#tagging that for the first time ever because I’m so used to saying a Yuri win everytime they’re being the ultimate fag hags

[snarky-art]

Do it all for you

[heyiwrotesomethings]

She’s The Housekeeper Prt9: Bond

Yor Briar/ Forger x She/ Her Reader

A/N: Prt8 Alright, here is the last part for the foreseeable future. The first chapter of this story is still my most popular post to date, and it’s so cool to see 800+ notes on something I’ve written. If you managed to stick with me for this long, thank you for your time and support💜! Word Count: ~5,800

Anya ate her breakfast with an extra vigor that morning because today would be the day Loid would take her to the pet shop to find a cute little dog to take home! She inhaled her food so fast, she nearly choked.

“Hey, careful!” (Y/n) cautioned as she pushed Anya’s glass of water closer to her for the little girl to gulp down, “I know you’re excited, but let’s try to avoid having to go to the hospital instead.”

“The dogs aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. You can take your time.” Loid reminded.

“I’m just as excited to look around as you are Miss Anya!” Yor beamed as she put down the burnt omurice she had made, “but please do be careful.”

Anya downed the water and though she was still eating rather quickly, she was pacing herself better than she had a few moments ago.

“Anya is ready to go now!” She declared, sliding off of her chair to fetch her coat.

“Anya, we’re still eating.” Loid called after her, but Anya kept moving, pulling her coat from the rack. Loid sat back in his chair, letting Anya wait by the door. “Are you joining us, (Y/n)? It shouldn’t take terribly long.”

“I wouldn’t mind tagging along.” (Y/n) decided. Maybe she could influence the decision made of what dog they got. Something that was already house trained would be ideal. One that rarely shedded would also be preferable.

“This is going to be so much fun.” Yor hummed, between bite of crispy rice and egg. She offered (Y/n) a bite, and of course (Y/n) had to take it.

“Definitely an improvement over the last one, well done my dear.” (Y/n) praised before downing her water in just a few gulps.

The food really was one of Yor’s better attempts. It was still vile, but (Y/n) didn’t feel like she was in danger of throwing up. (Y/n) wasn’t absolutely insane like Yor’s dear brother Yuri, if Yor’s food made her feel ill, she would simply excuse herself to the bathroom to take care of it, not smile and try to clear the plate faster than she could vomit. (Y/n) shuddered at the memory. The Briar siblings were not normal.

“Woof! Woof! Woof!” Anya chanted from the hallway. She simply couldn’t wait any longer, they were wasting precious daylight!

“Let us do the dishes at least, then we will go, Anya. Be patient.” Loid began gathering plates while (Y/n) and Yor went to the sink to wash and dry.

Anya felt like she could explode from the anticipation, but finally all three adults had put away the dishes and put on their coats and they were heading out the door.

“Woof! Woof! Woof!” She barked again, swinging Yor’s hand in hers. “Papa,” she asked, turning back to look at Loid, “Do doggies like peanuts?”

“You probably shouldn’t give them too many. It might not be good for them.” He replied, making Anya pout.

“That leaves more peanuts for you, Miss Anya.” (Y/n) provided helpfully, making her smile again.

“Oh, is this the shop right there?” Yor asked.

“That’s it.” Loid confirmed, going ahead of them to open the door for everyone.

Inside were the most fucked up looking dogs that (Y/n) had ever seen. Anya looked severely unsettled and (Y/n) couldn’t say she blamed her.

“Is… is that one flexing?” She asked Yor in a concerned whisper.

“What do you think, Anya?” Loid smiled, “Do you like any of these dogs?”

“No.” Anya wasted no time saying.

“R-really?” Loid’s eye twitched.

“Are you really surprised, Loid? I mean, look at them.” (Y/n) shuddered.

She did have a point… Guess they would have to go to the shelter event instead. A person caught his eye from the back room, flashing him a signal. Now really wasn’t a good time, but if Handler was calling, it must be important.

“Augh!” Loid cried out, clutching his stomach.

“Loid? What’s wrong?” (Y/n) asked, startled by the outburst.

“I, I need to use the restroom! You all can go, I’ll meet you at the shelter.”

“Are you sure you’re alright? We can wait.” Yor offered.

“Papa takes a long time when he goes to the shitter to shit, so we should probably go.” Anya bluntly explained.

“I see…” Yor blushed.

“Eugh, Miss Anya, we didn’t need to know that.” (Y/n) shivered in disgust, “Also, watch your language.”

“Yes, watch your mouth young lady.” Loid echoed before running off to deal with his… ‘problem’.

“Well, guess we should get going then.” (Y/n) decided.

“Yes!” Anya skipped to the door with (Y/n) and Yor following close behind.

Before long, the sidewalks became more congested and the unmistakable sounds of animals flooded the air.

“So this is the adoption event. Wow, it’s even bigger than I imagined!” Yor gushed.

“Yeah, it seems like Loid should’ve brought us here first.” (Y/n) observed.

Puppies, kittens and bunnies! They seemed to have every furry household pet under the sun! Anya ran haphazardly to look into every crate and enclosure she could find.

“Don’t run around Miss Anya, you’ll get lost!” Yor warned.

“Promise us you won’t leave this area with the dogs, okay?” (Y/n) asked.

“Okay…” Anya deflated a bit, but that was fine, there were so many cute doggies to look at and she would get to take one of them home!

The trio walked up to an enclosure together and Yor squeaked with excitement, grabbing (Y/n) by the arm and shaking her around.

“Look at that dachshund’s cute little legs!” She cooed, making (Y/n) smile.

Anya was overwhelmed by all the cuteness. She couldn’t possibly choose just one. They were all so sweet! Standing by the window, something large and white caught her eye, and she turned to see it more clearly, feeling a possible connection with whatever that may be.

(Y/n) and Yor were going over their top picks when one of the ladies working the event approached them offering assistance. (Y/n) and Yor took up the conversation, distracting them from Anya’s sudden disappearance.

“Are there any breeds that are easier to clean up after?” (Y/n) asked.

“Poodles rarely shed, so cleaning up after them is a breeze.” The friendly lady shared.

“You don’t say.” (Y/n) perked up, making Yor smile.

“Or there are smaller breeds, Shih Tzus are very friendly.”

While (Y/n) and Yor were engrossed with the woman’s abundant information, they failed to notice Anya slink outside to follow the shady man and the big white dog she had seen through the window. By the time they had stopped talking with the woman and thanked her for her suggestions, Anya appeared to be long gone. (Y/n) looked up to find her in the crowd, but could not see her anywhere within the dog section and her heart began to rise to her throat.

“Yor,” (Y/n) alerted, grabbing her partner’s arm, anxiety already slipping into her tone, “Do you know where Anya is?”

Yor snapped to attention, scanning all around, a familiar sense of dread pooling in her stomach. She did not like the trend that seemed to be forming every time she let Anya out of her sight or reach for but a few minutes every time they went out in public.

“I- I don’t—“ Yor swallowed thickly, her feet traveled on autopilot, “Miss Anya? Where did you go?!” She called out, a static buzzing growing steadily between her ears.

“I’ll look for her in the kitten section!” (Y/n) yelled after her before running off in a different direction, but she was not heard.

Between the two of them, they must have asked everyone in the event hall if they had seen the little girl, each growing more and more desperate with every shake of a head they received.

Upon getting her latest negative sighting, Yor felt unshed tears burning the corners of her eyes. This was the aquarium all over again, but worse! She turned, expecting to see (Y/n) there, ready to give her a hug and to let her know everything would be alright, but of course she wasn’t there.

Yor had already been so tense and her brain had been so focused on looking for Anya, she had somehow lost her dear (Y/n) along the way! Now she began to really freak out, completely overwhelmed by the crowded venue and the noise pitching around and within her.

Something in her that was already tense, snapped and she jumped up, kicked off of a nearby pillar, and expertly braced herself on the ceiling so she could search from above. Her breathing uneven, she drowned out the noise of the crowd below. She didn’t see Anya. Anya wasn’t there, not even a trace, and that terrified her.

What if she had been eaten by a dog?! No, Yor managed to stop that train of thought. That was unlikely. Someone would surely have noticed something like that. But what if she had been kidnapped again like when they had gone to the aquarium, or when they had gone grocery shopping! What if (Y/n) had been taken too!

An awful image of her beloved and her adopted daughter being carted away by despicable men to be married off to even more vile and cruel men consumed her vision, but then she found a small light, a familiar splash of color, she saw (Y/n) in one of the far corners of the venue, a strange man looming over her.

Without another second of delay, she skillfully swung from the pipes above and dove between them from the ceiling, startling the man enough to make him yelp. Yor prepared to uppercut him into the sun next, to see what kind of sound that would make, but instead (Y/n)’s hand quickly shot out to grasp her bicep and pull her back. Confused, Yor allowed her.

“Where the hell did you come from lady?” The man blinked, bug-eyed, mouth agape.

“She’s the mother. As you can see, she’s worried sick. If you see her little girl, please do not hesitate to let us know.” (Y/n) beseeched, pulling Yor back a bit more to try to knock her out of whatever murder-y thoughts were fogging up her mind.

“Yeah… of course.” The man gave them a weird look then began walking briskly away.

(Y/n) turned to hold both of Yor’s biceps, pressing her thumbs into the fabric of her coat’s sleeves to try to put pressure on the tense muscles beneath.

“Hey, try to breathe, okay? What’s the matter? Besides the obvious.” She cooed.

Yor sobbed, slamming her head hard against (Y/n)’s chest, making a deep thunk sound that rattled (Y/n)’s insides.

“Oof!” (Y/n) winced, but held Yor all the same, rubbing her back comfortingly.

“I- I can’t find Miss Anya! A-and I thought you had gotten taken too!”

“Honey,” (Y/n) murmured, giving a, ‘mind your own business’ smile to anyone who dared curiously look their way, “I told you I would look for Anya over here. You must not have heard me.”

“I guess not.” She sniffed.

“I’m okay. Now take some deep breaths. It’s clear that Anya isn’t in here, we need to go find her, but we can’t be snapping the neck of anyone whose just going about their day.”

Yor made a pitiful sound, but cut herself off halfway through, almost knocking heads with (Y/n) from how quickly she brought her head up.

“What…!” (Y/n) began to ask, but she heard it then too, that sounded like Anya outside!

And she was outside! They could see her through the window! She was barreling down the street… on top of a big, fluffy white dog.

Yor took (Y/n)’s hand and began sprinting in the direction the dog had ran off in. It was a brutal pace, one that (Y/n) couldn’t keep up with and when she tried to communicate to Yor that she would catch up. Yor was having none of it and scooped (Y/n) up into her arms, making quite the spectacle as they zoomed around the people walking by. It hardly mattered to Yor. She wasn’t going to risk losing (Y/n) for real by leaving her behind.

“Down that alley!” (Y/n) pointed.

“Right!”

(Y/n) braced herself, this was the side of her career that she was not trained for, but when they saw a strange man reaching for Anya in the alley, she still let Yor take her by the arms and spin her at a dizzying pace before finally being launched towards Anya.

(Y/n) sailed over the shocked kidnapper’s head, took hold of Anya’s hands, and catapulted her into the air. While Anya was airborne, (Y/n) sprung off of her hands when she hit the ground and flipped into an upright standing position just in time to catch Anya and see Yor smash her foot into the kidnapper’s face.

Yor fell into place beside (Y/n) so that Anya was between them, protected on either side. Anya couldn’t have looked more relieved to see them, looking between them with visible awe and joy.

“You won’t get away with this, Mr. Perverted Kidnapper,” Yor spoke in a measured tone, glaring at the remaining man who had his jaw hanging open, “It is much too early for Miss Anya to get married!”

“Married?” (Y/n) cocked her head to the side. Just what kind of scenarios was Yor imagining?

The gravity of the situation seemed to catch up to Anya then, because she began to cry, grasping onto the coats of both women she wailed,

“Mama! I was so scared!”

“Don’t worry, you’re all right now.” Yor comforted.

“We’ve got you.” (Y/n) assured, wiping Anya’s tears.

Kieth clenched his teeth. Which one was the mother? Ah, it didn’t matter. They’d all have to die if he was going to succeed in his plans.

“Dog! Rip their throats out!” He commanded.

The German Shepherd beside him began to approach, snarling, but then Yor gave one of her most terrifying expressions to date and growled right back with startling ferocity. The dog whimpered pathetically and turned tail, running out of the alley as fast as he could.

“Coward!” Kieth yelled after him.

“Bwah! Mama, I’m scared!” Anya bawled, hiding her face in (Y/n)’s coat, keeping Yor out of her sight.

“Hm? But you’re safe now?” Yor frowned, perhaps not realizing just how frightening her face had been jus a moment before.

“Don’t worry Anya, if that man thinks he can take you from us he has another thing coming!” (Y/n) promised, her mind filled with thoughts of fire and acid.

Yeah, Anya was glad to have those two on her side because they were honestly terrifying.

Voices began to be heard near the mouth of the alley and Keith cursed. All that noise had alerted people from the street, and now they were coming to investigate!

“Come on, come on you stupid mutt!” He hissed at the remaining dog, the big and fluffy white one. He tugged and tugged at the dog’s leash, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Damn worthless beast!” He kicked the dog in anger and fled the scene empty handed.

“He’s getting away!” Yor groaned, but she stood firmly at (Y/n)’s side. There was already one kidnapper she needed to properly detain and she didn’t want to leave (Y/n) and Anya for even a second.

Just how long is Loid going to stay in the bathroom? She mourned internally. His stomach was probably revolting from the breakfast she had made!

“Mr. Dog are you okay?” Anya asked, running up the the dog once (Y/n) put her down.

“Ah, careful Miss Anya! You shouldn’t run up to dogs you don’t know.” (Y/n) warned, trying to stop Anya from going any further.

“Mr. Doggie is no stranger. He saved Anya.” Anya put her hands over her heart, looking over to the dog with gratitude.

“Where did this dog come from, Miss Anya?” Yor asked.

Anya took a deep breath, that question required a very big answer.

“Terrorist bomb dogs?!” Yor blanched.

(Y/n) got on her knees and thoroughly searched the fluffy dog for bombs. Thankfully, there weren’t any. She sighed in relief and gave Yor a shaky thumbs up.

“Anya is sorry for running off without permission…” Anya mumbled, grabbing the hem of her coat between her fingers while she kept her eyes firmly on the ground.

“We’re just glad that you are safe.” (Y/n) knelt to the ground to hug Anya.

“We were so worried about you.” Yor chimed, following her partner to the ground.

“But expect a stern talking to when we get home.” (Y/n) warned.

Anya pouted, but nodded in acceptance and the three, plus the dog, walked out of the alley, tied up kidnapper dragging behind Yor.

They called the police on a nearby public phone to explain the situation, during which Anya suddenly grew restless, shaking the dog.

“Anya don’t be rough with the doggie.” Yor scolded lightly before her attention was brought back to the receptionist on the phone.

“Mama, Mama, sorry, Anya just remembered something. Papa forgot to take toilet paper with him to the potty!” The little girl yelled out of the blue.

“Huh?”

“What?”

(Y/n) and Yor stared on, frozen, as Anya leapt onto the dog’s back and urged him into a run.

“He might be in trouble so I have to go get some from home!”

“Anya, wait!” Yor called, reaching out the hand that wasn’t currently cradling the receiver.

“She’s running off again!” (Y/n) yelled in disbelief, finally sprinting after the blob of pink and white as they rounded the corner.

“W-wait! What about the police?” Yor called after her.

“We told them all we could! Just hang up and leave that guy there, he won’t wake up anytime soon! Let’s go before we lose Anya again!”

“Ah, okay!” Yor rose the receiver back to her ear, “I’m leaving the kidnapper by this phone booth! I have to go now, bye!” She hung up the phone and caught up with (Y/n) before she rounded the corner.

They searched every block, every street within half a mile. (Y/n) finally came to a stop, resting heavily on the guardrail of the bridge they had been speed-walking across.

“Darling, are you alright?” Yor’s voice was laced with worry. She could tell that (Y/n) was breathing quite hard.

“I’ll be okay, I just need a minute.” She wheezed. God, cardio sucks.

While (Y/n) tried not to keel over on the bridge, Yor paced back and forth. The only trace that she had been running at all was the light layer of sweat on her rosy face.

“What if she gets found by the terrorists again? I can’t let that happen!” Yor fretted.

“Maybe she went back to the pet shelter?” (Y/n) suggested between breaths. “At the very least, maybe Loid is finally there?”

Before Yor could speak, a loud honk of a horn and a sharp squeal of tires interrupted her. The scent of burnt rubber permeated the air. Looking down from the bridge, the women saw a car speeding recklessly down the road.

The light caught the windshield just right, allowing Yor to see an unwelcomingly familiar face. The other man who tried to kidnap Anya!

“Him again? How dare he try to take Miss Anya and run away! You won’t get away this time!” She declared, then jumped off of the bridge.

“Yor!” (Y/n) yelled. She tried to reach out for her, but she was too slow. Her hands snapped right to her eyes. Covering them from whatever was about to happen. “Pleasebeokaypleasebeokaypleasebeokay—“

An awful crashing noise reverberated within (Y/n)’s ears and she cautiously lifted her face from her hands. Below, she could see that Yor looked unscathed, thank the stars, but the car looked as if it had been t-boned before crashing into a lamppost.

(Y/n) hobbled down the hill to meet Yor on the street and flung her arms around her, a gesture that was always eagerly returned.

“Are you hurt?”

“Nope!” Yor smiled, “Kicking the car did make my leg feel a little tingly though.”

“My indestructible tank, I love you.” (Y/n) sighed, looking back at the crushed car. “We’ll have to call the police… again.”

They quickly relayed the location of the car and hung up before the responder could ask any follow-up questions. Then they were off to continue their search for Anya.

It was near sunset when they saw Loid walking down the sidewalk towards them. They opened their mouths in a rush to tell him that Anya had run off on a dog, but said girl and dog appeared from the alley between them and they instead slumped over each other in relief.

“What are you three doing here?” Loid asked, “I’m surprised to find you so far from the shelter.”

“Anya was coming to give papa toilet paper.”

“Ah.”

“She ran off on us. Twice.” (Y/n) informed, resting most of her weight against Yor. Now that Anya was with them once more, the exhaustion of running around all day was really starting to get to her.

“Did she now…” Loid looked down at Anya disapprovingly, finally truly noticing the dog beside her. “And who is the dog?

“That is actually quite the story.” Yor rubbed at her cheek with a sheepish smile and retold the events of the day. (Y/n) would occasionally chime in, but ultimately she was too tired to try to censor anything Yor was saying. Somewhere in her brain she knew they probably shouldn’t talking about taking down terrorists without much trouble, but again she was too tired to care.

“I’m sorry all that happened while I was in the bathroom.” Loid finally said, a faint blush coloring his cheeks.

“Yeah, you were gone all day. Have you considered seeing a doctor, because that is not at all normal.” (Y/n) spoke in a teasing tone, but there was a notable hint of concern in the way her eyebrows scrunched together.

“It was probably because of what I made for breakfast.” Yor bemoaned.

“It has to be something else. The rest of us survived.”

Loid, wanting to put his day long trip to the ‘bathroom’ behind him, began to address Anya and her penchant for running off.

“How many times do I have to tell you to not run off on your own. You could have been seriously hurt!” He yelled, making Anya flinch.

“Anya is sorry!” She sniffled, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

Loid immediately softened, falling to one knee before her, “I’m sorry for yelling. I was just worried. You aren’t hurt at all though, right?”

Anya shook her head, putting a hand on the fluffy dog beside her. The fur nearly swallowed up her hand.

“Mr. Dog protected me.”

Loid smiled at the dog, petting him gently, “Thank you.”

“Excuse us,”

The family turned to see a woman and a man in suits approaching them from across the street,

“We’re investigating an incident near City Center. We understand that this was one of the dogs involved in the incident.” The woman said. “Please hand him over to us. He’ll be in good hands.”

“Of course. Thank you.” Loid tipped his hat, motioning them towards the dog.

“Now we can go back to looking for a puppy!” Yor beamed excitedly.

“Is the shelter even still open?” (Y/n) almost hoped it wasn’t. She wanted to shower and then spend the next several days in bed. She was already dreading how sore she was going to be tomorrow.

“Come on, Anya. Let’s go take a look.” Loid reached for her hand, but Anya pulled away.

“No! Anya wants Mr. Dog!” She said, stepping between the officers and the dog.

Loid shook his head. “He was owned by bad guys.”

“He saved Anya!” The esper refuted.

“You said you wanted a small dog.” Loid crossed his arms, peering down at his fickle adopted daughter.

“But Anya wants Mr. Dog now, it’s okay that he is big!” Anya continued to argue, hugging the dog close.

“Anya please,” Loid pinched the bridge of his nose, “Stop being so difficult.”

“If papa doesn’t let me have Mr. Dog, Anya will go bad and stop going to school!” Anya’s lip wobbled and then she began to cry.

“Wh— what are you saying?!” Loid sputtered.

“It’s okay, Miss Anya! Please don’t cry!” Yor beseeched.

“There are a lot of nice dogs in the world! I’m sure you’ll find another who is just as sweet…” (Y/n) attempted to console, but she knew that trying to get Anya to change her mind would be impossible at this point. She did just spend the whole day with this dog after all.

“Very well.” The woman conceded, leaving Loid particularly surprised.

“What?!”

The woman chuckled, then couched in front of Anya, a bittersweet smile on her lips.

“The dog itself didn’t cause any harm. If you promise to take good care of him, he’s yours, but we will need to keep him for the night to check his health first.” She explained softly.

“Are you protecting the other doggies too?”

“They are sleeping in the softest of beds and eating warm, yummy food.” She nodded.

“Thank you very much, important lady.”

The woman’s smile tugged a little further, “You’re welcome.” She stood back to her full height, turning to Loid. “We shall make contact with you tomorrow.“

“Thank you. Sorry for the trouble.” Loid bowed his head.

“No trouble at all. Have a good night.”

And so they began their trek home. Anya and Yor were particularly pleased with themselves because of the parts they played in saving the city from terrorists. (Y/n) and Loid on the other hand were exhausted.

“Why do you look like that?” (Y/n) had asked him pointedly. “I know it isn’t easy being… ill, all day, but I’ve been running around the city for hours and I still look better than you.”

“Do you really want to know?” Loid asked with a wry smile, his eye twitching in aggravation. If only they knew what he had really been up to all day!

“No.” (Y/n) shook her head quickly, “No, I really don’t want to know. Forget I said anything.”

After a night of the deepest sleep that any of them had ever experienced, morning soon came, and with it, a large and fluffy white dog.

“So curious!” Yor giggled, watching the dog sniff around the living room.

“Anya wants to stay home to play with Mr. dog today.” Anya said hugging the dog tightly.

“I believe the deal was that you wouldn’t stop going to school if you got this dog.” Loid said after spitting his toothpaste in the sink. “Get ready for school.”

“Does Anya at least get a Stella for helping stop the bad guys?” She asked. That would help put her in a better mood about going to school.

“I’m afraid not, Anya. No one is supposed to know about what was going to happen because it would just cause fear and panic. You have to keep it to yourself or the police might need to come and take you away.”

“Shock!” Anya flinched. She couldn’t let that happen, but it certainly was a disappointment that she couldn’t tell anyone.

“Loid!” (Y/n) gasped from the other room, “Don’t phrase it like that, you’ll scare her!”

Loid rolled his eyes at his reflection in the mirror and Anya began getting ready to go to school, pouting all the while.

“Have a good day at school Miss Anya!” Yor waved. “(Y/n) and I will take good care of Mr. Doggie while you’re away.”

“I’ll do my best.” (Y/n) called from the couch. Even raising her hand to wave goodbye to Anya hurt. Her whole body felt stiff and sore from the whole ordeal yesterday while it appeared to be just another normal day for Yor.

Anya and Loid said their goodbyes and then it was just (Y/n), Yor and the curious new addition to the family.

“Yor, darling, would you make me some ice packs.” (Y/n) groaned while she moved to lay flat on the couch.

“Of course! My poor, sore heart!” Yor cooed. She cupped (Y/n)’s cheek and leaned down to kiss her forehead before heading to the kitchen.

While (Y/n) waited for Yor’s return, the dog took notice of her and began to lumber up to her.

“Hello, getting used to your new home?” (Y/n) asked him.

The dog sniffed her hand, then slowly hoisted himself up onto his hind legs by placing his front paws on the edge of the couch.

“Ah, wait. No, don’t come up here— dog! No! Down! Oof!”

(Y/n) couldn’t stop the dog from laying flat across her sore body. It was a warm, and an almost comforting weight, but in the state (Y/n) was in currently, she didn’t find it entirely enjoyable, but it was kind of cute.

“Honey, did you say something…?” Yor walked back into the room, her arms filled with industrial bags of ice that she got from who-knows-where. Her eyes fell on the dog and she pouted, “That was going to be my spot, Mr. Doggie.”

“Yor, help me get him off. He’s too heavy.”

Yor did as she was asked, dragging the dog back to the floor.

“I apologize, Mr. Doggie, but (Y/n) is sore from running around yesterday. Surely you understand.” Yor then promptly dropped the giant bags of ice onto (Y/n)’s body.

“Not quite what I had in mind, but thah, thank you.” (Y/n) shivered.

The dog was undeterred by the upheaval and soon climbed his way back onto the couch, sinking between the bags of ice.

“My, perhaps he is sore too!” Yor observed. “Poor thing.”

(Y/n) sighed. She couldn’t find it within herself to make Yor push the dog away a second time. Perhaps she should feel special because the dog seemed to like her already, but her body was not appreciative of the extra pressure at this time.

“Would it help for me to massage your calves?” Yor asked thoughtfully. “Mr. Dog isn’t covering those up.”

(Y/n) mulled it over. Typically, a massage from Yor would be nice as long as she didn’t push too hard.

“I think that sounds nice, just be gentle please.”

“I will, I promise!”

And she really was. Yor did a great job, so wonderful in fact, that the combination of the frigid melting ice, the warm, weighted blanket of a dog, and the soothing massage knocked (Y/n) right out.

She was rudely awakened hours later when the dog clumsily leapt off of her to jump into Anya’s arms when she got home from school.

“Welcome home!” Yor smiled, clasping her hands to rest them against her cheek, “Oh my, such good friends already! He must have missed you!”

“Save me! He’s eating me!” Anya gasped while the dog slobbered all over her.

“He seems to have a lot of pent up energy. We should take him for a walk.” Loid suggested. He looked over to (Y/n) laid limply across the couch and smirked, “Care to join us, (Y/n)?”

“Not today.” (Y/n) deadpanned, ever so slowly lifting herself into a sitting position. “You all go on ahead. I’ll start getting dinner ready.”

“Are you sure? I could stay an help.” Yor volunteered.

“I’ll be fine,” (Y/n) assured, “Go have fun at the dog park.”

(Y/n) shuffled through the kitchen like an old woman, slowly preparing dinner. Though she could be prideful at times, she was actually surprised that she had dinner mostly completed before the Forger’s returned home.

“I hope they haven’t ran into anymore trouble.” She murmured to herself as she finished setting the table. She walked to the armchair this time around when she finished her self imposed task. She hissed through clenched teeth as she lowered herself into the plush chair.

She then decided she would never run again, maybe never even walk. She didn’t care if it would look strange, she was going to have Yor carry her everywhere from now on and if she knew anything about her love, she would be happy to do it too.

Finally, the front door opened and the Forger’s piled inside.

Anya ran up to (Y/n) all excited, “Mama, I know what to name Mr. Dog!”

“Do you? What is it?” (Y/n) thought Mr. Dog was the name already, but she was curious to hear what else Anya had come up with.

“Wait just a minute!” Anya asked.

She bounced excitedly when Loid came back from the short trip to his room, a black ribbon of fabric in hand. He deftly tied the fabric around the dog’s neck and once he stepped away, (Y/n) saw he had looped it into a bow tie.

“Behold!” Anya flung her arms out in the direction of the dog happily thumping his tail against the floor. “Bond!”

“Oh, like Bondman.” Loid understood. “That should work just fine.”

“Boof!” Bond leapt at Anya, sending her to the floor in a flurry of licks and wiggly wags that made Anya laugh.

“He seems to like it.” (Y/n) smiled fondly.

“They’re so cute!” Yor cooed.

“Come, Bond! Let me show you around the hideout!”

“Anya, it’s dinner time. And don’t forget you need to study. afterwards.” Loid warned.

“Anya will study later, promise.”

Loid’s eye twitched, but he relented.

After dinner, Anya fed Bond. She filled his bowl to the brim and watched him begin to chow down.

“Try not to give him too much.” Loid cautioned as he walked by, a towel under his arm. “I’m going to take my bath now, but I expect you to be studying by the time I’m done.”

Anya pouted and Loid walked to the bathroom. Curious, Anya took a kibble from Bond’s bowl and nearly popped it into her mouth before (Y/n) called out her name.

“Miss Anya, please don’t eat anything meant for a dog.” (Y/n) shivered in disgust as she scrubbed the dishes nearby.

“I know it must look tempting, but take it from me, it is not as good as it looks.” Yor helpfully added.

“I don’t want to know if that is coming from a place of experience or not.” (Y/n) said, but the shy laugh Yor gave was damning.

Soon after he finished his meal, Bond began to wiggle uncomfortably and Anya took notice.

“Need to go potty? Here, I’ll show you where to go.” Anya led him to a wide tub lined with newspaper. “When nobody can take you outside, you go in here. If you go anywhere else, mama will get mad cause she like things tidy.”

After business was taken care of, Anya and Bond played all over the apartment. (Y/n) wanted to remind Anya about her studies, but she couldn’t bear to break up the fun. It was Bond’s first day home, and Anya hardly got to see him before she had to go to school. A little more playtime couldn’t hurt.

(Y/n) and Yor watched them play, losing track of time. And when Loid returned from his bath, they showed him the cute little girl and her dog curled up together and fast asleep.

The studying could wait until tomorrow, Loid supposed.

[aquagustd]

What about a yuri and yoongi scene 👀

I want to see them interact when it’s just them 🥺

Oh also maybe how they met and their early relationship.

(Thanks for helping me out! Hope I found the right place 😅)

you did !! tysm for requesting <3

❛the first time yoongi & yuri met❜

genre/rating: PG | fluff

warnings/tags: strong language, cigarette smoking, they’re v cute ok, yoongi’s pov !!, yoongi is around 23 here

⤷ drabble for hell is empty

yoongi’s sat on the bench, close enough to the shore to taste the salty air, but keeping a distance so his feet don’t get wet.

he taps the edge of his cigarette before bringing it up to his lips, taking a slow drag as he rests against the backrest, ankle propped on his knee.

things at jungkook’s place were getting too crowded. too heated. he needed to take a breather before he chewed someone’s head off.

and he knew it would end up being jungkook if he didn’t step out for a while.

he finds himself retreating to the beach often nowadays. although he wouldn’t like to admit it, he knows why it’s all becoming too much for him.

the life that he once cherished now a burden.

he knows it’s been just that since the beginning, so much weighing on his shoulders despite jungkook being Jeon’s son. the next to sit on the throne made of murder, mystery and money.

but he’s been looped in with him. all because he said yes when he was young and immature.

and stupid.

even if jungkook’s household is a mess, it’s still better than what his used to be like. back when he still lived with his parents.

there’s a lot to be grateful for. but sometimes, more regularly as of late, he wishes he could just…escape.

he scoffs to himself, knowing that an escape would take a miracle and more murder - if he ever wanted to get out.

he’s in for life.

just like jungkook.

but even if he could find that miracle, he would never leave jungkook behind. his brother. his only real family.

“errr excuse me?”

yoongi’s stirred out of his thoughts by a voice coming from his left, a girl nearly getting blown away by the wind. long ponytail flying into her pale face.

he sits up, surprised, since no one is around here this late in the evening.

what if she’s a ghost?

he’s heard stories about this beach before.

god, he should’ve just stayed in his car.

exhaling a cloud of smoke, he sits up, waiting for her to continue. a little frightened.

she laughs coyly as she points under the bench where he sits.

“your shoe…erm my flyer.”

he looks down to where she points, seeing a colorful piece of paper caught under his boot.

reaching down to pick it up carefully, he holds it up, examining the now crumpled sheet before examining the girl just as closely.

wondering what she could be doing out this late when it’s not safe.

especially around the beach.

‘BEACH CLEANUP.’

the flyer reads, colorful seashells and buckets bordering the sides of the paper and unfortunately, a wet, brown imprint of his boot right in the middle.

“sorry,” he mumbles, holding it out to her, “i don’t think anyone would want this one.”

he hears her laugh, leather jacket swaying behind her as she reaches over to take it from him.

“it costs a lot to print these,” she says with a sigh, holding up the stack of more flyers she had kept under her arm, “more than you think actually.”

he raises a brow, cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth, “i’m sure it can be salvaged.”

“that’s not good for you.”

yoongi’s brows furrow, turning to her to find her gaze on his lips. more specifically, the burning stick between them.

he really doesn’t want to hear it from a stranger right now. so he ignores her, but she still stands there.

‘til he turns fully to survey her appearance, properly this time.

she wears a black cargo pants and black combat boots. similar to the ones he’s wearing. but more shiny and clean. long, brown hair kept up in a ponytail with her fringe out, brown eyes to match.

“what are you doing here?” he finds himself saying, gaze lingering on the necklace kept on her chest. the heart pendant sitting right where he thinks her cleavage begins. “it’s not safe for someone like you to be around here.”

her eyebrow jumps, tongue poking into her cheek, “i can take care of myself thank you very much.”

yoongi sniggers, shaking his head as he huffs out a cloud of smoke.

she holds up the flyers again, cheeks a bright pink, “came to give these out.”

he looks around, finding no one except them dotting the eerie beach.

“there’s no one here.”

she sighs, leaning against the armrest of the bench.

“yeah. bad day today. wait.”

she holds out the same, stomped on, flyer to yoongi, smile tugging the corner of her lips.

he takes the flyer stupidly, blinking at it. then at her.

“we’re having a beach cleanup every saturday. starting this week,” she says, almost robotically, “you can join us if you’d like.”

“beach cleanup?”

“yeah!” she beams, sitting down next to him so she can point at the flyer, manicured nail sliding across the page, “from 10AM to 2PM. refreshments will be served after.”

yoongi can’t believe he’s actually thinking about it. if he’s free around that time every saturday.

saturdays are the worst for him.

he’s always been readily available for Jeon. never had plans of his own.

what if…?

“so…we just come around and help clean up…the beach?”

“yep,” she smiles, so close yoongi gets a whiff of her perfume.

she smells like pancakes. vanilla.

he puts out his cigarette on the bench, letting it fall to the grass.

a noise of surprise tumbles out of his lips when she yanks the paper from his hand, arms folded.

“you can start now.”

he blinks, annoyed, “what?”

she gestures to the cigarette butt on the ground, a lot…scarier than a few seconds ago.

again, he finds himself leaning down to pick up the stub, noticing that there’s been a bin right next to the bench all along.

when he returns, head hung a little low, her wide smile is back, flyer held out to him again.

“you’re hired!”

his shoulders shake as he chuckles, doing a double take when he notices a beauty spot on her right cheek. and on her neck. and her—

“your name?”

his gaze flits to her face, cheeks warming, “uh…yoongi. min yoongi.”

“cool. see you saturday then.”

with that she trots away, sliding up the grass and when she reaches the top of the embankment, she looks down. waving at yoongi whose hand flies up against his own will - waving back.

he rises from the bench, rocking on his feet with his hands in his pockets…nervous for saturday.

[kithtaehyung]

You won’t hold my hand (and you don’t have to thank you thank you thank you! Like still some angsty shit ahead but god am i relieved holy fuck), but you will read my live reactions… though i think i misunderstood and misinterpreted the brother reveal…

- Holding on to the order of angst, fluff, smut, idk if its the same order every time in the description but with the rest of the tags, if smut is last, there has to be plenty of fluff

- IT’S NOT NAMJOON!!!!!!!!!!!

- IT’S NOT HOBI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- “If you can focus on your work shit, he can, too.” All up in his mind like Beyonce

- I saw her!!!!!!!! - biting my hand to not scare my neighbors

- Oh god, Ryen, dont take this from us: “Yoongi decides that he wants more of it. In a lot of other aspects of his life.”

- Jungkook no!!!! It better be Dom, please be Dom!!!!!

- “You were able to pull him upward.” Baby please continue to pull through oh god no fuck ahhh

- “If he’s gonna bow out, he’s gonna do all the shit he wants to do first. One last time before reality fully severs the string that shouldn’t have tethered to your heart.” No he’s going to break her… no no no no no

- ITS NOT JIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OHMYGOD!!!!!!!

- “If it was Yuri instead…” oop!!

- “Of course, this could just be another byproduct of your worrying, so you blaze past it. No more of that, remember? He’s proven himself over and over that you don’t have to second guess.” Ryen no!!!! How could you!!! Worry, girl worry!!!!

- “Kook said he saw you today.” YES YOONGI!!!!!!! TALK IT OUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!

- “Told him I’m seeing someone.” YES!!!!!!!!

- “He didn’t say no. He didn’t say no. Don’t assume anything and just follow his lead.” YES!!! RYEN THE BACK AND FORTH!!!! THIS IS TOO MUCH!!!

- “I could answer for him.” God this is so sexy… Ryen my emotions are all over the fucking place!! Im shaking!!!!!

- “Without even knowing if your feelings would reflect off the Moon.” Oh god, so painfully beautiful

- “Realizing that the last conversation you’ll have here mirrors the very first.” I’m really holding on to the hope that since there is so much angst already this will end in fluff 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

- “before going back to the table. // Where Yoongi hasn’t moved at all.” Ooo he’s replaying that convo from the other girl that happened there too isnt he… oh god

- “This old, silly man.” God i love her, please turn the tables and realize the power you have!!!!

- “I want all of it.” YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!! COMMUNICATIOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!

- “And you’ll be okay. No matter what happens now, you’ll brave those waters.” Ryen, I can’t, this is everything! Everything!

- “Your dick is big and I wanna suck it.” Ryen!!!! I love her!!!!!

- “The whole world needs to hear that.” I know there are still problems, and that they know there are… but they are so in love! Oh my god!!! 😭😭😭😭

- “But you won’t say them tonight. Partly because you don’t want to overshadow his vulnerability, and partly because there’s still a slice of you that needs a little more assurance.” Ah! Good for her!!!!

- Oh my god Holly!!!!!!!!!

- “You make me feel safe.” Yes boo tell her!!! Oh my god!!

- “Holy fuck, what else has he been screaming without a word?” shit

- “His hold on you gets tighter, and you feel the warmth of something sliding down your neck.” Shit shit shit shit shit shit oh god can i handle his tears??

- Ryen… the overstimulation… the riding… hands down the best smut i ever read, so filthy!!!

- “Gonna warn you now: you might get tired of me, doll.” 😭😭😭😭 thank you thank you thank you thank you

- Of fuck we’re doing Friday too??? Oh god… please dont be more angst oh god!!!

- “Because you’re a princess, he would say. And every princess needs a guard.” This is so fucking sweet i love this so much!!!!

- “Where’s my hi?” Bitch! Is he fuckin insane?!!?!?

- “Maybe telling him about Yoongi will be somewhat okay.” Oh god it’s going to be terrible oh my god

- “Feel like y’all can pick up where you left off.” Oh shit, oh god please dont send Yoongi back oh fuck

- “Yoongi [10:06pm]: It’s all good. I got us” oh thank fuck

And Jin is the brother?? For some reason i misread the convo and thought bro was saying his name like another person was in town. But he was talking in the third person… which is on brand lol

And for the record i did cry it was so beautiful. Just, all the dialogue as she is bravely stating what she wants as he’s eeking out his own confessions. Fucking masterful! I’m in awe, man. You’re so good at this! 💕

Now I have to go eat because I havnt yet lol

As always, just thank you!!

-🚌

Ooooooooh, I read things right the first time then! It’s not Jin, got it! -🚌

AHHHHH BUSSS i'm finally getting able to respond to the spoiler heavy reviews so let's get it😤

You won’t hold my hand (and you don’t have to thank you thank you thank you! Like still some angsty shit ahead but god am i relieved holy fuck), but you will read my live reactions… though i think i misunderstood and misinterpreted the brother reveal… Holding on to the order of angst, fluff, smut, idk if its the same order every time in the description but with the rest of the tags, if smut is last, there has to be plenty of fluff

that's correct!! i said i wouldn't hold any hands bc the fluff at the end :))) i wanted to spoil everyone but of course, we had to go through some TOUGH shit first ughhh. and i love live reactions! they're so fun to read lmfao i don't mind at alll. you ended up being right the first time, yeah dkdfjd it's none of them!

i always put it in the same order (angst, fluff, smut) since it's alphabetical :D putting it in different orders for the fic would be wayyy too spoiler-y !! wanna keep y'all on ur toes ehehe

- IT’S NOT NAMJOON!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S NOT HOBI!!!!!!!!!!!!! “If you can focus on your work shit, he can, too.” All up in his mind like Beyonce

ITS NOT THEMMM just rapline in the studio doing their thing :DD and he's still thinking of reader.. sigh..

- I saw her!!!!!!!! - biting my hand to not scare my neighbors Oh god, Ryen, dont take this from us: “Yoongi decides that he wants more of it. In a lot of other aspects of his life.” Jungkook no!!!! It better be Dom, please be Dom!!!!!

as soon as the her came out, it was all sorts of overthinking for us! and the quote that you put for yoongi :(( ughhhh yeah.

IT BETTER BE DOM DFHKSDHFSDF SDF

- “You were able to pull him upward.” Baby please continue to pull through oh god no fuck ahhh “If he’s gonna bow out, he’s gonna do all the shit he wants to do first. One last time before reality fully severs the string that shouldn’t have tethered to your heart.” No he’s going to break her… no no no no no

gosh, yoongi's and jungkook's whole conversation was full of unspoken feelings on both of their parts. and it's so sad to think that jk sees this as a beginning of sorts and yoongi sees it as the beginning of an end.

- “Of course, this could just be another byproduct of your worrying, so you blaze past it. No more of that, remember? He’s proven himself over and over that you don’t have to second guess.” Ryen no!!!! How could you!!! Worry, girl worry!!!! - “Kook said he saw you today.” YES YOONGI!!!!!!! TALK IT OUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!! “Told him I’m seeing someone.” YES!!!!!!!! “He didn’t say no. He didn’t say no. Don’t assume anything and just follow his lead.” YES!!! RYEN THE BACK AND FORTH!!!! THIS IS TOO MUCH!!! “I could answer for him.” God this is so sexy… Ryen my emotions are all over the fucking place!! Im shaking!!!!!

the whole first kitchen scene took a long time to write. not as long as the second kitchen scene that took all of my brain power, but this one also took some writing and rearranging and editing/deleting. like the 3tan9 scraps docs is 3k+ words. i had to shave off a lot that didn't seem like it fit right! but i'm proud of reader for telling yoongi what she said to jk. like. that's a huge admission (aND it's literally reader's last thought in sundress season!!!! this wasn't a surprise but it is to yoongi :')))) )

yoongi saying "i could answer for him" got me good i'm glad you pointed that line out too LMAO

- “Without even knowing if your feelings would reflect off the Moon.” Oh god, so painfully beautiful “Realizing that the last conversation you’ll have here mirrors the very first.” I’m really holding on to the hope that since there is so much angst already this will end in fluff 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 “before going back to the table. // Where Yoongi hasn’t moved at all.” Ooo he’s replaying that convo from the other girl that happened there too isnt he… oh god

i'm glad you like the sun/moon analogy!! and i wanted to tie back to it with yoongi's kiss being moonlight. because.. what is moonlight? :'))) god i'm emotional all over again SDFKDFH

oh my goddd your last point i'm gonna fcking flip this gd table!!!!

- “This old, silly man.” God i love her, please turn the tables and realize the power you have!!!! “I want all of it.” YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!! COMMUNICATIOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!! “And you’ll be okay. No matter what happens now, you’ll brave those waters.” Ryen, I can’t, this is everything! Everything!

old reader would've never called him silly. this was such a simple yet really hard hitting line for me.

COMMUNICATION BABYYY WE ARE ADULTS AND WE'RE GONNA FCKING T A L K. AND WE LOVE IT. yoongi's a straight-shooter. we know this. but after everything he's been thinking about himself? this was huge. and reader's braving the waters of her ocean<333

- “Your dick is big and I wanna suck it.” Ryen!!!! I love her!!!!! “The whole world needs to hear that.” I know there are still problems, and that they know there are… but they are so in love! Oh my god!!! 😭😭😭😭 “But you won’t say them tonight. Partly because you don’t want to overshadow his vulnerability, and partly because there’s still a slice of you that needs a little more assurance.” Ah! Good for her!!!!

I LOVE READER TOO i legit cackled when those words came out lmfaoooo and her saying that to yoongi, a very private person that doesn't show anyone his shit? that meant the universe, i feel like. she's so genuine and he just. i. don't even have words atp....

- Oh my god Holly!!!!!!!!! “You make me feel safe.” Yes boo tell her!!! Oh my god!! “Holy fuck, what else has he been screaming without a word?” shit “His hold on you gets tighter, and you feel the warmth of something sliding down your neck.” Shit shit shit shit shit shit oh god can i handle his tears??

HOLLYYYYYYY YESSSS and the feeling safe conversation?? like. psychological safety is incredibly important, and yoongi gives that to reader. we knew this. but she does the same for him and now that she knows what's going on in that brain of his? oh. i am so fcking excited to explore even more growth for the both of them.

- Ryen… the overstimulation… the riding… hands down the best smut i ever read, so filthy!!! “Gonna warn you now: you might get tired of me, doll.” 😭😭😭😭 thank you thank you thank you thank you

wait are you fr?? the best??? no wait that's too much praise i- thank you so damn much!!

and of course we have one of my fave lines from yoongi bc what did he say in a previous 3tan ask/tell? THISSS.

- Of fuck we’re doing Friday too??? Oh god… please dont be more angst oh god!!! “Because you’re a princess, he would say. And every princess needs a guard.” This is so fucking sweet i love this so much!!!! “Where’s my hi?” Bitch! Is he fuckin insane?!!?!? “Maybe telling him about Yoongi will be somewhat okay.” Oh god it’s going to be terrible oh my god “Feel like y’all can pick up where you left off.” Oh shit, oh god please dont send Yoongi back oh fuck “Yoongi [10:06pm]: It’s all good. I got us” oh thank fuck

we were doing friday too yessss!! i was about to cut it at the night at yoongi's, but i was like.. nah. we're doing this fck it lmao. i think it turned into a much more fitting ending spot, too.

AND HOBI I KNOWWWWWWWW but then. then. yoongi. i wanna box him so fcking bad put me in the ring right now.

finally we have the reason bro wanted reader to stay for the party. he wanted to surprise both of them. so that should say something about his feelings towards jungkook..

I GOT US. USSSSSS. GOODBYEEEEEEEE

And for the record i did cry it was so beautiful. Just, all the dialogue as she is bravely stating what she wants as he’s eeking out his own confessions. Fucking masterful! I’m in awe, man. You’re so good at this! 💕

argh you are so so nice for this amazing live commentary! i laughed, cried, everything. sending you tissues and a hug ASAPPP i'm honored you think it's masterful.. kinda blushing kinda shy kinda hiding in my hoodie hahahah thank you endlessly, bus!!!

[lovesanmotion]

yandere!fanboy!ateez reacts: s/o writing a song about them

This is: requested | I guess....the yandere!ateez as fanboys are a success from what I can see. I only uploaded them without thinking. Also, don’t hesitate to blow up my request box! I’m jobless like Hongjoong, Yeosang and Wooyoung. Also, to the sender who requested this, thank you so much for appreciating my blog and writing! 

Lyrics I placed in order:  Love Battery - LOONA (Immortal Songs)  Shadow - F(x)  Going Crazy - Secret Jieun ft. BAP Yongguk Peekaboo - Red Velvet Shampoo - After School Babe - Hyuna Into You - Yuri Love Foolish - TWICE 

Hongjoong: 

“Even if you are not handsome, I like it. Even if you’re not buff, I like it. You are just for me, to me, you are the best.” 

Hongjoong stood among the crowd with a foolish smile painted on his lips. His hands placed on top of his chest as he listens to your new song that you are performing at your comeback concert. 

“Hold me one more time. Hold me tightly until I burst. Love’s effect must be fading. I need you.” 

A soft sigh escapes his lips dramatically. Lovestuck as he watches the love of his life sing a song about him and how she constantly needed his touch or else she’d die from his lack of attention on her. 

“Fill me with love. Love battery has drained. I can’t live without you, I really can’t live without you. You are my battery.” 

He clutches his chest tightly, his heart beating loudly inside. He didn’t cared how wild the others were cheering for your comeback stage, all that matters to him is that this song was made for him. Just for him. Normally he would promote your songs by requesting them on radio stations, but he hesitated on the idea of promoting it. This was his song. And only he gets the full rights to enjoy it. The others are just listening to it, he thought that you were kind enough to let everyone hear the song you made especially for him. 

“To me, you are everything. I like you so much, I totally like you. My only love, there’s no other, my love. You are the best.” 

As the comeback concert ended, everyone inside the concert hall talked about how your comeback song is a hit and promised to get you another music show win. The others gushed how you must be in love that you wrote a song about affection. 

Hongjoong could only chuckle to himself as he walks out of the venue, hands filled with your individual merchandise and a wallet almost empty after emptying the shelves of your concert goods. 

“Stupid fools think that the song is for them when in fact the song is about me. Me! Only me! Why would Y/N ever notice all of you when a whole me exists?” Hongjoong thought to himself as he walked alone late that night. 

Seonghwa: 

“Everyday, I secretly chase after your footsteps. I’m always careful so you won’t notice. No one says it but our date has started, our own date.” 

Click click! Seonghwa focuses his camera on a different angle before taking another shot of you. Click click! 

“Where are you going? Step by step, I follow you. Without a word you lead me. Step by step, did you notice me? I have nowhere to hide anymore.” 

Yesterday, Starlight made a comeback and today, they are performing their comeback song at a radio station. For this comeback, Starlight’s Y/N participated in the song writing, having been credited two songs in the mini album. She partook writing the comeback song! 

“When the sun rises, I walk in sync and together with you. I am really really into you. When the moon rises, you fall asleep in my arms. I really really like you.” 

Seonghwa’s parents had been praising him for landing a wonderful job in the corporate world. When in reality, he was only hired by a fellow sasaeng that gave him much flexible work hours so he could still manage to slip out of his work and follow your every footstep in the country or out. He was being paid fairly well even when all he did was just to follow you around.

“Day by day, we resemble each other more and more. Your laughter and tears, I know it all. Don’t be scared, were a fate tied by the sun, its our destiny to be together.” 

As the performance ended, the girls sat back down on their seats and the interview rolled in. Fansites can only hang outside of the studio, and of course, Seonghwa is up close, nearest to Y/N. 

“Congratulations to Starlight! This is their third comeback and the song is really catchy!” The MC remarked. 

“It’s sounds like a summer song! I heard Y/N took part in the production?” The second MC asked, the cameras then turned to face Y/N. Y/N who was flustered, nodded her head. “Yes” 

“Can you tell us the story behind the song? Your fans are dying to know the meaning behind such a good song.” The first MC says. 

Y/N held the microphone in her head, smiling, she explained: “This is a true to life song. I made a song about a guy who was really handsome and captured my heart. We were always going in the same direction and one time, his hand brushed into mine. And I felt so happy by the small connection.” Y/N chuckles. 

When Seonghwa heard about it, he lowered his camera and stared at Y/N. The song was about him. He remembered how he would spend his vacant period at work to follow Y/N when they were shooting an ad around Namsan because of the newly built skywalk. His hand brushed on hers when they were buying food at the convenient store. Seonghwa was so moved by the explanation that he felt like his feelings grew more for you. 

“My sunshine likes getting attention. My attention. That’s right, my sunshine, bathe in my attention only. ” 

Yunho: 

“It’s not love, this isn’t love. It’s just your obsession. Wherever, Whatever I do. It’s frightening. The you who watches me.”

Yunho watched as Y/N practices for her upcoming comeback stage at The Show next week. He admired how she dare approached a bold and mature comeback. And he was so happy to see this new side of his girl. However, he felt like he needed to be more protective of her since she was going for a more risque concept. 

“Have you gone crazy? Why are you like this? Please just leave me alone now. Seeing you is suffocating. Please disappear from my sight.” 

Yunho stood behind the cameras as he watches Y/N and the featured artist practice. He heard a few staffs make a comment about how the featured artist looks like him. And maybe how you might’ve fallen in love with him. Yunho’s feeling swelled when he heard of those comments. In fact, he was so happy that he heard it from them. But you on the other hand, why do you still deny your feelings for him? Why was it so hard for you to be up front and honest with what you feel? Is it because he works as your manager? You’re in the same company as he is? And that you kept insisting to be professional? At this point, Yunho would resign if that was the case. If he can’t have you because of his line of work, he would be more than pleased to resign and be in your arms everyday. 

“Get lost. Just back off. I really can’t breathe. Wherever I go, wherever I am. It’s frightening. The you who follows me.” 

Yunho managed to lift the debts off his family. After paying the debts, he was able to even buy a new home for them around Gangnam area. His parents hesitated on the idea at first since owning a land in Gangnam costs way more than renting, Yunho told them not to worry. Not to worry since he is being paid royalty in his job. After that, he was able to spoil you with luxurious gifts and live with you in your apartment. More like forced himself into your home. 

“This ain’t right, this isn’t love. It just hurts me, don’t be like this. I loved you. But I don’t now. Erase me from your memory.” 

And when the song was released, Yunho was all up for promoting it. He made everyone he know listen to the song in various streaming platforms and watch the MV as well. Whether you would like it or not, Yunho is here to stay in your life. Permanently. 

Yeosang: 

“Peekaboo! This is new, is this love? All my friends yell at me, they say I have a problem. I’m fine fine fine fine fine fine.” 

A small painted Yeosang lips as his eyes followed you on stage. He watched you as you danced in a tight red dress. That was his gift for you last Christmas to be exact. The designer brand didn’t really put it out for sale. They only made one and had it up for auction. It was a dress that accentuated your curves and complimented your skin. Yeosang won the auction and had it included in your next comeback. 

“Tag you’re it! It’ll be fun! I’ll include you here. Til the moon hangs on the jungle gym, let’s play” 

Since Yeosang is someone who holds a high position in the company, he made a proposal to be your sponsor. At first, your members didn’t like the idea since sponsors have a bad reputation attached to it. But you were naive and still proceeded with the sponsorship. You thought it would go bad, but Yeosang made you feel comfortable in his home and gave you all the fame that you wanted. Never did he once ask anything that was against your morals. 

“Peekaboo! It’s strange, you’re different. I stop this game and I look at you again. I’m not a fraid, because I just felt that a new story will begin” 

Your members were still cautious about Yeosang orbitting around you. There was something about him that they could not lay a finger on. Scared that they would find their contracts terminated the following day. But seeing you happy, they felt like they needed to stop. As long as you are happy, they are happy. Yeosang included. 

“Don’t worry, my love. You’re safe with me. Anyone who accuses you will come to me first.” 

San: 

It was 9pm when you made a surprise V live alone in the recording room of your company building. San was actually nearby, he was hid inside the convenient store where he bumped into you before. 

“Hello everyone! Have you all eaten? I missed you alot.” He watches his Y/N pout in the screen. His heart raced a bit, 

“I ate already, my love. Don’t worry.” San responds, as if it was only him that you were talking to. 

“I made a new song and I’m in the recording room. Apparently, I was given permission to spoil the song for you!” Y/N happily takes her phone and draws it closer to the company phone of where she is doing her live. 

“I wanna be shampoo Trickling down your hair I wanna embrace you With my strong fragrance  I will wrap around your entire body With white foam  So even the mirrors can’t see you I will cover you  So no one can have you You won’t ever get rid of my scent” 

“That’s all the spoil for now.” Y/N stops the recording and turns the camera to her face again. She leaned her face closer and read a few comments about how would the fans think. 

“What is your inspiration behind this song?” She read aloud. She leaned back in her seat with her lips pursed. “In all honesty, I met a male fan last week. I actually bumped into him and I was able to smell his perfume and...” Y/N paused. “He smelled so good that...was it possible to fall in love just by smelling their perfume?” Y/N chuckles softly. 

San had his eyes wide. The song was about him. He felt like bursting from his seat but he refrained himself from doing so. 

“I hope he isn’t a weird fan. I also have a fan who constantly bothers me even at the late hours. It’s bothering me. And I hope the person stops soon.” Y/N said. Double jackpot! He got mentioned twice by you. He couldn’t wait until the song releases, he was already booking train station platforms in honor for the release of your song. 

Mingi: 

Was it possible to fall in love with just a touch? Ever since the incident at the Incheon Airport, your company has become stricter and hired more bodyguards when it comes to outside activities. From what you heard, VS Media is even rewriting their rules when it comes to fan and idol gift giving. 

“Come on, let me play some more. Why treat babies gently, I cannot count on you, my age. You’ve walked in any magic. I am the one for you. Everyday I wake up. This is mine.” 

Ever since the incident at the airport, you slightly became uncomfortable with the idea of leaving the dorm. Despite your feelings, rest assured that your members were always there for you. 

“I am not sleeping today. I remember my eyes. I’m not sleeping.”

It’s been a month since you stepped foot inside the airport again, things were going okay. You were able to walk inside and through the gates without any problem. The fans still following your footsteps, you tried to loosen up yourself a bit - smiling and waving at them. Nothing could go wrong. 

Until, you saw a figure from your peripheral vision. You turned your head to take a look, but no one was there. Strange. As you and your group were able to board the plane, you took a seat near the window and pulled out your lyrics notebook. Flipping through the pages, you stopped at an unfinished work. The unfinished work is your solo song used as an outro for Starlight’s upcoming full album. 

“Babe babe babe in your eyes. Babe babe babe in your hand. My appearance is babe babe babe babe. I want to hear it again.”

“Are you writing a song?” You were startled with the question. You turned your head and didn’t noticed how a man with a mask and cap sat besides you already. 

“Yes I am” You spoke softly. “Can I read it?” the man besides you asked. 

You hesitantly gave him the notebook, the man took it and read through the lyrics. 

“I like how you composed the song. It’s still in its raw form too. You’re a genius.” The man complimented. You smiled and thanked him for the compliment. The next thing you knew shocked you. 

The man placed a hand on your knee, his other free hand removed his mask and cap. Song Mingi. At that moment, you couldn’t process what was happening. All you knew was that your mind kept telling you to tell at least your members. But your body started heating up at his touch. 

“Did you miss me?” 

Wooyoung: 

Wooyoung had disguised himself as the photographer for your album. The night before it came, he worked on creating his fake ID and borrowed a spare camera to use for the production. 

“At that smile that sees my eyes. For me, the whole world is bathed in light. Hold my hands and I close my eyes. I hope this time stops here.”

Wooyoung’s breath almost took away as he saw you in black under shorts and wrinkled and almost unbuttoned white button down. He didn’t know what the concept was but his eyes were already feasting on your body, not ever feeling full. 

“Fall in love more deeply, you and I. Let’s fall in deeply, you and I together. The one thing that I want. You seep into me, you spread inside of me.” 

“Ms Y/N taking the bold move of doing her first sexy concept.” Y/N’s manager teased her. Wooyoung knew everyone who was on set. Him, Y/N, Y/N’s manager, stylist, make up artist and a few production crew that wasn’t part of VS Media. 

“What’s the story behind this concept?” Y/N’s manager asked, Wooyoung could only stare in awe at Y/N. Never did he see this side of her. He always knew of Y/N as the sweet and bubbly girl in soft concepts. But of course, Wooyoung love to break the types. 

“I actually like to search my name on the internet. And I came across fanfics of myself.” Y/N chuckles. Oh that sweet sound that made Wooyoung’s heart beat fast. The audio recorders can never outdo it. 

“There is a certain blog that possibly does a lot. That blog posts photos of me, writes fanfics and posts my schedules too. He’s doing god works for my other fans.” Y/N chuckles. As the production of the photoshoot started, Wooyoung did his best to capture the real beauty of this side of Y/N. 

“What a hardworking fan. What’s the name of the blog?” 

“ForY/N” 

Wooyoung’s eyes widens as he heard the name of his blog. His blog inspired you to make a song....about him? 

“Filling my whole heart. With you, I feel my heart. Fall in love more deeply, you and I. Let’s fall in deeply, you and I together.” 

“The way that person writes really amazes me. I’d like to get to know the person.” Y/N explains. His mind fell into a spiral. Part of him wanted the song to be released already but there was also a part of him that wanted the song to be released for him only. 

“Wish will soon become tomorrow. Today is more heart fluttering than yesterday. I want to go together with you. Closer to the place where my dream reaches.”

The bonus thing about what Wooyoung did today is that as a photographer, he was able to keep some of the photos. Running away even with some. 

Jongho: 

Jongho fell in line for the release of your album. He was actually second in line as he was actually camping outside of the building of your company. 

“Everyday I called out your name, about a thousand times, about ten million times Before you finally heard it Cut and rewind, why can’t you be mine? Ooh the one who spins my head like this It’s you, just running running running around you  My repeatedly-midnight promise  I don’t know what to do”

Jongho, who had his arms crossed over his chest, looked up and down to turn around where that song was coming from. He hasn’t heard of this song but he knew that was your voice.

“Crazy love!  I love you, love you, hate, foolish Crazy love!  I love you Make me feel so high Love!  I love you, love you, hate, foolish Crazy love!  I hate you Make me so bad It’s weird, the more I fall for you I’m sorry, I’ll hate you I don’t know, I can’t explain this I’m trapped in a labyrinth of strange emotions”

The whole room was adorned with your own merchandise and on the TV display was actually an MV of your b side. Jongho took a basket and grabbed a handful of your limited and regular version of your albums, along with a packet of your photocards and a griptok. 

As he was in line to pay for his orders, in which his basket was filled as he actually bought more of your items. You made a sudden appearance into the room. For Jongho, he felt as if the room got brighter when you suddenly stepped inside. When it was his turn to pay for his items, the people behind the counter were amazed at how many he was able to fit into his basket. 

Tapping his feet impatiently, he wanted to be able to greet you before you left the room. When his bag was handed to him, he immediately took it and sped walk towards your direction, talking to a few. 

He felt as if the gods were with him. As he drew closer to you, the ones you were talking to left and it just you and him now. 

“Hello Y/N!” Jongho greeted. You turned to him happily. “Hello!” 

“I really really like this song of yours!” He gushed happily. “Can you tell me about it?” 

You nodded happily. “The song is actually about someone who makes me feel happy, the idea of love in a dangerous way? The idea send me thrills.” You chuckled. Jongho felt ecstatic. Beyond the moon even. You wrote a song about him! 

That afternoon when he got home, he made sure that everyone in Seoul would be able to hear the song that you made. It was for him so he had full brag rights to do so. 

[abstract-moth]

Fanfic ask game, tagged by @simuran you have summoned me from my self imposed exam hiatus and I cannot thank you enough. This was incredibly fun!

How many works do you have on AO3?

11 so far

What’s your total AO3 word count?

122,422

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Four total: Yuri!!! on Ice, Fullmetal Alchemist, SK8 the Infinity, and Fugou Keiji: Balance:Unlimited

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Improper Communications

The Sweetest of Gestures

A Different Kind of Spiral

Unrestrained

The Unknown Factor

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Shattered Dreams

I try not to end my stories with pure angst, so I evened out this with a little hurt/comfort, but it’s still pretty angsty.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Improper Communications

This fic is just constant crack humor. Highly recommend it if you are part of the YOI fandom and looking for a good laugh.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I want to. I have ideas for explicit fics. But I never actually write them because (1) I am very much a virgin and (2) I am terrified someone irl will find this account

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, I love interacting with readers.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope (thankfully).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope.

I don’t think I could ever truly collaborate with someone to write a story. I am too picky on minute details for something like that to work. However, I am very much open to other writers building off of my ideas (with a heads up ofc).

Eventually I also would like to gift people fics, but I’m not entirely sure how the etiquette on those sorts of things work.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Victuuri. This is my comfort ship.

I actually don’t frequently invest in ships. I have a lot of “oh that relationship is very nice,” but I wouldn’t be heartbroken if they broke up. However when I do got invested, I get invested. In addition to Victuuri, these are my otps: Maiko, Kanej, Royai, Daiharu, Matchablossom, Blackbonnet

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

If I am not 100 percent certain I will finish a fic, I will not post the first chapter. As such, I have exactly one WIP that I am very slowly writing. I post one shots as I finish them, but all my multi chapter stories stay as unposted drafts. In theory, if I complete an entire story, I can post one chapter at a time, but I’ve never been able to do it.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I’m fairly good at writing comedy and making stories compelling.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I am a slow.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it’s generally okay. However I do think the author needs to carefully balance making it clear this is different language while also not breaking the reader’s immersion.

I have used other languages sometimes in my fics. In all cases, the character has been speaking a language they are fluent in. So the way I convey that they have switched languages is to translate the language into English, then italicize it. 

(side note: I have a little pet peeve whenever authors just drop a whole different language into spoken dialog, especially when the language doesn’t use a roman script. Because it completely breaks the immersion, I cannot possibly guess what is being said, and just have to skip over it entirely. Which is unrealistic because even when something is spoken aloud to you in a foreign language, you can still recognize some sounds. It’s not inconceivable to your brain, it’s just not understandable. So either say “the teacher said something in a language I didn’t understand” or “the teacher said ‘wǒ bù huì shuō zhōngwén‘“ but please do not say “the teacher said 我不会说中文.” There are exceptions of course (for instance specifically writing for a bilingual audience) and this could just be a me thing, but it does bug me.)

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Fullmetal Alchemist

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

A Different Kind of Spiral

I meant it to be a funny fic, but it transformed into one of the most personal pieces I have ever written.

tagging: @mangoofthesea and @eddies-spaghetti Absolutely no pressure though!

[philliamwrites]

The Dawn Will Come [Chpt.1]

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Dimitri x Reader, Claude x Reader, Edelgard x Reader, Yuri x Reader, Edelgard x Byleth, lots of minor pairings

Tags: #gn reader, # platonic love byleth & reader, #reader is a tactical unit, #angst, #slow burn, #subplots, #unreliable narrator, #pining, #remporary amnesia, #reluctant herp, #canon divergence, #lost twin au, #many chapters, #original content

Words: 5.2k

Summary: Waking up in a forest without any knowledge of your past and who you are, you join the house leaders of the Officers Academy to search for a way to return your memories. Unfortunately, the church has different plans for you, and Fate places you in the centre of a cruel game with deadly stakes. It certainly doesn't help to fall in love with a house leader who is doomed to be your demise.

Notes: Chapter 2 There’s also a playlist for this story that you can find here and here.

Chapter 01: A High Destiny

A high destiny seemed to bear me on until I fell, never, never again to rise.

[Mary W. Shelley, Frankenstein]

    It starts as it will end: in darkness.

    Black dots dance in front of your eyes, merging into dark shadows clawing at your consciousness. A dull throb pounds in your temple, a steady rhythm that speaks of life but isn’t enough to allow awareness of your surroundings. Memory is a foreign word you can’t explain, and trying to think of the past 24 hours is an unachievable task. Every glimpse slips through your fingers like sand, and the only steady reference point is the solid ground pressing into your hands and back.

    Slowly, you open your eyes. Treetops dance in the wind, towering above you like silent guardians of ancient times. The sun winks at you through thick branchesa and dancing green crowns, indicating it’s long past daybreak—but how do you know? Your memory is still a vast pool with no bottom and no means to dive into, and yet you think there’s a voice calling out to you, a heart-wrenching young, boyish voice—no, those are real voices ringing through the woods, appearing close to you. Alarmingly close.

    “You’re awake,” a woman’s voice starts, moments later followed by a corresponding face. Round, lavender eyes surrounded by thick, white lashes peak from above at you, blinking curiously. It’s an expression far from friendly, but not exactly hostile either, and of all the things you can think of at this moment, it is how strikingly beautiful she is. But before you can say anything, another person joins, leaning too close in for comfort.

    “You got us worried there, stranger,” a young man chimes in, squatting down beside you. His uniform isn’t exactly what you’d call fit for travelling through the woods. A heavy yellow cape falls over his shoulder, more fanciful display than practical use. But something in his posture seems very attentive, his broad shoulders taut like a drawn bowstring that won’t miss its target. “Weird place to take a nap, but hey, I’m not judging.”

    “I wasn’t—” you start, immediately struck by a throbbing pain behind your right eye that reverberates through your skull and wretches a groan from you.

    “Take it easy,” another voice joins, and panic spreads through you because of the amount of people surrounding you. Where the first man is a picture of warm colours—gold and sun kissed skin nourished on warm summer days, the other man observing you with a worried expression is clad in blue and black, blond hair falling into a pale face that carries the most striking blue eyes you’ve ever seen. Or so you think, because surely a colour like this, a blue stolen right out of the sky, wouldn’t be easily forgotten.

    More movement and rustling of fabric, and a chill settles in your bones as you begin to fear that you’ve run into a bunch of ruffians who’ve only kept you alive for so long because they’re hoping for valuable information. More people emerge from the underbrush, carrying large sacks and backpacks with billycans dangling at their sides. Among them, a tall man with a beard, clad in robust mercenary’s gear, steps forward, concealing another young woman with sharp features and unusual greenish blue hair.

    The sight of her strikes you like a bolt. It tastes like familiarity and the relief of being reunited with a long lost friend. But that is impossible. This is the first time you meet her.

    Is it?

    “You brats, I told you not to head off too far,” the older man bellows, crossing logs for arms in front of his broad chest. The first three take one big, polite step away from you, but don’t look apologetic at all.

    “I’m sorry for our hastiness, Captain Jeralt,” the girl says, her eyes darting from you still sitting on the ground to him towering in his full height above them. “But it seems we would have otherwise not found this person.”

    “This person who wasn’t really much conscious a couple of minutes ago,” the boy in yellow adds with a crooked grin. “How bad would it have been if someone else would have beaten us to it?”

    “No need to make me look like the bad guy,” Captain Jeralt interrupts with a raised hand before the boy in blue can join his friends' justifications. Instead, he turns to you and regards you with a scrutinising look.

    “What are you doing out here?” he demands. “Where’s your family? Friends?”

    “Uhm, they’re—” you start, but nothing comes to your mind. Not only that. You don’t know why you’re out here, where you are exactly … and basically anything that should come to you about your own person remains shrouded in darkness. “I don’t know.”

    Jeralt nods like that explains the very reason you’re still sitting on the ground like a misplaced cargo of cabbage. He kneads the nape of his neck, his face softening the tiniest bit. “And what’s your name?”

    Unable to hold his piercing eyes, you drop your gaze to the ground, curling your trembling fingers into the fabric of your wool jacket. “I, uh… don’t know.”

    If you thought you didn’t have their attention before, now their eyes are glued on your face in different levels of shock and disbelief.

    “A case of amnesia?” the blond male says, not quite managing to achieve the right balance between blatant curiosity and polite worry. “Does this mean you have nowhere to go? Don’tknow where to go?”

    “Goddess help you, Dimitri,” the other boy groans, running a hand through his short, brown hair. “Be any more tactless, will ya?”

    “He isn’t wrong,” the girl says, observing you like you’re a fascinating new specimen in her collection of strange things. “You need a place to stay. And help until your memories return.”

    If they return, you don’t dare to say because despite all things, hope still clings to you in the deepest corner of your heart, not allowing you to follow that train of thought and what it will mean for your future.

    “Then by all means, if you want to join,” Jeralt says, waving a dismissive hand in your direction. “I don’t think you kids accept a No, so I’m going to save my breath.” He turns around with a grunt. “Get them your horse, Byleth. We’re late as it is, and another night of Alois talking my ears off will make me do something I’ll regret.”

    The woman called Byleth keeps staring at you even as Jeralt walks past her and gives her shoulder a solid clap. You can’t say if she’s mute or just speechless because she’s filled with the same strange overflowing sensation like you: like a basin filling with water but unable to drain off. It appears you’re the same age, a couple of years older than the other three but still much younger than Jeralt, and yet the moment your eyes lock, it feels like there is something far older than any of you together passing between you. Something ancient.

    “Well, first off, on your feet, little one.” Strong hands curl around your elbows, hoisting you up in one swift movement. A wave of dizziness hits you like an unavoidable spell, and the pounding from before settles back behind your right eye.

    “Amazing, Claude,” the girl hisses, and quickly steps forward to steady you, pressing one hand against the small of your back where her strong fingers curl against the curve of your spine. Her other hand gently holds yours as she helps you regain your balance. “Excuse his manners. I promise not everyone from the Officers Academy behaves like a brute.”

    “The what now?” you ask, hit by another wave of dizziness that might originate more from the girl’s soft lavender fragrance rather than the world spinning around you.

    “The Officers Academy at Garreg Mach Monastery,” Dimitri provides this time. His posture is straight like an arrow, the stance of a soldier speaking to his officer. “That is where we attend as students and hence are going right now.”

    “And you want me to come with you?” you ask like you have the option to refuse and go somewhere else. Strangely, the thought of joining a group of armed knights and mercenaries doesn’t fill you with fear or anxiety. You’re about to tread into foreign waters, and yet your heart is calm like a still compass guiding you in the right direction.

    Claude clasps his hands behind his head like he’s got nothing to do with you feeling unwell at the moment. “Unless you have another place to be?”

    Luckily, your head does come clear and breathing becomes a little easier. You nod to the girl and she holds you a second longer before she nods back and lets go. “I guess not,” you mumble, looking at each one of them. Byleth still hasn’t moved. By now you can’t really tell if she’s looking at you or through you. Surely, she would have said something by now if she thought you were familiar, right?

    “Then it’s settled.” The girl nods solemnly, throwing her silky, white hair over her shoulder. “We welcome you in our company. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir to the Adrestian Empire.” Edelgard gives you a tight-lipped smile that quickly thins into a white line when the other two introduce themselves as Claude von Riegan, grandson of the Sovereign Duke of the Leicester Alliance and Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, future king to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. None of these names ring a bell to you, but you nod, pretending to know exactly what they're talking about.

    “Okay, we need a name for you as well,” Claude proposes, tapping a slender finger against his chin. He has a strikingly sharp jaw that looks fit to cut stone. “Can’t have everyone call you stranger or little one now, can we?”

    “No,” you say. “Especially since we’re about the same height.”

    Claude laughs like you just told him the best joke he’s heard in years. “Soo, since we found you here … how about Glade? Or Woody?”

    “How about no,” you say with furrowed eyebrows.

    “Apologies.” Edeglard sighs and shakes her head, her expression a mix between disappointment and annoyance. “Claude isn’t much accustomed to the notion of consideration.”

    Claude rolls his eyes. “Then you come up with something, princess. Or is it impossible because you can’t take out the stick up your—”

    “Claude,” Dimitri half shrieks, his pale cheeks splotched with red dots. As he stumbles over his own words trying to apologise for Claude’s behaviour, Edelgard simply deadpans, “Bold words for someone in stabbing range.”

    The fourth in this round of strange people considers you with a blank expression, her steady gaze like a solid touch on your skin. Before a greater argument can break free between the students, Byleth says a name with a surety like she’s never said anything else in her life, and hearing it, this barely whispered word immediately lost to the wind, you just know it’s your name.

    “Yes, much better than what Claude proposed.” Dimitri nods, regaining his composure even though he’s still staring daggers at Claude. “It sounds more civilised as well.”

    “You didn’t even suggest anything,” Claude remarks, but the huff of annoyance quickly dissipates from his voice when he jerks a thumb towards Byleth. “That’s Byleth, by the way. Funny story is, we met her just a couple of hours ago as well.”

    “Fate must have brought us together here today,” Dimitri agrees with a solemn nod. “I swear on my honour as a noble knight from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus that I will see you safe to the Monastery. Lady Rhea will surely be able to help you there.”

    “Okay. Thank you,” you manage, unable to connect a face to this name in your head that feels like it’s about to burst any second anyway. The only course of action lies within those strangers who are so willingly offering help that you can’t stop worrying it’s a ruse. But without anything to offer them except your life, there’s little coming to your mind that they can anticipate in taking you with them. Tthe fact that Byleth knew your name doesn’t sit right with you as well. There’s something waiting to be grasped at the tips of your fingers, and yet you lack the strength to embrace it.

    Following the little group of soldiers and students through the woods, you remain silent on the journey, only answering questions with approving or denying hums. How did you end up in this particular forest? According to Jeralt, you’re currently moving away from a village called Remire and towards the mountains to the northeast where the monastery lies tucked away between two mountains. Judging from the clothes you’re wearing, you’re a commoner, and when Edelgard pushed a slim dagger in your hand, nothing rung in intuitive knowledge about how to handle a weapon. Your mind remained silent, like an untouched chord.

    There’s little you can say about the first impression those people left on you. There seems to be a unanimous dispute between the three students, hanging palpable in the air whenever an argument starts that’s pregnant with implied insults or passive-aggressive comments. From that you gather there’s tension between the governing fractions in Fódlan, something else you’ve learnt from listening to them squabbling.

    Byleth and Jeralt acknowledge their bickering as if it was flies buzzing around their heads. They keep more to themselves and their mercenary comrades, indicating they’re really as much of strangers to the students as you. Their conversations are a lot quieter as well, their heads leaning close together for the illusion of privacy. More than once you notice Byleth sneaking glances in your direction, and every time you lock eyes, there’s something close to comprehension when she looks at you. The further you march through the woods, the less you try to meet her gaze. Reaching the monastery is the first step to regain who you are, or so you hope, because the opposite would mean you’ll continue stumbling through the darkness with no lead to your past or why you’re in this particular part of Fódlan, and you can only hope that this Rhea person really will be able to help you.

    A sound from the underbrush cuts through your thoughts.

    Thinking it might be an animal, you don’t let it bother you too much. No one else seems to have heard it, so maybe it was just your imagination. But your brain refuses to let it rest, and fails to push it away from your mind because something about the sound doesn’t seem to be right. The more you try to focus on it though, the blurrier it gets; the less you understand its origin.

    Then, you hear a voice from within the woods. It sounds like a slurred whisper.

    “What was that?” You stop in the middle of the road, looking around the thick trees. Claude barely manages to avoid walking into you. “What was what?”

    “There’s something here.” Unable to explain further, you wave your hand around for emphasis. He looks at your hand, incomprehension written all over his face. “And that something is what exactly?” he asks.

    “I don’t know.” You wave your hand wilder. “But I don’t have a good feeling venturing further.”

    “You may be still tired,” Edelgard offers, not hiding her irritation that the journey stopped. “It won’t be long until we reach Garreg Mach. You can rest however long you need inside the monastery’s infirmary.”

    “I’m not tired,” you hiss, hand falling back to your side where it clenches into a fist. “I just really don’t think we should go further for now.”

    “And why is that?” Dimitri inquirers. He raises a hand and the soldiers following them come to a halt, a murmur of unrest breathing through their lines, and it’s just enough that you question if it would be better to play if off and admit your mind is playing tricks on you due to exhaustion.

    But whenever you blink, a red veil falls over your right eye, blurring your surroundings. Little red dots move slowly in the distance through the forest. If you didn’t know better, you’d say it’s some sort of life form far away, slowly advancing on your position. “Because someone is coming,” you finally manage, scratching the thin skin below your irritated eye that’s started twitching slightly. “Someone is coming towards us from southwest. And I can’t say if they’re friendly or not.”

    Three pairs of eyes consider you like you’ve grown a second head. Only Byleth stares into the woods like she might find the strangers you’re talking about waiting behind the trees if she just looks hard enough.

    “Little one, are you sure this isn’t just an aftereffect from you hitting your head?” Claude offers, squinting into the woods. You’re pretty sure he’s staring directly at the moving dots but for whatever reason can’t see them.

    “Unless amnesia is suddenly another term for going crazy, I don’t think so,” you snap, unable to hold back the irritation raising to the surface.

    A whistle echoes through the tree crowns. Byleth snaps her head in the direction of the sound, growing all tense. She raises her hand into a tight fist, and all movement stills behind you. When you turn around, you see the mercenaries waiting in the underbrush like a flock of crows ready to swipe down on their prey. Jeralt breaks away from them and approaches Byleth, a frown cutting a deep wrinkle into his forehead.

    “Bandits,” he says, and quickly signs a hand gesture to the nearest bowman. He nods and disappears between trees. “Another mile away. If we stay on this road, we’ll walk right into them.”

    “Seven hundred feet, actually,” you blurt. Jeralt looks at you like you’re a cockroach under his boot. Another whistle cuts through the woods, one long followed quickly by two short. Byleth exhales audibly, and only now you notice she’s moved to stand beside you. “Seven hundred feet,” she mutters, her eyes fixed on you.

    Jeralt tenses. “How do you know, kid?”

    “I don’t know,” you mumble towards your boots. “I just see.”

    There’s an uncomfortable silence falling around you, and you’re too afraid to look up and read distrust in their eyes.

    “Does it matter?” Claude finally breaks the silence, sliding his bow from his shoulder. “They won’t be a problem with the knights and mercenaries on our side.” He jerks his chin towards Byleth, already plugging an arrow from his quiver. “You should really see her fight.”

    “Wait,” you say, reflexively reaching for the hem of his cape. “Don’t engage them yet.”

    Claude stops, one eyebrow arched up in a curve. “Beg your pardon?”

    “They come from the woods. Which means this is their hunting ground and they have the advantage. They have dozens of archers. I think they’re waiting until you reach a glade. And then open fire.”

    “Which means we’ll end up as skewers.” Claude scratches his chin and twirls the arrow between his slender fingers. “I can think of better ways to shuffle off this mortal coil.”

    Dimitri perks up. “You’ve read the Tale of Hamelot I gave you?”

    “I’ll give it a six out of ten. His soliloquies were awful.”

    “Boys.” Edelgard snaps her fingers impatiently as Dimitri opens his mouth to protest. “Not the time.” She takes your wrist and pulls it away from Claude’s cape, her hard gaze like a sharp knife. “Are we simply ignoring the fact that we have someone in our midst knowing the enemies’ movement and deployment?” she cuts in harshly. “Is this a plan to lure us into an ambush?”

    “You think someone would give away their comrades’ position just like that?” Claude eyes her wearily. “Don’t be so suspicious of everyone.”

    She glares at him. “I rather be suspicious than dead.”

    Which is a valid point and a trait you willingly admit to share with her, but that doesn’t really solve the problem at hand. Luckily, Dimitri seems to think the same. He doesn’t unfasten the spear on his back yet, but his fingers dance swiftly over the handle, immediately resting on where he can easily pull it from the straps if needed to strike down an enemy. “Fact is enemies are approaching,” he concludes, looking at his fellow students in search for a consensual ceasefire. “We must put an end to them before they target defenceless travellers on their way out of the forest.”

    “Spoken like a true crowd-pleaser,” Claude says, either unable or not caring to hide the mock in his voice. “We can resolve our new friend’s condition after we take down the enemy.”

    “I don’t agree with this,” Edelgard declares, but nonetheless unclasps the double-bit axe from her back and swings it on her shoulder like it weighs nothing. “But I accept that this is a more pressing issue.” The easiness in the movement robs your lungs of air, and even though there are more important matters to focus on, you wonder how her muscles play under her black uniform swinging around a thing like that. Your admiration comes to a quick end when Jeralt and Byleth close the circle. Her hand rests on the hilt of a short blade as she scans the underbrush, her body rigid with battle anticipation.

    “Let them come to us,” Jeralt announces. “Let them think they have the advantage.”

    “Your knigths over there move slow through the woods,” you say, gesturing at the waiting man clad in heavy armour and armed with shields. “But their amour can resist some stray arrows coming down on us. It’s the rearguard that will take them by surprise from another direction and—”

    “And charge their flank or rear to finish them off,” Jeralt ends with a crude nod. “Indirect approach. I thought of that as well.”

    Your mouth goes dry. The idea plopped seemingly out of nowhere in your mind, but yes, now that you think about it, that is the indirect approach tactic, first recorded after the Battle of Nicaea in … Faerghus? Or was it Adrestia? The picture in your mind is still blurry, but now you can make out definite lines of objects: Books with drawn pictures of pointing arrows and coloured lines, each lettered with a name or an approach in a neat handwriting that isn’t yours. The picture triggers another wave of dizziness, disappearing as fast as it appeared.

    “They’re going to faint in three, two, one…” Claude’s voice rips you back to the present. You glare at him and raise a fist to show how close to fainting you really are. He only laughs at the tiny fist in front of his face.

    “Enough brats, get into position,” Jeralt bellows, and the students scatter with a bouncing step in all their strides as they take the lead of a small unit.

    You’re about to retreat to the furthest point away from battle when Jeralt blocks the way. “Not you. You’re going with Byleth.”

    “I’m what?”

    “Byleth,” Jeralt nods to the young woman ahead of you, “will be the commanding unit and you’ll help her.”

    The world tilts a little as panic takes hold of you. “I can’t. I don’t know how to fight.”

    “You seem to know enough to plan a counterattack.”

    “That doesn’t mean anything.” Your voice sounds horribly piercing even to your own ears. “It was just a lucky guess.”

    “I don’t know what’s the deal with you,” Jeralt says with a finality to his voice that doesn’t allow objection, and this time you clearly see the head of a mercenary guild, one that gives commands with every breath. “But that wasn’t a lucky guess. You see what it needs to win a battle. So you guide them.”

    He turns around sharply and leaves, not bothering to check if you plan to abandon them. It’s madness. You should abandon these people, should flee from the fight that will demand blood and death. One, two, three … six steps and you’re standing beside Byleth, taking deep breaths. It doesn’t help. She eyes you sideways with a raised brow, and you flinch at the metallic rasping sound as she draws her sword.

    “I shouldn’t be here,” you mumble, staring into the woods. The red dots are approaching faster, forming into more recognisable features of humans. “I’m going to die. Without knowing who I am or why I’m here. This is the worst day of my life. I think. I don’t know. It has to be.”

    Byleth hums beside you. You can’t tell if it’s a thoughtful or an affirmative hum. “This might sound crazy, but I do trust you.”

    “Maybe you shouldn’t,” you say, struck by a sudden fear that this all is a fever dream and you're about to lead them into ruin. It’s enough that you don’t even notice this is the first time you two are talking to each other since your meeting.

    Byleth studies you out of the corner of her eyes, then says, “A very persistent voice inside me tells me I shouldn’t.”

    “That’s your survival instinct. Listen to it.”

    “Yeah,” Byleth says, and there’s something like a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips. You blink and it's gone. “I might do that.”

    You don’t really understand what’s there to smile about, but the moment quickly disappears as silence settles, only occasionally disturbed by a bird sitting in the trees above you.

    “So what exactly do you see?” Byleth whispers after a moment, barely shifting in her crouching position. You on the other hand really want to move your legs before they go numb.

    “I don’t know why you guys even believe me,” you mumble, and pinch the bridge of your nose with your fingers, trying to stave off another rush of dizziness. “And I don’t understand it myself. It’s the opponent, in a way. I see their strengths and weaknesses, their amour and weapons. It’s like … it’s like the flow of battle is displayed in front of me.”

    Byleth hesitates a moment, then nods like everything is pretty much self-explanatory. You wonder if to her it really does sound plausible, as she is someone who is practically born in battle, a daughter to a mercenary who breathes battle and fighting. Before you can explain anything further, she ducks more into the bushes and silences you with a sharp hush, her body tensed. The first bandits approach the glade, their bows and arrows ready to strike as the Academy’s knights engage them. Swords and axes clash against each other, battle cries ring through the woods. Byleth gestures you to follow her, and out of the corner of your eyes you see the students do the same, moving around the bandits. From the distance, you notice Claude gesturing wildly. It’s a mix between pointing at himself and then at the space a couple of feet away from his unit, and though you’re unable to fully comprehend it, you shake your head. He gives a thumbs up and slows down until he halts inside the thick cover of ferns.

    Just when you reach the right angle, Byleth looks back at you, waiting for your approval, and after briefly hesitating, you signal with a short nod to attack. Edelgard is the first to emerge from the underbrush. She has a dancer’s grace and a seemingly unerring instinct for what her opponent will do next. Her axe cuts through the first bandits who are too surprised to regroup in time. Dimitri and Claude are quickly to follow her. The crown prince of Faerghus wields his weapon of choice like he’s never done anything else in his entire life. The spear is the instrument to a deadly song they know by heart, and whoever stands in the way of their melody is cut down swiftly. Claude doesn’t disappoint with his steady aim either, his eyes sharper than an eagle’s. He nocks his bow, draws and impales a bandit that’s been running toward a mercenary with a crooked nose and eye patch. The mercenary gives him an offhand salute and goes back to fighting a thug twice his size.

    And then there’s Byleth. At first you don’t see her as the battle’s chaos swallows her and she disappears between moving bodies. But once your eyes catch up to her again, it’s hard to look away. Byleth moves through the enemies’ lines like an avenging angel on a mission. Her sword arm causes havoc as it conducts the tact of death’s complicated choreography and one by one the bandits fall to her deadly dance. Strangely, what describes it the best, you think, is divine.

    The battle is almost over. The last bandits fall or flee back into the woods as they abandon their comrades who lay down their weapons and yield. A miserable sound of relief escapes you when you see the end nearing with little casualties on your side, thanking whoever watches over you and guides your weapons in victory.

    That is until you see something, and at first you aren’t really sure you see it. Veiled by a red haze, a gruesome scene unfolds before you: As Byleth is focused on helping a soldier back up on his feet, a bandit strikes her from behind, wedging a dagger through her spine and into her heart. When you blink, the scene is gone and with it the red veil covering your surroundings.

    You don’t think twice. Jumping out of your hiding spot, you quickly recognise what will be Byleth’s murderer. Only he never gets the chance to approach her. With everything you’ve got, you charge into him and send him flying on the ground, you on top of him. The bandit groans, groggily turning on his back to see what struck him, and before you can start to fear for your own dear life, Byleth is beside you and rams her sword into his throat, silencing him forever.

    She looks down at you and you feel like she knows what just happened. Why you jumped in. It’s in those keen, piercing eyes that speak of a unimaginable wisdom. She reaches a hand out to help you up, and when you stand, the last bandits have been secured and the chaos finally settles. That is when the throbbing pain in your right eye doubles you ever, the pain akin to a pinprick of ice hammering into your skull. The pain makes you sick as stars explode behind your closed eyes, and the more they dance in feverish circles, the harder you press your hands against your eyelids, trying to smother the pain by pressure. It doesn’t work.

    Unable to breathe properly, your stumble, and when you move your hands, your fingers smear something warm and wet across your cheeks.

    Someone takes in a sharp breath. “Your eye,” Byleth breathes, a hand raised but remaining hanging in the air like she’s unsure if it’s okay to touch you. In the background you hear someone calling out you’re bleeding, and it takes a few seconds to understand where you’re bleeding from. Your right eye cries blood when the pain finally knocks you out, darkness falling onto everything.

[chaerincore]

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SAKURA! (2021)

in which CORE4’s maknae gets asked random questions submitted by GALAXY, at rapid fire! how did she do?

warning(s): none!

notes: none.

tags: @skzfairies @nemonadex [send me a request in my asks to join!]

Q: how do you start your day?

A: i get up, stretch, then i shower, sometimes it’s warm, but sometimes it’s a cold one.

Q: cooking or baking?

A: baking! i can cook, but eunwoo is much better at it.

Q: what’s a show/movie you’ve been watching a lot recently?

A: i don’t watch anything really, but when i have the time, i like watching itaewon class or run-on.

Q: when you meet someone, what’s the first thing that you notice about them?

A: their eyes. it sounds a little odd, but you can tell a lot about a person’s demeanor and mood based on the look in their eyes.

Q: outside of your group, are you close with any of your peers?

A: yes! these days i’ve been seeing yuri & yunho from ATEEZ, lee know from stray kids. just recently, i also had plans with jiwoo from KARD!

Q: favorite holiday?

A: christmas! it’s the same day as my birthday.

Q: what’s one thing you still have from your childhood?

A: i still have a lot from my childhood at home, because when i came to korea, i was still very young, but i did bring my first cassette player with me. it reminds me of home.

Q: most recent celebrity crush?

A: i’m with my crush, and have been since 2019.

Q: what’s your staple wardrobe item(s)?

A: cardigans, sweaters, anything that’s knitted or oversized. whenever i can, i love feeling comfortable.

Q: who do you turn to when you’re sad?

A: my members or my partner, one hundred percent.

Q: what’s the most important piece of advice you could ever give someone?

A: don’t ever change or conform in order to fit someone else’s unrealistic standards, only do it if it benefits you somehow, and makes you happy in the end.

Q: if you could get something back from the past, what would it be? why?

A: some more time to enjoy my childhood would be nice, i’ve been working on becoming a performer for so long that i think that i lost a lot of memories as a kid.

Q: if you weren’t an idol, where in life would you currently be?

A: i’d still be in my small hometown in the UK, probably knee-deep in my advanced studies. but i don’t know if i’d still stick to dancing, or if i’d be studying something else.

Q: three qualities that got you where you are today?

A: passion, perseverance, trust.

Q: what was the moment where you realized you finally made it to your dreams?

A: this is a tough one for me, but i think it was either our first music show win, or the day that i got a call from my manager saying that little mix wanted me to be a mentor on the search… i remember feeling so shocked that they even knew i existed, i grew up looking up to them, i still do!

Q: the most heartbreaking moment/realization about your career decision?

A: probably coming home to seeing how much things have changed since i left/last visited, realizing how many funerals, birthdays, and special moments i had been missing.

Q: you’ve met a lot of celebrities, but who made you absolutely starstruck?

A: definitely my label-mate & mentor, HyunA, and the little mix members.

Q: what was the first album you bought/received?

A: the first album (not including cassettes or vinyls) that i purchased myself was room 93 by halsey.

Q: when in love, what was the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

A: i made a mixtape to confess how i felt for my partner because i’m not really the best with words, and i didn’t know how else to express my emotions.

Q: would you ever share those songs off of that mixtape with the world?

A: no, it’s too precious and personal to us.

Q: if you could live in a foreign country, where would it be?

A: i’m not sure if i’d want to live in a foreign country again… i think i’d much rather be back home in the UK, or stay here in korea.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia!! I love your work and have consistently been reading it for over a couple of years, currently every TIP update u post makes my days a bit brighter 🥰

It is also thanks to you that I started posting fics last year after more than three years not doing so. While some of my fics have been wildly popular in a fandom some others don't seem to have landed as well within the same one, so I wanted to ask, what do you do about those stories that excite you but that don't seem to have found an audience yet, or that they never will?? How do you work through the fear of them not being worth your writing time?

Have a lovely day 💚🍀

Hi anon,

This is a hugely complicated question.

For a start, for writing that is for income, if I think it won't do well, I don't write it (although only to a point, I wrote The Gentle Wolf because asexual representation mattered more to me than sales, but it still hit hard when that turned out to be true). I don't like to mess with things that pay the bills. I hate that I have to look at metrics in that sense, but I do. But thankfully we're not talking about original fiction:

For fanfiction, things are different, and there might be a lot of different things going on.

For a start, almost always, when people ask me this question they are still getting some interaction on their fics, just not as much as they wanted or imagined. It can really help to like, remember to be grateful for every person who interacts, and not just the 'quantity' of interactions.

I think like... I am a big fan of 'write for yourself' but it's also true that I write for interaction on AO3. Just... only you can decide how much of the former will compensate for not much of the latter. There are people out there who are like 'if I was only writing for myself I'd keep it in my computer.' I'm not like that, and I don't vibe that way. I write for myself but enjoy sharing it, in case something that worked well for me, works well for a stranger. Everyone is different and that's eventually going to be what the crux of this post is, lol.

Popularity is influenced by the fact that some fandoms are more dead than others and lack interaction across the board in general (Persona 5, for example, is notorious for this). Some fandoms like certain tropes more than others. Some fandoms are massively popular for three weeks and then die almost immediately. And so on and so on.

Ultimately fandom is fickle, it's loyal to the stories they like more than the authors they like, and you can't predict what will be a flash in the pan and what won't be, and it doesn't always have anything to do with the quality of the fic itself or the tags you used. (This is sort of like how sketches will sometimes get tens of thousands of notes and a 300 hour single piece of quality art will get 400 notes, while a professional artist tears their hair out in pieces).

Sometimes, a fic will be more interesting to me than the reality of fandom interaction and I'll write it. Touching and Melting for Houseki no Kuni is a good example of that. A tiny fic for honestly an extremely quiet and tiny western fandom in terms of fic, which looks like it had a lot of interaction 3 years on, but had almost nothing in the first few months. And sometimes the fic idea won't be more interesting to me than the reality of the fandom interaction, and I won't write it. I go story idea by story idea.

But I've also taught myself to really think about a) the way I talk about interaction and b) to really value every individual that leaves a kudos, or comments, or public bookmarks. When I sort of started out with Shadows and Light, I remember being so bummed when a story didn't do as well, and thinking that meant it was doing 'badly.' Let's be real, Game Theory when it started out had less than a tenth of the interaction of SALverse, and I thought I had failed. If I'd given up at that point, well... all of this wouldn't exist.

And then just looking at fanfiction, it's like.. well, sometimes fics do a lot worse than other fics, there's usually at least one person who will read it and leave a kudos. I remind myself that to that person, the story mattered or meant something, which meant I didn't just write it for myself anymore, there is interaction.

This is much harder on stories that have zero comments, and zero kudos, obviously, no one likes to feel as though they are shouting into the void. But it's also my experience that writers who've had popular fics, don't often have 'zero kudos fics' when they say a fic is doing really badly. They just..maybe need to value the individual interactions alongside how good a 'mass' of interaction can feel, or alongside how good 'quantity' can feel. I do really think that's a skill that a lot of like...enthusiastic fanfiction writers have mastered or at least are learning.

Sometimes it really helps to have somewhere in private to vent to when you feel emotionally overloaded or insecure, and honestly sometimes it can help to re-evaluate.

For some people, writing fic when a certain threshold of interaction isn't reached, just isn't worth it. I can't convince people like that to keep writing. If there's a deep seated 'this isn't worth it' then stop doing it.

If there's 'this is insecurity and I'm not good at valuing everyone and I feel down right now but it'll pass' then...work quietly and patiently and compassionately on strengthening your resilience and your trust in your own writing, and your ability to value individuals who interact and engage on your fics. If you don't do this, you may end up bitter and resentful, and that can influence your entire relationship with fandom, and worse, the people who interact with your fics.

Also, finally:

How do you work through the fear of them not being worth your writing time?

In fanfiction, I do not base whether something is worth my writing time on the quantity of people who will interact with it. It is worth my writing time because I'm really excited to write it, and I want to share it, even if people don't respond immediately, or even if only one person ever comments.

I don't...have this fear that you have based on the things you're basing it on - my fears are different to yours. It's fanfiction. It's worth my writing time because I'm eager to write or fix or alter something in canon or I want to make the two boys fuck because no one else was going to, and because I can generally trust that one person out there will probably read it, even if I go back over 10 years ago and my Livejournal fics were only getting like one comment per chapter. If that.

If your metric for 'worthiness' is 'quantity of interaction' then - I'm the wrong person to talk to, I'm literally motivated to write fanfiction by completely different factors to you. I didn't start SAL knowing it would get popular, I thought people would hate me because I killed Jamie in the first chapter, and up until that point none of my fics had been popular.

I can't convince you on the things that convince me, when our foundational motivations are different. If you want quantity and that's what 'worth' means to you, I don't know what to tell you, I would never have written SAL in the first place if I hadn't been the kind of person to just write fanfic for almost no / or no interactions, and still enjoy that single person who said 'I really enjoyed this thank you for writing.' I didn't spring into being as someone who was writing fics that got a lot of interaction, that came...years later, y'know?

So what is worthy to me sounds like it's also just different to what is worthy to you. Ultimately, there are people only writing fanfiction on the basis of how many people interact with them, and...I don't know how those people keep choosing to write honestly, and I think a lot eventually abandon it, because there's no algorithm to crack in order to be successful every time. Maybe...remind yourself that you've had popular fics in the past and therefore you will again? And that you can't get to that point without less popular fics on the step ladder in the meantime? Therefore, even a fic that doesn't feel 'worth your time' will be a stepping stone to the one that is?

Imho, I think my fics are worth my time because I enjoy reading them once they're finished. And then I think they're worth my time because other people enjoy them. Having a popular fic is fun and nice, but honestly, often a fluke, and doesn't always say anything about the quality of the writing (some of the most popular Yuri! on Ice stories with 10,000+ kudos were like...not always...the most well-written stories, but people were desperate for Content, and it was certainly that).

But yeah, how I think about fanfiction is very different to how I think about 'fiction that has to earn an income.' Ultimately I don't want to apply the latter philosophies to the former, other people do. If you're applying 'this needs to hit a certain threshold of interaction to be worthy' as your basis for writing fanfiction, then...we have very very different motivations for creating content in fandom! And I'm the wrong person to ask.

As I said, it's complicated, lol.

[tsarisfanfiction]

21 Asks: Fanfiction Q&A

Well I got tagged by @onereyofstarlight @gumnut-logic and @janetm74 for this, so here goes (answering on fic blog, because... fic!)

This is going to take a while, but it’s also going to be fun, so let’s get started :D

1. What fandoms have you written for?

Uhh... several.  In alphabetical order because that makes my brain happy, we have:

Published: Bleach, Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia), D.Gray-Man, Detective Conan, Flight Rising, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Märchen Awakens Romance (MÄR), Mortal Instruments, Naruto, One Piece, Team Fortress 2, Thunderbirds, Twilight.

WIPs (Unpublished): Avatar: The Last Airbender, Dragon Orb, Flame of Recca, HunterXHunter, Inuyasha, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures (Part 7/Steel Ball Run), Kuroko no Basuke (Kuroko’s Basketball), MI High, Yu-Gi-Oh (Duel Monsters, GX, 5Ds), Yuri On Ice

A couple of those are only because of crossovers... which we’ll get to later.  Similarly, a bunch of the unpublished I have no plans to publish, but I’ve written them so they count in my head.

2. How many works do you have on AO3 &/or FFNet?

AO3: 150 FFN: 149 (the difference is due to a co-authored fic with @lenle-g on AO3, because FFN doesn’t support co-authorship)

(Tumblr has many more because so many of those fics are actually fic collections)

3. What are your top 3 fics by kudos on AO3 &/or favs on FFNet?

AO3 Kudos:

Tales From The Heart (1449)

The Combat School (524)

Succor (348)

FFN Favourites:

The Combat School (681)

Tales From The Heart (185)

Succor (136)

4.  Which 3 fics have the least kudos & favs?

AO3 Kudos:

Wishes of the Dark (0)

4am Forever / Leave Out All The Rest (2)

FFN Favourites:

A Little Fall of Rain / He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, Leave Out All The Rest / See You In The Sky / Stolen Shadows all have 0

5. Which Fic has the most comments and which has the least?

AO3 Comments:

Tales From The Heart (618)

37 have 0

FFN Reviews:

The Combat School (608)

After Sundown / Heroes Made of Gas / Splatter / Stolen Shadows (0)

6. Which complete fic do you wish had gotten more attention?

I mean, I always like attention :P  That’s a hard question because my fandoms vary wildly in size, so for example, while Tales is one of my most popular fics, it’s still pretty tiny in comparison to the big One Piece fics out there, but ones like Grounded numerically barely rate while actually getting the attention of a much larger proportion of the fandom.

Honestly the fic that’s getting less of a response than I’d hoped is still incomplete... but I think I’ll go with Vulnerabilities.  It’s an older fic, and a drabble collection rather than a cohesive story, but it never really got any traction.

7. Have you written any crossovers?

Ah yes, crossovers.  I’ve got three published at the moment:

The Combat School (Harry Potter/D.Gray-Man)

Vampire vs. Shinobi (Naruto/Twilight)

Stolen Shadows (Flight Rising/Thunderbirds)

As far as WIPs go, I have (who knows when or if I’ll actually finish or post these):

Alliance (Naruto/Team Fortress 2)

Black Phoenix (Harry Potter/D.Gray-Man)

Legend of the Exorcists (D.Gray-Man/Yu-Gi-Oh/GX/5Ds)

Untitled (Avatar: The Last Airbender/Thunderbirds)

Untitled (Inuyasha/Lord of the Rings)

8. What is the craziest fic you’ve written?

What even counts as crazy?

Okay, I say that, but Vampire vs. Shinobi is a stupid, Twilight-bashing, parody crossover thing so.  Probably that.

9. What’s the fic you’ve written with the saddest ending?

Ahaha.  There are a few.  All of these have MCD warnings (two are canonical), two of which are suicide, so watch out if you’re poking around:

Deception (canon)

I Promised

The Fish and the Mermaid

The Light That Shines Twice As Bright... (suicide)

Torture (suicide)

Unwanted

Whirlwind (canon)

10. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Tsari likes positive endings.  I’m not actually sure what the happiest is, though.  I often write... hopeful, rather than happy?  The happiest I can think of... is a WIP that I have the ending planned for but that’s spoilers~

I’ll go with Riding the Dragon, I think.  But honestly just take your pick out of the family fluff.

11. What is your smuttiest fic?

Tsari does not post smut.  She has written some, she has not posted it and will keep it that way.

Out of the posted stuff... there is kissing in Briefings?

12. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I think when you hit 100+ fics, you’re lucky if you don’t.  I’ve had a few here and there, but they’re ignorable

13. What is the nicest comment you’ve received?

Oh boy.  I have had many nice comments, but I am going to highlight this one in particular because it’s the one that forever and always springs to mind when I get asked this:

Wow. That was pretty great. You writing managed to keep everyone in character, and still kept the story from falling flat. It's almost as if you stole a page from Cassie's story, and stuck it here. I really want to see more from you.

On: A Tradition of Pride

It’s nowhere near the longest I’ve got, and long comments make me super happy, but this one?  Being told it fits in with the original book?  Makes me beam like an idiot every time.

14. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

[insert eyeroll here]

I have had fics reposted, yes.  Tales From The Heart and Whirlwind have both found themselves posted on sites I don’t use - I managed to get Tales taken down, but the site hosting Whirlwind isn’t paying me any attention.

15.  How many fics do you have marked as incomplete?

Nine, which is both too many and not as many as I thought.  Although if you ignore the collection fics - Tales From The Heart and Behind The Scenes, which are basically eternal wips - it’s seven.

16. Which of the WIPS will most likely be finished first?

Just A Bruise, because it’s already just about finished, @lenle-g and I just need to tie up the final chapter and editing the rest of it before it’s posted.

17. Which WIP are you looking forward to finishing?

Long Way From Home, because it’s going to be huge and finishing that will feel amazing.  But it’s going to take a long time.

18. Is there a WIP that you’re considering abandoning?

Nope.  I will, one day, finish all of them.  Yes, even Uchiha Itachi.

19. Which complete fic would you consider rewriting?

Complete?  None.  However, the above mentioned Uchiha Itachi is being (very slowly) rewritten - and is actually on its second rewrite - because it pains me in its current state.

20. Which complete fic is your favourite?

Asking the hard questions I see.  I have a soft spot for In Your Shadow, I admit, although I have several fics that I love (mostly my Military Bros stuff...).  Also Tales, although that’s technically not “Complete”.

21. What’s your total published word count?

AO3: 956,962 (I aim to break 1 million by the end of the year... just watch me!)

FFN: 1,102,070 (FFN counts author’s notes, AO3 does not)

If someone is brand new to your writing, what work would you want them to start with to get to know you, your style, what you’re all about?

This is not a numbered question, I see, but it was on the post I copied these from, so I guess this is 21+1 questions!

I’ve answered this before, and honestly I think I’d stick with the same answer - Black Widow.  It’s not my biggest fandom.  It’s not my most recent work.  But it does contain a lot of playing around canon without breaking it.

Although, if someone has the time, Tales From The Heart does great for showcasing the range of things I write.  But that’s also 250+ chapters, so probably not a good one to start with.

And this is where I tag people, yes?  Not entirely sure who’s been tagged already, but let’s go with @lenle-g @ak47stylegirl @thetwelvecaesars @gaviiadastra @willow-salix @scribeofred

[mindmeltonabun-blog]

Tale of the Nine Tailed: Eps 15-16 Predictions

Unfortunately as TOTNT draws to an end, so shall these posts! This will probably be my last post concerning TOTNT unless there is something of great importance that happens in the finale that would warrant a discussion. Overall, everything in the series made sense if you actually did your fair share of research of mythology from around the world.  Anyways, I will try to make this post as short as possible for your sake and mine! 

Predictions Based on Ep 15 Preview

One Last Date

There’s not much to say about this portion except that Ji Ah and Lee Yeon just go on one last date before everything blows up!

Let’s Get Sato’s Moon Mirror

The Imoogi will go to get Sato’s Moon Mirror by killing him. Based on this scene, it looks like this will occur in a bathroom (notice the paper towel dispenser and mirror?). 

Hello Mother, It Has Been A Long Time

The Imoogi spirit has been inhabiting Bok Gil’s immortal body. Taluipa will be shocked to see that her dead son body was being used by the Imoogi. Out of anger, she will try to turn him into stone. However, since Terry now has the Moon Mirror, he will use it to deflect Taluipa’s Medusa stone turning power. This will cause her to turn into stone instead. 

After killing Taluipa, Terry will change Ji Ah’s death date to ensure that his other half can now live freely. Then Terry reunites with Ji Ah outside of the Office of the Afterlife to go over the next part of their plan.

Betrayed On All Sides

Lee Yeon not having been aware of what all has happened, will return to his apartment. It is there that he will see Ji Ah standing at the window. Ji Ah will turn around to reveal she’s once again taken over by the Imoogi. At that moment, Lee Rang, Shin Ju, and the Snail Bride will sneak attack Lee Yeon to get his body. Lee Yeon escapes by knocking them all out.

Final Showdown

Lee Yeon realizes the Terry Imoogi has betrayed him so Lee Yeon decides to head to the Office of the Afterlife to stop him once and for all. Lee Yeon will find that Taluipa has now been turned into stone at her desk (see Taluipa’s stone statue in red circle). 

As Lee Yeon is fighting Terry Imoogi, Ji Ah Imoogi arrives at the scene and blocks Lee Yeon from stabbing Terry Imoogi (see red arrow of Terry hiding behind Ji Ah Imoogi).

Ji Ah temporarily regains control of her body and tries to end her life with the CEO’s gun. Also, note the brown couch (red arrow) in the background of Ji Ah, showing that this occurs at the Office of the Afterlife. Ji Ah will fail at killing herself because either Terry Imoogi has stopped her or the Imoogi inside of her has gain back control.

Save Yuri or Save Lee Yeon

Lee Rang wakes up and immediately heads to the Office of the Afterlife where Yuri is there to stop him. Her eyes look pretty dead so my guess is that she’s probably being compelled by the Imoogi to block Lee Rang’s path to Lee Yeon.

Lee Rang is faced with an obstacle similar to what Lee Yeon had to face 600 years ago, which is who to save when both people are considered equally as precious. I think Lee Rang will probably knock Yuri out or maybe Shin Joo will if he tags along with Lee Rang to the office.

Lee Yeon’s Decision

Lee Yeon will decide to go through with his original plan of taking Ji Ah’s half into himself. Lee Rang arrives at that very moment and is faced with having to kill his brother. However, I don’t think Lee Rang will be mentally strong enough to do it. Possessed Lee Yeon will then stab Lee Rang. Following this, Lee Yeon will temporarily gain back control of his body long enough to get to the River Styx.

I’ll Chase You Like You Chased Me at the River Styx

This scene of Ji Ah running in the Office of the Afterlife seems like it happens right after Lee Yeon has taken the Imoogi piece out of her (notice that she no longer has scales on her face or neck). Ji Ah is probably running towards the River Styx to prevent Lee Yeon from jumping into it. This parallels to past when Lee Yeon was running to the River Styx to save Ah Eum’s soul.

Everyone Has Been A Puppet 

There are no coincidences in TOTNT. Every single character has been a puppet in King Yeomra’s grand scheme of finding his perfect replacement. From legends, it is told that King Yeomra was the first to have faced death. In doing so, Yeomra became the King of the Underworld. In Yeomra’s eyes, the candidate best suited to take over his position should also have to face a similar situation. Therefore, Lee Yeon will prove himself worthy by jumping into the River Styx.

Morals of the Story

1)    People who remain good despite experiencing tragedies in their lives will get rewarded 

2)    Bad people are given opportunities to change their terrible fate by doing good deeds

3)    Bad people who do not change their ways despite being given opportunities to do so will meet the ultimate punishment (being erased from existence entirely)

Final Outcomes for TOTNT Characters

Everyone will get a happy ending except the Imoogi! 

Lee Yeon becomes the next King Hades

Ji Ah becomes an immortal, takes over Taluipa’s job, and she has a kid with Lee Yeon

Taluipa gets brought back to life and decides to leave her job to focus on repairing her relationship with Hyun Ui Ong

Bok Gil may or may not come back to life. I’m just not sure if his soul will remain once the Imoogi leaves his body. Although it would be nice if in the end Hyun Ui Ong gets back both his wife and son.

Shin Joo and Yuri have a happily ever after and many fox babies

Lee Rang lives a long happy life being Kim Soo Oh’s father

Ji Ah’s two coworkers will date or get married and live after happily ever after

Snail Bride gets her husband back and they too live happily ever after

Ji Ah’s parents live out what remains of their lifespan. When they do die, they will die knowing that their daughter will always have a life that is blessed with a family of her own

[the-lincyclopedia]

Fic writer questions I never get asked

Thanks for the tag, @khashanakalashtar! This is an interesting list! 

What date did you make your AO3 profile? What date did you post your first fic?

I joined AO3 on February 5, 2018. Seriously. I was FFN-only for so long. I posted my first fics on AO3 the day I joined. My first fics ever to hit the internet, however, were published on July 13, 2011, which is when I got my FFN account.

Do you cross-post your work?

Yeah, still. When I first got my AO3 account, I posted a bunch of things that were already on my FFN account, and these days I put basically everything on both. I like that FFN gives a pretty accurate and nearly complete timeline of my fanworks, which is the main reason I’m still posting there. Nothing I’ve posted there in the past three years has gotten much engagement, and I know the site is dying. 

What’s your fic with the most comment threads? The most bookmarks? Are the top 5 of those categories basically the same, and basically the same as the top 5 kudos?

Top 5 by comment threads: 

Face the Future with You (Check Please)

Man Oh Man, You’re My Best Friend (Check Please)

It’s Always You (Check Please)

Love in the Time of Influenza (Carry On)

I Love You, All Right? (Check Please)

Top 5 by bookmarks: 

Love in the Time of Influenza (Carry On)

The Aftermath of Angelic Assumptions (Good Omens)

Man Oh Man, You’re My Best Friend (Check Please)

Nightmares (Carry On)

Christmas Planning (Carry On)

Top 5 by kudos: 

Love in the Time of Influenza (Carry On)

Face the Future with You (Check Please)

Nightmares (Carry On)

The Aftermath of Angelic Assumptions (Good Omens)

Christmas Planning (Carry On)

So basically the Check Please fandom comments more and the Carry On fandom is more into bookmarks and kudos, and there’s more of a correlation between kudos and bookmarks than between either of those and comments. 

What’s the word count of your longest fic or series?

“The Jumper Chronicles,” my longest fic on FFN, is 111,223 words. I abandoned it in 2015 and I really would not recommend it. On AO3, my longest fic is “who could ask to be unbroken (or be brave again)” at 14,772 words. It’s part of my longest series on AO3: “Samwell Men’s Harmonies” at 29,921 words. 

What’s your most underrated fic?

MOST underrated? I have 132 fics on AO3, so there are a lot of potential answers. I guess I’ll pick my work with literally the fewest kudos: it’s a charming little rhyming poem about Harry Potter called “The Willow May Whomp You.” It has two kudos, fewer than 70 hits, no bookmarks, and no comments. I was so proud of it when I finished it, and AO3 really did not care. 

Does your early work contain any writing sins?

I had heard that not breaking up your dialogue was bad (which it’s not? Who told me this? Why did I believe them? Ugh), and I thought that adding adverbs to dialogue tags constituted breaking up your dialogue. So I had lots of unnecessary beats and adverbs and internal monologue mixed up in what otherwise might have been passable dialogue scenes. (I don’t remember whether this came up a ton in my fics and I don’t feel like looking, but I remember it pretty clearly in the original stuff I was working on back then.)

Have you ever had a work podficced?

Yes! I requested it for Fandom Trumps Hate, though, so I don’t know if it counts, exactly. It’s not like someone read my work and approached me about podding it. Anyway, my Yuri on Ice fic “When and If” has a podfic version. 

Have you posted any podfics? Fanvids? Fanart?

I was going to say no, and then I remembered that back in, like, 2009, I tried to make a couple Romione fanvids, one to Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” and one to “I’m Not That Girl” from Wicked. Unfortunately for everyone involved, I didn’t have a clue how to pull bits of video from a movie (still don’t, actually), so they were basically slideshows. I’ve long since taken them down from YouTube and the computer I made them on has long since died, so I can’t prove any of this to you, but . . . uh, yeah. That happened. 

Are there any trends in your favorite ships?

I feel like there have been, like, eras of my shipping. When I first started shipping (i.e. before I realized I’m queer), it was basically “girl I can project on” shipped with “literally whoever her canon love interest is, regardless of anything about him” (Romione, Percabeth). Then it was “asshole guy” shipped with “other guy who interfaces between the asshole guy and the rest of the world” (Johnlock, Otayuri to a lesser extent). I feel like it’s becoming “broken person whose coping mechanism is meanness” shipped with “broken person whose coping mechanism is sunshine” (Zimbits, maybe Snowbaz). This is pretty similar to the asshole x interface-with-world, but the relationship is a little more mutual and balanced, and the mean one has a better excuse for being mean. 

Do you have fandoms you’ve written a lot for? Fandoms you’ve only written a one-off for?

Fandoms I’ve written a lot for: Check Please, Carry On, Harry Potter, Sherlock, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and Yuri on Ice. (I’m defining “a lot” as at least five fics, and please note that I’ve got a 30k Lizzie Bennet Diaries fic that’s only on FFN because I really don’t like the ending.)

Fandoms I’ve only written one-offs for: Discworld, Turtles All the Way Down, Maleficent, the Chronicles of Narnia, Paper Towns, Six of Crows, Hoot, the Odyssey, Song of the Lioness, and Downton Abbey. (There are multiple other fandoms with two fics each.)

What fandom got you into fandom?

Harry Potter. I’d been writing next gen fics for like two years when a school acquaintance shared an FFN link to a Marauders fic on Google Buzz and I was hooked. 

Do you have a strategy for summaries?

I try to describe the premise/first part of the plot, and I add notes that might be relevant (i.e., major trigger warnings or other things that might put people off). I don’t use quotes, either from the story or from anywhere else. 

Do you use beta readers? For what? Do you have a go-to beta?

Occasionally for plot/general “is this good?” type feedback, or if they’re mandatory for an event, I guess. (I’m doing my first bang, so that’s a new thing for me.) I don’t feel the need to use a beta for spelling, grammar, or punctuation since I’m a semi-professional copyeditor. These days I do read most things to my QPP over the phone before publishing them. That’s usually more of a cheer-reading situation than a beta situation, though. 

I tag @doggernaut @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @birlcholtz @cricketnationrise and anyone else who wants to play! 

[omgkalyppso]

Number 4 for the romance lyric prompt for any variation of the ot4!

4. ‘Cause girls like you run 'round with guys like me 'til sun down.

The lyric is from Girls Like You by Maroon 5 (idk how obvious this is without me saying it), and was added to the playlist specifically for Claude x Hilda though a lot of the lyrics have to be taken at face value because it could be interpret extremely negatively, though not that line, and not my intent. I'll try writing a few words of the stage-production au.

I didn't read over this when I finished.

Here's the first post of the stage-production au: [HERE]

Most of the cast were gone for the day, though the actors who had agreed to go out afterwards had lounged in the audience. Dimitri and Edelgard stood on opposite step ladders, as crewmen held them in place, going over the lines of their final battle with a choreographer and the director.

Dimitri would be atop a large dragon puppet someday, and Edelgard would be in her Hegemon construction, but for now, they were in t-shirts and jeans and trying their best to imagine what the final product might look like.

Hubert and Dedue stood by their sides, and had stopped crouching after the fourth recitation of their lines. By now had been brought chairs to sit upon, from which they each spoke their one line, to be shouted in production, as they supported the song shared by The Rightful King and The Flame Emperor in their epic moment.

From the orchestral pit, the production's vocal coach, Yuri, played an upright piano to guide their tune and tempo.

Hilda sat between Claude and Ferdinand in the audience. Each man whispering along with the song with a bounce of his head while she sunk into her seat, amused, and embarrassed by the prospect of joining them.

It was the most genial cast Hilda had ever worked with, and when Ferdinand, Edelgard, Manuela, Seteth and Lorenz had spoken of not drinking for seven weeks before a show, the bulk of the cast had agreed to go sober for the duration; though when they'd spoken of different dietary restrictions in the week leading up to production, there'd been very little consensus. Regardless, tonight would be the last hurrah for those who drank, as Hilda didn't anyway, and they were waiting to take their friends out for the night.

It was still relatively early as far as nights went, barely seven o'clock, but that was still late enough that people were missing dinner. Hilda could hear the crinkling of a paper bag from behind her, where Mercedes and Dorothea snacked on sweet and sour chicken balls.

After three more runs of the scene, Sweetpea, their stoic mint-haired director, declared, "I think that's it." They did their best to turn to address the rest of their team, in the wings and in the audience. "I'll see most of you in four days when we join Yuri for a, hopefully less chaotic, rendition of The Storm of Myrddin. Great work."

Hilda whistled loudly in support of her castmates, while her friends applauded and hollered. Dimitri bowed to their audience, and Hubert bowed to Edelgard who rolled her eyes and laughed as she exaggerated with one hand thrown skyward as she and Dimitri made their way down their respective stepladders.

"Thank you, Yuri," called Edelgard.

"Yes, thank you, Yuri," Dimitri agreed.

"We'll practice those low notes next time," Yuri answered, before waving up out of the pit to soften his implied criticisms. "You're welcome! We're getting there. There's a lot of range to cover."

Dimitri was still insecure by the time he joined his castmates in the aisles as they marched to the exit, "Did it sound that bad?"

"No," Claude snickered.

"It's Yuri's job to strive for perfection," Dedue observed.

Hilda held her hand in front of her lips for a moment, considering her contribution. Once they were outside, she jut her elbow into Dimitri's stomach so he grunted in surprise, stumbling back into Felix.

"Eugh!"

"Hey, watch it!"

Hilda shrugged. "Just remember that sensation?"

"Don't be mean," Sylvain exaggerated with a whine, giving Dimitri his sweater he'd been holding onto.

"No, I—" Dimitri tried to mimic the same position his mouth had been in, tongue drooping forward in his mouth as he sought the pitch of his exclamation.

"You broke him," Hubert declared, his brow furrowed, at the same time that Claude, Edelgard and Dedue were following Dimitri's example and carrying a deep monotonous tone.

Edelgard even turned it into a line that Yuri had probably been concerned with, that she would sing below The Rightful King's pleas, "So that none will suffer I must forfend—"

Dorothea answered her with The Rightful King's following line, "Living and dead, I will not forget those whom I defend."

"We're not doing that," Felix said, flat.

"Right," Annette agreed, which seemed to surprise him. "Resting voices."

"Resting voices," several people echoed.

.

They followed Dedue to a Duscur place for dinner, and wolfed down their wraps as they waited in line at a club that might be large enough to accommodate their large group.

"You didn't bring your date?" Lorenz asked Felix.

"We're not dating," Felix said, as if on instinct. He thought a moment. "Wasn't this just for cast?"

Lorenz shared a frown with Hilda before he assured Felix, "I doubt anyone would have complained even if you'd brought someone unrelated to the production. We'd have been happy to—"

"Don't listen to him," Claude said, turning from Leonie so he could wrap an arm around Lorenz. "Or I mean, do, because you could have brought anyone you'd wanted, but also don't because Lorenz just chickened out of asking the other make up artist to join us and hoped they'd have tagged along with Mia."

Felix snorted.

"That's not what happened," Lorenz objected.

"Oh, sweetie," Hilda contributed with a pout. "That's exactly what happened."

"We just got to talking, and I got distracted," Lorenz contributed.

"You forgot?" Felix asked, aghast. Hilda brought her hands to her lips, failing to hide her amusement.

"It didn't come up," Lorenz countered.

"That's not better," Claude said, shaking his head. Lorenz shrugged him off and flicked his chest with all four fingers.

"Fat lot of good friends like you are."

.

The second floor of the club was open to the elements, archways acting as windows to the brisk wind of evening, and the bright shine of sunset. The breeze and drinks were welcome, Mercedes, Dorothea and Hilda taking turns sitting with their pitchers, yellow with alcohol and pink without, to protect them just in case.

Hilda found herself distracted throughout the night, watching Claude as he dipped Lorenz, and nearly dropped Dimitri, and joined Dorothea in a samba that she and Annette were soundly better at.

They danced together only twice, the first time early in the evening before the dancers and the night had hit their stride, when there was more laughter and embarrassment in their fun than indulgence. The second time had been later in the evening, when he was flush and tipsy, to a ballad that had them swaying slowly with his hand politely between her shoulders. She'd thought about stepping closer into his space, resting her head on his chest, facing the brunt of his sweat and his cologne, but hesitated — partially because of their working relationship, but mostly because Sylvain and Mercedes had whistled about the way Hubert had held the small of Edelgard's back and she'd stretched back in a smooth, flowing dip.

It was maybe an hour later that Claude found Hilda seated at a table by a south-facing archway, the dim red of the western horizon a memory of the now fallen sun, the deep blue to the east twinkling with a few visible stars over a small lake and parkland.

"You having a good time?" Claude seemed more sober now than earlier, unlike some of their friends, and Hilda smiled softly, glad of his attention.

She nodded and ran her fingers under her eyes. "Just tired. Worked early before practice, and will again tomorrow."

"I'm glad you made it," Claude said sweetly, and Hilda rolled her eyes as she sucked on a straw from a cup that was mostly ice.

"No one would have missed me," she contributed, her gaze darting to where most of their colleagues were gathered, some of their friendships spanning years and others only as long as auditions, but generally they seemed to feel closer to each other than she really felt to them. So far, anyway.

She felt slower at forming these deep friendships that others seemed instinctually born with. She wondered if she'd know any of these people long enough for that to matter.

"I just said I would've," Claude insisted, crossing his arms as he leaned into the table. His hair was wilting around his face, framing thick eyebrows and dark lashes that half-hid his green eyes. He needed to curl them, Hilda thought idly.

She blushed and pushed at the ice in her glass with her straw. "You just owed me a few drinks for improvising with you in your audition."

Claude chuckled and hid his smile in his elbow for a moment. "That was kind of you," he allowed. He looked at her directly, and promised, "But it's not just that."

"No?" she peeped, half teasing, waiting on the joke or the reveal.

"No," he said at a whisper. "Would you want to come over to my place on one of our free nights? I could make you dinner? We could just run lines, or...?"

"Or?"

Claude blushed and they both snickered softly. He shifted back and forth against the table, forcing himself to sit up, running a hand over his chin, clean shaven for his part in their production.

"Or whatever you like."

His smile widened as she considered it, and she wondered if it was because he wasn't facing instinctual rejection or because he could tell that she was interested. When she nodded, his shoulders fell, as if suddenly relaxed. A lot of people had rules about not dating people they worked with, the risk of rejection and the pain of a breakup always had a chance of hurting a production, but she could see the value of taking a few moments of flattery too far. Even if Claude tucked his heart away from something more, even if they only ran lines, she was looking forward to it.

[salmonthestoryteller]

20 questions, writer's edition

I was tagged by @lambourngb - This was harder to fill out then it first appeared, btw.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

118

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

516,223.  I never looked that much at my statistics page before so that’s exciting to look at.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oh my gosh, so many.  25 different ones on ao3, 9 more that were never cross posted from the pit of voles, and at least 5-10 fandoms from prior to either of those sites.  LJ, Yahoo Groups, BBS boards, etc.    A partial list includes: Roswell New Mexico (2019) (My most prolific with 40 fics on ao3 and more here on tumblr I never cross posted there.), Hetalia, Yuri on Ice, Supernatural, Samurai Warriors, Uta no Prince-sama, Voltron, Shadowhunters, My Hero Academia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Animal Kingdom, The Old Guard, The Walking Dead, Dynasty Warriors, The Witcher, Xyber 9, Shadow Raiders, Mummies Alive, Babylon 5, and Star Trek.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes (The Old Guard) (Yeah, I had this one on anonymous for awhile.) 

Until the TIme is Through (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 

I Want You (Roswell New Mexico) (NSFW Malex) 

Crash and Burn (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 

Snow (Hetalia) (NSWF IvanxAlfred) 

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I’m torn between three actually:

Dormant (Hetalia)  I always say I love two endings, happy endings and greek tragedies, but I rarely write the greek tragedies.  Dormant is one of my exceptions.  Hetalia has one character who is hinted at being immortal, and I took that and wrote a fic about an Extinction Level Event and him watching the other characters die around him while he can’t.  I’ve always been really proud of this fic, despite it being one of the saddest things I’ve ever written.

Unclean (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is almost the darkest fic I’ve ever written.  It’s about Michael’s time in the home of the “Fundamentalist Religious Freaks” and the exorcism he mentioned.  It ends after the drifter and is very much hurt, no comfort.

Hell is… (Roswell New Mexico)  This is a ficlet I wrote for a prompt.  And it’s a dark take about what could have happened to the pod squad if they’d been caught after the murders.

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Almost all my fics have happy endings.  So, what is the happiest?  Probably either:

Deck the Halls (Roswell New Mexico)  An Echo & Malex Christmas fic that is as fluffy as a fic that involves the Pod Squad, Christmas, and being attacked by anti-alien paramilitary groups can be.  (Also, Echo has a cat called Grisabella the Glamour Cat because Max should not be allowed to name anything and nobody can convince me that wouldn’t be absolute canon in a committed Echo relationship.)

Or

In Over Their Heads (Yuri on Ice)  A Seungchuchu with a fake engagement and unrequited feelings that aren’t actually unrequited. (And where Sara is Seung’s best friend because apparently I always write them that way and have no regrets.)

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

I don’t write crossovers.  Because I rarely find myself sold on the idea that the two stories exist in the same verse or can think of a way the characters would interact that would inspire me to write a fic.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, and pretty much anything.  M/M, F/F, M/F, and Poly.  Plus a large variety of kinks.  (Yes, I was often on kink memes back in my LJ days.)

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to?  I used to never respond because I didn’t know what to say, and then I tried to respond to every one, but there would be long gaps between when I checked and then I felt bad for responding so late, and sometimes I still don’t know what to say so I just end up not replying.  XD

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Surprisingly very little.  Some harsh criticism - one in particular actually hit young me hard enough to stop writing for a while back in the day.  But I tend to get more hate for my meta than my fics.  Which is odd since my fics are usually very much representative of my meta.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Only one - a Dynasty Warrior fic of mine about the bond between CaoCao and Xiahou Dun was translated into Chinese.  I mean, Dynasty Warriors is a video game literally based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is based on chinese history, so for someone to want to translate one of my fics about it was incredible to me. Links below.

Honor 

Translation: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589910

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

No.  I would probably drive a co-author nuts, tbh.  I’m so inconsistent.  And at the same time, I have a thousand thoughts.

14. What's your all time favourite ship? to write for?

I don’t actually have one?  RNM has become my top fandom to write for, there’s no doubt.  And while I think Malex is in the most fics among them, I’m not sure if that number surpasses other ships in other fandoms I’ve written for altogether.  In fact, according to ao3, only 15 fics of my 40 RNM even have Malex in them at all, and not all of those are Malex-centric.  In fact in at least 3, they’re a side ship.

I’d say that I probably write almost as many fics that are gen, friendship, family/found family feels, and character introspection as I do shipping fics.  Which doesn’t really leave room for any one ship to be at the forefront.

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

None, I hope.  LOL.  There’s definitely a few that I have left uncompleted for a long time and feel guilty about but I’m not ready to say I’ve abandoned them yet.  There’s a ton of ideas I have written down that I may never actually write.  But none I have started that I don’t want to finish.

16. What are your writing strengths?

The three consistent compliments I’ve gotten are:  I capture the characters’ voices in my dialogue.  My writing tone is unique.  My smut is super hot.  XD  (I have no explanation for the last one, because to be honest ¾ of my smut is always foreplay.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes.  I have been told before that my action scenes are very confusing.  Also, I rarely give physical descriptions of people’s appearances because I honestly rarely stop to consider what they’re wearing or how their hair is done.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It’s common in a couple of fandoms of mine, and I actually don’t mind it. Depending on the fic, it can be more realistic to me than otherwise.  (I just appreciate it when the translation is also provided.)

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  But I never posted that one.  Um… I think Ranma ½ was the first one I ever posted for others to read?

20. What's your favourite fic you've written?

Oh, gosh. Um… I know at one point I listed Dormant.  But I think right now if I had to choose I’d say either

School of Hard Knocks (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is my Michael-centric fic set in the lost decade.

Or

Duty First (Shadowhunters)  My Magnus and Raphael “missing scene” from 02x20.

Tagging @manesalex @lovecolibri @islndgurl777 @ninswhimsy 

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

TINSITOGS, a retrospective (happy birthday)

(yes I’m like two days too late I know I’m sorry) 

Why hello followers and ass class fandom, nice to see you there. I’m sure MOST people know about this, but in case you don’t, hi. On AO3 I’m better known as livixbobbiex, writer of maybe one of the most infamous Assassination Classroom fics. 

Which I mean like, if you haven’t read it yet you totally should it’s fanlore at this point I promise- 

Shameless plug that I don’t need aside, I felt that, on its first birthday since actual completion, I just wanted to share some things about it. Some tit bits about writing it, fun facts, maybe even some author advice TM. I appreciate that it’ll be super annoying if I do that in the tags, though, so that’ll all be under the cut. If you don’t want to read the whole post, then no matter what, thanks for the support in general! 

I also want to take the opportunity to announce that I’ve reopened my discord, so if you want to talk about my fics with me (and others), you’re more than welcome to join! (the link is here) 

The origin story 

I’ve stated this many times, I think, but TINSITOGS was never supposed to be a serious story. Taking you back, quite a long time, it actually started in a facebook DM with a friend. We used to come up with “head canons” with each other, which were basically just very condensed fanfiction plots over a multitude of text messages. I believe I was trying to cheer her up, and I tried to come up with some kind of plot line. 

At the time, I was fairly fresh to the Ass Class fandom, and I was joking about how there were no teen pregnancy melodrama fanfictions. It wasn’t that I wanted one, I just thought it was strange for a school centric anime with a bunch of ships to NOT have one. And, back then, I only really cared about karmagisa. So I just decided ‘right it’s happening’. The reason I decided to make it ABO was due to ‘it making sense’. Fun fact: it was almost written as AFAB trans Nagisa, but I decided against it as I didn’t rate my ability to handle it well back then. Looking back on it, I’m glad I made that decision. 

Over around two months, writing out the plot of this story took over my life a little bit. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I was having so much fun with the drama that I decided that Karma and Nagisa shouldn’t get together soon at all, and I had a lot of fun teasing my friend with the ‘will they won’t they’. It was only when I got bored that I invented this intense drama plotline to finish it all off. 

That period of time was a lot of fun. And whilst that friendship didn’t end well, I still have a lot to thank her for. She chose Daichi’s name because I had no idea, and she wanted to annoy me because I didn’t like Haikyuu. When I couldn’t decide on his hair colour, the purple was her suggestion because ‘why logic?’ Daichi speaking Korean was because of how much she liked Kpop. She even helped me choose the title of the actual fic, so there’s a lot you can thank her for, honestly. 

After I finished that story, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whenever I daydreamed, I used to think about that damn Daichi Akabane, and how much I wanted to tell his story. I’d even come up with extra stuff to fill in a lot of the gaps, and developed his character in my mind. I decided that I was really desperate to write it down. Usually that worked when I had an idea I wanted to work through. 

I wrote the first chapter in late 2017, and then the next two as well. I just, kept going, and realised that I could go further still. TINSITOGS was never something that was supposed to be shared, but I decided I may as well. After all, that fated ‘teen pregnancy drama’ fic still didn’t exist, and I thought it would be funny to make it happen. 

Yes, as I’ve stated publicly a few times, TINSITOGS was a crack fic. If I wanted attention from it, it was infamy. We even joked about me cursing the fandom if it ever became the most popular fic (whoops?). What I wasn’t expecting was a bunch of people, in a fandom where at the time there were NO ongoing karmagisa fics and it was pretty dead, to really seem to enjoy it. It was enough to have me keep writing it, at least. I still don’t know at what point I actually started taking it seriously, but somehow I did, and the rest is history? 

The reception 

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that I would be the author of one of the most popular fics in the fandom. To this day, the amount of views TINSITOGS has is insanity to me. For the record, across all platforms it’s on today it has 238,000, which is literally a number I can’t even visualise anymore. Almost quarter of a MILLION. To this day on AO3, it’s the most viewed Ass Class fic that’s an ACTUAL ass class fic (the others are multi fandom compilations). So yeah, I achieved the original goal, I guess? 

Now you might be wondering, “omg the karmagisa fandom is fujoshi trash”. And, considering the origins, it is kind of funny. The thing is, though, TINSITOGS was written at incredibly good time. It was written when there were, essentially, very few long form Karma/Nagisa stories. If any other fics did get posted on occasion, they were usually just oneshots. I was also, at that point, writing very fast. A symptom of ADHD is becoming obsessively productive over certain things. Since I was able to get a 3k chapter out every few days/once a week, TINSITOGS was consistently bumped to the top of AO3′s default view. And some of those first few chapters were altered canon, and transcribing the canon dialogue didn’t take very long. The more views it got, the more people would read it out of sheer curiosity. 

I think it also helps that, at least after it started getting some positive feedback (which was honestly after the pre written chapters), I purposely tried to make it ‘not terrible’. I mean, I personally think the first chapter is pretty weak and if it wasn’t somewhat iconic to a lot of people I’d rewrite it. But in general, I purposely tried to make the world of ABO my own, to make it more accessible to those who don’t like that genre, and stay away from the inherently grosser stuff as much as possible. I genuinely do get comments about how I introduced people to the genre as a whole, still not sure if that’s a GOOD thing but hey, it happened. 

TINSITOGS turned into a lot more than just a joke. It turned into my favourite hobby. It turned into a research project (honestly, you would not believe the amount of mummy vlogs and legit scientific articles about child development I consumed). It turned into something that, at least I believe, was widely loved. 

Meaning 

I think it might be wrong to say that I don’t have AN idea of when I started to take the fic super seriously. For me, it was around the time someone commented something along the lines of saying my writing meant a lot to them, that they’d spent all night reading it and had been unable to put it down. 

Not to get too dark here, but I do have a past in writing a very long, somewhat popular fic (it’s still on my fanfic net profile if anyone’s interested, but I don’t recommend it). However, in the latter part of my teenage years, the depression struck. Writing was the love of my life, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. Maybe I’d be able to muster an idea or even a chapter at the best points of that, but I’d never completely finished any story. Starting to write again was a huge step in my recovery, and one of the reasons I convinced myself that life was worth it was being able to impact someone’s life somehow. Even to this day, I still remember the fics I read when I was, like, thirteen. How much I still remember them, and how much they meant to be at the time. I wanted to be that writer for someone else. To be honest, it was actually Yuri!!! On Ice that got me out of the super bad, but I still never wrote anything of real consequence. TINSITOGS was the first time in a long time I actually committed to something. 

And, to be completely honest, there were a lot of times I was tired of it, and wanted to just quit. But, the thing was, I felt like people depended on me in a way. I got so many comments that were just FILLED with support, telling me how much they looked forward to every update. It wasn’t just empty words, either, a lot of the times these comments would be super engaged with the actual writing. I can’t even describe just how much they meant to me, how much I would look forward to reading everyone’s opinions. And then discord happened, which was a lot of fun. 

TINSITOGS went a lot further than I ever thought it would. There were comments, discussions, fan art, fan FIC (which is honestly incredible to me). Someone even added it to TV Tropes, at one point. Not to mention the Cards Against Humanity deck and quiz It makes me so unbelievably happy that I could inspire that much creativity, but it’s a two way street. It was all of that which inspired me to write, too. 

Writing 

The only real goal I actually had was aiming for around 3000 words per chapter. I had a whole facebook log of plot points as planning, and I was mostly just trying to expand on them into prose. I honestly thought that, at its completion, the entire fic would be around 100k words, if that. Not, at one point, being literally the longest ass class fic on AO3. 

There are a lot of aspects that were directly adapted from the original messages, and I tried to stay faithful to it more so at first, even if I later removed some of the pure crack. But the style was also vaguely similar, with the story being told mostly from Nagisa’s perspective with swaps to Karma when it made sense. All the main plot beats, too, are pretty much identical. The plus to this was I was able to add a lot of really fun foreshadowing, and I feel like it’s a fun reread because of it. 

Honestly though, if there’s a demand to release those OG message logs, I will. Mostly because it’s kind of funny, and interesting to see. Isogai and Nagisa were engaged at one point, even. 

Obviously, it changed somewhat. 3000 was the minimum length, and the time to completion was whenever it felt right. One of my big concerns was about pacing, so it took a lot more fleshing out and maybe ‘filler’ content for some of the main arcs to work. 

There’s parts of TINSITOGS I don’t think aren’t written that well, and some that I’m still super proud of. I think you can definitely tell there’s a gradual shift in style, and I get a lot more comfortable with writing them as characters as it goes along. To be honest, my pride for the fic overall is what it represents. 

It is funny to think about the places it got written in, though. I started it when I worked at McDonalds with no life direction, then it went through my first year of university with me. It’s been written in at least four countries. Aeroplanes, night clubs, long haul buses, a train through the Japanese southern coastline. Even the start of covid. TINSITOGS managed to see a lot. I even turned a scene in (the boat scene during the India chapter with altered names) to my university as a legitimate assignment. 

There were also a few messages I wanted to achieve, once I realised I had the platform to put them across. One of them was, obviously, ‘use protection kids’. It was important to me that I didn’t glamorise it too much, and I think that came across. I also wanted to dispute some of the issues with ABO, and subvert the consent issues as much as I could. An arc I really ‘liked’ writing was how abuse doesn’t always look the same way, and that it can be a drawn out change in behaviour. How the most important part of ‘being a good parent’ isn’t perfection, but genuinely loving and doing the best you can for your kid. How love doesn’t solve everything, and effective communication can take a very long time to learn and build a functional relationship. I mean, there definitely was a lot I tried to put in, and you’re free to interpret it all how you want. But, I like to think some people learnt some of these things, at least. 

Daichi 

Honestly, Daichi developed almost of his own free will. I had a good idea of his appearance, and that he was smart. Writing him from birth until around nine years old (older if you read the sequel fic) pretty much allowed that fluidity. It was really fun to explore a nature vs nurture development, and let his own characteristics speak for themselves. 

He’ll always have a special place in my heart. 

This is the first image I ever made. When I was trying to figure out what Daichi looked like, I honestly just edited Karma’s hair (pretty well, actually? I’m impressed with my past skill). That’s where the ‘he looks just like Karma’ meme kind of came from. 

This was the first image I actually created of Daichi. I THINK it was on rinmaru games mega anime creator or something, but it’s literally not available on the internet anymore as far as I can tell, so I can’t double check. This was in the pre-piccrew days. His eyes are closed because they didn’t have the right tone of goldish/silver.  

His sister, Kaguya, didn’t even exist originally, even though I decided on that ending pretty early on. Actually, she was going to be called ‘Irina’ due to some hijinks. Initially, when Karma found out about Irina’s pregnancy, she was going to get super emotional and mad at him and basically force him to name his first born daughter after her. Karma agreed to shut her up, never intending to have another child, so when the surprise second child later came along they had to live with the pain. However, to be honest I just forgot to write in the actual scene that set it all up, and I decided against adding it anywhere else. The name Kaguya was a very last minute decision, and it was a chance for me to explore some ideas that didn’t fit with Daichi’s character. 

Interestingly too, Daichi and Nao were never intended to be a thing. I only decided that towards the VERY end. Even though the reason I named Nao that was because of a ship I had in a J Drama (Good Morning Call). It just kind of ended up happening because I won myself over with imagining the cute. 

The music 

I used to write with a lot of background music, though not all the time. Particularly towards the start, there was a lot that didn’t really make sense thematically, yet I would write to a lot. 

Here’s a link to the spotify playlist if you want it it’s basically all the ones I noted I’d listened to a lot. Not including the smut ones, though, I have a whole playlist for that. 

Some of the notable ones: 

Five String Serenade - the first scene I wrote of the entire fic, in Chapter 25 New Year Time where they fell asleep cuddling. 

Cosmic Love - when I wrote Nagisa’s love confession scene in hospital (I also wrote this pretty early on) 

Northern Downpour (though it was actually a cover by Emma Blackery) - The chapter after Daichi’s born (30) 

When The Party’s Over -  Confession Time Third Period, Chapter 69. I literally listened to this song on REPEAT when I planned and wrote the kind of ‘break up’ scene, and it’s one of the few parts that made me cry writing. 

Turning Page - I know I said no smut, but this song actually gave me the idea to have the “I love you” in chapter 108 be less on a whim and actually more built up. In the original plan, Karma really did just say it without thinking. I’m glad I changed that.  

Bury Me Low and Numb - pretty much all I listened to when writing the last few chapters, because Evil Nagisa core. So much so that Bury Me Low was in my top 2020 songs rewind. 

As for the title, there’s actually quite a funny story. I had no idea what to call the fic, and when that happens I usually just try and find some song lyrics. I really wanted to use something from ‘October’ by the Broken Bells. Not only because it’s my favourite song (has been for years), but thematically it really worked. The issue was, it worked as the WHOLE song, there were no individual lyrics that captured everything. And, if they did, they didn’t flow very well. And naming the fic ‘October’ would have been weird for a lot of reasons. There Is No Sweeter Innocence That Our Gentle Sin really was just plucked randomly, in a desperate search to find any snappy lyrics from any song that had some kind of meaning. After a bit of discussion, we settled that it kind of worked... if Daichi is innocent and they committed a sin or something. It also wasn’t the most obvious lyric from the song (Take Me To Church if anyone doesn’t know) so I just went with it. It works out, I think, because TINSITOGS turned out to be a pretty good acronym and pronounceable word in its own right. 

The merch  redbubble drama 

It’s a well known fact that I’m not very good at art. However, I decided to try pixel art because it seemed the easiest to not mess up. I made Karma and Nagisa, before deciding to also give Daichi a try. 

This, to this day, is the only good quality art of Daichi that I actually own. The only one I’m actually happy sharing and thinking it doesn’t look terrible. As much as I love people sending me fanart, it’s not ‘my property’, right. 

So, I was kind of joking about TINSITOGS having merchandise. At first I just made two funny quote things, and uploaded it to redbubble. I was never intending to actually make money from this, and I’d agreed to myself that if I did, I would just donate it to charity. I was joking with the quotes, but since I had this artwork I figured I may as well uploaded. Separately, there was also an image that had pixel Daichi next to pixel Nagisa and Karma (which I also created). 

Aside from showing up in a few people’s adverts across the internet, there was no real harm with this. In fact, I didn’t make money anyway. It was just... more the joke of it existing. I did, however, buy myself a Daichi phone case, which is one of my favourite possessions. 

The funny ‘drama’ comes in when they got taken down due to copywrite. Sure, the one with Nagisa and Karma, I understand. But the other three literally had no mention or anything to do with Assassination Classroom, aside from being from a fanfiction. So basically, someone who owns those rights claimed my OC as theirs. Which makes Daichi canon? Whatever the case, I found this hilarious don’t worry. 

How has TINSITOGS changed my life? 

This is quite a strange thing to think about. Because, in a lot of ways, it really hasn’t. As I’m sure a lot of people know, I don’t really consider myself to have any real ‘fame’, despite the impressive numbers. Whenever I tell people in my personal life, they seem to think I’m some sort of internet celebrity, but that’s never been the case for me. I mean, it’s hardly a cultural phenomenon. 

In a lot of ways, I’d much rather befriend someone than have them admire me. Possibly because being someone’s inspiration is kind of weird... I’m just an awkward duck who likes to write after all. I don’t mind it, though. I genuinely find it an honour, even if I don’t necessarily agree. I also want to take this time to say that if anyone ever wants to talk or message me, you’re more than free to do so. I’m usually super casual with people who do that, I promise. 

TINSITOGS was the first story I ever finished in the way I truly wanted to. Start to end, a full narrative. And it took a LOT. There were so many times I almost felt like quitting, or took super long breaks. For me, ADHD queen, actually finishing something was a huge deal. And I know I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t owe it to everyone who read it, and myself, to see it through. You know like, if I were to die tomorrow, at least I’ve left something behind. 

In a lot of ways, it’s changed me for the better. It’s helped me develop my writing styles, and way of thinking. It encouraged me to become more active in the fandom, and develop some important friendships. I always feel like my Tumblr and Fanfiction ‘known’ factor is separate. I think most of my Tumblr following is more to do with my theories/Japanese context research if anything, for example, but I know I wouldn’t be so interested in that if TINSITOGS hadn’t lead me to deeply examine character and really look into analysing source material for clues. I also think there’s just... a lot of myself in it. 

I was 17 years old, when I first came up with the idea. I finished the story when I was 20. Now, at the time of writing, I’m 21. That time has seen some pretty significant changes - just in general life facts and my own personal human development. For me at least, a lot of that was pretty turbulent, and TINSITOGS stands as a time capsule for that, in a way. 

I know I gained a lot of confidence, and it affirmed to me that writing is what I love. Telling stories and sharing them is what I love. 

Conclusion

Do I think TINSITOGS is an outstanding piece of writing, or the best fic ever? No. I really don’t. It’s strange to say because I definitely spent a lot of time on it, but it’s not like I put my full unbridled efforts into the story. I don’t fully plan, use a beta, or even read through on my own. And that’s okay - that’s not what I write fanfiction for. Fanfiction is my place to have fun with characters and stories I like, without the pressures of having to stand on my own complete originality. Yes, I’m fully confident that I can write at a “higher quality”, if I really wanted to. I’m also aware that some authors put their full effort into their fics, and that’s just as valid! 

It feels odd to say this about my own writing, but I honestly think there’s just something in this story. It might not be written in the best prose ever, and the premise might be kind of dumb for a lot of people. But, I think, there’s some part of this fic that managed to grab people. Somehow, at some point, many readers get captured into the emotions and so drawn in that ‘they just have to finish it now!’ Again, I’m not sure myself how I actually achieved that. Of course, that won’t apply to everyone, but I do feel there’s some truth in it. And it makes me happy, to have caused that. 

If TINSITOGS is your favourite fic, or if you genuinely think it’s the best story you’ve read, then thank you. I really appreciate your support, and I’m happy to have been a part of your life, I guess. I know how much fanfics can mean to a person, and that’s why I’m not going to take it down, or edit it at all. And it’s fine too, if you loved the fic for a while and moved on -i t happens. Whatever the case, I’m very honoured to have been able to occupy a moment of your life. Or if you find this fic in 10 years time, even, I still wholly appreciate you. 

This story was incredibly important to me, and thank you for reading if it was ever important to you too. 

You may ask, what now? Well, this is only intended to be a detailed look back for whoever’s interested, and it’s likely the only one I’ll actually do, a year after completion. Of course, if you ever want to ask me anything or just discuss the story, you’re honestly good to contact me in whatever way I have available. 

I’m still writing my ongoing stories, of course, despite taking a small break due to the university work load. I fully intend to complete the stories I’ve already started to tell, at least. After that... I’m not sure if I’ll still write fanfiction. Don’t panic, this isn’t a ‘I’m quitting writing’ thing. I may, however, have bled the Karmagisa genre a bit too dry at that point. Who knows? I am pretty interested in writing something original for once, so maybe that’ll work out. 

For now, at least, thank you to anyone who read this fic. To anyone who commented, liked, or interacted with me over it. To anyone who created or learnt from it. I’m really glad that I got to share this story with you all, and ultimately left some kind of mark, no matter how big or small. 

Happy birthday, TINSITOGS. I had a lot of fun writing you. 

[katyobsesses]

I've decided to do that fic ask thing that's been floating around even though I haven't been tagged <3

how many works do you have on AO3?

22... apparently? three of those are fic book covers though.

what’s your total AO3 word count?

139,883 words

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3? 3. In general? 4 or 5 i think? I currently write for Glee and Marvel on my AO3 (there's also one Yuri On Ice fic) and I've previously written (and published) for Harry Potter on FF.Net. I do also have a few outlines/ideas for Merlin fics floating around my google docs but I've never posted any, and I used to write Twilight fics back in the day.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down) Book Cover with 222 kudos (Marvel published 2016) --A book cover for a popular Stucky fic

A Punch In The Face with 101 kudos (Marvel published 2014) --A Young Avengers drabble of sorts, Teddy/Billy meet cute

Express Your Love with 81 kudos (Marvel published 2014) --I cannot remember what this is, I think it's Stony? Something about Tony never saying 'I Love You' to steve but instead showing his love through actions?

In A Previous Life with 77 kudos (Marvel published 2014) --A drabble of sorts. Billy and Tommy talk to Wanda about their life with her before they were reincarnated.

Putting a Punching Bag in the Workshop was Tony's Best Idea Ever with 64 kudos (Marvel published 2014) --Basically what it says on the tin. Stony. Tony is distracted by Steve's arse as he boxes.

Annoyingly these are all fics I'm not that proud of, but they're older so the kudos amounts make sense i guess 🙄 the next most Kudos'd is one I am proud of though - “You took EVERYTHING from me.” with 58 Kudos (2019) - Basically a little oneshot of what I thought could have happened in the 5 years everyone was dusted and how I thought they might have introduced Billy and Tommy into the MCU, it was going to create a whole 'verse but then we got confirmation on things like Kate Bishop and Cassie Lang and Spiderman Far From Home came out and I dropped the ideas. But I still like this fic.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

most of the time, yes, though sometimes I leave them sitting for too long and then feel awkward about replying to them and i don't (*cough* most of my comments on WTNY(ibwfy) *cough*)

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably In Paris With You which I'd forgotten about until scrolling through my fics! I wrote this, orginally, way back in like... 2011 based on a poem of the same name that got stuck in my head as i studied it for my English GCSE. but it's been updated and changed like 3 times since then.

Also my fic As long as I'm here as I am, so are you is rather angsty. Basically Kurt is listening to Ben Platt's album Sing to Me Instead and one song reminds him of Finn. (because it reminded me of them)

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I've never written a crossover, though I think I once toyed around with some sort of Harry Potter crossover that never made the light of day, I can't remember what it was with though... maybe Merlin?

have you ever received hate on a fic?

not on AO3! But I did have someone call my OC in One More New Direction a Mary Sue on FF.net which wasn't nice, and someone else said they hated my characterisation of Mercedes in a chapter which was weird because Mercedes wasn't even in the chapter it was just my OC talking about her and her impression of her.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

I've tried, multiple times, in my 10+ years of fic writing, but i just can't do it. Maybe it's because I'm Asexual? it just always feels weird even after I've read smut as, like, revision. I feel like a lot of the characters are, like, ace by proxy because i don't know how to write characters being motivated by sex.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope! Not that I know of anyway

have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

have you ever co-written a fic before?

not that I remember? I vaguely remember being a Beta for someone like 10 years ago though.

what’s your all time favourite ship?

I honestly don't know! I've definately written mostly Klaine, but I'm such a multishipper that I have no clue. I'm really loving writing Hevans rn mostly because we are lacking Hevans content which is criminal. actually, fun fact, my fic Welcome To New York (it's been waiting for you) was originally going to be Klaine, but as i was writing the outline I fell back into the Hevans hole and decided to switch it up. I'm glad i did because it would have gotten nowhere as a Klaine fic!

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

If i don't think I'll finish something I don't post it. I have a graveyard of fics half drafted.

what are your writing strengths?

I honestly don't know. I like writing dialogue and I know I'm good at portraying something with a small amount of words but you'll have to ask my readers 😊 (in fact, if you've read my stuff please let me know what you think my strengths are! I'm honestly curious!)

what are your writing weaknesses?

I'm terrible at stretching a scene into something bigger if it warrents it. Like i said I'm good at portraying something with few words but sometimes I feel like that throws the pacing off. I use a lot of paragraphs because of that, to make the reader pause and reflect until the next line or to show that the character is pausing and reflecting. idk man. I also hate writing dates, which is annoying because WYNY(ibwfy) is mostly dates. I've been on one in my life and it was shit so i have no idea how to write one lol.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think that, unless you don't want the reader to know what is being said or the words used are obvious in context, that you should write it in english EG: --"Merci!" Kurt said.-- is fine but if you want to write something longer I would do something like --"hello my name is Kurt Hummel and I love scarfs" Kurt said in french-- or something, it depends on the context.

Actually, going back to In Paris With You. Kurt is french in that, and it's from Blaine's POV so when Kurt speaks french it's in french with Blaine translating what he can in the narration. He's not meant to be able to understand Kurt perfectly, so the audience doesn't either. But if I was writing, say, Kurt and Sebastian talking to each other in French from Kurt's POV I'd write it in english so that audience can also understand that Kurt understands.

(does that make sense?)

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. definately Harry Potter! It was how i got into fanfiction, and how i got into glee <3 JKR is a horrible person, but her books - and especially the fandom surrounding them - mean a lot to me.

what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

I have no idea. I'm really liking my Love and Friendship series right now, and I love One More New Direction because it got me through - is getting me through - this crazy couple of years. so probably them? I also really love (that makes you) The Scarlet Witch which is kind of like a character analysis of Wanda that I wrote after watching WandaVision.