#idk i'm a sucker for time loop AUs

[staravion]

you know how flowey in undertale gradually got more and more fucked up and evil because of the time loops. what if. that but with durge and in the reverse direction

like they grab the brain, rule the world, wreak havoc, etc etc.

but then they wake up inside the pod on the nautiloid again. inexplicably. and so they go through the motions again, gaining everyone's trust and using their strength, manipulating people because they know how everything is supposed to go. and that continues for several more loops. but eventually something is different. maybe someone falls in a fight and for the first time, durge feels... pity? they take control of the brain again, in the end.

and it happens again. over and over, each time wearing down on their bloodthirsty desires and uncaring attitude until they find themselves genuinely distraught when it comes time to seize control of the brain. but they destroy it, defying bhaal to let their companions go free. and bhaal seizes control right back, puppeteering them and spilling even more blood.

and the loop continues, with each new iteration seeing durge becoming kinder, warmer, more protective, far more of a hero than the villain their bloodline demands from them.

[hailsatanacab]

I'm a sucker for Twin Reveals, idk if you know that. So I have to ask about "you're joking, right? gala pranking turned twin reveal"

ngl this is the flavour of the month for me rn, I've really hopped straight back on the demon twins au with a passion! you get 500 words of the intro here because I have no restraint :)

———

Tonight is becoming, as often happens with a gala, a dismal affair.

Bruce has (finally) managed to extract himself from a torturous conversation with Mrs. Johnson, and is allowing himself a quiet breath with a glass of apple juice masquerading as whiskey when someone taps him on his shoulder.

“Mr. Wayne?”

It’s a voice he recognises, despite only meeting the man once. He doesn’t groan—he even resists the urge to throw his glass at him and make a break for it—but it’s a close affair. He’s not Superman, after all, and there’s a limit to his strength.

With a deep breath and the customary ditzy smile of Brucie Wayne plastered on his face, he turns towards Mr. Masters.

Only to immediately freeze.

“Ah, yes, I don’t believe you’ve met.” Mr. Masters turns and presents a young boy to him, gently pushing him forward slightly. His dark hair is ruffled and there’s a thunderous look on his face as he flashes Bruce a glare before stubbornly fixing his gaze back on the floor. “May I introduce to you my son, Daniel Masters?”

This is the fourth gala Vladimir Masters has been to since his reintroduction into high society, only the second one he and Bruce have attended together, and, as Bruce is silently lamenting, there is still so little known about the man. Yet, he doesn’t strike Bruce as someone that would pull a joke like this.

After 20 years locked away in his house suffering from an unnamed illness, his return had been completely unexpected and not entirely welcome, from what Bruce has heard. Too many years spent away shrouded in mystery has people weary about forging new connections, but his recent successes with his business might persuade a few brave—or foolhardy—individuals into making some investments.

Which must be why he’s now back on the gala scene.

Which must be why he’s chosen to become Mayor of a little unknown town in Illinois, as baffling as the choice may be.

Which must be why he’s pulling this stunt. This practical joke. Something to break the ice, to share a laugh with Bruce. To start a conversation.

The only real question is why Damian is going along with it.

“I’m sorry?” Bruce says, chuckling awkwardly.

Poor Damian looks just about ready to pull out a sword and start swinging, so perhaps he’s not as comfortable in going along with it as Bruce first thought. There's a tension in his shoulders, his whole body as taut as a bow string. Did Dick put him up to this? It’s definitely something his eldest would find funny.

“My son, Daniel. Daniel, say hello to Mr. Wayne.” There’s a flash of annoyance in Mr. Masters’ eyes as he gives Damian another nudge to introduce himself.

“Hello, Mr. Wayne.” Damian growls out, eyes still stubbornly lowered, his jaw tensing painfully. His voice sounds different, almost like he’s affecting Mr. Masters’ accent. Just what is he playing at? Bruce is struggling to find the funny side in all this.

Is this a case they’re working on? Not a prank, but rather some investigation that Bruce isn’t privy to? It wouldn’t be the first time his children have kept him out of the loop, but to do it in a gala, and a Wayne gala at that, where they’re sure to be recognised…

No, it has to be a joke. They’re planning to embarrass him, they have to be.

[ao3-shenanigans]

You quick question, what's your opinion on my favourite AU's? And how would you rank them?

Here's what they are (not in favourite order):

Dance Studio AU (Think of them being partnered up on purpose for either the pinning or the enemies to lovers!!!)

Famous Actor AU (Think of the fake/secret dating!! I'm more of a sucker for fake dating where they hate each other's guts so...)

Bed and Breakfast/Diner AU (This is just in my head where all my favourite characters from this one fandom run this place together!)

Historical AU (THE DRESSES AND GOWNS!!! THE DRAMATIC CASTLESSS!!)

Time Loop AU Time Loop AU Time Loop AU Time Loop AU Time—

Star Tears AU and/or Hanahaki AU (I prefer when they DON'T have a happy ending but to each their own)

Musical/Theatre AU (Imagine them practicing the kiss scenesss)

Wrong Number AU ("Uhhh so this isn't Character A?" "Dude, how forgetful are you?")

YOUTUBER AU!!!! (Reaction Channel x Murder Mystery Channel, anyone)

Meeting again years later (THE POSSIBILITIES!!!)

These aren't ALL of my favs, but yeah, tell me what you think!! (No pressure though, this is just for sillies)

Oh this is such a good question! I’ve honestly not read a ton of other profession au’s; I think certain fandoms have favorite AU’s that are done a lot and the ones I frequent are mostly Time Travel

1. Time Loop/Time Travel is my absolute bread and butter- dudes think about the Roman Empire weekly, I think about time travel on a near daily basis 💕

2. Years later- usually a good mix of angst and fluff, gimmie old lovers!

3. Musical theatre is very good- I’ve read a lot of good omens fics about theater, more so in attendance then performance, but *chefs kiss*

4. YouTuber sounds so fun!! I’ve not really read any of these but it sounds liked I’d enjoy them a lot!

5. I’ve only read like one Historical au but it was so good!!! Vintage vampire hunters. I really don’t know what more you want. I might have to see if I can find the link to share

6. Hanahaki but like. Taken in weird interpretations with lot of sci-fi bs science applied to it; I’ve read one or two really good ones; particularly taken in a horror aspect and with the source material’s world building applied to it- 👌✨

7. Idk what a bread and breakfast/diner au would entail but it sounds really cool!

8. Wrong Number: not read any of these that have ever gone anywhere so I don’t really have any opinions on it

9. Famous people. All the drama stresses me lol; I only like these if they sorta knew each other before they got famous (like the stranger things Steve/eddie fics) I’m also not a huge romantic fan as a whole and I think this trope is most often done with proper published romantic novels

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Wow, I'm mad at myself for being late to the favorite fic subject coming up /j

Personally, I'm a huge sucker for cya and have itysg as a second(however, if we decide to count your other fics then... itysg would be third while your smile makes me smile would be second). I think it's the amount of world building that makes it so interesting for me along with the fact that it takes place before the archon war. Like, there hardly passes a day where cya doesn't just... scoot right over into my thoughts making it kinda hard to reread cause it know it so well </3.

I am sad to say that I haven't checked out BitA yet. When I first saw it while looking for some other fic of yours to read, I didn't really like apocalypse stories much. I might check it out though cause I'm a lot more open to those kinds of stories now. I also remember starting every good intention, but I don't remember why I stopped... I think I had to get off my phone for a bit and just... forgot to continue? Idk I really should check those two...

You really get me Sprinkles- those murder mystery fics are so good! I remember reading one of genshin that was also mixed with a time loop and I just ate it up-(it was sadly discontinued and then deleted from ao3, but not before I managed to download it for future offline reading-) I'm honestly interested in those wriolette ones you mentionned, may I have a few recs if you don't mind? I need more wriolette in my life.

i do in fact have some wriolette murder mystery / cop mystery recs

A Match Made in France by oooohscar - not a murder mystery per se but it does contain mystery investigations. it's basically furina trying to matchmake neuvillette and wriothesley and she quickly discovers they work well as investigation partners? and so she starts trying to get them to investigate things together, but then shit gets out of hand. it's so fucking good and so fucking funny. like it's pre-reveal furina but i can forgive the mild ooc and- y'know, furina portrayal pre-trauma-reveal (?) just because it's so well written and hilarious (and also she's not portrayed entirely as a brat, i find her more absurdly histrionic than anything). also it's not just furina pov, it switches between all of them. it's incomplete but updating, and absolutely worth a read

The Gambler's Debt by Marsrevale - much more serious than the one above, this one is a murder mystery through and through. the mystery is still only starting, so it probably has a long way to go, but i'm patient so i'll keep up. it's basically neuvillette and clorinde going to investigate a series of murders in the fortress of meropide (this is a sort of modern au so meropide is a gambling house / hotel i think) and wriothesley is the main suspect, but there's also stuff going on between neuvillette and wriothesley bc they knew each other long ago but only wriothesley recognizes him. idk how else to describe it, it's really intriguing so far, i hope the mystery pans out nicely

Hold my hand, never let me go by Jinnmi - also a proper murder mystery, this one is about what is essentially a branch of fontaine's police force for criminal investigation led by wriothesley and the many interconected cases they have to solve. neuvillette is sent as a consultant to keep an eye on them, but ends up basically joining the team as they all try to solve a big case that seems to threaten the country whole and is also somehow connected to wriothesley's past. this one is very good, the murders might be a bit too gruesome for sensitive people? but still, really nice. i love the unsettling vibe of whatever the one behind this all is planning, the suspense is also really good. still updating and i rush to it every time a new chapter comes out, it had me in a chokehold when i first found it.

hope those sound interesting!

[fourteentrout]

Hello and howdy! It’s your secret santa back again with more questions!

I’ve spent a long time scrolling through your blog and you have such a wealth of talent! Fanart and fanfiction? You’re so engaged in the fandom and it feels so fun to have this chance to pick through what you like to come up with a gift!

On to the questions:

Who are your favorite ACOTAR characters? Other than Tamsand, do you ship Tamlin or Rhys with anyone else? What are some of your other favorite ships?

What kind of tropes are you a fan of? If you had to make a top five, what would they be and why?

What is one thing you wish you could change in ACOTAR? From the smallest grammar mistake to a world-changing plot point, there has to be something that irks you. And on the other hand, what’s something you love about ACOTAR?

Hello bestie, great to hear from you! D'aaawww, stawp, you're making me blush🤭 I've never felt so honored to be stalked

I have a few favs! Lucien, from the start, was always great to read. I loved whenever he was on page and I thought he filled out the snarky handsome disabled sidekick character extremely well. I also have grown to love Eris and Azriel, specifically together. Their ship still boggles me sometimes (especially since it's more popular than tamsand) but there is such a huge amount of talent in their side of the fandom and I've grown to be SIGNIFICANTLY attached. I grew to like Nesta more during Silver Flames, and I loved the additions of Gwyn and Emerie!

I don't really ship Rhys with anyone else except Feyre, but I'm not particularly invested in their relationship. As for Tamlin, though...I could see him having a really interesting dynamic with Nesta, or even Azriel. But nothing can beat his dynamic with Rhys in my eyes.

Tropes!! Ooh I LOVE like wackier AUs and tropes. Time Loop/Travel, Memory Loss, Sex Pollen (if we're talking smut), you name it. I also love Fluff, and that includes anything under that umbrella: fluff and angst, fluff and smut, hurt/comfort. I'm gonna count that as both 4 and 5 cause I am definitely rambling atp. I like AUs and tropes that put the characters in unusual situations. I just think it always poses for an interesting, engaging read. But I also am a sucker for happy endings.

One thing I wish I'd change about ACOTAR...oh boy. There is certainly a Lot to choose from. But I'd have to say the biggest thing that really makes my blood boil is the ret-conning. From the whole thing of Tamlin crawling towards Amarantha while he was recovering from his wound and Feyre later explicitly being like "he didn't crawl for me" to Beron being described as resembling Lucien, only for him to not be Lucien's father, and any other examples in between. Plot points like that being twisted and altered just feels like lazy writing idk. I could go on about this for a ridiculous amount of time.

Something I love about acotar is the actual fantasy world itself. I love the whole Courts system and that it's based on solar and seasonal phases, I love the classic fantasy aspect of it all.

Alright, sorry to unload all this on you at once, but I was very excited to hear from you! And this is me trying to restrain myself lol. Brevity was never my strong suit.

Thank you again for reaching out! Have a good weekend!

[emc2beans]

#FFXIVWrite Day 17: Noisome

(Vague future semi-au in which Alphinaud and Llewellyn are married bc I'm a sucker for domestic fluff. Idk just take it.)

In the years following an official retirement from adventuring, Alphinaud had found that his life had not gotten any less complicated. His choice to help expand and improve Idyllshire at Llewellyn’s side had not gone over terribly well with his parents who had wanted him to return to Sharlayan. Instead he had decided to ‘shore up a ruin’ and ‘marry an undereducated Eorzean delinquent’ (his father’s words, not his mother’s and decidedly not his). At least his mother had imbued some sense into the man, eventually, and Fourchenault calling Idyllshire a ruin would come back to bite him.

When the Sharlayan Forum found out that their abandoned colony had been taken over and was nearing the point of becoming a proper township, they had come to the logical conclusion that the so-called ‘squatters’ either needed to leave or adhere to Sharlayan’s authority. After Alphinaud facilitated significant back-and-forth negotiations, Idyllshire agreed to be part of Sharlayan under the condition that they would have at least one representative on the Forum.The people of Idyllshire had then elected the only person who was truly versed in Sharlayan politics which, of course, was Alphinaud. This was an unexpected loophole that meant he was serving on the Forum at the same time as his father, something that gave both of them no end of consternation. Needless to say, Alphinaud did not have many days off. 

Thankfully, Llewellyn’s own work on improving Idyllshire meant that he had plenty of time to take care of the home he had refurbished for them. Following his dream of being the star’s greatest house husband made Llewellyn very happy, and it also gave him ample time to do things like go camping with his friends in the Black Shroud for a week. He was due home from such a trip soon. Alphinaud had managed to configure his schedule in a way that meant he was back from Sharlayan a few bells ahead of when Llewellyn was supposed to return in hopes of surprising him. He had tidied the house and was now watching the path up to Idyllshire’s Aetheryte from his study. As luck would have it, he was able to catch a glimpse of his husband walking down towards their front door. 

Alphinaud headed down the main stairs to the foyer and excitedly opened the double doors, only to deflate when Llewellyn was not there nor was he farther up the path. Confused, Alphinaud stepped out onto the front patio and looked around. Llewellyn’s pack was leaning against the patio stairs, but the roegadyn man was nowhere to be found at the front of the house. 

Confused, Alphinaud walked around the house and through Llewellyn’s (work-in-progress) garden to see that the gate to the back yard was sitting slightly ajar. He could already hear Llewellyn talking in a baby voice, interrupted occasionally by the excited ‘kweh’s of Pip, the beloved chocobo for whom the entire back yard had been designed. 

“I should have known that you would say hello to Pip before me.” Alphinaud stood in the gateway and laughed as Llewellyn looked up from giving Pip a scratch.

“Wh- You’re home!” Llewellyn grinned and jogged across the yard to scoop up his husband for a hug. 

“As are you! I managed to finish work early and I had hoped to surprise you.” Alphinaud looped his arms around Llewellyn’s neck, pulling him down slightly into a kiss. They lingered there for a moment until an awful smell hit Alphinaud’s nose. He pulled back a bit. “Llewellyn, love, you reek.” 

“I’ve been in the woods for a week, not exactly a lot of opportunities to wash.” Llewellyn laughed, not letting go of Alphinaud’s waist. “I also haven’t really shaved.” He rubbed his cheek against Alphinaud’s face, making him recoil further from the unpleasant texture. 

“Go inside and bathe. Now.” Alphinaud pushed him back playfully with his face scrunched up in mock disgust, making Llewellyn release him at last. 

“Alright, alright. I’ll go bathe.” Llewellyn walked towards the front of the house, then paused to look back over his shoulder. “Can I expect you to join me?”

“Absolutely not.” Alphinaud shut the back gate behind them. “You are filthy. Go bathe or you’ll be sleeping with the chocobo.” He shooed a laughing Llewellyn inside, unable to keep the smile off of his face. 

[kay-oc-rambles]

Okay it's been a hot minute since I thought about the first of my Stardew Valley OCs, Cas (even though I made a whole ass sideblog for her that I ended up never using)

But more importantly, I am thinking of an AU. Where some magic shit goes bad & she gets stuck in a time loop (me? Thinking about time loops? What a surprise)

So for context, when I first played SDV it was on my laptop. I think in my very first file I was dating Sebastian, then lost interest in the game. Later I came back & made a new file. After a little while I ended up adding mods (mostly quality of life like faster walking speed, infinite health/stamina, not passing out at 2am, but I think the thing that ultimately screwed me was no crows. For some reason that mod did not play well with other mods). I married Leah in spring of year 2, as soon as I could. And then like 3 days later, the game crashed & the file is corrupted. I was upset of course, deleted a bunch of mods (I had so many mods y'all, though some of them were for hair/clothes bc I'm a sucker for dress up shit). Also at some point before the crash I made my OC Cas & changed the file data to be her.

I started a new save file & this time I went for Harvey (still playing as Cas). Once again, over that first winter I finally got enough hearts so as soon as that first spring of year 2 rain hit, I bought a mermaid pendant.

And then 3 days after marrying Harvey, the game crashed. File corrupted.

At this point I had logged roughly 80 hours across those files & I was so pissed off at losing ANOTHER save file. I gave up.

Flash forward to later I decide to buy the game on my phone. I don't think I got through year 1 before losing interest.

Then I get it for the switch one summer. I play as Cadmus. I play for a while but can't decide who to marry. Eventually put down the game. Then sometime later I find out my brother has sdv on the switch so we start a co-op together, thus my making another OC, Bea.

Recently my brother was like "hey we should start playing stardew again" so we picked up that co-op file, I decide that I'm gonna marry Leah. I also decided after he had enough for the day that I wanted to keep playing so I opened up the Cadmus save file.

Initially I was thinking that for this file, I wanted to marry someone other than Leah or Harvey. My brother suggests Sebastian, & I go with it (in part because back when I first played I was considering him, & also he looks like he could be Anubis's emo brother so why not put Cadmus with the purple haired emo bangs guy?).

But now I'm almost a year in marriage with Sebastian & I miss Harvey. Very much. Like, I'm heavily considering saving up to divorce Sebastian (and then saving up more to erase his memory that we were ever married bc I don't want him to be mad 😔). SO ANYWAY NOW WE GET TO THE POINT

Cas gets a time loop AU. Idk maybe the wizard's ex-wife decides to curse her for sneaking into her house to steal back the magic ink. 3 days after marrying Harvey, Cas gets sent back to her first day moving into Pelican Town. The first reset, she's just like "wtf is happening". She goes to the wizard about it but he thinks she's just crazy. She wonders if maybe it was all a dream so she goes on like normal. She marries Harvey again. 3 days later she gets reset. Now she KNOWS something magical is going on. She insists to Rasmodius that she has lived here for a couple years now. He's like "okay if both times it happened 3 days after marrying the doctor, which happened on a specific day, marry him on a different day?". So she speedruns it & manages to marry him fall year 1 (idk offhand if this is possible but I don't see why not). 3 days later, another reset. First person she goes to is Rasmodius. She has no proof of what's happening but he is getting a weird magical vibe off of her. They on trying to figure this shit out & in the meantime, Cas CANNOT give Harvey a mermaid pendant.

But one day Harvey decides to propose, and Cas can't bear to say no to him.

She & Rasmodius are scrambling to figure out SOMETHING, even if it's just a way to gather proof that will stay despite the reset.

3 days after marrying Harvey, Cas wakes up once again in her old apartment, ready to make the drive down to the valley. She cries. She actually puts off leaving for a couple days, until she gets a letter from Rasmodius. She finally goes, & Rasmodius actually visits her at the farm. He explains that something felt off when she didn't arrive as scheduled, he checked out the farm & there was residue of time magic or something. Hella cursed vibes stuck to Cas herself. She explains everything. They decide that maybe, until they can figure out what to do, Cas shouldn't even date Harvey (or anyone for that matter, just in case). She's a social person, she loves & misses all her friends in town, she especially misses Harvey, but she needs to stay distant.

It's not till year 3 of this loop, year 3 of just being friends, of keeping everyone at arms length while still helping them out (she finally gets the chance to finish the Community Center at least) that Rasmodius realizes it's his ex-wife that put this curse on Cas. He didn't even think she was capable of such a feat! But now that he knows the source, he can work to undo the curse.

Together they're able to figure out how to undo it, but Rasmodius asks if Cas wants to start over one more time, since in this loop she's spent 3 years keeping everyone at a distance. He could make it so that he remembers everything from this loop, so that once it resets, he can immediately break the curse & Cas can live normally. She briefly considers it but ultimately decides that she's tired of starting over. She's worked so hard & doesn't want to lose it all again. Besides, it's not like the town hates her, she's just earned a reputation as a loner who helps everyone out.

I'm honestly tempted to have something terrible happen that would *make* her wanna reset one more time. Or not even terrible but "Harvey marries someone else" or "Harvey has to close up the clinic & move to Zuzu City". But I also wanna give them a happy ending.

Maybe Rasmodius's ex decides to come after Cas right after they break the curse, she gets seriously injured & is taken to the clinic.

What if, once the curse is broken, Harvey remembers all the loops? The rest of the town has no clue, but since the curse centered on Cas marrying Harvey (technically Cas marrying anyone, but she only ever married Harvey), for whatever reason he regains his memories of those past loops.

So when Cas ends up in the clinic, he freaks out & patches her up but there's this whole heartfelt thing where he's like "I suddenly felt like I had spent the last few years falling in love with you", Cas explains it. They decide right there, no mermaid pendants, that they're gonna get married. The whole town is surprised because as far as they knew, Cas and Harvey were barely even friends, now they're suddenly getting married?????

(Cas is of course super anxious during the wedding & immediately after, but 3 days pass. 4. 5. A week. She's still here. Everything is fine. They live happily ever after.)

[danpuff-ao3]

12 and 23?

Hello! Thanks for the asks! :D

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

Hmm! You know, I don't know. The best answers I can give are:

I've read fics for tropes I dislike, but I ended up liking the fic. I.e. Rapture (for time travel), The Sleeping Prince (for de-aging), and Diagonally (time loop.) I'm still wary of those tropes and don't care for them, but I'm more willing to give them a chance since I've found fics I love for them.

I never really disliked friends-to-lovers, but it never drew me in, I guess? And it's still not my go-to, but I do have more favorable feelings about it now. Now that I've considered the more dramatic and angsty implications as opposed to the sweet fluff of it. Gimme the inner turmoil, baby!!

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

Oh gosh, so many I think.

Case fic: not because I'm particularly passionate about writing cases, I just want more to exist. Specifically: snarry case fics! I just want like a moderate mystery to follow along while also watching this romance bloom to life!! But it seems like one of those "if you want something done, you have to do it yourself" kinda things!

Flower shop AU!!!! Cuz I love flowers and c'mon...flower shop AU gives the best opportunity to play with flowers.

Coffee Shop AU: ngl I'm kind of a sucker for these?? They're usually sweeter and fluffier than my usual fare but I am a big coffee lover, so maybe that makes it better. 😂

Magical theory: I have this whole magic system I've been building in my head for years. (Please don't let that excite you. It's been years because I'm a busy lady and let myself get distracted by other projects. 🤣) But I really wanna write a longfic that really dives more into worldbuilding and magical theory. As ever, as a backdrop for some good Snarry romance, but still! I'm a great lover of details and I have so many headcanons about the magical world, and things I want to see, so having a big story with lots of room to stretch?? The downside of shorter fics is it's hard to really work in those fun extra bits, since there's so little space and you have to really think about what's important to the story. But in a longer fic???? Idk when I'll get there, but I hope I will one day!

Soulmark: another trope I LOVE and wanna write, but just have no real ideas for yet!

questions for fic writers

[oh-phineas]

Your Name: Emma

Characters: Phineas Flynn, Tiana Truitt, Aquata Triton, Anna Sommers (Closed) Bruce White, Anastasia Tremaine, Tanya Tiwari, Mirabel Madrigal, Lightning McQueen, Samuel Smiegel, Roz Peterson-Boggs

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth (we recommend choosing an older character, but it’s up to you!) What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

Let's talk about Annie! She can be kind of a volatile muse for me— sometimes I am exploding with muse and I am just obsessed with her and other times I really struggle. But I love her and I've gotten to do some really fun things with her.

One thing that has really surprised me about Annie is her writing career. I did not plan that at all when I first got her, and I think I mostly took her in that direction because there were fun plot opportunities with Toby (shoutout to that man for getting her a job she absolutely was unqualified for) and only then did I realize this actually made so much sense for her. She loves gossip, she loves creating narratives around people, and she has a ruthless side that comes out in these harebrained plots with Toby. This was a 2022 plot, but I absolutely loved when they teamed up to "expose" Elena and Dian's relationship, and that little plot has snowballed to some fun ones that followed: investigating Hatter, and now this new attempt to expose the merperson they are writing to!

The thing that's fun to me about Annie's growth is that she is absolutely not becoming a better person, but I think she's becoming a more confident one. Which is... well, it's not a good thing, but in some ways, it still is? Part of the reason Annie is so heinous is that she basically had her whole sense of identity destroyed when she went through her divorce, she'd based her whole sense of self around this man and this life that ultimately betrayed her and she came to Swynlake basically floundering and taking that lack of self out on other people. Now, she is starting to build a career that she's proud of and she has something that's all her own. And it is um kind of destroying lives in the process but I DO think idk there's a way this could still lead to her being less horrible (or maybe it won't and you know that's okay we need villains!) I think a lot about this text post that's like "they make each other worse but in the same way they connect and feel less alone and discover they have the same complexes and as a result and grow as people and then somehow loop around to making each other better" and like I could see that for Annie. Maybe. We'll see. That crazy girl surprises me all the time!!!

I'm also really excited to have Drizella in town, and they've only interacted a little, but I just love them so far. You know me. Sucker for complicated sibling relationships.

Okay okay one more thing it was an AU so it doesn't really count toward her arc but her plot during the Happily Ever After AU was some of the most fun I've had in AUs. Such a blast. I loved her fucked up little situation with Gaston. More of that please.

Pick another character (or the same character if you only have one) and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year? 

I have some big plans for Lightning McQueen, still figuring out exactly how to put them into action. He's trying to get his shit together, to prove to Cruz that he wants to be there for her and he does care about her, even if he's historically been really bad at showing it in any meaningful way. So I want to continue with his journey to learning how to do that. His friends are going to be a big part of that, namely Doc and Agustin. So I want to do more things with them. I've found something I really enjoy is having my character ask for advice from another character and then have that influence their actions, I just find it so fun and a good way to involve a bunch of different characters in a plot.

I think the thing that's a little daunting to me is figuring out how I'm going to handle his career and such. The difficult thing about Lightning is that his life is really defined by Racing Season and the Off Season, and if I don't get my plotting shit together by Racing Season I have to scramble. So I want to be really intentional about that this year and have a solid plan going in. That doesn't necessarily mean Lightning is going back to racing, but... it could. I just want to be intentional about it, basically.

Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it. 

So last year I talked about closing Henry and I hope it's not boring for me to talk about closing Anna this year. I think closing is just such a big production for me and even though it can be difficult I end up taking the opportunity to coordinate some of my biggest and favorite plots around closes and that's why they're fun to talk about.

I'm proud of my Anna close because I feel like I did some creative things with it! I'd been setting this up since before Peri was even closed, laying the groundwork for them to stay in touch and then for Anna to put together that fundraiser in December of 2022. Then I organized the spring break trip to Norway, which was really fun to get other characters involved in, and there was also the Ashleigh and Evy stuff going on in the background. And we got to send her off with Olaf, which was just the perfect ending and I'm so happy Laur wanted to do it that way. Even if this close wasn't as crazy and dramatic as Henry's, I feel like I wrapped up the major beats of Anna's arc in a satisfying way and I got to do some unique things along the way. Hate to see her go but love to write her off <3

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 things you love to write about (metaphors? Sibling relationships? Physical description?) and talk about why you enjoy it! 

Complicated family and friendship dynamics. I think I'm at a place in my life where this is really one of the most important things to me, especially being from a big family and being at kind of a crossroads with a lot of relationships in my life as we all get older and have to navigate new weird dynamics. So I really love relationships where things are a little strained sometimes, where people love each other but don't always know how to express it, where people hold onto deep resentments or misunderstand each other, where people know they want to be in someone's life forever but that doesn't mean their relationship is perfect or even great, they just know they love them. I feel like I could go on and on but yeah to me I enjoy writing romantic relationships but the platonic and the familial are really taking center stage I think.

Situational comedy, silliness, and irony. I love a wacky plot, especially when it's satirizing something or or poking fun at the weirdness of our world and the people in it. And I think there's a lot of opportunity to do it in a low-fantasy setting like Swynlake. I think SSHIIT is a good example of this, or all the jokes about being dead that Tanya makes, and I feel like I do this a lot with Smee. Bruce's fish-out-of-water antics fit in here too, like I know all the people he bit was pretty bad but in a way it was also kind of funny to me lmfao. I think it's why I play a lot of villains who are total clowns. Idk I just always love a plot that starts with an incredibly wild concept but it's actually getting at something real and true. If that makes any sense lol.

What major updates have your characters gone through this year? (For example: beginning/ending a relationship, moving, starting a new job, adopting a pet, etc). Think if it as anything you would have put in the #character-updates channel. If you have a pinned post, consider adding these updates so everyone is aware of them in the future.

Phineas: Started his newest business venture, Build a Brand. Also built an app with Kim despite some setbacks and weirdness between the two of them. Played Kenickie in Grease. Started dating Fawn! Tore his ACL and underwent surgery to repair it. Worked on creating a new version of SSIC called SPF with Pip. Soon will be saying goodbye to his big sis who's going off to grad school.

Tiana: Helped bring Aurora back to the waking world! Said goodbye to Ella and Willa when they had to move away :( Started seeing Cora, first more casually and then slightly more seriously, though it is an open relationship.

Aquata: Moved in with Boo after Lana moved in with Jake. Graduated from Pride U with her master's degree in sport management and left Swynlake Secondary. Got rejected from the Pride U coaching job she thought she had in the bag. Began studying to do personal training at Olympus Gym. In an undefined situationship with James.

Bruce: Was broken up with by Snow, and ultimately became friends with her again. Played Vince Fontaine in Grease. Started his merperson support group with the help of Gil. Opened up to Herc about being a merman and even told him some things about life in the ocean. Began taking on more responsibility at Whosits and Whatsits.

Anastasia: Went to court with Tom over custody of Levi and got custody for one day/night per week. Played Patty Simcox in Grease. Investigated the disappearance of the Unbirthday Blend with Toby, only to have it return to the menu before they could publish. Launched a new investigation over the existence of mermaids in Swynlake. "Fired" Herc as head of the neighborhood watch, "hired" Kim only to have her quit, and is recruiting again. Had her sister show up in town.

Tanya: Crashed Pip's birthday party, sparking feuds with Pip, Milo, and Mim. Apologized and made up with Mim! Volunteered for tech on the summer play and began an online situationship with "Charlotte," aka Penny's online alter ego who looked like Jenny. Had a massive blowout with Penny when the truth was revealed. Began working at the Inn's dining room. Got back in touch with her sister, decided that she will eventually move on, and told Zero about this plan. Told Mim the truth about being a revenant.

Mirabel: Started dating Alice, and then they broke up when Alice left to be queen of the fae realm. Kissed Candace at a party and then started crying about Alice and ruined the mood. Stage Managed Grease. Bridesmaid in her sister's wedding. Started playing DnD with Eilonwy, Ian, Tony, and Dipper.

Lightning: Had a weird one-sided love affair with a fictional ghost named Thea that Jessie impersonated. Began volunteering with the kids' summer Magick Grand Prix camp, only to quit/be fired when Cruz overheard him talking shit about the program Rust-Eze. Officially decided to go on hiatus and take a step back from the racing world. Went on a disastrous date with Cass.

Smee: Decided, along with Hook, to leave Swynlake and go after the infamous crocodile monster. Injured his knee in July and it hasn't been quite the same since. Got involved in an art forgery project with James.

Roz: Made her debut! Karen moved back in and things have been tense ever since. Advised on the mission to go after Clayton and brought Leo in. Started to befriend Elinor.

Talk about your dash reply style and your Discord reply style! (And if applicable, also your doc reply style). What do you like about each type of interaction? What is something you feel is difficult? Do you have preferences regarding how many times you’re tagged per day, or do you prefer for your replies to be queued for a certain amount of time?

I'll do all three! I tend to suggest dash as the default, Discord when I want to do something quickly (or if I'm away from my laptop but want to do something) and docs for something that needs to post on a certain date or again if I want to do something quickly. I basically like all three the same, but the latter two are more likely to cause me to lose something so I just might need to be poked. I don't have any preferences on tagging per day, but I do tend to reply the next day (unless IRL stuff sets me behind schedule) so I just ask that people let me know if they want stuff queued! I also try to keep track of people who only want to be tagged once or twice, but as a general rule I will reply to everything unless otherwise told.

And now, a wishlist! Jot down a few themes or stories or genres etc that you want to maybe pursue in the upcoming year! (i.e. a good ol’ fashion forbidden romance, maybe you want to dig deep into racial identity etc) This doesn’t have to necessarily be attached to any characters or stories you have now– it’s just meant to help you see for yourself what kind of stories call to your heart.

I don't know how to make this happen but I would love to do an exes plot where they can't let it go and keep crawling back to each other. Basically I just want an excuse to pull this shit lmaooooo.

More messy breakups in general

MORE ORGANIZED CRIME

A road trip

Being Tempted By The Forces Of Darkness

More sports???

I always want to do more stupid uni shenanigans like idk remember when we taped someone to the wall

Get into more backstory stuff for my older characters, like Smee and Roz

The idea of this intimidates me weirdly but an absolutely hopeless crush. Like extremely down bad territory. UNREQUITED. With lots of ooc communication ofc

Rivals and sabotage

Weird wacky magic shenanigans, like random curses and stuff. I'm always forgetting we live in a magic town and we can just do that!

OPTIONAL: Why do you RP?

Because it's fun, because I love storytelling, because writing doesn't HAVE to be a solitary activity it can be a fun group project. Because I can experiment and try out new things and explore things that idk how to express in any other creative form. Because I love when I can do something I love and not feel like I'm competing with everyone, we're just all working together. Because I think having free hobbies is rlly important. And because even after all these years I still love playing pretend!

[callsigndragon]

🎵😍🎆

- bean 🫶

My looooove 🤍🤍

🎵 What was the #1 song you had playing while writing? What fic was it for?

These two! Yes, I'm a sucker for League of Legends songs. I just love them. These two are the ones that I listened when writing A Rebel In My Soul!

This one inspired Legends Never Die (even though the title it's from one of the songs above)

There's a quote that Carole says to Raven when she was little: Why worship legends when you know that you can join them? It's from this song.

Whenever I hear this song, I see Rebel in my mind. I listened to this song on loop when I had to write the mission chapter. It encapsulates the feelings very well. Here's a fragment.

Turn your face towards the sun

Let the shadows fall behind you

Don't look back, just carry on

And the shadows will never find you

😍 What's one of your favorite lines or exchanges you wrote this year?

"You look beautiful in everything, fly girl" 

"Is this what being loved feels like?" you ask him, your hands moving up to sink between his locks.

From The Christmas Date

🎆 What are you most excited to work on or share in 2023?

First, the 4 series that I have on hold, idk when they will be released.

AND a Jake Seresin AU, inspired by Life As We Know It, called Desperate Times, Desperate Measures!

Thought about it being a one shot, but... then i thought the plot and weLL. Another series.

[littlemisspascal]

The Before

Pairing: Ruescott Melshi x Female Reader

Word Count: 4000+

Summary: There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life. This is the Before.

Rating: M (18+, minors please do not engage!)

Warnings: Prison/Narkina 5 storyline but an AU where woman inmates are assigned to each unit as 'peacekeepers', language, established relationship, non-descriptive smut + references of smut, possessiveness, rough handling, biting, references of violence + blood, non-descriptive suicide (not major character death)

- Reader has no official name and no physical traits described in detail. However, she is picked up twice + is implied to be shorter than Melshi (because I'm a sucker for height differences)

Author Note: So...Idk what happened, I just watched Andor and something about the prison arc really resonated with me. And I really loved Melshi’s scenes and his connection with Cassian (or, Keef, I guess technically lol) so I decided to give writing for him a shot. I am not a smut writer, it’s just not for me, but I wanted to also try to step outside my usual comfort zone a little bit too when writing and thus---this fic was born. Hope someone enjoys it 😊

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜

The When

There is a scar across the top of Melshi’s hand that flashes silvery-white whenever the light catches it just right. You’ve been mesmerized by it for almost a dozen shifts now. His hands, in general, have starred in many of your dreams: the sandpaper quality of his skin, thick fingers covered in calluses, how they flex and fidget when he works. 

Once upon a time your mind used to torture you by fantasizing what those hands would feel like touching you. If he’d be rough or gentle. How lucky you are now to know reality is better than even your wildest fantasies.

From the other side of the table, where he’s twisting a bolt into place with a hydrospanner, Melshi’s eyes lift to meet yours. The sleeves of his uniform are rolled up, exposing pale skin rippling as his muscles tighten and slacken with every movement. You track the faint blue lines of veins along the tender flesh of his wrists, up his forearms, imagining you can follow them all the way to his heart. The whooshing of blood pumping in your ears is nearly loud enough to block out the ruckus of machinery sounds. 

Nearly.

Melshi’s brow twitches, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it show of concern. An unspoken question only you hear. What’s wrong? 

Other prisoners have described this place as hell, but you're not so sure. Hell is pain and anguish on an infinite loop—a fitting description to a T, except for one glaring exception. Narkina 5 has Melshi. So it can’t be hell, you reckon, because Melshi is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. He’s your everything.

Nothing, absolutely nothing can compete with what you have within these walls. Fresh air, sunshine, the smell of the dirt after it rains. You’d trade them all if it meant staying by his side.

You give the smallest shake of your head. Nothing. An even subtler quirk of an eyebrow. Thinking.

There’s more you could say. A whole book of dialogue exchanged in shrugs, facial tics, and flaring nostrils. Melshi would follow along with every nonexistent word. 

But you don’t need to say anything else. Melshi understands your silences too.

He winks, sly as a fox. 

Back to work, little dreamer.

—

The view outside the window is the same above as it is below, dozens of skybridges full of men standing in lines with a single woman spotted here and there amongst them. You press your forehead against the glass, reminiscent of your childhood days on commercial flights. Behind you, Melshi stands alert, keeping an eye on Kino shouting orders further up ahead, ready to pull you back in line at a second’s notice. He holds your hand, thumb absently rubbing circles.

For a moment, you contemplate stealing his attention. Look, Rue, you’d say, tapping at the window, gesturing to the gaps between the ugly facility where water pours down in torrents, breathtaking in its intensity. And Melshi would turn his head, dark eyes burning like a wildfire, and you’d forget the view immediately, discovering a far more beautiful sight.

But Kino opens his mouth again and you’re tugged back in line and the moment’s gone. 

—

One morning, Ulaf gives you a scrutinizing look, his aged eyes dark and full of knowing, and says, “He’s it for you, isn’t he?”

The two of you walk side by side to the work ring, your turn to make sure he doesn’t get pushed around by the other prisoners. Up ahead, Melshi looks back every other step, glaring at anyone who gets too close to you, softening when he catches you smiling. 

“Yes,” you say simply, feeling warm all over. “He is.”

—

You’ve hit another milestone. Your sentence is now in the double digits. It’s not the lowest on the level, that honor goes to Ulaf, but still, not everyone lasts this long. All the Table Five guys come up and pat you on the back when they hear. All of them, except for Melshi.

You get it—or you think you do, at least. Because your time together has felt like a bubble, a separate realm from the rest of the universe. This milestone is a ticking bomb threatening to destroy that.

This milestone is one step closer to a goodbye.

“It’s inevitable, dream. Our ending was written from the start,” Melshi says, and goes into his cell. Lights out is near. You’re standing on the floor, arms crossed over your chest, loathing the tense points of his shoulder blades beneath the white and orange scrubs.

“Don’t say that.” 

“Why not? We both know it’s the truth.”

You stomp your foot and Melshi shoots you a look, squinting like he doesn’t recognize you anymore. You meet his stare unflinchingly.

He turns away a beat later, sighing through his nose. “C’mon, get inside.”

And that should be the end of it. You should let go of your churning frustration and join him in bed. Both of you should just keep on pretending everything’s fine, fall back smoothly into the same routines, and when your final shift comes you’ll leave without hesitation, never looking back. Just like the woman who left before you and the woman who left before her. 

You’re not like those other women, though. Everyone’s said so—you still smile, still laugh. Still dream. So you remain motionless, even as the buzzer rings out and the floor lights blink. 

“Quit fooling around, dream,” Melshi snaps, eyes darting between the floor and your face. His nostrils flare, mouth hard, but you know him better than anyone, see the cracks of worry behind his steely anger. “Either come here or get in your cell.”

Your eyes narrow. 

“Dream.”

The overhead bulbs switch off.

“Dreamer.” His fear is blatant now, the whites of his eyes shining. 

He’s not the only anxious one. Inmates are leaning out of their cells all along the block, some shouting at you to move, others watching with bated breath for a possible show of sparks and your bloodcurdling wails. You can feel Kino’s gaze drilling holes into you, and you know he knows nothing he says or does will influence you to move.

The only person who has that power is right in front of you.

Melshi.

The floor lights flicker their final warning.

Melshi, who’s snatching you around the waist and hauling you off the floor, all but throwing you into the safety of his cell. Melshi, who’s crowding you against the wall, grip harsh enough there’s sure to be bruises in the morning. Melshi who doesn’t want to say goodbye either.

“There are no inevitabilities with us. All we can depend on is each other, Rue,” you say, tilting your head back to lock gazes. He’s breathing harshly, chest heaving, but his eyes, oh his eyes are shining stars.

Defenses torn apart, emotions ripple across his face, one after the other like skipping stones. Anger, misery, panic, but underneath it all, what has your heart threatening to burst, is understanding. His right hand leaves your waist, seizing hold of your chin, forcing you to stay still. As if you’d rather be anywhere else. 

“Don’t you ever do something so reckless like that again,” he says through gritted teeth, accent bolstered by his turmoil. His thumb ghosts over your bottom lip then, belying his temper. “I won’t always be there to save you.”

You lean forward in his hold, and the mere fact that he lets you sink into his personal space, hands winding around his neck, is proof enough of his devotion.

Your lips hover centimeters away from his, noses brushing, and a teasing smirk curls at the corner of your mouth as you peer up at half-lidded eyes dark with desire. 

“Liar.”

—

The scarlet beam of a welding laser scorches the tender skin of your knuckles. It isn’t a severe burn—merely a painful inconvenience—but Melshi frets over it the rest of the shift and even afterwards in the sanctity of your shared cell, cradling your hand in his with all the gentleness of handling a baby bird. 

“You need to stay focused, dreamer,” Melshi chastens, making a tsking sound with his tongue.

But you’ve been christened your moniker for a reason. Mind frequently drifting into the clouds far, far above, envisioning alternate lives beyond your underwater cage, making a home somewhere even the Empire and all its corruption cannot touch. 

You grin back at him. “I kind of like it actually. We match now.”

Melshi glances down at his scarred hand, almost like he’d forgotten the mark was there. Something dark passes over his face, a shadow of a triggered memory. A chapter of his life he’ll never tell you about.

“Just don’t make it a habit,” is all he says.

—

It’s funny, in a way, how certain little elements of prison life start to feel comforting in their familiarness. A fresh set of scrubs every third day. Morning stretches with an ample variety of bedheads. Taga’s signing lessons. The boom of Kino’s voice. Flavorless mush in a tube. Feet padding along on chilled Tunqstoid tiles. The shrill whirs and whines of machinery. Melshi’s fingers trailing heat along your body, breaths and moans blurring together in the dark. 

You wish you could reach out and bottle these moments, use them as painkillers on days when Table Five finishes last and the floor threatens to burn holes in the soles of your feet.

Jemboc nudges your arm with his, wondering where you drifted off to this time. You nudge him back, then shrug your shoulders. “Nowhere far.”

—

The guards don’t give two shits about what you and Melshi do after lights out. As long as you hold out your arm for a contraception injection at the start of each month and your “womanly influence” continues keeping the men of Unit Five-Two-D coolheaded, they won’t even care if you fucked a different cock every night. 

They don’t need to care what happens to anybody dressed in white and orange—they’re not paid to care, only to press a couple of buttons and announce ominous messages over the intercom throughout the day. And you hate it. Hate them and the entire Empire manipulating the galaxy like a giant puppet on a string. 

But you’re also a selfish creature. 

What you have with Melshi, your messy and beautiful bond, has not only been allowed to grow in this gaping blind spot, but flourish. It’s like fate intertwined your paths. Like Narkina 5 was always in the cards from the get-go. And in the rare moments where Melshi looks at you with unbridled affection, that selfish part of you will sing joyously because this belongs to you, this is all you need to be happy. Nothing else.

The rest of the galaxy could burn to ashes.

—

You watch Melshi sleep, sometimes. Quiet, lower lip clenched between your teeth, not wanting to wake him up and lose the moment of indulgence.

You know what will happen if he catches you. It’s happened twice before and panned out the exact same way. He’ll give you a bleary-eyed look once he sees you staring. Followed immediately by unintelligible grumbling and a hand pulling you forward, burying your face into the nook between his neck and collarbone. A wordless command to go to sleep.

Holding his hand in the waiting lines and blowing him in the dark for three years, Melshi doesn’t mind at all. But watching him sleep, curled on his side with an arm slung over your waist, marveling at how much younger he looks while he dreams as the midnight hours tick by—that triggers the transformation of your strong and hardened lover into someone shy and wrongfooted. It does something funny to your heart, even funnier to your mind.

Makes you wonder how different he’d be if you’d met Melshi outside of prison, what would stay the same. Would he bring you flowers on your first date? Would he whisper mine in your ear and hold you flush against his chest while thrusting deep inside you?

Perhaps that’s the truth of why you keep watching Melshi sleep, to see glimpses of this alternate persona buried beneath the familiar layers. 

You look up when fingers close around your wrist. And for a third time, you find yourself looking into the eyes of a stranger.

—

You first kissed Melshi on your 1,352th shift in the semi-privacy of the refresher, taking his face between your hands and smashing your mouths together.

It was all clashing teeth and needy tongues, and you tried to sink into the experience for all its worth, to let yourself be consumed entirely. But your heart pounded like a wrecking ball against your chest, and a voice in the back of your head screamed stop it! He’ll take advantage of you, for fuck’s sake! 

The voice was momentarily drowned out by the wet heat of Melshi’s mouth, a teasing nip against your bottom lip, and a wave of pleasure rolled over you from head to toe, a dizzying and dearly missed sensation.

And then you forced yourself to pull away.

Melshi merely blinked at you, a little dazed looking, lips red and slightly swollen. Oh, Maker…

“Sorry,” you murmured, dragging your eyes away to look at a very interesting spot on the wall over his shoulder. “I-I wasn’t thinking. I just—”

“Liar,” Melshi cut you off, not unkindly. He smirked at your affronted look. “You’re always thinking, little dreamer.”

He wasn’t wrong. Your mind was always thinking, planning, imagining, drifting, analyzing. Still, you huffed and crossed your arms over your stomach. You’d rather he just reject you outright than continue exacerbating your discomfort.

“How often?”

You arched an eyebrow. “How often what?”

Melshi pinned you with a sharp look, like you were being purposefully difficult. He leaned closer then, and your breath caught as he brushed his fingertips over your temple, palm cradling your cheek. “How often do I cross your mind?”

You let out a shuddered exhale. You’d never been touched like that before. Touched like you were worth more than a quick fuck and a fake promise of calling again soon. 

“Melshi,” you began only to be silenced by a thumb against your lips.

“Ruescott.”

Something inside of you cracked wide open.

“Ruescott,” you amended, voice barely above a murmur. His breath was hot against your cheeks, sending your thoughts into a whirlwind. “You…”

Maker, why was it so hard to focus? 

You felt feverish all over. Every nerve ending ablaze. Melshi’s eyes never left yours. And he must have known. He must have.

“Ruescott,” you raised a hand, tentatively resting it over his, grounding yourself in the physical contact, “you never leave my mind.”

Something shifted in his gaze, a flicker of an emotion you couldn’t identify, and then Melshi lunged, swallowing your startled yelp with his mouth, lips colliding.

The sudden fierce moment had you stumbling backwards against the wall, but Melshi’s hand was quicker, protecting your skull from the hit. And you, you didn’t know if it were possible to pull him in any closer, hands fisted in the itchy fabric of his scrubs, his arousal grinding against your inner thigh, but fuck if you didn’t make an attempt. 

Seconds, minutes, hours later—time had no meaning anymore, you were drunk on the taste of him—Melshi was the one dragging himself away with a low groan. You made an attempt to chase after his lips, but his hold on your upper arms was impossible to squirm out of, fingers flexing warningly.

“Not here, dream,” he said before throwing a glance over his shoulder. 

Awareness of your surroundings abruptly came screaming back to you. 

Oh, shit, you thought, the heat in your core extinguished immediately. Kissing was one thing to be caught doing, but two inmates letting loose their combined pent up sexual frustration in a fit of raw, unbridled fucking was quite another.

“Tonight,” he muttered, an oath sworn with another searing kiss. “Tonight I’m going to take care of you. I’ll fuck you so good every man on every level will know.”

You barely stifled the whimper in your throat. Insecurity bit at you, a parasite you couldn’t squash on your own. “Promise, Rue? You won’t leave me high and dry?”

Or worse, wet and wanting. 

“Promise,” was the instant response; no hesitation, no thinking. And then, quieter, infused with such bleeding sincerity you felt the words like individual blows: “I’ll make you a second one, too. You’ll never have to worry about me leaving you.”

At the time you thought him romantic. Now you understand his real meaning: you’ll never know a day apart from him because your sentence is shorter than his. 

—

“I love you,” you whisper in the midnight hours. Melshi pulls you closer, lips pressing against the crown of your head. One of his hands rests on the back of your neck, fingertips gently rubbing at your pulsepoint. 

“When I…” he cuts himself off, and you can hear the quiver in his voice, the words catching in his throat. “When I dream about a life outside of here, you’re always there. Just you and me, somewhere warm…and...”

There’s a pause, a silence broken only by Melshi’s quiet exhale and faint snores from cells further down. 

Your eyes sting, tears spilling down your cheeks. “And?”

“And we’re happy,” he says softly. “We’re so fucking happy.”

—

Group showers provoke warring emotions twice a week without fail. 

On one hand, it’s nice to feel clean after sweating through your shifts. (Do you wish it didn’t require being tightly packed like sardines into a room with a bunch of unknown women and sprayed with frigid cold mist? Of course. But who’s gonna listen to your complaints? Nobody, that’s who.)  

On the other hand, you’re separated from your group, from Melshi. And it’s like there are thorns digging into your backside the entire time, from the second you’re hustled away by a guard all too happy to leer at you while his hand rests pointedly on his zaprod to the moment you’re reunited with Unit Five-Two-D in the work room. Only when you’re back in their sight again—each of your Table Five boys sweeping their eyes over you, looking for signs of harm, a single hair out of place—you feel like you can breathe easily again. 

You were brought here to be a peacekeeper amongst the men—negotiate with them, befriend them, be their punching bag or fucktoy, the method doesn’t matter so long as the conflict is settled—and on other levels you’d be expected to fulfill your duty to the utmost degree, but not here. Not here where Kino’s word is law and the men will suffer worse than a broken hand if they’re inappropriate with you. 

Inmates aren’t supposed to think of themselves as lucky, not on Narkina 5 of all places, but you do.

To the guards, you’re a sacrificial lamb in a den of lions. Rumors say more women leave in body bags than by walking. But they have it all wrong in your case. You aren’t a lamb and the men aren’t lions. 

You are a wolf, and they are your pack.

—

The odds are in Table Five’s favor today, resulting in a first place victory and flavored food waiting for you all in your cells. Between swallows the men banter and roughhouse like rowdy schoolboys, Xaul telling a crude joke about shaved banthas that makes you laugh so hard your ribs ache. Even Kino cracks a smile.

You lean back against Melshi’s chest, head tucked beneath his chin. Lucky, you think again, committing every detail to memory.

And you don’t know it yet—nobody does, not even the guards—but this is the last good day you’ll have at Narkina 5. 

Tomorrow, everything will change.

—

You wake up to shouts ricocheting off the walls, nearly falling off the cot out of alarm if not for Melshi’s fast reflexes. The morning buzzer hasn’t rung yet, floor still electric, but the whole block is an enraged swarm, an overwhelming cacophony of cursing and bellowing. Even more worrying, Kino won’t make eye contact when you look to him for answers.

And then you see it.

Melshi’s number has increased.

There’s a loaded moment where you can’t believe what you’re seeing. You tap at the screen with trembling fingers, thinking it’s a glitch, it has to be, because if it’s not then that means—Oh, Maker, you can’t even finish the thought—but the number doesn’t change, doesn’t flicker. Your insistent taps become slaps, palms aching, and you don’t realize you’ve joined in the shouting until Melshi’s pulling you backwards with an arm around your stomach.

“It’s not just me. Everybody’s tabs have gone up. Even yours, dreamer,” Melshi says hoarsely, holding you up when your knees go numb, sobs wracking your body.

“Why?” you whimper, shaking your head. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Rue. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Through your tears, Melshi’s eyes hold more worry than you’ve ever seen, and you can’t stand it. You want him to reassure you, to tell you there’s been a mistake and everything will be okay.

He doesn’t. Instead, even worse, his arms tighten around you and he says nothing. 

Not one word.

—

Later, you’ll learn there was an attack on one of the Empire’s garrisons (a suspected rebellion strike, but you, along with at least half of Five-Two-D’s men, are still on the fence whether these so-called rebels even exist or not). 

Later, you’ll learn the Empire invoked the Public Order Resentencing Directive as a result. The reason why everyone’s numbers spiked overnight without warning. The reason why slight mishaps previously disciplined with a verbal dressing down are now punished with a zaprod to the gut, spine, head—wherever the guards think will hurt the longest. 

Later, Melshi will rub your back while you empty your stomach contents into the refresher, the sight of blood gushing from Ham’s busted and charred nose seared into your brain.

There’s tension in the air, every day intensifying a little more, squeezing your neck just a little bit tighter. There are nights where Melshi paces the length of the cell, fists clenched at his sides, and mornings where Ulaf can barely stand from his cot, gritting his teeth against the aches and pains of a weathered body pushed to its limits. 

You were brought here to be a peacekeeper. But there’s nothing you can do to quell this amount of rage. A rage you feel simmering beneath your own skin. 

There is a bomb in the heart of Narkina 5, ignored by the guards who shield themselves behind their electric floors and weapons. But what the fools fail to realize is it’s not a question of if this bomb will go off.

It’s a matter of when.

—

“We’re never getting out of here,” you whisper, pressed against the cot.

“Don’t talk like that. Not you, little dreamer,” Melshi scolds, breathing against your neck, and you fall silent, shuddering with every touch, teeth sinking into the meat of his shoulder to muffle your moans.

In the morning you’ll trace the bite mark with your fingertips, thinking that the thin line between animal and human has never looked blurrier.

—

You first notice Tress’ twitchiness during the third hour of your shift. Eyes just a bit too wide, gnawing at his lip like he’ll receive a reward if it bleeds. Panic attacks happen from time to time, but usually to newbies who haven’t adapted to the routine yet. Not to longtimers like Tress.

He gets worse with each passing hour, dropping his tools, practically vibrating with an abundance of nervous energy. You’re not the only one who’s alarmed by his strange behavior now. Melshi casts subtle glances in Tress’ direction after every finished droid piece, while Kino stares him down like he’s ready to tackle him in the next breath if Tress does something remotely dangerous.

You lose track of him when everyone lines up to return to the sleep block. No matter how much you twist and crane your neck in either direction, you can’t spot a single glimpse of his blonde curls. Melshi squeezes your hand, and to everyone else he appears indifferent, staring straight ahead while waiting for Kino to give the order to keep walking, but you see the pinch between his eyebrows immediately. He’s just as concerned as you are.

Passing him safely in his cell has you breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Still, you can’t quite bring yourself to fully relax, a sense of impending dread lingering in your bones. You don’t say much during dinner, just sit on the floor of your cell next to Melshi, half-listening to his conversation with Taga—something about a new guard on the third level nearly frying a man to death accidentally—and half-keeping an eye on Tress who looks only marginally less weasley-looking than he did earlier. Marginally.

“Sleep, little dreamer,” Melshi tells you later on in the night, pausing your tossing and turning. His eyes are closed when you look at him, but you can tell by his wrinkled brow he’s hanging onto consciousness by a mere thread. You don’t understand how he’s able to sleep. Doesn’t he feel the wrongness? Like the walls are closing in, stealing the room’s oxygen?

Your mouth opens to ask him just that, but the agonized wail that pierces the silence doesn’t belong to you.

And you know, even before you’ve slid off the cot, before you see the body lying motionless on the floor at the end of the hall, that Tress is gone. 

—

The next day, a new inmate named Keef Girgo arrives.

And little do any of you know, he’s going to bring Narkina 5 to its knees.

[koheletgirl]

i was tagged by @planteria​ ty!! <3

S: fav tropes, actively seek out, will almost always read unless done too horribly (bad writing/characterization)

A: love it but won't always read/look for. really just side stuff thrown into what i usually love. if it's not written that well, i probably won't read either

B: generally enjoy if thrown in but not important, don't look for and don't read too often, but if i see it i might check it out if it sounds good enough

C: not a fan, but if it's in a fic that looks good, it won't turn me away too fast

D: if this is in a fic, i guarantee i'm not reading it. even if it has some S tier tropes of mine

id and explanations under the cut!

tagging @quenchiestzukka @zukkaoru @zukkas @that-was-anticlimactic and @dykevirgo

[image id: S tier tropes: angst, canon divergence, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, humor, in vino veritas (drunken confession), first kiss, mis-communication, mutual pining, slow burn / A tier tropes: sharing a bed, coffee shop au, fake relationship, fluff, hurt comfort, huddle for warmth, pwp, time loop, crack fic, amnesia fic / B tier tropes: established relationship, fix it fic, gen fic, high school au, magic au, missing scenes, college au / C tier tropes: unrequited love, unhappy ending, arranged marriage, soulmate au, baby fic, body swap, major character death, historical au, love triangle, fairytale au, pregnancy fic, royalty au / D tier tropes: ABO, bang or die, dark fic, cross-over, sex pollen. / end id]

alright so the thing is. i’m a sucker for getting together fics. which is why i dont love established relationships, i just need to see all the action as it happens. i have both angst and humor listed under S tier because when either of them is done right i literally cant get enough. but also bc i need fics for different moods. crack fics are very hard to get right, but when they are good they are Great imo. and like sometimes i just need to see my silly blorbos in silly situations. coffee shop au is A tier and ngl that’s probably because i read A Lot of zukka. and tbh i havent read a time loop fic but if you know one pls tell me! the concept is just so appealing. pwp is there bc i like it better when there’s a plot but yk. sometimes you gotta. amnesia fic is listed there bc im a dramatic bitch and also like. well. theres this one amnesia fic that changed my life idk if youve heard of it

so i dont love high school aus bc i guess im just not that interested in high schooler’s lives anymore lmao. college aus are fine but theyre not my favorite, also they stress me out bc they remind me of. college. missing scenes and fix its are not listed higher bc i feel like you need to be Really Good to get them right and most of the times there are no missing scenes and the thing doesnt need to be fixed.

my c tiers include tropes that i highly highly dislike, but they don’t make me cringe or actively repulse me lol. either that or i just dont read them because theyre sad and im weak.

ty jen this has been so much fun!! <3

[learned-foot]

I really like the way you write Peter and Tony. It always feels in-character. :D And the quality is fantastic. You always have pretty great plots going too. :DDD I always read your stories, even when the summaries don't immediately catch my attention, because I'm like, "Her writing is great -- I'll probably enjoy this no matter what the plot is!" And now, since you said you'd like to chat about starker... question for you! What headcanons/tropes do you wish you saw /more/ of in starker fic?

First: Thank you so much

My response was getting long, and you shared some great headcanons with me in another ask, so I am going to share my headcanons in response to that. But here are some tropes and scenarios I’ve been wanting to see MORE of recently:

– Backstory Steve/Tony. Not for Steve bashing – I like Steve! – but because I think this would add fun layers of insecurity for Peter. How is he supposed to live up to Captain America, you know? Maybe he feels like he’s just a pale substitute for Tony – another strong superhero to help fill the void. And of course, Tony eventually convinces him that no, seriously, even Captain Fucking America does not hold a candle to Peter in his mind or heart

– Time Travel! tuesday recently posted a great time travel fic that reminded me that I would really love to see more of Peter meeting Tony at different points in his timeline.

– Relatedly: time loops! I’ve written a couple, and have another one I’m working on, but I would love to see more people play with the trope. From funny to deadly serious, it’s just always really fun. And I like anything that gives Peter and Tony a chance to use their brains to figure something out.

– Space adventures. I want AUs where Peter and Tony are the only ones left on Titan and have a long adventure home, or just post-Endgame space adventures. There’s so much potential. Maybe it’s easier for them to slip into a relationship in space, where aliens don’t know or care about the age difference. Or maybe they crash land on a plant and have to survive.

– I also love the idea of them having adventures with the Guardians in particular. Tony & Nebula is my brotp, and I also kind of love the idea that the rest of the Guardians wouldn’t really like Tony (because, love the guy, but he’s kind of an arrogant dick when you first meet him), and WOULD love Peter (because he is a sweetheart who everyone loved). Maybe they go on a long space adventure and Tony ends up feeling isolated and kind of jealous of how well Peter is getting along with the rest? IDK.

– Survival!fic in general is something else I want more of. Stuck in the wilderness, etc. I’m such a sucker for it, and it’s a great excuse for a) them to use their brains, b) forced huddling for warmth, b) slowly getting to know each other as more than mentor/mentee, as they spend hours talking over the fire or whatever.

– Peter NOT having had a longtime crush on Tony. I actually generally love the headcanon that he does, and it’s mostly what I write, but I think it would be interesting to see more fic play with him first realizing his feelings later. Maybe even have Tony be the one to catch feelings first? Just for the variety!

And a few dubcon related things under the cut:

– Sex pollen or other dubcon aftermath. I love me some good sex pollen PWP, don’t get me wrong – heck, it’s all I’ve written in the genre – but I really want to see the “what’s next?” Like, if Tony has been resisting or in denial of his feelings, does he go back to trying to resist, but this time, haunted by knowing how good it could be? Does the sex pollen make one or both realize their feelings for the first time, and if so, what do they do next? Etc.

– Tony/Obie as backstory. I am fascinated by potential inherent in Tony and Obie having had a dubconny, manipulative relationship when Tony was much younger, and how it could effect Tony/Peter. Maybe he is way too cautious because he doesn’t want mistakes repeated. Maybe he dives in headfirst but then freaks out the first time he’s afraid he’s done anything to hurt Peter, because it reminds him of Obie. Maybe Peter is curious to try topping but Tony has a major hangup about it because Obie topped him and it has bad associations. Etc. etc. etc. Cue misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and/or hurt/comfort when Tony finally explains what’s going on. IDK, I’m just really into this idea these days.

You or other people should feel free to chime in with what they want to see more of!

[neonun-au]

okay so I know I’m late but I just read return our lives and GOD DAMN.... I mean the words WW1 AU were right there in the description and yet when it happened I was still like surprise pikachu face.... and idk why but ending it on a time loop was a sucker punch to the GUT honestly I’m sitting here feeling like Tyler the Creator “oh no... I hope I don’t fall” and yet here I am crying.... ANYWAY it was so beautifully written I just had to let you know

no such thing as being late, i am always so so so happy to hear anyones thoughts about ANY of my fics no matter how old HAHA

jdsfhas the tyler the creator meme lol i have his voice in my head now repeating that oh god lol i did feel a little bit evil with the time loop thing, it also sucker punched me as i was doing it but !! i'm so happy you enjoyed it (???) enough to let me know your thoughts haha sorry for the sad :'))

[itsmonobun]

still on last rb but i remember playing a few rounds with this one group and one person in particular was just nailing down imposters round for round so this one time we're like "there's no way ur gonna guess it right again and this fast" so they're just like

xxx: :) xxx: it's ___

and we're like okay but why and they lay out the whole thing

xxx: there's a shared task which for this is card swipe. everyone went to admin while they went somewhere else. then during emergency waited at the side before looping around and during that time someone went missing. stood for too short/long at these tasks and was just generally moving around abnormally

and without a doubt got em

like idk but i'm i sucker for sherlock holmes ass players who catch every minor thing like "aht caught your ass slipping now what" it's just mesmerizing

i want to be that i really do but i really gotta have my head in the game and w no distractions like that could totally be me but also brain dumb i just aaahhh

literally had i bothered to actually do that AU i was thinking up ages ago i would've found a way to get one of these types in there

also it's the way the detective types go from quiet observers with real good hunches to the first one snuffed out in a round it's like dang...