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slxsherwriter · 6 months

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Sunday Interruptions

Fandom: A Good Day For It

Pairing: Norman Tyrus x female reader

Word count: 1,410

Warnings: Mentions of potential past abuse

Author's note: This started with the little opening scene and then branched off in an unexpected direction. Sort of just plopped in the middle of something established, but it was fun. As always, not beta-read.

Special shout out to the wonderful @slashingdisneypasta for being so encouraging.

The loud crash coming from the opposite end of the house had to be caused by Wayne and Dale. Hopefully, not breaking something. Again. You groaned, the sound muffled against both the pillow and warm arm beneath you. It was too early to be dealing with this shit.

"Fuck, Norm. I thought you said you didn't want children." A bit of a childish statement in and of itself. The two were staying with you because they had nowhere else to go. At least not at the moment. Having them close made it easier for Norman and his brother as well. Hands for a job were never far. But it was like having two children in the house. Dale worse than Wayne, but them together? A low snort came from behind you before the arm around your waist tightened.

"No, I said I didn't want those children living with us. Never said anything about our own." Before you had a chance to respond, the door flew open, and Wayne was walking in without a care in the world. Sometimes, boundary was a foreign word and concept. Norman let out a sound that was quite literally almost a growl. "How many times do I have to tell you? You knock and wait for one of us to answer!" You thought that Wayne was just hoping to catch you two in the act or even you undressing at one point. For the laughs, nothing more. There was a certain level of respect there, given you did belong to Norman. At least in the eyes of the men.

It took a second for you to catch the look that was plastered over his face. Far more serious than typical. Something was wrong. Lightly squeezing Norman’s wrist, it was an attempt to both soothe and make him pay closer attention.

“What's wrong Wayne?” You spoke up first, shifting but remaining under the covers.

“Need you both to get dressed and come see.” The tension that ran through Norman was palpable.

“Get out. We'll be there in five.” Wayne went to say something before thinking better of it and nodding. He walked out and closed the door behind him, leaving the pit in your stomach grow. “Shit…” The sentiment was shared, though you couldn't verbalize it right away. Slipping from the warmth and comfort of the bed, you instantly regretted the decision, but there was hardly anything to do for it with the risk of trouble hanging over your heads. Norman moved with the same sort of lack of desire but with a little urgency. The crash that you had heard could have been trouble.

“You got the gun I gave you?” Immediately, you moved to the drawer of the dresser and pulled it out. “Good. Let's go.”

The house was oddly quiet. Since Wayne and Dale had shown up, there was almost always some sort of constant buzz of noise. So much so that it had become a background staple, something you were used to, and now that it was missing, it sent an odd chill through you.

“What's going on, Wayne?” Norman broached the situation first, making sure you hung back a bit. You knew what the boys did. You, yourself, weren't ever directly involved. It was safer that way. For you, and for them.

The man in question gave a small jerk of his head, hands stuck in his pockets. It was an indication of where he needed to look. A soft huff came from Norman. Great. That was no answer. He moved off to look just around the corner.

“Son of a bitch,” he exclaimed, hand smashing against the wall beside him. Well, that gave you a decent idea that whatever it was, you didn't want to see it. And that the crash hadn't been the fault of the boys. Wayne had shifted closer to you, hand coming out of a pocket to rest against your back.

“Why don't you get some breakfast started?” The kitchen was in the opposite direction. Normally, you would have playfully bantered back, but now, you also understood the underlying words. The boys needed to talk in private.

“Yeah, yeah okay.”

“Keep the gun close.” So much for not worrying and the both of you needing to see. Norman would give you a better idea of what you needed to worry about soon enough. Wayne wouldn't keep you in the dark for long either if his genuine concern over it was anything to go by. Giving one final nod, you moved off to begin the nearly mindless routine of getting breakfast ready. It was Sunday, after all. And while the boys were rowdy, Sunday breakfast was a staple they never missed.

You had just gotten the bacon in the pan, batter mixed and ready to go for the pancakes, when Norman entered the kitchen. You could hear Wayne and Dale muttering to themselves just on the outskirts, though there was no way to fully make out what they were saying. Norman was quiet. Too quiet. You turned your attention from the pan after a second.

“Wayne's gonna stay here with ya while me and Dale head out to take care of something.” There was a pause, but not one long enough for you to ask what was going on. “You keep the gun close and listen to what Wayne has to say if something happens, alright?” He closed the gap between you. Warm lips met your forehead. Eyes closed, you grasped his shirt for a moment. Keeping him in place, reassuring yourself.

“What's going on, Norman?” A heaving sigh, reluctance. After another second of silence, he pulled a bloodied piece of paper from his pocket. Unsure what it was or what it could mean, your eyes were fixed on it.

“Go on,” he urged gently. None of this was good but you did as he asked. The paper crinkled, feeling brittle under your fingers. Despite the still damp spots on it. You almost wished you hadn't asked as the writing on it became clear. Bile rose in your throat, that bitter acidic burn keeping you grounded in reality.

“Is this real?” It took effort, but you were able to tear your gaze from the letter up to Norman. You weren't sure you could recall him looking this serious before. At least not in your presence.

“Yeah, it's real. But it's nothing for you to worry about, okay? Dale and I are gonna handle it. Fucker won't be coming near you ever again. Told you that before and I meant it.” His hand came up to rest against your cheek, a gentle touch that was meant to be soothing. You had to trust that he could handle the situation. Otherwise… Well, it wasn't worth thinking about. The sense of safety that you had found here couldn't be compromised. You couldn't go back to that. “We'll be back in time for dinner.” This time, there was a more reassuring smile that came to his face and it ease the tangle of nerves that threatened to constrict your throat.

“Okay.”

“That's my girl.” Another kiss to your forehead before Norman was properly pressing his lips to yours. A silent reassurance. One you wholeheartedly believed.

Well, that left you and Wayne for breakfast then, the realization coming as you watched Norman and Dale head out the back door off of the kitchen.

“Come on, Wayne. Sit and eat.” Routine was necessary. It was something to cling to and find more even footing after the morning had flipped everything on its head.

“Bacon and pancakes?” He was already stretching to get the plates.

“It's Sunday morning, of course.” Wayne chuckled softly. You knew why Norman had chosen Wayne to stay behind. Sure, he and Dale could act like children. More often than not, they did. But Wayne was easily the smarter of the two, more calculating even if he didn't always seem it. You felt safer with him than you would have with Dale, who was the sharpest tool in the shed. Loyal and eager, but needed a whole hell of a lot of direction.

“How ‘bout we get settled in the living room and watch that movie ya have been bugging us to watch?” The offer surprised you.

“Ya sure?” He shrugged as his coffee was momentarily more important than the food on his plate. Okay, so maybe those two living with you and Norman wasn't as bad as it seemed.

#norman tyrus #norman tyrus x reader #norman tyrus x you #a good day for it #richard brake characters #robert englund characters #not quite horror but still sort of fits the blog #the characters might as well be honorary slashers given who they are played by

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brayneworms · 4 months

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fearful, wonderful | scaramouche

general tags. kabukimono!scaramouche, trans!scaramouche, yokai!reader, gender-neutral reader, slowburn, yokai lore/imagery, very slowburn, food consumption/eating, tatarasuna.

content warnings. gender dysphoria, allusions to war and death.

word count. 5k

notes. this is an 18+ blog. minors and ageless accounts do not interact, you will be blocked.

synopsis. the puppet learns the horrors of the body.

masterlist | prev | next | ao3

III. SHED YOUR KNUCKLE VELVET, TORN ON MY TEETH.

Winter aches by.

The puppet had come to you in the middle of it, and now even as you watched, bunches of green leaves had begun to sprout upon the skeletal limbs of the trees. Exactly as predicted, the pathway up to the Hisehide’s house iced over, and those hacked-up cornstalks along with it. The puppet eyed them as warily as one might drawn blades, and insisted on holding your sleeve when you passed them.

As the days and then weeks unroll before you, the ground becomes crunchy with ghostly frost, and you’re able to see your breath in wisps as it escapes your mouth. A thick sheet of ice sweeps over the lake near your house and remains there staunchly for weeks, glittering whitely in the smudgy watercolour sun. The sky overhead is blanketed in dense clouds, dove-grey and swollen-looking, prone to pouring rain, sleet or snow as they saw fit.

Winter aches by, and the puppet gets a name.

It’s not you who gives it to him—that still feels wrong, feels grimy. Feels parental. And it becomes increasingly clear as the weeks pass that whatever you are to the puppet, it is not a parent. You’re scarcely even a mentor. You’re the owner of the house he sleeps him, the one who collects him from his tutoring lessons. The one who still hasn’t told him about the gold feather in your cupboard, or the Electro mark on his nape. You’re not even sure why.

Kabukimono. Strange things. The name that had stuck to the puppet as the townspeople slowly accustomed to his presence. Nobody knew the extent of what he was, nobody but you and Niwa and Katsuragi (though you suspected Honoka knew, too, with the way she never quite seemed to leave her children alone in either of your presence). They did not know he was inhuman, but they seemed to sense it on him. That particular feeling you are accustomed to.

There is a bird that frequents the lavender melon tree outside of your door. A blackbird, sweet and silent. Kabukimono becomes fascinated with her. He leaves dried fruits and cracked chestnuts outside on the frozen earth to peck at, and when he sees that she’s poking at his offerings he scampers to the window to watch. Over the course of around a week, he gains her trust.

One day you walk outside to find the blackbird perched on his finger. His expression is soft and open with wonder, as though awe had pulled him apart from the inside. His eyes round as pennies, lips parted. One of the porch steps creaked under your foot, and the blackbird twitched and took wing.

Still. One of the children nearby you owned a cat. It was never going to end well. But you wish you would have warned him.

You were woken early one morning by a scream. Any fatigue left you with a jolt, and when you peered around the room and realised Kabukimono was gone, your stomach lurched. You barely paused to pull on your hanten before rushing outside, barefoot against the frosty soil, looking around wildly. The cold air stung at your skin, the dawn mist curling at your ankles as you rushed around the house.

You came upon him in a heap. A soft shaking pile of cotton nightwear, his fingers digging into his hair and pulling at the roots. You approached, aghast at the honest fear you felt as you knelt before him.

“Hey. What is it, what’s wrong?”

You almost asked, are you hurt? But maybe his answer still would have been yes, because you think—you think this sort of thing really did hurt him. Splintered his ribcage apart and twisted up his insides. When he looked up at you, his expression was agonised, dark eyes shot red and spilling over with tears.

Your eyes trailed down to the tiny dark corpse at his feet. Wings splayed apart. Blood matted those dark feathers.

“Oh.”

“C-Can you… fix it?” He asked it with a sliver of earnestness, was the worst part. As though a part of him truly believed you would say yes. You wanted to, in that moment.

“I’m… it’s dead.”

His expression screwed up, contorted. “But I don’t want it to be dead.”

Your mouth opened and closed wordlessly. You wanted either to scream or to laugh. If only it were that simple!

But you did neither of these things, and your lack of response only seemed to frustrate the puppet further. “I don’t want it to be dead,” he repeated, his voice rising, cracking horribly. “It shouldn’t be dead! It’s not right!” He clambered furiously to his feet, and when you tried to follow him he flinched backwards. “Fix it!”

“I can’t.” You look at him in disbelief. “It’s dead. Understand? Nothing in this entire world can bring it back, certainly not me. Look, just—”

He cringed back, holding the poor dead bird in his pale shaking hands. “N-no!”

“Listen to me. Listen.” You stormed up to him and grabbed a handful of his shirt. “Things die. That’s the way it works. The things around you die and you live on. You can’t break down and weep every time it happens.”

“It’s not fair!” Kabukimono screamed, hands trembling so badly that he dropped the bird anyway. “Why did she have to die? Why did she have to leave me?”

You open your mouth furiously to answer and find that you do not have one. The puppet stares you down, eyes hard and furious and glimmering with tears, his pale cheeks flushed with fury, his mouth open and wet. Your eyes trail down to his hands; there is blood on them.

“Come back inside. It’s cold,” you say, even though he cannot feel it. He opens his mouth as though to protest, but there must be something in your expression that screams that you aren’t in the mood to be argued with. Instead he wilts. Deflates from the shoulders down and hangs his head and he shuffles past you to the door.

You look down at the bird, and find with an obscure sense of unease that you cannot conjure up even a smidge of sadness. The dark-feathered corpse on the floor may as well be an ink stain for all the empathy you feel.

Still, something compels you to pick it up. You bring it into the house, place it in a box. Kabukimono, still crying, watches you as you move around.

“What are you doing?” he finally asks, his voice hoarse.

You don’t answer, digging in your cupboard. You come up with a couple of incense sticks and a match, set them alight in a cup to catch the ash. Funeral rituals. It’s been so long you barely remember the steps. With humans, you’re supposed to water the lips and wash the body, but this will do for now—it’s a more extravagant burial than any vermin killed by a cat could hope for.

“We’ll bury it later,” you tell Kabukimono.

There is blood all down your front.

“I’m going for a bath.”

It’s unnecessary—most of the gore had stained your nightclothes, and there was only a little on your hands and arms. But you feel dirty. It’s not that blood makes you squeamish, it just makes you wish you were dead.

You boil the water over the stove and pour it into the tin tub. You’re impatient enough to find that just over the halfway mark is good enough for you as you strip off your clothes and clamber in, sitting with your knees on to your chest and your back to the metal. You tip your head back against the tin lip, feeling obscene, feeling heavy, feeling incorrigible.

You don’t often like bathing. It thrusts the imperfections of your skin out in the open. Broken apart and sealed back together with gold at the seams like a shattered cup. Like seto. It reminds you that there is no soul holding you together, like most human bodies. Only paint and a prayer.

The door ekes open, and you scramble to cover yourself. “What?”

Kabukimono’s huge sorrowful eyes peer around the frame. “I need to wash my hands,” he says tremulously. You tuck your knees closer to your chest, hesitating. It shouldn’t bother you to let the puppet see your naked body. You don’t think of such things as humans did, anyway—as yōkai, your form had never been a vessel for pleasure or gentleness. All you’d known was breaking apart and being put back together. In any case, you don’t endure the shame or embarrassment most humans feel when unclothed.

But Kabukimono is different, and you’re not even sure why.

You’re being irrational, you tell yourself, and nod over to him awkwardly. “Just… dip them in the water there.”

He nods, shuffling in. You scrunch against the hot metal wall of the tub and watch him out of the corner of your eye. His cheeks are still faintly pink, his eyes red-rimmed and splotchy; when he dips his hands in the water, they tremble slightly, sending shuddering rings spiderwebbing out from them over the steaming surface.

One of his fingers bushes against your ankle, and you flinch back like you’ve been shot.

Kabukimono raises his eyes to you, and you hate how pinned you feel by them. It’s something in them that makes him difficult to look at, like trying to peer straight into the sun. Something good, something innocent that you’re going to ruin.

Katsuragi has made a huge mistake. You sit in the bloody bathwater and you’re sure of it.

You’re going to ruin him.

You’re going to make him just like you—

“Why are you hiding from me?”

Kabukimono’s voice is soft, inquisitive. It makes you want to grow brambles over your skin and hide. “What?”

He straightens up but stays kneeling on the floor beside the bath. The expression on his face is sort of… bewildered. And hurt. Your stomach lurches.

“You don’t offend me,” he tries, earnestly confused. “You told me before that my body wasn’t offensive, yet you still asked me to hide it. Because of… decency.”

You remember. The diamond cut of his white limbs in the stormlight, in the middle of your dark parlour room like a melting wax candle. But it’s true—yōkai have no shame. You are born naked and often live in it. You clothe yourself whilst you live among humans, but for their comfort, not yours. But Kabukimono is not human, and if shame exists in his soul it is you who taught it to him.

“I was… wrong to say that,” you whisper hoarsely. “There’s nothing indecent about your body.”

Kabukimono’s lashes flutter. They’re long, delicate wisps, framing those eyes, those eyes. Globe thistles shining out of the thin cage of his head.

“What about yours?” he asks breathlessly, every word clinging to his lower lip as it escapes him. You flinch again, because he doesn’t know, doesn’t know the half of it, the things this body has done.

You are shameful. You are indecent. But not for the reasons he thinks.

Kabukimono looks upset again. “Why would your body be indecent but not mine?” he presses, and your skin is starting to prickle. His eyes drop, trailing over the exposed skin, and you wish you’d filled the tub to the brim if only so it would provide somewhere to hide. Every crack in your flesh that has broken apart and been painted patiently back together, and it doesn’t sing so much as it screams.

“You wouldn’t understand,” you choke out.

“But—”

“That’s enough. Get out.” Kabukimono draws back, blinking at you. Stung. It only makes you sicker. “Get out, I said! I don’t want you in here, I don’t want you to look at me, I want you to leave!”

“I—I didn’t mean to—”

“Either get out of this room or get out of this house, understand?”

Kabukimono gapes, scrambling back like you’d struck him, and a soft, cut noise escapes him from somewhere high in his throat. He hightails out of the room, the sliding door rattling from the force with which he slams it shut. Your hands clench at nothing in the water, feeling too big for your body, your skin feeling delicate and bruised.

You stick your head under the water and scream.

It’s unclear how much longer you stay in the bath; you don’t want to step outside the safe confines of your tiny bathroom. Don’t want to face the puppet and his big reproachful eyes and trembling bottom lip. You don’t want to be reminded of how monstrous you are in the face of his innocence.

Still, by the time you make the move to lift yourself up out of the yawn of the bathtub, the water is bitingly cold. You dry off and dress methodically, stalling for as long as possible. You wonder, briefly, about curling up on the condensation-wet floor and sleeping there. Certainly, you’ve rested in worse conditions.

You’re being ridiculous. It’s your house.

And yet you creep through it like a stranger, like you’re the ghost in the walls, the trespasser. In so many ways you suppose you are. A spirit in a human house almost feels like a sick joke. You move quietly, bare feet padding over tatami mats, and you slide the bedroom door open like you’re trying to keep a secret.

The puppet is a bundle of bedsheets scrunched into the corner. You know he’s awake—both because he doesn’t sleep in general, and because of the way the bundle flinches when the door clicks shut—but he doesn’t say anything as you slip into the room. You feel like he had breath, he’d be holding it, and you suddenly feel desperately sorry and desperately disgusting.

You crawl into your own futon, searching for comfort in the sheets but finding only the starchy smell of clean linen. Instead, your eyes trace the patterns that the moonlight paints onto the wall, and you count your own heartbeats until sleep slips you under its dark veil.

You dream, because of course you do. You dream of a sunlit field dotted with white chrysanthemums. You lay among the grass as the sun casts a lazy arc overhead, and you are so young and so stupid and nothing bad has happened to you. Summer carries by on a warm breeze, and your friends’ laughter pollinates the air. You feel that you could drown here. You feel that you could just die—

A soft weight creeps over you. You groan, tuck your head back against the flesh of the mattress, about to slip back into your halcyon dream, and—

“I thought you wouldn’t come back.”

You snap out of sleep like you’ve been slapped, all traces of summer draining from you in a cold plunge. There’s frost on the windows, but you’re not necessarily cold, and in the dark a shadow moves over you.

Kabukimono hovers over you, knees on the side of the futon, face above yours. His weight is braced by one arm next to your head. You can just barely make out his outline as your eyes settle into the pitch-darkness; it feels like you’ve only been sleeping for an hour or so.

“Wh—what?”

The arm beside your head shakes. “I thought… you truly meant it when you told me to leave. I thought about it. Just going. But I remembered about the ice on the path and I got scared, I got scared. Don’t you see? I need you.”

Your throat tightens. “Kabukimono—”

“No,” he interrupts. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong, please, please. Don’t send me away. Please, I can’t—I can’t—”

“Okay, okay. Hey.” You fumble in the dark, still half-delirious but sobering to reality as the seconds ooze past. You sit up, carefully dislodging him. “Don’t be upset. I’m—I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“You tried to make me leave,” he bursts out, his voice shaking, cracking horribly like broken glass. “Is that really what you want?”

Yes, you scream in your head. But not for the reasons you think.

“I’m not—suited,” you say haltingly. “To take care of you. I will make you into something miserable. As miserable as I am.”

You can just about make out the fuzzy outline of Kabukimono tilting his head. “Then why did you agree to take me in?”

“Because you’re not human.” The words rush out of you like vomit, and you feel the puppet go very, very still. “And nor am I. And I know how lonely that can be. To sit and watch the whole world go by with you unable to keep up. To love something not designed for you to love. And I—I’m too…”

The silence that swells between you is as heavy as concrete—at least until you feel him move. Hair brushes against your chest, right to the left of your breastbone. You stiffen, tense; achingly slowly, Kabukimono presses his cheek to your chest.

“What—” Your mouth dries, fills with saliva again at a rapid rate, and you swallow hard. “What are you doing?”

Kabukimono’s head twitches against you. And then he murmurs, “You have a heart. That’s more than me. I don’t think you’re doomed. Only I am.”

“You’re not doomed.”

“Everyone I love sends me away,” he whispers, voice catching, thick and wet. “I’m not meant to be kept. I’m not coveted or desired. I’m a burden.”

“Stop that. Stop it.”

“Even you don’t want me.”

“Stop it. It’s not that I don’t. I don’t want to mess you up.”

“You won’t. The only way you will is if you leave me. If you force me out.” His voice is thick with emotion. “Please, please…”

Your heart thuds treacherously in your ears. “Do you mean it?”

His body scrambles against yours, alight with sudden feverish hope. His head retracts from your chest, hovering excitedly in front of you. “Yes. Yes. I mean it. Just don’t send me away and I’ll be fine.”

It’s inconceivable. For someone to want to be wanted by you. But his voice is so tender, so weak, and you find you don’t have it in you to spurn him.

So you make the worst mistake of your life, and you tell him in hushed tones, “Alright. Alright. I won’t send you away.”

“Promise? Promise me.” His voice is like torn sandpaper, ragged and raw. As though if you say the wrong thing here and now he will be irrevocably ripped apart.

“I promise.”

That’s where it begins to unspool, you suppose now, even if you had no idea then. Kabukimono jams his head in the crook of your neck, trembling hard, and you can’t help but think you’ve made a mistake.

You have. But there’s no way you can know this, not yet.

For now, all you know is the puppet on top of you, bracketing your hips with his knees, and your shame rises until it chokes you back against the pillow.

Your incorrigibility pulses. Your indecency grows teeth.

So winter aches by.

The days roll into weeks, and the frost gradually dissipates. One morning you wake to find that the lake beside your house has thawed during the night, stretching out in an endless glittering grey ribbon away from you. The dry frostiness in the air leaches away, filtering in humidity and warmth.

The winter thaws, and so do you.

There’s a rustle in the village one morning. The sun ekes out, bathed golden instead of muted white for the first time since the winter began, and it’s as though the people of Tatarasuna rise with it. You peek out of your window to see the slow procession making its way around the eastern hillside.

“Where are they going?” Kabukimono asks, craning his neck. It’s a spill of people, old and young. You spot Niwa’s bright hair in the crowd, his sister and her children at his heels. He’s painstakingly pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair up the ornery pathway—his grandfather, you think, knowing of his presence but never seeing him for yourself. He’s frail and so, so old—about as old as you know humans are capable of getting. His skin is papery, clinging loosely to jutting bones.

You know at this age, his own body is failing him. His joints are all swollen with arthritis, and he’s so ill that he rarely leaves his room, let alone his house. Every jolt and jerk over that rocky path must be agony. And yet he smiles. He looks up at his family and he smiles, watching his great-grandkids rush along and play-wrestle each other. He reaches up with a shaky hand and pats the one Niwa has on the handlebars of his chair, his thin lips stretching into a weak grin. Niwa laughs, turns to Honoka, and she laughs too.

Aging is one thing you have never coveted the humans for. And even then, it seems they are coping with it better than you.

“It’s hanami,” you answer after a distracted moment. “They’re going to watch the sakura bloom, to celebrate the beginning of spring.”

“Can we go?” Kabukimono wheedles, lit up hopefully. You sigh, the No already on your lips. What is the use in marking another human year, when they seem to go by as often as seconds to you some days? But you catch the puppet’s eyes, and something inside you lurches painfully, like the string of a bow snapping and loosing a bolt into your heart. This is his first year outside of that Pavilion, that endless brambly dark labyrinth sparing him never a glimpse of the outside.

Who are you to isolate him as you isolate yourself? If he wants to assimilate with the humans, if he wants to observe their traditions and find a home in them, who are you to stop him? For a moment a siren sounds in your head, a flashing warning baring Ruin! Ruin!

…But. The only way you’ll mess me up is if you make me leave.

“Fine,” you find yourself saying. “I… let me get dressed.”

Kabukimono’s eyes light up, and the vision stays with you as you return to the bedroom and pick out a cotton yukata, plain and unassuming. Putting it on feels methodical, draping it over your limbs, trying the rope knot at your middle. You think for a moment—and then you reach inside, hunting for another. This one is dark, with the hips cut wider and less intricate knots. You carry it out with you and press it into Kabukimono’s hands.

“It’s traditional for the humans to wear yukata for the flower viewing,” you tell him. “You should… put this on. It’s a man’s one, I think donated to me by a teenage boy in the village when he went off to apprentice as a blacksmith. It’s… yours, if you want it.”

Kabukimono turns the cotton fabric over in his hands as though it’s spun gold. “For me?” he whispers. “Truly?”

“Have it.” You’re not sure what compels you to say it, but you continue, “It’ll suit you.”

You barely have time to take in his reaction before he launches himself at you. You stumble back with the force of it, and it occurs to you that a regular person of his size could never hope to knock you off your feet. There is so much strength packed into his small, slender limbs. Finding remnants, tiny reminders of his infrahuman make up feels like reassurance, feels like a bite. He curls around you like a cat, burying his face in the crook of your neck; the fabric of the yukata crushes between your bodies as he digs his fingers into your back, a little too hard.

“Thank you,” he whispers into your skin. “Thank you, thank you—”

“It’s alright,” you say awkwardly. Your arms dangle limply at your sides. “It’s nothing. Just—alright. Just go put it on, alright?”

He draws back, trembling, bright-eyed and so sickeningly human in his earnestness, in his gratefulness, that you feel more inhuman than ever. You grow outside of yourself, looking in, looking at the monster in the house. The warrior in the home. The bloodstain on the tatami mat.

And then Kabukimono brushes past you to the bedroom to change. You run your hands over your face like you’re trying to hold it together, and by the time he returns, pink-cheeked and bashful, you can almost breathe again.

“Did I put it on right?” he asks, holding out his arms.

You run your eyes over him. The yukata drapes over his form, just a shade too large, but these things are hardly desired to inflict anything but a linear shape anyway. The knot is wobbly, but secure. But—

“You’ve tied right over left.” You step towards him, hands going out to undo the knot around his middle; he follows your hands nervously, swallowing hard when they brush over his stomach. “You must wrap the left side of the fabric over the right. Right over left is how you dress humans who have died. It’s bad luck.”

You untuck the fabric, leaving it undone in a straight line down his middle. There is a line of white skin slashed against the black cotton like a door cracked open in the dark. You wrap carefully, the right side first and folding the left over it. Several times, your hand brushes against the plane of his stomach; it’s unsuspectingly warm, and it tenses when your knuckles glide over it. Finally, the band, resting just over the jut of his hipbones, and the thick rope that you tie in a neat knot.

“There,” you murmur, and Kabukimono gazes up at you, lips parted and eyes wide and starry. A red blush melts over the high apples of his cheeks, and you step back as hurriedly as if he’d burned you. “Come on. We’ll miss the procession.”

You slip on shoes and hurry out the door. The weather is still a little cool to where you resent the thinness of the cotton a little, but it’s so much milder than the bite of winter that you relish in it. The earth of the path next to the cornfield is damp and soft as you hurry over it, but Kabukimono grips your sleeve anyway.

The path trails lazily around the eastern hillside and into a valley that wriggles itself between two mountains. On either side of the valley grow copses of cherry blossom trees, arching overhead to create a dappled canopy, an archway flooded in pale pink and white and lilac. Even as you approach, stray petals drift down from the groves, catching in hair and lashes and snagging on spare threads. In the valley, a stream rushes past; Rie and Shinsuke, as well as a host of other kids, have kicked off their sandals and splash around, spraying each other or else picking up lone crustaceans unlucky enough to have wandered in.

Kabukimono’s grip on your sleeve tights to a vice as you slip under the canopy, his neck craned up so high he’s in real danger of spraining it.

“Y/n! I never thought I’d see you here!”

Katsuragi emerges from the crowds and slips towards you, a genial grin on his face. He looks tired, circles the colour of bruises arching beneath his eyes and his hair scraped back carelessly into a ponytail, but his smile makes five years melt off his face easily.

“Katsuragi,” you greet wanly as Kabukimono tenses excitedly. “I thought you’d be too busy to participate this year.”

“Ususually I would be,” he agrees solemnly. “My father is sick at the moment, though. I got the day off to care for him. Just a flu, should pass soon, especially now the weather is warming up. And I thought the spring air would do him some good, so I brought him over. He’s by the stream. But enough about me—how are you two doing?”

You shrug. “Kabukimono wanted to come and observe hanami,” you say in lieu of answering. Katsuragi grins.

“Is that right?” he asks. “How’re you liking it?”

“It’s beautiful,” Kabukimono whispers reverently. “Does this really happen every year?”

“Every spring,” Katsuragi confirms. “You should come every year. It’s always beautiful, and always nice to see after a long hard winter. Reminds you that life has a way of turning around even when it seems grounded in what it is. Right, Y/n?”

You look at him archly.

Why entrust him to me?

Who says I’m not entrusting you to him?

“The flowers are pretty,” you spit, annoyed all over again. Katsuragi’s smug grin doesn’t help.

“Indeed they are. Don’t let me stop you enjoying them,” he chuckles. He reaches out, ruffles Kabukimono’s hair. “Enjoying the new haircut, by the way. Suits you.”

Kabukimono glows, pink-cheeked and delighted as Katsuragi meanders back over to his father. Pest.

The two of you walk over to where you see Niwa. He greets you delightedly, and even Honoka offers a wan smile and a halfhearted wave. Rie and Shinsuke splash over to you, babbling about some sort of fish they’d found under a rock. Kabukimono talks emphatically to Niwa, first about his reading and writing, and then about metallurgy. You raise an eyebrow and both the men shift sheepishly.

“Kabukimono here was wondering about learning a little bladesmithing,” Niwa says. “What do you think?”

You shrug. “It’s… a valuable skill to have. If you don’t mind teaching him, I mean.”

“Not at all,” Niwa beams. “Rie and Shinsuke adore him, you know? Even Honoka has a soft spot. Soon enough he’ll be part of the family.”

He misses the way Kabukimono freezes as soon as that word leaves his mouth, misses the look of longing and disbelief that wrenches over his expression. You catch it, though, and then you wonder when you started paying so much attention to the puppet, to the ghost in your house, because you’re sure you know exactly how he feels and what he’s thinking.

Niwa and Honoka, Rie and Shinsuke—they can be a family for him. The kind he deserves. Empathetic and practical and good. You are not built for family. You are not built to be a home.

You are tsukumogami. That is all you will ever be.

#🫀.scribes #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x you #wanderer x reader #wanderer oneshot #kabukimono x reaer #kabukimono oneshot #scaramouche x gender neutral reader #scaramouche x gn reader #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin x gn reader

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quaranmine · 5 months

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6, 12, and 25 for the mcytblr fic author asks?

6. Do you like using the mcyt multiverse as a concept? (all SMPS and MC content exists in the same universe)

Yes!! To the point where it will bother me if I can't make them all fit, lol. Usually I like to keep the Dream SMP, Hermitcraft, Evo and Life Series all within the same universe. I like MCC as an event where people from these servers can intersect. Empires though is a problem to me, as it often contradicts things quite heavily due to the characters' lore. So whether or not Empires (S1 or S2) is canon sort of depends on what I am writing. I also often disregard random one-off SMPs as well--I'm not going to try to figure out how Rats SMP fits into Hermitcraft fits into Empires, it's just a nice little series in its own right.

12.Funniest comment you've ever gotten in a piece of work?

I think the funniest is when I posted a Firewatch AU chapter and @ivi-prism sent me a screenshot of her fake-buying plane tickets to Texas on an actual airline website to come kill me

Also I do find it pretty amusing that I am so loudly fixated on fire lookouts that I am aware of more than one person who have started reading my fanfic without even being familiar with Hermitcraft LOL

25.What works and/or authors in the fandom do you recommend?

Well, I've got to rep some of my friends first! Ivi is the creator of this ask game, and you should definitely check out her works -- Off-world vacations is a sweeping dsmp x hermitcraft crossover that has been in the works for years, great for Fundy fans. chrysalizzm is one of the most talented writers I've ever met, and I've seen firsthand the incredible research and depth and soul he's poured into the wasteland series. another excellent writer is prismartist, who probably has something for everyone since they've written life series, hermitcraft, dream smp, qsmp, and empires.

Really though, I need to get better at actually bookmarking my favorite works. I often kudos and then lose them oops

I have to recc definitelynotshouting's hunger au, although I feel like that's quite well known in the fandom already (for good reason)

sunlight over me no matter what i do by odaigahara is a GREAT oneshot, but mind the gore and body horror (grian cuts off his own wings to get rid of watcher influence)

I'm pretty fond of a specific subset of Watcher!Grian stories where the old Grian died and a Watcher/something else just kind of uhhhh took over his body with his memories? So I must recommend tempering by sixteenthdays, as well as You Say You Feel Hollow (and you know it's 'cause you are) by writing_and_worrying. still slightly similar in concept but not quite the same is the body is an object by ruffboi. And it's probably distinctly different enough that it shouldn't even be grouped here, but I also adore Covet by Oceanbreeze7 for a good Creature-y Watcher!Grian.

I like Enderwoah's Jimmy/Bad Boys fics. The two I have in my bookmarks is i've got problems (not just the ones that are little) and i can see the pattern (but i don't know what i can do)

Finally, I don't always blog about hermitshipping but I do sometimes read it, so I'll leave you with a scarian fic that has killed me like three separate times: Baby, just let me bleed in peace by mossman_mothman

#quara asks

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catt-nuevenor · 1 year

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April

How do, folks!

Sorry for not posting on Friday, the day got away from me in the form of a grammar induced migraine, and although I did eventually manage to get back to the story, I wasn't in any fit state to be coherent on here once I'd finished work that day.

So, here we are in April. I'm not going to follow the previous format of daily word count updates this month, as I'm hopefully only going to be writing at that pace for half the month. Hopefully.

In the place of that, I'm going to try doing three to four posts a week on the following things;

Book reviews - Casual stuff, just updates on what I've been reading or listening to recently and my thoughts on it. I seem to be going through an awful lot of books at the second, especially in the horror thriller genre, and it's nice to keep a record of them and my thoughts as I go.

Asks - Don't start going all in for the complex self insert ones that require me to code things. Unfortunately, that takes at least a day per post, and I'm still trying to put the vast majority of my efforts towards the book. Mini asks about specific things or characters is absolutely fine, ones that could hypothetically be answered in a few paragraphs would be fantastic.

Research Rambles - Because despite the insanity of research at this stage of the project, I am still regularly wrangling with primary sources, antiquated historians, and tangling myself up in all sorts of grammar headaches. And misery loves company.

Publishing Stuff - Basically keeping you all informed about the broad strokes of what is happening on a publishing pipeline front, so long as that sounds interesting to folks?

Your suggestions - Seriously, if there's something you would like to see pop up on the blog while I'm hacking through the closing stages of this thing, let me know. I reserve the right to say no, of course, but I'd really like to interact more with you all. At the second, it's quite quiet on that front round here.

To close, I hope everyone's Monday is/has been bearable, and if not, I hope it takes the hint and gets on its merry way with all haste.

#TBT CM #writing update

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howdy-folks-its-showtime · 1 month

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April Update!

Howdy! Cobalt here, as many of your guys know It’s Showtime and its characters/story are gonna be turned into a horror game by the same title. So for both Gamejolt and this blog I am gonna start trying to do monthly updates on development. I think it’ll be a good way to put into perspective how much progress is being made each month and keep you guys in the know about how things are going. These are gonna be formatted with work made that month going first and then afterwards any other small announcements or thoughts we’d like to share on development. That or things that weren’t created that month that I basically keep stored in case we have months where progress is slow or I can’t show much behind the scenes stuff. These logs will likely contain personal stuff too, since with me and my partner being the main heads of the project. Our well-being or IRL goals are relevant to how much work is being done. Also while developing Showtime I intend to create other games similar to it, to sort of learn and test the waters + Since those ones aren’t tied to an IP I can actually make money off of them. Something I can’t [or at least not without Mike n Meatly’s permission I suppose] with Showtime or its characters.

April was sadly, not my month, I found out I was vitamin D deficient and got a slight fever. So I spent a lot of days tired and recovering from that. Progress has still been made though, mostly on learning 3D modeling more, I’m almost done with a model I’m making for someone else actually and while it is not perfect by any means… I think it looks really awesome for being my maybe fourth or third model and it’ll be my first truly finished model as well. I also have made good progress on writing both dialogue and summaries of Showtime’s story. I did particularly get ideas for a good chunk of Showy's campaign however, which involves a character I was on the fence about including in Encore!... Until very recently... Art wise not too much has been done specifically this month besides some concept art for cycle designs and some progress on textures for the studio. But that’s okay cause we’re not really at a spot where major progress can be made art wise yet. There’s so much more I want to share but I’ll be doing my best to space out those things out between updates. So no update is too long or too short with nothing interesting in there. Also sorry this is all so vague and non-specific I’m gonna try and get in the habit of actually documenting what work is being done on Showtime monthly from now on, so I’ll be able to be more specific about what parts are being chipped away at.

So onto something that didn’t happen this month but is important we have decided to switch to Unity instead of Unreal Engine 4. I’d like to take some time to explain why and also make sure nobodies too anxious over the change. For one thing, not a lot of progress was made on Unreal Engine, you could hear footsteps as you walked, use a buggy animation to enter a miracle station and the map was just a room full of lights. This is due to the fact while working in Unreal Engine was interesting and I learned quite a bit, I found myself often feeling it was not a good fit for Showtime and that trying to make it so was fighting against the engine as opposed to working with it. Unreal Engine seems to be built for realistic, open world or multiplayer FPS type games. That’s not to say you can’t make anything else with it, but finding tutorials for things I wanted to do was. Basically a nightmare because youtube was flooded with videos on how to make those games specifically. Another big aspect however was the general style. Unreal Engine is great if you want very realistic lighting and have a computer that can tank the sort of weight of that too. Neither is true for me however, Showtime’s characters are all very stylized, our humans are cartoony have clear shapes and most of all, I just want Showtime’s overall style to pay loving homage to 1930’s and general 2D Animation. I think both are really underappreciated and god do I love them. Also I’m making this on literally a laptop, a new one and not a janky one by any means, but still not a desktop. Unreal Engine works great for those who know how to use it and want to create the games it was optimized for, but it’s not ideal for my purposes, Godot seems promising but Unity is just great at specifically doing what I want to do with Showtime. It’s great for beginners to Game Development, has plenty of tutorials for all kinds of games and is very flexible in style. Sadly nothing is better at being Unity than Unity right now. I’m still mad about what the CEO did, and I’m glad for those who were able to switch engines to those with better management but it’s not really an option for us currently. Of course, this will put things back a bit but I’ve already been learning how to build a basic map in Unity and so far have only run into a few issues. Still I would love any advice on how to do this, esp from those who had made games similar to BATIM and other mascot horrors. [I have been thinking of building the maps inside Blender first and then importing them into Unity, to see if that’s easier or practical, but mostly I would love to hear what others commonly do to build such intricate interior design in Unity.] Either way while this month wasn’t terribly exciting by no means was no work done, just nothing too fun to show off yet.

#it's showtime #not ask #Devlog #bendy and the dark revival #bendy and the ink machine #batim #batdr #Bendy Encore #Bendy fangame #queer horror #indie horror game #indie horror #mascot horror #mod whirly #I dont know yet if Ill be fully putting all the devlogs in the bendy tags #it feels like a good idea for making sure the posts reach more people but once a month might be annoying to those who are not interested?#but also one post every month doesnt sound too disruptive either so? Im not sure yet #anyways thank u guys for being so supportive so far I swear I am taking this project seriously its just I have other things I am working on #too and since were still in early pre production most of this is just planning and actually putting fun ideas to paper to see how theyll #actually work out yknow?#anyways yeah ty for everyones patience hopefully from now on communication will be a lot more consistent from us <3

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with-love-from-hell · 1 year

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Melancholia

{part Nine}

Fandom: Obey me!

Genre: Angst

Written for F!Mc (she/her pronouns used)

WC: ~1.1k

CW: Allusion to past sexual violence in Vermillion Skies, Gaslighting/invalidation, use of the word “Paranoia,” Nightmares, vague illusion to torture and burns, blood mention, bruises mention.

A/N: sorry for the wait! Its finally here! 😊

>> Though I have a Masters Degree in Psychology, I am not your therapist. If you have experienced any form of depression or suicidal thoughts, and are in need of help, please utilize the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, NIMH helpline, or the SAMHSA helpline. <<

You can find any future parts by searching the tag #Vermillion Skies or #Melancholia on my blog! I have added it to all parts!”

Series Masterlist

Though the days past by quickly, the nights for Simeon were restless. Each horrid nightmare about Mc made the fleeting bits of slumber he managed to achieve unbearable, to the point where he was becoming severely sleep deprived. Even after multiple scoldings from Lucifer and Barbatos, his grades continued to falter. Whats more, he began silently following Mc around just a few paces behind. His fear of losing them becoming so strong, that he no longer heeded the warnings from Mammon, Barbatos, or even Lucifer to stay away, which came as a significant annoyance to the three over-protective caretakers of Mc. He even went so far as to stand outside the house of Lamentation, just below the balcony to Lucifer’s room, as if waiting to see some lurker dare to attempt to harm them like in his dreams.

What frustrated Simeon the most about the dreams is that the individual responsible for their torture was faceless. Try as he might, he could not make out any defining features to give the cruel captor an identity. The setting he was able to place Mc in was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he had seen it before, and something about the individual reeked of resentment and betrayal, though at this point there could be many who fit that bill. The only two faces in his dreams that gave any clarity were that of Mc- bloody and bruised as she was- and Lucifer, who’s interruptions of Mc’s torture were just as painful to watch as he paced around his office, desperately fighting tears amongst the tarnished books, shelves, and furniture.

Much to Simeon’s surprise, the only one who gave his dreams any consideration was Luke. He was dismissed by Solomon, who passed him off as paranoid, and Raphael he was dismissed by Raphael for being obsessive in his ruminations about the human girl. But Luke seemed equally as concerned by the nighttime horrors as Simeon, going so far as to walk Mc to class hand-in-hand almost every day.

“Do you really think something so terrible could happen to her?”

“Well...” Simeon sighed, scratching his ear anxiously. “I would like to hope it wouldn’t, but if someone had harmed her once, surely there could be a chance of harm coming to her again.”

Luke’s frown intensified, casting worry lines all over the small angels face. Simeon gave a weak smile, and outstretched his arms. Accepting the invitation, Luke nearly jumped into the hug, soft tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I don’t want to think about this any more...” He murmured into Simeon’s coat, sniffling back mucus. “Can we go to the Cat Café with Satan again or something?”

Simeon obliged, ushering Luke toward the Library where Satan had been seen reading a book on dark mages earlier in the day. Simeon had seemingly bonded back with Luke after sharing his dream all those nights ago, and it offered the opportunity for Simeon to share his reasons for abandoning virtue. While Luke still didn’t quite understand, he knew that Simeon had no ill intentions toward him, nor toward the celestial realm despite the tortures he had suffered at the hands of Michael.

Forgiveness was still long off for Luke, certainly. But being able to talk through things with Simeon brought him a step closer to it. Besides, he had been so desperate for some sort of connection again, since Michael seemed to only care about Mc when he spoke with him. His fascination with her wasn’t quite misplaced, as Mc seemed to have even captured the attention of Raphael, who had been previously so preoccupied with his duty that he barely cast them a second glance.

It made Luke happy to know that the two individuals who admired the most in the celestial realm had taken an interest in his friend. Perhaps they would be able to help in keeping her safe from the impending doom that Simeon’s dreams promised.

.......

“Luci...” You murmur as you creak open his office door. His head is perked up as he heard your meek voice, concern painting his face as you meet his stare.

“Another bad dream?” Lucifer immediately rose to his feet as you nodded and walked toward you, cupping your chin in his hands delicately. Despite the fact that so much time had passed and you seemed to be improving still from everything that’s happened, the past two days had been torturous for you. He had stayed home with you the previous day due to your inability to get even a mediocre night’s sleep and the sickness that followed in the morning. The next night and day were no different, having confined you to your shared bedroom with Lucifer for a bulk of the day. Fortunately, tonight you seemed to get to sleep with ease, and managed to consistently sleep for a solid two hours before Lucifer snuck away to his office to catch up on some paperwork.

“Come, love.” Lucifer gathered you in his arms, picking you up by your rear and urging you to wrap your legs around his waist. “Lets go back to bed.”

Lucifer helped you back upstairs, snuggling in next to you after tucking you under the covers. His wings sprouted from his back as the raven feathers closed around you, pushing you closer to your lover’s chest. Listening to his heartbeat and the feeling of the silky feathers against your skin eased your nerves, despite the fact that you couldn’t remember most of the nightmares when you woke. All you felt was a burning sensation all over your skin, and you could remember a vaguely familiar looking man standing over you with pure disdain in his eyes. You couldnt ever remember the words he said to you, nor could you remember how you got into the tiny room with him, but you knew was that the room meant pain and torture for anyone who stepped foot in it.

You sigh, clinging to Lucifer tightly. He assured you that you were safe, and you felt it now, too. But something still hung heavy in your stomach; something that told you the safety you felt in this moment wouldn’t last much longer.

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witchcraftandburialdirt · 7 months

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3, 6, 7, 11!

✧ ── 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒

3. whose writing has impacted your writing style the most? (you can choose anyone! famous writer or not.)

── I would say that my style and my themes come from two totally different places in the spectrum of my life; I've always been interested in darker stories but my very first introductions into serious literature were J. R. R. Tolkien and Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. I would later begin to consume media from Osamu Dazai, C.S. Lewis, and Victor Hugo - and while I think all of these influenced what I write about I don't think their styles influenced mine very much (besides maybe Tolkien).

Something I've actually been doing recently is allowing myself to slip back into my days of reading Reddit Horror Stories, I especially love listening to them during my workday and I do feel as though they are beginning to curve the direction of my work. A few of my favorites are Jared Roberts' My Dad Finally Told Me What Happened That Day, Dathan Auerbach's Penpal (a classic) - but my ABSOLUTE favorite thus far is Maliagirl1314's My wife has been peeking at me from around corners and behind furniture. This last one is probably one of the most unsettling things I've ever heard and I would be blessed if I could extract some of the same horror this story gave me:

Lynn was peeking from behind the shower curtain, her entire head stretched into the shower, leaving just her body outside. Her long dark hair hung against the curtain, the ends dripping with water. Her mouth hung open in a terrible grin, eyes wide and red, as if she hadn't blinked in a while. I screamed and jumped back against the wall. She didn't move nor did her smile waver. Her makeup ran down her cheeks in two black streaks. She looked giddy and completely deranged. I was fucking terrified.

6. is roleplaying the only writing-based hobby you have, or are there other things you like to write?

── Oh you're really making me talk about this on my roleplaying blog huh - Yes! I actually write quite a bit outside of rp; I use roleplay as a way to keep my skills sharp while I work on a much bigger project. I've been sculpting a high fantasy world for the past 7 years that has a complete plot, setting, societal system etc ; the story follows my usual topics of grief, loss, and what length people are willing to go in order to feel human again ... And how little that humanity means in comparison to cosmic entities that do not feel the same way as you and I. I won't get into too much of it because I will not shut up and this is not the blog for that but here's a little quip:

Everything in between his earliest memories and this last horrid visage flashed within his mind, burning the back of his skull with desperation and misery while two glassy, blank spheres gazed back to him. There was no solace that could be found in the marbled mask of Death his brother wore; no benevolence sparked behind his eyes and his plush lips had fallen agape ... Yoriichi could still smell hints of vanilla and garlic on his tongue. He could not call him a corpse, not when his brother's body still felt warm to the touch, not when his ears still strained to hear any flicker of life echoing in that still and silent ribcage. The blood lining across Yorii's brain boiled in rippling self loathing; his very body began to resent him for such a thought - no. No no. Even now with the hot sin laid before him he knew the blood was not on his hands, he did not pull the lever for the gallows. His brother would never have wanted him to fall into that sort of pit .. Yet, another awaited: this was the man who he had done everything with ... how was he supposed to toss all of that away? The mud was cold beneath him, touched by the first frosts of winter only that evening as all the beauty in the world felt as though it had died - how fitting, he thought, for the world to be plummeted into this dark chasm along with him. Soil clung to his clothing and stained his skin while he sat within the ringing quiet between the two of them, soon enough he couldn't stand to bear and look at his brother's face. It held too much horror - a perfect snapshot of when he realized the end had finally come and that nothing could prepare him for what was to happen next if anything at all. Yorii instead decided to wander back into the flashing memories while his fingers clenched the body beside him so tightly he was sure he would crack bone; and that was when the startling revelation crushed his soul and ripped his heart in two by the sinews. A singular bout of lucidity kindled to clear the fog and his eyes tightly opened to stare at him once more; the small detail he hadn't noticed before felt like an icepick through his skull - His brother had been smiling.

Still a WIP but ! Ya know

7. describe your favorite relationship dynamic. (can be any kind, platonic, romantic, familial, antagonistic, etc.)

── I'm a huge sucker for found family; there's something so comforting within those dynamics and I crave it all of the time - I just really like exploring all of the different ways love can manifest. Antagonistic relationships can get a bit iffy for me, most of my characters fall into the "ok we just wont converse with the person we dislike" box, so not a lot of interaction would happen there unless its forced - but enemies to friends to whatever else is a really big hit for me I don't care how cliche it is.

11. describe your ideal outcome/endgame for the muse you are currently writing. if you are a multimuse blog: do this for your current favorite muse, or the muse of the last reply you posted.

── Doing this one for Robin because Haru's endgame is legit just "be happy and healed" I do not want anymore horror in his life and he deserves none of it for being such a sweetie. Now Robin? Ohoho that little shit - so I have two vastly different ends I'd like for him to end up in and it is somewhat based around different verses as his lives are so wildly juxtaposed in each one. For his main league verse @hemoplagued and I have actually spoken about a whole timeline that takes place in the not-so-distant future where Robin eventually returns to Noxus with Vladimir to help organize a coup alongside the Crimson Court and Black Rose. This results in the execution of Swain and a deconstruction of Noxus' ideals over the next coming centuries (as Vladimir and Robin are both technically immortal). Robin's whole purpose in life in his early life in League verse is to want to help others and solve the humanitarian crisis of his own home; this is an extension of that that feels very bittersweet.

On the other hand I really just want Robin to lose his shit. This is actually something I plan to explore more with you specifically within the Dead by Daylight threads we have going on - as Robin's specific backstory for this verse (shhhh I know I know, I'm writing his doc as we speak for it) really would allow him to fall into vile acts he might not be willing to in his other verses. This is also being explored, granted on a much more subtle level, in his modern verse, and I'm excited to expand more to see where this will lead to since he's not usually the type to bloody his own hands.

#𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒 #mun speaks #mxlevolence #hehehe #hehehehehe #HEHEH #its fine #i just want robin to go a little wild for once #let him kill someone idk

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safereturndoubtful · 9 months

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At New Ing

Friday 15th September 2023

Yesterday was a day reading an apocalyptic Uruguayan horror novel and watching Uruguayan rugby, quite fittingly, with them producing their best ever World Cup performance by pushing the hosts, France, close.

The Rugby World Cup will occupy quite a bit of my time in the next 6 weeks, at least though it’s mainly only at weekends. It certainly has started well.

It’s of particular interest to me this time, with my previous involvement in rugby in so many of the countries..

For five years I coached 8 of the 23 Chile squad that played Japan, and two others in their squad,

The Portugal squad has 3 that I coached, though this time only briefly (just one season).

The Uruguayan squad has 7 from the Old Christian’s club. This was the club that lost so many players in the plane crash in 1974, on their way to play their annual fixture in Chile, against the Old Boys club where I was to be involved for five years, from 2007. We visited Uruguay for rugby twice while I was in Chile, and hosted them in the other years. These 7 played against my boys.

We travelled to Argentina three times each year for rugby, staying for a week each time.

I lived, coached and refereed rugby (and cricket) in the South Island of New Zealand for three years also.

Otherwise, it’s been a week or preparations of various sorts, with various tweaks to the van and the admin necessary for heading to the Balkan countries.

I’m still based on the top field at New Ing in Shap. We had a week of warm and humid weather that soon became unpleasant, and culminated in a 5 hour thunder storm last Sunday, and has now given way to much cooler, and more usual, changeable conditions. Most exercise has been down by the river, though two dogs became one when Roja’s cousin injured his back leg. Fortunately it looks like it’s healing pretty quickly.

There’s a regular visit from the kids who never get tired of climbing around the van and, especially with Arthur, playing up every dangerous item possible, the gas oven, the knife drawer, the fire extinguisher..

Last Monday I got a replacement diesel heater fitted, and it works well. These Chinese heaters aren’t expensive, but are very efficient. It’s a pity they have such a short lifespan, another of those bits of technology that are not designed for repairing.

I’m away from Shap on Monday morning, initially up to Carlisle to see my American niece and nephew, then over to Hexham for a consultancy at the clinic the next morning.

My destination then is Folkestone for the Eurotunnel, but after that, remains a mystery.. even to me.

I think it’s likely that I will head to the Balkans, as I’m expecting my next appointment at Hexham to be 3 - 5 months, maybe even longer. But it just might be less than that, so I do retain an option to spend that time in Northern Europe.

Matters such as Roja’s entry to the various non-EU countries, and car insurance for those countries seem as complicated as ever. I’ve just about got the information I need, but the agencies that one would expect would have the answers, do not.

Either way, there will be a more regular blog post from next Wednesday, 20th September..

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daja-the-hypnokitten · 1 year

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Jukebox reviews part 50! For context, see my post “A Project” under this same tag. If you want to see a full list of his EMCSA stories, they can be found here, sorted alphabetically.And if you want to see some of his drabbles, check out his blog at @jukeboxemcsa

No Homo