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puppycurve4 · 2 years

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Competitive Intelligence & Analysis Instruments

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lustbile · 3 years

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The Journal

TenxReader

Word Count: 7.3k+

Summary/Warnings: Smut with plot, semi public, a lot of biting, mentions of supernatural and just general weirdness, and small amount of blood play

Apart of the Club X series: Masterlist (can be read alone or within the series, but unlike others it might just be the slightest amount confusing)

“So that’s what you’re into now,” your best friend’s voice is bored and distant, her task of wiping down the bar that stretched out in front of her taking a majority of her attention away from the babbling you’ve tried to subject her to since you entered the empty restaurant only about 20 minutes before, “weird demon sex clubs?”

—

“Ah ah, I never said they were demons,” you correct quickly, the thought of defending yourself never crossing your mind as you petulantly slap your hands against the polished wood, “I just said it was…. weird.”

“Weird is an understatement,” she scoffs quietly as she turns to dip her dirtied rag back into the bleach water and ring it out, “I mean look, I’ve always been supportive in the witchy stuff you’ve been into but this…. is a bit much.”

“I don’t see how this is any different than any other thing I’ve read into.”

“Oh you don’t see?” you finally manage to pull her attention towards you as she harshly slaps the rag back onto the wood with a stern glare pulled on her pretty features, “you’re talking about vulnerability and abandoned warehouses and public sex. That last one is definitely new.”

You fully expected this type of response, only hoping she’d be busy enough that you would dodge the motherly scolding she liked to give you when you pitched your schemes to her with your eyes wild and wide, but nevertheless, she was completely right.

It came from an old book, tattered and torn from being flipped through one too many times, that you found at your favorite antique store. The store itself was already notorious with your tight inner circle of friends as the creepy shop that was corrupting your brain, a constant taunt being that the little old woman that ran it was the actual devil and she was just waiting for the right time to jump you and eat you whole, but this did nothing to stop you from visiting at least once a week.

But the book, it was different from any other you had found. It was completely handwritten, including amazingly done sketches in a deep unfading ink, and spoke of outlandish things.

Some were easily brushed off, like a murder that happened in the 50’s that was known to stay in the mouths of the older folks, both to them and the book it was widely believed to be the doing of some long tongued and wild eyed creature, until a local sweet old man admitted on his deathbed that it was instead his one crime of passion.

He had been a young soldier that snuck into his lover’s room one night, and upon learning that she was to marry a nice lawyer the day after he was meant to deploy, his mind went blank and his hands were carving out her heart. He luckily escaped any questioning after being shipped off, and once he returned home he captured the heart of a pretty young girl and lived out a long life sitting on top of a horrid truth.

So yeah, stories of those sorts, having been solved in your lifetime, meant very little to you, but the one you were going on about now, meant the world.

The writing looked like it had been put down by a panicked chicken rather than the woman who’s name was written neatly in the front. It lived in some of the pages towards the back of the small book and spoke of a dark club. Club X.

She went on and on about stumbling across the club purely by accident, and meeting another woman with glittering eyes. Graphic details of being taken in the middle of the dance floor with a million eyes looking but not fully seeing her as she fell apart against a dancing and eager tongue made your heart thump lodged in your throat. But the more and more she visited the club, the more incoherent her words became, but towards the end the writing had become stained and obscured by a deep brown stain, before it stopped altogether.

Thankfully, the details of where the building was was completely visible regardless of being the thoughts of a mad woman, and with a lot of thinking and staring at the town map, you’ve come to believe that you knew exactly where the mysterious club stood.

Only a street down from the restaurant you sit in now.

“Listen, I know it sounds ridiculous, and it probably is, but what’s the problem with just going to check right?” you scramble to pull the delicate book from the bag that sits in the stool beside you as your friend moves closer and closer to where you sit, laying it flat to show her the page you’ve had bookmarked since you read it, “and look at the name she puts, I think it’s the man who ran it and it’s a long shot, but maybe he’s still alive, or if not maybe some family is! Right here, Asm-“

“Don’t say it again,” she’s quick to interrupt, sliding her free hand to hover above the page you’ve glued your eyes to, “I don’t wanna hear any old man names, especially that one it gives me the ick.”

“It’s just a name,” murmur to yourself, but move to put the book away regardless, “but anyways, I have something that most people who were going to the club didn’t, knowledge of what exactly I’m walking into. I can just go and look around, worst things worst its still a freaky sex club and I just go home, but I’m willing to bet this lady was just off the shits and its just an empty building with some funky vintage beer bottles that you can add to your collection.”

You feel like you’ve won an award you weren’t even trying to compete for when she finally breaks out into a soft smile. The huff that leaves her chest is endeared, and you swear your heart began to vibrate when she reached to run a gentle thumb across the swell from your cheekbone.

“Fine, do what you want, but if the bottle isn’t completely intact when you find it I don’t want it.”

“So you’re not coming with me?” your head tilts to the side in confusion as with things of this nature in the past, she’s always followed along to ensure that you didn’t do anything to stupid. You never felt like the company was fully necessary, but it was appreciated regardless.

“Baby, as much as I’ve enjoyed your info dumping you’ve done tonight, the other person that was meant to clean with me had to leave early with a stomach bug so I’m busy pulling a clean up job that’s truly a job for about five people. But you seem to really believe in this little adventure of yours,” she leaves the rag in a damp mass next to the stack of dirty glasses beside you to take your hands in her’s, her slightly wrinkled fingers are still warm and the way they lace with yours makes you feel like nothing in the world could hurt you, “besides, you’re as smart as a whip and I know you have me on speed dial. I trust you.”

——

You no longer love the feeling of being trusted.

When your friend had given you the heartfelt speech only a little over half an hour ago, you felt like you had been put on a nice pedestal before she handed you a cookie with a pat on the head.

Now the “cookie” had turned to rot in your belly and you were faced with your own perfectly dreamed up reality.

It was already late by the time you had walked into the restaurant your friend works at, the sun already setting and the last few customers gathering their things and paying the bills, so once you got her stamp of approval and we’re heading out the door, the only light left was a bright and full moon, and flickering street lights.

You took your time walking in the direction that your book and personal sleuthing had pointed you in, the closer and closer you got to the one warehouse in town that seemed to never be bought back from the city, the knots in your belly pulled tighter and tighter.

But regardless of the almost painful twist in your gut, you surprisingly almost missed the building in its entirety.

It was as if your entire being blocked out the thumping bass that shook the sidewalk and the blinding red light that spilled from beneath the entrance and out the fractured windows. Your brain trying to force itself from entering the building you spent so many weeks trying to locate.

But the way your heart thuds in your chest when you stand in front of the entrance is something you couldn't even pretend you didn’t feel.

Your tongue digs into the side of your jaw, and you're confused at the feeling of warm tears burning at your waterlines. It’s exactly the way the owner of the journal described it in her manic writings, weirdly exact considering the other stories that surrounded it that dated it back far before you were even born.

You want to go in, the shaking steps your legs take is evident to that, but the tense muscles of your shoulders and stomach makes you hesitate and even grumble out into the air.

You almost jump out of your skin when you hear a shuffling to your side, your throat tensing when you look over, and are put slightly at ease when you see two men who you assume are acting as some type of security. You almost expect them to look up and ask you for some type of ID when you’re being very weird and blatant about your presence, but they seem too preoccupied with the dim screens of their phones and the way they lean forward at different times as if they’re waiting for someone.

Your hands are shaking slightly as they scramble down to grab for your bag, desperately looking for something to occupy you to walk by them without being even more weird, and when your fingers wrap around the flaking leather that binds the book, you grab it like a lifeline.

Your fingers flip through the pages with perfect muscle memory as you trip up the few steps that lead to the door, the tabs you carefully placed on the first page mentioning the club not even necessary with the way you could find the page even in your sleep.

You subconsciously hold your breath when you walk past the two men, almost as if the book is instead something wildly illegal and you're trying to sneak past your parents, and your washed with a temporary wave of relief when you pass through the doors without even a glance from the two.

Though the relief is stolen from your bones the second your feet touch the floor of the club.

It’s as if you’ve entered a place you’ve known your whole life, and from the amazing descriptions from the woman in the past, its not a completely surprising feeling.

But another part of you feels like this is the first time you’ve seen human beings in the flesh.

You can't help but to feel like you must look like an absolute nerd as you pull the book up to your face as you start to survey the club, but thankfully the book told at least one truth, and many of the club goers are too busy grouping and grinding against one another to even acknowledge your existence.

More truths come to light as you flick your eyes between the pages and the walls.

The bar is still tucked in the same far corner as she described, the flittering red and blue lights making it feel like a beacon of calm regardless of it being surrounded by drunken forms and its intimidatingly pretty bartender.

The dj is just a stoic and unimpressed looking as the one from so many years ago as he subconsciously bobs to the beat that he creates as he messes with the nobs and switches in front of him. He’s actually so similar, you wonder if you were right and the owner did have family floating around, and maybe the dj is one of them.

You stumble further into the room as you pick out small details she wrote about so lovingly. Your legs carry you to the back of the building as you smile at the sight of the wine stain the writer claimed to have created when her lover shocked her with a playful bite to the neck.

You almost feel like the universe is gifting you everything you could have possibly asked for when you see the loose board that she said a friend of hers would always trip over, and electricity zips up your spine in excitement when you spots the large painting that still hangs over the booth she claimed as her favorite, and she meticulously sketched out next to a paragraph about what she thought the artist was feeling.

All these things though, lead to the things that make your jaw hang slightly open.

The large balcony above you is larger than you ever imagined. The hundreds of bright red carnations she loved to sketch drip from the golden bars like water, and the black velvet curtains that hang over the room it leads to look heavy enough that they suffocate someone if they fell.

She seemed so intensely in love with the place you stand in, and the woman she met there, and those emotions were more than evident from the way the recreated the energy of the club with her words and art. Which only tips you towards the part that caught your attention perhaps the most.

It was exactly where it was meant to be. Just below the balcony that hangs high on the wall, gaping wide and dark like the mouth of a hungry monster coaxing you to enter its throat. The only issue that you can see being the hanging rope that blocks you from entering, but with only shining bright clasps holding it onto hooks on the walls, you don’t think you're above sneaking past it with little guilt.

The hall was the one thing that taunted you the most about the story the woman spun in the little worn book. The empty and dark vass space being something that coaxed her as well, but unfortunately for you, and maybe her as well, the parts of her journal that began the tale of her passing the temping rope, was the exact spot that was stained with bleeding ink and a suspicious brown color.

You survey the space around you, looking for anyone that could possibly be a worker or just a stickler for the rules, but seeing as everyone in your range of vision was attached by the mouth on someone’s neck or sloppy lips, you figured you were in the clear.

You drop the book gently back into your bag before you step slowly forward. Your heart feels like a wild animal trying to break out of the cavity of your chest, and it feels like your intestines have been successfully replaced with writhing worms that are desperately trying to reach your gut. You feel heat traveling up your chest and neck, and as you get within a few feet of what feels like the end of your life, your body begins to shake.

If you had the ability, you would have screamed, and if you had the strength, you would have fought back. But right when you're about to reach the threshold of the hall, and right when you feel like your legs are about to collapse from underneath you, strong fingers clasp over your trembling mouth, and an arm wraps tightly around your waist.

You’re turned faster than you can blink, the sudden motion making your brain swirl in your skull and making you go lightheaded and dizzy. And while keeping their hand clasped tightly over your mouth, the person that cages you in slams your back into the cold wall and knocks the air from your lungs.

The eyes that meet you are cat-like and dancing wildly, the grin the man you're faced with now smiles at you wickedly, and when your hands dart up until your nails dig harshly into the skin of his forearms, his smile only widens.

“Now,” he starts, the remains of a chuckle shaking his chest and his words slightly, “what exactly are you up to?”

You wait for a moment for him to release you from his hold, and when after a minute or so he still hasn’t budged, all you can offer in response is an annoyed arched brow.

“What?” he has the audacity to ask with taunting sincerity, “you thought you were smart enough to go wandering around, so you should be smart enough to figure out a way to talk around my hand right?”

It’s with immense irritation that you realize the two possibilities you’re faced with.

From the book you know about the weird concept of soul mates or whatever they were meant to be. The woman and the mysterious dancing girl she met so many years ago, and similar stories from the friends she met during her many visits to the club who had almost identical tales that she had to recount.

So with that information you know the possibility of this grinning man being your person is high, but your person or not, he was lighting a fire in your chest regardless.

You don’t think or even weigh the negatives before you send him a hard glare, and you show very little hesitation when you push forward to sink your teeth into the first finger you can catch.

His yelp is covered by the blaring music, but you hear it loud and clear before he reaches his free hand up to pinch at the bridge of your nose to pull you off like a rabid kitten.

“You know what I’m up to,” you huff petulantly as you lean back into the wall with your arms folding over your chest, “or at least I’d assume you’d be smart enough to use your context clues right?”

His lip curls when he glances back up to you as he pets at his now bruising finger, but even with the thin veil of irritation on his pretty features, you can tell he enjoys the sarcastic tone you’ve adopted.

“Yeah you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he bites back as he steps closer, crowding your personal space and pushing his chest tightly against yours, “you’re lucky I’m who caught you and not boss man.”

“Boss man?” you ask, trying not to show you excitement over him spilling the treasured information about the club that you want so desperately.

He doesn’t answer you verbally, and the sly wink he throws at you shocks you more than you would like to admit, but when he tilts his head back quickly you don’t hesitate to follow his line of sight to the edge of the balcony.

If it weren’t for the thin wires of light that create hatching over his eyes and mouth, you probably would have missed the masked figure that leers at you from over the railing. His hands and shoulders are covered by the masses of flowers, and the hollow black where he hides his eyes stares down at you two with a look that you assume is annoyance and possible curiosity.

The moment you two look up, the figure jerks back. Your eyes flick quickly between him and the man in front of you, and from the bratty grin he wears as he looks up, you feel as if the masked man didn’t have any intention at being caught.

You get lost slightly in staring at the man pressed against you, his teeth that look sharper in the red lighting and his eyes twinkle in mischief, and even with the obnoxious start to your interaction, you’d be lying to say you don’t find him beautiful.

It takes you a second to regain your senses, tearing your eyes away from the fascinating side profile of the man, but when you glance back up to the balcony, the mask man has retreated back.

“He doesn’t like much when we take people back there before they’re ready,” he attempts at an explanation as he turns back to you, and seems unfazed when he misses the mark and just confuses you further, “he let the two goons outside have a little exception, but that's because they don’t know how to go easy y‘know.”

“No,” you shake your head at him with a quiet scoff, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think you know more than you think,” his voice drops as he speaks now, and as he speaks he reaches out his hand to hold himself propped against the wall next to your head while his other hand moves to run gently up the side of your neck, “I mean, you know who I am at least right?”

“I have an idea,” you admit with a huff, but you also admit to yourself that this probably means you won't be getting into the hall. You do mentally jot that down as a loss, but decide to take the man pressed against you as a win and you reach to grab at his shirt in retaliation, “but you could at least give me a name to work with.”

“Hm, I didn’t expect you to be one for such formalities,” his head tilts in amusement at his own words, and the action nudges the tip of his nose into yours and makes your heart flutter up into your throat, “but you might as well know the name of the man you’ll be destined to fall in love with.”

You roll your eyes hard enough for them to start to ache, and he quietly laughs and moves to press his nose into the soft flesh of your cheek as he feeds off your annoyance.

“Ten,” he answers quietly, his lips brushing the shell of your ear as he moves to whisper the syllable in your ear, and you never thought that with just one word he’d have a shiver rushing up your spine.

You respond quietly with your name, but the word comes out strained and rushed when he begins to nibble on the lobe of your ear and pushes his knee harshly between your thighs.

Both your hands now hold tightly onto the sides of his shirt, and when his lips move to trail against the side of your neck that isn't enveloped by his hand, you tug roughly at the fabric and your back arches slightly away from the wall.

His tongue is hot when he lays it flat on the center of your throat, and when he swipes it up until it flicks against the end of your chin, you can't help but cringe slightly at the feeling regardless of the way it makes heat pool in between your thighs.

The wicked grin on his face never falters, it only grows wider and more hungry when your eyes meet again, and with his staring so deep that you fear he may be collecting every ounce of your soul, you two have a silent agreement on the unnatural waves of electricity that connect you.

When his lips finally land on yours, it's the roughest and clumsiest kiss you’ve experienced. Both of you fight each other with hungry and eager tongues and the way your teeth gently knock together has your skull rattling in a way that, if you weren’t so hell bent of devouring each other whole, you’d probably have to take a breather.

Your hands reluctantly release the wrinkled fabric of his shirt, and in a desperate attempt to stay occupied, they shoot up the tangle tightly into his hair. You admit, you probably tug harsher on the strands than you probably should, but the groans he pours into your mouth, and the way his hips rock roughly into yours, has you tugging again and again.

He presses you further and further into the wall, and without thinking your hips begin to kick and tilt down until you're grinding harshly and sloppily against his tense thigh.

You let out a quiet whine that's muffled and garbled by his moving at the feeling of him pressing his thumb gently into the dip beneath your jaw, and pressing into your jugular. The sound is followed almost immediately by a small yelp when he latches his teeth to your bottom lip and gives you a stinging bite.

You’re frustrated almost immediately with the lack of friction you can feel from the layers of clothing between you, and now the slight shooting pain from the tensing skin between his teeth, you can feel the impatience in your belly crawling up and invading your chest and throat.

He’s quick to pull away when you retaliate with your own nipping bite to his top lip, your teeth still sinking down when he does and making his sting probably just as much as yours. And when he eyes you as his eyelids droop down into an accusatory squint, you assume he’s not used to getting a taste of his own medicine.

He mutters something to himself about your feistiness, and a sly comment about how he shouldn’t be surprised as he was expecting to get a handful, but he gives you no time to make a snide comment or even question about any of the words, before his fingers are closing firmly but loosely around your neck.

He keeps you rooted in the spot that you stand, the only change in your posture he allows is pulling you slightly away from the wall, just wide enough for him to slink behind you and tug you roughly back into his chest.

“You like poking around into business that isn’t yours?” he asks rhetorically as his free hand reaches around your shoulder to push past the neckline of your shirt, and right as he pressed down the center of your chest and his fingers brush the bottom of your rib cage, his fingers curl and he starts to drag his blunt nails up your sternum as he continues, “need to know and see every single little thing right? So… what’s the harm of being on the other side of it for once?”

“What are you on about?” you as sharply as you try to turn your face towards him the best you can, but his hand tilts under the bottom of your chin until your head is forced to lean on his shoulder and he’s nothing but thrilled at the way it makes you struggle.

“To be seen, or not?” he presses his lips back against the shell of your ear, and the way he whispers roughly makes you shiver again as your thighs press tightly together, “you know what I mean, and you know the answer I want, but its all up to you in the end.”

The electric and slightly humiliating buzz of being seen in a mass of bodies committing the same sins as you was something the woman in the book went on about frequently. She mentioned that there were a few times where she and her lover snuck off to get alone time of course, but the almost blinding pleasure that came from being worshiped by not only one person, but the eyes of an entire room, was addictive. And you wanted just a taste.

You grumble in response, the idea of admitting to the already confident man that you did indeed wanted the same amount of attention as he did made your chest burn even more than it already was, and you’d rather take your chance with his terrifying looking boss than to give him the satisfaction of your verbal confession.

He seems unaffected by your nonverbal confirmation, the way you press into him as his hand wraps around your waist again and creeps down to the button of your shorts, and your own hand grabbing onto the sleeve of his rolled up long sleeve shirt to guide him to undo the clasp or just dip below the waistband, is enough of an answer for him to know.

He chooses to pop the button, and once he has the zipper pulled down enough that he can work with, he begins to shove the worn denim down your hips along with your underwear until they are wrapped around your knees and he can push his fingers roughly between your thighs.

You try to clear the fog that he creates in your mind from his teasing fingers long enough to reach your free hand back to give the same treatment to the dark jeans that wrap tightly around his hips and thighs in a way that had you mentally drooling from the moment you got to get a full look at him, after he ambushed you of course.

You’re not sure how he undid your shorts so quickly without being able to see, but as you fumble and scratch your nails against the sensitive skin of his hip, you give yourself the benefit of the doubt seeing as your trying to work while his middle and ring fingers tease over your entrance and the heel of his hand presses clumsily into your neglected clit.

He, on the other hand, doesn’t give you any benefit of the doubt. He at least has the decency to press his lips across your cheekbone and temple to muffle his quiet laughs, but to make your task even more difficult, his fingers shallowly curl up into you just enough to make you twist and curl.

Once the button of his jeans finally releases, you instinctively let out a huff and sink your shoulders back into his chest as you reach past the fabric to wrap your hand around his stiff length and pull it from the confines until you can press it against his lower belly. And you get just one tally on your side of the boards you’ve created in your mind when his amused laughs devolves into pleased grunts and tilting hips.

“Please,” you start quietly, trying to rock more against the parts of his hand that press against you while running your palm up and down the length of him and smearing him with his own pre come, “I can tell you’re just as impatient as me.”

He swears in your ear, using his hold on you with both hands to shift your hips up and pull you closer before he clears his throat to speak, “well could you imagine, looks like we are a match made in heaven.”

“More like hell,” you retaliate, digging the heel of your own palm into the skin just below the tip of him to egg him on even further, “but either way, that's the point isn't it?”

“I should have expected you to be just a little bit of a smart ass,” he mutters a half hearted complaint, but he only contradicts his own words when he pushes your hips away enough for you to guide him between your thighs and to glide against the arousal that spilled from your body and his hands spread messy along any available inch of skin.

He thrusts smoothly against your back a few times, bringing his arm down to guide him towards your entrance painfully slow, but when you let out a gravely moan of his name, he cant deny himself for any longer, and he’s sinking into you until your eyes start to gently flutter.

Once he’s seated inside you, his hand tenses slightly tighter around your neck, and when you both start pushing towards each other to meet in the middle of your thrusts, his other hand takes the opportunity to map any inch of you he can reach.

He gropes almost painfully at your chest, traveling over your stomach and up your shirt to dig his fingers into your skin until you swear he’s tattooed his finger prints onto you, all while nipping and lapping at the skin of your jaw and neck.

No one immediately in front of you is watching, they’re all in their own worlds of flesh and saliva, but you can still feel eyes of someone on you. His first and foremost as they burn holes into the side of your skull and glance to watch where you push back against him desperately, but there’s another feeling you get of being seen and studied thats so intense that you’re a little shocked when you chance a glance up and see that whoever the masked person was from earlier wasn’t there at all.

So no, you have no idea who, or what is watching you right now, but you can feel the unusual heat it stirs in you as your body flutters around him as he fucks you sloppily. You feel a deeper relation to the woman that owned the book that still rests in the bag that feel unceremoniously from your shoulder when he first put his hands on you, and you hope that maybe you’ll eventually slip into the life of bliss that she meticulously wrote about and possibly learn what happened that demolished the stories that lived in the back of the journal.

You could feel the pleasure crawling up your spine like a monster out creature, your panting breaths tipping the man that works you over off to this even though you’re sure he was already aware before you were, and you think your legs are back to the edge of collapsing when his creeping fingers dance along the expanse of your stomach to find their place back between your thighs.

Your back stiffens at the first touch of his rolling finger on your clit, and your head tilts even farther back onto his shoulder than he already had it. He doesn’t seem interested in coaxing you to your finish slowly, at a pace that would have mercy on your melting mind and shaking form, but he instead abuses your clit until your whimpering out and stumbling and stepping slightly on his toes.

You feel like you’re waiting out the suspense of a horror film that’s score is too obvious to the incoming jump scare. You tilt your neck in a way that seems normal to him, but in reality your trying to feel the many rings that decorate his fingers with the delicate skin of your throat to test if any of them could possibly be sharp enough to cut you and draw blood. You know what blood means to him, and you know it's something he’ll have to do soon if he truly can feel how close you are to the edge.

You feel like you’re floundering a bit, confused from the possible deviation from the story you’ve committed to memory. Was there any chance in this world that this wasn’t your person?

You push this thought away as soon as your panicked mind can construct it though, because there’s no way the spell that it feels has been placed on you would be there if that was the truth, and your body is heated almost like a furnace, but you suddenly love the idea of being burned by him.

You pull in a gasping breath of air that pierces through the music and grunting that rattles in your ears, the taste of your orgasms dancing on the back of your tongue and your back arching so harshly you fear that one of your muscles might seize up and cramp. And right when you feel his hips start to stutter in tandem with yours, and when you’re only seconds from blabbering out mixed syllables that you could only hope would come out as a coherent question, you feel it.

His teeth latch onto you again, his canines not sharp enough to make a clean cut as they dig into the muscle of your shoulder, but his determination is strong enough.

It burns painfully, and makes hot tears well up in your eyes, but almost embarrassingly, is the exact thing that pushes you scrambling over the edge.

You feel like it hurts to breathe, your lungs so focused on letting out puffs of air and broken moans that they can't seem to remember how to bring oxygen in, and your eyes roll for a completely new reason for the man and much more painfully.

It’s when you feel him start to suck the rushing blood from your newly christened wound that you also feel the rumble of his groans against your skin and feel him start to come inside of you. His fist tightens again around your neck as he pushes aftershocks through your nerves with his own orgasm, and with flying hands you grab at both of his wrists, not to ask in any way for him to ease up, but from a sudden wash and need to hold onto him possibly until you die.

He lets you collapse to the floor once he pulls out, but he follows your sinking form and sits alongside you and partially underneath you as you both try to catch your breath.

The club scene in front of you is now blurs of flashing lights and abstract writhing forms, and if it wasn’t for the zaps of energy you feel from every brush of his finger tips, your brain would probably be too muddled to register him fixing both your clothes and his.

You become just slightly more aware when he shifts your body against him enough to grab at the strap of your bag with the heel of his shoe, and you try to sit up faster than necessary and give yourself a small head rush when he pulls it to himself and flips it open.

“You seemed a little weirdly unaffected by the whole,” he flails his hands in front of you for a second as he speaks, and your lagging mind takes a second to catch up with his attempts at implication, “not the fucking part clearly,” he teases, “but the leading up to it. The meeting part and all.”

“I know what this place is,” you admit, and if your legs had gained just a bit more strength you probably would have stood and requested a glass of water just from how gravely your voice had become, “I knew I was probably going to run into you.”

“But you weren’t looking for me,” he tries, and fails, at hiding the slight edge of offense his voice shows, “if you knew I was here why didn’t you look for me?”

“I didn’t worry about it,” you say, warming up a bit again in the fear that it may have come off slightly rude, “or, like, I mean I knew you’d be able to find me easier than I could find you. I was more interested in finding answers.”

“Answers to what? You said you knew this place, or at least what it is?”

“Well I only know the basics,” you shift in his hold, knocking his hands away as they sift through your bag, and grabbing blindly until you can pull out the book, “I found this journal and it-“

“A journal?” he asks in a volume that could have been obnoxiously loud if it weren’t for the thumping bass that shook the floor beneath you, and pulls the small book from your hands.

“It was written by a woman who came here a long time ago,” you explain, deciding to not take offense to his rough and grabbing hands, “I found it and tracked the club down, I needed to see if it was real.”

“Oh it's real alright,” he laughs as he starts to flip through the pages, stopping for a moment to smile at a simple sketch she had done of a cat that she said lived in the back alley, “hey wait I think I know this name, and these people.”

“What are you on about?” you ask with a scoff as you tug the book from his grubby fingers, “you can’t possibly know these people, this was written in like the fifties. Stop pulling my leg.”

“Oh I see,” he smacks your thigh playfully as he leans over your shoulder to glance at the first page that mentioned anything about the date, the ink clear enough to read 1953 in the swirling handwriting, “you think you know everything.”

“I do know everything, fuck you,” you glare playfully at him over your shoulder, “or I would know, if you’d let me go into that weirdo hall.”

“No hall, for now at least,” he sighs, the gears in his head turning as he thinks of the next thing to say, “but you know, time doesn’t exist the same way here, the woman who wrote this probably didn’t know that at the time, so I’m not surprised you don’t either.”

“What do you mean time doesn’t exist?” you look at him as if he’s grown a second head, but do you really have the nerve to question him like that? Considering that entire concept of the club you are very aware of its existence now, a time situation shouldn’t be the most shocking should it?

“Well, it's hard to explai-“

“Then don’t explain it,” you almost jump fully out of his lap at the deep voice that rattles above you, and both him and you look up at the figure that looms over you now.

The man is tall, his black hoodie looking weird in contrast to the clothes of the other club goers, and with a squinting observation and a familiar and annoyed sigh from the man seated behind you, you realize you’re being stared down by the mysterious entity that is the DJ, his hands shoved deep into his hoodie pocket in annoyance.

“Huh?” Ten lets out more in the form of a noise than a word, as his arms wind tightly around your form.

“I said don’t explain shit,” the man begins to tap his foot in irritation as he speaks, and you wonder if he’s aware that he’s in rhythm with the song that surrounds you, “you need to chill out with the loose tongue, its bad enough we have the big mouths outside.”

“I wasn’t gonna go that far,” Ten sounds reminiscent of a scolded toddler, and considering the man is hindering you from getting information that you wanted so badly, you can feel yourself mirroring the pout he wears, “I know what I’m doing alright man? Why are you over here anyways, shouldn’t you be at your little booth minding your business.”

“No one minds their business over at that booth, and you should know that better than anyone pervert,” the words are sharp, but the curl to his lips and the underlying playfulness to his tone tells you the likeliness of them being friends is high, “anyways, I know we don’t follow any regulations or anything here, but I’m still gonna take a fuckin’ break or two.”

“Well breaks over,” Ten reaches out a hand to playfully swat the man away, “I didn’t wait this long for you to just interrupt my bonding time with my person alright?”

“Alright, alright,” he finally starts to shuffle away, throwing one last comment about Ten being bitter his person showed up first over his shoulder with a grin.

“What a loser,” Ten starts, looking at you playfully and rolling his eyes, “too bad he’s like my best friend or whatever.”

“You seem to have a lot of fun around here don’t you?” you take a shot at voicing your observations, your heart fluttering in a completely new way at the warm smile he shoots you.

“Just wait a see, my love. Just wait and see.”

#nct smut #ten smut #chittaphon smut #nct imagine #nct series #nct fic #ten imagines #ten oneshot #nct oneshot #kpop smut #wayv smut #wayv imagine #wayv oneshot

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ultimatetornshipper · 3 years

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To bee or not to bee - a Jasonette fic

@moonlitceleste I almost let this die, I honestly really wanted it dead but alas it was clearly meant to bee

(WARNING: contains puns, angst, crack and fluff. You have been warned)

If you don’t want to read my sarcastic/funny/fangirl commentary, skip the brackets

I have another bee movie au, i didn't plan it ("I don't claim to be proud. But my head won't be hung in shame. I didn't plan it. But the light turned red, and I ran it. And I'm still standing. It's not what I wanted, but now that it's right here. I understand it. A story written by my own hand" as quoted from Waitress), it just happened and i just couldn't resist. I'm not sorry

So what if instead of dying Joker turned Jason into a bee. Because Harley convinced him and told him that people were talking shit about him because he's named the Joker and they don't think he's funny. It surprisingly works. (Obviously Harley was the one who made the plan and did the magic I mean really what do u expect of Joker?)

Ok so now Jason’s a bee right? And he’s like 15 because .~:°*plot*°:~.

They look for him and Jason’s like flying around like, “Guys! Guys I’m right here!” Poor kid. (I mean I would make it funny but like angst)

Obviously they don’t understand him because he’s a fucking bee and Joker cackles madly and Harley laughs too but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes and it's kinda that laugh u do when ur supes overwhelmed and sound maniacal but like soft (I’m a simp for Harley being portrayed as the complex and beautiful character she id leave me be)

Jason is very sad. And also quite pissed

Not knowing what else to do he follows Batman home, he listens to them trying to find him, watches Dick freak out and Alfred wipe a tear the rest of the family doesn’t see.

Jason tries to approach Alfred, hoping he somehow recognizes what happened

He doesn’t, Alfred closes him in a glass and paper and takes him outside.

He sneaks back into the manor and sleeps in one of the flowers (it's a red tulip because aesthetic) next to his bed. He cries himself to sleep. (Can bees cry? Is this possible? Is this like a thing??? I don't need sleep i need answers)

The thing is even tho he's now a bee, he still has the durability of a human, so even stepping on him won’t crush him and he still has a human lifespan

Because Harley isn’t a monster and what Puddin didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. (Simping for Harley Quinn strike 2)

After a while at the manor and following them he decides he can’t stand it anymore. Alfred has thrown him out three times and Dick freaks out each time he sees him as he’s a tad allergic (read: he would die if stung)

Which is how Jason found out that getting hit with a newspaper wouldn’t kill him.

He leaves.

He’s a bee and it’s not like he knows about a way to reverse it.

But there was someone who might.

He goes to Arkham.

Luckily, Harley was still there. (YAY we get to see mah gurl)

He flies into her cell and she just watches him, then she seems to click. She gives him a small smile, “Hi birdie,” (she puns, honestly would make for a better clown of Gotham and I saw an idea for that once where she steals Joker’s title once and I’ve been yearning for it ever since)

She holds out a finger and he lands on it, she laughs but tears come to her eyes,” Hey at least you’re not dead. That was his original plan you know? To kill you with a crowbar. I convinced him this would be a cruller fate. I guess maybe it is, but at least this way... Ugh how the hell did I get here,” (Harley angst, honestly it’s all just self service at this point)

He simply stared at her as she cried, and he felt his heart clench. From here she looked so sad... not crazy, just broken.

She took a deep breath and looked at him seriously, “Look kid, there’s a way to get you back to normal, you just need to find someone, they’re called the Guardian of the Miraculous. They can help, I don’t know who or where they are, just follow your instincts. And come say hi when you get back, yeah? I could do with the... healthier company. And remember, I bee-lieve in you,” (Gasp what a shock, you mean to tell me Miraculous magic is gonna be involved in this Maribat au. Well I never what a shock. Also puns. Oh and she’s so nice to him. We love Harley in this house)

He sat there and studied her for a while more, there was more to her than it seemed. Than what he’d assumed.

But for now, he had his own problems to deal with.

She gave him a small wave as he left. (Adorable)

He left and started considering his options, as a bee, it would probably be safest to stay inside, away from birds and things that would view him as a snack.

Staying in Arkham seemed like his best option, as bad an option as it was.

Most of the prisoners wouldn’t have a second thought about trying to crush him.

A strong scent of flowers and plants suddenly came to his attention.

Of course! Poison Ivy. (Round 2 of me simping for beautiful, complex, badass women. Too bad Catwoman ain’t here.)

He followed the smell to her cell and saw her staring out of her small window. He was still taking a chance, but she loved plants and flowers and bees were important to those, weren’t they?

He flew to the window bars and sat on one. The moment she spotted him she smiled widely, in a soft way he hadn’t seen on her before. (Ahhhhh my darling plant redhead. I love writing the Sirens as soft badasses. Also has anyone noticed how rare brunettes are in superhero worlds? Like both in Marvel and DC but like irl brown is like a pretty damn common)

She held out her finger, “Hey there, little guy. A little far from home, aren’t we?”

She had no idea.

He landed on her fingertip and watched in awe as a flower and a few leaves formed on her hand. She let the flower grow itself around one of her window bars and held her finger next to one of the petals.

“There you go, it’s all I can manage with my power dampers. I haven’t had company in a while,” she said softly as he crawled into the flower. He made himself comfortable.

She laughed to herself and he saw her shaking her head, “Talking to a bee, well, I guess stranger things have happened,” (yeah ur crush is dating a green haired murderous psychopath and you get beat up by a billionaire in a batsuit on like a biweekly basis)

The flower was soft and warm and felt safer than he expected it to. He found that he could move between the petals but decided to curl up in the middle. (It's a pink rose this time because fuck yeah flowers)

He slept better than he had in days.

The next morning he took his leave, stopping only at the manor to say a mental goodbye.

Then he headed off.

Jason flew a lot the first few months, our boy was smart at least, travelling with a cruise ship on its way to Europe.

It was Spring in the Northern Hemisphere so he had until Autumn until it was in his best interest to head south to avoid the snow. He decided to head towards Africa when summer started coming to an end. (I have no reasoning for this, just that I want to)

His first spot would be the United Kingdom. Then he'd go through the rest of Europe following his instincts.

At least it was Spring.

Jason diligently searched through England, Scotland and Ireland but found nothing.

By the time he was done he realized it was time to start heading South. He’d decided to take another cruise to South-Africa, where it would be summer, he searched through the country until April. He would admit that he didn’t feel drawn to anything in any of their 9 provinces so his search wasn’t as diligent as in England. He didn’t feel anymore drawn to the neighbouring countries like Namibia or Botswana either.

(Once again no reasoning for why I picked these countries, I mean the French Hugonotes went there when they were fleeing from the French Catholics who wanted them dead so I guess I could make up some bullshit about Mari having an ancestor in common with someone there or maybe it was just the ship he could easiest get access I don’t know, you make something up)

Which was why he decided to go back to Europe as soon as April hit.

He hitched another ride on a cruise headed for France.

It’s been a year since he got turned into a damn bee.

He was sixteen now and while he’d seen some amazing things all through South-Africa (a place that proves that humans really do have a weirdly obvious way of naming things I mean the Amazon river and Chad Lake are just more examples really) as well as the United Kingdom, all he really wanted was to go back home, to be human again.

When he gets there he diligently makes his way through France, eventually arriving in Paris.

He lands on the tip top of the Eiffel Tower. As in the point of the antenna because why not.

During his year he realized that birds and other animals tended to avoid him, sensing his strangeness so that was at least one positive.

He stared out over the city. Well, the one good thing about this was definitely the views he’s been allowed to see.

That was until a massive explosion hit.

“What the fuck?” he said out loud, searching for the source. No one understood him, human or bee, but talking to himself reminded him of his humanity.

He found the source of the explosion but just as he started flying to its general direction, a blinding white light shone followed by a horde of ladybugs that were fixing everything that was wrong. (Imagine how scary this would lowkey be irl tho? Just a shit ton of Ladybugs descending on Paris my dude)

He decided that he needed a night’s sleep before he could even begin an attempt at deciphering what had just happened. He flew lower, finding a nice little balcony right above a bakery. And it had flowers. (I’ll give u five seconds to guess who this balcony belongs to)

He flew down, exploring.

He turned around when he heard a loud thump from behind him. What appeared to be a super heroine in red spandex with black spots had landed on the balcony.

She detransformed and started to talking to a floating bug- fairy thing. Strange. Though it wasn’t like he could judge, as an ex superhero sidekick who was thought to be dead but was actually a bee.

She disappeared down her trapdoor and he made himself comfortable in one of her flowers.

He slept soundly until somewhere during a night another thump woke him. He looked out of his sleeping spot to see a cat superhero stand on her balcony. He leaned down and knocked on her small trapdoor.

Ah, a teammate of hers, they were probably meeting about something, he thought as he heard her open up.

It didn’t take him long to realize that even though they were teammates, the cat, Chat Noir he later learned, was not aware of this fact.

Oh this was rich.

He couldn’t bee-lieve his eyes. (ok so Jason used self-referential puns but can you really blame him? It’s really just me and my pun problem so don’t blame the kid)

He was going on and on about his feelings for Ladybug, the girl’s hero form, that were clashing with his feelings for another girl he fenced with, while she listened, clearly fed up with it.

He also claimed that he thought that maybe they were one and the same. Which, to Jason, was hilarious as he was literally saying this to the actual Ladybug’s face.

Marinette- he learned from the Cat’s ongoing blabbering, he was a real blab-bee mouth, - was clearly tired, nodding half asleep, probably having heard it all before.

When he finally left Jason went to sleep again, incredibly amused and even more thankful that he was fluent in French. ( u think this is plot convenience? Just u wait mah dude iz about to get worse)

The next morning he decided to follow her to school. Which was how he learned of her huge crush on a boy named Adrien Agreste.

After learning the boy could fence thanks to Marinette’s obsession interest in him, he got suspicious.

Could it really bee? (not a typo)

After seeing the boy transform a month or two later for patrol he laughed like he hadn’t for over a year. It very much was. He'd spent the time staying on Marinette's balcony and decided to stay another week before moving on and continuing his search, after all, he couldn't stop now that he finally felt like he was getting close.

The next day she got home crying, claiming that Adrien had started dating someone else.

Kagami, she called the girl. Probably the fencer if he had to place a bet.

“I’m sorry, Marinette,” Tikki told the girl.

“That boy's an idiot,” he said, speaking his mind, another thing he’d gotten use to being allowed to do without consequence.

Marinette nearly jumped out of her skin, she looked around and he realized that she could hear him. He hadn’t really spoken too much before, at least not when she was around. He was usually content with watching her do whatever she was doing that day.

“Tikki, did you hear that?” she asked, Tikki nodded, her eyes landing on him.

“Oh,” the kwami said softly, flying over to him, “Oh, you poor thing, who did this to you?” (Tikki is the first ever mom friend and u can fight me on this)

He stared up at her, flying so that they were eye level.

Marinette gaped at them, heartbreak seemingly forgotten, “Tik- Tikki, are- who are you talking- are you talking to a – Tikki is that a bee?!” she finally spluttered out.

“No,” Tikki said, studying him, he felt his heart twist in hope and his stomach roll in surprise. Did she know?

“I mean yes, but no. He’s a boy whose been turned into a bee,” Tikki explained, turning back to Marinette.

“Oh,” Marinette said softly, turning to him. She held her hand out and after some hesitation he landed on her finger. She looked at him then back to Tikki.

How did they know? Would he really be that lucky? Was this real?

“Uhm, how?” she said, staring at him in disbelief. He tried shrugging but realized he couldn’t anymore- beecause of his- well if you haven’t caught on to the fact that he’s a bee by now you should really start from the beginning of this story.

“I don’t know, but Joker and Harley Quinn were involved,” he said.

Marinette stared at him in disbelief, blinking a few times. She sat in shock a few moments longer. (Our darling is an awkward lil bean, and while in media awkward is portrayed as cute, irl it isn’t, it’s just well… awkward. And we’re writing a serious and realistic fic about this sidekick of guy who wears a batsuit/billionaire's ward getting turned into a bee and falling in love with a magical girl fighting a butterfly man- none of this unrealistic nonsense)

Tikki flew over and sat on Marinette’s shoulder while her holder processed the information, the kwami stared at him sweetly, “What’s your name?”

He swallowed, he hadn’t said his name in ages, it stirred up something (emotion, it’s called emotion, Jason, you know? The thing Batman can’t process??) in him, “Jason Todd,”

Marinette seemed to finally snap out of her daze, “That sounds American. Are you American? Wait if Joker and Harley are involved then you’re probably from Gotham. Are you? Wait I’ve seen the name Jason Todd somewhere. Weren’t you some rich guy’s ward? It was all over the news last year, Alya wouldn’t stop talking about it for a month, she had a million theories. He was – you were announced dead two months after Robin was taken captive by Joker, everyone thought he was – you were killed. Joker made outrageous claims as they arrested him... saying that they’d never find Robin... that he’d all but disappeared in thin air... that he wouldn’t be the only one wearing stripes... I remember because he put a really weird emphasis on the words be and stripes and...,” her eyes widened and she gasped as she looked at him in what could only be described as pure shock. (Yes this happens, people can talk for this long and since I personally know headcannon that Marinette is ADHD this long ass paragraph is just another Tuesday bud)

He sat there, surprised that she figured it all out so quickly. (yeah bub it’s called plot convenience and it’s because of me, the writer, I don’t wanna focus on secret ID shenanigans, I got other plans for yall, also Mari is smart, don’t underestimate her)

“You’re Robin,” she breathed, “they turned you into a bee. Wait- How the hell did they turn you into a bee?!”

He chuckled, “Bee-lieve me I’ve been asking myself that question for more than a year,”

She bit her lip, seemingly contemplating his words and ignoring his pun, “Tikki do you know anything that could help? Do you think Miraculous magic-,”

He felt his heart stop, he flew up to her face, flying at eye level, “Wait, did you just say Miraculous? Harley said if I could find the Guardian of the miraculous, they could help me, do you know where they are? I’ve been looking for so long,” (‘°;~*.plot convenience.*~;°’)

Marinette blinked at him and Tikki's face dawned with realization.

“I’m the guardian of the miraculous,” Marinette said softly, “Tikki, that means I can help him, right?”

Tikki nodded and he had to dial down the hope in his heart because the look on her face told him there was a Kim Kardashian sized butt on the way.

“We can help him, but we’re gonna have to wait. (don’t look at me like that, do u want them to have time to bond or not?) You’re not trained enough to pull it off yet. If you were to do it now, all three of us would be out of commission for far too long, especially with Hawkmoth on the prowl,” Tikki said.

They must’ve been able to sense his sadness because they were staring at him with an incredible amount of pity. The amount was quite unsettling actually and he suddenly felt a primal like urge to pun. (An extract from my book: “My unhealthy coping mechanisms and how to use them,” specifically Chapter 8: “Humor hides the pain”)

Suddenly Tikki’s face lit up, the whiplash of her expression change throwing any notion of punning out the window.

“Well, there’s one thing we could do,” she said, excitedly, zipping buzzing around “If he wears a miraculous, he'll return back to human form while transformed,”

Marinette perked up at the idea, but confusion soon overtook her features, “But Tikki, most of the miraculous are bigger than he is,”

Tikki waved her away,” It’s fine it’ll work,”

“Ok,” Marinette said after a bit of thought. She stood and he followed while she started climbing down her skylight,” I’m thinking you can try each of them out for different patrols and then we’ll see which one matches you best. This could be fun, having some fun sized company while figuring out how to defeat Hawkmoth,”

He laughed, flying near her ear, “Fun sized, huh? I’ll have you know I’m considered tall in human form, unlike some of us,”

She laughed and rolled her still tear stained eyes, and so, the beginning of a bee-autiful friendship bloomed.

Marinette walked to her closet and Jason took in her room. It was very pink, but in a well-balanced way - it wasn’t completely overbearing. His eye caught on a few pictures of Adrien Agreste on her wall but figured now wouldn’t be a great time to bring it up. (Look he’s already more emotionally aware, #foreshadowing of character development)

She removed a big box from her closet. She opened it and it was filled with what appeared to be a bunch of scrap materials. At the bottom she removed a bigger bundle of black and red fabric and he flew closer.

She put it in her lap and Jason had to do a double take when he realized that her hands were glowing and what the actual fuck- it was a box now -fuck fuck fuck- why was it a box? How? What- Jason was pretty sure he did not sign up for this.

She put the box down in front of her and to his relief she opened her mouth to speak as she lifted the lid, so he’d understand everyth- and its jewellery.

The box contained jewellery. Animal themed jewellery by the looks of things.

He then realized that these were probably the other miraculous.

She looked over each artefact before handing him the yellow and black hairclip.

Out of all of them, she picked the bee miraculous.

“Hilarious,” he replied dryly, giving her a look, he realized too late she wouldn’t be able to register- on account of, well you know… (if u don’t know by now, you don’t get to find out anymore)

She gave him a grin and replied, “I certainly think it is,”

Her teasing expression turned into one of worry, “I mean we could switch it out if it makes you uncomfortable-,” (being a sassy people pleaser with no filters really do be like this tho)

He laughed, “Don’t worry, I’m only teasing. What do I do?”

Marinette opened her mouth to answer before obviously realizing that she didn’t have an answer. She turned to Tikki and the kwami had a fond smile on her face before turning to Jason. (Just Tikki casually mentor- moming Mari because Fu is useless)

“Just step on the miraculous, it’ll sense that you’re human,” the creature replied.

When he stepped onto the bee miraculous, its kwami appeared.

Pollen stared at him for a few seconds before she realized what was happening.

After an explanation about her power set and what exactly he could do in suit, he transformed.

He felt his human body appearing. He was taller and more built than he remembered being. His flying clearly had physical consequences then, not that he was complaining.

His suit included a pair of bee wings. His hair was longer than he remembered it being too.

He had a black leather jacket and combat boots. With it was a pair of practical black leggings and a yellow t-shirt with three thick black stripes. (The three stripes represent each one of his families, the Todds, the Waynes and The Dupain-Chengs, because I can) He also had a pair of black gloves. His boots had yellow laces. On his face was a black and yellow striped domino mask. The top sat on his hip. The bee miraculous sat on the middle of his chest in the form of a broach.

He all but sprinted to the mirror. He stared at his face, his blue eyes and his nose that never healed quite right after breaking it that one time. His black hair was messy and stuck up every which way, his cheekbones were as high as always, and he had a little bit of stubble and it was so familiar and so new all at once.

He touched his face, barely registering the tears flowing down his cheeks and laughed in relief. He was human again. This was real! He could- he was closer to normal than he ever thought he’d get to be.

He turned to Marinette who was staring up at him in shock. He picked her up and spun her around, laughing in joy. And after a moment she joined in. He put her down and put his hands on her shoulders, smiling widely, “Thank you. Thank you so much,”

She smiled up at him, a slightly sad look on her face, “I’m sorry, it’s not permanent,”

“Don’t be sorry. For the first time I have hope. It will be permanent eventually, and till then, I have you with me, right?” he squeezed her shoulder, still high on the feeling of hope and warmth and familiarity.

When he was overcome with the sudden urge to pull her into a hug, he didn’t resist.

He held her close, resting his chin on her head, “Damn, I missed this. Hugging, I mean. I haven’t... it’s been so long,” (not that he got all that many hugs from Bruce “emotionally constipated” Wayne)

She wrapped her arms around him, “I can imagine,”

They stood there a while before the time for patrol came along. She transformed and they made their way to the Eiffel tower, where they met Chat.

The cat themed hero rose his brow questioningly, “I thought we didn’t recruit new heroes unless it was an emergency?”

Ladybug smiled nonchalantly, “It’s Guardian business, he’s gonna be a permanent fixture in our team for at least a few months so we might as well get used to working as a team,”

Chat Noir eyed him wearily and he stepped forward, sticking his hand out, “Hi, I’m Blackback, nice to meet you,”

Chat Noir shook his hand and gave Ladybug a sceptical look, “An American? Really?”

“Please Chat, he's not American, it’s just the glamour hiding his actual accent,” she replied simply, shooting Jason a worried look.

He couldn’t give away his identity, but he was also technically a bee, he didn’t really have an identity to give away. So, her behaviour was strange. Unless she wanted to give him an identity somehow?

He couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of patrol.

When they got home Marinette revealed that she wanted to give him the fox miraculous. If they asked Trixx she would be able to design the costume in a way that allowed him to look like a normal civilian, without the mask.

Trixx's glamour was also stronger than the rest so his true identity as Jason Todd would be protected.

And she could help him fake an accent.

Since Marinette was a year younger than him he could just pick up where he left off school wise.

She convinced her parents that he was an exchange student in desperate need of a place to stay because the person he would’ve stayed with backed out last minute.

They agreed easily and Jason decided to not question it.

It was his third family. His second if you only counted non abusive ones. First if you wanted one with a healthy family dynamic.

They got him a fake birth certificate and name. He went with the alias Thomas Grayson. He thought it was kind of funny, and it paid homage to both Bruce and Dick. It gave him something from home to hold on to. (Jason isn’t really salty about not being avenged in this au, he didn’t die and Talia and the pit madness wasn’t there to egg on his anger. But maybe if I ever get back to this au we could do a thing with it… guess we’ll have to wait and see ;-) no promises tho)

He built himself another home with Marinette and her family. And before he knew it, he was happy again. He felt secure.

Through the weeks, he ingrained himself into Marinette's life. In a blink of an eye, they were best friends, and he couldn’t imagine life without her.

He loved living with her family as she trained to be strong enough to turn him back to normal.

He grew close to Marinette’s friends and was her shoulder to cry on about Adrien. He and Adrien got along pretty well, and he and Marc and Rose traded Literature jokes. Max would join in when it involved Shakespeare.

Then Lila happened. (She’s a staple in Maribat fiction. U can’t have Maribat without Lila. Or well u can but that’s usually a very specific au)

Her lies started out simple enough. Then she started manipulating everyone and he, Marinette, Chloe and Adrien were one scheme away from being ostracized. They sat in the back row.

They ignored her sneers and let her lie to her heart’s content. Then one day she said something that made both Marinette and Jason freeze.

“You know, I was childhood friends with Jason Todd (I know she usually gets the names wrong but like her knowing the name just makes this next bit better) You know, Bruce Wayne’s ward who died a while ago? It was just so sad. He grew up in a nice family but his parents both died in a car accident and Brucie took pity on him. He even let us keep in contact afterwards, since our parents were such good friends. We all miss them dearly of course. We were neighbours the year we lived in Gotham, you know? We'd play every day-,” she started fake crying, “Oh it just gets too much sometimes,”

But to Jason’s shock Alya didn’t move to console Lila, in fact, she was staring at the brunette in shock.

He turned his gaze to Marinette to see the girl wearing the biggest, coldest, most satisfied smirk. She rested her chin on her hands and grinned at Lila in a way that made shivers go down his spine.

He turned back, this ought to be good.

And it was.

Alya absolutely lost it.

She ripped Lila a new one and frankly? Jason was impressed. (Alya has a temper and she’s a fangirl, and we all know how we get when someone gets something wrong about one of our hyperfixations, even if it’s an old one so like yall can imagine how bad Lila had fucked up)

When an akuma flew in towards Lila, Alya grabbed it, staring the girl down with a fury he didn’t know she could possess, “Don’t you dare! Do you think I’m blind? I’ve seen how easily you get akumatized and this time I’m not letting it happen!”

Of course, Alya then got akumatized but hey it beat another version of Lila.

Everyone made up but they weren’t quite as close as before. Their group tended to consist mostly out of him, Marinette, Chloe, Adrien, Kagami and Luka.

Other than that incident and akuma attacks, life was pretty good.

In fact, it was great.

He and Marinette would spend nights on her balcony, laughing and slow dancing. They star gazed and went on patrols. He helped her when she got nightmares and she returned the favour. They went on long walks and spent the holidays together. They crammed for tests and he played model for her designs. They worked in the bakery and hung out with their friends both in and out of suit. They’d joke about his technical bee-ness and he and Chat drove her mad with puns. In retaliation she’d introduce him as her bee friend to people or only give him honey and bee themed things. (ok this sentence sounds weird but I mean like when she brings them sweets from the bakery to snack on while working and stuff.)

And one laugh, memory and fight at a time, he started to fall. (I just want good things for Jason, and really can you blame me?)

Through the months, he kept up to date on the news about Bruce Wayne and Marinette held his hand each time a new kid joined his brood. She reminded him that no child could be replaced and reassured him that of course Bruce would want him back when they figured everything out.

And if he didn’t, she’d kick his ass into space, and he’d stay with her family in Paris- a family she made sure he knew he was a part of.

He helped Sabine in the kitchen and was the only one who came closest to beating Marinette’s Ultimate Mega Strike 3 record. Tom taught him to shave and bake. He was integrated into their family and they treated him as part of the family.

But even if they were giving him everything they were, he missed Bruce. And Dick. And Alfred. And Barbara. And Gotham. He missed them all so much. He missed home.

So, 14 months later, when Marinette told him they had a meeting with the Justice League about the Hawkmoth situation, Jason felt his heart skip a beat.

“What?” he asked softly, his eyes brimming with tears (Marinette taught him how to emotion, you see. So Jason is emotionally stable-ish enough to cry without feeling embarrassed about it), “I get to see him again?”

Marinette nodded and hugged him from behind, “I’m planning on telling him what happened. Is there anything you can tell him to verify who you are?”

Memories from a million years ago entered his mind, “Yes,”

She took his hand and took a step back, “And I think I can fix you before we go, I’m strong enough. But I’d still like your help in the final battle, I mean I know you’re going home but...,”

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled, “Of course, Pixie. I’ll always be there for you when you need me,”

He pressed a kiss against her forehead, a movement so familiar it was practically a part of him. He pulled her close and cried into her hair.

“What if he doesn’t believe me?” he asked softly, after a while, resting his chin on top of her head.

“He will,” she replied, tightening her grip around his waist.

They both knew she had no guarantee of that. That she had no way of knowing for sure. Neither of them did. And it scared him more than he wanted to admit.

The next day they do the magic turning back thing. It freaks him out quite a bit but not as much as her revealing the miraculous freaked him out the first time, you get kinda used to the magic shenaniganary. They’re both passed out for an hour afterwards and when they wake up, he holds her, crying, because he was finally, finally back to normal and this was real and permanent, and it was over.

She cried with him and held him, and they then went out and he wore a shirt she made for him, and they got ice cream the next day. They celebrated some more and went to the park with the squad and they had a picnic.

It was better than he ever could've imagined.

While the sun was setting, they stood back on her balcony, where they first spoke all those months ago, slow dancing. He pulled away and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at her as the orange light of the sunset shone on them. (So aesthetic)

“Thank you, Marinette, for everything,” he says as he rubs his thumb across her cheek. His hand holding her face. She puts her hand over his and closes her eyes, savouring the moment.

She opened her eyes again and smiled, “I’d do it again and more, if it meant I’d get to be with you,”

He started leaning down, “If I lost you, I’d fly all over the world just to find you again,”

She raised to her tip toes, faces millimetres from one another, blue bells meeting ice, “So it was all worth it in the end?”

He moves closer, eyes searching hers. “Definitely,” he breathes.

She closes the distance, and he picks her up and spins her around. They break apart and their laughter fills the air.

(now that’s enough fluff, allow me to drown you in angst)

The next day they stood on the Eiffel tower. She took his hand, “Let’s recap. I go in, we have our Hawkmoth meeting, then I ask if I can speak to Batman and Nightwing alone. Then I tell them I found you, then I give them – are you sure it’s necessary for me to give them your blood, hair and a cheek swab? Isn’t that overkill?” (Batman is serious about his no kill rule, but he’s also serious about his there’s no such thing as overkill rule)

He shook his head and she sighed, “Okay. Then I give him means to contact me and I come back. Now remember they might take a while to process and they won’t necessarily call immediately-,”

“What if they never call?” he asked, gripping her hand tightly.

She ran her finger softly through his hair, “Then you have us to help you get through it,”

He nodded, she kissed his cheek and stepped through the portal with Queen Bee, Chat Noir and Viperion. He and Ryuuko stayed behind as backup, he wielded the Fox miraculous these days, but kept the name Blackback, always wearing a black leather jacket no matter the transformation.

He and Ryuko discussed fighting styles, she was kindly trying to distract him, and if it had been anything else he needed distracting from, it would’ve worked.

So passed the slowest forty-five minutes of his life. Chat Noir and Queen Bee exit a portal and so the wait for Marinette and Luka began.

She and Bruce were talking now. Bruce would know he was alive. This was make or break for him. Luka was nearby to act as back up worst-case scenario.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, followed by someone taking and rubbing circles on his back. He looked down to see Ryuuko on his one side and saw Chat Noir on his other.

“We’ve got you,” Chloe said standing in front of him, hand on his unoccupied shoulder.

He swallowed and nodded. She squeezed his upper arm and met his gaze, “Breathe, you’re safe, honey,”

So, 30 more minutes pass. They sit down and somewhere along the line Chat goes and grabs a dozen croissants from the bakery.

In another situation he might’ve laughed. He’d baked this morning’s batch and now he got to eat some of it for free, of course, technically he could get others for free too but-

The portal opened behind them and Ladybug and Viperion stepped out. He noted that she didn’t have the bag of his DNA with her anymore.

She smiled softly at him, “Now we wait,”

And wait they did.

They waited two weeks.

And then the burner phone that's number they'd given Bruce rang.

Jason froze, Marinette jumped up and ran to get it.

He couldn't move as she walked over and put the phone on speaker, she grabbed his hand and he held onto her for dear life.

"We can both hear you now, Nightwing," she said.

There was a beat of silence on the other side of the line, "Can he- If you're- can I speak to him? In- um- private?"

Marinette looked at him, and he nodded. She took the phone off speaker and handed it to him.

He held it up to his ear and squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the circles Marinette were drawing on his hand with her thumb.

"He- hey Dick," he said. He heard his brother's breathing hitch, followed by a few seconds of silence.

"When did Batman find you?"

"25th May 2017,"

"Who's your favourite author?"

"Mary Shelley tied with Jane Austin,” he replied.

Dick stayed silent for too long and before he could stop himself the words fell from his mouth, desperation clinging to each syllable,” My favourite- my favourite playwright is Shakespeare, and my favourite school subject is English. If I could pick any day job it would be being a writer. My favourite colour is blue. Alfred has a secret fear of dolphins. You have had a ridiculously huge crush on Barbara for years and she had no idea, and I found a picture you drew under your old room's bedside table of you two getting married. I folded the picture up and hid it in a small box of memories I kept in the farthest corner of my closet under clothes I never wore. I have a round scar on the lower left side of my back where Willis Todd burned me with a cigarette when I was 5 that you don’t know I know you know about. My first Christmas at the manor you found me in the rose garden cutting a few off to take to my mother's grave and I was terrified that you would yell at me but instead you drove me to the graveyard and that was the day I decided to give you a real chance. I despise carrots but I eat them when Alfred makes them because I don't want to be a burden. And I-," he choked on a sob- when had he started crying?

He took a shuddering breath, and swallowed some of his tears, trying to make sure the words got out right, "I've missed you guys for every single second that I've been gone,"

His stomach tied itself up in a million knots as the silence stretched on. He could hear Dick moving the phone.

"Can I speak to Ladybug again please?" A female voice he didn't recognize said.

He handed the phone to Marinette and pressed his hand over his mouth to try to contain the sobs. He felt like a knife was twisting his stomach. He couldn't even hear what Marinette was saying. (I’m going through something irl and as a result u guys get to read angst by the bucketloads and I regret nothing)

Dick didn't want to talk to him. He should've just answered the question, he shouldn't have given all the extra information. Now they were never going to believe that it's really him and he would never see them again. Maybe they knew it was him and they just didn't want him-

"Jason, breathe with me," he heard Marinette's voice. His eyes latched onto hers like a lifeline, he became aware of her hands holding his.

She took his face in her hands and rested her forehead against his, in a motion so familiar that it came as easy as breathing. Well as easy as it usually was to breathe, right now excluded.

After he calmed down, she explained to him what they discussed. They would go to Gotham and meet and discuss things from there.

They wanted to meet him, but they still didn’t completely believe that it was him. He knew this for a fact because they had organized for M’gann to be there to confirm what he was saying. (Yassss M'gann my darling girl, I adore out lil Martian)

Marinette had suggested that they meet in the Batcave in an hour. Everyone had agreed. He assumed she had a plan as to why she wanted to wait. And he trusted her, so he waited for her to explain.

“I want to take the team, as backup. If you’re not comfortable with it, I want to at least take Luka. I would suggest just letting one of us wield is miraculous, but his Second Chance Timer limit is an hour so it would be most beneficial,” she said, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t holding his.

He nodded, sitting up straighter, but not releasing his grip on her hand, “We can bring the team, it’s smart to have backup. Besides if things go haywire, we have Luka to stop us.”

“Then let’s go get our team, love,”

(oh, I should probably mention that only he and LB knows everyone’s Identities. Or well rather no one knows like officially. Like everyone lowkey knows everyone's and a few of them have officially revealed themselves to each other, but not everyone is officially revealed to everyone and Mari and Jason are the only ones who aren’t officially revealed to anyone else, it’s kinda like the vibes of knowing your best friend is queer but not saying anything because they haven’t officially come out yet but like you know because they ain’t nearly as subtle as they think. Like that aesthetic.)

Anyway, 50 minutes later, they’re all gathered on the Eiffel Tower. Jason saw Marinette give Luka a nod to reset his timer. Suddenly he was enveloped in a light with a scratch that wasn’t there a few seconds before on his cheek, his expression quite annoyed.

Marinette immediately furrowed her brows, “How many times?”

Viperion shook his head, “Don’t worry, only one so far, but they try to restrain us. We’re gonna have to try plan b this time,” Everyone nodded, they waited two minutes before the agreed upon time and Mari opened a portal, but instead of appearing out in the opened, they hid in the shadowy parts of the cave.

Jason used his illusion to hide them from any observant eyes and they spread out a bit. He and Mari stayed together, Cloe flew to get a higher perspective and hide Viperion on one of the cave’s many ledges while Chat just moved a few feet away to have a slightly different hiding spot. Kagami dropped into her wind form and was flying above them to eavesdrop, she’d go to Luka if she heard anything of importance so he could go restart again.

They’d be one step ahead of the Bats no matter what they pulled, after all, they had all the time in the world.

They watched them all get into position as time neared. Jason didn’t know all the kids but recognized them from the news.

Dick, Bruce and M’gann stood near the bat computer with Barbara – who was in a wheelchair but that was a realization to deal with later- and Alfred.

The minute they were supposed to appear Jason cast another illusion to make it appear as though they had arrived. As expected, weapons and restraints immediately swarmed on them, each kid going for a different miraculous member. Too bad the images turned into orange dust as soon as they touched them.

The tiny one in the Robin uniform was red in the face and immediately started throwing a tantrum, “Father! They’ve tricked us-,”

Before he could get another word out, Chloe mass-venomed the horde of kids that we’re sent to attack them. He counted Black bat, Red Robin, Batgirl, Signal and Robin. They were all frozen in the middle of the room and before the others near the computer could move, Kagami trapped them in a (rather large) ring of fire. They had enough space to move around comfortably but if they tried approaching the edge the flames would grow larger.

Batman growled and his eyes searched through the cave, but he wouldn’t see them, no matter how hard he searched.

Jason stared at them. Dick was also searching the cave, but he seemed to look more hopeful than angry. Alfred seemed his usual calm self and Barbara was glancing around the cave more subtly. He didn’t bother looking at the rest of the batkids because M’gann was staring right at him, staying right where she was despite her ability to fly.

“Hi, Jason,” she softly spoke into his mind, he felt emotion overwhelm him, she’d known him before everything, and she knew it was him and it was a lot.

He knew she wasn’t probing around his brain for information like he was sure Bruce had asked her to, she didn’t have to, she knew it was him.

“Can you please tell me why we’re surrounded by fire?” she asked.

“We have a time traveller,” he replied.

“Ah, not a fan of Bruce’s restrain and question method, then? Can’t say I blame you, though I do think you’ve proven your point,”

“You really think it’s a good idea to release all of them?” he asked sceptically.

“… Good point. Maybe leave the brood in the middle in whatever frozen state they’re in and just let us in the fire out. They really just think it’s too good to be true… Jason, I won’t let them hurt you,”

“Okay,” he agreed softly. He turned to Marinette and gave her a slight nod. She returned with one of her own.

They walked over to Kagami’s ring of fire and he held their illusion until they were right in front of it. He held on to it for a bit to make sure everyone else would be able to stay in position. Chloe would keep the cavalry venomized and Chat and Viperion would stick to the shadows, unless necessary.

Jason dropped the illusion and watched four heads snap to him. M'gann simply gave him a soft smile and a nod of encouragement.

Kagami moved herself to stand next to Marinette and turned back into her human form, glaring at them with a silent warning.

Their attention was elsewhere, though. For a long time they just stood there and stared at one another in silence. They studied every part of one another they could see.

His eyes caught on Barbara’s wheelchair and he felt ready to destroy whatever put her there. She met his eyes and he held her gaze. She must’ve seen something there because she gave a small smile as she allowed a few tears to escape her eyes.

“Miss Martian?” Batman broke the silence like a cheap dinner plate, shattering it in a matter of seconds.

“It’s him,” M’gann answered without a hint of hesitation.

It was Alfred that moved first. He took a few hesitant steps towards him and before Jason knew it the man was in front of him. Alfred reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, desperately studying him for a moment before pulling him into a hug only Alfred could give.

It took Jason a moment to respond but when he did he returned it wholeheartedly.

After a few minutes they pulled apart and it took him a moment to realize that they’d both started crying. When he looked up Dick was only a few feet away. The moment Alfred stepped away Dick pulled him close.

“I thought you were dead, kid. I thought I’d never see you again, I thought I lost even more family. You were too young, too innocent. Fuck Jason,” Dick whispered, tightening his grip, “I’m so glad you’re alive,”

Jason held on to his brother and that night they cried about terrible endings and broken beginnings. They cried about lost time and found family.

It wasn’t the end yet, Hawkmoth was still terrorizing Paris and he had no idea what Bruce thought yet. There were all his other kids, his brothers and sisters. There were his teammates and the incredible story of how he’d been turned into a bee of all things.

They had a lot of catching up to do.

But just for a moment, a strand of a singular moment, he had his brother in his arms again and he was back home. His first real home.

Things weren’t perfect, as things rarely are but it didn’t matter. Because part of the beauty of life is how it builds and breaks us in a cycle of love and loss.

And that night they laughed with a lightness and joy none of them had fully been able to hold onto in years.

I hope you guys enjoyed!

This is lowkey totally gonna be the au I go to when I don’t know what to write lol, maybe write a bit of what happens afterwards or a part of everything during the year he lived with Mari them or just y’know shenanigans

#maribat #jason todd #marinette dupain cheng #jasonette #bee movie au #aka the deep dark hole within the deep dark hole #I've been working on this for a month #probably more #my brain held me captive with this au it held me at gunpoint and stalked me and wouldn't leave me alone until i wrote it #me: casually attempting to write anything else #my brain: *slaps me with ideas for this* NO #and the worst part is there's more that's not written just bull my brain came up with #and i can't believe I put angsty life philosophy writing in a CRACK AU #THIS IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF A CRACK AU #WHY #I AM SO INVESTED AND I'M MAD ABOUT IT #i enjoyed writing this and that fact alone infuriates me #blame moonie for this #and u know what blame bugabunny too #(fuck i hope i got their name right)#if it hadn't been for the two of them discussing this again i would've forgotten all about it and i woulda been allowed to write #my kaldur x marinette fic in peace. or my lila time loop fic. OR LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE #anyway i tried to make his outfit red hood esque but like only the parts i liked about it #aka the leather jacket and the combat boots #I don't know how i feel about the fact that i wrote this but what's done is done #*sigh*#jason x marinette #why me #nightwing fluff #but also angst

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itsauthorvikram · 3 years

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15 Free self-publishing companies you can choose

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On top of that, there are also self-publishing services that charge a fee to help you publish your book.

These can sometimes become very expensive, especially if you have to pay a monthly subscription.

For new authors, the best advice is to use reliable and reputable publishing companies that offer free self-publishing with no strings attached.

In my list below, you will find the best choices for publishing ebooks as well as paperback books.

The best choices for ebooks

The following companies offer free self-publishing for ebooks.

Add your book to Whizbuzz Books

For new authors, it is the easiest way to publish a new book.

With these services, you are not charged to publish your ebook, and you will be paid royalties for every copy you sell.

1. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

Without a doubt, Amazon KDP is the first choice for most new authors.

KDP offers totally free self-publishing for ebooks, and it is very easy to use.

All you need to do is upload your manuscript file in Word and your ebook cover.

When your ebook goes on sale, you will earn 70% royalties for ebooks priced over $2.99. But for books under that price, you will only earn 35%.

Because Amazon has the largest market share for book sales, it will almost always be your first choice.

2. Apple Books

Coming in at number two is Apple Books.

It used to be called iBooks, but the name change has made no difference.

Apple still ranks second for ebook market share.

Again, it’s easy to publish your ebook. If you are a Mac user, you can upload directly from Apple Pages.

Apple offers a few advantages over Amazon KDP.

Firstly, you will earn 70% royalties on all your ebooks regardless of the price.

You can also offer your ebook for free. This is not possible on Amazon.

Another benefit is for ebooks with lots of images. Unlike KDP, Apple does not charge a file download delivery fee.

3. Barnes & Noble Press

Barnes & Noble Press is the new name for Nook Press.

It offers similar free ebook publishing conditions to Apple. You will earn 70% on your ebook sales.

If you used Nook Press in the past, you will notice a lot of improvements in the new platform.

It’s now much easier to use.

4. Kobo Writing Life

You have probably heard of Kobo Books. It is a popular ebook retailer, especially in markets outside the US and UK.

The big advantage of publishing with Kobo is that it says it distributes its ebook catalog to online retailers in 190 countries.

Kobo Writing Life is the self-publishing arm of Kobo Books.

It is free to self-publish your ebook, and the conditions are very similar to Apple and Barnes & Noble.

However, like Amazon, you will get reduced royalties for ebooks priced under $2.99.

5. StreetLib

StreetLib uses a slightly different pricing model.

You can self-publish your ebook for free, but StreetLib will charge 10% of the cover price for each sale.

But you will need to do your own calculations to see if this is viable for you.

6. Xinxii

It might sound Asian, but Xinxii is a German self-publishing service.

Its royalty tiers are 70% for ebooks over $2.95 and 40% for lower prices.

One big advantage for some authors is that you don’t need a tax ID number to get paid.

You can also publish under various pen names and in different languages.

7. PublishDrive

I have to mention PublishDrive, even though it offers mostly paid publishing packages.

But it does offer a free service called Abacus. With it, you can publish your first ebook for free.

Any additional titles will cost you $2.99 per month.

Ebook aggregators

If you want to avoid all the hassles of publishing on different retailer platforms, an ebook aggregator is the best solution.

You only need to publish once, and you can make your ebook available on many ebook retailers and also libraries.

Generally, you will receive a slightly lower royalty rate of around 60% for the convenience of one-stop publishing.

8. Draft2Digital

If you want an easy way to self-publish your ebook, Draft2Digital will be for you.

You can read my full review to find out why. You can distribute your ebook to a long list of online ebook retailers.

One feature I love is that you can use templates to style your ebooks beautifully.

9. Smashwords

As one of the pioneers of ebooks, Smashwords is a favorite of many self-publishing authors.

One advantage is that it has its own online bookstore that is popular with many readers.

But with its premium catalog, you can distribute your ebook to a long list of both ebook retailers and libraries.

Free paperback self-publishing

I have to start by saying that there can be some costs because a paperback book is a physical product.

But with the following self-publishing companies, it’s free to publish, but you will have to pay for physical proof copies.

You can refer to the FAQs for each service to find the cost of producing and shipping proof copies.

But you will have to either pay or be charged the production costs each time you sell a book.

10. Amazon KDP

For many years, Createspace was the service to use for free paperback self-publishing.

However, Amazon closed it down and now offers print-on-demand paperback self-publishing from its KDP platform.

But the big advantage is that if you want to avoid any costs, you can view an online proof of your book.

You can then approve it for sale without incurring costs for physical proof copies.

11. Blurb

You can create both paperback and hardcover versions of your book with Blurb.

Once your book is ready, you can then make it available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

While it’s free to create your book, you will have to pay for the copies that you want to sell.

12. IngramSpark

Ingram is one of the biggest book distributors in the world.

IngramSpark is part of this group, so it makes sense to consider using it to self-publish your book.

There are lots of choices for book sizes, quality, and styles.

13. BookBaby

BookBaby has been around for a long while.

Whatever type of book you want to publish, it’s a great service.

You can publish children’s books, cookbooks, fiction, and nonfiction.

14. Lulu

Lulu is one of the original print-on-demand services.

It offers similar services to Bookbaby, but you might want to compare.

15. Barnes & Noble Press

Following the change from Nook Press, Barnes & Noble Press now offer print-on-demand self-publishing.

If you have a US readership, it might be a good choice.

Conclusion

If you only want to publish an ebook, you have plenty of choices of companies offering self-publishing for free.

For paperbacks and hardcover books, you can certainly publish for free, but you will always have production costs per copy.

With so many choices, you are sure to find a solution that works for you.

But for most new authors, you will certainly choose Amazon KDP to publish your ebook.

You can make it available on the Kindle Store, and perhaps on Kindle Unlimited by enrolling in KDP Select.

If you would like your ebook to be available on other retailers such as Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble, it’s easier to use an aggregator.

For paperback books, Amazon is probably the best free option if you choose to accept an online proof of your book before publishing.

But if you want to go wider and have your book available in as many stores as possible, IngramSpark is the best solution.

One final word of advice for new authors.

Be very careful if you get an unsolicited offer from a publisher you don’t know.

There are a lot of publishing scams and sharks out there today.

You have no shortage of choice for free self-publishing, and you can trust the reputable publishers I have listed above.

#author #writers #writing #publishing #self publishing #traditional publishing #books & libraries #book publishing

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teeth-and-tea · 3 years

Text

ANIME & MANGA I HAVE BINGED IN THE LAST MONTH: May 2021

I've Been Hunting Slimes for the Past 300 Years and Now Ive Maxed Out My Level: incredibly long name aside, cute af slice of life that suffers Same Face Syndrome. I'm still happy to watch it because of how feel good and fluffy it is though, Im probably gonna forget about it in two or three years tho. 8/10.

Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro: I found out this was a webcomic first and suddenly all the HORNINESS made so much more sense. A Femdom, Degradation, Humiliation, Dacryphilia Bullies to Lovers story disguised as a high school rom-com which, I'm not going to lie, misses SKEEVY CITY by mere inches on a regular basis. However, I'm a Dom/Switch and this entire relationship sets off my dom brain center like New York City just shy of midnight. So if you're into that sort of scene, this anime is for you. If not, it's still fascinating but you're probably gonna be a little put off by how mean the Girl!Bully is to the guy MC. Unless you find out something about yourself, in which case, congrats! Stay safe, sane, consensual, and learn about the traffic light system on top of safe words, I promise you'll have a better life in general after that. Still Ongoing, currently 10/10.

Fruits Basket: IM GONNA CRY I LOVE THIS ANIME SO MUCH???? The original anime came out when I was in... I think middle school and my parents were really strict on what I watched so I never got to experience the first wave and I never bothered to watch the show ever after I moved out of the house years later. However, now that I'm much older I honestly can say this is one of my favorite anime to date, and all the characters are charming, lovable, with their own problems that I can connect to or sympathize with, and I love the MC which is always a treat tbh. Except Akito. Akito can suck a sandpaper dick. I'm only on S2 tho so no spoilers! Anime 11/10.

Monster Girl Doctor: went in thinking it was gonna be a monster girl who's a doctor with a homoerotic assistant (her name is SAPPHY okay sue me for thinking it) and ended up watching the entire dubbed harem series. Honestly, I've seen worse and this one has consistent follow-through on interesting characters and backstory enough for me to shove aside the blatant under-monstrousness of the female monsters and the harem-ness of everything else. Dubbing is honestly really good, which is a treat, and the monster designs are not the worst and the MC is tolerable. Honestly, I don't mind having watched it! The mix of cgi and the traditional animation together work pretty strangely though, and it often doesn't flow super well. 7.5/10

So I'm a Spider, So What: Dubbed version which honestly isn't that bad. Took me a bit to get into it, but after realizing that it's got a mismatched timeline a la The Witcher, it made so much more sense. Heavily done in cgi, and you can definitely tell between the 2D and 3D animations, but not the worst in the world. I went in not expecting much but it ended up being an Issekai I can stand and even enjoy. On god has a decent story... with the spider. I'd be a liar if I didnt say I skipped some of the human parts just to get back to the best part of the show. 8/10.

Somali and the Forest Spirit: I'm so fucking nostalgic for this thing it makes me want to go and hug my dad. About a human girl under threat of being eaten with a monster-dominated world. Very obvious "humans fear what they don't understand" message but instead of the humans learning tolerance it's what happens when they get annihilated first so like, kudos for the mangaka for having the guts to do that. I cried like a baby regularly. It's really good, I watched the dub and ID WATCH IT AGAIN!!! 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Oh my god. O h my g o d. Fell in love on the first episode, ngl. About if an immortal being learned how to be a person from scratch. I love it. HOWEVER. Keep a box of tissues on you at all times because you're gonna need them. I'm only on EP7 because that's all that's out right now but just know. I love it. Not for everyone but certainly for my "what do we define as human and the human condition" ass. 12/10.

Those Snow White Notes: A sports anime without any sports. About shamisen playing which is cool because I never realized how cool this instrument was??? Its neat af. OP1&2 are by Burnout Syndrom so know theyre fire. Gonna be real, its pretty alright, but not extraordinary. You can tell they were using the characters as archetypes rather than actually characters which kinda kills a lot of the emotional value you could've had, but I'm still gonna watch it. It doesn't make me cringe as hard as other sports anime tho so I consider it toptier in that regards but if you're a big sports anime fan you might be bummed out by it. Every single musical performance is INCREDIBLE tho. A solid 8/10.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun: THE ART OMFG IT'S SO GORGEOUS. Listen, if you took coptic markers and gave them an animation budget with some manga panel direction thrown in there, that's this anime. It's beautiful. Gorgeous. I'm in love with the aesthetic every second. Story? Really good. Characters? I love the MC and his evil little twin brother asshat. Demons? Not super imaginative but I'm carrying on happy as can be anyways. Dubbing? A bit shaky at times but I found the voices charming if a little off for some of them. I'm already waiting for the second season with popcorn at the ready. 10/10.

Prison School: I watched this directly after Hanako-kun and it was like I got slapped in the face by sweaty unwashed titties and some fedora wearing schmuck's piss kink. No character is likable or redeemable. I finished it, but at what cost? 2/10 and only because a character shit his pants and I laughed.

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: watched this right after Prison School and it was NECESSARY tbh. Its so CUTE and honestly, im not even kidding you, the fucking funniest anime I've seen in months. I watched the dub and the VAs are having the time of their lives working on this anime not just giving it their all but literally just going ham. Its great. If I read this im sure id be bored outta my mind but the VAs giving it a joyous performance make it an insta fave for me tbh. 9/10.

Sk8 the Infinity: i watched the dub with my bro and I can confirm that its a spectacular show because we both loved it and we have vastly different tastes. Incredibly SUSPENSFUL AND STRESSFUL for an anime about skateboarding but we finished it in a single sitting tbh. The last episode is not dubbed for some reason but we still loved it. Like if Free! was less obnoxious but the only fan-service here is Joe ♡ a beefcake who owns my lesbian heart. I think there's exactly one named female character tho and I legit couldn't tell you what it was if there was a gun to my head. So, over all, 9.5/10.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I'm going to be entirely honest, I went in thinking it was going to be a boring isekai of no value. I was right about the Isekai part. It was honestly pretty interesting and focused on nation building like you're playing civilization rather than the usual "Get Stronger" narrative or "Get Some Pussy" narrative most isekais take which is delightfully refreshing. Granted there are flavors of that in this which means it doesn't alienate the big isekai watchers out there, but it's not the whole dish and it doesn't make me want to cringe the same way others do. You've got a slime MC just vibing and building a nation of monsters nbd. Does lose points for making the female monsters more humanoid than their male counterparts but makes them back by only doing perfunctory fan-service and nothing that makes me want to cry... except the butt sumo episode but in fairness it was all a terrible dream. Literally, the MC refuses to dream anymore after that. solid animation, decent voice acting, decent story, made me realize how HUGE this is in the Light Novel community???? There's like 18 fucking novels and that's WILD. 8.5/10.

MANGA:

Spirit Photographer Saburo Kono: a one shot special by the mangaka of The Promised Neverland! Honestly a really delicate touch of both super creepy and really touching, and I'm not gonna lie I'm bummed that this isn't a bigger project but the single chapter makes it a good taste for their style. I've been wondering if I wanna read/watch The Promised Neverland and now I think I will. 10/10

Deranged Detective Ron Kamonohashi: from the mangaka of Hitman Reborn comes this Sherlock and Watson derivative! Not even 20 chapters out yet with a sort of spotty schedule, I honestly love it even thought it's exactly as you expect. HOWEVER. Kamonohashi the "Sherlock" character uses mental pressure to kill all confirmed murderers and it's up to Toto the "Watson" character to save all those people before Kamonohashi kills them! It's just recently introduced a "Moriarty" family of crime lords (not a big spoiler don't worry it was obvious) so the tension surrounding Ron's past is amping up rn. Personally, I think the art is GORGEOUS, the characters engaging, and the story quick enough to keep my interest. Most mysteries are solved within a chapter or two so you're not stuck 20 chapters into one locked room mystery which is just peachy tbh. RN, 10/10. If this gets an anime, I anticipate a legion of fangirls who ship the two main characters along with their many friends. I've been alive too long to believe otherwise.

Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro: Yeah I read the manga after I watched the show. A slower build than the anime, but it works for the format, if theyd done the same with the show then I don't think it wouldve done as well. Honestly? Cuter tbh but just as horny. You dont start really LEARNING about your character until like, chap 65 tho and no real "drama" happens until like 75. A good chunk of the chapters are like 8pgs so its a breeze to get through. I love these slow burn idiots of the century. 9.5/10 because you can DEFINITELY tell the mangaka does hentai too.

Yugen's All-Ghouls Homeroom: one-shot by the mangaka for Food Wars, it's no wonder there's this constant perviness from the MC, a guy who can see and exorcise spirits. Takes place at an all girl's finishing school with KICK ASS monsters tbh, kinda bummed its not longer. The MC? Blatant monsterfucker who is also a CONFRIMED monsterfucker???? Idk i vibe with that single emotion. Everything else is hit or miss. 7/10 for monsters and cool concept, lost points for the MC very pointedly being okay with admitting he'd wait for the teenagers to be adults tho. Creepy af. Could live without that.

Hell's Paradise: I finished the entire 127chps in 3 days and I was really enthusiastic about it 90% of the time thinking about how deep it was and then I actually thought about it and I ended up being very neutral about the whole thing tbh. The art is fantastic tho, but DEFINITELY deserving of the M rating. Tits. Tits everywhere. But not tits to be ecchi over, no, monster hermit tits on beautiful women-ish figures. Now generally I give that a pass but a huge theme in the story is that men and women are "no better than one or the other" but like, lady tits are what you see 99% of the time. Men tits are few and far between. I call bullshit on most of the "deep" themes is what I'm saying, so it's like the mangaka was trying for those deep thoughts but missed the margin a little too far for my preference. That being said, the MC is a married man who loves his wife which automatically makes him my favorite character so like... idk so many good things, so many misses, but overall really spectacular themes and imagery. Unique but classic all at once. It's getting an anime and I have NO IDEA how much censorship they're gonna be doing but they're going to be doing SO MUCH. Oh yeah, and one guy is a plant/human hybrid who fucks a 1000 year old plant-hermit which makes him a canon monster fucker. And one canon non-binary character who I, a nonbinary, actually like. So like... gosh I've got mixed feelings. 8.5/10.

Choujin X: From Sui Ishida, mangaka to the mega hit Tokyo Ghoul comes this brand new manga!... Of one chapter, lol. Not really binge-y because it's just the one chapter out right now but I'm already keeping my eye on it. The grasp on anatomy in the art is PHENOMENAL and you can see Ishida flexing his art skill which is great. Can't give a true rating but I'm giving it a tentative 9/10 because I'm excited to see more.

Shag&Scoob: technically not a manga, its an ongoing webcomic I binged an subscribed to in one day and I just think it deserves more attention. Starts off funny with "what if Scooby Doo had a gun" and has been led to "what if all cartoons are aliens that survive and receive their powers by the humans that love them in an epic war with Martians." On god, its good. I finished the current series in a couple hours so it's a breezy read, highly recommend it. 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Yeah I watched the anime and then finished all current 143 chapters in like 3 days. GOD IM WEAK. I don't buy physical manga unless I know I want to remember the story forever and I'm already budgeting for the current books out. Yeah, this is a good series. That being said, definitely not for the faint of heart or those who suffer under common triggers like suicide, molestation, death, etc. It's all framed as bad and necessary to the story don't get me wrong, but it's there and has lasting affects on the characters. Incredible story telling by the creator of A Silent Voice. Keep tissues nearby at all times. 12/10.

#i've been killing slimes for 300 years and maxed out my level #don't toy with me miss nagatoro #spirit photographer saburo kono #fruits basket #deranged detective ron kamonohashi #yugen's all-ghoul's homeroom #monster girl doctor #so i'm a spider so what #somali and the forest spirit #to your eternity #jigokuraku #hell's paradise #choujin x #shag and scoob #toilet bound hanako kun #prison school #sk8 the infinity #that time i got reincarnated as a slime

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melonlthawne · 3 years

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Hi! Do you have any headcannons about Meloni and Don’s relationship?

oh i dont have much but i do have a few! theyre one of the few hetero ships i actually enjoy because i think there's so much potential if dc were to ever actually give meloni, don, or their shared relationship a chance!!

here we go boys, it might get long

ok so to start off small i like to headcanon that meloni is like....very short. this is mostly based off my own take but comparing her to bart, who in his impulse run is about 5 foot 1, she's maybe an inch or so taller than him. and don, who idk if its canon or not is probably around barry's height (6 foot i believe) would probably be the same if not a inch or so smaller or bigger. i like to think don loves to sweep meloni off her feet (literally!) because she's tiny compared to him and they can just....run off into the sunset, laughing

i also like to think meloni initiates a lot of things. whether it be affection, or even family decisions between her, him, and probably bart. don probably is very easy-going, if he's anything like barry, and just wants to see her smile, and will put up with silly things.

another thing, meloni was probably the one to initiate the relationship to begin with. i think from what ive seen, she feels strange being the offspring of eobard considering how much damage he's done not only to the flash fam but just in general as a villain . she wants to be better than her father and actually fight for what she believes is right, which is what don would do as the flash. she must've been inspired by it. she mightve gone searching for don knowing barry had kids and just...fell in love with him. with everything.

even as parents, id think they'd be very "lovey-dovey" and affectionate with each other. just cute things. little domestic stuff that most couples tend to phase out after awhile. theyre jsut happy to be together!

#meloni thawne #meloni thawne x don allen #don allen #tornado twins #the flash #bart allen #flash fam #headcanons

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mcythottakes · 3 years

Text

C!Characters are free game in the MCYT fandom space, but what does that Mean?

Time to talk about C!Character and what you can do in a fandom space with them, specially about the more unwritten ‘rules’ of this kinda fandom. Specially for those not sure how to navigate a fandom space like this ‘safely’. (please keep in mind these are all my own opinions and ideas and shouldn't be taken as 100% law, as im interpreting ALOT of what the fandom regards as ‘unwritten rules’ into a format people can understand) First off, as it stands, c!Character (and by extension, some personas even) are fictional characters. Maybe of them, yes, are based on their irl counterpart, the cc’s, but there is a degree of separation between them! When doing fandom works or engaging in fandom, all works/talks pertaining to the actual cc’s boundaries should ALWAYS be respected, always. However, the c!Characters? As far as im concerned, they should be free game to do whatever with. They are not real people, they are characters, fictional people, and thus should and can be used just like every fictional character ever. Ofc if the cc has mentioned anything specific about the c!Character (not themselves) you should try to follow it (in the case of boundaries, gender, pronouns, age, sexuality, ect ect) but you dont really have to, that's what creative freedom is for! As long as you aren't changing them out of malice, then its okay! (for example changing a c!character to fit bigoted, homophonic, for outside political views, ect. ect with the intent of being an asshole and doing harm) What this can mean;

Hc/write the c!Character a different sexuality

Have a different set of pronouns

Be put in horrible situations (like a angst/whump story with pain and angst!)

Have them relationships (both platonic or otherwise) they dont normally have in canon

Explore types of relationships or reactions then dont have in canon

and so much more! Treat it like its a normal fandom in regards to the characters, troupes and story ideas abound <3

what this does not mean;

Sexualizing's minors. Yes I said before they are not real people and a lot of the people who do, in fact, sexualize minors are minors themselves (and minors having crushes on fellow minors who are ccs are very normal!) but the fact they are tied to real cc’s makes this line a gray area and one that really shouldn't be crossed in general, even more so if you aren't a minor and are an adult. So while id consider the characters fictional characters, this is just a line better not crossed.

If you make that sort of content? Keep it away from those who dont want to see it, nor shove it in our faces, Tag your shit and understand we dont want to touch it with a 50ft pole. That being said if you go looking for it, its your own fault for what you see. Its gonna happen regardless of if we want it to or not, better just pretend it doesn't then worry about it/be subjected to it.

Telling cc’s about it. Just leave them alone, its none of their business and if they want to come into a fandom space and read about their characters that's their business, they do it on our terms!

Dont apply these ‘rules’ to cc’s, like I said, they are real people and while most actual RPF I see about them is pretty good at this, RESPECT THE ACTUAL PEOPLES BOUNDRIES. This is literally only in relation to the c!Characters.

And if you come across someone who breaks these ‘rules’? DONT FUCKING TELL THEM TO KILL THEMSLEVES. Id rather sit through 1000 gross, nasty boundaries breaking fics then have someone kill themselves over this kinda thing. Its fucking harmless, even the more ‘gross’ stuff and while you and I dont like it, nobody deserves to be treated that way over it. Find something you dont like? Block them and move on with your day, you’ll find like is so much easier when you dont worry and needlessly harass people over things you cant really change.

So TLDR; Characters should be free range in fandom spaces since they are not the cc’s and thus not or should not be limited by the real life boundaries, however you should be aware there are gray areas you probably shouldn’t cross even then (This was brought to you guys mostly by the posts lately about ‘underage shipping’ and the shipping of cc’s lately in the fandoms, specially Tubbo and Ranboo and Tommy, as well as some of the adult people too)

#myct #MCYT fandom #dream smp #dsmp #hermitcraft #tubbo #ranboo #tommyinnit #yes i did character tags so this would spread #sorry not sorry tbh lol #some of you need to grow up #and some of you need to take a look inside yourself and chill #some need to do both #tw suicide mention

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veilder · 3 years

Note

What are some of your favorite tropes?

Oh my goodness, what a good question. Considering my writing is pretty much nothing but a walking trope factory anyway, I had to give this a good think to try and narrow it down. So here’s the ones that most immediately came to mind. XD

1. Enemies (to Friends) to Lovers: Man. Anyone who knows me knows that I adore this trope so much. There is something so automatically thrilling about a ship that starts off so contentious but then learns to see each other for who they really are. I love the emphasis on forgiveness and understanding this trope brings with it, of that there’s no doubt. But I also so love the absolutely compelling drama inherent at it's core, too. The rivalry, the battles (both physical or otherwise), the questioning of beliefs, the inevitable being forced to work together towards a common goal-- It’s all brilliant and it makes me so invested every time! Love this one.

2. Fix-it Fics: God. Fix-its. Anyone who’s ever been in a fandom that ended unsatisfactorily or had a favorite character who died will understand this one. And lucky me, I’ve been in a lot of fandoms where this is the case, omg. Sometimes fix-it fics were all that kept me invested. Seeing other fans like myself in such deep denial--scrounging around for whatever justifications we could find to make things better, changing canon, making AUs, inventing elaborate scenarios taken from canon scraps, etc.--it was enough to get me through the heartbreak. There was a sense of solidarity you could find in a fix-it fic, that steadfast desire that something you loved would live on and live better. They satisfied such a primordial need for me and I absolutely have to include them on this list.

3. Found Family: Bless this trope with everything in my soul. It really means the damn world to me. I absolutely adore the idea of any number of disparate people who are forced together by circumstance, who go through life-changing hardships together, who learn to love and trust each other implicitly. Of mentors becoming parental figures. Of soldiers who’s allegiance becomes to each other. Of criminals who’ve never trusted anyone discovering what it’s like to truly be a team. These people, they don’t have to be bound by blood to be family. And that is something I cherish deeply.

4. Asshole with a Hearth of Gold: Again, anyone who knows me is probably aware that I really gravitate towards characters like this. More often than not, my faves tend towards the jaded, the overly-sarcastic, the belligerent assholes who likes to pick fights. The ones with the tragic backstories that they hide away with their rough edges. I am a complete sucker for characters like this who have a hidden soft side that they've buried deep, usually because of some trauma. Characters you really have to earn the trust of to get them to open up. Ones who will potentially grow kinder and more sympathetic as part of an arc. They’re almost always my favorites in everything I love. Couldn’t leave them off this list, lol.

5. Happy Endings: Especially when it comes to angst fics or h/c, I really, really need a happy ending going in. This is the most integral thing for me. And yes, I've seen the essays. And yes, I've heard the arguments. And no, I don't care if you can enjoy a real angst-fest. But I don’t care about the emotions of hurt/no comfort. And I don’t care about the catharsis of id fics. And I don’t care if a mcd is integral to the plot. This is 100% a hard and solid rule for me that I will not deviate on. I need to know things will be okay. Not perfect, not idealistic, not even particularly fluffy or anything like that. But... better. I need a character to end up better than how we found them. It’s very important to me and my sanity, lol.

Anyway, I think I’ll leave it at that, lol. Those were the first five I thought of and I think the most important to me. Hopefully, I managed to explain them all well enough to at least get the gist of why I love them all, lol. And I realize these are all pretty general. Feel free to ask me about any of them or to delve into more specific ones in the comments, though! Or even make your own five favorite tropes response to this! I’d love to hear what everyone else loves! :D Thanks again for the ask @timebird84! This was fun to do! ^_^

#asks #favorite tropes #fanfic #writing #lol this was a fun one #had to do some critical thinking and self-evaluation lol!#but yeah #these are what I came up with #enjoy? u^_^#timebird84

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adellovesrowan · 3 years

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RSA- I mentioned this in one of the earlier asks from like way back but Finn is a soccer goalie. Speaking of sports, Bianca plays volleyball. She looks a lot like penny except she has curly hair. The haywoods have brown eyes in this au bc I can 🤎. Which of her parents does Cherry resemble? Nobody drowned Dian, it was a shipwreck. So there’s possibly other ghosts from the ship as well. Also Cherry skateboarding is very cool 🥺. Plus Thea and Adel bonding!!

OH YEA sorry i have bad memory lmao JAJDKS OHH YES shes a volleyball girl🥺 BROWN EYED HAYWOODS ARE SO PRETTYYY !! cherry actually resembles adel more ! she has no regards for rules and loves to cause trouble. often slacks around and gets lots of detention. she may be loud / rowdy but shes a charming kid😌 they both ( adel n cherry ) also they both have a thing for the teachers pet good girl nerds. like mother like daughter LMAO. ohhhh no POOR DIAN THO HHNGNGNG i hold him gently poor kid omg😭

RSA- okay one of the asks is refusing to send so I rewrote it. Thea is a ballet dancer primarily for the visual of her as Odette in swan lake (I’m a Tchaikovsky fan). Dian was Indonesian and Thea and Frankie are both from the Mediterranean. Thea specifically is Greek. The two of them met by the coastline. Thea’s original name was Galatea after the Greek myth so maybe Thea is a nickname. Thea 🤝 Mina= having shortened nicknames. Frankie just sleeps in a tub of water under Thea’s bunk.

UR SO VALID LMAO tchaikovsky is great. AAAAAAAA AA A A A KAJFKSNJD U GOT ME WEAK THERE ANON LMAO dian ,,,, indonesian kid ,,, i hold her gently omg i love u you silly ghost🥺 KSJDKAJD i need to stop myself before i project indo hcs into him LMAO. OOOHH galatea🥺 pretty name !! KAJDKNS LOVE THAT FOR FRANKIE

RSA- Bianca being a squib and not feeling bad about it bc of love and support from her friends and family. I don’t know who her other mom is, originally it was skye. Skye has like a casual romantic relationship with JT and I don’t really ship her with Penny anymore. Mina did not pick up any quidditch skills from either Skye or JT. In general, she’s bad at sports. She also just doesn’t care for them, although she always shows up for her friends’ games.

OH HELL YES support ur local squibs ,, love them🥺 OHHHH SKYE X JT👀 its ok mina me neither KDJAKJDJS ohhh shes so sweet for supporting her friends tho🥺🥺

RSA- I mentioned Mara being a fruit dhampyr and Mina growing different fruits for her. Her favorite is pomegranates. Speaking of fruits, Rowan’s friends having a reunion near the cherry tree that she and Adel grew. JT is allergic to cherries so she stays away from the tree. Merula keeps her company and pretends that Rowan and Adel’s tree is too sentimental for her. Bc of her allergy, Mina doesn’t grow cherries unless her mom is somewhere else.

MARA AND MINA ARE SO CUTE AND OHMYGODDD YES PLS the reunion around the cherry tree aaa🥺🥺 KAJFKJS NOO POOR JT AWW MERULAS SO SWEET TOO FJDJJD🥺

RSA- Cherry in a blue tux that she borrowed from Rowan. I don’t know what her favorite color or flower is but Mina decorating Cherry’s hair with flowers that are her favorite color. Wait does Cherry have short hair 👀? Iirc Finn’s name means “blonde” so he’s following the great werewolf tradition of having rlly obvious names. Mina dating Mara is a bit funny since I named her after Mina from the Dracula novel.

O GOD BLESS thats actually so good ,, cherry in rowans blue tux yes ,, OOOOO PLS THATS SO SWEET OF MINA🥺 also lowkey idk but id say purple is her fav color ZKDJSKDJ and for now no she has pretty long straight hair ! KDJDKSJ ur right omg love finn the blonde ww. KAJDKJA WOW theyre just vampire gfs like that huh . . .

RSA- Cherry working as a chef at Jae’s restaurant when she’s older. His restaurant is probably on the island or nearby it. Also I have considered Chiara adopting Finn. Finn Lobosca-Kim just has a ring to it. Her and Jae hyphenate names out of respect for each other plus they just really like hearing each other’s names (clowns). I can’t with these two. God, everyone is a sap for each other. Rip to their friends who have to deal with clowns.

OOOOOO THATS ACTUSLLY A GREAT IDEA BLESS !! FINN LOBOSCA KIM IS SOOOO CUTE OMGG😭 KDJFKAJDKS STOPP OH WOW i love jae and chiara soo much hhhgngmgnh

RSA- Finn being okay with his lycanthropy because he has someone like Chiara to guide him through it when he’s younger plus growing up in an environment that doesn’t hate him for being a werewolf. I like to think that wolfsbane is more common by this time. I mentioned Chiara adopting Finn and the image of her seeing this tiny little werewolf orphan and immediately recognizing him as “son”. Her on full moons and interacting with him like how wolves treat their cubs.

YEEEEEESSS TO ALL OF THIS BRO HHHNN i i love the lobosca kims so muchh

RSA- okay but mermaid! Adel in this au? Rowan deciding to build her school on an island so she could be near Adel. Mer!Rowan is also v good. In general, life on the island. There’s sand on the coastline so people going down to the shore on weekends. Beach episode with half of it centering on the teachers and the other half on the kids. JT and Mina spend time with each other by doing absolutely nothing. Mara has a really big sun hat and really strong sunscreen bc otherwise she’ll burn up.

OHHHH BEACH EPISODE BEACH EPISODE LMAO the kids playing all sorts of games like volleyball, building sandcastles, go swimming maybe, collect seashells, etc. hrhdhhdjdhd them burying one of them in sand LMAO

RSA- kids getting sick and Chiara making sure that their friends don’t get sick as well if they visit them. When Mina’s sick, any plants she grows turn weird. Bananas turning red,strawberries growing to the size of her head, etc. Finn tried one of the bananas despite Mina and Cherry warning him not to (he was fine). I mentioned her having a stuffed otter (his name is mango. She named him when she was five) and she keeps him as she grows older. Mango just lives under the bunk.

KAHDKDHJA POOR MINA LMAO but thats so funky djjsjsjd id love to see blue oranges. KAJDKDJ FINN NOOOO😭 also MANGO IS SO CUTE !! 🥺

RSA- yopi is such a cute name!!! 🥺 how’d you come up with it? Also more stuff about the school. There’s a mural painted by Badeea that shows the founding of the school. The Khanna family planted trees around the school, specifically rowan trees. The library is really big like the kind that someone could get lost in. Rowan knows it like the back of his hand. Kids can be spotted all over, next to bookshelves or at tables, reading the different books or doing their homework.

KAJFKAJSJ kinda funny story actually i had this cute baby toy i still have with me now fjhdksjs i named it yopi bc when i shake it it kinda makes a yow pee sound and im like yes perfect and idk why i assigned that name to adels puffskein maybe bc they have the same energy also cute KDJSKS. pretty mural and rowan trees yess🥺 OOOOO LOVE THAT huge dark academia style libraries ohgod i thrive.

RSA- More winter head canons. Cherry and Finn having a snow fight while Mina watches them out of a window with hot cocoa. She calls Mara “Marshmallow” when they’re alone. Cherry knows, she’s heard them. They’re not as subtle as they think. Penny makes sure Bianca is warm before letting her go out, esp when she’s little. Tiny Bianca waddling like a penguin in two coats and her head wrapped up in a scarf and hat. Bea convinced Penny to relax on that matter after stopping herself from laughing.

YESSS OMG THATS SO SOFT ! marshmallow is soooo cute bless😭 HDHDHDH THEYRE GAY LMAO. HDHDHD OMG BABYY BIANCA🥺🥺 oh bye auntie bea and bianca thoo djfjdksj

RSA- mornings at the school. Cherry seems like a morning person. The sun rises and she’s up and going. Mina is the exact opposite, she has to be dragged out of bed and she refuses to get up before noon on weekends. Adel and Rowan making breakfast together. Adel wrapping her arms around her wife while Rowan hums. Her doing that during the pregnancy and feeling Cherry kick 🥺 This is so sappy. I’m looking at old asks and Cherry befriending Mina was such a good suggestion. She needed more friends.

KAHDKNAKSJ cherry she can be a morning person if she wants to ,,,, most of the time she stays up pretty late actually smh😔 KAJDKDJJAJS OH SAME W MINA LMAO. HGHNJNNGGNGNG FUCKK THATS SO SOFTTT AAAAS OHMYYGO CHERRY KICKS AND THEYRE JUST🥺🥺 OOOO *dies*. and YAAA cherrys more than happy to be her frend🥺

RSA- General stuff about the roommates. Finn and Mara being both gay and lesbian plus werewolf and vampire solidarity. Cherry and Mara both having bangs. Thea and Frankie as a couple? 👀. They can’t say anything about Mina and Mara being mushy bc they’re the same way only more public about it. Dian is aromantic. He’s happy to see his friends being happy. Bianca is wlw and probably demiromantic. She reminds her mom of Bea since the haywoods all look a like. Ismelda has called her Bea before.

YEEEESSS I STAN FINN ADN MARA SM !! OHH BANG GANG !! 👀👀 yes please ,,, HDHDHD I LOVE THEM. OMGGG DIAN BABYYY JSJFJSBDKDJD the more u mention her the more attached tohim i become god bless wtff🥺🥺 i LOVE that for bianca !!

RSA- ideas I had for the au that were scrapped. I was debating between whether or not the school should have uniforms before deciding on them. Mina originally had an older sister named Skyler (two guesses as to who she was named after) that was friends with Bianca. I ended up cutting her out since she wasn’t that interesting and I changed Bianca’s age to match Mina’s. Speaking of which, Bianca was originally home schooled. The school building went through different designs including domed.

OOOOOO SKYLER . . . HDHDHDH i can only guess skye😩 OOOOO homeschool bianca🥺

RSA- the angel/demon au is so good. I wanna include angel/demon characters in this au but we have enough characters already. Wait a minute, half demon half angel Cherry 👀. I wonder how her wings would look. I should give Thea wings. I think they’d be white with black feathers at the ends. Speaking of wings, a student or professor with butterfly wings, specifically blue morpho wings🦋 or monarch butterfly.

HDHDHHD YAAA cherry would be a half demon half angel ! kahdksjs idk either but if youve seen my angel demon au art of adel and rowan then itll probably look like a mix of both of their wings in the second pic. OOOO THEAS WINGS LOOK SO COOL !! ohmygoddd DHDJDHDHHDHD THATS SO COOL adel would absolutely die tho she has pretty acute lepidopterophobia HDHDDH

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leafy-wings · 3 years

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Turtle,,? (For the ask meme)

for this ask meme!

Sexuality Headcanon: oh you know he is a fruit Gender Headcanon: hits turtle with beam of turns you transgender. i really like the dynamic of trans character in monarchys where its discussed if they just did it to avoid responsibility but id like to emphasize that if you do that plot point uhm please be trans and also no people do not become trans for leverage, ever. i also think hed probably get into some mogai gender [affectionate] like identifying with moss or something A ship I have with said character: listen listen listen. turtle x winter. like there is little canon establishment for it but i like the headcanons that can tumble out of my shitty little brain for this. like theyre both royals and of all the characters winter is less mean to turtle because hes quiet, like he thinks that turtle is weird and acts improper but i think thered be a lot of good royalty discussion between the two of them and arguing gently about the ethics of the situations theyre in. i think that in a relationship turtle needs someone who is gentle that he can confide in, he loves the jade winglet for being exciting and getting him out of his shell which he DID need but getting active and out there is a lot of work and id think itd be best for him to have someone he can just settle beside and not have to worry about doing too much with. comfort! i think that by arc 3 winter would be more understanding of turtle and more willing to help him in a way that would help himself, like they both realize looking at each other theyve got issues in the same ways and that addressing the others issues will help them address their own. but they do it all slowly at a gentle pace. i just think the both of them need someone gentle who doesnt shove them out of their comfort zone. A BROTP I have with said character: TURTLE AND PERIL FOREVER BABY!!!!!! they get each other out of their comfort zones, either to do more or less... but theyre only good in hour increments together or else turtle gets too stressed or peril gets too excited </3 A NOTP I have with said character: turtle and kinkajou, again nothing really wrong with it i just dont see anything between them and i like it when characters are gay. i understand the peppy/hesitant dynamic but i cant help but feel like turtle would either be too in awe or too hesitant for it to be good for him. and i just dont like school children dating. sorry. also i fucking fucking HATE peril x turtle considering that by arc 3 turtle is 5 and peril is EIGHT!! she is a young adult. also again the thing i said before about someone who is too feisty would probably be more uncomfortable than exciting for him, plus she is so dense that i think if they ever got into a relationship theyd have soo many issues between one of them having lived almost twice as long as the other, perils intensive frightening backstory and continual issues into her adulthood, and turtle still being highly traumatized from neglect. theyd get problems with each other and then never address it and peril would just get madder at shit turtle does that she wont address and turtle will jsut get more frightened at peril about shit he wont address. bad chemistry A random headcanon: i think turtle would love painting. painting is just visual writing! i think hed love making dramatic scenes with abstract imagery and then get upset when others dont understand the symbolism hes put into it and the emotion and story behind what hes drawn, like “oh you cant see in his eyes that hes just lost his lover which has parallels to him losing everything hes had before, killing him inside, but now in this instance he has learned strength where previously he froze up and is seeing this as symbolic vengence for his former failure, stressed in his pose and tensed muscles? the bubbles represent the loss of innocence and i havent drawn any eyeshine to show hes lost everything. i cant believe you dont understand my work” but he loves info dumping about his work to his friends. they all sit around him and clap while he talks about some insane bullshit. General Opinion over said character: i love this guy hes literally one of my favorites. i think that hes written a bit too mysterious and suave in book 6 where in talons of power it turns out hes just a weepy baby, but i love weepy baby insecure turtle, even if the turn is weird and his previous behavior seems ooc. its believable. i think turtle deserves better.

THE DANGEROUS GIFT SPOILERS BELOW

am i going insane or is turtle just NOT in the dangerous gift? never mentioned even once? like where did he go. what happened to him. did he get lost at see or some shit? tsunami comes up like “i can tell you about pantala, i was there! yep, i was the only one” like BITCH WHERE IS YOUR BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!

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rallamajoop · 3 years

Text

So, I've spent the last couple of months getting myself hooked on the Witcher franchise.

Believe me, no-one is more surprised than I am – especially when I made it through The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt mostly on the strength of the gameplay, but largely underwhelmed by the plot.

So you can imagine my surprise when I gave the Blood and Wine expansion a chance, and it hooked me, grabbed me right in the id and delivered on almost everything the base game lacked. I fell for Regis, I agonised over the endings, I have a million theories about the villains, I just... yes.

And then I tried the novels, and my god, I think I may love them even more than Blood and Wine.... but let’s start back at the beginning.

Up until earlier this year, I knew The Witcher mostly as that game that infamously gave you collectible cards for getting all the female NPCs to sleep with you – not a great first impression. I tried the Netflix series, but bounced off it quickly. And then youtube randomly recommended me Joseph Anderson's ridiculously long videos analysing the first two games... and found myself intrigued. The complex morality, twisted fairy tale mythology, the promise of decisions with real consequences and sidequests that only deepened the world and themes... that could actually be worth a play. Nothing may have come of this, but then The Witcher 3 was on sale on Steam, and I thought, what the hell?

Over 100 hours of gameplay later, I came away disappointed. Witcher 3 may have something to recommend everywhere except its overarching plot, which... honestly, just calling it a “plot” may be giving it too much credit, when so much of the main quest feel like meaningless fetch quests for NPCs who may be able to help you find some other NPC who can tell you about the real plot, which is mostly happening to other people. Very little can really change or build organically (tension included) since the open-world structure means the player may be doing it in any order. Then, at the end, you fight a generic dark-elf final boss, who’s had less presence or dialogue than many NPCs you can meet in in utterly optional side quests, then you avert the apocalypse somehow – which I knew might be imminent mostly because it kept coming up on the loading screens (you know, between other such sage advice as "sorceresses are infertile" and "Geralt can use his crossbow underwater"). How do you fill a game up with so much unnecessary padding and still leave the core conflict feeling so underdeveloped?

Don’t get me wrong: there is some amazing material scattered through various subplots along the way, but the setup and payoff in this thing is a disaster.

Still, the Steam sale had included the game’s two expansion packs, and the core gameplay was addictive enough that I gave them a chance – starting with Blood and Wine – and fell head over heels in love.

Everything about the expansion benefits from its smaller scope, delivering something shorter and tighter, with some great twists and surprises, no clear villain, and some truly agonising decisions towards the end once you realise you're not going to be able to save everyone. While the main game left me going eh, whatever, maybe I’ll youtube the other endings at some point, hardly I finished Blood and Wine once before I was reloading a save from the last obvious decision point and replaying the final chapter again (twice, in the same evening) because I so desperately wanted to see what else could have happened. Plus, Blood and Wine included Regis (Geralt's ridiculously mild-mannered uber-powerful-vampire BFF), whom I adored, and whose presence works wonders to tie the story and the mythology together.

(No, he doesn’t look like much, but his voice actor is perfect and his attitude to life and his friendship with Geralt only got me more the longer I spent with him.)

The base game’s inability to pull its plot together was all the greater shame considering how many genuinely brilliant characters you meet along the way (YENNEFER! Dijkstra, Thaler, Phillipa, the Bloody Baron, the Crones – the list goes on), but there were none I fell for the way I fell for Regis (and yes, I ship him with Geralt something awful, so help me).

(If you're curious, I found the a lot of the same strengths in the other expansion pack, Hearts of Stone, but felt it ended weakly, and was frustrated by how hard it pushed Geralt to romance Shani, who did nothing for me. Look, game, my Geralt already has Yennefer and his vampire boyfriend, there is no room for Shani in his busy schedule!)

Curious about the backstory (though certainly also tempted by the promise of more Regis), I gave the novels a try... and fell in love all over again. The first book (by far the weakest) is a bit of an introductory hurdle, but the second quickly sucked me in with its wit and humour, then ended with a series of magnificent gut-punches that ensured I was well and truly hooked – and hooked I remained, through the five more novels that followed.

This is not a series I can say much more about without also telling you how the ending broke my heart – suffice to say that it's not for nothing that so few of Geralt's companions from the last three books ever appear in the games, or that the world thinks Geralt and Yennefer are dead before Witcher 1 (they aren't, even ignoring the games, but whether they ever see Ciri or any of their surviving friends again is left hanging). But the games, for all their flaws, certainly do their bit to offer happier endings, and having got this far, I found myself almost immediately buying that one last prequel novel I'd skipped (Season of Storms), because I just wanted to spent more time in this world, with these characters (even knowing so many faves from the later novels wouldn't be present). And I think that's the sincerest rec I can give the series: I earnestly cannot remember the last time any fantasy novel series sucked me in nearly so hard. I’m left comparing its characters and world-building to Discworld, and that’s about as high as my literary compliments go.

I could ramble on for ages about everything that does and doesn't work about the games, and their convoluted relationship with their source material (so much of the story is woefully under-explained without the books as context, so much expands on leftover plot points that the books never properly resolved – while so much more contradicts the books in wildly irreconcilable ways). I have as much to say about all the great and fascinating things in the books that didn't make it into the games. And I probably will at some point, given what an absolute sucker I am for all that kind of analysis, but that's fodder for other posts (and competing for priority with half a dozen different Geralt/Regis fic I seem to have already started. Or possibly Geralt/Yennefer, or Geralt/Yennefer/Regis, or even Geralt/Dandelion – look, dude is shippable, I don’t know what to tell you).

In the meantime... I may have already started rereading the novels from the beginning again. And Blood and Wine ain’t gonna replay itself.

#The Witcher #Blood and Wine #The Wild Hunt #Witcher Novels #Emiel Regis #Geralt of Rivia #do they have a ship name?#geregis #regeralt #?#look #even if it's just for tumblr tags #they could really use a ship name

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gunnerpalace · 4 years

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▲ ICHIRUKI (also that edit!!!! my heart!!!!!)

Unpopular Opinion #1: I really dislike the notion that’s been built up in the fandom that Ichigo and Rukia understand each other perfectly just through eye contact and that they don’t need to talk (and certainly not about their feelings!) because they’re soulmates and uwu just so perfect for each other. Because that’s bullshit, and it’s just not borne out by how they act in the text.

They’re incredibly damaged people who heal each other and develop a very deep and intuitive understanding of each other, but they clearly didn’t always have that understanding and even once they do, they remain somewhat codependent on each other. The clearest evidence of that understanding taking time to develop is the prelude to the Grand Fisher fight, when Rukia is chastising herself after Ichigo says he killed his mother. Then she comes back and gives her speech:

Ichigo famously parrots this back at Isshin later. Like, my dudes, it is unambiguously right there in black and white: they still need to communicate complex shit verbally. They’re good at reading one another’s emotional states and knowing when things are wrong with each other… but they aren’t psychic. They still need to talk. And that is why whenever Ichigo is in a funk, Rukia gives a speech to snap him out of it: she talks to him.

And I feel like this perception is fueled by the fact Kubo went out of his fucking way to separate them as much as possible within the pages of his manga and to ignore most of the time they did have together to talk because it got in the way of shounen-y things or whatever other bullshit explanation he might’ve had.

A whole month of Rukia’s two months in Ichigo’s closet, including his 16th birthday? Not shown.

Ichigo staying in Soul Society for a week, presumably around Rukia rather than his friends? Not shown.

Ichigo and Rukia’s day together after her return from Soul Society before the fight with Grimmjow? Not shown.

Ichigo and Rukia in the aftermath of Ichigo regaining his Shinigami powers in the Xcution arc? Not shown.

Ichigo and Rukia training in the Soul King’s Palace together? Not shown.

Ichigo and Rukia in the immediate aftermath of the war? Not shown.

They had an awful lot of time to just talk. And they presumably did talk, given for example that Ichigo knew Rukia would be at Kuukaku’s house if she wasn’t in Soul Society—he had to have some idea about Kaien, and that means she must’ve told him about him. But we didn’t see it.

Because Kubo is a wuss and refused to let anyone interact for any reason, but especially not people who’d talk for hours and hours due to having a natural and easy interpersonal connection. (The live-action movie is canonical as to how Ichigo and Rukia’s downtime would’ve gone down, fight me.)

Unpopular Opinion #2: In a related fashion, a lot of people in fandom say they’re not the kind of people to outright say “I love you” to one another. And while that is admittedly a very Japanese position to take (as saying “aishiteru” is considered really dramatic) I would counter by saying that Ichigo and Rukia very much are the D R A M A T I Q U E sorts who would do exactly that.

Like, come on, they met with Ichigo kicking Rukia in the ass, Rukia drawing a mustache on Ichigo’s face, and Rukia stabbing Ichigo through the heart to transfer her soul powers to him after he cracked some sexual innuendo like “Let’s do it.” Then there’s Ichigo’s various arrivals in the Soul Society arc, and Rukia’s arrivals at the start of the Arrancar, Hueco Mundo, and Xcution arcs to pay him back, which are all dramatic as fuck. It’s always spectacle with them around each other, and they can’t seem to help it.

Oh, but it’d be too dramatic for them to say “I love you”? As if. They’re precisely the kind of people to spring “I love you,” on each other in a society where that doesn’t happen often, just like they almost instantly skip to being on a first-name basis and start up that rumor mill. They would just need some time to come around to it.

I originally wrote here that: “(The Leia/Han thing from The Empire Strikes Back of “I love you,” and “I know,” would fit perfectly at the end of chapter 423, in either configuration, and you cannot convince me otherwise.)” I instead went and made it and gave it its own post, but you can have it again:

Tell me this does not work. Tell me it does not feel canonical. Tell me it doesn’t feel like them. And I’ll call you a bloody liar for your troubles!

Unpopular Opinion #3: They’re both switches. Neither is a defined top or bottom, sub or dom. (And to be honest, I pretty much hate the whole concept/trope in fandom for all ships that each party must be one defined thing.)

This is more of a Rukia-specific note but she tries to be so put-together and in-control all of the time that the idea that her thing is being in charge strikes me as weird; she’d seem just as if not more likely to have a kink of losing or giving up control (and being coaxed/made to forget her responsibilities/past as part of the act) simply because it was novel.

Meanwhile, on a more Ichigo specific note... Shirosaki/Hichigo/Zangetsu is basically Ichigo’s id and has a real thing for being The King and riding “a horse,” and you’re gonna tell me Ichigo’s an innocent bottom? Nah. I think Ichigo’s a little shy and seems fairly close to demisexual if anything, but he is also still clearly interested in women (as Yoruichi, Rangiku, and Tenjirou of all people could attest) and I think given what we see of Zangetsu, he would be pretty eager to learn.

(I would probably call them both demisexual overall. But they’re switches.)

Unpopular Opinion #4: This is IchiRuki-tangential, but I cringe when people write Byakuya as disapproving of Ichigo in particular or IchiRuki in general for the sake of petty drama. Post-Soul Society, Byakuya is absolutely Ichigo’s biggest booster other than Rukia (ahead of Isshin, Karin, Yuzu, Orihime, Chad, Uryuu, Tatsuki, Keigo, Mizuiro, Kisuke, Yoruichi, Juushirou, Shunsui, et alia).

Dude did his best to kill Tsukishima, who he thought was a mentor-figure at the time, because he wanted to hurt Ichigo. He would be fucking thrilled, in his severely understated and conservative Byakuya way. The omake material with Byakuya getting Ichigo a lifetime meal pass in Soul Society is another example of this.

Other than Rukia there is no one more likely to start singing “Number One,” and you can’t tell me he wouldn’t support them given that. I feel this should also broadly be reflected in most AU settings because it’s pretty fundamental to Byakuya’s development as a character.

Unpopular Opinion #5: This one is for the Bleach community at large, and I’ll say it real simply: there isn’t a single plot point or sequence of events in the rest of the pile of shit that is Bleach that works one bit without Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship as the lynchpin holding it all up. There is no manga without them and their interactions.

It is, as I have said before, functionally more of a supernatural romance than an urban fantasy because of this. IR is like, the goddamn Higgs field of Bleach: it gives everything else mass.

#Asks #Ask Games #zenzenzence #IchiRuki

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define-deicide · 3 years

Text

CHAPTER I: Before & After

The broadcast came to life on the holo-viewer, flashing the Charys 6 News Report logo with flamboyant graphics and an assortment of mismatching fonts. The channel’s premier anchorman was as starchy and stiff as ever when his weathered face and silvered hair graced the screen. He performed the pick-up-and-straighten-the-stack-of-papers table tap and set them back down with practiced fluidity, prepared to give the report.

“Hello and thank you for tuning in to the Charys 6 News Report. I’m Ray Lundgren with tonight’s top stories,” he initiated in a booming, informative tone. The screen switched to a closer side shot of Ray as he swiveled in his chair to face the new camera. An info graphic displayed in the top corner of the screen showing an image of a planet-like structure with “ERESHKIGAL” in bold letters below it.

“This week Hydrangea Technologies plans to complete their newest project, the Ereshkigal Interplanetary Detention Facility in the orbit of the planet Gaia after five years of testing and construction. Company spokesman Siebold Luz is scheduled to host a ribbon cutting ceremony at the facility this weekend at an unspecified time, citing that Hydrangea Technologies wants to be certain that the facility is functioning perfectly before it is deemed complete. The CCCP plans to implement the facility in a new incarceration and internment program, which went largely unopposed when it was proposed by Hydrangea officials at last month’s Consortium meeting here on Charys. Charys 6 News attempted to get an interview with Mr. Luz but-“

Max shut off his viewer, officially sickened by the barrage of news reports on the corporate space station that had been looming in the atmosphere of Gaia for the last five years. He kicked back in his chair, feet up on the array of flashing and unnecessarily complex control panels that lined the cockpit of his own ship, which he called “the Heimdall.” It was bad enough that he flew a ship that was designed by Hydrangea, he felt he didn’t need to be thinking about what prison life would be like on their new pseudo-moon. Hydrangea Technologies had effectively seized political control of the entire Cosmos since their inception Before, which to Max was not unlike the days of Disney and Comcast, although he did realize how contrarian it was to continue flying the Heimdall. He even refused to purchase one of Hydrangea’s (almost) universally beloved and accessible “ENKIDU” mobile devices.

The holo-viewer had dissolved from the ship’s center console, and Max was now looking out at the landscape before his ship. Colossal tree roots sprawled across the land, forming hills of wood and dense canopies filled with nothing but branches, leaves, and the occasional family of tree-dwellers. Max liked to park the Heimdall here in the Grove, which was what remained of a country that had sort of self-destructed some time Before, leaving nothing but toxic spills and Mother Nature in its wake. Thankfully, much of the Grove had covered up the ruins and wreckage. The ship was nested in a small clearing on a cliff, providing a perfect view of the land’s natural beauty. It was one of Max’s favorite places in the Cosmos.

Max’s tranquility was interrupted when the overhead light began flashing red and an monotonous alarm sounded. The holo-viewer came back over the console and displayed a message: “IDENTIFICATION ERROR – EMERGENCY OPERATIONS INITIATING.” Max spun his chair around and rushed out of the cockpit. Ducking under pipes and hopping over technological fixings, Max attempted to reach the engine bay before it was too late. He felt the ship reverberate as it prepared to take off toward the nearest Hydrangea orbital station. Finally, he arrived at the engine bay door and threw it open. The engine bay was a closet-sized room, the engine filling it almost entirely from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. A computer console was nestled into the center of the engine, displaying the same warning message. Max slid the keyboard out and began typing frantically:

>EMERGENCY OVERRIDE

>IDENTIFICATION NO. 68106-402

>CUT ENGINE POWER

Having done this before, Max was able to work quickly and succinctly, and successfully shut off the engine before the take-off could proceed. This was a process that Max had to repeat about every other week, though what caused the error was a mystery to him. All he knew was that he’d rather deal with the temporary scare than try to take it to a Hydrangea orbital station and solve the issue. Though Max was unsure of how and why such a thing would happen to his own ship, he resolved the issue of his own accord and considered that to be good enough. The first time it had happened, Max sprang into action the same exact way, although figuring out the engine console took a little bit more time. How long ago was that, exactly? A dozen instances? Two dozen? Max couldn’t recall clearly. As the engine quieted down and the Heimdall returned to its resting state, Max heaved a sigh and strolled back into the cockpit, returning to his reclined position in the captain’s chair. All in a day’s work, he thought.

The holo-viewer reappeared a bit less urgently with a new message: Incoming Call from LETUS. Max leaned over the console and pressed a few buttons and switches, effectively accepting the transmission. His friend’s beaming face came over the holo-viewer, and he excitedly began speaking at breakneck pace as he usually did.

“Hey, man! Good to see you enjoying the views as per usual,” he started, “Did you see the Charys newscast about that Hydrangea shit?”

“Yeah, man,” Max said in a relaxed tone, “the usual corporate takeover bullshit. I’m real over it.”

“Me too, me too. Anyways, the boys and I are goin’ up to Lunar-12 tonight, you in?”

“Yeah, alright. What time?”

“Oh, probably roundabout six,” Letus tousled his own hair and fidgeted with his beard stubble as he paused, then continued, “Y’know, that girl Machiko will probably be there.”

Max rolled his eyes. “So?”

“You know why ‘so!’” Letus laughed. “Don’t pretend that doesn’t entice you, dude, I know you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you then, man.” Max reached up and cut the call so Letus wouldn’t see his smug grin at the idea of seeing that girl again. Machiko was a girl that Max, Letus, and their friends had met at that very moon base, Lunar-12, about a month prior, and they’d seen her there every time they went since then. All Max knew about her, thanks to a brief and awkward conversation the first night they’d met, was that she was a mechanic that worked for Hydrangea. Though this generally would be much to Max’s chagrin, he couldn’t help but fall into the gravitational pull of a pretty girl who wanted to talk to him at a bar.

It then occurred to Max that he had a perfect chance at another conversation with her, A, and B, a chance to get her aboard his ship. If she was a Hydrangea mechanic, he could invite her to take a look at the recurring errors he’d been experiencing. Two birds, one stone. This newfound motivation shot Max out of his chair as he raced out of the cockpit toward the back of the ship where the captain’s quarters could be found. It was time to make use of the only button-up shirt he owned.

══╬══

Max arrived with the utmost punctuality at six o’clock on the dot, pulling his ship into the docking area of the Lunar-12 moon base, located on the grey, craterous surface of Gaia’s one and only moon. The entire base was located within one of the moon’s largest craters, and the docking area was positioned just outside of it, with a tunnel for patrons to pass through to and from the parking lot that drove through the crater wall. Lunar-12 was not only a collective of individual bars, but also hotel accommodations, a small water park, a few restaurants, and even a strip club. Its name was merely a shortening of its full designation: Gaia Lunar Operations Base No. 12. All of the other bases were out of commission, and even Lunar-12 had been fully renovated from its previous state as a military base before becoming a tourist attraction for denizens across the Cosmos.

The parking lot was rife with spaceships of all shapes and sizes, most of them parked dreadfully. Max parked as far away from the crater tunnel as he could, hoping it would prevent the Heimdall from being the victim of a hit-and-run. Though the parking spaces did indeed have designating lines, most of them went ignored by some of the massive ships that had obviously carried crowds of people, whether they were corporation flagships taking employees on a company retreat or just an exceptionally large family of some alien race famous for its hardy broods. Some still lingered in the docking area, eyeing Max as he made his way across the expansive lot.

Letus had messaged Max via his ship console again and the two agreed to meet at the southernmost bar in the base, the same place where they’d seen Machiko on every visit. Max couldn’t help but daydream about the conversation he’d have with her, imagining himself suavely inviting her aboard the Heimdall, desperately in need of a Hydrangea mechanic to check out his engine console. He thoughtlessly mouthed some of the words as he walked, earning even more confused glances from some of the passerby. He finally arrived at the gate to the tunnel, where two guards awaited him, having been watching him approach with his head so obviously in the clouds.

“Identification, please,” one of them said in an uninterested voice. Both guards were dressed in an over-the-top silver garb that shone in the light of the stars. A patch was featured on the chest, ‘LUNAR-12’ emblazoned across it in bold, yellow lettering. Max whipped out his wallet and produced his ID. The guard studied it briefly before handing it back to him and turning to open the gate. The massive panels of the gate slid open with a low roar, and the guards stepped aside as Max passed through. The tunnel was dimly lit with low-hanging light fixtures, and posters featuring some of Lunar-12’s “coming attractions” that never quite came were plastered on the walls. One teased a state-of-the-art movie theater, another showed off one of the highbrow bars that had already completed construction some years back. They were all very much in the same vein. It took Max a full ten minutes to cross to the other side of the tunnel, where yet another pair of guards stood before an identical gate. They needn’t ask for further identification, so as Max approached, they simply opened the way inside. Max nodded at them and passed through, his heart now beating out of his chest at the thought of his potential upcoming conversation with Machiko, who happened to be a female that also happened to have a pretty face, which was all very taxing on Max’s psyche.

Max followed the elaborate halls that interconnected the many facets of Lunar-12, every single one of them packed to the brim with both tourists and regulars. If not for the many directories and labelled arrow signs, one was sure to get lost in the sea of unbridled, drunken chaos. It was another twenty minutes of pushing past guests and wading through crowds before Max finally arrived at the south bar, where he immediately eyed a table filled with his friends. He waved to them, and they yelped out back to him, waving him over. Max could feel a few beads of sweat form on his forehead as the potential of spotting and/or being spotted by Machiko was now at maximum capacity. He took his seat as the already drunken Letus patted him on the back and welcomed him to the circle.

“Hey, dude, sorry we came a lil’ early,” Letus paused to burp, “We jus’ couldn’t wait to get th’ party started!” The whole table guffawed.

“No worries, man,” Max reassured him and the others. He could feel his eyes wandering around the bar. Every table and booth was filled with equally chaotic groups of friends. Every single bar stool was filled, with waiters and waitresses dashing between tables, bartenders running up and down the main bar. The funny part to Max was that it was a Thursday night. This kind of night was nothing to a business like this. It was then that it finally happened; Max spotted her.

One Machiko the Female was seated at the bar between two obvious Hydrangea employees, the company’s flowery logo printed on the back of their jackets. She wore one as well, but Max was liable to credit it to her potentially feminine personality had he not recognized the emblems. Letus caught Max looking off in her direction. “Go over there, man!” he encouraged, “We all see the way you look at her.” The other men at the table nodded and agreed with gleeful cheers. Max sighed, knowing that this sort of teasing would persist if he didn’t just rip the bandage off and go over there. And so, he did.

Max pushed once again through the crowd of patrons and reached the bar. The blinding overhead lights made him a little dizzy, or was it the nerves? Perhaps both. He reached the end of the bar where the three Hydrangea-ites were seated, and he reached to tap on Machiko’s shoulder. As he did, a massive, manly hand reached out and grabbed his wrist faster than he could react. One of Machiko’s coworkers had noticed his approach.

“Hey there, little man,” he said in a deep and smooth voice that seemed to cause Max’s entire body to vibrate, “got somethin’ to say to my girl?”

Fuck, Max thought. She’s taken. He urgently began stuttering out a response. “N-Not at all, I just have talked to her before is all, just wanted to say hi.”

At this point Machiko had turned around and was scolding her boyfriend. “Knock it off, Dirk, he’s a pal. We know each other.” She turned to face Max. “Hey, Max! How ya’ been?”

The beads of sweat were probably visible to anyone in Max’s immediate vicinity at this point. “Oh, ah, y’know, not too bad. Just getting by.”

“Oh yeah, I know how that is. Don’t I, Dirk?” she passed a jeer over to her man.

“Yeah, if anyone’s getting by, it’s you, babe,” he laughed and finally let go of Max’s arm, turning to finish the rest of his drink that was resting on the bar. The couple’s third coworker had yet to join the conversation beyond flashing a few glances at Max.

“Anyway,” Machiko seemed to be wrapping up already, “It’s good to see you, Max.”

“Y-Yeah, you too,” but just as Max began to turn away, his brain cells seemed to reform a fully functional brain and he spun back around. “Actually, ah, Machiko-“

She interrupted him, “Oh, call me Mai.”

By some supernatural occurrence, this token of seeming familiarity made Max blush. “Oh okay, uh Mai. I’ve got somethin’ I wanted to ask you.”

She sipped on her drink without saying another word, awaiting his question.

“See I actually fly a Hydrangea built spaceship, and, well, it’s got this error message that keeps coming up, something about identification, and I was wondering if-“

She interrupted again, “Oh, for sure! Yeah, Dirk and I can go look at it.”

This was about fifty percent of the response that Max was hoping for, but to him it at least beat a blank. He nodded, “Cool, yeah, if you just want to, uh, finish your drinks, I’ll rejoin my friends and we can all go look at it together.” Max considered briefly that Letus and Co. might make for some decent back up, and then recalled how absolutely trashed they were. As Machiko turned back around, Max sheepishly hurried back to his table where Letus awaited his report.

“So, how the hell did it go?” Letus asked earnestly.

“She’s in a relationship, man.”

The table got quiet. “Oh, bummer.”

“She’s gonna check out my ship, though. Y’know, that error message I was telling you about?”

“Oh yeah, that’s perfect! Get ‘er alone on your ship, dude! Pretty freakin’ sly.”

“She’s bringing her boyfriend.”

If it were fundamentally possible for the table to get quieter, it would have.

“Oh,” Letus finally said under his breath. After a few extremely awkward moments, the table went back to their raucous drinking and let Max bathe in his embarrassment before having to board his ship once again, hand-in-hand with girl who was hand-in-hand with boyfriend.

══╬══

“So what’s this guy’s name, anyway?” Letus asked in a hushed tone. He and Max walked together, just ahead of the happy couple, leading them across the Lunar-12 parking lot to Max’s ship. Max was relieved that Letus was able to find it in his heart to chaperone him, turning their awkward threesome into an awkward foursome. Their other friends were still at the bar, pounding away at an appropriately intergalactic rate.

“Dirk,” Max answered after a grimace.

“Dirk!? Jesus Christ,” Letus looked back at the couple briefly and gave an underperformed wave to cover his glance before turning back to Max and whispering, “Yeah he looks like a Dirk.”

They arrived at Max’s precocious parking space, boarding ramp lowering. Max ushered his old friend and one new friend too many onto the ship, crowding them into the the ship’s main corridor. Dirk and Max ducked under the piping and tubing that lined the ceiling as the happy group strolled on over to the engine room. He threw open the door, as he had many times, and introduced Mai to the console, pulling out the keyboard for her.

“Now,” he began to explain, “everything probably looks in order at the moment, but every couple of weeks my entire ship will go on the fritz and start heading off to the nearest Hydrangea station claiming that there’s an ‘identification error’ despite the fact that my ship doesn’t even record my identification, or at least, not as far as I know. It’ll just start taking off if I don’t come back here and override it.”

“That is strange,” Mai agreed, already tapping away on the keyboard and accessing the ship’s internal systems. Dirk and Letus were looking around in the main corridor, poking and prodding at random terminals and fixtures to appear occupied. Mai looked up from the console at Max, who realized in that moment that he was hovering directly over her as she worked. “Do you have your identification on you?”

“Yeah, duh. You have to have one to get into Lunar-12.” He fished his wallet out of his pocket once again and presented his ID to her.

Mai brushed her stark black bangs aside as she studied the ID. “Maximus Cellulie, huh? Well, there’s your problem.”

“That’s a problem?” Max asked.

“Yeah,” she returned her attention to the console, “Your ship is registered under an Auber Thomas.”

“Auber Thomas? I recognize the name, but, ah, I can’t put my finger on it. But what does that have to do with the error message? Like I said, it’s not like I have to present my ID to fly the ship.”

“That’s true, but remember, you’re talking to a Hydrangea technician here, buster brown,” she giggled and looked back up at Max. “These ships are high tech as shit. They know who’s aboard them and who’s not. Auber Thomas sure as hell isn’t aboard it. That’s why your ship is freaking out.”

“Wouldn’t it be doing it constantly, then?”

“Well, yes, ideally. I’m not sure why it isn’t. Old model, I suppose?”

“Old? It ain’t much older than me, though.”

This comment struck Mai as more confusing than anything else that had been said so far. She furrowed her brows and began working away at the console again. “Um, think again.”

“What?”

After a few more moments of surfing the systems, Mai pulled up a window and pointed to it. “See?” she said, urging Max to look. Max followed where her finger was now pointed and read the text: HYDRANGEA STARSHIP MODEL 6767 “TREKMASTER” OPERATIONAL SINCE 2158. “This ship is old as shit, my guy. It’s from Before.”

“What the actual fuck,” was the only thing Max could utter as he stared blankly at the screen, grasping what was being said to him.

“I’m thinking we need to take this bad boy to an orbital station after all if you want to fix this, don’t you think?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Max said, “yeah I do think.”

#story #scifi #fantasy #writing #writerslife

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