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n7punk · 18 days

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"Start Your Engine" Fic Notes

SYE is done! For once something didn’t get away from me. What, it was supposed to be a one-shot? Shut up!

Playlist:

Unreleased demo (we could be the baddest losers in the world together)

Life Sux — Leah Kate

Supernatural — Transviolet

I Want Her — Georgie Harris/The Blind Truth

I Can See You (From the Vault) — Taylor Swift

GIRL ON TV — chloe morionado

Cdbaby<3 — chloe morionado

Suburban Legends (From the Vault) — Taylor Swift

Hot Child In The City — Jessica Leigh

Ruin My Life — Zolita

Fruity — chloe morionado

GLOW — SNOW WIFE

Overdrive — Gia Woods

good girls go bad — Lauren Sanderson

Your Engine — Gia Woods

Epilogue Life:

Catra does take awhile to adjust to school because it is a huge shift from her last few years of essentially doing whatever the fuck she wanted whenever (she did have a stream schedule, but it wasn’t a big deal if she canceled, or extended, or slept or ate or anything else whenever she felt like it), but even though she spends the whole first year questioning her decision, she does adjust eventually. Her friends all graduate long before she hits grad school, but Entrapta and Bow both went for a grad degree too so their life keeps following the school rhythm and it keeps her from feeling too left out. Catra does keep up with streaming even after she gets an internship with a law firm, her hours just reduce as it becomes more of the side thing she was trying to downplay it as.

Swift Wind isn’t actually 100% done until the summer after graduation, but Catra certainly doesn’t mind how long it takes, and on nights when both of them have roommates home they like to take drives out somewhere private to make out on the side of the road under the stars. Adora 100% supports her girlfriend in her weird niche and later on hypes her up a lot as the more impressive one for going through law school, which kind of blows Catra’s mind because she’s still used to thinking of herself as a loser.

Entrapta’s software does see a steady rise in usership after the introduction of Wildcat, and there are two main reasons why: 1) yes okay she specifically improved the physics for Wildcat. I’m not going to pretend that wasn’t a driving factor lol, but 2) Emily did a great job of showing off what was unique about Entrapta’s software — but people who weren’t looking for unique didn’t have much reason to pay attention to it. Wildcat showed she could make great, more “mainstream” avatars as well. She doesn’t become the #1 overnight or anything, but she does slowly become the #1 alternative to the corporate options and that’s really what she was looking for.

Catra does eventually tell Glimmer and Bow she’s Wildcat — who Glimmer likes even more than she ever did Emily — once they’re better friends, but it takes a few months. Glimmer doesn’t really suspect anything until Catra lets slip the occasional comment leading up to her revealing it because Catra is very private about her identifying info on stream — and cognizant not to tell stories involving Glimmer when she’s in chat — so she doesn’t actually have a lot of clues to get suspicious from. When she finds out she loses it, though. She eventually comes around to finding it funny, but by god for a while she would pout about it if you mentioned it. She’s mostly annoyed that Adora hid it from her, but Adora does argue that it was Catra’s life and it wasn’t really her business what she does for work. It mostly matters because Glimmer actually watches her, lol. If it wasn’t for that, she wouldn’t care.

Around the time Catra is comfortable telling Glimmer she’s finally ready to meet Adora’s moms, something she has been avoiding as long as she can because she’s terrified of the concept of Family, but obviously Mara and Light Hope are super sweet, it just still takes her a little while to get comfortable with them, but by the holidays she’s ready to experience them with Adora and her family for the first time. She never thought she would get a family along with a girlfriend, but 14 year old Catra couldn’t even conceive of the life she would have ten years later.

Chapter 1:

⦁ I’ve already talked about this a little because an anon guessed it Fast over here, but the original concept for this AU was just the neighbor thirsting stuff around the car. Catra didn’t have a job planned, but that stuff came up when it did come time to write it. I figured Adora would be in university since they were supposed to be in their early twenties, and I could have stuck Catra there too, but I liked the concept of Catra having this kind of very different life experience that made her feel a little alienated from her peers and especially contributed to her not being confident when it came to actually making a move on Adora. I don’t follow any like, VTuber vtubers, because the ones I do are people like jaidenanimations who just use an avatar of themselves and aren’t a character or anything, but a friend of a friend is super into vtubers and I hear a lot of the drama and shipping and stuff secondhand because of that. When I was getting ready to write the AU, my friend was explaining the drama about this company having a bunch of controversies with its vtubers and nearly everyone leaving, and that planted the seed of “lol wouldn’t it be funny if Catra was a vtuber in this”. And then I put in the allusions in the first chapter to stuff like gigabit internet still not thinking I was going to do it, except by the end of the second chapter I realized I was definitely going to do it, so I doubled down on it when editing chapter one to post.

⦁ Before those additions, I was kind of thinking this would be a one shot, and tbf that would have made sense with the amount of content in the first three chapters, but then I decided I wanted to shift perspective in chunks, which meant it made the most sense to make it a multi-chapter with the POV shifting by chapter even without those additions, and hey, I did manage to keep to my predicted chapter count once I decided that! For once! It totally counts.

Chapter 2:

⦁ This chapter was really short but I had to show that they were both being so incredibly stupid with their flirting when at any point one of them could have asked the other out and they would have said yes so fast the marriage proposal would be implied.

⦁ Catra lashed out a lot in school because, to be fair, her home life absolutely sucked and she had no friends and no hope for the future, so she just hated everything about school knowing it would probably add up to nothing and at least if she was a problem people were paying attention to her. Teachers might not have liked her, but they were looking at her and not hurling insults like Weaver, so that was about the best she got.

Chapter 3:

⦁ Adora was really just trying to lean over and not caring about where she put her hand because all her friends are touchy and she is too, but any touch like that from Catra would be her trying to put the moves on someone she desperately wanted to hold, so she extended that to Adora’s behavior as well. Adora doesn’t remember it at all because it wasn’t important enough to. If you asked her about it five minutes later it would take her a second to think if she had done it at all.

⦁ Scorpia and Sea Hawk aren’t exactly friends, but they did have a class together. They would wait for it to start in the closest lounge for a good half hour if not an hour beforehand so they ended up talking a lot over that semester and they still chat now when they run into each other. Scorpia only saw Mermista if she came there to be with Sea Hawk, and usually she was “too cool” for that and Sea Hawk had to come to her instead, so Scorpia really isn’t involved in Adora’s friend group at all despite the peripheral connection.

⦁ Adora stopped working on Swift Wind for two reasons: 1) she was only working on him so much for an excuse to talk to Catra (though she’ll glad for all the work she got done once it does get hot) and 2) she just felt so disappointed when she would see Catra and Catra would ignore her that it discouraged her from going out even the baseline amount she would without her.

⦁ Adora brings up hooking up with Mermista once because she, not remembering the leg touch thing, can only guess that someone mentioned her history with Mermista to Catra and she drew conclusions from partial information that was out of date and incorrect anyway.

⦁ Catra knows Mermsita doesn’t believe in marriage from Sea Hawk telling Scorpia he’d love to make the gesture of proposing but Mermista would just dump him again for it.

Chapter 4:

⦁ The valentines card was handmade because ain’t no way Weaver has even letting Catra use a printer to get something that looked “better”. Adora would have treasured it as if

⦁ When Catra is talking about hiding her face, she doesn’t get deeper into it, but it’s all about being safe. It’s not just Weaver punishing her for acting emotionally, it’s also the danger of letting someone see when she’s afraid, or in love, or anything else they can use to hurt her later.

⦁ The "go live" scene was one of the first ideas I had related to Catra being a VTuber and is one of the things that kind of convinced me to include it in the fic and then I almost forgot to write the scene lmao. The only problem with this joke is the whole thing is based around the fact the two different kinds of "live" are written the same, but that makes it hard to control which version of the word people naturally read there (especially the people who had figured out Catra was a VTuber already) so I hope the way I framed Adora's reaction to it made it clear. Catra was SO grateful Adora read it entirely wrong, but that showed her she couldn't keep it secret for much longer, but she wasn't ready to force herself through telling her either.

⦁ Okay, Roach. The cockroach thing is actually a joke I had for canon four years ago, thinking about how ways Catra talks sound like insults because that’s how she had to disguise her compliments in the Horde. That lead to the cockroach nickname for Entrapta, because seriously, thought dead twice and actually just thriving? Really? And no one in the princess alliance is really sure how to take it because Entrapta doesn’t seem bothered at all — because she understands, and she takes it as the weird compliment it is.

⦁ The black curtains are supposed to muffle sound transmission. Catra shoved her sound absorbing foam boards — which she just had leaning against the wall even months after moving in anyway — into the closet when she showed Adora the room before.

⦁ Adora doesn’t know what an OC is, so she’s just assuming that’s the name for a VTuber avatar and calls Catra’s new V that. She’ll eventually figure out how it works.

Chapter 5:

⦁ I had a lot of fun with the chapter titles in this one. I used a similar basic structure in LotD to signal when I was switching perspectives by chapter but it’s fun to heckle the characters in them.

⦁ Catra did try to pay Entrapta. Entrapta was confused. Eventually she more than paid in her back in commissions following Wildcat.

⦁ Catra was just a clerk at a random department store in the mall when a guy snagged a designer purse and tried to bolt with it. The purse cost equivalent to Catra’s entire paycheck, which she desperately needed, and her boss was within eyeshot and yelled when the man started running, so Catra just acted on instinct to protect her job and fucking tackled the guy — which is a terrible idea by the way, pretty sure they can argue that’s assault — which then knocked the purse out of his hands, so her boss ran over and grabbed it, and then the dude struggled up and she wasn’t paid enough to get punched so she just followed him as he ran out of the store to make sure he didn’t yoink something else. And then obviously her boss called mall security and they both told the whole story and like two weeks later the mall offered for a job because they were kind of stretched thin. She did like the mall security job better because she got to wander around a lot more without a boss looking over her shoulder and do a lot less (especially from a customer service perspective), but they both were a little soul-draining.

⦁ I’ll be honest Auntie Anne’s pops the fuck off. Wetzel’s Pretzel’s can suck a dick.

⦁ Catra just says “she’s colorblind” here because I thought about it and didn’t think she would casually make the distinction of “partially” within her own head right then.

⦁ Catra’s race both wasn’t a secret and was, because there were plenty of “hints”, but stuff like Emily having antenna in place of ears didn’t actually mean anything. Her viewers didn’t know they were mapped to follow Catra’s ears, they could have just been animations. People who were observant could figure it out given they don’t do the same thing every time she laughs or anything — it’s especially obvious when she moves just one ear — but it did still surprise some people when they saw her new avatar. The Wildcat in her handle didn’t really give anything away considering there’s a streamer named smallant irl and guess what, he’s not an ant lmao.

⦁ I think this literally never came up in the entire fic (only vaguely implied by Adora “moving away” when she got adopted) but neither Catra, nor Adora, nor Glimmer, nor Bow is from Bright Moon. Scorpia is local and Entrapta is from nearby (as is Glimmer), but Adora and Catra grew up like two hours away. When Adora was adopted, it was to Bright Moon’s outer skirts, so she’s kind of local now and it’s not even a day trip to go visit her moms. It is, however, long enough Catra dodges it as best she can. Anyway, Glimmer and Bow try to arrange their time visiting family to overlap so they don’t have to be apart for too long because they’re really fucking gay for each other.

Upcoming:

*clears throat*

*steps up to the mic*

Ahem.

Are you ready for Heathers’ Broadway debut?

#ficmeta #fic notes #sye

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bruiseeedknees · 2 months

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if i were.. to post my notes.. on show!golden trio’s body language, dialogue sentencing, personal notes, etc that im using for fanfic …

would that be something you would want 😇

#percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #annabeth chase #grover underwood #pjo tv #pjo #fic notes #autism

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regular-human-being · 5 months

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"You've got guts to spill (but no one trustworthy)" notes masterpost

Fic linked here!!!

Here are some notes from "You've got gut to spill (but no one trustworthy)" aka My ctntduo/sbi vampire au, because there are a few things that I didn't include and I wish I had

Note: I'll be updating this as the fic goes along, so there will be new stuff added weekly :D

Vampire logic

General facts

• They have enhanced sight, small, and hearing, which makes it easier to hunt their prey. Despite the fact they can see at night, it isn't perfect (their eyes reflect light much like a dog or cat)

• Vampires have to been invited into places deemed as "homes". It doesn't matter if that person is in the room/building, they still have to be invited in (imagine is one person deems a public library "home" (not literally), unless the vampire is invited in they cannot enter).

This applies to windows/skylights too, as they are another point of entry they have to be invited in either way. Once invited inside, they can entre through any entrance.

• Crucifies affect all vampires differently, based upon: their age, strength, and current energy.

• Older vampires will be less affected than fledglings, due to a tolerance build up. But a cross will still cause them to experience some pain. If a vampire is tired/low on blood, they will be more heavily effected.

• Holding a cross in front of a vampire will cause them to experience paint, and may also start smoking.

• Placing a crucifix (whether silver or wooden) above a door, will not completely stop a vampire from entering an establishment (especially if they have previously been invited in). However, for them it will be like having to wade through an invisible, painful force field.

• Their reflection will show up in mirrors that don't contain any sort of silver. They also show up in videos and photos.

• If their skin is cut, they will bleed if they have recently fed/have a lot of blood in their system. However, the wound will also heal faster, if they have more blood in their system.

But if their skin is cut with something made of silver, the wound will take a human amount of time to heal.

They will also heal fast, unless they are injured by: another vampire, silver, or burnt by the sun.

• Human blood is preferred, but harder to get a hold of, so they can also survive off animal blood. They are also more stable off human blood, and don't have to feed as often as it satiates their hunger for longer.

• Vampires can still eat and drink "human foods". However, their body does not process it the same way, and that food/drink will remain in their stomach until there is too much and they throw it all back up. For this reason, vampires tend to avoid eating "human foods".

However, foods with a higher concentration of blood is more likely to be digested fully.

Alcohol will also not have an strong effect on them, unless is is drank in a high quantity. The quickest/easier way to get a vampire drunk is for them to drink blood containing alcohol.

• They will physically remain the same age that they were turned out, as well as keeping some of the mentality from that age too.

_____

• Vampires will form bonds between them and other close members of their coven. Through this, they can communicate through feelings/emotions.

Coven bonds work like a phone line, you can get a signal from more than one person at the same time, but some are stronger than others; depending on who you're closest to.

The connection may become weaker/unresponsive, if the other person is far away or not paying attention.

_____

• Once turned, the vampire will take on animistic features from one animal. The type and severity is different for each individual, but all have the ability to hide said features for a short period of time.

• They cannot float/fly unless their animal has the ability to do so (giving them wings) (birds, bugs/insects).

_____

• The older the vampire is, the stronger they often are, and the more respected they are.

• Elder vampires will often sire others, or take in loose vampires, creating covens for said fledglings.

• Fledgling transformation (if done correctly) will last around a week to two, for the full transformation. But the vampire will remain in the nest/not go outside of the main coven building, for a few months whilst they adapt.

_____

The Sun

• Going outside during sunlight hours will make any vampire weaker than their full, nighttime potential./

• Cannot go out into direct sunlight (especially in summer) without burning almost instantaneously. Umbrellas/parasols, hats, and sun cream can be used to delay they burns, but with sun cream it will only stave it off for a few minutes at most.

• They can go out in overcast/cloudy/rainy weather, with less repercussions. But will still experience burns (especially in the former two) if out for extended periods of time.

• Reflecting direct sunlight onto a vampire will burn them the same (if not worse) than if they were to stand directly in the rays.

_____

Weaknesses

• Direct sunlight will result in burns and possible burns.

• Cannot enter buildings/rooms deemed as "home" without being invited in.

• Allergic to garlic, and will experience and similar anaphylactic reaction if exposed to it or ingest it.

• Crucifixes will cause a stinging/burning sensation. If exposed for to long, they will start smouldering.

• Cannot walk on holy land.

• A stake through the heart will kill a vampire then and there.

• Silver.

• Ripping out their heart or cutting off their head will kill them.

#I'll be adding to this weekly so make sure to come back when a new chapter is posted!!!#tntduo #sbi #vampire au #yggtsbnot #fic notes

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yumenoyousei · 5 months

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Notes for my Sokkla Celebrity AU (Azula's side)

This AU idea came to me earlier this year (like May??) and wouldn't leave me alone so I wrote all the notes related to it.

I then wrote a Sokkla fic based in this universe, which I struggled a lot with. To motivate me to finish it post it on AO3, I decided to share the notes of that universe.

So here are the Azula-centric notes for it. I'll post the Sokka-centric shortly and in a few days, the fic.

*Note, all the songs/artists are references in style and/or mood/vibe and/or lyrics. I do not think it would be the exact same song if in that Universe Azula would sing it but it just gives an idea

TW: mental health issues and mention of su*cide and attempts

Notes for Sokka's side

Without further ado,

ATLA Celebrity AU (Azula-centric)

Azula 0-12

Azula is a child actor with Zuko, gets more roles than her older brother

The whole Sozin family are renowned actors and/or singers (Ozai was an okay actor, Iroh was an amazing actor and singer, and Ursa was an amazing singer who didn't get that much recognition until she got married to Ozai)

Ozai is still very much a piece of shit, setting his children against one another

Ursa doesn't help as she unconsciously supports Zuko more, gives him his love for music and playing guitar & piano

By the time Zuko is 13 (Azula 11) he focuses on music

Azula being always pitched against him, starts dancing & is good at it

Still, the fire siblings are closer than in canon; Zuko teaches Azula to song-write and express her feelings through lyrics

Meanwhile:

Ursa is trying to divorce Ozai, but Ozai (and the Sozin family) is having none of it because of the image it would give them

Lu Ten dies (suicide, the pressure of being an actor, Iroh is never the same, remove himself from the limelight)

Azula 13 - 16

At Ozai pressure, forms a girl group with Mai and Ty Lee (think: Morning Musume & e-girls). Mai is a better singer, and Ty Lee is a better dancer but Azula is still made the leader. She puts immense pressure on herself to be better than them. Does fewer acting gigs but is known as an actress.

Ozai hurt Zuko (scar-like in canon?) to the media they say it's an accident but behind closed doors, it gives Ursa the out she needed. She leaves with Zuko (they go stay with Iroh) intending to get Azula too but:

1- Ozai fights her even more to keep Azula

2-Ozai makes sure to make Azula believe Ursa left her because she doesn't want her

Azula dates publicly actor Chan; gives him all her firsts "to get rid of them", and breaks up soon after

Azula 17-18

The girls make more sexual dances/songs. Mai and Ty Lee are not comfortable but Azula thrives in the "sex sells" mentality (Ozai influence)

Azula snaps at reporters that ask her about Zuko which gives her a "bad girl" personality which she also thrives in (somehow her doesn't give a fuck attitude boosts her popularity)

The girls have an ugly fallout making their 4th album and get kicked out of the agency (to the girls, it looks like Azula told her father and to Azula, it looks like they left her, but it is all Ozai)

Zuko starts a solo career under Avatar Industries (they have the Gaang also and Zuko makes friends)

Before releasing his first single, he tries to contact Azula but she's having none of it: she believes Zuko also abandoned her

Rumours about Ozai's shady money deals come out and Azula has to lay low

Azula 18

Mai and Zuko start to date in the public eye and Mai makes one (1) comment about the girls' split which makes the media go into a frenzy

Azula's mental health starts to slip, stops acting altogether after she snaps at a director

Ozai makes Azula go see Zuko telling her to "check what the rivals are doing" but Azula just misses her brother so takes the occasion

Sokka is there also because of my Sokkla agenda to support Zukko

Azula actually has a good time with her brother, they mostly talk about music, and Azula can mock him (friendly) about his cheesy music (think early Shawn Mendes) She also surprisingly has fun with Sokka

(somehow develops a tiny crush that she destroys as soon as she hears Sokka mentioning his girlfriend)

The next day, a rumour explodes that Sokka cheated on Suki (Olympic Athlete) with Azula because Azula seduced him

Even if Sokka, Azula, and Zuko deny it, the rumours spiral

Azula writes her frustration in a song about how the media portrays her as evil even if Sokka gets less heat. Ozai made Azula release it as her first official solo single (think Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy")

It explodes and Azula releases her first solo album, the second single from the album is actually about Zuko (think Rihanna's "Bitch better have my money" energy, but saying things like; you left me and I trusted you) and it does very well on the chart

Azula 19

Azula is about to go on tour when Ozai gets arrested for money laundering

Her mental health slips even more as they discover his other shady practices and an "anonymous source" relates the abuse Azula & Zuko got

Her tour gets cancelled

Azula gets into a mental psychosis and believes it's her mother who said it to hurt her career

The media tries to get a scoop about it

Azula almost drowns in her bath; Zuko rescues her last-minute

She gets hospitalized; diagnostic OCD, and stays for 8 months

Writes a lot while she's hospitalized

Zuko visits often, and they get a heart to heart, Zuko is also followed for GAD and PTSD

Ursa visits, the first time it makes Azula slip, the second she screams at Ursa. After, the doctors tell Ursa it's best if she doesn't come

Azula 20

After she gets released, (and followed by a therapist) Azula discovers that a lot of rumours were actually set up by her father, like the cheating scandal

(He wanted to make it seem like Azula was the one trying to reach out while Zuko was the one pushing her away, thus chipping his "cute awkward turtleduck" persona he has but when Ozai sees the pictures of Azula laughing at Sokka's joke, another idea comes to his mind)

And the "anonymous source" was actually Ozai's entourage in an "if I'm going down, you're going down with me" attempt

Azula is 100% heartbroken but also 300% mad

She writes a lot of songs

At some point, Zuko tries to make her reconnect with Mai & Ty Lee and even if Azula knows most of the conflict was amplified by her father, she's scared to contact them

Zuko manages to make Azula meet Ty Lee and one thing brings another, they write a song together which they never did because the agency used to write/decide what they sang

They invite Mai to join and through songwriting, they do an album as a group (think ChloexHalle's album "Ungodly Hours")

They become better friends but decide to officially split as a band after the release of the album (Mai & Ty Lee's careers are going great anyway)

(Mai & Zuko break up and might come back together I dunno, haven't thought that far about those 2)

Azula 21

Before releasing the album, Azula announced on social media her mental health conditions and said it was the biggest reason why she was out of the public eye for 2 years.

She tries the best she can to avoid mentions of her father

The girls release the album and it does well, they are praised for their new maturity and powerful vocals

Azula works on a solo album but even with all she has written, she is stuck.

She asks for help (in a very Azula way) from Zuko and she officially meets the Gaang

Azula and Aang become weirdly fast friends

Finished by releasing an EP that is 100% about her father that she conceals as break-up songs (think Naika's EP "Transitions")

Her mother announces she's pregnant with her boyfriend's baby, it lowkey makes Azula spiral for a few weeks, writes about it

Azula 22

Azula wins prices for her EP and with the album with the girls

She still has a "bad girl" persona (she loves to call herself a bad bitch) to the media but the way she talks about her mental health makes her relatable - she's flippantly talking about tho which a lot called "refreshing"

As she hangs out more with her brother + the Gaang, her crush on Sokka comes back, especially now that he is single, though she doesn't want to act on it

To her surprise, she writes a love song that is just that, a love song (think Selena Gomez's "Souvenir")

Because in the song she sings about blue eyes, the media/internet speculate that it's about Sokka which she denies (even if it's true)

She does a fun danceable song with Aang (think Bruno Mars & Cardi B's "Finesse remix"), surprising everyone

She does a lot of featuring that summer, with other artists but she cannot see what she wants for an album

Something with her father's sentence happens (it got almost revoked or something) which makes her revisit all the (other) songs she has about him

**Sokkla story** (Link to the fic added !!)

Notes for Sokka's side

#sokkla #fic notes #my fic writing #atla azula #celebrity au #srsly why is it so long #sokka side is so much shorter #atla au

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albentelisa · 7 months

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Hi! Here's an interesting ask. What if Jim was Douxie's younger brother but still falls for Claire?

Oh, I actually have a fic draft with that premise in my notes though I don't know if or when I may post that one. So, I guess, I'll just share some of my notes.

So, in that AU, Douxie and Jim are half-brothers (they have the same mother who is the daughter of the Casperan family head). They are two years apart, with Douxie being the older one. Douxie is supposed to be an heir - he was born from the arranged marriage between his mother and a talented wizard from another powerful magic clan. Casperan family was once powerful but currently is in decline. The arranged marriage was an attempt to revive the former glory.

As for Jim, he is born out of an affair between his mother and a Camelot knight. This birth seemingly ruins everything for Casperan's family. Douxie's dad leaves as he is greatly insulted. The mother dies soon after giving birth to Jim, leaving both boys in the care of their aunt and grandfather.

Jim is greatly despised in the family. They refuse to give him a magical name, giving him a regular one James. While no one attempts to get rid of him actively, the family keeps sending him into dangerous places to gather ingredients for potions hoping that Jim won't return. Jim befriends Blinky during one of those outings.

Jim seemingly possesses no magic (yet another reason why his family cannot stand him), but Douxie doesn't fare that much better. He was supposed to be a rare prodigy and the hope of the Casperan family, yet he is nowhere close to the expectations. Besides, he likes music and wandering way more than studying under his grandfather's tutelage.

Technically, Douxie and Jim trust only each other in their family, feeling no familial attachment to anyone else (well, Douxie also has his familiar Archie, but that's it).

Jim's magic manifests out of nowhere when he is 9. Unfortunately for him, his magic is shadowmancy (it's blue and black in color, BTW!) and the Casperan family tolerates that one even less than Merlin.

They decide to kill Jim, but Douxie and Archie save him and the three of them run away and settle in Camelot (because of Arthur's purges, the Casperan family has no connections there).

After some time Douxie discovers some unexplained oddity about his brother - Jim has stopped aging both physically and mentally (think of a Peter Pan-like situation). It's the result of Jim's trauma.

Even though they are only two years apart as time passes and Douxie keeps growing, it starts to look like their age difference is bigger.

Jim has a horrible opinion about all wizards except Douxie (he believes his brother is a rare exception and everyone else is a horrible person). He likes knights instead - well, the concept of a knight, who is a noble protector and a true hero, and their aesthetics.

Douxie meets Merlin when he is 16, and around the same time, Jim meets Morgana (his magic goes out of control and she senses him). Morgana is extremely happy to meet another shadowmancer and proposes Jim to become her apprentice. It's the first time someone treats Jim's magic as a good thing (even Douxie, while not calling shadow magic evil, avoids discussing it).

So, Douxie and Jim end as apprentices of Merlin and Morgana respectfully. Merlin is furious about Morgana's decision, he believes she isn't ready to teach anyone and most likely will only set Jim on the wrong path. Morgana simply doesn't care about her master's opinion.

Morgana's support makes Jim start growing again and he also starts to understand that there are more good people among wizards than he thought before. Jim's shadow magic is slightly different than Morgana's - he exceeds in conjuring different stuff from shadows and because of his admiration of knights he can easily summon and maintain an armor and sword made of shadows. Merlin is both horrified and enraged when he discovers it and claims that something like that is too dangerous. Morgana simply believes that Merlin is jealous as doing something like that without external conduits is a rare skill.

When Morgana changes sides, it's another low blow for Jim (as Morgana was a true mother figure for him). Not to mention that Merlin is pretty much deadset on sealing Jim as well before he grows up to become as dangerous as his master. Only Douxie's pleas make him change the plan, but Jim is put under non-stop surveillance from the Camelot knights with some wizards always ready to seal him if something goes wrong.

All of that is obviously no good for Jim's mental health and his time stops once again. Douxie tries his best to heal his brother's psyche but Jim seemingly needs something he can't give him. There are centuries of roaming with no change.

James Lake is Douxie and Jim's latest caretaker from Camelot knights (they keep existing as an organization) and he is a bit more flexible than his predecessors (well, and actually not that devoted to the case). That's why Douxie manages to talk him into trying to play the true family (as he hopes that if Jim has some normal life it may help him).

Douxie and Jim both take the de-aging potion and pose as James's small sons. Eventually, James meets Barbara and they marry. It is serious for Barbara (and she also gets attached to boys fast), but for James, it's just a passing infatuation. He falls in love with someone else and abandons Barbara. Douxie and Jim insist on staying though and James sees it as an opportunity to get rid of an annoying responsibility. Douxie is supposed to report to headquarters about the development, but he ends up faking reports to get some freedom.

Douxie's plan actually succeeds. Jim has Barbara and Toby now, and Jim finally actually gets into living through the teen years.

In this AU, Jim isn't the Trollhunter. Barbara takes over this role and Jim is forced to actively use his shadowmancy to protect her (as she is another mother figure for him and he'll do anything to protect her).

As for Claire in this AU, Morgana plans to use her as a vessel, so Jim is eventually forced into picking between his beloved master and the girl he loves. Obviously, he picks Claire. This entire situation helps him to get a full grip of his magic at last.

Some other stuff this AU features:

part-Akiridon Toby (both Toby and Jim discover each other's secret simultaneously - and it's awkward),

changeling Steve (and he's also Draal's younger brother),

space mercenary Darci (which leads to some problems when she starts dating Toby),

Mary's family are devoted servants of the Arcane Order and she initially is a spy,

Eli is extra sensitive and being surrounded by so many people who feels 'odd' to him drives him crazy

#tales of arcadia #toa #what if scenario #fic premise #fic notes #unpublished fic #jim is douxie's brother #wizard jim #shadowmancer jim #jim lake jr #douxie casperan #text post #ask box #anon ask

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lullabyes22-blog · 7 months

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Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO - Notes - Sevika's Family

Sharing some anthropolinguistics type notes re: all of Sevika's family member's names and their surname. Also tying it to the subcurrent of spiritualism and darkly messianic symbology where Silco is concerned.

What is god without being, etc etc?

Sevika:

Sanskrit - A sister of charity.

Symbology in FnF: A handmaid, an adherent to a faith.

Lives by her namesake and 'serves' the subterranean god of Zaun - enacting his will and his will alone (as she sees fit.) In Tarot, she'd be the High Priestess paired with the Devil - the complex dance between the lower and the higher self. Inevitably, hers and Silco's scenes feature both deviant shades of sexuality and hardheaded business, but also future plans and past dreams. Lots of conflict between the better self versus the worst desires; addiction versus grounding in the divine; the world's evils and the need for an inner faith.

(Loyalty).

What is a messiah without his helpmate? What is the tower without its dragon? What happens when the two fall apart, and what marvels can be born when they meld?

Also, goddamn, do they need to stop smoking…

Nandi:

Sanskrit - Joy, bliss. 'Nandi' is the bull vahana/mount of Shiva, god of destruction. Shiva has a third eye on his forehead. It burned Kama/Desire to ash once opened.

Symbology in FnF: Door-keeper to the divine.

Literal Priestess who serves as the heart of the Undercity's fractured community via Janna's Temple. Her characterization is purely through Silco's eyes in the flashbacks: mysterious, gentle, sultry. No glimpses of her as a flawed human being until later in the story, via Sevika's confession in Act VIII. It's Nandi's murder (and the destruction of Janna's Temple) that triggers mass riots in the Undercity and kickstarts the Day of Ash. In Tarot, she's the High Priestess paired with Death - Silco meets her at a critical threshold in his life, that tipping point between rageful boyhood and bitter adulthood. She's his first brush with the supernatural (presaging Jinx) and his first taste of fatherhood - a possibility destroyed.

Their scenes have a sense of dreamlike fatedness to them: he is a wounded, angry thing. She is a gentle guide who eases him and shows him a better way. Silco learns a great deal about pomp and pageantry re: spirituality from her, and how to use it to build the Eye's mystique. She's also responsible for the sign language he uses with Sevika and his crew: danger in plain sight.

She dies because of him, and so does his hopeful flirtation with a better self.

He is, inevitably, her destroyer.

Samik:

Sanskrit: Peaceful.

Symbology in FnF: Opposite of peaceful. A brawler, a conman and a violent narcissist.

The bogeyman who haunts both his daughters. Has done a great deal of damage to both, and it manifests in different ways. In Tarot, he'd be the Judgement card and the King of Wands, both reversed. Nandi fears his violent rages, and sees them mirrored in young Silco and tries to soothe them. Sevika sees his hard-driving ambition and does everything to see him succeed where her father ended up imprisoned. She still loves her old man, deep down, and he has stolen her childhood.

He is a man with a great deal of potential, but it has been squandered, due to both systemic and personal actions. The only person who can change this is himself, and he refuses to.

By the time we meet him, there's a sense of anticlimax, that Sevika already has the victory she wanted. It's just the wounded girl inside who needs to let go. She has trouble making the choice. Silco, his own possessive instincts awakened, makes the choice for her. Seems to presage a vicious cycle repeating itself, but in fact, he is finally protecting someone he cares for, the way he should.

And Sevika is finally waking up to her own worth.

Silco's POV in these scenes is a curiosity. He sees Sevika in her father's shadow and feels the weight of his own sins, and the mistakes he made with Jinx. There's an echo of a man he might have been, and a glimpse of what could have been in his daughter's future.

Ultimately, Samik is a tragic figure, but not a sympathetic one.

Family name: Mitra

Proto-Indo-Aryan - friend/ally. Proto-Indo-Iranian - something that binds.

Symbology in FnF: Our one-eyed messiah's worldly tether.

The family that hovers in the background of Silco's own dramas with Vi and Jinx. Ties that bind him to a different self, a different life. Reminders of duty, but also earthly joys - and flaws. Symbolically, the family in all its dysfunction is a slice of the Undercity's trauma, its hope, and the bonds that keep everyone together. Silco's a chance to become a better self, and a better father.

Mitra is also the patron name of the sun-god. A reminder of what Zaun has been denied. But also a message that Silco's life has a greater purpose, and his godlike self is an illusion.

#arcane #arcane league of legends #forward but never forget/xoxo #silco x sevika #sevilco #arcane sevika #arcane silco #nandi #silco #sevika #fic notes

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lorecatchup · 4 months

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THE WAY HE PUSHES HIS HEAD DOWN WITH HIS HAND ON HIS FACE AND STRADLES HIM IN ONE MOTION????????? HELLO????

Sami's hand on his waist oh man

Absolutely no one felt like mentioning Sami and Cody have fucked in the ring before I GUESS????

Gosh, this match is like an interpretive dance performance of a poem about a beautiful but tragicly doomed love story

[continued]

#lore catch up: year nine #stardust #important #fic notes #roadblock 2016

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comehellorhighwatertheywillwrite · 1 year

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#I might’ve done this one idk #come hell or high water they will write #the devil works hard but fic writers work harder #fanfiction #archive of our own #ao3 notes #ao3 #fanfic #submission #writing #fanfiction.net #fanfic writing #fic #fic notes #writers #fics

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maranull · 6 months

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Radahn and Malenia were besties actually and you'll take that headcanon off of my dead cold hands.

#not maintagging cause this is basically ->#fic notes #but they were #'ello making another au cause having no work means i'll write till i die #so chatfic au coming up #:P #i was thinking coffee shop au but that would have romance and romance can get tricky (for me)#so chatfic au it is #hmm hmm

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superkickme · 3 months

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I can't believe we got an "I love you (fight me instead)" and an "I love you too (I'll consider passing on my life long dream for you)" from Seth Rollins and Cody Rhodes in the year of our Lord 2024

#wrestling soulmates #sethcody #I need to get this fic finished QUICK #fic notes

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n7punk · 2 months

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“Embrace the Blame (Love the Fall”) Fic Notes

EtB(LtF) is done! For what feels like the first time in a while, a fic managed not to get away from me lol, it just got a little epilogue continuation but otherwise was all good.

Epilogue Life:

I have so many thoughts it’s hard cutting them off.

Adora’s trip home is hard, but it is good overall, and she realizes during it that the reason Hope hasn’t mentioned church when talking is because she doesn’t go a lot anymore (more details lower down). Adora certainly wasn’t going to go with her — Shadow is guaranteed to be there, and Adora can’t be held liable for what she does the next time they meet — but church is pretty much never brought up during her visit. Hope still isn’t perfect, but she’s trying her best, and though Adora discovers bad memories around town along with the good, it turns out to be a lot easier to process now that Catra is back in her life. She kind of tells Hope that she’d like to see her again at Christmas, but in a noncommittal way since she really doesn’t know what that will hold for them.

The rest of the summer is just good. Catra’s internship is hard but valuable, as is Adora’s job assisting Netossa, and they both still have more time than they would during the school year to just be together and have fun with their friends. It’s great for bonding and falling deeper in love, and for integrating their friend groups properly in a way they just didn’t really have time for before.

Catra isn’t ready to go home that Christmas — isn’t sure she ever wants to — and when Adora regretfully informs Hope she doesn’t want to leave Catra alone for Christmas, they take another big step and Hope comes to visit them for the first time. It’s a little weird, but Catra is more comfortable seeing Hope again on their turf, and it turns out to be a good Christmas even around the bittersweet parts. Hope expresses approval for Catra to the best of her ability and that kind of takes Catra out for the afternoon. She doesn’t cry, but that doesn’t mean she’s not emotional enough to.

When they do finally visit home again, it’s a year later, after they have both graduated, Catra a few months established in a role at the company she interned with and Adora freshly moved to a job at a pottery studio, which isn’t exactly where she wants to be, but hey, it’s in her sector. They aren’t visiting because of work, though — they’re engaged and planning their wedding, which absolutely isn’t going to be back home, or be traditional, but they come back for the visit to celebrate and to get some of Adora’s old things from Hope. It’s just a few days, but Catra doesn’t have a bad experience like she feared and she’s more willing to come back for occasional visits to Hope after that, even if their hometown is never going to be her favorite place.

(Like I said, I can keep going, so I’ll just put Shadow’s reaction to that news lower down because I need to at least break this up)

Also I fully planned for Glimmer and Bow to get together in this but then they needed to not be together up until chapter seven and there just wasn’t room to fit it in at that point BUT know that they get together over the summer and everybody ends up laughing about how dumb they were lmao.

Chapter 1:

⦁ Title is from “There’s People Watching” by Jade LeMac.

⦁ I had to edit the fic disclaimer because uhhhh a lot of things happened in this fic I didn’t initially plan. I went into this fic pantsing everything past like, chapter one, so I didn’t know the flashbacks were coming up or any of the partying stuff. Some of this stuff is things I generally avoid, but ideas adjacent to them have come up before, so I decided to just go all in on All The Stuff for this fic.

⦁ Originally this fic opened with a (very brief) flashback scene of the night Catra left, and then I moved it to the opening of chapter 2, but that just wasn’t right so I included Adora remembering that line and that was it.

⦁ The food/dining halls/library/dorms in this fic are just straight up the ones from my own college.

⦁ For non-Americans, Title IX is basically our diversity/inclusion act so like if someone is discriminating against you based on gender or whatever (in a school setting) it protects you.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Title is from “So What Now” By Renee Rapp.

⦁ There was a while there would I would spin the wheels of my little Lego tuk tuk whenever I was in a virtual appointment and that’s where the car thing came from.

⦁ Shoutout to my freshmen year neighbor who would shout “papi” while having makeup sex.

⦁ “Catra flashes her a smile, the innocent one that has always pulled on something inside Adora she never understood but somehow makes her very aware of her tongue in her mouth.” Gee it’s almost like you want to stick your tongue down her throat or something.

⦁ Adora talking about how Catra didn’t change here was explicitly to set up the slow realization that she did. The theme of this fic is change and growth, really — both when it happens and when it doesn’t. No matter how they change, they still were those little girls and that’s so important to how they are now and they can’t let that love they had go. They can’t change in a way that makes them not love each other and even when Adora didn’t change and it was hurting Catra, Catra loved her then, too.

⦁ I mentioned it in my notes here, but I’ve written some of these story beats out of a lot of fics. Tip of her tongue was initially a hiding sexuality story, with Catra running after kissing Adora because the girl who interrupted them called her a dyke and she didn’t want Adora to have to deal with that. Catra cut her hair and everything to put the “blame” on her, it was a whole thing. I had a high school AU dealing with Adora pretending to be straight for a while that never went anywhere too. I finally “got” to do my comphet story here, by which I mean I could have done it at any time but I both didn’t and just got in my head about not wanting to when I kind of did, so I’m glad to have finally gotten it out of my head.

Chapter 3:

⦁ Title is from “There’s People Watching” by Jade LeMac again.

⦁ “Send me something cute” with a wink means “send me a selfie” but Catra’s too resigned for that.

⦁ Catra did NOT buy her sweater, it was her Castaspella Assigned Sweater her first Christmas with Glimmer’s family.

⦁ By complete accident a video about video game elevators came up and played while I was in the middle of writing the elevator scene. As Adora was trying to awkwardly say she didn’t look the narrator went “You can use elevators to force characters into awkward conversation” with a shot of an anime that I swear looked like RGU but I’ve never seen that show and don’t know if elevators exist in it, it was just a hell of a coincidence.

Chapter 4:

�� Uhhhh this wasn’t supposed to be here. There was a single paragraph in the last chapter talking about times they had kissed before, and then I went to do a fic note expanding on it, and I… just couldn’t stop. So this happened.

⦁ Here’s an abbreviated version of what that note looked like: Times Catra and Adora kissed: - 1 We definitely need to know how to kiss for this party - 2 I’ll show you how to kiss for your boyfriend (please like it better with me) - 3 Weaver was being homophobic and Catra kissed Adora out of nowhere when she was comforting her, which Adora interpreted as Catra coming out to her. For two days afterwards Catra thought there was a slim chance, despite Adora’s clueless responses on the night of, that they might be dating before a Very Straight comment from Adora brought Catra down to earth. - 4 Actual spin the bottle in the hallway during a school dance. - 5 :) Wouldn’t you like to know (This is the drunk makeout scene, which I didn’t actually write because I wasn’t comfortable doing it for consent reasons. Drunk makeouts can be agreed on and fine (see Glimmer and Catra) but with all the shame Adora felt from it and with her being shitfaced, it didn’t feel good to actually outline, so I skipped to the aftermath instead, which I think better showed Adora’s internalized shame and how it caused her to reject Catra anyway.)

⦁ Whenever I need a random background NPC I just pull up the He-Man wiki and look at the characters list for something that fits enough from the original She-ra. Yes, it’s not a reliable source of information, but I’d hope it’s base character names are at least correct. Aliases I’m less confident in lol.

⦁ “He’ll want to impress you. That’s what I’d do.” That’s what you’d do? Something you want to share with the class, Catra? It seems like you’ve thought about this a lot.

⦁ Catra’s insistence on teenage boys sucking is partially the gender norms Shadow perpetuates, partially her own repulsion to the entire idea of heterosexuality she doesn’t quite have a handle on yet, and part of her trying to convince Adora of all those ideas so Adora will just ignore all those boys and only be her friends for tooooootally normal reasons <3 Definitely.

⦁ Catra was not invited to Caleb’s party, btw, it was just a (pretty obvious) condition of Adora’s attendance that Catra would be there too. Because besties don’t let besties miss out on parties or leave the other alone for their first “real” kiss. Obviously.

⦁ I just find these freshmen being sure high school is like on TV and all sophomores must have done ton of kissing hilarious, but it’s a very Kid thing to believe.

⦁ When I was a kid the game Trace Memory taught me the word crud because the protagonist Ashley said it whenever, you know, you would normally say a swear word. This led to me saying it a lot because it was something I could “get away with” before my mom informed me I could not, actually, get away with it. To this day my mom (who isn’t religious, by the way) insists that crap, damn, and hell are all Swear Words, which I disagree with. I mean those last two, sure, I just don’t ascribe to Christianity. “Crap” though? What the fuck? That is not a “swear word”. It might not be an innocent word, but it is not a fucking swear by any means. You do not have to bleep it out or limit the number of them that appear in a movie to maintain a PG-13 rating or whatever (rumor is you get one “fuck” btw).

⦁ My dark elf lore comes from Knifepoint, with Shadow Weaver’s appearance generally matching her Mystacor look and “dark elves” dubbed so because they are a race of elves with a high degree of photosensitivity that must either cover up or avoid the sunlight to avoid burns and a greatly increased risk of cancer. More info in my “Races” fic extra if you’re interested.

⦁ Shadow’s “reminders” for Adora to bring Catra are both because she thinks Catra is more likely to listen to Adora, and to reinforce for them both what a model daughter should look like. She makes Catra see Adora following expectations every time they see each other, later telling Catra that is what she should be like and slowly driving an uncomfortable wedge between them, reinforcing that Catra will never be Adora and never be good enough for her.

⦁ If I remember the puritan crime severity ranking right, it goes like Blasphemy > Adultery > Murder, which is why Adora brings it up in reference to Shadow’s own sin ranking list. That, and the rumor is that the reason Shadow’s life is how it is is because her husband left her (true) for committing adultery (ehhh it was mostly just because she was a terrible person) so she has dedicated the rest of her life to making herself appear “upstanding” by society’s standards after she “failed in her duties as a wife” (the way the church sees it — she doesn’t feel she has duties to anyone but herself, but she wants them to perceive her as capable), which is actually why she ended up fostering Catra, to appear as close as she could to the vision of a woman put together. She also… has the whole fucked up thing where she “relates” to Catra and wants to make things as hard for her as possible because she thinks she sees herself in her and life was never fair to her (she says in her $800,000 house).

⦁ The coming out scene takes place following one of the incidents Catra alludes to later at the party.

⦁ Adora vision: Oh, she’s kissing me so that I know she’s gay and for no other reason. I will not examine this further.

⦁ I’m convinced spin the bottle isn’t real tbqh, but this fic is me finally doing all the high school &college tropes I haven’t done or have only brushed against over the years, so yeah, it gets thrown in there.

⦁ Alright the spin the bottle scene I wrote in the car so the names just got pulled out of my ass.

Chapter 5:

⦁ Chapter title is from She’s Pretty by Beth McCarthy

⦁ Scorpia is watching “She Loves To Eat”, a lesbian manga/TV show that my friends have loved. It’s actually about all kinds of food but “cooking” just felt weird in that sentence (like it implies some kind of Top Chef thing) so I went with baking.

⦁ Lesbians will literally hide under the bed and call it romantic instead of admitting their feelings.

⦁ It was honestly hard to type Christmas in a fic instead of Winterfest lmao. Making Christianity exist is really antithetical to my usual views. Winterfest is a stand-in for a number of holidays, including New Years traditions, but new years is secular so I usually still leave mention of it as the name for the final day of Winterfest.

⦁ The Dean’s Spotlight is like, another version of a thing we did have at my school, shifted to the left. For this fic the spotlight is basically the faculty nominating the student they think is the best showcase of their school (academics, extracurriculars, and standards wise). Fall highlights one senior and spring nominates one junior, so you only ever have two chances of being picked, but it’s a great networking opportunity.

⦁ Hope doesn’t mention church here because she stopped going every week. She still does it a lot, but while she could go and punish herself with guilt for the rest of her life, there came a point where she just couldn’t keep doing it to Adora once it started to cost her their relationship. Adora brought a little of Mara’s glow back into her life and she couldn’t lose that joy again She did go to church the next Sunday after their phone call though, and made a point of sitting next to Shadow, who of course noticed and struck up “polite conversation” (digging for information as to why she’s approaching her since she usually doesn’t). Hope wasn’t fooled and told her she was just thinking of her because she spoke with Adora that week and she was thinking how much more they used to see each other when they were coordinating their daughters’ playdates. Shadow’s response was “Yes, that will change when your daughter goes off to college and stops speaking to you in favor of a life of sin”. No matter how coolly it was spoken it was the exact opening Hope needed. “Yes, I suppose she has been busy”. This immediately piqued Shadow’s interest because while it wasn’t the first thing Hope ever said about Catra post Catra cutting Shadow off, it was the first in a long time (she said it was not her business to meddle in family at first and barely said anything even before the fallout. She might not have hated Shadow — at the time — but she also didn’t wholly agree with what she saw of her parenting philosophies). Shadow’s response was something to the effect of “What has she gotten herself into now?” to which Hope responded “Nothing bad, making Dean’s Spotlight just takes a lot of work. It’s not an honor lightly earned. Adora could use learning some of her discipline”. Hope wasn’t actually trying to shit on Adora, just make the conversation seem more natural. It’s something she might have said back when Adora was in high school, which was the last time she and Shadow really spoke frequently. Shadow said some stuff about Adora having discipline in other important areas (unaware she came out) and tried to lightly pry for more but Hope got a lot more reluctant to speak after that.

Chapter 6:

⦁ Chapter title from Not My Fault by Renee Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion

⦁ Adora’s whole thing about Bow wanting in a different way than she does is just from how the idea that sometimes it feels like everyone else must be fine on the inside or feeling some pure ideal of emotion instead of everyone just being fucking messy like you, but when you assume everyone else is feeling the Pure™️ kind of sadness with just yearning and no Problematic Jealousy™️ you’re just setting yourself up for disaster because everyone’s emotions are messy.

⦁ Man I miss the art studio I did my freshmen year art project in. Sure, working in it was fucking miserable when it was hot out, but all the light was so great and despite the noise having a fume and particulate hood was really handy. I’ve been doing a lot more crafts project recently and I just do them in my “office” which is a tiny bedroom with a single window that’s on the side of the house that never gets any light it’s sad.

⦁ Lonnie picked up everything Catra was putting down and found it hilarious considering she and Adora were just friends. She wasn’t surprised when Adora started gushing about her girlfriend not long after.

Chapter 7:

⦁ Title from “Friendship Bracelet” by Beth McCarthy

⦁ Adora started freaking out as soon as she got on the phone with Catra for obvious reasons, but she was also internally worried that Catra had attached to someone else there who might not have her best interests.

⦁ They are having two entirely different conversations while Adora is trying to get Catra home. The second Catra says she wants something and Adora stops, her drunk mind assumes Adora knows what she wanted (her) and when she says she can have it when they get home, Catra just goes yayyy make out time! Meanwhile Adora is just like work with me here and you can get as bitey as you want okay. They are living in two different worlds as usual.

⦁ So the original outline of this scene was uh. A little darker. I’ll be honest, I find the final version of the drunk Catra scenes very funny because I love sloppy Catra, but the original outline of the scene called for her getting further in trying to kiss Adora and then crying more than she did and kind of rambling all her insecurities and outright asking Adora why she was toying with her. The final version is the right version.

Chapter 8:

⦁ If I have to tell you this chapter’s title is from “Curious” by Hayley Kiyoko I really don’t know why you’re here.

⦁ Adora does eventually convince Catra to visit the student counseling center, but it isn’t until the next semester, and Catra doesn’t make it a long term habit, just going in for a few sessions to work through some stuff and moving on. There’s processing to do, but she is also one of those people where talking about it only helps so much until it hurts instead.

⦁ Adora got that hopeful smile because Catra’s eyes blew out when she stepped into her view, just like she did the night before, and then she slow-blinked at her immediately after not denying she wanted the things she asked her for last night, but Catra as freaking out a little too much to be that self-aware.

⦁ Not to be NSFW for a teen fic but I do think this Catradora take a little longer than normal to get intimate, but once Adora is comfortable and ready she’s all in.

⦁ The kiss motivation method is an actual thing me and my girlfriend did freshmen year and yes it helps the ADHD but it also makes it worse because you’re thinking about getting the next kiss instead of the dumb textbook lmao.

Chapter 9:

⦁ Title is from “I Think I’m Growing?” by Fletcher.

⦁ This was supposed to be the end of chapter eight, but it felt more right to split it off and make it its own thing, even if it makes for a very short epilogue. It keeps chapter eight the same length as all the rest of the normal chapters (minus the 5 + 1 shoved in the middle of this fic) too, so I decided to split it off even though I was hoping not to increase the chapter count on this one. I have a really terrible habit but my policy is always what’s best for the story and not what’s best for a number so splitting off these “looking forward” scenes was right.

⦁ Entrapta’s relationship with her parents is largely transactional and they just aren’t close at all, so she has to consider the scenario where they deem the transaction “isn’t worth it” anymore. It’s not actually something that would happen, but they just have a weird relationship overall. They aren’t bad people (I mean, they aren’t Shadow), just busy and kind of neglectful, so Entrapta finds a lot more support in her friends, and wanting to be with those friends and have community she didn’t experience growing up is why she likes to share an apartment.

⦁ The waterpark is based on an actual park I used to visit that could hold (and usually did hold) thousands of people at once. The pools would just be seas of bodies, it was insane. I haven't been in years and probably won't ever again because swimming and masking don't exactly mix. It was often manned by college students in the summer rushes, though.

⦁ Okay continuing from the epilogue section: Shadow’s reaction to them getting engaged. True to the protocol of the first few years, Hope doesn’t really tell Shadow anything that’s going on in their lives after that time Adora drops hints for her to, and she sees her a lot more rarely as Hope starts to fade in her faith, so she goes back to just brushing her prying off for years. The engagement is big enough to break that form, especially because Catra drops hints again when they visit that maybe Shadow should know about it. Hope goes back to church the weekend after they leave (her first time in a month — listen, going a few weeks between visits is “falling off” for her. She visits once every month or two at this point, but she is still involved in certain initiatives she deems important, like the annual toy drive). When standing around with a bunch of the older ladies afterwards talking — Shadow included — they’re talking about their “joys” that week and Hope says that hers is that her daughter just got engaged. Shadow is immediately alert as the church ladies offer Hope congratulations and Hope is just quiet and gracious about it. When asked about Adora’s suitor, Hope just says they visited together that week and it’s good to see her so in love. She’s lucky to be marrying her best friend. The ladies just aww and talk about how it’s a shame they had to leave before Sunday so they couldn’t meet them, but Shadow know what that means, and she’s quietly seething. Honestly it’s mostly impressive that she waits until she can catch Hope in semi-private out in the parking lot that she asks if she’s allowing that, which like, wicked not her choice dude, but it’s more like is she enabling it and acting like it’s okay. The answer is just “yes” and Hope ignores her protests otherwise, continuing on to her car. Shadow definitely considers outing them to hopefully have the rest of their congregation exert pressure on Hope for Hope to exert pressure on Adora and Catra to “correct”, but ultimately it would expose her own “failure as a parent” when it came to raising Catra “right”, so it just becomes a “painful secret” for her to bare.

Original Outline:

Since I was wicked winging this one, there really wasn’t an original outline to deviate from. Basically I had the entire first chapter outlined and then… nothing else. Sometimes it’s fun to do a fanfic off the cuff like that.

The one “big change” was my original idea had Catra living in an apartment with the BFS, but I wanted one of them to live on campus.

I also had this vague idea (inspired by “I only smoke to feel bad” by KiNG MALA) where Catra would have another friend group and they would kind of be stoners. She would have someone in that group who she sometimes kind of hooked up with (I went with Glitra instead) and after reconnecting with Adora, Catra goes to one of their hangouts, gets high with them, and then freaks out when that girl gets flirty with her because she’s in a weird frame of mind and suddenly all she wants is Adora again and this just feels very wrong. Because she’s anxious-high she doesn’t do the logical thing of “hey I’m not feeling this” and instead leaves to call Adora to come pick her up. She doesn’t explain much other than “I’m high and I want to go home” at which point Adora is immediately out the door and not leaving her to navigate the bus system. It was supposed to help push them a little more towards being vulnerable with each other as Adora takes her home and tries to take care of her, because I was envisioning their relationship as still being kind of antagonistic at that point.

You can see how that idea became the party scene. There were some things with that I just didn’t want to write, and I think the party version is way more fun, more logical with the set up of the world and characters (which didn’t exist when I had that first idea), and more fitting for where they were in the story.

Aside from that and stuff previously mentioned, it was all off the cuff.

Meta:

Playlist

Upcoming:

To be 100% honest next I’m going to work on my SPOP Big Bang fic which y’all aren’t going to see for months, but then I’m probably going to do the ******** AU. Not saying exactly what that is because a certain subset of people are going to be feral for it and I know it’s at least going to be a bit before I’m ready for it, but since there’s a whole fic between here and there my whims could change too. We’ll see! Updates on my Tumblr as always.

#etbltf #ficmeta #fic notes

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