#mary/shannon ship

[hotsaucevitamins]

Angstober Day 1 - Again

Warrior Nuns never last 🥲

[jtl07]

Hi! Welcome back! For shenanigans, any or all of the following that tickle your fancy:

Avatrice, this post:

https://www.tumblr.com/alterumsinealterononest/769889024736444416/i-just-saw-a-video-of-a-girl-scattering-tea-bags?source=share

Avatrice (or AvaLil) as astronauts accidentally stranded together for 9 extra months

Shannon x Mary enemies to lovers and they're lawyers on opposite sides of a case

oh gosh Alms you always bring the fun prompts XD i'm going with the second one though i can guarantee it ended up not where you'd expect (mostly bc i may or may not be working on a fic centered around Bea's thoughts on aikido 👀). always fun to see what you send in, i hope this is alright!

"Wait you're a black belt? You could teach me! 9 months is enough for me to get to black belt too, right?" 

The laugh that escapes Beatrice surprises both Ava and herself. Beatrice nearly covers her mouth but Ava's already wiggling, her grin stretching wide across her face. 

"C'mon Bea, we've got nothing better to do!" 

"On the contrary, we have plenty of things to do," Beatrice says, gesturing towards their checklists. 

Ava rolls her eyes, does a lazy backflip and lands against a bulkhead. "Don't tell me you haven't been curious about how it'd feel to do that kinda stuff in space." 

Beatrice knows they're talking about martial arts - they'd been talking about Ava's many hobbies and somehow, as conversations with Ava now usually go, Beatrice had ended up sharing about herself as well - but the suggestive way Ava waggles her eyebrows makes Beatrice blush. 

"It isn't relevant the mission," is all Beatrice says, ignoring the heat in her cheeks. 

Ava, thankfully, also ignores it. "You never know, Bea: what if we run into evil space aliens and we have to fight them off when they infiltrate the ship?"

Beatrice rolls her eyes. "You've watched too many sci-fi movies." 

"No such thing as too many. So, are you ready?"

Beatrice's brow furrows. "Ready for -"

"Here I come!"

It's instinct that takes over Beatrice's body, has her hands moving, her hips turning - Ava shrieking as she tumbles to the far side of the open space. It's instinct again that fixes Beatrice in place, replaying her technique, taking it apart, finding places to critique - 

"That was amazing!"

If the gravity was on, Beatrice is sure Ava would be bouncing literally off the walls. Here in zero gravity, however, Ava's settled for wildly waving her arms and legs to express her excitement. She looks silly, so free, so joyous. Beatrice can't help but laugh and let herself feel the same. 

"What was that called?" Ava asks - and Beatrice wonders how a person can grin so wide, so much. 

Beatrice shrugs. "Koshi-guruma, it's a judo technique that -"

"Aw, but I want to see aikido! Please, Bea?" 

Beatrice opens her mouth but finds herself unable to speak. It's bewildering, having someone so eager to share in something irrelevant; in something she loves. Has found herself bewildered countless times, now, because of Ava. 

She shakes her head, feels her body already shifting to respond. She's learned enough - from martial arts, from the dogged determination of Ava's smile - to know when resistance is futile. 

"Fine," Beatrice sighs, ignores the way her mouth wants to curve up to match Ava's expression. "Fine." 

Ava whoops as she drifts back towards the bulkhead, uses it to launch herself at Beatrice once again. Beatrice is ready this time, and her mind splits like it does when it's calm like this: one part executing movements written now into her bones, the other part watching from the outside-in.

It's with that part of her mind that Beatrice thinks how it's not that different without gravity, even without the gi. How her hands still know how to lead, how her hips are still free to shift and twist and redirect. But here, there is no weight - of expectation, of perfection - no need to go through the technique too quickly. There's time: to feel her body moving, to hear Ava's surprised gasps, to take what she knows and make it into something new. 

She lets her body and mind still once Ava is out of her arms, watches her tumble harmlessly through the air. (And that too is different, a relief to know that here, they're both safe.)

"The fuck - did you just clothesline me?" Ava's squawk is more in delight than affront. 

Beatrice tilts her head, thinks back on the technique and laughs. "I suppose I did," she admits. 

"Damn I didn't know aikido had some WWE type of shit," Ava says, floating back up to Beatrice. 

"Well, there is some overlap, actually. Many of the joint locks for example -" 

"Okay wait, we're gonna have to make a list now of everything you need to teach me."

Beatrice raises an eyebrow. "You? Make a list? The thing you said was for 70-year-old grandmas?" 

Ava rolls her eyes - Beatrice notes the light flush creeping up her neck. "I can be organized! Anyway, I wanna learn that one - what's it called?" 

"Irimi nage," Beatrice answers - and this is instinctive, now, though new: the way she feels herself respond to Ava's eager questioning. From somewhere outside of herself, she can see the way it's different with Ava, the way she's different; the way everything is easy and weightless. 

And as she watches their hands fit together, Beatrice thinks how 9 months may not be enough. So this is what it feels like, she thinks as she watches Ava tumble through the air, listens to her laughter, feels her own heart stumble and soar: this is what it feels like to want more.

[sisterdivinium]

You know, for a show with so many female characters that so many of us love given how they all get time in the spotlight one way or another and they fill that time up rather wonderfully since they are deeper and more developed than what we're used to seeing in general media, it is peculiar (to say the least) to see so few "alternative" ships to the main one.

I'm not saying the canon ship doesn't deserve its attention -- I'm wondering instead why the canon ship and it alone seem to guide the WN fans who just so happen to enjoy writing/reading fic or fanart or whatever.

You'd think all these cool women would inspire more ships or combinations thereof, but those of us who aren't invested in avatrice just... Float along, around one another, ignored (and, yes, mostly undisturbed too; being unpopular does have its advantages and that includes a lot less weirdos leaving you strange or awkward messages -- it does not, however, shield us from people flooding our goddamn tags on AO3 with fic that has nothing to do with our little ships and I do wish such negligence of the pairing itself meant we didn't have to deal with this spam...)

I am also not saying that fandom activity should be based solely on shipping (and recently someone on Reddit was rather confused by the fact that a lot of it is, which is quite an interesting topic to discuss in itself -- after all, there is more to fan creativity than shippy fic... Or there used to be), merely that, here, it appears that a canon relationship can outshine interest in the other, non-canon ones. It's already there and it was doubtless well-done by the show, so it's natural that it should claim people's attention, sure. It's just that being canon was never the parameter for whether people were interested in these or those two (or more) characters maybe being involved and trying to explore what that could mean through fanwork.

There has always been a complaint haunting fandom spaces concerning the minuscule amounts of f/f fic, art, discussion, w/e based on how few (interesting or sympathetic or relatable) female characters there are in media at large. So what I'm curious about is why fan creations made around WN -- a show that finally gives us a whole cast of female characters that are what we have been craving for decades -- don't also reflect its diversity.

There are alternative ships (I'm here, all happy in my tiny Doctor Superion bubble, and I know there are Camila/Lilith, Ava/Lilith, Mary/Shannon, Mary/Lilith shippers out there, so a warm hello to you if you're reading this), but go on AO3 and compare the numbers of things tagged with these proper pairings to the grand total of WN stories. Better (or worse) still, do so with the "otp: true" trick or simply by excluding avatrice from the search to see how many are left.

It's... A considerable difference. And a mystery, at least to me.

[sapphicagenda]

I'M FINALLY BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Chapter 15: It's Finally Bake Night

Whisks Worth Taking (a Bake Off AU)

Fandom: Warrior Nun

Main ship: Ava/Beatrice

Sub-ships: Camila/Lilith, Mary/Shannon

Rating: E (for eventual smut)

Chapter Summary:

Ava takes Bea on the perfect first date and things get steamy!

Teaser:

Each revelation that Beatrice offered about herself felt like a puzzle piece placed carefully into Ava’s hands. She took none for granted. She cherished them and determined to protect each and every one until she could figure out where they fit together.

So far, when it came to the picture they were painting of Bea’s romantic history, it seemed clear to Ava that none of the women from her past had ever taken the time to show the chef just how special she was. That made Ava even more determined to plan the perfect First DateTM.

There was just one problem, Ava thought as she peeled one of the hardboiled eggs that was part of her piecemeal lunch. Though she had lots of experience going on dates, she’d never had a classic “First Date” experience herself; the kind that culminated from weeks of growing attraction to someone you knew; the kind you hoped might be a beginning; the kind you hoped might lead to a happily ever after someday.

Keep Reading on AO3

Or start from Chapter 1!

[thistleation]

“Okay, how about we start by putting away all the guns and swords ‘cause no one’s gonna shoot each other while we’re talking, right?”

It was 1 year, 4 months, and 11 days since they lost Shannon. 

Some days were better, some days it still felt like they were just stumbling on without her, adrift in space, coasting purely on momentum, mission to mission, with her shadows all around. 

She was still so present in the people around her, in Beatrice herself, in the things she did, the things she didn’t, the things she couldn’t… 

Beatrice and her sisters were in a clearing on an arid relay moon in what was only theoretically still Protectorate space. They’d just met up with Mary and, to their surprise, Ava as well. She’d gotten a haircut in the two months since they’d last seen her, a cute little chin-length thing she wore half-up, half-down, but everything about her presence was still unmistakable. 

Beatrice was already going over the odds of a confrontation — not great with her riderless, it would depend on what Mary would do — but that was just how her mind worked, how she was trained. It seemed unlikely this would devolve into an outright battle — for now at least…  

“I cannot believe you’re working with these people, Mary! What the fuck?!” Ava was still very much upset with the situation. 

“Language!”

“Don’t you fucking start with me Lilith!”

“Ava,” Mary tried again, “Put your gun away first, same to the rest of y’all.” 

There was a pause as everyone looked at each other. Beatrice was the only other one with a gun out, being riderless at the moment, Camila and Lilith had both summoned their blades. 

Beatrice was the first to put her weapon away, followed by Ava — who’s expression still made her displeasure very clear — then Camila, with Lilith only reluctantly dismissing her two-handed longsword when it was obvious she was the only one left and everyone was waiting on her. 

“Thank you.” Mary enunciated the words clearly, “Now how about you all tell me what’s going on and how you all know each other?” 

“Is this a set up?” Ava’s glare was still fixed on Mary, who took at least partial offense at the question. 

“Do you really think I would do that to you?” 

Ava’s mouth was tense, her jaw pushed out. “I dunno. I wouldn’t have before, but I guess I don’t know you as well as I thought if you’re working with them.” 

Mary’s frustrated scowl was one that knew the person she was talking to was definitely wrong about something, but also that — annoyingly — they had a point. “Okay just — just tell me what happened.” 

“What happened? What happened is they kidnapped me and held me prisoner for a week while they got ready to put me in a box and ship me to the core worlds!” 

Mary narrowed her eyes as the pieces started to come together. 

“Wait, that was when you lost your gun?” 

“Duh!” 

“You could’ve told us you were friends with an overpowered, rogue bright-touched, Mary,” Lilith interrupted with some annoyance of her own in her voice. 

“What and put you all in the position where you’d have to either lie to command or come do something about her? Why didn’t you tell me about her last time I was there?” 

Lilith straightened herself a bit and gave a shrug that did its best to appear nonchalant. 

“It didn’t come up.” She simply said. 

“Probably embarrassed about how I kicked all your asses huh?” Ava’s mood immediately improved a notch upon being presented with the opportunity to needle Lilith. 

“You got taken out when you let an opponent past your guard like a rookie,” Lilith fired back.

“I am a rookie, what’s your excuse for getting tossed about like a ragdoll by a girl with two months of combat training?” Ava stepped out from around the hovercar, and Lilith began to walk up to face her, nose held high, literally looking down on Ava.  

“I performed to standard in combat, as I always do. Your sloppy technique will just yield you the exact same result next time we fight, over and over again.” 

Ava lifted her head defiantly. “Yeah? Wanna try that out right now? Just you and me, Lil-bear?” 

“Oh-KAY! That’s enough of that.” Mary physically inserted herself between the two before Lilith decided to summon her blade again. 

She turned to Ava. “Ava, why didn’t you tell me you’d been captured by them? Girl, you were so cagey about it I thought the FBC had gotten to you or something.” 

Ava sighed and put on that slightly silly voice she did when quoting someone back to themselves. “Never volunteer information someone doesn’t need to know.” 

Mary sighed as well. “Okay, yes I did say that, but you can trust me, Ava.” 

Ava puffed her cheeks and angrily gestured at Beatrice and her sisters. 

Mary gave a wince. “Yeah. Okay, fair point. I guess we’ve all got some issues with communication that we gotta talk out at some point.”

“Mary, we do have orders to bring her in and see her transported to the Holy Order.” Lilith said, in a tone far calmer than the one she used on Ava. 

“Yeah Lilith? And is that what you plan to do to someone I brought here in good faith?” 

Lilith looked away to the side. 

“No, of course not… I’m just saying.” 

Beatrice felt it was about time to step in and change the heading of this conversation. “Mary, I assume you brought Ava here to help on the mission?” 

Mary turned towards her, thumbs in her belt. “You said you needed muscle, if you’ve fought this one you know she’s the most muscle you’re gonna find in the entire constellation. Maybe even the entire galaxy.” 

“Oh they know alright.”

“Ava…”

“Sorry.” 

“Well we’re not going to breach Mary’s trust,” Beatrice started, to which Lilith gave a sharp nod and a grunt in affirmation.

“But even if we did choose to fight and somehow could overpower Ava easily, there’s still no practical way to try and bring her in without jeopardizing the mission,” she laid it out logically, gauging Lilith’s reaction, “On the other hand she does bring certain advantages to the table that might considerably increase our chances of success…” 

“I still expect her to get paid from the mercenary budget.” Mary was quick to point out. 

Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“I … suppose we could be a little vague in our debriefs,” then she looked at her sisters, “are we seriously doing this? You’re both alright with this?” 

Camila shrugged light heartedly. 

Beatrice gave Lilith a deliberate nod. 

“Fine then. As if this mission wasn’t insane enough already.” 

Then she pointed a finger at Ava. “She has to break her link before we go on the ship though, I will not take someone untested on the Ghostwave who can blow out an airlock with her mind.” 

Ava tensed, suddenly growing suspicious again. 

“This is a trap…” she murmured. 

Mary put her hand on Ava’s shoulder. “Ava, I promise you that’s not what’s happening here.” 

Ava was starting to look panicked, “You don’t understand Mary, that was the one thing they tried to get me to do the entire time they had me, as soon as I gave it up they were gonna wrap me up and ship me away to the church!” 

Beatrice felt a pang in her heart. Memories flitted past one another in her mind. 

Her, wounded on that hillside, holding tight to consciousness as she told Ava to run. 

Her, shouting at Ava as she lay defenseless, Beatrice’s sword at her flesh, threatening to cut her limbs off one by one if she didn’t break her link. 

Her, watching Shannon, seeing the way something shifted in her posture when a terrified, abyssal-touched boy of maybe 16 years old begged them to let him go. 

She stepped forward, her hands folded together in front of her. “Ava… we didn’t come knowing we’d find you here. I know you can sense I’m riderless right now. You know I wouldn’t be if I was expecting to have to fight you. And now that we’re in this position, I give you my word, we will do nothing to harm you for the duration of this mission, and you’ll be free to go when it’s done.” 

Ava scoffed, a ghost of that same hurt expression Beatrice last saw her with still playing in her eyes. “Oh so now I’m supposed to trust you?” 

Her words stung, and Beatrice hung her head a little, “I’m sorry… for how things went, for what I did… I’m sorry I hurt you. But regardless of our differences and our confrontations, I hope my word at least has never given you any reason to doubt it?” 

Ava pursed her lips and sighed. She still looked hurt, but the distrust was fading from her face. 

She looked at Mary, “I have your word too? Even if they break theirs, I have your guarantee you’ll do everything in your power to stop them from taking me?” 

Mary gave Ava a pointed look. “It will not come to that. I know my girls are good for their word. But yes, Ava, you have it.” 

Another long pause from Ava, followed by a look in Beatrice’s direction that turned… mischievous? 

“Alright, might as well do it here then,” she declared nonchalantly, patting some dust off her pants, real or imaginary. 

Mary looked surprised all of a sudden, maybe more than she ought to have been. 

“Wh— Ava, all your stuff is already packed, just do it on the ship like we planned in the first place.” 

“It’s fiiiine,” Ava smiled impishly, “sister Beatrice will handle it.” 

Beatrice looked between the two of them, confused as to what exactly she was expected to ‘handle.’ 

Mary fixed Ava with a look. 

“Ava, I will not be held responsible for any of your stupid decisions.” 

“Of course not, Mary,” Ava looked entirely too pleased with herself, “obviously Beatrice, is going to be responsible for my stupid decisions.” 

Beatrice still couldn’t quite puzzle out what they were talking about. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t follow.” 

Ava casually began to walk towards her. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll get it in a moment. We can do it right here since I already left my panties off anyway.” 

Beatrice’s eyes widened and she felt a little lump of panic rise up in her throat. What was going on? Just what was Ava expecting here? “I'm sorry — what?” 

“Ava, I swear on the Bright, you will stop calling it that,” Mary groaned, “she means she’s already removed her mastrouza before coming here, so she can break her link at will.” 

“Oh —” Beatrice sighed with relief, “but that still doesn’t explain—” 

Before she could continue Ava had walked up to her and dropped herself into Beatrice’s arms, making Beatrice’s heart skip a beat. 

“Hold me please,” she asked with a smile that was far too bright, and somehow impossible for Beatrice to resist. She lightly wrapped her arms around Ava. 

“Little tighter.”

“Wh —”

“If you don’t hold me, I’m going to fall.”

“Oh, of course I’m sorry!” 

That part made sense, the sensation of a rider leaving could be overwhelming, and for an entity as powerful as Halo, perhaps it was that much more severe. 

Beatrice embraced Ava in a way that firmly supported her, and Ava settled her own arms over Beatrice’s shoulders. 

They were awfully close like this. As she stared into those brightly shining, beautifully dark eyes, Beatrice suddenly remembered the last time she’d been this close to Ava, remembered how Ava had kissed her, remembered the way she’d almost kissed her. 

It must show on her face, because Ava’s smirk only widened as she bit her bottom lip. 

Beatrice felt her heart rate start to nervously pick up. “Could you — could you hurry please?” 

“Why? Am I making you uncomfortable?” 

That smile, those eyes. 

Oh she was a tease. 

“Please.” Beatrice gave her the most firm look she could manage, but it felt like it came out as a plea more than anything. 

Ava took pity and inclined her head. 

She closed her eyes and took a breath, her head listing forward. 

Her breathing deepened, her muscles tensed and relaxed, and her grip on Beatrice tightened. 

Beatrice held her firm. 

Then with a sudden spasm and a gasp, Ava crumpled into her completely. She had to readjust her grip to keep her properly supported and upright. All of Ava’s weight was now on her arms and on Beatrice holding her. 

“Ava?” she asked with some concern in her voice, “can you stand?” 

“‘fraid not.” Her head was still rolling a bit as she shook out the brain fog, but she said it in a level voice, her tone implying this was a normal part of the process. 

“I see… How long does that usually last?” 

Ava gave her a knowing smirk, “typically until I link with him again.” 

Beatrice looked at her confused for a full second, then everything suddenly clicked. 

“You’re paralyzed?!” 

Ava beamed. 

“Have been since I was seven! Though it used to be much worse than this.” 

Something else just slotted into place for Beatrice and she sighed in exasperation. 

“So when you said I’d take responsibility you meant—” 

“You asked me for a lot of trust, breaking my link like this, surely it’s not too much to ask you to carry me in exchange?” Ava pumped her eyebrows with a grin that had no right to be anywhere near as charming as it was. 

Mischievous little minx. 

“I’ll be happy with a piggy back ride,” Ava smiled, then brushed some of Beatrice’s errant strands of hair behind her ear and dropped her voice to a huskier tone, “but if you’d like to carry me bridal style I — uhm — I wouldn’t object.” 

She wet her lips, glancing down at Beatrice’s mouth first, then looking her in the eyes as she waited for an answer. 

Beatrice’s heart was pounding. 

She couldn’t remember the last time someone had flirted with her — outside of… whatever it was she had with Lilith — let alone flirted as directly as Ava was laying it on. 

She was doing it on purpose, Beatrice realized, she was trying to put her off balance. 

Because Ava liked to play. 

And a strange little feeling tickled Beatrice. 

A tiny spark of joy that delighted in being challenged bubbled up inside of her.  

Beatrice, she decided, didn’t mind a little play herself. 

Her expression shifted from slightly overwhelmed to a coy little smile as she pulled Ava up close to her. 

She bit her bottom lip flirtatiously for a moment, casting her eyes down, then looking back up. 

Ava met her gaze with a smile, happy, but a little puzzled. 

Beatrice looked down again, more pointedly this time, her coy smile turning just a bit wicked. 

Ava’s expression stayed puzzled for a few more seconds, until suddenly her eyes went wide with understanding. 

“Wait no! Don’t you dare—” 

Beatrice grinned and dropped down into a partway crouch, one hand in the small of Ava’s back, the other at the back of her knees, and in one smooth motion she threw Ava over her shoulder. 

“BEATRICE!” Ava’s fist pounded on her back. 

Camila had to cover her smile with a hand, a few paces further Lilith had the most satisfied and relaxed expression all of a sudden, as Ava kept up her assault. 

“Beatrice you put me down this instant! You think I don’t have enough upper body strength to choke you out from here?! BEATRICE!” 

Beatrice happily ignored her and carried her over to Mary. “Backseat?” she asked. 

Mary, who’s smile said she too was enjoying this far more than she ought to, shrugged. 

“I mean there’s the trunk as well.” 

“MARY I SWEAR ON EVERY BRIGHT-FUCKED SAINT IN THIS GALAXY—”

“Backseat is probably fine.” Beatrice concluded. 

“Trunk’s pretty full anyway.” 

Mary opened the rear door of the hovercar for her and Beatrice very carefully, very gently, put a practically growling Ava down in the seat. 

Ava was looking at her with what she must be trying her hardest to turn into a scowl, failing spectacularly because she couldn’t suppress the playful smile that kept pushing through. 

“I bet you thought that was pretty funny huh?” She gave it her best attempt at a glare. It was adorable. 

“That does seem to be the consensus, yes.” Beatrice didn’t even bother to keep the smugness out of her voice.  

“Cute. You think I’m not going to get you back for this?” 

“Oh I’m quite sure you’ll try.” Oh, she was enjoying this. 

“So that’s how you want to play this?” 

“Isn’t this how you always want to play?” 

Ava let her mouth hang open a little. “Sister Beatrice! I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Beatrice preened, “I think you’ll find I’m full of surprises.” 

“Oh I’ll bet you are.” 

Beatrice felt a blush come on as she realized they were flirting again, and this time she was happily participating. 

“Yes, well, plenty of time to get to know each other on the way.” She deflected, quickly breaking eye contact. 

“Can’t wait,” Ava smirked, her tone heavy with meaning.

[daisychainsandbowties]

For Ava, piracy is Robin Hooding. Distributing ill-gotten gains is the best part.

For Beatrice, piracy is an escape. Being chased by the authorities has made her free.

For Suzanne, piracy is how she protects her girls. A means to an end.

For Shannon, piracy is a duty. Needs must.

For Mary, piracy is a job. A job with a built in soulmate.

For Camila, piracy is the family business. It is all about family.

For Lilith, piracy is the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to familial expectations. Found family is infinitely better.

god yeah i really do love the idea of ava, fresh-sprung from an orphanage and anointed with unholy power, fleeing through a maze of port city streets and running headlong into beatrice.

she’s got a pistol at her hip and a stack of books in her arms, smells faintly of magesmoke and blood, but she pulls ava into an alley, casts a simple ward and holds her there in the damp dark, alley cats wending around her boots.

one hand over ava’s mouth, the other trapping her arm against the splintery wooden wall until the guards (ava hopes that she thinks they’re guards) have moved on. then beatrice stepping back, appraising, going to collect her books from a neat pocket dimension she sketched into the air.

telling ava, because she follows, moth to a flame, “sorry about the rough handling. my name is beatrice, ship’s mage on the Cat's Cradle.”

she’s got the tattoos to prove it, almost consuming the skin of both arms as she tugs the cuffs up past her elbows; not down to hide them, but up, to reveal what she is.

at ava’s puzzled look she says, “it’s better, around here, to be seen as a mage rather than a woman.”

ava barely bites back on some loathsome quip, nods at her, then flinches at the sound of distant shouts.

beatrice casts a sidelong glance at her in her stained shirt, trousers cut at the knees. she's barefoot and bruised, staring like she's never seen buildings, or the sky, or a woman before.

she doesn’t even have a knife tucked into her trousers, or the slightest chance of making it through a night alone in this city.

there's a sigh trapped behind her teeth, but beatrice finds herself turning back. voice clipped, almost emotionless, “you look a little bit out of your depth.”

“no shit.”

but ava says it with a shaky laugh. she’s still more than a little preoccupied with how beatrice’s mage tattoos shift and slither in the interrupted light.

beatrice shrugs, “you know if you're interested, our surgeon needs an assistant.” her eyes travel hastily down ava’s body and then back up, “she says that small hands are helpful.”

“small hands?”

“to, ah, move around hers and to make stitches. i can’t say i really understand it, but, well-”

“magic doesn’t heal.” ava says this with bleak familiarity, like she knows the words by heart but would rather she didn’t.

she looks at her hands, tries not to think of what they can do, of the promise she made while half-asleep, to something that should not even be real.

“don’t you think that’s weird? you can do anything, but you can’t close a wound or... or fix broken bones?”

beatrice looks at her, shrugs uneasily. it’s just ink sitting under her skin, but the tattoos seem to shift and glisten wetly as she crosses her arms. “it’s not strange,” she says. “it’s the bargain we made.”

mages are oh-so-fond of trotting out that line. ava tries not to grimace at it. she is, after all, alone and penniless. she is being hunted.

“i’ve never done surgery or anything like that before,” she admits, looking down, braced for dismissal. her eyes stall on the books in beatrice’s arms. gods below i’m fucked. so fucked. i can’t even read, how am i supposed to-

“do you learn quickly?”

beatrice is looking at her calmly when ava rocks back on her heels and dares to meet her eyes. “you… what?”

“our surgeon can teach you, if you learn quickly.” beatrice pursed her lips, “if not, you could be one of the rigging boys, or… well, i’ll figure something out.”

ava stares at her, astonished. “but... why are you helping me?”

a raised eyebrow, muscles working under ink as beatrice clutches her books tightly. she looks odd and out of place in the dingy alley, with her tailored trousers and little silver buckles winking on her boots, through the dark.

“you look like you’re running from something.” ava clenches her fists at her sides, begging her abilities to stay under her skin.

beatrice seems preoccupied with her own thoughts, “someone helped me that way once, when i was… lost. you’ll meet her, i suppose. she’s my captain.”

“are you pirates?” ava blurts the question before she can stop herself, and beatrice’s gaze sharpens.

ava holds up her hands, “it’s just… two officers who are women and now your captain too. it occurred to me, is all.”

beatrice gives her a hard look, but she finds nothing in ava’s expression, beyond a measure of panic. maybe some fear, which is all for the better. "i suppose you'll find out." she's closed-off again, but not hostile.

yet, ava thinks. not yet.

“if you want, you can follow me. if not…”

beatrice frowns. already the sun is setting, dragging light back down along western shore, down into the ocean.

she turns away, starts walking, does not make a relieved sound when she hears ava start to follow. convinces herself that she doesn’t wish to make any relieved sound, at all.

one girl cannot be important, not in the scope of things.

“i’m ava, by the way.”

she speaks to the firm slope of beatrice’s shoulders. the day was too warm for a jacket, so it’s in her cabin, half-draped across the desk to hide her papers.

a half-turn, a nod of the head.

“pleasure.”

[lenaboskow]

gay!eddie is happening in the near future, a post brought to you by someone who spends way too much time dissecting queer media (and usually ends up being at least half right)

bear with me, it's a long one under the cut

i have a longer, more scene specific post that i will finish during the break if nothing happens tonight but i am a full believer that eddie's big arc this season (or next season, depending) is that the reason none of his past relationships worked out is because he's gay (not bi, gay)

disclaimers: i fully believe eddie loved shannon, just not the way he wanted to. you can also be gay and still enjoy heterosexual sex. sometimes sex really is just sex. this post is purely about romantic attraction.

I also tried to leave as much out about buck as possible (though that's hard, the man is obviously an integral part of his life) because gay!eddie diaz will happen no matter if buddie is endgame, and people need to realize that. their sexualities are more than just about each other.

anyways, on to the post-

it's canon that eddie will put christopher first when it comes to deciding relationships, and i think we first see that with shannon. rewatching season 2, i didn't get the impression that he wanted a romantic relationship with her, but he wanted her back in his son's life, and to eddie, those two go hand in hand.

and, if we're being honest, i think eddie's habit of putting other people first is the whole reason he got with shannon, because his family taught him that he was supposed to find a nice girl and settle down. who better to do that with than his best friend? my theory is further proven when shannon gets pregnant and eddie marries her out of a sense of duty, and then immediately ships off to afghanistan under the pretense of "providing" (and isn't it something that he picks a profession where he'll be away from his family for months at a time)

the only reason eddie returned is because of the helicopter crash, to which shannon immediately started talking about moving to california. while i believe that wanting to rest after the crash could be part of the reason he was hesitant, i think there was also a fear of what would happen when he was no longer near his family he was trying to please.

of course, eddie eventually moves to la after getting a job offer from both lafd and chicago. carla mentions that it is only thirty minutes from shannon, and while that could be because he wanted to reconcile, i think it was more to do with wanting to have his son's mother near. that, and lafd is the best in the world (according to eddie)

eddie only kisses shannon in 2x07 after she does her family interview for the school. this specific fact coupled with the absence of the eddie diaz heart eyes™️ (which, despite his closing off at the beginning of the series, we'd already seen in 2x01 when he and buck call truce) makes me believe he realized he could trust her and wanted her back in his son's life, and the way to do that was to get back together.

"but they hid their relationship for a while" eddie was still scared. comphet is a real thing, and causes people to act on things they necessarily don't want. i believe he pursued a romantic relationship with shannon because that's what she wanted, and if he kept her happy, she wouldn't leave again. this is why i wish we could've seen divorced shannon/eddie instead of her dying immediately, and i wonder if maybe it would've sped up the whole deconstruction process for him.

the next time eddie dates, it's with ana. on paper, ana is the perfect wife for him. she's a teacher, knows how to handle kids, is latina, the whole package. eddie tries so hard to make it work, that it actually does, and this causes him to panic. both carla and buck tell eddie not to take just chris into consideration, but to make sure he wants it too, and after some time, he breaks it off with her. the way ana reacted to the breakup makes me wonder if she could also sense the reason for the breakup.

marisol is where it starts to get tricky, but i feel like we've seen enough (or not enough) in these four episodes to piece some information together. chris is the one who encourages eddie to call her, and that makes me wonder if that's the reason they're still together. before the promo of the bucktommy date eddie and marisol crash, we only got two mentions of marisol, and both times was in relation to her helping with chris. at this point, eddie has spent more time with tommy than he has with marisol, as far as we're aware.

the synopsis of tonight's ep says that eddie and marisol "take a closer look at their relationship" and given that we haven't seen much of them on screen, it makes me wonder what this could be about. does it maybe have something to do with them crashing the bucktommy date?

obviously, i wouldn't be mad if eddie turned out to be bi. however, to me, all of his relationships seem be a big case of comphet. speaking from experience, as someone who's pursued relationships with men purely because that's what i was expected to do, not because i actually wanted to be with them. and just like eddie, there was a time where if my best friend (who was of the opposite gender) had asked me out, I would've said yes and married him had it come to that, because it would've made my family happy. i've gotten to a point where i don't care what my conservative family thinks or wants, and i truly believe that this season, we'll see eddie get to that place to.

if you've made it this far, thank you for listening, and here's to hoping we get gay!eddie tonight.

tag: @queeredmundo

[himboskywalker]

Heyy boo, do you have a book that is not star wars related that you wish you could read for the first time or reread all the time?

I am searching for books recommendations and I am pretty open about every genre, maybe not horror but everything else is totally fine.

My number one book recommendation that I will always obnoxiously shove in everyone’s faces is Lord of the Rings. It is my heart and soul and favorite thing in the world and if you’ve never read the trilogy I highly recommend it. But I also have quite a few other recs!

Anything written by Andy Weir. “The Martian” is his best known work,which they made the Matt Damon movie of,and while I do love it “Project Hail Mary” is my favorite of his and one of my favorite sci-fi books of all time.

I loved “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” which was Christopher Paolini’s sci-fi debut a couple years ago but he just came out with its prequel “Fractal Noise” and I liked it even more.

For some good old fashioned space opera brilliance I recommend the “Final Architecture” trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The last book of the series just came out and I DEVOURED it. Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time,Ruin,and Memory are also phenomenal, you really just can’t go wrong with him.

For more space opera and politics I highly recommend Arkady Martine,she DEBUTED with “Memory Called Empire” which won all sorts of awards. The sequel also recently came out but I haven’t gotten the chance to read it.

I’m in the middle of reading Pierce Brown’s “Red Rising” saga,which I would describe as adult Hunger Games,and have thoroughly enjoying it as well!

For fantasy I love Samantha Shannon’s “Priory of the Orange Tree” and “A Day of Fallen Night”. You’ll get varying opinions of what to read first,I read Priory when it first came out so that’s my biased opinion.

I’m a massive fan of “She Who Became the Sun” by Shelly Parker-Chan and their sequel “He Who Drowned the World” and I want it to go on record I read SWBS when it first came out and before it blew up *flips hair*

R.J. Barker’s “Tide Child” trilogy is awesome,first book of that series is “The Bone Ships.” It’s high seas fantasy with dragon bone ships and epic war and amazing world building.

I always highly recommend “Gideon the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir and now also the rest of the books in the series. I think the usual pitch is lesbian necromancers in space.

I cannot cannot recommend “The Shadow of the Gods” by John Gwynne enough! It’s quintessential epic fantasy told as a Norse epic and it’s in my top five of modern fantasy books.

While I have serious beef with Song of Achilles just like our fellow obikin Will,I did love and devour Madeline Miller’s “Circe.” In every way I think it’s her superior work.

I can’t recommend fantasy without recommending “The Grace of Kings” by Ken Liu. His entire series will blow your socks off,but the first book won nearly every award for fantasy books that have ever existed.

I’m a huge fan of R.F Kuang’s “The Poppy War” series although I’ve heard this one is a contentious recommendation. I think this series is hate or love it but if for whatever reason you don’t vibe with this series I also highly recommend Kuang’s “Babel.”

If you want something a little less well known I could chew through drywall over Simon Jimenez’s “The Spear Cuts Through Water.” It was in my top five of 2023 release books.

I can also make a separate rec list of less new books and overall classics I always recommend or gift to people,both fiction and nonfiction!

[laylawatermelon]

Now that I'm thinking about it I wanna theorize/call for action outside of buddie (don't worry i WILL return with a vengeance) but now I'm on a bit of an Eddie Diaz kind of run.

I'm reading a fanfic now of Eddie's sisters which kind of spawned me to think about his relationship with them and kind of think about his family dynamics and expectations and what's coming up for his storyline.

Now they mentioned bringing his family in, specifically his sisters, and i think this storyline ties into Marisol (noname i swear this drives me crazy when i think about it?!??! PLEASE if you want me to care/be invested gimme a last name!) and his Catholic guilt/sense of responsibility/man of the house complex.

They've introduced how his upbringing brought him a lot of guilt and a sense of duty (to serve and protect amirite? Dang religion can be a perfect line to how modern society works but lemme save that for a thesis or something this is about 911 on abc🤣)

Back on topic though, there's a really nice post talking about how he's military family and how that affected his and Shannon's relationship. (x)

Reading that helped me to appreciate the writing and details.

I also want to talk about the beautiful work being done on Twitter and Tumblr about the Miami Vice costume theory and coincidences.

(heh throwback Tuesday and takeover thursday came in clutch with finding these x )

Yes i do ship buddie, but if I look at it not just as a romantic things but as they are written as kind of parallel soulmates who run along the same line of development.

One always spurs the next to grow and change and are heavily involved in some way even if that way it's just being themselves.

Buck being open with his sexuality will trigger something in Eddie. What it is can vary.

I think if we look at it with non shipper glasses, Buck's freedom will lead to Eddie's freedom. What I mean by that is since Eddie had came to the 118 Ryan mentioned how each year he was there the more he learned about himself and other people.

I think what Eddie would be at free from the image/expectations of what a family should look like/be.

He knows what a family could look like in a queer/unconventional way. Bathena's unit, Chimney and Maddie's family (let's say cause they're not currently married with a toddler church would pass out), and HenRen's family.

The could be and should be is the important part.

Eddie grew up being told what he should be and what his life should look like. Evidently his life went none of the ways it was intended to go.

He's a widower single father from a teen/young pregnancy and veteran. Sure he's a firefighter now but he has no "complete" family.

The way they're emphasizing the mother aspect throughout his story is still fascinating.

(i also thought of something hilarious as like he probably imagined/process mothers as like the Virgin Mary or something when they brought up how he can see woman as mothers but not really women at the same time)

(also Madonna whore complex was mentioned and it's also a fascinating way to look at it as he can either desire or love.)

Shannon seems to be the only exception and even that is iffy. I would also say that when she became a mother the desire kind of left? I think the mother aspect solidified for him when she left them I would say.

Yes they did have sex but that was a (very bad, horrid) form of communication between them. They both avoided stuff at some point in some (eh it's like 20/80 her and Eddie) cases.

Every other woman he has dated has kind of been a substitute, for a lack of a better word, replacement for the role of mom.

Now he knows what moms should look like in all shapes and forms. He knows what dads should look like. He's knows what his family should look like.

Granted he did get rid of some of the flaws of his father and the way he was raised which also ties into the way he is.

Eddie was parentified at an early age. (I will say as a black/poc person that there tends to be adult responsibilities placed on our communities kids from young partially because of culture but mostly because of the inherent unevenness that we have to struggle to make balance worldwide in different facets and environments.)

Once again, this is about 911 on abc, not my thesis😭.

I just imagine him standing on a stool to cook food for his sisters or some other things like laundry. Or even worse the cannon car accident with his pregnant mom. (I love to make myself cry)

Eddie had technically been a parent since he was a kid. He literally became the man of the house or the father. So i guess that entailed taking on the emotional and sometimes physical burden of the father role.

I guess when he was actually a father and not just the role he felt the weight of responsibility again and panicked. It makes sense he has a habit of running since he never had the opportunity to do so as a kid (since he never got the chance to be one).

So after Chris it was once again role of the father but now with added responsibility of bringing money to provide the household which he didn't have to do in that role.

It was hard then so it became even more difficult.

So he gave his body to the military and returned wounded in mind and body, and with a disabled son who needed insurance and stability and a wife who just needed him.

And he needed to be a man. Again and again and again.

He broke out of the loop when he got to the 118 (bless the haven that is that building) met Buck, then Carla and Bobby who offered a safe place for his kid.

He was no longer alone and had distanced himself physical from the church but mentally still shackled in his beliefs.

After this Buck and Tommy things and he's not present we're going to focus on how a family could look for him.

Last season and recently they mentioned the fact that his aunt had been divorced and he didn't know.

There was also mention of family secrets.

There was also Marisol and Chris together which I'm guessing he wasn't to happy with her but it's either or since we haven't seen them together so it's a 50/50 chance. More like 90/10 he's annoyed or feels weird about his mom being replaced). Since we touched on him repairing his relationship with his mom and subsequently girls and women/relationships he wants to be in now that may shift his image of Marisol suddenly being more present.

Slight Buddie tangent (i gotta let the beat out for a sec raaa-) but the fact that he's still hanging out with Buck pretty consistently (well we can say he's his other parent who's sadly been in his life almost longer than his mom 🥺 lemme stop I'm crying) but it might decrease due to his and Tommy's relationship. (They're two firefighters with very busy schedules ofc he's not present they got work to do chop chop!/j)

In turn this leaves Chris with one less stable parent figure and it's forced to turn to Marisol who may be overeager to please him.

This can lead Chris to probably feeling uncomfortable with the changes because he's happy his dad's happy but he's not happy because it feels like his family's changing again too fast, and what if she leaves then his dad's not happy and a whole other sleet of teenage issues and angst.

So what I predict their storyline to be going it's that Eddie tries to find his own freedom from the church and maybe even the expectations of his home community would have on him.

Buck will be radiant in himself at the wedding, so will Hen and Karen, and Marie and Chimney, and Bobby and Athena.

He'll look around and look inward.

He'll stop focusing on what his life should look like and focus on what it could.

And that life could be just as radiant as the family he's apart of now.

(and that's all i could ask for 🥹)

[dizzythegreat]

Keeper of the Lost Cities meta: a hopefully-not-too-critical analysis

Starting off by saying that this whole thing is a just little too pretentious and a just little too fueled by irritation so don't take everything I say as fact! I'm just kind of ranting about things that I feel like most people are annoyed with (?) please share your thoughts with me! I think it's important for discourse like this to happen to keep fandoms alive!! non-Keeper mutuals feel free to DISREGARD!

First of all Keeper has such a special place in my heart, I started reading the series when I was 12 and I'm 16 now, so I really did kind of grow up with the books. I LOVED the series as a kid and hyperfixated on it for a really long time. As the series progresses and as I read it from a different lens, I'm seeing all of the flaws so much more clearly, so this whole rant basically stems from realizing something so special to me is flawed media and wanting to get my thoughts somewhere. All of this comes from a loving place! I'm just putting down my top few issues with the series and my opinions on a lot of different elements <3

DISCLAIMER I'm doing a reread but I'm only on book 1 and my memory is shit. Any false information is literally not my fault leave me alone

1. Length, redundancy, and predictability

This one really starts in Flashback #7 for me. It will always, always evade me why that book contains ~300 straight pages of Sophitz fluff and fucking around in the healing center. I know that a lot of people enjoyed those parts, which is totally valid! Shipping is a cornerstone of this series! But for me it felt so pointless and fan servicey, idk. And this is maybe my biggest problem with the books: they drag. We're at 9 and a half books now, each spanning like 500-800 pages, and the plot drags and drags and drags. I don't know if Shannon's publisher makes her fill a certain number of pages or what, but I feel like at least 100 pages of bullshit could be cut from each book and nothing would change. They start to almost follow a formula: 200 or so pages of figuring out the Neverseen's plan of the hour, another 200-ish to plan how to defeat them, and then finally we learn that the Neverseen is actually always one step ahead and the crew gets crushed oh my god tragic!! It worked as a subversion of expectations the first couple times but by now I feel like most people could basically just predict what's going to happen in any given book. Sometimes I wonder got left on the cutting room floor because it feels like SM wrote a first draft, barely trimmed it down, and published just that. The plot spins in circles, the protagonists are confused yet again, I am pulling my hair out in chunks.

It's a huge turn-off to a lot of new readers seeing these super thick books, and it's even a turn-off to me when I do rereads because surprise surprise, I don't actually really give a fuck if Fitz likes Sophie back, or at least not enough to read 300 pages on it per book. If the books were more concise, not only would that fix a lot of the plot and character development issues, it would also make them way more digestible because to be honest with you I probably couldn't remember half of what happens in most of them.

2. Sophie...

I think this is a very polarizing opinion but I just kind of don't like Sophie as a main character? I honestly think she's fallen victim to becoming a Mary Sue and not even in a "wehhh powerful woman make me mad" type way! It's just that Sophie at her fullest power is undeniably the most powerful elf in a battle, so to counteract this, Shannon has to keep finding ways for the Neverseen to take away Sophie's power. Whether through the whole "she can only inflict everyone at once" thing or breaking every bone in her hand or creating forcefields or literally fucking anything to stop this kid with five million superpowers, they have to find a way to effectively tie her down so the battles seem somewhat realistic. This then creates a weird pattern where every battle goes one of two ways: Neverseen finds a way to effectively debilitate Sophie and all her friends, or she just goes fucking sicko mode and destroys everyone. You just can't have a main character who's this much ahead of everyone else in terms of raw power.

For me, I think the biggest issue with Sophie is she's not relatable to the average reader. The age demographic for Keeper is preteens and teens. How many 13 year olds are the most powerful, unstoppable person in their friend group, in which three hot guys are head-over-heels in love with them, living in very comfortable conditions, with like five hundred friends? If you were that fucking baller at 13 then go fuck yourself that's super cool for you! But the core pillars of Sophie's life, disregarding the all the magical stuff (which obviously requires some suspension of disbelief) are simply not relatable or recognizable to the average reader. So how are we as readers supposed to feel connected to Sophie's life and situation if we never have (and let's face it, never will) experience anything close to the more realistically human parts of her life?

3. Character development (and the lack thereof)

Say what you will but to me the character development is so pale and arguably just doesn't exist. It feels like everyone has become so one-dimensional, so predictable, and so limp. Sophie has it the worst because we read from her POV, so all of her quirks and thoughts become really fucking annoying to read over and over again. For example, The whole oblivious "omg does Dex like me? does Keefe like me? DO I LIKE FITZ???" thing was cute when she was 12 back in book one but by now I am genuinely tearing my hair out when I have to read "Sophie blushed" every two pages. The whole "I'm a freak and nothing I do ever works and all is hopeless" thing was easy to feel sympathy for the first few times, but by now it's just kind of... exhausting? It feels like the naïve, oblivious Sophie from book 1 is exactly the same person as Stellarlune Sophie, no matter how many hideouts SM makes her burn down to prove she's ruthless or something. At this point, I feel like Sophie's choices throughout the series end up either being really predictable or wildly out of left field.

Every character other than Fitz, Keefe, and Sophie (and you could make a case for the three of them too) have become a shadow of themselves and they all get at most two conversations worth of pagetime. This can be attributed to a lot of things that I don't feel like talking about so here they are in point form: excessive focus on the main "love triangle", overloaded cast of protagonists, too much emphasis on A) furthering the plot and B) Sophie's inner thoughts instead of character relationships and found family. I think the books have lost sight of the original love, trust, and bond created by the five mains, and those super interesting dynamics between the different sets of friends that were so abundant in the first few installements have become few and far between. When I was a kid, I loved the books for the warm friendships and soft moments between Sophie and Dex, and now we're lucky if they even really talk to each other if not to push the plot. Biana barely exists, Marella and Linh show up every once in a while to be gay as fuck and then leave, Stina turned nice and then immediately went back to being a bitch because SM, for some reason, un-did all her redemption, and everyone else fucks around until they're plot-relevant. Where's the squad where's the crew where's the homoerotic undertones?!

4. Miscellaneous whining

Fitz's character is wildly inconsistent imo. I love you Sophie but I'm going to consistently get mad at you over irrelevant things and ice you out even though you need my support! Your boyfriend is for the streets girl

Fuck this whole half-book thing I'm sorry. Understandably, things have slowed down now that SM has two kids and I'm really truly happy for her and I'm glad she's taking time out of her work for herself and her family. But when she keeps releasing these weird novellas every year as some kind of "solution", it really just seems like a cop-out or a cash grab. I wish we could tell Shannon that we don't necessarily need a 700+ page novel to consider it a book! I personally would love if book 10 was more concise!! Let's just get this plot moving a bit!!

Sophie burning Gisela's book BURNS MY BLOOD. SM just had no fucking idea what she wanted that book to say + it would probably end the series too quick so she got Sophie to burn the most crucial piece of information they could have ever used under pretense of "refusing to follow Gisela's trap" or whatever OH MY GOD

Sooo many dropped plot lines/plot holes there is no way this shit is being resolved in the next 1 and a half books. See you all in 2034 for book 13.125

Sokeefe endgame was great but so predictable. Half the reason most people read this series is for the will-they-won't-they thing with Sophie, Fitz, and Keefe (justice for Dex!), and I think it was executed very badly. You could predict that Sophie and Fitz would burn out, you could predict that she would end up with Keefe, there was net 0 suspense by the time Fitz made his 500th dick move. I know I just complained about things being stretched out for so long but this one could have done with some taking it slow without making it obvious what was going to happen

Can Marella and Linh just kiss already

Anyways this all comes from a place of loving frustration. Oh Keeper my love, look what has become of you. Ultimately, SM started a fantasy series without knowing the ending, and it's spun out of control, but what can you do? I appreciate the series for what it is, I wish it was better, but I'll always love it. Through all my bitching and moaning I'm still rereading it to this day so who's really winning here? Please rb and comment and dm I love discussing Keeper!!! If you think I'm an idiot tell me!!! If you agree with me tell me!!! Don't be a dick!! Thanks for making it this far! Don't forget to like and subscribe and smash that bell

[manyfandomocs]

OC Introductions

Alright here's some new OCs plus a bonus one that conceptualized as I was writing these out whoops (and I'm gonna tag @daughter-of-melpomene since Dolly knew about a little about Aimee and gave me literally all 4 FCs for the 911/911 Lone Star ocs)

OUAT

Aimee Grimard (Charithra Chandran FC), Gabriella Lang ship. Known as Elisabeth Barbot in the Enchanted Forest, her father was a merchant that angered the Evil Queen and her home was burned down and his ship was lost at seat. They had to move to the countryside and work on a farm, where she explored in the woods and found a deserted castle where she met Suzanna. In Storybrooke, she lives and works on the docks, helps out at Granny's and does storytime sometimes for Mary Margaret. When the curse is broken, she remembers Gabriella but Gabriella doesn't remember her

9-1-1

Rowan Buckley (Jake Borelli FC), Josh Russo ship. A cousin to Maddie born a year after Daniel, he also wasn't a bone marrow match. So when his parents died and his aunt and uncle took him in just after Daniel passed, he was also sworn to secrecy to never talk about him. He and Buck weren't very close when they were young as their parents focused more on Rowan as the replacement son for Daniel and Rowan was always very unsure how to be around his cousin, Maddie was pretty much their in between. When he was 18, he left home to go to college for pre-med (inspired by everything that happened with Daniel) and moved to Los Angeles, only really talking to his parents and occasionally Maddie until those talks stopped too. Then when he transfers hospitals, he meets Firefighter Buckley for the first time in years.

Kaeden Duan (Harry Shum Jr. FC), Evan Buckley & Eddie Diaz ship. Born and raised in San Francisco, he spent most of his childhood raising his little sister since their parents weren't around like, at all. She lived with him as soon as he was 18 though he was training to be an EMT at the time. Then Alyssa got into college in LA and he moved with her, which leads to him meeting the 118

9-1-1: Lone Star

Mariana Diaz (Jaina Lee Ortiz FC), Marjan Marwani ship. Though her brother Eddie was always her hero and she missed him while he was in Afghanistan, she knew he was having problems. Especially after Shannon left him and Christopher. So, she encouraged him to leave Texas. Screw their parents. And Mariana, she threw herself into her work after that. Fighting fires, that's what she was good at. And then Owen Strand calls her. Her captain knew him and when he was looking to rebuild the 126, he recommended her transfer. So she accepted.

Melody Lau (Melissa O'Neil FC), Paul Strickland ship. Ever since she was young, Melody knew she wanted to help people. But her family couldn't afford to send her to college so, she looked to the police academy. She passed with flying colors, her only issue was getting employment. Melody started applying anywhere she could, and Austin was the only one that accepted with enough time for her to move. She quickly became friends with Carlos Reyes, and soon meets the 126

The Bright Sessions

Lucas Bramwell (Cody Christian FC), Caleb Michaels ship. A Class B, Level 6 Atypical, he has the ability to control plants. He's been with Dr. Bright for about six months now after being recommended by Agent Green, he does go to school with Caleb but neither have realized the other is an atypical or a patient of Dr. Bright's as he typically stays away from sports and they only share a couple of classes. After he meets Chloe when he's touring her college, he slowly gets more involved in what the AM is really doing and with Caleb

Aurora Decker (Danielle Campbell FC), Samantha Barnes & Mark Bryant ship. A Class C, Level 8 Atypical, she has the ability to turn invisible. She's a recent patient of Dr. Bright's after she saw her ad, Aurora has always had a hard time controlling her ability which has caused her to have problems in her job. She meets Sam with Dr. Bright's plan to sneak into the AM and they grow closer while on the road trip to look for Mark.

Billie Foster (Alexandra Daddario FC), Robert Gorham Damien ship. A Class A, Level 5 Atypical, she has the ability of clairvoyance. An older patient of Dr. Bright's, she's helped her get her level down a lot and while Billie probably could get away with stopping her sessions, she's almost afraid to for reasons she doesn't say. She meets Damien when he's waiting around after her session to see Dr. Bright and though Billie didn't like him at first, he kept finding her and talking to her

Laurence Mercer (Tyler Hoechlin FC), Robert Gorham Damien ship. A non-atypical that works for the AM under the name Agent Poirot, he gets moved from DC to Boston to work with Agent Green and through that he unintentionally meets Dr. Bright. But it's through an accidental meeting with Chloe at a coffee shop that he ends up meeting Damien, who initially dislikes him and Laurence tries to keep a distance, but it doesn't quite work for the two of them

[sisterdivinium]

I'll be posting a little drabble party starting on Dec 8th and ending on Dec 15th to try and explore some other relationships and dynamics between the characters of the show we love.

Here's the schedule if you want to keep up (or even post something of 100 words for the same pairing along with me!):

Dec 8th: Jillian/Suzanne

Dec 9th: Mary/Shannon

Dec 10th: Camila/Lilith

Dec 11th: Ava/Beatrice

Dec 12th: Ava/Lilith

Dec 13th: Ava/Camila

Dec 14th: Mary/Lilith

Dec 15th: Jillian/Suzanne

They will all be tagged "mini drabble regatta" since they deal with, well, ships :)

(yes, both Fridays are reserved for my traditional "doctor superion drabble Fridays", for those who are familiar with my blog -- I allow myself the liberty of giving my OTP emphasis :))

[sapphicagenda]

Read Whisks Worth Taking (a Bake Off AU) on AO3 here!

Main ship: Ava/Beatrice

Sub-ships: Camila/Lilith, Mary/Shannon

Rating: E (for eventual smut)

Summary:

Nothing could have prepared Beatrice Jones, acclaimed pastry chef and judge of Ready Set Bake, for their new host, Ava Silva. She's a whirlwind of energy, puns, and flirtatious banter; everything Beatrice is not. And yet... the attraction is undeniable.

Navigating a budding relationship through the echoes of past traumas isn't easy, especially when the show must go on. To complicate things further, it seems they have a saboteur on set.

This summer the baking tent might just put more pressure on the crew than the contestants!

Tags: Slow burn, fluff, angst, eventual smut

Read on AO3

[letsgethaunted]

Welcome to Episode 195.5: Listener Stories #30! This is the episode where our Haunties (aka listeners) write in with their first-person spooky tales of cryptids, ghosts, curses, and aliens AND where Nat & Aly unbox fan mail sent by listeners just like YOU. This week, we unbox mail from: Kyle + Jessica (aka ArtsyStarky), The Orb (aka Tay and her frogs), and more! Listener stories from this week's episode include: imaginary friends, haunted birth stories, angels jumping on the bed, secret underground tunnels, dark figures in the hallway, indigo children, disembodied dragging and footstep sounds, a massage therapist that channels a spirit, and more! Some of the listeners whose stories are features in this episode include: Lauren, Sami B, Misura A, Sydney W, Juliana, Kate-Marie, Raven R, Mykenzie F, and Shannon P!

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED! Find out more about this week's advertisers below the cut:

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[daisychainsandbowties]

Lilith in N7 armor, though…

It may or may not surprise you to know that I actually have a whole mass effect au planned out in my head. I just…. Yeah. Ava Silva and the weight of the world on her shoulders. Ava Silva giving exclusive sponsorship to every single tech and weapons shop on the Citadel. Ava Silva with her aquarium and her pet hamster and a shadow longer than her life.

Ava Silva, waking up to fire in the sky above Mindoir. Ships blotting out the sky and the trees a smear of sound and heat and light outside her window. It’s enough to make them burst inward, waking her in time to save her life.

Boots in the hall of their little house and her mother running inside the room, pushing the dresser she made out of this planet up against the door they brought with them from the stars. Ava doesn’t know anything but this place – the grass crunchy in winter and the flowers in spring and the leaves in autumn and all the sunsets in summer.

Her mother has old scars on her hands and an old rifle she keeps under her bed and an old set of armour she wears now. It’s broken open across her chest and the gauntlets are cracked, falling onto the wood floor as she looks for Ava, finds her by the window in a halo of broken glass.

It’s weird, too see her smiling and bleeding at the same time.

There’s a second red heart on her chest, and when she speaks she leaves blood spatter on Ava’s forearms. Clutches at her so tightly that Ava is certain she could never let her go, but then she’s smoothing Ava’s hair off her face, tucking strands behind her ear.

She carries Ava to the window – she’s nine, too big for carrying and she squirms but her mother’s grip is iron. The grass is still wet from overnight rain, somehow, even backlit as they both are by fire. The shape of tall trees in her mother’s eyes which are just the same colour as hers. Brown like earth.

The door to Ava’s bedroom splinters and the last thing Ava hears as she’s pushed onto her back – out of sight and out of reach – is her mother telling her to run. This she knows how to do, running laps around the track at school while the other kids are still stretching out their legs. She knows how to do it alone in the woods around their house or down toward the lake, pretending to chase birds or her own shadow.

Ava, running and always, forever after this, running. Away from town, from home, with an old Alliance beacon in her hand, blinking like a red eye against her palm.

They’ll find you, she’d whispered, pressing it wet into Ava’s small hand, and they did.

When the Alliance come they find Ava. Just her. They ask her questions but all she can tell them about is fire, and sitting in the old cabin by the lake, underneath the floorboards with bugs the size of her hands crawling in the dirt around her. Staring at the beacon until she slept again. Woke again. Slept again.

Ten years later she’s on Akuze and everyone she trained with is dead around her. She’s fresh out of basic training and her armour belonged to someone else before her, ill-fitting at the shoulders and the hips. Her greaves rattle when she walks, and everyone teases her about it and then she’s running past pieces of them.

The creature responsible bleeds so much when it dies, and its insides burn where they touch Ava’s skin. When they find her, she’s carrying a fistful of dog tags, spends a week in a medi-gel bath regrowing a fifth of her skin. They recruit her straight into the N7 program, and some nights, sitting in various drop-ships eating expired ration bars, or gunning down mercs, she wonders if her mother would recognise her anymore. They were supposed to be farmers.

Then Eden Prime, the beacon and a Turian called Adriel who wants to bring about the end of the world. She meets an odd archaeologist on a lonely dig site and her name is Beatrice. A sniper on the Citadel called Shannon, who likes to wear blue. Their pilot, Mary, has a knack for pissing everyone off and a soft spot for Ava.

She sits in the mess late at night, when the ship’s circadian lights make everything dim and secret, drinking coffee with too much creamer and listening to Beatrice talk about the Protheans.

It's the wrong time to fall in love.

They win, eventually, and Ava is quietly side-lined for saying too much, too loudly about the Reapers, who want to come down from the sky and burn everything, like the slavers burned her home once upon a time.

And then she dies.

Her body, burned by the mouth of a planet upon re-entry, finds its way into the hands of a shadow organisation called Cerberus, who call her Lazarus and bring her back from the dead. She wakes up full of hairline fractures, her face trying to break open, bleeding red light like her once-small fingers, like running away again and waking up to flashlights, strange voices. Everything about life is circular.

She wakes in the hands of a girl with designer blood and bones not quite as handmade as Ava’s, but close. Her name is Lilith, and the first thing she tells Ava is that the galaxy hasn’t run out of ways to use her just yet.

[bi-dykes]

How do you get into the perspective of your OC(s)? What were the first few things you did to get into their character and understand them better?

I absolutely love this question bc it led to me re reading my own work 😂

I somehow got to my my characters very well without ever putting my book in first person. It’s all third person, sub for one character who breaks the fourth wall and sometimes speaks without quotation marks.

I was inspired by Shannon Hale’s run of Ever After High (Ever After High has at least three different book series by three different authors, plus a Netflix tv series- it’s like a miniature MCU but with better characterization lmao) and I can arguably say that Shannon Hale has the best material on all of Ever After High.

Here is an example (the image is sourced from Etsy) of how a character breaks the containment of using proper formatting of quotation marks and speaks directly to the narrator

I do this as well. Different font, and then I write it like a text message going back and forth, disregarding quotation marks or proper formatting. However this only happens a couple of times per book for my character, and a handful (4-5) times in Ever After High.

I know my characters far too well. The main eight are like children to me, I know their deepest desire and darkest fear and coping mechanism and guilty pleasure. I have been with them for over 5 years without finishing my novel. The time has been spent with making playlists and drawing pictures and creating Pinterest boards and writing things that I don’t intend to publish or include in the final manuscript (hehehe fanfiction by the author) because I simply like to explore them in different situations. My books are going to be in third person, but I ocassionally write in first person, even if I’m planning on just deleting it, because I just like to practice getting in my characters’ heads when I have writers block.

I follow the “worst” writing advice ever. I base many traits for my OCs off of myself, which could be seen as making them Mary Sues. I write them like real people, adding in stupid dialogue of them stuttering or accidentally interrupting one another and then saying “oh sorry, you go first”. I write smut about my favourite OC ships knowing that I’ll never include it in the final draft of my book, just because I want to write about what’s happening “off screen” and what my characters are doing when the reader isn’t looking (although there are indeed some sex scenes in my book, I do like to write additional ones that aren’t nearly as eloquent or have any plans to include it in the published novel). I started my second draft before my first draft was finished, solely because I understood my writing style had improved so abruptly and the characters had evolved so much, I needed to start fresh. I look in the mirror and act out my character’s conversations with one another or their fight scenes or how they wave their hands around like Elsa conjuring magic. I take breaks for months and when I finally sit down and write, I’ll either write 5 words, or 2205 words in one sitting, and not often anything in between.

I have horrible writing advice, and I suggest you take any of it that you’d like or that resonated with you, because it has brought me so much joy in my life and has helped me gradually get to know my characters like new friends who become family.

I’ve been told that my writing “flows like butter” which is so odd because I juggle 4 protagonists, 2 antagonists, and 2 deuteragonists. They don’t “all fit”, but they all have a role to play. Like the delicious fries on the side of the burger, the whole meal. Your characters don’t need to be stars. They just need to be memorable. And I know they will be. Your mind is more capable than you think.

Like honestly, just word vomit on the page and write silly stuff. It will be the most human, glorious, flawed, messy, endearing, and passionate writing you’ll see. Just go create chaos. And play with your characters like Barbie dolls. In a little while, you’ll know them like you know yourself.

At the end of the day, anything you write will be an achievement because you took nothing and turned it into something, transformed a blank page into a series of words and letters. That’s god behaviour right there. Even if it’s shitty writing, you created it from scratch.

But also, don’t worry about setting deadlines and timelines. I’ve been at this since grade 10 and now I’m in university and I’m still not done. Let your characters marinate and soak and rest in your mind. Let them grow. There is no rush. All is well 💜 and one day your characters will grow like little plants from seeds 🫂🫂🫂💕💕💕 just be patient with yourself, and have fun with getting to know your characters!