#kinda unhappy with how the ending was written ngl

[hearthotchner]

flowers, petnames, and, apologies

— inspired by this post, which was prompted by a tiktok sound

walking into the bullpen, derek morgan couldn’t help but notice the person delivering a large bouquet of flowers, “woah woah woah, who are these for?” he asked, assuming they were for one of his female co-workers.

“um.. a mr aaron hotchner?”

derek’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and his jaw dropped, just before the expression was replaced with a mischievous smirk, “let me take this off your hands, i’ll give ‘em to him.”

after bidding the delivery man a thank you and goodbye, derek carefully placed it onto his empty desk; almost immediately, his coworkers surrounded him, intrigued by the colourful array of flowers that lay on his desk.

the bouquet wasn’t overwhelmingly bright, yet it wasn’t void of hues either. they were light, soft, pastel colours — easy on the eyes — majorly white, but with splashes of light yellows, baby pinks and reds dotted around, with, just a hint of blue.

“do you know who they’re from?” penelope’s voice piped up.

before morgan could respond, he was cut off by reid, “most likely a partner. did you guys know that lily of the valley actually represents new beginnings, which is why they’re used for various occasions: weddings, baby showers. and, the blue hyacinths show a desire to make peace — they’re apology flowers, the colours are those usually used to display remorse.” his voice got higher as he got more excited about the topic, “oh! and roses are typically used for a romantic partner, and are normally pink or red; in this instance they’re yellow, and there’s a lot of them, meaning they’re likely to be his favourites.”finally taking in the bewildered looks of his colleagues, the young genius smiled sheepishly at them, quickly shutting himself up.

“you look way too far into things, reid.” derek rolled his eyes, “they’re probably just an early valentine.”

“there’s a note.” jj pointed out — it was hidden inbetween a couple roses.

as derek reached for it, penelope scolded him, “hey! stop messing it up! we really shouldn’t be snooping, you know he likes his privacy.” she frowned, attempting to remain mature, “but i wanna know so badly- be careful!” she lightly smacked his arm.

with confidence that he was right, derek flipped the note over to read it out loud; the smirk wiped off his face at the first two words he saw, “i’m sorry.” he read in annoyance, while glaring at spencer — but nothing could prepare any of them for the next words,

“miss you pookie bear?”

—

meanwhile, said pookie bear was sat at his desk, paying no mind to what was going on in the bullpen, with his head in his hands: your argument from the night before being the only thing he could think about.

—

“this is the third time you’ve done this, aaron.”disappointment evident in your voice.

“i know, i’m sorry.” there were his empty apologies, “i got caught up at work, i lose track of time.” and his pathetic attempts to excuse his negligence of your relationship.

“but you always do this, you’re never here. you never text, or call, and i’m waiting up until 12 in the morning for you.”

“look, we’ll talk about it in the morning, i’m tired.” he sighed.

“we won’t, because you’ll be gone before i wake up.” you were telling the truth — that’s exactly what he did the next morning, left for work without saying a word.

he furrowed his eyebrows in frustration, “you knew what it was going to be like when we started dating, you said you could handle it. my job is demanding.”

rightfully so, you were becoming upset, “not for paperwork! i understand that you get called away abruptly, and i love that you value other peoples lives before your own — it’s why i fell in love with you.” you smiled at him softly, although, it wasn’t for long. “but, i’m talking about when you’re cooped up in the office for so long, there’s no reason for you to be staying there for that much time, after everyone else has left.”

then, everything went quiet for a bit, with you waiting for him to provide some sort of explanation, and when you didn’t get that, you continued, “i just think… if you had to choose between me or your job, you’d pick your job with no hesitation.”

the lack of response caused your face to fall, “i’m sleeping in the guest room tonight, aaron.”

he should’ve done something, anything. instead, he ran away, avoided you like a coward, using his office as a place to seek refuge from taking accountability for his actions.

one time, you told him he was bravest man you ever knew — he almost laughed at how wrong you were.

history was repeating itself. you were his second chance at love, and he was making the same old mistakes, that cost him his family. aaron thought he had changed, swore to himself that he’d never do something like this again. but, here he was, having someone waiting at home, willing to drop anything for him, yet he wouldn’t do the same.

picking up his phone, he dialled your number.

it rang out for a minute, before going to voicemail — he hoped you were just busy, and weren’t already walking out of his life.

“hey,” he breathed “i wanted to say i’m sorry, for last night, this morning.. everything really. i shouldn’t have left, and i should’ve said something.” closing his eyes, he stopped himself from rambling, because you deserved to hear it in person, “i’ll be home soon, and we can talk.. please call me back.” please don’t leave me. “i love you.”

hurriedly gathering his things, aaron walked out of his office; path coming to a stop when he saw his team staring at him, all looking a little smug. a puzzled look found it’s way onto the unit chiefs face.

“hey there snookums.” derek grinned.

aaron quirked a brow, frown deepening, “what?”

stifling a giggle, emily gestured to the bouquet, “someone sent you flowers.”

knowing exactly who sent them, he swiftly excused himself to set it up in his office.

when he read the note, he felt his lips curve up slightly, and he jokingly huffed at the petname — you always loved making him blush and laugh with the obscure names you’d come up with for him.

but, why were you apologising? you did nothing wrong. it should’ve been him doing this, not you.

right as his thoughts began to spiral, they were interrupted by a buzzing in his pocket.

“hi, aaron! did you get my gift?” hearing the sweet sound of your voice, so excited and happy to speak to him, brought a sense of relief over him.

rough hands slowly reached over to feel the soft yellow rose petals. “yeah, i did. thank you.” his brows tilted upwards, guilt kicking in again, “why are you saying sorry?”

“‘cause, i shouldn’t have accused you of choosing your job over me, it wasn’t right to push that on you-”

were you out of your mind?

“sweetheart, please stop.” he begged. “you haven’t done anything wrong. telling me how you feel isn’t wrong — telling me that i’m not doing enough isn’t wrong. we need to tell each other these things.” he shut down your attempts to put yourself at unnecessary fault. “i know i haven’t been around lately, but i’m gonna change that. i promise. i want to be deserving of your love, (y/n).”

“you already are, aaron.” you whispered.

“i’m leaving now, so i’ll talk to you at home. i have a bunch of free days to use, and we have lost time to make up for.” he smiled.

closing the door behind him for a second time, aaron scanned the room, his team no longer huddled in one spot, now at their desks; still deep in a conversation he didn’t care that much for.

the bullpen fell silent at the sight of him with his briefcase and keys in his hand, shocked that he was leaving early — not even on time.

morgan, of course, was the first to talk, “where’re you off to in such a hurry honeybunny?” snickering at his own joke.

“don’t make me flag you for creating a hostile work environment, derek.”

“that’s not funny!”

#kinda unhappy with how the ending was written ngl #this was meant to be funny idk why he got sad #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #my fic

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

As an Infinity Train fan, I know Simon's death caused controversy for the crew for both the violence, the fact that a worse adult with a much lamer excuse got redeemed, & the writer's ableist comments in regards to Simon saying people with NPD deserve to be killed. I don't want anything like that for Izzy or Our Flag means death in general, ableism and double standards aren't cool.

i didn’t know that abt the writer saying ableist shit, that’s fucked up. but also i’d like to see a source for that, if possible.

i was never super involved in the infinity train fandom, so i was only tangentially aware that there were ppl unhappy with simon’s ending and i didn’t really dig into why that was. if i'm being honest, what happened was i saw a few posts where people were downplaying or justifying what simon did to grace as part of their argument for why he should've been redeemed, and i decided i didn't want to hear what those ppl had to say. like "oh, you think the white boy who tried to kill the black girl (twice! or, once, and the other time he tried to trap her forever in a prison of her own memories) should get redeemed? alright, cool, well i liked the ending, and i don't want to hear your opinions. bye."

so yeah, didn't get close enough to the discourse to know about the writer saying shit or hear the argument that simon's death was ableist. i’ll admit that i’m not super informed abt NPD, but i wasn’t aware that he was written/coded that way. like, genuinely asking, i don’t know a lot abt the writer’s intentions, so WAS he written to have NPD, or was that somewhat accidental? if it was intentional, i’ll take this back, but if it WASNT, then idk how ableist simon’s ending actually is??? obviously, the writer saying ppl with NPD deserve to die is ableist as fuck, but in and of itself i didn’t see simon’s story as a damnation of ppl with mental health issues. the only disorder i would’ve guessed he had on my own would be PTSD, and grace had the same trauma he did but didn’t make the same awful choices.

either way, i don’t think the Ableism part of simon’s death would be relevant to izzy, bc as far as i know he’s Not written to have NPD or any other personality disorders. obviously i also don’t want ofmd writers saying ppl with personality orders should die, and i don’t want to be told by the writers later that “oh yeah, izzy DOES have NPD and that’s why we killed him off.” but as of right now i don’t see an izzy hands death arc as being inherently ableist.

ngl also my memory of infinity train is pretty hazy and i thiiink the “worse adult with a lamer excuse” ur referring to is amelia? (was that her name? the old lady with the braid). again, it’s been a while, but idk if i’d call her WORSE. morality is a nebulous social construct but imo the two of them are like, at about the same level of grey?? from what i remember, amelia was fucking up the train with no regard for anyone else, but she wasn’t actively trying to kill anyone. simon didn’t know the train guys were like, real living people, so i don’t REALLY hold him responsible for that at first, but the way he treats grace towards the end of the season is uh. bad. even BEFORE he throws her off the train. but yeah, throwing his bestie to her death kinda brings him about even to amelia, imo

more importantly tho, when it comes to redemption arcs, i don’t know that it really matters if one character is Better or Worse or if they Deserve to be redeemed. amelia's redemption wasn't so much a matter of "well, the things she did weren't that bad," or even about other characters forgiving her. it was about her realizing she was harming people, and deciding to dedicate what's probably going to be the rest of her life to trying to fix the mess she made. simon's lack of redemption wasn't about "he's irredeemable" or even about how "he deserves this" (i don't think he deserved what happened to him. i dont think ANYONE deserves what happened to him. but narratively speaking, it was a very satisfying ending). simon didn't get redeemed bc he refused to change, he refused to accept he was hurting people, and when his feelings were hurt he responded way out of proportion (your best friend lies to you to protect a child that she KNOWS you'll kill if you learn the truth, so you trap her in a catatonic state and leave her to die?? alright). and like, yeah, he's a fictional character, they wrote him doing those things. but the story they were telling with grace and simon in that season (and the bigger story about amelia that they didn't get to finish) was a bigger conversation that just "this person is Too Bad to get a happy ending." there are certain types of characters that i would never want to see redeemed, but usually for bigger reasons than just "the thing they did was Too Evil to be redeemable" (like, i don't need to see a story about a racist cop being redeemed, bc racist cops are excused from any accountability every day irl). truthfully, if the writers are good enough, i could be sold on a redemption arc for almost any character. i don't see simon vs amelia as a "double standard" bc the choice to redeem amelia and not simon wasn't about "who's More Evil," it was abt what kind of choices can ppl make with to rectify the harm they've caused.

as for the violence of simon's death: yeah actually that was rlly fucked up i can't believe they did that shit on a cartoon network show. i enjoyed the hell out of it, but if i was like... [NUMBER REDACTED] years younger, i would've had nightmares for months. but also the writer's didn't WANT to be making a children's show, they said they wished they could've targeted a slightly older age bracket. also, this one's not relevant to ofmd, bc ofmd' is not for children and it is plenty violent

anyway, point is that i obviously don't want the ableism (which i didn't know about) to be part of an izzy hands Death Arc. but the tragedy of simon's death (bc it is a tragedy; even if you don't like him, you are supposed to feel bad for him) and the way it happened as a result of simon's refusal to change, those aspects of simon's death would be interesting to see in a death for izzy hands. idk if it'll happen, especially since con says he thinks izzy "wants to get better but doesn't know how" (which imo is debatable, but i guess that's how con's played him so far). there's a good chance izzy will be shown how to get better and will choose to get better, and i think that ending would be very well-written and satisfying. however, i know ofmd is gonna be chock-full of happy endings, so my point was just that i would be interested in seeing how the writers would do a tragic ending. my reaction to book 3 of infinity train was one of shock and horror and sadness, and that more than anything is the vibe of tragedy i would want for izzy's character

#infinity train #ofmd #izzy hands #simon infinity train #mine #anon #ask #anyway the infinity train book 3 ending is good if u dont like it u have bad taste sorry #fucked up that the writer said that! it was still a good ending tho #also idk if i would be all that sad if izzy died. simon i was sad for bc he WAS a child and a victim. even if i wanted to punch him #i guess they could probably make an izzy backstory that makes me more sympathetic to him however i do NOT want this fandom #to have more of a reason to feel bad for izzy hands #og #txt

[danteinthedevildom]

U know what u right u right, they do really listen to us and I appreciate it.

Got me out here rethinking my approach towards solmare smh.

I think it's really cool and sweet that they went in thinking ab GN MC, I actually didn't know that 🥺🐍

I FOUND IT. It's RAD News No. 1!

So for those who can't read it, it says:

Instead of mainly focusing on a "story" as we had done before, we wanted to try something more innovative by creating characters that felt realistic enough for our players to befriend and interact with. That's how everything started!

Once we had decided on the concept of creating "real characters", we concluded that it wouldn't make much sense to be too specific when deciding on the appearance, personality, etc. [of MC]. After all, if the players cannot identify with or become the main character, it would take away from the gaming experience we were aiming for.

That's why we decided not to specify any gender, skin colour, or hair colour in our scenarior nor illustrations, so that our players can freely imagine their own main character.

This is also one of the reasons we got rid of a lot of narration. There aren't many scenarios written without a specified gender in Japan, which means it must be hard for Japanese scenario writers. But we have noticed in the reviews and comments that players appreciate this aspect of the game, and we have seen so much fan art and fan fiction in which everyone created their own characters! This really made us think that we made the right decision.

The next thing we would like to challenge is for the users to be able to freely imagine the main character's personality as well when playing the game!

I'm not gonna lie and say Solmare is the best company ever, bc they do have some lil issues here and there, and nobody's ever gonna be perfect - and holding them to that standard just is kinda unfair/unrealistic anyway. They're still just a bunch of people doin their best, and sometimes that ends up in a hit-or-miss.

But they are really fuckin good, and they are amazin for genuinely tryin to do smthn that hasn't really been done before - or done well.

The makin MC GN was sorta an unintentional side effect of havin a game with more developed, realistic characters that people'd love (and more focus on buildin realistic relationships with those characters), but the reason why is still fuckin amazin.

Get rid of identifyin factors on MC and suddenly WE are the ones talking to the characters in the Devildom - not some proxy character we're meant to live through, who won't fit like a glove for everyone.

We're not livin someone else's life or playin someone else's story. That's OUR story. That's OUR life. And the bonds we make are OUR bonds.

This is prolly also why we're never given a backstory. If they never mention who we were pre-Devildom, then anyone can just slap their own, normal lives onto MC. Plus why we get questions like "do you have any siblings?" in regards to Beel's convo abt Lilith and Belphie; it's so that convo can appeal to people who DO have siblings and to people who're only children! You get to decide, in that moment, who MC is. Which is fuckin phenomenal, honestly.

It's also, I think, why this game doesn't have set romance routes and lets you back out of most romantic situations. Not everyone's gonna WANT to end the game in a romance, but should that mean they get a bad ending? Or a kinda bland, disappointing neutral ending? Nah. Bc the main focus is the characters, and you can mean as much to them as a friend/platonic part of the family as you can actively dating them.

Solmare went into it with GN!MC to help us connect to the characters, and through seein fan interaction and talkin to fans, realised how much people loved havin the option to be the MC! And they're dedicated to tryina make the experience even more neutral/unique so we can feel even more like we're part of the game.

So it's kinda that balance between intentional and unintentional - at first. Now they're really goin for as much of a GN!MC as they can, and it's bc they took notice of how much it meant to everyone.

It's amazin when you get into it just what a unique experience this is, and how much thought and effort went into (and is still going into) makin the game somethin that everyone can enjoy. It's why I love OM, personally, and why OM's got such a huge followin compared to other otome games on the market rn. It appeals to more people in a more natural, comfortable way.

It def. deserves appreciation! Solmare are doin a hella good job on that front, ngl. But don't feel like you can't hold criticisms, too, bc you absolutely can.

Like sometimes, tho rarely, OM can slip into tropes that feel a little more fem-aligned, and it can be jarrin. But a lot of that's bc of how good the game is on the whole at bein neutral that smthn gendered sticks out like a sore thumb.

(Basically I just wanna make sure peeps still know they can be grumpy/unhappy with things even tho the game/company does some good stuff. Like I said! Nothin's ever perfect. And laudin a company too high can have some hella bad consequences lookin at my experiences w/ Homestuck here ngl, so we just gotta remember to praise them for the things we love and that're good and question some of the things that're maybe not as great, and build a fandom community that's acceptin of criticisin Solmare when it's justified).

#obey me #danteintherambles #Idk if that whole post makes sense? I have many thots ngl fhsirj

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

q3 2021 update & plot call !!

below the cut, you can find an update on ash’s current life, career (or rather absence of), and development for quarter three, as well as plot and thread ideas! if you see anything that you’d like to plot out or write with him, like this or message me, and we can get to it! i have a lot in mind about where ash is right now, so i might add more and expand later on!

mentions of ash’s continuing struggle with mental illness under the cut in case you don’t wanna read that rn

professionally

ash is on hiatus the whole quarter so... not much going on here.

uhh basically the first two days of july he was still trying to get bc to let him take a break so schedule threads could be set then if they cross paths at the bc building! he’s going to be participating in concert rehearsals for knight to a less intense extent since bc, as of the beginning of his hiatus, fully intends him to participate in the concerts. he’ll miss about the first half of the tour, but in july and august he’ll still be attending knight tour rehearsals some to keep up. schedule threads can also be done then!

(note that he’ll be missing the bc city concert as well — i don’t see him dropping by just to support either tbh, sorry bc ppl. white knight duo ver tho let’s gooooooooooo)

ash will eventually start writing music and finding his love of that again though and that’s pretty much the most work he can do during his hiatus, so it’d be cool to maybe have him write, compose, or produce for a few people that might be releasing later this year or sometime next year if anyone is interested? :) we can see if ash would work for it. there’s also opening for him to ask a few people he’s close to to sing some demos for him when he starts trying to write again!

personally + plot ideas!

explaining how he got to his hiatus would take me all day but he basically forced bc’s hand in letting him take time off (well, he wanted to leave knight and retire ngl but his manager was like... you know that’s not going to happen let’s try a hiatus <3). you can read my badly-written solos for part of it (i still need to write more) but generally, the most other muses might know is that they might have run into him acting kinda moody/down or impulsive/irresponsible lately, he made a very uncharacteristic post on social media that hinted at being unhappy with his life currently and losing passion/excitement for even the things he used to value most highly before his social media was deactivated by bc lmaaooo. the post would have probably conveyed Something was up it it wasn’t like genuinely super triggering-level content i promise !! bc released a statement shortly after stating he’d be going on hiatus without mentioning a definitive end date.

so there’s the possibility a muse might have checked up on him after that post / the hiatus news to see how he was doing?

tbh ash isn’t going to be seeking out meeting new people during his hiatus. he’s taking time to himself and is only going to make any effort to hang out with people he’s comfortable with. those he’s not close to, he’s going to have to interact with by running into unintentionally.

he’s getting a place in jeju in the early-ish part of his hiatus. he’ll be spending a lot of time there at first because he just wants to get away from seoul, so it’d be nice to set some threads there if your muse has the time to hop over to visit him if they have anything resembling a free day. (again a certain level of closeness would be necessary, but i think one good heart to heart conversation beforehand could bring someone closer to him enough for that rn! even over text tbh lmao). chuseok would be a really good time for this !! i imagine catching up over lowkey dinners or heart to hearts under the stars, that found family ash has actively fought having lol

(that place in jeju is also going to be where he starts to want to write music again too, so music based stuff there would be chill?)

heart to hearts in general anywhere would be really good for ash right now so please give me those! they can be in seoul too for sure.

he’ll be moving into a new apartment in seoul eventually, though that will probably be a little later in his hiatus? he had some bad fan/sasaeng run-ins right before his hiatus and having so much time off makes him realize he wants to move. someone can help him house hunt or if someone else is looking for a place, they can talk together about it. i want him to realize he wants to move into a smaller place that can feel more like home

once he does move, muses are free to come over and help him set up / be his one-man housewarming party. that’s a little down the line tho !! so we might not want to plot that as a thread to write right this instant

he may also be getting a pet ! muses can come look with him at a shelter or he can run into people there!

this would be a little later in his hiatus, but it’d be interesting if once he’s doing a little better, he gets the urge to dance and runs into a muse at the dance studio. idk that he’ll ever fall completely back in love with dancing, but he might rediscover some of what he did love about dancing and ash and this muse often run into each other as he visits that dance studio a little more often and they eventually bond over it / do some dancing together.

those who still really have that passion for making music ash has lost, talk to him about it <3 he misses it. he might cry but tbh he’s liable to cry in any thread

he’s cutting his hair short and dying it back to black this month, so it would be possible to run into him at the hair salon!

ash will want to be inside at home mostly at the beginning of his hiatus, but as it goes on, he’ll start to branch out and that will offer some more opportunities to hang out. he’ll try not to go to bars and clubs really, but small music venues or jazz lounges, small indie cinemas, galleries, those kind of things will be up his alley

idk that there’s much plotting to be had around this, but this long hiatus on top of the other hiatuses he’s had and his acting out before this hiatus is going to make some of the bc team realize it might not be super wise to keep pushing him hard as a cf model (and in the long run, just less of pushing him as a major idol star within the company in general tbh) so he’ll be able to get some more tattoos and piercings and will become more comfortable, hopefully, with presenting himself how he wants to be seen / having some development in that good ol’ lack of bodily autonomy aspect ash has always had going on. he’ll be coming out of hiatus living much more of his 2021 jk fc truth with the full sleeve and the eyebrow piercing .

uhhh ? pretty far down the line but i’ll mention it while it’s on my mind :) i think it’d be cool if ash did a collab (mini-)album (or two?) at some point after getting off hiatus. i’d want it to be someone he really clicks with creatively (though they don’t have to be a songwriter — i can see it working as collaborative songwriting or as ash feeling really inspired to write for them) and wants to work with since it’s not going to be something he’s letting bc push him into it at that point, and something that just happens organically. realistically, this would work with a female vocal best by far, maybe a male rapper just based on the songs ash does / i can see him doing. probably wouldn’t want to commit to anything fully rn unless it really clicks but i wanted to throw the idea out there :)

uhmmm?? ig i should also mention ash will be paying attention to his health both mental and physical he’s been neglecting for a while. there isn’t too much to say regarding plotting here because he needs to handle it himself with trying new therapy, medications, understanding there’s some stuff beyond “just” his depression going on. coming to accept nothing’s ever going to be perfect, but that self-awareness and effort can help more than denial can. not super plot potential-y but i’ll mention it since this is all the personal update section

basically, ash is taking time to recover mentally (and physically) and ultimately hopefully leave hiatus in a better place than he started where he can be more comfortable in his career, even if just a little bit, in himself, and in his life. if he can have some good, developing threads during the time, that’d be great!

#&& there's nobody home | ooc #fmdcall #&& queued

[monsterkissed]

For the ask meme! 16, 25, 27, 34, 35!

16. Guilty pleasures: i honestly struggled with this and i think in the end the problem is simply that i do not feel guilty about the gross horror/monster things that i like

25: Side adventures/spin-offs: i think about smol cute adorable half-demon trish una approximately seven times a day

27. Nicest comment: you mean aside from ones about inducing a case of the genders in ppl bc ngl i'm p proud of those personally i mean in all seriousness the ones from ppl thinking about trans/nb/ace things bc of my work are very near and dear to my heart, those always give me the warm fuzzies. but also any time anyone has ever copy-pasted a joke into the comment box to laugh at it is delightful, and i still have a soft spot for "Impressively fucked up, beautifully written, and about right for this ship in terms of 'oh god why... oh no that tracks'" i might have to get that embroidered on something

34. An excerpt I'm particularly proud of: i mean this would be cheating, right: “Boss…?”

He smiled again, so lovely that it hurt. “And I told you that I would find you.”

Doppio was starting to feel lightheaded. “You’re… Abbacchio?”

The man leaned back slightly, those eyes mercifully releasing him to look over his own form with naked disdain. “So it would seem.”

Doppio’s breath was still trying to suffocate him. “Have… Have you always been Abbacchio?”

“It is a very recent development.”

but you know how i feel about my bad jokes during dramatic scenes and i can't just drop the entirety of the vampire!giorno au in one post.

oh wait no this, this gross horrible monster intimacy i am pretty proud of in retrospect (readmore bc blood, gore, titular monsterkisses):

The taste was foul, caustic and rank every time he took it, but it looked so content to be… tending to him, offering communion, sharing something sublime, whatever it thought it was doing in the depths of its peculiar, inhuman mind. He stared at it, at that terrifying face so open and ardent. When he flicked his tongue out to lick the blood off its fingertips it made a sweet, amused little sound, and brushed its thumb along his cheek.

When he finally found the strength to arrest the arm’s progress as it reached up to pick the morsels from another mouthful it pulled away slightly, confusion and the beginnings of hurt welling up on its face. He hushed it with what breath he could manage, pulling insistently on its shoulder, down, though it wasn’t until he had it almost leaning completely over him that realisation crackled over its features.

It was a clumsy, inelegant manoeuvre. When its mouth first pressed against his so much blood poured into him that he thought he would choke, spilling out of the corners and gaps as he pushed into it regardless, barely able to tell what was living flesh and what was steaming meat and still giving an unhappy whine when it finally pulled away, the entire bottom half of its face red and black and sticky, his own probably even worse.

The next one was better. More controlled, both of them more familiar with the dimensions of the other, deeper and sweet in spite of the salty tang of gore warmed by their breath and he strained towards it with what strength he could muster, his tongue finding row upon row of wickedly sharp teeth.

35. Ramble: hmm, in general i still have the Anxiety about getting stuff out but i feel like my work has really improved over the last couple of years and there is a lot more stuff that i really enjoy up there now? stuff that i think is Good Writing and not just Kinda Okay Writing For Someone Like Me I Guess. i'm having fun with more novel ideas and weird stuff and ambitious projects like bngn and in all enjoying it and the audience of fellow odd people it attracts (hello). previously my original work was a lot more unashamedly experimental but my fandom stuff was way tamer, i guess because that was going out into the big wide internet and i worried a lot more about people making judgements about it (why i worried more about that than for the original work i was actually submitting for a grade is a question for bad brains science). nowadays i care more about putting out stuff i genuinely like reading myself and if people like it that's grand but if they don't that's fine. i am still really hoping to hit an average of 40,000 words a month and i still think that's a reasonable life goal so clearly things are either going pretty well or catastrophically.

#fanfic #jjba