#also a throwback to one of my earliest oneshots

[kinnbig]

tagged by @kissporsche and @aikinn thank you ✨

fave colour: yellow or pastel pink 💛🌸

currently reading: omgg technically less by andrew sean greer but i started it in august before the dissertation dread kicked in and still haven’t finished it :( which sucks cause it’s good

last song: lil nas x tales of dominica (one of my favourites from this album! also one of my favourites in general)

last series: the eclipse finale! it was pretty good!

last movie: i genuinely don’t remember the last time i watched a movie lol

currently working on: my gd dissertation… i don’t even want a masters any more at this point i’m so done 😭 this shit is never ending.

…perhaps it would be ending faster if i wasn’t also actively working on multiple fanfics lol:

huuge fic lovingly working-titled ‘the Big-centric pain and sadness compilation’ - canon-compliant Big and Ken backstory spanning from several years pre-canon up to the events of episode 10. ft lots of pining and manipulation and kind of fucked up smut (rated E, 10+ chapters, first chapter nearly ready to post (and multiple completely random chapters complete… why was chapter 7 the first one I wrote?!))

multi-chapter third part to my RamKing series ‘silence and patience’ which is just gonna be several chapters of early relationship fluff and smut and is also basically a KingRam manifesto (rated E, 5 chapters(?), first chapter probably 80% complete)

anOther RamKing fic set in early canon, where bisexual icon King takes his friends to a gay bar and sees Ram flirting with some guy. he can’t believe Ram would give a stranger so much attention but ignore him most of the time and decides the solution is to scare the guy away and aggressively flirt with Ram himself. i’m sure u can guess where it’s going. (rated E, oneshot, 40% complete)

also on the back burner:

BigKen friends with benefits fic (E, oneshot)

some very pre-canon KinnBig smut (E, oneshot)

Porsche and Chay 5+1 - 18-year-old Porsche realises 13-year-old Chay is gay but hasn’t talked to Porsche about it. 5 times where, over the years, Porsche goes out of his way to be the ultimate most supportive ally ever to make sure Chay knows he can tell him, and 1 time Porsche talks to Chay about his own bisexuality. (T, oneshot)

Share 10 different favourite characters from ten different pieces of media in no particular order, then tag 10 people 🎥🎬📺:

Big (KinnPorsche)

Ram (the RamKing show/My Engineer)

Shiv Roy (Succession)

Zuko (Avatar: the Last Airbender)

Klaus Hargreeves (The Umbrella Academy)

Michelle Mallon (Derry Girls)

Sayid Jarrah (Lost)

Paula Proctor (Crazy Ex Girlfriend)

Eric Effiong (Sex Education)

Ianto Jones (Torchwood) (a throwback to one of my earliest blorbos lmao)

tell me why i immediately forgot every piece of media i’ve ever enjoyed in my life…

i’m doing this quite late (sorry) so i’m not sure who has already done this/been tagged so! If you see this and want to do it then consider yourself tagged

😎✌️

#thank u ✨🌸💖🏳️‍🌈🥰 #this was fun 😁 #also if ur reading this consider it an open invitation to talk to me about any of my fics or blorbos hehe #i love to Discuss #tag game #darcey.txt

[catsafarithewriter]

The Disappearance of Haru Yoshioka (Part 7)

Part: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [fini]

x

There is more than just one manga, they discover. 

They vary in plot, but not in theme - in so many, it is of the ordinary discovering the extraordinary and fighting to get back home. A girl unlucky in love who trades her face for a feline mask and almost loses her humanity in the process. A young writer who stumbles into a cat library looking for inspiration and forgets herself. A boyfriend who tries on borrowed wings and becomes trapped in an avian form he cannot shed.  

Birds and cats and Creations. And always, always on the edge of forgetting. The tales spin round and round as if trying to describe a half-remembered dream that is never quite correct.

Sometimes Duke is there. 

He navigates this fictional realm on the edge of normality, skirting the shoreline with uncanny ease and pulling people back from the line they won’t be able to return from. Baron seems to be flattered by the interpretation, for whenever Duke appears, the reader can be sure that all will be well. 

He doesn’t see the way that Duke only ever appears just as the human has wondered nearly too far, stayed almost too long, strayed just to the edge of no return. He doesn’t see the way that Duke heralds danger just as much as he promises safety. 

But Toto does. 

The worlds that the manga show are ones of wonder and delight and beauty, but they are also ones of warning. Of the danger of forgetting oneself or running from your life instead of facing it. They are testaments that the spirit world is many things, but for humans is not one of them.

And Duke is as much a part of that as anything else in the worlds.

x

So Toto does not know what to expect when they track down this Haru Ikewaki. 

Certainly he does not expect the beautiful little house on the edge of a quiet town, paired with a small garden filled with wildflowers. He does not expect the air of contentness that infuses the home, set to the tune of birdsong and gentle humming. He does not expect everything to feel so right. 

He lands on the low branches of a cherry tree, and Baron slides off his back. Further down, Muta scrabbles along the branch Toto had dropped him onto.  From their vantage point, they can see a slim silhouette moving through the kitchen.

“Is that her?” Muta grunts. “She seems so... ordinary.”

And Toto can’t bring himself to disagree. Even as she moves into the light, he finds himself almost... disappointed that there isn’t even a spark of recognition in him. The woman before him is in her mid-thirties, her brown hair tied back into a messy ponytail and a pencil tucked behind an ear. Maybe he was right. Maybe this isn’t the same Haru. 

And that’s when Baron drops his cane. 

x

He remembers. 

Baron remembers and the memories come flooding back in an ugly torrent of images and emotions and moments and he barely notices the cane as it slips from his grasp. 

He remembers. 

He remembers their first meeting, and he remembers the hours they spent together reading in happy silence. He remembers the visits to other worlds, showing her the dancing stars of one realm and the underwater rainbows of another. He remembers her disappearance and the months he spent tearing himself apart to find her again.  

He remembers forgetting her. 

“It’s her,” he whispers, and he looks to Toto. The expression he finds is one of pity and... something else? He doesn’t have time to deconstruct it, because Haru is there, she is alive and well and right before him. 

Toto places a wing before him before he can sweep into action. “She may not remember you,” he warns softly. “And you may not be able to change that.”

“I know,” he says, although in his heart he does not want to believe it. “But at least let me try.”

Toto watches him for a heartbeat longer, his eyes weary in that moment, and then nods and retracts his wing. “Just don’t get your hopes up too high,” he murmurs. 

Baron only smiles back and drops down onto the windowsill. 

He’s unsure how to announce his presence - whether to knock or to call out to her - but he hesitates too long and the choice is taken from him when she looks up from the coffee she’s making and sees him. 

They both freeze, Baron with one hand raised to the glass and her with the teaspoon of coffee in midair. 

She is the first to move. The coffee is lowered and she leans across the sink to hesitantly unlock the window latch. There is surprise in her eyes, confusion too - no recognition, but there is not quite the right amount of shock for someone who has never seen him before. “You,” she breathes, and her voice is the same as he remembers. “You’re real?”

He tips his hat in a motion he has done for her so many times before. “Indeed. My name is Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, and I believe I am a frequent visitor in your lovely stories.”

“Well, yes, but... I didn’t think you were... that is to say, I wasn’t aware...” She sits, suddenly, into a nearby chair. “I don’t understand how this can be, unless...” 

“This isn’t a dream.”

She laughs, sharply, as if being told an unexpected in-joke. “No, that I know. I know what my dreams are like and this... this is not one of them.” She leans forward, her eyes glittering in the sun and he wonders how he could have ever forgotten how they shine like gemstones. “Did I somehow write you into existence? Is this one of those ‘stories come alive’ kind of scenarios?”

Baron smiles. “Not exactly.” It seems Toto is right, that he alone carries the memories still - but there has to have been something once for her to tell stories of him so. Maybe he can bring them back. “Miss Haru, are you aware of us having met before?”

She shakes her head. “No. I... I always just thought you were a character I had made up. If I had known there was actually a... actually someone like you, I would have asked before using your likeness.”

“Indeed. It is quite the uncanny likeness.”

“Have we met before?”

He looks at her. Yes, he wants to say. Yes, and I’m sorry I ever made the mistake of letting you go. I’m sorry I forgot. I’m sorry it took so long for me to find you again. 

But he also sees the warm and loving house she sits in - a far cry from the small flat she rented when she worked as a librarian. He sees the framed covers of her successful manga. He sees the healthy glow of her skin and the brightness in her eyes that tiredness and long hours had stolen away from her in his timeline.

And then he sees the slim gold ring on her left hand and he realises that he may have had a part in her life before, but it is no longer that reality.   

“No,” he says. 

She is happy. 

And who is he to mess with that?

x

Part: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [fini]

#the disappearance of haru yoshioka #the cat returns #the cat queues #also borrowing plots from both #mimi wo sumaseba #and a whisper away #just in the mangas that haru writes #which I've realised do all have that forgetting who you are plotline #or nearly losing your chance to have a normal human life #which uh fits really really well into this story #also a throwback to one of my earliest oneshots #the first one actually #with lines from 'the life that could have been' song by A1