#because I reread them so often they are falling apart

[esseastri]

...

#op #bookbinding #I'm removing staples and I'm terrified #I got into bookbinding so that I could bind up my Hawkeye floppies into a big hardcover #because I reread them so often they are falling apart #like the staples are already falling out falling apart #BUT HERE'S THE THING #the collections are all out of print and over 500$ on second-hand sites #so IF I FUCK THIS UP I'M SCREWED #I can't replace these #so I'm pulling staples in preparation for sewing up the textblock and I'm just kinda of quietly panicking #I've done enough binding that I'm pretty comfy with it!! and I've sewn up floppy comics into big collections before!! #I purposely left this project for after I was more comfy doing this!!!!! #BUT!!!! AAAHHH!!!! #anyway this is my fun project for today wish me luck

[inexplicablymine]

GET RECC’D - TRANS DAY OF VISIBILITY

welcome to “get recc’d” my themed fic reccomendation lists if you follow me on Twitter, you might recognize that I do threads and fic recs quite often ~ thought I would bring it over here as well for some more fun.

Themed lists: Get Recc’d

Daily Rec’s/Weekly Rec’s: The Fandom Feasts

NOW THAT THE BOOKKEEPING IS OUT OF THE WAY

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

Today I thought it would be pertinent to highlight some wonderful Trans!Firstprince fics, now this is a non exhaustive list as there are 154 fics tagged / mention “trans” in their stories (finished and in the English language) you can click through those here.

BUTTT WITHOUT FURTHER ADO SOME DRUMROLLS PLEASE (and in no particular order)

Longer Than Most by @happiness-of-the-pursuit (26K/E)

Seahorse Dad Henry and accidental Baby Daddy Alex, this work is handled with so much care and is the kind of soft emotional happy feelings that you just want to roll around in

You love me! You love me? by anarchyat4am (28K/T)

Trans!Alex College AU where Henry and Alex end up at UT Austin together and become accidental roommates, when I tell you this fic is one I come back to repeatedly? Yes this is so soft it made me cry in a good way the first three times I read it (back to back of course)

Anything You Want by somuchworse (5.7K/E)

This is where things pick up into steamy territory, transmasc Henry has never had the big O and Alex helps him see the light. The kind of care and conversation and delicacy in which the discussions are had on top of the steamy hot conclusion make this one a repeat offender on the reread list

say you'll see me again (even if it's just in your wildest dreams) by @coffeecatsme (21K/T)

The softest shmoopiest 5+1 of Henry coming to terms with who he is and Alex falling in love with him the entire way through

the reason comes on the common tongue of you loving me by ncfariouvs (3K/E)

Henry brings back so many people to the apartment but according to him he never gets off, Alex is there to help, a trans!Henry roommates, friends to lovers speedrun that is delicious

T4T First Prince by @cactusdragon517 (10K/E+G)

THIS SERIES my lord go run skip jump dance on over to it and then just stay a while because man is this one of those series that makes you smile through the happy tears of how soft and happy and joyful it is. T4T Henry helping Alex post top surgery and falling in love + bonus second fic of them IN LOVE LATER IN LIFE

snapshots of you and me by @thedramasummer (7K/E)

Post Top Surgery Trans!Henry hires a Boudoir Photographer (shocking news it’s ACD) to do some self affirming photos, and this is such an affirming gorgeous glorious story of that process experience and of course the steamy happy ending

seahorse dad Alex by @jackzimmermemes (3.5K/G+E)

Another Seahorse Dad series! This time with Trans!Alex, take a look at these little slice of life stories of firstprince as they navigate their lives and parenthood and feel full to the brim with joy

long live (the walls we crashed through) by breakmytears (2.5K/G)

Alex and Henry’s son comes out to them as trans and let me tell you if you thought the tears were flowing before there is NOTHING on this fic for the soft unwavering support that is threaded throughout

I Wanna Swim Between Your Thighs by Alex20 (2.4K/E)

Teacher!Alex with a tremendous crush on single!dad Henry (also trans!Henry) and this is the delightful fun filled story of their coming together (in more ways than one)

If I missed an author tag here for their tumblr I tried to find them all but please let me know and I’ll add them in directly!

And with that I bid you good reading! Until next time I hope these recommendations recc’d you in the worst possible way, please support these authors when reading their works by giving kudos and comments! It helps vocalize support and show that readers love what they are doing!

#get recc’d #fic rec list #get recc’d: trans day of visibility #trans day of visibility #trans fic recs #rwrb trans fic recs #get recc’d: RWRB #red white and royal blue #firstprince #firstprince fic recs #rwrb #inexplicablymine recommends

[merakiui]

i am so so obsessed w sk floyd i be rereading the tag every so often…. being his prison wife……… correctional officer riddle looking at the letters darling sends like what kinda play does this freak have that i dont!!!! ik originally sk floyd darling is a journalist, but imagine them falling in love w him behind barrsssss ……… sorry i am so so feral for the. sk tweels this is my copium

- 🐚 anon

OMG YES OTL 🐚 anon, your copium is my copium!!!! <3 being his prison wife is so yummy... maybe they allow him to see you if he's been good (positive reinforcement for the scary murder eel) and Floyd complains that it's not really fun or fair when the two of you are separated by the bars. :( he just wants to give his shrimpy a kiss on the cheek and a big hug. Why can't they let you come inside the cell? He's not going to do anything bad! And maybe if they do let you inside, Floyd takes it as the opportunity to make up for so much time spent apart. He absolutely knocks you up in that little cell. <3 it's the best sex of your life hehe. :)

Poor Riddle, having to be the one to provide you with spare clothes because Floyd shredded yours and when he's guiding you out of the cell you smell of sex and sweat and... T_T how did Floyd even manage to rizz someone as sweet and gentle as you? Riddle will never understand. He definitely doesn't understand the next time he sees you and you're starting to fill out into a pregnancy that Floyd is so smugly proud of.

Omg omg or consider you're a correctional officer yourself! You and Riddle work together in the prison, especially since Floyd is such a special case, and so it's important there's more than one set of eyes on him at specific times. And maybe Floyd takes a liking to you and he rizzes you so well that you're putting your job and reputation on the line just to visit him late at night to give him head between the bars of his cell. >:)

#twisted chit chat #n/sfw #serial killer floyd #🐚 anon #i missed talking about him!!!! he's so <3

[hauntedwitch04]

Amazing life

Remus Lupin x reader

Author's note: This oneshot is purely and selfishly for me, since two years ago I published my first post and I wanted to celebrate it in this way, manifesting the life I desire and dream about every day of my life. I hope you enjoy it despite the fact that it is very personal.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Oh my God!" Comments in a whisper, which actually turns out to be half shouted.

Immediately you hear your husband's heavy footsteps coming toward you from behind. You immediately sense his presence as he lowers his torso so that his head is beside yours. In his hand is a cup of hot chamomile tea, which he immediately places on your desk as he leaves a kiss in the crook of your neck.

"What's the matter honey, something wrong with the book?" asks Remus slightly concerned to see your face upset, but at the same time happy, which does not allow him to fully comprehend what he sees.

You shake your head without saying anything, and with your finger point to him a date under a Tumblr post now centuries old, from an account you may have left hanging in that limbo of existence for years, with no real reason to exist except to feed your own memories.

"That's today's date." He confirms, looking at the date marking the computer: November 2.

You still remain silent as you stare out the window at an undefined spot, as you smile and let a few tears run down your cheeks. You listen carefully to the sound of the rain beating down over the glass of your small apartment in downtown Edinburgh. You had finally managed to move to this city after having spent a lifetime dreaming of doing so, and you had also managed to do so with the man of your life, or rather you had met him there on your first trip made in discovering this wonderful city that enchanted you with its charms, and you had immediately fallen in love.

After a few years you got married and decided to stay and live in Edinburgh, where you pursued a career as a filmmaker, and as a writer in your spare time.

You've always loved both film and writing, and you couldn't give up either of them in your life, and in return you got nothing but joy and a few less hours of sleep.

Just now you were looking for an old written note in your computer documents, for a story you are writing, when you remembered that you might have written it of the drafts from your first Tumblr account, where you started writing, and so you ended up spending hours rereading and commenting on the stories the little you had written, laughing, crying, and sometimes ashamed of your work, even though you often stopped and thanked even those poor oneshots that you didn't consider up to your writing because they were simple or trivial, because after all, it's because of them that you got where you are now.

Everything up to the first story you had written. A simple oneshot about Rhysand, a character in the series "A court of thorns and roses" written by Sarah J Maas. You had finished reading the series a few months earlier, and you had become very attached to that character who had made you fall in love with her words and actions.

The month before publishing this had been one of the worst months of your life. You had had an accident working out, and you had injured ligaments in your ankle, and you had stayed home from school for a month, crawling and hopping to get around, having to ask everyone for a hand and hating every second of it, since if there is one thing you can't stand in the world, it is showing weakness and asking for help.

You had spent a month alone, seeing all your friends go to school and have fun together, while you spent all day alone with your thoughts, and so your only refuge had been writing.

You had decided to write an oneshot about one of your favorite characters, to comfort yourself for a moment, without the idea of publishing it anywhere. It wasn't the first time you had published something on the Internet, but it was the first time it would be solely yours, and written solely for you, and that made you a little anxious. Eventually you had decided to post it on Tumblr, after several indecisions and in the throes of an anxiety attack, you mashed on that sadistic button that published your first story, before walking the dog and praying to all the known gods that you hadn't fucked up.

As soon as you got home you had checked and were amazed like a little girl seeing Christmas presents under the tree, seeing that three people had liked your story.

From there it was all history, in the good times and the bad times of your life, a constant that allowed you to survive, thanks in part to the support and love of the people who followed your page, read your stories and whom you had come to know over time.

You have never met better people than on Tumblr, devoid of hate or resentment, always ready to help others with a comment or a compliment.

"This is the first story I ever wrote." You whispered to your husband who had stayed behind to read the story while you looked out the window.

He brings his eyes to you, smiles and kisses your forehead.

"It's been a lot of years, and yet it seems like yesterday that I wrote this simple imagine. It seems like yesterday that I was a simple little girl with a dream in her drawer." You confess, as you feel tears welling up in your eyes.

"I am proud of you, who you were and who you have become." He whispers after slightly pulling his lips away from my forehead.

I smile, and he smiles back, as with one last kiss he pulls away to take the old coffee cup to the kitchen, promising to come back, wanting to read all the things I had written in my youth.

I laugh, as I shake my head, and smile to think how little me did not expect this life, and how much I longed for it at the same time, and I would like nothing more than to go back and confess to him to hold on, that sooner or later life will get better.

I look at the picture on my desk, a picture of my last birthday, spent with all my friends from high school and college, and I smile to think that in a little while, on my birthday, maybe I might want to go back in time and see little me one last time, and tell her how magnificent our life had become.

#hauntedwitch04's writing #hauntedwitch04's 2 birthday!!!! #remus x reader #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin fluff #marauder x reader #rhysand x reader #remus lupin x reader

[ofmermaidstories]

Let me preface this by saying I did check your FAQ but I didn't see this there yet I still find it hard to believe no one has asked you this at least a thousand times so if they did and I just missed it I'm sorry and you can delete this ask but—

You write such beautiful, detailed fics with lots of foreshadowing that often starts from the very beginning of the story. I think you made an author note once about only posting the first chapter of a fic after you've written the whole thing (or maybe that was Andie...?). If so, is the time between updates just you going through and rereading / editing like 100k words?

Basically, I want to ask: what is your fic planning process like? From the moment you get a first idea to posting the last chapter, what does I look like? I think you're a really, really amazing (one of the absolute best if not THE best) author but I cannot fathom how one human being can write such mammoths of fanfiction and stay motivated enough to finish them.

Also you're already planning Halloween stuff ?? You plan things literally half a year in advance?? Are you even human? We don't deserve you. 😭

You called yourself lazy in the webcomic post but I think you must work unbelievably hard to make such high quality stuff and without even getting compensation for it. You're amazing and I'm very thankful to exist in the right timeline and fandom to read your work. :,)

(oh my god this became such a ramble I'm sorry)

Oh Ari. 🥺 Hello.

I update as I write! So that was probably Andie, lmao, who’s definitely the better example to follow when it comes to plotting/completing a fic. 🥺 She’s amazing and if I could fashion myself after any other writer in our niche, it would be Andie hands down!

But okay, let’s get into it. 📝

A little disclaimer, before we start; I did not go to school for any of this lmfao. The most relevant education I have behind me is a extra-circular literature class I had during my last two years of high-school. The only reason the following works for me is because I’ve cobbled it together from years of trial and error. You can read advice and watch youtube videos about the writing habits of famous authors, but you have to tailor everything you hear to suit you and the way you work. The best advice in the world from the highest paid author in the world won’t work if you’re not wired in the same way! You have to take everything about yourself and what you like and what you want into account!

Part I—first we take Manhattan

start ur fic lol

First thing’s first; I’m a plotter. I don’t pants. If I pants, I lose interest—I need to have the final vision in front of me, even if it’s just a bullet point. I have to know what I’m working towards. That is crucial to literally everything I do. Every fic you see on AO3, every WIP I’ve mentioned working on or wanting to work on—I have always known two things about them, immediately: the hook that gets us in there, and how they end.

So for fics in particular, the start might look something like—I get an idea (I want Reader and Bakugou to kiss). And then I sit there and I brainstorm to myself (What’s stopping them from kissing? Why does Reader want to kiss someone so rude when there’s so many other nice boys out there? Is Reader particularly kissable?). And then, if I’m lucky, I think of an ending (Reader and Bakugou finally kiss, but he’s the one that initiates it, because he’s always wanted to, because he likes that Reader always wears a yellow coat to work—it’s ugly and it sticks out among the black and tan ones of the crowd but he comes to associate it—and thus Reader—with routine and his mornings going well).

This is often the most fragile time of an idea. That hook (Reader and Bakugou kiss) might fall apart with a bit more prodding (why would they kiss? Reader’s a stranger to him; most of us don’t go around kissing random strangers just because we like their coats). Or maybe the hook sticks (they spend almost years in orbit around each other, a constant near-miss) but the ending doesn’t work (I don’t know how to move Bakugou to a position where he can kiss Reader, where he has the opportunity to). For every idea you see in action, or listed, there’s like three more that died during this stage and are now being cannibalised for spare parts.

Part II—running up that hill (a deal with fic)

work work work

If our idea survives, we then move to the “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” stage; which manifests itself in this case as a doc, where I’ll just write any and all ideas I have for this little world so far.

For fanfics, it’ll generally look like—

TITLE

SUMMARY: Bakugou and Reader kiss.

(in which Bakugou first notices you because of your ugly yellow coat)

📝 Reader is allergic to diary products; for ages Bakugou thinks of her as That Cheesy Extra, because of the colour of her coat. She laughs when she eventually learns about this. (“I can’t even eat cheese,” you complain)

📝 Reader stops walking past the coffee shop Bakugou gets his coffee at, one day; moves??? Leaves the city to help a friend out for a few months. Despite himself it throws Bakugou off-kilter, and when he sees someone (not Reader) in a yellow coat during a villian attack, he momentarily loses focus—gets injured???? The news of his injury makes the news, Reader sees it in Bumblah nowhere.

📝 Her coat is donated accidentally by a roommate, in a mix up, for a charity she’s volunteering at; when Reader returns to the city, she has to make do with a new one, a more neutral colour. Bakugou recognises her anyway and that’s when he realises it was never about the coat (!!!!)

Like, this is actually a pretty good approximation of what all my current fics have looked like, at that stage, before I tidied them up and refined them into proper outlines. Because that’s what will happen next, once we have a rough idea of what we want! Things get moved, or removed—tightened. A rough plot outline takes shape! If I get any ideas for a sequel or a spin off that I might want to do, I’ll note them here (Reader’s roommate, Roomie, who’s working at a charity—eventually meets Shinsou, who’s working on a case. She thinks he’s homeless; he doesn’t realise. They carry on like this for a while.)

Once I have a rough outline (rough meaning in bulletpoints), I’ll start on my more in-depth outlines—I do these chapter by chapter! I say this a lot, but they’re basically a really rough version of said chapter. So it might look like:

Reader’s walking to work; it’s cold enough that’s she’s wearing her coat. There’s a new coffee-shop opened on the corner—it’s full, popular, you think it might be because it’s at a crossroads between two different Pro Hero agencies. Reader glances at the window, interested, but then a friend calls out and you hurry along. Bakugou, inside the coffee-shop waiting for Half and Half to get his order, is affronted; your coat is ugly as shit, and he complains loudly about it to Shouto, who mentions something about Baku. having no room to complain about ugly colour choices.

The swap between Reader/You happens a lot because I’m not using my brain properly, at this stage—I’m just shovelling the sand I need into the sandbox. Once I finish my shovelling, I go back and I rewrite it—but better, LMAO. I flesh things out, I throw things away as needed, I add things in. It’s basically really, really intensive handholding and I would not recommend it for anyone who’s already daunted by the idea of plotting; I do it because if I don’t have a chaperone there (aka my outline) then I’m prone to getting distracted. I am basically the fanfic equivalent of the undiagnosed ADHD kid at the back of the class that only gets work done when they’re sat right in front of the teacher (and even then, there’s like a 50% chance it’s not actually work that’s happening but doodles of that weird pointy S thing over and over again).

Once it’s done, though, we have a completed chapter! I then post it and wait like a little crab under some rocks for people to be tricked into being nice to me, and then I dig back in and think nice thoughts about repeating this process to get chapter two. Eventually I will—and viola! Another chapter! We repeat that over and over until we get to the end of our original outline and we have a finished story. 😌📖

Part III—you’re on your own kid

motivation

No one ever likes this part, or what I’m about to say, because at best it sounds like saccharine fodder and at worse it’s out of touch with most people’s experiences in fandom, but—the only way to stay motivated when doing a long-haul fic is that you have to do it for yourself.

People are so kind to me, about the fics I’ve done; it’s part luck and part what I choose to write and part how I write it. And I mean—I share them because I want a little bit of attention, lmao, that’s natural because we’re humans, we all want attention. But here’s the thing, here’s the secret—I take these fics 110% deadly seriously. LOL. That sounds like a joke, but I do! I do that because it’s how I’m built and how I keep myself interested in them—because taking them seriously means I’m more invested in realising the ending I’ve imagined for them since day one.

If other people stopped being so nice about what I was writing, I would be sad—anyone would. 🥺 We all want to be told that we’ve done a good job. But I’ve had the ending for the Deku fic, for example, in my head since it’s predecessor was on-going. That is literal years of knowing how I want Izuku and Scribble’s story to end. If everyone disappeared tonight I would sulk, hardcore, and then I would finish that last chapter anyway. I would finish it because I’ve spent so much time and energy working on that story that not finishing it is a disservice to the world I built around those characters and most importantly to myself. I probably wouldn’t stress as much about it, LOL, if the audience shrunk back down to just me, but I’d still do it. 🥺

I write—and try to finish—these fics because I deserve to see them finished. I want the completed tick, on ao3. I want to look at it and know that I can do it—that I can start something as simple as Bakugou hating on some rando’s yellow coat, and bring it to the finish-line where they finally come together, and see each other, without the yellow coat or through a coffee-shop window.

And this is what I mean by like, tailoring things to suit you—because I know others might be perfectly content to imagine the ending for themselves, without writing it. Or maybe they don’t want to treat fic seriously, because it’s fun escapism. Maybe disappointment that it’s not received like they thought it would be sours the whole experience of fandom for someone—there’s no right or wrong to this. I know I can write for an audience of just me because I’ve done it before. The satisfaction has always come back to the same thing—knowing I finished it, and wrapped that world up as best as I could. You have to pick and choose your poison—and then you have to run with it.

I hope that answers at least some of your questions, Ari. 🥺 Thank-you for such a thoughtful ask; for being so sweet. 🥺 You’re amazing, and I’m the thankful one—I’m glad we’re here, together. 🌷🌾✨📖

#ofmermaidstories-asks #ari do i have a tag for you? 🧐 hmMMMm #anyways i hope you have a good week and that this was at least a tiny bit helpful lmao #i should link it…. ugh i should overdo my whole masterpost tbh 😩 this is where the lazy comes in bc id rather stare at my wall tbh LMAO #first we take manhattan—then we take berlin 🎵 #writing stuff

[mirror-imaged]

idont think anybody understands sheffbrien the way I do (insane) I'm sorry they're literally so bad for each other (affectionate) I could go on and on forever. I will actually. sheffbrien post be upon ye. thanks to ashe for talking about this w me on discord. this is a kinda obrien centric post bc of that loll but I'm obvi getting into sheffields whole deal too

having reread tc22 again and done some literary analysis a few days ago on a plane at 2 in the morning (I'm out of the country rn helloo ^_^) I picked up on a lot of thematics for them I find very interesting. long post ahead!

1 - the dynamics in their relationship are so wildly interesting. I think their characterization in tc22 does wonders for them. firstly, there are a lot of false differences id say? they seem so different, but when you boil it down they have a lot in common. sheffield is affluent and intelligent but has a spiteful and hotheaded side, obrien is seen as angry or rude but is taken for granted with his intelligence quite often by others. he got into an ivy league school at 17. there's also how sheffield seems so charismatic while obrien is abrasive and lonely, but they both really have no other friends when you get down to it? and last example for now, sheffield sees himself as divine while obrien seems to have renounced religion, but he really hasn't done the work of removing his mindset from a catholic(?) framework. expanding on that,

2 - obrien has religious trauma and this is heavily established. he doesn't actually ever move past religion as a concept though, he just moves on from God. he replaces his concept of God with his concept of his sister. more on this later. sheffield also has a relationship with religion, but more in the sense that he inherently sees himself as something unlike humanity, something greater and to be revered. he refers to himself as an angel in a way that doesn't strike me as being ingenuine the way he does in other places. I need to draw art about this it makes me abnormal

3 - for obrien specifically, there are some insanely interesting threads left about his trauma creating a savior complex within him. obviously shown at the start of the story with professor harris, but there are also the times he mentions going into genetics due to his guilt and wanting to entirely eliminate the disease that disabled his sister and when he says he feels an involuntary sympathy for stella when he found out she didn't mean to kill harris. it also makes me wonder if that plays into his protectiveness of sera later on.

4 - obrien has some severe internalized ableism going on that I wish more people actually picked apart. I know tc22 is a small scale story and a lot of people haven't read it, but it's fascinating stuff. he obviously grew up with the mindset that his sister was somehow contagious and describes how he felt he would somehow fall ill because of this, and that sort of mindset does a lot to dehumanize somebody in a person's mind. after eventually passing on an illness to her that results in her death, he is driven entirely by guilt as a character. he becomes certain that if God were fair and true, he would have died instead of her. but, like I mentioned before, he never really renounces religion in any specific way aside from this. he even mentions how he now prays to his sister instead of God, which I think is so fascinating. he never saw his sister as a person, and by elevating her to this status of somebody he needs to grovel to or even just uses as a holy figure in his life, he continues to see her as inhuman. he recognizes his past ableism, but he never does anything to deconstruct and rebuild from it. much like with his relationship with religion!

5 - obrien is treated by dds2 as the morally virtuous character, but he's really not (if you get the context from tc22). my boyfriend put it as him being just on the right side of history, which I absolutely agree with. I know tc22 was probably written after dds2 and doesn't necessarily inform the writing decisions for the games, but it definitely adds juicy layers to me. obrien is seemingly not motivated by any true desire to help sera or the nameless sufferers of CATCH22, he is motivated by the guilt from his sisters death hanging over him like a shadow. not to say he doesn't care at all, but it seems more like a quest to make up for his sins in the eyes of his sister than a desire to do good, which seems awfully catholic to me. this is absolutely the most interesting part of his character presented by the narrative. God I wish they did this better in the games.

6 - moving on to sheffield, sheffield is actually one of the most interesting and real depictions of a character with NPD traits I've ever seen, hands down. I know I talk about this frequently, but it's especially strongly done in tc22 and one of my favorite parts of his character. to start, he's mostly presented with extremely minor and often-masked aspects of the disorder a lot of people don't really pick up on. vouching personally. he quickly becomes passive aggressive and seemingly personally offended when challenged, like by inspector Harvey for instance. he is a practiced and seemingly compulsive liar, able to make things up on the spot that nobody but obrien questions due to his confidence. he seems to get along swimmingly with people he doesn't know well, charismatic and understanding. he pays exceptionally close attention to other people's emotions, expressions, and demeanors to adjust and match theirs. he also is debatably depicted with real delusions of grandeur. he only seems to be able to let his guard down around obrien, actually. and my absolute favorite moment of his, really relatable for me, is that when he stops masking he does not become dangerous. he does not go into a rage, he just goes blank. entirely and visibly unable to express emotion "normally", and obrien is initially scared, but realizes he just doesn't understand sheffield as well as he thinks he does. this is incredibly accurate to real life for me. it's actually insanely well depicted. and what I really appreciate is that sheffield is never presented as truly malicious [IN THIS STORY]. with dds2 context, he can be seen that way for sure, but he isn't actually shown being morally reprehensible. he's dubious and seems to have trouble understanding where he crosses a line, but that's also very true to real life for me. he isn't necessarily trying to be evil, he's just nosy and invasive of boundaries on occasion. they also never actually label him as or call him a narcissist, which is so good?? props to tadashi for once?? I think he is one because I have the disorder and can more accurately assess this sort of thing, but labeling every character who's like Abusive as a narcissist is so tacky and distasteful to me. it diminishes the harm they inflict on other people as being something born of mental illness, which isn't necessarily true. he is definitely abusive to sera, but that is not related to his narcissism.

7 - sheffield is just such a good character in this. I raved already about his npd stuff but I want to get into other things a little too. firstly, he does seem to genuinely view himself as inhuman, which is something I also believe contrasts obrien a little. obrien has this deep internalized self hatred, while sheffield has this genuine belief he is on a different level from other people. despite this, he sees obrien as being his Equal in some way. as being worthy of his presence, his assistance, his friendship. the pizza scene really really drives this home for me. (that's another subtle npd ass trait but I've said enough). in addition, sheffield tries so desperately to present himself as worthy of something more, maybe backed by doubt, or maybe even just true belief. he tries to appear intimidating, has knowledge of how to get into people's heads, etc. maybe this is because he's young and people see him differently for being so ahead of his grade, but I also see it as a display of insecurity in an implicit way. his delusions of grandeur also play into this characterization, because delusions of grandeur are often born from extreme and severe self doubt (at least in those with mental health disorders, which I've already mentioned I believe he strongly aligns with). him coming from a wealthy background in Portland of all places would not help any of that kind of thing.

8 - i don't even know what else I could say about them. they make me so abnormal. not even a toxic romantic relationship between them (which I do like think about but obviously post tc22 I don't like their age gap) but simply their dynamic as two characters. sera is a figurehead for their conflict, really. all the things we learn about both of these characters really makes me question how much BOTH of them care for sera, not just sheffield's two-faced lies. she is representative of their ideological dispute. she is a small child who has the potential to save the world, but obrien is too scared of letting another child die as a result of his inaction and sheffield is too focused on his end goal of getting what he believes he deserves, divinity and becoming a revered savior of the world, no matter who falls along the way. they are built to contrast each other. you even see this through heat and serph to a degree, with how sera mixed them up. heat declares he is on the same level as God during the jp text of the vritra fight, while serph inevitably sacrifices his own life for the sake of sera.

9 - what happened between tc22 and the dds2 flashbacks? I actually need to know what caused their relationship to split so heavily. I'm fucking obsessed with them. post over please join my sheffbrien Island there's like 2 other people here

#digital devil saga #shin megami tensei #digital devil saga 2 #ddsat #sheffbrien #analysis #thats catch 22 #ok sorry i actually really worked hard on this post i hope you guys like and or read it. thx #i think about them so much

[atths--twice]

Letters of Love

A feeling leads Scully to an Internet café, hoping to hear from Mulder, praying that he is safe.

The other day, I was on TikTok and I saw a video with a poem being read. It was so beautiful and I couldn't help but see it relating to Mulder and Scully, as I do almost everything, and so I had to write a story.

I love the emails that Mulder and Scully send to one another, the love that is held within each of them, and so I thought what if we saw another one?

February 20th, 2002

“I won’t be long,” Scully told her mother, who had come over to visit, bringing dinner with her. “I didn’t realize I was in need of milk. I’ll just pop to the shop real quick.”

“I can go for you,” Maggie said with a smile, drying her hands on the kitchen towel she had been using to dry the dishes.

“No,” Scully said forcefully and her mother looked at her in surprise. She smiled and touched her mother’s arm. “I just meant… I don’t mind going. I could do with a walk, on my own. I don’t get that chance too often. That is, if you don’t mind staying for a bit longer.”

“Of course I don’t. But, it’s cold out, Dana. You should drive.”

“No, that’s okay. The walk will do me good. It’s not very far. Thanks, Mom.”

She grabbed her coat and hurried out the door before any further discussion could take place.

Not sure if her mother was watching her from the window, she began walking in the direction of the little convenience shop around the corner, then doubling back when she knew it would be safe. Heading in the opposite direction, the need for milk a complete fabrication, she checked both ways and then crossed the street.

“Please,” she whispered as she walked, the cold winter air filling her lungs as she took deep breaths. “Please let me be right.”

A few more streets over and she paused in front of Cyber Cafe, the internet cafe near her apartment. Closing her eyes briefly, and pleading with the universe once more, she continued on and pushed the door open.

“Welcome,” a barista said to her as she walked in and she nodded, making only quick eye contact with him.

It was not overly crowded, but many of the computers were in use. Choosing one near the back of the cafe, she passed by others in order to reach it.

Sitting down, she swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Her hands shook slightly as she typed in her information and waited, her heart racing.

Tonight was not the first night she had come in, desperate to see if Mulder had replied to her last email after their planned meeting had been thwarted. Part of her hoped she would not see a message waiting for her. But the other part of her ached to know that he was safe and had found a way to contact her, even as she knew he should be taking precautions to remain hidden.

All through dinner tonight, she had felt an odd sensation in her stomach, an excitement bubbling up. The way a drop on a roller coaster makes you feel, nervous and happy all at once. She could not explain how she knew it meant coming to the cafe, but she did.

Follow the white rabbit. The yellow brick road. The path she had been meant to take even before she had known herself.

The computer beeped, her information entered and received successfully.

Letting out a long, silent breath, she moved the mouse, clicked open her email, and licked her lips.

There were three messages. Two were inconsequential and she barely gave them a glance. But the last one was from an address she had not seen before and tears filled her eyes as she clicked to open the email with no subject, from [email protected].

Blinking her eyes and exhaling quickly, she drew in a breath and covered her mouth with her hand to hold back her sobs as she read and then reread the single paragraph.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Breathing brokenly through her nose, she closed her eyes and bowed her head, too many thoughts suddenly crowding her mind.

Nearly four years ago, in a small town ironically named Honey, women had been disappearing. Lines of poetry, from different poets, had been found in their homes, written on paper left on desks, with lipstick on mirrors, and in one case, with rose petals on a bed.

The last one had creeped Scully out more than she had been willing to admit, causing her to triple check her motel lock every night, even going so far as to place a chair in front of it and using a couple of clothespins she had begun to keep with her to keep her curtains shut tightly.

She had not slept well during the entirety of that case.

Without much of a lead, and feeling as though they had hit a brick wall, Mulder had suggested visiting the local library. Asking to see all the books of poetry they had on the shelves, the librarian soon had a table filled with them.

They had been silently reading through them for a few minutes, looking for a pattern or anything to help, when Mulder had begun to read random passages aloud. Scully had sighed and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in her stomach, when familiar words caused her to tense up and her breath to catch.

“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off,” Mulder had read quietly. She had closed her eyes for a moment before raising her head, her brows furrowed, and stomach clenching. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” He looked at her and smiled before looking back at the book. “I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.”

“Mulder,” she had said, shaking her head as she pictured the bright rose petals that had been arranged with meticulous care on the dark blue comforter.

“Wait, it’s nearly finished,” he had said, holding up one finger, not aware of her reaction. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. Hmm, that’s really beautiful.”

“Is it?” she had whispered, shivering slightly as she imagined those words left behind by a possible murderer.

“You don’t think so?” he had asked, looking at her. “It’s Pablo Neruda, Scully.”

“Yes, I know. And I can also see that for myself,” she had said, nodding toward the book and he had smiled as he too looked at the cover.

“You didn’t like it?”

“Not in this context,” she had said, gesturing to the books around them. “I like poetry, I really do. I always have. Just…” She had shaken her head and sighed as she had picked up another book and began to look through it. “It feels more disturbing than romantic at the moment.”

“Oh. I… I suppose I wasn’t thinking about it that way. It just… I thought it was…” he had quietly replied. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She had felt his eyes on her and she had looked up at him.

“It’s okay,” she had said again, smiling tightly.

“It’s not,” he had said, shaking his head and looking down at the book.

“It is a good poem and one that I actually really like,” she had said softly.

“You do?”

“Yeah. We studied poetry for a few weeks when I was in high school and Neruda became one of my favorite poets.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, I don’t think we’ve ever really discussed it.” She had shrugged and turned a page in the book she held. “I like that sonnet, but it’s the last part of it that I like best.” She had looked at him and drew in a breath, reciting it from memory. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”

He had stared at her as she forced away disturbing thoughts, instead thinking of how she had felt when she read that poem for the first time, her gaze becoming unfocused and faraway.

“Straightforward. No complexities. Not existing without the other. Falling asleep in sync,” she had whispered as she had shaken her head, remembering the rather juvenile dreams she’d once had. “Does anyone ever really find that kind of love? Is it even possible?”

Inhaling, she had blinked and then met his eyes. He had not said anything, and as she had shrugged and exhaled, her attention returned to the book in her hand as his had returned to his own, no further words spoken.

Months later, after the mentally exhausting days spent with Daniel, thoughts of her past blending with her present, she had lain warm and naked with Mulder in his bed. Sleep had nearly claimed her, when she felt his fingertips gently caressing her forehead.

“I love you because I know no other way than this,” he had whispered and she had opened her eyes tiredly, his thumb rubbing softly at her temple as he stared at her intently, his eyes dark. “Straightforwardly, without complexities or pride.”

“Mulder,” she had breathed. Closing her eyes again, she had shifted closer to him and he enveloped her in his arms, her hand resting above his heart.

“So close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep,” he had spoken in a low tone against her ear and she had hummed, his scent and the warmth of his body making it nearly impossible to form coherent thoughts. “I love you, Scully. Without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Mulder,” she had murmured against his skin, kissing his neck as she exhaled and he had held her tighter, kissing the top of her head.

“Excuse me, is anyone using this computer?” Scully heard someone ask the person to her left and she opened her eyes as she raised her head, almost confused to find she was sitting at a table in front of a computer and not in bed with Mulder.

She drew in steadying breaths and looked at the screen. Reading the paragraph again, she smiled through her tears.

He was safe. Alive.

Quickly, she opened a new message and began to type. Knowing the likelihood of him risking his safety again to check his email was nearly nonexistent, she knew she had to at least try.

To give to him what he had given her.

Sending it, she reopened her email from him and selected to print it. Logging out of her account, she hurried to the printer, picked up her paper, and walked out of the cafe.

Folding the paper, not wanting anything to happen to it, she placed it in her pocket, where she kept a hold on it. Needing a second, she stepped into the mouth of an alleyway and leaned against the wall with a deep sigh.

“Thank you,” she breathed, lifting her face to the sky. “Please continue to keep him safe.” Quickly making the sign of the cross, she stepped back onto the sidewalk and continued home.

“They didn’t have milk?” her mother asked when she walked through the door and Scully froze, completely forgetting the reason she had given for her need to leave the apartment.

“Oh… no. There was a mix up with their shipment and uh… they’ll have it tomorrow.”

“I could go to the other grocery store and get you some now if you’d like…”

“No. That’s okay, Mom,” Scully said, her thumb caressing the piece of paper in her pocket. “I’ll be alright. I can get it in the morning.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am. You head on home and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Dana.”

“Night, Mom. Thank you for dinner. And thanks for staying.”

“Of course.”

They embraced and her mother left, zipping her coat as she walked out. Scully sighed as she locked the door and took off her coat, removing the paper from her pocket.

She checked in on William, smiling at his rosy cheeks as she watched him breathing deeply. Not wanting to risk waking him, she refrained from touching him and quietly left the room.

Once she was in bed, she propped the paper up against the pillow beside her, staring at the words until her eyelids began to droop.

For the first time in weeks, her sleep was peaceful and undisturbed.

_____________

Three days later, entering a busy Internet café, timing it perfectly to blend in with the crowd, a rather disheveled looking man in a beat up Dodgers cap, sat down at a computer. He watched the room as he logged in to his account, wary of everyone around him.

He had four emails. Three of which were spam and meant absolutely nothing to him.

Clicking on the bottom one, the one that made his heart beat almost painfully, he read the single sentence and he grinned as eleven words caused him to feel more loved and less alone than he had in a very long time.

Without knowing how, or when, or from where… I love you.

#the x files #xf fanfic #msr #season 9 #post trust no 1 #emails #inspired by poetry #poetry #love #declarations of love

[hawkinsp0st]

march 21, 1986.

~~~

mike flops onto his bed in exhaustion. it should be satisfied exhaustion, a happy tired, but it’s just… exhaustion. the game at hellfire tonight was pure excellence. radiance. dustin’s sharp strategy and erica’s pride and eddie’s smile and he sees el tomorrow and—

mike stares at his neatly packed suitcase and the flowers he picked for el this afternoon during lunch. why isn’t he happy?

i miss lucas, mike thinks. i miss the Party. i miss how things used to be. but he swallows down the creeping, crawling thought that even if lucas had been there tonight, he’d still feel like this now. like he’s missing something. like he’s missing… will.

mike grips the sheets on either side of where he sits at the edge of his bed, forcing the thought away, knowing it leads nowhere.

well, nowhere good.

god, he’d been stupid the summer before will left him—left the Party, mike thinks, shaking his head so it would clear like an etch a sketch to correct himself. left the Party. he misses his best friend, that’s it. if he’d spent more time with will before he left, then maybe he wouldn’t be feeling like… like…

like there’s something wrong with me.

he needs something more to do with his hands than twist the fabric at his sides. el’s letter from this morning—he’d hardly gotten a chance to finish it when nancy barged in. he resolves to reread el’s letter, like he often does at night when he’s feeling alone, tracing his fingers over her signature at the bottom. love, el.

he rereads the letter, but he’s got this nagging feeling that he hasn’t finished it, like when you’re reading your science textbook and you keep looking over the definition of “mitosis” again and again and the information just won’t go into your brain.

two lines in the middle of el’s paper feel unread no matter how many times his eyes follow them.

“will is painting a lot, but he won’t show me what he’s working on. maybe it is for a girl. i think there is someone he likes, because he has been acting weird.”

he rationalizes it, tells himself that el seems to have sharpened her pencil at that point in the letter, because the words are thinner, the handwriting cleaner. that’s why he drifts back to it like gravity to the earth’s fucking center.

but he keeps reading it. and reading it. and reading it. he knows he should stop, but he can’t help himself.

he finds his fingers itching to trace will’s name, but his eyes flicker to love, el and he pulls his fingers back because it feels downright…

he can’t find the word, until he remembers the talk show his mom was watching the other day, where a couples’ therapist was interviewing a woman whose husband had cheated on her. “he’s been adulterous,” the host had said.

it feels adulterous to touch that name. with love, el sitting there on the same page… mike swallows hard. he scrapes at a hangnail on the side of his thumb.

what is wrong with me?

mike clutches the sides of the paper like a vice—as though it can help him somehow—wrinkling it before letting it drop off the side of his bed.

mike can’t—won’t—put a single thought to any of these emotions, so he does what he does best: runs down the stairs. to the basement. doesn’t make eye contact with the drawings hanging over the sofa. throws shit.

no, like really, throws shit around the basement. doesn’t think, just kicks pillows. throws darts at the dartboard again and again—none of them stick. they fall and fall and it’s almost satisfying, the rhythmic pace with which he misses the target every fucking time.

he paces, pretending to tidy the place but really just moving things from one wrong location to the other. he even gives his nintendo a light kick, and it gives a thud as it slides into the wall. it shakes the bulletin board over his desk, and he notices there’s papers scattered all around his desk from god knows what. he hasn’t touched any of this, apart from the video games, in 185 days.

he squats down and picks up the miscellaneous papers, messily, not really caring, just needing to move. he finds a math test with a D-minus from last year that he had been hiding from his mom—it’s 6 pages thick—and shreds it and shreds it with his fingers until it’s only tiny pieces. he stands and shoves the chair onto its side, jumping a little at the loud noise as it clatters to the floor. wondering if his parents or nancy woke up but ultimately not caring because—

there’s an old doodle from will under the chair, a little dragon in a wizard’s hat. without thinking, mike picks it up. his eyes burn. he blinks and realizes what he’s doing. he drops the drawing on the desk. he wipes the tear out of his eyes before it has a chance to run.

he steps backward and trips over an empty VHS case. he doesn’t resist, doesn’t try to hold himself up, just falls. he pulls a pillow from the floor next to him and punches it once, twice, three times, again and again, more tears coming, and this time they fall, and he might be waking his parents up, but he doesn’t care, not about anything. he can’t think right now. it could kill him.

he wears himself out and he doesn’t remember falling asleep but suddenly he’s blinking awake and the digital clock on the desk glows 1:45am. he manages to get through two rounds of duck hunt on low volume before going back up the stairs, shutting the basement door gently. he’s got an hour before he has to leave for the airport.

in his room, he stares at the letter from el that’s still lying on the floor. he squeezes his eyes shut when he remembers what’s lying there in the middle of the letter. he glances down to love, el.

that’s what matters right now. he trudges to his closet, rubbing his tired eyes, and picks out an outfit he thinks she would like.

he attaches a note to her bouquet of flowers, writing with careful letters:

TO EL. FROM MIKE.

#he’s so repressed like i cannot emphasize this enough #sorry about the angst he’s so in love he can’t have thoughts about it without his whole world crashing down <3 #byler #mike wheeler i know what you are #byler fanfic #byler ficlet #all i know is mike pov eat hot chip and lie #duffers #if ur the duffers seeing this #i just wanted u to see it bc i felt like i kinda nailed it w the characterization here LOL #like remember when he kicked the little el hideout when will ‘died’

[midnightwinterhawk]

Mar's covid reading list

Covid made it hard for me to focus so I spent my downtime rereading some favorite comfort fics which I will now share with you for the low, low price of 'don’t forget to kudos and/or comment on these lovely stories'.

(16k | Explicit | Sterek)

We Grew A Little And Knew A Lot by attackofthezee (noxlunate)

“So, you do like me though?”

--

“No, I hate you and I’ve spent a ton of time and money trying to make you happy for no reason at all.” Derek deadpans and Stiles can’t help it, he smiles blindingly at Derek and leans in, smashing their mouths together.

Or an A/B/O fic that's totally mostly floof

Fireman Derek's Crazy Pie [Cheeseburger Baby] by owlpostagain

(18k | Teen | Sterek)

“He can't blame me for the fact that I live in a building full of people united in the singular effort to ogle Hot Fireman as often as humanly possible."

Laura laughs, loud and echoing in the empty restaurant.

"Hot firemen can make a girl do crazy things," she agrees, nodding towards her brother's name on the menu. "Derek won't let me date anyone from his company, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the eye candy."

"Send them my way," Stiles suggests, finally loading up a forkful of pie. "Apparently I'm incompetent enough that I need to be babysat at all times, because it would be cheaper than dispatching a truck every time I try to use a kitchen appliance."

Leave the Rest Unspoken (I Hear You) by @lizabethl

(16k | Explicit | WinterHawk)

“I, um. I don’t think I’m supposed to have these.”

Bucky held something out between them, changing the target of Clint’s focus. When Clint saw the stack of envelopes in Bucky’s hands, his heart stopped beating and he dropped his bow to the ground.

Shit.

“Shit,” Clint whispered, wanting to reach out and snatch the letters from Bucky’s grip, but unable to move due to the mortification flowing through him. “Did you read them?”

Starving for the Light by @thepartyresponsible

(45k | Explicit | WinterHawk)

“You’ve got, like.” The witch taps his own chest, center mass, with the slice of pizza. “An infection, kinda. In your soul, I guess. Whatever you want to call it. Nobody wants to call it magic.”

“I don’t have any magic,” Bucky says, immediately. He’s not a witch.

“Sure,” the witch says. “Well, that thing you have that connects you to Steve, the part of you that can form bonds to other people. That part of you. It’s fucked.”

“Fucked,” Bucky repeats. He wonders if that’s a medical or magical diagnosis.

Mistakes Were Made by @spidergwenstefani

(1.4k | Teen | WinterHawk)

Sam slaps his hands against the conference table, half-standing from his seat.

“You spent three days with the deadliest assassin on earth? Doing what?”

Clint’s face goes red and Maria feels her stomach drop.

“No,” she manages. “Barton. You didn’t.

“Um.” Clint's face scrunches up like he can wince his way out of the conversation. “I didn’t not.”

AKA Clint ends up confessing to having met the Winter Soldier once before.

Baby Whisperer by @twothumbsandnostakeincanon

(26k | Mature | Steter )

“What. Is that.”

Scott looked up at him, apprehensive.

“Her name’s Lily.”

Stiles stared at the fuzzy head peeking out of the papoose.

“Her. Her name. That is a real live human baby. Oh my God-”

“Actually I don’t know if she’s human?” Scott said with a confused frown. “Becca didn’t say.”

“Who the fuck is Becca?!”

Infinite Space by @discontentedwinter

(35k | Explicit | Steter)

Stiles needs Peter's expertise to help stop the latest threat to Beacon Hills.

And, as the pack falls apart around him, he might even need Peter for more than that.

there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly by xiaolongbaobei

(7k | Mature | SladeJay, Jason&books)

Frankly it’s a stupid idea, but Jason’s apparently known for his stupid ideas, including one which everybody in his ex-family has claimed led to his own death. Victim-blaming and general classism aside, yeah well if nobody’s going to treat Jason Todd like an adult or a hero — he thinks that he doesn’t need to be a hero. And ergo — Jason’s free to make stupid choices. Like getting into bed with Slade Wilson.

The Corner of Divinity by @primeemeraldheiress

(5k | Explicit | SladeJay)

He stared, heart in his throat. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. The heavy tang of blood was thick in the air and his feet felt like lead. He couldn’t move. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t this.

Deathstroke’s lips twisted in a smirk. “I hoped you would show.”

“How could I resist?” Jason drawled, grateful his helmet hid his voice and for the scent blocking patches on his neck. “It was such an artfully worded invitation.”

Between Us by Tulikettu

(9.7k | Explicit | Fratt)

Matt asks Frank to go to a wedding as his date.

Foggy is annoyed.

Frank makes some mix tapes.

Matt might have underestimated everything he's ever felt.

Frank has vowed never to love again.

#WinterHawk #Sterek #Steter #SladeJay #Fratt #covid reading #god it was just... the worst #i couldn’t process any new information whatsoever #i watched the same few movies over and over #and reread a lot of fic #-12/10 do not recommend #but i do recommend these fics #fic rec

[masonscig]

speaking of rebecca, am i the only one who's kind of surprised by the amount of people who hate her (valid) while also seeming to love bobby (also valid, but feels contradictory here)?

like, i can completely understand both of those takes, don't get me wrong (full disclosure of my two detectives on bobby's route carrie has a good relationship with bobby and rebecca, and avery all but hates them both) but considering rebecca's absentness and manipulative tendencies tend to be what turn people off from her it's kinda strange to see some of those same people uwuify bobby who, as an ex in particular, is explicitly stated as being manipulative to the MC during their relationship using them for information, clout, and straight up stealing their work in college. and while i get the appeal of them being like, the one anti-copaganda figure in the series now with how book 3 ends, but this is also the same bobby who to this point has canonically: been an incredibly manipulative partner in college and has continued post-breakup, has stalked the MC basically once a book, bugged their office in book 1, forced their way into the mc's apartment in book 2, tries to coerce them MC into sex to loosen their tongue on multiple occasions included multiple tries after the mc's made it clear they're no longer interested, and can be directly called out for trying to take advantage of the detectives emotional state during the kidnappings to get more info despite showing little to no sympathy for the victims being taken. even if there's good intentions there nothing about that is healthy even considering their respective careers (maybe even less so because of them).

again, not trying to bash either side of it, i guess i'm just trying to figure where people draw that line? to me they're both emotionally manipulative individuals who are trying to repair what they had with the mc to some degree and protect them, but don't know how to do it without being manipulative. they mirror each other in a lot of ways yet one seems to get a free pass more often than the other. idk maybe i'm just rambling but thanks for giving a place to do it <3

oh i LOVE this ask – and no problem at all! ramble on bestie i love reading your thoughts! <3

 i'm gonna put my response under the cut bc i have Thoughts

i do think it's wild to see how much more willing people are to forgive (is that the right phrasing? maybe tolerate is better here) bobby's behavior over rebecca's, but i think i can understand why to a certain degree

so, to clarify before i say anything, i think both of them fucking suck and should not be in mc's life for multiple reasons. bad mother, bad partner, bad friend, whatever, honestly they're doing more harm than good – it's mainly because they both aren't willing to correct their behaviors. you could argue that rebecca is, because she says it, but she doesn't do anything about it. she just says she's going to be a better mom like saying it out loud will make it true

[also i'm rereading the stuff i wrote, and this is from the perspective of someone who only picks 'have a bad relationship with rebecca' for their detectives, so take all my rambling with that in mind!]

but i think the reason rebecca cuts a lot deeper is because there's a different kind of love you're supposed to experience from either relationship. (i'm saying this generally bc from your ask i'm sure we're on the same page ab this !! it's hard to put this into words because i know that people (this includes me) have a lot of complex feelings about parental/spousal love and what standards you should have for either.

("dump him/her!" and "go no contact!" crowd, i'm sorry but i'm not heading in that direction LMAO)

for me, rebecca falls flat in a million ways, because she's trying to make up for years of being an absent parent with empty promises she's yet to fulfill. i know it takes time, as repairing any relationship does, but it does seem like she's approaching it almost in a selfish way, like mc's forgiveness will atone for the years she missed out on, when that's not even close to how these things work. and now with mc working closer with her? it'll restrain the relationship even more before it even gets to start.

she definitely doesn't think she's intending to be manipulative, but she is, by guilt tripping mc at different points throughout the series – but no matter what her intent is, the point is, she was supposed to be a loving mother to her child, and instead of leaning into that, she leaned away. she allowed her child to grow up without two parents instead of one, when unconditional love is the standard for any parent. taking out the whole "rebecca is a working parent" thing, bc that's totally okay, there's ways she could be there for her child that she just. wasn't.

instead of "my love for my child takes priority over my grief for my husband" it turned into "my grief for my husband takes priority over my love for my child" – and that's not okay.

i think bobby is bad, but at the very least, i think being fucked over and abandoned by a partner is a different kind of betrayal than having an absent parent – let me put it this way: if you have an awful romantic partner, you can move on from that by being shown what a "better" relationship looks like. that's what's happening in canon with mc, their ro, and their li. but... if mc has an awful parent (rebecca), then what's replacing that parental love? familial love from ub? that's all good and well (incredible, even), but that's not the same as love from a mother that's there but chooses not to be, you know? (also, please note, take this for as it is, because i think love comes in all shapes and forms – and i believe that you don't need a certain love to live happily, i'm just talking hypothetically about these fictional characters LMAO)

also, i think that if you choose to have a good relationship with rebecca, it's still not a good look – i said this in another ask, but i think that rebecca approaching certain situations the same way regardless of her relationship with mc feels intentional, whether or not m*shka intended that to happen. it's further proof that rebecca won't (can't, isn't willing to) change i think

i feel like this ask got away from me bc i started thinking less about people forgiving rebecca/bobby and more about why i think rebecca is worse SORRY DGKMMDKGKMG

OKAY i need to stop myself bc i know i have a lot of thoughts and i could probably talk forever about this but i am shutting the fuck up now LMFAO

#asks #twc book 3 #twc book 3 spoilers #twc spoilers #cw abuse #cw manipulation #cw coercion #cw abandonment #<- if there are any other tags to add please lmk!

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam - Apologies if you've answered this elsewhere and I missed it, but I realised when rereading TLATT that Michaelis and Eitan were born nearly 25 years apart - were they were half-brothers? If not do you have head canon on the long gap? Just got curious when Jerry mentioned his dad was over 50 when he was born. (And many thanks for the whole series - they're a delight!)

Aw, you’re welcome, glad you like the books! 

Yes, Eitan and Michaelis are half-brothers, although Michaelis doesn't really consider it germane -- there’s no reason to bring it up outside of say, medical history. He’s not going to call him “My half-brother Eitan” because why bother? Family is family. And because it isn't ever mentioned, Gregory has no internal sense of it either. To him, Jerry’s place in the family isn’t even that of cousin but of “cool older brother”. For the family, the fact that Eitan and Michaelis had different mothers is...factual but unimportant. (There is a half-written scene in Royals/Ramblers where Michaelis mentions “My father’s first wife, Gerald’s grandmother Serafina” but it’s for a specific purpose.)

Jason was...not someone who wanted an equal in a wife, so after Eitan's mother passed, Jason married a much younger woman (as Eitan would later do when he finally married) and that was Michaelis's mother. Jerry’s remark about Eitan being older when he was born is linked to Alanna’s about how Shivadh men often marry and have children later in life, but that's more Alanna's experience, being from the nobility, than a truth about Shivadh culture. It's not that there's a tradition of older men marrying younger women -- it's just that most of the men she's been around since childhood did that because they were weird about relationships and power. Her mother’s father, Jason and Eitan, most of the Daskaz cousins one generation back, etc. Alanna’s father (an immigrant) and Michaelis (an outlier who got married super young) are the notable exceptions.  

There are a lot of reasons I like writing Michaelis but one of them, I realized recently, is that there's a lot of me in the way he relates to his family. Jason was a relatively decent person but he had some specific dysfunctions and toxicity to him, and Eitan was very like their father. Michaelis looked at his family, went "I love them, but this is unhealthy," and made a conscious effort not to fall into the same mold. He followed his father's wishes in terms of career, mainly because they coincided with his own desires, but he made some very different choices in the rest of his life. 

I love my family but I'm not very much like them in some pretty deep-down ways, and it's cathartic to write a character that similarly took this alienation, this "I'm going to have to be different from them" sensibility, and found a way to have a strong relationship with them in spite of it.

#shivadhverse

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 147

Chapter 147: "Accumulated Grievances"

This is honestly one of the few chapters I always skim through just because it's so demon focused. That's not a bad thing of course; it's good to see the internal conflict that began from Geelan's suggestion that resulted in his downfall and led to his eventual revenge against the current nobility, but it was a side story that I didn't particularly care for all that much when I'm always worried about the children more. Still a good chapter now that I carefully read it through again.

They're all so darn selfish oh my god. It's not the end of the world if you get smaller food portions! At least they'll always have a decent supply of good quality meat that commoners wouldn't have access to as often or at all.

Geelan is such a good royal for literally all of this. This way of thinking is proper and should be commonsense among the families in charge of the commoners and yet they're only concern is their own hunger.

Ah, so this rumor happens around the same time that mini flashback of Mujika we see at the start of ch127. I wonder how Geelan would've reacted if he had the chance to see Mujika for himself.

I'm actually like.. feeling bad for Geelan. Only took how many years for that to happen. Sorry dude. You definitely deserved better.

I don't know exactly why this feels like deja vu to me when I rarely go back and reread this chapter. Perhaps it's because of Yuugo's speech to Emma in ch53 when he mentions that "Companions are useless. Hope is useless. Compassion is useless. All of them. Unnecessary." That's what these panels remind me of anyway for some reason.

At least y'all are self aware that you're all horrible.

Ahhaha, Dozza mentioned that he's trained hard as a warrior during these last 700 years and he's taken out so quickly. Serves him right.

Favorite panel/moment:

Boss just casually walking through the halls while the demon nobility is totally falling apart.

#the promised neverland #tpn manga #182daysoftpn #chidoroki used chatter

[umbershift]

can u pls share ur webcomic Lists

I'm putting together a proper List and it's taking way longer than I thought it would so I'm gonna go ahead and throw out my favorites with links to the About pages if I can manage it:

Midnight Furies: My current favorite comic, has been for a couple years now. Urban fantasy basketball. It’s got a shark lesbian and a Best Girl and a sorta himbo and just some SUPER cool art. Read it

White Noise: At least to me, this one’s got a strong focus on grief and community and relationships. And xenophobia. Lots of fantasy creatures and magic in a modern setting. A good comic if you like world building. It just finished its first story arc and has a big backlog, so this is a very good time to start reading!

Shot & Chaser: Tre and Olly, a matched set, go storm-chasing. I found this one because of a short sort of nsfw sketch comic that made me fall in love with Tre and Olly. I first read it less than a month ago and I’ve reread it in its entirety about four times

Check, Please!: This one’s completed! Eric Bittle (Bitty) is gay and just started playing college hockey, and the comic covers his years on the team! It’s very cute and sweet, and I love the support that Bitty gets from people around him throughout the comic.

O Human Star: This one’s also completed! It’s sci-fi, it's got robots and it discusses gender and queerness and being out and being closeted. The last pages make me cry every single time I read them.

Barbarous: I love love love the art and paneling and colors on this one. Percy is a super smart magic school dropout helping maintain/run an apartment building (I can't remember the job description) along with Leeds, a big monstrous-looking guy with, shall we say, some secrets. It’s got some really cool “who is the monster and who is the man” vibes

I'm trying to focus on non-webtoons here but I can't not recommend Lavender Jack. It's only on Webtoon, as far as I know, but I ADORE it. Think batman-style crime fighter but with Spider-man levels of banter, and also he's a 1910’s gentleman. This one's also completed!

Also, and I cannot stress this enough: if you like a webcomic, go follow the artists/writers on social media. They often share webcomics and creators they like, which leads you to more webcomics to read. I found out about a lot of these from artists I was following.

#webcomics #READ THEM #OH MY GOD THERE'S SO MANY #IDC WHAT SORT OF STORIES YOU LIKE THERE IS A WEBCOMIC YOU WILL LOVE

[thedanoriddler]

I love these Riddler posts!!! I can't stop reading and rereading them! I was wondering if you could do something like S/O and Eddie getting into a fight. Afterwards S/O says something hurtful to Eddie, which leads to him breaking down and S/O goes to apologise to him. Thank you!!!

ASDFGHJKL THANK YOU AND YES, OMG, EDDIE BBY 😭❤️ Sorry for the wait, life’s been… ya know.

You and Eddie don’t fight that often to be honest - but when you do, it’s bad

It’s easy for you both to get het up and lost in the heat of the argument. I just want to make it clear that the argument is never physical, he’s never laid a hand on you, Eddie wouldn’t do that and you’re never scared he will, but you both tend to say things and snap if you’re arguing

Usually it’s resolved less than half an hour later, you both hate being mad at each other, especially Eddie, and once you’ve both cooled down a little then you’re able to talk like grown ups

Until this one argument

Maybe you made a remark out of concern about him getting caught or hurt for his Riddler work and the argument spiralled from there, maybe you didn’t mean for it to come across rude or disrespectful, maybe he didn’t mean to be so snarky… point is, the two of you end up in a big verbal fight

Except it keeps getting worse and worse, you’re frustrated that he doesn’t see why you’re so worried, and he’s frustrated because you of all people know his work is important, why are you suddenly making a huge deal out of nothing???

Without thinking, you scream that he’s “pathetic, a fucking pathetic nobody freak” - and immediately you know you’ve crossed the line

The way his face falls when you say that, the way the fight leaves him as he slumps, his eyes hurt by your betraying words… immediately all the fight leaves you too

“Eddie, I didn’t mean-”

He walks out of the room and leaves the apartment without a word

You know you’ve fucked up - big time. You know that Eddie has been tormented all of his life by people who’ve said the exact same things as you just did, that what you’ve said has hurt him more than a punch or slap would have - and you feel so awful, so angry at yourself, for hurting him

Eddie comes back an hour later, he wouldn’t leave you for very long even if you hurt him, though he’s convinced himself that you’ve probably packed your stuff and left, that you want nothing to do with him - so he’s admittedly surprised when he enters the bedroom and sees you waiting for him anxiously

“Eddie, I’m so sorry,” you whisper, close to tears. “I didn’t mean it, I swear…”

He sits uncertainly on the side of the bed, but you can tell that he doesn’t believe you, his shoulders are still slumped with defeat, and he’s refusing to meet your eyes - he can’t. He’s scared that if he looks at you, he’ll see hatred for him in your eyes, that you despise him

You try again, apologizing and putting a hand on his arm - and that’s when you see him break

He hates himself for crying in front of you but he can’t help it - he wants to believe you so bad, wants to believe that you didn’t mean it, but he just thinks that of course you hate him, of course you think he’s pathetic, why would you, the most incredible person he’s known, be any different? Why would you like him? It’s brought up a lot of insecurities

“I didn’t mean it,” you keep saying, wrapping your arms around him, and he can’t stop himself from crying into your shirt. “I didn’t, Eddie - you’re the most brilliant person I know.”

It takes a lot of comfort/reassurance to convince him that you truly didn’t mean it, that it couldn’t be any further from the truth: you tell him you’re so proud of him for the work he’s doing to improve Gotham once and for all, that you’ve never met anyone as intelligent and clever as him, that you love him so much

Eventually he starts to believe you, starts to believe that you didn’t mean it - but it’ll take a while for him to forget the memory of you saying that to him, forget how it felt when you called him what you did 😔 he accepts that you didn’t mean it, but he’s so self deprecating that you saying those things hammered it all home and brought back bad memories

No matter how heated things get in an argument after this, you don’t cross that line ever again - you care about him too much to want to hurt him, even if you’re fighting

#bad ending is bad #idk how to end stuff lmao #the riddler #edward nashton #the batman #paul dano #edward nashton x reader #the riddler x reader #asks #paul dano x reader #danonation #the riddler imagine

[limjaeseven]

Can We Call This Love? (Blow Up One More)

Pairing: Kihyun X Hyungwon

Genre: Angst, Implied Smut, e2l?

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 458

Summary: Hyungwon and Kihyun were made specifically not to get along with each other but fate (read: a friend with questionable understandings of them) brings them together.

Warning(s): Implied smut, friends with benefits? maybe?, ambiguous relationship, enemies to fwb?

[a/n]: Mom, look I'm actually posting! I had to reread this fic cause I have no idea what I wrote but it was for a tipsy drabble like a century ago. Inspired by the line "toxic, but I like it" from Beautiful Liar. Hope you enjoy!

Kihyun knew whatever was going on was unhealthy, but it wasn’t like he was planning to stop.

Chae Hyungwon was everything Yoo Kihyun hated amalgamated into a single person. Unnecessarily tall, overconfident, good looking and well aware of it, making him unbearably smug. They met through their mutual friend who, for some reason, thought they would get along well together. It definitely didn’t end up like that.

There was not a minute in the time that Kihyun and Hyungwon knew each other that there weren’t bickering over the smallest things imaginable. One was too self absorbed, the other too proud to ever concede anything. Despite the fact that they often said they hated each other, there was something that kept pulling them back together, and once they started, it was as if the rest of the world ceased to exist around them.

So it was both surprising yet unsurprising when Hyungwon offered to let Kihyun move in with him when Minhyuk told him that he was going to move in with Hyunwoo when their lease ended. Their friends joked about having to keep the cops on speed dial in case the two strangled each other to death or something, knowing full well that things were just waiting to go wrong.

Kihyun tip toed around Hyungwon for a bit, seeing that he was the one intruding, but once the comfort set in, the two went back to fighting near constantly. It was only time before the rage and proximity combined turned the lingering sexual tension between then up to eleven. The only way they could get the other to listen to them was by fucking the life out of them.

The sex was amazing, and it kept them coming back for more, even when they felt like they’d reached the end of the wire, that it was time to finally call things off, all it would take was for one of them to grab the other by their neck and smash their lips together, and within minutes they would be falling apart in each other’s arms, bickering long forgotten.

“Why do we do this to ourselves?” Kihyun had asked one night as they lay next to each other, naked and tired, nearly a year after they’d moved in together.

Hyungwon laughed, bringing Kihyun’s thumb up to his lips and biting gently into the skin. “Because we’re both messed up, and there’s no one else who’s going to put up with that.” He mused for a moment before adding, “Also the sex is really good.”

“Toxic,” Kihyun said, pushing his thumb further into Hyungwon’s mouth so that he’d wrap his plush lips around it, “but I like it.”

#monsta x #monsta x fanfic #kihyun #hyungwon #kihyun x hyungwon #rainingmxmnet #monsta x smut #monsta x angst #tipsy drabbles

[aimmyarrowshigh]

I think I might have asked this already so feel free to just ignore if you didn't feel like answering but how is Finnick feminized by the narrative? Apart from the obvious.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't reread THG in a LONG time.

Oooh man, that's a deep cut from the blog, lol! I mean, from what I remember of my line of thinking -- mostly the obvious, insofar as Finnick is largely defined by outsiders' perspectives of his physical appearance; is a story of sexual trauma that is not about reclaiming power through retribution (which would be a more stereotypically 'masculine' trauma-recovery story, not that male victims of sexual violence are get their stories told all that often); and the climax of his story is marriage and having a child.

To whit: I am not saying any of those are FEMININE THINGS in the real world. I am saying that in Western storytelling, those things are generally reserved for female CHARACTERS and are framed in THG in a way that INTENTIONALLY SUBVERTS GENDER EXPECTATIONS, much like many of the THG characters do. Most notably, ofc, Katniss and Peeta. (I wrote a whole chapter on Panem & Gender in The Panem Companion if I rememberrrr correctlyyy? where I go into Katniss and Peeta's gender subversions, so you can check that out for them!)

I think I also touched on Finnick in there, too, but since writing TPC, I've um. improved. as a writer. and also tightened my focus a lot on analysis, so what ISN'T touched on in TPC re: Finnick and gender, and also Katniss and gender, is on the actual sentence-level language used to talk about Finnick. Since THG is told in Katniss' first-person POV at a fairly close psychic distance and without any explicit narrative unreliability, we can take Katniss' judgments of Finnick to be her personal truth (and that is why, when Katniss learns that Finnick isn't a playboy, he's a trafficked sex slave, it's such a shock for the reader, too -- because we have been going through three books taking Katniss' POV on Panem as the truth, and that's one of the moments when we remember that she is just one traumatized and very sheltered 17-year-old girl, and she's not omniscient).

Katniss views Finnick, in CF, with the same disdain that she mostly reserves for people of the Capitol and for other girls and women. Katniss? Does not like Other Girls and Katniss does not like Women. She has a mile-wide Not Like Other Girls streak going. She tends to introduce and view male characters in terms of their potential danger to her, and she introduces and views female characters -- and Finnick -- by rejecting the idea of their interiority and/or commenting on their appearance in some way, depending on how she will be interacting with them. (Caveat: that's only true for the characters who Katniss actually introduces with any detail at all, which is NOT that many.)

Finnick inspires in Katniss a very similar reaction as Effie or the Prep Team, which I think was *intended* to compare him to the Capitol since Katniss thinks at that point that he is a willing Capitol citizen and ~lover~, but functions metanarratively as Katniss falling into the same trap OF THE CAPITOLITES THEMSELVES by viewing Finnick as a sexual object rather than a person with a private inner life.

Also, Finnick fulfills the trope of the courtesan-spy. He is let into the beds of the wealthy and powerful because he's beautiful and seen as simple or less-than, and he uses it to bring down the wealthy and powerful by exposing their depravity. He's word-for-word the courtesan-spy trope, except he's a man. It's ARGUABLE that his maleness is undercut by how young he was when he started being trafficked and therefore he's functioning in this trope as a child rather than as a man, but like, he's 24 when he finally gets to air all the dirty laundry, so I think it counts. This is probably the most The Obvious(TM) answer, but it's still true.

Also, Finnick's story is a rape recovery story. While obviously rape does happen to men (and people outside the binary), the Western canon basically says that rape recovery stories are the provenance of women. This is the other most The Obvious(TM) answer, so I'm not going to go into it (also because I'd want to pull specific examples from Mockingjay that take place during his breakdown and I'm not going to go to the other room and get my book womp womp).

And also also: Finnick's story is a love story. It's a Fairytale Romance. "𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲, 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨, 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞, 𝐞𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲. 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞." The centerpiece of Finnick's existence is his romance, his love, his WEDDING. Again, obviously men get married, but in storytelling, romance stories are generally The Woman's Story (And A Man Is There) and not The Man's Story. (Except in fanfiction, which is a whole other essay.)

#the hunger games #books #ya lit #**thg