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oohbuggypie · 3 months

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it's both my God given right and duty to never shut up so i am going 2 not be quiet about BullDon 🫡 putting all text ("analysis", fanfic reccs, general rambling) under a read more so those who don't gaf can scroll easy 🩷 HERE WE GO !!

(all fanfics and their respective author are linked within their titles 🩷)

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K WHERE DO I START . their dynamic, past the obvious matador and bull trope, is so interesting to me. i think that their backgrounds have so many similarities; Don is a matador and is shown to have hundreds of people gathered in a stadium to watch his match, and Bull is watched relentlessly by the paparazzi. but they both have very different reactions to the fame and attention they receive. Don soaks it up and Bull can't stand it, and i think it contributes to their odd, almost mirror dynamic a lot

past that is their personalities and ethics,, both of them are SO full of themselves i actually almost forget, with Bull only being slightly more humble (cuz he can't exactly brag about his looks 😭) . Don is more prideful than he is cocky imo; but he's VERY expressive of his anger and distaste for losing, which makes him kind of paralell to my idea of Bull. though this follows more of a headcanon of mine and not whats in the game, i think Bull is really calm outside his persona in the ring (i.e his intermissions,,, he's being friendly if anything with Doc and he speaks so calm and low in Title Defense). unlike Don, he's shown actually building endurance and managing his emotions compared to his Contender cutscnene, essentially the OPPOSITE of Don, who only gets more sour and negative after he loses. i think in that aspect they're complete opposites but that switch makes their dynamic and relationship so much more complex to me

in the ring i think they share the factor of channeling their anger to help them succeed; Don is stronger when he's pissed at his missing toupee and Bull is .. Bull ? the Bull charge and his gut punch in Title Defense are very telling if his entire character isn't about how genuinely angered that man can be and i think that gives them a more complex element to how they'd work together; they're both sour and ugly about being perceived/looked at (more literally) in a way they don't want to, so that's just another thing that i find so interesting .. they have a BUNCH in common yet they're drastically different when you look at their characters generally

K NOW FANFIC RAMBLE TIME 🩷

Suficiente:

if anybody knows the author DetectiveCapan from AO3 personally im so dead srs when i say u should message them and praise them. i could not stfu about their BullDon writing and im not going to in a paragraph or two here but OH MY GODD. i have always avoided both actual books and fics alike that are written choppy and simplistic, and especially ones that lack atmosphere simply cuz they're just unappealing and hard to make me feel what's actually going on. but their BullDon trilogy ?? somehow their style of writing, which doesn't use complex words or long sentences packed with detail, is genuinely some of my favorite that i have EVERR read . they make the emotions the characters are feeling SO easy to understand and feel even without exaggerated expressions and dramatic descriptions it's actually kind of incredible ? and the bit of humor isn't overbearing, it's just silly and it sets up the atmosphere, which never ends up terribly serious. they write relationships with a familiarity in the atmosphere and actions that have been unachievable in any other piece of fiction ive read and the gestures omg .. IM GONNA BE SPECIFIC IN MY RECCS SO YOU'LL HEAR MORE ABOUT IT BUT OMGG. DETECTIVECAPAN IF U SEE THIS BLESS UR HEART SERIOUSLY UR AN AMAZING AUTHOR 🩷🩷 PLEASE KEEP DOING WHAT U DO UR WONDERFUL AND I'D LOVE 2 SEE MORE OF UR WORK ABT BULLDON / PUNCH OUT!! WII IN GENERAL 🥹 now the recc list!!

possibly my favorite out of all three and it's literally the first one 😭 ough i could gush about this one FOR SO LOOONG ,,, i love how they immediately establish Don's mindset and attitude with how he both admires and pities the World Circuit for what they get and what they go through. when Don's out of the shower and he sees Bull half dressed there's no implication of sexual tension despite them being mostly undressed in front of each other and thats actually SO special to me because i had a morethanfriendship just like this and they captured the reality of it in a perfect way, like feeling for feeling . same in the way that Bull watches Don get dressed; they mention he stares but he doesn't have a corny, shocked "omg i hope he didn't notice me" reaction to catching himself. instead they mutually understand that they're admiring each other and they just smile about it . LIKE UGH THATS SO SPECIAL TO ME OMGG. and also Don putting on his - what'd id assume - rosary and then dabbing cologne behind his ears .. literally clutched my own cross necklace like omg that detail makes me crazyy i love the religion mention sm 😭

also UGH Bull's mannerisms .. a little annoyed at Don but there's such an endearing thing about it; he's annoyed at his demands but he complies anyway cuz even though he knows Don is purposely trying to make him a little pissed, he likes him enough to and he knows it'll make him happy .. THERE'S A DEEPER SENSE TO IT AND I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT IS BUT IT'S HARD TO WORDD 😭 also Bull being quick tempered about small things like the radio playing static and the music not being his taste .. and just the mutual like attachment they have with each other.. Bull never says anything about taking Don "home" (his hotel room) but Don knows exactly to get in his car and go with him anyway ,, and i cannot stress hard enough that it's just the little things seriously. i will never ever be regular about Bull liking to tie Don's boot laces, or promising to get his favorite beer when he offers it, or purposely (and patiently) waiting for him to get out of the shower so they can talk 🥹 like all those little gestures of love that show that he really does care . also possibly my favorite thing about this whole trilogy is that they have a very unestablished relationship ! it's never explicitly stated that they're dating or in love or anything even romantic but there areee quick mentions that imply (if im reading them correctly) that they're def a bit more than friends i.e Don mentioning how he thought his skin would burn from being in Bull's shower water temps ,, but the fact that it's not an established relationship and they don't outright express romantic interest in one another makes it SO much more special. it sets a completely different tone that creates warmth, familiarity, and comfort between them 😭

that's about that for Suficiente .. I LOVE IT SO MUCHH 😭 PLS READ IT, LEAVE KUDOS, AND IF U CAN COMMENT UR PRAISES !! 🩷 it is so well deserved genuinely. now on2 the next:

La Cosa Sobre El Pelo:

ugh i love this one equally as much. im gonna be repeating a lot of the same praises and ideas from "Suficiente" bcuz the whole trilogy creates the same kind of atmosphere but i still wanna gush about and explain it 🥹 omgg the paragraph about Don having a bald ass head and it scaring away the ladies made me giggle SO BAD . also UGH okay .. the sentiment of Don being vulnerable enough to confess his biggest insecurity to Bull, and for Bull to actually reflect and think about it so long after he's been told and reciprocate the vulnerability by showing Don a photograph of him before he lost his hair .. OUFFFGGHH actually the cutest and sweetest thing ever . also i am a nitpicker and a sucker for small details and i just absolutely LOVE how naturalistic the author makes the characters move. like Don doesn't get up and stand to grab the photo off the nightstand, he leans over and props himself up with his elbow and continues sipping on his beer when he's observing it like any other person would .. ugh i LOVE that detail , i get a little bothered when people write characters to be unnaturally animated in a setting where it doesn't exactly make sense to be, so that's another aspect of their writing that i appreciate soo much 😭 also it's the gestures omg .. when Bull grabs Don's thigh and shakes it and Don doesn't jerk away or question the closeness , he just leans back onto the bed and continues/ends their conversation about how he'll look bad with no hair and Bull looks good without it ,, I LOVE THAT SO BAADDD again it's the familiarity the meaning of Bull's gestures ,, the care that they quietly express instead of directly saying it .. GAWDD that's like my fav thing 😭 there's something so special about the silent concern and care that Bull has for Don in their writing; the small actions and the thought behind them do so much more than what words could say and i think it's super in character for him as well .. literally stellar i think i need to reread and add onto this one once i look at it again but I LOVE THIS ONE SO SO MUCHH 🩷

#punch out!! wii #punch out wii #bald bull #don flamenco #rambling soo hard #THIS IS NAWT COMPLETE THIS WILL BE EDITED AND CHANGED CONSTANTLY TILL IM DONE SO IF U SEE TEXT HERE NOW THATS NOT HERE LATER UR NOT CRAZY #ugh can drafts stop escaping

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shychick-52 · 1 year

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Weird writers asks- 1, 7, 10, 13 and 19!!!

OOOH, THANKS. :D

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

Times New Roman, size 12. So, standard. I'm used to it, having written in that all my life, plus it's by far the easiest on my eyes. I know there's a trick with some other font that's supposed to increase writing speed or the amount you write, or something, but I always forget to try it!!! DX

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

Breathing life into the characters and scenarios in my head. It's such a fun, almost surreal feeling. Writers are demi-gods, at the very least. We create life. :D It's like that one lyric in the 'Barbie Girl' song- "Imagination, life is your creation!"

I also love sharing my ideas about my favorite characters, including my headcanons, with others. Even though not many people read my stuff, I still love putting them out there. XD

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

I've been haunted by so many wonderful writers' stories, including yours! In other words, a really incredibly-written, powerful story (often heavy on the drama, angst, and hurt/comfort) that stays with me for a long, long time that I can't stop thinking out. One that destroys me in the best way.

As for my own writing, it doesn't necessarily have to be angsty or dramatic, although those are my favorite kind to write about. It's often an idea that I can't stop thinking about, that I HAVE to write or I'll go crazy. Like 'Who Am I?' and 'Circumstances and Control'. And I can't stop thinking about where to take the story next, what to do with the characters (usually it's the multi-chapter stories that haunt me the most), and I lie awake at night planning out details, scenes, and dialogue. And even once each new chapter is posted, or the story is finished, I often re-read them to see if they're as good as I originally envisioned or if I still feel the same pride about them I felt in the first place (and I'm pleased to say they usually do hold up).

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

Anything sexual (especially pure smut). I'm ace/sex-repulsed as hell. I don't have much experience writing or reading about sexual content, let alone... ah, personal experience (because I'm not comfortable with any of it), so I also wouldn't even feel confident trying to write it. (However, I did write a one-shot fenro story called 'A Definitely Real Man', which was SCARY AS HECK because I've never done anything like that before. But to my surprise, it turned out really well.)

Subject matter easy for me to write is anything angsty. Especially where loved ones' lives are at stake or are dead (with lots of grieving, suffering, and even self-blame). I also love writing about abusive (or dead) parents.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

I wrote my first fanfic in high-school for the anime series 'Cardcaptor Sakura', which was a really short one-shot. (A friend of mine had introduced me to fanfiction, and after reading a bunch of it, I decided to give it a try too.) As the years went one, I wrote more and more fanfiction for different interests of mine and soon it turned into a life-long hobby to this day.

As far as original writing goes, during my university days I wrote the first two books in a planned-out children's book series I've always wanted to write and publish. Unfortunately, it went through a lot of hiatus and writer's block because I couldn't get the story and characters to work properly. So, I abandoned it until years later when I picked it up again with a whole new idea to make it work; I ended up scrapping most of the original storyline and characters, leaving only the bare bones intact. Since then, it's worked out much better! I'm currently writing the third book in the series and editing the first two, but I don't really know how many books I want the series to be. Maybe two or three more? (I'll probably never get it published, but who knows? At the very least, it's another fun hobby.)

#thanks for the ask!!#weird writers ask

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letteredlettered · 3 years

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hi! i was wondering if you could elaborate more on your thoughts of how draco and harry are usually written in drarry fic? like how (imo) draco is usually romanticized and more loved by readers, while harry is cast as coldhearted or mean if he doesn't immediately forgive draco post war. your fics are some that don't do this, and harry is, understandably, still angry about draco's part in the war, which i really enjoy to read. (also what are your pronouns, if you don't mind answering?) ty!

My pronouns are she/her.

I don't feel very fair talking about usual characterizations of Harry and Draco in fic, as I just don't read Harry/Draco fic any more and haven't in a long time. I know there's plenty of great stuff out there; I just find the stuff I want harder to find.

I do remember the first fics I read that portrayed Harry as an unfairly popular jock, who got away with arrogance, unchecked anger, and misbehavior because he was The Chosen One, who felt that everything he did and everyone he agreed with was Right and no one else was worth his notice. I loved these fics. I still love them, because to me, they felt firmly seated in Draco's POV, and it also felt very clear that Draco's POV was not reliable. The way these stories were written made it clear (to me) that the truth of who Harry Potter was, as a human being, didn't necessarily line up with Draco's opinion, and that we, the readers, were better suited to understanding who Harry Potter really was, both because we knew canon and because we weren't trapped in Draco's mind, which lacked both knowledge and perspective of who Harry was and what Harry had experienced.

These stories in fact turned me on to what I now think of as something really intrinsic to me as a writer, but wasn't at the time: a very tight third person POV in which the reader always knows more than the POV character. This is a particularly easy thing to do to very powerful effect in fanfic, because in fanfic, you can expect readers to come in with a certain baseline knowledge. You can expect them to know that Draco was a bigot, and Harry has very justifiable reasons to hate him; you can expect them to know that Harry was abused and mistreated and did his very best to help people who were bullied. Ostensibly, that should allow you to create some very strong dramatic irony.

I also feel like these fics made me better as a person. I often feel that my whole life is a constant struggle to see outside of my own head, to understand what it could be like to be another person, to know that I will never really know who anyone is, deep down, other than myself. But there have been moments that feel like lightning strikes, when I realize I really was forgetting that the world can be seen in different ways, and then I am reminded. These fics felt like that, because I had always hated Draco Malfoy. I pictured him as someone selfish and entitled, who never thought about anyone other than himself, and never tried to be better because he did not care. But these fics showed that Draco Malfoy was trapped in his own understanding of the world as thoroughly as I am trapped. The HP series is Harry's story. In Draco's story, Draco is the hero, and he has no reason to think Harry is a hero, and rarely if ever (until the end) sees Harry do much that special. Understanding that perspective made me love Draco quite dearly, in a way I never thought I could.

So the last reason I still love those fics is they made me fall for Harry/Draco. They made me see that Harry and Draco are two people who see the world so differently that it would be a struggle for them even to see each other, much less love each other, and that is a struggle that interests me.

These days, I have my suspicions about whether these stories were really as deftly written and insightful as I imagine. Did they really want to illuminate the idea that even a bigot and a bully has his understanding of the world? Or did they seek to defend or even deconstruct Draco's bigotry and bullying by showing that Harry really is an arrogant, entitled, angry twat who deserved what he got from Draco?

I'm not actually sure. I just know that as I continued to read more and more stories, it gradually became clear that plenty of stories were not trying to create that dissonance between what I know as a reader and what Draco as a character thinks. Instead, I encountered more and more fics that seemed to embrace Draco's POV as the only way to understand the events of canon. Lots of these fics even go so far as to suggest that Death Eaters and Voldemort had a point, really, which is something I find downright unpleasant to read.

Frankly, I'm not interested in a straight reading of anything (pun intended). I'm not interested in fics that wholly take Harry's, or the HP series's, POV. As I have said, I find the HP series flawed and essentially unkind. But I'm not interested in fics that are wholly against the text either--fics that make Draco out to be the real hero, and the fascistic eugenics of Death Eaters to be sympathetic. I will defend to my dying breath the rights of people to write either kind of fic, but in the end, my interest will always lie with something in between, that questions the default POV--not in order to hold up a different POV as correct, but rather to suggest that no POV is correct. We all have our different ways of seeing the world, and the world itself is outside of us, only knowable if we all communicate, and ask what other people see.

#harry potter #harry/draco #draco malfoy #fic

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rpd-rookie · 3 years

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After all things he saw and been through, Leon could use some rest... So how about Leon x reader on vacation in some remote, distant place, phone turned off, Hannigan banned from contacting him over new assignments? I guess it would be perfect for post-Vendetta? I don't really care it it's going to be fluff, smut or whatever - I just want him to take his time off and simply enjoy his leave, wherever he'd go. ^_~

Author’s note: Sorry about the long wait. This OS actually became so long I decided to make it a 2 or 3 chapters long fanfic. Here’s the first prt. Hoping you’ll love it.

Warning: Angst, Mention of Alcoholism and Depression, Language, Mention of sex.

Information : Y/SN = your second name

Holidays - Leon S. Kennedy x Fem!Reader

A fresh marine breeze entered the room through the ajar French window, flapping the white muslin curtains like two small sails. It caressed his clammy naked body and a salty smell came to tickle his nose, reminding him a time when, as a kid, he used to go visit his grandparents in their small beach house in South Carolina, a time that was far gone but that he kept close to his heart. And so he sprawled on the mattress, a bit like a funny starfish, his blue eyes still shut, trying to linger in his memory and in his bed a little longer, at least until Hunnigan calls him to warn him not to be late to another umpteenth appointment with his DSO colleagues or the president. Only when he felt a delicate hand brush his hair away from his face, tucking it behind his ear like his mother used to do when he was a child, and finally met a pair of gorgeous (colour) eyes did he realise two things. One, Hunnigan won’t call this morning. Two, holidays were awesome.

Part 1: THE MEETING

Scott Rossi. That was the name he had given when he had registered in this remote cottage-like hotel three days ago on the north coasts of Nova Scotia. Nothing original and probably too easy to guess – it was his father’s first name and his mother last name after all. A fake identity he had judged necessary to disappear from the DSO’s radar for a little while. He needed to be left alone. For his wellness and his sanity even though a part of him knew drinking his sorrow away wasn’t what was best for that so-called wellness he wanted back. But it was the only solution he had found to forget. Forget about New York. Forget about the car bombing in DC. Forget about that bullet he put in President Benford’s head. Forget about everything that had led him here, drinking in this bar. But the road to forgetting was hard and the escape too momentary. And the more whisky he poured in his glass to more he seemed to drown in his bottomless pit of pain and depression. “Tough day or you’re just not confident in your masculinity?” Usually, Leon would have ignored such a nosy question, the same way he would have ignored another over-curious judgy person, with characteristic stoicism. But there was something in that question, something in that voice - though he couldn’t pinpoint what - that made him look up from the amber liquid in his glass. Perhaps was it the strangeness of that question. Or perhaps was it that voice, confident and full of nerve, reminding Leon of old times, old friends, bold young agents and femme fatales. Or perhaps, was it simply because she was a woman and God knew how much Leon couldn’t ignore one, wasted or not. She was a (hair colour) with piercing (colour) eyes, wearing a long marine blue coat over a nice black dress. Elegant. Self-assured. Pretty. Very pretty … Actually too pretty to hang out in some lousy hotel bar like the one she was in right now. A city girl maybe. “Excuse me?” “The whisky. My father used to say it’s a drink for fags.” Leon’s eyes widened briefly and she added, unsettled by his surprise as if she had expected it. “But then again, my father was an asshole who didn’t know shit about anything. So tough day, huh?” Leon snickered and remained surprisingly troubled for a few second. Needless to say, he wasn’t used being caught off guard like that. “More like tough life” He finally corrected. She nodded and, unable to resist curiosity – even though she had the impression the man was certainly not the kind to easily open up to strangers - quickly went to sit closer to him bringing her tequila along with her. “I’m all ears.” “I don’t need a therapy.” His tone was curt and harsh and he took a sip of whisky looking away from her, thinking she would get the message and leave him to finish his fancy bottle of Glenfiddich in peace. But she did not move and simply waited, her observing eyes set on him as if she was trying to read his mind or something. He glanced towards her only to see her sigh and take off her coat like an insect would shed their skin, offering Leon the sight of her beautiful wasp-like body covered in black silk, a sight that didn’t leave him indifferent. After all, she had an exquisite silhouette. Curvy with a narrow waist that her skin-tight black dress could bring out with ease. “Let me guess, after fifteen years of marriage, your wife cheated on you with your best friend because you were the kind of man who lived for his job instead of his family and now he’s taking care of your kids in your own house and they call him daddy.” “Couldn’t be moooore wrong.” He had a quick laugh, not because he thought her soap opera-like story was amusing but because he actually never imagined someone would picture him married with kids. Did he look the type? He didn’t think so. “Maybe. But at least now I know you’re not married.” Leon glanced at her again, astonished by her audacity. No one had ever flirted with him that way. Though he wasn’t even sure she was flirting. “Are you sweet-talking me or something?” She shrugged her

shoulders leaving the place for any sort of answer and Leon said “You know, you could have just look at my hand.” “I did actually but I just wanted to make sure.” She had a quick seductive smile and smoothly bent towards Leon who peeped at her décolletage for a second before focusing on his drink again. “By the way, is shooting a hobby or part of your job?” Leon froze, his glass half way between the counter and his lips and stared at her. “How …” “The calluses on your fingertips. Only a shooter has that kind of hands.” He couldn’t help but be impressed and after drinking his whisky in one go, he naturally sat up straight on his stool to scrutinize her, suddenly more that interested in that mysterious girl. “You’re observant.” “Y/N actually.” She extended her hand and, after a short hesitation, he shook it with an amused smile, undeniably seduced by that cheeky attitude that suited her so well. Her skin was so soft and cold against his, he instinctively kept her hand in his to warm it up. A lovely gesture yet certainly a bit inappropriate. Either way, the girl said nothing and let him hold her hand. “I’m L… Scott. I’m Scott” He finally replied as he let go of her hand, slightly uncomfortable. “ Fine, then I’m Y/SN.” Leon frowned, his face showing a mix of confusion and amusement. “You just said your name was Y/N.” “Yeah but that was before you chose to lie.” She grimaced, emptied her shot of tequila and called the waiter with a small hand gesture to ask for a refill, not even slightly disappointed in Leon for lying. “I didn’t lie.” Not really. She put down her hand as she realised the barman, who was flirting with a man at the end of the counter, would not notice her. “Of course you did. But I’ll allow it. I guess that’s just another silly way to cope with your tough life for a night. Though, it seems it’s as useless as alcohol” She took Leon’s glass and emptied it without looking away from the agent. “I’m trying to enjoy my holidays at the fullest.” He confessed and that was the truth. “Is it working?” She placed the glass, now stained with her lipstick, in front of him and he shrugged, showing her the bottle of alcohol by his side before pouring himself another drink. “No, not really.” “Thought so.”

She took the whisky again, this time from Leon’s hand but he did not protest. He didn’t care about that damn liquor. He could definitely afford another bottle. The company however … He knew he would never find another girl like the one sitting next to him. “So, Y/N. What are you doing here?” He asked, his eyes fixed upon her face. “Who’s Y/N?” She replied with a cheeky wink and Leon smiled and chuckled. It hadn’t done that in a while. “Are we really gonna play this lie the whole night?” Part of him hoped so. There was something endearing and refreshing in that little game, the same way there was something terribly irresistible in that girl. “You wanna spend the whole night with me? Who told you I was that kind of girl?” She harrumphed, hand over her heart like an amazingly lame actress, an overly dramatic gesture that was certainly intended. “You’re impossible.” Leon confessed but there was no hint of criticism or annoyance, quite the opposite. He was actually having fun drinking here with that girl he didn’t know. “No. I’m just a girl pretending to be someone she’s not – aka Y/SN - talking to a man named Scott who just lost his wife and kids to his best friend.” “Not just his wife and kids, his dog too. A beagle. Poppy.” She laughed, getting the tiny nod to John Wick and he looked glad that she did. “And what’s Y/SN’s backstory?” “I found yours. You could at least found mine.” She retorted and let him think. And for a second, as she stared at him scratching his stubble, finding him insanely handsome, she realised he hadn’t touch his drink in a small while. Good. “Y/SN is a college student with unresolved daddy issues trying to get the attention of a man possibly twice her age to cope with the fear of abandonment his father left her with when he left her and her mom.” “Was Dad an alcoholic?” She declared on purpose, just to see if the word would trigger his desire to drink. It incredibly did not. “Might explain why you’re so interested in a loser like me.”

She stayed the whole night with him. Talking. Playing. Flirting in ways only she could do. Creating an undeniable connection, a sharp sexual tension that only a man deprived of all senses would have missed. She gave him a signal (if not more) with her eyes, called him with her lips. And he responded with a similar technique, a similar enthusiasm. And at the end of the night, when she got up from her stool and kissed him goodbye, right at the corner of his lips, she realised she could potentially spend the hottest night of her life if she chose to lead him in her room. After all, it was no secret for either of them. She wanted to fuck him and he wanted to fuck her. But a part of her decided to play hard to get, decided that this night would be a sweet game, a foreplay in their roleplay. And luckily for her, he was a player. Just like her.

#Leon Kennedy #leon s kennedy #fanfic #request #resident evil #leon kennedy x reader

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ghosthan · 3 years

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what would you say are the differences between 616 Tony and MCU Tony? 🤔

Hi anon! Many people have talked about this and I'm certainly not the authority on the topic, but I’ll try my best to explain some of the major differences that I have noticed! Thank you for asking and I’m sorry it took me so long to answer you.

Important to note: neither version of Tony has had a totally consistent characterization. Depending on who you ask and which comics/movies they've consumed, they might give you a different answer here and not be wrong.

616 Tony is even harder to put into one box because his character has been around since Tales of Suspense in the 1950s. That’s a long time. Things have changed over time, under different writers, changing political atmospheres, and outside pop culture influence (including influence from the MCU, unfortunately, in recent years.) You get the picture. So I’ll be making some generalizations and try to be clear about which eras I’m speaking when I make these comparisons, but ultimately, if someone wanted to be contrarian, you could probably refute a lot of what I say here if you cherry pick canon. Which is fair enough! That’s sort of the fun of comics, there’s so much to choose from and something for everyone.

So here are some observations from me, under the ‘read more’.

1. Physical Appearance

This is sort of an easy one, but worth mentioning!

MCU Tony does not look like 616 Tony. RDJ is great, but he would not be most 616 fans’ casting choice on looks alone. MCU Tony is tan, a Malibu man, with brown hair and brown eyes, and RDJ has sort of round facial features (a funny sloped nose, big, round eyes, round forehead, not a particularly sharp or classically “superhero masculine” face.) As you may know, this lends well to certain fanworks and tropes, such as Tony having Bambi eyes.

Or Tiny Tony. He is not actually canonically small, but he's smaller in the MCU than in 616 and from what I can tell, a portion of fandom has latched onto that. He’s a grown man, but RDJ is pretty short, and of slighter build than 616 Tony. RDJ is 5′9, but they make him act in heels, and I believe his canon MCU height is 5′11. Another popular trope I’ve seen is shrinking Tony in fanfic/fanart for a dramatized height difference with Steve, making him weak or fragile; this is fine because everyone has their own taste, but for the official record, he’s a capable, strong guy! Especially in earlier stages of the MCU, in which he’s a bit younger. Tony isn’t just a brain; he carries out his plans with his own two hands! He builds his armor, he remodels his lab, he survives hand to hand combat when he doesn’t have the armor. Muscles!

616 Tony is 6′1 without armor and 6′6 in armor (making him taller than his 616 Steve counterpart in armor and very close to the same height out of armor!) 616 Tony is generally paler with black hair (sometimes the classic blue-black I love so much) and blue eyes, and it obviously depends on the artist, but he has a pretty typically ‘masculine’ face and build. Generally he is drawn with a squared jaw and a high bridged nose (such as in the Extremis storyline, or drawn by Marquez), but again, this varies from artist to artist! Here's some examples of 616 Tonys.

Wait, you might be saying, but I have seen comic panels where Tony has brown hair/brown eyes!

Yep. Due to a combination of forgetfulness, inconsistency, and the MCU bleeding into the general consciousness of the comics, sometimes Tony is randomly depicted in the image of RDJ, or if not in his image, at least visually inspired by the MCU-- hair color and style, eye color, dialogue, etc.

616 fans don’t typically love this; he’s very handsome when drawn this way, of course, (look at him!) But it isn’t really the same character.

Also, MCU Tony has (at least for some of his movies) a reactor built into his chest. While 616 Tony has, at times, been more or less physically connected/dependent to his tech, he doesn’t have the built in reactor (most generally speaking, there are times in comics when he temporarily has the tech built in, but this isn’t really the status quo.)

2. Relationship with parents/ family history

While it is definitely implied in the MCU that Howard was not a good father to Tony, (such as in Iron Man 2 when Tony says “You're talking about a man whose happiest day of his life was shipping me off to boarding school” and “He was cold, calculating, never told me he loved me, never even told me he liked me”), Tony has a different sort of attitude toward Howard in MCU than in 616. It’s kind of weird, and hard to discuss. To me, it seems implied that MCU Howard was emotionally abusive to Tony based on what Tony does say about his childhood, and yet, the films kind of randomly give Howard weird moments of “Well, he tried his best and deep down he loved me the whole time!” forgiveness. MCU has a Howard kink and I'm very cringe-face emoji about it.

For example, Iron Man 2 shows that old film reel of Howard talking about how Tony is the greatest thing he ever created, and in Endgame, when Tony goes back in time, he meets Howard and has a very weird interaction with him in which Howard declares he would do anything for his son, (to his deeply damaged son who is a new father himself.) Yet, for all his talk, it's his actions that speak, and his actions left Tony damaged, traumatized, and emotionally inept at forming healthy relationships. So.

Sorry. I’m a little bitter. I'm just uncomfortable with how they sort of set up an abuse history but then treated it kind of lightly and Howard gets off the hook as "well, he tried his best" without really acknowledging the hurt he caused.

Avengers: Endgame 2019

I won't go super in depth into the abuse stuff because it's a little touchy and could take up a lot of this post. But.

I’m not against any reconciliation and I do appreciate the fact that a lot of times, victims of abuse feel a desire to forgive and reconnect with their abuser-- my issue with the MCU depiction of Tony and Howard is that Tony never really gets the vindication of his abuse being recognized for what it was before he forgives Howard. To me, that’s not forgiveness as kind of... gaslighting himself that it wasn't as bad as he remembered his own experience being, because of a sense of nostalgia and grief. It’s not the same, and I have issues with it.

However, a lot of my opinion is based on subtext and it is just my opinion; with depictions of abuse, different people are going to react differently, and other people may have found these scenes touching and gotten something positive out of them, and that's totally fine too!

It’s also a bit difficult to talk about Tony’s relationship with Howard in 616, for a few reasons: shifting timelines, lots of canon that I have not read all of, and the fact that it really is difficult to sum up such a complicated relationship.

Right off the bat, I’ll address the basics. I used the same scene in another ask, and I think it's frequently cited in any meta regarding Howard, but in Iron Man Vol. 1, we see more into Tony’s childhood and see Howard verbally abusing his family, drunk, at the dinner table.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #285

We get this scene with adult Tony’s retrospective commentary on how his own issues that he blamed himself for were actually a cycle starting with his father, the insecurity and abuse and alcohol, and that he realizes how much this has influenced him. Both MCU Tony and 616 Tony have some form of “stop the cycle of shame” arcs, but I don’t really see how this works narratively in the MCU because Tony makes excuses for Howard and continues to blame himself for a lot of his own personal struggles, whereas I think there’s just a bit more nuance in 616.

But uh. This isn’t totally true, and in recent years, things got real weird. I choose to ignore this chapter of canon, but in the Dan Slott run, Tony Stark: Iron Man, Tony’s whole backstory gets imploded. For one thing, the little of Tony’s childhood it shows in a flashback is uh. Uh. Well, it’s certainly out of character compared with previous 616 material, depicting Tony as an overly confident poor sport.

Basically, Tony is adopted. Tony has an evil brother. Tony’s biological parents make an appearance, as do his ‘classic’ parents, Howard and Maria. It’s just weird. It’s kind of out there. I’m honestly not a huge fan of this and ignore a lot of it, but it is certainly a difference between MCU and 616.

3. Personality

I’m going to be very general. Both Tony’s have an outer self which they present to the public and an inner self, but they’re a bit different. Both Tony’s have struggled with self loathing, but I think MCU Tony’s actual self worth is a bit higher, even just at some points in time. Even if his ego is part of his facade, I think he does believe some amount of the “I’m awesome”, even if just when it applies to his own work/inventions/saving people. Not to say that these moments of fluctuating self esteem make him egotistical, but this combined with his egotistical act and snarky, non-stop sassy dialogue, he’s quite different in general personality from 616 Tony, who is much more reserved.

Some more recent iterations of 616 Tony have been adapted to reflect the snark of the MCU, but he’s not so snarky and he tends to approach things more seriously. This is not a dis on MCU Tony; I think MCU Tony uses false ego and excessive sassy jokes as a means to deflect and control, which I think is very interesting and it’s nice to see this explored more in depth in fic where you get to see the thought process behind the bravado. MCU Tony is a partier, a good times guy, especially during Iron Man 2, in which he really does disregard consequences to have fun (driving his race car, partying drunk in his suit, letting pretty girls play with the armor, shooting off repulsor blasts for fun in a crowded room); I’m not bashing MCU Tony-- I think he had psychologically understandable reasons for behaving this way, the man was dying-- but 616 Tony really doesn’t act this way generally, and I think it’s a personality difference more than a difference of one being “better.”

616 Tony handles his stress differently, and they just have different psychological patterns, I think. I’m coming up kind of blank trying to think of a good comparable 616 arc, (sorry, I’m brain dead) but a less-than-perfect example might be Tony’s brain delete arc; he’s “dying”, like in Iron Man 2 he knows his expiration date, (circumstances are quite a bit different), but he throws himself more into work, into a cause, and as he really fall apart, we see him spiral into self doubt, remorse, fear, and insecurity, sort of falling into himself with lots of manly tears and calling himself pathetic.

(Some things happen in this arc that a lot of people find Gross. I also find these events gross. But. I don’t count the sex in “World’s Most Wanted” as partying to cope with personal mortality, because I think both character involved are in “end of the world” mode, and it’s more seeking intimacy for comfort than partying to numb the hurt. Does this distinction make sense? No? Perfect, moving on.) 616 Tony is generally much more humble.

Whereas MCU Tony, I think, tries to outrun those feelings via parties or making dozens of new suits, or seeking comfort by comforting others! Gifting things to people, building things for people, highly personalized individual living quarters, teaching Nebula games and trying to show her a fun time when they were in peril together.

They have some traits in common, for sure! But canon being inconsistent both in the MCU and in 616, my observations aren’t the rule, because I’m kind of cherry picking and going based on limited memory. But off the top of my head, they’re both extravagant gift givers! Recall Tony gifting Pepper the giant bunny in Iron Man 3, and compare this with Tony carrying a mile high pile of Christmas gifts after shopping with Rumiko in Iron Man Vol. #3.

I would say that while both Tony Starks are considered humanitarians, this is much more fleshed out and supported by canon in 616. Some examples of his philanthropy in the MCU: Tony makes charitable donations of art and money, Tony has an organization which provides disaster relief/cleanup which is referenced in Spider-Man Homecoming, Tony has an MIT grant for students and staff members. But to be honest, a lot of his MCU philanthropy is only mentioned in passing, or is largely handled by other people on his behalf and on his dollar.

In 616, we see Tony using charity almost as a means of therapy: it’s something he does very privately, not in the public eye (at least, not always), and it’s something deeply personal to him. One example that immediately comes to mind is Tony’s home for disadvantaged girls in Iron Man Vol. 3, and we see scenes of Tony basically driving the streets at night, picking up underage prostitutes, feeding them and listening to their stories before bringing them to a home he’s established where he knows all the residents, and provides educational opportunities and protection.

Another more recent example in canon that the Tony fandom loves is that Tony canonically holds babies at an orphanage. Sorry I don’t have panels for all of this, this section got long and I have been working on answering this ask in a very scattered way for a very long time.

Both Tony’s are romantics, I literally could write a whole other post about their canon love life similarities and differences, but I will briefly say that while MCU Tony does the long on and off, and eventual ultimate commitment, to Pepper Potts, 616 Tony is a serial monogamist; he is always falling in love, and he’s definitely not a playboy, but the hero-ing, self loathing, and lifestyle make it very hard for him to keep anyone in his life, and most of his partners fuck his life up and betray him. Needless to say, 616 Tony is not married, and certainly not to Pepper Potts.

Oh, and I guess this is so obvious I almost forgot to include it, but a huge similarity between both iterations of Tony is that they both constantly use their own life as a bargaining chip, and will pretty much die for anything. Or be the bad guy for a good reason (at least, in his own mind... see Civil War, or Hickmanvengers; 616 Tony, especially, does not shy away from making the hard decisions, and this leads to a lot of guilt and tension in his relationships-- often with Steve because 616 Steve/Tony angst fans are well fed, I guess)

Remember that time Tony had Steve’s mind wiped because Tony felt that Steve’s inflexible morality might hinder the Illuminati’s ability to save the world? And it eats Tony up inside and erupts into a homicidal fight when Steve finally gets his memory back? Me too.

Tony Stark as a character is defined by sacrifice, both of his own life but also of his own happiness and reputation and conscience, I think, in a lot of ways, and we see this in many universes. I could go on about Tony’s propensity for sacrifice in the less obvious ways, because I think in terms of heroic sacrifice, Tony has done a lot that other heroes wouldn’t be able to do because of moral inflexibility and conflicting philosophical schools of thought; Tony really is the “whatever it takes” type, and often believes the ends justify the means if he deems a threat worse than the potential wrong that could be done in preventing the threat. We see this a little bit in the MCU in the creation of Ultron, and in Civil War with the Accords. But there’s a whole lot more going on there I don’t want to get into.

4. Alcohol

MCU Tony’s alcoholism is never really explicitly explored. He is shown drinking in Iron Man 1, and in Iron Man 2 he drinks a lot and makes a fool of himself publicly, but MCU Tony doesn’t get any specific narrative arc focused on his drinking, and if I recall correctly, I don’t think he ever refers to his drinking as alcoholism in the movies? Also, while his binge drinking and embarrassing behaviors ostensibly stop after the events of Iron Man 2, he is shown drinking on screen at least one other time after that which I can remember, and it wasn’t a “falling off the wagon” moment, and an alcoholic in recovery such as 616 Tony would not take a drink casually. This article sheds a little light on some decisions made about Tony and alcohol in the MCU.

Alcoholism is a huge part of 616 Tony’s personality, which I went a bit more into depth about in this post, so I won’t repeat myself too much.

5. Their relationships with the Iron Man armor

A few points here: MCU Tony is famous for the “I am Iron Man” line being repeated throughout the franchise after he blows his own secret in the end of the first movie. MCU Tony sees himself as one with Iron Man, and the suit is the tech that enables him to be this version of himself. He sees Tony Stark and Iron Man as inextricable: you cannot separate them, and his identity is public. He, as Tony Stark, is an Avenger.

You may remember MCU Tony’s induction into the Avengers; in Iron Man 2, Nick Fury is forming the Avengers and tasks the Black Widow with going undercover to assess Tony to be a part of a hypothetical initiative. “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no” and the comments about Tony as a narcissist may be funny, but the fact is, the snark and erratic personality of MCU Tony at the time of the formation of the Avengers in the movies is not at all like the Tony of the comics, at the time of the Avengers being formed.

In 616, things are quite a bit different! Tony invents the Iron man armor to save himself (like in the MCU) and uses it for hero-ing, but in secret. He works very hard to protect his identity as Iron Man, and for a long time, as far as the world is concerned, Iron man is a mystery man piloting armor built by Tony, hired as Tony’s personal body guard, (hence the 616 Steve/Tony fandom’s proclivity for identity porn as a trope!) When the Avengers form, Iron Man is the Avenger, close friends with the Avengers, (particularly Steve!) and Tony Stark is just the benefactor of the Avengers, providing them with a place to live and finances with which to operate.

In the very early days, Tony did not have the “reactor” like in the MCU, but his chest plate did keep him alive, leading to some very dramatic shots of Tony charging up using a wall socket, lamenting the plight of a secret hero.

616 Tony, generally, and especially in some of these earlier comics, was quite reserved, rather serious, and very angsty, (in private of course.) He may be wealthy, but speaking generally, he’s much less ostentatious than MCU Tony, less of a show off, less into flashy things and grand gestures. Of course, this isn’t always true in the comics, and some iterations of Tony are more like this than others, but MCU Tony is showier, sillier, and more of a fun-times guy. Any MCU fan would find those panels quite contrary to the Tony Stark you know:

Iron Man 1

Iron Man 2

I think I would say that while MCU Tony sees himself and the Iron Man identity and the armor as all being inextricably connected, we see a bit more compartmentalization with 616 Tony, who pretends that the armor is a whole separate person for years when his identity was private, and we see instances in older and newer comics, in which Tony is uncomfortable with some aspect of himself as Iron Man (for instance, during the second drinking arc, Tony temporarily swears off being Iron Man entirely, or for another example, when Tony is in a comma and Tony AI exists during Secret Empire, Tony “lives” in the Iron Man suit, and I think this could be interpreted as a meta parallel to Steve during this arc; Steve has had some core aspect of his character inverted, Captain America becoming Captain Hydra, so Tony experiences a similar inversion-- Tony Stark and Iron Man are forcibly merged, in a way that Tony seems deeply uncomfortable with, if his digital drinking relapse is any indication. But I digress; sorry for the tangent.)

Okay this post is inexcusable long, and very, very tangential, and I don’t feel like I’ve really covered everything I wanted to. But it has been sitting in my inbox for too long and if I don’t post it now I never will, so I hope this long, rambling thing has been a little bit helpful to you! Thank you so much for asking, I had a lot of fun rambling about this.

If you want to read a similar post, but well written and organized, with other insights, this post by Sineala answers a similar question!

#Anonymous #han reads comics #han meta #meta #iron man #tony stark #616 tony stark #616 #mcu #long post #han speaks #ask #sorry this definitely gets more incomprehensible as it goes on but i have been writing and rewriting and editing and fretting about this #for so long that if i dont just post it i probably never will and i sunk too many hours into it #to throw it away now 😅#abuse tw #abuse #alcoholism tw #alcoholism

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rainbowsky · 3 years

Text

Final round-up of fan fic asks

I've gotten a few more interesting responses to the fan fic discussion so I'm going to round them all up here. This will be my final post on the topic until/unless there's a dramatic new development, or a particularly notable response I want to highlight. Thanks to everyone who brought their thoughts and experiences to the topic. I hope everyone at least feels heard.

The biggest piece of advice that I would like to offer is for everyone to focus on what they love rather than what they hate. If we all did that, the world would be a better place. Alongside that, I'd like to remind everyone to please support authors whose work you like. It's so important. Give them a kudos, give them a nice comment, recommend their work to others. You never know what kind of grief and harassment they are dealing with to bring you these great stories, and our support means a lot.

This is in reference to previous posts here and here.

Anonymous asked:

With regard to fandom and fan fic issue, my years of experience being part of very large fandoms has led me to believe that big accounts are v important in facilitating and enforcing the general consensus of the whole fandom. Unless there will be big accs who'll remind everyone of being respectful & just not being a dick over other's preferences, nothing will change.

This is also the reason why I think certain solo fandoms have adapted weird and twisted narratives as their general fandom story because no big acc has tried to police them & and say hey pls be rational. Whether we like it or not, in a place where how far voices, ideas, tweets, posts get heard is based on the number of followers you have, big accs will have the power and influence in creating/curating/shifting the narratives.

So, if you want to know why your/our fandom thinks like this in general, look at what big accs are tweeting/posting, look at what ideas & values they follow, look at their preferences or how strongly they react to certain situations. it's taxing and toxic for big accs given the nature of social media these days, but it's also the reality of system, the more followers/audience you have, the more influence you will have.

So to anyone reading this I hope we all practice more restraint and reflection before we post anything. Remember that words, no matter what medium you write it in, will always carry weight.

So true. It is easy - even for myself who spends a fair chunk of time answering people's asks - to forget that people can sometimes be impressionable and what we say can influence people whether that's our intent or not. I get used to thinking of myself as a regular guy just doing my own thing when sometimes my thoughts and words go well beyond where I initially posted them.

I think it's important for us to be careful what we say, and it's equally important to be careful what we take from what other people say. Especially when it comes to big claims. Always get a second, third, fourth opinion and don't be afraid to ask for clarification if something doesn't sit right or sounds confusing.

It's also important to reflect on how our words and actions might affect other people's experience of fandom, and err on the side of 'live and let live' wherever possible. It's great to have our own preferences and to champion them, but we should try to do so in a way that leaves space for other people and perspectives.

The more unique perspectives and the more friendly, open dialog there is, the healthier the community will be as a whole.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging and guiding growth in the particular areas we are interested in, as long as it doesn't step on, oppress or attack those who are peacefully enjoying something different.

Anonymous 2 asked: bjyx fans attacking gdgdbaby for including zsww/lsfy dynamics in an event named bjyx then turning right around and attacking the zsww/lsfy event organizer for excluding bjyx? god, can you hear my facepalm and sigh of resignation and incredulity from over there? im genuinely not surprised that they're trying to drive an entire part of the fandom out by disgusting them (and me) with these immature tactics. i believe what im about to say next will sound quite bait-y and i respect your decision 1/?

should you choose not to post this. but i do know that it is not only me, in fact there are many out there, that is of this opinion. we just dont talk about it on twitter to avoid the potential mess it will bring lol. okay, here goes nothing. (do note that im talking about the majority here, not every single person is like this) so bjyx fans tend to be cishet females whereas zsww/lsfy fans are more diverse in terms of age and gender, and most of them are part of the queer community too 2/?

i would like to clarify that most of these zsww/lsfy fans are not dynamic exclusive (in the sense that they are friendly and interact with all ggdd fans) they just prefer to "identify" themselves as zsww/lsfy fans (on twitter specifically) just to form a distinction from bjyx fans who mostly are dynamic exclusive (as in; they do not consume non-bjyx content, and straightup refuse to interact with non-bjyx fans, often blocking them). as a result, id say that the zsww/lsfy communiy is way more 3/?

mature and respectful (after all, they're mostly queer people talking about a queer ship) whereas many problems in this fandom, such as the homophobia, adamantly insisting on "drawing lines" between dynamics, stem from the bjyx exclusive fans, comprised of cishet females who "may not know better". so, it is of no surprise to me that they're resorting to these immature tactics of calling gg unsavory names, and organizing retaliatory events with controversial topics in an attempt to "purify". 4/4

I trust that you have arrived at that theory through your own experience and observation. I haven't personally spent much time immersed in this stuff so I can't claim to have any real insight or expertise. If you say that's your experience of it, then at the very least that's how you've seen things up to this point.

I just want to say that I think we should always be careful about making assumptions about people's age, gender/gender identity, etc.

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid doing that; because those assumptions could be very wrong, because those assumptions are often laced with ageism, sexism, etc., because those assumptions - even when correct - might not be an accurate basis for the conclusions we draw.

But the primary reason I recommend avoiding those type of assumptions is because anything that enables us to clump a group of people together in our minds like that will tend to make them easier to demonize and dehumanize. They are no longer individuals who are each responsible for their own unique perspectives, they are now 'the X group' who is known for 'A B C series of easily attackable ideas or behaviors'.

If we attribute undesirable traits and behaviors to a group of people we feel opposed to in some way, that makes us feel more righteous and justified in behaving unfairly toward them, dismissing their humanity and warring with them. It's just risky behavior to engage in, even when it's well-intentioned.

There might actually be some truth to what you're saying. It could very well be that most of these people are young, inexperienced, heteronormative, etc. but if that's the case then we should try to use those traits to better understand and empathize rather than to better dismiss and discredit.

Just my two cents on that.

It can be really frustrating dealing with what feels like other people attacking us, trying to oppress us, etc. - especially when there are more of them than there are of us. In my experience the best solutions to that sort of problem are generally the ones that focus on what we are doing and want to do rather than what they are doing that we don't want them to do.

As I am always preaching, we can't control what other people say, do or think. The only thing we have any control over is what we say, do and think (and how we respond to what they say, do and think).

I have found in my experience that the moment I step out of a conflict mindset and instead step into a problem-solving mindset, everything starts to come together. I feel better, my outlook is more positive, I can begin to see solutions and allies rather than problems and enemies, and most of all, I become more focused on what I am doing than what others are doing.

So I would recommend everyone who is invested in resolving these conflicts focus on that. "How can we best showcase and encourage the types of stories we enjoy?" instead of "How can we stop these other people from doing things we dislike?"

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello again! It’s anon #3 from the fanfic post. I really do appreciate reading your thoughts on various issues like this, so thank you for always taking time to write in depth. As for supporting without going to war, the simplest way has always been to just show appreciation for the creators, hype them up. Kudos are the easiest way on ao3 but comments in addition are great. This goes for all content—art, fics, vids..etc. Creators love to see and read how people react to their content. Sharing is also great, fic recs are very helpful, just be cautious with art and reposting though. Hope this helps a bit!

Thanks so much, Anon. I think this is excellent advice. And it's true that appreciation is great, but helping to expand the audience is also great. Recommending stories, pointing people to the pages/websites of artists we like (as opposed to reposting), sharing our own ideas and approaches, encouraging people to try new things... all of this helps build healthier communities.

And here's another one: WRITE! DRAW! CREATE!

I urge anyone with creative interests or talents to bring their voices to the community because we all can benefit from hearing from you.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your thoughts on this issue. I hope that over time we can all work in positive ways to improve the situation.

I think this subject has been well-covered now so I'm going to retire it for the time being. If anyone still feels they want to discuss it further please feel free to message me privately. Thanks.

#fan fiction #fandom reflections #ask

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annzybwrites · 3 years

Text

What Do You Get a Mumrik?

Hello! First, I adore your writing! I first read it on Ao3 but needed to follow you here so I made an account. I would love to read a short Snufmin fanfic with this prompt: Moomin looking for a birthday gift for Snufkin Kudos ❤️❤️

--Submitted by @xanzusx

Annzy: Ahh, thank you so much!! I’m glad you enjoy my writing so much that you made a tumblr account, that’s so flattering ;w; I can’t believe I never thought of a birthday gift fic before, but it’s a fantastic idea!!

~!~!~!~

Birthday celebrations in Moominvalley were usually grand affairs. Moominmamma delighted in baking that person’s favorite cake flavor in the shape of either their face or something that represented them, Moomintroll and his friends had a fantastic time decorating the yard for the party (especially if it was themed), and sometimes Moominpappa would make a piñata or a slide if the party was for someone young. Anyone that wanted to come celebrate was invited, so naturally most of the inhabitants of Moominvalley would come, bringing small gifts that they thought the birthday-haver would like.

There were a few exceptions. They usually didn’t celebrate Stinky’s birthday, if only because the few times they did try to celebrate, Stinky spent the entire night mocking them for their efforts. And they also didn’t make such a big fuss for Snufkin’s birthday, because for the first few years he refused to tell anyone, saying he’d only reveal his birthday if someone guessed the date correctly. He’d always have a big, playful grin on his face whenever the others remembered his little challenge and tried to guess his birthday for an afternoon.

When Snufkin and Moomin had finally started dating, though, Snorkmaiden felt like the game should end.

“You have a boyfriend now, Snufkin!” she berated him while they were all spending a lazy day at the beach. “You have to let at least him celebrate your birthday with you!”

“Is that a rule?” Snufkin was laying on his back next to Moomin, so he turned his head to catch those blue eyes that seemed just as surprised as him.

“I suppose it would be only fair.” Moomin hummed, "Since you’ve celebrated plenty of my birthdays already.”

“Yeah!” Little My perked up, running over to climb on top of Snufkin’s chest to stare at him. “I’d love another day where Mamma makes us cake, anyway.”

“It’s always so delicious!” Sniff agreed, starting to drool from where he lay on his stomach. “Besides, you’d get lots of cool presents, Snufkin!”

“Oh, you know I don’t really care much for material things.” Snufkin chuckled good naturedly, messing with Little My’s hair bun until she swatted his hand away. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to eat a birthday cake with all of you.”

“So you’ll tell us your birthday?” Moomin asked, his heart filling up with hope. He didn’t realize how much he wanted to know until just that moment.

Snufkin turned to smile at him, a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he said, “But I still want you to guess!”

Snorkmaiden groaned and plopped back down onto the sand, crossing her arms. “You’re hopeless.”

“Oh, fine, I’ll give you a hint.” Snufkin picked Little My up, setting her down next to him so he could sit up and stretch. “My birthday is in this month of March. That should narrow things down, don’t you think?”

“I’ll say!” Moomin brightened, sitting up as well so his tail was free to wag a bit. “Hmm... how about --”

“March 8th!” Sniff guessed.

“March 12th!” Little My yelled.

“March 23rd?” Snorkmaiden tried.

“Nope, nope, and nope!” Snufkin chuckled, tilting his hat up to show off his wide grin. “Wow, you all are really bad at this game.”

“March 15th?” Moomin guessed, hands clasped together nervously.

Snufkin straightened in surprise, turning to him with a bright smile. “That’s right, Moomintroll! Congratulations!”

"Really?” Moomin laughter bubbled out of him as he pulled Snufkin in for a hug. He couldn’t believe he got it right!

“What does he win?” Sniff had to ask.

“Well,” Snufkin hummed as he hugged Moomintroll back. “What would you like, my dear?”

“I never thought of that.” Moomin hummed, pulling away from the hug to tap at his chin in thought. “How about a song?”

“Moomin!” Snorkmaiden bemoaned, falling onto her back and covering her eyes dramatically with her hand. “You should have asked for a kiss!”

“Oh!” Moomin felt heat pool into his cheeks as his tail curled around him shyly. Why hadn’t he thought of that? W-well, kisses were meant to be private things, anyway! Not in front of a bunch of people!

Snufkin chuckled, leaning in to nuzzle Moomin’s snout briefly. “A song it is! How about we walk while I play?”

It wasn’t long before the small group was up on their feet and headed back to Moominhouse, Snufkin playing a jaunty little tune on his harmonica. Little My was extremely excited and couldn’t wait to tell Mamma that she’ll have to bake another cake very soon, and it was then that Moomin realized Snufkin’s birthday was only ten days away. And once he realized that, a new question presented itself.

What kind of gift do you get for a mumrik who dislikes material possessions?

~~~

Moomintroll felt like a wreck for the next week. He couldn’t stop thinking about Snufkin’s birthday, and about how he had absolutely no idea what to get him. He knew he wanted to get Snufkin something that he would actually like, preferably something that he’d be happy to take with him during his travels.

Anything store-bought was immediately out. Snufkin would consider it a nice little trinket, but not worth carrying around with him all the time. Moomintroll briefly considered learning to knit and making him a nice scarf, but a long night of getting tangled up in the yarn quickly dashed that idea. He thought of drawing him a very nice picture next, perhaps a collage of some of their favorite flowers, but then he remembered how a paper drawing was bound to get ruined from the snow or dirt and would most likely not last the winter.

Since he was an open-book to everyone that knew him, it didn’t take long for Snufkin to realize why he’d been acting strangely and told him: “You don’t have to get me anything special, Moomintroll. The memories of us together are gift enough for me.”

While it was a very sweet phrase that made Moomin’s heart swell, a strong part of him still longed to find the perfect gift for his boyfriend.

He thought of stringing together some stones into a bracelet next, perhaps some red rocks to represent the comet that brought them together in the first place. But he figured that might be too heavy to carry around all the time, and Snufkin had never been one for too many accessories anyway. Then he considered finding a small, little bottle and filling it with sand and sea water, since Snufkin did love the sea so much. But then he worried about the bottle breaking inside his backpack, and that was the last thing he’d want.

With only three days left till Snufkin’s birthday, Moomintroll lay on his bed after dinner, staring morosely up at the ceiling. He still had no good ideas! And he knew Snufkin wouldn’t love him any less if he didn’t find the perfect gift for him, but he really wanted to show how well he knew his dearest friend in the form of a gift.

Someone knocked on his bedroom door, shocking him out of his thoughts. “Come in!”

“Hello, dear.” Moominmamma greeted with a small smile as she walked inside. She closed the door gently before going to sit at the edge of his bed. “Still haven’t thought of a good gift for Snufkin?”

“No.” Moomin groaned and turned onto his side, curling up a bit as he looked up at his mother. “And anytime I try to ask him questions about what he’d like, he’s intentionally vague or repeats that he only wants memories!”

“Well, why don’t you just plan a nice memory for him to have then?” Moominmamma suggested.

“I thought about that, too,” Moomin admitted with a sigh. “But, I don’t know... I just really, really want to get him something that he can carry around. Something light and unobtrusive, maybe even something that he’ll forget about until he sees it in his backpack again, but he can’t help but smile each time he sees it because it’s just so perfect!”

“Goodness, that’s a tall order.” Moominmamma sighed softly, closing her eyes as she thought. “What if you put down some of his favorite memories into a book for him?”

"Books are heavy, and easy to ruin.”

“Well, maybe it’s not a book, then.”

Moomin’s ear twitched. He sat up, raising a brow at her. “What do you mean?”

“You’re good at wood-carving, aren’t you dear?” Moominmamma had that small smile on her face as she continued, “You could find a light piece of wood, such as some spruce, and carve something into it.”

Moomin stared at his mamma for at least a minute, his mind already bursting with possibilities. “You’re a genius, Mamma!” he exclaimed eventually, hugging her tightly before dashing off towards his desk. “I’ll start drawing an outline of what to carve, and tomorrow I’ll find that wood!”

“Glad I could help.” Moominamma rose to her feet, brushing out her apron and smiling warmly at her son before taking her leave.

~~~

The day finally arrived, March 15th. The others came over in the morning to put up at least a few decorations for Snufkin, such as paper fish and music notes, and Moominmamma was busy preparing a delightful, frosted spice cake in the shape and color of Snufkin’s tent.

Moomin decided he wanted to give Snufkin his gift before the party officially started, so that afternoon he invited Snufkin to accompany him on a hike and picnic by the base of the Lonely Mountains.

“You all really didn’t need to make such a fuss,” Snufkin was saying as they walked. “Really, I don’t need decorations. The cake would’ve been more than enough!”

“Oh, everyone’s just excited to finally celebrate your birthday, Snufkin!” Moomin reminded him. “It’s been a secret for such a long time. Next year we’ll just have a cake, I promise.”

“I suppose I can live with that.” Snufkin resigned, squeezing Moomin’s hand gently. “I’m glad you stopped worrying about getting me anything. I missed your smile at the start of the week.”

“Oh, yes.” Moomin tried not to smile too wide, thinking of the gift he had concealed in the basket on his back. “I’m glad, too.”

They found a nice, little clearing amidst some flowers, and made quirk work of putting down their blanket and retrieving their jam sandwiches. Conversation was easy, as it always was, trading stories (or making up new ones) and sharing ideas. When they finished eating, Moomin decided to reveal his surprise.

“I do have one birthday gift for you, actually.”

“Oh, Moomin.” Snufkin sighed softly, giving a weary smile. “I’ve told you time and time again -- I don’t need anything!”

“I know, I know! But I think you’ll like this one.” Moomin chewed at his lip, trying not to smile too wide as he pulled out his gift. It was wrapped in old newspaper, and it was small enough to easily fit in the palm of Moomin’s hand. He presented it to Snufkin, who stared at the package in slight surprise. “Please, open it?”

Snufkin pursed his lips, picking up the small object and again feeling surprised at how light it was. “What is it?”

“You have to open it to find out, silly.”

Snufkin gave a laugh at that, bumping his shoulder against Moomin’s before unwrapping it. He soon felt the smoothness of treated wood at his fingertips, and when he was finally able to get a good look at it, his breath hitched.

It was a little, rounded heart that was just the right width to grip nicely between his thumb and the length of his forefinger. And all around the outline, Moomin had carved a simple pattern that alternated between a comet, a little fish, and a sunflower. On one side, in the middle, lay their initials surrounded by a thinly carved outline of a heart: “S + M”

“I thought of putting more symbols,” Moomin said after a few moments of Snufkin staring blankly at the heart. “Like falling leaves, and birds, and your harmonica, and, and -- everything that reminded me of you. But, I thought those three would do the trick. And I left one side blank so you could carve into it yourself, if you like. Or, every year for your birthday, I could carve something new into it? If, if you want -- I understand if you don’t really want to keep it for that long--”

“Moomintroll,” Snufkin breathed, holding the wooden heart tightly to his chest as he stared into those loving, baby blue eyes. “It’s beautiful. I’d be honored to carry this with me.”

“Really?” Moomin’s ears perked up again, his own hands clasped tightly together in front of his chest. “You’re not just saying that? I know you don’t like to hold onto many things, so it’s all right if --” He stopped talking when he felt a firm kiss against his snout.

“I love it,” Snufkin whispered, moving closer so he could nuzzle his cheek against Moomin’s. “Almost as much as I love you.”

Moomin felt as if his heart would burst out of his chest at any moment. He wrapped his arms around Snufkin’s waist, bringing him close and relaxing as Snufkin returned the embrace.

“It’s a lovely idea, too,” Snufkin added, squeezing him once. “Carving something new into it every year. I would like that.”

Moomin beamed, his tail wagging loosely as he closed his eyes, enjoying how warm and soft Snufkin felt against him. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Thank you, Moomintroll.” Snufkin pulled away lightly, only to lean in and give Moomin a brief kiss on the lips. He chuckled lightly when Moomin’s eyes started to spin a little. “Now I need to find you something this special for your birthday.”

Moomin shook his head a little to clear it, a small grin coming to his face as he teased, “I only need memories.”

Snufkin snorted and pushed him lightly, laughing loud enough to spook some nearby birds. “All right, I’ll admit I deserved that.”

#snufmin #springdove #moomins #moominvalley #Moomintroll #snufkin #annzy writes #I can't believe I did two snufmin prompts in one day #they're just so cute they write themselves #submission

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ellanainthetardis · 4 years

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Alright, this will be my review for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes so obviously spoilers under the cut.

Also obviously, this is my opinion, I force no one to share it and I’m happy to discuss the book with anyone who wants to.

First off, I won’t go into all the deep themes in the books. It seems obvious to me there’s a very clever allegory for a contrat social at work here but since I am not very much interested in that, I will leave it aside. It’s well done, I think, but I am more a character driven sort of reader than theme driven and the debate over “are we the product of our environment or is man a beast at heart” is a bit null here. Surely enough, as one of the quotes at the beginning implies, the whole book more or less struggles to show Dr Gaul somehow turns Coryo into a monster to her Frankenstein… Sure, he seems to hesitate between right and wrong, the nature of the two etc etc. But, really, I have troubles relating to a character questioning the nature of man when that character is so plainly a psychopath himself.

I’m sorry. I said it.

Did I love Snow in this book? Sure. Even when he was being bad, I loved him. What’s not to love? He’s completely over-dramatic. All the time. He’s a complex character with Draco Malfoy vibes and who tries to do well by his family. But he is also sick in the head and that predates Dr Gaul’s little mind games. Can we argue it’s because of his traumatic childhood? Maybe. It doesn’t change the fact he equals love with possession, does not seem to experience remorse nor guilt – or at least not very long and he’s very quick to rationalize it – and has a natural ability to mimic or force himself to act as is expected in any given situation. He doesn’t react to things, you will notice, he behaves the way he thinks people expects him to.

So, he is sick. And since he is sick, the whole debate through his head about the nature of violence, men being beasts without laws, freedom versus enforcement, right and wrong, etc seems void.

Let’s leave that aside for now.

The question you will probably ask me is: did you like the book? And the answer I will give is yes I did. I did enjoy the book. At least the first two third of it.

It’s fast paced, it’s engaging, it’s easy to read…

What I like most is the worldbuilding. What a difference a 3rd pov makes… I mean we finally got all the world building we deserved. And the names. Actually, there were so many names in there I’m pretty sure she threw them as a joke. But, yeah. Everything I reproach Thg was fixed here: we have a more consistent idea of how the Games work out of the arena, we know the currency used is dollars (which we didn’t up until now), we have a better idea of how the Capitol works as a society, about the working of Peacekeepers and Districts… I quite enjoyed learning more about the 1st war and the post war world too.

I also enjoyed the Capitol families Cameos – and I was very wary about them if you read some of my posts pre-released. They were nice nods, it wasn’t too on the nose… I am relieved beyond measure not to have seen a mention of an Abernathy or a Trinket – or an Everdeen or a Mellark, I guess – mostly because that means we are still free to stick to our own hcs. (it’s not that important but still).

The cast of characters were all great – with two notable exceptions but I will come back to that.

I loved Snow’s family. What a surprise to find out Tigris is a Snow? But what joy she is. I really enjoyed her character but I have to say I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t get to see (or at least were told in the epilogue) how they grow apart or how she comes to have whiskers. The Grandma’am was an awesome addition too. Lucy Gray, the Coveys, the Peacekeepers, Sejanus, the other mentors… They were great.

I will argue that maybe Lucy Gray, as a main character (second main character? She’s the yin to his yang in this book) could have been more fleshed out because when it comes down to it, she seems to float around in the story only in relation to Snow. This being said and the pov being mostly Snow’s, it’s coherent with his egocentric view of the world. And I’m sure a lot of people will argue the case that her only purpose being to die so he can get over love is a bit problematic better than I could.

The two characters that I think were disappointing were the “villains” of the tale: Dr Gaul and Highbottom. They were actually so disappointing that I spent a good portion of the book convinced that here was some kind of secret plot, that there would be a conspiracy or something. But no, they were just that… flat.

Highbottom first: the creator of the Hunger Games who, obviously, didn’t mean to and ends up doctoring himself with morphling to forget. And seems to hate Coryo (yes that’s Snow’s nickname) for no obvious reason. I was sure there must be some twist but no, it just turned out he hates Snow because his father stole his Hunger Games idea to pitch it to Gaul for a grade and now he’s responsible for the death of kids. Which, I mean, is valid. But since it’s only here to bring into contrast the “is Snow really bad or have the circumstances make him bad” when, really, he’s a psycho, it ends up being very disappointing on discovery – never mind as the final reveal of the epilogue.

As for Gaul. Is she terrifying? I mean, for a young adult book, sure, I guess. She’s too obviously mean and crazy scientist for me though. I like my villains a little more subtle. She spent her times torturing her pet rabbit and various animals ffs. All she needed was a mustache to twirl. She’s cliché and, again, I’m sure it was like that for rhetoric purposes but… She’s Frankenstein and Snow is her creature, we get it. Why though? She takes a shine to him and proceeds to groom him so he can deliver the world she wants? So he’s her legacy? Because she’s a psycho too and she needs an apprentice? I thought that part was a little fishy because, at the end of the day… I don’t know, it seems a bit random.

But, I suppose, yet again, everything has to revolve around Snow in the book and in Panem.

And we’re touching to the part that annoyed me to death, that really really angered me and that, right now as we speak, I am a little disgusted by.

A short word first about the fan service. And there was plenty of that to go around. All the little wink wink, nudge nudge made me smile at first (like the grandma saying it only takes a spark for fire to catch, that sort of things), it was subtle so it worked. But as the book goes on, all the references built to the point I was sort of terrified Katniss would end up being related to Snow. And while she is not, I am fairly convinced she’s descended from the Coveys, it makes a lot of sense.

Ok… Where to start with that part and be coherent…

The less offensive (yes, I am using that word because it was offending to me) thing was Snow’s recurring reflection about the mockingjays. On hindsight, of course, it has so much more meaning than what is going on on paper, so it made sense and while it was a bit sold too thick, it was also interesting. That’s something I’m willing to grant was good.

I also liked the “it’s not over until the Mockingjay sings” saying. To be honest, I was 100% confident the epilogue would be a flashforward to the end of MJ and that quote would somehow come back into play but apparently not, that’s for us to fanfic instead.

Now, as for the rest… I am going to speak as someone who loves Haymitch Abernathy an unhealthy amount, and while I speak as someone who loves Haymitch, I also feel it is only minorly about Haymitch and a lot about Katniss, Peeta and the rest of the victors. But Haymitch is my favorite character in the series, Haymitch is a big part of why I have dedicated so much time writing fanfics and contributing to the fandom, I am very protective of Haymitch. And, on his behalf, I am so deeply, deeply offended.

In this book, Suzanne Collins makes Snow a victor.

We can argue the semantics. Naturally, he didn’t actually win the Hunger Games.

Or does he?

Because there are no winners, only survivors and by that very definition Coriolanus Snow is a victor.

Coriolanus Snow walked into an arena, was forced into the arena.

Coriolanus Snow fought in the arena.

Coriolanus Snow killed someone in the arena.

Coriolanus Snow walked back out of the arena.

He survived.

It makes him a de facto victor. He is actually literally called that a couple of times throughout the book. It’s reinforced by the idea that mentor and tribute are a team, even.

And this very idea that Snow is a victor, has been a victor all along, is so deeply, deeply upsetting to me. The bond between victors, it’s something very special, I feel. Victors share something nobody else can understand – my very favorite part of the whole series is in Catching Fire when they hold hands, it is such a strong emotional moment, it always moves me, always. And Snow being a part of that defiles it. Worse, that means a victor was actually the one imposing such horrors on other victors all along.

And that’s… I mean, probably in terms of themes and the story as an independent object, it’s all very ironic and dark and full of great meaning about man and it’s condition. But for someone who loves Haymitch, it is very deeply offending to learn the man who has taken everything from him went through the same experience he did, that they share that bond, that they have so many similarities.

Too many similarities actually. And here we are going to branch out on TBOSAS in relation to Katniss more specifically.

That’s another thing I am not sure I liked: how similar Snow’s conditions were to our beloved characters. The starvation, the very similar experience they had growing up.

At first, I didn’t mind it. I thought, even, that it was quite fitting. But the problem came when so much of Katniss’ story was being… stolen, turned around. It started feeling like this book was subverting the powerful story in THG, not just the main plot, but everlark, and the character building. So, of course, here again, it’s probably a matter of questioning if, stemming from the same conditions, you become a hero or a villain. Nature or nurture. That sort of things. And, again, it depends if you look at the big picture and analyze it calmly or if you react with your guts as a fan, I guess. Yeah, no surprise, I’m going the fan route.

So there were a lot of parallels to Katniss.

The starvation. The strong sense of family. Lucy and the singing…

And it wasn’t limited to Katniss, it touched to everlark too.

The star-crossed lovers thing comes to mind obviously (and I want to talk about the ship too but after). Then, there was the bread thing that was both Snow’s and Lucy’s favorite and the fact that Snow brings her food all the time. The poison in the arena we can land at snow’s door since it’s his weapon of choice, but still poison in the arena, my mind goes straight to the berries… (I will tackle the hanging tree song after)

At this point (before she goes in the arena), I was still mostly okay with it because I thought it would somehow have a reason later. Like either Katniss would turn out to be related to Lucy or it would remain light enough to turn out to be foreshadowing for THG.

Then came part 3. And that’s where the book mostly lost me.

There are eleven other Districts in Panem. So why Twelve? And if it had to be Twelve why pollute everything Katniss loves? How are we supposed to see those things the same way again when we know what we now know?

The meadow? The meadow where the toastbabies are dancing and running? Where so many people are laid to rest? Snow has been there, kissed his girl there. And let me tell you, as a Haymitch fan, knowing that Haymitch never gets to reunite with his girl in the meadow because of Snow, it’s a special kind of pain to read Coryo frolicking there in the grass “with his girl”.

And then, of course, I don’t know what is worse… The lake or the song?

Let’s start with the lake. Where do I begin? The lake that is so special to Katniss? The little shack where she stocks everything? The lake that features into so many fanfictions and that, if some people feel the same way I do, can never be used again the same way? So, that lake was where Snow murdered (possibly) his “love”. The lake, thus, becomes a part of Snow’s narrative.

It’s stolen away from Katniss.

And to better stress that point? The scene with the Mockingjays taking up the hanging tree when Lucy is about to get murdered. (let’s make a digression to say oh boy how fun it must have been for Snow during mj, I’m very tempted to fanfic THAT). It’s all very full of symbolism, of course, but with the hindsight? It’s another great important moment stolen away from Katniss. Highjacked. Not unlike a mutt, actually. This book is a mutt XD

Which brings me to what really, really made me angry: the hanging tree song.

That song is so symbolic of MJ and everlark. I mean, there’s one thing I will give MJ the movie and that’s this scene with the song. The people attacking the dam and getting butchered while humming that song? Iconic. But more prosaically, book based, that song is such such a powerful moment. It’s special. And not only because of all the thing with everlark and the tree and midnight.

And suuuuure there might be a lot of symbolism in that song being not strictly about but still intimately related to Snow. Sure. But you know? It’s also another thing that now is about Snow. So even as Katniss was singing that song, getting the Districts to rebel, showing Peeta that District 12 was gone, letting the Mockingjays by the lake take up the chorus… It isn’t just about hope or freedom anymore. Now, it’s about Snow and about how terribly ironic it is this particular song comes to be his demise, how it’s fate or karma or whatever you want to call it. Because now, we can’t unread this book, we can’t unknown what we know.

And I hate that.

Because Katniss’ journey in THG? It’s now so deeply linked to Snow’s story that if you take a step back and think, it’s more all about Snow than it is about her, or her sister or the Districts. Snow lands on top, right?

And you know what really irks me?

The book is actually good as a character study book (not really so much as dystopia because in terms of actual plot, I feel there was really little) but it didn’t have to taint so many elements of THG the way it does.

Let’s say for a moment Snow isn’t Snow. Let’s say he is a wealthy Capitol fallen from grace and that character who is not going to be the President of Panem has the same journey Coryo does. Let’s say at the end of the story, he moves on to become a famous Head Gamemaker or a close advisor to the President?

Well, the themes explored then remained the same, the conclusions remained the same. We lose the visceral signification of his connection to the mockingjays but is that really important? The Hanging Tree now has a resonance for another character in that world, the meadow has probably seen countless lovers reunions and someone killed someone else at the lake, those things happen. The problem is they happen to Coriolanus Snow.

And baring that, let’s say we keep Snow as a main, why did it have to be Twelve? Again, there are eleven other Districts in Panem. He could have come to the very same conclusions in any other place.

Twelve is only relevant in relation to what happens in THG, to Katniss, to Peeta, to Haymitch.

Lucy and the Covey could have ended up stuck in any other Districts. It didn’t have to be Twelve. It didn’t have to spoil the Meadow, or the lake or even the Hanging Tree song.

Is that why Snow hates Twelve so much? Is that why he kills Haymitch’s family even if it’s completely stupid and leaves him without a leash around a Quell’s victor’s neck? Is that why he bombs the Districts into complete oblivion ? Not to punish its victors but because he so intimately hates the place? Because he walked in their very shoes? Because, for a brief time, from his Frankenstein’s experiment, he played in the mud?

For that matter, is that why he has this weird relationship with Katniss? Because she reminds him of Lucy? The similarities are there if you look… Is Katniss a sort of ghost to him? Come back to haunt him after all those decades? Is that why it feels so personal between them?

I will say a quick word about the ship: I was into it at first. Then there was this scene at the zoo after the snake attack on Clemmie and I felt everything started going downhill from there. The ship is rushed. They go from attraction to love in ten seconds FLAT. I know it’s YA and concessions have to be made (although I will argue I read plenty of YA and some ships don’t seem this juvenile), I made them on account of the fact they’re both young and prone to being drama queens.

(I’m making a brief parenthesis because, rereading this, I realized I did say when the book announcement came out and we all very obviously predicted the romance, that as a hayffie fan I hated the thought Snow would have a Capitol/District romance, but on that account, I have to say after reading I don’t even care because it felt so immature and so not actual love, that I don’t feel it really counts? But at the same time, it’s definitely something I have to think upon in terms of hayffie and Snow because would his own experience play in the way he sees them/manipulates/threatens them?)

All in all, though, that ship didn’t convince me. I couldn’t believe it was real. On either part. On Snow’s part because I’m not certain he’s capable of love. He equals love with possession, “his” girl, she “belongs” to him, he liked her better locked in the zoo because he knew where to find her, he constantly questions Lucy’s loyalties… Every time she sings something, he’s like “is it about me? Is it about me? It’s not about me? Who is it about? I hate her. She’s dead to me. Oh but now she’s singing she’s over him. So I love her again”. Being in his head is a journey, let me tell you.

As for Lucy, it’s frustrating. But with Collins, I learned long ago to be frustrated (hey, hayffie fan here XD. You know the two characters you need to build your own hc about if you want to use them with some depths). You can feel there’s this whole backstory about her but we never get to really touch that and so we’re treated to this very strange scene with the ex-lover but we don’t really care because there is no passion, nowhere… In fact, as a character, outside of her singing, her being a show girl, and her little discourse about how man should be free, live and let live yada yada yada, Lucy’s character is very flat in the third part of the book. She’s here only to allow Coryo’s character development.

I would argue that Sejanus actually makes more of an impact on Snow and the general plot than she does in part 3 – or, if you think about it, in the book in general. Lucy is the trigger that gets Coryo’s reflection starting about the hunger games but it’s really Sejanus that challenges it and keeps it going. Sejanus is, in fact, the District character since Snow keeps telling himself the Covey aren’t really Twelve.

I also want to say, on a completely unrelated note, that the constant mansplaying of songs by Snow was unbearable. And that’s not his fault. So, Mrs Collins, I know how to interpret a text thank you. And I’m sure everyone else does to. It broke the pace and the emotion so much for me when he started randomly explaining. The Lucy Gray ballad was the worst. “she’s dead.” NO KIDDING SHERLOCK.

And while we’re in that Lucy Gray thing: very subtle foreshadowing here, btw. Didn’t see it coming at all.

Ah and also something that made me cringe and that I felt was very out of place: the livestock cars and the cages at the zoo. Not to go all social justice warrior but when I read, it immediately hit home and not in the right way. It felt like a prop to stress how inhumane and racist the Capitol was being, they were easy references to loaded terrible horrifying history events and I truly, truly thought it was borderline because, like I said, it was used as a prop.

To conclude.

Is this book great? Yes and No.

I think if you take it independently of THG, it’s a very good book. It’s interesting, the characters are compelling, there is a moral for you to reflect on… It’s not the best dystopian book I’ve read in recent years, it’s not the best young adult book I’ve read in this lockdown (Hi, do yourself a facor, check out the Shadow of the Fox trilogy and then come shout at me in my ask box) but it was still a good read. And I forgot to say but the first half of the novel is actual crack. It was hillarious. Might not have been the intent but come on. It was funny. (and I’m satly they sent him in the arena but they sent him with a can of pepper spray and that will make me laugh forever) I had a good time and, at the end of the day, that’s what you ask of novels.

However, in the general context of the series, loving thg as much as I do, it tainted some of the iconic things, twisted them, insulted some of my most favorites characters, and that really dampened my joy and made me angry. So as a fan… I’m not sure I can say it was great, no.

It certainly didn’t let me indifferent though and that’s already something.

And, I mean, it is so much better than the cursed child I feel I cannot complain too much.

It also does leave the door rather open to a sequel, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another announcement soon.

#tbosas spoilers #tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the ballad of songbirds and snakes spoilers #balladspoilers #spoilers #i read stuff #namely abosas #abosas spoilers #book review #I did my best to correct spelling errors and such #but i've spent the whole day reading and my eyes are killing me

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justlookatthosesausages · 4 years

Text

“In the eye of the storm” ◊◊◊◊ a post-Frozen 2 fanfic ◊◊◊◊ CHAPTER 5: Precipitation

Several days later, they didn't get any news from Anna, and it drove Elsa nervous to no end.

When Eydis was walking by her in the castle, she smiled and waved at her, but the Snow Queen was lost in her daydreams.

One afternoon, Kristoff found Elsa in a bedroom, looking at the rain through the window. He was right when he knew where to head to; the blonde always had a tendency towards quiet rooms with windows for introspection.

"Are you upset?"

Elsa saw him enter in his reflection on the glass, so she didn't startle at his presence.

"Why do you ask?" She muttered.

"You're snowing. I mean... It's snowing. Around your head."

Elsa gasped and waved her hand at the thankfully light snow that had fallen on the carpet. It melted right away, and Kristoff stared at her.

"You're overthinking or upset about something."

The blonde looked down and didn't answer anything else than a sigh, not feeling in the mood to share. He tried humor to light up the moment.

"Funny how it's easy to tell the difference between those snowflakes and the ones you make for Bruni. If he were there, I'm sure he would find their taste different."

Elsa chuckled at last. The little guy obviously would. Those snowflakes were created with an opposite mood; instead of given to him as a treat gift, they were falling unintentionally and due to sadness.

"Do you wanna talk?" Suggested the King, coming near her.

"...Maybe." Finally said Elsa.

"About the Spirits being in conflict or Anna going abroad?"

He could hear Elsa gulp.

"Both?"

The blond put a loving hand on her shoulder. She was still cold, but he didn't care.

"I can't tell you much advice about the Spirits. All I can tell, from my raised-by-trolls point of view, is that magic can be very confusing. And sometimes, you might think something is the way it is, and it actually isn't at all. Mom- Hum, Bulda... She reads emotions in color crystals and can sometimes tell future by the way northern lights move, but she once told me that it's sometimes unreliable."

He smiled, happy to support her, then he realized at how his revelation wasn't really reassuring, and he winced when he saw the side look Elsa gave him.

"Uh... I mean..."

He sighed, dropping his head. "Never mind. I'm not that good at helping magic people."

She had a smile at the corner of her lips. "Quite the opposite, Kristoff. I know you care, and it already lifted my mood a bit."

The blond smiled too. Elsa looked through the window again.

"I know that, even if I still can't tell what is going on with Gale and Nokk, I can still count on your encouragement."

"Anytime."

He then realized that she had included Anna in that 'you'. The King scratched his beard before daring to approach the other topic.

"Truth will come in time, I'm certain of it. Anna will do her part, and you will, and everything will fall into place."

Elsa's hand dramatically passed on the glass of the window. "I miss her already. I know you're here, it's not what I mean... And there's Eydis too... But..."

"Nothing's quite like Anna", understood Kristoff.

"Yes." Sighed Elsa, like it was a weight on her heart, even though everyone in her family knew that she had a special complicity with her younger sister. "And I can't help worrying for her, even if I know she's the strongest person in the world..."

"She'll be fine. You know she'll be fine, right? You're the person who has the most faith in her after me."

Elsa's eyes stopped watching the hills in the distance and she smiled to him again.

"Yes, I know. She could hold the entire world with her dedication." She stated, looking proud.

Her expression vanished a bit.

"She's a thousand times more qualified than me to be Queen."

Kristoff wanted to say she was wrong to reassure her, but it actually was an undeniable fact. Arendelle historians had repetitively told him that Anna already had more efficient decisions and better leadership than any of her predecessors on the throne.

A silence passed, and he noted that Elsa was staring at the hills of the East, the direction in which Anna had been heading. He turned to his sister-in-law with a soft expression.

"You know that despite the lack of news, she's going to come back home, right?"

"Yes, Kristoff, I know." Repeated Elsa once again, a bit upset at how he insisted on facts to take her out of her anxiety.

He noticed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude..."

"I'm aware that I'm overreacting and stressed at nothing. But I can't help it."

She sighed.

"Despite our years of separation in the castle when we were young, I always knew where she was. She was safe in the castle, and her safety was literally the only thing that mattered to me. And for the past 11 years, Gale could tell me if something was wrong anytime and almost instantly. They could even get to me in Ahtohallan or the furthest point in the Forest. Without Gale, I couldn't have known about that time you guys fell into a ravine, remember?"

Kristoff winced at the 2 years old memory. That family picnic had turned sour. "We still owe you one for that moment. Without your ice, the wagon explosion would have wiped us all. And I can't blame Olaf, he wasn't even there."

His humor didn't distract the Snow Queen. Her azure blue eyes were lost in the horizon.

"This is the first time in years that I don't know if Anna is safe or not. And it's nerve-wracking."

"Then forget her."

Elsa turned to him exaggeratedly. "Excuse me?"

The King was about to apologize and change his formulation, though he closed his mouth and stared at her.

"You seem taken aback by her absence. You kind of doubted that a national meeting would take place after she saw the stage of the storm, no?"

"Yes, but I thought that it would happen here, in Arendelle..." Murmured the blonde.

"Oooooh, that's why you're upset. You wanted her to stay here."

Elsa then sighed and buried her head in her hands, groaning.

"I'm such a selfish jerk..."

"No, you're not. Though, I have to admit, that supposition you made in your head was a bit mean for neighbor kingdoms' leaders who you had no guilt to imagine going through the storm until here..." Winced Kristoff. "But I swear you're not selfish, Elsa. You're sincerely one of the most altruistic persons I ever met. And I married someone who keep sacrificing her life for what's good."

A silence followed, and Elsa cried at the thought of Anna's dedication.

"I don't deserve to be her sister..."

She started to sob, and Kristoff hurried to put his hand on her back, slightly rubbing it.

"Hey, hey, don't you dare. She's nothing without you."

He then scoffed at how that sounded. "I mean... Well, you know."

The Snow Queen didn't move. The blond bent his head to find Elsa's gaze and make her look at him, a technique Anna had told him about for when she would have a breakdown. "Elsa."

"What?" She muttered with a sniff.

"You two complete each other no matter the distance. As strong sisters with an unbreakable bond, but also as the Bridge."

Elsa took a moment to let that sink in. "I know."

The King smiled, and he looked through the window along her.

Someone softly knocked at the door.

"Your Majesty... Lady Elsa..." Said Gerda's gentle voice, and they turned around. "I didn't mean to interrupt. Don't mind me, I'm just going to pick up Elsa's empty plate..." She then paused. "But I see that you actually haven't touched it."

Kristoff looked at the meal left on a coffee table by the door.

"Yes... I'm not very hungry." Murmured Elsa.

She had turned back to the window swiftly, and both Kristoff and the maid couldn't tell if it was because she had suddenly seen something in the horizon, or to hide her tears.

Elsa felt guilty for the silence that followed. She turned around again.

"Sorry for refusing those waffles, Gerda. They smell really nice, and it must have taken you a long time to bake them."

"Oh, it's not lost. Far from it. I know a little princess who'll get very hungry after her afternoon lesson."

Elsa smiled at her kindness. "She definitely inherited from her mother's gluttony."

Kristoff giggled in approval.

"I wonder if the languages teacher will quit after teaching both Anna and Eydis." Wondered Gerda. "When I passed by the living room's door an hour ago after making the beds, I heard her ask him to translate 'anvil' in every language he knew."

The Snow Queen burst of laughter, which wasn't very regal, but the servant and the King didn't mind at all; first because Elsa technically didn't have to mind about royal mannerisms anymore, and second because they had missed Elsa's laughter within those walls.

"Her passion for handiwork is not a thing she inherited from Anna, though." Laughed the blonde.

They all chuckled, and Kristoff was delighted to see happiness back on her features.

"Alright then. I'm going to give the waffles to Eydis." Confirmed the maid, and she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Elsa looked at the door with the ghost of her smile still on her lips, and as the rain was getting stronger and stronger outside, Kristoff invited her to go near the fireplace with a gentle hand gesture.

They stood here for a moment, looking at the orange flames, and Elsa missed Bruni's pink ones. She wondered if the tiny Fire Spirit could help her decipher the others' behavior. But she chased that idea of her mind; the Northuldra needed him now, there was no way she would summon him in Arendelle. The Sami tribe needed his magic heat in that storm, and Bruni also was an excellent watchman. Or watchlizard.

Elsa's thoughts drifted to Honeymaren. She hoped that she was alright and took care of her people like she always did.

Kristoff looked at the clock of the room to check time. He then noticed that the blonde's eyes were glistening. However, was it because of emotion or due to staring directly at the fire? He laid against the fireplace's mantel to be aligned with her.

"Are you feeling better?"

"I do, yes. Thank you for your help."

The King frowned and squinted. He knew Elsa enough years to tell when she had something on her mind. Her voice was different.

"Elsa, are you sure that it's all good now?"

"Yes."

She purposely wasn't looking up at him, still staring at the fire, the brightness of it reflecting in her eyes.

"I have to go find Kai, so we do an overview of the afternoon. Just don't do anything unwise and stay safe, okay?"

"Okay, I will."

He hugged her, then exited the room.

Elsa's gaze got lost in the flames, her jaw clenched. She had lied to her brother-in-law. She was going to go find Anna.

=======

The blonde patiently waited for the night to fall and Kristoff to go read a bedtime story to his daughter. Then she sneaked out of the castle, crafting herself a hood made of snow and ice to hide her face as she reached to the stables under the pouring rain.

When the servants there recognized her approach because only one person in the world could be wearing such a magically bright white outfit at this time of the day, she noted that her idea wasn't that clever.

Elsa excused herself as she made her way in, and assured them all to not be alerted as she requested for the fastest horse in the stables.

"Do you really want to go in such a rainfall at that time of day?" Asked one servant.

"Your Highness, are you certain?" Worried a stable boy.

"You shouldn't do such a thing." Advised another one.

She forced herself to smile. "Just indicate me the best horse there is, please."

The servants looked at each other, to dedicated and polite to contradict their ex-monarch.

"Alright. This way." Said a hostler.

She followed him to one of the boxes of the back. He showed Elsa a tall horse, who wasn't bigger than the horses on each side of it, but it looked muscular and definitely had an athletic body shape.

"Here's the fastest we have, Your Highness."

Elsa forgot for a moment the urgency of her plan and dove in the sight of the beautiful stallion. It was entirely brown and had an undeniable royal aura, like it had been waiting for this task all its life.

The Snow Queen had a serious face until now, but started to melt in a smile.

"Hello you."

She walked forward, and lifted a careful hand. The horse blinked as it inspected it, sniffed it, and willingly nuzzled in her palm.

Maybe Honeymaren was right. Maybe she had a natural predisposition for animals. It was true that the blonde now felt like she was connected to Nature, and she was persuaded it was an illusion due to the fact she was embracing her magical powers and Fifth Spirit duty. However, she understood in that moment that there was a true link between that horse and her. Was it destiny? Or shared kindness, which was often a starting point on why Elsa spoke to wild animals in the Enchanted Forest?

She kept smiling and gently passed a hand on its head.

"I've never seen you here... It's a new horse?"

The servant saluted her sense of observation. "Indeed. He just arrived yesterday. He's a foal who recently finished his training and education to be in the royal guard. I was there all along his progress. Trust my words, lady Elsa; this is the fastest horse in all Arendelle."

Elsa carefully listened to all he had said, fascinated, but what mattered most than that to her was if the horse agreed to let her ride him.

"What's his name?" She asked, and she hadn't detached her eyes from him since the beginning.

"Rask."

Elsa smiled widely at the name. "...Rask."

She locked her gaze into his. "Looks like you were destined to this day, uh? This is too many coincidences."

The horse lifted and lowered his head like he was actually nodding, and she chuckled. Slowly, very slowly, and only after making sure he was agreeing, she approached her forehead to his muzzle, and softly touched there with closed eyes.

All the servants stared at the scene in awe.

"You're ready?" Murmured Elsa, stepping back.

Rask neighed, so suddenly and powerfully that she actually winced with a smile, and all startled, because the stables had been silent until now with just their calm voices and the sound of the rain outdoors.

Before riding him, Elsa made sure that everything was alright with his health and cleanliness, then she only accepted the bare necessities when the hostler helped her getting him ready. She refused the saddle, telling the servant that she was used to ride Nokk bareback anyway – and being made of ice most of the time, she had been in the most extreme case – and declined the stirrups as well. It was a good thing to make the horse as free as possible for their very first ride.

"I'll only take the bridle." Concluded Elsa.

They all felt surprised by her choice, but nothing really surprised them about the Snow Queen anymore, so they obeyed and helped her to put the harness on. When the bit was put in his mouth, Elsa felt a pinch to her heart, but she had no choice.

After a while and carefully listening to all their instructions, the blonde walked with him outside and climbed up. She took a moment to get used to his side, for he didn't have quite the same proportions than the form the Water Spirit had chosen to take. At the sight of the rain, she stroked his mane.

"I'm sorry for the weather, dear. But I need you more than anything right now. Let's go check on my sister."

The horse twitched a bit, and it felt like a nod again. She wondered if he could actually understand her.

Elsa deeply thanked the servants and asked them to tell Kristoff and her niece that they shouldn't worry.

She then tapped her ankles against the stallion's sides, and they dashed forward on Arendelle's cobblestones in the dark of the night. As wind whistled to Elsa's ears and rain gushed on her hood, she felt a deep sensation of freedom. Only then she noted how much she had missed this; riding along the hills, taking in the fresh air and the power of her ride with the sound of hooves under her.

She grinned in happiness, her heart also filling with joy as she knew she would be much happier once she would be sure that Anna was alright.

In a few minutes, they were out of the village, and were crossing at full speed the countryside lands of the East toward Hitiheimr.

=======

If she were able to connect with Rask's soul as she did with Nokk, she would congratulate him on how fast he was. The young horse was clever enough to see obstacles in advance, jumping over tree trunks and other accidents that had happened due to the storm. Hopefully, the path was mainly clear, and as her sister had underlined it a few days ago, the road to the Eastern kingdom was easy, for how many times it had been traced by merchants. Despite the heavy rain and mud, her stallion pierced the night like an ice arrow that Elsa would shoot from her bow as she hunted. It was perfect.

Soon, Elsa felt glad to have accepted the bride, for she realized that she had the reflex to ask the horse mentally to turn right or left, before remembering she actually was supposed to tug the reins for directions.

Nokk missed her terribly. At least, with them, she didn't use force during rides. They had become more than just fellow Spirits; the Water one had a unique connection with her, being a one of a kind friend and ally, and she tried to forget them as she was on this 'normal' horse. Nevertheless, Elsa couldn't deny it: the riding sensation was completely different. It was odd to not feel Rask's needs, sensations, and mood. Elsa loved to know how happy Nokk was when they were racing against Gale down the valleys, how sassy he was when he saw a young Northuldra fall off a branch, or how caring he was when he bumped his back to help her stand after a long tiring day.

As she thought again about Nokk's and Gale's friendship, Elsa frowned. Sincerely, how and why did the two Spirits get so angry at each other? As far as she could remember, she had never seen them going further than teasing.

She shook her head as she remained focused on the trail. Unlike when riding the Water Spirit, she couldn't let them do the job entirely and rest on their back from time to time.

A few hours later, something shiny attracted her eye in front of her, and Elsa gasped when she spotted something in the mud of the lane.

She briskly tugged on the horse's reins to make him stop, and he neighed in surprise and pain. She couldn't apologize for the reason of her eagerness, but felt terrible for hurting him.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to pull that hard. I'm very nervous." She whispered to his ears, gently stroking his neck.

Rask forgave her, yet snorted to show his disagreement.

Elsa put him to a complete halt, going down and patting him as she slowly walked to the shining object. What was something like this doing in the wild?

Her eyes squinted through the curtain of rain as she approached, feeling instinctively attracted to the object. Dark clouds were hiding most of the moon, and there was no thunder, so Elsa only had little light. She only then realized that she had been riding in complete dark, too focused on heading straight forward to need a lantern.

The Snow Queen stood above the tiny glossy thing, which seemed less and less natural as Elsa inspected it, and she twirled her wrist to create a glow of blue magic. A snowflake the size of her fist popped from her palm and brightened the whole path, giving her a better vision of it and reflecting in Rask's curious eyes.

She crouched and touched the solid object with her fingers. The blonde felt that it was made of metal, and took it off the soil with ease, thanks to the rain softening it. Elsa's ice sandals were covered with it and her white pants and trains weren't much white anymore, but she didn't care. Her focus was entirely driven to the item, which was larger than she expected as she lifted it.

Turning it in her fingers and approaching the light of her magic to it, she rubbed her thumb over the motives and used the rain to take the dirt out of it, making it shine even more. She frowned with confusion, tilting her head. It was something familiar, yet that she felt like she hadn't seen much... It was the size of her hand and had a curved shape, and when she revealed the seven tips all decorated with embedded crocuses, she squealed in a loud gasp.

Her azure blue eyes widened, along the glow of her snowflake, which become more intense at her distress.

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tuttifuckinfruttifriday · 3 years

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Uhm. Hi! I was hoping if I could get a matchup for Slashers?

I'm short, actually working on getting taller and getting my body in shape by exercise (I really wanna do diet as well but I'm just too easy to fall for temptations), I have dark hair (there's little ringlets under my hair, like if you lift my hair you could see ringlets hidden under my slightly wavy hair.) I also wear thick-framed glassess (I'm near-sighted), I prefer thick-frame glasses. I'm fond of Dark Academia aesthetic as well as Space-core. I'm not exactly fond of really cold weathers so I'm usually wearing coats, jackets, or hoodies.

I'm reserved, I'm not good at socializing because I tend to distance myself from people and I always think if I'd be able to stand around those people, or I'm too wary. But if I do manage to make a friend, I can be loyal, supportive, caring, and mischievous. I can be a bit dramatic though. I love to read, write, sing, dance, act.. I also love to watch movies (I may be fond of horror, but I lost prefer chilling fairy tale ones like Pan's Labyrinth.) Speaking of, I tend to have dark humor, I'm also detail-oriented. While I usually read novels and fanfics, I also like to read William Blake's poems (My favorite being Auguries of Innocence.)

My taste in music is all over the place, I could listen to classical music then at the next minute, I'd be listening to rock. I'm not exactly fond of people interrupting me when I'm doing something I enjoy or doing something I want to finish as quickly as possible.

I'm empathetic and open-minded. I'm also secretive, you could tell me secrets and I'll keep it a secret that won't leave my lips because I can forget those secrets.

Sorry if I'm bothering you, take your time and I hope you're doing alright!

I’m happy that you don’t want me to rush, thank you for that 😌Ily for respecting that. +Nobody’s ever bothering me❤️❤️

And ty! I’m kind of doing alright💕 Hope you have a good day

But I’m still sorry for the wait and so sorry if it looks rushed🥺

AND IM SO SORRY BECAUSE I ACCIDENTLY POSTED IT

I match you with:

Brahms Hellshire!

Other possibilities: Vincent Sinclair, Bo Sinclair, Candyman

He doesn’t mind your shortness, actually quite loves it❤️ b o n e r

He wouldn’t mind if you were an alien. So don’t worry about a thing! But he would definitely play with your little ringlets of hair when you’re cuddling👀

And when he wants your attention, this Brat(tm) is going to steal your glasses—

Story time:

He tried doing a diet once, once....

And it didn’t end well.

But if you think about it, he kinds of is already on a diet, with the nannies giving him a kid’s portion of food-

You love Dark Academia aesthetics?? If you hadn’t already guessed, you’re exactly in the right place! He loves them too💕

He wouldn’t know what space-core is until you showed him, and he’d absolutely love it!

He’d put you in his jackets and cardigans to keep you warm .3.

He’s wary and don’t like people too—

Loves your loyal and caring nature!~

Dramatic? Pffft! He’s the 👑 Dramatic Queen 👑

You love to read, sing, write, dance, act... yes 🙌. He loves to do that too! He already read all the books at least 5 times, but he’ll happily recommend you!

He’d watch any movies with you ❤️

You read poems—-

Where have you been all his life???!

He’d like your dark humor ^^ while some people may find it creepy or weird, he find it really funny!

He’ll talk ALL day about classical music with you<3 and he doesn’t mind any kind!

But he’s the kind to interrupt you while you do something

Empathetic : ❤️❤️

Loves that you’re open-minded✨

And ABSOLUTELY loves that you can keep secrets💕 He’s like a little kid you know

#matchup #brahms heelshire #brahmsy

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itsalliepg · 4 years

Text

What Happened in Vegas - Drake x Erika (MC) - Part 8

SUMMARY: Maxwell knows the truth, and as much as he wants to be with his best friend Erika (MC) (and perhaps his baby's mother), they cannot arouse suspicion while they help Savannah and Bertrand organize their marriage.

PAIRING: Drake x Erika (MC)

RATING: Teen

WORDS: 1320

NOTE: English isn’t my native language. I write to practice and learn, so please sorry any mistakes. I hope you like it, and if you do, I’d appreciate if you like/comment/reblog!

Click here to read Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Tagging @cora-nova @texaskitten30

Fanfic Masterlist

AO3 Profile

_So, what do you think of the flowers, Erika? Dahlias or calla lilies? – Savannah and Erika were sitting at the dining table at Beaumont’s house, among notebooks and pictures. The wedding would take place in three weeks and they were defining the last details. Bartie was with a babysitter and the two women decided to get together to sort out what was left.

_I love the calla lilies, Savannah, they are original, dramatic, and your bouquet would be gorgeous. And they’d be lovely table decorations – Erika was happy. She remembered when she was planning her wedding with Drake, and it helped her to think about something other than her pregnancy problems. After talking with Maxwell, she again erased her preoccupations and lived life to the fullest. Drake was getting more and more excited about the baby and that was the only thing he could talk about. He told Erika so many stories about Jackson that she was right he would be an amazing father like him. Drake had lost his dad, so he would give all the love he had to his kid. Erika couldn’t ask for a better partner. It was impossible that the child wasn’t his.

_I totally agree. I was thinking about the calla lilies too. And now about the cake and the sweets, I’ll grab the samples on the kitchen. Oh, take a look at the playlist I made…here – Savannah handed Erika a list with romantic songs – I want to choose them to play during the ceremony, tell me what do you think! – Savannah said as she entered in the kitchen. Erika took the paper and one particular song caught her attention: Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston. That song represented a lot of Savannah, after she decided to be independent and to be a single mom, and also how much she learnt about herself and became stronger:

I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadows

If I failed, if I succeed, at least I lived as I believed

No matter what they take from me they can't take away my dignity

Because the greatest Love of all is happening to me

I found the greatest love of all inside of me

The greatest love of all

Is easy to achieve, learning to love yourself

It is the greatest love of all

Those lyrics also made sense to Erika’s life, how she was always self-governing and learnt to take care of herself very early. That would be a good song to play while Savannah walked down the aisle. Still lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear a voice calling behind her.

_Erika? Are you there? Erika? – she startled and looked to the side. Bertrand and Maxwell were standing next to her – is Savannah giving you a hard time having to choose so many things? – Bertrand joked. Maxwell’s expression was unreadable.

_Oh, it’s really no problem at all – she looked at Maxwell – hey, Maxwell – he sketched a smile.

_Hello, Erika. I was helping Bertrand choose a suit and…I wasn’t expecting you here.

_Maxwell, I’m sure I told you Duchess Erika would help Savannah today. That’s why we left Bartie with Dominique – Bertrand said, a little annoyed.

_Oh, sure, sure, I forgot – “as usual”, Bertrand muttered. Maxwell cleaned his throat – and where’s Savannah?

_She’s in the kitchen picking the samples of cakes and sweets for us to taste – Erika grinned at Maxwell, trying to rip out a smile from him too – you arrived on time.

_In that case, I’ll help her – Bertrand went into the kitchen and Maxwell and Erika remained looking at each other. An uncomfortable silence between them was finally broken by her.

_So, how are you? We haven’t spoken since...

_Yeah, I know – Maxwell sat next to her, and immediately wondered if it was a good idea. He had no idea of what he would do if he was so close to her. What he wanted was to touch her tummy, since that could be his child. But neither could it be. And she was married. To his best friend – and how’s this little guy? Or girl, I don’t know.

_It’s fine – what else should she say? She owes no further explanations. He wasn’t the father. But he was her best friend. And that was completely awkward – they’re moving right know, maybe they’re hungry.

_Oh, that’s nice, actually – Maxwell motioned to approach, but he stopped suddenly – may I…feel them?

_Of course – if that pregnancy were a normal situation, she would have no doubt let him touch her tummy. So of course he could. She took his hand and placed it over her navel. After a few seconds, Maxwell felt the baby move. From the moment he arrived, that was the biggest smile on his face.

_Cool! Maybe they can play soccer with us, like that day at Applewood Manor! I’d love to teach them and… - he stopped suddenly and took his hand away – or, Drake must certainly teach, he’s the father… - his face fell. Erika didn’t know what to do, but she smiled.

_Uncle Max should teach too – he looked up and smiled back.

_Sorry for the delay, I was preparing a coffee for us – Savannah said suddenly, bringing a tray with the mini-cakes. Bertrand was behind her, carrying another tray with a coffee pot and some cups – oh, Erika, something happened? – Erika didn’t notice the tears on her face until then. She wiped them quickly.

_Oh, no! It’s just…the baby was moving, and I love to feel it. You must remember this when you were pregnant.

_Oh, for sure! It was amazing, Bartie was so restless! – Savannah kept talking about Bartie, but soon their attention shifted to sweets. With Maxwell by her side, Erika couldn’t tell pineapple cake from walnut cake. Maxwell could also say the strawberry macarons and the chocolate cupcakes tasted the same. They were totally uncomfortable close to each other. At some point, after the reunion was over and Savannah was telling Bertrand what they had decided, Erika decided she needed some air. While she was sat on the bench outside, she wondered why Maxwell’s presence bothered her so much, if she was so sure Drake was the father.

_Erika, are you fine? – Maxwell asked her. He was standing beside the couch, and didn’t know if he should sit next to her.

_I’m okay, I’m just tired.

_Do you want to rest? I can ask the maid to set you a room.

_It’s not that kind of tiredness, Maxwell – she sighed – I’m tired of so many doubts.

_Oh, I see – he said – and I don’t think I’m helping at all, right?

_Not gonna lie, Maxwell. Being around you reminds me of things I’m trying to forget – Maxwell nodded. Erika wondered if she was too tough.

_I understand, Erika. And if you want, if it makes you feel better, I’ll leave you alone – Maxwell motioned to get up, but Erika held his hand, making him sit back down.

_No, Maxwell…please stay with me. After all, I…I miss you. I miss your friendship, I miss being with you – he widened his eyes, a mix of surprise and happiness in his face.

_Are you sure? I won’t be mad if you want me to go. That’s what best friends do, they want the best for people they like – Erika smiled sweetly.

_I’m sure. I want you here with me – they shared a smile and remained sat on the porch, watching the birds flying in the sky, and talking like the old times. Erika didn’t think much when she asked Maxwell for that. She only felt she needed him. After all, he was her best friend. Maxwell was also happy as he wasn’t so long ago. He missed Erika, and being around her talking like they used to was all he wanted.

But are things really back to normal? All these doubts couldn’t be vanished as much as they wanted.

#the royal romance #drake walker #maxwell beaumont #drake x mc #drake x erika #fanfic #choices fanfic #choices #playchoices

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catgirlthecrazy · 4 years

Text

Muse and Knight

Warning: this fanfic contains major spoilers through Tiamat’s Wrath.

AO3

Summary: The transition from uneasy allies to family doesn’t happen in a single moment. Not even a dramatic one. It’s a slow change, like a sunset. You can’t see it happening, just see the results when it’s already happened.

Holden and Clarissa’s relationship, through the years.

The coffee machine was broken. Again. Holden pressed his forehead into the cool brushed steel surface of the machine. “I don’t ask for much. Really, I don’t. Is this so unreasonable?” The red text of the error message shown even through his closed eyelids. It seemed almost irritated at him for expecting it to perform the function that was the entire purpose of its existence.

The galley door slid open. “Oh,” a soft voice said. Clarissa hovered at the galley door.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re up.”

Clarissa seemed to teeter on the edge of leaving. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were awake."

Holden shrugged. "Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d start shift early. Or, I was going to." He gestured helplessly at the red error message. Holden’s head already ached in anticipation of caffeine withdrawal.

Clarissa frowned and crossed the galley, inspecting the error message. "It’s not working?” She power-cycled the coffee maker and hit the brew button again.

“Already tried that,” Holden said. As if agreeing, the machine buzzed angrily and spat out the same error message as before.

“Hmm. Let me take a look.” Clarissa left, and returned with a bag of tools and parts. A minute later she had the machine on the floor, back panel removed and parts exposed to the open air. Not for the first time, Holden was struck by a sudden sense of surreality. Just a handful of years ago, this woman had tried to destroy him and everyone he loved. He could still remember the murderous rage she’d inspired in him. Now she was fixing his coffeemaker, and he was weirdly ok with that.

He’d like to say that the assault on the slow zone had been the tipping point. The moment when she’d moved in his mind from “person who’d tried to kill him” to “part of his crew.” But these sorts of things never worked like that. It was like a sunrise: you couldn’t see the sky turning from black to blue while it was ongoing. You could only notice the results after they’d already happened.

“Ha!” Clarissa pulled out something metallic and charred, with little dangling wires like tentacles. “Power leads burnt out.”

“Is that hard to fix?"

"No, this part swaps out pretty easy.” She opened a utility organizer labeled Replacement Parts: Galley in neat handwriting that definitely wasn’t Amos’. She pulled out the pristine twin of the burnt out part and wired it into the machine. She put the machine back together, and ran diagnostics. This time the message was a happy green. She made a little animal noise of satisfaction. “There, all fixed.”

Holden clapped her on the shoulder. “You are my favorite person in the solar system.” He turned to the machine and started a new brew. “You want me to make some for you?” When she didn’t answer, he turned to look at her.

There was an odd expression on Clarissa’s face, one his caffeine-deprived mind couldn’t quite decipher. “I… yes, I would love that,” she said.

Weeks later, Holden would learn that Clarissa actually hated coffee. That morning, though, she drank the whole cup.

***

Pátria was a big colony. To Holden, a child of cramped and crowded Earth, that still felt a little strange. Pátria only had a few settlements, and only one that could rate the label ‘city’- barely. But by the fledgling standards of extra-solar colonies, it was a metropolis. It had paved roads and a sewage system and real buildings not made from scrap and mud. And it had recreational swimmers.

The day was uncomfortably hot, the kind of hot that made his shirt damp. A few families with young children were splashing in the local lake on the outskirts of the town. A floating platform had been set up in a deeper part of the lake. One adolescent took a running leap off and cannonballed into the lake, splashing his friends and prompting screams and shouts. A few nearby waterbirds croaked their annoyance and flew off. Holden found himself grinning.

“People do this for fun ?” Bobbie’s voice was acrid with disgust and amusement.

“What, swim? It’s not that uncommon on Earth,” he said.

“Those birds have been pooping in there. And the fish. And whatever the hell kind of microbes they’ve got.”

Holden shrugged. “That’s true on Earth too. People still swim in ponds and lakes there. Remind me to tell you about some of my family’s trips to Flathead Lake.”

She shot him a look. “Yeah, and that's also disgusting. But at least Earth lakes have our flavor of shit and microbes in it. This will have alien shit and microbes in it. Who knows what that does?”

Holden opened his mouth to answer, but Clarissa beat him to it. “They test the water regularly here. It’s not safe to drink without treatment, but you can swim in it just fine. So long as you don’t swallow too much, anyway.” She was taking off her shoes and rolling up her jumpsuit pantlegs as she talked. “I looked it up before we landed.” She set her shoes aside, socks neatly tucked in, and walked purposefully towards the water. It took Holden a second to understand why. Then he grinned and shucked off his own shoes.

Bobbie groaned. “If your feet melt into green slime, don’t come complaining to me,” she called.

They both ignored her. Clarissa was already up to her ankles by the time Holden reached the water. Her face was turned up to the sun like a flower, her expression pure bliss.

“I don’t think I’ve been anywhere near a real lake since I was a kid,” Holden said. The water was delightfully cold. The soft wet sand slid comfortably between his toes.

“Last time I was near a lake was when me and Amos were trying to get off Earth. Not much time for swimming then.”

“And before that?”

“Probably the same lake, the last time I summered there with my parents. We used to go there every other year. It was… nice.” She had the same distant tone she got, discussing her old life. He’d never pressed her much about it. So Holden changed the subject.

“I forgot how good cold water feels on a hot day,” he said. He crouched down and started splashing water on his face, careful to keep his mouth closed as he did so.

Clarissa was digging out handfuls of sand out of the lake bottom and watching them flow through her fingers underwater. “I know. I almost want to just dunk myself in and float for a while."

"But?”

“But I don’t fancy walking around in a soaking wet jumpsuit the rest of the day.”

“Those colonists got their swimsuits from somewhere. We’ve got a few hours. We could go get some. Have some shore leave on the beach.

"You think anyone else will be interested?” Her tone was amused. Holden glanced behind him. Bobbie was still shaking her head at the whole affair in amused disgust. Amos was staring at them with the blank non-comprehension of someone watching a foreign religious ritual. Alex and Naomi were back on the Roci, but he suspected their reaction would be much the same as Bobbie’s. Lake swimming wasn’t something people did outside of Earth- or it hadn’t been until now. And Baltimore didn’t have any bodies of water a sane person would want to swim in. It occurred to Holden that, though Clarissa wasn’t the only other Earther on the crew, she was probably the only one who shared any of his fondness for the place.

“Maybe not,” he said. “Do we need anyone else?”

She smiled. “I guess we don’t.”

By the time they were done at the lake, the day was nearly gone. The two of them walked back to the Roci’s landing pad, chatting animatedly, beneath a sky transitioning from blue to azure to black.

***

When you lived day in and day out with the same people on a small ship, a certain level telepathy emerged. From the tone of Naomi’s humming, or the way Bobbie took a ladder, or the rhythm of Alex’s fingers on the controls, Holden could take a barometer reading of each of his crew. So when Holden saw Clarissa sitting in the galley, gripping her mug of tea in a very particular way, he knew something was very wrong. Unfortunately, the telepathy didn’t tell him why.

To buy himself time, he started making coffee. Holden knew so much detail about his crew personal and work lives that, whatever their mood was, he usually had plenty of context to guess what the cause was. He didn’t know of anything in Clarissa’s life that could be behind her anxious mood. She hadn’t had any fights with the other crew that he knew of. There weren’t any looming mechanical problems or existential threats. He wondered how to go about asking what was bothering her.

Holden sat down at the table across from her. “What’s bothering you?”

Her eyes focused on him, like she’d only just noticed he was there. Then she laughed. “Always the direct approach.”

He grinned and shrugged. “I’m not very good at this.”

She grinned back for a moment. Then it faded. “I got a message from my sister.”

Two thoughts collided in Holden’s head: I thought your sister was dead slammed into I hope she’s doing well and jumbled together in his mind. Just barely, he stopped himself from blurting I hope she’s dead out loud. He knew Clarissa had siblings besides Julie. She never talked about her birth family except in the past tense, so it was easy to forget that most of them were still alive.

“Not good news, I take it?”

“My father is dead.”

The news was like a dropped tool in an empty cargo hold. Her father. Jules-Pierre Mao. The man who had probably held the record for bloodiest hands in the solar system until Marco Inaros came along to steal the title. It was hard for Holden to think of the arrogant man he’d encountered on Luna so many years ago as related to the tired looking mechanic in front of him. The Venn Diagram between the two had so little overlap these days that they were nearly separate circles in his mind. “Um. Wow.” He took a long pull from his coffee. He couldn’t make this about his own feelings right now. “How are you feeling right now?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment, but Holden chose to wait and sip his coffee. He didn’t have to wait long. “When I was young, he defined my life. Father was like a gravity well. So much revolved around him, and you couldn’t pass near him without accounting for how he’d alter your trajectory. Now he’s gone, and it’s hardly worth a story on the news feeds.” She smiled wryly. “He would have hated that.”

Holden frowned into his coffee. “You know, now that you mention it, that’s kind of weird. I mean, yeah, it’s been a while since he was in the news, but he was kind of a big deal back in the day. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about this.”

“I’m not. He was held in Mossoró when the rocks fell. They were hit bad by tsunamis. They couldn’t find most of the bodies. It’s only now that the courts have made it official.” Clarissa’s voice was so flat, like she was reading off a list.

“So you’ve known this was coming.” Holden wondered if that was the reason for her mood. He could remember one of his grandmothers, who’d been gravely ill for so long before she died that he’d felt more relief at her passing than loss. And with that relief, guilt.

“I suppose I did.” Clarissa cocked her head in bemusement. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You’re the one who put him in prison.” There was no hint of reproach in her voice. Almost, they could have been talking about a famous football player whose career Holden hadn’t kept up with.

Holden shrugged. “Honestly, I kind of stopped giving a fuck about him once he was in prison. So long as he couldn’t start wars, I didn’t really care.” Holden winced. “I uh, may not be the most comforting person to talk to about this.”

Clarissa just smiled at him. “I think he’d hate that even more than the lack of news coverage.”

Holden wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “So… You sound pretty calm about this. But I can tell something’s bugging you. Anything you want to talk about?”

Clarissa frowned into her mug. “When I got the message that he was dead, my first thought was 'good.’ I don’t like that.”

Holden took a long sip from his coffee to buy himself time. “No love lost between you two, then?”

“I don’t feel anything about him. No love, no hate. I’m just very, very glad that he’s gone forever now. And I don’t like that I feel that way. I didn’t think I was that kind of person anymore.”

“I mean, to be fair, it makes me a little happy to know he’s gone for good.” Clarissa looked up at him sharply, and he shrugged. “It probably doesn’t speak well of me as a person. But I think it’s just part of being human.”

“Maybe.” She stared at her drink. “I still feel like I’ve failed somehow.”

Holden strongly disagreed. But he knew by now that she didn’t really want him to prove her wrong. Just listen while she worked through it on her own.

And the truth was, Holden could sympathize with her sorrow, but he couldn’t entirely empathize with it. Mao was her father. He understood intellectually why parent-child relationships could fall apart so completely and irreparably that she could react this way. He could agree entirely with the reasons why. He knew that the only right you had with anyone in life was the right to walk away. But he couldn’t really feel it. He had always gotten on well with his own parents. It was hard to imagine anything different.

He took her hand. “Well, for what it’s worth, I like the person you are now,” he said.

“And who do you think that person is?”

“The person who fixes things. The person who won’t let so much as a squeaking hinge stick around for long. The person who builds things.”

She didn’t answer him. She just smiled a small smile. They sat together in companiable silence for a long time.

***

When his interrogators told him about the body on Medina, Holden thought they were lying. Surely, it was a tactic to make him admit something. Surely, the photos and autopsy reports were fake. Surely, they couldn’t have found Clarissa Mao, shot twice amidst a half dozen dead Laconian soldiers. When Holden finally let himself believe them, he waited for them to tell him who else in his family had died. Months, then years passed, and the news never came.

He couldn’t grieve. He couldn’t afford to. If the Laconians knew just how deep a weakness it was, if they understood that she was more to him that a mere crewmate, they’d never stop hammering away at it. So he threw all his efforts into diverting them. He opened up as much as he could on the alien threat. The Tempest anomaly. The Ilus artifact. Elvi Okoye.

When he finally got free, he was too preoccupied to think much about older pain. The flight to the gate, Bobbie’s death, Amos’ strange resurrection: all of these overwhelmed his attention like a well lit room overwhelms a single candle. When the grief reminded him of its presence, it wasn’t how he expected it.

The cabin door squeaked. It was such a soft little sound, it took Holden weeks to notice it. He was so wrapped up in the joy of being back on the Roci, of not being on Laconia, that most other things were background noise. But as time went by, as they passed through the Laconia gate, through the slow zone and into the Gossner system, Holden noticed the small rattling whine of a mechanism not quite in alignment.

“It’s just a squeak.” Naomi shrugged with her hands when he mentioned it to her. “I can have Amos put it on the to-do list, but I guarantee you he’s got a couple dozen other items on it already. This might never make it to the top.”

“I know it’s pretty minor in the grand scheme of things,” Holden said. Experimentally he cycled the door a couple more times to see if the noise was consistent. “I just can’t remember the last time a squeak stuck around this long."

He meant to sound casual. Evidently he failed, because Naomi’s expression softened. "I miss her too.”

Holden sagged a little, like a spring losing tension. “I wanted to believe it was a bad dream. Or a lie to make me admit something. The Laconians sprang it on me suddenly. I think they were trying to surprise me into letting something slip.” He could still remember the feeling like a dunk in ice. Like a confirmation of his worst nightmares.

“Did they tell you how it happened?”

“Some. 'Likely involved in terrorist activities’ was I think how they put it.”

“She saved my life. She saved the whole underground.” And Naomi told him the story of the jailbreak, the traitor, and Clarissa’s last stand.

Holden couldn’t speak. In broad strokes, what Naomi told him wasn’t far off from what he’d already guessed. But he hadn’t fully appreciated just how much he owed to Clarissa’s sacrifice. Naomi’s life was one item at the top of a very long list.

Naomi pulled him into a hug, and Holden broke. His body shook with the quiet sobs that he’d never allowed himself on Laconia. She murmured soothing words whose content mattered less than their tone. He could feel some of her tears wet on his forehead. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that. He had the raw sense of having burned a deep infection out of a wound.

“I’ve got a few spare hours,” Naomi said. “I could grab some tools. We could fix it together."

"That,” Holden said, voice still ragged, “would be great.”

#the expanse #Jim Holden #Clarissa Mao #fanfic #spoilers #Tiamat's Wrath Spoilers #my fanfic #my post

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mrxnvbvdy · 4 years

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valentine’s day asks

do you have a crush on anyone? Umm...Do I really have to answer this question. I mean they won’t know, will they? I do. I mean...there is someone I like a lot. And spending time with them makes me happy. ( I made him stop talking. He would go on and on. )

what’s your favorite candy? Anything chocolate. Except chocolate with nougat. That’s not candy. It’s not very good at all. Have you had Kinder Bueno. Those are good. I just had those. I ate too many. I got sick. ( He is an oversized child. I’m convinced. )

favorite love song? Lovedrunk by Epik High, because it is minutely melancholy and about trying to forget.

what was your first kiss like? Awkward and I think I bit her lip and it wasn’t on purpose and all because I didn’t know what I was doing.

what was your last kiss like? I don’t remember my last kiss. It’s been a while. It’s not that I don’t want to kiss anyone. It just hasn’t happened recently. I want to. I wish. I hope it does soon. Maybe. I’m going to shut up now. ( Please rescue him and just kiss him. )

sexual/romantic orientation? I’m open to relationships with men and women. I don’t get connected to people, unless I feel something or safe with them. It’s hard to explain. The connection has to be there before the attraction starts to form.

do you prefer poems or love letters? Letters. I don’t know why I think poems are more personal than letters. I also get stuck on trying to make them rhyme. I know they don’t always have to rhyme but I think they should.

favorite fanfic trope? I read fanfic once. It was weird. About real people. I don’t think I have a trope.

have you ever been in love? I…Yes...Once

favorite milkshake flavor? Chocolate. With extra chocolate.

dinner dates or brunch dates? Any dates make me nervous. Both. Maybe dinner because I’d have more time to get my nerves under control.

favorite flowers? They make me sneeze sometimes. Roses don’t always make me sneeze. It depends on the kind, I guess.

favorite perfume/cologne? If it smells natural and clean. I like clean scents that smell like skin.

favorite candle scent? I have one at the apartment that smells like blueberries. Sometimes I don’t even burn it. I just smell it.

what’s your ideal first date? Anywhere I won’t make a complete fool of myself. Easy and fun things. Dinner or ice cream. Maybe pool or bowling. Something to keep us busy but we can also talk.

favorite love story? I refuse to answer this question. I finished a drama last night and it broke my heart. But that was my favorite love story so far.

what’s the most attractive thing a person could wear? Umm...a towel...( He’s blushing and thinking about the blurb I wrote for the prompt that I’m still finishing when Ino was singing and how he saw him in a towel after )

chocolate, vanilla, or red velvet? Chocolate. ( In case you can’t tell. Chocolate is his favorite. )

snow, rain, or sun? Rain. I really like rain.

sweetest romantic memory? Is it romantic if someone remembers to bring you lots of food because they know you like to eat. ( that one time Ino brought all that food home when he picked Min up. the drunk night. )

favorite dating sim (and favorite character)? I don’t know what that is.

fictional crushes? I have enough trouble with my real crush.

what’s your dream wedding like? I...Umm...I haven’t thought about it but I’d like something intimate with just our families. That could still be a lot of people. At night with candles.

what makes you blush? Compliments...Sometimes the dreams I have...( he recently had a sex dream about Ino. Sorry. Don’t tell him I told you. )

do you believe in love at first sight? It doesn’t work like that for me.

do you believe in soulmates? Yes and know. The two wholes to one pair. I believe that theory.

denim jackets, leather jackets, or bomber jackets? Denim but I actually like sweaters more.

what’s your sign? Libra.

are you single? I am. I think it’s permanent.

do you prefer to charm, or be charmed? I’m kind of bad at charming and being charmed. I giggle and blush a lot.

guitar or piano? Piano but I’m learning to play guitar. I’m better at it.

favorite romcom (or any romantic movie)? I like the 80′s ones. Like Say Anything. 16 Candles. I don’t know why. I just do.

do you fall in love easily? No. It happens differently for me.

valentine’s decorations: yay or nay? Yes. Where there’s decorations, there’s usually candy.

would you prefer to propose or be proposed to? what’s your dream proposal? I think I just got really sick thinking about having to propose. I would probably pass out before I got the proposal out of my mouth.

cloud gazing or star gazing? Stars. The night sky is really pretty here.

do you like to dance? I have no rhythm but yes.

what’s your OTP? I don’t have one. I mean it depends on the fandom, right. See I know that much.

kittens or puppies? Both. Euna won’t let me have a puppy. She’s mean. I don’t think she has a heart.

coffee, hot chocolate, or tea? Hot chocolate.

favorite soda? Dr. Pepper. I’m not allowed to drink it. I get really hyper.

do you prefer gazing wistfully out the window or lying dramatically over the sofa? The window. Especially if it’s raining.

favorite ABBA song? I don’t know the title or the words, except dance. It talks about dancing alot.

fuck/marry/kill? (anons name 3 people of your choice) I don’t want to kill anyone. Can I just get a kiss before we talk about sex and marriage.

favorite pajamas? I have these plaid pants that I usually wear with a t shirt. Sometimes I get too hot and I sleep naked.

favorite liquor? Soju and beer. I don’t do really good with strong alcohol. I promised someone I wouldn’t drink a lot again.

do you think about love a lot? I mean...I don’t...I didn’t plan on it but I have...lately

a walk in the park or a walk on the beach? I like the beach for walks

hand kisses or nose kisses? Nose kisses are nice. So are hand kisses. I think they’re sweet. I like neck kisses. They tickle, especially if their lips are soft or they have a beard.

what’s your dreamhouse? I want something with a big garden. Not only flowers but herbs for cooking. A little cobblestone walkway from the garden to the house. Windows, big ones, from the ceiling to the floor. Not all over but maybe in a sitting room or music room. Yes a music room with a big piano. That’s all I’ve thought about so far. Oh and a kitchen. Taking the cooking lessons, I feel more comfortable now and I’d like a big kitchen.

#( headcanons | mr. nobody )

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