#otp: because i thought you would die

[pandalandalopalis]

‘bu-yeon’ being flirty with jang uk is karma for how ridiculously flirty he was with mu-deok

[nu1lst4rs]

doodled human designs for nightmares gang!

click for better quality

ggrahhb. i love them. will draw individual refs soon. promise. cross has jumped between nightmares gang and star sanses, and therefore is considered a neutral outcode in our au. so ill draw him later.

horror fws the trans community

Star sanses, neutral aus (p1), neutral aus (p2), extras

some headcanons under cut 3_^

warning there is alot of text

> nightmare (they/it)

DESI NIGHTMARE!!!! (this is blatant self projection.)

short. but they always manipulate their height when they're outside of their gang because they hate being short.

chubby because its ass is not used to actual food, and they have a really slow metabolism when it isnt negativity. and now that horrors "forcing" it to eat, they gain weight. fast.

intersex. not sure why i think this but they don't really have a sex, so. erm.

^ adding onto that their fluid in their expression. sometimes masc, sometimes fem, sometimes andro.

has those stupid ass hair curlers and uses leftovers for their tentacles

MATCHING NECKLACES WITH MY OTP AT THE CURRENT MOMENT. usually errormare or bsp. sometimes fluffynight. killermare if nihira is fronting.

also sugar daddy nightmare. its either rich as fuck or have no money at all. (this is kindve a crack hc)

> Dust (he/they)

leaning korean and thai mix for him. because i need to see more mixed characters.

wears pjs whenever he can. gets the most fucking stupid pj pants too. like hello kitty. comfort > style.

always dusty. mostly because he doesn't shower and smells like ASS, but also because they gotta live up to their name somehow.

TRANS MASC. dont care if you say its wrong. EVERYONE IS TRANS. (excluding horror and blue. allies!)

aroace spec 100%. most sanses are, but him in particular. would rather die than do any of the sappy bs. but wouldd love to have a partner. or maybe 3. wink wink.

"2 shorter than killer but gaslights killer into thinking he's taller

doesn't wear papyrus' scarf, but keeps it in his sleeve.

> Horror (he/him)

wanna hc him as native american. but i haven't exactly thought much about what in particular.

tall and bulky. after a lonnggg famine, horror developed an ED. where they stress eat until he's physically ill, or feeling less stressed.

doesn't need the bandages on his face, bur keeps them there because he hates the scar

little big bottom teeth. its something he developed due to the food conditions in HT snowdin.

as much as it happens, horror HATES having blood on him, so he wears an apron underneath his clothes and does the laundry often.

PROSTHETIC LEG!!!! it got stuck in a bear trap when he was in his old au, and alphys didnt really know what else to do. its not the best thing, but its reliable. killer likes to put stickers on it.

has a cleaver named maxine, and an axe called rex.

ace because i dont really think. yeah. gross. ew. intimacy.

> killer (he/they/it)

arabic. its almost canon at this point.

has a selection of knifes in his thigh thing if his magic backfires on them. favourite is its butterfly knife.

is legally blind. his ass CANNOT see. refuses to admit this.

acespec because like look at me. he can barely feel. i just think he'd love the idea of being in a relationship, and desperately want one. but know he cant be in one.

scars galore holy shit. is always somehow simultaneously sloppy and precise with his knifework. him and nightmare have a small rivalry to see who can get the most.

needs to have textures on his clothes. something to ground themself. like "oh shit we're dissociating." rubs pants aggressively. works for us.

transb... transverse...

also DID but this is hinted at in canon

HUh. okay wow that was alot. cres shut up about utmv for 5 seconds (IMPOSSIBLE) (I DIED AFTER 1 SECOND). anyways THANK YOU!!! i will post and draw stars and neutrals tomorrow maybe. just after some sleep because it is 2am. bye everyone 3.<

[saintsenara]

Hi, I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely love your metas! You’re not only clearly a very talented writer but also blessed with such great insight into these characters that my dopamine levels always jump to absolute heights with every new post. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and being a real gem in this fandom ❤️

Also, because I couldn’t find any post (or did I miss it?) about specifically Harry/Snape (without a third person added to the mix) I would love to read your thoughts on it. Either romantically or gen, after the war, where Snape lives. Thank you so much for indulging me :)

thank you very much for the [exceptionally lovely] ask, anon!

snarry is definitely a popular request...

... so let's get into it!

[and let's also get out of the way that i do not back snamione as a pairing. you can find out why here.]

while they're by no means my otp - and while i'll admit to preferring both snape and harry paired up with lord voldemort - i have long dabbled in a bit of snarry, particularly because it's a ship which attracts astonishingly talented writers. and - in particular - astonishingly talented writers who think really subtly, intelligently, and creatively about life and love and all the questions therein. i'm always really struck by the nuance with which both snape and harry are treated in so many snarry fics, and i much prefer that to the more one-note treatment each character gets elsewhere in the fandom.

and - of course - why snarry works so well as a ship is because it has such a solid justification in both harry and snape's canon characterisation - and because this compatibility is made all the more interesting by the layer of conflict caused by snape and harry's mutually antagonistic relationship. harry adores the half-blood prince - looks up to him so much, in fact, that he genuinely wonders if the man was his father - because they're intellectually compatible, have similar senses of humour, have similarly self-serving aspects to their moral codes, and have a shared reactivity and emotional volatility. the text emphasises this frequently, most explicitly when hermione tells harry in half-blood prince that he doth protest too much:

"He tried to jinx me, in case you didn’t notice!" fumed Harry. "I had enough of that during those Occlumency lessons! Why doesn’t he use another guinea pig for a change? What’s Dumbledore playing at, anyway, letting him teach Defence? Did you hear him talking about the Dark Arts? He loves them! All that unfixed, indestructible stuff - " "Well," said Hermione, "I thought he sounded a bit like you."

harry is also willing to acknowledge these similarities himself, sometimes. he empathises with - and even, occasionally, respects - snape well before the conclusion of deathly hallows, and - crucially - does this on his own terms. him refusing to dismiss his disgust at his father's treatment of snape in snape's worst memory in order not to make sirius or lupin feel awkward is incredibly impressive - and is something i don't think he gets enough credit for.

and since one of the things which makes me a member of both tomarrymort and snapemort nation is harry's instinctive understanding of how voldemort's childhood affected him and voldemort's understanding of how snape's childhood affected him, this is something i think provides a fascinating seam for authors to mine when writing about snape and harry together.

similarly, post-war, i think snarry is one of the best pairings for exploring how both harry and snape come to terms with the realisation that - no matter how well it all worked out in the end - they were both pawns in a larger game. i think that snape is, really, the only person in harry's life who could ever come close to appreciating what it means to have dumbledore send you out to [nearly] die - and i also think, because the man is always at the forefront of my mind, that snape is one of the few people in harry's life who can appreciate the fact that harry, as much as he also hated and feared him, was impressed by, sympathised with, and wanted to help voldemort.

snarry is also an incredibly compelling ship for thinking about power, and how both harry and snape understand it. i wouldn't care about the age difference, or the fact that snape and harry's acquaintance is established while harry is a child and snape is his teacher, even if the dynamic between them could only ever be heavily unbalanced in snape's favour, because these are fictional people. but i'm often struck by how interestingly snarry writers deal with snape being someone who views himself, inherently, as a supplicant - and who therefore ends up offering harry the upper hand in their dynamic [whether this is platonic or otherwise] despite the fact that he is the younger partner. snape's capacity for destructive devotion and self-subordination is one of his most fascinating canon characteristics - and snarry is one of the best vehicles for exploring this.

indeed, the canonical snape clearly regards harry as someone who possesses power over him. his complaints about harry being rich, spoiled, and arrogant make clear that he considers harry to be the second coming of the dynamic he had with james [with it never seeming to occur to him that this is an absurd thing for an adult teacher to think about their pupil], while his complaints about harry's fame are because he views harry as an inherent insider [someone with a pureblood surname and the money to prove it] to the wizarding world while he himself is an outcast. this can cause some exquisite toxicity - especially when snape, who tends to view every interaction he has though a win-lose lens and who becomes incredibly nasty in both victory and defeat, is proven right, having insisted to harry that the wizarding world won't like its golden hero getting railed by a tenuously-acquitted death eater.

but it can also result in something surprisingly beautiful. harry likes to save people, after all, and snape would - deep down - very much to be saved.

and one way he can do this is by offering snape the forgiveness for his role in lily's death which it's clear the canonical snape refuses to accept he might be entitled to. and, in doing this, the pairing draws out a theme which i am obsessed with - that there is a lost generation, whose ghosts haunt the characters alive in the canon timeline. no matter how negative his opinion on james and sirius and so on is, by virtue of knowing them, snape provides harry with a connection to a world he would be a stranger to otherwise, while harry provides snape with a mooring in the present which makes dealing with the weight of the past - and processing the fact that he's virtually the only person he knew as a teenager who's still alive - easier.

i also think that fucking your enemy's nephew is iconic, and snape and petunia meeting again in a scenario in which he's harry's boyfriend is a concept that sustains me.

[blasphemousclaw]

Idk if you plan on doing the "questions-about-character-x" list yet, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on Marika (maybe with a side of Radagon but mostly the golden strumpet).

• favorite thing about them

nothing hits me harder than characters who lash out because of the injustice or suffering they’ve endured… there’s something so cathartic about characters who make their pain and anger felt in the world in a tangible and consequential way. Marika is this character to me!! I think it’s so powerful to introduce her as an all-powerful goddess, keeping her at a distance as this enigmatic figure who shaped the world as it is today and then shattered it, and then to humanize her by showing us where she comes from and what she went through… she was never just a cold, distant, uncaring deity, but a person, with very human motivations and flaws. learning her backstory gives us so much context for why she did the things that she did and gives us the opportunity to feel close to her and empathize with her… I think she was always sympathetic in the base game, but she still felt so distant, so I really love how the dlc fleshed her out and made her character so accessible

• least favorite thing about them

this isn’t even about her, but about how the fanbase has responded to her writing in the dlc because like dear god

it almost makes me want to avoid content of her which sucks because I really like her LOL

• favorite line

“Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices...”

absolutely fascinating quote… we don’t really know the context, so there’s many different ways to interpret it… Marika urging her children to become a lord or a god is interesting, because when she deposed the Gloam-Eyed Queen and removed Destined Death from the Elden Ring, it seemed like she was fighting hard to stay in power and to become “Eternal,” but her children succeeding her would necessarily end her reign? This also almost seems like she’s encouraging conflict between her children… there can only be one god and one lord, after all. we don’t know when the quote was spoken, but it almost seems to reference Ranni’s sacrifice of Godwyn on her path to godhood on her own terms? is this a warning? is it a challenge? is it just the words of an extremely jaded and cynical goddess?

• brOTP, ОТР

ok I’m gonna do away with this format here because I just want to list some of her relationships that I really like without having to categorize them:

Marika and Messmer: the dynamic of Marika being a god-queen whose grace is blinding, and her son being born cursed with a serpent of the lightless abyss is so good… him taking up the crusade on her behalf, of his own volition, because he hates how he was born so deeply and will do anything to try to atone for something that isn’t even his fault, committing horrors in her name, is SOOOO

Marika and Radagon: I love pondering where one of them starts and the other begins, how they have opposite goals and worldviews but exist in the same being. really good

Marika and Rennala: I wouldn’t call it an otp but I like it as a ship. Marika being the one to steal away Rennala’s husband, but she actually IS her husband. unparalleled dynamic

• nОТР

there arent any Marika ships I’ve seen that I dislike

• random headcanon

I think she was horrified and disgusted by Morgott and Mohg AND she loved them still. omen babies would have their horns cut off, usually causing them to die, but omen babies born of royalty did not have their horns cut off, so they were allowed to live… I love the idea that Marika couldn’t bear to sentence her children to death, but she also couldn’t bear to look at them because of her past, so they were confined to the Shunning Grounds

• unpopular opinion

*cracks knuckles*

SO MANY people have the wrong idea about her. you’ve got people saying everything she did was justified, she didn’t go far enough, “total hornsent death” etc etc. and on the other hand you’ve got people saying the dlc writing is terrible because it’s excusing Marika for her crimes, it’s baiting you to feel bad for the hornsent and then pulling a plot twist that actually, they were evil and Marika was good the whole time!

both of these interpretations are flawed because the story is not arguing that the hornsent are fundamentally evil people, and it is not arguing that Marika is now blameless because of what she suffered. the story is rife with moments of sympathy for the hornsent’s suffering and examples of the crusade’s inexcusable cruelty, and so much of what’s in the base game showcases the cruelty that Marika’s Order has inflicted. just because the story is giving Marika a sympathetic reason for why she is the way she is does not mean that these facts cease to exist! sympathy for Marika, sympathy for the hornsent, and condemnation for the Golden Order’s and the crusade’s crimes can all exist in the story at the same time!!!!!

• song i associate with them

…how about this: if anyone has a song in mind, leave it in the replies or tags!

• favorite picture of them

Ranni holding her head u_u

[elsa-fogen]

You don't really strike me as one who's much for ships, more just cool and fun character dynamics (like qpr RadioRose)

So I'm a little curious over what ships you actually do like

Also curious over your thoughts on one-sided RadioStatic?

I'm glad that you got my vibe right lol

I had really few OTPs which i shipped absolutely myself and not because i wanted to support my friends, and hazbin has none of them

Charlie and Vaggie are cute but for me they're really dull. I mean, maybe in next seasons their relationships will be explored more, but i really would love to see how they came to what they have now! For now they're just generic couple with no interesting dynamics, at least for me

OH OH OH THERE'S ONE SHIP I LIKE!!! Adam and Lute. And it's a total shame i haven't drawn anything with them! Thir dynamic is really fun, and I'M 100% CONVINCED THAT THEIR FEELINGS FOR EACH OTHER WERE REAL. Like. Look at Adam, he's dying, but he puts on a brave face just for her. Lute is CRYING because of his death! God i want Adam to reappear as a sinner and then him meeting with Lute. I want a villain song for Lute. I want to see her planning revenge OHH AM I WEAK FOR REVENGE PLOTS OHH. I WANT TO SEE HOW HER WORLD IS FALLING APART WHEN SHE SEES SINNER ADAM! I want her to question her loyalty. I want to see her conflict with herself. Damn they are such a cool couple. I love them.

But i guess my love for them is too overshadowed by my love for Alastor. Oh Alastor. He relly makes me smile.

So, one-sided radiostatic. Or radiosilence, i saw that name and i liked it.

Honestly it's just hillarious. I really love that joke that Vox confessed his feelings to Alastor and it was the readon why he disappeared for 7 years LIKE LMAO, BRO IS SO ACE THAT HE WOULD RATHER DIE. I like seeing jokes about Vox being obsessed with Alastor and Alastor who couldn't care less. Bonus points if Alastor DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON. THIS IS TOP COMEDY.

[hanafubukki]

General Lilia YEES ! Thank you for this I loved it 😭 wild cat Lilia, him meeting and slowly open up to his future time traveler wife, poor Baul being like "Heck- What is happening here ?", Dawny already whipped for Y/n, Y/n being a badass girl but in a rough situation...

"You told me you will be in my future. You better keep that promise" My heart- If he kidnapped us on the spot I wouldn't say no, but he's a fine man so he didn't 😭

Bet the discussion with the Draconia couple will be fun- Meleanor being like "What took you so much time ? We even need to send people for your weak being" and Levan just go have a personal discussion after and ended up a simp.

Lilia: Levan. I need advise. There is the annoying girl-

Levan: A girl ? You like her ?

Lilia: Yea- No- Not the topic ! So. She told me I will be part of her future.

Levan: Oh ! She sure know what she wants. Meleanor told me something similar when she asked my hand.

Lilia: Listen ! But, when I asked her to go with me. She said no. I know, we are really different, and she must have friend and family she cannot leave. But the people around her clearly don't see her worth ! Well. No. There is this guy. Who see too much of her worth if you want my thought.

Levan:....Okay. Start with the beginning. My ears are entierely open for this matter. I want to know everything.

- 🦋 Anon

(Fanfic References: Part 1, Specifically referring to: Part 2 )

[Ask References: Ask 1, Ask 2, Ask 3, Ask 4, Ask 5, Ask 6, Ask7,]

Hello 🦋 Anonie,

I'm so happy you loved it! 💚💕🥰 I can't explain to you just how much this fic just took hold of me and kept going and going, and the different routes kept changing too. I really love how it turned out 🥰

I especially loved incorporating little things YN learned along in her adventures, such as lock picking and self defense. Dawny caring for YN was planned from the get go, but Baul appearing later on came about later. Which I love because I like to mess with him too.

"You said you would be in my future." and "You better keep that promise." lines is what drove this fic. It's what I knew I wanted to add and have it center around with YN and Lilia. Another fun fact: "I will be" and "I will." are purposely written that way, but Lilia doesn't realize exactly what that means yet and ahhhh, I just adore the little intricacies.

Meleanor being the older sibling she is and just making fun of him is hilarious. She knew he would be fine and would come back eventually. He is too stubborn to die. Lilia is trying his best not to smack talk back, he still has wounds that are almost healed after all.

I love how Levan is in the fan club. He's the one out here supporting his OTP and wants to know the whole tea, especially seeing how Lilia is obviously infatuated with this girl.

Levan was already interested in YN because of the fact that Lilia was interested in her and she 'proposed' to him like his wife did. But what really got his interest was the fact that Lilia sounded jealous.

Lilia, the wild cat, this overly arrogant fellow General. He's jealous and he's jealous of another human nonetheless. Oh, how interesting this all is.

(I can imagine Levan internally laughing his head off when he realizes the competitor for YN is the Knight of Dawn. Also, I can see Levan now think of ways this Human Vs Fae war can be stopped, so Lilia can pursue his love life 🥹😂)

[chrysopoeias]

opinion posting about riza hawkeye/otp on something i see a lot around town but i disagree with.

Anyway. One thing I see more often than not is the idea that Hawkeye joined the military in order to chase after Mustang because she wanted to protect him. Or that she chased him while in love. But that is actually not true. I know ‘Because I have someone to protect’ is meemed into everyone’s head, but that was not her reason for joining the army. And it does not make sense either.

Like in a strategy guide to get Riza laid any% speedrun, what option is most logical?

1) Go completely no-contact with Mustang. Attend possibly multiple years of the military academy, likely in a different region from where he is. Get into a speciality that is wildly different from him. Git gud at that and then hope that maybe, if all the stars align her future boss will one day for some random reason put her in the proximity of this magic scientist she has not spoken to in years. And then ??? profit?

2) Literally just call Roy on his phone number, perhaps sent him a nice letter, or visit his address.

Sure, the first thing is what actually happened. But it's way too uncertain for that to have been planned. She did not need to be a soldier to be close to him. Roy was not a stranger to Riza, she had his current up to date contact info. He gave it to her on page/screen after her dad died. 

When she first sees Mustang in Ishval Hawkeye looks angered and shocked to see him. The first thing she says to him is ‘Do you remember me?’. These two had no contact at all between 1905 and 1908. Mustang got flame alchemy and skedaddled out of her life (even though he was supposed to look after her lmao) and Hawkeye also had clearly no intention of seeking him out when she could have done so easily. She did not join the army to protect him. And also, she says why she joined:

She wanted to improve the lives of the people of Amestris. So am I saying it had nothing to do with Mustang? Well no. Her reasons for joining the military are the same as his. 

She looked up to him. Here is this young man who has been to places beyond her sad little town and graduated from the military academy, he is a genius alchemist and must know what he’s talking about, right? That is on top of whatever their relationship was like before then, and whatever adoration she had for him already. She trusted him and thought his dreams were wonderful. Riza also wanted to believe in a peaceful future. Remember that they live in a totalitarian military dictatorship that has been in continued armed conflicts since the middle ages. There has never been a time of peace, ever, since the country was founded. And from the normie Amestrian point of view, they are just defending themselves from outside attacks. I believe that if Hawkeye and Mustang were sent to a border conflict instead of the civil war, they would have never questioned their government.

Anyway, Riza saw an opportunity to be useful with her own two hands, beyond being a walking notebook. Even if she could die in the process, it’d be worth to try. (And the military would also give her a salary after growing up in poverty and a place to live that is not the house she was abused in). She was a teenager with no family, no guidance, no idea what to make of herself. But this was something she could do. (She could have chosen many non-violent paths instead too, to be fair, but I digress).

And then it all went to shit obviously. You cannot become a sniper and never expect to kill. Selling your agency to the state means you can’t just play hero when you want to, you will be sent where ordered whether you like it or not, and forced to commit horrors or die a traitor. Believing the naive ideals of protecting her country was a mistake. Blindly admiring and trusting Mustang was a mistake. Smarter people than me can go expand on that.

But the ‘because there is someone I have to protect’ reason Hawkeye gives for being in the military is actually the reason why she stays. She could have gotten her diploma after Ishval and leave the military behind. But she chose not to.

She stays and will continue to kill because flame alchemy is her responsibility and she has created Mustang, all his kills are mentally hers. If she quits or kills herself while he does not, flame alchemy is still loose in the world outside her control. And just like Roy, she never fully gives up on her dream about protecting everyone. There must be a way to make all this worth it. There is still a way to change the country so future generations won’t have to go through what she did. She’s already doomed so she will take that responsibility so others won’t have to. She violently and fully clings to that.

If Mustang dies before doing anything positive for the world with their dreams and his abilities, all Hawkeye has done with her short life is cause destruction, murder and create a murderer, all the suffering would have been a waste. She cannot life with that guilt or continue the path alone, she will give up and kill herself. Especially in the scenario where she kills Roy herself, and with that her only hope.

There is no way out for them. But their murder-suicide pact was not planned for since they were young. They never intended to see each other again and spend their lives like this. You can blame dad for setting them up for failure.

[lwh-writing]

I've been rewatching the Hunger Games movies with some friends, and I have many, many thoughts. I seriously need to reread these books because it's been years and Suzanne Collins is a literary genius, but I digress.

Anyway, there's a quote in Catching Fire where President Snow says "If head game maker Seneca Crane had any brains at all, he would've blown you to bits then and there." This is in reference to Katniss and Peeta almost eating the poison berries and getting out of the arena as co-Victors rather than them turning on each other, thus giving the rebels hope that they can stick it to the Capitol. It is Snow's belief that killing one and/or both of them would have solved the problem before it BECAME a problem.

But the thing is.... it really wouldn't have. If anything, it would have made the rebel problem worse.

Let's say Crane killed both Peeta and Katniss. For the first time in decades, the Hunger Games would have had no Victor. There would be no victory tour, no new kid to pimp out to the Capitol's highest bidders, and no new distraction until the next games roll around. And on top of that, it would have shown the entire world how little the Capitol actually cares about them. The game makers changed the rules halfway through to allow for two Victors, and then they took that away at the last second because two Victors emerging from the arena would have destroyed the very foundation of the Hunger Games. If Crane had truly shot down Katniss and Peeta, the fallout of the 74th Hunger Games would have been a wake-up call to both the Districts and the Capitol that Haymitch was 100% correct in saying that there are no winners of the Hunger Games, only survivors. The bright-eyed Capitols would have been forced to face the reality that the games were fundamentally unfair, and the Districts would have been shown that if even the Victors, the people guaranteed wealth and luxury weren't safe, that if their small beacons of hope could still be killed off without those in power batting an eye... then why even bother playing to the Capitol's tune in the first place? And the Rebels? They've got two new martyrs for their cause, and a newly discontent populous ready to fight for them.

Now, alternatively, let's say Crane did nothing. Let's say he let Katniss and Peeta eat the berries and they both die in the arena by suicide. Well, that won't be as drastic as Crane shooting them down, but the results are still mostly the same. The 74th Hunger Games still has no Victor. There's no one left to play distraction and convince the people of Panem not to look behind the curtain and catch a whiff of its political rot. And it's still the two-Victor rule change and the immediate retraction of such that doomed their favorite star-crossed lovers. It's still a wake-up call to the Capitols and the Districts that the Hunger Games are unfair, and that those in charge are willing to change the rules at their discretion no matter how it affects the general public. The people are still pissed, and the rebels still have their two martyrs.

Well, okay, what if Crane only killed ONE of them. Let's say Crane sees what's happening and decides to shoot only Peeta or only Katniss, it doesn't matter which. The 74th Hunger Games has a clear Victor, but that doesn't help a thing. Once again, it's still the rule change and retraction that got one half of Panem's OTP killed. It's still a clear signal to the people that those pulling the strings don't care. There's still discontent in the Capitol and the Districts because the Capitols lament their failed romance, and the Districts just saw an almost-should-have-been Victor get shot down on live TV. Not to mention it shows that the games are rigged beyond belief when the game makers, quite literally, chose the Victor. The Rebellion still gets a martyr. And on top of that, they get a mouthpiece stirring up shit.

You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that if Peeta or Katniss walked out of that arena without the other, the one that survived would have taken that lying down, consequences be damned. You cannot tell me that Peeta "If it wasn't for the baby" Mellark wouldn't have been playing the press and the political scene like a fiddle and knocking down Snow's regime like a line of dominos. You cannot tell me that Katniss "Girl on Fire" Everdeen wouldn't have been itching to take a quiver of arrows and massacre all occupants of the Presidential Palace. A Peeta without Katniss or a Katniss without Peeta would have Snow's worst political nightmare, and if he killed them after the fact, then the riots in the streets would have only gotten worse.

Seneca Crane's fatal mistake wasn't letting Katniss and Peeta live; it was allowing the two Victor rule change to happen. The SECOND that happened, the foundation of the games-- the image of the sole Victor shining above the rest --was shattered. Nothing could have fixed that, not even the hasty second rule change later on. There was absolutely no situation where Snow and company walked away the winners. Absolutely none. And Crane choosing to let Katniss and Peeta live was honestly the best choice in a string of horrible choices that could have been made. And the fact that Snow doesn't see that highlights exactly how out of touch he is with the human element that drives people to do the things they do.

Note: edited to fix "Capital" into "Capitol"

[gwenfr]

The extreme Buddie shippers posts I have to see on my for you page 😬 🤢

I'm just so annoyed and angry, I blocked I don't know how many of them but no, like mold, they still appear 😔

Buddie shipper on 1 post : Tommy is not interesting as a LI because we know nothing about him !!!

Same Buddie shipper just after : write 1500 words of all that we know about Tommy just to show he's bad

Buddie shipper on 1 post : Tommy is just a cardboard copy of Eddie

Same Buddie shipper just after : write 1000 words about how Tommy is boring and annoying and Eddie is the best man to ever exist

Buddie shipper on 1 post : Tommy's negative attitude is not normal

Same Buddie shipper just after : say that this character and the actor who plays him should die and that every fan of him is a piece of shit who can choke

Buddie shipper on 1 post : Tommy's sexual innuendos with his boyfriend are disgusting

Same Buddie shipper just after : write, and tell you to read, 30k words fics of porn

Buddie shipper on 1 post : Tommy should never be excused for how he was racist and misogynistic 15 years ago

Same Buddie shipper just after : write 500 words about how this poc/female character was bad and should die just because she didn't allow buddie to become canon

Buddie shipper on 1 post : people want Tommy with Buck only because they fetishize them

Same Buddie shipper just after : disregard any evidence that Eddie is straight and write 1000 words of personal thoughts as to why he's gay and would be hot with Buck

Buddie shipper on 1 post : the writers change scripts and storyline ideas all the time and even if for now Tommy is here, he still can be gone in season 8

Same Buddie shipper just after : the original scripts and ideas are 100% canon, it can't be changed, it said that Eddie was maybe to be gay so he's for sure gay !

Buddie shipper on 1 post : if you don't accept that Eddie is gay then you're just being homophobic

Same Buddie shipper just after : use a homophobic slur to describe the ship they don't like and write 500 words about how a adult gay man sexuality is disgusting

Buddie shipper on 1 post : we should be able to ship in peace and not be harassed for our ship

Same Buddie shipper just after : yeah well the hacking and harassment were justified and will happen again because they need to learn who is the only otp

[writing-for-life]

Hey there! I hope you’re having a good day. I just saw a post you made about Dream’s type romantically. Thoughts on Calliope and Dream’s relationship specifically? It always stands out to me how though Dream has had a number of lovers throughout the millennia, Calliope is the only one he married. (And of course, Melissanthi Mahut and Tom Sturridge’s blistering chemistry in the show is an additional component for me xD but feel free to respond only based on the comics if you wish!)

Hey, always happy to see your asks in my inbox!

So, first of all; I don’t care what everyone else thinks:

Dream and Calliope are the OTP even though I’m not a shipper. There, I said it, hit me over the head with a hammer, I live well in that tiny little corner of fandom 🤣

Conceptually, they are very, very alike. There is definitely something in there about dreams marrying epic poetry (and eloquence!) that’s just so on the nose.

But I also can’t help thinking: Slight power imbalance maybe, and we also get this more directly via the “all gods get born and die in the Dreaming.” I think often about how this would have played out for them once Calliope’s last worshippers have died—it’s certainly a tough one, even if their relationship hadn’t soured.

But even so: She is the Muse of Epic Poetry, he is the Prince of Stories, so there is A LOT of overlap between what they stand for. And hence, a lot of mutual understanding. They always struck me as *getting* each other (probably why they fell in love in the first place)—until they didn’t. The fact they didn’t live together was good for them I think, because thoughts need to be allowed freedom to form and develop. Plus, there’s also a lot to be said for Calliope keeping her independence that way. Not just in terms of personhood, but again if you think of how she was essentially created in, and will return to, the Dreaming. It’s probably wise for her (in conceptual terms) not to hang out there ALL the time?

She seems a lot more grounded in the mortal world than Dream is though. I always thought that was down to the fact that humans know her, as in actively worship her/ask her for inspiration, which must make her much closer in a way? Because bar a few, no one really *knows* Dream exists, although everyone does, if that makes any sense? Mortals know him on a subconscious level (that’s why he’s forever nebulous and *lonely*), but people know Calliope as a deity and seek connection explicitly. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, but to me, that was always a reason why, although a goddess, she seemed far less removed from the mortal plight than Dream was (at least when they were still an item—we all know he changed, even if he didn’t admit it [well, he did in the end to Nuala, which is a whole ‘nother topic]).

And when I think about why they didn’t work out, I can only think: “Orpheus”.

I mean yes, she said that they were already starting to drift apart slightly before she was with child, but there was still a lot of love between them even so. I think the death knell was to have a child on these wonky foundations. Why they did, we’ll never know.

Conceptually, there’s again something very deep and painful about dreams and poetry becoming something real. And then, that mortal child becoming immortal (until his father finally intervenes). But Orpheus was still all mortal and human to his core, even when he became immortal for a while, and that was *always* at the base of their rift. But I digress…

Back to why was Orpheus the death of their marriage? Dream’s advice to Orpheus was sound, yet it was unfeeling and lacked empathy. Calliope’s was maybe (?) not as reasonable, but she understood her child because a mother’s love is (usually) unconditional. We all know Dream’s wasn’t for a long time although it should have been.

I think if they’d all sat together as a family, supported their son in his grief in a balanced way, this whole catastrophe could have been avoided (I mean no, not really—it’s a tragedy, “doomed by the narrative” and all that). But all of Dream’s relationships (be that to his son or his lovers) fail because he is unreality (hence he has a hard time when things quite literally get real), and despite *knowing* mortals on a very deep level, I don’t believe he truly *understood* them at this point. But I think Calliope did—maybe due to who she was, maybe just because she actually *allowed* them in? Because Dream never truly did that. And when he finally did and truly understood what unconditional love actually means, he came apart at the seams and unravelled.

There’s also something really interesting conceptually in thinking of the Prince of Stories who doesn’t believe he has his own, and the Muse of Epic Poetry who inspires. Who is trying to control whom in this scenario? It’s mirrored in how they behave when the whole Orpheus tragedy takes off:

Calliope tries to inspire and, dare I say try to control the narrative a bit, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, quite the opposite: She looks for the most favourable outcome for everyone involved, even if it means bending the rules: She tries to convince Dream to put in a good word with Hades and believes he would listen because Gods respect him and, dare I say it, are even a bit scared of him.

Dream is rigid. Which is so mind-bending for someone who is the personification of hopes, wishes and possibility. But he is an immovable object: If he’s right, he’s right. That’s the rules, that’s it. And he won’t bend them, not even for his son. I’m not saying that it’s not understandable from his point of view, because he might know things we don’t (potentially also that although he *could* bend the rules because he has the power to do so, it might have knock-on effects no one else can understand or see—it’s impossible to say), only that they are fundamentally different in their approach although they are *both* about inspiration. And inspiration is so closely related to bringing on change (ouch!).

Part of me wants to say that Calliope uses it to control the narrative while Dream doesn’t, that Calliope believes that we can change our destiny while Dream doesn’t, but that’s also too simple. Because Dream *can* be controlling, but in totally different ways and areas.

I feel like I’m rambling out a lot of unordered thoughts, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that Dream and Calliope were so close because they are so similar in so many ways bar one:

Their understanding how inspiration can be used to bring on change. I would somehow go as far as saying that Calliope understands what it means to have personhood, also for herself, and that’s why she understands it in others (I think this is made *very* clear when Richard Madoc holds her hostage). Dream doesn’t—least not at the point where it would have mattered with regards to their relationship, because I think the fishbowl has changed him in that regard. This is also why he wants to make things right with her I believe. But of course he would never openly admit it (he basically stops himself before blurting it out), simply because it would also mean he’d need to admit it to himself…

With regard to that meta:

I definitely think they were highly romantically attracted, purely down to who/what they are. I can’t say too much about their sexual attraction, but after Calliope’s speech at his wake, it would be somewhat unlikely to assume they weren’t 🙈🤣

Was it unconditional though? No.

Was it pragmatic (that sounds so bad and unfeeling, but it’s not a bad thing, because a certain level of pragmatism is what grounds love in reality and makes it last)? I think they tried. But ultimately, he can never live that way because he is unreality, and I often wonder if they both knew 😭

@two-hands-toward-the-sun ask answered

[lillazyboithings]

thoughts on different rtc ships?

I'll start listing off all the RTC ships I can recall, by that, I mean EVERYTHING

Nischa (Noel x Mischa): OTP, my beloveds, you can literally see how much I love them just by scrolling through the nischa tag on my blog

Spacedolls (Ricky x Jane/Penny): they're okay, they vibe together, I like it, they're like little skrunklies that I put in a cage and feed cookies to

BlackRose (Constance x Ocean): I'm sorry but no, just no, no thank you, not even my cup of tea but I will respect if you ship it anon, whoever you are

Perfectdolls (Jane/Penny x Ocean): also okay with it, pretty cool! They're like character foils of eachother

Mischalia (Mischa x Talia): also cool, there's also an understandable canonical basis for it the same way nischa has, also literally has a song so fbsnvdnsvenw

Sugardolls/sugarsheep (Constance x Jane/Penny): love it, they're my beloveds, pry it off my cold dead hands you cretins /j

Sugarspace (Ricky x Constance): absolute cuteness overload, they're like a domestic couple, I love it

Spacerap (Ricky x Mischa): not my cup of tea but I can see the appeal, they're cute actually, they're homies, they definitely hang out together

Starrypoet/HornyBoys (Ricky x Noel): also not my cup of tea, but I really like the dynamic that they have, like they both use their imaginations to be someone else, there's potential, also hella gay /pos ( laughing my ass off because horny boys is a funny ship name, congrats on the bonus points for this)

Topcomment (Mischa x Ocean): pretty cool ship despite not me seeing much content for it, it's like good girl x bad boy, I'm sure there's people out there who really love it but for me? No, I don't like it. It's cool but just no.

SoundCloud/Candyrapper (Constance x Mischa): also pretty cute but I see them more as siblings than a couple

Rosenpotts/gingerspace/perfectspace (Ocean x Ricky)(idfk what you guys are called AUGH): also kinda no on this one, but I will respect your opinion if you want to ship it. They're more friendly that coupley in my eyes

Perfect angel (Ocean x Tammy): I do not see potential for it, ocean and Tammy definitely have a frenemies dynamic because of their belief systems

Perfect bride (Ocean x Talia): how??? Ocean is literally the one to say that Talia is fake, I mean, I will respect your opinion but just know I will stare at you like I will be studying you as part of my research project next year.

Perfect love (ocean x hank): no, hank is already dating her cousin in some canonical iterations

Perfect rap (ocean x corey): pretty hilarious, same comments as topcomment but more to the left, also to whoever wrote that one fanfic I saw for them on ao3, shout out to you

Perfect bugs (ocean x trishna): I don't see potential, sorry. They're just not the right people the other would date

Frenchrap/Norey (noel x corey): I love them, they're the kind of couple to be MESSY. THE DRAMA. Comedic fr fr (helps that this is technically a predecessor to nischa)

Tragic Love (noel x hank): I don't think these two would go well together tbh since there's not much in common (lack of hank content)

Rap Dolls (Mischa x Jane/Penny): I kinda also don't see potential with this, they're more like chaotic siblings in my eyes tbh but if you ship them, good on you

Rap Angel/Angel Accent (Mischa x Tammy): guys, what??? To the 0.01% who ship this, I need to know who you are, scratch that, come here I need to study you under a microscope

Love Rap (Hank x Mischa): I'm praying for you and your one way trip to rarepair hell because oh boy, I'm so sorry for you and its lack of content (for everything hank is involved in, in general)

Rap Battle (Mischa x corey): the ride or die duo, these dudes will literally get each other arrested, and would release shitty rap together

Rap Bite (Mischa x Astrid): What??? Huh??? I am questioning your life choices to whoever ships this (not in a judgemental way, more like I'm genuinely curious what's going on inside that head of yours) anyways rarepair hell to you

Rap Bug (Mischa x trishna): same thing as LoveRap, there's also kinda no dynamics to base these two off so I can't really see anything for it

Angel Cats (Tammy x Ricky): okay, cute, I will respect that but there's also kinda something conflicting between Tammy's Religious beliefs and Ricky being SABM

Space Bride (Ricky x Talia): ???????? Huh ??????? Okay, questionable, maybe online relationship? Rarepair hell either way, I'm sorry

Space Love (Ricky x hank): okay, understandable, nothing much to say about them tbh

Space Battle (Corey x Ricky): really? Horny boys part 2? /J. Okay but in all honesty, I feel like it wouldn't mingle well together unless you want it to have the same dynamic as SpaceRap

Cat Bite (Ricky x Astrid): maybe?? No??? I can't see potential, down to the rarepair hell for you

CD player (penny x Tammy): you guys really went ham on these two when y'all read the Legoland script, I like it lmfao

Love Dolls (Hank x Jane/Penny): rarepair hell to you

Battle Dolls (Corey x Jane/Penny): and you

Doll Bite (Astrid x Jane/penny): and also you

Bug Dolls (trishna x Jane/penny): okay I can see potential, girlies are just curious of the nature around them, just one is curious about bugs while the other is curious about life itself and why she's there-

Bride Dolls (Talia x Jane/penny): rarepair hell to you as well

Sugar Angel (Constance x Tammy): Sweet (pun intended), also very domestic in my opinion

Sugar Battle (Constance x corey): rarepair hell to you, also I don't think constance would love being in a long term relationship with this sleazebag rapper

Sugar Love (Constance x hank): Cute, but also rarepair hell to you

Sugar Bite (Astrid x Constance): rarepair hell, also if we're basing off fanon + canon depictions, I don't think they'd be a good match with each other

Sugar Bugs (Constance x trishna): domestic, fluff potential, adorable, no judgement on my part

Digital Cafe (Constance x Talia): shout out to zolarianstarman for unintentionally making me see how cute this ship is

Love Angel (Hank x Tammy): I think I can see potential with the boy next door x religious girl type, not the best pairing though but oh well

Love Battle (Hank x corey): it kinda like a vague predecessor to spacerap if you think of the timeline as to how the characters got to where they are. But I feel like they'd be more on homies than dating

Love Bite (Hank x Astrid): canonically engaged, beautiful (cut) song, I love them

Love Bride (Hank x Talia): rarepair hell. No exceptions

Angel Battle (Corey x Tammy): dayum, the "I can fix him" couple but it's a shitty YouTube rapper and the very religious Catholic girl

Battle Bite (Astrid x corey): the only way Astrid is gonna even touch Corey is kicking his balls and punching him, I rest my case, they're siblings, your honor

Battle bugs (Corey x Trishna): I can't see the potential, I'm sorry, rarepair hell to you

Battle Bride (Corey x Talia): also rarepair hell, I literally cannot see anything for this

Angel Bite (Tammy x Astrid): so the pink soft girlie x "I bit my cousin with no regrets" girl, got it

Bug Bite (Astrid x trishna): cute, I can see potential, a girlie interested in bugs and her vaguely European girlfriend who would love to listen to her talking about bugs

Bride Bite (Talia x Astrid): rarepair hell button has been pressed, no more other comments

Bug Angel (trishna x Tammy): I feel like this would work out I think? This is kinda normal tbh

Bug Bride (trishna x Talia): rarepair hell to you, I'm sorry but it's true

Angel Bride (Tammy x Talia): ah yes, we're shipping the two girlies who have not made any canonical appearances in their respective musicals besides mentions from the established characters there

Electricity (Karnak x Virgil): guys, why are we shipping the rat and the fortune teller? Funny, but I question us as a fandom sometimes LMFAO

Polychoir (basically all 6 of the main characters): cute, but noel stays platonic with the girlies, okay?

PerfectSugarDolls (ocean x Constance x Jane/penny): girlies squad assemble be like

SpaceRapDolls (Ricky x Mischa x Jane/penny): chaos trio, no more comments, your honor

SugarSpaceRap (Constance x Ricky x Mischa): I mean...sure??? Okay? You do you pooks

Nischalia (noel x Mischa x Talia): I like it, Noel and Talia would definitely be best friends, and do rock paper scissors on who keeps Mischa for the weekend (loser keeps him/j), also Mischa has two hands, of course this is possible

PerfectEggDolls (ocean x Mischa x Jane/penny): I'm sorry but are we seriously gonna let Ocean practically date(babysit) two of the most chaotic beings in that choir?

TragicSpaceRap/Escapism trio (Ricky x Noel x Mischa): they need to get out of uranium together tbh, I don't make the rules, get them outta there

PerfectSugarSpace (ocean x Constance x Ricky): okay, understandable? Maybe? I respect your opinion tho

PerfectSugarAccent (ocean x Constance x Mischa): respectfully, I can't see potential, I'm sorry *presses rarepair hell button*

Stargirls (Ricky x Jane/penny x Constance x Tammy): the ship name sounds like they're all in a band together omg, but yeah, it's cute in my eyes, whoever ships this, you guys are chill

PassionFrenchRap (Corey x Noel x Mischa): LMFAO noel and his two rapper boyfriends, bro literally got duplicates of the same boyfriend

FrenchPassionSlutCats (Corey x Noel x Mischa x Ricky): hectic. That's all I'm gonna say, they're all hectic and gay together, good on them

LuckySugarStars (Jane/penny x Constance x Ricky): aweee they're so adorable together guys, I can't, help me, dhsnshsnhwje

LoveBugBite (Astrid x trishna x hank): yes, cute, adorable fr fr (Winona if you're reading this, you have definitely influenced me)

Special mention:

Mookie (Mischa x Cookie): perfection, 10/10, I refuse criticism, the highschool version of the script definitely influenced this.

Noel x Any girl: fuck you (in a negative way), he's canonically gay and if I see you ship him like that outside of platonic ones, I'm sending you GAY to hell.

Tags: @joeseventies (credits to them for the master list doc of all the ship names), and @witchstormm because you asked me to, have fun reading

I'm so sorry anon if this took so long to answer but here you go

[gizkasparadise]

final leg of a journey to love thoughts!! (eps 35-40). this got so gd long so under a cut it goes. spoilers, of course:

PLOT STUFF/PACING

pacing for the plot definitely got shredded in the last chunk, which is a damn shame because otherwise i've been finding the pacing pretty much perfect. eps 35-37 in particular felt like they could have been like a 10 episode arc. ep 38, which mostly dealt with wu palace politics, should have been cut or streamlined imo and more time given to the characters we've actually been riding along with the whole story. by the time we get back to the pregnant empress, prince danyang, the first prince whose name i dont even remember, and the prime minister, i do not care about any of them and i think this subplot was simply just trying to fit too much shit into one bag

that said, this show still let the emotional moments hit and breathe and linger. i love the grief for the fallen liudao comrades as we go, as well as the less heavy but still emotionally important moments like yang ying and tongguan bonding over their upbringing. and we got a wedding /;3;/!!! for this show, the relationships and characters matter more than the storyline so im not mad about anything at all

side note: it's so gd millennial to have a story about a bunch of 30 something year olds who want to fake their deaths and retire into obscurity but instead they go and die for a boss they hate

CHARACTER STUFF

this show consistently brought a lot of depth to its side characters (and side side characters!!). i said it in an earlier post, but it bears repeating that even someone like deng hui i didnt expect anything from, but he got such good development and writing that he became a stealth fave. his dying words essentially being "dude, quit fucking around" ? iconic.

i didnt like tongguan as much as everyone else, so im pretty meh about everything regarding him. the attempt to force-wed ruyi was tonally really weird and didnt make sense (i assume there was some cuts made surrounding it). but LOL at him reusing all the outfits and decor immediately for his wedding to yang ying. baby duke, you tacky motherfucker. i ultimately think yang ying deserves better than him, but the good thing is that she knows this, so she'll be able to hold her own and then some entering into this partnership

shisan really was the heart in a lot of ways--the mom to yuanzhou's dad for the liudao. i was not expecting him to break my heart the way he did, but the fact that he held both qian zhao and sun lang as they died and then tried his best to remove yuan lu from harm and saved chu yue and was just very much a nurturer all the way through got me. his character couldve been cheap comic relief but the writing + performance really elevated him into one of the (imo) most memorable wuxia characters. his line wondering who would get to behead his beautiful skull!!! and how his mantra was always that he was going to drink the best wine, see the most beautiful women, and make the best of friends and he dies having lost the ability to see and having just had wine in memory of qian zhao, yuan lu, and sun lang. like. shut up!!

ruyi and yuanzhou were both so great and they're gonna be the drama OTP to beat forever. i loved the gender reversals, that they both were so respectful of each other, and that they also felt very mature in how they handled things and communicated. they were really interesting characters both together and apart and that's always a win-win. they had a schroedinger's ending where it's not super clear if they're alive or dead (i interpreted it as the latter), but what's kind of beautiful is that either option is satisfying to me. if they both died, they're reunited and with their comrades and the story is truly about the journey and the meaningful short connections we have. if they both survived, it's a bookend with the beginning where they each faked their deaths to escape. A+

COSTUMING

i gotta just separately mention the costuming for this show because it was 15/10. the textures, shisan's accessories, the way red became integrated with yuanzhou's wardrobe and blue with ruyi's. the details on the liudao name amulets!! SO GOOD. i love when characters' clothes tell a story on their own

overall i just really loved this drama it is probably my favorite wuxia ive seen so far! it's gonna be in my brain for awhile lol feel free to send fic prompts if you've made it this far :'D

[the-blue-eyed-firebender]

Fanfiction Masterlist.

(Updated 7/15/24)

I started writing again in March, and I now find myself the mother author of nine fanfics. I figure it's time I make one of these. I'll pin this post to the top of my Tumblr and update as more works are added.

So here's a masterlist of my children stories, favorites first in no particular order.

It's all Royai and Zutara Trash so if you're not into that, move along.

The Counteroffer

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: T

Word count: 2.7K

On the eve of Mustang’s inauguration as Fuhrer, Riza Hawkeye submits her resignation.

My very first Royai fanfic, and my first attempt at creative writing in literal years.

(light angst with a happy ending)

Hourglass

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: T

Word count: 1.6K

Riza Hawkeye never intended on living past age thirty-two. It wasn’t that she wanted to die. She simply did not expect to live.

Written for Royai Week 2024, Day 5: Gift

(angst with a happy ending)

The Art of Living On

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: T

Word count: 3.9K

She has never done this. Has avoided it at all costs. Because she is unfit, she tells herself. Her hands are made for firearms and filing office paperwork, not soothing fussy babies. Her edges are too sharp, too jagged to provide comfort to anyone. She is scarred and bloodied and barely knows the love of a mother herself.

But the baby wails, pleading.

Written for Royai Week 2024, Day 2: Appreciate

(domestic fluff, light angst with a happy ending)

Uncle Zuko

Katara x Zuko

Rating: T

Word count: 2.6K

Of all the things his hands have held - from dragon eggs and ancient texts to the element of Fire itself - this is by far the most precious, the most powerful: a new generation, one born into a world without war.

Zuko is forced to hold Sokka's baby, and feelings happen. I published this story years ago on FFN under a different title. This is the updated/revised version. I haven't written much of them lately, but Zuko & Katara are, and will always remain, my otp.

(domestic fluff)

Strong Whiskey and Slanted Light

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: G

Word count: 908

His team is alive. The Elric brothers have their bodies back. Havoc can walk again. And from her place in the driver’s seat, Riza Hawkeye - alive and breathing - glances sharply in his direction, brows raised in a rare moment of removing her attention from the road ahead. He doesn’t miss the way she winces at the sudden movement of her still-healing neck. “Sir?”

“It’s just a question, Lieutenant. I’m curious.”

Written for Royai Week 2024, Day 1: Curiosity

(light angst, mutual pining)

As You Were

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: T

Word count: 2.4K

Maybe it’s the fact that she’s dropped his honorific.

Maybe it’s the fact that they are somehow both alive. Maybe it’s the fact that he can see her, when he’d believed with such certainty that he never would again. He can see her and she is beautiful, and for once he doesn’t understand why he ever chose to banish that thought from his mind when it is so clearly the truth.

(angst)

The Flame Alchemist's Daughter

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: T

Word count: 6.4K

The ink is a burden. The knowledge is a curse.

Disclaimer: I wrote this before I fully understood the mechanics of Mustang's flame alchemy (I literally finished the series in March 2024; I'm new here, so my bad). I realized later that some of the implications here would not make sense in canon. That said, I still love this story. I'm proud of it and it's freaking fanfiction so who cares.

(angst)

Checkmate

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: T

Word count: 1.6K

In the wake of his election victory, Roy Mustang makes a very important visit to Fuhrer President Grumman.

Prequel to "The Counteroffer."

(fluff, light angst)

Four

Riza Hawkeye x Roy Mustang

Rating: T

Word count: 2.2K

Each time he has laid eyes on Riza Hawkeye’s tattoo, the course of Roy Mustang’s life has been permanently altered.

(angst with a happy ending)

[helliskylux]

Okay Naruto and Sasuke has officially broken me in terms of MLM ships. I keep forgetting that Naruto is a motherfucking outlier and not the base model.

WELL it may not look like it, but SNS is not even my OTP in naruto. I'm a sasuke-did-nothing-wrong-he-has-nothing-to-apologize through and and through. I recognize that sasuke and naruto are both right and wrong at the same time. A polarizing extremes of ideas. In an idealized story, they would have met in the middle and we should not have to sacrifice all of Sasuke's development just so we can get the "idealized" ending. (which, given boruto's state right now, makes it even more obvious that Sasuke's revolution was need) BUT BUT BUT THIS PARAGRAPH SHOULD BE A STORY FOR ANOTHER SO SHUT THE FUCK UP JEN.

Okay so I do ship sns but it's not my end all be all. BUT BUT BUT even with the above, i still recognize that at the end of the day at least Sasuke still has Naruto despite it all. I mean sure he has Sakura and Sarada. But Naruto tried to understand him. The end game given to him was awful in my honest opinion, but at the very least my point is even I didn't agree with the ending given to him. At least the guy who spent 6 months with him as "friends" and then 4 years chasing him around, has given him as much love and devotion as a shounen series is allowed???

There was something deeply unsatisfying with the Naruto ending. (filled with hypocrisy and back tracking in terms of a lot of people's development) and it stayed me. So I was kinda done with shounen you know.

but boredom is a sin and I watch jjk with bf and even if I was aware of the fandom and sugusato. And yes the bond that they had was amazing and deep. But I just couldn't be on board with it. It wasn't a ride or die situation, you know. So yeah I do like to throw my favorite characters on the nearest dick but no actual TRUE otp you know.

I found myself "You know if Gojo was just given a mere 10% of Naruto's simping powers towards Sasuke for Geto, we wouldn't be here at all."

And damn that got me thinking. It's just that Naruto is just so absolutely FUCKING UNHINGED AND OBSESSED WITH SASUKE UCHIHA. Man had panic attacks of the thought of him dying. HE POSTPONED HIS DREAMS FOR HIM.

Like of course all other shounen mlm ships would look subpar if you compare it to him. LOOK AT HIM. >_> jeez. He's embarrassing.

Like the only ones I can compare naruto to are danmei couples but those are CANON ships. JEEZ. Naruto. look at you. Look at yourself

Naruto and Sasuke can never escape these gay allegations.

ETA: Okay so this was brought on, because I read about Yuji and Megumi mirroring Gojo and Geto. But I was trying to dig. (Because I ship because I'm a dog and it's hot, but I don't ship it ship it??? like I'm not emotionally invested in it. BUT boy oh boy the 263 came out and I was like. "Oh yeah I get it." But then I was comparing it to SNS again. AND I had to fucking hit myself. BECAUSE OF COURSE Yuji itadori is not as feral as Naruto as to Sasuke.

[silviakundera]

I'm gonna need kunning palace to give me a lot of the main otp in the last episodes, we have 8 left (this is why I don't f*ck with this 40 ep rule because now that we're getting the main relationship the show is over and everything that came before was also necessary). I'm gonna need to see how deep JXN's love for him becomes, I know people are obsessed with dedicated ML but I enjoy otps where it's more equal and I love seeing a female lead protect and support her otp the way he does her, even if it takes a while like in ming lan she had completely reasonable issues and took a while to warm up to him but when she did she was 1000% in and showed just how much she loved him, I personally don't appreciate unbalanced relationships where it's just one party sacrificing and being a lot more dedicated no matter the genders.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS

Hard to say, depends on how close they stay to the book. They've been quite faithful to the novel so far but at the point we are now is where I feel fairly confident that we're gonna diverge. Because in the novel the otp gets VERY dark before they get better. There's a reason why Xie Wei has been holding himself back & restraining his emotions. He's a whole mess of anxiety & PTSD and he has to work through his traumas. Both these characters have been a burningdog.gif meme and saying everything is just fiiiiiiiine but in the novel when they finally get alone on center stage together things get REAL because it's masks off. And underneath they are a whole mess.

imo the key to this pairing, and why we don't get a love confession from her until the very end, is what she thinks when she finally publically claims him (fittingly, she doesn't claim the lauded scholar but the unhinged figure that the public now finds monstrous):

Shen Zhiyi asked: "Ning Ning, do you know what kind of person he is?”

Jiang Xuening said, "I know."

This person forced her to kill in his previous life; even in this life, he still thought about taking her to die with him. He is definitely not a good person. How could she not know?

It can even be said that she knows better than anyone else. Because she has seen his truest and craziest side.

Shen Zhiyi asked again: "Do you like him?"

Jiang Xuening thought for a while and said, "I like him."

At this moment, Xie Wei's palm trembled slightly, but there seemed to be thousands of lights and shadows passing by in his mind, and finally there was nothing left, just staring at her blankly.

Yan Lin stood too far away, no one could see his blurred expression clearly.

Shen Zhiyi also didn't speak for a long time.

She didn't fully agree, she was afraid that her Ning Ning would be sad because of the wrong choice, but she couldn't stop her, and all her worries finally turned into one sentence: "Then you really know what you are doing now?"

Jiang Xuening smiled at her: "I understand."

And not only know what to do now, but also what to do in the future.

So calmly: "I want to marry him."

"..."

That night, he asked her once, but she didn't answer, so he never dared to ask again.

But now she says she wants to marry him. Xie Wei suddenly couldn't tell whether this was real or a dream: didn't she want to leave him and go find Zhang Zhe?

Jiang Xuening also saw that he didn't comprehend. "You are really, extremely smart, but you just don't like people."

Talking about love, this person is stupid to death.

I am too afraid of losing what I have, and I seem to think that what I have will eventually be lost, so I am paranoid, extreme, and I refuse to show weakness to others and say all those words.

Jiang Xuening felt that this person was too similar to her previous self.

There are some things that I don't understand, so I bash my head against it.

She blinked, with tears in her eyes, but took his hand, tiptoed to kiss his cool thin lips."

//

Part of the reason she feels so deeply for him is their deep down similarity, but the novel is Jiang Xuening's journey to love & accept herself, letting go of the pain & shame from the past. She doesn't reach this point until the end, where she recognizes and accepts her own darkness and thus his, and also believes it doesn't need to define their future. Everyone now thinks she is the saint and he's the sinner but she knows they are both.

The novel epilogue shows they are finding a peaceful life together, the urge to fight and claw at life and each other has finally passed. But though in the last 30% of the novel we get tons of couple-time, all the gestures of devotion are coming from him. She's not ready. I frankly have no idea how much the drama will change the last 30%, and it won't land the same cause I'm sure they have to tone down how scary the ML gets...but regardless I do think we won't get a confession until the last act.

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[wellship]

I love youuu hope youre having a great day <33 also thoughts on sanlu as a ship?

I really like SanLu! They were not on my radar much until some friends started shipping them and that made me understand their appeal... I don't really ship them until after the timeskip (pretty much same as SanUso) but I think they're very sweet. There's something appealing about their dynamic - Sanji with his self-worth issues, and Luffy who loves everyone and all his crew members, but still loving Sanji most specially of all... Whole Cake Island makes SanLu EXTREMELY shippable haha. Sanji has only ever wanted to cook for the people he loves and he found a captain who doesn't want to eat anyone else's cooking for the rest of his life!!

Also for a chef who would rather die than waste food, there's something cute about him ending up with a guy who has an almost bottomless stomach and who will eat any disaster... Sanji can probably experiment so much more in the kitchen knowing that even if it turns out weird, Luffy will still eat it all and nothing will get wasted LOL. Zero waste chef X garbage disposal boyfriend OTP ♥

I think due to his trauma, Sanji can be a very emotionally needy person in a relationship, which might cause issues in with other people, especially if they have their own emotional hangups (like Zoro or Usopp). And obviously it's best for Sanji to address his emotional needs properly and unpack his trauma... but in the short term, it's also just very comforting and refreshing to see him with someone who has literally endless love and time and attention to give. Where Zoro might get annoyed or Usopp might get anxious because Sanji is in a "why would you even love me" spiral, Luffy would just be like UHH I LOVE YOU CUZ YOU'RE SO AMAZING!! LEMME LIST OFF MY TOP FIFTY REASONS. REASON NUMBER ONE: YOU SMELL TASTY ALL THE TIME. REASON NUMBER TWO: YOU HAVE A PRETTY SMILE. REASON NUMBER THREE: IT'S FUNNY WHEN YOU GET EMBARRASSED WHEN I SAY YOU HAVE A PRETTY SMILE. REASON NUMBER FOUR: FRENCH PASTRIES. REASON NU-

Anyway, it's a very cute ship! I kinda have to be in the mood for it, but I've made a bit of SanLu (implied) art before. My "Food As A Love Language" comic isn't explicitly intended to be read as romantic but you can certainly interpret it that way if you want and it explores an aspect of Sanji & Luffy's dynamic that I really like. Thank you for the message! I hope you're having a great day too!!