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pettyprocrastination · 1 year

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thinking about how as Aemond’s wife you are the model of perfection.

Your back is straight as you curtsy when you first meet him and hair neatly braided with fine jewels. Your voice is even and never waivers as you speak to him of your family and how grateful they are for this union.

You are intelligent and beautiful, the perfect wife.

It’s why Aemond hardly ever spends time with you.

He bears no ill will toward you, of course. There is no resentment or hatred to his lady wife, but there are no fond feelings either.

He knows of courting and romance, his mother taught him everything from a young age. The poor woman would hold her son’s hands tight and explain that a man must not only respect his wife, but truly cherish her. Love her in the eyes of gods and men. As he grew older he noticed the way his father would wave off her constant advice and concerns until the dreaded night where she was the only one defending him after he lost his eye.

But practice was one thing. When you were nothing but a concept. A figment of Aemond’s imagination when he was ten and marriage was only spoken of during his lessons. Before he lost his eye. Before he heard the ladies of the court whispering about his mutilation and before he watched a whore flinch at the sight of his scarring when Aegon dragged him to a brothel on his thirteenth name day.

He learned then that no matter how much he would love and worship his wife, it would not be returned.

Rather than attempt to force it (he was no brute and had no intentions of doing something so cruel) he simply let you be by yourself.

Yes you were married. You sat by one another at every meal and formal event and on the rare occasion he would even ask for your hand in a dance. But Aemond’s affections toward you were few and far to find.

But there were moments.

Where his icy facade would weaken and you found yourself able to slip through the cracks.

Alicent had told you of his “moments” when the engagement had been announced. The queen herself taking you by the hand as you walked through the garden and explaining gently of Aemond’s condition.

“There are times where he feels a great deal of pain because of the-” She paused, chewing on her cheek while trying to find the most inoffensive way to describe the tragedy that befell her son. “-incident he had as a child.”

You knew enough of it. Many rumors flew through court the day Aemond targaryen walked in with a patch on his eye after Laenor Velaryan’s funeral at driftmark. Some day it was from a sparring incident, others say it was a mark he bore from the first time he mounted the mighty vhaegar. Others say that the Rouge Prince Daemon Targaryen himself gave it to his younger cousin after crude words were exchanged behind closed doors.

You didn’t know what was the truth. Aside from the day the princeling got his scar, was the same he got his dragon.

A fair trade, some would say.

But they didn’t live with the attacks he did.

Nerve damage, is what the maester’s called it when you asked them for more information. His wound may have healed years prior but the prince would continue to live his life with constant bouts of mind-numbing pain brought on by the slightest touch or too sharp of a wind to his cheek.

“Senseless fits.” Aegon called it. When he heard about your curiosity about his brother’s condition he had all but cornered you late at night in the hall. “Anything will set him off and send him throwing a tantrum like a belligerent child. It’s quite entertaining.”

But there’s a moment where the elder brother frowns and you see a shred of concern in his eyes.

“He doesn’t like to be touched during those moments. It makes the pain worse. So if you’re trying to find some way to comfort him I’d recommend you do something else.”

What was ‘something else’ you learned, was simply being there.

Sitting by his side when he curled into himself, trembling fingers reaching out to grab yours and not complaining when his nails dig into the palm of your hand as he cries out in pain. When his breath evens out and the pain subsides, he crawls to you and presses his face to the crook of your neck. He’s far too tired to cover the gnarled scar covering the side of his face but you show no fear or disgust at the sight of it. Your fingers run through his hair, gently combing back the silver tresses and ignoring the tears that stain the shoulder of your gown.

The next morning your husband would wake in your arms and takes a moment to watch your peaceful expression and the way the morning sun kisses your skin.

That day Alicent notices her son sits closer to you at breakfast, speaking softly to you of something she cannot understand. But when she sees his hand reach out and grasp yours, she smiles.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #reminded me of the post about aemond most likely having some sort of nerve damage from losing his eye so- here she be #idk something about composed wives who are just as strong and dangerous if not more than there husband just gets me man #not edited or beta read i just wanted to do a writing exercise to try and clear my mind cause its very blurry atm #this is very wonky wobbly but im trying to keep myself writing even if its silly little things so i dont lose practice yknow!!#for the aemond girlies *passes out*#anyways part two in the 'aemond isnt good at affection' vault because im confident in it #man just assumes you arent attracted to him so he steers clear of you #but is also incredibly protective and a lil jealous

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ctrl-alt-cel · 1 year

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when i was 13 i wrote an essay explaining the rationale of puppyshipping to some guy in a skype chatroom. found the essay again. wanted to rewrite it. without further ado:

HERE’S HOW PUPPYSHIPPING CAN STILL WIN: THE SEQUEL: 2 PUPPY 2 SHIPPING (4.3k words)

⠀

kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship stands at an awkwardly undefinable place in canon: they're not on good terms, but they're not enemies either. they know each other too well to be called passing acquaintances, but kaiba hardly acknowledges jounouchi as a duelist, let alone a potential rival. at best? they're mutual nuisances.

or, that's how jounouchi and kaiba choose to define it. both of them would love if their dynamic were that simple, nothing more than a back-and-forth of petty insults—but that’s not the truth. and they'll dance around the truth for five whole seasons, purposefully downplaying why they’re so obsessed with provoking each other whenever they’re in the same place.

they're foils.

—but the term "foils" is so dulled within fandom lexicon now that it can mean literally anything from two guys who just disagree with each other sometimes, so i'll sharpen this further. jounouchi and kaiba see their counterpart less as an individual person but more a representation of who they could have become if they had respectively, in their eyes, never learned the lessons they needed to. they project their own ideals onto the other and come away thinking they already know how the other operates, and the fun thing is, even when working from conjecture, their assumptions of one another happen to hit far closer to home than they have any right to.

so really, they can't leave each other alone because they can't stop seeing their failures reflected back at them. the other is a defective version of themselves that they need to correct because they can't stand constantly acknowledging who they used to be, so they try to bend the other to be more like their own image—an "i can fix him (by dragging him down to my level)".

⠀

jounouchi and kaiba’s parallels run down to their origins, both set up against abysmal family situations they have no choice but to make the best of. seto and mokuba are orphaned at a young age until seto gets them adopted, while katsuya is separated from his sister and stuck with a deadbeat father who can't carry his own weight. trapped in an environment where nobody expects anything worthwhile from him, katsuya joins a gang and lives out a self-admittedly miserable existence before befriending yugi, while seto is in a battlefield of his own, faced with protecting mokuba while enduring against the nightmare that is gozaburo kaiba’s parenting.

what they do to survive those conditions determines the outlooks they carry for the rest of their lives: jounouchi learns that losing is inescapable and the best you can do is learn how to cope with it, whereas kaiba learns that losing is something you must protect yourself from because there's only so much you can afford to lose.

jounouchi is positioned as the underdog, fighting tooth-and-nail for every victory he can manage, while kaiba has power in excess and holds to the belief that it’s all he really needs. one would argue that they have the perspective the other lacks—they argue that they have the perspective the other lacks. but in my opinion? it doesn't actually matter. what interests me is how they treat each other as a result.

⠀

side: seto kaiba

kaiba degrades jounouchi a lot. like, to an uncomfortable extent. you know that one post that’s like “why does bullying exist? why are you mad that i’m ugly?” why is kaiba so mad over the fact that jounouchi loses so much?

it’s projection. he’s just holding jounouchi to the same standard he holds himself to. you need to be powerful if you want to play the same games as kaiba, and seeing jounouchi so openly lean on his friends, ask for help, and have the audacity to lose sets kaiba off because he’s not playing the way he’s supposed to. kaiba rubs jounouchi's losses in his face because he believes that's what loss is supposed to look like, and that it’s jounouchi’s fault for not understanding that yet. kaiba is trying to teach him. to kaiba, this degradation might as well be an act of generosity.

while kaiba stayed true to his own ambitions, seizing kaibacorp from gozaburo and turning it into a children's entertainment company, he beat gozaburo at his own game not by inventing new rules but by playing it better than his adoptive father ever could. and as impressive as that is, it’s not sustainable. gozaburo kills himself when faced with his own defeat, and kaiba internalizes this lesson: that all losses are final, and it’s better to die than adapt to the consequences of a defeat. gozaburo’s death was a suicide, but in the context of their game, kaiba might as well have killed him regardless.

he mirrors this when he threatens to kill himself in duelist kingdom, his heightened emotions catastrophizing losing the duel to immediately equal failing mokuba and coming to the conclusion that if he loses mokuba he’d rather be dead. being someone so fervently self-reliant, any alternate solution, a possibility that he can lose here and still find a different way to rescue mokuba never crosses his mind. and, look, this isn’t his fault. this is the only way of living he’s ever been taught. he’s never learned how to cope in the event of failure because he’s never had the luxury to fail to begin with.

he's burned and rebuilt himself over and over again to survive in the world he operates in, and that’s why jounouchi pisses kaiba off so personally. jounouchi loses so much and so messily, and kaiba tries to show him that if he doesn’t start reinventing himself from the broken pieces of his defeats until all that’s left of him are jagged edges the same way he has, he’s never going to win. but jounouchi…does win. and keeps winning. and even when he does lose, it’s as if he creates new victories for himself, like there’s still value to playing a game with someone when you don’t win it—power of friendship bullshit and whatever. jounouchi is still here, a competitor that kaiba can no longer write off as much as he desperately wants to. (and, yeah, it is pretty ironic how jounouchi will jump through a million hoops to get kaiba to look at him, but he doesn't realize that he doesn't need to do anything to keep kaiba’s attention, only continue being himself.)

jounouchi refuses to compromise who he is and still manages to get far when in kaiba’s mind, that shouldn’t be possible; he’s supposed to be punished the way kaiba was. jounouchi is proof that you can take a devastating blow and move on from it, that even when you do fuck up spectacularly, there’s still something worthwhile in starting again tomorrow.

so kaiba constantly needs to prove that he’s better than jounouchi, that jounouchi isn’t even worth his time in order to justify his worldview. because if kaiba isn’t right, then he'll have no choice but to confront the fact that the war is over. that his circumstances aren’t instant life or death anymore and that even though he’s freed himself from gozaburo’s influence, there’s still further growth as a person he could stand to undergo, now divorced from the harsh conditions of his upbringing. jounouchi is a testament to how it’s possible to make peace and move on from the past without constantly bleeding for closure, that maybe, kaiba’s headlong quest to get the last word on his rivalry with yami yugi may not actually be as fulfilling as he thinks.

but admitting that you might need to change the way you live feels like a defeat in and of itself—it’s infuriating to hear that after everything you’ve had to learn, the way you live now isn’t good enough. that surviving insurmountable trauma doesn’t inherently make you better or more worthy than other people—it just traumatizes you, and is something you must heal from. so, instead of reflecting on these revelations, it’s so much easier for kaiba to tell himself that jounouchi is only ever graceful when he’s dead.

⠀

side: katsuya jounouchi

jounouchi is very stuck on this idea that he needs to be useful. his dad is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and he believes it's not only his duty to pay his father's debts, but to be the household's sole source of income. his sister needs eye surgery and he believes it's his responsibility as an older brother not only to pay for it, but to act as her primary emotional support to get the surgery and throughout her recovery process. haga throws yugi's exodia into the ocean and jounouchi blames himself for not stopping it. jounouchi gets mind-controlled by malik and blames himself for causing his friends anguish from it. mai literally gets jounounchi’s soul stolen and he apologizes to her for messing up and making her sad. it's habitual, jounouchi doesn't know how to stop taking on the burdens of other people.

if you live with the mentality that you’re inevitably going to fail for long enough, you’ll come away with the belief that caring about your own wellbeing isn’t worth the effort. it depends on how pessimistic you want to read it, if it’s just his love language or jounouchi compensating for the damning act of being himself, but jounouchi quantifies his worth by how much he provides for other people. he’s always jumping in the line of fire for the sake of others because if you constantly undervalue your own wellbeing, you always have less to lose. as the underdog, he may not be as overtly powerful as kaiba or yugi, but he can still give himself away, and he’s convinced himself that it’s what he’s supposed to do. jounouchi is still new to this whole friendship thing. after a lifetime of supporting himself by himself, he doesn't know when he's allowed to ask for help yet—he’s supposed to be the help, dammit.

a key distinction between jounouchi and kaiba’s upbringings is that while kaiba’s biological parents died in an accident, jounouchi’s parents are still alive and they choose not to be responsible for him. jounouchi is conditioned to fend for himself by himself because having a parental figure actually present in his life isn’t a luxury he gets to have. to jounouchi, there has to be a reason why his mother only takes shizuka and never goes back for him in the six years he’s left with his father, and he rationalizes this with his notions of masculinity: he’s a strong man who can handle it. jounouchi is not delicate, he can endure it. men are responsible for their own circumstances. kaiba is hyperindependent out of a mixture of spite, paranoia, and self-defense. jounouchi is hyperindependent because he believes he deserves it. it’s the reason why he believes he’ll finally have a good relationship with his father if he just wins enough money to pay off his gambling debts—jounouchi can fix everything if only he were man enough to, and he can get people to stay if he demonstrates himself useful enough.

so death doesn’t carry nearly as much weight to jounouchi as it does to kaiba. in kaiba’s eyes, death is the punishment for failure, but to jounouchi, death is just the natural consequence for the kind of life he leads. he can't stop himself from fighting for the people he loves until he’s spent everything and forced to stop (read: dies), so during the several times jounouchi is confronted with his own death, he meets it with a solemn acceptance. like, yeah, it sucks, but he doesn’t regret the actions he took to end up here—he’d do it all over again, frankly. it’s better to die than not give everything he can, and at least he was able to give his life in service to someone else. it’s not necessarily good to die, but it doesn’t matter as much if he does.

so where kaiba is afraid of losing, jounouchi is afraid of outliving his usefulness (and being abandoned as a result), and kaiba disrupts jounouchi’s worldview specifically because he puts his ideology on the defensive. to jounouchi, kaiba’s presence never demands a question of “what can you do for me?” (nothing, kaiba doesn’t want jounouchi to do anything for him, and frankly, he’d be insulted if jounouchi even tried) but “what makes you worthy of standing on the same level as me?”, and jounouchi can’t sacrificial lamb get set on fire die a billion times into getting kaiba into seeing it his way (rather, that would only prove him right: kaiba would love nothing more than for jounouchi to lose the ability to fight and finally align with his preconceived notions of how the world works), and he can’t argue that his value is in how much he provides for others because that’s a non-answer. kaiba doesn’t care.

kaiba’s presence forces jounouchi into a position of self-reflection: jounouchi works so hard to preserve the friendships he’s created, but who is he—what does he value about himself in the absence of it? jounouchi needs to acknowledge something inherently valuable about himself if he wants to counter kaiba in any meaningful way, and it’s not like he doesn’t have valuable qualities either: he’s tenacious, he’s resourceful, he’s a quick learner—it takes intelligence to rank as high as he does in tournaments, but he undervalues all of it. these traits are all to be expected, they don’t actually count as extraordinary when it’s him. they’re only remarkable when they’re being applied to something greater. jounouchi believes he has the potential to become strong (and valuable by extension), only with the stipulation that he’s never actually there yet. he focuses too much on his inadequacies, constantly pontificating on how he needs to become a “true duelist”, but by the way he speaks about the title, the only way to be a true duelist is be named yugi muto, i guess.

so it’s very jounouchi-esque for him to miss this point with near deliberate precision and try to make himself useful to kaiba anyway. while kaiba is bent on seeing jounouchi fail to prove that his cynicism is superior to jounouchi’s altruism, the inverse is that jounouchi sees his old self in kaiba and he’s dying to teach kaiba a lesson. during battle for bronze, jounouchi states that they used to be the same, people who only relied on themselves and thought they’d be fine living like that. the argument jounouchi makes is that living that way is fucking miserable. he calls kaiba out: you’re supposed to be having fun. why are you playing duel monsters if you’re not having fun? he’s trying to show kaiba that he can be useful and teach kaiba things if kaiba would just let him, but for reasons mentioned in both of their sections, kaiba isn’t interested in being taught anything.

while less malicious in display, it's important to note that jounouchi’s method of trying to teach kaiba doesn't make him the better person here. jounouchi isn’t coming from a place of understanding when he lectures kaiba, he’s coming from a place of misdirected self-flagellation. and from kaiba's perspective, jounouchi is just dispensing unwarranted advice for the sake of his own ego. the most egregious example is when jounouchi picks a fight with kaiba in duelist kingdom, demanding they duel when kaiba is clearly not in the mood, busy with more pressing matters like, i don’t know, trying to rescue his abducted brother? so, okay, maybe a little bit inconsiderate on jounouchi’s part.

they're two ideological extremes: kaiba lashes out at the world while jounouchi gives himself to it, and jounouchi will keep barging in on kaiba with his life lessons because it’s the only way he wants to engage with kaiba’s arguments otherwise. jounouchi interprets kaiba’s rejection of his ideals as the equivalent of the stubbornness jounouchi had before befriending yugi, and he uses it as a reason to keep pushing, not understanding that while he may have found the most honorable path for himself, you can imagine how constantly burning yourself for others isn’t very…appealing. or sustainable. and that maybe it’s something you need to work on, actually.

⠀

conclusion: how i WIN

what’s fun about jounouchi and kaiba is how wrong they are. they genuinely can't live the way the other demands them to, their respective environments won’t allow it. if jounouchi chased victory with the same cutthroat relentlessness as kaiba, he probably never would have left his gang. or, at least, he’d lose the selfless devotion and consideration he has for others, traits that helped him build his support system, and he never would have found the friendships he values in his life—his willingness to change and start again was how he was able to befriend yugi to begin with. (and if you wanted to get really extreme with hypotheticals, his self-destructive tendencies could have grown so severe in the absence of a support system that he probably would wind up getting himself killed somewhere. lol.) inversely, if kaiba granted himself the freedom to worry less about the outcome as long as he enjoyed himself, he’d put mokuba’s safety at constant risk. kaiba’s guarded nature isn’t without reason, there are powerful corporate executives who would love to see him fail, and there are very real consequences if kaiba slips up for even a second and gives his opposition any leeway. the way they live works for them because it’s theirs. it’s not so much that either of their lifestyles are in dire need of correction, but that the other represents the possibility that they could be living better.

and this is fantastic because it means that, despite what they think, neither of them are in the “wrong” and must learn to change their idiot ways or that the solution is to strong-arm each other into some kind of compromise. it’s a battle of perceived weakness. they need to, naturally and individually, accept that the traits they’ve always deemed immature and beneath them can be just as vital for survival, even when it’s not necessarily their own.

jounouchi and kaiba are essentially the most extreme example of two people who want what’s best for each other (gone wrong!) and puppyshipping is appealing because them getting together requires that they stop punishing themselves for who they used to be. they expect too much out of themselves and then inflict those demands onto each other, but if they’re not wrong for the ways they’ve overcome the circumstances they were left in, then it’s equally true that the ideals they abandoned to survive weren’t inherently naïve just because they weren’t given the space to utilize them. sometimes life will push you to your limits in the hope that you fail, and there’s no deeper meaning to it. it’s not life’s way of teaching you a necessary lesson to make you stronger or a test to see if you deserve to live, or that it’s your fault when it breaks you. sometimes there’s no great meaning to suffering. things happen, and you will adjust to it in order to live. when kaiba and jounouchi believe they know each other as much as they know themselves, pairing them is the hope that they’ll respect themselves enough to respect each other, that they’ll one day be able to embrace the parts of themselves they’re the most ashamed of.

(or, you know, for the alternative crowd, they most definitely can make each other worse.)

for two men who claim to be so self-assured in their own lifestyles, jounouchi and kaiba are fascinating because there’s so many layers of denial at play: the denial that they see anything in each other, denial that there may be aspects of the other that they’ve come to envy, denial that they even care, and it's so tempting to imagine if all of it was forced open. jounouchi and kaiba choose to maintain this delicate equilibrium where they never actually confront anything because the idea of admitting vulnerability viscerally disgusts them, and it begs what would happen if the balance irrevocably tipped for once. watching them is like watching a pencil teetering on the edge of a desk, always this close to some kind of breakthrough. i won’t even lie to you puppyshipping pisses me off half the time because i just want to shake them around until something metaphorically breaks.

kaiba and jounouchi never let each other become complacent in their pasts: whenever their personal tragedies and childhoods are brought up in the context of one another, it’s never because they are being vindicated for continuing to dwell in them, but because they are being contested on how much the mindsets they’ve carried over from their pasts should be allowed to determine their futures.

returning to canon, kaijou operates through the language of competition. jounouchi tries to prove himself as a competitor so remarkable that kaiba can no longer deny him, while kaiba already knows he’s remarkable, and that is precisely why acknowledging it pisses him off so much. so they’ll play their game: jounouchi will provoke kaiba into fighting him because he enjoys going up against challenging opponents in the hopes of becoming stronger, whereas kaiba keeps trying to set up situations where jounouchi will lose to the point of letting him die because he wants so badly to believe that losing does equal death and jounouchi’s existence is the most inconvenient counterargument of all. and obviously, jounouchi keeps not dying. and it's endlessly infuriating—almost slapstick at this point, that much to kaiba's frustration, no matter what he does, he can never make jounouchi submit for very long.

jounouchi and kaiba spur each other on to a ridiculous extent: kaiba enjoys pushing jounouchi past the breaking point, whereas jounouchi enjoys getting pushed to his limits to test his own capabilities. whether that’s necessarily a good thing though is…well…hmm. anyways.

their dynamic is the type of messiness only two prideful high schoolers can get up to. maybe it’s just kaiba's repression and jounouchi's recklessness, but there is a fascination with each other that they’re incapable of leaving alone. there’s intimacy in knowing someone so well and fearing that fact, but kaiba and jounouchi never respond to this fear by avoiding it—they’re engaging with it time and time again. they infuriate each other with a passion that never sits still. kaiba and jounouchi seek a validation from their counterpart while simultaneously denying each other from it, and it’s mean, but invigoratingly so.

at some point, it’s not even about wanting validation anymore, but point-blank wanting its keeper by any capacity: wanting a visible reaction to their effort as proof of reciprocation, proof that says “i’ve finally affected you just as much as you affect me.” because kaiba and jounouchi want to leave a mark on each other, they want their counterpart to fully understand how much they’ve affected them, and they want to witness that reaction themselves. it’s no longer this big, nebulous ideological debate with a reflection: the pull between them is made both physical and personal. so, like, not to go the trite route of arguing that two men who can’t stand each other were ~secretly attracted to each other this whole time~, but how else are you supposed to word this?

in some hypothetical universe where they do come together, even the ways they love manage to compliment each other in its own clumsy way. seto kaiba never does anything in moderation: if he hates something he will destroy it, if he loves something he will possess it, and if he is obsessed with something, he will single-mindedly pursue it at the expense of everything else. his repression manifests itself in a passion so pressurized it’s all-consuming against everything it comes to contact with. inversely, katsuya jounouchi loves freely and transparently: showing affection comes as naturally as breathing to him. he embodies the belief that love is not only about the grand gestures, but the day-to-day acts of warmth and casual acknowledgments that it's there. a man who wants to be wanted by someone so badly it aches paired with someone who makes no reservations as to what he's committed to, capable of a love so overwhelmingly insatiable that it is neither fickle nor delicate, and a man who finds the act of trusting others with his affection so unthinkably humiliating that he’s convinced himself it’s something beneath him paired with someone who makes it look infuriatingly easy. they are going to invent a new language to love each other with. i believe in them. i would not write two separate essays titled “here’s how puppyshipping can still win” if i did not believe in them.

ultimately, it feels cheap to build kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship off what life lessons they could "teach" each other reformation-style when they already have a legitimate dynamic in play. they can be good for each other, or they can tear into each other in ways they’d never expect to be capable of. there’s something exhilarating in knowing there’s someone who has that kind of power and wanting to keep them within your reach, a buzzing excitement in knowing someone who can not only withstand you at your worst, but fight back at you with twice as much vigor. sure, there’s potential for growth here, but that’s because there’s potential for literally anything.

kaiba and jounouchi inspire reinvention and self-determination from each other at the best of times and enable each other’s most self-destructive tendencies at their worst. so i think. puppyshipping is the most fun. when you ship them the same way you leave a fork in the microwave to watch it explode. the end.

TL;DR: me x the guy who keeps breaking my worldview and forces me to reevaluate myself every time i see him which i hate so much that i just want him to DIE

#puppyshipping #violetshipping #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #ship analysis #character study #not intended to convince anyone of anything this was a silly project to do on the side for MEEE #also i genuinely dont think any of the points i make are new #in my quest to be as holistic as possible and read every puppyshipping-adjacent meta analysis i could get my hands on #defense essays. criticism. livejournal blogposts #ive found several times that every point i make has already been made before in some kaijou 200k longfic posted in like 2011 #so if this essay is for ANYONE who isnt me.#its for the kaijou fic authors who have put in the work. god's strongest soldiers etc etc #actually. might reblog with an actual afterword citing my favorite ygo analysis i read in prep for this lol #i allude to a few of them in certain sections but i think youd have to be REALLY chronically online to notice #(coughing)#anyways special thanks to the friends who kindly beta read a document titled 'YAOI THESIS FINAL.docx'#fer + voski + cherry + sully + eric + cleo + gabby + chris + clover + vio #dear god i have inflicted this essay onto so many people #i love you.#you have enabled me and now we're all paying the price #yugioh

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superbellsubways · 9 months

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not allowed to touch grass sorry

#not Yet atleast :)#i hope the formatting isnt too confusing i added the numbers so it can be easier to read #silly guy just wants to see the world #have fun be joyful #oc #original character #showbitz #dennis #ohyea thats the guys name #digital art #robot #doodle #comic #rbs not necessary but appreciated :3 #beta bitz

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kafus · 15 days

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alright read my new fic boy. 3.7k word oneshot about liko being afraid of a thunderstorm and dot and her trying to communicate despite early gay crush awkwardness at like 2 in the morning

#likodot #dotliko #guruminshipping #horizons #my writing #kiki was here #kiki.txt #sorry this isnt beta read #its also just my stream of consciousness overnight #quality might be questionable idc tho #enjoy

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groovyace · 6 months

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"Take that fellow over in the corner; Aziraphale could only wonder at what dark deeds he'd committed. He was leaning back at a table in the corner, hat drawn over his face to conceal himself. There was something familiar about the dark clothes he was dressed in, and as the stranger tilted his hat back just a bit, Aziraphale caught sight of a pair of dark glasses—

Oh, good Lord.

Crowey seemed to notice his presence from across the room, and broke into a grin."

My illustration for the first chapter of Hand for Hand , the Good Omens cowboy fic I just know we've all been waiting for.

This fic has truly been a labor of love. Everybody better go show @twoheadedoddity some love for their incredible writing.

#crowley #good omens #cowboy crowley #hehehehh #gomens #theres more where this art came from #prepare ur eyes to be bombared with cowboy crowley and gentleman aziraphale #theyre so special to me #beta reading this fic has been incredible #or some may say alpha reading #so awesome #anthony j crowley #go2 #at the time of posting this the fic isnt out yet #but ill link it as soon as it is #i prommy #this fic has been living rent free in our brains for so long and its finally seeing the light of day #its like birthing a baby except i did none of the hard work #thefridge

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bl-inkstone · 1 year

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traveler, wait! it's dangerous to go alone, so have some zhongli thoughts for company!

i think life with zhongli as your significant other would be best described as the love behind every little action and gesture the two of you make. even with all the years you've spent at each other's side (either married or just simply together), the romance never dies. but it shifts and goes through changes, like stone giving way to the gentle embrace of time.

one such example is when the love shared between you calms into something that can blend in with the walls of your home. it matches the color of your curtains, the painted flowers on cups left on your tea table, the clothbound books and scrolls tucked away into the red cedar scroll shelf you had diligently sought after and haggled for when your lover had mentioned it once in passing. it's in the crinkle of your eyes in the morning when you sit at your table together and eat. it's in the shape of his smile when he returns from his work in the funeral parlor to you and the home you've made together.

when you grind ink for him while he works beside you, or comb and tie his hair for him in the morning when sleep still clings to the edges of his eyes. when he combs and washes your hair for you in soothing baths, or leans down to massage the stress of the day away from your tense shoulders when you come back home to him.

acts of service that don't really feel like acts of service — not to zhongli or you. gestures of devotion seem like a more apt term, now, when love is so ingrained in your lives that the word can no longer be used to describe it. you've turned the word from noun to adjective, from adjective to action. love is such a small word for such a boundless concept, but you manage to fit it in every word, every action, and every day leaves zhongli helpless and wondering in the dead of night of what to do with all the love he holds in his hands, specially made just for you.

it's a song and dance he can never quite stray from. even when his heart calms in the daytime and he can look at you with all the assuredness of a lover that loves and knows he is loved in return, all five thousand years of wisdom leaves him when night comes and you're asleep in his arms. he has loved plenty in his long lifetime. friends, family, even past lovers that he can only maybe recall when he can recognize a quirk or quality present in you. but it's in your presence that zhongli remembers that even an archon can become just a man weak to the war between heart and mind. what good is five thousand years of wisdom when it can't tell him what to do with all the love he has for you? how can he show it without scaring you away? you know who he is and you've said time and time before that it doesn't scare you, that you love him no matter what form or identity he takes but what if —

you shift in your sleep and all thoughts cease as he swiftly readjusts his hold as to not disturb you any further. in the dark of your room, zhongli counts each breath and beat of your heart and wills his own to match the tempo of yours. in the morning, he'll reprimand himself for entertaining such foolish thoughts while you hum and converse in front of your shared vanity. he'll share these thoughts with you as he always has, and you'll put down your comb and grace his face with crystalfly kisses as you always have in return. your routine shifts to make room for assurance during the times when he needs it, and the same goes for him when you speak your own fears and doubts as well.

it's part of the comfort of your life together, as strange as it may sound, that you live with all the joys and lows your love brings. sometimes, he wishes he can give you more and do away with all his mortal doubts completely, but a moment of contemplation reveals that it is exactly these doubts that make the softer aspects your lives shine all the more brighter. is this why you allow yourself to feel all your emotions, rather than push back and try to reason them away? is this why you've always placed so much importance in letting him know that should he ever need it, your shoulder is his to lean on? zhongli understands the rationale behind it and has given similar advice to mortals he's met before, of course, but it seems that even he is not immune to the irrationality of the heart. there is much wisdom to still be learned, he concedes. five thousand years is no match for an emotion that has existed since the dawn of teyvat, after all.

time doesn't completely erase all the insecurities of a man who has loved and lost so many in his long lifetime, but zhongli finds that he doesn't entirely mind. come trials and tribulations, he'll stand firm and weather it so long as he can keep holding your hand through it all.

#miyo.muses #zhongli.togo #dont ask me where this came from #i fully intended to write smth for alhaitham but ended up with *vague gesture to whatever the hell this is*#im not even that hyped abt zhongli so this was a surprise #i think its still soft and cute and my fave flavor of zhongli not-really angst but #shdbfdhjsb bye i dont think i can ever write for this man again #if this is what happens when i sit down and go “hey zhongli would be interesting to write about” then i am GONE #this isnt even fully finished or beta read i just want this out of my drafts #i have enough faves sir pls dont make me pull for u too #i already have thoma as my shielder!! i do not need another one!!#GRRR THE POTENTIAL OF ZHONGLI THOUGHTS HAS ME IN A CHOKEHOLD AAAAAAAAA #if i ever do end up writing for him again feel free to clown on me </3 #sdgsjab sorry if this all seems so disconnected #i just have many ideas and no proper way of wording them all in a cohesive manner #so #you get this #genshin impact #genshin zhongli #zhongli x reader

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flamingredanon · 6 months

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*slams down from the void with a short fic*

Randomly thought about the idea of Henry choosing the test subject option instead of stealing the diamond and that leading him to working with the CCC, and then my hand slipped.

#ao3 #fanfic #thsc #not beta read so sorry in advance #this takes place during jb but it isnt jb #and for anyone worried the test subject bit is just a mention of a microchip into a spine #*crawls back into the void for the night*

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writingmoth · 5 months

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i dont know how to say this but if you aren't ready to get your work beta read, don't get beta readers p.p

#it isnt about anyone here but boy #i started editing/beta reading years and years ago for money and most authors dealt well with my feedback #i mean im getting paid for giving feedback so #but some were just. Not ready #nowadays i dont do it for money anymore just for fun & for stories that interest me #and sometimes the author just. isnt ready. and i get it bc putting your work out there is fightening #but im NEVER rude/hostile #and it gets weird when you notice the author and/or their friends (yeah really) apparently arent happy with your feedback #at this point i dont know if i should be honest anymore and would rather just quit #whew #it sucks ass to be wary of making a comment on something even tho you are always careful with your words bc maybe the author wont react wel #im here to read and give feedback not walk around eggshells #ANYWAY #i will try to write today #wish me luck #ren.txt

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normiematsu · 6 months

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SO CUTES.... MY THOUGHTS........

ive said before theyre like rivals 2 lovers in a way because before they get to know each other all of their interactions involve bumping into each other trying to get the same last piece of anime merch somewhere. eventually yuu is curious about choro bc isnt it kind of sus that hes always popping up wherever she does...! but he doesnt seem like a bad guy so she takes a chance and asks him to hang out. really this is rivals to friends to lovers....

they get along surprisingly well!! so one thing leads to another and they end up spending a looooot of time together, the whole time insisting they're totally just friends (osomatsu is especially insufferable about teasing them it makes him sick to see them all over each other but neither wants to make the first move)

after theyve hung out for a while and gotten closer maybe theres a period where shes super busy with work and cant hang out at ALL... just going in to the manga cafe and going home after cos theyre short staffed, dealing w customers all day and cleaning up after them... its making her insane doing clopening shifts over and over. her mind keeps wandering thinking stuff like "wow i am about to EXPLODE i wish i was hanging out at chibitas or at the arcade with c... c... ch...."

she hits a hard stop then and there. once that thought starts trying to finish itself she already knows shes cooked. the realization that shed rather be spending all her free time with choro is a lil terrifying to her bc she hadnt even realized she liked him that much...! this is so world shattering she would look stupid as hell behind the counter head in her hands with new customers walking in asking if shes ok LOL. she thinks for hours about this afterwards and cant sleep once she gets home.

the next day and from then out until she accidentally drunkenly confesses to him she tries so so so hard to keep up appearances but even choro can catch on to something being... off... about the way shes acting. he doesnt wanna get his hopes up bc hed honestly just be happy as her friend. but the way she steals glances at him when she thinks hes not looking..... the way she scoots the closest to him when everyone is eating at chibitas.... the way she puts up with his antics but never really truly looks down on him for being an otaku neet.... he cant help but hope she likes him back

BONUS: choro is the only one who knows Where she works and what exactly it entails (she tells everyone else she just works at a regular bookstore not a manga cafe, she doesnt want most ppl knowing shes an otaku) so it would be very cute and thoughtful if he showed up to her next shift to cheer her up. he goes up to the counter and coughs nervously to get yuu's attention. she looks up to see this guy she KNOWS is unemployed asking nervously to rent a half hour booth for what's probably his last 350 yen. he slides her favorite candy across the counter with his change. they are both exploding inside

#NO REFORMATTING NO BETA WE DIE LIKE MEN. hope this isnt hard to read its stream of consciousness yuucho...#yuucho #yuulore

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ask-ruikasa-official · 6 months

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ruikasa make out in closet (not clickbait)

tsukasa pov instead of rui this time.. :3

it’s a little bit clickbait it’s more drunk tsukasa kissing a slightly buzzed rui

tags-ish & tws// mentions of alcohol, implied intoxication, slightly sexual themes, tsukasa is drunk, tsukasa is a lightweight, tsukasa is having spicy but not explicit fantasies, rui is trying to be a good boyfriend, rui is a little drunk

tsukasa looked around at the awkward led strip lights, crinkling his nose. he hadn’t seen rui since he went to grab drinks, so he awkwardly shuffled past the college students to reach his lover.

“rui, love?”

“oh, tsukasa-kun! perfect timing~ what drink do you want? i didn’t know they had a selection.” rui beamed upon seeing his boyfriend.

“oh.. hm.. the watermelon one sounds good.”

“of course, love! the watermelon kiwi seltzer?”

“yeah.” tsukasa nodded, intrigued.

“okay, fufu~”

rui handed tsukasa the ice-cold can, standing up and stretching before opening a can of his own.

tsukasa wandered around, trying to get used to the odd taste of the seltzer. kiwi had never been his favorite, but the watermelon helped offset it.

rui was mingling with everyone else, an air of easy charisma surrounding him. tsukasa didn’t go to his university, and didn’t want to outshine his boyfriend.

tsukasa watched the clock tick as he sat at an old couch, the uncomfortable fabric scratching his bare legs — shorts may not have been the best idea. he was still finishing his drink, and the clock seemed to tick at a more irregular pace, the more he consumed.

tsukasa went back for another drink, not even reading the label and not caring when it tasted different. that one he felt as though he’d finished quicker. rui broke away from the conversation, taking tsukasa’s hand.

“was that your second drink, my dear?”

“yeahh.. why?”

“ah, no reason. you do seem a bit dizzy.” rui cooed, tilting his head slightly.

“mee?? noo..” tsukasa slurred.

“yes~”

tsukasa stared at rui’s lips. did they always look that kissable?

his eyes, glazed over, traveled across rui’s body. rui, seeing an opportunity, lead tsukasa upstairs.

“let’s take a moment to cool off, my star~ you’ve had a lot of alcohol.”

tsukasa nodded, his mind in a haze. he wanted his hands on rui’s body. rui took him to a guest bedroom, running his hands through tsukasa’s hair.

tsukasa, head spinning, leaned in close to rui. rui backed up a bit instinctively, startled by the potent smell of alcohol.

“oh, goodness, tsukasa—“

rui ran into a door, realizing it slid open to reveal a small closet. a bit of privacy would probably be good to keep tsukasa’s reputation pristine.

“come here. we can sit down together.” rui said, lowering himself onto the closet floor.

tsukasa was flushed, getting onto the floor. he sat in rui’s lap, wrapping his legs lazily around rui’s waist.

the smell of alcohol on tsukasa’s breath was strong, but rui had adjusted. tsukasa wanted to kiss him so bad. he wanted to put his hands on rui and hold him as they kissed.

“you smell nice…” tsukasa trailed off, hands wandering around rui’s chest and shoulders.

“do i?”

“mhm..” tsukasa tried to put his hands under rui’s shirt, but rui gently stopped him.

“not right now. you’re not sober, my love. i can’t, in good conscience, do that.” rui cooed, pressing a kiss to tsukasa’s forehead.

tsukasa, in a move swifter than anything else he’d done that night, kissed rui hard. cheeks flushed and hands shaking, he grabbed at the back of rui’s hair, fingers curling around the soft strands. his touch was desperate, feeling rui’s soft skin.

“tsukasa-kun—“ rui murmured against the kiss, but tsukasa was holding on with a starving fierceness. he was touch-starved, and was more aware of it.

rui gently pushed tsukasa away. “look, we can make out, but not tonight. you’re intoxicated, my dear~”

tsukasa pouted, his eyes unfocused.

“come on…”

“no, my love. let’s take you home and get you into bed—“

tsukasa kissed rui again, but rui shut that down quicker this time.

tsukasa was whining as rui held him, trying to keep him calm.

“it’s okay, tsukasa-kun. do you wanna go home?”

“nooo…”

“too late~”

#ruikasa #both talk #//sorry this is my first long ish fic #//i worked on this for like #//four days?#//idk #//i had 3 people beta read it!#//major creds to alex & cat & my other good friend who isnt on tumblr #//love you wet cats #//sorry if rui and kasa seem very ooc #//or if the story is choppy #//i want criticism but it also makes me cry #//anyways ye #tw alcohol #tw drunk #tw slightly suggestive #tw implied intoxication

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lilly-white · 1 year

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you at the beginning of your author journey: I’m going to dispel the myth that you can’t make money writing! I’m going to write for a living, damnit! If EL James can do it then I can too!! How hard can it be to just write smutbooks right?! Let’s GO

you 2 years down the line, curled up in the grass: I just want to read books that were written with love, man. with real genuine love and curiosity and whimsy, and no actual regard for money or accessibility or “genre beats” or whatever nonsense rules they talk about in “7 figure fiction: How to use Universal Fantasy to SELL your book to ANYONE!”. I’ll scrounge in a camper van if I have to I don’t care, i just want to feel the love again

#writer life #writer problems #it fucks with your brain man #i'm reading moby dick and clan of the cave bear right now and both authors are just nerding out so much in their weirdly structured books li #*like #LOOK AT THIS STUFF ABOUT WHALES!! ISNT IT COOL #and also LOOK AT THIS STUFF ABOUT CAVEPEOPLE!!!#love just radiates everywhere it's great #i feel more love pouring from these books than all the formulaic romance books i've read #human beings allowing you to see them going on tangents about what they love = way more humanising and touching #than reading about 2 people bonking in the same fucking formulaic way #if i never have to read or write sex again i'll actually be very happy #indie adventures #i need to grab beatrix potter and lemony snicket and all those childhood books actually #to heal my brain from the romance world lmao #people in my network going around being really loud and proud about 'reading bonking books' i'm like #what is there to be proud about or to 'defend'? It's already a billion dollar industry #and i'm tired #(beta reading this book that is just like... so thin and empty of anything but sex and all the other betas apparently love it)#(and i'm just like. there's nothing here though????????? there's just nothing?????? it's just bland mayonnaise pornography)

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newbordeaux · 11 months

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This funeral ain't shit ⚰️

Lenore was no stranger to funerals.

Perhaps that was simply what it entailed when one’s mother dealt in burials, or perhaps it was the nature of growing up in such close proximity to Dunwall’s slums. Untimely, sudden deaths were no uncommon occurrence there—one of the workers next door being crushed to death in another factory accident, a playmate of hers never returning after being sent to pick up river krust pearls, a friend who perished in a mine collapse. Her family attended all of their burials, as did their neighbors and friends who would extend help to the grieving family. Lenore mourned them all truthfully.

Lady Augusta’s funeral however was an entirely different matter.

Not that it was dull, no, quite the contrary. The funeral itself was a lovely affair, Lenore herself had helped with the bulk of the preparations after all.

It was the strangeness of it all, attending the funeral of a woman she barely knew in her short time that she was proud to call herself her Lady’s maid. It was sitting next to her grieving husband and sons who should be granted their privacy in these times while she herself had not a single tear to shed.

And as she sat on a bench during the reception surveying the room, she found that neither did the guests.

Two Ladies near her tittered behind their fans and shot her strange glances, and Lenore held her head high and pretended not to hear them questioning the presence of what must have been the deceased’s Lady’s maid. Soon enough, their topic of conversation turned to Lady Augusta Pendleton, who lay so prettily in her coffin with the flattering look of consumption still gracing her features that they almost envied her.

Lenore started to play with the hem of her sleeves, when a shrill shriek pulled her out of it—coming from one of the ladies she just had overheard themselves.

"EUGH, filthy creature, what’s it doing in here?"

Lenore glanced down and spotted a small toad hopping away from her, while the other guests simply shook their heads and returned to their conversations. And from underneath one of the tablecloths, she could already make out the two culprits.

She darted towards the table and leaned down to lift the cloth, all while feeling Lord Pendleton’s judging glare following her. Underneath sat the twins, who both had the audacity to grin mischievously at her. No one had told her but she had a feeling she was supposed to watch these two.

"Custis, Morgan, what is the meaning of this? Both of you, come out!"

Custis–she could tell them apart now–shot her a dirty look and sneered. "You can’t tell me anything, you’re just our mother’s maid."

"And she’s dead," Morgan chimed in.

Lenore’s brows furrowed. "This is her funeral, behave yourselves and get out from under there."

Custis quickly glanced towards his father and, to her surprise, relented. The twins seemed strangely unaffected by their mother’s death, so oddly unfazed that one had to wonder if something was amiss with them. Her thoughts went to the factory worker’s children, who hadn’t stopped weeping at their father’s funeral and here were Custis and Morgan, playing pranks at the ladies who were gleefully chatting about the fashionable look that Augusta Pendleton wore in her coffin.

Still, they at least had the decency to listen to her this time. A small victory.

Lenore glanced over to Lord Pendleton, who stood with Doctor Cornelius Ridley, his late wife’s physician. She had seen much of him in recent days before her Lady’s passing, though she herself was forbidden from entering her chambers. Now, he stood uncomfortably next to her widower (and little Treavor, who was sniveling miserably and kept tucking at his father’s sleeve) and checked his pocket watch every so often.

"Lenore, for fuck’s sake, take that sniveling boy outside. I’m trying to talk here," Lord Pendleton snapped and Lenore nodded demurely, rushing to take Treavor’s small hand in hers and lead him towards one of the doors that led outside.

There, she reached in the pocket of her dress and handed him a handkerchief. "Aw, here you go little man," she cooed. The boy blew his nose and handed the dirty thing back to her. Lenore’s face twisted slightly in disgust. "Oh, it’s fine, keep it. I suppose you will need it more than I."

"Yes, and my nose gets all itchy inside."

"Oh, I bet it’s those flowers. I’m sorry, I suggested we put them there," she murmured as she absentmindedly brushed a stray lock of his hair back into place. In the short time she had been working here, Lenore quickly learned that little Treavor was not only constantly sick just as his mother was, but also that he was horribly allergic to a multitude of things she did not know one could be allergic to. She should have known better.

The boy gave no answer, as she supposed six year olds simply did when they did not fully understand what they were told.

The door clicked and Lenore’s head turned. Wallace stepped outside, fumbling with a keychain and Lenore greeted him with a smile that was returned with only a stern nod.

"What are you doing?"

"Heading for the wine cellar. His Lordship requested yet another bottle be brought. Aren’t you supposed to be inside?"

"The little man here-" she gestured towards Treavor who still stood there miserably with the dirty handkerchief in his hands, "-had to be taken outside. Doesn’t he look handsome in his suit?"

Wallace blinked. "Of course."

There was a short pause before she dared to call out to him. "Wallace?"

He had already made his way towards the cellars when he turned his head towards her again.

"Are they always like this? The rich?"

"I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Lenore."

She sighed. "No one inside seems to care. This is a funeral and they’re all… I don’t know, no one seems to truly mourn. It’s so strange, when I attended my neighbors’ burials we all grieved. But I don’t think anyone inside does, not even really the twins. I just wonder if there’s something wrong with these people."

Wallace gave her a puzzled look. He seemed to consider his words for a brief moment and then shook his head. "His Lordship is grieving, and so are his sons. And even if you were right, it’s not your place to speak of them like this."

Lenore blinked at him. Of course Wallace of all people would not allow her to speak ill of Lord Alfred Pendleton and his sons, Wallace who had spent his entire life in a manor and was destined to serve these people, whereas she was an ill-prepared Lady’s maid with no Lady to serve. How foolish of her to believe he would understand, that anyone in this house would. Perhaps she was wrong, perhaps his Lordship and Doctor Ridley and the gossipping Ladies were too refined for something like grief. Perhaps she was too simple to grasp that this was just how things were.

"Look," Wallace continued, "maybe we shouldn’t speak right now."

Lenore gave a defeated sigh. "Yes, maybe we shouldn't."

#i didnt run this through dany for beta reading so excuse if anything sounds off etc etc obligatory sorry english isnt my first language #a liddle nellie character study ft the pendleclowns. or my hcs for these beasts #c: lenore #*writing #and wallace is there. i made him sound so mean but they dont get each other so #this has a reason in my mind

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