#potentially everything i've ever written to some degree

[itwoodbeprefect]

i think the best genre of media, to me, is both extremely predictable and has people say deeply unhinged things to each other. bonus points if they're very queer deeply unhinged things

[olderthannetfic]

Nothing turns me off from a fanfic faster than a fear of emotional sincerity. There's so much irony, so many jokes, so many "ugh that was awkward" "I know right" after scenes that could have been touching had they not just been undermined, and a thorough coating of snark and sarcasm over an alarming number of protagonists. My fandom lends itself well to OCs and I've read some wonderful, one of a kind OCs as a result. I've also read a lot of the above, whatever you'd like to term that sort of story. I find it deeply uninspiring. How am I meant to be interested in a story when the author isn't? How am I supposed to get deeply invested in this thing when we have to punctuate everything with quips? Sometimes I just want a story where not everyone feels like they're saying lines for the movie trailers and memes these fics will never actually get.

There's so much potential out there in the setting for all kinds of characters. I shouldn't be able to take quotes from all of these OCs in all these different roles and have them read in that same irreverent, I-am-quipping-in-the-war-zone tone to such a degree that any line could come from all of them.

And when I mentioned this to a friend they assumed that meant I wanted boring heroes. No. Too much of anything makes that the boring, predictable thing. I want weird. Give me a very sincere hero who is also mildly out of touch with reality and talks to bugs but whose pacifism will not extend to you if you touch his loved ones. Give me a hot grandpa who's too old for snarky shit and wants to hash things out like an adult and relearns how to see the world with wonder in his eyes. Give me a heroine who's neurodivergent and nice and also really good at a handful of things that bring her actual joy instead of snarky cool girl semi-joy. Just. Any break from the latest brunette white cis culturally Christian atheist snarky cool person who always has a line at the ready and doesn't let anything get under their skin no matter how much it would be really weird for it to not matter to them, actually and how completely understandable it would be to let them feel something.

A scene that lives rent free in my head is from a fanfic now deleted, but in which two characters just talk about their trauma and have a quiet moment. The canon character is comforted by the OC without any romantic undertones or intent. Nobody makes any jokes to break the tension. They just have a moment where one person leans on someone else because sometimes life is fucking hard and you just need someone else to tell you they've been there, they managed, you're not alone, they've got you.

Most fics in my fandom don't have that much sincerity in the entire story. And this thing I loved, this fandom I invested six years into, is finally just too dull of a sandbox to play in anymore. I don't like that. Nobody's taking any risks, even one as minor as emotional sincerity in fiction, which is arguably a lot safer a place to do that than reality.

I miss when my fandom was new and the OCs were some of the most baffling people you've ever had described to you with nonetheless well-written backstories going out to do shit they believed in.

--

Sincerity is terrifying for an author.

[foolishlovers]

Ummmm….

Any trans!Crowley smut you’re particularly fond of?

Asking for a friend

here are some i've read 💜

from autumn blooms spring summer fruit by blackeyedblonde (9k) In the potter’s shed, Crowley picked up a trowel and threatened a yearling lemon tree still residing within its earthenware pot before he would allow himself to sit at the gardening table and pull the folded newspaper Aziraphale had given him from his smock. Enclosed on the inside were two gifts. One was the small velvet pouch that contained a pair of golden earrings strung with twin baroque pearls that did not squeak when he curiously rubbed one against his canine tooth. The other was the familiar sight of neat copperplate writing at the bottom of page seven of the paper, done in lead pencil so the words could be more easily smudged out with a bit of rubber. A gift, Lord Fell had written. I will come find you an hour after the molting brown bird has gone to bed.

Ever-Fixed by HKBlack (19k) Aziraphale Fell had a plan. Go to school, get his degree, and start his life with his beloved at his side as man and wife. Until one day Crowley disappears. Decades later he meets a man, and finds the love of his life again. Anthony J. Crowley, suave, cool, masculine, in control, unflappable, has spent decades building himself up. He refuses to let his confident facade disappear for Aziraphale, who once almost tumbled down the stairs to certain death because his nose was stuck in a book. It’s just sex, and they’ve been dating for months, this time around. There’s no need to get his knickers in a knot. But the past isn’t easy to let go of, even if you’re both avoiding it. A story about love, intimacy, and finding each other again. (Alternatively: Tender smut, but then I wrote love story flashbacks, and now it's just emotional and there's plot in my pornography)

that's what happens when you sign on the line by Sway (22k) "There we are," Mister Fell emerges once again, carrying a pot of tea that matches the decor on the cups. He pours out two cups, then sets the pot down before taking a seat in the other chair. "So… You are looking for a Dominant, then?" “I’m…,” Crowley gapes a bit, mouth opening and closing around what he isn’t quite sure to say. Mister Fell smiles in understanding. “I apologise. I have a tendency to ask rather blunt questions at first to get a feel for what a potential client seeks. I suppose it’s not for everybody to just… say it.” “I don’t want to think,” Crowley all but blurts then, surprising himself a bit. Maybe it does get easier with time to just… say it. “That’s what I want.” *** Crowley seeks to live out his submissive tendencies, to forget about this job, to give up control. He gets refered to one Mister Fell who is not at all what he expects. But very much what he needs.

Black and White Sunshine by Azira_Amane (58k) "The cotton capital. The Second Summer of Love, the Haçienda. Irwell, Medlock, Irk and Mersey. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her novels in a lovely little house. Oh. There’s so much to know…" Aziraphale East is, by his own account, a bit of an odd duck - and he's okay with that. He's always been happy in his own skin, in having been a confirmed bachelor his whole life. Everything changes on a work trip from London to Manchester, where he meets the vivacious and stunningly attractive Anthony Crowley. Like the splitting of the atom, Aziraphale is divided - and begins to wonder if it's not too late for love after all. Age, as they say, is but a number.

and @ineffabildaddy wrote some lovely trans!crowley smut for the fic we wrote together (with incredible art by @omens-for-ophelia)

Just Up the Stairs by foolishlovers, ineffabildaddy, omens_for_ophelia (39k) On Valentine's Day, amidst the chaos of handling work and university deadlines as a mature student, Crowley seeks solace with his neighbour Aziraphale. As they share a meal, their long-standing friendship begins to unravel, revealing hidden feelings they've harboured for six months. It's a night that could change everything.

[pfhwrittes]

Actually I know you said I wouldn’t wanna hear you bemoan your writing process, but I’m actually very interested in that tbh

What is your process for a longer fic? How do you format your outline? What does your research look like if you need to do that?

I’d love to see it! Maybe this is more of Talk Shop Tuesday question lol

tats you can have a little Talk Shop Tuesday as a treat!

so i briefly touched on my process (god i need a new way to phrase that it sounds so wanky) in this ask here where i admitted to kind of flying by the seat of my trousers/pants with writing ("live by the PWP sword, die by the PWP sword i guess" is probably one of my favourite sentences i've ever written).

but i'll expand further under the cut because i know i'm going to get long winded as hell.

firstly, i'm going to admit something slightly embarrassing. i'm not a planner, or a plotter, or a think further than the scene i'm writing writer. i'm just not. i write entirely on vibes or wherever the worms take me. i think that's pretty evident from the fact that most of my fics/drabbles for the fandom are shorter than my left leg. i consider it to be a minor miracle if i break 500 words, never mind 1000 words for my fics.

secondly, maybe mummies is my most rigidly outlined fic ever. i have a super rough outline for my festival fic (remember that? god those were the days) and for my bbc ghosts inspired thing (again, another blast from the past right there) but maybe mummies is the biggest document i have in my WIP folder right now and i'll use that as my example for my outlining process (and hopefully i won't spoil the fic too much).

What is your process for a longer fic? i always start every single one of my fics by dumping a synopsis of what i want the fic to be at the top of my document. first of all, it scares away the Fear of the Dreaded Blank Page (where The Blinking Cursor of Doom lingers), secondly it pulls me back on track when i start getting lost in the weeds as i always get lost in the weeds to some degree. thirdly, it's kind of silly and mostly vibes. i basically just talk to myself in the blurb and at some point that may translate to an author's note but sometimes it doesn't.

then i move onto notable tags i know i need to include. so that would be the general vibe of the fic ("Inspired by The Mummy (1999)"), the genre ("Action/Adventure", "Romance", "Comedy"), or notable triggers ("Bugs/Beetles", "Implied PTSD", "Implied Alcoholism"). the notable tag section is subject to change as i write but as soon as i pop something in my fic that i know could potentially trigger someone or make someone balk at bit at reading it, i update the tag list. as i work through the sections/scenes of my fic i list the tags/triggers that apply to that section and mark them with a star and match that star up to the notable tag section.

for maybe mummies, i started writing it chronologically while on my third(?) rewatch of The Mummy. i spat out the blurb during my first watch because the brain worms took me gently by my throat and calmly threatened me at knife point (no, i don't know where they got the knife either and at this point i'm too afraid to ask). then i yelled at @391780 over having an idea as i usually do and early enabled me like the Chief Worm Wrangler they are.

then i got bored of writing it chronologically on my fifth rewatch after blocking most of act 1 and act 2, so i went to the last scene of the fic, blocked that out with bullet points (and made myself laugh) before deciding that actually, an epilogue would really tie everything up wonderfully. so then i spat out the epilogue (and very shyly asked @syoddeye if the emotional beats hit right and they were kind enough to go "i love [this metaphor] and [this interaction]" which basically cemented the epilogue for me. so if you hate it, don't you dare blame sy, i'll come for your kneecaps with my makita drill if you do).

aside from that, i block everything roughly using bullet points. sometimes that's a badly worded sentence, sometimes that's a particular dialogue exchange that fits, sometimes thats just [JP and F!RC bicker] (anything in parentheses gets filled with more detail in at a later date), sometimes the worms wriggle and i spit out an entire scene.

if i'm struggling to write a scene i tend to either leave myself bullet points or break the scene into smaller chunks. it helps my brain to focus on the parts i want it to write better that way and it takes the pressure off so i don't get stuck in the mire of "oh god this needs to be the most perfect first draft that has ever existed".

How do you format your outline? so my heavily redacted outline for maybe mummies looks something like this:

Blurb (stream of consciousness babble/vibes/silliness)

Title (currently blank)

Notable Tags (all the current tags/triggers, and there are 23 currently!)

Characters notes - John "Johnny" MacTavish - Female! Reader Character (RC) - Captain John Price - Simon "The Ghost/Ghost" Riley - Kyle Garrick - Philip Graves (then some redacted characters)

Act One (the set up) - Scene 1 - Scene 2 - Scene 3 - Scene 4

Act Two (the rising action) - Scene 1, part a - Scene 1, part b - Scene 1, part c. (etc, etc. you get the idea)

Act Three (the crisis) (see act two and three for how that would look)

Act Four (the resolution) (heavily redacted bits go here) - Final Scene

Epilogue (this i have written out in full, but i can't share it with you because of spoilers).

Odds and Ends (this is where chunks of dialogue i want to add into the fic, or interactions i want to go live until they find a place in the fic. it's also where the parts i've "scrapped" go too. i never delete anything from my outline, it just gets moved to the odds and ends section).

What does your research look like if you need to do that? oooooh boy. okay, another embarrassing admission coming up. my research for maybe mummies has been my nigh on continuous rewatching of The Mummy. i'm on 13.5 watches right now (10 before my surgery date, 3 post surgery, and one time i started watching it and fell asleep about half way through while my brain was slowly stewing in the remnants of morphine and codeine). other than that, i've got about 5 or 6 tabs that i've shoved into a folder in firefox dutifully labeled "shit i don't know about 1920s eygpt".

in short, my research is more of a mess than my outline.

hopefully this answers your question and i'm so sorry i made you slog through what is essentially 1.1k of words that may be nonsense.

[anthropologist-on-the-loose]

What is your stance on writing ethnographies involving illegal activites, in particular squatters and city squats? i have a great interest in them yet i cant help but think no paper can ever be written if my findings are 90% incriminating stuff. ofc i can go the no name no address but that is definitely not enough.

Oh I love this question. I think ethnographies involving illegal activities are fantastic and fascinating and important; how do people on the fringes or who are disenfranchised from mainstream society go about their lives? Why are they disenfranchised, and what kind of communities do they form? Why are their activities illegal? Should they be decriminalized? How would decriminalization affect individuals in these communities? And a whole host of other questions. I've seen some great ethnographic pieces involving less-than-legal activities so they're definitely possible (in fact I just read an anthropological article about common resources that had a whole section on squatting, DM me and I can send a PDF). The question is how to go about it, and how reasonable it would be to ethically make an ethnography about a specific community.

Like you said, there's some difficult ethics involved, the biggest one being the potential to put your ethnographic cooperators at risk of harm (legal or otherwise). We've all read those types of journalistic ethnographies where someone interviews a few individuals for an article titled something like, "This is what it's like to be a professional sex worker" or "A former drug addict talks about the world of drug deals", but creating a full-blown ethnography has a higher chance of disrupting a whole community than a conversation with a single individual.

There's a few key things to keep in mind when doing ethnographic work with illegal communities. The first and most important part of any ethnography is to include the people you're working with in all parts of the process. There's been a movement to make anthropological work in general a cooperative endeavor with groups of people rather than about groups of people.*

One of the best ways to ensure the safety of ethnographic participants is quite simply to ask them how to best maintain their safety. People who are involved in illicit activities or communities usually already know the best ways to stay safe, and they are almost certainly going to know better than an outside researcher. Maybe anonymity is enough, maybe it's not. Discuss these things with participants, ask them what would or would not be comfortable with being public knowledge. Let people know that not everything needs to be in the final product, and that they have a say in how it turns out.

Of course, as the researcher you also have to be aware of potential issues and ensure that they are talked about. Sometimes the opinion of what is safe from one individual does not reflect the opinions of the broader community, and it is important to take that into account. There's also a degree of using your own best judgement about what kind of information it is ethical to publish; the same is true for any scientific field.

Another important aspect is asking yourself is what kind of information you need to focus on a particular research question, and how that specific information might incriminate people. Let's use your topic of squatters as an example. You could probably include discussions of peoples' opinions on squatting and some of their lived realities without incriminating anyone. Someone sharing that they believe housing should be free, or how they ended up in their particular situation would probably be fine. Including which neighborhoods are the best for squatting would probably be dangerous unless that's an already widely known fact in that city. Maybe you can include most of someone's story, but have to exclude bits where they talk about visiting a specific nearby spot. There's lots of things that can be done to increase anonymity while still sharing meaningful information. Oftentimes, you won't know exactly how it will until you jump in.

I got a bit rambly and more incoherent towards the end there, but to summarize: I think ethnographies involving illegal activities are great and can be done ethically, keeping in mind that it might take more effort (and editing) to ensure the safety of all participants and their communities.

*A bit of probably unnecessary history of anthropology, but anthropology has a long and bad history of taking some of the worst parts of Western scientific thought and applying it to the study of people - particularly the faulty idea of "objectivity". The idea was that people can't view themselves objectively because they are too enmeshed in their own culture to be able to observe it, so we needed "unbiased" Western-trained scientists to be able to identify the true meanings behind a culture's idiosyncrasies. Obviously the idea that Western research academics are unbiased is utter bullshit, but the assumption that only an outsider can view a culture objectively has unfortunately stuck around. A huge problem that arises from this paternalistic mindset is the notion that academics and outside authorities know what is best for a community rather than listening to the people who are part of that community.

[gretchensinister]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you @marypsue for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

732 oh gosh it needs to have text next to it to not show up giant

2. What’s your total word count?

1,316,095 aha you can tell most of my fics are short

3. What fandoms do you write for?

What I am currently preoccupied with is The Dark Crystal/The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The vast majority of my fics are for Rise of the Guardians, and I have one fairly substantial fic each for Thor and Venom.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

Give You Everything, not surprised about this one, it's Eddie/Venom and I published it a little less than four months after Venom came out in theaters. 2. Single Snowflakes, this one is a surprise? It's barely over 1K, T for subject matter, Bunny/Jack where Jack talks about past trauma with Bunny. I wouldn't have written it except that this was part of my project to fill every prompt on Round 1 of the Rise of the Guardians Dreamwidth kinkmeme. I guess it resonated with people??? 3. How Old? Another Bunny/Jack fic, G-rated and very short. 4. What it Means to Ask, yet ANOTHER Bunny/Jack fic, G-rated, but about how serious the concept of being a "mate" is in Pooka culture. How Old? was also related to that. 5. Down and Dirty-a wrestling-type fight between Jack and Bunny turns into sex.

What have we learned? The Jackrabbit fans, they are legion.

5. Do you respond to comments?

For the past several years, yes, pretty much always. Back in 2012 when I was just starting to post on Ao3, I was like unto a nervous deer and sometimes didn't respond. But I did print out all the comments on Without Contraries There Is No Progression (Pitch/Sandy that got me writing big complete things) and put them on my fridge at the time. It helped me get my master's degree.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The one that comes to the top of my head is Warmer Than I Thought. Jack's dying because he just didn't have enough believers when he became a Guardian. He's not going to come back with continuity of self. Pitch is there to offer him some scant comfort as he goes.

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

I mostly write happy endings, honestly, but the honor of the most happy and resolved ending goes to His Time, which is chronologically the last fic in my Rise of the Guardians Apotheosis AU. It's a far-distant future, OT8, everyone is together and essentially the pantheon of a new planet they made after Earth is gone due to the expansion of the sun. They are trying to make it go well this time, and so far succeeding.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

The closest thing to hate I ever got was on my explicit Thorki fic...from a person complaining about how much I had Thor and Loki talk to each other.

9. Do you write smut?

I write a lot of explicit sex, yes.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've written a fair number in my prompt-fill project, but it's not something I'm drawn to write.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I've never known about any of my fics being stolen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone talked to me about translating one of my fics and I was very excited and I said yes. However I don't know what came of that because things happened and I fell out of communication with the potential translator. Maybe they finished it and I don't know about it!

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

No, and I don't think I would, unless it was part of a strictly structured event/project.

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

Well, it's Pitch Black/Sandman. Conceptually, the ships I'm drawn to have ties to dichotomies of dark/light, good/evil, cosmic opposites kind of thing. Pitch and Sandy, as personifications of nightmares and dreams, were a perfect vessel for that obsession.

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

I told my friends, "I'm not going to rewrite The Phantom of the Opera." And I'm not. But there's a version of PotO that I wanted that uh, isn't what any of the big official versions gave me. So I started writing and I have 49,615 words so far. If I don't find a way to finish it I think I will end up posting it as something permanently unfinished, because there's a lot that I like in it now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have been told in a real graduate writing workshop that I have good dialogue. I also like to think I'm pretty good at sensory descriptions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The things I find extremely difficult are endings and like, plots where things happen--I want so badly to write a big complicated Space Empire story but like. How is does political intrigue? (This house is FEELINGS ONLY.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

I don't think I'd ever do it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Almost certainly Dragonball Z. If all goes well, my friend and I may have the chance to excavate some of my old notebooks during the holidays and then--it's archive time and that is a threat.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

It's A Draught of Light, which I love as it is, and for proving that I could write an alternate-world epic fantasy novel as long as I didn't like, admit that's what I was doing. I do admit though that I have an edited version that takes it farther away from being fanfic that I like even better. Maybe I should, hmm, start taking steps to making that version available, if you understand what I mean.

Who do I know writing out there that hasn't been tagged yet? @queerpyracy, @purplebloodedmajesty, @incurablenecromantic

[cherrygorilla]

Happy Birthday, Danelle! 🎂

Sadly, thanks to my life being consumed by my degree, I didn't manage to get anything substantial finished writing-wise in time for your big day. However, I didn't want to let it go to waste without doing anything, especially after you'd been lovely enough to put that video together for me at Christmas. But since I'm not nearly as talented as you when it comes to doing that sort of thing, I resorted to what I do best: rambling about our characters, and the apparently endless list of ideas I have for them. Well, not quite endless, but 16 pages of a Google Doc is still pretty insane...

So yeah, this is basically just a total brain-dump of any story concepts, headcanons, random song-inspos, and TikTok references I've got stored up that would likely never have seen the light of day otherwise. They're way too much fun to just keep to myself though, so hopefully they can bring you a little joy today! And even if you think they all suck, at least you can enjoy the fact that your characters are living in my head rent-free pretty much 24/7. 

And so, without further ado, enjoy your window into the chaotic, fangirl mess that is my brain…

Story concepts:

First, of all we have: ✨story concepts✨ - aka, actual, substantial ideas of mine that have potential, but likely no means of ever getting written thanks to everything else I have on my plate atm. The first two are big ones, which earned themselves their own moodboards, but the rest are just ideas that are too big to just be considered headcanons lol.

Idea 1: Bridgerton AU

Okay, I've definitely mentioned this one before, and this one at least has some potential of maybe getting written one day, but I would LOVE to do a Bridgerton AU focusing on a Miles & Carrie Enemies-to-Lovers style story. It has been like a year since I watched anything Bridgerton related though, so if the technicalities of this are a little sketchy then that's why lol.

The outline I have is basically: Mrs Murphy works as part of Butchy and Mick's staff, with her sons also taking on roles around the house. Butchy's parents had taken pity on Mrs Murphy when she came asking for a live-in work position since she had three young boys to take care of and the eldest was close in age to their own son. So basically, Butchy and Lela grow up treating Miles, Royce and Bentley like their own siblings, despite the fact that technically they work for them. The Season prior would have been when Butchy fell in love with and married Mick, so this would start with them beginning their new life as a couple, still with the Murphys working for them, and with Lela getting ready for her first Season. She'd be super nervous about it though because she's heard rumours that the prestigious Cole family are going to be entering their precious twins into the Season for the first time this year, and she knows that if that's the case then she's got no chance of getting any attention. Her family try their best to reassure her, but when it comes time for each eligible young lady to be presented to the queen, sure enough, the Coles present their daughter, Caroline, and she totally steals the show. This immediately gives everyone a vendetta against Carrie for crushing Lela's confidence, but at a ball later that evening, when Carrie is once again taking all the attention of any potential suitors, she runs into Miles and in a matter of minutes proves that she's just as much of a spoiled brat as he suspected her to be, if not worse, thus souring his opinion of her even further. They end up arguing out in the garden, since Carrie had gone out to get some air and Miles couldn't bear to be surrounded by the stuffiness of the party, they get caught in the rain, and after Carrie denies Miles' help to get her back inside (because even when he hates her guts, he still has to go and be a nice guy lol), she ends up slipping on a wet paving stone and completely ruining her dress. Their argument gets even worse and before long, Carrie's older brother (literally only a character for this story, so irrelevant otherwise that he doesn't even have a name lmao, I just couldn't have Tanner doing this because he needs to be elsewhere) demands that Miles and his family leave before they cause any further trouble as Carrie has to go and clean herself up, which she is especially not happy about since it cuts into her time of pursuing potential suitors. Butchy tries to help and defend Miles, which he does without question, but ultimately decides that it would be best if they left anyway, much to Lela's dismay since she'd finally been getting some attention from Carrie's brother, Tanner.

Miles' opinion of Carrie gets worse and worse with time, which extends to the rest of his family when they catch wind of what happened, but as Lela starts growing closer to Carrie's brother, the more time they have to spend around one another. Carrie is crowned The Diamond and as a consequence starts courting a duke (Seacat, don't ask me why, I just feel like I picture him being her other love interest in this more than Eric lmao), which Miles and his family are subjected to bear witness to after Lela and Tanner also start courting, and they're invited to spend some time at the Coles' huge estate. In Bridgerton S2 fashion, they all partake in a croquet game, where Carrie and Miles' bickering reaches an ugly head. Sick of listening to them, Mick knocks Carrie's ball off into the woods and, in an act of defiance, Carrie insists that she doesn't need Seacat's help to go and retrieve it. Vivien, a close family friend of Mick's, who is also along for the trip, and takes on the 'Lady Whistledown' type role in this story, knocks Miles' ball in the same direction after Carrie has left to annoy/tease him further, and in an unlikely turn of events, the pair end up helping each other retrieve their balls from rather precarious places, leaving them both giggling like children and covered in mud. This reveals a little insecurity on Seacat's part, however Carrie reassures him it was nothing. But when she catches Miles awake and wandering the house that night, and they get to talking again, they start to realise they might have been wrong about each other after all, and scary, new feelings start to be uncovered. They're caught by Mick before anything can happen, but the can of worms has already been nudged open and the damage has already been done, and she keeps an extra close eye on them from then on as her suspicions start to rise.

I've already gone into way too much detail already, so I'll summarise the rest of it quickly, but basically, as much as they try to deny it, Miles and Carrie start catching feelings for one another, and their unlikely run-ins just keep making it worse, especially when things are supposedly getting serious between Carrie and Seacat - at least from an outsider's perspective anyway. One day, when Miles is out tending to the horses in the stables (because that's the closest job I could think of to match his mechanic skills lmao), Carrie once again gets caught in the rain, and runs there for shelter. One thing leads to another, and in true Miles and Carrie fashion, and in true Bridgerton fashion, they get way too carried away with one another and just start going at it right there in the stables. They're not as careful as they thought they were being though, and Vivien being the nosy little genius she is, immediately figures out what is going on and runs to Royce to fill him in. In a panic, and desperate to stop Miles from ruining his life, praying that if he does everything will just go back to the way it was before, Royce comes up with a plan to use Vivien's Lady Whistledown-esque writing powers to put together an expose on Carrie and her adulterous habits (without revealing the identity of her partner in crime though, obvs), thus ruining her reputation. They don't have the foresight to realise that it will bring down Carrie's family with her though, including Tanner, and then, by association, Lela, since by the time they've sent the draft off to be printed, Tanner and Lela have announced their engagement. With a push from the queen, Seacat and Carrie announce their engagement promptly afterwards, leaving Miles horrified and Mick concerned for him, since she had been suspecting Miles had been developing feelings for a while now, which is then confirmed after getting him to open up to her, and him breaking down about how badly he's messed up by taking things as far as he did with Carrie. With Carrie and Seacat's engagement being the talk of the town, the queen throws together a whirlwind wedding in mere days, and before anyone knows it, Carrie is reciting her vows with her eyes locked on Miles, and Seacat is reciting his with his eyes locked on one of Carrie's bridesmaids. In a display not dissimilar to the bracelet incident in S2, the queen finally sees through the cracks in their charade and calls the wedding off, leaving Carrie and Seacat in a state of shock, and Carrie's reputation in the gutter, which is only made worse by the arrival of Royce and Vivien's Lady Whistledown pamphlets. Cue an utter meltdown inspired by this song from the unofficial Bridgerton musical, where Carrie, who had only agreed to the marriage in the first place to help expand her family's connections, and to help cover for her handmaid, who had slept with Seacat and had ended up pregnant, goes completely off the deep end. Will Royce and Vivien be able to enlist the help of Mick and Butchy to fix their mess, and give Miles the happy ending he deserves? …I guess we'll never know. But it sure is fun to think about! 

I know I already mentioned one song from the unofficial Bridgerton musical, which I love btw, but the only other one, besides the opening number, that really makes me think of this AU is If I Were A Man - because how cute would it be for Vivien to sing this when she's hanging out with Royce and Bentley, complaining about how stupid the Season and all this 'courting' business is, only for Royce to be watching her the whole time with the biggest heart eyes imaginable??

And it's not a part of the musical or anything, but every time I listen to this Bridgerton-esque arrangement I think of this AU. I mean it just fits so well! Like the fact that it's a cover of Paparazzi when in her og universe Carrie's a famous actress - it's perfect! And it sounds so good! I feel like I can so clearly picture Miles and Carrie dancing together for the first time with this playing in the background and everyone just watching them like: 👀 ...are they supposed to be doing that??? but he's poor?? and she's supposed to be unlovable?? what's going on?? 

Idea 2: Star Wars AU

I only thought of this one recently but godddddd it's so fun. Like just picture Miles vibing on some random planet in the middle of nowhere, just trying to mind his own business and get by looking after his little brothers and their handful of a best friend, Vivien, aka a wannabe resistance fighter, who is always getting told by Miles to stay away from that stuff because it's dangerous. And then one day, Miles is unwillingly dragged into helping a runaway evade capture - he doesn't know who she is, he just knows that she's very charismatic, and very pretty - and she has a LOT of hair. He ends up repairing and hijacking an old space cruiser, and, with some prompting from his little brother and Vivien (any maybe Riven too; I feel like he would thrive in this universe), all hungry for a little adventure, he ends up agreeing to take Carrie across the galaxy to where she needs to go.

They run into Butchy and Mick along the way, a pair of resistance fighters working on a mission to steal some plans from the First Order, and they decide to join forces, although Butchy is incredibly reluctant to trust Carrie, despite having no problems with anyone else - he just senses there's something off with her. When they stop on a planet to refuel, the First Order has managed to track down Mick and Butchy thanks to bounties they have from a previous mission where they took down a fleet of First Order Star Destroyers, and a huge fight breaks out, that, despite their lack of experience, Miles and his family are swept up in. Surprisingly, they manage to hold their own quite well, but Miles is soon distracted when he sees that the First Order have taken Carrie. Butchy tries to help him, but his efforts land them both in First Order prison cells after they're both knocked unconscious. Butchy tries his best to reassure Miles that Mick will already have a plan in motion to come and rescue them, and tells him to just stay quiet when the stormtroopers inevitably come to question them. It's not a stormtrooper that comes to interrogate them though, instead, a pair of heels clacks along the polished floors in time to the Imperial March, accompanied by a long, black cape with a hood that is dropped when its owner comes face to face with the boys to reveal a devilish smirk belonging to none other than Carrie, who's actually been working for the First Order the whole time. Miles feels understandably betrayed, Butchy feels frustrated that he didn't trust his gut feeling more, and after some pretty intense Force mind games, not dissimilar to this scene, Carrie reveals her boyfriend Eric's master plan to bring down the Resistance once and for all. There's an obvious back and forth, as Miles tries to talk her around to see sense, but when Eric shows up he's quick to shut him down, and the unhealthy nature of his and Carrie's relationship is quickly exposed. Carrie chooses to ignore Miles' pleas, and leaves with Eric, however, as to be expected, before all hope can be lost, Mick and the others show up and come to their rescue.

On their way to escape, Butchy and Miles run into Carrie yet again and a pretty epic lightsaber battle commences. It's mainly Butchy (blue lightsaber) and Carrie (red lightsaber) to begin with, and it's rather intense since they're both, understandably, super pissed at each other, but when Carrie wounds Butchy pretty badly, Miles, despite his lack of experience and doubt in his ability since he's never even heard of The Force before (apart from through the stories Vivien would tell his brothers, which up until now he'd believed were entirely fictitious), let alone used it, has to step in to defend him. Their feelings for one another make the fight a difficult one, but when Eric finds them and starts taunting Carrie, bossing her around and degrading her right to her face, and Miles starts pleading with her and helping her try to see reason, telling her that it doesn't need to be this way and that she can be happy like she was back on the ship with him and his family, and that despite what Eric says, there is light in her because he's seen it, she finally sees Eric for who he really is, and sees through all the lies he's been telling her about the First Order. Her lightsaber, locked in place by Miles desperately trying to block her latest swing, starts flickering from red to purple (I know lightsaber colours don't work like that, but the symbolism of it shifting from totally red to a mix of red and blue [ie good and bad] is too good, so just let me live) as her allegiance to the dark side starts to waver, until finally she's had enough and turns on Eric, killing him with a final, ruthless display of passion. Miles helps Butchy to safety on the rescue ship as Mick leaves Riven and Vivien in charge of piloting it, in favour of helping tend to Butchy's wounds, before he goes back and convinces Carrie to leave the First Order once and for all. Vivien and Riven navigate the ship through one last First Order attack as they make a break for it, and by the time that the group makes their way back to the Resistance base, the fight has found itself six new soldiers: Miles, Royce, Bentley, Vivien, Riven and, of course, Carrie. Kind of a fun concept, right? Well, maybe, but maybe I just want to see Butchy and Carrie going at it with a pair of lightsabers to Duel of the Fates. Is that too much to ask? lmaooo

Idea 3: The Little Mermaid

 Okay, these ones are much shorter now, and this one literally only materialised a few months ago when I started getting excited about the new Little Mermaid live action remake. Tbh, there's not really any substance to it other than the fact that I think Carrie would make SUCH a good mermaid. Like she grew up at the beach spending pretty much all her time in the ocean, she has the voice of an angel and her hair would be SO FUN underwater haha. Also, you know if Carrie was a mermaid, Miles' ass would get dragged out to sea in like two seconds flat lmao. And even before I saw you pinning some mermaid stuff to Kona's Pinterest board, I felt like she would have made such a cute little mermaid companion for Carrie - getting all grumpy about her acting weird and ignoring her (a la She's In Love from The Little Mermaid musical) and then teasing her like crazy about crushing on a human once she's figured out what's wrong and has come around to the idea of it. In a similar way, I think Vivien would also make a great mermaid pal for her, if not for anything other than the fact that her purple hair would look incredible underwater hahaha. Plus, I've always thought it would be cute for, in a totally separate AU, Carrie to start taking some of Vivien and Kona's dance classes to earn some extra cash whilst she tries to book an acting job, and when they find out that Miles is crushing on her big time, they start meddling and trying to get them together, and end up getting super close with Carrie in the process. Obviously that wouldn't work for this concept since idk how mermaids would dance, but the theme of Vivien and Kona teaming up to get Miles and Carrie together, and building a really close bond with Carrie in the process remains lol. There's literally no other substance to this idea, I just like the thought of Carrie singing pretty songs and splashing around underwater with a sparkly mermaid tail, because, let's face it, she would absolutely neail Part Of Your World. 

Idea 4: Mrs Murphy meeting Carrie for the first time

Again, no real plot idea for this one, I just really like the thought of Mrs Murphy slowly realising that Miles has a crush on someone and trying to do what she can to encourage him to follow his head and go for it - giving advice here, and fixing his hair before he leaves the house there. And then when she finds out that he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out and it all went well, she's obviously overjoyed, and is always trying to convince him to bring her over for dinner, much to Royce and Bentley's dismay. Eventually, Miles agrees, but when Mrs Murphy opens the door to find that the girl her son had brought over was basically the exact opposite of the one she'd envisioned he'd fall for in her head, she's understandably…confused. Will she start to appreciate the lovably egotistical blonde for who she is with time, or will Carrie's reception at the Murphy house meet the same fate as a certain ship of special interest to none other than the girl that had the Murphys wrapped around her little finger from day one?  😉

Idea 5: The One With The Pregnancy Test

Okay, this one just totally rips off the scene in Friends where Rachel finds out she's pregnant, but it does have its own fun spin, so I'll go ahead and include it anyway. Basically, everyone's at the cabin in New Hampshire, and Mick, Vivien, Carrie and Miles are all chilling in the kitchen. Carrie goes to grab some milk from the fridge but can't stand the smell of it and starts feeling really nauseous. Miles takes it from her and gives it a sniff-test, but says that it smells fine to him. He offers it to Vivien and she says the same thing: it smells fine. Carrie's majorly weirded out, but that confusion soon turns to complete and utter terror when Mick says that the last time milk smelled weird to her was when she was pregnant. At first Miles thinks Mick's just joking because she knows how much the thought of having kids freaks them out, and says that there's no way of that being possible anyway because they're always careful and Carrie's on birth control. But Mick says stuff like that's never fool-proof and starts telling them about how Lela had to go and get a new prescription of her birth control pill because her batch had been recalled due to the dosage being too low. Carrie, knowing that she takes the same brand, instantly starts to panic because she hadn't heard anything about the recall and immediately goes to check her batch number. Miles tries to calm her down and tell her to not jump to conclusions, but when she's gone, starts freaking out in his own right to Mick and Vivien about how this all just has to be a big coincidence because there's no way he can be a dad. They talk him around a little, and say there's no point in worrying about something that might not even be happening, and eventually send him off to go and talk to Butchy and his brothers to help distract him. Mick and Vivien then go and track down Carrie, who is hyperventilating into her purse as she checks her birth control batch number for the hundredth time, praying that the next time she looks at it it'll be different. Mick tries, and fails, to get her to relax and tries asking her if she's had any other symptoms: but the missed period (which she'd previously chalked up to the stress of a busy work schedule), persistent nausea (which she had thought was just because of Bentley's poor cooking skills), and sore boobs (yeah, she had no explanation for that one) were not making things look good.

Mick finds some old pregnancy tests in her bathroom and convinces Carrie to take one so that she can get a concrete answer before she starts having a total meltdown over a hypothetical, but only if her and Vivien wait around to check on the result with her since she's in no fit mental state to find out that kind of news alone, and she's too nervous to get Miles involved yet, knowing that he'd be just as stressed about the result as her, if not more. As they wait, Carrie starts opening up to Mick and Vivien about why she doesn't want kids, why she doesn't think that she'd be a good mom, and how selfish she feels ince most of it revolves around her own vanity. She confirms what the girls had already been suspecting about Miles' view on it all: how his relationship with his dad basically ruined his desire to take on that role in his own life and saddled him with a fear of one day turning into him if he ever did somehow have kids of his own. But she also expresses a fear that she'd be letting him down by continuing to focus on her career if his views on parenthood ever changed, and worries that he'd forfeit that opportunity for her sake when she knows that, if he was to be put in that position, he'd be an amazing dad - which naturally leads on to her venting about how terrible she thinks she would be as a mom because she cares too much about the way she looks and has such a crazy work life and doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, at least in her mind anyway. Mick and Vivien do their best to reassure her and talk her around to the idea, but before they can get a definite read on her feelings towards the situation, the timer for the test goes off. Carrie makes Vivien read out the results to her; she can't bear to look herself, and Viv says that it's negative. Carrie breathes a  huge sigh of relief, and says that she feels silly for working herself up over nothing, but it doesn't take long for the enormity of everything to hit her. She'd basically already started mentally preparing herself for how different her life would be because of this baby, and had started considering all the good that could come with it (yes, it was in a bid to counteract the bad, but it was still good in its own right), and part of her, although she didn't want to admit it, was starting to not only come around to the idea, but kind of getting excited about it. And even if the test was negative, she still had the problem of what the hell was going on with her body to deal with. So she asks Vivien to check again to be totally sure, which is when she reveals that it was positive all along, and that she knew Carrie would be happy about it deep down, she just wanted to get her to come to that realisation on her own first - which, thankfully, worked wonders! And after the initial shock wears off, all three girls are thrilled by the news…until they realise they now have to go and tell Miles… 

Idea 6: Carrie booking a dream role

Okay, Carrie's acting roles could have their own mega-post entirely, because I have a LOT of plans for storylines she's involved in on Find Your Voice, as well as other projects like Broken Shadows and Chasing Down Chelsea, and a whole slew of other things. One of the big and pretty important Find Your Voice ones is her character's Season 2 romance with Tyrone though, which comes off the back of her Season 1 breakup with Scott (Eric's character). The reason why it's so important is because, in a similar way to how Glee was pretty monumental in the portrayal of gay relationships in TV shows aimed at teens back in the early 2010s, I wanted Find Your Voice to be one of the first mainstream TV shows to properly explore interracial relationships. And like how Kurt and Blaine and Santana and Brittany were a huge deal for Glee, Candace and Tyrone telling the story of a white girl and a black guy falling in love like any of the other couples on the show was a huge deal in the 60s. Carrie's managers were reluctant to let her accept the storyline because of what it might do to her public image, and several of her co-stars had turned it down for fear of being blacklisted from the industry, but Carrie stuck by her beliefs and her and Donny (the guy who plays Tyrone) put their all into their performances, and as a result, they won over the majority. Sure, there were naysayers and protests about them 'corrupting the youth', but most people fell in love with the couple's love story as hard as the characters fell for each other, and cemented their position as series favourites. They made TV history with their on-screen romance, paved the way for generations to come, and won a bunch of TV awards for their performances as they went - but most of all, they became super good friends in the process. That all being said, this idea doesn't involve any of that lmao. It's just important context for her career-wise, and it needed a home somewhere, so I dumped it here haha.

Now, you may remember a brief Metalex and Ultraviolet comic being mentioned in Drive My Car Part 6 (don't worry if you don't, I just hyperfixate on these things lol), and if you do, you may also recall Miles saying that he thought Ultraviolet was one of the most badass superheroes of all time. Well, this idea basically revolves around Miles having a long history with reading these Metalex comics growing up - loving the stories and becoming obsessed with the characters. So when he hears that the studio Carrie works for have bought the rights to turn the franchise into a series of movies, naturally he starts freaking out and begging her for any information she can get, which is only made worse when she finds out that her agent also manages the guy who they've cast as the lead. What she doesn't tell Miles though is that, knowing how much he adores this franchise, she decided to audition for the part of Ultraviolet. By some miracle, after a pretty rigorous audition process, she books the role, and confides in the first person she finds in the house after she's given the news (idk why I picture it being Royce, it could be anyone lol), who is equally as excited about Miles' imminent reaction, knowing that he'll lose his mind when he finds out. She ends up surprising him for his birthday by saying that she managed to talk her agent into giving her one of the promotional posters before the cast list is officially announced, and wrapping it up for him to open. And as I'm sure you can imagine, unrolling that poster to find that his childhood crush is being played on the big screen by his girlfriend, is a pretty huge deal for him. Profanities may have been shouted, tears may have been shed, shits may have been lost. All in all, a pretty successful birthday surprise if you ask me.

Idea 7: Vivien and Carrie's ✨Girl Day✨

I don't know why small-town America fascinates me so much, but I would just love to read about Vivien showing Carrie around her hometown and doing the most mundane everyday stuff you could imagine with her. Like that little snippet of them at the mall in one of your Christmas stories? Drinking boba? I need more of that. I love itttttt. Like them going through a drive-thru and then having a picnic in Vivien's car as she fills Carrie in on all the gossip from her school to get her take on it? How cute and iconic is that? I'm obsessed. 

Idea 8: Pampering Session

This was going to be one of my Christmas one-shots but, as is the theme with me lately, I ran out of time. Buuut, basically it was just going to be a little culmination of a few random little self-care based headcanons I had. Like a major one is Carrie having a super extensive skin-care routine that The Murphys tease her to no end about, but she doesn't care because she loves all her random little lotions and potions and tying her hair back and setting to work on her face every morning and night - it's like her definition of 'me time' lmao. And part of that headcanon is Miles lovingly teasing her about it, but also low-key getting pulled in once she starts introducing him to his own products that he can use too. And whilst at first it's super basic stuff like: look here's some ✨moisturiser✨, it goes on your ✨face✨ to stop it looking like the sAhaRa DeSerT 🤩 and Miles looking at her like: 🤨 ...you sure about that? It progresses to him taking more of an interest - it's only slight, but he at least has a little corner of the bathroom dedicated to his handful of nice products he uses to take care of himself. And, it's mostly to humour Carrie, but there have been a few instances where she's convinced him to do facials with her - it's largely influenced by her teasing him about getting wrinkles, and he always drags his feet at first, but as soon as she starts slathering it on and it feels all nice and cooling he tooooootally relaxes and enjoys it haha. And I loved the little mention of Carrie helping Vivien dye her hair purple in Through The Valley, so I was going to have her barge in on them mid-facial chill-out-time at the cabin, likely watching some trashy reality tv show together (because I feel like they would get so invested in that kind of thing, especially if it's a really shitty one where they could make fun of it together lmao), and ask her for help re-dyeing her hair because Royce is proving to be ✨incompetent✨. Of course Royce and Vivi would tease Miles to death about the facial - but because he was in his ✨relaxation mode✨ he'd be too chilled out to care and would just laugh along with them. And knowing Carrie, as soon as she started working on Vivien's hair and fixing the mess Royce made of it she'd start grilling him about how he thought he was capable of doing this when he can't even take care of his own hair properly. After a lot of protestation, they finally convince Royce to give Carrie's hair care routine a go, with Carrie shouting instructions to him through the bathroom door as he washes his hair lol. And, much to Royce's initial disgruntlement, by the time his hair's dry it looks healthier than it ever has. He grows to appreciate the advice in the long-run though because of how much more defined and silky it makes his curls look once he starts looking after them properly, and because of how crazy his hair now drives Vivien as a consequence lol. Cute, right? If only I'd had more time over Christmas lmaoooo.

Idea 9: Ghost Mrs Murphy

This one probably sounds more ominous than it actually is, but I keep seeing TikToks about people on the verge of death being comforted by loved ones, and then afterwards realising that they weren't actually there because they died x number of years ago. And whilst I don't think there would be any sort of complications surrounding Maisy's birth (because Carrie and Miles are already stressed out enough at the thought of a baby alone, I don't want to put them through anything else lmao), I did have an idea where Carrie starts haemorrhaging and is super out of it, but all she can focus on is this really nice 'nurse' who keeps talking to her and keeping her calm. She reassures her that she's okay and that she's doing great and that her daughter is beautiful, and just basically stops her freaking out until she drifts off to sleep (i.e. passes out lol). When Carrie eventually comes around though, this 'nurse' can't be found, and none of the other nurses or doctors she speaks to seem to know who she's talking about. Miles obviously can't know for sure, because he didn't see what she did, but when he listens to Carrie's description of her, he can't help but have a sneaking suspicion (or at least a fleeting hope) that it might have been his mom :')

Headcanons:

AKA, all the other random little ideas that I have that aren't enough to warrent a full story of their own, but I still wanted to share...

Okay, I feel like this is such a random little thing for me to have latched onto, but I love the fact that Mick loves blistering hot showers. And whilst I feel as though sometimes Mick and Carrie struggle to see eye to eye (at least in TMM they do anyway haha), one thing they can both bond over is their love of lava showers. If they don't leave the bathroom looking like freshly cooked lobsters then what's the point? 

Whilst I feel that generally Carrie gets along better with Bentley, her and Royce have a really similar wicked sense of humour, and if they catch each other in the right mood then they can set each other off laughing for hours. But one thing that both Royce and Bentley can agree on is that Carrie is INCREDIBLY fun to tease, and they do so ruthlessly, at every opportunity possible. Thankfully, she has a good sense of humour though and, even if she doesn't think so in the moment, she'll always be able to see the funny side eventually. 

Royce and Bentley LOVE all the different accents and impressions Carrie can do, they're always so entertained when she whips a new one out of her back pocket, especially if it's unprompted.

When Carrie's pregnant, especially the first time around, she gets really bad morning sickness, like to the point where almost everything makes her at least gag, and Royce (in true sibling-esque-bullying fashion) finds this HILARIOUS, and pushes it to its very limit. Again, thankfully Carrie can also see the funny side of it and entertains the game for a while, but when they discover that the sight colour green alone is enough to make her nauseous it's game over for Royce; he's laughing so hard he needs his inhaler.

The concept of Carrie giving Bentley singing lessons is literally the cutest thing ever to me holy shit. Like little Bentley doing a cover of The Climb like the version in HSMTMTS? Brb I'm crying. 

Once Royce and Carrie's relationship starts to become not terrible, he develops a weird sort of familial protectiveness over her, especially when it comes to stuff people say about her. I only say it's 'weird' because it's not like how he's protective over Vivien or Miles or Bentley, or anyone else in his family, it's like its own entity. And sometimes he doesn't even know why he cares, because both Carrie and Miles got used to ignoring it pretty quickly, but he just can't stand it. Sometimes it's just because the kids in his class are being racist pieces of shit talking about her on-screen relationships, but it's mostly gross, vulgar stuff the guys say about her body or her more 'adult' scenes in certain shows and the stuff they come out with literally makes him sick to his stomach. Maybe it could manifest as Carrie catching him defending her, or maybe he just vents to her about it one day after school, idk. But the weird protectiveness of her that neither of them really understands is such a funny, but well-intentioned little notion to me lmao. 

On a different note, Miles was PETRIFIED at the very thought of meeting Carrie's parents for the first time, and obsessed about it for weeks, but they both absolutely adored him pretty much as soon as he walked through the door, and just immediately jumped to treating him as if he was already part of the family 

And if anything the bond only grows stronger with time - like when Maisy is born, and Carrie's parents visit the hospital for the first time, Carrie's dad goes over to check on Miles and give him a hug before he even thinks about looking at his granddaughter lmao 

And although Royce and Bentley feel super awkward about it at first, Carrie's mom is such a motherly person that she can't help but want to take them under her wing when she first meets them. They're pretty reluctant to open up to her for a while, more so than Miles was anyway, which is totally understandable, but over time, as they get more familiar with her (and she bakes them more and more birthday cakes) they start seeing her as another mother figure (after Aunt Mack though, of course lol)

Miles and Carrie's mom become low-key besties though, like she's always asking Carrie where he is if he's not with her, she's forever baking little treats for Carrie to pass on to him, and she loves filling him on all the drama she has to deal with at her catering gigs because the way he humours her by getting so invested literally makes her day

Carrie does not handle pain well at all. She trapped her finger in her car door once and from the way she reacted Miles thought that her entire hand had been ripped off lmao. But I guess that's to be expected when she's such a drama queen.

On a similar note, she hates any sort of creepy crawlies, especially spiders - and don't even get me started on her reaction to finding out that Riven has a pet lizard. She thinks he's certifiably insane.

And to round off Carrie's dramaticness - she is SUCH a cryer. Like she's such an emotional wreck that she can be laughing her head off one minute and then bawling her eyes out the next. Movies are normally the worst culprit since she's almost guaranteed to cry at something over the course of the 90 mins, which Bentley is incredibly entertained by, but as she spends more and more time in the modern world, TikToks of old people are really proving to be her new downfall.

I love the thought of Miles and Carrie both loving to cook, and both loving to cook for each other, but really struggling to cook together because they both keep wanting to take charge. Usually they can work out a compromise, but sometimes, especially with Carrie's temper as volatile as it is, stubborn bickering can escalate into chaos.

I've definitely mentioned this before but I can SO see Royce owning a cat. He's just a boy who needs a kitty to snuggle with whilst he reads, it's a necessity.

And I think you maybe mentioned this in your Christmas stories, or maybe it was your Hocus Pocus AU, it was definitely one of the two, but I LOVE the idea of Miles driving an old Jeep/truck. Like it's one that's kind of a heap of junk when he buys it, but he loves it to death anyway because he saved up all his own money to get it, and spends hours upon hours fixing it up and making it look like new again hehe.

Idk but I feel like Royce would really be into taking photos. Like he's not quite as artistic as Bentley or Miles, and he can't draw or paint very well, so he turns to taking photographs instead. That, and I feel like he's really sentimental, so I the thought of capturing memories like that would really appeal to him.

I know in your character info posts you mention Vivien getting her appendix out, but idk why I can just so vividly picture Miles getting appendicitis. Like at first he just tries to power through and insists he's fine because he's a 'man', but he taps out after like an hour and can barely move. And then maybe because Viv's been through it before she's like "this is an awful lot like when my appendix went 'boom'" lol, and suddenly everyone's like: hospital. NOW. Idk why I love the thought of that; it's so random. And the thought of Carrie and all the others taking it in turns looking after him afterwards? Ugh. Adorable.

Omg and speaking of your character info posts: I love the thought of, a couple of years down the line, once he's not feeling as financially responsible for Royce and Bentley, Miles being convinced by the others to go back to school to pursue one of the careers he always thought he'd go into. Because Miles as a teacher is such a perfect fit! And Carrie is like soooo not about school for herself, but she'd be super proud of Miles if he went back. Like at his college graduation ceremony she'd be cheering SO loud haha.

Musicals:

Okay, this section is literally just for all the roles I'd love to see our characters play/roles I just think they'd nail, which I feel like is fun because we both love musicals, so why not indulge that a little bit here?

Eponine - whilst I could totally see Carrie nailing On My Own, I really think that Vivien would be a brilliant Eponine if her school were to ever put on Les Mis, especially if Carrie was there to help her. Also, the thought of Vivien and Royce singing A Little Fall of Rain together, especially when I'm still riding the high of all that angst you put them through in Scattered Screams? SO GOOD. And if Vivien is Eponine, Carrie would make a great Fantine, don't you think? Omg and if Viv is Eponine, and Royce is Marius, then wouldn't Riven be perfect for Enjolras? Aaaah, and you could have someone like Erica or Jade playing Cosette and having a running joke with Royce about having to play each other's love interest when they'd both sooner go off with Eponine lmao. Is Scattered Screams influencing this too much? Maybe, but idc it just shows how good it was haha.

Belle - in a similar sort of vein, I feel like Vivien would be a perfect Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Like smart and brave and kind? That is so her! I feel like Carrie's character in Find Your Voice (Candace) would also be a really good Belle because she's a little braniac bookworm, and I've toyed around before with the idea of them putting it on through the show (HSMTMTS-style), but as is the theme with this post, idk where what would ever fit in a story lol. Still, I think this role would be perfect for Vivi if she was ever going to be a leading lady again after Acting School Dropout haha. And I'm sure Carrie would be more than happy to offer up her coaching expertise again haha.

Elle Woods - this will probably be a short one, because I don't feel like I really even need to explain myself but I feel like if Carrie was ever destined to play any role on stage, it would be Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. Ditzy and girly, but determined enough to put her mind to something and succeed with flying colours? That's Carrie all over! And Miles would literally never do it, but how perfect would he be as her Emmett? And with Eric as Warner? Oh my god I could die. 

Regina George - purely for the iconic vocals and how good she would be at playing a bitchy villain like this, Carrie would kill it as Regina George. 

Elphaba & Glinda - Mick & Carrie are such a good match for these two, and whilst I feel like Carrie would make a great Elphaba vocal-wise, the only person that I feel could be the Glinda opposite her Elphie would be Juliet

Evan & Zoe - this one only really came to me as I was putting this post together but how good would Royce and Vivien be for these roles?

Heather Chandler, Heather Duke, and Heather McNamara - played by Carrie, Molly and Juliet respectively, especially in the context of TMM; they give me major Heathers vibes there, but that's never happening in that AU lmao

And just to tag this on the end here, the thought of Kona, Vivien & Carrie singing each of the three Fionas through the ages in I Know It's Today makes me so happy

Fancy dress costumes:

Again, I have no idea how I'd fit any of these fancy dress ideas into stories, especially the first two since they're for my TMM AU and there is no excuse for the characters to dress up in that plot, but these ideas are too good not to share…

Concept 1: The Mystery Gang from Scooby Doo

Just picture this: it's Halloween at All Skate and these guys are working their shift dressed like this: Ethan is Shaggy, Mick is Velma, Miles is Fred, Carrie is Daphne and Midge is Scooby (yes, Midge, not Barney, it'll make sense later on, I promise). How perfect is that?! I literally could have screamed when I first thought of this and how much potential is wasted by a lack of a Halloween plot. But hopefully the mental image is entertaining enough on its own haha. 

Concept 2: The Wizard of Oz

Again, picture it's Halloween at All Skate and the group are attempting yet another group costume with: Mick as Dorothy, Ethan as the scarecrow, Miles as the tin man, Carrie as the cowardly lion and Midge in a little basket as Toto.

Was this mostly fuelled by me realising that Mick would pull off a Dorothy costume ridiculously well? Maybe. But how well does it work for all the others too? Like Ethan might as well have straw for brains anyway, Miles is so stressed about his brothers he always struggles to loosen up and have any fun, and Carrie's huge mane of curls was practically destined for this costume. It's PERFECT.

Concept 3: Miles and Carrie

And then I just have a few couples costume ideas for Miles and Carrie, because I feel like with Carrie being an actress and practically dressing up on the daily anyway, she'd take Halloween very seriously. First of all, and quite possibly my favourite, how good would they be as Kermit and Miss Piggy??? I CAN'T BREATHE, even their dynamic is perfect for it! And it's such a fun, silly concept, I love it. Perhaps a prettier and a little more normal option would be Rapunzel and Flynn Rider because Miles' floppy brown hair and Carrie's insane blonde hair are just screaming for it lmao. But also, because they're both always down for fun above all else, they're not afraid to rock up in outfits as iconic as this too.

Concept 4: Carrie and Eric

Okay, I'll admit that this was heavily influenced by the new Barbie movie trailer that was released, but how iconic would Carrie and Eric be as Barbie and Ken? They'd be perfect! And I know based on what I've already written about Eric, he hasn't been painted in the best light, but his relationship with Carrie up until their break-up was actually pretty good - and with where the story is atm in TMM, it's actuually pretty healthy as well (I just don't know if I've done a good enough job at showing that yet lmao). They really did genuinely care a lot about each other, and had a bunch of fun together since they're naturally both pretty goofy characters (as you would expect from two actors who specialise in comedic roles). It was just an unfortunate set of circumstances really with the whole cheating scandal and Eric being a dumb, reckless twenty year-old. He never meant to hurt Carrie in the way he did, the fame just got to his head from all his newfound attention and, because he thought he was invincible, he stopped thinking about the consequences to his actions. That mentality soon came back to bite him though haha. Anyway, tangent over! I think I'm probably the only person that cares about that anyway lol. But back to my main point: they would have 100% killed a Barbie and Ken costume - Eric is perfect himbo material for Ken and Carrie would have such a fun ditzy, but super determined, take on Barbie. Whether it was for a couples costume, or as actual roles in a movie back in their universe, they're nailing it in my mind lmao.

Songs:

Here's just a bunch of songs that I have saved on my story inspo playlist that either make me think of our characters, or have entire little scenarios planned around them, that otherwise would sit in my head forever…

Doomsday - Okay, this one freaked me out when I first heard it because of how perfectly this fits, but literally every time I listen to it it makes me think of Vivien in your Through The Valley story, but specifically in that period at the end where she's waiting for Mick and Royce and the others to come back from Canada and slowly losing her hope of them ever returning. Like I always picture Vivien just trying to go about her daily life, listening to this to get her through, and her and Carrie belting out the bridge as they drive across these big, barren, open roads to get out their frustration about being left behind. And the fact that she literally says 'you did it on Halloween' when they left at the end of October??? It. Fits. So. Well.

No Time To Die - I don't know why this gives me such Scattered Screams vibes, but it just does. Like the intrigue but the promise of danger idk, I love it. I've got an idea for where I could use Skyfall, but that involves Carrie and her Chasing Down Chelsea show, which is so niche I won't even bother explaining it, but just the thought of her slinking around a party full of dangerous, wealthy people in a silky dress with a hit on someone to fulfil before she's hunted down by an intelligence agent she knows for a fact is also a guest there - ugh, it's so cool. I just love the concept of someone being dressed up so glamorously but being so badass at the same time haha

Taylor Swift: There are SO many Taylor Swift songs that I feel would work so well for Carrie (like Bejeweled, Karma and Anti-Hero all fit her vibe perfectly), but also Miles and Carrie's relationship too…

Style is one, particularly the chorus, that just makes me think of them both instantly. Like you can't tell me that chorus doesn't fit them both to a T. Plus it feeds into my headcanon that Miles' sense of style and confidence in the way he dresses sky-rocketed after he started dating Carrie, so I love it hehe.

Red is one that will be VERY important in a story I have yet to mention in this post, because I'm still holding out hope that I'll get to write it one day. But this song features heavily and proves to be a pretty pivotal moment in their relationship. And again, every time I listen to it, those two are immediately who I think of. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and All Out Of Love also play big roles in that story, but like I said, I'm still hoping that I'll get around to writing it one day, so I don't want to give too much away too early. But that might at least give you a bit of a vibe of the theme lol.

Paper Rings is one that I first listened to after you said that you had a prompt in mind for it and holy shit, idk if the prompt was about Miles and Carrie, but they are ALL I can think of when I listen to it now. It fits Carrie's adoration of him, and her willingness to give up her flashy/dressy lifestyle in the blink of an eye if he needed her to brilliantly. God, it's so cute, I love it.

Burning Love - There's no real story behind this one, I just love the thought of Vivien visiting the Wet Side Story world and stepping out of the machine for the first time, and immediately being hit by the scent of the beach, the sound of the waves, and this song floating along on the breeze from nowhere, simply because it's one big musical lmao. Like a little montage of her discovering their world and seeing everyone going about their daily business (spotting the surfers waxing their boards, seeing Butchy working on his bike, watching Kona playing volleyball with her friends, waving to Carrie and Miles as they catch some rays, running into Royce and Bentley riding their bicycles down the boardwalk), all set to this song, would be so cute. 

Keep Driving - I've definitely already mentioned my idea to do a series of Carrie and Miles one-shots based on the lyrics of this song, but I thought I'd throw it in here anyway, because I love it so much and wanted it to have a good home haha.

Mine & Landslide - I'll keep it simple with these two, because I can't elaborate just yet. But picture this: an AU of Carrie singing these to/with someone, where 📢spoiler alert📢 it's not Miles lmao. For extra context, there's a reason why they're the Glee versions of the songs lol.

Freak - I have no idea how I'd work this into any story, but every time I listen to this song I think of Carrie in some sort of Hunger Games/dystopian-esque AU where she has this picture-perfect image, and she's all sweet and nice one minute, and then as soon as she loses her temper/shit hits the fan she flips a switch and her nasty side comes out. Maybe she's provoked, maybe she doesn't know she's doing it (like some sort of Peeta situation in Mockingjay, where the Capitol are controlling him), idk, I just have not nearly utilised her insane temper enough, and the prospect is so tempting.

Uninvited - I thought I'd throw this in here because it was almost included in Drive My Car part 6, right after Carrie's let Seacat down but before Miles plucks up the courage to go over to talk to her. And it was basically just going to be Miles imagining her singing this to him to sort of test his feelings for her, but I cut it to stop myself from dragging the damn thing out to be even longer than it already was. I love the song, it just didn't need to be in there, you know? But I thought it'd still be fun to include here so that the idea isn't completely lost to time haha.

Maybe This Time & Cabaret - I've got no real concept for these songs either, other than them being used in a story that's set, again, in some sort of dystopian-esque AU where Carrie has this perfect image to upkeep, but as the life she always knew starts crumbling around her, that perfect facade starts to crack as she starts to go off the deep end…

Green Green Dress - Another very rough concept for this one, but just picture Miles and Carrie (a little tipsy) singing this together before they go out for the night. It can be before a date, before some premiere for Carrie's job, or even a party, it doesn't matter to me. I just love the thought of them goofing around all love-drunk and actual-drunk, singing this to each other.

What Do You Know About Love? - Okay, I actually have somewhat of an idea for this one, as weird as it may be. It's an AU where Miles meets Carrie stranded by the side of the road after a huge snowstorm where her car skidded into a snowbank and is now stuck there. She's not even remotely dressed for the weather because the beach is all she's ever known, and she's trying to get to a tv studio to continue the promo tour for some new show she's on, where she stars opposite some guy she's basically been shoe-horned into a fake relationship with. She naively believes it, but she barely knows anything about the guy, and he never wants to spend any time with her unless there are cameras around. Miles tries to get through to her, despite thinking she's a total spoilt airhead, and after digging out her car to no avail, failing to fix it, and then trekking through the snow for hours, when Mrs Murphy, Royce and Bentley finally come to the rescue, and Mrs Murphy offers to take Carrie where she needs to go, Miles all too quickly finds out that he's become awfully attached to the ditzy diva…And isn't quite ready to say goodbye. 

You Oughta Know - I don't quite know how I'd set this up in any story, but I just love the concept of Carrie trying her best to keep her cool around Eric and Molly once they start officially dating, but then ultimately losing her temper with him and just belting this in his face. Maybe like backstage at an awards show or something for some extra drama? I've got no clue. Like I said before, I just like the thought of angry Carrie and I have not utilised her enough thus far lmao. 

Supermassive Black Hole - You probably thought that I'd forgotten all about your Ordinary Human AU, but every time I hear this song I think about how cool a superhero montage would be set to this. And since one of Carrie's powers in that story was manipulating sound, I just love the thought of her grabbing random songs and using them as backing music in her practice battles at the training centre, especially because it pisses Butchy off since he thinks she's not taking it seriously. But like how cool would this be? She could bounce the audio back and forth between her opponent's ears, make the lights start strobing through the chorus, and then if she's teaming up with Miles he could start manipulating time and shit to speed things up or slow things down to fit with the music, or start conjuring stuff to make their opponents think they're seeing things. Random, I know. But it's what I think of every time I hear the song lmao, and I thought you might appreciate knowing that.

Lay All Your Love on Me - I just would love to see Miles and Carrie recreate this in the early days of their relationship, like when people at the beach start realising that there's something going on between them. At first they don't let on that something's up, no matter how much everyon tries to get it out of them, but by the end they can't keep their hands off each other (as usual lmao). So fun!

Ain't No Doubt About It - This is cheesy as hell, but how cute would it be for Miles and Carrie to flaunt their movie musical universe roots when visiting Mick's world and just burst into a rendition of this when asked by Vivien if they're aware of/worried about Royce and Bentley's determination to break them up? 

At Last - There is very little else to this idea other than I love the thought of Carrie and Miles singing this at Mick and Butchy's wedding, especially if Miles had flat-out refused to sing anything when they had initially asked him, only for him to turn around and surprise them with this.

I Want It All - Basically I just really want Carrie to sing this with someone, but in the current AU I'm working most of this from, I think the only person I could see it making sense with would be Juliet. I could see it happening, and I could totally make it work, I just don't know where I'd ever put it lmao. But it's too over-the-top and cheesy for Carrie not to perform, like come onnnnn.

TikToks:

And finally, here's basically all the tiktoks I've saved as potential story ideas that will never meet their full potential, or ones that just remind me of our characters. I thought this might be a fun way to round the post out hehe...

Okay, idk if you've ever seen this guy on TikTok but literally every time he pops up he reminds me of Miles, and I don't even fully know why. I feel like ever since I first noticed it I've been subconsciously been making my take on his character more and more interested in playing the guitar, to the point now where it's becoming one of his defining characteristics. Like I just imagine him jamming out like this to random songs all the time. And on top of that - I feel like he kind of looks like Miles too - at least how I imagine him anyway with the blue eyes and floppy light brown hair. I know you already have a bunch of faceclaims for Miles, but I think he has the right vibes to slot somewhere onto the list lmao. Either way, just know that every time this guy pops up on my fyp, Miles is the first person I think of, without fail haha.  Similarly, this is Royce once he starts getting good at the guitar. And I know Ethan is my OC, and he's only appeared in the few parts of TMM I've posted so far, so you might not really care about this - but he is OBSESSED with music, especially the electric guitar, and this kid is EXACTLY how I imagine Ethan would have played this at his age - he still would now tbh lmao, he's just that invested in the music. Moving on from guitars, lol, just imagine a modern All-Skate-esque AU with Carrie and Ethan goofing off at work and surprising Vivien with this after they find out she's obsessed with the Titanic. Again, super random, but this is what's bouncing around in my head all day lmao.

Concept behind this one: in true Sam Evans from Glee style, when faced with the prospect of being lonely while Carrie is away on long shoots across country/abroad, Miles decides to adopt a puppy to keep him company, and in this case, that puppy just so happens to be the canine version of the very girlfriend he's worried about missing - OR, as an alternative to this, Miles just gets the canine version of himself.

This is very Butchy/Miles-core with them both being mechanics lmao

This is so Bentley with his niece and nephews when Miles and Carrie start having kids (at least in my universe of them anyway lol). He always has the best intentions when babysitting them, but every time they start misbehaving he just panics and stares at them like: 👁️👄👁️ what. are. you. doing???

Staying in that same AU, this is 100% Miles with Maisie. And it's already cute and very on-brand with the video being Dirty Dancing, but just imagine how much cuter it could be if she was making him reenact something like this with her but it was Carrie on the TV instead. OUCH! 

idk where my headcanon for Kona being insanely good at martial arts came from (at least in my TMM AU anyway), but I'm pretty sure this tiktok is partially to blame. Like she can be all cute and innocent and make you a friendship bracelet one minute, and then the next she can flip you over her shoulder like you're made of paper. I love to think that she gets Miles to help her practice too because I'm still not over how cute their bond was in Glory & Gore - but also, I can't stop thinking about Ethan hearing about it one day and totally underestimating her, leading to him making a bet with Miles that he doesn't think Kona would be able to get him on the ground - cue Kona taking literally one look at him and knocking him flat on his ass in about three seconds, leaving Miles laughing his ass off. 

Again, staying in the TMM AU, Ethan 100% showed Bentley this when he was a little kid and got the exact same reaction 

Carrie and Ethan's interactions with each other because they have such a hilariously chaotic dynamic - and by the end of TMM 1, sort of Mick and Ethan's interactions too (kind of a spoiler, kind of not, but we move - anyway, it's your birthday, you deserve it lmao)

Continuing with the TMM theme, as a way of summarising Miles and Ethan's friendship, coming up with shit like this is EXACTLY what they do when they're bored at work

In some AU somewhere, Vivien would SO do this for Miles with Carrie lmao

Since I never really explore Tanner and Carrie's relationship, here's a little window into it where, in true twin sibling fashion, they have been forced by their mom to be nice to one another for one

Okay, I've seen a bunch of compilations of these guys on TikTok and maybe it's just the fact that they're three brothers but every time I see them goofing off like this I always think that this is how unhinged Miles, Royce and Bentley would get if they were left alone together for too long lmao. Like they love each other to death but oh my god they can get on each other's nerves and be stupid like any other siblings.

Again, another multi-example one because my fyp is FULL of these guys, but the dynamic they have gives me such Miles and Ethan vibes - Miles is Joe, Ethan is Frank, and whilst most of the time Miles is just in despair at how Ethan has made it this far in life being the way he is, there are way too many instances where they both just revel in being absolute idiots together.

Suuuuper random headcanon but ever since Vivien showed her an ASMR video like this on her phone, Carrie became OBSESSED with them. I like to think it's because she's so in tune with her hearing because of all her music stuff she does, but she is just so fascinated by it that she could watch them for hours. And she gets so excited and tries to show them to Miles when they're just laying in bed together or chilling out on the sofa and he's always just like: 🤨 ...and???? But she LOVES the little brain tingles it gives her, and Vivien finds it hilarious. Maybe Royce is the only one that can kind of understand where she's coming from because he's got his sensitive hearing, but it has to be the right kind of video or he has to rip his headphones out. Like if it's someone whispering into the microphone and they have that whistle thing going on? Absolutely not, he's yeeting that phone across the room. 

Miles with Carrie's Velvet Sunrise friends. That will make sense after Acting School Dropout part 3, I promise lol.

Okay, this works SO well if you stick with the idea from WAY back where Mick and Butchy name their son after Miles. BUT, even though they don't name any of their kids after family members besides Miles' mom, I could totally just see this being Bentley meeting Miles and Carrie's first kid.

Concept here: Miles cheering Carrie up whilst she's on her period having super bad cramps and when she's finally been doped up on enough pain meds to not be curled into a lifeless heap on the couch, they start goofing around like this as she tries to explain to him what she's having to go through because Miles is CLUELESS. Or, this is just one of their many random lunchtime activities back when they car-shared before dating, and would find any excuse whatsoever to go hangout together. Like Carrie gets wind that Miles doesn't know what a tampon does and just drops all her plans for the day to go show him lmao.

Very Carrie-coded.

Miles and Carrie's relationship in a nutshell.

More will come from Carrie's downtown apartment in Acting School Dropout but as a little insight, she would totally have a cool, fancy ice drawer like this (which leaves Royce and Bentley bAfFLeD) - and the decor is very this & this because she needs an escape from all the testosterone in the Murphys' house, and just because she has a really fun, colourful sense of style anyway haha.

Okay, I'll leave it here with this one, because I'm itching so badly to get back to working on TMM, but just imagine this transition with Royce, Vivien, Bentley and Kona on one side and Miles, Carrie, Mick and Ethan on the other. UGHHHHH. I LOVE IT. 

So yeah, I know it might not be the most interesting of posts, but hopefully it was still a nice little surprise to help you celebrate and make you smile today!

Also, I'm so sorry about this being late, I stayed up editing it until like 2:30am, and I was 14/16 pages deep when my laptop decided to spontaneously shut down. 🤦 And to save me rushing through it again and being all grumpy and half-assing it, I thought I'd get some sleep and try again in the morning. And it worked because I had so much more fun coming back to this with fresh eyes lol.

But yes, that's finally it! I might come back and add stuff to this as and when I get any new ideas, but for now I'd love to hear what you think of what I've got so far if anything peaks your interest haha. And like I said before, because you always bring me so much joy with your stories, I hope I was able to do the same for you today with this ridiculous jumble of the inner-workings of my imagination haha. Happy belated birthday! 🎉

[prospectivehero]

VICTOR AND NORA, A GOTHAM LOVE STORY- Written by Lauren Myracle, Illustrated by Isaac Goodhart

Confession time: I'm terrible with names (real life and fictional). Even with my associate's degree in Batmanology, my poor name recognition missed the significance of Victor Fries, a resident of the city of Gotham. When the part of my brain that doesn't require caffeine to function decided to look up some familiar names when I was halfway through the novel, I was heartbroken. Would it have been better for me to be surprised by the ending, I wasn't sure, but I didn't think I could expect a happy ending from "a gotham love story."

This is a rough read. Much like Constantine and Miracle Man, it's not something to read when you're in a bad headspace. I'll talk more about it in the trigger warnings, but this story focuses on death and dying. Victor is burdened by a loved one's death in his past, which he feels at fault for. He has become cold to the people around him and feels safe studying cryogenics in solitude. Nora only sees death in her future due to an incurable progressive disease that will slowly deteriorate her functionality, personality, and treasured memories before it kills her. But she refuses to let this illness take anything valuable from her, so she has decided to plan her suicide and leave this world as herself. But she's given herself time to make more memories with a boy she met in a cemetery.

I was not in a good headspace reading this comic. I won't go into full detail, just know that I was having several identity crises overlapping one another. I'm in a better headspace now that I've figured some stuff out, but during that experience, these very well-developed characters hit especially hard. Nora's relationship to her illness and battle with its ever-increasing presence felt relatable since I battle a progressive disability. The two are not the same, but I understood her desire not to tell any of her friends so they wouldn't have to watch her suffer and degrade. When she tells Victor, I relate to his desperation to keep her with him since she makes him feel alive and loved.

If you recognized the names you probably could figure out where the story is going but it's worth the read. The story feels very personal. The illustrations, by Jason Goodhart, consistently match the feeling of Lauren Myracle's story and none of the beautiful character designs distract from the weight of everything that happens. There were breaks in the story that reference other artists or stories like Tim Burton or Titanic (1997) to serve the story. I think these breaks flowed well, but I could understand if it's not everyone's cup of Mountain Dew. This is my new second favorite graphic novel, despite how I reacted to it while reading it. I highly recommend picking it up.

TRIGGER WARNINGS (with potential spoilers) -

1) Death - Victor frequently remembers the fire that he accidentally started as a child that destroyed the family house and took the life of his older brother, Otto Freeze.

2) Planned and Attempted Suicide - Nora reasons that this is the only way she can die as herself, so she sets a date and a means and writes a letter to her father. She is stopped before she can complete her plan. Her note is read at the end of the novel.

3) Secondary Mourning - This comic gives time and space to mourn with the characters as they mourn their past and future. We see how Nora views her illness and how Victor views himself. It was a unique experience, being given an opening to grieve in moments that may feel very familiar to many of us, but it can be painful if you're not ready to feel those feelings.

4) Sex (Consentual) - It is as PG-13 and fade-to-black as a sex scene could possibly get, but it doesn't hide the fact that it happened.

5) Language - Much like Constantine, I tuned it out, which means I had to skim through the novel. I saw rare uses of language to the tune of "s***".

[allwaswell16]

Hi Anitra as someone who has not really read many regency era novels do you have any to recommend?

Why yes I dooooooo! To be clear there's quite a difference between say a novel written/published during the Regency era and novels that just take place during that time period. And honestly, I'm more of a connoisseur of romance novels that are just set during that time period. But I'm going to give you recs for both.

-Novels Written During Regency-

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

(Yes, this is my favorite of hers, but all of Jane Austen's novels really capture this time period. I've read and loved all of her novels in varying degrees. And they are all happily ever after romance novels.)

When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows us the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life. 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

(This is one of my fav novels ever, and while it certainly isn't a romance novel, it is so rooted in the era it was published. It very much deals with the fear that comes along with great scientfic advancements, and I think you'd find some huge parallels to living in today's world of technological advancements.)

In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship, scientific hubris, and horror. 

Venetia by Georgette Heyer

(Anything by Georgette Heyer is going to give you a good feel for the dialogue, humor, and period details that will make you feel transported to the time period. This one is very much a romance though!)

Beautiful, capable, and independent minded, Venetia Lanyon's life on her family's estate in the country side is somewhat restricted. But her neighbor, the infamous Lord Damerel, a charming rake shunned by polite society, is about to shake things up. Lord Damerel has built his life on his dangerous reputation, and when he meets Venetia, he has nothing to offer and everything to regret. Though his scandalous past and deepest secrets give Venetia reason to mistrust him, a rogue always gets what he wants. As Venetia's well-meaning family steps in to protect her from potential ruin, Venetia must find the wherewithal to take charge of her own destiny, or lose her chance at happiness.

-Romance Novels About the Regency Era-

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

(Listen, I know I know. And this isn't my favorite of the Bridgerton series, but it's best to start at the beginning, you know? It's honestly been the strangest thing ever to have these characters go mainstream. lol. I read these books when they first got published. I was out there pre-ordering these books, waiting around for the next one to be published. I'm jealous of everyone who gets to just binge them all. But truly, Julia Quinn is my favorite writer for humorous Regency romance.)

Daphne Bridgerton has always failed at the latter. The fourth of eight siblings in her close-knit family, she has formed friendships with the most eligible young men in London. Everyone likes Daphne for her kindness and wit. But no one truly desires her. She is simply too deuced honest for that, too unwilling to play the romantic games that captivate gentlemen. Amiability is not a characteristic shared by Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings. Recently returned to England from abroad, he intends to shun both marriage and society--just as his callous father shunned Simon throughout his painful childhood. Yet an encounter with his best friend's sister offers another option. If Daphne agrees to a fake courtship, Simon can deter the mamas who parade their daughters before him. Daphne, meanwhile, will see her prospects and her reputation soar. The plan works like a charm--at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London's elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule...

The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long

(This is the first in a series as well, and you'll find that's one of the absolute best things about Regency romance...they are often aren't just one novel. They can spawn huge series with many books that surround a family or group of friends.)

Scandal has rocked the city of London. Colin Eversea, a handsome, reckless unapologetic rogue is sentenced to hang for murder and, inconveniently for him, the only witness to the crime disappears. Then again, throughout history, the Everseas have always managed to cheat fate in style: Colin is snatched from the gallows by a beautiful, clever mercenary. Cool-headed, daring Madeleine Greenway is immune to Colin's vaunted charm. Her mission is not to rescue Colin but to kidnap him, and to be paid handsomely for it. But when it becomes clear that whoever wants Colin alive wants Madeline dead, the two become uneasy allies in a deadly race for truth. Together, they'll face great danger--and a passion neither can resist.

Love Only Once by Johanna Lindsey

(Yet another series that begins with this novel and depicts the exploits of the Malory family. This is another writer that infuses a lot of humor into her Regency novels.)

The exquisite niece of Lord Edward and Lady Charlotte Malory, Regina Ashton is outraged over her abduction by the arrogant, devilishly handsome Nicholas Eden--and is determined to make the rogue pay . . . with his heart. A golden-haired seducer, Nicholas has been hardened by a painful secret in his past. And now that he has besmirched Reggie's good name, the hot-tempered lady has vowed to wed him. Her fiery beauty stirs Nicholas as no woman ever has--and the rake arouses Reggie's passion to an unendurable level. Such uncontrolled desires can lead only to dangerous misunderstandings . . . and, perhaps, to a love that can live only once in a lifetime.

Bonus: Anything by Elizabeth Hoyt. My favs by her aren't technically Regency era though. They're set during the Georgian era. So I didn't include them. But yeah I think if you like Regency romance you'll love her novels. Her writing is just on another level of amazing. My fav series by her (Maiden Lane) starts with this one.

Hope this helps!

[ziracona]

It's insane how they managed to strip away any complexity Solas had from the main game in a single DLC with a couple of lines. That has to be a world record. They really outdid themselves didn't they?

RIGHT??? He was the second best character Inquisition had to offer and they had almost LIMITLESS potential to take him places in DW and they literally ran him through a shredder in Four. Minutes. Of dialogue more completely than I think I have literally EVER seen someone destroy any project or character before. Like it has to be a world record. It HAS to be. It was almost impossible, what they did! They really in ONE four minute conversation absolutely obliterated every piece of their own ground work, 300 hours of in-game characterization, and one of the best NPCs they'd ever made. It...I honestly think I'm still in shock from the terminal velocity of it alone. It's almost beyond comprehending. And we'd seen them pull plenty of shit already like, what they did with DAI Varric was pretty impressive too, and Hawke. But they really had nothing like. It was a hydrogen-bomb of four minutes of writing. I...I've never seen someone throw a character on a grenade to such a degree. Never. I honestly would not have thought it was possible if I hadn't been there. I think I'm owed some kind of compensation for scarring. They really had a Beneath the Mask of unparalled writing. He's pretending to be lawful good all game and so reasonable and calm while secretly a chaos god pulling a long con, but you think it means uh-oh darth sidius might be in there but no, whenever the Mask Slips, it's Bugs Bunny cutting Florida off the US with a hand saw. It was easily one of the funniest and best ideas for a character of all time. Everything he did was hilarious. He also had a whole Becoming the Mask potential as far as getting endlessly blamed for his good intentions no matter how successful his acts were and remembered as not just a, but the villain in his pantheon, despite being easily the most or maybe only benevolent god. He's written in DAI and speaks as if he's been around for centuries alone, struggling to improve things, and at his breaking point. It would have been so easy to have him pull off a "I'm declaring war for my minority race and going to kill a lot of people to get them a country again, and if I'm remembered again as the villain and die alone this time hated like I always have been for trying to save my own, so be it. If you want me to be the villain, I may as well become it one last time. I've tried everything else. I'm exhausted, and I can't keep standing by and failing like I have for centuries." which would have been SUCH the motive and provided god-tier conflict and emotion, and been interesting and sympathetic.

And then in ONE DLC they retconned the entirety of elven history, made Ancient Elven Civilization that's BETTER obviously than their word-of-god based on indigenous cultures society, ofc, an Opulent Slaver Europeans Society, made his motive to restore Opulence and replace their culture with former High European Society again, made him a race supremacist that thinks restoring that society high is worth complete genocide against every species on the planet, made him not think of anyone else as PEOPLE in the most entitled intellectual dude-bro motive of all time (like damn DAI 'oh we planned this' sure you did it makes total sense for someone who sees everyone as NPCS he's going to kill anyway to lose it if I won't deliver flowers for a widower uh-huh sure you did), made him have decided all other cultures deserve complete antihalation after ONE. YEAR. of looking at them (BioWare bro--bro---what happened to the 'I've been trying. For years' ??? He only had TIME to what, get told he was weird by 2 Dalish clans before Inquisition even STARTED on that bullshit time track you gave him), seem to have forgotten about any practical application of the trickster thing??? Beyond lying? I guess???? Ignored the conflict with his huge ass five games legend in his pantheon entirely. OH. And he's not even a god!!! Great work everybody!! GREAT. WORK. And NINETY% of this!!! Was made canon in Four. Minutes. Of Dialogue at the ASS END of the LAST DLC for the entire!!! FUCKING!! GAME!!! FOUR. MINUTES!!

[joltai-showa]

naruto reread third edition chapter three woohoo

welp, it was a good run, manga sucks now lmao

just kidding, of course, but Sasuke is by far my least favorite character in the entire series. He's okay in OG Naruto, but literally every arc with him in Shippuden makes me want to bash my head against the nearest wall. And no, the fight with Deidara isn't the main reason for my passionate hatred of this prick. I've never agreed with a Sasuke fan once in those almost 10 years since I read the manga for the first time, but I do agree that Sasuke's fate is justifiedly dramatic and it's not surprising that he lashes out against those near him, but acting like he's some paragon of virtue and was right in all of his unhindged endeavors, particularly after the Itachi reveal, is first degree clownery at its finest lmao

(also the Uchiha clan sucks too. Not necessary from in-world perspective, but from writing perspective, mid-Shippuden Kishimoto really lost the sauce with those assholes and starting giving them any possible powers that he could think of)

another fun fact but I never found any of the Uchiha members attractive lmao. if you're wondering how the hell did I manage to write 35k from Deidara's pov having hots for Obito, listen, it's her pov, not mine, I just locked the fuck in and did it lmao

last thing before continuing with the chapter, main Uchiha guys from least annoying to most annoying accodring to me: Itachi > Madara >>>>>> Obito >>> Sasuke. Itachi mostly never gets on my nerves, so gotta love him for that, Madara sucks at times because he happens to appear on the stretches of manga when Kishi stopped caring about the plot and started the Uchiha bootlicking 24/7, but at least he didn't get a shitty "rEdEmPTioN ArC" (i guess i should be thanking Kaguya for that, bleh), with Obito I am stuck in a perpetual cycle of "there is no way he is that bad in canon, I must have been overdramatic when reading" -> *rereads the manga* -> "oh my fucking god he is not just bad, he is simply awful", he is just the ultimate victim of Naruto being written backwards and Kishi making a cool twist but never actually properly working on his motivations, a real shame, he's got a lot of potential, but canon Obito has one of the worst character arcs in the entire series, so I can only enjoy fanon Obito and fans' work that actually utilizes many many things this character has to offer. I already said a lot about Sasuke, but at times his writing is much better than Obito's, so he's a little less annoying to me (that's generally not an achievement on his part, it's Kishi writing Obito so badly LMAO)

bish you live like this?

but also again WHY THE FUCK NARUTO LIVED HIS ENTIRE GODDAMN LIFE ALONE??? HIRUZEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? IT'S A FUCKING CHILD, WHY IS HE UNSUPERVISED? DO YOU REALLY EXPECT HIM TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO MANAGE THE MONEY, COOK AND CLEAN AFTER HIMSELF? YOU SORRY PIECE OF SHIT, YOUR GRANDSON HAS A PRIVATE TUTOR, BUT THE CHILD OF KONOHA'S HEROES WHO PRETTY MUCH ENTRUSTED HIM INTO THE VILLAGE'S CARE LIVES LIKE THIS?

Kushina has a full time job of wooping Hiruzen's ass in the afterlife, I swear to god

also let's talk about the absolutely horrendous conditions orphans in Konoha live in? There are more obvious cases like the kids that Root takes in, they are raised into emotionless killing machines since the first moment they become their training (child abuse🥰), but even kids who didn't catch ANBU's eye are just... Obviously, we've got Naruto and he's a case of straight up neglect from both his supposed caretakers (literally any of his future teachers, but particularly Jiraya who is supposed to be his goddamn godfather) and Hiruzen, but this is Kishi rewriting everything there ever was and by Mid-Shippuden Naruto is suddenly a literal prophesied hero, a messiah and loved by everyone and everything and those who hate him are either irredeemibly evil or poor little babies who are waiting for a pep talk by Naruto to turn good again (c) Anyway, we've got some bigger fish to fry and it's cases of Kakashi and Sasuke in particular. I am not really worried in cases of Obito and Neji, because both of them lived somewhere near their clans (even if their clan sucked absolute ass, sorry for your loss, Neji), so we can at least assume that some of the older members of their clans could keep an eye on them and, y'know, fucking FEED them, but Sasuke's and Kakashi's living situations are... oooof. I might be misremembering stuff, but in the manga Sasuke is never shown to move from his house, he in fact is shown to return home and cry over the bloodied floor of the room where Fugaku and Mikoto were killied (Hiruzen is a cleaning service really this fucking expensive jesus christ), so what we have is an orphaned kid who lives in the same house his parents were murdered, in the same house his big brother tortured him psychologically, in the same district where piles of his relatives' corpses were lying. Also completely alone.

Do I need to say anything, Hiruzen?

Kakashi is even worse, because not only he lived alone in the same house his only other living family member aka his dad ended his life, I believe that the blade he carried later also happened to be the family relic that his dad used in his final moments. On top of all that, he continued to live alone in that house even after his teammate sacrificed his life for his sake, gave him his eye and this eye happens to be the only thing that remained of said teammate because he was crushed alive. He continued to live alone in that house even after he accidentaly killed the girl he promised to protect with his life, but ended up using the jutsu he managed to develop after aquiring a Sharingan to end her life. He continued to live alone in that house even after his only remaining team member aka his teacher died in a freak accident when half of the village got destroyed.

God damn. Like, Obito's fate is absolutely horrendous, sure, but you gotta admit at least he had a reason to continue living. The only thing I can say about Kakashi is how the fuck did you live to 27 years.

tl; dr Kakuzu should've opened a therapy service for shinobi and Akatsuki could have simply bought off all of the Beasts simply with that money LMAO

Kishi could not draw girls for the life of him at the beginning of the manga and it shows lol, she's so scrunky

honestly relatable Naruto

also Sasuke's haircut looks like a duck's ass and the resemblances only grows stronger in Shippuden

fucking hell I really am just Naruto, aren't I...

oh look it's the canon event kid :D

the following 697 chapters will be spent attempting to explain to the readers that this scene does not in fact allude to the endgame ship. unsuccessfully, of course lmao.

seriously Kishi is so terrible at writing romance, the only believable and toleralable ship he had managed to produce through the entire 700 chapter run of the manga is MinaKushi and they're fucking dead

i think I'll be mentioning extensively later what I think about Kishimoto writing women in general (spoiler: I really don't think that most of Naruto female cast is even good, most of the time they are decent at best, even if my heart is filled to the brim with love to some of the girls, they simply can not compete with women written by other mangakas), but after 10 years since my first read of Naruto I still stand by the observation that my 13 year old self made at the time: sometimes it feels like Kishimoto not only never talked with a woman, but never even seen them in the first place

"why are you so homophobic Sakura-chan😱"

I swear I'm gonna have an aneurism if these 13 year old numbsticks are called "full-fledged shinobi", BRO THEY'RE GONNA DIE AFTER 5 MINUTES ON A SERIOUS MISSION

Okay, so another weird thing that I'm really not sure if is a rewrite/plothole/whatever, BUT

jonins aka the highest ranking you can be given unless your Kage happens to have a tragic untimely accident and you are chosen as the replacement are supposed to be really rare, like "you can count the number of them on your fingers" rare. Of course, Naruto's plot is constantly revolving around at least one jonin-level character, so we as readers see them in overabundance compared to what realistically should be taking place within the universe

here's a terrible illustration by yours and only on how the shinobi rankings should be spread out in general lmao.

Coming back to what Iruka says: why is it that jonins are supposed to be teaching the three-man teams of full-fledged shinobi children? Jonins are cream de la cream of the hierarchy, they are pretty much the highest ranking officers in the villages, save for the Kage, of course, I'm pretty sure they should be busy with something more important, like leading their own fully trained squads/divisions, not looking after little Timmiemaru and making sure that he doesn't accidentaly stab himself with a kunai. And come to think of it, the entire system is weirdly skewed, because Iruka is a chunin who teaches Academy kids who are below genins in the hierarchy, so at the end of the day we have Kages who (supposedly) work 24/7 on the external and interal affairs of the village and probably the country, jonins who do the missions and train genins, chunins who do the missions and train Academy kids and genins being genins. Now I am not advocating for 13 year olds to be teaching 7 year olds, but considering the fact that you need to pass a murder exam the chunin exam to get the rank, I think there should be quite the number of people who never pass/don't want to pass in the first place, so genins can be quite old and experienced enough to teach (hi Maito Dai).

Anyway, there's certainly more than 9 students in that room when Iruka announces that they are getting divided into teams. Did the remaining 18 guys got shafted? "We've only got three available jonins, so only the most talented kids/kids from important clans will be trained"? Or did the 18 guys got some sane teachers that didn't decide to send them to the murder exam after 6 months of missions? Wait, the kids are getting paid for the missions, right? I am not sure whether I should be worried about the unpaid child labor or the fact that 13 year olds (who should really be like 10 year olds judging by the amount of times Naruto flunked the Academy exam) have to enter the workforce at such an age.

(now these are the questions that should be raised by people hating on the shinobi system, Kishi, and not twenty flashbacks in a row to the girl they liked 17 years ago)

that's really awfully convinient that the new generation of InoShikaCho happened to have abilities approximately equal to the ones of other teams, huh, Iruka

(Konoha is built on Hashirama's wood and pure fucking nepotism lmaoooo)

jesus fucking chirst that's some choice of words from the translator

was the translator aware at the time that this is a 13 year old girl's monologue they are translating? i know teenagers are freaky, but this is supposed to be the official translation, why are we getting to the upper bound of PG rating

what even in the world is this dialogue

bro really be laser focused on Naruto since his first appearance huh

nevermind Sakura's bashing on Naruto's status as an orphan (which is really weird to me, because not only that 5 years before she and others in Kakashi's, Kurenai's and Asuma's teams were born there was a giant World War and realistically quite of few kids their age should've lost their parents there, but there also was this little incident with Nine-Tails running over everyone in the village the year they were born, so there should be A LOT of orphans of Sakura's age, yet she's being this... mean? I guess, I wouldn't call her cruel, to Naruto), I've got a bigger question: how the hell did you miss the news of Uchiha massacre and Sasuke's living situation? The kids were like 8 at the time, they should have heard of it, I mean, ONE OF THE FOUNDING CLANS AND A LARGE ONE AT THAT got murked in a single night, yet in the 5 following years Sakura never learned about it, being Sasuke's #1 fan? Maybe it's me misremembering stuff, buuuuut...

(anyway Kishi I've got a bigger question but where the fuck is the Senju clan? The poor repressed Uchiha clan by the time of the massacre stiil had dozens of members if not hundreds, but Senju clan, the other founding clan of similar size, just went poof?)

(my personal headcanon regarding this is that Tsunade during her 20 year long depressive episode took all of clans money and gambled it away :D so the remaining members of the Senju clan just kinda scattered through the countries trying to find the money for themselves and just distanced from the whole shinobi business)

THE MYTH THE MAN THE LEGEND!

Holy fuck I almost died laughing at his first interaction ever, like what the fuck is this.

Kakashi: his milk's expired. Hiruzen, nervously wiping away sweat: he's just clumsy! Kakashi: he's 13 and grew up without adult supervision, I'm not even sure if he can read the dates on the milk. Hiruzen: why are you being such a hater, Kakashi?🥺 Kakashi: not as much of a hater as my sensei and his wife are going to be to you in the afterlife, I guess.

also, Hiruzen, you know what is Kakashi even better choice for? VISITING FUCKING THERAPY

"You have a talent for sniffing things out", sniffing out what, the expired milk on mini-Minato? Gods Hiruzen you suckkkkk

that is a fucking threat and you know this, Hiruzen

LMAAAAAAAAAOOOOOO

you've got no idea, Kakashi

raising these dinguses is already an A rank mission bordering S, but how about accidentaly stumbling upon the guy who you assumed died over 15 years ago after being crushed into meat paste? :D

[ovenmade]

9, 11, & 14!

YET ANOTHER MULTIMUSE QUESTIONNAIRE.  ACCEPTING!

9. For canon characters, tell what drew you to use a character to make them a muse? Any of your choice.

I'll just talk a little about all of them! Strawberry Crepe was an easy choice for me. The moment I have a mess of lengthy, disorganized notes on my phone and a handful of Google docs filled with ideas and headcanons about a character, it's almost certain I'll be making a blog for them lol! Perhaps there is some familiarity with them and even Silverbell, as Strawberry Crepe has some shades of Sora Shiun'in while Silverbell has hints of III / Michael Arclight, but they're still very much different characters and certainly can't be treated as the same. Though now that we're talking about Silverbell, I honestly ended up picking him up pretty quickly because he just instantly appealed to me haha. I loved nearly everything about Secrets of the Silver Kingdom update, especially the culture and mythos of the faeries ( and of course the beasts ), and I will absolutely be expanding it with my own lore and such! I hope we get to revisit the faeries at some point. Red Velvet and Stardust both kinda fall in the same category — I love both of them as characters and enjoy their stories, but I've never quite written muses like either of them before. I've always wanted to broaden my horizons and try new types of characters, and Cookie Run gives me that chance in a way that other fandoms I'm in don't seem to. I'm not exactly confident in my portrayals of them yet, which is why Red Velvet and Stardust are currently labeled tertiary, but I actually do have a lot of thoughts and feelings about both of them! Eternal Sugar and Peach Blossom was purely because of aesthetic. Now that we actually have the story of Peach Blossom, which did not satisfy me simply for my bias of wanting him to be more important / involved ( especially considering his character inspiration ), it's more because of the potential I see in him. I feel a lot more can be done with Peach Blossom, and I very much plan on developing him further and having fun while I'm at it! As for Eternal Sugar, I'm very much looking forward to their debut episode ( whenever it comes ) and learning about how they became corrupted. I have a feeling all the beasts have a similar setup to Mystic Flour ( in that they didn't become 'evil' for the sake of being evil — there was a cause, a reason, an epiphany of some sort. ) My portrayal will probably stray away from canon to some degree because I already have a few personal headcanons for them, but to be honest, all my portrayals here are headcanon-based on some level or another. Some more than others, but my point still stands!

11. Have you ever drew any of your muses, if so can you show a drawing?

As far as my Cookie Run muses go? I haven't yet and that's a crime! My art is still amateurish and I haven't drawn consistently enough to have improved very much, but I've been trying to revisit the basics and go forward from there more recently, jotting down ideas for when I feel my skills are a bit better. That said, there isn't really anything worthy to show off really unless you want to see a bunch of studies lmao, but here's some of my old art anyways! Again, far from professional, but as Bob Ross says: "Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do."

14. Which of your muses is the easiest to get along with? Which one is the hardest?

Out of the current roster, Peach Blossom is probably the easiest and Strawberry Crepe the hardest! Almost anyone could get along with Peach Blossom honestly. It's actually a little funny that he was in Dark Cacao's story, the cookie with the least trust for strangers ( though his distrust is understandable, especially with what he went through in Beast-Yeast. ) Strawberry Crepe being the hardest to bond with is also ironic, given that they are actually lonely and do desire the company of others ( despite acting like they don't. )

[jaggedwolf]

separate thoughts about a trio of characters in PLL S1 given what happens in later seasons. don't click if you haven't seen up to the end of S4, yes I'm talking to the two unfortunate souls I've dragged into this canon, this is not for you yet. go away, begone, shoo.

~s3 and s4 spoilers here blah blah blah you have been warned~

Obvious retcons are obvious, in that none of

Paige crushing on Emily in freshman year + getting tormented by Alison for it

Spencer being on amphetamines most of summer + her family thinking she killed Alison while high

Ezra already knowing who Aria was + surveilling the liars to write a book

were planned back when season 1 was being written, or were even potential story ideas. On this rewatch, I didn't mind viewing S1 from the perspective of the retcons.

Let's get Fitz out of the way first because he's boring and he sucks. This is the first time I've watched many of the S1 Ezria scenes because back when I first watched this show I fast-forwarded through all of their scenes. I find him much more tolerable with the idea that he's always been even creepier, having hung out with 14-year-old Alison as a college student, that he's using the Ezria relationship for dirt while also getting his rocks off on it, that his stupid little :o faces are an act, that all of it is defensible because it is For The Book. If only a certain hoodie had aimed their gun better 🙏 Perfect ending then

Paige, truly my poor little meow meow before that was even a phrase. It is delicious to spend time with S1!Paige knowing the full backstory - her dad alone could explain the vibrating-with-turmoil mess we see, but the retcon slots in neatly to what we already know. In S1, Spencer says Paige has fouls named after her in field hockey, and so Paige bruising Alison in soccer is what prompts Alison's ire and revenge. S1!Paige treats Emily's existence like it's the universe playing a joke on her, (incorrectly) attributing an ease to Emily's life, be it swimming, sexuality or parents. What an even bigger joke it must have felt like, that Emily turns out to be gay after all and was in love with Alison. Paige must really really like Emily to only go "She seemed like a very dynamic person." in response to that and not just cycle off.

Though it must be that by this point Paige has realized Emily does not exactly share moral philosophies with Alison. In her introductory episodes, Paige repeatedly assumes of Emily ulterior motives, or behind-the-scenes game-playing, with very little basis. All of the liars get this to some degree, the consequences of their public tight-knit friendship with Ali, but it also fun to consider whether Paige ever thought Emily in on the trick played on her. (Am I making up in my head someone in the show describing the quintet with "those girls tell each other everything"?)

I assume freshman year Paige was looking at Emily like this all the time given how easily Ali figured it out. Going to blame Ali for Paige's tragic style shift from polo shirt + khaki shorts to terrible haircut + terrible cardigans, rip the baby lesbian fit.

Emily is absolutely the first time Paige has ever tried being a verbal bully and not a physical one. She is not very good at it, like clearly Emily is out and nobody cares, this is ineffective leverage. She also does not have that dog in her when it comes to physical bullying either, given her reaction post-head dunk. Some of it is because it was Emily Fields, with all that represents and who remained unfailingly not-terrible to her even after said dunk, but it does seem to apply more generally - I think she can do heat of the moment sports roughness without feeling bad, given Spencer's and Ali's comments, but the targeting of someone did not feel great for her.

S1 parallels Paige and Ali a few times, the first when Spencer tells Emily that she talked to Fulton for her because Emily never stood up to Ali (and no, I don't think Spencer was aware of Ali playing hot-and-cold with Emily re:kisses, just that she had eyes and like everyone else could see that Emily was whipped), the second when Paige and Emily frame Emily's type as "ballsy women", the third when Emily puts away her Alison bracelet after the picnic where she tells Paige she can't secretly date, the fourth when Paige texts Emily post-Samara and A immediately follows up with the "love me, lie for me" text. I don't think Ali is ever as directly brought up in the context of Emily/Maya, though I could be mistaken. They feel more separated.

My only notes on this are (1) one of the fun things about Paily for me is the way they take turns being the brave one and admire the other one for it (2) I wonder if Paige has already been comparing herself to Alison by the time we see her in S1...maybe she has, given something she says in S5

okay okay okay Spencer Hastings!!! an excellent maniac <3

Spencer's family really is terrible to her about letting Ian continue to live on their property even after she's expressed terror at it and they know he was kissing her while she was 14 and he was her coach, but it is so so funny that every time she accuses Ian of murdering Ali her family must be thinking....fucking hell, you did it and we need you to not drag police attention onto our family! What the fuck Spence!

Especially funny from Melissa's PoV, who IIRC buried a girl and thought she was covering for Spencer, and now has Spencer repeatedly accusing her husband in public. From her perspective she is the most long-suffering oldest sister who has ever lived, okay.

Again, all of the Hastings deserve this problem because of how they are fine with even a non-murdering Ian and apparently got Spencer zero help after that cursed summer murder. Still very funny.

When Spencer asks Ian "Was that how it happened?" when he recites how her fake suicide letter will say she murdered Alison, I wonder if it's a genuine question her part :( Her memory of that night is very fucked up, she might in this moment wonder if he saw something and go wait no, Ali died of suffocation.

Spencer...also had multiple confrontations with Ali? From this season we know she had one inside her house (before or during?) the sleepover, and then in S4 we learned Spencer's A adderall pills overpowered Ali's sleeping pills and Spencer chased after her in the backyard. Were there more confrontations she had that day? I genuinely forget, and will now simply picture Spencer running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth across her own backyard.

[ashtcnirwin]

1 & 10 and 20. can you let me into one of your wip docs this year pretty please with a cherry on top you're my favorite person ever 🥺

how kind of you to include a meme, very nice touch

1. What’s a trope you want to explore this year?

okay well see the thing is that there are a number of tropes that i consider to be the "big ones" when it comes to fanfiction (friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, fwb, high school AU, etc.) and there are two really big tropes on that list that i've never properly written in any fandom, and those are fake dating & college/uni AU. (i’ve written some shorter works where the characters happened to be in college but their school life played no role whatsoever and was mostly just referenced, so i don’t count those)

i recently (like..a few days ago-recently) started writing my fake dating fic (named tightrope, hence the meme jess kindly put together, if anyone wants to know), which has been in the planning stage since early september actually. it’s famous!ashton, non-famous!luke, and trying to achieve some level of realism for what goes down has been...uhh...difficult, lots of potential plot holes so i’m just hoping i’ve been able to fill them all. suspending disbelief will likely be required for anyone who’s gonna read it tho lmao. anyway, i hope to start posting that sometime before the summer, and as soon as i've completed it and have recovered from the writing-related exhaustion i know is gonna hang over me for a few weeks after, i'm gonna start working on a college AU!

college AUs is something that i to a certain degree feel like i’ve outgrown, not because i don’t enjoy reading them, to be clear (because i do! very much so, i love them to bits), but because while i technically am i college, i don’t lead a typical college/uni student lifestyle anymore the way i did in my early 20s. like, travel back five years and you’ll find an anna who has a very different life than the 2022-version. but it’s also something that i’ve been wanting to write for a long time, and i’m very much looking forward to it! the main reason i haven’t tackled the trope yet is honestly that reading up on and understanding foreign education systems is awful lmao. can’t wait to trample amanda’s texts with questions about the US education system

(those will both be of the lengthier variety, 100k+)

as far as tropes go, those are the only two i know for sure that i wanna delve into, i think? gardener!ash doesn't count as a trope, does it? i’m side eyeing a couple of other ones but nothing’s set in stone there, so

10. Do you have a goal for this year for your writing? Any word count? A genre you want to mark off?

no word count- or genre-goals, no, but i was saying earlier this month that i wanna write more shorter works (and i mean short, like <5k) and i wanna write more t-rated stuff! it’s not that i’ve written a whole lot of PWPs, really, or that i have no short works posted, but i wanna actually put in a conscious effort to broaden my horizons a little with the t-rating (so that’s basically me trying to hammer into my own head that alright anna there ARE stories worth being told that have little to nothing to do with sex) and the shorter works-goal has a lot to do with the fact that i tend to take things a little too seriously sometimes when i write, like...everything has to be so fucking complicated that it demands 10k+, yk? and i wanna get better at writing less complicated scenarios, which i believe a <5k limit will help me achieve!

20. (freebie) will i let you into the tightrope docs?

no, stay on the outside of the fence. you’ll get some bits and pieces here and there probably aka when i find myself hysterically funny and have to share my latest stroke of comedic genius

new year writing asks!🧡

[soul-music-is-life]

I've seen some of your post on the bullshit heartbeat bill in your state and I'm just wondering how you're dealing.

I have stared at this ask for a while, wondering whether or not I wanted to get in depth into this conversation. But I do have a lot to say on the matter. A while back I drafted a blog post that I toyed with sharing, but ultimately held off. Until now.

There’s…a lot to be covered.

First, thank you for sparking me to put this out there. I feel as though it’s important enough to say what I have to say on this. And though this platform is usually used for fandom stuff (I use other platforms for my political stuff), I’m not afraid to get real now and again.

Second, let me state that I have a background in medicine and a family heavily involved and working in politics…so I know how this goes.

I’m going to pre-empt this by saying that I am not going to argue with anyone who is pro-life who reads and disagrees. If you agree, great. If you disagree, there is no point in trying to fight me…because we will never see eye to eye.

This is strictly an argument based on why I’m against politics and religion in medicine. I am not looking for a debate here. There is no debate to be had. If you can’t look at things without religion, or if you can’t understand scientific/medical facts it’s a moot point.

It’s a long one. Saddle up.

Religion vs. Medicine:

Christianity should have no place in medicine (the bible condemns polyester blends, playing with pigskin, gambling, and divorce, but Christians still shop til they drop, support football, play the lottery, and divorce their spouses). Yet we get lawmakers constantly using the bible as a talking point (”Thank God” and “As God intended”) for this argument and ignoring testimony from physicians with degrees in science.

Men (with the exception of those whose sperm fertilized an egg in a consensual act) should have no say in what happens inside of a uterus that does not belong to them (and even then, it should be a discussion between those two people and their doctor, not a government made up of religious zealot white women and white-boys without uteri).

The government should not infringe upon individual rights of medical privacy via HIPAA.

Basically:

If you can not argue without the basis of religion (or you keep using “God” or The Bible as your baseline) or if you are not someone who has a uterus or in the medical profession or a woke dude/lady, you have no fucking say.

If you are a Christian forcing your beliefs upon the population based upon a magical book that has absolutely no proof, you have no fucking say. (see Separation of Church and State).

If you are a politician forcing your agenda upon every person with a uterus based upon something you can absolutely never experience, you have no fucking say.

If you do not have a background in science and you’re basing your opinions upon a movie (”Unplanned”) that is nothing more than political propaganda (and a pro-life “advocate” who saw dollar signs and a means to fame) then you have no fucking say (and yes, I’ve seen the film, which was nothing more than a religious backed, over-dramatized flick poorly representing abortions and relied heavily upon cheap emotional manipulation and inaccurate CGI). As someone who has seen medical procedures…it was exaggerated in the film. It is absolutely not a representation of safe and legal abortions. It also does not address the confidentiality between patient/doctor (See HIPAA and the testimony of physicians in this matter).

The fact of the matter is that people who are informed, intelligent, and know about the subject in depth are against these abortion bans, because they know it’s extreme and infringes upon basic rights. This includes women, our allies, and in some cases…people who are religiouswho stand with the pro-choice movement (I see you all, too, don’t doubt that…this is not a reflection upon men and Christians in general. This is about the extremists).

If you fall into the extreme religious or non-medical community category or you are a politician with no medical training and you’re writing bills and arguing against basic human rights…you can shut the fuck up.

***

For the sake of facts, let’s break it down:

-Sexual education can be informative, and the preventatives used to prevent pregnancy can fail. Condoms break. The pill can fail (and let’s not even get into the horrible side effects that contraceptives have on women. Let’s talk about the fact that there was actually a birth control for men that companies tried to put on the market, but the side effects were too ‘dangerous’. Sure, like high blood pressure and hormonal imbalances are something women look forward to). But yeah, let’s put all the responsibility on the woman.

-Women are raped, and given the trauma that occurs…they should not have to PROVE they were raped in order to receive medical treatment…including abortion. It’s horrific enough as it is, and there is NO wrong way to deal with the trauma. They shouldn’t have an additional stigma to be treated medically.

-Women who tend to make the choice to have an abortion have looked at their options and have made an informed CHOICE (that’s what this is about). And it’s not always at the 6-8 week mark, because hey…there are things such as irregular periods. Cis-men hating on women, let’s talk about women’s reproduction for a minute. Have you ever spent 7 days bleeding out of an orifice of your body? Have you ever shed the lining of an internal organ? Have you ever had blood clots inside of your body that feel like fucking death? Have you ever had your panties soaked in blood? Have you ever gotten stressed and missed a period or had medical issues that caused you to have irregular cycles? No? Okay, so how about the stressors of pregnancy? How about the changes a woman’s body goes through? How about the emotional and physical toll it takes? Truth is, hetero-normal men who are so deep-set in their beliefs will NEVER view women as equal. Reality is…we women areintelligent enough to make our own decisions.

-An embryo at 6-8 weeks is not viable. The so called “heartbeat” is an electrical activity in a group of cells that is at maximum a few inches long. There is no heartbeat, because there IS no heart. It hasn’t formed. There is not a cardiovascular system. It’s a vibration in a cell. It is ONLY active because of the woman. At this point it is NOT a child. I see pro-life/pro-birth people going, “but…but SCIENCE…Life at conception!” without understanding the depth of their actual words. The medical community knows their shit. And people can challenge them all they want with their opinions upon when life is sentient, but the truth is that there is no brain activity this early because IT IS NOT A HUMAN. It is an embryo, which can not exist without the mother’s body. Yet politicians use the term “heartbeat” because they know there are uneducated people out there who will eat it up and back them.

-Abortion is situational, and trying to force a law upon women based upon the preconceived notion that ALL women are using it as a form of birth control is ignorant, ill-informed, and extremely sanctimonious. There are numerous reasons for abortion, and none of them are the government’s fucking business.

Why religion and politics is a slippery slope in medicine:

Using a religious bias in a political war is against everything in the judiciary and legislative branch, and it is a slippery slope that is dangerous to patient care. When we start listening to “Gods” and evangelical people over actual physicians there is a huge problem. Ask yourself this question: if you were dying and a surgery could save your life…would you call a priest to perform the procedure? Or a licensed physician? If you choose a priest, enjoy seeing your version of the afterlife, because you’re going to die.

Abby Johnson (”Unplanned) is not a doctor. She is someone who “found God” and is using that to exploit the situation with her own views as a claim to fame. She ran a Planned Parenthood (in her own words). ONE chapter, which means it’s a FRACTION of the actual unit. She does not have a PHD. Her accusations against physicians are bullshit and is frankly an insult to actual doctors who perform safe medical procedures every day.

Politicians have no knowledge of medical protocols and treatments (and in a lot of cases know an embarrassingly low amount about women’s reproductive organs). And in many cases it is old white men (and religious white women) dictating what a woman can do with her body. If you think that’s okay, you’re part of the problem.

Religious zealots hold fast to beliefs written in a fairytale rather than learn the scientific facts associated with the base of their argument. They can’t grasp the concept that an organism can be created in a petrie dish with a “beating heart”, because of muscle contractions, not because it’s “alive” or “sentient”. They would rather blindly follow a God that may or may not exist rather than listen to educated physicians who know the topic.

Rapid fire question: if an unconscious woman and a frozen embryo were in a burning building and you could only save one of them, which one would you choose? Something that is not aware and is only a potential for life? Or the actual living breathing human?

This shit is not about “saving babies”. Politicians couldn’t give a shit about babies after they are born. It’s about controlling women/trans-folk and telling people what they can do with their body (it’s funny how Republican politicans haven’t outlawed smoking or drinking, because hey…that kills you! “AnD wE aRE PRo-LiFE!”).

Anyone who can’t see that all these abortion laws are just plays for politicians to pursue their own political pursuits is an idiot.

A Note about Georgia’s Abortion Law/Kemp

In my state, there was talks that Kemp was overheard saying that even if he wanted to veto the bill he couldn’t due to “his campaign promises”. Which is absolute bullshit, because given the polls…he knew that a majority of the people in his state are against it. This bill was co-sponsored by three men and three women who are basing it heavily upon religious purposes (if you don’t believe me, look up Ed Setzler, he’s been quoted several times leaning on religious propaganda for this bill). It was then voted through by a bunch of old white men.

Convenient how they threw the one token woman up front (but honestly, fuck her…because she should know better). The fact of the matter is that those who voted on this are a bunch of “good ole boys” with religious principles trying to bypass the fact that there is a separation of church and state. This bill has had numerous polls conducted to the constituents, and while they were divided…the PRO-CHOICE voice won every single poll. Put this up for a vote and I guarantee this would not become a law.

Kemp waited weeks to sign this (unlike the governor of Alabama).

Why?

Because he knew that most of his constituents were against this (given the polls that were conducted), but due to political pressure he couldn’t veto for fear that he’d lose the religious/deeply rooted republican votes. Even Kemp seemed to realize that this is against the moral rights of his citizens. But he doesn’t give a shit. Because as long as his pockets are lined with money and he can ignore his constituents, it’s all gravy for him.

To take this a step further, this asshole is the man who pointed a gun at a kid jokingly in an age where school shootings are rampant, as a joke…for political purposes. Cuz, ya know…violence is funny.

He’s “pro-life” but he shoots things.

This man is sponsored by the National Hunting and Fishing association, who supports killing living breathing things with a heartbeat for sport or “because it tastes good”.

I challenge anyone who is so “pro-heartbeat” to never shoot their guns again to kill something. Because hey, life is so precious to you, right? You value heartbeats so effing much, stop killing living breathing things. Nut up or shut up.

Actually, no, don’t nut up. That’s the reason for unplanned pregnancies in the first place. Just shut up.

…that will never happen. And you want to know why?

Because this is not about life. They don’t give a shit about “life”. This is about power. This is about control.

If you can’t see that an entire gender is being used for political gain then you need to wake the fuck up.

I’ll end this by saying that, yes, there might be some common ground that can be found here. In the people out there fighting every day for their rights. In the allies we have coming out of the woodworks. In the physicians who fought like hell for us in court.

I’m not an unreasonable person. I do believe in sensible laws. These bans are not sensible. They’re a power play. And that’s fucked up. And as much as I’d love to pack up and leave, I don’t have that option. A lot of people don’t (and in fact, I think the “Boycott GA” movement is so fucking stupid, because that doesn’t hurt the people in power. It hurts the PEOPLE).

So if you’re pissed off, remember this at the polls. Know who your reps are. And if they are for this bullshit, vote their asses out.

Flip their fucking seats.

I’m tired, you guys. Let’s get our rights back. Let’s take our state back.

[clumsyclifford]

hello bella!! ^_^ im curious how abouttt 1, 14, 18, & 72 for the fic writer asks <333 hi hi hi hope u are well since it's been a minute since i dropped by sending love and positive energy to you!!

hiya bella!!! thank you for the positive energy i am uno reversing it right back to you <3 i hope the cubs are doing better than the nats although i checked the standings and i do not think they are

1. Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike? if daydreaming = brainstorming, then yeah i often brainstorm a fair amount before i start writing. i don't know if this is superstition or gut instinct (or both), but i firmly believe that if i'm Struck by an idea and i try to just Start Writing it without thinking about where it's going or how it happened or anything else about it, i am extremely likely to get stalled by the nitty-gritty details and never finish it. and then it's just tons of great but wasted potential. so a lot of the time, when i have an idea, i'll throw the idea itself into my personal list of fic ideas, but if one happens to be floating around in my brain for longer, i'll start to plan in my mind how i would go about justifying the plot or telling the story, and once i think i can manage that with some degree of success, then i write.

then again, this is not always true. case in point, cruel summer fic. did not plan that shit at all, all i had to go on was cruel summer the song and a few hazy mental images. and look how well that turned out. so like, sometimes i write immediately, i just don't trust myself to finish something i start if i do it like that very often.

14. What is your favorite location and position to write in? united states of america! just kidding. i prefer writing on my laptop at a desk, so either my desk in my dorm or the one in my room at home. as for position, i think i've changed the position of my legs like twice just in the process of answering the beginning of this ask, so i can't be any more specific than just "sitting down"

18. Do you enjoy research? Which fic of yours required the most research? i don't enjoy research but i feel a lot better knowing i've done research because having inaccuracies in my writing that could have been easily avoided just by typing some shit into google is the worst feeling. that being said, doing fic research has led me to google some pretty bizarre things

and some moderately concerning things

those are all for the same fic BUT ANYWAY.

as for the most research, i think maybe situation overload simply because for every single section, i had to be constantly referring to the play-by-play to make sure the events of the game were happening at more or less the correct times in the fics, and i had to actually find the play-by-plays for all six games. plus i did not know much about the orioles prior to writing that since i'm a nats person, so i had to do some quick learning.

72. What’s your favorite writing compliment you’ve gotten? another one?? oh wait okay i know what it is, so many fucking people (SO MANY??? and WAY more than anticipated) read my pseudo-crack halex fic cut through the static and actually liked it, and i got a lot of comments saying things like "I don't know any of these characters beyond Harry but wow I absolutely loved every single one" and "this makes me want to read everything 1) you've ever written and 2) all things all time low" and, most recently and aptly, "This is such a weird pairing but you wrote it SO WELL." all of those are my favorites because first of all the fact that a bunch of unsuspecting harry stans wandered their way onto my ridiculous fic and decided to read it despite only knowing harry and then liked it anyway is crazy to me, and also, i find it surpassingly hilarious. like, i find the entire situation hilarious. 

fanfiction writing asks!