#so i probably will throw my monologue but more professional in there

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

I'm trying to prepare answers for a self-tape for an application to Trans Lifeline and in the midst of it I just made myself emotional with a tangent about why I'm actually passionate about the opportunity.

[abarbaricyalp]

Angel in the Centerfold

Rated E // 8.6k words // AO3

Professional baseball player Sam, professional rugby player Bucky, a sports magazine Body Issue, lots of unresolved history

The dummy copies came in a few days before the debut and dinner. These were the kinds of things people could point out a misspelled name or complain about a bad photoshop job. It was also where publicists could leak out interview details and athletes could accidentally post a snippet of a picture to social media. It may seem like a parasitic relationship with the magazine, but that early-access attention and buzz helped sell more copies than the prestige and history of the issue.

Sam hadn’t looked at it yet. He’d grabbed the mail before running out to a practice and left it in the kitchen. He was not surprised to come home and find Riley flipping through it. Well, flipping might be generous. He was staring at one page with a fine eyebrow raised intently.

“Did they edit out the gap in my teeth?” Sam asked, setting his things aside and dumping his keys and earbuds by the door. 

“You made such a fuss out of it the one time it happened, I don’t think anyone else will ever make that mistake again,” Riley said drily.

“And I’ll throw a fit again if it ever does.”

“Can I go to the dinner with you?” he asked suddenly.

Sam looked up at his friend with, first, delight and then apprehension. “Why?”

“Well, you just said everyone would be there, right?”

“Should be. It’s part of the contract. Minus, y’know, professional commitments or whatever.” Sam eyed him warily and tried to see what Riley was staring at. Riley snapped the magazine shut.

“Good. Let’s go. You’re right. I should see some of the guys again.”

“Give me the magazine,” San demanded, swiping for it around Riley’s shoulders.

Riley kept it out of his reach for a few seconds before he hissed and ducked his head out of the way, handing the magazine off in favor of getting an ice-pack brace for his neck. “You’re on page 43.”

Sam flipped to the page. Stared at himself, blushed, then stared some more. They’d used both pictures that Sam liked, one on each page of the spread while the interview ran down the center columns. He skimmed that for inaccuracies too, though he had a publicist for that.

“This looks fine. Why are you…” He flipped the page and came up short.

Grinning back at him was a ghost from the past. Sam’s brain was only supplying thighs thighs thighs thighs thighs thighs thighs thighs as a running monologue, so he wasn’t sure he was really staring at his first college boyfriend. Except that wasn’t really true either. He’d know Bucky with his eyes closed probably.

Bucky’s professional career was even more twisty-turny than Sam’s was next to Riley. He’d moved across the world to play rugby of all things, had played professionally for a few years, had an accident that lost him his arm, played in a para-league for a few years, and then petitioned to be allowed back into the professional league. He’d moved more to keep playing rugby than Sam had moved to play baseball.

They hadn’t kept up with each other. The break up was…not bad. The fully-expected couldn’t be bad, could it? But maybe that was the issue. Maybe neither of them really expected the other to go pro or to move so far away. Maybe they’d been hoping it could all work out for them. But it hadn’t and they’d parted a little coldly and distance and fame were a hell of a thing. Sam had thought about reaching out when he’d heard about the accident, but it felt hollow. Bucky didn’t reach out with Riley’s a few years later.

And now he was staring up at Sam with a wide grin and a wink. The image was longways across both pages, like a damn centerfold poster, and it made him look even taller than Sam remembered him being. He was broad as hell. He’d always been muscular, but in a contained way. Now he looked like a tree. In the image, he was wearing his shiny metal prosthetic. Two straps criss-crossed over his chest to hold it in place. It made him look like a gladiator. He was holding the ball over the important bits, but that absolutely did not hide any part of his thighs.

He had not had thighs like that in school.

“Yeah, that was approximately my reaction too,” Riley agreed and Sam startled back into awareness. He didn’t want to know how long he’d been staring at the picture or how slack-jawed he’d been the whole time. “You have to take me to meet him.”

“No way. I had no idea he’d be there. I mean, I didn’t even know they brought in international players for this. Hang on, maybe I can convince someone to have batting practice with me that night.”

“Nuh-uh. No way,” Riley said quickly, snagging the magazine back from Sam. “You’re going to that dinner and you’re gonna talk to him.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Sam said, reaching for the magazine again, though he wasn’t sure why.

“You’re the one always talking about how healing it’ll be for me to talk to the guys. To put some closure on my past and open a new doorway for the future.”

Sam grimaced. “It just sounds corny when you say it.”

“Trust me, Sam, it sounds corny when you say it too,” Riley laughed. He rolled the magazine up and stuck it in the back of his waistband. “Call Mel. Tell her you’re bringing a guest after all. She’ll be happy to hear my name.”

“She hears your name all the time,” Sam grumbled. “When I’m complaining about you.”

“Call,” Riley said. “I wanna hear you say it. I wanna hear the confirmation that we’re going.”

Sam glared at Riley for a few extra seconds before he snagged his phone from his pocket and called the publicist.

[eien-no-gakusha]

Outen no Mon/Deep Sea

The Tale of Young Sugawara no Michizane

Outen no Mon the show made me want to read the manga.  Reading the synopsis, I originally joked with friends that this was just another Heian era swashbuckling mystery thriller or Onmyoji knockoff sans magic.  It is not just another Heian era swashbuckling mystery thriller, it is…different enough to be called unique.  Where Onmyoji was basically tale of a smartass, debauched sorcerer and straightlaced warrior who overcome their differences to save Heian-kyo to comical effect; Outen no Mon is about a smartass, bookworm scholar and playboy warrior who overcome their differences to save Heian-kyo.  As in any story set in Heian-kyo, it is haunted.  No wonder onmyoji business was booming during that era.  The difference is in Onmyoji the ghosts are real while in Outen no Mon the real danger lies in man.  As for the chick in the team, the immortal priestess is replaced with an imports and antique dealer who is probably also running a sweatshop of counterfeit goods.  But she has a good heart and uses her talents in service of the protagonists so don’t worry about it.

Characters:

In summary we have the brains, the brawn, and the street smarts for our protagonist team of investigators.  They can also be classified as middle class (Sugawara no Michizane), aristocrat (Ariwara no Narihira), and peasant (Shouki).  They are performed by our triple moon tops:   Tsukishiro Kanato, Houzuki An, and Umino Mitsuki respectively.  (I just realized the tops and niibante of moon troupe all have moon in their name.  Coincidence? ^^;)  This is my second non-romantic Takarazuka show in a row.  First I got a politically-charged Chinese historical fiction and now I got a politically-charged Japanese historical fiction.  In other words, this show tends to focus on the mystery and we follow the friendship of Michizane and Narihira more closely than anything Shouki is doing.  Reiko and Chinatsu portrayed their respective roles and contrasted each other admirably.  Michizane as a character is a shut-in bookworm and apathetic to the machinations of the court, choosing to mingle with the commoners whom he feels kinship with.  This often manifests as dressing casually to see the Emperor.  In the manga, he is a classic shounen hero with a difficult, socially awkward personality but still a morally upstanding citizen.  Reiko’s version is a bit more socially competent and suave because she is a Takarazuka hero.  Her Michizane comes across as an introverted and introspective youth rather than full hikikomori.  Since we aren’t privy to internal monologue in this staging, this is probably a better approach for presenting the main character.

Then we have Chinatsu as Narihira, resident playboy and military officer responsible for the safety of Heian-kyo.  While being a nepo-baby nobleman, he does take his job seriously and is open-minded.  His haughtiness and discrimination against the peasants is a result of ignorance rather than him being a dick and his friendship with Michizane begins with him opening his eyes to the plight of the disenfranchised.  I feel the fanservice was toned down compared to usual Takarazuka fare.  Narihira is so blasé about his charms.  Instead of a dramatic pose or drawn out moment where he puts his flirt on, he’s just going about his day and doing his job.  He just throws out a wink or wave while on patrol but marches professionally on when he’s on the clock even if fangirls are present.  That strikes me as a different portrayal of playboy from the norm.  Houzuki An is certainly one who would know she is suave without overcompensating. XD  Her makeup didn’t photograph well in some angles and I think she was attempting an old man but sexy look as Narihira is considerably older than Michizane.  Chinatsu’s voice is divine and it’s strong enough to carry.  Couple times she nearly blew out her mic in both the show and revue.  Also, I swear she had more costume changes than the Top Star since she’s playing a man of society so we saw her in dress uniform, street uniform, casual ensemble, etc.  On the other hand, Michizane is a maverick scholar known to be a slob who even dares to come to court in the Heian version of sweatpants and T-shirt so Tsukishiro Kanato is usually in the same outfit.

As the political intrigue features heavily in the story, the show is a bit of a sausage fest so there isn’t much for musumeyaku to do.  There are only three named female roles of note so it makes sense that Eri would take the biggest female role.  Shouki is a fun character in her own right and has no romantic subplot as a shrewd businesswoman and an equal member of our intrepid trio.  She is the ingenious friend who provides the resources to make Michizane’s plans a reality.  It is a refreshing role for a musumeyaku, who usually get stuck as love interests.  Of course, there is star-crossed romance on the side in case seinen is not your genre.  Narihira and Takako were lovers who tried to elope in their youth but circumstances of birth have rendered their relationship forbidden.  They resolve this the mature, Japanese way (those of you who watch Japanese historical dramas know what I’m talking about).  For a side character and love interest, Takako is a complex character with her own personality and drive despite her vulnerable social circumstances that Amashi Juri brought to life.  Generally, the female characters were well-developed and interesting even if sparse.

Kazama Yuno as Fujiwara no Mototsune is practically a lead character and a complicated antagonist.  He doesn’t have much depth to him as cold and calculating Fujiwara Jr who does most of foster dad’s dirty work.  However, his relationship with everyone else makes him interesting.  He had a not-negative acquaintance with Kisshoumaru, Michizane’s deceased older brother.  However, his younger brothers were responsible for Kisshoumaru’s death.  Thus, Mototsune and Michizane’s relationship is awkward to say the least.  If his solo number is any indication, he really did consider the Sugawara brothers as friends and misses their childhood romps while regretful about the harm his dick younger brothers inflicted.  Mototsune hasn’t completely gone to the dark side yet, perhaps due to him being a distant relative adopted into the main branch of the Fujiwaras or his youth.  Him and Takako are on the same boat as adoptees from a lesser branch of the family so he is more sympathetic and softer towards her.  He’s also willing to give respect when it is due, even if it is for the opposition.

Those are the characters worth mentioning.  The supporting cast do their jobs.  The two child characters are comic relief running around to sing the praises of Michizane’s genius.  Groups of women serve to showcase how corruption has disenfranchised the poor or as fangirls to promote Narihira’s star stud status.  The Sugawara household are a wholesome and supportive family who are scholarly and down to earth.  The Fujiwara household is…evil.  I joke but they portray a toxic and strained family.  Half are spoiled, despotic fools hiding behind the family name while the other half are miserable, calculating souls forced to make sacrifices and make up the slack of the former.  The emperor is young, naïve, and weak.  But he is always that way in any media featuring the corrupt Fujiwara puppeteering the throne (an actual stretch of history Japanese media love to defer to).  Overall, a strong cast from Tsukigumi!

Plot:

Story wise, it was a good opening but as the manga is ongoing and probably quite lengthy, it feels like we just completed an arc.  The arc is specifically about a demon parade harassing the streets of Heian-kyo that kills hapless citizens caught in its path.  By imperial decree among other circumstances, our main characters find themselves working together to stop the murders and uncover the truth of the matter.  The mystery of murder-ghosts was resolved but a lot of the interpersonal conflicts remained open-ended.  And what I mean by resolution is the streets are safe again now that the murderers are arrested but we never learn the motive or discover the mastermind.  In this respect, the musical did end a bit abruptly.  Regardless, I enjoyed the pacing, intrigue, and story immensely.

The plot was quite rich.  There is the main plot of why there’s a demon parade abducting people at night.  Michizane deduces this is a more earthly problem and together with his crew they catch the culprits.  Additionally, we are given lots of political intrigue with a naïve young Emperor being controlled by the Fujiwara clan.  Papa-Fujiwara is such a social climber he’s adopting all his country bumpkin relatives to be his pawns in court.  His heir is an adopted son and now he’s acquired a new daughter he’s trying to shove into the emperor’s harem.  Someone wants the emperor dead and someone is using the emperor for their own ends, all fingers point to the Fujiwaras but they are untouchable.  There are many layers to this show.

The character relationships are also complicated and the conflicts hit in the feels.  The main character is disenchanted with the Japanese court and is struck with wanderlust so strong he wants to go abroad and explore broader horizons.  He has big dreams and genius to match but is hampered by politics and domestic issues.  Reiko explains all of this in song form!  You have hard-working and practical Shouki who may be doing some shady business but the economy is bad and the system is against her.  Narihira and Takako are pining for each other, but are unable to reconcile their duty to family and their own pride.  Theirs is a bittersweet ending.  Mototsune has a lot of internal conflict to sort through but being a corrupt politician is hard work.  The list goes on.  I wasn’t moved to tears but was invested in the characters.

The musical is definitely plot driven.  I had more of an impression of that and the character development than I did of the musical numbers, which informed the story rather than serve as earworms.  The diegetic dance sequence in the imperial court was the only memorable number.  This was a grand dance number where Takako was meant to perform and seduce the emperor.  Then it transitions to the investigating trio being forced to duet together while they try to protect the emperor from assassination without ruining the banquet.  Lots of flashy bird costumes in this scene.  The court ladies are doing some sort of crane or heron dance with not-Takako at the center in a silver crane costume equipped with anachronistically showgirl style headdress.  Then Michizane and Shouki perform what appears to be a mandarin duck dance (based on the costume) but are interrupted due to Murphy’s law and lots of plots so Narihira has no choice but to take Shouki’s place.  Read into that what you will.  While the emperor has his attention on the stage within the stage, the audience is focused on the surrounding intrigue.

Overall, I quite liked it.  Now I will go read the manga and see how it compares.

The Carnival of the Sea Gods

After such an amazing show, I was underwhelmed by the revue.  Deep Sea?  More like “Glitter Cabaret.”  The theme was very subtle, which can be creative genius or WTF.  It was leaning towards the latter for me.  There were some ideas I liked such as the jellyfish tailcoats and personified pearls representing inspiration, courage, and hope.  The Mariana Trench episode was an interesting direction… Not all the ideas hit.  There were some snappy tunes but nothing memorable.  Lots of spicy Latin flavor such as tango, frills, spurned lovers, etc as advertised.  This revue was very shiny.  Blindingly so at times.  That is my biggest impression of it.

The revue was a hit-or-miss, but that is just my opinion.  My neighbors were significantly more impressed.  Amazingly enough, I was surrounded by sweaty dudes.  One grandpa was camped out with all his binoculars including a piece of equipment fit for birdwatching.  He was regularly switching between binoculars during both show and revue.  Another gentleman was clearly looking for a specific seito, perking up at specific times.  All the gentlemen fans noticeably leaned forward during the rockettes number.  No judgment there, Takarazuka entertains all!

[rk1kheadcanons]

Markus and Connor are secret dating b/c Connor doesn't wanna be out to the world yet. The Jericrew (-Connor) go drinking and Markus gets *drunk* and starts rambling about his boyf after he rebuffs an advance made by a lady at the bar super sappily, but no matter how hard the others press him, they just get "oh, his eyes are the color of warm chocolate..." answers as to who this boyf is

You would never know Markus was drunk.

He didn’t stutter or slur when he spoke, he didn’t sway or trip over his feet. He didn’t giggle goofily or speak overly loud. He was perfectly composed, as much the charismatic android sober as he was when he was intoxicated.

What he did do, however, was go on long monologues like a Shakespearian stage actor.

Which would be fine, if Markus’ favorite subject to wax poetic about wasn’t his mysterious boyfriend, whom he’d sworn not to reveal the identity of until they were ready. Which would also be fine, if that mysterious boyfriend wasn’t Connor, who was often sitting right next to him (and slowly but surely bluescreening his way into that big Windows XP wallpaper in the sky) as he sang and lathered compliment after compliment, steadily giving away clues that were so blatant that it was a miracle that no one had figured them out yet.

Markus never remembered what he’d done the next day, and whenever Connor mercilessly played back his memories, his poor lover was as embarrassed as he was apologetic. Connor could hardly begrudge him (frankly he didn’t know what sane person on this planet could ever begrudge Markus, but that was just Connor’s correct opinion). What could they even do about it? Should he demand Markus consciously control himself? It wasn’t like Connor was any better at it. Give the RK800 too many AMB’s (Adios Motherboards) and he would be on top of the nearest table and scream-singing his every professionally repressed emotion, regardless if it was a karaoke bar or not. Hence why he never imbibed more than he could handle when they were around their friends. The last thing he wanted to do was sloppily propose to Markus after a long and terrible rendition of K-Ci and JoJo.

And Connor wouldn’t dream of telling Markus to measure the contents of his drink like Connor did. Not when his breaks were so rare, and getting him to relax and let loose was like pulling teeth.

It was just in the cards that their big revelation as a couple would be in a random bar at 3AM, with Markus saying something along the lines of “my boyfriend’s name starts with a C and rhymes with Donner”, and Connor had made peace with that.

“Scarlet woman!” Markus cried, at some random bar at 3AM, surrounded by their drunken comrades. Ah, would this be the night? Connor thought, on the correct side of buzzed as he watched on from the table right next to them, a heady mix of dread and amusement running through his computer soul. “Jezebel! How d a r e you solicit my happily taken hand!”

The waitress, who looked like she regretted serving their table, let alone attempting to get the number from the happily taken hand, raised her hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry,” she said peaceably and with the calm air of someone who dealt with drunks as a job choice, “just trying to shoot my shot, ya know?”

Markus nodded at her magnanimously, because he was a kind and forgiving man even as a drunken buffoon. “Fret not. I pardon you of this most heinous slight, for if you knew the one to own my heart, you would understand that no other could compare.”

“Sure thing dude,” she said goodnaturedly, packing up and replacing drinks around their tables expertly, and parting with a “have a good night Romeo.”

“But who can no other compare to? WHOMST??” asked North, throwing her torso onto the table and looking up at Markus pleadingly.

“We’ve ruled out Jerry #451, Claudia, Baris from accounting, and Jerry #36,” Simon rattled off. He was looking down at a napkin that he had scribbled the names of all of their potential suspects. “I’ve got it. It’s Baris.”

North rolled her eyes. “We already said it wasn’t Baris.”

“Ohhh. Right, right.” Simon nodded his head and continued to not cross off the names of the people they had decided against, as he had been doing all night.

“How about you describe them a little?” Josh put in, reasonable, and therefore slightly less wasted than everyone else. “Hair color? Height? Eyes? Something?”

“Nay, I must not speak thusly!” Markus declared, back of his hand over his forehead and everything. “For if I were to tread down that forbidden road, I would surely not be able to stop myself from breaking our sacred oath of secrecy!”

“Oh my goOOOOOOOd I hate this fucking oaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaath,” North threw her head back and cried to heavens, which, considering her positon, was probably going to be hell on her neck come morning. “Come on! Break your oath! Be like Thor and wield oathbreaker goddamnit!”

“You might be thinking of Stormbreaker,” Connor added, the need to try and reason with alcoholics apparently embedded in his programming.

North narrowed her eyes at him, or rather his torso, since her chin was very resolutely still resting on the table. “If you think I’m thinking right now then you are drunker than I am.”

Connor lifted his barely touched glass to her in a toast because how dare she be lucid enough to clap back so quickly. A well deserved rebuttal fucking cheers.

“Glasses!” Josh exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “Do they wear glasses? That should narrow down some people.”

“That’s right! That’ll tell us if they’re an android or not. Androids don’t wear glasses! Our eyes are like...fucking...better and shit!”

“Unless….” Simon narrowed his eyes, pausing dramatically. “....they do.”

North gasped. Josh put his hands on either side of face, muttering; “holy fucking shit he’s right.”

Markus scoffed. “Their eyes do not hide behind paltry spectacles! His beautiful orbs, so soft and caring when his gaze lands upon my person, seeing into my very soul, are the warmest chocolate brown!”

‘Ah shit here we go,’ Connor thought, wishing not for the first time that he could just down his drink and join everyone else in blissful, idiotic cavorting. The soft, melodic piano and crooning words of All My Life playing over the speaker stayed his hand. Best not take any chances

“HE!” Simon burst out, tipping over in his chair. “He say he! Them is He!”

“Are we talkin’ Hershey’s or Dove?”

“Ghirardelli you fucking plebs!”

“Oi!” North banged her hand on the table so hard it left a handprint indented in the wood. It was one amongst many however, and not all of them left by their party. Such was the price for serving android drinks at a human bar - you either shelled out for sturdier furniture or the dents and chips became a charming aspect of your décor. “Don’t get spicy with us Sir Lancelot!”

“Apologies fair maiden,” Markus responded easily. He took her hand delicately and made a sweeping bow over it. “Alas, my passions got away from me.” He dropped her hand and whirled around, coat billowing with the movement and most assuredly by accident, placing both hands to his thirium pump. “Conjuring up the magnificent images that is the love of my life oft times sends my emotions into a tizzy! His hair; cloud like in my grasp as I run my fingers threw earthen chestnut tendrils - ”

‘Hhhhhhhhhhhhn so many adjectives Markus whyyyyyyyyyy,’ Connor wheezed internally. He didn’t bother trying to keep down his blush. Markus was nowhere near done laying on the compliments and he’d be subjecting himself to an endless loop of canceling the process. Besides, he could just blame it on the alcohol. Blame it on the a a a a a alcohol - wait no. What!? WHAT. Connor looked down at his drink and saw, to his mounting horror, that the glass was emptier than it had been a few minutes ago. Goddamn his automated rest mode cycle for transforming into fidgeting whenever he was nervous! He resolutely pushed the glass out of his immediate reach.

Nines, who was quietly sitting next to him, hunched over and taking notes on his own napkin, snapped his head up to attention when the glass brushed against his arm. His younger brother was looking from Connor to Markus, eyes narrowed suspiciously as Markus carried on. Connor didn’t like that look at all. It was always a risk inviting Nines to their little outings, the only thing Connor could bank on was Nines passing out - as his dear little bro was a notorious light weight - before his deductive skills could pierce through his drunken haze. Apparently Nines had chosen tonight of all nights, where Markus had never been more obvious about their relationship, to bloody pace himself.

If he could, Connor would be sweating bullets.

“ - a wit SO SHARP!!” Markus declared, foot now planted on his chair and shaking his fist to the ceiling as if it had insulted one of Carl’s paintings, “that neither an UNDEAD HOARD nor a POLITICIAN’S EGO could survive it’s precision strike!!”

“Brown hair, brown eyes, banger body, smarty pants, good at analyzing shit, likes animals” North listed off, holding a hand up and ticking a finger down. “Well that rules out all the Jerrys; they’re all redheads and they’re pretty aggressive about it - except for Jerry #86. Is your man-squeeze Jerry #86?”

“No no no last I heard Jerry #86 is dating Hatsume Miku’s bodyguard; Android Lucy Lawless.” said Simon.

“Tch. Lucky,” pouted North.

“Oh wow, she really kept that name huh?” Josh said, voice faint with wonder and disbelief. “That’s such a mouthful.”

“And who are you to question a Queen!?” snapped North.

“Huzzah and many blessings to the fortuitous couple!” Markus cheered, toasting a stein of frothy blue intoxication that looked as cartoonish as it did poisonous to the sky, knocking it back in several impressive gulps and slamming it back on the table. “BUT NEITHER OF THEM CAN COMPARE TO THE BEAUTY AND GRACE THAT IS MY LOVE!!” he boomed, louder and more British by the second. “WHO’S CURIOSITY AND INTELLECT A CHERISHED BOON TO I, BUT A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION TO HIS ENEMIES - !”

North slapped her hand on the table several times, the proverbial light bulb lighting up in her eyes - oh. No not proverbial. There was currently little lightbulb emojis pictured in her pupils. Yet another drunken download added to the bill. Connor was glad he’d drawn the long straw on ‘irresponsible buying duty’ tonight. No doubt there would be a lot of strange receipts to sort through in the morning. “Oh! I know I know! It’s Josh!”

So startled by this declaration/accusation, Josh jumped in his seat. “What!?”

“Brown hair, brown eyes, hot, obnoxious, smart - everything FITS!”

“...he didn’t say obnoxious,” Josh muttered, then physically shook sanity back into himself. “It can’t be me. I think I’d know if I was dating Markus!”

Simon leaned in closer towards Josh, arm on the table, determination in his mien. “But what if…” Without breaking eye contact with his friend, he smoothly cracked open his Thirium berry blast bahama mama banana punch wine cooler, and proceeded to pour it just two centimeters off from his glass, all over the table. “You don’t know.”

Josh was shook in the face of this evidence. North narrowed her eyes so hard that they were just closed at this point. “Highly suspicious.”

“No. Nooooo. No? No! Of course I’m not. Right Markus?”

Markus steepled his fingers together and cackled in a way that most people would find concerning, but Connor just found it adorable. He would saving that in his memory banks. “I’ll never tell~,” he sing songed.

“H i g h l y s u s p i c i o u s.”

“I know who it is,” Nines suddenly said, calm but with such confidence that he was easily heard amidst the ruckus. He had his elbows planted on the table, chin resting upon his entwined fingers. Steele grey eyes swept over the now quiet group, everyone waiting with baited breath.

“Grant us your wisdom ‘o soothsayer,” Markus whispered, eyes wide with anticipation and literally perched on the edge of his seat. Connor seriously measured the pros and cons of just throwing his portion of the tab on the table and yeeting himself out of the window.

“It’s Sixty.”

Immediately the room erupted into scoffs and hisses of disbelief. North gave him a thumbs down and cupped her hand to her mouth, letting a long, “Booooo!”

“Why are you booing me I’m right!”

“BoooOOooOOOOOoooooo!” Markus, Josh and Simon joined in.

Connor blinked, and suddenly felt all of his concerns about Nines’ being the lynch pin in solving this mystery evaporate. If Markus transformed into a C grade Shakespeare impersonator when drunk, and Connor subconsciously wanted to be recruited by America’s Got Talent, then Nines became a consummate dumbass.

“That’s it!” North exploded. “Ten dollars says it’s Jerry #92! I caught him in a wig once!” She stood up, her chair sliding back from the force, and slammed a note on the table.

Simon also stood up with equal intensity. “Twenty says it’s Josh!” He reached into his pocket and slammed its contents onto the table. When he removed his hand six lego pieces, a My Little Pony leg, and two actual diamonds were revealed. Connor hoped dearly that the bartender cut Simon off soon.

“It’s not me!” Josh said exasperated. He paused, then pointedly pulled out some money and threw it in the pot as well. “I put forty on Brenden.”

“Bull! Shit!” North declared. “Fitness guru Brenden!? No way!”

“He fits the criteria.”

“I doubt ‘How To Tell If An Android Has Welded on Parts from China vs Russia in their Selfies’ videos on his YouTube channel is the kind analysis Markus was talking about.”

“You don’t know that! He didn’t specify...”

As the two continued to argue, with Simon chiming in with some non sequitur, and Nines tutting about these ‘ignorant fools and their blindness to the evidence presented’, Connor looked over to Markus. He was quiet. He had his elbow perched precariously on the edge of the table, his cheek resting on his fist, a small hat (that was not there literally two minutes ago) was on his head, folded from one of the bar napkins.

And he was looking at Connor as if he hung the moon and stars.

‘How could the world not already know,’ Connor thought, soft and warm inside, happy merely to be in his line of sight, ‘When he looks at me like that?’

Connor picked up his glass and lifted it. “One hundred dollars on Sixty.”

Chaos erupted. Nines threw his arms up and hooted like he’d won the super bowl. Josh tried to explain to him how that was mathematically impossible. North shook her head and warned him that he would live on the streets with an answer like that. Simon pulled out a Yu-Gi-Oh! Card and said he would give him this Charizard if he agreed with him that Josh was Markus’ secret boyfriend. Connor withheld himself from trying to convince drunk people that this was not how betting worked.

Maybe Connor shouldn’t worry so much about their relationship being discovered after all. At this rate, no one would know about he and Markus being together until the wedding invites.

[wolverineteethhh-movedaccounts]

Welcome to crow being salty about minor characters that got chucked by the author because why the fuck not/ aka i rant about what i dont like what araki did with part 2

Word count: 937

Trigger warnings: mention of childbirth(as a comparison), body horror, character death, genocide and injury mentions(don’t read further if you are sensitive to the things mentioned)

Spoilers for JJBA part two for both the manga and anime

This isn’t professional in anyway this is for fun and im big mad.

Analysis under the cut:

We’re gonna start with the deeper plan arc because i am fucking going there

I don’t know, maybe I’m biased? But I really really didn’t like how Araki treated Esidisi as a plot device and plot device only. What the hell Crow, what do you mean by this? Well my dear reader who probably is also just as pissed as me, I mean looking at both the manga and anime he really did not get much agency during his stunted screen time. Araki only brought him back as a brain possessing someone else’s meat suit for exposition transporting our super duper important macguffin™️, otherwise he got his arm cut off by our protagonist and died after by some fucking wool. After that he really only paid him any mind for the flashback sequences in the final closing act where Kars gets chucked into space by some rocks and a volcano and when he becomes the ultimate being, cuing the narration introducing the pillar men as a species and the massacre, otherwise there’s no clear evidence on his death affecting the characters around him besides the red stone being transported to Switzerland(ie; Kars wondering where he went and why he didn’t call this time).

There’s a literary term for this and its called Fridging, coined after the green lantern comic where he finds his partner in his fridge left by the bad guy that killed her for him to find. Fridging happens to be scarily common in the writing of part 2, whether its Caesar dying without any closure or Kars wiping the floor with Lisa Lisa. There is the factor that Araki’s writing style wasn’t refined and laid out yet so there will be cheap throw aways and cliches about, but its also the fact that Fridging is used a lot in lots of other media often enough it gets tiring and leaves a bad taste in the audiences mouth. Fridging in its basis is supposed to make the more important character feel something and in turn the audience, but I find it hard to feel anything but annoyance and anger with how such a character with lots of story potential got thrown aside for the sake of forwarding the plot. His death is unceremonious and honestly super disappointing, Araki pulled a huge tell not show here with this arc. There’s a lot of talking and not a lot of significant action(besides the crying which I am super tired of dudebros making fun of the character for it tbh, let the man cry I’m sure if you got your arm amputated by something almost as painful as say childbirth you’d be crying too, if not unconscious) anyways, Araki barely utilizes him as a foil for Kars or anything, he’s just there to face Joseph two times and die for the plots sake.

One of the biggest culprits is the time span of Battle tendency itself(ifrc is about a month) which doesn’t give a lot of breathing room for those who aren’t the coveted main character, they get a flashback sequence, a tidbit from the narrator and if they’re lucky their own monologue before they’re sent off to dead character jail. In this case we only get hints implied by the narrative and things said by the character himself (ie; Esi going on his Sun Tzu tirade which implies he was travelling in east Asia at some point in time) which gives us very minimal information that doesn’t really help us get to know him better. The lack of filler in both the source material and more-so the anime adaption really doesn’t help either, things are simply implied to happen off screen with very little explanation. Hell we don’t even get to see a fuller extent of his abilities during the fight, maybe just 3 or more things before he gets bested. All we can really do is go off of the things vaguely inferred by the plot before during and after, again there’s way more telling than actual showing and the tells are very vague and minuscule.

Expanding on this it feels like its more montages than actually substance, which did way more hurt for the story in the long run when like part 8 has ran on for 10 entire years. Part 2 and more infamously part 5 feels like a fever dream with how both stories are paced. A month feels like its only a sliver of a week if not just a couple days, when in reality 30 days should slug on a little more.

I’m gonna go deeper, looking at how the writing has exposed the author’s hand.

No author is free from bias or having favourite characters, honestly I’m guilty as charged with this. Jojo’s chronological order that doesn’t stay with one story makes for a special perspective on how we view the characters. The stories are all different but fall on the same timeline(counting the alternate timeline part 7 and 8 are from), from victorian era England to a fictional Japanese town in the early 2000’s. Araki himself has stated he has forgotten characters he has written at times. But I’m finding that if the characters aren’t the main protagonists he tends to focus less on them, good writing lends to treating the characters as if they’re all the heroes of their own stories. Which I find lacklustre with some of Araki’s earlier writing.

I just honestly wish there was less characters getting Fridged/vagueness and more information about the characters and getting to know them better. There are so many things I want to change about part 2 but in the end i still love it, but the faults in the story make it hard to consume. For now im stuck making headcanons and writing fanon for myself and for whoever may be interested.

….Ok bye

[alaric-greyson]

A Fan Review of “Rings of Power”

Rings of Power launched this week and immediately finds itself locked in a conversation that makes it hard to really get a sense of what’s real criticism and what’s a social and/or political statement about the show.  I figured some folks here might appreciate a relatively focused review from a more casual fan of the source material.

The TLDR: I like the show and think it has done a good job so far, but also recognize that it’s probably easier for Lore-experts to think of it as the equivalent to Tolkien Historical Fiction rather than thinking of it as an attempt to perfectly portray what we know of the canon of the Second Age.  

For lore-focused fans it would be like medieval historians watching something like Orlando Bloom’s “Kingdom of Heaven” where plenty of historical fact exists, but is in service to making a good movie rather than perfectly reflecting the events leading to the 3rd Crusade.

Since any review of this show is overshadowed by the concerns about its canonical or political relevance I figured I’d throw out my lack of qualifications to judge the review.  

From a Tolkien-specific point of view, I’m a significant fan of Tolkien but not to the level of amateur or professional scholar of the material.  I’ve read the Silmarillion a dozen times over the years at least, but I only ever dipped my toes into the more extended collections of writing (though I’ve gotten lost in a few wiki-dives on characters over the years).  So I have a pretty extensive knowledge of the lore, but largely the surface stuff, not the deep lore.

From a political/social space I’m a left leaning cis straight white male from the US.  So you won’t get any complaints about the racial or gender make-up of the show, but I almost certainly have blindspots. For example:  I saw some complaints about accents being assigned to specific groups of characters, but simply don’t know enough about British regional accents and the associated social implications to recognize any controversy over it.

Casting:  The casting ranges from good to fine.  The Elves of Lindon feel more “real” then Elrond or Galadriel did in the movies but that’s clearly an intentional choice as they’re major characters here rather than mysterious and magical encounters.  While I generally like Elrond, Galadriel, and Arondir, a lot of the supporting Elves are a tad bland.  Dwarves, Harfoots, and Humans all have pretty good casting for their main characters.  We haven’t seen as much of their respective supporting casts.  There’s so far no one who irritates me every time they’re on screen (as a bad actor as opposed to making dumb choices).

My only real objection comes down to “it’s a TV series” and that’s that at times the world seems unpopulated at times.  Beautiful and soaring establishing shots move into rooms with only a handful of people present.

Lore:  

As I mentioned I’m a surface Lore fan.  Because of this I spotted some lore inconsistencies that bugged me at times.  Some could be easily explained (Galadriel monologuing about the Noldor going after Morgoth just skips right over the Kinslaying, which seems like something she’d do).  Others were just off but I just made some sarcastic comments to myself.  My only really big lore objection that actively bugged me was Valinor’s “modern” portrayal.  You could easily explain around it if you wanted to “repair” the lore but they seemed to me to be treating it more as a magical Heaven rather than as an actual navigational destination you could go to.  It’s not remotely a deal breaker...but the whole sequence sort of bugged me.

Plot:  

The plot itself is only just beginning but they’re clearly trying to build out the world to tell stories in it.  As much as I commented that the TV budget leaves some of the world feeling unpopulated, the same has always been a bit of a pet peeve of mine about Tolkien himself in the Silmarillion.  The stories of the First and Second Ages that we know of tend to be about small numbers of named individuals, and then an indeterminate number of other people who are following them.  That’s completely in line with the genre conventions he was aiming for, but it has its negatives.

The show is making sure to build out six or seven distinct communities of characters so that the plot can be built by all of them, rather than limited to a handful of Elves and Numenoreans.  Because of that it’s a little disjointed at the moment, but also implies that the seven or so main characters so far are eventually going to cross paths.

The plot itself is also built on an era we know very little about, namely the time between the end of the First Age and Sauron returning.  They’ve clearly decided to lean on one of the classic “Evil is dead and can never return” tropes, with our heroes being the wise ones who see the danger.  I suspect they’ll be “squashing” the timeline a bit since thousands of years would likely remove some of the characters they’ve already created.

So is it good?:  

It’s fine.  After two episodes I have no reason to stop watching it.  My lore-based pet peeves are easy enough to disregard, and I actively like a couple of the characters.  We’re obviously about to get some Numenoreans in the next episode, and that will give us another set of neat establishing shots.  

If you don’t want to watch it for moral or political reasons...don’t.  This is a nice enough show but I don’t see it turning into the dominant fandom of the moment the way Game of Thrones or Good Omens did on their respective releases. There’s no social obligation to watch this, or to support the creators.

If you’re a lore-first fan, you’ll absolutely have to be able to check that instinct at the door before watching.  There’s no question they’re modifying and messing with timelines, events, and characters. Depending on who one mysterious character is could throw things wildly out of whack.  Some lore-fans will be able to appreciate what the creators are aiming for with the changes...but a lot of the others are just going to hate the adaption of the canon.  If you can think of it as historical fiction for Middle Earth you might be able to enjoy it more.  But as with others, there’s no obligation to watch it if you don’t want to.

[puckinghell]

today i heard someone say "i don't wanna date, i just want my best friend to fall in love with me" and i thought it would make a really good fic!!! maybe you could write it with petey, for his birthday?

That’s a really cute idea. Just a little blurb but hopefully you like it!!

--

You love the boys, you really do, but…

“Shut up, Brock,” you hiss, slamming your beer glass down on the table with a little too much force. Some of the contents sloshes over the edge, but you know Brock is about to buy you a new one: after everything that he’s done tonight, it’s the least he can do.

“Why?” Brock asks, puppy eyes in full effect. “I’m just asking a question!”

What Brock is doing, actually, is opening a can of worms you really don’t want to get opened. You’re good at keeping your feelings close to your chest, have been good at that for ages.

You kinda had no choice. Falling in love with your best friend is dangerous stuff, especially when he’s really not interested in that at all, and you can’t be caught slipping up.

So you don’t go there, normally. But it’s obvious, really, to anyone with eyes. Brock likes to tease you that the sun shines out of your eyes whenever you look at Elias, and Troy simply raises his eyebrows in judgmental manner whenever you stare at Elias a little too long.

And unfortunately, your friends don’t have enough of a moral compass to refrain from teasing you about it.

“You’re not just asking a question,” you quote Brock sarcastically. “You’re being annoying.”

It’s always fun to go out with the boys, so whenever Elias asks you to tag along on their bar crawls, you always say yes. Somehow the topic got turned to your dating life, however, and the only reason you haven’t stabbed Brock to death with the umbrella that came in Jake’s cocktail is that Elias as last seen being beat into the ground at pool by Jacob, so he’s not here to hear about your pathetic love life – or lack thereof.

“I just think,” Brock starts, voice betraying the beginning of a monologue, “that if you’re not gonna do anything about your feelings for Petey, you have to try and get over him. And getting over someone works best when you get under someone else.” He points towards the general area of the bar. “There’s guys there! Just pick one.”

Jake snorts. “It’s not a supermarket, Boes. She can’t just pick up random guys and hope one’s good enough.”

“Exactly,” you say, thankful to have at least one person on your side. The happiness lasts for about a second, because then Jake clearly decides to betray you.

“But I don’t think it’s a bad idea to go on some dates.”

“Really, Tuna, you too?” you frown, putting as much betrayal as you can into your voice. He has the decency to at least look a little sheepish.

“Just a few dates. You don’t know what could happen.”

“I don’t wanna go on dates!” Frustration is ringing clear in your voice. “That might be fun for you, being professional athletes, rich, hot, and men, but going on dates for me means telling my friends exactly where I’m gonna be at whatever time during the night because I’m worried about getting murdered. It means having nothing to talk about and sitting through 3 hours of silence, or listening to men brag about their accomplishments while not even bothering to learn my name. Going on dates isn’t fun.”

You stubbornly cross your arms. Brock and Jake are staring at you with wide eyes, as if you’ve said something crazy; you groan.

“I don’t want to go on dates with random people, I want my best friend to fall in love with me!”

There’s a sharp intake of breath behind you. Normally you probably wouldn’t even notice it, but this one is a little too familiar to be ignored. Within a split second, you realize why Jake and Brock were staring.

Elias is standing behind you, looking at you with confused eyes. His hands are limply by his side.

Oh no.

“Oh no,” Brock says.

“Elias,” you start, but the sentence dies on your lips. What could you say? I didn’t mean it would be a lie, I can explain would lead into something you really don’t want to do.

For a second, Elias seems to be at a loss for words, which is not something that happens to your best friend a lot.

“I’m your best friend,” he says finally, and it’s like the words are sinking into his brain at the exact moment he speaks them. His eyes widen, realization settles into his features, and suddenly you can’t do this.

You can’t watch the horror take over his face, you can’t hear the pity in his voice as he tries to let you down gently. You can’t take Brock and Jake’s sorrowful look of guilt.

So you book it: you throw yourself out of the booth before anyone can say anything and all but run towards the exit of the bar, bumping into Marky on the way out.

“Y/N?” he calls after you, clearly worried, but you don’t stop.

Tears are starting to make their way to your eyes and you don’t want anyone to see that. Instead, you push the door open. Cold winter air hits you in the face and you feel it in your lungs as you inhale.

For a second, it calms you down enough that you have the mind to grab your phone and open the Uber app.

You should’ve expected Elias to follow you, but for some reason it still comes as a surprise when you hear his footsteps behind you.

It’s a little weird, maybe, that you would recognize his footsteps, that you would know it’s him before you’ve seen or heard him. But he’s so familiar that your body reacts to him even without your knowledge, muscles relaxing when he silently stands next to you.

Normally, you would lean against him, in a situation like this. This time you stare stoically ahead.

There’s chatter coming from inside the bar, but it’s quiet outside. It’s cold, but the night is clear. It’s a lovely set of juxtapositions, you suppose, like the way your heart is breaking at the hands of your favorite person; your best friend, who has done nothing wrong.

Suddenly you feel something warm, featherlight against your fingers. Elias’ hands are rough with callouses but they are gentle, and when he carefully and oh so slowly threads his fingers through yours, you don’t stop him. You don’t pull away. You should, probably, but God, you don’t want to.

If everything is going to change, you can allow yourself this memory, of getting so close to what you wanted.

“I don’t like going on dates either,” Elias says out of nowhere. His voice is soft but it cuts through the quiet night anyway.

It’s not at all what you expected him to say, and it startles a laugh out of you. When you look up, there’s a content tug to his lips, like he’s pleased to hear your laughter.

“But I like going on dates with you.”

Those words are even more unexpected and the laughter dies on your lips. Confusion takes over. “Elias, we’ve never been on a date.”

Elias hums. He takes a while to respond. “Haven’t we, though?” he asks, finally. “We’ve been to lots of restaurants, cinemas. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners. Movie nights at home. We’ve gone skating, hiking, golfing.” He grins. “Taken romantic strolls through the park.”

You snort. “Taking Brock’s dogs for a walk isn’t a romantic stroll.”

Elias’ response is quick. “But it could be.”

You don’t have a reply for that. Your heart is beating in your chest a million miles an hour; you feel like you can’t breathe, because it feels like Elias is saying something you couldn’t ever imagine hearing him say.

“Y/N.” Elias’ voice is soft, but urgent, so you focus back on him. “You’re my best friend.”

“I know.” And you do: you wouldn’t ever doubt that, you know what you mean to him.

“That’s why it’s scary. Because I don’t want to lose you if it goes wrong. But that’s also why it’s not scary at all, right? Because we’ve been doing this for a long time, we just didn’t put a name to it.” He shrugs, easily, like his words aren’t turning your whole world upside down. “But I already know I’m my happiest when I’m with you, and I know I always want to spend all of my time with you.”

Your head snaps up. When your eyes catch his, there’s nothing there but truth and honesty. Hope lights up inside your heart like a beacon of light.

“You said… You said you want your best friend to fall in love with you.” Elias smiles, small and private, but happy. “But I already did that a long time ago.”

Like a tidal wave of happiness, a smile spreads across your face. You’re about to step in, to finally kiss Elias like you’ve been wanting all that time, when a car pulls up.

“You already ordered an Uber for us?” Elias says, tone teasing and light. “Someone is eager.”

“I didn’t say you were invited,” you snap, but Elias simply laughs because in reality you both know that he’s invited.

You think for the past few years, there was never a place you went that Elias wasn’t invited to.

“I suppose I could just go,” Elias trails, and you latch onto his hands tightly, keeping them firmly in your own.

He’s not going anywhere, not if it’s up to you. And when he squeezes your hand in the back of the Uber, you’re pretty sure he’s not going anywhere if it’s up to him, either.

[amethystkarl]

Sunflower Feelings -- Sapnap x f!oc

Hi friends, mcyt fic debut here! This is a fic I am in the progress of writing for a friend, so please bear that in mind if you choose to read. Most aspects have been requested, I just also decided to upload here for feedback and funsies.

If you do read, I hope you enjoy and come back for more when I eventually have it! :D This is essentially Dream and Sapnap Get a Roommate: The Sitcom.

Friendly reminder that of course, this is both purely fictional and loosely based on content uploaded by these creators. Please respect both their and my boundaries by not sending/tagging creators.

prologue.

chapter 1.

chapter 2.

chapter 3.

iv. “I’m so lost in you, in all that you do.”

Dream is in one of those moods where he just babbles his internal monologue out loud. The statement comes out of nowhere, and Sarah’s head snaps up from her phone at record speed. Nick sits quietly, eyebrows raised in amusement. They’re all hanging out in Dream’s room, as he woke up sick and whiny and unwilling to move, but also unwilling to be alone.

Come to think of it, the exorbitant amount of cold medicine in the man’s system is probably a contributing factor to what he says. “Sarah, you should stream with us sometime.”

“Absolutely not.” The speed of her answer surprises both boys, and they exchange a look as she shakes her head. “That many people being aware of my existence is. . . horrifying.”

“It still is, kind of,” Nick says absently. Sarah turns to look at him, head cocked slightly.

“What do you me--” Sarah cuts herself off, gesturing in frustration. “Not what do you mean, I mean, why. . . why do you do it? If it’s scary?” She huffs, throwing her hands up as she searches for the right words. Nick is patient, wanting to respect her full thought and willing to wait until she can articulate it properly. Dream giggles, definitely loopy from accidentally taking NyQuil instead of DayQuil. Sarah shakes her head.

“Ugh, okay, let me start over. What I’m asking, I think, is what do you love about streaming? Like, what makes streaming as a career worth the scary parts?” She smiles, finally satisfied with her question, and Nick takes a moment. He racks his brain, wanting desperately to match her thoughtfulness. Dream has been distracted by the sitcom playing on his TV, so Sarah and Nick just lower their voices. She sits cross-legged on the end of Dream’s bed, facing the office chair Nick is slowly swiveling back and forth in.

“It’s not so much about the streaming itself.” Nick pauses again, forming his words carefully and deliberately. Sarah is staring at him, listening intently, and her gaze is not helping his thought process. Nick takes a breath.

“Okay, like, it is insane that my job is just. . . playing games with my friends. Of course it’s more than that, with merch and YouTube and whatever, but at its core, I’m just hanging out with my friends, professionally.” Sarah nods, brow slightly furrowed as she listens. He wants to kiss the little wrinkle between her eyebrows away.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m so thankful for the supporters I have, like I am literally nothing without them behind me. I just--” Nick echoes Sarah’s earlier gestures, striving for more eloquence than he has in his entire school career. “I just feel like I’m under a microscope sometimes, and getting to do what I love on my own time with the people I love is honestly always worth all the. . . scary stuff.” He stares at his fingers, suddenly embarrassed at his own earnesty.

“No, that makes perfect sense.” Sarah nods slowly, and Nick raises his head to meet her eyes with his. “That’s a feeling that a lot of people spend their entire lives searching for.”

Nick smiles, happy he got his point across well. She hasn’t stopped staring at him though, and Nick isn’t sure what to do. He is definitely imagining things. Or maybe he’s not, he literally can’t tell anymore, but it definitely feels like Sarah is looking directly at his mouth. And he really wants it to be true, because he can feel himself starting to lean forward, and holy shit there’s no way this is actually about to happen--

He’s right. Nothing is about to happen. Because his stupid, big dumb idiot of a best friend snores. Dream must have fallen asleep during him and Sarah’s conversation, and the combination of both his sitting-up sleeping position and his impressively clogged sinuses produce the loudest, grossest, mid-snore snort he has ever heard in his life.

“Oh my god, I think his snot is alive,” Sarah stage-whispers, giggling through her face of mild disgust. Nick’s entire body relaxes in relief as he realizes Sarah didn’t even notice him reading way too far into the previous moment. He laughs and helps her get off the bed quietly, Sarah using him to lean on as not to disturb their pitiful roommate.

Once they make it safely out of the room, Nick lets out a burst of laughter, clapping a hand over his mouth as Sarah giggles next to him. They wander into the kitchen, bumping their shoulders together as they take turns exchanging glances. Sarah takes a few steps ahead as she stands in the kitchen, hands on her hips and back to Nick. She takes a moment before clapping her hands together and turning to him.

“We’re going to make chicken soup.” Nick’s eyes widen.

“. . . we?” Sarah nods firmly, and Nick tries not to smile too hard as her fingers wrap around his wrist and pull. They knock shoulders again, and Sarah turns to him, pointing to the fridge.

“Yes, we. Grab that leftover rotisserie chicken from the fridge please, there should be leeks and carrots in the drawer.” Nick nods, immediately eager to please as he opens the refrigerator door. He’s nervous, which is pretty usual standard for being in Sarah’s presence; but, it’s different this time. For one, he wants to kiss her even more now, after getting so close. He also wants to impress Sarah, and if he can’t be great at cooking, he can definitely be great at listening.

“C’mere, I’ll show you how I want the slices.” Nick is entranced as Sarah pulls the cutting board closer to her, deft hands grabbing 2 onions from the counter before segmenting one of them into paper-thin cuts. He marvels at how she can move so fast and yet so precisely. Marvels so closely, he almost misses her eyes searching his, hand poised to hand the knife over. “See?”

“Uh, yeah,” his voice is soft, matching hers on instinct. He closes his fingers over the knife handle without breaking eye contact, fingers itching to stay as they brush hers in the exchange. He wants to imagine the pads of her fingers glide over the back of his hand for longer than they should’ve; he wants to, but he turns and dutifully begins to slice, willing the back of his neck to cool down.

“How about the carrots?” Nick’s voice is soft, and he’s shy in a way he hasn’t been since they first met. That’s the thing about Sarah: she can make anyone feel comfortable with her, even him. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable. Rather, she just makes him so damn nervous. He feels like a child again, amazed by the smallest of things.

He’s amazed by Sarah’s hair, as she sweeps it up into a loose ponytail. Her eyes, flitting between the pot of stock waiting to boil and the chicken carcass she’s nimbly stripping of meat, shreds of chicken being relocated to a small mixing bowl. Her hands, delicately dropping the bones into the pot. Her back, arching slightly as she reaches into the spice cabinet over her head. Her skin, illuminated by the sun glowing through the kitchen window.

“Almost done with those?” Sarah asks, gesturing towards the cutting board with a wooden spoon. Nick suppresses a laugh as droplets of chicken stock flick over the counter.

“Yup. Here?” Nick points to the stock pot, and Sarah grins, impressed.

“Correct, thank you Nicholas.” Sarah tips an imaginary hat in his direction. Nick mirrors the movement.

“M’lady.” A laugh bursts from Sarah, and she rolls her eyes playfully.

“Not the fedora, no,” she whines, drawing out the last vowel. Nick laughs as he scrapes the sliced veggies off of the cutting board and into the pot. Sarah’s eyes are trained on her stock as she drops an herb bundle inside, nodding to herself as she covers the pot. As she explains her process of making chicken soup to Nick, he tries to listen. He tries really hard.

But it’s close to twilight, and the setting sun is making Sarah look really pretty right now. The flyaway ends of her loosely tied hair look golden awash in the kitchen window, and Nick does not remember taking a creative writing class in high school, but he wants to write a poem to describe what Sarah looks like right now. Her face is relaxed, happy as she chatters on about the best noodles for chicken soup–”. . .pappardelle, that like, really wide spaghetti noodle? Underrated choice, not to mention–”

“Oh shit, Sarah.” Nick manages to tear his eyes away from her impassioned face when he hears sizzling. The water for said pasta has boiled over, watered-down foam sliding down the sides of the pan and hitting the stovetop. Sarah curses and turns down the heat, and Nick takes the moment to steel himself,

Stop staring at your roommate, you’re being creepy and weird.

He’s not sure how, but they’ve managed to make a really good chicken noodle soup. Well, it was more of Sarah cooking and Nick watching so he guesses it’s not that big of a mystery. Here he is again, just watching as she ladles the steaming broth into a large glass tupperware. She’s so sure, not a drop spilled as she portions out 3 bowls from the bottom of the massive pot.

“Can you. . .?” Sarah gestures her arms up towards the pot, and Nick crosses the distance in 2 strides. He lifts the pot and pours, careful not to shove his arm under Sarah’s chin as she uses the wooden spoon to scrape the last of the chicken from the bottom of the pot. He doesn’t even realize he’s holding his breath until his vision starts to waver, and his biceps tighten like a vice as he fears dropping the cooking vessel. Sarah thanks him and slides her arms away just in time for Nick to place the pot back on the stove and take a few deep breaths, fighting to keep his chest steady so Sarah doesn’t notice.

Christ dude, get it together.

Luckily, Dream has evidently woken up and smelled something cooking, and his text in their group chat distracts both him and Sarah. They spend the rest of the day eating soup and watching TV in Dream’s room, playing cards when they get bored of the TV, and GoPuffing more tissues when Dream uses them all. And if some microwave popcorn and candy make their way into the GoPuff cart, it’s fine. Secret movie night in Dream’s room after he falls asleep is fine. Sarah falls asleep on the floor, slumped against Nick’s shoulder and it’s honestly, fine.

Chapter title cred: lost in you by khai dreams

[joshuas]

sue me

♫ pairing: han jisung x gender neutral reader

♫ genre: college/university student!au, slice-of-life, crack, fluff, best friends to lovers

♫ word count: 3.9k

♫ warnings: nil of note!

♫ summary: just chaos and lawsuits?

♫ tagging: @fluffyskzclub​

♫ a/n: the seventh addition to my christmas drabbles! i don’t really know what i’m doing anymore ;-;

♫ skz christmas drabbles: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

The door jingled as three figures huddled through the store together,

“It’s so cold!” One of them — Jeongin, exclaimed, bringing your attention to them from your organising,

“Lucky it’s warm in here. Hey, guys!” You waved as they approached, looking at the display of records and CDs behind you.

“Y/N!” Jisung approached you first, pulling you in for your signature handshake.

The taller boy, Seungmin, scoffed, looking down on the two of you,

“I can’t believe the two of you still do that elaborate greeting.”

“You’re just salty that you haven’t been friends with someone since childhood and had the awesomeness to come up with something like this.” Jisung defended.

Bitterness bubbled in your stomach,

Right. Friends.

The two of you had established your friendship way back in daycare when you lent Jisung your crayons... reluctantly, at that. But you were kind of desperate to make friends, so you accepted his request. What you had underestimated though, were his motives. Jisung had no intention on actually giving your crayons back. Long story short, hair was pulled, paper was thrown, including scissors at one point, all resulting in Jisung eating your crayons so that you would never get them back. You had never been more shocked in your entire life... well you were two-years-old, so there wasn’t much that you had experienced. However, your parents, after hearing of this fight, insisted on taking you to visit Jisung in the hospital (he had just digested crayons, it’d be concerning if he didn’t at least get it checked out), giving him a CD of your favourite songs for him to listen to. How a two-year-old was supposed to appreciate that was beyond you, but when he came back to daycare with a set of colour pencils and drew pictures beside you, the two of you were inseparable since.

However, once you had gotten into university, the two of you had exchanged more than friendly comments, making you reconsider his place as your best friend after all. I mean, did he make your heart flutter? Yes. Did you miss him whenever he wasn’t around, even when he was being a pain? Yes. Was he incredibly talented, handsome and amazing that you couldn’t help but fall for him?... Yes! You had been trying to figure out ways to hint to him what you really thought of him, but he was about as clueless as Cher in the movie Clueless. And seeing as New Years was round the corner, you had resolved to yourself that you’d confess to him as one of your New Years resolutions... It was now just a question of how...

As Jisung pulled you in for the final part - a hug, you inhaled his familiar scent, interrupting your internal monologue, your mind calming from its racing, seconds before.

“How may I help you guys today?” You brushed your clothes, trying to maintain an air of professionalism.

“Jisung dragged us all the way here to get some of your famous ramen.” Jeongin explained, sighing.

“You came all the way to a music store... to try my ramen?” You asked confusedly.

“I don’t understand the logic behind it as well. But we did come all this way, in the snow as well.” Seungmin looked at you pointedly.

“...okay. Wait here, I’ll make it.”

“Oh my god, I love you Y/N,” Jisung called out as you went to the staff room, your heart skipping a beat at his comment.

Sighing, you turned on the kettle,

Why is he like this? How does crayon eating boy have this much power over me?

“Be careful, it’s hot!” You passed the steaming bowls of ramen and chopsticks to each of the boys, as the four of you sat around the till.

Bowl dangerously balanced on his elevated leg as he tried to pull apart the wooden chopsticks, Jisung flashed you a grateful smile,

“You know, Y/N, one day you’re going to make someone extremely happy with—“ He yelped as he jolted from the force of taking the wooden chopsticks apart, the bowl tipping off his leg and onto the carpeted floor. The red ramen soup soaking into the light carpet, staining it.

“Oh no! Y/N, I’m so sorry!” Jisung exclaimed, frantically grabbing at tissues from the counter, dabbing them on the ground.

You bit back a smile,

Of course, it was Jisung. But ugh it’s going to be a pain to get that dry cleaned...

“I might just have to sue you for that!” You said sarcastically.

Jisung looked at you wide-eyed,

“Oh! I— isn’t there anything else I can do? I can help out at the store for the rest of the break!” Jisung said frantically.

“Ohhh, no I’ll have to have sue you. Company policy.” You hid a smile, deciding to tease him further.

“Oh. Um, okay.” He blinked, unaware, “Let me just get a lawyer to represent me— Seungmin! You’re a lawyer, right? You need to represent me for this case.” Jisung grabbed Seungmin’s arm, looking at him pleadingly,

“I’ve literally only had one class and isn’t this a jo—“ Seungmin broke off as you stared him down, imploring him to partake in the practical joke you were playing on the other boy.

You sighed, “Okay. Seems like it’s sorted. We’ll meet up in two weeks. Hopefully, you’ll have your money ready, because I’m going to win this.”

“It’s Opposite Day. So you won’t, and I will, okay?” Jisung gave you a quick smile, dragging Seungmin towards the door.

“But, my ramen!” Seungmin complained.

“No time, we need to win.” Jisung dragged Seungmin out of the store.

You shared a glance with Jeongin,

This is going to be interesting...

“You aren’t a parent, nor a teacher, what are you doing here?” Jeongin warily watched you approach, narrowly avoiding the little kids running through your path.

“I need your help.” You said solemnly.

“How did you know I was doing work experience at the daycare?” Jeongin raised an eyebrow sceptically.

“Believe it or not, Seungmin can be extremely candid and direct when Jisung is harassing him on the other side of a phone call. Also, you’re working towards your teaching degree. It doesn’t seem too weird that you’re working at a daycare.” You noted, taking in your surroundings.

“Oh, alright. What can I help you with?” Jeongin said reluctantly.

“I need you to dress up like an old businessman and pretend to be my lawyer.” You said quickly, thrusting a back-rubbing cane into his hands before getting ready to bolt.

“Wait! Why?” Jeongin looked at you sceptically yet again.

You sighed,

“Look, I need Jisung to think it’s the real deal, otherwise...” You stopped, squinting at the two figures attempting to act casual outside the daycare.

“Oh my god, are they spying on us?”

“It was most definitely Jisung’s idea.” Jeongin joined you, staring as Jisung attempted to casually lean against a car, trying to converse with a stony-faced Seungmin, not long before setting off the car alarm and yelling at Seungmin to run.

You watched the two of them take off,

“Looks like we’ll need to up our game, Mr Yang. Or should I say... Prosecutor Yang?” You smiled pleadingly at him.

“Fine...”

“Let me get this straight, we’re spying on them now even though this whole lawsuit thing isn’t actually going to happen?” Jeongin asked, bringing his jacket closer to him as he entered the University café.

“Well, it’s not like we can’t put any effort in because then we’d be admitting defeat to this... joke? Regardless, we need to win.” You pushed your cap further down after nodding at Chan in acknowledgment.

You sat down in a secluded area of the café, Chan approaching to greet you,

“Why is it always that chaos is brought to this café by this friendship group?” Chan looked pointedly at Jeongin as he shrugged.

“How do you know that shenanigans are to take place? Can’t we just enjoy our coffee in a secluded area of the cafe in our spy clothes without suspicion?” You asked, slightly defensive.

“...no. Anyway, what can I get for your spy mission?” Chan asked, eyes glinting with amusement.

“I’ll have an iced americano.” Jeongin.

“And I’ll have a—“ you broke off as Chan interrupted you,

“New York Cheesecake? I know. Jisung and you come here to get some like every Friday. Speaking of Jisung, why are you sitting over here instead of with them over there?” He pointed to the two boys huddled at the table, Seungmin slightly bored, checking his phone regularly, and Jisung talking animatedly to him. Jisung, noticing Seungmin’s disinterest, grabbed his phone, getting up and placing it in the trash can before heading back to a very much annoyed Seungmin.

“It’s... a long story. Very chaotic! You probably wouldn’t want to hear it.” You ushered Chan away, Jeongin looked at you smugly,

“You and Jisung, huh? It’s almost as if you were... soulmates. Now I think I know why you need my help.”

You scoffed,

“I don’t need your help.”

“Oh really? Then I guess I’ll get going—“ You pulled him back into his seat, the chair scraping as it was pulled erratically from both directions. The commotion caused Jisung and Seungmin to pause, looking at you two, eyes widening in recognition.

You looked at Jeongin, panicked, before throwing the money at a stunned Chan and rushing out of the cafe.

“Don’t give my cheesecake to Jisung! We both know that he’ll eat it instead of giving it to me.”

[09:38] (Jeongin) Hey, make sure you come on time.

[09:40] (You) Why do we have to go to the shops for this?

[09:41] (Jeongin) sadly the courts were all booked out with proper criminal cases, so the shops will have to do to resolve this fake lawsuit. just get ready and come quickly!

[09:43] (You) fine, fine. I’ll get my finest attire on. See you soon.

You placed your phone on your bed before dressing up to the best of your ability, steeling yourself as you looked in the mirror,

I will tell him how I feel... no matter how complicated this lawsuit thing becomes.

“Look who finally decided to show.” Jisung drawled, sipping at his soft drink. You looked him up and down appraisingly, ignoring your beating heart... he cleaned up more than nicely.

“Okay, shall we get started?” You clapped your hands, sitting opposite Seungmin and Jisung... and next to a very poorly disguised Jeongin.

“Interesting outfit choice, Jeongin.” Seungmin noted.

“What’s even more interesting is that Y/N selected Jeongin as her representative. He’s not even a lawyer!” Jisung looked at you triumphantly.

“Neither am—“ Seungmin interrupted, Jisung shushing him before he could complete his sentence.

“I thought you were going to dress up like a business man! Not some young mobster. This isn’t a fanfic. You’re not the main character.” You hissed under your breath, leaning slightly towards Jeongin so he could hear.

“And what? You are?” He scoffed, before smiling widely at the two in front of him.

“Right, so Jeongin and I have discussed the case beforehand.” Seungmin nodded at Jeongin.

“We’ve decided that we’ll put together a bunch of trials, and whoever wins those will win this lawsuit.” Seungmin proposed.

“I... feel like this isn’t how lawsuits work.” Jisung said doubtfully.

“This is what I was taught in law school!” Seungmin defended.

“Gotta trust the guy who attended law school.” You pointed out.

“What do you mean attended? He’s still at law—“ Jisung broke off as Seungmin cleared his throat, pointedly.

“The first challenge being, who can make the two of us the best milkshake.”

“Ready to lose, Y/N?” Jisung raised an eyebrow competitively at you.

“You wish, Han Jisung!” You sprinted to the other side of the food court, lining up as Jisung hurried after you, ending up directly behind you.

[20 minutes later]

You sighed loudly,

This is taking too long.

You politely pushed in front of people to the front of the line,

“Hey, are you guys right or do you need help? Because I can help out if you want. It’ll help you get through this queue a lot faster.” You asked the worker at the register.

“I can too!” Jisung sidled up beside you as you narrowed your eyes at him.

The worker looked at you sceptically before sighing in defeat,

“You know what, you may as well help because we’re so swamped. Grab some gloves and a hairnet and get started.” The worker let you through.

That was easy enough.

This is not easy.

“Chocolate ice cream thick shake for Sara!” You called out, frantically pushing the lid on the shake before handing it to the customer. Jisung rushed beside you,

“No-fat, non-skim, skinny latte with soy milk, one and a half sugars and a drizzle of vanilla for Jacques?” Jisung called out,

“Actually, can I change my—“ Jacques started.

“No.” Jisung deadpanned.

“Ready to admit defeat?” You smirked.

“Never. We’re yet to make the best milkshakes for Seungmin and Jeongin.” Jisung ran to the blender, chucking in as many ingredients as possible.

“Two can play at that game.” You said resolutely, approaching another blender, using as many ingredients as possible.

This is either going to be a disaster or a five star Michelin dish in the making.

“Stop. Stealing. The. Caramel. Sauce.” You gave Jisung a death glare as you wrestled the sauce bottle, the manager of the store glaring at the both of you,

“Alright, that’s enough. The two of you need to leave. You basically ditched serving the customers and did this. I don’t even know what this is but you need to stop using our resources for it.”

“Wait but it’s the finishing touch!” Jisung pleaded as the manager shook his head resolutely.

You scoffed,

“Whatever. It’s not like we’re getting paid for this or anything. Which we should! In fact, I have a lawyer friend that could help me sue you. He’s very good and wins about... 100% of his clients’ cases.” You threatened.

The manager pinched the bridge of his nose,

“Half of the orders that you served came back with complaints so you really did nothing.”

“The people really don’t appreciate our talents.” Jisung gasped, offended.

“If you guys think you’re talents are in milkshake making, you really should reevaluate your...um...life choices.” The manager said sheepishly.

“Whatever, be prepared for a lawsuit! Let’s leave, Jisung.” You grabbed your milkshakes, grabbing Jisung’s arm and dragging him out of the store.

“100% track rate, you say? Have you admitted defeat already?” Jisung raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, shut up, Jisung. I was obviously talking about Jeongin.”

“Right...”

“Um. What is this?” Seungmin scrunched his face in disgust, looking at the... mess of two drinks in front of him and Jeongin.

“Milkshakes!” Jisung said excitedly.

“I know that. But why did it take so long to make... you didn’t poison it, did you?” Seungmin looked at the two of you skeptically.

“Just drink it and tell us who wins.” You sighed as they picked up their drinks, tentatively sipping and then tasting the other,

“We need time to confer, so we’re going to give you the next challenge. You’re going to have to... pick out the best present for each other, and we’ll judge that once we see it.” Jeongin shooed the two of you away, winking at you as Jisung took the lead, striding towards a craft store.

As you browsed around the store, closely following Jisung, you stopped at the crayons section, exhaling a small laugh.

Jisung turned around, confused, eyes wide, settling on the packet of crayons,

“I dibs getting that for you.”

“You can’t dibs getting a present for someone.” You said incredulously.

“Um, well if it’s a competition, yes I can.” Jisung retorted, hands on hips.

“So you’re telling me, that the best present you could ever get me is crayons? You wouldn’t get that for me normally?” You rolled your eyes, exasperated.

“Why should I?” Jisung said, confused.

“Let me remind you. Twenty or so years ago, a young Jisung eats my crayons in retaliation for getting told to give them back. Young Y/N visits young Jisung in hospital, giving him a free record as a gift. And Jisung never reimburses Y/N with another set of crayons. You know, with your track record, it’s not even accidental. It’s serial. Like serial killing but serial property damage. Honestly, I could extend that to this lawsuit, as well.” You defended.

“Okay one, it’s too late to do that... isn’t it? I don’t have enough money for both! And two, is all you’re saying that your ideal gift is a pack of crayons?!”

“Are you admitting defeat already?” You smirked.

“Pfft no! Give me— that—“ He grabbed the pack of crayons from you, heading to the counter to pay as you grabbed another pack, lining up behind him.

“You both bought each other the same gift?” Seungmin raised an eyebrow at the two of you.

“Not intentionally! Please don’t disqualify us.” Jisung defended, apologetic.

“You literally went to the same store.” Jeongin deadpanned.

“That’s—“

“Whatever, I don’t have time for this. I need to go to the hospital in a bit. Okay, here’s what you can do. Explain to us why you bought the gift for said person, and we’ll judge based on your response.” Seungmin checked his watch, leaning back in his chair.

“Jisung, you go first.” Jeongin gestured for Jisung to start.

“Okay, well the short story is that Y/N told me that it was their ideal gift. The long story is that Y/N called me a serial property damager, and I really can’t afford that being added to my list of offences and be sued further.” Jisung said a matter-of-factly.

“Oookay... anyway, Y/N! What’s your reasoning?” Seungmin turned to you.

“Hmm... okay well when I was a child, Jisung stole my crayons and ate them, somehow we became friends, and he never bought me crayons to reimburse me, so I decided to be the bigger person and buy him crayons to share. Honestly, you’d think he’d know how to by now.” You tutted as a soft pink colouring flooded Jisung’s cheeks.

“...what?” Jeongin blurted out.

“It doesn’t matter! Jisung and Y/N are both... odd personalities. I mean, no wonder they’re best friends.” Seungmin dismissed.

There was that “f” word again...

“Anyway, I don’t have time for this. We’ll deliberate again as you do another challenge. You’re going to have to race each other around the entire shopping centre. Whoever comes first, wins... that round. Obviously. Otherwise, there would’ve been no point to these other challenges.” Seungmin dismissed the two of you, getting you to start at the same time.

Is this what my life has come to? Racing the literal love of my life to show that I’m serious about a fake lawsuit?... I really need to reconsider my lifestyle choices... and friends.

You and Jisung were neck and neck, you huffed as you sprinted next to him,

“Why are you so caught up on this whole lawsuit thing? You and I both know that it’s fake.”

Jisung glanced at you through the corner of his eye, “Hff— I— hff— know that but fake lawsuit or not, it was one of my New Years resolutions to win it.”

You stopped,

“You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious.” He stopped in front of you.

“Well— I... who am I to stop you from achieving your goals? I forfeit.” You stepped back, relieved to be out of it.

“You can’t be serious,” Jisung said, slightly shocked,

“I need you to finish this! I can’t just win by default. That defeats the whole purpose. Actually try.” He challenged.

“This is so stupid, though.” You grumbled.

“You’re the one that proposed it. Why did you, if you don’t want to do it?” Jisung raised an eyebrow expectantly.

“I— ugh. To be honest, it started out as a joke but then I saw how serious you got about it! So, I decided to play along so I wouldn’t let you down.” You sighed.

“You’re right, I paid Seungmin $100 to represent me.” He sighed in sync with you.

“...you really need to stop doing that. First Minho, now Seungmin? Are you going to pay the entirety of your friendship group for being your friend?” You looked at him disappointedly.

He rolled his eyes, “Speaking of friends... why did you play along?” He asked, curious.

You inhaled sharply,

Now or never. No more friend-zoning.

“Do you know what my New Years resolution was?” You asked.

He shook his head, clueless,

“It was to confess my feelings for you. I’m not as great with words as you are, but Han Jisung, I like you. A lot. Even if you do crazy things like eating my crayons.” You closed your eyes, unwilling to view his reaction... only for a slight pressure to meet your lips.

Your eyes fluttered open, only to meet Jisung’s as he kissed you softly.

He pulled back, bringing you into a hug,

“You’re always going to hold that against me, aren’t you?” He chuckled, whispering that to you.

“We just kissed and that’s what you’re concerned about?” You lightly smacked his chest.

“Well, what else am I supposed to say? I kissed you. I don’t think that best friends do that. Do I need to say it explicitly? Okay then, I like you too!” He said, confused.

You rolled your eyes,

“Whatever. We better get going if we want to finish this race, and help you achieve your life goals!”

“Oh my gosh, Y/N. You’re such a supportive... lover? We’ll figure it out.” He held out your hand, dodging past people as you both sprinted down the mall.

You slowed as you approached Seungmin and Jeongin, dropping your hand from his grasp. Jisung turned back to you, confused.

You ushered him forward, smiling encouragingly,

“Go! Finish first. Achieve your goals.”

He paused, before taking your hand again, dragging you over to Seungmin and Jeongin, they looked up, equally as confused as you.

“We both forfeit.” He said, in between catching his breath.

“What? Why?” Jeongin started, as Seungmin groaned,

“You’re telling me, that I spent the time that I could’ve been sleeping, only for you to forfeit. You know what? It’s fine. Neither of you won anyway because drinking your milkshakes was the worst thing we had to suffer through since the time you both made us cake!”

You reeled back in mock offence, Seungmin sighed,

“I’m sorry if that was harsh. I’m working nights at the hospital.”

“Wait. What does a lawyer have to do at a hospital?” Jisung questioned, confused.

“Do— do you guys even listen to the things I say? I quit law school after one lesson and went back to medical school.” Seungmin said, exasperated.

“And no! You can’t have your money back. We’re leaving now anyway, so bye!” He grabbed Jeongin, running away from the two of you as fast as possible.

“You know, I lied about my New Years resolution.” Jisung spun you around to face him, your hand meeting his bicep.

“Oh no! How could I ever trust you again?” You sighed dramatically.

“Y/N— I was trying to be sentimental and tell you that our resolutions were the same but you ruined the moment!” He pouted, annoyed.

You laughed, grabbing his cheeks (jeekies ahhhhhhhhh they’re so cute right—),

“I’ll sue you if you don’t stop being so cute!”

“Ha! I’d like to see you try.”

➳ part eight?  |  masterlist!

[kylermalloy]

I need you to talk to me about The Originals 1x04 (Don't hold back. Please and thank you😉)

Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Good episode. So far we’ve had Klaus and Hayley both decide that they want the baby. Rebekah has arrived and agreed to help find Elijah—as well as protect Hayley and the baby. Marcel, while having fallen prey to Klaus’s manipulations, has asked his willing witch prisoner Davina to find a way to kill the Originals, since she has one daggered in her attic.

The board is set. The pieces strategically aligned.

And Klaus decides to bring in a new player. Not truly new—Cami has already gotten involved with Marcel, and she’s even been compelled by Klaus. (such an honor!) She has some idea of how dangerous these people are—probably aware that they’re the mob. But now Klaus is ready to not only show her the board, but label all the pieces: vampire, witch, werewolf, hybrid.

Cami: okay, so he’s crazy.

(Nah, that would be my reaction.) Her immediate go-to upon being compelled is to ask about the science behind it. Meanwhile Klaus is like, idk! I’ve been doing this for a thousand years it just works, okay.

I also love how he stares dramatically at the painting they met over while he monologues—he literally went out and bought that from the artist after Cami randomly read him for filth in the square. The conversation affected him that deeply that he needed that painting, just so he could look at it from time to time in melancholy reflection.

She also reads him for filth in this first scene, giving him a basic diagnosis and recommendation for more therapy—while he is speaking melodramatically about plots against him, women trapped in situations, in need of saving, and how he’s really not evil, he’s just taking appropriate measures against tyranny!

I adore how Cami keeps her composure all the way through this megalomaniacal speech—only protesting when he brings up her boyfriend Marcel. Personal/professional boundaries, Klaus!

All in all, this opening scene gives us a great insight into how the klamille relationship plays out: Klaus makes some grand, sweeping statement or gesture about the state of things, Cami remarks on his…uh…less than stellar mental state, Klaus responds by doing something to *impress* or intimidate her, but she simply questions the mechanisms of it. Mind control is not a scientific term!

Meanwhile, back at the church attic: I put way too much time and effort into this please clap

Nah, Davina wants to keep Elijah, even though Marcel promised to return him to Klaus. (What? He’s handsome, I get it)

But then she immediately changes the subject and asks Marcel to go to a concert. She gets a little petty, throwing a witchy temper tantrum in the form of boiling Marcel’s blood to get him to agree (or she could be convincing him that she can defend herself if necessary, but I really get the vibe she’s just being a teenager. “It’s not a phase, Dad!” “Sometimes I think you forget what I’m capable of.”)

Davina’s dresses are…adorable in early season 1. They really wanted this innocent, virgin-Mary-esque image for her, and they got it. She truly does seem like a child, even though she’s meant to be 16—the same age as Elena and her friends when tvd started (although the actress was much closer to 16 than the tvd actresses, so it makes sense).

Marcel’s reaction is very interesting. He looks nervous and uncomfortable for a moment before grinning and giving in. (he says it’s a compromise, but he really does just give in. She’s such a daddy’s girl. 😁) Sometimes I miss the odd little moments of distrust and posturing between them. Yes, they care for each other, but they’re still sizing each other up. Looking for weaknesses. Assessing the worth of their alliance. This comes in handy later in the episode!

…and seeing how long this post is getting from just two scenes, I’m putting the rest under a cut. Spoilers!

When Klaus approaches Cami at Rousseau’s, she spouts off some exposition about compulsion—for the uninitiated, those who haven’t seen tvd and still need some reminders on how the world works. But we get this little gem about what Cami thinks of Klaus (paraphrased): “you leave, and I go back to thinking you’re just a hot guy with a cute accent and money to burn on his sprawling memoirs.” Okay Cami, I see you girl 😉 don’t worry, we’ve all been there.

This line also sticks out, when he is preparing to compel her to meet Marcel and Davina. “You’re going to force me to do this, aren’t you? Why even bother with politeness?”

Yeah yeah, his answer is some trite “I like you” but that’s him, isn’t it? He comes in with his smug smile and demure posture and the accent he thinks is suave and smooth and persuasive, thinking he can verbally strong-arm everyone into doing what he wants. But when that fails, he just falls back on mind control. Still a strong-arm, less pleasant. Sorry, Klaus, you can’t win on charisma alone!

Oh, Hayley’s subplot! I forget how there was always a witch just…hanging around the plantation house in the early episodes. She’s also reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, a nice touch. She’s probably not paying much attention.

And Rebekah is looking on Google Maps for a church attic! Our little Nancy Drew Mikaelson. Klaus is skeptical of it, but she actually does find the church this way. The internet isn’t all bad!

She makes a side trip to the vampire’s nest, where we see her slightly hate-flirting with Diego—one of my favorite minor characters from season 1. O fun background characters, where have thou gone? Also, Claire is gorgeous 🥰

Aww, and we get a glimpse into who Davina used to be, before all this harvest nonsense happened to her! She was apparently a normal girl who went to school, had crushes. Practiced magic on the side. But her only true friends seem to be other witches—Monique and Cassie and…that’s it, I guess? Yeah, they don’t go too much into Davina’s inner life.

But I get the sense that the French Quarter coven is a little like religious fundamentalists here in the US. Strict upbringing, rules on who the kids can talk to/be influenced by. Sophie references this too later, that her traveling and becoming a chef at a bar was a big *rebellion* by their standards. They don’t go too much into it, but it just seems a little cult-y to me. Not to mention the whole…child sacrifice…thing we learn about later. (Hey I never said this show was perfect—it says a lot of things, but it doesn’t always know what it’s saying!)

Anyway, back to the little fiddler Tim. He’s adorable, and I really wish we’d gotten to know him even a little better. True, he was just a plot device—but he was a glimpse into Davina’s world, and we don’t get too much of that.

Marcel is oblivious to how weirdly accepting Cami is of all these red flags he’s leaving scattered about. “We all have our hot-headed moments,” she says, smiling sycophantically and shrugging nonchalantly. If I didn’t know the truth, I’d be yelling girl run.

But if Cami is oblivious to Marcel, she sees what Marcel misses—Davina’s crush on the cute curly-haired fiddler. (He looks like a Timothee Chalamet prototype, now that I think about it.)

Ooh, and this episode is where we meet the wonderful, enigmatic Father Kieran! I first saw Todd Stashwick in a fantastic, one-off episode of Supernatural where he plays, I kid you not, Dracula—who is obsessed with old monster movies. It’s campy and hilarious and I highly recommend it, even to non-spn fans! Anyway, the hey-it’s-that-guy actor gives a great performance here in this other campy, supernatural drama.

His quick thinking when Rebekah tries to compel him? Brilliant. How else would he have avoided attention? He’s a smart dude.

And we get his backstory—which is also tangentially Cami’s backstory—of the St. Anne’s massacre. Sean murdering people, and then himself, with a sickle.

“You’re standing on blood.”

“I’m not squeamish.”

A+ line for Rebekah, honestly. Written, delivery, just. *chef’s kiss* that’s her.

Elijah’s vision gives us what is technically our first present-day Relijah interaction in this show. Long overdue, imo.

I’ve already spoken about how TO simplifies the Rebekah/Elijah relationship to “siblings who care a lot about each other and don’t necessarily want to fight on any given day.” Which, honestly, I prefer to the sneering and posturing they did to each other on tvd.

They hug, because they’re happy to see each other! They’re happy the other is okay!

This plot point does bring up an interesting bit of lore that TO kind of neglects: in order to neutralize the Originals, the dagger must first be dipped in white oak ash. This is why Elijah can wake up after Davina pulls the dagger out—she didn’t re-dip it in white oak ash before re-stabbing him. But TO glosses over the why, and as far as I remember, never explicitly states the lore about ash again, even though we see originals get daggered many times over the course of the series.

But enough silly plot logic. This show is about family! And I’m okay with at least one sibling relationship being just…uncomplicated affection. One could even make a case that they’re the most themselves around each other. This is how they were as humans—kind, loving, lots of care for each other and those around them.

Hayley gets into some trouble in the bayou—our first real glimpse of her as a Tough Grrl who Fights For Herself. She is also rescued by Rebekah and a Mysterious Wolf. (instead of a Horse Girl, Hayley’s a Wolf Girl) but other than that, this mainly acts to set up the plot for the next few episodes (which I enjoy immensely!)

Back to Davina and her Cute Fiddler—their reunion serves as background noise to the real star of the episode, Cami’s trauma and her musings on the nature of evil and humanity.

“The world is an awful place. Best to meet it on its own terms.”

“No. The world isn’t awful. People aren’t awful. They want to be good. Something makes them bad.”

(In Klaus’s case it was rejection, daddy issues, and time. Stir and simmer for a millennium.)

But Cami’s desperation to understand her brother’s senseless killings, his suicide, is the first glimpse we get into her psyche. Her world. So far she’s just been a tool in the narrative. She could’ve been anyone. But now she’s someone. Someone who not only listens and responds to Klaus, but who has her own problems and her own worries. Her brother—her twin brother—killed people with no warning. And if she, who knew him like no one else did, couldn’t see it coming, how can she protect herself from the same?

Klaus: I don’t know anything about this and all I can say is “stand alone against your demons” because that’s all I’ve done and clearly it’s working great for me. Okbyetimeforyoutogo

(He’s not great at therapy. Or encouragement in general.)

He then struts down to the altar where he plants himself in front of Jesus and mother Mary and postures to Davina. What an incredible show. The audacity. I love it.

Same as before, Klaus tries to win her over by being suave and smooth and genteel. But that doesn’t work—so he pouts and uses brute force. Since he can’t compel Davina, he goes for her cute fiddler. Oh no!

Davina shatters the windows and then runs outside (?) in search of Tim. Meanwhile Klaus has him up top, where he unceremoniously tosses him over the railing. And then his fiddle. (Oh my gosh I hate him so much.)

I think this is meant to imply Davina thinks she hurt Tim with her magic, and Klaus can heal him to make her owe him something. Unfortunately, this is something I don’t think they ever circle back to—except that it cements Davina’s eternal and undying hatred for Klaus, something that never leaves, not even after the Few Seasons Fatigue sets in. She will always hate him. I respect her for that, but it does get boring. Girl, this is literally the Klaus Mikaelson Show. Accept it.

“If he remembers meeting you and comes knocking, poor Timothy might end up caught in an awful scheme to control you…again.”

Oh my GOSH he’s awful. The devil emoji was made for him.

And there’s another small hint of conflict between Marcel and Davina! When he asks her what happened at the church, why she’s there, she retorts rather resentfully, “I live here, remember?” Another fascinating thing that never quite comes full circle.

Klaus’s little snarl when he finds out Hayley has disappeared. His little smirk when he learns the baby has healed Hayley.

And we end on the star of the episode again—Cami’s sad, sad story. She invites Klaus in rather blithely—“this is super weird. Come in.” Girl, even uncompelled you have awful boundaries. Don’t let your employer in your house at night! Even if he asks politely! Even if you think his accent is cute!

Once again, Klaus reduces her agency. He takes away her part of the story—her brother’s suicide, her investigation, her worries. She is nothing more than a tool in his story, the story of how he wrested the city back from Marcel and became king of New Orleans. She can’t afford to have her own life, it’ll get in the way of his! Not to mention Sean’s breakdown is a dead end—he’s dead and he’s not coming back. So he must compel this interesting story out of her. But he’ll feel a little bit bad about it.

I love this line, where he appeals to family, to him trying to honor his brother (lol. You were the one who put him in a coffin, Klaus! You caused at least half these problems!) And Cami shoots back: “what about my brother?” because family in the abstract isn’t important to Klaus. Klaus’s family is important to Klaus, and only in that he can use them to help him retake the city.

It really makes me sad we never get to see Cami before Sean died. She goes through this show missing half of herself, and it’s implied she changed a lot after hearing the news. Yet we don’t hear much about it even past this season.

I’ve always thought the season doesn’t really get started until Elijah’s back with us. So, I guess the end of this episode is where the show really starts! Everyone welcome back the creepy guy in a suit who likes hanging out with little girls in attics—Elijah Mikaelson, guys!

We’ll be back this time next week to see who eats who: Elijah…or Davina.

[phoebehalliwell]

prue/coop - season two

omg,,,, okay so coop's gonna take the role of jack in the sense that he's her first real love interest after andy and she tried like alan and there might have been another time there like prue for what it's worth isn't dating she's gone out on like. three four dates it's just nothing's sticking nothing's clicking like. maybe andy was it for her. maybe she doesn't get love after this. meanwhile, a very frustrated cupid is sitting slightly offscreen because there's no way he keeps missing. no way. dude. like. not to brag. but he doesn't miss. something's wrong.

by one misfortune or another, it's valentines day and there has been a spell to summon or to reveal a cupid

or psych no we'll say like somehow cupids are being like cockblocked from their powers but we'll say it in a more professional term there's like a magical faraday cage around san francisco and cupid's can't get their magic to work and valentine's day is right around the corner and there are hate demons just tearing up couples so hi yeah you have to do something

and blah blah blah they are doing something plot plot plot that's not what we're here for tho we're here for the relationship. bc coop's explaining how cupids work how they try to guide people together you know they see a spark they're there to fan the flames

and the first thing prue asks is do soulmates exist and coop almost laughs. like we get a the good place if soulmates exist they're not found they're made. no love is predestined. you're not designed with one other half and only one other have. love exists in all places, in all forms, you just have to know where to find it

and piper and leo are like looking at each other having their Moment phoebe and dan are having their because hell yeah they are and prue's just like :/

and idk they have to do something and it's like. piper's making a potion or whatever and phoebe and dan are like trying to heal peoples love idk but to undo this cage we need a cupid so coop ur on mission However we also need to fight all the demons to get coop there so as the witch with the offensive power prue you're also on mission

and prue's just kind of been bitter and jaded towards coop the whole time but you know she'll go with him to save love because part of her hopes that you know. if they save love. maybe as a thank you you know they could throw her a bone maybe point her to new love.

but she doesn't really like entertaining that hope. because like. i don't know she doesn't man she doesn't want to keep hoping because she keeps getting kicked in the shins over and over again and how many blows can she be expected to take her

anyways now that they're on mission detail together and separate from the pack coop's like you can ask me that question now

and prue's like what question

and coop's like oh come on. the question you didn't want to ask in front of your sisters. you don't need to put on a brave face for them, they love you, they know you

and prue's like yeah i thought you couldn't tell what with your magic being down

and coop's like i don't need magic to tell that there's a lot of love in that house

and prue's like. like. it's true. but lately it feels like she's jsut the black cloud over the house i mean piper leo phoebe dan all these cute happy couples and she's just the miserable spinster who can't seem to move on so prue's like fine. i'll ask. am i doomed? am i never gonna find love again? because i'm looking, i am

and coop laughs and prue's like what? what's so funny?

and coop's like you're not looking for love

and prue's like yes i am!! have you not seen all the dates i've been going on

and coop's like yes i've seen em i orchestrated about two thirds of them and that's how i know you're not looking for love

and prue's like okay since you know so damn much what am i looking for and coop's like you're looking for andy

and those words kinda feel like an icicle dagger rite to the heart because. because andy really was love, huh. like. like he's what she thinks about when she thinks about love

and coop's like you know think of love as like snowflakes no two are the same what you had with andy was beautiful and it was love and i'm not going to lie you're not going to get that again. you won't get that love again. but that doesn't mean that you won't love, or be loved. there's so much love out there, prue. you just have to let it in

and prue's like wow u make it sound so romantic too bad i'm actually on the ground here and i know it's not just that easy it's not like you know like i have all these options that love is just pouring at my feet here

and coop laughs again because come on. you're prue halliwell. you're strong, talented, powerful, romantic. you have so much love in your heart, it's obvious in everything you do, it the way you care for your family, in your photography in your this and your that and coop kinda gets carried away in a what makes you beautiful monologue and prue's looking at him like goddamn. because that's the most romance she's heard in a while

but then coop clears his throat because whoops haha that was probably a bit too much prolly crossed a line there and prue pulls out of the moment bc right he's a cupid that's just his job he doesn't mean anything by it you're nothing special in his eyes okay time to go kill some demons!!

and they do it and they get the cupid magic back up and running so um. great work team! be seeing you never, i guess? and coop's like ready to vanish back into the ether or whatever it is cupids do but he and prue have a moment he says one final last line about love it's out there it's beautiful you're gonna find it i promise and then maybe a forehead kiss for good measure bc those are great

and the episode ends with prue on a date a p3 and it's going well like it's going fine she's not fully present but like. well. :|. and homeboy goes in for a kiss and prue pulls back and she's like i'm sorry. i just. i can't do this.

and she leaves p3 walks out into the parking lot like goddamn and coop's like come on was my monologue for nothing?

and prue's like coop

didn't think i'd ever see you again

and coop's like i mean i gotta help you find love right? that's kind of my job. so, uh, recon, what's wrong with that guy in there? because i really liked him for you he's funny he's great with animals did he tell you about his dog she's only got three legs her name's buttercup cutest damn thing i really thought you guys might hit it off

and prue's like yeah no yeah he's. he's fine.

and coop's like fine's not love

and prue's like i mean. whatcha gonna do. bc i think i'm in love with what i can't have

and coop's like prue just because you lost andy doesn't mean that's it for you there's still so m

that's not what i meant

then what did you mean

[meaningful eye contact]

and the other shoe drops. oh. she's in love with a cupid. yeah that's probably. you probably can't have that, because like. it's against the rules, it's never even happened before, and besides, there are- you know what? fuck it

passionate kiss under a streetlight where we zoom out and tilt up to look at the stars au where you can see the stars in san francisco there's no fog there's no light pollution why? how? the magic of romance <3

[ectonurites]

for the character headcannons ask game, jason and cass?

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT im putting this one under a cut because it got SUPER long bc i cant shut up ever

lets start w jason

A (realistic headcanon): 

ok using the ‘realistic’ category here loosely but GOD i love the idea of Damian & Jason having interacted while Jason was staying with the League before getting dunked in the Lazarus Pit. like. this obviously would need to be set more in preboot and following the Lost Days & Batman Annual 25 version of Jason’s resurrection, but god the idea of it just makes me scream in a good way. Like... these are things Jason likely doesn’t remember very clearly once he’s brought back to life more fully by the pit because he was uh pretty catatonic, but Damian being a little kid and knowing about the boy that his mother keeps around the base, that she’s trying to help bring back to health. Damian not even knowing that’s his big brother, just that he’s a presence that shares his mother’s attention. Jason again being unresponsive but like, ok god you know that part of lost days where Talia shows the others observing him that he only fights back at those he perceives as genuine threats trying to hurt him, 

Because Jason can perceive that she’s safe, she’s not actually trying to hurt him, he trusts her because she saved him? thinking about lil child Damian who is ya know already being trained in fighting stuff and like the idea of him trying to provoke Jason just to see what happens but Jason not fighting back because on some level be it his connection to Talia or even little baby Damian visually reminding him of Bruce, he knows that Damian is safe too 🥺 

and then when Jason and Damian meet again in Gotham as Red Hood & Robin respectively, Jason not really remembering because there was so much going on back then for him, but Damian realizing that oh... that was Him

B (hilarious): 

alright so if we are looking at comics currently, in modern stuff jason is what, like 22? hes old enough to drink in the US but still definitely early 20s so around my around my age, thats what im using as a basis here. if we adjust timeline and still consider his death having happened when he was 15, that puts it around 2013. and then coming back to like interacting with people about three years later if we still kinda base things off of the preboot timeframe (since we never got a super solid retelling of the timeline of death -> resurrection -> training -> tries to get revenge aside from knowing he went to the all-caste instead of the lost days version of the story) making him reenter the regular world and stuff around age 18 in 2016. meaning a solid three years of pop culture that he was entirely missing, and like im sorry but he really doesn’t strike me as the type to bother looking into what he missed, he’s kinda busy focusing on other stuff. lets take a quick look at some major things from those years. 2013 gave us ‘what does the fox say’ and ‘the harlem shake’ . 2014 had that time U2 just put a fuckin album on everyone’s phones, The Fault In Our Stars movie came out. 2015 introduced the phrase ‘Netflix and Chill’ and the whole blue & black vs gold & white dress debate happened. imagine any of the other batkids (or even arguably roy during rhato stuff) bringing these things up and jason’s ensuing confusion. thank you for your time

C (heart-crushing): 

so. there are two specific instances from rebirth era Jason i want to bring up here and much like a lot of these it’s less a headcanon and more of an inference based on observations, but i wanna take a sec to discuss Jason’s relationship with other people’s death. early in rebirth, Tim ‘dies’ from that whole thing in detective comics. he didn’t actually die, we as readers know, but in-universe they all very much so thought he was dead. frustratingly a lot of the batfam wasn’t really shown mourning him aside from in the Detective Comics Rebirth title itself (which just. when a major character dies even if its temporary- that should have a ripple effect) BUT an exception to that is in RHATO 2016, where we get this offhanded comment in Jason’s internal monologuing

similarly later when Roy, who like, had an incredibly close relationship w Jason that had just gotten mended before Heroes in Crisis, gets fuckin murdered in that whole thing... Jason doesn’t go to his funeral either. He leaves a dramatic voice mail and then visits the grave on his own later, choosing to instead keep working on the mission they’d started rather than going and taking the time to mourn properly.

Jason’s relationship with death is incredibly complicated, obviously. He has died, he has come back, and he now is willing to cross the line most other bats won’t and will kill people when he deems it necessary. I think thats something important though- he doesn’t just like... go around killing for fun (usually, some writers preboot made him a little murder happy but even then usually this still was vaguely followed) he kills people he thinks deserved it. Like, even looking back at the mess of Morrison’s Jason during Batman & Robin 2009, Jason was still trying to bring a sense of justice with who he was killing (”punishment that fits the crime”), it wasn’t killing for the sake of killing. He sees things in this kind of almost black and white ‘people who deserve it’ and ‘people who don’t’ way, and he has no problem dealing with death when it’s with the people he thinks deserve it. 

but when someone who doesn’t in his mind ‘deserve it’ gets killed? i think he just goes into total avoidance mode. throws himself into other things he’s doing, tries not to dwell on it too much no matter how much he still thinks about it (this is especially evident in him consistently telling people “i’m fine!” after what happened to Roy, despite bringing Roy up literally like every few issues for a WHILE after he died and very clearly still struggling with it, Artemis is the only one who gets through to him on it a little bit) 

but yeah, I just think that from Jason’s relatively unique situation of having been murdered, he knows what it’s like and he is perfectly fine wishing that on people he thinks are bad and deserve it, but it crushes him to imagine the people he loves and cares about having to experience something as painful as what he went through. not to mention the whole “I came back, why do I get a second chance at all this when they, who are a much better person than I am, probably won’t” mindset we get some implications of him having 

D (canon is a coward and won’t) 

hello DC i am once again insisting a batfam member is bisexual

CASS TIME

A (realistic headcanon): 

ok so we know cass likes ballet. thats canon. however i think we also should in general explore cass experiencing other types of dance/performance as well, be it herself as a performer or even just watching. like... god imagine her & like my brain just automatically for group activities puts her with tim steph and duke but also for this in particular I feel would be a Jason embraced activity, but like them going to see a broadway show or some other professional theatre or something, and her just being enthralled by the reading of body language of the performers! like again by any point in current stuff cass does have like, the ability to speak fine (reading still hard tho) but even so I think like. okay im a theatre kid if that’s not obvious from the Everything About Me but one thing I always do after seeing a show is ya know spend dinner afterwards discussing it with whoever i saw it with.

I just think that like, bringing those people i just mentioned to the table to discuss seeing a show after would be so FASCINATING because cass would bring this whole perspective of critiquing their acting on a whole different level- not based on how well they delivered lines out loud, but by what their body language was saying as they moved on stage. like im very amused by the idea of cass getting a totally different picture in her mind about what a character’s motivations were because she was paying way more attention to what their physicality was saying vs the words that were written and how they were delivered. i think the debates her and the others would have would be EPIC there. jason defending the text as it was written adamantly and cass being like ‘ok yeah sure but thats not what they did’

B (hilarious): 

cass having no concept of money because why would she bother? is SO funny to me. like it’s not that she couldn’t be reasonable if she wanted to, but like, she knows that the Waynes are well off so it’s not something she actually needs to be concerned about, so she just goes hog wild. takes steph out to fancy dinners and makes steph order for them since cass ya know doesn’t really read the menus, and steph’s like ‘jesus christ this costs-” “don’t worry about it” “but cass-” and she just holds up one of bruce’s credit cards and steph’s still like “but you don’t even know the range-” “it is fine”

bruce does not have the heart to tell her to stop

C (heart-crushing): 

i mean this is pretty much canon but especially now after death metal where she’s remembering, not just being told by a guy using weird alternate timeline technology, that she used to be an adopted member of the Wayne family... like that hurts so bad. To look at these people who have ya know been kind to her, Bruce has still been a father-like figure to her (i mean literally from the moment they met in New 52 canon during the flashback in Batman & Robin Eternal, where he’s telling her that she’s not a monster just because of what people forced her to do.... that she’s a hero... that hug.... dad behavior), and they do to some extent treat her as family... But to then really know, to feel and remember that she was actually adopted! She was a part of their family. To look at how she’s been calling herself Orphan while working with them this whole time... that’s so heartbreaking! I have cried about this idea so much! I want so badly a conversation between her and Bruce now where he offers to officially adopt her again, I need it so bad and if it doesn’t happen at some point in the next year or two I will be so distraught.

D (canon is a coward and won’t) 

i want an in-depth exploration of cass’ relationship to her own gender. being raised without language and you know with so much of her life being independent (remember: CASS RAN AWAY AROUND THE WORLD WITHOUT REALLY KNOWING ANY SPOKEN LANGUAGE) and outside of an organized society impressing too much of gender expectations on her, i feel like the way she experiences it would be very unique! like sure she’s so far been fine with being assigned ‘girl’ (ya know that comes with batgirl, and how people just automatically treated her based on how she looks) but in terms of gender expression and like her actual relationship with ‘traditional femininity’ etc like... because of how she was raised I just think she’d have a really different perspective on it that could be cool to explore, and I think she’d fall outside of the binary after she really thinks about how she identifies.

tldr on that: she/they nb cass is what i’m getting at here

[springday-aus]

Figure Skater!AU with Jimin

moodboard link

Group: BTS 

Member: Park Jimin 

Genre: fluff, romance 

Type: Bulletpoint AU 

Word Count: approx. 2.1k 

I think Jimin would make a fantastic ice skater

like Olympic gold kind of ice skater

have you seen this man’s form when he’s dancing? now just imagine that with skates

even tho homeboy is a lil clumsy

(*cue the compilation of him falling off chairs on his own*)

but yeah, he’s an ice skater and he’s beautiful—thank you for coming to my ted talk

just kidding

kind of

so Jimin started young

his dad signed him up for dance classes originally

and Jimin loved it

but then Jimin went ice skating

he struggled at first, but after a couple of tries, he got the hang of it and he fell in love with it gradually

and it was history from there

it was like a slow burn love rather than instant and that’s what makes him so committed

Jimin still does dance every once in a while, but he really committed himself to ice skating and got really good

he entered an amateur ice skating contest and actually won (to the much of his shock)

and then homeboy kept winning and winning and next thing you know

he’s in the top ten ranking for ice skating in Korea and that meant Olympics and well

while he hasn’t won like gold or anything

he’s been super close to it and that proves how good he is tho

these competitions are basically him dancing on ice

it’s such a wild card because he has so much range

one time he did classical music and incorporated elements of ballet

another time he did a Big Bang song and everyone was not prepared

he’s absolutely eating these performances up and still managing to feed it to ice skating fanatics

speaking of which, he’s pretty well known in the ice skating world

especially since he basically captures everyone with his performances

and his face

but also his butt

it’s everything

everyone loves jimin

does Jimin know it?

there are times he uses it (like getting Yoongi to buy him snacks)  

and other times, he’s 1000000% oblivious to it

you know how people throw winnie the pooh bears at Yuzuru Hanyu?

anything that looks remotely cute is thrown at Jimin

so you can just…. imagine

he’s gotten so many of those gigantic stuffed dogs since people say he resembles a puppy

but he started getting thrown otter plushies

which he didn’t think was a thinguntil a bunch of people started throwing for him and now he gets an obscure amount of otter plushies when his performances are done

because lbr, Jimin is super affectionate, loves his family and is super cute

otter = Jimin

speaking of performances tho, the bts boys always try to make his competitions

they’re super supportive as always

Seokjin always brings snacks and Namjoon always brings flowers

Hoseok cheers the loudest (obviously) and waves a lot of flags like some goddamned color guard

and Taehyung and Jungkook bring signs that are supposed to be supportive… but then like

it’ll say shit like “Korea’s Thighs! PARK JIMIN”

Yoongi: “guys, it’s supposed to be Korea’s pride……”

Jungkook: “well, it’s already made” :)

Taehyung: :)

anyways

they’re like the most attractive group of people in one spot, so even if you only came there for Jimin, you’ll get like six more attractive pieces of eye candy to look at

(which is probably why Jimin’s crowds are noticeably bigger)

there was this one time tho that this one dude was competing, saw Seokjin and almost tripped

I mean who wouldn’t

but Jimin had to deal with Seokjin’s ego for the next week and it was a pain in the ass

speaking of pain in the ass, Jimin spends a ton of time to practice at the ice rink

he’s basically a perfectionist when it comes to his performances and he ends up spending all day there

there’s usually his manager, his trainer, and one of his friends

they all come in rounds to make sure he isn’t going insane

this is actually how you meet him 

you happened to be there one day to ice skate with some of your friends

only, here’s the catch

you cannot ice skate for shit and you are very aware of it

it took a couple of bribes of free food and hot cocoa that led you out of the house and into the skates

realistically speaking you could’ve stood on the side, but they were like come onnnnn

and, like an idiot, you let them peer pressure you into getting into the rink

and now you’re grasping on the rail for dear life and your friends are all making fun of you and recording it on their phone bc ✨memories✨ or some other crap

well, not all of them

two of them are skating next to you to help hold you up and convince you to let go of the rail

and this is where things kind of go awry

basically, let’s just say that your friends got a little distracted by some of Jimin’s friends (i.e. Jungkook and Taehyung) who were visiting him

they were on the rails, watching and supporting Jimin  

looking handsome and shit

ofc your friends dropped you—they were distracted

lbr, you would have been distracted too but you couldn’t be

because when they let go of you….

you fell flat on your face

like flat flat on the ice and a part of your soul died

you kind of got stuck and struggled getting up, especially since you kept falling back down on the skates

and then another pair of skates appeared and a hand reached out to you—aligning with your vision

Jimin: “do you need some help?”

You: “yes please”

he manages to get you up and you manage to stabilize yourself as he holds you up with both hands

while you’re trying to balance yourself, he chuckles to himself at the sight

you’re basically clinging onto him at this point but he doesn’t really mind

you’re cute

You: “I’m so sorry, this was not my idea”

Jimin: “first time skating?”

You: “um, actually, no”

You: “this is like my third time”

You: “I’m just a klutz and my friends are assholes”

Jimin: “oh?”

You: “not like that, but also like that”

he spends a bit more time skating with you to help you out for a bit

next thing you know, you’re spending another hour with him

laughing

chatting

learning more about one another

as you held onto his hands and skated around with him

it’s a fun

he’s basically done practicing and, even afterwards, you two got some hot cocoa from the stand

(along with his number)

it was a super cute lowkey first date

as you two texted and got to know each other a bit more, he invited you to another rink where he practices

when you walked in, no one else was present—it was just him, on the ice, in the middle of a routine

you quietly get closer, admiring the gratefulness that is displayed until you’re at the rails

when he’s finished, you applaud

indirectly scaring him, causing him to break his form and practically fall onto the ice

You: “oh my god!”

you run over to him, checking if he’s okay

You: “I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry”

Jimin: “it’s okay, I didn’t know you got here”

You: “yo, that was really good tho—you should do this as a job or something”

Jimin: “..... this is my job tho?”

Jimin: “I’m an Olympic ice skater”

You: w h a t

you two spend a bit more time in the rink, especially since he’s preparing for the Olympics once more

so you’re like friends, but like there’s something more (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

speaking of friends, you’ve met some of his

wild times

especially since Taehyung tried to show up Jimin on the skates and then falls on his face

Namjoon was self-monologuing as per usual

Seokjin was admiring his reflection on the ice, but still making as many dad jokes as possible

meanwhile Hoseok was trying to maintain balance but Yoongi was trying to trip him

Jimin: “I’m so sorry”

You: “why? this is hilarious”

they all know what’s going on tho, especially since all of them have met you at least once

*cut to Jungkook making fun of Jimin at some point*

things don’t really change until he has his first performance and you’re in the crowd (sitting with the boys obviously)

(for which you got a lot of stares for)

you cheered for him really loud before and after his performance

and you came with a cute sign

(“KOREA’S ICE PRINCE PARK JIMIN”)

and it’s bigger than Taehyung and Jungkook’s embarrassing one

it wasn’t until the scores were released and Jimin’s adrenaline rush came through

with all the congratulatory remarks and celebratory mood, he was in the locker rooms to get ready for the party his family was setting up at home

his coach let you him since he knew no one else was present

you lightly knock on the doorway to let him know of your presence

*unfortunately* he’s already clothed by the time you’re there

You: “congratulations, I knew you would get first place”

You: “I got you flowers, but I didn’t know if you were allergic, so I got plastic ones”

Jimin gives you a charming smile, with his eyes turning into crescents

Jimin: “thanks, you can set them down if you would like”

you seat yourself on a nearby bench as he brushes through his hair and puts on his shoes and whatnot

Jimin: “are you coming to the party?”

You: “I don’t know if I’m invited”

Jimin: “well, I’m inviting you—if you would like to go”

You: “like………. together?”

Jimin: “yeah, you can be my date?”

you both show up to the party with your hands held together

:)

your dates are mainly at the ice rink for the rest of the season

whether you’re skating with him or just watching him practice and reminding him to take breaks, both mental and physical

you’ve improved your ice skating abilities btw

considering your boyfriend is a professional ice skater

you always make time to go to his performances and you absolutely refuse to miss a single one even if you’ve seen it a thousand times when he practices

there’s just so much gracefulness and agility and Jimin’s so beautiful to watch

and he’s so glad to have found someone who supports his dream as much as he chases after it

also you asked him to dance to Twice once as a joke and he actually did it for a performance so

now you have many requests and ideas

Jungkook: “tell him to do One of a Kind by GD”

You: “why don’t you tell him?”

Jungkook: “because he doesn’t listen to me”

Yoongi: “I think he would know if it was your idea even if (Y/N) is the one who told him to do it”

Jimin: “I’m not doing GD”

Jungkook: “wow okay”

anyways

after the season is done, your dates have more range

he’s a big softie and it’s 1000% applied to relationships

so that means lots of romantic walks, coffee dates, picnics

of course lots of restaurant dates when he’s off his diet

in which you always pinch his cheeks bc he looks so cute with puffy cheeks

but there’s some dates where you two just stay in and watch some movies but you get a bit distracted with his plump lips and nice torso………. however you want to take that information

since he’s so used to the cold at the ice skating rink, it also means he loves to just pile blankets onto the two of you

but also he needs cuddles and it gets super heated real quick

and I mean like heated heated because of his body heat and the giant blankets

altho, it could also be heated

you two built a blanket fort once and it was knocked down real quick - in what ways? I’ll leave that to your imagination

oh and since you’re openly so supportive for him

he tries to reciprocate it

even if it’s the most mundane things

he wanted to make a sign for you once

Jimin: “do you have bigger banner paper?”

You: “why?”

Jimin: “I can’t fit in THE LOVE OF MY LIFE: HONEY SUGAR BABY CUTIEPIE”

Jimin: ………… “now that I’ve said it outloud, I think I’ll just save it for my phone or something”

You: “yeah, let’s never say that again”

you repeated it back to him once and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him this flushed since that one fan tried to propose to him

he’s a shy baby

kind of

because he needs a lot of attention and a lot of praise

but if you do it in front of other people, he will combust

anyways we’re all simps for Jimin and it’s great we’re having fun

[to-star-lake]

ether [ pt. 1]

pairing | pjm/jjk x reader genre | angst, love triangle word count | 6k rating | M, 18+

“Y/N! Come on!” Taehyung urged, waving his hand up at you from the doors of the bar. 

It was almost 10:30 and the side of the building was lined with people dressed up and ready to have a good time. You ducked under the velvet rope and hustled up towards Taehyung who held the door open for you, while the very tall and imposing bouncers in extra tight black t-shirts were blocking two guys in fancy-looking suits. 

“Look, I got a table, check the list!” One of them swung his arms out in drama and the other one dodged it but in doing so, stepped back and ran right into you. 

You fell back a little, almost rolling over on your heels, but you felt his arm catch you and steady you back on your feet. 

“Shit, my bad, are you alright?” 

“Oh, I’m ok, thanks,” you brushed out your dress, and looked up to see a concerned face under a perfectly styled wave of silver hair that fell slightly over his eyes. 

He smiled shyly, his eyes forming into little crescents from his cheeks pushing up against them. 

“Jin! Jimin!”   

He turned and you followed his gaze and saw two girls in tiny cocktail dresses and stilettos walking up to them, arm in arm, one waving. 

“Y/N, come on,” you felt Taehyung’s hand reach out and grab your wrist, pulling you through the bar entrance, and noticed that that guy’s hand had lingered on your back until you were pulled away. 

“What took you so long? We’ve already been here like an hour,” Taehyung shouted over the music, leading you through an overcrowded dance floor under a haze of neon lights. 

“Sorry, I had a presentation to wrap up at work,” you shouted back as he led you to the back corner to a seating section where your friends sat. 

“Y/N!” Namjoon greeted, throwing both his hands up and cheering when you arrived. “Finally! Were you working late again? On a Friday night too, overachiever!”

Taehyung slid into the booth beside Namjoon and you took a seat beside him. “Ha, I just had a presentation to wrap up for next week,” you leaned in and shouted over the music. “Where are Hoseok and Jungkook?” you asked, looking around. 

“They went to the bar to get more drinks,” Taehyung leaned into your ear and answered, before looking and pointing out past the dance floor to the crowded bar. 

Under the spinning lights and past the crowds you were able to make out Hoseok’s profile and he was leaned onto his elbows against the bar, bobbing his head to the music. But you didn’t see Jungkook beside him. You glanced up and down the bar and finally at the opposite end, saw the messy dark waves that was unmistakably Jungkook’s head. And a girl in a backless dress leaning into him, sliding an arm around his neck and whispering something into his ear. 

You felt your teeth clench together when you saw this. “Hey Tae, who’s that girl talking to Jungkook?” you tapped Taehyung’s knee and gestured over towards the bar, trying to ask the question as inconspicuously as possible. 

Taehyung glanced where you were looking and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, some rando, she’s been trying to hit on him all night,” he leaned over the table, picking up his glass and taking a sip. 

You nodded at his response, trying your best to control any emotion from surfacing on your face. 

“Y/N, you’re here!” You were brought out of your thoughts by Hoseok, scurrying back to the table, his hands full of glasses. 

“Hey Hoseok,” you smiled, standing and taking a few of the glasses out of his hands and helping set them down on the table. 

He reached an arm out and leaned in to give you a hug. “Long time no see!” he joked, but he’d actually just seen you a few hours ago as he was leaving work. 

You noticed Jungkook walk up in your periphery and you did your best to maintain your composure. Not knowing whether to give him a hug as a greeting, you simply sat down, grateful that Hoseok quickly scooted into the booth beside you. 

Jungkook had both hands in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, and the girl was with him, arm locked in with one of his. 

“Hey!” you smiled, trying to greet him as naturally as possible. 

“Hey,” he said simply, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table. The girl took a seat beside him. 

“This is Yuri, we work together,” he gestured towards her, introducing her to the group. “We just ran into each other at the bar.” 

“JK and I met on a project we were paired on last month, he totally saved my life for that final client presentation,” she gushed, slurring a bit and craning her head into his shoulder, her arm still locked around his. 

The way she called him ‘JK’ made you shudder, but you did your best to smile and reached for one of the glasses Hoseok brought over, downing it in three gulps. 

“Hey, guys, check out those assholes over there,” Namjoon said, nodding towards the table a couple down from yours. 

You looked over and saw that it was the two guys that you saw at the front door of the bar. The two of them looked out of place compared to everyone else. Everyone was dressed nicely, but the two of them were a whole other level of nice. The one with the theatrical display outside was tall and thin, with perfectly coiffed dark hair, and had on a designer shirt and coat, and sat in the corner of the booth with both arms on the backs of the seats, tossing his head back in laughter at something the girl next to him said. 

The other, the one that ran into you outside, looked much less ostentatious, but anyone could tell that the silver strands of his hair were professionally groomed, and his clothes probably cost as much as your rent. He was seated to the end of the booth, and seemed to be having a pleasant conversation with the girl beside him. 

“Man, do you think those girls are models?” Hoseok asked, jaw dropped looking over at them. 

“Dude, actually, I think I recognize one of those girls from Instagram,” Namjoon said, pulling out his phone from his pocket. 

You turned back to the group and across the table you saw Yuri leaning over and whispering in Jungkook’s ear, her hands tugging on his arm and his thigh, as though she and him were in their own world. You could see he was politely trying to keep his distance, but he was not outrightly refusing her, and this made a knot form in your stomach. 

“I’m gonna go get another drink,” you stood up fast, startling Hoseok beside you. 

“I’ll come with,” Jungkook said from across the table, unhooking his arm from Yuri’s. 

“No, it’s fine,” you said and immediately regretted because your tone came out much more scathing than you intended. You quickly brought it down, “I need to go to the bathroom too.” And turned and walked off before he could respond. 

“Fuck,” you whispered to yourself, pushing through the doors to the bathroom hastily and leaning your head back against the wall. 

You wished that seeing other girls flirting with Jungkook wouldn’t get to you like this. It’s not as though he actually likes any of them, you thought. But then why doesn’t he just tell them to stop? It’s not like he actually likes you either, or at least he’s given no confirmation of it, your inner monologue continued, so why are you even letting yourself get worked up over this?

You weren’t exactly sure when you started developing feelings for him. Maybe it was first semester junior year when all of you were at a party after you had just broken up with your ex and you drank a little too much and he walked you home. You remember his arm around your waist, holding you close to make sure you didn’t fall over. The way he draped his jacket over your shoulders and you had refused, saying you felt hot, but he insisted. “It’s November, Y/N, you’ll catch your death.” 

The way he helped you out of your dress and pulled a t-shirt down over your head and when you crawled into bed, tucked the covers in around you. When you began crying, asking “why didn’t he want me, why’d he leave me,” thinking about your ex, that he sat at the edge of the bed with you, holding your hand, and brushing your hair from your eyes. He pulled you close, and you remember the way his cologne smelled on the skin of the nape of his neck, and how he kissed you, saying, “Stop thinking about that idiot. Who’s he to not want you?”

You remember he fell asleep beside you that night, but when you woke up the next morning, he was gone. You remember texting him to thank him for taking care of you, and getting no response from him until the next time you saw him at Taehyung’s almost two weeks later. He said nothing to you about that night. It was as though it never happened. 

The next few years went something like this. There were days when he would call, ask where you were, and would meet you at the library, bringing you food or coffee. Or would sometimes randomly show up at your apartment at 2 in the morning with a pack of beer, ramen, and a bad movie. He would stand in your kitchen, chastising you about the lack of organization, rolling up his sleeves and neatly putting away all the dishes from the dishwasher and organizing your spice cabinet before cooking. 

But on other days, you might text him asking what he’s up to and you just wouldn’t get a response. And you’d run into him with the guys or he would show up where you were hanging out, and carry on totally normal, as though your texts had just gotten lost in the nethersphere and he never saw them. Sometimes you’d go a couple of weeks without hearing back from him or seeing him.

You never knew where you were with him, and that somehow added to the appeal. He would be so sweet and kind to you, and other times he was completely distant, constantly running hot and cold. 

It also didn’t help that Jungkook is incredibly handsome, and had a reputation for being ‘the last of the good ones,’ a gentleman, and all girls chased after him. And he, being such a nice guy, never outrightly refused or was mean to any of them. He always indulged their flirtatious conversation, though never anything beyond that. 

You sighed, deciding it was stupid to continue thinking on this and walking over to the sink, ran your hands under cold water, patting your face a little to cool down your flushed cheeks. You pulled a paper towel from the dispenser, drying your hands, and tossed the crumbled ball into the trash before pulling the bathroom door open and upon walking out, bumped directly into someone. 

“Oops, excuse me-” you looked up, and saw a familiar smiling face. 

“It’s just going to become uncanny if this keeps happening,” he laughed, eyes bending into those little crescents again. 

In the revolving neon lights of the bar, you were able to tell that you bumping into him had caused him to spill almost the entire drink he had in his hand, though thankfully not on himself or you, it just splashed onto the floor. 

“Oh I’m sorry about that,” you said, your hands held out apologetically. 

“Hah, no it’s all good,” he smiled. “This wasn’t that great anyway, I was actually headed to the bar to get something else.” He paused and looked at you for a moment and continued, “Can I get you something? I fear if we just walk away, the universe will keep making us bump into each other and next time this might be more disastrous than just a spilt drink,” he chuckled. 

“Um,” you looked back at your friends, and upon seeing that Yuri was still snuggled up next to Jungkook, decided, “Sure, why not? Wouldn’t want to upset the universe,” you mustered a smile. 

He smiled back. “I’m Jimin,” he reached a hand out to you. 

“Y/N,” you responded, shaking his hand. 

“Y/N,” he repeated, smiling as he turned to move through the crowds back to the bar. 

You followed him over and he reached a hand up, getting the attention of one of the girl bartenders immediately who strutted over, a gleaming smile on her face. 

“How was it?” she asked, leaning forwards on her elbows and placing her chin on her hands, blinking through false eyelashes at him. 

“Better, but let’s do this,” he set the glass down on the counter, his index finger tapping the base. “Colder, less vermouth, and let’s go with that Blue Sapphire,” he turned and looked at you. “Y/N, what would you like?” he asked. 

“Um, I’ll have a gin martini too, please,” you replied. 

She smiled and tapped her hand down on the counter, “Alright, two colder, less vermouth, Blue Sapphire gin martinis comin’ up.” 

“You know your drinks,” Jimin mused, turning to look at you as he took a seat on one of the open stools beside the bar. 

“You want yours with olives or with a twist, babe?” the bartender asked, a shaker in her hand. 

“Olives, please,” you replied, and she nodded in response. 

You turned to see Jimin clutching his chest in drama, “A girl after my own heart,” he smiled. 

You watched as the bartender set two glasses on the counter before filling them both, gently brushing a lemon peel along the rim, and dropping a strand of olives in each, sliding the glasses to the two of you across the counter. 

Jimin picked up his glass, taking a sip and the bartender watched for his reaction intently. 

“Much better,” he smiled, setting the glass down on the counter. 

“Very well, let me know if you need anything else, babe,” she winked, turning to take another order. 

You held the glass to your lips and took a sip too. 

“Well?” Jimin asked, eyes focused on you. “What do you think?”

“Mm,” you made a face upon tasting the drink that made him laugh. 

“What, what is it?” 

You set the glass down. “She had ice in that shaker, you can taste the water,” you said, turning to look at him, brows furrowed. “Frozen liquor, frozen glass, no ice, never ice.”

You watched the smile on his face grow. 

“Vodka or gin?” he asked. 

“In a martini? Gin, always gin,” you replied, brows knitted together taking another sip, seeing him staring back at you with a giant grin on his face. “What?” you set the glass down, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious under his unrelenting gaze. 

“I love you.”

You coughed, almost choking on a sip of your watery martini. “Hah, um, martini’s are fairly straightforward, I think most people know how to make one..” you said, laughing nervously. 

He chuckled lightly, “No, I don’t think they do.” 

“Jimin! What the hell man, I’ve been looking for you.” A bombastic voice approached and you looked up to see the skinnier guy with dark hair throw his hand forward, smacking Jimin’s back, to which Jimin responded with a whiney ‘ow’ and a feigned hurt expression. 

“Come on, let’s go, the girls are bored, we’re gonna leave and get our usual table at Hyacinth,” he continued. 

You watched Jimin sigh, running a hand through his hair. “Jin, this is Y/N,” he said, resting his hand gently at your shoulder to introduce you. “Y/N, this neanderthal is my friend Jin.” 

“Ne-neanderthal?! Really! What-well that’s just-”

“Don’t worry, he may look big and dumb...that’s cus he is big and dumb, totally harmless,” Jimin leaned over and whispered as Jin continued his rant. This made you laugh. 

“I’m not gonna go to Hyacinth man, you guys go,” he said, looking up at Jin. 

“Dude! Come on, you were supposed to be my wingman! You know how I got Yena to come out tonight? It was cus her friend Miya was coming out with us. You know why Miya came out? Do you? Cus I told her you were gonna be here, come on man, help me out here,” Jin whined, throwing his arms out. 

“You’re gonna have to find some other way to get Yena to like you,” Jimin laughed at Jin’s childish displays. “I’m staying here man, I found better company,” he turned to you, smiling. 

“Fine! Be like that! You stay here and drink your shitty martinis, we’re gonna go to Hyacinth and don’t even think about coming to join us, I’m gonna tell the guys at the door not to let you in!” Jin huffed, turning and stomping off. 

“Sorry about him,” Jimin turned back to you, laughing softly. 

“It’s okay, you guys must be pretty close, huh,” you said, watching as he ran his hand through his hair again.

“Yeah, like an annoying sibling,” He dropped his arm down on the counter, looking at you and grinning. “He is right about these martinis though,” he said, pushing his half empty glass away. “How about we go somewhere that knows how to make a proper drink,” he smiled. 

“I was always told not to wander off with strangers,” you said, pushing your glass away too, and considering his proposition. 

He stood up from the stool, moving a bit closer, and leaned onto his arm on the counter beside you. “We all start off as strangers,” he said, lowering his voice.

You felt your cheeks become instantly flushed and looked away quickly, but you could feel his eyes were still focused on you. Past his shoulder, you saw that your friends were still hanging out and Yuri was still seated beside an indifferent Jungkook, putting in her best effort. 

What the heck, you thought, how could going somewhere with a handsome stranger be any worse than staring at Yuri trying to vie for Jungkook’s attention all night. 

“Where are we going?” 

He smiled, and reached down, taking your hand in his to lead you toward the exit. 

“Hey! Hey Y/N! Where’re you going!” You heard Hoseok’s voice call out as you made your way past the tables beside the dance floor. 

You turned and waved, still following behind Jimin, who was oblivious to your entire table of friends now staring wide-eyed with their jaws dropped at your walking out with him. You couldn’t be sure but you thought you saw a flash of panic across Jungkook’s face before you turned and followed Jimin out the exit. 

Outside, you stepped off the sidewalk onto the busy street and held an arm out for a taxi, but Jimin grabbed your wrist to stop you. 

“Are we going somewhere within walking distance?” you asked. 

“Not quite,” he smiled, and you turned to look in the direction of the loud rumbling sound of a car engine. 

The sound came from a red McLaren P1 pulling up to the curb. 

Everyone that stood outside the club or were walking by on the sidewalk seemed to pause and gasp at the sight of the car. The driver’s side door slid up and you saw a valet step out and hand the keys to Jimin.

“Thanks man,” you watched Jimin slip a hundred dollar bill from his wallet and hand it to the valet. “What?” he grinned, seeing you gawking at him and the car. 

“I, uh,-” you didn’t even know where to begin. “You sure you’re okay to drive?” you asked meekly. 

“For sure, we basically just drank water in there remember?” He grinned, pulling the passenger side door up for you, gesturing for you to get in. 

You gulped, stepping into the car and took a seat, watching as Jimin closed the passenger side door and walked around to the driver’s side and sat, shutting his door. 

The car looked and smelled brand new, and as the ignition roared to life, you saw the lining of the dashboard light up in a low, red LED light. You watched as Jimin held the steering wheel with one hand and looked over his shoulder into the street before pulling away from the curb. 

About 20 blocks uptown, Jimin pulled the car up to the entrance of a stone building and handed the key to a valet failing to hide his giddiness that he would get to drive a McLaren. 

He led you down a few steps to the side of the building into a bar unlike anything you’d ever seen. Stepping through the entrance, you saw a room dimly lit with crystal chandeliers overhead, leather benches all across the room’s periphery with antique mahogany tables and chairs filled with people. The walls were lined with a beautiful wallpaper with painted caricatures that look like they could be found in a children’s book and the entire ceiling was covered with gold leaf. 

You followed him to the bar, where the two of you were greeted by a smiling bartender in a three piece suit. “The usual?” he asked. 

To which Jimin replied, “You know it,” smiling. 

“And for you, miss?”

“Oh, uh, I’ll have the same, thank you,” you looked around at the bar, unable to tear your eyes away from the beautiful paintings on the walls, lost in the dark atmosphere and ambience, the sounds of electric guitar riffs, bass drum, and a sultry, melancholy voice played overhead. 

“You like it?” Jimin’s voice brought you back. 

“The wallpaper..” your eyes locked in on one particular drawing of what looked like a man handing a balloon to a child. “It looks like these books I used to read as a little girl, Madeline.” 

His smile grew. “This is Bemelmans bar,” he said. “The walls were actually painted by Ludwig Bemelmans himself.” 

“You’re lying,” you stared at him in disbelief as the bartender slid your drinks across the bar to you. 

Jimin smiled at your incredulity. “It’s true,” the bartender verified. “We’ve been able to keep the walls in pristine condition over the years.” 

“Holy shit, that’s incredible,” you continued staring at the paintings on the walls around you, and heard a soft chuckle from Jimin as he sipped his drink. 

You picked up your glass and took a sip too. “Oh, wow, that’s so much better,” you commented, taking a few larger gulps of the drink. 

“I know,” he smiled. 

“So, um, can I ask you a question?” you couldn’t hold in your curiosity any longer. 

“Of course,” he replied, taking another sip from his glass, turning sideways on the barstool, facing you. 

“What do you do?” you blurted out, gulping down the rest of your drink. 

The question seemed to catch Jimin off guard, because he laughed, almost choking mid-drink and had to set his glass down, motioning the bartender to bring two new ones over. 

“What do you mean?” 

You furrowed your brows and shot him a look. “I meeaan, the McLaren? The hundred dollar tip to the valet? I just saw the bartender punching our drinks into the tablet over there and I could probably make 30 martinis at home for the price of one of these. And, the clothes?” you gestured your hands over his body. “I mean, what do you do? Who are you?” you paused for a moment, seeing that the cheery expression he’s held all night dropped slightly. 

The bartender slid two new drinks across the bar to you and removed the old glasses. 

“Does it matter to you?” he asked, tone suddenly serious, taking a larger sip from his glass. 

No, of course it doesn’t actually matter, you thought to yourself, self conscious that you might’ve offended him by asking in the first place. It was just that it’s not often you see someone your age having this kind of lifestyle. 

“No, it doesn’t really,” you answered, quietly taking a sip of your drink. 

“I’ll let you guess.” You looked up to see the smile had returned to his face. 

You sat up, thinking hard, staring into his eyes. 

“Are you….” you lowered your voice, “Are you a drug dealer?” you asked, mostly joking. 

He laughed softly at this, “No, I am not a drug dealer.” 

“Are you...an arms dealer?” 

“No, Y/N, I’m not an arms dealer,” he laughed more. 

“A mob boss?” 

He sputtered his drink, setting his glass down on the counter and reaching out to take both your hands in his, swinging back and forth on the stool cheekily and pouted, “Why are all your guesses implying I’m some kind of bad guy?”

You looked into his eyes, at this display of innocence, unsure of whether he’s trying to deflect or if he’s really being sincere. 

Because everything so far just points to ‘bad guy,’ you thought. 

“Oh, this song,” you sat up, hearing the sharp intro bass notes to Tiebreaker come on. 

Jimin stood up, smiling, still holding your hands in his. “Come dance with me,” he said, nodding towards the dance floor to the center of the room. 

You pushed yourself off the seat, standing to follow him and the martinis started hitting you. He held onto your hand as he led you past the bodies tightly packed together til the two of you reached the center of the dance floor, and you felt your limbs relaxing, vision starting to blur under a filter of the smoky, hazy, golden lights from the chandeliers overhead. 

He reached down and took both your hands in his and slid them up around his neck, pulling you in close. He gazed down into your eyes sweetly and dragged his fingertips gently down your back, stopping at your waist to tug your body flush against his. Through the silk material of your dress, you could feel the heat from his palms as he guided your hips gently, slowly moving to the music. You felt your body growing hot and the air around you grew thin, the smell of his cologne falling over you as he leaned his head down to your neck and slid his hands further down your back, pushing your body closer into him, the metal buckle of his belt pressed against skin made your mind drift. 

“Um,” you pulled away quickly, reaching a hand up and brushing your hair back, feeling your heartbeat quickened in your chest. “I’m just gonna go outside and get some air,” he gave you a perplexed look as you backed away. “I’ll just be a minute, I’ll be right back.” 

You pushed clumsily through the crowded dance floor til you found the front doors and burst through them, taking a deep breath and pushing your hair back with both hands, glad for the cold autumn air hitting your skin, the breeze unsticking the thin material of your dress from your stomach. 

What is happening, you thought to yourself as you tried to regain your composure but found it increasingly difficult as your legs felt like jello beneath you, recalling in detail the way he moved his hands and hips against you. Recalling how for a moment back there in your drunken haze, you almost called him Jungkook. 

You felt a rush of blood to your cheeks, your eyes burning as a thin layer of liquid formed in your tear ducts. 

Fuck. 

“Everything ok?” 

You turned to see Jimin step out onto the little stone veranda beside the front entrance where you were pacing. 

You blinked rapidly, trying to make the tears go away. “Oh yeah, I’m fine, it just was a little hot in there, needed to catch my breath,” you stumbled through those words. 

“Are you ok?” He walked up to you, tilting his head and seeing your watery eyes. He reached one hand out, tugging onto your waist and lifted the other to your face, pushing your jaw upward so he could look into your eyes. “Did I do something?” he asked softly. 

You shook your head, “No, no it’s not you, I just-” you sniffled softly, looking away. “It’s nothing.” 

“Hey,” he tilted your face up to look at him. “I can make you feel better,” he smiled. “Wanna hear why I like you?” 

You let out a soft laugh at this. “Um, you like me?” 

“Of course!” he said, a surprised look on his face, as though he was saying how could you question this. 

“But you don’t know anything about me.”

“On the contrary, I know quite a bit,” he smiled wide. “I know that you have good manners, you’re always thanking others, whether it’s the bartender, or me just holding the door open for you, you’re very polite, believe it or not that says a lot about a person.” He slipped both of his hands around your waist and pulled you in close. 

“I know you like your gin martinis the way I do - just a little dirty,” he grinned, and you laughed. “I know you know your cars, and you may think I’m a bad guy, which makes me want to prove to you just how wrong you are about that.” 

His smile grew, “Good, I’ve made you feel better haven’t I?” he quipped, seeing the smile on your face. “Now, your turn, tell me all the things you like about me,” he grinned widely. 

 “Um,” you laughed quietly, tilting your head back slightly to look at him - at his eyes, glittering in under the lights, at how sweet they looked. “I like...your hands,” you said, slightly embarrassed. He looked at you, waiting on an explanation. “Most guys have no idea what to do with their hands, but you use them well,” you continued and saw a smirk grow on his face. 

“Yes, I am very good with my hands,” you felt them slide down to the curve of your hips, fingers digging slightly into your skin. 

“Oh my god, Jimin, not like that,” you laughed, hitting his chest softly with your fist, though you couldn’t deny that actually was exactly how you meant it. “I like...I like dancing with you. I like the way you move,” you continued. 

“Yes, I do move very well too,” his smile grew, and you watched as the tip of his tongue grazed his corner of his mouth, causing your gaze to be completely fixated on his lips. “Anything else?” he asked, voice low, leaning closer. 

“Um...I-” you felt his hands grip into your hips tighter. “I like your lips,” you said in a whisper, your voice shaky. “They look like they might be really soft-”

“I’m happy to let you test that theory.” 

“What-” your words were cut off by him leaning down, pressing his lips against yours. You took a long inhale, feeling your body relax against his, your mind going blank as he pushed your mouth open with his, tilting his face against yours. Gently, he slid his tongue into your mouth and you heard a soft moan escape your throat, feeling his hand sliding down your hip, his fingers grazing your skin under the hem of your dress. 

His other hand reached up behind your neck, craning your head as his lips traveled to the corner of your mouth, your jaw, your ear.

“Well?” he whispered, his breath hot against your skin. “What’s the verdict?” biting gently into the skin of your neck. 

“Mm, um..” it required a concerted effort to get air to your lungs. His lips traveled across your cheeks and once again covered your mouth, his tongue rolling over yours made your knees feel weak, leaning your full weight into him for support. “Jimin,” you pulled away from him slightly. “Will you take me home?” you asked, looking up at him through sleepy eyes, unable to keep from thinking about what he could do to you once you had some privacy. 

“Of course,” he replied simply, taking your hand and leading you out to his car. 

He drove swiftly, following your directions, his hand grasping onto your thigh. You rolled the window down on the passenger side in an attempt to calm yourself. The car came to a stop outside your apartment complex, and he got out behind you, following you across the dim, open courtyard towards the elevators. 

“Are you busy tomorrow, Y/N?” he asked as you reached the elevators. 

You thought for a moment, surprised at the sudden question, turning and seeing him waiting for your answer expectantly, his hands in his pockets of his pants. 

“Um, I don’t think I have any plans, no,” you replied. 

“Great, you’ll spend the day with me then,” he beamed. “I’ll come back in the morning, I’ll pick you up at 10.” 

You chuckled softly at this. “Wait, you’re serious?” you looked at him, slightly incredulous at his words. 

“Very serious,” he answered, taking a few steps toward you, and you felt your back hit the brick wall beside the elevator. He took you in his arms, leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. “Spend the day with me.” 

“Ok,” you couldn’t say no as his lips molded into you, his tongue gliding over yours and he pressed his body to you, pushing you back into the wall. “Um, Jimin, would you..would you want to come upstairs?” you managed through huffed breaths. 

He pulled away from you, looking you directly in your eyes. 

“Do you want me to?” he asked, leaning over you, grinning as he pushed his thigh between your legs, making you gasp. 

“Y-yes,” you muttered, feeling Jimin’s hand slide under the hem of your skirt, dragging his palm up the inside of your thigh, closer and closer to the little puddle that’s been pooling in your panties since you danced with him at the bar. 

“Hmm, if I come upstairs,” he brushed his mouth against your throat, planting feather-light kisses on your skin, making goosebumps rise on your arms. “What would you want me to do?” You felt his finger loop around the dampened material of your underwear, pulling it aside and dipping a finger between your lips, chuckling softly as he touched you. “Is this all for me?” he whispered, gently pressing his finger at your entrance, and you could feel yourself dripping around him. 

“Fuck..Jimin..” 

“What do you want me to do, Y/N?” he bit down softly at your ear. “Use your words, love.” 

“I..um-” 

He retracted his hand from you, kissing at your lips gently before pulling away. You were leaned against the wall, breathless and wanting to pull him back against you but you had no control over your faculties. 

He leaned over, pressing the up button on the elevator, and the doors opened with a ding. 

Taking your hand, he guided you into the elevator and gave you a soft kiss. 

“You think on what you want me to do, Y/N. And we can work on that tomorrow,” he grinned, stepping out of the elevator. 

In disbelief that he was really going to leave you like this, you blurted out, “Tease!” and as the elevator doors closed you saw him tilt his head back slightly, looking at you as he slid his hand over the raised ridges of the tight material of his pants below his belt. 

You bit into your lip and when the doors closed, you felt like you were going to collapse on the floor, your legs felt so weak. 

You hit the button to your floor and managed to drag yourself into your apartment, falling onto your bed immediately as you walked in. The breeze coming in through the open window helped cool your body, and you could still feel all the places his hands touched you, as though his fingerprints were imprinted into your skin. 

You lifted your arms over your face, resting your hands on your eyes, closing them and taking a few deep breaths, wondering if he was actually serious about coming to see you tomorrow. Opening your purse, you took out your phone, tapping the screen and as it lit up, you saw multiple banners flash up - (5) Missed calls: Jungkook. 

[mightbewriting]

Your writing is superb! Wait and Hope is now an all-time favorite fic of mine! I especially admire your ability to write dialogue. Do you have any tips on how to write distinct character voices?

Oh wow, thank you so much! I’m so happy you enjoyed W&H! Dialogue is actually one of my favorite things about writing so the fact that you liked it makes my heart pitter-patter! 

I apologize for sitting on this ask for a couple of days, but I wanted to actually think about some tips for character voice as it relates to dialogue! I do enjoy occasionally nerding out about writing… so without further ado, I’m about to nerd out A LOT (seriously, A LOT). I got a little carried away, but this was so much fun to think about! So, here are some of my thoughts on writing dialogue and using it to support distinct character voices.

The biggest tip I have on how to improve writing the way people talk is to listen to how people talk. Seems obvious, I know. But I mean how real people talk, not scripted movie and TV…which I think is often what comes to mind. I learned more about how people talk in the couple of months I did freelance transcription work than I did in the entirety of the first twenty-something years of my life. You don’t have to actually do transcription work to practice this, just find unscripted video or audio of people talking (interviews, vlogs, streamers, podcasts, whatever!) and type out it out.

The first thing I noticed when I actually had to transcribe real life conversations is that people often make NO SENSE when they talk. They have false starts, verbal pauses, non verbal pauses, they repeat words, they stop mid sentence to start another thought, they fumble with word choice, and so on. This is why professional transcription services offer VERBATIM transcription and NON VERBATIM transcription (I have a point to this, I swear!). Verbatim transcription is how it sounds, you have to type exactly what you hear:

Speaker A: “As I was— I was saying, ah, um, I think we should do— Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, um, okay [cough], does anyone have any other thou— opinions before we move on?”

Like, what does that even mean? 

Non verbatim transcription teaches you to edit out the stuff that makes real life speech mostly unintelligible (I’m eternally amazed that we’re able to make sense of stuff like that on the fly! Brains are amazing!) and it turns the sentence above into something more like:

Speaker A: “Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, okay. Does anyone have any other opinions before we move on?”

This is a pretty heavy handed edit, but I’d argue that the first 13 words of the verbatim sentence is nothing but a false start. I also removed the verbal pauses, the coughing notation, and the switch between words mid-speech. What I’m left with is something that looks and sounds more like what you might see in scripted dialogue. 

All of this is to say; when writing, for coherency’s sake, it’s helpful to write in a non verbatim style so you can be understood. BUT, I love throwing in the occasional false start or thought change mid-sentence, or even a rare verbal pause because I enjoy the bit of realism it adds. I know not everyone will agree with that, but that’s just how I enjoy dialogue.  

Character voice comes into play with dialogue in a lot of ways. If I could boil it down to two things; it’s about WHAT they say and HOW they say it. The WHAT involves things vocabulary: words one character might use that another wouldn’t, or a word they might know that another doesn’t. The HOW involves things like your dialogue tags and the associated actions and narrative surrounding the actual speech.

Rapid fire tips for the WHATs: people speak almost exclusively in contractions, they typically only saying things like “can not” and “do not” etc., for emphasis. Read dialogue out loud; if it sounds weird to hear then it’s probably not right. Character motivation is key; what someone says should make sense for their personality, traits, and history. People don’t always answer questions directly, or say what they mean. Less is usually more, unless someone is especially verbose or engaged in a debate, people don’t tend to wax poetic in long monologues all that often. 

My tips for the HOWs are less rapid fire because I want to talk about dialogue tags and that’s, idk…divisive? Here’s the thing; ‘said’ and ‘asked’ (or their other tense counterparts) are pretty much invisible and are used mostly to indicate who is speaking so a reader doesn’t get lost. Less is more with dialogue tags, too.

Alternative dialogue tags aren’t inherently evil (things like: whispered, shouted, grunted, grumbled, mumbled, growled, exclaimed, ordered, etc. have a place when used judiciously) but they are almost always a stand in for what could be a more interesting use of character voice. It usually ends up being a situation where a writer is telling the reader how to interpret dialogue instead of letting the dialogue speak for itself. So I try to use alternative tags very sparingly; you can actually see my evolution in this throughout W&H and then in S&S and my newer stuff, because I went from being subconsciously aware of it to more consciously practicing.  

Consider this real life example of something I wrote from Ron’s POV:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do,” Malfoy ordered.

I used ‘ordered’ knowing I was using an alternative tag and thinking to myself ‘it’s not so bad here, Ron would think Malfoy is ordering him around.’ Which isn’t necessarily wrong…but it’s not all that interesting. My rewrite, after being rightfully called on my bullshit for being lazy about it, looked like this:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do.” Malfoy waved his hands to dismiss them like they were elves he’d had more than enough of.

This version has a stronger character voice; we get Ron’s interpretation that Malfoy is treating him like an elf and we can imagine a physical movement from Malfoy showing how he’s speaking. I think that’s both more interesting to read and has a stronger sense of voice. When and where possible, I would say that substituting some kind of physical action or observation associated with dialogue usually results in a stronger sense of voice, either from the narrator or the speaker, or both! 

This response has gotten…lengthy. I’m sorry for that (but also, not sorry because writing is so interesting xD). In conclusion, writing is subjective and everyone has their own style. I don’t mean for this to be prescriptive advice, these are simply things that are on my mind when I’m writing dialogue and that I think lead to a stronger result. If nothing else: experiment. Write something exclusively in a verbatim style, write something exclusively with alternative tags, write something with no dialogue tags at all, write an enormous monologue and then figure out how to break it up. Try all sorts of different things to see what doesn’t sound right and what does. Learn the rules and then make your own.

Mostly, have fun. <3

[philologer-mosaic]

Hey! Fellow writer here! I was curious as to how you learn to write characters and /keep/ them in character without it being overly stereotypical or stiff? I've read your work and I'd love to learn from you ;^;

Hi! Glad to meet you, and wow, I am so flattered to be asked this. Happy to help out a fellow writer, and I’m always down for rambling about writing-related stuff! I’m not sure how helpful some of this will turn out to be, but here goes.

I’m not sure if you’re asking about characterisation in general including crafting OCs or specifically about writing canon characters, and a lot of this advice will be relevant to both, but I will say this straight off: I’ve seen a fair amount of quibbling about how fanfiction won’t teach you how to worldbuild and maybe that’s true, but there is nothing like writing fanfiction for teaching yourself how to craft character voices. Especially when your source material is a movie/ TV show/ whatever definition RWBY falls under. So: rewatch! Pay attention to all the little details. What turns of phrase do they use? How do they stand, how do they move? What’s their usual emotional range? Pick a line they speak, think about what descriptors you’d use to get across their tone of voice or their emotional state if you were writing the scene in a fic. When you’re writing new dialogue for them, try to hear it in the actor’s voice (if that’s a way your imagination works; some people don’t have great auditory imaginations. Mine can be kind of hit and miss!).

Rest of this advice is going under a cut, because this got looong!

With canon characters: start from what you know, then extrapolate. Especially with characters we don’t see all that much of, boil them down to a handful of personality traits/ ways-they-present-themself first, then consider what might underly them. And in reverse: take the things we know about their status and backstory, consider what that implies about them as a person.

So, Clover: I think I boiled him down to ‘confident, friendly, professional’, and what’s underlying ‘confidence’ is really obviously his semblance: he’s never had to hesitate about anything, he always knows he can rely on himself. So in his internal monologue, he’s not going to second-guess his decisions. He calls Qrow out on deflecting compliments, so he’s good at reading people and also wants to help them; I assume that applies more broadly than just to Qrow. He’s leader of Ironwood’s flagship team of Specialists, and semblance or not I made the assumption he didn’t get there without working for it [that is an assumption, though! People less inclined to think well of Clover will make a different assumption, in-universe as well as out, and how he responds to that is also something to consider], so he’s got to be smart, dedicated, a good tactician, a good leader. And building from that: he’s smart and perceptive but we know he’s also loyal to the bitter end (very bitter); what sort of personality can we project that reconciles those two, what sort of person would respond like that? What I went with is that he trusts the system because he understands enough pieces of how/why it works that he trusts the bits he doesn’t understand are also created with the best interests of the people at heart. (Even when that’s really not true.) So then that’s a consistent philosophy-like thing that underlies a lot of how I write him: he understands the reasons for a lot of why things are how they are and then assumes the best of all the rest.

– This looks like a lot, now I’ve written it out. I thought all this out while working on the early chapters but I never put it some of it into words really. In coming up with the plot or story idea you’ll have made plenty of these assumptions and extrapolations already. Take a second look at them; take them further, find places to link them together or pit them against each other.

And remember, these are your interpretations. There’s not a right or wrong way to flesh these out. Work with semi-canon stuff like the mangas or discard it as you wish; follow fanon or argue with it or throw it out entirely. I interpreted Yang as ‘normal outgoing teenage girl in a non-homophobic world’ and wrote her as having dated people from Signal before she got to Beacon; the other day I came across a tumblr post interpreting her as “a rural lesbian”, by which standard she definitely didn’t have any romantic experience before canon; they’re both entirely plausible takes! Where we don’t know stuff for sure, slot in whatever your story needs, or whatever you think seems interesting. I settled on Clover’s backstory for Soldier, Spy mostly by going ‘ok, what’s an interesting way to contrast him with Qrow?’ And in some of my other fic ideas, he’s different.

Limited third person perspective (or first person, if you can pull if off) is the best for dropping in characterisation smoothly. Though I’m probably biased because I love it so much. Omniscient third person POV is when the narration’s impartial and uninvolved, and skips between person A’s thoughts and person B’s thoughts and pure description of what’s happening, objectively speaking; limited third person is – when the camera’s always over one person’s shoulder in a given scene. It’s less close in than first person, but we get the POV character’s thoughts and no others, we only see/notice what they notice and pay attention to, descriptions are coloured by the way the POV character thinks about the world. I don’t want to be setting you homework, but, a neat writing exercise, if you want it: pick an object, place or person, and consider how two different characters would see it differently. Write those two descriptions. For fun, pick something that at least one of the characters is going to really look down on or dislike parts of! (Qrow’s snark is so much fun.)

This is cynical, but: people lie to themselves a lot. When you put yourself into a character’s head, they’re going to be telling themself a narrative in which what they’re doing is the best thing to do and makes them a good person. (With a few exceptions, the big ones being depression- and anxiety-brain, which instead do their best to convince you you’re the worst.) Get your characters to justify themselves to you.

Goals, motivations, priorities. It feels like a massive oversight to write about how to characters and leave that one out, but honestly I can’t think of anything I can say here that hasn’t been covered better by tons of other writing advice. [Incidentally: https://www.writersdigest.com/ . Subscribe to their email newsletter, it’s free, they will try to get you to buy their how-to courses but there’s no need to, the website has all kinds of articles about the craft and details of writing and the newsletter will send you all the new ones plus curated picks of what’s already there. And also: https://springhole.net/writing/index.html . There’s some stuff specific to fanfic in there, and also general writing advice.] Just: keep it in mind.

Related to that, but a separate thing and one that I haven’t seen other writing advice talk about so much: how does the character try to achieve their goals? What are their skills and resources? And more than that, what’s their preferred approach? In the simplest terms. It’s a matter of mindset, and what options they see as available to them. So the things I would keep in mind for this are: Who’s got social skills/ is good at thinking in social terms, and who isn’t/doesn’t? (Not just interpersonally speaking. James “not really concerned about my reputation” Ironwood is a good example of a character who always thinks in terms of hard power over soft power; even when public opinion is an important strategic consideration he only thinks about it in the broadest and most simplified strokes.) Who would rather work within the system, and who prefers to do an end-run around it? (That doesn’t have to correlate with who’s actually got power, though obviously there are trends. I’m writing Clover as tending to take charge even when he officially shouldn’t because he’s more concerned with solving the problem than with rank, and that’s a case of circumventing the system, it’s one of the things he’s got in common with Qrow.) Who’s more analytical about their approach and what they’re trying to do (which means their failure mode is overthinking and decision paralysis) and who reacts with their gut instinct (which means their failure mode is getting in over their head)?

… I could talk about this one at length. There’s a whole framework I use to categorise characters in this way (I came across it in, of all things, the flavourtext of a supplement to an RPG no one’s ever heard of and it just stuck with me, and I’ve made it my own in the years since) and I could go into all sorts of detail about how it works/ what it means. But I think this is enough to be getting on with, on that topic. If you want to know more, send me another ask? But no one else talks about this thing in writing advice, it might be completely orthogonal to the writing process of anyone but me.

So! Related to the topic of characters’ skillsets, a really great tip I can’t remember where I picked up: how do you write someone who’s smarter/wittier/better at tactics than you? Spend minutes or hours turning something over in your head that the character is going to come up with in seconds. The great advantage of writing: it’s so much easier to be eloquent when you’ve got time to think. [If you had asked me this question in person you would have got ‘i don’t know?’ and then half an hour later I would have thought of half of this stuff and kicked myself. A week and change later, you’re getting the other half too :p ]

And lastly: you said you were worried about your writing getting “overly stereotypical”. And my immediate response to that was stereotypes bad, yes, but archetypes great. The difference being: stereotypes are lazy and offensive writing that let ‘membership of a social category’ stand in for ‘actual characterisation’ and if you’re asking for advice on characterisation you’re obviously too thoughtful to commit them; archetypes are pre-made sketched-out personalities that you can take as your own and flesh out into your own thing. Tropes are tools. No one ever said ‘They were roommates? Ugh, how unoriginal’. By the same token, ‘lone wolf who pretends he’s fine and doesn’t dare trust anyone no matter how much he secretly wants to’ is a fantastic trope that exists for good reason, the CRWBY used it for good reason, and when we found out Qrow’s semblance I went yes please I will have some of all that angst and then laughed at myself because when it comes to fictional characters I have A Type. I’m pretty sure I’ve never written the exact scenario ‘pushes themself way too hard and passes out, wakes up in unexpected safety and immediately condemns themself for not sticking it out longer’ before the opening of Soldier, Spy, but I know I’ve come up with plenty of things that were like it, and if they’d made it to a state of publication you’d be able to see that.

It’s like artists using references. Just because they looked up how to draw that hand and that pose doesn’t mean the final product’s not their own. There’s no reason not to start with your ideas of the character (no matter how ‘stereotypical’ they feel) or a collection of traits you’ve grabbed from other characters that seem like they’d fit – or, for OCs, an MBTI type or a roleplaying class/background combo or one of these or some other personality type you feel like you can find your way around the basics of – and just take it from there. When you start writing/outlining/daydreaming-about-ideas you’ll run into scenarios/setups you can’t copy across from but you can see what responses might come up, and that’s how the template becomes your own unique iteration of it.

… Because really all writing advice does come down to: just write. In your head or on the page, try things out, see what works, see how it goes. I’ve been doing this a long time; most of it never made it to words on a page, let alone to the internet at large. Read across genres, read things people write about themselves and how they live and think and feel, and just – go for it.

I hope this helps! Once again, I was really glad to be asked; feel free to ask me to elaborate on any of this, or about anything else you want advice about. I wish you all the best in your future writing!