#this is dedicated to all you lovely people who STILL read this story and message me about it

[needfantasticstories]

“Many places I have been

Many sorrows I have seen

But I don't regret

Nor will I forget

All who took that road with me”

-The Last Goodbye by Billy Boyd

This is an Adjuration by @not-freyja, after 86 chapters, 300k words, and 10 months of joy, laughter, tears, heartbreak and love, has finally reached its end. 

Adjuration is a tragedy that is nothing short of an act of love. That much is clear in the passion and dedication put towards the story, the characters, and the message Freyja is trying to convey. This fic will teach you about love. About death. About the inevitability of existence and why despite knowing it will all come to an end, there is still meaning in trying and hoping and loving each other. In loving yourself. You will laugh, you will cry, you will hope and you will despair as you read this story, but you will not be able to put it down.

It’s hard to say goodbye to something that has been so important to and loved by so many people. So we won’t. Instead, we will say thank you for this incredible journey and the community this fic has built. For the friendships that have been made and the endless inspiration you have given us. Thank you for wanting to tell a story, and for letting us join you around the campfire to listen.

Thank you.

(If you like Linked Universe and haven’t yet read Adjuration, see below for spoiler free reviews of this fic and artist credits.)

This is an Adjuration is the kind of story you fall in love with, the kind of story you think keep thinking about long after you put it down. The kind you keep finding hidden details in after you think you’ve got it figured out. 

The characters are distinct and people with their own voices, motivations, relationships and histories. You’ll have your favourites but love them all. They influence how you’ll see the characters in everything else. 

It’s full of moments where everything clicks and everything before is recontextualised in a way that’s so satisfying and make the whole story very re-readable. A time travel story where all loops are already closed, where you can know but not yet understand what will happen. It’s long, complex, and beautifully, meticulously planned and detailed. It’s clever and considered, funny and heartbreaking. 

A story that whispers ‘it matters’ over and over. It is worth it to love, it is worth it if it doesn’t last forever, it is worth it to give someone a little more time, it is worth it to fight. It’s about loving others and your world and finding grace for yourself. 

It’s loss and tragedy and the cruelness of fate. It is the sacrifice and the breaking. 

Full of heart to both fill yours and break it in the best possible way. 

It’s about love. Always.

By @toyouhellohowareyou

Sometimes, it’s hard to explain to others why art moves us.

I could tell you This is an Adjuration will make you cry, laugh, and sit at the edge of your seat in anticipation. And it’s probably true - I did all of that as I read, often with a coffee in one hand, early in the morning as I got ready for the day. 

But that’s not the reason why I’m writing this.

The real reason is how it followed me during the rest of the day.

You see, at a certain point I realized this isn’t a story about Links going on adventures. Well, it does feature Links, and they do go on adventures, so let’s talk about that for a minute.

The first thing that caught my attention about this book was the characters. Each individual is unique, interesting, and exciting to follow. Not only are the Links individually compelling, but one thing that stands out in Adjuration is how the relationship between each Hero and their own worlds matter, and these connections shift, evolve, break and grow as the plot progresses.

Freyja does an incredible job of bringing together impactful storytelling with humor and heart. This is an Adjuration starts with an interesting premise, and then twists and turns in directions you wouldn’t expect. It’s rich in thought-provoking moments, soft joy and intense action, blended in with carefully crafted time travel and magic.

Adjuration sucked me into the world it builds, combining believable characters with fascinating stories, an unnervingly devious antagonist, plot twists, and lovingly crafted details that slip unnoticed until you’re surrounded on all sides. It made me cheer for characters I feel as if I’ve known intimately for years, made me worry for their safety as I would for that of a loved one, kept me hunting for hints and hidden references, pulling on a thread to try to find the end only for it to twist and loop into itself and show me a completely new side to the story.

Yes, This is an Adjuration is a fanfiction piece that explores the winding river flow of the Legend of Zelda timeline and how the stories of each Hero merge into each other. It also stands out for its heavy emotional content, and it doesn’t shy away from angst and hurt.

But to me, Adjuration is an epic journey that taught me how the choices we make, make us in turn. It’s a tragedy that deals with pain and healing, and it bares naked the non-linear nature of grief. It’s a celebration of the things that make us unique, of our flaws, an essay of the impact of little acts of love. Indeed, it’s a story about love.

I can tell you now, This is an Adjuration moved me. It still does. It has a special way to surface in my mind in unexpected ways at seemingly random times, from something as simple as tossing an apple core, to watching a lightning storm in the distance, or finding a picture of an old friend.

And every time, without fail, it makes me think about love.

By @sunny-porridge

This is an Adjuration is a wonderfully and beautifully crafted story about love, loss, and choice as the various incarnations of Link come together and travel through time. Freyja seamlessly weaves a tapestry of setup and payoff across different timelines and loops, in the best-constructed time travel plot I’ve ever seen on page or screen. Even at its surface, Adjuration is an emotional rollercoaster involving tragedy and the soft moments that make that tragedy worth it. But the deeper you look, the more meaning you can pull from every chapter of this amazing work. This work has made me cry, squeal with delight, and think more deeply about its themes all while having an absolute blast reading it. So in summary: READ IT. READ IT. READ IT NOW. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

By @life-in-winter

While I love that every chapter is emotionally enthralling, with carefully woven, visceral tension you crave in any good story, yet Adjuration is more than that, and you feel it in the careful weave of each character and plot point. Nothing is lost or unanswered. It's the kind of story that, by the end, makes you stop and take a hard look at your own life. Are you appreciating the now? Are you savoring joy? Are you so wrapped up in fear that you can hardly take care of yourself? Do you know who you are?

This story is more like an external experience. It's riding atop a tsunami. How do you handle that ride, Link?

There aren't enough words to describe how amazing this fic is.

@needfantasticstories

Artist credit

Legend: @gia-d

Hyrule: @bittirsweeteer

Time: @toonblade

Sky: @noorahqar

Warriors: @whitewinterstar

Wild: @weavingstarlight

Twilight: @bluury2

Wind: @thewitchdoctor39

Four: @lunaopus

Red: @peepthatbish

Blue: @glowingmin

Green: @winterfen

Vio: @waterfallstream

Shadow: @deleetrix

Wolfie: @linkiscool333

Fierce Deity: @awildsilver

Ravio: @lele5429

Malon: @tooner-tastic

Dink: @passerinesoncaffeine

[lilioopdf]

always enough time (cardigan)

pairing: reader x (childhood best friend! + college!) pepe marti

notes: fluff, a little angst, then fluff again! 3.2k words (oops 😓😓 i should've probably split this up)

warnings: mentions of alcohol

a/n: dedicating this to my lovely mutuals who have been here from the very beginning and even before i started writing 💗💗 idk if this is too sappy but i genuinely love you guys for interacting with my writing posts and my non-racing posts because it really does mean so so much to me and i didn’t know any better way to say thank you

and if you’re reading this, have a lovely lovely day/ahead ahead 💞💞 may people always shower you in love and warm hugs

✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚ ✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊

the first time his eyes meets yours, you’re 4, clinging onto your father’s trousers as he speaks to another man about work related things. it is a business event, after all. he waves at you, a complete stranger then, and he watches as your head tilts a little, eyebrows raising slightly in surprise, before you hide your face behind your father.

he’s six, and yet he still feels his face burn in embarrassment, all because the prettiest girl at the party didn't say hi back.

he sees you again the next day, when you're both having dinner with your fathers at a hidden little restaurant near the beach. your fathers recognise each other almost instantly, and you suddenly find yourself sat next to him as the adults talk about complicated grown up topics over some drinks.

after dinner, he offers you half his cookie under the table, and you give him half of your ice cream in return.

he's too shy to say anything this time, but he lets you play with his toy car the very moment he notices you looking at it curiously.

it's a strange start to your friendship, but it's a sweet one nonetheless.

‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊

you grow up together, but at a distance, only seeing each other during summers when you would follow your fathers to overseas work conferences.

he looks out for you for years.

when you're 8, he teaches you how to ride a bike. how to tie your shoelaces so you don't have to stick to velcro shoes forever. how to run faster, how to run without tripping over your own feet. he's gentle with you, and doesn't ever seem to mind your clumsiness.

you're only ever the same height as him once, and that is when you're 11. that year, his hair is almost always a little too overgrown, but he smiles more, and he has more stories to tell. he's at a new school now, one where they can bring their own phones with them. he tells you about the new subjects he's learning; physics, chemistry, english lit, and history. he has more friends now, and he shows you pictures of them alongside their text messages about online games you don't quite get.

when you're 13, he seems so different from the boy you knew last year. he's significantly taller than you now, and his voice cracks a less frequently than it used to, but he still blushes lightly whenever it happens. you don't mind though. if anything, it makes him even more endearing. pepe tells you about how he joined his school's soccer team this year, but you're sure you would've known even if he didn't tell you. he's so much happier these days, but he seems so grown up too. so much more ahead of you in life, at least.

the year you turn 15, things start to feel a little funny. 2 years feels like too big of a difference between the two of you now, and he just feels like too much of a boy. he towers over you now, and his voice has changed so much that you couldn't recognise it when he called out your name at the airport. you notice how the girls around you seem to look at him a little longer, letting their gaze linger on him for a little too long before they notice you at the side, standing awkwardly and feeling just a little too out of place.

you don't know how to feel about the fact that he's almost always looking at you instead.

now, he's quicker at picking up on your body language. he puts an arm around you and holds you when he can tell that your cramps are too bad, he's quick to offer you his jacket when the wind is just a little too chilly, and he's always carrying around your things for you. "just looking out for you," he says. "don't want you feeling alone when i'm right here."

and then you're 16, and lines start to grow a little blurry. it's a year full of insecurities and unfufilled longing, and most of the summer is spent in your head. it's weird to hang around him like that now. you start to distance yourself from him, but you're pretty sure he doesn't notice anyway. he still brings you around for dinner with him and to hang out, and you accept, but you don't ask him to follow you to places you'd like to visit anymore.

you run into a school friend of his one day, and you're suddenly made aware of just how differently he acts around you. his friend's nice to look at, you think. pepe tells you that's he's a soccer teammate from school. he calls you pretty and asks for your instagram, but pepe says something you don't understand in spanish and his friend just nods, apologises, and leaves, leaving you feeling just a little wounded and put off. you wonder if you did something wrong, but you're too scared to even ask your school friends for advice. they've all passed this silly stage anyway— you're the only one who's never even had a crush, let alone be asked out.

pepe gets his first girlfriend by the end of the year, and you're almost happy for him, except you can't help but feel a little jealous. it's silly though, you think. you're just a lovesick teenage girl pining over an older boy. she's cool and loud and she's always able to visit the same places and parties as him. a perfect match. he sees her more often than he sees you anyway.

your friendship ends on a rocky note the year you turn 17. neither of you follow your fathers the next year. neither of you can. it's pepe's last year with you before going off to university.

that summer, you're on your phone almost the whole time, texting a guy from school who's just asked you out. a hockey player of some sort. he parties and drinks a lot, but he's nice to you, and somewhat interested, you suppose.

when pepe finds out, he lets out a huff of laughter. "you're not seriously considering dating him though, are you? this is just for fun, right?"

you feel yourself still at his words. "what do you mean?"

"he won't be good for you. you're just... not like that. that lifestyle wouldn't suit you," he replies nonchalantly.

your blood burns just underneath the surface of your skin in anger and annoyance.

"who are you to say what lifestyle suits me? maybe this is what i want. i've grown up, you know."

you're more hurt than angry, although you're not quite sure why. your tone is indignant and fierce, and you watch as his expression turns neutral and unreadable and his eyes flicker from you, to your phone, and back at you again.

when he realises that you're being serious, his face contorts into an ugly expression, one of anger and almost a little bit of hurt.

"fine, suit yourself then."

then he walks out the room, and hot tears start running down your face.

and that is that. he still says goodbye to you at the airport, but the both of you don't hug this time.

‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊

you try not to think about him for the next two years.

you drown yourself in your schoolwork, tackling assignment after assignment, exam after exam, anything to prevent yourself from indulging in any thoughts of him.

when a childhood friend brings him up one day, asking why you don't meet him during summer anymore, you pretend that he was just a phase. just a blip in your life; minor and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

time goes by, and you continue to study hard, because you want to study humanities and the arts in university but still have the grades to prove that you could've done stem if you wanted to (like pepe, although you'd never admit to thinking that).

and then in a blink of an eye, you've graduated, and your months long break comes around as you wait for uni results to come back out.

its been a full two years now, but you'd be lying if you said you'd forgotten about him completely.

how could you?

you thought about him during mugging season in school, and during university applications, and sometimes (maybe especially so) during interschool games for soccer, imagining what it would be like if he was here, playing for your school team. (you also wonder what it'd be like to wear his jersey and cheer him on loudly and proudly in front of the whole schoot, but that's not something you're ever going to admit.)

you spend your summer soothing yourself to sleep by reminding yourself that pepe's been gone for two years now, and you're still doing fine. that you have done fine without him, and that you can and will continue to do so.

‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊

imagine your horror when you realise you've been posted the same university as pepe. same campus too.

your father is ecstatic. he immediately wants to call up pepe's dad and tell him the news but you beg him not to, tears in your eyes. you can't risk looking like a hopeless and dependent little puppy even before the school term has started.

before the first day of uni, you've already studied the campus map well enough to plan routes that avoid going near the school of engineering, just so you can avoid pepe. you're almost 100% confident that you'll be able to hide from him for his remaining two years in uni. plus, you definitely look different from the way you did two years ago, so you technically have an extra layer of protection.

except you have an orientation camp the very first week of uni, and you're just that lucky enough to have a familiar face as one of your orientation group leaders.

he recognises you instantly. how could he not?

you half expect him to ignore you, or at least, pretend not to know you. but to your surprise, he smiles. in fact, he beams at you, and he waves before jogging over to sit next to you. your mouth is slightly agape, and you can't tell if this is some kind of cruel joke that he's playing on you right now.

"how have you been? you're lucky to be here today. the weather isn't usually this nice, and i know you get chilly easily." he's still smiling while speaking to you, and he's just acting so... normal, but you?

you feel like smacking him. you left each other on a sour note two years ago, after being friends for more than a decade, and he chooses to talk about the weather, of all things.

but you just put on a smile and act the same.

arguing with a best friend is one thing, having to make small talk about mundane, boring, topics with a friend you've known for years and then forgotten is another. you can't figure out if talking to him is helping heal your heart or slowly shattering it into more tiny little pieces.

‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊

the first few weeks of uni fly by, and you don't end up using any of your pre-planned routes.

in fact, you end up meeting pepe almost every day before you your lessons. for breakfast, or brunch, or lunch... and maybe even dinner, once both your classes are done.

you can’t read him that well, and you wonder if this is only weird for you. but you’re not one to complain. you’re not one to take this for granted either.

you’ve spent years of your life missing summer and pepe, and then you spent two more years missing him without even speaking to him at all. no, you’re definitely not taking this for granted.

you learn that he's playing soccer for a kids charity event that happens yearly, that he's studying mechanical engineering (which doesn't surprise you at all, not really), and that he's broken up with his girlfriend, because of different goals in life or something. you stop yourself from thinking too hard about whether or not the both of you have compatible life goals upon hearing the last part.

he’s still sweet to you.

maybe even more so now that he can actually look out for you. he always gives you his jacket when you’re cold, offers to help you run your errands on busy days, and he even helps you get special oppourtunities thanks to his friends and connections. and when you’re sick, he gives you updates for classwork even though he’s not in the same classes as you, bringing you heat packs and checking up on you daily with warm teas and essential balms.

it's all so lovely that you could almost cry.

except he’s always just a little too stiff around you. too hesitant to touch, too close for distance.

he'll bring you heat packs on your period, and allow you to lean on his stronger frame when the cramps get too bad, but he never gets close enough to cuddle. and when either of you stay over for too long while studying together, he always offers to sleep on the floor or on the couch, but he never allows himself to lie in the same bed as you.

it's all so polite but so frustrating, and you're even more upset because you have absolutely no right to feel that way. he's your best friend, and he has been for years. he's not someone you could ever have the priviledge of dating, and he deserves a friend he can count on, not someone who's helplessly unable to stop their one-sided longing for him.

and so you let another six months slip away as you spend more time with pepe in your head than physically, while he continues keeping a distance from you, leaving you wondering why.

‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊

suddenly it's feburary, and pepe's been so busy with schoolwork and training for the upcoming charity match that you just don't see him that much anymore. you're pulled back into that aching feeling of loneliness, and busying yourself with your own schoolwork and friends doesn't seem to help.

i can't risk doing badly this semester, he says. this is the one that counts. i’ll have to find myself a good internship for portfolio— maybe with formula one, he says. you nod. you’d be proud of him regardless of what he did anyway.

you end up following him to the gym in the early hours of the morning just to hang out with him, even if hanging out now means you just watch him get through his workout routine while you sit next to him and sort out your schedule.

his friends refer to you as pepe's girlfriend now, and you stopped correcting them when you realised that pepe didn't seem to care. you can't blame them anyway, you're together almost all the time. you're always waiting for him at his apartment after classes, usually in an oversized t-shirt or hoodie of his, and he even wakes up early just to bring you breakfast before class.

the domesticity of it all makes you ache, but you can't even bring yourself to imagine what if would be like if your relationship was actually as desired.

‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊

pepe visits you the night before the charity match.

he brings you a jersey. his jersey, and he shyly asks if you'd be interested in showing up to watch him the next day. you almost scream with joy, but you control yourself, accepting it gracefully and holding the jersey gently and close to your chest.

you whisper a string of thank yous, careful not to wake your roommate up, and all pepe does is pull you in for a hug. he buries his face into the crook of your neck, arms wrapped tightly around your shoulders and all you can do is press yourself closer to him, taking in the scent of clean laundry and his cologne.

before he leaves, he flashes you a teasing smile, a somewhat knowing look on his face as he asks, "am i going to have to say it, or will you?"

you're caught off guard by his comment, and you just tilt your head in confusion, unsure what he's talking about. but he doesn't explain further. he just chuckles, gently shakes your shoulder, and leaves.

‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊‧ ₊

you show up to pepe's match half an hour before it starts, just so you can get a good view of the match. the venue is already half full, and you're just grateful to have gotten front row seats.

you act as casual as you can, pretending that your heart isn't racing while you're wearing his soft jersey, with the number 23 boldly printed onto the back. when your friend teases you about the way your cheeks seem to be permenantly pink, you gently slap her arm and tell her to be quiet in a weak attempt to save your face, which only results in a laughing fit from her.

the match is mostly a blur, but both teams are very evenly matched, and there's suddenly only 4 minutes left to the end of the game and both teams are stuck in a tie.

you're not sure when your focus zoned in on pepe. it could've been since the very start of the match, but you somehow catch that split second when the ball is passed over to him, and his expression changes from one of neutrality to determination. you watch as he expertly drabbles the ball between player to player, rushing to get close enough to the goalpost to shoot before the end of the match.

you're sure that everyone in the venue held their breath at the exact same moment you did, and that time must've stilled when pepe slid and kicked the ball into the goal, just 30s before the end of the match.

the whole venue erupts into cheers. it's defeaning, but all you can think of is how proud you are of him in this moment.

you don't take your eyes off him for even a second, and when the referee finally signals the end of the match, he looks at you too.

he’s all sweaty, hair plastered to his forehead, face flushed.

he's sipping from his bottle, standing directly in front of you, having run straight to you after the match.

your boy.

there's a wicked grin on his face, and you can feel the heat rise up to your face as you take in all of him in awe.

everyone’s staring, you think, but you know he doesn’t care, so why should you?

you barely allow yourself time to hesitate, but he's quicker.

he kisses you.

his mouth is warm and soft, and yet there's a certain pressure and intensity with which he kisses you that makes you think that he probably wanted this as much as you did, maybe more.

and when you both finally break apart for air, you realise that all the cheering is now directed at the both of you, and you can't help but start laughing shyly. he smiles at that, and presses a quick kiss to your temple before rushing off for a debrief, with promises to talk later.

you don't even care that your time together has been cut short, because all you can think about now is how grateful you are that you won't have to return him this jersey.

✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊ ⊹˚ ✧ ‧˚₊ ❆ ‧ ₊

© lilioopdf 2024 – please do not plagarise, repost, or translate any of my work on this or other platforms

thank you for reading this far!! stay hydrated and safe always!! 💗💗

taglist: @oscnorris/@httpiastri (the one and only person on my taglist 💕💕 also i realised i forgot to ask you which account you wanted me to tag so i’m just doing 2/3 :p)

[somerandomdudelmao]

Have to say I'm loving Marble Sky. It's clear you put a lot of thought into the story and I'm excited to see where it's going.

Figured I'd weigh into the Oscar commentary going on and I think honestly the shirt he was wearing in the flashback when Ward was talking about how he ended up in space might say a lot about his character as a whole.

If you don't look at the shirt closely it says "the earth is fla-" and naturally people will fill in the missing 't'. A shirt that seems to support flat earthers is particularly tone deaf given he'd just walked into a building dedicated to science and specifically space. It's the sort of thing people would instantly react to and think lesser of Oscar for. Much like the fact that he comes from a rich family. Or the fact that he seems to embrace the world with puppy like enthusiasm. It creates an image of someone who is ignorant, who doesn't pay attention, and is careless to the point of being arrogant about it.

However looking closely that's not what the shirt says. it's just the text for the rest of it is small, harder to read and purposefully arranged so its divorced from the rest of the larger letters.

And I find that fascinating.

So reading the shirt properly it says "the earth is FLA-bergasting". This message I think has a lot of layers especially combined with Oscar's established fascination with aliens, biology and stuff that we have seen with him previously. It's a message that celebrates the world and all life in it. It's a message that acknowledges that understanding that world is impossible but compelling none the less. It's a message that says the earth is confusing and hard to understand and Oscar is not pretending to know everything about it. Some of this might be just my interpretation of the message so take that with a grain of salt. Still the difference between the first and second is interesting because in the first its a person asserting they know something as complete truth while the second basically admits they don't know anything at all.

Now apply this to Oscar. We're presented with a chaotic lovable doofus who is brimming with childlike wonder at the start of the story. We're presented with a "rich kid" who got into space because his parents paid for it. We're presented with a guy who seems okay with the slaughter of others in order to protect himself. A lot of people are looking at Oscar and seeing "the earth is Fla(t)"

However we've barely scratched the surface of this story or this character not to mention the situation as a whole. So I'm staring at the smaller hidden letters (metaphorically) and wondering exactly what is actually going on with this guy. Because I'm pretty sure "the earth is Fla-bergasting" and so is Oscar.

Thank you for indulging this long ask. I felt like ranting because I love Oscar and this story.

There are three things in this world I can look at forever. How fire burns, how water flows, and how someone carefully analyzes a character in whom I have invested a lot of time and effort.

Holy shit this is incredibly interesting and oh my fucking god you wrote the entire essay?? your brain?? is powerful??rjfkgi

[bsydelver]

-MHA (1-A) as nowadays teenagers- social media mostly (stereotypes).

PT.1- the boys.

—>part 2 (the girls)

inspired by those “mha as American high schoolers tiktoks.”

The first section of this post has the ones I wanted to emphasize on the most then the second section will be just mentions of the boys that I found would be basic in my opinion or I couldn’t think about the concept of them being like the teenagers we have at this time,

Izuku:

This guy is active on social media 24/7.

He LOVES sending streaks on snap of everything happening, he finished studying? He is sending a streak announcing it; he was reading? He is sending a streak announcing it; he was on a call? He is sending a streak announcing it; you get the point.

His bitmoji looks like a carbon copy of him, he does not mess around when it comes to it.

The type of person to have a million different accounts on one platform: One is his main, One is his spam, One is for close friends, one for edits, etc. If you ask him for his handle or username he’ll say “which account?” or give you a specific one depending on who you are.

If he gets left on opened he deletes the message even for him only to avoid feeling embarrassed.

His music taste just depends on tiktok for the most part as he listens to audios there all the time for his edits.

I like to think that All might (or the pro-heroes in general) would be a professional player (sports) of some sort in this universe so Izuku would edit him like how people edit football/American soccer and basketball players.

He’s known in the editing community on tiktok and he loves the mutuals concept.

Not a lot of people he knows are aware of his editing hobby only Kirishima since they share it (Kiri does edits of crimson riot)— they would have that RMA fan and Barca fan friendship dynamic. (trust)

Trains the sport All Might is a professional in (and he is determined to be as good as All Might).

Part of the sassy men apocalypse.

Plays Roblox once in a blue moon and only for his friends.

Despite his extremely high screen time: he is actually smart academically.

If you’re playing a match with him (in teams, and sports that include, balls, passing, dribbling, etc.) and you have the ball, he will beg you to pass for him to shoot, but he still misses.

He likes the downtown boy style because he thinks it’s comfortable but Inko hates it.

He isn’t popular but he is still known,

Katsuki:

He barely has any social media platforms but for the ones he does have: it’s always just some private account that he only accepts people he knows on.

He sends his daily streaks and it’s always just the classic “S” drawn poorly on a black screen.

He only uses his story to repost other stories he was mentioned in.

His profile picture on every platform is a picture one of his friends took of him hiding his face using his hand, if it isn’t that photo: he just makes it a black screen.

He would send a tiktok or two every few months to a friend and then disappear again.

His main social media app is snapchat: that is what he uses for texting, calls and whatever other business he wants to do.

His snapscore is over 100k.

“wyll” warrior: if yk, yk.

Kirishima’s gym bro but never talks about it, it’s kiri who can’t help but bring it up.

Despite his somewhat “cold” personality, this mf is the definition of scared of girls: not even in the male manipulator way, he is just scared of them or avoids them.

He just wears plain shirts and hoodies, he doesn’t dedicate his clothes to a specific category: just wears what he wants.

Just expect the unexpected from him.

He is the captain of at least one sports team in his school.

He never studies (according to him) yet gets the highest marks somehow and everyone admires him for it.

Shoto:

He does not use social media at all, nearest thing he has to that is his phone number that’s about it.

Just uses his phone to call people or message them on imessage.

He does not get any joke or reference you tell him that comes from tiktok (referring to brainrot) or any other social media app for that matter unless you explain it to him.

He does backhanded jokes though that are actually hilarious.

Wears whatever he finds in his wardrobe, he does not have a specific clothing style.

His texts are as dry as a dessert.

He’s just there and everyone is here for it.

He’s the “non-chalant” guy every girl on tiktok posts about, and since he is canonically attractive: he is the topic of a lot of girl gossip sessions.

He is like an old man when it comes to phones.

He is very dedicated when it comes to sports, he will not hesitate to continue even when he is injured.

He likes listening to lo-fi and calming music in general: it helps him focus.

Him are Iida are study buddies, nobody can tell me otherwise.

He’s the guy you go to for notes if you missed any during class.

Koda:

He uses his social media accounts for photography.

He also tries to raise awareness about current problems in the world using his platforms.

He surprisingly has a lot of followers due to his insane skills.

He is the quiet guy who everyone knows in terms of appearance but nobody would actually remember him on a name basis except if they are friends with him.

Does not participate in school matches or anything sports related in general.

His mom packs him his lunch and honestly nobody says anything because he isn’t too loud about it either.

He is a really wholesome guy and anyone who knows him loves that for him.

He was raised right and has manners.

He is a vegan but not one of those crazy ones, he just does it for himself and he might not agree with the choice of eating meat but he won’t be an ass to you for it.

He’s the hotspot guy of the class, he always has mobile data so he could post wherever and whenever he’d like, people always borrow it from him and he has no problem whatsoever.

He does not have any unresolved problems with anyone whatsoever.

Everyone from school who has social media follows his accounts and he is just mutuals with people he probably never talked to before in person.

He loves posting bird chirping audios and videos and he made a couple audios that actually got used by a ton of people.

He is average academically and none of the teachers have any concerns when it comes to him.

He wears anything as long as it isn’t made out of fur, leather or anything that comes from an animal.

Ejiro:

His parents despise his phone, he is always on it no matter what in their eyes.

He will spam you with tiktoks no matter who you are, he doesn’t even expect a reply (but if you do he appreciates it) he just likes sharing videos.

EVERYONE knows about his edit account compared to Izuku, he’s the editor of the class.

He does not mess around when it comes to protein and nutrition.

He sends gym and training snap streaks.

If he has a crush, he will try to hint it using videos on social media and he will send you cute tiktoks saying he appreciates you and stuff.

He makes videos of him reaching his lifting PRs in the gym and always has phonk music in the background.

He has a highlight on instagram for only motivational quotes he posts weekly on his story.

All of his bios have a Crimson Riot quote in them.

He’s a great athlete and has respect for you even if you’re on the opposing team.

He is the captain of one sports team as well and all of his teammates love him.

He uses “🤨” and “AYOOOO” while texting.

He’s the type of guy to say “YAYAYAYAY” on text unironically.

if he isn’t on his phone, he is playing Fortnite or minecraft with his friends (mostly Denki) and he loves it.

He is the type to scream in games and use curse words even in a friendly way.

He spams the repost button on tiktok and the add to story button, it is an addiction at this point.

He has a girl best friend (Mina) and he is open about it in every way possible.

He is pretty chill with everyone: boy or girl, no girl gets the feeling that he has a crush on her unless he visibly shows it and he’s the annoying type of guy friend who’s sarcastically rude to you but knows his limits.

If you’re a girl and have a crush on his friend, you wouldn’t be able to help but tell him and you can actually trust him with it.

He hates being on bad terms with anybody and just wants to be cool with everyone.

He is just your average teen boy.

He struggles academically and he knows the reason and has always tried to improve but he feels like he can’t.

Denki:

He is scrolling on tiktok or instagram reels every single second of the day that is if he isn’t playing video games.

Can’t keep a snapstreak for the life of him.

Will respond to every tiktok you send regardless if you sent 1 or 1000 and he enjoys it.

Brainrot is the best thing that has ever happened to him.

He references brainrot in real life every time he gets the chance and he is just known for that, it’s like a staple for him.

He is the “no homo” and “it doesn’t count if we’re wearing socks” type of guy and he pairs it with Kiri’s “AYOOO”s.

Only gets a long with one girl (Jirou) cause he can’t get a long with any other or at least became close with them in contrast to Ejiro.

He loves playing fortnite with Ejiro and Sero and also he is always the host of minecraft worlds and will not forgive you if you kill his wolf/dog.

He begs Izuku and Jirou to play Roblox with him sometimes.

He has a pet and posts stories of them playing together and whatever pet it is loves attacking Denki for no reason.

He is his own person in someway and isn’t the type of guy to depend on someone for a personality but he will depend on the new social media brainrot trend for it.

This man should not be going near a ball or anything sport-related in general, because he’s ass.

Interacts with every post his friends publish and he’s always saying something in the comments.

He loves “homeless-looking” fits.

He is horrible when it comes to academics and he does not even try to improve because he finds no point.

Sero:

Sero has a surprisingly healthy screen time (only during school days though).

He is always open to playing games with the other guys and if he doesn’t have the game, he will download it even if they will only play it once.

He will watch every tiktok his friends send but will only do short replies because he’s too lazy.

He ADORES movie nights and Spiderman.

All of his profile pictures are group pics of him and his friends.

He is always posting food pictures anywhere in general, he loves the look of it.

He always looks forward to Denki’s replies.

Whenever his friends say something off guard to him: his smile fades or he does the “🤨” face and it just became a running joke in the friend group.

He gets matching socks with his friends because he saw a tiktok trend about it.

He tries to lecture his friends but does the same mistake at the end and just laughs about it.

He reposts news on his instagram stories just to mock it or say something critical at least once a week.

He laughs really loud during class and Denki does NOT help in preventing it at all.

He wears whatever one of his friends is wearing just to match with them because he usually doesn’t feel like choosing a complete outfit.

Has an overwhelming fear of parent-teacher conferences.

He swears that he tries his hardest in studying but he always gets marks as bad as Denki’s and he just accepted it.

Tenya:

In contrast to what a lot of people believe, I think Tenya would actually have at least one social media platform.

He wouldn’t use social media like his other classmates use it, but rather to help him share announcements quicker to the others since most of them are more active there.

He’d only have outdated minigames on his phone because he used to play with his older brother but other than that, he has nothing.

He offered free tutoring but Ochako convinced him that it would be a good idea to charge at least 1 bucks or something just so he can get a profit out of it.

He loves being organized and unironically has pinterest just to organize his thoughts there and whenever he mentions it, his classmates are shocked.

He hates when anyone sends a tiktok link or something similar to the main class groups because he thinks it’s out of place and bad.

Everyone comes to him for college recommendations.

People think he’d be a teachers’ pet but the teachers aren’t actually that fond of him or just treat him like any other and he actually appreciates that.

He scolds his friends for being too active on social media and that it can affect them in the future not only due to lack of concentration but also due to potential bad digital footprint.

He takes the internet really seriously and avoids anything harmful to keep his digital footprint as clean as possible.

Some of his friends ask him to set up a screen-time system on their devices because they trust him the most with it.

Straight A student and is in all of the advanced classes.

Apologies to:

Aayoma

Tokoyami (💔)

Shoji

Sato

Ojiro

Mineta (not really)

[bryszket]

MAEJ TIME. IT IS MAEJ TIME.

Social media is always fun, as I'll have to try to condense into two sentences why one of our books just HAS to be read by someone, so thank God for tumblr, where I get to have as many sentences as I want and go into the nitty-gitty a bit.

I haven't talked much about publishing on here, but I started this project (aka tRaum Books) with a friend in 2021, as a labor of love and as a venue to put out the types of books that even indie queer presses (probably) wouldn't touch. Because they were too risky (in theme and/or length); because they were queer and/or trans in a way that wasn't necessarily validating or relatable, because they slipped between genres, or were written by someone with too low of a following to net a guaranteed readership. I've never embraced the 'publisher' role and to the end, consider myself an artist and writer: of things that are too X for this crowd, and not Y enough for the other. This is not meant to be a pissNmoan about 'genre', or readers who want clear signposting on what they are about to get into. I get it. Our money is limited, our time even more so, and it makes perfect sense that someone would want to dedicate their time to a book that can clearly outline what the experience will be. That just happens to not be the type of writing I produce or what I am drawn to. I like to be surprised and am often drawn to books that surprise me.

So that is the type of work I have sought to put out. The hard-to-pin-down. More accurately, I should say it is the type of work that has found me, because our press notoriously has never had an open call for submissions. Books just find us when the time is right.

So I had come to Dale Stromberg's high-fantasy MAEJ not as a potential publisher, but as a beta reader and I still remember vividly my first impression of being blown away by the sheer attention to detail, the pure CRAFTSMANSHIP of the story. As intricate and precise as one of those handmade wooden puzzle boxes. But I also remember another impression: a certain sorrow from thinking, man. There is nobody on earth who would ever publish this. Not because it isn't excellent, amazing, in turns difficult and also fun to read (MAEJ is all of these things). But because it requires an immersion and trust from the reader that I believe many (if not most) simply do not possess anymore. The most powerful publishers could weave their marketing magic and get people to buy it, but the amount of readers who would actually make it to the end (if we say a book being read, not just a book being bought, is the goal)--so, such a reader seemed rare.

More simply, I felt like I had been allowed to witness some rare endangered species of a book--the kind everyone online bemoans nobody publishing anymore, yet few would honestly want to confront.

Both a relic and a touchstone. A vociferously political book that didn't sermonize--the message was baked into every magical tile paving those fictive streets. I knew then that i wanted to try to help publish the book. If the author wanted to deal with small press, that is (which many times, let's be honest, could be bestowing upon a book's forehead the kiss of obscurity).

There is not much a tiny publisher like myself can bring to a book's release that the author could not do themselves (given some investment and time and oh yeah, patience). Much of us have limited reach, and again, MAEJ was not the type of book that I felt would automatically pique the interest of many of my followers. What I could do though is help the author along in what is sometimes so hard to do for your own fiction. I could go out and yell, yo, you should really really read this. If you enjoy high fantasy, an effortless gender subversion, and prose infused with a magical playfulness. If you like to try to recreate the reading experience akin to being ten again and curling up with a huge tome of an adventure, and letting the outside world slip away. YOU NEED TO READ THIS.

Those who push past the initial resistance will be rewarded handsomely by the final grand mosaic Stromberg creates of what seem at first a plethora of chaotic, colorful tiles. It is indeed a rare and complex, awe-inspiring thing of beauty.

Order your own physical or ebook copy of MAEJ. Grab a free ARC copy of the book. Add MAEJ on Goodreads.

I want to thank the author @dalestromberg for his patience with working with me. I know that dealing with me is often chicken-fried chaos, so thanks for coming along for the ride. I want to thank @zillanovikov. While she was not directly involved in this project, nobody can ask for a better writing and pub buddy and I'm really grateful to know her.

I want to thank @flameswallower for writing one of the best reviews of MAEJ ever. Not only are they an inspiring writer, but a vocal supporter of small press, and another author I am happy to have gotten the chance to work with.

And @baconorigami for all his support. <3

And to thank you, dear readers! To those of you who boost our posts, collect our books, leave reviews--engage. You make it all worth it. <3<3<3

[lightyaoigami]

hi, monica. i trust your taste because i love your writing. what are your favorite niche lawlight fics? (that is, stuff you've read that not many people in the fandom would know.)

hope that you're having a good break and come back to fic refreshed (of course, if you want to). <3 your readers won't go anywhere.

hi wow what a sweet and touching message to receive ;_;

i don't know what counts as niche tbh i will just recommend some here that i don't necessarily see as often as like idk tithe to hell or those. this is in no particular order. i actually forgot to add the ratings to the list below so just be mindful of that if that's something important to you!

the primrose path by tsukinousagi: 1.5k, a beautifully done elizabethan au inspired by hamlet. as you guys probably know i am a hamlet freak and this is laser-targeted to me, the guy who has had the username theprinceofdenmark for 15 years.

summa cum laude by whydoeseverythinghappensomuch: 13k, an incredibly atmospheric college au. reminds me so much of the secret history that it makes me want to chew my own fingers off.

tear you open live inside you by anonymous: 3k, mind the tags. excellent, super in-character blood and gore. consensual but not safe or sane. you get it.

unkissed for a million days by anivhee: 1.7k, this is after L dies but it's still lawlight. it's unhappy but i liked it even as a lawlight freak and fix-it enjoyer.

what i meant to say by booklovertwilight: 6.6k, a paratext collection of light's letters to L after his death.

twenty-three by haydonjames17: 4.7k, an utterly devastating birthday for light after L's death. i'm sensing a theme in my favorites here clearly i need help of some kind.

fifteen stories down by the-night-gods-moon: 7k, this is the closest i'll get to enjoying whump. the boys get stuck in rubble after a building explosion. this fic is profoundly underrated.

our little secret by avoidfilledwithcelluloid: 3k, i actually cannot describe this one it's so good and quite unique! it's a fresh way of writing their antagonism.

hear no evil by sharptoothed: 4.5k, so few people understand how to write misa in a lawlight context but isa nails it. it's also hot so sue me.

i know the way it ends before it's even begun by halfpromise: 15k, a side story to THE death note fic of all time, those. i am deeply biased because i got a shout-out in the dedication but this fic absolutely never fails to make me tear up. it's beautifully written, moving without being trite, and is as close to a happy ending as those!lawlight will ever get.

anyway. this is but a small sample of lawlight fics that make me insane and unwell. this was a very very nice ask to receive i am genuinely moved and i literally didn't know that anyone even noticed i was on hiatus. <3

[daisynik7]

The Takada-Chan Handshake Event

Pairing: Aoi Todo x f!reader

Rating: Mature

Word Count: ~3.5k

cw: explicit language, suggestive dialogue, switch POVs (reader is in 2nd person, Todo is in 3rd)

Summary: Takada-Chan’s first Handshake Event of the summer goes better and worse than you expect.  

Author's Notes: Here’s Chapter 2! Thank you everyone who has supported this series so far. Likes, reblogs, and/or comments are always appreciated, would love to hear what y’all think so far of the story! Thank you for reading! Divider credit to @/saradika.

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

Two weeks after the concert, Takada-Chan hosts her first Handshake Event of the summer in a convention center twenty minutes away. It’s currently six in the morning as you stand outside the doors, a thermos full of hot coffee in one hand and a small tote bag of your belongings in another. Because of your sour experience at the concert, you plan thoroughly today, deciding to arrive at the convention center. Six hours early. 

Basic logic and reasoning are clouded by your extreme dedication to this pop idol. This is what you realize as you wait outside the building at the crack of dawn, still half asleep. The only solace you find in your current predicament is that you are first. No one can stand in front of you this time.

You packed all the essentials you need to make the next several hours pass by quickly. A small blanket to lay flat on the ground, marking your territory. The pillow to cushion your bottom from the hard pavement. Even snacks and a small bento for lunch for when you get hungry. No matter what the circumstance, you are not leaving this spot. 

Settling in comfortably into your makeshift camp, you start one of Takada-Chan’s concert specials downloaded on your phone. With no one around yet, you listen to it out loud without headphones, nodding your head along to the beat of the music. Fortunately, with Takada-Chan as a welcomed distraction, the first hour flies by. 

7 AM. Five more hours to go. There are a few people around now, walking by to kickstart their day, though no one falls in line behind you. Good. You pat yourself on the back for being here ahead of everyone else. If that’s not true dedication, you don’t know what is! You check your text messages from Sara, sending her a selfie of you holding a peace sign along with a message saying, “Early bird gets the worm!”

You don’t expect a response right away, considering she’s still asleep on a Saturday morning, like a normal person. She thinks this isn’t worth waking up at the ass-crack of dawn just to receive a handshake. In fact, her exact words to you were, “You’ve got to be out of your fucking mind.”

Maybe you are, but you don’t care. Most people have hobbies or interests they would do crazy things for. This is fun for you. You are willing to do it. Would it be nice if you had someone that shared the same level of interest you have for Takada-Chan? Sure, because you won’t have to keep dragging Sara around with you, subjecting her to your ridiculousness. While she is generally a good sport about it, you’d feel significantly less guilty if she actually liked Takada-Chan as much as you. You don’t blame her at all for not wanting to be with you right now, especially in these conditions.

At 7:30, you hear footsteps walking towards you. It’s a young man with spiky, pink hair wearing a yellow tee and blue shorts, seemingly a few years younger than you. He falls in line behind you, leaning against the wall. When you look up at him from your seated position, he gives you a friendly smile, waving. “Hello.”

You return his greeting happily. “Good morning.” 

After formal introductions, where you find out his name is Yuji Itadori, he puts his hands in his pockets and sighs. “Can’t believe you’re here earlier than me. What time did you get here?”

“6:00 AM,” you answer.

He lets out a whistle. “Dang. Dedicated fan, huh?”

You laugh as you stand up, matching him. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. The last event was completely ruined for me, so I learned from my mistakes.” 

His expression becomes curious. “What happened the last time?”

“I was at her mall concert two weeks ago. This massive guy blocked my view the entire time, refusing to move.”

He buries his face in his hand, shaking his head and chuckling. “Sounds like Todo.”

Your eyes widen, recognizing the name. “That’s him! He screamed out to her as she walked off stage! Is he really your friend?”

“Were you near the front of the stage?” After you confirm with a nod, he adds, “Yup, that was him. Oh man. Sorry, but Todo will do anything for Takada-Chan. You stood no chance at all.”

The rage from that confrontation comes surging back, still fresh and hot on your mind. You groan, frustrated. “Ugh, I can’t believe that guy is your friend! He’s such a jerk!” 

He shrugs, stating plainly, “That’s Todo. When it comes to Takada-Chan, he gets pretty crazy.”

You cross your arms over your chest, pouting. “Well, I hope I never have to see him again. Sorry, I know he’s your friend, but I can’t have another event ruined for me.”

Itadori flashes you a guilty glance, mumbling, “Well, actually…”

Suddenly, a voice booms out from the distance. “Brother! I got coffee and donuts!” Oh hell no. It’s him, the asshole! Why? Why is this happening to you? You planned today out perfectly! The giant meathead struts to his pink-haired friend, as cocky and aggravating as the first time you saw him. You turn around so your back is facing the two men behind you, desperately hoping the idiot doesn’t recognize you. In a panic, you take your phone out and text Sara:

SOS NEED BACKUP ASAP 

also, can you please bring me a donut

~~~

Todo orders two iced coffees and a half dozen classic glazed donuts from the café across the street. Today is off to a great start; he managed to convince his best friendo to wake up early and stand in line with him for Takada-Chan’s Handshake Event. This isn’t his first; in fact, he’s quite the regular at these type of events. Hopefully the idol actually remembers him this time. 

Balancing all the treats in his hands, he walks to the convention center, certain that they’ll be first in line. There’s no other fan dedicated enough to wait hours before the event starts just for a handshake. Only heloves Takada-Chan enough to do that. So, it’s a major surprise when he finds someone already ahead of Yuji, literally camped there with a blanket and pillow. 

He announces his presence, approaching Yuji to stand next to him, inspecting the person before them. In the lowest voice he can muster, he whispers, “Is this person here for the event?”

Yuji rubs the back of his neck, replying in a hushed voice, “Yeah, she’s been here since 6 AM.”

“What?!” Todo yells, completely abandoning any discretion. He glares at the woman ahead. Who is this chick? How dare she claim the first spot in line! That should be his!

He pushes past Yuji, tapping on the woman’s shoulder. “Ahem, are you in line for Takada-Chan?”

“Yes”, she responds, not moving a muscle. 

“Well, you see, I’m Takada-Chan’s #1 fan. I’ve known her since middle school. She’s actually my future wife. That being said, I think that I should be first.”

No response. She remains motionless, refusing to even glance back at him. The nerve. 

Growing impatient, he asks, “So, think we can switch?” 

Finally, she cranes her head just enough to peer at him. “Nope,” she answers, facing forward again. What. The. Fuck?! 

A little louder now, he cajoles, “Come on, don’t be like this. You’re going to deny her #1 fan his rightful spot?”

“Not my problem,” she says, venom laced in her tone. Why does this interaction sound familiar?

It all comes rushing back to him. In the same nanosecond it takes for him to imagine fake scenarios from his childhood, his mind returns to an actual memory from two weeks ago. He uttered those exact words to that short girl who was behind him at the concert. The girl who argued with him, called him an idiot and an asshole. This is the same girl. The loser. 

His rival. 

If she thinks she can compete with him in this battle to be Takada-Chan’s #1 fan, she has another thing coming. No one beats Aoi Todo in a contest. No one. And when it comes to the pop idol, there isn’t another living entity in the world that can match his devotion to her. He accepted her rejection in middle school for crying out loud, a fact that all people except Todo continue to dispute. This gal has no idea what she just got herself into. 

Through gritted teeth, Todo growls, “So it’s gonna be like this? Fine. I hope you don’t mind me singing then. I’ve been told I’m tone-deaf, but if I sing loud enough, I’m sure I’ll hit the right notes!” He starts his playlist on his phone, maximizing the volume. In his biggest voice, he begins belting the first song, Love Gem. Yuji hides behind his palms, embarrassed.

She whips around, finally meeting him face-to-face, yelling, “Oh fantastic! I love this song! I hope you don’t mind me joining in!” Her singing is even louder than Todo, which surprises him. He can admit that she carries a tune better than he could, but still, it’s annoying.

They go at it for about thirty minutes, two noisy, obnoxious adults angrily screaming Takada-Chan lyrics at each other. Todo even tries to play some underground tracks that he thought only he knew, but she perfectly recites it with a raised eyebrow, willing to accept whatever challenge he presents to her. 

Seriously, who is this chick?

~~~

It’s been a half hour long battle of attrition against the imbecile, to which you think you’ve won. Todo seems winded, strands from his neat bun coming loose, sweat beading off his forehead. It doesn’t surprise you since the guy has been straight up screaming at you for thirty minutes. 

Sara finally arrives, carrying a backpack with another small bag in hand. She approaches cautiously, ending the bizarre singing match. Todo huffs and puffs, glaring at you as you catch your own breath. “I could hear you from down the street,” she says, smirking. “Sounded like two sentient cats starring in their own musical. Imagine my disappointment finding out it’s just you two,” She passes you the bag, carrying a donut inside, as well as a water bottle she retrieves from her backpack. “Thank you,” you say, taking a swig. 

“So, what is going on here?” she asks, pointing at you, then at Todo. 

“This idiot asked me to switch spots with him even though I was here first. He thinks he deserves it, or whatever.”

Todo interrupts. “I don’t think, I know I deserve it!”

“I wasn’t talking to you, idiot!” you yell back. 

“Stop calling me an idiot!”

“Stop being an idiot then!”

Sara, once again, steps between you, intervening. “Cut it out. You are adults, act like it. You two are going to be here for the next four hours, do you really want to waste your energy bickering with each other?”

You pout, knowing she’s right. It’s difficult containing your pettiness with him; something about him really grinds your gears.

Eventually, Todo’s grimace softens, muttering a reluctant, “Fine.” 

Sara looks at you, waiting. You roll your eyes, obliging. “Fine.”

She claps her hands with a smile, as if she just solved world peace. “Alright! Now shake on it. Did you even introduce yourselves yet? Shouldn’t the top two Takada-Chan fans at least know each other’s names?”

He grunts, extending his large palm to you. You grab hold of it, surprised at how soft his skin is. The two of you shake hands slowly, stating your names, neither of you letting go. Letting go means you concede. Letting go means you lose. 

He tugs you slightly forward, whispering, “You may be first in line, but I’m still Takada-Chan’s #1 fan.” He gives you a smirk, tightening his grip on you.

Feeling bold, you clench him tighter, also pulling him closer, using all your strength to move his mountain of a body. You’re practically nose-to-nose now. “Have fun waiting in second place, behind Takada-Chan’s true #1 fan,” you retort, returning his annoying smirk with one of your own. His eye twitches, annoyed with you. Sara groans beside you while Itadori cackles, amused. 

The next couple of hours elapse normally, thanks to Sara’s presence and the distraction of the two behind you. Sara and Itadori seem to get along well as they chat with one another in line, laughing often. Todo and you stay firmly in your spots, listening to your own Takada-Chan playlists on your headphones. Occasionally you’ll exchange irked glances, arms crossed, guards still up. No matter what, you won’t let him win whatever bizarre competition you currently find yourselves in.   

More fans line up and by 11 AM, the convention center opens, workers directing you inside. By this time, Sara and Yuji leave, neither friend intending to stay for the actual event. You are led through velvet ropes until you see a small table set up in front of a black backdrop. This must be where Takada-Chan will greet people with a handshake. By 11:45 AM, you can’t help but tremble with excitement. 

Todo scoffs obnoxiously. “Something funny?” you ask, facing him. 

“For a self-proclaimed #1 fan, you make it so obvious that you’ve never been to one of these before. It’s comical,” he says, eyebrow raised at you. 

You scowl at him. “Just because this is my first one, doesn’t make me less of a fan.”

“Actually, it does. I’ve been to so many of these, I’ve lost count. The fact that you haven’t been to any, and you still stand here claiming to be #1. It’s pathetic.”

It takes all the resolve you have to keep calm. Only fifteen minutes to go. You’ve managed to last the past four hours with this asshole breathing down your neck. Don’t let him ruin it now. “You can think whatever you want. I know in my heart how much I love Takada-Chan. You can’t take that away from me,” you argue, voice wavering with animosity. 

“Love? If you think your love for Takada-Chan exceeds mine, then you’re more delusional than I initially gave you credit for.” 

He really knows how to get under your skin. Where are Sara’s brass knuckles when you need them? “Alright, I get it, you’re in love with Takada-Chan. Creep. I admit, I haven’t been to many events yet, but we all have to start somewhere. Plus, I already proved to you that I know the lyrics to all her songs, even her underground stuff. Don’t think I didn’t notice you testing me earlier.”

He lets out a barking laugh. “Yeah okay, that was impressive. But you still have a lot to learn before you can call yourself a true fan. I can teach you a few things if you want.” 

“And why would I want that?”

He leans in close, grinning, a wicked look in his eyes. “I’m a pretty good teacher,” he says in a low voice. “I’m sure there’s a lot you can learn from me.” 

Something about the way he says it is intriguing, almost enticing. You remember he is an absolutely douchebag, so the thought passes quickly. “I know everything I need to know about Takada-Chan, thank you very much.”

“Oh really?” he challenges, rapid firing questions about Takada-Chan, to which you answer perfectly. This occupies your time until you hear the other fans in the crowd start to scream. You didn’t even notice Takada-Chan walk into the room because this moron distracted you. But lo-and-behold, there she is, posing in front of the black backdrop, cute as ever. You turn away from Todo, frown literally turning upside down into the brightest smile, in awe that she’s right in front of you.

The security guard beckons you to the table. Your hands jitter with excitement as you walk towards her, stuttering, “Hi Takada-Chan!”

The pop idol smiles politely. “Hi there! Does your boyfriend want to come up with you?” 

Confused, you respond, “Huh? My boyfriend?”

She points at Todo, standing in the front now with a delighted expression on his face, gawking at Takada-Chan. You wave your hands, trying to explain. “No, no, he’s not my – ”

She cuts you off. “I just love couples! It’s rare to see female fans, but it’s even more rare to see couples! How adorable! I love it so much!” she beams, motioning to Todo. Bewildered, he slowly steps towards the table, standing beside you, blushing.

“Aw, you two are just the cutest!” She shakes both of your hands enthusiastically. From your peripheral, you can see Todo glowing, completely unaware of the context.

Takada summons one of her security guards, requesting, “Can you grab a few posters from my dressing room?” The man nods, walking to the back room. She faces you and giggles. “I wasn’t supposed to give any posters away until my next event, but I’ll make an exception for you two.” She winks, and you’re almost certain yours and Todo’s hearts will soon burst from your chests.

“Thank you so much, Takada-Chan!” you say in unison, tears in your eyes. 

“Of course! How about a Taka-Tan Beam? You have your phones ready?”

You and Todo absolutely lose it. He holds his phone out, hands trembling, actual tears rolling down his cheeks. You shuffle around your purse to retrieve your phone, also shaking, ready to record.

“Ready? Taka-Tan Beam!” she exclaims, flashing her signature pose. 

The two of you clap your hands enthusiastically, praising her. Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular… 

The security guard comes back carrying posters rolled up under his arm. He hands them to the pop idol, who then gives them to you. “Thank you so much for coming!”

Todo leans forward, palms on the table. “Thank you, Takada-Chan! Thank you! Thank you!”

“Thank you, Takada-Chan!” you repeat, pulling Todo by the sleeve of his shirt to the exit with you. As you leave, he bows continuously towards the idol, who waves farewell kindly. 

Once outside, you find a bench to sit at. Todo is nearly foaming at the mouth, still unaware of what just happened. You hand him half of the posters, which he takes without looking at you.

“Taka-Tan. Beam,” he mutters in his catatonic state. His gaze is completed glazed over.

“Hey, Todo. Snap out of it,” you say, waving your hand in front of his face to get his attention. When that fails, you bop his head with one of the rolled-up posters.

“Huh?” He finally comes to, focusing on you. 

You laugh. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

“I can’t believe it either. But what was she saying exactly? I was too distracted by her beauty…” he trails off. You tap him again before he goes into a trance.

“She thought we were a couple,” you explain. 

“EH?”

“Yeah. I guess she saw us bickering in line and just assumed,” you elaborate, shrugging.

“She gave us special treatment,” Todo muses, stroking his chin, contemplating. 

What a turn of events. As much as you despise this man, being associated with him worked out the best for you in this particular instance. Takada-Chan thinks you two are a cute couple and she likes it, so much that she gave you exclusive items and extra attention. The sparkle in her eyes was mesmerizing as she performed the Taka-Tan Beam. It went better than you could have ever imagined.

Todo starts to speak, bringing you out of your reverie. “Look, I’m not that keen on Takada-Chan thinking I’m taken, especially by you. But since she can’t date right now anyways, I guess I don’t mind pretending. As long as we keep getting her attention.” 

“What are you saying? You want to pretend to be a couple?”

“Only for Takada-Chan events. Obviously.” There’s that smug look again. 

Eyebrows furrowed, you comment, “What, am I not good enough for you?”

He stands up, towering over you with a shit-eating grin on his face. “I know you’re not good enough for me.”

Hot rage tingles in your belly. What a fucking asshole. On your feet, you only come up to his chest, so you tilt your gaze up to glare at him. “You couldn’t handle me anyways, you fucking prick.” 

He leans down, his breath tickling your skin as he whispers, “I hope you don’t kiss anyone with that dirty mouth of yours.”

You get on your tippy-toes, closing the gap even more, challenging him. You swallow hard, not sure how to respond, but not afraid to back down. He holds your gaze, his mouth twitching slightly as his grins.

All of sudden, you’re very aware of how provocative this situation might look to an outsider. You feel it yourself. Whatever this angry tension is, it’s sort of… 

Okay brain, stop thinking like this. You hate this man. Despise him. Angry thoughts. Angry. 

He doesn’t relent. If you’ve learned anything about this beast the two times you’ve encountered him, he will notback down from a challenge. And knowing yourself, you won’t be able to keep up with him. But you can try. “I’d rather eat shit than be your fake girlfriend,” you hiss at him. You grab your purse and stomp off, leaving him behind. 

“Ha, then don’t expect my help at the next Takada-Chan event!” he yells out. 

As you walk to the train station, you make a promise to yourself to never interact with this oaf ever again. 

[naosaki]

hello everyone !!

tldr: i'm leaving tumblr... 😔

i know i've been largely radio silent since i restored my blog after the whole accidental deletion fiasco. truthfully, i had planned to and had every intention to return to writing and to return to this blog. unfortunately, i grew to be a bit too busy with uni work shortly after and, on top of that, had some other life circumstances to deal with. both of those things together just kept me away from my blog and from writing in general.

currently, i'm not nearly as busy as i had been but upon reflecting, i've decided that i won't be writing on this blog anymore.

i'm only going to get heavier workloads from here on out, and it wouldn't be feasible for me to dedicate my time to writing in the same way i used to, especially since it takes me like. a month and a half to write a fic LMFAO

so !! i'll be closing this blog for the foreseeable future. as tragic as it was when i deleted my blog, i'll just look at it as divine intervention; it would have been significantly harder to leave if i still had all of my old work up on this blog.

if any mutuals still want to talk to me, just send me a message and i'll gladly give you my discord --- i'm more active on there than i am on tumblr anyway.

with all that said: to anyone who has ever read/liked/commented on/rebloged my work, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. it really means a lot that people actually cared for + liked the silly little stories i wanted to write and share. i love you all very much <33

[fieldofdaisiies]

I have stumbled across a few posts/things lately that made me kind of sad and quite frustrated, and since I’m a person who values peace more than anything, I want to say a few words:

we are all part of one fandom, brought together by a book series of one author — we might like different couples, ship different pairs, but still we are all part of the same fandom; we all joined this place because of our shared love for a fantasy story

I don’t why people hate just for the sake of hating, why people don’t just enjoy the fandom, like the posts they are interested in and move on when there is something they don’t like or don’t want to see (ignoring posts is that hard, you know?) — why waste your time on something you don’t like? a ship won’t suddenly not become canon because of a hate post - it is a waste of time and energy and hurtful to the person who receives it.

next which ties in with the previous one: always be mindful and careful what you send a person via messages, or in the ask box - you don’t know what a person is going through, what they might be dealing with; be careful how you phrase things, you may think it is just a question but maybe it sounds rude to another person

tumblr might be some people’s only escape from their daily problems, don’t ruin this experience for people just because you don’t agree with their opinion

stop wasting your time on hating on people who don’t share the same opinions as you, rather stay with the kinnd of people who share your opinions, your mutuals and friends

which leads me to the next point that is that finding lovely mutuals and friends on this app is one of the greatest treasure in(fandom) life, so be open-minded and allow people into your life (but also always be careful, you don’t know who is behind a username; I know I sound like a mum; Mama Daisy), that is what matters, not dedicating everything you do on this app to hate

and very lastly, don‘t let your follower number or notes count determine your worth - just like any other social media app, comparison happens a lot. tumblr made this wonderful feature if not leeting people see your follower count but obviously you can’t stop anyone from sharing it nonetheless.

but these numbers don’t count, your follower number says nothing about how good a writer or person you are - what really matters is that you enjoy doing what you are doing, that it brings you joy, and that you also bring joy to others (even it is just a small number, each person matters and counts)

If you really read through all of it, I can only say thank you and would love to give you a little kissy on your forehead.

And with that being said, have a blessed night, I hope you drank enough today, and get a restful sleep tonight💛✨

[duckies27]

I'm not one to normally interact with drama, but at this point, I have waited way too long to just sit here in silence. There is a creator on this platform named Hamlet Unfortunately, also known as Kenny, and I can’t just stay sitting on this.

I despise this man for multiple reasons, and I'll get into all of them here. In my opinion, it's not fair that he continues to do this sort of thing and just gets away with it, getting love and attention while doing so. All while other people similar to me get 5 to 10 likes on some of our work. I don't want to spend this entire time just completely thrashing him. However, there’s too much evidence to just ignore.

My friend Dork (@zestfeast ) and I are on a server with another Discord friend (who I won't name for their own sake, I don't want to drag them into this whole thing). I met the two of them on the fan-made Stinky Dragon discord, and we bonded pretty quickly over our love of the characters and our love of the cast. The show was something we bonded over and we wanted to spend as much time together by talking about it, without other people getting in the way. So the third party made a server and invited the two of us. We had a great time for the first two and a half weeks. It was a safe space with all the people that I trusted. We are all afab and personally, that makes me more comfortable as someone who is a cis woman. We talked about all sorts of things mainly relating to our enjoyment of the characters, coming up with AUs, and coming up with stories, all of which were pretty fun. At the time of the start of the server, I was personally barely baby 18, while the other two were and are still minors. This may not seem like a problem, but the problem came when. Kenny or Hamlet Unfortunately, as you know him, joined the server.

He was a friend with the third party and both me and Dork were completely comfortable with him joining. It wasn't our place to choose considering it is the third party's actual server. We sat and talked for a little bit, but after joining he didn't say anything. I didn't think anything of it, I'm also pretty shy but he was just awkward. Once again, I didn't think anything of it but then we started talking more. He started talking more. I wasn't a part of this conversation simply because I was at work at the times he was more vocal. I'm super busy, I work from 3:00 to 7:00 every single day right after school and it's too much hands-on work for me to come and check Discord all the time. A lot of the big conversations would happen when I wasn't there, and while I was currently doing things that took my full attention. I am a custodian worker at a middle school, I'm constantly working around kids, I'm constantly working around other people and it makes it hard to be on my phone. I missed the majority of these conversations, but to make sure that this was fully correct, I made sure to read back to all of the things that he said. It's not fair to judge a book by its cover without fully reading the contents. I read over 600 messages all sent over the course of a few weeks and I'll be dead honest, they were pretty terrifying to read back. Especially someone who has been around victims of the jokes he was mentioning. These included sexual content, drug jokes, and stuff that no person should ever joke about, especially not with minors.

It started simple enough. We just were talking about art relating to the characters and I'll be honest, some things weren't exactly always super family-friendly. We try to keep it light and airy the majority of the time within the server, but we had a few dedicated chats for the not-so-family-friendly stuff that includes some maybe more suggestive fan art. Most of the time it was and is pretty clean. We tried our best to censor what wasn't, especially because we had two minors on the server and people could always glance over our shoulders. I was in, particular, very aware of this and made sure that I didn't post anything without censoring first. One of the first things Kenny said to one of our minors on the server was "I'll suck your dick", when talking about fan art that Dork had done. Dork is very young compared to me or possibly him. I don't know how old he is but I just know that this comment made me uncomfortable reading back on it, especially because Dork is like a brother to me. I would protect him with my life if I could. I love this kid and would unironically do anything for him. They continued talking and he was incredibly mean to Dork, often calling him stupid and often acting as if his actions were childish and not as important as Kenny’s actions. When Dork tried to bring up another subject, relating to theater, not only did Kenny call him a fool, but he also said “I don't want to suck your dick anymore" continuing the uncomfortable, NSFW environment that he was starting to form.

As many of you who've read my page know, I like writing angst but I also enjoy writing stuff that's not so family friendly. I like pushing my boundaries and learning how to write, as an adult now, because it's a way of expressing myself that people don't need to see. It was a personal server thing that I kept it censored to protect people who didn't want to see it at that time. At one point I put out a request question saying I would write anything anyone wanted smut, angst, or fluff. I like writing requests and I like writing gifts for friends. It's a personal love language of mine. Kenny stumbled around for a bit, trying to come up with an idea before eventually asking me for Sliqueborg smut. I don't like the ship. It's not my thing, I'm more into BrinkBorg or the canon Lynn Mer and Kyborg. So I asked, “what are your headcanons?” I might as well be proper when I write this story. I don't want to come up with some idea that he didn’t agree with. He went to the headcanon channel and gave me one of the most inappropriate and jarring strings of sentences I have ever heard. Not only did he make our beloved wood elf incredibly abusive, but he also took Slique’s character and destroyed it. It was horrible to listen to and even more horrible to read back. I am 18, a barely illegal adult and the other two are minors on this server. I was terrified to see that he willingly put this down on paper for anyone to see. He only censored the thing because I had personally asked him earlier on.

I already was feeling uncomfortable with this guy. He was being pushy and mean and a lot of his headcanons were hard to swallow, and more and more times he brought up sexual things. I have a personal headcanon for the Groethe crew that relates to the musical instruments they would play. Ella plays violin, Mathilde sings, Barney plays flute, and Chip plays French horn. I thought it was a cute thing because of how Ella and Chip would very well complement each other, but Kenny took the opportunity to make a very inappropriate joke. That made me very uncomfortable because it was about Chip, who I see as a close similarity to my father. Chip acts and says things like my father would, so hearing this very sexual joke automatically took me out of the conversation. I hated it. I hated the idea of it. Not only that but there was one point in time when Dork was opening up about something very personal (which I won't share here) However, I came in at the worst possible time because I was on break. It happened to be insanely out of context, so of course I was like “What the hell?” But I didn't say it in a mean way. I meant it in a kind, confused way, similar to how an older sibling would walk into a conversation that you're having, that happens to be weird. Kenny continued to then look down at Dork, calling them dear and darling as if they didn't understand what I was saying. I came in and I was like “Wow this is kind of weird”, but that was it. I didn't push or prod. I didn't judge them beyond just that it was a weird message to get out of context and went back to work. Kenny belittled Dork for another 20 minutes after I went back to work.

Dork came to me the next day or so, in tears. They were terrified. They felt horrible. Kenny was being such an asshole to him and he couldn't do anything about it. It's a third party’s server and Kenny was a friend to the third party member. We didn't feel comfortable talking right to her right away. So instead the two of us hopped on a 2-hour long call on Discord to talk about our grievances. I helped Dork write a message to Kenny but instead of apologizing in response, he just said that it was his humor, a mask to protect himself. As someone who uses a mask constantly to protect myself from trauma, this pissed me off. His mask was being a jerk, his mask was being mean, and most importantly his mask was being overly sexual when it wasn't required.

Another thing that he often did was make fun of drug culture. Make fun of the “druggies”, including snorting pain pills and other issues that should not be joked about, while talking about his headcanons relating to Slique and Kyborg. He also mentioned rape, which I am completely uncomfortable with as a cis woman who has dealt with uncomfortable situations that deal with my body. I hated this. He came in as a cis male (based on what he said himself) completely invading a comfortable and safe space. Kenny is not the type of person I would leave my drink with at a party. I felt uncomfortable talking to him the majority of the time but I didn't want to bring it up because I didn't want to hurt the third party's feelings. After Dork came to me in tears, I said enough is enough and I reached out to her anyway. Thankfully the third party was kind, kicked him out of the server and I haven't had to interact with him since.

However, I've seen issues within the Tumblr fandom, the fandom that's taken me so warmly and held me to a higher standard than I've held myself for years. I love to see the community interacting with my posts and I love seeing my moots talk to me in such a kind and happy way. However, I know there are multiple people within the community, one who I talked to and wishes not to be named, has had issues with him. Most people see SliqueBorg as a very abusive and toxic ship due to his headcanons. He's ruined a ship, that though I don't agree with, is valid. Not only that, but he also still ships Mudd with multiple characters including Gum Gum (This is just vague posting and suggestive tagging, but it's very easy to see him doing something like this). which is a huge issue on its own. He doesn't care about if someone is a minor and if they would even want to be in a relationship.

During the whole “Mudd Gate '', which is what I'm calling the one actual problem we've ever had within this community, when actual Aro ace people were coming out and talking about how they didn't like how Mudd was being shipped with characters. A lot of people agreed, including me, but Kenny came onto the server and started complaining along with the third party (who will again, stay unnamed). Both of them came with swinging swords, dragging down the entire Tumblr community saying it was unfair for them to completely block out a ship component just because of a canon sexuality given by Jon himself. It took me a little bit to feel comfortable within it as someone who's Demi who was personally was seeing Mudd as Demi. But now I see the issues of my ways. How little aro ace representation there really is in the world, that is untouched by fandoms. Just look at Alstor from Hazbin Hotel. He's constantly shipped with people despite being a canon Aro ace character.

Through this all, I just want to say that we should stop supporting him. We should stop giving him a platform. Not only is he a fake fan just with how he characterizes Kyborg but he also has issues with sensitive topics that he will continue to joke about until the very day that he dies. I can tell that he thinks a lot of people are sensitive. Just saying things are offensive for clout or some other reasons, but a lot of the things that he actually says are very offensive and very inappropriate around the people he's been around. His actions almost took Dork away from this fandom. It isn't as bad as some other things that have come up in the past relating to other communities (*cough cough* Wilbur *cough cough*) If you hate me for making this post then I'll just say I don't care. I am planning on blocking him after I finish this post or at least until after he can react. I don't want to just completely block him from seeing his criticism but I will stop supporting any posts I have seen. I will make sure that he is no longer on my dash because he has done things that I am severely uncomfortable with. He does not bring good vibes to this community and he especially should not be allowed to continue being in the fandom if he's going to spread such hate. This is a kind and loving fandom that has taken me and others with open arms in times of struggle and times of pain. He has made it uncomfortable to be in. I cannot support him and I implore the rest of you to do the same after his actions.

[crmsnmth]

1000 posts (a little note for the readers and to my fellow poets)

I started this project back in February. February Third to be exact, ( a month after my father passed away from a car accident and a major stroke) posting really short one liners, still unsure if I wanted to share my art. I'm glad I did share it though. I'm not gonna lie, this helps with my self-esteem, and if you've actually read any of my work, it's pretty obvious I'm not my biggest fan (I am fine, I'm ok, I will never go down that path again) I know I post a lot, and considering I like to write about the same instances, some of my work is redundant. But still, there's always someone out there who sees it and lets me know, be it a like, a reblog, a comment and sometimes even a direct message. And that kind of makes it worth it. It makes me feel like that maybe I'm helping someone out there go through their own personal hell. I've been to hell and back so many times, Satan just waves when I show up. But all that means is, if I help just one person, my obsession with nonstop writing is worth it. Thank you to everyone for the kind words and the likes and all of that jazz. You have no idea how humbling it is to hear or see this happen. My heart is so warmed, and I don't feel nearly as alone as I did for so long. So very long. I've always written like a maniac, and I've always written stuff that might be consider a little emo, or a little dark (there's a reason I call myself a misery poet) and for years I kept them in my notebooks, hoarded away to never see the light of the day. Honestly, most of those won't ever be seen. If they were meant for public consumption, I would've done it. Those words stay hidden. Putting myself out is difficult, due to years of abuse, both by the hands of people who said they loved me, and from my own twisted up medication filled brain. I found another reason here, and I've gained confidence in my real life from this. I cannot possibly thank you all for the positive feedback. Even the few negative things I take with pride and in stride, I wish I could thank each and every person that's interacted, or even just read my work in passing. I never would've guessed that I'd be putting my work out on a public forum like this, but here I am, 1000 posts later, most of which being original poems and parts of stories. I love you all. Thank you for being here on this weird little journey I'm on. Hopefully, one day my name will be on an actual book, and when that day comes, you are all entitled to a free copy and a dedication page for you all. And I am 100% serious. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my bottom less heart

[biconickyoshi]

An avatar nonshipper for years, I once found myself having an extremely vivid and emotion-filled dream of Zuko and Aang being destined for each other. Never once in my years of being a fan have I considered a possibility of shipping them, ever, but my brain casually decided to rewrite its whole chemistry in one night.

My first thought was, what the hell did I get myself into. Will my closest friends accept me as a newly converted Zukaang shipper? Will I ever find a community of like-minded people who, too, received prophetic dreams one day? Am I doomed to be in, dare I say, a rareship pit for the rest of my life?

In the end though, I am glad to have found people who see what I saw when my eyes opened to all the possibilities for the first time. The mind is a tricky and fascinating thing. I just wanted to send this as a message of support for your incredible work! It's everything I could have ever dreamed of (which I did, ironically), soft and romantic, loving and warm. There might not be as many of us, but I can see that our fandom is dedicated. I hope to see more of your Zukaang vision, as well as more others who like them as much as we do <3

Aaaa thank you so much for sending this ask, anon!! And for taking the time to read my fic! :) I absolutely love this origin story for how you started shipping Zukaang haha, because yes, it sounds like the universe basically gifted you a prophetic dream!

It seems like a lot of us started out not even considering Zukaang as a ship. That was me until one random day in 2021, when I just had an epiphany and realized the sheer amount of potential the ship had if only they had been a bit closer in age during the events of the original show (though I do still ship Zukaang with their canon ages once they’re in their 20s - they have the same age gap as me and my husband).

It was a pretty big deal that I started shipping Zukaang honestly, because while it took me like 14 years to even consider them as a ship, they are now one of my all-time top OTPs, if not my favorite overall. Prior to this, I was always an avid Kataang shipper (and I still think they’re cute and I’m glad they ended up together), but I’ve literally never been this invested in a ship before, especially not a non-canon one. This is also the first ship I’ve ever written fanfiction for too, and it’s a long fanfiction that I have consistently worked on for months now. I’ve been in other fandoms and had other ships where my interest was very strong, but never this long-lasting.

I also empathize with worrying about what your closest friends will think of you being a Zukaang shipper - that’s me as well lol. I still haven’t told mine. Thankfully my husband is super chill about it and even helps proofread my chapters, so at least I have someone irl who I can gush to haha.

I’m so happy to hear you’ve enjoyed The Avatar and the Fire Prince so much - it has definitely been a labor of love, not just for the Zukaang ship, but for AtLA as a whole. It has given me the opportunity to truly dive into the world, characters, and lore and flesh them out in ways they couldn’t be in the original show. Plus, it’s just been a blast to write! :)

Thanks again for sending this ask anon! We’re happy to have you in the Zukaang fandom! ❤️

[klainelynch]

Hey friend! So I’ve been listening to a bunch of your Royai podfics lately and I just love them. Its the best way to get my fic fix while also being a productive adult lol. I’m blown away with how professional and polished your stuff is! You definitely could be recording full blown audiobooks, if you aren’t already! (And if you are, I’d love to know where to find those!)

I’m intrigued by your whole process: how you pick stories, record, edit, etc. Choosing when and where to use tone inflection, pacing, all that. You can fully nerd out if you feel like it! I’m so curious. ☺��❤️

Ahhhh what a wonderful message to find in my inbox!! 🥰🥰🥰 I'm so happy that my podfics have become something that you listen to in your daily routine! I don't record audiobooks or do this in any kind of a professional sense, but I do try to emulate what I love of different audiobooks/professional productions and other peoples' podfics, so your compliment means the world to me!

I started with a very stream-of-consciousness response and have tried to cohere it into something readable. You said I could fully nerd out, so here's over 2k of me taking you up on that xD

Choosing a fic:

I tend to gravitate towards fics that have more narration as opposed to dialogue. I love being in a character's head and fully living in their world and the way they experience it. When I am reading dialogue, I don't try to sound exactly like the voice actor (if it's from a tv show or movie) or adopt their accent, but I do try to embody the character in my voice, if that makes sense. If there are too many characters with dialogue, this gets difficult for me, which is why many of my solo podfics have two or fewer characters who speak, or why I create multivoice podfics with fellow podficcers.

In my podfic spreadsheet, there are several pages dedicated to fics that I'd like to record someday. Most of them are under 1k, though I do have a few that are around 3k (which would be on the longer side for me). I jot notes to remember what each fic is/what I would like to do with it—some examples of what those sound like with fics I haven't recorded yet: Zuko asks how Iroh survived when Lu Ten died because of Izumi feels; Al reflecting on Royai rebuilding Isvhal, no dialogue; Roy takes Riza out on a date (cover art would be a theatre program); good angsty Edwin moment after the boys come home (could have thunder in background); Ghost!Roy as Riza carried on, will need to build to this level of angst; Abbott Elementary book fair *chef's kiss*; Roy announces he’s engaged to some mystery woman but PSYCHE HE’S ALREADY MARRIED TO RIZA.

I used to have a pretty even split of recording fics with blanket permission versus asking authors for permission, but these days, I tend to be too lazy to ask lol. Not saying that I won't do it, but when the mood strikes me to record, I need to know pretty quickly if I can complete the project, and a bp statement really helps with that!

Prep work:

When I first began podficcing, I would put the entire fic into a google doc. This let me annotate the script for every little thing (highlighting dialogue, typing out phonetic pronunciations of difficult names/words, and putting spaces in between sections of text to help with breath control being the most common). The more I podficced, the less I had to annotate, until all I would do with my scripts was put in the spaces. I want my breath to be consistent/unnoticeable, so I read with that in mind. Often you can use the punctuation as your guide, but sometimes there are long stretches with no punctuation, and I have to figure out how a sentence should be cut up to make its meaning clear.

I didn't make these scripts for any of my solo podfics during Voiceteam this past May, and I still felt comfortable recording, so I think I may be past needing this tool for the most part. I just need to read through the fic a few times and look up any potential pronunciation issues right before I record.

Recording the podfic:

My early podfics were recorded with the microphone attached to my earbuds, and you can definitely hear it in the quality 🙈🙉 I did at least use a makeshift pop filter, so that helped with my plosives from the beginning.

After a few months, I got a blue snowball mic, which makes the quality so much clearer, and even more so once I got a computer that can run Audacity (more on why I love this program later).

I currently record in my closet, which is a long wide shape, so the doors don't close all the way when I'm inside of it. I shut them as best as I can to prevent outside noises, and I stand as I record. I used to sit at my desk with a soundproofing box around my mic, but I found it hard to get good breaths for long periods of time, so now I stand. The tradeoff is that I have to be wearing good shoes if I'm recording more than thirty-ish minutes (which could happen if the podfic is ultimately longer than twelve or so minutes because…)

My raw audio is usually at least twice as long as the final product. I often record several takes for lines, sometimes if I mess up, but usually if I don't think I captured the emotional quality that I can hear in my head when I read the line with my eyes. Sometimes it takes up to ten times for a line to feel right; other times, an early take ends up being the best one.

The previous point touches on how I handle putting inflection into my voice. The other part of it is thinking through how the speaker would say a particular word/phrase. If it's narration, I've emotionally been with that speaker for the entire fic, so I lean into that; if it's dialogue, it might be someone new, so I have to switch my brain. Either way, I have to (consciously or unconsciously) think through: 1. how would I personally say this? 2. how would the character say this? 3. how would the audience want to hear this? 4. how would the meaning be most effectively heard? Often there is overlap in these questions, but not always. If there's a conflict between these, I try to remember that my audience is probably just listening with their ears, not simultaneously reading with their eyes, so I need to prioritize their being able to understand what is happening and why. That's why I try to affect my voice in different ways and not literally mumble or shout, even if the fic has the character doing that.

Since you mentioned my Royai podfics, I will mention one way I distinguish their voices depending on who the narrator is. When Roy is the narrator, any of his dialogue is in my normal voice, and Riza's dialogue becomes slightly higher and slower; when Riza is the narrator, her dialogue is in my normal voice, and Roy's dialogue becomes slightly lower and faster.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to nail the first and especially the last line of a fic, so I will record a good number of takes for those. It's only happened once that I loved the first take I did of a final line. Sometimes I annoy myself at how many takes I record, but I'm thankful for the choices when I'm editing, so this is simply how I do things!

The hardest part of recording for me is keeping my voice quality consistent. I drink a lot of water throughout the day, but even so, I get dry mouth as I record, and once you're at that point, drinking more water doesn't really help. Tricks like chewing gum or brushing my teeth right before recording help me out.

Editing the podfic:

This has actually become my favorite part of the process! It feels like a puzzle and a treasure hunt, trying to find the best ways to pick out the best parts of my performance and turn it into a final product.

When I started podficcing, I had a chromebook, so the only audio editing software available was free online websites. I don't even remember the ones I used, but they did most of the things I wanted, and they let me get my foot in the door. The problem was that they were limited in tools, such as…

Noise reduction is my favorite feature of Audacity, which is the software I currently use. If you go back and listen to my podfics chronologically, you can clearly tell when I started using it because the general crackle in the background disappears. I have no plans to delete old pods, but it is as painful for me to listen to them for this reason as it is to reread fics I wrote in high school lol

The first round of edits is picking out the best takes for each line. Sometimes that means listening to several takes over and over before I choose my favorite; occasionally, I splice together the first half of one take and the second half of another. I'm very proud when I can do this with a single word and you can't tell the difference at all. I laugh when it sounds like I've done this with a word, but actually I just read it weird and I have no other take to substitute it with xD

Something else I do in the first edits is take out excessive space between sentences and paragraphs. I basically reset my breath/voice after every segment (could be a sentence or part of a sentence) so there's always extra space. I tend to edit down to one to two seconds between sentences, two to three seconds between paragraphs, and four to five seconds between entire sections of a fic. Of course, there are always exceptions (a character feeling very emotional, especially angry or excited, will have faster sentences; dialogue is formatted in paragraphs but it is inflection rather than time that indicates to the audience that a new paragraph/speaker has begun; an emotional line might require more space to let the audience process it).

Once I have all of the words edited together, I will do a second round of edits for tightening up the pacing. I listen to the edit without looking at the text, keeping my hands busy with a video game or coloring. As I'm listening, if something feels too fast or too slow, I'll make edits in real time, back it up, and listen again. The reason I can't read and listen during this pass is because my eyes are expecting too much and I can't properly hear what the audience will hear. When I began podficcing, I thought I had enough space in between words and sentences, but when I would listen back, I realized that I had cut too much out and the podfic's speed was faster than I liked. Now I leave more space in during the first edit and do this pacing pass.

Once I'm happy with the narration, I save it as a narration only file. I love adding in music and effects when I can, but I'm sure there are some who would rather only listen to the narration, so I make this available for accessibility and preference reasons.

I will usually make a final version with music and/or sound effects. This is one area where I'm specifically trying to emulate professional audiobooks and how they use music under the opening credits before fading out as the story begins.

Finding music is its own kind of scavenger hunt. I prefer to use public domain or creative commons music because it feels more true to the collaborative/transformative spirit that podfics have for me, and the idea of a podfic being taken down for copyright reasons does make me nervous. ccmixter and Purple Planet have a lot of songs that I've used in the past. The former has literally thousands of songs, which can overwhelm me if I'm working on a deadline, so I will sometimes just listen to random tracks and download anything that might be helpful in the future. That being said, if a fic uses a song lyric as a title or the author mentions a song as inspiration, I will try to use that song as the music if possible. I'm especially proud of how I used "Wait for It" at the end of An Endless Uphill Climb.

I use sound effects far less frequently than music, but they are fun when there is a natural place for them. I love the Star Wars audiobooks, and they often use sound effects and music in a way that heightens the emotions in the listener. That is always my guiding star, though I will admit to sometimes using effects just because they make me happy!

Cover art:

Like music/sound effects, this part is totally optional, but I usually do it because I have a lot of fun with it! I make everything in Canva, and again, I try to use public domain or creative commons images. Openverse is my go-to search engine because they make it really easy to tell which images I'm allowed to use in what ways. Sometimes I have a vision and try to find images to match; other times I have no idea and just see what I can find, or I can't find what I had in mind and have to switch gears.

Random facts that I couldn't find a spot for:

I learned how to read for an audience by being a lector at mass (reading either something from the Old Testament or something from the New Testament, other than the Gospels) in a church with lots of marble, which explains why I read on the slow side. Had to leave room for the echo before I started speaking the next line!

I've actually found that my own fic writing became easier to read aloud once I started podficcing. That doesn't make it better or worse—there are beautiful passages in literature/fic that are easier to read with the eyes than with the ears. But it is definitely a thing.

.

Thank you again for sending this ask! I hope this peek behind the curtain was interesting to you, even if it was probably far more than you were asking for xD And another thank you for listening to my podfics—it really does mean so much to me that something I've made can brighten up your day 💖

[piedpiperslists]

Is there any jungkook smuts/fics based on like a church setting, or any virgin jungkook fics you can recommend me please?

Hi. These are the fics I can think of with a church setting:

* s - contains smut

Doxology by dark-muse-iris - one shot (s) / wc~6.3k / secret relationship, PWP Summary: It’s Easter Sunday, one of the holiest of days for your presumed faith. But instead of spending it taking in the Lord’s message while tucked between your devout parents, you’re off sinning with the man who knows how truly wicked you are.

The Kids Aren’t Alright by sketchguk - one shot (s) / wc~10.5k / pastor’s kid!reader, FWB Summary: Sneaking around with Jeongguk during your Christian retreat is complicated when you’re both dedicated to your jobs as co-youth group counselors at your father’s ministry.

Shiver by hansolmates - series (s) / bad boy!Jungkook, church girl!reader, childhood friends to lovers, FWB Summary: Your childhood crush Jeon Jungkook has changed since he moved out of his small town church community and attended college. When he returns for a Christmas mass, you suddenly crave a taste of his fun and carefree life. In exchange, Jungkook craves a taste of you.

As for virgin!Jungkook fics, here's about 15 fics listed under the cut. But is this a trend lately, the asks I've gotten have been mostly about virgin!Jungkook lmao

A Blight on the Heart by thatlongspringnight - one shot (s) / wc~13.3k / established marriage, historical au Summary: You married him because you wanted a new life, and even with the struggle, the fights, you’d marry him again any day. Or - Jungkook loves you from the moment he reads your first letter, and the rest is history.

But We Loved Too Young by jl-micasea-fics - one shot (s) / wc~10.4k / childhood friends to lovers Summary: Jungkook is everything you’re not, the ying to your yang. Your tight knit friendship nurtured from childhood survived the major life events that most don’t, and to that end, you suppose you’re fated to be together, until unrequited longing is eventually noticed, and boundaries are forever crossed.

Close the Distance by hearts4joon - one shot (s) / wc~13.5k / college au, neighbors au Summary: Two different adults, living two completely separate lives — in the same neighborhood. A guy who’s overbearing mother makes him carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. A girl who’s parents are all too drawn to her younger siblings to even give her the time of day. While the two fall in an unlikely relationship (very unlikely), they still ravish each and every part of one another in every way — the best of attention, the one they both craved all their lives.

Ghosts Just Wanna Have Fun by sugaxjpg - one shot (s) / wc~20k / med school au, psychic au Summary: When Jungkook discovered that he could communicate with dead people, the last thing he expected was that they would be there to give him romantic advice.

Gotcha by whatifyoulivelikethat - one shot (s) / wc~11k / childhood friends to lovers, college au Summary: The color blue. Two white hairpins. “Hey, Jungkook.” A laugh with shaking shoulders that Jeon Jungkook thought he would hear and see forever. Hey, Jungkook. But then those words became a memory, until she was standing in front of him again, sporting the title of “Virgin Killer” and Min Yoongi by her side. Was this his second chance or just another memory?

I Want to Have Sex by jeongi - one shot (s) / wc~7.2k / established relationship Summary: You plan on taking your boyfriend, Jungkook’s, virginity tonight.

Infatuated by namsjunies - one shot (s) / wc~3k / university au

Need to Know by pixieknj - one shot (s) / wc~4.4k / virgin!Jungkook, friends to lovers Summary: Jungkook’s tired of you teasing him…

The Virgin Volume by kpopfanfictrash - one shot (s) / wc~6.8k / angst, college au Summary: The story of how The Rich Man’s Crochet Club Jungkook lost his virginity. Prequel to The Monogamy Monologues.

Here's more virgin!Jungkook but I keep getting an error, so I had to break up the list.

Wait, You're a Virgin? by joonsmagicshop - one shot (s) / wc~8.8k / college au Summary: Jungkook gets teased at a college party for being a virgin and asks you to help him out

Will You Make a Mess Now? by softyoongiionly - one shot (s) / established relationship, college au Summary: Jungkook’s never been touched before and, after a hectic end to his semester, he thinks he wants that to change… Can I Make a Mess Now? by softyoongiionly - one shot (s) / established relationship, college au Summary: Jungkook’s never had sex before but, after realizing that he’s falling in love with you, he thinks he wants that to change.

Glitter and Disquiet by joheunsaram - two shots (s) / CEO!Jungkook, YouTuber!reader, enemies to lovers, chaebol au Summary: Poised to inherit Korea’s largest gaming company in a few months, the world looks at Jeon Jungkook as a symbol of envy. Why wouldn’t they? He has everything, riches, power, and according to the rumour mill, endless women. Little do they know that his father’s company is on the verge of downfall, he barely has respect of his employees, and regardless of the rumours, he’s just a virgin saving himself for true love.

For Science by boymeetsweevil - series (s) / nerd!Jungkook, friends to lovers, FWB, college au Summary: Jungkook asks you to let him watch you get off. For science.

One Time, In Your Room by ubemango - series (s) / established relationship, college au Summary: There are papers to write, and virgins to daydream about. (You can think about Jeongguk’s dick later.)

[flower-boi16]

Read your post about the black-and-white nature of the show and I see your point, however, I personally would really like to see how they handled the idea of redemption for characters like Adam and Val. Or at the very least, how Charlie engaged with them in a way that encouraged better behaviors. I think the biggest hurdle to any redemption is that not everyone wants it, you have to convince them or let them get there on their own... but (and I think this is personal based on your own morals/culture) I strongly believe anyone is capable of it. Luckily this is taking place in the afterlife, so people have truly unlimited time to self reflect and get to a point of wanting change.

That being said, I think characters with much graver crimes (Adam and Val) make for a far more interesting story within this topic. Due to the nature of what they've done, they require you to really dive into who they are as people, what their past is (what is informing their decision-making), and, importantly, what "improvement" means for them. I think you can still do this with the current cast too (Angel and Sir Pentious) but we never see it, which is frustrating.

How am I supposed to buy into Sir Pentious' redemption when we have no idea what he did in life to end up in Hell? Angel was a mobster... and yet all he has to do to "redeem" himself is stop taking drugs? What about his victims?

I think redemption should be complex, have many ups and downs, and needs to focus on not just the individual (how they got there) but their victims too (especially their victims, actually). And if the goal isn't redemption, it can still be "improvement" with a focus on getting a person to truly reconcile with the impact of their actions and how they can make better choices in the future.

All that said, it is clear to me (sadly) this show does not want to focus on these topics and dissect them in an interesting way. It teases them, which gets a person like me excited (I love the thought exercise because I do absolutely believe there is good in everyone, that is just my own deeply held belief), but then we get such a lukewarm portrayal of it that barely scratches the surface. Would have really enjoyed seeing the show double down on "yes, everyone can be a target for redemption" and then actually explore the impact of that and how Charlie's little summer camp exercises aren't going to cut it.

It's pretty sad how shallow Hazbin's themes feel when there is so much interesting potential to explore from it. But the show never bothers exploring that potential and chooses the most shallow, surface-level execution of it. Charlie trying to redeem Val and Adam could actually be interesting....but Viv doesn't want to give them any more personality or depth beyond them just being one-dimensional assholes so, ya.

Hazbin's themes feel hollow for many reasons I previously talked about but this is the biggest one; the show barely actually explores them, it only touches the surface and nothing else. In a show all about redemption, it's super funny that most of it isn't even dedicated to redeeming sinners at all.

It's just a shame because Hazbin's message is interesting and sweet, but it never bothers deconstructing that message or exploring what redemption truly means. It only explores the surface-level stuff which makes it feel incredibly hollow.

[your--isgayrights]

You have written at least 1 No Scenarios AU before, so what do you think would happen to ORV KDJ if the scenarios never happened? In your wall fic, KDJ gets a stable job and a still ongoing story about YJH but at around the same time in the novel KDJ is about to be unemployed while WOS is coming to a close. Do you think ORV KDJ would be able to find another job (maybe like in your wall fic) or stay in contact with YSA or be fine without WOS? I’ve seen others say that KDJ might contemplate suicide again, or that he would never come to terms with his mom and his past in a No-Scenario event. What are your thoughts on the possible differences between this KDJ and your wall fic’s KDJ?

Hmm that's a good question... I think most important to whether or not Kim Dokja contemplates suicide again is whether or not WoS ends in the same way it does in cannon and how he reacts to it without the scenarios. My feeling is that when Kim Dokja survives his first attempt, he goes online and searches something to the effect of 'How to survive in a ruined world' and stumbles across a page publishing WoS, and he follows it for all these years because he is still looking for an answer to that question. I think a lot of people can relate to that drive for media consumption that is like... 'please, I just want to feel different after this, I want this to mean something.' WoS is a story about what happens to a man forced to survive the apocalypse over 1800 times and this is analagous to KDJ who endures the sisyphusian burden of being a regular guy with no friends every goddamn day lol. KDJ has been waiting for WoS to tell him what it has all been for. An important part of WoS's construction is that HSY knew KDJ's future while writing it. In this way, WoS was like a promise to KDJ, 'please just keep living, we're coming soon, the people who love you will appear, please just wait for them a little longer..'

In a world where this future doesn't come to pass, the original ending of WoS would lose a lot of this meaning. we get a bit of a preview of this reality in the sort of... Oh... That's it? Moment KDJ has after reading 'the end' at the start of ORV and then there's his messages with the author. So with this as the starting point I will say I find it likely KDJ could work himself up to another attempt just based on the ending of 'surviving 1863 times was for nothing because reality is limited and there are no true heroes' bc his internal just like YJH moments would end up depressing like 'doing all this work for nothing in the end...' but like you say there's more fun options if you get our ORV ladies involved. For instance, I could see KDJ disbelieving the ending or wanting a better conclusion for YJH and messaging the author about such things. Imagine that as One True Author HSY is fading, 26(?) Yo HSY wakes up to see she has a weird alternate account she's typing on? What? And looking at her computer history she realizes she sleep wrote this novel? Wow her genius knows no bounds...

I think for an author like HSY, having a single dedicated reader to converse with who takes the story to be as important as it is in your head is a really big thing, and her popular web novels never have anything like that. So when she has this account that's this one way channel with KDJ she's like oh haha fuck this guy what a loser he likes this webnovel that doesn't even have a good ending like mine did... I could write so much better of an ending awake than I did asleep... So she starts writing extras at KDJ's behest. Except her style is totally different and very fanservicey, except she doesn't understand the fan she's serving very well yet?

On KDJ's end I think maybe YSA takes concern after he reveals he doesn't have a position lined up after his contract ends and starts sending him any and all opportunities she sees around. At first he awkwardly thanks her and doesn't pursue them right away, but while WoS is ongoing again in this weird new direction, he starts applying around. He either gets another office job or honestly I could see him working at a convenience store or something (maybe he has a system where if there's a fly in the store a certain bug net carrying kid can catch it for candy rewards...).

While HSY is writing WoS extras, KDJ is constantly complaining and it eventually shakes down to a long one on one conversation between the two of them about why WoS and it's ending matters so much to KDJ. He wants a happy ending that he can Believe, not just a 'happy ending' standard formula, because those exist for a different Type of person than YJH (KDJ) is. So HSY doggedly works at writing and revising it until KDJ could possibly be satisfied... But maybe comes to the conclusion that there's no way WoS could end and satisfy KDJ so they decide to write a sequel that only HSY snidely sees as a KDJ self insert fanfiction of the original work so HSY is writing RPF of random guy who read her sleep-wrote novel ending up in her sleep-wrote novel and that's ORV. I like to think that somehow ORV would become popular even though WoS itself would remain in obscurity like people would think it was made up just as the premise for ORV and not look for the actual novel lol. Then I think HSY and KDJ could be very Established online friends and maybe even meet up in person to talk shit. As for his mom, she'd get out of prison but I don't think she and KDJ would meet up again unless maybe HSY coached him or his mom reached out first. I have some more specific ideas about how it's going to go in Wall fic I wanna keep close to the belt for now.

But yeah without WoS or any of the IRLs' intervention, KDJ's story is def one of that passive suicidality that comes from not even being able to imagine a future worth surviving for. Without a driving motivation to keep living, KDJ becomes unemployed, food becomes scarce, he might drift through some systems for a bit before reaching the end. I don't know if he'd still take action himself, but he'd definitely be another person just sitting around waiting to die. Of course, even for such a person there are avenues to keep living. Like I said, low level job at a convenience store or something could be pretty okay. It's a close knit team with a small group of customers and he doesn't have to care too much about the job to get it done. He could do little niceties for people like he likes to do and just have it taken as good customer service. But he would still definitely be Waiting for whatever next thing would come along, be it a new novel or like a robber coming to kill him lol. I could imagine him getting held up and being like... Do it. Take the shot. I'm a 30 yo working at a convenience store do you think I have something to live for. And maybe he'd get promoted to manager.