if anything, it's eclectic

Me and my friends were talking about how Zuko and Mai are just the worst canon relationship in AtLA, and decided that Zuko would find his true passion with Sokka.

🧑🏻🏒 🪓🧟‍♂️

Prudy Jocks Must Die.

Shane Hollander (Grace Chastity) is so focused on hockey that he doesn't have time for sex or dating. He has a close knit friend group who also avoid the jock parties and promiscuity of some of their classmates. Ilya and his friends, Connors and Marleux (Jason and Kyle) are what most of the school calls "Party Jocks," and they think that Shane and his friend group are boring prudes, despite them still being jocks or otherwise talented people.

But when proudly slutty Ilya Rozanov (Max Jagermann) takes an interest in Shane and starts flirting, it distracts Shane from hockey for the first time in his life; and the idea that he might have a crush on anyone, but especially Ilya, freaks him out so badly that he gets his friend group to plan a harmless prank to get Ilya to stop flirting with Shane.

Rose (Ruth-ish), Hayden (Pete but not the MC) & Jackie (Steph but also not the MC), and JJ (Richie) plot to thwart Ilya's pursuit of Shane, but in the wake of the prank failing, Ilya is actually touched by their efforts to do something just for him, and he thinks he might be willing to be friends with them after all, even if they are boring, prudy jocks. Then he accidentally falls through the floor and gets impaled on broken boards two stories below, and dies.

What Shane and his friends didn't know was that a supernatural force lingered at the prank site, ensuring that no soul could depart if that person had any unfinished business. The undead soul could try to finish whatever it was, but the supernatural beings behind the magic would gradually corrupt the soul into something rageful and murderous. Ilya didn't actually want to kill the prudy jocks before he died, but as the evil starts corrupting him, he starts to go after the prudy jocks one at a time.

When only Shane, Hayden, and Jackie remain, they receive a tip that the magical beings corrupting Ilya are actually the Lords in Black, and if they can strike a deal, maybe the Lords in Black will release Ilya's soul and allow him to finally move on.

Shane, Hayden and Jackie summon the lords, who state that one of them must give in to their deepest, forbidden desires if they want the Lords to finally release their hold on Ilya's soul. Shane disappears for a few moments, while Hayden and Jackie get chased by Ilya.

Ilya is closing in on Hayden and Jackie, who have been having their own little romance side-plot this whole time. They admit their love for each other, but they can't figure out what their darkest desires would be. They don't have any forbidden desires, really. Why would they? Hayden, unlike Shane, feels perfectly capable of loving hockey AND acting on his crush.

As Ilya is about to murder them both, he teases them for being boring prudes, because they don't have any forbidden desires.

"Poor Pike, school's fifteenth best hockey player, no hidden depths to make him even barely interesting. Does not matter you're on varsity team, does not matter Jackie dates you out of pity. You still will always be boring, Prudy Jock."

Hayden and Jackie are clinging to each other, terrified and truly expecting to die momentarily, when out of nowhere-

🧑🏻"They're not prudy jocks, Ilya. I am. But I'm not gonna be prudy anymore."

🧟‍♂️"Shaaaane?"

🧑🏻"I want you, Ilya. I have since you first touched my hand in the gym."

🧟‍♂️"...Fuck, YEAH, Shane!"

🧑🏻"Take me, Ilya. Right here, right now."

🧟‍♂️"I thought you cared for hockey, too much to ever be with me, Shane."

🧑🏻"Forget hockey. I just need you."

🧟‍♂️"Yes- wait, Shane, I must kill these prudy jocks!"

🧑🏻"You really wanna pass up this opportunity? I'm yours, Ilya. Have me."

🧟‍♂️"Uh, ugh, hhhhm..." (Growls and lunges at Hayden and Jackie, who both scream) "I'll be RIGHT BACK."

❤️🧑🏻🧟‍♂️🍆🍑 (Lots of weird zombie sex noises are happening, accompanied by shock and disgust noises from Jackie and Hayden.

👩🏽"What. The FUCK. Is happening?"

👱‍♂️"Shane's having sex with a fucking ghost!"

Ilya is so damn happy after they finish he almost forgets about the whole steadily-increasing, involuntary murderous rage for a minute, but then he accidentally looks over at Hayden and Jackie and he starts bracing himself to get on with it. But when he gets up, Shane stops him.

🧑🏻"Wait, Ilya. I just gave in to something, something I had forbidden myself from ever prioritizing over hockey. My deepest desire. You."

The Lords in Black manifest as color and light and impressions of shackles around Ilya that break off and fade away. His undead body starts fading too, ghostly pale at first but then going translucent and then transparent.

He reaches for Shane's hand, and finds that he can't hold on, as he isn't a solid being anymore.

🧑🏻"I wish you didn't have to go. If only I had been able to let myself have this before..."

🧟‍♂️"Is because of you my soul can move on. Maybe one day we learn how to have ghost sex, yes?" He finally fades completely out with a smirk and a wink. His soul has been freed and moved on; his business is finished.

Shane, Hayden, and Jackie stay perfectly still for a few moments, stunned into silence. Shane is the first to break it.

🧑🏻"Can you guys just pretend like you didn't see any of that?"

👩🏽"Any of what?" (She's playing along, affirming that she will in fact pretend she didn't see it. Shane doesn't get what she means.)

🧑🏻"The sex with Ilya? You guys were right here the whole time. Let's just act like that never happened."

👩🏽🙄"Yes, Shane, we will never speak of it again, right Hayd?"

👱‍♂️🤯🫨"You just fucked Ilya Rozanov. Rozanov?! The party jock? You fucked Ilya Rozanov. As a ghost. No, a zombie. You fucked zombie Rozanov. Zombanov. Ilya Rozombienov. You fucked him. Right here. In front of us. Oh my god."

(🧑🏻🫠🫣)

(👩🏽🙄🫩)

Shane goes on to focus on hockey but Ilya does figure out how to visit him as a non-corrupted ghost for more sexy times.

This unnamed player - let's call him Fred, just because - is devastated. He used to be so close to his brother when they were young and now he's finding out this is what's been driving a wedge between them for all these years and he can't even be angry about it because his brother was right to be careful.

Fred brings this up to the other Metros and most of them give a halfhearted "that sucks dude" but he digs his heels in and says no, this needs to change, some of you probably also have gay relatives or friends who do not trust you. "In fact," Fred says, "I looked it up and something like 1 in 10 people are gay so there's probably a gay guy or two on this team and he or they don't feel safe to come out!"

And the others immediately protest, like gay guys don't play hockey don't be stupid!! And if they did, what the fuck, why wouldn't he tell us, he's probably watching us in the showers!! And Fred goes this is why he wouldn't tell us.

(Shane's listening to all of this quietly disassociating, wishing he were anywhere else.)

Anyway there's a lot of arguing and stupid comments, but eventually most of them concede that yeah if there's a gay guy on the team, he's got good reasons not to come out and maybe we should make this a more comfortable space because that kind of stress can't be good for our hypothetically gay teammate's playing.

(Shane's playing is fine, thank you very fucking much.)

It takes a few weeks but with Fred pushing and a few more open-minded and well meaning Metros joining in, the team culture starts to slowly change. One of them tells his majoring-in-gender-studies girlfriend about the effort and she super excitedly puts together a beginner friendly power point presentation to introduce them to some queer history and lingo.

Then someone has the bright idea to do "gay activities" once a month together, like watching Brokeback Mountain and going to drag brunch and of course, eventually, inevitably, a gay bar.

Shane gets himself out of every single event because sitting around with his straight teammates doing gay shit sounds like a fucking nightmare like he just wants to play hockey and suck cock, not have to learn about whatever the hell tucking is.

His teammates notice Shane's reluctance to join and it comes to a head while they're in Boston and want to hit a gay bar after a game for their monthly mandatory gay outing because of fucking course they do. Shane refuses to join and one of the Metros goes "Well maybe our gay teammate hasn't come out yet because he knows his Captain won't support him??" So now Shane has to go or he is officially labeled a homophobe.

He lets Ilya know he can't come over to fuck because he has to go to a gay bar with his team. And Ilya, who has heard about the Metros' gay initiative and thinks it's hilarious how annoyed Shane is with the whole thing, suggests to the Raiders that they join the Metros to show that they're gay friendly too and his teammates are a little weirded out but ultimately surprisingly cool with it.

Of course Shane is pissed once Ilya shows up with his buddies looking so self-satisfied and smug and gorgeous, and this is Shane's one chance to get fucked for the next two months and instead he has to spend the evening watching Drapeau and Olsson do unicorn shots??

He gets up to leave and his teammates start protesting like "come on man, you promised you'd be cool" and "wow you're actually a homophobe, aren't you? smh we thought you were better". And Ilya and the other Raiders are watching the whole thing go down and Shane fucking snaps.

"You all talk a big game but would you actually be okay with a gay guy in the locker room?"

And his teammates are outraged like yes obviously!!

"A guy who gets fucked other guys? Could you look at him and know he's sucked cock and still respect him the same as your straight teammates?"

And maybe this question would have made the Metros uncomfortable earlier in the year but they are enlightened now and offended that Shane would even ask! Honestly, you're looking more and more homophobic dude (Hayden is on the verge of tears).

"Okay, what if he was hooking up with a player on another team? 'Cause that would never be an issue with a straight player."

And the Metros would have to take a moment to think because yeah, that's a possibility they hadn't considered. But! one of them points out, guys play against their brothers and friends all the time, and no one has an issue with that. If a gay player had to play against his lover (Shane's eye twitches dangerously), he wouldn't let that affect his game any more than straight players do playing against their loved ones.

In fact, there's something kinda romantic about it now that they think about it. Like Romeo and Juliet with hockey!

Now Shane glances at Ilya, who no longer looks amused.

"So you guys really are fine with all of that?"

The Metros agree enthusiastically, fired up and proud at what good allies they're being.

"Okay. Well. I'm gay, and I've been hooking up with a player on another team since rookie year."

The group falls silent. Shane stares them down, silently freaking out, because did he just annoyed into coming out??

"Who?" one of the Metros finally asks. Another elbows him.

"Dude, you can't ask that."

"But you don't like any gay stuff!" another Metro protests.

"I like sucking cock," Shane deadpans. "Is that gay enough for you?"

And fair enough, the Metros have to admit, that is pretty gay.

No one stops Shane when he tries to leave this time, though Hayden does chase him outside to tell him how proud he is of him, and Shane just gives a flat okay and jumps into the nearest taxi.

Nerdy AU

Looking For Raid by @p0lkadotdotdot: Kyl0R3n is a Cyborg tank. Lightbeam is a Monk healer. Almost every night they chat together, raid together and occasionally hit the battlegrounds of the internationally popularMMO Star Republic. Ben Solo is an architect. Rey Jackson is a structural engineer. Both work together at New Order Construction and can be seen frequently at each others throats.If only they knew... "Anyone could be anyone behind a screen and keyboard..."

Play To Win by Enterprisingly: Ben Solo – aka KyloRen – is a professional gamer, playing the first-person-shooter StarKiller for the internationally ranked eSports team, The First Order. He’s made a name for himself as a ruthless competitor with a ferocious temper and top-notch skills that can’tbe beat. That is, until a mystery player named ReyOfLight begins thoroughly trouncing him whenever they cross paths.What follows is the unlikely story of a rivalry that turns into a friendship that turns into … something else entirely, all while the eSports community watches with bated breath and popcorn in hand.

enemies-to-lovers by @the-reylo-void: Six months ago, the popular space opera Lost Galaxy did the unthinkable: it made the controversial enemy-soldier ship MattKira canon. That would be bad enough on its own, but then anti blogger Rey finds a MattKira fanfiction reblogged onto her dashboard. Her solution? Start hate-reading it and posting a running commentary on just how bad it is. One problem. The fic is actually pretty good. And then the author, KyloRen, sends her a message...

Talk to You Later by @soloredeemed: Ben and Rey are both on tumblr, they like the same fandom, and one of them stumbles upon and likes the other's post. Ben (KyloRen) is pretty well known in the Space Wars fandom, and Rey (JustRey) never expected him to reply when she sent him a dm. The two slowly become friends... (and then some). But KyloRen is, well, not who he says he is.

And I wish that you were here by @meadowhayle: Just when Rey is about to see her online boyfriend Kylo for the first time, her car breaks down in the middle of a snowed in forest. Forced to look for help she ends up at Ben Solo's cabin, who seems to be more than meets the eye.

if you're ready comic get it by violethoure666: When a chain store opens across the street from Rey's comic book store, she decides to goto war with the loathsome new owner, little realizing he's the same guy she's been internet crushing on forever. Modern You've Got Mail AU with way more comic books and tumblr instead of email.

Inked by @kylosspaceprincess: Rey Jackson is a comic book artist who works for Kyber Publishing. She spends her time sketching out comics in pencil and then sending them off to someone who will color and ink them. Kylo Ren is that someone. The two have never met, although they simply despise each other. Rey hates how Kylo sometimes colors the drawings opposite to how she imagines them, and Kylo hates how messy her sketches are and how he has to decipher which lines are meant to be there.

Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook. (ETA: Gaining inspiration from other authors is great. Lifting passages and avoiding giving credit isn’t.)

Here’s a link to Night’s Master, the first book in the Flat Earth series.

This is the world capitalists want to return to.

Amber Glenn (USA)

“Oh, Eddie Munson’s band? You know I made out with him almost every day one summer when I was 17.”