#this fic does have an actual plot to it because I can't write anything without a plot

[watery-melon-baller]

hellooo so i'm writing a slice of life toh college au (set in a modern au, no boiling isles) and i wanted to ask for like. suggestions of things that should happen. I've already got a bunch of ideas but i wanted to ask other people if they wanted to see anything (and also I'm bad at coming up w/ slice of life stuff lmao)

[atzfilm]

𝐚𝐭𝐳𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦'𝐬 𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐳 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 .ᐟ

all works of writing/summaries are not owned by me, and all credits go to the respective writers! this list will be updated periodically with stories i have read ♡ i thought that as a writer myself who consumes talented stories on this site, it would be good for me to show you all a fraction of what i read myself tehe (i read majority poly!teez/mc so that category will be filled!!) ☆

— note: 90% of these fics will contain mature themes, since it's all i read! please read the specific author's notes before reading!

❤︎ - personal favorites

ᴍᴜʟᴛɪ

— ❤︎ mists of celeste (??/reader, several pairings) by @hongism

genre: scifi/space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst, smut, fluff

summary: sneaking aboard the ship of a renowned space pirate may not have been the best idea, but you’ll have to make do with what fate has handed to you.

notes: as an atiny on tumblr.com, i feel like it's a rite of passage to read moc. it's one of the best written works i have had the privilege of reading. it's gripping, it's heartbreaking, it's filled with yearning and love, and has you hoping that the characters survive this ordeal. san i love you most you can tell by the masterlist alone that she has crafted a whole space pirate universe intricately and with the utmost care. she deals with the trauma of the characters so so well and i cant lie ive cried a lot reading it jdhdksjddj, it's the fic that made me start reading ateez ff, i mean, i started reading before even knowing ateez and i had to have a separate tab open to remember who was who. that alone can tell you how much of a work of art this is. omg, im blabbering, but please read this.

— hotel california (ot8/reader) by @mint-yooxgi

genre: yandere, demon!au

summary: checking in to a hotel ran by yandere!Ateez, the boys decide she can no longer leave

my notes: im not too sure how i came across this work, i think it was an endless scroll of me trying to find something to read, but nevertheless, this story. i have not finished it yet (a great and utter pity) but from what ive read so far. im actually very concerned on how much ive read of this in one night 😨, i think the plot is so so unique, i love a strong mc who does not take any shit whatsoever, i love gaslighting demon!ateez 🙂‍↕️. i had to stare at the wall several times while reading,, felt like jim in the office truly. UGH it's just so good??? i can't recommend enough!! PLEASE READ.

— ❤︎ the answer (ot8?/reader, side pairings) by @berryunho

genre: cult au, thriller

summary: life is great until your best friend goes missing your senior year of university, leaving little more than an apology and goodbye. Months later, you’re determined to find out what happened to him and discover a situation much more complicated than you would have ever anticipated - as in - Kim Hongjoong doesn’t like the word ‘cult.’ He prefers 'sect.'

my notes: i first discovered this fic on ao3 and somehow found out lauren had a tumblr blog but i digress – i found this one night and was so excited that i found something so so unique and different and i am pretty sure i didn't sleep until 4am reading everything omg . it's truly so funny and i adore the main character more than anything, the snide remarks truly encompass and make you feel their emotions? cult leader hongjoong is something else... without spoiling hfjdjf. i beg lauren often for a spoiler because it's just that good. please read.

— OUTLAW (ot8/reader, side pairings) by @staytinyville

genre: wild west!au, smut(?), angst

summary: you thought you would be spending the rest of your life tending to the hotel your family ran. while you knew it was common to see bandits come and go in your town, you felt safe in your home. at least safe enough with a weapon at your disposal. however you were no match for eight men who were known to most as outlaws around the plains. hawt kind of adventures did they go on?

my notes: i started reading this a while back and have yet to finish, but so far the premise is so so so interesting and i love readying cowboy aus rjkfjkdrfkj ITS SO GOOD!!!! I CANT WAIT TO CATCH UP

— sway with me (ot8/reader, wooyoung/reader) by @luvt0kki

genre: sci-fi/space/futuristic!au

summary: former noble turned space pirate, wooyoung was now part of one of the most revered and hunted group of pirates of the galaxy. sure he’s only known them for six months but there’s only so much you could do in a ship when you travel from one planet to the next. the ship was their home, his home…and the members of this crew were friends that he felt he was fated to meet.

my notes: tokki already knows all of this but,,, i started this a month or so ago? and i read the first chapter and i legit lost my mind,,, in the calmest way possible... the first chapter is gripping and it sets a environment that i very much would love to live in??? it's just so so well written, and the reader is very much my type NDFAKKJ ANYWAY... it's told from the pov of wooyoung and i love it??? so MUCH?? please read ok bye

— one more rep (woosan x reader) by @cheollipop

genre: smut, f2l, trainers woosan

summary: san got a little too excited watching you exercise in purple – his favourite colour – and wooyoung was nothing if not a tease. turning their attention back to you, they didn't expect to see you equally worked-up.

my notes: ???? i actually read this a few times,,,, this fic yall.... i cannot... the mental image of woosan in the gym makes me delusional enoughdsjkaskfjksd PLEASE.

— like a dream (yungi x reader) by cheollipop

genre: bf!yungi, smut

summary: with only the orange hues of the lamp illuminating the room, they have you for the first time, and it feels just like a dream.

my notes: yunho and mingi are my weakness,, so the both of them together.....

sᴇᴏɴɢʜᴡᴀ

to be added!

ʜᴏɴɢᴊᴏᴏɴɢ

— horizon by @pxedpiper (ft. ateez/f.reader)

genre: pirate!au

summary: once a princess of a kingdom you loathed to call yours, you have somehow found yourself aboard a pirate ship, stuck on the ocean waves. now you try to figure out how to escape them, but as you continue to journey with them, you find yourself wondering if you even want to.

my notes: i just found this the other day but remembering reading it a while ago! it's so so well written and i enjoyed it sm 🥹

ʏᴜɴʜᴏ

to be added!

ʏᴇᴏsᴀɴɢ

to be added!

sᴀɴ

to be added!

ᴍɪɴɢɪ

— safe haven (mingi/reader) by @atxxzist

genre: bodyguard!au, fluff

summary: your father has had enough of your shit, and hires Song Mingi; his best friend's son, to be your personal bodyguard

my notes: is it possible to fall down the mingi hole deeper than i already have? maybe! this fic pretty much lives in my head,,, endlessly,,,, i love mingi. i love this au so much and i especially love bodyguard aus, i think it's one of my favorite genres and this deepens it.... PLEASE READ.

ᴡᴏᴏʏᴏᴜɴɢ

— rough rider (wooyoung x afab!reader) by @choism

genre: smut

summary: In which you meet a hot twink at a club who has a slightly unhealthy obsession with the 2000's and y2k bimbocore.

my notes: i......... there's no way i can describe this fic... if u yearn for wooyoung the way i do. read this.

— what happened to slow down? (bf!wooyoung x reader) by @ja3hwa

genre: smut

summary: coming back from a house party, you and woo couldn't seem to keep your hands off one another. everything was happening so fast. you two didn't even make it to the bedroom.

my notes: insert a photo of someone throwing a phone and screaming crying, then picking it up to read the rest. thats me kjrfakfajkf

ᴊᴏɴɢʜᴏ

to be added!

[lets-try-some-writing]

I have observed several types of fic writers, and so for kicks and giggles, here they all are. Each of them scares me for different reasons.

The Prepared And Ready To Publish™:

Several documents dedicated to worldbuilding, planning, cross referencing, character lists & traits, plot twists, and then the actual fic document.

Dedicated to the max to creating a rich world. Probably knows more about the niche thing than you ever will. 100% could have written a thesis and chose to do fic instead (or did both at the same time).

Created a masterpiece and promptly vanished off the face of creation before coming back in with another banger to crush souls and save fandoms.

Their arrival is akin to the birth of a new era because they never fail to somehow make a niche ship popular, make a headcanon fanon, or otherwise give so much depth and interest to a character or setting that whatever they have devised is largely accepted as gospel by their readers.

They either use a high end writing program or wordpad. There is no in-between.

Mysterious. Very mysterious. Reasons for this mysteriousness vary between fics and authors.

100000/10 would be friends with them if I could. Legendary writers. But also they scare me because ??? What void offered you such power ?????

The Baby Writer:

All vibes and loosely strung plots.

It may not make the most sense, but good gracious the dedication is there.

Notable lack of comprehension when it comes to characters and places, but it's bad form to not leave a kudo because it takes guts to post anything in fandom.

They are still figuring things out and their grammar or formatting (possibly both) is probably a mess, but they've put heart into their work.

Sweetest rays of sunshine who want to be involved and are eager to learn the ropes.

The fandom's young ward or despised new arrival (depends entirely on fandom popularity and age).

8/10 would happily offer advice to them. Just can't read their work for too long without wanting to throw it into grammarly. The fear factor comes in the form of the miraculous misuse of fandom terminology. (Yeah it's tough bud, the fanon is wild. But goodness that term/canon word does NOT mean what you think it does.)

The Smut For Your Soul:

Meticulously plans the smut with all the loving care of a sculptor.

Somehow plot got involved.

Miraculously, they managed to not include an iota of plot and it has somehow managed to work.

Headcanons abound and cuteness and or angst lurks merrily behind every corner.

The tags mean everything and nothing at the same time. They are but faint guides to the fae wilds ahead. Tread lightly.

Has a mountain of unfinished WIPs that will follow them to the grave or emerge ten years after conception to grace whatever fandom spawned the idea.

The fandom thanks them for their service, although often that praise is late or hits like a freight train.

???/10 I personally avoid smut but I have friends who write it so it really depends. Terrifying because you never know who falls into this role of writer. It could be anyone. Normalcy is a mask poorly adorned for the sake of conforming to The Great Machine.

The Angst Lord:

Has a million slightly different ways to hurt their blorbo. Each are somehow more horrifying than the next.

The embodiment of the iceburg videos seen all over the net. Ask one question and you shall unravel and scheme of torment so great you shall regret having dared to speak up.

Has dozens of WIPs or unwritten ideas that they claim they will return to.

They are controlled by passion and emotion and can and will insert their own complicated situation into a fic.

Almost nothing is off limits.

Arrives to the fandom ready to brawl and somehow ends up respected or feared. They often stare in bafflement as they end up unscathed and watch angry comments fly toward the arguably innocent shippers.

Generally some of the nicest people who happen to enjoy inflicting The Horrors upon someone fictional.

'10/10 would befriend and promptly regard like a wild racoon. Offerings of angsty ideas yield delightful commentary. But also I need to prepare myself for anything they say because O U C H my SOUL.

The General Writer:

Fluff, cuteness, possibly a delightful touch of angst and pure unbridled creative simplicity.

They may not have the most brutal or soul wrenching tale, but they always manage to write something that someone, somewhere, desperately needs.

Devastatingly underrated and deserves far more praise for their contributions to the fandom.

Produces some of the softest of scenes and the most touching of interactions between characters in a contained, careful crafted, tale.

Introducing new ships or family dynamics in such a tasteful manner that brain chemistry can easily be altered.

Arrives to the fandom as a lurker and shows their appreciation through their work. Oftentimes, they are very quiet and go unnoticed.

INFINITE/10 Love these writers, honestly a gift to fandom. The sheer level of dedication to producing fluff is astounding and scary all at once.

The OC X Canon:

Has so many ships and headcanons that it's astounding.

The lore development rivals IDW and Lost Light combined. All the kudos to them for putting their souls into their characters.

The dedication is mind boggling.

They put up with so much crap they could be in MMA Wrestling if the verbal assaults translated into physical strength.

Has so many adjustments to lore and whole AUs devoted specifically to creating a perfect world.

Skilled in the extreme (or not) at integrating their ocs into canon.

Arrives to the fandom not intending to make ocs. Leaves with seventeen leashes for their new abominable creations. Is loved or hated by literally everyone, sometimes for no reason.

6/10 perfectly lovely people but very niche in their interest and thus not everyone's cup of tea. Scary because that level of sheer willpower is meant for demi-gods.

There are more types of writers, but these feel like the big overarching ones. Which kind of writer are you? :D

[achilles-rage]

NSFW Alphabet

word count: 1.6k

a/n: i started writing fics recently because of all of the intricate plots that were bouncing around in my brain and yet here i am now only able to write smut??? i feel like natalie portman in that black swan scene where she's staring at whore written on the mirror like🧍🏼‍♀️Also can we pls talk about his eyes in that gif? he's so pretty goodbye. that’s all i have to say, enjoy<3

warnings: smut (obviously lol), no use of y/n, fem!reader, plus size!reader, race inclusive!reader

MDNI- 18+ Only

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

After sex he'll help clean you up, taking a shower with you, if you want. He'll help you wash your body, and lets you do the same to him before curling up with you, your head resting on his chest while his fingers ghost up and down your back.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His: He would have to say his hands, but mostly because he knows how much you love them. They're strong and rough, but they can also be gentle when the moment calls for it. He also loves to make you feel good using just his hands, watching intently as your head falls back, whimpering softly.

Yours: I think he's an ass man, but he also loves your neck. He loves how you shiver when he runs his fingers down your neck, or when he wraps his hand around your throat. He also loves the way you tilt your head back as he kisses down your neck to your shoulders and chest.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

This man is truly not picky at all about where he cums. Your face, your chest, your belly, your thighs, your back, your ass, inside you? All good to him. He does, however, love seeing the way his cum drips down your face after you use your mouth.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He would LOVE to fuck you at work, in an empty office, in the bathroom, in the shooting range when everyone goes home for the night. There's a part of him that just loves the idea of someone possibly walking in and seeing you breathless and whining for his cock. It's a secret though because he would never actually do it, not even if he knew no one was there. He thinks too much about the possibility of it going wrong, and he knows he could never live out that fantasy (although it doesn't stop him from thinking about it).

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He has had PLENTY of experience. He's 6'2 and built as hell, you can't tell me he can't get most women he tries to seduce. He knows exactly what he's doing, and he's a cocky little shit about it but he's so pretty<3

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

I think his favourite position is doggy, loving to see your ass and thighs jiggle as he pounds into you. He has his hands firmly on your hips, taking the chance to spank your ass every now and then. He also loves to put an arm around your waist, pulling you up so your back is against his chest, kissing your neck and shoulders sloppily as he fills you up with his cum.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

I think he's more serious in the moment, his mind only on the way you look wrapped around him, breathless and panting. He can sometimes be more goofy, but for the most part, he's pretty serious.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

I think he keeps it adequately trimmed, the carpet matches the drapes. He doesn't really care in terms of his partner, but he prefers it at least a little trimmed, or bare.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He loves having his hands on you, stroking your face and down your body, holding you close to him, but I don't think he's necessarily super romantic. He does love holding your hands though as he uses his mouth, or when he slides into you.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

I think he'll jerk off after a hard day at work, and he can't see you/you aren't in the mood. He's not opposed to it by any means, but if he wasn't in a relationship and he had an exceptionally bad day, he might go to a bar and take someone home instead.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Authority: He LOVES when you call him sergeant, or sir. He likes being in control, and he loves seeing the way you submit to him so easily.

Brat taming: HEAR ME OUT!!! There's just something about the way you argue with him, crossing your arms over your chest and looking up at him like he doesn't have at least a few inches of height on you. He loves shutting you up by pushing you against the closest wall or piece of furniture, making you squirm and whine for him until you can't think of a snarky little remark.

Restraints: This goes a little with the last two, but he loves seeing you tied up, lying helplessly on the bed, unable to do anything but beg him to let you cum. He loves the look in your eyes as you look up at him, pleasure clouding your eyes, knowing you trust him enough to do whatever he wants to you.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He loves the bedroom, it being the easiest place to move you however he wants, But if he can't wait, he loves to push you over the back of the couch, quickly stripping your clothes off of your body before he's sinking into you. He especially loves to do this when you're wearing a dress. All he has to do is flip your dress up and pull your panties to the side.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

He loves it when you argue with him. Not about serious things, of course, although a few arguments have definitely ended in him pressing you against the nearest wall harshly, hands gripping your plush thighs as he picks you up, kissing your neck roughly. He just loves when you challenge him, loving how he can get you begging very quickly, your attitude flying out the window as he teases your clit.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

While he is generally pretty rough, he wouldn't do anything to hurt you too much. Spanking and biting is definitely something he would be okay with, but anything too painful isn't for him. He would also definitely not be into the thought of sharing you. He wants you all to himself.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

I don't think he really has a preference, although he doesn't last long when you get on your knees for him. He's quick to grab your hair, pulling it into a makeshift ponytail as he guides your head down, loving the look on your face as you take all of him. While he loves cumming down your throat, he also LOVES to watch his cum drip down your face, as you desperately try to catch your breath.

He loves eating you out, though, especially loving when you ride his face. The first time you were a little hesitant, biting your lip as he guided you up his torso towards his mouth. He reassured you that he was definitely okay with it, quickly pulling you flush against him as you hovered over his face nervously. He loves feeling your soft thighs around his head, how they feel in his hands as he keeps you in place, greedily lapping at your cunt.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Most of the time he's fast and rough, loving how you squirm for him, begging for him to keep going. He loves watching the way your thighs, tummy, and chest jiggle as he fucks you roughly, and loves watching your ass bounce as he takes you from behind. I think he does go slow and sensual sometimes, but you would have to ask for it, or it would have to be for a specific reason (anniversary, one of you had a close call at work, etc).

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He definitely wouldn't turn down a quickie, especially if you were teasing him before you were supposed to go somewhere, but he would prefer to take his time with you. He likes to get you worked up and begging for him before he slides into you, smirking down at you as you look up at him with hooded eyes, breathing heavily.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He's fine with taking risks, as long as they're not too crazy. He loves to experiment, of course making sure you talk about it beforehand.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

He could last 2-3 rounds, about 10-15 minutes each.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He owns some toys: restraints, blindfolds, gags, vibrators. He mostly uses them on you, but could be persuaded to let you use them on him (you would have to quickly restrain him before doing anything so he can't use his strength to flip the tables though lol)

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He is a fucking TEASE x10000

He gets off on watching you squirm and beg for him, loving how much power he has over you. It gives him a boost of confidence that you're so desperate for him, and he loves putting you in your place by stopping before you fall over the edge, laughing as you whine and thrash around, begging for more friction.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He's not afraid to let you know how good you feel wrapped around him, whispering how well you take him, how pretty you look when you're clenching around him and your eyes are rolled back. He'll also let out low grunts and moans as his fucks you from behind, pulling you back to him by your hair to moan in your ear.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

This man gets off on using his fingers to make you fall apart. If he has the time, he wants to make you cum on his fingers before he properly fucks you, loving the way you whimper as he curls his fingers, his thumb rubbing circles on your clit.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

7 inches, thick.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

It's not on his mind all the time, often having other things to worry about, but when he gets home and sees you, he can't help but think about the way you look breathless and whining under him. He would definitely be okay with having you every day, but sometimes he's too busy and a little sore from work/the gym, in which you're more than happy to get on your knees for him to make him feel better<3

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

I think he's pretty quick to fall asleep after, making sure you're okay before he passes out, snores softly escaping his lips.

notes: likes/comments/reblogs would be much appreciated if you liked this<33

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[bomberqueen17]

while i've got the file out

So the last bit of time when I was at the farm, I finally gave in to the pressure of @sassaffrassa's art and started reading the Queen's Thief series.

It's... It's great, I'm not as obsessed with it as some (the selective concealment of stuff that POV characters know but the reader can't Until The Reveal is... clever but rubs me the Wrong Way, not enough to throw me out of the book but enough that I do find myself resenting it, but totally understand how it works beautifully for other readers) but it is extremely, extremely ripe for fanfic, I allow that. And I found that it made me think about the fics of Ciri in Nilfgaard again. It certainly made me realize my error in not including any slaves in the Nilfgaard settings-- that's a big dynamic I missed an opportunity to include, but it's not a thing I like to think about and so I had mentally assigned it all to just be slaves working fields etc., which as anyone knows is like. Only a percentage of what societies that contain slavery actually use slaves for. There should have been enslaved people in the households, all through the society, and Ciri objecting to and wanting to change that could have been an entire underlying theme.

But it's not, because I had meant to write that story as a 5k oneshot, and also I'd entered it right out of Goblin Emperor fic-writing, and whatever that particular fictional society contains, it doesn't have any enslaved people. So I just hadn't thought of it.

Anyway, a digression, but-- it made me, on one exhausted evening, reread the next bits I was going to publish of Not A Crest, and then I still didn't feel like writing but I wanted to keep reading so I dipped into my extras/cut scenes/written ahead docs, and I found an entire a/u I'd come up with and wrote 5k of and then realized i couldn't possibly fit in anywhere.

But. It stands alone somewhat, and I could strip it out of this world and create a new backstory and file all the serial numbers off that too, and...

well now I have another book to write, so I've started a doc with the serial number transpositions in it, LOL.

Now that I'm done at the farm, I have December, January, and probably February without any major commitments. If only I can wrangle my ADHD-or-whatever into some kind of shape, I can hope to bang out at least rough drafts of a couple of these things, or at least enough of them to know whether there's anything to pursue. And, I hope, I can achieve some of my other personal goals around the same time as well. If only I could miraculously learn how to operate a to-do list and make/keep a schedule........

Behind the cut, I'm gonna summarize the a/u snippet and my plans for it. We'll see how this goes.

So this plot depends on Ciri's powers of teleportation and time manipulation, so it can't possibly be in the same continuity as the mammoths and the tall ships, but that means I have a ton of leeway in worldbuilding. It needs to be fantasy-ish but it could be sort of cyberpunk if I wanted. Really it could be just about anything, provided that not-Ciri (I've already renamed her Leila) can still uniquely manipulate time and space, and the mechanism of how she does that is unimportant. It should have a cost, of course, which will be part of the worldbuilding.

So the backstory would be that a larger kingdom/nation-state/whatever kind of polity gobbled up Leila's when she was a young teenager, and she spent her youth as a guerilla, fighting or fleeing and honing her survival skills. There was some larger existential threat, related to the as-yet-undone worldbuilding, but the reveal is that the larger polity attacked and absorbed its neighbors in order to fortify itself against a yet larger invading power-- could be another kingdom, could be like, space invaders, I really haven't decided yet.

Leila meanwhile has come into her powers finally, and has begun to be able to manipulate time and space. i'm going to give her a wise and powerful sorceress mentor, Yennefer-like; instead of Geralt she might have a sword tutor slash captain of the guard or something, an older man who loves and protects and teaches her. Undecided; don't know whether he's important for more than backstory.

And this is all backstory, mind. In this backstory, she finally comes to aid the armies of the polity she had been fighting against, to resist this greater existential threat/invader/whatever. And as part of that she's paired up with this universe's version of Morvran-- I've renamed him Corbin since it means Raven but I'm still open to changing my mind on that. Anyway he's got the important bits of Morvran-- he's both a hostage and a presumptive heir, far too young and far too responsible, a strange balance of overly powerful and completely vulnerable. And for the duration of the backstory, he is helping this mystical enemy-turned-ally (Leila) fight a desperate, scrambling battle using powers that none of them entirely fully understands.

And he has an underling, an aide-de-camp, a young woman who keeps track of things and isn't much of a fighter, and that's where Luliana comes in, and I think I'll keep her name since i made it up anyway. She's a relative of his perhaps, a little older than he is, but allowed to be close to him because she's so unimportant, and she's really his only friend. And she of course falls in love with Leila, who to everyone's surprise falls in love back. Corbin is secretly delighted with this.

The war is long and difficult and horrible things happen to everyone, but in the end they triumph. And Leila is brought back to Expansionist Polity, her own homeland being so thoroughly encompassed and destroyed there's no restoring it, and the leader (perhaps he was injured in the war? perhaps he was already dying? perhaps he's just a guy who wants to retire?) begs her to become his heir, which effectively deposes Corbin, who silently doesn't mind it. But the rest of the government does mind it, and insists she marry Corbin to give them stability. Corbin privately proposes that they have a paper marriage; he is not inclined that way himself, you see, and he would be delighted if Leila and Lu kept their relationship and just let him be nearby, the way they did in the war. Leila counter-offers; she'll stick around long enough to make everyone feel safe and happy, but then she and Lu will run off someplace to live in peace, and leave Corbin to rule and to marry whoever he actually likes. Corbin, too used to not letting on his feelings about anything, agrees to this. And so they all rule together for a year and a day or whatever, Leila gets a bunch of the reforms she'd wanted pushed through, they get along marvellously, and then Leila disappears mysteriously, as agreed.

She and Lu go off and live happily somewhere peaceful. She is unexpectedly bored, Lu is homesick and sad, and her sorceress mentor finally finds her and scolds her for running away. "Haven't I done enough?" Leila asks, and her mentor is like obviously not, but doesn't have anything to convince her with. Until a little later, when the sorceress comes back and tells Leila that Corbin is dead, assassinated. He could not in fact get by without her.

Leila uses her powers to go back, but arrives too late, finding Corbin's head on a spike and his hands nailed below. She notices his hand still has both their wedding ring and the ring she'd given him as an engagement gift on it. He was supposed to have moved on and found himself a better partner.

She musters the last of her power and jumps back a little farther, interrupting the assassination attack, but she is again too late; Corbin is mortally wounded. She sits with him as he dies, and with his last breath he admits that he has always loved her and never wanted her to leave. She needs to jump again, and doesn't have the power for it, but sucks the last of his life-force out to do it, which is unethical-- she also draws from his would-be assassins and the guards who betrayed him, knowing it's a terrible thing to do but will be largely erased by her abandoning this timeline. There'll be a cost and I'll worldbuild that in too, however it makes sense once I've written it.

And this is all still backstory, and the story begins as she arrives, just in time, to interrupt the attack and save Corbin's life, wounded but not mortally. But this time Corbin has some self-possession left, and he is still wearing her rings and apologizes for it and merely admits that he was relying on his enemies' remaining respect for and fear of her. We the audience have not seen Leila's two previous attempts and do not know what she knows.

(Yes, yes, I was complaining that the Queen's Thief series relies too much on this, but I admit I'm trying to figure out whose POV this is from, and I may well not use Leila's, in order to make it not dishonest to exclude this knowledge. We'll have to see what seems honest to me as I'm writing it.)

And the story goes from there, as she tries to restore his rule and tries to figure out which version of him is lying, the one who said he loved her with his last breath before she stole the rest, or the one who calmly, collectedly bled all over her and politely apologized for his inability to do as she had asked him to and find a different spouse.

Obviously I need more plot than that, but it will come to me, I'm pretty sure. But that's where I'm starting. As I've said before, I'm a pantser, and that means I can't outline the plot or I'll paralyze myself.

[greenerteacups]

Hey GT, glad to see you're back! I'm still halfway thru Lionheart (just read the world cup chapter, what a delight) and your notes got me wondering.

I'm sure you've probably answered this before but how do you manage to make the world feel so rich? I'm not that into the fandom so I don't know If there are some things fanon agreed upon or if it is your own musings about the magic world. Like Draco explaining to Hermione about portkeys or how many languages Krum speaks.

How do you decide what's important enough to get a mention? Where do you go when you need answers and Canon is not enough to provide it?

Thanks for the kind words, and for the question! It's a matter of personal taste, like anything. Some writers prefer an athletic, streamlined plot, with only as much worldbuilding as you absolutely need (how does Panem run a command economy of 4.5 million people primarily on fossil fuels when its coal district has a population of less than 10,000? fuck off! who cares! they're Y/A dystopias about a TV show where teens beat each other to death!). Some writers, on the other hand, won't bother to start the story until they know the pH of the soil in every region of the world they're writing about. I'm somewhere on the second half of the scale, in that I'll give details that aren't strictly necessary to the plot, just because I like to feel like I'm writing about a world where real, extraneous things can happen. Some details are foreshadowing; some details are Special Mouseketools that will Help Us Later; and sometimes, you just get to know a cool fact about portkeys.

I guess part of the fun of building out a world is getting to think about Everything, which is what my brain normally does. I have a pretty broad body of literature as a starting gate, so there's plenty of room to play. E.g., when I started writing Krum, I thought about how he's not super fluent in English in canon, and that naturally made me ask why, because he clearly has taken English, so either he only started lessons recently or it hasn't been a priority for him; and then I went "wait, what's his first language? Bulgarian, right? But Durmstrang isn't — hang on—" and then I pulled up an actual map of Europe, which led me to realize that he wouldn't likely be speaking his first language at Durmstrang, which means he already had to become bilingual just to start his wizarding education, and that explains part of why he doesn't have a ton of time/effort to spare for a third language, plus he'd probably have a translator available whenever he traveled with a team because he's a B.F.D. — etc., etc. And then you keep thinking about that until you remember that you're supposed to be writing a fic, and you scramble to get back to doing that. Only now, you have worldbuilding! Congrats.

To try for an even halfway useful answer to your question: worldbuilding becomes most important when it creates limitations, because limitations define your characters and give them chances to develop/reveal themselves. So the details of portkeys become important because they explain the limitations of magical travel, which is a big nebulous ??? in the original series, since the introduction of teleportation via Apparating means that all other forms of transportation become inefficient by comparison. It also means the limitations introduced by travel — that is, not all characters can be in all places at once — also go away, because anyone can be anywhere immediately. From a narrative perspective, this sucks massive horse ass. Hence: I dumped a shit ton of limitations on Apparation (i.e., (1) it requires a ton of energy, (2) it's really fucking hard, (3) it's really fucking dangerous, (4) it's more of both the farther away you're going, (5) it's more of both the more people you take with you, (6) you can't Apparate without a clear destination in mind which means (7) you need to have been there already, and so (8) some people prefer not to do it). Hence, I also put limitations on portkeys (i.e., they have to be set up well in advance, you need to identify out both destinations precisely beforehand, and the calculations are difficult to do). Those limitations, and the Watsonian explanations you create for them, are your worldbuilding. They're what make the world feel real, because they give it grit and character. They give you a more complete sense of what you can and cannot do.

The rest of it is taste and preference, really; it's what interests you, and what parts of the world you want to explore. That's going to be unique to every author, and that's the beauty of worldbuilding — it reflects the parts of the world that you like to think about.

[oneofthosebells]

Not managed to pull anything proper together yet for Wille's month, but the Day 11 prompt (Future), reminded me of a crack fic idea I kind of really want to write one day...

Erik gets a vision of his own future somehow (psychic, witch, friendly angel, take your pick) shortly before parents' weekend and the car crash. But it's a limited vision; he gets flashes of his own death, the funeral, the video leak, Simon breaking up with Wille - twice - and lots of flashes of Wille suffering and heartbroken. Disturbed by the vision, Erik drives (slowly and carefully for once) to Hillerska for parents' day where he quickly sees that Wille is head over heels for Simon.

So, of course, he asks his good pal August to give him the lowdown on Simon, and August is more than happy to badmouth the rude, money-grubbing little commoner who shows no respect for his social betters and isn't at all a suitable friend for a prince. And Erik realises that not only was his vision of the future true and that Simon is going to break his little brother's heart, but that it must be Simon who leaks the video, for money or fame.

So Erik, with August's eager help, sets out to get rid of Simon any way they can. But every plan fails. Because they hadn't reckoned with just how far Wille would go to protect Simon and prevent him being kicked out of Hillerska. Wille calls his brother in an outrage that August is trying to get Simon expelled for dealing drugs?! And how DARE he when it was all August's fault in the first place, and he's never actually paid Simon for any of it, and can Erik throw some royal weight around and back Wille up in proving Simon's innocence and getting August expelled instead please? Because they can claim August is just blaming Simon to cover up his own misdeeds in stealing/buying ADHD meds from other students. [Sara can testify August tried to buy meds from her, and there's no actual evidence of Simon's involvement as no money has exchanged hands and there's no second lot of meds with Micke's name on in this timeline]. Erik can't tell Wille he's not on Simon's side, and to his horror, there's enough evidence against August on top of unpaid tuition fees to get him kicked out.

The weeks/months go by and Erik gets more and more desperate without his mole on the inside - because Wille seems blissfully in love and happier than he's ever been whenever he speaks to him, but Erik knows Simon's going to break his heart, he's seen it. And he knows for definite that Simon is a wrong 'un - he got August expelled! He's anti-monarchy and a socialist! He's clearly a bad influence!

Then one day, Wille calls him upset because he had a big row with Simon, and maybe they are just too different to make it work, and he thinks this is it, they've broken up - but then Erik's hopes are dashed when Wille calls him happily the next day to tell him actually they've sorted everything out again.

Erik's frustrated and desperate and maybe losing the plot a little bit by now because he's been obsessed with ending this relationship for so long now he's almost forgotten the original reasons why. But he does remember the one thing from his vision that would definitely break them up - the video leak. Erik doesn't have a video, but he does have revealing photos - (probably August took them, haven't quite worked out the details of that one yet) - and as Erik's obsession with getting rid of Simon at any cost reaches a peak, he clicks send on the anonymous tip off to a journalist...

(@youngroyals-events)

[spell-cleaver]

One thing I've always wondered is how Vader didn't sense either Luke (or Leia's for that matter) force presence on the first death star. I guess he was super caught up in with the whole "I sense the old coot who cut off my limbs amd left me to burn" thing, but I like to think obi-wan was masking the pair by just being obnoxiously loud with the force (the force equivalent of him walking into a room with multiple air horns and a boom box blasting away)

Wow, I had THOUGHTS about this one.

Honestly? I'm not a fan of the assumption in a lot of fic and by fans that it's super easy to passively sense someone in the Force. I have used it myself, of course, but I say from experience it restricts writing a lot while... not actually having a ton of backing in the films? (I'm referring to the films here, not to any other media, just because when I want to analyse lore, I only take them as canon; when I'm just looking for cool worldbuilding for a fic, though, anything goes.)

It's not just Leia that Vader doesn't sense on the Death Star. He doesn't sense Luke either, even though Luke is right there screaming when Vader kills Obi-Wan. It's more of an issue with Leia ofc because he literally used the mind probe on her but only finds that "her resistance... is considerable". An easy answer is that I headcanon Leia is a naturally good shielder, which is why she was never found on the Death Star and also why all of the Jedi in ROTS were surprised there were two babies - Leia had been naturally shielding herself, so they just sensed Luke.

But if we go more in-depth into the films' representations of the Force, Vader only senses Luke when he's actively chasing him as a pilot; he comments that "The Force is strong with this one" only when Luke is using the Force to aim and fire his shot. For me, this implies that you can only sense other Force users powerfully or distinctly when they're actively using the Force. I know why fic prefers not to go that way - I for one have used the "Vader senses Luke immediately" plot to get Luke captured many a time - but it's a fun thing to consider. Also, the Force is a soft magic system. It does functionally whatever the story needs it to.* Which is why Vader can sense Luke approaching Endor in ROTJ when Palpatine couldn't, but he had to be told by an officer when Luke's ship was approaching Cloud City in ESB.** There are many examples where a Force user just didn't sense someone else. Luke not sensing Yoda in ESB, Obi-Wan not sensing Dooku's presence on Geonosis, the Jedi non sensing Maul in TPM, the Jedi not sensing Palpatine for the whole prequel trilogy.

You could argue that those examples are of trained Force wielders shielding themselves, but I would argue that Qui-Gon can't sense Anakin in TPM. He doesn't show interest in Anakin until after they've left Watto's shop and Anakin starts talking to him. Anakin is the literal son of the Force and the most powerful Force wielder ever, but Qui-Gon was talking to Watto for a while without batting an eyelash at the small supernova in his shop. He didn't start to suspect until he heard about his racing, his instincts, spoke to him to notice his insights. Then still he spoke to Shmi about him to confirm his suspicions that "he can see things before they happen", watched him while he flew, and took a midichlorian count. I think the Force might well have been nudging Qui-Gon to look at Anakin, to suspect something, but I don't think he sensed Anakin himself as Force sensitive - at least, not immediately. Which is how I think you can explain all the instances of people going "I felt his presence." They were either using the Force, or familiar as Force sensitives to the person sensing them, or the Force wielder in general had an instinct that there was something special about this person, I should pay attention...

This has been a long ramble, but the short answer is: I headcanon Leia as naturally good at shielding. I think it fills multiple Star Wars plot holes.***

But I think it's also worth interrogating the fact that fandom seems to approach and conceptualise of the Force as a hard magic system, with clearly defined rules, rather than the soft magic system it is.**** Anything goes in Star Wars! It can be annoying if the writing doesn't sell it well enough, but I really love that aspect of the worldbuilding. And considering that the Force is a big fat plot device as well as giving people magical instincts for things that are Plot Relevant and things that aren't, I think it's a lot more interesting to consider that the Force isn't a superpower that lets you sense everything. Vader didn't detect Leia simply because he didn't. Sometimes they fail to do that. And it allows you to show growth in character and situation when that fact changes. Vader doesn't sense Luke in ANH until he's Plot Relevant to Vader's personal story. He doesn't sense Luke until he's fighting him in ESB. But in ROTJ, once they're both invested in their relationship and fated to meet, they're drawn together like stars caught in a mutual orbit.

That's the explanation I prefer. Because although it's less consistent, it's not unbelievable. It leaves uncertainty, mysticism, the chance for exploration in the galaxy. And most importantly, it tells a damn good story. Which, while this may not be true of people who love collecting lore and figuring the galaxy out, is ultimately what I'm here for.

*This is why so many random new powers can get added and explored in later movies and such, and also why I don't really get het up about it when they do add them. It just depends how you incorporate that new power. Usually, if a villain suddenly has a new power no one knew about (like Palpatine's lightning in ROTJ) it just ups the stakes, while if a hero suddenly has a new power it can feel like it cheapens their victory, like they haven't earned it; a deus ex machina. So messing about with Force powers is fine, it just depends how you incorporate them in the story.

**Admittedly this can be explained by the bond being formed when Luke learned the truth, but you know what I mean.

***I was only talking about the movies here, but there's also that moment in the Kenobi series where she's captured by Inquisitors and still no one notices she's Force sensitive??? There's just a lot of moments like this littered all over Star Wars, so this headcanon covers a lot of them.

****I kept using the terms hard/soft magic system without really explaining it here, but here's some good videos to dig into it: Soft Magic Systems | Hard Magic Systems

[theonceandfuturequeenoftarts]

20 Questions (for fanfic writers)

Thank you for the tags, @cindle-writes and @izharmilgram! I'm procrastinating on other responsibilities, so let's have some fun~

Tagging @i-dream-of-libraries, @chaos-bear, @floatingdandelionseeds, @pitzer, @riverxsong-ao3, @tommarvoloriddlesdiary, @thefangirlibrarian, @hikarimeroperiddle and @blackseatwenty (no pressure, only if you want to! ♡♡♡) and anyone else who wants to talk about their fics -- consider this your tag! ♡

how many works do you have on ao3? 47

what's your total ao3 word count? 226,795

what fandoms do you write for? Harry Potter, Yuri!!! On Ice

top five fics by kudos: A long, hard road; Gone bananas; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; unfailingly ingenious at having a good time (surprised the cat!Harry fics are so high tbh) Edit: I can't read... (:‚‹」∠) Top five fics by kudos are as follows: Gone bananas; A long, hard road; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; and Coriander (not a big change, but it does explain why the cat!Harry sequel was so high...)

do you respond to comments? uhh... occasionally. Social anxiety kicks my ass and so I put my energy into writing fic instead. I love every single comment I get and reread them any time I need a pick-me-up, but I am a bad author who doesn't reply...

what is the fic your wrote with the angstiest ending? hmm... probably pyrrhic victory, but Capsized is also a contender

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? considering I write mostly fluff and crack, this is a surprisingly difficult question to answer... I'm gonna go with either if you like it, then... or thrown into the nest. Or maybe don't blame the stork? (Some lovely reader out there is shouting at their screen, "Flaky, you goof, it's obviously ____!!" and they're correct.)

do you get hate on fics? Nope, not really! Some readers express that they wish I'd done certain things differently, and a couple have said I ended a fic badly, but I don't think I've received anything I'd consider hateful.

do you write smut? uhhhh... sometimes. When it's the best way to tell the story I have in my head, then I'll write smut. But it's still a bit uncomfortable to do. I'd like to think I'm getting better at it?

craziest crossover? I'm not sure I've actually written anything that could really be considered a crossover, but A real voyage of discovery is kind of a mash-up of Harry Potter characters in a Star Trek-y world? And it has alien!mort, and I think he's nifty.

have you ever had a fic stolen? A couple of my fics have appeared on Wattpad without my permission, but other than that, no.

have you ever had a fic translated? Yep, a few! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

have you ever co-written a fic before? Not yet -- I don't really know how it'd work, and I'm afraid to try (¬_¬") Intensely private about my writing before it's ready to post unless you're Jenny. But! I'm counting the Telephone and the Corpse (coming soon) because they're collaborative (in a way) and have been such a major part of my fandom experience!

all-time favorite ship? tomarrymort~ (honourable mentions to sefikura, madohomu, and viktuuri)

what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Fingers crossed I'm not breaking anyone's heart with this, but probably Let's Talk About Sex, Baby. I have some more written for it, but it's been a while since I've returned to it and other projects interest me more. I have every intention of finishing my WIPs, but... there are only so many hours in a day and my energy is, sadly, finite (´•︵•`)

what are your writing strengths? whimsical finger guns! Poignant fluff? Emotions. silliness, and dialogue, probably.

what are your writing weaknesses? Worldbuilding, continuous narratives (as opposed to short scenes without much context), plot-heavy narratives, description, writing the main characters in true opposition to each other, fleshing ideas out rather than keeping it (overly) brief... I'm sure I'll think of a bunch of other things as soon as I post this.

thoughts on dialogue in another language? I'd like to! I speak French reasonably well, and I'm lucky enough to have some fandom friends who speak other languages, so I'm sure I could beg their assistance.

favorite fic you've written? Hhhhhhh, why must I choose? I'll go with naïve melody, because it still gives me the warm fuzzies. I'm just so proud of the tone, and I really like how that Voldemort comes across.

[foxufortunes]

So like I was actually having this discussion in the comments of one of my fics at stupid in the morning, but like having thought it through for the day I'm here to messily rant my thoughts on the complicated relationship between the upperclassmen, mainly Dan, and the monsters, mainly Andrew, and Wymack. How Dan is terribly self righteous and hypocritical and lets her emotions get in the way of her captaincy at times. How Andrew doesn't care for the discomfort and fear he causes others and even revels in it, even without provocation. And how Wymack, for better or for worse, is a hands off coach who can't/won't inflict meaningful punishments on his team, even enabling their worst qualities and habits, as part of his ideal of giving people more chances and how that can create a hostile team environment.

Aka, I'm about to throw slander in every direction, because these are flawed, messy characters and trying to make any of them perfectly innocent or always right does a disservice to the well sketched, messy, imperfect, flawed characters Nora created. Blame goes everywhere and no one is innocent. Trauma is a reason, not an excuse.

Buckle up, guys, this is about to get long and messy.

So, let's start with Wymack, who's a bit trickier to explain than Dan and Andrew, but is also the reason they've been brought togethers. Wymack, as we see him on page, is a massively hands off coach, especially when you compare him to Coach Rhemann. Now, it's very possible that this is actually because Nora either wasn't confident/good enough to write him coaching vs where she is now ten years later, or because she didn't want to focus there (although logically for exy junkie Neil's pov that would be weird, but whatever, that's not what we're talking about) but whatever the reason out of universe, it leaves us with Wymack as hands off as possible in universe. (Also, sidebar, some people in this fandom need to learn that out of universe reasons still need to have an in universe reason, "it needed to happen for the plot" is an out of universe reason, but I still need to know why the characters did it beyond "for the plot" or it's bad writing, stop using that for an answer about "why did character X do Y?")

Anyway, Wymack lets the team basically run amuck and sort themselves out, and even enables their worst habits. I think its canon that Abby gets a tip when "random" drug tests are happening, and they certainly don't do anything to enforce the no drugs policies the school and NCAA and probably ERC would have. Wymack brought a bunch of troubled kids together and seems to have no plan beyond letting themselves work it out and Betsy's here if there's trouble. This is why the Matt situation happens. You let a struggling to stay sober drug addict be around other not even trying drug addicts, of course Matt was going to get worse. This is actively bad for him. And in turn then actively bad for Aaron.

His relationship with Andrew is a bit more complicated. Now, I need you to forget everything you know about Andrew through Neil and his backstory for a moment, and just look at Andrew through Wymack's eyes as he first met him. Andrew has been to juvie, and is currently on parole for another violent crime that Wymack may or may not know the actual details about and on medication that Wymack may or may not know what they actually are and do. Andrew asks to come off of them. Wymack says yes. Now, even putting aside the legality of this, Wymack took the unilateral decision that Andrew knows best about his meds and can come off of them. Now, we can talk plenty about how Andrew's medication is portrayed in canon, but plenty of people don't like meds that are actually good for them and try/do stop taking them, often without telling a doctor they're doing so. There's also the fact that, again irrelevant of what we know as the story goes, Andrew regularly drinks, smokes and misses doses, things that can all make medication not work as it should. Wymack is not a doctor, for all he knows he could actively making Andrew worse by allowing this, but does anyway, for a good defence line.

(Also another side note, where does canon get off calling the Foxes a laughing stock? They're five years old. Seth was part of the first batch, right? So they're five years old and made the championships in their fourth year of existing as a team, fuck off are they dead last laughing stocks.)

And this is part of what I don't get about Wymack. He both wants to win above what's good for his team and doesn't at the same time. For example, he's so hands off and enables their bad habits, things that could kill them and actively harm them. He puts Andrew on the bench because he doesn't need a third goalie despite him being better and seemingly rolls with the hierarchy of age over skill, which implies team feel goods over victory but is so invested in staying Class I he semi-regularly lets (and yeah, it's lets not makes but still) Andrew harm himself playing full games on withdrawals (again, as far as he knows potentially stopping his meds working right). And while it could be argued his situation with Andrew is more not wanting to give up on Andrew, that is an the expense of his other players. Anyone who's ever been in a situation where one or two people are hostile/seemingly unpunishable knows how bad that makes everyone else feel.

Because, let's be real, Andrew is unpunishable and they all know it. Cardio is one thing, but he doesn't go through with marathons and nothing else will work. Andrew doesn't care for his own contract, and even if we actually believed Wymack would go through with any threat again Kevin, Nicky or Aaron's contracts (and we all know he wouldn't) Andrew would probably sabotage the game in protest or just outright quit. Andrew gets away with everything and everyone knows it and that can quickly see your team stop respecting/trusting you or feeling safe when you say they are. It's a very dangerous line.

And this is where we finally get to Dan. Because yes, Dan hates Andrew, and is unprofessional in her bias against him. But I think we often forget where this comes from. You often see people talk about Columbia, and Andrew drugging Neil, and should Neil have been angrier, how his trauma impacted him moving on so quickly and whether Andrew's reasons were valid or not because he thought Neil was a threat. And sometimes you see people talk about what he did "to" Matt. Which, yes, wasn't great, and yes, Matt took the drugs himself, but really it wasn't a great move from Andrew. But how often do you see people talk about what he did to Dan?

I mean, let's get some context here. Andrew and Dan barely knew each other. Dan is already getting shit from every angle for daring to be a woman playing and captaining an exy team (and if you hc her as a woman of colour, double this) in a period of time where colleges did (and still do) have a terrible reputation for covering up the horrific assaults committed by their best NCAA athletes. And Andrew, with no provocation, or reason, invites her out, to his home turf, with his family, to a bar he worked out, without anyone to support her and look after her, and drugged her. To find out if she was a women worth following. Not because she was a threat. Because he wanted to find out what type of person she was. He wanted her tragic backstory and he wanted it now (something people criticise Dan for demanding a lot, by the way). Andrew and his group show no remorse and face no real repercussions and then go on to enable Matt getting falling off the wagon and taking potentially lethal mix of drugs, because his mom said it was fine so it's ok and it all worked out, ends justify the means, and is allowed to just carry on with again, no meaningful punishment. Because no harm, no foul, right? (funny how you'll apply that to Andrew but hate when Thea said it, huh?)

Is it any wonder Dan doesn't like or trust Andrew?

And lets be clear, Andrew does nothing to discourage this. Andrew doesn't want to be understood, he doesn't want to share. Andrew is not here angsting because no one understands his attempts to making friends (except maybe, big maybe, Aaron not understanding his attempts at brothering). Andrew is fine if the team doesn't trust him. He encourages it, because trust means friends means feelings means weakness and that's ew. It's not hard to see how, from Dan's pov, Wymack can't/won't punish Andrew and is more interested in winning so won't kick him off the team.

At the same time, Dan is just as complicit in Andrew's breaking the law and hurting himself by missing meds as Wymack. Again, for all she knows, his meds help him, and skipping could actively harm the help they're giving him. Again, she's putting winning, because they have this amazing goalkeeper, above both Andrew and the team's health, and then complains when he lashes out. Some meds need a consistent balance to work, and maybe if he wasn't skipping every Friday to help you win he'd be more stable (we know this isn't the case, but they don't). There's barely any resistance put up to the idea that Andrew plays entire games, because she also wants to win more than she cares about Andrew's health, while at the same time not caring about winning more than her pride, like the rest of the team who are more interested in fighting than winning.

Now, of course, Andrew doesn't care. I think Nicky has it right early on when he says Andrew doesn't care about your boundaries, just his. Andrew is here mostly because he wants to keep Nicky and Aaron close and sees providing value for them (protection, scholarships, controlling protection ect) as the only way to really do it. Andrew sees life as exchanges. But, for all we act like Andrew lives on fair exchanges, he doesn't. As I said, he drugged Dan because he wanted to know about her, what did he give her in return? Nothing. He violated her autonomy and gave her nothing in return. Not even his own backstory. Arguably not even respect. (please, take a minute to imagine how pissed you would be if someone in fanfic wrote Andrew being drugged just to get him to spill his trauma without him even being a threat to anything, or look at how people react to Neil's Columbia scene).

The upperclassmen constantly ignore and violate Andrew's boundaries in very clear ways, and any normal team would have backed off ages ago (or called the cops the first time he pulled a knife) but because they're Foxes they keep pushing. (Also, for all fandom likes to make him a knife nut, look at how often he actually pulls a knife vs punches, it's either rape jokes, or him/someone under his protection being cornered, day to day he goes without). Now, of course, Andrew is a lot of the problem of keeping the team in two halves (again, something any decent coach shouldn't allow to get that extreme) as we see with how well the team works when Andrew is at Easthaven, but we don't know how much effort the upperclassmen actually make (excluding Renee of course).

The upperclassmen are often the first to lash out, and Andrew is often only retaliating, and then the monsters will be blamed. And yes, this is complete hypocrisy. But from the more general day to day treatment, not in the moment when a punch is thrown but attitudes in general, Andrew has proven himself a threat over and over, without provocation. If you can excuse Andrew drugging Neil because he's a potential threat, then why is Dan being hostile to Andrew because he's proven himself a threat different? Is it professional? Probably not, but what else can Dan do? She can't punish Andrew and Wymack seemingly can't/won't either. In Dan's mind, she is being hypervigilant and watching Andrew and taking his actions for the worst possible scenario, because Andrew has given her reason to. A simple drink to get to know each other turned into drugging her and Matt being in awful condition. Why should she give him the benefit of the doubt? Andrew wouldn't return the favour.

In many ways, Andrew and Dan are mirrors of each other. The leaders of their respective groups, both constantly trying to watch out for threats, but while Dan sees the threat she's already experienced with Andrew, Andrew considers her nothing. He's already got all her secrets and cast her aside, not caring for the damage he's done, because she and her friends are nothing to, and he doesn't feel a hint of remorse. He did what he had to, the ends justify the means, and Wymack's gone through too much to get him to risk losing him. He's on a team that doesn't care about his boundaries any more than he cares about theirs and is more than happy to play the monster if it gets the job done.

This came off a little harsh on Andrew, despite that I love him and Dan actually grates on me, but honestly the start of the series he is kind of awful and Dan I can see where she's coming from. Like, I think sometimes we also forget even Neil hates Andrew at the start of the series. Everything he did with Neil, he did with the others, it's just that Neil had the persistence, and the trauma related need to compartmentalise and move on quickly rather than hold a grudge, and a usefulness to Andrew (and yeah, let's not forget the breakthrough is Kathy's show and Andrew realising Neil is useful to him) to let him get in with Andrew so he can start to see the real him, while Andrew keeps the upperclassmen at arm's length.

And wow, congrats and thanks to anyone who read all the way through this monster ramble.

[brownieblob]

Be Careful Not to Mess With the Balance of Things"

Introductory post !!!

Max Russo x Fem!Reader

Chapter 1 (more coming soon...)

Synopsis:

When the usual becomes unusual all because of one girl…

Professor Crumbs never dropped by for casual visits. His sudden arrival carried grave news: A soul transfer by a nymph to a mortal girl, giving the mortal magical abilities. The girl, unaware of her new powers could fall victim to death or insanity if her powers were left untrained or weren't fully removed.

The Russo's weren't sure how exactly they played into this but once told that the only clue on finding this girl was her recent move to New York, alongside her family- things made more sense.

"So you want us to kidnap her?"

Naturally, none of the Russo's expected to actually bump into this girl, especially not Max. But upon bumping into the new girl at school, things took a sharp turn.

That girl was you.

Caught in a whirlwind of cheesy romance, clichéd tropes, and something as unreal as magic was you, painfully aware of how ridiculous everything seemed to be.

"Why does it feel like we're in a sitcom?"

But this wasn't a sitcom. Behind the sandwiches and spells was an ugly truth.

"You might die. Emphasis on the 'might'."

The 'might' didn't make it feel any better when everyone was so serious.

___ * ___

Y/N L/N

"What in the bippity boppity boo is this..?"

"So you kidnapped me?"

"Oh no. I have magical powers. What a catastrophe."

"Why does it feel like we're in a sit-com?

Max Russo

"So yeah, we need to not not kidnap you. So I think that means we need to kidnap you."

"You like sandwiches too?"

"I can't believe you guys thought I wouldn't do something so stupid."

"You have beautiful eyes...like olives. I think I'm hungry."

Justin Russo

"Does it not get through your thick skull? You have magic powers and need our help to help you control them. Thus, you should totally follow us into this cramped corridor. So what if we're strangers?"

"You might die. Emphasis on the 'might'."

"Since I'm the student body president, your actions affect my reputation. SO STOP THIS. Thank you"

Alex Russo

"When did the music get so romantic and WHY IS MAX HOLDING A BOUQUET?"

"Isn't it fun? You have magical powers, so what if you might explode. Yeah no, that sounded better in my head."

"Relax, without stupid people we wouldn't have anyone to laugh at, right Max?"

"Try this spell, it might work. I found it in this book- "Definitely Not Curses". See, they aren't curses."

Harper Finkle

"Like my new outfit?  Only made of bubblewrap and cardboard."

"I don't think anyone needed to see that.."

"Why does she get magic powers and I don't? Oh, she might die? Nevermind."

Jerry & Theresa Russo

"They'd make a cute couple, right Jerry?" "Agreed"

"That's it Jerry. I need an explanation, now." "Argh..! Max, word your sentences better..!"

"That girl could die." "I know."

Professor Crumbs

"No Justin, I am not taking you on an escapade."

"Oh, I didn't expect them to actually find you."

"This is quite an interesting case, truly. I just don't understand why the Nymph chose you."

"Anyone for some tea?"

__ * __

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the character's from Wizard's Of Waverly Place, all credits go to Disney for the character's used from their franchise. The only characters I claim ownership of are one's I invented myself. 

Author's Note: Hello guys, I'm Brownie and this is my first story on this fandom (or anything Disney really). This is supposed to be a crack-fic but it still has a plot and is still taken seriously by me. When I say 'crack', I mean that the MC (you) is VERY self-aware- and obviously Y/N isn't Candace but that's the kind of vibe I'm going for. I'm talking about the "this is the eleventh time we've bumped into each other today" OR "Why does it feel like we're in a rom-com movie" kind of humor. BUT because I'm recently in LOVE with Max Russo, the character, I JUST HAD to start writing this. Not to mention, there's a lack of fics on this fandom and him specifically (I'm on a mission to change that)

To read it on Wattpad

My other blog (main)

[notasapleasure]

Wild hopes for Andor S2:

Oh, apparently blorbo *might* be in the trailer? Riding a speeder on Dantooine you say? Aughhhh don't toy with my emotions like this!!

So for posterity, before anything about s2 does actually become clear, my vague hopes/'if I got to write their story' headcanons for my Ferrix badasses are a jumble of the following:

I don't see them immediately going back to Ferrix, they're recognisable (Bix is known to the Empire, Wilmon will be known by association with Salman, Bee is known as Maarva's droid, they had an eye on Brasso as 'the big guy' even before he fucked shit up with the funerary brick...and I can't remember Jezzi doing anything specific but she'll have been seen round Maarva's home and funeral), and riot or not, I'd say the Empire will be in the mood to make an example of Ferrix rather than to go 'oops our bad we'll leave you in peace'. So it seems a bad idea for the fugitives to return there for their rebellion as soon as they've left.

On that ship we know there's a skilled electrician (Wilmon) and mechanic (Bix), and I've always presumed Brasso must know his way around a ship well enough to be able to take it apart, and that Jezzi has some similarly Ferrixian industrial skill. I thought it would be very sexy if they all got involved in making/repurposing tech for the rebellion. In my heart of hearts they're patching together the first fleet of X-Wings.

Orange. Ferrix orange (Brasso's felt jacket orange) and rebel pilot orange. And there's the shot of Cassian in an orange pilot's suit in the trailer. I just. I just have hopes. And dreams. And colour was so significant in Rogue One (the red of the force/rebellion...there was an awesome post on here pointing out way more examples than I'd noticed, but I always think of the lining of Jyn's vest). Maybe it's reclaiming Narkina orange, even? But the look of the Ferrix clothes reminds me so much of the OT aesthetic, I think that's got to be the more likely connection.

Bee? Kay? Do they meet? ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ trying to suppress the thought 'what if Bee helps to make Kay possible?' but the thought has been thunk. (ETA: NOT into the theory that they're the same person that's not what I mean. I'm talking hardware donation. Wires and chips. Not personality)

Dantooine. Dantooine base. After all this time!!!! What Legends book did I first read about the base on Dantooine in?? idek but if I'd ever written the epic angsty plot follow-up to that one fic (only ever just one night) it would have involved the Ferrix gang making X-Wings work on Dantooine :') I have feelings about Brasso the wrecker learning to make things instead :))

It should go without saying that I want to see Bix channel her healing into getting stuff done and fucking up the Empire.

I guess my feeling is that if we're time-skipping over a five year period in a, what, 12 episode season? There's not time for a huge arc for all the Ferrix characters alongside everything else the show needs to cover. My cautious assumption is that this either means a load of them get killed off/sidelined early, or they're kept together in the same setting so their stories are interlinked, but presumably with focus remaining on Bix (and Bee). Dantooine/wherever the rebel base is beforehand/the move to Yavin struck me as a good place for this, where they can still be brought in and out of episodes through whatever time-skips happen because it's a place the title character is going to be coming and going from regularly, like Ferrix is in S1. Naturally it is a selfish thought to want to recreate the S1 dynamic :)) because I want my blorbo(s) to get to be relevant and a part of Cassian's life still, but if that suggestion about Brasso on a speeder on Dantooine in the trailer is remotely accurate then I will cry happy tears.

Who knows, if they get to survive, maybe all those heart-pulverising fics and fanarts about Cassian's (glass) stone being laid on Ferrix will find a place at the end of the series?

[moodyseal]

Tell us more abt your hyacinthus winter soldier au 👀👀

HELLO thank you for giving me an excuse to talk your ear off about it, you will probably regret it <3

To be completely honest I still haven't planned anything that's worth of an actual fic (who do you take me for? An organized person? HA) but I would lie if I said that I didn't think about it a lot, so

As you know, somehow in this AU Hyacinthus came back to life and started working for the emperors

The dynamics of how, exactly, it all happened are pretty undefined as of now, but that's secondary information and it's not really important. (Maybe.)

What you need to know though is that Commodus is the one who takes him in, because of course he does. Hyacinthus is the perfect revenge against Apollo, after all, both because he's known to be his greatest love, and seeing him side against him would hurt Apollo a lot, and because, whatever happened, Commodus would always have leverage against Apollo, in a "You don't want to do what I tell you? Well look what I can do to your precious little flower" sort of way

He also uses this as an excuse to get back at Hyacinthus himself, too—something that is a direct result his festering inferiority complex and the can of worms that are, again, his feelings upon seeing the one man Apollo's name is always associated with

Hyacinthus is a better man and fighter than him even when he's brainwashed and he just CAN'T stand it

It all worsens once he sees how much Lester is still attached to Hyacinthus, and how hard he tries to get him to snap back. He never cared that much for him after all, did he?

On Hyacinthus' end this all borders less on the side of drama and more on the side of comedy LMAO

While not being able to discern right from wrong atm, as he's been coerced into absolute obedience through very shady means, he has this unexplainable feeling inside him that he really, really doesn't like Commodus (which intensifies every time Commodus starts another one of his long rants about how bad and evil and selfish Apollo is and about how he'll absolutely get his revenge) and he expresses that through little jabs he makes in his direction that Commodus can't really do anything about because they are worded in a way that makes them seem innocuous

On the other hand, he's on civil terms with the rest of the "staff", so to speak, and some even respect him because of how skilled he is (specifically Lityerses) so he does have some allies there

They don't actually know who he is though since, while he works for the emperors, Hyacinthus is never referred to by his own name, but always by some sort of epithet

(This is why Meg never made the connection either, despite knowing the myth well enough to inform Grover that Hyacinthus was Apollo's boyfriend)

It's mostly a measure they take so Hyacinthus doesn't remember his past before they're actually done using him

As for Apollo and Hyacinthus' relationship in this, it's a bit complicated, because Apollo changes his stance and tries to get him on his side the moment Hyacinthus' disguise drops, while Hyacinthus doesn't remember him. At all. So his efforts don't really work

Which results in a lot of frustration and hurt feelings

Despite this, Hyacinthus' unexplainable feelings persist. And he's very confused :)

I'm still not sure when this would be set—I wanted to either limit this to The Dark Prophecy or make it a "he appears occasionally as a spy or something until they find out who he is" thing that spans over the five books (without actually retelling the whole story though because holy shit that would be exhausting) but that's something that can be figured out later oof

Anyway, keep in mind that this is all just a result of my daydreaming, so if I actually write something concrete about this, some plot points might change!! And also the dynamics!! And the vibes in general!!! My brain is just a dumpster fire tbh so expect a lot of mental U-turns here

[lets-try-some-writing]

⭐️ You got anything cool you wanna share? 👀

Of course!

Pretender AU Ramble:

The Pretender AU is currently my favorite Tumblr AU and let me tell you, I am slow writing for it because the plot THICKENS. The idea came into being when I saw an image of some creepy looking Megatron & Optimus artwork. Then as I sat down with my writing buddy to discuss the AU and go over some of the asks I have gotten for it to create a coherent plot, things got deeper than they originally were.

Literally no one is the good guy in the Pretender AU, despite how it may look. Megatron may seem like the hero, but he is still on his crazy train (which will be showcased later). Optimus may seem like a monster (which he is), but if you look at it, he is simply a being who was born of the wrong host. If ANYONE else had been his host, he would have been fine and the Pretenders could have integrated without issue most likely. Orion Pax would have learned of them, and possibly even gone so far as to create an alliance with these beings considering they operate a great deal like an ant colony and their abilities cannot be overlooked.

Why do I bring this up? Because Megatron is a hypocrite. He wishes to free all sentient beings. Well guess what? The Pretenders are very much sentient. He can't see that, or rather he refuses to due to the trauma of witnessing Orion Pax's slow death. He also does not see many others as sentient in light of his fear of the Pretenders. The Insecticons are on the chopping block just because they share traits with the Pretenders. Beastformers have never been looked on fondly, and in light of the Pretenders, they are also not taken to kindly. By seeing them this way, they have turned to the Pretenders (which will be shown in later writing I have planned).

By refusing to see the Pretenders are sentient beings, many other minor factions are also being thrown under the bus. This has unintentionally given the Pretenders the tools they need to endure. The Pretenders were made for a purpose, and they are really fragging good at doing their job. But Megatron refusing to let go of his personal vendetta was pretty much the only thing dragging out the war. And by doing so, he forced the Pretenders to become less emotive, more calculating, and hyperactive. It is a self destructive cycle and no one is the good guy here. Both factions make things worse for each other and they make the other group more and more fanatical just by existing. There is no victory here.

Well.

That is except for Smokescreen.

He plays the LONG game.

Extra:

Fun fact about the LTSW writing process:

Almost ALL of my fics and AU's are run past my dear friend @spreadwardiard. I come up with the concept and the base for the plot, and then they help me build the idea until we settle on an amazing story. Occasionally I work on something entirely alone, but at this point pretty everything except surprise gifts/small writing projects unworthy of serious note are given to them to think about prior to the actual written work being completed.

My work would not be nearly as interesting without their input. Having a friend to polish up an idea with really is a lifesaver.

You can tell which AU's I didn't run past them because I either don't touch them anymore, the plot/timeline is rather disjointed, or its a goofy thought rather than anything super serious. That's how much I lean on the commentary of others to really get the ball rolling for my work.

[sakitenmaenjoyer]

4 the fic ask thing if u want to share info on any or all of them I would clap and cheer

fuck yeah

emunene little mermaid au: ive talked about this like once, but it's basically what it sounds like. emu is a princess; nene is a mermaid

plot stuff, emu goes on a ship, emu is saved by nene when her ship goes down, and she's very !!!! when she realizes that nene is the one with the singing voice she'd been hearing right after her grandpa died. unfortunately she is half delirious when she's saved and doesn't remember how nene looks. emu vows to look for the beautiful lady with the beautiful voice....

ruinene and emukasa would be the platonic pairings in the fic. i considered having tsukasa be emu's fiance? if only to parallel the original story. nene won't stab tsukasa. probably. but she does find him deeply annoying at first. he and emu might be close enough to consider a marriage of convenience...still havent figured that part out yet. nene gets less annoyed by tsukasa when she sees why he's emu's friend

rui is the sea witch, and he helps nene become temporarily human.

i dont have any of it fleshed out but i want to do something with the idea so bad. emu dragging nene to see the sights of the human world and to socialize.......nene being emu's company for longer than either knew. nene realizing the value of her voice when it's gone....she thought being silent wouldn't be any different from normal, but emu made her want to talk, and to sing, to yell and laugh. she wants to have an our happy ending moment with emu but she can't

rui angst fic/TtSaB/Working Title: "When faced with the unthinkable, Rui struggles to navigate old feelings and new fears. Fortunately, he has his friends by his side... it's just a matter of letting them in."

this is a fic ive been chipping at had since curtain call came to en LMAO. i asked 'hey can i have curtain call rui please please please ill write and post that fic idea i have' and rui came home in a single pull. so im legally bound to write and post it eventually. here's some of the scenes ive done

actual dogshit writing lmao. but yeah this fic is more serious than any of my other prsk ideas. i wanted rui to have at least one important scene with each wxs member, because their friendship is at the core of this. also wanted to include the vocaloids bc it's not project sekai without them....even if the idea of talking about your personal problems to hatsune miku is. well.

the plot and title is under wraps for the time being, but here's my notes on how i want to characterize rui

the fic should be 8 chapters. It's teetering between a Teen Rating and a Mature Rating, but I should probably write the rest before deciding anything...

other:

whenever im bored, i format unwritten fic ideas into stories on ao3. ive written absolutely almost nothing for either of these, but it's nice to imagine i have lmao

But I'm Still Here: Saki goes invisible, and everyone around her proceeds to freak out as they search for the 'missing' girl. includes tsukasa ping ponging between 'we'll find her, we have to' and 'it's so fucking over', leo/need trkes and failing not to fall into depression, and saki feeling guilty that Everyone's lives are put on hold for her. the original idea was set before they debut, but maybe it should be after (so toya would have surpassed rad weekend already lmao).

everyone who adores saki makes themselves sick with worry. especially since it lasts about a week. tsukasa has not been that anxious in his fucking life. he's coping...fine. he's doesn't throw himself down while wailing at least. and he doesnt vomit from stress (preventing both takes a lot of self control). leo/need try to be strong for each other, but they are all sad shivering dogs. shiho wants to punch to be useful but knows she can't do anything. ichika tries to stay hopeful, like saki would want. honami tries to be their calm leader...but theyre like, 16/17, so theyre all just anxious.

Phthonus: Rui is envious and sad the fic, rip bozo. it'd be an introspective fic. i'd want rui to subconsciously compare and contrast himself and bakuno, and come to the realization that tsukasa (romantically) likes the parts of bakuno that rui doesn't have (bakuno's timidness, his lack of confidence, his acting, his ability to not annoy tsukasa lmao). but he also has traits that rui does have (his passion for theatre, obsession with writing stories, talent above his age range, the ability to bounce ideas off of tsukasa)

tsukasa still loves rui, but he never saw him in a romantic light. if he ever did, then it's too late....tsukasa set his eyes on bakuno and went "i can fix him". and unfortunately, tsukasa isn't polyamorous. rui deals with the heartache every time he sees tsukasa, even though it hurts him. he loves him too much to ever look away

uhh other stuff without titles-

bakuno/tsukasa fic, maybe a kotaro/akito fic. they would be in a series about the npcs waxing poetic about the ocs. throw in some pairings like miyake & rui, otori siblings & emu, yukki and mizuki, nagi and an....but the first fic would be bakukasa because i like them a lot lmao

Another rui is jealous fic, but it ends in rks- bakuno and tsukasa sign up to be gay lovers in a short film and rui's clenches his teeth and tries not to mope over it. (he is the one that asked them to do it) he does not know why and thinks there's something wrong with the film/acting rather than himself. he's stupid. meanwhile tsukasa is slowly realizing he likes men bc of gay research he did... and while he thinks bakuno is cute, he's immediately hit in the face that he likes rui a Lot.

saki in mogami land fic- saki gets isekaid in a hell world where everyone hates her/doesn't know her. i cant decide yet. maybe both. tsukasa and her parents say mean shit to her, ichika avoids her, her favorite idol doesn't even know who she is. the ending is her going back to her normal world, where she proceeds to be crushed by tsukasa and her parents (she went missing for a week. tsukasa cries the hardest at her reappearance... though her parents aren't too far behind) this is another "i want to show saki how loved she is by taking it away from her" fic

ruikasa are fucking dumb fic - tsukasa confesses to rui, they get together, and then things go down hill because neither know how to act in a new relationship. tsukasa wants to be a good boyfriend, so he treats rui differently (in a way that bothers rui). he's probably sweet and nice and doting, which rui like, but it feels more like a role tsukasa wants to perfect. rui wants tsukasa to be himself. at the same time, rui also wants to be a good boyfriend, but becomes aware that he has no idea how to do that...so instead he subconsciously tests their relationship, wondering just how far he could push tsukasa to get him to go back to "normal". the conclusion is that theyre stupid and just needed to adjust and realize nothing changed

future wxs meets present wxs - there r so many ideas i have for this it'd fucking ridiculous. the most prominent one is future rks meeting present wxs. another one is 3rd anni tsukasa meeting pre wonder magical showtime tsukasa

wxs takes care of child wxs - due to sekai bs, there are teenage wxs and child wxs. they all take turns and interact with the kids...tsukasa and baby rui & nene and baby rui would be cute i think. my ideas are

1) baby rui getting sad that tsukasa said his ideas are too dangerous (he's literally five and wants to jump from a high place). tsukasa feels guilty about his sad little face and offers to do it for rui. cue rui's excitement that an adult wants to try his idea

2) baby rui looks at grown nene like a proud parent and says 'i'm so proud of you nene' and nene goes 'you're literally five. also youve told me that before.' she still says thank you though, bc it's cute and she's fond

child/middle school wxs meets emu's grandpa - rakunosuke shows up during difficult times in tsukasa/rui/nene's lives and helps them smile. none of them remember him, but during that moment, he's a bright light. maybe some emu/rakunosuke parallels?

kamiyama group during mizuki5 - i made a post abt this already, but a silly fun fic to what fun everyone had at the festival. nobody knows mizuki is suffering. very bittersweet

saki helps tsukasa get ready for a date with rui - saki gives tsukasa questionable dating advice and tsukasa ends up botching date with rui (rui doesnt care). includes tsukasa trying to be a gentleman, saki getting love advice from manga and magazines, and rui having a good time watching tsukasa fumble be a gentleman

arcland rui - canon rui wakes up in universe where he joined arcland and asahi. it shows an alternative path rui could have taken, and how that path would have been every bit as valid as keeping wxs together

...unfortunately, rui isn't happy with this because wxs disbanded and he doesn't talk to them as often. he doesn't even go to school with them anymore. (also he has a situationship thing with asahi And tsukasa but he doesn't notice either of them lmao)

i probably have others but these are the ones that come to mind first...hope this is all okay!

[kingsonne-zedecks]

Elder Whisper Cradlepost

I want to talk about Elder Whisper, because out of almost anything in Cradle I feel like Whisper had the most potential that wasn't met.

Will has talked a bit about his writing process, how he'll leave himself threads that he might not know exactly what he's going to do with, but gives himself the option to pick up later.

(Which, as an aside is a pretty great piece of writing advice. Not all foreshadowing has to be planned out like a massive scheme. Calling back to something you prepared earlier without knowing where it was going to go will read like well thought out foreshadowing all the same)

Now, we know that sometimes this doesn't pan out at all. Like Lindon grabbing those scripted stones from the Transcendent Ruins that Will had a rough idea for but later scrapped because the story went a different direction on. I really feel like Elder Whisper falls into this category, because pretty much everything about Whisper prior to Reaper hints at him being so much more than he ends up being.

In Unsouled he is getting glimpses of fate that reflect the actions of literal Judges of the Abidan. Like, Whisper can see that the Wandering Titan will destroy Sacred Valley, and he can tell that it might happen in a few years or it might happen in 30. The accelerated timeline was a direct result of the interference in fate of both Suriel and Ozriel, and the resulting machinations of Makiel to try to restore fate.

And Whisper could see it.

Now. The Doylist explanation is that Will hadn't nailed down Fate Reading and it's implications yet. But that opens things up to so much more when it comes to the Watsonian explanation. Why was Whisper able to see so much? When we get to the end of Bloodline, Why does Whisper know so much about the Dreadgods? At the beginning of Unsouled Markuth talks about the sins of the founder of the Wei, is he referring to the human's that Whisper taught? Or Whisper himself? How did Whisper keep open the soul space of a Sage for years after his death?

It gets me fired up. One of the popular theories is that Whisper is actually a retired Judge living under a powerful veil, potentially even The Fox. Which is a great theory and explains a lot of his abilities.

My other favorite is drawn from DaoistMystery's Wei Shi Lindon Arelius Sue on ao3, which is fantastic fic and worth reading even though it's unfinished. I've reread it many times and you should too

But DaoistMystery's Whisper is amazing. So much is hinted at and partially revealed. The idea of some consequence of the fight with Li Markuth that resulted in his ascendance. The idea of a soul oath that limited and bound him. Whisper as this former Sage or even Monarch bound down in his power to that of a Gold and then limited further by the suppression field down to Jade.

And then the idea of White Fox Madra having qualities similar to that of Blackflame, in that it has consequences on the mind. Whisper, who had achieved such heights in the Sacred Arts that his illusions could trick reality itself. To the point where even he can't tell the difference between his illusions and himself.

I love it, and I headcanon it hardcore, and I think that canon justifies it more than what canon actually states. Like, Whisper is fully aware of just how far the Sacred Arts go, he's even aware of ascension and some of what goes on in the Heavens, and you mean to tell me that he's just a Gold? No. He's a liar and Will just didn't have time and space to dedicate to the truth about Whisper, as the main plot moved away from him.