#otp: serendipity

[aldwirs]

The Weave connects you. The moment feels intimate.

[danicoro]

and with that i think we r now running chronologically lol

[leopardmuffinxo]

when you want to impress your crush, but your siblings keep teasing you

[silkjade]

𝐉𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐌 ღ 𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈 ⋆୨୧˚— alhaitham x jade ﾉ an academic rivals to friends to lovers slowburn

“the heart is an arrow — it demands aim to land true.”

༯ the grand scribe & the head archivist ﾉ a kiss of frost upon the earth ﾉ mutual admiration and understanding ﾉ the art of witticism ﾉ serenity in the silence ﾉ alcohol laced discussions ﾉ how moonlight fractures into the dawn ﾉ tangled limbs and tangled sheets ﾉ peaceful serendipity ﾉ a steady, persevering love — a love that blooms with time

「 ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ 」 natascha main theme - peter thomas sound orchester ﾉ fallingforyou - the 1975 ﾉ lovesick - laufey ﾉ come out and play - billie eilish ﾉ real life - the marias ﾉ imperfect for you - ariana grande ﾉ you are in love - taylor swift ﾉ west coast - lana del rey ﾉ understand - keshi ﾉ new home - austin farwell

𝐀𝐛𝐨����𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐦 We often crossed paths during our time as students, and while we didn’t get along at first, I suppose at the heart of every harmonious relationship is mutual understanding. It’s easy to dismiss him as just another genius with a questionable attitude — which isn’t wrong per se — but he has a kind heart albeit his unconventional ways of showing it, and his company isn’t too terrible. Being with him feels. . . peaceful. Hm? What sort of relationship? One I’m quite fond of, of course.

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐉𝐚𝐝𝐞 I’ve known her long enough not to be fooled by the elegant appearance, though personally, I find an incisive mind and clever tongue quite the charming engagement. Her determination to succeed is admirable, so I have no qualms about her capabilities at all — it’s no wonder few stones are as revered as jade. Oh? They call it "the concentrated essence of love"? I can't help but agree. Make do with that as you will, but I'm sure you can draw your conclusions from here.

❝ 𝐼 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑜𝓌 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝒻 𝓂𝓎 𝒹𝒾𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒻𝒾𝓇𝑒, 𝒜𝓃𝒹 𝓃𝒶𝓂𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓂𝓎 𝓁𝒶𝓃𝑔𝓊𝒶𝑔𝑒. ❞

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬

the unbearable lightness of a porcelain heart

midnight vices n’sfw

the heart on exhibition :: museum coworkers / modern au

𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐬

otp chart

summer moodboard

museum au moodboard

sabzeruz festival outfits

𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐲

woven in the roses

as king deshret and the goddess of flowers

a peaceful life

[polite-pandemonium]

(preview) coincidences and cosmic signs

OK, so here's the thing, the other day I was going through my WIP files (of which there are SO MANY) and I noticed that I never, not once, have ever written anything happy about this pair ever, even though they are probably my favourite OTP of all time. While chatting with @piedrpiper, I noticed that I often don't even view them as a happy couple, despite wanting Toei desperately to let them canonically smoosh their faces together and kiss in some media where I can see it.

So I'm challenging myself to write a happy, comedic Takeru/Hikari fic. I haven't written anything happy in years and I haven't written anything comedic in even longer, so a challenge this is. So I'm posting a little preview cause I unabashedly need a little encouragement. Pls. :(

IDK how long this will be or even what it really WILL be, but here it is so far. Title is from 'Serendipity' by Laufey, which is a gorgeous, gorgeous song I encourage you all to listen to.

x x x

coincidences and cosmic signs takeru/hikari, ken/miyako, background yamato/sora

There's no rulebook for falling in love with your best friend. Takeru and Hikari are learning this the hard way.

x x x

There’s no rulebook for falling in love with your best friend. No guidelines, no best-seller, no simple Google search that can explain how to navigate it in three easy steps.  There’s only works of fiction that make it look all too easy, with everything uncomplicated and clean, tied up in a neat bow by the end of the story. Happy endings, one after another, the friends to lovers trope never sees a broken heart. 

But in reality, there’s reams of Reddit threads and personal blogs showing the mixed results that only trying to turn a friendship into something more can wield. There’s plenty of broken hearts there; in the short, preliminary research that he has done, Takeru has found there are more unhappy endings than there are happy endings in this regard. Someone always doesn’t feel the same way and then the friendship? Ruined. 

It was anxiety inducing to read about, which was what had brought him to his current state of inaction. 

Though, he was finding this to also be miserable. 

Takeru groaned, leaning against the checkout counter at Ai-Mart, fixing his gaze sadly on the handful of nikuman still sitting in the glass display. 

From behind the counter, Miyako looked up from her text book and raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with you?” 

It was a Wednesday evening and like many evenings, instead of going home to the apartment he shared with his mother, Takeru decided to go pay Miyako a visit at her family’s Ai-Mart. She often loudly complained about how boring evening shifts were - how busy was a conbini in Odaiba really going to get on a weekday? So Takeru, who would talk to a wall if it could talk back, would frequently visit her while she worked (work was a loose term - she mostly just studied and rang through the odd customer), using Miyako as a sounding board for whatever was on his mind. 

Given that Miyako considered Takeru her third least annoying male friend, she didn’t mind the visits, though she tuned him out at least some of the time. It beat being alone and bored. 

Tonight was one such evening, but unlike their usual discussion topics, (pros and cons about whether or not Miyako should go back to Spain, a detailed plot summary of whatever book Takeru was reading, and often a heated debate around whether or not Takeru could give Miyako a ride to Ken’s place after this and if he did, what food would she give him for free?) Takeru found himself in a rather melancholy mood. 

Sighing heavily, Takeru placed a finger on the glass, tracing the shape of one especially lonely looking nikuman. “Miyako-san, I’m going to confess something to you, but you can’t make a big deal out of it, okay? I just really need someone to talk to.”

Miyako stood a little straighter, though her hand still remained clutching her book, poised to turn the page. “Um, okay. Again, what’s up?” 

“I’m in love with Hikari-chan,” he said, drawing a sad face over the nikuman. He wondered if it was as sad as he was - it must be, knowing that it was going to come to an untimely end, first getting ripped to shreds by someone’s teeth and then getting boiled alive in stomach acid. 

Being in love, Takeru was finding, was awful. Sure, he had probably been some type of in love with Hikari for almost ten years, but he kind of thought he would get over it. Yet here he was at 23, decidedly not over it and definitely not with Hikari and all of that was making him very miserable. 

He had to let it out. He wasn’t going to tell Yamato (what did Mr. Wife’d Up Since He Was 14 know about unrequited love?) and he certainly wasn’t going to talk to Daisuke, Ken, or Iori, all of whom were equal shades of busy or would mock him relentlessly. 

Which left Miyako, who, trapped behind the counter of Ai-Mart, really had no choice but to listen to his sob story. 

“Oh,” Miyako responded, blinking. “That’s all?”

Takeru stiffened, eyes darting away from the bread. “What do you mean that’s all?”

Rolling her eyes, Miyako folded her arms. “I mean that’s all as in obviously you’re in love with Hikari. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone?!” Takeru yelped. “What do you mean everyone?!”

“I mean everyone,” Miyako said matter of factly. “Our entire friend group. Hey, are you drawing faces on the nikuman again?”

“No,” Takeru dropped his hand. “And what do you mean everyone?” 

Circling around the counter, Miyako sighed. “Takeru-kun, I mean that everyone in our friend group knows you’re in love with her cause it’s obvious. It’s been obvious since you were like, seventeen. You just have to watch you two interact for more than five minutes and see how you look at her to notice it.” Coming to a stop beside him, she bent over and peered at the glass. “You liar, you were drawing faces on the nikuman! Stop doing that! Someone complained last time and said this store was creeping him out.” 

“Sorry,” Takeru said, distracted. “How do I look at her?”

Miyako turned to him, her face suddenly serious. She smiled softly. 

“You look at her like she’s special. Like you could be in a room with every single person you’ve ever met in your life and you would look for her first.”

Instantly, Takeru felt his face flush. “Um, I think, well, that’s quite the description Miyako-san, I don’t know if it is that deep, I—”

“Oh, stop, seriously,” Miyako waved her hand, turning to head back to the other side of the counter. “It’s so obnoxious to hear men try to downplay their feelings. Just own it. You’re head over heels for her. You’d rip worlds apart for her.”

Takeru swallowed, flushing deeper. “I mean, technically I kind of have.” 

“I know,” Miyako stationed herself beside the register and flipped her book closed. “I heard all about it. That’s why I said it. Now. What do you want to do about it?” 

A beat passed between them before Takeru slumped back against the counter. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?!”

“I mean I don’t know!” Takeru snapped. “I have no idea how to navigate this. I’ve tried Googling. I’ve tried reading. I even considered talking to my brother, but that would be no help at all cause he and Sora got together so young and have stayed together for so long, so what does he really know about dating? And all of the advice online is so mixed and I just truly have no idea where to even start.”

Miyako pursed her lips. “You want to know what I think you should do?” 

Takeru nodded, eagerly. “Yes, please.”

“I think you should tell her.”

Takeru groaned. “Miyako-san, I can’t just tell her. Are you crazy?”

“No!” She narrowed her eyes. “And I resent the question. Just tell her how you feel, you idiot!”

“I can’t just tell her how I feel,” Takeru said slowly, pointedly. “What if she doesn’t feel the same? I could ruin our friendship.”

Miyako shook her head. “You’re not going to ruin your friendship. Hikari is very understanding, very forgiving.”

Takeru nodded. “She is - wait. Are you saying that she’s going to reject me?”

[yearoftheotpevent]

We are officially ONE HALF of the way through with our first ever Year of the OTP! A huge congratulations to everyone who's kept up with the event so far -- and a huge burst of motivation toward anyone who's worried they're falling behind

Creating is *hard* sometimes, but you all are absolutely killing it! Serendipity is alive and well and the world, and as of this very moment, we have exactly ONE THOUSAND (that's 1,000!!!!!) works submitted to our collection! An idea that started in a Batman fanfic centered discord server has grown to include over 300 fandoms in this massive and incredible enterprise. You lot are amazing; keep up the good work <3

Our standard friendly reminders: - The official collection is open and unmoderated! If you're submitting to a moderated collection, then it is the wrong one - YOTP will *not* be making a repeat performance in 2024, for the sake of leaving the collection and prompts open available for another year in case anyone is joining us late or needs more time. (Or got so consumed by an idea from January's prompts that you've fallen a little behind).

July's prompts are: Vacation together, Power Swap, Enemies to Lovers, "Batman won't like this", stars, and Coffeeshop AU

[redwayfarers]

6, 16 and 18? otp of your choice :>

ty for dropping by! you, as a fellow clown, get intellis. i am currently doing an intellis run also! serendipity

6. What is/are their love language(s)?

cass: physical touch! he is chronically touch starved, after all, but even outside of that, he will want to cuddle with the people he loves, partners included. he has been known to lay on aeran's lap for a wee cat nap while on the road or to simply glue himself to aeran in his sleep, like a giant red octopus, and poor aeran wakes up in a tangle of arms and legs (and hair, if cass forgot to tie it up before going to bed which.. is rare but does happen sometimes.)

aeran: quality time & acts of service!!! i get the feeling he's the type to hit da bricks if it sux so him wanting to spend time with you must mean he likes you. and he 100% likes to do nice things for cass. cook him lunch. fold his clothes. make potions for them. tidy up the room they're renting. even in sex, too.

16. If they broke up, what would be their opinions of each other?

jokes on us they're hardly together, the clowns

but jokes aside, cass would think all the best of aeran. he would actively not mention the bad parts, maybe acknowledge them sometimes but most of the time, leave them be, and recall how funny and devoted aeran was.

aeran, likewise, would think of cass as chatty and witty, maybe a little clingy, stupidly eager to please, for better or the worse. he'd also think all the best of cass, unless they part on really bad terms which may or may not be likely in the actual game tbh.

18. What would be their love motto?

for better or for worse. they're on each other's side for life, no matter the time, the space and the circumstance, and even if they are all that to a codependent degree + they're too traumatised to talk about certain things with each other, they are there for each other. partners for life, in more than one way. time apart will do them good, yes, but will ultimately bring them back together and even stronger :>

[theswordwizard]

been thinking about daredevil but on alternia (sorry i think Klingon-esque murder planets are funny) and was stuck on some logistics until i realized it works perfectly if foggy is a tealblood and matt is a purpleblood. sorry this is gonna be catered to the 12 people who care about both daredevil and homestuck:

foggy is a natural lawyer/clerk type - pretty even tempered but wily. my first thought was for him to be a bit lower, maybe brown or so, but that was only when I had to make matt be teal so he could be Lawyer-Class. but in reality matt functions better as a subjugglator (also makes full AUs a lot cleaner because they can pair or be paired up as a legal team legislaterator/subjugglator combo). it gives him a dubiously religious upbringing with the clown church, "highblood rages," and a bit more freedom to kind of do whatever. he would hate subjugglator philosophy but fully twist it to his own standards.

one of the biggest appeals to making alternia AUs is because it asks a very fun question when paired with stories about morality: "what if it was generally agreed upon that murder was at worst just 'kind of a dick move?' while I don't think that matt being strongly anti-murder is necessarily tied to catholicism, I don't think that troll matt would really have a choice in the matter. he doesn't get the choice to hide his abilities to avoid being culled, and in a world where there is no reason for ANYONE to hold back, and he's constantly barraged from every direction by the awful things trolls are doing to each other in a troll city (a la friendsim), he would get into fights constantly with other highbloods, and often in defense of lowerbloods.

and of course those fights and revenges escalate. a lot of mcu matt's backstory can be translated through that - his lusus being killed, maybe having to be off and on the grid, maybe he gets picked up by an older troll who wants to see if he can survive - usually highbloods have huge horns but maybe his were cut down and carved to be better weapons and harder to grab. Serendipity Gospels Terezi/Gamzee lovechild. sorry im insane.

for relationships obviously foggy and matt are moirails (as much as i like mattfoggy romantically the biggest reason theyll never be an OTP for me is because i can't get them out of the quadrant in my head even non-au). everyone else is rotating through hearts/spades/clubs depending on the timeline. but mostly I think its interesting thinking about how interpersonal conflict and his rivalries with elektra/frank would translate into a world where they are all killers as a baseline and social expectation.

[ambitionsgreaterthan]

I love that period of kdramas too, I would even say until 2017/2018 was the best time for them. We had a mix of well written romances and great thrillers and crime shows as well as hearfelt slices of life and some really high caliber sageuks as well and we had a lot of great female characters that were complex but felt real.

Yeah I'm also really tired of perfect men whose sole purpose for the entire show is to worship the FL and most of the time it doesn't even make sense, one of the things I hate most in media is a writer saying "because I said so" through their writing. Marry my husband and PMR are good examples of this but also Serendipity's embrace where he's obsessed with her for 10 years and he barely even knew her, Queen of divorce was such a mess in general but especially in this regard, there's nothing wrong with a man who is madly devoted or ride or die in it's great but first of all it should at least make sense and that doesn't preclude them from writing independent badass complicated women who are also ride or die, there are countless examples where this has been done well but you have to be willing to write towards a love story and have that as your goal with both characters on top of their individual arcs, there has to be some sort of reciprocity and these things feed into each other, because a lot of the time lately not only do I not understand the reason why these men are so obsessed with these women but it seems the only reason the women are in love with them is how they treat them and not who they are and that's not a great takeaway.

I don't know what has caused this change, like it's literally just the natural way to craft a romance to have both parties taking turns to care for and support one another and you have to be actively writing against it to have an OTP where the guy is constantly the one to put in all the effort at every turn especially when most of the time it has zero correlation with who they are it just is. Two great recent-ish examples are Hometown cha cha and Call it love which had amazing women who had wonderful arcs surrounding their growth, their families etc but also had fantastic OTPs where they put in as much work and care as their significant others. I always go back to one thing which is how do you expect me to believe in this relationship if it's only half of it that's practically everything, that's not normal and you only have to think about their reaction if it was swapped to see it's not. Even when we had wrist grabs and dick-ish male leads they always had transformations when they became 1000% ride or die but now the opposite isn't true in the slightest.

I haven't watched Khitan but like you said if the romance isn't central then it's not as noticeable and also I think that's a rare case where it's flipped because in ninety percent of cases it's the other way around. Don't get me started on 8-10 I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns, we need 50/24 episodes historicals, we need 20 episode action romances, we need 16 dramatic or comedic romances, these are character driven stories that need time to develop and tell a good story and I can't stand this trend of milking things that don't need it for a second season and thus ruining the entire thing, Netflix really stuck its greedy claws into kdramas and has done so much damage that I don't know if it'll ever be repaired. They don't even pay their creators/actors well so it's a travesty all around.

The scene where YS rescues Nana and stares Undaddy down, covering Nana with his body so Undaddy would have to kill him to get to her is everything. I love Nana going 'wasn't this your father?' and whatever it was she didn't understand about YS and the monster his 'daddy' is becomes crystal clear to her then.

I love how she tells him not to rescue her if she is in danger because she doesn't like if he's hurt because of her - this is action Gift of the Magi because he no more could give up trying to save her than not breathe. This is going to sound odd but his losing his temper at her because he's scared for her is a good sign - it means shields are down and he can show he's scared or angry.

Meanwhile Undaddy muses that YS lost it when his nurse died so they should just make him like that again. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE YOU FUCKING SCUM OF THE THE EARTH UNDADDY!!!! I have no words. So, what, he wants to make it seem one of the targets killed YS' nearest and dearest? I guess that would explain why he didn't kill Nana in front of him - then he'd be the target of YS' rage. I want the ghosts of his comrades to strangle him from the grave.

I love that she won't let him put up walls and that she will talk out what bothers him (which is, how can she think he will be OK if he doesn't protect her). I love it when she tells him she knows every day is hard for him and he's in pain so she doesn't want to add to his burden - his eyes - he still can't get used to someone putting him first and thinking about what matters to him, what makes him happier. And then she adds she will make herself stronger so she can protect him. OMG.

She can turn even the worst days cheerful...

I love how she sticks to him like glue after, in his car and similar. He so needs her, badly, for his sanity and happiness but she needs him to be happy as well and it's a rare drama OTP that feels even.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[danicoro]

I don't know how to post shit at a normal human hour, so anyway have this.

[leopardmuffinxo]

promise me you'll be safe. no unnecessary heroics. promise me i'll see you in Baldur's Gate. ♡

[mylittleredgirl]

i’d like to publicly thank @starg8rocks for your service to my mental health this week by flooding my dash with janeway/chakotay posts because it is timely and much appreciated

[kiara-carrera]

Wilbright + OTP Tags

“Wait a minute … Sam, this is literally my exact coffee. A medium vanilla bean latte with soy milk.  Did you … You memorized my coffee order?” — June Albright

[rcmclachlan]

My dash did the thing.