#mm this says more than my drafts. but we die like people I guess and posting this i go

[yappingmil]

I should get some more of my mutuals over to this blog so its not just either go into drafts like im just talking to the air, or basically just a one on one with cici (and kiwi, hi kiwi). also google how to get better at conversations

[cayenne-twilight]

Professor Layton Iceberg Explanation

As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.

Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.

Actual theories

Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars” theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war

The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.

True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.

Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.

Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee

Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.

Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.

Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.

All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.

Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.

Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun

The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.

Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.

The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.

Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.

Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.

The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.

Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.

Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.

Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.

Memes and references

Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.

Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.

Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.

The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.

Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.

You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.

Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”

Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.

Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles

Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.

Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.

Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)

Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.

Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.

London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.

Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.

Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.

[be-dazzled]

88 and Gruvia if you're still doing the prompts pls

88. “Don’t panic but I think we might have accidentally gotten married…”Rating: M for sensitive language and content

Juvia woke up utterly confused. She didn’t understand her body. The headache was so severe she thought she got hit by Thor’s hammer. Maybe, she did get hit by Thor’s magical hammer. She had no memory of what happened the night before. If Juvia tried to remember, her head felt like an egg about to crack open. With the pain she was suffering, Juvia preferred that too and wished that her head would just split into two.

Oh, the throbbing was killing her.

Her mouth tasted weird too. It was as if she boiled some dirty socks unwashed for almost a month of use and sipped the dirty sock soup. Juvia forced her eyes to open. Apparently, she could still do that at least. A low groan forced itself out of her mouth when she tried – and failed – to prop her elbows and help herself up. Juvia expelled a frustrated breath and decided it would be better if she turned to her side instead. But that caused somewhere else to throb.

Weird.

The heavy drapes were drawn across what she remembered to be a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the iconic Caesars Palace fountains. Good, she was still in her suite. Juvia hoped she didn’t do anything weird or funny last night.

Fragments of last night flashed before her eyes. She saw a picture of a strange woman dancing atop a pool table waving some replica of Thor’s hammer. Looking closely into the memory, Juvia realized the stranger looked exactly like her, except that the dancing woman’s clothes were kind of disheveled. The resemblance was uncanny. Maybe, because the wild woman dancing atop one of the pool tables was her – Juvia Lockser.

Hands flew to cover her mouth. It definitely was her! And suddenly she remembered taking her top off too, in front of so many people. Did she sign up as a stripper or something? Juvia prayed it was just her brain toying with her to teach her a lesson.

This isn’t you, Juvia Lockser.

She could hear a voice at the back of her mind reprimanding her.

You are not some kind of a lose woman.

And now she was talking to her own brain but she, the brain, was right. Juvia was a far cry from that shameless woman waving her lace bra like a flag. She got her shit together, stripper Juvia obviously did not. But between the two of them, stripper Juvia seemed happier – real Juvia wasn’t.

The taste of acid began in the pit of her stomach. The harsh reality was reminding her why she decided to fly off to Las Vegas and leave everything and everyone behind.

Bora. That son of a bitch.

But she wasn’t going to think about that jerk. She was in Las freaking Vegas and she seemed to have enjoyed herself last night. It was the only explanation why it felt like her body was thrown around the room. Another head-cracking throb hit her head. She decided to sleep it off. Thinking and remembering wouldn’t do her any good. If she didn’t force herself, Juvia knew she was going to remember the entirety of the night. She just wasn’t sure if she wanted to face that reality. So, Juvia lied back to bed, only to sit right back up when she felt some movement beside her.

The horror of the possibility rounded her blue eyes. She slowly turned to her side where she felt the continuous stirring. Juvia shuddered the moment it registered to her what – or who – made the stirring: a man. A warm flesh of a man was sleeping beside Juvia and he had his bare back on her.

Juvia became suddenly aware of that other part of her body where the throbbing was coming from. Somewhere down south. Juvia expelled a scandalized shriek.

“Hey, can you quiet down a little?”

The mystery man turned to her and Juvia didn’t care how good-looking he was. She didn’t care how chiseled his features were. That light stubble under his chin. That jaw that every male model would die for. That red swollen lips that was just begging to be worshiped. And that black bed hair. Oh god.

And she didn’t absolutely care that the white sheet fell down his lower abdomen, exposing some tanned skin and that good ol’ happy trail. She shook her head to get rid of the tempting thoughts. There was a more urgent issue on hand.

Like…

“Who the hell are you?!”

With her tone, it sounded more like a sentence rather than a question.

One corner of the stranger’s beautiful, beautiful mouth pulled up in a smug.

“Hey, don’t tell me you already forgot.” The stranger leaned closer, invading her space more than what she would allow a stranger. His dark blue eyes bored through her – teasing and taunting, filled with heat that was turning the pain in her core into something else. Something tingly. “You kept screaming it the whole night.” Then he continued, mimicking how she ‘screamed’ his name. “Ooh, Gray. Mm. That’s it Gray. Yes, Gray, there. Don’t stop, Gray. Oh G–”

Before this ‘Gray’ could get to that part which Juvia now vividly remembered, the mortified bluenette let out another ear-splitting scream. Not the kind of screaming the stranger was talking about. This wasn’t music to the ears.

“For such a small woman, you have a lot of that going on, don’t you?”

The glint in his eyes told Juvia that Gray was the kind of man whom no one ever said no to, who always got his way: proud and confident. Those kind of men scared Juvia. She slowly moved away, wanting to put safe distance between her and the stranger. Juvia was so occupied at wanting to get away from the raven-haired stranger that she didn’t notice that she was already backing away at the very edge of the bed.

“Hey!”

For a man with an ugly hangover, Gray’s reflexes were like that of an athlete. He pulled Juvia at the very last minute before the woman fell off the bed.

Juvia wasn’t sure if she should be thankful because apparently she was bare naked under those sheets and so was Gray. And she found her very naked breasts slapped against his hard chest. The heat that she was fighting exploded at the contact.

So, she did the most logical thing to do and pushed poor Gray stumbling off the bed.

“Aw!” he cried. A shock of black hair popped out of the edge of the mattress. “Woman! You are very violent.” Gray nursed the back of his head that earlier made contact on the carpeted floor. But the wince was quickly replaced by a lopsided smile. “I like it.”

“Get out!”

Juvia jumped off the bed, ignoring her body screaming pain, and backed away from the stranger as far as possible. She only stopped when the back of her thighs hit the bedside table. She tightened her hold on the white sheet wrapped around her body.

“Hey, you’re the one who invited me up here.”

Juvia grabbed the lamp and threatened Gray with it.

“Geez, you react like this now. Wait ‘til you remember every detail.” he said, raising one teasing brow.

There seemed to be a very dark and exhilarating story behind his grin. But that wasn’t the most exciting part of Gray because when he stood to his full height, Juvia’s eyes drifted down that part she shouldn’t be looking at, that part that made her heart tremble. Juvia immediately tore her scandalized eyes away from that part, but not without a second glance.

He was still hard.

She threw the pillow at him which he easily caught. Next was the lamp, which Gray luckily dodged. Then, everything that Juvia’s free hand could grab.

Gray stepped back, shouting at the crazy woman who was throwing things at him. He raised his hand to try to stop the woman and talk some sense into her. Until, a slim light hit the gold band around one of his fingers.

“Woman, wait!”

Juvia was trying to haul the bedside table, giving him some time to tell her off.

“Don’t panic… but I think we might have accidentally gotten married.”

Gray raised and showed his ring finger wrapped with the gold band. Suddenly, Juvia felt something cold on her finger. She checked her hand, praying to the gods of Las Vegas and that Elvis impersonator she saw in her memory that Gray was wrong.

He wasn’t.

The band on her ring finger was very and awfully identical with Gray’s.

“I. WILL. KILL. YOU.”

You know that thing that people say explains how a thin, scrawny person could carry a refrigerator double his size during a fire? Gray could only guess but those people were right. It was the only explanation as to why there was a shattered furniture next to him which came from the slender woman at the opposite end of the room.

Gray was realizing it only now but his new wife was a very violent person. He should tell his assistant to get him some life insurance.

…

Writer’s Corner: I’m stuck with #SIYC so I’ll try finishing requests here on tumblr. Man, the draft for this has been sitting on my desk for a very loooong time. But since we guys have some time in our hands for now, we’ll try to get things done. I hope I get around this writer’s block and continue with our favorite Bunhead and Hoopster.

AND I do smell some new modern AU fanfic coming on. 

[hermannsthumb]

Please do 6 , bed sharing is my only (well one of them) weakness :)

6. we always carpool home for the holidays from college but a storm hit and now we’re taking the last room at the local b&b (bonus: bedsharing! we’re adults!)

from winter writing prompts here

bedsharing…..the trope of the gods…i could write this same scenario over and over again and never get tired of it. heres some vague professors au

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

“Unbelievable,” Hermann says. “Bloody unbelievable. This is your fault, you realize.”

“How the fuck is this my fault?” Newt says. He slams the car door hard enough it shakes snow off from the other side of the hood and onto Hermann, which he derives a petty joy from. Not that it fucking makes a difference--they’re both already ankle-deep in it, both already shielding their eyes against it and squinting through it just to argue. “I didn’t will a storm into existence.”

“You made us late,” Hermann says.

“Bullshit!”

“I was all set to go—”

“Until you made us stop for coffee,” Newt says.

“I was tired—”

The rest of his words are drowned out in a howling gust of wind, which sweeps even more snow into their faces. Hermann slams his car door, too, and curses. Newt hears that without a problem. “Let’s just get inside,” he shouts over. “I don’t want to die of hypothermia because you decided to be a bitch.”

They trudge up to the front door of the Bed and Breakfast (Newt lunging away from Hermann’s sharp jabs at his ankles with the end of his cane all the while), the first one they could find on the literal shortest notice possible. Judging by the packed parking lot they’re not the only ones with that idea. Newt wonders how many of them are coming from the college, too, students or—like them—otherwise. “I hope there’s room for us,” he says.

“For your sake, I hope so too,” Hermann says, ominously.

The inside of the lobby isn’t very encouraging. There’s at least half a dozen other people shivering in line at the front desk, most of whom are toting suitcases, some of them even wrapped Christmas presents. A lot of exhausted college students, like Newt expected. One older couple in matching Christmas sweaters. “Yeesh,” Newt says. 

Scowling all the while, Hermann muscles himself into line just as the door opens and more people come bustling in. “Unbelievable,” he mutters again.

Newt squeezes in behind him. He wishes he’d thought to bring their luggage in, too; if they manage to get a room, and that’s a big if, he’ll either have to go without pajamas and a toothbrush or brave the blizzard again. Neither option sounds appealing. Staying at the B&B doesn’t exactly sound appealing, either, especially not with the promise of Geiszler homecooked dinners and his actual (well, childhood) bed just out of reach on the horizon. He told his dad he’d be home tonight, too, damn it. “At least it’s warmer in here,” he finally sighs.

“Only just,” Hermann says, casting his scowl towards the door, which has opened again. He draws his coat tighter around himself and hmphs.

The good news, they discover when they finally reach the front of the line, is that the B&B has space for them. The bad news… “I’m afraid we’ve only got one room left open,” the receptionist says apologetically, “and it’s a queen, not twins. Would you guys mind sharing?”

“Sharing?” Newt and Hermann say.

“We’d be happy to give it to you at a reduced rate, considering the circumstances,” the receptionist continues, just as apologetic.

“Sharing,” Hermann repeats. He sniffs. “Are you certain you’ve got no other rooms?”

The receptionist nods. Someone behind them in line coughs; they’re not the only ones vying for that last queen bed, Newt realizes. And unless they want to keep trying to navigate the snowstorm, unless Hermann’s stubborn, stubborn ass wants to stay up in the B&B lobby all night long, they better fucking claim it now. “We’ll take the queen,” Newt says.

Hermann bitches at him all the way up the stairs to their room, and he continues to bitch at him while he strips out of his winter coat and hat, and he doesn’t even stop when Newt shuts himself in the bathroom to brush his teeth with the (complementary) toothbrush he got from the front desk. It has built in toothpaste. It’s kind of weird, to be honest. “We didn’t have to resort to this,” Hermann insists through the crack in the door. “We could’ve—”

“Camped out in the car?” Newt says. He spits out his toothpaste foam and wipes his mouth on the back of his wrist. “Turned around and driven all the way back to campus, which is also shut down because of the snow?”

“Taken a plane,” Hermann sniffs.

“Airport’s closed too, buddy,” Newt says. “This is literally our only option.” No lobbies for him, thank you. 

He pushes open the door; Hermann turns a bright red and drops his eyes to the carpet quickly, like Newt’s done something terrifically scandalous. “Where on Earth is your clothing?”

Maybe Newt has done something scandalous. It’s just makeshift pjs, is all: the old t-shirt he’d already been wearing under his fifty layers of sweater and jacket, and his boxers. His wet jeans are spread out across the small radiator in the bathroom. “My suitcase is in the car, man, and I just wanna be comfy,” he says. “No way in hell I’m going back out there to get my pajamas.” When Hermann still looks disgruntled, Newt starts to tug at the waistband of his boxers. “I can go full commando, if you want.”

“No,” Hermann says. “No. That’s quite enough.”

Newt drops his hand, grinning. “Take off your stupid coat already. You’re sweating. Here—” He drags it off of a ragdoll-limp Hermann himself, then (after a second of consideration) does similarly with his blazer and sweater. He looks almost naked in just the button-up—it’s weird. Newt rarely sees him in anything that bare. “Take off your pants.”

“No,” Hermann repeats. “Absolutely not.”

“They’re not gonna dry otherwise,” Newt says. “Come on, just—”

Hermann swats him away twice, then raises his cane threateningly. Newt holds up his hands and takes a deliberate step back. “Fine, fine.”

Hermann lowers his cane.

Neither of them fall asleep very fast. Or at all. Newt, because Hermann is a blanket hog, and as a result he can’t stop shivering; Hermann, because Newt can’t as much so breathe without apparently annoying the everloving shit out of him and keeping him up. Finally (after Newt yawns, and Hermann hisses like an angry cat), Newt just rolls over and prods Hermann’s shoulder. “I’m gonna get a snack from the vending machine,” he says. “Do you want anything?”

He half expects Hermann to ignore him and pretend to be asleep or something, so he’s surprised when he’s answered with a quiet, terse “Pretzels.”

Newt smiles. “Got it.”

Hermann’s sitting up and wrapped in the comforter when he gets back. He shakes his head when Newt tucks his snacks under one arm and makes to turn on the light. “Don’t,” he says. “I’d rather it dark. Is it still snowing?”

“Yeah.” Pretty badly, in fact: the vending machine was in a small alcove across from a window, and Newt peeked through the curtains before he came back here. It’s a white wasteland out there. He can barely see the cars in the parking lot. “I don’t think we’re gonna be out of here any time soon.”

He nudges Hermann’s side until Hermann finally relents his grip on the comforter, scoots in next to him, and passes him his pretzels. Hermann wrinkles his nose at the package. “Peanut butter?”

“It was either that or the cheese kind,” Newt says. “Be grateful I got you anything.”

Hermann glares, but opens the package and begins munching away with more venom than Newt thinks pretzels strictly require. Newt, meanwhile, eats his M&Ms and drafts a quick text to his dad, just to keep him from having a heart attack when he wakes up tomorrow and Newt’s still MIA. not sure when i’ll be getting in. storm is rly bad. me and herm are stuck at hotel

Four years of carpooling up the east coast for the university’s winter break (Newt back to his dad’s place in Boston, Hermann just a short bus ride north of that, where he stays in his sister’s guest room), and this is the first year he and Hermann have ever been incapacitated by a storm like this. “Did you text you sister yet?” he says.

“Mm?” Hermann says. “Ah. No, I haven’t. I left my mobile in the car.”

“You left it in the car?”

“Well, it’s not as if I bloody well need it,” Hermann snaps. “The only person who texts me is in my bed.” He fidgets. “Besides. I never told my sister we left in the first place, so there’s no point..”

“Oh,” Newt says.

Hermann fidgets again. “Truthfully, Newton—if we never made it up at all, I don’t imagine I’d be too heartbroken. My sister will be hosting our entire family this year, and many of us...don’t get along.”

“With each other, or with you?” Newt jokes.

“With me,” Hermann sighs.

Okay. Newt made that five times more awkward than it needed to be. He supposes he should’ve guessed that there was a reason Hermann only ever seems to talk about his sister out of his immediate family of six, and even then he does like she’s his business partner. “Do you want to. Uh. Talk about it?” he says.

“Not particularly,” Hermann says.

They sit in mildly uncomfortable silence. Newt kicks his heel back against the bed. He’s about to say something very, very dumb, but if he’s lucky, Hermann might not mind. (Though, if he doesn’t, Newt can’t say the same for his dad when Newt breaks the news.) “We don’t have to go up at all,” he blurts out. “We can just stay right here.”

Hermann looks up at him sharply. “Here?”

Newt likes Hermann. He’s...weird. Crazy smart, and funny, with big brown eyes to die for, but most importantly, he’s bitchy, and he’s weird. He likes Hermann as a colleague, and he likes Hermann as a frenemy, and he likes Hermann in the sense that he daydreams about holding his hand and brushing his stupid hair out of his face more than is probably healthy. He would, frankly, love nothing more than to blow off all of his holiday plans to eat Chinese food and watch movies or something with the guy instead. “Okay, maybe not here-here, but if the storm clears we could just go back home. And. Y’know. Do something fun together.” He grins, mostly just to diffuse the tension. “And if it doesn’t clear and we’re stuck here, I did pack your Hanukkah present with me, so it’s not a total bust.”

“Ha,” Hermann says. Newt watches him worry at his lower lip. “I wouldn’t...mind that,” he continues. “Going back home. Or just staying here together.”

“Good,” Newt says. His mouth feels dry; his heart is racing, just a bit. “That’s...good.”

Hermann smiles at him, and ducks a little closer under the comforter.

[ohhicas]

I've only been into comics for a few years, but I've read enough of the old Flash stuff where I adore the classic incarnations of the Rogues. Honestly curious here: what's it like to be a fan of James Jesse back when he was retgonned around 10 years ago and see him brought back but now all mwahaha crazy evil? I'm way more used to Axel (and all that off-panel character development in Nu52, thanks DC) but even I find this kinda weird. Was James ever crazy evil in any arc?

^- me 90% of the time someone says James is coming back to recent media & it’s not a direct continuation of the comics prior to 2004

[ Warning: this is gonna get long and be full of a lot of assumptions. I can never form solid statements and things will get jumbled, because I suck at presenting things ]

[ this is my can of worms hill and you opened it so I’m dYING HERE ]

I mean, back in the earliest ages, no Rogue had a real personality to speak of? They were just “1960s Bad Guy in a different outfit” at the very start, with quirks! Like James having a thing for toys and nuclear powered flying tricycles. It wasn’t until that era ended that they started getting real distinct and into what a lot of ‘classic’ James fans loved and appreciated? 

(I think at least, I’m just One Person here pretending like I even understand HALF of what the ‘classic’ fandom enjoyed. I’m wildly speculating just going off what fanworks I’ve seen produced.)

(I don’t have all my scans anymore but I’ll toss in scans when I have them)

But that’s when we started getting things like James actually having specified friendships with certain people

or clear distaste towards others, and when you could tell he was more of a wild card than the others. Or when he decided to fuck off and hang out in Hollywood with Blue Devil for a bit, even siding with Kid Devil to deck out Captain Boomerang. 

Or when he decided to fuck off to Gotham, to mess with Catwoman by pretending he didn’t know who she was, but absolutely knew who she was because of how she walked and carried herself, but James being James was like “mmmmm long con, nope”

hey lil Cold, gimme all ur guns and don’t question why I’m in drag xoxo

Even then, he wasn’t shown to be vicious yet! He’d hopped around various places, was still considered A Rogue, A Criminal, and as far as any comic reader could tell by trying to count up how many civilians may have been crossfired at, he had no On Purpose deaths racked? Like, the only thing you could really argue was he may have made someone drive their car off a cliff once, but I’m like 98% sure they’re fine. He’s not a murderer, he’s just here for a laugh and a long-con for funsies because he know he can get away with it!

AND THEN WE GET A LITTLE OLDER, LITTLE DARKER

[ I’M PUTTING A CUT HERE CAUSE AFTER I THREW IT INTO DRAFTS, I REALIZED I GOT REALLY LONG, I’M SORRY IF MY LAYOUT SUCKS ASS FOR THIS. ]

little more 90s Hair. Little more 90s stereotypical “But what if EVERYONE WENT TO HELL” demon plots against Satanic Hockey Hair Neron. And James? still wasn’t evil? He was a little dismissive when everyone ELSE died sure but he still in the end turned around like “nghgng I’m THE ONLY ONE”, purposely got his ass down there, regretted it, and then beat Neron at his own game to save the entire fucking world. Because! He could! And he did it so well. STILL NOT EVIL, even when he had a chance right then and there to take over everything alongside Neron should he so desire. Like, two words, maybe some under the table BJs depending on how you feel about that pairing (I don’t), and bam. He would’ve bested nearly any other villain in the DCU save like, Satan himself. Or i guess one of those world destroyers. But we’ll get back around to those BOY HOWDY WE WILL GET AROUND TO THOSE. 

So James! Saves! The world! Sorta! Later they fight Neron again and his kid he somehow had somewhere down the road (it sounds like I’m complaining, i’m not, I love Billy and Mindy both I just wish they showed up like… ever again?) and he sTILL SAVES EVERYONE. 

Piper helps by their 90s ponytails combined. 

Somewhere around here, because dates and timing aren’t my strong suit, he also goes and messes with Bart for a bit. It’s pretty much a Spy Vs Spy episode, but with less bloodshed. 

ANYWAY IT’S AFTER THIS POINT THAT THINGS GET… where I think the majority of “James is a Low Rate Joker” comes from? 

For some unknown goddamn reason, in between issues (James wasn’t a Super Frequent Rogue? He’d show up, sure, but in the huge run of the series he’d just kind of vanish for 20 issues at a time and you’d go “welp, guess he’s still alive”) James went super-cop? like, the FBI? For some reason? Hired James “I am a probably still wanted felon, a man who has escaped jail numerous times, probably never served a full sentence, known Trickster and liar” Jesse. to the FBI. And for so many issues it’s like he legit just. Did this. He threatens to shoot Piper who he was up until this very moment, considerably very close friends with (as far as comics would show Rogue/Rogue friendships), unwilling to help his friend clearly framed for murder of his parents and losing his mind by the day. Despite James talking Hart down a little on the whole ‘THE MAYOR IS ROSCOE ADN NOBODY BELIEVES MEEEEEEEE” thing. 

Also he steals Digger’s dead ass corpse? 

FBI James is a fucking enigma. Here he is standing up for Gay Rights even though Piper is like “mm maybe I should forgive my abuser??”

BUT. AFTER THIS? WE GET COUNTDOWN WHICH IS JUST. Countdown is. IT’s a problem. James’s personality is IMMEDIATELY HORRIBLY u-turned into “well we need SOMEONE to be the Bad Guy to Piper’s Good!” DESPITE. ALL THESE YEARS OF COMICS.This is the shit you’ll see people who don’t know better or just want a reason to hate the Trickster (despite being 100% okay for them to just say he’s annoying/they don’t like his tights/acrobats are stupid) reference. James is, suddenly, very abruptly, a homophobe. Like an “ew don’t touch me” level homophobe because I’m pretty sure DC snorts cocaine and threw a dart at a board for “how could they make these two fight” and landed on GAY RIGHTS IS TRENDING. 

BUTSTILL IN THE FUCKING END OF ALL OF THIS?After so many issues of James being a complete fuckass prick? 

springboards himself from his current job of being railroad face putty to catching bullets to make sure Piper wasn’t gonna die. Without knowing the proceedings of this entire plotline, James out of nowhere after so much gaybashing, still finds it in him to leap into the path of multiple bullets and save Piper. Because, yknow, he’s evil!

Later it’s shown he’s been working to take everyone down (y’know, like when he was in the FBI) and left Piper specific helpful notes to do it himself. Because Evil Bad Guy! Helping his gone-good friend! Take down bad guys! 

DC I STILL HAVE SO MANY GODDMAN QUESTOINgsd

But yeah that’s. That’s where we last saw James. in 2007, dead, after saving Piper when he could have easily pulled a Joker and ripped HIM down to take hte bullets and etcetc, y’know. Something a Very Bad Person would’ve done, like the characterization we’ve seen now. 

His ghost (easily argued as Piper’s own mental construction of James sassing him) sasses Hartley to even, in his mental state, saw off James’s hand so Piper doesn’t have to lug his weight around and has a fighting chance at living. And in the end, when Piper’s fighting the thing that can destroy the fucking world, it’s shown only Piper was the one who could save them? Because his flute, and his musical ability, and [enter DC comic science here]. You could argue this was James, once again, somehow knowing the long-con at play here, getting screwed over at EVERY turn, and sacrificing himself so they ‘good’ team had a fighting chance.You could also argue this is me losing my mind trying to make sense of the things they made James do. (my running argument is he was purposely a prick to push Piper away, so he could keep him safe) 

Also Piper plays James a Swan Song of Queen as the final boss explodes and he’s fully prepared to die. So like. There’s that. 

AND THATS BASICALLY THE COMICS? The main, ‘canon timeline’ comics. I’m missing a LOT of little things here and there, but I’m not missing anything like body counts, or murder attempts, beyond the old Silver Age “Bad guy of the week” things like trying to make Flash’s head explode, or you know. Other “nobody really has a personality, we just have quirks”. 

MY NUMBER ONE GUESS TO WHERE THIS NEW PERSONALITY TREND COMES FROM?

Mark Hamil|’s OG run as him in the old live action show. That characterization was fun, for the time, and I even enjoyed it cause it was just that off the wall and you could tell it was what they used to decide he should be the Joker for the BATS Joker. Consider it a prototype (combined with all the previous comic jokers but that’s not for this long ass post) 

And if it’d stayed there, that’d be it! That’s it! But then JLU came along, and they referenced the old show for their version of James with a sprinkling of early-era comics, and a lot of people loved and watched that show. That was their version of the Trickster, because it was their first meeting with him! And I can’t fault that! But that guy was clearly off his rocker and I’m sure if the JLU allowed a higher rating, it would’ve been even closer to the old TV show. 

And both of THOSE were heavily, heavily referenced for the CW version, which as I’m at this point now means I need to slap my usual anti-CW tag onto things. I hate the CW James. There is so little comic in him it’s almost disgusting, and they ramped up so much of the Joker side of JLU & OGTV he might as well just be the Joker. It’s not a good representation of him at all. I have, also, only seen his first appearance episode, so maybe I’m wrong? But when you fuck up hard on the first run, why would I return for round 2? 

So with ALL THIS– 

REBOOT TIME. Whatever the newnew remake is calling itself. 

At first! With how James was! In the first panel flash of him clearly behind the scenes tugging so many wires and lines, watching everything with a bucket of popcorn while pulling others to his side, sitting pretty in an old museum? warehouse? highlighted in purples and vintage toys, I was like “holy shit this it. This is My Boy, back from the goddamn limbo-dead. It’s him.” But then“taking over the city entirely” to do? What? Turn it into the world’s biggest Trickster themepark? Make everyone wear striped leggings and combat boots? Martial Law of murder if you don’t carry rubber chickens? This is already veering from anything major James has ever done. As it stands I can’t see the gag here. Its’ weirdly dark and edgy, and way too close to something we saw the 90s TV show Trickster do, in the episode where he basically took over the place. The previews show him being what I’m assuming a Judge, Jury, & Executioner joke– and unless this spins into a Clopin song and dance number and his little hand puppet crops up to slam the button on the guillotine, I’m not having it, DC. 

They’re trying to tie him back into the CW, despite the writer saying he really enjoyed the Neron-era things with James (if I’m remembering the interview correctly). And it’s also why you may see me constantly saying “Well I sure as fuck hope Neron shows up” at anything new that’s released, to explain away all of… this.

This isn’t him. If they wanted a murderous Trickster, they should’ve just used Axel. The kid, canonly, tied explosives to stray dogs and homeless people. AXEL is the not-good Trickster, the murderous Trickster, the one you aren’t suppose to feel sorry for beyond being in way over his head due to his young age. 

i think I somehow didn’t answer your question

TL;DR

it sucks? it’s also great because there’s a .5% chance that maybe they’ll do it right and won’t reference the fucking 90s noncomic media. But then they do. And all I can do is laugh and shrug like ‘welp I expected nothing’. But when they get it RIGHT it’s like christmas came early.

[noisyquokka]

50 Questions Tag

I was tagged by @sapphirebluemt thank you lovely! 💛💕 I'm doing this while very tired (literally 5am) and on my phone, so uh... If I don't save draft and proof read beforehand please bear with me!

1. What takes too much of your time?

Day dreaming and worrying. So much worrying...

2. What makes your day better?

Knowing that I'm cared for and appreciated by someone who means a lot to me. And food 😅

3. What's the best thing that happened to you today?

One of the horses at our rescue followed me around the pasture the entire time I was out there and I'd be damned if I didn't melt! Mayhaps I really missed working on a farm 🤗

4. What fictional place would you like to go to?

Questions like these are hard cause I'm over here like okay the maze runner universe would be pretty dope, but what about shadow hunters! Oof wHat AboUt TeEN WoLf!! The possibilities are endless! :0

5. Are you good at giving advice?

Mm yeah, sometimes. Other times I feel like my advice is complete shit lmao.

6. Do you have any mental illness?

Depression and Anxiety, both diagnosed.

7. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis?

Yeah, shit can be terrifying ngl! 😞

8. What musician inspired you the most?

I feel like Shawn Mendes really inspired me the most. I know there's a good handful of people that became famous from song covers on YouTube and all that, but I really like the way Shawn Mendes has stuck to him and his guitar for the most part, especially on tour. His voice is something relaxing and unique that I can get behind. And he's such a down to earth person, I'd love to meet him sometime and tell him he's doing amazing and how much he's helped me through his music!

9. Have you ever fallen in love?

Yeah, you know how it goes 😶

10. What's your dream date?

Honestly? Roadtripping to the desert or anywhere that's far from light pollution and spending a night under the stars. Just talking and tangled in each other, sometimes just staying silent and listening to the sounds of the night around us. Maybe our playlist is playing softly in the background and the campfire we started has burned out hours ago, while we lay on the trucks tailgate admiring the sky. Oof, I'm gonna cry I want this so bad 😭

11. What do others notice about you?

Weirdly, my nose? Literally everyone always talks about my nose! I don't know why but it's kinda weird. And my eyes.

12. What is an annoying habit you have?

Always thinking I'm not good enough. Annoys almost everyone I've met lmao!!!

13. Do you still talk to your first love?

Yeah, we talk almost every day! We're still great friends 😊

14. How many ex's do you have?

4. And number 4 was one hell of a joke, holy hell! So 5th times a charm? 🤣

15. How many songs are in your playlist?

Roughly 3200. I'm always adding new music!

16. What instruments can you play?

Guitar, violin (although it's been a while, I'm probably rusty as hell!), a bit of clarinet and a bit of piano. I was learning piano before I left for college, I wish I would've picked it up earlier :(

17. Who do you have the most pictures of?

Uhhh.... probably Hyunjin and Wonpil if I'm honest. My phone is just kpop boys n gals and I'm happy with myself 😁

18. Where would you like to go before you die?

Back to my roots! I'd love to go to Poland, Hungary, and Wales. And Iceland or Norway just because the landscapes are so beautiful there and I just wanna see it with my own eyes!

19. What is your zodiac?

Taurus 🐮

20. Do you relate to it?

Here and there, yeah. But I can't say I'm a Taurus through and through. Some of the traits that are tied to my sun sign aren't tied to me individually. As example, Possessive is one of them that I am not!

21. What is happiness to you?

To me, happiness is seeing someone else near and dear to your heart smiling and happy themselves. Even if it's not your doing. You're just happy to see them happy!

22. Are you going through anything right now?

A lot, yes. Partially why I haven't been as active on tumblr as I'd like to be.

23. What's the worst decision you've ever made?

Letting people walk all over me because I'm too nice sometimes.

24. What's your favorite store?

Vidlers! I used to go in there a lot when I was a kid and they had this popcorn maker that always made the store smell like fresh popcorn! Ahh that takes me home 😄

25. What's your opinion on abortion?

I think it all depends on the situation. If a young female is raped or wasn't educated properly about safe/protected sex, then I'd say she's more than free to go through with it. But of course, if you're gonna fool around yet know about protected sex, and not use a condom? I think that's your personal problem and you should experience what other mother's who have planned to have kids have gone through. But again, I personally think abortion depends on the situation and shouldn't be the easy way out.

26. Do you keep a bucket list?

Yeah! And the list gets longer and longer and longer....

27. Do you have a favorite album?

Nah, I've got too much music to have a specific favorite album!

28. What do you want for your birthday?

The jackpot 😂 or just to spend time with my parents and see my dogs again! It's been literal months 😣

29. What are most people's first impression of you?

Standoffish because I'm very shy and awkward as hell around strangers.

30. What age do you seem according to most people?

Everyone always thinks I'm older than I really am! I'll be 19 in May but everyone's gonna be like "are you 22?" NO why do you think that?! I FEEL LIKE IM STILL 14!

31. Where do you keep your phone while you're sleeping?

On my nightstand, otherwise I'd lose it between my mattress and headboard 😅

32. What word do you say the most?

I say "Like" so much! I don't even mean to!

33. What's the oldest age you would date?

See, being older doesn't bother me much. I'd probably date a 25 year old if I'm honest (5 years older). I guess I'd just have to feel comfortable enough around them!

34. What's the youngest age you would date?

Probably at lest 16? I don't know, younger is a hard one for me just cause age and bleh!! Maybe 17... two years is better for me personally...

35. What job/career do most people say would suit you?

All my friends know that I'm good with kids and so I'm instantly suited and qualified to be a teacher?! But I'd rather not cause kids today 😩 I'd probably end up hurting their ego in front of their classmates if they showed me any disrespect lmao. And almost everyone who has heard me sing (like really seriously sing, I'm also a huge dork and purposefully sing off key a lot) have said I could be a singer but I can't sing in front of large crowds so 🤷‍♀️

36. What's your favorite music genre?

Pop or Country, undecided here!

37. If you could live in any country in the world, where would it be?

Probably Norway or Hungary. I love beautiful landscapes!

38. What is your current favorite song?

Miroh or Boxer from Stray Kids' new album 🤙

39. How long have you had this blog for?

I started it in January, so just about 3 months!

40. What are you excited for?

The weekend, I go back to college classes today and tomorrow 😣

41. Are you a better talker or listener?

I'm 50/50

42. What is the last productive thing you did?

Washed the dishes.

43. What do you want for Christmas?

A parrot, lump sum of money, maybe a poodle. Smack me now I'm being greedy lmao

44. What classes do you get the best grades in?

Biochem and Lit

45. On a scale of 1-10, how are you feeling right now?

2; I want to sleep but can't. Someone just knock me out!

46. What can you see yourself doing in 10 years?

29 years old? Stable career, maybe building or buying a house, possibly married although I'm not really worried about that? Maybe in a happy healthy relationship, with a rescue dog or cat.

47. When did you first get your heartbreak?

Year and a half ago.

48. At what age do you want to get married?

As I said before, I don't really care if I marry or not. But if I did find someone I'd want to marry, generally speaking, around 30 would be a good age for me. I'd want to make sure I'm financially stable and happy where I am in my life before taking such a step like marriage.

49. What career did you want to have as a child?

First it was Figure skater, then I wanted to be an Equestrian. I stuck with the animal career cause I wanted to be a vet, and here I am in college for that exact reason!

50. What do you crave right now?

The sweet embrace of death, since sleep would rather screen my calls. That bitch! Insomnia's there for me more than sleep is 😑

Tagging: @janarine @sanflovver @ateeztiny @visualgiggles @jisunday and anyone else who'd like to do this!

[livvywrites]

15 for 15

Tagged by @quartzses​. Thank you~ I adore being tagged in games! ^^ 

Rules: Answer fifteen random questions, in either your character’s voice or your own.

Okay, you know I gotta do one of my babies. Picking which one was kind of hard, so if anyone wants to tag me again I’m down ;)  I decided to do Alinora, from The Martyr Queen.  

I picked these questions randomly (using a random number generator) from Arthur Aron’s Intimacy Quiz. I skipped any two character questions, though! 

I wrote this akin to an interview, as if someone was asking her these questions, and recording not just her verbal responses, but her gestures/body language as well. 

1. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s? 

“My mother and I weren’t... close, per se. But our relationship was good regardless. She loved me, and I loved her--and both of us knew it. We said it, often. We shared meals together, spent time together a lot when I was young, though a bit less as I got older, and she got busier. I looked up to her, and I knew that she was proud of me, even if I felt I could never measure up.

“My sister, though, was claimed as a Slaeyr when I was five. She joined one of their nomadic tribes to learn how to control her new powers. She kept in sporadic contact with my mother for a while, before cutting out. She never did write me, even when I was old enough to appreciate it.

“Altogether, though, my childhood was happy. I had a loving mother. While I do not know my biological father, I had a mentor who acted as one. He and I were close. I had two close friends--one of whom I fell in love with, and was eventually engaged to.” Alinora shrugs. “I have a lot of good memories growing up. Not a lot of bad ones. So I suppose, yes, my childhood was happier than most people’s. Idyllic, even.” 

2. Before making a telephone call, do you rehearse what you are going to say? Why? 

“I do. It helps me feel more confident. I hate stuttering, saying the wrong thing, being at a loss for words. Perhaps it comes from being groomed for the life of a queen. Politics can be a dangerous game if you don’t know exactly what to say, and when.” 

3. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

“I...” Alinora pauses. “The last time I sang to myself... I do not know. It was before the attack on my home. I sang often, then, though not oft in front of company. Usually as I was completing a task, particularly one that was repetitive. As for singing to someone else... I sang to Liera... or what I thought was Liera... the night before I found out that my homeland had fallen.” She falls into a pensive silence, before the next question shakes her out of it.

4. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? 

Alinora hums in thought, the pensive mood from before not quite gone. “The ability to use magic would be a boon. Everyone in Eldora is capable of it--everyone but me. It makes getting around difficult, often. I can nullify it, sure, but even that advantage doesn’t outweigh the rest of it. However, I’m told that this ability is what will allow me to kill Kai’os, so perhaps I do not want to get rid of it just yet. 

“Though this question does speak of gaining one... not losing it. So perhaps, in this theoretical world, I could have both?

“Ah. I’m probably taking this too seriously...”

5. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know? (*)

Alinora is silent for a long moment. “I... would want to know if my loved ones, my mother and my fiancee, if they were happy. Wherever they were now. If there is truly a better place, as the stories say.”

6. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about? 

“The death of any loved ones. Well, any sort of death joke, really. It’s a very serious matter that deserves respect,” Alinora says firmly. “I would also say that any insecurities are serious, and deserve to be treated with respect. If you make the joke yourself, that’s one thing. But no one else has that right. Race, sexuality, gender... those, too, can be sensitive subjects.”

7. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you? 

“Hmmm. I suppose I should probably not count a day where I get to kill Kai’os, mm? Perfect a day as that might be, it’s a bit unattainable right now. Though I, and my newfound allies, are working on it.

“A perfect day... I’d wake up early, eat, get some training done. Take care of whatever business needs to be had. I wouldn’t remember the attack on my homeland, nor experience any heightened anxiety. I would be left alone, for the most part. Except when I chose to reach out. No one would bug me about my eating habits, or lack of. No one would pester me with uncomfortable questions. It would be... nice. Quiet. Uneventful, mostly. I’d sleep, and I wouldn’t dream.”

8. Do you have a secret hunch on how you’ll die?

“In a battle. Perhaps even the one against Kai’os. He is very powerful, after all, and I am... not. I’ve trained, extensively. But I am not nearly as old or experienced as he is.”

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

Alinora laughs, a sharp bitter sound. “I suppose the opportunity to avenge my loved ones. The fact that I am central to this operation, this mission. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for my training. For being taken in, when my mentor had every reason to turn me out. For my position among the Swans.”

10. What roles do love and affection play in your life? 

“I guess you could say love is what drives me. It was the love that I held--that I hold--for my people, particularly those lost, that kept me going. I knew that I needed to live for them, so that I could ensure that what happened to them would never happen again. 

“Beyond that... I am not sure that love and affection play any role in my life. I do not think I can let them.” 

11. Of all the people in your family, who’s death would you find the most disturbing? Why?

Alinora lets out that sharp, bitter laugh again. “I have one family member left. By default, I suppose, it would be her. Yet, up until recently, I already thought she was dead.” She shakes her head. “Her death would be disturbing. I would mourn her. I would mourn the relationship we never got to have, or repair. But if you had asked me this ten years ago, I would have said my mother.” She smiles wryly. “We see how that turned out, don’t we?” 

12. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be? 

Alinora thinks. “I cannot think of anything in particular to complain about. Perhaps I would have spent more time with my mother. Perhaps I would have spent more time with the Sage. Explored my lack of powers more, asked more about it. Maybe I would have learned about my nullification ability earlier.” She shrugs.

13. What do you value in a friendship?

Alinora hums. “I don’t have many friends these days. By choice, before anyone goes making sympathetic noises. But, when I did have friends, I valued humor. People who laughed, often. I can be serious. Maybe too serious. Having people around me that could make me laugh, could laugh themselves... It was nice.

“I also valued compassion. I have no taste for those who treat others like their dirt, or who do not see the benefit in helping others. I valued honesty. Loyalty. I liked people who could fill my silences, or who didn’t mind sitting in them with me.” She opens her mouth, as if to continue--then stops, shutting down abruptly, as if she had said too much, or was about to. 

14. When did you last cry in front of someone? By yourself?

“I wake up crying almost every night, after being plagued by terrible nightmares.” Alinora waves it off. It’s nonchalant, almost, except for the way her shoulders have tensed and her face has closed off. “The last time I cried in front of someone... Oh. I don’t recall. Perhaps it was the day I lost my home. Perhaps my mentor walked in on me, one of those nightmare nights. Perhaps his friend, or his friend’s apprentices did. I don’t know if I was crying any of those times, or there were more I didn’t wake up for. I don’t particularly care.”

(But she does. You can tell.) 

15. What is your most terrible memory?

Alinora’s face darkens. “The day I returned to Mynera to find it taken from out beneath us. The day I found out my beloved was replaced by a shifter---before we even left.” Her eyes burn. “The day I found out that so many of those I loved were gone. And I hadn’t even noticed.” 

* This question is entertaining to me, because in one of my original drafts/outlines, I had Alinora find out about her immunity to Fate’s Loom by looking in a pool of water said to tell you your future. She saw nothing. Not even her reflection, which ultimately made her think she didn’t have a future. It’s still a scene I like a lot, but I don’t think it’ll make it into the final draft. Or even this draft. 

I tag: @apvtelesma; @queenie-dragon; @marniebalboa; @vieliwrites; and anyone else who wants to do this~ (Also, if you enjoy tag games or don’t, let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you or not depending on your preference!) 

[hajiiwa]

Hiii~! Because it's Halloween I want to ask if you could write something spooky?? I don't know mummies or something but I was sort of hoping for incubi/succubi >////

ahjkhjdshjahjk anon!! i have never written anything with ubi so i will?? try my best??? and none of it will be Super Explicit but uhusgdahuil in honor of halloween :,D

***

Oikawa Tooru lived a hard life. Each night he silently curses those who had it easy; his best friend Hanamaki, who was currently harboring a six-foot cat shifter, his mail carrier who saw through the eyes of the bird on his shoulder, and of course, those who weren’t saddled with any sort of non-human (or part-human) baggage.

So what if magic had been integrated into his life? He can put up with the mummies bagging his groceries but it’s blasphemous to have to house an incubus.

All told, Kuroo Tetsurou wasn’t necessarily an ungracious guest. Sure, he takes up the entire couch on occasion. Sure, he eats all the sweets in the house even though he doesn’t require human food for energy. Sure, every few nights Oikawa would dream of cold fingers and slow smirks that helped sustain Kuroo (among other things), but really, it wasn’t a big deal.

Until– well. Until Kuroo says something that throws Oikawa for a loop.

“I’ve got a friend coming over,” drawls the lazy incubus, craning his neck to look back at Oikawa who’s seated at the table. Case files are spread out all around him.

“Mm?” Oikawa, distracted, allows himself to glance up. “Like a–? Another special friend? Like that loud one with the big hair?”

Kuroo looks smug, but he shakes his head. “No, no. Another incubus. I want him to stay here for a while.”

Oikawa chokes on his spit. “You’re inviting another incubus–”

“Yep.”

“– to stay at my home, take advantage of my hospitality–”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“– why?!” Oikawa wails, dropping his head onto the table and groaning loudly. “You’re bad enough! And am I even getting paid for this?”

“No way. This isn’t through that weird agency who wants to see how people respond to demons or whatever.” Kuroo flicks a dismissive hand. “I just think you two will get along. Plus, he lasts way longer than you. I have needs, Tooru~”

Oikawa’s face burns. “I hate you,” growls the medium, glaring down at the pictures in front of him. “You’re interfering with my work, you know.”

“It was a crime of passion!” Kuroo declares boldly. “Always is.”

“Go to hell.”

“What, back to the motherland? No way. Shitty climate and no pastries.”

“Oh my god.”

***

Later on that night, Kuroo creeps into Oikawa’s bedroom and gently swats the book from his hands. “Oi. We should talk.”

Oikawa scowls and reaches for it, marking his page. “What now?”

“Do you really not want him here?” Kuroo asks bluntly, making Oikawa falter. “I know it’s… ‘taking advantage of your hospitality’ or whatever but I really do think you two would get along. And I sort of…” He shifts his feet. “Miss him. Or whatever.”

Oikawa’s eyes glitter. “Aww~ so he does have emotions!”

“Shut up.” Kuroo exhales hard and rolls his eyes. “So should I cancel my invitation or not?”

Oikawa chews on his bottom lip. Would a second really be so bad? Maybe this mystery addition could help with the dishes– neither he nor Kuroo have a taste for them, so they pile up day after day. “I… no,” he relents, sighing. “You can invite him over.”

Kuroo grins. “Knew you would come to your senses,” he says, wings spreading and shifting as he crawls down next to Oikawa. The medium gives an annoyed click of his tongue and pretends to snub him, quickly losing reason to as Kuroo’s fingers press to his jaw and dip down his chest.

Oikawa sleeps well that night, face buried into the devil’s chest.

***

Work is grueling. Oikawa isn’t exactly on top of his game as he stares down at the pictures of the victims, desperately trying to reach out to them, find out what happened. Their precinct suffers a bust, and Oikawa returns home gloomy.

Apparently, it shows. Oikawa sinks down into the armchair and sighs, eyebrows knitted together. Kuroo lopes over and runs his fingers through Oikawa’s hair, the gesture oddly domestic and kind that it makes his eyelids droop. “Rough day?”

“Yeah,” mumbles Oikawa, stiffening when something crashes elsewhere in the house. “What the fu–”

“Oh, that was probably just Hajime.” He can hear the grin on Kuroo’s voice. “Bit of a klutz, that one.”

“Oh lord, he’s here now?” Oikawa gripes, sour eyes locked on the bathroom door as it opens. “I don’t have the energy to…”

The words die in his throat as the unfamiliar incubus– Iwaizumi Hajime, he had been told– steps out. He shares some features with Kuroo in the dark hair and slitted eyes, but the similarities end there. His wings are shorter than Kuroo’s and his tail longer, and the dark tattoos snaking over his body resembling veins rather than the ceremonial markings Kuroo has. Low-slung jeans allow his tail to lash out and he takes a long drag from the cigarette hanging between his fingers, Oikawa desperately trying not to stare at his exposed chest. Smoke curls up around his face and Kuroo chuckles lowly.

“Meet Iwaizumi Hajime,” he says.

***

Ten minutes later Oikawa has locked himself in his bedroom, heart pounding wildly. He really should have thought this over, but then again, he’d had no idea Iwaizumi would look like…

That.

Giving a long groan, Oikawa flops face-down onto his bed. Really, Kuroo was bad enough, and he was a flirt. He had no idea what Iwaizumi would act like, how long he would stay, if he would–

Oikawa’s blood runs cold. Having one incubus touch him was overwhelming, but two– lord, he would have to start drafting his will. Did two of them mean double the appetite, or double the frequency?

Or both?

There’s a cheerful knock on the door. “You alright?” calls Kuroo, voice sounding awfully gleeful. Oikawa cusses to himself. No use trying to hide anything, not when Kuroo and Iwaizumi can literally smell it. Or, well, probably. He’s still not totally sure of how the science behind all of that works.

Reluctantly, Oikawa unlocks and opens the door. Iwaizumi’s lounging on the couch, feet propped up, wearing a tank top that Kuroo had cut holes into for his wings. “I’m… fine,” he says slowly. “I guess I should introduce myself.”

“I know who you are.” Iwaizumi’s voice makes Oikawa feel a little weak in the knees. “Oikawa Tooru, human medium, working for the police.” His eyes flick over to Kuroo. “Terrible taste in men.”

“Excuse me?” Kuroo gawks. “You’re awfully cocky now that we have a human to play with!”

We. It feels official. “Oh my god,” Oikawa says weakly. “So you two have–?”

“Yep,” Iwaizumi says nonchalantly, and though his voice doesn’t sound proud, there’s a smile playing at his lips. “Before we were allowed out. It wasn’t great, but it sufficed in a pinch. Generally humans are the preferred…” He contemplates his word choice. “Vessel.”

Oikawa chokes on his spit and Kuroo, pouting, winds an arm around Oikawa’s hips. “You are a guest in his home,” he reminds pompously. “Be nice to the resident incubus.”

“Is that a requirement?” Iwaizumi’s eyes turn to Oikawa. “Can’t I just pay attention to the host?”

Oikawa hates that he shivers a little. “Be nice to Tetsu-chan,” he says, having to take a second in order to force the words out. “I still have the power to kick you both out.”

Kuroo surveys his nails. “It would take more than an eviction letter.”

Oikawa glares. “I might not be a witch, but my best friend is. He can Banish you.”

Iwaizumi’s eyebrows raise and Kuroo frowns. “That’s rude.”

“It is what it is,” Oikawa says vaguely, trying to regain control of the conversation. I call the shots, you sex leeches.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Iwaizumi snickers into his hand. “Sure, sure,” he says, standing. Oikawa blinks. “Your life would seem so sad without us in it, though.”

Oikawa gasps. “That’s rude!” he defends, tearing himself away from Kuroo and stalking into the living room. “My life is not sad!”

“You’re a mid-twenties medium living alone and working for the fuzz,” Kuroo drawls, following close behind.

“And your last movie rented was…” Iwaizumi squints at the screen Oikawa hadn’t noticed was on. “Pretty In Pink?”

Oikawa’s face burns. “… so?” he asks, voice growing rather meek.

“Your kitchen is full of milk bread and instant meals.”

“Well, I–”

“Your apartment has one bedroom.”

“My apartment is average, you ungrateful–”

“But now we’re here,” Iwaizumi says, cutting off Oikawa’s indignant protests. He walks forward and puts a hand to the juncture of Oikawa’s shoulder and neck– the human takes great pride in the fact that he’s taller than Iwaizumi. His fingers slide up to Oikawa’s jaw, and they’re warm, unlike Kuroo’s. A grin spreads over Iwaizumi’s face. “And things are just getting interesting.”

***

[ao3]

[hyacinthetic]

end of the year writing meme 2k17

because i did this last year and i want to gloat over my truly embarrassing uptick in wordcount.

Total number of completed stories: 8 + 1 wip + 1 snippet.  Total word count: 151,100, MOTHERFUCKER. Fandoms: voltron, persona 5, natsume’s book of friends.

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? TOO MUCH VOLTRON. WAY, WAY TOO MUCH VOLTRON.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? i have 40k of lotor/matt sitting on my hard drive. it's going to break 60k after edits. i don't want this life.

What's your own favorite of the year? the post-series winter cult au was my favorite bit of writing, but i am gonna clutch the pseudo-utena pastiche (disclaimer: not actually related to utena in any way) to my chest all the more because nobody else will. 36K WORDS, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Did you take any writing risks this year? mmm. i've used the second-person pov before to varying degrees of efficacy, but the junior detective kurusu akira fic and the every day au were the first times i really tried to use it as a proper conceit -- a choice that related to the way the character wanted the story framed. ymmv on how well they worked (ha! ha! most of the second-person punch in the junior detective fic happens in the ~20k after the prologue, oh god, nobody even knows what i'm talking about). at the v. least, i still think the every day au's ending wouldn't pack such a punch from any other perspective.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? WRITE STUFF THAT ISN'T VOLTRON, FOR FUCK'S SAKE. i've been reduced to just clawing at doors hissing LET ME GO... LET MY PEOPLE GO ...

From my past year of writing, what was...

My best story of this year: definitely the post-series winter cult. people keep describing it as hard to get into, which, yeah, it is. but it's also the most polished piece from this year.

in general, my best fic is always still the dazai/yosano thing from 2016. i didn't even round out all the subplots for that one, but because it's a crack ship, the whole dynamic is something i made, and i think that earns it a place on the trophy shelf.

My most popular story of this year: the shrine guardian au, i guess? which is bewildering, frankly: it's very fluffy, but i don't see that it does anything better than my other works. not to be all lucille bluth, i love all my children equally!!! and its prose is fine, but i wouldn't call it a standout piece.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: it is a tie between my two big voltron aus -- i understand why the pseudo-utena flopped as hard as it did (60k worth of fic crammed into 36k, badly edited, had to cut two subplots and it still turned out a mess), but the darkest timeline auniverse fic was decent work with mediocre prose and a fuckton of worldbuilding. i'm this close to digging up a worldbuilding meme and answering all the questions that literally nobody will ever ask. THERE WAS SO MUCH TIMELINE BUILDING IN THAT ONE.

Most fun story to write: fun & joy are lies. all fic is suffering. only the motor fic came close, and that was awful in a different way: two characters with little established personality having to build chemistry and worldbuilding at the same time. fuck you both.

Story with the single sexiest moment: hilariously, despite the amount of porn i like to write, none of my fic's been personally sexy to me since 2013's mikorei pwp in which mikoto blew up some buildings and then convinced munakata to fuck him into a wall. what can i say, i'm an arson kind of girl.

Most "holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: nothing posted this year! but i'm gonna talk about my impending january posts because god, fuck, i'm not waiting a year so that i can talk excitedly about my 60k nightmare, i plan to be fucking burned out on voltron by february.

anyway: the first time i tried to explain lotor/matt to my best girl, she promptly texted back in horror: "DID YOU WRITE FIC WHERE LOTOR SOULBONDS MATT AND LEAVES HIM TO GET GANGBANGED." and, like. i want to explain, but the actual explanation wasn't really that much more comforting. so, there'll be that. i guess.

(there's actually no non-con involved! it's not even dubcon! IT'S NOT EVEN MATT WHO GETS LEFT.)

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: the fucking motor fic. i knew what i liked about lotor as i was going in -- 90% of my motivation in writing it was "okay, i can't make any of the existing major lotor ships work for me, let's just throw this ridiculous spaghetti galra at a shipping wall and see what sticks" -- but matt was much more nebulous to me. i know fanon matt isn't all that far off from the matt we actually saw in season 4, but i was interested in someone who wasn't an older, cheerful, ingenious, meme-loving version of pidge. and the detail that i really got stuck on was the fact that he was a cadet when he went to kerberos, even though keith was the best pilot in his class and keith couldn't go. why?

obviously the simpler answer's "narrative convenience" and "why would anyone trust keith enough to send him into space with millions of dollars' worth of space equipment". but i really did want to play with the alternative too.

Hardest story to write: fucking god. the european travelogue was downright awful to get out. i think it's partly that there's an emotional density to it that isn't really present in my other fic, and partly that it's 25K OF SHIRO DESCRIBING ARCHITECTURE THAT IS PERFECTLY EASY FOR ANYBODY TO GOOGLE AND LOOK AT WITH THEIR OWN EYES.

i also found sheith particularly hard to build as a convincing slowburn. i have no idea how anyone does it. the ship's selling point, to me, is that keith would give shiro anything. if shiro weren't romantically interested, keith would live and die for him in every other way and be absolutely satisfied by that. i never write keith as secretly wanting more than shiro can give -- he'll do it by accident, when he misunderstands what shiro's capable of, but ultimately that's not what keith wants himself to be. shiro plays by the rules a little better, understands the risks + selfishness of dating someone only to leave them for a dangerous ten-month expedition -- but when it comes down to it, i can't write them as anything other than two people who understand each other at the baseline, where it counts. like, shiro may not actively acknowledge it, but i don't think he DOESN'T know that keith has no breaking point when it comes to him, and that there is very unlikely to be anyone else who could ever be what shiro is to him.

anyway: 25k of no-plot fluff! jesus! it was a fun little experiment, and i'm still amazed and delighted that anyone hunted my tumblr down to ask for fic. but i'll probably never write anything like that again.

Biggest disappointment: can you believe that i wrote 36k of psychic bonding fic and it didn't lead to telepathic porn? there's a lot in the utena pastiche that made me go "mm, not enough", a lot that was flatly messy first-draft fumbling, and i've never been happy about how it turned out, but that's still the biggest outrage to me. like. what was even the point. there's so much about it that makes me itch to rewrite, but the number-one reason that i never, ever will is that i'd have to find somewhere to fit porn to make it worth my time AND SOME THINGS ARE JUST IMPOSSIBLE.

Biggest surprise: i!! posted!! 100k+ words!!!!!!! WITH OVERFLOWING PUNCTUATION BECAUSE I DESERVE IT, MOTHERFUCKER. ficwise, though -- the lotor/matt au. why the fuck would you ship two characters who literally have no screen time together, share nothing in common, and are unlikely to develop a dynamic in future seasons, let alone this one? answer: ME: You have to promise to read the Lotor/Matt thing even though I've realised that their portmanteau is "Motor". MY GIRL: WELL now i have to read it ME: ME: Never mind, your boner killed mine.

but the joke's on me, because the one way to guarantee that i'll write something is a hot girl telling me she'll read it.

i love how most of this meme is grim self-encouragement to finish a fic that feels like it is literally killing me by dint of being the longest goddamn thing i've written in my life.

Most unintentionally telling story: well, it was GONNA be the junior detective kurusu akira fic, but i DIDN'T FINISH THAT.

on a more personal note: the every day au's ending was never in question for me. i'm rarely in the mood for conversation, but i can't stand keeping my feelings to myself: i don't feel real unless someone else can see me. it's why i like to yell in my post tags and do memes even though i follow like three actual personal blogs and a significant portion of this tumblr's designed to actively discourage 90% of people who stumble across it from adding me. the idea that, when you strip the viewer out, the object disappears -- that's probably as 'me' as a story gets.

Highlights + Wrap-up

Favourite Opening Lines (3):

The courthouse's a brushfire of camera lenses.

You wake up. [ ed. nt: not really the most unique or interesting of opening lines, but i've started to appreciate how this echoes throughout the piece and then builds into a clusterfuck chorus by the end. ]

[ nope. the other first lines weren't that great. fuck you, meme.]

Favorite 5 Line(s) Ficbits from Anywhere: [ ed. nt: fuck you, word limits & punctuation. ]

"I knew you were gone—long gone. No one could've called you back. But I just kept saying—if they were really Voltron, you'd be with them. You'd have come back for me."

"You stand," Allura whispers, "on territory that was consecrated by the five rituals of essential transference. You stand within the walls that my grandfather built, the walls for which my father sacrificed everything to keep from enemy dominion. The planet Altea remains because I lay claim to it, because I have not yielded to time and I will not yield. You may have served as Zarkon's witch; but in these halls, your very life hangs on Altea's mercy, my mercy. Either you'll remember an Altean's manners or a prisoner's—but so long as you speak to me, Haggar, you will choose one." -- so this fic was a series of dramatic triumphs that i did not build up to and therefore had no right to put in, but i don't care. if i'm going to write 100k++ of fic in a year, it's gonna be spread out over like ten different fics. and this is my favorite of the dramatic non-love confessional speeches that i wrote this year.

Keith lisps briefly and nastily under his breath. "Why would anyone pronounce an apostrophe?” <-- me throwing shade at a hundred years of scifi.

[ fuck you, listicles. ]

[ fuck you pt. 2. all the other sentences sucked. ]

Trivia left out of three fic:

pidge survives the events of the every day au and does eventually go on to form voltron. i left the fic where i did as a dramatic stopping point; in my head, i always knew where things were going to go afterwards. this clarity was helped in no small part because i had to immediately spill my guts to my best girl after she finished reading and realised in outrage that i'd given her a 19k fic in which her otp kissed zero (0) times. but yeah, everything works out -- albeit with a superdose of trauma -- and keith and pidge in particular have a moment which appeals to all my friendship kinks. i couldn't write the sequel in second-person, though, which is probably why i'll never do it. if i can't be pretentious and tragic, and i still can't work in any porn, then what is the point.

shiro, in the weird tattoo porn thing, has no idea of the effect he's having. in his mind, he's just being reasonable. this ties into my preference for writing s3-4!shiro as someone who thinks of himself as the same man who fell to earth a year ago, someone who has survived the galra over and over, someone who wants to lead in the war and deserves to do it. the trouble with this is that about one-point-five of those things are not necessarily things that the original shiro actually believes. i love this discrepancy between writing the two: there's one who buys into his own mythology of being a hero, and there's one who just wants everyone to survive and be happy and safe. in an ideal world (note: ideal to nobody but me), project kuron would be a thing where they created a perfect clone of shiro with all his memories but accidentally infused it with just enough galra beliefs about strength and the importance of war that it sabotages voltron's mission. that particular shiro doesn't mean to be fucked up, but his beliefs are, and he doesn't realise it until after the fallout of everything he's done hits the team. it's the entire basis for his behavior afterwards. this is one of those character development things that fell into the margins between the tattoo porn and its weird au sequel. i should have written the fic in between, i'm sure it would've been less confusing for everyone who read the goddamn sequence, but honestly, you could not pay me enough to write about keith and shiro's relationship falling apart.

this was never made explicit in the fic itself, though it seems pretty clear to me, but here goes. of the ten photographs, nine are pictures that shiro takes for keith to remember them by. the last is one that keith takes for shiro.

Lessons learned about writing in 2017:

when in doubt during edits, read the paragraph out loud. you don't have to do it very loudly, but people respond to something that flows off the tongue even if they aren't actually reading it out to themselves.

you're a niche writer. you write for you. that means you don't really have to edit if you're tired.

deadlines are bullshit. don't sign up for any more events featuring those.

with the way i write, there's always an element of mistrust. in my shorter fics, people are breaking up because they can't trust each other, or they're teetering on the brink of getting together -- but. in my longer fics, i really, really love to throw an unexplained element of mistrust into the mix (see: the fic where shiro leaves his own dimension and refuses to go back without any explanation) and only 'reveal 'it at the end. mistrust is an easy shortcut to tension. it's a good way to reframe the story, but it's also ... hm. predictable if it's literally all you write? i like to think that i'm capable of writing plots whose value isn't entirely based on the way they're told. i just need to let the story breathe once in a while.

the comma before 'too' is grammatically incorrect when that's the end of the sentence. my entire life is a goddamn lie.

there's such a thing as overdetail. a loose sketch and a twinkle of atmosphere will do better than three dense paragraphs detailing exactly where all the cathedrals are. my god, i never want to leave this continent again.

the best writing feeling is posting something and then tweaking all the small mistakes out of it. the second-best writing feeling is bringing someone you like a freshly-killed (read: edited) piece of prose, then demanding pets and cuddling for your great act of magnimity and courage.

looking back on my life, i should have been born a cat.

Fic-writing goals for 2018

post/finish all 80k of my existing drafts, THEN LEAVE VOLTRON FOREVER, I'M SO DARKLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS EXODUS.

seriously, write for any fandom but voltron. oh my god.

maybe i can just dive headfirst into ocean's eight and write a lot of bantery f/f until everyone forgets my embarrassing gay robolion phase.

a sci-fi au for nirvana in fire, heavily influenced by recent military scifi, in which (contrary to all the imperial death traditions) the chiyan army's memories and consciousness are ostensibly deleted from the imperial archives as punishment for their betrayal. several years down the line, jingyan finds his political influence rising with the advice of a helpful and very insistent ai advisor. IT'S TOO COMPLICATED AND I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT IT.

did you know that the natori/matoba section on ao3 has no explicit fic at all? like, zero. 2018 goals, baby. i don't care that nobody needs to know what horrible things they'd do to each other in bed. i'm gonna be this ship's rule 34, or the arsonist who burns down the house of the person who gets to it before me.

[gaiabamman]

Oh my! SorryI was sooooo busy working on the Italian saga that I kind of fell of the face of the Earth. I’m still here, I am well, and I finished the draft of book 3 in the new Italian Saga series! (Number 7 over all!) 

If you don’t know me, I am Gaia B Amman, part ninja, part unicorn, and the author of the Italian Saga

Meanwhile, get your sci-fi fix ;)

Warning: some explicit content.

Get the full book now as paperback, Kindle, or Audible!

Summary: Nala (liberal) and Lethal (conservative) linked! In spite of their huge differences they now share their consciousness and their skills. Nala has to face her responsibilities as a soldier and decide if she will kill “the enemy” of commit desertion. Also, it is completely normal for Cursoi like Nala and Lethal to merge, the equivalent of human intercourse. Their system is non binary and Cursoi are free to identify (or not) as they please and merge with whom they like, but Nala, who was raised human, struggles with the system, forcing Lethal to hold back too. Who is the liberal one after all?

The evening is awkward, again. The interest in the new girl faded as soon as it was clear I wasn’t gonna merge with anyone. In a way, linking kind of saved me from public shame. Apprentices seem to think Lethal and I became exclusive.

As if.

I shoot longing glances toward Drama, and Lethal is lusting for anyone but, downing Libre like he’s on a mission. I even think he might have considered Dime for a brief second, but maybe that was me.

Zera purrs, “Hey, you haven’t been around much, lately.” It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to Lethal, not me. I guess when I’m tired it’s harder to keep myself into my brain.

Lethal mumbles, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, and downing a glass of Libre, “Mm, been busy.”

“With Rogue?” Echo jibes, and everyone laughs. Everyone but me, Lethal, and Drama.

Min quips, “Why so serious Drama, you don’t like to share anymore?”

“Your ass, anytime,” Drama mutters.

I catch myself looking at him, wondering if he knows how it feels to kill a man.

Nala!

I turn to Lethal who slowly shakes his head flashing images of orgies in my brain to distract me from my pity party. I shake my head, but the attempt is endearing. Stop it! I’m okay.

Zera’s small boobs.

Stop it!

Echo’s sweet ass.

I down a glass of Libre and engage in conversation with Min, who catches me up on every bit of funny mishap that happened during the missions we missed while we were unconscious. He says, “Kino has been the muscle since Lethal… went Rogue!”

I can’t help a bitter bout of laughter at the witty turn of words, but Lethal darkens. As much as he hates killing, it’s the only thing that makes him feel needed. I try not to linger on his foggy feelings as he downs more Libre.

I fight the haze clouding his brain, and ask Min, “How does Kino kill?”

“He clots blood.”

Gross.

Right? Lethal thinks in my head.

Crushing organs isn’t prettier.

“Rogue! Lethal!” We jump at Ghost’s chiding. He shakes his head.

“What?” Min asks.

“We should not talk in each other’s head. It’s not healthy,” I admit, a little ashamed, hating that Ghost is around after hours. He goes to talk to Browser and Dime, who nod and walk away with him, maybe on a mission.

“Why?” Zera asks. “Lethal became a bit less of an asshole since you linked. It’s the first time in almost eighteen years that I’m actually fancying Lethal for something other than his… body.” She winks, and everyone laughs.

I feel detached from all the banter, yet amazement fills me, when I realize that Lethal just blushed. I turn to him to confirm that’s the case and my awe resonates in his bewilderment. He would love for someone to actually like him, after all.

I’m just drunk, he says.

I stare at him a little too long, his big eyes staring self-consciously at his hands. I shake it off, conscious of Drama’s prying gaze, and I answer Zera’s question, “Well, it’s unhealthy because it blurs the line between my consciousness and his. It’s good when we keep each other in check.”

“Mmm,” Echo says, biting a cuticle. “I liked when Lethal kept me in check.”

A bunch of girls nod, and I burst out laughing with the bout of lust that overtook Lethal, and me, but he’s the one stuck under the table.

“Oh, I’ll come around, soon enough,” he says, without lifting his gaze. “I’ve just been adjusting.”

“Yeah, right.” Drama snorts, and it kills me that I have no idea what he means.

Brain says in my head, A small contingent of extremist Saturnites aimed their satellite on the Red Quarters. We just caught sight of it on the u-radar. Eliminate them.

Emo clears the Libre out of everyone’s system, and we are on the run.

I run to the meeting point, reveling in my sudden mental clarity, strength, and agility.

You’re welcome, Lethal thinks, clearly pissed about the years of painful training I skipped. He keeps flashing memories of endless pushup series and painful morning runs in my head.

I need to touch him, to reassure us both and feel the golden light, but as much as there’s nothing he’d like more, he’s too proud and a little angry. He was really hoping for a bender. He hated that Ghost found out that a very young Grayson killed his Master, likely in self-defense.

Hey, it wasn’t your fault, I say.

The thought sounds cheesy and does nothing to stop the whirlwind of hatred going through Lethal’s brain about being weak, about letting the Master do to him whatever he wanted, about deserving everything that happened to him, and about the bonking curse of the skill he’s been stuck with ever since.

Lethal, stop.

I walk to him and take his hand. He flinches, but does not pull back and the light soothes us both. We have to wait for everyone to gather. I had always been last, before linking.

Kino and Vulture come in, naked. It amazes me how Cursoi don’t flinch in front of nudity but can’t stop staring at Lethal and I holding hands. A glare from Lethal causes everyone to mind their own business. Ghost throws some clothes to whomever needs them, and Dime blinks us away.

We blink into one of the many artificial satellites surviving within Saturn’s mostly gaseous, very thick atmosphere. The Capital’s Apprentices are gathered on the upper deck of the main hall, away from the many eyes below us, which are aimed instead at the speaker on the podium. Everything glints in metal, white, and artificial lights.

The speaker, wearing the grades of Commander within the Interplanetary Coalition, yells, “We live in this dung hole to provide them the hydrogen they need to make water and survive, and what do we get in exchange? A ban from Earth? This is not the gratitude we deserve!” The crowd cheers and yells back. He adds, “We did not choose Saturn like our ancestors did centuries ago. We all came from Earth at one point! This nonsense has to come to an end! Our sacrifice will free the coalition of the biggest bigot ever!”

The crowd chants back, pumping their fists in the air, “Free the coalition! Free the coalition!”

Lethal says, Nala, you’re holding me back.

I reply, You can’t seriously be thinking of killing all these people.

I don’t think. It’s an order, and they will die anyway, out of their own doing.

To kill the president. There’s gotta be another way.

Nala, they’ll start a war that will kill millions. You’re wasting time. Nala!

I falter, and everyone in the hall below us crumples to the ground.

When we blink back, the report barely registers with me. Vulture getting rid of the bodies. Ghost resetting the satellite coordinates and requesting a new crew. Zera and Emo making sure no diplomatic incident ensues.

I’m numb.

I have killed two-hundred people.

The golden light spreads around me, and I realize Lethal took my hand. He leads me back to our place. As soon as we are in, he closes the door behind us, hugs me, and cries.

I wake up in Lethal’s arms, fully clothed, face bathed in tears. I was having terrible nightmares, like when we linked at first. Merging with dead bodies. Walking by myself over a desert of corpses. Lethal holds me tighter and I let him. I cannot believe I judged him. I keep seeing all those people, crumpling to the floor, over and over. I start to hyperventilate.

Nala—Rogue, we were just carrying out orders. You have to separate yourself from the action, from the responsibility.

I don’t know if I can. I sob. Zera could have erased them. Took their bonking suicidal plan out of their heads.

It was their own choice, Nala. Their freewill.

And mine to take their life, I reply, because we did have a choice. I did. I did not feel as compelled as I should have. Did you?

Lethal shakes his head and says, Opposing orders means taking responsibility for the consequences, though.

True.

It’s easier with time. Maybe because I remember surviving. Lethal pauses. Or maybe because I forgot what it really means to live.

When I wake up again, Lethal has a strange look in his eyes, almost spirited. He’s not holding me anymore, and I miss the golden light.

I can’t take it anymore, he says. The need to merge is a hunger ever-expanding within him, and me. The Saturn mission only made it worse. Withdrawal is much stronger for him. He feels weak, anxious, angry, way more than I do, probably because I merged only once in my life. I immediately think of Drama, and Lethal’s self-hatred reaches record levels.

After all that happened today, fucking doesn’t seem that bad of a choice anymore. I want to forget, get lost, vent. I need to connect, to merge, let it all go, and it grosses me out.

Lethal stands up and storms out of the nest.

I sigh, barely registering him as he walks to the park, and meets with people. Except that he doesn’t want to chat. He wants to merge.

Lethal’s consciousness breaks through mine only a few minutes later, when arousal interrupts my train of thought. He is in his place with Zera and Echo, the three of them kissing, half naked. Anger overtakes me, and I wish I were as repulsed by them as he was by Drama, but I’m better than that, or worse. I’m not sure, but my body tingles and my heart starts racing.

I try to get out of his head, burying my face under the pillows, but I feel his erection grow under Echo’s attentive fingers, her tongue on his neck, right below the ear, and I burst into tears, feeling as abandoned and lonely as I have ever been. Also, I am getting wet, which is confusing and frustrating.

Back in Lethal’s place, Echo asks him, “Lethal? Are you… crying?”

He lived with his own pain for so long, I doubt mine is enough to give him a second thought. Lethal shakes his head, ignoring the tears, and never meeting her eyes. He can’t talk though. He just wants to fuck all his pain out, but I know that’s not how I’ll feel better, and now he does too. He still doesn’t stop, biting Zera’s shoulder pretty hard. She moans.

I keep crying, pretending the way my body feels is because of Drama, pretending that my own personal demon isn’t keeping me from merging with the man I was falling for. There’s no love in Lethal’s hands, in his mouth. Whatever love he had is agonizing here with me.

I see Zera half naked, gorgeous with her alabaster skin, her small breasts in Lethal’s hands, my hands. I hate it, but I still feel lust. Lethal doesn’t meet Zera’s or Echo’s gaze. He never looks his partners in the eye. Echo is sliding out of her pants, but Lethal thinks he should find that a lot more exciting than he actually does. Lethal thinks this is all dung. Lethal stops.

I hold my breath while he lies to them. “Mission,” he says. “Gotta go.”

“Two missions in a day? That splurts,” Zera says, turning her attention to Echo, who calls,

“See you later, Lethal!”

I know Lethal is coming back to me.

[just-a-re-blog]

Limbic Resonance

So, I tried my hand at a little science fiction with my boy Min Yoongi, and I’m actually surprisingly proud of this??? Let me know what you guys think of it :)

~HMR

Yoongi watched you pace back and forth, flats clicking softly against the polished tiles. He noticed the way your left index finger scratched at a worn spot on your white coat and the way you kept pulling your bottom lip in between your teeth; he knew you’d bite deep enough to leave scars—he’d caught glimpses of them before. He tilted his head with a curious smirk playing on his lips.

“What’s wrong, doc?” he asked from behind the glass. “I misdiagnose someone?”

Your eyes snapped up to meet his in a glare. “You know you didn’t.”

Yoongi leaned against the back of his chamber with his arms crossed. “Then why are you so concerned?”

He watched your walk quicken as your other hand tugged at your ponytail holder, freeing your hair so you could fluff it in annoyance. Finally, you sat down heavily in your desk chair, slumping onto the table with a frustrated yell.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” you shouted to no one in particular. Your next words were far quieter with defeat. “But I’ve run three separate analyses five times each, and they always come back with the same results.”

“You gonna tell me what’s wrong with me, doc, or am I gonna have to come over there myself and prove that I’m healthy as can be?”

You heard the light lilt to his voice and wheeled around to face him, angry that he was still so willing to tease at such a serious time. “Don’t bother trying,” you growled. “It’s locked.”

“Oh!” he laughed. “Locked me in for once, did you?” He peeled himself from the back wall and leaned on the front pane, forehead resting on his arm, brown hair falling into his face. He lowered his voice and stared at you with empty eyes and an emotionless smile. “Does it make you feel safer, Y/N? I thought you weren’t scared of me.”

You stood up at the challenge and strode towards him with unwavering conviction. You slammed your palm on the glass in front of him, jaw set and irises flashing on the edge of danger. “I’ve never been scared of you, Yoongi.”

He chuckled under his breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, they were back to their electric, icy blue, light dancing in that way that suggested there was something living inside them. He sat down cross-legged, and you followed his lead on the other side of the barrier, laying your forehead against the same spot his rested. You sighed with a tired smile as he smirked from underneath his lashes.

“So tell me, Y/N—am I dying, or is what you created me to be dying?”

You looked at the floor, unable to meet his soft gaze. “You.”

Yoongi sucked his teeth quietly. “Mm, that’s a shame. Can’t say I didn’t figure as much, though.”

You stared at him worriedly. “Wait, do you feel it?” you asked, panic coating your words. He reached out to press his fingertips to the glass and you mirrored him.

“No, no. Not yet. I feel fine right now.” He grinned when the fear slid from your hunched shoulders, but he saw it still etched into the corners of your mouth and harbored in the creased skin around your eyes. “Let me guess,” he laughed wryly. “I have cancer.”

You shook your head. “Not quite.”

“Damn. I always wanted to die ironically.”

“Yoongi, you can’t say things like that. Do you know how many people dread that diagnosis? How hard it is for families to deal with those words?” He cocked his head and frowned, lips pulled up in a small smile. “Right,” you sighed. “Dumb question. I’m sorry. I’m not making sense right now. I’m really frazzled.”

He wanted to reach out and ruffle your hair or pull you into himself so he could sing you into a slumber where the reality of his decay wasn’t harsh and inevitable. But Yoongi knew the cage rule had to be enforced on Namjoon’s orders, especially after all the trouble you’d gotten in the last time Taehyung had walked in to see your hand on his cheek. Especially now that he was dying.

Instead, he let you do things your way, encouraging you to talk and reason your way to a conclusion that could bring you peace.

“So what exactly did the tests say?”

You played with the hem of your lab coat as if the fabric held the answers to your confusion. “Your cells…they’re deteriorating. Unraveling from their helixes like files being corrupted.”

“Oh,” he breathed. “That’s…unfortunate.”

“It’s not just unfortunate, it’s illogical. There’s no reason your cellular matrix should be unstable. Seokjin is going to jump off a cliff when he hears.” You rubbed at the lines in your forehead. Yoongi marveled at the way you could never keep your hands sufficiently occupied.

You remembered being hoisted over Jungkook’s shoulder in celebration when he and Jin had finally achieved their breakthrough in securely splicing together the combinations of genes that would make up Yoongi. Jungkook would forgo food and sleep to feed his burning desire to correct the error; Jin would beat himself to death over the fact that an error had occurred in the first place.

Yoongi pursed his lips. “It’s not…contagious, right? It’s not caused by some virus or something that I could have passed on?”

“No. You’re the only one this can affect.”

“Good.” He nodded. “That’s a relief.”

His eyes wandered your face as you locked yourself somewhere in your memory he couldn’t quite reach. He figured you were probably thinking about his creation, reminiscing about the days you spent bent over a drafting table while your team puzzled out how to create a being capable of enduring transfusion after transfusion. It had seemed you were successful: Yoongi had helped cure more patients than you could count, filtering diseases through his own body so Jimin could isolate what genes and antibodies were best at fighting them off. Yoongi had endured numerous trials of radical experimental treatments with smiles and lighthearted jokes. At least when he was around you. The others treated him like what he technically was—a genetically modified centrifuge, a sentient petri dish. Only you could see the genuine life pulsing through him.

Yoongi could remember opening his eyes for the first time to take in your face looming in his vision. He could still hear the way your voice warped through the glass. When everyone else had finally grown tired of the spectacle of him, you alone had remained to help him from his containment cell, supporting him as his new legs refused to hold his weight. You had dressed him with gentle hands in a sweatshirt and baggy shorts. You told him your name and explained that he was Project M.I.N., designed to help doctors treat incurable diseases without having to use humans or animals as test subjects. He remembered how small his voice had sounded, even to him, when he had asked you if he could be called by something else—a real name like yours, not a title. You had looked at him with such shock in your eyes—he hadn’t been expected to think so quickly. But you smiled and thought for a moment before suggesting that he go by Yoongi; you’d always liked that name. He lost track of the moments that made him fall in love with you, and was completely unsure of what moments made you fall for him, but that first grin was never clouded or muddied in his mind.

He finally blinked to free himself from his own memories to realize you were silently crying. He had never seen you cry before.

“Y/N,” he said softly, something akin to pain constricting his chest. “Y/N, don’t cry. Look at me.” You lifted your eyes to him, and the brokenness there made the space behind his ribs ache more. He forced a smile onto his face. “Are you crying because I’m dying or because your life’s work is being destroyed from the inside out?”

You rubbed at your face exasperatedly. “Does it have to be one or the other?”

The two of you sat there without speaking for a few minutes. Finally, against your better judgement, you stood and typed in the code to unlock his door.

“Y/N—” he started.

“Save it.”

Yoongi shook his head and backed into the wall. “I’m not going to be the one to get you in trouble,” he insisted. “This is a bad idea.”

“I want you to hug me, Yoongi,” you said, stepping inside and silencing the warning sirens blaring in your head. “That’s never a bad idea.”

You took long strides toward the corner he occupied. Hesitantly, he reached out a hand and ran it along your arm before pulling you into an embrace. You let the feeling of his breath, still strong and invincible in his chest, calm your frenzied mind.

“Why do they all fear me so much?” he whispered against your skin. “Why do they lock me up in this container and avoid my gaze if I try to get them to laugh?”

You pressed your hands harder into the plaid fabric covering his shoulder blades. “They don't see you as human, and humanity is all they’ve ever known. I don’t think you’re dangerous…but that doesn’t mean I know that you’re completely safe. None of us do. I mean, you’ve passed a hundred noninfectious diseases through your blood. Who knows what would happen if the diseases mutated in your body into something communicable? The people that want to put you in here just don’t know everything you are or can be.”


“But they created me. How can they not know what I am?” He sighed. “They shouldn’t be scared of me like I’m a lion or a shark. I’m more like your kind than a wild animal.”

Your voice was almost inaudible in the stifling air. “If someone dies because they were attacked by a bear, we can blame nature. If someone dies because of a failed experiment, we can only blame ourselves. They’re not willing to take that risk.”

“Why are you?”

“Because I fell in love with you, Min Yoongi.”

“Y/N?” a high voice said from behind you. You whirled around to take in Jimin standing with his jaw agape outside the open glass door. His wide eyes matched yours.

“D-Dr. Park, I—I didn’t realize—this isn’t—” you stammered, backing into Yoongi protectively.

Jimin put a hand up, speechless for a minute. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe this,” he finally said softly. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me do this.”

Yoongi tried to push you away from himself, tried to make it seem as though Jimin hadn’t walked in on a display of affection between you two, but it was to no avail; you stood your ground. “Jimin, stop. Please, you don’t have to do this,” you begged as Jimin pulled out his phone.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t what I want for you, Y/N. But Dr. Kim will find out. And if it gets out that I knew…well, let’s just say I’m a lot less willing to jeopardize the work I do here than you are.” He put the phone to his ear. “Yes, Dr. Kim? I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s been a breach with Project M.I.N.” He was silent for a moment before meeting your eyes with pity. “Yes, sir. It’s her.”

“No, that’s not true,” Yoongi called out, stepping around you. “No, it was me. It’s not her fault. I tricked her into coming in here. It’s not her fault.”

But Jimin doesn’t falter, only muttering, “Yes, sir, he is. No, sir. It appeared to be mutual.”

You grabbed Yoongi’s shoulders and forced him to look at you. “Yoongi, it’s okay. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“No, I’m not going to let you take the fall for this and lose your job.” His deep blue eyes held an alarm you’d never seen.

You slipped your hands into his. “Yoongi, this is my own fault. I’m going to be fine. And I’m going to find a cure for you, okay? I swear I’m going to save you.”

He hugged you tightly, his body shaking slightly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let you come in here.”

“Are you crying?” you asked, trying to pull away to wipe at his tears. His grip didn’t loosen. “I’m not leaving, Yoongi. I won’t let them leave you alone.” You felt another set of hands around your waist, separating the two of you. “Don’t struggle, don’t struggle,” you whispered to him as they pulled you away. Your errant risk-taking had already put your job in danger—no need to let your mistake lead to Yoongi earmarking himself as an even bigger threat than he was already tagged as.

You strode out of the room with your head held high, a straight-faced façade hiding the fear in your eyes. Yoongi watched you go with another pang of discomfort radiating through his body. Jimin shut the glass door and stared at Yoongi, watching his tears with narrowed eyes. He turned and left without a word.

Yoongi slid to the floor and ran a hand through his hair. Uncharacteristically, a few strands fell to the floor. He couldn’t swallow the feeling of panic that rose in his chest as he realized that the hairs were blond, his genes already visibly turning against their former inclinations.

“Wait, do you feel it?”

He could lie to you, but he had no idea how to lie to himself.

You steeled yourself with deep breaths as your escort opened the door to Namjoon’s office. Namjoon’s gaze lifted from the man in front of him, and Dr. Jung turned around, his eyes finding yours with a genuine fear for your future embedded in his irises. You smiled as brightly as you could at him, and Namjoon did the same.

“Ah, come in, doctor. Dr. Jung, I hope you don’t mind. I have something to take care of with your associate. We can finish going over the results of your project tonight.” He flashed a grin that outsiders would have found charming, but the people under Namjoon’s management knew the smile only meant danger.

Hoseok left the room, mouthing good luck. You sat down before Namjoon as the door shut behind you. He stared at you blankly for a moment before he spoke.

“Would you like to explain to me,” he finally started, “why Dr. Park had to report fraternization with Project M.I.N.? I thought I had been fairly clear the last time when your instructions were to keep his unit sealed at all times.” He chuckled darkly. “But maybe you misunderstood during our last meeting. So I’d like to hear your side. Why did you disobey your orders?”

You sat up straighter and looked your boss in the eye, refusing to play the scared little girl you always did. “He’s dying, Dr. Kim.” Namjoon’s expression shifted into a frown. “His genetic structure is ripping itself apart at the seams. The last of my tests confirmed it today.” Namjoon sat back in his chair, fingers tapping together and folding against one another.

“Mm,” he breathed softly. “Well, that does change our plans quite a bit.” His head tilted to the side as he narrowed his eyes at you. “But I still find myself lacking an answer to my question. Why did you disobey your orders?”

“Because he was scared. I told him he was sick, and he was scared. So I comforted him.” Namjoon scoffed and rubbed a hand across his face.

“I will never understand,” he mumbled to himself. “It’s an experiment, Y/N. A genetic hybrid pieced together in the confines of a laboratory. It is not a human being that needs to be coddled or have emotions addressed. How could you love a mutant like that?”

You stiffened, inhaling sharply. “His genes are human. He—” You emphasized the word. “—is human. I won’t ever deny falling in love with a good man.”

Dr. Kim let out a bark of a laugh. “I’d fire you if I could,” he said pointedly, no emotion in his eyes. “But you know too much. The President would have you put in front of a firing squad. And I think it’s a shame to blow such beautiful brains out the back of your head.” His fingers drummed absently on his desk before he spoke again. His tone was dangerously even. “You’re banned from Hallway F, and your access to Project M.I.N. is revoked.”

You blanched. “What?”

“You’re off the project, doctor. You’ll be reassigned to Dr. Jung’s team, and your work will be distributed to your old associates under Seokjin.” He went back to the papers splayed in front of him without another glance at you.

In all your declarations of love in defense of Yoongi’s humanity, you had assumed you were more necessary than you truly were. “I don’t—I don’t understand. You can’t just kick me off of Yoongi’s case. I helped create him. I spent years of my life pouring myself into his synthesis and maintaining his care. I—”

“Exactly. You’re too close to the subject now. You can’t be objective enough to realize the experiment was a failure.”

You stood, your chair scraping noisily across the floor. Namjoon still didn’t look up. “How can you say that? Yoongi has saved hundreds of lives since his inception. There are families that owe everything to him.”

He shook his head. “Yet Project M.I.N. is the root of the disobedience of one of my brightest employees, and now its genetic structure is flawed. Seems like an appropriate time to scrap this model and start again.”

Everything in you froze with the nonchalantness in his voice, the ease with which he spoke about letting a man who saved so many others die without lifting a finger to help.

“You would let him die?”

“I’d expedite the process,” he said coldly. You pictured Yoongi writhing in pain and panic as they tied his frail body to a board so he could be shot. They wouldn’t be able to euthanize him with silent poisons; his system was too resistant. You pictured the blood and tears that would stain his face after the execution, the way he would hang limply with eyes that were only half-shut, and you bit back a sob.

Your voice took on desperation, your strength and pride gone entirely. You were ready to beg. “No. No, you can’t. Namjoon—” His eyes flashed dangerously to your face. “Dr. Kim. Please, let me find a way to save him. Please. We can’t lose Yoon—Project M.I.N. Just let me find a cure. You don’t have to let me back in my lab. I’ll work on a different floor, in a different building, whatever it takes. But please don’t make me watch my life’s work be destroyed.” Don’t let me watch the love of my life be destroyed.

“I really do think it’s best to end this project, but I think if there’s a cure worth more than its cost, Dr. Park, Dr. Jeon, and the two Kims are more than capable of finding it without your help.”

“Please!” you cried, unable to stop the trembling of your bottom lip. His eyes finally lifted again and searched your expression.

“How long does it have?”

“Two weeks at best.” He nodded thoughtfully.

“Well, heaven knows you’ll never get anything done for me if I don’t let you try,” he conceded at last. “It’s a race then. You against its death date. I’m not putting the others to work on this. I don’t think it’s worth further investment. But I can afford your divergence from more important matters for two weeks. You’re free to work in the Lafferre Building until you synthesize a cure. Or until Project M.I.N. expires.” He waved a hand, dismissing you as he went back to scribbling notes on his spreadsheets.

You ran from the room, sprinting towards Yoongi’s only hope at life and praying you could uncover it before it was too late.

Yoongi was grateful you weren’t around to see his decline. He didn’t care that the air in his cage became stale and only made it harder for his collapsing chest to draw in oxygen. He didn’t care that Jimin never looked him in the eye when he tossed his measly portions of food into the cell like he was a dog or that Jungkook’s lip was always curled in fear when he got close enough to scrawl reports of the change of the color of his eyes, skin, and hair. He just cared that the faces that entered his room were never yours and that meant he never had to fake a comforting smile.

You, on the other hand, agonized over the notes you received, betraying how very little time you had to fix Yoongi’s DNA. You couldn’t reconcile the picture they painted with the boy you knew, the boy you fell in love with—brown locks replaced with platinum blond, blue eyes faded to a dirtied hazel. You wanted your Yoongi back.

You channeled your terror into a furious work ethic, ceaselessly studying his old genes against the mutations they carried now, comparing the effects of various gene-replacement therapies on samples of his blood. Jin would sneak in to help you some days, pulling you from hopeless paths to set you on the road to different solutions. You could see his heartbreak in his eyes, and you were thankful that you weren’t the only one who cared about Yoongi’s fate.

Nine days after your quest began, you rushed out of the lab with a cure you prayed would reverse, or at least halt, the damage. The guard policing the door to your old room refused to let you in until you were screaming at him to call Namjoon. You were finally granted access to the lab, and you swiped your key card and flung the door open like a woman on fire.

You almost didn’t recognize his bony figure curled into a corner of his glass enclosure. From a distance, you couldn’t tell if his back even still moved with breath. You stepped forward on shaky legs. You typed in the code on his door, and your heart leapt into your throat when he didn’t so much as stir at the noise. You walked to his spot on the floor and dropped to your knees beside him. Your hands found a weak pulse in his neck as you took in his silvery hair and pale skin stretched over nothing more than bones.

“Yoongi?” you whispered.

His eyebrows pulled together as his lashes fluttered apart to reveal dark gray irises. You loved the color more than you’d ever loved the blue. His eyes met yours with as much shock as he could muster. “Y-Y/N?” he stuttered softly.

You pulled him into your arms carefully, wincing when he groaned at the sitting position you held him in. “It’s okay, Yoongi. I’m here. I’m going to fix you, okay?” You pulled the needle’s protective sleeve off with your teeth and sunk the metal point into his skin, pushing down on the plunger. He didn’t have the strength to flinch or tense at the prick. It broke something in your chest.

His shaking hand found your cheek, brushing away tears you didn’t know were falling. “I…I’m sorry,” he breathed. “Please d-don’t…cry.”

“Shh, Yoongi. Just hold on for me, okay? Just long enough for this to work. Please hold on for me, baby.”

You laid him down slowly, moving strands of his hair off his forehead as he gasped softly.  He smiled at you, and for a second, you could almost pretend he was just waking up from the type of restful nap he used to love.

“Are you crying…because I’m…dying…or because…what you created me…to be is?” You broke down and buried your face against his neck.

“How could you even ask me that?” you sobbed. “I love you, Yoongi.”

You could hear the smile in his voice. “How could you…fall in love…with a thing like me? Don’t cry, Y/N. You shouldn’t…shouldn’t waste your pain…on things that aren’t human.”

“Yoongi, I love you. Just tell me you love me, Yoongi,” you begged.

“Y/N…” His hand tangled in your hair. “You’re the only thing…I ever loved.”

Your tears slid across his skin. “Please hang on. I love you, Yoongi.” You were stuck in a cycle of the same mumbled words.

He rubbed the back of your head with his weak fingers, whispering his quiet adoration for you until he stiffened and you felt the last pang of life drain from the pulse by your cheek. His hand fell to the ground and you pulled away to watch his face settle with the ghost of his old smile and your name on his lips.

“Yoongi!” you screeched, falling against his shoulder.

Namjoon watched from the doorway with his arms crossed and no expression in his eyes. It was finally over. He turned to the team behind him.

“We won’t make the same mistakes next time,” he said, a warning buried in his words.

He dismissed the boys and watched as they all walked away, narrowing his eyes at the shake to Seokjin’s shoulders. He looked over his shoulder at you cradling the failed experiment in your arms. He nodded to the guard to shut the door and strode down the hall, leaving you to scream Yoongi’s name in peace.

[radiofreefandom]

TRANSCRIPT: Episode 201 – Undead Heist Crew with Jenny Hamilton

Claire: Hello, and welcome back to Radio Free Fandom, the podcast where my guests and I get down and nerdy about the media and stories that we love. Welcome to Season 2! Because we have seasons now, because podcasts are hard to make. You can’t make them every two weeks. It’s hard! So we have seasons, this is season 2, it’s going to come out every week for fifteen weeks. And I am so, so excited about the line-up of episodes that I’ve got for you folks, it’s going to be awesome. So as you’ve probably guessed this is Season 2 episode 1, I am still Claire, and my guest today is Jenny. For those of you who don’t know Jenny, or who didn’t hear Jenny’s previous episodes, she is a blogger and podcaster at Reading the End, and a diehard fan of Black Sails, her toddler godson, and the New Orleans Saints. Did I say that right?

Jenny: Yeah, that was perfect, that was amazing!

Claire: OK good, I was worried! Today we are going to celebrate the podcast’s glorious return to the land of the living by talking about our fav undead creatures and monsters, and then we’ll squee about stuff that we loved in the last… six months or so since we spoke to you, dear listeners!

[Music break]

Claire: Welcome back to the show Jenny, I’m so glad to have you back for the start of this new season!

Jenny: I’m so excited to be here, and I’m so excited to hear the other episodes you’ve got lined up, because like, what I’ve heard you talk about so far sounds amazing.

Claire: Well, we’ll have a bit more of a teaser in the recommendations segment later in the episode. But, let’s start with talking about the undead! Why do we love them?! And then, we’re going to play a game, which was Jenny’s idea, and was the best of the best ideas.

Jenny: I’m so excited!

Claire: So the undead – we kind of had to figure out what we meant by ‘the undead’, like, just zombies, just vampires, immortal people, people who’ve died? What’s the criteria here, for something to qualify as the undead?

Jenny: So yeah, the only criterion that I applied, is that they had to have died and come back to life in some way. So whether that was zombies or vampires, obviously those count, but also, for instance Harry Potter counts, because he’s died and then come back to life. I mean, in my line-up I decided not to just include immortals, they had to have died, so no Wolverine, but, you know, who cares, so. (Laughs)

Claire: That is also the rule that I went by, and before we get too much further into that, let’s talk about the line-ups that we’re going to do. I’m going to let you introduce it, because it’s such a brilliant idea.

Jenny: OK, so my idea was – I’ve been watching a lot of Leverage, as we are going to discuss – but, so I wanted to have us each invent a caper crew, with seven positions, and then we would each have to draft a fictional undead character to fill each of those positions, and comprise our full caper crew.

Claire: And this is great to me, because I also love Leverage, but I feel like I wasn’t really into heists before Leverage, I haven’t really been into heists as a specific type of story, but it’s wonderfully tropey, is a heist, isn’t it?

Jenny: Yes, very, yes!

Claire: So do we want to start by talking about the roles that we’re going to recruit for our caper crew, and we basically took them from TV Tropes.

Jenny: Yeah, and we picked the most interesting positions, and I feel good about where we landed.

Claire: Yes, although I did change one of them a tiny bit so it was more like Leverage, but we’ll get into that.

Jenny: (Laughs) I have no complaints to make about that.

Claire: OK, Good. So the first job that we’re going to be looking at is the Mastermind. The Mastermind is the leader, the person that gathers the crew, finds the targets, calls the shots, thinks of the plan, and basically, in Leverage, which is going to be the ur-text for this, right?

Jenny: Yes, yes

Claire: The Mastermind is like, supposedly the main character, although I personally think that Nate is very boring and shouldn’t be the main character, but whatever.

Jenny: Yeah.

Claire: The idea of the Mastermind is a person that’s able to change the plan on the fly if something goes wrong, which is kind of what I went for more specifically when I chose my Mastermind, so, do you want to reveal yours first or shall I go?

Jenny: I can go! Because I’m really excited about my Mastermind. OK, so, you had said in your notes for this podcast that it was someone who could keep a bunch of immoral people in line, but I’ve gone a different direction.

Claire: Nice!

Jenny: I tried to escape from this outcome, but everyone I cast as the Mastermind was less good than my first thought, which was Katherine Pierce from the Vampire Diaries. She’s the only undead character I could think of who has the right combination of intelligence, initiative, and passion for contingency plans. I think she’d be great at planning for every eventuality. I do think she would mostly want to do evil plans, but I think I’ve got a team that mostly has a strong moral compass and ultimately could keep her on the straight and narrow. Basically, Katherine is just incredibly smart. On The Vampire Diaries sometimes she is outsmarted, but that is by like, the collective intelligence of two Salvatores and Elena, and those are all pretty smart people, so I think she’d be great as the Mastermind. Who did you pick?

Claire: My first pick was literally just a bad joke, I was literally going to say it should be Jon Snow, because he died and came back to life and he’s as boring as Nate, right.

Jenny: (Laughs) That’s pretty good, that’s funny.

Claire: My actual pick is Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, because the man has grand ideas. Like, sometimes they don’t work great, but he is going to go out there and organise stuff. He’s going to go to this random new place he doesn’t know and have an idea and be like, alright, we’re doing it, and get it all done. And then, when stuff doesn’t work, he will come up with a way to fix it, which I thought was important for the Mastermind as well.

Jenny: Yeah, oh absolutely I agree, that’s a very good pick, I like it.

Claire: Thank you, thank you thank you. Yeah I’m sorry, I haven’t actually seen the Vampire Diaries, so I can’t —

Jenny: Oh, it’s really great, it’s so great, you should watch it one time.

Claire: MM-kay, one time – isn’t that show really long?

Jenny: Yeah, but I think if you just wanted to get a sense of it, you could just watch the first two seasons, because that’s when it’s like, peak itself. Or if you just wanted to watch the first three, that would also be fine.

Claire: Fair enough, fair enough.

Jenny: OK, so the next position on our caper crew is the one that I found the hardest to cast.

Claire: Oh my God, same.

Jenny: It’s yeah, which is Tech Support. This is the hacker, and provider of gadgets, who builds what you need to get into vault security, hacks into computers, and does all that kind of stuff. Turns out there’s not a lot of undead techy types, so I’m really interested to hear what you came up with, Claire.

Claire: Right, there’s a lot of fantasy undead things, but not a lot of sci-fi undead things. I struggled a lot, I had a lot of like, this is a real stretch but I might have to go for this. In the end, I kind of talked it through with friend of the podcast Susan, who was extremely helpful, and what we in the end landed on is Breq, who was the Justice of Toren from Ancillary Justice. Now I want to say straight away, this is my biggest stretch for someone who died and came back to life. But, the Justice of Toren was a massive spaceship, with a bunch of ancillary bodies, who themselves had basically been braindead, and then like, been brought back as corpses to serve, blah blah blah. And then the Justice of Toren gets blown up, and Breq is like, the conscience of the Justice of Toren in just one body. So I think I’m going to give it to myself. Breq used to be an artificial intelligence in a spaceship, so like, she can do the thing. Breq is the only person that I thought of that wasn’t like an absolute stretch for this in terms of being able to actually do tech support.

Jenny: Actually, as you were speaking I changed my choice.

Claire: Oh dear!

Jenny: I just changed my choice just now. Well because, OK, I’ll tell you my thought process. The first person I thought of, the only undead character I could think of who was remotely in the STEM discipline was Liv from iZombie, but she really doesn’t do tech support, that’s not her thing, she’s a medical person.

Claire: No, I know.

Jenny: And then my second thought was, OK, one of the X-Men, like, all the X-Men die and come back to life, so I was like Beast, surely.

Claire: Yeah, comic, anyone in a comic book, I’m not going to go and check, they’ve probably died and come back to life.

Jenny: Right, well, but I’m committed to the integrity of the system, so I did go and check.

Claire: I know, I know you are.

Jenny: And I swear to god, every X-Man except for Beast has died and come back to life.

Claire: Oh, I’m so sorry.

Jenny: I looked and looked, I couldn’t find anything. So I was going to land on Jean Grey, but I have just this moment changed my mind. And I’m instead going to choose Jedao from Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit.

Claire: Yes! This was Susan’s first idea, but I haven’t read it, and I felt very uncomfortable citing something I hadn’t read. And I care about the integrity of the system so we looked for something else.

Jenny: Yeah, so I feel really good about this! Jedao used to live inside his body and that body has died so I think it counts. They kept his consciousness alive on ice, but I still think it counts as having been dead.

Claire: No, I think it counts. I mean, I mostly think it counts because I had it as a backup myself.

(Both Laugh)

Jenny: Well, and I did think about him as a Mastermind, but the reason I didn’t want him as the Mastermind is that he doesn’t really trust himself as a Mastermind. So, I think that in the Tech Support role he could use his brilliance, but he wouldn’t be in charge of people’s lives, and I think that would be a relief to him.

Claire: Well, I feel like Hardison would be insulted by this, not being in charge of people’s lives.

Jenny: I just mean not being a leader of men, he did some bad stuff when he was a leader of men, so I think, you know.

Claire: No that’s fair, that’s fair. That’s the only thing I know about this series, is that Jedao did a lot of bad stuff before.

Jenny: He did, he did, yes. But he’s very brilliant, he’s techy, I think he would do great at both hacking and building gadgets. Wow, I’m so excited I thought of this just now!

Claire: Yeah, I think that really works.

Jenny: Oh man, so good.

Claire: Great, amazing! The next role we have down is the con-person, slash the grifter. So in Leverage, that’s a woman called Sophie, or maybe not Sophie, we don’t really know. But the TV Tropes thing says, they do most of the conning, acting, and people-manipulating, which is quite important, and they use confidence tricks. And obviously they might also have to go and be a mole, or be bait, or be distractions if they need to do that.

Jenny: Okay. I love my pick for this, I think that the con-person, it’s helpful if they have a background in the theatre, and they also need to be hot and charming, so I chose the vampire Lestat from the Interview With a Vampire books by Anne Rice.

Claire: That’s fair! (Laughs)

Jenny: Isn’t that good?

Claire: Yeah, that’s quite good.

Jenny: He’s like, he’s flashy and vain and charming, he has been an actor and a musician, which means that he’s like, at ease as a performer, he can also, he’s bisexual, so he can romance people of any gender, and I think that he would just be a real asset to the crew.

Claire: Yeah, that’s fair. I went with Liv as iZombie, specifically because, it’s a plotpoint in iZombie that when Liv eats the brain of a person with specific knowledge or specific urges or personality or whatever, she gets that. So, my idea of that would be like, if Liv wasn’t confident in herself to be the grifter who could do a particular job, then she could like, tap back to the time that she ate that one brain that would be really great for that. Or, they could just have a library of brains on ice, that had like, the right, you know. I mean I’m going way more evil with this. Just like, we’re just going to keep a bunch of brains, just in case.

Jenny: That is pretty evil, but I like it.

Claire: Or, she could just have the brain of the vampire Lestat, on ice.

Jenny: I didn’t really imagine our teams going up against each other, but watch it missy.

Claire: OK, fair enough, fair enough.

Jenny: OK, so our next position is the pickpocket slash cat burglar. So, this is the one with the steadiest hands, who can perform any kind of job requiring sleight-of-hand, like stealing security cards. Claire wrote in our notes, “the one most likely to descend from the ceiling via a series of cables, or manoeuvre around a laser grid”. Fantastic.

Claire: I mean, that’s also from TV Tropes, but I wanted that in there because that’s my favourite thing about the cat burglar as like, you know, a type, a trope of character, like. Just the competency with which they can do that particular thing. Obviously competency porn is a really important aspect of any type of heist story, but the cat burglar really gets me. I’m, I’m so excited about this pick!!!

Jenny: (Laughs) Oh my

Claire: I picked Death from the Discworld. Because canonically, people do not notice Death, people make sure to avoid to notice Death, because it’s very uncomfortable to look at Death. Now, only children and cats and witches and wizards will notice Death, right. So you just need to make sure you’re not trying to pickpocket some witches or wizards, and just try to make sure that you get the children out of the way, so that no one says like, “who’s this person descending a wire?” or whatever. And then, also, death is so old and all-encompassing, that basically like, walls or things that are less than five million centuries old or whatever, that has no bearing on him and his person. He can just like, walk through walls. Which, on the one hand, I feel like, I’m a little sad because, you know, Parker didn’t go through the process of undoing this entire safe, and unlocking all the things and whatever, just for Death to just walk through walls and do the thing, but, it would be efficient.

Jenny: It would be extremely efficient, an asset to any caper crew. I chose John Constantine, from DC Comics. He died and came back to life, that’s kind of his origin story. And he really wants to do good, and I think that’s important because I have a couple of not-so moral people on my team, so I think it’s helpful to have a couple of people with a strong moral compass. Also, canonically he has experience in stage magic, so I think that he would be good at – yeah, so he can do sleight-of-hand, and he’s fun, I think he would be a fun, enjoyable addition to the team.

Claire: That’s really cool.

Jenny: Yeah.

Claire: Now, the next one is the Muscle, and I’m not going to read the TV Tropes description of the Muscle, because it’s all like, “the burly man who’s big”!

Jenny: Boo!

Claire: We all know what the Muscle does, we all know what the Muscle does, the Muscle intimidates, and body-guards, and all that kind of good stuff. Now I’m very curious to hear your pick for the Muscle, because I feel like my pick for the Muscle is my most legit pick of the entire list.

Jenny: Ooh, I’m worried we might, I’m a little worried about this one that we would overlap, and we’d have to fight it out.

Claire: OK, go go go.

Jenny: OK, I chose Buffy the Vampire Slayer —

Claire: Obviously!!! Obviously Buffy Summers, like. OK, fair.

Jenny: Wait, did we, because I have a back-up, I can choose my back-up.

Claire: No no, I don’t think we have to, do we have to, have —

Jenny: No, we can have the same one. They’re imaginary, so it doesn’t matter. Yeah! She’s scrappy, she has experience coping with a lot of bad guys at one time, and I think people would underestimate her because she is petite.

Claire: Yeah, and also, you know, she does have superpowers, basically. She is very strong.

Jenny: She’s very strong, I also, again, I wanted some people on my team who were good people, to keep the bad people in line, and I think that’s Buffy, I think Buffy would not agree to anything that was morally wrong, because she’s a good person, and she really cares about being a good person.

Claire: Yeah. I love how you had a thought about your whole team – like all of my thoughts about this was how to make it fit the actual competence that they can do, and how to make jokes that relate it to Leverage. I feel like your team is going to work a lot more cohesively over all as a lovely found family.

Jenny: Well, I haven’t gotten to my Driver yet, so we’ll see what you think when I get there.

Claire: OK, so, the Getaway Driver, that’s another one that I found a little bit tricky, because again, there’s a lot of fantasy about undead people and not a lot of sci-fi? And so, like.

Jenny: I’m so excited about my choice! Sorry, continue.

Claire: So my thought process behind this was to try and find somebody who could drive a whole bunch of different things? So obviously I went for King Boo from MarioKart, because it’s a driving game, he can drive lots of different things. And he’s a ghost!

Jenny: That is so good!

Claire: Thank you! (Both laugh) I want to hear yours!

Jenny: OK, so mine is the Lord of the Nazgûl, the Witch-king of Angmar —

Claire: Oh, so good!

Jenny: Isn’t that good, I’m so happy about it! He has a baller horse, and an even baller-er flying monster —

Claire: I did consider the Night King from Game of Thrones, because he’s got an undead snow dragon or whatever, but yours is better.

Jenny: Yeah, yeah. He is taciturn, but you don’t want a driver who’s a chatterbox you know? And, moreover, since no man can kill him, you now have a driver who can’t be killed by one entire gender, that’s like, a huge advantage.

Claire: Right, and also, if the thing that you’re stealing is the one ring of power, he does have a satnav built in.

Jenny: So true, so true!

Claire: But just if it’s that.

Jenny: Oh man, that’s amazing.

Claire: And the final place in this crew is something that you suggested.

Jenny: Yeah, so I suggested we have an audience stand-in, so someone who’s new to the biz, and excited to learn how everything works, and they help us, the audience, understand who every member of the crew is and what each of their jobs are and so forth. I kind of made this as like a swing position so that we could just add someone to the team that we like, so Claire, what did you choose for this?

Claire: So I didn’t actually go with like, oh here’s a person that I like that’s missing from this list, what I went with in the end was, who’s a person who would be a good stand-in for the audience? And so what I went with is newly-vampired Bella Swan, because, you know, canonically in the books she doesn’t really have that much of a personality, and it’s not to rag on those books, it’s just she’s a character who exists kind of as a stand-in for the audience anyway. Like, that’s kind of the point of that particular character I think in YA a lot of the time, and she’s made a vampire during the series, so there you go. But I would like to not have Edward or any of the Cullens or Jacob, or her creepy baby in the crew or anywhere near them, they can be her tragic past.

Jenny: Sounds perfect!

Claire: And also my crew now gets to have Kristen Stewart, so it’s now hotter and gayer.

Jenny: Yes, I would like to note I have two canonically bisexual characters on my team – actually no, three, because Jedao is also, as I recall, pansexual. OK, so my audience stand-in, I originally was going to have an X-man character, and then I was like well I can’t have two X-men on the team so I nixed it, and I was going to do Death of the Endless, but since I got rid of my X-men character I’m going back again, and now I will again choose Jubilee from the X-men, because she is young, she is enthusiastic to learn about things. People say she’s a pain in the ass, I think she just has a case of being a young woman in fiction.

Claire: Oh yeah, fair fair.

Jenny: And also, she has her own superpowers, so as she is with the team for longer she could start to take more of a role, and find which department she wants to specialise in, and I think that would be fun to witness also.

Claire: That’s really, really fun!

Jenny: Yeah!

Claire: I was also trying not to have too many people from the same properties, but I was also trying to have a good break down of what creatures people were. I tried to make sure I had a good coverage. So I’ve got a skeleton, I’ve got a spaceship that died and is an AI back to – maybe, I don’t know how to classify Justice of Toren. But, I’ve got a skeleton, I’ve got an AI come back to life, I’ve got a zombie, I’ve got Death, I’ve got someone who died and came back to life, a ghost, and a vampire.

Jenny: That’s very good.

Claire: And the thing I’m proudest of out of all of this is just the spread of undeadiness that I’ve got in there.

Jenny: Yes, you’ve done absolutely brilliantly. I didn’t even think about that, so I’ve got two vampires, two people who came back from the dead… yeah, so mine is a little more mixed.

Claire: But I think yours actually works better in terms of a narrative you could build with it. The other thing that I tried really really hard to do is I tried to pick people for the positions of hacker, thief and muscle, that could be in love. Because obviously I very very strongly care about the Leverage OT3, of the hacker, the thief and the muscle, Parker, Eliot and Hardison. And so I tried that really hard… and I ended up with Breq, Death and Buffy. Which Susan pointed out, that’s at least two people that are like, “what are those feeling things you speak of?!” which works really well with Leverage. I rest my case.

Jenny: That does go really well with Leverage. Mine is, mine doesn’t really work so well, I have, who do I have… I have Jedao, Constantine and Buffy. I just don’t think they would fall in love in the end, I don’t think they would.

Claire: So that was our undead heist caper crew, let us know on Twitter at @Readingtheend and @Radiofreefandom if you agree or disagree with our picks, and if you would pick other people for undead heistiness, and please watch Leverage.

Jenny: So good!

[Music break]

Claire: So for our recommendation segment today, we’re going to talk about stuff that we’ve loved in the break, and that is since about March or April, something like that, so we have a lot of things to cover. Do you want to start us off, Jenny?

Jenny: Yeah, so, there’s no way that you could have predicted I was going to say this, because I have given no indication at all that this is what I’m currently obsessed with, but, I am currently obsessed with Leverage. I started watching it a couple of years ago and I think what went wrong – two things I think went wrong. One, I got distracted because I was not a finisher at that time, and I am a finisher now. Two, I was much less aware of fandom back then, so I don’t think I fully appreciated how super super shippy it is. Which is, very, especially in seasons 4 and 5, which I am now in. And in case you’re not familiar, it’s a heist show, there is a found family of five people, who all have jobs on the heist team, and they love each other and they do crimes to stop the rich from being terrible. And it is so great, it’s the best comfort food, I love it.

Claire: Yeah, I mean I have been watching Leverage and I think I was watching Leverage before the break and already started talking about it. I need to finish Leverage, I need to watch seasons 4 and 5, because I am ready for even more shippiness than earlier in the show. Like literally came to this show from fandom, and didn’t realise that Parker, Hardison, Eliot aren’t the main characters. I literally thought it was a show about Parker, like Parker was the main person —

Jenny: I wish!

Claire: I wish too! But since we’re talking about Leverage now, I need to tell you all that you will hear more about Leverage this season on Radio Free Fandom, because we’re going to have a full Leverage episode later in the series, we’re also going to have episodes about other things that I was talking about before the break and that I am still obsessed with, things like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, whatever is going on these days in the MCU, also the Hugo Awards. And we’ll be talking about some newer stuff that’s been happening since then, like the juggernaut that’s taken over fandom, Good Omens. As well as the Veronica Mars revival, for good or bad or whatever value of that, we’ll be talking about it.

Jenny: Sounds great, I’m very excited. I’m especially excited obviously about the Leverage episode, and I hope it includes fic recs.

Claire: It definitely definitely will, because, not to spoil too much ahead of time, but Chelsea will be on it.

Jenny: Great, great.

Claire: OK, now that I’ve teased what’s coming up on the podcast a little bit, do you want to tell me your next thing you’ve loved in the break?

Jenny: Yes, I would love to. So, this is actually going to be one of my favourite books of the entire year. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell. I’m just so high on this book, it’s a YA comic about a girl named Freddy, who’s dating this very flighty, charming unreliable girl called Laura Dean, and Freddy is trying to figure out who she is as a person, and also who she is when she’s in a relationship with Laura Dean. It’s really great for a number of reasons. The art is gorgeous, and I think does a really tremendous job of conveying the characters’ interiority. I also think, and I’ve thought this about Mariko Tamaki’s books in the past, I think it just really clearly remembers what it’s like to be a teenager. And it just felt, I was not the teenager who went out and did parties, which these kids are, but even so, it felt so familiar, it felt so much like what I remembered of being a teenager, and how you just never felt like the ground was solid under you. So that was really great, I also love that it’s about a queer character and she has queer friends, I think that often, if there’s a queer character in YA friends they’ll be the only one among their friend group, which I don’t think is realistic, and also just creates this false sense of isolation around queerness, so I loved seeing her be in a supportive group of friends. And God, it was just great, it was so great, I felt so good when I finished it, I recently reread it, again, and I, again, felt amazing when I finished it. It’s just the best, everyone should read it.

Claire: I’m definitely going to look that up!

Jenny: Oh, it’s so sweet, I think you’ll really love it. It’s so sweet!

Claire: Now, my first pick for this is something that, if anyone’s been following me on social media you’re probably not too surprised, but, it’s the TV show Schitt’s Creek, which. Jenny, if you haven’t seen it, I think you would also like it. The high level pitch is basically that it’s this family of incredibly, incredibly, incredibly wealthy people, who in the first three-minute cold open of the show basically lose their entire fortune because their crooked business manager basically went away to the Bahamas with all their money. And so, they have found themselves with nothing to their name but like a suitcase of belongings, and a town that the dad bought his son as a gift, as a joke, because the town’s name is Schitt’s Creek. So they go to Schitt’s Creek with a suitcase of fabulous clothing each, and they get a room at the local motel, and they have to learn how to have actual life skills, and be a family. The first season is a little bit more shaky, because it’s trying to introduce the thing, and it’s a bit – I think it just takes them a while to figure out exactly what they’re doing. But, it kind of turns into the most gentle, loving ribbing of these people, and the joke is always that they have no life skills, and it’s never at the expense of the people in the town, who are just normal people trying to live their lives. The relationships that it starts to build, the way the characters kind of grow into a loving family is just amazing. And it’s just so kind, and it’s about people trying their hardest, which really really just hits me in the feels.

Jenny: Yeah man, I. So I haven’t watched it yet, all of the internet, like everyone I know is obsessed with this show. The only reason I haven’t is that I’m a finisher now so I’m trying to finish shows I’ve already started. Because, the reason I never finish any goddamn shows is that something like this always comes along, and I’m like ooh, this sounds good!

Claire: Yeah, fair! That’s really fair.

Jenny: And then I’ll watch one season or a season and a half, and then some other thing will be the thing that everyone’s obsessed with, so I like jump ship immediately. So I’m goddamn finishing Leverage, and then I’m going to finish Jane the Virgin, and then I’m going to finish Killjoys, and I think once I’ve done that, then at that point, I can take on something new.

Claire: It would be really sad if you started watching Schitt’s Creek, you got through like season 1 and season 2, and then you stopped when it’s getting like, amazing. It’s good in the early seasons, it just gets really, really, really amazing later in the run of the show. Season 5 is now out, there’s one more coming out, and then it will all be done and then you can watch it when it’s all finished and finish it, because it is so so good, and I love it so much.

Jenny: It’s a half-hour comedy, right?

Claire: Yeah, I think it’s a twenty minute show. Because, I actually had a sleepover at my best friend’s house that was like a craft weekend with her and a couple of other friends of ours, and I showed up and they were watching Schitt’s Creek, and they had started like in the middle of season 3, for people who have seen it they started at the episode where Patrick showed up, and then they had it on the entire time, and so I showed up, and I had said I would cook some food, so I’m cooking some food and not really paying attention to the show, and they’re kind of explaining to me what’s going on with it and what’s happening and who the people are, and by the time I sat down to actually watch it, was the episode where the main couple that I’m now obsessed with get together in the actual show, it has canonical queer representation in the show – this is not a Schitt’s Creek episode! A Schitt’s Creek episode will happen in this season of this very podcast, so I’m going to stop talking about it now and we’re going to talk about your next thing.

Jenny: OK, but I do look forward to watching Schitt’s Creek, and I do think half-hour comedies are easier to binge, so I’m about it.

(Quick break)

Jenny: OK, my next thing is, I signed up for a poem-a-day email, and I’ve really been loving it. I don’t tend to think of myself as a poetry person, partly because a lot of the poetry that I read I don’t like, but what I think is true, and if you’re a poetry person feel free to tell me I’m wrong, but I think it’s the case that you in general will not like most poetry that you read, because poetry is aiming directly for your heart, and so since people have very different hearts, inevitably a lot of poems’ll miss the mark. So doing a poem-a-day subscription has been fantastic, because I get exposed to a really wide range of poets. I originally signed up for the poets.org poem-a-day and it didn’t suit my needs, so now I’m using the Poetry Foundation poem-a-day newsletter, and it’s been great, they have a really nice variety, diversity of voices, a diversity of ages of poems. One that I got that I really liked recently was called ‘Vines’ by Kaveh Akbar, and it has this line in it, he’s talking about his family, and saying some compliment that they’ve given him, and he says, ‘I thank them for that and / for their chromosomes most of which // have been lovely’.

Claire: That’s cute.

Jenny: Yeah, so it’s been really nice, and it’s also just a nice thing to look forward to in the morning, because a poem is short and you can read it real quick. And I feel like I got culture first thing in the morning.

Claire: That’s really lovely, I think I’ve only got a couple of newsletters that I actually read. I very assiduously read the Rec Center when that comes out, I’m sure listeners to this podcast will already know about it because I’ve mentioned it a bunch of times on this show, but the Rec Center is a newsletter for fandom about fandom with fandom recommendations. And, also I really enjoy the Full Lid which is Alasdair Stuart’s newsletter, Alasdair is a friend of mine, and a genuine really good egg, like a very kind person who’s super enthusiastic about things, and it comes out on a Friday when I’m feeling tired and grumpy, and I still have one more day in my week, because I work Tuesdays to Saturdays, so it’s my Thursday which is the worst, and it just always cheers me up.

Jenny: That sounds great! Yeah I love the Rec Center, they had, not to be predictable, but they had a very, very excellent piece of – Claire’s making quite a face – they had a very excellent piece of fanart in the most recent Rec Center newsletter that was of Toby Stephens in Black Sails and my word, it was certainly something.

Claire: I mean, to be fair, I haven’t seen Black Sails yet, but I’m onboard with Toby Stephens is hot because I’m a person that enjoys gentlemen, so.

Jenny: Yeah, I mean, and let me just say, if you already think Toby Stephens is hot, watching Black Sails will be like a whole, it’s like a new dimension in your brain opens up for finding Toby Stephens attractive.

Claire: I know, I know Jenny, but the thing is, it’s such a long show, and it’s going to ruin my feelings, and I can tell it’s going to be the deepest fandom hole that I’ve been in since Les Mis, and I just.

Jenny: What I’m hearing you say is, “Try really hard to convince me Jenny, you will find it rewarding once you do.”

Claire: I mean the thing is I know, it’s not a question of an if, it’s a question of when I have time, but we know that I don’t really do having time.

Jenny: I hear you, oh my gosh, it’s so good. Well, listen listen, here’s the upside. The fandom… I don’t want to say the fandom is trash, but it ships the wrong thing, it’s very wrong, it’s unfortunately extremely wrong, so although I would like to be in the fandom, it’s too wrong for me to be in it. So, I just have the show mainly, and there’s a couple of fics that are really really good, but overall it’s not for me.

Claire: Oh, that’s really sad, I’m so sorry!

Jenny: It is really sad, thank you for understanding!

Claire: My next pick is the novel Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. This is a royalty AU fanfic of a book, basically. This is a story about a British prince, and the first son of the United States, he’s the son of the first female president of the US, and he’s a queer latino kid, and he’s in a kind of weird, they don’t talk to each other but they both know they hate each other relationship with the prince of England. And then they go to this reception together and basically get in an argument and inadvertently break some shit, and they have to do a PR stunt that they are best friends, and it was an accident, because they are best friends! And so they are kind of thrown together. And then they start having this really weird friendship that works because of their different positions, basically jobs that they have as public figures, and of course that goes into a romantic relationship. And there are a lot of tropes in this that are, you know if you’re familiar with royalty AUs in fanfic, you will see the same tropes, so I need to give a content warning for characters being outed. If you have read royalty AUs and you’re like, ooh I can imagine how that would happen in a royalty AU, it happens like that. It’s like, the press being shitty basically. So I don’t feel like that’s a massive spoiler because it’s just like, how this very precise subgenre of fanfic that I adore functions. Now, there’s been some controversy around this book about like, the way that it’s being marketed in very much a “this has never been done before!” “this is like YA but better because!” “this is romance but better because!” “It’s never been done before!” … It’s obviously been done before. I saw the title and the blurb and I was like, yep, I know exactly what kind of book it’s going to be and I’m going to love it. I do think it’s a really good book, and obviously the author didn’t come up with the concept of a royalty AU, but it’s a really good example of that genre, and it also has a lot of really lovely stuff about the presidency and politics and campaigning and stuff like that. I wonder if maybe that might be a little bit difficult to read or fraught to read for US readers, because it has stuff about having a female president and how campaigning works and all of that, that I thought, ooh that’s a bit soon, and it’s not even something that I personally have to live with every day, so, you know, eh. I feel like I’m giving too many warnings for this thing that I adore and I think people should read, but, there you go.

Jenny: No, I don’t think you are, that’s just useful, then people know, so they can approach it in the best spirit, I think that’s solid. Yeah, I’m excited to read that book, I keep checking at my library and it’s always checked out, so I just this minute while you were talking put a hold on it, because it does sound really cute and sweet.

Claire: Yay!

Jenny: OK, my next one is Six the Musical, which is a musical about Henry the eighth’s six wives, kind of as if they were the Spice Girls, basically. I did not discover this musical for the first time during podcast hiatus, but I did go see it for the first time during podcast hiatus, so I think it counts. I saw it in Chicago at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and it was so much fun. If you’ve listened to it you probably already really like the soundtrack, but seeing the show is really great because the energy is really high, the performers are really engaged with the audience, and it was just a really really really really really fun musical to see. I think it’s in London and Boston right now, and it will also be opening on Broadway in New York next year, so if you’re in any of those places I really recommend it. If you can’t go see it because tickets to musicals are expensive, I do still recommend listening to the London cast recording, it bangs. And it’s just so much fun, I love it so much. I love it!

Claire: Yeah, it is a really really fun show, I haven’t actually heard the album, but I went to see it, so I’ve seen the London production, and it’s almost more like a concert than a musical? Obviously there’s loads of cool costume changes and there’s a lot of cool scenery onstage, but there’s also a band, isn’t there a band onstage? I thought there was like, drums if I’m remembering correctly.

Jenny: Yes, there’s a little band. In the Chicago production they introduce each of the band members, it was really sweet, it was really nice.

Claire: I mean, you kind of have to do that if they’re onstage I think. But that’s like a trope, if you want to use that word, of concerts, right, and they do do that, so that’s kind of what I mean by it’s very concert-y. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was really fun, I’m not somebody who knows a lot about this particular period of British history, I’ve done a lot more contemporary British history, so it was kind of fun to go and see because I didn’t know a lot of the details, and a lot of the timeframe of the thing.

Jenny: Well, apply to me if you ever want to know details, I know a lot of things. I was in a very major Tudors phase when I was a young teenager, so.

Claire: Oh yes, I do recall that you have a lot of opinions about Mary Queen of Scots.

Jenny: Yes I do, yes I do! What an idiot! We don’t have to get into it, but what an idiot, oh my god.

Claire: (Laughs) No no, I mean, I recall you specifically having a lot of opinions about movies and media depictions of Mary Queen of Scots, and various other things that I thought, “Sure, that’s a thing I don’t know anything about, but I will trust Jenny’s opinion on these things.”

Jenny: Thank you, I appreciate that.

Claire: So my next favourite thing is more of a genre of a thing, it’s TV shows that are very specific competitions. And not really mean competitions like Project Runway or something like that where people snipe at each other, I mean Great British Bakeoff-style competitions where it’s just a particular trade, or a particular type of thing, like, we’ve got a Great British Sewing Bee in the UK as well, which is amazing and I really like needlecrafts as well, so it works great for me. But there are more shows just like that that have this kind of, how kind, that have people helping each other. I have loved Faceoff for a really long time, it’s just not available to watch anywhere in the UK, so it makes me really sad. But, there are two that are available to watch in the UK, and that makes me so happy. The first I know you watch also, and that is Blown Away, which is the Netflix glass-blowing competition, which was amazing! Which showcased this really uncommon, obscure skill that people don’t really know about, and is fascinating, and also, every episode they talk about glory-holes a bunch of times, which is really funny, because that’s just a funny word!

Jenny: (Giggles) Yes they do, it’s hilarious!

Claire: It’s one of the like, ovens, I guess? That they use? And they all talk about it with an extremely straight face, which I love.

Jenny: Yes, yes, they do, there’s no winking at the camera, although if it were me that would be all that I was doing.

Claire: Yeah, for sure, for sure. And the other thing I’m not sure if that’s going to be available for people to watch outside of the UK, but it is a show called The Great Model Railway Challenge, which is a show… where they make model railways. Like!

Jenny: I could never have guessed.

Claire: But it’s so, so fun! I would say the one drawback to it is that it tends to be teams of older white dudes, there’s not that many women or people of colour, I mean they are there, obviously they’re there, because every kind of thing, like model railway building or science fiction and fantasy where people tell you “oh it’s a thing of white dudes!” it’s not, it’s not, we’ve always been around, we’re there, but… I would say, it is kind of still predominant, but it’s such a fun show. They basically have three teams come in that are local model railway building clubs from around the country, and they give them this big table, and they have to build a model railway on a theme in three days. So they start by putting out the tracks, and making sure all the trains run, and then they have to build this massive bit of scenery around it. They are allowed to bring some stuff from home, but they have to only bring a certain amount of buildings that they have premade from home, and so sometimes you get into a situation where someone is like “yes, this row of houses is one of our pre-built!” and the judges are like, “noooo.” That’s the level of drama that we get. You also get lovely shots of people drinking tea and eating biscuits, because that’s very important.

Jenny: Yes. That sounds wonderful. I too am a big fan of kind reality shows, and I actually read a thing on NPR recently talking about how Netflix is really cornering the market on kind reality shows in America, so you know, someone’s on it, it’s not going to stop with Blown Away, I hope.

Claire: Yeah, there’s also a Lego one in the UK actually. I didn’t mention it because it’s not on at the minute, but there’s like a Lego-building show, and they have a lot of teams that are like, a kid and their uncle or something.

Jenny: Aww!

Claire: There’s adult teams, and then kids, and there’s teams that are like two kids sometimes that do really really well because they are so imaginative. Then they have teams that are like, “Yes, I’m eight, and my dad is an engineer, and we have built the Eiffel Tower in Lego!” Something like that, it’s just really good.

Jenny: It sounds wonderful!

(Quick break)

Jenny: OK, my last pick is the Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas. Oh my god, I loved this book so much, I don’t understand why everyone’s not reading it and talking about it. This is another one that’s definitely going to be in my top five books of the year. And, like Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, it is mostly about women. This is about an alternate universe where time travel gets invented in England after World War II, and this whole time travel agency gets created. It’s told in multiple timelines, as you would expect from a time travel book, and there’s just so many moving parts, so what’s amazing is that it works really well together, all the different moving parts just click together so beautifully, I never knew what was coming next, I would get finished with a chapter and just be like, I have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s nominally a murder mystery, but you start out not even knowing actually who got murdered. It’s just great, it’s inventive, it’s queer, it’s unexpected, and I have not read a time travel book in a really long time that I thought did such an amazing job of characters, and plot, and I just loved it. And there are almost no men in it, which is great.

Claire: Have you read the time travel novellas by Kate Heartfield, Alice Payne Arrives and Alice Payne Rides? Because I thought they did that thing that you describe really really well, the time travel timey-wimeyness.

Jenny: Yes, so I read the first one, I haven’t read the second one yet. I enjoyed it a lot yeah, for sure.

Claire: Would recommend the second one.

Jenny: I’m all-in for time travel. I’m excited to read it, my library doesn’t have it yet unfortunately.

Claire: Hopefully soon!

Jenny: I know!

[Music break]

Claire: Well that’s all we have time for today, but before we go, Jenny, can you tell people a little bit more about where they can find you online?

Jenny: Yes! So I am at readingtheend.com where I blog and podcast, and I’m also on Twitter @readingtheend, and I think that’s it, those are my main two places.

Claire: Awesome, awesome, thank you so much for joining me Jenny, I was so happy to do this game with you today.

Jenny: Thank you so much for having me on, I’m so delighted that you humoured me and agreed to do my fantasy draft!

Claire: It was a lot of fun! So, thanks again for joining me, and thank you to all of you for tuning in to Radio Free Fandom. You can find us on Twitter at @radiofreefandom, email us at radiofreefandom@gmail.com, or head over to our website radiofreefandom.com to see the show notes and find out more about our awesome guests. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving us a rating or a review on iTunes as that might do something, we’re not sure, but it might help. We are also on Patreon at patreon.com/ClaireRousseau if you would like to support us with money. Or you can just tell people about the show on the Twitters. Our show music is Super Friendly by Kevin MacLeod, find out more at incompetech.com.

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