#why have I gotten into a new fandom that's nearly 10 years old?

[icepixie]

I suddenly need the Mentalist/due South crossover where Patrick Jane and Benton Fraser sniff corpses, lick evidence, and spin wild plans to solve a crime. (All of it not competitively, not competitively at all, of course, solving a crime is not a competition even though they both absolutely need to win with every fiber of their beings.)

I feel like Jane would treat Fraser a little like Lisbon, in that he would delight in tweaking Fraser's lawfulness. (And I can just see him sourcing a Mountie costume and showing up in it one day...) And Fraser would be all polite polite polite polite polite pol--oh, thank goodness he's gone. After managing to do one grand outfoxing of Jane at the end, anyway, in what is absolutely not revenge for the teasing.

I'm torn on whether Jane would be able to read Fraser like a book or if he'd be stumped. I'm also not sure if Lisbon and pick-your-Ray would enjoy commiserating or become very defensive of the eccentrics they babysit.

[aristocratic-otter]

20 questions for fic writers!

Thank you @artsyunderstudy for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

28, though one was a round robin where I only wrote one of the chapters.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

838, 380. Subtracting Birthday Man (the round robin fic), I've written, by myself, 799, 248. I'm not surprised. I'm not good at brevity. (And I have over a hundred thousand words in unpublished fics right now 😅)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Only Carry On, though I've made a habit of sticking Simon and Baz into fandom loves of my youth.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Oh, Have You Seen The Fairies Dance, my CORB from two years ago, writing to art by @krisrix. 562 Kudos

Playing With Fire, Treading Thin Ice, my pinch-hit CORB, also from two years ago (I sense a trend), writing to art by @steppjes. 453 kudos

Back To Start, my Simon youthens Baz into a baby fic, 447 kudos

A Fucked Up Cinderella Story, a Simon as escort fic, and my first collaboration with my dear friend (and a brilliant artist), @frjsti. 339 kudos.

A Real Doll, my first real PWP (ok, it sort of has a plot) (a very thin one), written for @captain-aralias's Monster Under the Bed Fest, 331 kudos.

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

Yes! It means a lot to me to hear how folk enjoyed my work, and I appreciate how much effort it takes to reach out sometimes, so I want to show my appreciation. I should be better at commenting myself!

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

Readers nearly burned me at the stake over my ending to The Blue and The Gray, where Simon rides away with his Union troop, leaving Baz behind at his plantation home. Even the 'happy ending' epilogue I wrote, to get them back together, is bittersweet, because Simon is damaged from the war and it will be a long road to recovery (or at least the length of the Oregon Trail 😉) (If you know, you know).

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

I only do happy endings, but, like Ashton, I tend towards angst a lot of the time. So I think that my most meaningful happy ending is in New Year, New Me, which takes Simon and Baz literal to the end, of their long lives together (with a gorgeous song written by @moodandmist and @cutestkilla!)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet! I've gotten a few corrections, which I honestly don't mind. I'd rather be corrected than leave a glaring error in a fic. I agree with Ashton, this is an incredibly kind fandom.

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

Uh <looks side to side shiftily> yes? Like, a lot? It's funny, because I'm ace, but I find all the ways humans can relate to one another through sex fascinating, even if I don't need those things for myself. I'd say I write mostly bonding through sex? Occasional fucking just 'cause it's fun, but mostly soulful, loving sex.

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

Not crossovers precisely, (I don't mix in characters from other fandoms) but I'm extremely guilty of throwing SnowBaz into any story, show, or movie I've loved and putting them through their paces:

The Watford Games: Simon and Baz in a Hunger Games Scenario

The White Chapel: Simon replacing Olivia Newton John in the movie Xanadu

The Snow Fox: (unfinished) Simon as the Francis Marion Character in the old Disney TV show, the Swamp Fox.

Episode 2: The Naked Next, (gift fic for @raenestee) (I blame this one on @facewithoutheart), Simon and Baz in the Star Trek Universe.

and, Stars, Flowers, and Children, an unpublished (part done) fic set in the universe of the movie the Blue Lagoon, and To Heal a Broken Mind, an unpublished (nearly finished) fic set in a scenario similar to the TV show House MD.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Fingers crossed, but no, I don't think so. Probably hard to pass off a seventy thousand word fic as your own that you just popped up with out of nowhere.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

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

Only the round robin fic, Birthday Man, where each of several fic writers wrote a chapter for Simon's birthday celebration, and the Star Trek Universe fic, The Naked Next (linked above). But I'd definitely give co-writer credit to many of the fandom artists I've worked with, because their work either inspired my words, or they even helped guide the evolution of the fic in the background. I especially have to give credit to @krisrix, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @frjsti, and @artsyunderstudy for being brilliant at helping me flesh out the fics they did art for!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Gee. Bet you can't guess.

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

This is a tough one because I've (so far) never not finished a fic I've committed to (I've got a few paragraphs of a few random ideas in my files, but nothing I ever advertised or put much effort into). But I'm also perpetually in the middle of at least five or six fics, so leaving one dangling remains possible, even if I desperately hope it won't happen. I guess I'll mention Westward Son here, because though it ought to be finished in the next couple of weeks, it took me two fucking years to get there!

16. What are your writing strengths?

I don't get writer's block. I think my habit of fic jumping helps with this; if one fic is dragging, I can spend more time on another until words start to flow for the first one again. I do force myself to write at least a sentence every couple of days, even on the draggy fics, though. I think I'm decent at characterization? Especially Simon, because I identify with his way of thinking a lot. I also think I'm decent at giving the reader a strong visual of what's going on in a scene (hopefully).

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot and tech. I can write plot, but not snappy, quickly resolved ones. For me to find my way to the end of a plot usually takes several thousand words. And that's a weakness, not being able to write short. I don't know how to be interesting in small bites, I guess. And tech: I'm intimidated by incorporating modern tech like social media, etc. in my fics. I always feel like I can't format it correctly or make it look/sound realistic enough, so I tend to avoid fic ideas that are tech based, like text fics or social media fics. Aaaaand now I'm writing a fic based in Tiktok, a platform I do NOT know well. Pray for me.

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

I've done it once (in The Blue and The Gray), but I'm nervous about it. I think I'm afraid of misinterpreting a connotation of a word or phrase. I researched extensively for the Spanish lullaby in The Blue and the Gray, and even the Greek and Latin phrases in Back to Start and The Watford Games. I don't mind it in fics, so long as the meaning isn't integral to the scene (like using French swears in a fic set in French Canada) (@bazzybelle, I'm looking at you!). If the meaning is integral, I tend to prefer the translations be not far away (like at the end of the fic), but rather just a few lines down (like at the end of a chapter), because it's frustrating having to jump back and forth to get meaning from what I'm reading.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

CSI, on fanfic.net. But I only wrote one fic. Don't look for it. I didn't have this username and I'm not interested in reliving that part of my life 😆

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I think it will always be Back to Start (linked above). I still love the premise and it was the first fic that made me feel like a real writer. You don't forget that feeling. It's my baby.

How about, instead of tagging folk, you consider yourself tagged if you're one of the many people I mentioned above? 😂

[ireallysawanangel]

2022 Writing Self Evaluation

i was tagged by @louistomlionson and @alwaysxlarrie tysm! i wanted to do this but no one was tagging me dafhdsajk so thank you!

1. Number of stories posted to AO3 this year: 7!

2. Word count posted for the year: 197,000 🙃 what???

3. Fandoms I wrote for: one direction

4. Pairings: larry the only pairing i write

5. Story with the most: i'm not surprised that mistletoe's for two is first place for all of these fdahjdsa

Kudos: 384

Bookmarks: 203

Comments: 525 i realize half of these are my own since i reply to every comment, but still the most comments I've gotten on any fic ever

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):  it's a toss up between mistletoe's for two and to have touched the sun bc both are something that i had never done before and i'm so proud of how they turned out and they were so much fun to write

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why): oh definitely one minute old i hate everything about it fdshajfh

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received: literally every single comment i got on my advent fic 🥰 (well except for the two that probably didn't mean to be rude but they definitely came off that way fhdsajfsj) everyone was so nice and encouraging and it just warmed my little heart so so much

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: writing is hard for me literally every single time i do it sfhdjaskf

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: probably the entirety of my abo fic i was really pleased with how those characters came out

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: i am too self-conscious to post anything i write on here fdskjs and it'd be far too hard to pick a favorite

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: i guess i branched out a bit and wrote things i had never tried before

13. How do you hope to grow next year: don't know if i will tbh

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): no one. i write completely alone. not by choice just bc i don't have friends ghjsk

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: i don't think so

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: write what you want to write, if it makes you happy and you enjoy writing it that's what really matters. don't stress yourself out and take breaks!

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: i want to write more for my marcel series. it doesn't do nearly as well as my other fics, but i just love those characters so much and i want to expand on their story a bit. i already have a few ideas for them, but if i will actually go through with it and write it is still up in the air.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read. i don't have anyone to tag bc i don't have any writer friends and I'm sure everyone has already done this anyway ☺️

[snowdice]

Little Kestrel (Part 51) [Birds of Different Feathers Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan & Patton & Virgil (future Virgil/Patton but not in this story)

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton, Virgil

Appear: Thomas

Mentioned: Janus

Summary:

It was supposed to be a quick job either way. Either Virgil would assassinate King Thomas of Prijaznia or he’d be caught and get executed. Yet, when Virgil gets the wrong bedroom and gets caught by Prince Logan and his future royal advisor, Patton, the job ends up getting way more complicated for the 14-year-old. He also ends up sleeping in a (actually pretty comfortable) closet for a few weeks…

Notes: Implied/referenced child abuse, assassination attempt, knives, torture mentioned, captivity, teenagers being really dumb, sexual coercion of minors implied, a minor offering sexual favors

This is a prequel to Kill Dear. I wrote it 100 words at a time on my blog, but this is the edited version. If you want to see how it was crafted (and possibly some future content), look at the tag proofread stories.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50

“I see you wore out Patton,” Logan said to Virgil. Patton glared at him from where he’d collapsed on Logan’s bedroom floor.

Logan had been accosted as soon as he’d gotten out of a meeting earlier in the day by Patton and Virgil as, apparently, they’d slipped up in front of Mr. Deknis. Luckily, the conversation had not been nearly as dire as they’d feared.

True, most people in Prijaznia wouldn’t question the rights of multrums anymore, but racism was still prevalent in some smaller pockets near the kingdom’s boarders. It was easy enough to explain that Virgil was from an area where prejudice against multrums was prevalent (not a lie) and that Patton, with his sensibilities would panic not wanting Mr. Deknis to realize Virgil’s internalized prejudices and would take him away to explain (also not a lie).

It had been easy enough to provide this explanation to Mr. Deknis and for the man to accept Virgil’s apology for his accidental offensiveness. There’d been a bit of lingering suspicion from the gardener, but nothing that wouldn’t fade with time.

They’d fled back to Logan’s room after that to get a chance to breathe away from adult supervision which is when Patton had dramatically fallen to the floor in exaggerated agony.

Patton had become Virgil’s newest victim of training. He currently had bruises and scrapes from attempting to scale the wall of the dovecote. When Virgil hadn’t been able to get him up that way, they’d taken an alternate route which explained the feathers and… other unpleasant messes now stuck to both of them. That’s why Patton was on the floor and not the furniture.

“Patton has a lot to work on,” Virgil said gravely. His eyes flickered to Logan, “but at least he’s willing to work on it.”

Logan shot him a tight-lipped glare. “Go take a shower, Virgil,” he said. “You’re dirty.”

Virgil stuck his tongue out at him in response but did turn and disappear into the next room to take a show.

“And what about you?” Logan asked the figure on the floor. “Are you going to go shower?”

There was a long pause. “I’ a min’te,” he yawned, not opening his eyes.

“Whatever you want,” Logan said. Though, he did sacrifice one pillow from his bed, making Patton lift his head so Logan could slip the pillow under it.

He sat on his bed with a book while waiting for Virgil to get out of the shower. He was pretty sure Patton had fallen asleep on the floor by the time the door to the bathroom opened once again. Virgil was in one of the sweaters Logan had given him when he’d first come here despite now having new fitted clothes of his own for every occasion. It still hung off his frame a bit, but not as much as it once had. He yawned softly, a sweater paw coming up to cover his mouth.

“Tired from your long day of being a menace?” Logan asked idly.

Virgil stopped mid yawn to glare at him.

Logan just smiled back and patted the bed next to him. Virgil seemed to forgive him for his teasing easily enough. He came to sit next to Logan on the bed, curling his legs underneath him.

Logan glanced down at the boy on the floor. “Patton, you can go take a shower in my bathroom if you don’t want to go all the way downstairs.”

There was no response.

Logan tsked. “What have you done to him?” Logan asked Virgil. He used to think Patton was the energetic one.

“He’s fine,” Virgil claimed.

“He’s filthy and unconscious on the floor,” Logan argued back.

Virgil just shrugged and leaned over to rest his chin on Logan’s shoulder. Clearly, he was a bit tired as well even if he wasn’t as much as Patton. “What are you reading?” he asked.

“Just starting a new book on code breaking,” Logan said.

Virgil hummed, but his fingers twitched on his lap a bit.

“Did you need something?” Logan asked.

“When you’re done reading that, could you help me read something?”

“Of course,” Logan said. “I’m at a stopping point, so we can do it now if you wish.”

Virgil nodded and went scrambling over the bed. Logan flinched as he was jostled from his position by the movement.

He opened a drawer in the nightstand that Logan had emptied out from him a while back. It’s where he kept the first protection charm he’d made when not carrying it and a picture Patton had drawn him once. He was also, apparently, keeping a book there.

He plopped said book down on Logan’s lap. It was a book about different species of orchids.

“Mr. Deknis gave me this book and I think I’ve narrowed it down to a few flowers I like by the pictures, but most of the words are really hard in this book,” he explained. “Could you read a few passages to me.”

“Of course,” Logan replied, taking the book from him. The book was on the larger size, though not nearly as large as many books Logan read and was covered with hand-drawn flowers, in particular, orchids. There were small pieces of colorful paper sticking out of the top, marking certain pages. “Are these indicating the pages you’d like me to read to you?” Logan asked.

Virgil nodded, moving closer to once again settle his chin on Logan’s shoulder. He peered down at the book in Logan’s lap intently.

Logan smiled softly as he cracked open the book to the first marked page.

Virgil listened with rapt attention as Logan went through the description of the flowers on each page. Each of the flowers had a short blurb about them along with a table that explained things like how much water and shade each needed. There were 6 flowers in total marked, and Virgil did not interrupt Logan once as he read through them.

Logan glanced at Virgil as he finished reading the last bit of text and Virgil reached out to take the book back. Logan closed it and handed it to him.

Virgil frowned down at the book in contemplation for a long moment.

Then, he opened the book to the fourth marked page. “I like this one,” he said, looking up at Logan, seemingly for approval.

Logan nodded. “It’s very nice, Virgil.”

“How do you say the name again?” he asked.

“Zygopetalum maculatum,” Logan told him.

Virgil’s eyes squinted a bit, and he didn’t attempt to say it. He just nodded.

“We can practice pronouncing it if you’d like,” Logan offered.

He nodded sheepishly and closed the book. “Maybe tomorrow,” he suggested as he stashed the book back in his drawer and curled up on his side of the bed.

“Tired?” Logan asked.

Virgil closed his eyes and nodded, cheek scraping over his pillow.

“Want me to read more of Into the Mist?” Logan asked.

Virgil nodded again, and Logan reached over to the nightstand, his hand passing over the code book he’d been reading earlier to the novel he was reading with Virgil.

Logan didn’t even get a full chapter in until Virgil was softly snoring. They’d probably have to read everything again with Virgil more awake next time.

Eventually, he managed to poke Patton awake long enough for him to rinse off in Logan’s shower, but not enough for him to retire to his own bedroom. Instead, he flopped onto the foot of the bed and promptly fell unconscious again. Logan’s bed was crowded that night.

Want to read more? Click below!

Birds of Different Feathers Master Post

My Masterpost

[sortasirius]

what makes you think the writers want deancas? not trying to be an asshole, i'm just genuinely curious as to why you think that. i know berens' episodes are pretty heavy with subtext so i can see why you'd say that he wants it, but i'm not so sure about the rest of the writers/dabb. it seems like meghan isn't a huge fan either, given her "they twisted it so fast" tweet :/ of course she's a very new writer (think she's only writing one ep this season?) but still

OKAY this is a great question, welcome to my dissertation.

I’m going to address the end of your question first. Meghan is actually DeanCas positive, she has been for quite a long time. She actually, a few years back, posted a picture of her reading a literal book about Destiel and captioned it “writing reading” or something like that.

This whole thing just comes out of a boiling over of tensions because of how nasty fandom twitter can be. Like I said here, I think this has just gotten blown out of proportion, they shouldn’t have posted all this randomly disparaging stuff, but also like...can you blame them? The fandom is a lot, we always have been, and they’re probably also under a gag order not to talk about the finale, and are annoyed that people keep asking.

So nah, Meg is not anti Destiel.

To the first part!! So let’s take a look at the show runners since Cas has been around.

Seasons 4 and 5: Kripke

Seasons 6 and 7: Gamble

Seasons 8-11ish: Carver

Seasons 11ish-15: Dabb

So starting with Kripke. Okay, yes, I will be the first to admit that we have some pretty incredible Destiel moments in these seasons, but it’s less directly written into the plot and much more from Misha and Jensen’s uhhhh ~chemistry~. The only times it was directly written into the script was when the episode was handled by someone like Edlund (“On The Head Of A Pin,” “The End,” “My Bloody Valentine”). And you have to remember, if in season 5, there are moments here and there where you’re like huh that’s suspiciously romantic dialogue, remember that Cas took Anna’s place. Anna was supposed to be endgame for Dean, but due to a myriad of issues and Misha’s general greatness, Anna was replaced with Cas.

Onto 6 and 7. Hmmm. Gamble. 6 and 7 are my two least favorite seasons and that’s no secret, and that’s not only due to the plain old weird shit in the overall storyline, but also that homegirl killed off Cas in s7 and then Bobby like four episodes later. (Also it ALWAYS rubbed me the wrong way they couldn’t have Baby in that season lol). We still had some great DeanCas moments, but again, it wasn’t really written into the overall arc (until they had to change the end of season 7 because of tanking ratings and bring Misha back lol, anyone remember the fact that Dean kept Cas’ jacket and would randomly dream of him? Yeah.). But we still had those moments, those distinctly romantic moments, probably the best example in these two seasons is from Edlund again, specifically “The Man Who Would be King,” I wrote a little about that here.

We move onto Carver, who gave us, at this point, the most overt DeanCas season with season 8 (season gr8 is a better name imo), and this is the first time Dean and Cas’ relationship is directly written as an arc of the season.  I mean, you have everything in Purgatory, Dean “seeing” Cas everywhere, the fact that he felt so guilty that Cas stayed in Purgatory that he manipulated his own memories to think that he was the one that failed Cas, because he couldn’t comprehend that Cas would want to leave him, and let’s not forget Dean snapping Cas out of Naomi’s hold on him in “Goodbye Stranger.”  It was a very obvious shift, not enough to alert the general audience, but more than enough for most of us in fandom.

It’s also important to note that this is when Andrew stopped co writing with Loflin and started writing his own episodes (”Hunter Heroici” anyone?)  I like Loflin fine, but Dabb was able to stretch his legs a little bit more once he stopped co-writing, and we also began to see some DeanCas themes in his solo episodes.

In any case, them and their issues being a big part of the seasons continued with Carver, and Berens entered the scene, his first episode (”Heaven Can’t Wait”) is one of my favorites, with human Cas and the fanfiction gap and Dean and Cas just generally being awkward and funny and sweet.  This is Bobo’s FIRST episode, remember that.  He comes right out of the gate with it.

Also in Season 9, this is when Dean takes the Mark of Cain, and the Cas/Colette mirror is born, so obviously, Dean and Cas are the fabric of the season once again.  This is also the season where Metatron says Cas is “in love with humanity,” and then immediately refers to Dean as Humanity so uhhhh yeah.

Onto season 10, Dabb and Berens continue with their greatness (I could write pages on the DeanCas date in “The Things We Left Behind” alone).  And then we have one of the best scenes in the entire show in “The Prisoner” where the Cas/Colette mirror continues and Dean, driven by grief and pain and rage and the Mark, still doesn’t kill Cas.  He still can’t kill Cas.

Season 11 is important because it takes choice away from both Cas and Dean, and shows us, as the audience, how much losing each other takes out of them. We saw in season 10 how much losing Dean takes from Cas, but what about Cas losing Dean?  Dean loses his choice with his connection to Amara this season, and loses even more when Lucifer reveals he’s been possessing Cas, and plays on Dean’s connection to Cas like a mockery.  It’s also worth noting that, similarly to season 8, Dean breaks out of the connection with Amara when he’s worried about Cas, and that’s something that even SHE is surprised by.

But then season 12, the beginning to the Renaissance.  This is when we get the writer’s that become important for what Dean and Cas are today, and, truly, why I believe they want canon Destiel as much as we do.

This is the first season with Dabb’s writers: Davy Perez, Meredith Glynn, Steve Yockey, and of course Bobo all come in with their incredible talents and gave us episode after episode of good content.  “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” is probably my favorite, probably the best example of what I’m saying.  An episode where Dean is called out by an enemy directly, told to “roll the dice” on Cas’ life.  And Dean won’t, it’s not even really a hesitation.  And this comes from a character that has known Dean for ten seconds.  I also wrote more in depth about this episode here.  There are also some.....distinctly domestic details we get this season, specifically in “The Future” (written by Berens and Glynn) with the mixtape.  The most tropey of tropes mixtape.  Yeah, I’ll just leave that one here.

And then season 12 ends with Cas’ death, but also with the parallel between Sam and Dean with Jess and Cas.  Sam literally has to drag Dean away from Cas, just like Dean had to drag Sam out of his burning apartment in the pilot.  The episode drives it home in every way that it can: Dean is the one left kneeling by Cas’ body, while Sam goes to find out what is upstairs.  Dean is the one who stares at the sky, finally broken.  This isn’t a random thing, this is Dean’s whole arc, it’s the entirety of the beginning of 13.  Dean’s pain, his anguish, his anger.

Season 13 starts with them burning Cas, with Dean, who has begged God to bring him back, who has split his knuckles punching a door, standing, staring at Cas’ pyre with brokenness on his face.

I mean.....

Anyway, season 13 is where it gets interesting (well, I think all of this is interesting but I’m a writer nerd so).  So Cas comes back from the Empty in “Advanced Thanatology” written by Steve Yockey, and then a wombo combo of “Tombstone” by Davy Perez next (”Brokebacknatural” as the PR said at the time).  Listen.  This is the part that SPN crossed a line that they couldn’t come back from.  With Cas being Dean’s “big win,” the fact that Dean and Cas watch movies together, “I told you, he’s an angry sleeper.  Like a bear.” Talked about it here.

This is where, in my opinion, the network stepped in, but the damage was already done.  They had already established that Cas was Dean’s big win, that Dean’s poor coping was not due to Mary’s disappearance, but solely due to Cas, and that Dean and Cas have more married energy than anyone else.  The network had nixed blatant canon at this point, and they writing room had been pushing the boundaries of what the network would allow. 

After these episodes, we see a marked drop off of DeanCas heavy scenes.  They’re still there, still a part of the fabric of the season, but not as...obvious as it had been in early season 13.

And this continued through season 14, we’re back to scraps of Destiel scenes here and there, but to me it always felt like there was something bubbling under the surface, something distinctly unsaid in the themes of the season, even after the walk back of obvious “Dean and Cas are in love” scenes.

And then we get to season 15, which, y’all know I talk about all the time.  What’s important here is that Bobo and Glynn are both executive producers, calling more of the shots than ever before.  Additionally, it’s important to note that, though they only co write occasionally, Glynn and Berens refer to each other as “work husband” and “work wife.”  Each episode has just turned up the volume, and, not for the first time, but certainly the most obvious, Dean and Cas ARE the season.  Sure, they’re trying to beat God, they’re trying to finally find peace, defeat the final big bad, but really?  This season has been about Dean, and Dean’s relationship to Cas.

And not only do we have obvious and clear Destiel in nearly every episode, but we have episodes like “Last Call” which canonize bi!Dean (wrote about that here).

And, maybe most importantly so far, we have “The Rupture,” the breakup, and “The Trap,” Dean’s confession (both written by Berens).  And here’s the thing.  These episodes feel connected, but also feel like they’re missing something.  Beren’s last episode is 15x18, “The Truth.”  We’ve all spec’ed about what could happen in this episode, and I think *I* know what it’s leading to.  But for it to be leading to that, it means that the network has to have approved what we’ve all been waiting for years for.

Who got this change to happen?  Who got the network to change their minds?  It wasn’t us.  It was them.  I am fully convinced that Dabb and Berens quite literally put their careers on the line for Dean and Cas.  They believe in them, they’ve shown that from the beginning, but the only thing standing in the way was the network, never allowing them to take the final step. 

So, to answer your question: I think the writers want canon DeanCas because they’ve already shown us that they do.  Take a look at their episodes, at Dabb’s, at Beren’s, at Glynn’s, at Perez’s, at Yockey’s.  They’ve been telling us what’s going on with Dean and Cas for years.

Sure, I’m not in their heads, I guess I don’t know for *sure* that this has been their thought process, but if we put it all together, from the marked shift when Dabb fully took over in s12, to the change right after “Tombstone,” to the new shift, the blatantly romantic shift in season 15, what else is there?

I’ve said for a long time that we, the SPN fandom, are beyond lucky to have the writer’s that we do.  They’re all going to go on to have prolific careers and we were lucky to get them at the end of our little show.  I give them a lot of credit for what we have in the show today.

Just remember, they’ve been telling us in all of s15 who Chuck is.  He says he’s the writer, right?  But a writer who doesn’t have control of his characters?  A writer who wants to do the same ending over and over because it “works”?  That doesn’t sound like a writer, it sounds like a network exec.

They’ve been showing us what they want for years, and the way s15 is going?  I think they may have convinced the network to let us have it.

[sineala]

The gay Invaders

Hi, internet! Today I'd like to talk about one of the chronologically-first canonically-gay couples in Marvel Comics history: Brian Falsworth (the second Union Jack) and Roger Aubrey (The Destroyer). (I mean "chronological" in terms of in-universe timeline rather than RL publication date; I'm pretty sure Northstar is still the first to publication as far as unambiguously-gay Marvel heroes go.)

If you are a fan of reading or writing about Captain America being queer, you should care about Brian and Roger, because they were two of Steve's fellow Invaders in the 1940s, meaning that they are two of the people on the list of Steve's Old Gay Friends And Teammates, because, yeah, Steve sure had a lot of canonically gay friends during the war. Probably more than you'd think he would have had in the forties! (The other two are Percival Pinkerton, who's part of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, and of course Steve's childhood friend Arnie Roth. Pinky is gay by word of Stan Lee, IIRC; Arnie was as canonically gay as DeMatteis could make him in the early 1980s, so they didn't say the word "gay" but it's really, really not subtle. Steve compares what Arnie feels for his "roommate" Michael to what Steve feels for his girlfriend Bernie. Yeah.)

I previously made a Tumblr post about Brian and Roger, rounding up some of the canonical evidence of their relationship, but that post is six years old now, and in the intervening years, Marvel has thoughtfully put the rest of the 70s Invaders run on Unlimited as well as the two Citizen V miniseries that star Roger and retcon his relationship with Brian as romantic. So I've read them now, and I've got panels.

Okay. I should probably begin by saying that Brian and Roger are not canonically gay in their first significant appearance together, which is in Invaders vol 1 #19 and #20, published in 1977. Roy Thomas does not seem to have intended them to be a couple, and they aren't canonically one in any of the original Invaders run. However, if you enjoy gay subtext, it's very nice.

This whole arc is the one that introduces Roger in modern canon. He's been brainwashed by the Nazis and the Invaders rescue him and get him back to his normal self. But in #19 we get his backstory in flashback, as related by Montgomery, Lord Falsworth (Brian's father; yes, MCU fans, the name should look familiar) and it turns out that Roger and Brian were basically best friends since childhood:

They were the dearest of friends!

Anyway, they both ended up captured by Nazis, they presumably changed their minds about appeasement as a policy, Brian got out and joined the Invaders, then they had to rescue the brainwashed Roger, and it's a fair amount of fun in a two-issue arc.

The subtext is even more prominent in Invaders #34, in which they find out that someone going by the Destroyer (which is Roger's codename) has been doing villainous deeds, and the Invaders worry that Roger's gotten himself brainwashed again. Brian immediately insists that it can't really be Roger because he knows Roger and Roger Would Never:

Unsurprisingly, Brian is right. It's not really Roger; Master Man is impersonating the Destroyer, and the villains have taken Roger captive, and the Invaders break him out and there is an extremely significant moment where it just so happens that Roger has to catch Brian, saving his life for a change, and they stare deeply into each other's eyes and Brian seems to be having difficulty finishing his sentences:

Some people who read this therefore concluded that Brian and Roger were extremely gay for each other. While ordinarily this sort of shipping is mostly confined to fandom, in this particular instance, one of the people who started shipping Brian/Roger was Fabian Nicieza, and Fabian Nicieza, as you probably know, writes comics for Marvel. I think you see where this is going.

However, first I must inform you that, sadly, Brian has been canonically dead for years. Captain America vol 1 #253-254 -- the two-parter about Baron Blood in the Stern/Byrne Cap run in the 80s -- establishes that Brian died in a car accident in 1953. (This is also the run where Joseph Chapman -- a friend of Jacqueline Falsworth's son Kenneth -- becomes the third (and current) Union Jack.)

(Roger then appears in a bunch of T-Bolts issues; I assume there's nothing interesting there on the gay front because I feel like someone would have told me. I should probably read more than three T-Bolts issues someday.)

So, anyway, in 2001, Fabian Nicieza wrote a miniseries called Citizen V and the V-Battalion. Roger, who is still superheroing as the Destroyer despite being pretty old by this point, is part of the titular V-Battalion, and he has a very prominent role in this miniseries. And in #1, we have the usual splash page of character backstory, and there's a very, um, interesting line there:

Regarding Brian and Roger's relationship, the narration informs us: "It sounds much gayer than it probably was."

This is interesting, obviously for a couple of reasons. One is that, up to this point in canon, as far as I can tell, literally nobody thought any of this sounded the slightest bit gay at all. (Other than, I guess, Fabian Nicieza.) The other reason is that, as we soon find out, it actually was as gay as it sounds. Thanks, Fabian!

In 2002, Nicieza wrote a second miniseries, Citizen V and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting. Issue #1 opens with a flashback set in 1953; specifically, we see Brian's funeral:

Roger is extremely sad, and when Lord Falsworth expresses his sympathy about the death of Roger's "friend" and saying that he knows how much this hurts him, Roger mutters under his breath that he doesn't have the slightest clue:

All is revealed on the next page, when one of the other characters tries to ask Roger about superhero business and Roger snaps at him because, as he says, "I just watched my friend die in my arms."

Except "friend" isn't the word he starts to say:

Yep. That would be "lover." So Roger nearly outs himself. So, yes, now it's absolutely canon. Hooray.

Later on in the issue, which is set in the present day, we have a couple pages of Roger staring at pictures of the two of them and continuing to be sad:

Yeah. They were a couple.

So the question you -- being a Captain America fan -- might ask yourself is, okay, did/does Steve know about any of this? (The reason I started looking all this up was because I wanted to know if Steve knew.) I don't know if we have a panel of Roger specifically admitting any of this to Steve (and if we do, I would like to know about it), but I would be comfortable saying that Steve probably knew back then -- because, well, he seems like the kind of guy who would actually have been fine with it in the 40s, what with all his gay friends -- and also that I can't think of a reason why he wouldn't know now. Because he's definitely worked with Roger again in fairly recent comics, and also Roger is very much out, these days.

In fact, New Invaders #4 (2004) opens with Roger attending Pride:

So, yeah, he's out.

(Then he has to fight, as far as I can tell, homophobic Nazi vampires. They're yelling slurs in German. Great.)

In All-New Invaders #10, which is from 2014 (and which is not the same series as New Invaders), Roger shows up to help out the Invaders, and in passing, he just happens to mention to another character (Joseph Chapman, the current Union Jack), that he is in fact gay:

He and Joseph don't really like each other much; as far as I can tell, their acquaintance in New Invaders consists of Joseph being vaguely homophobic and Roger being bitter about him being Union Jack because he actually wanted to be Union Jack himself to honor Brian's memory -- you know, that thing superheroes sometimes like to do to honor their dead superhero significant others, viz. Hank when Jan was dead after Secret Invasion -- and now Union Jack is this annoying kid and not, y'know, the love of his life. This exchange from New Invaders #4 seems pretty representative of their relationship:

Anyway, yeah, he's pretty obviously out.

Steve isn't actually present for this conversation in All-New Invaders, but he mentions in a later issue of this run that he knows what Roger and his pals have been up to, plot-wise, so I feel comfortable assuming that he's talked to Roger at some point in the previous ten years or so, and therefore, since Roger is completely out at this point in canon, there's no reason Steve shouldn't know now.

On an unrelated note, it's also a fun issue if you're a Steve/Tony fan because this is clearly running in parallel with Hickman's Avengers run, which means that he spends half a page telling Namor that he's mad at him and the rest of the Illuminati (but mostly mad at Tony because... he's just obsessed with Tony in this run, I guess?) about the mindwipe:

This is the sum total of my knowledge about Brian and Roger. No, wait, I know one more thing, which is that Brian was a character in the late, lamented mobile game Avengers Academy, in which he was also actually gay; Roger does not seem to have been there. There's a CBR article that you can read about the whole thing, which mentions some of these details from the comics in passing. (I have no idea why it says that their relationship was alluded to in the Stern/Byrne run; unless I missed something big, the only thing those issues do is establish Brian's death. As far as I can tell, no one is gay in them.)

So, yeah, that's Brian Falsworth and Roger Aubrey, the two gay Invaders. Steve sure has a lot of gay friends.

[today-only-happens-once]

(un)claimed

Title: unclaimed

Summary: Virgil is a demigod. The good news is that he is not alone. A Percy-Jackson!AU fic. Platonic/found-family DRLAMP dynamics.

Word Count: 4217

Warnings: some violence and weapons, Greek mythology, passing mention of curses, feelings of anxiety, some self-doubt and self-deprecation, parent issues (of course, it’s a pjo!AU), no Side is a bad guy but there’s some tension between Remus and Roman, I play a little loose with PJO timeline stuff woops, Janus has done some light antagonizing of the gods.

A/N: Honestly, it should surprise nobody that I wrote this. Heh. Just for fun to release the happy chemical in my brain. Not that deep or involved. Just a light little diddy. <3 Hope you enjoy! Edited by yours truly so all mistakes are mine. No tags because it’s a fandom-specific AU, not because I don’t love y’all. <3 

///

“See that tree on the hill?”

Virgil quirks an eyebrow at the boy beside him, taking in his bright orange t-shirt and the three beads on his leather necklace. He has what Virgil would swear was snake scales across the left side of his face. Janus, he had said his name was. (Like the god? Virgil had asked. No relation. Not unless Athena has some explaining to do, the boy had told him with a wry smile as if that was somehow supposed to make sense.)

He’d met Janus four hours ago in New York in Central Park after a very weird encounter with a cyclops. Though if he’s being honest, the cyclops had only been the most recent run-in with vicious creatures out of his mother’s old Greek myth anthology. He’d been ducking and dodging and outrunning them for nearly a year at this point. Janus had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, sliced the cyclops with a dagger and it vanished in a puff of gold dust.

Then Janus told him he knew a safe place to go. Perhaps he was an idiot, but Virgil had followed without much objection. The idea of a place that was safe was nearly too good to be true, but Janus had just dusted a cyclops. And Virgil figured there was at least some power in numbers, if nothing else.

Virgil follows where the other boy is pointing and sees a tall pine tree at the top of the steep hill. He nods.

“Go there. You’ll see a camp in the valley. Chiron will explain.”

“Chiron?”

“Yes. Activities director. You can trust him.”

“You’re not coming too?” Virgil looks at the boy beside him again. Janus is looking in the opposite direction of the tree back the way they’d come and he yanks the dagger out of his belt.

Janus’s mouth twitches. “We’ve got company. I will hold them off. The border is protected. You’ll be safe once you cross the tree line.”  

Alarmed, Virgil looks over his shoulder and sees a winged creature in the distance. It looks almost a like a bat, if a bat could be the size of a human person. “What is that?!”

Janus gives a slight shove to Virgil’s shoulder. “Run, Virgil!”

“I can’t leave you behind—”

Janus mutters something that sounds foreign, and yet Virgil understands it. A curse word in… was that ancient Greek? Virgil isn’t given time to process it before Janus grabs Virgil’s arm and takes off at a sprint up the hill. Virgil stumbles but he manages to keep his feet under him as he takes off at a run for the looming pine. As they get closer, Virgil chances a glance over his shoulder. The winged creature is maybe twenty yards away. It’ll be on them any second.

Janus whistles sharply. “Hey! We got incoming!”

Seemingly out of nowhere, three other kids appear from near the tree. One of them notches an arrow in an honest-to-gods bow. He aims, then releases. Virgil watches, stunned, as the blow strikes true and the winged creature vanishes in a puff of gold dust that gets caught in the breeze.

Virgil rests his hands on his knees as he catches his breath. Janus, beside him, is breathing hard as well but he nods to the kid with the bow and arrow.

“Nice shot,” Virgil tells him.

The kid looks to be maybe a year older than Virgil, and is wearing a t-shirt that matches Janus’s. He’s also got a necklace of beads, though his has five of them. Virgil realizes that some of them match Janus’s, plus a few more. He slings the bow across his back and flashes Virgil a bright grin.

“Thanks! I’m Sloane.” He extends his hand.

“Virgil.” He shakes the kid’s hand.

Sloane nods to the other two kids that had materializes near him. One of them is a girl that looks a little younger than Virgil, maybe 14, with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. The other is a guy in a backwards baseball cap and a plaid shirt over the orange tee that looks about Sloane’s age. His necklace only has one bead on it.

“This is Valerie,” Sloane introduces. “She’s from Cabin 10. And this is Kai. He’s from Cabin 9.”

“Sloane,” Janus interrupts. “Where’s Chiron?”

Sloane jerks his head down the hill. “In the Big House with the lead counselors.”

Virgil watches Janus’s brow furrow. “Seems unusual. Did something happen?”

Valerie sighs. “Kind of. Dionysus gave one of his kids a quest. Counselors are meeting about the prophecy to see who is going.”

Janus’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Which one?”

“Jack. The prophecy mentions a death. That never bodes well, and kids aren’t exactly lining up to work for Mr. D.”

Janus hums thoughtfully, his eyes trailing over the crest of the hill. Virgil watches as he shoves the knife into his belt. Kai cocks his head slightly, studying Virgil closely. Then, he looks at Janus. “Has he been claimed?”

Virgil frowns. “Claimed?”

“No,” Janus tells Kai, then looks to Virgil. “Follow me. I’ll explain as we walk.”

Janus nods to the other three and Virgil follows him down to the valley below. From this vantage point, Virgil sees the cabins Janus has been talking about, forming something like a horseshoe shape. In front of it is a large building that Virgil assumes is the ‘Big House’ that Sloane had mentioned. He sees other buildings and structures, but decides to wait to ask about them.

People mill around, most of them wearing the orange t-shirt that has a winged horse and the words Camp Half-Blood printed on them. When they notice Virgil, most of them throw a curious glance to Janus. Janus doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Welcome to Camp Half-Blood,” Janus says as they walk. “It’s one of the few safe spaces left for demigods like us.”

“Wait,” Virgil says, certain that he heard Janus incorrectly. “Demigod?”

Janus glances at him. “Hm. I gather you really don’t know very much. Yes, demigod. Half-god, half-mortal.”

“And you think I’m one of these, uh, half-bloods?” Virgil shakes his head. “Listen, I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

Janus looks almost amused now, an eyebrow arching almost like a challenge. “You couldn’t have gotten across the border into camp if you weren’t. Let me guess… you have ADHD and dyslexia.”

“Wh—I mean, yes, but—”

“You were raised by either a single parent or no parent at all,” Janus continues.

“My mom, until—”

“You see things others either don’t see or don’t remember.”

“I—”

“Please. Do stop me if I’m wrong.”

Virgil falls silent, his chest a bit tight. He crosses his arms over his chest as they walk.

Janus waits for a beat before he elaborates, sounding like it’s a spiel he’s given a dozen times already. “The ADHD is the battle reflexes. Dyslexia is because your brain is wired for ancient Greek, not modern English.”

Virgil’s mind is reeling. “But—”

“The things you see are because you’re a demigod. You are able to see things as they are.  Mortals—most mortals—get deceived by this thing called the Mist. Someday, with training, you’ll be able to manipulate it as well. It’s a useful skill.”

Virgil feels suddenly way too hot, and yet still has the sudden desire to pull the hood of his hoodie up over his hair. “Demigod,” he repeats, though saying it aloud doesn’t help it make sense. “Are… Are you telling me that my dad is a god? Like a Greek god? Zeus? Apollo? Those guys?”

Janus glances at him and looks, for a split second, almost apologetic. “I understand that it’s a lot to take in at once. This is why Chiron usually takes the initiation. He usually has a more, ah, sensitive means of broaching the subject. But since he’s meeting with the lead counselors, I’m afraid the responsibility falls to me.”

Virgil blinks. He can feel the pressure in his chest building and he forces himself to take a breath. It doesn’t help as much as he’d been hoping it would. “Which one?”

“Hm?”

“Which god is my dad?”

They’re passing in front of the Big House now. There’s two people standing on the front porch—a blonde girl holding a Yankees cap and a boy with a goatee leaning against the railing—seeming deep in conversation. The blonde girl offers Janus a small wave. Janus nods back.

“To your question, the answer is that we don’t know,” he says. “Since you haven’t been claimed yet, your guess is as good as ours. But you might be claimed any minute now, or never claimed at all. I was claimed three days after arriving at camp by Athena. But we have several campers who haven’t been claimed at all. Remy Short is one such example.”

“Athena. Goddess of wisdom and strategy,” Virgil remembers. He’d read that name in his mother’s library when he was younger. And he has a vague memory from sixth grade social studies.

“Indeed,” Janus replies. They circle around the house and Virgil realizes that Janus is leading him towards the semi-circle of cabins. “Since you haven’t been claimed yet, you’re designated to Cabin 11. Hermes’ cabin.”

“Janus!” A bright, cheerful voice calls from behind them. Janus stops and turns, and Virgil follows his gaze. A boy that looks about Virgil’s age, maybe a year older, is running towards them from the Big House. He’s got a flop of curly hair and big round glasses.

“Patton,” Janus greets as the boy slows to a stop near them. “Virgil, this is Patton. He’s the head of the Hermes cabin.”

Patton grins and holds out his hand. “Hi, Virgil. Welcome to Cabin 11. I’ll talk to Chiron about getting you some supplies—”

“I’ll talk to Chiron,” Janus interrupts as Virgil shakes Patton’s hand. “I need to ask him about some things anyway. Patton, could you—”

“For sure,” Patton agrees readily. “I’ll show Virgil around!”

Janus excuses himself and starts towards the Big House. Virgil rubs the back of his neck and offers Patton an awkward smile.  Now that he’s closer, Virgil realizes that Patton is maybe an inch or so shorter than him. He’s got four beads on his necklace.  

“How ya doing?” Patton asks him, startling him out of his thoughts. Virgil meets his eyes. Patton’s are a warm brown, and his smile is sympathetic. “I remember my first day at camp. It’s always overwhelming.”

Virgil huffs. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“You’ll love it here,” Patton says with a surprising amount of confidence.

Virgil arcs a skeptical eyebrow. “I’ve heard that before. I don’t seem to, ah, stay in one place very long.”

“Kicked out of school?” Patton guesses. He starts walking around the cabins and Virgil follows, slipping his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.

“Yeah. Several times.”

“We all have,” Patton says, not unkindly. “That’s the best thing about camp. In the mortal world, we’re all labeled as weird or outcasts. But at camp? We’ve all been through it. Oh! This is Cabin 10. Aphrodite’s cabin.”

Patton walks Virgil around the semi-circle, explaining each cabin’s assigned deity. He adds that Cabins 1 through 3 are empty, though apparently there was a girl that used to be in Cabin 1—Zeus’s cabin—who joined the Hunters of Artemis and left camp. Cabin 2 was Hera’s, and since she didn’t have children, the cabin was mostly honorary. Cabin 3 usually had a kid in it, but he apparently was on some kind of recon mission and wouldn’t return for another day or two. Cabin 8—Aretmis’s cabin—is also, usually, empty except when the Hunters visit.

“Since you don’t know who your dad is, you get to bunk with us at the Hermes Cabin,” Patton explains. “We take all unclaimed kids, since Hermes is the god of travelers.”

“I thought he was the god of thieves,” Virgil says before he can think about it.

Patton smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, that too. If you’ve got anything important, maybe keep it with ya. Just in case. I try to dissuade stealing, but old habits die hard for some of these kiddos.”  

Patton leads him around the camp, pointing out the strawberry fields, the armory, and the forge that mostly gets used by the Hephaestus kids. A few of them wave at Patton, who eagerly waves back and calls a few of them by name. He shows Virgil the arena, where two kids are sparring. Patton takes a seat and Virgil sits beside him, watching the two boys circle each other.

Both of them are wearing matching orange t-shirts—Patton had told him that he’d be getting one too—and some armor. One of them has dark hair and square glasses. He’s got two knives, one in each hand, and even from a bit of distance Virgil can sees the slight sheen of sweat to his forehead. The other one’s hair is a couple of shades lighter. His sleeves are rolled up and he wields a sword and a shield.

“The one with the glasses is Logan,” Patton explains. “He’s a child of Athena. The other one is Roman. He’s a child of Apollo. I met both of them in Seattle before we made our way to camp together thanks to some help from a satyr.”

“All three of you have been claimed?” Virgil asks, watching as Roman charges at Logan who rolls out of the way and then nimbly jumps back up to his feet. He slashes at Roman’s back but Roman parries the blow with a well-timed flick of the sword.

“Not immediately,” Patton says. “Logan was claimed as soon as we got to camp, but it was a month or so for me. And Roman was nearly a year before Apollo claimed him during a campfire song. It certainly surprised a lot of people.”

“Why?”

“His brother was claimed by Ares three months before him, so most people thought Roman was Ares’ kid too.”

Virgil glances at Patton. “Roman has a brother?”

Patton’s mouth presses into a thin line for a moment, and Virgil gets the sense that it’s a touchy subject. “Yeah. Remus. It’s unusual for two kids of the same family to both be demigods, and the fact that their father are two different gods led to some… tension. Roman and Remus don’t exactly get along.”

Virgil nods his understanding and turns his attention back to the sparring pair. Roman blocks a quick slash from Logan with his shield and swipes at him with the sword, but Logan parries the blow with the other knife in his hands. Then in a series of quick movements—Virgil isn’t sure how it happens, exactly—Roman is flat on his back and Logan is on his chest with the knife to his throat.

Roman says something that Virgil can’t make out, and Logan says something in kind before he climbs off Roman and helps him up. Roman flashes a grin and shoves Logan’s shoulder before he glances past his sparring match and sees Patton and Virgil sitting on one of the benches.

Roman waves. “Heya, Padre!”

Logan glances over his shoulder and quirks an eyebrow at Virgil but stores his daggers as Roman jogs over. Patton stands and Virgil follows him down to meet Roman halfway.

“Hey, Roman,” Patton replies. “I didn’t know you started using a sword!”

Roman grabs a towel off a nearby bench and mops the sweat off his forehead. “It’s new. I’m still trying to get used to it. I think the balance is off.”

“The balance is fine,” Logan quips, stepping up beside him. “You just need more practice.”

Roman rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. “Either way, Specs. I’ll take archery any day over waving a sharp stick around.”

“You are definitely a son of Apollo,” Logan rejoins back without malice. “And it would be unwise to only be versed in ranged attack.”

“And you are definitely a son of Athena.”

“Correct.”

Virgil snorts, and then a part of him regrets it as Roman and Logan both look over at him. Virgil flushes slightly, uncomfortable with the sudden attention, but Patton seems to only perk up more.

“Oh! Sorry, this is Virgil. He’s a new camper. Janus ran into him on his way back and brought him along.”

“Which cabin?” Logan asks.

Virgil shrugs. “For now, Cabin 11, I guess.”

“Unclaimed, then.” Virgil listens for the judgement in Logan’s voice, but he doesn’t hear it. It sounds more like a flat statement of fact, as if reporting the weather. Logan nods once. “Very well.”

“I was just showing him around,” Patton supplies. “You guys wanna join?”

Logan starts shrugging out of the armor he’s wearing. “Regrettably, I said that I would assist Harley with some blueprints when I had finished sparring with Roman.”

Roman slides the sword into the scabbard at his side. “And I’m overdue for a Pegasus lesson. I can’t miss it again. The last thing I need is Mr. D giving me another earful.” Roman gives a quick two-finger salute and rushes out of the arena.

Virgil blinks at Patton. “Pegasus?”

Patton grins brightly. “Come on. I’ll show ya.”

…

Patton spends the rest of the afternoon showing Virgil around the camp. They go to the stables (where Roman offers to take Virgil for a ride but Virgil immediately declines because he’s never been a fan of flying). They swing by the beach on their way to the climbing wall. Virgil watches, amazed, as two kids climb with impressive speed and narrowly avoid the magma that starts to pour down it.

One of the kids has a Morningstar gripped between his teeth, a green bandana around his upper bicep and a matching one around his head. He’s fast, scaling the wall with a well-practiced ease. Virgil hears him laugh delightedly when his hand slips and he almost gets burned by the lava. It’s somehow both impressive and disconcerting.

“That would be Remus.”

“That’s Remus?” Virgil repeats, though when he looks a bit closer he sees the similarity in hair color and skin complexion. “I guess I see the resemblance.”

“Don’t tell Roman that,” Patton says lightly. “C’mon.”

They pass the amphitheater where, apparently, there would be a bonfire tonight. Patton shows him the volleyball court where four kids are playing one another. They wave at Patton as they pass.

“You seem popular,” Virgil supplies. He’s lost track of how many kids have waved at them as they walk around.

Patton lifts a shoulder modestly. “I dunno. Since Hermes is the catch-all cabin, a lot of camp knows me since they come to our cabin if they haven’t been claimed yet. Sometimes we get kids that get claimed right away, or kids that already have been claimed, but otherwise? I get to be their lead counselor for at least a little bit.”

“Sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

“I kind of like it,” Patton admits with a smile. “It’s like I’m everyone’s honorary camp dad.”

The conversation cuts out as dinner is called and they head to the mess hall. Patton explains the offering to the gods prior to the meal, and Virgil scrapes part of his plate into the fire. He doesn’t know what to ask for.

It’d be nice to have a family again, dad, he thinks, unsure of who he should even direct the comment to. Patton waves him over, offering a seat beside him.

Virgil chances a glance around the mess hall as they eat. The Hermes table is certainly the most crowded, though Virgil can’t say he finds that surprising. Athena’s table has several kids reading while eating. Two kids at the Ares table are in the middle of an arm-wrestling competition. One kid at the Hephaestus table is pouring over a blueprint, and Virgil wonders if that was the Harley kid that Logan had mentioned.

Towards the end of the meal, a few kids at the Apollo table starts singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it’s not long before most of their table is doing the entire song with harmony. Someone from the Demeter table tells them to ‘save it for the campfire’, but it does nothing to deter the Apollo kids. Virgil catches Roman laughing as he sings, one of his sibling’s arms slung around his shoulders.

Virgil glances over and sees Logan at the Athena table sitting next to Janus, watching the chaos unfold and the faintest quirk of his lips betray his amusement.

Virgil feels some of the tension in his chest relax just a little.

…

The bonfire starts around dusk. Virgil is making his way to the amphitheater from dropping supplies off at the cabin when Roman comes up from behind him and loops his arm through Virgil’s, chattering excitedly about how much he loved this part of camp. Virgil sees an ukulele case slung around his shoulder.

Logan appears a second later on the other side of Virgil, commenting dryly that the Apollo kids had done their vocal warm-ups during the dinner. This only served to lead Roman to do actual vocal warm-ups—trills and scales, specifically—as they walked. Patton and Janus were already sitting down, three rows back. Patton waves when he sees them file in. Remus is sitting beside Janus, seemingly trying to goad him into some kind of competition that he was having no interest in. The firelight glints of Janus’s scales.

“Hey,” Virgil says to Roman and Logan. “Can… I ask what happened to Janus?” He immediately regrets the question, cursing his lack of a filter, but neither of the other boys seem perturbed by the question.

“A curse from Aphrodite,” Logan answers. “Janus had gone on a quest for our mother, and it led to some… unsavory tension between himself and Aphrodite. From what he’s told me, he accused Ares of being a snake in the grass while in the presence of Aphrodite, and… well. The love goddess didn’t take kindly to that. But it’s purely cosmetic.”

Virgil arcs an eyebrow. “Remus seems chill with him.”

“I’m not sure that Remus is aware of the accusation Janus leveled at his father,” Logan muses. “And Janus is not one to hold the children accountable for the actions of their godly parent.”

“It doesn’t benefit him,” Roman adds in, using his free hand for air quotes. “Or something like that. Janus is all about himself and how he can improve his own standing.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Logan quips dryly.

Roman scoffs, but when Virgil looks at him, there’s a teasing glint to his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t going to say it, but you guys are half-brothers for a reason.”

Logan looks at Roman over the top of his glasses, but Roman just shoots him a cheeky smile as they approach the other three. Virgil slides into the seat beside Patton, followed by Logan and then Roman. There’s a few kids—Virgil isn’t sure what cabin they’re from—trying to lead a call-and-response chant as campers file in. Down the row, Remus enthusiastically calls out the responses at the top of his lungs.

“Roman!” A new voice calls out from the end of their row. A tall guy, a couple of years older than them, is holding a ukulele and jerking his head down towards the bonfire. “You ready to help me kick this thing off?”

Roman grins and jumps up. “Would be an honor, Thomas.” He rushes off and he and Thomas start playing a song together with practiced ease. He and the other Apollo kids start singing, and before long the vast majority of campers are joining in. A few of them, including Patton, sway a little. Virgil doesn’t sing, but he listens and tries to remember the words.

The sky grows dark. The Apollo kids eventually cede the floor to some Ares kids who start up another chant. More songs are sung, some snacks get passed around, and Virgil is starting to think that maybe, with time, he could get used to this.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Patton says beside him, as the next song starts. He drops something into Virgil’s lap. “I got this for ya.”

Virgil looks down. It’s two camp t-shirts. The black winged horse and the Camp Half-Blood print stares up at him. He looks over at Patton.

Patton just smiles. “Claimed or not, you’re one of us. We claim you.”

Virgil feels like maybe that’s good enough for him.

[elles-archives]

I posted 113 times in 2021

38 posts created (34%)

75 posts reblogged (66%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.0 posts.

I added 142 tags in 2021

#harry potter fandom - 23 posts

#harry potter - 17 posts

#chris evans - 17 posts

#chris evans characters - 15 posts

#george weasley - 13 posts

#draco malfoy - 13 posts

#steve rogers x reader - 12 posts

#bucky barnes - 11 posts

#steve rogers - 11 posts

#ellen recommends - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 89 characters

#tip- don't listen to taylor swift all too well sad girl edition while reading this lol :)

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

The One I've Been Missing

(Images From Pinterest)

Chris Evans x British Singer!Reader

Based on the Song ‘One I’ve Been Missing’ by Little Mix

Summary: Being a singer on tour, gives you a lot of time to think about the person you are missing a lot. Enough time to be inspired to write about him

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: Insinuation to sex, potential age gap (Chris’ specific age not mentioned.), slight angst, fluff. (I think that’s all.)

Lyrics in Red

*Four Weeks Before Christmas*

The tour was nearly over. Five and a half months, you had been travelling on your world tour for you new album. For six months you had been performing in large stadiums and parks. For six months you had worked with an amazing crew, helping to enhance the experience for you fans. For six months you had been away from Chris.

This was your first world tour, and it had been great. Seeing how many people supported and loved your music made you realise why you started making music in the first place. However, the time away had also been hard on you. Being a famous musician definitely had its benefits, but it also had it’s flaws.

Being away from your second home was one of them. When you were only eighteen you started playing your music in the street, hoping that the right person would hear it. After two years you got lucky, and someone who worked for a small music production company liked what you played. Soon after you had your first record out and even though it wasn’t huge as such, it caught the eye of an LA production company.

Once your contract ended, you moved to LA on your own with the mindset of ‘you could always go home.’ You started working on your first album in LA and it reached the UK top ten and the US top fifty.

Ten years later, you had six albums out and were on a world tour.

Not long before your fourth album came out you met Chris. He was at a LA party, one you had to be dragged to by your manager after spending too much time writing songs in the studio. Little did you know that you had caught Chris’ eye the minute you walked in. He bought you a drink and you ended the night rolling around in the sheets of his expensive hotel room.

Normally, that wasn’t your thing but there was something about Chris that you liked and knew he was different. Now four years later you two had moved in together and shared homes in both LA and Massachusetts.

Finishing on stage you thanked your fans and headed backstage again to where your manager was waiting.

“Y/N that was amazing!” He congratulated as soon as you walked into the green room. You smiled and gave him a hug before looking for your phone.

“Thank you Shaun. This has all been so amazing. I can’t believe that we only have two weeks left.” He smiled at you and agreed.

“I know. But I bet you can’t wait for it to end really, go back to Boston to spend Christmas with Chris?” Shaun teased.

“You’re right.” You grinned at him and at the thought of four weeks’ time.

Later that evening you were sat on your tour bus moving to the next location when you decided you were going to release the song you had written and recorded at the beginning of the tour. Missing Chris had really gotten to you and the song was perfect. You had some footage on of on tour and you had some old photos and videos of you and Chris.

You spoke to Shaun about it, and he agreed. You were going to release your new song ‘One I’ve Been Missing’ in two weeks.

*Two Weeks Before Christmas*

You had just finished your last show on your tour and at once called Chris.

“Hey baby.” You greeted. His face lit up when he saw your face.

“Hi Sweetheart. Just finished your last show?” He asked.

“Yeah. Chris I have a surprise for you.” You smiled at him. You had yet to tell him you had a new song coming out tonight let alone a song about him.

“Oh, what’s that then?” He asked, subtly excited.

See the full post

79 notes • Posted 2021-12-08 08:56:50 GMT

#4

The Secrets We Keep

Draco Malfoy x Female Reader

Fluff + Angst

836 Words

Summary: Being in love can be magical. But what if it can also cause you pain?

*Reader's POV*

Being a Muggleborn is hard. Especially when I am in love with a Pure-Blood. Me and Draco Malfoy have been dating since our third year. I was helping him recover from being 'attacked' by Buckbeak. Of course, I think he was being overdramatic, but I wasn't going to pass up on the opportunity to help my injured crush. We both confessed our feelings for each other shortly after.

Me and Draco decided to keep our relationship a secret. For me this was because being best friends with Harry Potter and dating someone he was convinced was the 'enemy' didn't mix well. For Draco it was because of his family. Where blood purity mattered. We decided it was best to keep it on the down low for now.

*Time Skip – Sixth Year*

I was walking through Hogsmeade when it happened. There was black smoke all around me one moment and the next me, Hermione, Harry and Ron were all standing in a darkly lit hall. We had Death Eaters surrounding us.

"Draco told us about you. Darling Y/N." One of them cackled. I recognised her as Bellatrix Lestrange. Draco's Aunt. "Well don't be shy. Come to us girl."

I stayed where I was. I dare not speak or move. Another Death Eater pushed me towards her. I turned around to see and very distraught Draco being restrained and the other three being dragged away.

"Shouldn't we kill Potter whilst we have him?" The Death Eater who pushed me spoke.

"Not yet. We shall wait for the Dark Lord's orders first." A voice spoke. He removed his mask and revealed himself as Lucius Malfoy. "First we need the girl."

I was thoroughly confused. Why did they want me?

"Now girl. Our Draco tells us that you are the one he loves. Is that true?" Bellatrix questioned. I merely nodded. I looked at the ground begging the tears not to fall.

"Pathetic. Loving a mere Mudblood such as you?" Another Death Eater questions. I can hear Draco screaming in the back.

"Take him out of here." Lucius shouted. Draco was dragged away kicking and yelling. "Now Bellatrix, if you will." Bellatrix walked towards me.

"Crucio."

*Draco's POV*

I could hear her screaming in pain. This was all my fault. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't join them because of her. She would never forgive. I never thought my own father would go this far.

"You can make all this stop Draco." My mother whispered to me. I had tears of fear streaming down my face. "You can prevent her from getting hurt. Join us. They will leave her alone if you join us." Her words, of comfort contrasts her intentions.

I shook my head. Y/N/N wouldn't want me to join him.

Fifteen minutes had passed but it felt like hours. I could hear her shrieking. I hadn't realised until this moment that I am in the same room as Harry, Hermione and Ron. Normally I couldn't stand them but right now with the love of my life in danger I needed them to help me.

Eventually Y/N's cries died down. I took this opportunity to think straight. I looked towards my mother and nodded my head. "I'll join you." She gave a small smile and allowed the Death Eaters to let us go.

I motioned for the other three to follow me as I went back into the main hall. I stopped in the doorway just as Bellatrix raised her wand at Y/N for a second round of torture. Y/N had blood all around her and she was laying barely conscious on the floor.

*Reader's POV*

I saw Bellatrix raise her wand again and braced myself. Instead of pain I hear shouting. I don't have the strength to find out where it was coming from before everything goes black.

*A Few Hours Later*

I woke up to bright lights. My first thought was I died. Then I felt something heavy on my hand and small whispers around me. I struggled to open my eyes, but I soon recognised the voices. Draco and my friends in the same room? Not arguing?

See the full post

81 notes • Posted 2021-11-22 14:06:23 GMT

#3

These are the Fics that I recommend and love for Chris Evans and his Characters. Divider by @firefly-graphics

Chris Evans:

Followed by @time-for-a-lullaby – Mafia!Chris Evans x Female Reader

Summary: Chris sends you out with your best friend to do a little shopping while he handles business. On the way home you notice you’re being followed.

Desperate Affairs by @georgiapeach30513 – Multiple Chris Evans Characters x Reader (Complete)

Series Summary: Engaged to Andy Barber, and deeming him too safe, and only wanting to be intimate to get you pregnant, you start a sex only relationship with Ransom Drysdale. Nothing is ever easy, and you get yourself into a web of lies. Are you the only one lying? (Includes NSFW)

First Man by @kiwisomething – Chris Evans x Daughter!Reader, Harry Styles x Popstar!Reader

Summary: You debut a song on stage at the AMAs.

Fading Spark by @alisonsfics – Chris Evans x Wife!Reader

Summary: Chris and the reader are slowly beginning to lose their spark in their relationship and become more distant as time goes on. (Includes NSFW)

Futile by @rocketrhap3000 – Chris Evans x Reader

Series Summary: You grew up next door to the Evans Family, but what you didn’t know is that reuniting with Chris after a few years would spark an unbelievable attraction towards him. (i.e. another typical age gap fic) (Includes NSFW)

Well Shit by @falcqns – Chris Evans x Reader

Request Summary: Chris and the reader had a stressful day so to calm down they have some much-needed alone time. Only one of their children walks in. (Includes NSFW)

What a Time… by @time-for-a-lullaby – Chris Evans x Actress!Reader

Summary: You and Chris dated for a few years during your time with the MCU. Sometimes things just don’t work out. You reunite at the Endgame premiere afterparty and spend the night reminiscing the good and the bad of your relationship.

Gentleman – by @lexiawrittings – Chris Evans x Reader

Summary: After an amazing and incredible one-night stand with the most handsome actor on the planet, you find yourself in a humiliating situation. Little did you know that Chris Evans is the kindest person ever. A grown man, who is a true gentleman. (Includes NSFW)

See the full post

108 notes • Posted 2021-11-20 18:38:48 GMT

#2

You Were Wrong

(Starts with..) Draco Malfoy x Reader, (Ends with..) George Weasley x Reader.

Angst to start with, Fluff. Set six years after the Battle of Hogwarts.

3158 Words

Summary: All you wanted was a child. The inability to have one tore your marriage apart. Thinking everything was your fault, you prepared to be alone. Until someone found you and told you that you were indeed not 'broken'.

Warnings: Infertility, divorce, arguments, mentions of mental health conditions, Pregnancy.

Y/C/N – Your Cousin's Name

(A/N: This is quite sad to start with but in the end everything works out for the reader. I can't say the same for the other characters but in life not everyone can be happy.

I had this idea as I was walking around after this happened to someone I know. They have given me permission to mention this. Sorry that there are so many time skips in this.

This is my own work. If any of this affects you feel free to leave me a message I don't judge.)

Tears streamed down my face as I stared at another negative pregnancy test. This is the latest of the many tests I had taken in the last few months. Me and my Husband Draco had been wanting children for as long as we had been married and for most of our engagement. With the pressure my mother-in-law had been putting on us to have children and my desperation to give my husband what he desires, my mental health had been getting worse. Every negative test is another step closer to a break down. I am starting to think that there is something wrong with me. Questions of whys surround my head. Why me? Why won't this happen for us? Why is there so much pressure?

Eventually I made my way out of the bathroom. Draco was on the bed looking at me hopefully. I just shook my head and looked down. I heard Draco sigh. The first few negative tests he would hug me and tell me we could try as many times as needed. That soon enough we would have a child. But as time went on, Draco got less and less affectionate. He would spend long hours away from the house during the day and then in the evening we would only be intimate when trying to conceive.

I was still head over heels for Draco. But I wasn't stupid. I could tell he didn't feel the same. Not anymore. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to face the fact that he was falling out of love with me. The woman who couldn't give him children.

Draco patted my shoulder as he walked past me, the negative pregnancy test in my hands. Before he walked out the room he turned and looked at me. There was nothing behind his eyes. He wasn't cold or void of emotion but there was nothing there aimed at me.

"I erm, I'm going out for a little while. Don't wait up." He spoke. I just nodded and let him go. Again, holding my tongue. Things weren't perfect between us but at least I had him. Right? Soon I drifted off to sleep not knowing where my husband was.

When I woke up he wasn't in bed. I walked downstairs to find him asleep on the couch. Why didn't he come to bed? I walked out of the front room into the kitchen. I started making breakfast for the both of us. Halfway through cooking I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around to see my husband behind me.

"Morning." I softly spoke.

"Yeah morning." He grunted back.

"Why did you sleep on the couch?" I asked him.

"Didn't wanna wake you." I could tell I wasn't going to get a straight answer out of him. We sat at the dining table for breakfast and Draco couldn't even look at me. As we continued to eat in a painful silence, I decided I had to speak up about what had been worrying me.

"Draco, are we okay?" I asked him.

"What do you mean."

"I mean you can't even look at me anymore. What happened to us?"

"Nothing." He said still not looking at me.

"Okay now tell me there is nothing wrong while looking at me. We aren't talking anymore."

"We are talking now."

I sighed and got up from the table. "I wish you would just tell me what's bothering you. We are meant to be married but it feels like you are a stranger now."

He didn't answer me.

"Is it because we are struggling to conceive?" I asked quietly. He didn't answer again but I could tell that's what it was. "I want kids as much as you Draco you can't shut me out this is happening to both of us."

"I know it is, but I can't help but resent you for it."

See the full post

121 notes • Posted 2021-12-07 22:46:25 GMT

#1

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Harry Potter:

I'll Protect You - Being Hermione's twin sister meant searching for Horcruxes with Harry, Ron and Hermione. However things don't always go to plan. At least Harry Potter is beside you.

See the full post

139 notes • Posted 2021-11-20 19:44:32 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[procrastinatorimagines]

I Want Us Part 5

Fandom: Chicago PD / SVU

Series: I Want Us

Part 1 //  Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8 // Part 9 // Part 10 (Final)

Pairing/s: Sonny Carisi x Intelligence!Reader

Warning/s: tw rape, murder, assault

Word Count: 1,623

Summary: The Intelligence Unit’s last case with Manhattan SVU had them flying out to New York to track down an abducted boy, and had Dectective Y/L/N and Detective Carisi growing close in the process. Now, a string of rape-murders in Chicago has SVU boarding the next flight out, believing the suspect to be the same man responsible for a set of identical crimes 10 years prior. As the case unfolds, Y/N and Carisi are brought back together, reigniting the spark between them.

As it turned out, it wasn’t too long at all. About six months after you’d closed your New York case, putting a child abductor behind bars where he belonged and reuniting a boy with his family, you received an urgent message from Voight requesting you all come in to the district. 

It was early on a Saturday morning following a few drinks at Molly’s the previous night, but it was so rare for Voight to call you in like this on your day off that you knew it had to be important. 

You were just multi-tasking getting dressed and downing an inordinate amount of caffeine when you got a phone call, ‘Detective Carisi’ flashing up on the screen as you paused, one leg in your trousers.

“Hey you,” you answered, putting the phone between your shoulder and ear so you could continue to get ready, curious about why he was calling. 

“Morning, sorry to call so early, but I figured you’d be awake,” he greeted, sounding like he was walking somewhere, the familiar sounds of traffic filling the background.

“Yeah I am, I’m about to head into work though, Voight’s wants us in for some reason, what’s up?” You informed him, looking around for your keys as you finished the last drops of your coffee.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, “Your Sergeant didn’t tell you? It’s why I’m calling actually, we’re coming to Chicago.” Now that did take you by surprise, Voight’s message hadn’t said anything about SVU, but you weren’t that surprised, it was Voight.

“Oh yeah? Know anything about the case?” You asked, your slight smile at the thought of seeing Carisi somewhat quashed by the fact that it meant something seriously bad was going on in your backyard. 

“A serial rapist that went dormant a few years back seems to have resurfaced in Chicago-” he explained, getting cut off by the sound of someone calling his name in the background, “Sorry, I’ve got to get to my flight, see you soon?”

“Yeah, let me know when you touch down. Oh, and Carisi?” You heard him pause, “this time you get to see what real pizza is supposed to taste like.”

He laughed on the other end of the line, “uh huh, we’ll see; bye Y/N.”

“Bye,” you hung up, a bit of a smile still on your face as you went about finishing up to leave your apartment. 

You and Carisi had kept in contact since you’d gotten back from New York. Nothing serious or anything, but you’d had a good time together and really seemed to connect on your short visit. The conversation had always felt natural, just chatting into the night for no other reason than just enjoying each other’s company. It was nice, whatever it was, and you were looking forward to seeing him in person again.

Throwing on your shoes and coat you headed out the door, making your way to the 21st. As much as you were looking forward to seeing Carisi, you had a job to do. 

-

You arrived at the 21st at the same time as Antonio, catching up to him on the steps as you entered. “Know what we’re doing here on this glorious Saturday morning?” He asked, gesturing to the brilliant sunshine and cloudless sky. 

Antonio had been planning a weekend with his kids, he’d been talking about it all week, and you felt a pang of guilt for not remembering until now. You might not have had plans, or much of an actual life, but that didn’t mean the rest of the unit, your partner especially, hadn’t had to drop a lot to come in today.

“Only that it’s important, SVU’s on their way,” you filling him in on what Carisi had told you as you waved good morning to a desk Sergeant you didn’t recognise. At least Trudy still got the weekend, you thought to yourself, but then even Hank Voight wouldn’t risk her fury at being asked to come in on a Saturday morning. 

The pointed look Antonio gave you had you rolling your eyes, but he was the only one who knew that you still kept in touch with Carisi, though the rest of them had given you hell the second you’d boarded that plane home from New York.

You buzzed the both of you in upstairs, not the first to arrive but not the last either as Jay, Hailey and Kim milled about the bullpen, helping Voight set up the board with your new case. 

“Need a hand?” Antonio asked after morning greetings were made, examining what was up on the board so far. You joined him after throwing your jacket over the back of your desk chair, picking up with folder Voight had left on your desk. Everyone had one laid out for them, so you flicked through it as the others spoke.

“Nah we’ve pretty much got it all set up, this is a pretty thin case considering, well, everything about it,” Jay answered, following his eyes to where he glanced at the board, a row of 9 young women, nearly identical in their pale skin, blonde hair, and delicate features. 

“Christ,” you muttered, looking from their images on the board to the crime scene photos in the file in your hand. All the women looked like porcelain dolls, their hair and make up immaculate, and all of them were dressed in different ball gowns, their hands laid over their chests with a single rose inclosed. 

“Not the start to the weekend you expected huh?” Kim commented grimly as Voight emerged from his office, two photographs, the rest of the unit filling in up the stairs.

“I think Jessica Connors would agree,” Voight answered, drawing the attention of the room as you greeted the others, sticking up two more photographs next to the other 9, who must have been the New York victims. 

The next two women looked nearly identical to the others, flicking to the back of the file to find their reports as Voight spoke. “She was found late last night, same M.O as the rest,” he told you all, pointing to the second photograph he’d stuck up. “This is Lily Hamilton, found the same way a week ago. The connection between the victims was made last night and a further connection was made with these other 9 women, all matching the M.O to the letter, including aspects not released to the press, and all coming from New York 10 years ago.”

“Special Victims?” Kevin asked, earning a nod from Voight.

“Captain Benson, Detective Carisi and Officer Tamin are already on their way,” he replied, “this is going to be a big case, the press is already picking up on the story, and the Commissioner thought it would be best if we took it given our history of working successfully with New York’s Special Victims Unit.” 

Your mind went instantly to Carisi but you shut him out, now wasn’t the time to think about seeing him ago. This case would have been before he’d joined the unit, but you figured maybe Captain Benson would know more, they might have even working it back in the day. 

“All the women, practically identical, went missing within a 6 month window, with gaps ranging from a couple of days to a couple of months. The only connection NYPD found was their appearance, and he seems to have kept them alive for varying lengths of time before killing them and dressing them up like this. They never found out where, but they weren’t killed in the woods. Signs of sexual assault were obvious, but actual damage to their body was minimal. The cause of death was a concoction of lethal drugs injected into their system, the contents of which were not released to be public but match both our cases and New York’s,” Voight relayed the basics.

“So how are we working this?” Hailey asked, perched up on her desk with her head rest on her chin, staring thoughtfully at the board in front of you all.

“I want Burgess, Ruzek and Antonio on the old New York cases, see if anything was missed or if any potential suspects have surfaced in Chicago recently. Atwater and Rojas will re-examine the first crime scene, I want every stone unturned. Upton and Halstead will interview both of the families, see what they were doing when they went missing, but remember, we only found Jessica last night, so tread carefully.”

You couldn’t help but notice one name not mentioned. “Sergeant-” You began to ask, slightly raising your hand. He turned to you before you could finish.

“Y/L/N, Benson requested you work with her unit for this case, seems you made quite an impression in the way you handled our last case with them, you’ll be heading to the most recent crime scene after you’ve all reviewed the case notes, meet them there when they touch down,” he explained, Antonio suppressing a smirk and others glancing at you curiously. 

You didn’t know what to say, so you nodded to let him know you understood, Benson’s comment about a change of scenery resurfacing in your mind. You hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but maybe she’d actually been serious. 

“What are you all still doing standing around, let’s get moving,” Voight ordered, snapping all of you into gear as you quickly pushed that from your mind too, heading back to your desk and ignoring the raised brow Antonio gave you.

You had a case to work and a killer to catch, and with Special Victims touching down in a couple of hours, whoever this rapist was, their luck had just run out. 

[murfeelee]

Simblr Asks - TS3

Saw these questions by Teauke on my dash, and y’all know I love talking/ranting about The Sims; let’s go! ^0^

1. how big is your mods folder?

That’s my mods folder with only mods/hacks/overrides; no CAS or build/buy CC installed. It’s a miracle that nothing conflicts, at least not as far as I can tell.

2. how would you describe your style? A sporadic mix of tv/gaming fandom-inspired conversions and recreations, of mostly fanciful and/or cultural themes & genres.

3. What is your favorite challenge? I’m a builder at heart, so I love recreating lots and interiors. Challenges where we find IRL rooms/scenes and remake them in TS3 are always the most fun for me.

4. do you make cc? if so, what kind? I make fanciful & cultural custom content (occult, sci-fi, boho, etc). I make CAS CC sometimes, but I prefer making buy/build CC.

5. what type of cc do you hoard? Not everything, but a lot. As creators retire and links die, I’m even more paranoid than I already was that CC will no longer be available anywhere.

6. what default eyes and skin do you use? I don’t use default-replacement skintones, but I do use Buhudain’s You Are Real mod.

As for eye defaults, I absolutely love Moonskin’s Shiny Glass replacements.

7. how many urls have you had, and what are the meanings behind them? All of my simming URLs on MTS, TSR, the officials, and Tumblr are some variation of my first name, Murfee Lee. Because yes, I am that darn creative.

8. who is your favorite gameplay blog? 9. who is your favorite storytelling blog? Ugh, there are too many good ones out there.

10. who is your favorite cc creator? All of my favorite creators retired years ago: DyM/Hekate999 (fantasy build/buy), Parsimonious (everything), Luna (everything build/buy), Qingshuangtongzi (Asian everything), Amethyst (Asian CAS), Art-Sims (CAS everything), etc. I swear, the day Sandy/ATS3 (everything build/buy) retires is the day I’m having a panic attack.

11. how do you edit your photos? Badly. Tweak the brightness & contrast and call it a effing day.

12. what is the last screenshot you took? It’s a surprise.

13. what do you do when you are unmotivated? I am never “unmotivated,” so much as I am distracted. I think the reason I’ve simmed so long is strictly because I’m always inspired by fandoms. If I get distracted by a tv/game, it becomes my next muse (aka current obsession). It’s not that I get unmotivated to finish the old stuff I pretty much abandon, it’s just that there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want. Sometimes I return to older saves/gameplay. Most times I don’t though--unless someone messages me wanting to see it again (and that’s effing rare). 

14. who is your current favorite sim? Sakura and Nasir are my alltime favorite sims. But I must admit that I patted myself on the back pretty dang hard when I created Tsukihime-Sama for my Moon Medicine gameplay. I love every sim I made for that gameplay (which I really need to finish one day, ugh), but my Lunar Moth Goddess? 👌

15. who is your current favorite sim that is not by you? Every sim that @obscurus-noctem​​ is out here sacrificing goats in order to create. It’s just disgusting how pretty everything on their blog is. Those mersims? Those graphics? That editing? Makes me effing sick. 

16. recreate someone else’s sim in your style. I think I saw a challenge like this a few months/years ago, but never did it. But I DID do the Picrew version.

17. do you talk about sims with people in real life? One of my professors plays SimCity. Naturally, we bonded over how wack EA is. ^_^

18. how many of the packs do you own? All of them, except the Stuff Packs. Barring Fast Lane and Movie Stuff, none of the other SPs are worth the price; it’s just build/buy/CAS CC any MaxisMatch creator.could make for free. I’ve always felt that way about SPs, which is why I never bothered with them in TS1 or TS2 either. I will say though, that TS4′s SPs are something else entirely, which brings me to #24 (see below).

19. how many posts do you have on your blog currently? 2764. JESUS.

20. how many drafts do you have on your blog currently? 363. U_U And most of those are CC sets & gameplay posts I never finished.  

21. how many posts are in your queue currently? It’s a secret. ^_^

22. have you ever moved blogs? Never. I never even changed my theme or URL.

23. are you in any sims related discord servers? Yes, the Creators Cave, but I effing hate Discord; it’s just a royal pain to navigate, IMO.

24. what are your thoughts on the most recent pack? (paranormal) Speaking of Stuff Packs!

RANT ALERT!

If anything, TS4′s SPs are doing way too much (adding new gameplay, careers, lifestates/NPCs, lots, etc!? WUT.) Or rather, its EPs aren’t doing nearly enough. I love that TS4′s SPs add meaningful content. But if they’re raising their bar, that means the Expansion Packs need to rise by the same degree, to stay relevant, if anything.

But EA, in their infinite ineptitude, seems to be scaling back with their EPs! Cutting what should be 1 cohesive EP into multiple SPs & GPs piecemeals the content and cheats people out of money, by having us pay more for less! The TS4 SPs do a lot, yes, but now let’s talk about the Paranormal SP for example:

Paranormal Stuff does perhaps the most any SP in The Sims 1/2/3/4 ever has, and has by far the most worth for its money...but at a dire cost:

- the career only has 5 levels instead of 10 (thus being nowhere as deep as TS3′s combination of the Ambition EP’s Ghost Hunter and the Store’s crystal ball--which links with the Supernatural EP’s Spellcasting skill)

the crystal ball is a 1-trick pony

unlocking Bonehilda is tied to grinding skill/career levels, only for her to do EFF ALL once she finally arrives (and her face looks like melted cookie dough WTF)

most of the gameplay is tied to the pack’s new lot/venue

and the ghosts are still meh

So rather than TS4 having an actual Supernatural EP, instead it has the ok-but-disappointing Realm of Magic Game Pack (which I’ve already ranted about), the watered-down Paranormal Stuff Pack, and the INCREDIBLY OP Vampires Game Pack (which I’ve salivated over). That’s already $40--the cost of TS3′s Supernatural Expansion Pack, mind you--but with the glaringly absent inclusion of Fairies, Werewolves, AND Zombies. O_O WHAT THE HELL, EA. To get the full Supernatural experience in TS4 is gonna end up running people not $40, but perhaps DOUBLE, if werewolves & fairies get their own GPs (unless EA waters them down in SPs, which would still be anywhere from $50-60). EA is robbing people blind.

25. how many hours have you played sims? I have no idea, no doubt thousands.

26. if you play gameplay, do you play with mods? See #1 above

27. what’s the farthest you’ve gotten in a challenge? See #3 above.

Thanks for reading!

[novantinuum]

Intake (SUF one-shot)

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences (TW: brief discussion of mental illness related topics like suicide ideation and intrusive thoughts.)

Words: 2800

Summary: Steven fills out an important form.

This is set multiple months pre The Future, and is a small glimpse into Steven’s journey to find a therapist.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3 as well. AO3 link will be provided in the reblogs. Thank you! <3

____

His leg bounces with a restless fervor as he slumps in the waiting room chair, clutching the clipboard and pencil the receptionist gave him with a white knuckled grip. Gaze hardened, he takes a good long look at the other patients spread across the room, a few of them appearing equally as spent and fidgety as him, and hunches over the intake form so his answers will be conclusively obscured from their view.

He grimaces. Ugh. Why would a place like this lay out their chairs so close, anyways? Why even give people the option of being nosey? He may be stuck seeing this therapist Connie’s mom recommended because he’s all messed up in the head, but it’s not like he wants the whole planet to know about it. Goodness knows all of Beach City and Little Homeworld already does thanks to his little ‘incident’ a month back. That’s bad enough.

His chest almost feeling hollow as he sighs, he scrawls in his name, his birthday, his cell number, address, and an emergency contact (Dad, who left for the car to give him privacy after signing a few forms he can’t fill out as a minor) on the lines indicated. He leaves out his many middle names for once, all of them leaving a bitter taste in his mouth at this present moment. Briefly, he wonders if this will be a problem, as these past few weeks Dr. Maheswaran assisted his dad in finally acquiring legal documentation and health insurance for him, and per those records he’s officially ‘Steven Quartz Universe’ in the eyes of the law.

Eventually he shrugs, figuring the likelihood of there being another sixteen-year-old ‘Steven Universe’ here today to confuse him with is nearing zero.

Okay, what’s next?

He briefly skims over the next few passages— a bunch of legalese about the terms of counselor-patient confidentiality and when they might have to breach that for safety reasons— and signs where indicated so they know he looked over it.

Someone sitting two chairs away coughs. He can’t help but flinch at the sudden noise, and folds himself tighter in his own seat as he flips over the first page of the form and continues to read.

In a few words, explain why you’ve chosen to reach out to us today. How can we help you?

Steven frowns, fingers twitching around the shaft of the pencil as he contemplates how to respond. For whatever reason, the question “explain why you’re here” feels very blunt and antagonistic to him in a way he can’t quite ascertain. Like... in a “give the wrong answer, get booted right out the door” sorta way. He lifts his head, peering at all the humans spread across the room, each and every one with their own story, the central character of their own worlds. Some are texting on their phones as they wait for the receptionist to call their names, others are filling out forms as well. What brought these people here, he wonders? Surely there’s plenty of people having a worse time than him right now. Surely there’s people with real problems, people who are literally struggling just to stay alive from day-to-day. He’s not like that, right? Besides that one little wobble a month back, he’s been handling his problems on his own fairly okay. Hasn’t he? So what makes him selfish enough to think that he’s worth anyone’s time?

In his pocket his phone vibrates, knocking him back into reality. He yanks it out and switches it on to look at the new text splashed across the lock screen:

Dad: Hey Schtu-ball, just wanna let you know that I’m proud of you and love you very much. You’ve got this!

He stares at these words for a good minute, the kind sentiment— despite reading as a little hopelessly over-encouraging— filling the hollow space in his chest partway. Even if his dad’s been a bit overbearing in his affections this past month, it’s clear he means well.

So. Why am I here today, he thinks, reading the question over again. He folds his fingers up into a stiff fist, pulling his thumb across his knuckles. After licking his chapped lips and shoving his phone back in his pocket, he scribbles a hasty reply.

I feel really angry and empty and tense and just want to be better.

The teen pauses, allowing those words to echo over and over in his mind, to truly sink in. It’s such a succinct and to-the-point admission that he suddenly wonders why he ever doubted he was less deserving of aid than anyone else in this waiting room.

His countenance a little lighter now and his shoulders growing less stiff, he moves on to the next section.

To aid our counselors in providing you the best possible care, please rate the following statements on a scale from zero to four, zero meaning “not at all like me,” and four meaning “extremely like me.”

Steven’s eyes dart across the length of the massive table below these instructions, his previous anxiety rushing back into his brittle bones as if it’d never left. Each row is host to a short sentence and five blank boxes, numbered zero to four. Read it and rate yourself, right? Should be simple enough. But as his glance flits over these statements and he understands the sort of personal, probing questions they’re asking through them, he begins to mistrust his previous burst of optimism. Dread floods his system, making his cheeks flush bright pink. Heart pounding at the mere thought of people staring, he drops his head lower, successfully hiding most of his face behind the clipboard until he can coax that betraying glow into fading away.

In the end, this goes to prove that it doesn’t matter if everyone says therapy will be ‘helpful’ for him; reflecting on all this junk is still gonna suck.

Quietly, he takes a steadying breath and forces himself to read on, to crack open the hornet’s nest that is the depths of his crap brain.

1. I am shy around others.

He considers this for a moment. Shy. Historically, this has never been a word people would use to describe him. For years he reveled in the thrill of meeting new people, new Gems. His childhood eagerness to engage in fellowship with those around is half the reason Era 3 even exists. And he’s fine around people he knows. Like, on a rare good day he has no problem playing board games or watching cheesy soap operas with his friends. But to be fair... as of late, his eagerness to meet anyone new feels like it’s all but vanished. Is that being shy? Or is that just him failing to care for anyone beyond his inner circle?

With a small shrug he checks the box for one, and moves on.

2. I don’t enjoy being around people as much as I used to.

Hmm. Probably a three. People are unintentionally exhausting these days. He used to be energized by social interaction, and now it just leaves him sucked dry. Most days he’d rather stick to his room.

3. I feel isolated and alone.

The weight of the diamond embedded in his belly— something he normally barely notices— grows ever more apparent as he marks off a four.

4. My heart often races for no good reason.

Uh, yeah. What happened just a minute ago is a pretty good tell. Four.

5. I have spells of terror or panic.

Another four.

6. I am anxious that I might have a panic attack while in public.

Four once more. He holds his pencil tighter, squirming in his seat as he tries (and fails) not to think about the pale scars spread across his back, hidden in his hairline, and on the underside of his arms, indentations that once marked the base of the crystalline spines that jut out from between his scales.

7. I think about food more than I’d like to.

Steven pauses at this one. For once, he’s not sure he can say this statement applies to him. Truth be told, he only started caring about what he put in his mouth earlier this year, when he cut meat and fish out of his diet. And that’s not... a bad thing? It’s not bad to want to consider the impact your food choices have on the environment? He definitely didn’t choose to do so for self-denying reasons, and that’s probably what they’re asking about. He checks zero, and moves on.

8. I feel out of control when I eat.

He almost checks another zero, but then he remembers that day after the proposal... and the week after his incident. And he decides that even if he doesn’t consciously obsess over the food he eats, there’s still a few occasions where once he starts snacking he finds it difficult to stop. A one it is, then.

9. I have sleep difficulties.

This statement nearly makes him laugh. Does he have sleep difficulties. Hah. He doesn’t think he’s gotten a truly restful night of sleep since he sacrificed himself to Homeworld at fourteen.

A solid four. No question.

10. My thoughts are racing.

Four.

11. I feel uncomfortable around people I don’t know.

Hmm. Two.

12. I drink alcohol frequently.

The only alcohol he’s ever had is a tiny sip of his dad’s with permission at Garnet’s wedding reception, and it tasted terrible. He has no interest in drinking again. Zero.

13. When I drink alcohol I can’t remember what happened.

Zero.

14. I drink more than I should.

Zero again.

15. I have done something I have regretted because of drinking.

Another zero. It almost makes him feel better, just knowing there’s a decent number of lines on this paper that aren’t a carbon copy of his lived experience.

16. I feel sad all the time.

Aaaand back to “the story of his life.” Briefly, he wonders if ‘feeling sad’ is the same thing as feeling nothing at all. But then again, does the difference really matter? He checks the box for three.

17. I am concerned that other people don’t like me.

Three. Although honestly, he’s even more concerned that people continue to like him after everything he’s done.

18. I feel worthless.

Steven nibbles at the inside of his cheek as he reads this statement, memories automatically flashing through the pathetic events of the last few weeks, through all the days he barely crawled out from under his covers, all the days he didn’t even manage to brush his teeth or run his fingers through his greasy, knotted hair, all those awful days he couldn’t so much as play one of his video games without growing tired of it in minutes and taking a restless nap for the rest of the afternoon instead.

Four.

19. I feel helpless.

Two. Everyday affairs are a drag, but at the very least he knows he can fight his way out of danger in a pinch. He wouldn’t call that helpless.

20. I have thoughts of ending my life.

He freezes. Goes back, reads this line again. Reads it a third time to make sure he’s not horrendously misconstruing the prompt he’s been given.

(Tries not to think too deeply about the graphic images that flood his imagination some nights. It’s just stray thoughts, though. He’s fine.)

One, he marks, although his muscles can’t help but twitch as he shifts his wrist, as if deep down he knows he’s underplaying his answer.

21. I feel tense.

Steven gives a small snort under his breath. Yeah, he outright admitted as much earlier in this form. Four.

22. I get angry easily.

His grip tightens.

Four.

23. I have difficulty controlling my temper.

He swallows hard, his mouth feeling abnormally dry. He’s not sure he likes how blunt and probing this questionnaire is becoming.

Four...

24. I sometimes feel like breaking or smashing things.

His knuckles go white around his pencil, and he only barely resists the temptation to snap it in half as he feels a rush of hard light flow the distance from his gem through the veins of his arm. Geeze, it’s not like he means to break things! It’s just that all of his stupid powers are linked with his emotions, and whenever he gets even marginally upset now things start to splinter, crack in half, and inevitably end up broken. Just another sign he’s fated to ruin everything around him forever, and that his intent doesn’t matter. Why do they have to pry into this? He already feels terrible enough for thinking these things.

Three, he checks, his eyes damp, but mostly because he’s too scared what their response will be otherwise.

25. I am not able to concentrate as well as usual.

He takes a deep breath, coaxing his body to return to a baseline state. Eh. He’ll give this a two.

26. I feel self-conscious around others.

His glance skirts over the edge of the clipboard to monitor the four others currently spread out across the room. One’s rhythmically swinging their legs, another is still filling out a form like him, but sitting criss-cross on the chair, and the other two are quietly typing on their phones. Thankfully none of them are pressing an ounce of attention his way, (at least, not right now), but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like an exposed nerve. Three.

27. I am afraid I may lose control and act violently.

The raw memories hit like lightning before he can even think to prepare.

Flashes of Pink. Orange fragments, cold and slick in his palms. Thunder splits the skies overhead, each cacophonous sound manifesting in perfect synchronicity with his erratic heartbeat, with each tidal wave of thoughts gushing like a maelstrom through his head: SHATTERER, I’m a shatterer, I’m—

Feeling almost dizzy from the intensity of his heart’s pulse, he knows with full certainty that his cheeks are glowing bright pink again. All he can do is clench his fists, suck down whatever amount of fresh air his lungs will allow, and pray to the very stars themselves that it’ll fade away before it garners the attention of every last human in this place.

He checks the box for four, pencil marking so hard that slivers of graphite splinter off onto the page, and moves on before he can be cowardly enough to change his answer.

28. I have thoughts of hurting others.

His fingernails claw into the thin denim at his knee, limbs outright quivering as he stews in his seat, as he’s forced to reflect upon all the ugly, ugly thoughts that have flit across his awareness over the past weeks. Thoughts about one Gem specifically. He’s... always been angry, always harbored deep resentment... but ever since his most recent trip to visit Her, he hasn’t been able to shake this awful idea: a vision of him standing over the remnants of her gemstone, shattered, fragments spilled across the otherwise pristine floors of Homeworld. He... he didn’t do it when he had the chance. He wouldn’t do it, would he?

(Orange fragments, cold and slick...)

Would he??

And yet nevertheless, the thought tortures him with its frequency, makes him feel downright nauseous at every turn. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to feel this way at all.

Four.

29. I am unable to keep up with my schoolwork.

Stop. Sharp inhale. Staccato, shaky exhale. Repeat, deeper this time. Repeat.

(He can no longer see neon pink reflecting in the smooth metal clasp at the top of his clipboard.)

Okay. Schoolwork.

N/A, he writes in one of the boxes, arm still trembling from the last two questions despite his attempt at cool-down exercises. Not applicable. He hasn’t even been to school, and dreads the inevitability of this therapist asking about that mess.

30. It’s hard to stay motivated for my classes.

N/A.

31. I feel confident that I can succeed academically.

N/A, once more.

And like that, the questionnaire is over. Steven is quick to hide his answers behind the front page, and slides the pencil through the length of the metal clip. He glances around him, drinking in his surroundings with pinpoint precision. Despite his earlier concerns, no one is maliciously staring. No one’s whispering. He internally wrestled with a few challenging subjects and what do you know, it didn’t end in an embarrassingly public meltdown. He— he wipes a stray tear from his eye with the butt of his palm— he took a solid step forward today.

Coercing his body to move, he pulls himself out of the cushioned chair and crosses the room.

“I finished,” he says softly, proudly, as he hands the clipboard and pencil to the receptionist. She smiles and accepts his hard-fought offering.

For the first time in a while, the smile he instinctively flashes back almost feels genuine.

I want to be better, he thinks. I will be better.

____

Notes:

This fic is loosely based on my own experience of the intake process, and the questionnaire I had to fill out. No two intake experiences are the same though, of course. This is merely one possibility. I also take personal liberties on the way I depict Steven’s struggle with mental health, and acknowledge and respect that no two fans’ interpretation will be the same.

Additional notes: -Steven’s still a minor, so he can’t actually sign contracts. I figure Greg signed a handful of forms beforehand as his guardian, and then left to allow his son a bit of privacy with filling out the questionnaire stuff. Since he's a teen, they're still giving him the full confidentiality clauses to look over so he's wholly aware how that works, though.

-To expand on a brief comment made in the midst of this, I headcanon that Steven cut both meat and fish out of his diet, and thus actually slipped up on his vegetarian diet when he was training with Jasper. I interpret this as further showcasing how the poor kid— due to being mentally vulnerable at the time and thus liable to coercion/unwise decisions— began to take actions that went against much of his established morality. He ended up sacrificing his dietary choices during those days, just like he briefly sacrificed his pacifistic views to fight Jasper.

-I also headcanon that the therapist Steven is going in to see after this isn’t the one he eventually sticks with and mentions as “my new therapist” in The Future. It’s totally normal and okay to try a few different people to find someone who you click with, after all.

Thank you for reading!

[seaofthemind-art]

The “Abuse” Trope in MCU Spider-Man Fan Fiction: Part 1

[Edit Note: This first post completely missed my point, and as such is now being continued in "Part 2". I have made several edits and additions to this post for coherence between the two.]

I became interested in these tropes partly due to what seemed to be its abundance within the fandom. Re-reading several stories recently led me to consider how this trope has been handled in the fandom, its variations and ways that it has been turned on its head, as well as stories ideas that have not been explored yet to my knowledge.

Within the "Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)" category on AO3 there are several overarching areas that would come under the trope of abuse.

To put it in context, on the 26th October 2020 there was 28,637 works in the category; this included 626 stories tagged as "child abuse", a total of more than 2% of the stories. Of course, as we well know, tagging on AO3 is not consistent: there will be "abuse" stories which do not use this tag, whilst the tag may also be referring to a range of characters' situations (ie: Tony's childhood, Flash's backstory, OC characters). However, for these posts I'm going to look at stories related to Peter's experiences.

For all the "popularity" of these stories in the fandom, it is just an example of what are wide spread tropes across media. TV Tropes lists several related tropes including Abusive Parents and Foster Kid, showing that it is not only this fandom in which it is common.TV Tropes also makes a good point in its Sliding Scale of Parent-Shaming in Fiction, in that: what one person classes as abusive behavior may be perfectly acceptable to another.

Major Plot Categories

One of the common targets for this trope is "May's Abusive Boyfriend", which seems to have grown in popularity in the last year as Endgame has provided a convenient set-up for this trope:

the second law of thermodynamics by extraordinarythings

"It happens the same way it always does. (It's just discipline. It's not that bad. It's fine, Peter is fine, he'll be fine--). Except he really isn't fine, and Tony knows something's up, and Peter's house of cards is falling apart, and so the story goes."

Who Saves The Hero by CamelotQueen

“May brings home her new boyfriend. Something about him makes Peter feel nervous, but he makes May happy. And if May's happy, then Peter is happy. Then it escalates.”

Fear all else but never me. Please. by Webtrinsic

“May's new boyfriend proves himself to be a grade A-asshole when he decides to abuse Peter. And that doesn't sit well with Tony at all.”

i get by (but it’s eating me alive) by Livinei

““Do you not want to be home?” Tony starts. “No.” Tony considers for a moment. Peter’s never not wanted to be home. Not before… Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t know a lot about David. Peter doesn’t bring him up a lot, and when he does then he’s not very eager to discuss it for long. Tony hasn’t gotten an impression that Peter’s particularly fond of the guy, though.”

The Homes We Make by iamq

“Peter Parker isn't the type of boy to run crying to Tony Stark because he can't handle a punch. Michelle Jones and Ned Leeds aren't the type of friends to ignore Peter's rapidly declining health. Eugene "Flash" Thompson isn't an idiot.”

to this day by hopeless_hope

“It's months before anyone realizes May's boyfriend abuses Peter. The effects are lasting.”

Promotions Aren’t Always A Good Thing by Agib

“When May gets a new boyfriend, Peter's okay. When Carter moves in, he can deal. When May gets a promotion so she works days and Carter works nights, Peter finds it harder to deal. When Carter starts abusing him, he begins to feel crushed by the weight of it all.”

The Black And The Blue (All That It Takes Out of You) by Buckets_of_Stars

“David wasn't a person Peter would ever want to be around, but with him being May's new boyfriend and all, it makes it harder and harder to avoid him. But it was fine, May was happy and of course, Peter still has Tony. But that was before the hitting started. Before David spit neglectful words in his face and the spiderling begins to question his very worth.Tony, on the other hand, is not having it.”

Vertigo by GalaxyThreads

“Coming back from the dead wasn't nearly as awesome as TV made it out to be. Peter's learning this on the go. And it really doesn't help that May's new husband absolutely hates him. And that May is pretty ignorant of that and him now. But it's all fine. Really.”

Your Heart Changed (mine stayed the same) by @loboselinaistrash​ [WIP]

"Peter Parker is back but 5 years into the future and the world has changed. Peter goes home with May only to find she had moved on, with a husband and two kids. Peter struggles to find his place in this new family with a strict step uncle, the longer he's there the harder he finds it to stay on his good side, uncertain if May will believe him."

A Peter Parker Problem by @spagbol99​ [WIP]

"Peter comes back to find May has a husband and a kid. A new family he has to fit into. But he has done it before, he can do it again. The only thing that feels solid is Tony: the Blip and fatherhood have mellowed him and Peter loves the bond they have now. He knows Tony would be there for him through anything. But Tony needs to focus on his own recovery - not small time Peter Parker problems. When things at home take a turn for the worse, Peter decides that he'll handle it himself. He is Spider-man. He's been to space and fought aliens. He can get through anything. After all, if May is happy, he is happy, right? Right?"

--

This premise has been turned on it's head by a couple of authors with the straight opposite of this trope in "May has a new boyfriend who is decent (and confused)":

The Secrets We Keep by @euphoric-melancholyy​

"May has a really awesome, loving boyfriend who's just a little confused as to why she lets her teenage son stay out til 1 every night and sleep somewhere else every weekend. Also, he’s friends with Tony Stark? Chris - May’s new boyfriend - feels like he’s missing something here."

A Good Kid  by kuragay

"Ricky thinks that May's an exceptional woman, and he thinks that Peter's an exceptional kid. But there's no denying that the Parker household is full of mysteries, and most of them are centered around Peter and his supposed internship with Tony Stark."

--

Then there has also been several stories changing the abuser, such as in the concept of "What if May (or Ben) is the abusive carer?":

Brooklyn by @hailing-stars​ [part of a longer series]

"After leaving Peter with Tony and months of no contact, May shows up in Peter's life again, interrupting Tony's plans to adopt him. Peter has to decide who he wants to live with, but soon learns the decision may really not be his."

Parker Luck by CreepyLittleLullaby

"He never met one, he got left behind by the other, the next one died, and the only one he had left was pushing him away. And he doesn't know what to do. Peter really has rotten luck when it comes to parental figures. No matter how hard he tries. Parker luck will always prevail."

Please, Understand by jipseebree

"When Aunt May discovers that he's Spider-Man, something inside her snaps. She starts to abuse him and he deserves it, doesn't he? After all, people have died because of him. People who wouldn't have died if he was a better hero."

Spiders hunt alone, anyway by karma_is_a_turtle [WIP]

"Ben’s death hits the Parker family hard, May worst of all. May Parker struggles to cope with her husband’s death and her nine-year-old nephew grows up learning how to pick up her slack."

Always Silent, Peter Darling by LlibLo

“After a traumatic experience at age 6, Peter Parker hasn't spoken a word. Most blame it on the fact that he witnessed his Uncle die in a horrible fire, this is only partly true. Now, almost 10 years later Peter is given the chance to finally speak, but will he take it? Or is the fear of his Aunt to much for him to take that chance? Either way, Tony Stark can tell something's not quite right about the kind hearted May Parker.“

It’s All Just Static In My Head by Blue__Dreams

“And then May was shot. Foolishly, childishly, Peter hoped Iron Man would swoop in and save the day again. He hoped and hoped and hoped. And Ben drank and drank and drank. As Ben grew worse, and their fridge grew empty, as Peter’s face became more bruised, and his powers grew, Peter realized, you can’t depend on superheroes. So Peter created his own hero - Spiderman.“

 I told you I had issues by Bergen            

“Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and right now, a little exasperated. Because some guy is swinging around New York, shooting webs and making trouble, Fury is breathing down his neck, and his latest intern took off with his coupon for a free coffee.“

--

Another focus for the abuse trope are the "Skip Wescott" stories, which take their concept and the character from a one-shot from the comics. @irondadfics​ has a good rec list for this. Many of the stories take it further than the comic that inspired them, and within the fandom it has also become common to see it re-mixed in variations of “Abused by Other Person of Authority” AKA: Babysitter/Teacher/Foster Carer/etc.

Although Skip is a common character for authors to use when they need a character as the abuser who isn't a complete original character, both original characters do appear as well as other characters from within the MCU.

The Third Option by Uncertainty_Principle

“Ben and May divorced before Peter’s parents died, so when Ben is murdered Peter goes into foster care. It takes just a tiny taste of superpowers for Peter to decide he doesn’t want to put up with his horrible foster father anymore—the streets are infinitely more appealing. All he wants is to be Spider-Man anyway.“

take a look at me now, there's just an empty space by @lyssismagical

“As much as Peter does want to disappear to his bedroom and avoid the awkward attempts at a one-sided conversation or inquiries about the life Tony’s read about, he craves the closeness to another person. The last time he felt properly close to someone was May. Every home in between had people who tried or people who didn’t, either way, it never felt the same. He was just another mouth to feed, another set of house visits and questionnaires from Elaine, another troubled kid under their roof. He was never treated like a human being, like a kid.“

Like A Flame That Flickered Out Too Soon... by @mysterycheerio

““He did this to you?”. Peter nodded. “And this is why you haven’t been talking?”. Another nod. Tony left the room in a hurry. Peter didn’t know where he went. Pepper knew. Rhodey knew. The whole damn neighbourhood around Stark Mansion knew, his yells were so loud.”

The Education Complication by Buckets_Of_Stars

“When young Peter Stark was diagnosed with Asthma, he was given two very important rules to always follow: 1. No long distance running. 2. Always have your inhaler with you. But when a new Gym Teacher with a hatred toward Iron Man gets hired, the 13 year old is going to find that following these two simple steps has never been more difficult.”

--

This is just a selection of the stories which can be found on AO3, from which it should be already clear that these cover a wide range of treatments of the subject.

Across all the categories, the reactions of characters to the abuse is varied; as well as some notable omissions in the range of stories. 

This we will look at in Part 2.

[dryad-of-the-dogwood]

Until the End

Fandom: Dragon Age

Rating: M

Word count: 2,505

TW/CWs: Major character death, violence, angst, saying last goodbyes, all that awful stuff.

This is a No Cure for the Calling story, an Alistair and Cousland go into the Deep Roads together story, and I never thought I would write this but Silhouette by Aquilo got stuck in the angstiest part of my head and I sobbed writing it down, but I still did it. Forgive me.

Until the End (read on AO3)

The moment Alistair found her sitting up in bed one morning, staring at the wall with her expression perfectly blank, he knew. Nalissa Cousland was vibrant and intense, whether her emotions were good or bad, and Nalissa Theirin was no different. If there was something too intense for her to feel, that made it too much for anyone in the world, because she was the strongest person he had ever known. And the only thing she couldn’t be stronger than was the Calling.

They had both thought they heard it once, years ago. The Inquisition—or more accurately, Leliana—had told them not to worry, that it wasn’t real, that the Inquisitor would handle it. And she had, somehow, however she had killed a darkspawn magister that kept him from being reborn into the next available blighted body. They had wondered, but not even Leliana had really known the answer beyond some combination of Rift magic, a dead red lyrium-corrupted dragon, and the power of an ostensible elven god. And so it had been yet another thing that wasn’t an answer, just like Avernus’ research had been a dead end, just like Nalissa had never been able to cobble together a cure from the Wilds flowers that had saved Ash warriors’ hounds or get a straight answer out of Grand Enchanter Fiona about whatever had cured her all those years ago. Finally when the mage had broken down into tears, she had admitted she didn’t know, couldn’t give an answer even to save the king and queen of Ferelden, no matter how much she might want to. And that had been the last lead before the trail had gone cold.

So when Nalissa looked up at Alistair, her eyes sunken and shadowed but still the same heart-wrenchingly beautiful sea green he had fallen in love with, he had read it on her face. The dreams were returning, she was hearing the whisper of the song, and her time had come.

It should have been him first. Why wasn’t it him? He had taken his Joining months before she had, he had been the one to perform that Void-forsaken ritual that had saved them at a cost that all these years later they still didn’t fully understand. It should have been him.

But it wasn’t, and he wept as he pulled her into his arms, even if she didn’t. Even if she locked everything away behind the mask of nobility that even after two decades on the throne, he had never learned to wear like she did. She was indomitable, his Nalissa, in everything except the Calling she couldn’t escape.

She very nearly physically fought him when Alistair told her he was coming with her. It was her Calling, not his, she had insisted, had shouted it at him in their bedchamber in a bout of hysteria he had never once seen her give into before. She had pleaded, threatened, tried to give him an order as Warden-Commander, but he had only smiled sadly and offered to travel to Amaranthine with her for trial if she wanted to bring him up on charges of insubordination. Only then did she cry into his chest, not for herself but for him, when she realized there was nothing she could do to talk him out of it.

He had promised her once, when they sat together in the grass on an early spring day during the Blight. He had promised her he would be with her until the end, and he meant it. An archdemon couldn’t keep him away. The fact that he didn’t hear the Calling yet wouldn’t either.

The preparation, that was almost worse than the realization. The landsmeet was a debacle, full of angry lords terrified of more instability so close on the heels of everything else the Age had brought upon Ferelden. But Nalissa hadn’t faltered, and she had given them the best solution she could: her brother, the man with the highest standing and the most experience in the country, even if he had balked at her suggestion. It felt like a repeat of history, Teagan had said, watching another Cousland put forth to the landsmeet as a potential king just like the teyrn’s father had been, only this time with no Theirin heir to dispute it.

But it was the sensible solution, they all had to admit. Couslands had ruled in Highever since before Calenhad himself was born, and the teyrn’s oldest child with his second wife was old enough by then to handle the teyrnir. Eleanor was a bright girl, as stubborn and dutiful as her father and her namesake put together, and she would take Fergus’ place well. Nalissa smiled with something like pride when the landsmeet voted in favor, even if her eyes shone a little more brightly than usual from unshed tears.

The Wardens were even more difficult. Alistair hadn’t stepped foot in Vigil’s Keep in years, but he refused to let her go alone, terrified she would leave for Orzammar without him. When the constables and senior Wardens began shouting and grappling for the Warden-Commander’s seat, he almost wished he wasn’t there to see it. The order, without Duncan, without Nalissa, wasn’t half so virtuous as he remembered. But she stood her ground as she always did, naming a stern-faced woman younger than half of them as her successor until Weisshaupt saw fit to replace her officially. Alistair didn’t know the girl, but he recognized the set of her jaw and the steel in her eyes, because he saw them in his wife every day. She would lead the Wardens well, if they allowed it, and he could only hope they did.

They returned to Denerim before setting out. Nalissa wouldn’t miss her brother’s coronation, even if it hurt to brave the noise of the crowds with the song ringing in her ears, even if she had to wear gloves to hide the mottled bruise-like marks on her hands that neither of them could pretend not to see any longer. She hugged Fergus goodbye for the last time on the steps of the palace, and both she and Alistair tried to pretend they didn’t see the pedestal at the gates, prepared for a statue that hadn’t yet been carved, with both of their names and dates etched into the stone.

Alistair Theirin, 11th King of Ferelden, Champion of Redcliffe, Hero of the Fifth Blight

Nalissa Theirin née Cousland, Queen, Warden-Commander, and Hero of Ferelden

9:10 Dragon - 9:52 Dragon

It was already written in stone, the end of both of their lives. The hardest parts were done, all the decisions that mattered had been made. But Maker, did that still not make it easier to set out on their final adventure.

It felt like a hollow echo, walking through the gates of Denerim and knowing they would never do so again. Camping along the Imperial Highway, like when they were young and free, now just the ghosts of two thoroughly overwhelmed new Grey Wardens tasked with saving the world. They had said their goodbyes to Oghren in Amaranthine, to Leliana at the coronation, written letters to Antiva meant for Zevran and to Par Vollen meant for Sten. Nalissa had even sent one to Morrigan, though who knew if that would ever be read. To their friends, to Ferelden, to Thedas they were already dead, but at least what little time they had left was theirs alone.

They spoke often of the similarities, of the differences, of what Wynne might have said to see them walking into death together one last time. Leliana would write a tragic ballad for them she would never share, Nalissa was sure. Zevran would have pointedly declared it was their last chance to join him in bed for the night, Alistair decided. But though they laughed and leaned into each other and drew every moment of pleasure they could from these last few moments of peace, both marked them for what they were: a collection of lasts.

When they finally made camp in the foothills of the Frostbacks, that final night before beginning the descent, they didn’t sleep. They made dinner together, joked how neither of them had gotten any better at it since the first time Morrigan had tasted the gray dreck they had boiled to the point of a tasteless paste and swore she would do the cooking after all. They danced around the fire, watched their shadows on the mountainside seeming to stretch into infinity. They looked up at the stars and whispered together how beautiful they were, without mentioning they would never see them again. And they made love slowly and tenderly, until they were too tired to do more than lie in each other’s arms sharing I love yous and every moment of the last half of their lives they wouldn’t trade for anything.

When the sun rose, they didn’t pack up camp. They put out the fire and left the tent and bedroll where they were, for whoever might find use for them, without ever quite discussing it. They wouldn’t need them again. There was no return journey to look forward to.

And they stopped at the entrance to Orzammar, drinking in the sun and the sky and the fresh air that didn’t smell of nothing but earth and taint. Nalissa hated the underground, hated caves and tight spaces, and her last breath before they stepped into the dark shook as she drew it, but she would not shirk this path and did it anyway. Alistair would have taken everything from her if he could, the corruption and the pain, the fear and the duty, but all he could do was squeeze her hand tightly and assure her again that he was with her until the end.

The end, he kept thinking, as they passed the guards of the dwarven thaig, as they were allowed past into the Deep Roads, as the great doors swung shut behind them with a final clang that rattled in his bones. His end would be lonelier than hers, he knew. As much as he feared it, as much as he wanted to never see those beautiful eyes empty and unable to smile back at him, he had to see her sacrifice made before he could allow himself to fall. That was another promise he had made, down here in the dark what felt like a lifetime ago. He would never allow her to become what the women taken by the darkspawn were twisted into. She would die a Grey Warden, full of fire and wild roars and singing blades. And he would die however he had to after that, even if it was on his knees at her side.

The sob that passed her lips as they paused in the shadows didn’t even sound like her. It was hopeless, shattered, things Nalissa had never been, and she clung to him desperately with tears spilling between them and soaking their armor. One last moment of fear. One more last.

When she dried her eyes and he did the same, he held her as he always did, tight against him even with the barrier of the armor they hadn’t worn together in years. Her head on his chest, his chin on her crown, their arms holding tightly to keep from shaking. Then he took her face in his hands, thumbs stroking her cheekbones that were now too pronounced, and told her that she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And she laughed, a laugh like they were young and foolish again and could still count years together ahead of them instead of hours.

She was fearless again, at the end. When they sensed the darkspawn moving through the tunnels and planned their intercept course, she was already bouncing on the balls of her feet, daggers whirling in each hand, giving him that reckless grin full of confidence and battle high that still took his breath away just as it had the first time. His shield was heavier from lack of use, his blade slower, but hers were so fast they were almost invisible as she cut through a wave of genlock assassins. And it twisted his heart in a way that he would never have recovered from anyway to see her so brimming with life and so close to death at the same time.

When Nalissa fell, she had downed an ogre, a hurlock emissary, and more genlocks than Alistair could count. Even the blade that finally slipped between her ribs was almost a matter of luck, a hurlock whose sword had clanged off a blade she had already parried and back toward her quicker than she could counter. And even though he knew it was what they were here for, that it had to happen before she became something unspeakable she would never want to be, the sound that ripped itself from Alistair’s throat was pure agony.

His sword and shield suddenly weren’t heavy at all, they were feather light and full of lightning as he crashed through two other hurlocks to the one that still held the blade and removed its head in one clean stroke. Nalissa had already hit the stone beneath her but both daggers were still in her hands and she stabbed viciously into the back of another hurlock’s calf. Blindingly beautiful even soaked in blood, fierce and deadly to the last. The last.

Alistair cut down the darkspawn she had injured, looked down to see her chest heaving, and dropped his shield. She looked straight at him even as she struggled for breath, shook her head, but he knelt beside her anyway. And again, even at the end, he could see the tears that streaked her face were for him.

She couldn’t make the sounds, but her mouth formed the words. I love you. And he sobbed it back to her, pressed his lips against hers, one last time, one last time. Her hand tried to raise to the back of his head as it always did, but it made it only halfway before it dropped and she went still.

Miles away in the deep roads, surely there were darkspawn or very unlucky dwarves that could hear the sound of Alistair Theirin’s anguish. Certainly more of them seemed drawn by his roars, bore down on him as he fought like a man possessed, with no shield but a dagger in his left hand that had fallen from hers. And it fell from his too at the end, when a viciously barbed pike caught the gap in armor on his left side. It should have hurt, but nothing hurt more than he did already. Nothing hurt more than falling beside her at last, seeing the faint smile still traced on her lips even as her eyes shone empty into the distance. Not seeing him. Never seeing him again.

But his hand found hers, before the last blow that turned everything dark. One last time.

(Also posted on AO3).

[fairestcat]

We Did The Thing: Musings On the AO3, Wiscon, and Winning the Fandom Culture Wars

HOLY SHIT WE WON A MOTHERFUCKING HUGO.

Ahem.

More seriously - or at least more verbosely - I think we won the fandom culture wars. How weird is that?

This is a sort of rambly post. It's about the OTW and the AO3, but it's also about Wiscon, because that's the community I'm in where old-school SFF fandom and transformative works fandom collide, and it's where I've watched this transformation happen over the last decade.

Back in October I made a tumblr post about the history of the OTW/AO3: On the AO3 all these years later.

That post is mostly just quotes from the comments to @astolat's original post that started the AO3: An Archive Of One's Own - and quotes from the post I made back then linking to hers:  An Archive of One's Own, Or: Why Shouldn't We Ask For Everything We Want?

Those posts are from May 2007. I was on the OTW Finance Committee by that fall.

One year later, in May 2008, I went to my first Wiscon. I was on two panels: "Fanfic and Slash 201," and "Fanfic Rising: The Organization for Transformative Works."

They were back to back on Saturday night. "Fanfic and Slash 201" from 9:00 to 10:15 and the OTW panel from 10:30 to 11:45. All fanworks panels at non fanworks-specific cons were late night panels back then. Or, occasionally, on Monday morning after half the con had gone home.

I don't remember who else was on the Fanfic 201 panel, but the OTW panel was me, @oliviacirce and ellen_fremedon. The three of us had never met before that con. @oliviacirce and I had been in Chicago Friday night for a Panic! At the Disco concert and hadn't gotten back to Madison until 3am. I have no idea how we were even still coherent for a 10:30 PM panel.

None of us wrote the panel description, which reads even more impressively antagonistic in retrospect.

"The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), led by fanfic writers, fan vidders, and fan artists (including writer Naomi Novik) seeks to establish a new regime in copyright law, in which 'all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity.' Should there be an exception for fanfic under copyright? Is OTW a good idea? (Some fans are afraid that OTW's activities will end BigMedia's tolerance for fannish creations.) What does the law say? What's the viewpoint of those who create original works -- should authors lose control of their original creations, as long as fans claim protection under a fanfic exception? And what about OTW's commitment to offer protection for RPF (Real People Fanfic)?"

At the time I would have said it was a pretty good panel, and yet we spent a distressing percentage of the panel defending the mere right of fanworks to even exist.

I went back to Wiscon in 2009, which was an...eventful year. It was the first Wiscon post-Racefail and it sparked a lot of discussion of intersecting modes of fannishness and particularly online fandom vs. offline con-based fandom, which was at the time a much bigger divide.

Wiscon 2009 was also the year @ellen_fremedon went to a panel on historical fiction, and got jumped on by Ellen Klages, who was one of that year's Guests of Honor, for the sin of mentioning fanfic in her presence.

After that Wiscon I posted Wiscon, Media Fandom and The Larger Fannish Conversation, about my experience of that divide, particularly as a transformative works fan at Wiscon.

Here's the thing: online media and fanfic fandom is a vibrant, active community within broader SF fandom. [...] And to a large extent media fandom is where the young female fans are, the women who are the future of fandom. We're there at Wiscon too; I was amazed by the number of people from LJ fandom I saw at the con this year. And yet, when it comes to having a voice in larger fandom, we're still the embarrassing cousin shuffled off into the corner (or the hotel lobby). Even at Wiscon, the feminist science fiction convention, we're mostly under the radar, carving out a tiny niche for ourselves.

Last year we had two general, broad-topic fanfic panels. This year we had a fanfic panel, a vidding panel and the media vs. book fandom panel, which was not explicitly a media fandom panel but had an audience heavily weighted towards media fandom participants. And I walked into those panels and I thought "Here! Here are my people!" But it was frustrating too. Why are we relegated to the corner, why are we willing to be relegated to the corner? The conversations we're having, the things we're doing, they don't exist in a vacuum, they're relevant to the larger fannish conversation, they're especially relevant, I think, to the conversation going on at Wiscon. And I think it's time we were a bigger, more open part of that conversation.

So, we set out to make that happen. The OTW and the AO3 were a big part of that. Everyone who was worried at the time that the OTW would bring too much attention to fandom was right to be afraid. And wrong to be afraid too. Because that attention was how everything started to change. The OTW was fandom coming out of the closet, and like any coming out it was a powerful, transformative moment for those involved.

In 2010, a group of fans held the first ever Wiscon Vid Party. 

At Wiscon in 2010, we held the first ever vid party in one of these hospitality suites on the Saturday night, from 9pm to 3am. That's six hours of vid programming! It was mostly unthemed, other than "here are some amazing vids!"[...] The general vibe of the party was loud, a little bit raucous, and pretty informal. We had a mixture of sofas and armchairs, stackable seating, and standing room. People came and went at will. We put a sign on the door asking people to keep conversations to a minimum, and it worked pretty well to keep chatter down while still allowing people to relax and have a good time. It was pretty much like a really big living room.

I missed that con due to the whole move to Canada and get married thing I did, but I remember my first Vid Party in 2012, looking around the party room and having this amazing feeling of being surrounded by my people.

I loved Wiscon, but it was always a fraught experience. There was always this worry that I'd say the wrong thing in the wrong place and suddenly get that disappointed, "oh, you're one of those fans," response. The vid party was the one place at the con that you could just walk in and that worry went away.

And then there started being more of those places. We started suggesting more and more fic and vid related panels.

In 2012, @oliviacirce and I were both on two transformative works panels. "What makes a great transformative work?" and "Fans Fix SF." In a step up from previous fanworks panels at Wiscon they were both during the day. But they were also both in the smallest panel rooms at the con, and both panels fit comfortably into those rooms. Conference 5, where "Fans Fix SF" was held, is still the only room Wiscon uses for programming that's so small it isn't wired for microphones.

And then in 2013 I suggested ten panels for Wiscon and nine of them ended up on the schedule. They weren't all explicitly transformative fandom panels, but a lot of them were, and most of the panel descriptions were informed by my experience in transformative works fandom. Looking back, that was a sea-change moment, because an interesting thing happened. There mostly stopped being transformative fandom-specific panels at Wiscon, because it started being okay, even expected, that fanfic and other transformative works might come up on any panel, from the audience or the panelists.

At Wiscon 2018, I went to a panel on #OwnVoices fiction. Every panelist was a published author and/or professional editor. In the course of the panel, every panelist mentioned fanfic in general or the AO3 in specific in an explicitly complementary fashion. I nearly burst into tears in the back of the panel room.

Afterwards, I met up with @oliviacirce and ellen_fremedon to flail about it, at which point we realized that it had been ten years since that first fateful OTW panel where we all met. And that ten years both felt like so long ago, and also so recent for everything to have changed so completely.

At Wiscon 2019, the three of us were on another panel together. We called it "Fanfic: Threat or Menace - Ten Years Later," and this time I wrote the description:

Do you remember a time before the AO3? Do you remember a time when mentioning fanfic at Wiscon risked a lecture on its illegality and/or immorality? We sure do! In 2008 we met on the panel “Fanfic Rising: The Organization for Transformative Works,” & spent most of our time defending the right of fanworks to exist. In 2018 we were amazed to realize just how much had changed. Let’s talk about how the perception & reception of fanworks have changed, both in fandom at large and right here at Wiscon.

We made it onto the schedule. They once again put us in the smallest panel room. We looked around the lobby on Thursday night and said, "yeah, that ain't happening." We eventually moved to one of the largest panel rooms.

It was almost completely full.

I started the panel by reading out the original panel description from 2008. There was laughter! revolutionaryjo came up afterwards and asked to take a picture of the description on my phone. There were so many people in that room who had no idea what the Wiscon of a decade previous had been like. It was amazing.

Best Related Work? The OTW and AO3 changed the nature of the relationship between fic readers and writers and the entirety of mainstream organized SFF fandom.

The Wiscon Vid Party is still happening, and it's still a marathon of amazing vids, but it's not a really big living room anymore. The Vid Party is the Friday night feature in the biggest panel room. There are Premieres. There’s a sing-a-long. People come who have never watched a vid outside of Wiscon. People come who've never even heard of vids outside of Wiscon. The first year the Vid Party was in the big room, I walked into the room just before the show started, looked around, and realized I didn't recognize ⅔ of the people in the room. And I was so happy. Because I no longer need the Vid Party as a safe space to let down my guard, the entire con is now that place.

We did that. We made that happen.

The OTW made that happen. The AO3 made that happen. But also, a whole lot of individual fans made that happen. We stepped out of our corner, we stepped out of our closet. We demanded a seat at the table. And now we have a motherfucking HUGO AWARD, and when Naomi Novik got on stage at the Hugos and asked everyone who felt that they were part of the AO3 to stand up to be acknowledged, a notable number of this year's other Hugo nominees were among the attendees who got to their feet.

[solynaceawrites]

Promise Me Forever [10]

Fandom: Devil May Cry Characters: Dante, Lirael Thorne (OC) Tags: Slow Burn, Romance, Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe, First Time, Friends to Lovers Chapters: 10/14 co-written by @lickitysplitfic​ Summary: An old, long-forgotten promise between gods comes back to haunt Dante when it deposits an unfamiliar woman on his door. Claiming to be the descendant of Ler, she says that they’re meant to fulfill the oath made by Sparda centuries ago, and all he can do is watch as she turns his life upside down. Yet when her parents come knocking, demanding the oath be fulfilled, he’s forced to choose: return to the bachelor ways he loved so much, or give in to the emotions brewing between him.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

Lir hums to herself a bit as she flips the bacon in the pan, listening for signs that Dante is awake. She had been up since about dawn, laying in bed and watching the sun rise out the window, his arms still around her and holding her close against his body. 

The toast pops from the toaster so Lir piles the bacon onto a plate, quickly moving to crack several eggs into the pan before pulling the slices out carefully. When she turns, Dante is standing in the doorway in nothing but his boxer briefs, and he startles her so badly she yelps and nearly drops the food.

"Hey there!" he laughs, his reflexes like lightning as he jumps to grab the plates.

"Thanks," she says sheepishly, blushing a bit before turning back to the stove.

She listens to him set them on the table, and then his presence is back, hovering just behind her as she eyes the eggs and waits for them to be ready to turn. "Did you sleep well?" she asks.

He hums. "Yeah. Smells good in here."

"You always say that."

"It's true." Lir laughs softly to herself as she plates the eggs, and he insists, "You're a damn good cook. Course I'm gonna say it smells fucking amazing."

She takes the first batch of eggs to the table, Dante trailing after her. "I'm glad to hear it. The least I can do is make sure you're eating properly."

"The place doesn't look too trashed," he comments. "I wonder how long everyone stuck around."

"Not sure," she answers. When she turns, she nearly bumps into him again, and Lir looks up. Dante grins down at her, and she holds her breath, waiting to see what he will do. Will he kiss her? Hold her hand? Or will they go back to the way things were?

Her gaze drags over him, and she spies a red mark just above his right pectoral. Did she do that? Was she really that aggressive? Embarrassment floods her suddenly, setting her cheeks on fire. "Need some help?" he asks.

Lir's eyes dart away as she tries to look anywhere but his chest. "I don't think so," she answers in a tiny voice. "Why don't you sit?"

He hesitates, and her fingers find the edge of the shirt she'd stolen from his dresser and twist it. When she'd gotten up, she'd been sore in a way entirely new to her, and she'd taken a hot shower to relieve some of it and wash the small bit of blood and remnants of his seed from her thighs. While there, she'd noticed faint bruises on her hips, the same size and shape as his fingers, and she'd wondered at not feeling him gripping her so tightly. There were more, near the crease of her thigh, and a dark red mark beneath her ear.

They'd startled her at first, then pleased her. Now, though, as she waits for him to either say something or move, Lir finds herself wishing she'd used make-up to at least cover her neck, because she knows that he's more than likely displeased with how easily it formed. "Sure," he says, his tone unreadable. "Yeah. You, uh . . . You gonna eat?"

"Yes!" Lir spins and moves to the refrigerator, grabbing a pitcher of juice and bringing it to the table before sitting across from him. Dante smiles at her, reaching for toast. She watches him spread jelly on a slice, thinking of how his hands were on her body. Up until now, she had felt confident things went well, beyond happy with the night they shared. There was even a voicemail from her mother, saying how nice things were and to remind her to mop the floors later.

But now, face to face, doubt is filling her by the second, especially since he hasn't said anything. 

Something else seems off, and a second later she realizes something is burning. "The eggs!" Lir cries, jumping to her feet and rushing to the pan.

Sure enough, the edges are too dark. In frustration she flips the eggs over, but she must have been too aggressive because every yolk breaks. Lir stares at the burnt eggs with a deep frown, taking a deep breath and willing herself not to cry.

"You okay?" Dante calls over.

She takes a moment to steady her voice. "Yes. I just forgot about the eggs, so they're . . . I'm sorry."

"Hey, no worries. Any egg is a good egg in my book." His cheery voice only serves to make her feel worse, and she nearly tosses the eggs out, only her mother's repeated admonishment never to waste food keeping her from doing so. She takes them to the table instead, wincing when Dante snags four for his plate. "Besides, I like 'em a little crispy."

Lir nods, sinking into her seat. She pushes her food around on her plate, wondering what to say. Her mother's voice is running nonstop in her head, all the instructions from the years, and her chatter in the hours before the wedding the day beforehand: be engaging, don't let him see a mess, everything in its place, a good wife makes a husband happy.

But is he happy? She peeks up to see him munching away. Maybe, so she should use this time to talk. Yet the only topic on her mind is one she can't bring herself to say. "Did you sleep well?" she finally manages.

"Yeah. I was tired as hell. Passed right out." Then Dante freezes, and she watches with concern as a series of emotions she can't quite make out flash across his face. He sits up stiffly, placing his fork carefully on the edge of the plate. "Did, uh, you?" he asks in return, not meeting her eyes.

She nods. "Yes, thank you. I wasn't awake much longer than you were, and woke up refreshed."

It's a practiced answer, and half a lie. When she had fallen asleep, it had been deep, yes, but the hours after their coupling had passed with her lying awake, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest and taking the liberty of stroking the muscle of his arm without his eyes on her. That's something she doesn't think he needs, or wants, to know—if she tells him, she has no doubt that it would make him uncomfortable, if not outright angry.

"Good." Dante clears his throat. "I've been thinkin' about what happened last night. The, uh, sex. You follow?" When she indicates that she does, he crosses his arms. "It was, uh . . . not exactly what I expected. Not that I expected much," he chuckles, "but still."

"Not . . ." Her voice fades as the blood leaves her face. She looks down, suddenly mortified she is wearing his shirt. Why didn't she put the gown back on? It had been too presumptuous, and she has her own clothes, and she looks ridiculous. Not that the gown would have enticed him at all.

Of course, he doesn't want it either.

"It wasn't . . . what I expected either," she murmurs.

"Right." He clears his throat again. "I'm sorry about that. I guess I got a bit carried away towards the end there. But don't worry. I promise, it won't happen again."

Lir nods. This is to be expected, and she had been foolish enough to hope. Quickly she clears her throat and picks up her fork. "You're right. It can't happen again. We fulfilled the oath, and now we don't have to do that ever again."

She shoves a slice of bacon into her mouth, glancing up when Dante fails to agree with her. He is giving her a strange look that he quickly covers up when she blinks in surprise. "Yeah. No need for that, huh? Probably shouldn't."

"I'm glad we agree." She takes a sip of juice to buy herself time to build up the courage to ask her next question. "Do you want me to return home? I understand if you want your own back, and I'm sure they'll have accommodations for me."

He pauses in buttering a slice of toast. "Do you want to go back?"

"It's not about what I want—"

"Yeah, it is." His gaze is heavy on her face. "You wanna go back, I'm not gonna stop you. You wanna stay, you're welcome to stay. I told you before that I like havin' you around, but I don't own you. You're free to choose."

Lir stares back, her heart fluttering a bit. He has just made it so clear that he wants nothing to do with her, and yet when he talks about her staying, it seems like he actually wants that. "I would like to stay," she whispers. 

"Okay," Dante says. He leans back and rubs his hands on his thighs. "Do you, uh . . . want to move back into your room?"

"I should," she says quietly. "I'll get my things from yours after I clean up down here."

"Alright."

They finish the rest of their breakfast in an unusually terse silence, and Lir more picks at hers than eats; her nerves are frayed, her uncertainty making her stomach churn, and she watches him get up from the table and head to get dressed with no small relief. Once he's out of sight, she presses her hands to her face and allows herself a few seconds to cry and work through her disappointment and hurt. Then she sets about washing the dishes and wiping down the counters and table, making certain the entire kitchen is spotless before she steps foot into the office.

Dante is behind his desk, his feet propped on its surface and a magazine over his face. She knows he's sleeping from his slow, even breathing, and she tiptoes to and up the stairs, holding her breath until she reaches the second floor, where she has more freedom to move around.

Her first stop is his room. Carefully, she strips the sheets, setting the fitted one aside to soak once she sees the spot of blood on it, and then she remakes it with the ones that he likes and hides the frilled pillows and decorative blanket in the back of his closet. Lir trades out his shirt for her slip, and then she takes the dirty linens to the hall, where she leaves them while she makes a second sweep of the room, dusting and looking for anything she might have missed. Her wedding dress, in a heap on the floor, is the only thing, and she takes that to her room and hangs it in the closet, gets dressed, and takes the things from the hall down to the laundry room.

After the washer is going, Lir heads back to the main room. There is nothing to do, as she had kept his schedule clear at his request. Nervously she fusses around, finding a stray cup from the party or a crushed flower, until finally Dante calls her name.

She stops and they stare at one another for a long moment. Is this how it will always be, this awkwardness? She would have thought being naked with their hands and mouths all over each other would have been the ultimate ice breaker . . . and now that image is in her head, which she quickly shakes.

"Is that all you're doing today?" he asks.

Confused, Lir looks down at the little bag of trash she holds. "Is . . . that alright?"

"It's just, ya know . . ." Dante shrugs. "It seems weird. We just got . . . well, you were there." He gestures with his hand before continuing, "Most people leave on a honeymoon or something. Never heard of a couple just . . . going back to work after a wedding."

"A honeymoon?" she echoes. Her sisters had each taken one, their husbands carting them off to some exotic locale for a week, and Lir had listened to their gushing after they returned. But she'd never thought of having one herself. "Would you like to?"

"Well, we could—"

He's cut off by the shrill ringing of the phone. Both of them stare at it for several seconds until he grunts and leans forward, snatching it from the hook. "Devil May Cry." His brows furrow as he listens. Then he holds the phone out for her. "It's your mother."

Lir steps forward to take it with a frown. "Mother?"

"Lir! My goodness, you should really teach him the proper way to answer a call." Lorenna sounds breathless, excited, and that sends a sliver of worry through her. "Well, that can wait. You'll never believe what's happened!"

She glances to Dante. "What?"

"Your father was with one of his colleagues—Damien, do you remember him? Well, they got this idea that they should have another look at those records, since you're married now, make sure nothing else was required to keep the seal going. And I told him, I said, don't go rocking the boat, Augustus, Lir's married now, there's no point trying to get her out of it—"

"Mother, please."

"It's true! He was against it from the start. Said we should send Irene, but what would her husband's family say if we broke their engagement?" There's a pause where Lorenna takes in a deep breath. "What was I saying? Oh! So, they went and read over that old contract, and do you know what they found? You don't have to be married at all!"

Her heart sinks to her feet, her fingers going numb where she cradles the phone to her ear. "What?"

"Turns out, it was just a handshake. That's all that was needed, and the seal stays good as new! I'm assuming you've shaken his hand. If not, you can do it now, and we'll look into getting that marriage annulled, assuming you've gone to the courts already. No sense in you being sullied by a demon when there's no need for it."

Her heart feels like it has stopped. Several seconds go by before she hears, "Lir? Lir, are you there?"

"Yes," she whispers.

"Well what do you say? You can come home tonight if—"

"It was nice talking to you, Mother," she quickly says, cutting her off. She hears her protest as she sets the receiver down on the cradle, her hands shaking slightly.

"Everything alright?" Lir looks up sharply at Dante, who stares at her closely. "You look pale. Did she give you shit or something?"

Lir shakes her head. "No. No, it's nothing. She called to tell me . . ." She clears her throat. "Just to say she had a nice time, and that they were on their way back."

She wonders if he'll see the lie in her eyes, but Dante only nods. "Good. Now about this honeymoon . . . we could maybe go away somewhere? For a couple of days?" He shrugs. "Nothing fancy, but . . . I feel like I should do something for you, at least."

"Sure. Why don't you find some places, and we'll look at them together. I think I'm going to finish tidying up."

He studies her for a bit longer before nodding, and she returns to picking up the trash, wondering what the hell she's going to do.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

Dante grins as he carries their bags into the room Kyrie helped him arrange. "Hey, this is nice," he exclaims. 

"Yeah, it is!" Lir smiles as she steps past him. He swells with happiness to see it, the first bit of spark she's shone since they were married a few days before. She had become quieter, almost skittish around him, and he was hoping having a few days would help them get past the awkwardness that had grown huge between them.

Of course, a lack of money and time had been two obstacles, so they ended up in Fortuna. But Kyrie had helped them find a bed and breakfast right on the water, so it seemed nice enough. He wasn't sure what a bed and breakfast was exactly, but he liked sleeping and food so Dante had booked it along with another surprise for Lir.

He watches her flit about the room, opening the curtains and cooing over the view of the ocean, peeking into the bathroom. The only hesitation she shows comes when she peers at the bed, which they'll have to share, but otherwise she seems happy, and that makes him happy in turn. Dante drops their bags onto the bed, laughing quietly when she immediately moves to open them and starts storing their things in the dresser. "You always unpack like this?"

"I haven't been on a vacation before." She smiles at him over her shoulder, and his heart stutters at the sight. "But I think it'd be easier to have our clothes here instead of rummaging through the suitcases, don't you?"

"Sure, sure, yeah." He peers out of the window, wrinkling his nose at the sight of people lounging on the beach. Sometimes, after all that happened with the Order, it's easy to forget that Fortuna is a tourist destination. "Listen, there's something I want to talk to you about."

"What is it?"

"I've got a surprise for you this afternoon. So, if you wanna go to the beach or the boardwalk, we should do that soon."

"A surprise?" She stops what she is doing and looks at him with wide eyes. "What surprise?"

Dante clears his throat. "Uh . . . Well, I guess there isn't any harm in telling you. I got us tickets to that aquarium thing you wanted. We can arrive at—"

He is cut off when Lir lets go a squeal. "Really? Really?! We're going to the aquarium? Dante!" 

She is practically bouncing up and down. "Yeah. You said you wanted to go, right?"

Lir lets go another squeal and nearly launches herself at him, the clothes in her hands scattering as she throws her arms around him. "Dante! I'm so excited! I can't believe you remembered!"

He huffs a laugh as she hugs him tightly. Tentatively he puts her arms around her, the first hug she's given him since their night together. It is an odd feeling, considering Lir was always affectionate without even realizing it, squeezing his arm or fixing his collar or tucking his hair back. He hadn't even noticed it either until she stopped, and Dante smiles as he holds her closely.

She smells sweet and clean, and he presses his nose to her hair, relishing this while it lasts. "Thank you, thank you!" She squeezes him, her face in the crook of his neck, her breath fanning along his skin pleasantly. "Do you think they'll have whales? I really want to see one!"

"No whales, I think. They're too big to keep there. But," he amends, when she sags a bit, "I'm sure they'll have sharks. Maybe even dolphins."

Lir perks right up, drawing away to beam up at him. She's close enough that he could kiss her, and he really, really wants to. But, before he can, she's off, digging through her bag. "I need to get changed. I have this perfect sundress that I've been saving for ages, and I think I brought my wedges . . ."

Lir grabs her things and disappears into the bathroom, leaving Dante to stare after her. He chuckles and fishes out his cell phone, writing a quick text to Nero: Tell Kyrie that Lir loves the room.

Nero answers back almost immediately: I will! She'll be glad. We still getting dinner later?

Dante presses his lips together. Maybe. I'll let you know.

Lir emerges a minute later, wearing a red and white sundress that cinches tight around her chest and flares out, stopping well above the knee. His mouth goes dry as he takes in her bare legs and tiny waist. She looks cute and fun and his mind immediately goes straight to the sinful things he would want to do to her in the cute dress. But Lir doesn't want that, she's made that abundantly clear from the morning after the wedding.

She catches him staring and does a little twirl, laughing as the fabric flares around her thighs before settling back. "What do you think?"

"You look . . ." Fucking amazing. "You look good. D'you want to go now? Tickets are for four o'clock, but there's probably a gift shop we can look in . . ."

"Can we? Please?" Lir looks at him with those pleading amber eyes, and he thinks of that same expression when they'd had sex and has to swallow to clear the lump from his throat.

"Yeah, of course. Just let me, uh . . . Gotta store the weapons, y'know? People probably wouldn't be too pleased about them."

Lir nods, fishing her shoes from her bag as he unbuckles the guns from his back. It's weird to not have to wear them, but the likelihood of him needing them is incredibly low; besides, if anything happens, Fortuna has a devil hunter on-call already. 

He ignores the shape of her legs as she crosses them to buckle her sandals, instead stashing his holster in the closet. They aren't even out the door and she's already driving him nuts, just as she had back at the shop, every interaction so damn awkward even though he wanted nothing more than to pull her close and kiss her senseless. And maybe make up for breaking his promise, and actually make her feel good, unlike their wedding night.

Not that he blames her for freezing him out; the way he acted like an animal didn't help things, or his complete lack of knowing what the hell to do. No wonder she just wants to be friends, and deep down, Dante knows that if that's all she ever wants, he'll be okay with it. Seeing her happy is what is important to him now, not the sex.

But damn, he wishes for that too.

"Ready?" she calls from the door.

"Uh-huh." He puts his sword in the closet, shuts the door, and turns to face her with a grin. She moves towards him, and he holds out his arm, delighted when she takes, more so when she leans against him, resting her head on his bicep. "Hope it's everything you want it to be," he says.

Lir hums, giving him a little squeeze. "It already is."

They head out to the street, walking arm-in-arm towards the harbor where the aquarium is located. It really is a perfect day, the sun sparkling on the water and a nice breeze in the trees. Lir exclaims over the little shops they pass, admiring the cobblestone on the streets and the old fashioned lamps. "I feel like I've gone back in time," she laughs.

"Yeah, Fortuna was kind of stuck for a while," he replies. "But now that the Order is gone, they are modernizing."

Lir glances up at him. "Is it very difficult, remembering your fight here?"

"What? No," Dante scoffs. "It was nothing. And Nero did most of the work. I just ran around shooting things."

"All that violence," she murmurs. He glances down, surprised by the melancholy in her voice, but she gives her head a little shake and points to an ice cream stand by the edge of the beach. "Look! I wonder if they have strawberry sundaes?"

"Do you want to see?"

Her brows furrow. "After the aquarium?"

"Sure."

"Yes!" There's an element of innocence to her joy, and he shifts his arm cautiously from her hold to curl it around her waist, relaxing when she doesn't immediately pull away. Not that it's her fault, but she's drawing more than a few lingering looks, and he's got no desire to spoil this trip for her by knocking the sense out of someone who's got no chance with her, anyway. "Do you think we'll see Nero and Kyrie?"

"About that . . . They actually want to meet up for dinner when we're done. If you want to, that is."

Lir nods eagerly. "That would be fun!"

Dante sighs, a mix of disappointment and relief. It will be easier to keep the awkwardness at bay with the others around, although part of him wishes it could be just the two of them on this trip. He sends Nero a text confirming dinner and receives back a reply: My place at six.

They find the aquarium easily enough. It's the newest looking building in the area, with a steel replica of a shark's jaw framing the sign Fortuna Aquarium. Lir nearly drags him through the doors, looking around eagerly while a clerk scans their tickets and cheerily bids them to have a good time, pointing out the gift shop just inside the doors. That's where they go first, and Lir disappears quickly among the shelves, Dante following along as she browses the different stuffed animals and bits of jewelry and other novelties, a mixture of joy and regret making his head feel heavy.

I really fucked this up. 

[lifblogs]

Livin In You: Chapter 10

Fandom: Supernatural Rating: Explicit Pairing: Destiel Summary: Castiel is a mental health worker who is just fine with the way his life is. The only thing that really bugs him is how much his co-worker, and friend, Meg, mentions Dean Winchester, the most famous rock star in the modern age. Meg drags him to a concert, and he ends up getting tied into the wild and angsty life of Dean Winchester. Suddenly his old life seems boring, but so much calmer. Suddenly, it matters to him that he’s still a virgin. Suddenly, this rock star that he despised the mention of now matters to him. Dean Winchester is a rock star who’s on top of the world when it comes to music. Yet there’s more that he wants. He misses Lisa and Ben, he craves connection, craves being himself. Any hope for that amidst his alcoholic life all changes when Zachariah, the head exec of Heaven’s Records, pairs with a new exec, Michael Edlund -- the Archangel of Music. Under Michael’s dominance, he’s no longer in control of his own life. There are rules. No more sex with fans. No more alcohol. And in Dean’s view, no more god damn free will. Yet he stumbles into Castiel. Chapter Word Count: 2725

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CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3 | CHAPTER 4 | CHAPTER 5 | CHAPTER 6 | CHAPTER 7 | CHAPTER 8 | CHAPTER 9

Dean had to get up to throw up once or twice in the night, and between all that, he forgot Castiel existed. Sure, he passed his sleeping form with a head of hair that was black in the darkness on his way to the bathroom. But the other man wasn’t nearly as important as his shaking body, and reeling stomach.

Eventually, some time before five A.M., he managed to fall into sleep that wasn’t restless or broken by the after effects of his drunkenness. By the time he fully woke up, the room was dark, the curtains pulled closed so daylight wouldn’t filter through. Dean knew this kind of dark. It was the dark of waking up late. He supposed he didn’t really care. His head hurt, an incessant ache that wouldn’t leave, and his stomach just felt wrong.

He groaned as he rolled over and cracked an eye open.

A bottle of gatorade was on his nightstand, along with two pills of aspirin lying on a tissue.

Garth. His incredibly friendly and chipper assistant must’ve done this.

Dean sat up, took the medicine and started drinking the gatorade. It wasn’t till he felt well enough to walk out into the main living quarters of the hotel suite that he remembered another person was there.

Really, it was the back of Castiel’s head that gave it away.

Was the dude seriously still sleeping?

Dean shrugged after some consideration. Maybe he’s a third shifter. But what to do with him?

That thought hit him hard, and Dean sat down in a chair across from the part of the couch Castiel was sleeping on, open bottle of half-finished gatorade in his hand.

“Shit.”

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, or so vehemently. He must have because Castiel started from sleep, and then turned his head this way and that, eyes wild. He backed away from Dean. But then there was recognition, and he relaxed, but didn’t seem at all pleased.

Well, Dean could take people not liking him… he hoped.

Why didn’t Cas like him? He knew he’d asked him, but it just didn’t make any fucking sense.

He was Dean Winchester!

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Dean quipped. “Want me to call Garth and get us some coffee?”

Castiel started righting himself properly, pulling the blanket up into his lap. He ran a hand through his hair, but it was still a mess, and to Dean it looked a lot like sex-hair. God, it looked good on him.

He nodded.

“Yes, I think that will suffice.”

“You got a fancy way of talking.”

Castiel just gave him a look that said… Actually, Dean didn’t really know what it said. In the daylight, Castiel seemed difficult to read. It made Dean uncomfortable. Who was this man?

And what am I going to do with him?

This wasn’t like the other times Dean had brought people back to his room, not just because he hadn’t slept with him — which was super weird in this instance — but because he wasn’t allowed to be here. His presence would surely get sniffed out. Crowley could’ve talked to Clif already. Though Dean figured Clif wasn’t working with his manager behind his back. He was Dean’s bodyguard. So maybe even if Clif had gotten a call, he wouldn’t run to tell mommy about Dean and his new friend.

But how to keep his new friend hidden?

It also meant there was the issue of the car as well. Dean would have some money missing, and there were witnesses.

Hell, witnesses?

What was he even thinking like?

It wasn’t like it was a crime scene. Okay, aside from crashing his car into Castiel’s, it wasn’t a crime scene.

But Zachariah could smell the original sin on an otherwise innocent baby fifteen miles off. Dean was screwed, especially with Michael as the head honcho now.

God damn it!

Dean’s face must have gone through a lot of transformations because Castiel asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Oh? Uh, nothing.” He walked back over to his bedroom to go grab his phone, and before he closed the doors behind him said, “Just uh… just gonna call Garth.”

With the doors closed, he took a deep breath, and then ran a hand through his hair.

This was crazy. Not his usual brand of crazy. Hell, maybe it wasn’t even that bad.

But then Dean remembered a beer bottle getting taken out of his hand, remembered Zach’s stern — maybe even angry — face. He remembered what he’d told him. He owned Dean now.

Dean went to the far wall and groaned, hanging his head against it. Really, he wanted to use it to bang his head, but most doctors wouldn’t advise that as a way to relieve his headache.

Dean straightened, closing his eyes.

Was it worth a shot?

No, definitely not.

So Dean got out his phone, and called Garth. He could do the shouting thing he’d done the night before, but in hindsight that had seemed rude. His drunk self obviously hadn’t cared.

“Morning, Dean Bean! Well, hmm… oh no, it’s not noon yet, but cutting it pretty close there. What’s up?”

“Wondering if you could get me and my friend some coffee. And uh, you were in here earlier, right?”

“Was I?”

“Gatorade, aspirin,” Dean added.

“Oh no, silly, that was your friend there. He was up earlier and asked me to pick those things up for you. He grabbed them at the door, brought them to your room himself.”

That had Dean pause in what he was about to say.

Cas had done that? He’d thought about him?

That started to make Dean feel guilty for practically kidnapping the guy. Or had it been the other way around? He’d been the drunk one after all. Huh, how did that work? There was another emotion there too, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. It was pretty foreign to him, or had been in the couple of years since he’d left Ben. Was it… affection?

No, that would be bullshit. He’d just met the guy last night, and part of him still wanted to sleep with him. This was just a messed up situation.

“Dean-o? De-ean!”

“Hmm, what? Yeah.”

“You all good?”

“Yeah, um… Coffee. You know the regular I like, and for him, just make sure to bring packets of sugar and cream and stuff, I don’t really know what he likes.”

“Okie dokie. See you in ten.”

“Five?”

“Dean, I don’t control the pace at which the world runs.”

“Okay, ten,” he relented. “And, oh, is Sam up?”

“I’m not his assistant too, Dean. 

“Okay, but he’s famous by association. I know you and Clif keep tabs on him when he’s not staying underground.”

“Yes, he’s up.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Despite feeling like shit, Dean took the opportunity of some private time to get dressed. Nothing fancy. For him nothing fancy stil came out to a thousand dollars or more per outfit, but it was just jeans, a black undershirt, a white and blue flannel, and a leather jacket. The boots were nice too. Custom-made combat boots with gold inlays.

“Great, now I feel underdressed,” Castiel said as Dean walked back into the room.

“Uh… I have some jeans,” he told him, plopping down on the couch beside his… whatever he was.

Cas made a face. “Not sure they’d fit.”

Dean smiled, glancing at Cas’ hips and legs. He whacked him playfully on the thigh. “Come on, you should be able to squeeze those into a pair. Not like you’re fat. You’re just…” Dean couldn’t think of the word, and trailed off. Thick, muscular, large, beautiful. Yeah, all of that. Fuck. “Yeah, body’s shaped differently. But come on, I can get my bowlegs into these, you should be fine.”

Castiel rolled his eyes and sighed, brushing Dean’s hand off of his leg.

“Fine.”

“Bottom drawer,” Dean said helpfully as Castiel went into his room.

Part of Dean wanted to follow him, wanted to watch him take off those sweatpants, or maybe even take them off for him. The jeans he was wearing were ripped at the knees, but he figured the skin of his knees would be fine with a bit of friction on the floor. Rugburn didn’t hurt too badly, not as bad as his hand still did. At least he’d somehow managed to get that taped and bandaged up. There was an ace wrap around it as well. So he was still able to function, use it for some things, just not all the sexy things going through his head at the moment.

Dean was drawn from his sensual reverie as there was a knock on the door. He went and answered it, apprehensive, gut twisting.

This was it.

Crowley knew. Zach knew. He was going to lose his dream, everything.

Dean sighed in relief, leaning against the open door when he saw it was just Sam. He was dressed in dress pants, a white button-up shirt, and a tie. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. In one hand was a yellow legal pad, a pen pressed between that and the crook of his thumb.

“What, you lawyering today or something?” Dean asked.

“Yes. The contract’s going to be sent over, and we have business to discuss apparently.”

Dean just stared at him, contemplating slamming the door in his face. Reality was not fun right now. He glanced back at his gatorade he’d left on the coffee table. Was there anyone around who could pull a Jesus and turn it into alcohol? Huh, maybe Sam. He had the look, what with the scruff and the hair and all.

Eventually Sam said, “Morning. Or…” He held up his wrist, looking at his watch. “Actually, no. Good afternoon.”

Dean rolled his eyes, and then let Sam in.

“Thanks for coming,” he eventually said, relenting, knowing it wasn’t his brother’s fault that any of this was happening.

But shit, he’d forgotten about the contract.

“You want anything to drink?” Dean asked, playing the gracious host.

“Nah, I’m good.”

Dean settled back down on the couch with his gatorade, and Sam eyed the blanket, taking a seat away from it.

Dean ignored the look, though he surely wanted answers. “So who’s dropping off the contract?”

“Don’t know.”

“When’ll they be here?”

“One.”

Dean sighed at that. Okay, he had some time to get Cas out of his hair.

A drawer slammed shut, and there was some cursing. Sam straightened, looking at the doors to Dean’s bedroom.

“Who else is here?” he asked.

Dean shrugged. “A friend.”

Sam looked at Dean, then back at the doors, then Dean again.

“Is it that guy from last night? Dean, tell me you didn’t.”

“I didn’t.”

Sam’s eyebrows, which had been furrowed with concern, now rose in a disbelieving look.

“He’s getting dressed. You can ask him yourself when he comes out. But” — Dean broke up his speech with a long swallow of gatorade — “I need to get rid of him somehow. Or, I don’t know, hide him. I kinda like having him around.”

“Dean, you’re not supposed to—”

“Like I said, I didn’t.”

“And okay, then what about the issue from last night? What exactly am I risking my license for today?”

“Car accident.”

“Are you serious?!”

That was when Castiel slid open the doors and walked back into the room. Dean noticed that the knuckles of his right hand were red, like they’d gotten slammed in a drawer. That must’ve been what had happened.

“Uh…”

That was Castiel, and Sam was already being business-like, getting up and going over to shake his hand.

“Sam Winchester,” he said. “And you are? I didn’t get your name from Dean yet.”

“Castiel,” he said, and then added, “uh… Novak.”

“So what’s the situation?” Sam asked.

The poor guy looked like a deer caught in headlights, so Dean went over and grabbed him, having him sit beside him. He couldn’t tell if Castiel liked that or not; he seemed neutral about it more than anything. Dean was far from neutral. He’d gotten a good look at Castiel in his jeans, and god, had it been a mistake to tell him he’d fit? He didn’t exactly, but wow, he looked damn good. The material hugged his body, and somewhere in Dean started pulsing as he eyed the unmistakable bulge of his denim-wrapped groin. Dean figured if Cas turned around he’d see the clothing hug his ass too, just like it did in the front and to his thighs.

Dean eyed him even as they sat together. He hadn’t noticed he’d drifted off and started biting on his bottom lip, till he heard Castiel talking about what had happened.

Thank god he was taking the lead. Dean still had a headache.

He zoned out till Garth arrived with the coffee, and as he started back over, Sam reprimanded, “You were supposed to come right back to the hotel.”

“What are you, my babysitter?” he snapped. 

He passed Castiel his coffee and packets of cream and sugar and sat back down. Dean had a sip of his own coffee, and saw Cas start preparing his the way he liked it.

Sam just breathed deeply and gave Dean a sympathetic look. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Dean, or-or… control you like what everyone else wants to do. I just want you to be careful. I know how much your music means to you.”

Dean argued, “Think having my own life is pretty important too.”

“That’s not what—”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Castiel asked. “What’s happening?”

Sam and Dean immediately shut up, and Dean turned to Cas with big eyes. Shit, he hadn’t meant for any of this to come up around him. They were just supposed to talk about Castiel’s car and the insurance company.

“Not important,” he eventually said.

Castiel didn’t just shrug it off as he expected. Instead, the strange man gave him a look that seemed to say a million things at once: I understand. I’m here if you need to talk. You’re not alone.

Dean’s breath caught in his throat as he looked at that handsome face and into those startlingly blue eyes.

How the hell could he do that?

Sam cleared his throat, and both turned back to him.

“We can discuss it later,” Sam said. “And uh… Castiel, I’m not sure how good of a friend of my brother’s you are. I—”

Cas: “Oh, we just met last night. When he crashed his car into mine.”

Sam gave a tight smile, “Lovely.”

Dean wanted to roll his eyes at the tension he saw in Sam, but he didn’t. His brother was doing a big thing for him. Dean could at least repay him by not being an asshole for a couple of minutes.

The discussion was exhausting, but they eventually got it all sorted out, Sam taking notes on his yellow legal pad, and after a few Sam-dominated phone calls with various people and insurance agents, it was all settled.

And according to his watch it was one P.M.

Fuck.

There was a knock on the door.

Dean’s eyes went wide, and he grabbed Cas in a panic, while another hand reached out for his brother, as if he wanted to grab him to hide behind.

“Shit, shit. Cas, you gotta go.”

“Go where? I can’t leave, unless you have any ideas as to how I could survive the drop from the window.”

Dean got him up, pushing him over to the bedroom. “Bedroom,” he urged. “Stay quiet.”

Sam was going to get the door.

Dean tried sliding the bedroom doors closed, but Castiel held on just before they were about to obscure his face.

“What’s happening?”

“Nothing. Let you out soon, and uh… maybe get in the closet?”

“The closet? Dean!”

Footsteps sounded. Dean closed the doors, and then turned. He fixed his outfit, making it look like he’d just come out of his room from getting dressed and was straightening his clothes.

The man who had arrived was wearing white dress shoes. It was the first thing Dean noticed, and as his gaze traveled upwards, he stopped dead.

“Mr. Edlund.”

The dark-haired man with glimmering blue eyes who held a thick packet of papers smiled. “Please, call me Michael.”