#literally ask me stuff about my fics

[tehrevving]

What has been Vincent's thoughts on reader? Especially the latest date fiasco and his moody reveal turning into probably the best bj of his life

Holy crap this answer got so long and drops so much unrevealed lore lmao. Enjoy!

My general characterisation of Vincent with regards to sex is that he is very interested in giving, but not so much receiving. Most of his sexual experience was with women at 'Turk Academy', who gravitated towards him because he was great at eating out and didn't expect too much in return. Vincent is demi and bi in my fic, but has a preference for women (because they make more mess lmao), not sure if that's relevant but *shrug*.

Due to him being demi, most of his experience being casual and how Lucrecia used him (which I've hinted at a little bit). He doesn't see fingering/eating out/etc as things that are overly emotional or complicated. Especially in the 'modern' day, as he can just keep his clothes on during all of it.

Reader made a deliberate effort in the beginning to understand him and get closer to him, just as a friend of course, but I don't think it's too surprising that he 'latched on' to the first person to take an interest in actually getting to know him in a long time. I do wish I'd added an extra chapter near the beginning to make this a bit more clear lol, but oh well.

After Hojo's experiments on him, he doesn't think anyone could ever want him. He actually is that person covering the bathroom mirrors and showering in the dark lol. He interprets Reader initially showing sexual interest in him, not as her actually wanting him, but as her wanting him to pleasure her, which he has no problem with doing.

She tries to address this in chapter 9 (the one after the stargazing but before the eating out), and explicitly tells him that she wants more, but he's so in denial that while he says he'll try and be better, in his mind he doesn't believe her, and to cope with it reverts to trying to ignore all of it with sex. Which was basically his relationship with Lucrecia lol, everything is too complicated so we'll just fuck and ignore all of it.

Vincent caught feelings after the fight where he transforms and the conversation afterwards. He didn't realise that's what was happening at the time, and has been in extreme denial about it. A lot of his back and forth behaviour has been him trying to reconcile his feelings with his own self-doubt and just general trauma and issues, and that he generally didn't see sex as a big deal, until suddenly it is.

All of this then builds up to the point where he just can't handle it anymore. He hasn't tried getting off after all of the experimentation, and finds that he can't on his own. I might write this as an extra chapter one day, but I feel like he can't push himself over that metaphorical edge because of his self-loathing, hatred and fear of losing control over his own body.

When he asks her for help getting off that first time, he's actually asking for a lot of unspoken things. The fact that she doesn't shy away from him, is very enthusiastic, and works within his boundaries, is a huge deal. That interaction gives Vincent hope that all of this might work.

Which brings us to the Gold Saucer date. I love this chapter. It might not be super obvious, but almost every single interaction that the two of them have with the attractions and the other group members has narrative significance. (send me another ask and I'll do a whole analysis on that lol)

Vincent decides that he is going to use this time at the Gold Saucer as a test, to see if he thinks that he can make this work. Vincent has a lot of hangups about his body and that he's not normal. He has quite an old fashioned mentality about courting someone, dating etc (but not fucking lmao). And is very aware that he can't take her out to share a meal/drinks, or do a lot of general date things. He considers this to be a huge deal.

He starts off in a good mood but grows continually frustrated throughout the night as he is reminded of all of his perceived shortcomings, and the fact that none of them seem to bother her.

By the time the G-bike VR is finished, that frustration reaches its peak and Vincent is sort of minutes away from losing control and transforming. She tries to comfort him, but he realises that nothing she says to him will work. Like, she says it's not a big deal that he can't play VR, when that's not the problem, the problem is that he is so inhuman that even a computer is rejecting him. He tries to remove himself from the situation as fast as he can and storms off. At the beginning of the date, he had some hope that he wouldn't have to reject her, but at this point he is completely convinced that he is going to, even if he has to be forceful about it.

He just stews in his own anger and self-loathing, not noticing anything around him or how his emotions are actually physically affecting her. When she calls him out on it and he actually looks at her and sees that she is basically shaking and paralysed with fear (I think I played this down in the actual chapter, but in my first draft this shit was intense), he realises that he needs to control himself. The fact that she followed him and is still trying to help him even though he is making her feel like that dissipates a lot of his anger and just leaves him with the frustration.

He doesn't want to reveal too much about the experimentations that were done to him, and honestly I think he doesn't quite understand the implications of a lot of it either. So he tries to explain while glossing over a lot of it, which means he ends up talking about more of his general human sexual trauma instead lol.

He figured that she might not shy away from the monster arm. He had hoped that showing her that would just explain everything, but of course it doesn't. I think that Vincent's self-loathing means that he's not that good at predicting how other people will react. When he thinks through conversations in his head, he assumes everyone has a terrible opinion of him to start with. So, she catches him off guard when she talks about how she already knows he's a 'monster' and doesn't care.

He continually keeps throwing out these bullshit reasons, that ignore her feelings on the matter and she's sick of it. She realises that she needs to hold him the fuck down, make him shut up and realise that she doesn't care about his dumb excuses. But at the same time, she's also smart enough to realise that it'll just make it worse if she forces him. It's important that it's him that takes his clothes off, exposes himself, pulls her into position etc. I really like that scene and the buildup because it's clear that they're both trying to show and enforce consent while being angry and not talking about it.

As for the actual blowjob. Look, she sucked his soul out through his dick and he is now 100% ride-or-die committed. He has never had anyone treat his body with any actual care. Obviously the experiments were bad, but even before that, having had mostly one night stands and then of course Lucrecia. He hasn't ever had someone care for him like that before. The fact that Reader is showing that care for the first time on his ruined, experimented-on body, destroys him. The way that she checks in on him, reassures him, and has taken note of his own cues (The 'I'm here', is so fucking important), convinces him. All of those things are the actual, polar opposite to how Lucrecia treated him (and I do intend to write a prequel about that too lol)

I love their little sex affirmations. My fave part of the fic honestly. The way that they can bounce off each other, reassure each other and show understanding with a just a few words or hair pulls. I love it lol.

Anyway, Vincent starts acting a bit differently after the Gold Saucer date, and I am so excited to show you all. I am writing furiously, but these things can't be rushed lol.

[choccy-milky]

A few months back, I asked if it was okay to write using Clora and Seb. Finished the work - thought I'd lost it on my hard drive and a virus scan located it.

Not sure if it's sad or happy, but the basic premise of it is Clora getting frustrated/upset at Sebastian and Sebastian comforting her, Sebastian getting upset at a predicament Clora's in and Clora comforting him, and them both getting frustrated/upset and having to comfort each other.

If you'd rather I didn't post it, that's fine too, but just wanted to test the waters and double check that you'd be okay with it if I gifted it to you via AO3, or see if you wanted a sneak peak of it before posting it.

OMG im so happy you were able to find it and recover the work you did!!😭🙏 AND YES OF COURSE YOU CAN POST IT AAA I CANT WAIT TO READ IT!! you can DM it to me first if you want, but i also dont mind if you post it straight away on ao3!! IM LOOKING FORWARD TO IT SM AAARGHHHA💖💖💖IT SOUNDS ANGSTY WE LOVE THE HURT/COMFORT I HOPE MY HEART CAN HANDLE IT🥺💖💖TY AGAIN FOR USING CLORA AND SEB AND TAKING THE TIME TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT THEM😭

@sunshine-goblin AAA THANK YOU!!! im honoured its your fav fanfic AND ALSO THE LONGEST YOUVE READ BAHAHAA fr, when you say its as long as four books in lotr it rly makes me realize how insane i am😃👍 aw IM GLAD I COULD INSPIRE YOU TO DRAW MORE AND WRITE AS WELL😭 I was curious so i creeped you and everyone go look at their HL blog @sunshines-legacy your MC is so cute and so is your art🥹💖 as for tips on writing a longfic and brainstorming and motivation and stuff, my motivation was my brainrot and unhappiness with the canon story/ending LMAOO, and looking at the story of the game and playing around with what i was unhappy with/what i WISHED could have happened instead, was a lot easier than just coming up with plotlines from scratch. but something i highly recommend is just OUTLINING and making a timeline, one of my fav parts of writing was just putting on some cafe ambience in the background and doing stream of conscious type word documents where id just barf ideas and then worry about making it pretty later....like look at how many versions of the same chapter i have BAHAHA or like different renditions bc i couldnt decide if id wanna keep a scene/what order, so id make a timeline and keep smoothing things out until i was happy with it and whatnot

brainstorming is defs my fav part of the process and the most helpful part to me. just getting a blank document and writing stuff you want to happen without worrying about how it connects to the story, and then a lot of the times as i was doing that id just keep going and it would kinda tie itself together/id come up with a solution as i was writing / once the ideas kept flowing. so basically : TIMELINES AND OUTLINES I VERY MUCH RECOMMEND, but very low pressure and barebones ones. for example, this is what my outlines/brainstorming look like

its honestly just me talking to myself LMAO, and a lot of the time ill interject and be like "OH YEAH AND THEN THIS CAN HAPPEN" as the ideas come while im writing BAHAHA. its a super fun process and honestly nothing feels better than just getting hit with that flash of inspo, and since its all very low effort theres no pressure to actually write well and its just a chill fun time AND GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR OWN PROCESS / WRITING💖💖💖it can be difficult but HOPE U HAVE FUN TOO💖💖

@a-little-lysdexic WAIT REALLY?? LMFAOO OMG THATS CRAZY....SAME BRAIN...🤝🤝...that would trip me up so much if i were you omg BAHHAHA but aside from having similar tastes in names, IM GLAD YOU LIKE MY ART AS WELL, TYY💖💖💖

THANK YOUUU im glad you're liking it!!! and that its taking over your life BAHAHA💖💖 the video you're thinking of was by @silverxstardust for chapter 13 of my fic, and you can watch the video here! (AND TY AGAIN TO SILVERXSTARDUST FOR DOING THIS!)

[fyodior]

.

[thousand-sunnies]

every day the collection of fics i want to write grows bigger

[kyouka-supremacy]

that happened to me 😭 had like fifteen bullet points i was gonna expand on, then when it hit 2k, i just answered with "sskk is the focus"

RIGHT????? LIKE, SAME.

Reasons why I like Beast: the compelling alternative universe concept, the intriguing story, the fantastic characters writing, the siblings relationships, the beautiful designs and gorgeus manga art style, the thought stimulating subjects,

Equally real and valid reasons why I like Beast: it's a sskk story.

[frecklystars]

I might actually open my inbox for the first time in [undetermined specific amount of months] there’s over 500 unread asks in there ;-; I’m rly touched so many people have been reaching out to me even when I haven’t been here

[corpsentry]

ao3 mirror

fandom: your name engraved herein rating: t starring: birdy, a-han

It's three am and you’re barreling down a deserted road at the speed of fast. He’s gripping the handles for dear life; you’ve let go. You’re not wearing anything under your suspenders and your voice is hoarse from shouting. His shoulders are shaking with laughter. “DO YOU LIKE THE COLOR OF MY NEW BIKE?” What color was it again? “IF YOU LIKE IT I DO TOO."

Birdy, on flying.

11.

You stare at him the whole way to the beach. What else are you gonna look at? Any time the two of you go somewhere the whole world narrows down to just him and whatever else happens to be there. It’s always been that way. Him and the old lady snoring in the seat across the aisle. Him and the street papered with calligraphy and movie posters the size of airplanes. Or tonight, him and the cramped sleeping quarters on the overnight ferry, the plasticky curtains and the three-centimeter mattress.

It’s like— here’s the thing, right. The world’s always been plenty interesting to you. You like how it’s full of contradictions. You like the sting of knowing you’ve gotten under someone’s skin, the way anger slides off you like cold water. All your life you’ve lived like that, running backwards and laughing at the moon.

He was the first thing you didn’t have to put on goggles to look at and still found beautiful. When he showed up that day in the pool you forgot you were in a movie for a moment and tried, like a big fucking idiot, to live. God, shit, you could die in that light. But the laws of the world dictated your graduation, your marriage, your first kid. You couldn’t hang out forever between bus rides and train rides, sleep curled up in KTV rooms until you got kicked out by the waitstaff.

Well. You probably could. But he couldn’t. Even now, after everything (and by everything you mean everything, you mean the hell you’ve unleashed on this miserable fuck of a boy for no good reason at all), he’s still— you’re still— You follow him across the country like a damn hoot, buy whatever tickets he buys, yell at him in that voice that you know makes him self-conscious because it attracts too much attention, and he doesn’t do a thing.

He could tell you to fuck off. He could walk away from you, take a sharp turn and start running, though he’d have to really put his heart into it to lose you because you’re better than him at sprinting and long distance and worse than him at everything else (you get distracted by pigeons when you’re playing basketball). He could kill you, for all you care. Might as well. You’re basically asking for it.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t have it in him to be cruel, even now, pushed to the edge of the water.

That’s why you left. That’s why you’re leaving.

10.

“You see, I was the one who stole the balloon and strung it up,” you tell his parents, sitting on the lumpy green chair in their lumpy green living room. “But he said it was him.”

His mom is wounded. His dad is mega pissed off. You’re just there.

They do that for a while— his dad getting more and more mega pissed off at the table, his mom fretting her sleeves to pieces against the wall.

“Fuck. Piece of shit son. Fuck.”

You do not lift your gaze from your hands, which you hold unnaturally still under the table.

“Dear, let’s wait for him to tell us his side of the story…”

“What side of what story? Fuck. He’s not gonna have a damn mouth to talk with when I’m done with him. Goddamnit.”

The floor is tiled with medium-sized white squares. The ceiling light is a single bulb covered with a frosted panel of concave glass. Out of the corner of your eye, leaning against a cabinet, you see a potted plant with big scalloped leaves, mostly dead.

“Which girl was it? What class?” A pause. “Hell, who are you? What class?”

“Dear, we know Po Te, remember?” Muted shuffling. His mom is scuffing her slippers on the floor. You imagine her wringing her hands together the way her son does, bringing them to the back of her neck and looking away. “They’re friends.”

An irreverent amount of time later, he shows up with a bloodied collar and eyes like marbles with bits of gold in them and you have to fight all twelve apostles of god to stay angry. You think you might be one of the biggest pieces of shit the universe has ever produced. You think that your shitbag dad was right about one thing, just one, his whole life.

“What,” he says slowly, like it hurts him to speak, “do you want me to do?”

You rip your gaze away from the floor. “What do you want from me?” He takes one step forward. You take two back.

“What?” What. “What do you want?”

You want, um, let’s see. You want to watch a really good movie, one of those western ones, with violins and guns and lots of crying. You want to eat roasted peanuts out of a shallow dish. You want to go skinny dipping, to tear down the street on a 3 am motorbike, to climb out a broken window and keep going up, up, up, until you punch through the atmosphere and into the stars.

You want to cry.

“I want—” you spit, and you’re all fucked up now but because your throat is closing up the words come out cold and mean, which is exactly what you want and terribly unfortunate.

“—I want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

One time when you were little your sisters took you to the public pool. You were something like seven; they were eight and nine and eleven. There was this giant slide, three storeys tall, that all the kids were lining up to go on. Your sisters wanted to go too but you were too young to follow so they took turns watching you in the kiddy pool. The kiddy pool had a mini slide which you slid down over and over again, pretending you were on the giant slide with everyone else. Your eldest sister was doing handstands in the water when you went down the slide wrong. You hit your head on the edge of the pool, right where the slide should have dumped you into the water. You floated aimlessly for a while before walking over to your sister to tell her what had happened but she ran over before you got there and asked, all panicky: what happened? Where does it hurt? She touched the side of your face, right below where the blood was starting to dry. Only then did you start to cry.

A-han looks you dead in the eye and it’s a little like falling off a motorbike.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

There’s some shouting from both sides. His mom pleads to the air to stop fighting, you’re the best of friends and you think here is someone who could have done something and then keep throwing punches because she should’ve but she didn’t and now it’s too late. His dad is so pissed it’s actually moved him to inaction, although he’s shaking hard enough that the ceiling light is doing a little jig. Or maybe it’s you that’s shaking, you can’t really tell. Your vision’s a little shot through right now. You’re a little in over your head.

A-han inhales and all the air in the room leaves with him.

“Mom, dad—”

Oh no, he’s actually stupid.

“The person I like is—”

You’re so choked up his name comes out more like a scream than a shout. But he hears it, and stops.

“Okay,” he repeats, dry as an Arizona summer. Something in him is giving but not in the direction you want. It is possible that you are crying. You’re a little in over your head. You’re a little in over your head.

You stand in the Chang family’s living room for a moment, counting the number of leaves on the dead plant.

Then you follow him out. There’s nowhere left for you to go, after all.

9.

It made you angrier that he came, actually. You didn’t want him to see you like this. You didn’t want him to see you at all. If he saw you then you might see him and then it would all come flying out of you like week-old chickenshit, miles and miles and miles of want pouring out of your eyes, ears, teeth. You’d made an art out of hiding the shiny thing in you. Worked yourself to death to make it happen. It’s like— say this whole thing was a movie, right. Then Taichung would be the stage and A-han’s eyes would be the camera. This being one of those sprawling epics, you couldn’t break the fourth wall and let the audience know you were in on the big secret so to prevent that from happening you decided to stop looking at him altogether. Easy. Just don’t look. Don’t look at him, Birdy. Don’t look.

But God is cruel and mysterious in his ways. By the time A-han wheels into the staff room, wild-eyed and frantic, you’ve already lost. And then your shitbag dad clocks him over the head with a chair and your vision flares red and— then, well, it’s really over.

8.

We can’t talk about this.

We can’t talk about what happens in the shower. What would we say?

Before: He hadn’t wanted to give you his motorbike (he never wanted to give you his motorbike) but you asked anyway. It had become a litmus test of sorts; how much could you take from him before he punched you in the face? You’d set this rule for yourself when the new school year began where you were only allowed to talk to him if it’d make things worse. So you asked again. And again. And again, but this last time, you didn’t do it for Ban Ban. It was a Tuesday. You’d dreamed about him the night before, which was the first mistake. Your limbs were heavy and disconnected and your head felt like a watermelon full of bits of other fruit but you wheeled the bike out anyway. The meaningless gray sky followed you around like a dog no matter how fast you went and it was so frustrating, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop even when the road started to spin— the second mistake. You saw it happen through a wide-lens shot like it was someone else who totaled the bike. Then there was noise, chatter, bright spots in your vision. The guy from the stall up ahead insisted on calling an ambulance though you cussed him out hard enough to make your shitbag dad flinch. Eventually they left you alone. You were angry and hurt and bleeding. The fruit cup of your brain was getting put through a blender, as was most of your left arm. In a moment of bottom-of-the-barrel despair, left with nothing but your body, which was ruined, and your heart, which you had yourself broken, you— the third mistake— reached for your phone.

After: You couldn’t stop crying for hours. At some point, he left.

7.

You have this theory that the bigger the gesture is the longer the feeling will last. You are telling yourself this as you haul ass towards the massive balloon that will surely fix everything. You’re not sure how exactly it will fix everything. All you know is that you’re playing an important role and you need as many people as possible to believe it. In that regard, the balloon makes sense. Once you’ve got it up at assembly no one’ll be able to look away even if they want to, although you frankly do not care what anyone wants. You care what Ban Ban wants in a faint, geographical way. You care a little what Father Oliver wants because he gives just half a shit less than all the other adults, which is impressive in a world this boring and dumb. As for the rest of them— whatever. Tomorrow is your confessional. All they have to do is watch.

A-han is here because someone needs to make sure you don’t get caught. That’s all.

“Hey, uh— are you done yet?”

He sounds far away and annoyed.

“Almost,” you reply, look down, and regret it instantly.

You’re grateful A-han’s such a caring and conscientious friend. He wouldn’t let you get caught because one, he’s a nice kid and two, he’s got common sense. If you got in trouble then he would, thus implicated, also be in trouble, which would be bad for him, so…

He wouldn’t do that to himself. He’s stupid, but not that stupid.

“Hey, you know, the thing I wanted to tell you—”

“Yeah?” you say, working your way through the river of knots. Your brain catches up a few moments later. You remember, suddenly, how you tricked him into coming out here in the first place.

There is a brief, meaty silence in which he works up the courage to keep talking while you rip your fingers to shreds getting the rope loose.

“Actually, I—“

You have not done it but you start whooping anyway. The sudden rush of oxygen leaving your lungs makes you light-headed. Five meters down, A-han is trying to tell you the words that will undo you. But all you can hear is the cicadas.

Now you’re tearing down the street on a 3 am motorbike, the helium balloon rippling behind you like a deep-sea jellyfish. Now you’re gripping the edge of the seat and howling at the moon. Now you’re sneaking off during morning assembly, crouching in the grass, setting it afloat.

It’s just a murmur at first but it quickly grows into a storm. Six hundred eyes go wide with wonder.

A-han can barely look at you. You see the emotions flit across his face from your place in line, the rest of your body turned towards Ban Ban, who is blushing like the sweetest dusk. Surprise, curiosity, confusion. Then the click of realization, the shuttering of the eyes.

As the crowd goes wild with the ecstasy of young love, you feel a sick thing surge through you. This must be what people feel like when they take home 100% on a test and their parents give them extra pocket money.

God, you’ve never tried so hard for anything in your life. He’d be so grateful, if only he knew.

6.

Here is the part of the story where you change your mind.

It wouldn’t have taken much to stop you. You wanted to be saved. You wanted to stay on the dark, uneven path that led into the woods. You were just waiting for someone to tell you it was okay to keep going like this, anyone at all, and then it would— it really would be— okay.

But no one did, no matter where you went and how far you wandered.

So it wasn’t okay. You had to go.

5.

If asked, years later, you’d probably say this moment was the worst.

Not the fighting. You’d been beaten up before and you’d get your ass beat again no matter how you tried to avoid it. Not the name-calling, either, though that did reach a new and unprecedented level once they realized no one was going to make them stop. You were just schoolboys being schoolboys, punching each other in the face, screaming each other’s ears off. Standard coming-of-age stuff.

It’s not that everyone within a fifty meter radius was watching. You don’t mind attention. You always liked the sound of your own voice more than anything. It’s not the way the metal grill of the gate dug into your hands and left them red and stinging. It wasn't the moment of free fall, or the impact, or the way you walked funny on your right side for two weeks after. You didn’t make it this far in life on faith alone.

When you were thirteen you decided your name was Birdy. After that, the world became way more interesting. You couldn’t leave it alone— you were always prodding at it or shoving it around, trying to find the limits. You were a one-man circus trying to redefine what it meant to be young and alive in a country that had almost, almost made it out of the dark. Only the rest of them were coming into an age of power, while you were slowly growing aware of a deficit in yours.

The other boys were wrong about one thing: You never wanted to fly. All the living things with wings had already been doing it for thousands and thousands of years; there was no point in starting now when you’d never be able to catch up. You didn’t need to fly, but you couldn’t break. Birdy was a prayer that had to hold no matter what came.

You considered your options. You could try to really do one of the guys in— but you were fast, not strong, and you were terribly distracted by all the noise. You could ask for help, but that would be humiliating. You could try to run, but the hallway was so narrow and there were so many of them and there was so little of you. You’d already gone for the grill once and that seemed to have only made things worse. A-han was this close to socking one of his thug friends in the face. You couldn’t drag this out any longer.

So you climbed onto the railing.

No, this isn’t the worst part.

All their anger liquefied into fear the moment you stood up. One of them, you forget his name, was pleading with you. Look, we’re sorry, come down, come down, please, or whatever. It was so abrupt it was almost funny. You wondered if anyone had ever been this afraid for you before, and concluded that they hadn’t. It occurred to you that maybe your humanity really was this thin, that they’d never regret it unless you died in the saddest, most miserable way possible. You thought: This is fucked as all hell, and I am quite sad.

Then you forgot all about this stuff, because you saw him.

“Birdy?”

Oh, how you hated that he saw you. It would’ve been shitty if he weren’t there but you’d dealt with shitty before and you’d deal with it again. It didn’t matter what happened to you as long as you got to keep Birdy. Birdy was fun and loud and a little crazy. Birdy could outrun the police and out-laugh the gods and got distracted by pigeons in basketball games. Birdy was untouchable.

You flapped your arms, just in case they turned into wings. What do you know, it was a lie all along.

Then you jumped.

There comes a point in everyone’s life when they realize the limits of their own abilities and, simultaneously, the inherent cruelty of the universe.

It sucks that you found out so early. You should’ve stayed young for five, ten, a hundred more years. You deserved to grow up wild and carefree, ricocheting down empty streets and turning in absolutely none of your homework.

But you found out. Okay, now this is the worst part.

At no point did you betray each other. You loved that boy like nothing you had ever known. It lit you up from the inside like a goddamn firework.

You knew. You were aware of the beating of your own heart. It didn’t matter.

4.

Three times you pretend to be asleep.

One: The middle-aged women sitting both in front of and behind you on the bus to Taipei keep you awake for most of the ride. It’s not their fault, not really, and you don’t get mad; you’re just a light sleeper. Always have been. A-han is the opposite. He’s out like a rock the whole time, even when one of the women makes a particularly bad pun and her friend lets out a shriek of laughter just as the bus jolts to a stop at a red light and someone’s baby starts howling its toes off. Meanwhile you nod off a hundred times, tensing awake each time at the sudden warmth of his head, his shoulder, his neck. When the bus pulls into the station, he’s energetic and well-rested. You’re doing everything in your power to let go.

Two: The KTV is his suggestion. You were all like, let’s just get something from a street stall and squat on the stairs until dawn but he noticed you acting funny and correctly inferred your exhaustion. He pays for both of you at the counter. It agitates you a little, though you don’t know why. Later, halfway through your noodles you ask him what would you do if I died and he says don’t think about such dark shit and you think that’s a good answer. Then you lie down and close your eyes because you’re tired. You think maybe sleep will come for you this time but instead you just become deeply, frighteningly aware of his body in the room. He sits for a while in silence— probably thinking about french horns or something. You start to drift. The rustling of fabric jolts you awake. The sofa shudders where he presses his hand into it, centimeters from your neck. You feel him getting closer, a bright bloom of heat traveling through the dark. It dawns on you, suddenly, that he is going to kiss you. Then there’s a sharp knock on the door— just like that, he’s gone.

Three: You were cold, that's all.

You were cold even with your jacket and the half of his body pressed into your side and the jukebox at your back. He was like the first time you jumped into a pool and learned that you could float. The voice of a dead man was ringing in your ears like a hymn, saying our world isn’t as bad as you think, so why are you so sad, why are you so sad…

3.

“I glanced across the room,” Father Oliver is saying, his voice somber and low. Everyone in the room gawks at him without blinking like a bunch of damn ghosts, as if by watching him talk about love they will understand a little more of it themselves. Ha! If only it were that easy.

A-han’s fiddling with the mouthpiece of his trumpet, distracted. Your gaze travels from his hands to the sleeves of his uniform, his collar, his left ear.

“I was looking at him—”

His hands still. He lifts his gaze to the blackboard, eyes unfocused. Father Oliver’s voice fades into the static of the afternoon.

“—and he was, also, looking at—”

And there you are, and have been, all along.

2.

Your love language is gifts. You give him everything you have and then some. Steamed buns, peanuts, the physics exam sheet.

Your love language is acts of service. You feed him juice when he’s supposed to be standing to attention. Cut his hair on the basketball court.

Your love language is physical touch. You clap him on the shoulder, punch him in chest, flick him between the eyes, sling your arm around his neck, sidle up next to him at lunch, high five him for breathing, lie next to him on his tiny mattress eating snacks you stole from the superintendent’s office, clap him on the shoulder again, your hand lingering on his skin while you think about difficult questions like what happens when we die and where do we go after and it wouldn’t be that bad if this is all you ever had. You’d go like this willingly. A whole life pissing into the dorm head’s car while A-han cusses under his breath at silly, crazy Birdy, oh Birdy—

Is this the moment where it ends?

Or is it when the dorm head finds snack wrappers in your bag and he steps into the hallway while you’re down on your hands and feet, getting your ass whipped to pieces? Or is it the first time you show up in his room at night and you watch him give in to you in real time, his whole body deflating as he sigh-laughs and gestures for you to come up to his bunk?

1.

Or is it that day in the pool, when he tells you his name and his class and the whole world slides sideways to make way for him?

You’re seventeen and you know nothing. You know you hate your shitbag dad for raising you angry. You know you hate people who beat the shit out of others for no good reason. You have a lot of hate in you for someone so young, and very little else.

Well. You also have Birdy. And Birdy has A-han, but that’s later. Later you’ll run wild through the deserted streets of youth and laugh until you’re dead. Later you’ll grow up, and it’ll be the worst thing that’ll ever happen to you.

Nothing will hurt after that. Nothing will move you, either.

0.

One time when you were young you transferred schools. You were seventeen and full of anger and loneliness; he was seventeen and shimmered when he moved. There was this thing everyone was talking about back then, this feeling of being able to do anything you wanted. It was 1987 and the world was on its way out. The more the adults said they couldn’t have it the more all the young people obsessed over it. They hopped over gates and made out in cemeteries after midnight. They got in trouble like clockwork.

For what it’s worth, you didn’t give a shit. You were perfectly satisfied with your one-man circus, running around after dark and sneaking snacks out of the superintendent’s office when no one was looking. Sometimes someone was looking and you got caught and it was kind of shitty, but you’d dealt with shitty before and you’d deal with it again. You were the kind of reckless that invited trouble. You knew. You liked it.

One time when you were little your sisters took you to the public pool. It was the first day at your new school and your name was Birdy. When you saw him in the water it felt like you’d been swimming in the deep all your life and been dragged, abruptly, to the surface.

One time when you were little you hit your head. One time when you were young you broke your heart.

You floated aimlessly for a while before walking over to the phone. There were so many things you wanted to say to him but he started talking before you could find the words. He was always braver than you. He would have never jumped, but then and again, you would have never let him get there. Anyway, he said I— my senior wrote this song. I’m gonna play it for you, okay?

He touched your skin right below where you had fallen off the motorbike and cut yourself open, where the blood had begun to dry. He was so worried about you. The water in the shower was running, running, running.

What happened? Where does it hurt?

Only then did you start to cry.

999.

In which year do they fix the world?

In another universe someone sticks their neck out for you the way you did for that other kid. It’s messy, of course. He gets his ass beat for it right along with you but you guys get in a few more good hits too. It’s super worth it. Maybe he’s also— you know. Maybe he isn’t. Doesn’t matter.

Anyway, it’s in the small things. The small thing this random stranger does for you is enough to stop you from ruining the next three decades of your life. It’s absurd, looking back, how easy it was. All he did was say something.

This sets off a chain reaction of random strangers doing small and insignificant things for each other. Maybe five people’s lives are changed. It is revolutionary, though none of them know this. When the thing you are fighting against lives in people’s hearts and grows like a disease, anything you save is a triumph. If you can save anything at all, you celebrate.

In this other universe Zhang Jia Han dials W-A-N-A-N and you dial it back after a period of terrible, but necessary, contemplation. In this other universe you keep going to movie theaters and eating roasted peanuts out of shallow dishes. In this other universe you go back to Taipei.

You go to film school, both of you. You make movies, he writes the songs.

Someone has written this story, I’m sure. Someone fixed the damn motorbike. Maybe you did too, in your dreams, the only place where you could forgive yourself.

But we can’t.

We can write your story, but it has to stay the same.

—.

You’re barreling down a deserted road at the speed of fast. He’s gripping the handles for dear life; you’ve let go. You’re not wearing anything under your suspenders and your sling bag and your voice is hoarse from shouting. His shoulders are shaking with laughter.

“DO YOU LIKE THE COLOR OF MY NEW BIKE?” he shouts.

“IF YOU LIKE IT I DO TOO,” you shout back.

Remember this moment. Remember it when he calls you a year later and plays you the song that will undo you for the rest of your life. Remember it when you graduate, get married, file for divorce, get fired, move to a new city, lose everything.

Remember it when you see him for the first time in three decades and decide that this time you will do things right, because it’s not coming back and it’s not going anywhere: your wild, blemished youth. You were young once and you’ll never be young again. You can start living now, and god, you will But you died once when you were seventeen.

It wasn’t your fault. You searched under every fucking rock and paperweight; you looked for signs in the clouds. But the world failed you. At every juncture in the story, in every scene where someone other than you and A-han was standing there pointing and laughing, it failed you. They were always pointing and laughing at you.

It would have taken so little to change your mind. But even that small, pathetic amount of hope— they couldn’t give it up. You were young once, you were Birdy and A-han and A-han and Birdy, and they let you die.

You lived a subpar life until forty-seven, but at least you lived.

So remember this moment. Look for the laughter lines in his face, the crow’s feet. Notice his old habit of touching the back of his neck when he’s nervous and covering his mouth when he smiles. Remember the feeling of his warm breath on your face, the dim red lights of the KTV room. Remember how it felt when he pulled you out of the water and you emerged, spluttering and coughing into the back of your hand.

"Are you an idiot?" he said, incredulous.

"No," you grinned. "I'm Birdy."

It’s 1987, and you’re unstoppable.

[zukkaoru]

so then talk about them instead of whining that other people are having fun with what they like. if those other ones are so interesting than make that content in place of behaving like a child because someone else is actually enjoying themselves.

omg guys look my first bsd fandom anon hate ask 🥰🥰🥰

[spacedlexi]

[bisexuallsokka]

do you have a list of all fundamental zukka fics?

oh god this is so hard because i think everything my mutuals have ever written is a fundamental zukka fic. however.

these are the ones i blog about the most/see a lot of posts about to the point that it would likely be confusing to be one of my followers and not at least know about them. like 96% of the time when i post about these people already know exactly what im talking about.

do you take this jerk to be (your one and only) by @jatersade

feels like we only go backwards by @oldpotatoe

and i'll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands) by @goldrushzukka

Blue by @hollypunkers

breakable heaven by @farmeryushi

Real Enough to Get Me Through by @marriedzukka

[shikai-the-storyteller]

I've been doing so much research for my Fit disability fic (mostly research about prosthetics) and I've been doing a lot of research about hearing aids too, completely forgetting I have an Actual Person In My Life who uses hearing aids who I could straight up ask about stuff.

[hecksupremechips]

re: udg reblog,

clearly the solution to “oh i love this but i don’t think anyone should play it” is to write a fic with only the good parts and none of the bad parts but then you have this big empty space where the bad parts were so you just make something up that seems vaguely believable

that seems like a normal thing normal people do right?

RIGHT?

It’s always correct and totally won’t ever lead to agony as you look at the canon and scream because my god how are you supposed to salvage something this stupid why are you doing this you used to be so normal and not care oh god why does attacking the little girl make her pants fly off oh god why is delta a character

[dreamofbecoming]

thinking about how my dad graduated high school in 1984 and went to college in boston, and he used to stay up late to snag free tickets on the college radio station to basement shows with like. the cars and fuckin. john gorka and shit. and how he used to hang out at coffee shops and bars and listen to tracy chapman play right before she made it big.

thinking about steve and eddie visiting nancy at emerson and catching a coffee shop open mic. thinking about how fast car would probably hit them both like a truck, for similar and also different reasons.

just thinking.

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

Opinions on Dream? :^

SO many feelings about him omgg rant under cut please forgive me

okay so i don't really talk or draw him much cause honestly,,,most of the times i just think he's a bit....boring? or more accurately plain? not in a mean way either but just in a 'fades into the background' type of way like don't get me wrong!! he's a really nice friend to his peers, his feelings about his powers and aura making his relationships harder to navigate and trust along with his whole conflict with nightmare and morality about what's good and bad IS very cool!! and i love it whenever they write him to be complex and not on this black and white mentality or when he's just straight up following along his friends with no free will or with a dubious purpose without ever addressing his issues or feelings! it's just unsatisfying to me :')

or when they're making him the 'naive' and oblivious, (sometimes childish?) character being marked as the obstacle and villain along with the other star sanses from the fic's pov, always talking about doing good things while fighting his brother and not hearing him out about the balance, (and for weak reasons most of the time. like it's been so long and you STILL haven't sat down with him when he's, generally, basically begged you to just have a talk? guys please :'( ) or when they go for the victim sad dream always missing the old nightmare, where corrupted nightmare is the incarnation of evil, with no sympathy or emotion except anger and sadistic glee, killing and hurting everyone and dream's just trying to protect the multiverse and dream's always been in the right. such extremes!!!

LIKE!! i hope i'm not the only one that thinks a 500+ year old should have had enough time to idk. learn things? about people and manipulation and deceit? after knowing what the villagers did to night? about the bad things in the world and how there's a lot of grey areas in life and that he maybe reflected on his past enough to process and ask himself if there should to be a convo to settle his differences with nightmare (and you can make nightmare the stubborn one too! or have them BOTH be petty and imperfect and have some things wrong and some right at the same time like why do i always see the good guy vs bad guy cliché with these two when they're the perfect example of why positivity doesn't have meaning without the negativity!! as long as there's a satisfying evolution or growth that doesn't leave me empty i'm good yknow?)

plus i believe dream really isn't as dumb as people view him. i do get some of you saying he probably can't read or write since that's actually a pretty interesting idea to explore! but in general please let him have emotions other than pure sunshiny happiness or endless sadness like he's gotta have more depth than that! let him make mistakes, have flaws that don't just make him the bad guy that's always in the wrong by default, and be angry or suspicious or jealous or bitter or battling his mental health problems/depression or malicious or smart or witty or mischievous and silly or sarcastic or ANYTHING dude i just want him to be put into different scenarios where he can be serious or lighthearted like it doesn't even have to be long or perfect but make him feel real.

it could definitely be that i don't read or see much art about dream or really look for it hard enough but also i just. i feel bad for even saying this fr and i wanna be honest about why i don't enjoy most stories about him cause he always gets the worst treatment along with ink!!! especially ink omg the poor guy has it the worst i think like wow do they mess him up :'(

always one dimensional in non shippy fics, or too plain or easily replaceable by other, more entertaining people in the significant other's life in most of his ships like man. i have read fics out there that made me genuinely FEEL and root for him and love his character so much it restored all hope for me!!! but i can only name one on top of my head and the others? it's been so long i don't even remember their names i just legit feel terrible cause i love him still and i can't find many headcanons that fit my interpretation of him yknow?

not to say people who write him very happy, mislead or sad are ruining him like that's silly- if i see something i don't like i just. move on bro i wouldn't force people to feel or think the same way i do about him cause anyone can have whatever headcanons they want!!! just talking about what i personally look for in him and why i can't exactly find it since most of the stuff out there just isn't my cup of tea :')

hopefully i didn't set anyone off with this rambling opinionated essay i just pulled hhh xD i know i know he's a popular character and i know a lot of people like dream so *sobs* please please recommend me artists and fics about him that you think is good it's been so looong since i've read or seen anything new that makes me attached to this little guy aughg<33333

[ren-144p]

Hi! Silent admirer of your RE stuff (it's been so long since I've played these games, but you've been re-inspiring me!) - so I'm curious about "Madrid, 1996" for the WIP asks? 👀

ohh god— going for the only one legitimately named and simultaneously the one most unpolished bdhdjsjkl

as of right now, “Madrid, 1996” is a series of snippets intertwined with meta about itself and records of my convos with @bennidraws (which is what started it all!!), written somewhat as a branch of my luis study project. set entirely pre-games, it follows the story of Luis and Carlos who meet, by chance, at an Umbrella conference, and in two weeks develop a particularly deep relationship. Carlos falls in love with an older man freshly out of a personality crisis, Luis falls for a repressed boy who's just discovering himself for the first time, and both of them turn each other's world upside down. contains dog imagery, yearning, cigarettes, and—on many occasions—Carlos' dog tags clinking against Luis' cross

it's rough and unpolished and not even fully planned out, branching within itself into multiple endings. but i've been chipping away at it when i'm not working on anything else and i feel like eventually something will come out of it. too much love has been put into those conversations for the fic to amount to nothing ❤️

*

“They ever give you a break, soldier boy?”

Carlos turned towards the voice, surprised to see anyone out of the building at this hour, especially in such a downpour. It belonged to the same man he had seen earlier, except the well-cut suit was nowhere to be found, now replaced by an intricately decorated leather jacket and a pair of well-worn jeans. He held a single cigarette between his teeth and a lighter in one hand, looking at him with curiosity through the hair falling into his eyes; and chuckled, clearly having noticed Carlos' persistent gaze on him.

“You look like a rabbit in headlights,” he teased, weaving the lighter between skilled fingers. It lit up with a quiet click a moment later, and Carlos took a while to admire the way the flame illuminated the man's face when he leaned into the light.

"No breaks.” He watched how his thin lips curled around a puff of smoke. “The shifts are short though.”

The stranger hummed, as if amused by the answer, and leaned back comfortably against the wall before extending a pack of cigarettes towards Carlos.

“Care for a smoke?”

*

“You should come find me later, soldier boy. When your shift is done,” the man said, throwing the butt of his cigarette on the ground. “Room 102. On the fourth floor,” he added with a wink, turning back, but Carlos' hand wrapped around his wrist before he could go.

“Who am I asking for?”

The stranger smirked, leaning in so close their noses almost touched.

“Name's Luis,” he said, a teasing note in his voice. “And who am I waiting for?”

“Carlos.”

*

and, as a bonus, a bit of the relevant note i made for this part (and for what's supposed to follow)

something about the terrifying act of inviting a stranger to your room, something about that stranger being a soldier; something about being invited to a hotel room by a man older than you, and something about the confidence with which he does it.

the way every night spent with a stranger might've been your last; the way he didn't know if he was gonna wake up the next morning, and then he did—and then they both did.

[justworthlessreblogs]

Same Anon as Yesterday (Food pun anon) and I just wanna say something I personally think is missing from Rio’s arc, that I think is important.

So largely, I’m speaking from my own experience as a twin, where me and the twin were really codependent and I was definitely the more docile of the twins. What really helped me with my own personal inferiority complex was making the choice to step out of her shadow. Even though I wasn’t born talented at the things I chose to focus on, the fact that I had chosen to set out and do it on my own left me feeling proud and fulfilled.

To me, Rio makes this choice by becoming Julio, only to step back into her shadow (aka his comfort zone) after his redemption. His friends are her friends, his hobby is her hobby. In a way it’s like, regression rather than development.

I think Rio really should have found something that he’s passionate about that Ciel isn’t, and made some friends that care about that same passion. I don’t think he needs to stop being passionate about baking, but I think he should’ve tried to find something that makes him feel unique. He needs friends that care for him not because he’s Ciels twin, but because he’s Rio.

I’ve came up with various headcanons over the years to deal with this, from giving him a set of new friends, to him becoming more of a business kinda guy when they grow up. Like Ciel is the creative one who literally doesn’t understand the first thing about running a business and Rio is the manager who makes sure the patisserie they run doesn’t spontaneously explode or smth. If I recall, WV Rio likes sports as a hobby (might’ve hallucinated that, it’s been a minute) and I really wish canon had expanded on that, or his other talents. Because I think that would’ve been a much more satisfying way to end his arc.

food anon you're so right. my hottest take of all is that at the end of the series rio still isn't in a healthy mindset because he's put right back into the same situation that caused him to spiral in the first place except ciel compliments him sometimes and i don't think that's a great ending. when writing waffleverse i always ask myself "who is (pov character)?" and once i moved out of rio's julio era and his corporated mandated post-redemption angst i realized i had no fucking idea because postcoma rio just. Exists. he's ciel's brother and he's kinda grumpy and he feels bad about what he did as julio and that's about all you can say about him. he is unfortunately the hardest character for me to write because of that