#might make another post later about things i liked in this series?? cos there were a couple lol

[angel-gidget]

DC Plot Bunnies on my Brain

Time-traveling Kon talks to his younger self about Tana Moon. I’ve been exploring the 90’s Superboy corner of fandom lately, and boy do those guys have some thoughts about Tana Moon. Muy negative.

I think an adult Kon who had a chance to talk to his younger self might also be able to express some criticism of Tana, but he would not be harsh about it. I think he would still view his younger self as having a lot of agency, and he would still remember how much he loved her.

So how do you explain to your younger self that the current “love of their life” isn’t actually good for them? Very veeerry gently.

Kon bed-hopping fic. I actually started this one over a year ago and have snippets of it on my hard drive. Basically, after the Gemworld and multiversal hopping, Kon has a paranoia about being alone, and he doesn’t have a place to stay. (I wrote this before reading about the Kents remembering him after all, so this is written with the assumption that he has nowhere to go.)

So Young Justice takes turns housing him. And then the sleepovers end up being a pretty effective way of catching up with old friends like the core four and getting to know the new ones like Amy, Naomi, and Jinny.

Kon/Lophi slow-burn. In my current Kon fic, I imply that if YJ had showed up later than they had, Kon would have felt duty-bound to stay on the Gemworld to raise baby Martha. I could write a story exploring that as well as his and Lophi’s relationship. However, core four fuzzies would still be involved, bc the team would 100% find a way to visit Kon on the regular if he were stuck in another dimension.

Kon/Amy slow-burn. Set after the YJ multiverse hopping storyline. With no way to return to the Gemworld, Kon and Amy are left to mourn it together. This leads to bonding. Amy does, however, have some experience with going between worlds and have some coping mechanisms to offer Kon. In turn, he’s able to make her feel more at home with the team.

Amy Winston character exploration via Young Justice. There is a LOT to explore. For one thing, Amethyst was never a very character-driven comic, so there’s a lot of scenarios where I have no clue what Amy would do. So I gotta start writing to find out.

In her own 80’s title, Amy can go back and forth between being confidently heroic and remembering that she’s a scared kid. Part of that was the physical transformation she would go through. Turning into a physically 20-something a la Shazam made her feel more confident. But she doesn’t have that trait in YJ continuity.

So maybe her magic is the key? In the 80’s series, Amy’s magic was very strong on the Gemworld, but would fade to nothing when she crossed over to Earth.

So what if in this Wonder Comics YJ ‘verse, her magic is fading away slowly while she’s stuck on Earth and that gradually eats at her confidence? What if she does bond with the core four, but then becomes scared to tell them that the thing that (in her mind) makes her a superhero is fading away?

Post-Mini Series Amethyst story. I have a very detailed write-up of this in my drafts. I was very frustrated with Amy being turned into, like, a Gemworld deity thing at the end of her OG series. But I write out a plot taking place after it that would allow me to really come to terms with it and have fun with where the characters are at that point. Might post the outline later. Basically makes Amy, Young Princess Emerald, and Donal (Topaz and Turquoise’s son) all co-protagonists.

Tim/Cassie detective competition. In a (fairly recent?) Wonder Woman storyline, Cassie referred to herself as a detective, and asked for time to investigate the murder of Hypolyta. What if that had consequences? What if there is some kind of, idk, Teen Detective Competition and maybe Donna enters Cassie’s into it bc she thinks she’d be into it?

Of course, Tim has entered but only because he sees it as chance to get close to someone else he’s actually investigating. But as soon as he sees that Cassie is one of the entrants things get… genuinely competitive for both of them. And then the trash-talking somehow turns into flirting when neither of them were paying attention?

Tim/Cassie preboot Identity Exploration. Cassie is reveling in having Kon and Bart back from the dead. She and Kon are “just friends” now, and tho a lil’ awkward, it’s still good. But a few passing comments between the three of them lead Cassie to realize that some of the things she knows about Tim’s civilian identity are contradictory.

She begins to obsess a bit. After all, Tim was her main support through OYL and other hells, so shouldn’t she know him better than anyone?

Meanwhile, she is utterly failing to make a go of her “Drusila” identity. When Tim hears about that, he offers to help. And as Tim teaches Cassie how to be someone else, he ends up revealing things about himself that clarify some of those contradictions that stumped her earlier.

Tim/Greta set during 90's YJ. Steph gets frustrated with Tim's lecturing and breaks up with him. Secret sees this as an opportunity, and shoots her shot. Tim has had an insane day and decides "ok, why not?" Queue their relationship subtly changing events throughout the YJ and Robin series.

[toracainz]

Tell Me Where to Put My Love pt4

You and Steven haven’t been together very long, but that won’t stop either of you from fighting tooth and nail for a chance at a future together.

Series Masterlist

Part 3 -  Different Kind of Danger in the Daylight

Part 4 -  Unavailability Is The Only Thing That Turns You On

Part 5 - At Last, When All of the World is Asleep

Warnings: Inaccurate depictions of DID (only knowledge from the show and some light research). Swearing. Established relationships. Married relationship. Use of term “priest” in a gender neutral sense. Discussion about cheating. Discussion about homewreckers. Canon typical violence in later chapters. Mentions of food. Angst. Fluff.

Word Count: 4k

A/N: I am so sorry it's taken me this long to post the next part, been stewing over this part for so long. 😭 Personal stuff happened and then writer's block and ugh. Anyways, I hope you like it. 🥺

There you were, outside his flat, standing by the road looking up at his floor. You had to go in sooner or later, but the pit in your stomach made it hard to move any further. You were honestly lucky you made it as far as you did thanks to some encouragement from Tutu. It was strange that he seemed to care so much, maybe he really did. You were sure that by now Layla was in town and inside the flat. The bustling sounds of average Londoners going about their day helped keep you calm (well, calmer), oddly enough.

“He’s not going to come to you, child.” Tutu stood atop the nearby building. “Though knowing him, he might actually.” The god chuckled. “Go. All will be well. You are strong.”

Glancing up at his masked face you can almost feel the reassuring smile hidden behind it. With a nod, you take a moment to collect yourself before starting inside the building. What would you say first? What do you say first? Obviously introduce yourself, or maybe Steven would introduce you. Wait, who’s going to be fronting during this? Are they going to be, what did Steven call it? Co-conscious? How easy was it for them to switch? Steven had mentioned he and Marc could do it pretty effortlessly now that they were closer. You still hadn’t actually seen them switch yet. Since he had come back it had always just been him with maybe a stray comment here or there in Steven’s head from Marc.

The lift seemed to be moving so slowly, compared to the speed of your thoughts racing through your mind. Oh God, would Layla even want you to step foot in the flat? What would Steven do if she refused to talk to you? Surely, she would at least talk…right?

Oh. When did you get in front of his door? Muscle memory must have carried you here. Well, you’re here. You take another deep breath sensing Tutu’s reassuring presence as you lift your hand to knock. That’s when you hear it. Layla is talking, but you’re not sure to who, was it Marc or Steven? You imagine probably Marc, that’s who she’s here to see…unless... You try not to dwell on it and find yourself knocking on the door. Things fall silent in the flat other than a low voice, maybe Marc, and the sound of approaching steps. To say you were relieved when Steven swung open the door with a smile was an understatement.

“Hello, love. Come in, come in. Make yourself comfortable of course. Uh…but first I think it’s best to get the introductions out the way, yeah?” He ushers you in, his hand finding a gentle place on your back out of habit as he introduces you to Layla. She gives you a curt smile, brows lifting slightly as she reaches out offering a handshake. You take it with a nod.

“Steven has said a lot of nice things about you.” She rests her hands in her pockets glancing between you and Steven. “So, I guess now that everyone’s here…we should eat.” She says, trying to change the subject. The air was so thick with tension you weren’t sure you could move from where you stood.

“Oh right, yeah.” Steven says to Layla as she starts into the kitchen to get out plates and cups. He turns to you with obvious concern on his face. “I truly am glad you came. I made your favorite and look…nothing has to happen tonight. I certainly don’t expect things are alright between us, but I’m just happy you’re here. Um, Marc and I, we’ll be switching a bit so just warning you. It’s not scary or anything, I just…well Layla’s seen it so she’s used to it. I just didn’t want you to be surprised.”

Oh, God did you love him. He was so concerned about you being comfortable despite the very uncomfortable situation you all found yourselves in. He had made your favorite dish and was trying to make sure you knew that there were no expectations and that you wouldn’t be surprised by his and Marc’s behavior. You nod letting a small smile appear. “Yeah, alright, Steven. Thank you.”

He smiles back with a nod. He would have usually kissed your head, but he resigned himself to just placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. It didn’t feel right, even with the context of everything happening. The very demure gesture when both of you were very much comfortable with hugs and kisses just felt foreign.

“Uh, Steven? The food?” Layla approaches the cleaned off dinette table and starts setting it as Steven hurries into the kitchen to bring the dishes over.

“Is there anything I can do?” You offer, trying to rescue yourself from the role of knot-on-a-log.

“Yeah, love. Could you get that dish there on the counter please? We’re doing a sort of pot luck style, just get what you like sort of thing.” He set the dish down before going to get the drinks. “Hope everyone enjoys. Marc tried to make one of Layla’s favorites and one of his. I, of course, made a favorite of mine and of yours. We can all dig in! Try out each other’s favorites!” Suddenly, Steven’s face scrunched up like he smelled something bad, but it wasn’t Steven that spoke. The seamless way they switched was something entirely unexpected.

“Hell no, Steven, you can have your vegan food. I’m gonna stick with my corned beef kugel. I won’t make you eat it, so don’t make me eat yours.” He shook his head with a huff as you all gathered around the table and took your seats. Just as seamlessly as Marc appeared Steven was back.

“Oi, rude. I didn’t say you had to, Marc. Just that everyone could if they wanted. He didn’t sleep well, stressed about cooking everything. Told him not to worry, that I could help. He’s a bit crank-“

“I am not cranky, Steven.” Marc returned to the front annoyed as he started to plate his food. You and Layla just watched as the two bickered about the food. Layla watched curiously while plating her own food. She had seen them do this while fighting in Cairo, so fighting amongst themselves in their flat wasn’t too different. You on the other hand tried not to stare. Not because you were weirded out or thought they were crazy. It was just incredible to experience, after all you had never known anyone to do this before.

You remembered how Steven was before he disappeared. Sullen, but still hopeful about life. A dark cloud always not far behind. Steven had been so beat down that he had nearly accepted his lot in life, lonely gift shoppist destined to never be a tour guide or have a partner of any kind, no friends, just unreturned voicemails to his mother and the living statue man. Steven seemed so free now. Free of his past burden, the secret life Marc was keeping from him, he was lighter and smiling much more, much much more. You loved it. Seeing him so happy and full of life. Even bickering with Marc seemed to elicit some degree of joy, poking fun at each other.

Layla had been there for them during such a chaotic time. She was strong after all. Stronger than you. The voice from your dream comes careening back through your mind, “What can you do that she can’t do better?” You close your eyes as you pick at your food, nibbling on the different dishes, trying to block out such thoughts. But what if there was truth to it? What if she really could do better for them than you could? You didn’t realize you had gone still until you felt a hand rest on yours. Following the hand up to its source you’re met with Steven’s concern filled eyes.

“You alright, love?”

You take in a shuddering breath. Were you starting to panic? Oh no, no not now. Not in front of her. “I uh, I’m sorry I just…I’m sorry. I just have to go to the loo.” You get up and try not to seem desperate to escape the room as you enter the bathroom sliding the door shut. Not much privacy, but it’s better than sitting in front of her. Comparing yourself to her. Being judged by her. Leaning against the sink your chest begins to rise and fall with hastened breaths. You try to force them to slow and deepen but they only come out shaky.

She was definitely better for them, both of them, than you were for Steven alone. She was strong and he deserved that. He didn’t need to be coddled or looked after like  before with you. Layla could keep up with him and Marc. But you? Where could you fit in all of this? You can't find a place to fit. This is a different puzzle, one you’re certain your piece didn’t belong to. You look up into the mirror, seeing Tutu’s visage behind you. A gentle hand rests on your shoulder. Again, the mask hiding what could only be a look of sympathy…and perhaps pity.

“This isn’t going to work, Steven. This…whole thing is just…it’s too awkward. I don’t see this lasting long.” Layla says to Steven in a hushed tone, not enough for you not to catch some of it. Somehow your breathing quiets enough for you to listen, Tutu unsurprisingly gone now.

“They’re just nervous. This will work. It’s going to work, Layla.” Steven doesn't look at her as he shakes his head. “It has to work.”

“What? So…are the four of us going to live in the same house, hmm? Go on some weird double date, cause this dinner was going so well.” Her voice dripping with sarcasm as she moves to try and make Steven look at her, leaning forward slightly. “Marc and I haven’t even really started working through our own shit and now this?”

Steven stands up harshly, you imagine from the sound of a chair sliding back suddenly. He squeezes his eyes shut, staving off Marc’s attempts to front. “No, mate, you can talk to your wife after I make sure they’re okay.” This time he does look at Layla, his gaze firm, before starting towards the loo, his steps becoming softer and more careful the closer he gets.

“Love? You alright? You sick? If you need anything I’ll g-“

You open the door miraculously fighting off your tears. Looking up at him you reach out and his hand instinctively finds yours, his other one hesitantly reaches up to your cheek. Before it can make contact you move past him towards the front of the flat starting to grab your bag. You turn and look Layla in the eye, her slightly surprised gaze meets yours. No doubt surprised someone like you had the nerve to even look her way again (or so your brain was telling you).

“I’m sorry.” You find the words spilling out before you mean for them to, if those were even the words you wanted to say. Steven had followed you from the loo watching you wondering what you’d say next. “I’m sorry for…whatever it is you think I’ve done. I truly had no idea about you and Marc. How could I? I know I’m something akin to a homewrecker and I never meant to be. I just…I love Steven. I do, but you are clearly more capable and better suited for both him and Marc. I’m not you, by any-“

“Love, what are you saying?”

“They’re leaving, Steven.” Layla says. You just nod, unable to fight the tears any longer.

“I truly do love Steven, but from what he’s told me about you…you can take better care of both of them. I would just get in the way.” You sniffle, wiping your tears as you turn to start out the door. As your hand grabs the door knob a strong calloused hand grabs your arm. The fiery determination in the warm brown eyes that look at you catch you off guard.

“Now wait, just hold on, just a minute…time out. Now let’s all just chill the eff out, yeah?” He looks from you to Layla. “Yeah, alright, this isn’t ideal. But I love them and they love me, you heard them.” His grip on your arm isn’t painful despite how firm he holds on. Looking at you, his expression begs you to stay, but his eyes burn with a fire you’ve never seen before. “This can work if we are all willing to try. I won’t just give up…not getting rid of me that easily, love.” His focus is drawn away from you and to the mirror next to the door. He must be listening to Marc.

With the room growing quiet, expectant of what would be said next and by who, Layla decides to fill the silence.

“If they want to go, Steven, you can’t make them stay.” She stands up from the table.

Steven, shaking his head as he tries to listen to Marc and Layla, something that never went well in the past, steps away from you.

“What about what I want? I want to be with them. I never wanted to be Khonshu’s avatar, never wanted to have a “sleeping disorder”, and…no! I’m not giving you the body, you can talk with Layla when I’m through!” In the middle of Steven’s rant his head snaps to the fish tank, hands flying to his head, fighting against the pull from Marc trying to take control. Things are escalating and neither Marc nor Steven want the people they love to leave, and Marc knows Layla might.

“I believe I may be of assistance.”

His voice carried over the flat like a blanket, though a little louder than Steven or Layla would have liked.  Both of them flinched, yelping, Steven jumping closer to you almost protectively (though screaming a little louder than he intended), and turning to see Tutu standing there in the middle of the flat. Layla suddenly was no longer in her normal clothes but instead in the gorgeous suit Taweret had gifted to her, holding her two swords out, almost like a reflex.

“Ha! I knew it!” Marc says, pushing to the front. Pointing at Layla, a satisfied grin on his face, confirming that she was still an avatar distracting him enough from the fact that there was a god standing in the flat. Layla looked as embarrassed as she would let herself appear to be as the suit dematerialized leaving her in her casual clothes yet again.

“What? Alright, yes I’m still Taweret’s avatar and because of this suit I’ve helped a lot of people.” She stood firm, justifying her connection with the goddess, her contrapposto posture contradicting her conviction as she defended herself.

“No, that’s great. I mean, Taweret was actually really nice so I don’t imagine she’s like Khonshu…manipulating and threatening,” Marc couldn’t help but smile at her. You recognize that smile. Love. A smile Steven would give you, and you fear that he has given that smile to Layla as well. Suddenly, Marc shifts and his posture changes.

“How?” Steven asks, turning the attention back to Tutu. Talking with gods had become fairly normal for Steven during his recent adventure. “You're the god of tombs and the protector of dreamers. Sorry, but…I’m not sure I understand how you could help.”

“You are correct, but it is my skill set that is more than capable of assisting.” His golden head nods towards Steven, as if to say “I’m at your service”. “I believe my avatar already knows what I intend to offer.”

With that, all eyes fall on you, your back against the door, eyes wide but drying up now that Tutu has appeared. His presence always a comfort to you. “Yeah…I know.”

“Well, what is it, love?” Steven’s brows gather in a myriad of emotions: confusion, curiosity, concentration.

“He intends to put us all into a dream. Any one of us could be the dreamer, but he would give us all the energy to lucid dream…in a space where we all could have a voice.” As if reading the god’s mind, you explain Tutu’s plan. You’d never done this before, created a dream space where you and another could interact. All of Tutu’s missions involved lucid dreaming, entering someone’s dreams and being fully in control of yourself. For the average person lucid dreaming is something you train yourself to do through repetition and practice.

“Yes, within the dream perhaps communication could be more effectively practiced.”

It was worth a shot, if all parties agreed, but something told you that Layla didn’t want to try it, didn’t want this to work. You couldn’t blame her. She was “here first”, and was actually married to Marc. If it were the other way around, maybe you might feel the same? Honestly it’s hard to truly know how you’d react in a situation until you’re actually in it. It’s easy to say “I’d do this” or “I’d never do that”, but when it really comes down to it you never really know.

Steven’s eyes and mouth open wide, mind racing to conclude how this could work, what it would feel like, if this would even be something he (or Marc) would feel comfortable doing. Communication is a little difficult, sure, tensions and stakes are high–not ‘ancient Egyptian god trying to take over the world and eat people’s souls’ high…but still high.

“I…I think…I think Marc and I need to talk…alone. The last time we were…not together…it wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience, yeah? Don’t think that this would be the same, no, it’s just…I think we should talk about it first.” Steven can’t help how his hands find each other to fidget like he had done so many times before, taking a deep breath he wills them apart. Things are different now, he’s not quite as timid or unsure of himself as he was before Marc, before Cairo. Things are different. He has Marc now and this is the life they wanted to share with each other, but the thought of someone catching a glimpse of one of their dreams, their nightmares…it was scary.

“Of course, Steven…Marc. Both of you. Not sure I like the idea much either but…stranger things have happened, yeah?” Layla’s voice has turned soft and tender. She can only imagine what could be going through Steven’s and Marc’s head. You felt the same. The two of them had been through so much in such a short time. Being vulnerable and open is still so new to them. If they were uncomfortable with entering a dream world, then maybe you all could find another way. You nod with a short agreement to Layla’s words.

The air in the flat was thinning in a good way, from the thick tense air that had begun to settle. You think that maybe it was Tutu’s presence that was facilitating this calm and maybe you'd be right. He’d never admit to such, but it’s welcomed all the same.

Steven looked at you and Layla, his lips curled at the corners into a gentle smile. “Thank you, both of you. I promise, we’ll try and have an answer for you both soon…uh well for all of you.” He turns to Tutu, his smile turning sheepish.

“Take your time. I’ve waited this long, right? I don’t mind waiting…I’ll always wait for you, Steven.” You could feel your body wanting to take his hand, but could you? Would that be weird in front of Layla? This whole night had been weird so what’s one more thing? Before you can worry about that, as if he feels the pull too, Steven takes your hand. When your eyes meet it’s like the warmth from his hand spreads through you, even to your cheeks where a smile has found its way across your lips. This could work. It had to. You didn't really want to walk away. Sure, you still worry about being compared to Layla, but that will just be something to work through…with Steven.

~*~*~*~

After saying your goodbyes, each of you to your respective man, you and Layla share a very awkward elevator ride. If you thought the ride up was slow, this one is moving at a glacial pace, as if the weight of the tension was straining the mechanics. Thanks to the mirror covered walls you steal glances of Layla, seeing how beautiful she is this close, feeling how confidence just falls off of her. You could see why Marc and even Steven could fall for her. Taking a deep breath, you try and keep those dark thoughts from growing again, the last thing you need is to have yet another panic attack in front of her.

“It’s nothing personal, you know,” Layla says, breaking the silence, not turning to look at you but opting to look at you in the reflection facing you both. Your eyes widening a fraction prompt her to continue. “I get it. Finding out there’s ‘someone else’ is…it’s not fun. I mean, every time I think I know him, Marc I mean, it seems something else comes up and it’s like I haven’t known him at all.” She took a deep breath, her shoulders relaxing a fraction. You really could sympathize. You could only imagine what it must have felt like for her, to think that her husband was cheating on her. You and Steven weren’t married, but it still hurt a lot.

You take a moment to mull over her words. What do you even say? “Yeah, it was a not-so-pleasant surprise…guess we’ll just have to wait and see what’ll happen next.” What more was there to say right now? It was clear by how she was talking to Steven that she didn’t think this would work or maybe she didn’t want it to work. There was something that neither of you realized you had in common…persistance. Neither of you were going to give up the man you loved so easily, even in the face of uncharted territory.

Layla’s gaze went from the light indicating what floor you were passing back to you. It was…intense wasn’t the right word. Strong definitely, but there was something else there. You didn’t know how to react, if you should, but you could feel it. Like she was assessing a threat in battle. Your posture straightened, your expression steeling…you couldn’t let her get to you, whether she was meaning to get to you or not. If this was going to work, you couldn’t continue feeling so very small around her. You’re an avatar just like her, you can do this.

“Guess we will.” She said just after the elevator door dinged and opened to the ground floor hall. Her words felt like a challenge. It almost felt like she was expecting you to throw in the towel right then and there. Putting her hands in the pockets of her jacket, Layla started for the front door without looking back…she didn’t need to. You took a step out of the elevator and watched as she left, looking dazed? Stunned? You weren’t sure what you were feeling, anxious certainly, but there was so much going through your head you weren’t sure what to call it.

Once you were outside the building and headed for the sidewalk, you took a moment to look back at the building, up to the floor where Steven’s flat resides like you had only a hour or so ago. Your hands gathering together to fidget with the other, you could almost still feel Steven’s touch. With a sigh you turn and begin the trek back to your own flat.

Tutu loomed, ever watchful of his avatar, his golden deathmask for a head concealing any expression that might give away how he felt or what he was thinking. However, the god couldn’t hide how his body tensed, the way his hands clenched into fists. Ever so slightly, his head turned to glance behind him in the direction of Steven’s building, though there was nothing to be seen, there was no mistaking what he heard, what he sensed. Not wanting to be too far from his avatar (or at least that’s what he told himsel), Tutu disappears.

The sound of fabric fluttering in the wind was all that could be heard in the light of the crescent moon.

Don't forget to reblog and/or comment! I love to hear from you all!!

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[theproblemwithstardust]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @just-here-with-my-thoughts!! Thank you!!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

13 (meshurkaan) and 88 (the_problem_with_stardust)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

111,654 under meshurkaan! I have no idea about the_problem_with_stardust since some of those fics were cowritten :D

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Right now Star Wars, but I’ve also written for star trek, the witcher, teen wolf, marvel… maybe some others?

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Under meshurkaan:

sand in the hourglass codywan, 2224 words shovel in the dirt crosshunt, 1366 words any way to baffle death (Part 3: ESU), foxfives, 27786 words close out the sun (Part 5: ESU), foxfives, 12114 words (WIP) a flint and a fire (Part 1: ESU), rexfox, 31627 words

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to! I love responding to people's thoughts and reactions XD

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

Hehehehehe a flint and a fire :) It’s part of a series though, so it’ll get fixed soon!

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

Probably one bright morning? I wrote it the night before TBB series finale and I just wanted them all to be HAPPY

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope!

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

Ah yes the mortifying ordeal of having your buddies read the porn you wrote. Um I think most of the time it’s fun and a little silly?

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

I don’t think I’ve written any crossovers?

11. (I kept your question XD) Which fic are you proud of but wish had gotten a bigger response from your readers?

Maybe only a call? It has some of my favorite moments in the ESU but it is also mainly worldbuilding so it might have only been fun for me XD

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few! Mostly teen wolf stuff from WAY back in the day

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

I did some round-robin type fics, but I am not a good writing partner since I struggle a lot with schedules and deadlines

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

I’m a chronic multishipper so it’s honestly the ship I am writing for at the moment (this morning it was RexFoxFives, this afternoon it is TechPhee)

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

I always plan to finish WIPs, no matter how old they are (stares at across the stars) but there is a codywan fic I started for the 2021 codywan big bang and didn’t finish. I still think about it ALL the time

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmmm one thing that I've worked on a lot is structuring plot. In long fics I like to include off-hand details that then become relevant later. And I do put a lot of thought into characterization so hopefully that comes through in my writing >.<

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Endings! I sat on trying to find my way home for three weeks before I added like twenty words to the end and just posted it

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

It depends. I used to do it a lot but now that I primarily use screenreaders to edit, I don’t love it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First published on Ao3? Star Wars (FinnPoe my beloved) But I was definitely writing little epilogues to each of the Chronicles of Narnia books at the age of 8

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Ummm maybe take the old, make it new? Or intersecting foliations? All of endless space unfurled? It’s hard to pick ^^’

No pressure tags: @whiskygoldwings, @cacodaemonia, @wolveria,

@catbuir, @loverboy-havocboy, @kartaylirnaak, and anyone else who would like to play?

[piffany666]

Ok sooo at the start of the summer I made a list of my "first ever fan fics" that I wanted to get written before the end of summer and I have finished....2 of them....sooo I'm gonna just leave this here to talk about future plans I have I'm terms of my writing.

- children of the stars- a space pirate au where arkov has siblings and has a....complicated relationship with them - I have been working on this one the longest and its nearly finished. I'll be posting this on a03 and THEN tumbler

- nor love nor death discriminates between the sinners and the saints - a fic (co written and proof read by @darlin-collins where the guardian compares mak and darling to them and magrios - you know when you imagine yourself doing something and then you think that you dud it? Yeahhhh that's what happened with this I will finish it and then post like within 2 weeks....I'm really sorry ':)

- one wearwolf's trash is another vamps treasure - tank gose through their old stuff from when they were with quinn and decides to give it to bright - I'm close to finishing this one

- ok just one more punk progeny won't hurt~- a fic inspired by a post that @darlin-collins made (and will proof read if they still want to) where William takes in bright eyes as his progeny (bright will be a trans man in this fic)

- honey not viniger- a fic where its revealed that tank and honey used to be friends before the whole quinn thing (and also before honey got surgery as honey will be a trans woman in this one)

I don't know how to make a masterlist! Somone please teach me how to do that thing where you just tipe the name of the fic on top of a line that looks like this "_____" and then you just tap it and then boom! Your taken to the fic!? Somone please help me I'm new here!!

Also I'll only be putting long-term series's on a03 .eg. the children of the stars and the ones with bright eyes (I might change my mind later tho)

[amournoir]

Writing Questions Tag Game!

tagged by @fvckinghenrycavill thank you love!

• What is your absolute all-time favourite idea you've ever had?

the general idea that i should write. i had read so many fics and i figured i should try to write one as well. my problem was that i had so many ideas but i couldn’t get them all down fast enough which made me procrastinate but i finished my first ‘series’ and quickly after, i had an idea about another one 😭 i’m not a new writer though, i’ve been writing since i was at least 11, my first ‘public’ story was an OC on quotev which is cringeworthy to read now so i tried brushing it up and posted that on wattpad (ended up making the whole thing private) and then i wrote on tumblr and posted my first ‘fic’.

• Is there a question you've been asked in the past that really stands out to you and you still think about sometimes?

no, at least not on tumblr. when i wrote on quotev, i had other writers who asked to be co-authors on my story which made me feel like i was doing something right.

• What is your favourite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

the writing part is my favorite especially if my idea easily flows from my head to my fingertips. i love things that look visually appealing so it takes me a bit longer to make the entire fic look pretty. something i would leave would be writer’s block because it’s not about lacking inspiration, it’s about losing the drive/desire to write anything. it’s even worse when i have a great series lined up but the thought of sitting down and writing it physically makes me sick.

also, i’m a perfectionist, i can’t stand the thought of writing anything that is subpar so i tend to put that wip on the side which i then forget to return to later….on the off chance that i do return to it, i hate the fic idea so now i completely won’t write it. i no longer come up with a fic title, i just write my idea down and keep going, i’ll figure out a title or summary at the end. if i don’t it this way, it’ll force me to look at the fic in one way only which stresses me out because i feel like i can’t deviate from the ‘original’ idea if that makes sense.

• What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

1) reading the responses to my fics + reading fics from other authors that i adore. i’ve read my fair share of fics but only a couple have stood out to me. i gravitate more towards writers that have a similar writing style as myself or those who want to tell a story that you can easily follow along with that pulls you in.

2) music. i can create any fic from either a full song or just one lyrical line (must be powerful enough). i dislike music fics though, you know the ones that have lyrics in the fic….yeah not a fan but that’s my opinion. also, playlists are my favorite thing to ever have existed because i create a whole series from a 1hr playlist.

3) booktok. if you’re on tiktok, you know exactly what i’m talking about when i say ‘booktok’. i won’t go in depth explaining this one but just know it’s deriving ideas from existing books.

• What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

writer’s block is different for everyone and you never know when it’ll actually hit you. i’ve never had it in my whole life up until this year and i totally didn’t know how to ‘handle’ it.

• What is your favourite story you've written TO COMPLETION? Link it if you'd like and can!

i wish i could link it! lol it’s the one in my head, i have 2 series and idk when they’ll ever be done or if they will be.

• What is your favourite out-of-the-box quote?

lol i don’t think i have one

• Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

i’m still working on my wips and there are new characters but surprisingly none of them. their mindset might be controversial to some but not me honestly. i like characters that have an ideal or two that can be relatable, i wouldn’t write characters that are fully unhinged because i can’t force myself into that mindset and it’d be uncomfortable to write. *i will revisit this question later on because it’s interesting to me*

• If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

lmao younger me would definitely think i’ve lost my mind with half the ideas i’ve come up with. also, she might be a bit disappointed because i loved writing poetry and there’s this specific piece of writing that i adore, it’s my favorite thing i’ve ever written and i wish i could write like that again. it was a short story for a class and i wholeheartedly love it. other than that, she wouldn’t be too surprised because i haven’t changed that much, i grew up and so did my perspective of how to write stories.

🏷️ tag you’re it: @dreamingwithrafe @delicate-moon-princess @softcoremaybank @fleurfairie + anyone else!

[livecharliereaction]

U know what. Im reading the umi mangas but instead of making proper separate tags and all im just going to dump it all in one big post under the read me for each existing tag #Yay

Id like to read it on my own unfortunately im obsessed with Talking

Starting from ep2 cos i feel like it

Obvious spoilers im not going to pretend like i havent read all the vns

Shes so cute

Actually think about her and george a lot recently. From what i think shannon is.... its very very sad to me actually... shes living a sort of bride fantasy but its not with the one she REALLY wants right... And i find it interesting that most people default to calling yasuda sayo (i think it suits her enough and im used to seeing it around too) but the idea of her "true name" being the one that is exclusively used by george in the series is kind of interesting to me... some sort of declaration... I think this manga will overall make me decide what to call them anyway im using yasuda right now to make sure its not confusing but yeah ok

Actually not sure how to interpret that belief of hers either... Im still not completely sure on what i think magic means like i think the simple answer is Love but. I dont know

ALREADY PUNCHING ME IN THE FACE WHAT? KIYO?? Ok maybe thats why then. Hmmmh.

This scene i briefly forgot about actually but i did remember it the other day and out of all the magic items and stuff the mirror thing is the most obvious. So awesome

They draw her insane pretty im kinda obsessed

jessica said georges into "family oriented girls" oughhhh I was thinking about this too well not this exact scene but i did notice shannon visibly get a little quiet whenever george brought up kids. I used to hate the couple so i just assumed it was just their dynamic like george says things and shannon seems like she doesnt even like him But yeah.

Eva one of the people ever isnt she.

Well she does too #HALF COUSIN

UGH. i love her. one reason i wanted to read was to check some subtle things i didnt pay attention to for example is shannon+kanon the only person to call herself furniture? like eva here saying shes worthless n shit but not using that word. Another thing i wanna see how often those two are in the same scene and generally just idk staring at them

Hi kanon. Lmfao i was reading my old livetweet i kept saying he looks like a girl. Yeah. Kanon shannon appearance counter: theyre both here yes but theyre alone

Bae. I missed her. Omfg is she lowkey being born here. I think she doesnt appear in ep1 except maybe tea party... Oh man

like u see it right. im not sure how long ago this was though i forgor even though they just said it. less than 6 years surely

yes ok i checked it was... lets think

i love them

this too makes sense to me even more now. She wouldnt want to end up too close to george like physically i dont mean sex necessarily but like, at all and george is sheepish enough that he might not even have asked

jessica ur so fun to me. favorite cousin? ohhh but i love maria too But jessica is up there. I love her so bad

Now this is funny as hell to me u know. she was saying she wants a boyfriend tooooo and look whos going to show up sooner or later Extremely funny. I remember thinking her and kanon were super crazy good so... I want to OBSERVE

theyre talking about the affinity for seeing magic CLICK CLICK CLICK i dont remember exactly WHO was able to see beatrice surely it was just maria and well shannon and kanon

ugh

There it is #REAL ohh but i like the vn translation phrasing better

EYES WIDE OPEN. KANON IS STANDING THERE WITH HIM

LMFAO. I think he means it too... But it was shannon who suggested to jessica shed do it too... These things can coexist to me

they made him look CRAZY hes complaining. Ok gender dysphoria!

shes so cute i understand what happens next kiss kiss fall in love

Wait i dont like a lot of kanon depictions besides og sprites but i like this he looks CRAZY

OH GIRL SHE DOESNT KNOW WHO SHES TALKING TO ITS SO CRAZY.

Apparently theres a 30 image limit per post but thats ok im alr like 1/3rd done with this ep so ill just split it up. ANYWAY I FORGOT THIS IS HOW HE ANSWERS ITS. He was NOT thinking about it before this. Oh ur crazy. Since the sayo thing bothered me i thought about it a lot too like why yoshiya where does it come from. Im sure theres something w the letters n stuff but idk japanese so i wont know. Yoshiya

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

ok so i know i'm like rly late to the party, but i'm honestly so PISSED at eddie's death...

like what purpose did it serve other than to fulfil the 'one stranger things beloved side character dies every series' prompt????

[harleyquinnstation]

☙Why Harley and Ivy were always meant to be together❧

I often see people on the internet who complain about Harley and Ivy being a couple, it's usually people complaining about how they only became a couple because DC wanted to be 'woke' or something and how they preferred them how they were before, so here I wanted to make a little post to show how there was always something going on between Harley and Ivy long before they became canon.

Harley's first appearance was on September 11 1992 in Batman: The Animated Series, she appeared for four episodes as Joker's Sidekick until on January 18 1993 her fitfth appearance ever was in the episode 'Harley and Ivy', here the two meet for the first time, and become partners in crime, being defined 'the new queens of crime'.

Harley's first comic book appearance, eight months later in The Batman Adventures #12 (September 1993) is together with Ivy, and her first canon appearance in Batman: Harley Quinn #1 (October 1999) also includes Ivy.

This shows how Ivy's character was always important in Harley's history, and she was never just Joker's Henchwoman.

But this doesn't mean there was anything romantic between them right? Well let's take a look at a couple things.

Here's some official art by Bruce Timm himself, who (for the people who might not know) is the co-creator of Harley Quinn; He made quite a few drawings of the two together back in the days where they appear very close like this picture here where they're huggin, or there's even this pic here where Ivy approaches Harley for a Kiss with mistletoe while Harley is nervous about it. Apparently there's even more risqué art but I'm not including that for obvious reasons, sadly Bruce Timm sexualises Harley a lot, but despite that this shows that Bruce Timm himself always saw these two as a thing.

Fun Fact:

Talking about Harley's own creators view on Harley and Ivy, her other co-creator Paul Dini wrote the 'Love is Love' comic for DC's tribute to the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting:

Moving on, Harley and Ivy appeared in other episodes of the Batman Animated Series together and became a real Iconic duo. But What about the Comics? Here's some instances in older Comic-Books where the two are portrayed as being pretty close:

Batgirl Adventures (1998) / Batman: Harley and Ivy (2004)

There's also some instances where one of the two was portrayed as caring deeply about the other:

One being this in Batman Adventures #3 (2003) where Harley is all Lovey-Dovey about Ivy.

Or there's also this panel from Batman: Gotham Knights #14 (2001). where when asked if she gets lonely Ivy says that she's got everything she needs while being surrounded by pics of her and Harley (And funnily enough also a picture of Supergirl).

But the major example is definitely this panel from Batgirl Adventures (1998), which honestly speaks for itself and truly shows how even back in the day these two were often perceived as a couple.

Fun Fact: This panel and the one before were both written by Paul Dini

Worth mentioning: during this period in time there was a phase where Ivy was often somewhat hostile towards Harley, and even hit her at times (As you can see mainly in Batman: Harley and Ivy (2004)) This is often brought up by people who ship Harley with Joker. It is undeniably true that there were instances were Ivy definitely wasn't good for Harley, but not only did that kind of behaviour from Ivy stop since they then changed her attitude back to normal and created the whole 'Harley is the only Human Being she cares about' thing, but it's also important to remember that Joker is abusive to Harley in basically every universe, more importantly the main one, while with Ivy, she was only abusive to Harley in the DCAU comics, while being normal and loving in other universes, and her behaviour was also mostly comedic since we can see Harley doesn't have much of a reaction in those comics.

Last but not least, another instance of Harley and Ivy's relationship having romantic undertones is found in Gotham City Sirens (2009), which is more recent but still takes place a few years before the couple became canon.

Here in Issue #24 Harley accuses Ivy of caring so much about her because she is in love with her, Ivy gets incredibly mad about this, so much that she almost tries to kill Harley, but stops after seeing her Arkham cell covered in Joker graffiti, she remembers that she has a problem and how much she cares about her. Here Ivy is clearly in denial about her feelings, a dynamic that we later see appear again years later in The Harley Quinn Animated Series, though in a much different way.

In conclusion, Harley and Ivy clearly have history, and it's crazy or at least ignorant to claim that their romantic relationship came out of nowhere.

This post also turned out a bit long, I don't know if anyone will read it or care about this but if anyone did I hope you like this little snippet of Harlivy history, and I incourage you to add more if anything comes to mind!

I remind you that these are fictional character and you're free to ship whoever you want, even Jarley! or you're free to not like the ship of Harley and Ivy of course, even though me being me I obviously wouldn't get that.

I hope everyone has a nice day, and I hope we get more and more of Harley and Ivy in the future!

edit:

I felt like adding these quotes from Paul Dini (Co-Creator of Harley) to the post (link to the interview)

"When Bruce and I did the Harley and Ivy miniseries, it was certainly implied that [Ivy and Harley] had a relationship with each other—they shared hugs and kisses. I didn’t want that to overpower what the story was, but the relationship between them is so natural."

"The more I worked with [Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy], the more I could see [a romantic relationship] happening. Unfortunately, at the time, in an animated kids cartoon, you really couldn’t get into the complexity of that or honor what a relationship like that could really be. We just showed them together as friends and on fairly intimate terms when they were out of the costume, but nothing was implicit because if we couldn’t do that relationship properly then we didn’t want to do it at all."

[narutakijune]

About ATLA Relationship Arcs

So, this is me, finally trying to write some meta after lurking in my little tumblr corner for months! Hi!

Although I’ve tried to tag properly, if you are a Kat*anger and just want to enjoy your favourite couple in peace, this might not be the post for you. I am not trying to bash characters but I do have a lot of critical stuff to say about the writing.

Anyway, you have been warned and here is my story about my personal first Atla experience: I watched the show this year for the first time, and after the end of Book 1 I decided to look up spoilers, because after what happened to Yue, I wanted to make sure that Zuko and Iroh would be ok. So I knew what was going to happen: Kat*ang endgame and absolutely no Zutara at all. Still, by the end of Book 3, I was convinced that I had read wrong - that there would be an epilogue with a different ending or at least that Aang would only get together with Katara post-show- in that Korra series or something - because anything else wouldn’t make sense- right?

….

After I got over my shock and surprise, I went online and found out about that decade-long aggressive passionate ship war and how even the showrunners got involved.

And then I really worried that I might have missed a few points. Apparently ”Aang and Katara were the DNA of the show”, according to the creators themselves, and “Zutara could never have happened”.

Another popular anti-ZK argument I found was: Why do you always go on about Katara and Zuko? Just look at Zuko and Aang! They are the hero/ anti-hero and each other’s foils, their relationship is much more meaningful!”

So I tried to find out what it was that I apparently couldn’t see.

(Another disclaimer: I love analysing stories (like many Zutarians apparently) and this will get long and rambly. If you get bored to tears when people start talking about “narrative structure” you will probably not like this.)

Talking about narrative structure, I do believe that, in order to let your story, your characters and their relationships really shine, a good basic structure is important. There should be a recognizable development and individual parts of the story that build upon each other and lead to consequences and change, until there is a completed arc - because it is all about the journey that takes you to a satisfying ending, right? So that’s what I tried to do, with my personal Kat*ang vs. Zutara take, I tried to look at the structure and development of their relationship arcs.

The argument that threw me off track for a while is that compared to Aang and Zuko, Zuko and Katara’s relationship is not supposed to be that relevant for the plot. After all, Zuko is the foil, the anti-hero, the deuteragonist to Aang, who is the hero protagonist.

This is all true of course. But then why is it that in every finale, Zuko’s main opponent (and later ally) is not Aang but Katara? Why is it that their sun/moon, red/blue, fire/water dichotomy is so obviously highlighted?

I think one reason why Zuko and Katara are paired off so frequently in the story - as opposite elements, as opponents and as allies - is that they BOTH are Aang’s deuteragonists. While Zuko also acts as antagonist and Aang’s foil/mirror, Katara takes over the more traditional deuteragonist role of confidant / best friend/ narrator.

Protagonist Aang is what connects them, although they are on opposite sides: Both need Aang because he represents their hope to save their world. Very simply put, Katara protects him, so he can make the world a safer place again, and Zuko wants to capture him, so he can go home and be safe again. That rivalry between them is already established in the first episode, even before they meet each other: Katara, who hopes that the Avatar will return (as she tells everyone in the intro), and Zuko, who seems to be obsessed with finding him for more sinister reasons.

And just to make sure, I am not talking here about the characters’ feelings and emotions! This is just about the abstract roles they have been assigned within the narrative.

When regarding Zutara’s special connection to Aang and their rivalry with each other, it makes absolute sense to stress their “same but different”ness as well, visually and metaphorically: Red and blue, fire and water, sun and moon, arguably Painted Lady/Blue Spirit, and, when you put into account their story arc, also Oma and Shu.

With this basis, which puts them together and sets them apart simultaneously, their relationship already becomes very dynamic and interesting, even before you consider any romantic potential.

And here’s another thing, Zuko and Katara also have their own story arc within the main plot. Although they don’t have many scenes together before Zuko joins the Gaang, when they do meet there is always a new shift in their relationship and in quite a few cases their interactions are important for the main plot as well. If you just look at their “end fights” at each book’s finale, there is an obvious and consequential build-up, like any decent story arc should have:

Book 1 starts with Zuko as the powered-up enemy and Katara as the weak newbie waterbender. Both are battling over Aang. At the end of Book 1, they are finally established as equally powerful fighters but still fundamentally different (You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun!)

In CoD at the end of Book 2 happens the next step: they realize that they are not different at all! But Aang still doesn’t represent the same for them and they end up on opposing sides of the war again.

In the Book 3 finale, when Zuko has completed his own (anti-) hero's journey and Aang represents the same “hope” for both of them, they do not only join forces: Their “same but different”- traits make them such a uniquely suited match that they are even able to save each other’s lives during their fight with Azula (who in turn happens to be Katara and Zuko’s antagonist/mirror/foil).

And in addition to their own story arc they even get an individual recurring theme, which also appears in every book whenever their relationship status changes: The lost mothers, especially Katara’s mother.

In Book 1, Katara’s necklace (the symbol of Kiya) plays not only a major part in two of Zuko’s capture attempts, it is the reason for their very first one-one one encounter in the story.

Their first friendly connection in COD in Book 2 happens because they start talking about their mothers. And in Book 3, their final reconciliation (sealed with a very cathartic hug) happens after their life-changing trip which is, of course, all about Katara’s mother.

Again, I am not even trying to analyse their characters and motivations within the story - there are many metas that have already done that much better, more detailed and with screenshots. This is just dry structure and tropes and themes. But I think people recognize and connect with a well-structured arc, even subconsciously, which is one of the reasons that makes Zutara such a compelling couple. They complete and contrast each other, their relationship dynamic constantly changes, builds up, falls apart, reconnects. Such a setup is the perfect playground for a lot of creative takes on what-ifs and alternative scenarios and of course, shipping them romantically is extremely tempting - think of all the possibilities! It’s no wonder that the Zutara fandom is still so active decades after the end of the show. And it’s also no wonder that the Zutarians are known for “over-analysing everything”. You can only over-analyse if there is anything that gives you enough food to analyse to begin with. Which brings me to

KAT*ANG

I just go right to the top and take the quote from Br*yke themselves:

Kata*ng was in the DNA of the thing from the start…. [Zutara] was just dark and intriguing.

If you read this quote and then start watching the show, I would (grudgingly) agree that:

Aang and Katara understand and complement each other really well. Aang gives her the chance to have fun and go on adventures and in turn, Katara is his fiercest supporter from the very beginning, something that he really needs after he lost all his people AND has to find out that the world thinks the war is sort of his fault. In turn, the journey to the North Pole is as important to Katara as it is to Aang, because it is her dream to learn waterbending properly. That’s what she literally says when Sokka & Co try to banish Aang: (Sokka: Where do you think you’re going? Katara: To find a waterbender. Aang is taking me to the North Pole.) In that way, they are friends who give and take equally and are equally taken care of. They even have the last Airbender/ last Southern Waterbender status that connects them. The few times they have a fight, Aang does something in the end to redeem himself (perform some heroic feat) and Katara sees that she is right to believe in him.

Aang has this very sweet crush on her and it will be very sweet and wholesome when Katara will return his feelings at the end of their adventure after he has hit puberty. On the other side, there is also some heavy shipbaiting with Zuko: I save you from the pirates. The betrothal necklace. June and her excellent shipping taste. But in the end they are enemies, they barely know each other and, come on, it would be too dark and intriguing! There is no real threat against friends to lovers Kat*ang, the soft heart of the story. It’s very straightforward and there are a lot of simple “the hero saves the day” scenes for Aang but that’s fine! It’s not really my kind of ship but that’s not the point, it works for the story they want to tell.

End of Book 1.

In my - probably harsh- opinion, everything you really need to know about the Kat*ang relationship has been told by this point. If you want to be really mean, already by Book 1, episode 3.

That explains maybe why many (not all! but many) pro-KA arguments sound as if their shippers have not watched Book 2 and 3 at all. The Book 1 synopsis also perfectly sums up Bry*ke’s quote above. But then Book 2 and 3 are still there and I don’t know what happened but it seems as if they somehow decided that the Kat*ang story does not need any new and lasting input. Maybe because they were afraid that too much new development and change would stray too far away from their original Kat*ang vision. But there are still 2 more books and more adventures and Kat*ang somehow has to be kept apart until the finale.

So the tension in their potential romance is based largely on the question whether or not Katara will return Aang’s feelings. In general I don’t have a problem with that will-she-won’t she-technique. It works well in books where the love interest is not a POV or in shows/ movies where the love interest is not one of the main characters. But Katara is not only the female lead but also arguably the narrative voice of the whole story! As a result, this kind of writing makes Katara look as if she doesn’t have any agency in their relationship, which is not surprisingly a very popular anti-KA criticism.

Additionally, since her dream - learning waterbending - has been fulfilled by the end of Book 1, the relationship work becomes a bit one-sided. Of course Aang is the hero and his journey is the heart of the story. But in order to highlight their special connection it would have helped to give Katara another personal agenda, which Aang could have supported in some way. She is still the last Southern Waterbender and he the Last Airbender but this is not really explored in the Kat*ang relationship. And her other personal agenda, her mother, is already reserved for the Zutara arc.

Instead, in Book 2 and 3 the Kat*ang story is somehow all over the place. Of course there is new conflict and a few romantic scenes as well. But obstacles are either introduced too late or just dropped when not needed anymore, conflict is not resolved and their flirty, romantic moments never lead anywhere- and if they do, they lead to more conflict that is not resolved (yes, I am looking at you, EIP Kiss!).

Take for example Katara’s very sudden argument that they cannot be together now because there is a war going on. We hear her saying that for the first time in the very last episode (EIP) before the 4-part finale. That is too late to have any impact! That she has these kinds of thoughts was never even alluded to before. Not once.

Or the pattern Aang runs away/ is flaky - Katara is upset - Aang comes back and does his hero thing - Katara is relieved. In regards to their relationship arc, nothing changes here between Book 1 and the finale, only the stakes for Aang’s heroic performances get higher.

Or Katara being the one who is able to calm Aang down when he cannot control the Avatar state (which, in my personal opinion, is neither romantic nor healthy). This is also connected to the problem with the seventh Chakra, that Aang needs to let go of his attachment for her. I will be angry forever with how they wasted this for a possible relationship development! That Aang has to decide to either do his duty or save his forever girl (because let’s be fair, he did try to let go and only ran when he had the vision of Katara in danger) - that’s a fantastic setup!

But no, it doesn’t have any real consequences for Kat*ang at all. Instead there were only half-baked attempts – Aang does lie about his failed practice with Guru Pathik but the ultimate reason why his chakra is blocked is Azula, not his decision to run. Aang does try to let go of Katara for a little bit but then Azula shoots him. Nothing in Book 3 shows any change in his feelings that could have been a result of his instant let-it-go. If anything, he gets weirdly obsessive - which could have been used as a side effect of his blocked chakra but – again, no, nothing happens.

I suspect the whole thing was just introduced to create temporary drama for poor Aang, but it is never explained why Katara holds him back, what aspect of the attachment is blocking him or what would happen if he did let her go. Maybe they tried to make a statement about how love is more important than Avatar rules – which would have been fine but it’s also never properly explored. Instead, as soon as that plot point becomes inconvenient it’s simply dropped like a random rock™.

Compare all that to the Zutara arc, where both characters’ feelings about each other are always very much in the open, and where every interaction causes lasting effects in their relationship. Yes, it is unfair to compare that to Kat*ang, because up to the end of Book 3, Zuko and Katara almost never meet, while Aang and Katara spend almost every episode together – of course they cannot do meaningful things all the time. But on the other side, with Kat*ang, there would have been a great chance to show a subtle, gradual build-up instead.

It also doesn’t help that the Zutara arc seems hellbent on sabotaging every romantic moment Aang is allowed to enjoy:

There is Kat*angs first maybe-kiss in the dark before the background of the Oma and Shu legend. But it does not lead anywhere. Instead, Zuko and Katara almost reenact the legend itself in the Book 2 finale as two real enemies to almost-friends, including a glowy rocks-backdrop and the right costume colours, just so nobody misses the message.

In Footloose The Headband, Aang and Katara have a really sweet dance together, and everybody can see how they almost intuitively know each other's moves. This could be a great hint on how well they will fight together in the finale. But is it plot-relevant? No, because the final tag team is Katara and Zuko! While Aang gets paired off with random rock™.

Then there is Aang’s riding off to battle- kiss in DotBS, which Katara is not even allowed to enjoy, because keeping her feelings vague is apparently more important than character development at this point. It is the only romantic moment that gets mentioned again, but in a way that sinks the former cute and wholesome ship into the deep ocean, and the reason is - Aang is jealous of Zuko!

If all of this was only done for the sake of shipbaiting, then it really went out of control at some point.

In the end, the showrunners still had their reasons to choose Kat*ang, maybe because that corresponded more to their own vision, and there are still enough people out there who agree with them. Which is absolutely fine! In the end, what matters most is how you personally connect to the characters and nobody needs to defend their personal taste. But the typical anti-ZK claim, that all the Zutarians with their crazy analysis and rambling meta essays are reaching and delusional and that they desperately try to construct something that isn’t there, is not only a very lazy argument but simply not true.

And I’d claim that in spite of the canon choice, Zutara is technically the better written relationship. By far.

[aftgficrec]

Staff Recs Christmas Shorts 1 🎄

Looks like you forgot to check your stocking! It’s filled with short and sweet holiday treats! Look for another post of Christmas short fics soon. - AFTG Fic Rec Fam

Staff Recs December 2021 Christmas/Winter here

Staff Recs December 2021 More Christmas/Winter here

Staff Recs December 2021 Christmas Shorts 2 here

A very Covid Christmas by Lyndis [Rated G, 1602 Words, Complete, 2021]

Andrew never thought he would ever mind having a very good excuse to not see his chosen family over Christmas. But the sad and bitter truth was that he did mind and it sucked.

She Tastes Like Peppermint by paperbackrainbows [Rated G, 2092 Words, Complete, 2021]

A Christmas-themed coffee shop AU featuring barista!Allison and her co-worker Matt, where she falls in love with a certain girl with a certain order.

all i want is what is real by kandr3il [Rated G, 1248 Words, Complete, 2021]

christmas with the foxes, some years later

underneath the tree by awoogah123 [Not Rated, 1128 Words, Complete, 2021]

To say Neil's excited for his and Andrew's first Christmas together in their new apartment is an understatement.

Xmas The Spot series by Fire_Bear [Rated, T/G, Collection, Last Updated Dec 2021]

part 1: O, Christmas Tree [T, 1987 Words]

Nicky asks Neil and Andrew to decorate the Christmas tree - what could go wrong?

part 4: Better Than His Word (G, 1866 Words)

Matt tells Neil about WishList, a programme for a charity that helps grant wishes. It's the perfect thing to spend his money on, but Neil might just find something else to spend it on when he overhears someone's wish in the grocery store...

words in the wind (Tumblr Prompts) by Willow_bird [Rated T/M, Collection, Last Updated Oct 2021]

Chapter 5: christmas morning with the monsters [T, 1980 Words]

Sleepy, cozy mornings were a new thing for Neil.

Fuck off, Steve by P0tatonoah [Rated G, 972 Words, Complete, 2021]

Kevin is wrapping a football, ocean green eyes squinting, tongue sticking out in concentration. “Aaron? Don’t just stand there sighing longingly, help the boys with their wrapping.” Steve says behind me, Damn you Steve. “Go on, no need to blush.” He adds, waving me on. Damn you to hell.

Just Like Magic by history11huh [Not Rated, 1358 Words, Complete, 2021]

Part 2 of Heaven Can't Help Me Now series recced here

Aaron and Kevin's Christmas morning! Honestly, just cute.

Tiffany Blue by vertigo [Rated T, 3987 Words, Complete, AFTG Winter Jam 2020]

"Are you buying him a racquet?" Andrew asks, he looks sleepy, his glasses are askew and half of his face is obscured by King's fluffy tail.

And a Cup of Cocoa by Mystrana [Rated G, 1463 Words, Complete, AFTG Winter Jam 2020]

While Nicky is determined to help his cousins and Neil enjoy the snow, Andrew is busy trying to find the perfect cup of hot chocolate for Neil.

to the moon (and back) by ephemeralsky [Rated T, Collection, Complete, 2020] 

Chapter 3: you, me, and this (toppled) christmas tree (2131 Words)

A quiet winter day where Neil doesn't exactly go for a morning run and the cats act like the menaces that 

Not that he cared. by poly_pr1nce [Rated T, 637 Words, Complete, 2020, Locked]

Prompt: Can you do some wholesome fluff?? Andrei celebrating Christmas??

Darwinism by ruletheroost [Rated T, 1656 Words, Complete, 2020]

The Foxes are at another Christmas banquet and can never seem to catch a break.

tw: bullying, tw: lewd comments, tw: violence

I Always Wanted a Real Home by gluupor [Rated G, 1710 Words, Complete, 2019]

Part 2 of the Tales from a Quirky Small Town series (recced here)

So when, exactly, did Andrew decide that Kevin and Neil were his family?

A story from my Gilmore Girls universe.

Snow Angels by foxyexy [Rated G, 1394 Words, Complete, AFTG Exchange Winter 2019]

The Foxes aren’t going to let Neil spend Christmas alone this time.

Where the Love-Light Gleams by priorwalter [Rated G, 2165 Words, Complete, AFTG Exchange Winter 2019]

“Come on, we have to make the head of the snowman. It’s the most important part, unless you want her to not have a brain,” Neil says, taking Andrew’s hand and half-dragging him to a patch of fresh snow. 

Little Fish (The Ground-Level Expectations Remix) by Anonymous [Rated G, 1962 Words, Complete, AFTG Remix 2020]

Wherein Aaron realizes his family has never owned a pet before, buys a few gifts, and introspects his way through a holiday shopping mall.

I have you two by EarlGreyjoy [Rated G, 493 Words, Complete, 2019]

"Where have two been? “ Nicky asked the twins hearing them whispering to each other.

All I want for Christmas is a fucking miracle! series by ScriptaManent [Rated G, Complete, 2018]

part 1: Snow Angels (1426 Words)

Jean had never seen snow before, but he had never asked to join Jeremy in Canada for Christmas break. All he could see was white and cold, except for one ray of sunshine walking ahead of him.

part 2: The Three Spirits of Christmas: nightmares, angel, and hope (4219 Words)

Christmas in Canada felt like a dream, it reminded Nicky of Germany and of the wonderful time he had spent with Erik. After all that had happened to the Foxes, after their victory against the Ravens, Nicky had only one wish for that day: to give his cousins a first proper, happy Christmas.

wonderful tonight by exyjunkies [Rated G, 1553 Words, Complete, 2018]

Right after hosting the Foxes Christmas party, Neil and Andrew have a moment to themselves in their living room.

Blanketed by exactly13percent_OLD (hymbeaux) [Rated G, 1460 Words, Complete, AFTG Exchange Winter 2018]

A week before Christmas, Neil and Andrew are snowed in.

False Alarm by scepterofstardust [Rated G, 2132 Words, Complete, 2017]

Andrew still has fears, as much as he tries to pretend otherwise. Neil is a bit slow at recognizing them.

Peppermint Toads by alexjosten [Rated T, 2587 Words, Complete, AFTG Exchange Winter 2017]

Andrew discovers a student is hiding a secret that could put Kevin in danger. He stays at Hogwarts over the winter break to resolve it.

Staying by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot) [Rated G, 1466 Words, Complete, AFTG Exchange 2017]

A soft sleepy Christmas Eve morning. Nothing but fluff.

tw: anxiety

the foxes by shewhoisntnamed44 [Rated G, Collection, Updated 2017]

Chapter 2 [271 Words]

"what the fuck is this neil?", andrew said as he slowly removed a jumper from the bag neil had given him.

[quibbs126]

So I made a new character

This time he’s a completely original character, not meant to be any (technically) pre-existing ones in the Layton series, so that was interesting. I started out by making a sketch of him on the memo feature in Diabolical Box. It’s not that great

But yeah anyways, so this was me trying to think of a plot for that hypothetical scenario where Layton and co go to a town where everyone wears bauta costumes, aka like what Descole wears, and this was one of the characters (actually the only one) I made for that. As of currently I don’t really have a name for him, other than my brain calling him Nikolai, but I don’t feel like that makes much sense considering he grew up in this town that’s supposed to be based on Venice with potentially some French influence considering the only actual character with design elements like that having a French name. So yeah as of now, I don’t know what to call him. But for the sake of simplicity, for the rest of the post I will be calling him Nikolai (If you have any name suggestions please tell it would be much appreciated)

So the design on the left would be his casual outfit he wears at home (and probably what we first see him in), while the one on the right is the one he wears when out and about in the city. He probably goes under a different name under that outfit as well, so as to protect his identity

Oh yeah also, he uses a cane (in both outfits), I just didn’t draw it. He does actually need it though, and also it has a sword in it

Gonna be honest, not too fond of the one on the right, I think I need more practice in trying to draw outfits like this. I used some paintings I found on Google as references, but I think I still need some better references, as well as just figuring out how that top cloak thing works

I’m thinking he might be the one to send a letter to Layton to ask for help here, but I’m not entirely sure yet

But it’s his past that’s more interesting here, as what I’m thinking is that when they were teenagers, he and Descole were dating, because while I may give him a wife, you cannot convince me that Descole has never dated or at least hooked up with another man.

Oh yeah so Nikolai’s supposed to be around his early 40s, same as Descole. Not sure if giving him that lighter streak made him look a bit older

Now here’s where we get to the potential plot of the story, which I honestly just don’t know what to do with. For these two, I want them to have had some sort of dramatic break up, but in terms of present day Nikolai’s chill with him (even if they haven’t seen each other in over 20 years). Oh and to be clear I’m going with the idea that Descole is in the city but with amnesia

Right now here’s the plot I’m working with: so years ago when the two were teenagers, they were exploring some mystery in the town (which also involved underground tunnels and rivers) and at some point when they were close to the reveal of it (or they had found it out) they were attacked by another person, and while it was two-on-one, the pair were in quite the struggle, as their opponent was stronger. (side note this may have been potentially the reason Nikolai develops the need for a cane) So they’re having their battle, and Descole sees an opening and attacks, and ends up killing their attacker. They don’t really know what to do about this so they just dump the body into one of the underground rivers near them and just elect to try and forget about it, even if it weighs on Descole, because while you can debate whether he’d regret killing in present day, he’s only a teenager at this point and I imagine the experience of actually killing someone would still be traumatizing to him. Anyways so a week later, things are going good, until the body ends up resurfacing on the, well, surface, and it becomes publicly known. Descole, feeling guilty and not wanting to ruin things for Nikolai should they be discovered, decides to leave town, thinking that he doesn’t deserve to stay there, and he never came back. Present day, Descole showed up but with amnesia (also he didn’t just walk into town one day, he was found on the shore unconscious) and Nikolai’s been taking care of him, trying to help him regain his memories. Meanwhile the present day problem is that this whole incident is coming back up again and Nikolai, hearing of Layton’s accomplishments (but likely not knowing his and Descole’s connection) calls him in to help with it

*oh yeah if you haven’t noticed, this backstory does contradict some of the things I headcanon for Des’s backstory. In this continuity I’m going with the idea that he was living in this town since he was left alone as a child. See, I’ve kind of got this thing where I try to keep my things as canon compliant as possible, and so if making a hypothetical continuation or retelling of events in a series, I will tend to throw my original headcanon for series of events out the window if I can come up with something better. Also I’m just indecisive and sometimes I come up with new ideas I like more. It’s never really bothered me but also I never really had to share it with people, so I guess just forewarning that I will retcon headcanons if it suits me

So what’s the mystery of the town? I’m not sure, but I’ve been thinking of it having something to do with memory loss, considering Des, but at the same time I’m also thinking that that could be caused by something else? Or is that reaching too far and I should just stick to it being related only to this story? And would he get his memories back, at least partially, or would nothing trigger his memories and alert Layton that something else is going on with his mind? Also going back to the actual town, this doesn’t really tie in to the whole thing about the town wearing masks, that seems like something you need to answer/address, or at least work into the mystery somehow

And if I’m being honest, I’m not sure about this story, because it’s essentially a murder mystery, but I feel like that’s more suited to an Ace Attorney game rather than a Layton game. And to be honest, I feel like that could make an interesting case for AA; a defendant with amnesia being tried for a crime they can��t remember, trying to prove they’re being framed only to find out they really were the murderer, except unlike other similar cases the defendant isn’t evil or manipulating things, it was an accident in self defense, so there’s basically no real villain to point to here. I feel like that’d be interesting, but would it make for a good Layton game?

Well anyways I think I’ve gotten off topic a bit, so just enjoy this character and ramblings about his story I suppose

[alkalinefrog]

may I request your top 10 favorie lawlight fics ?? I’m really interested

AIGHT BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP because I’ve got a lot of feelings about these! Also, people have been asking me for fics featuring:

Ryuk shenanigans

yagami sibling hijinks

whammy kids found family

----- from my bingo card I made a while back. Tbh, I put those on the list to try and manifest the energy into the universe hoping people would bring fics to ME about them lmao. I do have a couple that check the boxes though! 

Also thank you to everyone who’s been recommending me fics!! You’ve all hit the nail on the head and sing straight to my heart! I’m just slow to make my way through them between work. <3

GOING UNDER THE CUT (rip mobile users)

Aight here we go, in no particular order:

“Change OR the one where L and Light get married” by @translightyagami (I’m so sorry I keep tagging you in these alsfjkalsfdj)

The one I never shut up about and am adapting part of into a comic because it’s just that GOOD. :’’’D Light and L get married in front of Watari and Light’s family back at the Whammy orphanage in England. A melancholy yet painfully sweet tale as Light and L reminisce on their history together while getting ready for the ceremony, and their first night together afterwards. Single-handedly sold me on Kira being intrinsically part of Light to boot.

“the forest holds strange creatures” by @translightyagami (I’m sorryyyyyyy I just love your stuff)

An AU where Light’s a paranormal researcher and L’s a reclusive cryptid living in the forest next to a small town. The writing has a fairytale feel to it, and the romance is so gentle. Light’s bunking at Whammy’s small little house, and Near and Mello are there as little kids pestering Light. It’s ADORABLE. Beyond Birthday also shows up in one of the extra chapters as a creepy cashier at a thrift shop for double the fun!

"Sickness” by BlueberryValentine (more fics on their fanfiction.net account!)

The ultimate hurt/comfort + fluff + angst with a happy ending fic. The first fic I read to get back into lawlight a couple months back! Canon divergence starting during the Yotsuba arc. Light is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer while still under investigation. L has to take care of him, and somewhere along the way they fall in love. It carved out a chunk of my heart but luckily filled it back up with a sweet sort of aching.

“Seeking His Hand” by magic__mind

Historical regency AU! L is a rich nobleman courting Light, a humble farm boy, for his hand in marriage. One of the most romantic pieces of literature that I have ever come across. The prose is pure poetry, and their love so pure! This one also has a special place in my heart for its portrayal of Misa! She’s A)a spy who helps L on his cases, B)totally removed from her co-dependence for Light, C)the  bubbly badass she was always meant to be. 100/10 worth the read!

The “Resurrections” Series by Shadow_of_Quill

A modern Orpheus and Euridice story, wherein Light’s spirit leads L back from Hades while he’s still Kira. L is thereby present for the confrontation at the warehouse. Believing that any trace of Light is lost in the man, he executes him right then and there. However, this was a grave mistake, and Light’s soul won’t be as easily revived. (spoilers, they’re both fine in the end) ******* THIS ONE ALSO INCLUDES YAGAMI SIBLING HIJINKS. Sayu plays a HUGE role in bringing Light back!

“Is This The Way It Ends Now?” by Seastar98

The one that checks off ALL the above three boxes!! A “characters watch their own show” fic, wherein the gang receives a mysterious DVD in the middle of the Yotsuba arc. Horrified by what’s to come, Light and L work to make sure their future is brighter than the one they witness. They bring in all three heirs to watch with ‘em, everyone gets character development, and Sayu comes in like black panther in endgame yet again to bring Light back from the darkness! Ryuk pops up in the end and the epilogue and he’s great. The ultimate and most direct fix-it you’re ever gonna get.

“From the Same Star” by Nilahxapiel

This is my only pure “Ryuk Shenanigans” fic, and it’s really really sad :’’’D A short but sweet one-shot wherein Ryuk traverses multiple dimensions, dropping the Death Note at Light’s feet each time. Light and L were always fated to clash, and it’s just as heartbreaking every time. 

“Primitive Liars” by Nilahxapiel

This one’s super popular in the fandom for a reason! The only omegaverse fic that I’ve liked! The A/B/O dynamics and their affect on society are super well developed, and the writer manages to keep L and Light very in character while still developing their budding romance in a believable way. This is an AU where somebody else is Kira, and Light’s genuinely helping L and the task force hunt him down. ***** Naomi Misora lives, the heirs come in, and Sayu actually hops aboard the task force!!! DUDE. BRILLIANT. I also just love the exploration of gender and identity that the author weaves in. Lots of LGBTQ rep!

“and indeed there will be time” by lawlietismyfavorite

The ultimate soulmate AU. People grow to be 18, then stop aging until they meet their one. L is the greatest detective of not only this century, but of six centuries. And then there's Light. (taken straight from the description!) The prose is absolutely breathtaking; like walking through a dream. Can not recommend this fic enough! It’s got my head up in the clouds and looking towards the stars!

“K” by  Dlvvanzor

AU where Light’s a Whammy with the moniker ‘K.’ He and L grow up together along with kiddos covering the rest of the alphabet. A murder-mystery-thriller on top of the romance featuring Beyond Birthday as a main character! Light’s a pathological liar and L’s super into it. They’re the top students at Whammy’s and are tasked with solving a string of homicides happening RIGHT AT THE ORPHANAGE (guess who dunnit). It had me on the edge of my seat, and I binged the whole thing in two days.

i’mMMMM doing more than 10, this’ll just be my ultimate fic rec post 😂

“Change of Circumstances” by wordbombs

Another AU where Light’s a whammy! It’s just a one-shot though, but one of my all time faves!!! I’ve gone back and reread it so many times and drew some stuff for it a couple weeks back. Much more light-hearted than “K”, Light arrives at the orphanage at age four and meets an eleven year old L, and from there they grow up together and fall in love (the age difference is handled really well, L’s not physically present for a lot of Light’s childhood and they bond on a platonic level first). It’s one of the healthiest relationship dynamics that I’ve seen for these two, which is honestly such a breath of fresh air. Matt, Mello, and Near are there too in the background!

“Dial K for Kira” by @kiranatrix

“Light needs some easy money to finance his Kira plans, and notices there’s a big demand for Kira roleplay phone sex. So he figures, “Why not? Pretty sure I’ll be convincing.”He raises some fast cash and plans to shut the whole thing down and get back to writing names, until he gets a request from somebody who wants to “roleplay” as L....“

Taken straight from the description! It’s very VERY NSFW so be warned. I’m too shy to talk about it more alskfjdasldjf sorry BUT IT’S GREAT.

“Dance with Me” and “Birthday Note” by @dotti55fanfiction

These are both one-shots so I’m putting ‘em together! Absolutely adorable tooth-rotting fluff!! “Dance with Me” has Light and L going to a club, while “Birthday Note” features L trying to think of the best present for Light. The dictionary definition of “warm fuzzies.” (Dotti ilu, I still gotta find time to read your longer works)

“you’re a wasp nest” by  raisuki (inthegripofahurricane)

Blind!Light AU! Light and L are both college students who meet when Sayu dares L to break into her house. Yagami sibling hijinksssss! Their quippy dialogue is adorable and it’s just a fun time watching them flirt.

“softly now” by smallestbird (jenwryn)

THANK YOU TO THE ANON WHO SENT ME THIS REC. The softest lawlight one-shot to finish off this list! Light and L share an intimate moment while painting their new apartment. The absolute JOY this fic radiates in a short 700 words!! Read it before bed for the sweetest dreams!

These are just my favourites, but read anything by any of these authors and you will not be disappointed! I might make a separate post later for soulmate AUs because... There’s just too many. :’D

-Alka

[meanscarletdeceiver]

Seeing as how crane steam engines are a thang, and not just somethign made up for the show: harvey head canons?

Ho hum, I wonder who could be on anon asking about Harvey? <3

Sorry for the wait but honestly I had to watch Season 6 a lot and some seasons beyond a little in order to get some ideas churning.

Now thanks to you I really like the lil bug.

First of all, I mostly am going to steal pretty much every detail of Feige’s Harvey HC post. It is all fire and you should all go read it and reblog it.

But the most useful bit, to me, is their notion that Harvey was not actually made circa 1900 but rather a one-off reproduction commissioned circa 1940. I dunno, it just feels right. I look at that face and I see a guy from the 40s.

I also love Feige's account of Harvey's pre-Sodor history. I modify it, however, to Harvey not going directly from Barrow Hemelite Steel Co. to Sodor in 1974. I see him arriving about a decade later, right around the time the TV series is launching. On the other hand I think it’s unlikely that he got another job anywhere else after ’74 so he might have spent a good deal of time just sitting around Hemelite waiting to be leased or bought. I should also mention the Furness Railway Trust might have played a role here in buying Harvey, even if they couldn’t afford or weren’t interested in overhauling him; they saved a diesel shunter from this same steelworks.

My “joke AU” where lots of non-classic episodes didn’t really happen but reflect the engines getting extremely Machiavellian about their own portrayals and pitching the stories to HiT? Well, it’s increasingly not a joke. Anyway “Harvey to the Rescue” didn’t quite go down like that.

It wasn’t the engines who were down on Harvey for “looking different,” it was the railway board. They spent much of the 80s and 90s enjoying the N.W.R.’s impressive new TVS-related revenue streams and getting a real bugabear about controlling their “brand.” They were very big on “branding.” God, the engines came to despise the word “branding” (so did the once-indomitable FC2, who decided to just effin’ retire because he was completely over of some of these big new shareholders within five minutes of their arrival). By 1990, they still hadn’t approved Harvey’s purchase and there were rumors that they were going to “pass” on him altogether. They just didn’t think he fit the “brand” (which mostly meant the RWS engines… and even back in the 80s, long before Gullane or HiT or anyone else, the railway board kind of wished Duck and really wished Toby just didn’t exist. They couldn’t get rid of them, but they considered them deadweight for publicity. They considered BoCo and Bear the same and that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish, let me get back on topic).

Anyway, the engines might have done the usual “frank and unflattering commentary when the see someone who looks different” thing, but they didn’t really give Harvey the cold shoulder because of that; that was just the usual light hazing.

Where Harvey did have an ongoing struggle was just… culturally. Industrial engines have a completely different etiquette from railway engines, who can also be casually classist about these differences. Harvey, bless him, did his best to adjust, but he couldn’t learn all the complicated ins and outs overnight and he kept inadvertently giving offense.

Some of the engines were more understanding than others. Guess which were which.

So yeah, Harvey once jumped the rails because he went too fast onto the loop line and tied up three trains, he (gasp) sorted trains in order of arrival instead of order of Importance, his eyes glazed over in boredom in a lot of yard and shed conversations making more references than he could keep up with…

… Add to all this that it’s generally very embarrassing for an engine when they make some mess that needs to be cleaned up; it’s worse still if you have to be bailed out of a jam by the new guy, and then if it’s “that ugly old hook-on-wheels”… oof.

Oh, then poor Harvey gamely tried to participate in the model-exchange method of bonding. He sent Murdoch a model of a Hornby 9F in B.R. black and Henry a wooden railway model of himself. For Christmas. Oh my God. Oh my God you guys. There was so much wrong here that it would take an essay just to unpack, although his biggest misstep was that the custom is supposed to be that you send your own model off to be accepted by the other. Sending someone their own model? What are you, some kind of creep?

(Henry did sort of spout off along that exact vein. In his defense, he’d taken a couple blows to his pride that year, and also he was very sleep-deprived due to some heavy timetables that month. But flippin’ Gordon and James put him in his place (“He didn’t give you his own model because he doesn’t have one, yeh big green plonker! Get a grip!”) Do you know how embarrassing it is to be schooled in empathy by James the Red Engine? Yeah. Henry finally woke up properly and realised that he was being an arse, that time. At the same time, Arthur was having a similar conversation with Murdoch, who realised that if Arthur was telling someone to lighten up about the rules of any particular thing, then maybe he should just grunt ’ah, thank’ee then’ and go back to sleep as the fastest way to restore peace.)

Then there were all Harvey’s many faux pas at washdown. Oh, washdown. Suffice it to say the politics of who cuts in front of whom at a railway washdown are immense. There are probably 28 different unverbalized algorithms by which the order is determined, and you might think that therefore reconciling all the competing factors is an art-form, but it’s not art, it’s a science and there is always only one correct answer. The North Western, if possible, has a pecking order even more labyrinthine than most railways because they’ve been mashing together rules from clashing cultures (different home railways, different B.R. regions, the sea-change that came post-dieselisation) for 70 years before Harvey even arrived. Even Duck can’t articulate why it is that Engine A goes ahead of Engine B but not Engine C, Edward won’t even try, Thomas actually was once the only engine pretty good at laying it all out in great, rambley detail but then again he hasn’t really needed to calculate it since the 60s because he’s tended to at Ffarquhar or he just always gets to jump to the head of the line, only exceptions ever being pending express engines or some sort of Special Special Special Special (that isn’t his own), and the workmen? They've given up trying to have the least say in it generations ago. “Back in the old days” they would have been in charge of maintaining this order, but it’s gotten completely beyond their ability to comprehend, and besides, they just don’t make ‘em as tough and stern as they used to, so now the engines sort it all out themselves. And while it’s possible to catch up engines whose ways were a little different, Harvey was completely lost and nobody could get him up to speed. Several different times, instead of trying, the offended parties just bitched at him. Harvey went through a phase of avoiding washdown completely, which only lead to getting written up.

This was a problem because, as said, by 1990 a significant portion of the railway board seemed to think the best course of action would be to send Harvey away. Him going around grubby and reluctant to pipe up did not help matters.

Finally… Percy Took Charge.

First, with the other engines. One day he just ran out of patience and flipped out on every single engine at Tidmouth, calling them out on what classist twats they actually were, had always been, had been to Percy for the past sixty years, and goddamn it he was not going to let them spend another generation putting down another useful engine just because he didn’t keep his pinkie out when he drank tea, FUCK Y’ALL. (This is paraphrased. I am taking this liberty, however: Percy was so pissed off that he had lost the powers of speech at different points in his rant and so a good bit of it was composed of angry whistling, hissing, clanking, and wheeshing that is incomprehensible to us humans. However, in engine language these sounds are all enormously eloquent.)

The paint fairly blistered off of them, the engines took this dressing-down with surprising mildness, a few even apologized to Percy privately for past slights, and, while of course it was impossible to unprogram themselves overnight, they made a conscious effort to be more considerate. After this, Harvey no longer felt like every day he was rolling into a social minefield.

In addition to Percy’s fury, the railway board’s indifference may have also helped Harvey’s integration into the N.W. family. Because by 1990 it seemed they were seriously considering “passing” on Harvey, even with the Fat Controller and other directors making it crystal clear what sorts of dark or dreary fates would probably await him. And, once the engines were filled in on this, they were most indignant. Even without having been schooled by Percy, they undoubtedly would have been on Harvey’s side. They were not okay with the idea that an engine (ESPECIALLY a steam engine!) could do good work for them for six years only to be sent away into the hostile world again. Sure, in the 1920s that sort of thing happened all the time, but now it was a chancy time to even be a steam engine, and the N.W. engines all knew it.

Besides, no one had “ol’ hook on wheels” ahead of “the foreign shareholders” on their shitlist.

Still, they were rather stumped on what to do. FC3 was already on their side, but there was a powerful faction on the board that he could not be guaranteed to shut down. And the last time they had sent a deputation to their “branding” board members, the board had formally voted to put it down the engines’ forwardness as a mark on FC3’s management.

So… Percy Took Charge, Again.

Knowing he was perfectly safe, he took a spill off the rails right within sight of the station where directors were disembarking for a board meeting, knowing Harvey would be dispatched to the scene.

Harvey was internally freaking out because his role is not supposed to be picking engines off the track and Percy you dumbass you didn’t.

However, Percy is a nice small thing, and Harvey was indeed just able to manage it. This rescue, right in the sight of a good portion of the railway board, did indeed do a great deal to lift Harvey’s reputation among them. This saved him from being “sent away” for some time.

But he wasn’t officially bought by the railway until much later in the decade when, with the issue still unresolved, the Famous Eight (well, actually minus Duck, who had some reservations about the propriety of this thing) put their funnels together and used their fictional personae For The Greater Good.

(They actually did a lot of this in the ‘00s. Long story. Well, many stories.)

Anyway, they found an ally in none other than Britt Allcroft, who agreed to start petitioning for rights to use Harvey in the TVS.

That changed the politics of the situation in a hurry.

In the end, the engines actually wrote most of “Harvey to the Rescue” themselves. It’s moralistic and preachy coz they wanted it to be a morality tale, both for children (they’d already had a good deal of practice in that sort of thing)… and for the railway board (they were sharpening their knives, y’all).

The young cleaners at Tidmouth—all teenagers—were drafted to transcribe their ideas. It wasn’t easy to parse what everyone was calling out and fussing among themselves over, but the cleaners had a ball. (They also teased Thomas greatly when everyone worked out Thomas’s “public-face” lines, reminding him how he would word this sort of thing when there were no kids around who might overhear!)

Percy was absent for the collaborative writing session. And he was pretty hacked off about his portrayal. (I’m afraid the others were pretty amused by their own cheek in the cutscene to Percy just getting shoved around and losing control of his trucks. “As usual… just another bloody Tuesday amirite…”)

Percy was on board for the engines’ rather savage detail that the railway board should be represented by half-a-dozen identical suit’d figurines. This idea was retained by David Mitton’s people with only minor adjustments:

Memetic.

The Sodor Gazette, about the only organ in the universe that had previously been terribly fussed over the camera-avoidant new N.W.R. boardmembers, was delighted. They now run that still as their photo whenever they report on railway developments that the venerable old newspaper is against.

The board was, as a whole, very displeased to be represented in the show, to have been preached to about how Special it is to be Different by the show, and to discover that this episode contained a writer credit for their own engines, whose writing endeavors they immediately banned from the show.

The engines have continued to pitch and draft ideas for TVS, albeit they never again were credited. (Even after the board was brought to heel, the show was no longer held in high enough esteem that the engines were that keen on taking the blame for some of the big-picture executive decisions. Instead any engines involved were simply “railway consultants.”)

However, despite the fury of some members of the board, there were quite a lot who now felt that there was plenty of rather public reason to onboard Harvey properly. So the purchase was at last completed, Harvey given an N.W.R. number, and there was no longer any thought that he would be sent away. Au contraire, he had a very good run of invitations to promo events by Gullane and HiT!

All this drama is now a couple decades old. Albeit it’s been a long and rocky road, Harvey is now quite happily settled on Sodor. He has been transferred to Vicarstown, where his crane comes in very handy when there are mishaps in the loading or unloading of car ferries, and he enjoys the rather undramatic company of engines such as Rosie, Murdoch, Neville, Molly, Sidney, and Whiff, who live there with him, and Arthur, who is often in and out with goods or passengers from Norramby. However, he is often drafted in to help when Tidmouth or any of the other harbors are facing a particularly busy spell, and he is perfectly content to be sent anywhere, for he’s quite one of the family now.

Ignore that CGI episode where Bill and Ben were able to get inside Harvey’s smokebox. It didn’t quite happen that way. They were pretty brash with their teasing during the one time Harvey was sent to cover for the Brendam shunter. Harvey is a pretty passive, easygoing guy, but he put a stop to that by 'accidentally' picking up Ben and swinging him about. (Accidentally! He swears it was accidentally! ... and it's Harvey, so who knows? Maybe it's even true. Maybe.) The trucks and the boats and basically everyone on site still haven’t let the twins live it down.

Also, yes, Harvey was well forkin’ aware that he could pull a damn train by that point. He didn’t need another well-meaning engine to tell him that. By God. Albeit his first venture onto the main line did basically go down the way it does in "Gone Fishing."

[geenawrites]

'Black Widow' and undermining Dramatic Intent (II)

[PART ONE]

The 'Civil War' Effect

4): Elements that could’ve made Black Widow Natasha's personal journey are reduced to quick conversational bites told to Natasha instead of experienced by Natasha and the audience first hand.

The film could've built the story around her family selling her off to the government (on some eugenics mess). It could've set the stage for the subplot regarding her mother’s search for her until she was murdered, and Natasha trying to learn about her past pre-assassin.

For all the moments where we simply see her on her own, a lot of that alone time isn't used to explore how she feels, what she's thinking, or a personal throughline. It's just a montage of her looking gloomy and wearing comfy sweatshirts.

The only time Natasha truly feels like she is the emotional center of the movie is the opening act of the film. There, she’s portrayed by Ever (Gabo) Anderson and not Scarlett Johansson.

And as a film touted-as a vehicle for Johansson, that is bad. But also underlines why Florence Pugh’s Yelena was considered the real protagonist of the movie.

Black Widow could've been about Natasha wanting to reclaim her past from the Red Room (her abductors) because she reunites with her sister and parents (her surrogate family), and needed to finally deal with the consequences of killing Antonia (her ghost).

Instead, Black Widow is really Yelena’s story and emotional journey. Yelena justifies the presence of Alexei and Melina more-so than anything in Natasha’s history. As centered as Natasha was in the prologue, it works more as a establishing point for Yelena versus something like Natasha’s lost family or working with Clint Barton in Budapest.

Yelena being tasked to save the Widows (by the elder Widow who created the mind control cure), killing Dreykov, and destroying the Red Room are immediate issues that directly impact her arc and development as a character. Natasha is largely along for the ride, bringing Yelena where she needs to be in each act.

Natasha isn't as centered in her own her film as she should be. Simply compare the structure of her story to the structure in the Captain America (x2), Ant Man (x2), Thor (x3), and Iron Man (x3) films, and how those narratives focus on Steve Rogers, Scott Lang, Thor Odinson, and Tony Stark. Those films are about their emotional journeys while maintaining a healthy supporting cast that don't overshadow them.

Black Widow in comparison feels more like Captain America: Civil War, which is more of an Avengers film than it is a Captain America story. The emotional center of Civil War is Tony Stark and Zemo. Steve and his cast are simply underpinning Stark and Zemo's arcs. It also tries to introduce a new character (Black Panther) with the exact same story beat (revenge) as Stark and Zemo, and a MCU-wide subplot (Sakovia Accords) that ultimately goes nowhere later on.

The consequences of Civil War "Avengering" a solo film are on display in Black Widow in a big way. It's introducing new characters, and trying to tackle a trilogy's worth of storylines (the Red Room, Budapest, the Widow family, Civil War-fallout).

She doesn't even get a decent postmortem send off. The post credits, wherein Yelena mourns Natasha, is turned into a comedic skit and a teaser for the Hawkeye series. It's not allowed to remain a moment of mourning between two sisters separated by literal death.

As an Executive Producer of the film, I know this was not lost on Johansson. She might be an awful person, but she doesn’t strike me as someone so unaware of her environment that she set the stage to be undermined by her co-star. No, I think, given the timing, Johansson knew this was always going to be about setting up her successor.

Wrong Time, Wrong Place

Choosing to set Black Widow after Civil War was just a poor choice on Marvel’s part. Natasha circa 2016 has more or less come-to-terms with her history as a state-sponsored assassin for both Russia and the United States. Her arc as seen throughout the Avengers and Captain America films has come full circle following the events of The Winter Soldier. Now all she has left going forward is the arc dealing with Thanos' genocide and resurrecting everyone.

There is nothing to mine in terms of personal character drama because, at this point, she has laid it all to rest. It's nothing that torments her akin to Bucky trying to square away with his past as an amnesiac assassin.

All of Natasha’s threads are focused on the break-up of the Avengers. At first, seemed like her arc was going to be about not falling back into bad habits (being mistrustful of everyone). That it was going to deal with how she felt let down by the team (after trying to be the reasonable party among everyone), but the film doesn't really commit.

After that one conversation in Budapest, "getting the Avengers back together" isn't even a focal point. We just get awkward callbacks that tell the audience that Natasha isn't on the same level as Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.

Yelena forgiving her family is used to tack on the sudden parallel idea that Natasha has been convinced she can personally bring the Avengers together again as a surrogate family once things work with her Widow Family.

Again, even in her own film, Natasha is playing the sacrificial matriarch of a Boy’s Club (whose event films she features only as a supporting character. Something I think people are only just realizing). That says to me the MCU never valued her beyond her ties to the male Avenger cast.

”You’re such a mom!” becomes a lot less funny in that context.

If this film was immediately set after The Winter Soldier or even Age of Ultron, wherein all of her history and SHIELD’s was leaked for public record, then there might’ve been a chance for an emotionally resonant story arc.

How would a Natasha scrambling to create new covers, and new ways to protect herself, deal with the sudden public attention of the world knowing that she was a foreign assassin that bought her way into the United States and became a celebrity superhero? How would a post-Winter Soldier solo film deal with Natasha’s past in way that she didn't become overshadowed by her own supporting cast?

How would a post-Age of Ultron solo film handle her past as informed by her nightmare (which stuck closer to her history as a trained dancer in the comics) on top of the events of The Winter Soldier?

But even as a post-Civil War narrative, Black Widow should've really cared to explore how Natasha felt about having to revisit her history with the Red Room, on top of being betrayed by Alexei and Melina. Instead of giving all those emotional beats to Yelena, actually show us Natasha confronting them beyond “it wasn’t real!”

How would the story turn out if parent with the biggest hand in the facilitation of her abuse (Alexei) wasn't turned into a flat comic relief character? What if he actually got chance to really consider her grievances, show remorse for his actions, without being turned into a “ha, ha, he’s do dumb (and fat)!” punchline (after setting him up as the total opposite in the prologue)?

Melina could've been an interesting co-antagonist working with Dreykov, but the film skirts past how she is complicit in the harm that her daughters faced (Yelena especially) with a fake Heel Turn moment that only undermined Dreykov as a threat.

And that’s really the problem with Black Widow. The film, or rather Marvel Studios, doesn’t want to really tackle Natasha’s past or pain like they were willing to do with Steve Rogers in The First Avenger, and The Winter Soldier.

Maybe because that would mean approaching the story with the emotional maturity of The Bourne Identity, a PG-13 film that was plenty violent without being excessive. It was also emotionally resonate by dealing with the fact that Jason Bourne was, pre-amnesia, a US assassin that did awful shit.

Instead we get a plot about mind-control, and magic red dust that can break said mind control (that apparently requires invasive surgery of the brain).

Whedon seemed comfortable with getting close to the actual violence that was asked of Natasha (vs. done to) by the Russian government as a kid. The screenplay for Black Widow can talk past Natasha willingly doing awful things, but doesn’t want to confront that by having her or Yelena deal with an army of assassins who are walking down the same path Natasha did, fighting and killing for another government without any sort of mind control.

This is why Natasha's assassination of “Dreykov’s Daughter” (Antonia) as the thing that happened in Budapest also doesn't land. The movie doesn't want to deal with how Natasha learned to live with murdering a child to buy her freedom into America. They make it so that she didn’t kill her, actually, just gave her a bad case of pizza face. She’s not even the one that pulls the trigger, the film suggests that it was Hawkeye.

Her mustache-twirling villain of a father, who somehow survived the explosion and building collapse with zero burns or broken bones, is the one who does all the truly horrible things to his daughter (turning her into a mindless slave).

The Original Sin that Natasha is defined by is swept under the rug in the same way her history as a killer is blurred by the script. It’s akin to rewriting Xena’s history with Callisto as the killer of her family and village, and deciding, “No, Xena didn’t kill them. They all survived with minor burns! Callisto can now forgive Xena!”

Natasha's Antagonist

Dreykov is a weak antagonist/villain because the screenwriting seems determined to accredit the abuse of the Red Room entirely to him instead of making a systemic issue. What started off as a clandestine organization for the KGB throughout most of the MCU is rewritten in Black Widow as the personal playground of a thinly veiled Harvey Weinstein analogue who puppeteers his personal assassins to do bad things, thus rendering them all innocent of their wrongdoings. It makes them "perfect victims" in way.

(Johansson has gone on record saying that this film was influenced by the #MeToo Movement. Well, celebrification of it, anyway)

Dreykov doesn’t challenge Natasha, or her family. There’s never an immediate danger or stakes being driven by Dreykov. He’s not doing something they have to stop “before time runs out”, he doesn’t have anything on any of the characters that could push their actions.

He takes a backseat to the family hijinks, so the journey to finding and destroying the Red Room has no urgency (Natasha being dead already notwithstanding). As the supposed architect of their misery, he’s about as threatening as Mason (Natasha’s Black Best Friend who buys her things while in hiding).

Dreykov fails like the rest of the MCU’s villains (not named Erik Killmonger) because there's no depth to the character. There's no real loyalty to the character as a demonstration of his power or influence. Again, all his victims are blameless in their violent actions. No one with speaking lines or face time (that isn't a G.I Joe grunt) is working with him because they believe in his goals or ideology.

Complicating that matter is that the script never reveals what his goals or ideologies are besides, "I can create chaos with an army of assassins. I am so evil."

It’s wild to me that so many are rushing to defend the implementation of this sloppily written (and miscast) character because, “he works as a villain because he's a human trafficker” and “he mind controlled his own daughter.”

“He does terrible things”, or a character representing awful things that happen in the real world, isn't enough to make an effective villain. If that was all it took, then 90% the MCU’s villains wouldn’t be so forgetabble.

(He’s not real, I shouldn’t be reading posts like, “he doesn’t deserve screentime b/c he’s an awful human being! He earned his lazy death scene.” Girl, what???)

If you’re gonna tackle human/child trafficking as defined by one antagonist, then really make it part of the story. Make it something that Natasha and Yelena are actively trying to stop. Don’t montage it over a bad Nirvana cover and then shift gears into a G.I. Joe scenario in a floating fortress.

If you're gonna make Dreykov the abuser of so many women, then make it crucial to your protagonist's narrative. Don't add a silly Angry Beavers plot where his stinky musk can control a woman's bodily functions because as a weak analogue to "how men police women's bodies".

Because Natasha has no real conflict with Dreykov, confronting him in the climax goes nowhere. Dreykov is Yelena’s antagonist. It's why Yelena gets to kill him instead of Natasha, so it would've made more sense for her to confront him instead.

The film eventually establishes he's no real threat to Natasha because the writing pulled a Xanatos. The character feels like he exists only so Johansson can sass him, and make a callback to the Loki Interrogation scene (a scene that only worked because of the audience misdirection.)

Dreykov could've been an effective villain if he was anything like the Headmistress characters in the Samee-Waid Black Widow series from 2016.

The Headmistress and Anya (the new Headmistress later on) were characters with emotional connections to Natasha and the Widow children she was trying to save. They taught these girls to believe in the totalitarian philosophy of the ruling class. Natasha and the other Widows couldn't live without them until they were able to escape their influence.

The Headmistresses were women, which makes it plain that women are also perpetrators of abuse. It isn’t just something that men do, which is how this script has approached this subject entirely (Captain Marvel did the same thing as well). Abuse being exclusively a male theater of action.

Antonia's death could've been meaningful in regards to Natasha and Dreykov as characters if Dreykov cared that Antonia was murdered by a Red Room assassin. Natasha admitting that she killed his daughter and regretted it would've made a lot more impact than just having him shrug it off because he's so heartless and so evil.

Or, as other people have said, imagine if it was Antonia who was the antagonist gunning after Natasha because of what she did, not only to her, but her father as well.

It would not only render the mind-control plot pointless, it would re-center the focus on Natasha, and force the writers to do something else with Yelena, Alexei, and Melina (assuming they're even necessary in this scenario). Then, Natasha would have a genuinely threatening antagonist because the stakes are personal on both sides.

It would've been a hellva lot more meaningful than using Taskmasker as a plot-twist (after hyping the character up as the controller of the Red Room and Natasha's personal nemesis).

Callisto’s story as a villain resonates because she cared about what she lost, and Xena knew there was no real forgiveness for what she did to her. Imagine if they approached Natasha’s role in Antonia’s death like that.

(But that's probably asking for too much nuance from Disney and Marvel.)

Conclusions

In story that wants to be about the abused reconciling with their past and family, the film effectively robs the abused of their autonomy by going the extra of mile of making them zombies. In the same way the Star Wars sequel trilogy avoided Finn’s history as an indoctrinated and enslaved Stormtrooper, Black Widow doesn’t want to deal with the ramifications of indoctrination.

How people buy into and protect organizations that strip them of their humanity by making them complicit in violent systems. Oh, sure, they’ll nod and wink at it (as they do with Natasha and Melina’s past), but they won’t go any further than that.

Instead of dealing with how a forced hysterectomy effects Natasha physically and emotionally, we get a joke that isn’t any better than Natasha calling herself a monster, or the “time of the month” joke that got rebuked by the director and the cast.

Instead of reflecting on her time with SHIELD and the United States, the United States is portrayed as "the good-guys who gave her a real family” (ignoring even the half-hearted criticism of the US that The Winter Soldier made), while Russia is still out there doing nefarious Cold War Things and ruining people's families. All of which just feeds into uncritical Russian stereotypes and Red Scare that the film’s foundation is built on.

I enjoyed the film, but the more I think about it, the more I realize Black Widow really does nothing except undermine Natasha's darker elements and self-imposed redemption arc (as written by Whedon).

On top of rewriting key elements about the Red Room (the movies being broken as the comics is a true irony), It minimizes Natasha's violent past to make her into a clean, and boring superhero whose solo film thinks lamp-shading sexism is the same as subverting it.

[renaerys]

PPG One-Shot: Spelling Bee (Brick/Blossom)

Happy birthday to @genovah​! She is always inspiring me to come up with more PPG content, a true hero. I’m back with another entry in the ongoing Shooketh, Not Stirred high school AU Reds series for your entertainment. As always, this can be read alone, but it happens in the same universe as part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. This is also posted on my AO3.

Summary: Brick and Blossom hunker down in the library to study for the upcoming regional spelling bee.

***Reblogs are extremely appreciated, since this probably won’t show up in the tags due to cursing. Thank you! <3

xxx

In fairness, Brick had come to the library during his free period with the pure intention to learn. And he was certainly learning something. But somewhere between sliding into his seat opposite Blossom and watching her lips move around insouciant as if it were a strawberry slathered in ganache, his purity was torn from his weak, teenage boy fingers and there was absolutely no going back. 

“Brick, are you listening to me?” She touched his hand across the table. 

“Yup.”

“Did you need me to repeat the word?”

“Yup.”

“In-SOO-see-uhnt.” She sounded it out slowly, and hand to god, that dominating SOO went straight to his cock.

This, of course, was fine. 

“Origin?” he asked. 

She twirled her hair around her finger and puckered her lips. “French.”

Fuck.

“I…”

Blossom mistook his increasingly horny stupor for plain old stupor and sighed. “Are you even trying? Because if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were completely fine with Darla Dimpleton going to regionals instead of one of us.”

“I am not fine with that.”

Darla Dimpleton was an unassuming, unthreatening nobody with the personality of plain oatmeal. Brick would never have even bothered to learn her name had she not committed the cardinal sin of scoring so much extra credit while everyone else was busy having lives that she stole the number one GPA right from under him. Which meant she stole it from under Blossom too. Which meant Brick was no longer a respectable silver medal to Blossom’s gold, but currently ranked third and therefor merely happy to be on the podium at all (and for the record, no one has ever been happy merely to be on the podium, just like no one has ever been happy winning Most Improved: you sucked, and now you suck a little less. Except this time, you actually suck more because Darla fucking Dimpleton decided to Quaker Oats her way to the top of this rat race that doesn’t actually matter, but it’s the principle of the thing, i.e., the only thing that matters.). 

All of this to say, Darla Dimpleton was the Worst™ and she was one hundred percent going down. 

“Are you sure? Because you’re being awfully cavalier about this. Some might even call you insouciant.”

It was a testament to Brick’s powerful fondness for winning and being seen doing it that he spelled insouciant in one Darla Dimpleton-shaped cock blocking breath.

Blossom smiled like she knew something. “Much better.”  

Yeah, she knows a lot of things.

The problem with dating, Brick was convinced, was that suddenly the mundane became extraordinary. Everyday experiences that he had previously taken for granted—flying around Townsville, enjoying a cup of coffee, thwarting his sometimes murderous demonic overlord from distributing incriminating polaroids, that sort of thing—were suddenly exciting, thrilling even. Because now he got to do those things with Blossom, and Blossom was cool in a smarmy, elitist sort of way that both softened his heart and hardened his dick all at the same time, and that was kind of A Lot to deal with at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday.

“All right, do me,” Blossom said, and Brick coughed so badly his aforementioned weak, teenage boy fingers shook to stifle himself. 

Mercy, he thought, probably. But all his blood was rushing south and it was going to take a supernatural willpower to get through these words so that one of them could beat the upstart porridge peasant to this year’s regional spelling bee. 

“You’re the boss,” he said, because it was true, and also because he liked the way she looked at him when he said it. Like he was now the ganache-coated strawberry in this overextended metaphor that he was too laden with Homeric concupiscence being in her general proximity to unpack. 

Concupiscence, there’s a ten dollar word for you, you horny genius. 

He made a mental note to brag to Blossom about this later. 

“Okay, let’s see…” Brick made a show of organizing the flashcards so that she wouldn’t see him discreetly re-situate his pants under the table. “Your word is cymotrichous.”

Blossom tapped her lips, and Brick found himself sympathizing with the Puritans in their absolute befuddlement over the libidinous effect of women having lips. Witchcraft, surely. “Could you use it in a sentence for me?”

Compelled entirely by black magic and therefor not responsible for his imminently questionable choices, Brick obliged her with: “Thinking about how I’d rather run my fingers through your cymotrichous hair for the rest of free period instead of sit here spelling words no one’s ever heard of.”

Blossom, who he was dead certain was extremely thirsty for him and had been for years long before they ever reconciled their rivalry, leaned over the desk separating them. Her hair, long and loose and indeed quite wavy today, was tempting. “Brick, are you flirting with me?”

It was a well-known fact of being a Weak-Fingered, Teenage Boy that one must never reveal such weakness, especially not in front of one’s girlfriend. On the other hand, co-opting said weakness and rebranding it as the suave truth was galaxy brain levels of flirting. And Brick, as has already been established, was a horny genius. “Yup.” He leaned in to meet her, and he twirled her hair between his fingers because they were weak for her, indeed. “How am I doing?”

Blossom, too determined to let her thirst deter her from her goal of sweet, academic retribution and bragging rights, tapped a finger to his lips. “Great. But we have so many words to spell, and only thirty minutes left to do them all. So get shuffling, stud.”

Well, he could work with that. One thing that made his relationship with Blossom work very well was their insatiable competitiveness. Whether they were whaling on each other over an empty parking lot, debating the efficacy of post-its as a note-taking device, or combining their powers to Captain Planet a cornmeal know-it-all back down the leaderboard where she belonged, they were relentless glory chasers. And the greater the challenge, the more they enjoyed the experience and each other. 

Blossom spelled her word perfectly, by the way. She stretched out the o-u-s at the end in a bewitching little whisper as she pulled away and her hair slipped through his fingers. That moment when the light changes and the temperature shifts and you’re weightless in a state of existential anticipation of something monumental about to happen, but not quite? That happened. Thirty minutes to explore the shape of that anticipation was enough time to taste it but not enough to savor it. Which, Brick supposed, was about to make this the best thirty minutes he was likely going to get all week. 

“Are you ready?” Blossom watched him from behind the card she’d drawn. She had a glint in her eyes that told him she was smiling behind that card. 

“Anytime.”

“Your word is eudaemonic.”

That fucking gorgeous ooh again.

“Define it.”

Blossom flushed as though he had just ordered her to bend over. She bit her lip (it must have been a ten Hail Mary’s kind of day when the Witch-Finder General caught a flesh and blood woman doing that with her improbably sorcerous lips) and grinned. “It means producing happiness. Based on the idea of happiness as the proper end of conduct.”

Producing happiness, which is proper, much like how Blossom came off as proper and even prim around adults, when really she was the most fun, most confident, most person he’d ever met, especially when she was spelling in that chiffon top (son of a bitch, that was a great top on her), and the only conduct he was interested in was of the happiest kind.

“Oh.” His throat clenched, and then his stomach twisted, and then his pants grew little too tight again in a full-body chain reaction that began and ended with a fierce determination not to give in first even though it would mean release because release would be meaningless without this etymological tête-à-tête. 

Don’t think about tête-à-têtes. 

Seventeenth century, noun, borrowed from the French meaning literally “head to head” (please, please stop hurting yourself like this).

“Brick?”

Brick cleared his throat. “Yup. Got it. E-u-d…”

Crisis averted, Brick picked the next card and promptly choked on his own tongue. Blossom made a show like she was concerned and are you all right? and please drink some water. Brick drank her water, which of course she had had her anatomically heretical lips on earlier, which was just fantastic for him. Tuesday fucking morning. 

Milieu was her word. 

“Milieu, hmm.” Blossom’s smile was spellbinding, which was a pun because he punned when he panicked. “Origin?”

You bitch, he thought, and be cool, and also, witchcraft.

Brick leaned back in his chair, slipped his trembling hands in his pockets, and squeezed every ounce of anything you can do I can do better into a winsome grin. “French.”

Blossom’s adult-facing façade cracked like an egg, and he got a glimpse of the raw delight she felt for this game, for the words, and for him for making it happen. For cultivating the electric milieu, if you will, currently driving them both into a state of impassioned, competitive euphoria at 9:42 a.m. in the library. 

“Right, um…” She stumbled over her words, and Brick had to restrain himself from crowing for joy and risk the rheumy-eyed librarian coming to scold them. 

By the time they got through another set of words, they were each visibly frustrated and doubly turned on by the other’s masochistic resolve not to throw in the towel. 

“Okay, ready for another round?” 

She wasn’t even trying to hide her intentions now, and that was just fine with Brick. “Of course.”

One more.

If it was another French word, he was fucking done. 

“Really?” Blossom truly had ice in her veins for the way she was able to school her face then. He couldn’t read her, and that was very bad. 

If it’s another fucking French word…

He could be over the desk and on her faster than you could say concupiscence. 

“Okay.” Blossom set down the flashcard she’d drawn and folded her hands on the table. She looked him dead in the eye licked her lips. “Succedaneum.”

The bookshelf shook but Brick’s fingers didn’t as they pinned Blossom’s over a Dewey Decimal-stamped spine and he kissed her with all the horny passion of a teenage genius who would make a note to thank the devil for giving women lips. One of his better ideas. 

xxx

“Hey, has anyone seen Blossom? I’ve sent her, like, four texts!” Bubbles shoved her phone, open to the ignored texts in question, in her sister’s face. “She was supposed to help me with Chem homework.”

Buttercup ducked. “No, and watch where you’re swinging that thing.”

“I saw her earlier,” Boomer said. “She was with Brick coming out of first period.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mike slung his arm around Boomer’s shoulders. “Don’t they both have a free period right now?”

Buttercup rolled her eyes. “What a scam. Whoever decided to give the A-students free periods while the rest of us mere mortals gotta slave away is a straight-up Supervillain.”

Boomer snapped his fingers. “Hey, I just remembered! They both decided to compete for the spot at the regional spelling bee this year. I bet that’s what they’re doing.”

“God, that’s the saddest thing I have ever heard in my life. That’s a new low even for Blossom.”

“I heard there’s a cash prize for the regional winner,” Bubbles said. “It’s like twenty thousand bucks! Remember, everyone in school signed up and we had to have that assembly to narrow it down?”

“Twenty thou— How the tits did I miss that?!”

“I mean, it was all over the school,” Mike said. “We signed up too.”

“What? And no one thought to tell me I could’ve won the lottery?”

Boomer chuckled. “Dude, come on. You wouldn’t have stood a chance in hell against Darla Dimpleton.”

“Who?”

Bubbles cast Boomer a not worth it look, and he just sighed. “So, if they’re studying for the spelling bee, do you think they’re in the library?”

At that moment, Butch came bursting down the hall a little too fast to be human. Open lockers rattled on their hinges as he passed, and a Sophomore girl’s binder went flying, scattering looseleaf papers everywhere. Buttercup looked ready to punch him in the dick for breaking the no powers in school rule. “Guys, you’re gonna shit!” 

“Calm down before you blow a load, Jesus Christ.” Buttercup yanked him back down to the floor so he wouldn’t spontaneously float. 

Sensibly, Boomer asked, “Why?”

“‘Cause Brick and Blossom are making out in the library right now!”

Mike cringed. “Oh, come on.”

“The hell they are,” Buttercup said. 

Bubbles smiled. “Good for them.”

“I’m serious! There were books everywhere, and the noise—”

“Oh look, there goes my dignity. Better catch it before it gets away. C’mon, moron.” Buttercup dragged Butch down the hall over his protests. “What were you even doing in the library? I didn’t think you knew where it was…”

“Like that could ever happen,” Mike said. “Those two wouldn’t waste a minute of study time if it means beating out the competition.”

Boomer did not look so convinced. “I don’t know. I mean, they’re officially, for real dating now,”—“Finally!” Mike interjected—“so it’s not that unbelievable.”

The bell for the next period rang. Bubbles groaned thinking of stewing for an hour of Chem. At least she shared that class with Boomer and would not have to suffer alone. They parted from Mike and walked together through the throng of students rushing to get to their next period.

“Hey, do you think…” 

“I mean…” Boomer shrugged. 

They rounded the corner and nearly ran into Blossom dashing to her next class with a rushed “Got your texts talk later bye!” before she disappeared into the crowd. 

Bubbles whirled on Boomer. “Did you see her buttons—”

“Completely uneven—”

The late bell rang and made them jump. Among the last stragglers, they both dashed a bit too fast to get to class and made it to their seats just as Mr. Micelli finished writing a problem on the board. 

Boomer winked when she caught his eye a couple desks away from hers, and it took everything she had not to laugh.

“Good for her,” Bubbles said to herself. 

“You are late,” Mr. Micelli said. 

Everyone turned to watch Brick sink into his seat, his short hair totally askew and looking healthily flushed for a Tuesday morning. 

Boomer burst out laughing and needed a whole minute to calm down. 

He’d tell her later that the detention was worth it.

xxx

Witchcraft! 👁️👄👁️✨

[dameronology]

love in the time of p.t.a. meetings {marcus moreno} - 4/5

summary: after a few months of slightly chaotic bliss, you & marcus start to think about the next steps in your relationship. {series masterlist}

warnings: swearing 

this is up a little later than i wanted & i do apologise, i once again stayed up all night and i cannot recount a single thing i’ve done. enjoy!

- jazz

Things between you and Marcus quickly fell into a routine.

You kind of had to when you both had kids; their lives needed structure. Depended on it, in fact. It wasn’t long before both of your lives were entangled in more ways than one, mostly for the sake of Missy and Jack having security around them but also because things between you were so good. Neither of you were trying to rush by any means, but when it worked, it worked. You were both good at communicating with each other - not that many issues really cropped up - and you both understood that your children came first. Things progressed easily and naturally, and he made you feel secure enough that you didn’t have to question whether or not it was too good to be true. 

Five months had quickly passed and you were both comfortable. Marcus Moreno was your boyfriend and it wasn’t a big deal. Okay, it had been at first - especially the first time he planted a kiss on your lips in front of the minivan brigade - but now? It was normal. It felt like he’d always been there, and you took it as a good sign. You got on well with Missy, especially since she’d witnessed your spat with Carol and started to think the world of you, and Jack...well, he was obsessed with Marcus. You couldn’t blame the kid. 

‘Jack! Put the soup down!’ 

It was another one of those mornings. It was a Sunday, so you didn’t have to worry about getting up early for school or work but you’d been at Marcus’ till late the night before. You and Jack ended up spending a lot of time at his; there was a swimming pool and a big garden for Optimus Prime to run around in, so it tired both of your tiny spawns out, which worked in your favour.

 Even when the kid had spent four hours swimming last night, he’d still risen that morning at 6AM like Jesus Christ on the third day. You’d woken to find the kitchen covered in smashed eggs and ham, then your oven had broken and the toilet was blocked again. 

You’d been halfway through reversing the problem when you’d heard Jack shuffling in the kitchen. You were stood in the hallway, still in your pyjamas, with a toilet brush in one hand and the other balled up into a fist. 

‘Jack, the soup is about to-’

You paused mid-sentence, watching as the bowl he was trying to reach for toppled straight off of the counter. You’d only washed his hair ten minutes ago, and you might as well have not fucking bothered because it was now covered in chunky vegetable soup. And the Chewbacca onesie he loved so much? Trying to peel that off him for the next few hours to wash the Heinz out of it was going to be a whole task in itself. You’d only just been to the laundrette the day before, and you’d gotten to the point in life where having a place with its own washing machine was a sign of success. 

‘Mum, there’s soup in my hair.’

‘It’s okay.’ You took a moment to breath. ‘We are not going to cry.’

‘I’m not crying.’

‘Wasn’t talking to you, buddy.’ You rubbed your temples for a moment. ‘C’mon, let’s go hop in the bath.’

So much of parenting was just...stopping to breath. Stopping to take a moment to remind yourself that although your love for your child was unwavering and unconditional, you sometimes felt like screaming. All you’d done for the last five hours was go in circles, cleaning and lecturing and cleaning some more. It made you wish you were at work that day, because at least then you could have conversations with people that weren’t about what cheese they wanted for lunch or what cartoon they wanted to watch. 

‘I just had a bath.’ Jack muttered. 

‘Yeah well, you need another one.’ You took another deep breath. ‘I’ll be there in a minute-’

‘- I don’t want a bath!’

‘And I don’t want a kid that’s covered in soup!’ You shot back. ‘C’mon, buddy. Just do as I say, please?’

Your conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. You frowned for a moment - you weren’t expecting anyone. There was no post on Sundays and you hadn’t seen your landlord since the day you’d moved in. Your nosey neighbour knocked sometimes, usually asking about the noise (he didn’t have kids, clearly) and you were this close to telling him to mind his own fucking business. 

‘I swear to god, if that’s David again, I am going to shove this can of soup up his - Marcus!’ You almost did a double take when you saw your boyfriend stood at the door - he really chose his times, didn’t he? You hadn’t even had time to put the fucking toilet brush down. ‘Hey.’ 

‘Hey, baby.’ He greeted you slowly, eyes slowly taking in your appearance (and not in a sexy way). ‘Were you not expecting me?’

‘Shit, did we have plans?’ Your eyes widened. 

‘No, but Jack called. He said you’d asked him to ask me to come over, but I realise half way through that sentence that starting with Jack called probably means you had no idea.’ He offered you a goofy smile. ‘He said that the sofa had exploded and that you needed help.’

There was a lot to unpack there. When had Jack done that? More to the point, when had he learnt to use the phone? How had he worked out your phone password? The kid couldn’t do up his own velcro and now he was a Russian hacker, apparently. 

‘Oh my god.’ You groaned. ‘I am so sorry. Things have been batshit here this morning and I’m sure he had my best interests in his weird little heart, but he made you come all this way-’

‘- Marcus!’ Speaking of the devil.

Jack pushed past you, wrapping his arms around Marcus’ waist. He leant down to pick him up, lifting him off the ground - albeit at a distance, due to Soupgate. 

‘Hey, buddy.’ He greeted him. ‘You been causing trouble again?’

‘Not on purpose.’ Jack replied. ‘Mum says I need another bath.’

‘I think she’s right.’ Marcus said. ‘Why don’t you go pick out some clothes and come back in a minute, yeah?’

‘Okay!’ Seemingly impressed by the newfound trust in him to choose an outfit, Jack wriggled himself back down to the floor, trotting towards his bedroom. Seriously, how did Marcus do that? Perhaps his ability to have authority over your archaic child was another hidden power of his. 

‘You look like you need a break, baby.’ He reached out, gently running a hand down your arm.

‘I’m fine, he’s just been a lot today.’ You sighed.

‘You have soup on your shirt and fluff in your hair.’

‘Couch stuffing.’

‘Huh?’

‘It’s couch stuffing. Except that was Optimus Prime and not Jack, which makes a nice change.’ You muttered.

‘Look, Missy is at her abuela’s today and she’s been begging for ages to see Jack again.’ He said. ‘What d’you say I drive him over there, you clean up and we hang out? Just us, no kids, no dogs, no stress.’

‘That sounds like a fucking dream.’ You couldn’t help but smile. ‘But Optimus has consumed half the couch and I gotta keep an eye on him-’

‘-we can bring him with us!’ Marcus grinned. ‘He loves the garden.’

‘Are you sure? Because I remember you saying you had work plans today and I don’t want you to cancel them on account for the fact I can’t control my own kid. Or life.’

‘You two come first.’ He said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Three, including Optimus Prime.’

--

In the time it took Marcus to drive Jack to his mum’s and get back to yours, you were able to clean up. The apartment was still a state, but it hadn’t been properly tidy in...how many days had it been since Jack was born? Because it hadn’t been clean in exactly that many days. You felt a little bad dumping him on Anita when he was still covered in soup, but if anyone was able to wrestle him into the bath and some clean clothes, it was her. You’d met her a few times and she was absolutely lovely, but you had no doubt she could be terrifying when need be. She was the sort of woman you aspired to be.

By midday, you were driving out the city. There was music playing quietly over the radio and you were watching the houses go by; even though it was cold out, you had the heater on and you were bundled up in a leather jacket, Marcus’ scarf snugly around your neck. It smelt faintly of his aftershave, which had become one of your favourite scents over the last five months. The time had gone so quickly. You’d seen each other practically every day since then, and having the kids meant you’d been fallen into being domestic pretty quickly. The simplicity of it all - him and you and getting to this point so easily - was overwhelming in itself. 

Your first relationship had been so complicated - so finicky and filled with unnecessary arguments. That should have been a sign early on, but then you’d gotten pregnant with Jack and getting married had seemed like the obvious thing to do. His presence meant you wouldn’t have changed anything, not for the entire fucking world, but it made you a little sad to think about how long you’d wasted on what had clearly been the wrong person. Meanwhile, Marcus’ situation had been entirely different; he’d had the right person the first time around and then he’d lost them. You never felt like a replacement to his wife, or even thought about the notion, really. That had been another part of his life. You were a new part and it didn’t mean he was forgetting the past. The two could co-exist without taking away from each other. 

‘You’re deep in thought.’ Marcus observed. He moved one of his hands to rest on your leg, giving it a light squeeze. He did that a lot, usually whenever you were sat beside him at the table or on the sofa. It was just a him thing. 

‘Yeah, sorry.’ You tore your gaze away from the window. ‘My brain always goes a little into overdrive when things are quiet.’

He chuckled. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘You, actually.’ You tangled your fingers with his, thumb brushing over the back of his hand. ‘I was just thinking about lucky I am and how good things are, and how it almost feels too good to be true.’

‘Better believe it, baby.’ He replied. ‘Because it is true.’

‘I know.’ You peered over at him with a smile. ‘It’s just...my only perceptions of relationships were based on the single one I’ve had. Everything was so complicated and exhausting. This is completely different and it’s so nice. And normal. And I don’t know, that sounds stupid-’

‘- it’s not stupid at all.’ Marcus peered over at you, shaking his head. ‘It’s natural to be a little apprehensive after a bad relationship and if there’s anything I can do to help, you just have to tell me. You know that, right?’

Maybe it was the way he said it, or maybe it was just him, but you knew for certain that he meant that. There was sort of a silent agreement now that you were both in this for the long haul. Your mum had always said that you’ll know when you know but you’d always written that off. Mostly because you hadn’t known the first time round. But, now you did. You did know and though you weren’t going to admit that to Marcus, you never doubted him for a second. 

‘I do.’ You said. ‘But he’s in the past now - and hopefully it’s where he fucking stays.’

‘I have contacts. I can find him and set Miracle Guy on him.’ Marcus’ grin had returned. ‘Just say the word.’

‘You make a tempting offer.’ You smiled back at him. ‘But the past is the past and I’m ready to...slam the lid on that dumpster.’

‘Do you think he’ll ever want to come back into Jack’s life?’

You pondered for a moment. ‘I don’t think so, but if he did, I dunno if I’d let him. I never wanna be the person who stops someone from seeing their kids but what he did was...it was unforgivable.’

‘You don’t have to make that decision until it actually happens.’ Marcus gently said. ‘And I’ll support whatever you choose.’

He pulled into the drive way of his house - his nice, clean, sofa-stuffing-and-soup free house. Optimus Prime leapt out the car as soon as the door was open, practically tearing past the two of you and down towards the yard. There was a moment of silence and then a splash!

‘Guess he found the pool.’ Marcus commented. ‘At least it’s heated, I s’pose.’

Truth be told, he loved having the three of you at his house. It felt like whatever had been missing before was slowly making an appearance as your relationship progressed. The irony was that you brought nothing but chaos and clutter with you, but that was exactly what made it feel like a home. It was small things; the painting that Jack had done for him at after school club was now hung up up on the fridge, and there was a photo of him and Missy on the fireplace with Optimus Prime. Half of the thousands of blankets of pillows that had been at your place had ended up on his sofa, thanks to the countless sleepovers. 

If he could have it his way, Marcus would have you live with here all the time. The energy that you and Jack brought made everything feel complete. He loved the evenings where Missy and Jack would play out in the pool, and you two would sit back inside, complaining about the cold. Then there were the nights where you’d take both the kids back here when he was working late, and he’d come home to find you piled on the couch watching an old movie, with your burnt cooking abandoned on the stove, surrounded by boxes of left over take out. It was the kind of thing that was so simple and so domestic, but it was everything he wanted. 

That was probably the flashpoint moment when Marcus Moreno realised he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. He already knew he loved you - he’d worked that out about three months in, when you’d fallen asleep in one of his shirts whilst trying to wait up for him - but he hadn’t said it. He’d hinted at it and made back-handed comments but he’d barely admitted it to himself, let alone to anyone else. He knew what you and Jack had gone through before and it broke his entire fucking heart. You both deserved someone who stand by you and support you, someone who would embrace you both for the craziness and warm energy you brought everywhere with you. More than ever, he was realising he wanted to be that person who gave it you. After all, you’d made his life so much brighter without even trying.

Snapping out of his trance, Marcus looked over at you. You’d already ditched your shoes and dropped onto the sofa, pulling one of the blankets with you. This was exactly what you needed. A quiet house, your favourite person and a cable knit blanket. 

‘Hey, baby?’ 

You looked over at him, smiling at the name. ‘Yeah?’

‘You know I love you, right?’

You blinked in surprise, sitting up. ‘I know.’

‘You do?’

‘You’ve never said it, but I can tell.’ You nodded, before offering a smile. ‘And I love you too.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.’ He slowly approached you, dropping onto the sofa beside you and taking your hands in his. ‘I think I just got so caught up in everything and feeling everything that I forgot.’

‘Why are you apologising?’ You couldn’t help but scoff at him, leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips. ‘It’s your actions that say it, Marc. Hearing it is good but you showed it a long time ago.’

‘I know, but really you deserve to hear it everyday.’ He smiled against you, helping you move onto his lap. 

‘You do tell me everyday, with the things you do.’ You reminded him. ‘Like meeting me in the parking lot with coffee, or bribing Jack into going to bed early with video messages from your superheroes, or doing my grocery shopping when you know money is short.’

‘Why wouldn’t I do those things?’ Marcus seemed genuinely confused. ‘It’s you.’

‘I love you.’ You repeated the phrase. 

‘And I love you.’

He pulled you into another kiss - this time it was a little firmer, not unlike your second declaration of love. Marcus did all those things without thinking, simply out of his intense want for you to just be happy. He was the same with Missy, always doing little things to make her life easier just because. It was just part of who he was, and it made him happy to see his loved ones happy. 

With your body pressed against his and your hands tangled in your hair, Marcus realised he didn’t want you to ever leave again. He didn’t want you to have to drive home in the dark at ten because all of your stuff was on the other side of town. You did stay over sometimes, but then you’d have to creep out at 6AM with a sleeping Jack in your arms to get home in time to get ready. He wanted you here all the time. You should have been here all the time. 

‘Move in with me?’ 

He both did and didn’t mean to say it out loud. He did because he wanted you so badly to be a permanent fixture in the house, but he also didn’t because the idea might have been a little absurd. Was it too soon? What if you didn’t want to leave your place? He knew you loved your apartment. It was your home and had been for a long time.

‘What?!’ You suddenly pulled back from the kiss, eyes wide. 

‘I mean...if you want to.’ Marcus slowly said. ‘Hell, Missy and I can move to your place if that’s what you want. It might be tight but she loves the dog and I just want to be with you-’

‘- hey!’ You cut him off, planting your hands on his shoulders. ‘You’re rambling again, but that’s besides the point. I would love to live here.’

‘You would?’

‘I would.’ You smiled. 

It made sense. Aside from the glaringly obvious fact you wanted to, it was also practical. It was closer to the school, closer to your work and it had a fucking swimming pool. Marcus was already clearly financially secure and moving in wouldn’t mean relying on him, but it would have meant that things for Jack were a lot more stable. Missy loved the company of you both, and it meant she would finally have the dog she wanted so bad. 

‘Missy would be okay with it, right?’ You asked.

‘She was the one who put the idea in my head, actually.’ Marcus admitted. ‘I’d thought about it but then she kind of asked in passing why you don’t live here, and I couldn’t give her an answer.’

‘Your kid is smart.’

‘D’you think Jack will-’

‘- I’m going to stop you there.’ You cut him off.

‘Right, I probably don’t need to ask that question.’ He chuckled.

‘Exactly.’ You pressed a kiss to his nose. ‘Don’t forget the dog, either.’

‘How could I? I can literally see him peeing on my lawn right now.’

‘Our lawn.’

--

Exactly three weeks later - and after a hefty amount of paperwork and hours of sorting through Jack’s endless amounts of crap that he insisted on hoarding - moving day came. 

Anita had insisted on having the kids again. They were both excited, but perhaps a little too much. They were probably more likely to get in the way of things if anything. Children, a dog and large boxes? It seemed like a match made in hell. Plus, she had a whole ass training course in her back garden and if that didn’t wear the kid out, then you were definitely going to take him to the Heroics to get tested. The thought alone was enough to tire you out. 

You didn’t have too much stuff to move. You’d been half-moved into the damn place before Marcus had even made the formal proposal, so that made things a lot easier. You were keeping your sofa for Jack’s room, but the rest was going to Goodwill. Most of it had come from there in the first place.

‘I think that’s the last box.’ Marcus announced, exiting the bedroom. ‘I didn’t realise that a five year could own so many variations of storm-trooper toys.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ You replied. ‘There’s the original trilogy ones, sequel trilogy ones, dark troopers, shock troopers, clone troopers - and I realise half way through listing them that you don’t care.’

‘I never said that!’ He placed his hands on your waist, pressing a kiss to your forehead. ‘I’m excited to learn.’

‘I’m sure Jack is excited to tell you.’ You grinned. 

Then, it faltered slightly with the realisation you were actually leaving this place. You’d never intended for it to be your permanent home, but it had still been the centre of your entire universe for half a decade. Every room told a story; the crayon marks on the bathroom wall, the dents behind the TV from, the crack in the living room mirror. All caused by Jack, naturally. The last five years was contained entirely within these four walls and you got bleary eyed at the idea of it becoming someone else’s. 

‘Hey, don’t cry.’ Marcus gently wiped away a tear from your cheek. 

‘You know, the rent is still paid till the end of the month so we could revisit the idea of you and Missy living here instead.’ You tearfully smiled. 

‘You’re kidding but you know I’ll do it.’ He pressed another kiss to your nose, grip on your arms tightening. 

‘It’s okay.’ You moved so that the kiss landed on your mouth instead, capturing his lips in a brief kiss. ‘I knew we were gonna outgrow this place. I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.’

‘I know. Still kinda feels like it all came out of no-where, huh?’ He replied. ‘In the best way.’

‘You’re right. In the best way.’ You firmly nodded. ‘Can you believe I was 23 when I moved into this place? I found it on Craiglist within ten minutes of finding out I was pregnant.’

‘Do you wanna take a minute before we go?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ You shook your head. ‘We should get going.’

The apartment was just that: an apartment. And the house you were going to was just that: a house. But the people you were with? That’s what made it count. It wasn’t about the four walls or the roof over your head, or whether or not it had a big yard and a jacuzzi bath tub (though, that did help). It was about the laughter and warmth inside; the faces in the photos on the wall and the people you came home to after a long day. It was the smell of your burnt cooking and the pizza you’d ordered in place. It was Jack’s toys left in the exact place where someone could trip and it was Missy using all the hot water in the morning so that Marcus’ showers were practically arctic. It was everyday things that reminded you of the people around you; the people that made it home, and how lucky you were to have them.

That was home. And you’d found yours. 

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