowed brows. Again, Dokja is hit with the temptation to smooth those wrinkles over with his fingers.

So young, yet so grumpy.

“Go out with me,” he mouths quietly. He grins when Joonghyuk blinks narrowed eyes in disbelief at him, and laughs when the other dares to flip a finger in response to his words.

He flips a finger back, just because he can.

“What was that?” Heewon asks. Her face, when it enters his view, is twisted in confusion at the odd and random exchange that just occurred before her. “What’d you tell him?”

“To go out with me.”

She laughs. “That’s why he flipped a finger at you?”

He nods. “That’s why he flipped a finger at me, yes.”

“I meant to ask him out seriously. Not as a joke, Dokja-yah. It’s no wonder he’d be so mad…”

He hums, resting his cheek on his chin. Again, he returns his gaze to Joonghyuk’s profile—sharp jaw despite his youth, a cat-like gaze, thick brows that highlight his eyes well, and a sharp nose with a line that naturally led one’s gaze to his kissable lips. His is a face that was awkward in his earlier years with his ears and brows and nose too large on his small face, but now, it was just unfair how attractive he’s grown up to be.

Who could blame him for staring, anyway? Anyone else would, he’s sure.

“Oh, he’d be mad regardless,” he says, smiling in amusement as he finds Joonghyuk’s gaze softening as it flickers over to him.

“But he’s cute like that.”

---------------------------

“You may as well make it official and stake your claim, you know.”

Yoo Joonghyuk struggles very hard not to throttle Han Sooyoung in full view of the student populace. He’d only been in the middle of unwrapping the food he’d prepared for himself and Kim Dokja on a desk in the courtyard; he doesn’t see why that’s worthy of her accosting him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Making his lunch? You are either his mother or his lover, and yet, you are neither of those things.”

He huffs out a breath. “You can meddle elsewhere. Or are you dissatisfied with him eating a proper lunch?”

“We’re literally provided meals at school every day.”

“Not enough protein for him. You also know how picky he is.”

“You’re really—” Sooyoung scoffs. “I’m not saying you should stop anyway, you punk. I’m saying that you should make things clear so he doesn’t get the wrong idea.”

“What wrong ideas can anyone get from being provided with food?”

“That you’re just doing this for your entertainment until you get bored of him. That you’re thinking of him as a charity case.”

“Kim Dokja has never been a charity case. And if he were, how would I be any different?”

Sooyoung makes a face—not at him, but at herself. It’s as if she’d forgotten just who it is that she’s talking to, which wouldn’t be a surprise to him. Of course she’d forget the fact that he’s an orphan in favor of Kim Dokja, who has to live with only his mother after his old man passed away in the way that he did.

He likes it better this way, even if the miserable look on her face seems to have her believing otherwise.

“Don’t look like that,” he says, frowning at the wary look she sends his way. “I prefer it, that you forget what I am. And Dokja is not enough of a fool to think of himself in that way around me.”

“But—”

“Ah, Joonghyuk-ah! Did you make my favorite today?”

Dokja’s voice cuts through whatever Sooyoung’s complaints might be, making the both of them look back at him. He’s got his phone in hand, as is the usual, and the way he jogs over to them reminds Joonghyuk that he really should get Dokja to exercise more. He’s heaving for breath when he finds his way to their table in such a short distance…his stamina really is abysmal.

“No,” he says. He ignores the pout that Dokja gives him in response. “You can’t eat omurice every day, you fool.”

“But your omurice is so good?”

“I don’t care. Mia wanted white meat today.”

“Ah, so is it fish or chicken?”

“Fish.”

“...you two may as well get married,” Sooyoung grumbles.

Dokja blinks at her as he takes a seat beside Joonghyuk. “What was that?”

“Nothing, idiot.”

-------------------------

When Heewon sighs for the umpteenth time, Hyunsung can’t help it.

He finally voices the question he’s been wanting to ask ever since the start of group outing, the question that’s rested on the tip of his tongue ever since he saw the determined expressions on Sooyoung and Heewon’s faces.

To everyone at their table, he asks, “Is there something wrong..?”

Yoo Sangah quietly sips from her glass of juice, then smiles at him. Lee Seolhwa, in a similar way, shares a placid smile that has Hyunsung fidgeting in confusion. Those looks explain absolutely nothing, and only make him sweat nervously at what it is he must be missing.

Sooyoung, on the other hand, nods her head over to the distant counter where Joonghyuk and Dokja are still lined up to get their own orders. She says, “It’s them.”

He blinks. “Joonghyuk and Dokja? What about them?”

“We’re staging an intervention,” Heewon says. Again, that answers nothing. “They need our help, pronto. I can’t deal with this anymore.”

He smiles awkwardly. Somehow, he feels like he’s back in class when he nervously raises a hand to get their attention. “Um, what’s “this”?”

“This—”

“I’ve succeeded in corrupting our Joonghyukie!”

Hyunsung looks up at the sound of Dokja’s voice, and finds his pale classmate grinning while pulling a scowling Joonghyuk down to sit beside him. “Corrupt?” he asks.

“You know how he doesn’t like to eat food that he didn’t cook? I got him to get a burger today,” Dokja explains. Joonghyuk quietly slides the tray he’d brought over to Dokja’s side of the table, which Dokja takes as a sign to grab his own burger. “So, what were you talking about before we came back? It looked serious.”

“Oh,” Seolhwa begins to say, picking up some fries with one hand, “we were just talking about our plans for the future. What about you two, Dokja-yah, Joonghyuk-ah?”

“The future? Hm, I haven’t thought that far,” Dokja hums. It’s easy, the way he leans into Joonghyuk’s side as he thinks, that Hyunsung can’t help from wondering just what the others believe they need an intervention on. They seem to be happy enough as is, right? Or was there something he just didn’t know? If so, what was it?

“Liar,” Joonghyuk huffs. He unwraps his own burger, makes a face down at it, before taking a hesitant bite.

The grimace on his face deepens as he chews. Dokja laughs and laughs, and Hyunsung can’t help from laughing a little too—though, he does end up stopping when Joonghyuk squints at him.

Joonghyuk, for all his visual dismay at his food, still keeps eating. Hyunsung wonders why; it’s not like he’s the type to keep doing anything he doesn’t like. Maybe Dokja dared him into it? He’s usually only terrible at rejecting dares when Dokja is involved, from what he remembers.

Dokja asks, “Why am I a liar, Joonghyuk-ah?”

“We already have plans.”

“Living together isn’t much of a plan,” Dokja says. “They were probably talking about the jobs we’ll do. You’re going to keep going as a pro-gamer, right? As for me, I’m not really sure yet.”

“Wait.”

Dokja looks over, as does Hyunsung. Sooyoung’s tone is unnaturally urgent, so of course they’d end up looking at her. She says, “What do you mean, live together?”

“Exactly what it means? We’ll be living together. Sharing an apartment, or something along those lines. Maybe if Joonghyukie gets rich enough we can buy a house…”

Hyunsung finds himself growing more and more confused, the more that Dokja’s innocent smile grows deeper and deeper in its slyness. Like he knows something they don’t, somehow.

Sooyoung cries out, “You..!”

“If you have something to say,” Joonghyuk says bluntly, “just spit it out instead of mumbling nonsense.”

Heewon smacks both of her hands to the table with enough force that it shakes. Hyunsung has to set his own hands on the other end of the table to make sure it doesn’t fall over. She says, “Are you two dating?!”

“Yes.”

“That’s right.”

A chorus of screams resound from their table, catching the attention of servers and customers alike. Hyunsung finds himself shrinking in his seat, though Sangah and Seolhwa are remarkably calm as they continue to drink and eat their fill.

“You bastard!?” Sooyoung grabs Dokja by the collar and shakes him from across the table, gaze wild with fury while Dokja laughs in her face. “How dare you! We’ve been trying to set you both up, and you couldn’t even say that you were already together?!”

“It was funny watching you struggle, though,” Dokja says. He’s wheezing with laughter even as Joonghyuk pries Sooyoung’s hands off of him. As he curls into Joonghyuk’s side, one hand resting on the other student’s shoulder for support, he says, “And it’s not like we’re that subtle. Sangah and Seolhwa knew without either of us saying anything.”

“Sangah!”

“Seolhwa-yah, are you serious?”

The two of them, in response to the accusatory words, give a shrug and a smile. Sangah says, “It was their secret to tell, so…sorry?”

Seolhwa adds, “You’d have noticed it if you looked at them while they’re alone together. They usually only put on a show when they think someone’s looking.”

“I can’t believe you two!”

“You guys are terrible…”

“What about Hyunsung? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Ah. Ah,” he sputters, holding both hands up in surrender as he smiles at the accusatory glares being thrown his way. “I didn’t know either? I didn’t think there was even an issue in the first place, I just thought that Dokja and Joonghyuk are fine as they are…”

“Of course they’re fine as they are, when they’ve already been dating under our noses,” Sooyoung scoffs. “How long has it even been?”

“One year, three months?” Dokja says, looking over to Joonghyuk.

Joonghyuk nods.

“ONE YEAR?”

“You bastards?!”

Hyunsung is the one who ends up sighing this time. Quietly, shoulders curled in on themselves, he eats his burger—all while the others argue on the secrets that have been hidden from them after all this time.

He’d lied, just a bit. It wasn’t like he had confirmed knowledge on Joonghyuk and Dokja’s relationship, but…

It wasn’t like it was that difficult to see, just from how they smiled at each other whenever they were together. In those moments when they thought no one was around and they were alone, it was far too easy to see just how gentle Dokja could get, and how warm Joonghyuk could look.

Hyunsung hides a smile behind his mouthful of food.

It’ll be fine eventually.

They’re friends, after all.

[wutheringmights]

The ask about whether Wind and Spirits got me wondering, how would Spirits get along with all the other boys? either in ctb canon or in an "everything was alright" AU

The CTB canon is a hard one to answer due to spoilers. You all need to know how every single boy is fairing before I start to speculate how adding another troubled hero to the mix would work. Sorry anon!

But I can answer the "everything was alright" au (which I have linked here since we have not discussed it since April). For anyone who doesn't know, here are the basics of the AU:

Due to circumstances, Warriors was not terrible to Spirit and Mask in the War of Eras

All three of them were friends and nothing bad happened

In the present, Time tells Warriors who he is the moment they reunite

Eventually Spirit joins the Chain and everyone is happy

In theory, for this AU to comply with the first part, there should be a version of the present day plot where things are happy as well. But, um.... I'm not sure how that's going to look like right now. Honestly, I'm not even sure where to start.

Right now, we're going to just say that this is Spirit's relationship with everyone else in default LU stuff:

Warriors

As previously discussed, they have an interesting relationship where Spirit recognizes that Warriors has some bad traits but knows that Warriors would never hurt him, which leads to an interesting back and forth between them.

They are still a bickering pair who everyone thinks are enemies, but this is just how they communicate

Spirit is used to being Warrior's outsourced conscience when Warriors has grown enough to not need him as much anymore, which leads to genuine arguments between the two

Their shared history means they just get each other in a way most don't; they're each other's confidants and right hand

Time

Time is very happy that their dynamic trio is back together, but he's less happy that it's different now

Warriors and Spirit are the same, but he's older now and everything is a little off; a part of him falls back in rhythm with relying on those two for everything while another recognizes that he's supposed to be the adult of the situation

It's frustrating that nothing feels the same because he's the one who doesn't fit anymore

There's a lot of growing pains he goes through that result in him emotionally letting go of his old relationship with Spirit to make a new one

Spirit has a similar problem where he senses the same spirit as Mask but falters whenever he has to match it with this grown ass man

The two are still close, but the brotherhood part of their relationship is less strong now; they're more like good friends

But some over protective habits die hard...

Spirit: "You're too young to get married."

Time: "I'm in my thirties???"

Spirit, doing the math to remember he's the younger one now but being too stubborn to admit he's wrong: "What are you? A child bride?"

Sky

It takes a while for the two of them to warm up to each other, but when they do, they become fast friends

I can see the two of them hanging out in silence while Sky whittles and Spirit drafts

Sky would take an interest in the things Spirit knows about spirits and machinery, and Spirit would love to tell him everything

Once Sky thinks he has a friend, he would immediately lapse into his old acts of trouble making, which Spirit would not be down for

But Spirit would be the first to suggest a dubious plan as a quick solution to a problem, which Sky would not be down for

They balance each other out

Four

Picture this: Four and Spirit are arguing about something. Suddenly, in the middle of the argument, Spirit stops and says, "Actually, Vio, can I talk to Green? He's the reasonable one."

Four is completely merged. He's told no one about his ability to split. But within a few days of meeting, Spirit has figured him out

(Spirit just sensed that his spirit was fractured and did not realize right away that this was supposed to be a secret)

So Four and Spirit get off on the wrong foot

There's a few other areas where they sort of clash. Spirit wants to have another person who understands his machinery and gets frustrated when Four reminds him he's just a blacksmith

Meanwhile, Four is a little jealous that Spirit seems to have a very good education when the part of him that likes studying and learning new things wishes that he could have done more than just blacksmithing

A lot of this schism is caused by Four’s caution clashing with Spirit’s shyness

Ergo, Four won’t say he doesn’t like Spirit while Spirit is unwilling to fix the misunderstand with someone he thinks hates him

(Four doesn’t hate him; he’s just uneasy)

But both are professionals and they can work together with supreme efficiency that belies how they don't really mesh well together

Legend

They both thought they were going to connect over being the intellectuals of the team, only to realize they go in opposite directions with Spirit specializing in the sciences while Legend is in the humanities

But Legend loves learning about foreign cultures, and he wants to hear everything about New Hyrule

Legend tries to have a battle of wits with Spirit, but Spirit never rises to argue with him the way he would with Warriors; Legend figures out pretty quickly that Spirit can only argue like that with Warriors

But they're both stubborn, so god forbid they disagree about something

Legend has a good knack of helping Spirit with his shyness so that he could foster friendships with the other members of the group

Hyrule

Spirit's first friend outside of Warriors and Time, mainly because Hyrule clicks with the lowest of the low and, despite having a high position in New Hyrule, Spirit identifies as a common worker

Even then, Hyrule knows what it’s like to be dragged into the bullshit of the royal court, so they can find solace in wishing they could get closer to their Zelda’s without losing their way of life

These two would get so drunk together and it would be hilarious

Unlike Sky, Hyrule would get a little bored with Spirit’s need to quietly work on something and would complain that Spirit never did enough exploring

I also think Hyrule would just get Spirit’s weird friendship with Warriors the best out of anyone. I can’t explain why-- maybe he’s just seen the most out of everyone and just gets that they are imprinted on each other like ducks

Hyrule: “Hey, want to learn which poisonous mushrooms you can eat in desperate measures depending on what severity of hallucinations you can tolerate?”

Spirit: “Uh... I’m never really planning on ever needing to know that.”

Hyrule: “That’s what I said, but then the desperate measures were needed.”

Twilight

Twilight blinked and suddenly he’s been kicked from the second-in-command position

In theory, he’s still Time’s right hand and Warriors still only steps up when a tactician is needed, but when both of them have a third person they rely on, there’s suddenly no room for him

And there may be the weird realization that the way Warriors and him used to sass and poke fun at each other is happening less and less, exclusively because Warriors will instead tease Spirit

And Twilight is not resentful! But it hurts to feel like he’s being pushed aside

He doesn’t even hate Spirit; he can recognize that Spirit is a nice guy and they can get along even when they have different interests

Things would be better if Spirit would allow Twilight in fit into a big brother role for him, but Spirit shoots that down pretty quickly

Things get better once Twilight realizes that Spirit and Warriors will expose everything embarrassing story they have about Time

Wind

As previously discussed: Time and Warriors over correct to not treat Wind like Spirit by being distant to him

So Wind views Spirit as some kind of rival he needs to prove himself better as in order to gain everyone else’s respect

Meanwhile, Spirit cannot talk to Wind without remembering how he mysterious disappeared

This is actually where Spirit and Warriors clash the most in the present day, as Spirit wants to warn Wind while Warriors says to keep quiet to not mess up the timeline

Wind eventually warms up to Spirit once he overhears Spirit describing New Hyrule to Legend

Eventually, Wind starts to crave Spirit’s approval over Warriors and Time’s; of course he earns it easily, but some of Spirit’s leftover feelings of having a little brother in Time get pushed onto Wind

Wind hates being treated by a child even by Spirit, and Spirit is left hurt that he can’t connect with him

Wild

Spirit: “So you’re telling me that your era has giant mechanical beasts that can travel great distances, has a carrying capacity in the hundreds of tons, and can easily be operated by a single person???”

Wild: “Yup.”

Spirit: “AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW ANY OF IT WORKS???”

Wild: “It was never relevant.”

Spirit: “HOW IS THE MASS TRANSPORT OF GOODS AND PEOPLE NOT RELEVANT????”

Lucky for Spirit, Wild is always happy to hand over his Sheikah Slate so that Spirit can pore over any information it has on how Sheikah technology works

But this means that Wild has to pry it from his hands and fend off Spirit begging to get it back as soon as the group gets a single chance to rest

Wild is both super amused and very annoyed by this

It only gets worse when Wild shows him the Master Cycle, and Spirit has to take it apart right now so that he could put it back together and know how it works

And now Wild has another topic for Spirit to ask him relentless questions about

Wild likes Spirit, but he also thinks he’s a bit annoying, especially when Spirit won’t take a hint and realize he likes nature more than any piece of machinery

Meanwhile, Spirit is dying; there’s so much he wants to learn about Sheikah technology and he just happens to get stuck with the one guy who knows enough to keep him hooked but not enough to give him any answers

Wild cooking dinner while Spirit incessantly asks him questions he doesn’t have the answers no matter how many times Spirit rephrases it is a nightly scene at this point

[choco-cherry-chunk]

YES, drama, I love it!!!

So it could work in the same/similar circumstances we talked about in the AU, but Otto is just much further along so it's not a secret, he's basically full term. Maybe he and Harry find each other quickly, instead of running into one or more of the Peters.

Rather than lashing out the actuators are more instinctively want to get away and hide, not wanting to risk the baby or Otto. However, some damage is done, enough to attract the attention of media and cameras. Leading to Norman and others seeing him on the news, and all the worry from seeing him fighting. But the actuators take off quickly, taking Otto somewhere like an abandoned warehouse.

Little does Otto realise that a combination of stress and being yanked around by the actuators sends him into labour.

Harry is the first one to track him down a couple of hours later. Maybe he's closer to where the action took place initially, maybe he figures out the nearest secluded location to where Otto was last spotted, something.

Either way he finds Otto sitting in a corner of some abandoned warehouse and rushes over to him. Otto is wincing, seems out of breath, Harry is terrified that he's been hurt even though Otto is doing his best to calm Harry, no he's not hurt, it's alright. Harry notices the way one hand is braced on the underside of his belly and goes pale, realising.

"Oh God, the baby's coming isn't she??"

Otto wilts, trying to deny it just as another contraction hits, making a liar of him. Harry PANICS. No, nonono, no this is not happening, Harry has no idea how to deliver a baby, Otto cannot have a baby here, isn't it too early??? (yes, but not dangerously so, maybe a couple of weeks)

Otto is also panicking because he would very much like to be in a hospital for this, with doctors, and people who know what they are doing and how to safely deliver a baby. But he's trying not to let it show, as that will only work Harry up more.

Given how long it has been since I've posted, for those reading, a reminder that this is tied to this post.

I'm so glad you like it~! And your ideas for it are wonderful!!

As touched on in some previous posts, I love the idea of Otto being a present part of Harry's life upon his and Norman's return to their universes and when he ends up pregnant, Harry is initially a little startled (there's definitely some awkward joking from his Peter about his father's sex life that deeply embarrasses him) but is ultimately happy for the pair. He's somewhat involved - offering assistance in preparing for the baby, running errands for Otto when he isn't able to, even promising to be in the waiting room of the hospital once the labor starts.

But this is a whole other kettle of fish. He didn't sign up to be in a different universe, to be running around a city not quite like his own, and coming upon his step-father in the middle of labor without any kind of help. He's freaking out. He can't call anyone for help (someone should really invest in intra-universe cell phone plans) and he's afraid to leave Otto by himself. And the whole time, Otto's just sitting there, panting and struggling to keep calm while he looks a fucking mess, trying to assure Harry that they will figure out what to do. Even if he has no ideas himself.

Otto tries to privately track the speed of his labor (because while he's concerned for the safety of his daughter, he is not yet at the level of frantic that would ask Harry for assistance in any context because no fucking thanks), timing the contractions and consistently remaining thankful that his water hasn't broken. But he is still hesitant to control the actuators to get him somewhere safer, afraid of them taking control in a panic or running into more reporters and people with camera phones. So he and Harry are stuck together in this weird, vastly uncomfortable limbo.

I have to imagine someone comes to help them and I'm caught between it being someone from the Peter 1 universe or the Peter 3 universe, if only for the drama.