#you where able to get me to help develop a multi complex au

[ohlookanothercartoontofallinto]

Dang it....I just realized if I was somehow able to get @socksandbuttons to join the Linked Universe Fandom we be feasting...

(Slams fist into table out of anger.) 

[writernotwaiting]

Loki Meta Nobody Asked For, part 3--All MCU Lokis are AU fan fiction Lokis

There is so much in part 3 that I really wanted to see and I very much want to celebrate, but once again, I am conflicted.

Ok. Good things: Loki and his magic. Loki and fighting. Loki and improvisation. Loki as bisexual. Loki talking about his mother. Loki showing a moral compass.

All of these are Most Excellent Things: • Loki here is finally not a de-powered pushover. His illusions are effective. He teleports over a short distance. He resists Sylvie’s mind control. He stops a multi-ton support tower from falling and pushes it back up into place!!!! • He fights effectively--finally! Granted, his dagger misses its mark, but he was drunk, so I’ll give him a pass on that. Aside from that, he finally shows us some highly effective hand-to-hand combat skills. Thankyouverymuch for acknowledging that Loki survived a millennia of life in a warrior culture. He was raised by a warrior king. His brother is a Hero(tm). There’s no way he didn’t learn some skillz. His ineffective fighting in episode 2 can easily be attributed to the fact that he was pulling his punches when he was fighting the human shields Silvie possessed. • Loki’s character explicitly acknowledged their queerness!!!! This makes my little queer heart glow bright, and I think needs no more comment. Just . . . yesssss! • Loki loves his mom. Loki is conflicted about that relationship because They Lied To Him.  And did I mention that Loki speaks wistfully about his mother and a bit about the fact he was adopted and no one told him until he already pretty much found out (in the most awkward way ever). Even Sylvie thought that was pretty poor parenting. Good stuff. • Loki really doesn’t want to kill innocent bystanders and only attacks folks who attack him first. He is also kind of appalled to hear that the TVA workers are all variants who’ve had their minds wiped. Again, this is all excellent, and fits well with the Loki we met in Thor I who just really wanted to make sure his war-mongering brother didn’t sit on the throne until he grew up a bit, and then Everything Got Way Out of Control. • We see Smart!Loki in action, as opposed to hear Mobius flatter Loki to get him to cooperate. While one of Loki’s attempts at deception fails miserably, the other works (with Sylvie’s help). This is all excellent and made me Very Happy Indeed!

[more below the break]

I also very much liked many parts of his interactions with Sylvie, and the fact that we got a tiny bit of her backstory (and I love her insistence on her own identity--this is very much I think a Loki thing, “I am not you. I am my own thing, thank you very much”). This relationship has a great deal of potential for complexity and depth. I am totally here for enemies to frenemies to allies if that’s where the series is going.

I like the reveal that the TVA agents are all variants themselves who have been “wiped” and indoctrinated. We are finally getting more obvious hints at the insidiousness of the TVA.

So why am I still conflicted about the series? Well, here is what I did not like: • Loki’s improvisation with the old woman--he had too little information to pull off an effective scam like that and he would have known that. He had a photograph. A black and white photograph--no voice, no personality, no coloration, no body language; he didn’t even know if the picture really was one of a husband and not some other type of relation. There was no way it would ever work. He should have known that. Loki would have known that. • His voice and body language when he pretended to be a guard was stupid and unconvincing, not mimicry. That was a joke. • The getting drunk thing. I found this not only disappointing but insulting and also possibly lazy on the part of the writers. It felt completely out of character. In fact, Sylvie felt much more “Loki-ish” in this scene than Loki did. I just cannot in any universe see Loki doing anything like this under these conditions. They are undercover in a high-pressure situation in which they are about to be wiped out of existence if they fuck things up, and Loki decides to get drunk? No. This is a virtually suicidal loss of control. They have no idea how long they would be on that train or what they would have to deal with later. They have no idea what sort of security is in place on the train. Why did they even stop in a bar, of all places? Why not find a sleeper car and stay out of the way? For that matter, why not just find seats? Why would a guard be sitting in a booth at a bar with a prisoner? They wouldn’t. Loki’s sense of self-preservation is stronger than that. He’s smarter than that. It was stupid and out of character and also unnecessary--there are so many other ways they could have gotten them shoved off that train that did not involve Loki making a spectacle of himself. It was, in fact, a very Thor thing to do, not Loki-like at all. • I still feel as though Tom is over-emoting in all of the scenes that are less than life-or-death. It does not feel like the Loki I met in Thor I and The Avengers. That Loki had a length of re-bar up his spine and only genuinely smiled when he looked at Thor (when Thor was smiling).

I feel like Tom is playing two Lokis in the show--the one that fights his way out of tight spots and occasionally deals with his difficult family issues, and the other is a parody of mischief!Loki--whose face is extremely emotive and who wants to bare his soul to whomever looks vaguely as though they’ll listen to him.

So, here’s my mid-series conclusion. All MCU Lokis are fan fiction Loki’s of the comics. Among those MCu fan fics are three distinct AUs.

1. The Loki we meet in Thor I, The Avengers, and Thor II. This Loki works hard to bury his emotions. His body language is generally stiff and prickly. He is the product of growing up in a culture that is driven by a toxic masculinity and devalues those traits that are coded “feminine” such as all of those things Loki excels at. Because of this, he has gotten the message his entire life that he is with less that the Golden Child that is Thor. He loves his brother with all his soul but resents him because his father placed them in competition with one another. All of this was reinforced by growing as the “tag-along” little brother who was tolerated but not embraced by Thor’s closest friends. This Loki becomes self-destructive and suicidal, experiencing a psychotic break as a result of revelations about his adoption and internalized racism. He spends who-knows-how-long falling through the void enduring perhaps months of sensory deprivation only to be tortured and manipulated by Thanos. He emerges from that experience Truly Fucked Up, stopped of much of his power because he’s had the living shit kicked out of him. But his core self is still there somewhere--a core self that loves his brother, that craves affection, that really hates what Asgard has done to him but still has a moral compass in there somewhere that says wiping out the entire universe is a bad thing and I guess protecting helps humans is something he ought to do since his brother loves them.

2. The Loki we meet in Ragnarok and IW. This isn’t really the same guy as Loki #1. It’s a fan fiction AU in which Loki has no trauma to deal with. He is a manipulator. But he is a manipulator because he is a survivor. He does what he has to do in order to be not dead, and if he can also have some luxury while he does it, well, that’s a bonus. Theoretically, he is a powerful mage--since he was able to overcome Odin and place him in a nursing home--but we don’t see any of that on screen. He is revered Mostly Harmless by the narrative. There is no re-bar up his ass. His body language is much more loose and emotive. His characterization has been flattened out in order to serve as a narrative foil for Thor, and will be bridged in IW to serve Thor’s character development (yet another feminization of his character). Many people really enjoyed this version of Loki. But let’s be clear, he isn’t the same Loki we met in the other three movies.

3. The TVA Loki. This Loki is a new fan fiction. A third AU. This Loki is slightly closer to Loki #1 in that his characterization is a bit more complex than Loki #2. He is smarter. He is more versatile and powerful. He has a backstory that isn’t being mocked. His queerness is not being used to villain-code him. But it would be wrong to say he’s the same Loki that we saw in the first three movies. This Loki’s trauma is all family-related, which great, at least they acknowledge that.

However, he clearly is not the PTSD!Loki that we see in TDW. They have decided (at least so far) to completely ignore what happens between Thor I and The Avengers. I’m not quite sure why it’s ok to deal with trauma when it’s Bucky Barnes and Tony Stark, but not ok when it’s Loki, but this is the decision the director made, and if I want to enjoy the show, I have to be ok with that. So that’s what I’m going to do right now. The Loki show is fan fiction. It’s an AU. And it does a pretty good job at doing that.

[1dcraftawards]

November Author of the Month...

Drumroll please.... our November Author of the Month is none other than the incredibly talented...

@all-things-fic ! 

Congratulations to a wonderful author, Liz! You can check out our interview with her below!

1.Did you start writing fanfiction for One Direction, or was there another fandom that you wrote fanfiction for before this?

I have one fic that I wrote for One Direction Fanfic Archive, that will never see the light of day. It was really awful, but everyone starts somewhere. I’ve shared it with two people on Tumblr and we just laughed about it.

I’ve also written a Niall Horan fic which has been flagged for how explicit it is, which is quite laughable as it’s tame in comparison to the Harry stuff (eek!)

2. How old were you when you started writing fanfiction?

I was a teenager when I first started writing fics. I don’t know if I would consider it “proper” fanfic though as it was riddled with cliches.

3. What’s been your favorite fic that you’ve written to work on so far?

For the longest time I was proud of the second part of Divorce Harry and specifically the second part. It just felt real to write. I can’t even explain what it is about that piece.

I think at the time it stemmed from an ask I received where I was asked if I was a parent - I’m not - but this someone said I portrayed aspects of a marriage and how children can tip the balance really well.

The sheer bitterness of two people in love and the juxtaposed feeling it brings was an interesting dynamic. Being bitter and in love? How? It happens. You love someone, but bloody hell don’t you hate at the same time.

And I think on the hand Quarantine Harry is the opposite side of the same coin. I love it because it’s so happy. When you’re smitten and basking. Your baby waking you up at 3am and meeting your husband on the landing with the freshly made bottle is a time to enjoy because you’re doing it together.

But soon enough the third child is sprawled out in your kingsize bed and their foot is pressed against your ribs and you're tired. This isn’t me saying the two stories are linked (I do get those theories quite a lot haha)

4. Do you prefer AU or OU?

Definitely more of an OU gal. I’m massively into writing things “realistically” because I think it’s so relatable and helps draw readers in more so. Especially if the writing uses and references visuals that readers are aware of.

5. What’s your favorite trope to write?

Would we call a long-term relationship / established relationship a trope? If so then this is my favourite. Writing characters who know how to push each other’s buttons, knowing what they can and can’t say to get the other going. Being able to write two people who can share as little as a glance and know what the other is feeling.

Sprinkle a bit of angst on the top for good measure.

That’s my kryptonite.

6. What’s your ideal space to write in?

I tend to write when I’m in bed quite a bit, usually really late at night and on my phone rather than my laptop. Often lying in the dark. Sometimes first thing in a morning.

7. How do you get motivation to write?

This one made me laugh considering I’m unable to finish a single piece of writing at the minute.

Pictures are quite inspiring. New images of Harry can usually start something in me. The images of him in the whacky joggers for example from set have inspired a scene in Quarantine Harry (who knows for which part just yet!).

8. Do you typically like to listen to music when you write? If so, what do you listen to?

Very rarely listen to anything when I write, I tend to like silence really. Sometimes this is so I can dictate into my phone.

9. Your dialogue is some of the best I’ve ever read on tumblr, how do you plan conversations in your fics?

Thank you for the compliment, it’s really nice to read that you think so highly of my dialogue. I don’t really plan them - conversations or my fics. I’m quite visual in how I write, so anything that you’ve read I’ve most likely had it play out in my mind and typed it as it’s moved. For dialogue I tend to speak out loud as I’m typing to try and get the pacing right for the conversation.

No, I don’t try to do a Manc accent… Just in case anyone is wondering haha!

10. What is your writing process like?

I write what I see and then hope it fits. Honestly it’s pretty chaotic. The only time I tend to plan is when I’ve got a lot of different scenes written and I need to know if they’re suitable for an update or what order to place them.

Then I read through them and think about the characters and how they would be a certain time and move the documents into another document. Then I close all the tabs and cry cause my motivation is nonexistent.

11. What’s been your favorite scene to write from Quarantine Harry?

One that hasn’t been shared haha! I’m joking (maybe).

From part one my favourite bit has to be the part where she makes up with him by taking him a cuppa and he gets a dig in about how she hasn’t brought any biscuits with her. Also the bit where he says “come an’ love me” meaning he wants to cuddle. I’m quite conscious I don’t really ever write soppy fics, so when I’m writing “fluffy” aspects they’re more so everyday affections. Like, you know someone is properly in love with you when they’re doing the washing up cause you’re busy, or they’re taking out the bins on bin day. That kinda thing.

From part two absolutely the entirety of the morning where she takes the pregnancy test. That was the part I had as clear as day and I worked backwards to the opening scene. I really loved the idea of Harry knowing his partner is pregnant before said partner knows. Him knowing his lovers body like the back of his hand so much so that he’s able to pick up on the smallest of things.  I knew I had to write it.

And how he casually suggested she took the test, by pressing a kiss into her back. His face finding that test and then being an insufferable sod and pleased with himself cause he’s in the know about the outcome before the MC.

12. Is there a schedule you follow in terms of when you write? Or are you more impulsive and just write where and when you can?

So impulsive it’s actually embarrassing. I cringe at myself. I know I’ve mentioned this loads but I really write what I see. So if I’m not seeing anything, I’m not writing. It’s quite frustrating.

13. What is one thing you wish you would’ve known before you started writing?

To not talk about your writing before you’ve finished it. I feel like I massively let people down when I post sneak peeks and then I can’t deliver because life gets on top of me!

14. What do you prefer writing, multi-chaptered fics or one shots?

One shots and then if they develop into something more that can be exciting!

15. What's your secret to portraying such a complex and interesting relationship between your main characters??

Personal trauma…… *tumbleweed at another one of my poorly thought out jokes*

I’m a bit stumped on how to answer this one. I think being well read(ish) helps you create complex characters and relationships, not saying that I am but I’ve read a fair few books. Life in general helps too, sometimes personal relationships. Just growing up. My fic when I was younger was nowhere near the type of things I’m writing now but I’ve got a couple (okay, more than a couple!) of years on myself since then.

I think just apply your own lived experiences and call upon emotions you may have felt through certain times that you’re writing should you have experience it.

Partly I also think so many of us are a little bit nosy. Sometimes we all kinda want to be the fly on the wall in the home of couples to see if everything is a rosy as it seems or as intimate. Or whether it is just raw passion with a couple of arguments thrown in for good measure.

16. What Harry era/mood/look/vibe/song/etc. do you get most inspired by?

What’s weird is my favourite era of Harry is 2014, but I wouldn’t want to write him like that. The current Harry is quite marvellous. I’ve never known anyone like him, he really is fine wine (the real album title…. ‘we’ll be a fine wine’)

If you’re asking what mood I like to see him in, it’s either when he's pensive and looks a touch pissed off with a crease to his brow or when you watch his joke his eyes before he’s even said it and he’s amused/pleased with himself.

His current look, mainly late 2019/2020 is quite something (hence the quarantine fics)

I tend not to get inspired by his songs but my two faves if I had to pick would be Woman and TBSL. I think they’re massive Scorpio energy and would make great premises for a one shot sometime!

I’m not sure if I even answered this how you wanted it answer but hopefully it was something haha!

17. Who or what inspired you to start writing?

I’ve always loved writing, I think it’s because I do a lot of it with my line of work. The person that gave me the push on this site was actually an account called @meetyourmouths. The lovely Iz is no longer on tumblr but she wrote a Harry piece that just made me think ‘fuck it’ and I posted Practicing. If you go to that piece the authors note makes mention to Iz.

I would also say @stylishmuser was one of the first people to reach out to me and be encouraging which has always stuck with me. Massive love for, P and still talk to her all these years on.

I’m now sat here thinking about listing all the lovely lovely people who have been so nice to me both in regards to writing and outside of it and I’m conscious I’m not mentioning them. The troubles of being a bit of a people pleaser. Hopefully those people know I love ‘em… You know?

18. Some readers are wary of leaving feedback because they're unsure how the writer will take it, how do you personally like to receive feedback? Do you want to be critiqued, or would you like to just know if they did or didn't enjoy what they've read?

First thing I’d say is please don’t ever think as readers you can’t be negative. Sure there is a way to present the feedback to the author cause writing can be quite personal, but everyone has room for growth.

Just come chat to me. Can be about anything and everything. A simple ‘loved the update’ to ‘this bit was rubbish’. I’m open to all feedback.

One thing to remember is there are a lot of writers out there so there is something for everybody. If a fic isn’t for you there are tons out there waiting for you to go and grab ‘em!

19. Is writing a hobby or do you have aspirations of writing professionally outside of fanfiction?

I used to think it was mainly more so a hobby, and I do still lean towards this. However, now I’m not so sure. My problem is I tend to have long spells of not being able to find balance in my ‘real life’ job and the extra-curricular stuff.

I’m dragging myself here but I don’t think my fics have much plot to them. I’m more so about writing the everyday life and I don’t think there is a market for that really (unless you have something explosive happen somewhere).

20. And finally, What's your purpose for writing? What do you hope to accomplish?

For a while I wanted to write Harry being insufferably British. I found it quite hard to find writings that I thought wrote him using Britsh-isms (is this even a thing?) and types of phrases that are common over this side of the pond. I wanted to put that out there for someone who may have once felt like me.

Mostly,  I just want to put pieces out that take people elsewhere, even if only for a couple of minutes. A lot of the world is a bleak place, if you find my little corner on tumblr and it makes you smile, that’s achieved something, hasn't it?

[allyreads]

fic recommendations

this is a list of few of my favourite fics, check my reblogs for even more fics !!

author recommendations here

search the members’ initials to see what i recommend that isn’t on this list!! (kth for kim taehyung, ick for im changkyun, etc.)

fandoms i read: bts, svt, mx, exo, got7 and nct (so far)

disclaimer:

1. this is not a complete list, i’ll keep adding to it.

2. majority of these contain or are smut

3. very angsty so be careful of your heart

got7:

jaebum:

far from home - @red-exo

a light-hearted read that doesn’t use the most complex of vocabulary yet is able to make me feeeeeel all sort ways. although based on a simple concept, the story will definitely hike JB up your bias list!!

jinyoung:

the noisy neighbours - @chickenkooks

mark:

i want desire (a series) - @taexual

who doesn’t love a good mafia AU! series

bts:

seokjin:

currents - @yeoldontknow

one of the most powerful fanfictions ive ever read. all the revelations at the end…i can’t find any other words to describe how powerful it was.

hoseok:

systems of touch - @yeoldontknow

fuelled by love and sexual tension, this story portrays a rather professional side of jung hoseok and a reader through an artistic storyline.

oceans of gold - @junqkook

always had a soft spot for greek mythology (as mentioned below in yoongi’s) the myth of apollo and hyacinth were incorporated perfectly into this fic i’m obsessed.

jungkook:

policeofficer!jungkook - @nothingatallspecialinanyway

inspired by the music video, it’s a simple and hot piece of writing that portrays the AU!possible sexy side of jeon jungkook

oblivion - @softlyjiminie

demon!AU’s are just the best. this has angst too UGH I LOVE.

young wolf - @junqkook

for game of thrones fanatics ;)

forever and a night - @gukyi

a heartbreaking yet lovely werewolf!JK fic

not quite lovers - @junqkook

a hot ass fic, as expected from yara. in this fic the reader is the CEO rather than the guy. it was a refreshing change of perspective

rottenfolk - @junqkook

faerie jk is rotten alright

after dark - @seokoloqy

the sea & the storm - @jamaisjoons

P E R F E C T I O N honestly. so well written and so well thought out and the concept isn’t like any other im so in love

the turing test - @fortunexkookie

there are so many kook stories that i adore and this is one of them that i read so far. it’s another multi-chapter android!jungkoo; and recommend this story so much it’s so carefully crafted.

the monogamy monologues - @kpopfanfictrash

comedy gold, honestly. it’s so funny and so romantic and an amazing late-night read where you get lost in jungkook’s eyes through the form of words. 

rattled - @taehyungforreal

i know the series just started but i can’t help but fall for single dad!JK and i can’t wait to see how the series progresses

namjoon:

legacy - @mintjoonlep

intro: for her - @jamaisjoons

yoongi:

upgrade - @gukgalore

sorry tae, but i think yoongi has won here in this one

1. hello paradise my name is

2. mint

3. aidoneus, my love - @seokoloqy

i’m a sucker for greek mythology so it’s natural that this whole hades!AU series has got to be one of my favourite yoongi fics

heart haunting - @jamaisjoons

taehyung:

the morning after - @softlyjiminie

i just realised i didn’t list any tae fics when i first created this, but i found one!! this is a short, poetic angst / smut written in a genre i can never ever get bored of: the powerful, lingering feelings for an ex lover

1-800-music-street - @httpjeon

buzzed - @ junqkook

warm - @ httpjeon

i’m seeing a pattern in these fics...roommate!taehyung. there’s something so simple and sweet about this concept. gives me hope that love (and sex) can be exciting even in a domestic setting.

everythingoes - @jamaisjoons

so. fucking. good. OH MY GOD. this fic shook me to the core. unrequited love! angst! new found love! all my fucking favourites i love this fic pls go read it i don’t care if it’s 24k words and it’s 3am just go read it ok thanks bye.

taboo - @jhspetitegf

professor!taehyung oops

jimin:

lovebug - @ httpjeon

rockin’ the coffin - @ junqkook

HOT DAMN (it’s all i can say tbfh)

casual clothes - @httpjeon

faded love - @jamaisjoons

my all time fave genre: angst on divorcées / exes who still love each other. this piece was written to perfection. *chef’s kiss*

bloom - @ jamaisjoons

similar to seungcheol’s fic (listed below), this is also about the hanahaki disease and unrequited love. (my favourite!) i sound like a sadist but i promise i’m not

ot7:

eternal orbit - @interludemoonchild

stumbled across this and spent hours reading this series. every single second was worth it. i love the development of character and relationships between each of them. can’t wait for the next few chapters.

nct:

ten:

mine - @whereisten

demon!ten is seriously what i live for. such a hot, sexy fic i loved it. can’t really say much because you’ve got to read it to truly understand just how one demon can really rid you of your sanity.

lucas:

lovestruck!lucas - @warmau

exo:

baekhyun:

nothing like us - @ohh-baekhyun

enough - @kpopfanfictrash

a heart-clenching, emotional angst that potrayed the falling out of and falling back in love perfectly. alongside that came sensual smut to emphasise the connection AU!baekhyun had with the reader. it’s a lovely piece, everyone should check it out.

behave - @elle-lowriting

dom!baekhyun is just… wow. who knew a five letter, authoratative word could have such an effect. i know, me neither. catch a glimpse of baek’s dominance with this fic!!

light - @writing-exo-things

an extremely creative take on fanfictions, created based off exo’s latest demonic-esque concept. intriguing storylines such as this are then well planned out such as this one right here ^ i really recommend reading a few of her/his works. here’s the masterlist for the whole x-ėxø series. it’s a wonderful concept.

mister - @angstyexo

chen:

i hate you - @soobadnoonecanstopher

similar to far from home (JB’s fic), this piece is based on a rather common idea. this one was an enemies to lovers AU. it’s fun to read a tension-filled relationship that is soon resolved by unexpected ways. in short, this was a blithe and beguiling story.

saudade - @fairyyeols​

a slightly heartbreaking but lovely mixture of angst and fluff

chanyeol:

the dress - @thotantics

black tie - @yeoldontknow

my universe - @sehunniiie

the etymology of us - @8bityeol

bodyguard - @optimizche

junmyeon/suho:

automatic - @exosmutxoxo

( i can’t find the link for this :((( )

jongin/kai:

reunited wrongly - @causekpop

heaven - @fairyyeols

seventeen:

jun:

ashes - @taexual

i knew i had to add this to the list right away after reading it. overall, this is a piece that portrays angst and a deteriorating relationship perfectly.

heat - @guccisvt

if u enjoy werewolf!AU’s and hot sexual tension like i weirdly do, this fic is for you. a little lengthy, but worth every word.

mingyu:

but he didn’t - @pasteluji

i clearly have a thing for angst these days but this fic really crushed my heart. managed to portray everything so well: the situation itself and the perspective of BOTH characters I LOVE IT

seungcheol:

what you can’t have - @guccisvt

unrequited love with a twist

monsta x:

hyungwon:

[ginmayo]

(2/2) I love manga/manhua and the like but the tropes and storytelling can get a bit repetitive, so it's rly refreshing to see comics like yours!! I'm a newbie trying to create fanfic/fanart and was wondering where you look for inspo to create good characters, relationships etc. :) I'd imagine reading outside of the manga genre would help a lot and if that's the case was wondering if you had any recs! Thanks so much and I can't wait to see what happens next in the comic!!!

Hello @thoughtfulturtleprincess 👀Thanks for coming up to me!💘 I’m really sorry it took me a while to respond – but I really wanted to pour some energy in and give you a detailed and (hopefully) helpful answer (sadly, I often feel too drained and my brain too mushy for this after workdays (especially when trying to articulate complex stuff in a language that is not my mother tongue), so just know – I’m never ignoring or postponing out of disinterest - just waiting till I am sure I can give you all of my attention)!

 First of all, thank you for your nice words, it really fills me with joy to know you appreciate my story and are interested in the thought and inspirational process behind!🖤 I hope my answers can be of assistance for your own creative process as an artist! (My answers contain some analysis of my AU and practically offer a basic interpretation key – if you are okey with that spoiler, you can proceed, also tagging @nightfayre, @thathawaiianchick, @caratheillustrious  fyi)

 On to your questions😊

 “Just want to say I'm a huge fan of your Magic AU comic with He Cheng and Demon!Qiu :D I really like the way you are developing their relationship. Where do you get inspiration for this kind of thing?”

Creating AUs is kind of a transfer process – I “translate” aspects of the source material into another world/setting (that is constituted by new rules that I have to adapt the source material to). In order to be able to translate those aspects – I have to understand them (ofc this is always a subjective interpretation) and know, what they mean in the bigger context of the original work. This means I :

-analyse the characters (what makes them tick, what are their needs, aspirations, fears, why and how do they interact with their environment, where do they come from, what possibly formed their personality? What “superficial”/physical traits are characteristic for them? – looks, fashion style, taste in food/music & other things, way of moving, speech patterns etc.  – and if possible, are those influenced by sth. /so. ? Why?)

-analyse the storytelling (are there symbolic elements in the story, for example are certain colors used to indicate negative/positive aspects (like bright and dark representing good and evil) or is a certain object used as a symbol/placeholder for sth. metaphysical in a story, like a feeling, a mood, a concept: for example can a scar be a symbol for a certain failure/shortcoming of a character that is shown, whenever the author wants to underline this aspect in a situation – in the same way for example a literal elephant could stand for awkwardness in a room – or, very simple, the weather can represent the mood of characters or a piece of jewelery could represent a bond/ a promise … especially under censorship, symbols and allegories are often used – but they also make for an interesting and multi-layered piece of fiction that is not only interpretable in one way.

 So, when transferring characters and story elements into the Magic AU, I thought abstract: what could symbolize those specific features of a character in a magic world – what form could those features develop into – you can be absolutely creative, making mental traits of a character into physical ones:

for example Qiu. He comes off as dangerous/absolutely lethal in canon – it’s indicated he can kill with bare hands (-> demon!qiu gets sharp claws), he’s tight lipped (-> demon qiu doesn’t speak human tongue) and pretty wild when it comes to traffic and social rules (he parks like a savage crisscross on white marking lines, races through school gates with his bike like the devil and doesn’t care if his passengers have a helmet or a safety belt on – he eats food uninvited (after breaking into the house) and snaps quite some times at people he probably shouldn’t be snapping at. (-> demon!qiu gets a set of sharp teeth, intimidating horns, a set of wings for his agility and function as one who transports people and generally appearing mysteriously quick at the right places at the right time out of nowhere – and furthermore, some unconventional aggressive to rebellious behaviour rules. ) At the same time he can be pretty docile/obedient (- in the end, he always does his tasks, if begrudgingly or not. He drives Jian Yi to school when the latter would have been too late for class, he volunteers to fill in the document for He Cheng during the school visit by his own accord when the latter is just rushing through the gate ignoring the guard, he treats the kids to ice cream (if only to make them shut up), he threatens to fuck up the store of the instrument vendor who tried to trick JY and ZZX and he takes care of He Cheng’s dog.) On one hand, this shows he’s bound by a contract but on the other hand it shows a soft spot, an almost motherly caring side, as most of those things are by far not part of his job description (-> demon!qiu is bound by/property of the He clan, caught in the mirror hall (trapped between constricting frames of mirrors that he still can escape to a certain extend and under special circumstances) and used as enforcing weapon in their black magic business just like his function as an enforcer or right-hand-man in the mafia biz in canon. The “motherly” aspect of his character gets translated into a feature of his demon anatomy: the marsupial pouch, in which he carries the golem dog – but more on that later.)

I implemented the same tactics for translating the relationships and dynamics of the characters.

In HCs and Qs case it shows in the following:

·         they don’t use many words to communicate with each other, instead, there often is a silent rapport – they both don’t seem to be big talkers (with HC often coming off as a downright communication failure) but they have worked up a level of understanding and being alert about the others mood and intentions probably over a long term or pretty intensive time working closely together. (-> demon!qiu and black mage!he cheng cannot communicate verbally, instead, they have to observe and pick up on gestures, moods. They might not speak the same tongue but they share a basic understanding on an emotional level)

·         The fact that HC calls Qiu “A-Qiu”, has put the dog in his care and seeks him out regularly outside of working hours (often when he’s distressed - and Qiu equally likes to complain to HC abt things) is telling on it’s own, especially when talking about a character who’s depicted as reserved and closed off as HC, who has trouble showing his true feelings even to his little brother who he obviously deeply cares for and loves. ( -> HC feeding demon!qiu with deep down hidden feelings/secrets as analogism of Q being a confidant of HC and keeping his “dirty” secret: the dog, that is well alive and not killed.)

·         I think those troubles of expressing feelings stem in majority from a (pretty toxic) upbringing or/and maybe life lesson that defines showing feelings as showing weakness and presenting your enemies the means to destroy and hurt you on a silver platter ( and in a dangerous mafia environment this might be very real!). For HC, not being able to kill the dog presents equally a huge failure and a reminder that he’s still a human who still got feelings and goodness in him ( – sth. he’s losing more and more in this harsh environment he needs to adapt to and survive in.) – the latter he may come to realize more and more as he allows himself to tend to the dog (=a symbol for his good side, his feelings of love and affection he mostly only was able to show while caring for his little brother – in a way, HC can only see his own good side through his little brother, who loved him dearly and looked up to him – the dog is also a monument of that love and trust his little brother put in him. However - painful life lesson or toxic upbringing – HC is deeply conflicted about cultivating those feelings – as much as the admiration/idolization his little brother shows towards him does him good for knowing he’s not entirely dead and rotten inside, he also fears that it might break him one day – that it could put him in danger (HC dying in his line of work is an imminent threat, with HT being on his own suddenly- as is HT dying as collateral damage of a vendetta/feud. It’s well possible, that their mother died under those circumstances, too and that this entailed a sharp turning point in the mindset under which the brothers were brought up – “if you cannot even save those you care most about – don’t even get attached” “grow strong fast” - “grow stronger and more terrible than your enemies first”?– the mother’s death would have left the family absolutely devastated, and – I can imagine – especially the father with a gaping psychological wound that probably made him a cynic).

-> In my AU, the demons are used as “weapons”, as enforcements of the black magic spells the He clan executes – they represent the dark force, the destroying element, the ferocity of the work ( while black magic is like a metaphor for the shady business the Hes are involved in in canon: powerful and mysterious workings, with ties that reach far and which’s ends go to dark unknown places.) So, demon!Qiu to a certain extend does represent the “working persona” of black mage!He Cheng – the demon is with him when on duty..but gets summoned increasingly after work (mainly to kill the puppy – see what I did there?), which means, his “work persona” and “civil persona” slowly start to blur. On the outside, his “work persona”/the demon looks like a monster indeed (and what He Tian accused HC to be, after the “buried puppy”-incident). But the fact that HC can’t bring the demon to kill the golem puppy (which stands for- remember – his caring side and goodness) gives away that he’s still fighting against becoming a monster! Mythological demons often symbolize the inner darkness/conflict of a person which they have to battle – but demons can also be of benevolent nature! Black mage!He Cheng and demon!Qiu interacting and influencing eachother represents HC’s inner battle to an extend (watch the mirror-metaphor!). But demon!Qiu also reads as an individual person, as often in relationships, the other person functions like a “mirror” of ourselves – as we get to know ourselves better through them! In a good relationship the parties click and push eachothers right buttons, thus making them a greater version of themselves without much needed force. The wild, restless and reckless/careless nature of demon!Qiu gives HC strength to endure and survive in the harsh environment without breaking down and gives him an outlet for feelings, while black mage!He Cheng’s vulnerability, restraint and responsible-mindedness calms demon!Qiu down and gives him a place to rest and belong, to care about. The dog is a catalyst here in forming the “happy marriage” of those personality traits -  that make a balanced person! Basically their interaction is about trying to overcome an inner conflict between the needs of the “work persona” and “civil persona” without breaking apart.    

  Where do you look for inspo to create good characters, relationships etc.?

I think I answered that question about where I look for inspo for good characters and relationships partly already. I can only add:

To create an intriguing character you have to make clear where they’re at, where their limits of power and boundaries are and what they need to achieve – at best, the character has to develop and overcome a conflict to reach their goal.

Intriguing relationships consist for me mostly between characters that have somehow complimenting personality traits, which means they actually “complete” each other, make the other “richer” - often need each others differences in order to function or reach their goals.

 To make interactions not cliché and mellow, I recommend imagining how yourself would honestly react in the same situation – often, some unrealistic stuff that makes a relationship shallow gets dropped this way. And secondly, I recommend imagining not your dear characters or otp doing the nice coupely stuff you came up with but some rando boring pair on the street or even one that you don’t care about or dislike – would you still think it is special? Authentic? Heartwrenching? True? Do you still feel it? If the answer is yes, do proceed, if no, drop it.  

Important is also, that the world and environment the characters move in, are sufficiently dynamic and well built and affect the characters (religion, politics, nature phenomena, social rules, culture… etc).    

 I'd imagine reading outside of the manga genre would help a lot and if that's the case was wondering if you had any recs!

Having a broad knowledge of good works definitely helps to school the eye and mind and is the foundation for your own creative work. Looking at and reading as much art that you come across helps a lot, too – you can learn from good and bad examples alike, if you go and try to analyse what makes those pieces work and what not. Looking at others works is great to give some guidelines but in the end, the most original and creative ideas stem from your own way of looking at the world – you can seek them in others artwork, sure, because there is nearly nothing that hasn’t been done yet – but also seek in the environment, in nature – other sciences, for example biology or psychology; your own social life – everything can be formed into a fantastic story if you do a little “translating” like I talked about at the beginning. Search for things/concepts/life forms that fascinate you! Try to abstract some things or aspects of those! Always try to look at the “real” thing – for example, it’s always better to sketch from nature than from a photo or drawing – it helps you think for yourself abt the object, to explore it on your own without a foregone pathway that might block your mind.

We all have a different idea of what is “in good taste”, well done or not. I can only tell you where my foundation of art knowledge lies:

I was confronted with the most influential works in my childhood. I was read a lot of classic fairytales, read myths and legends from different cultures and practically grew up with the classic Walt Disney comics (which contain actually a lot of adapted classics!!), Asterix, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books, the Crestomanchi series by Diana Wynne Jones (who also wrote Howl’s Moving Castle), the books by Michael Ende, Otfried Preußler, Walter Moers, Roald Dahl, Tanja Blixen, Terry Pratchett…I read a lot of fantasy books when I was younger. Later, I enjoyed many comics or “graphic novels”, - just take a look at the graphic novel sections of your local publishing houses ( I think which comics get on the market varies greatly in every country, depends on the wealth, tradition and connections  of comic publishing houses there ) Some nice comic authors are Gipi, Moebius, Brecht Evens, Manu Larcenet, Kerascoet, Joan Sfar, David Prudhomme, Bastien Vivés, Lorenzo Matotti, Osamu Tezuka…etc.

Some (web) comics I like are: Lavender Jack by Dan Shkade; the Sandman Series written by Neil Gaiman, Hell (p) by J. Levang & C. Vinter ; Sleepless by Sarah Vaughn & Leila del Duca, Sock Monkey by Tony Millionaire, The Arrival by Shaun Tan, Dracula by Alberto Breccia…  

Some manhwa/manga I like and think are different are: Spirit Fingers by Kyoung Charl Han; House of the Five Leaves by Natsume Ono; Beastars by Paru Itagaki, Rainbow: Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin by Nasasumi Kakizaki and George Abe; Gichi Gichi by Suehiro Maruo, Yumi’s Cells by Lee Donggeon, anything by Osamu Tezuka, Lookism by Park Tae-joon and For Your Love by Park Nodeok have some potential…  

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg And I get a lot of inspiration from nature documentaries and scientific articles, history etc. Watching well made movies of any genre is also very recommended (Studio Ghibli animations are wonderful for example and I love the animation movie “Planète Sauvage” by Rene Laloux.)

I probably forgot A LOT of recs, but the post is too long already...

(ohgod, I hope I didn’t stray too much😅)

 If you’ve got any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

[dokuhebi]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO / 50/50 (people either adore or hate them)

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / 50 /50 ( again it is either adoring or hating)

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO

Are they underrated?  YES / NO

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO /

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon?  I take canon in to consideration and incorporate it mostly. If there was something sloppily handled by canon, I either veto it or try spin it in another direction to make more sense. There was some fantastic writing in Naruto/Boruto and there was some very lazy half-assed writing. I adhere to canon up until a point.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  They are one of the most versatile and unique characters to ever grace the stage. There is nothing predictable about them other than their unpredictability. Through out the show, they have managed to remain this perfect ethereal paradox and enigma. Everything they do is a combination of being on both sides while also walking the line in the middle. You can not deem them merely ‘bad/evil’, you can not deem them merely ‘good/heroic’. You can not deny the way they are akin to an all knowing deity, but you can see the clear humanness in them too. Even the minor stuff, they will be wearing the most traditional kimono you have ever seen while tapping away at the most modern technologies the world hasn’t even invented yet. They can be the daintiest and most regal looking person, then shift in to the most fearsome monster. Let’s not even get started on their gender freedoms. They play all sides at their leisure and they do it well. They embrace every aspect of the world with this undying curiosity. They are so strictly ‘themself’ and untouched by any world/social standard, they just do not conform. Greatness and madness have never been harder to tell a part as it is with Orochimaru. They are complex in a manner that is so captivating, so very set on constructing pillars of individualism. And this is simply speaking on one aspect of their very intricate personality. It is not even touching on the feats they have made, as a shinobi, person, parent and scientist. Nor the unspoken story that is looked over, the abilities they possess, the fact that they have a hand in absolutely everything, and have formed part of nearly every group. Nor does it speak upon their ambitions and just how interesting those were to begin with.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  — The main and most obvious point of conflict is their crimes. Their freedoms can dabble in places that should come with clear lines and boundaries. So while it is a marvel to watch when their inquisitiveness and innocent decisions take form so wonderfully together, it is a horror show to see that inquisitiveness and maleficent combination rise up instead. A prime example being their human experimentation. They have committed countless atrocities that overstep the mere boundaries of shinobi warfare. While they may think killing in the name of science should be more excusable than killing in the pursuit of pointless war, they do manage to step on everyones toes by conducting their research on human beings. In the exact same fashion as the wars they fought in, they do not discriminate on who they kill/use by age either. That is highlighted the most by people who dislike them in the fandom, with ‘corrupting’ Sasuke as a close second. 

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  Orochimaru themself was the only inspiration. Everything about their character was appealing to me. I enjoy someone as versatile as them, and someone who challenges the worlds views. They are not always correct, and they can sometimes be too extreme, but they are truly fascinating to me. Often raising questions that need to be raised and setting the stage of some very unique interactions. They are truly fun to play around with from psychology, to abilities to personality.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  It’s still Oro being interesting to me, and a healthy combination of muns on here that bring out their characters with equal enthusiasm. Being able to meet wonderful people who delve in to their characters and bring out all the details from big to small really keeps the rp alive.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO.

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / 50/50 /NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  — Yes, I do. But only from those I feel have an understanding of the character too, and for so long as it is a valid critique and not one based on the other person wanting Oro to be a certain way. I live for the discussions about my muse, positive or negative feedback is most welcome. I want to do better, I want to write better, I want to ensure what is in my head is being reflected on to the page. However in this fandom there is a trend where people forget portrayals are unique and that is what makes it enjoyable. I won’t take criticism to heart if I can tell the other person is only trying to ‘change’ how I play my muse to better suit the needs of their muse. That happens frequently sadly. But valid, insightful, wise corrections? I appreciate those a great deal. It is still someone taking the time to view my work and evaluate it. I am not sensitive to criticism. 

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —  Oh yes please. I adore those questions. It really helps to explore my muse more and add to my headcanons and understanding of them. It is loved on this blog.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  Sure! I accept readily if someone does not agree with my headcanon. We all have different takes. For so long as my views are still respected, I am happy to hear out why someone else is not favoring mine. In fact, it can help to continue to grow my muse and develop them further. To adjust the headcanon perhaps should it have been presented in a way I did not intend.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  simply put, we should not follow one another. There is nothing upsetting about someone not fancying my take on a character. It would be futile to remain mutuals or interact, since I am not changing my portrayal for someone elses preference, but there would be no bad blood.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  —  I just use the blacklist button liberally to be honest. Sadly, the hate Oro is often subject to is childish at best. It reflects no understanding, and drops them in the villain trash pile. I do not have much care for senseless hate of any character if I am honest. Mine or those who I do not rp.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  — Be my guest haha, Language has never been my forte in general. So I assume there are so many mix ups. More so than just grammar, I have this horrible habit of mixing words and phrases. My brain just hates computing stuff sometimes.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  I do not know if I am easy going, I have some hard lines I will not tolerate people crossing. I try to be easy going, and to keep myself in check however. I prefer to keep conflict to a minimum, so I will speak my piece in the most diplomatic manner possible. That said, I will speak my piece. I have never been the best at keeping my mouth shut if I feel wronged, or if I feel something may be headed down an undesired road. I will say what I feel needs to be said. I will however, ensure I am being fair, rational and objective to the best of my ability with any topic. I just want to know that there is common and mutual respect. If there isn’t, I will politely excuse myself from that narrative. There isn’t a great deal that can ruffle my feathers, I am naturally quite relaxed. But I am inclined to voice my opinion as diplomatically as possible if I am caught up in something I feel is unjust. 

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by: @shikkotsunin​ (thank you!) Tagging: @peepingtoad​ , @shattered-by-sparks​ , @fcrgiivn​ , @likexaxdoll​ , @shatteredxlookingxglass​ , @thatsneakymedic​ , @super-kame-love​ , @dobujutsu​ , @chidorikiller​ and you!

[dragonnan]

Author Interview Tag

Tagged by @aelaer a week or two ago, thank you!

Name: Tanya (among family I'm Nan or Auntie Nanny)

Fandoms: Sherlock, MCU, Psych, Prodigal Son, and a goodly collection of others

Where you post: For a number of years I posted on FFN but between the really shitty reviews and extremely cumbersome posting process I finally quit.  I posed on Psychfic while still an active part of that fandom but that, too, has pretty much ended.  I put a few stories on Wattpad but found it to be pretty meh. I now post exclusively to AO3.

Most popular multi-chapter fic: It's a tossup between “Fury” on Psychfic and “All Nighter” on AO3 – one based on comments and the other on Kudos.  Frankly “popularity” is really subjective because there's also stuff like read count and with comments, at least nearly half are replies from me and read count also includes re-reads as well as every time I clicked on the damn thing to edit so....

You know I'm just really not sure how to properly answer this??

Favorite story you’ve written so far: Like others have stated you can ask me this on three different days and get three different answers and there will be more than 1 fic mentioned every time so.... Because I write in different fandoms I just absolutely can't list a single fic.  The best I can narrow it would a fic from my top 3 fandoms.

Psych: Paint it Black.  I had read a fic where Shawn was gradually going blind and had really been enjoying it and the challenges it presented.  Sadly it was never completed.  As has happened before I decided I would write my own damn fic if I couldn't get a completed story so that was the primary motivation to start this.  What I most love about this is writing from Shawn's perspective as he navigates being blind and not knowing whether or not his condition is permanent.  I did my best to honor the experience of blind and partially blind people and tried to look beyond the cliché.

MCU: I have so much fun writing these stories! In spite of the dumpster fire the film canon became I do so love this sandbox and employing various forms of unfucking it.  So I'm gonna cheat a little and pick two for my faves here since one is a WIP.  Sed Diabolus.  I don't need to have completed it yet to know this will be my all-time favorite.  This is the first fic that has been entirely plotted out and OMG I'm so excited for iiiit!!  The second is Simple Math which seems like an odd choice given there's zero action – mostly just one character – hell, not even any whump.  But there is something about that deep dive into Tony's mindset that keeps this as a fave even though it was the first thing I ever wrote for the MCU.  I learned about Tony as I wrote this and I also worked my way through those motivations that bothered me regarding Stane.  Even years later I still mentally go back to this fic whenever I write Tony because I feel encapsulates the essence of how I see him as a character.

Sherlock:  Compared to other fandoms I'm still quite new to this fandom so I don't have nearly as many fics.  But I still have a favorite!  And, like with the MCU, it's the first story I ever wrote for this fandom; The Tiger and the Shark. Returning to a plot device I've employed in other fics, this one is built around a sexual assault and taking the character on a journey from that terrible event to the point where they rediscover themselves.  PTSD ever being my favorite form of whump I employ that fairly a lot in this story and employ some kinda radical methods for coping with those memories.  

Fic you were nervous to post: I mean until I start getting comments I'm a world of anxiety with every story I post.  But grabbing a specific fic that hit my nerves – that Sherlock fic I'd said was my fave certainly qualified.  Not only was it my first Sherlock fic – it also was charging out of the gate with a very heavy topic so yeah – I wasn't sure if people would absolutely hate it or find my characterizations totally off or what.

How you choose your titles: It varies a bit.  In some stories, like Sed Diabolus, I actually consult friends on various ideas.  Other times I'll consider songs or lyrics and my favorite thing is if I can alter the known title just a bit to make it more relevant to the fic (I did that a LOT with Psych fics which was the method the show also employed for its episode titles).  One of my favorite Psych titles is “The Wizard Was the Wicked Witch and the Scarecrow Lost His Courage”.  

Do you outline: Almost never – not until “Sed Diabolus”.  That story, though, is so astoundingly complex that without an outline I'd be hopelessly lost.  I am, though, trying to make a practice of outlining more because it helps SO much!

Complete: If we count every one-shot collection and challenge collection it likely is over 200 stories. Of course a lot of those are one-shots.  My total completed chaptered fics number maybe around 34?

In progress: 16 – between Psychfic and AO3.  All Psych stories are on long-term hiatus for the foreseeable future (some, honestly, I will never finish as they are many many years old and I've lost the inspiration for the plot). Several MCU stories are also on the back-burner while I focus on “Sed Diabolus”.  I admit I get LOTS of story ideas and staying focused on a single fic is not something I've ever been greatly successful with.

Coming soon/not yet started: I meaaaan.... lots?? I have probably several hundred ideas and partially started fics across many fandoms.  As to “imminently coming soon...” I don't think I currently have an active story that I haven't already posted at least a first chapter.  Sadly I have zero patience for developing something for months before posting which is why I have so many WIPs.  That said I DO have a Sherlock au that has been poking at me now and then involving the witch trials that started in Denmark and, eventually, made their way to Salem.  The idea would be that Molly Hooper is accused of being a witch.  She, of course, is innocent but cause this unfortunate attention due to her “uncanny” ability to heal the sick and injured (not so much uncanny as opposed to employing methods that aren't so reliant on superstition and folklore).  

She is scheduled to be tortured and executed but is saved by Sherlock – a strange recluse primarily ignored and given a pass as he solves mysteries for people. He and his friend John save Molly from this awful fate. The twist is that Sherlock is a sorcerer (bit of marvel crossover-ish) and able to transport them to safety.  

Do you accept prompts: I wish I could cause I love ideas but I don't have the time/energy to always work on what I already have and I'm awful at follow thru.  Like I will never turn away an Ask wanting to share ideas but I can't promise that I can actually write anything.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write:  As was the reply to a previous query – I have lots that are ideas that will linger in partial stages for sometimes years.  If it's “upcoming” I've already posted the first chapter lol!  But, again, I have several story ideas that whenever I poke through my folders I get excited about someday actually writing them.  Here is a teaser for an MCU fic involving Tony Stark and Obie (I still feel this was never explored enough – certainly not in fic):

They were doing a retrospective, ten year anniversary kinda... whatever.  Unofficial, of course. Certainly nothing Pepper would have dreamed up even at her most drunk (which, honestly, was never her scene.  Tony had sorta owned that space well beyond the time it had started owning him).  Whose idea it ultimately had been?  Frankly Tony couldn't give a fuck.  That he was asked to be one of the speakers was slightly more... awkward. Awkward was the right word, yeah?  Nauseating was certainly another and possibly a bit more accurate.

Dead for a decade and Obadiah Stane still managed to fuck with his life.

But... it hadn't always been that way. At least, not as he'd believed back when the Walkman had been on every kid's Christmas list.  

He'd thought it was bonding; at the time.  His dad had never been one for just hanging out; shooting the shit; telling tales out of school.  No, Pops, when he bothered to interact, led with questions.  “You keeping your grades up?” “You still seeing that floozy?” “When are you going to pull your head out of your ass and grow the hell up?” “You do realize it's my name you're disgracing every time you go on a bender?”

With Obie it was just, easy.  Obie might ask about school but it was always with approval and pride.  He would discuss Tony's conquests as though Tony had climbed Kilimanjaro wearing nothing but underwear and a cape.    

Obie was there when his father wasn't. Which meant that Obie was always there.  The first time he got astoundingly drunk on his father's scotch, Obie was the one to help him hunch over the toilet and vomit expensive, aged booze into the toilet.  Obie was also the one to replace the depleted bottle to keep Howard in the dark.  For a fourteen year old kid still trying to gain his dad's favor, that had meant everything.

He saw his first porn with Obie; sex education ala Traci Lords, three months shy of his fifteenth birthday.  That was the same time he was introduced to weed.  Obie had cautioned him to use it sparingly; didn't want to fry that genius brain, he'd say, and ruffle his hair.  The porn had made him uncomfortable.  Obie had turned it off and told him they could watch whatever Tony wanted.  They'd ended up changing the station to Knight Rider; smoking and munching Cheetos and laughing over their orange fingers.

It was Obie who was there, arm around his shoulders, after his parents died.  He desperately didn't want to sob in front of the man.  Things were so complicated with his dad that all he felt was blinding guilt... as though some part of him had caused this.  But Obie had filled him with bourbon until the emotions got soft around the edges and he'd sat beside the older man, head tipping gradually to the right until he was held up by Obie's shoulder.  Obie had just slung an arm around him and let Tony pass out while he rubbed a broad hand up and down his bicep.

It was strange, now, looking back with adult perspective.  A perspective that included Afghanistan and his intended execution while Obie talked about legacy and responsibility while Tony's lungs slowly seized.  He'd taken the time to sit there – arm around Tony's shoulders while one broad hand traveled up and down Tony's bicep – just like when he was a kid and Obie was the whole world.

He'd tried to remember if it had felt so... tainted... at the time.  Or if he'd always believed it was love.

Obie had never quite crossed that line. Though hindsight offered a peek into that possibility with enough clarity Tony had fought with his cramping gut for nearly thirty minutes.  He'd staved off vomiting though he was fairly certain his dignity had still been in tatters what with Bruce wandering in on his misery.

Upcoming story you are most excited about (this is basically a repeat of the above question so I decided to change it.  Do you have a future story idea you'd like to write that is not yet beyond the vague idea stage?  I love stories that put Molly in some sort of jeporady and I have a barely formed idea to someday write a “stalker fic” of some sort and not I don't care that this trope had been done on  repeat – I still love it lol!  I have a smidge of writing for it:

“I need your help.”

As afternoons at Baker Street went, this was a mundane request heard so often that Sherlock's typical reply, “Obviously, or you wouldn't be here”, could have been printed on flash cards.  The detective had actually made the suggestion after a particularly full day at the flat and having heard the statement no less than twenty times.  

Today, however, Sherlock merely blinked for a moment.  Then, with an awkwardness rare to a man with a lethal sort of grace in his movements, Sherlock gestured to John's chair, JOHN'S CHAIR, before taking his usual seat.

Molly didn't exactly smile but her lips edged up a bit before she sat.

John cleared his throat before pointing a vague hand towards the kitchen.  “I'll just go make some tea, shall I?”

“No, please, I...”  The stammer in her speech was not uncommon; though John couldn't recall such obvious fear.  Forgoing the kitchen he, instead, took the hard wooden chair facing the other two.

“Molly, what's wrong?”

Tagging: @kitcat992 @mizjoely @sgam76 @ariaadagio @hanuko @ceruleanmindpalace 

[sharp-teeth-and-archived]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐆𝐀 𝐑𝐏 𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐓 / 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat. Long post!

MUN NAME: Bambi / Eden     AGE: 18       CONTACT: IM, Ask, Discord (search discord up on my blog)

CHARACTER(S): a shit ton

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Dragon Age, rdr2, assassin’s creed, star wars (sorta??)

FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR:  Modern verse, r.dr2, da, skyrim (haven’t touched my bio for it for a while so I may have to touch it up a bit) and that’s pretty much it for any au verse. They’re just crossover verses.

MY LANGUAGE(S): English.

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY / SCIENCE FICTION / HORROR / WESTERN ( my brand ) / ROMANCE / THRILLER / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / EROTIC / CRIME / MYTHOLOGY / CLASSIC / HISTORY (my 2nd brand) / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / ANCIENT / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD / APOCALYPTIC / GODS / SPORT / MUSIC / SCIENCE / FIGHTS / ANGST / SMUT / DRAMA / ETC.  ( I’m open to most things, it just depends on plot & muse )

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: ONE-LINER (it happens but I tend to not favor it) / 1 PARA / 2 PARA / 3+ PARA / NOVELLA. / ALL

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS.

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?: YES / NO / OCCASIONALLY   - only by Mutuals?:  YES / NO

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / CASUAL / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK. / ALL

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?:   YES / NO.

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?:  YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. 

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ WEEKS / MONTHS / YEARS. / DEPENDS ON MOOD AND INSPIRATION, AND IF I’M BUSY

I’M OKAY INTERACTING WITH: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / A RELATIVE OF MY CHARACTER (AN OC) / DUPLICATES / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / SELF-INSERTS / PEOPLE WITH NO AU VERSE FOR MY FANDOM (really depends on if you have oen in mind and we discussed it, it’s just not posted) / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS.

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC. ( varies, but overall I tend to post more ooc? )

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.  

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING:  im me or talk to me over discord

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER: Not too much? I’d like for there to be a plot in mind, but I can understand if that’s not the case. I’ve had instances where I want to interact with a character, but have absolutely no idea in mind. Usually sendign in an ask meme can help in that regard.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?:  I strive to not be one-sided myself, but I do have instances where I can’t think of anything. I’m not sure? Maybe ask the other person if they’re into it or if something else is at play (dealign with real life problems and it just affects their mood voerall).

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?:  I always try to give ideas of my own if I have any. Coming to a equally agreed, general idea is fine. I’ve had instances where I was on both sides of this, but I always try to add input and be equal with the other person.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS. - AND WHY?: Sometimes I don’t notice it, but sometimes I do. Generally, I like to know, but I understand if someone doesn’t wan tto reach out. Just at least try to let me know and we’re fine. 

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?:  It depends really. Sometimes I just don’t have muse for a thread, or an instance where I have dropped a muse entirely. Sometimes it can be timing, but that’s rarely the issue. Most of the time it’s just I can’t think of anything and I feel like it hasn’t really gone anywhere? I have stuff in my queue for a while, so soemtimes it appears that way until it’s posted and I’m sorry about that.

WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS. ( I do have instances where I was forgetful and I haven’t told my partner int he apst adn I’m sorry about that. )

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO. - AND WHY?: I don’t need to be tlaked every day, but stronger friendships ( ooc & ic ) are formed when I talk to a person. It doesn’t need to be often, but it helps me understand your chaarcter and your approach. With that, I can come up with ideas and understand you rmuse more. I understand if people aren’t fond of ooc chatting, that’s completely understandable to me.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: Criticsm is a good way to grow. Criticsm is different from completely bashing a perosn’s portrayal and not giving any pointers (ex: “your portrayal sucks.”). Or even for a person. If you feel like I am portraying something wrong, like depression or something similar, let me know. If you feel like Lydia’s adhd isn’t properly portrayed, let me know. 

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: All of my muses are written and taken an interest in for different reasons, sometimes I don’t even know why I decided to write them. I roleplay because I love exploring different characters and dyanamics and it’s easier for me to write like this than forming my own story. But a goal in mind? Be a good rp partner I guess? Or at least try to make things interesting and try my best to portray my characters correctly or in an intruiging manner. 

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS:  Varies on muse. I have different plots in my wishlist tag: ( wishlist ). 

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE:   Potential triggering content ahead. Rape, noncon, abuse, incest, drug use -not alcohol- ( lyrium I can write fine, it’s just the realistic stuff I can’t do. ), inappropiate under age stuff. Themes where I write a stalker. Sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and racism will never be mentioned by any of my characters. I won’t write smut probably ever, so themes with that I tend to not write. Very likely more, I just can’t think of anything. Within dragon age, I do have a characetr ( Sera ) who will refer to elves as elfy-elves and be pretty anti-elf, which can be triggering to others. Also, animal abuse or gore of any kind.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: I can’t work with starters that don’t really have any dialogue (handing something over with nothing vocally said is fine, but when someone is just sitting there, that’s harder to work with unless somethign is plotted). Generally, I like outside circumstances to be explained (locaiton, where in a game/setting this might be occuring, etc), I really like when dialogue is added and body landguage is explained/noted.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?:  Honestly? it varies. I tend to really be into deep, complex characters or characters that appear can be sterred in that direction with more added. Bubbly, energetic characters, fighters (typically female). Quick witted or flirty characters & mysterious types. 

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?:  I hate using the term but mary-sue/gary-sue. I hate saying that, but if a character has no flaws, I won’t be interested. Or characters that seem to just be placed there with no development. 

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I try to add as much effort, or at least a lot of effort, in replies & interaction. I am very open-minded and when I get passionate about soemthing, you can really tell. I am easy-going, so feel free to tell me if you want to drop a thread or have a concern. I tend to work well of other’s people’s ideas, usually able to add my own.

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I am slow and my queue tends to be slow since I try not to overhwelm myself and stress myself out to the heavens. I try to reach out, but sometimes I just can’t think of anything to say. My muse can be very flickle at times, so replies to stuff can vary. My msue tends to be more for ask memes than replies at times. 

DO YOU RP SMUT?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS. 

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. 

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN, FADE TO BLACK?: YES / NO.

WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?:

ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?:  all of it

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?:   YES / NO 

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO. ( I love ships, but I am selective with it and require chemistry -unless I know your muse and you occ super, super well-. It’s nice but it isn’t he full focus of this blog. I want to explore my characters and witness other people’s characters and their development. )

DO YOU USE READ MORE?:  YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF.

ARE YOU:  MULTI-SHIP / SINGLE-SHIP ( Jacob ) / DUAL-SHIP  —  MULTIVERSE / SINGLEVERSE.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: Varies on muse, but for my rdr2 characters I’ve been really wanting a sorta of “outside” character where they aren’t directly involved in the gang, but they are in a relationship with oen of their members. Where my muse,w hose in the gang, will tell you rmuse about it and the whole aftermath of everything. Where their partner will understand to an extent, but try to undestand? if that makes sense? I also want enemies to work on a job/project together and deal with that. But this all also varies on muse.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.  ( I find it easier to write to assume people knwo each other, but an immediate friendship isn’t required. Like my muse may know yours or hear about yours, but they haven’t directly met you before ). 

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: I have a large amount of different muses, but all of my muses all bring something new to the table. Want a guy who seems nice, but can be an asshole with a flick of a dime, who has a secret betrayal plot hidden behind his back? Pick Robert. Want a guy who’s humurous but seems to be hiding under a fake persona? Pick Charley. Want a female assassin who’s very talented anr professional in her work to a fault with her work-alcoholic ways? Pick Evie. Want a sweet and caring character with a heart of gold and will give you advice and comfort? Pick Cassie It depends on the plot, too, but I try my best to add as much to reply to to another. If you ever want more added, tell me! I could give multiple plots, so it’s really hard to put something down.

WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?:  If someone isn’t interested or outwardly hateful of my muse without a valid reason when starting to interact. Beign enemies is fine, but maybe we could write how it became that way? This really varies, so don’t let this steer you away. Just give me something to work with, brign soemthing to the tbale, and I’m usually fine.

WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, WHAT IS THEIR GOAL?:  Varies on muse. Robert: fame/recognition, a legend made out of him. Charley: just to live life happy? He wants to be okay money-wise. Evie: to take down the Templars & help the people of London, not fail and always be successful and outwit her foes. Cassie: everyone around her happy. Sean: His gang to be successful, btu also be sucessful himself, he wants to be admired as well.

WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?:  Just using the same muses lmao. Robert: Someone who just listens to him and isn’t quick to make fun of him. Charley: If they have a sense of humor and someone he can stand, he’s pretty much fine tbh. Evie: If they can give her any information or aid with her cause. Cassie: How they are feeling. If they let her just listen and seem more open than closed off. Very personality-based. Sean: soemtimes looks, but mostly if they have a similar personality as him.

WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?:  Evie: devotion, kind spriit, efficiency, loyalty. Robert: willingness and empathy despite having little himself. Charley: Honesty. Cassie: Consistency. Sean: reliability. 

WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?:  generally all of them like books (except Sean), events around them, their interests.

WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?:  For half of them, anything mundane or boring. Anything that isn’t relating to anything that’s spoken around / surrounds them.

DID THEY EVER WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?:  Robert & Charley (more Robert) witnessed a murder, Robert actually doing that act. Cassie: hearing about the violent nature of her father’s death. Sean: the things he went through with the bounty hunters.

WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?:  A gunshot or anything that could overpower them.

IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?:  Sean: rich people, Scots for some reason, English people sometimes. When someone disagrees with him on soemthing he is passionate about. Pronouncing and Irish word wrong. O’Driscolls & anyone that’s an enemy of the gang. Evie: Templars, Starrick & Lucy Thorne. People who lie or misled her or others. Injustice. Robert: Someone makign fun of him tbh. Charley: People who don’t plan out anything or are really reckless.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO.    - BEST WAY TO APPROACH THEM?: Talk to them. Initiate a conversation. Pretty much that across the board. 

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: None of my muses are perfect. Some are worse than others, but generally msot of my muses will listen to you and usually be nice to you if you appraoch them well. All my muses are different from one another, so expect different results / reactions

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

TAGGED: stole it

 TAGGING: steal it and pelase tag me ! I want to see your results

[godlivesonthemoon-archived]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme

fill out & repost ♥  This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is: canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK (I don’t see lot of content with him so he’s not so popular I guess? :( )

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK (apparently it’s a debate but I personally find him HOT)

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK

Are they underrated? YES / NO / IDK

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO (first one to introduce observation haki so heck)

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL

How strictly do you follow canon?

I’m trying my best to follow his canon character and the way he reasons, but I have to somehow make sure to be able to interact in several verses as well, which could end up turning him as a more canon-divergent character sometimes. We don’t know much about Enel, especially his past, it’s a vast playground which has never really been explored, so it gives me liberties regarding his interpretation and my own headcanons. I do believe I try to portray him in the most canon way possible, but I’m not Oda, and I didn’t create his set of mind in the first place! That’s just me trying!

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.

Enel is an asteroid suddenly entering your world, highly different from the casual villain you could encounter, with a set of mind different from what you have ever seen before! Egocentric prick full of himself and able to harm your muse either with in verbal joust or physically? For sure! You want to have debate about your muse’s most profound beliefs and challenge their abilities to think and manipulate someone else? He’s always up to have a conversation and will provide you so many topics to debate that you could stay here for years without even being done. Enel is the impredictable character you need to have spice in your life. He drifts between a terribly strong God Complex and a very human persona, leading you to various interactions where I dare you not to feel anything. Because that’s it’s his best capacity : ENEL WILL MAKE YOU FEEL SOMETHING, and either you will love it, or hate it, but you can’t remain neutral when he’s around.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).

Even if you believe he could be nice and understanding towards your muse’s sorrows, Enel remains a villain and probably one of the most unpredictable. He’s not here to be kind, not here to waste his time either. He’s more often harsh and insulting than really patient and open-minded. Could he really love your muse one day? That’s a harsh question, and he will probably disappoint them if you expect something more casual around him. Enel loves to destroy his environment, challenge his RP partners (all of them, not necessarily on a romantic ship), and your muse could walk out of his garden, thinking that they waste their time with someone like him.

What inspired you to rp your muse?

I JUST LOVE ENEL SO MUCH.

I have always been hooked by complicated characters in the first place, and when I started RP with my OC when I came here, I was already interested in having another canon character. I wanted to roleplay with him, and no one else. Enel is such... a forgotten character? We forget about his haki, we forget about his set of mind, we forget about his combat skills (DAMN he masters martial arts so WELL), we forget about his impressive logia fruit... Enel is a smart man, cruel and impetuous, but his philosophy is so interesting to develop, I’m just a weak girl for this boy.

What keeps your inspiration going?

Definitely the numerous roleplay I have, and the awesome friendships I developed with awesome muns!! I have received so nice comments regarding my portrayal that it’s a real pleasure to keep musing with him. Really, guys, thanks a lot for everything!!

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you do your character justice? YES / NO (doing my best)

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO

Do you think a lot about your muse during the day? YES / NO

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO (I’m tough for sure but I’m also a bby)

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

Only if it’s constructive and genuine in the first place! I totally get that people might find my portrayal divergent regarding his canon character, but argumenting is always important, and it’s still a game... I wouldn’t actively criticize someone in the first place because I don’t agree with the way they portray their muse ; everyone should be able to bring more diversity in the RP world and have fun in the way they want to play, as long as they’re having fun! So yes, and no, it really depends and I guess criticism comes with trust between two mutuals.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?

I’m a sucker for these questions! I’m often surprised by a lot of them, and it allows me to explore topics I didn’t think about!

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?

Like the criticism part, it depends on the way that person is talking to me! We can all have different opinions regarding characters, it must remain genuine. Sure we can have two points of view, that’s even amazing! But it doesn’t mean I will change my headcanon, because this is the way I like to see my muse :) People needs to respect my own creativity, as I respect theirs when it comes to their muses, it’s simple.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

I just block and don’t care anymore. We can’t all get along for sure, and I’m too old to actually change the way I want to portray my muse, and also... too experimented on the RP world to turn it into something toxic again. You don’t like it? That’s alright, let’s just live our lives in peace, there’s no point in continuing interacting and seeing each others. Nothing personal! Just having some peace :)

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?

You can hate Enel, it’s absolutely normal to find him arrogant and despicable, but people need to draw the line between ENEL’s actions and ME as a mun. I’m not him, I’m writing how he WOULD react to something, so I don’t want to suffer from people’s hate towards me, or disappointment I guess if the RP relationship doesn’t go the way they want/hope? I have an EXTREME tendency to really separate my RP passion and my real life thanks to former experiences, which means I’m definitely able to play with my muse with a completely detached set of mind (it’s actually the only way for me to play villains XD). I’m perhaps not the best partner to interact with if RP gets under your nerves too much, or if you take things too... personally. Because actually, I have no more patience for this...

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?

I don’t mind, because english isn’t my first language in the first place! I’m always trying to write readable contents, and even if I have a good level in english, mistakes happen so... I really don’t mind if someone corrects me!

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?

I’m easy-going, an extrovert for sure, it’s easy to actually reach me, and it’s easy to talk to me. I won’t pretend though that I don’t have my flaws! Sometimes I’m not in the mood to talk on discord or here, and I have the terrible need to withdraw into myself after a long day at work. Though, I love interacting with people, musing, talking about everything!! I’m always up to share a chat! :)

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

➸  Tagged by : @seraphiixa​ (thank you ma’am!)

➸ Tagging: @chillin-at-partys-bar​ @kingofdesert​ @godsnaturalenemy​ @mightyxsprout​ and whoever is interested!

[spearfeld]

1, 3, 16 and 22 :)

1.  What is your preferred place to write (notebook, laptop, cellphone, etc.)?

This is actually kind of a complex question!! Usually it’s my macbook, but when quarantine started, I decided to try writing freehand. Picked up one of my pretty dollar-store composition notebooks, and within two weeks had written almost 100 pages into it in a new novel. I have, uh, since stopped working on that one because quarantine gets to you, man, and it was starting to feel more like work, so I decided to focus more on fanfic. 

Alternatively, I just recently set up my PC in a way that allows me to actually use it more frequently, and I feel like having a change in scenery -- even if it’s just going from one desk to another or one computer to another -- can be extremely helpful when writing. However, I miscalculated how high my desk chair went and with my keyboard tray completely broken off, my hands are now at a very uncomfortable angle when typing at my desk. My dad is coming over tonight to help install a new tray, which should hopefully alleviate some of those issues and I’ll be able to use my desktop to write more affectively.

3.  What is your favorite thing to write?

As in, what? Like fanfiction vs original work? That entirely depends on my mood. I love writing fanfic, especially when I get super into it like I did writing The Whole Story and like I’ve been doing with my Life is Strange fics, but -- and I know this is just a personal thing I need to overcome -- a lot of times when I’m spending a lot of time on fanfic, I feel like I’m not actually accomplishing anything, because I can’t make money off my fanfiction. 

But then sometimes when I’m writing original stuff, I love it because it’s like, super cool to be telling this completely new story with new characters that nobody knows yet so I can make them do whatever I want, and I think about how cool it would be for somebody to pick up my book and fall in love with it the same way I fell in love with Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, something that really gives somebody a passion for reading and writing, or even just something that makes them feel seen. But it’s also super overwhelming at times, like, am I really good enough to write this story? What if people don’t like it? What if I can never get it published? What if I’m just so terrible that nobody would even consider it? 

With fanfic I don’t have that worry because it’s just like, it’s supplemental stuff for people who already love the source material, so people are gonna love it even if it kinda sucks (you know, unless you make incredibly controversial decisions on a whim that piss off an entire fanbase  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

16. Can you tell us anything about your current WIP?

Sure! For my original stuff, the novel I was working on is about this boy named Kyle, who’s in love with his friend Jacklyn. Jacklyn, for reasons, thinks that Kyle is gay, and when she accidentally finds a poem he wrote about her, she assumes it’s about their male friend, and to cover up the fact that it’s actually about her, he goes along with it, and pretends to be gay. This is all just a super roundabout way to get a fake dating plot going, as Kyle, in an effort to keep up appearances, asks his former childhood best friend and current only openly-gay kid at school, Grayson, to pretend to be his boyfriend.

On the fanfic side of things, if you’re not a fan of Life is Strange 2, it won’t make a whole lot of sense, but if you’re following my fics, you can look forward to Sean going through a LOT of character development and making a lot of progress with his mental health in the next few chapters of Stay Strange, and once that story is finished, you can expect another multi-chapter story, this time being an AU where Sean and Daniel go to live with their grandparents after [REDACTED].

22. A fanfiction cliché you can’t help but love?

But there’s only one bed!!!

Send me some fanfiction/writing-related asks!

[imaginaryelle]

Author Interview

Thanks to @dafan7711 for the tag!

Name: Alex (they/them)

Fandoms: MDZS & The Untamed, Marvel Avengers (comics), Good Omens, Dragon Age & Mass Effect, Star Wars & SWTOR, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes; the list goes on but these are the main ones.

Where You Post: Tumblr and AO3.

Complete: 72 works on AO3; a few (less than 10?) oneshots are only on tumblr.

Incomplete: Posted? I think the closest is these two snippets from my Wangxian Modern Musician AU (1 | 2). Unposted? The well is bottomless.

Coming (hopefully) Soon:

1. Wangxian Modern Musician AU: Wei Wuxian has been out of the live music scene for more than a decade and just happens to land a traveling show with his ex as his first get-back-in-gear gig (thank you, Nie Huaisang). Features include hand massages, yearning in taxis, getting-back-together uncertainties, publicity angst and comfort softness alongside traveling show hi-jinks.

2. MDZS/Abhorsen Fusion: What if. Just stay with me for a second. What if. Lan Wangji was the Clayr-raised Abhorsen who was chosen for the role over any of the Lotus Pier disciples and Wei Wuxian was an Abhorsen-raised free magic necromancer who became more of a free magic creature instead of falling properly into Death? Possibly he can also turn into a rabbit I’m still working on details here but I am. Excite! Thank you for your time; @suspiciouspopsicle and I have a lot of ideas we like to play with for this AU.

3. So Many Wangxian Things Okay, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergent A-Yuan!kidfic, Everything; Also Some Juniors Friendship Things; Possibly Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian Reconciliation While Night Hunting.

Do You Accept Prompts?

Absolutely, though I tend to be focused on one fandom at a time for actually answering them (I try to note what fandom’s at the top of my mind in my tumblr sidebar). Currently, that’s MDZS & The Untamed (shippy stuff-not just wangxian, sibling or family relationships, hurt/comfort, whatever). Also, kissing, hurt/comfort and domestic moment prompts are always likely to be answered fastest. I cannot resist them and am unlikely to build an entire world and accompanying plot and thus get lost for weeks on end.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write:

Wangxian Modern Musician AU! Which is, as a point, from an anon prompt that I got a bit carried away with.

Favorite Story You Wrote:

What, ever? Hm. I’m going to go with Practical Exercises in Free Will (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley) today. It’s a choose-your-path fic, which was both challenging and enjoyable to put together. I should definitely do more of those.

Most Popular One-Shot:

Treasure, Explosions and Romance (SteveTony, Marvel Noir, 13k), which is probably the most fun story I have ever written. Secret passages and nazi punching and pulp adventure tropes ftw!

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

If You Want a Life of Action (SteveTony, Marvel 616, 72k) This was my first Cap-IM BB, and remains my only actual multi-chaptered work of the last … decade or so. May try that format again soon, we shall see.

Story You Were Nervous to Post:

the face and the mask are mirrors, baby (SteveTony, Marvel 616, 16k, mind the tags). This fic is… really really personal for me, and I’d never read anything in fandom that explored gender identity the way I was trying to so I was, in fact, a complete wreck over posting it (I’d also never before written a remix so that compounded things). But the fandom reaction to it has been truly lovely <3.

How You Choose Your Titles:

It depends on how long and complex the story is, I guess. I try to think about what the core concept is, or about phrases/concepts that will tie the beginning and end together, but sometimes I just look up song lyrics and poetry that feel right.

Do You Outline?

This really depends. I do outline for bigger fics (over 15k), and especially for fusions that are bigger because I need to keep track of so many elements at once. Sometimes I will do a pseudo outline of interior vs exterior plots while brainstorming, just to get themes and main plot points recorded. In general I need to just write a certain amount of a story before I can even start an outline though. The act of writing itself helps me figure out more of how I want the story to flow. I am trying to get better at outlining overall, because I’m pretty confident that if I can develop it as a more readily-accessed skill I’ll be able to finish more stories much faster.

I’ll tag (if you want to, no pressure): @somanyjacks-writes, @theflowergirl, @suspiciouspopsicle, @roamingjaguar, and anyone else who’s a writer who wants to join in; please tag me if you do!

Find an easy copy/paste version of these questions here.

[rubberduckyrye]

Anon who just sent the song here and I dunno about anyone else, but I feel like why people go to you about these characters, especially Ouma, is you're good at acknowledging the characters as if they were people. I'm not going to explain this well, but whenever I see your metas it just makes me feel like I reading you talking about a real person, not just a fictional character. You have a way of acknowledging their good and bad parts in such a way that it makes me forget they're fictional. (1/?)

And I guess people like seeing the work of people who make fictional characters feel so real. But going back to the acknowledging part, I tend to see a lot of people try to talk about these characters in a very black and white kind of way. But you, you talk about them in a grey kind of way. This is especially true of Ouma, who you talk about having good intentions, but also acknowledging he doesn't always go about it in a good way. It's nice I guess to see that. (2/?)

It's just one of those things I guess. I'm still bad at explaining. But you seem to be willing to understand the characters as people. And so when you talk about it, it feels real I guess. I dont really know how to describe it. But it just feels good to see I suppose. Though like I said I dunno about anyone else. But that's how I feel at least. I feel like you take your time to understand the characters and so I trust and like your judgement/s about them. (3/3)

/)/////(\ ;; Oh anon, you flatter me!

I don’t think you explained it poorly at all--I completely understand what you’re saying. It’s something people have told me a lot, actually!

My greatest writing strength, so I’ve been told, is that my characters feel alive. They’re like real people, with thoughts and feelings, complicated and multi-faceted. Like how no living human is pure good or pure evil, a character shouldn’t be pure black or pure white. This is something I learned when I was very young, thanks to reading a book called Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Artemis Fowl was one of the first books I truly read as a child, and the first book portrayed the idea of grey morality as it talked about Artemis as a protagonist/antagonist, and his motives and reasons for doing what he did.

Spoilers ahead: Artemis was a preteen boy, one that had lost his father/his father was presumed dead and his mother had lost her mind over it, to the point where she was confusing Artemis with other people right in front of him. He decided that he needed financing to go on an expedition to find his father--a broken child trying to mend his family.

However, he goes about it very wrong, thinking that he needed to kidnap and hold a fairy hostage and demand fairy gold from the People (or the mythical creatures that lived under the earth’s crust.) What solidifies Artemis as a complicated character in this book, however, were two things: the scene where he metaphorically lets go of his father (I think it was due to how terrible his whole plan had worked out and how deep into trouble he had gotten himself and those he loved) and the scene where he gets his gold from the fairies, but gives half of it back to the fairy he kidnapped (Holly) in exchange for a wish to make his mother well again. 

So from a very young age, I guess I always found myself drawn in by these more complicated, grey characters. Characters who have good intentions at heart (Artemis wanting to find/save his father) but going about it in all the wrong ways out of desperation (Artemis holding Holly Hostage)

I think that this was probably the first step into me honing in on my strongest talent within writing--making a character real and alive, like you said, to a point where they’re almost indistinguishable from a real human being.

My goal in writing, whether it be metas or fanfiction, is to make these characters feel alive and real. Because readers identify with them more, they feel for their struggled, cry with them when tragedy hits, laugh when there’s joy--because it feels so genuine.

When I make my analysis posts and fanfictions for Kokichi, I’m always looking at him from that perspective--what is this human boy like, what are his motives, his genuine feelings, hopes, despairs, how broken by trauma is he, how desperate was he--along with other minor things, like the theory I made of him being unable to taste food, for example. Little things are important when developing a character to be lifelike, and making mental notes about their habits and tells helps build that character. (For example, even if it’s not canon, in Twins AU, Kokichi has a bad habit of yanking on his hair when he’s in serious distress, only just able to resist doing so in public and only doing so in private/where only his brother is a witness to the real side of him, seeing how stressed out he actually is about their situation. I also have it so in Twins AU, Kokichi putting his hands behind his head is more or less an action to hide his hands, because he has a harder time controlling his hands and fingers and making them not shake when he’s afraid or stressed. These kinds of things build up a character and make them more alive.

And seeing Kokichi especially as all black or all white, it’s really sad in a way. He’s got a lot of points that make him grey, more human and complex. Talking about him as if he had done nothing wrong, or talking about him as if he’s selfish and pure evil, flattens his character and complexity to fit him into categories and tropes. But really, it’s not that simple. Humans aren’t that simple, and neither should characters by that simple.

But in short, the fact that I have this as a writing strength, I consider myself lucky. And, I consider myself extremely happy every time someone comes forward and tells me that I am succeeding in breathing life into the characters I write for! So thank you~!

[orangeoctopi7]

Stanswap AU Part 34

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20

Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25

Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30

Part 31 Part 32 Part 33

Here it is, the last chapter! Special thanks to @digikate813 and @eregyrn-falls for consistently reading and reblogging, along with anyone else who ever reblogged this story, it’s because of you that this story has spread. Thanks to @blaiddraws and @hntrgurl13 for drawing fanart (even if I did commission hntrgurl13, still grateful) and of course thanks to @busket because even if our AUs were developed independently, I still took a lot of inspiration from them and their way awesome art.

Speaking of which, this chapter draws a lot of inspiration from these posts.

Chapter 34: Hero Complex

The house was still in one piece when the kids got back. There was no evidence whether the shield spell was still holding or not, but they were all just happy to find a familiar structure to hide out in. They were about to open the door when they all heard something inside. Dipper picked up a golf club that'd been sitting on the porch, Wendy pulled out her crossbow, Mabel readied her grappling hook, and Soos took a karate stance.

“Yaaaaah!” The four friends yelled as they kicked the door open.

“Yaaaaah!” A ragtag group of townsfolk and magical creatures from the woods led by Stan yelled, ready to defend their turf.

“Wait, Stan!?” Dipper and Mabel gasped when they realized who it was.

“Kids!?” Stan disengaged the weapons system in his prosthetic, “I can't believe it! I thought I'd lost you two!”

The three of them shared a happy reunion hug. Tears flowed more freely than at least two of them would care to admit. Wendy and Soos soon joined in the hug. Even if they didn't know Stan all that well, it was still nice to see a friend after everything that had happened.

“It's good to have you knuckleheads back.” Stan said as he finally broke away from the hug.

“Why… what's everyone doing here?” Dipper asked as he surveyed the room. There were Candy and Grenda, dressed like Mad Max cosplayers, and Pacifica, who was wearing a pillowcase or something, and the Multibear, who was wearing an eye-patch on his main head, along with some gnomes, a manotaur, and the boy band Sev’ral Timez.

“Welcome to the survivors’ club.” Stan shrugged.

“Whaaa?” The kids asked.

“Eyebat!!” A gnome cried before anyone could explain. Everyone in the house scrambled to put out all the lights and close all the shutters and curtains. Dipper and Mabel couldn't help but peek outside between some blinds. Sure enough, an eyebat was flapping around outside. The sweeping beam of its paralysing gaze was stopped by a shimmering pink shield the moment it looked towards the house.

“So the shield is still working!” Dipper observed.

“Grunkle Stan, how'd this happen?” Mabel asked once the eyebat passed.

“Well, after seein’ my brother turned to gold and thinkin’ Dipper here’d been eaten, I didn't know what else to do except come back here. That's when I ran into possum breath here” Stan jabbed a mechanical thumb towards McGucket, “leading a group of stragglers through the woods. They needed a place to stay, so I took 'em all in and made myself chief. Plan is to stay here and live off Ford's food storage long as we can. Then I vote we eat the gnomes.”

“Hey, I'm short, not deaf!!” Jeff protested.

“Grunkle Stan, we can't just hide out here, there's a town in need of saving!” Dipper protested.

“Look, kiddo, we’ve got a good deal here.” Stan explained. “It ain’t ideal, I know, but we’ve got everything we need in here. A lot of these guys may look like monsters, but they’re actually pretty nice. Bear-bear here even knows Shiatzu!”

“Yes, I’ve been taking some classes.” The multi-bear nodded.

“We can stay here where it’s safe as long as we need to.”

“Grunkle Stan, you don’t actually think if we wait it out long enough Bill will just go away!?” Mabel was scandalized.

“Yeah, what happened?” Dipper asked, “Before you were all about taking the fight to Bill and not waiting a second, and now you just wanna hole up inside as long as you can?”

“Look what trying to fight Bill got us!” Stan snapped, “I wasted my only shot, that shazbot took my know-it-all brother as a literal trophy, and until you kids showed up on the doorstep a moment ago, I thought you all were dead! At least in here we can live some sort of life, out there all that’s waiting for us is death or worse!”

“But… what about our families?” Soos asked quietly.

Stan didn’t have an answer for that. He just looked away, but as his eyes swept across the room, he saw almost everyone wore the same expression: worry for their loved ones. Not long before the kids had showed up, they’d picked up a broadcast on the TV from inside the Fearamid, where they saw most everyone in Gravity Falls frozen in stone and stacked into a throne for Bill.

“Guys, don’t you see?” Mabel encouraged them as she climbed to the top of the stairs where everyone could see her, “Our friends need us, but we can only save them if we fight back!”

“Mabel’s right!” Dipper joined her, “Bill wants us to run and hide. He wants us to think he’s invincible, but Ford told me before he was turned to gold he knows Bill’s secret weakness!”

“Yeah, and then his oh-so-special research Journals were destroyed.” Stan scoffed. “We got no leads kid. I spent twelve years tryin’ to fight against Bill, and never heard nothin’ about any ‘secret weakness’.”

“Then we’ll rescue him!” The boy exclaimed, “If Ford’s the only one who knows about Bill’s weakness then we’ll have to get it from him! If we all work together, we might be able to save Gravity Falls!”

Everyone cheered, except Stan, who still seemed skeptical. “And how d’you plan on doin’ that? This is the only place where we’re safe, and it’s not like we can carry the shield spell around with us.”

“W-whoa! Holey Hootenanny! Flapjacks an’ Tiddlywinks!” McGucket suddenly burst out, his knee bouncing up and down as he thumped his foot against the floor. “Sorry, sorry,” He said sheepishly as everyone stared at him. “Just got excited is all. But I got an idea hows about we can fight Bill an’ rescue Ford! But I’ll need all’a y’all’s help!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa people, let’s not forget who’s in charge here!” Stan snorted indignantly, “I’ve been on the run from that psycho for the better part of twelve years, and now you want me to just waltz up to the guy’s front door?”

“Grunkle Stan, I’m sure we’re not gonna just walk up to the Fearamid,” Mabel assured him, “Just hear McGucket out!”

“No! There’s no way I’m leaving this house!”

Stan was not particularly happy to hear the plan involved literally taking the house to Bill. Sure, it seemed like a good idea on paper. If the only thing protecting them from Bill was attached to the house, it made sense to bring the house with them. But turning the place into a giant fighting robot!? That was just ridiculous! Nevermind the dimension he’d visited with actual fifty-foot fighting treehouse robots. He was pretty sure that was a spectator sport, and not for actual combat. Certainly not for fighting against the all-powerful ruler of the nightmare realm.

Still, as they began cutting holes in the walls and using leftover parts from the portal to build actual working giant robot arms and legs, Stan began to think this might actually work. Not that he’d ever admit that to anyone.

He’d nearly lost it when people started leaving the safety of the shield spell to try and raid more stuff they needed from outside, but so far everyone who had left for the junkyard and the amber mines had come back safely.

Now the “Shacktron”, as Soos had dubbed it after a comment on the house’s state by Pacifica, was nearly complete, and everyone was enjoying a bonfire as Mabel passed out sweaters, celebrating all they’d already accomplished and what they hoped to accomplish tomorrow.

“Uhg, I go through all this trouble to keep these survivors safe, and they’re gonna risk it all; for what? The chance that Stanford might know Bill’s weakness?” Stan complained to the only person who would listen to him, an ugly gnome who didn’t say much. “It’s a load of… of…” Stan searched his considerable vocabulary of alien swears for an appropriate phrase.

“Shmebulock!” The gnome exclaimed.

“Yeah! It’s a load of Shmebulock!” the old con man agreed. But his rage quickly died into a sigh. “It’s my own fault though. We wouldn't have to go save my brother if I hadn’t talked him into confrontin’ Bill right away in the first place. ...Bill wouldn’t even be in our dimension if my brother hadn’t opened that portal for me….”

“Grunkle Stan, is something wrong?” Mabel asked as she and Dipper suddenly walked into his field of vision. Stan jumped. He was losing his touch in his old age, he hadn’t even noticed they were there.

“Wh-bu-pft-I’m not-- I’m fine!” He spluttered. “How long have you kids been standin’ there listenin’ to me mouth off?”

“We just saw you acting grumpier than usual and wanted to make sure everything’s ok.” Mabel shrugged.

“It’s this plan to save my stupid brother!” Stan harrumphed. “I’ve been working hard to keep everybody safe, and what thanks do I get? Nothin’! But maybe he knows somethin’ about stoppin’ Bill, and suddenly everybody’s ready to risk their lives to save him. No matter what I do, it’s always ‘Stan’s the screw-up, Ford’s the hero’.”

Dipper frowned. He’d heard what Stan was saying to Shmebulock before. “Grunkle Stan, you’re not a screw up. This isn’t your fault any more than it is Mabel’s. Bill tricked you, because that’s what he does! Of course you wanted to come home! Of course you wanted to try anything to stop Bill as quickly as possible! And yeah, things went wrong, but that doesn’t mean you should hide away and beat yourself up for it! We have a chance to fix things now, and yeah, it’s risky, but at least there’s a chance that we’ll be able to save the world, instead of just accepting that this is the way things are now!”

“Yeah!” Mabel agreed, “Besides, you love risk!”

Stan gave a fond sigh and hugged the two of them. “Heh, alright, you kids’ve convinced me. I’ll get on board with Project: Long Odds. Whatever you want me to do, just ask.”

“Yes!” Mabel cheered, “Trust me, guys, tomorrow's gonna be great! We’ll save Grunkle Ford, and then you won’t have to worry about him anymore!”

“What, tch, I’m… I’m not worried about him!” Stan protested, crossing his arms and looking away. “I only care about finding a way to stop Bill, and that know-it-all is our best bet.”

Mabel and Dipper rolled their eyes. “Sure, Grunkle Stan.”

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel anything beyond the pain jolting through him. He couldn’t see anything beyond the burning blue light blinding him. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the ragged screaming that he no longer recognized as his own. He couldn’t smell anything beyond the crackling ozone. He couldn’t taste anything beyond the metallic tang that he didn’t have the presence of mind to realize was probably his own blood. This was his world. He knew nothing else.

Then, mercifully, it stopped, and his brain started ticking again. His thoughts and feelings slowly trickled back. He was Stanford Pines, the last one standing between Bill Cipher and destroying the rest of the universe outside of Gravity Falls. He couldn’t break. He couldn’t tell Bill what he wanted to know. He couldn’t let the demon into his mind. He could feel the manacles digging into his skin. He could see Bill and his cronies standing over him like a gang of school yard bullies. He could hear his own labored breathing and the snickering of the Henchmaniacs. He still couldn’t smell much other than ozone, but at least now he knew he was tasting his own blood. It wasn’t nearly as much as he’d expected.

“READY TO TALK NOW?” Bill asked in a bored tone.

“I-I won’t…” Ford rasped. “...I won’t… let you into my mind!”

“WHADDAYA SAY, PALS, ANOTHER 500 VOLTS?” Bill asked his audience. The Henchmaniacs laughed and cheered. Bill was winding up for another blast of electricity when they all heard a thumping noise coming from outside the Fearamid. It grew louder and louder, until… crash! A theropod head burst through the wall and roared.

“WHAT!? I JUST FIXED THAT DOOR!” Bill whined.

Ford squinted to see what was outside the Fearamid. His glasses were so dirtied with soot he wondered briefly if he might see better without them. Was that… was that his house!?

“It’s the Shacktron, dudes!” he more heard than saw Soos cheer. Oh no, what was Soos doing here!? Didn’t he realize the danger? And who else had he brought with him? Ford could only imagine what Bill would do if the triangle managed to nab all his loved ones at once.

“SO THE MORTALS ARE TRYING TO FIGHT BACK, HUH? ADORABLE!” Bill gave a cruel chuckle. “HENCHMANIACS, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO! TAKE ‘EM OUT!”

It was hard for Ford to see what was going on from his vantage point, but he couldn’t look away. The more he watched, the more anxious he became. He could see Wendy leaping onto an eyebat, he could hear Fiddleford’s distinctive voice calling out commands, and Mabel and Dipper’s cheer after punching out Paci-Fire and Kryptos. He even caught a glimpse of Stan through a window when the Shacktron came near enough to the hole in the Fearamid. But as things went on, his fear was mixed with pride. They were holding their own! Better than holding their own, they were winning! Soon enough all of Bill’s minions were sprawled across the ground, groaning in pain.

“SERIOUSLY GUYS? YOU HAD LIKE ONE JOB!” Bill groaned.

“Bravo, everyone!” Ford cheered defiantly.

Bill sneered at him. “YEAH, ENJOY YOUR LITTLE VICTORY NOW, WISE-GUY. YOU DO REALIZE I’M GONNA GO GRAB YOUR LITTLE FAMILY AND MAKE YOU WATCH ME TORTURE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM UNTIL YOU TELL ME HOW TO REVERSE THE WEIRDNESS MAGNETISM, RIGHT?”

Ford’s heart fell. “No, no you ca--” Bill re-froze him mid-sentence.

“HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, SIXER? I CAN DO ANYTHING!”

He didn’t know how long it had been when he was unfrozen. All he knew was suddenly half the town was there, freed from their stony prison, and Bill was still outside fighting the Shacktron. Mabel and Dipper were standing in front of him with identical hopeful grins.

“Kids!” Ford knelt down and hugged them both tightly, “I knew you could do it! That was brilliant!” He caught sight of McGucket just off to the side, apparently trying not to interrupt a family moment. “Fiddleford! Thank you, old friend, I know they couldn't have done it without you.”

“Aw shucks, I'm jus’ glad yer ok.” McGucket smiled as the two old scientists hugged.

“Yeah, nice to see you too, bro.” Stan grunted from behind them.

“Grunkle Ford,” Dipper piped up, “before, you said something about one other possible way to beat Bill. What was it?”

“Yeah, what's Bill's secret weakness?” Mabel asked.

“Oh, right!” The old researcher remembered, and reached for something in his pocket. But be paused mid-motion, looking around the room. “Back when I first learned about Bill, there was a prophecy painted on the cave wall as well.” Ford observed all the people standing around him, and suddenly the puzzle that had eluded him for years finally clicked into place. “Robbie, do you still carry spray paint around with you?”

“Uh… yeah. Why?” the teen asked.

“You'll see.” Ford assured him, grabbing the paint canister and quickly spraying a large circle on the floor.

“Uh, Bill's just outside, I don't know how long the others can hold him off.” Dippy pointed out.

“Yes, yes, good.” Ford murmured in reply, concentrating too hard on whatever he was painting on the floor to really pay attention to what the boy was saying.

“Well, he's finally lost it.” Stan said flatly.

“Like he didn't lose it forever ago?” Wendy asked.

“I'm perfectly sane.” Ford corrected. “And this is how we'll beat him.” He gestured to the finished image: a circle of ten symbols surrounding a simple sketch of Bill Cipher.

“With the world's most confusing game of hopscotch?” Pacifica asked incredulously.

“No… although it would make a pretty fun game of hopscotch.” Ford admitted. “This is what I found painted on the cave wall. Some of the symbols I recognized then, some of them I only recognize now, but the very first people to settle in Gravity Falls, long before any European immigrants, prophesied that these symbols together could generate a force powerful enough to defeat Bill and reverse his weirdnesses. Until now, I thought it was just superstition, but now that I see the ten symbols here in real life, I know that can't be a coincidence.”

“What do you mean?” Dipper asked, “You had this drawn in the Journals and it didn't do anything. Bill still destroyed them!”

Ford smiled and shook his head. “The symbols themselves aren't what's special. They represent people! Dipper: the pine tree. Mabel: the shooting star.”

Dipper's eyes widened as he stood on the corresponding symbol.

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel gasped reverently as she took her place.

“A question mark! This one's unsolvable!” Soos observed, completely forgetting the coin block on the Mario shirt he was wearing.

“And I knew I'd seen that broken heart on your hoodie somewhere before!” Ford said to Robbie.

“Dang man, you've been wearing that thing since the fourth grade!” Wendy pushed her friend forward.

“Whoa, destiny hoodie!” The teen said in awe.

“As well as the star from the Tent-o-Telepathy.” Ford pointed to Gideon, who was standing at the back of the crowd.

“Oooh, don't mind if I do!” The boy took his spot next to Mabel.

“Don't make a big deal about this.” Mabel warned him.

“O-of course not!” Gideon flushed, then chanted under his breath, “Be a person worthy of loving, be a person worthy of loving…”

“And Pacifica: the llama.” Ford pointed to her.

“... This is freaky.” The spoiled girl muttered as she looked between the sweater Mabel had lent her and the symbol on the floor.

“Ok, so some of the symbols are really obvious. But what about the ice? Or the glasses?” Dipper asked.

“They're not all litteral.” Ford explained, “The ice should be someone who's cool under pressure.” The two of them looked over at Wendy. They couldn't think of anyone else in the crowd who fit the criteria, and come to think of it, hadn't Dipped spilt bag after bag of ice around Wendy all summer?

“And the glasses should be someone wise and scholarly.”

McGucket smiled sheepishly and stepped forward. “I dunno 'bout wise…”

“And Stanley, you're the fish.. thing. Whatever that thing on the end of your staff is.”

“You gotta be kidding me!” Stan rolled his eyes. “You realize this is a buncha hogwash, right? You really think a bunch of randos standin’ in a circle an’ singin’ kumbaya is gonna stop that monster!?”

“It's a mystical human energy circuit!” Ford defended.

“You said you thought it was superstition until you saw all these people together!” Stan retorted. “This isn't what you were talkin’ about before, is it?”

“...No.” Ford admitted, “But that doesn't matter now, this will work!”

“How do you know? Just 'cuz some dead guys drew it on a wall!?”

“Come on Stan! I gave your idea with the quantum destabilizer a chance, the least you can do is give this a shot!” Ford yelled indignantly.

“Don't yell at me!” Stan yelled back.

“Come on!” Wendy groaned.

“Dang it, old men, now's not the time!” Gideon exclaimed.

“Alright, fine!” Stan relented and joined the circle. “I'm not the enemy here, people!”

“Everyone else get out of here, this may be dangerous…. Now all of you hold hands!” Ford commanded.

“Oh gee, I'd love to.” Stan said sarcastically, “Except there's the little problem of I haven't got one!”

Ford gritted his teeth. “You know what I meant! Just  give me your arm… stump… whatever you call it.”

“I wouldn't have it if you hadn't abandoned me, you big jerk!” Stan turned on him.

“Really!? Now of all times you bring that up!? Why do you always have to make everything more difficult than it has to be!? Why can't you ever just do as you're told!?”

“What makes you think you can tell me what to do!?”

The elder twins’ argument just devolved into fistfighting from there. Everyone watched in slack-jawed horror. Everyone except Mabel and Dipper, that is, who were desperately trying to pull their Grunkle apart. But it was too late.

“OH NO, IT'S BILL! ...THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE ALL THINKING, RIGHT?”

Bill was back.

“HAHAHAHAH! THIS IS JUST TOO GOOD! DON'T YOU BRAINIACS KNOW THE ZODIAC DOESN'T WORK IF ALL OF YOU DON'T HOLD HANDS? THANKS FOR BRINGING EVERY THREAT TO MY POWER INTO ONE EASY-TO-DESTROY PLACE THOUGH!” the demonic triangle snapped his fingers and the painting on the ground burned away, catching a few people on fire in the process. He then reached out and grabbed the elder Pines twins. “YOU GUYS WANNA SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN'T GET ALONG?”

“Oh no!” Dipper cried.

“You give them back!” McGucket demanded.

“You've gone too far, Cipher!” Gideon shouted.

“Yeah, we're not scared of you!” Wendy growled, raising her ax threateningly.

“OH… BUT YOU SHOULD BE.” the triangle grew another arm and snapped his finger. Dipper and Mabel watched in horror as everyone around them floated up into the air and was turned into a tapestry, each one depicting its victim in the middle of a wide-eyed scream. “LOOKS LIKE IT'S TOO LATE FOR YOUR FRIENDS, STANFORD, BUT YOU CAN STILL SAVE YOUR FAMILY!” A glowing blue cage rose up out of the ground, trapping the kids. “LAST CHANCE: TELL ME HOW TO TAKE WEIRDMAGEDDON GLOBAL AND I'LL SPARE THE KIDS.”

“No, don't do it!” Dipper cried from inside the pyramidal cage.

“Yeah, Bill makes bad deals!” Mabel agreed.

Bill leered down at her. “DON'T YOU TOY WITH ME SHOOTING STAR! I SEE EVERYTH--”

Mabel grabbed Robbie's spray paint and sprayed him in his giant eye.

“AUGH! NOT AGAIN! WHY THE EYE!? EVERY TIME!”

“I know that hurts, because I've done it to myself!” Mabel crowed.

Dipper quickly pulled out the flashlight with the size-changing crystal attached to the top and grew the cage until they could squeeze between the bars.

“We'll distract him, you guys run for it!” The boy cried to his Grunkles.

“What!? That's a suicide mission!” Ford protested.

“Don't worry! We've beaten him once.” Dipper reassured them.

“And we'll do it again!” Mabel finished. “Hey, you pointy jerk, come and get us!”

Bill finally got the paint out of his eye. He growled and chased after the kids. Stan and Ford were about to run after them too, but a blue wall of contorted bars blocked their path.

“NOT SO FAST! YOU TWO STAY HERE. I'VE GOT SOME CHILDREN I NEED TO TURN INTO CORPSES.”

The brothers found themselves in a cage identical to the one the kids had just been in. Only they had no means of escape. All they could do was bang on the bars and yell after them to stop. But their pleas fell on deaf ears.

“I can't believe this!” Stan sunk to the ground. “The kids are gonna die, and it's all my fault! All because I wouldn't just link arms with you!”

“Don't blame yourself. I'm the one who made a deal with Bill on the first place.” Ford said sadly.

“Yeah, but I'm the one who got you captured.” Stan lamented, “Dipper went back an’ tried to help you, but I… I just ran. Ugh, dad was right about me, I'm a screw-up.”

“No.” Ford knelt down next to his brother. “That's not true. You never made a deal with Bill, not in all those years he tried to convince you. If anybody's a screw-up, it's me. If I didn't drive away everyone close to me, things would have been solved years ago. I'm sorry I always made you second priority.”

Stan barked a sound halfway between a chuckle and a sob. “How'd things get so messed up between us?”

“We used to be like Dipper and Mabel.” Ford smiled fondly. “The world's about to end, and they still work together.”

“They're working together because the world is ending. That and they're too young to know any better.” Stan observed.

Ford shifted and pulled a strange object out of his pocket. It took a second for Stan to recognize it as the memory eraser from his first day back home.

“What're you gonna do with that?” The old con man asked.

“This is the one last possibility to defeat Bill I was talking about before.” Ford said gravely.

Stan's face lit up as he began to realize his brother's plan. “You mean we could just erase him outta your head the second he goes in there!?”

“Yes… but there's more to it than that.”

Stan didn't like the look Ford was giving him. He looked like a doctor about to tell their patient they had cancer. “Ok, what's the catch?”

“Bill isn't a static memory. He won't just let himself be erased, he'll hide in some remote corner of the mindscape. Unless you were to erase everything.”

Stan's expression sobered immediately. That explained why Ford had been so desperate to try anything else to stop Bill.

“What!? Are you kidding me!? You're honestly telling me there's nothing else we can do?”

“Believe me, if there was another way, I'd do it in a second. We're out of options, Stanley! The only alternative would be to actually give myself up to Bill and hope he'll let you and the kids go.”

Stan snorted. “Like he'd make good on that deal.”

“Exactly.” Ford agreed. “So, we agree on what needs to be done?”

Stan's reply was to wrap his arms around his brother and bury his face into his shoulder. “You and your snarfin hero complex! D’Arvit Ford, I don't wanna lose you again!”

“... Neither do I.” Ford returned the hug. “Don't think of it as losing me. I'll still be around. I'll still be me. I just won't…”

“Won't remember anything about me. Or anyone. Or anything.” Stan finished.

“Y-you might be able to remind me.” Ford encouraged him, “Fiddleford has been regaining his memories after they were erased.”

Stan sniffed inelegantly, failing to hide his crying, but he nodded.

They didn't have long to recompose themselves before they heard the kids’ screams, signalling Bill's return.

“ALRIGHT FORDSY, I'M BACK, AND I'VE GOT THE KIDS! MAYBE I'LL KILL ONE OF 'EM, JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT. EENY MEENY MINEY--”

“Stop!” Ford cried. “I'll tell you! Just let the kids and my brother go, please!”

“THAT'S MORE LIKE IT.” Bill said smugly.

The cage holding them dissolved away and a glowing red arm shot out of the ground, wrapping itself tight around Stan.

“No, Grunkle Ford, don't trust him!” Dipper pleaded.

“It's the only way.” Ford smiled sadly. “I-I love you all. Always remember that.”

“CUT THE SAP, SIXER. DO WE HAVE A DEAL OR NOT?”

Ford's only response was to extend his hand. Bill grabbed it, and blue flames enshrouded them both. Bill's physical form turned to stone as his mental projection jumped straight into the old scientist's head.

“FINALLY!” Bill crowed when he found himself in Stanford’s mindscape. The mental manifestation of the old man was standing there coldly. The light was reflecting off his glasses, making it impossible to see his eyes. Which didn't make sense because there wasn't actually any light. Which meant Ford was looking like that on purpose. The drama queen. “I TOLD YOU I'D FIND YOUR WEAKNESS!”

Ford did his best to ignore the mocking. He held up a book that looked just like one of the Journals. “Here it is, Bill, everything I know about weirdness magnetism.”

“AHAHAHAHAH, FINALLY!” Bill chortled, taking the book eagerly. “YES! NOW I CAN--” the book abruptly caught fire. “WHOAH- HEY!” The triangle could only watch as blue flames rapidly ate away every last page. “WHAT DID YOU--!?”

“It's gone.” Ford said evenly, a cruel grin spreading across his face. The light reflecting off his glasses disappeared, revealing a triumphant glare. “It's all gone!”

“YOU IDIOT, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE!?” Bill steamed, “I'LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THIS!!”

“On the contrary, Bill,” The scientist said calmly as the entire mindscape around them went up in blue flames, “You're the one who's finally going to pay.”

Bill's eye grew wide as he realized the extent of what was happening.

“GRAH! THE DEAL’S OFF!” He growled, but as he tried to wave his arm and create an exit, nothing happened. If anything the flames rose higher. “WHAT THE-- NO! NO NO NO NO!

“YOU FOOL!” Bill raged, “”YOU'LL DESTROY YOUR OWN MIND TOO!”

“Gladly.” Ford said emphatically. “If it means you'll never do to another living thing what you did to me.”

“YOU'RE MAKING A MISTAKE, STANFORD!” Bill said desperately, “I-I’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT! MONEY, FAME, RICHES, INFINITE POWER, YOUR OWN GALAXY! JUST--PLEASE!”

“Whatever I want?” Ford echoed fiercely. “What I want is to watch you burn to nothing!” He finally lost his cool and roughly grabbed Bill by his stupid bowtie. “You pretended to be my friend, only to use me and manipulate me!” He wound up and punched the triangle. “You got me to drive my only true friend away!” Another punch. “You took control of my body and used it as a play thing!” And another. “You blackmailed me!” And again. “You tortured me!” Another. “And even worse than what you did to me, you messed with my family!” He wound up one more time and punched Bill right in the eye, harder than he'd ever punched anything before. The demonic triangle gave one last strangled cry in a language Ford didn't recognize, and shattered into a million pieces.

“...It is done.” Stanford said with finality. But… it didn't feel right. He'd been fantasizing about defeating Bill for years now, and he'd finally done it! He was the hero! He'd killed the demon, been able to beat him down with his own hands, and yet… this victory felt hollow. Was it because he was losing his own mind in the process? No… he'd always been prepared to sacrifice himself in order to pay for his mistakes.

As everything burned blue around him, the last thing he found left was a familiar tattered photo of two boys standing proudly atop a rotting shipwreck. Ford realized he didn't regret what he was losing, but what his family would be losing. And even more, what he never was for them.

“I'm sorry.” He murmured as the flames licked at his feet.

Stanley found his brother kneeling in a clearing in the woods not long after all of Bill's Weirdmageddon crap cleared up. Ford was still completely out of it. His eyes were unfocused and his mouth hung open.

“Grunkle Ford that was amazing!” Dipper exclaimed, running up and hugging him. Ford jumped at the contact, surprised and maybe even a little uncomfortable with the boy in his personal space.

“Uh, sorry, are you talking to me?” The old man asked in confusion.

The boy's face fell as he pieced together what happened. “You… you don't remember me…”

“No. Should I?”

“Yes!” Mabel cried, “We're your family!”

Ford just looked at them all blankly.

“It's ok, kids.” Stan tried to reassure them, “W-we just gotta remind him, y’know?” he sat down in front of his brother and looked him in the eye. “I-I’m Stanley. I'm your brother.”

Ford was too fascinated with Stan's arm to pay attention to his words. “Your arm, it's metal!” He observed with an eager smile, “that's not normal, is it? What's it made of? How do you get it to move like that?”

Stan’s eyes welled up with tears. “C-c’mon, Ford, it's m-me, it's Stan… I'm remindin’ you, j-just like you told me to… please Ford, it-it’s me, it's Stan!” He finally broke down crying in to his brother's shoulder. “Why d’you always gotta be the hero!? Y-you jerk! W-we never got t-to make thing right.…”

Ford looked at the two children for help. “What did I say?”

They brought Ford back to the wrecked remains of his house, picking up Soos and filling him in on what had happened on the way. The young mechanic was devastated, and he joined with the others in trying to jog Stanford’s memory. They had many opportunities to try. It seemed every step along the way Ford had another question.

“Did you see that little man in the red hat run into the bushes? What was that?”

“It’s a gnome.” Dipper explained patiently, although there was a pained undertone in his voice, “You used to study them.”

“Why do they wear those little red hats?” Ford wondered, “Are they hiding something under them?”

“I-I don’t know.” Dipper admitted, but it didn’t seem to bother Ford. If anything he seemed more excited, and he made to run off after the gnome.

“Wait! Don’t run off without us!” Mabel grabbed his hand.

This stopped him, but only because he’d suddenly become more interested in the small hands holding his own. He looked around at everyone and an expression spread across his face like he’d just found the greatest puzzle of all time.

“Wait a second, I just noticed something!” He held up Mabel’s hand and compared it to his own. “I’ve got more fingers than all of you! Isn’t that interesting? I wonder why it’s like that?”

“You were born that way.” Stan told him.

“Yes, but why?” Ford asked again. Nobody had an answer for him, which only served to make him more curious.

Stan heaved a heavy sigh. “C’mon Ford, we gotta get home. We’re all tired, you must be too.”

“I’m not tired!” The old man insisted like he was a four-year-old, “I wanna explore!”

Stan looked like he was on the verge of losing his composure again, so Mabel stepped in. “Grunkle Ford, if you come home with us, I’ll show you my scrapbook, and we can teach you everything we learned about all the weird things in Gravity Falls this summer.

“Really?” Ford asked, like she’d just promised to watch his favorite movie with him. She nodded. “Come on, let’s go!” He pulled her ahead toward the dilapidated house.

Dipper had to knock the door in, and despite the building being surprisingly still structurally sound, the place was trashed. Ford didn’t seem to notice; he took the state of the house as normal, and only seemed curious with the books and papers strewn across the floor. Everyone else was in low spirits. For all the questions they were answering and all their attempts to remind Ford of who he was, nothing seemed to be working.

“We saved the world, but what’s the point?” Dipper wondered forlornly, “Grunkle Ford’s not himself anymore.”

“I don’t get it.” Stan sat down and held his head in his hands, “Before, he said we’d be able to remind him…. Well, he said we might be able to remind him. Ugh, I should’ve known he was just sayin’ that to make me feel better. I should’ve known better than to get my hopes up!” He punched the wall with his mechanical arm and left a sizable hole.

“No!” Mabel said emphatically, “I know my Grunkle is still in there! We can’t give up, guys!” She found her scrapbook lying under the entertainment center, and sat Ford down next to her on the old couch. “This’ll work. This has to work!” She opened up to the first page and showed him a picture of the three of them at the bus-stop, not long after they’d arrived in Gravity Falls.

“Here’s a picture of the first day we came to Gravity Falls!” Mabel narrated, “and here’s a macaroni art interpretation of my emotions!” She pointed to a macaroni collage of an unsure smile and a question mark.

“What about that time we went to the lake our first weekend here?” Dipper asked as his sister turned the page again and revealed a two-page spread of photos from their picnic. “Or all those times we’ve played Dungeons Dungeons and More Dungeons together?” He asked on another page.

“Uh, these are all very nice photos, but weren’t you going to teach my what you learned about the weird things in Gravity Falls?” Ford asked innocently.

“They’re photos of you, Dr. Pines!” Soos cried.

“I can see that, but I don’t remember any of this, or any of you!”

That was enough to break Stan down again. The old con man got up abruptly and retreated to the other side of the room.

Ford got up and followed him. “What’s wrong? Why do you keep on crying like that?”

Stan just shook his head and turned away, unable to speak through his sobbing.

“Is it because of me?” Ford asked worriedly, “Is it my fault?”

Stan shook his head again, but Ford seemed to know instinctively that he was lying. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what for, but…” He trailed off and his expression became thoughtful. “I’m sorry…” he repeated softly. He reached out and hugged Stan awkwardly.

Waddles entered the room, drawn by the sound of crying. The pig found two sad men standing in the corner, hugging. On of them was the source of the crying. The pig tried to comfort them the only way he knew how: snorting in between their feet.

“Waddles, do you mind, we’re having a moment here!” Ford pushed the pig away gently with his foot.

Everyone gasped and stared at the old researcher, a new hopeful glint in their eyes.

“W-what? What did I say?” Ford asked nervously, uncomfortable with all the attention.

“It’s working!” Dipper said excitedly, “keep reading!”

“Skip to my page!” Soos insisted, “He needs to remember being the greatest teacher ever!”

“I think you and Wendy are the only two who would ever call me that.” Ford chuckled.

And so they continued to look through Mabel’s scrapbook. Every few pages, Ford remembered more and more about being a teacher, a great-uncle, a researcher, and even a brother. Once they finished with the scrapbook, Stanley swept the house and found some ancient film-reels: Home videos from the elder twins’ childhood. Everyone couldn’t believe their luck. Perhaps this story could have a happy ending after all.

It was one week later, and Stanford Pines felt like a new man. His memories were more-or-less all back now. Sure, he still had some hazy moments when someone would mention something like he was supposed to know what they were talking about, and he’d have to ask for clarification, but the most important things were all back. He knew his family and his best friend and his students and all the strange, wonderful, occasionally annoying people in Gravity Falls.

Of course, with the return of his good memories came the return of the bad. Just last night he’d had another nightmare about Weirdmageddon. But it was easier to shake off these bad dreams now that he knew Bill was well and truly gone. He’d also had a heart-to-heart with Stanley about some of the darker moments in their past, but he felt so much better now that they had.

Now it was time for the kids’ birthday party, and pretty much the whole town, human and supernatural, had shown up. Mabel and Dipper were giving some short speeches after blowing out the candles.

“Y’know, on my first day here, if you’d asked me what I wanted, I would have said ‘Adventure, mystery, true friends’, but looking out at all of you, I realize that every one of those wishes came true. I’m happy with what I have.”

“If I had one wish, it would be to shrink you all down with the shrink-ray and bring you all home with me in my pocket. But since that’s impossible--” She paused and looked up at Ford, “Is that impossible?”

He shrugged and made a so-so gesture. It was technically possible but really not a good idea. People would probably get squashed or suffocate.

“--Since that’s probably impossible, my only wish is for all of you to sign my scrapbook! I’ll never forget you all!” She paused again, pulled out the memory eraser, and smashed it under her foot. Ford couldn’t believe how relieved that made him feel. “Now I’ll never forget you all!”

As the kids joked around with Wendy and her friends about technically being teens now, Stan pulled Ford away from the crowd around a corner of the house.

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you in private.”

“Why, what’s wrong?” Ford asked in concern.

“Nothin’, just wanted to let you know I’ve made up my mind.”

“About what?”

“About leavin’ after the kids head home. I’m probably gonna start packin’ once this party business is over.”

“What!?” Ford cried incredulously,

“Yeah, see, this I why I wanted to talk to you about it in private.” Stan rolled his eyes.

“But… but I thought…” the old researcher stammered, “We’ve been making progress Stanley! I truly believed things between us were on the mend!” He sighed heavily and regained his composure, “But… if that’s what you feel is best, I won’t try and force you to stay.”

“Uh, thanks…” Stan said awkwardly.

“...where will you go?”

Stan shrugged. “Thinkin’ about gettin’ a ship, sailin’ in search of treasure.”

“Just… just like we always dreamed about. I… I’m happy for you, Stan.” Ford said, sounding the exact opposite of happy.

“Y’know…” Stan scratched the back of his head with his good arm and gestured with his mechanical one. “If I’m gonna hit the high seas, I’m gonna need someone who knows how to take care of this robot arm along for the ride. I’m still gettin’ the hang of it.”

“Y-you mean… you want me to come!?” Ford asked hopefully.

“No I mean McGucket.” Stan said flatly, rolling his eyes again. “Of course I want you to come, genius!”

Ford gaped at his brother for a moment before shoving him playfully, “You’re the worst!”

“I’m the worst!? You’re the worst for making me feel like a rakkpod for jokin’ with you! Why d’you gotta be so sincere?”

The two brothers re-entered the party, their arms around each other’s shoulder.

“If I could have everyone’s attention!” Ford shouted. “I’d like to officially announce my retirement!” He declared once the crowd had died down, “My brother and I have some catching up to do, so we’re leaving on a voyage, and probably won’t be back for quite some time.”

“Woohoo!” One of the teens cheered, “No physics class this year!”

“B-but what about the repair shop?” Soos stammered. “What about preparing young minds to be the scientists of tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry, Soos, but I only ever started teaching and running the repair shop so I would have a steady income while I was working on the portal. Now that Stan and I are together again… I don’t really have any reason to keep it up.”

Soos looked defeated.

“But school starts in two weeks and we’ll need a physics teacher!” A member of the school board complained.

Ford looked at Soos knowingly. “I think I know someone who could take my place.”

“Wh-me?” Soos asked incredulously. “I haven’t even got my degree yet!”

“You should be able to get an emergency teaching licensure.” Ford reasoned. “That’s how I got hired on full-time.”

“But-but you’ve got a doctorate.” Soos protested.

“Soos, you’re much better with people, and especially teens, than I ever was. And you know more than enough to teach high school. I think you’re the perfect man for the job.”

“We’ll see what the school district has to say about that.” The school board member called from the crowd.

A small group of friends and family gathered at the bus stop the next day in the early afternoon. Mabel and Dipper were all packed up and ready to go. Well, as ready as they’d ever be.

“Thanks for wearing my goodbye sweaters.” Mabel complimented her Grunkles. The elder twins were decked out in matching sweaters: Ford’s a deep blue, Stan’s maroon.

“Eh, it’s cold out, I had to.” Stan grunted.

“It’s over eighty degrees out here, Stanley.” Ford teased him. Stan responded by elbowing him playfully.

Dipper and Wendy said their goodbyes and switched hats just before the bus arrived, the ginger teen slipping him a letter as he walked away.

“Looks like we’ve said goodbye to everybody, except…” Mabel looked back at her pig sadly, “Waddles.” She got down on her knees and petted him sadly. “I don’t know how to explain this to you but… Mom and Dad won’t let be bring a pig home to California, so… you have to stay here!”

She got up to leave, but the pig playfully nipped at her skirt. The girl tried to push him away, tears streaming down her face.

Ford frowned. “Mabel, I think you should take him home with you.”

“But--”

“You’re parents will be surprised to find how easy a pet pig is to take care of. Pigs are actually very clean, certainly cleaner than that cat you have, and they don’t need that much space. I’m sure they’d be happy to have another pet! And if not, well, you can tell them it was my idea.”

“Are you sure?” Dipper asked warily, “Mom was pretty mad when she found out you’d offered to let us stay here without asking her first.”

“I’ll take my chances.” The old man assured them.

“Now hold on!” The bus driver protested, “Bringing unauthorized animals aboard a moving vehicle is strictly prohibited!”

Ford not so subtly pulled out his crossbow, and Stan charged up the blaster in his arm.

“Uh… but this, heh, is obviously a service animal, so it’s ok!” The driver chuckled nervously.

The kids gave one last goodbye hug to Stan, and then to Ford.

“I hope you know I’m not exaggerating when I say you two have changed my life.” The old researcher said fondly. “I… I don’t know how I could ever thank you enough…”

“We love you too, Grunkle Ford.” Mabel sniffed back a few tears.

Finally, they’d run out of ways to stall. It was time for the kids to get on that bus.

“Ready to head into the unknown?” Dipper asked.

“Nope.” Mabel said honestly. “Let’s do it anyway!”

Ford and the others ran along the road, waving goodbye until the bus rounded the corner and drove out of sight. The old researcher felt like a piece of his heart was leaving with them. It must have shown on his face, because just a second later, he felt Stan patting him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss ‘em too.” the old con man said sincerely, “But hey, it’s not like we’re never gonna see ‘em again, right?”

Ford smiled. This pain in his heart was nothing compared to the joy of having his brother back. “You’re right.”

“Heh, somebody stop the presses.” Stan chuckled. “Now come on Sixer, we’ve got an adventure of our own to start!”

[marypsue]

fanfic: First 5 prime numbers!

why would you force me, a writer and known dumbass, to try to remember math stuff

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one? 

I was going to be extremely witty and paste in screenshots of the list of fandoms on my AO3, but tumblr is having a breakdown and won’t let me, so I’ll just go with the short answer: lots. 

There are different things I like about all of the different canons - and fandoms - that I’ve written for. I love cheesy jokes no matter where I go, but I also like the rich mine of angst and garish darkness that the Lost Boys have to offer. I love the fairy-tale structure and the heady romance of Labyrinth, I like how I can basically just write original fiction when it comes to the X-Men and it’s probably canon to something somewhere, and I appreciate the challenge of trying to nail the tone of RAM while still keeping the depth of character and the core of sincerity and emotion that I’m gonna end up bringing to anything I write about. (And also, projecting. Did I mention projecting?)

ROTG in particular stands out for the sheer creative freedom the fandom encouraged - we made up an AU where several different versions of the main villain (English movie, Finnish dub, book, concept art) lived together and attended the same university (along with multiple versions of the other characters) and it was sheer unadulterated crack. We wrote mythos. We wrote an expanded steampunk Treasure Planet universe full of high tragedy and classic-children’s-lit drama. We wrote poetry. We wrote ambitious crossovers and extraordinarily complex backstories for characters who ended up being Not That Deep. We wrote ridiculous comedy nonsense. We wrote so much fluff. My partner @gretchensinister created an entirely original fantasy alternate world and wrote a high fantasy novel inspired by the characters, which she’s planning to turn into an original series (speaking of, I will always shamelessly plug A Draught Of Light. If you liked A:TLA, you owe it to yourself to read it, and you don’t need to know anything about ROTG to enjoy it. In fact, you might enjoy it more not knowing anything about ROTG, though a few inside jokes might go over your head).

With that said, though, I think I have enjoyed writing for Gravity Falls the most. Partly it’s because of the skills I developed working in the other fandoms, so that now I feel confident enough in my work that I can stop worrying so much about making it good and just have fun with it. Partly it’s because the tone, the mood and the theme, of the series align with my interests and my values so well. It’s the kind of story that I would like to write, it’s the kind of story that I wish I’d written, and I love all of the characters so much but also can relate to so many of them, that getting to expand on it and play in its universe is just a treat and a joy. I may have found my forever fandom.

(The rest of this is going behind a cut for length because it turns out all of my answers are like this.)

3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I…don’t get reader inserts. Especially the ones that include the little (y/n). (Partly because it jolts me right out of a story, partly because for the first while after the trend started, I was reading them as ‘yes/no’ and was extremely confused.) I understand that the intent is to create a story where the reader can easily imagine themselves as the protagonist, but…you have to give that protagonist some traits, and have them make choices, and in order to do that you have to give them some sort of a personality, and then 1) not every person who reads it will be able to go ‘oh yeah, that’s me’ and 2) you’ve got an original character anyway! 

I saw a post recently where someone had drawn a picture with the caption “this is what (y/n), the reader of my story x, looks like” and listed a set of personality traits/likes and dislikes, like, at that point…just give them a name! They’re an OC! 

With that said, though, like self-inserts, reader inserts are fun (for people who like that sort of thing) and harmless, and I really hope nobody’s being a dick about them. Fandom should be fun, and even if I don’t get that thing you’re doing for fun, that doesn’t mean you’re Doing It Wrong.

Also, I fucking love making up OCs, and if allowed, I would do nothing but that all day.

5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?

Oh, this is cruel. I should not have done this. 

So, there are a lot of them. Apparently some people don’t spend all their free time coming up with bullshit ideas that spiral wildly out of their control into full, developed narratives that require tens of thousands of words to fully express? I bet those people have cleaner bedrooms than I do. Also probably more money.

Again, I’ve gotten better at this with lots of time and practice, so a lot of my earlier stuff is less well-executed than I’d want it to be. There are still ideas that I like, and stuff I’m proud of finishing, but I wouldn’t say they’re favourites, because the execution is less skillful and less polished than some newer things. With that said, though, I still have a big ol’ soft spot for Northern Lights, which was my indoctrination into the genre of ‘wildly self-indulgent crossovers and rampant canon revisionism’. Same with It Was A Dark And Stormy Night, the first multi-chaptered thing I ever finished. You can see the seeds of some classic Mary tropes in it, including ‘what if we just took all the female characters who were mentioned once and develop them into fully-realised people with important roles in this story’, as well as some tropes that have since fallen by the wayside (I do not do nearly as much with fairy tales as I did when I was a teenager).

Dreamland deserves a shot at the title, as do Reincarnation Blues and Raising Stakes. But purely for scale, ambition, and how closely the execution matches the ideal version that exists only in my head, my absolute favourite multi-chaptered fic has to be Hive. I’ve been trying to write decent horror for eleven long years and Hive makes me feel like I’ve finally nailed it. 

7) When is your preferred time to write?

Preferred time to write is from midnight to 2am. 

Best time to write is literally any other time than that, probably. 

(I’ve read all the science and the thinkpieces. I am aware that the only reason 2am seems like such a good time for creative work is because you’re tired enough that your internal self-regulation is low and your inner critic is silenced, and also because it’s often the only time when we sit down and let ourselves focus on the work with no distractions - because there aren’t any. I’m working on introducing this environment into the rest of my day so that I am not in a permanent state of sleep deprivation. Funnily enough, writing in a dimly-lit room and working on a dimmed computer screen really seems to help.) 

11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

Not that I can remember.

To be fair, I have received very few criticisms after posting that were about writing issues rather than matters of personal taste (and most of those have been along the lines of ‘so uh, I know you knew mentally what was going on in this scene, but the critical piece of information never actually made it to the page’). But…I also…take long enough to work on things and have so many damn things on the go that once something is posted, it’s posted, and I have to make a promise to myself to never touch it again, otherwise I would spend all my time nitpicking and never finish anything. If somebody’s noticed a legitimate issue or possible improvement, it is incredibly likely that I will go ‘oh dang why didn’t I notice that’ and then mentally file it for use in future stuff. I’ve only ever taken one fic down, and most of the edits I do after the fact are for tagging or author’s notes.

I did amend the ending of Any Misery You Choose, but that was less because I got criticism (people were actually incredibly nice about it!) and more because I was extremely dissatisfied with how the original ending turned out, because I hadn’t adhered to the plan I myself had made, because I was rushing to finish the damn thing. (Protip: don’t do that.)

(please, please, please let these actually be the first five prime numbers)

[theharellan]

RP POSITIVITY MEME

DAY 14: FREE DAY!

so this whole week i’ve kept myself from mentioning joly when possible. i promo joly on my dash every day. my very existence is a joly promo. it was mostly a way to make sure that i gave other people attention, and also b/c i saw the last day was a free day and wanted to use it to write about how much i love joly’s characters.

if it weren’t for joly i doubt i’d still be here. that’s not to say that i didn’t love rping solas beyond what i have with joly, but after my hiatus it was the desire to rp with joly again that really brought me back. and i’m so thankful for that b/c it’s allowed me to meet ppl like merc and lisa and kae, ppl who either weren’t around or i didn’t know before. also just when i was having a rough time last year and whenever i’ve had a rough time since then joly’s been there for me. they’re a really special person, who deserves even more kind words written about them than their characters do. but if i keep going i’ll probably make myself cry.

suffice to say if you like my blog, then you have joly to thank. not just for me being here, but how their ocs have shaped my solas. i cannot recommend joly’s blogs enough. they don’t have as much time as they did to write, but it doesn’t make them any less dedicated to their characters as someone who posts a dozen things a day.

before i get to their actual blogs, i want to talk about the npcs or characters that no longer have rp blogs.

first, deshanna. i’ve loved how they made a mother who is flawed and sympathetic, and who i don’t feel 100% good about solas disliking her in modern. it’s my secret desire to be able to rp in a thread where she’s npc’d one day, either in modern or batb. next, layne. what a piece of shit. i don’t know TOO much about layne, and i’m in this position where i want to know more but also i dread it. hoping one day solas and mio can shank him. and then, june. june had a blog (and may again one day??) and he was a fuckin hermit mamma’s boy that was too boring for fen to want to have anything to do with. joly’s recently been toying with some ideas for his character that i think only strengthen what they have, and i’m excited.

@ancientimpudence -

mio is petty. mio is mean. mio is stand-offish. mio is loyal. mio is driven. mio is honest. i love mio.

if you want a character who is flawed and not always nice, you’ll love mio. they’re a really good example of how you can make a character not always be a very pleasant person, but still get plenty of rp mileage off of them and develop meaningful relationships. how two characters’ relationship can somehow be incredibly deep and yet broken. i love what joly and i have built for mio and solas, two ancient friends who aren’t always the best friends.

i could really talk about about their relationship. solas goes through a period where he becomes very empathetic and in-tune with the problems of everyone around him, but mio’s somehow always escape him. i love the gap, and i love how it’s both not his fault b/c mio hides how they feel, but also he needs to do better by them. i love how mio wants what’s best for solas and their cause, while simultaneously suggesting things that actually wouldn’t be best for solas, because mio isn’t omnipotent and is also, to an extent, still trying to keep solas as he was.

i love how mio doesn’t like ian but is still there to help him. i love how mio expresses themself in ways not everyone understands. i love how modern mio has purse dogs and brings vher food b/c they spent all weekend playing the sims.

and vher / mio?? one of those ships that just kinda happened. one of the best things about talking to joly about characters is how often two just kinda cling to one another. vher is aro and can’t return the romantic feelings mio feels for them (and open enough to be accepting when mio finds romantic love elsewhere) but they still care for mio so much. everything about mio that i listed above, even the petty and vain stuff, vher loves. also sometims vher decides they wanna kiss mio and i can only imagine what it does to the poor child.

basically, what i’m getting at here is, joly lets mio be flawed but also shows how those flaws can still lead to positive interactions. joly lets mio be unadmirable at times, but still likeable and lovable. joly introduced some extra diversity in background to the rebellion and i’m eternally thankful tbh.

@betterthanmaps​ -

harding is one of those characters everyone adores, and so it makes sense that joly, one of the most adorable ppl on the planet, chose to write her. i love seeing characters with stable and normal backstories. harding is just such a steady influence, and i’ve loved seeing her contrasted with the sad backstories most canons and ocs possess. which i wanna be clear isn’t a criticism of sad backstories! i merely mean that it’s also nice seeing variety. not everyone has had a past that has made them cruel or kind, some people were raised by caring parents and lived simple lives until they heard the call to adventure. those people are just as interesting and worthy of telling stories about.

joly’s harding reminds me somewhat of tolkien’s hobbits, i suppose, now that i’m writing this out. and they’re some of my fave characters in literature. only w/ harding we also get fun dragon age dwarfy lore-- someone who is as un-dwarfy as varric but not quite so loud about it and we get actual queer representation.

@spiritualjourneys​ - 

i adore spirits? i do not adore how the fandom treats spirits. things like treating human cole as superior to spirit cole, rather than a person making different choices, both paths making them happy, even if one is for reasons we can’t all understand. pinning everything wrong with anders in da2 on justice. assuming lord woolsey, an innocent spirit-ram who has done nothing but help, has always been a rage demon (even tho the ways in which he has been shown to help the family that adopted him aren’t typical rage-related qualities) but ANYWAY.

the point is, spirits are given something of a raw deal by the fandom and are almost always judged by their ability to conform to human standards. joly’s spirit multi is fuckin fantastic and making spirits different and complex and alien, while also familiar and very much people rather than set pieces in the stories of others. though all of them started out as npcs created by either joly (love, sincerity), myself (joy), or bioware (wisdom) it took joly no time at all to establish their stories. love and joy especially...

what i appreciate about love is the path they took to get where they are. how they weren’t always love, how they focus upon a specific kind of love, how they can’t always see when love is best working past. though i’ve only just started rping peace, i’m in love (get it) with the dynamic the two of them have formed. how they balance one another out and keep one another from straying too far into their own interests, and thereby corrupting themselves. it’s a dynamic that i wasn’t expecting at all when i made peace as an au to my zenyatta blog, but i think that’s the amazing thing about writing with joly. something falls into place and then it grabs you and the idea just won’t let go.

and as for joy, it’s probably the least developed of the spirits, having no form that’s recognisably alive nevermind a person. but it demonstrates well, i think, how “humanity” in elvhenan wasn’t defined by shape. when solas says he dislikes when people see him as just a pair of pointed ears, and that he doesn’t necessarily identify much with modern elves, the idea is expressing multiple things. one of them, i think, is that being an elf sometimes meant being a physical body with pointed ears, but sometimes you could just be bubbles and you’d still be considered a valid member of elvhen society. joy doesn’t exist as we do. joy forgets, joy prefers to never touch the earth, and it exists in a state of cycles to keep itself from becoming something like despair. joly depicts the beauty and the drawbacks of existing in this state and i’m just??? so glad they decided to write joy. b/c they do it more justice than i ever could.

@paragoninexile -

tam’s new blog isn’t fully set up but i wanna talk about her anyway. tam is a good hero and a good person, and in many ways sort of made to be a hero. when i found out about tam i was rly excited simply b/c she was very much like my warden, only with so much more care and thought put into her that now she’s basically replaced my canon warden in my heart.

i think my favourite thing about tam is how much of a front she puts up for everyone. crowning bhelen, even if it meant the death of another father figure. recruiting loghain, even if it meant losing her friend or possibly lover. it shows that even neutral good heroes still have to make decisions that could be considered ruthlessly practical. bhelen is not necessarily the better choice morally, especially not as an aeducan (especially especially not as an aeducan who doesn’t kill trian). i imagine tam knows that crowning him will have dire consequences not just for harrowmont, but the entire harrowmont line. she does it anyway, not because she wants to, but because for orzammar it’s the best choice.

i’ve loved finally having a chance to write one of my fave dragon age ships: gorim/aeducan. i have a weakness for ships who have been together since they were only young, and the progression they take in the au is so good?? being able to find freedom for their love in a life that is literally killing tamar, and the reason they only get 12 or so happy years together rather than 50. but tam is so good that i’m honestly proud to be able to give her those twelve years with gorim. one day i’m gonna make joly hurt w/ thoughts about the kid gorim adopts after tam dies and who he tells them all about. 8)

@cadashsmash -

cadri i think was the first joly character i interacted with, though i believe i remember ian from way way back when i tried rping merrill and couldn’t quite get a foothold like i did with solas and thora.

i’m in love with dwarves u all should know this, so ofc i’m in love with cadri. i love how rough around the edges she is, how she tries to do the right thing, and how doing so can lead to some messed up shit like killing abelas. the work joly’s done with reaver lore is perfect, working with how dirty and raw the specialisation is without making it too hardcore for an inquisitor to ever hope to specialise in it (stop assuming all reavers are cannibals fandom smh). one of my fave threads on thora continues to be the post-battle thread where both are recovering from the drawbacks of their own specialisations and clash because of them. it’s just a really unique idea that is what makes writing with joly so... rounded? like i’m never just writing one thing with joly. they push me as a writer in the best possible way.

overall cadri is just a rly excellent character who, like tam and harding, do credit to dwarves that the series doesn’t always. i’ve loved exploring how differently her and thora react to their position in life, i’ve loved seeing cadri’s anger or indifference towards dwarven society. it’s so valid and realistic and good. i’ve loved exploring the specific ways in which she bucks the presumptions solas has about dwarves, how even in universes where she’s not inquisitor her individuality is still nothing he expects from her kind and how she changes him anyway. i also will always be fond of this being their friendship song.

cadri: hey solas, what d’you call a flower before it opens? solas: a bud. cadri: I LOVE IT WHEN YOU CALL ME BUD. solas: UGHH.

@dalishfreckles -

it’s really hard to not write a post just about ian, honestly. all of joly’s characters are special to me, but i won’t deny ian is my favourite and has a very important place in my heart. if i were to truthfully answer those top 5 fave characters questions, ian would be on there no question.

as someone who goes through some of the same struggles as ian, he’s inspirational. seeing him struggle to keep surviving, to keep loving, to keep helping even when everything inside him is screaming to stop. i love seeing him make mistakes, honest ones or ones born of anxiety. b/c anxiety is more than just hating yourself or having trouble talking to people, although that is very real. sometimes anxiety can cause you to project some really terrible things onto people, things that aren’t really fair to them.

when i see ian doing things like... projecting his own feelings of worthlessness onto solas, assuming he must think the same rather than giving solas a chance to explain? it’s realistic, and it’s not good. it’s trying to pull people into the same destructive game you do to yourself. it’s also realistic, esp since in the thread i’m referring to solas fucked up and has shit to apologise for. idk, it’s just really comforting to see ian pull the same shit that i do, but knowing he’s still a good person and that i love him is an act of self love.

ian’s an important character for so many reasons, that i could probably write a 20 page thesis on him and his development / how much he means to me. i’m proud of him so much. i’m proud when he finds the strength to tease solas, i’m proud when he stands up for himself, even when he’s standing up against the people he loves. especially when, tbh. how as he grows he can see inara’s faults but doesn’t hate her for them, and tries to help her, when he’s under no obligation to. how he still tries to connect with solas after solas coldly brushes him off the first time ian admonishes him. and i love how joly shows it’s not easy. none of it is. and that ian has to keep choosing to be good, it makes everything he does that much more meaningful.

finally, ian isn’t a hero, necessarily. he’s not the sort of person people tell stories about, which is one reason i love the solas/ian pairing so much. it’s really all about the person for solas, and ian is just so much about what solas loves about people. it’s not always about battles and heroes, sometimes it’s just about a person who has the patience and love in them to make a tree grow in the middle of a desert alienage. sometimes the most wonderful things about people are the little, radical things they do for themselves and those they love rather than how they change the world.

this has gotten to be very long, and probably rambling, but to be fair to me this is like two weeks of joly-positivity i’ve been holding in.

i’ll probably be doing one more free day tomorrow, even if today is the last day, just to do a v general positive post for those i follow. but i wanted to take at least one day to credit the person who has inspired me with their words and characters. like. this was just their characters? i didn’t even get a chance to go into the ways joly’s prose shines, how it’s descriptive and yet never difficult to comprehend. how many different types of plots they’re here for.

but to make a long story short, joly is an incredibly talented writer. i’ve said this before, but i can look back on things i’ve written years ago with joly and still like what i wrote (as well as what they wrote but that should go w/o saying), which is a rare feeling, simply b/c joly lets me access the best writer in me. we often here in the rpc use “muse” as a shorthand for “character we write that inspires us” and i’ve found it a difficult word to rly use-- simply b/c joly and their characters are as much my muses as my own characters. at least in the sense that thinking about them inspires me to write.

tl;dr- pls follow and write with joly. b/c the only thing i love as much as writing with joly is reading what they write with other people.

[bucky-fvcking-barnes]

Poetics [Bucky x Reader] Part 1

Poetics: College!AU in which Bucky is an English major experiencing a bout of writer’s block and you step in to try and help.

Words: 1,597

Warnings: None

A/N: Look at me starting another multi-part fic when I haven’t touched the last one since I posted it oops. This should be quick, though, like only 2 or 3 parts. Anyway, happy reading! Kaitlyn. Xx.

Your knuckles rapped against the wood of Steve and Bucky's apartment door, and as soon as you were finished your hand was shoved back into your pocket to shield it from the cold that was seeping into the apartment complex from outside. Someone just had to leave their window open in the middle of winter, didn't they?

You smiled at Steve when he answered the door, greeting him with a hug and a soft “Hey.”

You’d become friends with Steve and Bucky freshman year of college when their double was next door to the triple you shared with Wanda and Nat. The stupid hall meetings you had to attend on a weekly basis were much more endurable with them there making stupid jokes or funny faces from across the room because you all knew that you would be bored out of your minds if you didn't have something to be entertained by. From there, the five of you started to hang out outside of the hall meetings, whether that meant eating together at the dining hall--or out occasionally when you had the money--or having study parties in the dorm room--yours, of course, because the triple was obviously bigger than their tiny double next door.

You and Bucky had grown close pretty fast. You loved his personality and the way he never failed to make you laugh or feel warm inside, and you could never hide the blush on your cheeks when he said something that would make you smile or when he would smile, even, because his smile was absolutely beautiful. He was an English major, and while you were not you did like to read and so listening to him talk about the books he read or the pieces he wrote was never boring. Plus, he looked so adorable when he talked so intently about the things he was passionate about.

You'd gone over to their apartment that evening to see how they were doing, as you all had just gotten back from Thanksgiving break that weekend and had gotten wrapped back up in your studies with finals quickly approaching, meaning that the past few days you hadn't seen either of them very much.

"Where's Buck?" you asked Steve as you stepped inside of the apartment, reveling in the warmth of the space that was a stark contrast to the cold in the hall. Bucky wasn't on the couch reading like he normally was this time of night, and you were disappointed for a brief moment.

Steve nodded his head toward the back of the apartment. "In his room. He's writing," he explained, making you nod your head in understanding, your slight disappointment quickly dissipating.

"Cool, I'm gonna go see him. I bet he could use a break," you said with a smile, though you really just wanted to spend some time with him. You would be lying if you said that you hadn't developed feelings for the brunette, and sometimes you made them too obvious to be able to deny. Wanda and Nat loved teasing you about him. You'd never outright told him how you felt, though, valuing your friendship too much to risk presenting him with feelings that he didn't reciprocate.

Your boots made almost no noise against the plush carpet of their apartment as you headed back toward Bucky's room, giving Steve a quick smile as you did. "Bucky?" you called out as you knocked on his door and then opened it slowly, not waiting for him to respond. "Just came over to say hey. I haven't seen you since before break." You smiled as you stepped into his room, but the corners of your mouth faltered a little when Bucky didn't even turn away from his laptop. Sure, you'd seen him get engrossed in his writing, but he always said hi to you when you came over.

"Bucky?" you repeated, closing the door behind you and walking over to his desk. "Is everything okay?"

"No, Y/N, everything is not okay. In fact, nothing is okay!" he shouted suddenly, throwing his hands in the air before slamming them back on the desk, his gaze still fixed on the blank document in front of him.

You frowned and sat down on the edge of his bed, looking closely at him. "I'm sure that isn't true. What could possibly be so bad?"

He turned toward you, and you took the time to notice his disheveled appearance. His hair was tousled like he'd been endlessly running his fingers through it and his eyes were slightly bloodshot, likely from staring at the bright screen for countless hours. "I'm having writer's block," he said flatly, and you snorted.

"What?" You couldn't help but grin. "The infamous James Buchanan Barnes is having writer's block? I guess there is a first time for everything."

"I'm glad you find my struggles so amusing, Y/N, but this isn't funny. This is my final for this class and I've never once been given an assignment and not known what to write." Bucky was glaring at you, his arms crossed over his chest which made the Henley he wore stretch across his biceps and his pecs, giving you a better view of the deliciously toned muscles.

"Oh, c'mon, Buck. I'm sure you'll figure something out. You're an amazing writer." You gave him a soft smile, trying to be helpful although it was a bit of a crapshoot since he was the one you always came to for writing advice, so you didn't know what to say to him to help in this situation.

A frown made its way onto his lips, and he let his gaze flicker back to his laptop. "I've thought of lots of things, but every time I try to write it's always shitty so I have to start over."

"I doubt that," you sighed, standing up and walking over to his desk, trying to see if he had any drafts or outlines written out that you could look at. "Everything you write is outstanding. What's the assignment, anyway?"

He groaned, leaning his head back over the back of his chair. "I have to write about something from my life."

"And that's a problem because...?" you urged, looking back at him when you didn't see anything helpful on his desk and opted to sit on the edge of it instead. 

He looked back at you, his eyebrows furrowed together. "Because my life is boring, Y/N. There's nothing noteworthy to write about. Why do you think I write fiction all the time? The real world is so bland and uninteresting. That's why I wanted to be a writer in the first place, you know, to have an escape from the real world. It's so much better when I can write about all the beautiful stuff that happens in the worlds I create."

"Bucky," you sighed, and you shook your head. "Your life isn't boring. There's copious amounts of things you could write about. Plus, you of all people should know that writing isn't about transcribing things exactly as they happened. Things never happen poetically. When someone's bleeding it isn't beautiful or tragic or enthralling. It's just red. When people fight you don't actually feel the words vibrating on the walls until after it's over, until you're trying to express just how devastating and emotional it was. And when people fall in love there's not actual fireworks and there aren't really butterflies in a person's stomach and no one is ever actually as cute as they're depicted to be when they're flustered and blushing." You smiled at him, and you could feel heat tingle in your cheeks as you talked about love because, hell, that's definitely how it feels when you're around him. "My point is, your life doesn't have to be interesting, you just have to make it that way. You make it beautiful, Buck, you do it all the time."

Bucky dropped his gaze from you and he chewed nervously on his lip, nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, I guess you might have a point."

"Might?" you smile, quirking an eyebrow at him and making him roll his eyes.    "Fine, whatever, you're right, I said it. Now I just have to think of something worth writing about." He sighed and went to turn back to his computer, but you quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him out of his chair.

"First, we're going to take a break. You look like you need one," you laughed, and you reached up to fix his hair, blushing a bit more as your fingertips brush against his jaw.

Another groan left his lips and he let his head fall back again. "Fine," he grumbled, dragging out the syllable, "but only a short one. I need to get this written in time for peer review."

"An hour," you reasoned, and now it was your turn to cross your arms.

"Thirty minutes," he countered, looking down at you and pressing his lips together.

"An hour," you repeated, because you knew he needed a long enough break otherwise he would just stay upset and never end up getting anything done that night.

He narrowed his eyes at you, and when he saw that you weren't backing down, he let his shoulders fall in defeat. "Fine," he huffed, and you grinned.

"Perfect," you said excitedly as you returned your hand to his arm and started pulling him out of his room and toward your apartment on the floor above. "Nat and I got some awesome peppermint hot cocoa from the store today, and I really think you could use some."

A/N: Alright cool, there it is. Idk why I even wrote this it actually sucks so honestly idk if it’ll get another part unless people end up liking it. Yeah. And I’ve got finals coming up and I couldn’t even write over break because I had three essays so that was really fun. But regardless thanks so much for reading, Kaitlyn. Xx.