#the hetalia fandom actually haunts me to this day

[sandwich-the-cat]

What are your favorite things/takes about fanfiction? (suggestions for a talkshow!!) Please help

my friend and I are starting a talk show on our college radio station about fanfiction.

we, of course, are lovers of fanfiction and fandom culture, but we’ve been having a hard time coming up with topics because…. we have such different tastes!

I grew up on here and scrolling through ff.net before i discovered ao3, i was a childhood superwholock fan and watched a lot of anime. more recently I am a huge fan of star trek and have been reading a lot of k/s. i never read xReaders or things with celebrities. (no hate of course, i just am drawn to transformative works with fictional characters) (mainly wlw mlm and gen)

my co-host on the other hand grew up reading things like Justin bieber gets ariana grande pregnant xreaders. i think she reads more things with celebrities and either het or lesbian ships.

like she was reading draco/hermione and i was reading drarry in middle school. there’s a link there but it is rife with tension.

honestly it’s like being introduced to a whole new world of fandom! but we kinda have no common experiences. but i feel like this combo gives us the ability to cover a lot of ground.

anyway! if you were to have or listen to a talk show about fanfiction what would you want to talk about? we are working on a syllabus so please comment/repost with your suggestions!!!

[localgardenweed]

Ok I was originally gonna write how I wanna go back to Eddsworld and do stuff for it again but felt out of the loop with the modern fandom and shit but ended up being a rant about how I hate Beyond so like gonna write this again but keeping part of the rant cause i need to share how much i cant stand Beyond again

So like I wanna come back to Eddsworld cause as much as it was a dumpster fire for me it was my first real fandom I was apart of online so it holds a place in my heart. I mean probably technically whatever I did on Framecast was my first ever online fandom space but shhhh that dont count i was but a wondering traveler looking for my place in the world. It actually got me into Eddsworld someone made a animation to Youth by Daughter and had me hooked. But still was very important to me and my art development.

Its so crazy to me cause i was into Eddsworld HARD in the 2016-2020 era where alot of the ig modern fandom was born i watched cities fall and crumble I was deep in the amino trenches, Pork Sodaing and seeing so much historical fandom events happen before your eyes. I was watching everyone consume every piece of Prince of Mints and Moho art I was a sucker for them which probably wasn’t okay for like a 5th grader but i definitely turned out all right /j.

I left for a little bit on and off cause Hetalia was choking me and like keeping me prisoner but like it still had a place in my heart for it but like ya know i still was there but idk now I just dont find the same spark anymore from the first go around. Something changed and maybe cause i just had my tastes change and maybe cause my ex-best friend was making fun of my oc all the time but i made him when i was like 11 and figuring out identities and ways to express yourself without sticking to the gender norms and dealing with alot of stuff at the time i finally caved and just didn’t feel the same any anymore about the show.

Cause I loved that fandom more than anything but, I don’t know I just don’t know how to get back that spark and go frolic in the fields with my TomTordOc love triangle of my 5th grader dreams and just be cringe and free and feel joy again but I just cant enjoy the material anymore like THEY ARE MASSACRING MY BOYS WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO THEMM

It doesn’t hit the same and i know i dont need to consume Beyond i doubt anyone actually does at this point but i cant stand beside while they murder everything i loved about the Classic and Legacy eras.

Also just, I think I hit a road block with it too like, I got stuck on where to do and what to do with Eddsworld like. I make aus i made ocs i made a ask blog i made animatics, now what? And like idk i felt weird and like stuck in the mud with them. Also just had the friend falling out who was also the co-creator of the ask blog so now i dont know how to pick it back up all by myself again but them again i really was just doing it by myself all the time anyway so i just have to figure out how to get back into the swing of things

I have some ideas for aus and maybe just finally be free and bring my oc back from the grave for realsies and make you all consume it but, I don’t know. Im scared to come back cause also weirdly alot of the new fans are younger than me or the older fans are older than me so its kinda awkward, also im just awkward im scared to talk to people online, there is and were some people i desperately wanted to be friends with both in and out of Eddsworld but im too scared and either just watch from afar or abuse the Anonymous function in ask boxes. 

If i cave enough i might come back to Eddsworld to at least finish my lore for the ask blog cause IM SORRY I LEFT YALL HANGING I HAD SCHOOL AND THEN JUST FORGOT ABOUT IT but forever haunted by the people who like every single post and then i get excited cause i see like 99+ notes waiting for me and i think one of my new posts blew up but no its just the ew boys who screw around likes and reblog and the occasional comment

One day ill return to my rightful birthplace and one day I shall be free and one with nature and draw as much as I want for it and as many ocs i want without someone telling me its cringe or make more for the ask blog or hell start doing animation and animatics again

Ok here is the Beyond rant now if you wanna read it

I feel the difference between Beyond and Legacy is that, Beyond is trying to horriblycopy their older brothers Classic and Legacy and almost dumb it down a bit with more childish humor, and Legacy takes inspiration from Classic: It’s different but a natural difference/evolution. Or the fact a whole new guy was writing it all with a slightly different style so he wrote what he knew idk maybe a bit of a factor idk

Also i cant stand the Tord bait sorry I cant, especially when they used to like get annoyed by the fandom by asking and then just realized he was a cash cow so like now we get Tord merch and the hints and Tori and the skit with the cavemen like OMG TORD- and he got crushed by a rock thanks gang, cause like dude I think as much as we love Tord like maybe this go around respect Larson’s choice to like not use him in the series anymore and take him out but like ig that doesn’t apply to merch so yeah lets do one more go around bring out the red one. Or idk maybe they contacted him and was like “yo dude can we like use him for merch” but i dont think that happened. I think it was just better to leave him absent from the show and be like “yeah no Tord guys, no Tord” and we could have all had our thumbs up and be like “Ok Eddsworld Beyond we are okay with that”. Like I know Red October was for charity but idk it still felt weird to use Tord, like could this really not have just been the main 3 or like bring in some deep cut old characters or side characters did we really need Tord here.

[prince-liest]

fic writer interview!

How many works do you have on AO3?

37, though another one is going up tomorrow because haunted AO3 hours started and I don't want to post it in the middle of the night on a Monday. Also like 4 or 5 more in reserve from zines/bangs. I'm kinda impressed with myself, but also, side-eyeing y'all with fic counts in the 100s. Phenomenal. Effervescent.

What's your total AO3 word count?

257,246

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

In chronological order of first fic on AO3: Percy Jackson, Soul Eater, Steven Universe, My Hero Academia, Dragalia Lost, Avater: the Last Airbender, the Witcher, and Genshin Impact! That's 7 fandoms and I'm not counting Homestuck (I only wrote OC stuff) or D&D (same thing).

I also have works from Axis Powers: Hetalia and Katekyo Hitman Reborn! on Fanfiction dot hell that none of you will ever see. I definitely posted and deleted a Twilight OC fic once.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Dish Duty | ATLA

The Sword of Damocles is Swinging | MHA

The Ancient Art of Jerkbending | ATLA

Dishabille | MHA

Summer Break | MHA

ATLA is a powerful fandom so I'm not surprised both my ATLA fics made top five. Dishabille's popularity continues to pleasantly surprise me. Damocles is only surprising because it isn't first. I am so proud of Summer Break and that entire Shinsou series, I'm glad it made top 5 and is gonna break 1k kudos soon. <3

(Now get Dog-Tired up there, I fucking love that story. q^q)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

To quote Mido: I do, but not consistently. Q^Q I read them all and I really want to reply to them all, but I very frequently simply to not have the energy. I have it posted on my AO3 profile, though, so hopefully it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings... I have recently been trying to at least answer all new incoming comments and not let the backlog increase! (That said, the backlog is over 100.)

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

I don't tend to do angsty endings (I am a hard lover of angst with a happy ending), but I've written some questionable and bittersweet ones. I think arguably the best contendor for angstiest ending is probably Kindred Spirit. I wrote it to low key revenge myself on @thegc4life for insisting that Shinsou gets a hug (he does! technically!) and it certainly ended ominously.

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

As much as I love "Edward Elric gets transported into X universe and proceeds to kick everyone's ass" crossovers, I don't relaly write any. I do enjoy full transplant AUs, though, and the one I recently posted on AO3 is an MHA-at-Hogwards AU called the Birds and the Mares that I wrote for the HP/BNHA Zine!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Deeeeepends on what you mean by 'hate.' :X has gotten two comments (one much politer than the other, haha) complaining about my use of the r-slur in Shinsou's internal narrative in one of the chapters, but one person backpedaled and said they understood the purpose of it while the other (more vehement) one never replied to my explanation. That's all, though!

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yeah. It's never going on my main AO3 (and the one time it did, I orphaned the fic). I have a side account I might post it on once I get over the fact that people who know me also know about the account. It's all 100% PWP of stuff I personally am into, and I have a very specific set of things I'm into, so... idk, feels a little personal! ^^"

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, but I've had people adopt general concepts I used (fabulous!) and steal my RP OCs back in ye olde fantroll days (not at all fabulous! incredibly hurtful, actually). I am vehemently opposed to plagiarism, even of concepts. It feels so gross.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone in the comments mentioned that they are translating Bloodied Hound into Russian and I am SO EXCITED. I desperately want to read it. Of all the languages, it happened to be the only other one I'm decently literate in! I also want to show my grandparents. I really hope the person follows through. <3

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've roleplayed a lot, but I can't see myself ever co-writing a fic. I'm not even sure how it works, to be honest!

What’s your all time favourite ship?

Urgh. Pass. I can't pick one. Perils of a multishipper.

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

I was going to proudly say "I never post things I don't plan on finishing!" but in reality that is a lie, because Falling Down A Rabbit Hole exists from back in 2015 and is in fact the reason I made that rule for myself. ^^" Honestly, what's there still holds up, but the reality is that I didn't actually come up with a plot, so there's nowhere for it to go.

What are your writing strengths?

Interesting/relatable/funny dialogue, and also writing feelings in a 'show, don't tell!' kind of way that leaves strong impressions with people!

What are your writing weaknesses?

Plotting out long stories with good pacing! People thought Damocles had a plot, apparently? Joke's on you, it was a series of "I wanna see this happen" scenarios that I made Hawks suffer through and subsequently strung together like a haphazard multicolor plastic bead necklace that I told everyone was actually pearls.

That's why all my stories after Damocles are either short or split into a series. Shinsou's Bad Days is my attempt at proper pacing, hence it being so episodic.

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

I'll do it if I know the language well enough (so, Russian and ASL, I don't trust my casual Japanese), but I'm generally a stickler for making things come off naturally, so I otherwise will instead try to find the closest tonal equivalent in English (such as having Childe call Zhongli "professor" instead of "xiansheng"). Sometimes there just isn't one (like Kazuha calling Beidou 'big sis' but in a way that doesn't sound kiddish and overly casual for him), though, which sucks. :( Language is cool!

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

T. Twilight. QUQ I wish that fic still existed, it was like a single chapter of two multicolored hair OCs befriending Alice Cullen and being cool. I deleted it but I SHOULDN'T HAVE. IT WAS HISTORY.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

This totally changes with each new slew of fics I post. I think currently it is Dog-Tired because despite being unsatisfied with the title, I think the story itself turned out amazing. I also am extremely happy with the entire Shinsou's Bad Days series (including upcoming installments).

Tagged by: @touchmycoat (THANK U LOVE <3)

Tagging: anyone who's read this far, LOL. seriously, though, I have a lot of writer moots and I don't have the time to tag them all but PLEASE do this and tag me so I can read it if you are so inclined! <3

[malfiora]

Ship Ranker

I'm ranking my fleet of ships! The list will span fandoms, so bear with me and wave from the piers (or jump aboard 😏) while I organize my fangirl ravings into some semblance of order. Ranked from greatest to least, with honorable mentions.

Note: I use the words "pairing" and "ship" to differentiate two things. A "pairing" is a couple of characters with some canonical relationship (could be anything). A "ship" is a romantically or sexually involved couple that does not have to be canon.

The Fleet

Galleons (OTPs)

Yes, I know there's technically only supposed to be one ship that's your One True Pairing, but I've got several and choosing between them is like choosing my favorite child. (My list, my rules.)

1. Tendershipping or Stockholmshipping (Bakura Ryou/Yami Bakura, Yu-Gi-Oh)

This ship is divine. It really has it all -- gothic themes, horror elements, toxicity with the capacity for romance -- and has captivated me for as long as I've been a Yu-Gi-Oh fan. It's probably what influenced some of my more interesting predilections (coughcough number 13 cough).

2. USUK, Special Relationship, or Joker (America/Britain, Hetalia)

I mean, it's basically canon.

But pissing off antis aside, it's great seeing this relationship develop and witnessing them being really intimate (meaning knowing each other well, not the other thing) in the show/comics, so how could I not? Plus, as an American I'm all too familiar with the Special Relationship.

3. Spamano or SpeRo (Spain/Romano, Hetalia)

Ditto, number 2. Except this one might actually be canon. Seriously, I'm preeeeetty sure Himaruya & Co. have long since discovered the fandom's love for this ship and have peppered it as slight fanservice. (Exhibit A: the April Fool's Day OVA.) My favorite refrain when it comes to this ship is, "Could you really see them with anyone else?"

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Battleships (Top Ships)

Ships I'll fight for.

4. Bronzeshipping (Marik Ishtar/"Yami" Marik, Yu-Gi-Oh)

This ship haunts me. It's dark and lovely and the pairing deserved way more attention in the show. My love for this ship stems from the observation that Yami Marik was created expressly to comfort and protect his lighter half, and despite wanting to excise him later, he still tries to carry out Marik's plan (i.e. kill the Pharaoh) despite no longer having to. Methinks there's some subconscious need drawing them together, and I stan.

5. AmeriPan (America/Japan, Hetalia)

I've recently fallen for this one. It's fun to write, even more fun to read, because of the sliding spectrum from angsty to fluffy. It started with the series pairing them off to demonstrate their friendship, then a realization that they're the paragon of "opposites attract." A large part of my love comes from @heta too, so kudos.

6. Yoreki (Yogi/Gareki, Karneval)

C'mon, just look at them. They're in love, your honor.

On a serious note, the manga goes out of its way to demonstrate the growing bond between these boys to the point of having significant consequences for the plot (in other words, their friendship fucks and then unfucks a lot of stuff). Do I think Tōya will actually ship them? No, but I can dream.

7. Starshipping (Yuki Jaden or Judai/Fudo Yusei, Yu-Gi-Oh)

Speaking of dreaming, I don't even know if this ship is allowed because these characters have never canonically met. Still, within the context of Bonds Beyond Time alone, they make the perfect pair. I'd have watched the entire movie with just the two of them, or better yet, a buddy-cop, scifi, action-adventure, card-game-playing movie where they have to save the world before prom.

On a serious note, their personalities balance each other out perfectly, and as @entamewitchlulu expertly demonstrated in "Hourglass of Stars," they can even exorcise each other's demons.

8. Stein/Spirit (Soul Eater)

No one can convince me that these two didn't have some intimate relationship beyond friendship. At the very least, Stein is attached to Spirit, so much so that he anchors Stein in his bouts of Madness. Plus, they snap back into partnership far too easily for two people who spent any amount of time apart not thinking about each other. All of that with a potential for toxic romance? Sign me the fuck up.

And I can't pretend tastewithouttalent didn't utterly convince me of their own canon.

9. Klance/Leith (Keith/Lance, Voltron: Legendary Defender)

They're in love, your honor.

Once again, a series goes out of its way to explore an intimate relationship between two, like, really compatible characters. So how could I not? (Also Leith is a way better ship name.)

10. Drarry (Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter)

Because I'm basic and love a good rivals/enemies to lovers trope. Plus the fanfic has matured and refined over the years.

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Cruise Liners (Fun Ships)

Ships that I ride for the hell of it.

11. Tokitatsu/Tsukitachi/Hirato/Akari (Karneval)

This is just pure joy. I love the idea of the two of the people Hirato finds most annoying hooking up and dragging him into it. Same goes for Akari. Plus, this foursome is made up of two quality pairings (Tsukitachi/Hirato and Akari/Tokitatsu) as well as fan favorite ship Hirato/Akari. So fun for the whole family.

12. Drinnarry (Draco Malfoy/Ginny Potter/Harry Potter, Harry Potter)

Speaking of poly ships, this new love of mine is inspired by Cursed Child. Because did you really think Ginny was going to let Draco be lonely? Plus, Drarry is always fun.

P. S. I'm very proud of that ship name I just created.

13. Genkaku/Nagi (Deadman Wonderland)

Flashback to when I said I loved toxic ships:

It really has it all -- gothic themes, horror elements, toxicity with the capacity for romance [...]

This one is pretty bad, and I know it, and I adore it. The penchant for violent, possessive "love" in literature and fandom resonates with a deep part of my soul, and Genkaku's obsession with Nagi fits perfectly, like a fishook in an eye.

14. Jay/Dick (Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, Batman)

This was the ship that made me break my incest rule (Incest Rule: Don't Ship It). Technically they're adopted so it isn't incestuous, but it still feels too close. Still, Jason and Dick are, like, really good foils of each other (intentionally so, DC didn't want a second Robin who was just like the first), which leads to fantastic angst, resentment, violence, and humor. Throw some sexual tension on top and you're ready to set sail.

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Tugboats (Necessary Ships)

Ships I need to survive but don't think about often.

15. Destiel (Dean Winchester/Castiel, Supernatural)

Canon? Either way, this pairing has a famously tortuous build up, and I fell for it. My love for it peaked in Season 7, when Dean throws the Connect Four game off the table because he has Had It and wants Cas back to normal. The look on Castiel's face 😩

16. Marie/Azusa (Soul Eater)

Azusa clearly has a thing for Marie, and you can't tell me otherwise. Besides, my Stein/Spirit ship works out a thousand times better if this ship sails.

17. Dick/Kory (Dick Grayson/Kory'andr, Teen Titans)

Ironically, I hated this pairing way back when (even as a Teen Titans cartoon fan) because I wanted Dick and Barbara to get back together. However, DC's live action show Titans showed me the error of my ways. Of course, now I'm stuck hoping they get (back) together in season 3.

18. Scorbus (Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Potter, The Cursed Child)

I saw Cursed Child and just, like, adopted this one. It's kinda like Spamano -- probably not intended by the creator but makes waaaay too much sense to unsee.

19. Cyclops/Rogue (Scott Summers/Rogue, X-Men Evolution)

Old but gold. Probably one of my first ships, and appropriately for one of my favorite shows growing up. (X-Men Ev is easily the best X-Men series, don't @ me.) That field trip episode did it for me, as we see them finally open up to and trust each other. It's also fun to think about Scott chasing good girl Jean while infatuated with bad girl Rogue. We love irony.

20. Nightcrawler/Scarlet Witch (Kurt Wagner/Wanda Maximoff, Wolverine and the X-Men)

This was an okay series with really interesting premises and adaptations, not least of which was Magneto's Genosha, a mutant-only island nation. Kurt and Wanda just hit it off in their episode and I wondered if they could have depended on each other during that rough time. Lo and behold, I found out much later that they have a child in an alternate timeline in the comics, so maybe this ship holds more than ballast.

21. KagSan (Kagome/Sango, InuYasha)

I got it in my head one day and now it won't leave. I don't prefer it to the canon ships, but it's nice to fantasize about.

22. Sookie Stackhouse/Eric Northman (True Blood)

Eric was my favorite vampire (closely followed by Pam), and his fascination in Sookie pressed all the right buttons. Imagine my delight when they finally hooked up, and then my dismay when Sookie subsequently swears off vampires.

23. Violetshipping, formerly known as Puppyshipping (Seto Kaiba/Joey Wheeler)

I hate that I love this ship so much, so bottom of the list it goes. Still, it was the first one for which I wrote fanfic, and this pairing is canonically significant to the themes of the series. And what lit critic can resist that pull?

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Ships in a Bottle (Honorable Mentions)

Ships I admire but don't actively write or read. These are not ranked.

Kim Possible/Shego (Kim Possible)

In other words, When I Should Have Known I Was Bi.

Daryl/Carol (The Walking Dead)

Spawned from their bonding during and after the search for Carol's daughter. They've been close ever since (at least through season 7, which is where I stopped watching).

Amexico (America/Mexico, Hetalia)

Yes, I made up this ship name, too. First off, Mexico deserves to be a country in the show (although they were named in an episode, and I suppose that's progress). Second, this one is weird because it involves my headcanon for Mexico: a passionate woman who won't back down from a challenge and has a love/hate relationship with America. They bicker and pretend to hate each other but need one another for commerce and are sometimes very similar.

Accelerator/Misaka, (A Certain Scientific Railgun/Magical Index)

Call me System of a Down, I love toxicity. This pairing in general has the potential for a good complex relationship that helps them both mature. And should I sprinkle some possessive romance in there on Accelerator's behalf, I'm sure you'll forgive me.

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And that's the fleet! So, are you ready to set sail with me? Or do you wanna see em sink?

[burningdarkfire]

tagged by @saturdaysky​, thank you! always very happy to talk about writing 🤠

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

36 on ao3, with many others left in the past on livejournal or ffnet

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

162k. it’s kind of a shame it doesn’t have the majority of my pre-2011 output as i never ported over my top four or five longest fics. i would’ve loved to see some genuine lifetime totals!

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

9 on ao3 (critrole, nier, hetalia, overwatch, trc, voltron, no. 6, star wars, tiger & bunny). if you expand trc to include anything clamp and throw in code geass then that covers everything i’ve ever published, though homestuck is by far the fandom i have the most WIPs for despite never finishing a single one and deserves a shoutout

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

take my hand / take my whole life too: critrole, 9k, how essek and caleb’s relationship evolves through touch

blue sky, warm sun: critrole, 3.5k, six mornings caleb wakes with essek

dark night, bright stars: critrole, 3k, six nights caleb spends with essek

kitty love: star wars, 1.5k, kylo ren forms a bond with hux’s cat millicent

the walls kept tumbling down: critrole, 2k, caleb spontaneously visits essek after a hard day

commentary and further answers are below the cut!

spots 1-3 on the list are gladly accepted, given that i also think they’re some of my best and most broadly-appealing shadowgast. kitty love gets its spot despite being pure, pointless crack because it’s for a huge fandom, which is fine and fun but i don’t have a lot of personal attachment to it

the walls kept tumbling down is a surprise! it was a self-indulgent “i want a fic exactly like this to fix my mood and instead of digging through the internet for one i’ll just make one up” that i only worked on for a couple of days. i’m glad it clicked for other people!

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i always try to respond to comments, although sometimes a week or two pass by before i can find the energy to sit down and do it

admittedly comments have gone unanswered during months or years when i’m not writing fic and then it feels too awkward to a) go back and respond, and b) respond to any further comments on the fic even if they come in when i’m active. so instead those comments haunt my ao3 inbox forever (oops)

i do appreciate every single one though, and there are some comments that i go back to read if i need a pick-me-up just because they were so nice 😊

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

i’ll link my no. 6 fic forgive me because it still dominates my top fics in terms of hits despite being 387 words long. i wrote it in 2011 in less than half an hour, if i’m remembering correctly, and there are a few clever bits in it that i’m still quite proud of

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

i don’t usually write or read “pure” crossovers but i do like fusion AUs where characters from one work are imported into the setting of another work

but it’s fandom-dependent. critrole has been an outlier in that i can count on one hand the number of AU fics i’ve read and liked enough to remember. some of my favourite canon-adjacent fics veer off wildly, but they’ve still got their roots in the universe

i’ve published 17 critrole fics myself and they’re all canon-adjacent. i’m only now working on my first fusion-type AU 🤷‍♂️

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

i have one distinct memory of receiving criticism on a fic. in hindsight, it was constructive and pretty fair, but i was a young teen and so it still haunts me

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

i do!! and i’m excited about it because it’s fairly new to me!

i write to the characters, and what kind of relationship i think they’d have, but it’s probably true that my interests tend towards certain relationship dynamics

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i’m aware of!

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, actually! this was about about a decade ago so sadly the details have been lost in the haziness of memory and the inaccessibility of ffnet. i tried to dig it up last night but couldn’t find it again 😔

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

i don’t ... think so? my current roommate and i tried co-writing when we were teenagers but none of that got published. it’s possible i’m forgetting something from my livejournal/early tumblr days because i remember doing a lot of ask games and challenges with other writers and fandom friends

now i’m just an introvert who avoids invites to discords because i feel like i simply Do Not Have Time so 🤡 not sure it’s anywhere on the horizon

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

i used to have shipping walls and pairing lists until 2015 or so but i have since accepted that i am changeable like the wind. my interests come and go!

i am a multi-shipper though as a general rule. i’ve never had such a loyalty to a pairing that it would bother me to pair one half with someone else, and i also don’t care at all whether or not a ship is canon. it’s just about what’s interesting!

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

i’ve had remarkably sequential focus for my critrole fics and finished nearly every idea i’ve had so far. however, this ACME AU is testing me lol and i’ve spent so much time on it that my list of other ideas to write is only getting longer and longer. nothing is abandoned yet, because not much else has even been started, but i am starting to sweat a little

15) What are your writing strengths?

i love my writing style! i value simplicity and clarity: no flowery descriptions, easy words, few similes, little variance in sentence structures, etc. it can vary, based on my mood or the characters i’m writing, but i like doing more with less

i’ve spent years working at my own style and it is so satisfying to read something i wrote in 2011 and feel how familiar it still is while being able to pick out what i would change

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

recently, it’s been plot. if it can’t be conveyed by 2-4 characters talking to each other then i don’t know how to do it anymore 😭 i’m most invested in emotional resolutions, but it’s probably a good idea to have things happen sometimes!

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

i really do not enjoy this when it’s used as a “character quirk”. this includes nicknames, common phrases even if they are spoken that way in canon, and .. everything, really, that’s in a different language

i’ve spent a lot of time in spaces where it seemed widely agreed that doing so was not welcome, and i’ve had considerable fandom “culture shock” reading critrole fics. there are plenty of reasons to have caleb speaking “zemnian” or to emphasize his accent, and those reasons don’t need to be lofty or deep, but i do think there should be a reason beyond “haha this guy says ja instead of yeah”

i promise, absolutely pinky swear, that i don’t judge anyone on an individual basis for doing this. it seems to be a deep-seated fandom trend in this case and i just wish it wasn’t

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

tsubasa reservoir chronicle (trc) all the way back in 2010. tsubasa, my beloved, how you changed my life 💕

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

i like different ones for different reasons, but the top contender might be such is the endlessness for nier automata. it’s a vampire/werewolf enemies-to-lovers fusion AU where i put 2b and 9s in an original universe of mine that i wrote about a lot when i was a teenager

i feel like i did a spectacular job of adapting the universe for nier and i thought i conveyed a lot about the world in a relatively short number of words (the entire fic is just under 5k). i’ve considered more than once that i should use this version of the universe going forward because i enjoy it so much!

-

thanks again for the tag, sky, and i’ll leave this open to anyone else who wants to try as i think most of my mutuals have already been included. don’t be shy about tagging me in your answer if you take my open invite as i love reading these! 💖

[kuvvydraws]

I'm not sure if you've answered this question already, but I'm honestly very curious- why do you write fanfiction? I certainly enjoy it as much as you and have written a few things of my own, but I know it can be quite a personal topic for many writers. If it's too personal for you, don't feel any pressure to answer, but it's always interesting to see the writer's perspective outside of the story they've written :). I hope you understand what I'm trying to say-

Hey!

I actually enjoy the words and the rush your brain gets when they join without effort to create a reality.

Now, let me break that down XD

I've always had a book in my hands as far as my memory goes. My dad used to read to me when I was very little and from the second I could do it on my own, that was the best thing ever (yes, that means when I was punished for doing some shit, my books were taken away and I had to sneak them into my schoolbag and read in class like a heathen).

Not only I enjoyed books but I always found myself wanting to partake in the stories, and my brain was always running with the words and the scenes. (I discovered during my teenage years that brains have different ways to process thoughts and mine did it in words, so writing just sort of came naturally to me at that point in my life).

I discovered ffnet when I was 12, I think, but I had tried my hand at original works (that is, about five or six starts of different novels that never saw the light) and some "fanfiction" (about Nightmare Before Christmas because I had a big ass crush on Jack and I unassumingly created my first xReader ever) without knowing what the hell I was doing.

I just knew I wanted to write stuff and I did as much.

The thing is, I introduced one of my friends, who also loved to read and write, to ffnet, and we started writing together. The first thing we wrote was a Sesshomaru x OC fic, the second one was a Sasori x OC fic, and we dipped out toes into some Kuroshitsuji x OC...... all of them handwritten stories we promised we would type in a computer eventually (we didn't, they were horrible [I still have the notebooks we used for each of them and they are cringey as fuck]).

But we wrote for ourselves and we were happy like that.

So we were rampant and wild and having the best time. Back then I still wrote in Spanish (because I hardly knew any English and I didn't care for it), and I remember mixing Spain's Spanish with the ones from South America because obviously the percentage of writers in ffnet who used a different "dialect" Spanish was huge if you compare a single, tiny country with a whole continent.

At the same time I wrote with my friend, I wrote for myself. Naruto, Kuroshitsuji, Bleach, Hetalia.... And I met so many people, nice people, who loved my works (they were random fics, all of them x OC because I didn't know x Reader ones were a thing -they weren't at that time, and x Reader are harder to write in Spanish because all the words and pronouns are gendered one way or another-) and I got so much enjoyment from sharing them.

The thing about books I love the most is the fact that you can convey so many emotions with a few symbols, and you can create worlds out of ink and you can change views and inspire others. So, if none of my dumbass teenage novels were to roam the word, I still could share, in a free, open and fast way, my words with others.

Again, I was going to write them with or without posting them because I found -and still find- great pleasure when a scene creates itself in your brain and all you have to do to make it real is to write it down. (Sometimes my brain still does this and even when I'm daydreaming, my imagination is "written, described and dialogued" as if someone was reading a novel out loud. It makes writing so much easier).

And then I got hate.

I somehow had managed to miss all of the fandom drama that's so toxic in the internet because I didn't bother to interact with anyone in the fandoms beyond the reviews they left in my fics, and ffnet has a -sort of- specific search engine to help you find whatever you want, so I could never willingly find the "problematic stuff" because I was literally not trying to find it.

The hate comment I got was anonymous and very specific about everything that was wrong in a particular fic I had just updated -from plot and characterization to grammar and continuity-, and later on I discovered it came from a couple of authors who shared an account and who I admired greatly for their works. Turns out they were out for blood and hating on every fic that had updated that week and that had any members of their OTP shipped with some other character. (It was a Hetalia fanfic, I was writing SpUK and they were pro FrUk, if anyone is interested).

I was contacted by some other authors asking about this because they had gone through the very same thing -same specific hate, same hate comment- and I remember not giving a fuck.

I was 16 when I got the hate, writing for fun and trying to find a way to go through my shitty highschool days without falling into the black out of depression that haunted me. I remember not wanting to write anything anymore, leaving a fic I was very invested in writing to gather dust and rot in the forgotten folders of my computer because every time I tried to get on with it and progress, it felt wrong.

That thing I said about words just happening? It stopped. My brain was silent as a grave and trying to get my words out became painful. I remember struggling to even write regular project for my school.

I kept reading, of course -it was my only comfort and I really, really didn't want to give up on it-, but I abandoned the fandoms I enjoyed so much before. My new focus became the sci-fi, and I remember being hooked on Predator. Imagine my joy when I discovered there were thousands of works from that fandom! I was extasic.

Problem? They were written in English.

I didn't know shit about English besides being a language I was supposed to handle in school, memorize the unreasonably spelt words that were pronounced illogically regarding the fucking spelling and the stupid ass irregular verbs.

But I learnt English because I wanted a hot piece of alien ass XD

Back to the topic of fanfics, I still roamed ffnet, keeping 15 tabs open and reading until 5 am... But now there was a world of possiblities in front of me because of course everyone on this goddamn Earth writes in English.

So, for the next years I did that, and my words didn't come. It was fine, tho, because I had so many new things to read.

It wasn't until fall of 2018 that I dabbed into the idea of maybe considering to perhaps give writing a try again????? I was neck deep into Undertale -still am, I'm a shameless skeleton fucker and there's no cure for that shit- and its many AU's and somehow I had managed to avoid fandom wars again, so my brain started toying with words... The same way it worked with novels: I got myself into the fics other people wrote (this is so much easier to do with x Reader fics, and I'm so happy about that and the massive boom they had just when Undertale came out, you can't even understand it).

So I kept doing my shit and daydreaming about skeletons and ribs and ecto-stuff for a very long time. It was kinda reassuring and nice to see other writers projecting on their x Readers so much because that's what I had done before.

And then Good Omens happened.

As I've said before, I actually discovered Gomens back in 2012 and it is, to the date, the worst translation to Spanish I've seen in my entire life to this date. And, despite it, I fell in love with it.

Now, barely in 2019, my dad gets Amazon Prime and the first thing he fucking sees is the font of Gomens on the screen. I had fangirled hard about Gomens in book version, so much and so annoyingly that I wouldn't leave my dad alone until he gave it a chance. It's the only book my father hasn't finished because the translation is that bad. He hates it.

Yet.

The particular font they use for the show is the same from the book's title. My dad of course recognized it immediately and knew I would want in on the news.

I confess I watched Gomens the show at least seven times before giving it a break because I liked it so much and the novel was so fucking good and it's honest to God the best adaptation I've ever seen to the screen. It's so good I'm fucking sure I was crying actual tears after watching it for the first time because my dreams and all the feelings that book had given me over the years and the many re-reads were "true" and so well done and it reached deep into my heart.

And then, for the first time in six years, my words came back.

Another thing Good Omens has given me, I have to say.

I don't know if I can stress this enough, but just imagine spending six years of radio silence, sending longing stares to the void and hoping to see something yours returning back, something you've lost and you're not sure you're getting back, something you think you don't need or want but that would be nice to have again. If only. You can live without that something, and no one but you cares about it, and it's not that big of a deal and-

Then you see a spark in the dark.

My words came back.

They weren't in Spanish, and it was hard to manage them at first, only being able to listen to them in short bursts over long periods of time.

But they were my words and they were back.

Writing is still hard, and I have a lot of work to do to improve my skills, to get them not only back but to refine them because I'm not writing in my native language and all I know is what I've learnt from other authors and their knowledge. I project a lot on my projects -I don't intend to stop because it's such a relief, the biggest scape from reality I get by doing so; it helps me deal with my problems, it gives me a break and a way to take a breath when I can't keep going...

Fanfics are where I can say what I want to say to the world in the most honest way, and that allows me to be me, and to express myself and indulge in the fantasies I dream about without having to force myself to think of them over and over and over. I can just sit back and enjoy content I know I like without being judged for it.

I can fucking make that content, too.

Writing feels like home, even if sometimes I still struggle, if I can't find my words or the expression is not quite like that in English, or if I can't find the words or if I'm suffering a block... because there's nothing scarier and more free than a blank page ready to be written.

[yonaih]

writer interview tag

cotagged by @sheepish-uwu​!! thank u <3

Name: younai !

Fandoms: basically r6s 24/7 nowadays, used to write a lot for hetalia, dbh, marvel, supernatural. we dont talk about those days lmaooo i was baaad at writign and am still workign on it

Where You Post: ao3 and tumblr!

Most Popular One-Shot: probably one of my abandoned fics? iirc it was forfeit, which i will not link because those were some strange times but if u dig a little in my writing tag youll find it. it’s even easier if you check my ao3 (aiiegro but the i’s are capitalized)

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: forfeit. i only have two, forfeit and en route (pls check this one out!)

Favourite Story You Wrote: probably one of my angstier connor x reader ones? but im really fond of my doclion works

Story You Were Nervous To Post: any r6s one because it’s not a huge fanbase and it’s ships, so i dont think a lot of people see my work

How You Choose Your Titles: it depends, i use a lot of song lyrics or different wording for symbolism, if it makes sense. 

Complete: idk what this is asking but ive never ever finished a series....im forever haunted by this fact. a shit ton of one-shots are done tho!!

Incomplete: my en route series (yayyy), one more doclion one-shot, more headcanons. not as long a list as usual, but im busy :(

Do You Outline: one-shots i often write in a few sessions because im mostly fueled by my own emotions. en route actually has a complete outline but a few events may be drastically different from what i’ve planned. a bit of a tangent but im hoping this outline motivates me to actually finish it lol. other than that particular series, i had a sort-of outline for forfeit.

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: more writing for more ops!!!!!!!! yay!! mostly headcanons and such, but a lot of my inspiration for writing other operators is my actual in-game time with them, which is why i pretty much only write doclion stuff lol. also maybe an r6s oc??? maybe,,, i will write about her

Do You Accept Prompts: yesss i need other ideas or i’ll die. but i am incredibly short on time so idk. it’s ok bc no one normalyl sends me any so i get away w one request every six montsh or so lol

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited About: forever excited about en route. im sorry but im just so invested in writing this story for some reasn

Tagging : @armitagehuxdontpullout @combat-medic-amity and anyone else!! idk many people here, apologies ;;

[gnostic-heretic]

Ophelia

FANDOM: Hetalia

PAIRING: Romania/Belarus

WORD COUNT: 1113

[human (?) au, horror-ish.]

It is dangerous to venture into the forest, his mother had said, because dangerous things lurk among the old, white bones of the birch trees.

They hide behind the butcher’s-broom bushes, their red eyes glistening like berries, or maybe, you might see a faint shadow in the thick fog… and the fog, Andrei thought, was really thick; a haunting presence hovering above the crumpled leaves at his feet. And the cold, the all-reaching cold that soaked through his clothes and skin. Even so, he was not afraid in the slightest: the forest echoed with the cries of crows and magpies, and right next to him the familiar song of whirling water came up from the stream that crossed his hometown, and the lands around it.

Only out there in the wilderness Andrei truly ever felt home. Among the farmers and townspeople, he stuck out like a sore thumb, with his red eyes and strange disposition.

There was in his heart, his mind, his very soul a sense of void to fill: a desire for something more, something beyond his comprehension— something beyond anyone’s comprehension, and to fill that void, he spent his days doing the only things that his heart desired.

First came learning, learning all that he could.

As a child, he spent his days sneaking into the town priest’s library and stealing his books (just to then sneak back and return them, of course). Andrei read quickly, almost greedily; he memorized every word, every illustration, every note.

But learning was nothing without observing, and he knew as much.

Sensing the world around him, every color and shape and sound— smell, taste, and most importantly, to trust his guts, and follow that same inclination that predisposed him and his sensibility towards certain places, and topics, and stories.

Such as the dangerous things that lurked there, those that can only be perceived in a foggy fall afternoon.

Andrei had come so far that the tree trunks were now showing off their roots, twisted into knots and claws, and the sound of the river had faded into a quiet dripping of stagnant water.

This was a new place, somewhere he had never reached before, he noted with a smile.

He took his sketchbook and ink and quill pen from his bag, sat quietly on one of the roots, and he began drawing the forest that stretched around him— or, well, all he could see with that fog.

The pond was an interesting sight.

The golden birch leaves floated above the water, moving in circles with what little flow the stream had over there. All around them, the reeds flourished and danced: yet not a single breath of wind crossed the forest.

In a blind spot, and Andrei had to squint to even notice that, a pale lily floated in the water; and then another, and one more… a trail of spring flowers in the middle of November, now that was an odd sight.

A trail worth following, if Andrei could trust his gut. With a pen in his right hand, he followed them one by one, leading him further into the fog, and to more flowers still: pink carnations, yellow daffodils. Red roses in the hands of a maiden. Spring violets floating and crowning a head of silver hair…

All of a sudden, his pen fell from his grasp.

This cannot be.

He walked closer to her, wondering if his eyes weren’t betraying him: but sure enough, there was a woman floating in the water.

Her wet hair covered most of her face, save for her eerie blue lips.

Blue were the veins on her hands, a ghastly pallor made her skin seem like glass.

Andrei wondered how long she had been there.

The flowers looked still fresh, so it couldn’t have been to long.

He wondered if she was still alive; cautious, wary, he cuffed his pants up, kicked away his shoes  and walked into the cold water. He pressed a hand against her cold neck.

No pulse was there.

Andrei wondered how she had come to die in this place. It was far enough from any and every inhabited village that he knew; her clothes suggested that, if she hadn’t been noble, she had been in her life at least wealthy.

There was no sign of fighting whatsoever, not a single wound or bruise marked her body.

And what about the flowers? Was this a case of suicide?

The idea sent a shiver down Andrei’s neck.

He picked a white lily, one of the many floating around her, and placed it in her hands. Her skin felt cold and damp and her bones cracked.

Andrei wondered if he should recite a prayer, in a moment like this, but he was at loss of words.

Any prayer he had ever learned took just a moment and a gaze to fade into obscurity.

He caressed a lock of her hair and uncovered her eyes, just to find her eyelids already closed, deep purple circles surrounding her pale eyelashes.

“Goodnight,” was all he could think of. “Goodnight, sweet Ophelia.”

Shaken and scared and sickly fascinated, he prepared to go back home to be scolded by his mother.

As soon as he turned, he heard the sharp and deep voice of a woman.

“Actually, my name is Natalia,” she said.

Natalia, that was her name, was now standing up straight and looking straight into his eyes.

Ah, he noted, her eyes are of a deep, dark blue. There was a shadow of melancholy that clouded her gaze, however, and it was impossible not to notice.

He walked back towards her, hesitantly, scared that she would disappear if he tried to get too close once again.

“Are you a ghost, Natalia?”

“Are you stupid, Vladimir?”

He didn’t know who Vladimir was, or why she had decided to call him that way; but he liked the sound of it, and he felt like this could, somehow, make the two of them feel closer. A new baptism from a new Holy Ghost.

“I am stupid, indeed. You caught me! Can I ask you what you are here for, Natalia? I am only a fool: but what is a fair lady like you doing, in a place like this?”

“I like you and your red eyes, Vladimir.”

She placed a red rose behind his ear. The thorns stung, but Andrei, no, Vladimir did not care: the cold touch of her fingertip and the warmth of his own blood collided.

“Come back tomorrow,” she said, “and I’ll tell you more, about anything you have ever wanted to know.”

She smiled, Natalia, she smiled for him and bared her blood-stained fangs.

[chasingbutterfliesintoeternity]

Waiting upon the Grace of the Heavens

I’m actually really happy with this one, thought finding a title was a struggle. Written for PrUK Week Day 5: Sacred

Fandom: Hetalia Pairing: PrUK (EnglandXfem!Prussia) Word count: 940

Summary: Gods rarely appeared before mortals, but Arthur is lucky enough to have been visited by a goddess three times during his life

The goddess appeared to him three times.

The first time was right after Arthur’s first battle. He had been a young knight, eager to prove himself, earning himself a place on the battlefield. War wasn’t what he’d expected, the reality was harsh and cruel, but still he survived and believed in the glory of victory. She appeared before him amidst the carnage of the battlefield, unmoved by the scene around her. Enrobed in black darker than night, hair as white as bone, eyes and lips the colour of the blood he’d spilled that day.

‘Giselle the inexorable,’ Arthur knelt as he addressed her, there was mistaking who she was. ‘My lady.’

Giselle the inexorable. Giselle, goddess of war and death. Gods rarely appeared before mortals, and who knew what one as powerful and feared as Giselle might want from him. The legends say that she was once a princess, held hostage in her enemies’ court. They slaughtered her family anyway, and she fell into grief and rage. In her grief, her hair turned white, but in her rage, she annihilated the occupants of their palace. Not a single soul was spared from the massacre, and when it was over, she ended her life upon her own blade. The gods, impressed by this feat, took pity on her suffering and raised her into their ranks, so that she could unleash her grievances upon mankind forevermore. But legends were just legends, and Arthur could see no way that the goddess before him had ever been mortal.

‘You recognise me, good.’ Her voice was cold and clear, indifferent, with just a hint of approval that sent shivers down Arthur’s spine. ‘Rise, brave one. From now on, you will be my champion.’

Champion. That word filled Arthur with pride, re-enervated him from the weariness of battle. He felt a change in his bones and knew that he’d been decreed to enact the will of the goddess. He wanted to say he accepted, to pledge his life to her, but by the time Arthur found his way back onto his feet she had already vanished.

In his next battles, he felt the presence of the goddess, expectant, urging him to fight harder, to push himself to the limit. Even in times of peace, he could see her beautiful, impassive face in his mind’s eye. Her statues don’t do her any justice, and they are hidden in derelict temples or in shadowy corners of pantheons, for while war and death are respected and feared by all, they are loved by none. Arthur visited them anyway, cleaning her altars and leaving her offerings regardless of war or peace, he was her chosen champion after all.

She appeared again after his greatest victory; the conquest of a neighbouring land. As his King’s most decorated knight, this newest acquisition would be his to rule.

‘Lady Giselle,’ he knelt as he saw her.

The goddess of war and death was just as breathtakingly, blood-chillingly beautiful as she had been the first time Arthur had seen her, but this time she seemed less frightening.

‘Well done, my champion.’ She told him, with the ghost of a smile upon her lips. ‘You may rise. Thank you for maintaining my shrines, it has been appreciated. You will continue to fight with my blessing.’

He wished that she would say more, so that he could remain longer in her sacred presence, to tell her he’d pledged his life to her, but once again Giselle was gone before he could speak a word.

Arthur ordered a great temple to be built in her honour as soon as his rule was stabilised, and personally oversaw that it was properly maintained. He continued to fight wars for the High King and felt her presence as he fought. Her blessing, as she had said. He longed to see her again, the almost-smile she’d given him haunted his dreams. In between battles he spent much of his time at her temple. He was the most devoted of her worshippers, and his devotion was not unrewarded. With every battle her presence felt stronger and sometimes he felt her guide his aim or whisper praise or warning across his mind. But hope as he might, pray as he might, she would not appear in person. Be patient, she seemed to tell him whenever he entered her temple, and Arthur held onto his hope that he would see her again, for that sounded almost like a promise. As long as he served her, she would not abandon him.

The last time, she appeared as he lay mortally wounded on a battlefield. Pain numbing all other sensations, his vision already fading, Arthur felt the shift in the air that heralded her physical presence, rather than seeing her.

‘Giselle...’ he managed to rasp out, he couldn’t move, couldn’t make any display of his respect and devotion towards her.

A cold hand caressed his cheek, and Arthur felt himself being supported upwards. The pain subsided, his vision cleared, and he looked up to face the goddess.

‘My bravest champion,’ she said to him with a pleased smile, her hand still cupped around his face. ‘It is time for you to join me forever in death.’

The legends tell of a new god; Arthur the harbinger, consort of Giselle the inexorable. The god of courage in battle and a judge of honour. They say, that when a strange, handsome man with golden hair and green eyes appears, a terrifyingly beautiful woman with white hair and red eyes will soon follow, then war and death will find the land and all those judged unworthy shall perish.

Notes: Look, I’ve called fem!Prussia a war goddess many times by this point, that it’s only fair that I actually made her one in a story

[my-lazy-genius]

FraPan, “All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t know if it’s love, or if it’s obsession, or fear, but I’m ready to find out” for the fic thing

Send me a request!

Title: Rabbit HeartFandom: Hetalia :: FraPanRequested by: AnonymousPrompt: “All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t know if it’s love, or if it’s obsession, or fear, but I’m ready to find out” from putthepromptsonpaperA/N: This is really late too. Sorry about that.

Coffee and papers fly as two strangers collide on their hurried paths, unaware of the fate that binds them in that moment.

“I’m so sorry,” starts one accented voice, but the other is already speaking.

He brushes dark hair from his face and gathers up his papers quickly. “I wasn’t watching where I was going either. Sorry about your coffee.”

Bright blue meets deep brown as papers are handed back to their rightful owners.

(And they never meet again, is how most things like their story ends.)

–

Kiku Honda keeps thinking about a nameless blond man with shining blue eyes. He keeps thinking about the way they reflect himself back at him, like glass.

Francis Bonnefoy keeps thinking of a nameless black haired man with eyes that pierced clean through him. He keeps thinking about the way they haunt him when he closes his eyes, bearing into his soul and withdrawing every tiny secret he hides there.

A man who fears love and a man who craves it in even the most painful forms, whose lives collide and unknowingly intertwine. A novel setting in a small world.

–

Their hands meet, reaching for the same book.

“Oh,” says Kiku, “sorry. You can- Oh.”

Their eyes alight with recognition.

“Hello, again,” Francis smiles, “were you going to get this?”

“Oh,” Kiku says again, eloquently, “no. I work here. I was just going to move it to its proper shelf. You can take it.”

Francis smiles that even smile. Kiku still cannot read him. It’s frustrating; he’s usually better than this.

“Thank you,” the blond says, prompting, and with a start, Kiku realizes he doesn’t have his name tag on.

“Honda,” he tells him, “Kiku Honda.”

“Mr. Honda,” he murmurs, thoughtfully, as though the words taste like sweets on his tongue.

–

(Dear Kiku Honda, the first letter reads, when Kiku finds it in the book return pile.

Fate is an odd and benevolent thing. I wonder if it intended for us to meet?)

–

“Are you going- Oh,” Francis blinks, pauses, and then starts again, “Mr. Honda.”

Kiku goes still, statue-like, lips slightly parted and eyes fixed on the blond.

“Francis,” the blond introduces himself, “Francis Bonnefoy. Apologies; I never did introduce myself, did I?”

“No,” Kiku cracks an almost smile, “not until now.”

Francis holds the cafe door open. “Third time’s the charm, I suppose.”

(Fate comes in fits and bursts, rearing its head when you least expect it.)

–

Kiku Honda is the man who fears love. He is afraid to trust, afraid to give someone his everything, and then be cut loose, as if there had been nothing to begin with. And maybe, he thinks, there hadn’t been. Perhaps he’ll only imagine it, and they’ll take pity until they find someone better.

So, yes, Kiku fears the idea of love. He’s rabbit hearted, fickle at best, and never firmly rooted in a meaningful relationship.

Francis Bonnefoy is the man who craves love. In any form he can find it, he springs, desperately. Relationships, friendships, friends with benefits, purely sexual relationships - he’s been through them all. They lose their touch, after a while, he concedes. He is afraid that he will never be loved as strongly as he loves. Most of the time, he thinks it’s something about him that drives others away, but he smiles and carries on, nonetheless.

So, yes, Francis craves the idea of love. He is unrelenting in his beliefs, but lately something in him sways, hesitating, wondering what am I doing?

(They both gave up on love until they met each other; they just weren’t aware of it yet.)

–

Francis visits the library more. Sometimes, he comes to read. Sometimes, he comes to sit and draw designs. Sometimes, Kiku Honda peers over his shoulder, smiles, greets him, and carries on with his job.

Francis watches him, sometimes, when Kiku’s back is turned. Inexplicably, they’re drawn into each other’s orbits.

“Kiku,” says the dark haired man, one day, “you can just call me Kiku. Mr. Honda seems… too formal.”

Francis tips his head. “Are we friends?” He asks.

Kiku isn’t sure. He doesn’t answer right away; Francis doesn’t push it. He merely smiles that even smile and asks if Kiku is going to get coffee later.

“It’s a date,” Francis says, then clears his throat, thinks better of his words, and says, “I’ll see you later, then.”

–

[KHonda is online. 3:14am.]

(3:15 AM) KHonda: Francis? Your profile says you’re still online.

(3:16 AM) Charmant_Charmant: I am.

(3:16 AM) KHonda: It’s unhealthy to be up this late, you know. You should take care of yourself.

(3:17 AM) Charmant_Charmant: You’re one to talk. Aren’t you always up this late?

(3:21 AM) KHonda: I suppose you’re right. It’s hypocritical of me. Apologies.

(3:22 AM) Charmant_Charmant: You’re still so formal. It’s been what, almost a year that we’ve known each other? You don’t have to apologize over trivial things, Kiku.

(3:24 AM) KHonda: Sorry.

(3:24 AM) KHonda: Oops.

(3:25 AM) Charmant_Charmant: I was thinking about that, actually. You’re on my mind a lot, lately. It’s almost been a year, but I still don’t know what we are.

(3:28 AM) Charmant_Charmant: Are we friends, Kiku? I would assume, normally, but you’re different somehow. I know you distinguish friendships from acquaintances or people you just talk to, in any case - like with Ludwig and Feliciano. They’re your friends. But people like Alfred are just people you talk to. You’ve never made it clear with me.

(KHonda is typing…)

[KHonda is offline. 3:36 AM.]

(3:36 AM) Charmant_Charmant: Good night, Kiku.

–

“I couldn’t think of the right words to explain it,” Kiku tells him, days later, when he chases him down on the street and stands, breathing hard, lips parts and face flushed. “You’re my friend. Of course, you’re my friend. But you’re not; you’re more important than that to me. I care about you, Francis, and that terrifies me.”

Francis is still, holding his gaze. They’re the only two on the sidewalk, despite the crowds parting around them.

–

Francis doesn’t know who figures it out first. All he knows is that the moment he realizes, he knows this was different, more distinctive. This is not the feeling he’d been chasing for a good part of his life, the high he’d ridden in empty promises and short relationships. This is something solid and sure, something he can stand on without trembling and face a hurricane and scream back.

([KHonda is online. 11:58 AM.]

[Charmant_Charmant is online. 11:59 AM.]

(12:00 PM) Charmant_Charmant: Meet me at the cafe.

(12:01 PM) KHonda: I’m on my way.)

And he runs.

–

“All I know,” Francis tells him, when he and Kiku crash and grapple for each other, grabbing forearms and shoulders, breathless and wide eyed and bright, “is that I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t know if it’s love, or if it’s obsession, or fear, but I’m ready to find out.”

“Okay,” Kiku breathes, “okay.”

–

(Dear Kiku, read the note.

The idea that you can’t love someone unless you love yourself first is a lie. I never loved myself as I should have, but you - god, you, I loved so much that I forgot what hating myself felt like.)

–

In years to come, Kiku Honda will achieve his dream of becoming an author and Francis Bonnefoy will become a world famous designer. They’ll each live out their lives in a comfortable home, with pets and the love of their lives.

(It’s just that life works in ways that drives them apart and brings them together. Kiku will write a book about that - it will be his bestseller, a story about two boys who find each other, against all odds. The world, he’ll say, is a small place. He’ll tell the interviewers that destiny has a plan for everyone, and then he’ll share a knowing little smile with his husband, who sits disguised nearby, with a fond smile on his lips.

And Kiku will go back to talking about his book, with no one any the wiser.)

[fy-soukoku]

I really like the Bsd fandom right now. Everyone seems nice with each other and the fanart and Amvs of it are amazing. And I feel like with ships there aren't as many wars in it like with other shows but I don't really like how soukuko gets more attention then the actual show at times

Okay, so I’ve been in some really shitty fandoms. The best (and first) fandom I was in was the PJO fandom. And then the Hetalia fandom. (A living nightmare, it haunts me to this day.) And then Attack On Titan. And then I got into Sports anime (*cough*haikyuu*cough*yoi*cough*free*cough*) and then Voltron. (Obviously others, but they’re not too significant) And man, I love that show, but the fandom sucks. It is literally the worst fandom right now. You can’t have a single moment without someone screaming “KL@NCE” and immediately making ten metas about it. Honestly, I got into VLD just for the ships. (Which are all really good, btw) 

So I see where you’re coming from. But I think the irritating part to me is how Chuuya’s entire character arc seems to be centered around Dazai so far. Like, you can’t have Chuuya for two seconds without Dazai being mentioned. Or we have a whole OVA about Kunikida and we just focus on the Soukoku hints :( Overall, I do really love Soukoku. But it’s when it starts to overshadow the other characters that it becomes a problem.

[wanderingthroughwickford]

Thank you! My responses are super long (especially for M asdflkasdfjkasdf) so most of them will be under a cut.

A – How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?

Since no fic was specified, I think I’ll just go back through some of the ones I’ve got up on FFN. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, to be honest. ‘Eternity’ is so named because Myrtle is stuck at Hogwarts, in her teenage form and mindset, for, well, eternity. ‘And Then There Was One’ (a probably discontinued Hunger Games/Nancy Drew crossover) is also fairly obvious; it’s the Hunger Games so it’s inevitably going to come down to one person, and I also couldn’t resist shoehorning in a completely unnecessary reference to And Then There Were None since it’s also based off a mystery series. ‘Unstained’ refers to Wiress’ promise in the game to not ‘stain’ herself by committing murder in the games, and if I ever write its sequels they’ll follow the ‘Un’ formula – I’ve always intended the final fic in the prospective trilogy to be called ‘Unchained,’ but we’ll see if I ever get there.

I think the one that actually gave me the most trouble coming up with a title was ‘Goodbye,’ a Pirates of the Caribbean one-shot I wrote way back in 2009. I couldn’t seem to come up with a clever enough title for the fic, until I asked my mom for help and she suggested simply ‘Goodbye.’ I decided that in this case, less was more, and so the title stuck.

C – What character do you identify with most?

The ones that I’ve written for, I guess this means? I suppose I’ll have to go with Myrtle and Wiress. Although they definitely both have more tragic lives than I do, I still put a lot of myself into them – I outright headcanon Wiress as having Asperger’s Syndrome and being uninterested in romance, so I find her quite easy to write in that way, and a lot of her moralistic, somewhat self-righteous attitude at the beginning of Unstained (which she’ll eventually grow out of, fortunately) draws a lot from how I now see myself as having acted as a young teenager. Her somewhat morbid obsession with past Hunger Games and their victims has roots in my own (sometimes borderline depressing) fascination with shipwrecks such as the Titanic and Lusitania. 

Myrtle I headcanon with some sort of unspecified mental illness, or at least deep insecurities and oversensitivity, and having trouble making and keeping friends. Her friendship with Murcia draws on some of the tentative friendships I had with girls in older grades, and – though this didn’t come through in the story for various reasons that would take a whole other ask to explain, and which I’m not entirely satisfied with but anyway – I definitely see Myrtle as having had a complicated crush on her, but never fully recognizing or accepting it for what it was because she wasn’t raised in a time or a society where girls loving other girls was normalized. Which, again, big part of my teenage years. Plus, the social awkwardness, introversion, and anxiety that both girls have is something I definitely relate to in general.

F – Care to share a favourite hurt/comfort fic?

Oh boy, that’s a tall order as there are so many, but the two that jump to mind immediately are Intersection by yadon/Copernicus Jones/Jake-Marshall and Pity the Child by Tanglepelt/Bookworm555. Intersection holds a very special place in my heart as it was written by my friend Leanne, featuring one of her favorite Ace Attorney characters, Jake Marshall, interacting with my OC Denise Swallow. Pity the Child was written by my friend Becca and involves two more of my faves – America and Latvia from Hetalia – having heartwarming interactions. Both are very good fics.

M – Got any premises on the back burner that you’d like to share?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha

Well

It’d be easier to list fics I’ve actually completed than fics that are in various stages of planning

But if you insist

(This is the super LONG part and gets a little emotional towards the end) 

The fic that I’d most like to complete within the foreseeable future is ‘Unstained,’ my story about Wiress’ Hunger Games. I’d say it’s about half-finished now, and I haven’t updated it in almost 4 years. That might change in the future; I’d like to get at least a few more chapters done this summer, but I don’t think it’s humanly possible to get it finished before I leave for Ontario, and then I’ll be so busy for a solid year that I doubt I’ll be able to write anything. And that’s not even counting the two prospective sequels I’d like to write. But even finishing this fic would be a major life accomplishment for me, as it’s one of those that I’m proudest of.

Then I have at least three fics about my Ace Attorney OC, Denise Swallow, which I’d like to write, though they’ll probably all be one-shots. Two of them are partially written, one isn’t even started yet. One of them would be a brief overview of the few times she met Dahlia Hawthorne, the infamous culprit who ended up murdering her brother. Another one, the longest and weightiest of the three, would involve her meeting Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, who channels the spirit of her brother so that she can properly say good-bye. The last one would involve her meeting up with Dahlia’s sister, Iris, and coming to some sort of closure there.

A lot of my fic-writing is taking a backseat to a much more personal fic-universe-of-sorts that I’m working on, involving practically all of my favorite fandoms thrown together into an incredibly complicated storyline. It’s completely self-indulgent and not something I’d really want to share a lot about here, but one of the major plotlines I’m constructing in it would involve a villain-to-anti-hero redemption arc for Lucy Bauer from Agents of Shield. I’ll admit that I have toyed, very briefly, with the idea of converting this into proper FanFiction if and when I ever complete it, but that’s honestly very unlikely because 1) I’d have to remove it from its crossover context, 2) I’d have to insert it into either AoS season 5 canon, which hasn’t even been filmed yet, or an alternate version of season 5, and 3) it seems completely implausible within the story’s canon. Plus, there’s the inevitable ‘no one would read it’ problem. 

In the past couple months I’ve considered writing an And Then There Were None Hunger Games AU, as well as a brief oneshot about Soldier Island being haunted by the ghosts of the ATTWN victims, but I’m very unlikely to do anything with those. There’s still my Nancy Drew Hunger Games AU left unfinished, but if I get back to that, it’ll be entirely as a way to blow off steam, rather than to try and write anything especially good. Just today I was attacked by the idea of writing a Lord of the Rings fic about Aragorn returning Boromir’s arm braces to Faramir and telling him how his brother died, but again, just a passing fancy that I’m very unlikely to write.

And that’s just the tip of it. There are so many FanFiction ideas I’ve considered writing and abandoned. The 8 fics I have up on FFN are the few lucky ideas that actually came to fruition, even though a good deal of them are unfinished as well. I’m honestly amazed that I was even able to finish ‘Eternity,’ or get as far as I have on ‘Unstained.’ I have an X-Men Evolution fic up that was originally supposed to be a multichap of 10-15 chapters, and it hasn’t been updated since 2011. When I was in high school I planned out a whole series of Pirates of the Caribbean fics chronicling James Norrington’s life, from childhood until his death, but I only ever got the first chapter of one written and never posted it. (Partially because I sort of balked at the HUGE amount of research I’d planned to do on 18th-century naval life for that fic). I’d like to go back to this one idea I had for a Hetalia fic, a series of one-shots about times in which the characters have wished they were humans rather than nations, but again, research would be necessary and it’s so draining.

That’s the problem. I love thinking up ideas and planning stories and having them finished, but at the end of the day, the act of writing itself is such a chore for me. And I hate that. I wish I could write effortlessly, like I used to as a kid, but I haven’t been able to do so since I was 12 or so. Which, coincidentally, is the time my depression started to majorly set in. I don’t know if the two are connected, but I can’t help but wonder if mental illness robbed me of a pastime that I dearly loved, and of countless fics I could have written by now.

(I know this is long and cheesy and overemotional, but cut me some slack, it’s almost 1 am) 

O – How do you begin a story – with the plot, or the characters?

You know, this is strange, because when I first saw this question I thought, of course I start with the plot, who would just say “I want to write a story about [character]” without even having any idea of what the plot would be yet? And then I realized that that’s exactly what I do – start with a character I want to write about and come up with a plot based off that. In fact, most of my stories aren’t even plot-driven much as just general looks into the lives of certain characters.

Y – A character you want to protect

Hah, it seems like the characters I want to protect and the characters I end up putting through torture are exactly the same. The two that jump to mind right away are – my sun and my stars and everything, the one and only APH Latvia, and my precious ghostly daughter, Myrtle Warren (Moaning Myrtle). And yet I endlessly read fics in which the former, and wrote a fic in which the latter, suffers. Whoops.

[acetechne]

I'm confused on how many ocs are there. Can I join this? Is there a St John's?

ok [cracks knuckles but unsuccessfully and just does an awkward hand stretch instead] here’s a crash course in What Is This Thing I Do

SHORT ANSWER: there are some ocs but while i basically know everyone in our lil group i dont take an official census of how many or who’s active etc. Re: joining, sure why not? and no there is not yet a St Johns and we’re kind of lacking in the east coast in general I’m afraid. We’re a loose unofficial conglomeration of people who met through a common hetalia project or two and so some of us make ocs - there’s kind of an unspoken rule that if an oc for a place already exists and the person is still active its polite to not do duplicates, but its not a hard/fast rule. It’s no fun to play favourites and start drama you know?

LONG ANSWER which is probably gonna get long so I’ll explain below the cut.

ONCE UPON A TIME i dunno if you guys all would remember this but ONCE UPON A TIME in 2008-9 the (English) Hetalia fandom was young and we were all really excited about this Thing that was pretty limited as far as I’m aware to Livejournal, which is how I found 

The I Am Matthewian Project (2009-2011 ish?)

you may have seen us around youtube or deviantart- basically its a hetalia fan project about Canada and his 13 provinces and territories (created by ctcsherry) and we did voice acting and stuff- I was the VA for Yukon and the most recent VA for Alberta and I did a lot of art for the project that i can no longer look at without cringing because HAHA what is anatomy. The project is currently on hiatus indefinitely and a lot of us have drifted our separate ways so I try to keep tabs on everyone where I can but I’m also Kinda Shy and don’t like prying or tracking people down all the time. Would I change some things about how the project was done or some of the dumb kid things I said or did or whatever? Yes. Do I regret the fun times, the art improvement, and the friends I made? Not on yer life bud.

Anyway the cities started as a roleplay thing and it’s kind of surprising since I’m really not a good roleplayer and I really don’t enjoy rping that my ocs, out of all of them that were made on those old boards, survived the longest. They’re nearly ten years old, man! But yeah, as far as I’m aware Ed and Cal are the only surviving OCs I created back in those early days- you can still see some of the old designs floating around dA but they were never really fleshed out and more just created as a little roleplay game between us that wasn’t really meant to go anywhere (although a couple of us, myself included, did sneak OCs into finished IAMP episodes).

Project Canada (2013-?)

So apparently people actually enjoyed and missed our lil videos so the project got rebooted. New admins, new fans, a couple of veterans from IAMP, that sort of thing. Same province and territory characters, new direction. Or… lack of direction idk xD; I loved being an admin for the project but we never really got off the ground because I think we rushed a little too fast and I ended up leaving my post for a variety of reasons. I’m making a go of it on my own now which is why I don’t speak for everyone who posts in the projectcanada cities tag (but lets be honest 90% of that tag is Me haha, I’m the annoyance that made the tag necessary in the first place)

The projectcanada cities tag is generally people who are or were members of this little group- we’re by no means an exclusive club and not all ocs were created /out/ of the project, I’m sure some people like me saw the opportunity to bring back some old ocs and revitalize them with a new audience and new people to brainstorm with- these might have been roleplay ocs or ocs doodled for fun or ocs that came together out of the fear that - like in the IAMP - we’d create ocs for the fun of it off stereotypes rather than putting a huge whack of thought into it, haha. (I admit though, for our own storytelling purposes quatsch and i got together to make a halifax oc thats not necessarily ‘canonical’ in the sense that we’re two angry albertans who haven’t ever been that far east, so if anyone would like to breathe some life into the design we’re happy to collaborate etc etc)

So yeah we’re not exclusive but we’re not organized either, which is why I’m hesitant to speak for everyone. I’m generally the most active so people generally come to me with questions and I can point them in the right direction, but I don’t really have any intention of making anything ~official~ looking of who’s around and who’s not because that would be a whole other boatload of work that I don’t wanna do and also I’m personally ok with interacting with whoever (so long as you don’t expect me to seriously roleplay because thats Not what I do and I’m no fun). And I mean if you’re interested in the project itself as far as I know there’s still room for more members, but idk when if ever anything is going to happen at this point.

My Personal Feels

Honestly since my ocs transcend both iamp and pc and are probably going to outlast both of them at this rate, it’s kind of weird that i haven’t gone back to tagging them as ‘aph’ rather than pc but eh i like my little spin-off-of-a-spin-off nook in the hetalia fandom. But yeah I’m not going to police the tag, aside from saying things could get Messy with duplicates both using the pc tag. So for example say you got a winnipeg oc that’s not affiliated with our lil group- thats a-ok! cool, if I like them enough i’d be willing to use them in my own stuff if i dont have a pc character for it if you’re ok with it and dont mind them interacting with this “universe”. I’d still probably tag your oc as ‘aph winnipeg’ or something if you dont have a specific tag for them. There’s not really an ‘expiry date’ on ocs or how long their creators have been away, but after about 5 years and a project reboot i tend to feel pretty Weird about using ocs when their ‘parents’ arent around to supervise, you know? but again that’s a personal hang up of mine. Another personal hang up of mine is I really am mostly interested in ocs created by people living in that place or really into researching it or who have good inside jokes because that’s the reason I really love this fandom, but hell it’s not a requirement (sweeps my multitude of alberta ocs under the rug because I haven’t been to most of them lol)

so yeah thats the long and the short of it, feel free to ask any more questions and I’ll do my best to answer. I don’t mean to brag when I say I’m probably the person to ask about these things, I just mean I’m nosy and I haunt this little corner like a plague so I’m more or less in touch with everyone in it. :) haha

[burningdarkfire]

i’m currently reading the man in the high castle (y’know, literature, as befits someone who did an entire english lit degree) -> i’m reading the man in the high castle because a castle of silence and bones (a hetalia fanfic, i don’t think it’s good anymore but it was exactly the kind of angsty i liked as a teen) was one of the two fanfics i printed out in its entirety when i was like 15/16 and obsessed with it -> the other one was strider’s edge (a homestuck fanfic, which might actually still be kind of good, although i haven’t read it again recently) -> i am once again thinking about how many of my fave recent published SFF books are written by homestuck fanfic authors -> i am reading the man in the high castle because of fanfiction in the first place, and you bet that i will one day read brideshead revisited because of strider’s edge, so i am once again just thinking about how ten years ago i certainly didn’t read those fics expecting them to haunt me for life but apparently they will, we are all made of stories and even stories are made of stories, etc.

anyway. it made me realize i never read long fics anymore but i guess at least i still read books. and just drizzle all that in a layer of nostalgia for my teenage fandom days ✌️😔

[my-lazy-genius]

Yesterdays

Fandom: Hetalia

Characters: APH Greece (Heracles Karpusi), APH Turkey (Sadik Adnan), APH Egypt (Gupta Muhammad Hassan; minor), APH Japan (Kiku Honda; minor), mentions of: Ancient Greece, APH Italy, APH Romano.

Pairing: TurGre [Turkey x Greece]

Summary: In which Heracles contemplates the yesterdays of their history and revelations are made.

Author’s Note: A continuation of The World We Lost series, part three!

Heracles hears about the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Something in him mourns.

--

He sees Sadik again at a world meeting.

(Heracles has to pause to wonder if this is what it’s like to see a ghost; this is not the Sadik he remembers, proud and strong, with that ever present mask. This Sadik hangs low, shoulders curled forward as though Atlas has dropped the world on them. His eyes, a haunting green in the flickering lighting of the conference room, look sunken and dead.

This is not the Ottoman Empire that Heracles once knew.)

Sadik does not speak and Heracles does not say anything when they brush by each other in the corridor, but he lingers in the back of Heracles’ mind for the rest of the day.

(He sees him again at the end of the day, when they’re all going their separate ways.

“You’re alive,” he says, in passing, but does not dare look Sadik in the eye.

The fallen empire’s laugh is laced with bitterness. “Not alive. Surviving. Merely existing.”)

--

When Heracles arrives home, Egypt is in the kitchen, perched on the counter with some grapes in hand. He’s the only one Heracles really stayed close to after gaining independence - everyone else went their separate ways. Greece isn’t surprised to see him - he merely tips his head and dodges Gupta’s swinging feet to reach by and dig through the refrigerator for something to drink.

“Was this your first time seeing him?” Egypt asks, golden eyes fixed on Heracles.

He can feel the other nation’s gaze burning into his skull. “Yeah,” he says, but doesn’t look up, “it was.”

Egypt merely blinks slowly, tips his head, and pops another grape into his mouth.

“You should go see him.”

Heracles stops, halfway to the exit of the kitchen. “Yeah,” he sighs, softly, “maybe I should.”

But he and Egypt both know he won’t.

--

Greece isn’t sure what possesses him to pass notes at the next meeting. Turkey is two seats down from him and he scribbles messily on a scrap of paper and slips it casually around the Italian brothers, who take no notice. On Sadik’s other side, Egypt doesn’t miss the slip of paper, locking eyes with Heracles, but only momentarily.

By then, Heracles has already completed his task and relaxes back in his seat again. He knows, instinctively, when Sadik reads it - the sound of it being opened is loud to him, even if nobody else pays it any attention.

Heracles doesn’t get a response.

(“You should just go visit him,” Japan tells him later, when Heracles falls into step with the Eastern nation.

Gupta is with Turkey, so his other friend had been out of the question.

“Maybe I should,” Greece says again, and he’s not sure if he means it or not anymore.)

--

Heracles doesn’t bring up the subject again for a couple of years. They go by in a blink - a split second in which he questions his place in the grand scheme of things. There was a song, he recalls, that his mother used to sing, but Greece can’t remember the words anymore. His mind is too swamped with papers and money and problems upon problems. He just wants to sleep.

For the first time in a while, Heracles goes to church.

He’s done a lot of bad and can’t really think of the last time he repented for it. Most of the time, he questions just how religious he really is. His country is, sure, but Heracles can’t help but wonder about his own personal beliefs.

He doesn’t recognize any of the people inside. By now, he supposes, all of the old members have probably died. These are their children, or their children’s children, perhaps. Greece isn’t completely sure how much time has passed. In the end, he sits silently in the back and contemplates his life as he half listens to the sermon.

The pastor approaches him later, when he’s standing still, watching the life move on around him.

“You’re new,” the man says, preparing to hand Heracles pamphlets.

“No,” Greece replies, “I’ve been here for a long time.”

The next time, he makes a point of switching churches.

--

At the next world meeting, Greece writes another note. He asks, what’s death like?

Turkey grabs him by the wrist after the meeting ends and looks him dead in the eye. “It’s pure nothingness. You’re nothing but a speck in this entire universe.”

Heracles turns the words over and over in his mind for a long time.

--

“He talks about you, you know,” Egypt tells him, tucking up in the corner of the worn couch.

Heracles is shuffling through his movies when the African country speaks, but he doesn’t pause or give any sign that he’s heard. Gupta knows he’s listening. Greece is just taking his time, gathering his thoughts. He’s seen every last one of these films at least twice - he’s bored of them now. He and Egypt both know that they’ll just end up scrolling aimlessly through the television before something is put on for the sake of background noise.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Greece doesn’t immediately respond. He doesn’t need to; he’s frowning and he can feel Egypt’s gaze burning into his back again. Heracles can’t say he’s any different - he knows he talks about Turkey more than he should; thinks about him and their history more than he should. Heracles puts the movies away and picks up the remote, turning to the couch, but avoiding Gupta’s eyes. Egypt, just like that, sits up straight abruptly, abandoning his previously relaxed posture. Heracles is just trying to lock away the conclusion when Egypt voices it.

“Oh my god,” says Gupta, wide eyed, staring Heracles down, “you’re in love.”

--

Greece isn’t sure how he finds himself at Turkey’s door.

The house is the same as he remembers, but more foreboding. There are so many memories in this place, good and bad. There’s a sort of haze over them all. Heracles can’t ever forget them, but they’ve all amassed in a spot in his distant memory, never quite at the forefront until now. Now, they all push forward and he’s suddenly overwhelmed, considers turning back. But his fingers are already reaching above the door, where he knows Turkey still keeps his spare key, and unlocking the door.

Sadik will be expecting him, he knows. He probably knew the moment Heracles crossed into his borders.

Memories flood Greece immediately. He hears laughing, sees faded shapes of young nations racing down the hall, down the long, endless corridor. He remembers all the games and the fights, remembers the few silent times in the dead of night, remembers the way he wandered these halls as a child, freshly woken from nightmares about his mother. He remembers the library in the dead of night, moonlight filtering through the curtains, providing just enough light for Greece to flip aimlessly through Turkey’s many books. Nowadays, he’s not sure if he ever actually read a single one.

Most vividly, he recalls the day he left, walking down this hall one final time.

Heracles retraces his steps, silently, remembering himself from the days he wanted his freedom from this empire. He draws himself up straight, steps forward in the hall. He doesn’t have Mount Athos with him today, but he imagines the cross in his hand. He knows where Sadik will be.

Heracles does not step on the board.

Sadik is at his desk. He looks exhausted, shoulders weighed down and dark bags beneath his eyes. His mask is off for once, and his dull green eyes are brooding, fixed on some point in the distance, focused on something that Heracles can’t see. Turkey doesn’t move when Heracles steps in, but Greece knows the man is aware of his presence. He takes his time, tracing a nook in the floor that Mount Athos had left, recalling the last time they’d been in this room together. It always seems to begin and end here.

“Sometimes, Sadik,” Greece whispers, and finally, Turkey’s eyes slowly slide to him, “memories are the worst form of torture.”

Sadik snorts, trying to draw himself up. He is still recovering; his country is strong, but he is not. Heracles knows he is thinking about the memories this house will eternally hold.

“Using my own words against me? Never thought I’d see the day.”

Heracles is exhausted. They’ve been playing this game for too long. He sinks down, sits on the floor and leans against the wall, allowing his shoulders to drop. This isn’t the Ottoman Empire anymore. It’s just Turkey. It’s just Sadik. Turkey hardly hesitates; he drags himself up out of his seat and crosses the room, sinking down beside Greece. Greece closes his eyes and drops his head against Turkey’s shoulder, feeling the weight of the other man’s head against his just a moment later. It’s been a long time, he thinks. Just in general; it’s been a long time.

“I’m sorry,” Sadik sighs, softly, voice rough with exhaustion.

“Me too,” says Heracles, reaching out to take Sadik’s hand.