#weird tagging you as your main but alas

[amatres]

anyways yeah i did make them in that character maker bc uh

thank you @transprincecaspian for sharing these

[v-anrouge]

Verryyy long ranting under this about vil and how this fandom treats him for absolutely no reason pls excuse any mistakes and feel free to correct me with any accidental misinfo i passed <3

Mentions of racism, fatphobia, eating disorders, elitism & ableism and also SPOILERS for Vil's character story (eng only)

Ever since this game started getting super famous in tiktok and twitter it seems that people just love to butcher literally every character in Twst and sometimes it's genuinely baffling how wrong some of the takes are, it really does make me wonder if some people just don't read the story and just skip every character who isn't their fave, and if they really do that, what makes them think they know enough about the rest of the cast to post in the character's main tag the most rancid read on a character, often accompanied by some accusations of literal crimes of bigotry that really should be taken more seriously instead of being terms thrown around.

I'm gonna be talking about Vil specifically but characters like Leona, Jamil, Sebek and a few others have it exceptionally bad as well (especially Leo and Jamil who's haters can even be quite racist)

I've been playing for a very long time (in eng) i remember being there to watch the Heartslabyul final release and the release of Savanaclaw's chapter and through these years ive seen the most horrific takes on Vil's characters, ranging from the accusations of racism (which have been debunked again and again especially by JP players) to accusations of supporting eds, fatphobia, elitism and ableism. The funny thing is that even with a very quick read of any of Vil's story you'll find out there is no support for any of such claims. They like to use the incident with Epel's accent when for years JP players have pointed out how this was strictly an error of localization since they couldn't find a situation similar to the one that is portrayed in the original game to put in eng twst, they went with the one we have where Vil asks Epel to "hide his accent" (he really doesn't he was talking about the way Epel is rude and disrespectful which would definitely end with him being beat up and then expelled bringing a bad fame to Pomefiore and also making Vil look bad for not properly guiding his dorm students) which is a terrible choice but alas it seems people prefer to ignore facts to stick with their claim that Vil is some sort of monster when this man is literally a teen. He's 18 years old and has to constantly look out for his image in and out of school since he grew up in front of the cameras.

Vil's character is all about beauty and self care and self acceptance yet for some people this seems to translate to "starve yourself if you don't want to be a disgusting fat pig" which is very weird to say the least considering all mentions Vil makes about diets he is talking about keeping a balanced diet to nurture your body and even has a voice line pointing out the importance of eating. Vil himself may be coded to have an ED in his overblot and Lab vignette but he has never and would never encourage one, he literally goes out of his way to annoy students to take care of themselves what makes anyone think he'd encourage them anyways? It's such a weird thing to assume of a character.

A lot of people seem to think that Vil is also the "beauty standart" king which doesn't even make sense considering vil is a gnc man, he already doesn't follow beauty standards and would definitely be against it, Vil's vision of beauty for himself may be twisted due to his traumas and troubles yet his vision of beauty for others is always exclusively on the person being their best version, this includes dressing how they want to and feel comfortable in, using whatever makeup they want (or just not using it at all) etc.

The way Vil speaks is often misunderstood as he tends to be strict and can be read as mean (I've already shared my theory on what may have caused this behavior here before so i won't be getting into too many details) but Vil is a famous and respected housewarden because if you actually stop and think about his advice the end result is always an effort to make the person's desires come true. (a good example is how Vil made Epel clean the windows and although Epel was displeased with the hard labor in the end he notices how the task may help with muscle growth and gets happy)

Vil's way of caring for others is often misunderstood and obviously that's understandable, not everybody may get his "rougher" way of handling advice, but also it's a bit weird how people react to it when in game all of the characters seem to be okay with it, Pomefiore has a lot of students and if they considered Vil to be a bad leader he would've been voted out a long time ago, no? And if i remember correctly wasn't it said in game they had very few transfers? (as in characters moving out of Pomefiore and into other dorms) That wouldn't make sense if Vil was really the cruel leader some people make him out to be. The truth is Vil is a nice caring person and his students recognize that which is why he is respected all across the school and not simply on his dorm (because ive seen people say Vil has brainwashed the Pomefiore students into thinking he is a good housewarden 💀)

Vil surely has issues he needs to work through, after all this game is literally about that, dealing with troubled teenagers and their internal struggles and the importance of asking for help (omg friendship is magic...) but Vil is also a teenager, and he is one of the characters that show the most desire to get better, immediately showing regret and apologizing to Yuu and his classmates for the danger he put them in, that is because Vil genuinely does care for them.

Another accusation people make is ableism, i remember seeing many posts saying Vil wouldn't respect disabled people and/or mentally ill people which is 1- extremely fucking rude to say? 2- absolutely wrong. Again just a quick read on Vil's character will tell you everything you need to know about how he'd feel about disabled people, he'd treat them like everyone else, and would adjust his handling accordingly to their needs, i really don't get where this claim comes from but it's quite ironic because a lot of Vil haters tend to be ableist themselves by claiming that Vil is a bad person mentioning traits that are often caused by mental illness and the effect of traumas, failing to analyze how their treatment of a character that displays common mental illness symptoms may affect people in real life who displays the same symptoms, and often being ableist themselves by judging these actions irredeemable and inherently evil/heartless, once again dehumanizing people with mental illness in real life who deal with the same symptoms.

Another common thing is the constant invalidation of Vil's trauma. A lot of people seem to read book 5 with their eyes closed and take away from the story that the reason Vil "got pissy and almost killed a guy" (wording of a terrible post i saw a few days ago<333) is because he's a "spoiled brat who couldn't handle getting the paper he wanted in a movie boo hoo" which is kind of funny with how terribly wrong it is, i really don't know what your thought process has to be to get his backstory this wrong but sure, let's start; The start of Vil's problems with being cast as a villain starts from when he was very very young, he was just a child when after being cast as a villain for a movie he was almost beat up by a group of boys for being an "evil guy" and by his reaction it wouldn't be impossible that this wasn't his first time dealing with that kind of thing. Vil also tells jack (who scared away the group) that he had trained so he would be able to deal with them on his own which again, could be a hint that this wasn't that uncommon in his life. In Vil's overblot dialogue is all we really need to know to debunk this claim.

What Vil wanted wasn't just to be a hero in a movie, he wanted to be seen, to be heard and cherished, he wanted to be more than a pretty prop they could put on the front to get attention only to be taken out of stage when he was no longer necessary in the next scene, do you get it? He wanted to be able to see his hard work pay off, to see his efforts of years being rewarded, to for once not be exchangeable for someone more favorable. Vil wanted to feel like all his pain was worth it in the end because finally he could shine in the stage, being himself instead of just another persona to attract people. In his overblot it's shown clearer than ever that Vil does not have a stable view of his own image unlike what he has trained himself to show, even calling himself ugly and begging them to not look at him. I don't think Vil is used to be being vulnerable, which would explain why he was so freaked out when the overblot happened, and why he cried when his beauty (the one thing about himself that was always recognized by others and therefore the thing he'd always been the most desperate to nurture) was taken away by aging in book 6 (note; the fact Vil sacrificed it for his classmates also just debunks the people saying he only cares for himself, if he did he wouldn't be who he is.)

I said i wouldn't give my thoughts again but i will, just briefly, i believe an easy explanation to Vil's behavior (the tough love he gives and his strictness) might be because of the industries he grew up in, we can't know for sure how similar twst's version of the movie and modeling industry is when compared to the real life one but considering the way Vil is, my guess it's that it's pretty similar, especially in the regard of their treatment towards children, in Vil's overblot he hears two staff members talking about how he'd never be able to pull off a relatable role because he is too perfect, and sure those may not look like insults, but to Vil who's only dream his entire life was to be seen in good light, those words stuck to him so deeply they'd come back to him during his overblot. (note; i have not seen a jp translation of the overblot scenes so i don't know if they also suffered from localization issues, if anyone has a link to one i could see id really like to see what the staff said to Vil)

The general point of Vil's overblot was how his efforts and hard work were always overlooked and ignored in favor of someone else, this happens with quite a lot of characters and happens as well with another overblot (Leona, who happens to be quite similar to Vil in many ways) and although i don't expect anyone to read it and think of analysing it more deeply even with a shallow vision of his overblot it's still incredibly insensitive to call it a "non-problem" especially considering the fact this is Vil's ENTIRE life, he's been working hard and failing for years again and again and that does get to you. I remember when i posted my first rant on Vil quite a lot of people who reported to be skilled at something (say for example music or dancing) as a child that any failures absolutely destroyed you inside, and that people who haven't passed through the same tend to call them dramatic and say they're overreacting to situations that can be classified as trauma depending on how much it mentally impacted said child. (and in Vil's case it's clear it had a massive one, after all he wouldn't have overblotted if he didn't have issues that had been bottled up until they finally exploded)

Mentioning Leona again, he and Vil share the same sentiment of anguish for being discarded and having their hard work be thrown away, the difference in them is the way they reacted to it, while Leona ended up not seeing any value in attempting to do anything because he assumes the outcome is always going to be the same, Vil overworks himself and forces himself to do things he might hate clinging to the hope that this time it'll work out.

Since we're talking about trauma ill already answer some things that may or may not come with this post (because in my first one i got this response a lot) "Vil's a fictional character it doesn't matter" and sure if you think like that cool, personally, when im talking about a fictional character that tackles real life traumas and issues, i talk about it as if referring to a real person because the character has been written with one (or multiple) in mind.

Twst may have issues but the character writing is undeniably about real life traumas and experiences, and the characters are quite accurate and good representation of the issues they tackle, so when you invalidate them, you are by result invalidating real life issues. Of course this won't stop anyone and i know that a few people will probably scoff at this and brush it off as being too sensitive but personally if you wouldn't dare invalidate say for example Riddle's traumas because you know it's a representation of mommy issues, which is a very real problem, to not go against your own morals you should also respect the issues of all the other characters, even if you personally think some are more "serious" than the other.

[raspberryjars]

It’s You.

word count: 2,621

summary: hobie’s on the subway when he sees the most beautiful guy he’s ever laid eyes on. unfortunately he doesn’t get his number, name, or even to talk to him. but, what if they met again?

tags: miles morales x hobie brown, miles morales & gwen stacy, hobie brown & gwen stacy, no powers au, subway meet-cute, but also introduced by a friend, they’re all around 20

Tag list!! (Lmk if you would like to be removed or added)

@spo0kypigeon @not-gifted-but-burned-out

His headphones were on, music blasting, and nothing was on his mind except the different possibilities for dinner that night. The noises over the people and trains of the subway muffled as he scrolled aimlessly through his playlist. His eyes glanced up for a second, and shit.

Holy shit. Really that was all he could say. No other words came to mind at the sight. There was this guy, this bloody beautiful guy. He was sitting directly across from him, texting or something. He also had headphones on, some fancy bluetooth ones, the type people put stickers on to make them seem cooler. He wondered what he was listening to, the guy, based on his look it could’ve been some hip-hop, rap, something like that. Maybe not though, he knew better than anyone not to make assumptions based on people's personal styles. This guy could be a die-hard swiftie or something, he didn’t know.

But, God, what he did know was that this guy, no matter the music taste, was absolutely gorgeous. Like not the in-your-face, look-at-me, I’m-amazing, type. More like a cool mysterious way, the way someone that doesn't know they’re stunning is. Yeah, that’s what it was.

He had curly brown hair, tight coils fluffing messily around his head. A glint of a silver nose ring that looked good against his warm skin tone. Full lips that admittedly were a bit chewed up, but honestly who even cares? And christ this guys eyes, big, and brown, and shiny. With long lashes too, he was basically perfect.

And just as he was about to stand up, and sit himself next to this beautiful stranger, the fucking train stopped. Pretty shit timing, and just as he was wondering if he should just do it anyway, the stranger stood up, looked around for a few seconds then walked right out of the doors and away from the possibility of giving Hobie his digits.

Just his luck really.

Alas, not the end of the world really. Plenty of lookers in New York, he’d probably forget about this guy by tomorrow.

*

Shockingly, he did not in fact forget the stranger. The guy had plagued his mind for bloody days since the train. And it really didn’t help that all his New York friends were busy until later in the week, so his only distraction was walking ‘round the city. Which actually made it worse since he’d realised that this mystery lad probably lived around here, meaning they might run into each other, however slim the chances may be.

If he was being honest with himself the guy probably hadn’t even noticed him, too caught up in whoever he was texting. And if he had noticed him, he’d probably been a little weirded out by the staring punk on the tube. Or he had noticed and hadn’t given it a second thought because, to be honest, most people probably don’t think about random strangers for days on end do they?

So, whilst he had nothing better to do other than sit around waiting for Gwen to be free or thinking about this train-guy. He’d taken to walking around the city, up and down streets, round and round subway stations, through alleys and side streets, pretty much anywhere that looked interesting. Just listening to the streets was cool enough. What people were doing, where they were going, what people were wearing was cool too.

But the main thing that was on his mind, obviously, was train-guy. Whether he liked it or not the guy had wormed his way in and taken over. His days were full of thoughts of warm brown eyes and tight curly hair. Bluetooth headphones and nose rings showed up everywhere he went, and he even had to talk himself out of piercing the other side of his nose so he could buy himself one too.

He was fucking obsessed with this guy and he was never going to see him. Ever.

*

(23:57) FROM: Gwendy

hey hobes. free tmrw if u wanna do smthn, lmk.

miles might be there too btw.

miss u.

Fucking finally. It felt like years since he’d arrived on American soil, and even longer since he’d seen Gwen. Seeing her would absolutely take his mind off the mysterious train-guy. He could tell her all about it and she’d laugh, call him stupid and then he’d forget. And god knows it was time he met Miles. He’d heard practically everything about the guy but hadn’t seen or met him somehow, be good to finally put a face to a name.

(00:02) TO: Gwendy

yeah sounds good

c u tmrw does 3 work 4 u?

miss u 2 luv x

He heard Gwen’s reply ping on his phone but he ignored it in favour of staring at the ceiling of his mate’s mate’s spare room. Finally his boring as shit week would be improved. And just as he drifted into sleep he wondered about what Gwen’s hair might look like and if she knew any boys with dark brown curls.

*

He slowly blinked open his eyes to the same ceiling he’d fallen asleep too, and groaned loudly as he wiped his eyes of sleep. God he hated waking up, it didn’t matter what time it was, you could wake him up at 8 at night and he’d still complain about not sleeping enough.

He rolled over and grabbed his phone from where he’d left it last night, checking his messages with Gwen. Three did work for her, and she can’t wait to see him. He glanced at the time.

Ten-thirty-two, not too bad. He could probably sleep a bit more before he had to get ready. Just to be safe he told Gwen to call him at two, and once he knew that she would, he turned back over and went to sleep once again.

*

He woke with a start to the fucking annoying ring of an iPhone, Gwen had remembered to call.

“Hey Gwendy, what’s new?” He croaked, voice cracking harshly with sleep.

“Nothing really, what about you dude?”

“Not much, I should prob’ly start getting ready, yeah? I’ll see ya soon love.”

“Yeah see you soon man.” Then she must’ve hung up because the line went dead.

He groaned again and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Thinking about what he should wear as he walked to the bathroom. He had his jeans, probably a safe choice, then he’d have to find a shirt, and just his battle jacket should be fine, it’d been a hot week.

He picked up his toothbrush and squeezed out a blob of paste before rinsing it with water. To be honest he could probably just ditch a jacket all together, he thought as he brought his toothbrush to his mouth. Be good to wear it just in case though he decided, rinsing his mouth out as he did so.

He found himself rummaging through his messily packed bag for a shirt, as he’d worn the same one for the last few days. Fucking finally he found one, for some reason he’d brought way too many trousers and the ratio of top to bottoms was way off. He did find some pretty cool tartan pants though, and surprisingly a matching pair of socks. Which with his track record was like spotting a unicorn.

As he finished dressing himself he realised that he should probably ask Gwen exactly what they were going to do and where they were going to go.

(14:18) TO: Gwendy

oi what are we doing 2day

Less than a few seconds later the little bubbles appeared, he liked how fast Gwen replied, practicality and all that.

(14:18) FROM: Gwendy

not too sure.

meet at mine, we can decide later.

see you.

(14:19) TO: Gwendy

k

c in abit x

Another thing he appreciated about Gwen was that she didn’t give two shits about how he texted, he’d had problems with people before because he was ‘too dry’ or something. He never really understood that, he texted how he texted it didn’t matter how he got his point across as long as he did.

He had a few minutes before he needed to leave to go to Gwen’s, so he grabbed his jacket and headed to the kitchen.

He hadn’t seen much of the guy whose place he was staying at. He probably woke up much later or earlier than himself. It didn’t really matter though, not like he was best friends with the guy. Actually he couldn’t even remember his name.

He grabbed an apple and headed over to the doorway, it always took him awhile to put his boots on, good to not rush and stuff.

So as he laced the top few eyelets back up, he wondered about who this Miles guy would be, probably pretty chill if Gwen's stories were anything to go off. Either way it’d be cool to meet him.

He zipped up his boots finally and stood up, grabbing his bag before he left the flat.

He stood outside the door rummaging through his pants for his headphones for a few seconds before finding them. All coiled up, which meant he had to spend some more seconds detangling them so they were wearable.

Once he had his headphones in and his music blasting, he set off. Walking down to the subway, which of course reminded him of the train-guy. But after today he wouldn’t have to think about him too much, thankfully.

As he descended the steps taking him to the underground he kept thinking about the train-guy. It really was a shame he didn’t get his number, he was really fit. And even if he didn’t like guys or whatever, still would’ve been cool to have more friends around here. Give him more people to see other than Gwen.

Unfortunately though, he didn’t get his number, or say anything to the guy. So as he was sitting on the subway, just a few minutes away from Gwen’s place. He thought about what would’ve happened if he had spoken to the guy.

There was no use thinking about it really, but he’s allowed to do something whilst he waits. Free country and all that lying shit.

Just as he could feel his mind slipping into a tangent of the shithole that is America, the subway screeched to a halt and the doors slid open.

Fucking finally. He pushed himself up off of his seat and out the doors, taking note of all the different people around him, as he walked up the stairs he felt the slight breeze return and as he walked down the road he found himself grateful he’d brought his jacket.

He faced her door after a quick climb of the stairs, ringing her bell and ignoring the awkward stares coming from the old couple shuffling past him on the landing. Thankfully just as it looked like one of them was going to say something to him, Gwen’s door opened and Gwen herself stuck her head out.

“Hobie! Hey dude, come on in, Miles isn’t here yet but he’ll come by later, I missed you man!” She grinned. Her hair was shaved on one side and long and pinkish-blonde on the other.

“Hey Gwendy, missed you too,” He laughed back, “Loving the hair, suits you.”

“Yeah thanks!” She said, opening the door further and ushering him through to her living room.

She had a nice place, blue walls covered in stickers and posters, mismatched furniture with assorted blankets and pillows piled up on each piece, and of course the drums in the corner of the room.

“D’You want anything to eat?” She asked.

“Sure I’ll have anything.” He replied, her whole flat screamed her, little bits of Gwen jumping out at him. It was nice to see, it hadn’t been long since she was crashing at his for weeks at a time because she didn’t have a proper place to call home.

Obviously that wasn’t the case anymore, now he could come and crash at her place if he needed too. He was honestly so glad that she’d gotten all her shit sorted.

“Hey man, hope you’re good with whatever these bar things are, my dad dropped them off the other week.” Gwen said as she walked back through.

“Yeah all good no worries love.”

“I’d ask you what you wanted to do but we should wait for Miles before we decide anything, we can do something here if you want though?” She said as she put the box of peanut bars on the coffee table.

“Yeah sure sounds good, now what exactly is a peanut bar?” Hobie laughed. “Is it like, made of peanuts or is it like peanut flavoured?”

“Fuck knows,” Gwen snorted, “My dad keeps leaving loads of shit like this, I think he’s getting them for free from somewhere.”

“Probably.” He agreed, as he reached for one of the bars. “There’s no way he’s actually buying this stuff as a gift for you.”

“Ha, yeah, you never know with him though. He could be in one of his weird phases. Like that time he only ate soup for, like, 6 months.”

“Shit yeah, or when he only wore orange adidas pants when he wasn’t at work?” He smirked as he took a bite. “It’s not too bad though, I’ll be honest.”

Gwen smiled at him, “Yeah they’re okay.” She seemed to want to say more, but the doorbell buzzed suddenly.

“Miles!” She exclaimed. “Seriously man, you’re gonna love him!”

“Yeah I’m sure I will Gwenny.” She was probably right too, the guy did sound quite cool, graffiti artist, crazy smart, into hip-hop and rap. They’d probably end up pretty good friends after today.

He heard the door open and close and then Gwen’s and what was most-likely Miles’ voice as they walked through to where he was. They’d probably leave Gwen’s, go for a walk or something, maybe he’d ask Miles to show him some cool graffiti stuff if he seemed into it.

And just as he was thinking of other things they could do instead of just sitting around at Gwen’s, not that he was seriously opposed to doing so, he saw Miles walk through the doorway. And holy shit.

His luck was unbelievable. There was just no fucking way. Miles was the train-guy.

The same coiled, brown hair, The same silver nose ring, the same fancy headphones around his neck, and christ, the same stunning brown eyes. As he gave him a once over, marvelling at his incredible luck and silently thanking the universe for this second shot at this beautiful guy, Miles must have recognised him too or something.

His eyebrows raised and he stood a little straighter, fighting back a grin, “Holy shit. I saw you on the subway the other day right?”

Holy shit. The train-guy, well Miles really, had noticed him too. This was absolutely the best day of his very dull week, probably the best day of his fucking life.

“Yeah! I remember, you were texting!” Okay that wasn’t weird at all, tell the guy that you took note of and remembered exactly what he was doing why don’t you? He thought to himself. Thankfully, Miles didn’t acknowledge this slightly creepy statement and just grinned back at him.

“Shit wait, Hobie’s the hot punk you saw on the subway the other day? Man if I’d have known I would’ve set you two up or something.” At Gwen’s words, Miles flushed bright pink. It was actually pretty cute if he was being honest.

But also, he, Hobie Brown, was super hot train-guy’s, hot subway punk? Nevermind, this was absolutely the best day of his life.

Lmk what you thought and also check out my ao3!!

[eggymf-archived]

of paper planes and wildflowers; 01

ft. ominis gaunt with f!reader (series)

chapter warnings: nsfw, semi-public sex, chaotically embarrassing situations,  mild dubcon, aphrodisiac, feeble attempt at ominis slander for plot(?) purposes, not proofread, unedited

chapter summary:  from teenage gossips to formulating random drinks together with your best friend, everything goes completely awry in the most unexpectedly worst way possible. 

word count: 4k

a/n: i wrote this during 1 am in the morning after a mental breakdown lmao what’s good D:

main masterlist || series masterlist || AO3

“That’s the seventh time you sighed in the last five minutes.”

You grumbled in response at Natsai’s observation, dropping your forehead flat on the table with a distinct thud, much to Madam Scribner’s chagrin who harshly shushed you with a matching glare. Natsai gave the said librarian an apologetic look before turning towards you again with concern.

"Probably ‘cause of her mum again, I reckon,” Garreth piped, flipping his book to the next page as he scribbled down on his rolled-out parchment. You shuddered in response, recalling that damned Howler you received from your mother prior this week when she found out you had landed yourself in detention with Garreth again. Your mother expected great academic success from you and for you to behave yourself, especially during this year when you’ll be taking your OWLs.

“I’m sure you’ll do great for your OWLs. Despite the trouble you get yourself into, you always excel in your studies anyway,” Natsai comforted, rubbing your shoulder as you let out yet another sigh. Yes, you were having problems with your mum’s incessant reminder of picking a career path, and yes, you were tremendously feeling pressured about acing your OWLs. But there was another problem:  a huge one in fact - so huge you couldn’t even tell your two close friends about it. 

“I’ll be fine, you two. I just have a lot in my mind lately,” you mumbled, laying your cheek flat on the surface of the table while staring at an empty table from the distance. 

“I’d say. You’ve been on the edge eversince that potions incident,” Garreth pointed out, earning a fairly loud snort from you.

“Which potions incident, Garreth? Last time I checked, you’ve had a total of three incidents this month,” you teased.

“Oh shush. It wasn’t that bad!” the ginger-haired Gryffindor laughed. “I’m talking about that one drink we concocted around two to three weeks ago. The one that you drank?”

Your cheeks slightly pinked at the memory: of course you remember that incident. It was the main reason that has caused you to get stuck in this infernal situation, after all.

“Pretty sure it's not the potion, Garreth. I’m assuming this is just my academic stress finally getting to me,” you dismissively reasoned, thus dropping the subject to concentrate on each of your respective tasks.

You half-expected your 5th year to be like the usual: focusing on your studies, literally brewing mischief and greatness with Garreth, sneaking out of the castle grounds to “practice” your duelling (extracurricular activities, as you’d like to call it) with Natsai occasionally tagging along, and so much more. Aside from the utter chaos that was presently occurring within the wizarding world, who would’ve thought that your life would also end up being in a state of frenzy. 

You shouldn’t have had that particular conversation with Garreth back then. You shouldn’t have drank that damned potion either. But in your defense, you wouldn’t have tried anything weird from the ginger-haired boy unless you actually helped him with the concoction. You’re pretty well-versed with various ingredients, priding yourself to be both book smart and pro-active in collecting various ingredients from the highlands yourself. But alas you were still a student - a silly little student making silly little mistakes. Somewhere along the process of making that certain concoction, you had messed up the calculations of the ingredients’ ratio - something that would prove to be rather grave on your part. 

You and Garreth were hanging out together at the Transfiguration Courtyard after class, the both of you discussing several ingredient combinations as usual. While he scribbled notes on a piece of parchment during the ongoing conversation, you were practicing non-verbal spellcasting for simple charms. However, the conversation took a different turn when you noticed Garreth’s voice slowly faltering as a certain housemate of yours passed by while carrying several thick books. You smirked in realization, calling out the ebony-haired female. Garreth elbowed you harshly, giving you a half-hearted glare. The female turned and smiled towards the both of you in acknowledgment before heading off.

“Blimey, Garreth. Samantha Dale?” you asked, causing him to flush bright pink. “Since when?”

“Last year during potions. That time when Sharp made her switch places with you,” he admitted, causing you to teasingly snicker.

“W-what? It’s not like you haven’t had a crush!” he sputtered.

“I hate to disappoint you but no, I haven’t,” you deadpanned.

“Tell you what, let me ask you this question instead. If you were given the choice, who would you snog in our year?”

“Garreth Weasley, I am NOT answering that!”

“I’ll get the answers right out of you whether you like it or not and you know it. Is it Amit?”

“No.”

“Is it me?”

You slapped his arm in response, earning a laugh from him.

“I’ll take that as a no. Leander?”

“I’d rather get kissed by a dementor.”

“Touché. Perhaps Sebastian?” 

“Have you seen how he looks at the new 5th year? Poor lad looks like a lovesick crup puppy it makes me sick.”

Garreth paused, deep in thought. His lips curled into a smug grin.

Oh no. This isn’t good. 

“Ominis Gaunt?”

A pregnant silence ensued, your expression utterly mortified. Garreth guffawed at your bewildered state, running away from you as you chased him down. Your face was a bright shade of red - whether it is out of embarrassment, denial, realization, or the fact that you were greatly offended by the mere suggestion, Garreth has already arrived to his own conclusion. He was absolutely never going to live this down. After all, you were normally straightforward especially when it came to your preferences: your hesitation was already an obvious sign to the answer.

Tomfoolery aside, Garreth knew you didn’t really like Ominis. To you, Ominis was a sardonic little gossip. Whenever something of note had occurred and anyone involved passes by, he would often quip about their little secrets or actions alongside his unsolicited opinions. His reputation as a Gaunt also played a part as to why you steered clear of him as much as possible: they were proud, volatile, discriminatory, and has a long history with dark magic.

Everyone in Hogwarts always say that it was impossible for secrets to be kept within the castle walls. If the castle walls have ears, then one of those set of ears most likely belonged to Ominis himself. Unfortunately, that would prove to be a correct statement for your particular little case: a certain male with a particularly strong sense of hearing might’ve picked up on your conversation with Garreth earlier.

“Are you sure about this?” Garreth asked as you grabbed the phial from the potions table. “You don’t need to be the test subject, you know? We could just get other people to try it out.”

The concoction that you’ve been working on together with Garreth now rests in your hand. The both of you haven’t named it yet, but it was supposed to stimulate the mind to focus better and to give its drinker an energy boost. Given how stressed you are with your academic subjects and the fact that you’re on the verge of a mental breakdown, you didn’t really care as long as the potion did something to improve your performance.

“It’s the weekend tomorrow, Garreth. If this goes wrong, I have two days tops to get better. I doubt I’ll even need to go to the hospital wing though,” you reassured, taking a sip. The liquid was fizzy, tasted like sherbet lemons, and it brought a pleasant little buzz at the back of your head after a while. Garreth stared at you expectantly.

“Well...?”

“Hmm. So far, so good. We’ll see what happens for the rest of the day,” you said.

“Grand. I’ll see you later then!”

You and Garreth headed off to your own respective classes. You headed off to the Transfiguration Classroom, feeling increasingly invigorated as the potion took its effect bit by bit. You were rather proud of the concoction you and Garreth had made. It felt as if you chugged a vial of Felix Felicis - nothing would ever go wrong for the day and luck was definitely on your side. 

“Hopefully this little boost lasts until I’m done with all my assignments,” you mumbled to yourself as you entered the Transfiguration Classroom, sitting at one of the vacant desks. Your classmates began to pour in, occupying the remaining seats while you flipped through the pages of your textbook, mulling over the possible lesson for today. Right as Professor Weasley left her office to enter the classroom, the classroom doors barged open revealing the flushed faces Sebastian Sallow and Ominis Gaunt.

“Ah, you two are just in time. Please take your seats,” Professor Weasley said. The two panting boys complied, heading to the remaining vacant seats, which was the one right beside you and the other was beside Cressida Blume. The opal-eyed male opted to occupy the one beside you, much to your hidden distress. You were thankful that you didn’t have Garreth as a classmate here - it would’ve been a nightmare seeing his smug little grin and him occasionally making kissy faces to mock the remaining patience right out of your entire being. 

Thankfully, the class was rather uneventful aside from a brief lecture and all of you trying out the Vanishing Spell on several objects. You kept stealing not-so-secret glances at the boy beside you as he made his own attempts, flawlessly executing the spells within a few tries. As much as you hated to admit it, the Gaunts truly did have their own unique allure. Ominis was one of the living proofs - he looked quite elegant and easy on the eyes compared to most of the guys in your year: milky blue eyes, alabaster skin, beauty marks, and dirty blonde hair that was always neatly-styled. He was someone that people would most likely stare at out of admiration.

“You know I can feel you staring at me, right?”

Until he opens his mouth, that is.

“Hmm? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you deadpanned, causing his lips to curl into a knowing smirk. You didn’t like that a single bit, and you wanted this class to end so that you could go about your merry little way avoiding the Gaunt as you always did.

“...On that note, I’ll be assigning you all into pairs. Your partners for this assignment are your current seatmates: I’ll be expecting a 6-inch essay compilation of the Inanimatus Conjurus Spell by next week. Class dismissed.”

Your face fell.

“Is there something the matter?” Professor Weasley asked, noticing your rather upfront reaction. You shook your head vehemently, earning a couple of snorts and giggles from your classmates. You quickly shut your textbook and got up.

“Catch you around. Try compose yourself the next time we sit together, won’t you?” Ominis mocked jokingly as he left. You pointedly stared at his retreating back, silently quelling your mild annoyance.

For the most part, you stayed out of trouble for the entire day, focusing on your assignments and catching up on advanced self-studying. The drink proved to be quite a success so far - it was nearly as effective as an Invigorating Draught, and it helped you sort out the tricky bits from your assignments without contemplating on it way too much. You’ve been holed up in the library eversince your last period, and you still felt quite energetic. The library was getting more and more empty, with students opting to go to the Great Hall for their dinners or back to their common rooms. Meanwhile you just got out of the Transfiguration Section after getting the necessary reference books for that blasted compiled essay due next week. 

Suddenly, you felt your head throb, causing you to drop the books rather unceremoniously on the table. Good thing Madam Scribner wasn’t nearby or she would’ve chided you for not handling school property with care. You uncapped the phial of the concoction, chugging the last remaining contents. Perhaps the effect was lessening hence the sudden dizzying headache.

Oh but you were dead wrong. It got worse.

You felt your body heat up uncomfortably as your senses began to get more heightened - your breathing is now labored, your clothes felt unbelievably scratchy against your skin, and you felt that oh so familiar sinful tingling in between your legs. Panicked, you glanced around the library, seeing if there’s anyone nearby. You clenched your legs shut almost painfully, trying to steady your erratic breathing and heartbeat.

“Alright, self. Calm down. As long as nobody sees you like this--”

You were snapped out of your inner monologue with an oh-so-familiar posh-toned voice jolting you back into reality.

“Thought I might find you here. About that assignment...”

You inwardly screamed in sheer horror and embarrassment, cursing the bad luck that had befallen your poor self. Ominis sat right beside you, blissfully unaware of your current predicament. You couldn’t even comprehend what the male was saying to you: you were gripping your skirt tightly and biting your lower lips all in a great effort to suppress anything that might be a dead giveaway to your situation. Ominis, however, was a lot more astute than you expected. His eyebrows furrowed, immediately sensing that something was up.

“Why are you holding your breath?”

Fuck.

“O-oh. Uh... I-I was? W-well I-”

“What’s going on with you?” Ominis asked rather harshly. You gulped, trying your best to keep the last bits of sanity in your brain intact. According to your nether regions, Ominis sounded absolutely ravishing when he talks like that, and the remaining rationality within your mind refuses to accept that depraved notion. 

You almost moaned out loud when he touched your forehead with the back of his hand. He, however, wasn’t looking too amused with how unusual you were acting. Ominis frowned, looking rather offended for getting him caught up in this awkward situation. He got up, getting ready to leave.

“W-wait!” you cried out, tugging at the sleeve of his robes while looking at him with pleading eyes. “P-please help me...”

Ominis quirked an eyebrow, a faint smirk gracing his lips at your begging tone. He turned back towards you, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Oh? And why should I do that?” he sneered.

“Please I... I think I might’ve ingested an a-ah...!” 

“A what?”

“...Aphrodisiac...” you breathed out, shameful tears welling up in your eyes.

Ominis was mortified, a dark shade of pink flushing his usually pale complexion. He cleared his throat while loosening up his necktie in an attempt to diffuse his bashfulness. An aphrodisiac problem was certainly the last thing he would’ve expected from you.

“So you want me to help you... Because you might’ve ingested an aphrodisiac?” he asked, still finding the situation beyond belief.

You sobbed in response, nodding furiously. You felt so utterly humiliated that you were actually on the verge of wailing on the spot. You couldn’t think straight, you were a mess down there, and you were trying your absolute best to get the situation in control. You didn’t want to go to the hospital wing, nor were you even planning to tell Garreth or Natsai about this unfortunate side effect. Your common room wasn’t an option too because it’s a shared dormitory and the Ravenclaw tower was simply too far. Hell, this was one of the worst situations you could ever find yourself in, and there was absolutely no way Ominis would agree to this madness. 

Honestly, you just wanted to stay in a more secluded place to wait for the effects to die out. However, you had no idea where to go and you were desperate enough to ask even Ominis himself.

You were snapped out of your thoughts when he stood up and leaned towards you, grabbing your chin and forcing you to look up at his misty blue eyes while his other hand rested on the table surface behind you to support his weight.

“Are you sure you want me to do it?” he breathed. You blushed at the question, your sobs slowly quieting down as you drank the sight of him under the cold moonlight peering from the arched windows.

He was so frustratingly beautiful. So fucking ethereal.

“... Y-yes,” you gulped shakily. “P-please.”

Wait. Do what? What’s fucking happening? What the fuck did I agree on?!

He hummed in response, seemingly satisfied with your answer. 

“Hmm. Perhaps you do want to snog me after all,” he murmured before planting his lips against yours. Your eyelids fluttered shut as you instantly melted into the softness of his lips, wrapping your arms around his neck. He lifted you from your seat, making you sit on the table. However, the both of you were interrupted by the sound of heels clacking on the wooden floor. You and Ominis quickly got up, hiding behind one of the nearby bookcases.

Madam Scribner came up to the table, frowning. She grabbed the now haphazardly-placed reference books from the table, tutting about how irresponsible students are with handling books before walking off. 

You and Ominis remained still, listening intently at Madam Scribner’s now dying footsteps. As soon as the exit door was opened and then shut close, Ominis captured your lips once again, pushing you towards the nearest table. The both of you were frantically scrambling, attempting to remove each other’s cloaks while remaining in a passionate lip lock. You sat on the table as soon as you felt the edge of the table top hit the back of your thigh, spreading your legs apart to pull Ominis much closer to you. 

For some odd reason, having Ominis Gaunt right in between your legs felt so fucking right. Your head spun with lustful desire, taking in his addicting scent: a faint combination of patchouli, sandalwood and spearmint candy. He gave one of your breasts a firm squeeze while his tongue intruded your mouth, to which you gladly received by lightly suckling on the wet appendage, earning a groan from him. Ominis ground his hips against yours instinctively, brushing his now visible erection against your still clothed privates. 

His lips then began trailing down from your lips to your jawline, latching itself on a sensitive spot at the crook of your neck. You mewled, teasingly trailing your feet along the back of his legs, finally locking your legs around his hips to further push himself harder against your heated core. His hands harshly gripped your ankles in response, your inner thighs quivering in anticipation as he deftly unclasped your Mary Janes. You kicked them off rather impatiently, slightly raising your hips up as Ominis reached underneath your skirt for the waistband of both your tights and knickers, slowly peeling the article of clothing off your legs.

“Bend over for me,” he growled against your ear, to which you happily complied as you leaned over the table while lifting your skirt up. You shuddered both in delight and relief as the cool air hit the skin of your warm lower regions. Ominis traced a finger on your exposed slit, groaning as globs of your honey-like essence coated his digit. 

“Merlin, you’re fucking soaked...” he moaned, inserting his finger inside your hole, earning a breathy gasp from you as your legs trembled in wanton delight. You felt your juices trickle down your legs as Ominis added another finger inside your core, pumping his digits in and out of you at an increasing speed. You whimpered, slapping your hand over your mouth at the brutality of his fingers. With how sensitive your body was, it wouldn’t take long until you had your sweet release. 

Much to your disappointment, Ominis retracted his fingers away from your heat, licking your juices off his fingers. He groaned at your sweet taste while you sobbed in frustration, swaying your rear as your legs trembled at the lack of stimulation. Ominis swiftly unbuttoned his pants, tugging on the waistband of his briefs to free his painfully erect shaft. You let out a surprised whimper upon feeling the blunt head of the thick appendage stroke itself against your weeping slit, lubricating itself before it dove right into your awaiting pussy with little to no resistance. Your back arched instinctively at the sudden intrusion as you gasped blissfully in sheer unadulterated pleasure.

“A-ah..! F-fuck yes! Mmph..!” you cried out. Ominis slapped a hand against your mouth while the other pinned one of your wrists against your lower back as he plowed his cock inside your pussy.  

“Best to keep it down, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want us to get caught now, do you?” he panted, thrusting deep and fast as you mindlessly moaned with absolutely no shame against his hand. He was right - there were enchanted portraits nearby, wandering ghosts, and prefects right outside the library after all. The thought of someone walking in at any minute made your walls clench, which doesn’t go unnoticed by the alabaster-skinned male as he relished in the spasms and flutters of your inner walls, his cock twitching in pleasure.

“Oh, you are absolutely vile!” he chuckled darkly, slowing himself down momentarily yet still thrusting as deep as he could. You swore your knees almost gave out as the tip of his cock kissed your cervix. 

“You’re quite the filthy little whore, aren’t you? It’s almost as if you want to get caught,” he mocked as your knees shook. You sobbed pathetically with pleasure-filled tears running down your face. He yanked your upper body closer to his, letting his hands wander shamelessly on your curves while peppering the column of your neck with bites and kisses. You blissfully sighed, intoxicated with all the sensations happening on your body all at once. Your bleary eyes widened as his cock brushed against a spot within your weeping hole, your mouth hanging ajar in a loud gasp which caused Ominis to smirk against your neck. He slammed your body back on the table, your breasts flat against the table surface as he aimed for the spot precisely with swift, merciless strokes.

Ominis was absolutely delirious as he listened to the debauched symphony of your helplessly submissive little yelps and moans, wet skin slapping against each other, the sound of the table rocking against the hardwood floors, his own erratic breathing and occasional groans whenever he felt your walls flutter around his swollen member. This was now his new guilty pleasure: reducing his normally put-together, top-achieving, goody-two-shoes of a classmate into nothing but a slut who’s hungry for only his cock. Something about that mere thought completely disintegrates his last remaining shred of principles and rationality in the moment as he mindlessly chased his high, sinful fantasies filling his presently depraved, pussy-drunk mind.

“F-fuck! I... I’m cumming! I’m cumming-!” you babbled as your walls clenched unbelievably tight around his cock, causing Ominis to hiss in pleasure as he pulled out of your quivering hole, pumping his member desperately as spurts of milky white semen landed on your labia. The both of you stilled for a moment, breathless and completely fucked-out.

Ominis quickly tucked his now softening member back into his pants and tidied himself up while you shakily got up from the poor table. You groaned, feeling a slight pain in between your legs as you conjured a clean cloth with your wand, wiping away any stray bodily fluids from your lower regions before vanishing the object away. Ominis leaned against the opposite bookshelf as you put your panties and tights back on, crossing his arms. You glanced at him as you sat on the table, clasping your shoes back on. He was still as pristine as ever, as if your recent activities had never even happened.

“Prefects should be gone by now. Will you be alright going back to your common room alone?” he asked. 

“I think so,” you replied, grimacing slightly at the dull throb of your worn-out hole. Ominis hummed, walking towards the staircase leading to the library exit with his wand up, the tip blinking its signature red light.

“Oh, and Gaunt?” 

“Yes?”

“Nothing happened here, alright?”

chapter 2: what a mess! 🔞 >

[obsessedtomone]

Unravel Yourself Before Me ⛓️ Chapter 13 - New Itinerary▸Shigaraki x femReader

Chapter Summary:

◤ And nothing would make you happier than to wipe his smug ass grin off his fucking face, but alas.

For no other reason than to be a brat, you pick a seat that leaves exactly one empty spot between the two of you and slam your bag against your desk. It works and his arrogant face momentarily drops into one of annoyance. But to your utter dismay, he recovers.

“Move your ass next to me or you’ll regret it.”

“Oh, yeah? Fucking try me,” you say with a ragged voice and drop on your seat, completely done with the world. ◢ Setting: University AU - No quirks (unless degenerate personalities count) Tags: Slow burn, Eventual Smut, Very Unhealthy/Toxic Relationships, Humiliation, Mentally Ill Reader, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to ??? Warning: Dead Dove – Do Not Eat | Mind the tags TW: Implied Su/Self H, Dubcon, Past Child Abuse, Bullying, Reader has a super shitty past like actually, Shigaraki Tomura is his own warning.

AO3 Crosspost | Chain Divider by firefly-graphics

Chapters: One • Two • Three • Four • Five • Six • Seven • Eight • Nine • Ten(ko) • Eleven • Twelve • Thirteen • Fourteen

Chapter 13 - New Itinerary

Everything seems to bother you nowadays.

No matter how hard you try to take some of the heavy load off of your shoulders, things only seem to stack up for you.

They stack and stack, continuously falling on top of each other, until there’s a whole tower of them, reaching well into the sky, beyond anyone’s reach, and thus rendering it impossible for you to manage.

Days are getting cold.

The air pollution is really hurting your nose.

The traffic on the main street is too loud and obnoxious.

Parents are screaming at their kids and blocking the sidewalk.

Your sneakers are squeaking against the wintry dry pavement.

Shigaraki is fucking holding you in a hostage relationship.

Assignments are piling up and you’re falling behind.

The hangover is causing waves of nausea.

Your body is feeling heavy.

But you’re used to it. You’re used to it, knowing full well this won’t be the last time shit goes wrong in your life.

The remainder of last night was spent by puking your guts into the toilet and crying until thin blood vessels formed on the surface of your sclera, creating webbings that are now burning your eyelids every single time they closed.

You’re used to it but fuck if you weren’t tired. Really tired.

Yet you somehow keep walking ahead, surviving ten seconds at a time and letting the late morning air wash over you.

So how long will you be able to keep this up?

You blow your warm breath over your cold fingers, thinking about ordering a new pair of cheap winter gloves soon. Ten seconds at a time. Ten seconds at a time.

There are only a few weeks left until the holiday season and—surprise, surprise—you really hate the holidays.

Taylor, whom you haven’t texted since you got home from the party, would eventually be gone to visit their family. You wish you had the courage to ask them to invite you too, but you don’t wanna be rejected—or labeled as that one clingy orphan friend.

You’re fucking pathetic and your life really fucking sucks right now. But hey, it could be worse for you, right? Right?

In your front pocket, your phone vibrates, making a weird noise.

Ah.

It’s the sound of Omen’s voiceline saying ‘Die’, the one you set up somewhere between you warming up to Shigaraki who was trying to redeem himself, and the time he thought his confession would magically make you fall in his arms with hearts in your eyes, or something.

You didn’t realize how fucking annoying it would sound when he’d actually text you, though. You didn’t realize it, because at this time you didn’t expect him to force you into another weird slave-owner relationship you’d rather die than be part of. 

What’s that saying? Life's a bitch and then you die?

The deep dark rings around your eyes tell the world that you’d love being literally anywhere else but on the way to class right now, especially after the party last night and the rough aftermath of feeling like your life is actively falling apart. Again.

But you’ll recover, you always do.

You’ll recover and save whatever’s left of yourself over and over until you’ll fully break, the perfect little victim that you are.

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — ur late where r u [Sent 9:26 AM]

Yeah, you really are half an hour late. Getting out of bed is kind of a bitch when you’d love nothing more than to shop for a gun and blow your—

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — hello?? [Sent Now]

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — i know u can fucking read this and ur not that fucking stupid to ignore me barely a night after [Sent Now]

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — if u dont reply in the next 10 seconds i swear to GOD [Sent Now]

Who would come to your funeral, you wonder. Taylor and friends? Maybe even your manager if you’re lucky?

You — leave me alone, I overslept. Im omw dick [Sent Now]

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — bitch [Sent Now]

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — hurry tf up before i get mad [Sent Now]

You huff. He’s so disgusting and insecure.

You — wouldn’t miss spending time with you for the world <3333 [Sent Now]

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — fucking gross just hurry [Sent Now]

You — asshole [Sent Now]

Get Run Over By A Fucking Car Please — whore [Sent Now]

“Tsk.” You roll your eyes and stomp the rest of your walk to the college of your nightmares.

Despite your best efforts, the trip doesn’t take you long and unfortunately, you do make it to your dreaded computer science class in one piece—if walking a little slower just to spite him.

From the back, Shigaraki turns his head to you the moment you enter the lecture hall, watching the professor call you out in front of everyone for being late. You shrug the nosy teacher off, because you’d be damned if you could find it in you to care about disrupting his class right now.

You probably should, because your flimsy fucking scholarship depends on it, but maybe a life outside of college didn’t sound so bad anymore. You think you’d rather mop piss-dirty fucking bathroom floors of dingy corner bars for less than minimum wage, than spend another second breathing the same air as this crazy cancer-inducing shit-stain of a human being.

And nothing would make you happier than to wipe his smug ass grin off his fucking face, but alas.

For no other reason than to be a brat, you pick a seat that leaves exactly one empty spot between the two of you and slam your bag against your desk. It works and his arrogant face momentarily drops into one of annoyance. But to your utter dismay, he recovers.

“Move your ass next to me or you’ll regret it.”

“Oh, yeah? Fucking try me,” you say with a ragged voice and drop on your seat, completely done with the world.

Throwing your head back, you screw your eyes shut, not feeling like working on any assignments right now. When you open them again, you see the back of the room swirling upside-down in your vision.

Then the asshole speaks again, his grit-laden voice taking on the tone of a radio broadcaster.

“Hey, did’ya know? Word on the street is that your friend’s mom is covering their whole ass tuition. Ain’t that something?” Shigaraki grabs the back of the empty chair between you and preemptively pulls it backwards for you, the way a dollar store gentleman would.

You scrunch your nose and wince at his words.

Of course he’d stoop so low. Didn’t he say so? He’ll pull just about anything to get you to listen.

“Now, I also happened to hear that their mom is… quite the conservative businesswoman. So let’s assume for instance, that one of their NSFW social media pics from their private account gets unexpectedly… leaked. Mailed, perhaps, to your friend’s bigoted parents, express postage stamp and all. What do you think will happen when their mom finds out that they’re—” 

Shigaraki doesn’t get to finish his cheap villainous threat because you stand up, kick your chair angrily and drop on the one next to him, some of the students in the row before you scoffing audibly.

You want nothing more but to fucking strangle him to death, but that would ruin a few things for you.

He flashes you a crooked smile. “There we go. Wasn’t that fucking hard now, was it?”

Maybe you should take your chances and do it anyway.

But instead, you roll your eyes and take out your laptop, planning to do what you do best. Distract yourself with the mountain of piling assignments that you’ll have to plow through (despite how miserable you fucking feel), and ignore him completely. Ten seconds at a time.

It doesn’t really work, because not two minutes after you start, Shigaraki places a hand on the edge of your seat and startles you, causing you to glance at him with visible disgust. He notices it and takes that as an invitation to reach his fingertips over your thigh, digits splaying apart as he slowly slides his hand up your thigh. A shiver runs through your spine and you immediately tense up.

“Don’t.” You glare at him sharply, slapping his hand away.

He clicks his tongue disapprovingly, like you’re the one annoying him and fucking does it again, gripping your thigh so hard this time, the blunt fingernails that are pressing into the fabric of your pants will definitely be leaving purple bruised half-moons.

“That really, really fucking hurts. So stop that,” you growl at him quietly, jaw clenching and foot pressing hard against the surface of the floor to keep yourself grounded. Ten seconds—

“Nah. You don’t like me being nice, so I won’t be.”

“Nice?! You’re fucking insufferable!” you spit at him in an angry whisper, “Was last night not enough for you, sick fuck?” Shigaraki squeezes your thigh once, eyes narrowing and grin widening in response. “I’m fucking black and blue all over from—”

You try closing your mouth quickly, catching yourself but he smiles knowingly, the scar on his mouth stretching.

“Yeah? My bad then. Lemme see what I’ve done, I’ll be more mindful,” he lies, softening his grip, thumb brushing your leg in small soothing circles, knowing he wants nothing more but to paint your skin with reminders of him, wherever he touches you. “On that note, maybe you should start wearing skirts again.”

“What?” You frown at him. “I never wear skirts, you delusional creep.”

“You did, for that scumbag.” Shigaraki drops another piece of information, like it’s not creepy as hell to pay people to find out things about you. He then shrugs, toying with the fabric of your pants between his thumb and his pointer finger. “It was good though. You looked hot.”

“What the fuck? How would you know that?!” you shout at him pretty loudly, earning you a few glares from the row in front of you.

He couldn’t fucking know that, because you stopped wearing them long before you even met your ex. 

An unexpected giggle claws itself out of his throat. “Maybe I guessed. Or maybe I’ll tell you if you stop being a bitch one day.” 

So fucking never, you figure, clicking your tongue and turning your attention back to your screen. His hand immediately resumes sliding up your thigh.

“Fucking stop that or I’ll seriously fucking scream,” you threaten, but he’s calling your bluff and takes it as a challenge.

Your mouth opens and his smug expression is egging you on to go ahead and fucking do it, see what happens when you do. But you close it again, feeling defeated.

The anger and shame make your cheeks burn as students occasionally look back at the two of you, whispering and making faces, completely ignoring how uncomfortable you are. No one wanted to lift a fucking finger.

Tomura notices too. On any other occasion, he’d tell them to fuck off. But sitting back and drinking in your frustration, outweighs the need to monopolize your attention at the moment. He’d have time for that later.

By the amount of times you two have been seen together, half the fucking college must assume you have an exhibitionism kink. You don’t—at least not like this, but your train of thought is interrupted by his free hand appearing in your field of view, two fingers casually tapping at the side of your laptop and signaling you to get your work done.

Like you could fucking focus, with him brazenly sexually harassing you in broad daylight.

Nonetheless, you roll your shoulders and once again take your chances, swatting his hand off of you and scooting away from him.

He narrows his eyes, demeanor quickly turning cold. 

“If you don’t cut that shit out, I’ll take these,” Shigaraki pinches at the fabric of your pants, “off of you and force you to walk half-naked ‘round campus, mid fucking december,” he says in a low monotone voice, signaling he’s reached the ends of his patience with you, then pulls your chair closer to him than it was before.

“Maybe you’re into that, freak.” He snarls, wrinkling his nose. “I’d suggest you go on and finish your fucking assignment, miss honors student.” Shigaraki leans in, nuzzling into your ear and making you physically cringe.

You have no choice but to let him.

And once you give up, once your shoulders really slump this time, and you’re halfway through biting the first layer of skin off of your lips, Shigaraki smiles triumphantly, burying his nose into the junction of your sensitive neck and deeply breathing you in.

You watch as the students keep glancing at you and you feel your insides decay a little more.

“You’re the worst.”

Shigaraki snorts.

─────────

Perhaps the most surprising part was that Shigaraki didn’t take it far even days after that awful night at the party. Not really.

He does however keep feeling you up whenever he has the chance to. But he never pushes it beyond critical points. Enough to piss you off, to let your college know you’re his plaything now, but not enough for you to actually freak out—well, freak out more than you already do.

He’d ghost his pale slender fingers everywhere on your frame and you’d notice his hands twitching every time they passed by your curves, leaving them completely unexplored.

He’d inch closer to your neck sometimes, hooking a finger around your winter scarf and pulling it down to examine—admire—the fading bruises that he’d left that night.

He’d sniff your hair like a degenerate whenever he was in a particularly bad mood or someone pissed him off, then he’d tell you to keep buying that brand of shampoo, that he’d even fund it for you if you ever ran out of money. 

Like you’d ever go seek him for financial troubles.

And you couldn’t help but wonder just what stops him from taking you somewhere dark and secluded, to bend you over and fuck his sick fantasies into you. It’s not like you could ask, lest you give him bright ideas or imply you’re even thinking about anything of the sort.

So you deal with his weird fucking obsession of being as close to you as humanly possible, and not leaving inches apart when he’s anywhere around you throughout the day.

You’ve become his human stress-relief toy, you realize. A fucking Shigaraki branded fidget spinner. Taylor would laugh at that joke, but you still haven’t opened any of their messages, or seen them on campus lately.

Shigaraki also makes you—no, he forces you—to take the same fucking breaks as him, eating together at the cafeteria whenever he fucking feels like it, making you miss most of your own lecture blocks just because they don’t match his. Something for which you’d have to draw a harsh line very soon. Blackmail or not, and as depraved and unhinged as you know him to be, you doubt he wants you to fail and drop out. 

But then again, you’ve been wrong about him before.

There are eyes on you wherever you go. You suppose being the campus’ villain’s toy would do that to a person. 

He however seems to only let them linger for half the time nowadays, easily losing his temper (what fucking temper), glaring back and scaring them off wheneve he’s had enough. After which he proceeds to tell you shit like ‘don’t worry, you’re mine’, as if that was somehow reassuring to you.

You’d finished your classes for the day, but he eventually gets the great fucking idea to make you attend his own as well, his professors either not giving a fuck or too scared of his family crest to mention a literal stranger sitting in their smaller group lectures.

It’s only by chance that you’d found out what he was apparently majoring in, glancing at his laptop when he wasn’t looking. It’s a very pretentious masters in Data Science.

Not that you really care to learn about that asshole, but you did notice his schedule being packed. You had half a mind to ask him why he had double the amount of your classes, but you bit back. You weren’t that curious.

A (barely) positive side to this whole arrangement, was that being in class from morning until late afternoon somehow gave you a buff on your ability to study, the same way studying in a library would. You were less likely to procrastinate on your assignments as you often did at home, and actually ended up getting a lot of work done whenever Shigaraki was too busy with his own material to actively make your life a living hell.

His hand would still be placed somewhere on your body, whenever he didn’t need to write or research for his projects, as if he would crumble into dust if he didn’t feel the blood pumping from under your skin.

Thankfully, his last break of the day finally rolls around and the two of you sit together in one of the wing’s common rooms.

He hasn’t laid a finger on you while you were typing away at your laptop, choosing to play some game on his handheld instead. You’re not only thankful for that, but also wonder if he’ll maybe get tired of you quicker than you thought he would.

And if he does, what then?

Would he just leave you be?

You press your lips in a tight line.

“What.” He raises a brow, his signature rasp making you realize you’ve stopped typing away at your projects for a while now and ended up watching the way his fingers clicked on every button with the precision of a professional gamer.

You wince, snapping your head back to your own screen.

“Nothing,” you mumble, “Just surprised you stopped acting like a damn monkey for a second.”

His eyes widen and he grins, hooking one elbow around your neck and pulling you in close enough for you to smell a hint of his expensive cedarwood cologne. 

“Just say you miss me next time,” Shigaraki coos, ruffling your hair up and making you scoff.

“Pass. I’d rather offer my psycho ex to blow him for a pack of weed again.” 

It’s been a while but you finally said the wrong thing again, so he gives you an unimpressed look, shoves you away from him and goes back to playing on his handheld, unpausing his game and now mashing the buttons.

“You’re so fucking stupid sometimes, I swear,” he scoffs, brows pulling together. “Piss me off again and see what happens. I’m nice because I choose to,” Shigaraki says quietly.

You make a disapproving noise, feeling a weird twinge of hurt for—disappointing him…? Seriously?

What the fuck?

He curses under his breath. ”Never say shit like that again. You belong to me now. Fucking get used to it.”

You considered disobeying him again for a second, make him angrier, but all you could do was shrink in your seat and turn away from him defensively.

The rest of the days were more of the same, with you following him around like a pet and letting him do whatever he wanted to. 

Whenever you zoned out or pushed his buttons too hard, he’d either get pissy and threaten you, or dare to sneakily slide his hand over the curve of your ass and squeeze it to get your attention.

And boy did it get your attention.

─────────

Friday finally comes around—you thank the fucking lord—meaning you won’t have to see him for another two and a half days.

You think you’ve spent enough time together to last you three fucking lifetimes—so much so that you started enjoying going to your part-time job. At least that fucking paid.

Your dreams of easing in into a quiet weekend are cut short when Shigaraki opens his mouth on your way out of the building and fucking goes, “Are you free later?”

You stop dead in your tracks and turn around to face him, completely mortified.

He just stands there, solemn expression while staring back at you through half-lidded eyes, hands in the pockets of his overworn jacket. His white hair is tousled and the strap of his ancient college bag threatens to snap and fall off his shoulder any day now.

Shigaraki frowns as he waits for you to answer, one hand reaching to scratch at his neck—something you haven’t seen him do in a while now.

By the way, since when did he start asking for permission to waste your fucking time?

“No. I’m busy,” you deadpan, spinning on your heel and avoiding his eyes.

“No you’re not. You don’t work today.”

“I have plans. Why the fuck do you care?”

“Change your plans then,” he grunts and you want to pull the hairs out of your head.

“No.”

He gives you an exasperated sigh, walks up to you with a clench jaw and forcefully wraps his hand against the nape of your neck before pushing you to walk with him. You just cross your arms and let him walk you like a fucking dog.

“Why ask if you’re not going to fucking listen anyway?” you question, feeling deeply frustrated. 

He considers ignoring you, giving you side-eye from behind his messy bangs, but mumbles quietly anyway.

“To be considerate.”

“Ha! You? Considerate?”

Shigaraki tightens his grip and shoves you forward, making you stumble and almost eat shit on the floor. You luckily catch yourself before you do.

“Yeah, you're right. What the hell was I thinking?” He rolls his eyes and walks away sulkily, leaving you behind. “Follow me. My car is parked off campus.”

“Your car?”

His car.

You struggled to keep up with his stupidly fast pace, but you managed to get there—if a little out of breath.

“Get in.” He opens the door to the driver's side of the car and slams it closed.

What did you expect? Of course Shigaraki Tomura owns a red fucking sports car. Why wouldn’t he?

The passenger door opens for you and you suddenly feel very uncomfortable being in the presence of such a luxurious fucking object. You simply stare at him and nervously fidget with the hem of your shirt.

“What the fuck are you doing? Get in, it’s cold.” He drums his fingers against the leather-covered wheel.

You look unsure of what to do and seeing you being uncomfortable makes him snort, but he doesn't say anything otherwise.

Reluctantly taking the bag off your shoulder, you get inside and place it on your lap. Then you look at the raised door like you’re trying to figure out rocket science.

“H-How do you close it?”

“With your hands, moron. You pull on the handle like any other normal car, now hurry.”

You make a face, leaning in to grab the handle with your sweaty fingers and pulling it down. It really doesn’t take a lot of force and the door slides down in a smooth motion, closing easily with a satisfying thud.

Relief washes over you, glad that he didn’t trick you into slamming or damaging anything, because if you did ruin his car, you could only imagine the amount of debt you’d have to spend your entire life paying. Or have another fucking thing he could hold over your head.

He’s unusually patient with you, letting you settle in and observing you getting flustered over his car of all things. His dry lips slightly twitch upwards.

“A-A McLaren, really?” your voice wavers when you don’t want it to, mentally cursing yourself for sounding like such a pussy.

“Yeah, it’s my errands car.” Shigaraki seems like he wants to say something, but reconsiders.

“This is your errand car? A fucking sports car?!” 

Your gasp makes him fucking chuckle and you’re visibly taken aback by the easy-going reaction. Luckily he only chalks it up as further astonishment. 

“It’s a supercar, not a sports car, idiot. Maybe I’ll show you the others someday soon.”

“Others?!” Your nose crinkles and it makes him snort. Then he presses one fucking button on the dashboard between the two of you and starts his car ‘supercar’ up, engine purring like an expensive metallic kitten.

Fucking rich people.

Frankly speaking, you semi-anticipated for him to pull up to his scary criminal friends, a hotel or worse—his own house. But instead, he parked in the expensive underground garage of your city’s largest mall and then opened the door for you.

He opened the fucking door for you.

You watch him skeptically as he reaches out a hand for you to grab, like you’re Cinderella and he’s going to help you out of the half a million dollar carriage. But you smack it away, making him roll his eyes and mumble an ‘always so fucking difficult’, getting out of the car on your own.

Unlike how he usually acts on campus, Shigaraki is considerably tamer in the unfamiliar public. Maybe even a bit more fidgety than usual. 

He doesn’t grab or grope you and the only contact you’re forced to endure while the two of you walk side-by-side, is the brush of his arm against your own, with the occasional nudge to steer you in whichever direction he wants you to go. 

While he’s distracted, you observe his side profile in secret, glancing at the mole on his mouth, his dark circles and his cracked skin, noticing how the scar on his eye matches that on his lips. You wonder what went wrong to him to become like this. 

It really feels like the moment you ran your fingers through his hair after he came back from the store happened ages ago. It feels like ages ago, but the memory, the sensation itself, is deeply burned in the ridges of your fingertips. Weaved into strands of your DNA. 

Maybe that’s the reason you can feel it, still.

You frown, turning your head away.

If only he’d been nicer. If only he wasn’t a crazy lunatic. If only—

Then what?

You let out a deep exhale while a shudder runs through your body.

“Quit bitching. We just got here,” he grunts, taking your sigh as a form of protest against him dragging you around instead of letting you go home. You’re thankful for that.

“Shut up.” 

You aim to kick him in the shin but he dodges, softly shoving you to the side and you could swear you saw the ghost of a smile on his face.

Oh, the things he made you do.

First, he fucking managed to pull you into the biggest arcade in the city, cashing in gross amounts of money on his play-card for the two of you to literally waste.

Most of the machines he made you play with him were either competitive co-ops or versus games, and despite all of your efforts, you had around 20/80 odds of winning against Shigaraki. Even though you’re familiar with these games. Even though you probably could smoke this entire arcade, you really are no match for Shigaraki himself. 

The rich basement-dwelling redditor is good. Good enough to be an esports player, you think. His reflexes are second to fucking none, his prediction skill is inhumane and then to top it off, the game awareness he has for every game is incredible. 

You know for sure he hasn’t played some of the games you picked (and that’s the only reason you’d even won 20 percent of the time), but he learns fast, never failing to shove it in your fucking face when he bests you and takes the win.

It annoys you. It annoys you so much that during one of your heated matches, you make a mistake.

“Ahhh, I missed the fucking boost,” you say, focusing on the racing game. He lets out an amused breath. “Say, do you play shooters?”

“So random. Yeah I do. Why? Trying to distract me?” Shigaraki’s character bumps into you as he’s on his final lap. “Or did you wanna play the new shooter in the back? It’s single player though, but we can take turns.”

“What?” You use a power-up similar to the blue shell in Mario Kart and you hear him grunt ‘bitch’ in response. “No, just curious.”

“Yeah? Do you play then?”

You nod but you’re not sure he saw it. 

“I play Val. Lemme guess, you’re a CS:GO player. Or a COD one. Gross.”

Shigaraki barks out a laugh that startles you. He continues laughing, closing his eyes and becoming unable to focus on the game while he does, your character easily passing by and reclaiming first place. 

There’s warmth spreading inside your chest and you do your best to smother it.

“You little bitch!” he yells at you with a wide grin.

You just click your tongue. “Eyes on the game, chief.”

“I play Valorant with Spinner sometimes. Need me to boost you? I don’t do it for free, tho’.” He jabs his elbow in your side and you swerve too hard, falling off the map.

“HEY!” 

“Eyes on the game, idiot.”

Your eyes widen and he grins at the screen cheekily, finally crossing that finish lane.

“That’s unfair! I almost had that!”

“No you didn’t. You just distracted me with your stupid questions.”

“Fuck you.” You cross your arms, turning away.

“Later. What’s your rank?”

“Huh?”

He looks at you as if you’re dumb. “Val. What’s your rank? So we can play?”

Oh. Oh shit. Oh no. You’d fucked up. Why were you acting so chummy with Shigaraki? You don’t wanna play fucking Valorant with him. Or anything else. You’re not friends. He wants to hurt the people close to you. You’re definitely not friends.

“W-What’s yours?” you ask, and if your hunch is correct, he should be above Immortal.

“Higher than you for sure. I’ll buy a smurf account anyway, then we can play.”

You grit your teeth, blood draining from your face. He frowns, leaning in to inspect your face. 

It’s dark in this arcade, so you hope he doesn’t see much.

“You look off.”

“I’m fine. Let’s uhh—let’s play something else.”

“You sure? We can chill,” he says, getting off the chair and offering you his hand to stand up. You pretend you don’t see it, getting up yourself and walking past him.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I do actually wanna play that new FPS in the back.” 

Shigaraki doesn’t say anything, using the hand he offered you to scratch at his neck while following you silently.

It’s really weird seeing such a different side of you. One that he never got to see at school.

You’re bouncy and talkative and holy shit were you a big fucking nerd. Tomura has probably never heard you string as many sentences together as he did when you began telling him about the extensive lore of some obscure fucking game from the 90s.

As for playing with him, he’d been right from the start. He couldn’t take it easy with you. You were such a sweat, trying to beat him at every game there was, always asking for a rematch. But… it didn’t bother him.

He commits everything about you to his memory. Your face when you focus. The way you strain your voice when you’re about to win. Engaging in discussions with him…

Forgetting you dislike him.

He’s not stupid. He sees when you catch yourself and realize it’s him you were talking to. You still don’t want to let him in. Still think you’re in control of your fucking life. 

You’re not. You belong to him now and there was nothing you could do about it.

His idea to take you here was good. He likes playing with you. IRL friends who were into gaming are hard to come by, and all of his friends were casuals at best anyway. Which meant his only two options were you and… Spinner.

Spinner.

Fucking Spinner.

Tomura has been sulking behind you for a while now, but thinking about his friend really made him seethe. 

His mood sours in record time, so he promptly decides to pull you away from the crane game that you spent the last twenty minutes on, interrupting yet another unsuccessful run. 

“Hey! I almost had that!” You pout, but he’s already dragging you out.

“They’re all rigged anyway. You wouldn’t have gotten it.”

“Yeah, but they still drop the prize after a certain amount of times,” you whine.

“Don’t care. Come.”

“Ugh! You impatient asshole!” You smack his shoulder with your free hand.

“Yeah, yeah. Can it, loser.”

After he’d robbed you of your prize, the two of you still had time left before the mall closed, so you decided to go to a few stores and look at merch and games you know you’d never actually buy. The figure in the crane game was a total exception. You definitely wouldn’t build a shrine of cute little collectibles with that character. Definitely didn’t already have a few things that were a waste of space, should you need to move right away. Definitely.

Now you’re looking around, listening to him talk about games he played as a child. By the amount of titles he’s dropped, you’re pretty sure he’s had all the fucking consoles growing up and that makes you jealous.

The biggest surprise of the day was probably hearing Shigaraki ask for your opinion on not one, but several games you told him you’d played before. Like he was actually interested to hear what you thought.

He’d even offered to buy you games you had in your backlog, the ones you’d wanted to eventually get for yourself. So after he scoffed at you saying you don’t collect physical ones, Shigaraki asked—no, insisted—to get your Steam ID.

When you figured that he wouldn’t drop it is when you started getting really annoyed.

“Like I’d wanna owe you shit now, too,” you spit, beginning to ruin his mood as you usually do.

“I’ll do what I want. Deal with it,” he mumbles, grabbing the game you wanted.

“Wanna see me do a speedrun and throw it in the closest trash can? Then go ahead and buy it.” You smile at him angrily with a twitching eyebrow.

“Why—” Shigaraki grunts, closing his eyes and running his hand through his hair, then proceeds to chuck the expensive deluxe case at you, hitting you square in the shoulder. “You’re so fucking annoying.” 

“Hey! That fucking hurts, you asshole!” you shout at his back, but he only flips you off and goes ahead to exit the store without you.

After his temper tantrum, the two of you walk over to the food place he told you about before. It’s his favorite in the mall, apparently. Neither of you talk much to each other on the way, but once you receive your plates, he breaks the ice.

You wish he’d stayed silent though, because after what was your tenth extremely dumb gaming argument with him—this time over whether or not they should nerf Solid Snake’s dump-truck because it’s distracting the player too hard when he’s crawling—you find yourself yawning and getting bored. You’re now like ninety-eight percent convinced he’s the owner of half of reddit’s weirdest gaming-related posts.

So you roll your eyes when you notice he won’t drop it, and finally finish eating the last bite.

A shudder goes through your entire body while you’re mid-bite.

“You okay?” Red irises look at you from the other side of the table.

You blink, thinking there must be something wrong with you. Well, you know there is, but this is on another level.

“Y-Yeah, I guess I’m just… cold.”

You must be insane. No, you are insane.

You’re insane for thinking that spending time with him isn’t the worst. That going out with him today, as forced as it was and only because he has you at gun-point, wasn’t that bad. That you two get along well if you wipe your brain of your entire history with him and boil it down to the two measly days he acted decent with you. And while that is true, you’d probably vomit your entire meal back on your plate than to ever admit it to anyone.

God, does that mean you’d actually let this asshole become someone close to you if he keeps acting like this? Are you that fucking damaged?

Shigaraki looks at you intently, making you feel nervous.

He hasn’t been the worst to you lately, but you still hope he doesn’t somehow skew this day to be some weird date. However soon enough you’ll have other things to worry about.

Because as if on cue, Shigaraki opens his mouth and proceeds to ruin your entire fucking day:

“Grab your shit. We’re going back to my place.”

[twig-gy]

NAME ME - it/its

tell me to edit it into my desc but banner by nebuleeart & icon by felix-lupin

profile picture id: digital edit of a pin with a spiral and an x. the spiral is the sitelen pona for nasa (strange) and the x is the sitelen pona for ala (not) so together it reads ‘not strange’ or ‘normal’. end id

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i don’t reliably tag triggers, but self posts about self-harm/addiction or writing about gore will definitely be tagged (just the trigger, like ‘self harm’ or ‘addiction’) - i only do #[trigger] or #[trigger] mention so if tags are a bit weird that’s why. gifs are tagged with #gifs, flashing things with #flashing, and eyestrain with #eyestrain. i don’t trigger tag posts about Real World Events, mostly because, again, i am not reliable, partially because it feels weird to start now - nudity is untagged because of the latter. faggot&dyke&tranny = untagged we ride free

recent writing 1 recent writing 2 (cjshipping)

i don't have a dni for Reasons but please don't follow me if you have jashshippers on your dni and if you do you must answer my riddles three (the other post has my riddles three but if you want version with less talking: link)

i write cccc fic - my ao3 is janSikepa - give me requests! there’s just no guarantee i will do them - i appreciate comments and compliments SO MUCH

i will always appreciate an ask or any form of human communication

times i've been called homoerotic in some way: 1, somehow, despite the fact i'm aro

have been called “genuinely one of the most annoying faggots on this site” before

mutuals i have convinced to watch centricide: 4 :D

fellow jtoh mutuals: 1 (join the list!!!!)

official time loop posts: 4

“”mandatory”” listening: link

at all moments i will make inexplicable references. if you mention heart mind or soul then my cccc receptors will immediately go off. hope this helps!

cccc : main interest. posts slightly related to it/less thought out are #brainrot.png and posts where i talk more are brainrot.exe

(list of drawing ideas i have but can’t draw cause i can’t draw: link)

jtoh : like it but do not play it as often, i talk about it sometimes. its tag is #jtohposting

centricide : i like it en talk about it on occasion. its tag is #jreg.jpeg but that also includes other posts abt jreg

toki pona : i’m still learning it. sometimes i make posts in or about it (#tok.exe). i’m translating cccc into it, so far i have time machine reprise done and posted (ilo tenpo pi sin ala), and spring and a storm/storm and a spring have their lyrics finished. you can ask me abt how that is going if you want [NOTE: PAUSED CAUSE MY MICROPHONE SUCKS :((((]

#twig.txt is my tag for selfposts

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if i tag something with heartposting/mindposting/soulposting that's bc i think that they'd say that

#wholeposting is for my thoughts on whole which i have very occasionally

#jaship mention is for any post about or mentioning shipping between hms

#hmsex is for any post mentioning hms having the sex. i see nothing wrong with it but i won’t talk about it that in depth. i just need my followers to be on their toes /silly

[id: userbox with the toki pona icon on the left and the words "sona mi pi toki pona li ike." on the right.]

[my toki pona is bad]

[readingandwritingandreading]

Some Hearts ~ Part 2

My Blurb: Thank you all for the positive feedback! It really reminds me how much I love writing!

Disclaimer:  Alas, I own nothing but my ideas. I do not give permission for my writing to be shared anywhere without my consent. 

Summary: Reacher never needed anyone, he was a lone wolf and preferred it that way. But when he finds his mate beaten and bruised one night, she and the rest of the 110th show Reacher the benefits of being in a pack. Fated Mates, Shifter AU

Pairing: Jack Reacher x OFC Morgan Stone

Warnings: This chapter takes place in a hospital. There are some darker things in this fic. Morgan is a rape and abuse survivor. Nothing is explicitly detailed but be advised. Your media consumption is your responsibility. This is a fated mates, wolf shifter AU and will contain claming, biting, mating and other wolf pack related things. 

Tagging: @pioched | @ashes-writing | @titty-teetee2

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Read First: Some Hearts Masterlist

Also Check Out: Main Masterlist

Rock Hill Village Hospital, New York

“Reacher.” Roscoe’s voice pulled him out of the flashback he was having. Looking over to the door, he nodded at her before getting quietly out of the chair. Despite protests from Roscoe, the village’s head doctor, he had spent the last twelve hours keeping a silent vigil in his little mate’s hospital room. She had already seemed terrified, waking up alone in a strange place would only make it worse.

“She’s due for a vital check and a new saline drip, i’ll stay until you get back.” The head nurse, Charlie Hubble, patted his arm as she slipped in and headed to the monitor by her bed. 

He spared his mate another glance before following Roscoe into the hallway. Noticing the clipboard in her hands he nodded to it. “How bad?” 

“Dehydrated, mild hypothermia, possible pneumonia, under-nourished, several scratches, bruises, broken arm.” She sighed, flipping a page on the clipboard “All signs that she’s been on her own for awhile. That’s not the weird part though. Some of the bruising is serious. Some recent, that she probably got when she fell in the water, but some are in the final stage of healing.”

“Why would bruising be weird?” Reacher frowned, looking at the page when Roscoe handed it to him. 

“Some of the bruises are at least two weeks old. They are in the final stages of healing…by human standards.” She shook her head, “She’s a shifter, all of her blood work shows it. The fact that the mating bond was triggered proves it. But she either hasn’t or can’t shift. If she was shifting, these older ones would be gone and the ones from last night would be halfway healed.” She pointed out the pictures on the page as she spoke. “You said she was in human form when you found her?” 

Reacher nodded, studying the pictures in front of him. “Ya, I assumed she had shifted back after she got herself out of the water.” 

Roscoe shook her head. “I don’t think she’s shifted in at least two weeks. And judging from these bruises, I don’t think she was out for a nice walk through the woods and got lost. I think something happened to her.” 

“She’s on the run from something.” Reacher crumpled the paper in his fist as the realization dawned on him. “Or someone.”

“There’s one more thing.” Roscoe met his eyes with a hint of trepidation. “There’s a bite mark on her neck,” she held her hand up as fury crossed his features. “It’s not on her mating gland, it’s as close as it can get though.” 

Before he could respond, the door beside them opened and Charlie poked her head through. “She’s awake.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A soft humming and beeping were the first things I became aware of. I felt sluggish and opening my eyes felt like swimming through mud. I managed to open them a sliver, groaning when the lights forced them closed again. 

A small gasp and then shuffling was followed by a woman’s voice. “I dimmed the lights and closed the blinds, it should be better now.” 

Opening my eyes a second time was easier and the dimly lit hospital room slowly came into focus around me. The room was small but cozy, a normal hospital setup. “Where am I?” I looked towards the woman standing beside the bed.

“You’re in Rock Hill Village. I’m Charlie, head nurse here at the hospital. You’ve been unconscious for about 12 hours. I was checking your vitals while Dr. Roscoe filled Reacher in on your injuries, he didn't want you to be alone.” She nodded to the other side of the bed where a chair had a blanket tossed haphazardly on it and a few empty food containers on the table. “I need to let them know you’ve woken up.” 

The relief I felt at not being back in Georgia flowed through me as the nurse walked towards the door of the room. She opened it a little and stuck her head through. As soon as she turned back towards me a blonde woman in a doctor's coat stepped through but my gaze caught on the figure that appeared behind her. His head almost grazed the top of the door frame as he stepped into the room and closed the door. I was reasonably sure his biceps were pushing the limits of the black shirt he was wearing and more muscles kept appearing the longer I looked at him. When I reached his face, his blue eyes were staring back at me with an amused but concerned expression.

“Charlie, can you let Alpha Neagley know she’s awake.” I jumped and blushed, not realizing the blonde woman had made her way to the right side of my bed. “I’m Dr. Roscoe. How are you feeling?” 

“I…I feel…sluggish.” I shrugged, trying to keep my gaze on her and not on the giant who had approached the foot of my bed when Charlie left the room. 

She nodded, “That’s to be expected, I put you on some medicine to help you sleep. You’re pretty banged up, especially this arm.” She pointed to where my right arm was bandaged in a cast. She spends the next couple minutes having me watch a light and listening to my lungs. “Doesn’t look like you have any head damage and your lungs are sounding clearer. How much do you remember about getting to the hospital?” 

“I remember being in the woods and the storm picking up. I saw the lights of a town…” I drifted off, trying to remember after that. “I was trying to cross the river but the bank gave way.” I shivered as the memory of the freezing water came back to me. “I don’t know after that.”

“You dragged yourself onto the bank, that’s where Franz and I found you.” The giant spoke. His voice was firm but soft like he didn’t want to startle me again. 

The door to the room opened again and another woman walked in with Charlie behind her. She was slim and while not as tall as the giant, she held herself with an authority that rivaled his. She confidently stepped to the spot beside him before speaking. “Welcome to Rock Hill Village, I’m Francis Neagley, pack Alpha.” 

“You’re the Alpha here?” I whispered, cheeks heating when the giant grinned and chuckled. “I’m sorry, I…” she put her hand up and I stopped talking immediately, fear swirling in my chest.

“No harm done, it’s usually a shock when new people find out. Especially other pack Alphas.” She shrugged and I was awed by her confidence. “Speaking of, we couldn’t find any identification on you so we couldn’t let your pack know you’re here.” She smiled as the fear ratched up a notch. 

“I’m Morgan…um Stone.” I winced hoping they didn’t notice me stumbling over my last name. I couldn’t force myself to say Kliner, they would know who to contact and my hand drifted to the spot he had bitten me. Glancing up, I noticed the giant watching me closely and I dropped my hand immediately. 

“Where are you from?” The question came from Charlie, who had made her way back to my left side, at the same time Dr. Roscoe asked how long I had been in the woods. I froze, looking between the two of them. Neither was a question I wanted to answer. 

“I…ummm…” I sputtered, glancing around me. The four of them had me surrounded and I suddenly felt very panicked. They were going to find out who I was and they were going to send me back to him. All of the work I had put in the last two weeks was going to be for nothing. KJ was going to claim me physically and secure the bond permanently, I would never get a chance to escape him again. More questions came from the three women but I couldn’t make them out anymore, panic was overtaking me and my vision was swimming. 

“Stop” the voice rang out clearly and firmly, immediately snapping me back to the present, my eyes focusing on the giant. I trembled as he looked at me and then around the room before coming to the right side of my bed. Dr. Roscoe moved aside and took his previous spot as he gently sat on the edge of my bed. His bulk was enough to cause the mattress to dip and my body shifted slightly towards him with the movement. I should have been scared by his nearness but the panic seemed to subside now that he was closer. “You’re safe here, no one is going to hurt you.” 

He spoke his words with conviction, like he had already seen my future and knew without a doubt he was right. I waited for the inherent distrust I'd always had of male shifters to bubble up but it didn’t happen. Something flickered on the edge of my memory the longer I looked at him and as the fear inside of me fizzled out I found myself believing him. 

His eyes never wavered from my face so he saw the moment I was calm again. He nodded before continuing. “You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. No one will make you. But I…we can’t help you unless we know what’s going on.” 

I spared the rest of the room a glance, they didn’t look angry, just a mix of curiosity and concern. Charlie gave me a comforting smile, “Why don’t I go get you something to eat and drink. Are you allergic to anything?” I shook my head and she headed out the door. 

Sending a quick prayer to the Moon Goddess that I could trust these people I gave them a quick rundown of my story. The bonding ceremony, skating over the details of the failed claiming, how I had decided to make a run for it and stayed under the radar the past couple weeks, slowly making my way towards Canada. 

When I finished Charlie had returned and set a bowl of soup and a cup of water on a tray she swung over my bed. The giant still hadn’t moved from his spot by my right knee, it was comforting in a way and I could feel the heat radiating from him.

I had told the story with my hands in my lap, fiddling with my arm band so I didn’t have to watch their faces. Now I risked a peek up. Roscoe was scribbling notes on the clipboard while Charlie looked over her shoulder, the Alpha had one hand on her hip and the other on her chin looking like she was scanning through her memories and the giant was still watching me but there seemed to be a glint of something angry in his eyes that had me immediately turning my attention to the soup. 

“There is something I’m curious about, if you don’t mind me asking.” Dr. Roscoe asked and I nodded for her to continue while I took a bite of the soup. 

“Your bruises and injuries. Judging by your story and the healing progress some of those are from the night you were…” she pauses, casting a quick glance at the giant. “From the night you escaped. Why haven’t you shifted? You would be more healed and would have been able to travel faster.” 

Although it's awkward with my left hand, I take another bite of the soup to buy myself some time. I knew when I woke up in the hospital this would come up, any halfway decent doctor would be able to tell I didn’t heal like a normal shifter. My father had paid a lot of money to find a cure for my condition but had never been able to, I was sure he had killed them afterwards. I was always going to be a payday for him and he couldn’t let it get out or my value would diminish.

“I can’t shift. I’m not even sure if I have a wolf.” I cringed, waiting for the mocking or scathing remarks but there was nothing but the sound of Roscoe making another note. 

I looked at her but she just smiled, like I hadn’t just dropped something huge on her. The Alpha looked thoughtful but not upset, “I think that’s enough questions for now. We should let you get your rest.” The three ladies seemed to take that as their cue, Charlie showed me the button I could press if I needed anything before she headed out the door, the other two following her.

I turned back to the giant who hadn’t moved and was still watching me carefully. “I…I didn’t catch your name.” My words were a whisper but I know he heard them. 

“I’m Reacher…Jack Reacher, I'm your fated mate.”  

[softgrungeprophet]

okay just for reference

1. A leading "The" or "A(n)" should not be counted when Alphabetizing and especially not when shelving, considering your spine stickers shouldn't even include articles in the leading position. A Knight's Tale should be under K -- Knight's Tale, A -- rather than bulking up your A section with an endless throng of confusingly organized titles. This applies to more than just books btw.

2. after the first word, all words are counted as part of alphabetization (... I don't remember if this is still true following a colon/in a subtitle, or with in/definite articles, so maybe look that up or ask a librarian lol -- it is true of conjunctions and prepositions though)

3. Numerals (0-9) come before letters. Spelled-out numbers, I've seen mixed approaches and I don't have useful advice. Maybe look up ALA guidelines or something. And the number of a book in a series is more important than the subtitle for fuck's sake-- don't sort numbered books in a series by their subtitles (unless it's a book with a sub-series title such as a spinoff of a main series, like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, though I would argue that's just the full title anyway, not a subtitle)

The various Warriors series in juvenile fiction really seemed to confuse the other pages on this front, and don't even get me started on Rainbow Fairies 😭

4. Also I feel like this should go without saying but punctuation is not counted. Do not include a title's comma or quotation marks as an element in your alphabetization scheme unless it is the word "comma" spelled out lol

Now, technically spaces are counted as a character that comes before all other numerals and letters, and I'm sure there's a reason, but if your goal is easy sortability and browsing on the consumer end, I honestly think that's kinda stupid and will probably confuse people so unless you're working at like... the library of congress, or in the actual databases, i doubt it matters (at least in terms of manual shelving or browsing; like imo as a reader and ex library page, A B C, ABC and A.B.C. are the same to me and the first one getting special treatment seems weird?? Like i said there's probably a reason but as far as actual user end stuff it seems impractical)

Also I do think that Dewey Decimal falls short for shelving American comic books at libraries since it prioritizes author name rather than title, but alas it's used anyway. I find that sometimes bookstores do a better job with western comics here. Manga, at least, is pretty easy. At home I sort my American comics by series, number and chronology though, not author name.

Bonus:

Dear librarians, I love you, but: Please learn how multi-part surnames work. Guillermo del Toro's surname is not "Toro," it is "del Toro." (This is something I had to bring to a librarian to have fixed more than once)

And some advice to book publishers:

Please for the love of God hire a librarian or someone with a library science degree who knows about things like databases and title sorting. Oh my God. Honestly anyone with a website that involves tagging please for the love of god hire someone who knows literally anything about metadata and booleans

AND

As always

Take what I say with a forgetful grain of salt. If you actually need to know something for sorting purposes, look it up or ask a professional.

[emma-ofnormandy]

Hello lovelies! I’m Liz and strong independent women (and the men who love them) is my fandom calling card. I’m a multi fandom enjoyer, but am very much back in the comforting embrace of period dramas at the moment.

I am a new gif maker and sometimes writer and am so glad you have stumbled into my little corner of the internet.

This is a secondary blog so likes and follows will come from @windylizmt. Would love to make this my main but, alas, that can’t happen yet.

Current Fandoms: Vikings: Valhalla, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Gilded Age, Miss Scarlet & The Duke, The Artful Dodger, My Lady Jane, The Witcher, and Shadow and Bone/ Six of Crows

Writing: My AO3 link, but you will have to be logged in to read. I also try to tag them on tumblr under the #mine: writing tag but I can’t say I’m very good at remembering to tag them like that.

Current Projects: Nothing to speak of at the moment.

OTPs and their tag:

Emma of Normandy & King Canute #otp: mutual respect

Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley #otp: it’s almost dawn

Geralt & Yennefer #otp: important to someone

Nina Zenik & Matthias Helvar #otp: youre better than waffles

Other Common Tags I use: #liz nonsense (for my ramblings), #justliz (my tracking tag), #mine: gif, #mine: edit, #mine: writing. I also tag by show name if you want to search that way.

Requests: I will for sure entertain requests for gifs if there is a particular scene you would like to see.

More about me, if you’re curious: I’m a weird horse girl, I love period clothing but am only just beginning to truly learn about it, my book tastes are varied, but rarely do I venture into the non-fiction genre. I have a thing for the 19th and early 20th century but please don’t look to me for a history lesson, I’m a staunch supporter of a good glass of wine any day of the week, I don’t enjoy cut flowers but love house plants, I have a soft spot for happy endings, and I fit the bill as a nostalgic millennial.

[emryses]

20 questions for fic writers

thank you @postmodernau & @queerofthedagger for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

35. what the hell lmao

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

379,505. again. what the hell!!!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

at this point i would say the main one is stranger things. i tend to only be able to successfully write for one fandom at a time apparently lol. but i imagine i'll dip my toes back into merlin one day.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

you looking at me, looking at you (steddie) / run your fingers through my hair (steddie) / eat me alive (steddie) / when the party's over (gallavich!!) / you want it straight from the heart (steddie)

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

i do! most or try my best to. often in the first week-ish after posting something, and i do sincerely try to respond to every comment but i've fallen behind on that a lot recently.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

this is a hard question to answer because i literally have thrived off of angst, specifically in the merlin fandom, for many years. i think i'll say winter always turns to spring which is a canon compliant merlin/will fic i wrote that has a tinge of....unrequited feelings, which is probably what bumps it up into the most sad.

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

is it bad that i don't write a lot of "traditional" happy endings? i kind of make them work to get there lol. bittersweet my beloved. i would say my hairdresser steve au is the most lighthearted thing i've written with a happy ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really! i've gotten the occasional weird ass comment that i'm sure the commenter THOUGHT was "kind" but i've kind of side-eyed.

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

i do! i don't think i'm very good at it & it takes me ages when i do. i guess all kinds??? love it when they're pathetic and desperate iykwim.

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

not often, but i have a steddie btvs au i am slowly percolating on.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of! but i doubt it, even then lol.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! there was a merlin translation fest a while back, and my merwill fic, winter always turns to spring was translated into portuguese!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no..........but mona & i have been percolating some thoughts..............................................monaaaaaaa.........is this a sign................?

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

this is such a hard question !!! i think i have to say at this moment in time it's steddie. they truly just scratch all the shippy itches for me. honourable mention tho to merthur, who have had my soul in some way or another for 10+ years.

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

i have this shameless canon divergence fic. the summary i wrote describes it best: "When Ian was 3, his birth father Clayton Gallagher and his wife Lucy were granted full custody, ripping Ian away from the only family he had ever known. Fifteen years later, Ian has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is looking for answers. Here, he reconnects with Fiona and Lip, his brother and sister who watched him be taken. Ian also meets his brother’s friend, Mickey, who conveniently is the guy Ian has been meeting in bars and dark alleys for the past few weeks."

part of me wishes i could go back and finish it, but i haven't written for gallavich in so long & i have so many other fics for other fandoms i'm more inclined to finish first. i guess never say never, but i also don't know when the time for it would be. alas.

16. What are your writing strengths?

how dare anyone make me talk positively about myself....sigh. ok. i think i'm good at character tone/voice. the way characters speak has always come pretty easily to me, and so i'm often most proud of my dialogue. i think it's why a lot of my fics often are dialogue heavy & have people working out problems together.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

does my own brain count? i feel like i can be repetitive in my descriptors of things. everything is "says softly" or "he smiles" or "he laughs" etc. my brain tells me every single goddamn sentence has to be Unique or something, and then i get in my head about Everything. it's the worst !!!

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

i haven't ever done it! not sure how i would go about it tbh! i don't speak any other languages other than english, so i would be hesitant to put any other language in a fic of mine because i would have to rely on google translate or something.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

HMMM. if i'm really honest, probably peter pan when i was like. 10. then it was icarly LMAO. all on ff.net babeyyyy

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

hands down, fields of gold. i consider it to be my merlin magnum opus of sorts, my eternal love letter to the show. i took 2 years to write it, and genuinely no joke some of the aspects/themes of that fic date back to headcanons/meta i wrote in 2012. so. i poured a lot of my heart into that fic, and i hope it shows.

zero pressure tags: @stargyles/@pushrope, @mojowitchcraft, @magicinavalon, @stevespookington, @lady-lostmind, @thefreakandthehair, @snapshotmaestro, @glaftwlet, @andonandon & truly anyone who sees this and wants to answer these questions. tag me!!! i am nosy and love stuff like this lol.

[queenofbaws]

💖🎶🐀 for Blood of the Covenant, Water of the Womb, please and thank you!! :-)

well oh my good golly gosh, don't mind if i do! ;)c hehehe

💖 What is your favorite moment in this WIP?

hmmmMMM this one's tough, because we haven't gotten to my fav part(s) yet and i don't want to spoil things, soooOOOOOOO here's what i'll say >:)

since blood of the covenant, water of the womb is TECHNICALLY the series and not just oooone lil' old fic........my favorite moment in all in the family is jack watching chris, caleb, and kaylee pop their skin for the first time; my favorite part of like wringing blood from a stone WILL involve a big family argument where too much is said by literally everyone involved*; and there may or may not be two additional (hypothetical) fics where my fav moments involve travis making the mistake of meeting his heroes(?) and a certain someone from bobby's past coming to family dinner

HYPOTHETICALLY. hypothetically. :)c

🎶 Do you have any other WIP related things, like moodboards, character portraits, playlists or similar?

I DO!!!!!! outside of the little mini-moodboards i make to promo each chapter, i have a sideblog - @hacketthouse - that's sort of like...a "living" moodboard, if you will, in that i'm always adding stuff to the queue over there! it's really just a bunch of stuff that matches the vibe i'm going for with the whole series. it's moodier/more serious stuff than the things i tag 'the hacketts' here on my main, so just don't expect the same goof-em-ups over there, hehe

i also have a spotify playlist i listen to while writing! it's very very long, there's a lot of weird choices i've made on it, but it's what gets me in the groove when i sit down for a long writing session in north kill ;)

and while i keep TELLING MYSELF i'm going to eventually make a big old edit with the whole fam-damily and the character traits i imagine they have (similar to the promo materials from the quarry), alas, my self-confidence with edits is still pretty low, so...i haven't scrounged up the courage to do that yet, but maybe one of these days!!

🐀 Name three reasons why this WIP is great at being insert genre here.

i think blood of the covenant, water of the womb is great at being a buddy comedy because heheheh nah, i HOPE blood of the covenant, water of the womb is good at being a horror series because

most of the horror isn't coming from the monsters at all, but just the deeply, deeply troubled family foundation and subsequent idea of morality they're working with, which i think is kind of the real horror of the quarry if i'm being honest

there really aren't any "good guys," or at least not traditional ones; just those who have a vague idea of what they're up against and those who most certainly DON'T

so much of these stories is inspired by my own family, and like. this BETTER be halfway decent horror, okay, because please let me get SOMETHING out of what these people have been putting me through lately 🤣🤣🤣

random wip asks!

[scoundrels-in-love]

20 Question Fic Writer Game

Thank you for @needle-noggins for tagging me! Using my limited energy right now to respond, because otherwise I never will, oops.

How many works do you have on AO3? 65. One of them is a collection of prompts with 14 different chapters so, technically, 78 fics total.

What is your AO3 word count? 169,932. Nice. (Almost half of them are written in last 7 months for Trigun.)

What fandoms do you write for? Currently, only Trigun, but there are chances I might drop a fic or two in JJK fandom for Chosoyuki and then disappear. I would also like to finish some WIPs for Braime from GOT, but I don't know if my brain will let me. Never say never, though.

What are your top five fics by kudos? What can I give that is all for you? These arms are all I have (But I hold you like I do love you) (396, Trigun, Mashwood) Everything about you is on the tip of my tongue (312, Trigun, Mashwood, my first finished proper multichapter and explicit monsterfucking) You hold me for a little (Curtains closed to the end of the world) (260, Trigun, Mashwood) If I'm gonna (lose) love someone, (don't) let it be you (258, GOT, Braime) this fucking fic that took me a week instead of day or two to write, ENJOY FUCKERS (or don't, I'm not a cop) (234, Trigun, Mashwood, Explicit monsterfucking) Really fascinating to see how much kudos my Trigun fics used to get when I now often only get 30-50 at best. But, alas. Such is the ups and downs of fandom and I hope it's not reflection of my writing quality vaning as well.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, I do. When I first started using to AO3, a writer I admired had the stance that it inflates the comment number and is 'cheating' when it comes to the statistics, but I realized that, at least for me, comments aren't any parameters I search fics by and also I really wanted to feel community and connect with my readers and writers, so I wholly threw myself in responding later on.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Oh, that's a good question. Several WIPs come to mind, but as for actual published ones... I suppose Before you leave, Remember I was with you (You must know you are beloved) could count because it follows canon ending of the Rogue One which means all of the characters die. But it is more of a bittersweet one. In similar vein, If this is communication, I disconnect (I need you, you want me, but I don't know how to connect) I think You taught me the courage of stars before you left (How light carries on endlessly even after death) overall might win, because it ends on open wound of grief, though it is also canonical death.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I don't think there is a singular one that is more happy than others. There are so many shades and nuances of happiness, who am I to judge which one is the most valid, the biggest?

Do you get hate on fics? I once joked in author notes that maybe the fic did contain traces of early polyam if you squint and someone was very upset about it, though in text it was just close mutual friendship and some teasing and only the tagged main couple was openly romantically involved. I've gotten some weird comments overall through the years, but thankfully nothing more hateful than that.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Much to my own horror, yes, I do now. And apparently mostly the monsterfucking kind. I don't know what else might be meant by 'kind'.

Do you write crossovers? No, that's not something that really comes to my mind. I am too engrossed in exploring every nook and cranny of the canon and characters that are my focus at the time.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not fic, as far as I know, but I have had my poetry and RP stories and plots stolen by people I trusted, such as my teacher and close friends at the time.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No, but I've had one podficced!

Have you ever cowritten a fic before? No, but I'd really like to give it a try, I and @bienchanter have a lovely Rancher/Western Mashwood AU we'd like to cowrite, we just can't quite figure how to go about it. I've also had the pleasure of having them write a companion piece to my fic (theirs and mine) and had the joy of writing companion pieces to @needle-noggins and @frappeflamingo stories.

What's your all-time favourite ship? I am a person who cannot pick just one. I'd say some of the most Rainy defining ones have been Han x Leia, Braime and Mashwood.

What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will? So, so many Braime ones. Especially the ones that are multichapter for fic exchanges. Their recipients deserve better.

What are your writing strengths? Emotions, evocative descriptions.

What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else. Okay, okay, before I get bonked from every direction - I struggle with dialogues and action descriptions and easily get overwhelmed when tackling larger, tightly packed plot.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I think it is perfectly valid and even good for characters that would actually mix the languages naturally. I've definitely thrown in some Brazilian words for my Wolfwood, for this reason.

First fandom you wrote for? The Labyrinth on ff.net in 2008 or about there.

Favourite fic you've ever written? I don't have a singular favorite, there is something that I love, something unique that makes me appreciate it in almost all of my bigger stories, even if it's just a joke that was made in conversations with my friends.

Whew, this was long, but fun. Tagging @bienchanter @it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined @firesign23 @sdwolfpup @chickiefoo and @tardisready as well as anyone else who might just want to. But no pressure to, on anyone.

[mlobsters]

supernatural s1e10 asylum (w. richard hatem)

(this is a rewatch, so spoilers abound)

search up, as my kids would say, what to do when your fixation takes a left turn. spn is definitely still my main thing, but i also just completely lost interest in trying to watch it again. i thought having the project of doing my little writeups for the eps i hadn't done would carry me along, like it did through the episodes/season i struggled with, but alas. not so much

lot of the little xfiles sound effect being used in this teaser bit with the cops searching the building. ps i've learned a lot about the history of abuse against disabled folks including the history of them being placed in institutions like this from imani barbarin (crutches and spice) and current disability advocacy etc; give her a follow.

dude that's a sweet little car, wonder if that's someone on the cast/crew's. in a different life i would have been down to mod my car too (i have a little 2006 black acura rsx that i love dearly)

the coloring and darkness i can't tell if that drip out of the ghostly possessed cop is blood or the black goo lol

such a pretty shot i love it and it's got that @dappermouth gothic americana vibe in spades and i kinda wanna paint it somehow. juxtaposed with the most bland boring font in the title screen lol

DEAN Caleb hasn't heard from him? SAM Nope. And neither has Jefferson or Pastor Jim. What about the journal? Anything leads in there?

thanks for the links to the characters from the transcript, wiki! trying to pay attention to what all the boys know about other hunters etc. also kind of creepy note in the caleb wiki entry: According to Jo's Journal, Jo was forced by her mother to refer to Caleb as "Uncle Caleb."

SAM After all that happened back in Kansas, I mean...he should've been there, Dean. You said so yourself. You tried to call him and...nothing. DEAN I know! (He rummages through his duffel) Where the hell is my cellphone? SAM You know, he could be dead for all we know. DEAN Don't say that! He's not dead! He's – he's... SAM He's what? He's hiding? He's busy?

the sass on the "he's busy?" made me laugh out loud

SAM (snorts) This is a job... Dad wants us to work a job. DEAN Well, maybe we'll meet up with him? Maybe he's there? SAM Maybe he's not? I mean, he could be sending us there, by ourselves, to hunt this thing. DEAN Who cares! If he wants us there, it's good enough for me! SAM This doesn't strike you as weird? The texting? The coordinates? DEAN Sam! Dad's tellin' us to go somewhere, we're goin'.

(little crispy R on weird)

SAM makes a bitchface and sighs.

okay transcriber 😂 dean's so relieved to get some orders

psst dean i think you're supposed to act at least a little mad or somethin after getting thrown around by fake-mad sam

i was trying to find a gif of dean spider monkey'ing over the chainlink fence but instead ended up in the tags of a gifset of that scene with sam shoving dean and apparently some people read this as dean was hurt (emotionally) by sam being too rough with him because he's mad about other stuff? which is 100% not what i got from his reaction. if that's what he was going for, i did not pick it up

DEAN Shoved me kinda hard in there, buddy boy.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i'd expect a "look" to be like, wtf bro? not kind of... dazed and almost smiling

well. i can't find a gif of what i was looking for and i am reminded of why i don't search for spn stuff across the site vs just a blog that i know rb's lots of gifsets. i think that's enough for tonight

i just made the gifs instead 🧍‍♂️🤸‍♂️🧍‍♂️

also realizing why watching these first season episodes is especially exhausting, there's so much backstory and and character establishing going on that i have Thoughts about damned near every scene when they're talking, so it's just a lot of me prattling on and on. it's like a book report for every episode. because if i'm gonna talk about the episode, i'm gonna Talk About the Episode.

DEAN Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel. SAM Dude, enough. DEAN I'm serious. You gotta be careful, all right? Ghosts are attracted to that whole ESP thing you got going on. SAM I told you, it's not ESP! I just have strange vibes sometimes. Weird dreams. DEAN Yeah, whatever. Don't ask, don't tell.

a) you see dead people too, dean b) ->

Pride Program offers personal perspective on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ era

By Stefanie Hauck DLA Land and Maritime Public Affairs

When Jason Guthrie was in the Navy, he thrived for the first time in his life, garnering many accolades, challenging assignments and promotions. But one moment brought his upward trajectory to a screeching halt, resulting in his discharge in 1996 after four years of service. Guthrie, who served during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era, spoke about his experiences as a gay man trying to find his way in an unaccepting world, during the 2024 Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month program June 5 at the DLA Land and Maritime Operations Center Auditorium on Defense Supply Center Columbus. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” stipulated that gay service members were not required to disclose their sexual orientation, but could still be dishonorably discharged if they were discovered to be gay.  Thousands of service members – including Guthrie - were drummed out of the service under the law until its repeal in late 2010.

... His early interactions with other closeted gay military members around him, eventually led to his acceptance that he was gay at a time when “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the new law of the land. Guthrie said at the time it all seemed so straight forward. “You don’t ask me, I don’t tell you,” he said about the law. “It seemed to make perfect sense to me but many of my fellow closeted service members did not agree with that compromise. So, we all did the best we could to live our lives and pursue our military careers.” He focused on his work and was determined to be the best sailor that he could be. And by keeping social distractions to a minimum, he thrived in his early Navy career being promoted often and receiving many awards while working in strategy and policy for the chief of Naval Operations at the the Pentagon. ... After a tour in Bahrain, where he worked as an awards writer for the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, he arrived at his last duty station in 1996 at a low point after ending his first serious relationship prior to rotating back to the United States. “I was in the U.S. military and in the closet,” he said, “I knew I would need to transfer again, and he would not be able to join me.” What would be his last assignment was challenging for him in many ways. He had a roommate again after living independently for a while, and the people he worked with resented his rapid rise in rank and his previous ‘cushy’ assignments. “I was in a low mental state and had a hard time connecting with people,” he said.  This is where he said he made the biggest mistake of his military life by inviting someone into his room while his roommate was away at work. He thought it would be OK to do so because his roommate who was a flight mechanic was on a different shift. However, his roommate did show up while he had that individual in his room. “That’s when I heard a sound I’ll never forget. A key entering the door lock,” Guthrie said. His roommate did not say a word, went about his business and left while Guthrie and the individual were hiding under the bed covers. “I went to work the next day thanking God I dodged that bullet,” he said, “But my relief was soon replaced with fear when I was called into the command master chief’s office a few days later.” That conversation revolved around working out the issue with his roommate, but the impasse was so great it was reported to the unit’s legal office, resulting in several rounds of questioning until Guthrie admitted that there was another man in his room and that he was gay.   The next four months were torturous for Guthrie, while he went through the process of getting discharged from the Navy.

i was gonna include some history of DADT but i think this story is more important. the policy only ended in 2011. i know don't ask don't tell was a common punchline for many years, i'm the same age as them, i get it. i also think it's gross. it's that casual homophobia of the time period where people are sort of more openly chill about queer people theoretically, but they're still a joke. and the joke here i guess is sam's psychic stuff is freaking dean out and he doesn't want to hear it? but he's the one that brought it up. whatever, man.

(wikipedia) After the policy was introduced in 1993, the military discharged over 13,000 troops from the military under DADT.[111][231][232] ... In September 2021, on the 10th anniversary of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, President Joe Biden announced that the Veterans Administration would start providing benefits for service members who received other-than-honorable discharges (before DADT was enacted and while it was in effect) because of their sexual orientation.[215]

anyway. sigh.

DEAN Hey Sam, who do you think is the hotter psychic: Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt, or you? SAM pushes DEAN, who laughs.

so we gotta round it out with a little bit of calling sam a girl, of course. people call this flirting, i call it teasing with sort of a rotten core of a joke. i have a tag for it, as i go through the rewatch - the more overt (to me) things about masculinity/gender policing in the show. i think i miss some of that stuff. hey fellas, is it girly to have psychic powers

DEAN Man. Electro-shock. Lobotomies. They did some twisted stuff to these people. Kinda like my man Jack in Cuckoo's Nest. (makes crazy eyes and grins at SAM)

at least his impression bombed :p (my mental check: jack nicholson is the actor, jack nicklaus is the golfer; showing my age, natch)

i don't mean to pick on dean. just unfortunately the writers saddled him with most of the ~problematic~ lines. this is another case where i tend to zoom out and blame the writing and mentally keep it a little separated from the character. which isn't fair but it allows me to continue liking him :p and i'll even give that okay, so he was more homophobic as a character at this age in this time period and he grew past it. which he did, mostly. but then they'll have something like the 8x23 thing and then i squarely blame the writers (and honestly probably jackles too) and keep it separate from dean entirely because it's inconsistent to him at that point and nonsensical.

woof. shut up, bro.

SAM Dean. When are we going to talk about it? DEAN Talk about what? SAM About the fact Dad's not here. DEAN Oh. I see. How ’bout...never. SAM I'm being serious, man. He sent us here... DEAN So am I, Sam. Look, he sent us here, he obviously wants us here. We'll pick up the search later. SAM It doesn't matter what he wants. DEAN See. That attitude? Right there? That is why I always get the extra cookie. SAM Dad could be in trouble, we should be looking for him. We deserve some answers, Dean. I mean, this is our family we're talking about. DEAN I understand that, Sam, but he's given us an order. SAM So what, we gotta always follow Dad's orders? DEAN Of course we do.

i know you'll come around, dean, but let that simmer for a second. that's fucked up.

laughing at the idea that you could get a same day/next day appointment with a psychiatrist even in 2005

not in his usual little sneakers. kinda look like hush puppies or the like. but then his boots were slip ons too, once he moved to those. and jared still wears some of his old spn boots lol, mentioned at a con recently

huh! another actual brand. men's health magazine and that looks like.. damon from tvd? on the cover? oh, funny, it's seann william scott (the only way i dredged that one up after finding a picture was thinking he might have been with kutcher in dude, where's my car? [he was])

our generation (myself included) loves a long sleeve under short sleeve shirt

ELLICOTT You. Now I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you all about the Roosevelt riot, if you tell me something honest about yourself. Like, uh, this brother you're road tripping with. How do you feel about him? DEAN Dude! You were in there forever. What the hell were you talking about?

to be a fly on that wall. that said, i have faith in sam's abilities to bullshit well enough that doctor man buys his story. or maybe he took the opportunity to rant consequence-free, who knows!

hey sammy's got the camcorder out at the hospital, like they used in bloody mary? i thought that was a one and done (they may have used it since and i didn't notice/think about it too)

SAM This place is orbing like crazy.

IT'S ORBIN' TIME! haha also apparently only mentioned in this episode. but it did get a wiki entry because it was in the official website definition thing

KAT And Dean? He's your boss? SAM No.

partners, baby

brooke nevin / sydney sweeney

she reminds me of sydney sweeney a bit. pretty, blonde hair, with big eyes and similarly shaped mouth. apparently brooke nevin was one of the kids in the animorphs tv show? i didn't read those books, they were after my time. i got one or two for my kids but my oldest was very meh so i haven't gotten any others

nicholas d'agosto / tom welling in smallville

and the boy (nicholas d'agosto) who i, for whatever reason, think he looks like smallville version clark kent in this episode (having literally never watched smallville and only seen commercials) was harvey dent in the gotham tv show. which i also didn't watch! i don't watch many things. LOL which i conflated with the show misha was on. gotham... knights? haha. oh, and misha was harvey dent. that's even funnier

KAT My dad took me skeet shooting a couple times.

girl, me too! and my brother worked at the trap and skeet range in high school in az. iirc he was working in the little house that launches the clay targets

DEAN Yeah. They were rioting against Dr. Ellicott. Dr. Feelgood was working on some sort of, like, extreme rage therapy. He thought that if he could get his patients to vent their anger then they would be cured of it. Instead it only made them worse and worse and angrier and angrier. So I'm thinking, what if his spirit is doing the same thing? To the cop? To the kids in the seventies, making them so angry they become homicidal.... Come on, we gotta find his bones and torch ’em.

okay, i had forgotten this was the explanation to why sam says what he says in a minute. 📝

so i guess it was just drippy nose blood from the cop at the start, since it's not possession it's.... whatever brain zappy mind meld the evil doctor ghost man did. gotta have some indicator that sammy's under the influence too

DEAN We gotta burn Ellicott's bones and all this will be over, and you'll be back to normal. SAM I am normal. I'm just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here? ’Cause you're following Dad's orders like a good little solider? Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval? DEAN This isn't you talking, Sam. SAM That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you. DEAN So what are you gonna do, huh? Are you gonna kill me? SAM You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago. DEAN Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. Take it!! DEAN You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it! DEAN Man, I'm not going to give you a loaded pistol!

just thinking about how the premise is basically taking existing anger and ramping it up to the nth degree, and what the implications are of that in this. we know sam is independent and doesn't like being told what to do (relatable), and is very frustrated with dean's willingness to follow dad's orders instead of defying them in a more concentrated effort to track him down. playing dad's game of him sending them on hunts through the most ridiculous methods possible. i'd be pretty damned frustrated too. and i also understand, but have a harder time relating to, where dean's coming from. he was raised in a way that he understood from a way too young age that following orders was a matter of life or death, and that he had to keep sam safe, he had the burden and responsibility laid on his little kid shoulders. i can only imagine how hard it would be to break away from that lifetime of conditioning.

so that said, just thinking about how dean would reconcile this. trying to think about it without considering what we know about how dean feels and what he's worried about later, and just what we know at this point. but it's hard to think about it without considering the conversation in 1x16 where he lets his guard down and pretty much begs sam to stay with him and dad instead of going back to school when it's all over. in the pilot, he says he can't do it alone - which sam says yes he can - but dean says he doesn't want to. so we know he missed sam and wants them to be a family and partners. but at this point sam still is scrabbling for normalcy and independence and for this to be a short term situation.

so i guess my question to myself is, do i think this planted more seeds of doubt for dean that sam doesn't care about him the same way dean does. but we've got 1x12 faith coming up soon, which should tell dean something about sam's commitment to him. not enough to soothe his concerns, obviously, and even if sam's ready to trade someone else's life for dean's without a moment of concern, he still doesn't want to stay hunting long term with dean at that point. tough situation. when staying with your person means also having to do this horrible life-risking job with virtually no option for settling down, having a family, stability, safety and comfort.

(at which point i think about how they do eventually get most of that, but then dean dies and sam has to go on without him for so long and i get incredibly sad again. when the happy ending makes you cry every time you think about it for more than 5 seconds... i've gotten a lot out of fixating on this show but occasionally i wish i hadn't)

gives him a pat and apologizes for knocking him out

dean boot update: still not the logger boots

and for inexplicable reasons, evil doctor ghost man turns into a statue and breaks apart on the floor when his bones are burned lol as opposed to the standard ghost burning up sitch

crawled over to take refuge/(literally) protect sam's ass from crumbling ghost statue haha

SAM I'm sorry, man. I said some awful things back there. DEAN You remember all that? SAM Yeah. It's like I couldn't control it. But I didn't mean it, any of it. DEAN You didn't, huh? SAM No, of course not. Do we need to talk about this? DEAN No. I'm not really in the sharing and caring kinda mood. I just wanna get some sleep.

i mean, yes, you need to talk about it. and it kind of breaks my heart. dean is a mess. he only has had two points of stability in life, and sam left for 4 years and then john ghosted him. so he's twisting in the wind, trying to hold on to sam who is looking to leave as soon as possible, and the uncertainty of what's going to happen with john... it's just all so miserable.

so for the second time we get sam on the brink of freaking out over the nonsense of the no contact/cryptic contact from john and then john comes through with something. a message before, a phone call now. iirc jdm too was frustrated over what an ass he was being dodging the kids constantly

Throughout the season, Morgan became frustrated at times due to his character's avoidance of his sons, stating, "It pissed off everybody, it pissed off us as actors, it pissed off the audience watching, because none of us really knew where we were gonna go." However, he reasoned that John's motivation for his actions was due to having knowledge that nobody else had.[25]

you'd think i was getting paid by the letter to write these damned things. good grief.

[forabeatofadrum]

What’s poppin’ LGBTs! Happy “we should totally stab Caesar day!” to all who celebrate, but most importantly happy 12 year anniversary to Kurt and Blaine 😌.

Back due to popular demand (jk?): more thesis talk! As promised, I discussed with my thesis supervisor whether or not I can share my thesis and the answer is yes! I, of course, didn’t mention to her that I am currently sharing my thesis through snippets on my fanfiction Tumblr blog, but alas, wat niet weet wat niet deert. But once I have the finished version (hopefully end June, for pride month, how appropriate!) I can send it to people if I want to. It will still be in Dutch but again ask me in 4 months what to do for my international audience (so weird to say about a thesis).

But yeah to celebrate the news 🥳, have some more of the thesis, aka my WIP for the next couple of months. On Sunday we talked about possible reasons why there are more queer men than women in media (I also added a third reason: Bury Your Gays). I described how heteroflexibility complicates what constitutes as queer representation, since women who have relations with other women aren’t always portrayed as queer, but there’s also a flip side to this:

In Russo's (2014) article on queer female fandom, a distinction is also made between subtext and maintext. The subtext consists of homoerotic elements and the discourse surrounding it. Maintext is the explicit queer representation. The boundary between subtext and main text is not always clear (Russo, 2014). Queer female fandom consists largely of queer women and these queer interpretations stem from a combination of personal and political wishes (Russo, 2014, 2017). This makes the questions surrounding the representation of queer women more complex. Heteroflexibility ensures that not all women who enter into relationships with other women are queer (Annati & Ramsey, 2022; DeCeuninck & Dhoest, 2016; Diamond, 2005; Jackson & Gilbertson, 2009), but on the other hand, queer subtext ensures that that “straight” women are perceived as queer and sometimes fans are more enthusiastic about those characters than explicit representation (Ng & Russo, 2017). Often these "straight" women are also seen as queer representation (McNicholas Smith, 2020a). This shows that queer representation is more complex than previously thought. 

(Dutch under the cut, together with the tags, for the few Dutchies who might prefer to read it in Dutch, since academics can be a bitch.)

Yes, this is technically about Faberry. Literally every paper on this phenomenon I’ve read mentions Faberry and a ship from Xena: Warrior Princess. It’s an interesting thing, because is a character like Quinn Fabray queer? (Fun fact, she also falls underneath the whole heteroflexibility mess after I Do.) I mean, I once had to write a paper on representation in Glee and it hurt me to call her straight (@blurglesmurfklaine remember the “Quinn is straight. Fans disagreed.” line?), but on the other hand it is questionable when straight characters sometimes get more love and recognition than actual on-screen canon representation. I also love pissing off straight people by claiming that Zuko is gay, but Korra is right there, amirite? I didn’t want to add too much text here in this post, but I did give a historical reasoning behind this phenomenon. This is just another interesting thing in a list of interesting things.

And now, the weather: @quizasvivamos​ @blurglesmurfklaine​ @coffeegleek​ @esperantoauthor​ @otherworldsivelivedin​ @caramelcoffeeaddict​ @sillyunicorn​ @bazzybelle​ @dragoneggos​ @raenestee​ @tectonicduck​ @nightimedreamersworld​ @urban-sith​ @thnxforknowingme​ @captain-aralias​ @you-remind-me-of-the-babe​ @takitalks​ @justgleekout​ @cerriddwenluna​ @tea-brigade​ @ivelovedhimthroughworse​ @moodandmist​ @whogaveyoupermission​ @bookish-bogwitch​ @confused-bi-queer​ @aroace-genderfluid-sheep​ @ionlydrinkhotwater​ @1908jmd​ @special-bc-ur-part-of-it​ @larkral​ @chen-chen-chen-again-chen​​ @cutestkilla​​ @nausikaaa​​/@wellbelesbian​​ @artsyunderstudy​​ @martsonmars​​ @facewithoutheart​​ @shrekgogurt​ @boyinjeans​

[rinseesims]

Okay so I’m now obsessed with your ultimate decade’s challenge and really wanna try it myself! Drop the mods folder, seriously I love how immersive your sims world is. Also any advice for getting started and staying motivated?

I'm sorry this response is so late, but thank you so much! All the mods I used to start out are listed on my pinned. If you see a specific mod that you like and can't find in my tags, feel free to ask, and I'll pull it up next time I'm in-game.

Also, I think my biggest piece of advice is, just do what makes YOU happy and go with the flow.

When it comes to mechanics like setting up a save, try not to stress yourself out. I honestly just started with an empty save, made the the Rolfe parents and gave them three kids to start off. I downloaded a few builds from the gallery, like a bathhouse, tavern, castle, etc. and looked for a few medieval families as well, but I didn't fill up the neighborhood because I knew I'd just be working from the ground up. You also don't HAVE to have a castle and royal family - I just really wanted to try out the Royalty mod! You can also make your own builds and families, but I generally don't have the patience, lmao! There are people who like to make sure their saves are 100000% ready to start like aesthetics, accurate builds, etc, and that's fine and amazing! I'm just a little less patient with setup and decided to take things as they came and focus on the main family gameplay over the aesthetics (because I'm lazy).

When it comes to legacy challenges, most have a formula for you to follow and it can get easy to get stuck in the routine of it. I love challenges because they give me a good to-do list and keep me invested in the game, but I really like to sort of come up with reasons as to why my sims do certain things so that I'm invested in the story as well. The Ultimate Decades Challenge differs from other challenges in that, it doesn't really have a specific formula like aspirations and goals. The death rolls make things interesting, and so do the events, but these can take several sim days and therefore, there's the risk of losing interest because you're just waiting for your sim to age up or have babies.

I think the best way to tackle this challenge is to come up with a story and figure out what your sims' motives are. This never has to be immediate. I kind of figure out the bare bones stuff and decide on things as they happen and build up the story from there (I wasn't planning on having Aemma meet Cassian, but alas, it happened, and we had a whole THING based on that dynamic). Sometimes the sims themselves do something wild and I'll take that and run with it (i.e. Aemma getting attacked by the tax guy). I didn't intend on making Cassian such a jerk, but since he was acting up right after marrying Joan, I said oh well! My goal has always been to just have my heirs and get through each year, but everything just falls into place, because if I tried to plan every step, then I'd stress myself out!

Historical accuracy is a big part of what makes this challenge so different from modern gameplay, but don't feel tethered to it. The Sims has limitations and there's only so much cc and mods can do. I didn't expect to have a supernatural storyline in mine, but when I saw an opportunity for it, I just said screw it, and that's pretty much my motto when I play UDC. I prefer to stick to the rules of the challenge as far as the doc is concerned, and I love history so I do like to listen to podcasts and videos for research, but the rest is really up to what makes gameplay convenient and fun for me. I don't feel compelled to stress over every single inaccuracy present in my game (and there are many) because then I won't really have fun with it. Some people hate that, and some people don't mind, but it's your game at the end of the day.

The SPREADSHEET is a lifesaver. I'm all over the place and need things visually laid out for me, so I actually have a lot of fun (weird) updating the spreadsheet. It's also how I keep up with this growing family, since I usually refer to what comes next visually to figure out what I'm going to focus on in the next episode. I've also updated/added stuff to that spreadsheet that works best for me, and I know other UDC simmers have done the same with their own.

Finally, give yourself a little grace. I can't speak on motivation because I go through bouts where I lack it, and I used to kick myself whenever I wasn't able to fulfill a goal. I ended up on a five month hiatus for MANY reasons, but it had nothing to do with my love for the game. If it wasn't for all the outside factors, I think I would have still been very motivated to continue my usual schedule, but even if I wasn't, that's okay. I work a stressful job that takes a lot out of me and sometimes I just don't want to record or do much of anything, but I knew I'd get back to it eventually, and I know there are people who understand that.

I hope this helps! And I hope you are having fun with this challenge if you've already started it!!

[zhuzhudushu]

你好! I read your post about choosing a Chinese name and I have a question if that's ok. So, I'm named after a noun. Specifically, a religious concept from a religion that my family didn't practice, my parents heard it and thought it sounded cool. Could I use the hanzi for this concept as my given name or is that a cultural no-no? It sounds nothing like my legal given name. Also, is there a website with common Chinese given names and the connotations they have (like Edith and Doris being considered old lady names, etc.) 谢谢！

What an interesting question!

Honestly, in my experience with Chinese people, they would not care about cultural connotations other than what imagery/meaning it has. Even with my closest friends (who I have deeper conversations with) they don't really seem to have a concept of cultural appropriation the way we do here in the west, and if you told the story you just told me—that your parents like the sound and the meaning and chose it, I think most Chinese people would say "oh neat!"

When it comes to Chinese names, a lot of the times people have stories for how they got their names. Sometimes it's a deep, meaningful thing, like specific nature imagery, or what their parents hoped their children would achieve (hence how you get a guy named 成功 which is literally success, which is very extra even to Chinese people lmao) and sometimes it's just "my parents thought it sounded nice." Either way I think a Chinese person would appreciate it. A direct translation of your actual name is a fine way to go about choosing a Chinese name.

Without knowing the actual religious or cultural connotation/symbolism of your name, I can't say it I would think it's offensive or not. And without knowing the Chinese character, I can't say if it would be Weird to use in a name or not!

As for if there is a resource for whether or not a name is old-fashioned, I wish there was one! But alas, I know of none.

I know of some, just from experiencing Chinese culture and tv and my friends, like how 杰 (jié) was super common for boys' names in the 70s-80s and isn't used much anymore, or how 雯 (wén) and 佳 (jiā) and 琪 (qí) were common for girls' names in the 90s-00s (hence why I used one in my name).

The only advice I have for that is going on Tandem (or other language exchange apps) and running it by native speakers!

Also there is this site, which allows you to type character-combos and you can see if it's been used in a Real Name before.

And if anyone knows of more resources, please respond! I'll put this in the main langblr tags in case anyone knows of any resources <3

You're also welcome to join my discord here, where we have a whole channel dedicated to discussing names!

Hope this helps!

~朱朱