Now for the two main big fucking things to occur shortly:

What went down while our unlucky/lucky three mecha plus symbiote were gone, with presumably Arachnid, Knockout, (Dreadwing? Breakdown?) in charge?

How will the others react to y/n the mostly self taught chemist

"When He’s all but Forgotten How to Love Again" - Astarion x GN!Reader - Series Masterlist

Pairing: Astarion x GN!Reader (Elf!Tav for plot reasons)

Genre: Reincarnation, Angst, Mystery, Slow burn

Rating: Explicit, 18+

Tags: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, POV Second Person, Canon-Typical Violence, cw: blood, cw: Astarion's entire backstory, cw: sex, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Eventual Fluff, Grief, Mourning, Developing Relationship

Series WC: 113k words and ongoing, 21/?? chapters

Summary: An Elf-Tav reincarnation story where Reincarnated!Tav dreams about Astarion in their nightly reveries and eventually seeks him out once they reach maturity. Things definitely totally go well.

Author’s Notes: I'm bringing over some of my multi-chapter fics from AO3, so if you've already read this, ty!! I love you and appreciate you so much! I will continue to add chapters as I format them, but the full fic is available on AO3 here if you're feeling like a binge.

Heads up-- while there will be explicit moments, this is first and foremost focused on romantic tension and yearning, asking the question: 'Would you still love me if I was someone completely different?’ Explicit scenes will be few and far between and very much focused on their feelings. It’s essentially an established relationship slow burn?

This has unascended Astarion, “good” choices are made in the original timeline, Tav needs to be an elf for this to work, but otherwise no specifics on past Tav. Present day Tav is a magic-user.

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Knifes and Nightmares

At 12 years old, you first dream of the Pale Elf. The encounter scares you and sets you on your path forward.

Chapter 2: The Second Encounter with the Pale Elf

Nearly 19, you think you have a handle of your past lives. However, not all of your past lives are created equal.

Chapter 3: What it Means to Love

Now 29, you're still trying to piece together parts of your past. In particular, what exactly was your relationship with Astarion?

Chapter 4: In this Lifetime

Now 99-years-old, you've managed to ignore your worst impulses to run off to Baldur's Gate. One night's reverie finally breaks you.

Chapter 5: Guidance from a Druid

After finally setting off to find Astarion, you receive a confounding memory from your past life. Ignoring what it might mean, you focus on your task and visiting Halsin, one of your past-self's friends.

Chapter 6: The Man of your Dreams

You make your way toward Astarion, trying your best to prepare for the encounter to come.

Chapter 7: Just One Night

You plead your case to the vampire.

Chapter 8: Who You Have Become

You try to learn more of who Astarion's become, while also trying to convince him of who you were.

Chapter 9: Ghosts of You

After he storms off, you try to track Astarion down only to find yourself on a trip down memory lane. Once you do catch his trail, you’re surprised to see where he’s gone.

Chapter 10: Overheard in the Underdark

You traverse a new landscape, looking for Astarion. What you find might be more than you bargain for, and what you hear might be too much to handle.

Chapter 11: An Interrogation

You spend the night in vampire prison and have a difficult conversation.

Chapter 12: The Source of his Pain

As you aim to leave and never look back, Astarion realizes that perhaps *he's* the one that made the mistake.

Chapter 13: And They Were Roommates

You and Astarion try to find a common ground between you. Things are awkward and tentative, and progress is anything but linear.

Chapter 14: A Blossoming Friendship

Now in your second week of living together, you and Astarion have to get past some of the hurdles your first week introduced, all while getting a bit closer along the way.

Chapter 15: More than Friends Pt. 1

Push finally comes to shove. As fun as living in the present is, Astarion forgets that present dangers are still very, very real. Afterward, emotions run high, and you find yourself in a familiar predicament.

Chapter 16: More than Friends Pt. 2

After talking through the previous night's tryst, emotions are confused, pasts are divulged, and everything comes to a head when your heart and soul want different things.

Chapter 17: What We are Now

When you’re left to your own devices, you find yourself knee-deep in mystery. Despite all of this, Astarion never leaves your mind. And perhaps you never leave his.

Chapter 18: Traveling with a Friend

You and Astarion travel together to Waterdeep. Emotions run high as you reconnect and reestablish your boundaries.

Chapter 19: The Wizard’s Tower

After traveling through Waterdeep, you and Astarion finally arrive at Gale's tower. Introductions are made, tours are had, and the relationship between yourself and Astarion continues to remain complicated.

Chapter 20: Sweets and Shopping

After receiving some advice from Gale, you and Astarion spend the day shopping and talking through your friendship.

Chapter 21: Dansarra’s Delights

Your wizard friend gives you a nigh impossible task, and you spend the day trying to find your opening to complete it.

Chapter 22 - TBA

...

im very excited for the Wartime!AU. Its a trope that is not very common in the Drarry fandom - I noticed many other HP fics have quite a few prominent Voldemort wins AU.

Hello Anon, thanks so much for this ask. I'm really happy that you're excited, it still feels like a lovely shock to think that someone might be interested in anything I write. I don't believe I've read any Voldemort Wins AUs before—they tend to run long as far as I can see, and my reading habits run to shorter fics. Also, like you say, I don't think there are very many in Drarry, and I don't really read outside of the ship. And anyway, i can't read any at the moment because when I'm writing I try to avoid reading fics that deal with the same tropes. So I'm looking forward to diving into all the time travel/multiverse/wartime AUs I missed over the last two years! Writing an AU has meant that I needed to do quite a bit of world-building, plus because it's a multiverse fic and we meet Harry and Draco from another world, I've had to keep track of their timeline too. I am already dreading the editing process and wondering how I can possibly ask beta readers to dive into what might very well be an absolute shitshow of inconsistencies. But I'll worry about that when it's done! In the meantime, here's a little snippet of the first time we see Voldemort in this fic. We hear a lot about him, but we hardly ever meet him due to the circumstances of the fic. I'm really looking forward to writing the ending where (hopefully) he'll really come into his own.

CW for widescale attack on Muggles and mass deaths

“Well, that’s that then,” Percy said, and when he tried to raise his coffee to his mouth, his hand shook so that liquid sloshed over the rim of the cup. On the big screen at the top of the room, the Muggle news channel was playing out an endless scroll of horror.

“Enough,” Kingsley said, and he took the cup away from Percy, wiping the spill up with one of his sleeves. “You need sleep and food, in that order.” He looked around murderously at the rest of the Order, at every strained face in the room, as if daring anyone to argue.

Percy sighed, then very carefully, as though his body hurt, pushed his chair back and walked stiffly towards the door, Kingsley stalking alongside him, hand at Percy’s waist, robes swirling.

Harry stared back at the television channel, feeling unable to look away for long. They were still searching the rubble of the tube station for survivors, the newsreader said in her uninflected tone, but the death count was already almost double the previous record for a Tube disaster. Unimaginable, the newsreader said, but the trouble was that Harry could imagine it all too well, had travelled the Victoria line so many times, had run down the steps in Finsbury Park towards the platform, bumped shoulders with the crowds streaming onto the tube, held onto the blue metal poles as the train rattled on underground.

Now the Muggle PM was giving a speech, pale but composed, praising the emergency responses, lamenting the loss of life. A tragic accident.

“If only he knew,” Remus scoffed, then threw down the latest copy of the Prophet, smuggled out of wizarding London, already days old. On the front cover was the Muggle PM, looking slightly bemused, almost entirely unmoving, clearly believing he was posing for an ordinary camera, a sea of dark-suited aides out of focus behind him. Next to him stood Voldemort, looking satisfied, a thin smile curling broader and then receding again as Harry looked, an endless smug loop. He looked very different to how Harry remembered him. He looked ordinary, finally—not the same as he had at school, with the cloud of dark hair, the luminous eyes, the cool appraising stare. But he didn't look like he had when he first returned, either. He was no longer bald, the skin of his face no longer stretched tight over his skull. His eyes were a deep speculative brown, the edges crinkling slightly as he smiled. He looked tired, and very, very human.

“He’s done it then,” Ron said flatly. “He’s secured an alliance.”

,,,,servant to a different king led me down a rabbithole into your forced marriage au and now I’m fucking losing it one both of them. Servant to a different king so far sounds very,,, hey share the weight except SQH has no one to keep him with the sect which sounds so very lonely. Did SQH not try to change YQY and SQQ’s fates while he had the chance to in Freeform mode? Or is this ability to do as he pleases to try and change the world a mew development? Or is this a world where SQH leaves the sect IN SPITE of all the people there who care for him?

Ah, in my opinion, whether or not Airplane Bro had the ability to change anything for Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu is largely up the fanfiction author in question. I believe he can accomplish quite a lot when he puts his mind to it! But it's not unreasonable that he simply had no leeway as a young disiciple or that the System wouldn't allow it. Or that he simply didn't know where to find them or what the timeline was! If he never gave the peak lords exact ages or never specified the year anything happened, I think that it's perfectly realistic that Airplane Bro could have honestly missed all of Qijiu's important beats just by not knowing that they were happening by virtue of not having met them yet. I think Yue Qingyuan is already the head disiciple of Qiong Ding while Shang Qinghua is still an outer disiciple of An Ding, so you could even decide to go with an interpretation where Shang Qinghua is supposed to be younger than Qijiu.

In canon, Airplane Bro just wasn't close with either of them, and that's reasonable. I wouldn't expect him to risk his life or his place at the sect for strangers. It seems that he had a preexisting relationship with Wei Qingwei before his promotion to inner disciple, but even that seems to put them at friendly acquaintances at best. I tend to think of the peak lords in their disciple days as having a "adults put us in the same room together because they think being similar ages automatically makes us friends" thing at the beginning, given how Shang Qinghua's mission with Shen Jiu and Liu Qingge went.

So, yeah, Shang Qinghua just doesn't have any significant relationships at Cang Qiong in the "servant to a different king" AU and the forced marriage AU. Airplane Bro is pretty irreverent about any potential loneliness in canon, honestly. I personally find it pretty interesting just how easily both Airplane Bro and Shen Yuan write off any possibility of romantic or even sexual relationships, out of practicality as much as an apparent lack of partners, and neither of them seem particularly torn up about it until forced to their peculiar breaking points. Shen Yuan at least seems amendable to friends, but I think this absence of deeper relationships is part of why Cucumberplane clicks the way that they do. I think this is why Shen Yuan mistakes the familiarity that exists between them due to their backgrounds for a deeper friendship than they actually have.

I'm maybe getting off track again? My point is that I have written a lot of fluffy Airplane Bro fic where he's forced to care about people, but that's appealing in part to me because he's an asshole! He doesn't really care about other people except Mobei-Jun and sometimes Shen Yuan. In SVSSS canon, I don't think it's unreasonable to label Shang Qinghua as a villain who just so happens to be on Shen Yuan's side sometimes? He and Mobei-Jun could have been a villainous power couple if they had gotten their shit together any earlier! In my AUs where Shang Qinghua ditches Cang Qiong for the Demon Realm earlier, it's kind of a "sorry not sorry" situation. He's quitting before he can be fired or executed. He's making rude gestures on the way out the door. He's probably telling Qijiu the truth about their misunderstanding in front of a crowd in order to cover his escape or maybe because he wants to cause drama. So long, suckers!

Assorted random Jay and Jonjay HCs + surprise brief summary of my JonJayDami AU:

-Jay is one of those people it's teeth grittingly infuriating to go shopping with because not one damn thing looks bad on him. Jon's favorite activity is digging through the most garish shit he can find, coming back with the most hideous monstrosity of a garment you have ever laid eyes on, and watching Jay put it on and somehow??? It looks good??? It doesn't even clash with his hair??? Jon thinks it's hilarious and he's very glad not to be the supermodel in this relationship. It's all fun and games until word of it somehow reaches Starfire so now Jay has been roped into actually doing a modeling campaign with her that works to raise awareness of various and sundry things major politicians would rather nobody talk about. Jon is content to sit on the sidelines and bring his boyfriend coffee but Jay drags him into appearing in a few of the photoshoots.

-it catches on very quickly that if you use Kryptonite to take the second Superman down Gossamer will show up halfway through your victory speech, sometimes with Robin or Supernova or, on one absolutely horrifying occasion, Lois Lane, and he will quickly and efficiently put you in the ICU. Everyone thinks Superman is Gossamer's scary dog privilege until they actually manage to take him down and enjoy their victory for half a second before they lose an eye.

-similarly, if you actually manage to catch Gossamer (how the fuck), you will have the world's angriest Kryptonian on your hands. Unlike the old one, if you break out the Kryptonite to take away his powers, this one pulls a knife and shanks you (Jon getting his powers taken away and immediately resorting to everything he's learned via being friends with Damian is everything to me).

-any Supertruth coffee shop AU must feature Jay mainlining espresso like he's trying to meet God and Jon the barista eventually tracking him down after work because he has serious concerns about Jay's health.

-I'd sell a kidney to see a Mircaulous Ladybug AU featuring these two I think that shit would be hilarious.

-I may or may not actually end up writing a fic where, immediately post liberation, Gamorra holds an election and someone adds 'crown Jay Nakamura king and call it a day' as a joke but it wins and now everyone has to live with it. Definitely crack treated seriously, but I think it'd be a fun situation to throw everyone into.

-I am writing a fic with a WIP title of 'the timeline has been taken out back and shot' featuring, among other things, Jon who hasn't been to school since fifth grade taking one look at college and saying 'fuck this I'm gonna be a stripper', Damian who is also nineteen and wondering if it's normal to be this utterly exhausted as his family's general bullshit leaves him stepping up to the Brucie Wayne plate, and Jay who thanks to Luthor’s latest real estate scheme is left unable to afford an apartment anywhere outside Gotham. Still in the outline stages so far but Jay will not stop trying to bite Rogues when they blow shit up on his way to work, Damian has not slept more than two hours a night for a week, and Jon keeps getting body glitter on everything he owns.

hellooo! 👋

i hope it as okay to tag you in the WIP game!!! 😅😅 you have so many cool projects underway!!

I would love to hear more about your Defiance series! Side stories and spin offs?! What a world you must be creating! 🤩

thanks and have a lovely day !!☀️

Certainly! :D I don't always respond to tag games, but I do always appreciate being tagged in them. This one especially makes for a nice excuse to ramble about projects, and I'm delighted to talk about Defiance~

I'm pretty sure Defiance (the main fic) is the second fanfiction I've ever worked on in earnest and also my first and only longfic (not counting some sort of journal thing for Pokemon X I think I started many years ago, as I quickly lost interest in that project; otherwise, I hadn't really tried my hand at writing fic until 2020, despite reading it for much longer). Back in early 2021, with far too much time on my hands and having recently finished binge-watching all of The Clone Wars TV show, I felt very strongly that Fives needed to live and everyone deserved a happier ending, so I started planning a fix-it (actually the idea may have begun cooking back even before I finished the show, but February 2021 is apparently when I created the first doc).

It, uh, spiraled a little.

The planning/notes document is currently sitting at 102 pages (~46k words) of loose outline, worldbuilding notes, character notes, media notes, etc. The fic document itself is at 127 pages (~49k words) of stuff ranging from rough outline to fully written chapters and outtakes. There is also a Sheets file with timelines so I can track who is where, and when. The Sidestories doc is for ideas that would probably take place during Defiance but not be part of the more central plot, like bonus side chapters, and the Spin-offs doc is for other fic ideas that would take place in the same universe—some of which have graduated to their own documents. Though I've not been making consistent progress in the actual writing and have a very long way to go, I am lost in this sauce.

Anyway, the general plot of Defiance is as follows: unbeknownst to Palpatine and the general public, a timely intervention saves Fives' life. This allows him to actually explain himself to the Jedi, who along with the clones investigate the chips further and work behind the scenes to prevent Order 66 from happening while trying to figure out how to take down who's behind it. Critically, despite their suspicions they do not have hard evidence of Palpatine's involvement, so most events parallel canon up through ROTS with the investigation/preparation taking place discreetly, until the train hops off the rails to avoid sailing off the cliff.

If you'd like a sneak peak snippet, here's the first page or so of the main fic below the cut!

Something is wrong. The Force is muddled with a constant and indistinct unease, as it has been for years now—moreso on Coruscant than anywhere else, to Shaak Ti's perceptions. Its warnings are difficult to discern with any specificity. Even so, it murmurs them now. And Shaak possesses her own instincts, enhanced by the Force but extant outside her connection to it; these, too, whisper to her that something is wrong, as she watches Knight Skywalker leave the Jedi Temple conference room to find Captain Rex and investigate the situation with Fives. They are the best fit to track him down and the most likely to confront the rogue clone without further violence. Shaak warned Skywalker that Fives has been acting differently without his chip, that he may not be the man they knew—though she herself is reluctant to believe it—and the Knight and Captain are plenty capable of handling themselves. They will be all right. Still, something is wrong in a way she cannot yet define, and so Shaak Ti decides to join the hunt. Since the Jedi have not been asked to search for Fives, she does not contact the Coruscant Guard when she leaves the Temple. Instead she steps out of the building, pulls up the hood of her cloak, and makes for one of the speeder bikes kept at the Temple for general use. It whirs to life under her hands, and she rides to the nearest transportation portal leading down into the undercity. As she descends, passing speeders of all makes and sizes, Shaak Ti considers what she knows. She is well aware of her own struggles in becoming emotionally attached to the clones; her role on Kamino requires her to balance her care for them as people with the need to defend the galaxy. But many of them, such as Domino Squad, inevitably leave an impression. She watched Echo and Fives grow from bickering cadets to determined protectors, some of the best of their brothers. Her belief in their character during their final tests had not been misplaced. And yet, over these past few days Fives repeatedly defied the Kaminoan doctors, removed his chip, claimed something about a conspiracy, then attacked the Chancellor and fled. Shaak cannot deny these facts, and she must not allow personal feelings to cloud the truth. Then there are the Kaminoans. Shaak clashes frequently with their attitudes toward the clones, the way they view them as products rather than sentients. Nala Se’s arguments for terminating Tup and assurance that the chips are not a problem fall in line with her position as a manufacturer. And Shaak is well aware that the Kaminoans have not shared all of their secrets with her, as she is not owed them. But the medical scientist's resistance had been… spirited. None of this paints a clear picture. As they concluded in the meeting back at the Temple, the Jedi need more information. The familiar sound of a military engine hums past, and Shaak turns her head to watch a pair of gunships heading down the portal through one of the military lanes. She swerves out of the civilian traffic and dives after them, further and further below the surface of the city.

@bipbopdepmop Hiya! Hope this doesn't scare you but I'm answering this ask on my minecraft-related art blog LOL

Anyways I have been staring at these asks for the past few days I hope you know that you have a special place in my heart tysm

This is so long, so I'll put it under a readmore- I have a lot to say (And spoilers for anyone who hasn't read Dreams From Within The Cage yet!)

THANK YOU SO MUCH THOUGH!!! AAAA- I'm so glad you enjoyed it!!

AND YES YES!! I have so much I can say.... First of all I have to thank random ambient noise soundtracks for carrying me through the entire fic. Without them, I definitely wouldn't have been able to keep focus for long stretches of time without getting distracted by something.

Fun fact: Fic was not titled until it was time to publish LOL- I was so indecisive

I think my original ambition with the fic when I first started was just writing an Apocalypse AU... but at the same I also wanted to write world-hopping. I was inspired by a comic I had read back when I was in the UTMV (Undertale AU) fandom that explored AUs through way of dreams, and I've been wanting to try my own spin on that for a while so this was the perfect opportunity.

Now the plot wasn't actually supposed to go so crazy, that was mainly me getting extreme brainworms over the concept of an inter-dimensional organization stepping in. Originally, it was going to be mainly exploring the grief that comes with being unable to ever see the one person you feel you connect to most. Having to either accept that fact, or find a way to let go. (Definitely way more depressing, i think)

I was so stuck on the plot for a while, how to wrap it up with everything I'd planned. For a while, I was originally planning to have Grian be the one interrogated, in which he would then hide things from Scar to keep him safe, even going so far as to say they should never talk again. And then the real reason would be revealed when GIGA stepped in.

The way that was set up though, it basically meant all the cool stuff was happening where the readers couldn't see it. So after a long conversation with my good friend @/boxofwasps, I had a stunning revelation on how to swap it around- which is where the fic stands today. I think I remember literally stopping in my tracks and going "Wait. I know how to fix this. I know what I need to do." and Sprinting for my doc to write it down. Imagine me with a cork board and a bunch of red string- that was me putting this fic together

Another fun thing was that, I had so much fun writing the apocalypse world in chapter 1 that I partially wanted to just keep writing that instead of moving on with the plot LOL. I think if I had more time I definitely would have fleshed out some of the AUs they were in, as well as Scar's travels in the waking world and his own lingering trauma

Another fun fact? Me and @/cuteiemonster actually have a whole alternate timeline tree exploring the various ways the plot could have differed if things were just ever so slightly different. There's three main ones, though. Dreams (canon timeline), Nightmares (scar's awful no-good very bad day), and Delusions (grian's awful no-good very bad day) with varying degrees of angst. Please talk to me about them, because I'll likely never write anything about them but I have so many notes.

OKAY AND NOW TO ANSWER THE SECOND PART OF YOUR QUESTION!!!

I'm guessing you're asking about the cage from the hanging cages chapter? I love that scene so much btw there's so much symbolism there.

Every one of the main characters in the fic is stuck in their own cage, in a different way. I think in that chapter in particular, the cages themselves represented the fact that Scar and Grian were both trapped in separate universes. Leaving the cage wasn't an option, there. All they could do was reach across the gap and try to make do that way. Scar fiddling with the bolts of his cage is a show of his motivations and ambitions to escape the confines of his universe to get to Grian, far before he even says it aloud.

Grian stays in his cage because to him, there is no other way out. He's weighed the options, seen the dangers- and even the smallest movements out of line cause the cage to sway. It's just not worth it to try anything different, even if it means being trapped for an eternity...

I AM SO FLATTERED THAT YOU NOT ONLY READ IT BUT RE-READ IT??? HELLO?? I'm sobbing

I am so so so excited to write more for this series, I'm not going to lie. I've been writing notes and gathering ideas for what exactly I want to focus on for a potential sequel. Thanks to help from @/cuteiemonster I have a lot of headcanons for their roommate (yes, roommate) behavior. As well as what they're up to post-fic!

I will say, there is a chance there will be something I put out before the sequel fic- depending on where my motivations lie. I've been thinking about writing the story of Scar's family, and what happened to them. After all, Scar wasn't always alone out there, in the wastelands... Ooh, just thinking about it just makes me excited

The main reason I haven't immediately jumped to write more already is mainly due to school taking up a lot of my time atm! Not to mention I've been getting into a new minecraft server I've been playing in (if you see the art I've been posting to this account LOL), which is basically just every trope I'm obsessed with (Multiversal Purgatory...)

AND!!!! INSPIRATIONS AND STUFF! The anomaly was originally going to be a Creature of uknown origins, but I felt it would be more fun to make it someone with a name and face. Mumbo was a character I've been really interested in writing, so it was a bit of a no-brainer when it came to picking him. Though, it did change things slightly, because the anomaly was originally going to be an irredeemable villain character. But the more I wrote about Mumbo, the more I was like "dude this guy is too wet of a cat to be a villain on purpose" so instead we ended up with the Mumbo in the fic, who's just ever so slightly too casual about world corruption (against his will)

As for universes? I'm going to be honest, pretty much all of the universes in this fic were pretty much straight from my own noggin. I just wrote whatever felt right! There was that Pirate AU with renchanting and navy captain Grian, the Graveyard AU with a groundskeeper Scar and vampire Grian, the Superhero AU with Hotguy and the unnamed villain Grian (who's either named Xelqua or Poultry Man lets be real). A lot of the universes I wrote in-depth about were universes that I would love to write standalone fics of, so this fic itself was partially a collage of various ideas that I may or may not ever write about.

MAN I wrote way more than I was expecting. Tbh I could've written more but I don't want to keep you for TOO long LOL! If you want to talk more about it I'm so chill to chat on discord or through tumblr messaging (im crazy)

Ok one more thing

This snippet from chapter 1 is Lizzie from Empires season 2 okay goodbye

I saw the Leo road-trip and came running please any crumbs about it I am peering into your window with the wettest most pleading eyes of all time let him steal children pls pls pls I’m sorry Tello but 👀children✨

he steals SO many children

Okay so this went exactly like the bayverse dinosaur fic: I started joking about it and then the jokes had some thought put into them and now I'm being serious about it. I need to stop joking about turtle things apparently.

The details of this are still pretty up in the air but I have committed to far more ridiculous things (again, see the bayverse dinosaur fic).

It started with the fact that Leonardo has been adopting every kid he comes across in the existing wify fics. Casey Jr, obviously, and all the teen turtles, but also Casey Sr and the entirety of Casey Sr's brownie girls. Literally all of them. He babysits regularly while Sr's busy (and even when she's not, his dad instincts are unstoppable).

On the one hand, Leonardo could probably adopt half of New York City before he finally got too busy to give his kids the attention they deserve.

On the other hand, him going on an interdimensional road trip to adopt 87 versions of his younger self is much funnier.

So he does!

He takes little Leo's sword and starts the interdimensional road trip of a lifetime. Tello is with him and complaining constantly all the way because in their eyes, this is truly proof that Leonardo is an absolute moron. Nobody with a bit of sense would do this (which calls into question why Tello is here, then).

Eventually, Tello bonds fiercely with one of the interdimensional little blues, which they never live down as long as Leonardo is alive.

In the meantime, Leonardo is intent on protecting every little Leo he can find. There's a lot of dangerous things out in the multiverse. Killer robots, zombies, invasion timelines where Angelo died before the time gate, prison dimensions that couldn't be escaped from, a universe or two where Leo was the only mutant turtle to begin with.

Traumatised future Leo goes reality-hopping to find and love a bunch of traumatised little Leos, is what I'm saying.

I was slightly exaggerating when I said 87 versions. But only slightly. He ends up with at least fourteen, potentially more.

Meanwhile, Tello is going absolutely bonkers trying to keep track of all these children and the dimensions they originated from, because Leonardo has no idea if this is going to upset the laws of the multiverse or some such. That hasn't stopped Leo from adopting more, but Tello rather wishes it would.

But nothing in the multiverse could convince Tello to leave their twin alone, so instead they go along. Whining, mostly, but also because they know Leonardo's gonna need some help. (He does need help. He has no idea about the logistics of feeding 14+ children. I cannot stress enough that Leonardo did not think past his dad instincts telling him to adopt more.)

A list of traumatised little Leos:

had his arm chewed off by zombies last week and no longer has any optimism about this apocalypse thing

youngest from a universe where humans tried building mechs to fight the Krang, and his brothers died as pilots

separated from his family and thinks they're all dead because they never came looking for him

unfailingly optimistic early-Krang-invasion survivor but in dire need of someone to tell him it's okay to cry

the only turtle to survive Draxum's experiments and raised as a weapon of war, has some anger issues

his family couldn't stop the Shredder's early arrival and he and his little brother Mikey were the only ones to run fast enough

the only living rebellion member as of yesterday, and is not doing well about anything that's happened recently

part of a group of young mutant survivors until they were wiped out two years ago and he's been socially maladjusted since

wasn't able to stop purple-dragon-mech-donnie who destroyed a significant amount of NYC and now Leo's in hiding

went to Times Square for his birthday, was alone at ground zero of an early Krang attack and lost his leg

Mikey wasn't strong enough to get Leo out of the prison dimension and he was stuck being hunted by Krang for a year

Mikey died when they were kids and wasn't there to get Leo out of the prison dimension

the only turtle made by Draxum and was raised by Splinter until Splinter died from a particularly bad bout of rat flu

only child trained for Big Mama's gladiator arena and just won his first fight, which he's emotionally scarred by

I meant to post this a lot sooner but I genuinely forgot; anyway, this fic isn't completely canon to the timeline, it's mainly just self indulgent. Tw! THIS FIC CONTAINS BLOOD, VIOLENCE, DEATH, AND CRINGE. Once again if you know me irl or off of tumblr, no you don't. Just pretend you never saw this.

This was the end, Alex lost. Even after all his efforts Tim beat him, stabbing him in the neck for the horrible atrocities he had committed while under the influence of the operator. Now, here he is, lying on the floor of the college building; as he's bleeding out he thinks back to the one he truly cared about, even under the influence of the operator.

His one true love, Kestin. He tried so hard to save him, even managing to isolate him from the source of the problem and everyone else, even going as far as to slightly distance himself, as to not let him become infected with the sickness. But, Alex could only protect him for so long. He knew the end was inevitable but he never wanted to think that when it came to his lover. Alexs' mind wanders to past memories, remembering the summer before everything went down; God.. everything was so normal back then. 

He and Kestin were on a nice little date, walking along the beach. Neither of them planned on swimming; they weren't very outdoorsy, Alex would much rather spend his time working on his laptop and Kestin prefers to play videogames, Alex occasionally looking up a walk through and giving his boyfriend hints as to what to do. They were talking about their plans for the future. "what do you plan to do after we graduate?" Kestin asked, curious about his partners after college plans.

"I'm probably just going to find an apartment and start trying to make a career as a director." Alex seemed to have most of his life already planned out. Kestin liked that about him, he was alway able to keep Kestin on track as well. "That makes sense, I might become a writer but I'm not sure." Kestin smiled, he was never really good at making plans for the future; in all fairness, he never expected to make it as long as he did. "That sounds like I'd fit you perfectly, you are very creative." Alex was not always good at encouragement, but he tries so hard for his boyfriend. 

"Aww thank you, that really means a lot to me. Do you think we'll move in together?" Kestin asked, he'd been trying to hint to Alex that he wanted to live with him for months but he'd usually be met with confusion. "It's very likely, I do have the intentions of marrying you one day." Kestin stopped walking and Alex froze, as if he hadn't meant to say what he did. "You want to marry me one day?" Kestin looked a bit nervous, not because he doesn't love Alex, he just.. is afraid that Alex might be joking.

"Well.. of course I do, I can't imagine a future without you." Alex stood infront of Kestin. "And, well, I was going to wait until we got back to my dorm but," Alex gets down on one knee and pulls a small box out of his pocket. "Kestin, will you marry me?" Alex looked at Kestin, Kestin was quickly in tears and hugging him. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh my gosh yes!" Kestin was happier than ever as Alex slid the ring onto his finger. Nothing could ruin this moment for them and nothing could ruin their love. 

And, then it starts to rain, heavy downpour. Kestin is laughing and Alex is trying to keep Kestin from getting wet as they run to the car, "That felt like something straight out of a teen movie!" Kestin held onto his arm, all giddy. "I certainly did." Alex starts up the car and drives them both back to campus. That night was one of the last happy normal nights that they had.

Which brings up back to the present, where were we? Ah, yes, Alex is bleeding out. His last thought as he slowly passes away is of his fiance, he closes his eyes for the last time. But yet somehow from just above his face he hears a familiar voice.

"Alex... Alex.. come on open your eyes." It's Kestins voice, Alexs eyes open and his face to face with his lover, Alexs head is resting on his thighs, he's smiling down at him looking so happy to see him. But, how could he be so happy? Doesn't he hate Alex for everything he did? "Shhh, it's okay, honey. I'm here, I still love you and I'm ready to spend the rest of eternity with you if you so wish." Alex hadn't even realized that he was crying as Kestin kissed his forehead and held him. "I'm so sorry for everything." Alex sat.up and held his partner close to him.

"I know, and I already forgive you, although I'm a bit sad that we didn't get to have our wedding day." Kestin kept it light hearted as he cupped Alex's cheeks, letting Alex melt into him. "Brian and Jay are here too by the way." Kestin nodded his head as he pointed behind him. Brian was sitting there kind of glaring at Alex, Jay also doesn't look too happy to see him. 

"Oh, uhh hey guys." Alex said awkwardly, "Kestin filled us about what happened, doesn't mean we forgive you though, we just won't cause issues." Brian spoke up after an uncomfortably long silence. "It'd just be counterproductive seeing as we'll be here for the rest of time." Jay added, Kestin smiled at them all. I guess this is their version of a happily ever after and everyone's story can finally come to an end.

Writer asks: 13 and 21??

Hello friend!

13. Describe your writing process

I think what I've figured out works best for me is having a solid outline of where I want the story to go, but leaving a little room for inspiration to shift the story a little. If I try to write the thing without an outline or try to write the whole thing before I even start posting, I feel like I lose steam. The rest of this process is just... what works for me lol. I usually have the following types of files for a multi-chapter fic: 1) "notes" - literally just all of my notes that usually come to me when an idea is first forming so it's a mix of plot ideas and random quotes and descriptions of scenes. 2) And then there's "scenes"! 😂 This is for the random burst of inspirations for a scene that is beyond the chapter I'm working on so I don't know where it will be slotted in the story yet but I want to capture it right away before I lose it. The first scene for Seaside was Faith playing under the front desk when Claire and Fergus arrived at the inn 😊 3) outline - this is where I try to organize my plot notes into a rough breakdown by chapter. 4) timeline - I throw important dates like birthdays, marriages, etc in there and then usually also keep track of what date it is in each chapter bc I am supremely weird like that! 5) [I bet you are regretting asking this question by now aadjflksdjflksdj I'm sorry] "Extras" - this doc is where I throw any bit of writing that I am scrapping from a chapter just in case I liked how I worded it and want to repurpose it for later lol. I did actually do this at least once with TBBFIY - the scene in chapter 17 when Jamie speaks to the spirit of Brian while Faith is sleeping was originally going to be in chapter 13 and didn't really fit but I was sad about cutting it altogether so it made it back into the story later. So I guess my writing process is to hoard an outrageous amount of word docs for each story 😅 I use the notes and outline when starting each chapter and then usually have the "extras" doc open along with the chapter I'm working on.

21. What aspect of your writing are you most proud of?

I think I tend to want to just live in the small moments within a story that make my heart swell but in writing longer fics, you usually have to actually make things happen too! And that's something that I've definitely grown in, over the last few years of dipping back into writing fanfiction. I was so heckin nervous and panicky writing the separation arc of TBBFIY bc it was so far out of my wheelhouse (my outline was pretty much just "Claire, Murtagh, and Fergus... *gestures vaguely* look for Jamie and Faith??"). Even if it's not the strongest part of the story, I'm really proud that I actually got something down and managed to write a coheasive story in the end.

[Writer Ask Meme!]

Hello. I'm new to your blog and love your cypher post. Can I have an where the reader is filled with despair and wants everyone to feel the despair?Cypher knows how it feels, having faced despair so many times in his past, and wants to fill the reader with hope. Of course, this is a bit difficult because the reader is filled with despair and too ready to kill for despair.Let's overcome despair and take steps towards a hopeful future with Cypher. I hope I have been able to express my request in the most correct way because it is not my language and clearly too much danganronpa came to my mind when making this request.

sorry for the wait! i hope you like the direction i took the fic with :) (i’ve never played danganronpa tho sorry :,D)

Despair

Word Count: 1k+

Angst (happy ending)

In your line of work, there’s not much room for socialization. You get the job, get the kill, show your employer, and get the money. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

But somewhere over the years, the grief and blood stopped washing off. Until, you met him.

At first, the Valorant Protocol was just another job with a slightly longer timeline. Get in the site, kill the mirror agents, get out. Nobody blows up, and you stave off the despair a little longer. Everyone goes home happy, except those on your list. Every mission was a purpose, otherwise, you might just spend the rest of your day in bed.

You run into Cypher for the first time in the common kitchen, at 3 am. 

“Another sleepless soul?” He asks, over a steaming cup of black coffee. It’s a bit overly masochistic even for you to drink coffee at that time— you’re intrigued.

You stay silent, nodding. You know his name from the briefing Brimstone gave you. You know enough not to poke the sleeping dog— Cypher, Moroccan information broker. Has dirt on everyone, probably even you. You head back to your room, forgetting what you had come out for in the first place, and that was it.

The two of you keep meeting, at the base, on missions, at odd hours. Always a kind or teasing word from Cypher— you find it hard to believe this man takes anything seriously at all. You tell him as much one night, over drinks and cheap wine bought from an inconspicuous corner store near the place you’ve been sent for the mission.

He laughs. “Sometimes. Always have to keep them guessing, hm?”

You scowl, clearly not satisfied with the answer. “It’s hard to trust someone who doesn’t take themself seriously. You’re going to hurt someone someday with that attitude,” you warn.

Something blue glimmers in his hands— a tripwire, you realize. He flicks it around, toying with it like a coin. “At some point . . . you learn to take things less seriously, hm?” he finally says. He shakes his head. “Ah, there I go lecturing again. I’d best get back to my room. We’re still working on that blackmailer issue.”

You frown, concerned. You know lots of sensitive information has come out about the agents. None about you so far, but you knew Cypher had been exposed. Lately, he was working around the clock to try to track the blackmailer down, and always seemed more tired.

But you couldn't find the words to say and instead watched him walk away— his back suddenly seemed quite small.

-

Something changes one mission. You freeze at the edge of a wispy path of red tendrils that slowly disappear. You know it’s one of the enemy agent’s abilities— a new one— and think nothing of it, when you hear a loud cry.

It’s quickly muffled, but you recognize the voice— Cypher.

You see a trail of red leading somewhere and follow it to where the man is crouched. He’s huddled behind boxes, his chest rising and falling. The light behind his mask’s goggles seem dim, like he’s somewhere else.

“Nora,” he whispers, unseeing of you.

You’re starting to get concerned. You kneel and grasp his shoulder, “Cypher? Can you hear me?”

He sits, unresponsive but for a pained grunt. You quickly look him over— he seems uninjured, but for the trail that leads to him.

“Agent! Do you copy? Some mirror agents are heading your way,” your comms buzz.

You answer, “yeah, I copy, Brim. Cypher’s out though— one of the agents got to him.”

“We’ll have Sage head over to you, make sure to watch yourself,” Brimstone warns.

Immediately after, you hear the crunch of footsteps on gravel. They’re here. You turn around and the red trail has faded mostly, but Cypher remains frozen, trembling slightly. The desire to protect him wells up in you, shocking you in its strength.

It’s more than just the sense of obligation of a job, for money. You . . . want to protect this man— who you’ve shared drinks with, occasionally laughed with. 

You hadn’t wanted to protect anyone or anything for a long, long time.

You readied your rifle, positioning yourself away from Cypher so he didn’t get caught in the crossfire. You shot a couple of bullets in warning. You had a feeling those red trails had led them right to you, but that wouldn’t stop you from trying to hold them off.

The first agent to clear the corner, you nail in the shoulder and then the chest— they stumble back. 

“Come on! Get me, I’m right here!” You scream, not caring anymore.

But then two more round it and you feel the bullets rip into you. Your shoulder, then your stomach. You can’t move, lest they find Cypher. You fire the rest of your magazine and reload as fast as you can, ignoring the trickle of blood down your arm. 

God, the pain burns, but a part of you is . . . relieved. Dying meant the pain was over, the nightmares over. You get ready to take aim and make one final stand, when a wall of white covers your vision.

You blink, looking up, realizing it’s the barrier of Cypher’s cages.

“Cypher—?”

“Come— quickly. It’ll drop soon,” he whispers, grabbing you and heading down the back site.

Once the two of you have found a different position, you look at him again.

“What . . . happened back there?” You finally say.

He laughs dryly. “Well, you saved my ass. Then I saved yours. Also, here— for the bleeding.” He offers you a thick pad of bandages, which you press to your stomach, hissing. At least it didn’t feel like it hit anything too major. Sage wasn’t going to be pleased though.

“But, what happened to you? You were saying something about ‘Nora’?” You ask, knowing you’re touching a difficult subject. With all the jests and conversations you’ve had with Cypher, you’ve never heard him actually mention someone from his past.

You can sense the tension in his frame.

“Nora . . . she was someone very close to me, once. But she’s gone now,” he says, soft. “Whatever that agent’s abilities were— I saw her. But it wasn’t the same— it wasn’t them . . .”

You feel the dam break in you and suddenly tears are welling up in your eyes. “I— I’m so sorry, Cypher. I said so many rude things to you. I didn’t realize—”

Cypher cut you off with a tutting sound. “Ah, shh, it’s okay. It’s in the past, hm?” He pauses, looking at you solemnly. “It’s all in the past.”

He grasps your shoulder and hoists you up as Sage and Brimstone round the corner. “We move forward together, yes?” he murmurs to you.

You look back at him, reevaluating. Amir el Amari— not the man you were expecting him to be.

Yes, one day you would move on from everything, from your past. Learn to live with it all. And you wouldn’t be alone. 

For the first time in a long time, you feel hope.

A fic that will probably not be written for quite a while.

So, in honor of yesterday's finale, here's a fanfic idea I had ages ago that actually works better with the new context provided by said finale.

It would start like a run of the mill reacting to the show fic, with the main twist being that it's Ozma and Salem, pre-Ozma's first death. There is of course a certain amount of fun to be had with the two of them going "what the heck is this? Was that my voice? What happened to the magic? What the heck happened to me?" in the earlier volumes, and of course the "No, no no no, please no," when they get to The Lost Fable. The second weirdest thing would be how short it is, with one chapter per volume, maybe less. After they see V9, the mysterious person showing them this comes out, yada yada yada, standard "reacting to the show" fodder.

Except.

The person doing this isn't an author insert.

This is secretly a canon divergence fic! It turns out that the brothers, in order to avoid having to deal with the kinds of consequences they had before leaving the Ever After, made themselves one more creation getting to work on the planet that would one day become Remnant. Someone who can see the future, who can tell them what they should avoid. They called her their little sister, the goddess of fate.

And she showed them the future as we know it, RWBY in all its glory, and they decided that was fine, and went about their lives content with the trajectory of their creations.

Little sister was not happy about this, and so picked out two of the more important mortals, in the hopes that they would pick a future that was slightly less... depressing. I mean, it seems like everything is going to work out fine, but there's a lot of needless suffering that she can prevent with their help, you know?

So Ozma and Salem agree to help prevent that future, namely by making a pact to NOT deal with the gods if they can at all avoid it, try to get Ozma's sickness cured, and be content in the knowledge of an afterlife they will be together in. And maybe track down a door to the Ever After and talk to the cat.

Then the brothers show up, and they are not happy with their sister. At all. They told her to leave the future alone.

"Oh, since when has anyone in this family ever listened and done what they're supposed to?" And little sis flexes her powers that they gave her and makes Oz and Salem's memories tamper-proof.

So the brothers decided they need to get the future back on track. They throw little sis off of Remnant, perform the canon genocide, lay their canon curses on Oz and Salem plus a couple extra to keep the future going the way they say it's supposed to, and make their canon exits.

From here I might continue with some of their time dealing with this, or I might cut to canon timeline. The two of them have been desperately struggling to prevent as much harm as possible while under of the constraints of the compulsions that the brothers left on them. (I'm thinking that Oz is physically incapable of telling anyone about this that doesn't already know, Salem can't leave the grimmlands unless "fate" dictates she must, and anytime "fate" goes too far off script they both feel great pain.) They've been working together whilst putting on the appearance of a bitter war, keeping as many people alive as possible, and waiting for canon timeline to happen, in the hopes that either they can use the portals to reach the ever after and get the tree to take the compulsions off or else that running out of timeline will free them.

They decided not to have their daughters, even though it hurts, compulsion pain and emotional pain both, but they couldn't justify bringing those beautiful, precious girls into the world knowing that the compulsions would force them to kill them.

None of the good guys know about this until The Lost Fable, when Jinn gleefully spills the beans.

(At some point she also says something along the lines of "And although they could never have the daughters fate promised them, they found solace in their students and followers, who they loved just as ardently." while showing visions of Salem and Oz with various canon characters including all of team RWBY, Cinder, both the Rainarts, Qrow, etc, etc. Salem is a great mom who became a serial kidnapper to avoid becoming a serial killer in this continuity.)

Volumes 7 and 8 appear to go more or less as canon on the surface, but underneath it's a carefully calculated dance, following the strictures of "fate" as closely as needed while avoiding loss of life wherever possible. RWBYJN go into the void, and so do Oz and Salem.

They arrive in the Ever After to discover that Tree Mom rescued Little Sister when she got thrown into the void, Little Sis and Curious Cat are besties, and Little Sis is very on board with cleaning up her big brothers' messes.

And that's all I had. Heh.

Big Update Time!

First of all, I want to apologize for the unplanned hiatus. I need everyone to know, I made this AU suddenly, and I was entirely unprepared! I certainly wasn't expecting this much interest in it! I am often unmotivated and dissatisfied with my work, so that did not help me, especially once my hyperfixation died down and I got pulled into other things. And lemme tell you, hyperfixations are real strong! I feel really bad about disappearing suddenly, but I've never made something and had this many people be really interested, that is completely my fault for being unprepared.

I'm not sure how many people are still interested, but I was doing some thinking recently, and I'm not satisfied with how I ran this at all. So, some more news;

I am planning on revamping this AU!

Yup! I wanna redesign some characters, definitely do more research on the timeline and such with the show, try and get my motivation back! I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, so I don't plan on starting anything until I have a concrete plan for this story, or at least a structure so I'm not coming up with stuff as I go. I'm hoping to make this AU even better! I can't promise things will be consistent when I start again, but I still want to get this story out there. I'm most likely going to drop the "main" comic, and focus on smaller things that can allude to a bigger picture as we go. I don't trust myself to maintain anything really big like a comic series or even a fanfic, but there will be art and hopefully some mini comics and one-shots! I would love to be able to answer asks with art or a short story.

Ah, I completely lost track of what I was saying! Sorry for rambling -

TLDR; I want to restart this AU with a better structure. No large scale comic or fic, but I will continue to tell a story, and hopefully post more often.

If anyone has read this far, that means a whole lot to me. I hope you know how much I appreciate it. I hope I don't disappoint anyone again! (At the same time, I don't want to stress myself out! Please bear with me haha)

Post-canon F/P for the playlist ask please (possibly around Philippa and Joleta’s girls night out?)

So! I already did a mini-playlist for the girls' night out fic(s) (link1, link2), and didn't want to let an F/P playlist get taken over by the kind of stuff Joleta might sing karaoke to (which is actually very valid and good music, just not very F/P! If anyone wants that playlist too, just drop me an ask...)

And then, that decided, the first draft of the playlist trashed, I just spent an age trying to work out what actual romantic music there was from the '80s/early '90s. Of course, one track remained through all my editing, and that was a Kate Bush one. Finally, I am pleased with what has come together though.

tant que je vive

a band AU playlist for Francis and Philippa facing the open sea 💙🌊

1) Bert Jansch - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 2) R.E.M. - Strange Currencies 3) Cyndi Lauper - I Drove All Night 4) Cock Robin - The Promise You Made 5) Richard Thompson - King of Bohemia 6) 10,000 Maniacs - Trouble Me 7) R.E.M. - Perfect Circle 8) Kate Bush - The Sensual World 9) Anne Briggs - Willie O'Winsbury 10) Peter et Sloane - C'est la vie d'château avec toi 11) Maurice Jarre - Lara's Theme 12) Björk - Venus As A Boy 13) Nick Drake - Northern Sky 14) Nic Jones - Master Kilby 15) The Cure - Close To Me 16) Black - Wonderful Life 17) ABBA - Waterloo

As before, fcs are Johnny Flynn and Lucy Farrell. Discussion under the cut.

*Deep breath* No pressure, says Dorothy. It's just that Francis and Philippa are SO IN LOVE, so PERFECT for one another, so ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH that how could anyone else possibly understand (Jo this isn't about your Jerott issues shut up). She'd die for him. He'd die without her. They're going to be *SO HAPPY* when they're together but they did their best to make it deeply angsty beforehand. So what the hell do you put on their playist?! I had a few modern songs for them, but I'm enjoying keeping these a bit more period appropriate, so had to have a go. Some tracks are here for the lyrics, some are here for the vibes. I think it's mostly a fun playlist and not too angsty, but. I'm not sure what you need to ask for to unlock the Cheesiest Timeline of this AU yet, so just keep sending requests until we get there, I guess?

1) because the modern Offa Rex version is one of my ultimate Songs For Them. I couldn't find a period version with lyrics that I liked as much, but Bert Jansch is a Scottish folk guitar legend and this is a lovely instrumental version. 2) AU Francis/Philippa vibes are a bit...what if Michael Stipe's stage persona and Natalie Merchant were stayed together and wrote beautiful, impenetrable, complicated pop/rock/folk/grunge hits together? 3) I don't think I need to explain this one. It's a great big romantic I'd-do-anything song. 4) *smugly places a song about promises on an F/P fic*  oh no wait now pain. Because you lot get to suffer too, here are ALL the lyrics to a song Spotify randomly recommended for this playlist that is more F/P than anything I could have come up with myself: If I laid down my love To come to your defense Would you worry for me With a pain in your chest? Could I rely on your faith to be strong To pick me back up and to push me along? Tell me

You'll be there in my hour of need You won't turn me away Help me out of the life I lead Remember the promise you made Remember the promise you made If I gave you my soul For a piece of your mind Would you carry me with you To the far edge of time? Could you understand if you found me untrue Would we become one, or divided in two Please tell me

You'll be there in my hour of need You won't turn me away Help me out of the life I lead Remember the promise you made Remember the promise you made

Could I rely on your faith to be strong To pick me back up and to push me along? Please tell me

You'll be there in my hour of need You won't turn me away Help me out of the life I lead Remember the promise you made Remember the promise you made Remember the promise you made Remember the promise you made 5) This has also been a longstanding F/P song of mine, and I figured 1994 was just about early enough for it to be period-appropriate in a post-canon playlist. 6) Again with the Natalie Merchant. She may be more of a Kate fc, but this song is pure F/P: Have a look inside these eyes while I'm learning Please don't hide them just because of tears Let me Send you off to sleep with a "There, there, now stop your turning and tossing" Let me Know where the hurt is and how to heal Spare me? Don't spare me anything troubling 7) This one is for the Vibes. I just think it's *beautiful*. 8) This is the Kate Bush song that stayed on every version of this playlist. Based on the final chapter of Ulysses - literary and sexy, just like Francis and Philippa. 9) Again, broadly vibes rather than lyrics - the mysterious blond can be Francis, sure, but the main thing is it's a fairly consensual and lovely folk song, and I love this version by Anne Briggs so much. 10) Because I put their biggest hit on the angsty Francis pining playlist, I thought they'd like one where they just get to enjoy it. 11) The balalaika on Willie O'Winsbury reminded me of this, and again, it's a big iconic love song. 12) A bit on the literary and sexy side again. 13) I only encountered The Most Cheerful Nick Drake SongTM through a cover by my faves, Maximo Park, but I think Francis and Philippa deserve it in any iteration. 14) Another Romantic Folk Song for the vibes! Nic Jones was one of the most astonishingly brilliant folk guitarists. 15) Vibes. Robert Smith said it's meant to be unsettling, but I actually think it's just gorgeous? Also Francis 'I've waited hours for this / I've made myself so sick' Crawford finally realising Philippa wants him back. 16) Just vibes again. Even though the lyrics have him on his own, he still longs for another. Plus sea, plus blue eyes, etc. Too beautiful to leave off. Sun in your eyes The heat is in your hair They seem to hate you Because you're there And I need a friend Oh, I need a friend To make me happy Not stand here on my own Look at me standing Here on my own again Up straight in the sunshine

No need to run and hide It's a wonderful, wonderful life No need to laugh and cry It's a wonderful, wonderful life 17) Yes I meant to put this version on.

ik there is already a short time loop kim fic out there but i haven't read it yet bc i don't wanna be influenced if i do write the groundhog day kim fic i've been toying with. anyways disclaimer aside i want to write that fic SO bad. we know from canon that he doesn't like having his beliefs about the supranatural challenged and so i imagine he would take being in a time loop Very Badly. harry would take to it like a duck to water, but kim? kim would crack at some point i think. he's a lonely person, but the absolute isolation that comes with being the only person in the world to live the same day (week? idk the timeline yet!) over and over? i think he'd handle it terribly. there's nothing logical about a time loop, so he couldn't just think his way out of it, couldn't keep track in his notebook bc it resets at the end of the day, and therefore couldn't properly process the world and make connections to easily figure out why he's stuck when he is by himself. i think he'd try to figure out things on his own at first to avoid seeming crazy, but not progress very far before he breaks down and lets harry in on it. anyways, i've barely thought this through yet and this post is the most brainstorming i've done on the topic but i'm fascinated by the concept of kim getting thrown into a supranatural clusterfuck and not knowing how to cope at ALL.

i'm smashing a few questions from the list together to ask about your fic structuring process! i know you do a lot of research but...outlines? detailed structuring? something looser and then research bits get dropped in if they fit?

Entirely seat of the pants! Research gets dropped in as and when it fits. Usually what happens is, I start writing a scene, and some historical situation I know nothing about comes up as an issue. Then I go “okay, actually, I wonder…”, and then I spend hours going down a rabbit hole of research.

Sometimes, what I find out actually ends up changing the scene, or inspiring new parts of the scene. But I did not generally know that I was going to be looking that up when I started writing. It is an extremely ADHD mode.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

Nikola Tesla inventing plasma globes in one more river (and that’s the river of jordan)

The publication details of the first edition of John Donne’s Poems in Songs and Sonnets

Pretty much every reference in That The One Ought To Have of the Other (my thought process there was basically an entire deck of Trivial Pursuit cards: “Which angel was supposed to have inspired St. Matthew to write the Gospel?… Which blues musician was it again who was supposed to have done a deal with the devil?… There’s got to be a good line from Paradise Lost that Crowley can quote here… what happens in contract law when two clauses are in conflict?…”

The apples vs. apricots, flagons vs. raisin-cakes translation issue in Set Me As a Seal Upon Your Heart, which, once I learned enough about it, ended up inspiring the end of that fic

Except for “Bless The Arrows,” which is the first and so far only time I have done any outlining. Mainly because it is the most actual plot I have ever tried to write, and I am trying to keep track of actual historical events to hang the plot on, and I am not good at keeping a sequence of more than like two events in my head. So I have to write them down.

The outlining consists of square brackets that look like this:

[August 6-9 1471, Rome: Papal conclave after the July 26 death of Pope Paul II. Aziraphale oversees the election of Pope Sixtus IV]

[Autumn 1471: Lorenzo de Medici heads a Florentine embassy to Rome to suck up to the new pope. See Martines p 175. Crowley goes to Rome and sees Aziraphale there. There is some sort of poignant scene.]

(Martines p. 175 refers to the book April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici by Lauro Martines, which I am trying to use to piece together the timeline of historical events.)

Anyway, I am slowly filling in scenes for the various square-bracket notes in the outline, and still very much finding myself looking up things as I go. (Like, what would Aziraphale and Crowley have eaten for dinner in autumn of 1471 in Rome? When was the church of St. Sebastian built in Rome?)