#most of the tweets are based off of my headcanons lol

[aimedis]

i have more redacted tweets like if you want them laugh out loud okay post

[coralhoneyrose]

fun chrom and or robin headcanons? chrobin headcanons?

alternatively what are some widely accepted or constantly brought up things in the awakening fandom that you hate?

my fun headcanon is they try to both be objective and somewhat professional as leaders but when c&r are alone together they love to gossip. you know theyve seen some stuff

Oooh what a fun question! I’m sure as soon as I hit post I’ll remember a bunch more but here’s what I was able to come up with~

Robin: I actually like head-canoning Robin as having ADHD. I could ramble about that for ages tbh but I think they fit the “twice exceptional” profile really well and that a combination of being an anxious perfectionist and having an attention disorder would make a lot of sense given that we know Robin is both very confident in their tactics and intelligence but also prone to workaholic tendencies with pushing themselves to extremes to make sure they’ve thought of everything. I also headcanon Robin as being kind of a slob LOL like I think their room would always be a mess with things strewn everywhere but *they* know where everything is meant to be so don’t even think about moving anything, Frederick >:(

Also this may be obvious from my writing, but I like headcanoning Robin as having darker skin than in canon in large part to circumvent Awakening’s unfortunate tendency to only feature that trait for Plegians who are antagonists. OH! And I love the idea of Robin being touch-starved when the shepherds first find and adopt them too.

Chrom: I headcanon he has very pretty cursive handwriting that he was forced to learn by his tutors growing up; that he low-key kinda likes PDA; that he’s mindlessly touchy with Robin specifically, even before he realizes his feelings; that he has a praise kink; that he is a morning person; and that he’s not particularly religious, despite being….ya know, the exalt of a halidom.

Idk if it’s cheating to also list that I headcanon him as biromantic demisexual (given that I have a whole fic about that) but I’m restating it anyway because that one is very dear to me. Also! I did not come up with this one myself, but I saw a tweet from another Chrobin author once about how they hc that Chrom would abdicate the throne before he gets particularly old to help ensure that Lucina’s coronation is a happy and celebratory event, and I love that idea and thinks it suits both of them really well <3

I think the one you shared is cute and fitting for them too! Both of them take their jobs really seriously so I can absolutely see them making an effort to keep too many court politics out of their work but then debriefing about stuff and laughing at all the stuffy nobles together after to help maintain their sanity.

As for things brought up / widely accepted in the fandom that I dislike and / or strongly disagree with, the three that come most immediately to mind are:

- That Chrom and Robin have a dumb one / smart one dynamic. I think they’re both very competent leaders and that while Robin is clearly the smarter of the two, I’ve always interpreted Chrom as probably having above average intelligence and just being really blunt and kind of oblivious / not tactful in certain delicate social situations which….tbh I fully believe Robin can be guilty of that sort of thing as well LOL

- That the f!Chrobin supports are “objectively” some of the worst in the game”. I can definitely understand and sympathize with some of the complaints about them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re my favorite supports in awakening full stop. And I do also think that a subset of the complaints leveled at them are wildly off base

- That male and female Robin have different personalities. I just do not think this is true. I think the differences we see in their supports are pretty much always a direct function of being treated differently by the other character on account of their gender and responding to those differing circumstances accordingly

I have started drafting and ultimately aborted so many posts making arguments for all these points but somewhere along the line I usually remind myself to take a deep breath and that people can enjoy these characters and ships however they want to. Ultimately if I don’t like something, it’s easy enough for me to tune it out and keep doing my own thing and I’ve found fandom has become a lot more pleasant that way LOL

Andddd I think that covers everything? Thanks so much for the ask—I had a lot of fun answering it as probably evidenced by how long this turned out to be asjfk

[tiniest-hands-in-all-the-land]

you're the expert and i don't know how else to find out: there a lot of aus I've seen repeatedly on pixiv, and i can't tell if they're just very popular fan aus or inspired by things in canon: one where draluc is in a bunny ears+waiter outfit and ronaldo in a suit with glasses, then one where they're both missing an eye and everything looks more fighty. Where did these come from??

I don't know if I'm an expert, but I'll definitely share what I've learned!

I will disclose that most of the information I have is second-hand from other sources + my own interpretations. So please don't take anything I say as cold hard fact; i'm sure I'm getting a bunch of little details mixed up

The Bunny!Draluc and Glasses!Ronaldo one is based off Chapter 227, which is basically a retelling of a collection of fairytales, except it's Kyuushi, so silly things happen

Ronaldo in Glasses is based off the Japanese fairytale of Kintarou, a story about a guy who grew up in the wilderness among animals and nature, who is brought back into society to get an office job, and ends up using his new wealth and executive power to stop his company from tearing down the mountain that he grew up at.

Bunny!Draluc is based off the Tortoise and the Hare story, where Draluc is the hare and John is the tortoise. But instead of racing, Draluc just spends his time doting on John and gushing about how cute he is (As he should ^^)

There's not much canon information about them besides that, but I believe the Kintarou and Bunny AU got put together mainly cuz they appeared in the same chapter, and also that Bonnoki might have done some account-jack/white day tweets that paired them up?

The most common fanon interpretations I've seen of them (or at least my understanding/personal headcanon of it) are that Draluc works as a bunny in an establishment (wink wink) where one can pay the hosts for goods and services (wink wink), and the prices Draluc charges for his goods and services are extremely high, and most people can't afford him/don't wanna deal with him cuz he's kinda annoying lol. But not only can newly-rich wild man Kintarou!Ronaldo pay his outragous price, he will pay his outrageous price, and then some.

Ronaldo is very light-hearted, kinda simple-minded, and naive in this AU. Very much a person who grew up surrounded by animals and is now being subjected to the weirdness of human society, but he has taken a fancy to the vampire dressing up as a bunny. But since there's not a lot of canon info on this AU outside of the short sections in the chapter, there's a lot that's left up to personal interpretation. Above is just what i kinda tend to see the most

I'm assuming the "missing eyes" one you're talking about is the Inverse/Inverted AU. This one is also based on a chapter in the manga (chapter 189) where everyone except Draluc gets hypnotized by vampiric butterflies to essentially flip their personality.

So Ronaldo, who's typically very brash, rude, arrogant, and punch-first-ask-questions-later, is inverted to instead be very polite, soft-spoken, dainty, lady-like, and prefers to talk down opponents over tea and cakes rather than get violent (Though a lot of people including myself like to also headcanon that Inverse!Ronaldo is a sadist, though this has no canon basis other than the fact that Rona tends to showcase some very masochistic tendencies in canon, and so the inverse of that would be...)

I'm not sure if this is canon to the chapter or just super popular fanon, but because Inverse!Rona is so lady-like and shoujo-esque, Rona's referred to a lot by feminine pronouns

Draluc didn't get hypnotized in this chapter, and therefore did not get an inverted personality. However, sometime later, Bonnoki posted a couple of drawings of what Inverted!Draluc would look like, including white hair, a prosthetic eye, and a rapier sword. Fan interpretation writes Inverse!Draluc as more of an introvert than Canon!Dora; for the most part, he's still polite, but in an "honorable swordsman" kinda way; he's a little more brash, rude, and unafraid to get into a fight than he is in canon.

According to Bonnoki, Inverse!Draluc cannot truly exist because he violates the Dora Dora Compliance Rule, which basically states that no matter what timeline, world, or AU, Draluc must always be weak and die in no time. I'm assuming it's because of the scar over his eye and his fake eye that Bonnoki brought this up, because him having a scar would imply that he merely sustained injury instead of outright dying.

Speaking of Draluc's different colored eye/scar: as far as I'm aware, there's no canon event known that caused the eye trauma. Apparently, before more info was written for Inverse!Draluc, there was a good chunk of the fanbase that headcanoned that Inverse!Ronaldo removed one of their eyes to give to Draluc. But it was later confirmed that Draluc's eye is a prosthetic with ice powers

(which got me hmming and hawwing that maybe Northdin got something to do with that? Hmm? Hmmmmmmm? Maybe something bad happened during Draluc's apprenticeship and Northdin had to do what he could to save his student hmmmmmmm--)

Bonnoki states that Inverse!Draluc is just as weak as Canon!Draluc and can die/revive, but there was also something he said that stated that he has no regenerative powers, which kinda confuses me. A good chunk of the fandom, myself included, have kinda just.. ignored that "he's just as weak as canon" part lol. My personal headcanon is that while he is still pretty physically weak, Inverse!Draluc is wicked good at swordfighting and actually has a fairly good handle on his vampire abillties; but if he dies, he'll die for good.

I've read somewhere that Inverse!Draluc is supposed to be Draluc just cosplaying and that's why he's as weak as he is in canon despite everything pleading to the contrary, but I don't know if this is true or not.

Idk idk, I just have a lot of thoughts about Inverse; it's one of my favorites :>

And if the Inverse AU wasn't the one you were talking about with "missing eyes", then... i'm sorry, I'm afraid i don't know what you're referring to D: Maybe Uso?

Idk. I need to get to sleep now lol. I hope this helped!

[vaguelyprophetic]

Am I being annoying if I ask for a PT2 on Stewy hc’s? The lack of Stewy content actually hurts me to my core and You Just Get Him 💗 most of the content I come across he’s always just an extension of another person like he isn’t his own man. Just any thoughts on Stewy!! (Also just found out Arian said his full name was Sadegh SCREAMING. He never fails to deliver on Stewy content. My heart is still beating from “tender as hell”)

NOT ANNOYING IN THE SLIGHTEST! I LOVE talking about my boy

arian is such a fucking icon and I love him so much for how invested he is in this show and this character ❤️ like you can really really tell he's absolutely loved being a part of succession

stewy's full name being sadegh is soooo important to me for two main reasons. 1) it literally means "honest" or "sincere" like his parents really had some foresight on that one huh! and 2) his family using his real name <3 like stewy has not gone by sadegh since he was like 10 years old but of course his parents and sisters are still gonna call him that!

in a recent interview arian said that he leans towards stewy's family having immigrated to the US in the 80s, since that's what his own family did and what he's familiar with. obviously arian is the expert but I could still see it being very plausible that stewy's parents and sister came first and that he was born in new york.

I've also had a headcanon for a very long time that stewy plays the piano. and we actually got arian to confirm that too!!! I can't find the tweet atm unfortunately. but I did work that idea into a fic because it just seems like it fits so well that stewy would be a pianist. he's got the hands for it for sure.

stewy was a really good student. his family definitely didn't have the kind of money or influence to buy his way into harvard (unlike kendall), so he actually had to put in the effort in high school to get there. I do think he probably slacked off a bit once he was actually in college, but regardless of his GPA he graduated with a degree from harvard, so he's fine lol

I think he has a late december birthday, in between christmas and new year's. I don't know anything about astrology so I can't say that it makes any sense if you assign a star sign to him, but I just go based off vibes and I'm very sure he was born like december 29th.

stewy loves food. there was a great post about the roys' relationships with food that I reblogged a while back and it also included stewy. he's one of the only characters who we see actually engaging with and enjoying food (looking at the menu at argestes, ordering a meal when he meets with kendall and logan in 2x10, "is this delicious fucking goo?", etc.). I think he really appreciates a good meal, especially a home-cooked one, particularly because his parents brought family recipes with them when they immigrated. he definitely learned to cook when he was like 12 and is still very good at it. I think he'd rather cook for himself than get takeout, and he also is the type of guy to cook meals as a way of showing love <3

the man works out. not anything hardcore, but he enjoys running and going to the gym on a regular basis. I think it's more for the routine than anything else.

[yikesharringrove]

So, I had this idea, but I'm not really good with writing Harringrove, so I thought I could share it with u. A modern au where Steve nd Billy are streamers in L.A. Like, maybe Billys a gaming streamer nd Steve is a v chill streamer nd basically half of their live streams consist of Steve sitting in Billys lap nd the two of them cuddling while just talking nd one day they get a donation question like, "Are the two of u dating wtf" nd they just go "duh" also. femme/nonbinary steve

I love the idea of Steve being jenna marbles-esque, just like sweet and kinda weird and super loved.

And y’all know my love for nb Steve.

Based loosely on this post. Mainly just the gif.

Watch me make up twitter handles lol

This is v soft and includes many of my headcanons for these two living their lovely modern lives.

-

“Bill!”

Steve was yowling like a damn cat out in the kitchen, interrupting Billy’s stream. “Billy!”

“Stevie! I’m streamin’, Baby!” Hear could hear Steve’s feet plodding down the hall. The chat started going crazy as they appeared in the stream behind Billy, wearing a too-big sweater, thick wool socks on those perpetually cold little feet. Their hair was a fucking mess, and they were wearing their glasses, the big ones Billy loved.

They climbed on Billy’s lap, settling their face into his neck.

“What’s up?”

“Just wanted some lovin’.” Steve’s voice was soft, but they always put their face on the side Billy’s headset mic was on and the audience would go wild over the quiet things they said. Billy rubbed their back before going back to his game.

“Everyone welcome Stevie to the stream.”

He kept playing as usual, Steve a warm little puddle in his lap.

“Okay, Babes. I’m signing off for today, Steve is definitely asleep on me right now and I gotta put them to bed. Love you all, stay safe.” He had to awkwardly shuffle Steve around in his lap to turn off the stream, picking them up to take them to the room across the hall.

They had gotten a two bedroom when they were still friends, pretending they weren’t fucking in love with each other. They had moved into the bedroom formerly known as Steve’s, setting up Billy’s old room for streaming and video editing.

Steve snuffled as Billy took off their glasses, sliding into bed behind them.

-

Steve was sitting on the floor, laughing at the monitor.

They had been doing a series of Quarantine Madness videos, doing crafts and silly makeup tutorials.

They were currently trying temporary hairdye, had their hair sticking up in all directions.

“This is so fucking stupid, oh my god.” They had electric pink in their hair, Billy had gotten roped into it with dark blue.

“If you destroy my hair for YouTube hits, I’m gonna cry.” Steve had their thin fingers in his hair, rubbing the dye in.

“Oh, worse comes to worse you get ridda that fucking mullet.”

“You love this mullet. It’s my trademark.” Billy’s hair wasn’t supposed to be a mullet, was originally a shag that had grown in weird, but Billy had become known for it, and he had kinda grown to like it.

“The whole premise of this video is to get you to shave your head.” Billy laughed. “Okay, so we gotta wait like twenty minutes and then we gotta wash it out.” They looked at memes while they waited, figured Steve would edit all this waiting out of the video anyway.

They washed the dye out in the sink, scrubbing at one another’s heads before getting in the shower to clean off the patches on their skin.

They ended up getting a little distracted in the shower.

Steve had blow dried both their hair to see the color. The pink was subtle in Steve’s dark hair, the highlights they had gotten a few weeks before quarantine picking up more of the color.

Billy’s hair was bright fucking blue, and neither of them could stop laughing at it.

“I kinda, kinda love it on you, Bill.” Steve was brushing their fingers through Billy’s hair, making him lean into the touch like a damn cat.

The video ended up being wildly popular.

-

“So, you all tweeted us some questions, and we’re gonna answer them over live stream. We each picked a bunch to pose to one another, so yeah.” Steve shrugged. “Billy, @.DustinHendy wants to know why you’re such a little bitch.” Billy cackled, planting his face into Steve’s shoulder.

“Tell Dustin he’s a little garbage human.” Billy winked at the camera, making the comments along the side of the screen go crazy. “Um, I thought this question was interesting, @.llittlebug says: you two are so touchy. Are you together, or are you just close friends? We’re gal pals, actually.” Steve laughed, loud and bright.

“Two bros chillin’ in the hot tub, five feet apart ‘cause we’re not gay.” Steve sang, making them both crack up.

“Yeah, we’re very much in a relationship, have been for four years now.” Steve was giving him that soft smile Billy loved so much. He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to that sweet little mouth. The chat was going insane, people sending comments along the lines of I knew it! and so happy for you both!

Steve’s cheeks were flushed.

“So, uh @.bigyikes asks, how did you two meet? Well actually, we went to high school together, and fucking hated each other when we first met, got in a big fight, worked our shit out became friends, moved in together, and fell in love like big dumb losers.”

“So bold of you to claim I ever hated you. I literally was fucking in love with them from the first time I ever saw them but I was, uh, going through a lot, and was kind of the worst back then.” Steve’s arm was on his shoulder, playing with the long hair by his neck.

“You’ve gotten so much better. And I’m proud of you.” Billy planted a kiss to their forehead.

“Next question before I fucking cry, @.imaloser wants to know our sexualities and gender expressions. I mean, you’ve been plenty open about all that.”

“Well, yeah. I’m pansexual and agender, which is under the nonbinary umbrella, but I like to typically present femme. And I use they pronouns, most of you know that, of course. I’m pretty open.” They turned big eyes on Billy.

“These days, I just identify as queer. I’ve always identified as a gay man, but I haven’t dated a guy in a long fuckin’ time.” Steve curled into his side.

“It’s been a learning process for both of us. I mean Billy’s the first person I dated seriously after I came out, and there was just a part of me that felt lowkey misgendered every time he said he was gay.”

“Oh, there was a lot of learning in those early days for sure. And I think we’re both still doing that. I hope I am.” Steve poked his stomach.

“You’re good to me, Bill.” There was a slew of sweet comments in the live stream.

“@.folks asks when did you get into makeup?” He turned to Steve.

“Growing up, most of my friends were girls, and I just always loved playing dress up, and getting make overs. When I was like, fourteen I think, I started playing with makeup myself, learning from YouTube tutorials, and just like, messing around with stuff. I always loved just feeling really pretty, so that’s why-” they gestured at themself, one of Billy’s shirts tucked into old worn out jeans, soft white cardigan. They had put on a full face of makeup for the stream.

“I think you’re the prettiest.” Steve laughed, headbutting Billy’s shoulder.

“Okay, so @.imstruggling wants to know who’s a better cook.” Steve turned dramatically to the camera. “Me, bitch!”

[overdrivels]

TWtaH Notes

I’m finally free. It took three years and nearly 150k words, but I’m finally done. I can’t believe it. 

It started off as a simple idea and a simple premise: a chef!reader who, while knife sharpening, catches Hanzo’s attention. It then evolved into a full-fledged fic with a plot and plot twists. Originally, it was supposed to be around 10 chapters long, but then it grew out of control over the years as I tried to figure out how to end what I started. 

In addition to being a redemption fic, this was also an information dump fic. Since this is the very first slowburn I have ever finished and I have the feeling I won’t have much opportunity to do the same ever again--I don’t think any other fandom would give me the ability to showcase all these tidbits like Overwatch does--I literally threw as much knowledge as I could reasonably incorporate as possible.

About plot changes:

Most of the original plot points survived the writing process, some minor ones didn’t for plot related reasons, so this surprisingly went better than I thought it would. 

There was supposed to be another scene where Chef faced off against Reaper in chapter 20 or so, but upon reassessing Reaper’s character, I decided he wouldn’t do that, especially not against civilians or put himself in harm’s way just to say something to Chef. He wouldn’t even say anything to his family in the comics, what makes anyone think he’d do anything to someone he had even less of a personal relationship with?

There were supposed to be more scenes about Chef’s fencing, but I couldn’t fit it in and it ended up being a one-trick pony plot device. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but that’s how it turned out. There was supposed to be a scene where Chef fights back against Talon during their infiltration of the Watchpoint.

There were points where Hanzo himself talked his way out of situations and forced me to change the plot. In the kitchen when he first meets Chef face-to-face, he wasn’t supposed to get the chef to forgive him which is the biggest plot deviation I’ve had and it forced me to reconsider large sections of the story. Honestly, I think it’s for the better though because I was really at a loss as to how to progress the original plot under those conditions.

I also wanted to emphasize that when Chef left, there was increased tension between the members. There was little commonality joining them all together except for the fact they all needed to eat. In order for some parties to work, you have to have your support characters, and in that case, it’d be Chef. But I seem to have bumbled through that bit and made it less impactful so if I ever got a chance to rewrite this, I’d probably stress this bit more.

Symmetra was supposed to have a much bigger role in this, somehow she fell to the wayside with that one plot change in the kitchen I mentioned before. On the flipside, Ana and McCree got a way bigger role than expected. 

One of the biggest plot changes was Hanzo hating peppers. Originally he was supposed to hate onions but I thought there was way too much onion in Japanese cuisine to omit them, so I thought of something that would seem more ‘childish’.

To be fair, I also don’t really like peppers all that much either. But I sure as hell love onions.

The proposal with the miso soup at the end, the plot twist where the chefs are the real treasure, and some other minor details have been there since the beginning of the idea’s conception. Things like Reaper trading Overwatch’s life for the tamale, the name of the restaurant, and Hanzo’s fight with Genji only came after the fic was being written. 

Real life:

Covid really took its toll on me since a lot of this fic revolved around food, tasting it, experiencing it, making it, etc. I lost a good portion of my taste and smell, and it’s not back 100% even months later, so a lot of what I begin to describe after a certain point is just based on memory. If a pre-pandemic world, I would have been running around the city, sampling foods and writing down my impressions, but with things as they were, it didn’t pan out that way.

I tried to stuff as many of my favorite foods (and not so favorite foods) here as much as possible. There were a lot of foods I omitted because there’s only so much I could fit in here. A companion compilation fic of the Overwatch characters eating their favorite foods or just eating food in general made by Chef sounds really appealing right now.

May, June, and July made me really want to expand the story and include things in the fic that would turn it ‘problematic’ or at least morally ambiguous. If I did that, this fic would never be finished. 

Characterization and development:

Junkrat and Roadhog are much more docile in this story than I would have headcanoned them simply because food security is life-changing. I really liked the idea of Roadhog using his farming skills and being less homicidal with the right environment. They both know food is sacred. 

Argus 20 is in reference to Argus Panoptes, the all-seeing many eyed giant from greek mythology. The 20 comes from “hindsight is 20-20” (but now 2020 has a very different connotation and I’m thinking it’s pretty fitting). The reason for this is because she oversaw a lot of what was happening especially in the front of house. It’s not mentioned in the story, but she oversaw things like purchasing the restaurant, setting up the dummy accounts, organizing and obfuscating the donations, etc.

In case there was any confusion, ‘Tanuja Deshmukh Singh’ is Asim’s deadname. When he left Overwatch and became Asim Singh, his family disowned him. He was then free to live as himself, but he never discarded his last name because he still wanted to be connected to his family in some vague way no matter how much they disliked or denied his existence.

Head Chef Richard has been in jail. His backstory is basically after firing his staff to protect them from the fall out, he basically told the press he fired them for insubordination and took the fall for the kitchens and got quietly arrested. He was sent to the same prison that Chef would end up at. He’s not a very honest man, I don’t think, but he’s a character who was molded by the story and its needs rather than being a pre-established OC. 

I kind of wanted to write the fic in a way where Argus and Asim weren’t bad guys but people who were forced to make difficult decisions because of the position they were put in by Chef and by Talon. Cause, you know, sometimes you do things to hurt people without realizing it.

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to push another ship in the background. If you see hints of different pairings here and there, you may be seeing it right because I kept flip-flopping between chapters as to whether I wanted to or not, and if I decided I did, I kept changing the pairings.

Hanzo. Where do I even start with this guy? I had a really tough time trying to stick to one interpretation of his character. I kept reading other fics and going, “Yeah. Yeah! I want that!” But then it just became a huge mish-mash of characterizations until I wasn’t sure who he was anymore. But I clung onto the thought of “he’s the first son of an Asian household dealing with his spoiled brother” to help get me through it. It reminds me of that tweet that goes, “You think you can hurt me? I’m the eldest daughter in an asian family.” It was so relatable. Channeling eldest sibling in asian family vibes. 

Chef. It was so hard. It was so damn hard writing a faceless character for so many words. I can usually do it in a one-shot because I can get away with not mentioning stuff, but in a slowburn?? It’s so difficult. Multiple times I had to stop myself or revise things because there were characters talking about Chef and I didn’t want to make the dialogue unnatural by saying ‘chef’ ‘chef’ over and over again. There were other moments like Soldier carrying Chef out of the Cellar and I was like: “What if the reader is taller than Soldier?!” It was a struggle. The other struggle was characterization. There were so many in-story stressful moments that I wanted Chef to start crying at but the timing of it was so frequent that I had to nix most of them or risk making Chef unrelatable. 

lol i’ve made several pseudo-cameos in the story because I’m shameless. 

Miscellaneous:

Man, my style changed so many times throughout the story. At some point I ended up writing outlines made solely of dialogue and wrote the story around it. It was oddly distressing when I realized my words wouldn’t come out like they used to.  

This fic has seen me through a ridiculous amount of crap. I kind of wished I kept a journal or something because these past three years have been nuts. 

After this, I’ll probably retire from writing Overwatch and then go into my usual writing hibernation that spans about 4 years before I reemerge with an unquenchable thirst for something stupid. 

In my nearly 20 years of writing fanfic, this is the first slowburn I’ve ever completed. To be fair, the last time I even tried was like...over 10 years ago when mediaminer was still a thing and didn’t ban CYOAs.

This was also the longest single fic I’ve ever written. I have wirtten 200k in a year before but never for any single thing.

God, this was hard. I partially did it to prove that you don’t need to use placeholders like ‘Y/N’ and stuff like that and it was possible to write a slowburn with gender neutral stuff, but I had to cheat a bit. But it’s done. 

I’ve worked in the restaurant business for a few years but not as a chef. It wasn’t even high-end either. I wanted to talk about the work conditions because it’s pretty tough in the kitchens and the amount of drugs and vices people turn to and the conditions in which people come to work is nuts. 

I wanted to cover a lot of controversial topics to see if I could but it just didn’t fit in the story. I wanted to tap into things like social justice, racism, prejudices, political landscapes, and so on. Even within Overwatch, I’d imagine there’s a lot of tensions stemming from just basic ideologies. I wanted to see if I could write about both (or more) sides of challenging arguments and still remove the author’s opinions from the story, but I’d imagine that’ll bring its own complications. Last thing I wanted was to start a fight in the comments or something.

I almost made the crew travel to Asia with implications of a changed geo-political sphere from today. Like...the status of Taiwan would’ve been interesting to touch upon, but I didn’t feel like I had the knowledge to expand on it enough.

Almost every waking of my life, I have thought or worked on this fic. During meetings, during conferences, during client calls, while I’m on public transportation, in different countries. I don’t know what to do with myself now.

Anyway, if you have any questions or anything or just want to shout at me, inbox is open.. For now I’m just going to lament over the fact that Genshin Impact gives me motion sickness and I can’t play despite working so hard to roll Mona.

[whatiwillsay]

DA2

DA2: love’s literature

hold my hand

driving ticket

indie record (the books beside our bed)

jail

kurt vonnegut

tattoos

lesbian chemicals (ft. Jack Antonoff)

unicorn

—

The title of this album is based off the fact Dianna is a snobby literature gay. It is a lyric of “kurt vonnegut,” and the motif of literature being an important element of love is repeated in “indie record (the books beside our bed)” and “tattoos.” The title is thematically appropriate as well, as its songs chronicle grand love stories fit for romantic literature.

“hold my hand” is an Achele song. The title is based on the fact that they always held hands suring “Someone to Love” during the Glee Tour. The song starts out with the dramatic ascending “Can” that is the opening note of “Someone to Love,” but the sound comes crashing down into a cacophony (think sort of like the beginning of “closure,” but with more chaos and more Freddie Mercury vibes). It turns into a Avril Lavigne-style petty break up song about Lea.

“driving ticket” is an Achele song. It uses driving tickets as an extended metaphor for relationship issues. One of the lryics is “And you always made fun of me because gays can’t drive / Guess I was too happy for you.” (After the release of the album, Dianna tweets that the “gays” in this lyric refers to happy people, not fruitcakes.) There’s also the lyric saying that in another life, Dianna would have crashed her car just to stop her pronoun-less love interest’s wedding; this is a reference to how Quinn got in a car crash and it stopped Rachel’s wedding in Glee. I chose the title for this song based on that Glee car crash and based on the fact that Dianna gets so many driver’s tickets in real life, haha.

“indie record (the books beside our bed)” is a Taylor song. It’s a bubblegum pop song with a somewhat ironic tone (think WANGBT meets “Stay Stay Stay”), but the bridge is intensely dramatic (sort of like the bridge of “Driver’s License” by Olivia Rodrigo). At one point in the bridge, she sings “You sung me a party / You wrote me a warm sweater.” This line confirms that 1989 (party) and “cardigan” (warm sweater) are about Dianna. The song is reminiscing on their relationship in a way that could be read as petty but is actually more so mournful (as Dianna believes that the greatness of that relationship was only possible because of their youthful infatuation, so is such a great relationship ever possible again? so like she’s sort of mourning the loss of her youth—to both time and closeting—as well). The title is a reference to WANGBT (even though I think it’s about Liz), and the part of the title that is in parenthesis is a reference to “Paper Rings” (even though I think it’s about Joe).

“jail” is an anti-Karlie song. I have this headcanon that Taylor wrote most of YAIL about Dianna but ended up gifting the song to Karlie with that Instagram post (like how she gifted “Dress”—a Karlie song—to Joe with that bridge). Because of this, we can think of YAIL as a song that Karlie stole. Dianna sings about Karlie with that Other Woman trope, except throughout the song, who the other woman is (whether she’s Karlie or Dianna herself) becomes less and less clear. In the chorus, Dianna refers to the other woman as “the crook,” which calls back to “it’s time to go.” She follows up that moniker with the statement that the crook must go to jail—but Dianna pronounces the J in “jail” very weirdly, so it almost sounds like she’s singing the word “YAIL.” In the bridge of the song, Dianna belts “143 / Remember those days,” which is what she tweeted after the Kaylor road trip Vogue cover. The bridge feels a bit like “Getaway Car” in that it has a lot of driving references, like Karlie is stealing Taylor by whisking her away in a car.

“kurt vonnegut” is a jazzy/indie song, in the style of “Do You Want a Man” by The Vaccines. In the song, Dianna quotes a lot of classic literature in order to paint a picture of a grand, dramatic, failed love (Swiftgron). The chorus includes the phrase “love’s literature” in an almost “New Year’s Day”-like reference to how their love is as grand as literature’s great love stories, but also somehow better, so don’t read the last page (aka, don’t let the story come to an end). That one line cautioning about the story coming to an end gives the song a little bit of a foreboding mood if you listen carefully, and that’s how we know that it’s a break up song and not a love song for Filippo. Notably, Dianna sings the lyric “so it goes,” which is based on a Kurt Vonnegut novel. What’s interesting about this is that out of all the authors whose work Dianna referenced in the song, she chose Kurt Vonnegut’s name as the title for this song. Tumblr sapphics take this to mean that “so it goes” has a special significance—specifically, that Taylor’s song “So It Goes…” is about Dianna.

“tattoos” is a Taylor song. It wants to be a petty break up song, but there’s too much emotion behind it to stay petty; as a result, it’s raw and full of hurt. Dianna wants this to just be about the tattoos, wants to just cuss Taylor out for putting her tattoo as a lyric in “Wonderland,” but she can’t help but pour so much more into this song—because her resentment for what happened to Swiftgron is so much stronger than just resenting that she had to contact a tattoo removal service. This fact becomes clear in a lyric in which Dianna refers to Taylor’s love as a tattoo, permanently seared onto her skin like a scar or a scarlet letter. (This The Scarlet Letter reference is another reason why I chose love’s literature as the title of this album.)

“lesbian chemicals (ft. Jack Antonoff)” is the most unhinged song on the album. The story behind this title is that Jack is a bit weird and has this almost obsession with lesbians. In one interview, he referred to himself as a straight man with lesbian chemicals because he loves like a lesbian loves. Anyways, the song starts off with the sounds of a piano being runed (because of that one time when we thought Dianna posted an Instagram story of Jack tuning her piano, lol). The song is a bit slower but still has that definite Jack Antonoff feel to it. Dianna sings about how she loves the pronoun-less subject like a lesbian would: she treasures them, admires how soft and perfect and lovable they are, etc. It’s almost like “Dress” in that it’s so undeniably gay in its lyrical content. Jack has backup vocals. After the album’s release, Dianna tweets that this song was Jack’s idea. It’s a clear no-homo-ing. She states that she feels similarly to how Jack felt when he gave that quote—that she’s a straight woman who just so happens to have lesbian chemicals and love like a lesbian would.

“unicorn” is an ode to the Blondterage. The title is a reference to Molly’s birthday post for Dianna (which is actually the cover of the album) in which she references riding Dianna, calls Dianna a unicorn (which has obvious sexual implications), etc. The song is a targeted attack on all Dolly shippers because it’s like “22” in that Dianna tries to pass it off as a I Love My Gal Pals song, but in reality, it’s secretly a song about longing. Sonically, “unicorn” is reminiscent of “Make Me Feel” by Janelle Monáe.

submission⬆️⬆️⬆️

truly incredible!!!

[authoratmidnight]

Any Vanguard Series

Cardfight! Vanguard (OG series)

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching| might watch | currently watching| dropped| hated it | meh| a positive okay| liked it| liked it a lot!| loved it| a favorite

don’t watch period| drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes| give it a go, could be your thing| 5 star recommendation

fav characters: Ishida Naoki, Ren, Aichi, Misaki, Miwa, honestly all the characters are great

least fav characters: Takuto throughout season 2(I called ihm the shitlord for a reason), Kyou(admittedly I hate him less after realizing that he’s probably supposed to be like 12, like Kamui but OG Kyou is still annoying), Nagisa

fav relationship: Like, nearly all of them? Aichi and Kai, Team Q4, Aichi and Misaki, Aichi and his family,

fav moment: Hmmm...idk(it’s been a while since I watched the og series lol). The scene near the end of Legion Mate where Ren shows up to Card Capital in his s1 attire and nearly gives everyone a heart attack. I cackled at that.

headcanons/theories: I’ve shared it before but, Aichi totally kept his Shadow Paladin deck, it only comes out once in a while

unpopular opinion: Also Legion Mate is fun I don’t care what anyone says.

how’d you find it: Sort of by chance. I was in a livestream for Arc V and we ended up running out of stuff to watch but there was still time before the new episode aired and the host was like ‘well, I have some Vanguard we could watch’ so we watched a couple episodes and I got hooked.

random thoughts: If you like card game anime like Yu-Gi-Oh you’ll like Vanguard. The characters and story are great. Also it actually fun filler and slice of life ep, and knows when to trim down fights (and which ones to skim over). The pacing is liiiiitle whack in some places (like season 2, it DRAGS. despite being the shortest season it feels so long).

But it’s good and more people should give it a shot.

Cardfight! Vanguard G

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching| might watch | currently watching| dropped| hated it | meh| a positive okay| liked it| liked it a lot!| loved it| a favorite

don’t watch period| drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes| give it a go, could be your thing| 5 star recommendation

fav characters: Chrono, Shion, Taiyou,

least fav characters: Shinonome Shouma can jump in a fire. Also, Dumjid is a lil pissy bitch and I don’t like him either.

fav relationship: Team Trinity Dragon! I love those nerds so much. I was SO prepared for them to be like, the Morikawa of the series and be annoying, especially Tsuneto, but they were actually, great?

fav moment: When Shouma got punched in the face. It was /very/ satisfying.

headcanons/theories: Shin (Misaki’s uncle) is SUPER bi and back in his cardfighting days on Team Nippon had a hella crush on Rive(like, the whole flashback about Rive and Ryuzu, Shin reads as someone whose jealous that their crush is spending time with someone else).

unpopular opinion: I don’t think NEXT and Z are, nearly as bad as everyone makes them out to be??? I enjoyed them but it seems like, I’m the only one??

how’d you find it: I mean, it’s basically the sequel to the first series so I found it that way-and through seeing tweets about it on my tl.

random thoughts: Admittedly the only reason I started G is cause I knew Aichi made a return at some point so I’m like ‘yes I want to see this’. Even though I had to sit through like, 3 and a half seasons lol.

Cardfight! Vanguard - V series (aka the reboot based off the manga)

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching| might watch | currently watching| dropped| hated it | meh| a positive okay| liked it| liked it a lot!| loved it| a favorite

don’t watch period| drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes| give it a go, could be your thing| 5 star recommendation

Most of the other things are the same as the OG, so I’m just going to fill out the ‘random thoughts’ for it. Also it’s not yet over (in fact the next arc starts, tomorrow)

Random Thoughts: Kyou is considerably less annoying in this version and Ren actually has a backstory which adds some MUCH needed depth to his character. Since it DOES follow the manga the story progresses really fast but, imo that’s not a bad thing.

Also Aich and Kai’s relationship in the reboot is some A+ stuff

Also it has probably my favourite filler episode of anything ever(which probably falls under ‘favourite moment’).