Tumgik
#<- probably but not necessarily. i can write non shipping fics i swear.
maulfucker · 3 months
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This song is making me want to start yet another fic to never finish,, "Tell me... Where is your hideout? Who are we running from? I'm starting to think that you were right, and now I'm afraid of letting go of your hand...." Maul giving up on his Mandalore plan and deciding to just stalk Kenobi to tell him about his vision. Staying illegally in Obi-Wan's room because I love putting these guys in situations (and because Maul would NOT leave him alone until Obi-Wan actually accepted Maul is right, which he won't). Following Obi-Wan to Utapau and helping him escape after the clones attack, feeling equal parts vindicated and enraged (because he was proved right but Sidious still won). Them being on the run together....
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hii 📓
Okay so the thing is that I wanted a “the Zenin raised Megumi instead of Gojo” fic but the thing is that I’m absolutely convinced that if the Zenin were the ones that took Megumi they wouldn’t actually take tsumiki too. The fandom consensus I’ve personally seen has been that she would have been taken and mistreated by zenin for being a female non sorcerer but I personally think they would have just straight up left her behind.
They only bought Megumi. They keep non sorcerers and women as servants in their compound but all of them are Zenin themselves. Tsumiki isn’t related and I couldn’t really see any reason why they’d want her. Which turned this into a fic where Tsumiki loses her brother, but she’s trying to find him again, she swears. I think of it as my “siblings doomed by the narrative desperately try to write a new one where they can be together” fic.
The thing is that Tsumikis mom was one of those people who thought love and consumption were synonymous. She had a habit of getting caught up with assholes and just… having both of them chew on each other for a while until it turns into this horrible fucking bloodbath.
Tojis just another loser her mom got caught up in, but he’s Tsumiki’s favorite out of all the losers, because he gave her her brother. Her mom marries this random guy she barley knows and Tsumikis pretty sure she does it so they can both ditch their kids twice as much, secure in the knowledge that there’s supposedly another person checking in. It works out great for them, because they both stop coming entirely. It’s fine, because Tsumiki has Megumi and Megumi has Tsumiki and they don’t need anything else.
It’s one of those things where they were in really unhealthy circumstances and it made their relationship a little bit unhealthy but not necessarily bad. They both had to grow up way too fast and deal with way too much too soon and become codependent on each other because they are, in the most literal way possible, dependent on one another. Neither of them know how to love in a way that doesn’t involve sacrificing themselves for their sibling, mostly because they don’t have a way that doesn’t involve that.
They’re in a sinking ship and tsumiki knows it. Their parents aren’t coming back. The money is going to run out sooner or later. Their problems are stacking up.
Megumi has confessed to her that he sees things that no one else does. When she asks him how he knows no one else sees them, he explains that they’d say something if they did and won’t say anything else. And she doesn’t know what to believe but she refuses to call him crazy. He tells her that monsters cling to her back and he fights them off for her. She patches up his bruises and cuts and tells him he’s brave and tries to figure out if she’s just imagining that her back feels lighter after. He tells her that there are dogs that only he can see that have started following him around, and she tells him she believes him and can never remember, later, if she meant it or was just saying it.
The last time Toji came by, he left them more money than tsumikis ever seen in her life, took them to ice cream, told them that he was sorry he was so shit at this and that the money was Megumi’s share in a payment. It was for something he was going to help daddy with later. Tsumiki and him were to use it to take care of themselves and be healthy, because Megumi couldn’t help him later if he wasn’t. And tsumiki was always afraid of what he meant by that, but in the end, she let it slip her mind. After all, Toji hadn’t been by in ages. He probably wouldn’t come by at all.
And he didn’t. But others did. Two men she’s never met before are waiting outside their building one day, and when they see Megumi, they laugh. But the thing that Tsumiki can never get out of her mind later is that she swears they weren’t looking at Megumi directly. They were looking at his dogs.
Tsumiki basically tries to get Megumi and powerwalk past them, but they’re a lot bigger and a lot stronger and there’s nothing she can do, really. They have a brief conversation about whether they should take her too, before one decides that Toji only sold him his kid and to leave the other behind. This makes both of them try to run, but there’s nothing either of them can do to overpower the men, and the men say that “Naobito would go ballistic if they left the ten shadows behind” so they take Megumi and leave her.
They put Megumi in a car and shove Tsumiki to the curb outside of it, and she tried to hold onto his hand, she swears. She grabbed at the car door even when the car started moving, and she banged on the windows, and she watched as Megumi kicked and punched and screamed inside, until one of them hit him and he went still. She ends up falling and hitting her head when the car picks up speed, and when she wakes up again, the cars gone and she has no idea where it went.
And it becomes a foundational moment for who she is. I think she was just intensely lonely before Megumi and poured a lot of herself into this idea of a family together. Tsumikis never able to shake the moment of her being outside the car and Megumi being on the inside, and not being able to get into him. She can never again get what she felt in that moment out of her head.
She goes to the police and tells them that it’s her little brother, his dad sold him but she wants him back, and they’re like “…”. The issue is that apparently her mom can pick up the damn phone if the police call and she shows up, spins some lie about how her and the stepdad split up and he took the kid with him, they never adopted each others kids so it was within his rights, Tsumiki was taking the separation hard and acting out. She lies, basically, because toji hadn’t kept up his end of the deal and dropped in to check in (neither had she) and his kid wasn’t her responsibility, he could do what he wanted with him. She doesn’t want the police poking around the way she lives. Just let the kid go because he’s probably dead and not her real brother anyway.
Tsumiki refuses to give up on him. They were both kids who no one cared about but they cared about each other and that had to be enough. But she’s seven with no support and zero idea on how to find him. She starts skipping school to look for him in random streets, puts up flyers, can’t go outside without looking for him. She gets held back a year in school because of how much she skips and she can’t bring herself to care. She buys him gifts on every birthday and writes him letters she can’t post because she’s going to find her brother and she’s going to prove to him that she never once stopped looking for him. She just. She needs him to know that she never stopped looking for him. She needs to find him and be able to honestly tell him she never stopped trying.
One day her mom comes back in clothes she can’t afford and comes with movers they shouldn’t be able to afford and announces a move they definitely can’t afford. Tsumikis absolutely opposed to going because if her brother comes to look for her, she needs to be in their old apartment so he can find her. She doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. They have mysterious new benefactors who are setting up a trust to take care of tsumiki with a very generous stipend for her mom but they have to move to Sendai as a stipulation of getting the money.
It’s not until the attorney who’s managing her trust hands her a set of glittery blue butterfly hairpins that tsumiki realizes her mom sold her brother a second time.
The thing is that tsumiki had this one cheap set of butterfly hairpins she’d always stopped to look at in the store when she took Megumi to go grocery shopping. Shed never buy them, because they couldn’t afford it, but it was the thing she wanted most openly in front of him. She was always secretly really insecure about her hair, because they were the kind of poor where bar soap was a luxury they could only sometimes afford and kids at school made fun of how her hair was dirty and frayed. Megumi was the only one who ever saw how badly she wanted those stupid hair clips. If they had to give her a set of butterfly hair clips, it’s because he demanded that they did.
It’s basically implied that the Zenin are the ones paying for her care and upkeep due to an unspecified deal they cut with Megumi, but when they approached her mom with it, they added the caveat that Tsumiki had to be moved to a new city entirely and there could be no forwarding address left anywhere.
The zenins stance on tsumiki is, effectively, that she’s a weakness Megumi needs to be weaned off of. They honestly assumed he’d just like, forget she ever existed and he. Did not do that. He actually pitched a total bitch fit. Tried to scale the compound walls. Bit multiple people including the clan leader. But he’s got the ten shadows, he’s heir to the clan, and he can’t be caught up on some random non sorcerer who isn’t even a Zenin. They end up agreeing to pay for her to live very comfortably if he starts cooperating more but they want to make sure that he can’t ever find her again if he does ever succeed in running away.
Tsumiki is at once full of hope and hopeless, because on one hand, the butterfly clips prove that Megumi still loves her and remembers her, at least in her mind. But at the same time, she’s being moved to Sendai and doesn’t know how they’ll ever find each other again. She doesn’t honestly know if they’d recognize each other if they saw each other again. She wears the butterfly clips every day, even when she gets too old for the style, because she’s more confident about her brother recognizing them than her.
The thing about tsumiki is that she doesn’t understand hate. She just doesn’t. Her mom and toji always got caught up in these perceived slights and revenge and never once let go of the past. They’d destroy themselves if it meant taking down the people they hated with them. She never wanted that. She wanted to live with the people she loved and she’d happily turn around and forget everything, all the pain, all the searching, if it just meant she could go back to being megumis sister.
This isn’t about hate. This is about that moment outside the car, where her brother was inside and she couldn’t get in to him. This is about how helpless and small she felt when they shoved her to the curb and ripped megumis hand out of hers. She needs to make sure that when she finds Megumi, she can take him home again. So she decides she needs to learn how to fight.
Itadori Yuuji has the constitution of an ox and the strength to match it, and he is known for getting in fights with bullies and trouncing them so thoroughly that it’s never a question of who wins when the fight starts. He’s insanely physically capable and can hold his own in a fight with ease. He’s also nice and kind and Tsumiki’s comfortable enough asking him to teach her how to throw a punch or two.
She is bad at it.
So fucking bad at it.
But she never gives up, and Itadori is nice enough to keep teaching her despite how embarrassingly horrible she is at it all. He always asks her why she wants to learn so bad, she doesn’t seem to like it all, and she never answers his question honestly.
In their last year of middle school, their class has a trip to Kyoto. She, Itadori, and the rest of their group walk into some random restaurant in the city and have barely sat down when someone comes inside, starts searching every booth in the restaurant while shouting Tsumikis name.
And oh. They could recognize each other after all.
She looked for Megumi in every crowd she was ever in, but she didn’t consider that he was doing the same. Or that he would see her first.
Her brother grew up without her seeing it. Hes older, dressed in strange, expensive clothes, has a slightly bruised up face and split lip, but his eyes are the same, and he looks like the brother she remembered.
But a lot more nervous than Megumi ever was. He was a tiny, stoic child who didn’t take any shit and never showed fear, even when there were monsters that only he could see. But he’s nervous when he tells her that she probably doesn’t recognize him or remember him, but when she was a lot younger, he—
Megumi. He’s her little brother. Of course she remembers him. She’s been looking for him everywhere.
Megumi didn’t smile much as a child, but he smiles at her then. He tells her he doesn’t have a lot of time and she tells him that they can leave out the back, and he never let her hold his hand as a child but he takes her hand so easily in that second. And just for a second, she’s his sister again, and it’s everything she wanted.
They never make it out the back.
Two men come in. Megumi calls one of them uncle, and he goes stiff and flat the second he sees him. His uncle apologizes for his nephew, tells everyone that he always makes scenes when they’re out in public, tells him to apologize to the nice people and leave. Megumi was mistaken.
Tsumiki tríes to keep ahold of his hand. Really, she does. She tries to tell people to call the police. But megumis “uncle” steps towards her and Megumi slams him into a table, and then suddenly Megumi’s the one insisting that they leave immediately. They can go. It’s fine. They’re leaving. She loses ahold of his hand.
She tries to follow, but the other man restrains her. She learns that she’s better at slamming plates into peoples heads than she is at punching, and at this point itadoris Friend In Danger Override has been triggered and he fucking tackles the dude, which gives tsumiki the clearing that she needs to chase outside after her brother. She gets out just in time to see him be pushed into a car, and she’s had years to think about the last time this happened and figure out what to do differently. She throws herself in front of the car and refuses to move.
See her entire stance is that she’ll sooner get run over and killed in the street than let them do this a second time, but she also can see Megumi trying to fucking punch the drivers head in from behind because he’s about to hit his sister. His uncles trying to restrain him, and just for a second, she sees his hands make the shape of the shadow puppets he used to show her as children. Something invisible slams her out of the way just as his uncle knocks him out.
She picks up a rock and tries to smash in the fucking window with it, and itadori has to pull her out of the way to keep her from getting her feet run over when the car finally tears out of the parking lot. She goes ballistic on him for stopping her because her brother was right there and she lost him again and she didn’t even get the license plate. He was right there.
The police basically do jack all again. There’s no license plate, no names they can follow up on, and they’re still half convinced this is a settled custody issue even though tsumiki insists her brother was sold by his dad and is very plainly getting hurt wherever he is. Itadori is now a devoted advocate of finding tsumikis brother and reuniting them, and both basically kind of end up becoming really close to the other? He’s taking care of himself and his grandpa alone, she’s alone while her moms awol again, and they both become the others support system.
At one point, there’s this random girl and boy who doesn’t speak who shows up to their school for indeterminate reasons. The girl is bored and twirling her glasses in one hand while the person in a suit that they’re with asks the principal questions, and when tsumikis eyes catch at the right angle, she sees an invisible monster clinging to a classmates back through them. She realizes it’s exactly what Megumi always talked about and still remembers that the people who took him could see his dogs. She corners the two others in a room and tries to demand information about the invisible monsters or see if they know her brother or the people who took him, and immediately gets blown off. The fight escalates until the girl tells him that actually, yeah. She knows tsumikis brother. He is a very special person to some very powerful people, and the only way she can ever help him is to tell him that she’s let go of him and that he needs to do the same to her. That’s the only message that the people who have him would ever let get through, and his life would get a lot better as soon as he got it.
The people who have him would give him anything in the world, except for her. He could be a lot happier and healthier than he is right now if he just agreed to stop trying to find tsumiki. If she really wants to help her brother, then she needs to let him go.
Tsumiki nails her in the back of the head with a milk carton when she tries to walk away. It sloshes out on her. Tsumiki did not intend this. She cannot admit that fact. There are some actions you just have to own when you do them. She tells the girl that he’s her brother and she’s never letting go of him. She’s going to find him. They can’t keep him from her forever. She doesn’t care how long it takes her.
For a second, tsumiki really thinks this girl is going to kick her ass, but she doesn’t. She wishes her luck and tells her she’ll need it, and it’s only later that tsumiki realizes she slipped the eyeglasses into her pocket.
And as it turns out, her brothers monsters were real all along.
There was a knife that toji left in the frame of his bed. Tsumiki confiscated it from Megumi as soon as he found it, and it was odd and strange and gave her bad feelings when she held it, and it can kill the things that gather on her back. When she follows Itadori to their local high school and joins the occult club in an attempt to find more people involved in this world of invisible monsters, she wears the eyeglasses and keeps the knife hidden in her bag.
It comes in handy when her senpais are trying to open this thing and suddenly there’s like a fucking portal opening and Actually Let’s Not Oh Too Late Let’s Run Let’s Fucking Run.
They run.
Meanwhile at the hospital Megumi found out in very quick succession that his sister has fucking sukunas finger and also that there’s a very over enthusiastic himbo who is the self appointed vice president of the Find Fushiguro Megumi And Bring Him Home Club who absolutely fucking refuses to leave his side. Sorry who are you. Why are you so enthusiastic about finding him. Megumi sort of was the one doing the finding there was a whole tracking situation and him waiting dramatically in the shadows like they just did it.
Anyway they run very very quickly to tsumikis school where she is dodging she is serpentining this is a fuckton of monsters oh holy fuck is that her brother?
The fight goes bad.
Tsumiki manages to follow itadori and her brother out at a much slower pace because she’s not a freak of nature like itadori and shows up just in time to see her brother shouting at itadori to not eat the fucking finger while itadori is absolutely trying to eat the fucking finger.
She chucks her shoe at him. The finger goes flying.
Then the monster eats it instead.
Tsumiki: :o
Yuuji: :o
Megumi: fuck
Now there’s a bigger monster and the fight goes even worse. There’s a lot of shouting. Itadori ends up with her knife. Then he ends up getting eaten and they’re down both a knife and itadori, who’s probably fucking dead. Then megumis insisting she run and she’s insisting he shut the fuck up because it’s sort of taken a decade to get this close to him again and she’s not fumbling the bag now because of a monster on the rampage. Have a sense of fucking priorities here.
Then itadori bursts out of the monsters stomach with the knife like the fucking Kool Aid Man and the fight is suddenly very over. Good job, team.
Gojo rolls up to his most stoic and eternally pissed off student having a dramatic and emotional reunion with his sister.
Yuuji, in a very bad whisper: no no so like she’s been looking for him for years but he saw her in the restaurant
Gojo: :o go on
Yuuji: and then he got caught by like, I don’t know, he said he was his uncle or something but the dude acted so weird and creepy and they put him in a car and Tsumiki tried to stop the car but they got away
Gojo: *gasp* what no
Yuuji: I know! Anyway then I start helping her look for him but we can’t find him anywhere until I’m at the hospital and he just walks up to me right?? And I’m like “dude I have been looking everywhere for you” and he’s like “I have no idea who you are, I’m here about that fucked up demon finger” and I’m like—
Megumi, really trying to have a moment here: we can both hear you
And megumis like “this is uh. My new teacher. I guess. I am his only student. And he is uh. Enthusiastic. Do not linger in conversation with him.”
Tsumiki is lingering. She needs fucking intel so he can’t disappear again. Where does he go to school and can she transfer there. It’s fucking wizard school? Will they take her even though she’s not a wizard? She cannot emphasize enough that she will study any fucking subject they want so that way she can be close with her brother again she does not care if it’s applicable to her education or life. She can throw things at people itadori tell the man tell him how enthusiastically she will throw things at monsters for their weird fucking wizard school.
Itadori: she hit me in the face with her shoe like five minutes ago
Tsumiki: see???
Megumi keeps trying to forbid her from wizard school but she’s technically the older sister so she has override rights. She will go to wizard school. How does she get wizard school to accept her.
And Gojos just really weird and off and keeps looking at Megumi and saying that he “didn’t know he had a sister.”
He really didn’t know that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with.
And then suddenly it’s like a switch is flipped and he’s back to his normal self telling them to leave everything to him, because he’ll make sure tsumiki can come back with them. And uh? Itadori? Weirdly physically capable kid who will apparently eat anything? Is he going to be good getting home after all this?
Itadori: actually if it’s not too much trouble can I go to wizard school too my grandpa sort of died half an hour ago and I don’t have plans for the rest of my life. Tsumikis kind of my best friend and I’d like to make sure she’s all good at wizard school. I’m a really good fighter and I stabbed the last monster so like can I come too because you know. Dead grandpa. No family or future to speak of. Haha.
Gojo:
Megumi:
Tsumiki, softly: dude
There’s more after they make it to jujutsu high but this is already really long so we leave it here
#ask games#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#continuing my streak of becoming obsessed with minor background characters#other highlights include itadori trying to platonically wingman for tsumiki with her brother (because it’s been like a decade and she knows#nothing about him and he knows nothing about her and she’s terrified he won’t like her once they get to know each other again) so that way#itadori can be the one asking the get to know you questions and tsumiki doesn’t have to admit out loud that she and her brother know nothing#about each other only the inherent problem is that her brother is actually unfairly pretty and has a sort of dry wit and is reserved but#when you get to know him he’s such a genuine dude and oh fuck oh no he’s in trouble this is his best friends long lost brother he has to be#violating some kind of code here. Kugisaki stop laughing at him this is a crisis.#gojo basically backed out of teenage fatherhood when he saw Megumi walking around with the divine dogs because it’s one thing to butt heads#with a major clan over an outcast member it’s another to do it for their most sacred technique#he thought that Megumi would be better taken care of than anyone else in the clan as the person with the ten shadows and that he’d probably#be better off than with an emotionally broken seventeen year old who works at least 28 days a month and has no idea how to raise a child#he never realized that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with who the Zenin separated him from#he tells himself he would have intervened if he had known because he’s been secretly worried and guilty about not taking in Megumi after all#since Maki showed up and said some worrying things about the clan heir and his standard of living and got the confirmation when he met#tsumiki and realized that he could have kept them together all those years ago and didnt. megumi and tsumiki kind of haunt him with lost#potential because not only could they have grown up a family but they could have grown up his family. megumi doesn’t know why satoru gojo#of all people is being so weirdly helpful and intense about about sponsoring tsumiki and keeping her close to him
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musette22 · 4 years
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Fanfic Writers Tag Game
I was tagged by @hbalbat and @ixalit in this lovely fanfiction tag game that was devised by the clearly very brilliant @thewaythatwerust, to discuss some of the fics I’ve written over time! Thanks so much, guys! 💖 
I have no idea who has already done this, but I’ll go ahead and tag @paper-storm, @luninosity, @wintersoldier1989​, @bluesimplicity73, @howdoyousleep3, @wayward-lives, @trekchik​ and please feel totally free to ignore! <3
Which of your fics…
* Did you think would get a bigger reaction/audience than it got:
Hmm, maybe Body Politics? Generally speaking I think RPF AUs attract more readers than non-AU, and since everyone adores Political Daddy Chris, I figured this one could’ve done a little but better? Especially since I really like it myself (but then of course, that’s often how it goes isn’t it 😅)
* Got a better reaction than you expected:
Basically all of them! I never in a million years imagined that people would actually enjoy my writing, so every time I get a kudo on a fic I’m like “what, for real??” 🥰 But if I have to pic one, I guess From Brooklyn, With Love, since I wrote that one in one morning while at work and it did pretty well lol. Oh, and also my CAPBB fic from last year, Rare Is This Love (Keep It Covered), because I still can’t believe it did so well alongside the amazing fics from all the amazing authors who also participated in that bang.
* Is your funniest:
You Make My Heart Skip A Beet, I think. I’ve definitely gotten the most comments of people saying it cracked them up on that one! Or alternatively You lift my fucking spirits, bro, although that one is just a drabble. Still thinking of turning it into a proper fic at some point...
* Is your darkest/angstiest:
LOL none of them are particularly angsty. I’m not great with writing angst 😅 But for Stucky, it would probably be Rare Is This Love again, and for Evanstan maybe Closer? Yeah, I think so.
* Is your absolute favourite:
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Ugh okay, if I *have* to answer this one, I’ll say it’s There is a Tavern in the Town, because that one allowed me to combine my love for Evanstan and Stucky and it’s not perfect, but it’s very close to my heart. Oh, and also I Really Can't Stay (Baby, It's Cold Outside) because I LOVE co-authoring with my gorgeous wife @paper-storm and I still feel all warm and fuzzy inside whenever I think about this fic 🥰
Honourable mention for Reckless Serenade, since it’s the filthiest thing I’ve ever written and I love it. 
* Is your least favourite:
That’s hard, too lol. I guess maybe Café Rouge, not because I dislike the fic but because it’s Peggy/Angie and I wrote it for a femslash challenge, but I don’t really ship it? Or, I mean, I ship it, but not in the same way I ship Stucky and Evanstan, you know?
* Was the easiest to write:
I guess maybe Strawberries & Cream or Diving In The Deep End, both of which I wrote really quickly because I just had to get those little scenes I had stuck in my head down onto paper!
* Was the hardest to write:
Probably also Café Rouge, because I wasn’t as driven by my passion for the ship as I normally am! That, or Rare Is This Love (again) because I really struggled to make the deadline on that one and that was not fun 😂 
* Have you re-read the most:
That would be my fist ever fic, I've done some things that I shouldn't have done (but I haven't stopped loving you once), because I was terrified it was rubbish and I kept re-reading it to see if I could improve it hahaha. Also (If Paradise Is) Half as Nice, because I think it’s hawt.
* Would you recommend to someone reading your work for the first time:
I did actually recommend There is a Tavern in the Town to one of my uni friends when she found out I wrote fanfiction and wanted to read some of it. In hindsight, maybe I’d recommend Maybe Baby (I'll Have You) now, because that one is non-RPF, more or less PG and kind of cute haha.
* Are you most proud of:
I think I Spy With My Little Eye, just because SO many people have told me how much they love it, and that’s kind of what you write for, isn’t it? And I don’t mean validation necessarily (although that is GREAT lol), but to give other people something they enjoy! 💗
* Has your favourite line/exchange/paragraph (share it):
Finding a favourite bit was literally impossible because all it did was remind me that I’m not all that good at writing 😂 However, I really like this scene from Closer, because I love how happy Sebastian is, and how fond Chris is, and how effortlessly these boys can laugh together, even during the most serious, heartfelt of moments. Since it’s a bit long-ish, I’ll put it under the cut!
*********
Sebastian blinks at Chris a few times, then suddenly sits up straight, grabbing Chris’s hand and prying open his fingers.
There they are. Two rings. That really happened.
His eyes snap back up to Chris’s face, wide and stunned. “You- had these made?”
Chris smiles at him indulgently. “Yes.”
“For us?”
“Yes.”
When the meaning of the gesture finally sinks in, a wave of pure, unadulterated happiness rises up in Sebastian’s chest so fast and fierce and unstoppable that it makes him feel lightheaded again – thought this time for an entirely different reason. He claps a hand over his mouth in a failed attempt to stifle the burst of laughter that escapes past his lips.
“Are you… laughing at me?” Chris asks, narrowing his eyes in suspicion, but he mostly seems amused.
Sebastian’s eyes grow even wider. “No,” he says firmly. “Fuck, Chris, I’m sorry.” He barks out another joyful laugh, unable to stop now that he’s started. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I swear,” he hiccups, shaking his head from side to side and smiling like a lunatic. “I’m just so fuckin’ happy.”
“Oh, thank god,” Chris exclaims dramatically, slapping a hand over his heart. “So in that case, d’you think there’s any chance I could maybe get an answer at some point?” He pulls a face. “I mean, it may have escaped your notice, but I actually just made a heartfelt speech, declaring my undying love for you and asking you to be mine forever. But, you know, I can see how you could’ve missed that bit, it’s not like I poured my heart and soul into–”
Sebastian surges forward and cuts off Chris’s rambling by catching his still moving lips in a searing kiss.
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almaasi · 4 years
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yoooooooooo, I’m in need of a beta (or betas) for my Garak/Bashir fics since all my usual proofreaders are busy.
summaries/warnings for 4 completed fics are listed under the cut. total word count is 111k+. all are rated ‘explicit’ except for one ‘mature’.
my previous fics are here if you want to know how I write.
preferably I’m looking for someone who can beta all of them, and more fics that come after this, but anyone who can do a one-off is cool too. I definitely want someone who’s good at suggesting things in the name of intersectional feminism and reader sensitivity! or just questioning things and commenting in general. catching typos or confusing sentences would be a huge bonus but that’s not my priority~
please share this with people you think might be interested!!!
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fics listed longest first, not necessarily the ideal posting order. some of these have been lightly or partially beta’d already.
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1. The Wolf Who Cried Doctor
Elim Garak/Julian Bashir, Julian Bashir & Ezri Dax
55k, Explicit
Garak is certain: any day now, Julian will discover that the most frequent visitor to DS9’s Infirmary has been going out of his way to fake, cause, and invite harm unto himself in order to gain his dear doctor’s attention. Garak cheerfully tells his lies with just enough variation to remain interesting, but remains afraid that one day Julian won’t believe him when there’s really something wrong.
But Julian is already aware there’s a problem. And the best treatment for an acute case of touch-starved loneliness, he believes, is to provide Garak with as much physical affection and emotional care as possible. It’s not like Julian couldn’t do with some company himself, given how his relationship with Ezri has been fraying.
But neither Julian nor Garak envisioned what could come of it all. Neither of them ever prepared for bliss.
(A post-canon fic where Garak comes back to DS9 and feelings happen.)
Tags: non-endgame pairing:, Julian Bashir/Ezri Dax, side pairings: Ezri Dax/Kira Nerys, Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Happy Ending, Angst, Self-Harm, Depression, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, (Julian and Garak), Lovers to Friends, (Julian and Ezri), Sharing a Bed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Massage, Holding Hands, First Kiss, Touch-Starved Elim Garak, Lonely Elim Garak, Jealous Elim Garak, Garak is the quadrant’s most melodramatic drama queen, Lonely Julian Bashir, Bisexual Julian Bashir, Julian’s Foot Fetish, Ezri Ships It, Supportive Ezri Dax, Matchmaker Ezri Dax, Love Triangle, except it’s a tangle of lines, Polyamory, Communication is Hard but Vital, Replicator Malfunctions, Space Station Antics, First Time, Bottom Julian Bashir, Top Elim Garak
Warnings: Garak self-harms (nothing gory or graphic - just hot tea + gravity, improper handling of sewing tools, baiting others to use brute force, purposefully ingesting questionable foodstuffs; scars from past cutting) - but for most of the story he doesn’t think his actions are troublesome, merely viewing self-harm as a means to an end to acquire the physical comfort and emotional attention that he craves from Julian. (Disclaimer: I’m aware this is not the only reason real people might self-harm, but it’s Garak’s reason.)
Unspecific suicidal ideation (Julian tells Garak off and Garak’s like “welp! guess I’ll die now”). Both Garak and Julian are wildly depressed and lonely - and I swear that Ezri, the O’Briens, and I are trying our darnedest to rescue them, but they both have a tendency to spiral into a vortex of doom without talking to anyone about it, so it’s not the easiest thing to do. >:|
Foot fetish is mild but... y’know, present. (Oh, Julian.)
Regarding polyamory/love triangle tags (spoilers ahead!): Julian loves Ezri A LOT but doesn’t realise it’s in a platonic friendship way, and privately ties himself in knots over not being sexually or romantically attracted to her anymore (if he ever was to begin with). Much panicking about unintentional cheating happens, because he’s accidentally in love with Garak while dating Ezri - except (more spoilers) Ezri is trying to set him up with Garak anyway. Ezri is totally poly and way more chill than 99% of people would be in her position. Past Kira/Keiko/Miles.
Special note I mentioned to current betas: you should probably know that i feel some sort of divided way about how ezri is SO accepting of julian's disaster sexuality, because a) i've never once seen any character react like that, ever, in anything fictional or real (potentially bc of lack of bi and poly rep), and b) her reactions are based on how i would react in her place??? (note that i'm aro, ace, and bi, (well that's simplified) so if i was in a relationship with julian it would definitely be platonic but me being madly attracted to him despite that) so it's like... really personal but also i'm worried nobody would relate and would say i made her a pushover. so any pointers you have there would be lovely <3
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2. Runabout Rollabout
Elim Garak/Julian Bashir
23.5k, Explicit
Julian Bashir, Elim Garak, Keiko O’Brien, Kasidy Yates, Kira Nerys, Ezri Dax (mentioned)
Eight months after the war ends, Julian invites Garak on a pollen-harvesting trip to Bajor. Distracted by the delight of seeing his friend after so long, Garak gets himself blasted with hormone-altering pollen, and is forced to ride out the repercussions on the runabout journey back to DS9. Symptoms include mood swings, unusual food cravings, and an urgent need for emotional assurance and physical contact. Julian is glad to offer relief, in whatever manner Garak requires. Even in the most intimate of ways...
Secretly, they both hope their brief affair in the runabout’s bottom bunk will lead to something more. But how could it, when duty forever trumps desire?
Tags: Post-Canon, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Porn With Plot, Mutual Pining, Sex Pollen, Mood Swings, Hormones, Cuddling & Snuggling, Public Display of Affection, Smut, Explicit Consent, First Kiss, Caring Julian Bashir, Hormonal Elim Garak, Horny Elim Garak, First Time, Anal Sex, Top Elim Garak, Bottom Julian Bashir, but they do switch briefly, Post-Canon Bajor, Post-Canon Cardassia, Illustrated
Notes: FYI, Julian and Ezri are no longer a couple. How that happened is discussed late in the fic, but Garak thinks they’re still dating when he and Julian sleep together for medical reasons. (Julian is NOT cheating, but Garak guiltily believes he is.)
This one’s probably an easy edit tbh. But I’m still questioning that ^ Garak-thinks-Julian-seeing-Ezri thing, so anyone who can tell me if it feels right, if I need to edit it, or if I should take it out, would be great.
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3. Tail Over Heels
Elim Garak/Julian Bashir
Julian Bashir, Elim Garak, Amsha Bashir, Benjamin Sisko, Ezri Dax, Miles O’Brien, Kira Nerys, and everyone else
19.9k, Mature
Despite every attempt to deter her, Julian’s mother is coming to DS9. Here’s the problem: Julian told her he was married, and he’s not. Here’s the solution: Garak stands in as Julian’s husband. She’s meant to hate him. But Garak is just too damn likable - and a liiiittle too convincing in the role of Julian’s lover. Not only does his mother believe the lie, but so does everyone else on the station. Even Julian himself is starting to wonder...
Tags: Romance, Fluff, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mistaken For A Couple, Moving In Together, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Holding Hands, Eavesdropping, Bickering, Cardassian Flirting, First Kiss, First Time, Garak has a tail, Slightly Alternate Canon, set mid season 7, or an alternate post-canon where nobody leaves
Note: This one’s the oldest and closest to being publishable, and already illustrated and lightly beta’d, so this will likely post first, before the end of March 2020. But it definitely needs another going-over.
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4. Code for Consent
Elim Garak/Julian Bashir
13k, Explicit
Julian Bashir, Elim Garak, Miles O’Brien, Keiko O’Brien
With Miles away, Julian needs someone else to play the evil villain in his secret agent holosuite program. Garak steps up. But tying Julian to a bedpost and fake-torturing him turns out to be an accidental turn-on for both of them. Julian doesn’t want to break character, so allows Garak to escalate his erotic domination towards the point of no return - yet Garak won’t go any further with their roleplay without clear consent. Now Julian has to figure out a way to show Garak he wants him without saying it outright. (But then again, maybe saying it matters.)
Tags: Smut, Romance, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Holodecks/Holosuites, Roleplay, Cardassian Flirting, Accidental Stimulation, Light Bondage, Choking, Light Knifeplay, Consensual Non-Consent, Rape Roleplay, (foreplay only) - soon followed by:, Explicit Consent, Holding Hands, Making Love, Schmoop, Top Elim Garak, Bottom Julian Bashir, set late season 6
Note: Nobody’s read this yet so idk how it comes across to other people, which worries me. Something about it doesn’t sit right with me but I can’t figure it out and need help with that :/
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If you’re interested in helping, please submit me a tumblr message at https://almaasi.tumblr.com/submit with your name, pronouns, a statement of your interest and email address (gmail preferred) so I can add you to google docs if I pick you c:
(also maybe a timeframe of when you’d be able to beta. starting any time in the next couple of weeks is fine.)
(disclaimer to people with anxiety: I welcome anyone <3 if you want to say hi, PLEASE DO. I reserve the right not to pick you for any number of secret reasons, and I might not reply quickly, or at all, because I have chronic fatigue and messages are A Lot for me, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like you or you did something wrong!! promise.)
14 notes · View notes
kinktae · 4 years
Note
The penultimate part🥺 I’m not ready to say goodbye, Bitchin!Jungkook has definitely been one of my fav characterizations of him that I’ve ever read. Thank you so much for sharing your work with all of us💖
bitchin 9 asks bc i suck
sapphireprinces5 said: bitchin’ pt9 was just so beautiful?? the way you explained the emotions and interactions between the characters was just amazing!! I felt myself hanging on every word wow excited for the end but will miss bitchin’ so much 🤧
Anonymous said: TAEHYUNG AND YARA SIGN ME UP GURL!!!!
Anonymous said: Like I just feel like if Jk really liked y/n he wouldn’t have slept with Kiri, you know? It shouldn’t matter that he didn’t know how y/n felt. And it’s obvious that he has feelings for y/n so I just hope that’s something y/n addresses when she talks to him. Don’t settle for less girl! Get you a man who will fight for you regardless 👏 (btw this is not me criticizing how you wrote it in any way! I’m just so invested in the characters and am thinking about how I would feel in this scenario :) )
Anonymous said: I KNEW SOMETHING WAS GONNA HAPPEN WITH YARA AND TAE I FELT IT SO DEEP IN MY BONES IM SO HAPPY FOR THEM 😭😭😭
Anonymous said: Hi! I just binge read bitchin in a day and can I just say that I loved it! I really love the female characters as well, you’ve written them so beautifully 🥺 if I was y/n I wouldn’t be concerned so much about Jk not sleeping with Kiri if he knew the way y/n felt, but rather the fact that if Jk didn’t want to sleep with Kiri, he wouldn’t have, regardless of y/n’s feelings or not. IMO y/n’s feelings shouldn’t be the issue here, but Jk’s should! If I was y/n’s bff that’s what I would tell her LOL
Anonymous said: OH MY GOODNESS! YES !!!! YESSSSS Y.E.S Muchas graciaaaas!!!
Anonymous said: tae and yara are my new ship)
unknowntalesx said: okay but like tae and yara thooO they got me all smiley being like oh yeah bayyybeEE das what im talking about 😏 ALSO OKAY NOW THAT I AM MORE LUCID KIRI GOT FUCKING WRECKED I LOVED THAT SHE GOT A DOSE OF HER OWN MANIPULATIVE MEDICINE I AM 😤😤😤😤😤
Anonymous said: im not ready for bitchin to end )):
Anonymous said: I SCREAMED WHEN Y/N TOLD KIRI THE TRUTH. YES QUEEN. STAB AND TWIST THE KNIFE!
Anonymous said: ROSE AHHSHSJSKSD FUCK U I’m all hot and bothered with anticipation for pt 10 now 😩😩😩🥵
sydney--chan said: We really stan y/n for using her big ol brain to rock kiris world oh my god I yelled also I say what's your damage all the time bring that shit back
Anonymous said: a tae x yara spin off series or one shot...... haha jk..... unless..... 👀
Anonymous said: Fuck kiri's scheming ass. I'm glad YN ripped her a new one
Anonymous said: AAHHHHHH once again, I love this chapter so much!!!! I was screaming at Yara and Tae part. Seriously!!!! I am SURE she felt that spark when he kissed her. Is she going to be the one falling for the guy while he wants something casual now? Or maybe Tae will fall for her as well? Ahhhh so cute! I feel like that would be a nice spin off yk (no pressure, I swear). And Erik, woah I didn't expect him to be like that. To be so nice and wise. Great character development indeed! It was really nice (1/2)
Anonymous said: To see their interaction and the way he opened her eyes (for some reason I couldn't help but picture him as Namjoon). Ohhh the Kiri part tho!!!! I felt really petty but in the best way lol. Anywaysss I am really excited for the last chapter (really sad too) and I am sure it is going to be the best because you are a genius! Thank you for sharing another amazing chapter with us! ♥♥♥ (2/2)
Anonymous said: OKAY I absolutely adored Bitchin part 9 😻 I always thought that it was also OC fault for what happened between her and jk, he obviously was the main jerk but she never actually admitted her feelings to him and he doesn't read minds so??¿¿? Really loved that she came to understand it. And I was rooting SO MUCH for yara and tae MAN I AM CRYING THEY DESERVE IT 🙌🏻
Anonymous said: you came through with the tae x yara content we all needed omg thank you!! if anyone’s gonna make yara fall in love it’s tae lol
Anonymous said: I honestly lowkey hate bitchin’ jungkook right now. I thought I’d get over it but I just can’t imagine how hurt and disgusted Y/N was when she found out that jk and kiri were together just hours before they were like ugh. It doesn’t help that I’m also really interested in Erik’s character development now so it would’ve been really interesting to see how he’d fit in Y/N’s life. 🥺
Anonymous said: jungkook and y/n wANT what yara and tae have
Anonymous said: TAEYARA YES FINALLY OUR WISHES HAVE BEEN ANSWERED 😍😍
Anonymous said: just want to let you know you’re an absolute angel and all you create is nothing short of perfection. *sends you all of the love*
spring2787 said: I jus came from a 4 hour long class and it's finally here... Thank you so much dear 🎂 💜
Anonymous said: Is yara me ? Like when she said that boy act like they understand the no string involved but then fall in love , dude I felt that , that's literally the story of my life lmaoooo Like the number of time a dude told me yeah I'm okay with that and then acted shocked when I told him I didn't feel anything for him is impressive lmaoo Anyway I'm so eager for the last chapter!!!! you did an amazing job!!
kuhweenbri said: The way I already finished but anyways girl I absolutely loved this part and now I’m excited for the next part 😭😭 will we be seeing more of T-ara??
Anonymous said: OMG YARA AND TAEEEEEEEEE. NOW I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEANT BY FANSERVICE. JSJSJSJJSBXBSBSB But on a serious note, this fic just keeps on getting better. The fact that there's only one chapter left still hasn't come home to me 😭 but thank you so much for blessing us with this!💜💜
Anonymous said: YO! bitchin is flippin brilliant! you have done so well! jungkook broke my heart in part 9! im emotional but also so ready for part 10! please take your time. have a lovely day
Anonymous said: i don’t normally talk to writers on here but bitchin is really bitchin, i haven’t read a fanfic in so long that makes me excited to read the next part and maybe it’s because i’m so used to all of the aus being recycled but bitchin is truly a breathe of fresh air to me for some reason, maybe because you fleshed out the right hand mans for both characters idk or the it being a different time period, but i just wanted to say you are smashing bitchin dude and i love it!!
shy-kpop-girl said: BITCHIN': I just caught up on 8 & 9. Shocked & angry at JK. Because regardless of whether he knew y/n' feelings it was a dick move to sleep with Kiri one night and y/n the next morning. And it wasn't like he came over to talk/tell y/n about Kiri & things escalated because he went right at it as soon as she let him in. Even tho it was hot. 😳 But Erik. I wanted to hate him but dude surprised me with his reasoning. I loved that dialogue! Once again your writing is amazing & I love this story!
Anonymous said: Bitchin is the best fanfic on tumblr. And no one can change my mind. You’re doing amazing!! Much love xoxo
Anonymous said: “Think of life as one big puzzle and everyone you meet is shaped differently, right? Yet somehow… they fit. We find those that complete us. And they’re not necessarily opposites but—“ MAAM that part hit SOOO different omg your brain!?! Outta this world! Like this is whole ass literature!!!! I stg Bitchin’ is the best thing on this app and I meant that w my whole chest.
Anonymous said: I'm not ready for Bitchin to end. It's soooooo good 😍😍😍
kmultifandom said: Since there's a cast for bitchin I wanna audition for y/n because i wanna be a biologist and I have some similar personality traits *mic drop* Also great work, I seriously love it. No other fan fiction I have read was so close to my actual self and that impresses me even more and make it like it 10 times more djksksks
Anonymous said: how will I live when bitchin ends agghhh I haven’t even read 8-9 cause I’m waiting for the happy ending before I’m heartbroken and left waiting for the last part
Anonymous said: you know what would be super fun and crazy 😛😛🙈🙈 if you dropped bitchin’ pt 10 right now 😳😳 haha just kidding .... unless 😏😏
Anonymous said: lets gooooo!!!!!!!!!!! bitchin pt 10 better haunt me for the rest of the year
Anonymous said: I feel like I’m going to get so emotional once Bitchin’ part 10 is released. It’s like I’m sending off my non-existing kids to university because I won’t be able to see Bitchin!Jungkook anymore 🥺
Anonymous said: I can’t believe Bitchin’ is for real ending 😩 it’s soo gud 
Anonymous said: Can’t wait till bitchin PART 10 Probably gonna fall asleep before u post but I’ll try to stay up for it 🥺
Anonymous said: i love your writing honestly and i just really want you to be happy. your writing is immaculate and i really want you to know that you are talented and skilled so yeah. sorry if this is out of nowhere but i just really want to show appreciation to writers because they don't get enough and you are definitely my favorite writer:)) hope you have a good day!!
Anonymous said: okay but if Bitchin' goes on for 50 chapters that would be good too.. just sayin'.
tpo-quinn said: Bruh, I can already feel that I'm gonna cry from the last chapter of bitchin'...I CAN'T WAIT!
leojjeon said: so i've re-read bitchin ready for chapter 10 an I am feeling all sorts of emotions. it's fair to say it's my favourite series I've read!
Anonymous said: y did i forget bitchin would have an end like 😳😐we’ve been on this bitchin journey w u for so long i’m sad it’s over
Anonymous said: What what what?? Bitchin is ending??!!! Didnt it just fucking start like all the drama and tae&yara!!!! Omg girl!!!
Anonymous said: ur the absolute fucking GODDESS of writing angst, ive never ever waited for a ff to be updated before as if it was a new episode of my fav show coming out. thank u for writing and be so active, muah ur amazing
Anonymous said: a moment of silence for our loved bitchin who will die soon 😔 gone but not forgotten, she will always be in our hearts. all the best rides come to an end 😭
11 notes · View notes
pumpkins-s · 6 years
Text
Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker
Read On AO3 Here
When Pidge is offered the spot as communications officer for the Kerberos Mission, to accompany her father, and her friend and former classmate Shiro, she’s expecting eight months of quiet, beautiful cosmos, ice samples, and—if she’s lucky—some broadcast signals to support her alien life theories.
She is not expecting to end up the prisoner of a fascistic race of alien cat-lizards hellbent on apparently reenacting the ugliest parts of the Roman empire, down to the massive enslavement and expansion effort and the gladiators as entertainment shtick.
But, if she’s going down, she figures she might as well go down swinging.
(Or, in which Pidge is the third Kerberos member, is decidedly not a damsel in distress who needs protection—thank you very much Shiro—is very much done with this crap, and fully intends to make it home to her little brother, no matter what it takes.)
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Relationships: platonic Pidge & Shiro, Pidge & Matt, Pidge & Sam Holt
Characters: Pidge, Shiro, Sam Holt, Matt Holt, Thace, Ulaz
Rating + Warnings: Rated Teen; trigger warnings include graphic violence, blood, combat, murder, and systematic transphobia on the part of the Galra. I recommend checking AO3, or in my author’s notes under the cut, for a more extensive list.
Stormbreaker was written for the @pidgebigbang, and is accompanied by art from @anime7otaku7artist7. 
Chapter 1: Willow
((Author’s Note: 
Hello, hello! Welcome to Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker, my fic for the Pidge Big Bang. Developing the concept and storyline for this fic was the work of months (even if I wrote 90% of it in the last two weeks before it was due shhhh), and I'm so pleased to finally be able to share it. I love Pidge and the friendship she holds with Shiro, and I really wanted a chance to explore that in a setting where they were closer to being peers, as well as what her relationship to Matt would be like if she were the older sibling, and hence that (+ my desire to just see Pidge kicking ass as a gladiator) is how Stormbreaker was born.
As always, music played a big part in my writing, and I'd like to take a moment to credit that: I wrote and outlined this fic largely to the work of Barns Courtney and Florence + The Machine, particularly his  The Attractions of Youth album and her How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album, respectively, and the influence of both is definitely there in how the story turned out. The title of this fic was chosen as a nod to two songs that pushed the concept and development of Stormbreaker by leaps and bounds. Of Monster And Men's Winter Sound, and Florence + The Machine's My Boy Builds Coffins. And of course, I can't not mention the song that played the original inspiration for this fic: No Doubt's Just A Girl.
For your listening enjoyment while you read, there's also an actual playlist for this fic (with more than just those previously mentioned couple of artists in it, promise). You can find the tumblr post for it here, with art by the wonderful corpus--corvus, or jump straight to the Spotify or Youtube link.
Before you read, a final warning for the content -- this is a gladiator fic, boys & girls & nonbinary pals. That means violence, blood, injury (Shiro's probably an obvious indication but people do lose limbs), fight to the death scenarios, and murder. People die in this story, and not all of them necessarily deserve it, though rest assured Pidge and Shiro themselves stay (relatively) intact. There's also the presence of underage drinking in a flashback scene, some mentions of the sexual abuse and forced prostitution of slaves within the Empire, and swearing. So much fucking swearing. Additionally, while all relationships are written to be strictly platonic, Shiro and Pidge's longer friendship and view of each other as closer to peers does mean their friendship has an emotional intimacy that wouldn't necessarily be seen in their canon counterparts. They lean on each other for support, quite literally, so if any of that would be a personal squick to you for whatever reason, please look away now.
That's about it! Enormous thanks to the Pidge Big Bang mods for putting this all together, and to my artist, anime7otaku7artist7, for their phenomenal work. Their art is embedded in the story, and you can also find a link to it here.
Stormbreaker is split into eight sections, with the entirety already written out pre posting. Chapters range from about 4-10 thousand words, with the first one being the shortest. It will update every day until its completion (so long as everything with editing and posting goes smoothly on my end, at least. Here's hoping). Enjoy!))
(( Author’s Note [Cont.]:
Willow: Forsaken
The gorgeous title art opening this chapter, while not provided by my official artist for the Pidge Big Bang, is provided by the wonderful corpus--corvus, who put up with months of my ranting about Stormbreaker!Pidge, and generously provided me with both this title art, and coverart for this fic's playlist. Thank you Logan you're a peach.))
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Oh I'm just a girl, living in captivity
Your rule of thumb
Make me worry some
Oh I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?
- "Just a Girl", No Doubt
“Careful,” is the first thing Pidge’s father says to her, and she sighs, blowing errant bangs out of her eyes—she knew she should have pinned them back when they were suiting up—as she steadies her arms and inches the ice sample out of the extraction drill.
“Yeah, Pidge, careful,” Shiro says with a grin she can only classify as shit-eating, leaning over the back of the drill with his forearms resting on top.
“I am careful,” she snaps, fully removing the sample and hefting it between her arms. The weight is less than that of Earthen ice of the same mass—which is expected, given the gravity on Kerberos is much lesser than that on Earth. It’s a lucky thing their suits are specially designed and weighted to model Earth’s gravity on their interior, Pidge wouldn’t want to be hopping and stumbling around like the astronauts of her grandparents’ generation.
She hands the sample over to her father carefully, his eyes bright as he studies it. “Extraordinary.”
Pidge glances over at Shiro, who is doing his best to look anything more than politely interested, and smirks. “What? Not impressed?”
Shiro looks down at her, and shrugs ungainly against the bulk of his suit. “You guys get…a little more excited about ice samples than I do. I understand their value, but it’s not exactly my area.”
“Yeah, yeah, motorboy.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “I get it, you’re only interested in things with an engine and that go really fast.”
“That’s—“ Shiro makes a face. “Ok, that’s only partially true. I also like…uh…” He trails off, brows furrowed, and Pidge grins. “…What do I like?” he finally asks, looking to Pidge in askance.
“Uh. Reading? Fixing Keith’s bike?” Pidge counts off on her fingers, squinting down at them. “That’s…you’re really bad at having non-work-related hobbies, dude.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Oh! Me!” Pidge holds up a third finger triumphantly. “You like me!”
Shiro groans. “You’re my best friend, that’s a given—“
“You know what I like?” Pidge says, and then continues on before Shiro has the chance to respond. “I’ll tell you what I like. Motherfucking aliens, that’s what I like, Shiro.”
“And here we go again—“
“And that—“ Pidge points at the ice sample, “could be the key to finally proving their existence, right Dad?”
“Well,” her father says, looking quietly amused as he shifts the sample in his hands. “We certainly can’t rule anything out, all the way out here. And I’d hardly complain if one of these ice samples wanted to come along and solve my life’s—“ There’s a rumble all around them, rock vibrating slightly beneath their feet, and he pauses. “…What was that?”
“Earthquake?” Pidge asks as another rumble starts up, stronger than the last.
“Kerberos-quake?” Shiro mutters behind her, and she turns to tell him just how terrible that was, before the strongest shake yet occurs, throwing her off balance, and she yelps, falling forward.
“Pidge!” She catches herself on Shiro’s outstretched arm. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She shakes her head, trying to dispel the hair blocking her vision and the vague sense of dizziness she feels. “We should get back to the—“ She stops, caught up in the feeling of something suddenly here, large and looming and right behind her, and slowly turns around as a ship comes into view.
For once, all her knowledge—all her calculations, her observations, her vast vocabulary, abandon her, and she is left with one thought, and one thought only.
That isn’t one of their ships.
“It can’t be…” She hears her father say, but it’s distant, muffled, as if he was underwater, and then all she can focus on is Shiro grabbing desperately at her arm, yanking her along.
“Run. Run!”
She runs.
It’s a rush of sudden sound, sudden movement that seems at odds with the serene stillness expected of space. All she can hear is the roaring noise of whatever is behind them, Shiro’s shouts, her own heavy breathing as she stumbles along in her suit, the previously steadying weight suddenly cumbersome.
There’s a sudden pull behind them, around them, everything lit up purple, and Pidge screams as her feet suddenly leave the ground, flying up into the void of black above them. She hears both of the others yell her name, and she reaches out blindly for something, anything—her father’s blurry form, the outstretched hand she knows is Shiro’s, only to find nothing.
Tractor beam, a detached, scientific part of her mind supplies for her. I’m the smallest, so it’s natural I’d be the first picked up.
Sure enough, one of them—she thinks her father—flies up a moment after, Shiro caught up off the ground last.
They’re both shouting in panic, and Pidge thinks she should be screaming, too. Might already be screaming, or perhaps she’s forgotten to altogether, it’s impossible to tell, right now. She is not in control of the motion of her own body, of her senses.
Debris off the ground, caught up in the beam with them, catches on the side of Shiro’s helmet, scraping along, and she can only pray it hasn’t knocked it loose, hasn’t stolen his oxygen, before another rock slams into her own head.
The last thing she hears as it all goes black is the sound of her own voice tapering off, dying in her throat like a person hanged, condemned and left to die.
…Oh, so she had been screaming.
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The night Shiro gets offered the position of pilot for the Kerberos mission, Pidge drags him out drinking.
“Shots!” she announces loudly, placing them down on the bar, and Shiro winces. He’s the one person she knows who gets a headache just from being in a bar. Normally, Pidge would have sympathy, as prone to migraines brought on from stress and lack of sleep as she is, but over time she’s come to accept this is an inevitability of taking Shiro out anywhere fun that isn’t space or flight themed. Luckily, the more alcohol Shiro gets in him, the more he seems to forget about his headache, or his apathy towards bars in general—enough to be willing to repeat the same cycle of misery, ecstasy, and then mild hangovers, occasionally, every few weeks, at least.
“What are those?” He picks one up cautiously, sniffing at it. “Whiskey?”
“Mhmm,” Pidge hums happily, sliding into the stool next to his. “Good brand, too.”
“I think I’ll just order one of those fruity cocktails,” Shiro says with an air of quiet distaste, sliding the shot glass back across to Pidge.
“Weak.” She downs them both, hers first and then Shiro’s, slamming the second empty glass down to the background of his horrified face.
“I don’t know how you do that,” he says, and she sticks her tongue out at him.
Drinking is just one of the many things they do together, but in very different ways. Shiro—perhaps still trying to live down the keg-stand days of his barely-twenties that Pidge remembers sneaking into at seventeen or so all too fondly—doesn’t like anything strong, anything that leaves too much of a burn behind. He finds his preferences in what is sweet, where the alcohol is masked by some more agreeable mix-in.
Pidge, meanwhile, relishes the burn. Chases the chemistry reacting in her own body, the poison her brain somehow just barely sustains, with fascination. Drinking is stupid, objectively. So naturally that only leads to the urge to categorize it, sample every flavor until she understands every urge and every predilection.
She watches Shiro order his cocktail in amusement, and waves her hand when the bartender looks to her. They both know how to take care of themselves—and each other, if they find it necessary. Shiro will sip his fruity drinks, and Pidge will knock back a couple shots before giving it a break and then nursing a beer or some watered down vodka-and-schnapps concoction for the rest of the night.
She’s an experimenter, not an idiot. If she takes it too far, makes herself too sick or poisons herself too permanently, she won’t be able to carry out the next test. She’s the extent of her own sample size, which means she has to make herself last.
“Remember when we were young,” she says languidly, swinging around on her stool and leaning on the bar, head tilting up to watch the ceiling, then Shiro. “And we’d party like the sun wouldn’t come up?”
“I remember going through a bottle of Advil every two months, yeah,” Shiro says dryly. “Besides you’re—I love the way you say that, when we were young. You’re not even legal to drink yet.”
“Shhh.” Pidge waves a hand. “Keep your voice down or you’ll get us kicked out. I worked hard on that I.D., Matt helped me pick the picture.”
“And what a great picture it is,” Shiro offers sarcastically, and Pidge levels a threatening eye at his drink. He pointedly moves it out of her reach, and after a moment, continues. “I still don’t get why you like bars so much. You’re you—I can barely get you out of your room to go to the dining hall.”
“Are you kidding me?” She waves a hand. “Bars are the one place where I can get social stimulus without having to actually talk to or acknowledge anyone beyond the wonderful person providing my drink. It’s an observational heaven. At the Garrison I actually have to make conversation.” She shudders, and Shiro snorts.
“…It still feels weird being out here, with your parents knowing where we go.”
“Joys of being second-gen American,” Pidge says proudly. “Just enough Italian left over where a twenty-one plus drinking age seems like the dumbest thing in the world.”
“I guess.” Shiro wrinkles his nose. “Still just feels weird when my commanding officer knows I go out drinking with his daughter.”
“Shiro, you practically live in our house. You’re in Matt’s elementary school graduation picture, for crying out loud. Bit late for worrying about that sort of thing.” Shiro winces, and Pidge laughs, patting him on the shoulder. “Man. Kerberos. I can’t believe you’ll be locked up with only my dad and some poor communications officer for eight months.” She pauses, and at Shiro’s faintly proud, but still somber look, she grins. “Maybe I should suggest to Dad he bring his zero-gravity specialized Scrabble board along.”
“Oh god,” Shiro groans, dropping his face into his elbow against the bar. “Please, don’t.”
“Doing it,” Pidge says happily. After a long moment, she looks over to Shiro, curling her arms into a pillow on the bar for her to drop her head onto, sighing. “…It’ll be weird, without you here. It was going to be strange enough not having Dad around that long, but at least I’m used to him disappearing off for missions.” Shiro grunts morosely, and she hums. “Always got Matt, I suppose. And Mom. I’ll just spend more time around the house or something. Lucky we live so close.”
Shiro says nothing, stealing the discarded beer bottle of some other long-departed patron, and peeling habitually at the label in one of his little-seen nervous gestures. “It will be weird.” There’s silence again, and Pidge is just starting to wonder if she’s expected to say something, before he continues, quiet and unsure. “You know they haven’t decided on a communications officer yet. You could always…throw your hat in the ring. They’re already worried about team compatibility—with a mission this long, and this important—and everyone knows we work well together.”
“Me?” Pidge snorts. “Please. Even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do—they’d never take me. I’m still a cadet.”
“Only while you finish up the last of your engineering credits.” Shiro points out sullenly, still not meeting her eyes. “You’ve been an officially marked communications officer for the better part of a year at this point. And there’s no one better at the job.”
Pidge blinks, surprised at the blunt honesty in his tone. “…You…really want me to apply, don’t you?”
Shiro shrugs, glaring down at the decimated bottle label. “It’d just be—it’d feel weird without you, alright? Like something was missing.”
Almost unconsciously, Pidge reaches across, snatching up the balled-up wrapper, freeing it from Shiro’s wrath and contemplating it, as if it might suddenly give her an answer to this new puzzle.
Of course, looking for solutions in beer bottle wrappers is neither scientific nor logical, so Pidge isn’t very surprised when it offers her none.
“…I guess we do do most everything together, don’t we?” she offers softly. Shiro just shrugs again, avoiding both the answer and her eyes as he sits up and sips awkwardly at his drink. He doesn’t want to pressure her, to suggest her into something she doesn’t want to do. He also doesn’t want to go without her.
He’s always been stupidly good at expressly not talking about his worries, especially when he thinks he’s burdening someone else with them. Luckily for him, while Pidge is no feelings expert, she is a Shiro expert at this point, and very good at determining the logical end point to a problem.
“Yeah, okay,” she says unthinkingly. “Why not?” Shiro turns to look at her, still all kinds of conflicted mixed in with his hope, and she steals his drink easily, downing back the last of it, and when she slams it onto the bar next to the empty shot glasses, it sounds like a promise.
Kerberos. What could go wrong?
It’ll give her an amusing story to tell Matt when she gets rejected, at least.
…We come from a peaceful planet…
Pidge comes to with a quiet gasp and a rush of aching pain along her left temple. She startles just ever so slightly—everything blurry and her suit feeling far, far too heavy for either Kerberos or the conditions of their ship—before the weight of strong hands holding her arms behind her back, and Shiro’s muffled voice pleading somewhere off to her left, come to her attention, and she tenses, stills.
It doesn’t all come back so much in a rush as in a trickle of images, feeding into her brain like a lagging video on a bad connection as her quick, panicked breaths fog up the inside of her visor. The ship, the tractor beam, being dragged up and up and away from Shiro and her father, the sudden crunch of the rock against her skull, all sliding through her mind and clicking into place.
For the first time in a long, long time, Pidge feels true panic grip her, staring down into the abyss of the unknown. She’d come close, in their attempt to flee the inevitable on Kerberos, but had been too caught up in the immediacy of the situation. That was instinctive panic, raw and something close to animal.
This is a panic of exercised consideration. Of weighing up her circumstances and what little information she has available to her and ultimately coming up short—short of a plan, short of an idea, short of even a clue. She has no idea where she is—beyond somewhere she never was supposed to be—who has her, or what is going to happen.
Based on her position and her mode of capture, Pidge can only assume herself and the others are being held captives by a hostile extraterrestrial power. Which is not, she thinks a little hysterically, even remotely fucking close to something the Garrison had prepared them for.
For Pidge, sorting all this out amongst the overwhelmed screeching in her head and the dull throb of pain above her eyes that signals either an impending migraine or a concussion feels like the work of hours. But it must only be moments, because one second Shiro is talking, stammering out a few desperate phrases on their behalf, before there’s a shuffle of movement, and Shiro’s cut-off yelp of pain as something strikes him.
At that she does stir, almost involuntarily jerking against the hold on her to turn and observe, check on Shiro’s condition—he was speaking, which means at least he hadn’t sustained any major head injuries, surely. In response there’s a tightening of the grip on her arms, an increase on the weight pressing down on her back, a boot maybe, and she buckles instinctively, head bowing to the ground and her whole body going taut but unmoving.
Eventually, after some further exchanges of words she can’t muddle out in the confused space of her brain beyond the disbelieving fact that it’s definitely English, the grip holding Pidge shifts, moving as something like handcuffs with a rigid bar between them is shackled onto her wrists. Something takes hold of the bar, and begins to drag her backwards, assumedly out of the room. Rough sliding noises on her left and right are the only indication she has that the same is being done to her father and Shiro, she doesn’t dare look to confirm.
It’s not until they’re moving along some hallway, and the other dragging noises move past and ahead of her, that Pidge dares to tilt her head just slightly up, trying to catch sight of something beyond her own feet scraping along a metal floor.
She can only get glimpses, between long stretches of endless chrome and the shine of purple lighting coming from some undeterminable source. Flashes in windows of huge containment systems, layers upon layers of prisoners crammed into cages and moved about as if building blocks directed by a child. She sees whispers of floors upon floors of moving figures, all discernable only in the same shades of grey and purple, with splashes of red, outsizing any operation she’s ever seen at the Garrison.
She sees torture. She sees order. She sees cruelty. She sees control.
There’s the bark of voices above her head, and she yelps as she is dragged around a corner roughly, the quick turn putting a strain on her arms. But she doesn’t dare fight back, not at the risk of suffering the same fate as Shiro.
Observation is her greatest—her only strength, right now. She must do what she does best, as she does at officer meetings, in Garrison dining halls and classrooms, even in shitty, dim-lit desert town bars.
Pidge watches. She grasps at every piece of data, commits to memory every variable she can spot, and above it all she is left with only one question, buzzing in the back of her dizzied, overwhelmed mind.
Where the hell are we?
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reconditarmonia · 3 years
Text
Dear Rule 63 Author
Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but, er, I can answer any questions you might have about my requests in my mod capacity if you contact the exchange email ;).
Fullmetal Alchemist | Machineries of Empire | Moby Dick | Spinning Silver | Wolf 359
General likes:
– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.
– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.
– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.
– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).
– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.
– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.
– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.
Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity.
General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; infidelity; unrequested polyamory; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters; swapping female characters to male; unequal levels of investment in the relationship (including concerns about same that turn out to be unwarranted), or the idea of a character accepting something they're unhappy with as the most they're going to get.
A note: if we matched on an / ship, I generally don't require you to include a kiss, sex, or overt romantic language if you feel that you'd have to shoehorn it in. I'll trust that you wrote it with shippy intent.
About Rule 63 Exchange specifically: I have no strong preference for character names, with a slight preference for sticking with their canon names; it’s up to you whether you want to justify any resulting names that would be unusual for women or just gloss over it. As far as characters’ personalities and gender expression are concerned, I tend to want to see them as similar to their canon selves, just female. I’m probably fine with unrequested characters also being swapped to female, but feel free to check if you’re not sure. I don't expect, nor particularly want, a big deal made over characters' strong gender identity qua identity as female or whatnot.
It's a little confusing to tell with the AO3 interface, but I've requested General Audiences on everything, and additionally Explicit on FMA, Machineries, and Wolf 359.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Ship(s): F!Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye
I love Roy and Riza's loyalty kink in canon so very much, so...what if they were lesbians
There are definitely some worldbuilding-y places this could go - the Amestrian military obviously has female soldiers in it, but not as many as male, especially at the higher echelons, apparently, and we don't see any female State Alchemists; does Roy's status as a powerful alchemist also vault her into a position of command and influence that most women, barring Olivier, don't get to? With regard specifically to how their relationship is different worldbuilding-wise, some kind of document or documents (newspaper, history book) or other outsider perspective on President Mustang and her decades-long professional relationship with Riza Hawkeye, so close they even live together/travel together/entertain guests together, neither of them ever married, that sort of thing? Is Roy's obfuscating public image in this AU still about going with a lot of women, or are they men? (butch or otherwise known lesbian Roy is great, but also not necessary)
But I'd be equally happy to see a fic that didn't deal with that, and that was just canon dynamics but more so and with lesbians. I love their trust and competence and stoically hidden but very very intense feelings, the willingness to risk oneself or the other person, or to stake a lot on the other person’s competence (and willingness to hurt or sacrifice the other person because their shared cause says it’s right, too, all the times that comes up), the fighting together in tandem. Is there a dangerous mission (or intelligence-collecting situation) where their deep familiarity/trust/awareness of each other’s presence and fighting style and communication come into play (god, that bit in canon where Hawkeye shoots two guys right over Mustang’s shoulder), or where they worry about each other’s safety? I love the "protect my back" exchange so, so much (I'm particularly interested in fics set during a time when that is already part of their relationship history, rather than fics set in Ishval or shortly after, and I am not really interested in fics set when they were children or young adults at all) and the way that, eventually, ends up playing out with regard to Envy. I love the intimacy of their work relationship and personal history, on levels from casual to very intense, and would love it with sexual tension in how they notice and appreciate each other’s physicality and presence and competence (hands??? muscles?) Pining up to 11, or resolved sexual tension? (I would prefer Riza as dom if you write a d/s take on this.)
Fandom-Specific DNW: framing of the Ishvalan genocide as a bad situation that happened to the Amestrian characters; canon-typical loss of body parts.
Fandom: Machineries of Empire
Ship(s): F!Shuos Jedao/Ajewen Cheris; F!Shuos Jedao & Ajewen Cheris
I know sound like a broken record throughout this signup, but I love Cheris and Jedao’s friendship and loyalty kink (“Now and forever, I’m your gun” and the kneeling! aaahhh!) and, you know, what if that, but also Jedao were a hot woman.
I don’t have a lot of specific plot prompts - just a general interest in intense feelings, “codependency” as understood by fandom, loyalty and trust holding up under strain, deferring to someone’s competence or sense of ethics even though you don’t know how it will turn out, making difficult choices, verbal or nonverbal displays of loyalty like the kneeling and swearing and the WHOLE KEL GLOVE THING. I’d be excited to read something set during the Ninefox timeframe when Jedao is in Cheris’s head, but I think I would be most interested in something set post-Glass Cannon when oh my god, they were roommates telepathically bonded, after all the plot events that create that strong Jedao->Cheris loyalty. Jedao’s canonical kinks are *thumbs up* (I’ve requested general audiences fic as well as explicit, so it’s also fine if they don’t come up or if they’re referred to but not, er, acted out onscreen).
Fandom-Specific DNW: I’m aware that there’s a lot of torture and dubcon in canon. I don’t mind if you mention that they exist but I’d like to reiterate that I absolutely do not want any onscreen, or any details of torture even mentioned. DNW (explicitly) male Kujen or Ruo in this AU; if you don’t feel like swapping them to women I would rather they not be mentioned.
Fandom: Moby Dick
Ship(s): F!Captain Ahab & None; F!Captain Ahab & F!Pequod Crew; F!Ishmael/F!Queequeg
I'd love to know more about these female sailor(s) and what drives them. A female Ishmael might still decide to sign on to a ship whenever she gets the blues, but it'd be socially fairly different, mightn't it? (Worldbuilding-wise, I'd be more interested in a world where sailing and whaling are still typically male things as in our world, even if you make them a little less exclusively male, than an egalitarian or matriarchal world; something that women might do, without necessarily disguising themselves as men, but a GNC thing to do.) Would her already diverging from the "expected" female path in this regard affect her reception of Queequeg as someone who's an outsider to Nantucket society, and the intimacy she offers? What does she still find outlandish? As for Queequeg herself, is her life a typical female life for her home culture, or not?
As for Ahab - just imagine this fanatic, tragic, vengeful character as a woman - with the willpower not only to do all the things canonical male Ahab does but also in a society where women aren't really supposed to sail or kill or lead! Is she the odd one out in an otherwise male crew, or are there more women in the crew by the time she's captain? Was she already a whaler when she lost the leg or, in this AU, did this drive her to become one?
Fandom: Spinning Silver
Ship(s): Miryem Mandelstam/F!Staryk Lord
I love Miryem, and I’m so interested in the ways that making the Staryk Lord a woman would change Miryem’s entry into the Staryk world and the romance that eventually develops between them. Maybe same-sex marriage is common among the Staryk, and that’s one of the customs that are new and unfamiliar to Miryem in this new world. Would this be a Miryem who had never imagined being attracted to a woman before but comes to fall for the Staryk Lady, or one who simply couldn’t have imagined being able to marry one and have that be a normal life? (For values of “normal” that include ice lands and gold magic!) How does the fact of the marriage being same-sex affect Miryem’s initial understanding of it as a business arrangement, or for that matter, affect her understanding of the offer of queenship as a marriage at all? What makes them fall for each other?
Canon Miryem wonders what her role as queen is, thinking that she’d know about managing a household and having children and sewing if she were married to a human lord - is it the same if she has a fairy wife instead of a fairy husband, more so because there’s not even the hope of a gendered complementarian aspect to fall back on, less so because the Staryk Lady is there as an example of what a female monarch in the Staryk lands does? Does Miryem try to be more like her, or to find her own accounting-powers-and-personal-bonds niche?
It’s so important to canon Miryem to have a Jewish wedding with the Staryk Lord - what would that look like here? What happens when she comes back to the human world not only the queen of a magic country, but married to a woman (and in love with her, depending on when you set it)?
Fandom: Wolf 359
Ship(s): F!Daniel Jacobi/F!Warren Kepler, F!Daniel Jacobi/F!Warren Kepler/Alana Maxwell
My new fandom this year! The SI-5 trio are my favorites, and I'm absolutely wild about the way they openly value and prioritize and trust each other over everyone else who's nominally on the same side. So much of the Kepler/Jacobi dynamic goes directly to my id almost from their first introduction (of Jacobi as Kepler's "good right hand"!) to Jacobi trusting Kepler with his life and following whatever orders Kepler gives and getting angry about Kepler treating him like one of them, not to mention the weird d/s vibes. But I also love their dynamic with Maxwell, not only Jacobi's devoted friendship for her but also the trust and respect Kepler has for her and vice versa (I love the conversation they have about fixing Hera, and the whole episode where Kepler has Jacobi blow up the door to save Maxwell, at the risk of the whole ship because Maxwell is that valuable and Jacobi is that good, and "maybe you were my friend but the Colonel and Daniel were family"). So...f/f? I'd love to see them on some sort of mission or in the aftermath of some sort of mission where that mutual loyalty, even as fucked-up as it can get, comes into play, with Jacobi, Kepler, and Maxwell deferring to one another's judgment and/or orders, protecting each other or deciding when they can risk each other for the sake of the mission, sorting themselves out after... Or just some d/s-y sex, possessiveness etc. Anything really about how they're the only people to each other.
I suppose I envision Jacobi and Kepler fairly similar to their canon versions presentation-wise, which would make them somewhat gender non-conforming as women - there's possibly something interesting there with whatever flavor of performative masculinity canon Kepler has going on - but honestly I haven't particularly given much thought to how they might be different as women, other than that I would find it hot and enjoy a three-way relationship with Maxwell (if that is what we matched on/what you're interested in - I'd be just as happy with Kepler/Jacobi and Maxwell just a friend) more than I would with their canon versions.
Fandom-Specific DNW: role reversal or "subbing to let go/relax" Kepler
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hidden-otaku-stuff · 4 years
Note
(1) Hey! So sorry for replying late, a lot has happened these past couple of days D: but I hope you've been doing good! (I say as if I've been gone for months aksjdf) anyway, yeah, they're definitely scary. I think it'll be worth being able to be that soft and open with someone though. And I'm glad it did have a positive impact on you! Even if they were hard you came out stronger or wiser in some way. And thank you, you're so sweet :') So do you hon ❤️
hey honeymoon! sorry for taking my time to respond, i hope everything’s been alright with you! 
(2) Terushima really does just seem like a big dork who loves volleyball haha. I feel like his initial vibe would make me not want to interact v much lol but once you get to know him he's actually a good person. and that tongue piercing tho 👀. "that one definitely hurts a lot more than Falling does" then I think I'm good for awhile hahaha. I've already read a sad hospital AU so I'm going to stay FAR away for now. Honestly I wish there was an interesting story behind it but there's not :')
(3) basically I had an art blog and the name of it was kind of a pun with the word "honeydew." but that nickname was already taken and I wanted to be ~original~ sso I didn't want to use it lol. I still liked the honey aspect though and I thought Honeymoon sounded cute. I'm also kind of a secret hopeless romantic and at the time I kept my identity on my art blog a secret, so it kind of felt like an "alter ego" of mine? long story short I liked the nickname and it kinda stuck haha
ok i mean, to be fair, he was super aggressive when he was meeting kiyoko. but i definitely feel like there’s that dorky side to him LMAO.
oooof idk if I can handle any angst rn tbh so i can definitely relate 😭 
that’s honestly such a cute story though??? like, that’s literally so freakin’ adorable. what type of art did you use to do? (and honestly girl, this whole blog is on the DL and i tried super hard to keep it hidden from my life LOL).
there’s nothing wrong with being a hopeless romantic though! it gives you a chance to day-dream hehe 💞 what’s your favorite romantic trope? it could be as cliche or non-cliche as you’d like! 
(4) "i’m sorry for being a sadistic fk 🥰" 😀 something tells me you're kind of not LOL (really though I know you're sweet and don't actually want to hurt people akdhf) and honestly I'm glad you decided to expand on it! Chapter one is also great as a standalone but I'm so grateful for the rest so far, and you're doing an amazing job with it love 💖 I understand the chara x chara thing. I don't know if I've ever actually shipped anything to the point of me /wanting/ it to be canon
(6) like, it'd be cool if it was, but I don't actually care y'know? unless it was actual romantic tension built up in the movie/book/series. Fanart and fic is what mostly got me lol. I think the HQ fandom is super diverse/creative in its shipping. Not only because of an incredible story with great characters, but great fans and creators as well. And yes! someone else who likes KuroIwa!! I think that ship is really cute (and they're my top 2 faves so I'm biased haha) have you seen neutinya's art?
i swear i’m nice 💞 thank you so much for the love!! 🥺 i’ve been having writer’s block for a bit, and your comments have honestly motivated me to write so much more for it LOL
i definitely agree though, like, i can’t aggressively fight for one ship over another because it’s literally just not canon. it just feels wrong to “shove that agenda”, so to speak. but it’s always interesting to see all the different character combinations. i never would’ve imagined half of the ones out there if not for this fandom LOL
neutinya’s literally why I have a thing for KuroIwa!! LMAO. i really like the art that they put out. same with bright_stars_45 on IG. Their stuff is literally why i ship Bokuaka soooo hard. 
(7) (did I skip 5?) I really hope I'm numbering those right it's 12:30 am here lol. anyway, it's probably a good thing you weren't in the fandom then. I don't know how it is now, but it was p chaotic and toxic and there was actually controversy surrounding one of those fics. I'm sorry about you and your sister love :( I don't know if you'd ever want to have a strong one with her but I hope you do if you do! and if not then there will always be people you share that with, blood or not 💕
LOL you did skip 5, but it’s okay bby 💖 it’s not too serious tbh. i’m not really close to my family, so i’ve always believed in the “my family is the one’s i choose, not necessarily the one’s i’m blood-related to” :) 
(8) Piglet has always been my fave, but Eeyore and Lumpy are also great. do you have any favorite characters or ones that mean a lot to you? and that's really cool too!! I know being mixed can get super complicated but knowing you have all of those cultures in you in some way is pretty amazing. Honestly I've been undecided for the past 2 years but after everything going on in 2020, I've felt this need to release the truth? no matter what that may be. I know a lot of people say journalism 
(9) isn't an honest profession but, and this will sound arrogant, I want to change that. Even if that just means me being an independent journalist while being an editor to make a living, I'm okay with that. Also it can give you the opportunity to travel, and writing has always been my strong suit. socio is so I can have a better understanding of the world and learn to be less biased and more objective and understanding. What about you? :O
my favorite Disney character is honestly Tiana from Princess and the Frog! her hard-working story is hella relatable to me, and it inspired me to be better for myself if that makes sense? 
TBH the most annoying part of being mixed is being called eXoTiC by guys who are tryna sleep with me 💀 there’s definitely a lot of fetishization about it lol
i hella respect that! the need to release the truth. journalism is honestly a raw and authentic profession that people underestimate because they read from biased sources or the things they read isn’t accurate. i have mad respect for you for following that career path! if there’s anything i could do to help, lmk love 💖 TBH, i chose business because i wanted to open my own business and i love psych because i love understanding the world and the people in my lives. psycho-analysing is one of my hobbies hehe. so similar as to why you did socio!
(10) and yes!!!! tbh I've always liked theatre but was never really one for the stage. I was in a child friendly version of macbeth in 6th grade and that was it lol. In my senior year of high school I performed a slam poem about my depression and my teacher called me emotionally constipated lmaoo. and because of how hs went down for me I never got to take classes anyway. I started getting into sfx/film makeup though and I really want to do that! I also just love the energy of backstage tbh
(11) this is getting really long akfdjh. but yeah I want to learn more! I'm actually kind of struggling in my stage management class right now because I honestly don't know much about theatre so it's overwhelming. I haven't even seen a lot of shows (I did see The Lion King when I was a kid though!! and a few hs productions). enough about me though, what's your favorite part, or what are some of your best memories? I love seeing that it makes you so happy :D
omg i’m so sorry that your teacher called you that. that’s so inappropriate, especially considering the subject matter. i hope that you’ve had a more positive experience involving your work since then. if you ever want to talk about your struggle, please feel free to reach out, ok? 
you must be pretty talented with makeup though! that’s so cool 🤩 i’ve always admired sfx and people who are talented with makeup tbh. what’s your favorite part about it so far? 
i was fortunate enough that my hs had a super talented theatre program that i could be a part of. i had the opportunity to be in both tech, management, and on-stage. i honestly really enjoyed being behind-the-scenes in the management part! it was so great seeing a production from start to finish and knowing that i was involved with that process. i’m a huge theatre nerd tbh 😅 i love watching shows like Phantom of the Opera, Hamilton, RENT and I’ll routinely watch them haha. 
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stvlti · 6 years
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For 002, Ritsu and Misa
send me a ship, a character, or a list of 5 characters
002 | RITSU
How I feel about this character
hmm, gotta be honest, it’s been a while since i last read an MP100 manga update, so these thoughts aren’t gonna be reflective of how i might feel about his current characterisation in the manga. regardless, regardless… here goes. 
let’s just say that i never particularly liked him when i watched the anime adaptation. the big cleanup arc lost a bit of its nuances when it was translated to the screen, so at first all i thought was wow, Ritsu’s actually a little bit of an ass and a pushover. but then i read the manga, and then rewatched the anime, and suddenly it clicked. he’s not aloof because he’s an asshole, and he doesn’t make friends easily because he’s a private person that can’t trust people with his emotions, like the other side of the coin that makes Mob an emotionally-repressed person, but because of the childhood traumatic experience he has with Mob. and just, generally growing up with a sibling that’s by all accounts mentally ill in a sense. i can’t relate to the specific circumstances he’s in because i’m an only child, and my parents aren’t mentally ill or inadvertently abusive, but the bit about not wanting others to know your true emotions is kinda what i’ve been doing for the better part of the last 5 years… 
and then, the whole thing about being the kind of model student you are simply because that’s what others have expected you to be, that’s also A Mood. i kinda gave up the ghost after high school but the funny thing is i was a prefect at some point, and even though i was progressively swearing more and more like a sailor behind closed doors, and i was growing more and more restless about certain institutional traditions, i still put on an act for the disciplinary teachers because i’m a girl, i get scholarships every year, and that’s expected of me if i want to keep being perceived as such, lol. (well, not wanting to disappoint my parents is another major factor, but that’s why i never said ritsu was a 100% relatable character, just one that is relatable enough for me to project a bit onto haha.)
All the people I ship romantically with this character:
i don’t, really? i mean, Riteru (Ritsu/Teru) is an interesting dynamic to explore in fanfics and headcanons, but they’ve pretty much never interacted in canon lol. so it’s not exactly OTP material for me. (i also don’t really get Ritshou tbh, i don’t think their interactions have been given as much depth as Teru and Mob’s, so i don’t actually ship Ritshou.)
My non-romantic OTP for this character:
hmm i don’t think i have any BROTPs for him. next question.
My unpopular opinion about this character:
well i already said what i said in q1. i used to think he’s a bit of an ass haha. still do actually, i think he’s kinda classist in the way he thinks he can just kick delinquents and other less fortunate members of society to the curb? hmm idk, this boy makes me conflicted.
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:
well i saw a comic circulating here where basically he talks it out with Mob and they expressedly forgive each other for the things that’s happened in the past, and i’d like that in canon.
my OTP:
isn’t this kinda a redundant ques? refer to “all the people i ship romantically with this character”. i.e. i don’t have an OTP for him.
my cross over ship:
??? none
a headcanon fact:
i like the one where he keeps a spoon on him at all times. wait, that’s canon, right? then idk. (i mean, i had an hc at some point about how Shou actually keeps a cactus named Ritsu, but that would be a Shou hc, not Ritsu hc, hhhh)
002 | MISA
How I feel about this character
well, i’ve only written several meta about this girl, whatever would make you think i have opinions about her /s
well, just to sum it all up briefly, like most casuals i started out finding her character a bit meh. not very well-written and pretty misogynistic in design (as in, she is clearly moulded after a terrible stereotype and the fact that she is the one fem chara with the most screentime in Death Note. OHBA SHOULD BE ASHAMED). but well, shortly after i finished DN the anime, i recalled the things i learned in my Feminism literary theory unit earlier that academic year, and i wrote this meta; and although i didn’t necessarily agree with these potential interpretations just yet, i could start to understand that she is much more than your average kawaii yandere. 
later that year i started a module called Transnational Feminisms, which not only dismantled the idea that there is only one way of being a feminist / writing feminist characters, it also helped me understand i shouldn’t even limit myself to reading her character from Western feminist values (so, beyond De Beauvoir, Sedgwick, and Judith Butler). i should consider, obviously, the cultural contexts of gender expectations in Japan, etc. i have yet to write an actual post about this but yeah, i do have some follow-up thoughts to that feminist meta i wrote, and the long and short of it is that, considering the social context she is honestly a character with a subtle, subversive potential that Ohba probably didn’t even recognise.
(doesn’t mean i agree with canon’s treatment and portrayal of mental health issues when it comes to Misa though. Ohba can choke on his poorly researched and unqualified understanding of trauma.)
All the people I ship romantically with this character:
NOT LIGHT YAGAMI. people i think that Misa deserve: Rem, and Sayu. probably others as well, but Rem and Sayu are the only ones i can conceive of who canonically do / will care about Misa on a personal level.
(but honestly tho Sayu is pretty gay for Misa in the TV Drama)
My non-romantic OTP for this character:
hmm. her friendship with Mogi i guess.
(it’s not necessarily an OTP tho since i don’t have much feelings about their dynamic, but he’s good for her.)
My unpopular opinion about this character:
well, even though she’s a unique and subtly complex character, she still has issues. she was manipulative towards Light, there’s no question about that. in a twisted way i don’t think that, as long as Misa upholds her canon beliefs and attitude about love, she will find a partner in anyone other than an emotionally-distant and manipulative (in a different way) asshole like Light. i think a lesser partner would have caved to her every whim and demand. (that’s why actually, even though i think she deserves somebody that will love her back, i do not wish to actually make Misa/Sayu canon. Sayu deserves a healthy relationship.) 
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:
well, depends which canon we’re talking about here. as i have mentioned time and time again, @casuistor and @mikami both wrote an analysis on how, unlike manga!Misa, anime!Misa is actually more cognizant of the one-sided nature of her relationship with Light. so if we’re talking solely about anime canon, then i do wish she’d have seen that Light is not worth her time!! and get Rem out of the “friendzone” before she dies for nothing, please.
my OTP:
Remisa, duh.
my cross over ship:
none. (i rarely get ideas for crossover ships tbh, so unless there’s a well-written fic that can convince me of the dynamic of a particular crossover ship, i’ll just stick to my high school concepts of Wayfire and Howellight… hmm yeah very subtle about your own history in the RPF community Eugenia)
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reconditarmonia · 4 years
Text
Dear Rule 63 Author
Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but, er, I can answer any questions you might have about my requests in my mod capacity if you contact the exchange email ;)
Fullmetal Alchemist | Machineries of Empire | Moby Dick | Mulan | Robin Hood
General likes:
– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.
– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.
– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.
– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).
– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.
– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.
– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.
Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity; stories whose resolution isn’t the sex scene. DNW "pussy."
A note: if we matched on an / ship, I generally don't require you to include a kiss, sex, or overt romantic language if you feel that you'd have to shoehorn it in. I'll trust that you wrote it with shippy intent.
General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; swapping female characters to male; unrequested trans versions of characters.
About Rule 63 Exchange specifically: I have no strong preference for character names, with a slight preference for sticking with their canon names; it’s up to you whether you want to justify any resulting names that would be unusual for women or just gloss over it. As far as characters’ personalities and gender expression are concerned, I tend to want to see them as similar to their canon selves, just female. I’m probably fine with unrequested characters also being swapped to female, but feel free to check if you’re not sure. I don't expect, nor particularly want, a big deal made over characters' strong gender identity qua identity as female or whatnot.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Ship(s): F!Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye
I love Roy and Riza's loyalty kink in canon so very much, so...what if they were lesbians
There are definitely some worldbuilding-y places this could go - the Amestrian military obviously has female soldiers in it, but not as many as male, especially at the higher echelons, apparently, and we don't see any female State Alchemists; does Roy's status as a powerful alchemist also vault her into a position of command and influence that most women, barring Olivier, don't get to? With regard specifically to how their relationship is different worldbuilding-wise, some kind of document or documents (newspaper, history book) or other outsider perspective on President Mustang and her decades-long professional relationship with Riza Hawkeye, so close they even live together/travel together/entertain guests together, neither of them ever married, that sort of thing? Is Roy's obfuscating public image in this AU still about going with a lot of women, or are they men? (butch or otherwise known lesbian Roy is great, but also not necessary)
But I'd be equally happy to see a fic that didn't deal with that, and that was just canon dynamics but more so and with lesbians. I love their trust and competence and stoically hidden but very very intense feelings, the willingness to risk oneself or the other person, or to stake a lot on the other person’s competence (and willingness to hurt or sacrifice the other person because their shared cause says it’s right, too, all the times that comes up), the fighting together in tandem. Is there a dangerous mission (or intelligence-collecting situation) where their deep familiarity/trust/awareness of each other’s presence and fighting style and communication come into play (god, that bit in canon where Hawkeye shoots two guys right over Mustang’s shoulder), or where they worry about each other’s safety? I love the "protect my back" exchange so, so much (I'm particularly interested in fics set during a time when that is already part of their relationship history, rather than fics set in Ishval or shortly after, and I am not really interested in fics set when they were children or young adults at all) and the way that, eventually, ends up playing out with regard to Envy. I love the intimacy of their work relationship and personal history, on levels from casual to very intense, and would love it with sexual tension in how they notice and appreciate each other’s physicality and presence and competence (hands??? muscles?) Pining up to 11, or resolved sexual tension?
Fandom-Specific DNW: framing of the Ishvalan genocide as a bad situation that happened to the Amestrian characters
Fandom: Machineries of Empire
Ship(s): F!Shuos Jedao/Ajewen Cheris; F!Shuos Jedao & Ajewen Cheris
I know sound like a broken record throughout this letter/signup, but I love Cheris and Jedao's friendship and loyalty kink ("Now and forever, I'm your gun" and the kneeling! aaahhh!) and, you know, what if that, but also Jedao were a hot woman.
I don't have a lot of specific plot prompts - just a general interest in intense feelings, "codependency" as understood by fandom, loyalty and trust holding up under strain, deferring to someone’s competence or sense of ethics even though you don’t know how it will turn out, making difficult choices, verbal or nonverbal displays of loyalty like the kneeling and swearing and the WHOLE KEL GLOVE THING. I'd be excited to read something set during the Ninefox timeframe when Jedao is in Cheris's head, but I think I would be most interested in something set post-Glass Cannon when oh my god, they were roommates telepathically bonded, after all the plot events that create that strong Jedao->Cheris loyalty. Jedao's canonical kinks are *thumbs up* (I've requested general audiences fic as well as explicit, so it's also fine if they don't come up or if they're referred to but not, er, acted out onscreen).
Fandom-Specific DNW: I’m aware that there’s a lot of torture and dubcon in canon. I don’t mind if you mention that they exist but I’d like to reiterate that I absolutely do not want any onscreen, or any details of torture even mentioned. DNW male Kujen or Ruo in this AU; if you don't feel like swapping them to women I would rather they not be mentioned.
Fandom: Moby Dick
Ship(s): F!Captain Ahab & None; F!Captain Ahab & F!Pequod Crew; F!Ishmael/F!Queequeg
I'd love to know more about these female sailor(s) and what drives them. A female Ishmael might still decide to sign on to a ship whenever she gets the blues, but it'd be socially fairly different, mightn't it? (Worldbuilding-wise, I'd be more interested in a world where sailing and whaling are still typically male things as in our world, even if you make them a little less exclusively male, than an egalitarian or matriarchal world; something that women might do, without necessarily disguising themselves as men, but a GNC thing to do.) Would her already diverging from the "expected" female path in this regard affect her reception of Queequeg as someone who's an outsider to Nantucket society, and the intimacy she offers? What does she still find outlandish? As for Queequeg herself, is her life a typical female life for her home culture, or not?
As for Ahab - just imagine this fanatic, tragic, vengeful character as a woman - with the willpower not only to do all the things canonical male Ahab does but also in a society where women aren't really supposed to sail or kill or lead! Is she the odd one out in an otherwise male crew, or are there more women in the crew by the time she's captain?
Fandom: Mulan
Ship(s): Fa Mulan/F!Li Shang; Fa Mulan & F!Li Shang & F!Yao &F!Chien Po & F!Ling
I would...just love it so much if you Monstrous Regiment-ed this canon up. Shang also being a woman would give her even more reasons to be a hardass (is she in disguise, and thinks that her regiment failing would invite suspicion on her? is she openly female and needs to prove that she's as good as her father and the country need her to be? is she paranoid about other women in the army, or does she want to have a female regiment?) I'd also love to know how falling in love with a woman plays into Mulan's whole arc - it's certainly not what her family was preparing her for, but neither was being a soldier and saving China. What does seeing another woman dressed as a man (whether Shang is openly female or not, I imagine she'd wear men's clothes), or a group of women dressed as men, make her think? What are Yao, Chien Po, and Ling like in an AU where they're also female, if that's what you choose to write?
I'd be happy for just about anything in this vein - Mulan/Shang romance/sex (this is a canon that is a Lot about bodies and clothes), gen shenanigans with the rest of the squad, both? During canon or post? I love loyalty kink and butch characters a lot.
Fandom: Robin Hood
Ship(s): F!Robin Hood/F!Little John, F!Robin Hood & F!Merry Men, F!Robin Hood & F!Little John, F!Robin Hood & Merry Men, F!Robin Hood & Little John
Tell me about these people! A female outlaw commanding the loyalty of a mixed or male group – or an all- (or mostly-)female group of outlaws, how they live, what might have led them to choose that life. I’m also here for Robin Hood’s relationship with her right-hand man/woman specifically, because I love loyalty kink – people willing to go into danger for one another, the leader knowing how best to use her right hand’s skills and strengths, what elements of formality might appear in, well, a very ad-hoc group. (And f!Little John would probably be hot.) If you’re writing the Little John pairings, feel free to make the Merry Men either their canon versions or female versions.
I’d totally be into any of the f!characters crossdressing as men vis-à-vis the world at large, although if you go this route I’d rather have them not be in disguise to each other/to their own allies (so no Merry Men thinking they’re being led by another man when it’s crossdressing Robin, for instance - preferring masculine clothing/appearance even among friends is fine, though).
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