#so now its a redirect from my blog to my ao3

[blueparadis]

❝ LOVE ME WRONG ❞ + HIROMI HIGURUMA !

[ content & themes ]  :: submission of my entry for what’s done in the dark by @semisgroupie + ultraviolence collab under ❝ brooklyn baby ❞ by @vilsoo; f!reader ( s!her pronouns / third person pov ) , OCs, college & uni au + corruption & crime au { mention of infidelity ( not by Hiromi or the reader, but its there), mention of accidents, hospitals, death, attempted murder }, age-gap, family drama, absent parenting, angst & feels, insecurity, jealousy, unrequited feelings, one-sided pinning, sexual tension, co-dependency, $mut descriptions, poetic usage of italics.

[ synopsis ] :: After the deprivation of her father's shadow, y/n’s world slowly started to fall apart. Higuruma tried to set things right but feelings turned against him, depravity was the reward in this web of emotions. word count — 4.5kish

[ notes ] :: redirect to blog navigation; also available in my ao3. Beta-read by my beloved bae, fae ( @emissaire) , the m.list of love me knot will be released later. this is just a sorta kinda prequel/backstory.

PROLOGUE [ part one ] of ❝LOVE ME KNOT.❞

Four years. Four years of confinement — being deprived of a luxurious lifestyle, healthy foods, wife's touch, and daughter’s love. Kento Namami’s body would rot in the dark corner of a lonely cell all these years, teaching him a lesson for his crimes or so the authorities have claimed. Kento Nanami was not the first one and certainly would not be the last one to be arrested and punished for tax evasion. And, no jail is strong enough to hold him, in other words, no human is strong enough to deny the luxury of life. And if that were to be provided more than the necessary amount, then the sky is just the starting point, not a limit anymore.

“Still no luck?” Nanami speaks in a low tone. It almost sounds like a low growl of a wounded creature, a wounded creature that is asking to be pitied yet ready to pounce if it were to smell any sort of mercy around itself. Higuruma, one of his dearest friends who had the power to pull strings from behind the curtains and wreak havoc on the front stage, was Kento’s only hope at this point. Although he has retired from his duties, he was not willing to risk his life and the lives attached to him anymore.

“I’m afraid it’s the best I can do. They are not going to decrease the time of imprisonment.” Higuruma spoke with an inert expression on his face standing at an arm’s length from the bars with two cell bodyguards by his side.

“I see.” Nanami murmured so low, so pale that Higuruma had to glance at the bodyguards; they disappeared at his gesture while Nanami’s cheeks stretched wickedly exclaiming, “I knew you wouldn’t come empty-handed, pal.” A scowl seemed to appear when Hiromi looked away from his decaying friend.

“You’re right,” he rolled his tongue inside his mouth, “I came with a surprise.” As soon as his voice vanished, Nanami's face was aghast as Y/N Nanami, his one and only beautiful young daughter, stepped into the light.

“Papa”, she asked with fear choking her throat, and hopelessness in her body, “Are you mad at me?. . ‘cause I came here?”

Nanami was on his knees, fingers still curled around the bars as a support to provide for himself, “No. No. my darling, why would I be? I’m not mad, not at all ” His hands extended in order to run his hands over his daughter's head but recoiled quickly. What was he thinking? He shouldn’t. He mustn’t. He should not cast his shadow on his daughter. There is still hope for her, hope to become not like her father.

“Pa-pah” She started again, “is what they’re saying true?. . .that you stole money from many?”Nanami could see how afraid she was, how her lips were shaking, eyes full of water to their brim. And, even if he told the truth it wouldn’t matter and lies seemed safer than the truth, at least for now.

“Don’t believe them. They’re saying whatever they can to keep me here. . . You don't have to worry about them, baby,” his tone was flat, emotionless. If she were to hear her father properly, from the bottom of her heart, then maybe she could pin only one emotion: rage. And it touched her too as she said, “But papa, Mama said it's true. It's all true,” with a firm tone.

Nanami could see how polished she was overnight. If he was a wounded creature, she was an eagle that is out for its first hunt

“So, it's true then!” Her face contorts. “Okay. I understand. Don’t worry, I'll be fine. I’ll wait till you come back.” Her footsteps were so quick, like the flap of wings of a bird who does not intend to return home, not anymore.

“Unlike mama”, she uttered under her breath as she was escorted by the guards.

“Why the fuck did you bring her here, Hiro?”Nanami snapped. His hands tried to reach out to grab his friend by the collar but it was all in vain.

“Uh-Uh. Careful. You’re already at the other side of these bars. Do you wish to stay longer?” Hiromi was the forgemaster of monsters. Back in his day, he was the best public defense lawyer. Even through the layers of lies, he could pluck out the facts needed to protect the weak, and fight for the wrongly accused. But with power comes sacrifice and with sacrifice comes glory. Though it was a mirage for most people, Higuruma had tasted it easily at the tip of his tongue. His moral compass rarely turned against him, and this is one of those times. Nanami was just a case of ducks and drakes.

His face relaxed, voice softened. “She is your daughter. . .what did you expect? She is more stubborn than you are, Ken. You should know that of all people.”

A strong exhale echoed amongst the dark corridor as he finished, “ I need to sit with the judge. Many got away, you’ll too”, he gives Nanami’s crooked shoulder a squeeze exclaiming with a pinch of hope, carefully tucking in a little bit of empathy to keep the prisoner on track, “just stay away from trouble. I’ll get you out of here soon, pal”

“Is the coffee here not to your liking?” Higuruma asked the young girl who was sitting at the opposite chair of him, as he added three sugar cubes in his coffee. She takes a sip without sparing a glance at the man opposite to her, her mind is busy searching those reveries that she lived, as a child.  Her father, her mother ,and her — happy, smiling and so in love. Her eyes ached as she tried to hold back the tears for god knows how many times! How do people fall out of love again?

“You know, even if I meet with the judge. . . there are lesser chances of him getting out. All the evidence just points towards him, even if he hasn't committed what he is getting punished for. His crimes are —” The retired lawyer was silenced by the splash of hot coffee on his exquisite outfit, barely touching the collar cuffs.

“Tsk, I was aiming for the face,” she murmured under her breath, strolling towards the exit.

“Wait…”, Higuruma calls out but it did not surpass the tinkling of the bell, it failed to reach her too. The bodyguard who watched all this mess unfold tried to follow y/n but Hiromi raised one of his hands, the other being preoccupied with cleaning his expensive suit and dress shirt. “Fuck, she's gonna be in real trouble for that attitude.” He cleans a little portion while the bodyguard steps back. “Fuck you, Kento.” His voice fills the corner of the silent atmosphere of this lonely cafeteria before he dashes out of there.

Y/N tried calling her mom but seemed to have no luck. She dialed her chauffeur’s number, but no luck either. It went out of reach. She raked her fingers through her messy, unruly hair and crouched down, taking long deep breaths, trying to force back those tears at the back of her skull. She was aware of why her mother was not able to take her call. “Sure babe. Love you too.” flashes every time whenever she closes her eyes and thinks of her mother, trying to unsee it, erase it, forget it.

"There you are, girl.” Higuruma’s mellowed voice touches her banging silence, light yet enough to make her be up on her feet. He follows her as she crosses the road, compact steps trying to match her reckless ones.

“This really looks embarrassing, you know, suspicious even.” For a moment Y/N stopped and turned around to have a quick scan of him. Careless as ever, she blinked and turned on her heels quickly walking towards the bus stop. Higuruma’s nerve has already started to tick off, still, for the sake of his friend, he tries to humble himself in front of her.

“Huh . . .  y/n, if you are going to the bus stop.” both of them halt at once. A soft chuckle escaped his lips, “It's the other way.” She bows her head trying to mentally calculate the roads and well, he is correct but she is not wrong either. Her route is a really long one whereas the other would be quick and short.

“You do realize that you can't go home alone, especially when I specifically accompanied you from your home, right?” It is astonishing how he is not running out of breath, perhaps the morning jogging paid him off well.

With reluctance hanging heavy in her heart, she was now sitting in the passenger seat facing the windows even though there was nothing to watch. Higuruma did not try to stir anything with her, and no more conversations. Part of him feels guilty for being unable to look after her like he is expected to do, part of him wants to hug her and say everything is ‘going to be alright, it's going to be okay’, part of him thinks it is wrong to harbor such thoughts, thoughts that involves taking care of her, doing right by her, providing everything she deserves, everything she desires. . .How do people fall out of love again?

“We're here.” The man remarks, parking near the turn of her house. No, he can not go up to her house. She would not like it, she would hate him for that, for being kind when he has every reason to be angry at her.

“Thank you for the ride, Hiro”, she blurts out of her habit before getting out of the car and shutting the car door cautiously. Higuruma jerks in his seat, letting out a hefty exhaustive huff. “Ah! Geez. . . glad that I don't have kids.”

Hiro. Hiromi. Hiro . . . a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. There is a nice ring to that, isn't it? He has spent half of his life with her; her being the light of his life. Many a time he visited Kento, sometimes for work and sometimes just for the company, y/n would always greet him, and ask about his wife, and children. He would ask how life is treating her. Is the studying going well? In Kento's absence, she would always seek Hiromi— for anything, even to share a smoke and tell him that her life is falling apart and that mama and papa are ignoring her shrill cries for help. 

It is a great tragedy to be there for someone at their lowest point of vulnerability and not to fall for them. It is even scary when realization turns up.

His phone lights up, shifting his attention from her fading figure toward the freshly received message. In his life, he has never taken such a rapid U-turn. Well, this is the third time as of now. The first was when he received the news of an accident, his five - year old son. The worst part was that it was a spot death. If it were a result of one of his deviations in his career, he knew exactly where and how to take it out and who to punish but he was not that lucky.

“Fuck, you feel so good Kiyo. . . Oh—oH.”

“Oh yeah ?”

“Um-hm” loud moans echoed throughout the drawing room as y/n reached the top floor of the building. She gulps, unable to, actually trying to disconnect the dots that have led to a deadly dirty secret. The lounge was silent, and the whole apartment was. All the servants were on holiday. She exhaled deeply, knuckles tightening as she tried to take a few steps towards her room but the moans of her mother touched her most delicate parts and mutilated her.

With a huge bang, she opened the door. It was bolted but now the lock was broken. Mrs. Nanami Kento quickly wrapped the bed sheet around her naked sweaty body while the man headed toward the restroom. Y/N fixated her eyes on the floor so as not to get an imprint of such .  .  . filthy . . . behavior.

The older woman started to speak, “baby, this is not what it looks like . . . ”

“Are you serious right now? Are you even hearing yourself?. . .” A sob left her body, “I —I really wanted to deny this, I really wanted to. . ,

“baby, listen to me. . .” She approached towards her daughter, extending her hand to pat her.

“Stay the fuck away from me.” y/n swerved the touch of the mother for the first time in her life. She exhaled, closing her eyes and composing herself to speak further, “How old do you think I am? I'm not a child anymore. I know what love you too means. . .and I know when people say that . . .” Her voice was barely audible. It was a trail of pained gasps, full of sobs and ragged breathing like a creature begging for death yet declined by it.

“. . .Fuck you. I can't do this anymore.”

—

“y/n. Meet me in the staff room after the class.”, Satoru muttered before leaving. There was a rustle of voices among the students. It had been like that since the beginning of the class. Satoru ignored it blatantly, and since it didn't bother the top students in his class he couldn't care less about it.  Y/N was one of the tops in her grade, thanks to her dad for supporting her in every way she asked for.

“How are you?”, Satoru asks, barely sitting on the desk with his long arms clasped together in his chest.

A smile breaks on her face like a plague.

Everyone had a crush on him, but not y/n, and Satoru remained to steer clear of that kind of girls. Why wouldn't he? Suguru had to shift institutes because he was too caught up to be out of the web. It still haunts him.

“Okay. Got it. Bad question,” the professor quipped, pulling the drawer to take the post-graduation brochures of several universities. “I’ll go straight to the point”

“So, many universities approached us like last year and these are the ones we prefer the most. Now, as you know, a few hand-picked students will get a recommendation letter from me. I'd like you to take a look at these. ”

Satoru handed out some brochures. Y/N could not believe what she was hearing. At such a time of emotional turbulence, she has to prepare for higher studies exams — modeling and fashion designing. One thing about Kento was he fought for her daughter against his wife just so she could study what she wanted, what she is good at. How could she let this golden opportunity slip off?

Satoru clicked his tongue. “Hey y/n. You're a good student. Try to stay in line and you'll be able to crack this exam. It'll be good for you, especially since you already are a model for some cosmetic brands, and with your background, it'll be easier.”

With her background? Or her father's or her mother's? Plus, Why should everyone go out of line yet not her?

“Is that clear, y/n?”

“Yes Sir”, she exclaimed with a firm voice while receiving the brochure of the post-graduation programs. “ Thank you,” she said before leaving the staff room.

With her bag in hand, y/n was near the far end of the campus. Generally, she would go straight home but lately, it feels like there is no home. She roamed around the campus and decided to clear her head, and focus on her goals. Too many things happened last night. Her eyes met a pair of almond eyes as she hurried to get a cold drink. There must be some inter-school match, otherwise, students from other colleges were not allowed, especially when they certainly don't have the manners to behave.

As soon as she turned around, she jolted out of shock.

“Can I get your autograph please?,” the blonde’s voice mellowed as he stood shirtless in front of her with lipstick in his hand holding in front of y/n’s face. “I’m a big fan,” he amended.

“Oye. Miya. Quit it,” a boy, probably of his age interjected, while the other twin remained seated with a neutral expression.

Miya? She blinks and the name along with that message flashes in her mind. Kiyoshi Miya: “love you too ” Y/N tried to take the other route but was blocked again by the blonde boy. What bad timing! She was at her limit.

“Hope your mom's bed is still warm now that mine's done by your daddy.” She chimed with the most girlish voice she could ever produce, taunting the manhood of the guy who blocked her path. The flashy grin of the blonde disappeared. The boy with snake eyes immediately tackled his friend out of the way otherwise it would have been another headline of tomorrow’s headline and stories for gossip in high societies.

“You fucking bitch. . .” the other twin uttered advancing towards y/n but was immediately shut down by her retaliation.

“What? Are you a fan too?” She turned around to face him head-on. “Then, you didn't do your homework properly.” She added, locking eyes with the blonde who had no intention to fight. It was going to be revenge, a slow poison. Many times, she was asked for autographs but this one took the prize. Ah! Geez. Perhaps, it was because of a ‘silly bet’. By the time she reached the main exit of the campus, the drink tasted so bad. It was not cold anymore, ecstasy touched her bones. She could see what fate had in its store for her, a life of fame and flimsy love. The most frustrating part was she had no one to blame, not even her mother when Hiromi is having such a devil’s luck bailing her father out. Fuck

For the first time in her life, y/n felt that she did something for herself and not for others. Sure, modeling and fashion was her choice but it was mostly influenced by her mother, her beautiful sexy mother. As a child, she would always try to imitate her, talk like her, walk like her, follow her footsteps, and abide by whatever she asked for. It was a happy time but then one day, Crest-fallen. 

Either women can be very jealous creatures or they could not give a single flying fuck about whatever is happening in their surroundings. There is no in-between.

“Are you sick or what? Our girl is growing. You shouldn’t hug her or kiss her like that.”

“Like that? What are you talking about?” 

A wicked grin flashed on Mrs. Nanami’s face. She clicked her tongue: once, twice, and thrice. And that was all it took to break the family apart. It was never perfect to be with. It was always picture-perfect. Fights and arguments became frequent while y/n outshined in her career and her mother’s possessiveness for her turned poisonous. Cameras flashing one after another, eyes watering, eyelid jumping, unable to figure out the cause of tears: whether it was her parents or the lights. And in all this mayhem of emotions, Hiromi was the only one who would make a joke about it or laugh it off over a shared cup of coffee or over-the-counter smoke. Who was she running from?

A week. Within a week she has to apply for the student exchange program. Within a week she had lost her father, and her mother and pushed away her only shelter. There was no time to lose. . . to do what? To make things right? Was there ever any to begin with?

“Yep. I’ll take that.” y/n quipped before paying the florist for the bouquet. Mrs. Higuruma likes to decorate her house with flowers. Since her childhood, she has always seen her father, Kento takes a bouquet for her and she would be so bubbly about it. It felt like life smiling back at her whenever she received flowers. And, after the death of their son that is the only time when she smiles, as per Hiro. Hiro . . . her hero.

The wisteria blooms were close to vanishing as if death walked all over this place. As Y/N walked into the huge building of his house, she felt death creeping on her back too. She was greeted by his secretary, the flowers in her hand that were supposed to bring a smile to someone wilted when she heard that Mrs. Higuruma was involved in an accident and was now in a coma. 

It was almost midnight when she reached the hospital. The corridors are empty, the receptionist was busy with paperwork. There were people sitting outside the patient ward. Does she really have to do this? As she took the turn her exhaustive pupils spotted him. Hiromi was sitting crossing his legs, elegantly placing his elbow on his thigh having the perfect reading position, but he was not reading. He was staring at a photo.

At every bench, a person or two was sitting, radiating more hopelessness and despondency. Y/N could breathe it in. But Higuruma was cut out from the rest. He is a retired lawyer, he has seen death as much as a doctor, heck he even fueled death and sometimes tricked it. And, now he was trapped. She walked towards him with slow steady steps trying not to make much noise, damn those heels. Hiromi ripped the photo. She was at arm's length as he threw it in the nearby dustbin and before recoiling back to his seat, his eyes landed on her, Y/N.

Hiromi who was about to yell seeing her standing so close to him, instead, he whispered with rage smeared on his face, eyebrows congested and face contorted, “Are you alone, again?” Hiromi held her arms as she almost threw herself to his chest. How can he be so calm about death and destruction? “How many times have I told you not to go anywhere alone? Look what happened to her?” Hiromi was worried, not for his wife but for this girl. She had her whole life ahead while his wife was already decaying. It was another arranged marriage that had not the right stars aligned, as put by him.

She gathered enough courage to ask, “Can I see her?” Hiromi nodded and led the way. Even in all these metro streams of endless suffering, she did not forget to put that flower bouquet in the vase. The only sounds in this awful silence were the tick of the clock, the whizz of breathing, and the click of her heels as she walked out of the ward. She took a look on both sides of the corridor but could not spot Hiro. Ah!she has to drink that bitter coffee again.

The cogs of her fate turned again. The monitor beeped tremendously like a monster cackling maniacally for death. The doctors, nurses, and other staff rushed all at once. While most of the people were rushing towards the room, Y/N was walking away from it. She stopped when she saw Hiromi walking with the crowd, slower than his usual pace with two cups of filtered coffee. Life ran at light speed while two souls were howling in agony. No one could hear them except themselves. It was the longest sleepless night she ever spent.

She reached home by three in the morning. Hiromi asked two of his staff to drop her. He would have volunteered but they both have been misunderstood. The first period was at twelve so that was a relief but there was something else that was weighing her mind, a message, a sign of affection, a cry for help. 

[ Hiro-san : “Tomorrow. 10’ o clock. Don’t be late.” ]

The guests dispersed as soon as Mrs. Higuruma was buried. Higuruma went inside the house. It was lonelier than before but less silent than before. He checked his phone to see if there was any message from her. There was none, which means, she is coming. He sat on his couch, spreading his legs and leaning against the headrest. If he reeked of anything, it was neither sadness nor death but repentance. He was after something that did not belong to him, not in this life. But maybe, in another place and time . . . God! He is such a jealous man.

When Y/N checked her watch, it was already one o’clock. The burial ceremony was over. Fuck. Well, after the last meeting, she was reluctant to see him again but she has to go, otherwise who will? Certainly, not her mom. Plus, she specifically scoured her whole wardrobe to find that one black outfit that is her least favorite, actually, her mother’s least favorite. She is definitely going.

It’s silent. It’s quiet. It feels like she is looking into a bottomless well waiting for some sort of miracle. The wind blows are strong, so strong that she could hear the low whistle with it. His hands were inside the pocket, perfect for someone to hook their arms around hers. She is so wide open, and again she is without any guard. . . 

Higuruma grabbed her elbow, and as her body turned against his, Hiromi pressed his lips onto hers. Soft, sweet-fruity smelling and there was no resistance in her body. Her hands grabbed onto the collar of his long stygian overcoat tightly, fighting for her life as if she was drowning in the sea grasping onto a twig while the storm rises.

“I regretted not doing this last night,” Higuruma said, holding her in his arms. 

She exhaled and looked at him, with embering eyes exclaiming, “Your friend is going to kill you when he is out of jail.” Y/N murmured still relishing the aftertaste of the smokey kiss she shared with Hiromi, still catching up her breath with her face cupped by Hiromi’s warm palms, still trying to process what the fuck actually happened . . .?

“Better him than you”, he added, pressing another kiss at the corner of her lips.

Y/N felt her chest being torn apart, the bones of her rib cage cracking, and yet flowers blooming out of it. To be loved yet be afraid of it, to be born as a bird and then be a wingless bird when asked to fly.  . . That’s how she felt when she watched him carefully take her hands in his, tightening his hold, and interlacing his fingers with hers as they walked toward the exit of the graveyard.

She made up her mind. She was going to apply for the post-graduation student exchange program. Either she has to walk away from this or embrace it. There is no in-between.

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[cyuya-nakahara]

You’re Insufferable (We’re Inseparable) - Ch4

read on ao3

Dazai is nothing if not persistent.

Chapter 4: The Dog and the Hare

"Are you busy?" The question startled Chuuya as he emerged from the tearoom, and he looked to the side to see Dazai sitting against the wall beside the door, a book in hand and small bag beside him. He looked like he'd been there for hours. "What are you doing here?" He asked, sliding the door shut behind him. Dazai slipped a bookmark in his book's pages and closed it, setting it aside. He looked up to meet Chuuya's eye. "Waiting for you." He said honestly. "I was hoping you'd like to go to the park." Chuuya raised a brow and studied the other boy closely. "I'm not dressed for it." He said cautiously, gesturing at his kimono. "Kouyou would kill me if I ruined her clothes." Suddenly it clicked for Dazai that the ratty clothes Chuuya had worn on the mission were probably the only articles of clothing that Chuuya owned for himself, and he searched for a compromise. "We could sit in the tea garden." He suggested, gesturing in the general direction of Kouyou's gardens. "You could change into something more casual first." "Why do you keep trying to be around me?" Dazai jostled his bag. "I brought candy." It wasn't an answer, and the redhead wasn't impressed by the offer in the slightest, but to his own surprise— "Fine." He said flatly. A change of clothes later, Dazai and Chuuya found themselves sitting on a stone bench in Kouyou's garden, watching fish swim and leaves fall from the stresses of the breeze. They sat silently, listening to the wind in the pines. A silence stretched on for what seemed to be forever, but Chuuya finally broke it. "What are we doing out here?" He said bluntly, shattering the meditative atmosphere. His voice seemed tired and disillusioned, because he was. He couldn't fathom why Dazai had come here to meet him at all. "I just want to talk." The boy answered back. Dazai kicked his legs as he looked at the ground. "We started poorly. Pretend I don't know you." "That's not hard." Chuuya laughed and he continued, "I hardly know you at all." He spoke with a laugh but his words fell on a silent backdrop, ringing true for both of them. Everything they knew of each other was derived from a few short encounters and a great deal of assumptions. Chuuya, for example, knew the other boy was called Dazai. He knew he was always bandaged up in some way, and he knew he was cared for by the greasy man that had insulted him when he'd first been brought in. He knew he could neutralise gifts, and he knew he was a bit of a prick. He didn't know much else at all. And Dazai knew little more. He knew Chuuya's full name, and he knew Kouyou cared for him. He knew his gift manipulated gravity, and that he'd been living on the streets before the Mafia had found him. He knew the progression of roles he had in his short time in the Mafia thus far, and he knew a bit of Chuuya's tactical strengths. He knew that Kouyou didn't wish to cut  his hair for whatever reason, and assorted other bits of trivia without context or importance. Neither knew much of the other at all. "I think we should just start over." Dazai said, leaning on his unbroken arm. "Introduce yourself, like we never even met. I'll do the same." He looked at Chuuya, studying his face. Chuuya looked back, and then sighed. He still hadn't gotten any word on why the other kid cared so much, but there wasn't any harm here. "Nakahara Chuuya." He said hesitantly, unsure of what kind of game they were playing. "Dazai." The other responded. And then, like robot, continued: "I am gifted. My gift is 'No Longer Human', and it is that any gift I come into contact with is rendered null and void." He spoke almost mechanically, and Chuuya wondered how many times the brunet had said those exact words before. It was a weird way for him to introduce himself; Chuuya hadn't even thought to mention his ability. Dazai apparently hadn't thought to give his full name. It bugged him. "Mine is 'For the Tainted Sorrow'," he said, still not onboard with whatever Dazai was trying to do, "as you might recall, it manipulates gravity." "How does it work?" Chuuya scoffed. "I'm not telling you that. I know your 'no trust in the Mafia' deal and I don't know what you're up to. I'm not telling you anything in depth about my ability, no way, dude." Dazai nodded, unsurprised. "Okay." The two sat in an uncomfortable silence filled only by the bubbling of the pond for well over a minute before either spoke again. "'No Longer Human' is a gift of the highest priority and potency." Dazai explained without prompting, breaking the silence and looking at the ground. "It activates when I touch an ability in use, no matter what it is, how strong its effects may be, or if I want it to. My ability will always neutralise other gifts before they act on me." "You can't turn it off?" Chuuya asked, raising a brow. That was an idea that was foreign to him. His own ability was something he turned on and off at will with relative ease, and so was pretty much every other ability he'd ever encountered. Something he used when he needed it. It happened without warning sometimes, but he could stop it eventually. The way the other talked about this, though, was what Dazai had even really a gift? The way it was described, it seemed more like...an extra feature of his body. Like Dazai's body had dark hair and fair skin, and it neutralised abilities on contact. Gifts had always seemed like special skills to Chuuya. Controllable things. Things that could be harnessed and trained. "No." Dazai said simply. "Can you?" Chuuya had taken to pulling the leaves off of a nearby plant, amassing a small pile in his lap. "I'd thought everyone could." He mumbled. Dazai frowned. "I'm still not telling you anything about mine." Chuuya added, looking at Dazai as he fiddled with a leaf in his hand. The other boy nodded. "That's fair." Another long silence ensued, but Chuuya was the one to break it this time. "So uh," he started, trying to make new conversation without tripping over words, "you're...important huh? I mean, you're my age, right?" Dazai wasn't entirely following. "I turned 11 recently." He said flatly, eyes on the other. Chuuya bit his lip and leaned back on his hands. "So you must be important right? I was supposed to be your bodyguard or something, but you're just a kid. And Kouyou talks really nice about you too. What makes you so special? Kouyou says you're smart." "I suppose that's true." The conversation fell flat on its face and another silence ensued. Chuuya began tearing up the leaves in his lap. This exercise they were doing was pointless— they were exchanging info but were they actually getting anywhere? It was just small talk, and Chuuya wasn't keen on small talk. He wasn't particularly good at small talk, he didn't like small talk, and in his experience small talk didn't like him. He usually wound up saying something wrong, and depending on who he was talking to, that ranged from uncomfortable to disastrous. Dazai didn't seem like he'd be the disaster sort, but that didn't mean he wanted to chance it. "Look—" he said, tossing a leaf into the pond, "what do you want? Why do you keep trying to talk to me? Just tell me straight up, please." He looked at Dazai in earnest. He liked "straight up". He liked honest expressions and uncomplicated conversations. He liked to say what he thought, whenever possible, and he preferred when others did the same. It rarely worked out that way, but it was what he liked, and it was what he wanted from this conversation badly. Dazai, however, did not like "straight up". "We started off badly." Dazai said again, his voice as practiced and scripted as his talk of his ability. "I just want to be friends." "Have you ever actually made a friend?" The question came out before Chuuya even thought to think and he immediately bit down on his lip as the discomfort hit the atmosphere like an atom bomb. A silence grew and the silence was telling —Dazai, like himself, probably had not had many opportunities for that. Chuuya reached out to touch the other. "Hey dude, I haven't really either." He said apologetically, trying to ease the damage. The brunet looked down at his arm and stared, and a different expression slipped underneath the blank one he'd been wearing as he observed the redhead's arm that extended from his sleeve. Chuuya wasn't sure what that meant. It was weird but it didn't seem bad. He wasn't sure what changed, but this expression seemed...real, and Dazai looked like a person had come to take his body off autopilot. "Do you like sweets?" He asked, his eyes still fixed on Chuuya's skin as he changed topics entirely. Chuuya drew his arm back slowly. "What kind?" "I don't actually know." He confessed, but he got out his bag, pulling out a handful of hard wrapped candies. "I just stole a handful of whatever Mori had in his jar for Elise. I'm not actually allowed to have them." Chuuya grimaced at Mori's name. He took the hard candy from Dazai when it was handed to him, but he didn't dare to eat it. "Is this stuff even safe?" He asked. Dazai was already popping one into his mouth. "Probably —ugh, cinnamon." He took the candy right back out of his mouth and wrapped it back up while Chuuya continued to look at his like it might secretly be full of razors. Dazai selected a yellow one this time, confident that the flavour possibilities for that colour were safe, and slid it in his mouth. "These are Elise's." He reiterated, talking around the candy. "Mori likes her. And besides, poisoning a bowl of candy that he and Elise eat from on the off chance that I steal some to give to you is a method that's inefficient, unguaranteed, and not his style. The candies are almost certainly safe." Chuuya reluctantly put one in his mouth. Dazai clearly trusted his judgement on the matter enough to eat them. And if something happened, well, at least he wouldn't be in the hospital alone. "Why is Elise allowed to have them but you're not?" He asked, tucking the hard candy in his cheek and pulling his legs up onto the bench. He turned to sit sideways facing Dazai. Dazai shrugged. "He likes her better I guess; poor girl. Why won't Kouyou let you cut your hair?" He said the question easily but it dropped awkwardly and Chuuya frowned, confused. "I could if I wanted, she's not stopping me. I just like it long." Oh. "It's pretty." Dazai said as a weak save for the implication of his question. It wasn't a lie, though. "Thank you." Dazai paused, looking at the pond, and then at Chuuya, at his hair and his clothes. He looked like Kouyou's spitting image, and the brunet wondered what that felt like to him. Did he abhor it? Like it? Did he even know? He wouldn't ask. "Do you enjoy learning from her?" He asked instead. His question was vague, designed to try and get the information he wanted. Chuuya just threw another leaf into the pond and answered simply, "I hate tea." It was an understandable answer for the circumstances. The conversations went on, with vague questions and cautious answers, until the sun began to sink lower in the sky. And by the time that came...well, they weren't quite friendly, but they weren't hostile either. And something between them made it seem so hard for either to leave. "I have to go." Chuuya said, rising from the bench and extending a hand to the other. Dazai nodded. He should have returned home long ago. "I'll come again." He said, and took Chuuya's hand to help himself up.

#soukoku #chuuya nakahara #dazai osamu #bungou stray dogs #bsd chuuya #bsd dazai #dachuu #myfic #mywriting #link goes to first chapter bc i figure out that i wasnt showing up in search bc of the links #so now its a redirect from my blog to my ao3 #cyuyaoriginalpost #happy skk week what a nice way to kick it off #yiwi

[clumsyclifford]

god its nice to be back in your ask box mm tasty your blog looks so professional now i never go on it on desktop its a brand new world also my prompt for you is “That’s okay, I bought two.” for ot4 xoxo love u my darling

hello my wonderful helen, u lookin kinda leng still <3 happy anniversary, hope you like this

side note i realise ashton is not a vegetarian but pretend he is ok carry on

read on ao3

-

“Hey,” Calum says, sliding into the chair across from Michael at the kitchen table. Michael looks up from his book and smiles.

“Hey.”

“Any idea what we’re doing for dinner?” Calum asks. “Luke doesn’t know and Ashton doesn’t care.”

“Pizza,” Michael says immediately. “Please? Pizza, please? Movie night with pizza? Did I mention pizza?” 

“I’m in,” Calum says. He smiles a little. “I was kinda hoping you’d say that, actually.”

“You know me,” Michael says cheekily, offering up his face. Calum, struggling to lean across the table, kisses his cheek. “I’ll order.”

“I was hoping you’d say that, too,” Calum says, reaching up to brush Michael’s cheek with the back of his fingers. “You’re the best.”

“I am,” Michael agrees solemnly. “The best. I agree. Well said.”

“Although Luke did let me play Oasis the whole drive home from work today,” Calum says thoughtfully.

Michael pulls a face. “Hey! If I worked with you, I’d let you play Oasis on the drive home.”

“Yeah, but you don’t.”

“Yes, but it’s the thought.”

“For Luke it was the action,” Calum says. “I don’t know, Mikey. You might have to battle Luke for top spot.”

Michael doesn’t really have a comeback for this. Frankly, most of the time he also thinks Luke is the best. He’s pretty evenly divided, actually, thinking his three boys are the best. 

“We can share,” says Michael. “Luke is small.”

Calum laughs. “I’d feel bad leaving out Ashton.”

“Ah, he’s a big boy. He can take it.”

“Boyfriend of the year, you are.”

“I’m ordering the pizza, aren’t I?” Michael holds up his phone like evidence, even though the screen is still dark. The real reason he’s the one ordering is because he’s the only person with the number of the pizza place saved to his contacts. According to Luke, this is “on brand” for him. If that means Michael’s brand is having access to pizza delivery anywhere, then he’s absolutely okay with that.

“I’ll have to run the numbers again,” Calum says lightly. He pushes his chair out. “I’m gonna go shower.”

“Please do.”

“Hey!”

“Joking, love you,” Michael says quickly, offering Calum a smile. Calum narrows his eyes, but after a moment he shrugs it off.

“Okay. Love you too.”

He sweeps past Michael through to the bathroom, and Michael unlocks his phone to scroll through his contacts.

-

The doorbell rings. 

“Dinner!” Michael shouts. He makes for the front door and pulls it open. “Hey. Thanks so much. Have a good night.”

“You too,” says the delivery guy, already turning away to return to his car and probably deliver more pizzas. That, Michael thinks, is his dream job. Driving around for hours, transporting pizza from hot ovens to eager hands and hosting one-man-concerts in his car. Not to mention that working for a pizza place must come with pizza-related perks. Free pizza, for example. Not for the first time, Michael wonders if their pizza place is seeking drivers. Also not for the first time, he pushes the thought aside.

“Dinner!” Ashton hollers, sliding into the living room on his socks. He’s shirtless in joggers for no reason Michael can identify. Sometimes Ashton is just like that. None of them are complaining, because, well. Obviously. “I love dinner!”

“Someone say dinner?” Calum appears in the room. “I love dinner.”

“Fuck’s sake, just get married already,” Michael says, rolling his eyes.

Ashton giggles and turns to Calum. “Same brain.”

“We are the wisest,” Calum says, nodding like this is an established fact. A careening force rams into him at full speed and he staggers forward, barely catching himself. “Motherfucker, Luke.”

“I heard talk of pizza,” Luke says, tucking his chin over Calum’s shoulder and hugging Calum from behind. “I’m starving. Gimme gimme.”

“We’re all starving. No hogging the pizza,” Calum informs him, angling his head to lean back onto Luke’s shoulder. They’re cute, Michael thinks. Maybe Luke should be best boyfriend for today. Or maybe Calum, if Michael’s honest. Everyone seems to generally concur that something about Calum today is extremely distracting.

The smell of pizza, however, is equally distracting. Possibly more so. Another day, Michael may need to reexamine his priorities.

“We all know Mikey’s gonna hog the pizza,” Luke grumbles.

“That’s okay, I got two,” Michael says. “One for me, one for the rest of you.”

Ashton takes the pizza out of Michael’s hands. “Sharing is caring, you arse.” 

“I did this for you!”

“Is this pepperoni?” Ashton sniffs the air. “Definitely yes.”

“Other one’s half cheese, half veggie,” Michael says, taking the box of pepperoni back but leaving the other box in Ashton’s arms. “Luke, you and I are on this one.”

“Fuck yes,” Luke says fervently. “You read my fucking mind.”

Like Michael hasn’t ordered pizza for them all dozens of times. He knows the general preferences.

Case in point: “You got veggie?” Ashton says, prying open the box. “Hey, Mikey, have I told you I love you today?”

“You have not,” Michael says, even though he probably has. “So let’s hear it.”

“Hold on a sec,” Ashton says, stepping over discarded shoes and someone’s jumper — probably Michael’s — to set the pizza down on the coffee table. Immediately, Calum makes a beeline for the box, leaping over the back of the couch and reaching to open it before he’s fully settled. Michael grins at the move before Ashton reappears in front of him, redirecting his attention.

“Well,” Ashton says seriously, putting both hands on Michael’s shoulders, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

Michael stifles a laugh. “Yeah, go on.”

“Don’t freak out,” Ashton says, “but I think I’m in love with you.”

“Fuck,” Michael says. “Ashton, I don’t know what to say. This is kind of awkward. I don’t actually feel the same.”

Ashton’s jaw drops in mock-offence. “What the fuck? I thought we had something.”

“We did, we did! But you eat veggie pizza, and I’m more of a pepperoni kind of guy, so…”

“Wow,” Ashton says, appalled. “So this is how it ends.”

Michael smirks. “Guess so,” he says, and tugs Ashton into a kiss. It’s laughable how quickly Ashton relents, melting into it like ice cream on a sunny day, sweet by all standards. When Michael pulls back he grins. “Kidding, by the way. I love you too.” 

“You’re on thin ice,” Ashton says, very unconvincingly, considering he’s smiling like a kid on Christmas. “Thin ice, Clifford.”

“I got you veggie pizza.”

“I can’t believe I’m dating a guy who doesn’t like vegetables,” Ashton says, shaking his head.

Michael scoffs. “I’m dating two vegetarians! Imagine how I feel.”

“You’re welcome,” Luke, the other resident carnivore, chimes in from his position on the sofa.

“Objectively, one of these things is worse than the other,” Calum points out as Ashton and Michael traipse over to the couch. “At least we eat healthy.”

“I respect your dietary choices,” Michael says. “Respect mine.” He wedges himself between Luke and Calum and Ashton takes a seat at Calum’s left. The TV is already on, set to play a DVD of their choosing, although it seems to have been abandoned for the moment in favour of pizza. Calum is happily munching away at a cheesy slice, Luke on one with pepperoni.

“What are we watching?” Ashton asks, reaching over Calum to pull a slice of veggie out of the pizza. It’d be civil to eat with plates, but the four of them are well past civil. 

“Whose turn is it to choose?” Calum asks. He’s already almost done with his slice. That boy can fucking eat. Not one to be outdone, Michael takes a big bite out of his own slice. 

“Oh my God,” he manages through his mouthful. “Oh my fucking God, I love pizza. This was such a good idea.”

“Agreed,” Luke says, hooking his foot around Michael’s ankle and briefly leaning into him. Michael hums as a feeling of bliss settles like a blanket cape over his shoulders, a gentle hug of happiness. This is the life. Four boys crammed shoulder-to-shoulder on one couch, not because there’s not enough room but because to be anything short of pressed together would leave too much space between any of them. God, Michael loves his life. Weird boyfriends and diverse pizza tastes and uncivil eating habits and all. He wouldn’t want it any other way with anyone else.

A minor argument between Ashton and Luke resolves into the decision that Luke will pick the movie, which of course means they’re watching High School Musical 3, though Michael can’t complain. Everyone knows the third movie is the best. Also, Michael suspects Luke just doesn’t want to pick a movie everyone will groan at. Ever the peacekeeper, that one.

As Luke goes to put the movie in and Ashton rises to grab a shirt from his room, Calum leans against Michael’s other side, reaching for his face and then pulling back at the last second.

“Greasy fingers,” he says apologetically. 

“The true homewrecker,” Michael deadpans. “Grease.”

“Hey, I like Grease.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Calum smiles, and Michael struggles to come up with a single thing more beautiful in the world. “Thanks for getting us pizza. I love you.” 

Michael quirks his lips. “That’s a bit cheesy.”

Calum rolls his eyes with impressive force. “Seriously? I’m being cute.”

“And I’m being hilarious,” Michael returns. He captures Calum’s mouth with his own, delighted to find that he can taste the faintest trace of Calum’s last slice on his lips. Calum hums softly until Michael pulls away. 

“One day you won’t be able to kiss your bad jokes better,” he says. He, too, is smiling. Michael doesn’t think that day will come anytime soon. 

“Whatever you say,” he says airily, licking his lips. “But until then, just know…you’ll always have a pizza my heart.”

Calum stares at him as Michael’s grin slowly spreads until he’s cackling, pulling a squirming Calum into his arms and saying “Get it? A pizza my heart?” over all of Calum’s futile protests.

#michael clifford #calum hood #luke hemmings #ashton irwin #ot4 fic #5sos #5sos fic #fic #my fic #HELEN!! an ot4 prompt!!! how unexpected and fun and exciting!!!!! #love you very much :))) #a helen prompt so much fun what a rarity #i catered it to you. you're welcome #<3 <3 <3 #calumcest #ask #answered

[sephhaa]

How To Customize Your Tumblr Blog!

Alright! Here is the long-awaited blog post I’ve been meaning to make for a long time now. When I was trying to customize my tumblr blog, I found it extremely difficult(especially because the first time I got on tumblr I didn’t customize my own page at all) So hopefully, this will help you try to create a masterlist, how to navigate features and implement a theme for your blog! Also I hope this can answer some questions people have if they’ve come to an error when creating your blog.

I’ll also be making a AO3 guide(mainly how to customize your writing on the HTML page on ao3) so if you’re looking for that go here.

I’ll also be making a potential youtube video for these two guides. Since I don’t have a lot of time today, I’ll be making a video on these two guides the next time I decide to revamp my blog and I’ll be sure to link those.

Alright! Let’s start!

Alright! So starting in your homepage we’d be focusing on choosing, implementing and setting up a theme for your blog. 

But before we do that, I highly—HIGHLY suggest you go through your blog and delete the clutter on your page. By clutter I mean—reblogs. Or at least delete MOST of them. Reason being—if you are a fic writer(like myself) and you publish your stories on your tumblr blog, your masterlist etc; and you want to link your chapters on your masterlist or you want to locate your masterlist(the original post NOT the reblog) it’s hard to do that with all the reblogs cluttering your page. This is crucial for later when we create our masterlist. If you are a fic writer and you’ve been uploading your chapters and you already have a masterlist—locate them, copy their link addresses(which I will teach you how to get copy link addresses in this guide) and paste them on a google doc or a notes of some sort. It’d save you so much time later when creating/revamping your masterlist.

If you absolutely refuse to de-clutter your blog and/or you’ve never published on tumblr but you plan to so you don’t necessarily need to scroll so much to find your original masterlist post/story post/chapters etc; then ignore this step. 

But if you are a fic writer or writer in general and you have a masterlist and/or story posts/chapters published on your tumblr blog—go ahead and scroll to find those original posts(NOT the reblog) and get their copy link addresses and paste those links in a separate google doc, notes etc. You can refer to this doc/notes when creating/revamping your masterlist/story post without having to delete any of your reblogs. I must warn you tho, it WILL take you a lot of time. Especially if you reblog A LOT. Happy scrolling!

TUMBLR THEME:

Okay—moving on—THEME! Alright so you need to find a theme for your blog. What is a theme?

A theme is a decorative set up for your blog.

But before you go looking for/implementing a theme, here is some things you need to know:

1-  Many of these themes are made by fellow tumblr creators who have spent SO MUCH time creating the codes for these themes. In saying that, when you do select a theme by a creator, READ THEIR RULES! It’s very important that we’re following the rules that these creators put for some of these themes.

2 - The general rules for themes if you plan on using one:

*Do not change/steal the themes and/or use them as a base to implement a different theme.

3 - If you want to change something, look at the rules and see what you are allowed to change and what you’re not allowed to change. If its not listed, reach out to the creator to see if making these changes are okay. Generally, these creators are good at listing their rules and/or do’s/don’ts for their themes.

4 - Reblog the theme you chose! Not only does this let the creator know you’re using their theme, it also lets other people check out their page in search of themes. 

Now that’s out the way—I’m going to list a couple of theme pages I frequent:

·  https://maziekeen.tumblr.com/

·  https://glenthemes.tumblr.com/

·  https://raiidens.tumblr.com/

·  https://amboise.tumblr.com/

·  https://kosmique.tumblr.com/tagged/t:recs

·  https://magnusthemes.tumblr.com/

·  https://seyche.tumblr.com/tagged/%26themes

·  https://egg.design/tagged/egg%20theme

·  https://lemonfawn.tumblr.com/

·  https://yeolithm.com/portfolio

·  https://xuethms.tumblr.com/tagged/codes-by-xue

·  https://warugaki-themes.tumblr.com/tagged/warutemas

·  https://www.floralcodes.com/page/2

If you find that you don’t like any of the themes I’ve listed here, you could always search on tumblr, “tumblr themes” and a whole list of pages come up.

Once you’ve found your theme, let’s head on over to “Edit Theme.”

Once you’ve located “Edit Theme” in your settings, click on it and it’d open up to a new tab where you’d be implementing your new theme.

Today I’ll be using a theme from @maziekeen​ !

Once you have opened your “Edit Theme” page, you’d see that theres a bunch of functions to your right. This is where we will be implementing our new theme, specifically this bar:

Now, you’re going to click, “Edit HTML,” this will open a window that will look like this:

It will open up a window with a bunch of coding, here we will be deleting that code to replace it with a new code that is our new theme. To quickly delete this old code you’d press down on keys:

SHIFT+CMD+A(MAC)

SHIFT+ALT+A(Windows)

This will select all the code:

Now as you can see, all of that code is highlighted. You’re going to go ahead and delete it by clicking:

delete(MAC) 

or 

backspace(Windows)

Once all of it is empty we’re going to head on over to our new code theme.

On your creators theme page(or the theme post, whichever is fine) Many creators have different verbiage for getting codes. Sometimes it’d say, “CODE”, “GET CODE”, “Download,” etc. Either way,(and in my case) you’d click “Get Code,” which will redirect you to a website to download the code.

Many creators use Pastebin as a way to paste these VERY long codes. If there’s an option, you’re going to find and click “download.” If you can’t find a download option, it’s likely that you have to click “RAW” to download the code. In my case, the download option is available for me so it’d just click download and it’d open in a separate document. I find that if you download on raw, it will open to a new tab with a long list of code. Either one is fine.

I also want to mention that—some themes you might come across are priced. VERY affordable and if you have some money to spare, def buy a theme and support the creator!

Once you’ve downloaded your theme’s code it will open in a separate doc(or open in a separate tab) with a long list of code. Here you will select all the code:

SHIFT+CMD+A(MAC)

SHIFT+ALT+A(Windows)

This will select all the code, copy the code:

CMD+C(MAC)

ALT+C(Windows)

Go back to your Edit Theme page. You’re going to go ahead and paste your new code onto the empty HTML space:

Now with your new code, you will click on “Update Preview” Once it loads, your entire page will change to that new theme’s layout:

Now click save!

Alright! Now, let’s say you don’t really like the colors, or you want your profile icon to appear on said theme layout(sometimes your avatar icon won’t appear at all or you won’t have that option. If you want that option it’s likely you’re going to have to search for another theme where it’s obvious you can put your profile picture in one of the icons.) You’re going to go to the sidebar, scroll until you see all of these functions:

Here on the sidebar you can change the colors to your theme! You can also change the theme’s background, and in this case(photo icon) in the sidebar feature. You can also scroll down a bit where it says “links” and add names and links to things people can click on.

That’s all for adding your theme!!

COPY ADDRESS LINK:

Now, here is where de-cluttering your blog comes in handy. Here, we’re going to locate our chapters, story post, masterlist etc(if you publish all your written posts on your tumblr) or if you’ve already published all of your story posts/chapters onto your masterlist here on Tumblr then we need to locate the original master post.

The reason we need to locate the original master post is so that when people/readers click your masterlist—it won’t be a reblogged version of it with a bunch of writing you have previously posted on that reblog. The original, 9 times out of 10 looks a lot more organized etc.

Once you have located your masterlist—go on ahead and follow these steps:

*Hover your mouse on the very top, right hand corner of your masterlist.

*A flap animation is going to appear(like the above photo)

*Once it appears, right click it

*A little window will appear, it’d look like this:

Here you’re going to click, “Copy Link Address.”

Once you have copied the link address you can place this link on your Edit Theme bio so people can click your link to your Masterlist. You can also use this to copy link addresses for all your chapters/story posts when you’re trying to link your chapters within your masterlist. I’ll explain how to do that later in this guide. 

MASTERLIST:

Okay! Moving on to creating/revamping your masterlist!

If you already have a masterlist then completely ignore this step and go on over to how to put your masterlist on your bio/any errors you might have come across when trying to put your masterlist on your bio.

You’re going to go to your homepage and create a new post:

Here you’re going to title your masterlist, add images etc. Here are some features I find that a lot of people don’t know about/where to locate these features:

The, “Keep Reading” feature is a feature I find more than often a lot of people don’t know how to locate/add to their posts. The read more option is especially great if you have a really long chapter or a long post(such as this one) It’s especially helpful if you have a very long masterlist. I’m going to use my masterlist as a example to add the read more feature:

On your masterlist post, you can add the “Keep reading” feature by simply clicking the little three dots icon:

By clicking it—it immediately creates a page break saying, “Keep reading”

Another feature I find people not knowing how to do is linking their stories(story posts) on their masterlist. Here’s how to do it:

Here’s my fic, “Here’s to Forgetting 1974″ and I’m trying to add it to my masterlist. We’re going to copy the address link on this post(make sure if you’re going to add a story to your masterlist that it is the original post) once we have the link let’s go back to our Masterlist:

First we need to set up a title or some sort of text for this feature to work. I simply just titled, “Here’s to Forgetting 1974″ as my text. You’re going to highlight your title—immediately, a set of features will appear:

Here we’re going to click on this icon:

This will open to a smaller window to paste a link in:

Here we will paste our copy link address from our story post onto this small window link. Once you’ve done that, click “Done.”

Immediately your title is underlined and if you hover your mouse over it and/or click it, it’d redirect you to your story from your masterlist post.

This process is similar if you want to link your chapters onto your story posts.

Here’s my story, “The Case of 1979″ and lets say I published a new chapter for this fic and I want to put the chapter link onto my story post. 

*Go copy the copy address link of your new chapter

*Locate your story post:

Let’s say I’m adding a surprise chapter 12(lol) 

Type your text, “Chapter 1.” “1, 2, 3″ any type of text. Here I’m just going to title my text, “Chapter 12,”:

And follow the same steps as before:

*Highlight the text

*Click on the link icon

*Paste the copy link address of your published chapter onto the https:// window

*Click done

Once you do that, hover your mouse above the chapter text/click it and it’d  redirect you to the chapter from your story post.

Now that your masterlist is set up, here is the very long, and complicated process of adding your masterlist(or any link in general) to your bio. 

Head on over to the “Edit Theme,” page.

Here, we will be paying extra attention to the “Description” bar. 

Now, there is a bit of coding you’d have to do here and how you write the code MATTERS:

The coding is:

<a href=“

that is:

<a SPACE href= QUOTATION MARK ( “ )

Now. You cannot—CANNOT copy and paste this code in/copy and paste your links on your bio(in case you want to go ahead and copy everything in your bio and save it on a separate doc to save for later) I love copy and paste—less time consuming etc—but unfortunately, the description bar DOES NOT like it so we gotta deal with it lol.

Now you’re going to go ahead and locate your original masterlist post, copy the address link and start setting up the format:

After you have pasted your link and ended it with a quotation mark( “ ) at the end. We need to set up some kind of text so that the entire link doesn’t show up on your bio. I’ll title my text: “ | M.List. | ” You can write any title, as long as its within this coding:

</a> (Beginning)

</a> (End)

</a> TEXT </a> 

(of course, all together, no spaces. For the sake of this example I just want to separate the text from the code so you can clearly see what you’d have to do.)

You’re going to put your text in between this coding:

Your link should look like this and it’d appear like this on your theme layout:

You should be able to click these links even in the theme layout. 

And that’s how you set up your links in your bio!

Here is a common problem that happens when you add links to your bio. Let’s say you go ahead, go to settings and decide to change your “Edit Appearance,” to your blog:

Alright, you change your page’s coloring, the background, your profile picture—cool! Not so cool for your links! 

Almost immediately, you’d find that your links will cease to work if you change your profile’s appearance. Why? because when you change it, your links are in that bio where the coloring is—those links are also being changed since they’re there.

You’d need to go back to, “Edit Theme” go to the description bar and TYPE out your entire code/text again. You can just copy and paste your copy address link of your masterlist but you’d have to type out the coding and text all over again.

And you’d have to do this every time you decide to change your Tumblr blog’s appearance. 

Alright! That is all for this guide! I hope you’ve found this useful! I’ll be uploading an ao3 guide under my “guides” link on my bio where I’ll share how to navigate ao3 and all it’s weird functions. I’ll also teach you guys how to customize your writing(indenting, images, fonts(bold, underlined etc) on the HTML format in the case you don’t like the the other writing format that ao3 has to offer(it’s real ugly lowkey lol) also I’ll be providing some tips and tricks to make posting your ao3 chapters on HTML more simpler. 

If you’re interested in me or my stories, I write both BTS content and Anime content( Currently it’s Voltron but I do plan on writing a fic for Death Note and Inyuasha(cuz there isn’t enough Sango and Miroku content and that’s a CRIME) follow me and give my stories a read!

Until my next guide!

#tutorial #tumblrguide #guide

[piracytheorist]

After nearly seven years on this platform, for the first time I’m debating on changing my URL.

Like, on one hand, the url feels a little silly because it was such a split second decision, I didn’t think into it at all, I considered that I’d be a silly blog making silly OUAT memes, but then I got invested in meta and analysis and then started interacting with people and I realized... welp. Guess I’m stuck with this one.

All this time, I didn’t really care, but idk lately it’s kind of bugging me that I didn’t put any effort at all into it. There’s also some personal reasons that are too long of a story to go down here. Like, I feel I’ve left a kind of legacy around. I know there are enough blogs in the OUAT/Killian Jones/Colin fandom who recognize my url and know what I’m about to support that. And it’s just ugh, because lately the name has started to show its lack of personality on my behalf. To me, at least.

So on the other hand, I feel like changing my url would mean a “break” between what I stood for before and what I stand for now. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, I’ve certainly grown from when I started this blog, like a lot, but like... considering a significantly small amount of people here know my real name, lillpon is as good a name to them as my real one.

And I’ve been here for nearly seven years. I’d have to change usernames on other sites too, like ao3 and ffnet and since ao3 doesn’t do automatic redirect if you change your pseud, I’ll have to change all the links on fic posts and the such.

Like idk, it’s not a big deal, but I’m in the need for some changes in my life, and considering I’m legit trying to cut off from Tumblr for most of the time of the day, I think that changing my url would be a help. Like, old lillpon was a tumblr freak who wouldn’t look up from her phone while tumblr app was on. New and improved ??? has her shit together and isn’t dependent on a fucking phone app to improve her self-image.

I do feel like I’m making too big of an issue out of this, like, legit people change urls without a single care in the world and god I wish that were me, but instead I’m here like WILL IT ACTUALLY WORK WILL MY ENTIRE TUMBLR LEGACY COLLAPSE IF I PICK A MORE PERSONAL URL

oof anyway, just some thoughts.

#lillpon rambles #see even my fingers are trained to type this tag with my eyes closed #what will my rambling tag be???

[foramomentonly]

In the Dark I Know That You Do

Summary: I have a headcanon that Alex slept with a photographer overseas and, as a result, some tiny art gallery in New York is displaying artfully erotic black and white photographs of him. He signed the release form when it dropped in his inbox because the pictures made him feel powerful and sexy, and he figures no one he knows will ever see them.

Then I thought: What if Michael sees them?

Author’s Note: I feel the need to say that this fic, and all my other fics, like my blog, is Maria-friendly. Just putting that out there.

Title is lyrics from "I Want You To Love Me" by Fiona Apple.

Read on AO3

Alex hears a soft, shuttering click and turns his head. 

“This okay?” Josué asks, lowering the camera from his face and smiling softly. “You’re just—so fucking gorgeous, man.”

He’s squatting naked across the room, just returned from the studio’s tiny bathroom. His thighs are thick and meaty, the muscles corded as they support the weight of his body. The sight of them makes Alex burn, makes the vivid memory of him grinding down on Alex’s cock, riding him single-mindedly as Alex gripped those same thighs tight flood his senses. Alex feels weightless, somehow simultaneously above his body, and very much in it; he feels every scratch of the stiff sheets underneath him, every delicious ache from the evening’s activities, but they only serve to elevate this heightened feeling that Alex is good and right and glorious. Alex laughs, runs a teasing hand up the length of his own naked torso, his fingers catching in his dog tags. 

“It’s okay,” he says, and Josué grins, raising his camera again, the lens re-focusing and the rapid-fire, fluttering click resuming. 

Alex stares down the lens, willing the camera to stop time, to capture and hold him in this moment and this feeling forever and for real. He’s twenty years old; he’s free, he’s whole, and he’s alive within himself for maybe the second time in his godforsaken life, since the moment time failed to stop in the first place and Jesse Manes had crashed into the shed and into Alex’s sacred space, defiling it and him and the only thing that had ever felt right to him. The only person. Because time, unfortunately, doesn’t work like that.

Alex hears the soft buzz of his phone vibrate on the wooden table and looks down.

“Shit,” he breathes, picking up his phone and staring at the name and subject line next to the little e-mail icon: Josué Medina, Photo Release.

“Is something wrong?” Maria asks from across the table, and five pairs of inquisitive eyes focus in his direction.

 They didn’t plan this gathering, but Michael, Isobel, Max, and Liz were having a drink when Alex wandered into the Pony, and it seemed rude not to sit with them. Traffic petered out as the night went on, and Maria eventually joined them, and before he knew it Alex is nursing his third beer at a reclaimed wood table with five people who’ve been in his personal orbit for so long that it never occurred to him they haven’t actually spent much time together as a group. It’s awkward.

“Who’s José Medina?” Isobel asks, leaning shamelessly into Alex’s shoulder to better read his phone screen. Max, sitting on her other side, pulls her back.

“Iz, personal privacy?” he chides.

“It’s Ho-sway,” Alex corrects, sounding the name out phonetically. “And he’s someone I knew—Jesus, seven years ago?”

“Oooh,” Isobel drawls, “so he’s an ex.”

“He’s not an ex. He was—”

“An itch?” she supplies, and Alex kind of hates her.

“Sure,” he says, rolling his eyes and pretending to miss the way Michael’s briefly flash with something unreadable when they cross gazes across the table.

“So, this is a booty call?” Liz asks, chin in her hands and eyelashes fluttering suggestively. “Is he passing through town and never quite got you out of his system?” 

Alex forgives her much easier; her blood is basically tequila at this point in the night.

“Seven years ago,” Maria cuts in, redirecting the conversation kindly. “You were overseas at that point, right? First tour?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I was on leave in Italy. He was—well, is a photographer, from the looks of the e-mail, but at the time he was just a student. I don’t know why he’s sending me a release form.”

Alex scans the e-mail. It’s brief pleasantries and apologies for popping up unannounced in Alex’s inbox, all written with that easy, magnetic confidence that drew Alex in so many years ago. And then there’s the ask:

There’s a call for submissions for this arthouse photo book on queer military personnel as erotic subject. It’s not fetish; it’s art. It’s a tiny press and less than fifty people will ever see it, but it would be a big deal for me. I want to submit the photo attached and I need your consent. I know it’s intimate and I understand if you aren’t comfortable. But a guy can try, right? If it helps, it’s just for us, you know? It’s not going mainstream anytime soon.

Alex doesn’t understand half of what he’s reading; well, he’s unfortunately very familiar with the dark side of fetish since he lost part of a limb and gained a prosthesis. It’s the reason he’ll never re-activate his Grindr account. But the rest goes completely over his head, so he just taps the icon to open the attached image file.

It’s. 

It’s intimate, all right. 

Erotic, for sure, though the image stops short of full nudity. 

And, before he can really fully process what he sees, it’s tugged out of his hand by Isobel’s bony fingers.

***

Michael is trying to focus on the conversation around him—on Maria, beautiful and loose by his side; on Max, reserved, but happy, flanked by his best girls; and decidedly not on Alex, staring at his phone with a dazed expression, lips parted softly and quirked in a barely-there smile. He shouldn’t care that Alex is receiving an email from a long-lost fling, or that he’s staring at said email as though transported. Michael is so fixed on not watching Alex out of the corner of his eye that he misses Isobel leaning over to pluck Alex’s phone out of his loose grip, and jumps at Alex’s cry of protest.

“Excuse me!” Alex says, turning towards her incredulously, but making no move to take his phone back.

“Damn, Alex,” Isobel whistles, tapping at his phone with two fingers to enlarge and then zoom in on the screen. “Save a horse, ride an Airman.”

Alex rolls his eyes, but there’s a proud, playful smirk pulling at his lips.

“Lemme see!” Liz cries, reaching across Max for the phone. Max looks back and forth between Liz’s grabby hands and Isobel sliding the phone her way, then shoots Alex a plaintive, deer-in-headlights look.

Alex shrugs.

“Isobel probably already forwarded it herself,” he says easily, and Isobel nods shamelessly.

Liz picks up the phone eagerly, mouth dropping open in an exaggerated grin, hand on her chest, faux-scandalized. Michael watches Max’s eyes dart over in curiosity, then quickly away again, back straightening and eyes fixed forward. He coughs gruffly.

Liz passes the phone across the table to Maria. Maria hesitates, looks questioningly at Alex.

“It really is fine,” he assures her, eyes sliding to meet Michael’s gaze next and raising a brow, almost in a challenge. Michael gazes over Maria’s shoulder and inhales sharply.

The image is in black and white, maybe so it will pass as high art rather than cheap erotica. Though Alex in the picture looks anything but cheap. He looks—He looks fucking sinful. He’s lying on his back on a small, messy pallet bed in what looks like a sparsely-furnished studio apartment, clearly post-coital. His hair is short and messy, soft tendrils sticking out at wild angles. He’s clearly naked, but his closer leg is bent at the knee, foot planted on the mattress, preserving some semblance of modesty. Michael notices with startling clarity a small bead of sweat caught mid-roll down the crease of his hip. One arm is thrown over his head languorously, the other resting on his chest, long fingers tangled in his dog tags. He’s thin, the outline of his ribs visible thanks to the stretch of his arm, but his body is toned and tight, the small swell of his bicep and the curve of his quad and calf muscles evident even at a distance. His head is turned towards the camera, dark, hooded eyes gazing directly down the lens, full lips quirked as though in acknowledgment of his audience. 

It’s the expression that truly unsettles Michael. He knows that look. Intimately. Has spent hours and days and years, a whole lifetime coaxing that look onto Alex’s face with his hands, his mouth, his reverent touch, and all the other ways he’s pressed unspoken truths into Alex’s skin. Alex is at peace, lazy and comfortable and confident in his body, in its form and how he’s using it. This is an Alex blissfully alive and shameless in his own skin, absent the unrelenting control with which he holds himself back, the careful disassociation and denial of his own needs and desires. This is Alex basking in himself rather than swallowing himself whole. It’s intimate and sexy and, until now, Michael had thought only he had seen Alex like this. Only he had earned it.

Michael tears his eyes away from the screen, away from an Alex that’s no longer just his to focus on an Alex that isn’t his at all.

“So, this guy wants to display it or something?” Liz asks.

“Sort of,” Alex says. “There’s some kind of art book he wants to submit it to.”

“Would you get paid?” Maria asks, and Alex snorts, taking his phone back from her when she holds it out to him. 

“I posed for it for free, so I think that window is closed.”

“So you knew he was taking it?” Michael asks abruptly, and Alex furrows his brow.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. 

Michael is suddenly aware of several pairs of eyes on him, and he nods hastily and stammers, “Good. You know. That you weren’t—that you didn’t not know.”

“So what are you gonna do?” Isobel asks, examining her manicure. She seems bored with the conversation now that there’s nothing in front of her to ogle. 

Alex takes a breath, looks down at his screen again.

“I’m gonna sign the form,” he breathes, and Liz actually claps in delight.

“You sure?” Michael can’t stop himself from asking, even as Maria kicks him with the heel of her boot under the table. “Doesn’t seem like something you’d be into, is all.”

Alex narrows his eyes and quirks his lips teasingly, but there’s a bite in the tone of his voice when he asks, “You trying to slut-shame me, Guerin?”

“Never,” he drawls in return. 

Their eyes lock and their smiles slowly fade. 

“I would never,” Michael adds, softer and more sincere. Alex nods once, looks away.

“It’s a gorgeous photograph, Alex,” Maria says, smiling warmly at him. “If you want to share it with the world, I say go for it.”

“And I say let’s go for another round,” Isobel declares, holding up her empty glass, officially over it. “Michael, I believe this one is yours?”

“It’s mine, actually,” Alex says easily, effectively ending the conversation. He grips the table for support as he slides out of his chair and stands, pocketing his phone as he goes. “I’ll be right back.”

***

They’re saying hasty good-byes in the parking lot, Liz and Isobel piling into Max’s car, Max extremely sober behind the wheel. Maria heads back inside to help her staff close up, and Michael stands quietly with Alex, waiting on his rideshare.

“You seem pretty sober to me,” Michael comments, pulling his jacket tighter around his torso.

“I’m tired,” Alex admits, “and my leg is bothering me. It’s just easier for tonight. I’ll pick up my car tomorrow.”

He glances sideways at Michael.

“You don’t have to stand out here with me,” he says. “Go inside and help Maria.”

“Why’re you releasing that picture?” Michael blurts, not realizing the words he’s speaking until they’re out there, irretrievable, and Alex turns slowly to consider him.

“I liked remembering how I felt when Josué took it. I felt free,” he says quietly, and Michael is shocked he’s even deigning to answer. “I was far away from Roswell and everyone in it. I felt strong, like I was in control for once. Maybe if the photo’s out there, that feeling won’t seem so far away.” He smiles mischievously. “And, I mean, I looked good. Hadn’t been too long since basic.”

Michael catches his gaze, holds it.

“Did I make you feel free?”

Alex’s smile is small, but genuine.

“You used to,” he breathes. “For awhile you were the only thing that made me feel that way.” 

 Michael feels his whole body release, as though he’d been holding in a breath, clenching every single muscle unconsciously. Alex shakes his head.

“What?”

“That’s too much pressure,” he says. “No one person can be everything good for someone else.”

Michael looks down and kicks at the dust and grime of the parking lot with his boot, and thinks of Maria.

“I told you I couldn’t be your medicine,” Alex continues, “but I think I was doing the same thing to you. Maybe that’s why I reacted they way I did when you started acting out.”

They let his confession hang in the air between them before Michael, now in possession of a one-track mind apparently, speaks.

“So you aren’t worried someone you know is gonna see it?” Michael asks softly.

Alex shakes his head.

“That’s why it feels safe,” he says. “New York, the 'art scene.' That’s a whole nother world.”

Michael nods, stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“So, what if someone wanted to see it?”

Alex looks at him blankly.

“What if I wanted to buy a copy?” Michael explains. “I mean, you’re right. You were in spectacular shape back then.”

Alex bursts out laughing.

“Not like now,” Michael goes on, grinning as Alex’s shoulders shake. “You really let yourself go, private.”

The silence between them as their laughter dies is the most comfortable of the night.

“I’m okay with that,” Alex murmurs as a car pulls into the lot and a notification pings on his phone. “Good luck tracking it down, though.”

“Alex?” the driver of the car asks, rolling her window down an inch.

“Yeah,” Alex says, and pulls the car door open.

“Night, Guerin.”

“Sweet dreams, Fabio.”

It takes Michael three months to find the book after Alex mentions that it's out and his photo made the cut, and it takes some intense eBay stalking at that, plus he's out $60—indie press, my ass, he thinks as he clicks purchase. 

#rnm #rnm fic #malex #malex fic #alex manes #michael guerin #isobel evans #max evans #liz ortecho #maria deluca #maria-friendly #my fic #background miluca

[queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm]

Ok here me out, Marinette Project runway winner

This is for @ozmav @mindfulmagics @maribat-archive @realrandomposts for inspiring me to do this even though I’m probably annoying you people.

She moved to Gotham after defeating Hawkmoth to study abroad

During this time she begins her time on Project runway

Even after having commissioned her work to celebrities such as Clara Nightingale and Jagged Stone she is out in the bottom 3 in 2 occasions

This causes her to work even harder to win

Marinette creates looks based off of Ladybug, the miraculous team, and the heroes of Gotham (Chat’s Miraculous was taken long ago, before defeating Hawkmoth)

Her Robin look was the one that made her the win (it was a simple, but elegant black blazer with a small robin embroidered on the right breast pocket, a white-based shirt with prints that resembled a bird making its nest, black slacks, and brown dress shoes).

The judges loved her craftsmanship, “You have magic in the tips of your fingers!”

“The embroidery is so detailed, how did you have time for that?”

“I love it! Marinette Dupain-Cheng you are Project Runway’s 20XX’s winner!”

*Cue Marinette being so happy she burst into tears*

After this, she begins working on building her brand. She began shipping her clothes internationally. Her work becomes huge in Asia and blows up, K-pop and C-pop idols love her. BTS was once caught using her clothes as airport fashion. Jackson Wang and BOYSTORY are always wearing her clothes.

Because of this Marinette’s celebrity clientele, just became a heck of a lot bigger.

Jagged now brags about her work at every red carpet event he goes to (if he didn’t already).

“Jagged, please. Jagged no. Jagged why?”

Clara does the same, but not to Jagged’s extreme.

Marinette is constantly embarrassed by this and try’s her best to give credit to the other contestants she met on the show. They all loved her and were as happy as they could be when she won.

All of this leads to Jagged introducing Marinette to Bruce Wayne.

“I hear you’ve been Jagged’s exclusive designer since you were fourteen? That’s impressive.”

Marinette waves it off, “I was just trying to help a friend.”

“I was wondering if I could commission you to create mine and my sons’ next charity gala suits. I’ve seen your work and it is very practical, most of the designers sacrifice functionality and practicality for aesthetic. But you seem to know that there is more to it then looking nice, your work seems to be able to be on the go as well.”

Of course, Marinette agrees, “Y-Yes! I would love to!”

This leads to a later fitting session at the Wayne Manor to get their measurements.

“Ah, Ms. Dupain-Cheng, you’re early,” Alfred points out while Marinette waits for entry.

Alfred allowed for her to get inside after a moment.

“On time is late and early is on time, Mr?”

“Pennyworth, but you may call me Alfred. That is exactly what I always say, Madame.”

“Well, in that case, you can just call me Marinette.” She smiles at the well-seasoned gentleman.

The well-mannered man shows Marinette to the living area to wait on Bruce and his sons.

What she wasn’t expecting was for two men to come barreling down the stairs, locked in combat over a trivial subject. “Take it back, Todd!”

“Not a chance, Demon Spawn!”

“I’ll break every bone in your body so badly, that not even the Lazarus pits could undo the damage caused!”

“When you say things like that, you just prove my point!!”

Marinette silently watched as the two continued their squabble. ‘What’s a Lazarus pit? I’ll have to ask Master Fu.’ (After defeating Hawkmoth, Master Fu retrieved Tiki. But that didn’t stop her guardian training.)

Eventually, the two boys got physical and Marinette decided it was time to intervene.

“Say it AGAIN!”

“You are JUST like your grandfather! You bra-”

“Umm, excuse me... Who are you two?”

The two stop to see a small, French woman physically keeping the two apart. The boys look completely gobsmacked.

“The better question is who are you?”

“I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I’m here to get Bruce Wayne and his sons’ measurements for a piece he commissioned me to do. I’m a designer,” She said smiling, extending her hand.

Jason takes it before Damian, “I’m Jason Todd-Wayne, nice to meet you.”

Damian scowls, “How polite of you...” he murmured to himself.

Marinette looks to the boy who has yet to introduce himself, “And you are?”

Both Damian and Jason’s jaws dropped, she really didn't know who they were. She was in their house for Pete’s sake, “I’m Damian Wayne.” Damian took her hand and gave it a kiss for added effect.

“Show off,” could be heard from Jason’s direction.

Marinette didn’t care for what the peanut gallery had to say, she was bright red after Damian did that.

At this moment, Dick, Tim, and Bruce walked in at the same time.

“Ms. Dupain-Cheng, you’re early,” Bruce said walking to greet her.

“I didn’t want for you to wait for me, also you can just call me Marinette. It feels weird when someone older and with a much more esteemed reputation calls me Miss.”

Once she finished speaking, Tim basically ran to her at the speed of light. The Flash, who?

See all the boys enjoyed Jagged’s music, but Tim, Tim was the grade A fanboy that everybody at least knows of. He’s watched every interview, heard every song, bought every album, poster, t-shirt, and every bit of merch he could get his hands on.

Needless to say after all the praise, Jagged gives to his personal designer, Tim knows exactly who she is.

“It is an honor to meet you Ms. Dupain-Cheng, I am Tim Drake-Wayne. I’m a big fan of your work.”

“You like fashion, Timmy?”

“I’m interested, sure, but Ms. Dupain-Cheng has done work for Jagged Stone. Since. She. Was. Fourteen. Her work has won awards since she was fourteen!” Tim said, disgusted by his brothers’ not knowing who she is.

“Please, it was completely by chance I met Jagged. Plus, I wasn't the only designer he’s ever had.” Marinette tried to take the attention off of her achievements.

“You just the only one who has made Jagged look like something other than an eggplant. I love the guy’s music, but his outfits before you... they looked cheap.”

Dick moved to speak, “It’s true, looking back at his old ensembles, there was a dramatic shift in craftsmanship. I’m Richard Grayson-Wayne, but you can call me Dick.”

Marinette’s face rivaled her old Ladybug costume. “Please, it was nothing. I made a million mistakes when I was designing back then. Anyway, let’s talk about what’s happening today. Your measurements for your suits. I assume Mr. Wayne has more important things to do after this.”

This got the boys to get down to business (to defeat the Huns) and shapes up real quick at the sound of her “serious” voice. The same one she used to use when Chat Noir used to flirt in the middle of an attack.

She when in order of oldest to youngest. Bruce, Dick, Jason, and Tim, were all done. Damian had been waiting patiently for his turn, watching her work. 

Marinette had this habit of sticking her tongue out whenever she was hyper-focused, Damian found this endearing. While she was getting his measurements, he was staring hard. This did not go unnoticed by the Batfam. 

After she’s finished, it’s kinda late. Alfred invites her for dinner and Marinette graciously agrees. Marinette helps prepare the dessert, Alfred repeatedly told her she didn’t have to, but she insisted. 

During dinner, the Batfam began to ask about her personal life, “So, are you seeing anyone?” 

“Master Dick, that is not appropriate to ask a young lady!”

Marinette almost chokes at the question, “That’s... um... I just got out of a controlling relationship. I... um... really don’t feel like talking about it.”

Adrien had done a number on her mentally, once he discovered she was Ladybug he wanted her and him to get together immediately. She agreed after some time, but Adrien was always pushy. He always pressured her into doing something that she wasn’t comfortable doing.  One day she had enough, she told him that she was done. Let’s just say that didn’t go over well. Marinette shifted in her seat as she recalls that night.

Damian seems to notice this and tells her that she doesn’t have to say anything if she doesn’t want to, Marinette appreciates this and thanks him. 

Quickly Marinette switches the topic, “I really like that Gotham has heroes, that protect the city. They make me feel safe like I'm back in Paris.”

This gets all the boys’ attention, Bruce asks her why.

“In Paris, there were heroes to protect them from a magical terrorist, named Hawkmoth. He possessed people who were at their worst and turned them into these things called, Akumas. Ladybug and Chat Noir were the heroes. After he was defeated, Ladybug and Chat Noir retired.”

Damian was baffled by how the league did not know about this, “Why haven’t we heard about this?”

“Mayor Bourgeois kept everything quite to keep tourism flowing, but if you really want to know about it there’s a blog. Be careful though not everything on there is reliable.”

Tim makes a mental note to check it out later. 

By the end of the meal and time to go home, all members of the Batfam+Alfred give and get Marinette’s personal contact info. 

They gained a friend and a new designer. 

Let me know if you want more because then and only then will I do more. This is my first time posting my writing, so please be nice. Thank you for taking the time to read it though! :)

Edit: here’s the ao3 link https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F20572886&t=MGFkNWY5ZDVjOTcwNmIyOTU3YjM0OGQwOTc1YTU5MWZkNDlkNzliYSwwZjg5ZTA1ODIyY2M5MGUyNWYxY2YyMzYyZTY3ZjY2NmNjNzIwMDg5

#maribat #marinette x damian #Damian Wayne #damientte #BatFam #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #adrien agreste #marinette dupain-cheng #miraculous ladybug #DC Universe

[jui-imouto-chan]

Link to my Series Masterlist

Info about me:

Call me Jui! I’m Queer. (Generally Pansexual but still struggling with things; cis-woman; I go by she/her.)

I am Pro-Fujoshi, Pro-Shipping (Anti-Anti), Pro-Fiction overall, Pro-BLM, and Anti-White-Supremacy.

I’ve just graduated high school, now entering college, and I consume and occasionally create or discuss NSFW media on this blog.

I am a victim of CSA, as well as abuse by parental figures throughout my childhood, although I’m on good terms with them now. My parents immigrated here from Bangladesh in the late 80s. My brother and I are first generation Bangladeshi-Americans. My parents are Muslim, my brother and I aren’t so much, though we know a lot about Islam and have faced bigotry and Islamophobia (coupled with Xenophobia and general Racism) throughout our lives.

I enjoy writing Fanfiction. My tendency in fandoms is to love the main character and ship them with most of the other characters, with an overwhelming majority of those ships composing of the males in that content.

I draw a lot, although my art isn’t very good by any means.

I’m in a lot of anime fandoms and some video game fandoms, feel free to ask me about them, as well as what my ships are or to talk about them, write short stories or ideas, headcanons, etc. some fandoms include Mob Psycho 100, DBH, BnHA/MHA, KnB, KHR, Haikyuu!, One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Boruto, Sk8 the Infinity, Dr. Stone, To Your Eternity, Hamefura/My Next Life as a Villainess, and so on (again, feel free to inquire).

One of my most popular bouts of writing is my DBH Connor-centric Harem series called The Mostly Human AU (#MHAU). The link for the masterpost of its content is https://jui-imouto-chan.tumblr.com/post/176829955798/mostly-human-au . I may continue it eventually, and I do still technically take prompts.

I have a discord server for fandom discussions, talking about Fanfiction, giving updates on fics, sharing art, and recommending content, among other things. The link for the server is https://discord.gg/2EDyfr9 .

My Ao3 is under this same name (except it’s underscores instead of hyphens).

I’m also available if anybody just wants somebody to talk to, or if y’all need a friend, someone to vent to, etc. I promise to respect your preferred pronouns, name(s), and anything about you that you tell me.

DNI if:

•An Anti-Shipper.

•A Suicide-Baiter/Support Harassment and Censorship over fiction.

•Support ALM or Police.

•Bigoted or Exclusionary (regarding LGBTQ+ identities especially).

Anyways, I’m off to write more fanfic, and maybe update some chapters.

❤️ Have good days/nights! Remember that things will always get better eventually, as long as you never stop giving them a chance to! ❤️

[igotlockedintothisfandom]

Sleepless In Matheson

Requested by @kolbs92-blog​

Prompt: Bode can’t sleep at night anymore due to having nightmares of Dodge. He tries to hide it  but it becomes pretty obvious to Tyler and Kinsey and they help him out.

Notes: This is my first ask ever!!! I love you a lot. :) Also, all of my Tumblr fics for this fandom will be cross-posted onto my Ao3 as a collection. Sorry if this is bad... it’s my first fic in the Locke and Key fandom :)

My Ao3 username: RandomNerd3

Defeating Dodge did not come without its consequences. 

Bode ended up taking down the mirror from his door. When his mom asked what was wrong with it he simply said he didn’t like it anymore. He missed the concerned glances Kinsey and Tyler exchanged with each other.

A week after everything had happened Bode found himself haunted by nightmares. Sometimes he gives Dodge all the keys willingly. Sometimes it’s revealed the person they shoved through the Door wasn’t Dodge, but Ellie, his best friend’s mother. Sometimes Kinsey drowns in those caves with the rest of her friends.

Tyler was sucked into the Omega Door with their enemy, his hand just out of Kinsey’s reach...

Waking in a cold sweat Bode threw his covers off and slid on his sneakers. Tyler, the youngest Locke thought as he silently crept down the hallway armed with his trusty light stick. 

When he passed the balcony Bode froze, remembering the shape of Dodge’s broken body lying on the floor beneath him. “Tyler!” Bode hissed, the door squeaked as he turned the doorknob, pushing it open. Bypassing the light switch Bode padded next to his brother’s bed. It wasn’t until he saw the soft rise and fall of Tyler’s chest when he let himself relax again. He poked Tyler, who in response drooled into his pillow. Bode winced then, avoiding the drool puddle, climbed in next to Tyler. Once he was snuggled against Tyler’s chest and able to hear his brother’s heartbeat, Bode did his best to relax as much as he could. Eventually Bode’s eyes fluttered shut as he dreamed of his father telling him the story of the sea monster.

The next morning he woke to the sound of Tyler tripping over something. Bode opened his eyes in time to see his brother fall flat on his face. “Damn it!” Tyler exclaimed scampering to his feet. “Bode!” He yelled out his door, Bode winced then said,

“Tyler you don’t have to scream.” Tyler turned back around to find Bode wrapped up in his bedding. “I didn’t mean for you to trip on the light stick... sorry...” Bode said looking down guiltily. Tyler sighed then handed the stick back to him,

“I’m not angry okay Bode?” Tyler seemed to take in the situation, “did you have a nightmare last night?” He asked, concern laced in his eyes. Bode shook his head quickly, not wanting to burden Tyler with his trauma.

“No nightmare. I must’ve...” He trailed off thinking of a lie, “I must’ve sleep walked into your room!” Bode said running past Tyler to avoid any further questions. “Sorry!” He yelled as he raced down the hallway to the safety of his bedroom. Locking the door behind him, Bode took a deep breath then began to get ready for the day. Despite the demon being stuck in the Omega Door, Dodge’s haunting melody never left his mind. Bode, where’s the Anywhere Key? Reflections of her would ask as he passed by mirrors in the house. Bode ignored Dodge’s voice the best he could, hood pulled up and tied tightly over his ears.

As the day continued Bode didn’t notice his siblings whispering conspiratorially together in the drawing room.

Once dinner was laid out Bode suddenly felt exhausted from a long day of hunting for remaining shadow monsters. Despite everything being over, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. Bode stayed silent as his family filled the meal with talk about how their days from school went. He avoided or redirected any questions aimed at him, daydreaming of that night. “May I be excused?” Bode said the second he swallowed the last of his broccoli. His mom glanced at Tyler and Kinsey, who both shrugged unhelpfully. Luckily he got permission to go to bed early, so Bode cleared his plate and went straight to his room.

“I’m sorry mam,” the police officer said at Key House’s front door. “We believe Kinsey Locke to be among those who drowned in the caves.” Bode ran out from his hiding place shouting blasphemy at the officer. Tyler held him back, eyes squeezed shut in order to prevent tears from falling.

This time when he woke up a light shone from under his covers. Bode sighed as he took out his light stick, it’s a wonder he hasn’t needed to replace the batteries yet. Pulling on socks Bode opened his door then once again made his way to one of his sibling’s rooms. This time he opened Kinsey’s door. 

When he saw her awake and on her phone, Bode sighed thankfully. He tried to shut the door without being noticed. Unfortunately his sister spoke up, “if you’re going to come in you might as well stay the night.” Kinsey said with a smile, she patted the empty spot on her bed. Bode turned off his stick and leaned it against the wall, close to where the headboard was so he could grab it easier. Once he was safe within Kinsey’s mountain of quilts his eyelids felt heavy. “What’s gotten into you Bode?” She asked running a hand lightly through his hair. Bode hummed, but didn’t respond. Instead wrapping his arms tighter around his sister’s leaving, breathing body. 

He missed the text Kinsey sent Tyler telling him they needed to talk.

When he woke up Bode’s face was buried in Kinsey’s pink hair. “Ugh,” Bode said peeling strands of hair off his face. “Kinsey?” He asked, his sister groaned then blinked awake.

“What is it?” She asked peeling her eyes open. Bode hesitated, maybe he should tell his siblings about his nightmares. They would be the only ones who would understand…

“Nothing,” he lied through his teeth, “thanks for letting me sleep here last night.” Bode said climbing out of bed, light stick in tow.

The third night of his nightmares was the worst.

Dodge kept her promise and destroyed his family. Not by killing them, but by tearing them apart from the inside out. Tyler and Kinsey were always fighting, his mom turned to the bottle again, and his uncle Rufus would refuse to step a foot in Key House. Bode’s dad was still dead, that was the only constant throughout the hell of his nightmarish thoughts. “Bode wake up!” A voice called out, but wasn’t he already awake? Bode thought to himself as he watched Kinsey’s body lowering into the ground next to the other Lockes who died on the property.

“Bode!”

His eyes snapped open to Tyler and Kinsey shaking him awake. Bode blindly reached around his bedroom until he found his light stick then he turned it on, the light warming his room. “Bode, you’re not okay are you?” Tyler asked as Kinsey crawled dutifully into bed next to him. Bode sighed then shook his head, turning to listen to his sister’s heartbeat. “It’s okay to not be okay right now Bode.” Tyler said wrapping his arms around them both, “Dodge isn’t coming back anytime soon. We have all the keys locked in the music box, and the crown is hidden well enough no one will find it.” He comforted as Kinsey’s eyes fluttered close. Bode turned around to face his brother,

“Do you really think Dodge is gone?” He asked Tyler, who nodded.

“Maybe not forever, but for right now? Yes Bode, she’s gone. We’re alive, and we’re all safe.” Bode sighed, then curled into a tighter ball against his big brother’s chest. 

Perhaps his nightmares won’t haunt him anymore.

#Locke and key #fanfiction #this is my first fanfic in this fandom #tyler locke #kinsey locke #bode locke #nightmares #ptsd #but mildly but still there #angst #heavy angst #comfort #sunggles #PrOtEcT Bode at all costs #fluff #hurt/comfort #ao3 #crossposted #sorry if it's bad #bad writing #first time writing from a smoll bean's pov #bode is a bean #they only have one brain cell okay? #protect the locke siblings at all costs #they are siblings not dating #i shouldn't have to clear that up but here we are #no ships #be nice to this fic guys #it's my first in this fandom #please comment i like to see what people think of my writing

[tarralin]

A Turn of Events

Fox Hunt, Chapter Ten

(Board gifted by @under-sengoku-skies)

Find Master List, Ao3, and Ko-Fi links in blog bio!

Thank you @rainyluneotome for beta reading!

~*~

RM’s time at Kasugayama passed slowly, if not a little on the boring side. Shingen’s constant flirty playboy act grew old after the first full day but at least it meant he was still interested in her. He’d set her up in a lavish room that seemed more suited for a visiting dignitary. Opulencency had always been a sign of great wealth and RM knew such resources could be useful. For that, she’d deal with the cheesy talk and keep in his good graces until the other boss-- the actual owner of the castle whom she hadn't met yet-- came back from a skirmish among his territories.

Sasuke became a quick friend and accompanied her through the local town when he wasn't being more scientist than ninja and poring through the notebooks she’d brought him. She almost got a genuine smile from him the few times she dropped modern culture references.

Yukimura hovered constantly. Every time she turned a corner or questioned a maid, he was there-- suspicion clear in his eyes. She tried to remain polite and friendly, but his endless badgering depleted the minuscule amount of patience she possessed before her thirty-sixth hour in the Sengoku.

“What’s your problem?” She snapped at breakfast the second morning. “Can’t a girl have a single moment's peace?”

His eyes knit together indignantly as he set his bowl down. “Look, I don't what kind of sorcery your family practices. Your sister managed to lure the Devil himself into her spell, so I can only imagine what you're trying to work on Lord Shingen.”

From the corner of her eye, RM watched Sasuke’s gaze drop to the floor as he massaged his brow in humiliation.

Did he really just… He did. Homeboy did. And he believes what he says, too. You've got to be shitting me…

I'm in Hillbilly Hell.

RM took pride in the fact that she managed to keep her thoughts to herself, instead glancing at Sasuke as she rose to her feet to leave the room. “I'm not even going to touch that. I'm likely to damage Homeboy’s feelings beyond repair if I did.”

Breakfast the third morning of RM’s residence arrived without word from Shingen’s retrieval team. She made it her personal mission to be as complicated as possible for any who crossed her path...

But he got the ‘Extra Salty’ package.

“Angel, why must you wound me with the discarded robes of a page-boy? Are the garments I've provided not to your liking?”

RM never glanced up, focusing solely on her hashi as they swooped between her lips and the plate. If there was one she learned growing up with four brothers, it's that tiny jabs on their pride hurt men the most. Choosing to wear a page's attire instead of the decadent kimonos he'd supplied was just the first attack on Shingen. “You expect me to trust your judgment? Now? I'll pass. I’ve already spoken with the castle seamstresses on alternatives, thank you.”

“My men may be delayed, but--”

“They're not delayed, they're dead!”

Shingen’s eyes narrowed slightly and RM finally glimpsed through to the warlord instead of the playboy facade he insisted on fronting. “You've said something similar before. Why?”

A cruel chuckle slipped from her as she leaned back onto her heels. “You sent a team after a target you had a rather impressive lack of intel on. A team of only four people that, as I've mentioned, are probably dead because, guess what? You messed with the wrong fucking princess!” RM popped the rubber band on her wrist as she felt the anger stirring higher, an old habit that never really dulled the flames like it was supposed to, but it did redirect her thoughts to her favorite anger management activity. “Do you have a rifle range?”

Shingen’s eyes flicked between the band and her eyes in a bewilderment RM was accustomed to seeing when she snapped between topics. “Uh, yes, at the troop camp. I’m planning an inspection this evening--”

RM jumped to her feet and strolled from the dining area without another word.

~*~

It wasn't until she was in the middle of camp that she realized she hadn't thought this idea of hers all the way through. This time period’s firearm of choice was a matchlock musket. Ammunition consisted of powder cartridges that had to be manually loaded for each shot and even a ram rod to pack the bullet down the barrel. I was wrong, I didn't survive the fall. The wormhole killed me and I'm in Sharp Shooter’s Hell!

She was peacefully observing the firing line reloading their rifles for the next round when she spotted a familiar red robe coming her way through the haze of gunsmoke. Oh fuck, identify compromised… Abort! Abort!

She’d just ducked behind a tent when Yuki’s voice carried across the remaining distance. “What in the Hells are you doing here?”

“Good morning to you too, Sunshine.”

He gave an eye roll that could rival MC’s famous gesture of irritation. “I asked what you were doing here, not wish you a good morning. And where is Lord Shingen?”

“I left him at the castle. I’m likely to blast his face off if I see it again today. Which is why I'm here-- I need to shoot something that won't end with me in the executioner’s sights.”

Yukimura scrubbed a hand over his face. “Look, I don't really have time to babysit--”

“Then don’t,” she sidestepped him without further comment, letting out a piercing whistle that gained the attention of the gathered riflemen that had just started lining up their shots and pulled out her signature southern belle smile. “Hey, go take fifteen. You've earned it!”

Yukimura remained in place as the men passed by, making no attempt to hide the indignation splayed across his features. “Care to tell me why you just dismissed the squadron?”

“Already did,” she sighed as she gathered the loaded pistols close together and within her reach, checking each match chord as she did. Good, still lit.

She’d observed the gun squad enough to guesstimate the recoil of the musket. There wasn't much of a breeze today to interfere with bullet trajectory and her accuracy was never in question. So, aside from that initial terror of handling antique weapons, she was as confident as she could be. How often would she get to fire a five-hundred year old musket while still in its prime?

Kneeling in final preparation, she took her shot and a sliver of satisfaction rose within her just as the cloud of spent powder lifted on the wind. One down…

RM repeated the same routine with each preloaded rifle, only switching to the next furthest target once changing to the next gun. The familiar ritual of lining up a perfect shot helped melt away the morning tension. She’d always had trouble focusing on one topic for extended periods of time when her brain took in every little detail around her and was always running at full speed. Shooting was one of few activities that slowed it back down but, much like her brain, it was fast paced and she blew through her targets in near record time.

She huffed out a breath while she waited for her ears to stop ringing. What to do now? I could go see if the seamstresses have any of my clothes ready…

The ringing subsided but there were still whistles calling out around her. Glancing up, she found the gun squad had returned from their impromptu break and caught her show. They were applauding so passionately she couldn't just leave without giving them a showman’s bow and wave. “Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week!”

“And who has declared that?”

At the chilled voice, the smiling men scrambled to stand at attention in a perfect line. Her own military instincts kicked in with the general panic of commander on deck and she immediately fell in rank at the end of line, giving the closest man a quick once over to match his stance. An icy wind blew through the rank line as gravel crunched under the determined steps headed her way. The flash of platinum hair in her vision was nearly as blinding as the glint of steel that followed and laid flat on her shoulder at the base of her neck.

“Yukimura! Why is there a woman here? I thought it was clear that entertainment was not  allowed in camp.”

Breaking rank, RM raised a brow in the newcomer’s direction. “Well, I'm not jumping through flaming hoops or anything.”

“Not that kind of entertainment…” Yuki snapped as he joined them, ears turning a darker shade of red. “She’s a friend of Sasuke’s who ran into trouble and Lord Shingen has welcomed her as a guest. I'm still trying to figure out why she's here, though.”

“I told you I needed to shoot something, not my fault you didn't believe me.”

“Why would I believe the sister of the Oda Enchantress?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake… Look, if either of us turns out to be a ‘vile enchantress’, I can promise it’ll be me!” Yuki stepped back at her words as if he’d been bitten by a snake. RM turned back to the man in front of her and batted the sword off her shoulder. “Sorry to be a disruption. I’m leaving.”

She didn't make it a step before the sharpened edge was pressed to her throat. “ ‘Sister of the Oda’, did I hear that correctly?”

“Technically, I'm sister to the Princess but, yes, you heard right.” She ducked under the sword only to feel it in place again. What’s this guy's problem?

“Y-you were victorious in battle then, Kenshin?” Yuki moved between the two, successfully taking all the attention of the blond man.

“That mockery could not even earn the title of battle.” Finally sheathing the blade, the one called Kenshin turned on his heel and marched off as if he hadn't just tried to give her a new windpipe.

“Just get back to the castle,” Yuki snapped over his shoulder before following after the blue clad commander.

With an eye roll, RM started back the way she came until the rifle line caught her attention again. The poor guys remained stock still at attention and several shades paler in the face, no doubt due to the scene that had just played before them. “At ease, boys!”

Each man blinked several times, even turning to each other for a moment but remained mostly at attention. RM sighed before forcing herself to pull out her long abandoned lieutenant voice. “I said ‘at ease’! Reload while you're at it!”

There was the desired effect as the men visibly relaxed and returned to their previous tasks. There, that’s better, thank you.

She really did try to walk away from the camp but the hand-to-hand drills just seemed… off. They can't honestly be pairing the brutes against the kids…

She couldn't walk away until that was fixed.

~*~

“Is that your fifth bottle already?” Sasuke warned her of his employer’s trigger happy attitude and extreme alcohol tolerance, but damn if she still wasn't impressed as she and Sasuke joined Yuki and Kenshin. The blond in question simply tipped back another cup full as if she hadn’t spoken. Where does he put it all?

“Sake doesn't effect Kenshin much, aside from potentially shortening the lifespan of those around him,” Sasuke informed.

“So, nothing new then?”

“Sad that you know that already,” Yuki rolled his eyes before they snapped back to focus on her, pink flushing over his features. “Seven Hells! What are you wearing?”

RM beamed a smile and spun a quick twirl for full inspection as she dropped into criss-cross on a free floor cushion. “This is what the seamstresses have been working on for me. The garments Shingen gifted are gorgeous and beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I could barely breathe! I’m a gymnast, I need to move. So, they whipped me up some things similar to the ninja here but in Takeda colors. Oh wow, looks kind of like yours, huh?”

“Yukimura, where is Shingen?” Kenshin piped up as he poured another cup of sake, ending the previous discussion.

Yuki’s gaze wavered between her and Kenshin a moment as he cleared his throat. “A… messenger arrived with news he’s been awaiting.”

RM perked at that. “From Azuchi?”

“Would I be here if I accompanied him?”

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes as she chucked a nearby pillow at Yukimura's head. “If I knew that, I wouldn't have asked you.”

“Yuki, must you upset your angel so much?”

RM turned to the entering voice, ignoring the sputtering tomato across from her, and instead pouring a generous cup of sake for the Tiger. “You've received news from Azuchi?”

Whatever joking mood Shingen had been in vanished with her question as his eyes lost their glimmer. He didn't speak until after downing the contents of his cup. “I have.”

Well, that tone never means anything good.

“I sent four men to capture Oda's princess but they never made it to Azuchi.” To iterate his point, Shingen dropped four headbands onto the table before her. “Instead, a squadron four times that size attacked the castle three nights ago. My mitsumono have learned a young guard took a death blow intended for Date Masamune.”

His eyes dropped back to the table, avoiding RM’s gaze completely. She tilted forward pointedly, forcing him to look at her. “And?”

He downed another cup of sake, savoring the burn before continuing. “The princess was injured. Rumor is she hasn't woken since the attack.”

Now, it was RM’s turn to swish the burn of sake at the news. An injury wouldn't be a problem normally back home, but here? Infections… Unhygienic practices… Hell, were there any kind of pain managements during this time aside from biting down on something?

After downing another cup of sake, she jumped to her feet and started from the banquet hall.

Yukimura was on her heels after a silent command from Shingen. “Where are you going?”

“Azuchi.”

“You can't go to there!” Yukimura grabbed her arm in attempt to slow her pace. The contact had her swirling, pivoting behind to shove him into the wall and pinning both arms to his back while her weight immobilized him. She ignored the deathly silence that fell over the banquet hall.

“Let's get one thing clear. I've been here of my own choosing this whole time, waiting for my sister who was supposedly being brought to Kasugayama. Well, now we know she's not coming because she's injured. I have medicine from home and I'm taking it to her. So stay out of my way; I'll be gone by dawn.”

It didn't take long to gather her belongings as she always kept things mostly in her pack in case she had to make a quick getaway. After stuffing her newly crafted clothing into the bag, she glanced about the room for any valuable trinkets she might be able to trade that wouldn't be missed. Everything looked as if it belonged in a museum to her and she ended up wrapping a random hand full of sparkly things into a coin bag. Only thing left to do was pull a vegetable sack over the rucksack as not to pull attention with its obvious untimely design.

She had just shrugged her pack onto her shoulders when a nervous shout reached her ears from the hallway, followed by the distinctive shatter of a ceramic vase. What the-

Poking her head in the hallway only earned more questions. Why is Sasuke in the rafters? Why is Kenshin chasing Yuki? And what in the hell does he plan to do with that sword?

“Sasuke!” Yuki called to the ceiling ninja. “Get down here!”

“Alliances are broken all the time, Yukimura. Good luck in the afterlife!” With that, the ninja hopped across the rafters and out of sight.

“What the--” she raised her brows to Yuki but the swipe of steel interrupted her.

“This is normal.”

“This is normal?” RM laughed at the absurdity as Yuki dodged another feral swipe from the blond, dropping her rucksack back onto the floor. Maybe these guys knew how to have fun after all. “Then why are you running?”

“Just because I'm used to it doesn't mean I have a death wish!”

“Ha! Okay… then I'm borrowing this!” Without another word, RM snatched Yuki’s katana from the scabbard at his waist to meet the God of War’s blow.

~*~

“She… She’s what?”

Shingen didn't hear that right. He couldn't have. There was absolutely no possible way he heard what he thought did from his loyal vassal.

“She stole my sword and is meeting Kenshin blow for blow. With the look he had on his face, I thought he was about to fall over dead from shock at first. Then, she went on the offensive!”

Shingen watched as Yukimura’s eyes cycled through a number of emotions as he relayed the turn of events. Shock and surprise giving way to a kind of wonder and acceptance. He hadn't missed the way his vassal’s eyes lingered after the newcomer’s footsteps or his overbearing nature the last few days. Yuki always had trouble being honest with himself but his extreme actions were all the sign Shingen needed. However, aside from a few comments of her being ‘Yuki’s angel’, there wasn't much that could be done.

Shingen grinned up to Yukimura. This new development may be just the push the two needed. “Yuki, make sure your angel doesn't leave the compound. We'll bring her with us tomorrow to the combat inspection we didn't get to complete today.”

“What? Why?”

“To see what else she can do. She may be a good fit as a new mitsumono.” He hated lying to the lad but the plan required it.

Yuki rolled his eyes at that. “I doubt she’d be interested in that.”

Shingen shrugged. “Maybe not, but we'll see the extent of foreign capabilities while we have one with us.”

That seemed to pacify the little lord for now as he finally conceded with a nod. “I'll make sure she doesn't leave… but stop calling her my ‘angel’!”

Not a chance. Shingen was still chuckling to himself long after Yuki left. 

#ikemen segoku #ikesen #ikesen yukimura #ikesen sasuke #ikesen shingen #ikesen kenshin #fox hunt #my writing

[markipwiwer]

What’s Happening With Markipwiwer’s Blog?

Shalom, comrades.

So we all know the news by now. Tumblr is banning NSFW content.

This blog shouldn’t be affected by the purge, interestingly enough, because as far as I can tell erotic literature won’t be banned.

Already though, I’m seeing a sharp decline in NSFW content. It’s almost impossible to search for and to find blogs and if you’re not already following NSFW blogs, then good luck finding porn.

This isn’t just about porn though and we all know that. Tumblr has never been family-friendly and the fact that it’s trying to cut out such a core chunk of its user base is laughable.

Sex workers are being forced off of the only viable platform they have. Artists are having potential commissions - potentially their only source of income - taken away from them. And the queer community is being silenced. Our freedom of expression is being suppressed in a drastic way. There are so many kids out there (I was certainly one of them) who are struggling with their sexual and gender identity that the community on Tumblr has helped. And now the “sex” in sexuality is being censored. That’s not helpful, that’s dangerous.

So what am I doing?

Well, I won’t be deleting my blog. If it disappears, be sure that Tumblr has purged it. My porn blog is likely to disappear and my main might die as well. I don’t know yet.

I’ll continue to post what I can. I can’t really link to AO3 anymore because of the link purge. But I’ll still post incorrect quotes when I can, and I’ll try to fill most of the requests I still have.

If anyone has suggestions about alternatives to Tumblr, please let me know. Whether it’s reworking a currently used platform like Insta or Twitter, or some new platform entirely. All I know is that the viewership of my posts is going to decline because of Tumblr.

I will continue to write stories about queerness, about identity, about sex, about gender, about polyamory, about love. Because these things shouldn’t be censored. I will keep being loud, proud and Horny On Main until I die. No matter what platform it is.

Insta: @its.markipwiwer

Twitter: @markipwiwer

Discord: https://discord.gg/e6vhk6s (Never expires, highly recommend joining because I update most frequently there.)

#markipwiwer #anyway #dantistache #markiplier #markipliertag2

[philosophicalparadox]

Fanfic masterpost

I can’t add links to Tumblr anymore, but I can still direct your attentions, can’t I? 

For those of you who care (because DAMN my follower count has shot up recently; Thank you!) You can find me on Fanfiction . net under the name Kaze no Akatsuki. I do not post my fanfics on Wattpad (nor anything else for that matter) anymore because frankly, I don’t like the community. I am ALL for constructive critisism, will beg for it even, but even I only have so much patience for people who never have anything nice to say. I also, sadly, don’t post on AO3 though there’s not really a reason for that, I just have never visited the site, so I don’t know what to gauge of it yet. 

That said, here are the titles and summaries of some of my fanfictions if you ever want to check them out. I can’t post them directly here, due to Tumblr rules about word count, (my chapters are always no less than 4k words) as well as the fact that I don’t remotely trust their algorithm not to flag me. But I can redirect!

Note: I will NOT be posting the names/summaries of works that have been discontinued, are on hiatus, or are under revision. The only ones to appear here are completed or in-progress works. 

In the BLUE EXORCIST fandom: 

1. Captivity, an aimless kind of fanfic that just blows where the wind is taking it. I normally have some idea in mind, but this one is just sort of writing itself, if that makes sense. It focuses on Lucifer, Homare, and Beelzebub so far.

Summary:  An intelligence gathering experience forces Lucifer out of his comfort zone, in more ways than one. The threat of unholy war hangs in the air, but that isn't going to stop him from indulging in more...mortal, curiosities. A fic examining the relationship between Lucifer and his siblings, as well as, pressingly, his lieutenant. LuciferXHomare...mostly.

2. Unbecoming: A longer fic, in progress, which is my first ever attempt at dipping into the horror genre. And it is horror. I’m talking gore, lore, and more. If ever you wanted to get a good look at my (dark) interpretation of Mephisto’s demon side, this is the fic for you. Cannibalism included. 

Summary:  What happens when you put a big mind in a small box? A tiger in a cage with lambs? A demon in a room full of exwires? Lucifer wants to find out. Boredom is a demons constant companion, but even Mephisto can only take so much. How long before the demon loses it? A game of wills, wits, and psychological pressure has begun. In the game of chess, only one king can win. Checkmate. 

In the BLACK BUTLER fandom: 

1. Almost Human: The only oneshot I have ever wrote, and also the only T-rated fic I have, though I debated on that rating for a while. An introspective look, I guess, at Ciel (our Ciel) being haunted, literally, by his past. 

Summary:  When Ciel is plagued by visions of the late Vincent Phantomhive, he gets the feeling that his phantasmal father wants to tell him something. Unbeknownst to him, that 'thing' just so happens to have the potential to unravel the complex relationship he has with his demon butler - as well as reveal the darkest sides of himself.

In the HELLSING ULTIMATE fandom: 

1. Telepathic Heart: is THE longest fanfiction I have ever written, and it is complete (for now) with a sequel in the works. Note that it is AluSeras, though AluTegra is mentioned.

Summary:  Breathing some fresh life into an overused plot. Integra is mortal; there's nothing Alucard can do about it. (Not without risking the sanctity of the relationship he has with her anyway) And Mortals die. But sometimes, their ghosts just won't leave- and maybe turn up in some unexpected places. Mostly AluSeras, slight Alu-tegra, and Angst, because Alucard's a widow many times over.

And now, for the fics belonging to fandoms that are not a part of my blog, just in case you are interested in them:

In the SERAPH OF THE END Fandom:

1. Clip My Wings: I don’t actually know about the fate of this one, but I hope to continue with it. 

Summary:  Two friends, torn apart by time, space and species, now take refuge together with the outliers of the Moon Demon Company. It would seem all is saved, but Mika is not human, and he knows it - even if everyone else tries to forget. In the wake of their time spent together, will Yuu and the crew adopt a new attitude towards vampires? And what are the consequences of this? Anime-verse.

In the YU YU HAKUSHO fandom (which I highly recommend to my Blue Exorcist followers; if you know it, you will doubtlessly recognize the hints that are in Captivity): 

1. Words as Weapons: I haven’t updated this fic in so long, though it is still going. I merely have to get around to finishing the next chapter, which is easier said than done. Gosh I wish I didn’t always pick the most complicated character dynamics sometimes. 

Summary:  In which an unprecedented side effect of Yusuke's transformation threatens to either change his world entirely or leave it in a state of total devastation- though as long as Kurama and Hiei are there to pick up the pieces, each is equally as likely to happen. A slightly dark take on Yusuke's demon transformation, with a dash of Yaoi to add some contrast. YusukexKuramaxHiei.

I apologize now if this seems in any way promotional -- it’s not, I swear it! I just wanted my followers to know what to look for and where to find them. (pfft, like you can’t just see my profile, though I don’t think that’s an option open to guests. Hence why I’m putting it here!)

Look around, or don’t, up to you! And THANK YOU to every one who has reblogged, liked  or followed me of late. I appreciate it. ;p

#fanfiction #masterpost

[n3rdlif343va]

Chasing Gold Zine Promo Ficlet No. 5

The fourth ficlet in my promos for my piece in the @yoichasinggoldzine! (read on Ao3: Memories )

This is an AU where Yuuri and Victor are retired Olympic athletes, who now coach Paralympic athletes. You can follow the series on Ao3 here

Ficlet 1, Ficlet 2, Ficlet 3 , Ficlet 4 on Tumblr

Pre-orders are now OPEN but the bundles are going fast! Please head to the blog to place your orders!!

The suitcases were propped by the front door. Yuri’s bike stood in the middle of the living room, shining and waiting to be slipped into its protective bag. Plane tickets were tucked in the front of Victor’s carry on, along with the USB drive containing Yuri’s medical history and copies of every document that Victor had completed on Yuri’s behalf. Everything was tagged, organized and ready for their early morning departure.

Alone in the darkness of his own bedroom, Victor stared at the ceiling as he mentally reviewed their list and schedule for the following day. He had memorized every detail, yet he couldn’t tell his brain it was time to shut down for sleep. Apprehension and worry weighed heavier on him than the down blanket covering his body on the bed.

He owed Yuri victory. He owed Yuri his time and his care. He owed Yuri distinctive proof that his life and career weren’t over. Not out of any obligation dictated by his place as Yuri’s coach, but out of the love that he held for the young man, deep-seated and unspoken within his heart. And out of his own guilt, which still wallowed in his stomach like a lurking beast waiting to devour him.

Groaning, Victor rolled onto his side, burying his face into his pillow. No matter what Yuri said, Victor knew that Yuri had gone to the lake because Victor had trained there. He had gone alone, returning wet and gloating when Yakov got to him in the parking lot of their training facility. Victor had stood idly by, distracted by his own departure for what would be inevitably his last performance in the world’s most prestigious competition. He hadn’t known that at the time, just as he hadn’t known that the miniscule cut across Yuri’s shin had introduced deadly bacteria into his body.

Lying on his stomach, Victor gripped his pillow, fists clenching and unclenching. He had left Russia with Yakov, last seeing Yuri’s back disappearing into the locker rooms moving with the jaunty walk of the young teenager he was. All was quiet until the night after Victor’s race. When his phone rang, the world stopped spinning, and Victor had thrown all of his belongings into the closest bags. He raced from his room, his vision tunneled to the tragedy happening at home.

No matter how hard he tried, Victor couldn’t erase the image of Yuri, small and frail in the middle of the sterile hospital room. By the time he had reached St. Petersburg, Yakov leading the way through the long hallways filled with the smell of people balanced between life and death, Yuri’s leg had already been amputated and the antibiotics had begun to fight the remaining threats of infection. Yuri was asleep for three days, worn out from his body’s battle to save its own life.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Victor tried to will away the threat of the memory, but it came to him anyway.

“Yura, listen to the doctor,” Yakov said, placing a firm hand on Yuri’s arm to try to calm his thrashing. Yuri had been awake for less than thirty minutes and all hell was breaking loose. Victor leaned against the window, Mila standing at his side, both of them wishing that they didn’t have to watch Yuri’s life shatter.

“Fuck the doctor,” Yuri spat, clawing the oxygen tubes from his nose and throwing the hollow plastic to the ground. Victor winced, letting his shoulders sink as he felt Mila press closer to his side. “He stole my fucking leg.” To emphasize his point, Yuri threw back the bed covers, revealing his leg which now ended at his knee.

“The removal of that portion of your leg was necessary to save your life,” the doctor took a deep breath, maintaining eye contact with Yuri as he continued, “before you leave here, you will be fitted with a prosthesis. You will walk again and you will live. In this situation you are very lucky.”

Rage ripping from Yuri in a primal scream, he grabbed the tissue box on his roll away tray and threw it against the wall. The sharp thud made everyone in the room jump, with the exception of the doctor. “I’m a triathlete with no leg. If I can’t compete, then I have no life. You should have let me die.”

Tears soaked through the fabric covering Victor’s pillow. When the anger had passed, Yuri had become nothing but a shell, a ghost of the fiery person he had always been. Victor had gone to the hospital every day, sitting quietly in the room with a book in his lap, never asking the questions that everyone else did. He saw Yuri leave for physical therapy and return, only to unhook and drop his new leg to the ground, without expression or feeling. Yuri hadn’t died from the infection, but his spirit had.

One day Victor had run late for his visit. His head had finally cleared of the emotional fog and he had attempted to catch up on the remaining results from the games he had so abruptly abandoned. Yuuri’s retirement announcement glared at him from the screen of his laptop, flipping his world upside down for the second time in ten days. Scanning the article with a shaky hand on his touchpad, he picked up only on the key details. Yuuri had retired the morning after Victor had left the athlete’s compound, information that made Victor’s stomach sour instantly. A week later, an announcement was made that Yuuri would be coaching Paralympic hopeful Kenjirou Minami.

With thoughts of Yuuri and his abrupt change in career path, Victor had walked into Yuri’s hospital room, mind halfway somewhere else. The shouts slamming off the walls had immediately gained his full attention. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had stumbled upon the idea of redirecting Yuri’s training. The fight occurring in front of him centered on Yakov stating his inability to coach Yuri and Yuri screaming at his former coach for abandoning him.

Victor remembered making his offer at a volume barely above a whisper. He didn’t know anything about being a coach, but he also refused to continue his own career if it meant competing without Yuuri Katsuki. Yakov had thrown up his hands and dragged Victor backwards from the room, barking about Victor throwing away his life.

His decision to coach Yuri had never felt like that though. He had poured through every book and medical journal he could find in order to develop a training regimen for Yuri. He had purchased Yuri’s modified bike with his own money and found a sponsor to pay for the specialized prosthesis that Yuri wore to race. When Yuri had shown up on his doorstep, duffle bag and two trash bags filled with clothes sitting beside him, Victor had welcomed him in without hesitation.

Rolling over again, Victor returned to his spot staring at the ceiling. It no longer mattered why Victor had offered to coach Yuri or why Yuri had accepted the offer. They were a partnership, a coach and an athlete fighting for one goal. Until Yuri lowered himself into the water. Then Victor would have to stand back, he would have to let Yuri go and pray that all the training was enough to carry him through to gold. All of the confidence Victor had felt before his own races was missing now, leaving him only with trepidation and desperate silent pleas for Yuri’s success. He would turn in all of his gold medals, if only to give Yuri this one.

Sighing, Victor forced his eyes closed feeling the tears catch on his eyelashes. Wordlessly, he begged his mind to quiet and finally let him sleep.

Down the hallway, Yuri laid in his bed, cat draped over his chest, wondering if tomorrow was the beginning or the ending of his life. With silent tears rolling down his face, Yuri closed his eyes as exhaustion overtook him.

#yoi #yuri on ice #yoi chasing gold zine #chasing gold zine #yuri plisetsky #victor nikiforov #paralympic AU #promo ficlet number 5 #nerd zines

[asexualshepard]

Sleeping on the Blacktop

Gen, Rhys x Handsome Jack (kind of)

(2410 words, SFW, Western AU, Angst (?), Mentions of Graphic Violence, Power Dynamics)

[ao3]

A/N: I wrote something? I had to actually go look at my own blog to see how I format these posts because I forgot. But it’s done! And I actually still kind of like it. This AU has wormed its way into my heart a bit, and I’d like to write the actual beginning - because this comes in somewhere in the middle of the whole arc I have planned in my head, which is why there might be some references that don’t make total sense.

Anyways, thanks for reading! Enjoy!

Rhys has thought about shooting Jack more than once.

It’s a notion that’s come to him a handful of times, molded and stuck to various moments. He hasn’t, of course—not yet. But every so often, sometimes brought to light by something Jack had done, sometimes by the quiet loathing that slides between Rhys’ fingers, he desperately wants to. He wants to press the barrel of his revolver—the one currently sitting in his lap—to Jack’s temple while he sleeps. Maybe push it into Jack’s gut one day, out of the blue so he can see the shock of it in Jack’s eyes as his light flickers and finally goes out, wrinkling the V-shaped scar that mars his forehead.

At this moment, with his back pressed to the rock outcropping they’d made camp in for the night, Rhys is considering the first option. Across the slowly dying fire meant to keep the chill of the desert night from wrapping itself around them, Jack is lying in the dirt, arms folded across his broad chest, hat tipped over his eyes. Rhys won’t do it—for a handful of both logical and illogical reasons—but that doesn’t mean he can’t fantasize, plan and plot in case he does.

It would be so easy. Too easy—which is one of those aforementioned logical reasons. If Jack is actually asleep and not trying to play some kind of game, he’s relatively defenseless. His pack is at his feet, the only possession within reach being his revolver, still holstered and threatening to slip from the worn leather into the dry dirt beneath them. Easily dealt with. Rhys has learned how to be quiet; he could creep over and be done with Jack in a matter of seconds.

Rhys blinks and shifts his gaze, glancing out at the darkened desert, idly thumbing at the barrel of his revolver, popping the cylinder out and pushing it back in. He hefts the weight of the gun in his palm. The shape of it is familiar now, but there’s an implication that comes with it—practically carved into the wood—that makes him feel sick.

Jack had given the revolver to him. Picked it up from the dirt where it had fallen as Jack killed the highwayman who’d been carrying it, beating the corpse until it was nearly unrecognizable as human, face beaten in and limbs twisted. Excessive, brutal in a way that made Rhys’ stomach curl. Rhys can easily recall Jack’s eyes, wide and wild as he slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s nose, cheekbones, jaw, over and over.

It wasn’t the first time Rhys had seen Jack kill someone—not even close; the man murdered more people than he cheated out of money—but it was the first time he’d seen Jack lose control.

That was the first time Rhys had thought of shooting him. When Jack rubbed one of his hands across his forehead, smearing blood and dirt across his scar, and picked up the corpse’s revolver to turn and push it into Rhys’ hand, eyes wild but reins mostly regained. It was that sudden, physical transition—so seamless Rhys had wondered if he’d actually seen Jack go off the deep end for a second—that made his fingers first itch around the gun in his hand, the gun he didn’t know how to use.

He could have done it, that day. They’d been less than half a day from the nearest town; Rhys easily could have shot Jack—still out of it, still wild and careless, though composed—and left him to bleed out and rot in the desert with nothing but the mutilated corpses of the highwaymen for company. He could have backtracked and found a train to take him home, back to his glasses and rowdy customers, back to his saloon.

When Rhys asks himself why he didn’t do it, he answers that it was because he’d just watched Jack outmaneuver and brutally kill four men, all larger than him. When he asks why he didn’t do it that night, once they’d settled down after Jack had taught him how to shoot properly, once Jack had put him up to the task of watch and settled in the dirt to sleep, he says it’s because he was still in shock at seeing a man’s brain spread out across the rocks, or that killing a man in his sleep was too low to sink. He still uses the latter, actually. If he needs to, he can always reach for the stump of his right shoulder and pretend to do math, conveniently working out that his chances of dispatching Jack with one arm are slim.

There’s always some kind of excuse. They help Rhys ignore that, in reality, Jack pulls at the strings of curiosity in his back until they’re taut. Jack intrigues him. He’s a man in his forties with a bounty on his head large enough that he won’t tell Rhys the exact amount, a man who can kill four men larger and stronger than him without batting an eye. A man who crowds Rhys’ space. A man who flirts with and threatens Rhys all in the same breath.

Jack is terrifying, and Rhys wants to know everything about him—won’t kill him until he does.

He’s starting to think he’ll never get to.

“You’re staring pretty hard for someone who’s already seen me naked, kiddo.”

Rhys blinks. He’s not sure when his eyes made their way back to Jack, but it was long enough ago that, in his unfocused state, he missed Jack shifting, tipping his head to the side so the brim of his hat catches on his shoulder and reveals one of his eyes—the blue one, some stupid part of Rhys notes. It’s still shadowed, but the iris reflects the light of the fire, reminds Rhys of that day with the highwaymen.

Jack sniffs and shifts his shoulders against the dirt, brow lifting up to hide in his hat. “What’s goin’ on in that pretty little pea-brain of yours, sweetheart?”

Rhys swallows the anxiety crawling up his throat and considers lying. He also considers telling the truth.

In the end, he says nothing.

At the silence, Jack sneers and huffs obnoxiously, shifting to roll up onto his elbows so he can rise to his feet. It takes a few seconds—Rhys has taken into account that the gray streaks in Jack’s hair aren’t the only effects of his age—but he makes it eventually and reaches down to do a shitty job of patting the dirt from his clothes. Then, he rounds the fire, puts himself directly between the slowly dimming light and heat and Rhys’ thin frame.

It would be so, so easy to push him into the embers, Rhys’ brain provides.

Jack isn’t particularly tall—Rhys has a few inches on him when they’re both standing—but, especially with his hands on his hips, he is broad. He strikes an imposing figure with his wide shoulders, strong jaw, large hands. Even with all the layers of heavy clothing stripped away, Rhys knows—has personally experienced—that Jack doesn’t need them to be the dominant person in the room, despite his stature.

Rhys swallows again and presses back into the sharper angles of the rocks against his back, trying to redirect himself from that confusing array of thoughts and memories. He busies his fingers with his revolver, presses on the cylinder until it pops out, listening to the quiet click that comes with it. At the sound, Jack’s eyes flicker downward, sharp, catching the way the nail of Rhys’ thumb scrapes against the metal warmed by the constant contact of his skin.

Jack’s gaze freezes on the cylinder, his brows twitch, and his eyes take on that same wild quality Rhys had seen the day he got the gun in his hand.

Rhys snaps the cylinder shut.

He knows.

Every bone in Rhys’ body is rattling, itching beneath his muscles, muttering those words in a hushed mantra. He sees it in the edge of Jack’s eyes, like the glass of broken bottles and one man standing over others after a late-night brawl. It’s in the clench of Jack’s jaw and the crescents being carved into the supple leather of Jack’s coat by his dirty fingernails.

Jack knows about Rhys’ little fantasy and, even if Rhys wouldn’t have, won’t, he’s going to end up just like the previous owner of the revolver that is steadily gaining more and more weight against his palm. Someone, years down the road, will find his sun-bleached skeleton, skull bashed inwards and limbs shattered.

Jack moves too quickly for Rhys’ panic to spur him into action. One second Jack is staring at him—at the gun—and the next he’s swooping down to snatch it from Rhys’ now sweaty, loose grip.

“S’not even fuckin’ loaded, you idiot,” Jack spits, scowling as he presses the cylinder out.

Something in Rhys breaks, shatters and melts down his ribs, gets lodged in his throat so the breath he releases into the cool desert air shudders audibly.

“The fuck were you gonna do if some coyotes snuck up on us, huh, genius? Or bandits? What about them?”

Rhys’ lungs feel three sizes too small. “I, uh…” he breathes. It rattles in his chest. “Sorry, I… must’ve forgotten to reload after I—after I cleaned it earlier. Wasn’t thinking.”

“No shit, dumbass,” Jack growls, focus shifted to the gun now in his hands as he absentmindedly reaches down to rip Rhys’ pack from where it’s wound over his arm. Rhys decompresses as Jack digs around inside of it, moving Rhys’ small amount of possessions into a mess, no doubt, before finding what he’s looking for—a small, nearly used-up box of bullets stolen from the same man as the revolver itself. When Jack drops the pack, he specifically makes sure it lands harshly against the side of Rhys’ knee, tipping to the side and spilling a few things, such as Rhys’ expensive jar of pomade, onto the ground.

Jack mutters, rambles, as he pushes a bullet into each of the cylinders. If any of it is directed towards Rhys specifically, he doesn’t process it, nor does he process his things spread out on the dirt around him. There’s a feint buzzing between his ears, a tightness between his ribs. He’s too focused on those things to bother listening to whatever it is Jack is saying.

He only regains Rhys’ attention when he drops the now loaded revolver back into Rhys’ lap, too sudden and too close to his dick for comfort. The last of his panic is replaced by this superficial one—the kind that disappears as soon as it arrives.

With a quiet yelp, Rhys scrambles, gets the gun in his hand again, and turns his chin upwards to meet Jack’s eyes. With his panic gone, substituted for irritation at the smirk on Jack’s lips, Rhys glares. It just makes the smug twist to Jack’s features heighten.

None of the wildness in his eyes remains—come and gone just as quickly as every time before.

With a snort, Jack kicks a bit of dirt up and onto Rhys’ crotch, flicks the brim of his hat to tip it back, and turns to move back over to where he’d been sleeping before. Rhys sneers and looks down to try and salvage his pants, pretending not to follow Jack’s every move.

It makes Rhys nervous—the purpose in each of Jack’s steps as he once more rounds the fire. It’s no different from his usual gait, not really, but, after moments where Rhys sees that lack of control in Jack’s eyes, it always feels as if it is. The stride that usually feels overconfident seems to fit instead. A controlled showcase of power.

Rhys watches apprehensively as Jack stops next to the spot on the ground near his pack and straightens his back, pausing a moment before shouldering out of his coat, revealing the broad back Rhys has been trying not to think about. Then, Jack turns to look at him as he balls the coat up in his hands, and Rhys quickly focuses on his pants, rubbing at the dirt that has started to settle into the fabric.

“Hey, kid,” Jack says, words stiff and demanding.

Rhys’ shoulders tighten and he glances up, gaze hooking momentarily on the harsh line of Jack’s mouth before nervously returning to his trousers. “Yeah?”

Jack sniffs, squints. “I ever catch you without bullets in that gun again…” he starts, voice low and hard, and out of the corner of his eye Rhys sees his shoulders pull up like the hackles of a wild dog.

The pause in his words stretches, intentional, and Rhys knows exactly what Jack wants. It’s not uncommon for Jack to stop talking and wait if he thinks someone isn’t paying attention. Still, no matter how often the tactic has been used on Rhys, he’s still reluctant when he moves to meet Jack’s eyes.

They look just as they did when he first pushed the revolver into Rhys’ hand.

Jack lifts his chin, squares his shoulders. “If I ever catch you without bullets in that gun again,” he repeats. “I’ll kill ya. Understand?”

Rhys’ grip tightens on the revolver.

“Y-Yeah... Yeah, I understand.”

This time, it’s Jack who breaks, hard glare shattering into a grin that drips with satisfaction and smarm.

“Glad to hear it, Rhysie, glad to hear it,” he says, brows angling, teeth sharp in the flickering light of the fire as he drops his balled-up coat to the dirt where his head had been a few minutes ago. “Now, you be a good boy and actually don’t do a shit job of keeping daddy alive while he sleeps this time, ‘kay?”

Rhys briefly considers shooting him again.

“Wake you up in a few hours,” he says instead, hissed between his teeth. “Get some rest, Jack.”

Jack smirks while he drops back to the dirt, making sure Rhys can see how happy he is with himself. It takes him a few moments—a bit of shuffling, a few obnoxious noises—to get comfortable, and then he reaches up to once more tip his hat over his eyes, the gesture crisp and followed by a pleased sigh.

“Nighty-night, kitten.”

Rhys notes how much heavier the gun in his hand is when it’s loaded.

“Night, Jack.”

#rhack #rhys x handsome jack #handsome jack x rhys #jack x rhys #rhys x jack #handsome jack #rhys the company man #rhys #fanfic #jazmine writes things #and hey yo if you read and you like it #and if you feel like it #i'd really appreciate if you hit that ao3 link and left a kudos and/or a comment #i'm a selfish fuck skdmflskdmf #it's been a rough year writing-wise #anyways #even if you don't thanks for reading??? i really really hope it wasnt a. total waste of time mskdfmskd #<3

[ventrue-rosary]

Kingdom of Decay - Chapter 3

Reposting bc it was redirecting to the wrong blog lol

Also available on Ao3. Like my work? Support me on Ko-Fi!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Amaranthus

Even during summer, when the sun dips behind the horizon, the air grows chilly. One would catch their death of the cold if unprepared. Indeed, even festooned under her cloak with a bedroll and a blanket, Amara shivers, finding sleep hard to come by as the cold assaults her body.

‘Can we please build a fire?’ she asks through chattering teeth.

Addenus shakes his head, looking at complete ease with the unfortunate weather. ‘Draw too much attention. This place is called the Red Rivers Crossing for a reason.’

Amara sits up but remains in her cocoon. ‘What reason?’

‘Monsters.’

The wind picks up. The icy breeze caresses Amara’s cheek. She cringes against the unwelcome sensation. 

‘You’re not going to elaborate?’ 

‘Wouldn’t wish to sabotage your sleep, Princess. And you will need it.’ ‘I think it’s safe to say its already sabotaged.’

‘Just a jest, Princess-but make no mistake, the woods are dangerous. Come with me.’

Intrigued, she follows Addenus further into the woods. Though human, he has no trouble navigating the smothering dark forest, dodging trees and ducking underneath low-hanging branches with grace. Before long, she hears the unmistakable sound of running water. Soon they come into a clearing. A large body of water, some 50 feet across, has cut a path through the forests. It isn’t until she stands at the edge of the bank she sees the deep crimson hue of its currents.

‘Red…red water? How?’ 

Addenus stoops down to pick up on of the plants growing along the rivers bank. He holds up what looks like a flower–numerous small petals folded on one another leading upwards to form a stalk, in a deep burgundy hue.

‘You know what this is?’

She cocks her head. Familiarity rushes through her, and a name pops into her mind. ‘Amaranthus…’

He twirls the stem between his fingers. ‘ “Undying…” safe to say the river is picking up the pigment from these flowers growing around it. Since the Amaranthus’ never wilts it has a constant supply of them…the river always runs red.

‘ “Undying” ‘, Amara repeats to herself. ‘Nothing is undying.’

‘The Amaranthus is. And maybe the Princess named after it will be.’ Addenus offers her the flower with a small smile. 

‘I doubt that very much.’ she mutters, but she takes it all the same.

‘Oh, you will die given time. But your name, and your deeds and influence can survive past the grave. It all depends on how you act in life.’

She stares into the flowers depths. Trying to imagine what kind of legacy she would leave on the world. For a moment, she thinks she sees something–a flash, two people, boy and girl the exact opposites of each other, like fire and ice. It vanishes as Addenus claps her on the shoulder. 

‘Let’s get back to camp. You should rest.’

Addenus starts a fire, leaving her comfortable enough for sleep to find her.

When Amara wakes, she wakes alone in a strange unfamiliar place. Instead of finding herself beneath star and leaf, she finds herself surrounded by stone walls. The room is entirely empty, and dark. Even her eyes find it difficult to penetrate the yawning abyss ahead of her. 

Then, a light, flickering and blood red. It swallows the dark around it, allowing her to see what lies ahead of her. A single sword of a dark grey hue and a finely made handle. Metal twisting upwards around the dark red gems running up along the handle to the hilt. Another, far larger gem makes up its pommel. Small runes occasional flash in red along the blade.

‘You answered my call…’ Amara starts when she hears the voice. It is not a single voice, but multiple, one dark and raspy, the other light and alluring, like two sides of the same coin. 

‘Sanguine?’

‘Your family and I have been one for generations. It is your turn to shoulder the burden…but are you ready?’

‘What do I have to do?’ she asks.

A low chuckle resides in her head. ‘First, survive. Then, we shall see.’

A hand of shadow clasps around the handle and swings the sword, testing its weight and balance. From out the darkness steps a woman clad in fine armour that almost matches the design of Sanguine–dark, but glowing with runes and a single red gem in the centre of the chestplate. The woman has long black locks, violet eyes and tapered ears. Amara gasps as she beholds the form that appears to be an older, stronger version of her, wreathed in a red and black miasma. 

She holds Sanguine to the exposed skin of her left forearm. Amara cringes as the blade is drawn down, cutting through the skin. Instead of dripping down to the ground, the blood coalesces on the blade, manifesting as brightly burning flames that flicker a deep crimson colour.

Amara stumbles back in horror, tripping over her own feet. She crawls backwards, her palms scraping against the rough stone as she drags herself away. The wrath rushes forward, and plunges Sanguine deep into her heart. She feels the blade cut through skin, flesh, bone and eventually tissue. The flames lick at her sundered skin, cauterizing the wound as it cuts. The blazing inferno seems to surround her in flame, drawing out of her a feral scream as she lays in the gripes of agony so unreal she scarcely believes it. 

When she jolts awake at the camp she is still screaming, until the pain subsides. Desperately, she claws at the fastening of her shirt, fingernail scrabbling at the skin between her breasts in her panicked struggle. There is no sign of scar or injury. Her body sags in relief, but her mind is still fraught with worry and her heart doesn’t slow it’s chaotic rhythm. She meets the gaze of Addenus the other sight of the campfire, as he attempts to stoke the embers back into life. He doesn’t seem surprised or curious at her frightful outburst, instead regarding her with sympathy. 

‘You met Sanguine?’

She nods. The fire springs back to life. Amara jumps back, remembering all too well the agonising heat as it consumed her heart.

‘He can be…intense.’ Addenus winces.

‘It wasn’t just him…’ Amara swallows. ‘There was…someone else.’

‘Someone else…who?’

‘Myself, I think. Only much older. Stronger. I was wielding Sanguine. I…she stabbed me…’

Her fingers trailed the skin between her breasts, where the blade cut. Addenus crinkles his brow in confusion with a hum as he considers her words. ‘Curious. I don’t believe anyone else had had such a dream. It has always just been Sanguine, and Sanguine alone. You say this…other you wielded Sanguine?’

Amara nods. ‘Stabbed me straight through my heart.’

‘Curious indeed. We should head for the Order post-haste. Perhaps we can ask him directly when we get there.’ Addenus rummages through his bag and tosses her an apple. ‘Here. Break your fast and walk. I would like to get there today.’

Amara’s entire body quakes with exhaustion as they mount the final step leading up the order. Standing tall and proud at the apex of the mountain is a square building hewn from obsidian stone. Braziers flank the large metal doorway which bears a sword pointing groundward wreathed in flames. There are no visible handles or door knockers on its surface.

Addenus steps forward, producing a small dagger. Her slices open his palm, and places it on the the metal. The blood stretched across the surface, coating the carving of the flaming blade. With a grinding groan, a seam appears in the middle of the door. The two halves part and swing inwards into the dim lit exterior. They close and reseal behind them, erasing all evidence of the split. Amara turns to face the interior. High windows allow what little light is left of the day to filter through, bathing the stone interior in the hues of sundown. The entryway splits into three identical corridors, two to either side and one straight ahead. Addenus leads Amara down the centre path, ending at a door which looks like an exact replica of the entrance, only on a smaller scale bearing less extravagance and an actual handle. Addenus raises his fist and raps on the door thrice. 

‘Enter,’ a stiff and nasally voice responds. 

Addenus opens the door, revealing a large study room that is the picture of organised chaos. Piles of books and parchments are stacked on nearly every available surface, some even on the floor. Nearly every wall is covered by full bookcases, or well stocked cabinets of weapons and several pieces of well-kempt armour, or shelves littered with vials, bottles, more paper, small framed portraits and other suck knick-knacks. 

Sat in a plush armchair behind a huge mahogany desk sits a middle-aged elf, his hair more salt than pepper, his wrinkled face devoid of any sort of facial hair. Dressed in a black coat with shiny gold buttons, and writing unimpeded by the large and numerous rings on his fingers, he looks every bit the noble. He even carries himself with grace as he sets aside the quill to regard the both of them. ‘Addenus…Mistress Darcelle, a pleasure. Your uncle is a formidable fighter. I hope you also have the skill, but with a touch more self-reflection.’ His thin lips stretch into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘Jedrek Blackclaw, at your service. Well, now you have arrived we should set you up with accommodations…I trust it has been a pleasant journey?’

‘Uneventful, but tiring,’ Addenus says.

Amara, now in a strange place with exciting yet terrifying prospects, finds herself quite awake. 

‘Of course. Show the young Lady to the quarters, then you may retire. We’ll start with the induction in the morrow.’

Addenus stuffly bows. ‘Of course. Come on, young Princess.’

‘Induction?’ Amara asks fearfully as she follows him through the halls, back to the entrance then steering to the right.

‘It’s nothing. Just a lot of talking, and swearing oaths. Boring, political stuff. The exciting stuff happens later. Training, fighting…you’ll love it.’

Amara is less convinced, but she deigns not to argue. They pass many doors. She hears clashings of steel behind one, others voices talking and laughing, but she sees no one else out and about.

Eventually, they stop at a single door, in a private alcove away from the activity she heard earlier. 

‘This is you. The Darcelle room your Uncle was using.’

‘Am I ok to use this?’

‘Of course. We figured you’d like some taste of home for your stay. Sleep tight.’ Amaranthe tiptoes into the room–a moderately sized chamber quaintly furnished with a simple queen-sized bed, an armoire, nightstand and a window seat, a shelf on either side holding a handful of books. 

Amara kneels on the window seat, reaching for the shelf, and adds her dog-eared copy Of Monsters and Men to the meagre selection. The book barely reaches the surface before she pulls it into her lap and opens it. The lettering on the pages is barely legible, but enough so to rouse her memories of reading it through countless times. She recounts the tale in perfect accuracy, until nodding off where she sits. The book falls to the floor, but doesn’t reach it. It remains suspended an inch off the ground. Curious, Amara reaches for it. The pages turn as though caught in the ire of a gale, stopping at the midpoint of the book. An illustration depicts a helmeted knight holding up a familiar sword–one with a dark blade and jewel encrusted hilt. She turns the page. No words, but a drawing of a dark stormy landed shrouded in mist. The mist parts, revealing a dark castle that fills her gut with dread. From behind the foreboding spires, a monster emerges: sickly green tentacles wrapping around the building.

The book falls from her grasp she she retreats from it. It lands with a loud thump. The sound starts her. She wakes on the window seat to complete darkness. Her eyes eventually adjust to the absence of light. 

Amara retrieves the book which fell from her grasp. No strange, moving illustrations. Just words. She slots it onto one of the shelves and walks to bed. She passes by a window as she does, and spots a figures from the corner of her eye, Looking down to the ground below, she sees her Uncle in passionate talks with Jedrek.

Jedrek strikes a blow to her Uncles face. Amara flinches as she hears the sound from her window. He staggers, holding a hand to his bloodied mouth. One foot is put forward, as though he intends to retaliate, but he freezes. Then his head angles upwards. 

With a gasp Amara jumps to the side out of the pane, back against the stone. She wonders if she moved quickly enough. Peeking around the corner, there is nothing but an empty courtyard.

#kingdom of decay #kingdom of decay chapter 3 #amaranthe darcelle #dnd #d&d #writing #my writing #cos #curse of strahd

[alysae]

Alright, I'm finally in the mood and I know of no better place to go - can you give me some tomarry/harrymort fic recs? You seem like a person of good taste, so~

Ah thank you! you came to the right place! Honestly seeing you gradually fall into Harrymort/Tomarry hell was entertaining lol

Now, about the fanfics. Expect a lot of unfinished works tho

brainstorm1001′s fanfics are a classic:

The Cave Incident and its sequel, The Love Accident

Three years after the lost battle of Hogwarts Lord Voldemort attempts revenge. Regrettably, he has never learned from his mistakes and underestimates Harry’s incredible luck again. HPLV later. Warning: mix of drama, angst and comedy! 

Mirrored

What was going to happen to him was something terrifying; all his instincts were rebelling against his decision but Harry resisted. Now it was his turn to make a sacrifice and ensure their survival. Compliant with the DH up to the events in Malfoy Manor. HP/LV COMPLETE & EPILOGUE!

A Snake Named Voldemort by estalita11

COMPLETE After being turned into a snake and unable to change back, Lord Voldemort is forced to turn to the only other living Parselmouth, Harry Potter. After making a deal, Harry agrees to help the Dark Lord return to his human form. SLASH HP/LVTMR

ObsidianPen’s fanfics. just. yes. (please read hauntingly it’s MAGNIFICENT)

Mine and its sequel, Hauntingly

He opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off by an icy statement that caused the hairs on his entire body to stand erect. “I know what you are, Harry Potter… Death will never touch you.” SLASH, HP/LV. Darkly disturbing and all sorts of twisted- a story of abduction, possession, and manic obsession. SEQUEL posted: Hauntingly

No Glory

There was no glory in this… The Dark Lord divines what Harry Potter is in the Forbidden Forest, and revelations lead to incomprehensible consequences. Lord Voldemort has won…and the dystopia is damning. A disquieting tale of a fallen hero, taboo desires, and a Dark Lord’s obsession with something he has lost and finds himself unwillingly lusting after: a soul

All of Athey’s fanfics. ALL. tho most are wips OR abandoned (my favourite is Rebirth tbh)

Death of Today by Epic Solemnity

COMPLETE LV/HP: Raised in a Muggle orphanage, Harry arrives at Hogwarts a bitter boy. Unusually intelligent, he’s recruited by the Unspeakables and the Death Eaters at a young age. As he grows older, he constantly has to struggle to keep his footing around a manipulative and bored Dark Lord, who fancies mind games and intellectual entertainment.

Dreams and Darkness Collide by Epic Solemnity

AUSLASH! Though he was raised without the expectation of saving the world, Harry still possesses a savior complex. Only, it’s so dark and twistedly immoral, he created an alter ego to practice vigilantism. His second identity makes a name for himself and immediately ensnares Minister Riddle’s complete and obsessive attention. A game of cat and mouse begins and morals are questioned

Xerosis by Batsutousai

Harry’s world ends at the hands of those he’d once fought to save. An adult-Harry goes back to his younger self fic. Semi-super!Harry, Voldemort/Harry, SLASH-for the idiots

Stand Against the Moon by Batsutousai

Cursed against his will, Harry made the best of his life until he found himself, again, wandering in Death’s realm. When Death offers him a second chance, a chance to right the wrongs he’d been blind to for too long, he can’t possibly refuse.

Moments in Time by Watermelonsmellinfellon (and their other fics!)

Tom Riddle thought he was dreaming the first time, but when he repeatedly visits the same boy, he realizes that bigger things are at work. He watches the boy in the cupboard grow from a small child and into a young man. His brotherly affections begin to wane. What will he do when the boy isn’t so little anymore? Could he even imagine? Those Avada eyes calling to him. A/N: SLASH!

Iridescent by BloodyWar2401

AU; No Magic. Tom Riddle: A mob boss. Draco Malfoy: A vengeful prick. Harry Potter: Stuck as a cleaning boy for Tom’s office as a way to make up for something Draco claimed he did. Bottom Line: Damn all rich people to hell.

third time’s a charm by lejf

Soulmate AU: soulmates’ thoughts are written on their match’s hands. HP/TR (HP/LV) A story that follows Harry through canon events as he searches for his mysterious writer who always seems to be in pain.

Wicked Serendipity by FrankieSpitfire

Harry Potter is done with the Order and the war, he just wants to stay neutral and possibly not die a horrible death. It’s hard to stay unaffected when the Dark Side starts to look awfully tempting. Starting a whole new crazy journey, the Boy Who Lived decides to take his chances with Voldemort and consequently drags his friends along for the ride.HP/LV, warnings inside.[ON HIATUS]

Butterfly Heart by The_Fictionist

AU - Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal inspired. After recent events in his life, Hermione refers Harry to the renowned psychiatrist, Doctor. T. Riddle. He is unlike anything Harry ever expected or imagined, and soon proves to be a great help against the very shadows and name that haunts his waking hours. If only it remained that simple.

Love’s Loathing by The_Fictionist

Lord Voldemort is head of Magical Britain. Harry Potter is a rebel leader in charge of the last scraps of resistance against his regime. Things would be difficult enough even if they hadn’t once been engaged.

Kisses Cursed by The_Fictionist (you know what, just read all their fics)

Fairytale AU. Loosely inspired by Beauty and the Beast.

Some said he was once a man, cursed, and some that he sold his soul to demons and became one in turn. Others said that such evil as he could never have been human. That he was instead a nightmare, left lingering upon the earth a very long time ago.Harry just knew it wasn’t safe to walk near the Riddle House after dark.

The Gardens of Riddle Manor by VanillaGhost

When Harry happens upon a rare and beautiful flower, his relatives soon become obsessed with the gardens of their mysterious and powerful next door neighbour. Until one day they send Harry over the wall…

(a Rapunzel/Beauty and the Beast fairytale inspired AU.)

Freefall by ladyoflilacs

A voice whispers to Harry in the still of the night, when he is on the verge of sleep and at his most vulnerable. A retelling of Deathly Hallows. Rated M for Harry/Voldemort slash.

Lithium by grayclouds

The smallest change in details can lead to vastly different outcomes. When Harry finds Tom Riddle’s diary in his second year, he befriends the entity that resides within. This simple act results in a ripple effect that tears the story as we know it apart, causing a descent into the madness that is the human psyche.

Horror Of Our Love by leontina

AU! In a world where Neville Longbottom was declared the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter grew up in a happy, loving family, but all of that changed when he was twelve; the year he met Tom Riddle. TMR/HP slash. Dark!Harry.

And there are so, so many more I’m not mentioning but are definitely worth reading sO, I’m redirecting you to these recs:

@acnara‘s fic rec here!

@hellyeahtomarry‘s fic recs: part 1 ; part 2 ; part 3

this post (hasn’t been updated tho)

@thetomarrylibrary blog. (it’s an amazing blog, check it out!!)

@helly-watermelonsmellinfellon‘s fic rec here!

I hope you find your kind of fanfic! you definitely should go through AO3′s tag and search more if you read all of these lol

#i'M SORRY THIS IS SO LONG #I JUST #I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS FOR THIS SHIP OKAY #A /LOT/ #AND SO MANY FANFICS ARE NOT MENTIONED I CRY #but I hope you enjoy these!!! #and I still remember the first time you reblogged tomarry from me and said that you didnt ship it but that it was cute #and now you're here #and you'll find out that they are anything but cute #harrymort is pretty fucked up #a LOT of angst in here #good luck!! #angelofmysteries #tomarry