#would also be me trying to publish here for the first time so uh

[okaysonny]

i'll legit try and write that samuel fic idea... i just want to catch up on lookism first so i can get a better feel for his character 🤫

[n0thingbutlov3]

need you now

in which an impulsive voicemail leads to some secrets being spilled.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader. warnings/tags: angst (sorry i’m incapable of being nice lol) hurt/comfort tho!! lil bit of fluff too because i AM capable of being nice, alcohol consumption as a coping mechanism (i’m literally just a girl…) spencer and reader are broken up :( but they’re still sooo in love and it’s soo obvious so it’s fine!! (also it kind of gets fixed at the end-ish. you’ll see *evil smirk*) reader cries a lot (real) spencer is a cutie (as always) spencer and reader sleep together…no like literally, not in a funny business way, some swearing, no use of y/n!!! wc: 3k a/n: hihihi!! so this is my first fan fiction i’ve wrote and completed ever (gulp) it’s also my first time publishing one (gulp) my writing could definitely be better and so could my grammar tbh but i HOPE if you choose to read you’ll enjoy…feedback is always appreciated (plsplspls) also like requests?? if anyone’s into that—id love to write more but inspo is difficult sometimes. if there’s any spelling mistakes im sorry, eye am very tired!! it’s 5am *eye twitching* okay i’m going to sleep, gootbye IF U SAW ME EDITING THIS 5 TIMES NO U DIDNT (i’m bad at tumblr ok..)

“Hi. This is Doctor Spencer Reid. I’m not available right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can…”

His tinny voice cut off to make way for the signature beep of the beginning of a voicemail recording.

You could hang up now—you should hang up now, save yourself some dignity and go drown your sorrows in alcohol like a normal person instead of calling your ex-boyfriend.

You should, but your mouth was opening before your finger could reach the hang-up button, and…and it was a losing battle from the moment you clicked on Spencer’s icon.

“Uh—hi, it’s…it’s me.” You huffed out a sad laugh.

“So, um, I…I tried calling, but you didn’t answer so…” The static buzz of silence hummed through your ear, just inches from where you held your phone with a shaky grip. “maybe you’re on a case or out with friends, or someone else—“ You let the implication hang in the air—the thought of Spencer potentially being in a relationship bringing a lump to your throat.

You swallowed it down.

“I just…I just had an unbelievably shitty day, Spence.” You sniffed, wiping the moisture that had escaped from your eye with your sweater sleeve. “I know you’ve never read A Series of Unfortunate Events but I think I’d give those kids a run for their money.” You tried to laugh but it came out as more of a sob.

You inhaled shakily, trying to collect yourself and remember why on earth you thought it would be a good idea to call Spencer when you’d been broken up for months. Hell, you hadn’t heard from him at all since you had parted ways—except from the odd text about returning each others’ things. It was obvious he had moved on, and here you were, filling up his voicemail with blubbering messages and making references to adolescent books.

“God, sorry about this.” You breathed out a watery chuckle. “I just…didn’t want to be alone, I guess. But that’s-um-not your problem anymore, so I’m—I’m sorry. Have a nice night.” Your voice cracked and you hung up before you could start weeping down the line. You didn’t need to look even more pathetic.

You pulled your phone away from your ear, looking down at his contact photo through blurred vision. He was smiling—not the tight, closed lip smile he gave other people, but a full, bright smile that had his dimples showing. One of your hands was wrapped loosely around his neck and the other was holding your phone just far enough away to capture both of your smiles. Your head was rested on top of his shoulder, tilted just slightly to the left so your temple was brushing against his.

It felt like looking at a vintage photograph—you knew those people and their happiness existed at some point in time, but it wasn’t tangible; you couldn’t verify it was real.

When you were with Spencer, you never doubted how real it was. All you had to was look at him across the room and he’d flash you a smile identical to the one in that photo and you’d just…know.

It felt like forever ago now that you’d been on the receiving end of that grin and it killed you. So much so that before you could consider the repercussions, you were trudging through to your kitchen and grabbing the bottle of whiskey that sat unopened in your cabinet. It had been a present—from Rossi, actually. When Spencer had first introduced you to the team, the older man had given it to you as something of a welcome gift. Of course, he couldn’t have known you weren’t much of a drinker, and since you wanted to make a good impression (and because you were sure it had cost more than all the alcohol you had consumed in your life combined) you accepted it—deciding to save it for a rainy day.

You think this qualified.

You grabbed the bottle, a glass, and padded back through to your living room, slumping onto your couch. You filled your glass up a little less than halfway before gulping it down, enjoying the burn in your throat—it was better than the constant thickness.

You poured yourself another glass before turning on the TV. You weren’t sure what was playing—it didn’t really matter anyway, your vision was already being obscured by tears again.

You thought the pounding was in your head at first—serves you right for drinking half a bottle of whiskey. Only, it wasn’t, because moments later the pounding subsided and instead, your apartment door was opening, casting your pitch-black living room in a yellow glow which temporarily blinded you.

You squeezed your eyes shut, your mind hazy—again, serves you right for drinking half a bottle of whiskey. Someone was calling your name, but there was too much sensory input for you to make out who.

You certainly hoped it wasn’t a paramedic—maybe your neighbour had heard you sobbing for the last four hours and decided you needed a wellness check. Then there were hands on your face, and that had you flicking your eyes open, because you recognised those hands—impossibly soft, with a callus on his trigger finger being the only thing to mar them. Spencer.

“Spencer?” You slurred.

He sighed in exasperation (or relief) and tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

“Are you alright? You weren’t answering your phone, I thought…” He trailed off, worry evident in his voice.

You sat up then, trying to compose yourself even though the room was spinning. Fucking whiskey. You rubbed your eyes haphazardly, blinking until you could finally see.

You should’ve stayed bleary-eyed. Because nothing could prepare you for the way your breath hitched when you finally saw him. After months of not seeing each other, Spencer was here, sitting on your couch, and he was looking at you like you were something fragile, and—God, you needed another drink. You turned away from him, reaching for the neck of the bottle as you spoke.

“I’m fine.”

Before you could lift it up, Spencer gently pried your hand away from the bottle with his own, and then slid it across the coffee table with his other.

“You’re drunk. No more of that, please.” His tone wasn’t unkind, but he left no room to argue. You probably would’ve objected anyway, if it weren’t for the way he kept his hand clasped around yours, rubbing soothing circles into your pulse point almost absentmindedly.

You glanced up to him—to stop yourself from staring at your hand in his and how natural it felt, more than anything—but that proved to be a mistake too, because he looked just as beautiful as thirty seconds prior and it felt just as natural for him to be sitting next to you on your sofa, but it wasn’t natural anymore.

“How did you get in?”

“My key.”

“Oh.”

Right. The key that he still had because you refused to meet up with him to let him return it. He tried for weeks to contact you, but you ignored him, because getting the key back meant things were finally over. You supposed he could return it now—maybe that’s why he came in the first place.

“Why did you come?” You asked, your voice impossibly small.

“You called.” He replied—as though he was talking about something as simple as the weather. You call and I come.

You searched in his eyes for any sign of a lie, but of course, there was none. He was being completely genuine—as always. You were the awful ex-girlfriend who left concerning voicemails on his phone and had him travelling to your apartment in the middle of the night only for him to look completely okay with the situation—like there was nothing he’d rather be doing than making sure you were safe.

You couldn’t help the way tears sprung to your eyes or your lip began to tremble as you lolled your head back onto the couch, pulling your gaze away from his.

“Angel, what’s wrong?”

You liked to consider yourself to be a strong person. You had been through things in your life that were objectively worse than your breakup with Spencer, but something about the gentleness of his tone and the way he had let one of his many (past) petnames for you slip had your throat tightening and you ducked your head into your one hand—the other still seized by Spencer’s—to try and muffle a sob.

“Hey,” He trailed his hand that was wrapped around yours up your arm, all the way to your shoulder blade before lightly guiding you towards him. You don’t have enough energy in you to fight his magnetic pull, so you shuffle over until you can bury your head into his shirt. You inhale his scent; vanilla, neroli, and so him it makes you ache.

Stopping your tears is futile—you’d know, they’d barely ceased all night—so you just let them fall, seeping into Spencer’s tie as he rubs one hand softly up and down your back, the other cradling the crown of your head.

His breathing is quiet and slow—the exact opposite of yours—and you try to imitate it—forcing air into your lungs. When your sobbing has turned to shaky breathing and the occasional sniffle, he speaks up.

“Do you want to talk?”

Talk about what? About what had happened today—what had led you to calling him? Talk about how for the last few months, he had been the only person you had wanted to call?

“No.” You hated how pitiful you sounded.

“Okay.”

Spencer didn’t say anything else for a minute—your synchronised breathing being the only thing to stop the room from falling into dead silence.

“You need to rehydrate.” He murmured, smoothing down your hair.

You hummed into him, in no hurry to unwrap yourself from his body. You probably wouldn’t get to be this close to him again, after all.

He moved both of his hands to your biceps, pulling you back slightly so you could look at him. He knitted his brows together in a silent plea which had you rolling your eyes petulantly, your lashes still damp from tears.

“Fine.” You peeled yourself off of him, pushing yourself into a standing position. Horrible mistake. You were still incredibly drunk, turns out, and everything was spinning a little bit and come to think of it, you were also nauseous and—

“Careful, lovely.” Spencer placed his hand firmly on the small of your back, keeping you upright.

and—actually, you were fine now.

He stood too, moving his hand just slightly over to your waist so he could guide you to the kitchen. When he knew you could stand upright—even if you were relying mostly on the counter behind you—he grabbed a glass from your cabinet, moving around effortlessly to pour you some water. The sight was so domestic you almost wanted to cry again. Maybe in some alternate timeline, where you and him could’ve worked, this would be an every day thing—minus the drunk sobbing part, of course.

He handed you the glass of water, watching as you took a few sips. He raised an eyebrow, nodding his head slowly.

“Whole thing, please.”

You let out an exasperated (affectionate) sigh and gulped the rest of it down, setting it on the counter behind you.

“Happy?”

“Very.”

You smirked, trailing your gaze down his body. He was still in his work clothes which, at the very least, meant he wasn’t on a date before he came here. He always changed before dates—well, for you, anyway. You wondered if he had been on any dates since the breakup—you certainly hadn’t. It had been long enough now that it wouldn’t be weird for you to start seeing other people—but you didn’t want to. You weren’t sure you’d ever want to, to be completely honest.

The more you thought about it, the more the whole thing seemed stupid. You didn’t want anyone else, you wanted Spencer. You had tried to get over him but if tonight was any indication—it clearly wasn’t working. You can’t even remember why you broke up in the first place—it all seemed so insignificant now. No amount of pain you had ever experienced in your relationship had come close to that of living without him.

You met his eyes once more and it was like he could see the question brewing. He tried to stop you, calling your name in a quiet warning, but you ignored him.

“Why did we break up?”

He frowned, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth with his tongue in that maddening way he did.

“I—you know why—“

“No, but I don’t! I know things were difficult sometimes but that doesn’t mean it didn’t work. It worked—we worked.” Your eyes were stinging again.

Spencer pressed his index and middle finger into his eye, furrowing his brows.

“I know, I know we worked, angel—but you were sad all the time, remember? I was gone so often and it wasn’t good for you.” His true emotions were indecipherable but his tone was soft, and you wished you could be as calm about this as him. Did he just not care as much as you did?

“But It’s—It’s worse now—“ You choked out, tears falling freely now. “I was sad when you were gone, but you always came back—you don’t come back anymore.”

Spencer removed his hand from his face, flexing it at his side like he was uncertain what to do with himself before taking a stride towards you. He brought a hand to your face, wiping the tears from under your eyes delicately—like you were made of porcelain.

“Listen, sweetheart—alcohol affects your ability to regulate your emotions and I know right now it might feel worse but that doesn’t mean it always—“

“Spencer, stop! It’s not the fucking alcohol, I miss you! I miss you all of the time! Even—even when I’m having a good day—I still want you—and especially when I—when I have a bad day—“ You choked out through heaving breaths.

“Breathe.” He urges, cupping your cheek. And you’re so, so angry, and sad, and tired that you have no choice but to shut up and listen to him. When you’ve adequately calmed down, he moves his hand to your jaw, tilting your head up to look at him.

“I don’t think we should talk about this tonight but I—“ You open your mouth to protest.

“I promise we can talk about it tomorrow when you’re sober—if you still want to.”

Your lip trembles of its own volition and you frown.

“Of course I want to.”

“Okay,”

“Okay.”

He gives your eyes a final wipe before he’s—rather unexpectedly—pulling you into a hug. You all but melt into him, your head finding its home in his sternum and your arms wrapping around his middle. He tilts his head down, kissing the top of your head—and you’re certain you can’t let this go again. You will chain him down before Spencer leaves this apartment again.

Everything is wordless from there—mostly because you’re so, so exhausted that even talking seems like too difficult a task. Spencer helps you find something more comfortable to change into and you pull out an old t-shirt of his and a pair of plaid pyjama pants you had kept here for him. I guess your keeping them ‘just in case you needed them in the future’ had come in handy, after all.

As you washed your face, Spencer snuck through to the kitchen, refilling your water and grabbing two aspirin in a not-so-subtle attempt to help the inevitable hangover you were going to have in the morning.

You caught him placing them on your bedside table and mock gasped.

“Trying to drug me in my sleep so you can make a run for it in the night?”

He grinned lazily—exhaustion creeping up on him as well.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

You smiled, flopping yourself onto your bed rather ungraciously. Spencer looked at you like you were something fascinating before biting his lip, clearly deep in thought.

“What?” You let out a self-effacing little chuckle.

“I was just…wondering…if you’d like me to sleep on the couch?”

You probably should’ve been more careful in your facial expressions considering you were still broken up but your thoughts about that offer were obvious.

“No, stay.” Stay in your bed, in your apartment—stay anywhere that was close to you.

Maybe you were coming on a little too strong.

“Unless you want to, I mean—“

“No, no—I’ll stay.” Forever, preferably.

He walked around to the other side of your bed—as he had done so many times before—and sat down, pulling the covers over his legs. You mirrored his movements before flicking your bedside lamp out, turning to face him.

You were a little thankful you were so out of it, because this had the potential to be very awkward otherwise. Spencer shuffled down so that he was at eye level with you, turning to face you as well.

You just stared for a moment, committing him to memory. The moonlight had a way of highlighting all the high points of his face, and the twinkle in his eyes, and—God, you were so glad the moon existed and that Spencer was in your bed that you couldn’t help but giggle.

“What?” Spencer laughed along with you, even though he had no idea what was so funny.

“Nothing. You’re pretty.”

“You’re drunk. Go to sleep.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Why?”

“Scared you’ll be gone when I wake up—like I made it all up.”

Spencer’s smile faded then, and he looked at you with something that seemed so much like the one thing you had been willing yourself to stop doing the whole time that you’d been broken up, that it almost took your breath away.

“I won’t. I promised, didn’t I?”

You nodded.

“So there’s nothing to worry about. Now get some sleep, lovely.”

You smiled, feeling Spencer’s hand inching towards yours. He intertwined them and gave yours a squeeze.

“Just in case you make a run for it in the night.”

You chuckled, your eyelids fluttering shut. Yeah, you could make it work.

part two!

[velvees-archive]

art cr: @cokiicookies on twitter

Tags: Love Confessions, Bratfeen, Art Student Feenie, Law Student Bratworth, Ace Attorney-typical cringefail, Canon Divergence

and many others!

HEAVILY inspired by @cokiicookies's bratfeen art on twitter! check out the full comic there!!!

"Hey...so...uh..." Phoenix coughs out, voice scratchy from his most recent line repetitions. It's a small mistake, not unsalvageable. All he has to do is stick to the script. Stick to the script. Stick... His eyes flick down to his note cards. He swears he’d printed them in his best penmanship, atop one of the library's extra premium desks, but everything is spinning and he feels faintly like he's going to throw up. "Did you uh," he starts, letters swirling in his eyes. "Did...you fall out of heaven...?" Genius prosecutor-in-training Miles Edgeworth regards him with a blank stare. Phoenix thinks now would be an opportune time for him to locate the nearest possible bridge and promptly jump off of it. - The joys and woes (mostly woes) of being in love, as told by BratFeen.

so i caved and wrote narumitsu. another huge thank you to @cokiicookies on twitter for allowing me to write an accompanying fic for their work. i attached some of the comic here in an attempt to entice you to look at their comic (well? are you enticed?!), but if you wanna see the full thing, please do give their art a like, a retweet, a comment, and all the love on twitter! fic screenshots below:

misc commentary/musings under the cut :)

the way i wrote feenie inner monologue and narration parallels my informal writing style, so writing his freak outs weren't challenging. consciously changing sentence structures/verbiage to be more or less extra, on the other hand, totally was.

the bulk of my pain came from writing fluff in the first place, stumbling through dialogue exchanges (as always), and attempting larry dialogue...all of which i honestly think i failed at pretty badly HAHA. who cares tho? it's my work!

bratfeen is one of my favorite narumitsu "eras" if you will. i've always wanted to write them. i didn't know the opportunity would come so soon (and at my expense considering i still have a zine fic to finalize for a diff fandom), but i took the shot. the full fic was written over the course of a day which i do not recommend anyone experience. i was on a writing hiatus for months and wrote 8k words as soon as i came back. do you see why i burnt out in the first place?

the easiest part about writing bratfeen is that none of the things i write are exaggerated for the purpose of carrying the plot forward. feenie believing that bratworth is better of a human being than everyone makes him out to be? sounds about right. feenie insisting to others that miles is the best thing since grilled cheese? his raging savior complex says that's likely to occur. feenie fumbling the bag because he thinks miles is the prettiest thing he's ever seen? yeah, 20 y/o feenie would! feenie shoving the asshole who talked shit abt miles? we saw the exact same thing with doug swallow (and we all know how that ended...). all of it is in line w his character. also miles being a try hard. that's a given.

i am hoping i can showcase more of my technical skill aka the angst writer in me with my next work, though i've been closely following fictober (haven't been publishing because, again, zine fic obligations) and have plenty of angsty fics stored in my drafts. i hope you enjoy my poor attempt at humor and fluff. may i muster the strength to finish the rest of my zine fic...please...

[curlsincriminology]

Crush on You - Steve Harrington x Reader

A/N: Hi yeah, can you tell this was written by someone with ADHD on a plane in 30 minutes? Sure! But it's the first thing I think I've published in 5 years so you're gonna have to just deal with it! Not beta'd because again, first piece in 5 years. Also if you are lactose-intolerant be careful, this shit is CHEESY!!

@boyfriendstevie

Steve was going to maim Robin. 

He swore to God right then and there, looking at you with that cute little teasing twinkle in your eye as you said, "so you've got a crush on me, huh?" that he was going to find a way to permanently silence her. 

Robin had to be behind this. It had taken all of 12 hours - from him spilling his guts about his debilitating infatuation as he drove her home from work, to you sauntering through the Family Video doors - to get to this moment. 

His face felt hot... was he dying? Could he actually be dying? The sound of his heart pounding in his ears made him think he might still have a few more minutes of agony to go before his body mercifully took pity on him and just... y'know. Ended it. 

You, on the other hand, were thriving. You were positively giddy, unsure when the last time you had felt solid ground under your feet; you had floated on a cloud (you were sure of it) over to Family Video. 

Honestly, it wasn't Robin's fault. 

No one in their right mind would tell her something that they didn't want you to find out. Robin had been spilling Hawkins' secrets to you since your family had moved to town. 

At first, it was protective - a welcoming to the neighbourhood that helped you to know what cliques to avoid and who was sort of cool. Then it was friendly, to make you feel more at ease that you actually weren't coming off like the idiot you thought you might be. 

Now? Now it was downright… messy? Fun? No, definitely mischievous. 

Why else would she have rolled up on her bike to your part-time spot, parked behind the desk at the Hawkins Public Library, with that shit-eating grin on her face claiming she had some positively delightful news to tell you?

Either way you didn't care. Because it had brought you here, still in your work getup, absolutely vibrating with the sheer force it was taking you to not be the biggest tease in the world about something that was okay, maybe a little sensitive. 

Steve could see the restraint on your face anyway. He knew you wanted to tease him - you were loving this. 

He was still contemplating just faking an emergency and leaving. It would have been hard with the way you were leaning over the counter, gripping the side closest to him to keep you supported as you blocked him from passing you. But maybe he could manage it if he put on a good enough show.

You were biting your lip in an attempt to not freak him out with the intensity of your grin. You really just wanted him to admit it.

Standing there, with your body basically draped over the counter, your lip worried between your teeth and your eyebrow raised, Steve thought maybe it wouldn’t be the embarrassment that killed him. Maybe it would just be from how goddamn pretty you were.  He had never seen anyone more enchanting than you - he thought there were probably damn hearts in his eyes as he stared at you. 

And if he thought about it, maybe you hadn't heard it from Robin... he wasn't exactly subtle when it came to you. He'd definitely tripped over himself, literally, to be the one to grab you a tape you'd requested be put on hold. More than once. 

There had also been the time when you had caught him watching you as you perused the shelves, completely ignoring the increasingly frustrated attempts of Mrs Jones to try and get him to check out "Trading Places" for her. 

"Steeeeeeeve." The melodic singsong of your voice was enough to bring him back to the present. And to cause him to realize he had just been staring at you, gape-mouthed, for at LEAST 15 uninterrupted seconds. 

Yeah, it would be the embarrassment that killed him. 

"I- I uh." You watched a muscle bob in Steve's throat as he swallowed hard, nervously running his hand through his hair. "I-"

"Are you always this articulate?" You said with a bat of your eyelashes and he groaned. You were gorgeous and funny and he used to be so much better at this. There's no way he would have fumbled this conversation back in high school. 

Then again, you hadn't been at his high school. 

Eyes closed he shook his head trying to clear his thoughts and quickly realised that could be interpreted as "no, I am NOT always this articulate which is to say, quite accurately,  sometimes I literally can't speak when you talk to me". Steve quickly opened his eyes to stammer out... something. Jesus. He was really killing it. 

You remain in your position, leaning on the counter as you wait for him to formulate a coherent thought. And no, you would not give him a reprieve. Not yet. 

Because you had been hiding your crush behind teasing comments and little jokes and playful nudges since the second you laid eyes on the man in front of you. Ever the charmer, he would flirt and tease and joke back with you, tit for tat. But sometimes… you could push it, and throw him off his game. You could reduce him to a blushing sputtering mess, and you loved nothing more than to watch him try to process if you were talking a big game or would really walk the walk. You wanted to see if you could get him to finally end this game of chicken.

Steve huffed and let out a tentative laugh. His hand had found its way back to the disheveled strands on his head. "I, uh, I feel like there's no way for me to get out of this."

If Steve hadn't spent the last few months studying your every goddamn facial expression, he would have missed the little narrow you did of your eyes. Almost imperceptible, but he knew you did it when you were processing something and not quite sure where that thought process was taking you. Or what you were going to do. 

It seemed like only a fraction of a second before you decided. 

"What if," you began, a small almost devilish smile starting to spread across your lips, "I made it easier for you?"

You leaned closer towards Steve, and watched his eyes widen ever so slightly as he looked down at your lips. He licked his own without realising it, following your movements as you leaned closer, closer... and grabbed the sticky pad and pen he'd been doodling on before you had flounced in. 

His cheeks warmed and it didn't escape your notice that there was a small flush spreading across Steve's face. Or that he absolutely wanted to kiss you. 

You grinned to yourself, pulling the used sticky off and pressing it onto Steve's chest. He glanced down in confusion at the piece of paper stuck in the gap of his vest, his eyes flying back up to meet yours as you beamed.  If you left your fingers splayed across his chest a second or two longer than necessary, he didn’t voice any complaints. 

Pulling your hand away from Steve’s chest, you curled it over the pad in your other hand, scribbling furiously, while keeping the note’s contents hidden from Steve's curious gaze. 

Pleased with yourself, you flipped the pad back towards him on the counter and slid the pen along with it, bumping his hand so that he would take over their possession. His fingers curled over yours briefly, and while you would’ve liked to have kept your hand under his a little longer, you were playing a special game and you weren’t ready for it to be over just yet.

Steve was so focused on your little smirk, and the way your eyes had crinkled when he looked down at your bottom lip, he didn't even register the note when he glanced down at it. 

"You can send it along with the town crier if you want." You teasingly gestured out the window to Robin who had just pulled up in front of the store. He struggled to process it all; everything that was you and the note you had slipped across the counter, and he finally looked up again at you, you were partially to the door. A wink thrown back at him as you passed Robin. 

"Hey Robs. Bye Steve." He heard a muffled “hello” and “bye” from Robin’s direction in response, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it would have been to capture your lips against his with you as close as you had been. If not that, Christ, he could have at least admitted he couldn’t get you out of his head with you, there, giving him the perfect opportunity. 

The chime of the door wasn't enough for him to stop staring after you. In fact, he watched you walk away until he couldn't see you anymore. He was vaguely aware of Robin speaking to him as she buzzed around him, moving things he had left “in the wrong place” and “should have put away already”. He felt her push into her personal space, boundaries long forgotten if they had ever been present at all, as she tapped at his hand.

"Uuuuh Steve? What's that?" Robin asked, her large blue eyes studying him and the object partially hidden by his large palm. He blinked slowly, eyes focusing back on the room in front of him instead of the spot where he had last seen you, turning out of the parking lot.

He could be angry with Robin later he thought, flipping the pad in his hand to read what you had written. He felt the tips of his ears go red as he finally processed the words in your slightly messy scrawl, Robin yammering about something in the background. 

It was cute and it was cheesy and he was almost grateful you had left so you didn’t see the big stupid grin that spread across his face. Yeah, he had a crush on you. But you had a crush on him too.

He grabbed the pen and checked “yes”, pulling the note off the pad and shoving it deep in his pocket to get it away from Robin. He could deliver it himself.

[soleminisanction]

So. What actually happened between Secret and Spoiler?

The meat of this story goes down in Young Justice (1998) #30.

Taking place sometime shortly after the YJ crew returns from their adventures in space with Doiby Dickles, the story proper opens with a scene of Steph trying to follow Tim home to find out his identity and getting caught to establish that tension in their current dynamic for anyone who wasn't also reading Robin at the time.

As a refresher, when they decided to date (which was a couple of publishing years back at this point, during the events leading up to No Man's Land) Tim had tried to talk Steph out of it because he couldn't tell her his secret identity and he didn't think that was fair. Steph had responded with, quote, "I don't care about any of that, Robin. I just want to be with you." But she'd recently decided she wasn't happy with that arrangement after all and had been sneaking around trying to learn his identity behind his back.

This issue is very cathartic to me because it's one of the only times she's called out for violating her boyfriend's privacy, which starts here:

Couple of things to make note of here: Greta's not attacking Steph. We'd previously seen what it looks like when she uses her billowing clouds of angry smoke to attack (against Harm and the Pointmen, for example), and that's not what's happening here, she's just really pissed off. Steph is the one who escalates the whole thing to violence with that kick.

And while there is an element of jealousy here -- Secret did follow Robin home to get a look at his girlfriend -- the thing that's set her off isn't seeing Steph with Robin, it's learning of and seeing her self-centered justifications for her plans to continue trying to violate his boundaries. Which, it should also be noted, is something that Secret could do much more easily, but chooses not to. So it probably just pisses her off even more to learn that her crush is dating someone who'd disrespect him like that.

So they take it outside.

Where Greta, despite her anger, is almost certainly holding back because... yeah, let's face it, Steph doesn't actually stand a chance in this match-up. She has no powers, she hasn't even trained with Cass at this point; I don't know where she got that grenade but she's otherwise working with like a red belt in strip mall aikido and a bunch of gear she probably bought out of the back of a magazine. Secret is a sentient hellportal, a conduit between the realms of the living and the dead. She's pissed off, but she's still mostly focused on calling Steph out with her words rather than physically harming her.

Which Steph responds to with, again, a grenade and... this:

Why yes, that sword does come out of nowhere for a single panel and then vanishes into the ether, never to be explained or mentioned again. I find that hilarious. I suspect the script just said "Spoiler cuts the power lines" and left Todd Nauck to figure out how that worked.

But uh, speaking of how that worked -- in Greta's defense for how she'll behave later on in this post, Steph just clearly tried to kill her first. Like. I assume that any grenade a Bat is carrying around isn't so high-powered that it's actually going to hurt somebody if thrown at them directly so for all my joking I'll give her a pass for that, but the power lines?

Steph, of course, has no way of knowing that electricity is Greta's weakness, let alone that it's a trauma trigger for her. But she also has no way of knowing that Greta isn't an average metahuman teenager who would just, y'know, die from being hit with several hundred to several thousand volts of electricity. Which is part of a trend in Steph's characterization -- she's always had a tendency to make rash, dangerous decisions like this and only consider the ramifications after the consequences smack her in the face.

And once again, this is Steph's escalation; Greta only lets loose after Steph tries to low-key murder her. But I did say in my previous post that she was explicitly trying not to kill Steph here, right? That's because she's not:

"Oh," she says, directly to Steph's face. "I'm not going to kill you, but you're going to wish I had!"

The issue ends with Tim giving the girls a lecture about trust that... honestly, doesn't actually make much sense, but it's only there to set up the bullshit Bruce would soon pull in Robin to wrap up the whole Steph-and-Tim's-secret-identity subplot.

Instead, I'll just take this moment to point out that these two pages are the only part that anyone besides Steph and Greta themselves actually saw: Steph, overpowered and running like bugger all while a furious Greta hunted her down. Tim and Red Tornado don't have any other context for this encounter, and anyone else hearing about it would have even less.

We should also probably address the question of whether Greta was actually trying to hurt Steph here and: no, I don't think she was. Not physically, anyway. I think when she tells Reddy that she "just wanted to scare" Steph, she was telling the truth. Which, mind you, means she was going to dump her into a terrifying hell dimension and give her a repeated taste of her own mortality. But it wouldn't have hurt her; it didn't hurt the gang when they teleported through it in issue 19. And, frankly, between this issue and the shit Steph pulls over the course of the Robin issues around this subplot... I think she deserved it.

I never said I wasn't a hater.

Now, to be fair, Steph has no way to know this. She doesn't know Greta, and she doesn't have a reason to think kindly of her. And like I mentioned, it's an important part of Greta's storyarc that her powers and her connection to death makes her friends suspicious of her, and that suspicion sadly drives her to Darksied.

Which is why I'm inclined to think that their next encounters, brief as they are, are deliberately framed. First in issue 50:

And then in issue 54, during the storyline where Secret has allied herself with Darksied:

This leads into Greta basically eating Steph for reasons that don't actually have to do with their conflict -- she's already eaten the D.E.O., ie, the people who held her prisoner, and would continue to eat, it's implied, everyone on Earth except the members of Young Justice, saving them for last as we come to climax of the story. That probably counts as "trying to kill Steph" so technically speaking Greta has tried to kill Steph once, it just wasn't the time everybody thinks about or in a jealous rage. It wasn't personal at all, she was just part of a checklist.

The important bit I wanted to focus on was Steph and Tim's descriptions of their past encounter, and the fact that Greta calls it an exaggeration. With that context, I'm inclined to think that "almost killed me in a jealous rage" is the way that Steph framed their story to other people, not necessarily because she was trying to manipulate anybody, but because that's how she, Stephanie, internalized and interpreted the event.

Because Steph, demonstrably, doesn't think she was doing anything wrong. If she wants something, like her boyfriend's secret identity, or whatever, she will come up with excuses and justifications why she should get to have it ("He's testing me! He wants me to figure it out!" etc.) and no one can change her mind. So it's inconceivable to her that this person who clearly has a crush on her boyfriend would actually be mad at her for the reason they say they're mad at her; clearly, to her, Secret was jealous, and therefore Secret must have been the aggressor. Plus, she was big and scary and Steph (to be fair) had no way of knowing that Greta was mostly just having trouble keeping her emotions under control.

And because nobody else saw what went down between them, people were more inclined to believe Steph's story over Greta's, partially because Greta was clearly the overpowering victor when Red Tornado and Robin arrived on the scene, and partially because Greta's powers mean people, even her friends, tend to be suspicious of her, which is a key point in her personal, rather tragic storyarc.

---

So, to summarize, because I know this has gotten rambly: Greta followed Steph home to investigate her and was angered by her violating Robin's privacy. Steph escalated their dispute into violence, and then further into attacks that could be perceived as lethal until she bit off more than she could chew. Robin and Red Tornado, arriving at the tail end of the fight, only saw the much more powerful Secret overwhelming normal human Spoiler and were therefore more inclined to believe Steph's version of the story which, naturally, framed her as the victim and Greta as the aggressor, when it was in actuality a more even fight fueled by anger rather than jealousy.

[cookiescribble]

Just a Little Chilly (Dick Grayson x Male!Reader)

A/N: Hello there! This is not only the very first published fic on this blog, but also my first x reader fic so please be nice <3 Also, I used Brenton Thwaites's Nightwing as a reference but this version of Dick Grayson is mainly written with my own masterpiece of headcanons in mind. Enjoy! <3

-Mod Ghost

~~~

I was reading in the library when I heard the telltale signs of Dick coming home from patrol,

The entrance to the cave opening, the sighing, the shivering—

wait a minute.

I stood up from the corner where I'd been for the past few hours while my boyfriend was out, nearly passing Tim and Jason playing chess. I guess this was one of the days they were getting along with each other. I looked between the two of them, as if they had the answer. 

“Hey, do you guys hear that?” 

Both of them turned to look at me, a bewildered expression on each of their faces.

“Huh??” Tim was the first to actually speak, staring up at me like I had three heads. 

"Hear what?" Jason happened to speak up at the same time, which made them stare at each other as if they were wondering when they became the twins from The Shining.

I sighed softly, they might have been too focused on beating each other at the game to hear the racket. Or I might not have been as focused on my book as I thought.

“Nothing, I’m gonna go find Dick. Let me know who wins.” I ruffle Tim’s hair then run off through the study and the living room to catch Dick at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Dickie!” I called, running up to him and grabbing his arm to get him to turn around. He stopped shuffling along and turned to look at me, trembling and wet with his hair plastered to his forehead.

“What happened to you??” I ask softly as I push his hair back away from his face, cupping his cheeks which nearly startled him. As if he wasn’t fully aware that I was there. 

“Huh?? Oh-I, I, uh, was f-fight-t-ing F-freeze and uh—i-it was obv-v-viously c-c-cold.” he stuttered and slurred through his words, his entire body quivering. 

“Jeez, okay, c’mon, let’s get you warmed up.” I tutted as I led him up the stairs and down the hall to his room, helping him tug his suit off as soon as the door was closed completely. Immediately, I helped him into pajamas and a hoodie, rubbing along his arms to help his body heat rise. 

“I’m not totally sold on the fact that it was just cold, my love. You’re soaking wet and your suit is, too. I’m not trying to scold you or anything, I just need to know how to take care of you.” I whispered to him, leaning up to kiss his forehead before sitting him down on his bed and grabbing a pair of my fuzzy socks to help him put them on. 

“W-Well, while I was trying to um…to bring him in, I…I…” he trailed off, letting out a long yawn.

“Shit, okay, we’ll talk about it later. Let me see if I can find Alfred, he can make something warm for you.” I hissed under my breath, noticing the signs of hypothermia as I stood up from where I was kneeling. I hoped that we’d caught it early enough that he would be okay—

I stopped in my tracks when I felt his shaking hand wrap around my wrist, turning to look at him. 

“Don’t…Don’t leave me…Please, Y/N…” He begged weakly, looking up at me with wide watery eyes. 

“Alright, move over, I’m coming. Don’t worry, I’m right here.” I spoke quietly as I immediately started opening up the blanket just enough to shuffle underneath it with him then pulling him close to me.  “Shh, it’s okay, c’mere.” 

As soon as I was underneath the covers with him, he clung to me and pressed his head against my chest while I shushed him. Considering he was taller, he was a bit scrunched but I could tell that he wanted the comfort of being close to me. I gently combed my fingers through his hair, my other arm wrapped around his back to keep him close to me. 

“I haven’t been that scared on a patrol in a long time. I couldn’t stop thinking that I was gonna die, Y/N. That I wouldn’t come back to you…”

“Hey,” I tilted his chin up, forcing him to make eye contact with me as I held him there, “You’re here, and I am not letting you out of my sight until I know that you’re okay. Got it?” 

He nodded meekly, before I let him tuck his head back against me. I took out a thermometer that I kept in a makeshift first-aid kit under the bed and stuck it under his tongue, waiting until the little device let out a soft beep. 

I slid it back out to take a look, seeing that it was 95 degrees fahrenheit. If there was any sign of hypothermia before, I was less concerned now seeing that he was warm enough to be considered normal for a human. 

It was a long time before I heard him again, and even then, his voice was soft and he sounded like he was half asleep. 

“There is a way that both of us could warm up pretty fast, if you wanted to try that, y’know…” Dick suggested, grinning from ear to ear as he peeked up at me. 

I laughed and playfully nudged him, shaking my head as I rubbed my hand over his back under his shirt to help him continue to warm up. 

“I’m not cold, Richard, but it seems like someone’s starting to feel better, huh?” I teased, unable to help the laughter that escaped. It comforted me to hear him making jokes, like he was slowly getting back to his normal self. 

“Maybe. I guess we’ll just shelf that idea for later then, but don’t think I’m about to fuhgettaboutit,” Dick drawled the end of his sentence in a thicker accent than his usual bit of New Jersey twang and I nearly started cackling as Alfred knocked and came into the room. 

“Is everything alright in here, Master Dick? Master Y/L/N?” He asked in a much more proper tone than the one Dick had just used, holding two mugs filled with something warm and sweet smelling.

“Yes, Alfred, thank you. What’s in these?” I answered before Dick could speak up, taking the Blüdhaven mug with the bisexual flag on it that I assumed was my partner’s so I could hand it over to him before taking the other one. 

“For Master Dick, I have made Egyptian Chamomile and for you, I have made English Breakfast. Made to your taste, of course.” Alfred explained, watching Dick start to drink his. “I will leave you two alone now, however, Master Bruce has requested my help in the Bat Cave. I trust that Master Dick is going to be in good hands?” Him and I made eye contact over Dick’s head as I nodded, giving Alfred a smile as he started to leave. 

“Thank you very much, Al.” 

“You’re welcome, sir.” Was the last thing he said before he closed the door again, which made me turn my attention back to the man currently sitting on top of me. 

It looked like he was going to fall asleep in his mug, his slow sips and half opened eyes giving him away.

I chuckled and kissed the top of his head, carefully taking the mug from him without spilling what was left of his tea so I could set it aside and laying back on the bed so he could be more comfortable but keeping him in the blanket burrito with me. 

As he slowly drifted off, he let his back relax to lay a bit more comfortably. “Goodnight, Dickie.” I whispered up to him, kissing just under his chin. Within 10 minutes, he was out like a light with his head on the pillow just above mine as he finally fell into a deep state of sleep.

[liminalmemories21]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @screamlet (who I've been reading since at least 2010). Thank you!

1. How many works do you have an AO3? 48

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 711,517

3. What fandoms do you write for? 911 LS, and 911

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Long Story Short (series) - LS A home isn't always the house we live in - LS It came without ribbons! - LS Always Wear Your Invisible Crown - LS Awful quiet here since love fell asleep - 911

5. Do you respond to comments? I really try to, sometimes I think they get lost in my inbox, but I do try.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? uh, none of them? I don't think I've written anything that doesn't have a happy ending.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? hmmm, maybe It came without ribbons?, or Knave 4 (The Knave of Clubs ... swears he'll take her part). They both end in marriage proposals.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Just a few on Knave 4, which I expected and mostly ignored.

9. Do you write smut? more often than I ever imagined I would

10. Do you write crossovers? I love a good crossover. Haven't written one yet, but would enjoy it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of. Let's keep it that way. (finger's crossed)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? no

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yup! All the 911 stuff with @cecilyv - nothing better.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Well, I don't publish WIPs, not because I have an ethical stance on it, but because I'm usually still changing things at the beginning right up until I hit post and I don't understand how people post things as they write them. Not my process.

That being said, there's a LS kidfic that I'd like to finish some day, but every time I look at it I can't figure out where it's going.

16. What are your writing strengths? I feel like this is a thing other people need to tell me? Dialogue? Plot (apparently? or so 200,000 words of Knave-verse would like me to believe).

17. What are your writing weaknesses? brevity

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'd like to do more of it, because I have characters I write who I think probably do think in another language, but it's not a language I speak, so I don't.

19. First fandom you wrote for? published? Lonestar. unpublished? there's a Merlin story @cecilyv and I wrote for years that is mostly not great, but has it's moments.

20. Favorite fics you've written? ooh, okay:

There were a bunch I wrote early for LS that are kind of character studies that I love - A home isn't always the house we live in (Judd), Stitched with its color (TK & 9/11), and through same of am through haves of give (Enzo)

And, I'd be lying if I didn't say Knave-verse, because I think Knave 2 and Knave 4 are the best things I've ever written - and there is just so much of me in the way TK thinks about art.

And then Baggage That Goes with Mine - because there isn't necessarily me in there, but there is a lot of my history in fandom and the huge cultural shift that I have seen happen since I started reading fic in Tommy's story. Also, I do love me a split timeline narrative.

tagging @walkinginland, @rmd-writes, @alchemistc, @rcmclachlan, and @three-drink-amy

[ahecen]

thoughts on percabeth characterization in wottg (or lack thereof)?

oh my godddddd. first of all I just have to note how hilarious it is that everyone forgot about this book a week after it came out. anyway. percabeth’s characterization in the new books versus the show versus the original books is so interesting to me. with allegedly being very involved in the writing process of the show, you’d think rick would be even more aware of how he wrote his characters and translate that to new books. now i’m not saying 17 yr old percabeth should act the same as 13 yr old percabeth. you’d think they’d grow, right? wottg percabeth just doesn’t have that spark and I was honestly confused seeing ppl gush over them in this book. every time I thought they were about to have a talk, just a moment to themselves, the scene ended. how do you set up several scenes for your fav couple and just. end it. it’s extra strange bc I loved them dearly in cotg. but in wottg,,, where’s the friendship? they remind me of those couples in school that have been together for years and don’t seem to enjoy each others company. they’re currently together because… uh…. if this was my first introduction to percabeth, having no prior knowledge of their relationship, I would question how much they even liked each other. yeah, they love each other. that’s great and all, but do they like each other? it’s like percy and annabeth became caricatures of themselves. haha percy’s dumb. annabeth has an idiot boyfriend that everyone knows she’s too good for. this is the shit you read on wattpad, not a published book. I think the worst moment of all was when annabeth seemed to realize for the first time in her life that percy was intelligent. girl you’ve known that since you were twelve fucking years old. I also think percabeth suffers in this book bc annabeth didn’t have much of anything going on. she was kinda there. percy had an emotional moment, grover had several emotional moments, but there was always prepared annabeth, ready to save the day from her helpless boyfriend and friend. rick isn’t known to write female characters well, but annabeth has mostly been the exception to that. what happened? if cotg was bad, this would be a different story. and I know pjo tumblr likes to tussle about the quality of anything written after tlo, but I genuinely really liked cotg. there was a lot of heart. the shift from a good story to the nothingness of wottg was really disappointing. I wasn’t expecting much, but, like, can rick at least pretend to try? there’s a lot more to say but we’d be here all night.

tldr; it was only a matter of time before percabeth was negatively affected by ricks greed

[creek-dump-blog]

This is the first part of my fanfiction 'To The Three of Us.' The rest of the fanfiction will be published on Wattpad and I will be making art for the fanfiction here

My Wattpad

__________

Third Person/Kenny pov:

Whenever something good happens in South Park you’ll be foolish to think it’ll last long. That was Kenny’s mistake.

Kenny tries to steady his thoughts by removing himself from the frantic commotion that happens during the lunch period. He couldn’t let himself slip. He’s dealt with way worse situations but the feeling of isolation is corrupting his life.

Kenny hides behind the dumpster at the back of the school making sure no one is around. He takes out a lighter and cigarette, taking in the rush of smoke filling his lungs to ground his body to some feeling. He slowly recognizes quiet footsteps from his left leading in his direction and tries to stomp out the cancer stick, but the damage is done.

He turns his head to the person on looking at his form and immediately notices the mass of erratic blond hair and messily button-up olive shirt.

“Tweek, what are you doing here?”

Tweek looked down at the cigarette I stomped then replied to my question.

“You know, smoking at such a young age is going to make you die faster.”

I was going to make a joke, but for some reason, I decided to be honest.

“Heh, I don’t smoke for ‘that reason.’ Smoking can actually suppress your appetite, and well, my parents would rather waste money on cigarettes than feed the family.”

“Oh… Well- Do you think this could help?”

Tweek hands Kenny a brown bag with a Tweek Bros. logo filled with a sandwich and a muffin. I haven’t talked to Tweek since the whole “replacing me with him” fiasco so why is he suddenly worried about me?

“What’s with the special treatment?”, I ask Tweek.

Tweek replies saying, “Well, most people know Kyle and Stan give you some of their lunch. I noticed you haven’t been talking to them.”

God, why are people at this school so fucking nosy?! Kenny tried to ignore his resentment and responded.

“I’m fine. I just needed some space from them.”

“What did you eat today?”

“Uhhhh…” Why is it so hard to remember? “I think I had one-fourth of a waffle-”

“OH GEEZ! THIS ISN’T NEARLY ENOUGH TO FEED YOU! AHH!! I COULDN’T FORGIVE MYSELF IF YOU STARVED TO DEATH! GH- THIS IS WAY TOO MUCH PRESSURE!!!”

Tweek is shaking frenziedly and pulls his hair hard enough to almost make bald spots on his scalp. Kenny already had a hard time handling Tweek’s uncontrollable frantic movements from afar so Kenny tried to say anything that he thought could help.

“Tweek! I’m okay! Really-”

“GAAAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHA-”

Tweek dashed away from Kenny, with arms flailing and all, and left the school premises into town.

Kenny watches in awe for a couple of seconds until the bell rings. Kenny almost makes it to fourth period but is quickly interrupted by a dead-flat monotone voice.

“What the hell did you do to Tweek?”

Kenny turns his head to see Craig staring at him with his eyebrows frowning.

“What do you mean ‘what I did to Tweek?’”

“Tweek told me he was going to talk to you and I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Oh,” How the hell do I explain THAT situation? “Tweek gave me food, then he screamed, then he left school.”

“Okay.” Craig flips Kenny and walks to his fourth period class.

Why are they so weird? Eh, I guess that means they’re made for each other.

__________

Kenny woke up the next morning with the mindset of ignoring the two boys. He honestly doesn’t know how to feel about them, especially Tweek, but it’s not like life has gone his way before so it doesn’t.

Kenny notices people staring at the erratic boy walking towards him. Tweek is lugging on his back an enormous backpack filled with who knows what while also trying to carry his school backpack. Kenny also observes Tweek’s face. Tweek somehow looks more tired than before with large eye bags hanging off of his eyes and he’s barely able to stay awake.

Tweek finally makes it to Kenny and says, “Hey Kenny.”

“Uh… hey to you too.”

“Um, I wanted to give you this.”

Tweek struggles to take off the backpack consuming his form and hands it over to Kenny. Kenny unzips the backpack to look at a backpack filled with homemade sandwiches, baked goods, and fruits.

Did he- did he run home screaming and stay up all night cooking and baking just to feed me and my family? That is simultaneously one of the strangest yet sweetest things someone has ever done to me.

“I’ll be out of your hair now,” Tweek trails to his homeroom but Kenny grabs his shoulder and brings them into a hug. Tweek is shaking profusely in Kenny’s arms, but this time Kenny doesn’t care.

“Thank you, Tweek. No one has done something like this to me before.”

Kenny pulls back and sees Tweek look at him anxiously. Kenny could practically hear Tweek doubting himself.

“Really, I mean it. Who knew someone so cute cared about me.”

Kenny wasn’t lying when he said that. Sure, Tweek was twitchy but he had nice soft yet masculine features and Kenny definitely wasn’t disappointed by Tweek’s face going red.

“ALRIGHT! I’ll SEE YOU LATER! BYE!!! Tweek covers his face and trips to his homeroom.

__________

After Tweek’s intervention three months ago, Kenny started hanging out with Tweek and Craig. Kenny initially distanced himself from people because he was depressed about graduation. Pretty much everyone graduating would be leaving South Park (who can blame them, really?) and Kenny didn’t have any money to leave with them.

Despite Kenny’s concerns he still wanted to spend time with the two boys. He genuinely had a good time with them and they in turn somehow tolerated him.

Kenny was currently situated in Craig’s backyard at night, throwing pebbles at Craig’s window trying to get his attention. After a couple of seconds, he sees a light flicker on from one of the windows and hears the window slide open.

“Can I come in?” Kenny whispers to the familiar chullo silhouette.

Craig flips him off.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Kenny whispers back.

Kenny’s times as Mysterion helped him quickly climb Craig’s wall. He lands his feet on the floor and walks to Craig’s bed.

They’ve pretty much made this a routine at this point. Whenever Kenny’s parents would get into a fight (which was often) he would walk to Craig's house and use his telescope to distract himself. Tweek would sometimes join if his parents weren’t coddling him. Even though Kenny didn’t understand space, he did understand the appeal of looking at the vast space to fill your thoughts.

Craig puts Stripe #3 in his cage and sets up the telescope. Craig noticed that Kenny was being abnormally quiet so he decided to speak up.

“So?”

“Just thinking about things.”

“Like what?”

“Like how I’m pansexual.”

“Okay.”

Ah, there goes the classic Tucker charm.

“That’s really all you have to say,” Kenny replied.

“I don’t care.”

“Well, it’s kind of a big deal.”

“Why should it be a big deal? Sexuality is used by both sides as an excuse to ‘other’ each other and I don’t care to continue the trend.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

Craig finishes setting up the telescope and guides Kenny to the eyepiece.

Kenny continues the conversation by saying, “Do you have a crush on someone?”

“Why are we on this topic?”

“Oh come on! You gotta like someone unless you’re aromantic.”

“No. I’m not that.”

“Hmm… is it Clyde?

“Ew. No”

“Is it me?”

“No.”

Kenny was a little disappointed that it wasn’t him even though he knew his real crush.

Kenny removed his right eye from the telescope to see Craig’s reaction to his next question.

“Is it Tweek?”

Craig’s cheeks and ears were quickly covered in a vibrant red. Craig tried to hide his face with his chullo even though his reaction was obvious.

“U-Uh… I don’t know…”

“Aww! Someone has a crush! I think you should tell him though. You guys work well together.”

Craig didn’t say anything, turning his back to Kenny and wanting to cut the conversation. Kenny didn’t push him and continued to look at the stars through the telescope.

__________

Around midnight Kenny sneaks out of Craig’s house and takes out his phone to text in his group chat with Craig and Tweek.

Orange AirPod

hey guys. You wanna hang out tmw?

Space Cadet

dude you literally left my house like 2 secs ago and it’s fucking late. Stfu

Orange AirPod

meanie >:(

Coffee Bean 

aw ;-; I wish I was there

Orange AirPod

see Tweeky wants to hang out

Coffee Bean

Tweeky? really?!

Space Cadet

fine. We can talk about it at school. Night mcwhoremick. Night Tweekers

Orange AirPod

🖕

Space Cadet

Hey that’s my thing

Coffee Bean

what’s with the nicknames? :(

Kenny closes his phone and continues to walk home. He knows he should probably distance himself from them but there are only three weeks of school left so why not?

To make the walk a little more entertaining Kenny sings Butter’s song

“Lu Lu Lu, I’ve got some apples,

“Lu Lu Lu, you got some too!”

What? It was catchy. Don’t blame Kenny.

Kenny sees the outline of his house but then he hears someone running up to him. Kenny turns around and sees a zombie coming close to his face.

“THE FUCK-“ Weren’t zombies supposed to be slow?! His answer was confirmed when the zombie ripped on his flesh and the world went blank.

Huh… nothing ever goes right for me.

My Wattpad

[deathbyathousandspiders]

hello!! ive been scrolling thru ur work and i am instantly obsessed. can i request a meet cute of peter? :( maybe they meet post nwh and she’s like wanda and she’s doing lessons w strange like america chavez 🥹 something like that :D thank u!

do u also happen to have a masterlist? i’d love to read more of ur work ure really amazing! ❤️‍🔥

you’re so sweet!! i just published my masterlist and pinned it :)

but here’s the link too !!

✨masterlist✨.

this is just a quick lil blurb :,) i hope you like it !!

800+.

The chill of winter rushed down your spine, causing a subtle shiver to follow along your goosebumps. You should’ve known that the old ass windows of the Sanctum would be drafty, but the view of New York covered in snow was somehow a sight you couldn’t pull your focus from. It was breathtaking.

Strange trusted you to house–sit the Sanctum Sanctorum while he and Wong went out to visit Kamar–Taj. It was a little day trip for them, so you didn’t mind the task. Besides, it was the least you could do to make it up to Dr. Strange for letting you stay there. You couldn’t exactly remember how you’d lost your family, but alas, it brought you here anyways. You were left lonesome, with powers you could barely summon on command.

He was training you on your telekinesis abilities, and giving you sanctuary from the blistering wind–chill outside. Watching the Sanctum for a few hours felt like a reasonable task for you to take on. You were more than capable of protecting it.

The sound of the doorbell stirred you from your people watching, immediately grounding you from your thoughts while you trekked down the steps. The doorbell rang again just before you got to the large door, opening it with a slight twinge of irritation. All your annoyance melted away when you realized who had disrupted the peaceful afternoon.

A boy, roughly your age, stood on the steps in front of you. He looked at you doe–eyed. Stunned. It seemed like you both anticipated a greeting from different people. His brown eyes pierced your soul, making a mental note to remind you that you had to see them again. His hands dug into the pockets of his winter coat, hesitant to break the silence.

“Is, uh- Is Dr. Strange here?” He asked, voice on the verge of breaking. It almost seemed like he was too scared to hear the answer.

Your head turned into the building, about to call out for the doctor before you realized how much of an idiot you were for forgetting. “Um, no. Sorry, he’s out today.” Your brows creased, feeling a little sympathetic. You weren’t sure why your powers were picking up his energy so adamantly, but his energy was something that drew you in. “Do you want me to deliver a message?”

It seemed like your words carried a weight that only he knew the gravity of. He suddenly seemed lighter. Hopeful. “I, umm.. No, that’s okay.” He turned on his heel, stepping down the steps again. “Thanks anyways–”

“Wait.” You cut him off. You couldn’t figure out why, but you didn’t want him to go. Part of you knew he was more significant than he was leading on. A part of him lived in the barren sanctum walls, and you knew it. “What’s your name?” A small smile touched your lips, “I’ll let him know you stopped by.”

The boy froze dead in his tracks. It was almost like you’d said something wrong. Shit. Doe eyes turned into the stare of a deer in headlights. He didn’t seem to know what to do.

Your brows creased a little more, concernment sewn in the crevasse this time. “Are you okay?” He didn’t reply. He didn’t even move. You weren’t sure why he started malfunctioning, but you knew you had to do something.

“Maybe it’ll help if I tell you my name first?” Even you didn’t sound too sure, but this was better than nothing. You leaned into the doorframe more, trying to present yourself in less of an intimidating way. “I’m Y/N.”

You watched him mimicking the deep breath you took, easing into his posture. He gained some color back, and found his way back to his body. A nervous smile tickled the corners of his mouth with a breathy laugh, awkwardly glancing down at his boots.

“Sorry..” He spoke amid the anxious laugh, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.” His smile grew at the way your name fit with his voice. “I’m, uh.. Peter Parker.” It was like his name was some forbidden tongue. Getting it out seemed to lift the weight stuck on his shoulders though. “My name’s Peter Parker.”

Smiling back at him, you stood upright. “Well, Peter Parker, it’s nice to meet you too.” You sent a reassuring nod in his direction. “I’ll be sure to let the doctor know you stopped by.” Your brow arched at him, unable to shake the grin off your face. “Alright?”

Peter took steps away from the door, but kept his eyes on yours. “Thank you!” He beamed a little. It seemed to be the first light to hit the boy’s eyes in a while. “Happy holidays, Y/N.” He chimed, walking off into the street.

You hollered the same thing back in his direction before shutting the sanctum doors. You couldn’t quite dismiss the odd energy that your powers sensed from Peter, but it wasn’t a negative feeling. In fact, it was fascinating to you. And walking back to the drafty old window you’d been stuck at all day, you realized you wouldn’t be forgetting about Peter Parker anytime soon.

You hoped you’d be lucky enough to see him soon.

[ecogirl2759]

~~~NEW UPDATE~~~

(I'M A DUMBASS WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TUMBLR WORKS SO IF YOU SAW THIS ALREADY NO YOU DIDN'T)

I'm glad people liked my 4コマ KINGS post so much lol. I love spreading the word about obscure lore :)

Under the cut I've responded to some of my favorite tags, given a little more backstory into the source of these pictures, as well as posted a few new ones :D

There's also a question at the very bottom that I'd love to hear opinions on, but no pressure if y'all don't feel comfortable answering ^w^

You're welcome >:D

Same, bro. I was basically thinking that the entire time I was reading these books lol

I feel like I should give a little context to these comics and where they come from lol. I wasn't very clear about the backstory in my original post. I do agree, when I found these, I thought they were super important, too, particularly because I don't think a lot of the fandom knows about these books lol.

The Danganronpa 4コマ KINGS anthology series was published in the early 2010's featuring a bunch of different artists. The series is 4 volumes long and published by Spike Chunsoft, meaning, while these aren't necessarily canon, they ARE official :)

There is another series of anthologies in relation to both the first and second games, but I don't have those.

The first two volumes of this series is relatively well documented. There are sites where English translations have already been added to all of the comics in them (I'm pretty sure), as well as some screenshots popping up on places like Pinterest.

The third and fourth installments, however, are really poorly archived. The third has some content from it floating around, but it's hard to come by. The fourth had almost no information on it no matter where I searched.

I say this because a while ago I found the ONLY pictures of the Mastermind!Taka comic on this really old Tumblr blog from 2014 and REALLY wanted to figure out what it was about. (Didn't help that I couldn't read some of the bubbles in those photos.) First I searched for an English translation (there wasn't (so I'm working on one hehe)), then I tried to find which book it was even from, and NOTHING!

These books, since they were in circulation around 2014-ish, have stopped being printed, so copies of them are very hard to come by. Luckily, I was able to get my copies from a kind stranger on Ebay :)

-NOW-

Here are a few more pictures that I thought were funny/interesting that I couldn't add in my first post because of the picture limit lol.

Sorry for the really long post, I just thought it'd be interesting to share :)

Here's the page of artists that contributed to this anthology! Please go check them out (or see if they have any socials since it's been so long). Some credits change per volume, hence how many photos there are. (And sorry for my hand, it's hard to hold these open lol.)

You've probably all seen the covers, but have you seen what's behind the covers? (Also including the opening illustrations. These have probably been posted online already as well, but they're worth including imo.) (Again, please excuse the fingers, I'm trying my best ;-;)

^ Sayaka came with a smudge :( she still pretty tho

So, uh, remember when I said Hifumi made ship fodder? ......Here it is. Eat your heart out lol

Also remember when I said that Mondo's hair was fluffy and bouncy? Here's the proof:

Sakura has been de-buff-ified twice LMAO

ALSO remember when I said Syo was a fan of BL? ...... :)

ALSO remember when I said Kyoko was kinda socially awkward?

(Context: Kyoko sees Kiyotaka and Mondo calling each other bro and, thinking it'll strengthen their bond as well, calls Makoto "Makoto-oniichan," or "big brother Makoto" lol. Also, second picture says "I have come to save you, Makoto")

Chihiro Shinji chair meme

I'm at my picture cap, but there's a lot I haven't brought up lol

-SO-

For a different thread, would people like me to find pictures of certain characters? (i.e. just photos of the characters looking cool/hot/stupid without a lot of the text.) Because I am totally willing to do that :)

I've already got a lot on Byakuya, Sakura, Aoi and Mondo for all you simps out there, and it's not hard to find even more lol.

So lmk :D

[ohblackdiamond]

the story of mandate (conclusion)

Part I is here. Here is the completely signed magazine.

I went to a Paul event thanks to my dear friend @elrohare and I was a woman on a mission. This was my holy grail, my twelve labors of Hercules, my ultimate sacrifice of good sense, my Mandate, if you will. Paul is a man of constant sorrow who's seen trouble all his days. Paul had not known trouble until he saw my face again a mere two months after his last time.

Unlike Gene, who will randomly set a date to hand out his crap for hilarious prices, Ace, who will appear at any 500-1000 seater across the country and balefully advertise his meet and greets onstage, and Peter, who will roll out of bed every six months for a horror convention, Paul does his events at Wentworth galleries across the country. Paul is basically like Pokemon Red's Porygon. You can get him, but he'll take everything you have.

I was prepared. I had done the legwork and the paperwork. Part of my purchase included an autographed item. (Please note that this is not nearly the entirety of the, uh, Paul Stanley Experience, if you will-- this is only the Mandate aspect of it. There was more!)

Paul remembered both of us. "It's been awhile."

"Yeah, couple months, since February, yeah." I'm actually sort of not shocked he remembered us since neither of us look like typical KISS fans. There is also a very large height difference between us, so we are distinctive. We talk. I manage some conversation, some of which is sort of funny. But I'm not here to provide Paul with wit and candor. I'm here for Mandate, which he has already by that point seen the back of even with me trying to cover the naked men in the tub with my phone. He has already also seen the front of it, with its doodled-on-by-Gene cover. He has seen it open, because I had to set it down in order for us to take our picture together. He has probably spent the whole rest of our conversation leading up to this determining what to say to the lone weirdo that has not given him RARO, his solo album, his other solo album, the KISS comic book (mint condition), or various and sundry other KISS collectibles.

He has hit on it. He gestures to the president of Wentworth who is, incidentally, the one that's borrowing my phone to take our pictures. He comes closer as Paul shows him the magazine, along with me.

"Gene drew on it [the front cover of my copy]," I say.

"Mandate... this is the very first magazine we were ever in." (Peter said the same thing in his first book. They are both technically incorrect, but far be it from me to correct Paul Stanley on things that happened before I was born-- and to be honest, knowing what I know about how slow it could end up being to go from writing a feature for a monthly magazine to it actually being published, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they'd done the magazine some months prior to it being on the shelves).

"Our manager at the time said he could get us into a magazine. We didn't know it was a gay magazine. I mean, whatever you're into, but... ["I wasn't," basically, though I don't know if he said those two words specifically]....." as he flips, completely needlessly, through the pictures, sort of slowly, until he gets to page eight and page nine, where all three of his bandmates have signed in black Sharpie. "Of course, they blew me [the photo] up. ... And Gene drew on it."

I finally manage to pipe up.

"Yeah, Gene texted you about it, purportedly, anyway...."

"Yeah, he did."

"He did? Really?"

He looked like he was weirdly thoughtful. Well, sounded like he was. Maybe even a little bit amused. I had a hard time looking too hard at him while this was going on, and I found myself looking more at the naked men he was flipping through. But I had my plan and I would not be too distracted. I had brought my own black Sharpie, since I knew he had a penchant for signing in silver (this is because his Wentworth artwork always comes with an inscription on black paper that he writes on in silver). The Sharpie was right there and, possibly because he was keenly aware of my level of distress at the thought of Mandate being signed in a different color, he obediently took it and signed it and shut it, and handed it back to me. My smile could've broken through my dimples.

Triumph complete. Thank you, @elrohare for again allowing me the pleasure of coming with, and I was glad to plus-one and for once, return the favor.

Thank you, Mr. Paul Stanley of KISS. And thank you to Peter, Gene (especially Gene!), and Ace. I hope Mandate gave you all an unexpected blast from the past, and I really wish I'd told Paul that Peter quite appreciated the ass on the guy on the front cover. Maybe next time.

[dopscratch]

ok well it looks like there's a little more than five of you

so uh

i started writing a little bit and yknow when i said laios is literally me?

yeah i think i was born to write him

anyway here's a treat for you all, the very first draft of the first few paragraphs of A Culinary Guide to the Barbaric Archipelago

feedback is much appreciated this will probably look fairly different once i end up actually publishing :)

also keep in mind i've only watched the show so if anything seems inaccurate just tell me (preferably spoiler-free/spoiler-light) ___

Laios had no idea what these monsters were, and the thought only excited him. They had shown up as he and his party were traversing a high-ceilinged region in the fifth floor, and everyone was fumbling to fend them off. They were large, frighteningly fast, and were constantly in motion, enough that they were nothing but a near-indecipherable blur as they screeched through the air. 

Marcille had tried exploding them to no avail, the spells hitting nothing but a crumbling wall. Not a single swing of Kensuke had managed to so much as clip them, and fabric shreds floated through the air like autumn leaves as they tore through the party’s items with their talons. Chilchuck was screaming as he ducked and weaved, dodging the masses with some success. Meanwhile, Senshi busied himself trying to recover all of his fallen ingredients after one of the creature’s claws had torn off his pot and ripped open his supply bag, scattering its contents among the bricks. He didn’t even flinch when one sent sparks flying from his helmet. The only things that Laios could make out through the streaks were shimmering scales and sharp talons—either a reptilian or bird-type monster. Well, he’d read once that birds technically were reptiles anyway, but that was certainly besides the point, plus, monsters of either type generally still had their differences...though now that he thought about it, they often were encountered together—Basilisks, Cockatrices, and Coatuls were all combinations of snakes and birds, and white dragons had bird wings—wait, maybe that was why Falin had feathers! He’d thought it greedy at first, to have so many cool features together, but when he really considered it, regular birds had always had scales, on their legs at least! So then, maybe the feathers were just a natural part of it after all! Maybe...

“Maybe dragons aren’t just reptilian monsters, but a special type of bird monster!” Laios didn’t even realize he’d said anything aloud until Chilchuck turned his ire to him.

“What? How does that even matter!? Get a grip, Laios! We need to get the hell out of here!” the half-foot yelled. He grabbed onto Laios’s arm, but before he could try to tug the larger man away, he ducked to avoid an incoming blur. Marcille was having similar issues.

“Forget the food, we need to go!” She shrieked, trying to dissuade Senshi from the Sisyphean task that was collecting his things. Every time he made any sort of progress, a passing monster would swoop in to take a swipe at him, the passing wind sending everything flying once more.

__

first person to guess which httyd dragon is harassing them gets a doodle of your choice from me :)

ALSO, i am debating when in the books i want to set it. on one hand, setting it after the events of all the books could create some interesting dynamics with the main httyd gang and the touden party, though on the other hand that'd make it a lot less accessible for non-httyd readers and also just a massive spoiler fest. so i think setting it sometime before book 8 would also be fun and be able to accomplish what i want it to. and maybe even setting it before/during book 1 could be cool so i could play off of the interactions with the green death, though of course that would also be sacrificing the other httyd characters's development.

either way i think the main plot is that the touden party eats their way across the barbaric archipelago and hiccup horrendous haddock the third the hope and heir to the tribe of hairy hooligans just wants to find out why all the wild dragons are getting so agressive

also ziggerastica is just having a fit

[scienceoftheidiot]

Tag game for fanfiction authors !

I was tagged by both @the-blue-eyed-firebender and @lassusog, thank you so much to both of you !!

The story you're proudest of: 

I have two in mind, but I will be talking about the other one later, and I want to talk about a finished one. I��m incredibly proud of us, @qs63 and myself, for “My own worst friend and my own closest enemy” (does it surprise anyone that I am the one who chose the title? BTW fun fact, it comes from the same song as my username). I’m proud of us for  writing a four hands fic relatively seamlessly, and managing to get to the end of it in a relatively short time. It was a blast from start to finish, and I’m also glad it seems to still get love a year after we finished publishing. Bonus, it’s still very fun to re-read for me because I only wrote 50% of it so I don’t remember everything and I get surprised every time haha. We managed to make a fic that also delves into character study for both BH and 03 Roy and Riza, and that was INCREDIBLY FUN. Best time. 

Your story that's gotten the most love online:

We don’t talk about failures Murdocks Never Quit in this house so let’s talk about one I’m actually proud of (at least I did learn from my mistakes). Besides, it seems to have gotten that much insane love without me even knowing or being told it so uh. Nevermind. That just couldn't work, could it.

Of course since it’s a very long fic with multiple chapters the one which has received the most love is All the hope (not that people read more long fics but statistically more people are exposed to it thanks to the new chapters updates), which I am very proud and insanely happy about, because at first I wasn’t even planning to publish it. And now I’m gladly on the way to finish this monster of a fic and already planning the second part. Go figure XD but I am so so grateful for everyone who has given a chance to it and for those who keep on reading. Extra bonus for you who leave all these detailed comments at each chapters, all of you, you have no idea how you’ve kept me afloat all year. And kept/keep me writing. All the love for you. Thank you so much. 

Tease a current WIP or idea you're working on: 

I’m already thinking of what I could do once I’m done publishing All the hope, and I have some WIPs lying around. The most developed one has already been partially written, and I’m considering trying to start posting it with a long delay between chapters, to allow me to work on multiple things at once. Not sure it’s a good idea, though. This one, some of my followers might know about, has for working name “1923”, and explores the lives of the Roy and Riza of OUR universe that we don’t get to see in Conqueror of Shamballa. I couldn’t NOT have fun with sending Roy into WW1, I mean, ME. SENDING CHARACTERS INTO WW1? HOW SURPRISING. I even managed to find a historically accurate way to send Riza to war without making a nurse out of her (which. No. No nurse Riza for me, unless you count her nursing Roy back to health)(of course, who do you think I am, you know what I write). There’s of course all the other characters that pop up here and there. And yes of course this is 100% Royai lol (UPDATE : I don't know what possessed me. It's a Royai fic alright. However. There are surprises in it. If I don't mention that I know someone will come and kill me with her bare hands. Lol. Royai with a twist I guess?)

Your top 3 fandoms:

I don’t know if I can count FMA 03 and Brotherhood/manga as different fandoms lol so FMA, Daredevil (comics or show, but they ARE different characters)(I'm more of a comics Matt lover, to everyone's surprise), and Ripper Street (everyone watch Ripper Street please and you will thank me after wanting to kill me). 

Your top 3 ships:

Royai, Havoroyai (didn’t specify I can’t have OT3), Havoroy yes there is a pattern here.

Wait was I supposed to talk about different fandoms? Then Matt/Karen and Edmund/his hat (and anyone who would be willing to give some love to this disaster of a man). 

Rec someone else's fic:

Your Warmth Against My Scars by @lassusog. Just. It’s just so good. Perfect angst, perfect characterisation, and so, so, so good on all parts I just can’t seem to find the words and it makes me insane. Read it if you haven’t already, re-read it if you have, which is what I’m planning to do. 

Pick one!

Fluff or Angst (or both, they gotta earn the fluff)

Oneshots or longfics

Canon compliance or canon divergence

AO3 or FF.net

I tag @qs63, @wellbehaveddolphin, I think all the other royai people have been tagged already ? My memory is Swiss cheese so if you haven't and you see this, please do it. And I'll extend to @mabonetsamhain, @residentdormouse, @littleragondin and @riotbrrrd :)

[mejomonster]

How did you learn Chinese, like did you use a specific program like Duolingo or did you take classes? How hard was it to read Priest's novels with where you were at in your language learning journey? I want to get back into learning (been wanting to since I watched The Untamed,) but I gave up about 8 months ago 😭

Hey ovo)/ so uh. That's a big question. I have a studyblr @rigelmejo so if you really want the full on journey lol its on there, steps i took and what I studied and progress and study tools I found and used and stuff I've linked for people.

For the shortest tip I can give you? Would be to check out the Heavenly Path site if you're interested in learning to read novels. You'll need to figure out your own way to study about 1000 common hanzi, basic grammar, and basic pronunciation (I link resources on rigelmejo), but after that point the Heavenly Path site has reading resources for graded reading, easier kids novels, easier manhua, webnovels by difficulty level, all the way up! So you can at that point just follow their recommendations and use reading tools they link (like Pleco and Readibu apps which I suggest you download asap - they include tools where you can click a chinese word when reading for translation and audio pronunciation and pinyin). So yeah at 1000 hanzi, just start reading from their suggestions! (Also consider downloading Bilibili Comics app as it has English and Chinese free manhua, so you can start reading manhua earlier, and youtube/viki.com learn mode and Any platforms with dual english/chinese subs and start trying to look up 1 word every 5 minutes or more as curious and practicing reading the chinese words in subs you've learned). I suggest you check out all pages on the Heavenly site, they link a ton of resources.

The short-ish version of what I did the first year I studied chinese? I fumbled a lot, read through an entire grammar guide summary in a few weeks here http://chinese-grammar.com/, watched some YouTube tone videos and went through a pronunciation guide here https://www.dong-chinese.com/learn/sounds/pinyin which took a week or two and I'd do it every few months, read through the book Learning Chinese Characters: (HSK Levels 1-3) A Revolutionary New Way to Learn the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters by Tuttle publishing in about 2 months (I really liked their mnemonics to help me remember hanzi), started Ben Whatley memrise decks 1000 Chinese common words and 2000 common words (took about 2 weeks to finish one then I took a few months break then studied the other 1000, mainly focusing on studying new words and not reviewing until the last week if I had time - in retrospect I think learners would do better with the Chinese Spoonfed Anki deck but the memrise courses I used worked fine for me). I was watching cdramas as usual most weeks, English subs with the Chinese hardsubs on the video file like most youtube cdramas, with Google Translate app on my phone to look up a word every several minutes as curious. Once I was 3ish months in and learning the memrise Ben Whatley 2000 common chinese words, I read some Mandarin Companion graded readers in Pleco app then some more 300-600 word graded readers in Pleco. That gets me to like month 6ish. Then I started reading manhua and looking up words in pleco or Google translate when I needed to in order to grasp main idea overall (or was curious about a particular word). Kept reading graded readers in pleco.

Around month 8 I tried 天涯客 and 镇魂, both brutally hard. I was reading in Pleco in the Clipboard Reader (from websites) or the Reader tool (i bought it for like $20 dollars along with handwriting recognition, OCR, and expanded dictionaries). Mandarinspot.com has a good reading tool too that can add pinyin if you need it, and Readibu in some ways i prefer to Pleco depending on your particular reading needs on a given day. Tried a few easier webnovels, tried a pingxie fanfic 寒舍 which was hard but easier than priest novels (love that fanfic). I kept bouncing between webnovels then around month 10 天涯客 novels took about 1.5 hours to read through a chapter. At that point I brute force tried to read it or 寒舍 daily with 1 chapter a day, got 28 chapters in before i burned out with 天涯客 and 60ish chapters into 寒舍. It was about a year in. I cram studied 500 hanzi in some common hanzi deck with mnemonics I found on anki over a month, hoping if I improved vocab I'd read easier. I also was gradually trying to watch more cdrama with only chinese subs, around month 6 I finally watched Granting You a Dreamlike life full episodes with no eng subs (about 5-10 word lookups an episode), watched 15ish eps, then after that shows got less daunting to try watching.

A little over a year in Word of Honor came out and I watched it in chinese first because I was too impatient for eng subs. After that went decently I got braver about reading, tried Listening Reading Method (see @rigelmejo for those experiments), more stuff etc like extensive reading with no word lookups.

In retrospect I WISH I'd started with easier novels Heavenly Path recommended. However on the other hand? I've seen people who read their first cnovel with Pleco as early as 3-6 months in which blows my mind. So me picking hard novels to start isn't the Hardest thing in comparison lol. This past year (so at start of year 3 studying lol) I actually read like 10 things on Heavenly Paths easier recommendations and it helped immensely in filling in gaps in vocab and reading fluidity I had. So if you do pick a priest novel as your first novel and manage to chug through it without giving up, be aware "easier" novels may still have stuff you can learn later so don't rule them out as reading materials later on.

I've also seen people do literally no study except maybe some curious Google searches on hanzi or grammar or pronunciation, then brute force read novels in Readibu until they improved. A brutal way to do it but possible. (I really recommend at minimum learning hanzi are made of radicals though as it makes recognizing and remembering them so much easier).

I think the best thing I did for learning to read was just being Brave and Trying to read regularly. And it gradually got less hard.

[femmmie]

THE ISLAND

Here is the first chapter of my 25k Smosh fanfic. I'm so excited to share it with you 💓 I will post a new chapter every day until the story is over. If you rather read it all in one go, that's okay too, it's all up on AO3.

Chapter 1: The campaign

Ian gets interviewed about his run for president of the USA. Amanda, an attractive and sharp reporter, catches his eye. Meanwhile at Defy HQ, someone else's adventure begins...

Chapter word count: 1.194

Rated: I guess general, or teen?

"So, you in fact did NOT have sex with your staff worker's sister?"

"What? Hell no! Why would I even? Okay look, I know it's very exciting for you and every other outlet that asked me this same question. Wow, a presidential candidate is single. But at least be a little classy? Don't go and snoop around my love life."

"Of course, mister Hecox. And what will you do, as president of the United States, to combat the climate disaster?"

"Look, miss Lehan-Canto, I think we both know I'm no expert on the subject. But I've been in talks with research institutes who devote all their time to finding solutions. That's who I listen to now, and I'll continue to listen to them when I'm in office."

"Very good. Thank you for this interview. People.com readers will be happy to hear you care about the future of our beautiful planet."

"Of course I care. Musk and Gates may have left orbit, but I'm sticking to Earth, thank you very much. As president I'll fight every day for our right to exist!"

"One last question..."

"Alright?"

"Then why are you taking money from Defy Media, the consortium spreading propaganda for Big Oil?"

"Ah, I see you've done your homework. But, like, what am I to do? Not take their billions? I need to get my message out to the people, so they know their choices. And, as you well know, that costs a lot of money."

"But doesn't it compromise your integrity?"

"That's for the voters to decide. I think my platform is straight-forward."

"Thank you for your time, mister Hecox."

The room was very bright, with big windows and a high ceiling. It was perfect to take presidential-looking shots to publish along with the article.

Ian Hecox sat down on a modern, green arm-chair.

A tall, young man wearing a bandana took the pictures. "Uh-huh. That's perfect."

With every flash, however, Ian's mind conjured up all kinds of horrible scenarios.

FLASH

His eventual and utterly unavoidable assassination.

FLASH

Or if his adversaries wanted to be sneaky, a 'sudden' and 'unexpected' death.

FLASH

How many minutes would he last as president?

"Mister Hecox," Bandana implored Ian. "You're looking very regal, but maybe a couple of shots of you looking relaxed would help your image of being a, you know, a more approachable guy?"

The reporter stayed around during the shoot. She gave Ian a look, like she knew something about him he himself didn't even know. It was strangely intriguing.

They wrapped up.

"Wow, you have REALLY blue eyes, man," miss Lehan-Canto said, taking Ian aback. "I was trying to ask some tough questions, but I kept getting distracted haha."

"Uh, thanks?" Ian stifled a nervous burp and tried to laugh it off. But the reporter walked up to him, until they stood closely together. She was very tall.

"I promised I wouldn't pry into your love life anymore... But I have to ask. How come you are still single?'

"Haha. I- Well," Ian tried to look anywhere except straight in front of him. "I don't know either. It's not like I haven't tried. It just hasn't worked out before. But truly, miss Lehan-Canto-"

"Please, call me Amanda." Amanda was rubbing Ian's arm with her perfectly manicured nails. It was wildly distracting.

"Okay, Amanda. And please also just call me Ian. Ever since I announced my campaign, I haven't had any time to date, or anything. I'm, I'm sorry. You're very beautiful. Gorgeous even. Ten out of ten. But I, I have to think of the people who put their trust in me to give it my all. To try and finally steer us in the right direction."

Amanda traced Ian's shirt's neckline, a disappointed pout on her face.

"I understand. Well, if you become president-"

"WHEN I become president." Ian gave her the old smolder. It worked, because she giggled. Her smile was white, wide and inviting. The skin around her big, brown eyes crinkled.

"-When- you become president, will you give People.com an exclusive?"

Ian softly put his hands around Amanda's waist and looked her in the eyes. "I promise."

"Very good." Amanda smiled as she turned around and walked away. Before exiting the door, she turned around once more and gave Ian a wink.

~

"Ian, that was very nice and all, but..."

"I know, I know."

Ian’s campaign team had been observing the whole interview from a corner of the large room. Shayne, his advisor, always worried most about optics.

"Do you, really? If that photographer took any footage of you cuddling it up with miss Lehan-Canto, they have blackmail material against you now!"

"Like I give a fuck if people see me flirting with a beautiful woman!"

"People need to know you are focused on your job, Ian."

"That was exactly what I was telling her, Shayne."

"That was what your mouth said, but your eyes and hands told another story," Courtney – Ian’s campaign manager – interrupted, trying to lift the mood.

"Ah, what can I say. I'm a red-blooded, all-American guy. And you two should talk! You guys have each other."

Ian’s campaign team was very close-knit. It was basically him, Shayne and Courtney. They also had a merch team led by Kiana. They’d developed a mutual trust very fast and were goofing off like this most of the time, when they didn’t have to be serious. Shayne turned to face Courtney, putting his hands around their waist, exactly like Ian had just done with Amanda.

"Oh, miss Lehan-Canto, you're so tall and beautiful! Please, will you kiss me?"

"Why, mister Almost-President! Anything for MY Commander in Chief!"

Shayne and Courtney started fake making out, but their body language couldn’t lie. They were really enjoying this.

"Alright, you made your point. Now go back and do your job!"

"Yes, sir."

They got their bags and went outside, down the hill where their vehicle was parked.

The surroundings were beautiful. Subtropical flowers everywhere, old trees and shrubs and a cobbled pathway downward. The heat made it difficult to enjoy the view, though. Wading through the outside was hell these days.

~

The Defy HQ boardroom was not much more than your standard office with a nice view. The table was fancy though, and the chairs just a little more comfortable than those in the rest of the building. One guy stood up, gesticulating while speaking to the rest of the board. They were all men in suits. But the guy just wore a shirt with rolled up sleeves, and glasses which were rimmed at the top.

“You know, in this crazy digital age, presidential campaigns need something to appeal to the younger demo.”

“What are you suggesting, mister Dilford?”

“I’m talking crazy memes and cheeky tweets!” Sweat was seeping down Dave Dilford’s temple. “We have to embed ourselves in pop-culture, swim in it! Or we risk losing to Watcher’s candidate.”

“You’ve got a point there. So, how much do you need?”

“That’s what I’m talking about! Together, we will make the electorate giggle all the way to the ballot box.” Dave walked around the room, fist-bumping every board member.