#technically this can count as day 1 of pride posting . happy pride

[krikidilly]

Mitsuri and obanai D4 PLEASEEEEEEE I think we all know who is holding who there lmaooo or E1 obanai be the tiny PLEASSSSEER I shall eat your art it will taste like chocolate and sour gummy’s at the same time /pos

decided to go for e1 because it gave me an excuse to draw more borrowers au agaga.. little mongoose man shooting his shot bless

[triflesandparsnips]

Good Omens Book Club

So I have, in other fandoms, talked about the importance of what an audience can actually see on the screen. Specifically: When a constrained format (like, say, between 45 to 56 minutes of a single visual/audio input) is telling a constrained story (like, say, something that must start, climax, and resolve within some kind of structure), it's useful for the audience to pay attention to what gets given the valuable real estate of camera/story time.

So when time is given and effort made to show the actual titles of actual books... well.

Figure 1. Local bookshelf weighted down by an over-abundance of literary allusions.

This is a screenshot from episode 3 of Good Omens's second season, as Jim is reshelving all the books in Aziraphale's book shop by the first letter of their first sentences. He's about to shelve Jane Austens's Pride and Prejudice ("It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.") and the red sideways book, that he is about to pick up, is Good Omens itself ("It was a nice day.").

But, unusually, we can see the title of almost every other book on the shelf. Several of them appeared in the advertising poster, too, as I outlined previously (if you click that link, be advised that I am very proud of several bits of that essay and also let's not talk about how my go-to for musical references is Middle English folk rather than, say, Buddy Holly). Anyway-- with this in mind, and the understanding that time, effort, and celluloid have been spent on getting this shot to the audience, it would behoove us, I think, to actually look at these books.

Figure 2. A pair of showrunners providing not-so-subtle ancillary notation suggesting the same thing, so really, this is a no-brainer in terms of meta fodder.

Okay, Trifles, so what about the book club

Technically, this isn't my idea. It's Neil's and Douglas's, so jot that down.

What I figure is, I can provide a list of the books shown, their first lines, and a VERY brief summary of each. Those are below. And as I rewatch the show, I may reblog this post with additions, but also...

I've read some of these, but not all of them, and not recently -- with at least one of them, though, I remember enough to know that the first line and summary do nothing to showcase the heartrending possibilities the book may be alluding to for the overall Good Omens narrative.

And further-- as I collected these summaries and first lines, I started noticing some compelling commonalities. Which I, for one, would like to confirm and dig into more deeply.

So while I'm going to start reading these, it might be a Nice Idea for other folks to do so as well. The more write-ups we can get, the greater the concordance of Interesting Insights might be available. (And if you tag me in your write up, or otherwise draw my attention, I will gladly link your essay up here for the edification of others omfg.)

ANYWAY

The "Jim Shelving" Book List

From right to left (which feels odd, but it's the actual alphabetical-by-letter arrangement), and summaries from various internet sources:

Herzog, by Saul Bellows

"If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog."

"Herzog is a 1964 novel by Saul Bellow, composed in part of letters from the protagonist [...] The novel follows five days in the life of Moses E. Herzog who, at the age of forty-seven, is having a midlife crisis following his second divorce."

A Series of Unfortunate Events, (series) by Lemony Snicket

"If you are interested in happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book."

The first book in the series, The Bad Beginning, "tells the story of three children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, who become orphans following a fire and are sent to live with Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance."

The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

"The novel details two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school. [...] From what is implied to be a sanatorium, Holden, the narrator and protagonist, tells the story of his adventures before the previous Christmas."

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since."

"Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan."

The Bible, (anthology) by God et al.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

"25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying 'Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?'

26 And the Angel said, 'I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.'

27 And the Lord did not ask him again."

The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

"It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills."

"Private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood to stop a blackmailer. Marlowe suspects that the old General is merely testing his caliber before trusting him with a bigger job, one involving Sternwood's two amoral daughters."

Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

"In George Orwell's iconic and prophetic masterpiece, 1984, a haunting vision of a dystopian future unfolds. Set in a world dominated by the all-seeing eye of Big Brother, the story follows Winston Smith, a lowly Party member whose very thoughts are scrutinized. As the Party manipulates history and suppresses truth, Winston's yearning for individuality and connection pushes him into a daring dance on the edge of rebellion."

[A title I cannot, unfortunately, read-- if anyone who HAPPENS to be familiar with the show and HAPPENS to perhaps also be on tumblr just HAPPENS to say what this book might be, that would be Very Much Appreciated]

"????"

[WOW I WISH I WAS A SUMMARY OH WELL]

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

"It was love at first sight."

"Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him. Joseph Heller's bestselling novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it."

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

"The story, which treats the themes of love, aging, and death, takes place between the late 1870s and the early 1930s in a South American community troubled by wars and outbreaks of cholera. It is a tale of two lovers, artistic Florentino Ariza and wealthy Fermina Daza, who reunite after a lifetime apart."

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon

"It was seven minutes after midnight."

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 mystery novel by British writer Mark Haddon. [...] The novel is narrated in the first-person perspective by Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy who is described as "a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties" living in Swindon, Wiltshire. [...] Christopher sets out to solve the murder [of a neighbor's dog] in the style of his favourite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes."

The Crow Road, by Iain Banks

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

A Scottish family drama about a perfect murder against the backdrop of the 1990s Gulf War. "This Bildungsroman is set in the fictional Argyll town of Gallanach, the real village of Lochgair, and in Glasgow, where the adult Prentice McHoan lives. Prentice's uncle Rory disappeared eight years previously while writing a book called The Crow Road. Prentice becomes obsessed with papers his uncle left behind and sets out to solve the mystery. Along the way he must cope with estrangement from his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, and failure at his studies."

No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley, by Rita Marley with Hettie James

"I was an ambitious girl child."

"Fans of reggae legend Bob Marley will welcome this no-nonsense biography from his wife, Rita, who was also his band member, business partner, musical collaborator and the only person to have witnessed firsthand his development from local Jamaican singer to international superstar."

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."

"I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love."

...and because I happen to know and love this book, I'm aware of the devastating last lines...

"Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you."

[tj-dragonblade]

Fanfic Tag Game

Tagged by @softest-punk and @landwriter, thank you both!

1. How many fics do you have on AO3? 133

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? I will break 400K with the next thing I post (unless it is somehow less than 401 words lol) Also, this would require actually focusing on something to finish it

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Sandman (technically, Dreamling). Previously? MCU, Naruto, Saiyuki, and Gundam Wing

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Overall (these are from my Naruto days and more than ten years old): Delayed (or, Why Kakashi Is Never On Time) (GaiKaka) at 3963 Past the Limits (KakaNaru) at 1272 Affirmation (KakaNaru) at 1022 Worth It (KakaIru) at 1005 Vigil (GaaNaru) at 843 (It kills me that I am Just Not That Into Kakashi and yet he's fucked his way into four of my top five, lol)Current fandom tops, just for fun (all of which are at most a year-plus-change in age) Use Your Words at 443 Insatiable at 398 Fluffbruary Fills (2023) at 375 In the Morning Light at 318 Built For You at 308

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, generally! I am still catching up on Fluffbruary comments, much to my chagrin

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Going aaaallllll the way back to Gundam Wing, I did a songfic where I implied a breakup until the final-line reveal that the character had gasp actually died. There may be a couple other angst-based pieces in my catalog, but that I think is the Most(tm).

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Most everything I write is a happy ending, when there's any semblance of plot involved. Uh. The Umbrella Boys AU had a wedding; maybe that counts? Either that or the Thessaly breakup fic with all the hurt-comfort pining that finally resolves into requited realization.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Never have, would like to keep it that way.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? The good kind *eyebrow waggle*

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I have…three, that could be counted as crossovers, and one that's a proper fusion. None of them are particularly crazy. Duo and Wufei did Naruto roleplay in the bedroom. Kakashi and Naruto took on Princess Bride's fire swamp. Gojyo and Hakkai acquired Jiipu from Count D and his pet shop with a complete disregard for the fourth wall. Maybe that one, then, though it's more crack than crazy-crossover. Hob wearing the Wavemother's Robe is not enough of anything to count as a crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of, no

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! I don't recall which ones but I've had requests to translate to Chinese, to Russian, and I think Spanish as well? Possibly French also. My memory is shit. Je suis désolé.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic? Yeah, a friend and I co-wrote a couple back in GW and it was…fun? At the time? It started as me helping her with the smut portion of a thing she was doing and turned into a cowrite with a sequel. Not the sort of thing I'd have written on my own, and definitely not now twenty years later with my current kink preferences

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? …yeah, that's not a thing I can answer. Whichever I'm fixated on is inevitably my favorite at the time but once the fixation fades, I still have so much love for each of them.

15. What’s a fic you’d like to finish but don’t think you ever will? Oh my god there are so many. But there are two-three unfinished drafts for ThorBruce fic that I really—see, my MCU fandom experience soured so fast I did not have my usual three-year run of productive ficwriting and the ideas I was working on probably could have been finished were that not the case. I would still love to finish them but the motivation (let alone the time) is just not there.

16. What are your writing strengths? I take great pride in my smut, and I like to think I'm good at it. Painting pictures with my words? Maybe character voice, in certain cases.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Plot. Stories with plot and progression and chapters and such. Follow-through to finish pieces that don't get done in the initial burst of focus.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic? If I had a need for it at some point, I would want to consult a native speaker to ensure correct translation and I would include the translation in footnotes etc. But it would have to be some really specific reason that the foreign language was needed/integral to some story device to not just indicate via some other means (e.g., '"xyz," he said, in perfect French', use of italics, etc) that a different language is in use.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Gundam Wing. If we don't count the 'DS9 novel idea' that I recall making notes on in my journal back in high school, or any of the Mary Sue DS9 thoughts I would also journal about. None of that was ever 'actual writing' nor did I have anywhere I would have shared it in '96.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Again. How'm I supposed to pick? Ugh. Let's see, fandom by fandom. Gundam Wing…no, nothing there is a favorite. Saiyuki…When the Chips Are Down. Comedy gen-fic based on a tidbit of fandom lore is not something I manage terribly often but I am quite pleased with this one; Jiipu's pov always delights me and I'm proud of all the voice work here also. Naruto…maybe Seized? Sai POV is one of my strengths and I think it came through really well in that one. MCU…Carpe Diem, I'm very pleased with character voices in that one. Sandman…I remain very fond of the Drunken Confessions Fluffbruary 2023 fic and the Car and Cutoffs one might be my favorite smutfic. So far.

If you'd like to do this, please take my passive tag this has been sitting in my drafts for weeks.

[scapegrace74-blog]

Don’t Let Me Fall, Chapter 8

A/N  Thank you for your patience while I worked out some issues with this chapter.  I hope that you’re as happy with how it turned as I am!  It ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, but the good news is that I’ve got part of Chapter 9 already written.

For those who have asked about the inspiration for Jamie and Claire’s routine, you can find a video of it here.   The move I’ve dubbed the “death spiral” starts at 1:12.

Previous chapters can be read here. 

Over the course of his years as an athlete and aerialist, Jamie had noted there were two types of performers.  There were those who excelled at the physical aspect of their jobs. Technically proficient, they drew joy and inspiration from the perfection of each move and sequence.  The audience’s enjoyment was an unintended consequence of their own focus on execution in its purest form.  He counted himself and most of his peers amongst this group.

Then there was the rarer specimen.  No less physically adept, their motivation was the audience.  Put them in an empty room and their performance would suffer.  But in front of spectators, they outshone the spotlights, bringing something ineffable to the stage that could neither be taught or contrived.

Witnessing Claire Beauchamp perform to a sold-out tent of rapt Japanese spectators, Jamie understood once and for all just how rare a jewel she was.  For while she had learned and then mastered the physical discipline that was the aerial straps with astonishing ease, her performance was on an entirely different level now that they were on tour.  

Night after night their act, placed just before the intermission of Tropico, drew a crescendo of sighs and gasps as Jamie lifted, twirled and spun Claire through the air like an iridescent feather.  His body was the podium on which to display the art that was his partner, and he’d never been more honoured to play a supporting role. She deserved every accolade, so when the klieg lights blazed for their second curtain call, he took a large step backwards, gesturing to Claire and bathing in pride as the typically reticent Japanese crowd acknowledged her with thunderous applause.

***

I had been to Japan once before, a three day stay while touring with the Royal Ballet.  We’d been entertained from morning to night, but my jet-lagged memories blurred Shinto shrines, imperial palaces and outdoor tea ceremonies into a chaotic cherry blossom slide show.

By contrast, the three weeks spent in Tokyo with Cirque des Étoiles left plenty of time for personal exploration, even with eight weekly shows and our regular curriculum of strength training and stretching.  With over two hundred artists, stagehands, musicians and supporting personnel, we took over a large hotel not far from where the touring big top was set up in Yoyogi Park, which meant all of downtown Tokyo and its eternal hum was at our doorstep.

Once my internal clock had adjusted, I developed a bit of a routine, rising early to walk the tree-line paths in the nearby park.  While the winter branches were bare, it was still an oasis of tranquility in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities. After breakfast, I joined one of the group Pilates sessions before making my way to the hotel gym where the physical trainers put me through my paces.  That left a handful of hours of leisure before I needed to report to the big top for costume and make-up.

“Did ye ken fugu is the Japanese word fer puffer fish, Tourist? Tis considered a delicacy, despite being more deadly than cyanide if it’s no’ properly prepared.”

And through it all, there was Jamie.  Always Jamie.

He was standing in the doorframe of my hotel room, nearly obscuring my view of the hall.  His hair was damp, darkening his curls to the colour of myrhh.  A subtle sniff yielded a whiff of sage and tree sap, the remnants of his post-workout shower in the room next door.

Either by design or cosmic happenstance, Jamie and I were placed in adjoining rooms.  By and large, this was very convenient as we spent most of our free time together.  It was only late at night, body weary but nerves jangling from another magic experience soaring through the air in his arms, that the convenience turned to torment.  Through the wall, I could hear Jamie going about his nightly routine, talking quietly on the phone to his family, settling into the mattress with a greedy sigh.  It took all my will power not to knock on the connecting door, knowing as I did that on the other side lay a promise of paradise.

“I’m pretty certain our employer would take exception to us eating potentially deadly fish, Fraser,” I smirked, returning to the search for an umbrella as Jamie flopped down on my bed.

“Ye’re probably right.  What about regular sushi, then?  Yi Tien was tellin’ me about a place he tried the o’her day.”

I made a vague affirmative noise as I continued to open and close drawers and peer beneath the bed.

“What are ye lookin’ for?”

“My umbrella.  I swear I hung it up in the closet yesterday, but it’s not there.”

Jamie glanced towards the window, a rogue curl falling rakishly over one eye.

“Tis barely a smirr.  Ye dinna need one.”

As it turned out, Jamie’s definition of a smirr involved us having to hop around puddles and duck under awnings as we ran, laughing, to a nearby office tower.  We were both quite damp as we descended, paradoxically, into the basement where there were a handful of small shops.  Jamie ushered me through the door of one of these with a shrug, and we entered another world.

A tiny Zen garden of rocks and bamboo greeted us.  I was now familiar with the Japanese custom that dictated we remove our outdoor footwear before entering any private space.  Jamie cursed as he tried to jam his massive feet into the modestly sized slippers provided by the restaurant.

“Look on the bright side,” I teased him as a kimono-clad hostess led us to our table.  “You can tell everyone that you’re big in Japan.”

“I’m big pretty much everywhere, Tourist.”  An awkward beat.  “Uhhhh, that didna come out quite right,” he hastened to add with a blush.

I could feel the colour rush to my own cheeks as I valiantly tried to stifle my giggles. I should have taken pity on Jamie’s Freudian slip, but I found I couldn’t.  Having spent a significant amount of time pressed intimately against his body, I also knew it wasn’t an idle boast.  Jamie glared at me playfully, but I caught the corner of his mouth pleating.

We were ushered into a small room divided from the rest of the restaurant by rice paper screens.  Watching all six feet four inches of muscular Scot try to fold his limbs on the tatami mat in such a way as to allow him to approach the low table set off my giggles again.

“Ye’re having a great deal o’ fun at my expense, Tourist,” Jamie grumbled good naturedly after our hostess left with a graceful bow.

“I can’t help it.  You’re like Gulliver in Lilliput!”

As it turned out, Gulliver’s Travels was one of Jamie’s favourite childhood stories and my comment initiated a conversation in which we lobbed the names of beloved books and authors at each other, finding we had a great many in common.

The sushi was undoubtedly good, although I had no recollection of what we ate.  What I did recall, long after we’d left Japan, was watching Jamie struggle with his chopsticks while he regaled me with a boyhood anecdote about digging his very own hobbit hole on his family’s estate.  There were raindrops scattered across the shoulders of his denim shirt, turning the fabric the exact same shade as his eyes.

***

Touring with Cirque des Étoiles was grueling work.  It sounded idyllic, travelling from place to place and experiencing local culture while performing to sold out audiences night after night.  There came a time, however, where Jamie just wanted to watch some television in a language he understood, make a proper home-cooked meal, and sleep in his own bed.

Fortunately, the Cirque planned each tour around the very real risk of performer burnout.  Which was why, after their five-week run in Hong Kong was over, Tropico went on one-week hiatus.  Performers had the option of flying home, taking a local vacation, or moving on to the Cirque’s next locale and waiting for their colleagues to catch up to them.

“Have ye ever been tae Bangkok, Tourist?”

Claire was rummaging through a stall of trinkets in the local night market, searching for a suitable souvenir.  Steam from a nearby cart selling roasted chestnuts was making Jamie’s wame rumble and he wondered if he could convince his partner to take a break from her treasure hunt to grab a bite to eat.

“No, never.  Have you?”

Finally settling on a jade figurine in the shape of a cat, Claire began to haggle with the vendor over the price.  Jamie watched on in amusement as she used her expressive hands and the calculator on her phone to arrive at a price that both she and the store owner pretended was an expedient hardship.  Her cheeks were flushed with victory as she joined him back on the street and he could finally answer her question.

“Aye, on a weekend break when Quitan passed through Hanoi a few years back.”

“Well, you can give me some pointers before you leave.  I’ll have a whole seven days to explore, after all. Is everything alright with your arm?”

Without realizing it, Jamie had been rubbing his wrist.  A nervous gesture, he supposed.

“Oh, aye.  Nothin’ tae fear, Tourist.”

He was quiet as they navigated the tightly packed pedestrian street, lights strung overhead making it as bright as day.  There was something he’d been meaning to ask Claire, but he’d been putting it off and now it felt like it was almost too late.

“You’re going to Phnom Penh, right?” she asked while they leafed through a selection of Chinese calligraphy on vellum, the chop marks bright red against their pale backgrounds.

“For a few days, aye.  I’ll be spending most of the time in Siem Reap.  Seeing Angkor Wat, y’ken?”

“Sounds lovely,” Claire replied, although to his ears it sounded half-hearted.

Jamie glanced sideways at his partner, trying to read her expression. She was so lovely, lustrous skin reflecting the sodium lights and hair curling wildly in the humidity.  Doubt sharpened its teeth on his insecurities, but he shoved it away and drew a fortifying breath.

“Tourist, I’ve been meanin’ tae ask ye… and ye dinna need feel obliged…but would ye…that is, could ye see yerself…ifrinn, what I’m tryin’ tae say is, would ye consider comin’ tae Cambodia wi’ me?  As my friend?”

Claire stopped walking and was staring up at him, her eyebrows furled in consideration.  Nearby, someone set off a firecracker that had them both flinching.

“As your friend,” Claire clarified, managing to sound both relieved and disappointed.

“Aye.  I enjoy yer company, Tourist, as ye ken well.  T’would be a more enjoyable break if ye came wi’ me.  Plus, I wouldna need tae worry about ye in Thailand all alone.  I’m stayin’ in budget hotels.  There’s sure tae be another room available.  And we can always explore Bangkok t’gether later, between shows.”

The certainty returned to those honey-gold eyes that haunted his dreams.  A strong hand, delicate and warm, linked with his own.

“Together.”

***

Our hotel in Singapore was arranged around a massive rain tree, with each guestroom facing an interior arcade.  While this made for a pleasant view each morning, it also meant a long walk from the lobby to my door.  I was coming around the final corner when I caught sight of John Grey entering a room about halfway down the hallway.  There was nothing unusual about this except that I was fairly confident my former partner’s room was on a different hallway.   In fact, I was certain the room he’d gone into belonged to Clarence Marylebone.

When I’d first realized the artistic director was on tour with Tropico, I’d expressed my surprise to Jamie.

“Tis no’ as unusual as ye may think,” Jamie had said between mouthfuls of udon.  “A circus show is ne’er a finished work.  Routines evolve.  Talent changes.  Even the costumes and music may need to be adjusted tae accommodate cultural norms.”

His explanation made sense, and it was the last time I’d given much thought to the pompous playboy getting a free ride around East Asia.  Until now.

I desperately wanted to tell Jamie what I thought I saw, but he and John had only just begun to mend their frayed friendship.  Without any way to confirm what John might have been doing in Marylebone’s room (although I could guess), I kept the incident to myself.

The following Sunday was a rare night off and some of the troupe went out on the town to celebrate.  Ever since we’d returned from Cambodia, I had noticed the other performers treated Jamie and I like a couple, always assuming we’d want to sit together at breakfast or share a taxi to the circus grounds.  We were no more a romantic couple than we had been before we left for Cambodia, but I certainly wasn’t going to set them straight.  As Jamie had implied, it was only a matter of timing.

“Rickshaws!”  Mary, typically soft-spoken, had consumed a fair number of Singapore Slings, and was therefore shouting animatedly at anything that caught her eye.

“Let’s take them back to the hotel,” I suggested, not particularly interested in navigating the uneven cobbled streets in my slingbacks.

“Let’s race them back to the hotel,” Mary countered.

There were three rickshaws and nine of us, so logic dictated three per bike.  Mary dragged me into the nearest one, with Jamie at my heels.  Before he could climb in, however, I grabbed Yi Tien Cho and pulled him up next to me.

“Tired o’ me already, Tourist?” Jamie joked, his eyes smoky in the dim light.

“No offence, Fraser, but you weigh more than three Yi Tien’s. And if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I hate to lose!”

With a hail of laughter, our driver accelerated away, motivated no doubt by Mary’s offer of a generous tip if we outpaced our colleagues.

“Come on, Jamie, jump in with us!” John cried from another rickshaw.

Watching over my shoulder I felt a warmth that overpowered the glow of alcohol observing Jamie and John, giddy as schoolboys, crying out encouragement to their driver.  The incident surrounding Marylebone’s hotel room faded from my mind as I listened to Jamie’s booming laugh echo across the narrow street.

***

My partner had been acting oddly all day.  After months in each other’s back pockets, we’d recently spent a week apart when Jamie travelled home to Scotland, and I visited with friends in Sydney.  He seemed happy enough to see me again when we regrouped in Melbourne but had since grown quiet and distant.  The previous night I heard him tossing and turning through the thin shared wall of our hotel. The water from his shower turning on woke me in the early morning hours.  Perhaps he was jetlagged.

I resolved to give him space.  Jamie worked incredibly hard, with an intensity that was almost frightening. If that made him moody from time to time, so be it.  Instead of inviting him on my afternoon visit to the St Kilda Botanical Garden, I slipped out quietly while he was conferring with Roland, one of the staff physiotherapists.

That night Jamie’s smile when we met backstage for our warm-up was radiant, and possibly a touch relieved.

“There ye are, Tourist.  Ye look beautiful.”

To my everlasting surprise, Jamie bent down and placed a tender kiss on the shell of my ear, one of the few places not artfully decorated in stage make-up.  I was wearing the same costume he’d seen me in for the past three months, but I tingled all over in pleasure nevertheless.

“Uhhh, thank you.  So, umm… so do you.”  Dressed as Marylebone’s vision of a noble savage, my partner wore little more than a loin cloth and some artfully applied vine leaves, but his perfectly formed body was beauty incarnate, so I wasn’t exaggerating.        

Jamie’s grin was reaching mythical proportions.  Before we could continue to stare at each other like addled simpletons, our five-minute call crackled over the stage director’s walkie talkie.

“Time tae get tae work,” Jamie said ruefully.  “Let’s make it one fer the ages, a’right partner?”

“You’re on,” I replied, placing my hand in his as we went to our marks.

And it was.  Whatever had dampened Jamie’s mood had passed like a thunderstorm, leaving him charged and utterly magnetic.  My afternoon spent surrounded by nature, the relief of seeing Jamie return to his usual sanguine self, his unexpected kiss; they all combined to lift my spirits and send a wash of endorphins through my veins.  Together, we were magic.  Every touch, every gesture was a perfectly struck note, humming in the air around us until I was convinced I could hear it.

So attuned was I to Jamie’s body that I knew something was amiss before it happened.  He was lowering me around his body like a hula hoop using his stronger left hand in preparation for the move I’d dubbed the death spiral.  One millisecond he was securing his grip on my ankle and the next I was being heaved skyward in an act of super-human strength.  Instinct forced me to grab for the loose strap where I clung for an endless second, staring at Jamie’s stricken face in disbelief. Before I could even make sense of what had happened, he was gone.  A sickening thud was the last thing I heard before pandemonium erupted.

Someone was shouting at the audience to stay calm.  A high-pitched wail sounded like a siren but turned out to be rising from the very pit of my stomach.  I peered downwards, searching madly for some sign that Jamie had survived the fall, but the stage lights blinded me.  My strap was lowered slowly, far too slowly, to the stage.  No sooner had my feet touched the ground than I was rushing to where Jamie lay, a motionless bulk surrounded by stagehands and the staff medic. I pushed someone aside to kneel by his head.  When I saw his marine blue eyes were open, I bent forward, unable to contain my relief.

“Jamie?”  My hands fluttered near his face, afraid to touch him anywhere he may have been hurt. I settled for brushing back his curls where they clung to his damp forehead.

“He’s dislocated his shoulder,” I heard the medic advise, and one glance at the gruesomely distorted joint confirmed this was true.

“Hold still, Jamie.  They’ll need to pop the bone back into place.”

I had to lower my head even further to make out his voice, more shape than sound.

“I dinna have. Much choice. In the matter. Tourist.  Got the wind. Knocked fair out o’ me.”

The fact that he was able to joke, however feebly, when he probably should have been dead broke the icy dam that was holding back my emotions. They rushed out in a flood, and the swiftest was anger.

“What the hell was that stunt you just pulled, Jamie?  You could have been killed!”

His eyes were growing unfocused with pain, each breath a ragged pant, but he still managed to answer.

“Promised ye.  I wouldna. Let ye.  Fall.”

His words hit me like a slap.

“Such a bloody hero,” I groaned, unable to hold onto my anger in the face of my gratitude.

“No’ a hero, Tourist.  Jes.  A man in love.”

[formosusiniquis]

20 Questions for Writers!

I was tagged by @augustjustice thank you!! 💕

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

47 at time of writing!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

534,051

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently pretty much exclusively Stranger Things, but I’ve written for several like It (2017), American Vandal (where are my Vandal friends at), etc.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

it's his party (and i'll fall if i want to) – Stranger Things, my first steddie fic in the fandom and most kudos’d by a mile thanks to hitting the biggest fandom window.

seven old losers on twitter – IT (2017)

sandra bullock eat your heart out – Stranger Things

if you like this you might also like: me – Stranger Things

starts with an h, sounds like potential – Stranger Things

5. Do you respond to comments?

No… it’s my worst author habit and I’m sorryyyyyy I just get overwhelmed by them all, but I love you all and thank you so much to anyone who has taken the time to say something nice to me about my stuff. I keep them all in a special folder in my inbox.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I almost said I don’t have one because this is a happy endings only house and then I remembered that the rest of facts and pearls (both sensitive) only exists in my mind and is still technically a one chaptered ambiguous ending thing so probably that.

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

Again this is almost always a happy ending only house. So maybe today is a new day to find you just because it’s so long and there’s some angst in the middle before we get to the ending (and also it’s my big bang fic from last year and my pride and joy)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Knock wood, but no. The worst I’ve gotten is a snarky comment in a bookmark and I think people forget that authors can actually see those.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

On occasion, though it’s rare. (Though there may be some more for Stevie Week if I can get my shit together). Usually it’s oral, because it’s easier to keep track of where everyone’s limbs are at.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not any that are published. As a baby writer I wrote some SPN/GO self-insert shit that will never ever see the light of day. Now it’s just not really my bag. I’ll occasionally sneak a reference to another piece of media in for my own amusement (see the Justified references that will be appearing in my summer exchange fic) but that’s about as far as I go.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of

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

Nothing published, but I’ve had a lot of fun writing a ronance fic back and forth with my beloved @cauldronoflove and it’s definitely something I’d be up for doing with others if anyone is interested!

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

Okay so I have steddie brainrot so if it’s romantic ships that, but actually it’s Steve&Robin. Some honorable mentions: Buckingham, Ronance, and for brain rots now dormant Sam/Peter (AV) and Newmann

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

So the only blatantly unfinished WIP I have published is mi media naranja (and other things that need to ripen) which I do hope to one day finish (I have more chapters written that aren’t on AO3 but it’s been so long since I’ve posted I’m embarrassed to put them up). Technically facts and pearls has more to it that could be published that maybe one day I will, but the current ending is functional.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I write dialogue well. And I think I manage a pretty good internal monologue for my narrative POV character. Every now and then I’ll pop off with a little detail that implies significant character things.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I just can’t describe what a scene looks like, what are rooms and what are the characters doing in them? Idk use your imagination cause for all I know they’re all standing in a big empty room with big white walls.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I cannot do it! It’s part of why naranja is indefinitely delayed thanks to the plot I set up! I am monolingual.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

My first published fic (on a platform that isn’t AO3) is from the Mentalist. But I’m sure I have notebooks full of stories that I wrote as a kid for like Sisters Grimm or something.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I’m refusing to pick a favorite child so enjoy a collection of works that I’m proud of.

today is a new day to find you – my most beloved timeloop child. Possibly my magnum opus, a timeloop fic from a non-looper POV, it manages to be repetitive without feeling stagnant. I’m very proud of it!

Am I the Asshole? - it’s an epistolary fic in an atypical format so I’m actually pretty impressed with myself that I managed to get an actual overarching story that makes sense in the format. Also it’s Stobin QPR and that’s my favorite

the bells, the joy (together in darkness) – Stobin hivemind fic, it really does it all and I want everyone in the world to read it and love it

no pressure tagging some folks whose answers I would love to see if they want to do it! @cauldronoflove, @grasslandgirl, @aberfaeth, @thefreakandthehair, @stevespookington, @sevenmerrymagpies, and anyone else that would like to talk about their writing!

[zukkaoru]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @starrynightarchive and @feralshadowdemon, ty for the tag!! putting most of this under a cut since it's long lol

tagging (with no pressure): @that-was-anticlimactic @backhurtyy @rejectscanon

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

167 linked to my main ao3 account. maybe some others floating around that have been made anonymous or orphaned or something. who knows

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

965,845 - okay wow i did not realize i was that close to 1mil. huh

3. what fandoms do you write for?

well right now the bsd brainrot has taken hold of me and i cannot think of much else. but i do have a handful of zine fics for other fandoms that are in progress / will be posted eventually. i have a very long list of fandoms i have written for in the past; however, i would not recommend reading anything posted before 2021

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

plum blossom

you clutched my brain and eased my ailing

my calamitous love & insurmountable grief

five times ryan came out (and one time he couldn't)

(just wanna be) somebody i'm proud of

my disclaimer here is that these are absolutely nowhere even close to being by best fics and i kind of resent them being my top five

5. do you respond to comments

i'm trying🫠 i let like 600+ pile up in my inbox over the course of a year and a half (or more) and so i recently went through and just marked everything as read instead of actually responding. BUT (almost) all comments on fics posted since ~august 2023 will get responses. exceptions are if i literally don't know what to say bc i'm bad at talking to people sorry

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

you don't even want to know the horrors that showed up in my google docs this weekend. but also either if one of us dies or may we stay lost on our way home

7. what is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i'll go with this ultraviolet morning light just bc it's probably the greatest payoff since it takes longest to get to the happy ending

8. do you get hate on fics?

not typically but there have been a few mean comments over the years. actually i got one bookmark on a fic that's in a series for a fanweek that says "ignore the others in this series but this one is good" and honest to god it just made me laugh. like.. you do realize i can see that, right?

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

i can barely write kiss scenes

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

i don't usually BUT when i was in middle school my friend and i created The Megacrossover, which consisted of us putting a bunch of different book characters into a hunger games arena. and we just kept adding more fandoms, and having new characters be transported into the arena. it was a good time. this was also entirely handwritten as all fanfiction should be when you're 10-12 years old

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge. definitely found one fic that was like. heavily influenced by mine back in my ouat days though

12. what's the longest you've spent working on a fic? and the shortest?

longest: over a year, at least shortest: a couple hours (not including editing)

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

not technically since the megacrossover but corey and i co-come up with ideas like. at least once a week

14. what's your all-time favorite ship? from all fandoms?

outlaw queen has to be my answer to this forever and always. never forgive never forget 🏹🍎

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

too many to answer. probably the biggest one is the azula-centric sequel to tuvml that i simply do not have the attention to write bc the hyperfixations have travelled elsewhere :( there are many many others though. i have an endless amount of ideas and not enough time

16. what are your writing strengths?

people often tell me i'm good at characterization and tbh i do pride myself on knowing characters better than 97% of the rest of the fandom. not all of the characters. but most of them.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

short attention span </3

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

do whatever you want forever. but like.. respectfully

19. first fandom you wrote for?

probably percy jackson when i was like 10. no you cannot find that anywhere online because i, like an idiot, deleted it without saving a backup copy

20. favorite fic you've written?

definitely (i am) the whisper of a memory. i love a lot of my fics, but that is one i am especially proud of because i tried new things with the formatting and i think it worked really really well

[fruitcoops]

1 Year of Fruitcoops

Hey folks! Eve here. Technically, the anniversary of this blog was the 16th, but this week has been super busy and I didn’t have time to sit down and make this post on the actual day.

Last November, I was really, really sad. I was spending most days quarantined in my room doing online classes, angry at the news and lonely without my friends. By that point we were over six months into isolation and I desperately needed a hobby.

I had started reading Sweater Weather earlier in the summer and ventured onto the discord server in late October just to check it out, which ended up being one of the best decisions of my life. To all of the Discord Noots: you are incredible human beings and I am grateful for you every single day. I can’t even tell you how much you mean to me.

To Haz: Thank you for writing. Not just the Sweater Weather-verse (though obviously that fic is outstanding), but all the other beautiful stories you have told. Thank you for making this sandbox that kept me sane. I hope that someday I can write as well as you, but in the meantime, please never stop sharing your gift with us.

Fruitcoops kept me afloat when everything else was trying to drag me under. It gave me a reason to get up and change out of my pajamas, to continue honing my writing into something I could be proud of, to keep telling stories and engaging with people even through a virtual format. It was catharsis and comfort all wrapped up in blue and grey pages. I began this blog thinking I would publish two, maybe three fics--I think it’s safe to say that didn’t go according to plan.

So, here are the stats for one year of fruitcoops:

1. Total fics + headcanons as of November 16th: 422

2. Fluff: 127

3. Angst/ Hurt-Comfort: 66

4. Lion Pride + Tiktoks: 120 (86 tiktoks)

5. Smut: 28

6. Series: 12 series, 55 fics

7. Short Fics: 15

8. Fic O’Ween: 8

Not gonna lie to you, it was kind of terrifying to count these up. A couple of people have asked in the past how I write so much (for newcomers, I used to publish three fics every day) and it really comes down to the fact that I did nothing else as a coping mechanism for a while. I’m happy that I became a better writer and got to share these with you, but looking back is pretty bittersweet when I remember how rough the start was.

Thank you to everyone who submitted fic requests. You are the reason this blog has continued to function and your creativity amazes me every day.

Thank you Haz for letting me soak in Sweater Weather and use your universe as a safe niche.

Happy one year <3 

[starrybethany]

I’m Sure - Adam Boqvist Imagine Part 5

Word count: 4.0K

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Adam: You followed me

I stare at the three words, blinking with tired eyes. All I want to do is sleep, especially after the day I’ve had with Holden, but the baby decided kicking me was more important. So here I am at four o’clock in the morning checking my social media when I should be getting another three hours of sleep.

I rub my eyes, unsure of how to even respond to the message.

It’s just a statement. I feel flabbergasted by it- really, we haven’t talked in years- well, technically months, but the last time we saw each other we just fucked, and our child went to see him without my knowledge or consent. How the fuck am I supposed to respond to those three words?

Y/N: I think we need to talk.

I sigh, setting my phone down. Might as well get straight to the point. The sooner I tell him about the second baby and ask why he would see Holden without at least running it past me the better. I roll over, pulling the blanket tighter around me. Hopefully I can sleep at least a little bit longer. I’m going to need it to deal with the moody adolescent I’ll be seeing in the morning.

~

“I made some toast and bacon. Just let me just finish cutting up these strawberries and then breakfast will be ready,” I inform Holden as he hops down the stairs.

He picks up the filled plate waiting for him on the table, throwing the food into the trashcan and setting the plate on the counter, giving me an expectant look.

I stare blankly back at him. I know he’s waiting for a reaction. He wants me to blow up so then he feels okay yelling at me instead of starting the confrontation himself. Instead, I just say, “That’s wasteful.”

He rolls his eyes, grabbing his backpack from its usual spot by the door and making his way outside, letting it slam shut behind him. I release the breath that I’ve been holding in, popping a strawberry into my mouth.

I open my Instagram app to catch up on the posts that I’ve missed, freezing when I see that I’ve received a DM. I forgot that I sent a message to Adam last night. Well, technically this morning. After I sent the message, I passed out hard, and I thought the whole thing was a fever dream.

Adam: What about?

Adam: Here’s my number

My fingers tap the screen quietly as I add his phone number into my contacts, saving it and staring at it blankly.

Well. No time like the present.

Before I can even realize what I’m doing, before I can even think things through and decide what to say or whether this is a good idea or not, or hell, even what time it is in Chicago right now, I click on the phone icon.

I curse to myself, raising the phone to my ear. Absentmindedly, my hand raises to my mouth so I can chew on my fingernail. Nail-biting is a nervous habit that I gave up years ago, but I guess old habits die hard.

“Hello?” His groggy voice comes through the phone.

I can’t breathe.

The oxygen gets stuck in my lungs. All I can think about are his hands on my body, sliding down to grip my hips. The twinkle in his eyes as I would pull my shirt over my head.

And not to mention the last time I saw him. His hair is longer than he used to keep it, but it suits him. It looks good on him. And he bulked up since the last time I saw him, too- his abs definitely looked and felt like it, anyways.

“Hello?” He repeats, sounding more awake and borderline annoyed now.

“Adam,” I respond softly, suddenly feeling shy. Come on, where did my confidence go? I’ll need it to get through this conversation.

“Y/N,” he says, all sounds of annoyance out of his voice. “You actually called, I didn’t think that you would-“”Sorry for waking you up,” I blurt out, glancing at the clock and seeing that it’s seven in the morning here. Chicago is an hour behind Philadelphia- it’s what kept me from calling the boys on the team late at night for several years.

“Oh, no, no, don’t you ever worry about that,” he reassures me. It’s quiet. I know he’s waiting for me to speak, to let him know what I want to talk to him about, but I just can’t get the words out. I feel them stuck in my throat, clawing to escape. “So, how’s Holden?”

And there it is.

That question is what spurs me to speak, to dig into the man who hid a huge secret like that from me. But I guess I’m doing the same thing to him now.

“I don’t know, how is he, Adam?” I spit out.

He sighs. He sighs. I want to punch his perfect fucking face.

“If I had realized that you had such a problem with it-“”Such a problem with it?” I repeat, not believing my own ears. Suddenly I’m reminded of why I decided not to tell Adam about this baby and why he wasn’t ready to be in Holden’s life for thirteen years. Hell, it sounds like he’s still not ready.

“My son lied to me about his intentions of going to Chicago, traveled halfway across the country by himself, and saw someone who he’s never met before. Yes, I have a fucking problem with it,” I growl.

“Our son.”

“What?”

“He’s our son. You said my son.”

All I want to do right now is to reach through this tiny screen and hit him upside the head. Really, after I lay out all of my concerns, this is all he has to say to me?

“Whatever. When are you coming to Philadelphia next?” I question. I don’t want to air all of grievances and talk about the new baby over the phone. I’ve had enough communication classes to know that you need to see someone’s nonverbal behaviors instead just hearing what they have to say.

“Why? You want to see me?” Suggestion laces his tone.

No, asshole, you already got me pregnant again.

“Yes. We need to talk about Holden… and some other things,” my voice trails off at the end, not sure how to warn him about such big news.

“Some other things, eh? Well, I’ll be looking forward to that,” he responds, clearly thinking that it’s something regarding us and our relationship, well, our dislike or lust for one another or something, instead of picking up what I’m trying to hint at.

“Cool. So, can you take a trip to Philly sometime soon or are you going to wait until hockey season?” I inquire.

“I can take a trip there, just for you. And Holden, of course.”

I can’t help but let a small smile slip onto my face. That sentence shows me that he’d be a good dad if he just put in the effort. It infuriates me that he’s kept that from Holden for years just because he hasn’t felt like working towards a relationship with his son.

“Good. Let me know when you’re in town so we can meet up.”

“What? You’re not going to invite me to stay with you?”

“Goodbye, Adam.” I hang up before he can respond. All I can imagine the rest of the day is his reaction after that phone call. He would have that small, knowing smile on his face, pulling his phone out of his pocket every five minutes to check and see if he got a new text from me or to send the fifth one in a row to me- one that I still would not respond to.

And my heart skips a beat at the thought of that.

~

It’s been a week since the phone call and since Adam sent me a screenshot of his booked ticket to Philadelphia two weeks from then. For some reason, maybe it’s the stupid, hopeless romantic part in me, I had hoped that he would book his plane ticket and hotel room for that night or even the next day. But he told me he had some ‘lose ends’ to tie up in Chicago before leaving.

And it’s also been a week since Holden has said a word to me. I’ve tried talking to him. I’ve asked him about his day, his friends, cooked him his favorite meals all week, I even offered to take him to Target to get a new video game.

None of that has worked. And it hurts. It hurts knowing that after everything I’ve done for him and everything I’ve sacrificed for him, and how Adam has done none of that, he looks at Adam like a God and me like the scum on the bottom of his shoe.

I know it’s what I’m supposed to do as a mother, care for my son and make sure he’s happy, but it’s just- it’s just- ugh.

I start to feel my blood boil as my mom’s voice echoes in the back of my head. Life’s not fair.

It’s then that I realize that I’ve given him enough space and time to figure out his feelings and how he wants to proceed. I don’t want to give him too much space that he begins to resent me and feel like I don’t care about him.

I know that feeling all too well.

I knock on his bedroom door softly, waiting for him to open it before I just walk in. It creeks open slightly, and just as I expected, eyes matching my mom’s peek out to glare at me.

“Can I talk to you, Holden?”

He doesn’t respond, just stares at me.

“Please, you don’t even have to talk, just listen,” I beg.

Fortunately, he opens the door the rest of the way, watching as I walk into his room and sit gently on the edge of the bed. He sits down on his worn computer chair, laptop open to some video game I don’t recognize on his desk.

“I want to start by apologizing for yelling at you last week,” I begin, taking a deep breath. Apologizing isn’t something that comes easy to me- I grew up in a family where the words ‘I’m sorry’ were unheard of. My parents were always right, and I was always wrong.

“I realize it probably wasn’t easy for you to go to Chicago by yourself to meet your dad. Holden, I just want you to realize that I would do anything to protect you, and I love you with my whole heart so realizing that you were in such an emotionally taxing situation without talking to me about it first-“I pause to sniffle, starting to feel tears well up in my eyes. “I felt helpless. And I couldn’t stop wondering why you didn’t feel like you could share that with me and then I realized that it’s because I don’t share stuff with you either.”

He watches as I lift my sleeve, wiping the tears from under my eyes. His face is still blank, but his eyes look like they’ve softened. He’s understanding my words so far.

“So, yes, this baby is also Adam’s baby. And he did ask about you when I saw him back in February, but I let my pride get the best of me and I told him that he didn’t deserve to see you. I’m sorry for robbing you of meeting your father earlier,” I genuinely apologize, maintaining eye contact with my son.

He shifts in his seat, his hard exterior softening with every word. “Well, I’m sorry for calling you a shitty mother. And saying all of that other stuff. And, if it makes you feel better, I did go to the computer programming camp. I just saw Adam when we had a night off.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

He nods.

“What did he tell you? About not being involved in your life?” I ask carefully, curious as to what Adam told Holden to turn him against me like that.

“He just told me that he was working through some stuff,” he shrugs, acting like he doesn’t care but I know my son well enough to tell that he does. “And he wasn’t ready until recently to meet me.”

I bite my tongue to keep it from releasing an insult towards Adam. “And how does that make you feel?”

“Honestly?” I nod, probing him to go on. “Pretty awful. I don’t think I want a relationship with him, mom.”

A mix of emotions run through my body at his word. I feel anxious, because now I have to tell him that Adam’s coming next week and will want to see him, sadness, because my son now recognizes how his father did not want be involved in his life, and anger toward Adam for making him feel like this in the first place.

“Well,” I cough awkwardly. “He’s coming to Philadelphia next week. I’m going to meet him to tell him about the baby. If you don’t want to see him, you don’t have to. It’s all up to you, bud.”

I stand up slowly, rubbing my belly as the baby begins to kick. He always seems to do that whenever I move even just a little bit- he’s an active little guy.

“Oh,” I turn back around just as I’m about to close the door. “How did you even find out who your father is?”

“Please mom, I’m not stupid,” he grins slyly at me, sliding his headphones onto his neck. “You lived in Chicago when you got pregnant with me and worked for the Blackhawks. I figured, since you said you worked a lot, the only guys you really had a chance to be with were on the team. And when I asked you about my dad for that project for school you said he was Swedish, so I just went to the Blackhawks roster in 2020 and found the Swedish players, messaging them some really uncomfortable and intrusive messages on Instagram.”

I chuckle at that, shaking my head. It will never not blow my mind how clever and smart he is. As I close the door to his bedroom, I hear him say, “On the plus side, Alex Nylander is a really nice guy.”

~

The day is finally here. Being eighteen weeks pregnant makes it really hard to hide my baby bump, but I somehow manage to find a baggy sweatshirt that I’ve stolen from one of my ex-boyfriends to cover it up. I don’t want to walk into the restaurant we’re meeting at and have him immediately know.

Somehow my jeans still fit on my legs, but I have a feeling by the end of this lunch they’ll be unbuttoned. It’s just the way it goes sometimes.

I get to the restaurant before Adam, just like how I planned it. I wanted time to scope out my exits in case I need to bail halfway through this meal- knowing Adam, it’s a possibility. I haven’t thought through what I was going to say too much.

I know I need to talk to him about why he would keep Holden going to Chicago to see him a secret from me, and we need to talk about the baby.

But mostly I just want to hear him grovel. The secret, sadistic part of me wants to hear him beg for forgiveness for making me raise my child by myself for the past thirteen years. I want to hear him admit that he fucked up- I’ve never heard Adam Boqvist admit that he fucked up before.

He shows up two minutes late.

I know because my phone is sitting face up on the table and I click on it every five seconds to see what time it is. I tell myself that if it gets ten minutes past noon and he’s still not here, I’m going home and giving up on dealing with Adam ever again.

But then he’s standing in front of me, familiar toothy grin on his face, black beanie on his shaggy hair, and a bouquet of red roses in his hand.

“You’re late,” I state sternly, not letting any sign of emotion onto my face. I need to let him know I mean business. I need to let him know that I’m never getting into bed with him ever again.

“Yeah, sorry, there was a line at the grocery store,” his grin begins to slip, but as he holds the bouquet out towards me, it takes over his face once again. “I got you these.”

“Thanks.”

I don’t make any movement towards them. His smile falls once again and I begin to feel guilty- he did buy these flowers for me, but he also impregnated me and left me twice.

He slides into the chair across the table from me, setting the flowers on the table and coughing awkwardly. “So, have you ordered yet?”

“Just water,” I respond shortly.

“Do you want to split a bottle of wine?”

“I’m not really a day drinker,” I eye him over the top of my menu, then go back to skimming through the items. It’s a charade, though. I already know what I want.

“Are you two ready to order?” The peppy waitress appears at our side, notepad open in her hand.

“I’ll have the chicken alfredo,” I announce, folding my menu.

“I’ll take that too. And a bottle of your sweetest wine, please,” the blonde orders, passing his menu to the waitress. When she leaves, he turns back to me. “I know you like the sweet stuff.”

I take a deep breath, deciding to cut to the chase. I’d rather get through this meal as soon as possible. The sooner we get done talking about this stuff, the sooner I can get out of here.

“Adam, I’m pregnant.”

He chokes on the sip of water he’s just taken from his glass, water dripping down his chin and landing on the table in front of him. I can’t help but watch with a content smile as he coughs, trying to catch his breath.

“Excuse me?” He utters through coughs, wiping his chin with a napkin.

“I’m pregnant,” I repeat. “I’m due in November.”

“Well, uh, congratulations,” he says unsurely.

I roll my eyes, muttering, “You clearly haven’t gotten smarter since last time.”

He seems to catch on to the hidden meaning behind my comment, his eyes widening. “Oh is it- since we-“”It’s your baby,” I conclude bluntly.

A smirk begins to spread across his face. I can’t believe it. He’s smirking just after I told him that he got me pregnant accidentally for the second time.

“Why do you have that look?” I snap.

“My little swimmers work pretty well, don’t they?” He inquires confidently, sipping from his water and succeeding this time.

I lean across the table, turning it on him. “I don’t know, do they? Are there any half-siblings that I need to worry about?”

The smirk is replaced by a look of genuineness now. It startles me, the sudden change of emotions. “No, it’s you, Y/N. It’s always been you.”

I lean back in my seat, the sudden seriousness too much for me to bear. I fiddle with the napkin sitting next to my glass, avoiding eye contact with him. “Yeah, so it’s a boy.”

“Another boy,” he echoes my very thoughts the moment I found out the sex.

I grin at the thought of my second child. When he’s been kicking me at night and keeping me awake, I think about what he’s going to be like. Is he going to cry a lot or is he going to be a quiet baby like Holden was? Will I have to keep an eye on him every minute or will I be able to get some breaks?

And what about when he’s older. Will he like hockey like his dad? Would he like the Flyers because we live in Philadelphia, or would he like the Blackhawks because his dad plays for them?

“Speaking of boys, how is Holden doing? He hasn’t been responding to my texts lately.” Adam means for the question to sound casual, but I can hear the undertone of worry in his voice. Maybe he isn’t as much of a shitty father as I think he is.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” I confess.

He doesn’t bother to hide the hurt on his face. I don’t expect him to. I know how it feels to feel unwanted and unloved by your child- I felt it when Holden told me that I’m a shitty mother. And although Adam deserves the consequences to his actions, I can’t help but feel a small amount of pity for him.

“I deserve that,” he sighs.

“You do,” I agree, knowing that I’m shoving the knife deeper into his heart. “But just give him time to decide what he wants to do. It’s all so fresh to him.”

He gives me a small, vulnerable smile.

“Why didn’t you tell me that he was going to see you while he was in Chicago, Adam?” I ask him the question I’ve been dying to ask ever since I found out about the situation.

He shrugs, not saying a word.

“Yes, you do know,” I persist. “So just fucking tell me. Enough of the bullshit, we’re in our thirties now. It’s time to focus on the children, not your fucking pride.”

He looks baffled by my sudden outburst, but it inspires him to answer. “I was afraid that if you found out, you would stop him. Then I’d never get to meet my son.”

“I would have stopped him,” I agreed, causing him to open his mouth to begin arguing with me. I start to speak again before he can begin. “And reschedule the trip to a time that works better with my work schedule so that I could go with him. Yes, you’re his father, but you’ve never been in his life. You’re essentially a stranger to him.”

He narrows his eyes at me like my words are a challenge. “Not anymore.”

I narrow my eyes at him now. “Really? What’s his middle name? When is his birthday? What’s his favorite color?”

He doesn’t respond and I scoff, taking a sip of my water again. “That’s what I thought.”

We’re quiet as the waitress returns with our meals. I cut my noodles, taking a bite of my food.

“I don’t want it to be that way with this baby,” he says, quickly adding, “And Holden anymore. I want to be there for this baby from the start. Or from now, I guess. And I want to be there for Holden, if he ever wants me.”

Mixed feelings begin to flush through my body. This is what I wanted for my kids from the beginning, an active father figure. And Adam’s offering it now, but why am I still feeling so hesitant?

After years of expecting him to step up as a parent and him never doing it, I have reasonable doubts when it comes to Adam’s parenting ability.

“Well, you know it’s up to Holden. You can’t force him to like you,” I begin slowly, trying to phrase my words in the best way possible. “But with this second baby… we can try it. I have a doctor’s appointment in two days. I’ll text you the address and time.”

“But my flight leaves tomorrow,” he whines. “Can’t you just reschedule for today?”

“You have so much to learn, Adam,” I shake my head. “I just hope you realize that being a parent means that you’re selfless more than selfish. Tell you what, go back to Chicago if you want to. But if you go back to Chicago, the only time you’ll communicate with the boys is when they want to talk to you.”

[lesbianlotties]

I was tagged by @lilolilyr thank you so much!!! i loved your answers omg you've written a lot! <33

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 49 words posted!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

612122!

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. five times Deena and Sam met in secret (and one time they didn’t) aka my pride and joy, love u fear street fandom. 2. Being with you (Makes the flame burn good) i'm very proud of this one, my first fic for the old guard. 3. Extremely Uneventful Subject although i genuinely love it it only got this many kudos bc i included men lmao 4. one day at a time one of my favorites!! why didn't i write more for bly manor?? 5. Andy and Quynh One Shots 101 one shots and i'm extremely proud of that lol

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I reply most of the time. In fact, I should go reply to some today

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

Chapter 40: the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them. or mortal Andy is losing her memory and i cry the entire time.

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

probably Extremely Uneventful Subject because, spoilers alert, it's all about andy regaining her immortality and being happy ever after with her wife, as it should be!

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve

written?

I've only written one! (Red) Room For 8. I do think it classifies as crazy, maybe? What do ocean's 8 and the haunting of hill house have in common? this fic!! i actually really liked it and i should probably finish it oops! plus, we get lou and theo being friendly exes so that's... something

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, i don't think so?

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Hmm a little. so not really. just when the fic really calls for it. for example Don't You Know? (That I'm A Moon In Daylight) helena/dinah vampire au, for reasons. and the only touchstone of truth the marla/fran backstory!

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Uhh not that i know of! hopefully not!

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Which i think is the coolest thing! 【翻译】Being with you (Makes the flame burn good) in Chinese!

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

I'm on it 👀

13. What’s your all time favorite ship?

oh the most difficult question ever!! listen, i have to say at least four! Andromaquynh or Andy/Quynh, is so especial because oh my god they're immortal that's endless potential! and i don't think i'll ever write 101 one shots for another ship! Damie or Dani/Jamie, because maybe I only have two stories written for them but the love i feel for them is way too much, they are perfect, favorite characters too. Heistwives or Debbie/Lou, objectively i also wrote a lot for ocean's 8, they are the reason i started writing fanfiction! and they've lasted me a long time. plus there's also the ot3 i love. and a bonus mention for my current favorite Sameena! of Sam/Deena, because they are the only thing in my mind at the moment, except maybe for Sarah/Hannah

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

Okay so I genuinely started to write a The Old Guard x Hill House AU, like I had a full chapter ready I think and I was so excited about it, spooky, angsty, emotional. but then Fear Street took over my entire life. but! I love the idea and I have a full outline so I'm sure I'll write it at some point!! hopefully before the sequel comes out lol as soon as i can look past the problematic fandom again. but! one that i really don't think i'll finish, would be a tog x ocean's 8 AU, because i didn't feel as strongly about that one, didn't have an outline, technically didn't even start to write it, probably not going to happen

15. What are your writing strengths?

i genuinely have no idea what to answer, i swear

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

uhhh i don't know? if this counts, which i think it does because it definitely affects my writing, is that i have zero discipline. and i rather die than thoroughly proofread and edit everything i write...

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

I was going to say I don't love it but then I remembered I've done it a couple of times! I think it's nice, but when it's not overdone, just a little thing here and there. in my case, i did short sentences on one shots, which meaning can be guessed or wasn't very important to the story, so that the reader doesn't have to stop reading to look up a translation, and then at the end include the translation. it's mostly about the feeling of it, to me

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Ocean's 8! and it was a 30k ot3 story because apparently i'm ambitious like that. and shortly after i started writing for the haunting of hill house!

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Gunpowder Milkshake! I have an entire one shot already planned out but I haven't had the time :((( (fear street please let me live) and i have written for these fandoms/ships but not nearly enough!! so i'm also going to mention Dani/Jamie from bly manor and Dani/Grace from terminator dark fate. let's not overthink why i love so many ships that include a character named dani jgkhghk

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I have many favorites but I'm going to be completely honest here and say that it's my heart (is like a haunted house) my Andromaquynh Ghost AU!

Tagging: (if u guys want to do it/haven't done it yet) @villanelleskiss, @salzundhonig, @rupzydaisy, @moonlightandromache, @cryhardanddanceharder, @knoepfchen,

[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

[justlightlysedated]

20 Questions

20 questions, writer's edition, I was tagged by @lambourngb 😊❤❤

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

71! 70 for roswell and one for vagrant queen

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

468, 583!!

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

not entirely sure tbh, but let's count now:

timkon, bandom, glee, specifically pukurt, but some other ships too, merlin, doctor who, torchwood, teen wolf, agents of shield, runaways, the old guard, vagrant queen, and obviously, roswell new mexico

i think there might be more, but i don’t remember rn

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

the cost of greatness, which i cowrote with marlo

a cure i know that soothes the soul (does so impossibly), the first pwp i wrote for this fandom lol

the person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger, which i wrote for marlo

for better or for worse (til death do us part), which i also cowrote with marlo lol

it might be your wound but they’re my sutures, which i also wrote for marlo

so the pattern im sensing here is that my most popular fics were written with/for marlo which sounds about right lol

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

i am not sure tbh, i write some pretty angsty one shots and longer fics, but i TRY to at least give a slightly hopeful ending, tho now that i’m thinking about it, i think the angstiest thing i’ve written was that prompt fill based on the song, for island fires and family, i remember SOBBING the entire time that i wrote it (there is miluca in that one), but ALSO there is the fic i wrote in reaction to the season one finale, which also made me cry, which was called, we both know how this story ends

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

once again i’m not sure, like i said before, i try to give my fics hopeful endings if they’re really angsty, and i love me some hurt/comfort, but i’m not entirely known for writing happy, fluffy fics, tho i do TRY sometimes for certain people

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

yes!! i do love me some crossovers, and i guess i would have to say the malex, sort of doctor who au, i’m technically still writing for tove

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yes??? but i’m not sure if i could classify it, like i’ll write pretty much anything within reason and if it doesn’t squick me out

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

okay, so like don’t hate me, but no, i rarely, if ever respond to comments, i just don’t know what to say at all, like i’m the type of person that really wants every single message to be unique and special, but there are only so many ways to thank someone for reading your fic, so i just tend to post things and then thank everyone for reading afterwards, if there is someone that shows up often on my notifications, or if someone asks me a specific question pertaining to the story, then i will answer, i also answer back if i wrote the fic for someone and they left a comment, and if i’m sent an ask on here about something that i wrote, but i am simultaneously the world's most shy and confident person ever, when it comes to my writing, so i’m so sorry

this doesnt mean that i dont appreciate every comment that i get because i really do, im just super shy and awkward and i may write good-ish, but i do NOT have the same way with words in person

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not really?? if i have i don’t remember it, usually i’m the one who talks the worse about my own writing

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, the only kurtbastian fic i’ve ever written was translated into russian

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

yep!! as y’all probably saw from my top five fics up there somewhere, marlo @bestillmyslashyheart is basically my fic writing soulmate, we just really click when it comes to writing

14. What's your all time favourite ship? to write for?

atm it’s malex, which is more than obvious, BUT before they hijacked my brain and made their home within my neurons, it was skimmons!!! i wrote fic for them for YEARS, even after i stopped watching aos

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

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, i’m just gonna talk about fics that i’ve posted and haven’t updated and not any of the hundreds of wips that have never seen the light of day, my original witch au tbh, i just, roswell made maria and isobel somehow related, and just made me really uncomfortable with the ship, which is the main reason that i’m not gonna finish the fic if i’m being perfectly honest, there is ALSO that au i had where michael’s daughter from the future comes back to the past and she had been raised by alex, because of reasons that are petty, probably my space opera au as well, and only because i just want to write other things MORE

16. What are your writing strengths?

i think i’m good at describing things, especially kisses, i LOVE writing kisses, it’s one of my favorite things, that and my fight scenes are two of the things i pride myself the most on

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

dialogue, sometimes i feel the characters are ridiculously out of character, but then i don’t care because sometimes in canon characters are also ridiculously out of characters, also describing things, because sometimes i just feel like scenes don’t flow right, i am definitely a comma whore, and use dashes and hyphens in places they definitely shouldn’t be used, run-on sentences are my best friends, also english isn't my first language, so, sometimes the way i phrase things just come out wrong

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

tbh completely honest, i follow the nora sakavic method where you just write the dialogue in english like, “hey there love,” they said in perfect french, and i only break this rule if i actually know the language because just translating straight from english always makes things sound stilted and weird

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

dc comics, i wrote several timkon fics which i posted on livejournal

20. What's your favourite fic you've written?

oh, i know that love is all about the wind, how it can hold me up and kill me in the end (still i loved it), no specific reason why, i just love it with my entire heart!!

and that's it!! im not gonna tag anyone cause I saw that most ppl were already tagged, but if you want to do this just say that I tagged you!!

[taeminie]

tag game 🌈

i was tagged by the lovely doreen ( @gunsatthaphan ) to answer these questions. 🥰💜

1. why did you choose your url?

i love win metawin. simple. my previous url like very early on was sarawatined and then i went to metawwin then i removed the w. hehe

2. any sideblogs?  if you have them name them and why you have them.

i always considered making one (i got lazy) but then i realized that this blog is my personality and i like having one blog for all my interests and likes bc it represents my brain lmao and i’m aware it’s a mess but i love it.

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

i made this blog on april last year but i’ve been on tumblr since october 2009 so i’ve seen it all.

4. do you have a queue tag?

nope! i prefer scheduling posts tbh.

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

the main reason was 2gether. i made it during the final eps and i just remember seeing everything on my dash and being so fascinated bc it was my hyperfixation at that time. my friend angel had made a blog and i was hesitant to come back to tumblr at first bc my prev. blog got hacked and deleted and it was a scary experience for me. but i ended up doing it and i was super happy. also, i started watching thai dramas like around 2016 so it was nice to find all these dramas on tumblr again and even new ones afterwards.

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

she’s my wife 💍 (that CK shoot.... man. i edited it on photoshop and idk i like how it turned out and i really like the bg color. and how she’s holding a film camera as in to represent all the dramas i watch ;) or smth like that)

7. why did you choose your header?

well i love brightwin, they were a huge part of the reason i made this blog so i like having a win url and a bright layout and technically when i had a twitter i had a bright username so they just complemented each other. 💕

8. what‘s your post with the most notes?

gay wat. happy pride folks 🌈

9. how many mutuals do you have?

well i think everyone i follow follows me back with some exceptions so over 100+

10. how many followers do you have?

too many for so little time that i’ve been here. *blows a kiss* thank u so much. 🥺

11. how many people do you follow?

163.

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

if my random text posts that i end up deleting count as that then... yes

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

daily on the app. it makes everything so much easier. on my laptop, maybe 3/4 times a week. but a lot overall.

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

no pls i hope that never happens fjdkkdkdk i’m here for love and from love. thx

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this‘ posts

oh. very guilt trippy. i found that sometimes posts can be triggering or ppl are just not in the right mindset to reblog/interact. you are not a terrible person for scrolling past a post. pls dont let anyone tell u otherwise.

16. do you like tag games?

love them!!! but sometimes they get lost in my notifs and i don’t see them when someone tags me :( i’m gonna try to do more of them when i can.

17. do you like ask games?

yessss i love getting asks it makes me so excited like ppl care wow

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

idk by definition. but a lot have been around way longer than me and make content for so many different fandoms as well so they’re more known as well.

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

i have crushes on ppl every single day and then do nothing about it. (but yes 😏)

20. tags?

this was so much fun to do. thanks for tagging me angel @gunsatthaphan 💜💜💜💜💜💜

i’m tagging: @earthmixs @jaehwany @brightwin @phapundao @theghostvalley @ataleofthousandstars @lastwilight @itoldsunset @kaonoppakao @uppoompat @yesdramas & @scrubbfantine have fun!!!! (only if u want to)

[a1kitkat]

20 questions, writer’s edition!

saw this on @gerec page and wanted to try it How many works do you have on AO3?

277 but some are like 1 work with unrelated works in the chapters

What’s your total AO3 word count?

2164964 How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 12

Roswell New Mexico/RNM RPF

X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)

Criminal Minds

Westlife (Band)

A1

Blue (Band)

Prodigal Son

9-1-1: Lone Star

Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman

Torchwood

Hawaii Five-0

Da Vinci's Demons What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Secrets Learned, Secrets Kept (Criminal Minds)

On a Beach in Cuba... With You (X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies))

First Time (Criminal Minds)

Lucky to Have You (Criminal Minds)

Unlucky Seven (Criminal Minds) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to, I really do but sometimes I get overwhelmed or can't think of the right words and so I think 'I'll come back later' and then time gets away from me then it's been months and I'm too embarrassed

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

Blood & a Single Gunshot (X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I honestly don't know about this one... I mean, most of mine are either kinda dark-ish or more hopeful endings, unless the fic itself is mostly fluffy. Maybe I just don't write many *happy* fics...

Maybe if I had to pick... Ummm... This one?

Coming Home To You (Roswell New Mexico) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really, I've only written two so far. A Westlife/Blue mix and an X-Men/Da Vinci's Demons crossover (which is actually the craziest but also one of my absolute fave fics of mine). I do hope to one day write a Roswell New Mexico/Prodigal Son crossover though

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes! on two X-men fics and one of my RNM fics, guess it just comes with the territory though

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I try to... and what kind? the bad kind because i'm terrible at it.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Technically once but a bunch of fics were taken and posted to wattpad or something without our permission, so it wasn't just me.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yep and the translated work is my second most hits fic on my ao3

A Matter of Trust 信任练习 (X-Men: First Class (2011) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I tried... Was contacted once years ago by someone who offered to co-write with me and they only contributed one scene which I did use but the other 46k words of the fic were all mine...

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I don't think I can pick... Some have the longevity of being in my heart way longer while others were canon and others should've been Endgame... If I have to choose one then I'd probably have to say Jack & Daniel from Stargate SG1 because it's what got me reading fic in the first place.

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

Until You're Resting Here With Me (Roswell New Mexico)

I'm really trying but I have zero interest in this fic anymore... I'll never finish Fairy Alex either (When an Alien Loves A Fairy)

What are your writing strengths?

I enjoy writing dialogue/conversations and I think I'm pretty good at that.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Trying to write smut... my attempts are cringe

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

I've tried it a few times but only by using a translate website so I always feel I'm doing it wrong and don't want to insult readers by misusing the terms/context

' What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Stargate Atlantis but I never actually finished or posted anything.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? I have like 5, okay? Gryffindor Pride (Roswell New Mexico)

Something so Wrong that Feels so Right (Roswell New Mexico)

Maybe Tomorrow (X-Men: First Class /Da Vinci's Demons)

Beautifully Broken (Westlife)

A Light to Guide you Through the Darkest Nights (X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)

[emperorsfoot]

abandoned Star Wars fic #1

This was an AU I started a while back (2014) based off the pre-Disney Buyout version of the Expanded universe. It’s basically just “what if Luke did join the Empire like he was discussing with Owen and Beru back in A New Hope?”

My original plan was for the fic to be a trilogy, following the same main events of the original trilogy. I abandoned it because I got discouraged (for the same reason I always get discouraged when writing fic for a fandom that’s been around since the dawn of time), because the Star Wars fandom is so big and there are so many amazingly talented writers in it that this AU has probably already been written, and probably written better than I could ever write it. 

So, I never even posted it. 

Until now... 

(Oh! Also, it was gonna be a Luke/Mara ship. All my Star Wars fics are Luke/Mara.)

...

[ImpPilot]

Chapter One:

"I'd like three quarters of my pay to go to this account, please. If I can do that." Luke asked. 

Even heading strait to the Fleet's financial office immediately after his graduation ceremony instead of going out to celebrate with his bunkmates, it still took an absurd two and a half hours before he could see an actual officer -nothing more than a glorified accountant, really. 

"You'll meed to fill out form 6-23-A." Without even looking up from his personal terminal, the financial officer passed Luke a data pad with the blank form already open on it. "You're not the first boy wanting to send money home to his silver-haired mommy. Be sure all the routing numbers are correct and specify whether or not its a savings or checking account, or if its a business account. For business accounts you'll need to fill out an additional form."

"Uh… I think its a domestic checking account…" Luke said. More thinking out loud than actually speaking to the officer. The moisture farm was, technically, a business, but he didn’t think Tattooine was sophisticated enough for business accounts. At least, not reputable ones. 

"There's a terminal in the lobby you can use if you need to call home and ask. Regular holo-net fees apply -which this office will not compensate you for." Once again, the financial officer did not look up from his desk. 

Right. As if Uncle Owen would even answer. Neither he nor Aunt Beru had answered any of his calls since he left home and signed up with the Fleet. 

But they just didn't understand. Luke couldn't spend his life in the day to day routine of moisture farming, watching the rest of the Galaxy turn around him. He wanted to get out and get away. See the world beyond the backwater dust-ball of his childhood and explore brave new worlds in his adulthood. But the Lars hadn't have much money and it wasn't like Luke's late parents (of which very little was spoken of) had seen fit to leave either him or his guardians any money or property of value, there were little avenues or opportunities open to him to get off world. In fact, there were only two possible ways for a poor desert brat like him to get off world. 

Join up with a pirate or smugglers crew. Or sign up with the Imperial Space Navy. 

So, Luke chose the lesser to two evils. 

He signed up for the navy.

At least it was legal. 

He went out early the morning of his sixteenth birthday after his mind was made up. Sneaking out of the farm house and into the garage, Luke intended to take the speeder into Anchorhead. Owen was waiting for him in the garage. Intent to stop him. Apparently, his sneaking wasn't too stealthy. 

He gave a speech about the stupidity of what he was about to do. That it was foolish and he was just fixing to get himself killed. That he was just like his father -he was a damn fool too!- and that he would just end up hurting everyone else who cared about him. Luke ignored everything his uncle had to say though. His mind was made up and there was nothing Uncle Owen could do to stop him. 

Aunt Beru was a bit gentler with him, but still just as disapproving. She met him outside the garage, as he was trying to maneuver the speeder around the complex. She brought him a sandwich lovingly wrapped, as if he were just going out to do maintenance on the vaporators. She asked Luke not to think poorly of his Uncle, he was just trying to protect him. There was a war on and the reason why the Fleet was so eager to lock new recruits into contracts was because they needed more and more bodied every day. That's all he would be to the Navy, just another body to throw into the war. 

That time Luke did pause. He placed his hand over hers, resting on the side of the speeder. He assured her that this was something he had to do and that he wouldn't die the death of a nameless soldier. He couldn't explain how or why, but he could feel it. This was something he had to do, and he would not become just another body counted in the war. He would be something. 

Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say, because a shadow of fear crossed her face. But it was there and gone in the space of a second. She turned her hand, resting under his and grabbed his wrist, stronger than he thought she was capable of. "Don't… don't use the name Skywalker." She said suddenly. "Its a common name out here on the Rim, but it's a dangerous name to have closer to the Empire. Don't enlist under Skywalker. Use our name. Use Lars."

Luke blinked at her. "Why?"

But she didn't answer and he was in to much of a hurry to wait and pester her. 

That was the last he ever heard from either of them. Neither his aunt or uncle either called him or returned any of his calls during his time at the Academy. There was no reason to assume they would answer the comm for him now. In fact, Luke wasn't even sure if they would take his money now that he would actually be earning some. But they had raised him. And the farm wasn't easy or cheap to maintain. Maybe with the extra money, his uncle could hire a few more hands to help them out. 

Luke just filled out the form the best that he could and handed it back to financial officer. 

"Alright, Lars, your request should be processed in another eight to ten standard days. Everything should be in order by the time for first earning statement is payed." He said looking over the datapad. "Oh, and you forgot to fill out your pilot designation."

"Oh. Right, sorry. Its DS-42-6."

The officer began typing as Luke spoke, filling in the missing information on mental auto-pilot. "D… S… -Wait? DS? Death Star? They assigned a green kid like you to the Death Star!?" He gaped up at the kid, actually looking at him for the first time. 

"Top pilot in my graduating class." Luke said, not at all ashamed of the pride that seeped into his voice. Being the top flight student was a significant achievement and not even Uncle Owen could deny that. "I guess they wanna deploy their best people on the most important postings."

"What was that number again?"

"Squad forty-two, pilot number six." He answered. 

"Well, Luke Lars, I imagine you going far.

…

Most of Luke's bunkmates went out to celebrate their graduation almost immediately after the ceremonies. That meant that they all had a few hours head start on him and would probably be to faded to be good company when he did arrive. But that still didn't stop Luke from stopping in at the tapcaf they agreed on for their after grad party. 

As to be expected, of the twelve men Luke had shared a barracks with for the past two years, only three of them remained when he walked through the door. One of them was just paying his tab, a woman Luke had never seen before under one arm.

"I'm telling ya, baby, I ship out tonight." He was saying to her. "Oh, hey Lars, ya made it! A bit late. Maybe you can scoop Vard and Ika up off the floor."

He left. 

Vard and Ika were leaning over a table against the back wall. With a sigh, Luke crossed the tapcaff to assess them. Of the twelve bunkmates that Luke actually got along with, Ika was probably the closest one he would come to calling a 'best friend'. They weren't nearly as close as Luke had been with Biggs, but then, Biggs had to go off and desert on his first tour and place Luke in an uncomfortable situation with ISB right at the start of his second year at the Academy. Some great friend he turned out to be. 

But Luke wasn't gonna think about that now. This was the eve of his graduation from the Imperial Naval Academy. This was a happy day. Even if he was about to spend it taking care of his two drunk bunkmates that -in all likelihood- he would never see again. With a conscious effort, Luke pushed Biggs from his mind. 

Ika seemed to be past out on the table. A disposable coaster his only cushion against the hard plasteel and vinyl of the tabletop. Vard was at least sitting mostly vertical, but by the looks of it no less drunk. He used one hand to prop his face up while the other shot into the air in an unnecessarily showy greeting. He flailed spastically. "Hey! Look who made it!"

"A bit late, I think." Luke said as he slid into the booth next to Ika. 

"Nah. I's cool. We'll just get a new bottle." He flagged down a serving droid. "Another round for me and my buddies. And make the late arrivals a double -to make up for lost time."

"Belay that." He said to the droid. Luke just shook his head. He was in no mood to get drunk tonight. The fact that he was to report for transport and deployment absurdly in the morning or risk missing the boat aside, he just had a feeling it was in his best interest not to get completely sloshed. "We'll have a round of caff instead. And make their's a double." 

Vard scoff. "Ya know, Lars, for a guy who never had a daddy growing up, you act an awful lot like my father." With no small amount of effort, he pushed himself to his feet and jerkily maneuvered out of the booth. "Forget this. I'm going to finish cleaning out my bunk."

Staggering mildly, he made his way to the door, where he flagged down a transport. Well, at least he would be safe taxieing back to base.

Luke turned to look at Ika. He should probably call a transport for him too. 

Standing, Luke crossed to the public holo-net, passing a very pretty red-head on his way and he lamented the fact that he had to take care of his drunkard friend. She probably wouldn't want to stay and chat with someone who associated with rowdy or irresponsible soldiers like them. Suppressing a sigh, he dialed the public transport company's number that had been very boldly posted over the terminal's key-pad and ordered a taxi to take Ika (and probably him too) back to base. 

It didn't take long for the transport to arrive and when it did, Luke helped the driver carry his passed-out friend into the back seat. But Luke didn't feel much like going along. He had come to this tapcaff expecting a party -it was the eve of his graduation, after all- he felt he was entitled to at least some form of celebration. Luke payed the transport driver and went back into the tapcaff.

It was only after he sat back down at their table that the serving droid appeared with their three cups of caff. 

Luke's face fell into the palm of his hand.

The pretty red-head by the holo-net terminal gave an amused laugh. 

Luke looked back at her and their eyes met over the empty tapcaff. Her eyes were brilliant, and deep, and very very green. The bottom dropped out of his stomach as he felt a wonderful and glittering feeling of exhilaration at the fact that a pretty girl was looking at him with a smile. That glittering feeling was quickly scrubbed away, however, when Luke remembered that he had no idea how to talk to girls. 

Back home, he'd hung out with Fixer's girlfriend. But that was always in a group setting and besides, she was already in a relationship with someone. There were a few female cadets at the Academy. But you didn't talk to them like girls unless you wanted to get punched in the dick. Luke really didn't wanna get punched in the dick by the pretty red-head.

Perhaps he hesitated a little to long after their eyes met because the red-head picked up her own drink and crossed the room to sit at his booth. "You gonna drink all those, Cadet?"

Oh, crap. The pretty girl was talking to him. What should he say? Should he make a joke? Or play it strait? Did girls like funny men, or strait forward men? Well, whatever he said, he better say something soon. Luke suddenly realized that his silence was stretching on into awkward territory. "Uh, uh… I, uh… Its 'Pilot'."

"What?" She blinked at him with those deep, sparkling, emerald green eyes. 

"I'm not a Cadet anymore." I explained quickly, his ears coloring self-consciously. "I graduated today. Now I'm a Pilot."

"Oh. I see. A pilot." She gave one of those smiles people give when they're humoring a small child and Luke suddenly felt like he had already messed up with this girl. The flushing of his ears spread to his cheeks. She must have noticed the blush (then again, how could she not?), because she took pity on him. "You're not very good at this, are you?"

Luke blinked. "Uh, not good at what?"

"Flirting." She said as if this should have been obvious. "Chatting up women. Attempting to entice them to leave with you. Shore leave doesn't last forever and you can't afford to waste time. I assume you're shipping out tomorrow?"

"Y-yes." He nodded. 

"So you've got, what, maybe seven hours before you have to report to your transport."

"Well, yes, actually." Luke had to pause. She knew an awful lot about military logistics. But then again, this was an Academy town. The locals must be used to young soldier-boys coming and going and trying to pick up their young women in between. 

"Well, Pilot, I've got even less time than that." She informed him, running a finger over the rim of one of the untouched caff mugs. "Ya see, I just came here for a quick job and now that the jobs done, I've only got a couple hours before I have to be lifting off and flying out."

"Oh, do you work for a shipping company?" Luke asked. Work was a polite subject to discuss, right?

She just shook her head, her red hair cascading round her shoulders in elegant waves. "No, no, you're getting this all wrong." She said. "Listen, Pilot, I have to ship out soon, you have to ship out soon. You're cute. I'm hot. And we're both lonely. You can't take me back to your barracks, and I won't take you to my ship. So, I was thinking of maybe one of those pay-by-the-hour places down the street from the port. We share a couple hours together, then go our separate ways. I don't tell you my name, you don't tell me your pilot designation."

Luke just blinked at her. It… it sounded like she was trying to proposition him. The blush on his face colored to almost scarlet. Oh, the things Aunt Beru would have to say if she heard this. "I… I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I don't do that sort of thing. I, uh, I wasn't brought up that way. But… if you like, I'll treat you to dinner."

With a sigh, the woman leaned back in her seat. "I don't suppose I've got the time to hunt down a better deal. Alright, Pilot, a chase little dinner date it'll be."

Finally feeling balanced for the first time since she sat down, Luke flagged down the serving droid. "Two menus, please."

She learned forward, resting her chin in her hand. "Well, Pilot, you're the first man to ever refuse my offer. So, either you're a perfect gentleman -which thought were just creatures of pure myth- or else I'm not your type of company." 

"Oh, I know I'm not a perfect gentleman." Luke assured her. He was idealistic and given over to fantasies and delusions of grandeur. Definitely not perfect. "But my aunt did raise me to be respectful."

"Good aunt." She took a sip of one of the abandoned cups of caff. 

"So…" Luke began awkwardly. "If you don't tell me your name, and I'm not allowed to tell you my pilot designation… what are we gonna talk about?"

"Good question." She nodded, tapping her bottom lip in thought. "What made you decide to become a pilot?"

"I was a little short for a Stormtrooper." He joked. "But actually, I always wanted to be a pilot. My father was a navigator on a spice freighter and a navigator is basically a co-pilot."

...

AND THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE!

That was Mara Jade sitting with him at the tap caff, BTW. Luke wasn’t gonna see her again until after the destruction of the Death Star. 

Vader was gonna “sense a ripple in the Force” once Luke arrived on the Deathstar for his tour of duty. But he wasn’t actually going to take note of Luke specifically until Obi-Wan, Han, and... BIGGS DARKLIGHTER break onto the Deathstar to rescue Leia. 

In this AU, Biggs lives. He’s the one who makes the shot that destroys the Deathstar.

Luke and Vader are the only survivors. 

After their fighters (Vader’s TIE Advanced, and Luke’s shitty regular live-1 TIE fighter) are picked up by another Imperial ship, Vader confronts Luke face-to-mask.

Luke’s all like “I wanted to be a pilot because of my father.”

To which Vader replies “Owen Lars has never been, nor will he ever be, a pilot.” (Remember: Luke enlisted under the name “Lars”.)

Luke should be confused by Vader knowing so much about his uncle, but Luke’s also kinda dumb. So he just assumed Vader read his personnel file. He get’s all self-conscious and confesses to enlisting under a different name. Owen Lars is actually his uncle, not his father. His father’s name was Skywalker. 

Vader doesn’t visibly react, but behind his mask he’s just like, “OH SHIT!”

And that’s where the “A New Hope” volume of this AU was gonna end. 

[solipseismic]

thank u @storyhole for tagging me !! my prompt is to write something with 1 event - bday party; 2 sins - pride, wrath; 3 words - curdle, ink, keen ( original post ) and this bit is i think set a one or two years before demon city + is about vex, resident assassin malewife himbo

V normally took birthdays off. He didn’t often take days off – it wasn’t like he had anything else to do, which was sad in itself – but he figured, what the hell. It was one day a year. Normally, anyway. This wasn’t normal. ‘Normal’ wasn’t being called by one of Anehaven’s more notorious criminal elements. The man called himself ‘Haunt,’ supposedly because he was impossible to find. Like a ghost. V had had enough of ghosts.

“Happy birthday to me,” V sang to himself under his breath, letting the burner phone ring out for a few moments, idly sliding his thumb up and down the screen. He picked up on the fifth ring, closing his eyes and letting his head tilt back against the worn sofa, inky curls splaying out over the dull pleather.

“I’ve got a job for you.”

Right to the point, then. Keen. That was the word V would have used to describe the voice on the line. Sharp and cold, with hissed, sibilant consonants and barely-there vowels. It was an alien accent for an alien man. “I’m listening.”

“Bane. I’m willing to pay five up front and another five upon proof of death.”

V sucked in a breath through his teeth, thumb still rubbing up and down the side of the phone. He was one of the best guns for hire on the East Coast, hell, maybe even this side of the Atlantic. He’d been figuring it was only a matter of time until someone contracted him to kill Anehaven’s self-appointed queenpin of crime, or whatever they were calling her these days. He didn’t normally mess with alien business. They had their own special breed of organized crime and V had his; they even had their own goddamn vigilantes, if the rumors about Wolfheart were true.

“You’ve never hired me before,” V told Haunt. He could be blunt, too. “I decide the price.” After he staked out Bane. If he decided to take the job.

“I’m the one fucking paying you,” Haunt hissed, something ugly curdling his tone. “I’m not spending ten million dollars just for you to botch the job.”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t just besmirch my honor and injure my poor, delicate sensibilities.” V worried at a seam of the couch with his thumb nail, mulling it over. “Don’t call me again. If I decide the job is worth what I say you can pay, I’ll call you in three days. Capisce?”

Haunt snarled something that fizzed into static over the cheap phone speakers, something in a language V had only ever heard in whispered snatches before. From the tone, V was willing to bet it wasn’t complimentary.

“The fact that you’re calling me at all says you’ve exhausted all over avenues,” V replied. Contact with V was a hard thing to come by and he worked hard to ensure that it stayed that way. Technically speaking, he was wanted in 78 countries, but who was counting? V was as much of a ghost as Haunt was, as tangible as a shadow on the wall. He didn’t delude himself with thoughts of a higher moral code; V did the jobs no one else could do, the ones that were too filthy or hard or risky for others. He took pride in it, actually, and he was damn good at it. “Three days. Pleasure doing business with you.”

Another hissed string of something was cut off when V ended the call, thumb tapping at the screen before he pried open the casing and peeled out the SIM card, dropping it to the floor to crush it under a booted heel. Another visit to the corner store was warranted, then, and after that a flight to New York.

V would have been lying if he were to say he wasn’t – at the very least – interested. The topic of assassinating Bane had been broached with him before, but never with another Shesh. Something was afoot. Anehaven was a hotbed of vices both terrestrial and otherworldly. V didn’t like to step foot in it. He was human through and through and alien shit wasn’t his arena. The city went through vigilantes like nothing else, though, so there was that to be said for it. Even Wolfheart had vacated the godforsaken city, and Wolfheart – Vex could fill a particularly lurid novel with conspiracy theories and rumors about her. He’d been to Anehaven before, on business. It was dirtier than NYC and didn’t have half the appeal; he didn’t see why anyone would stay in that shithole of a city. Misplaced localist loyalty.

He was bored. And if – when – V pulled this off, he would get a helluva paycheck.

[maryellencarter]

Queer asks copied from @corelliaxdreaming :

1. Is your family accepting? -- Hah. No. My bio-family is not accepting at allllll, so I went and got myself an internet family instead.

2. What is your sexuality? -- Weird. The strongest part of my identity is Aromantic. I seem to be pretty much allosexual, maybe bisexual; most of the people I find myself attracted to are men within a fairly specific category (physically fit to muscular, at least as competent as me, kind, and often a bit dorky; I also have a weakness for clever hands and sexy voices), but the women I'm attracted to cover a much broader range of appearances and personalities. I fall pretty much in the category of the one Tumblr post that said something like "Being bisexual means you're attracted to three specific fictional men and all women", even though the attraction to men... feels... more attraction-y? I'm still really struggling to figure that difference out.

3. What is your gender identity? -- Sort of genderfluid, sort of genderqueer, sort of maybe agnostically agender? I used to ID really strongly as a trans man, and then after a year or so of being accepted, I found myself turning female. I bounced back and forth for a lot of years but seem to have settled down at a point where it doesn't especially matter to me most of the time. Which is a lot more comfortable than hurtling around to different points on the gender spectrum without warning.

4. Favorite color? -- Blue. Royal blue, mostly. That really deep sky blue you get sometimes during the fall. A bunch of really bright colors.

5. When did you find out your sexuality? -- Oh, it's been a process. For a long time I identified as asexual. It took me years to figure out I was actually romance-repulsed, and more years to figure out I had any attraction to women. I'm still sort of confused by that part. Like I mostly just want to look at them being pretty, but I also definitely want to look at their boobs? Maybe touch some boobs? I'm honestly not sure.

6. What do you wish you could tell your past self? -- Oh lord. Sexuality and gender wise? I'm not sure young me could have been hurried along the process of self discovery. I'd really like to tell her she was being abused and gaslighted and that she needed to take her great-aunt's offer of a free ride and major in geology *before* she broke her health, and maybe also tell her she needed a CPAP machine, but she might just think I was a temptation of the Devil. Also I'm not sure if the CPAP machine was an option before Obamacare. Or the psych meds she needed, either.

7. Have you changed labels since realizing you were queer? -- Oh yeah, all over the place. Asexual, trans, genderqueer, biromantic (for about a week), aromantic allosexual bisexual maybe pansexual... some people apparently even count PCOS as an intersex condition, since I have a lot more beard and chest hair than is normal for perisex women, to the point that I always have to explain to a new doctor that I'm not in fact on testosterone, my body just does that. I've never quite felt right claiming the intersex label, but I've tried on a lot of others. I think my header may still say "queer on every conceivable axis".

8. How was your day? -- Um. I got stuck wandering Cracked.com for most of it. Then I drove up to check out my pulmonologist's office, which doesn't *say* they're closed for the pandemic, so I guess I'll go up again on Thursday and poke them about whether my appointment still exists. Then I went and wandered around a very large very dead mall on that side of town, hatched a bunch of pokeymans, then came home and ate some split pea soup.

9. Do you have any queer friends irl? -- I don't have *any* friends irl, and it's kicking my ass. I have like one or two coworkers I could hypothetically hang out with outside of work if we weren't so all-fired busy. But if we're talking "friends I have seen irl at some point", I'm pretty sure they're all queer. They might also be limited to @tigerkat24 and one other person who doesn't use Tumblr, I'm not sure.

10. What's your favorite hobby? -- Probably knitting. It's soft and squishy and brightly colored, and it can be as brainless or as complex as I could possibly want.

11. Who's the best queer icon in your opinion? -- I honestly don't have an opinion. I've always been too far outside the community to figure out whomst the options were.

12. Which pride flags do you like the most design / color wise? -- Pansexual. I'd probably have a lot more pride merch if I IDed as pan, but it just never feels like it fits quite right.

13. Do you wish you could change any pride flags? -- YES. The aro flag is the exact same colors as the agender flag, just in a different arrangement, and it pisses me off because you can't distinguish aro merch from agender merch unless it's specifically flag shaped / has the stripe arrangement. I liked the yellow/orange/green/black aro flag, I found it much more cheerful, but apparently it was too similar to something Rastafarian. But you can't find alloaro flag merch at *all*, even though it has the green and yellow, which I like.

14. Are you openly out? -- Can't really help it, since I legally changed my name to a distinctively masculine one back in the day, and I do not remotely pass as male. So anybody who both sees or hears me and knows my legal name, knows there's *something* queerish going on. (I go by a gender neutral name these days, but haven't yet been arsed to change it legally because it's an entire hassle and a half.)

15. Are you comfortable with yourself? -- Mneh. I'm not *un*comfortable with my gender and sexuality, particularly. Sometimes I wish I could pass as male, sometimes I wish I could have cute cleavage. Sometimes I tie myself in knots with my feelings about women.

16. Do you experience dysphoria? -- I used to, very strongly. It hasn't been very aggressive lately.

17. Bottom, top, or verse? -- *shrugs* I guess I'd be a switch or "verse" because I'm down for whatever.

18. Are you femme, butch, or neither? -- I swing wildly between wishing to present Extremely Butch in a lumberjack style, which is impractical in the Southwest, or wishing to present Extremely Femme but being unable to do so, and tying myself in knots over the inability. (I can't wear femmey shoes due to my stupid feet, I can't have pierced ears as they get infected and the one pair of nice lightweight handcrafted earrings I paid $50 for is gone with the rest of my shit, I'm too lorge to find any nice dresses or be able to like try on prom dresses and stuff, I have a tendency to break jewelry as I'm extremely rough on my possessions... etc.) In practice my gender presentation is Fat Slob. :P

19. Do you bind? -- Not technically, but I do wear cheap sports bras which tend to flatten rather than lift or shape.

20. Do you shave? -- Only by necessity. I shave my face when I remember, because my beard looks extremely douchey and rather like pubes. Occasionally I shave my cleavage if I'm trying to present femmey. I pretty much never shave anything else unless the hair is getting Smelly.

21. If you could date anyone you wanted, who would it be? -- Um. Good question. The thing is, I am fairly strongly romance-repulsed, but I do want and enjoy queerplatonic relationships, so I would draw a distinction here between "dating" someone and being "in a relationship" with them.

22. Are you in a relationship? -- Yes, in fact.

23. Describe your partner. -- @camshaft22 . Um. She's very much the Hobbie to my Wes. She's very snarky and dies a lot and I love her very much.

24. Have you ever dated anyone of the same gender? -- Given that we're both genderfluid, I would say I'm in a relationship with someone of the same gender, yes.

25. Dated anyone of another gender? -- I've never dated or been in a relationship with anyone else, so I guess the answer is no.

26. Tell me a random fact about yourself! -- I always use this one, but I once lived in four different states (mostly non-contiguous) within a calendar month.

27. Do you own any pride flags / merch? -- No. I used to have a whole-ass collection that I added to every Pride, and then I lost all my damn shit and haven't had the heart to start looking again. Well, I have a rainbow necklace Kat sent me which is pretty nice. Can't wear it till my damn sunburn heals, though. :P

28. Have you ever been to a pride parade? -- Yes, when I lived in Bisbee. They have quite an excellent Pride which draws people from as far off as Denver.

29. Any advice to someone who isn't out or is exploring themselves? -- Take your time. It's okay if things change. You don't have to solve yourself all at once. It's more important to find people who will accept whoever you turn out to be.

30. Pineapple on pizza? -- I've honestly never tried it. Part of me feels like I should, in order to develop an opinion, and part of me feels like I'm just as happy being outside of that particular debate.