#they were a very fun ship to write for

[pynkhues]

Was just re-reading some of your absolutely insanely good fics. You are seriously so talented it's honestly a shame you weren't on the NBC payroll when the show was on. I wish we would've gotten the depth you brought to Beth and Rio in your work on the show.

With the utmost understanding that you owe us nothing and have an entire life outside of the internet and fictional TV shows - any news on See You in the Light?

Again, I am not coming from any place besides being in awe of your talent and selfishly wanting more, so please do not interpret my question as attempting to pressure you at all.

Thank you!!!!

Ah! Oh my gosh, thank you so much, anon. I wrote so many fics for Good Girls, and they (understandably, haha) don't tend to get that much attention anymore beyond a few kudos here and there, so this was just a really, really lovely ask to get. Thank you for taking the time to send it. 💖

All my GG WIPs are on hiatus though unfortunately. I might still come back to them - I do occasionally still dabble in a few of them, particularly the pirate au - but it's been a while since inspiration hit. But yes! Maybe one day.

Thank you again.

[gcballet]

Just saw someone complaining about the Newhart ending from 0611 being mockery of people who ship Nandermo and frankly I can only imagine that account is someone who's under 20 bc that is not what mockery/rejection of queer ship fans looks like. You were in preschool when BBC's Merlin came out, you don't know. S6 and finale spoilers below.

The point of the Newhart parody ending was to provide an ending for fans who just wanted WWDITS to stay a goofy status quo sitcom. It's answering the black and white footage of the vampires in the 1950s. The sitcom status quo is a famously really hard trope to work with. The Simpsons is literally still struggling with it - decades of skilled comedy writers have never defeated it. It's a commentary on being satisified by the media we consume. The vampire can never fully be satisfied, no matter how many lives she consumes. The status quo can never be broken no matter how many episodes it attempts.

The 1980s trope of 'it was all a dream' happens in The Bob Newhart Show, it happens in St. Elsewhere, it happens in Dallas. They aren't mocking a queer ship, they're mocking sitcoms and how they've been hamstrung by format in terms of the story they can tell. Assume they did pursue Nandermo unambiguously, onscreen. It would be legitimately too dark for a sitcom. Or conversely, too hopeful for a documentary.

The other generic format choice restricting them is the documentary, because everything the characters do in the show is them being watched by a group of strangers with film equipment. None of their behaviour is wholly real. The entirety of the finale is Guillermo realising his behaviour will change when the crew leave. His behaviour has been influenced by the presence of cameras, and it will happen again. For the first time in six years, he's going to experience actual privacy, and there will be scope for him to express things he has deliberately suppressed with the cameras on. In the first episodes of S5, we saw him get increasingly frustrated with the crew, calling them vultures, as they tried to get the story on what happened with Derek. He's ready for his privacy back, and space to change, but the vampires live by sitcom rules. They aren't prepared to change, or at least, he isn't confident about it.

What We Do In The Shadows (2019-2024) is restricted by two specific genres and their conventions, and the first two 'endings' - the dream sequence and the switching off the cameras - represent exiting both of those genres before any significant radical moves can be implied for Nandermo.

It's a sitcom, therefore the central couple must be in perpetual will-they-won't-they (Friends), the gays must be physically chaste (Modern Family), and the status quo must be maintained (The Simpsons). Once the sitcom is ended via the Newhart ending (which positions Guillermo and Nandor as a married couple, that's not a small thing at all), the documentary tropes can close out.

Documentary tropes are a little harder to pin down, but generally the story should end with Guillermo truly moving on and leaving in a poignant and somewhat tragic way.

Guillermo's narrative thread throughout the documentary version of the show is about his identity and relationship with Nandor. He gives the cameras a big show of finally saying goodbye to Nandor, going on to be a new version of himself, and waits until the crew begin to derig before acknowledging again that a documentary is performative, and he intends to continue their relationship. The documentary format means intimate moments must be captured. When the documentary ends, the intimacy may be private. That's why we don't get a Nandermo kiss. It's allowed to be private now.

Guillermo is sad throughout the finale, yes, but I would argue he's actually mostly stressed, because on one level he understands that the show must commit to one of two trope endings. The sitcom, the repeating lives of the vampires where nothing matters and you can be hypnotised to believe there was nothing deep about it. Or the documentary, where he is forced to tragically leave forever, having learnt a valuable 16 year lesson, perhaps meeting again for a 'where are they now?' Twenty years later.

He thinks he has to choose in under an hour, between the endless sitcom cycle the vampires find natural, or walking away with the humans who made the documentary to capture something ephemeral and temporary.

They do both, and then Nandor and Guillermo get what is clearly the ultimate ending. It's not formatted in such a way that you choose between endings. They're not alternate endings, they're subsequent endings. It doesn't have multiple endings like Clue, it has multiple endings like The Return of the King.

And maybe Guillermo and Nandor don't kiss on the mouth and declare their love for one another, but the camera crew is still leaving the room. What they do do is agree to stay together and work together on something to make themselves and/or the world better. Then Nandor invites Guillermo to share his pseudo-bed and disappear into a private space he has created in secret for the two of them. Even phrased matter of factly that's romantic. Someone flippantly called it 'the gays getting sent to super hell' and wow way to deliberately miss the point. Nandor never follows through on big projects, but he built a miles deep tunnel under the earth so he and Guillermo could at last be alone away from a huge documentary crew and roommates with super hearing. That's beautiful. They don't owe you an onscreen kiss to prove they're in love. They (Nandermo and the show producers) don't even owe you representation, and if you think otherwise, you've not bought into the premise of the show. You are the voyeur watching the documentary, the fan watching the Ross and Rachel (Nandor and Guillermo have been compared to them by the cast).

The whole point of the endings is that they moved Nandermo outside the unreality of TV genres. Not a sitcom will-they-wont-they, not a tragedy within a documentary, just two weird guys in a coffin in a hole in the ground, doing whatever they want because nobody is watching and judging.

They didn't make Nandermo canon, they made Nandermo real.

[lulu-draws-stuff]

Snowball fight

@curi0uscreature I was your secret santa ! I hope you like it :]

I didn't originally plan on doing a comic, but when I saw your prompts I had the clearest vision of this and just had to draw it

[a-most-beloved-fool]

For the writing prompts;

19. For luck - Rom and Leeta

"And then," Bashir was saying - though in truth, Rom was paying only half attention, far too busy thinking about Leeta - "she came right up to me, and kissed me on the lips!"

"Oh, she did, did she?" Chief O'Brien said, scoffing good-naturedly.

"It's true!" Bashir insisted, though he didn't look insulted by the Chief's doubt. He was smiling into his glass, seeming quite delighted by the disbelieving frown on O'Brien's face.

Rom didn't quite understand what was supposed to be so 'unbelievable' about the story. In fact - "It seems pretty believable to me," he said. "Doctor Bashir's always kissing beautiful women." (Including, at one point, Leeta - though not anymore, Rom thought with some pleasure.)

"Yes, but this one was out of his league," the Chief said, batting his hand playfully across the table.

Bashir just smiled bashfully, ignoring the swipe. "Ah, well. You're right about that. She wasn't really interested in me after all. Turns out, she'd just misconstrued the human concept of a 'good luck kiss'".

"Ohh! A 'good luck kiss'!" Rom said eagerly. Then, after a pause, "Uh, what's a 'good luck kiss'?"

The Chief sat back, idly crossing his arms. "Well, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's a kiss that you give someone to wish them luck."

"Oh," Rom said, considering that. Luck was always a good thing to have. Perhaps... "Oh! Leeta!" He stood, sending his chair clattering backwards. "I'll be back!" he shouted, then raced from Quark's bar, ignoring his brother's parting shout out dismay.

He needed to find Leeta.

--

"Leeta! Waaaait!" Rom hollered, shuffling through the crowded promenade as quickly as he could manage, chasing after her familiar voice. "Leeta! I need to give you something!"

This would be easier, he thought, if Bajorans could hear as well as Ferengi could.

But, at last, Leeta stopped, turning to find him. "Rom? Rom, what's the matt-"

The rest of her sentence trailed off into a hum as Rom reached up, pulling her down to plant a kiss square on her lips. One of her hands cupped Rom's cheek, soft. Rom didn't really know how long a 'good luck kiss' was supposed to last for - he really should have gotten more details before running off (for example, does it need tongue? Bashir never specified.) - but he thought that this should satisfy it.

He pulled away, grinning toothily up at his wife. "Hi, Leeta," he said.

She smiled down at him, cheeks flushed and lovely as always. "Hi, Rom. What was that for?" she asked, looking bemused and delighted.

"It's a kiss," Rom said, perhaps unnecessarily. "For luck," he added. "It's a hoo-man tradition!"

"For luck? Rom," she asked, laughing, "what are you wishing me luck for?"

Rom blinked. "Uhhh... For your day?"

Leeta beamed at him, and then leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Well, I think it worked. I do feel pretty lucky now."

Rom grinned. "Me, too."

--

(also if anyone else wants to make a request, the ask game is here. i can't promise they'll get done as quick or be as long as this one is, though!)

[mstormcloud]

I think applying tropes commonly found in Sonadow fics to other sonic ships is very funny

Like today I saw the cute posts by Blu-ish about how hedgehogs circle and headbutt eachother when courting and how Sonic and Shadow would do that and I agree.

However I think the implication that mobian hedgehogs do this is HILARIOUS when applied to ships that only involve one hedgehog.

Like Silver starts circling around Espio one day and lightly shoving him with his hip or his shoulder and Espio is like: ???? What are you doing??

Or even Blazamy like- Amy keeps circling Blaze and the less Blaze reciprocates Amy does it more to try to get Blaze to react. Blaze eventually just tries to politely tell Amy to stop cause it’s hard to hold conversation while she’s moving all around.

But later Blaze talks to Silver and is like: “I have no idea what she is trying to do…perhaps she is finding a weakness in my stance? Should I fear her hunting me for sport???”

And Silver is like: uh. Well. I think she’s hitting on you? It’s a hedgehog thing.

And Blaze just freaks out because WHAT DO YOU MEAN AMY WAS FLIRTING WITH HER

[shinysteph]

Is this a safe space to say I liked the bnha epilogue and didn't see anything wrong with it? 🧍🏻‍♂️it was just a fun little bonus chapter I honestly don't know why people are upset about it

Anyway I love Shouto and I hope he enjoys his bowl and chopstick making classes

[memento-morri-writes]

ship in a bottle

Excuse the shitty 3am first draft, but I wrote another fucked-up nightmare for Rook... (continued under the cut. tw for death/drowning/corpses)

The water is rising even faster now, and within seconds the deck is awash with sea water.  It reaches his ankles, then his knees. He clings desperately to the broken wheel, but it will not save him. Nothing will save him. As the water reaches his neck he sucks in a breath. The water closes over his head. As it continues to rise, he begins to swim, searching for whatever is trapping him. A few strong strokes, and his outstretched hand meets something smooth. Glass.  He swims forwards, following the curve of the glass, searching for a way out. It slopes downwards, and he dives, following it into a narrow tunnel. At the end is a cork. There’s an indentation in it, as if something heavy has slammed against it. He pushes against it with all his might. His shoulder fits perfectly into the groove, but it will not budge. Exhausted he pauses, floating in the water. He should have needed to breathe by now. Should have drowned by now. But he hasn’t. The thought gives him hope. There must be a way out. Another thought crosses his mind. The rain alone was not enough to fill the bottle at this speed. There must be another opening. With renewed desperation, he swims back down the neck of the bottle and dives deeper, towards the bottom.  A dark shadow passes through the corner of his vision. He looks and sees the Tide Breaker sinking, having finally succumbed to the waves. As it falls past him, fading from his vision, he swims after it.

After several minutes of swimming, he begins to see shapes below him, coming closer. Dark silhouettes rise out of the murky water. As he grows closer, a sinking feeling sets into his stomach. The shapes are not natural rocks or stony ruins. They are wrecks, so densely packed that he can’t see the sand beneath them. Hundreds upon hundreds of ships lie at the bottom of the bottle, stretching as far as he can see in every direction.   No. Not hundreds of ships. One ship. Piled up on the ocean floor are countless copies of the Tide Breaker, in various states of disrepair. Some remain almost completely intact, while others have been ripped apart by the waves. Some are covered in seaweed, swaying gently in the waves. Others look recent, hulls clean and firm. For the first time since the water closed over his head, Rook’s lungs begin to strain. His heart is pounding in his chest. He kicks harder, swimming not upwards, but downwards, closer to the wrecks. Something white catches his attention, and he swims towards it. At first it looks like some kind of large shell, balanced on the broken wheel of one of the wrecks. But as he gets closer, its grisly shape reveals itself. A skull, bleached white and picked clean of flesh, is perched jauntily on the helm. Its naked grin seems to be taunting him. More white catches his eyes and he sees bones scattered across the deck.  Movement draws his attention from a nearby wreck, and he glances over. His vision is going dark at the edges from lack of air, and it takes him several seconds to process what he’s seeing. Tangled in the rigging of a nearby wreck is a corpse. His corpse. It twists slowly in the current, spinning around to face him. The eyes are gone and the flesh on his face has begun to fall off. Bite marks are visible where some deep-sea creature has been feeding from him. A scream is building in his throat, his lungs are sending shooting warnings through his body. He needs air. Against his will, his mouth opens, and water rushes in, salty and cold. As his vision fades, the last thing he sees is his own rotting corpse, drifting in the water. It seems to be laughing at him.

[fashion-foxy]

I want the managers of Mattel and MGA doll drops and the descendants writers to lower my coffin into the ground so they can all let me down one more time

[13eyond13]

actually stunned by how gay The Beatles has been all this time and I just never knew

[silverselfshippingchaos]

I miss S.hepard. The third game always makes my heart hurt lmao

[shannonsketches]

Terrible news gang after the passing of Toriyama sensei my DBZ brainrot is back

[alchemiclee]

been looking in tags for a few days now to see if anyone else found the whole high cloud quintet and related story to be a bit.....poorly written, nonsensical, contradictory, full of plot holes and loose ends, etc. apparently i'm not the only one. (and i'm not even talking about shipping stuff, because any time I saw someone mad about bad writing, someone always replies to be homophobic and laugh about failed ships. weirdos.) it could have been so good but was thrown into the garbage for the most part (IF you noticed all the plot holes and contradiction. if not, then it's a fine enough story tbh. I expect most people to see it on surface level and not read all the little hidden lore bits and try to piece it together like my autistic brain did. which is ok! enjoy it if you liked it and ignore me 😆)

[heatmiiiiser]

Ggrrr I wish disenchantment was better. I binged it all because I'm sick somebody talk to me about this.

[mister13eyond]

OC talk but man it's so funny to me how my opinion of Vin has shifted from "he's a shut in" to "actually he's like a stray cat that is only partially acclimated to living indoors and will bolt for freedom as soon as possible but will inevitably come back when he gets hungry"

and I can't help but think that's because he lives with Asphodel now so he's like "ah, home is safe. home is good. home will be there when I'm done romping through dreams and other worlds and chasing whims and visiting the other demons. I can roam as far as I like because I know there's somewhere to come back TO"

which makes me so fuckin soft about these two, who were both designed as fundamentally lonely characters. both conceived of with their own backstories and reasons for isolation written in, both always designed to be exiles from "home"

and that's still part of them now but they found each other! And the more their world expands and the more they get introduced to new characters the less lonely they get and aaahhhhhh

[narugen]

updated with ch4... i think after i upload this fic and finish my hsmn angst im gonna stop writing for a while (or indefinitely) because wow... haha

[radioisntdead]

Accidentally stumbled onto the dark side of Tumblr again, DEAR GRACE SOME FOLKS NEED INTENSE THERAPY, or need to stop doing drugs, maybe both, my eyes, my poor, poor eyes, I need a holy water and bleach combo

Also I should watch gravity falls again