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leviackermanscleaningbuddy · 11 months ago

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SKZ DRABBLE-Lee Minho

No one says 'no' to a God. That's what you've always been taught. But maybe, no one's just ever really had the chance. or A retelling of Poseidon and Amphitrite, if it were a little bit more modern and a lot more geared toward those of us who are total sluts for enemies to lovers. This one's for you, babe.

Tags: Skz, Stray Kids, Stay, Lee Minho, Minho, SKZ au, skz as greek gods series, lee know, minho x you, minho x reader, greek mythology, modern greek au, skz fluff, skz smut, skz angst, skz fic, skz fanfic, skz x you, skz x reader, femreader, y/n, enemies to lovers, greek gods, Poseidon

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Light Smut

Warnings: Exhibitionism, Spit as Lube, Virginal Sex

Soundtrack:

🌊 Euclid by Sleep Token �� Bad Habits by Nerv

Title: Wave After Wave

"Oh my gods, he's literally the hottest man I've ever seen."

You glance up from gathering wood for the celebratory bonfire at your sister's uttered words, and follow her gaze to the man reclined by the roaring fire next to your father.

You can't quite make out his features from here-they're made wavy and indistinct by the heat of the flames-but you know he's handsome, incredibly so.

Why wouldn't he be? He's one of the fucking Big Three after all.

You say as much, scoffing under your breath with a slight smile in your besotted sister's direction.

"He's one of the major Gods, Thetis. Of course he's going to be incredibly good looking. They've been made to appeal to every single one of the five senses." You hit her ass with one of the sticks you carry, and she gives you a little glare with a pout of her lips. Your voice turns teasing. "You're no better around him than a pitiful human, weak for his charms and falling right into his traps."

She crosses her arms over her ample bosom and pouts some more, even as you shove some of the gathered wood into her waiting arms. "Well, can you blame me? We only ever see sailors here, or the minor gods, if we're lucky. But one of the Big Three?" She huffs, following after you, trying to balance the bundle of sticks as she hurries to catch up. She's slightly out of breath when she says under her breath to you, her eyes flickering back to the man beside your father once more, "And I would argue he's the best looking out of all the Big Three."

You shoot her a sharp look. "Don't let anyone hear you say that, Thetis. Father will have you punished for blasphemy."

"You cannot punish me for saying the truth." She rolls her big blue eyes, lined with long, dark lashes, and flips her blonde braid over her shoulder. Her round cherubic cheeks are pink from exertion, her red lips pursed into a perfect pout.

You'd be shocked if your father didn't do his damndest to secure Thetis the God's hand before he leaves here tonight.

You set your logs down beside the fire and catch your breath, brushing the bark from the front of your finely made dress as you glance at your younger sister once more.

"You'd better go and charm the man then, because I'm fairly certain Glauce has already staked her claim." You motion with your head to your sister, who is practically in the God's lap, her long dark hair twined around her fingers as she leans over to playfully whisper something in his ear, the seashells around her neck dipping between her bare breasts.

Thetis's eyes narrow and she pushes past you with a huff. "We'll see about that."

You watch her go with slight amusement, content to enjoy the games of tonight from afar.

You've never been interested in the Gods like your sisters, nor marriage, and you have every intention of living your life out on Naxos, dancing and remaining free for the eons.

Being tied down as a Big Three's wife, constantly scrutinized and judged, cheated on with mortals?

No fucking thank you.

You adjust one of the ornamental pins in your hair with a sigh, trying to stop it from digging into your scalp, and wish for the thousandth time that you could let your hair down.

The breeze off the sea is calling your name, and you itch to pull off this ornamental gown and untie your hair and dive into its welcoming, azure depths.

You crave the silence the deep brings.

"Daughter."

You turn at the sound of your father's call and see him approaching, his hands tucked behind his back.

You give a brief duck of your head in deference as he walks toward you, a dip of the knee to show your respect.

"Father."

He places a finger beneath your chin, guiding you back to your feet. "Rise, child. I have something I wish to discuss with you."

You wait patiently for him to continue, your gaze holding his. The breeze tugs at your skirt, twisting it around your legs, as if it's a silent invitation to follow it into the embrace of the sea.

Your father's lips lift into the hint of a smile as he strokes his hand down your cheek. "My beautiful eldest, the coveted rare pearl that adorns my crown. I always said you would be a blessing from the Gods, and I was right."

You cock your head, nodding slightly. "Thank you, father. I hope I have made you proud."

"You have, my child. You have." Your father sighs, and his eyes soften slightly as he takes you in. "As have your sisters." He glances out at the sea, his eyes following the rise and fall of the waves for a moment.

Finally, he says, "He has made a decision."

You watch him-the way his brow furrows in thought, the way his dark eyes reflect the blue of the sea-and then you reply back confidently with another duck of your head, "Thetis will make an excellent wife for him and a stunning Goddess of the Seas."

Your father meets your gaze once more, and there's something there now that unsettles you, his lips curving down seriously, his expression somber.

"It is not Thetis who has been chosen."

You stare at him, confused. "Who then? Glauce? Maera?"

You cannot imagine one of your younger vapid, vain sisters ever catching the God's attention, but stranger things have happened.

Something sad flickers across your father's face, and he reaches for your hand.

Your stomach drops at the expression.

"He has chosen you."

You feel as if you've just been barreled by the waves, thrown beneath the surface, crashed helpless over and over again against the sharp, jutting cliffs.

You can't seem to catch your breath.

You're drowning.

"What?"

Your father gives you a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Poseidon has chosen you."

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Minho watches you for a moment before making his presence known, his body hidden in the shadow of the column.

This is one of his favorite versions of you-sitting beside the sea, your feet buried in the sand, your dress wet as it clings to your curves, hair down and free, tangled slightly from the salt water.

He likes to imagine this is how you looked as a child, roaming the beaches of Naxos, causing mischief, dancing barefoot into the night.

Now, you are his queen, and yet, he still sees that untameable girl in you, even till this day.

You laugh out loud and splash salt water back at one of the dolphins as it breaches near the shore, showering you with a wave of the sea, and Minho's mouth curves into an unbidden smile as he steps out from behind the pillar.

He approaches you quietly, content to watch you admire the dolphins as they breach and play, fins the color of smoke cutting through the turquoise water like butter on a warm day.

He'd known, the moment he had the mansion built, that the secret cove beneath that let him have free access to his beloved sand and sea would quickly become his favorite place to spend the time.

As soon as he'd met you, he'd known it would be your favored place of refuge as well.

You were similar in that, escaping to the sea when everything became a little bit too much.

You glance up as he approaches, giving him a smile that almost blinds him, and not for the first time, Minho can't quite believe that something so beautiful, so perfect, belongs to him.

He is much like the sea-turbulent and fickle, intimidating and dark, dangerous when provoked-and you have been the only one in eons of years that has dared swim below his surface to explore the depths beneath.

He finds himself grateful for that every single day.

He sits down in the sand behind you and wraps his arms around your waist, tugging you back against him. The salt water on your dress dampens his pants, but he can't bring himself to care, burying his nose in your hair that smells of sea and sand and sun, running his lips along the curve of your neck just to taste the salt on his tongue.

You give a little hum of approval at his touch and lean into him, and Minho chuckles.

Glancing out at the dolphins playing in the waves, Minho's lips pull up into an amused curve.

"And what have you taught your little pets today, sweetheart?"

You lean your head back against his shoulder and he admires the way your nose crinkles as you give him a teasing smile, arching a brow.

He lets a finger trace down your throat, playing with the seashell strands you wear around your neck, his cock immediately paying attention to the way they disappear between the valley of your breasts, your skin sparkling with the sea.

"Oh, you'll love this one." You chirp back, standing up as you wave to get the dolphins attention. You glance over your shoulder at him, grin turning wicked. "I've taught them to flip you off."

You raise your hand, and a few of the dolphins immediately use their tails to propel them above the waves, their sleek bodies upright as they wave their fins in tandem back at you.

Minho chuckles, standing up, his arms going around your waist once more, as he leans in to murmur against your ear, "I don't think your trick is quite as impressive as you think. They lack fingers."

You give a little shrug, and lean back against him, and there it is again, that devastating smile that leaves Minho feeling like he can't breathe, like he's just gone beneath the waves and can't resurface.

"Well, you have to use your imagination a little bit." You whisper back, expression cheeky, as you tilt your head to be able to kiss the line of his jaw.

"Oh?" Minho remarks in bemusement, his brow inching upward as he looks down at you in his arms. He takes a fingertip and traces slowly down the column of your throat, the skin he leaves in his wake shining with conjured droplets of sea water, shimmering in the afternoon sun. "I can think of a lot more things I'd rather use my imagination for right now, sweetheart."

He lets his finger dip between your breasts, and he doesn't miss the way you shiver at his touch.

His lips curve into the start of a smirk.

"Like imagining you out of all these clothes."

You pull out of his arms and turn to face him, walking backward slowly so that your feet disappear into the frothing waves of the sea, your gaze never leaving his.

Something mischievous comes across your features as you stare at him, standing knee deep in the water, your dress like a living creature wrapped around your legs, the dolphins frolicking against the sunset.

"That can be arranged." You tease him, arching a brow, as you slowly slide the dress down one of your shoulders, revealing a swath of perfect skin.

And without another word, Minho leaves the shore behind and joins you in the waves.

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It's clear that though he may have chosen you, he doesn't like you.

Not in the slightest.

The man can't even look at you as you pull up to the mansion bordering the sea, and you're grateful-not for the first time during the drive-that he'd left the Stingray's old fashioned top down so that instead of focusing on the oppressive silence between the two of you, you could hear nothing but the wind whipping in your ears, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore.

The hum of the car purrs to a stop as he parks in some sort of underground garage cut into the seaside cliffs, and you're not certain whether you should let yourself out or wait for his move.

He doesn't look at you, or seem in a hurry to leave the car, so you remain still, your hands folded in your lap, your eyes ahead.

Fuck, this is awkward.

What does one say to an all powerful God that has just taken them-unwillingly, you might add-from the only home and family they've ever known?

Fuck if you know.

You clear your throat, and decide that if he won't break the silence, you will.

"If I may-" You start to say, startled to a stop when he gets out of the car abruptly, not even bothering to look in your direction as he stands.

"You'll be shown to your room. You'll be expected for dinner every evening at 8 sharp. It's on the veranda overlooking the sea, your maid will show you where. Feel free to go where you will, just don't go alone."

It's like he's talking to the wall, his hand on the open door, his eyes on anything else but you.

You feel the anger from earlier bubble upward into your throat as you regard his obvious disdain.

You reach for your own doorhandle.

"You've brought me all the way from Naxos, and I know no one here. Certainly you're not just going to leave me alone on our first night together-"

"I have work to do." He says coldly, cutting you off, and without another glance, shuts his door, before stalking off toward the stairs that must lead up into the mansion above.

You stare after his retreating form in shock for a moment, before you growl beneath your breath and get out of the car, moving to open the trunk where your luggage is stowed.

"Fine." You hiss beneath your breath. "I'll see myself to my room then."

And in that very moment, you decide you will ask the Great God Poseidon, one of the Big Three, for nothing so long as you both shall live.

It's going to be one long fucking eternity.

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He doesn't like it.

He doesn't like how you make him feel unsettled, as if every inch of control he's ever struggled to gain in his own damned, immortal existence is thrown out the window as soon as you walk into the room.

He's had to claw his way here, to where he is now, in charge of his own life, in charge of his own sea, and he doesn't intend to lose that, not now or not ever, and definitely not because of a pair of fucking beautiful doe eyes.

He'd known it as soon as he saw you-dancing with your sisters on your father's little island-that he was never going to escape your grasp.

You hadn't even looked at him, for gods' sake, hadn't even given him a moment of your attention, and he was instantly bewitched.

And Minho did not bewitch easily.

And now, here you were, in his house, in his domain, soon to be in his bed, and he was absolutely fucking terrified of what that meant.

You were his, and he didn't know if he could fucking handle that.

"Fuck." He swears beneath his breath, running his hands through his hair in an agitated motion, his elbows resting on his knees as he sits, collapsed in the sand.

The night is muggy, the warm air heavy with the saltiness of sea water, and he stares at the dark crests of the waves, rising and falling like a giant being breathing peacefully in slumber.

His fingers find a shell in the sand next to him, and he hurls it into the waves, watching as it disappears beneath the surface in a ring of ripples.

The water is reflecting the stars of the night sky back to him on its surface, and it feels as if he's sitting in the middle of a constellation, but his head is no clearer than when he first left the mansion for the cove beneath.

His mind wanders to you-are you settling in for the night? Your perfect skin sliding between the silk of the sheets as you curl up in the middle of the large bed, alone?

He wonders, briefly, what your hair looks like when it's not ornamentally pinned, what you wear when you sleep, how your face looks crinkled and barely awake in the morning.

He wonders how it would feel to hear you say his name-not his name gifted by the mortals, but his given name-in a murmur against his skin, your perfect breasts free from the sheer material of your dress, your hands, or gods forbid, your lips, on his aching cock-

"Fuck." He swears again, more vehemently this time, and falls back against the cool sand, staring at the jagged rocks overhead.

He can't lose his cool every time he sees you, he's worked too damn hard to get where he's at, and he's a fucking god for hell's sake. He needs to pull it together and stop thinking with his dick.

It's going to be one long fucking eternity.

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"You know-" You remark offhandedly as you glance out over the sea, red from the setting sun. You can smell the salt in the air, courtesy of the Stingray's open top, and the warm air whips your hair as Minho speeds along the deserted oceanside highway.

Minho glances over at you, a slight curve of amusement to his lips, a silent signal for you to go on, as he maneuvers the sports car around a curve.

You let your fingers float outside the open window, weaving along in the breeze like a dolphin skimming and jumping through the waves.

"-I hear skinny dipping is even better at night."

Minho chuckles, the sound low beneath the rush of the wind. "Oh? Who told you that?"

You shrug, biting back a smile, as you admire the way the nail polish glints on your fingers in the rosy tint of the sun, the flash of the pearl on your ring finger.

"A little fish."

Minho gives you another amused look, but it's clearly exasperated, his brow arching. "You're not getting out of this party, you know."

You sigh and let your head fall back against the seat.

"Well fuck."

Minho chuckles again, and reaches over with his free hand to rest the warmth of his palm on your thigh, his other hand easily maneuvering the car through the twists and turns of the road.

He gives your thigh a little squeeze, and you glance down at his hand-the tan, smooth skin, the rise and fall of his knuckles, the perfectly trimmed nails.

Your eyes flick to his other hand on the wheel-the golden glint of his wedding band contrasting the strip of inlaid pearl that matches your own.

Your skin heats underneath his touch, even though the fabric of your dress acts as a barrier.

It's a thin, flimsy barrier at most.

"I promised Hyunjin we'd be there." Minho sighs regretfully, and you know he's dreading this soiree just as much as you are, even more so. "But I swear to you, sweetheart, after this, no more parties for another decade."

You give a little laugh and squeeze his hand. "I'm going to hold you to that, your highness."

Minho smiles, his gaze moving down to your hand resting over his own. His eyes catch on the wedding ring you wear, and he raises your hand to his lips, brushing a light, lingering kiss across your knuckles.

"I know you will."

Your gaze drifts back longingly to the sea, fingers still encased in the warmth of his own.

Minho gives your thigh another squeeze, and when you turn to look at him once more, he gives you a dangerous smirk, perfect teeth flashing and dark eyes glinting.

"However, skinny dipping is never off the table, sweetheart. So trust me when I say I'll be holding you to that too."

You grin back at him.

"I would expect nothing less from the God of the Seas."

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Dinners with Minho are unbearable.

You spend the majority of your time on the veranda watching the waves crest in watercolor beneath the setting sun, the sleek, almost apparition like forms of the dolphins darting in and out of the frothing foam.

He never talks, and you never ask.

It's easier to eat in silence and excuse yourself to your room for the rest of the night while your new husband disappears gods knows where to do gods knows what.

Tonight, the dolphins are especially playful, leaping and chittering to each other, and you find yourself watching them longingly, wishing you could be as free as they seem to be, bound to no one and nothing.

The sound of a fork scraping obnoxiously across a plate draws your attention back to the table, and Minho is watching you, his expression unreadable, fork held loosely in his hand, his empty plate before him.

You hold his gaze, refusing to back down, as you set your own fork down next to your barely touched food.

His features remain blank as he wipes his mouth with the linen of his napkin, the maid scurrying in to quickly clear his empty place.

You've never noticed, but his eyes are dark-dark and stormy like the sea at night-and they're uncharacteristically cold, no warmth lurking in their depths.

"Do you like them?" He asks suddenly, voice flat, almost uninterested, as he waves away another servant approaching with more wine in a decanter.

You stare at him, schooling your expression. "Like what?"

You know you're addressing him casually, you should watch yourself-he's your husband and a god-but you can't seem to bring yourself to care in the face of his aloofness.

He won't give you anything, so you won't give him anything either.

He lets his gaze scan your face, giving nothing away, then motions with a glance toward the sea below.

"The dolphins."

You give a little shrug and glance down at your food, scraping it around your plate. You have no appetite suddenly, not when you can feel Minho's gaze boring into your skull.

"They're beautiful. The freedom and joy they possess intrigues me."

"Then you can have them."

You jerk your gaze back up to his in surprise, your mouth dropping slightly open, but he's already pushed back from the table, no longer looking at you, as he motions for one of the maids to begin to clear the table.

"I have work to do. You may retire when you are ready." His voice is emotionless, and he doesn't spare you another glance, as he turns and strides away.

You watch him go, anger beginning to bubble in the pit of your stomach. Your mouth tastes of bile.

'Then you can have them.'

He thinks he can just give living creatures to another just like that? Like they're property? Like they're his to own? Like they do not already belong to the sea?

Fuck him.

You push back from the table angrily and fling your napkin on the ground.

If he thinks he can give and take that which is not his, was never his, so easily, then you'd like to see him try.

You are not so easily tamed.

And it was time he knew.

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"I've never seen him this happy."

You hide a smile behind the rim of your glass as you take a sip of your drink, following Hera's gaze to Minho where he stands across the room, discussing something with his brothers.

He looks fucking delicious tonight-dressed smartly in a navy three piece suit, his thick, dark hair smoothed back, his sun kissed skin golden beneath the lights.

Maybe these parties aren't a complete waste of time after all.

"What can I say?" You muse as you let your gaze fall back to Hera beside you, a smile gracing your lips now. "I'm good for him."

She gives a little tinkling laugh, raising her glass to meet your own with a gentle clink of cheers.

"I'll drink to that."

You take another long sip of your drink, and when you look up once more, Minho's gaze catches your own from across the room.

You arch a brow in response and mouth silently to him, already knowing the answer, Having fun?

He gives a slight shake of his head with a roll of his eyes, and you grin.

He holds your gaze, and with a miniscule movement, tilts his head to the side, his eyebrows raising in a silent question, as a smirk curves his lips.

You turn to Hera, setting your now empty glass down beside hers on the table, and touching her arm lightly to draw her attention.

"I'm going to use the little goddesses room."

She nods, turning back to her conversation with Aphrodite, and you excuse yourself from the room, noting that Minho's already managed to slip away from his own conversation on the other side of the room.

He's nowhere in sight.

The sounds of the party fade away as you slip out of the gaudy ballroom and make your way down the quiet hallway.

You're just passing the large, glass doors that look outside onto the darkened veranda and sprawling garden, when he finds you, coming out from the shadows and startling you slightly, his hands going on either side of your head as he traps you against the wall.

"Jesus, Min." You breathe out, your muscles relaxing, as you try your best to glare up at him. "Give a girl some warning."

His teeth flash as he grins in response, the expression dangerous, his dark eyes meeting yours in a predatory fashion.

"Where's the fun in that?" He murmurs back, as he lifts a hand to play with a strand of your hair, his fingers brushing over the seashell comb you wear. "I like when your hair is down."

You tilt your head back against the wall and look up at him, a smirk flickering across your lips. "Should've thought of that before you RSVPed us to this stupid party." You tease in a low voice.

Minho lets out a sigh. "Yeah well, I have duties and so do you, but right now-" His eyes darken, his body pressing into yours, flattening you against the wall at your back. "-right now it's just you and I, sweetheart."

"And about a hundred other people just in the other room." You retort back, reaching up to straighten the shell broach pinned to his suit jacket.

"Fuck them." Minho growls, leaning forward to run his nose up your throat, and you tilt your head back to give him better access as he begins to suck kisses into the skin beneath your jaw. "They can miss us for a couple of minutes."

"Speaking of hair-" You breathe out, as he continues to litter your skin methodically with love bites, his teeth making your skin tingle and your breath catch.

You reach up and run your fingers through his dark tresses, loosening the gel and mussing the strands until they fall around his face. You let salt water coat your fingertips, dampening your skin and wetting his hair until it looks as if he's just been for a swim.

"-I like yours best when it's wet."

Minho pulls back to smirk at you, his brow arched, his eyes dark.

"I like you best when you're wet, sweetheart. Especially for me."

You hold his gaze, his words sending fire like heat skittering across every inch of your skin.

"Well, then you're going to love what you find between my thighs."

"Oh?" Minho's smirk grows, his pupils blowing at your words. He leans into your space, pressing you back against the wall once more, his knee going between your legs to nudge them apart. "Show me then."

You hold his gaze, reaching down to lift your dress to give him access. His eyes never leave yours as he leans forward, and slides a hand between your upper thighs.

You let out a stuttered gasp when he touches you, and you can feel the way you instantly coat his fingers, and it crosses your mind that maybe you should be embarrassed at how worked up he's already gotten you without even touching you, but you can't be, not when Minho pulls his fingers back and studies the shiny, sticky skin like it's one of the seven wonders of the mortals' modern world.

"Beautiful." He murmurs beneath his breath, still watching the way your slick slides down his fingers as if entranced.

You admire him for a moment, admiring you, and then your lips curve upward into the start of an amused smile.

"I suppose I do not need to mention the irony of a Sea God being obsessed with fluids?"

Minho's dark eyes flick to you, his fingers still raised. He arches a brow.

"You do not." He replies back pointedly, and then, holding your gaze, bends his middle finger so that he can dip it between his lips, licking it clean of your juices with even, long strokes of his tongue.

You clench your thighs together, suddenly in desperate need of friction as you watch him slowly, methodically clean his fingers, all the while, his eyes never leaving yours.

"Although-" He muses, pinning you beneath his heated gaze, his lips curving up into the hint of a smirk as he sees the flush of your cheeks, the subtle movements of your legs. "-if given the choice, I would choose you over the sea any day."

You shake your head teasingly, as he backs you up a few steps further down the hallway, away from the party in the ballroom, stalking you like a big cat, his movements lithe and fluid.

"That's shocking, coming from you."

"It's true though." He insists in a low tone, before he cages you in once more, his hands coming down forcefully on either side of your head, making you jump. "Every word of it."

Without warning, he slides his hands down your body and palms your ass before he lifts you up, fingers digging into the backs of your thighs.

You give a little yelp, and cling to him, your arms going around his neck for support.

He looks up at you, his eyes the color of the sea before a storm, and the sudden hungry look on his sharp features makes you shiver.

"Now. Be a good girl, sweetheart, and let me feel how wet you are for me from the inside."

He pushes your skirts aside, and hefts you a little higher into his arms.

You gasp when you realize for the first time as he shifts you, that your back is no longer pressed against the solidarity of the wall, no, your back is pressed against the cold pane of a window-the French doors to the garden.

"Minho." You hiss, struggling in his arms a little bit now. "Someone will see."

"Let them." He growls back, his voice sending a shiver of pleasure down your spine, before he bucks his hips and sheaths himself fully inside of you in one smooth motion.

You cry out, your back arching and your head falling back against the glass, safe to let your body react how it will in the strong embrace of Minho's arms.

"Fuck." You pant out, your hands tangling into his hair, as he continues to thrust in steady strokes.

"Oh gods-" He groans gutturally, his fingers digging into your thighs, keeping you in place. He looks up at you through dark strands of hair, his lips parted, as if he can't quite catch his breath, as if you're the most beautiful, wonderful thing he's ever seen.

When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse, his words punctuated by harsh gasps that match his rhythm.

"Fuck, sweetheart. There's no one, no one-mortal or God-who can instantly make me lose every last shred of control like you can."

You tug on his hair to make him meet your eyes as both of your lips part in pleasure.

"Does that scare you?" You breathe out, your chest rising and falling as you heave for breath.

His lips curve upward into the start of a smile, and his voice takes on a tone of amused honesty that rings through your very being.

"Not anymore."

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It fucking terrifies him.

This thing you possess that makes him lose his mind, his every last thought, his final shreds of dignity and willpower.

But he doesn't know how to control it-or himself-and that scares him. So instead, he's avoided you, and obsessed until his feelings have grown sour, and forced a wedge between you that might never break.

It's easier to deal with you as an enemy from afar than someone who has the power to destroy him right?

It's been eight weeks-two months-of silent dinners, but who's counting?

He glances at you down the table-a table much too big for two people-and notes the way your eyes scan the horizon, looking for the dolphins.

Stupid fucking dolphins.

You've never once looked at him the way you look at those creatures, but then again, has he ever really given you reason to?

He clears his throat, and before he can talk himself out of it, announces, setting aside his fork, "I have work that must be seen to. Enjoy your evening."

He stands, pushing back his chair, and turns to leave, but before he can escape, you say, without turning your head, "Stimulating dinner conversation as always, husband. I so enjoy our time together."

He freezes, and something akin to annoyance bubbles in his chest as he stares at you, refusing to look at him, your eyes fixed on the sea.

"To have a conversation with one another, wife, requires you to engage in one." He replies back coolly, watching you for your next reaction.

He's not disappointed.

You whirl to face him, eyes flashing with anger, hands going into fists on top of the table.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was unaware you wanted anything to do with me, and I certainly didn't know you wanted to speak with me."

Minho grinds his teeth, and he feels a muscle clench and flicker in his jaw as he regards you.

He shouldn't flame the fire, but he's intrigued by this side of you, this fight, and interacting is interacting, regardless of the tone of the words being said.

"Forgive me, but I am not one of your precious dolphins, so I merely assumed you would find my company boring and droll."

His tone is sharp, goading, seething.

You stand, shoving your chair back so forcefully that it tips over onto the cobblestone, and glare him down with the force of a thousand suns.

If he were not a God, Minho probably would've been dead.

"I hate you."

He feels his lips curve upward into the start of a taunting sneer as he leans over the table toward you, palms flat against the cloth.

"Oh? Do you? Careful there, sweetheart, the line between hate and love is no thicker than the edge of a sharpened dagger."

"Oh, there is no mistaking the feelings I have for you. I hate everything about you." You spit back, words sharp and pointed.

Minho settles back down into his seat casually, crossing his leg over his knee. He sees surprise flicker across your expression, before the fury takes over once more.

He motions for you to go on with a wave of his hand. "Go on then. Tell me all the things you hate about me. I do love a good discussion." He leans forward and makes a show of listening, his chin propped on his fist.

He sees the way it pisses you off, and it makes something inside of him lurch.

Your gaze is hard as you begin.

"I hate your arrogance. I hate the way that you just assume that everyone-mortal and god alike-want to fall at your feet."

Minho watches you, the way your chest heaves with impassioned breaths as you lean forward across the table toward him, the way your hair is falling loose from the carefully curated style he's sure your maids spent hours on that morning.

He prefers it down.

His cock pays attention to the way your breasts fall heavily when you lean, the open neck of the dress you wear gaping open, revealing the necklace of seashells dipping between your cleavage.

Focus.

You narrow your glare in on him, and Minho realizes you've begun speaking once more while he was distracted.

"I hate the fact that you make me come to these goddamn dinners every night, just so you can make me into a fool."

He arches a brow. "Well, I hate the fact that you agree to come to dinner, if you're simply not going to even try to engage in conversation with me."

Your expression grows murderous.

"You have never once shown any interest in speaking to or getting to know me! Not once!" You fire back, eyes flashing. "And that brings me to my next point-I hate that you dragged me here, away from my home, away from my family, just to lock yourself away in your office and not even have the honor or decency to show me even an ounce of kindness!"

Minho feels himself start to grow irritated as your voice rises in volume, and your anger flare.

He clenches his teeth and breathes out slowly, staring you down.

"Honor and decency?" He repeats back, his tone cold, his words firm. "Kindness? When has the world-or the Fates for that matter-ever been kind? I hate that you are so naive that you would think the world would be handed to you like a polished pearl within an oyster. This is not Naxos."

"I hate the way you talk down to me, belittle me, as if I am a sheltered little girl who knows nothing." You retort back, staring him right back down. "I am a goddess of the sea, and now your queen, and you would do well to treat me as such."

He feels his lips twist upward into a humorless smile.

"Oh? Is that so? If you were a queen, you would not be addressing me in such a way, which in turn, proves my point that you indeed know nothing of the world."

"Bullshit." You hiss through clenched teeth. "Your views on life-and marriage-are dated and archaic."

Minho arches a brow. "Interesting. Do tell me more about my own views, sweetheart."

Minho watches the way you clench your hand into a fist, your knuckles whitening.

"I hate when you call me sweetheart."

"And I hate when you're contrary just for the sake of being contrary, sweetheart." Minho retorts right back.

You glare across the table at him.

"I'm not fucking doing this." You finally growl out, before you turn your back on him and head for the winding stairs that lead off the veranda, and down to the hidden cove below.

Minho follows you, his steps right behind yours.

When you reach the beach, you whirl on him, fury written across your features.

Minho stops, but he doesn't back down.

"What else?" He goads, watching you carefully.

You stare at him for a long, hard moment, and then he sees you take in a forceful breath.

"I hate the way you hold a fork. And that you decorated my room in jewel tones and that you've never even once asked me if I prefer my coffee with or without sugar. I hate the way the same exact muscle flickers in your jaw every single time when you're holding in your irritation about something."

Minho smirks. "Oh? Is that all?"

"No." You retort back immediately, holding his amused gaze. "I also hate the way your hair always looks like you've just come in off the sea-tousled and damp. I hate the fact that you wear white button down shirts so casually, and I hate that I've noticed that one of your cheeks dimples slightly when you smile."

Minho stares at you for a moment, caught off guard.

You take the opportunity to barrel on, stepping closer to him, your bare feet digging into the wet sand.

"I hate that I know that you prefer when I wear my hair down, because I've seen the way you look at me when it's not done, and I absolutely fucking hate that I care in the slightest what you think of me."

The sea crashes wave after wave behind you, as if agreeing with your tirade.

Minho stares at you some more, completely unsure of what to say.

"I hate-" You take in a deep, gulping breath, and your expression sobers a little, the fury ebbing slightly. "-more than anything, that you have an effect me, I hate the way my body betrays me when you're around, the way my heart pounds, the way I look for you in a room when I enter, even though I know you won't be there."

Minho swallows.

"I hate the way you say my name-not the name I was given as a goddess, but my name-and the sparks I feel dance across my skin when I hear it on your tongue."

You sigh, and glance down at the sand at your feet, your toes dug beneath.

"But do you want to know what I hate most of all?" You ask, in a quiet voice, as if you're not really asking Minho, more just putting it out into the universe.

So he doesn't answer, just watching you, waiting for you to continue.

The waves crash against the shore, and when you look at him, your eyes have darkened, no longer with anger, but with regret.

"I hate, more than anything, that I can't make myself hate you."

Minho stares, all the words he was preparing dying on his lips, his brain buzzing.

You don't-hate him?

Fuck, maybe, that means-

He doesn't allow himself to finish that thought.

Surging forward, like the impatient sea at high tide, Minho crashes his lips into yours, and you stumble with the surprise force of it, both of you tumbling down into the soft, wet sand.

Minho doesn't stop, pressing you backward into the shore, his lips like fire on your own.

You let out a soft little gasp of surprise against his mouth, but you don't push him away, and he experimentally dips his tongue between the part of your lips.

Your breath audibly hitches, and the sound goes straight to Minho's dick.

Fuck, you're just as responsive as he had imagined you would be.

Carefully, he lets his hand trace down the arch of your neck, the line of your shoulder, and he hesitates for a brief moment of unsurety, before he lets his palm cup the swell of your breast.

You arch your body up into his touch, and open your mouth wider for his tongue, letting out a little whine as he begins to massage your breast.

"Fuck." Minho breathes out against your mouth, pulling back slightly so he can stare down at you splayed beneath him on the sand, your hair loose, your lips raw.

Its the fucking most beautiful sight he's ever seen.

He lets his hand trace down the line of your hip, your thigh, to the material of your skirt, wet now with sea water, sticking to your skin.

He has the sudden crazy urge to slip a hand beneath the material and see just how wet you are for himself.

Instead, he glances up at you, watching him carefully, and murmurs in the form of some start of a question, "Can I-?"

You nod, sucking your bottom lip between your teeth, and Minho wants to reach up and free the plump skin from its constraints.

He doesn't, because before he can move, you say softly, "You don't have to be gentle with me. I know what this entails."

He follows the length of your body back upward, until, he's straddling you again, his hands sinking into the wet sand on either side of your head.

He looks down at you and sees your nervousness in the way your forehead crinkles slightly, the way you obstinately suck on your bottom lip.

Fuck, maybe there's a few tiny things he's let himself notice about you too in the weeks he's done his due diligence of avoiding you.

"You've been prepared?" He asks, still watching you carefully.

You nod again. "Yes. Our governesses. They said-"

You hesitate, and Minho feels his heart leap into his throat.

"They said what?"

You glance away, avoiding his gaze, and pink rises in your cheeks.

Minho doesn't think he's ever seen you embarrassed before.

"They said it might hurt." You whisper back, still not looking at him, your eyes focused too intently on the way your fingers, stretched out at your side, dig into the sand in anxious movements.

Minho blows out a breath.

"It might." He admits quietly, and you flick your gaze up to his, and he sees determination still your features. "But, did they also tell you then, that if done right, it can be extremely pleasurable for you?"

You cock your head, holding his gaze. "No. They said that you-"

"Fuck me." Minho immediately shakes his head, even though the words make his already unbearably hard cock ache.

He leans closer to you, his nose brushing yours. He can smell the salt water in your hair, see the way your pupils blow at his nearness.

He watches the way your throat bobs with a swallow, and brings his hand up to your cheek, stroking a fingertip along your jaw, glistening with sea water.

"I want to wring your body of every ounce of pleasure imaginable before I even think about satisfying myself."

Your lips part in surprise at his fervently uttered statement, and Minho smirks, staring down at you-the way your chest has started to heave with your breaths, the way you're squirming slightly beneath him.

Signs of arousal. Arousal for him.

He brings his hand up to his mouth, and holding your gaze, spits into his palm, wetting his fingers slowly, one by one, as you watch.

"You're wet." He remarks offhandedly, and he pointedly gazes down at your dress, the water puddling beneath your hips from the waves lapping at the shore.

You stare back at him and give a little hum of assent in your throat in reagards to his observation. "Mmm."

"Tell me, sweetheart-" He expects you to prickle at the nickname, but you don't, your eyes instead darkening at the way the syllables roll off his tongue. "-are you wet in other places?"

You inhale sharply, and Minho practically groans when your eyes flicker to his.

"Yes."

His lips curve into the start of a smirk. "I thought so."

He slides his hand down your body once more-the one he'd wet moments before-and moving slowly to give you a chance to change your mind, slips his fingers beneath the drenched material of your skirt.

When he touches the wet heat between your upper thighs, you both inhale sharply in tandem.

"Fuck, you weren't kidding." Minho groans, leaning forward on the one hand he still has planted in the sand, as he carefully begins to explore you with a finger at a time. "Wet enough to drown in."

"Minho-" You gasp out, arching your body up into his and putting delicious friction on his cock, as he cautiously works you open. "Fucking gods above. Shit."

Minho's lips curl up into an amused smirk as profanities continue to fall from your lips in an unending, pleasure driven stream.

"You know, for such a pretty little thing, you have an incredibly filthy mouth, sweetheart." He remarks, making you gasp and jolt as he curls a finger experimentally.

He wants to memorize the way you look up at him in this moment, your vision hazed with pleasure, your expression soft.

"I grew up in the presence of sailors." You reply back with a slight shrug, as Minho pauses, taking you in. "Does it bother you?"

He arches a brow, leaning forward to put his lips against your ear, and as he does so, he adds another finger, making you whimper and squirm beneath him.

"On the contrary, sweetheart. I could listen to you sing my praises in profanities for the rest of my immortal life."

"Minho, please-" You beg, your hands tracing up his body, your body writhing in the damp sand.

He stares down at you. "Please what?"

"Please, just give me more."

His lips curve, and his dick throbs at your desperate plea.

He would love nothing more.

"You and I are like the sea, sweetheart. The waves never cease. There is always more to give. And I swear to you, if I have to spend the rest of my eons exploring every single inch of you, I will gladly do so. Over, and over, and over again. Wave, after wave, after wave."

You bite back a smile as you stare up at him.

"I hate that you're so dedicated."

He smirks.

"And I, sweetheart, hate that I ever believed myself capable of staying away from you. I intend to remedy my mistake every single day from here on out."

🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚🐚

You lean back against Minho's bare chest, admiring the way the sunset plays off of the waves, your mind quiet and your body content against the warmth of the sand.

You feel him press a kiss against the crown of your wet hair, and you glance up at him, arching a brow as you ask softly, "What was that for?"

He glances down at you, amusement in his dark eyes. "I have to have a reason to kiss my wife?"

You give a little shrug and bite back a smile. "No, I guess not."

He angles his head to press a kiss to your lips, lingering for a moment. You can taste the salt on his tongue, the sun warming his mouth.

He tastes like the sea.

He pulls back, and you grin at him. "I just find that you usually have a reason for everything."

Minho rolls his eyes. "I hate that you think I can't just be spontaneous."

"And I hate that you stopped kissing me." You quip back playfully, and he growls, leaning over to kiss you again, wrestling you back into his arms as you giggle and squirm against the sand.

"There. Happy?" He asks when you separate once more.

You glance up at him, and raise a hand, letting sea water coat your fingers as you push back his hair.

"Incredibly."

His expression softens, and he leans in to kiss you once more, hand tangling into your hair to tug you to him.

You'd worn it down. It was his favorite after all.

Out at sea, against the setting sun, a dolphin breaches.

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lesbianrobin · 7 months ago

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ok since people r very into my chris fic i shall share some of my random behind the scenes thoughts while writing it:

adriana has literally been waiting her entire life for her obviously gay older brother who joined the army to avoid his wife and then moved to los angeles to be a sexy firefighter to COME OUT ALREADY and by the time we meet her in this fic she is like Vibrating with the need to be like EDDIE IS GAYYYYYYY ARE YOU PEOPLE BLIND??? which is why it takes like absolutely zero prodding from chris for her to spill all of eddie's business. i think when eddie was little he was a very obviously gay little boy and as he grew up he learned how to Be Normal but adriana never forgot and she's like deeply sad about it.

chris is So fucking miserable at his grandparents' house he misses video games so bad. i couldn't find a way to really incorporate this without it feeling like a cheap "look he's a TEEN BOY" thing but yeah the second he gets back home he is slamming that headset on and gaming until eddie tells him he has to take a break or he'll burn his eyes out of his sockets.

there are a Lot of songs on buck and eddie's joint depression playlist that i listed and then cut for practicality's sake but if there's any like interest in that i could maybe put together + link the full playlist for y'all?

buck's "maddie" playlist is entirely music he listened to growing up bc it makes him think of her. as a younger sibling my music taste from birth to like. age fifteen ish. was just wholly whatever my older sister listened to and i think buck is the same way. i don't think buck necessarily listens to this playlist on his own very often but if he's hanging out with maddie and/or babysitting jee-yun he'll put it on because it makes him happy to enjoy some 90s/00s nostalgia with his best girls. sometimes he'll play it in the car when he's driving chris somewhere because he wants to carry forward some of those good memories he has with maddie with chris.

buck and eddie's texts were written in order to coincide with each other! eddie texts more frequently than buck but i think if you pay attention you can sometimes tell which days buck Also sent chris a text bc they match. some of them were sent specifically in the wake of very emotionally taxing shifts where they both wanted so badly to call chris and beg him to come home but they knew that wouldn't go well and they didn't want to make chris feel guilty so they tried to play it cool.

speaking of buck and eddie: i don't think that eddie's conversation with chris is necessarily the First step in eddie realizing he's gay or moving toward something romantic with buck. keep in mind that chris has been gone for at least two weeks by the time he talks to either of them, and buck and eddie spend the vast majority of their time together. this fic is restricted to chris' pov, and he has no way of knowing whether, say, buck and tommy broke up, or whether his dad has been thinking about some things differently since he's been gone. buck and eddie Also have to spend twelve hours in a car together just the two of them between the end of the fic and their reunion with chris. this is not me saying that buck and tommy DID break up or that buddie got together while chris was away (i don't actually have a solid "canon" for where they're at), just that i intentionally left space for a wide range of possibilities due to chris' limited knowledge of what's going on with them!!

i kinda intentionally did not delve too deeply into the psychology of the diaz parents here because i think their behavior is a bit inscrutable to chris. the vast majority of his memories of them are from when he was really little, and therefore i think he doesn't actually know them very well as people. he knows that there's some tension between them and eddie, but prior to this fic he never really bothered to question Why. all he knows is that his grandparents will probably come and get him if he calls, and that it'll hurt his dad's feelings, and in the immediate aftermath of the kim debacle that's all he cares about. once he's in el paso, he starts noticing some things that make him a bit uncomfortable, but he never does determine for sure what their motivations and opinions are about this whole situation, whether they're treating him a certain way bc he's the grandkid or bc of his cerebral palsy, and whether their treatment of eddie really does stem from homophobia or not. at the end of the day he's thirteen years old and i wanted to leave his grandparents' True Selves as a bit of a mystery because 1. i don't think They necessarily know why they do what they do and 2. i don't think there's any one answer that would be satisfying.

chris literally had zero intention of saying anything to eddie about the Gay Thing he just is very much thirteen years old and emotional and he fundamentally Trusts his father to never like. lash out at him for saying something like that. so he doesn't try too hard to hold it back and impulsively says Hey Dad Are You Gay Maybe because he's never gone so long without talking to his dad before and he's just bursting with thoughts and feelings. he's not even trying to do a buddie matchmaking thing it's just that the easiest way to make his argument is to be like (points at buck).

#em talks #911

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bettsfic · 5 months ago

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hi betts, lately ive found myself absolutely terrified to write a fic/novel thing ive spent so many years planning and developing about. i dont think i know how to write it. ive found chapters format make me really anxious and clueless but i dont know how it can go in any other way because its always a novel thing; ive considered laying it all out a la webnovel but i dont think it works. whats your wisdom? do you ever get caught in similar things?

sometimes i think the clearer something is in your head, the harder it can be to put on the page, because prose is inherently linear and imagination isn't. you have to do the work of articulating what you see in a way that's logical and organized to the reader in the hope they'll see it too. prose is very flawed in that way. but it also creates an intimacy between reader and text that i don't think any other medium really possesses.

the problem is that when you do get it on the page, it's going to come out bad and out of order. no matter how comfortable you get with revision and rewriting, i don't think that initial "oh god this sucks, this isn't what i want at all" discomfort doesn't go away.

personally what's been working for me lately is that i do all my brainstorming by hand and then all my early drafting on a typing machine called a Pomera. it's a Japanese device that's just a text editor. literally nothing else. you type on it. that's been a big game changer for me. i bought it to help stay away from distractions while i write but i've found i enjoy having a separate place entirely for early drafting. it's very hard to nitpick text on a tiny screen that you can only navigate with arrow keys. there are similar devices and ways to replicate what i use my Pomera for, but that's my system.

as for chapters, they're really only an organizational system the writer needs to make sense of the major movements of the story. if making chapters doesn't do that for you, then, i mean, it's not like the reader needs them. readers need scene breaks i think, and maybe the occasional page break, but chapters are very much a benefit to the writer. it's a lot easier to wrap your head around "i'm revising chapter 7" than "i'm revising that part where my character goes to the hospital."

i don't start with chapters. i start almost everything with four boxes and i put all my scene ideas in those four boxes. the story never stays that way (always becomes 5 parts. always.), but that's how i start. when i begin writing a story, the chaptering happens on its own. i get to a natural break in the story (a high point, not a low one), and then that helps to set the pace.

so my advice is to start writing and let the story teach you how it wants to be organized.

#writing advice #process

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thecatchat · 12 days ago

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Wandering Warden AU

So, this is purely a self indugent story idea that I don't have the time or energy to make into a full fic, but I'd be open to receiving asks about it.

So, this is partially inspired by that one post about Ingo having a working arcphone and posting on social media about his adventures in Hisui while Emmet and the rest of the poke-world watches on in major concern. But, instead it's Akari and her arcphone doing that. Ingo does become a repeated feature guest, mostly because the chat loves him. Some information is redacted for magical, timeline stability, plot reasons, so people can't just tell Ingo who he is.

Now here's where the real AU starts, that was just flavoring. Once the post game is finished and arceus is captured, it agrees to send both Akari and Ingo home. Also, Lady Sneasler joins Ingo, because do not separate these two, that's her warden, thank you very much. And to be fair, it does send them farther into the future and out of hisui... but not far enough.

They land in the 1920s era of Kalos. Separated from each other! Like, dude, arceus! How are you this inaccurate! While I don't have many ideas for hijinx regarding Akari, I have plenty for Ingo.

First off, Ingo's memory starts improving with the more familiar technology and attitude towards pokemon, but it's very very spotty. He thinks he was raised by a dragon? Or maybe that was a sibling? He's about 65% confident that the man in whites name is Subway. That's the most confident he is in any name.

Like, he has a pile of names, and a pile of concepts of memories of people, and Reshiram help him, the two won't connect in his brain.

So, he starts researching and trying to find legendary or mythical pokemon to get him home. But uh, 1. Extinct variation of sneasler is very much beside him and very much unwilling to stay in a pokeball. 2. Having the ability to make pokeballs that aren't in any way tracked or registered is not looked kindly upon by any government body that is doing that. 3. Having the ability to make pokeballs that aren't in any way tracked or registered is something every crime syndicate would like to learn how to do.

As the heat intensified on him (metaphorically), he needed to lay low. So, he gets a bunch of fabric and covers Lady Sneasler from head toe, addressing her only as Lady S in public.

As for him, well, he actually didn't have one picked out, but as he stumbled into the next town (escaping another crime syndicate, thank Reshiram that they're all very local), he encounters someone in a white conductor hat. And when they ask his name, he said "Emmet". No idea why, but it feels really right to say? Maybe it's his middle name? But, apparently the person they met is The Social Butterfly and introduced him as Emmet to literally every person in town and by the time they've gone through at least 5, Ingo just accepts the fact that his fake name is Emmet now.

And. He makes some friends in this town, so he hunkers down there for a while longer than normal. Namely, a local celebrity singer with a lot of bird+electric pokemon that Ingo continually keeps accidentally calling Skyla (if he sees the bird pokemon first) or Elsa (if he sees the fashion first). He doesn't consciously realize why he's calling her those two names, BTW.

Anyway, there's no train station here and he does need money so he kind of accidentally(ish) ends up a private investigator for a month? Apparently being able to pick out and follow a person in a crowd combined with hisui survival skills make for an excellent tailing ability. Unfortunately, everything catches up again eventually and he has to keep moving.

Luckily, the next stop is a Circus! The ring master is a bit of a Shady character, but they need a conductor so they can become a traveling Circus. Oh? A person who can instinctively drive a train like he's been doing it every day of his life? Hired! Oh, yah, sure you can bring this Lady S along too.

This is where Arkri and Ingo meet up again. At the Circus, where Ingo is still going by Emmet. Arkri almost has a heart attack (and in the not-so-distant future, so is Emmet, as Arkri streams the reunion), but Ingo thankfully explains.

At this point, Ingo has collected enough evidence and whispers of memories to conclude that he's from Unova. Namely, every. Single. Person. In. The. Circus. Comments on how thick of a Unova accent he has. That and looking through some of the pokemon from there jog small bits of memories. ("Too many" he says when he sees the picture of a Joltic)

Uhh... something something, probably all the crime syndicate people coming together to try and get Ingo, the circus standing by Ingo (also having kicked out the old corrupt ring master by now and kinda following Ingo's lead, he's a very good boss ringleader), and they steal a plane owned by pokemon smugglers to go to Unova.

(Nobody knows that they were planning to steal a plane until a new stream starts. Ingo and Akari are sitting against a metal wall and there's a droning noise in the background. Akari looks over at Ingo and asks "Did we really just steal a plane?"

Ingo: "From smugglers, yes. Yes, we did."

Chat: *loses their minds*

So, uh, not sure what pokemon they encounter in Unova that helps them, but finally. After all the trials they've faced. All the stress and struggle. All the effort put into getting back home. They finally make it to the correct time.

*stream starts and points to a sign that Ingo reads out loud in his Train Conductor Voice* "Today is the xxth of [month], 20xx. Welcome to Alola."

*camera points to the very done expression on Ingo's face* "You'd think legendary pokemon would be a little more accurate."

And that's all I've got. Let me know if you want to learn more about anything specific!

#pokemon ingo #warden ingo #pokemon legends arceus #pla au #pokemon au #wondering warden au #pokemon akari

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cinderella-ish · 8 months ago

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For the Fruits Basket asks: 2, 3, 19, and 18/20 for Momiji!

Oh, yay! I'm so glad you asked! (ask game here)

2. This might be the hardest question of all, because all the characters are so richly developed and I genuinely like (almost) all of them! I have a certain soft spot for Yuki and Momiji, of course, as the characters I relate to the most, and a similar soft spot for Ayame and Arisa, because I relate to them in a way as well, though to a lesser degree.

I've been writing a lot of Kyo, Saki, and (weirdly) Hiroshi, so I feel really attached to them right now. I mean, Kyo is a character whose happiness genuinely healed me. Saki's unapologetic weirdness is just the best (and uhhh my friend group in high school had a few people who shared several traits with Saki, so I was bound to like her). And Hiroshi and Yusuke are literally the best part of every scene they're in. (Especially Hiroshi in Cinderella-ish. Seriously, his narration is top tier!)

And Machi and Kakeru have a special place in my heart, too, partly because of their roles in Yuki's development, but also because of the ways I relate to each of them. And, of course, Tohru. I mean, there's so much to say about her, but her deep, deep empathy and the richness of her arc and development are just gorgeous.

I do keep coming back to Yuki and Momiji, though. They're central to two of the scenes that I found most surprisingly powerful; Yuki when he tells Kakeru "that isn't what I want!" and Momiji in his speech to Akito, when he says "a happiness might exist for me!" Outside of the major plot points of the series (which are nearly all centered around Tohru and Kyo), these two moments are, I think, some of the most satisfying developments for any of the characters, period.

(Oops, that turned into an essay 😅)

3. If we're sticking to named characters, I think Katsuya is the only choice. I know Takaya couldn't develop every single character in the series, but Katsuya is one whose development would have enriched not only him, but Kyoko, Tohru, and Grandpa Honda as well.

I think that the Katsuya-Kyoko relationship can be read as problematic and even predatory exactly as written. It reads as romanticized because it's told from Kyoko's point of view. But Katsuya himself remains kind of an enigma, and it's just really hard to like him when we don't even know what made him think pursuing a middle schooler was okay.

19. Oh gosh. You're going to get a few long answers, I fear. 😅

I have several favorite fanworks! Off the top of my head:

Ripples, by @proseprincess

So, canon divergent AUs are probably my favorite type of fic, and I especially love fics where one canon event changes, and everything that follows changes due to something like a butterfly effect. In this two-part series, Tohru never met Kureno in the park, which changes everything that came after in a big way. I love that this tackles some massive changes to canon, yet they all feel grounded in the world and characters we all know. The second installment is incomplete, but still very worth the read IMO, not only because part 1 ends with a massive cliffhanger, but because it's just so inventive and unlike anything else I've read. Maybe my very favorite fanwork.

I'll be Standing There By You, by Eboni_A

This is a beautiful, devastating AU told from Yuki's point of view where he finds out in the final weeks of her life that Tohru has terminal cancer. We see Yuki drop everything to come and support Kyo and be with Tohru in her final weeks, we see Tohru die, and we see Kyo and Yuki (and everyone else) try to keep going afterward. It's heartbreaking yet hopeful, and the author made relatively recent comments about a potential sequel! Fingers crossed!

Inertia, by miss_coverly @lesbian-kyoru

This is another canon divergent AU where Kyo and Tohru become friends with benefits before the curse breaks. It's honestly shocking how beautiful this work is. The prose is gorgeous, the angst is dialed all the way up, the sexual tension is dialed even higher, the characterization is crystal clear, it's honestly a masterclass in POV, the sex is sexy, and I could go on and on. I never thought a blowjob scene would make me cry, yet it did.

The Pursuit of Repeating History, by RiddleAfar @mistergrass

So, when I first started reading fanfiction, I stuck strictly with canon-compliant works. Then, I dipped my toes into canon divergence AUs like those above, but I heavily resisted reading anything with alternative pairings.

Then, I got curious about that one really popular Yuki/Kyo soulmates AU fic, and gave it a read. By the end of the first chapter, I couldn't put it down. And when I was finished reading, I knew I had to check out everything else by that author, which is how I ended up reading The Pursuit of Repeating History.

This story honestly showed me the power of fanfiction. The author legit crafted lore for the Fruits Basket universe. And the "lore" chapters (I think they're referred to as "intermissions") are each beautifully-told stories in their own right. But the author also grappled with how the curse might work, and I think they did an incredible job. I'm actually rereading this beast right now!

We'll Work it Out Together, by inheritanceofgeek @mrsmarymorstan

Okay, I'm a sucker for anything with lots of Hiroshi and Yusuke, and this story is probably the most Hiroshi-and-Yusuke-focused story on Ao3. (Probably worth mentioning the author's sideblog, @2d-iendfrays which is an absolute treasure!) In it, Kyo figures out he's asexual, then figures out he's demisexual, all with the help of his two wholesome buds.

Like almost all the authors on this list, inheritanceofgeek has some other really fantastic works that are worth checking out, from sexual humor to Yuki/Machi smut to a touching piece about new parenthood.

How Can I Thank You, by SharkFairy77

Another brilliant Yuki/Kyo piece, in which Yuki hosts Kakeru and Komaki for dinner (at the apartment he shares with Kyo), and at the last minute, Kakeru asks if Machi can come. (Machi is Yuki's ex in this universe)

The piece starts with dinner prep, and then dinner, and the character writing is just incredibly spot on. I loved the arc of the story through the dinner, and the way Kyo and Machi come to an understanding.

But then, we get into some A+ YukiKyo smut.

I'll Be Here, by Blanche2023 @biancanekoyokai

(Full disclosure - I beta read this work!)

This is a very sweet and sad piece about Kyo's first few days in Kazuma's care after his mother's death. Blanche's characterization is outstanding, and she handles tricky things (like writing a young Akito who's also performing head-of-the-family duties) in a really clever way.

I don't think there's enough pre-canon fic out there, nor enough gen fic, and this piece is just beautiful.

Escaping the future, by Modzy78

I really love the way Modzy78 thinks about the Fruits Basket universe, and her take on the canon-divergence of "what if Tohru never confessed to Kyo" is inventive, suspenseful, fluffy, and just such a fun read! I also really love her other canon divergent AU Cursing the Cursed. And Modzy78 is honestly a superhero for the fandom.

The Talk, by Geoduck @drgeoduck

Honestly, Geoduck has a ton of works you should read, but I'll mention this one because it's probably the funniest thing I've ever read. And then it somehow gets even funnier!

The Ones Who Walk Away From Sohma House, also by Geoduck

If you're a fan of Ursula K. Leguin (my very favorite author!), then you are probably familiar with her famous short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, and this short fic is an absolute must-read.

no one is lost, by emphasis

Momiji bumps into Ritsu in a gay bar. Not a pairing I ever imagined, but an excellent fic that puts Momiji in the position of "elder queer" to Ritsu. (Honestly, I wish there were more Momiji-as-elder-queer fics!)

Some other favorites:

The Night We Met, by pettyimperfections

Hold On, by Danyu

Heart Strain, by Kitty0430

I think about you all the time, by lucybeee @riceballcatfb (incomplete)

Making Nice, by Itsalreadyhalloweenright @riza-rin-rose (incomplete)

What's a White Lie Between Friends (& My Family)? by AnxietyAvocado

My Hands on You is Just a Fantasy, by unscheduledmakeouts

This Air is Blessed, by KyoDoodles

Please, Let Her Live, by @goldfishoflove

And that isn't even touching the dozens of phenomenal Yukeru fics! Just a small selection of Yukeru favorites:

fit back in, by @luftballons99

woebegone, by a-bigail @yunsoh

The Other Side of Paradise, by reconquer @yukisohmasmokesweed

If I Ever Feel Better, also by reconquer

if i do anything i regret tonight, no i didn't, by sacrificialParsnip (another fic where Momiji is an elder queer!)

i wanna be dyed with your colors, by halfhope

Like Fireworks in the Night Sky, by Princely_Hairdos (incomplete, currently being updated!)

President Perfect, by draebelle

tongue tied, by b_o_i (note: heed the warnings!)

And if you're familiar with OnigiriCat4Ever's canon continuation series, Always and Forever, some of my favorite works from that series include My Brother, Truth and Consequences, You Don't Understand, I Want to Understand, and all of their smut (collected in a separate series called Tohru and Kyo's Amorous Adventures, plus one explicit Hajime/Mutsuki fic).

And, of course, I'm really proud of my longfic, Bloom Within Us, and wrote it because it's the sort of thing I'd want to read. It's currently in progress, and I took a break from writing due to a family emergency, but I'm back at it and hope to start regular posting within a month.

uhhhh so I think I'll have to make my Momiji headcanons another post (hopefully tomorrow) because this got long! 😅 Thank you again for asking!

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crystalelemental · 3 months ago

Text

Full tierlist is here, breakdown of the S-tier. As the youth say, these are my blorbos. The kids still say blorbo, right?

In all seriousness, this is going to be the longest part by far. The major difference between A-tiers, who are largely some of my favorites you may have seen me talk about a lot, and the S-tiers here, is that S-tiers are so personally compelling they define my attachment to the series. I am going to talk A Lot. So, reverse order, let's talk about S-tier.

Clair Crystal Lore: I am a younger cousin of a particularly talented older cousin. I'm sure this immediately sets the stage for why I like Clair so much. Having her try so hard to be stronger than the talented older cousin, and being Very Angry that she can't seem to be no matter what she does, resonated with me profoundly. The very first fanfiction I wrote was as a roughly ten year old child, giving her the victory over Lance I felt she deserved, and nearly two decades later I recreated it in one of my personal favorite fics. Clair just got me.

In terms of what she is within the series, Clair, like Whitney, exudes personality in a short window of time. Uniquely, Clair refuses to give you a badge after you beat her, demanding you go through an additional trial. Notably, this mimics modern games giving their pre-match trials that feel completely pointless, but instead of a time waster, Clair's actions define who she is. She's a sore loser who cannot stand when others are recognized as being more capable than her. She hates that Lance seems to be the favorite, she hates that the Elder doesn't recognize her, she hates that this random challenger can waltz in and beat her. She's set to refuse accepting you passed the trial, until threatened with consequences of...telling Lance. Which she considers a big enough deal to relent. She hates that he's the favorite...but she does respect him. It's an absolutely divine presentation of this kind of dynamic, for a hot-headed character seeking recognition, feeling like they're overshadowed.

The fun is that Clair, at least visually and in team composition, is highly distinct from Lance despite both being dragon tamers. This is something HGSS loses a bit given evolutions and team expansions, but Clair is defined as someone aligned to the sea, while Lance is defined as someone aligned to the skies. It's a common joke that Lance is secretly a Flying trainer, but that's by design. He is master of the skies, high above the rest of the world. And in contrast, Clair belongs to the seas, with an ace defined by its presence deep below the waves, and a typing that leaves its sole vulnerability as other Dragons. Symbolically, this is an excellent presentation of how she perceives her relationship to Lance. That sense of inferiority in comparison to him is, quite literally, her core weakness.

When I write Clair, I like to think a lot about what she'd be with age. As the cools off, I imagine her to be more introspective and reflective, moving from the external comparison to the people she respects but feels she cannot measure up to, to comparison to her past self and where she's going in her own life. This is undoubtedly projection, but Clair has always been a profoundly important character to me because of that personal connection.

Cynthia Perhaps my most normie opinion of the entire tier list: Cynthia is really cool actually. I feel like there are not many people willing to argue this, save to be contrarian. Which, mood, I'll get to that, but call it what it is. Cynthia's an excellent design, and a notoriously difficult challenge that keeps her ranked as a favorite for most. Yet at the same time, I am also part of the group that gets really frustrated with the general fan perception of Cynthia. Part of that is...too much waifu-ing of a character who Does Not Look LIke That, but in equal measure, people tend to over-emphasize the coolness of Cynthia and ignore that she's kind of a massive dork.

What's presented in-game is honestly fascinating in comparison to her predecessors. Consider previous champions. Blue is the son of Professor Oak, the most esteemed researcher in the series. Lance is the prodigy son of a prestigious line of dragon tamers. Steven is the son of a powerful CEO of the foremost company in Hoenn. By comparison, Cynthia is the granddaughter of the chief of a podunk village in the middle of bumfuck nowhere mountain. Cynthia's rise is from relative obscurity, and what she does with this fame is...kinda wander around pursuing her personal interests. She takes after Steven in this way, being a recurring presence in the player's adventure, but never really taking over the spotlight.

Much like Dawn, her personality is solidified by her contrast to Cyrus, who exists in opposition to human spirit, and more thematically, to emotion. Like Volo and Cogita, her namesake can align to the "I think/wish/feel, therefore I am," with Cynthia being the "feel." She is wholly emotional, driven by her internal whims and what captures her interest. She's open and earnest, almost to a fault, being willing to address Cyrus' philosophical inquiries with "If you hate people so much, just go live by yourself, I don't care about your tantrum."

Following her feelings is what leads to her arrival in Unova. She literally spends half a year, every year given she's in both games, just hanging out at the beach with her girlfriend/wife Caitlin, and exploring ruins. At no point is the question of whether whether she should spend so long away from her job important to her. Cynthia travels when and where she wants, and more importantly, crashes at a "friend's" place while doing it. Masters expands on this a bit, confirming that part of her reason is that Darach tidies up for her. She's bad at housekeeping, tends to make a mess of everything, and she likes having someone help take care of it for her. The illustrious Champion of Sinnoh cannot clean her room. That's endearing to me.

Cynthia, for all her perceived polish, is a massive nerd and a domestic disaster, and that's fantastic. I love a character that can present as effortlessly cool and a complete dweeb depending on circumstance. The level of excitement and whimsy she expresses about legends and myths and her research, before she goes into Serious Battle Mode and stomps your shit in, is the sauce that makes her so appealing. I don't think you can have a truly engaging Cynthia without both sides in play.

Geeta In very provable terms, Geeta is the least popular champion in the series. People, broadly, Do Not Like Her. Part of this is comparative. In a game that introduced a ton of strong and present personalities, Geeta does fail to stand out, being more downplayed and seemingly all business polish. When you're surrounded by lunatics, being the "normal" one is less appealing (see my stance on Larry). Part of this is fan response to the concept of having a boss, actively vilifying her for incredibly benign actions, and making absolutely wild assumptions about her leadership style and capabilities based on incomplete information. I'm not beating around the bush on this one, I think people are overtly hostile to Geeta for no reason, and it's become a self-reinforcing stance in fandom as people flock to the general consensus. And me? I am many things. A massive hater, deeply biased by aesthetics, possibly too old to write this many words about a children's series for children. But the very core of my being, is being contrarian. And damn if her spot here isn't everyone else's fault.

Let's address the former issue. Geeta, in presentation, comes off very down-played, being the polished and calm business woman who, by appearance, exudes too little to stand out. This is facade. Just like Larry, Geeta self-identifies as fairly normal, but is possibly the least hinged of any particular group. When Penny hacks into the League system and embezzles tens of thousands of dollars in funds, her response is "That's awesome. Buff up our security system and we won't tell the feds." I have seen people spin this to "Geeta is blackmailing Penny," in case we want to keep counting of meaningless vilification attempts. Geeta is lackadaisical about rules and, apparently, legality. When you go into Area Zero without permission, it's Rika that snaps at you about breaking rules. Geeta thinks it's fine, and is giving special permission to people outside her institution to explore.

Her battle also highlights a lot of how she is as a person. Like okay, I'm assuming everyone landed critical hits, or had her get a lucky shot in, right? If you didn't, the short is that Geeta comments on everything, but it comes across as wildly condescending. "Surely this isn't enough to deter you," "Yes, that's the correct move in this situation." She seems really smug, but the thing is...she's being genuine. She's clapping for you, smiling the same way she always does. She does think you're doing a good job and is trying to be encouraging, and is so so bad at it. I think there's a reason she considers Nemona her sort of successor; she likely sees a lot of herself in Nemona's complete lack of social grace. She is singularly driven to make Paldea's league exceptional, and despite her efforts to be encouraging and enthusiastic, comes across as condescending or insincere, and I don't read that as intentional from her at all. Despite claims that they were obviously setting up Villain Geeta, she's been on the level the whole time. She's just awkward, guys.

When I write her, this is what I like to lean into. She is deeply awkward, and has no idea what she's supposed to be doing outside of her job. She runs two organizations, and has zero known personal hobbies. In many ways, she's a foil to Larry. Larry doesn't like his position, but as a means to an end, has thrown his entire life into work in hopes of an early escape, with nothing to fall back on. Geeta knows nothing but her work, and is likely to die at her desk. She knows what she likes, but doesn't know how to act outside of that, and it rubs people wildly the wrong way.

Which leads to the second issue. Fan perception of her is starkly negative, and this personal friction leads to assessments of her abilities that are wildly critical given that we don't know what she stepped into. Consider Paldea as a whole. This is the only region where we have a legitimate, fully funded Academy for research. Trainer Schools in other regions are exclusively for battling, but Paldea, uniquely, has Pokemon Biology, Home Ec, Mathematics, as if any ten year old needs to know that shit when you have dinosaurs that are your friend. No other region provides such a robust set of studies for future career paths. Paldea's League, then, is in direct competition with all of these other fields of study, in a way other regions are not. Of course there's not as much money behind it, it has significant competition.

Despite this, people will assert that it is Geeta's poor management that results in Gym Leaders taking a second job, when...Unova. Unova also has Gym Leaders take on secondary, more lucrative positions, and no one criticizes Alder's management skills. If anything, Geeta is keenly aware of the fact the League doesn't pay well, but still expects her Leaders to at least care about their job. Notably, no one gets fired. The Leaders remain despite the performance review, and despite many showing outright apathy about the position. Moreover, while it's not necessarily her doing (though I assume it is), the LP system subsidizes pay. This one gets her a lot of flak too, calling LP a form of company scrip (Vilification Count: 2), but last I checked, company scrip cannot be used at your local independent hot dog stand, with a 1:1 ratio for actual cash. If anything it's the polar opposite; lacking in direct funding to pay better, a system was implemented in which League members, in addition to their actual wages, receive LP that operates, somehow, at a 1:1 value with proper currency. This is both a brilliant move to incentivize people to take the positions, and an outright miracle of bureaucracy that she got nearly every organization in the country to agree to it.

I can go on about her battle being badmouthed as poor design, and how that's really just game design failing an otherwise competent team, but I've done that before and I don't want to spend forever one one character. My point is, Geeta is the closest I come to "Everyone else is interpreting this character wrong." Geeta is absolutely fascinating to me. She wants so badly to make the League as grand as any other, and in the face of massive competition that puts them in a less favorable position, has largely risen to the occasion. She's not perfect. She makes Katy hold back so challengers experience early success, which is behaviorally sound for competitors, but unsatisfying to her employee. She's not infallible.

But she cares deeply for her people, and wants the best for them. That's why she doesn't just ignore Penny's actions, she offers her a job putting her known skills to positive use and guiding a career. That's why she "forces" Larry to use Flying types; she's aware he's in a rut and doesn't love what he does, and is nudging him to expand his interests and horizons. That's why she has Nemona sit out of the Academy Ace Tournament; difficult as it is for her, Nemona is gearing up to take her place as Top Champion, and needs practice organizing the event rather than being its top competitor. People don't really like her for it. Again, social graces are nonexistent, and her sense of what's right to do isn't always what people want. But there's a reason those performance reviews end with everyone showing renewed interest and investment in their positions. Contrary to popular belief, Geeta knows what she's doing, and is damned good at it.

Valerie Aesthetically perfect, I adore Valerie's design. What pushed her over the edge is a particular bit of dialogue from someone in the hotels who talks about various characters. He tells you that "Miss Valerie" is actually from Johto. Her fashion is largely centered on Johto fashion, but she came to Kalos for reasons we don't really know. Which should get the brain juices flowing. For me, the connection was obvious: from Johto, kimono-based attire, mains an Eeveelution. That is a Kimono Girl. Formerly, at least, but that is a Kimono Girl, you cannot convince me otherwise.

So then Masters jumps in, produces the Silver and Ho-oh event where she knows all about Ho-oh...only for them to have her say "Sorry, I'm not, I just know a lot about it." Which...okay. I'm choosing to interpret that as strictly literal. She is not, in this iteration, a Kimono Girl. But either she was and is no longer, or wanted to be. This is fan speculation in spades at this point, but that's half the fun, right?

In the former case, it's...kind of whatever. It implies that she got bored or something, but the conclusion is she left of her own accord. Perhaps to pursue fashion, who knows. But I find these conclusions relatively boring. They don't really lead you anywhere. The latter case, however, has implications. Did she want to become one but couldn't? Why couldn't she? Did she fail out? That seems unlikely, given her knowledge of relevant Johto mythology and working understanding of Johto fashion. Was she not allowed to become one? Why not? Is the position something you're born into, and despite how much she admired them, she just couldn't follow those footsteps? Or was something else in play? I have an answer, but I'm literally in process writing a fic with my answer and don't want to spoil that, so look forward to it, shameless plug.

My point is that, very succinctly, Valerie is the kind of character who is sprinkled with just enough connected dots that you can really run wild with speculation about what her deal is. And her deal becomes exponentially more fascinating when she talks about wanting to literally become a Pokemon, Mystery Dungeon style. Valerie, what in god's name does that mean? Like you want to look like one? Your clothes do weight thirty-three pounds, apparently, so dedication to the need for fairy wings. Or do you want to physically metamorphose into a fairy? Do you assume that's possible based on the forbidden Sinnoh deeplore we're all now privy to? How do you expect to...actually, talk to Opal, she may know a thing or two.

Valerie just winds up being a favorite off of aesthetic preference, and finding her really interesting to speculate about. I can safely say she's probably the "shallow" favorite of the seven, but there's a reason she's #4. I think there's a lot of enjoyment to be had with speculation about a character, where canon doesn't answer too much for you but gives just enough to really get you thinking about it. Also I think all gym leaders should be completely unhinged, my biggest criticism of Galar is that everyone's kinda downplayed, and Valerie is one of the least hinged characters we get in the series. I love her dearly.

Roxanne I have a strong affinity for the straight-laced, serious, studious types. Needless to say, Roxanne is so in this category that, when I first played Sapphire, Roxanne was my favorite instantly. There is a cute bookworm girl who is really into cool rocks? I like cool rocks! Attachment established.

The core of "cute nerd who is deeply fixated on her interest" is the appeal. Roxanne is an absolute treasure, being deeply invested in rocks because she is a lover of history, and rocks (specifically, fossils and such) tell a story about the ancient past. She'd get along well with Cynthia, is all I'm saying. But within her own region, she has the closest connection to Steven, her Rock Pal, who she talks with endlessly about different rocks and stones. What's fun is the contrast. Steven's appeal to rocks seems to be that he finds them pretty and likes the rare ones. He's the equivalent of a card collector who likes showing off the shiny reverse holo foil he pulled. Roxanne, however, is about story. She actually knows how to play the game and maybe this common isn't flashy and impressive, but she loves the tricks it can pull and thinks the art really captures the story they're telling through the flavor text.

There's also her teacher/tutor angle, depending on perceived age (recently leaked documents state 14, though your stance on unreleased internal documents that have very evidently changed is up to you). Roxanne knows a lot, but is also someone who wants to share that knowledge with others. She seems to like working with kids, doing so voluntarily and, presumably, does a good job. Her younger gym trainers all seem to look up to her, anyway. She is admired for her skills and knowledge, if nothing else.

Fan perception, but it's her social relationships I think bear examination. She has Steven, who...we never see directly interact with her in the series proper. And she allegedly has Brawly, who she interacted with in the demo of ORAS but again, never in series. She just mentions getting your number from him, so we know they're in communication, but nothing else. And the thing is, while she is admired for being the top of the class student, that tends to come with some social distance, as she may seem more unapproachable. Add in a tendency to start monologuing in really technical detail about her specific area of interest that not many others are going to reciprocate, and you have a good recipe for a character who is, at some level, rather isolated. There's a reason that, even within Masters, her only close associations seem to be other Rock-type trainers, who share her fervor for rocks.

Masters added dialogue about how she always wanted to train a Golem specifically. This feels like a minor detail, but (1) Geodude is fairly common, so this isn't particularly unreasonable for most people, except that (2) it's a trade evolution. To make that, specifically, your distant goal that you're hoping to one day achieve implies that...you don't have someone to trade with. You're easily talented enough to train up to a Graveller. But Golem? That requires something that goes a step outside of your knowledge. Which is the premise of another fic I wrote, are you sensing a pattern?

Despite this, Roxanne never really seems lonely or sad, or even all that concerned about it. She's the type to be perfectly fine with a small, close circle of friends she gets along with. And it's not that she can't adapt to other areas of interest, she teaches for god's sake. But she knows what she likes and stays true to that, pulling just enough competence to interface well with anyone she needs to.

Roxanne, similar to Clair, hits at a very personal level, even if some of that is due to strictly personal interpretation. While I will often bemoan fandom tendency to big up random characters that are canonically blank slates, I do at least understand the personal connection to a character based on what you've perceptually built of them. Roxanne is, in many ways, that kind of character to me.

Jasmine I am a slut for Johto. By region, it is my favorite, it's a nostalgia thing, it is part of my soul, it will never leave me. In particular, I attached very strongly to Olivine, a city near the sea. While not quite the same thing, I spent a lot of my younger days near the water, and feel a profound connection to it. Olivine felt deeply like home to me because of that. If I were going to have my own Pokesona, which is definitely not a thing I did as a child, they'd live in Olivine. And naturally, this meant there was connection with Jasmine.

Aesthetically, Jasmine is another that just clicks with me. Incredibly cute design, backed by an ace that is a giant metallic snake monster. You have no idea how much I love that Masters kept this going by giving her Celesteela. Jasmine's just a fun and eye-catching look, especially with the HGSS redesign.

Her personality is best encapsulated in her intro. "I use the - Clang! - Steel type! ...do you know about Steel type? They are very cold, sharp, and really strong. Um...I'm not lying." First note: Jasmine describes her type in very tactile terms. She is someone who thrives on the sensory, and appreciates the qualities of cold, sharp, and the noise they make, with her "Clang!" in Masters' sync moves being interpretable as a vocal stim at this point. Second note: she introduces herself and her type, and then the script falls apart, so she just starts talking about her favorite type. There's even a delay before she starts talking again, implying a bit of silence as nothing happens. Third: following that, there's another pause, where she tries to fill the silence and what she comes up with is an incredibly awkward "I'm not lying" before giving up and just starting the fight. Our girl is incredibly awkward, and I adore her. Because despite this, she tries to break out of that mold.

Jasmine is very mild-mannered and soft-spoken, often apologetic and uncertain, but she tries. Jasmine is constantly pushing herself to move out of her comfort zone. She's one of few characters who actively travels to another region. We find her in Sinnoh, where she's taken up Contests as well, which I always interpreted her as being particularly invested in personal experiences. Yet where we find her is Sunyshore. By the sea. It's comforting to her. It reminds her of home. What the game shows us is a young girl who is deeply socially anxious, trying her best to push herself to get out there. She's doing it scared, but by god, she is doing it.

We also get more of her general life, given the little mini events in HGSS. We get to know that Jasmine is a huge eater despite her slender frame (girl, same), and we get to see her talk to Erika, who she cannot socially keep up with. Erika has her flustered in like fifteen seconds flat. And god bless Masters, because when Jasmine talks about Erika, it is in absolutely gushing praise with literal hearts bursting over her, transitioning immediately into blushes and insistence you never tell Erika because that's really embarrassing. Girl is down bad for the girl who...kinda teases her for giggles. That's her best friend/girl crush. I'm not even theorizing, Masters has basically canonized that.

Jasmine is just an entire mood, being socially withdrawn but trying to branch out, awkward but trying so hard to engage with people, pushes herself to do all the things she desperately wants to experience, and finds comfort in the ocean and her preferred sensory input. She feels like one of the most fleshed out characters in very little time on screen, and unlike many who get development, hers is less about grand sweeping character arcs, and more about her day to day. It's about knowing the kind of person she is. I find her deeply relatable, and delightfully charming.

Caitlin Among the many archetypes that capture my interest immediately, there is no more powerful category than "Has very strong emotions, does not understand them at all." When you combine this with a wealthy lady who barks orders, I stand literally no chance. Getting to know about EVs and competitive stuff was the worst thing to ever happen to me, but it did mean I challenged the Platinum Frontier, and I cannot begin to tell you what Caitlin did to me at that age. Seeing her come back in BW1, now a member of the Elite Four using my favorite type in Psychic, was an instant kill. No one did it like Caitlin.

Of course, this is the initial hook that would eventually drag me directly into gacha hell once again. Seriously, I picked up Masters specifically because I wanted to play as Caitlin. What drew me to her was the background they go in to.

See, Psychic, as a type, is often associated not with thought, but with feeling. With empathy. Sabrina initially asserts that everyone has some Psychic power, they just don't realize it, with the implicit lesson being that your ability to connect with others and to feel things out is a form of psychic power. Tate and Liza show similar given their coordination tactics. Caitlin is the next evolution of that, taking the concept of "Psychic powers as emotional strength" to a different conclusion. Specifically, what happens when you can't control it?

In Platinum, Caitlin is forbidden from battling. They don't really go in depth about why, just that she can't, so Darach does it for her. When we meet in Unova, the answer is explained: "the force of my emotions shook me greatly. When my power awoke, I came close to destroying everything around me." She's even clear about what the emotion was, talking about how she's never beaten Cynthia, and would explode with rage. She doesn't handle losing well, and has eruptive psychic power that make it actively dangerous for her to get mad.

Caitlin is someone with anger issues, whose understanding of elegance and poise is to just not do that at all. Just don't get mad. She even refers to that time as her "weak self," as if trying to distance from that part of her. But while battling, when you get to her last Pokemon, she says she needs to stay cool and collected no matter what, as if talking herself through it. And in her villa, she'll talk about how she thinks it's better to just have no psychic power at all, than power you can't control. Using the "Psychic powers as channeling feeling," she's someone who thinks it's better to feel nothing than to feel out of control. There's a reason I think she and Cyrus would have stuff to talk about.

By BW2, Caitlin has dropped the "weak self" and no longer talks herself through things while on the verge of losing, instead presenting as much calmer and even enjoying the match. But that personal philosophy stays. She pursues this notion of an ideal, elegant self, but that self is one completely divorced from the things she is feeling. And it's only through experience confronting those emotions and working through them that she actually starts to properly adapt.

Specifically, losing to Cynthia got her used to it, and helped her learn to calm down. In her position as Elite Four, losing to the protagonists (and likely Iris) further built familiarity. She keeps it in check now. It's delightfully powerful, and resonates very strongly on a personal level. As someone who has also had difficulty controlling frustration and anger, and also internalized shame over it to the point you think the only thing to expect is Never Get Mad, Caitlin lands extremely hard.

Coincidentally, this is also part of why Caitlin/Cynthia is my big pairing. Cynthia, canonically, is part of what got Caitlin to where she is. Their battles taught Caitlin to accept loss, and Cynthia's continued presence with her through explosive outbursts shows a level of trust and care that is, frankly, rare in the series. Friendship is a huge thematic point of Pokemon, but in many cases it's interest in similar things, or that sort of kid friendship where you both are playing in the same sandbox and therefore are friends right now. Caitlin and Cynthia have this incredibly fascinating backstory of a girl who could not control her power, and a girl who stuck with her until she could. Even if you're weirded out about age gap or just don't like the ship, there's something uniquely powerful to their dynamic I don't think you can get anywhere else in the series.

Caitlin is just the most personal connection I have ever gotten out of a Pokemon character. She is the ideal aesthetic, she mains the best type, she's a powerful temper doing her best to be composed, grappling with internalized shame and a desire to be rid of those feeling entirely, but makes her way through to better control it without suppressing who she is. It's like I said, absolutely no one did it like Caitlin.

Shameless Self-Promotion If you read through all 39 of those paragraphs, maybe you would like to read 39 other paragraphs of fanfiction? If so inclined, here's the link to my AO3 account, where I have written:

Several Caitlin/Cynthia fics, and some Caitlin-specific fics

Geeta-positive propaganda

General-rated Volo fic, which one comment tells me is super rare

WataOshi fic, but not a pairing anyone cares about

That one Little Goody Two Shoes fic

Among others. I also cross-post each fic under this tag on Tumblr, with some commentary if you're into that sort of thing. I've been working on new projects that should hopefully start going live by the end of the week too. I'm hoping to have one or two up tonight, we'll see.

#pokemon tier list #pokemon characters tier list #pokemon replays #pokemon #caitlin #jasmine #roxanne #valerie #geeta #cynthia #clair

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atsadi-shenanigans · 4 months ago

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Writer Interview Game!

Thank you so much for the tag, @gilded-glitter!

When did you start writing?

I was actually toodling around with that in elementary school. At some point, I think I tried to write Jurassic Park 3? (This was before that movie was a thing). Got about 15 pages into it.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I love fantasy and especially dark fantasy (with horror elements). Could do sci-fi, I think. And the romance angle is new, but I think I'm liking it, as long as I can build it slowly and they're both kind of dorks. And I read all of the above, and a BOATLOAD of non-fiction, mostly history, accidents, adventures-going-wrong, etc. I have three bookshelves, and one of them is entirely (and overflowing) with non-fiction.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

Hmm. I loved Animorphs as a kid, and Jurassic Park. So anything in that vein, I guess? Got compared to Laini Taylor once and I almost choked on my own tongue. If anyone EVER comped my to Tamsyn Muir I would simply expire.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Literally wherever. First drafts are by hand, because I can take and deploy a notebook anywhere, anytime, with hardly a fuss. The majority of my fic is probably written during my lunch break at my work desk in the old spiral, college-ruled notebook.

At home, when typing, my desk is a catastrophe. Stacks of paper and other notebooks and knocked over figurines. Organization? I don't know her.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Writing something fun? Listening to music a lot. I'm kinda a work horse, and I've trained myself to GO in about the time of a lunch break or the 10-15 minutes waiting for the bus. The small time increments really helps (not a big commitment, just whatev).

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Outsiders, monsters (both of those being the actual hero, I SEE YOU GUILLERMO DEL TORO). Rage against everything that hurt you but like, trying to find a way to channel that. Not super surprised.

What is your reason for writing?

I like it. It's fun! And it's REALLY fun sharing it; lets me connect to other people.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Literally anything. I'm just tickled somebody took the time to do it (god knows I don't always have enough spoons).

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I've never really thought about that? (see above, re: outsiders). Never got noticed much in my olden fandom days. So uh, the thought of being perceived vaguely makes me want to crawl under the desk???

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Dialogue and fights.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I mean, like any writer, I waffle between "Holy crap, this is my best work yet!" and "Throw it in the bin! IN THE BIN!" One thing I've learned is to have fun with it. Because NOT having fun makes it a mind-melting slog and you get burnt out. I try not to take it all very seriously.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

Ehhh, more towards what I like and hope it finds an agreeable audience. I know better than to chase trends. I write long fiction, and that is an UNDERTAKING. The only way to consistently see it through is to like what you're working on, so I definitely need to care enough to carry the bitch through.

Tagging: @bardnuts @britonell, @sasseffects @britosia @hiboudeluxe @shewhowas39 @allymcfee and @mutualcombat

#interview game #writing

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azamonvoid · 8 months ago

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Back here to talk abt my hsr coffee shop au cuz Im a bit of a perfectionist and want everything to make sense/be logical (?).

So I haven't worked much on this au, mainly cuz I kept forgetting every couple of days that the idea ever crossed my mind and also cuz this month I've been having more exams than usual and a lot of assigments crampled all in 1 month. What Im gonna do in this post its just briefly talk about some of the ideas I have so far :]

-- Caelus and Stelle are twins. Caelus is the older but shorter and Stelle the younger but shorter (directly picked from our dynamic @a-sociopath-do-your-research xd (also sorry for @ when its not like our silly post xdnt))

-- This one its still in thought process, but I want to make the whole stellaron thing an actual health issue that both twins (will be referring to both Caelus & Stelle as twins througthout this post/AU) have and prob also characters like Cocolia. In-game its known as the Cancer of All Words, but Im prob dumb for not knowing if its actually based on cancer or if its meant to be like a made up illness. (Pointing this out cuz I literally went out my way to research illnesses with specific symptoms for a Genshin oc..)

-- Pom-Pom is the owner of the coffee shop, both Himeko and Welt would prob be the managers. Danheng March and the twins are kinda scattered between senior & junior employees.

-- Something thats giving me major trouble to plan (right under the health topic) is how to add the Stellaron hunters into this au. The original idea, that was one of the veru first ones, was that the shop was actually theirs, but since I want to add in the same mistery between the group's connection with the twins, I ended up discarding the idea. I currently have 2 vague ideas: either they're like some mafia/shady group or they also have a business close by (the latter came while writing abt the og idea). Also conflicted on the whole idea of Kafka being like a mother figure to the twins (hc Ive had ever since I started playing).

-- The coffee shop is called Stellaron, just cuz I like the idea of it, cuz either way, the concept Im getting from the ingame stellari¡ons are just the effect they can have in people. (As in, the sickness would have a different name-)

-- Lastly, not really an idea for the au but Im kinda thinking of eventually writing a fic out of this au, that is if I dont give up on it xdnt)

#talking hatrack #au #hsr #honkai star rail #hsr au #caelus #stelle #pom pom hsr #march 7th #dan heng #stellaron hunters #coffee shop au #kafka

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unhingedlesbear · 9 months ago

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Okay fuck it yeah I'm making the post idc abt backlash. First of all the hidden agenda fandom doesn't exist anymore so whos even gonna have an issue. But if you do feel called out um. Maybe thats ur problem idk bc I'm not aiming at anyone in particular here.

Anyway long ass ramble abt the tiny dead Hidden Agenda fandom below the cut

This is mainly something I noticed looking through the very limited amount of Hidden Agenda fics on ao3, but it's VERY obvious on there. The vast majority of fics on there are centered on Adam and Finn, which I can understand more since they have an interesting backstory and are well written characters, sure. But then you look at the others and the other characters that are centered are... Riggs and Calvary?

In the actual game ofc Becky and Felicity are the main characters. Both of them not only are pretty objectively interesting characters on their own, and even more so together. On top of this they have the most shipping potential of any two characters in that game, it's literally basically canon, it's not even subtext atp it's literally just text. NO other two characters have that amount of chemistry in the game, and yet there is a noticeable lack of gravey fics in that tag. And I'll stress again bc I know how defensive people got last time I made this kind of observation, I'm not pointing fingers or calling anyone misogynistic/racist/homophobic BUT. but. When the two mcs are women, one of which is poc, and they're implied to be lesbians, and they get sidelined by the fandom despite being the focuses of the game... it's kinda hard not to assume there's some kind of bias there.

And on another point, it's similar when it comes to supporting characters too. In a way I'm disappointed but absolutely not surprised that Adam/Finn is prioritized in fan works over Becky/Felicity, but when characters like Riggs and Calvary are also given more attention than them it becomes way more suspicious to me. Riggs is a fine character, I like him enough and I can see why others might like him more, but wbk he doesn't really have all that much relevance. Calvary is even more confusing bc he basically JUST exists to be a creepy misogynistic asshole and as unlikeable as possible. Thankfully I haven't seen him getting a lot of attention but the fact that I've seen him getting any that isn't entirely negative is... hm...

Now there ARE in fact male characters that can be both relevant and likeable: Tom and Karl. (I talk shit abt Karl bc it's a joke I started with friends, I'm gonna drop that for this post obv bc we're being fr here) these two are pretty obviously more relevant than Riggs or Calvary, they're literally Becky's partners (Tom can even replace Riggs' entire role lmao, and if he's replaced himself it's by Karl) and I'd say they're also both likeable characters on their own too. And yet I'm pretty sure I found maybe one??? fic with them in it? Probably should have mentioned this earlier but yeah, they're both poc.

So like... I feel like it all comes down to what Becky/Felicity/Tom/Karl have in common and then what Adam/Finn/Riggs/Calvary have in common. It strikes me as questionable. But like maybe I'm just an annoying snowflake though idk🤷‍♀️ /s

This turned into more of a ramble than anything and I'm aware i'm also yelling into a void bc I'm posting entirely for a dead fandom that barely existed to begin with, but tbh this stuff applies to most if not all larger fandoms as well, i'm just looking at it from what I've seen in the remnants of the HA fandom. Again I am not attacking anyone here, I am making observations. If you're like mad or something I'm just gonna assume you didn't even read the whole post. Yes ur allowed to like characters, but I am also allowed to address what I've noticed about what characters seem to be more liked than others.

#uh oh #if I get burned at the stake for this one too then I don't even know atp #hopefully I won't be though bc not many people gaf abt Hidden Agenda #Hidden agenda smg #🏃‍♀️

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therealvinelle · 1 year ago

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Why do you think fanfic writers lie in their fic tags? Like, a fic itself contains several semi-graphic depictions of het sex, and yet the tag is Gen. What is the thought process behind doing shit like this?

They're sick fucks, that's why.

To be more serious: I think few people set out to intentionally deceive their readers, and the ones that do usually want readers so badly they forget themselves. Genuine bad actors are rare, or so I choose to believe.

As it is, I suspect I'm a misleading tagger myself, at least to some.

The way I treat tags is as warnings, so I will tag ships featured in my works even if they're one-sided, background, or in the past because that way people who don't want to see that ship know to avoid my story. Edward/Carlisle and Jacob/Renesmee getting tagged in my fic Bleach on the Brain is an example of this: sucks if you clicked on the fic because you're a shipper but the way I see it, sucks worse if you don't want to see those and now you're reading a fic with father/son incest and a guy in his mid-twenties grooming a child in it. If I hadn't done this, if I'd only kept the pairings which were depicted positively, then the negative tags in that fic (grooming, sexual assault, etc) would have been assumed to be related to those and someone else would have been upset with me.

I tag this way because @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin learned the hard way (i.e.: got hate) that tagging only for endgame will get a lot of people very mad at you, but now A/B shippers have fics depicting their ship negatively. It's a losing game.

So that's bringing me to a major reason why I think misleading tags happen (which gets a headline so I can tell myself this post is structured):

People have different ideas of how works should be tagged

Some people want to tag for everything that happens in the fic. Literally everything, if it's a smut you know exactly what goes where just from reading the tags.

This also means they might tag characters who appear only briefly in a scene in chapter 35 (the fic having 56 chapters so far and being 500k+ long), because hey, the character appears. Or maybe they're brought up a lot and are very important to the fic even if there's not much actual screentime, so a character like Voldemort gets tagged in a Harry Potter fic focused on the war without him actually appearing all that much.

On the opposing side you have the minimalists. They tag the main two characters and put three more in the additional tags so it won't go in the character tag, and add a ship tag some 30 chapters in. There are two additional tags, both are very vague. If that - I've seen people who don't tag at all, or who just tag with a single character, or just the ship - it really is up to the individual.

I've noticed the type of author (whether Ao3 was their first platform, how much time they spent elsewhere, whether it's an imported fic, and how old the author is) and the type of fic (how old it is, the author's background, and genre (oneshot, drabble, multi-chapter, 5+1, etc.)) influences tagging.

Common to all authors, though, is they try to tag as they feel is appropriate for their fic.

Which brings me to the next issue:

How do I tag?

A lot of people are confused about this.

They're confused about what tags mean - what's freeform (I honestly keep forgetting what this one is supposed to be too), when something should be tagged, what belongs in relationship or character tags vs. additional tags, what additional tags are supposed to be.

Do you, for that matter, try to explain your story in the tag ("this is a roommate AU with feelings") or do you tag succinctly ("roommate AU", "feelings", "fluff") or a combination? A lot of authors seem to prefer the first and last options, from what I can tell it's become the norm. Most authors seem to use the additional tags to connect with the reader in this way, and so you get people placing more emphasis on the additional tags than the succinct tags.

How do I tag? Sensibilities section

Then there's the question of sensibilities: what's triggering to reader A may be great stuff to reader B, with the author not realising it could be triggering to anybody and should have been in the tags, or the author thought knees brushing against each other warranted big red warnings that "they literally had sex, oh god this is so dirty. so dirty!! can't believe i wrote this. ENTER AT OWN RISK" which of course is very disappointing to the sick fucks who wanted porn.

Or the opposite happens: the author knows the subject is triggering, which means people might not click on the fic, and they want attention so badly they ah weasel out. Or option three: the author can't tag without spoiling the story, and so they either put "creator chose not to use warnings", don't rate it, and let the readers enter at their own risk or they use tags uh strategically (have a look at how I tagged Nebuchadnezzar's Dream to avoid spoiling the bloody coup d'état that happens at the end. Today I simply would have gone for no warnings and no rating, but those tags are also a solution which I think is... alright, I suppose "massacre" could have been added but it was entirely off screen so to me would have been an abuse of the tag).

In other words, everyone will be tagging differently and sometimes it's because they've no clue which tag is warranted, sometimes they're trying not to spoil their story, sometimes they didn't realise they should or shouldn't have tagged for something.

Anthologies (when someone posts their oneshots as chapters of a story)

These used to frustrate me endlessly, until I saw a "how to help readers find your fic!" post explaining that with anthologies, your readers get a notification every time you post a new oneshot and it's easy to find them all!

Which, in retrospect, is the most fanfiction.net statement I've ever seen (indeed, OP was an old ffnet dog).

Ao3 allows collections, and is unique in this: to older fandom people, putting your thematically connected oneshots together as chapters of a story used to be how it was done, having 54 connected drabbles on your fanfiction.net profile where readers couldn't filter them out nor select to view only the drabbles put together made perfect sense. And then they never adapted to Ao3's features, and other users seeing these anthologies copied the action because hey, stats.

I'm still frustrated with these people and wish they would just post their oneshots individually, but I think a lot of them are just... really really keen on the numbers on their fics going up, and not thinking about the purpose of the archive, utilising its features, nor that they're making their oneshots harder to find and annoying a lot of people.

The tag difficulty with anthologies, of course, being that if you have two oneshots in it, one with characters A and B and you tag it for X and Y happening, the other oneshot is with characters C and D and you tag it for Z and W happening, and continue like this for 30 chapters, then you have a wall of tags so everyone will see your story, good on you, but your readers have no way of knowing what's happening in your story or to which characters, and they're either patient enough to click their way through every goddamn chapter or they just scroll past your thing. Either way you're cloying a looot of tags and the readers who wanted Z and W happening to A and B are pissed because they clicked their way through god knows how many chapters only to not get what they wanted (and now they don't like anthologies either).

(Disclaimer: sometimes drabbles or oneshots are so interconnected that it doesn't make sense to separate even on Ao3, so to every rule there's an exception.)

In conclusion

Most authors are making tough choices when tagging, or they don't know how to tag, or they want readers very badly (and what you as a reader can do to ameliorate this is to comment and kudos frequently! Even give positive notes in the bookmarks when you make a new one because believe me we check!).

Or they're writing an anthology, in which case you should be very skeptical about those tags.

#writing #ao3 #archive of our own #fanfiction #fanfiction.net

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honeydots · 6 months ago

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Otp ask!!! 19, 22, 29 for xanlow- you can do all three or just pick one :D

OTP ask game

expectedly, this got long, so im putting it under a cut!

19: What do they fight about most often? (Alternative: what was their biggest fight?)

ohgh. pre-relationship its certainly the same thing they get in arguments abt in-game, which is laslow's behavioral issues (ESPECIALLY regarding women LOL) but post relationship--i think, at least, laslow is a pretty devoted partner. so the flirting issue dwindles (tho its fun to think abt the process of him successfully killing that habit~), so it's not the most prominent thing they argue abt anymore. on laslow's side, once laslow starts getting comfortable calling xander out on some of his Things, it'd result in the potential for little spats. his work ethic, his harshness, his stubbornness. i don't think xander takes what he finds to be unwarranted critique particularly well. he's not used to it, either, not coming from laslow. so he gets huffy HAHA

on the other hand, something i rly like for xander's side is him pointing out the ways that laslow will Not let go of some of his retainer habits (i wrote a fic abt this), and trying to get laslow to recognize that he holds a lot of worth to xander. also, i dont think laslow's issue of not wanting to burden ppl with his problems will just go away, and i think the more xander realizes that's something he does, the more he starts pestering him about it.

with all this being said i think it does take a lot to get them into an actual, lasting, *argument* once they're in a relationship. probably would take a pretty specific scenario? i don't think it's impossible that it could happen, tho.

22: Love languages? How do they get around differences, if any?

rubs my hands together. i rly rly think xander is a gift giving man.... i think he's also more physically affectionate than expected (and can get particularly touchy if he gets jealous (...which he does. more on my hc that xander's harsh punishments for laslow flirting w women were fueled by jealousy later KFJSKDFJ)). on that note, i think he's also more chill abt PDA than expected too, but he can get awkward around his siblings.

laslow i think is more wordy abt his affection!! both in giving affection and in receiving it, and i think it takes some communication for xander to start verbalizing in a way that resonates with laslow heh. physical touch seems very obvious for laslow too considering that he does literally glomp xander multiple times HAHA tho when xander initiates it i think it flusters him quite a bit while they're early on in their relationship :3

i dont necessarily think they clash, but they need to nudge each other in the right direction sometimes!! neither of them are mind readers so it does take some effort, tho.

29: First date? (Give as much or little detail)

first date.... hmm...!!! i feel like their first date would go along the lines of that they've been in a relationship for a while, and laslow ends up being like we NEED to go on a DATE that's what people DO. not just an outing (waggling his finger), but a defined date. laslow would be the one to set the whole thing up (and honestly, the reason he probably feels like they haven't been on a date before is bc *he* hasn't taken *xander* on one, tho ultimately this would still be the first time they've been on a defined date) and hmm perhaps they'd see an opera together, or something. i think it'd go well, too, no catastrophes or major issues. and from then on they do start doing little things together more often. not always quite as high end as an opera, but it opens the way!

#HTANK U FOR THE ASK AND FOR REQUESTING THEM #SORRY THIS IS LIKE #LONG #i have ONE MILLION things to say abt them....#first date was tough bc i can imagine it going differently depending on the au #but i think thats a pretty good baseline there. maybe i'll do a fic abt that too #i was looking thru my fic ideas yesterday and i ahve so many. i will write them one day #THANK YOU AGAINNN I LOVE THESE GUYS #dots answers asks #hybrix-hidings #dots's xnlw tag

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aparticularbandit · 11 months ago

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and now i'm gonna talk about monaca because i can.

i spent the vast majority of this game hating monaca. because she was trying to be junko. and she just wasn't junko.

and i complained about this to my dad (who was hanging out in the same room while i was playing, don't judge) while i was finishing the game - that, like, junko is fun. junko might be a horrible person, but she's fun. she chews all of the scenery in the entire room. she consumes it.

and monaca is. not. fun.

she's just mean. and cruel. and horrible. and nasty. and sometimes creepily cheery about what she's doing? but she's not fun.

and to be fair. junko is BIG shoes to fill. and it was going to be really hard to build someone up to take over from her as a main villain, even in a spin-off.

but monaca was not. it.

(also i refuse to believe she made all the monokumas. kazuichi made the ones for the killing game. monaca's mass produced ones are nowhere near the level of his. junko just couldn't have kazuichi's amazing ones be the grunts for ground operations. they're too good. anyway. side point.)

((also also monaca wants to cause despair like big sis junko, but she doesn't love despair like big sis junko. she's not seeking the sweet taste of despair that is death like big sis junko. she literally has an oh, so this is despair moment. which is another thing - junko spreads despair out of the sheer love of despair (and boredom, i guess), but monaca spreads despair out of the sheer love of junko. which is an entirely different motivation.))

however.

the last scene? where she was stuck under the rubble? and begging everyone to do something and everyone just left her?

did she deserve that? yes. did it break my heart just a little bit? also yes.

because this is still a little kid who, admittedly, did a lot of very horrible things, but doesn't want to be alone.

and then the cut scene afterward where nagito was carrying her on his back and she wasn't entirely aware but she was curled up against him?

if you don't think i want to read about their little found family where nagito just adopts monaca. even if he's trying to make her even more junko than junko was. even if it's toxic. the fact that nagito went back to get her.

like can you imagine. nagito getting out of nwp with alter ego junko in his head. but still being there and aware somehow. and just monaca now has two parents who hate each other but actually care about her somehow? even for really screwed up reasons? man, i want that fic.

which i guess is how i spent an entire game hating a character and then got tiny heart eyes at the very end.

i don't know. i don't know, y'all.

#musings #bandit liveblogs #bandit liveblogs danganronpa

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ghostintheheadset · 1 year ago

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watchmojo's top five headphones_haver fics of 2023 (not clickbait)

I'm looking at my 2023 stats on ao3 and fandom disparities are really funny to me lmao, my main fandom at the moment is fe3h, and of the 22 fics I posted this year, 19 of them were fe3h.

All three of the non-fe3h fics are my top three most kudos'ed fics of the year:

It goes without saying ofc that these numbers don't really matter, if I was only doing this for the kudos I'd be writing m/m genshin fic, and it's not really surprising why the numbers are the way they are- both my Pokemon and Zelda fics were posted within a few months of the game coming, and gwitch is also relatively new and I was writing for far and away the most popular ship. Meanwhile, 3h is now past the 4 year mark, and largely m/m dominated while the majority of my fics are f/f. While I would certainly enjoy all my fics getting popular, seeing the numbers like this makes it easy to remember that engagement isn't a metric of quality.

(In that vein, Falling is probably the fic I spent the least amount of time on this year, being impulse-written in about 2 hours. Sometimes niche fics you pour your heart and soul into can't reach the same level of popularity as wider-appeal stories you wrote much more quickly, and that's okay)

That said, though, I am happy with the fics that made top 2. There's something satisfying about my first and last fics of the year being the most popular, and I am very happy with how the both of them turned out. They're both representative of the themes I like writing about and are both wholesome yuri, so I think they "belong" in the top 5 as much as any fic could be said to.

Numbers 4 and 5 are kind of a surprise to me- Pegasus Knight Dysphoria is a gen fic about a trans girl and Someday is an f/f rarepair. Of the 19 (wow) 3h fics I've written over 2023, these are not the two I'd expect to break into the top 5, but it's a pleasant surprise that they did!

Anyway, none of that actually matters beyond being mildly interesting to me specifically. Onward to 2024:

According to my stats page, I posted 126k words of fic in 2023, which averaged out to a little over 10k words a month or about 345 words a day. Not bad! Looking to get those numbers up next year though. If I don't, then that'll be okay, but 126k is the Word Count To Beat if possible.

I would also like to do some more fandom events! Apparently there's a FE rarepair week happening literally right now that I wasn't aware of until yesterday. Hoooopefully I'll be able to see more of that kind of thing now that I'm here, as they've always been a lot of fun when I could participate. I'm not leaving 3h just yet, but I would like to branch out a bit more- I definitely have more gwitch fics lined up, and I'd like to also branch out a bit and write for some other fandoms I haven't gotten around to yet.

Big writing goal is to finish Together We Ride, and also work on it more consistently. I was putting off starting it for a while because I wanted to "wait for a good time", but I realized if I kept that up it would never get started. Considering I started it in April and there's currently 7 chapters, it was in fact "not a good time", but! I am committed to seeing it through in the upcoming year.

That's about it I think. It's been lovely writing fic over the past year (and a great way to unwind from the Grad School Stress), and I'm very much looking forward to exploring more next year.

(might do a roundup later today of some fics from this year I really liked we'll see)

#ramblings

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folklauerate · 1 year ago

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20 questions for fic writers

thanks for the tag @bad-surprise and @ladykettlechips

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

71 under my name and a few on anon!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

796,982 which is kind of insane to think about. I started writing creatively for the first time in years in January of 2022. To have published this much is kind of crazy to think about. I'm likely going to hit 800k this year which is... Just wild. Lol.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The vast majority of my fic Bridgerton! I've written a two for The Rings of Power (Haladriel), one for Shadow and Bone (Darklina), and one for The Hunger Games (Everlark). I have plans for a few more Haladriel and Darklina :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

(NOTE: I actually have never looked at my fics by kudos, I only know the set up is the most kudos'd one because well it's over 1k and none of my other fics are. So going through this was interesting!)

The Set Up — My Kathony royals au where Anthony is the King of England and Kate is a world famous actress. This is my most popular fic by far, I'm not sure how it ended up that way! It's a mind boggling amount of kudos (1,769 as of right now) and I know a lot of folks have much larger kudos counts, and it's hardly the most kudos'd in the fandom lol, but it's pretty big for me and I'm not sure if I'll write something else that'll get more lol. I do love this fic a lot, it feels like they're my own characters and that's likely because I've taken plenty of liberties and whatnot. Anyway. I could do talk about it for ages so I'll move on!

Hold Onto You -- A oneshot of Anthony holding babies--his own and his siblings. It was one of the first things I ever wrote for the fandom! Looking back it's a bit of foreshadowing for how I started to write lol--it was a pretty long oneshot written in less than a day which I've done multiple times since then. I haven't revisited this one in a while and don't even know if I can--writing regency is not my strong suit and my earlier writing is still hard for me to read these days lol.

leave the light on — A twoshot where Kate and Anthony are roommates and fall in love. It's set in NYC and is very rom-com-y! It has some of my favorite things to write; domesticity, people growing with one another and around one another, descriptions of the sky, descriptions of the subway, descriptions of NYC, a big wedding, a love confession. I recently finished it lol! I'm actually surprised this is up there!

Office Hours — I wrote this in September of last year in an attempt to get better at writing smut! I actually posted this on anon first because it felt too revealing to post this lol. I was actually really uncomfortable writing smut back then and I think I've improved a lot since then. The response was wild, I really was just so in the weeds with this fic that I couldn't even tell if it was hot or not lol.

lost in your current like a priceless wine— this is my prof au! And an age gap au :) writing this was wild and special. It was a lot of texting Kara and being so very thoroughly enveloped and possessed with this idea that was taking shape. I wrote this over countries and continents and on planes. I wrote all 40k of it in far less than a month and just! I dunno! It was so immersive. It's one of my favorite things I've written. It's crazy it was just this year.

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

I do! Lol that being said--I have quite a backlog right now. Responding to comments takes a lot of energy and time from me and I usually figure that people want me to write fic as opposed to responding to comments. I do want to say that I honestly sincerely appreciate every comment. I think all fic writers do. We love hearing what you loved and love hearing your thoughts! I'm sure my not responding to them is likely not encouraging so I'm sorry. Know that I want to respond to them and I am quite literally in the process of doing so right now lol. If you commented on Bridgerton, Actually (my Love, Actually AU from last year) then I've been responding to you lol!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This fic isn't finished but my daddy warned me about men like you lol!

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

I'm a sucker for a happy ending! I'm not sure what my happiest ending is, but the vast majority of fics have a happy ending :) Feel free to lmk what you think the happiest ending is.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes. I've gotten some really inane hate comments that are just... dumb and easy to brush off. I've also gotten really intense hate comments that are so long they've required multiple comments, with people reposting exactly what they wrote after I deleted it. It's been really tough to deal with and I think I have some mild anxiety around comments in general as a result. Anyway, it's tough! I think hate comments tend to stick around the most in my brain and so I do appreciate all the nice comments because the gut clench from negative ones never really goes away :,)

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

I do indeed write smut! I'm not really sure if I can describe what "kind" or how you can tell what your kind of smut is? I write plenty of dirty talk and smut with and without feelings. In general, I think that smut does need to do something for the story if it's in a fic with plot--if it's a fic that's just smut then it doesn't really matter. If it's a fic with plot, I like to make sure the smut actually helps the plot along and works to carry the reader through what the characters are feeling and their journeys.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you��ve written?

I haven't but I will enjoy adding celebs or pop culture things in fics!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope but if anyone ever wants to, lmk! Translation is an art form and tricky and time consuming and I'm happy to work with anyone who wants to :)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I have and I have LOVED doing it!!!!! I was so thrilled to write the West Wing AU with Rama, whose Tumblr @ I simply cannot find, and @grantairesbottle and I wrote in our perfect park together! Both AUs will be getting follow-up fics :) I truly adore both of their work and getting to write with two dear friends and incredible writers was just so lovely. Even more fun than that was just getting to freak out over this shared idea together! It was just such a lovely joint venture.

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

I could not pick one! I love James/Lily from Harry Potter, Katniss/Peeta from The Hunger Games, and Kate/Anthony from Bridgerton. I'd honestly say they're my OTPs! I love them so, so much. I've read so many Everlark and Jily fics growing up, too, those I've had for so long. It's kind of hilarious how those three have so much in common, like it's not like I went around looking for ships like that but it just happens. You like what you like, I suppose :)

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

I honestly do want to finish all of them but I don't think I'll finish my Gilmore Girls AU, simply because the characterization is so far off from what I think or how I understand those characters now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Creating really immersive worlds through specific details. Doing research to make worlds lived in. I write a LOT of modern AUs for a book/show that takes place in regency England so I think world-building is one of my biggest strengths. Being able to transport characters into new worlds and understanding how they'd respond to that specific world and situation of the fic is another strength. I think my banter is pretty good? I also like to think I have a pretty good pulse on what my audience will like and what seems to be the thing du jour in the fandom. I usually don't end up writing to it lol but this is a strength as a reader, I'd say, not as a writer.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

PATIENCE lol! If I spent more time perfecting, editing, and letting things percolate, I think my works would all be better for it. Instead, I largely write and write and write and then hit publish the moment I'm done. With a few fics (specifically the royals au) I will have someone beta for me and then I at least have another level of editing and another pair of eyes for a vibe/gut check before I publish. I do think, however, that if I was brave enough to actually face my work and sit and edit, it would all be better in general. I'd also then be able to finish a fic before posting, which I've simply never done.

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

I do plenty of this for Bridgerton fic because I usually try and include Marathi or Hindi for Kate and her family. Idk if i'd count it as another language but it is another language in the sense that it's not English!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter lol! I wish I still had my old HPFF fics :,,) that website sadly went down and I don't know how to use the wayback machine to find that. But yeah!

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Oh, I couldn't pick just one! The Set Up is def one. I've done a lot of work with world building and research for that one. Sweet Like Honey is another favorite fic. I wouldn't even say that it's really a great example of those characters because I did a lot of work to bend things to make stuff work for this particular situation. I maintain that it's true to the characters for this specific situation which is a p bonkers one. I mean, I wanted a step-father fic so I wrote one! It turned into something a bit more involved. lost in your current like a priceless wine is another fav. This one is just... it's special to me. It was really different from the other fics being written at the time and I hadn't seen or read an age gap like that for these two or a fic where they don't have that initial bickering/fighting vibes, which was a result ofc of Anthony being a bit older and the characterization I gave him for the AU, so it felt really scary putting it up for people to read. The response was really overwhelming and wonderful and so kind. That fic also marks a sort of turning point in my own writing, for me at least. I think I got braver after that one.

Thanks for the tag! I hope this is fun or interesting to read :) tagging @grantairesbottle @amalinwrites @somethingclearandtrue @tinacentury and Rama whose @ is not coming up !! Also tagging anyone who would like to do this :)

#fanfic #writing #ask a fic writer #some questions and thoughts on my own fic

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