#I haven’t been able to write for over a year since I left the fandom who must not be named

[marksbear]

I was reading your multi-fandom x male reader post and I was wondering if you might possibly continue this part. Only if you’re comfortable doing so

If you are I was thinking we (the readers) are spotting you so if you fall we would be there to catch you. (I haven’t been in physical therapy ever since I was 7 years old so I might be getting some things wrong)

Don’t worry I’m completely comfortable writing this with no problem! I hope you and the other people reading this enjoys it

MARK “AUTHOR” X MALE READER

Y/n and Mark sat on the couch watching the muppets on repeat. Y/n stared boring his eyes into the tv as his eyes start to slowly blink.

But for Mark he showed the complete opposite of being bored. He stared at the tv with a glimmer in his eyes paying attention to everything that was going on.

“Mark… Please can we watch something else?” Y/n groans out laying his head onto his boyfriend shoulder.

“No not yet.” Mark answers not even turning his eyes away from the screen.

Y/n breathes out a exaggerated sigh sinking back down in the couch as his boyfriend just chuckles.

"Parem de agir assim." Mark teases nudging Y/n with his shoulder.

Parem de agir assim = stop acting like that.

Y/n just let out another groan causing Mark to laugh again.

The two continued to watching the movie once in a while messing with the other, but had a truce later on.

Suddenly a loud bark echoes from the other room. Both Mark and Y/n look over the couch looking inside the room where the bark came from.

“I think it was fancy who barked. Stay here I’ll check it out.” Mark says looking to his side giving his boyfriend a quick peck on the forehead before pushing himself off the couch.

Only taking two steps forward Mark knees buckles causing him to lose his balance and begins to fall as a loud wince fall from Marks mouth.

In a instant before Mark could fall Y/n quickly reaches out holding Mark by his hips keeping him up. Y/n quickly gets off the couch holding him up right.

“Where’s your crouches?” Y/n questions as Mark wraps his arm around Y/n shoulders holding him trying to relax and catch his balance.

Mark just ignores him and leaves a tiny kiss on his head. "Obrigada amor" Mark thanks with a smile.

Obrigada amor = thank you love.

“Mark you gotta stop walking around without your crutches.” Y/n says moving one arm to Marks holding it around him and uses the other one to hold him by the hip.

“What’s the point if your always there to catch me and help me walk.” Mark jokes causing Y/n to roll his eyes and let out a tiny laugh.

“Cmon let’s go check on our dogs.” Mark says giving his boyfriend one last kiss on the cheek.

Y/n mumbles under his breath before walking carefully to the room where the dogs are. “And after that I’m giving you your crutches.”

TIMESKIP

Ever since that day Y/n started to regularly spot and help Mark. Mark only teases Y/n for his carefulness and protective actions.

“Your like my own personal knight ready to come save me.” Mark teases as Y/n moves his hands out ready to catch Mark if he falls or his legs give out.

“Anytime I’m not looking you fall down hard onto the floor!” Y/n playfully argues back.

As if Y/n could predict the future Mark’s left leg buckles in causing both of his legs to give out. Y/n immediately catches Mark pulling him into his side holding him tight.

Mark and Y/n stare at each other for a while before bursting out laughing. The two leaned and held onto each other as they laughed uncontrollably.

After finally they both stop and catch their breath Mark leans his forehead against Y/n’s resting it against each other.

“How long do you think my legs would be able to dance again? I miss slow dancing with you amor…” Y/n questions as Y/n shrugs.

“The doctors doesn’t want you having to force your legs to walk without your crutches so not until a while.” Y/n answers watching a smirk grow on Mark’s lips.

“But who cares what they say! They also don’t want me to have sex but here we are.” Mark says with a teasing smile.

“Shut up!”

“Let’s at least try to dance. Plus you always save me in a tick of time from my fall.” Mark says.

THE END

#mark x male reader #author x male reader #Mark author x male reader #papa x male reader #bear x male reader #x male reader #male reader #the bear club

[jj-maybank123]

ICU

JJ Maybank x Fem! Reader

Warnings: None

Author’s note: Hey!! I’m new into the OBX fandom. I fell in love with JJ and I wrote this quick thing :) Also, this happens in between them finding out John B is alive and them reuniting in Charleston. 

Summary: Based on ICU by Phoebe Bridgers

The grass was cold against her warm sun-kissed skin. Y/N was lying on the front lawn of her house as JJ tried to pick the lock of the front door of her shitty house. What started out as an innocent get together at the Chateau had quickly turned into drinking, smoking, and a late night swim. It was around 2am when everyone left and JJ offered to walk her home, he had decided it wouldn’t be safe for her to walk alone even though it was just a couple of blocks and she had done it a million times before.

“JJ, leave it. I’m tired and I wanna sleep. I’ll just sleep outside,” Y/N groaned. “...or climb the window.”

They had been stuck outside of her house for about an hour trying to open a door. Her Mom was working a night shift and she couldn’t find her keys anywhere, after retracing her steps she deemed it a lost cause but JJ insisted he could pick the lock and asked for her hairpin. At first she stood beside him, even tried to do it herself, but after the first 30 minutes she decided there was no point in trying the impossible. However, JJ wouldn’t budge. He was convinced she had used a hidden key a few years ago to get them inside.

“You are not climbing anything, okay? You’re still drunk.” JJ placed his hands on his hips, his eyebrows furrowed and his hair slightly messy.

“I’ll just wait here until I feel fine enough to climb,” She insisted.  

He sighed, before walking away from the front door towards her, “Okay, fine.”

She was about to say goodbye when JJ laid down next to her.

“I’ll wait with you.”

“JJ,” She said firmly, “Go home. You need to rest, you have work in like 4 hours.”

Their shoulders were just barely touching as they laid side by side, face turned so they could see each other.

“What if a bear attacks you?” he said.

“A bear? In the Outer banks?” He nodded. She rolled her eyes and laughed, “If a bear was to attack me right now I don’t think you’d be able to stop it. Leave and save yourself.”

“I totally would. You’re acting like I haven’t saved you before.”

“Please tell me when you’ve saved me.”

JJ shifted his body to be fully facing her. “That one time you fell off the swing and I carried you home.”

“That was like ten years ago-”

“When you almost drowned that one time last summer. When you fell from your bike. Yesterday, you made me go to your house to kill a spider. Uhhhh - Rafe! That’s a big one. Fought him for your honor. ”

“You got knocked out.”

“Yeah, after saving you!” He touched his chin with his pointer finger, “Let’s see what else.”

“Stop!” She was laughing, he wouldn’t stop naming the most random things he had done throughout the many years they had been friends.

“When you didn’t write that essay for Terry’s class, I called you in sick. Took the blame for the weed your mom found in your room, saved you from that too. When your tire popped in the middle of nowhere and John B and I drove all the way and fixed it. That one time you got so drunk I snuck you into-”

“Okay! Okay! I get it! You’re my knight and shining armor and I can’t be without you. Please stay.”

His eyes softened, “Always.”

He laid back down and a comfortable silence fell over them. They both looked up to the sky. It was a clear night, and they could see the bright stars shining above them. The only thing that could be heard was their breathing and grasshoppers chirping, but neither felt the need to say anything. They didn’t have to.

She was close with the other Pogues, of course, but it was different between her and JJ. They had always been comfortable around each other, no need to pretend. In many ways he knew her better than anyone else, even herself. To her, JJ was it. She had been in love with him since she was old enough to think and for a long time she thought maybe it could be mutual. That somehow JJ Maybank could love her back.

The last couple of months had been crazy, between finding the ship, gold, and John B being declared dead. But even with all the craziness, Y/N had never felt more alive, for the first time she was doing things for herself and not thinking about work and her mom. Somehow this summer had brought them closer together and things began to change between them. Stolen glances, lingering touches, excuses to be together for longer...everything was great but she couldn’t help but want more. 

“I feel like I didn’t start living until a few months ago,” Y/N broke the silence. JJ looked at her slightly confused.

“What do you mean?”

“Like I’ve been dead for years, you know? Not literally, but I was always pretending to be someone I’m not. But not anymore.” Not with you. “Like my life began the moment that we found that boat. I mean, sure the whole thinking-John-B-was-dead thing was horrible but it led to kinda great things and for the first time in so long I feel happy. But I’m so scared that things will suck again.”

She paused but JJ didn’t say anything, he just stared at her. Suddenly she felt stupid for opening her mouth.

“I’m sorry that makes no sense. I’m just thinking out loud. It’s probably the alcohol.”

“No, no. That makes all the sense in the world,” JJ sat up, “It’s like everything is so great now and I feel like it won’t last or that I’ll ruin it the way I always ruin things.”

“You don’t ruin things. Don’t say that,” She sat up and looked at him with so much care. How could he ever think that?

“Yeah, well, that’s not what my Dad thinks,” he said, “He always goes on about how I ruined his life and how I don’t have a future or that I’ll end up in jail.”

“I hate your Dad,” she said and she meant it. She hated the way he talked to him, she hated having to ice the bruises he’d give him. “Don’t listen to him. He has no idea what he is talking about.”

He avoided her eyes and started picking the grass. “I don’t know about that.”

“Hey,” She gently cupped his face so that he was facing her, “I mean it. You’re amazing, JJ.”

“How do you know?” He asked. 

“I see you,” Y/N said without a second of thought, “The way you truly are and it’s great.”

They stayed like that for a few moments, just looking at each other. Their eyes saying everything they didn’t have the courage to say. They had never been this close before, faces just inches away. She could see every detail of his face. How beautiful he was, the way his hair fell perfectly, a small scar on his forehead, his lips.

JJ looked down for a second before looking at her again, “That feeling that everything might go wrong… it disappears when I’m with you. I get the opposite actually, like everything might be okay.”

“Me too.” She spoke barely above a whisper.

Slowly, like gravity on a feather, they started leaning towards each other. Hesitation on both sides, knowing that kissing could change everything. That finally they could be transparent about their feelings, about how mad they are for each other, about how the real fear is about losing each other. Their noses touched, she could feel him breathing, his shaking hand came up to cup her neck. Y/N was leaning into his lips when suddenly he jerked away, his hand dropping.

Y/N was stunned. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t think. All she felt was her heart breaking as tears of humiliation and sadness filled her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” JJ said as he ran his hand through his hair, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She said quietly, hoping her voice wouldn’t crack.

“No, it’s not. I always do this, I always ruin things. I’m sorry,” His voice rose a little bit, he was frustrated. He took a deep breath and said,  “You’re my friend. I don’t wanna lose you.”

“You won't,” Y/N said after a few moments of silence. She had decided that the only thing worse than JJ not loving her back would be to lose him completely. Having him as a friend would be better than not having him at all. “You’re my knight and shining armor, remember?”

“You don’t need me to protect you.”

“Maybe,” she felt her chest tighten, “But I like it when you do.”

“Yeah?” His voice was soft and vulnerable.

“Yeah. You just have to learn how to punch better and forget the gun.”

JJ laughed, “I’ll work on it just for you.”

“Good.” She smiled at him.

Silence fell over them, only this time it was different. The things left unsaid and undone lingered in the air. Regret and curiosity plagued their mind. They became aware of their surroundings. Sitting further from each other than they usually would, heavy eyelids due to the lack of sleep, the warm summer breeze that wrapped around them and the lack of darkness as the horizon turned into shades of oranges and pinks.

“I should probably go to bed,” she said, looking at the sky.

“Can we just stay here for a little bit?” JJ’s voice was small, like he was afraid of asking.

He let out a breath of relief when she nodded. They laid on the ground again, shoulders barely brushing, hands millimeters away; so close yet so far away.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj Maybank imagine #jj obx #jj x reader

[thedreamworldlibrary]

Nothing Bad Happens Chap. 1-Alright

Hi everyone! Here is a new WTDW Fanfic!!!!

So, for being in fandoms for a LONG time I’ve seen my fair share of “Nothing Bad Happens” AU’s. I figured Welcome to Dreamworld should deserve that treatment. However, I never came up with a good name for the AU, so we’re calling it Nothing Bad Happens for now.

I’ve had this AU since WTDW episode 5 or 6 so it’s been in my head for a while, but I recently started writing it because I had a bunch of other stories being worked on plus life stuff.

Big thanks as always to my beta readers, @gigilefache and @mun-auroralore! 

Enjoy!

The Dreamworld Entertainment Facility, an entertainment center where kids don’t have to feel alone.

This is the facility where a young man named Wiatt Nicholson stood. He heard about this place for a while now; his boyfriend, Lewis Bright was one of the founders of this facility. The two made a promise when Lewis left to build it with his two best friends. 

If you stop calling me, you know I’m coming back to find you.

Wiatt hadn’t heard from Lewis in over a week, and now was more than ever ready to run to the facility and check to see if his boyfriend was alive and well. 

However, he was scared. Scared that when he opened the door he would be welcomed by everyone saying Lewis is gone.

“I can’t do this,” Wiatt said to himself. 

He was about to walk away from the facility and drive back home-but stopped, realizing that he had driven a couple of hours from his grandfather’s mansion. Plus, he kept his promise of coming to find Lewis and he was gonna do just that.

Wiatt sighed and pushed open the door, hearing the sound of arcade games and kids laughing and having fun. Slowly stepping in, he looked around-and froze, seeing a familiar sight in front of him.

It was Lewis.

Lewis was talking with some workers and sharing a laugh. He had slicked-back, light brown hair with a few fringes hanging over his face, green eyes, and oval glasses. He wore a light blue vest over a white dress shirt, black dress pants, and black dress shoes.

Wiatt smiled, seeing Lewis was safe and happy. However, he soon frowned, not understanding why Lewis hadn’t called him in a week.

Taking a deep breath, he entered and walked up behind Lewis. 

“Uh, hi I’m looking for a Lewis Bright,” Wiatt spoke up.

Lewis froze, recognizing the voice. He slowly turned around, eyes widened after seeing Wiatt. 

After a few years of not seeing each other in person, he was here. 

“W-Wiatt?” Lewis asked, surprised.

Wiatt nodded. “Told ya, I’d come find you if you stopped texting.”

The workers stepped back and decided to give the founder some alone time with his boyfriend. 

The two stood there awkwardly not sure what to say to each other.

“So…” Lewis started.

“So…” Wiatt repeated.

“You're probably wondering why I haven’t texted you for a while,” Lewis said.

Wiatt nodded. He took a look at Lewis and saw he was fine, no wounds, just tired. “Did Sara stop you from talking to me?” he asked.

“No, darling!” Lewis yelled, reassuring his boyfriend. He sighed and looked around to make sure no one could hear, “If I tell you, you promise you won’t tell?” 

“Lewis, what’s going on?” Wiatt asked again, now worried.

Lewis took Wiatt’s hand and dragged him to the elevator. Wiatt stuttered and complained to Lewis about dragging him, and not telling him the reason why Lewis stopped answering his texts. Once inside, Lewis pressed the button to the Staract. 

As the elevator went down, Wiatt was able to talk. 

“Lewis, what the fuck is going on?! You're not telling me anything!” he shouted.

Lewis sighed. “It’s best I show you, darling,” he replied.

The bell on the elevator rang, and the doors opened.

“Follow me,” Lewis said. 

Wiatt sighed and followed him to a theater. 

Once there, Lewis turned on the spotlights for the stage, and soon, a star animatronic came down.

“L-Lewis, what is this?!” Wiatt asked, frightened.

Soon, the star animatronic opened his eyes and smiled at Wiatt. “Why, hello, darling. I’m Starlight.”

Wiatt’s mouth dropped, and his glasses fell on the bridge of his nose. He stammered out words to Lewis- who stood there chuckling nervously.

“W-What’s so funny about this, Lewis?!” Wiatt yelled. “Why does this animatronic talk like you?! A-Am I talking to an imposter?”

“Wiatt! Wiatt, calm down!” Lewis reassured his boyfriend. 

Wiatt was breathing heavily, trying to calm down. After taking one slow, deep breath, he was officially calm.

“Is he okay, Lewis?” Starlight asked.

“He’ll be fine,” Lewis replied. He cleared his throat and put his arm around Wiatt. “This Starlight. Starlight, this is Wiatt Nicholas, my boyfriend.”

Starlight moved closer. 

Wiatt saw Starlight move via a support beam on his back as the animatronic stopped just a few inches near him. 

Starlight smiled and held his hand out. “Pleasure to meet you, Wiatt.”

Wiatt looked at Starlight’s hand and back at the animatronic. before shaking his hand.

“Lewis, are you gonna tell me what’s going on, now?” Wiatt asked.

Lewis nodded. “Well for starters, Sara did have something to do with this,” he started.

Wiatt groaned. He knew Sara had given him a weird vibe since he first met her. “What did she do?” he asked.

“This might sound crazy, but during the early days of building Dreamworld Entertainment. Sara acted… weird,” Lewis started.

“Like always,” Wiatt grumbled.

“Huh?” Lewis asked.

“Nothing!” Wiatt lied.

Lewis rolled his eyes. “Anyways, Sara was trying to create immortality-”

“Create what now?!” Wiatt shouted.

“Let me finish, Wiatt,” Lewis groaned, “but yes, I thought what she was thinking was crazy too, until…”

His voice trailed off, not wanting to tell Wiatt what Sara did to him. “... she found a way to take a part of my soul and put it into Starlight.”

Wiatt put his hands together and took a deep breath, before letting it out. “May I ask how she did that?” she asked.

Lewis and Starlight looked at each other, and both chuckled at the same time. 

“It’s complicated, darling,” Starlight answered.

Wiatt opened his mouth, but he stopped and decided not to ask. Seeing Lewis okay was enough to know what Sara did didn’t kill him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Wiatt said. He walked up to Lewis and hugged him. “I’m just glad you're alright, Lewis.”

Lewis blushed and smiled, hugging Wiatt back. “Y-Yeah.”

Starlight sniffled as his scarlet mask went on. “Aww, you two are so cute together!” he cried. He then grabbed the two and hugged them tight. 

Wiatt and Lewis giggled, still blushing.

“Yep! He’s definitely you, Lewis!” Wiatt commented.

Lewis chuckled. “Me, but more of a theater kid!”

The three shared a laugh- before Wiatt got an idea. 

“I’ve been thinking, are you hiring right now?” He asked.

“Of course, we’re always hiring,” Lewis replied. Soon his eyes widened, knowing Wiatt was planning something. “Why?”

“Because I wanna work here,” Wiatt answered.

#welcome to dreamworld #wtdw #Lewis Bright #Wiatt Nicholas #Starlight wtdw #NBH AU #Nothing Bad Happens AU

[green-socks]

A Winter's Ball

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Floyd x f!reader (callsign Baby, because of Dirty Dancing)

Summary: The annual Grand Winter Ball is coming, and you offer to give Bob some dancing lessons.

Words: 2.7k

Warnings: none, really.

Notes: Thank you so much @lorecraft for requesting this<3 You really got my writing juices going after a bit of a dry spell and I'm so happy for that! Trying out a new character (and a new fandom at that) always scares me shitless but Bob is everything and I desperately wanted to give him a go with this quick thing. Hope you enjoy!

MASTERLIST

”Bob! You’re coming too, right?” Rooster hollered, brining Bob out of his daze.

“Coming where?” he asked, confused.

“The Grand Winter Ball, man. In December. You gotta come,” insisted Hangman, taking over from Rooster.

“Really? You’re going?” It didn’t seem like Hangman’s scene, though what did Bob know. He’d never been to the Ball.

“Hell yeah, man. I like to dress up nice and go mingle,” Hangman winked.

“And you know I like to dance. It’s a good time with the right gang,” Rooster continued.

“I did just find a great dress for it,” Phoenix mused.

If Phoenix was going, then Bob thought it might not be that bad. And really, if everyone else went, he’d feel left out. Stupid peer pressure.

“Baby, you usually go, don’t you?” Phoenix continued, turning to the only other female present.

“I do! I missed the last two years though, so hopefully I can use my old dress again and no one will remember,” she joked.

Fanboy piped up, “Do I need to, like, bring a date?”

Hangman was already opening his mouth with a twinkle in his eye that promised no good, but thankfully Baby broke in before he could say anything dumb. “You can, if you want to, but usually people bring more long-term partners, or really good friends, or family members, rather than just ask someone out for that one occasion. But we can all go as a group!”

“So there’s.. dancing?” Bob asked apprehensively. “I don’t really– I mean I haven’t–“

“I can give you a few lessons if you want, Bob,” Baby said earnestly, putting a hand on his knee, a kind expression on her face. Bob swallowed nervously, but she continued, “Just so you’ll know what to expect. So you’ll have a handle on a few of the basics, nothing too complicated.”

“Y-you think so?” His fingers itched to twiddle nervously, but her hand was still on his knee, so he stayed still. “I mean, thanks. That would be really nice of you,” he mustered up a small smile.

“Ooooh, Baby and Baby getting together! Are you gonna dance dirty?” Hangman crowed.

“We’ll set up a lesson, I’ll text you about it,” Baby said, ignoring Hangman. Bob knew she had some background as a dance instructor, and still danced whenever she could, hence the callsign.

She nodded and smiled like the matter was settled, then stood up, motioning to Rooster now. “Come on, Bradshaw, show me what you got boy,” she said playfully, and drew the man for a dance.

Everyone else continued drinking their beers and laughing at Rooster and Baby tearing up the dancefloor all by themselves. They had started out doing one of those ballroom dances, but since the music wasn’t really suited for that, they had just switched to whatever it was they did. Hands in the air, hips loose, hair whipping, all sorts of grinding and twirling and movements Bob had no idea how they even did them. His body certainly wasn’t meant to do that.

Bob admired them both for being able to let go like that. And he always thought Baby looked especially pretty like this, the joy she was feeling clear on her face and in her body language. He was barely able to shyly jam along with the rest of the gang, and preferably when he felt like no one was watching.

When the song switched to Black Velvet, Rooster and Baby started gaining more audience with the way they had started a surprisingly sensual looking dance. Bob couldn’t help feeling a twinge of jealousy. At the same time, he felt himself get hot under the collar looking at her and their stupidly sexy dance and why couldn’t he look away?

People whistled and hooted, which only made Rooster and Baby amp it up, trying to stay serious about their little show, but faces cracking up in laughter even as they took it further.

Mercifully the song ended after what felt like many agonizing minutes, and Bob didn’t feel like examining too closely why that had felt like the sweetest torture to watch. But one thing he knew for certain was that Baby would definitely not have as much fun with him as she did dancing with Rooster. Jealousy raised its head in his gut again, so he stuffed another handful of peanuts in his mouth.

--------

You had cleared off some room in your admittedly not that roomy living room, hoping it would work as a makeshift dancefloor for two people for the next hour or so. The Winter Ball was only two weeks way now, so it was really time to get cracking with getting Bob ballroom ready.

“I thought we’d start with your basic waltz. That’s a good basic skill to have, you know, almost all the other stuff is just extra, at least in my experience. There will be several waltzes during the night at the Ball, too,” you explained, hoping to reassure the nervous looking Bob in front of you.

“I assume you may know the time signature of waltz? I thought I can just count for us first, and then move on to music when you’ve got the hang of it.”

“Yeah. Actually, time signatures and that stuff I know pretty well. I play the drums, so I know rhythms. I just.. don’t know how to move,” Bob said, biting his lip, as if he was unsure if he should be asserting himself like that.

“Oh! Well, that’s great! You’re already on a much better basis with that background than many others,” you smiled. Man, the WSO was full of surprises. And adorable. But that was neither here nor there. “You must be familiar with using a metronome too, then”–Bob nodded–“so we can use that to help us find the rhythm.”

“Come here.” You waited patiently for Bob to step closer to you, and then you pulled him a little bit closer still, showing him where to put his hands. “Right hand up here, to my shoulder blade. People always like to leave it hanging lower, because it takes more work to keep it up there, but I’m supposed to be able to rest my left hand on your forearm like this. And sure, if you’re going for more intimate and relaxed feeling, you can be looser, but we’re doing this properly, aren’t we Bob?” you smile at him broadly, having fun getting to be all proper every once in a while.

“Sure, yeah, sure.”

You guide his other arm to the right position. “Now, we’ll start with the basic box step and work from there, okay? On one, your left foot steps forward, while my right one steps back, like this… Next, your right foot steps sideways to the right.. Right, yes.”

And so on and so forth it went, getting the steps down, practicing the familiar rise and fall motion of the dance. It was proper exercise, and after an hour you were both slightly sweaty.

“Whew,” Bob exclaimed after yet another go. “I never realized holding my arms up for this long would be so hard,” he laughed quietly.

“I know, it’s a lot of work, but think how handsome you’ll look in your tuxedo with your fancy closed position posture,” you grinned at him, and he blushed a little, but then he put his arms back into position, shoulders down, back straight, and a determined look on his face.

“Wanna go again?”

Honestly, Bob was a lot better at this than you would have thought. Sure, it was clear he wouldn’t be letting loose and getting lost in the dancing itself any time soon, but he practically never missed a beat, and he was really good at remembering the steps. And your goal here was to teach him the dances, not necessarily get him to enjoy them, though you hoped he would, some day. His movements weren’t the most fluid, but they were what you needed them to be for the dance to go smoothly, nonetheless.

You agreed to meet a couple more times again before the Ball, and you felt confident you’d be able to teach Bob a few more different styles to give him a proper repertoire, since he was such a quick learner and good with the rhythms.

You sent him off with a promise to meet two days later, and said, “With this rate we’re going, everyone’ll be wanting to dance with you all night!”

Bob blushed again, stammered a thanks, and left.

--------

It was the night of the ball, and you were getting ready. Your friend who was a hairdresser had come to do your hair for the night, making you feel gloriously pretty.

And you did decide to wear your old dress from a few years ago, since you felt it was ageless anyway and still fit you. You thought the tasteful cutouts showing off the smooth skin of your back looked especially pretty, and secretly you hoped Bob would like it.

You weren’t entirely sure, but you thought there had been some sparks between you and him these past two weeks while you had been teaching him. Even longer, truth be told. You had just never had the guts to do anything about it, and Bob didn’t exactly seem like the type to make the first move all that quickly either. You had flirted with him here and there, and you thought he might even have been flirting back lately. Maybe, if you felt brave enough, you could try to talk to him tonight, see how he felt.

While you had been honest about him probably having his pick of willing dance partners, you hoped he would spend most of those with you. There was the obvious matter of you liking him, so getting to spend more time so close to him sounded like a damn good time. But it wasn’t just that. Even though Bob wasn’t a pro by any means, he always made you feel safe and secure in his arms, and that was perhaps the most important thing when dancing with a partner. You were nearly always likely to say yes if someone asked you for a dance, but despite the fancy dress code, not everyone behaved like a gentleman at the Ball. So it would be nicer to dance with someone you trusted. Getting to smell his cologne up close would be a significant bonus though.

-

So far you were having a grand time at the Ball – in fact, it was the most fun you had ever had there. With so many friends around you, everything was even better. Though you tried to behave like sophisticated people, the proverbial hairs had started falling out of the proverbial bun with Hangman snorting wine through his nose when Payback had made him laugh, and everyone had lost it at the pretty boy being not so pretty.

Needless to say, once dinner was over and it was time for dancing, the gang was feeling quite joyful, and your group was among the first to hit the dancefloor. Acting very dignified and distinguished, of course. Or at least trying to.

You had promised the first dance to Rooster months ago, and after that Hangman came to whisk you away for the second one (while smoothly asking for tips to further improve his dancing technique – you were feeling gracious and gave them without any of the usual teasing), and then you took Fanboy and Coyote each for a spin, which was more giggling and stumbling than fancypants dancing, but you loved every minute.

After all that you were dying to see Bob though. You hadn’t gotten to dance with him yet, but you were really pleased to have seen him dance all the dances too. You were craning your neck searching for the WSO before someone else snagged him for the next dance, when there was a tap on your shoulder.

“Can I have the next dance, Baby?” Bob asked shyly.

“Yes!” you beamed, probably a bit too enthusiastically to be normal. “I was just looking for you!”

“Really?” he grinned.

“Yes! I wanted to get you for a dance too.”

“Oh-Okay,” Bob smiled and led you to the floor.

Even though technically there was nothing more to this than when you were dancing with the others, you were feeling both flustered and giddy to be dancing with Bob like this, when you were all decked out in black tie gear and there was actual live music and everything. It felt more real, because now you were two people dancing together in front of other people, instead of just learning to dance in your small living room.

You were enjoying the feeling of safety and closeness with Bob again. He felt so steady, and you knew the strength his arms held even if he didn’t display them as readily as some of the others. It was like the rest of the ballroom disappeared when you danced with him, which was why you missed most of your gang eyeing you two knowingly from the sidelines. You were too busy gazing into Bob’s beautiful eyes that seemed to sparkle under the chandeliers. You probably had a totally besotted look on your face, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. He looked so handsome in his tux you had nearly swallowed your tongue the first time you’d laid eyes on him earlier at the champagne reception.

The song ended, and Bob being the perfect gentleman bowed and offered his hand to escort you from the floor. But you didn’t feel like letting go just yet.

“Stay,” you asked, maybe even pleaded, who knew anymore. “Let’s dance another one?”

“I– Oh– Sure, okay, yes, of course.”

After the second dance bled into a third one, Bob was quiet for a long moment, and then said, “I thought you would have wanted to dance with Rooster more.”

Slightly confused, you answered, “No, I want to dance with you, Bob. I wanted to have you for most of the dances tonight if I’m honest, not anyone else.”

“I.. I thought you liked Rooster,” Bob mumbled, looking embarrassed and slightly blushed.

“What? You did?”

“Um, well, you always have so much fun with him, I thought…” he continued mumbling.

You chuckled a little and looked up at him nervously. “No, not at all. Actually, I… I like you.”

“Oh.”

And for the first time, your steady partner missed a beat as he gazed at you with a wide-eyed amazement.

“Wait, really?”

You smiled. “Yes, really. I’ve been too nervous to say anything, but yeah, I really like you. Hope that’s okay,” you rambled.

“Wow. Uhm– Can I kiss you?” Bob asked, and then before you could answer, he babbled, “I’m sorry! I mean–, I didn’t mean to say that, I meant to say I like you too, obviously.”

You two had stopped dancing, instead just standing there on the edge of the dancefloor, letting other couples drift by.

“I would love it if you kissed me, Robert,” you whispered, and got to see a smile bloom on his face before leaning in to close the distance between you.

His lips were so soft and gentle pressing against yours, first a little hesitantly, then with more confidence as he drew you closer to him. You hummed happily and wrapped your arms around his neck, pressing yourself even more tightly against him. You moved to deepen the kiss, and the first slide of his tongue against yours made you let out a small moan.

Which made Bob pull away.

His face was flushed and his breathing a little heavier. “Sorry, it’s just that, uhm, these tuxedo pants won’t actually hide a whole lot so…” he trails off, getting more red.

You giggled. “Sorry, I guess I was getting a little carried away. Do you want to go get some fresh air or keep dancing?”

Bob smiled. “We can keep dancing now that I know how to do it with you. Not that I minded just watching you before,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You can watch at me all you want, as long as I get to look at you too,” you winked, trailing a finger down his chest.

“Okay seriously, sweetheart, we need to waltz before I embarrass myself,” Bob groaned. “That’s a sentence I never thought I would say,” he muttered.

You laughed happily, but dutifully laid your hands on his arms, suddenly kind of wishing you were back dancing in your living room instead.

#robert bob floyd x reader #bob x reader #top gun: maverick #top gun fic #robert floyd x reader #robert bob floyd x you #top gun brainrot #i accidentally wrote something

[independence1776]

@gellalaer From the comments on this post (because I’d run out of space in the comment box and also this is a lot of tangential navel-gazing):

It was nice to read your viewpoint on things. I'm so saddened to hear you feel the way you do. I know how you feel with not wanting to engage anymore. I'm barely holding on by a thread here, myself. I would miss you and arizonapoppy, if I left tomorrow. All my usual fandom friends I've grown apart from, since my Mum died, as I'm not on the sites they're on, anymore. Thanks again for the asks.

It’s a tough place to be in. I’m sorry you’re feeling this way, too.

I can’t participate with fandom like I used to for numerous reasons. Part of it is serious offline life stressors; part of it is that grad school got me out of the habit of fandom because I was too busy to participate. (Like, it took me weeks to read a fic over lunch/dinner that I would normally be able to read in an evening type of busy.) I relied on rec lists then and haven’t gotten back into the habit of looking for fics on my own; also, I’ve been reading mostly original fiction this year. Part of it is that it’s very hard to maintain a squee/positive mindset in most places because random strangers will come onto your posts to debate, argue, or insult you when all you wanted to do was love something in public. And part of it is that I’ve lost my joy and enthusiasm and I don’t know how to regain it. (And in my worst moments, I ask myself if anyone would even care if I left fandom entirely.)

For Tolkien fandom in specific, I know a good chunk of my desire to not engage is anxiety brain. I said in the original post that “I can’t even read Tolkien right now without my anxiety ramping up because I feel like I’ll be forced to take sides in whatever arguments are ongoing and because I’ve been only tiptoeing in the very shallow end of the fandom for years now, I feel like I have no right to participate because I haven’t been reading Tolkien fic.”

Fault lines exist in this fandom. Some of them have changed over the years; some have gone dormant; others are newly created. I’ve been so quiet in Tolkien fandom I don’t even know where most of them are nowadays. And heaven forbid you don’t ship the popular ships or dislike the popular fanon or prefer Silm-version over HoME-version. 

It’s stuff like: I said in an answer to a question in a previous meme that I tend to see characters as either straight or ace. I lost followers for that. Well, when I ship, I’m primarily a het shipper with side jaunts into m/f/f or m/f/m poly or femslash and I flatly prefer canon ships over noncanon ships. I can only assume those people didn’t know that. And I’m ace enough that I primarily write gen and that if someone isn’t explicitly said in-canon to be in a relationship, I will likely see them as ace. Yet because that’s an unpopular opinion in an area of fandom dominated by m/m shippers who sometimes act as though their ships are canon, it’s a fault line I’m on the wrong side of.

There is something very wrong when I can’t even read books I love without feeling afraid I’ll be questioned about my opinions of them. It’s anxiety brain. No one online knows if I’m rereading Tolkien if I don’t mention it! But I can’t shut up the fear I’ll be dragged into debates that I don’t care about, think are a waste of time, and are utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things but that people treat as matters of life and death.

As for the “no right to participate” part: I know it’s fixed by asking for recs for currently formative or popular fics from the past five years or decade. But I have no guarantee I’d read any of them, remember enough of canon to understand them (the amount of Tolkien lore I’ve forgotten is ridiculous), or that people will respect my reading preferences. (I have asked for gen recs before and been recced mostly slash.) It seems like an awful lot of work for something that’s supposed to be fun; it turns fandom into an obligation.

But that is what I feel like right now: that people know me because I haven’t left the SWG spaces but I’m not reading Silmfic but people probably assume I am so I don’t dare act like I have no idea what’s going but sometimes I do and many times I don’t and I don’t participate in Tolkien fandom on Tumblr at all but people often act as though this is where the fandom is and everyone knows everything that’s going on. So how dare I roll in here acting as though I haven’t been participating in the fandom for years even though I really haven’t been active outside of chatting on the SWG Discord and making things for TRSB. (And wow that’s a run-on.)

Add in the constant, underlying pressure that people want more and more content (never stories, always content and few seem to care about the difference between content and creations/art) and that you’re irrelevent if you aren’t constantly writing and posting new things. There is far less a sense of a community of readers and writers in this together these days. But it also seems that it’s events events events and what’s wrong with you if you don’t participate in them? (And this even though I love some events.) There’s a constant pressure to fit in and be like everyone else, that everyone is in fandom for the same reasons and writes fic for the same reasons (which often means either shippy fic or “must fix canon because canon sucks” fic). The assumptions that everyone in fandom loves and prioritizes shipfic, that genfic is inherently less valuable or worthy of attention, and that shipping the only reason people are in fandom really gets on my nerves.

Well, I’m not exactly prolific. I don’t post WIPs; I can’t talk about what I’m currently writing to drum up interest. I can’t talk about what I want to write in the future. Because some of my fics contain darker subject matters, I’m worried that I’ll be jumped on by people who think those types of stories shouldn’t exist. Participating in events means I don’t work on my own ideas; I didn’t finish a story I really wanted to this year because I signed up for a couple of things in the back half of the year so my attention shifted to those stories. (I don’t regret writing them at all but it’s a matter of prioritization.) I don’t feel like I fit in with modern fandom.

I don’t want to leave and don’t plan to, but I’m not sure anymore there’s a place for me in much of fandom.

#gellalaer #i'm not even sure i should post all of this but hey: this is what i feel

[uncleasad]

On taking breaks and moving on

An online friend of mine from a community I used to frequent several years ago just published his first chapbook of poetry, and his announcement reminded me of how many years it’s been since I’ve been active in that community.

In fact, it’s been pretty common in my life (online, at least) to move on from communities over time. In “past lives,” I’ve been a notable contributor to a handful of open-source software projects, an active member on a variety of discussion fora, a frequent commenter on a handful of old-school blogs, a part of the aforementioned community in question, and, of course, our beloved Hosie fandom (far more active on AO3 than on here, for sure). I think the longest I’ve been an active part of something has been 7 years, and in most of the longer-timeframe instances, I’ve also taken breaks and later returned.

Legacies debuted in 2018, and I’ve been a Hosie since nearly the beginning (the poking in the park)—but still before I knew it was a ship!—and reading fanfic on AO3 since at least late 2019 (though I didn’t start writing my first Hosie fic until late February of 2020). So we’re stumbling towards middle age, I suppose. And a series that produced only 68 episodes and, in this new visual entertainment media reality, will be locked away in a corporate vault, never to be seen again (more on that some other time), well, the reality is, the fanbase has already peaked.

The worst, of course, of my online community experiences are the cases where it felt like I was the only one left putting in the effort to hold up the project or community, and not wanting to quit because I know it will be the end if I do—the wall will come tumbling down—but also not wanting—or being able—to keep at it alone.

Already I feel like we’re approaching that point in the Hosie fandom on AO3. It used to be that it didn’t matter who you were, your fic would garner a handful of comments; you didn’t have to be one of those “top tier” authors whose chapters drew dozens of comments. Today, though, those same “top tier” writers and their successors are lucky to get a handful of comments on their chapters, and I often find myself the only reader commenting on new chapters from many existing authors as well as new work from new authors—yes, amazingly, there are still some! (There are others who are pretty active in the comments, particularly Shadowmama55, who wrote their first fic this year—you should go read it if you haven’t, and leave comments as you do—a cracking debut fic!) 

All of which is a longwinded way of saying that I hope this writing slump of the past 9 months or so is just me taking a break. I know from experience my active time remaining is limited, but I don’t plan on walking away yet—at least not before TheDarkestHour13 finishes Such is Our Fate (and I think the projected chapter count is 200-something, so that’s another couple years yet if the current chapter/week pace persists, so rejoice in its slow burn) 😏

See you around, everyone 👍

December 4, 2023

#status #musings #fandom #online communities #fanfic comments #hosie #writing struggles #hosie fics #fic recommendation

[samcybercat]

2022 Fanfic Meme

I did this meme at the end of 2021 and enjoyed looking at my stats, so I thought I’d do it again for this year. Word count for the year: 229,620 ...Which is actually a lot more than last year, even though I thought that I’d written less. However, some of this isn’t entirely accurate, as I was able to post zine pieces written in 2021 publicly in 2022 and I’m too lazy to subtract them from the total. In 2023 there will also be zine pieces that were written in 2022 being posted (and in one case, 2021, for a zine that keeps getting delayed...) Number of stories posted to Ao3: 20 (two less than the previous year) Pairings written for: Bill/Ford (Gravity Falls) The rest is all Hades Game: Zagreus/Theseus/Asterius Dionysus/Ariadne Theseus/Asterius Zagreus/Momus (OC) Theseus/Zagreus (a lot) Momus/Icarus (both OCs) Charon/Hermes Dionysus/Hypnos Zagreus/Dusa Hades/Persephone Ares/Skelly (the best!) Zagreus/Hypnos/Theseus Artemis/Callisto Nyx/Persephone Nyx/Athena Zagreus/Perilous Foes Fandoms I wrote for: Hades Game Gravity Falls Original Most popular story: I added a one year anniversary bonus chapter to “the prince with specific tastes; the king with specific regrets”, so that continues to be my most popular fic. Story I’m most proud of: Even though it was actually written in 2021 and only posted this year, I feel like it has to be “when ares met skelly” because it all came together so beautifully and was just so punchy and funny. Not to mention it has an amazing podfic based on it. Funniest: Same as above. Kinkiest: Uhhh probably “zagreus learns how to degrade hypnos (with help from theseus)” by virtue of having the most sex in it. The title explains it all, really. Saddest:  Some of the chapters of my original horror short stories, “Road to Longhanglington” are quite sad. But outside of that I didn’t write many sad stories this year compared to last year. Least Popular: “Theseus forgets not to be an asshole” got the least amount of views. It’s a short drabble about Theseus abandoning Ariadne on Naxos, which I guess I’ve just written about enough times before that everyone was bored of me writing it haha. The twist this time is that it was from Theseus’s POV instead of Ariadne’s though. Most Cringe-Worthy: I am cringe and free. Favorite Opening Line(s): “There hadn’t been a Dusa here, or anything remotely like a Dusa, back when Persephone had first lived in the underworld.” Taken from “caretaker of caretakers”. Favorite Closing Line(s): “ Thus, on the beckoning call of Chaos, Zagreus and Theseus jump.” Taken from “zagreus’s zany time travel antics (guest-starring long-haired theseus)” and perhaps my favourite because it is the one I’ve most recently written and was the end of a long and satisfying project. Top Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated: I honestly feel that my answers to this question from last year carry over to this year, but for scenes specifically from fics written this year: From “zagreus’s zany time travel antics (guest-starring long-haired theseus)”: - Zagreus & Theseus diving into the chaos portal together at the end of the fic - Any of the scenes with Momus & Icarus ...And that’s it for specifics. Literally any art at all based on my fics would make me immensely happy. Story I haven’t yet written, but intend to: At the moment, I just intend to wrap up any unfinished Hades Game projects that I have in preparation for Hades II coming out, since I want to have my table cleared and ready for all of the new brainworms that game will surely give me. I’ve actually managed to do do this for the most part, so there are just a few oneshots left (and one larger project that I may just not go ahead with). As a side note, I’m pleased to say that I achieved two of my three writing goals that I set for myself at the end of 2021 and both of them were the bigger ones: I did indeed write that full TheseZag time travel fic this year and I also wrote a bonus anniversary chapter to “specific tastes; specific regrets” to cap off the plot threads about the reunions between Asterius & Ariadne and Theseus & Aegeus. The only one I didn’t get written was the self-indulgent Dionysus/Momus fic, but I suppose self-indulgence should happen when it happens instead of being planned for. Fic-writing goals for 2023: Same as above, again. I know for sure that I have one TheseZag oneshot left to finish writing and several horror short stories that I might pick up again when inspiration strikes. But I don’t want to make too many big plans for myself when Hades II might render all of my fanfics to strictly fanon in the very near future. I’m more excited to wait and see what it gives me to work with. No pressure if you don’t want to do this, but I’m tagging @101flavoursofweird @crownofariadne @sweveris @krokonoko and @pandirpus

#*Talking #*Ask Meme #*My Writing #*Hades Game #*Gravity Falls #*Original #i didn't use a read more #because i assume everyone bothered by long posts #has that feature to shorten them enabled now #but let me know if you want me to add one :0

[petri808]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of people who mean something special to you. Share some happiness 🌺💜

Right now, it’s been tough so the things that make me happy are more like goals.

1) I enjoy writing, but haven’t been able to do much in over a year. So, little by little, even if it’s a sentence I push myself to do something. I’m proud of myself for finishing a secret Santa story on time this year!

2) the friends I’ve made online have gotten me though a lot of the tough times, so please know I love you guys a lot! Getting back to you all helps to motivate me to get better 💜 and I’ll try to pop into Discord here and there when up to it. Oh, and I even got to meet two of you irl this August! You know who you are. That’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

3) related to above is interacting with the fandom. I had to drop out of the nalu blog cause I couldn’t keep up anymore. Giving up sucked, since I’d been doing it since fall of 2018, but it wasn’t fair to everyone else to let it flounder. Seeing it continue makes me really happy.

4) my irl bestie of 27+ years has been living with me for a couple years while their family home is rebuilt after a fire. It’s made me undeniably happy to be able to help her, and her helping me through all the shit I’ve been dealing with. I’m blessed to have such an amazing friend. I’d lost tough with most of our old friends from hs, but this has motivated me to rekindle the relationships.

5) lastly, imma be selfish and say myself cause I’m proud I didn’t give up. 20 years ago this strife might’ve led to suicide, so that means I have gotten stronger. Looks like I just have more information I can stick in a story 🙃lol. Making myself happy is a big motivator.

Even with help, surviving whatever happens to you is ultimately due to your own efforts of not giving up, so Always remember to pat yourselves on the back!

I’m right with you girl 🥹✊ @cstorm86 it’s been a hell of a ride lately, but you’re a survivor! You got this! 💪

I’ll explain why I’ve been MIA from here for so long below.

From spring 2019 to august 2021 so much crap happened with my family. My uncles cancer/death revealed an explosive skeleton in the family closet that left my grandma homeless in November 2019. Neither her surviving kids would take her for selfish reasons so she lived with me. She was doing so well!… but In September 2020 her daughter finally took her, stuck her in a room sending her health plummeting and she died by the following April 2021. The final straw was my mom dying from Covid in august 2021 because my trumpster half-siblings who didn’t believe in Covid brought it home. They’re now all dead to me. I’ve also been having a lot of medical problems on top of this so, in September 2021 I just… cracked… Three psychiatrists, two anti-depressants, one antipsychotic, and two therapists later I’ve finally found a good therapeutic fit. Psychotherapy is tough but I really like it and I think I’ve started the road to recovery. I highly recommend this form of therapy when you need to fully break free from past traumas.

#personal post

[finsterhund]

the future of chemotherapy and eventual palliative care

In case I haven't appeared grateful enough I'd like to again thank all my friends and Cazza fans for the showering of support that we have received since the cancer diagnosis last year. We've managed to come this far because of your overflowing support for us.

Being low income it is very much a luxury to have been able to pay for such expensive medical treatment but we have been able to, largely thanks to the support from our communities. You have truly come together to alleviate a great burden off of my shoulders.

This thank you goes out to my friends, mutuals, the Heart of Darkness fandom, the wonderful people at Eggware.xyz and their surrounding community, and several strangers on tumblr who gave support during the initial launch of the gofundme.

It's been hard for me to remain positive due to the nature of what we are going through so I apologize if over these strenuous months if I have come off as distant or cold. Empathy is unfortunately just as much a finite resource as energy is.

Recently Cazza has been noticeably showing the signs of.. well... and while today our vet is still opting for treatment it's been showing physically on her that its effectiveness has been slowing down. I intend to keep you all updated up until moving on to palliative care.

But I ask for your empathy in that once we transition from the CHOP regimen to palliative care that I will not be providing health updates in a professional manner. Even to supporters through GoFundMe.

This is for the sake of my emotional wellbeing and wanting Cazza to be remembered for who she was.

I may still very well vent our experiences online but I don't want to write up coherent and condensed paragraph formatting.  Additionally, the videos of her may trail off and stop.

We may still have the summer left, and I'm going to support her for as long as she is able, but I'm preparing you all in regards to where we currently stand.

Thank you again for everything.

Cazza loves you.

#text post #update #cazza update

[appreciatingtokrev]

i suppose it is normal then and the duration must be a factor too regarding the sadness. have you seen the film called loving vincent then? it's an biography of his life and it's animated in paint to reflect his art style.

i think it's mainly ios users that play it on their phones? but again, still need load of memory. does your laptop heat up when you play for a long time? my phone did despite being an iphone. i know nothing about hi3rd, i really thought GI was their first game lol. as students, we all have those moments lol.

i hope you get your meds soon then because that will probably help a lot, which style of studying do you prefer? where i live only marine biology is rare and that's a huge con :( but the sea sick might change over time. medicine is 5 years here, how long will it be for you? i dk what forensic medicine entails lmao. i'm sure you will be able to figure it out then.

i know stray kids belong to JYP and that's about it and that's cool but her playlist is probably longer lol.

oh, they are silver, my bad there is too many characters in TR that wear earrings ;-; what do you think of silver as a colour? apart from fanfic/cosplay, have you ever tried making anime edits? i started making youtube anime shorts yesterday and i like it where i do upload them online.

the power of self belief is everything! good luck but i think the quality of the wig probably make a difference? so might need to research beforehand so you can pick a good base.

yes, six months left to the big reveal ^^ no worries and oversided hoodies are cool.

oh, loving vincent! i’ve heard of it, but haven’t watched it (yet?), no. it kinda sounds like something i’d enjoy though.

personally i only know three people who play genshin on their phone, but two of them are samsung users lol. my old laptop would heat up like crazy (i mean... it’s like 8 or 9 years old at this point) but with my current laptop i hardly have any issues regarding that. that said i’ve still got to play on low graphics settings because it just lags a ton otherwise, but i hardly mind that. (tho i haven’t been able to play genshin in weeks bc it keeps crashing for some reason :( i’m waiting it out & hoping an update of my laptop will fix it but who knows. i might get a ps5 for christmas though so i’ll at least be able to play it on there ig? and maybe sooner on a phone bc i definitely need a new one even sooner.)

ah, my meds. i’ve got a prescription now, but they’re out of sale until at the very least january :') i really like studying with classmates/friends bc i hardly have the motivation to study alone tbh but if there’s at least someone else i do. i’ve p much got a study bestie tho and for most subjects we study together :D

well where i live i’m pretty sure you can’t study marine biology since there is no ocean lmao. so i might just study biology & then move somewhere for the specifics? idk. but i’ve got lots of time to figure it out still lol yep, hopefully it’ll get better,, medicine is 5 years here too! forensic medicine is p much examining dead (human) bodies, either bc they died in the hospital/in an accident (so for science) or because they died an unnatural death (criminology). tho the forensic medicine field entails more than just forensic pathology (doing autopsies), e.g. you could be working at a lab doing dna testing.

ngl i hardly know anything abt the few kpop bands i listen to, i just enjoy their music lol. but yeah i’m sure she knows more.

no no i get it, there truly are a lot,, i like silver as a color, especially in jewlery! tbh i prefer it over gold in most contexts.

ohh edits,, no, i haven’t done anything apart from cosplay attempts, making merch, writing fic & doing art for fandom so far lol. i don’t use tiktok & hardly use youtube for fandom stuff though (i usually listen to asmr or hour long explanation vids on yt, not much more adhkgdfjf) but if i do come across edits somehow, i’m always excited :D imo they’re very fun, but i don’t have the right apps or space on my phone for them to make any.

very true! yep, i’ll definitely do some research to try and find a rather cheap but still rather good quality wig,, bc it very much does make a difference.

only four more months.. 👀

#☆—`ask #anon: z

[whimsyswastry]

Total # of completed works?

 Honestly? Zero.

Total word count?

83.787! Last year I was so excited to have written 17k and this year O_O over 80k!!!

Fandoms written in?

Mass Effect (fShenko), Andromeda (mReyder), Greedfall (fDeSardet/Kurt), and a VERY small amount of Dragon Age (Cullevelyan)

Looking back, did you write more, less, or about how much you thought you would?

Way more. In the beginning of the year, it was like...April and I hadn’t even written 2k words yet. The fact that I wrote more this year than 4x what I wrote in 2021 is shocking and fills me with great joy and motivation to keep going.

Favorite story (of your own) this year?

Operation Leviathan. It was a plot bunny that struck me when I was watching Underwater in 2020, but I just didn’t have the oomph to do anything about it. But somehow, the flood gates opened about three days into NaNo and I wrote about 95% of it in a month. I have a couple thousand words left to wrap it up and some editing! I’m so excited to share it with the community.

Any writing risks this year?

I didn’t really write anything that risky. I tried a different tense, which wasn’t really my cup of tea. Well, that’s not true. I really enjoyed writing in present tense, but when I got into a flow state, it would automatically revert back to past tense. Which made editing a nightmare.

I should really keep trying though. I love present tense, especially for thrillers.

Any fanfic or original fic goals for the new year?

My goal almost every single year is to do make some sort of headway with Unharrowed. It’s a prequel to Inquisition that has been cooking since the first time I played it. But I can’t seem to ever make any progress. I’ve recently started revamping the lead character completely to give her a stronger (both in terms of literature and literally) personality. I’m hopeful that this will solve a lot of the issues I’ve been having with the story.

Most popular story of the year?

Masquerade & Mysteries, by almost 2x as many as my other stories. It’s my greedfall prequel, that tackles the class divide between Kurt and Lucette. It’ll be 7 chapters all said and done. Five and half of them are already completed...I’m just slow (and not very confident) at writing the smut.

Most under-appreciated story (of your own) by the fandom?

In the Flicker -- I understand why it didn’t gain much traction. AO3 is often very ship-centric and I wasn’t sure how to tag this. It was by-and-large a character study as I played with writing in first person. The story starts with a Ryder/Gil pairing, but the end game ends up being Ryder/Reyes. (Don’t worry, it’s not at all anti-Gil, it’s just how the story unfolded). However, I’ve only posted the first chapter, so I didn’t want to tag it as /Gil but I also didn’t want to tag it as /Reyes since neither is technically true.

Hopefully once the story is completed and posted, I’ll be able to tag it more appropriately and it will find it’s audience.

Most fun story to write?

Operation Leviathan! It had been so long since I felt a flow-state while drafting. It was freeing to just word vomit on a page and feel decent enough about what I’d written to keep it to edit down the road instead of trashing it immediately.

Most unintentionally telling story?

Probably Unharrowed. One  aspect of the story is coming to terms with a body (or in this case, a magic) that doesn’t cooperate with you and how distressing that can be. I didn’t intentionally mean to parallel my experience, but it just kinda...happened. At least in my notes it did lol I still haven’t drafted it.

Biggest disappointment?

The Hot Zone. So far it’s been well received, which is awesome. But I was 14k words into the story and suddenly it was like hitting a cement wall. I just...couldn’t write it anymore. No matter how hard I tried. I’m giving myself a break and will come back to it as soon as I can because I am so excited for this story.

Biggest surprise?

My word count. Writing in 2020 and 2021 was like pulling teeth. It was torture just squeezing out a couple thousand words over the course of the entire year. But this year, the flood gates just opened. It was like a huge weight had lifted off of me and I realized how much pressure I’d been putting on myself to engage in a hobby that’s supposed to be fun. I’m glad I’ve finally found my way back to enjoying the process.

Favorite part of fandom this year?

The entire Dragon Age fandom coming back to life after Absolution was released. My dash had been a trickle of DA content until December, and then suddenly it was all DA all the time. It was great to find new artists to follow and share as well!

Tagging || A large portion of my writing moots have already completed this or something very similar. So if you’re still reading it at this point, consider yourself tagged! And please tag me, I’d love to read about how your year went! 💛

#whimsy writes #fic review 2022

[sineala]

How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,” the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.

#Anonymous #replies

[mimzy-writing-online]

You probably know this by now, I don't know if you keep up with Whumptober, but one of the prompts this year includes "blindness". I'm not blind but based on your posts about writing blind characters, and based on how I would feel if one of my disabilities were used as a whump prompt, I'm not super comfortable with it. I was wondering what your thoughts are on blindness being a Whumptober prompt.

(unironically and with feeling) thanks, I hate it.

Yes, I’m familiar with Whumptober, but I’ve never participated myself and I haven’t seen this year’s prompts.

Edit: I later did see the prompts and check out the blog. I think it's a good set of prompts and I look forward to all the promising content, especially since some of my favorite tropes are there. To be clear before you read this, I have no problem with Whumptober2021 or whump in general. This is not the first time blindness has been included for a list of whump prompts, and it won't be the last.

This post directed at the concept of "blindness" as a whump prompt and why I think it's a bad idea. The intended audience is individual writers thinking about future projects.

The timing of this is almost too perfect because I read a fanfic earlier this week that would meet that prompt exactly. Tags included whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. Now whump, hurt/comfort, and angst with a happy ending are tags I enjoy reading, but blindness as whump has a specific message to it.

To explain that message, I want to discuss what whump is. Many readers are already familiar with the genre, but I think taking the specific definitions and picking apart what it means and what expectations we carry when reading whump fanfiction

Urban Dictionary defines it as: taking a character and putting them through physical and/or mental torment and is typically followed by the same character being treated for their traumas. To indicate the characters place in the situation they’d typically be called a whumpee (the character being hurt/comforted), the whumper (the character that causes harm and trauma), and the caretaker (the character designated the helping/healing/comforting the whumpee).

Fanlore has a page for whump that explains it in depth, including where it started in fanfiction, examples of whump, and even a list of “popular targets” in different fandoms. (Warning: you might find yourself called out on the popular targets list)

“The term whump (or whumping) generally refers to a form of Hurt/Comfort that is heavy on the hurt and is often found in gen stories. The exact definition varies and has evolved over time. Essentially, whump involves taking a canon character, and placing them in physically painful or psychologically-damaging scenarios. Often this character is a fan favorite…”

To add to that, I think an important detail is the distinction Fanlore makes between hurt/comfort and whump:

“While some communities and fandoms may use whump as a synonym for hurt/comfort, there is still a recognition that whump refers to darker and more extreme scenarios. And there are still whump fics been written that have very little, or no comfort at the end of the story.”

The big appeal of hurt/comfort is getting to both explore the darker sides of pain and then experience the catharsis of being taken care of, of being supported by your loved ones as you recover from the trauma. The character is the proxy for experiencing those highs and lows while you yourself are safe at home.

I personally don’t read much/any whump without some h/c involved, but I’m happy there are stories out there for people who do enjoy it. I’m not here to judge what you like reading or what you do to your characters.

What I want is to express how blindness, my disability, used as a whump prompt personally makes me feel and what message it sends to me, to others, and how that message affects my daily life.

Whump undeniably involves watching a character suffer through something painful and traumatic.

My use of the word “suffer” is what I want you to focus on.

Vision loss can be painful and traumatic. I personally developed an anxiety disorder in response to vision loss. Others experience depression. For some it might result in relapsing into old, maladaptive coping mechanisms like drug use, self harm, or eating disorders.

A big part of my anxiety was how people reacted to my vision loss. It was a cause of their stress. They were worried because they genuinely believed I would never live a happy life without normal vision, and that my life would only be struggle and pain.

I recently saw an old friend who hadn’t heard about my vision loss. The conversation was awkward, but the worst part was how they reacted as though I had experienced an insurmountable tragedy. And even when I assured them I’m happy with my life, they clearly didn’t believe me. They acted like I was just lying or in denial.

I love that people want to empathize with my situation and ask themselves what they would do in my situation, but I hate when the conclusion they come to is something along the lines of “I could never do that, I’d be too miserable thinking about everything I lost, I’d never be able to do anything I enjoyed ever again.” But I did go blind. And I’m not miserable, I’m actually happy with the direction my life is going, and I still enjoy my hobbies, even if I engage with them differently.

I’m not suffering. My life didn’t end with vision loss. It’s not ruined, broken, or worthless.

I read a fanfic that was tagged with whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. A general synopsis of the plot: the whumpee had gone blind due to a curse. It was true love’s kiss that broke the curse. Even from the summary I knew it was going to end with whumpee being cured somehow and that I’d leave that fanfic vaguely dissatisfied no matter how good the rest of the fanfic was.

I can say this for the fanfic: the whumpee had already accepted that they would likely be blind for the rest of their life, but everyone around them was treating it as a tragedy that needed to be fixed, working tirelessly for a cure despite the whumpee’s protests that they didn’t have to.

It actually hit home to my personal experience.

I still left it dissatisfied with the ending. I might love curse fics in that fandom, and I love the “true love’s kiss” trope, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from the fact that: an actual person out in the world thought the best happy ending, maybe the only happy ending, would be if the character got their sight back.

(note: I clicked kudos and exited out of the story's page because no fanfic writer deserves unsolicited critique or hate, especially for content I consumed for free and at my own volition.)

Why read a story I knew would disappoint me?

Because blindness representation is so damn rare that I feel like I’m wandering in a desert, dying from thirst and desperate for that oasis. But sometimes that oasis is a mirage and the author is unintentionally telling you that your life is actually awful and you’ll never be fully happy like this. And that is a shit mentality to walk through life with.

I don’t appreciate blindness being a whump plot. I hate it. Hundreds (thousands?) of fanfictions featuring blind characters are about to enter the internet and the overall message is going to be “You poor thing! You must be in so much pain, you must be miserable! Who’s going to save you? Who’s going to comfort you? Wouldn’t it be terrible if there was no one in your life to take care of you? You poor helpless thing!”

And I feel objectified. I feel trivialized. The mirage in the desert is going to become a starch, empty room filled with dozens of water bottles, almost all of them poisoned. My representation is going to hurt me personally, and it’s going to reinforce that idea strangers have about how awful my life must be.

(I returned to school this past month, and every day I’m hesitant to tell someone I’m visually impaired because I don’t want to be treated differently. If I’ve managed to pass as sighted this whole time and then suddenly reveal “oh yeah, I’m visually impaired” I feel this instant silence, this pause of awkwardness as people suddenly question how they’re supposed to treat me. They treated me like a person, and now I’m something strange and unfamiliar.)

I’ve worked so hard to improve representation for blind people, to give internet strangers the exposure to a blind person they need to normalize blindness because I hope that if they’re ever so lucky as to meet a blind person, they’ll treat that person with respect. That hope that another person in the blind community will find a friend they feel comfortable and accepted with. I hope that I’ll meet people who accept my blindness as just another aspect of me (like being bisexual or gender fluid or a writer or a cat lover).

Please don’t turn me and my community into a caricature. Don’t erase everything I’ve worked for with this blog.

To be clear, this is not just me saying "I hate the cure trope" again. This is me saying "the purpose of whump is to painfully hurt your favorite character, and I hate that your idea of pain and suffering is my daily (wonderful) life."

#blindness #whumptober #fanfiction #whump #whumptober 2021 #blind character #disability #ableism #anon

[saturnsorbits]

Message Received

Fandom: Haikyuu, Warnings: Angst with a Happy Ending, Word Counts: 700 words.

A/N: Did I write this 20 seconds ago, sat on a park bench staring at some swans? You'll never know.

-> Repost from Old Blog.

To: ‘Toshi ‘I miss you.’

You type the message out and delete it.

To: ‘Toshi ‘I was thinking about you -‘

Your finger hovers over the screen, contemplating before your thumb hits ‘return’ and the message bar becomes blank again.

To: ‘Toshi ‘Saw your game the other day. You look -‘

You close your phone and toss it aside, throwing it down, hard, on your beside table.

What the Hell where you supposed to say anyway?

Your relationship with Ushijima had been the main story line of your life for most of your youth. That was until he’d moved to Poland. Japan had done all it could for his career and with Kageyama moving to Italy, it only made sense to move further a field to test his strength against other international teams too.

He’d told you on a walk. The cold metal of the bench bit at your thighs and you’d cuddled close, snaking an arm around him for warmth. He’d unraveled you before he dropped the bomb-shell. Ensured that your hand was in his, clenched tightly together and squashed to his thigh as he hauled in a breath.

He spoke to the pond in front of you, told the ducks that he was leaving more than you. Eyes staring straight ahead, he’d ruined your life without even looking at you. It wasn’t that he didn’t care: he did, but dear old ‘Toshi never was good with his emotions. The flat expression he always wore, the one that was always mistaken for arrogance or ignorance hadn’t thawed with age.

He told you he didn’t want you to wait. Didn’t want you to put your life on hold for him to come home (he had no idea when that would be - to do so would be illogical). He reassured you that he loved you, tightened his grip on your hand and hoped, fucking prayed, that you wouldn’t hate him.

The last time you saw him had been at the airport. The old Shiratorizawa team had been there too, well most of them, and the odd face from the other teams: Iwaizumi, Hinata, Hoshiumi…

You kissed him goodbye. You’d been officially broken up for almost two weeks then, but you couldn’t stop yourself. He kissed you back, the quivering of his Adam’s apple betraying the storm in his chest when he’d pulled back to see the sea in your eyes. He couldn’t stay, he’d said - literally, his gate was being called and if he didn’t go now… Then, he wasn’t sure he ever would.

And then, he was gone.

In the six months since then you’ve spent more than one night crying into Tendou’s shirt, hoping that the hole in your chest would become a little more bearable (spoilers: it didn’t). But, life moves on and so you tried to, too. Except it never went away. Not really.

Tendou had been two-seconds too late flicking off the TV. You’d seen the tell-tale curve of his shoulders, the way he stood, slightly too wide, in the middle of the pitch on the screen. Just catching a glimpse of him had been enough. Something bloomed in your chest, a forgotten fondness clawing it’s way to the surface forcing you to feel it. It was like you’d remembered that a year ago, when he had left he had taken a piece of you with him and now, well, now you wanted it back. It burnt, seeing him. It burnt again like it did the day he told you he was leaving while you watched a mallard preen on her nest.

That was two weeks ago, and you haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since.

Your phone buzzes, vibrations rattling your bed-side table.

It’s not him. It’s night time in Poland, but your heart flips in your chest anyway.

You turn over your phone and swipe up on the notification.

It’s a short message.

From: ‘Toshi ‘I miss you.’

-> Masterlist

#ushijima wakatoshi #ushihima x reader #ushijima angst #saturnsorbits #saturnscribbles

[unoriginalmess]

Untitled Feralnette Fic Ch. 1

Hiya there anyone who happens upon this first chapter of this fic. I would like to start out by saying that this is my first fanfic ever. I've been wanting to write a fic for the miraculous fandom for a while but I haven't had any inspiration until I stumbled upon this glorious AU created by @bigfatbreak. I highly suggest checking out all of their posts about this au because they are hilarious and genius and about 100 other amazing adjectives that could be used to describe them and their posts. Anyways enough with my rant and let's get on with the fic. ⚠️Slight angst⚠️ ⚠️Swearing⚠️

--------

When Marinette got home after her and Luka's breakup, all she could do was cry. She wanted to be with him, but her Ladybug duties came first. If lying is a deal breaker for him, then maybe it was best that they ended it now while their relationship was still in its early stages. Still, she couldn't help but feel the loss of her first relationship. She ended up crying for a whole entire day. She just hoped that Hawkmoth(or Shadowmoth or whatever the fuck he wanted to be referred to as this week) wasn't feeling particularly akuma-y today, because she didn't know if she could bottle up all these feelings, even though the world is relying on her ability to do so.

Ugggghhh!! It has been exhausting having to be "happy and perfect Marinette" and "happy and perfect Ladybug" All. The. Time. She's also pretty sure that Hawkmoth had discovered the similarities in her personality as Marinette to Ladybug, and that's why she's been targeted by multiple akumas lately. She has had to have her emotions under control even more than usual. If only there was a way to get Hawkmoth to stop targeting her. Maybe she should just not give a fuck anymore. Haha as if! It couldn't be that easy! Could it?

The more she thinks about it the more it starts to make sense. If she just let herself go completely crazy as Marinette, she would be killing like 10 birds with one stone. She would get hawkmoth off of her trail, she wouldn't have to deal with having to hide her emotions all of the time, she wouldn't have to deal with the added stress of maintaining her perfect persona, she wouldn't have to deal with the stress of Lila's lies taking her friends away if she didn't have friends in the first place, and so much more stress would be taken off of her plate! It was perfect! It might hurt a little at first, but it's for the best in the end. She spent that night planning out her outfit for tomorrow, doing her homework, and going to sleep knowing that, in the morning, François Dupont isn't gonna know what hit them.

....

Adrien Agreste had been having a rough week. He had been abandoned on patrol by ladybug, been broken up with by his girlfriend, and was feeling completely and utterly alone. He knows that his lady has been feeling overwhelmed by her guardian duties lately, and that he 100% deserved that verbal lasting that kagami had given him but he couldn't help but feel this way. He was also feeling guilty about lying to kagami and leading her on for so long. After she broke up with him he took some time to assess his feelings for her and realized that he had more of an admiration for her than an infatuation. He definitely didn't feel the same way about her that she felt about him. She told him that she LOVED HIM, and he was so distracted (blinded) by ladybug that he didn't even process her confession. So, he was looking forward to Sunday morning. He cleared his schedule and on that beautiful Sunday morning, he did what he is only allowed to do on very rare occasions: sleep in. Or at least... thats what he had planned on doing.

When Nathalie had knocked on his door that morning Adrien was not in a good mood. He vaguely heard her say something about father wanting him downstairs in some amount of time for something involving a business partners child and some other robotic sounding words that his half asleep brain couldn't process completely.

"I have a cleared schedule this morning, Nathalie. What could father possibly want me for that is more important than my precious sleep?" He asked snappily.

"Your father wants you downstairs to welcome the new guest that will be living in the house for the rest of the school year. You have 15 minutes to make yourself look presentable and I suggest leaving the attitude upstairs," she half informed/half reprimanded him. As she walked away, Adrien reluctantly rose from his nice warm bed and went to go get ready with only one thought racing through his mind: Who could possibly be staying with them?

....

Felix Culpa was not looking forward to living at the Agreste mansion for the rest of the school year, but for their parents' sake they would do what they had to. It wasn't all for their parents either, they were also concerned about the strange "dissapearance" of Emilie (who was his aunt in all ways except blood relation) and about the treatment of Adrien since said "disappearance".

You see, Felix Culpa is the heir to the Culpa Fabric Empire. The Culpas have been the sole fabric supplier of the Agreste brand since the very beginning. Felix's mom Diana was best friends with Emilie since their college days. Diana and Emilie made the deal with the two brands because as best friends who are both involved in the same industry, it just made sense to have a business relationship with each other. Diana never really cared for Gabriel as a person, but she could tell that he loved Emilie more than anyone else in the world so she could tolerate him for the sake of her best friend.

When Emilie went missing, Diana was absolutely devastated and tried anything she could to find her. She invested in missing person ads as large as billboards, organized search teams, tried to aid the police in their search for her in any way she could, but there was no leads, no legitimate calls to the number on the billboards, and the search team came up empty handed. While she was doing all of this to try to find her, she couldn't help but be furious over the fact that Gabriel was doing nothing to help in the search. All he did was hole himself up in his oversized mansion and call it a day.

The last straw for Diana was when Gabriel tried to use the "grieving my wife" excuse to try to abuse their business arrangement. That day, she told him that the Culpa brand would no longer be associated with the Agreste brand and that after the new collection is released, he would need to find a new fabric supplier. She knew that the Agreste brand would take a huge hit from having sub-par fabric, but she never thought that Gabriel would try to make up for that fact by using Adrien as a walking mannequin and locking him up in the desolate prison that he calls a home. As soon as she realized that he was doing this she scrambled to find a solution.

That is how Felix ended up here, standing in front of the mansion they would be living in for the next 9 months in exchange for Gabriel getting back into the Culpa brand's good graces. Don't get them wrong, they were excited about being able to be in Paris, home of the most innovative fashion pieces in the world, and about being able to see their honorary cousin Adrien (who wasn't half bad to be around despite him having no backbone whatsoever when it came to anything involving his father) but dealing with Mr. Agreste was definitely one of the low points of this arrangement.

They decided to just get it over with and knocked on the door. It was opened by the man that their cousin affectionately referred to as Gorilla. They nodded a thank you to the man, remembering that he was a man of few words, and proceeded to the bottom of the staircase. Mr. Agreste stood at the top with a very tired looking Adrien a few steps down. Felix wasn't even slightly surprised that this is where he chooses to welcome his guests, looking down on people must give him some sort of power trip or something. It's almost as if he heard the phrase "It's over, Anakin, I have the high ground," and made that his own personal motto. Whatever, let him have the feeling of false power if he wanted it, Felix knows that they have all the power in this situation and they're sure that Gabriel knows it as well.

"Hello Felix," Mr. Agreste greeted them with the same amount of warmth in his voice as liquid nitrogen, "while you are staying in this house you will abide by my rules. Adrien will inform you of them and show you to your room. You will attend school with him in the morning and I'm sure that you already know that you must represent not only the Culpa brand, but also the Agreste as well. I will be in my office working, do not disturb me. Contact Nathalie with any questions that cannot be answered by Adrien." He finished his spiel and left to what Felix assumed was his office space.

"Hello Felix!" Adrien greeted him with as much enthusiasm as he could muster in his sleepy state. "Come with me and I'll show you to your room."

Adrien led Felix to their room and listed all of the rules of the household that they were expected to follow. And... wow. Felix could not believe that their cousin had to live like this. The only social interaction this kid gets is at school and fencing? Pre-approved outings only with people determined socially acceptable by Gabriel? And if he gets even one "B" he isn't even going to be allowed to go to school at all? Felix knew that the living situation was bad for Adrien but know the only question running through their head was: What did they get themselves into??

--------

And... thats it for chapter 1! Mostly background info at this point, but next chapter will be the class' reaction to feralnette and felinette meeting for the first time. I just want to say thanks again to @bigfatbreak for giving me the inspiration to write a fic for the first time ever. Feel free to leave constructive criticism, I'm always looking to improve, especially at writing since this is my first time posting anything I've written online, so I want to get better so that I can make better content for you guys, gals, and non-binary pals. If anyone wants to be tagged just let me know and I'll make a tag list for ya. :)

#feralnette au #felinette #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #felix culpa #also in case i havent made this clear enough PLEASE go check out bigfatbreak #they made this fantastic au #i would love any title ideas if anyone has any because if you couldnt tell by my username im super unoriginal and cant make titles #if not it might just end up being untitled feralnette fanfic forever

[yuyuntianyu]

[2HA analysis blog] To love you is torment but leave you I cannot

I wanted to write this (hopefully not-too-long) blog to give 2HA fandom a different perspective of the events in the past timeline. I noticed that there are many little things that could not be carried over to the English language. These little things can give more explanations to our characters’ actions so I hope sharing this would help the novel make more sense. This blog focuses on Taxian-jun and Chu Fei.

Warning: Spoilers ! ! ! Taxian-jun and Chu Fei are their own trigger warnings ! ! !

Despite the novel having 350 chapters, we really know little about what happened between Taxian-jun and Chu Fei besides the abuse and mistreatment and that little is relayed to us by the Most Unreliable Narrator of the Cultivation World - Mo Ran Mo Weiyu. If we only take Mo Ran for his words then a lot of his and Chu Wanning’s decisions told later on would seem irrational and almost silly. So let’s dive deep in the past so we can understand how the great cultivator Beidou Xian-zun could raise such a dumb husky since the events in the past would explain the more irrational decisions made by both main characters.

Given Mo Ran’s narrator is about as reliable as his character in the first 120 chapters, we have to look at other more subtle clues and some of them are due to cultural and linguistic differences.

1. I used to like you a lot

At his coronation day, Taxian-jun stated that he once greatly looked up to Chu Wanning and that he used to love and respect him dearly. Maybe I am reading into this too much but this is my theory: The flower could erase the memory itself but cannot erase the feelings associated with the memory. He had his memories of the good deeds Chu Wanning did for him erased but still remembered that he used to love and respect him. It doesn’t make sense unless it is indeed that the flower could not erase its host’s feelings. So throughout the novel, Mo Ran’s complicated emotions are complicated possibly because he could not remember how he came to have these feelings. Similarly, Hua Binan could mess with the undead Taxian-jun’s memory to a great extent but could not erase his obsession with Chu Wanning.

2. I gave you a new title

Chu Fei. 楚妃. In the Imperial Chinese harem hierarchy, “Fei” means consort and not concubine (嬪 “Pín"). Consorts were highly respected positions in the palace weidling much political power and were only seconds to the Empress Consort. Another major difference is a consort would be married to the emperor while a concubine would not. So if Taxian-jun had truly wanted to only humiliate Chu Wanning and keep him for the carnal pleasures (I am intentionally ignoring his breeding kink completely), he would keep him as a concubine but he gave Chu Wanning the Consort title and hid him from the world. At this point, Taxian-jun had almost lost Chu Wanning once and had spent a lot of effort to bring him back from the verge of death after hearing Chu Wanning’s apology so his anger might have softened a bit. Also, given that Chu Wanning is a man, having a legitimate offspring ( (I am still intentionally ignoring Mo Ran's breeding kink completely) is not an issue so although this is not clearly stated, I believe Taxian-jun wanted to force a relationship and somewhat proper marriage on Chu Wanning. Another hint of this is in an Extra chapter where Taxian-jun tried to get Chu Wanning a birthday gift. He recalled that in his past timeline, he had wanted Chu Wanning to give him something on his birthday as well and that he had wanted Chu Wanning’s heart.

3. Shizun likes to write letters and poems

On Book 3 Chapter 247, Chu Wanning sat down and wrote a few unsent letters to the people he used to know. He also wrote a few lines of poetry. In the first few lines taken from different literature works, he expressed his sense of helplessness and his wish to remain untainted despite the circumstances. The more important two lines are from a poem written by a real poet named Fàn Chéngdà ( 范成大) who lived in the 12th century Southern-Song dynasty. The two lines read:

“May I be like the stars, may you* be as the moon. Night after night, may we shine together side by side.” **

*In the original work, the character used instead of you is “jun” 君 (as in 踏仙君 Taxian-jun). 君 could mean king, emperor, lord, or gentleman ** This is my rough translation - I haven’t found an English version of this poem

These two lines are commonly used in romantic novels as a way to express one’s unchanging love and loyalty to another person despite the circumstances. He compared himself as the stars and wanted to remain by Taxian-jun whom he viewed as the moon. Chu Wanning wrote this to express his willingness to stay but he would never voice this out loud. In the next timeline, he did the same thing by quietly loving and caring for Mo Ran 1.0 despite the mistreatment and was content with never expressing his feelings vocally. Mo Ran was rather uneducated and thus could not fully comprehend these two lines and misunderstood that Chu Wanning was missing Xue Meng.

4. You are all I have left

In chapter 252, after Chu Wanning returned to The Red Lotus Pavilion, he found Taxian-jun already waiting for him. Taxian-jun told Chu Wanning about a dream he had and said:

“I am afraid I don’t resent you… I want to resent you… Otherwise, I…” “In the end, it’s just you and I”.

This is not the first time he expressed that Chu Wanning was all he had left or they only had each other. I believe that at this point, Taxian-jun might have somewhat believed Chu Wanning and recognized that his memories were missing. His words and behaviors seemed a lot more gentle and he mentioned they did have periods of time where their marriage was easier. I believe it was after this point. He told us about the numerous times he attempted to spoil his consort or expressed his affection through gifts, a trip outside the palace, goods, jewels, and even teaching Chu Wanning how to cook or personally taking care of Chu Wanning when he was sick. At one point, Taxian-jun expressed his wish for a more peaceful marriage with Chu Wanning through his breeding kink by saying that if they had children, perhaps they would be more civil towards each other.

Edit: I really wanted to go about this blog without having to refer to their particular taste in bed

5. Are you still mad?

This is a smaller detail but in the original text and the Vietnamese official translation, the way they talked to each other had a bit more of the “husband-wife” dynamic. Especially Chu Wanning ( l┐(︶▽︶)┌ ), the comment section said he sounded like when your wife is mad that you didn’t take out the trash but still says: “I’m not mad” and Taxian-jun, the husband, would come around and ask “Are you still mad at me?” after every fight.

6. I did not think you would really leave me.

On Chapter 99, Mo Ran recalled the fight between him and Chu Wanning after an assassination attempt. In order to convince Mo Ran to not go to Taxue Palace, Chu Wanning said:

“If you destroy Taxue palace, if you kill Xue Meng, I will die before you”.

Now the line “I will die before you” in my language is less of a suicidal ideation but more of a threat. It's used when a person already knows that they are important to the other person and is using their own death as a threat to make the other person do something. This line is thrown around a lot during heated arguments between people close to each other but they almost never mean it. (Even my mom said it numerous times before T_T . I personally think it’s manipulative). Therefore, it is understandable Taxian-jun did not take this line seriously and replied almost mockingly. After all, they had been married for almost a decade at that point, Taxian-jun probably felt somewhat comfortable that Chu Wanning would not do anything reckless. He could not foresee that Chu Wanning meant what he said and actually followed through with his words. I believe that if Taxian-jun had known that Chu Wanning was serious, Taxian-jun would not have gone to Taxue Palace. 7. Don't leave me, ok?

Then Chu Wanning died and Mo Ran spent two years alone. In those two years, we know he basically went insane because of grief, talked to a corpse everyday, and deep fried his Empress Consort. But strangely enough, Mo Ran 1.0 did not immediately mention this after being reborn although it was the main reason he committed suicide. And at that point, it had been well over a decade since Shi Mei faked his death in the past timeline, yet Mo Ran 1.0 seemed to still hold a lot of resentment towards Chu Wanning. Also, he said he could accept Shi Mei’s death but would never accept Chu Wanning’s. So honestly, it did not make sense to me the first time I read the novel and I believed Mo Ran resented Chu Wanning for a different reason.

The answer was first hinted at in chapter 9 when Mo Ran scolded the sleeping Chu Wanning. He called Chu Wanning a donkey hoof (lol) and this is actually an idiom to scold someone who is disloyal and unfaithful in love. The puzzles came together when the undead Taxian-jun showed up and immediately went after Chu Wanning (and not Shi Mei). He believed Chu Wanning used his death to hurt him and was angry at Chu Wanning for leaving him. This is the resentment Mo Ran 1.0 carried over to the next timeline. He hated Chu Wanning for abandoning him. This is solidified in chapter 262 by the undead Taxian-jun pleading to Chu Wanning:

“Don’t betray me” “Don’t leave me the second time. The first time you left, I could choose death as a relief. This time, even death is not an option any more… I won’t be able to bear it…”

So there it is! I hope this blog brings some new information and feel free to discuss! Let me know if you have any questions for me ＼(￣▽￣)／

Disclaimer: Plenty of this is my conclusion drawn from the already ambiguous original text and various translations. Unless Meatbun says it, it’s not canon. I am looking at the novel in three different languages so I might have made some mistakes. Pls forgive. Also, I am not making excuses for Mo Ran 0.5’s actions nor am I justifying the abuse in any way. Chu Wanning never said Mo Ran 0.5 was innocent of these crimes nor will I.

#2ha #the husky and his white cat shizun #chu wanning #mo ran #mo weiyu #ranwan #taxian jun #chu fei #erha #husky is dumb but husky tried his best