#Nearly finished writing this but there's a shit ton more to the tale as this is only the start of our journey

[thatonebirdwrites]

Sneak peak on a Lena Luthor, Sam Arias, and Kara Danvers fic that has grabbed me by the throat and won't let go till I finish it

(Once I finish it, I'll throw it up on AO3.) Finished so will post weekly/bi-weekly until it's all up. Here's the link.

THE EVENT

Lena realizes something is very, very wrong when she feels the heft of a gun in her hand. The fog in her mind lifts slowly as she wrestles back her consciousness. She blinks and realizes she’s in a concrete room with a desk to one side.

But far more disturbing is her brother, Lex, who has pushed himself half-up with one arm, the other hugging his abdomen. The gun she holds points at him. Blood dribbles from his mouth. He laughs, and his words swim through the fog in her brain.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? The very people you fight to protect. Do you know their truth?” He reaches up to grab a remote and turns on the televisions that make up a wall of the bunker.

Lena breathes in sharply. Bunker?

No, no, she can’t be alone with Lex. Bad things always happen.

Panic rises like bile in her throat. Her brother is speaking again, but his words can’t penetrate the growing haze in her head. She blinks at the televisions, but it blurs into a mosaic of color and faint soundscapes.

Her thoughts spark and sizzle like a broken circuit. She hyperventilates, lightheaded, as tears sting her eyes. The gun’s weight pulls her arms down. The fact her brother is bleeding out in front of her, while laughing, alarms her.

He believes this is checkmate. It’s not. Please, let me handle this.

The thought laces through her alarm and comforts her. The confidence in her other self dismantles her rising panic. Just like the last time in Kasnia during the self-destruct sequence. Time had warped for her, the fog saturated all awareness, until she woke in the cool air, the sky studded with stars. In her hands was an air duct grate, her clothes rumpled, one heel broken, and streaks of dirt on her legs and arms.

Oh.

Her other self must have fronted like in Kaznia. What is the last things she remembers? She briefly closes her eyes.

She had been escorted by armed guards to where her brother and Lillian waited in the Presidential room at the White House. Listened in horror at her brother’s rant of his victory over aliens. Saw evidence of Supergirl’s death. The terror that grabbed her by the throat had the fog boiling through her mind. No matter how hard she tried, she could not escape the Luthors.

Then nothing. Time evaporated until she wrestled her way out of the suffocating fog.

And here she wakes in a bunker, a gun in her hand, and her brother bleeding out in front of her.

“Do you see the lies they’ve woven? How they’ve abused your trusting nature? Your broken mind?” he continues with another irritating laugh.

He seeks to manipulate us again. Trust us. Lean into our anger.

Lena takes a steadying breath. That’s right. Her anger and horror at his brutal experiments and murder of aliens. The prison couldn’t hold him, cutting off his assets also failed — all facts she has factored into her calculations.

But this exact scenario is supposed to be the last resort. Her stomach curdles, bile on her tongue. Kieran, wait, what of the other plans?

We had to end the cycle, Lena. Otherwise, he’ll never stop coming.

Stop being cryptic. What the hell happened? She needs to reassess. There must be a better solution. She can still repair this somehow. Seek the Truth. Focus.

Fine. I confronted him and injected Harun-el as we agreed. He demanded we join his genocidal crusade. We are not his tool anymore. The solidity of the decision warms her from head to toe, even as her heart shatters at the sight in front of her.

Lena clears her throat and summons what strength she has left. “You’ve abused me, Lex. You have no ground to stand on.” She tries to avoid looking at the wall of televisions, for what is surely a cleverly crafted way to destroy her yet again. Like he always does. Her lip quivers, and she blinks back the urge to cry.

“Me? Your trusting brother?” Lex laughs then coughs blood into his hand. “I’ve given you the world, Ace. Only ever been truthful. Honed your skills. Do you still not see the truth? I’ve laid it out for you this time, you stubborn fool!”

Colors leech into grey in her periphery. Her limbs feel puppeted by her other self still. A rare moment of synergy but it leaves her nauseous and her head aching in a growing migraine.

“They’ve all been lying to you,” Lex continues as he laughs and spits up more blood. “Preying on your weaknesses.”

That’s you, Lena thinks. You’ve preyed on us.

But her curiosity overwhelms her, and she can’t ignore the televisions any longer. The scenes capture her gaze, and her ears roar with the orchestra Lex has woven into the security footage he’s stolen. Half the screens are footage from when Mercy attacked L-corp.

<<.....>>

Lena turns to Kara desperately. “No, Kara, you’re safer with me.” She can feel the grey fog pulling her toward the dark maw of her psyche. She reaches out to grasp Kara’s arm, the fabric of her cashmere sweater soft and comforting. As the emergency light goes off again, she slips deeper into her mind’s tumultuous seas.

Kieran rises forward, and her body transforms. Her shoulders straighten, her limbs more agile, her stance that of a fighter. Commands issue from her voice, but Lena can no longer discern meaning.

She wraps herself in the cold of shadows.

Time hiccups and coughs. Shots echo like thunder, safety doors drop like quakes, and the clatter of heels click against metal.

Is Kara okay? She needs to know. She swims through grey fog, until she pushes into consciousness again.

An uncomfortable weight hangs on her arm. Kara stands behind her, but Mercy holds the bigger gun of the Lexosuit. Fear curdles her stomach. Of course Mercy would hack through security to reach her experimental prototypes. Lena had built a lighter suit to be used for good. Not like this.

Lena, don’t. Let me handle this. Kieran’s smug confidence scratches into her thoughts.

Kara is still here!

Lena, we don’t have time to argue. Kieran surges to the front, and Lena watches as her body moves to block Mercy’s shot. “You did not see the upgrade. The arms hold more goods now.” A hint of excitement sweeps through her voice, the onset of a fight a thrill for Kieran, while Lena nears a panic.

Please, get Kara out of here. Lena struggles to keep them moving backward. Kara is behind her still, the door to the lab just a few feet away.

I said let me handle this. Anger filters through Kieran and burns against Lena’s presence.

Lena throws open the door. “Go, Kara.” Kara stumbles backward into the hallway, and she slams the door shut. The fog sears through her mind, Kieran’s anger pushing her back.

A blast tears through the air, but Kieran blocks the shot with their shield.

Except, Lena can’t let go fully. Kieran blocks and shoots, but Lena fumbles with the footwork. Kieran’s the fencer, not her. Mercy spars not only with the gloves but with caustic words. Kieran fights Lena for control, their dodging clumsy, their shots missing.

The fight warps and fizzles in her mind; the fog screeches through Lena’s consciousness.

She fumbles. Slams against metal.

“You aren’t deserving of the Luthor name,” Mercy says, her poison like barbs that sink into Lena’s insecurities.

Heat beams destroy the door, and Supergirl blasts into the room. Mercy is slammed against the wall, Supergirl’s arm against her throat. “No, you got that backwards,” Supergirl hisses, “the Luthor name isn’t deserving of Lena.”

Warmth floods through Lena at the strength and resolve in Supergirl’s words. A massive turnaround from the worldkiller crisis.

Stay focused. Don’t let your guard down until Mercy’s off the property. Kieran releases her hold, and Lena stumbles, back in full control. Already her mind shifts into overdrive to plan the exact route to verify the security of her building and her people.

<<....>>

This is a repeat of the Mercy incident. Where Lena couldn’t let go, and both of them co-fronted. It sparks a migraine, the grey in her periphery darkening, and her nausea worsening. She hates moments like this.

Let me handle this. We have him in a checkmate. The confidence in Kieran’s analysis softens the panic that has started to freeze her limbs. We know the Truth.

If there is one thing that unites Lena’s fractured psyche, it is an overwhelming need to protect those she loves. And her own brother has nearly killed her and her friends a dozen times over.

She’s exhausted, terrified, and wants this endless game of his to stop.

Lena raises her gun and shoots the televisions one at a time. The shards explode outward and rain down on her brother.

For once, Lex shuts the fuck up. His eyes widen.

The fog burns away the rest of her awareness.

She stumbles across wet grass, her clothes wet and clinging to her body, as the heavens pour down upon her. She’s outside the bunker in a stand of aspens. The sky sparks with lightning, the greyness suffocating.

You’re safe now. We all are. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.

Lena shouldn’t dig deeper. She knows it’s not healthy. Kieran has always protected her, held the worst of the horror. It’s how they’ve survived this far.

But this was her brother. And those screens showed Kara as not human. It makes no sense with what Kara claims. How does she reconcile it all?

Kieran, what did you do?!

What was necessary. Kieran’s confidence holds a trickle of grief and pain. We must seek help now, Lena. Focus.

She feels strange, unreal, like a pantomime of herself. The urge to lie in the mud, to let the rain wash her away, nearly overwhelms her. She pushes off a trunk and stumbles forward. Her hair falls in front of her eyes, sticking to her forehead and cheeks.

The images from the televisions ripple through her thoughts. Is that the Truth?

Yes. Now focus, Lena. We must call her.

Has Kara been deceiving her this whole time? She doesn’t want to believe it.

She’s given Kara her heart, far more than she ever meant to do, and yet, those videos sync with the disjointed mess of her memories. Bits and pieces that Kieran has held for her, scattered shards unlocked like the showers above.

Wait, did you know? Shock starts to shiver through her body.

That’s not important now. Call her.

Lena stumbles and falls. Her hands push into the mud and the world crackles with thunder. It’s too loud. Too bright.

It's all so wrong; she gags and spits out bile.

She wishes Kieran would take over again, to call for her, but her protective self has faded from awareness. Fatigue throttles all of her.

Her brother is likely dead in the bunker. By her own hand. Tears mix with the rain and her fingers dig into the mud. Her senses crackle with pain. She feels herself shrinking. The hairs on her arm raise, goosebumps from the cold, her body vibrating into oblivion.

She wants to go home.

Call her now. The thought is weaker, laced with grief.

“I know. I know,” Lena says it out loud to ground herself. To stop the shrinking, to avoid the inevitable pull of a switch. She shudders and leans against the trunk of a tree.

Focus on the goal. Break it into smaller steps.

She hugs her legs to her chest with one arm. Her other hand fumbles through pockets of her suit. Too many. Suit so wet. She feels slimy, gross, slipping toward the warmth of shadows.

Her fingers grasp he phone in her inner suit jacket. There’s two numbers on speed dial: Sam and Kara.

Her fingers hesitate over the two. She bites her lip, closes her eyes, and hits the button for Sam.

(To be continued on AO3, will edit in the link or drop in comments once up.) Note, this playlist was on repeat as I wrote this piece: Shattered Playlist

Edited.

[1kook]

crunchyroll & rail

the 10th installment of my netflix & chill series !

SUMMARY Never mind the fact you really like Sailor Moon, or that you really want to pay attention to every little detail; the moment becomes Jungkook and his big smile and his red cheeks and the tiny box he produces from within his pocket. WARNINGS smut in the forms of making out, jk nipple play, some 69 action, cunnilingus, blowjobs, brief choking, jk trying his best to listen to oc but he doesn’t rlly :/, fingering, missionary bc his eyes are pretty, unprotected fuckin raw, its romantic but when is it not… MISC fluffy and domestic <3, weekend getaway <3, the Big Question, shy jk, sailor moon supremacy, jk makes this big elaborate speech about the sun and moon, mentions of 240p YouTube quality, RATING m (18+) WC 8.7k

NOTE (!) the smut in this chapter is relatively short ! I was more concerned with writing this monumental step in their relationship, so sorry to all the lads who come here specifically for the p0rn but today we focus on the l0ve <333 anyway nc 10!!!!! Can u fuckin believe….

Jungkook mentions it at the dinner table one night. You’re not eating— well, you are not eating; Jungkook has been stocking up on his protein intake like a madman —but finishing up some work you had brought home. Your back aches, your eyes burn. The mere sound of his soft voice has all those feel-good endorphins shooting through your nervous system like a shot of adrenaline. “We should take a trip,” he says, fork clattering against his plate to signify the end of his feast. 

Your fingers tap across your keyboard, eyes flickering between an Excel sheet and the report you’re typing out. It takes you a moment to respond, a delayed, “huh,” that even Jungkook doesn’t find convincing.  

In the background, you’re listening to what has to be one of the worst voiceovers of the original Sailor Moon series in a language you don’t even understand. But you know the series like the back of your hand, know what exactly is happening even if you don’t understand what they’re saying, because you’ve watched it only about a million times. It’s mostly just there for background purposes anyway, some white noise to try and replicate the noisy soundtrack of your office. 

To make matters worse—complicated?—, you had been too lazy to get onto your usual pirating sites and had settled for the five minute, five part, 240p clips of Sailor Moon on YouTube (you know the ones), and Jungkook has to wait until Episode 74: Part ⅖ ends before you grace him with a proper response. “Where do you wanna go, baby?” you ask, giving your eyes a break from the data as you move to scour YouTube for Episode 74: Part 3/5. 

He’s stretching back now, arms wound up above his head. His hair— god, his hair —is an ashy color now, a faded version of its golden ancestor from a few months ago. Soon, he’s planning on going back to brown, claims he’s getting too old to be dying his hair, whatever that means. For now, you watch his inked fingers run through his scalp; he looks delectable. Maybe you’re hungrier than you initially thought. Or at least thirstier. “A cabin,” he suggests, and he offers this little half shrug that would otherwise seem normal had you not been well-versed in the art of Jungkook Body Language. His front teeth nibble at his lip, eyes laser focused on his empty plate. Even now, he still gets nervous asking you out. That thought alone makes your ego soar as high as an airplane. “Just something small.”

Usually, “something small” with Jungkook ends up being something big and, in most cases, something expensive. Which you’re totally not opposed to— you’re at the point in your relationship where you don’t even bother trying to dissuade Jungkook from showering you with gifts. It’s one of his many, many, many, many forms of loving you and, well, he knows you like the back of his hand. He rarely misses. 

Lo and behold, it is a grander affair than a simple cabin. “Well, it’s more like a resort,” he confesses, reaching across the table for your hand. Immediately, his thumb finds itself rubbing over the simple band of your promise ring. “Just wanna do something nice for you. I know you’ve been tired lately,” he adds on, voice a quiet murmur that nearly gets lost under the intensity of the pout that appears whenever he becomes even the slightest bit bashful. 

You smile, the fondness in your heart skyrocketing to impossible heights when he lifts your hand to press those pretty petal lips against your knuckles. “Well, just let me know when,” you tell Jungkook. “So I can request time off from work.” 

Episode 74: Part 3/5 starts playing after an ad, and you’d pause it for the sake of preserving this moment with Jungkook, but it’s hidden under so many tabs on your laptop that you lose it the second you leave the tab. Jungkook’s head tilts to the side, sending his ashy locks cascading beautifully. “You know that show is on Crunchyroll,” Jungkook says, seemingly moving past his bout of shyness now. “And you have the password.” 

“Do I,” you murmur, but he’s lost you once more, your true talent of typing with one hand showing itself as you return to your Excel sheet, the other still firmly squeezed in his grasp. Jungkook releases soon enough anyway, cleans up the table quickly, and disappears off into the kitchen. He sings when he washes the dishes, likes to pretend he’s a terrible singer even though you’ve told him countless times he could easily take X Factor by storm. (And you know exactly what it takes to wow those judges— you spent the entire last month psychotically watching multiple X Factor seasons from multiple different countries, nearly considered joining the damn audition yourself.) The horribly dubbed Sailor Moon is yelling now, shrieking really, and Jungkook calls from the kitchen, “don’t forget to take your contacts out, sweetheart.” 

It’s domestic and it's nerve-wracking. 

You want Jungkook, that much is a fact. Aristotle and Socrates and that other guy could debate the philosophical intricacies of the world, turn this dimension in on itself until it was a scrambled mess of emotion and thought, but the one thing they could never change, could never even question, is your love for your boyfriend. You want Jungkook badly, but more importantly, you want Jungkook forever. 

And you’re sure Jungkook probably, maybe, hopefully feels that way too. But the way you feel is… slightly concerning to say the least. For starters, you’re convinced your love for Jungkook was meant to be, and that’s saying a lot coming from you. You’re not one for cheesy, soulmate tales— that was more Jungkook’s thing —but the more you think about it, the more you become convinced that you and Jungkook were destined to meet. Like the planets aligned one year, the stars conferred, a tectonic plate somewhere in California shifted; whatever it may have been, something happened somewhere that led to the birth of this beautiful romance of yours. 

Lately, being with Jungkook has this inexplicably fiery feeling blossoming in your chest, these waves of emotion that sometimes have you fantasizing about the weirdest of scenarios with him. Like yelling at him for not taking the garbage out on time, or bumping into each other as you make dinner in the kitchen, or buying a new rug together. 

(Most drastically, the other day, you had a dream where you were pregnant and Jungkook was there and there was a house and a dog and an annoyingly friendly neighbor and this god-awful tile in the bathroom.) 

Long story short, you’ve been fantasizing about a forever with Jungkook. The concerning part is the timing; was this too early? You’re nearly halfway through your second year with Jungkook now, and you know most people date for many, many years before the mere thought of union even occurs to them. In another life, maybe you were the same, would have held off until the very last moment. But with Jungkook things just feel right (at least for you), like there wasn’t going to be anyone else after him. And you sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be. 

You slump back into your seat, eyes fluttering shut. Too many thoughts swirl around your mind, and the screech of the Sailor Moon voiceover on screen certainly doesn’t help. How you managed to spiral that far down your thoughts in the span of one 240p, five minute clip of a larger episode amazes even you. To add onto your worries, the clip abruptly ends and Episode 74: Part ⅘ is nowhere in sight, a fact that draws a frustrated moan out of the already sensitive you. 

Luckily, Jungkook eventually returns, standing closely behind you. His presence is enormous, the room suddenly overflowing with a shit ton of those feel-good endorphins all over again, except this time they reach an all-time high when he leans over and quietly shuts your laptop. “Come sleep,” he says softly, and it’s a pleasant mixture of his genuinely caring voice and that horndog purr of his that lures you into bed. And it’s that same voice that croons softly into your ear, fingers nestled between your folds until you’re orgasming yourself into a deep slumber. 

Much to no one’s surprise, the cabin turns out to be quite the luxurious lodging; two floors of dark oak everywhere you turn, a stunning stone fireplace in the bedroom, and a truly breathtaking view of the resort’s snowy hill (read: front row seats to watch all the snowboarders and skiers wipe out in the snow). Jungkook had splurged quite the pretty penny on it, so you make a point to clap it up for him when he first opens the door to your temporary home for the weekend. 

The main bedroom is beyond words. It’s got an attached balcony (that you doubt you’ll be using in this chilly weather), and a wooden canopy bed that makes you feel like a royal (that you will certainly be using). It’s separated into two areas, the bed space and a tiny entertainment area on the other side of the room. Perhaps the best thing about the room— and the cabin itself —is the huge, smart TV mounted above said stone fireplace and the fact it allows the phone mirroring option in lieu of not having any streaming sites. And as is with every and anything to do with televisions, Jungkook is the most excited of the two of you. “Baby, look,” he beams, pointing excitedly at whatever he’s got mirrored onto the television this time. Knowing him, it’s probably another documentary. 

You had the forethought to finish your work before the trip, spent two days in the office going absolutely ham on this month’s final reports until your department head promptly sent you home to finish the rest there. You had given yourself a fright upon entering the bathroom that night, the state of your under eyes so severe, you feared it was sufficient cause for a national emergency. Similarly, Jungkook had done the same with his work, cooped himself up in his study until he was free from the shackles of capitalism for the weekend. All this to say you’ve missed him these past few days. 

But even though you’re sorely malnourished in the affection department and craving a good kiss or two, you wouldn’t dare interrupt one of Jungkook’s little nerdy, tech-induced fanboy moments. They’re cute, in their own geeky way, providing some insight to a mellower side of your boyfriend who looks on with childlike wonder; Jungkook’s eyes always get so big when he talks about nerdy stuff. You get to work hanging up the silk shirt he packed for tomorrow night’s fancy dinner at the resort, listening to some British narrator’s detailed description of the functionally extinct Northern white rhinos living under 24-hour surveillance in Kenya.  

(Jungkook’s really into nature documentaries again, had spent a few nights sniffling as he watched that one Koko the gorilla film.) 

The original plan was to head to the nearest store and whip up something small to eat at the cabin. But Jungkook is a little tired from the long drive, slumps down into the couch in front of the now lit fireplace like a limbless blob as he tunes into his documentary. His nose is a little red from the outside chill. It’s so cute. He’s so cute. You love him so much, you fear you’ll accidentally squeeze his cheeks to death. It’s a thought that occurs more times than you’d like. 

According to the pamphlet on the nightstand, the resort has its own room-service to order from. Normally you would do that, but not this time; you had gotten into a bit of a squabble with the man at the front desk after he had tried to withhold Jungkook’s reservation for arriving two minutes past your check-in time, called each other all sorts of names before he backed down and gave you your room key. So you’re still a little salty, to say the least. Instead, you settle in for some pizza in front of the huge TV, calling up the nearest place to order some of Jungkook’s and your favorites. 

You plop down beside him, instinctively cuddling closer when he wraps an arm around your shoulders. “So,” you start, flipping through the rest of the resort’s introductory pamphlet. There’s a loud roar on screen. In all honesty, you didn’t even know what Northern white rhinos sounded like until then, and you probably never would have if not for the man beside you. “What are you in the mood for tonight, sweet boy?” 

You’re not sure if it’s the fatigue or the overall relaxed vibes he’d been exuding since the moment you entered the cabin, but Jungkook is weirdly cooperative today. “Whatever you want,” he responds, head on your shoulder. He even places the remote in your hands, gives your enclosed fist a gentle tap as if he’s just handed you the secret to eternal youth. In other words, it’s a rare sight to behold. “This is your trip, pretty girl.” 

You appreciate the sentiment, but feel the need to clear the air, tucking your feet up onto the couch as you snuggle closer. “Our trip,” you clarify, and snatch the remote anyway before he changes his mind. 

Jungkook releases a quiet huff of laughter, head rolling back against the couch cushions to display his thick, juicy neck that definitely doesn’t awaken any vampiric tendencies in you. “We can even watch some anime if you want,” he murmurs, casually throwing an arm around your shoulders in a way that would have made any teenage girl in the early 2000s squeal with excitement. It’s one of those barely there touches, but the way he holds you makes you feel so safe and warm and loved. So loved and in love. “The ones on Crunchyroll, though.”

For the sake of preserving these good vibes (and your ears [and Jungkook’s sanity]), you navigate to the Crunchyroll app on your phone, quickly finding your latest obsession and mirroring it onto the big television before Jungkook can react. “Sailor Moon?” he asks with a tone that implies a feigned interest, mostly out of respect for you; he’s, sadly, still not the big dorky anime fan you had hoped to convert him into. 

“In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you,” you recite dutifully, snatching up the throw blanket on the end of the couch. It’s barely big enough to cover the both of you, has Jungkook’s outstretched legs and your booty subject to the chilly air. Who cares, Jungkook is a furnace anyway. 

He snorts. “Punish me,” he mumbles, as if he doesn’t believe it. His snarky comment wins him a playful pinch against his doughy cheek, not that he particularly defends himself against it anyway, eyes fluttering shut as you tug at the pale skin. 

“Don’t fuck with the moon, Jungkook,” you warn him, snuggling closely against his side as your favorite opening song begins filtering through the speakers of the television before you. It’s infinitely better than the 240p YouTube clips you had subjected yourself to the entire last week, the graphics scarily clear. 

“Right, of course,” Jungkook says, but a hint of amusement seems to curl around the sound anyway. Nevertheless, he lets it go, cuddles into your side as you pour your full focus into watching yet another group of ragtag teenagers with supernatural abilities kick some ass. 

You can tell Jungkook isn’t really into it, and you’re torn between just snuggling him into a well deserved nap or taping his eyelids open so he can become a fan of this show with you. 

The loving, caring, adoring side of you says Jungkook deserves the entire world and more (the more in question preferably being a fluffy blanket and a nap). He worked hard this week, just like you, and on top of that he was the one who planned this entire weekend getaway for the two of you to enjoy. You want him to rest up.

The obnoxiously in love girlfriend-slash-best friend in you says Jungkook is sorely missing out on one of the greatest shows on planet Earth and that naps are for the weak. 

Your jumbled thoughts are interrupted by a loud sound on the television, a yelp from Ms. Sailor Moon herself that has you jolting up in surprise. Jungkook welcomes you deeper into his embrace, chuckles at your little fright. “Scared?” he teases in that low voice that makes you feel like you’re going crazy, really. So crazy and irrational, and the only thing that stops you from bombarding him with an unexpected outpouring of love is that hard and sharp thing that pokes your side when you get too close to him. It’s not Jungkook, sadly, but something in the front pocket of his hoodie instead. 

And for some reason, part of your brain is stuck all of a sudden, rewinding the last two and a half years like a broken cassette tape that had the tape reel hastily stuffed back inside by a toddler. It’s choppy to say the least, and it certainly doesn’t help when Jungkook calls your name softly, tenderly. “__,” he murmurs. It’s a little weird; it’s not often he says your name, mostly referring to you with one of the many pet names from that part of his vocabulary that focuses exclusively on terms of endearment. Your heart skips a beat. 

Now, if anyone were to ask, it’s approximately around this time that you begin to spiral. The pink curve of his bottom lip is just too close, the mole on his nose too prominent. Paired with the obnoxious tittering of Usagi on screen, you can feel your thoughts begin to overlap, bumping into each other within the realm of your brain until all that comes out are the messiest of messy thoughts. 

They go like this: 

Most episodes of any anime run for approximately thirty minutes. Take out the commercial breaks, the opening and ending credits, and it becomes something closer to twenty. Twenty minutes per episode, filled with plot and gags and tears and whatever else necessary to make you feel something, anything really. 

“What’s in your pocket?” you ask tentatively. 

In contrast, it takes approximately two seconds for Jungkook’s lips to quirk up— first the right side, always the right side —and his eyes to crinkle. Two seconds for him to smile, a sweet expression that reminds you of Netflix and college and quiet laughter and tattoos and silly YouTube videos and cookies and cell phones and job applications and blond hair; two seconds to make you feel everything all at once. 

“There’s nothing,” he says, but his cheeks are pink, and it’s not from the cold anymore. His smile is so big it makes your own cheeks ache just looking at it. You can’t even hear the television anymore. Never mind the fact you really like Sailor Moon, or that you really want to pay attention to every little detail; the moment becomes Jungkook and his big smile and his red cheeks and the tiny box he produces from within his pocket. “It was supposed to be for tomorrow,” he admits, unwrapping his arm from around you. 

It’s a little funny, somehow, because his hands are covered in ink, in tiny doodles and intricate pieces of swirls and words that ooze this aura of strength and toughness. But they tremble when he opens it, as unsteady as a wispy dandelion on a windy day, fumbling with the box. And when you look closely, he’s been biting at the skin along his thumb again, that nervous habit you’ve been trying forever to help him overcome. 

Someone is saying something on screen, something important to the plot. The volume is loud, but not as loud as your heart. Not as loud as Jungkook’s quiet murmur when he speaks again. “Will you marry me?” he asks softly, looks at you with flushed cheeks and big eyes and his heart on his sleeve. 

The answer has always been the same, hasn’t changed since the first time he planted the seed in your mind. Still, it catches in your throat, nearly loses out to a surprised and emotional sob that you barely manage to bite down. You had just been speaking, had just been ready to deliver a whole spiel on the importance of him watching Sailor Moon with you. But when you try now, it’s raspy and dry, as if you haven’t used your voice in years. “I— yes,” you exhale, surprised by the lonely tear that trails down your cheek. You go to wipe it away, but Jungkook beats you with a gentle hand cupping your cheek. 

His smile is wobbly, patches of red blossoming across his face that eventually consume his entire appearance as he leans his forehead against yours. Only then do you realize he’s crying, and you laugh out of reflex. “You’re crying,” you say, and Jungkook snorts. 

“You cried first,” he sniffles, smiling. “You made me cry.” 

He looks like a wreck, but, like, a hot wreck. An engaged, hot wreck who’s eyes flicker back to the TV to remind you to pause your anime, always so considerate. You do, hastily smashing buttons on the remote before remembering it’s controlled by your phone, hands flying back and forth as your nerves actively work to retire themselves after Jungkook’s proposal. “Easy there,” he soothes, eventually catching your hand in his, drawing it up for a kiss against your knuckles. 

The ring fits perfectly, snuggly. Vaguely, a memory drifts through your thoughts of Jungkook and Doyeon on a rampant mission to reorganize your jewelry box a few months ago, but it disappears as quickly as it came. You’re taken by the ring, a simple band with a pretty diamond on top. It’s a good mixture of you and him; flashy yet mild. 

“You love me,” you marvel, a revelation you’ve had the honor of experiencing time and time again with Jungkook. Still, it never fails to render you speechless. He hums. 

“I do,” he says, taking your hand in his. “It’s the easiest thing for me. Like breathing, or existing. I think I was made to love you.” And normally, you’d be the first one to correct him. Jungkook was made for so much more, a fact he’s proven time and time again with his abilities and the sheer size of his heart. He was your golden boy, could do anything he set his mind to. Always amazing you, always making you fall in love all over again. 

But now, with the weight of his words sitting heavy in the air, you find yourself incapable of negating the fact, instead sniffling at the meaning. 

Pleased with your silence, Jungkook places another chaste kiss against your ring. “I love you, __,” he confesses, voice nearly a whisper. Your entire body feels as if it is doused in gasoline, lit aflame over and over again. Your heart threatens your rib cage, pounds away with the strength of a world renowned boxer. Jungkook’s hands curl around your wrists carefully. “I used to think we were like the moon and the sun,” he admits, “that you were my sun and I was your moon. In love but always separated by those thin veils of the sunrise and the sunset.” He pauses, nuzzling sweetly against your palm once more before gently guiding them down between the two of you. “But that really sucks— saying goodbye to you every night? I hate that, __. I hate watching you leave, I hate watching you run off in the mornings or halfway through the day, having to drive back and forth from your place to mine. I hate having to be away from you when all I wanna do is hold you. I— I want to be by your side,” he rambles, eyes nervously meeting yours. They’re still glassy, dark lashes framing his chocolate irises wonderfully. “Forever.” 

Your heartbeat stutters, the simple word looping itself in your mind like that night in his dining room all over again, all the fantasies of having a forever with Jungkook bubbling to the surface. Jungkook pushes on. “You are my sun,” he says softly, mostly to himself. “But… I don’t wanna be the moon anymore. Being the moon means, eventually, I’ll have to say goodbye. In the night or in the morning, it always comes to an end. And I don't want there to be an end with you,” he insists, clutching your hand tightly. “I wanna be another star, the closest one to you. The one who gets to be with you forever. I wanna be by you and shine with you and—“

“Explode into a gazillion little fragments of cosmic dust with me,” you offer, and Jungkook nods along eagerly, too amped up on his speech to bother scolding you for your playful comment. 

“Yes, I want to— to—“ The words catch in his throat. So much emotion from the man you once thought was the dictionary definition of calm and collected. “To—“ 

“Marry me,” you fill in, and Jungkook practically blows a fuse from how emotionally fired up he’s become, exclaiming a resolute, “yes!” that leaves you stupidly grinning back at him. 

His outburst leaves him with flushed cheeks. “I do,” he reiterates in a softer tone, averting his gaze from you as if embarrassed by his cheesy outpouring of emotion. Usually, it’s the other way around; you make all the corny declarations of love and Jungkook laughs along suavely. It feels nice to have the tables turned. 

There’s so much to say, but the words all fade away when Jungkook shyly looks at you again. You settle on tackling him back onto the couch cushions, taking his surprised little yelp in stride as you suffocate him in your embrace. “Save those words for the big day, superstar,” you giggle, peppering his red face with tiny kisses that make him scrunch up cutely. “I can’t wait to blow up into one huge supernova with you.” 

Beneath you, Jungkook groans. “I’m sorry,” he huffs, voice muffled against your shoulder. Begrudgingly, his arms come up to envelope you, pulling you closer until the blanket scrunches up uncomfortably between you two. “That must’ve sounded so lame.” 

Leaning back so you’re not completely squishing him, you carefully push his silvery hair away from his forehead. “Don’t be,” you assure him, placing one chaste peck against his pouty lips. “I thought it was cute. I didn’t know you were into astrology.” 

A sigh. “Astronomy,” he corrects, “astrology has to do with zodiac signs and placements.” 

You run your thumbs over his cheeks, collecting any of the drying tears that paint his face. “Oh, like how you’re a Virgo and I’m a“— 

The TV remote you had lost somewhere along the way is suddenly rematerialized beneath your knee, sends the speakers blaring to life with a deafening screech that has both you and Jungkook leaping up like two frightened cats. “You always do this,” he laughs, that loud boyish sound that makes you feel like you’re sitting on a cloud. He watches you with a gentle smile as you hurriedly shut off the television, the remote haphazardly tossed somewhere behind you afterwards. You return to his embrace, wrap your arms around his waist and snuggle into his warmth. His heart thumps a steady rhythm beneath your ear. 

“You’re gonna be stuck with me forever,” you warn him, clutching at the fabric of his shirt like he’ll suddenly disintegrate before your eyes.

Above you, Jungkook hums, placing a kiss against the crown of your head. “I look forward to it,” he responds, pulling you impossibly closer, until you can feel the wrinkles in his shirt imprinting themselves against your cheek. He’s back to being that suave bastard again, and you find yourself wishing you had milked those big crocodile tears out of him for just a little bit longer. 

Fingers gently press against the muscles in your nape, push themselves in deeply until you can feel all the tension seeping out, turning you into a limbless blob over Jungkook. “Jeez,” you sigh, eyes fluttering shut. “And you wanted to wait until tomorrow.”

He huffs out a laugh. “I just thought you’d rather get engaged at a fancy restaurant with a pretty dress,” he defends, and you can hear the grin on his face. “For the photos.”

“Fair point,” you concede, eventually pushing yourself up so you’re not entirely squishing your boyfriend beneath you. Jungkook is already looking at you when you lift your head, has got this funny double-chin from this angle that makes his normally sharp jawline disappear. You find yourself tapping a finger against his chin, on the chocolate chip mole that hides itself beneath his plump bottom lip. “If anything, just propose to me again tomorrow at the restaurant.”

It wins you an eye-roll. “I’m not gonna propose to you again tomorrow,” he laughs, doesn’t even push you away when you become annoying and start tapping your fingers against all his beauty marks like you’re playing Whack-a-Mole. 

“Booo,” you frown, but let it go soon enough, foregoing your little game to press your lips against his. “Then I better make this a night to remember,” you murmur, tilting your head to the side.

Your hands dip into his luscious locks, fingernails tracing thin lines along his scalp that are certain to send tingles down his spine. As predicted, Jungkook releases a quiet groan soon after, a sound that’s muffled against your own lips. He’s pliant tonight, but not in a way that would elude fatigue. Pliant in a way that suggests he wants you to take the reins tonight, exhaling softly against you as he parts his lips. 

“Let me take care of you,” you hum, the hand that had been mindlessly hovering along his cheek drifting down to caress the side of his neck. Jungkook nods, his irises swimming in lust. You smile at his silent compliance, give his throat a light squeeze that makes his breathing hitch in surprise. 

He’s always at his prettiest when he’s beneath you like this, limbs moving in slow motion as you guide him along. You can already feel the beginnings of his arousal stirring beneath the front of his sweats, his cock slowly making its presence known against your thigh. You press your lips against his once more, making sure to make it rougher than the first kiss. Your tongue is met with little resistance, slips past his lips and dips into the hot cave of his mouth where Jungkook releases another trembling breath. 

Two hands come up behind you, trail themselves over your back and down to your ass, where he gives the two globes a tight squeeze. It draws a whimper out of you, one that Jungkook greedily swallows up. His tongue rubs up along yours, the wet muscle daringly pushing back against yours. His rebelliousness is only quelled with another press of your fingertips around his throat.

“Slow down,” you tell him. The first roll of your hips against him is slow, cruel in that you cut the motion short just as Jungkook begins to push back. A bratty huff escapes him, swollen pink lips pushing out into that endearing pout you love so much. It makes you grin, releasing the grip around his throat to carefully brush a stray strand of hair away from his eyes. 

It’s a gesture that works to soften Jungkook as well, the petulant look on his face melting away as you trail your pointer finger along his cheekbone. It’s replaced with a more tender one, dark lashes blinking up at you slowly. “Open,” you command upon reaching his mouth, finger pressing down against his pink lower lip. Jungkook obeys, opening his mouth until you can see his pink tongue and the dark abyss that leads down his throat. Your finger pushes itself in, and Jungkook certainly doesn’t try to resist. His lips suction around the digit fairly quickly, tight enough to keep you there but loose enough for you to slowly draw your finger in and out, each short plunge pressing down against his tongue. 

It’s a rather short affair, one that comes to an end when he accidentally bucks up against you, pressing his hardened member against your core. You retract your finger.  “Can you,” he tries, but his cheeks are stained red and he refuses to meet your gaze. “Just…” 

You intercept him with a chaste peck, maneuvering your legs until your knees are firmly pressed into the couch cushions beneath him, his thin waist trapped in between. When you sit up, you feel drunk on power and the way Jungkook looks up at you certainly doesn’t help. “Can I sit on your face?” 

He chokes. “I— sure, please,” he blurts out. His gaze follows you as you slip off of him, quickly discarding your pants and top on the floor. One pat against his thigh has him hurrying to shimmy out of his clothes, his sweatpants caught around his ankles. 

“You’re excited,” you laugh, stripping him of his bottoms when the frustration takes him over. 

Jungkook scoffs. “Well, yeah,” he mumbles, tugging his shirt off with one smooth motion. The ink around his bicep is as dark as ever, contrasts wonderfully against his warm face. “My fiancée is gonna sit on my face.”

The title makes you preen, quickly finding your place on his lap once more. With your clothing out of the way, Jungkook really does become a furnace. Every inch of his body is hot to the touch, soft too. “Fiancée,” you giggle, hands on his chest. They slide down, fingers playfully nudging his brown nipples. Jungkook flinches at the touch. “Gonna sit on my fiancé’s face,” you parrot back, delicately pinching one nipple between your fingers. A moan spills from his lips, his cock pushing against your thigh once more.

It’s the reminder you need, pushing back dutifully against him as you continue to toy with his chest. He’d look pretty with piercings, you find yourself thinking, watching on in fascination at the way his pert nipples stand at attention. Beneath you, Jungkook begins to grow desperate, his hands finding their place on your waist to encourage you to grind down against him once more. 

Jungkook swears up and down that he’s not particularly sensitive about having his nipples touched. But when you’ve got him like this, sinfully laid out before you, you can easily confirm that his claims are nothing but lies. He loves having his nipples touched, squirms beneath you impatiently with each playful tug and twist you bestow upon them. 

You duck down, pressing a kiss against his pectoral, just beside his nipple, and Jungkook’s entire body shivers. A few careful drags of your tongue against his warm skin only serve to string him along further, the prettiest whimper pulling itself from his lips when you finally envelope one of them in your mouth. “Wait,” he gasps, clawing at your clothing as if he both wants to push you off and push you closer. You grin, brandishing one mean nip at the sensitive nub. 

Eventually, your incessant need to play with Jungkook’s chest is fulfilled. “Lay back,” you instruct, watching as he shuffles down flat on the cushions, silver hair tumbling away from his eyes. He’s so red, eyes hazy. Your panties are discarded, joining the ever growing pile of clothes on the floor. 

Once upon a time, the idea of sitting on Jungkook’s face had terrified you, filled you with nightmares of crushing his windpipe or breaking his nose. For the most part, they’re pretty unrealistic fears, ones that can be easily shut down after one careful Google search on safe sexual practices. These days, it’s all too easy; in the mornings, especially, it’s become natural for him to guide you on top carefully, holding your hand as you whimper and sob over his face. 

In the current moment, you find yourself stroking a hand down the side of his face, completely enamored with the huge puppy eyes he levels your way. Jungkook likes having your pussy in his face just as much as you do, loves making you feel good in any way he knows how. But there’s a separate matter at hand, one that stands at attention beneath his black boxers and successfully wins your attention. 

Truthfully, there is no dilemma to ponder over; you want both to ride Jungkook’s face and suck him off. The solution?

“We’ve never done this before,” Jungkook mumbles in amazement, his voice slightly muffled from his position beneath you and slightly behind you. Still, his arms dutifully wrap around your thighs, guiding you closer to his mouth where his hot breath fans against your glistening folds. You rock back willingly, hands preoccupied with pushing his boxers down and away from his engorged cock. 

“Really?” you ask, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with the cock before you and the tongue that gently laps at your folds. Jungkook makes a sound, something between a hum and whimper, his mouth slowly getting to work against your folds. “M- Maybe,” you stutter, all thought processes coming to a halt as you carefully take him in your hand. 

His cock is hard and long, his tip an angry shade that weeps with precum. From this angle, you get to watch Jungkook’s huge thighs twitch at the sensation, the tattoo that marks up one of them doing little to hide the fact. Your hand squeezes him, watches in awe as another fat droplet oozes out of his tip. A moan tears itself from his throat, and it’s so goddamn sexy it nearly drives you insane. 

It’s one particularly long lap of his tongue over your clit that sends you into action, back arching at the tingles that shoot down your spine. Wasting no more time, you guide Jungkook’s cock into your mouth, let your own tongue shower his mushroom tip in kitten licks that have him bucking upwards. He releases your clit with a lewd pop, hot breath fanning across your lips. “Fuck,” he gasps, voice harsh. 

Admittedly, it’s more difficult than you thought it would be. 

You’re not one to be easily overwhelmed (says you), but with Jungkook’s twitching cock in your mouth and his teasing tongue dipping into your entrance, it becomes hard to juggle your attention between the two. Even Jungkook, who is quite frankly the master of cunnilingus, seems torn between the two, his breathing shallow and quick against your folds. 

With each slow descent around his cock, he shudders, thigh muscles tightening in anticipation. It causes a lull in the pace of his tongue, the generous kisses and licks against your folds subject to a somewhat uneven pace that, surprisingly, leaves you more on edge than you’d ever expected it to; right when you think he’s about to suck your clit into his mouth, you’re met with a harsh exhale instead, one that makes your lips flutter. 

You’re both disappointed in yourselves for never having tried this mind-blowing position before, and equal parts understanding as to why you haven’t tried this position before— it’s a lot. His cock is halfway down your throat when it twitches, sends a gush of precum into your mouth that has your eyes rolling backwards, a whine slipping out around him. Jungkook appreciates the vibrations, letting it fuel him as he plunges his tongue into your hole. It’s a two way street, you realize, one that is constantly experiencing traffic. 

“Baby,” you gasp, pulling off of his cock with a slick sound, hypnotized by the trail of saliva that connects your lips to his tip. Jungkook’s tongue prods along your slit, makes your eyesight go blurry when the tip of his nose brushes along you as well. The idea of his cute nose buried deep someplace it shouldn’t be has you grinding down on him. “We can— we should stop,” you stutter, your trembling hand reaching forward to grasp the base of his cock. 

He’s slick with your saliva and his precum, and your hand makes a squelching sound upon contact. It must feel good, because Jungkook moans against your folds, his thighs unconsciously falling farther apart as you slowly jerk him off. You think you might’ve heard your name slip from his lips, but your mind is fuzzy, lost in your lust as Jungkook licks a sinful line from your hole to your clit, curling his tongue at the end. “J- Jungkook,” you cry, flinching away because it’s become too much, your toes curling as the beginnings of an orgasm threaten you. 

Before that can happen, he relents, leaning back with a heavy exhale, his hands loosening their grip against your ass and plopping back down against the cushions. “Fuck,” he pants, his cock twitching in your hold. A lonely droplet of precum trails down the side, your knuckles coated in the glossy substance. Beneath you, Jungkook rubs one soothing palm against your hip. 

You slink off before he can get any funny ideas, maneuver yourself around until you’re kneeling between his parted thighs, his fat cock standing at attention between the two of you. From here, he looks ravenous, and you begin to question who exactly is taking care of who. Jungkook looks like he’s a second away from pinning you down and swallowing you whole, a thought that makes your toes curl. 

It’s with a cautiously horny hand that you reach for his cock again, holding him with both hands. Jungkook growls, head lolling backwards until all you can see is his neck and his chin, thick veins protruding along his skin. Jungkook doesn’t waste a moment longer. “C’mere,” he purrs, hauling you up until you’re clumsily leaning over him, palms framing his face. A lone finger runs down your spine, its faint touch making you arch forward. “Sorry,” he says, securing an arm around your waist. “I know you wanted to take care of me, but…”

You roll your eyes, submitting yourself to his clutches as he masterfully rolls the two of you over. The couch is soft beneath your back, and Jungkook looks pretty from above too. “You just can’t sit still, can you?” you murmur playfully. 

Jungkook’s forearms find their place beneath your thighs, the fold of the back of your knee perfectly slotted against his warm skin as he shuffles closer. “Maybe another time,” he laughs along sheepishly, his hard cock gliding over your slit, teasing your clit. You gulp, eyes scanning over his lean build as if it’s the first time. “Sorry,” he repeats, but he’s got this stupidly dopey grin on his face as he glances down at your pussy; he’s insane, he’s got to be, what man makes heart eyes at a pussy?

Your man, apparently. Grasping the base of his cock, Jungkook takes care to drag it along your folds collecting your wetness along his length, a deep shudder wracking his body through it all. “I knew you would do this to me,” he mutters, so low you nearly miss it under the thundering sound of your heartbeat.

“Huh,” you mumble, and you’d like to defend yourself and say you weren’t as cock-crazy as Jungkook was coochie-crazy, but that would be a lie. You’re staring at his cock as if it holds the secrets to the universe right now.

Jungkook juts his head to the side, a motion similar to the one he does when he’s trying to crack his neck. His tongue prods along his cheek, eyes laser-focused on the point where your two bodies meet. “From the moment you walked into my house,” he grunts mindlessly, finally lining himself up with your entrance. He chances a glance up, meets your gaze with a patient look, “all good?”

“All good,” you hurriedly reply, fingers finding their place against his broad shoulders. With the way he had prepared you earlier, mouthed along your clit and your folds until you were pleasantly aroused, the glide now is too easy. Tight, but easy, has the two of you releasing twin moans that echo off the wooden walls of the cabin. 

Jungkook’s forehead is covered in a thin veil of sweat, one that glistens when the evening sunset pours in through the balcony doors, highlighting him in a golden light that makes you dizzy. The angry tip of his cock sinks into your walls, Jungkook’s ashy strands sticking to his forehead and his cheeks. For some reason, you find yourself reminiscing on the aforementioned moment Jungkook had spoken of. Of the soft sweater he’d worn that day and the dinner he had made, the blond tips on his chestnut hair and the way he’d clung onto every word you’d said. 

It makes you tear up, and, after laughing at Jungkook early for crying, you quickly turn your face away. 

Jungkook isn’t dumb. “What now,” he chuckles, though his breathing is labored, every inch of his cock that penetrates you further bringing with it another rush of adrenaline. At the hilt, you’re embarrassed to say there’s multiple tears streaming down your face, so you can’t even play it off as you usually do. “Crybaby,” Jungkook teases, but his voice is so soft and tender you don’t know what to do with yourself. 

“Just move,” you bite out, shamefully covering your face with your hands. Jungkook leans over you, the movement pushing his dick deeper inside of you, your walls clenching around him. A kiss is placed over your knuckles, just shy of your engagement ring. Your chest lurches with a silent sob. “Jungkook,” you whimper, sinking further into the cushion, “please, just—“

“I got it,” he assures you, placing one final peck against your handmade (literally) shield. And then, so quietly you almost miss it, he makes sure to whisper, “love you,” before unsheathing himself. 

You shudder, your heart feeling so full, you fear it’ll burst. You both love and hate when he treats you like this, like an ice sculpture in the scorching heat that has him doing everything he can to keep you solid. His touch is soft, the roll of his hips too slow for your liking. You feel so small and vulnerable— too pampered. “Harder,” you beg, your voice an airy whine that has Jungkook chuckling above you. 

He lives to please you, hiking your leg over his shoulder with a renewed vigor. His hands find themselves on your waist, forcefully pinning you down against the couch cushions as he sets upon fulfilling your latest request. The next series of thrusts are jerky, have you jostling in his grip as Jungkook pounds into you with an all new mindset. “Lemme see you,” he huffs, thumbs painfully digging into your skin. You tremble in his arms, heart swayed by the quiet plea in his voice. “Let me see your face, pretty girl.”

Reluctantly, you do, brandishing your tear-stricken face his way. Jungkook smiles, that stupidly handsome smile, his hips snapping into you roughly. “Fuck,” he moans, the expression never leaving his face, even when run your nails over his chest harshly. “You’re so pretty.”

You ignore him for the sake of your already weakened mental state, focusing instead on the brutal force of his hips, the way his cock stretches your walls out. Each push has you seeing stars, thighs quivering from the sensations that shoot up your spine and down your toes. “Oh,” you mewl, hands gripping his biceps as you lose yourself to him. Your eyes roll back, vision a mess of colors and nothingness all at once. 

“Is this hard enough?” Jungkook husks out, and he sounds so close. His proximity is confirmed when his mouth slots against yours, his harsh breath mingling with your own as he continues to frantically buck into your inviting heat, each new round of thrusts leaving you weaker and weaker than before. “God,” Jungkook cries, the sound nearly lost beneath your own moans and whimpers. “Gonna k- keep you forever,” he spits, tongue slipping into your mouth.

He’s messier than usual, moves with unrefined movements unlike his normal self. You don’t care, you love him all the same. His sloppy kisses turn into desperate ones, matching the pace of his hips. “Kook,” you sob, arms wrapping themselves around his neck, pulling him close until his thrusts are reduced to a shallower depth. 

“I’ve got you,” he croons, lips against your jawline. His cock presses in and you swear you feel it alongside every inch of your walls, a warmth blossoming in your stomach. He’s layering messy kisses down your face now, lips sucking dark marks any chance he gets. 

True to his word, Jungkook indeed has you. His cock pistons in and out at an astonishing pace, each surge into your folds making you dizzy over and over again. It’s a feeling you fear you’ll never grow tired of, in fact, it’s a feeling you fear you’ll begin to crave even more in the future. The good thing is, that future will extend into forever. 

You yank him towards you, swallow his low laughter with your lips. Jungkook doesn’t complain, lowering himself until he’s practically squishing you beneath his beefy body, cock ramming in and out despite all that. His tongue glides along yours, makes it his mission to muffle each of your cries. 

It doesn’t take long for you to be fulfilled. Given the fact you had sucked him off like a lollipop whilst having him eat you out, you’re not entirely surprised. That and the emotions of tonight have you melting into him sooner than you’d like, his name falling from your lips as your thighs clamp down around his waist. Jungkook takes it in stride, slows the maddening pace of his hips to cradle you in his arms. You’re like jelly, practically flop back into the cushion when he slips an arm beneath you. “You’re so good for me,” Jungkook praises, lavishing your throat in tiny pecks as his orgasm circles around. “My pretty girl.”

“Love you,” you sigh, and your body feels numb, his intrusion but a small touch now that he’s tired you out once more, your walls tender and raw. Jungkook presses a smile against your throat and, moments later, releases inside of you. 

Even minutes after the deed, the feeling refuses to return to your legs. He didn’t go that hard— well, you’re not entirely sure. The memories always become blurry toward the end of your escapades. Everything rushes back in waves, and for some reason, your first thought is, “where’s Sailor Moon?”

Your post-rump conversations have never been the most coherent, usually filled with pretty weird thoughts and ideas. Still, more grand things have happened tonight for you to be worried about a magical anime girl. Jungkook draws himself out of your core with a huff of laughter. “On the TV,” he answers, unfazed by the oddity of your question. 

That’s how you know he’s a keeper.

It takes a while, but eventually Jungkook responds. “Avocado toast,” he says, though his answer is dripping with uncertainty. He’s naked as the day he was born, snuggled up beside you in bed. He’s propped up on one arm, looking down at you over the ample swell of his manly bosom. It takes everything in you to keep your hands off his chest. 

“Correct,” you respond, “and what movie did we watch?”

Without missing a beat, “Transformers, the first one.”

You nod, glancing at the ceiling as you rack your brain for any other trivia questions to ask your fiancé. “The title of the playlist you made?”

A flush paints his cheeks. “Date Night playlist,” he answers through a pout, reprimanding you for bringing up such a memory with a flick to your forehead. You wince. “I was young and silly,” he defends.

You beam, cuddling into his side until he’s forced to lay back down. “Yeah, yeah,” you tease. “We’re only gonna get older from here,” you lament. You’d say it’s difficult to picture him with a gray head of hair, but his current silvery locks don’t leave much room for your imagination.

Jungkook pulls you close. A beat of silence passes, and then, “so who are we telling first?”

Definitely Namjoon.

Copyright © 2021, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[lunarrwolf]

mini series coming soon!!

since you guys got me over 300 followers, i held up my end of my own deal and was finally able to think up the first of a 100% written series (social media included only when needed to build the story).

there will only be two for now but i want to get the sykkuno series a good ways in before bringing in new content like this! i’ve been a writer since middle school and have major writer’s block for a book i’m working on rn so i’m really excited about writing an actual story for lunarrwolf! these are the banners, very tiny synopses, and sneak peek excerpts for DAYWALKER!s and Siren Woods

s.h warning: siren woods will not be for the faint of heart as it will be put in the category of a psychological thriller. it will contain suspense, fear(s), anxiety and/or mentions of depression, isolation and swearing

d.w!s warning: this is an apocalyptic world w/o zombies. it will contain violence, anxiety, entrapment, fear(s) and swearing

disclaimer: i will do my absolutely best not to treat either of these as if they were actual novels. i plan on putting in comedic lines and scenes to lower any thriller/horror vibes from the stories, and not too go too far to avoid truly triggering myself or anyone else. warnings will only be issued in chapters that are going to actually include one or more of above the above. but if anyone who reads them in the future have issues do not feel like you need to keep reading.

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DAYWALKER!s

a variety youtuber mini series

summary

ten creators find themselves amidst a city with an oddly familiar vibe, a weird yet intimidating apocalyptic appearance, and hundreds of strangers that feel the need to do nothing but fight their way through the city. even if that means to the death.

excerpt

“You’re all going to die, you know.. so you might as well give up now and let it take over.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

You blinked at the growl woven in with your friend’s deep voice, knowing for sure that if you were in an animation a sweat drop would be making its way down the side of your head. He hated confrontation more than anyone here but when it came to his friends, and being trapped in a place like this? Who knew what damage he would do to keep them safe.

The man ahead of the group did nothing but stand there with a mocking grin on his face. It was unnerving, and dare say almost bloodthirsty. There was no amount of sanity or free will from where you all stood just a couple of yards away, and just that thought alone chilled you to the core.

“Corpse.. maybe you shouldn’t.” You stated, stepping closer to him to lower the risk of the strange man hearing the second part. “I don’t like the looks of that guy even from over here. We’ve already had to deal with a ton of crazy shit since finding each other. We can’t risk losing our only real muscle of the group.”

Ignoring the offended voices of Sean and Ludwig, the man with the torn mask looked at you only when you put a hand on his shoulder. It took sharing glances and seeing head shakes from most of the others to have him loosen the fist his hand was already in. Standing up straight, you watched as he rolled his shoulders, jaw still clenched from the tension. Rae was taking advantage of the off putting interaction and explored the small area, so capturing everyone’s attention when Corpse relaxed a bit wasn’t hard. “It’s gonna be a tight fit but I think we can make it work.”

“Whoa.”

“Where did you learn how to hotwire a car?” Ethan questioned, being the first to make his way toward the beaten vehicle.

“Video games?” The brunette answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She hit the side of the driver door twice, motioning to the group. “Now get your asses in here before that guy decides to pull a Resident Evil zombie sprint on us.”

“Yes ma’am.” Sykkuno saluted, earning chuckles that were a rare sight since ending up here. The two of you didn’t waste time in calling the front seats beside Rae and Ethan, forcing everyone else to get in the back of the truck and make it work. No one could complain, though, seeing the circumstances you were all in.

It took a few seconds of revving the seemingly old engine before the machine began making its way. You could actually hear the ones in the back shift around to get in more comfortable positions for however long a ride it would be. The girl behind the wheel didn’t pay any mind to the stranger that watched her drive you all away, but you did. And even when he continued to shrink in distance and eventually disappeared, you knew his words would stay with you.

“You’re wasting your time! No one gets out of Mirror City!!”

Siren Woods

a variety youtuber mini series

summary

seven internet personalities find themselves in the middle of an old town myth as they take a break from their careers and head up towards a rural mountain area. among every spooky or jumpy experience with a horror game here and there, never did any of them think they’d end up in this situation.

excerpt

The fire crackled with a sense of release, almost as if this large flame represented the time everyone needed away from their jobs. After how crazy the media has become the past few weeks, you and your friends agreed that a trip towards a much lesser known area would do you all well. It was a teenagers on summer break scene where everyone was gathered around a campfire in the backyard of a lake house, telling stories to either amuse or scare each other. Seán and Ethan were the first to do so, tag teaming in a very dramatic reenactment of the first time they met in person, which of course had to be followed by your own scene with Y/F/N.

Time flew by and before you knew it, the sun was completely set and the darkest shade of navy possible was barely lit with a crescent moon and a few stars. The only real source of light was the fire, illuminating the six faces in an orange glow. Any laughter died down minutes ago, leaving a silence that was comfortable for everyone. “You guys want to hear a funny story?”

Squinting at the man sitting in the log across from you, you leaned forward, hands folded in your lap. “Funny haha or funny we might want to kill you after we hear it?”

“Uh..” Corpse met your gaze immediately, his mask somehow looking more eerie with the natural lighting. “Funny kind of hoping you won’t kill me, if I’m being honest.” He confirmed, leaning forward himself to warm up his hands while the rest of you debated on whether to let him tell it.

After a few minutes, and three overtaking two, he was allowed to do so. It was an old myth of the town you all resided in for the week; a Slenderman type of entity of the forest that the locals from dozens of years before chose to call Siren Head. The name stuck once old photos were found and set up in the small museum in the Common. He stood at forty feet tall, with two megaphones for heads and tangled wires for a torso. He had the ability to perfectly mimic broadcasts, conversations, sirens and screams, and had been said to only emit white noise if ever asleep. Speed nearly matched that of a cheetah and his strength was unbelievably high due to his size. Every sighting of said species had only been released by victims, and it was an urban tale that stood alive to this very day.

Rae was on the grass now, legs crossed one over the other as she tried to look at everyone at once. “Why the hell did we all come to a place called Siren Woods, then?!”

“Well.. the town looked really nice online, and it’s living up to that. And I thought siren meant more mermaid than a freaky Creepypasta-type thing.” Sykkuno could do nothing but respond with nerves showing through his face and every subtle movement of his body as he explained why he ended up agreeing with the destination.

“Yeah, I did too.” Y/F/N piped in, shrugging her innocence as you all began telling your sides. “Who doesn’t think of a mermaid when you hear the word siren?! That’s basically what they are.”

“I, for one, think we should find another place to stay.” Ethan spoke up.

Seán gaped at his longest friend in the group, “You don’t actually believe in that.”

“I’m not taking any chances, dude. Those people believe in that thing enough to build a whole section of the museum for it.”

You watched your friends go back and forth, some freaked out by the story but not believing it was real while the rest wanted to find a new vacation spot. “What do you think, Y/N?”

You turned to Corpse, blinking as the simple question processed in your mind. “I’m with Ethan on this.. even if that thing isn’t an actual being the belief here is hardcore.” Three faces lit up in relief while the roommate, Irishman, and faceless internet persona felt differently. “Let me finish..” you sighed, “Let’s stay another night but keep an extra cautious eye on Spencer and Luna. Animals have a sort of sixth sense, so if anything weird happens they’ll warn us. Deal?”

Y/F/N shared a glance with you, letting out a sigh of her own. “Suddenly I’m feeling a lot better that we brought our dogs instead of getting sitters.” She bent down to pet the canines laying between the logs, hoping if they did bark it would just be from a resident knocking on the door.

[deathlikesdeep-dish]

Heat (Zoro x Reader)

Hiiii!

I’m new on the One Piece fanfic scene but I had a ton of fun writing this first little story for the One Piece of Summer Writing Challenge! (also please forgive me if there’s multiple submissions i’m returning to tumblr after like an 8 year hiatus lol) (also also i’m sorry i’m verbose i hope this isn’t too long)

Warnings: some language

Word Count: 3628

Word Prompt: Heat

You can hardly believe that it’d been two whole years since the crew had been together. Two years. Holy shit. You feel a lump in your throat as you approach Shakky’s place. You have no idea who, if anyone, had already arrived. Your heart races excitedly at the thought and a small smile creeps over your features. You make yourself sit on a nearby bench and breathe before you hike the last flight of stairs to the bar. It’s a hot day, impossibly hot and you sit and take a sip of water from your hip flask. The cool liquid pours down your throat and you sigh happily as you wonder what the very near future would hold.

Would it be Franky? You imagine the blue-haired madman, and laugh. Maybe he’d found another way to fuel his cyborg frame other than cola. You laugh again.

Who am I kidding? You think to yourself. The reason he runs on cola is because he wants to run on cola.

Or maybe it would be Usopp or Chopper? The last time you saw Chopper, it had been so frightening. He was vast and out of control from using those rumble balls. A shudder runs up your spine at the thought, but you push the thought away shaking your head. Your h/c hair ruffles at the motion, and you push a strand out of your face as you stare at the ground beneath your boots. Usopp, you are sure, will be one of the early ones, not wanting to be one-upped. You roll your eyes, your mind’s ear imagining him shouting, “Well, of course I’m here first! I’m the great captain Usopp!”

You already know what Brook--you mean “Soul King” had been up to. You laugh. You had to admit that his stuff was pretty catchy, and you wonder if he’d even want to come back to the pirate life after all that fame and fortune. It had been nice over the last two years to follow him in the papers whenever you could; a small link to your old life had been comforting and familiar.

Nami and Robin were almost certainly already here--Nami, probably off conning some shop owner into giving their store away half-price, and Robin wandering around looking at architecture, reading a book, or saying weirdly cryptic lines to passersby. You sigh fondly, reminiscing about the times the three ladies of the Strawhats spent together. Not having had many female friends to speak of before the Strawhats, it had been nice to have some badass women to bond with over the months before your separation. In your two years alone, you’d missed the companionship.

Maybe Sanji is at Shakky’s already, cooking up some delicious concoction for you to devour. Your stomach grumbles on cue, and your mouth waters thinking about it. If Luffy was already here, then any food would be gone twice over. Of all the changes that are sure to have occurred, your captain’s appetite is the least likely to change. You can only imagine what power he has achieved in the last two years. Your stomach sinks a bit thinking about when you learned of Ace’s death in the Paramount War. The pain Luffy must have endured. Alone. But, he was not one to dwell, and wouldn’t want you to either.

So you don’t. You’re strong--much stronger than you were the last time the crew saw you. You’re not the same girl that you were two years ago. No, not even close. You’re taller, with broader shoulders and hips. While you were once slender due to malnutrition, you are now toned and muscled after two years of hard training. You felt vitality that you once never thought you’d feel coursing through your muscles. Your top, frayed at the hem, falls to just above your naval and drapes over one shoulder, leaving the other uncovered. Your s/c flesh is exposed to the waistband of your khaki shorts. The leather of your boots is soft and worn, the same pair you’d been wearing when you were launched away from your crew by Kuma. The holster dangling from your waist carried some of your throwing knives, which you twiddle absently at your side in nervousness. You had become adept at hand to hand combat since the crew saw you last. You are nimble, fast and lethal. You smirk and let the confidence roll over your body. You can’t wait to see how skilled everyone else had become.

You flex and stretch, standing up from the bench and begin your ascent up the stairs. They groan under your weight and you shift the bag on your shoulder, securing it more tightly against your body. You feel your heart beginning to race again at the thought of the final crew member. You can only imagine how strong he’d become.

Zoro.

You think of his green hair, and his white shirt, the top buttons always haphazardly undone. His slim black pants and boots, the sound of his earrings jangling in the sea breeze. You see his tight, intense gaze and that smirk that always weakened your knees. The knot in your stomach tangles more at the thought as you crest the top of the stairs. You recall the days that you sat in the Crow’s Nest together as he worked out. He never paid you much attention, but simply tolerating your presence in his sacred space made you feel important.

You feel the heat rise to your face and you can’t tell if it’s because of the sweltering sun of the Archipelago or the indecent thoughts that have begun to flood your mind. You take a deep breath as you nearly reach the doorway of Shakky’s place, when you stop in your tracks at the silhouette in the doorway. The sun is bright, so you can’t make out who it is right away, but as the figure takes a step, there’s no mistaking that green head of hair.

“Well,” You hear Shakky’s voice from inside the bar.

“Wow, I didn’t think you’d be the first,” You hear Rayleigh’s voice chime in.

The greenette stays silent for a moment and then replies, “Oh yeah? Nobody else has shown up.” He pauses. “Well damn, guess they got lost.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice. It’s unmistakable.

Before you can stop yourself, you call out to him. “Zoro!” You immediately flush, but you know this time it’s not from the heat.

You see Zoro stiffen at your voice, but he quickly turns around and meets your gaze with his own.

Christ…

You immediately notice that your eyes only meet one of his, a scar running from forehead to cheekbone on the left side of his face, his eye tightly shut. It makes him look even more ruggedly attractive, if at all possible, and you allow yourself to stare for a moment.  His jaw, still angular and chiseled, is formed into a lazy half-smirk. Your e/c eyes trail down from his jaw to his throat and his collarbone, a body part you became intimately familiar with when you’d spent long moments staring at it over the top of his unbuttoned shirt, wondering what it would be like to nuzzle your face into its contours.

A part you are not used to seeing so casually, was the rest of his broad chest, which is exposed under the deep green coat he was wearing, the trademark Mihawk scar that ran from shoulder to hip still proudly displayed. You are glad to see that his haramaki remained unchanged over the last two years along with the three swords he carries at his side. He shifts his weight to his left side and leans his forearm on the hilt of his swords.

“Y/n!” He replies with a broad grin of recognition. He jogs toward you, and you find yourself moving towards him too.

Zoro is stunned to see you. In all honesty, he is stunned to know that he’s the first to arrive in the first place. Although, he did leave several weeks prior. Just in case.

You are...so different. His eyes move across your body, and he coughs, a slight flush spreading across his cheeks. He grits his teeth frustratedly.

Shit...get it together. He thinks to himself.

“I can’t believe we’re the first ones here!” You say, before pausing. “Actually...how the hell are you the first one here??”

You laugh and he manages to chuckle too. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He jokes.

“Shakky and Raleigh inside?” You ask, jabbing your thumb towards the open door to the bar.

Zoro nods, rubbing a calloused hand at the nape of his neck. “Yep, they’re in there. Waiting like the old gossips they are.” He laughs quietly, shaking his head.

You can’t help but watch his arm move behind his head. His worn bandana is tied around his bicep over the top of his coat, and you can’t help but imagine how his tanned skin stretches over the muscle there. You realize, too late, that you had been silent for a beat too long.

“Y/n? You good?” He asks, raising a brow.

Your attention snaps back like a rubber band and you laugh nervously. “Hmm? Oh, yeah, sorry. Just can’t believe how long it’s been.” You say lamely.

You walk into the bar, Zoro trailing behind you and you greet Shakky and Rayleigh with a wide grin. Shakky compliments your new look, making you spin around as if to show off your outfit. You can’t help but feel confident and a surge of pride wells within you. She pours you a drink, having already poured one for Zoro, and invites you to sit down at a far booth. You sit next to Rayleigh, playfully bumping him and he wraps an arm around your shoulder. He gives you an affectionate squeeze as he tells you how pleased he is to see you guys again. Zoro takes a seat at the far corner of a booth. He props his feet up and takes a long drag of sake straight from the bottle. He’d already finished the drink that was poured, naturally, and stopped Shakky before she could pour him another. He asked for the bottle, shrugging and said that we should just “cut out the middleman.”

You regale the three others in your tales of the last two years. You speak about your Master, your training, the island you’d resided on, everything. Shakky gives updates too, about some of the rumors that had been floating around in the Strawhats’ absence, particularly about Luffy and Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro. Shakky, never one to be subtle, asks Zoro pointblank about what he’d been up to.

“Eh, not too much excitement,” He says vaguely. “The usual. Swords, drinking, naps.” Shakky rolls her eyes, unsatisfied, but you just laugh, knowing that he was not one to talk too much about himself.

After a long while, the four of you notice that the sun has begun to set. You are beginning to feel the drinks you’d consumed, your laughter a bit louder, your tongue a bit looser, your hair a bit wilder. The bar is illuminated in deep orange and red hues and you glance over at Zoro. Half of his face is cast in shadow, while the other half colored the same tint as the room. It looks almost as if he is on fire and you are mesmerized by him. He’s staring at you intently. You see beads of sweat along his hairline, and you notice that he has removed his outer coat.

“Damn Shakky,” He breathes, not breaking eye contact with you. “I don’t remember it being this hot two years ago.”

Shakky laughs. “Well, we’re going through a bit of a heatwave right now. It’s unusual for this time of year, but occasionally the weather currents bring a front in. It’s supposed to be like this for the next few days.”

His knees are propped up and he rests his forearms on top of them as he breaks your gaze and looks out the window. HIs profile is immaculate, and your eyes trace each feature--his straight nose, his angled jaw, and his full lips. Your lips subconsciously part, and it isn’t until you feel your tongue on them that you notice how you’re staring. Shakky, however, has noticed how the two of you have been trading stares at each other the entire evening. She smirks and stands with a yawn.

“Well Rayleigh,” She starts. “It seems likes it’s about time to close up shop for the evening. You good?”

Rayleigh looks confused at first, however, when Shakky gestures quickly to you and Roronoa, Rayleigh nods knowingly. He looks down at his nearly full drink and smiles. He tips his head back and swigs down the rest, placing the empty glass resolutely on the hard wood. “You know what, Shakky? You’re absolutely right. These old bones can’t drink like they used to. I’m headed down to my place at the docks. It’s cooler there anyway.” He stands up and bids the room farewell. The doorbell jingles behind him as he exits the bar.

You get the feeling that they’d been watching you and Zoro, and you feel embarrassed. But you don’t want to complain. You just hope that Zoro wouldn’t be ready to turn in yet either.

Shakky approaches Zoro and gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Night, Roronoa. If you get lonely, my room is always open.” She winks at him, entertained by how he squirms at the unexpected contact.

“Uh, yeah, sure…” He mutters, flustered. Shakky laughs.

“Shit Roronoa, just relax. I’m only kidding.” She walks over to a door behind the bar, presumably that led to her sleeping quarters, and opens it. “Or am I?” She grins slyly.

This time, Zoro knows better. The greenette shakes his head with a chuckle. “Goodnight, Shakky.”

She, too, disappears. The door closes behind her with a soft click, and the two of you are left alone. The sun has finally set beneath the mangroves and the sound of crickets fills the room. Despite the sun having set, the room is humid and very warm.

You reach a slender hand up and wipe beads of condensation off the back of your neck with a nervous sigh. “You’re right, Zoro,” You say after a moment. “It is absolutely stifling in here.”

He hums in agreement and holds up the bottle of sake questioningly. You nod and he tosses the closed bottle to you. However, his toss is a little short and to the left. But you’re fast and you catch it without a problem, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Aim much?” You joke as you pour yourself another drink before tossing it back to him.

He catches it easily and smirks. “Well, just checking to see if all that training you were going on about actually paid off.” He takes a swig. “Seems like it did.”

You were unbelievable. Zoro marvels at your agility. He had been enthralled as you told your story of the last two years. He watched the way your eyes lit up in excitement at certain parts or when your tone shifted to something more sinister. This was the y/n he’d always known--vibrant, curious and powerful. Zoro has always admired your tenacity. It was something of himself that he saw in you. He admired your intelligence as well, and your quick wit. It had always been a little intimidating, but now you were a force. It overwhelmed the swordsman. And thrilled him in the same way a new enemy excited him, got his adrenaline pumping and his heart racing.

He watches as you take a sip of your drink. His gaze follows the long line of your neck down to your collarbone, which he finds himself lingering on for longer than what was appropriate between nakama. You had always been objectively attractive, but Zoro never really paid attention to things like that. But now, you made that impossible to ignore. He is very attracted to you, entranced by your confident aura that pours off of you like cool sake.

The alcohol warms your blood and before you know what you’re doing, you prop your elbow on the table and say, “Seems like your training paid off too. I mean, look at you. All extra-muscley and shit.”

Zoro’s eyes widen slightly before he laughs out loud. “Thank you? I think.”

The liquid courage you’ve consumed does little for your filter (or your shame) so you continue. “I remember when I used to hang out in the Crow’s nest while you worked out. You were strong then, obviously. But it’s different now. You seem...invincible.” You breathe.

Zoro takes a moment to consider. “Invincible, huh?” He chuckles. “Hardly.”

You scoff and roll your eyes, but don’t reply.

Zoro stands up, his coat remaining in his seat. Your eyes follow the contour of his chest and he notices you watching him. He loves knowing that you look at him the same way that he looks at you.

“Come on,” He says after a moment, holding out his free hand, the other still holding the bottle of sake.

You take it without thinking. “Where are we going?” His hand is rough and cool to the touch, despite the heat in the room. He’s never held your hand before now. His good eye lands on you with a smirk that turns the knot low in your stomach.

“Up,” He replies in a whisper.

You nod wordlessly and stand up, trailing behind him as he walks towards the back door of the bar. When you exit, you sigh happily when a cool breeze flows along your damp skin. He echoes the sentiment with a contented hum, and continues towards the side of the building where he finds a ladder.

“Ladies first,” He grins, gesturing for you to climb the ladder up to the roof of the bar.

You raise an eyebrow, but comply nonetheless. As you climb, you make sure to move your hips more exaggeratedly, knowing the view you were providing him.

He knows exactly what he’s doing, of course, and admires your ass as you climb the ladder. You really are something. He wants to do more than just hold your hand. He wants to trail his hands along your curves, feel your strong body against the planes of his chest. He wants to know what your lips taste like, what your h/c hair feels like entangled in his fingers. But he knows that he needs to take it slow for both of your sake. It’s been two years. A lot has changed, and you are still his nakama first and foremost. There’s nothing that he would sacrifice to keep that.

The ladder is taller than you think it is by looking at it and when you arrive at the top of the bar, you are surprised to find an expansive platform.

“Wow,” You look open-mouthed. “How’d you know this was up here?” You look to Zoro who hops up onto the platform.

He shrugs. “I didn’t. I just saw the ladder earlier and figured it would be worth exploring.”

He walks up behind you in all of his shirtless beauty and sits, his legs apart as he leans back on his forearms. You’re still standing, looking up at the vast mangroves all around you, the stars peeking through the tree-tops. He lets you admire the scenery because it gives him a few moments to admire you. He clears his throat to get your attention and pulls you down to him.

With a light gasp, you find yourself sitting between his legs, your back against his chest and his arms wrapped around you. You are blushing furiously now. He hums contentedly, moving to nuzzle your hair and inhale your clean scent.

“What are you doing?” You manage to croak out.

“Enjoying the company,” He murmurs into the side of your neck.

You feel his heart beating swiftly against your back as you lean into him with a deep sigh. Your brain wants to overcomplicate this.

What does this mean? What does he want? Does he feel the same way about me that I feel about him? Does he...you gulp. Does he...want me, the way that I want him?

He feels you stiffen. “Y/n, hey,” He says. “It’s okay. This doesn’t have to mean anything that we don’t want it to mean.”

It seems like mind-reading is on the roster of new super powers he’s acquired. You grumble internally.

He laughs, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear before he moves away. You whimper softly at the loss of contact, and turn to face him with a confused look. Though he did shift backwards, he didn’t move all that far away from you, so you’re surprised that you’re nearly face to face when you turn around.

He gently touches his thumb to your parted lips. “We’ve got time, y/n. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. So let’s just take the time and figure it out.” He smiles.

You feel your heart swell in your chest as you meet his intense stare. “Y-yeah, o-okay.” You stutter, still not quite believing that Roronoa Zoro has anything he wants to figure out with you. Your reverie is interrupted by Zoro’s gentle kiss. It’s a kiss that foreshadows what else could come of it, one that’s slow and burning and brimming with possibilities. He pulls away with a shudder.

“We’ve got time.” He says again, seeming to convince himself with the second iteration. “Besides,” He pulls back fully this time, taking in your lovely face before he smirks. “It’s too damn hot to be this close right now anyway.”

[doctorgerth]

One Piece of Summer (Heat ZoroxReader)

(I apologize if I did this wrong! First time submitting to things lol)

Hiiii!

I’m new on the One Piece fanfic scene but I had a ton of fun writing this first little story for the One Piece of Summer Writing Challenge! (also please forgive me if there’s multiple submissions i’m returning to tumblr after like an 8 year hiatus lol) (also also i’m sorry i’m verbose i hope this isn’t too long)

Warnings: some language

Word Count: 3628

Word Prompt: Heat

You can hardly believe that it’d been two whole years since the crew had been together. Two years. Holy shit. You feel a lump in your throat as you approach Shakky’s place. You have no idea who, if anyone, had already arrived. Your heart races excitedly at the thought and a small smile creeps over your features. You make yourself sit on a nearby bench and breathe before you hike the last flight of stairs to the bar. It’s a hot day, impossibly hot and you sit and take a sip of water from your hip flask. The cool liquid pours down your throat and you sigh happily as you wonder what the very near future would hold.

Would it be Franky? You imagine the blue-haired madman, and laugh. Maybe he’d found another way to fuel his cyborg frame other than cola. You laugh again.

Who am I kidding? You think to yourself. The reason he runs on cola is because he wants to run on cola.

Or maybe it would be Usopp or Chopper? The last time you saw Chopper, it had been so frightening. He was vast and out of control from using those rumble balls. A shudder runs up your spine at the thought, but you push the thought away shaking your head. Your h/c hair ruffles at the motion, and you push a strand out of your face as you stare at the ground beneath your boots. Usopp, you are sure, will be one of the early ones, not wanting to be one-upped. You roll your eyes, your mind’s ear imagining him shouting, “Well, of course I’m here first! I’m the great captain Usopp!”

You already know what Brook–you mean “Soul King” had been up to. You laugh. You had to admit that his stuff was pretty catchy, and you wonder if he’d even want to come back to the pirate life after all that fame and fortune. It had been nice over the last two years to follow him in the papers whenever you could; a small link to your old life had been comforting and familiar.

Nami and Robin were almost certainly already here–Nami, probably off conning some shop owner into giving their store away half-price, and Robin wandering around looking at architecture, reading a book, or saying weirdly cryptic lines to passersby. You sigh fondly, reminiscing about the times the three ladies of the Strawhats spent together. Not having had many female friends to speak of before the Strawhats, it had been nice to have some badass women to bond with over the months before your separation. In your two years alone, you’d missed the companionship.

Maybe Sanji is at Shakky’s already, cooking up some delicious concoction for you to devour. Your stomach grumbles on cue, and your mouth waters thinking about it. If Luffy was already here, then any food would be gone twice over. Of all the changes that are sure to have occurred, your captain’s appetite is the least likely to change. You can only imagine what power he has achieved in the last two years. Your stomach sinks a bit thinking about when you learned of Ace’s death in the Paramount War. The pain Luffy must have endured. Alone. But, he was not one to dwell, and wouldn’t want you to either.

So you don’t. You’re strong–much stronger than you were the last time the crew saw you. You’re not the same girl that you were two years ago. No, not even close. You’re taller, with broader shoulders and hips. While you were once slender due to malnutrition, you are now toned and muscled after two years of hard training. You felt vitality that you once never thought you’d feel coursing through your muscles. Your top, frayed at the hem, falls to just above your naval and drapes over one shoulder, leaving the other uncovered. Your s/c flesh is exposed to the waistband of your khaki shorts. The leather of your boots is soft and worn, the same pair you’d been wearing when you were launched away from your crew by Kuma. The holster dangling from your waist carried some of your throwing knives, which you twiddle absently at your side in nervousness. You had become adept at hand to hand combat since the crew saw you last. You are nimble, fast and lethal. You smirk and let the confidence roll over your body. You can’t wait to see how skilled everyone else had become.

You flex and stretch, standing up from the bench and begin your ascent up the stairs. They groan under your weight and you shift the bag on your shoulder, securing it more tightly against your body. You feel your heart beginning to race again at the thought of the final crew member. You can only imagine how strong he’d become.

Zoro.

You think of his green hair, and his white shirt, the top buttons always haphazardly undone. His slim black pants and boots, the sound of his earrings jangling in the sea breeze. You see his tight, intense gaze and that smirk that always weakened your knees. The knot in your stomach tangles more at the thought as you crest the top of the stairs. You recall the days that you sat in the Crow’s Nest together as he worked out. He never paid you much attention, but simply tolerating your presence in his sacred space made you feel important.

You feel the heat rise to your face and you can’t tell if it’s because of the sweltering sun of the Archipelago or the indecent thoughts that have begun to flood your mind. You take a deep breath as you nearly reach the doorway of Shakky’s place, when you stop in your tracks at the silhouette in the doorway. The sun is bright, so you can’t make out who it is right away, but as the figure takes a step, there’s no mistaking that green head of hair.

“Well,” You hear Shakky’s voice from inside the bar.

“Wow, I didn’t think you’d be the first,” You hear Rayleigh’s voice chime in.

The greenette stays silent for a moment and then replies, “Oh yeah? Nobody else has shown up.” He pauses. “Well damn, guess they got lost.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice. It’s unmistakable.

Before you can stop yourself, you call out to him. “Zoro!” You immediately flush, but you know this time it’s not from the heat.

You see Zoro stiffen at your voice, but he quickly turns around and meets your gaze with his own.

Christ…

You immediately notice that your eyes only meet one of his, a scar running from forehead to cheekbone on the left side of his face, his eye tightly shut. It makes him look even more ruggedly attractive, if at all possible, and you allow yourself to stare for a moment.  His jaw, still angular and chiseled, is formed into a lazy half-smirk. Your e/c eyes trail down from his jaw to his throat and his collarbone, a body part you became intimately familiar with when you’d spent long moments staring at it over the top of his unbuttoned shirt, wondering what it would be like to nuzzle your face into its contours.

A part you are not used to seeing so casually, was the rest of his broad chest, which is exposed under the deep green coat he was wearing, the trademark Mihawk scar that ran from shoulder to hip still proudly displayed. You are glad to see that his haramaki remained unchanged over the last two years along with the three swords he carries at his side. He shifts his weight to his left side and leans his forearm on the hilt of his swords.

“Y/n!” He replies with a broad grin of recognition. He jogs toward you, and you find yourself moving towards him too.

Zoro is stunned to see you. In all honesty, he is stunned to know that he’s the first to arrive in the first place. Although, he did leave several weeks prior. Just in case.

You are…so different. His eyes move across your body, and he coughs, a slight flush spreading across his cheeks. He grits his teeth frustratedly.

Shit…get it together. He thinks to himself.

“I can’t believe we’re the first ones here!” You say, before pausing. “Actually…how the hell are you the first one here??”

You laugh and he manages to chuckle too. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He jokes.

“Shakky and Raleigh inside?” You ask, jabbing your thumb towards the open door to the bar.

Zoro nods, rubbing a calloused hand at the nape of his neck. “Yep, they’re in there. Waiting like the old gossips they are.” He laughs quietly, shaking his head.

You can’t help but watch his arm move behind his head. His worn bandana is tied around his bicep over the top of his coat, and you can’t help but imagine how his tanned skin stretches over the muscle there. You realize, too late, that you had been silent for a beat too long.

“Y/n? You good?” He asks, raising a brow.

Your attention snaps back like a rubber band and you laugh nervously. “Hmm? Oh, yeah, sorry. Just can’t believe how long it’s been.” You say lamely.

You walk into the bar, Zoro trailing behind you and you greet Shakky and Rayleigh with a wide grin. Shakky compliments your new look, making you spin around as if to show off your outfit. You can’t help but feel confident and a surge of pride wells within you. She pours you a drink, having already poured one for Zoro, and invites you to sit down at a far booth. You sit next to Rayleigh, playfully bumping him and he wraps an arm around your shoulder. He gives you an affectionate squeeze as he tells you how pleased he is to see you guys again. Zoro takes a seat at the far corner of a booth. He props his feet up and takes a long drag of sake straight from the bottle. He’d already finished the drink that was poured, naturally, and stopped Shakky before she could pour him another. He asked for the bottle, shrugging and said that we should just “cut out the middleman.”

You regale the three others in your tales of the last two years. You speak about your Master, your training, the island you’d resided on, everything. Shakky gives updates too, about some of the rumors that had been floating around in the Strawhats’ absence, particularly about Luffy and Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro. Shakky, never one to be subtle, asks Zoro pointblank about what he’d been up to.

“Eh, not too much excitement,” He says vaguely. “The usual. Swords, drinking, naps.” Shakky rolls her eyes, unsatisfied, but you just laugh, knowing that he was not one to talk too much about himself.

After a long while, the four of you notice that the sun has begun to set. You are beginning to feel the drinks you’d consumed, your laughter a bit louder, your tongue a bit looser, your hair a bit wilder. The bar is illuminated in deep orange and red hues and you glance over at Zoro. Half of his face is cast in shadow, while the other half colored the same tint as the room. It looks almost as if he is on fire and you are mesmerized by him. He’s staring at you intently. You see beads of sweat along his hairline, and you notice that he has removed his outer coat.

“Damn Shakky,” He breathes, not breaking eye contact with you. “I don’t remember it being this hot two years ago.”

Shakky laughs. “Well, we’re going through a bit of a heatwave right now. It’s unusual for this time of year, but occasionally the weather currents bring a front in. It’s supposed to be like this for the next few days.”

His knees are propped up and he rests his forearms on top of them as he breaks your gaze and looks out the window. HIs profile is immaculate, and your eyes trace each feature–his straight nose, his angled jaw, and his full lips. Your lips subconsciously part, and it isn’t until you feel your tongue on them that you notice how you’re staring. Shakky, however, has noticed how the two of you have been trading stares at each other the entire evening. She smirks and stands with a yawn.

“Well Rayleigh,” She starts. “It seems likes it’s about time to close up shop for the evening. You good?”

Rayleigh looks confused at first, however, when Shakky gestures quickly to you and Roronoa, Rayleigh nods knowingly. He looks down at his nearly full drink and smiles. He tips his head back and swigs down the rest, placing the empty glass resolutely on the hard wood. “You know what, Shakky? You’re absolutely right. These old bones can’t drink like they used to. I’m headed down to my place at the docks. It’s cooler there anyway.” He stands up and bids the room farewell. The doorbell jingles behind him as he exits the bar.

You get the feeling that they’d been watching you and Zoro, and you feel embarrassed. But you don’t want to complain. You just hope that Zoro wouldn’t be ready to turn in yet either.

Shakky approaches Zoro and gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Night, Roronoa. If you get lonely, my room is always open.” She winks at him, entertained by how he squirms at the unexpected contact.

“Uh, yeah, sure…” He mutters, flustered. Shakky laughs.

“Shit Roronoa, just relax. I’m only kidding.” She walks over to a door behind the bar, presumably that led to her sleeping quarters, and opens it. “Or am I?” She grins slyly.

This time, Zoro knows better. The greenette shakes his head with a chuckle. “Goodnight, Shakky.”

She, too, disappears. The door closes behind her with a soft click, and the two of you are left alone. The sun has finally set beneath the mangroves and the sound of crickets fills the room. Despite the sun having set, the room is humid and very warm.

You reach a slender hand up and wipe beads of condensation off the back of your neck with a nervous sigh. “You’re right, Zoro,” You say after a moment. “It is absolutely stifling in here.”

He hums in agreement and holds up the bottle of sake questioningly. You nod and he tosses the closed bottle to you. However, his toss is a little short and to the left. But you’re fast and you catch it without a problem, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Aim much?” You joke as you pour yourself another drink before tossing it back to him.

He catches it easily and smirks. “Well, just checking to see if all that training you were going on about actually paid off.” He takes a swig. “Seems like it did.”

You were unbelievable. Zoro marvels at your agility. He had been enthralled as you told your story of the last two years. He watched the way your eyes lit up in excitement at certain parts or when your tone shifted to something more sinister. This was the y/n he’d always known–vibrant, curious and powerful. Zoro has always admired your tenacity. It was something of himself that he saw in you. He admired your intelligence as well, and your quick wit. It had always been a little intimidating, but now you were a force. It overwhelmed the swordsman. And thrilled him in the same way a new enemy excited him, got his adrenaline pumping and his heart racing.

He watches as you take a sip of your drink. His gaze follows the long line of your neck down to your collarbone, which he finds himself lingering on for longer than what was appropriate between nakama. You had always been objectively attractive, but Zoro never really paid attention to things like that. But now, you made that impossible to ignore. He is very attracted to you, entranced by your confident aura that pours off of you like cool sake.

The alcohol warms your blood and before you know what you’re doing, you prop your elbow on the table and say, “Seems like your training paid off too. I mean, look at you. All extra-muscley and shit.”

Zoro’s eyes widen slightly before he laughs out loud. “Thank you? I think.”

The liquid courage you’ve consumed does little for your filter (or your shame) so you continue. “I remember when I used to hang out in the Crow’s nest while you worked out. You were strong then, obviously. But it’s different now. You seem…invincible.” You breathe.

Zoro takes a moment to consider. “Invincible, huh?” He chuckles. “Hardly.”

You scoff and roll your eyes, but don’t reply.

Zoro stands up, his coat remaining in his seat. Your eyes follow the contour of his chest and he notices you watching him. He loves knowing that you look at him the same way that he looks at you.

“Come on,” He says after a moment, holding out his free hand, the other still holding the bottle of sake.

You take it without thinking. “Where are we going?” His hand is rough and cool to the touch, despite the heat in the room. He’s never held your hand before now. His good eye lands on you with a smirk that turns the knot low in your stomach.

“Up,” He replies in a whisper.

You nod wordlessly and stand up, trailing behind him as he walks towards the back door of the bar. When you exit, you sigh happily when a cool breeze flows along your damp skin. He echoes the sentiment with a contented hum, and continues towards the side of the building where he finds a ladder.

“Ladies first,” He grins, gesturing for you to climb the ladder up to the roof of the bar.

You raise an eyebrow, but comply nonetheless. As you climb, you make sure to move your hips more exaggeratedly, knowing the view you were providing him.

He knows exactly what he’s doing, of course, and admires your ass as you climb the ladder. You really are something. He wants to do more than just hold your hand. He wants to trail his hands along your curves, feel your strong body against the planes of his chest. He wants to know what your lips taste like, what your h/c hair feels like entangled in his fingers. But he knows that he needs to take it slow for both of your sake. It’s been two years. A lot has changed, and you are still his nakama first and foremost. There’s nothing that he would sacrifice to keep that.

The ladder is taller than you think it is by looking at it and when you arrive at the top of the bar, you are surprised to find an expansive platform.

“Wow,” You look open-mouthed. “How’d you know this was up here?” You look to Zoro who hops up onto the platform.

He shrugs. “I didn’t. I just saw the ladder earlier and figured it would be worth exploring.”

He walks up behind you in all of his shirtless beauty and sits, his legs apart as he leans back on his forearms. You’re still standing, looking up at the vast mangroves all around you, the stars peeking through the tree-tops. He lets you admire the scenery because it gives him a few moments to admire you. He clears his throat to get your attention and pulls you down to him.

With a light gasp, you find yourself sitting between his legs, your back against his chest and his arms wrapped around you. You are blushing furiously now. He hums contentedly, moving to nuzzle your hair and inhale your clean scent.

“What are you doing?” You manage to croak out.

“Enjoying the company,” He murmurs into the side of your neck.

You feel his heart beating swiftly against your back as you lean into him with a deep sigh. Your brain wants to overcomplicate this.

What does this mean? What does he want? Does he feel the same way about me that I feel about him? Does he…you gulp. Does he…want me, the way that I want him?

He feels you stiffen. “Y/n, hey,” He says. “It’s okay. This doesn’t have to mean anything that we don’t want it to mean.”

It seems like mind-reading is on the roster of new super powers he’s acquired. You grumble internally.

He laughs, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear before he moves away. You whimper softly at the loss of contact, and turn to face him with a confused look. Though he did shift backwards, he didn’t move all that far away from you, so you’re surprised that you’re nearly face to face when you turn around.

He gently touches his thumb to your parted lips. “We’ve got time, y/n. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. So let’s just take the time and figure it out.” He smiles.

You feel your heart swell in your chest as you meet his intense stare. “Y-yeah, o-okay.” You stutter, still not quite believing that Roronoa Zoro has anything he wants to figure out with you. Your reverie is interrupted by Zoro’s gentle kiss. It’s a kiss that foreshadows what else could come of it, one that’s slow and burning and brimming with possibilities. He pulls away with a shudder.

“We’ve got time.” He says again, seeming to convince himself with the second iteration. “Besides,” He pulls back fully this time, taking in your lovely face before he smirks. “It’s too damn hot to be this close right now anyway.”

@laws-yellow-submarine​

WOW WOW WOW this is absolutely amazing, my darling!!!! I was totally enthralled the entire time and was really hoping it wouldn’t end any time soon! And you painted the scenes so beautifully, it felt like I was actually in the story!! All the characters are so well written and gah I didn’t think it was possible to fall more in love with Zoro but damnnn this story had me swooning for the swordsman 🥰

I really really enjoyed this and I’m honestly so glad you took part in this little challenge! Could I add this wonderful story to the masterlist? 💕

[alabaster-retro]

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings

I suppose I should provide a little bit of information about how I’m writing these. Basically, if I don’t still own the game, I’m buying it and playing it until one of the following happens: I finish the game, I lose interest in the game, or several hours have passed and I should probably start writing. If I do still own the game, same deal, but cut out the part where I buy it. While most of the games I’m gonna be playing are very popular, I’ll also seek to provide a little bit of information about each game just to catch anyone up who isn’t familiar. AoE 2 has ended up in that category of “ several hours have passed and I should probably start writing.” As much as RTS games stress me out, there is something so so engaging about them that I can’t help but get drawn in for hours and hours playing both quick games and the campaign scenarios. I went through the trouble of trying to track down the copy of AoE2 that has been in my house literally as long as I can remember. Surprisingly, I was able to find it. Even more surprisingly, it still has the instruction manual in it. Remember when games used to come with nearly 200 page encyclopedias? Good times. I have several fond memories of riding home in the backseat of my parent’s car having just bought a new game reading through the manual and just getting more and more excited to play the game once I got home.

Please don’t steal my decades old product key for AoE2

This thing has 8 chapters, an appendix, *and* an index. What more could you want?

Anyway, instead of digging up an optical drive to see if I could convince this disc to work with Windows 10, I realized that I owned the 2013 HD edition on steam and just booted that up instead. If I didn’t already own AoE2 HD (2013) I probably would have splurged for the definitive edition that came out in 2019. As you might be gathering, this game still has a pretty substantial following, and that’s for good reason. Age Of Empires is a series of real time strategy games that put you in charge of building up a small kingdom, using villagers to gather resources, then using those resources to build new buildings, create new units, research new technologies, and advance to new ages. The game has 4 Ages (Dark, Feudal, Castle, Imperial) which roughly divide technological, historical, and power elements of the game. Each Age takes more resources to advance to than the last and provides greater opportunities for growth and power. The basis of strategy in Age of Empires is properly spending your resources so that you grow and advance while also not leaving yourself defenseless and while also moving towards victory in some way. The micromanagement and fast decision making involved is absolutely what gives the game depth but also is what makes the game really really stressful.

How do I turn this on?

Most of my memories of this game involve using cheat codes to summon a massive army of Shelby Cobras to over run my enemy. This time around I decided to take things a little more reasonably and not use gun-cars against my opponents. I immediately hopped into a 1v1 match against a computer on the easiest difficulty. I got my ass handed to me as I was out scaled in everyway, out resourced, and beaten to every single Age advancement. It turns out, this game is hard. So I read a strategy article on a PvP technique called “Fast Castle,” which is about getting to the Castle Age very quickly while scaling resource production. With my new knowledge in hand, I jumped back into another game and soundly trounced my computer opponent. Take that, robots. At this point, I was sensing that playing these matches continually against the computer was going to get boring and pointless very fast, but I’m still far too much of a wuss to try my hand at the game’s PvP so it was time for the campaign scenarios.

As Frederick Barbarossa, I set about uniting the Holy Roman Empire and fucking shit up with Henry the Lion. Honestly, the campaigns in Age of Empires 2 are tons of fun and they actually taught me a ton more history as a kid than any of my classes did. I will always remember Henry the Lion saying “So! You have come to hear the tale of Frederick Barbarossa?” at the start of the Barbarossa campaign (spoiler alert, the narrator in the tavern is Henry the Lion). I don’t have time to play through all campaigns right now (there are 20+ of them each with like 5ish 30-60 minute scenarios, so you do the math on that) but I’ll probably be taking them all on in the future.  In conclusion, AoE 2 absolutely hold up and it looks and plays exactly how I remember it. If you’re into RTSes or have fond memories, I think the definitive edition would probably worth your time and money. Maybe you’ll be less of a wuss than me and take on some other players in PvP. :P

[tessatechaitea]

New Titans #112

Don't you worry your pretty little head about Red Star's right leg.

I keep trying to organize my life so that I can read more actual books (as opposed to comic books which I'm not judging. I'm just differentiating) without having to sacrifice any of the other things I enjoy doing. What that generally means is that I wind up reading about ten pages every morning before going to bed (I work nights!). Which realistically means I need to do improve my time management if I'm going to be serious about reading. I have managed to read the first "book" of Alan Moore's Jerusalem but it's taken me a fucking long time to do it. I thought it would take me a long time because I was expecting a difficult read but I'm finding it enjoyable. Plus by the time I've finished, I'm fairly certain I'll be able to navigate Northampton with ease. I'm also wondering if all the descriptions of the characters' movements through the city are an encoded treasure map! Or, being that Alan Moore wrote it, it's more likely a spell to summon some sex demons. While organizing (and by organizing, I mean the main definition of organizing: moving shit around in a way that makes you feel like you're accomplishing something but really you're just engaging in an activity to forget about your mortality for awhile. Plus you can generally get some really fucking good dusting done), I managed to place all of the books from various book shelves that I have yet to finish reading (or that I simply want to reread) on the top shelf of the row of bookcases in my office. Jerusalem is first on that list followed by some books by high school friends (Rogue's Curse by Jason Beymer and Soy Rakelson's children's books that I'm willing to bet everything I own as well as my life and my mother's life on that they're black and white morality tales with a super conservative and possibly Ayn Randian view of the world). After that is There Is No Year which Doom Bunny gave me because it's supposedly a terrible book that I'm not sure he even finished and which I wanted to make fun of (but, hey, maybe I'll love it!) and the rest: Inside the Yellow Submarine, Trixie Belden Mystery-Quiz Book #1, Don Quixote, Gravity's Rainbow, Lost in the Funhouse (reread!), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, And the Ass Saw the Angel (by Nick Cave!), King's The Wind Through the Keyhole (A Dark Tower book!), Crime and Punishment, Hey Nostradamus!, The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, The Boomer Bible (re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-read), Six Volumes of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (finished with one and a half volumes after owning this set for twenty five years!), The Holy Bible (currently reading for my Patreon), The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (Second Edition) (because I need poetic context for the 20th century!), Only Revolutions, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, and The Familiar (currently just book one but there's going to be like nine hundred of them, so maybe I won't even bother!). Oh, and I just added We Learn Nothing (reread) and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You, both by Tim Kreider. I'll probably start with those because funny essays are easier to get through than anything by Dostoevsky, Danielewski, Pynchon, Cervantes, Barth, Joyce, or Sakelson! I mean Rakelson! Oh man. Rakelson would have a stroke if he knew I listed his name with all those postmodern authors! Not that they're all postmodern. You can figure out which ones are and aren't on your own. I'm busy reading New Titans #112 which must be good since Starfire is naked on the cover. Okay, almost naked. She is wearing a dickie and a belt. I know a lot of you just skipped that big paragraph while thinking, "Oh, la dee da! What a fancy book reader you are! Fucking virtue signaler! Or whatever the term for listing or showing off your reading list full of classic literary texts is! Seems like virtue signaler works well enough! Better even than what idiotic fuck nuggets use it for on Twitter anyway!" But maybe you missed the part about how those are books I haven't been able to get through yet! I've owned some of these books for over a decade! And I didn't even put The Collected Works of Gertrude Stein on this shelf because do I need to be reminded that I used that book more as an address book than something to read? Although I carried it with me everywhere I went for a year or two (which is why it's full of phone numbers and addresses!). And I really did want to read it. I didn't carry it around so people could think, "Look at him with that book! Who the fuck is Gertrude Stein? What a ponce!" Although to be fair, I did leave off a few books on my "to-read" shelf! But it wasn't because they weren't smart enough sounding! It's because they were comic books and also pornography and also also fucking hilarious.

One of my friends in the state department who learns a brand new language every four years or so bonded with me over Oglaf last time he visited. He was all, "I'm glad I know somebody I can share my love of Oglaf with and not be looked at like a completely demented perv!" Although I do look at him like he's a completely demented perv, I didn't need to admit it to his face!

I embrace my delusion that readers merely skipped "one" paragraph of my comic book "reviews"! This issue is called "A New Home" and my brain continued to add to that title with "o-erotic Journey." Mostly because of this panel:

Fairly certain "bamming" a baby is illegal, even in space.

The Titans (and I use that term loosely since the characters encompassed by that shorthand are Changeling, Red Star, Pantha, Baby, and Starfire) have been stranded on The Terraist's space station. That name probably could use a hyphen so you don't first read it as terRAIST twelve times thinking "What the fuck does that mean?" before your brain finally sees the God-awful pun and you give up, finally letting go of that last gossamer thread that's been connecting you to the reality you just discovered doesn't fucking matter. How can there be any meaning to existence when an editor greenlights the name "Terraist"? I'm sure Wolfman's pitch contained at least two dozen "Get it?!"s. Anyway, maybe most readers never even noticed, shrugging their shoulders at every single moment in which a comic book doesn't make sense because at least Starfire is practically naked throughout the last few issues! I have a theory that most people don't really absorb much of what they're reading in comic books. They tend to just love a character for some magic reason and stick with loving that character no matter what terrible writer winds up writing them. And at that point, they just ignore plot holes and inconsistencies and terrible dialogue and whatever the fuck Ann Nocenti does with her typewriter. They simply go star-eyed and gape lovingly at the drawn images of Dick Grayson's throbbing buttocks. That was a hypothetical sentence and not a memoir. Here's a panel with evidence that might lead to proof of my theory if I could actually interview anybody who read this comic book in 1994 and ask them, "Did you even notice this panel?" To which they would all probably respond, "No, I was distracted by the opposite page where you can see tons of Starfire's side-boob and I think one of her outer labia." Um, anyway, the panel I mentioned:

Damn, Marv. Beyond the Forest was nearly fifty years old at the time this comic came out.

To be fair to Wolfman and Changeling, I did an Internet search on "Whatta dump" (and, yes, I spelled it differently than Marv did) and the first hit was video of the scene where Bette Davis says the line. What's odd is that she delivers it flatter and straighter than anything I would have expected out of Bette Davis's eyes...I mean mouth. Gar's rendition of it is terrible! The way Bette says it, I would never think to spell it any way but "What a dump." But that's not the point! The point is how is "What a dump!" a immortal words?! Granted, you're probably now thinking to yourself, "Well, how did X and Y and Z become oft-quoted movie lines?!" (where X and Y and Z are actual phrases from movies and not just letters. But I'm not psychic so how should I know what terrible oft-quoted movie lines you were thinking of? Mine would have been "Seven schools in seven states and the only different is my locker combination" or "William H. Bonny. You are not a god?" "Why don't you pull the trigger and find out?" or "Ziggy Piggy! Ziggy Piggy! Ziggy Piggy! Ziggy Piggy!") I suppose one can't help what phrases the zeitgeist picks up on. According to the YouTube video of Bette Davis, "What a dump" is Bette's famous bitchy line from that movie I'd never heard of. I guess I just haven't traveled in the right circles! Although I have heard the phrase "What a dump!" Has everybody in the world been quoting Bette Davis all this time and I just didn't know it?! Was this movie the first time that phrase was ever uttered?! To think I could have known all of this if I hadn't been distracted by Starfire's side-boob and — I'm fairly certain — one of her outer labia. To shut Gar up, Starfire admits that she doesn't remember any of them and then she punches Pantha in her vagina.

Starfire punching Pantha in the vagina is funnier than anything that Pantha has said in the last forty issues.

After punching Pantha in the vagina, Starfire knees Red Star in the balls for no reason. Unless the reason is that she's been wanting to do that for a long time and her pretend amnesia allows her this moment! I suppose I'd fake amnesia too to get away from being a Titan. I've been joking about seeing Starfire's outer labia but is this it? Is that one of those things?

Is my boner proof that it's her labia or is my boner proof that I'm a comic book reading virgin nerd?

I can't wait for everybody to message me telling me how that can't be her outer labia because that's not where it would be and anyway this photographic proof I'm sending you is what one looks like! Then I can actually them and say, "Well, you can't know that for sure! She's an alien and maybe her outer labia is fully engorged due to Pantha back-fucking her!" Also I'd really enjoy some of that photographic evidence!

This is not what I would do with those photographs.

Garfield turns into another monster because he can't do birds and rhinos anymore. He lies on top of Starfire and then reveals something that destroys every moment in DC canon where Garfield turned into a rhino to knock some hugely muscled bad guy on their ass. He tells Red Star, "Hey, I may be big and ugly but my mass doesn't change! I'm not as strong as she is!" Well fuck me! The whole concept of Beast Boy has been based on a huge lie! Or at least scientific principles that make the character utterly worthless. Why the fuck would he ever change into a huge beast if his mass doesn't change? Wouldn't he always change into something small and fast to be most effective?! This revelation is one of those moments where DC tries to make their universe more logical but only winds up fucking up the entire multiverse. Red Star and Changeling knock Starfire unconscious and then tie her up which probably isn't totally rapey at all, even if the artist draws it that way.

Yep. Everything is just fine here! Move along.

Meanwhile on Earth, Arsenal, Aqualad, and Flash consider a proposal from the United States government to get the Titans to work for them. They consider it over a couple waters at a local strip club named Ding Dong Daddy's." I mean, the comic book calls it a "retro club" but everybody either gets a private lap dance or laid. It's hard to tell what Marv Wolfman was going for with this scene. Proof that the young cool Titan men fuck? Proof that women are only to provide relief for men's sexual desires? Proof that Aqualad should maybe think twice before saying "Hey guys! We came together!" when women are throwing their vaginas at them?

How long does Aqualad think a lap dance takes?

Back in space while the reader was away, Red Star and Changeling have managed to put a gag on Starfire and tie her legs together. That makes things less rapey, right? If not, I'm sure Marv will improve the situation in a sensitive and professional manner!

Oh come on!

Starfire remembers everything while Changeling whines about how he didn't get to kiss Starfire while she was tied up and scared and beaten and suffering from amnesia. Poor kid! Maybe next time! After regaining her memory, Starfire says, "X'hal! That was dick I saw in South America!" and I snicker like a twelve year old. The first decision Starfire makes after regaining her memory is that she and Dick should get their marriage annulled, if it even took which I'm pretty sure it didn't. If you were a fan of reading the letters pages, whoever the letter answer person was constantly kept pointing out that they couldn't be married because the priest blew up before he could say they were man and wife. But now Wolfman provides more evidence like how no paper work was filed and nobody signed anything (although don't you sign the papers before the ceremony?) Anyway, they're not married and probably never will be if the last twenty five years of reading comic books has taught me anything!

Snicker!

Baby has an idea to use The Terraist's satellite as their new headquarters and the government is all, "Okay! But you have to work with us on a minimum number of yearly missions!" And Roy Harper is all, "That number is zero!" And the government is all, "Yes sir! What a deal! We will pay you a salary, give you the satellite, and get nothing in return! Let's shake on it!"

Who the fuck is wearing The Flash's costume?! First appearance of New 52 Wally West?

The epilogue reveals Raven needs to rape the Titans so that they'll all give birth to Trigon's children. So it should be a fun few final issues before either this comic book was cancelled or I finally recovered my sanity and simply stopped buying it. New Titans #112 Rating: B. It was all kinds of stupid but I enjoyed making fun of it!

[binkywinky]

hi! Comics rec anon here! to answer your question, I'm not entirely new to comics, have read a few but not enough to say I have a specific type. The first series I read was all the jessica jones comics which I really liked, also the miles morales series which i enjoyed and the spidergwen series which was cute but the art was kinda annoying lol. i also like a couple of dc ones like mister miracle. so i think i prefer a general rec from you since the comics world is so big. thanks in advance!

Got it. Hmm… let’s see. It’s probably easiest to break it down by publisher then. I’ll try to give a mix of ongoing, finished, and “classic” stories. 

Fair warning, I read a lot of comics (probably about 60 per month, and that’s not including manga), so even though this may feel like a long list, it’s short for me.

Marvel

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - Relatively new series, and it’s been fantastic so far. Great art, and a bit more grounded than the Amazing Spider-Man run (which is also great). Stellar art, too.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man - A little YA-ish at times, but overall enjoyable. You get to see a lot more of Miles’ personality in this one, which is always fun.

Superior Spider-Man - Because nothing is more fun than seeing a semi-reformed Otto Octavius try to be a hero.

Captain Marvel - Kelly Thompson does a phenomenal job with this series. She has a great hold of Carol’s voice. Would highly recommend Kelly Sue Deconnick and Margaret Stohl’s previous runs to give context (Captain Marvel 2012-2017, Mighty Captain Marvel, and The Life of Captain Marvel).

Jessica Jones - Not sure if you’ve read Kelly Thompson’s recent run or just Bendis’, but hers is definitely worth a read.

Avengers (2019) - actually a solid run. I would check this out if you’re more into crossover, large-scale storytelling. They’re in the middle of War of the Realms, though… so maybe wait until like August or September?

Immortal Hulk, Daredevil, and X-23 - also good. I read them off and on (not really my fave characters to read on their own, I enjoy them in ensembles), but the stories are solid.

Rogue & Gambit - mini series that I absolutely love by Kelly Thompson (she does great character work) that came out last year. Mr. & Mrs. X is a follow-up to it and also tons of fun (nearing its end as well). 

Runaways - I fell off of this when Brian K. Vaughn left, but I can say up through his run ended is well worth the read.

As far as classic stories, Infinity Gauntlet, The Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, Secret Invasion, and Secret Wars would be my first recommendations.

I would’ve recommended Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, but maybe wait on that. It’s about to end soon and transition to just Ghost Spider (where she leaves Earth-65 and comes to Earth-616 where Peter and Miles are). Same for X-Men. I’m currently reading Uncanny, but X-Men is about to be overhauled soon. So probably hold on that front.

DC/Vertigo

Honestly, not the biggest DC fan (I lean more towards Vertigo actually), but there are a few that I enjoy.

Action Comics (starting at #1000) - I am not a Superman fan, but I enjoy this series, which says a lot. I enjoy what Bendis is doing with him in this run.

Naomi - a new series, also by Bendis, following the story of a young Black girl who is investigating the circumstances around her adoption. Don’t want to give too much away, but probably my fave DC run at the moment. And Jamal Campbell’s art is fucking gorgeous.

Dial H for Hero - it’s fun. It’s weird. Not for everyone, but maybe give it a shot.

The Flash and Batman, New 52 runs - New 52 gets shit from fans a lot, but I thought these runs were awesome. Very good story-telling.

Dark Nights: Metal event - Probably one of the best things DC did in a long time. It’s a massive event that pretty much reworked the DC universe and all the characters. Enjoyed it immensely.

Heroes in Crisis - this miniseries ended very recently. It’s a story focused on a major event that happens at Sanctuary, a rehab for superheroes suffering from mental health issues (e.g. PTSD after doing something that nearly killed them). Not your usual superhero story, which I liked.

American Carnage - very gritty story focused on a white-passing Black man who infiltrates a white supremacist organization. It’s really fucking good.

High Level - I picked this book up randomly because the cover looked cool. I’ve been reading it ever since. I would say it’s weird sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk adventure. A little strong on the language, but very interesting story and great artwork.

Birds of Prey - awesome series with the DC women. A little shaky sometimes, but Gail Simone does really good character work. Her run is probably the only one I’d bother reading.

Deathbed - miniseries by Vertigo that ended maybe a year ago. It’s so bizarre and hilarious and out there. I loved it.

Batwoman (J.H. Williams run) and Batwoman: Rebirth - Kate Kane, my favorite lesbian superhero. Williams did a great job in his run (and the art is to die for). Don’t read the back half, they change writers and it’s a goddamn mess. But then Marguerite Bennett (a queer woman) picked it up in Rebirth, and it got awesome again. Also, shout-out to Greg Rucka for officially making her queerness canon in 52.

Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman’s my fave of DC main characters (along with Martian Manhunter and Wally West I & II), and my favorite run for her is Greg Rucka’s. He does a surprisingly good job of writing women. The run is over at the moment, but I’d check it out. Good stuff there.

For classic stories, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, Flashpoint (precursor to New 52), and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are some of my faves.

Image

Image is probably what I read the most. Definitely has the most diverse pool of comics to choose from.

Saga - My favorite comic series of all-time. I’ve gotten so many people to read this and they love it. It’s weird - really weird, actually - but the storytelling is phenomenal. And it’s on hiatus right now, so plenty of time to get caught up.

Ice Cream Man - This series is so fucking weird, but I love it. It’s sorta like… Tales from the Crypt? Different stories (mostly horror) that all feature this demon ice cream man.

The Weatherman - This series is such a goddamn delight. I don’t want to ruin the plot but just… yeah. Read the first issue and it just goes crazy from there.

Man-Eaters - Sort of a niche story. Basically, this takes place in a society where when women get their cycle, they turn into giant cats and maul men, so they’ve given them pills to keep them from menstruating. Sounds weird? Wait until you read it. Probably a highlight series of the year for me. 

Black Science - You might not like the art in this one, but maybe give it a shot? These scientists are trying to solve the problem of limited resources on Earth by hopping across dimensions for new ones (infinite dimensions, infinite resources). Only problem is, their machine got damaged so now they hop uncontrollably to whatever dimension it chooses for however long it decides. It’s a wild ride.

Middlewest - An interesting take on parent/child relationships and how the consequences of abuse, anger, and depression can manifest in dangerous ways. Sounds more bleak than it is - the story actually has quite a bit of humor.

Excellence - Very new series, but with a PoC lead, about PoCs, with mostly PoC creators. A story about a secret society of Black magicians and a son whose next in line to take on the mantle, and it’s pretty fucking cool. Issue 2 comes out this week - check it out!

The Walking Dead - I don’t think I have to explain this one, do I? Zombies.

Lazarus and Lazarus: Risen - Sci-fi story set in a dystopian society where the world is ruled by like 15 or so families, and they each have a Lazarus to fight for them. This is told from the perspective of the Carlyle family’s Lazarus, Forever. 

Die - If Dungeons & Dragons and Jumanji had a baby, it would be this book. Sounds weird, but once you read it, you’ll find the description to be accurate.

Anything from Brian K. Vaughn - I have yet to read something from Brian K. Vaughn that I don’t like. Saga, Paper Girls, Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Barrier… his shit’s always good.

Independents / Not Marvel, DC, or Image

Some of these are nostalgia-based, so fair warning.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BOOM Studios) - very new series that’s out. Great art. If you were a fan of the show, I think you’ll like it. It’s a re-imagining of sorts. There’s also an Angel series that just started.

Nancy Drew (Dynamite) - Listen… I could not stand Nancy Drew as a kid. Never got into it and thought it was boring as hell. But I really loved this miniseries (another Kelly Thompson run). It’s maybe 5 issues?

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers (BOOM Studios) - Honest to God, if you had told me 3 years ago one of my fave comics would be a Power Rangers one, I would have laughed in your face. Both of these series are really good and provide the continuity, nuance, and characterization the show lacked. Fan of the show or not, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you enjoy the teenage superhero genre. Also, just some really amazing art and world-building.

Anything from Jinxworld - This is Bendis’ own publishing company. He’s put out Cover, Pearl, Scarlet, and United States vs. Murder, Inc. All of them are really good.

Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse) - This is the series the Netflix show is based off of. Right now, they’re doing Hotel Oblivion in the comics, but start with Apocalypse Suite and Dallas.

So, there you go anon. There are FAR more I would recommend, but I tried to give a good range of books for you to choose from without (hopefully) overwhelming you. And if you have any questions, I’m more than happy to talk about any of them.

[sultrysirens]

Please just go off and rant about your OCs! I just love them all so much (even the ones that haven’t been introduced yet) and want to hear more about them!

I hope you’re prepared for what you’ve just unleashed~!!

JOCELYN was the start of this avalanche. When I first conjured her up, I had just a few points in mind: I wanted her to be colored (though I hadn’t decided yet what her ethnicity would actually be), I wanted her to be a ballerina, and I wanted her to not be drop-dead fucking gorgeous.

One of these things did not hold up. X’D

My original intent was to just make a short story -- 10 chapters or so -- in which she gets with Raphael and they bang. That was the literal long and short of it, which you can kind of see considering how rushed the first few chapters were.

I didn’t mean for them to get so into each other and fall in love. They did that entirely on their own. And, to be honest, it’s been an amazing experience; I’ve learned a great deal and feel like my creativity has gone through the roof.

Considering I’ve always been crazily creative anyway, that’s saying something.

Initially I picked Raph for this story because I thought (in my ignorance) that he would have the least amount of love and sex-related stories. Oh, how foolish I was, lol. But I was also thinking he would be the easiest to write just falling into bed with someone, and while that is something I commonly see, in my story he very much did not do that.

It was really weird. X’D

While I was writing The Dancer, I was also writing a then-untitled sister fic/epilogue (which I later titled The Dragon). It was quite a few years down the line, so I went ahead and conjured up some future scenes and events. Among them: Lisa.

This fic started in Mikey’s POV for a few reasons, one of them being that I really wanted to write something from his perspective. Lisa was introduced to my story this way, and I quickly took a liking to her and started development on her character. One of the things I did first was write pieces of the first chapter of The DJ, just to get the start’s setting down.

Then all I had to do was get The Dancer to a point where I could connect the two. At the time I was only around chapter 20, so...yeah, it took a while. XD

With Jocelyn, one of the key decisions I made was to make her very unlike Raphael -- she’s flirty, often relaxed, has an incredible love for ballet, has almost no family (just a mother; no dad, no siblings), and has such a crazy obsession over shoes that she literally picks out what shoes she wants to wear before picking her clothing for the day.

With Lisa, I went in the opposite direction: be just like Mikey. She has low intelligence and knows it, yet is brilliant in an unconventional way; her sense of humor is one of her biggest traits and she laughs to defuse situations and deal with problems; her genre is 100% hip hop in nearly all ways; and I made her athletic pretty much entirely so she’d be able to keep up with the master of movement, Mikey. (Say that five times, fast.)

It wasn’t until after I really got into writing Lisa that I noticed something interesting about my two fics: the couples both view each other in the same light.

Jocelyn and Raphael think one another is sexy and bad-ass.

Lisa and Mikey think one another is cool and cute.

This is, of course, not the rule -- Raph has thought Jo is super cute before, and Mikey finds Lisa sexy as hell, too -- but it is their primary mindsets. And it makes me wonder if my remaining two couples will have the same kind of viewpoints. I can’t say for sure yet because I haven’t gotten to the part in either story where they’re actually dating, but it’s fun to consider.

Then again, maybe for Leo and Donnie’s relationships they’ll have opposite viewpoints as their lovers do. It would definitely be an interesting twist.

Progress with The Dragon is going very slowly, which is understandable given I still have a lot of world-building in The DJ to do first, but I do very much love the story. In fact, so far if I were to rank my fics based on my own favorites, it would go Dancer > Dragon > DJ (I have literally nothing written on the final fic yet cause I still haven’t even finished designing the final girl, lol).

As much as I love Lisa (and I freaking do holy shit), I just don’t quite love her the best. This is actually kind of weird considering just how close to being a self-insert she is -- an unintentional self-insert, yes, but the parallels are definitely there.

For example, Lisa is a white girl of mixed white heritage (like me) with a particular pair of beauty marks on her face (same as me, just in different places), she has brunette hair (like me) and blue eyes (mine are actually green, but my parents’ and brother’s eyes are blue and I’ve always been jealous of that), she’s a huge gamer (just like me; she’s just better at competitive games), she dislikes swearing (I swear a lot now, but at her age I was much more sensitive about it), she has an older brother (I technically have two, but one’s very distant and the other was always close), she has a distaste for meat (I’m not vegetarian but as a whole I dislike meat) and some serious compassion for life (same), she loves piercings (I’d have more but I’m seriously forgetful), and she has incredible ears for music (can name almost any song within seconds -- just like me).

Oh yeah, and she’s a Mikey girl. ♥

And more pointedly, I named her mother after my sister (deceased) and her grandparents after my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother.

I named Jocelyn based on the character of the same name from A Knight’s Tale (it just occurred to me that they have the same tits lmfao); after seeing the movie I kind of became enraptured with this character and her smart tongue and haughty attitude and incredible elegance -- not to mention I freaking loved her name.

Lisa, by comparison, I named based on one thing: the Mona Lisa. Yeah, that’s right, y’all -- I named her after a famous painting by an Italian Renaissance painter. Hurr hurr. XP But though I never mentioned this, Lisa’s mother, Brandy, cites that she named her ‘Lisa’ based on The Simpsons, as Lisa was Brandy’s favorite character.

This cute, incredibly good-hearted and brilliant young girl? Yeah, Brandy loves that character and was hoping Lisa would take after her.

Hmmm, what else...

Well, I had a completely different story set up for Cecilia at first. I’m honestly really glad things didn’t go the way I’d planned, and here’s why: Cecilia was supposed to catch a glimpse of Jo and Raph having sex one day (before meeting him) and go kind of nutso.

You see, at first she claimed diabetes but was not diabetic -- she was doing cocaine, and saying she had diabetes was her explanation for when Jo would catch her shooting up. And with the cocaine in her system, Cecilia’s mind went right to demons and witchcraft.

Terrified for her daughter’s immortal soul, the original plan was for Cecilia to attempt to burn them both to death. To everyone’s surprise, however, Jocelyn didn’t burn -- only Cecilia.

This was the original way Jo discovered she’d been taking on Raph’s mutagen. It’d made her fireproof.

As you can see, I’m super glad I didn’t stick to that, lol.

As for Lisa, me making her a cutter was a spur-of-the-moment decision during that scene where she examines her reflection in her undies. The boob thing, though? That was planned from day one -- because I wanted her to very much be Jo’s opposite, and this included general color palette, skills, likes, personality, and body type.

Jo: tall and willowy, grace incarnate, dark skin and blonde hair, super thick lips, generally thin but with a killer ass, rounded face, freckled, minimal piercings, crazy flirty and confident to no end.

Lisa: barely taller than average, kind of stocky and curvy, shapely lips, wide hips and heavy tits, shapely lips and face, zero freckles, tons of piercings, jittery and mousy but also immature and raucous.

By comparison, so far Mei and Pinky are just people. (Note: Mei’s faceclaim so far is Lucy Lui, but Pinky doesn’t have one just yet.) Mei’s also skinny, but that’s cause she’s 100% Chinese and as far as I can tell that’s just how they are. I’ve done a lot of googling and pretty much all young people I’ve found that way are, in a word, skinny. X’D

I’m leaning towards Pinky being the shortest of the girls, maybe in the 5′1″-5′3″ range, but I’m worried about making her too short. The concept is still very much up in the air, lol. This is also the character I once said I was considering being half Puerto Rican, and while I still like that I’m not sure it’ll stick. It might be more fun to make her like Indian or something.

We’ll see. (I’m very much open to suggestion about her, btw, if anyone has any thoughts...and I know it’s not much to go on yet but there’s a reason for that.)

And then there’s Cassie. My redheaded best friend of my best girl, Jo. I really don’t have much to say about her; I introduced her almost entirely to expand the world a bit and give Jocelyn more ties -- a girl like her would damn well have ties, y’know.

I don’t know what it is, but I have a really hard time writing her. She feels very bland, and while that was kind of the intent, it makes it really hard to get a feel for her. Only a few things remain strong when it comes to her: she’s kinda weirded out by the turtles, she supports Jocelyn completely, and she’s just as much of a ballet-enthusiast.

These girls have been friends for almost their literal entire lives. And I think part of the reason why I wrote them like this was out of jealousy -- I’ve never had that kind of a friendship. The oldest friend I can recall was Jenny, when I was five, and she was a BITCH.

I only have two memories of her anymore: 1, she used to invent games for us to play then change the rules on a dime so she’d always be the winner, and 2, I once tried to leave her home and she slammed the door on my fingers.

I sincerely hope she grew out of that, man.

Suffice to say we were not friends for very long. And since then I’ve seen a constant pattern: I can’t keep friends for longer than a few years, and not because I don’t want to.

Because something always happens. They move, I move, someone’s interests shift, we lose contact, a misunderstanding occurs, etc.

I wanted Jocelyn to have something better than a constantly-shifting sea of semi-friends. I wanted her to have best friends, and then THE best friend -- the one who will remain her best friend for the entirety of her life. The one who was there through all the biggest troubles and best celebrations, the one who will be there for all of the troubles and celebrations to come, and the one who knows her better than anyone else ever has (at least until a certain mutant comes into her life).

Lisa, on the other hand, is...me.

Her friendships flagged, drifted, dissolved, changed, and so on. The only constants in her life have been her family. And even then a good portion of her family has never been there, a fact that hurts her whenever she pauses to think about it.

She hurts, she yearns, and there are times she feels completely alone, even in a full room. She’s constantly scared no one understands her or cares about her, and she gets through this by laughing -- at others, at herself, at that one missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes it kind of look like a penis, and so on.

Lisa has always had the support of her family while needing true understanding and affection. Jo has always had affection and the understanding of her closest friend while needing support.

It’s amazing to think about. And while there’s a lot here that I never put into my fics, these are threads and pieces of my characters that have either always been there in the background or have developed as I wrote them. Maybe I never said Lisa was terrified of being alone, but it was in my mind every time I wrote her.

And I just want to take this moment to thank Anon for giving me this opportunity; I’ve always wanted to rant about my girls but never thought anyone would care, so what was the point, y’know?

Thank you, babe. ;)

[thisgirlsays22]

Ereri Creator Interview: Missmichellebelle

Hello friends! Thank you all for your support with this project. If you’d like to complete the interview, you can do so here: https://goo.gl/forms/lUpTjm0NFeYYzXGy1. The form will remain open indefinitely.

The response to this was more than I could have hoped for, so please be patient as I get to your interview! I aim to post 2-3 per week.

You can enjoy past creator interviews here. (Since I post these over time,  sometimes projects are complete by the time I post the interview.)

Michelle ( @missmichellebelle​ ) is a writer who has been in the fandom for three years. On advice to other creators, Michelle writes, “This is advice that I'm trying to give myself, and that is: it's not life or death. it's fandom. write that fic knowing the only person who might read it is you. abandon that project that you don't have the spark to create for anymore. take a hiatus, pick up a new hobby, join a new fandom, and come back if and when you're ready and create again. no one is ever going to say 'oh, what, so you're back now? we don't want you.' fandom always wants you, they always want what you can give. so give, give what you can, give what you want, and never, ever feel obligated to give.”  

Read on for more!

Please link us to your content so we can send you some love! 

http://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/works?fandom_id=721553

How long have you been in the fandom for?

about two and a half years ago? coming up on three

Why did you start shipping Ereri? 

I remember having a crisis over it more than I remember the why. once I start shipping a character, I generally am incapable of shipping them with everyone else, and I was like, 'oh boy, this is a big decision, I'll just go... I'll go on ao3 and I'll read some things' and then like 12 hours later I was sobbing over Ereri and... here I am. it fits into one of my otp niches really well, and it's my two favorite characters TOGETHER which is just... the best? ever? so good??? but it's the dynamic a lot, although I have to admit moreso in fanon than canon, but... Eren smiles more. he's generally more emotive. he's the kind of person it's easy to put in a situation where he's the Happy one, the Fun one, the Outgoing one, and then you have Levi who is not traditionally all of these things and I just. I like when you have the idealist and the realist together, and they balance each other out. they ground each other. it's my favorite type of dynamic. it's that yin and yang thing. so it's hard not to love them for clicking so perfectly into that for me.

Thematically speaking, what kind of content do you most enjoy making?

deeeeefinitely fluffy things, although I also love love love AUs of all shapes and sizes.

What is the work you're proudest of and why?

Acute Myocardial Infarction! the fic I never wanted to write! which might be why I love it so much, because I never would have written for it if it wasn't for a fandom event to begin with. but also because I like taking dynamics that would generally be iffy to work in (in this case, doctor/patient) and stretching them out and working through them to a point where you don't want to wrinkle your nose at it. 

What inspires you to create?

inspiration, when it comes, comes from nearly everywhere. ingesting other fandom works, getting into new content (i.e. after watching YOI, I wrote ice skating Ereri lol), real life experience, other interests I have at the time, music music music. so much inspires me to create I tend to have more ideas than I ever have the words for.

Is there any work you'd like to share that inspires you?

probably anything Ryssa (molotovhappyhour on ao3, jedierenjaeger on tumblr) writes??? the way she grasps language is so different than the way I do it, and it just... floors me. every single time. but her fae!Eren fic sticks with me especially http://archiveofourown.org/works/7363567

What projects are you currently working on?

I feel like I'm always working on a hundred projects at once, and I know a good portion of them will probably never leave my desktop. for sure I can say I am actively working on Piano Verse again, which I'm very excited about. it was my first foray into Ereri, and coming back to it is like coming home. in that same vein, I am working on updating and finishing my Pokemon AU, and on finally finishing the sequel to my doctor!Levi fic AMI. as for new things, it's looking like a lot of AU oneshots. I have a mer!Eren fic I'm working on, a Sleeping-Beauty style fairy tale, more Ereri as teenagers, something really really really sad (which is so out of my wheelhouse that I'm very excited about it), and just... a lot. nothing too big, nothing epic, but a lot of fun, smaller things, which, tbh, I've always been a lot better and more consistent with.

What are your strengths as a writer/artist?

I have been told that my characterization is good, and my dialogue. I would say my strengths are in snippets rather than epics. I excel at doing a 3k drabble than a 30k fic. I'm good at creating an entire world, an entire relationship, in the span of 3k and making it complete without bogging the entire thing down with world-building.

What is an area in your work which you're trying to improve on?

actually writing! lol, no. well, yes. I want to finish things that I start. I have WIPs, I have open-ended verses, I want to go back to them and flesh them out and finish them. and I do want to write and post more frequently. I'd like to get better at writing action, and at writing more horror-esque things, and at writing more than two people at the same time (the struggle is REAL), but I wouldn't say I'm actively working on improving those right now.

What advice do you have for other creators?

this is advice that I'm trying to give myself, and that is: it's not life or death. it's fandom. write that fic knowing the only person who might read it is you. abandon that project that you don't have the spark to create for anymore. take a hiatus, pick up a new hobby, join a new fandom, and come back if and when you're ready and create again. no one is ever going to say 'oh, what, so you're back now? we don't want you.' fandom always wants you, they always want what you can give. so give, give what you can, give what you want, and never, ever feel obligated to give. 

Do you have any pets?

no :c

How do you relax?

I watch a shit ton of YouTube and Crunchyroll these days, but I also knit. or go to Disneyland lol

Tell us about your dream day

I wake up naturally and at a decent hour. I have breakfast, I take a walk, I wear something cute. I drink a green tea latte and write for an hour, listening to music. I meet up with my friends and we go to Disneyland and just hang out there, enjoying the atmosphere, taking pictures. We all crash at somebody's house and talk through a movie and fall asleep in a pile.

What music are you into?

lots??? I listen to a lot of Top 40 lol I have the amazing ability of being in nearly any public space and knowing all the words to every song they play. but artist wise I love Ingrid Michaelson, Florence + the Machine, Jason Mraz, Ed Sheeran. I've been really into musical music lately too. but yeah anything with that like kind of indie/alternative pop thing going on, I'm all about.

What are some of your favorite tv shows?

I almost exclusively watch anime these days! lol but going back to those good ol' regularly watching TV days: Friends, Glee, Once Upon a Time, Lost, Parks and Rec, does Stranger Things count???? uh.... yeah.

What are some of your favorite films?

Howl's Moving Castle, Pride and Prejudice (2005), LotR! (especially Return of the King <3), Tangled, pretty much every and all Disney movie ever, Marvel movies, Star Wars movies, stupid 90s teen romcoms, High School Musical and other such DCOMs

What are some of your favorite books?

The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle (this is the book that actually inspired me to start writing!), Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Beauty by Robin McKinley (and most anything by Robin McKinley tbh, although Sunshine gets a nod), the Captive Prince series by C.S. Pacat, Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wyne Jones, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (and probably a lot of others I'm forgetting, so I just named the ones I reread on a yearly basis lol)

[cbk1000]

Jenn Recommends: Fantasy

All right, kids; it’s that time again. Time for me to babble on for an obnoxiously long time about books I have read and adored, and time for you to just shut the fuck up and take all my advice, because I have great taste.

Since this recommendation list concerns fantasy, all of the following books are actually part of a series, because it is illegal for fantasy authors to write standalone novels: they will be publicly executed for devoting anything less than 3,000 pages to Timmy’s sword and stones. You know this is true because you just read it on the internet.

If You Like: Political intrigue, really hot people, + everyone and their brother being canonically gay as fuck.

Read: The Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey.

This series starts with Kushiel’s Dart, and there are actually two trilogies worth reading in this world: Phedre’s (the first trilogy) and Imriel’s (the second, which I may like even better). We do not talk about the third trilogy. In this write-up, I’m just going to talk about the first trilogy, but if you enjoy it, I definitely encourage you to read the next three books.

Phèdre nó Delaunay is a courtesan who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye--a mark of the god to let others know that she’s into really kinky shit. You cannot spank this bitch hard enough. As a child she is sold into indentured servitude, and bought by a man who recognizes the mote in her eye for what it is and what it signifies--namely, that people who sexually enjoy having the ever-loving fuck beat out of them are pretty much up for anything, which means she will make a great spy.

So that is what she is trained in--not just the arts of the bedroom, but the arts of overhearing everything meant for non-State-approved ears. Of course because this is a novel and something has to happen in it, she stumbles upon a plot against the throne that gets a lot of people stabbed multiple times and throws her and her hapless goddammit-this-is-my-first-real-assignment bodyguard into a Perilous Journey that spans Many Lands.

Two things I really love about this series: the world building and the casual approach to homosexuality.

The various different countries are obviously based heavily upon European history and lore, but she’s done enough research to really flesh them out. We don’t just have a few generic descriptions here and there of vaguely European geography, but actual religions and languages and histories which are more than just given a hasty, passing mention to conjure the illusion that the world is more tangible than it actually is: you can taste and touch and hear Terre d’Ange.

As for the casual homosexuality: the main pairing is hetero, but Phedre takes several female lovers, because in Terre d’Ange, the one rule by which everyone must abide is ‘Love as thou wilt’. No one is really straight or gay; sexuality isn’t really a thing, labels aren’t a thing; people bone who they bone and nobody bats an eye. Kind of like Ancient Greece, till it came time for you to stop porking Archimedes during oily wrestling sessions and churn out a couple of brats. Sex work in this world is also considered in the service of the goddess, and those engaged in it are bestowing a blessing on their customers; it is an honorable and profitable line of work.

I honestly could not put these books down. I have two copies of the third book in this trilogy because I ordered it online while halfway through the second, then promptly panicked when I realized it wouldn’t arrive in time for me to immediately begin the third as soon as I finished the second novel. I actually drove an hour and a half to the nearest Barnes and Noble just so I didn’t have to wait two agonizing days for the next book to arrive. The writing can be a little heavy-handed (think purple euphemisms for a man’s steely pleasure wand, etc.), but overall it’s gripping and lush and I could barely stop reading long enough to take bathroom breaks.

If You Like: Bleak stories where probably nobody is ever going to get anything more than a brief glimpse of happiness before it’s cruelly torn away from them and legitimately creepy monsters.

Read: The Banned and the Banished series by James Clemens.

This series on the surface is your fairly generic Evil Dark Lord vs. Savior Newly Awakened To Their Powers. Elena is a thirteen-year-old girl who has just been visited for the very first time by the dreaded Aunt Flo. With puberty comes the blossoming of new powers: a red hand that shoots a lot of fire out of it, a power I would’t mind having while trying to navigate a bunch of idiot-inflicted traffic. Over the course of the five books in the series, she picks up her Adventure Party and they sally forth to do battle with the Dark Lord’s minions (of which there are a metric fuck ton, in scientific terms). Some parts begin to feel a little monster-of-the-week, as the protagonists barely have time to take a breath in between waves of tentacly evil.

So why I am I recommending this series? Because Clemens is not content with just scattering some generic tropes around the page and calling it good: he wants you to go, “What the FUCK, dude??”. A lot. This is probably the only book in which you will encounter a woman letting a bunch of spiders crawl into her vagina. Or later giving birth to those spiders, which have, upon the touch of the Dark Lord, transformed into a monster that smells like dead baby and eats people’s faces. I recently came across this series in Russian and have been rereading it as a 31-year-old adult, and there are scenes which even now thoroughly traumatize me; it really explains why I am the way I am, since I first read the beginning books when I was only 11-12.

This series is surprisingly hard to put down; I suppose it’s because you are compelled (or at least I am) to find out what the hell kind of nasty thing is next going to emerge from the forest and inspire you to check under your bed at night even though you’re a goddamn adult. This series is not for the faint of heart, obviously. But if you like dark fantasy, and you’re into the idea of reading something that on the surface seems a pretty standard fantasy tale before it suddenly starts hurling vagina spiders all up your business, check it out. Also, if you’ve read any of my work and you’d like to know just what the fuck is wrong with me, I believe this series can throw a little light on that.

If You Like: A protagonist who won’t take your shit but also is allowed to be emotionally vulnerable, Chinese history, detailed military campaigns.

Read: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang.

Rin, a war orphan raised by shitty foster parents in a backwoods village, is accepted into a prestigious military academy where pretty much everyone, teachers included, hates her because she’s a peasant and this school is for the sons of rich people, goddammit. Rin is talented in the nearly lost art of shamanism because she’s the main character of a fantasy novel, and it is only her newly-found powers that have a chance of halting the advance of the Federation as they march upon the Nikara Empire, intent on conquering (and graphically torture murdering) everything in its path. On the flip side: her powers have also been known to turn literally all their wielders into raging loonies who have to be imprisoned for the good of everyone.

My ignorance of Chinese history is absolute, so I’ve no idea where the author (herself Chinese, and an historian, I believe) is pulling from in order to build the foundations of her world, but it’s obvious she has done a lot of research and painstakingly agonized over every little detail. It’s nice to finally step away from the usual Euro-centric world of much Western fantasy, and into one so fully fleshed-out.

This story actually reminds me in some ways of Mulan: the unlikely protagonist bests nearly everyone in all of her training--but only because she works three times harder than anyone else, and no one particularly admires her for it, saving her from Mary Suedom. She’s intelligent and determined, but nothing comes easily (especially when one of your masters is more than a little unhinged). She has exactly one friend, and spends most of her time trying to read her way to a better martial artist. 

This is not, however, a school story; and though the characters are 16-17 when they first enter the academy, it is not a YA story either. It is a story about war, and the author has no interests in presenting war as anything other than it is: revolting, traumatizing, horrific. There are some very graphic depictions of violence, so if you do not have the stomach for that, this is not the book for you.  Neither massacres nor first kills are glossed over; everything is presented exactly as it looks, smells, feels. 

Because life is never one long angst-ridden slog, however, and there was always something, before war, there are moments of legit humor; I actually laughed out loud at several lines. And that leads me to something else the author does very well: dialogue.  Much dialogue is an excuse for the author to sound worldly, wise--poetic. It also often hardly sounds like human speech. Real humans, even articulate, intelligent humans, do not shit a fucking Keats verse every time they open their mouths. In The Poppy War, people, wonder of wonders, actually sound like people; perhaps even more notable: teenagers sound like teenagers.

Stylistically, this book is utilitarian; I won’t be highlighting any phrases because they’ve left me awestruck. But it is not lightweight fantasy; the main characters wield terrifying powers with immense consequences. They are mangled, tortured, killed; some of them are drug addicts because only in opium can they find a momentary release from what they have survived. It’s a hold-onto-your-balls-kids kind of story. This is the first novel in a purported trilogy, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the rest of the series.

[delicatefury]

Tales from the LCS

I got to pet some cute dogs. I’m normally the person with the dog people want to pet, but my sister had to work this morning, and I can’t handle both on my own, so they were left behind. Instead, I got to see a few cute tiny lapdogs. One of which reminds me of the Maltese we had when I was a kid (and the dog I’m getting as soon as I no longer live with my brother. Whenever that happens. He doesn’t like them because by the time he could remember, Socrates was 14, with all the hygeine issues old dogs have). They were sweet.

I do not get the way many women my age talk. Can’t help but overhear when you sit here working (which is why my earphones are now in), but the fact that one of them was legit getting upset because the other had called someone else “baby”, and she’s “the only baby”? Teasing or not, I don’t get that.

Apparently the donut shop next door sells “the only decent vegan donut”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. As I only really like German-style yeast doughnuts myself, and I’m not a vegan by any stretch of the imagination, I can’t really say one way or the other. I get why the tourists love that donut shop, it’s a cute concept and everyone seems to like it, but I’ve had the non-vegan donuts from there, and I’m not paying $5 for a donut when the bakery in my hometown has the best glazed cinnamon twist doughnuts I’ve ever had for about 60¢. And only one place around here has come even remotely close and the doughnuts are still kinda... airy? They lack substance.

I still haven’t told my best friend that I’ve got a moving date. I mean, I totally intend to hang out with her a crap-ton once we’re in the same city again, but I have no clue where I’m living or anything else right now, and I was kinda hoping to have something more substantive to tell her. Oh well. I should just send the text regardless. While I know a lot hasn’t changed in the past... 12 years? Since we’ve lived near each other and hung out more than once every few months, I still have a lot I wanna touch base with her on. Does she still go to church every weekend? Have her parents retired? Has her sister had kids? Who are the people she works with? We never touch a lot of this stuff, because we only see each other every so often so we tend to focus on either big-BIG picture stuff or insanely stupid whatever-comes-to-mind shit. And a lot just never gets discussed.

I have made a playlist of Zelda music on Spotify. By that I mean that I started with a handful of songs. Then from the recommended list, then I started going through and adding everything else on every album these songs were on that was from LoZ, then I checked if the artists had other LoZ stuff. Basically, I went on a hunt to find nearly all the Zelda music on Spotify. I’m not quite done (though I’m close) and I’ve removed everything I don’t like (mostly a few remixes and metal covers that just don’t sound right to me. And one version of Saria’s Song that decided to change the last note so it hit flatter. Why? I don’t know). So far the total is over 1500 songs. Yep 1500 covers from 18 games. Some games get a ton of covers (Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Majora’s Mask), some get hardly any (The Oracle Games, Four Swords Adventure), but all are pretty damn amazing.

I’ve also listened to nearly every one of those songs. And now that my playlist is pretty much complete, I’ve moved on to the next nostalgia-fueled one. This time? Pokémon. Starting with The Kanto Symphony.

My one complaint about BotW? I wish some of my favorite bits of Hyrule Lore had gotten a bit more mention. Not a lot. I just wish more was made of Din, Nayru, and Farore and maybe mention the Triforce (though I love that Urbosa’s stuff in the main quest and the DLC both discuss how Ganondorf was a Gerudo)? OoT was my first Zelda game, and the Oracles games the next after that, so I’m kinda attached to the golden goddesses a lot more than Hylia. To the point where I went back to make sure all three symbols were present at the small temples leading to the Temple of Time. I’m also kinda sad that I can’t seem to recognize any hints of the original Kakariko theme in the town’s bgm (though, again, it’s nice to see the Sheikah as a people rather than just Impa).

And now I’ve gotten way off topic and am not writing at all. I should probably write a bit more about my favorite parts of BotW after I finish the game

[lizzyfish225]

I Am Not Afraid, Lucifer

AN/ Hey! This is my first prompted fanfic, I was given the option between a Marvel fic and a Lucifer fic, so I chose Lucifer. I didn't know what to do with the Marvel one, and I wanted to pump this out pretty quickly. If you are still watching Lucifer/are on finished, be warned, there is at least one big spoiler in here, I am still putting it together in my head as I write this. Anyway, lets get on with it!

PS/ THERE IS A SHIT TON OF LEAD UP TO THE TICKLE PART.

Summary: Lucifer has been avoiding Chloe since she saw his devil face, but he can't avoid her much longer, as she has had enough of him hiding from her.

Three weeks ago today, Lucifer saved Chloe Decker's life, killed cane, got his devil face back, and got caught by Chloe. He didn't know if she thought she was hallucinating. He didn't know what she thought. He must have terrified her. He didn't know. He really hated not knowing. However, he just couldn't bring himself to go to her house or the precinct to talk to her. He was more afraid of knowing. He hadn't spoken to Linda, or Amenadiel, and definitely not Maze. All he had done is hide away at Lux, drinking away his mind and sleeping with woman after woman, trying to pretend everything was okay. Nothing was working.

The last few days had been the worst. He stared at his devil face in the mirror for hours, contemplating how much it would hurt to rip it off. He sat on his bed, stretching his wings out and staring at them, silently hating himself for loosing what had almost been. He couldn't bring himself to rip them off though, he deserved the pain of being reminded of what he had lost. He had hurt Chloe. He couldn't even blame it on his father this time. That was all his doing.

The pain from the bullets that hit his wings, along with the other wounds he had gained, was gone, but he almost longed for it. There were still a few feathers trying to grow back in where the previous ones had been blown off.

Yet there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to forget what he had done. Hell seemed pleasant compared to this.

What the Devil didn't know, however, was that Chloe had been thinking about it too. She saw that face, as he stood over the bastard that had done her so much harm. He had said not to trust him. Lucifer had warned her. But than again, they had been warning her about each other for months. She knows she saw that face, but she doesn't know if it was real. He ran off, he was hurt, but he ran off. Lucifer always said that he would never lie to her, that he would always tell her the truth, but then he would make up these tales and stories of heaven and hell. However, that face... It looked to real, yet so fake due to how impossible it was.

The first few days Lucifer hadn't shown up to bug her at work, she was relieved. She was honestly unable to comprehend anything just yet. She hadn't told a soul what she thought she saw.

After a week, she was curious as to if he was just being dramatic, hiding away, running off like he did with Candy. But the terror, the unfiltered, unidentifiable emotion in his eyes when she saw him... Maybe he just needed a few mire days.

That's what she kept telling herself, but she was ready to talk to him by the end if the second week, deciding she best ask him what she saw. But it would be any day now, right?

She was fed up by the end of the third week, annoyed that he hadn't said a word to her. He had even been ignoring her calls. Something had to be wrong.

First, Chloe checked with Linda, asking if she had seen him, however, apparently he had missed sessions and ignored her calls. He wouldn't even let her in to talk to him.

So she went to Lux. She checked the entire club floor, but there was nobody there. Not a peep from anything. So she stared at the stairs for a few minutes, wondering if she should go up. Her annoyance overtook her respect for privacy.

Lucifer sat of his bed, staring at his wings with red eyes. He still had no idea how to deal with these... Emotions. He couldn't. He could never show his face, either of them really, ever again. He should just go back to hell, it would be so much easier.

"Lucifer?" Chloe's voice called. Lucifer jumped, hearing footsteps getting closer, ascending the stairs. He panicked. He wasn't ready, she couldn't see him! He would only scare her, oh father what if he hurt her?

He hid, pulled his wings out of sight and pressed himself behind the closest wall that would hide him from the detective when she got up the stairs. He wasn't thinking straight at this point.

"Lucifer, are you up here? Lucifer?" She spoke, reaching the top if the curved staircase and holding the railing. She looked around. The place was a mess. There were several different brands of alcohol bottles siting empty on the floor, random clothes scattered around, and was that an empty tub of ice cream by the TV? It wasn't like Lucifer to leave his home in such a state unless there was a party the night before. It didn't help that most of those clothes were his.

Lucifer's breathing was shakey, he was staying as quiet as possible as he heard the Detective walk around his home, stepping over empty bottles and random shirts. She walked through most of the house, eventually calling out again.

"Lucifer, please, are you in here? I need to talk to you..." She called, concern now dripping from her voice. It wrenched at whatever heart he had left, almost pulling a quiet gasp out of him, he heard her walking closer to the bedroom. He panicked again, he had nowhere to go, that balcony was to far to get to without being seen, the bed wouldn't do him much good, he backed up a step, knocking something over behind him, causing him to frantically try to catch it. Chloe instinctively grabbed her gun and pointed it in the direction of the noise.

"Lucifer? Is that you?" She asked tentatively, not moving. She heard a hiss of disappointment and... Anguish?

"D-Detective, please... Just... Just go. Go away... You dont want to see me... Not like this..." Lucifer finally replied, quiet enough to almost not be heard, but the shakey and horce state of his voice was evident. Chloe put her gun away, taking a tentative step forward.

"Lucifer, your voice... Have you been crying?" She asked in a confused and concerned tone, her annoyance completely replaced with worry.

"...Just leave..." His voice spoke, cracking sadly.

"No. Are you okay?" She said, worried.

"I'm fine!" Lucifer said too quickly, "just go, I don't want you to- I can't-"

"I am not leaving, Lucifer, we need to talk."

Lucifer was so anxious, he wanted to run, he didn't even fully understand why. She wouldn't hurt him, but something about this situation just scared him so much. He slid down the wall he had pressed himself againsed, "Please..." He said quietly, a sob nearly escaping and breaking his voice.

"I'm gonna come around the corner now, okay?" She said, waiting a moment before slowly entering the room, scanning over what she could now see, finding Lucifer sitting on the floor, his head hanging and his hands in the hair on the back of his head, his knees to his chest.

"Just go away, Detective..." He whispered, feeling luke a pitiful creature. To Chloe, he looked like a mess.

"Oh, Lucifer... Is this what you've been doing?" Chile spoke softly, not entirely sure how to approach the situation. He looked so... Afraid... Of her?

"J-just go..." A sob finally breaking his voice, but only one escaped, "I'm okay."

"No, you aren't." She continued her soft voice, crouching down slowly, putting a hand on his shoulder. And Lucifer Morningstar flinched.

He sat up, pressing himself againsed the wall, not expecting for her to get so close to him.

"Oh my god, Lucifer, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Chloe asked frantically, not connecting his fear and the flinch. He didn't even know why he was so afraid for the woman he cared about so much to touch him, but he was, and when she tried to come closer, he put his hands out, not touching her, but keeping her back, his eyes wide.

"No! No no no, I-I'm not hurt! I..." He trailed off, now seeing the look in his friends eyes, "Why do you even care?" His voice broke.

"Why do I- why wouldn't I?"

"Arent you... Aren't you afraid of me...?" He asked, his voice putting of the air of true self hatred.

"Afraid of-? Lucifer, is this about... Is this about three weeks ago?"she asked, thinking it impossible for him to be effected so badly. He was in worse shape than her.

"Yes... I... Oh father, I'm sorry..." He finally broke, returning to his curled up position and shaking slightly. "You- you shouldn't have had to- to see me thike that... I..."

He continued his rambling as Chloe stared in shock.

"So... So that face... I... I wanst hallucinating?" Lucifer shook his head.

"I- at least I never lied to you..." He said pitifully.

It only took a moment for her to prosess, as she had prosessed both the possibility of Lucifer being... Lucifer, as well as that of her being crazy.

"Okay." That stopped Lucifer for a moment.

"Okay?" He looked up.

"Yeah. Okay. You need to calm down for a moment, I am the one that should be freaking out right now, not you, why are you... Panicking?" Chloe asked.

"You... Aren't you afraid?"

"Why would I be afraid?"

"I'm the Devil! Literally the incarnation of evil! The one thing everyone blames for all their problems! I-"

"Stop."

"...what?"

"Stop thinking like that. You have never Lied to me, remember? Never tried to be something you aren't. Well, you have, but you always came back to yourself. If you are the worst evil out there, I shouldn't need a job. I am not afraid of you. If you haven't lied to me about this, not once, than nothing should have changed." Chloe explained, Lucifer staring at her like she had two heads. He had no idea how to respond to that, he couldn't believe it.

"I- you... I killed a man infront of you..." He quietly said.

"What was your reason?"

"He was going to kill you!" He yelped, "He... He is literally the oldest murderer to ever live... Cane. He killed his brother, Able. He hurt you... I... I sent him to hell." Lucifer grew quieter with every word. But Chloe was quiet.

"It takes a moment to prosess, but if you exist, no reason that can't be true. I'm okay with that, I suppose. He should have died a while ago." Chile said, considering it as self defence from what she saw of that fight.

Similar conversation luke this went on until Lucifer was just mostly in shock.

"So, why were you never at the precinct?" Chloe asked, sitting in front of Lucifer.

"I assumed you would be afraid of me... I didn't want to scare you." He replied after a moment, "Or hurt you..."

"Why would you hurt me?" Chloe asked curiously.

"I suppose I am quite the ticking time bomb..." Lucifer said, irony in his voice.

"Do you still think I am afraid of you or something?" Chloe asked.

"You should be..." Lucifer said, still not quite his usual self. Chloe barely missed a beat.

"So show me." She said.

"What?"

"Show me your face. Your real one."

"I couldn't! I-"

"I won't be afraid." She cut him off. He stared at her, taking a deep breath. He closed his eyes and looked away, slowly letting his true face shimmer through. Chloe scooted over slowly, making sure he heard her, and she gently turned his face to look at her, he kept his eyes firmly shut, however, his eyebrows pinched together and his body fence with anxiety, "Open your eyes, Lucifer." She said softly.

It took him a moment, her fingers still under his chin and keeping his head still. But, he gulped and opened his eyes, dreading the face before him. However, he was surprised by her calm, encouraging eyes.

"Tada!..." He said quietly, still more anxious. She smiled, though.

"Oh, you're not that bad. Gotta say, red suits you." She smiled, running her thumb over some of the wrinkles in his face. He was still rather surprised by the situation, but something about how calm she was helped him slowly ease up, not much, but a little, "See? I am not afraid of you."

"You must be insane." He whispered. She laughed and lightly knocked him on the side of the head.

"Didn't we already establish I was sane?" She grinned. That brought a bit of a smile out of him, "Only thing that's missing is those wings you kept complaining about."

"Well..."

"Wait, really? Oh, now you've gotta show me."

"I dont know if that's..."

"Oh, come on, you've got wings and you aren't gonna flaunt them? That doesn't sound like you." Chloe teased, lightly punching him on the arm.

"...Alright... Just... Don't make a big deal, they aren't in the best condition right now..." He stated, moving to the bed slowly to give himself room. He gave a quick glance to Chloe, who was smiling up at him from the floor now, but he slowly allowed his wings to spread out behind him, allowing them to be seen by the world. They spread back and up, stretching to show the true size if them. The wounds from the bullets had healed, but there was still some stubborn blood sitting on some of the feathers, along with the small patches of absent plumage.

"Oh wow..." Chloe gasped, taking in their beauty before sporting the wounds, "What... What happened? Is that blood? Were you hurt?" She asked. Lucifer gulped, slowly settling his wings down, keeping them in view. He did, however hid his devil face away.

"Well..."he was going to just stop there, but she fixed him with a stern glare and he sighed. " the shot to your chest knocked you out, the one three weeks ago? You got lucky, wearing that vest, but you would have died... I popped my wings out and used them to shield you. There wasn't a scratch on you. After that, I flew you away from the area." He explained. Chloe stared wide eyed.

"You... You saved my life?" She paused to chuckle. "How many bullets are you going to take for me, Lucifer?" Lucifer paused as well.

"Unless you stop getting in danger, as many as I have to." They both chuckled, Chloe calming down to pull herself onto the bed.

"Do they hurt?" She asked, eyeing the blood.

"No, they healed a while ago, but the blood was stubborn to wash out and the feathers are still growing back in." He said, calm, but still tense, as if waiting for something to go wrong. Chloe stopped herself, half way through reaching out to touch the wings.

"May I?" She asked. Lucifer gulped, he hadn't let anyone touch his wings since he had Maze cut the first set off. However, this was Chloe. He nodded slowly and spread the one closest to her out. She smiled and scooted closer, slowly reaching out and gently brushing her fingers over the feathers, feeling just how soft they were.

"Go on, they aren't fragile. You won't hurt them unless you go pulling feathers out." Lucifer nodded nervously. Chloe looked over and nodded happily, scooting forward more so she could gently run her hands through the feathers, feeling the powerful muscles underneath, along with the bones along the top. She made sure to move her hands with the direction of the feathers so she wouldn't ruffle them too much, this is something Lucifer appreciated. In fact, the calm, painless attention was rather peaceful until Chloe's hands swiped gently over a particularly sensitive spot, that was when Lucifer twitched, causing Chloe to pull her hands away and look at him with a worried expression.

"Did I hurt you?" Chloe asked quickly, glancing from his face to his wing and back.

"No no!" Lucifer assured, "You didn't hurt me."

"So why did you twitch?" She raised an eyebrow. Lucifer gulped.

"Ah..." He would really rather not tell her, he hadn't felt that since he was a fledgling, but something told him it was just as bad now.

Chloe sighed, lightly brushing over the spot again, watching Lucifer's face this time. He didn't expect her to test it again, so he jumped, the ghost of a smile gracing his features. Chloe was confused only a moment longer, pulling her hands away and smiling widely, "Oh, I see." She teased.

TO BE CONTINUED, I RAN OUT OF SPACE OF THE POST.

[vaguely-gestures-to-the-void]

In spite of my better judgement, I sit here with a room smelling of rosewood and burnt oranges on a tumblr acc I definately shouldn't have. I also want some writing practise and am about to disappoint you, dear reader, with the most boring tale of how I set something alight today. So here, for my audience of none, I shall chronicle the Great Orange Catastrophe lest my care givers realise what I'm up to and ban me from fire for better (and certainly not for worse).

TWs: dumbassery, fire, potential second hand embarrassment, mentions of death (no one died, minus my ancestor's pride)

I got a candle for my birthday. It smells like Ridgewood and came in a tin box, a gift from my neighbours who are into candle-making. A simple, thoughtful gesture that really shouldn't be the source of so much distress. For the past few days, I've taken to lighting it when the mood strikes. Note that I've done enough chemistry to understand what a fire is, and have had enough safety training (illegally, a story I probably can't tell) to know not to use water to douse a wax fire. I looked up how to keep candles and when I thought I was safe, light it in a clear area. Cool. I had an orange on me so I set about peeling that and eating it. I have a habit of drying orange peels before I put them away so as I peeled, I set them out on the counter top. After an hour or so, having finished my orange and wanting to get some work done around the house I put out my candle and left.

Now this is part where things get funny. I don't have pets but I do have siblings. Or perhaps I wasn't so careful when I was peeling.

Anyway, I relit the candle today, a few days later and settled down with a book. I'm not supposed to light candles for reasons I can't explain so I was alone for most of this. But afterwhile, I noticed orange specks. Squinting, I could make out tiny bits of what looked like orange peel. The peel had been disposed of, but lying here like it had been summoned from my compost bin. This was worrying. Candles shouldn't have foreign substances in them and they'd need to be removed. I couldn't put out the candle and have the wax harden, but nor could I leave it, so there I was, a hot candle in one hand and a torch in my mouth as I searched for tweezers under my bed. This was where the recesses of my childhood lingered, and hopefully, art supplies. After finding a jar of toothpicks (and quickly realising that small fire sticks under a bed surrounded by paper was a death sentence) I retreated from the void of darkness and returned to humanity with the remaining scraps of my dignity.

After nearly half an hour of dawdling around the house, in which I found:

Scissors of all different sizes

A few pairs of safety glasses

Bottles of ethanol

Masking tape (a shit ton)

Tissues (see above^)

A car engine (I'd forgotten about that one)

A small hunting axe on a bed frame

More alcohol of various kinds and

A horseshoe magnet

And other stuff that wasn't of use, I attempted retrive the peel. Armed with all of the above (minus 5 through 8 because I make all of my mistakes completely sober) I cleaned off a pair of scissor with the ethanol before coming very, very close to the flames. Maybe it was a higher power, but more likely the voice inside my head (that sounded like my grandmother for once) told me to stop. So bsfore doing something potentially deadly, I cleaned another pair with a tissue and began fishing. My lack of foresight and clumsiness got the better of me. As I laid out a tissue to place the wax-covered orange bits, it caught fire.

Since this isn't the first time this week I've caused a fire, I lifted it away and put it out. Damping the tissue (not with my tears, I had a water bottle nearby) I placed the waxed-covered peel on it. Eventually, I had extracted all the tiny bits and extinguished the flame. But now, as I hear a car pull into the driveway and the incriminating evidence around me, hopefully I'll will be able to explain this without getting burned.

[emmaswanchoosesyou]

CSBB: Part of the Narrative (11/17)

Emma Swan just wants to write the follow-up to her bestselling debut novel, that’s all. But when she gets off to a rough start with her new editor, Killian Jones, she knows it’s not going according to plan. Then, an unexpected figure from Emma’s past reappears and life begins to mirror the crime thriller she’s penning. Suspicion and secrets abound–but love might too. A writer/editor AU with a thriller twist.

Rated E. Includes sexual content, kidnapping, some gore, mild violence, and minor character death–not to mention salty language! On Ao3 here.

Chapter warnings: Confrontations, one main character striking another, corporate espionage.

THINGS ARE HAPPENING, FRIENDS. So thank you so much to all of you who have been reading and commenting and waiting for things to get here, and to all of you who helped me get here. Thank you to all the wonderful ladies at @captainswanbigbang for all you’ve done to make this possible, and all the support you’ve given. Sophie @shady-swan-jones made the delightful banner and another photoset that I adore. Kayla @bleebug did some incredible art for the first and sixth chapters, which you can check out here and here. And all the love and thanks to Kris @sambethe for beta-ing this and making it a ton better. Like seriously, she’s the best.

[Ch. 1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Chapter 11

Emma goes to Killian, and he has to deal with the fall-out of her discovering his subterfuge. That's not the only thing that goes pear-shaped in his life as things heat up at Mills & Booth.

Killian

Killian hadn't precisely slept well the night before, but it hadn't been the worst night's sleep. He and Emma had argued, but he was willing to chalk it up to strong personalities and the adjustment period that tended to happen early in relationships.

He'd been restless all day as a result, and trying not to sit beside his phone and wait for a text or call from her. He was convinced, though, that she'd call as soon as he walked away from the infernal thing.

But morning had come and gone, as had the afternoon. It was early in the evening by the time he finally accepted he'd have to do something to feed his growling stomach, and that he and Emma likely wouldn't be making up just yet.

Maybe she just needed a little more time to cool off.

Killian had always run hot and his anger turned to grudges, but it didn't seem like Emma was the type to hold onto grievances. Especially, the petty part of him insisted, when he was right and that she was behaving a little irrationally and blowing things out of proportion. He shushed that small voice, looking in his cupboards for something he could throw together for dinner.

He found the necessary items for his favorite recipe of pasta primavera, knowing the act of preparing a meal would provide some solace and a much-needed distraction. He wanted to pour himself a generous snifter of rum, but he was still holding onto hope that Emma might call and they could put their disagreement behind them. Then there could be pasta, kisses, and maybe even shagging.

He had just pulled the pasta off the range and was grating Parmesan when a knock came at the door. His heart leapt when he saw Emma through the peephole. Killian opened the door, trying to temper the wide smile on his face.

"Swan, I'm so glad to see you. Come on i--"

She cut him off abruptly with a stinging slap to his cheek.

Well, that answered the question of whether she was willing to put their tiff behind them.

"Love, stop," he said, grabbing her wrist and halting another strike. "What happened? I'm sorry we disagreed, but it's hardly a reason to turn violent."

He was flummoxed by this sudden turn from her coldness the night before. The ice had clearly melted off, leaving behind a molten rage that was clear in her eyes and the way she was very nearly shaking.

Emma twisted her wrist from his grasp, and he dropped his hold on her and stepped back. She walked inside and he took the opportunity to close the door, not wanting his neighbors to use their fight as the evening's entertainment.

Standing a good five feet away from him, Emma finally broke her stony silence. "You were spying on me? What the hell, Killian? For August? What the actual fuck?"

The color draining from Killian’s face and his stomach dropped to his feet. No, more like below his feet. If it were possible, his stomach felt as though it had dropped through the earth's many layers and into hell.

He certainly wasn't hungry anymore.

"I--wha--how did you find out?" he asked, realizing there was no reason to continue to lie, that it wouldn't help him at all anymore. Not that it ever would have, he knew.

"That's really what you want to know? How I found out?" She was glowing, nay, vibrating with rage. She was still achingly, heartbreakingly beautiful, with her eyes flashing and her expression fierce. He wanted to hold her, to pull her close and bring her comfort, but when he reached out to touch her shoulder, she pushed his hand away. Not with the force with which she'd slapped him earlier, but it certainly wasn't gentle.

He sighed. "I suppose that's not what matters now. I am sorry, though, I want you to know. I quit, I told August before our first date that I wouldn't continue to spy on you."

He watched as she stepped back and crossed her arms. "Just...why? Why would you do that? Betray my trust like that?" Her voice broke, and so did his heart with it.

"I...it was selfish, and wrong. I was trying to get away from a bad situation in London, and August offered me an out in exchange for my work and information on you. I didn't ask why, and he never volunteered a reason."

Her eyes welled with tears, and he fought away some of his own. She didn't speak, so he continued. "I stopped early on. I--I didn't count on you, Emma, when I agreed. You should know that. You swept through my life. You captivated me, mind, soul, and heart. I wouldn't--I can't begin to convey how sorry I am, but I also promise that I'd never hurt you or betray you again."

"Too late," she said, her voice rough, harsh. "I--I can't trust you anymore. You lied to me, and that--that's it for me."

“What are you saying, love?” His voice was more frantic than he was proud of, and he cringed at the sound of it.

“You don't get to call me that anymore. We--we’re done, Killian.”

“Emma, please--” He pleaded with her and moved toward her, stopping just short of reaching for her.

“No. Don't...just stop. We still have to work together, so I'll be professional. But I don't want you to talk to me about anything outside of work,” she said, her shoulders slumped. She sounded resigned, defeated.

And he felt utterly deflated.

Killian didn't reply to her soft “goodbye” as she walked out of his flat, out of his life.

&&&

He sobered himself up enough to attend work that week, but he moved about in a fog for a full five days after Emma broke up with him. Each night, he drowned his sorrows in rum, trying to numb the pain that his cock-ups, and her resulting departure, had caused. He got one brief email from her with a couple notes about an upcoming chapter, but he couldn’t even bring himself to respond.

Finally, on Thursday, Robin called him. He sounded tentative as he asked, “Hey mate, your text sounded a bit off. Want to grab a pint?”

Killian didn’t remember texting Robin, but he quickly scrolled through his recent texts. He winced, seeing the numerous errors and misspellings. “Yeah, I could go for a pint. Rough week, you know.”

“Aye. Cornwall’s?”

“I can swing that.”

“There aren’t usually too many tourists on Thursdays, so we should be fine,” Robin said.

Killian managed a small smile and joked, “You don’t think we count?”

Robin laughed and Killian continued, “I’ll see you there at eight or so, if that gives you time to find a sitter for Roland.”

“It’s not an issue--I’ve a friend who looks after him while I work, and he was already planning on taking him for the night.”

“I’m not messing with plans or anything, am I?” asked Killian.

Robin laughed. “No, I originally had a date, but I cancelled. She made some comment about puppies that seemed rather...off. So, for the record, you’re a rather large project that came up at work.”

Later that evening as they slowly drank their pints of ale, Killian found himself amused in spite of his continued glumness. Robin was animatedly recounting the story of one of his arrests from last week and the hijinks that had ensued as he and his partner had tried to track him down. The evening was almost enough to make him forget the ache in his chest, the hole left by Emma.

Eventually, though, Robin grew serious. “Now, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, but...are you all right?”

Killian stared down into the amber liquid in his glass, swirling it around. “Well enough, I suppose, for having just been chucked by the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

“This is your writer lass? The famous one?” he asked, sitting up and listening intently.

“Aye,” Killian said, nodding. “She’s the first woman since Milah who I really connected with, and I fucked it up.”

“Oh, how so?”

Killian hesitated a moment, realizing his friend was in fact law enforcement. Then he realized how much he needed to get it off his chest, how much he needed to tell someone. Somehow, over the last couple months, Emma had become so much more than a love interest--she’d become his closest friend, the person he chatted with about everything. And now he didn’t have that, couldn’t tell her about the weird ship in a bottle he saw or listen to her laugh about what one of the regulars at Granny’s Diner had done.

So he warned Robin that some of his behavior might not have been strictly legal. When he reassured him that as long as no one was being physically hurt it would stay between them, Killian told him the whole sordid tale, from the first time August contacted him to the alcohol-fueled stupor of the previous few days.

“Shit,” said Robin when Killian had finished. “That’s…”

“A disaster?”

“To put it mildly.”

Killian sighed.

As soon as he ordered them another pint (the final one, Robin insisted), he said, “Well, if you need a listening ear or any such rot, I’m here. D’you think there’s a chance Emma could give you another shot?”

“Doubtful, mate.”

&&&

On Monday morning he strolled into the office miraculously free of a hangover. Since his chat with Robin, he’d worked on cutting back on his drinking. Not eliminating it entirely, but he made a marked improvement over the previous week’s constant queasiness and malaise.

He settled into the chair behind his desk, intent on picking up on the work he'd slacked on last week. God, but he'd been a wreck. Today, he promised himself, he would accomplish things. Maybe even get to Emma's chapter, if he could work up the nerve.

He had opened his email and was looking over some of the other projects that had crossed his desk when he heard a knock at the door. He yelled out, "Come on in!"

Killian was surprised to see Ariel, and a rather frantic-looking Ariel at that. Her eyes were wide as she stumbled into the room, arms flailing. He didn't know the lass terribly well, but she seemed like the calm and cheerful sort. He had yet to see her looking harried, or entering his office. Today appeared to be the exception.

"Uh, Killian? I mean, Mr. Jones?"

"Killian is fine, Ariel," he said, frowning at her obvious discomfort and worry. "What seems to be the problem?"

She bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth. "Well, I just got a letter from the, uh, Immigration Services  about your work visa. It says they found that a bunch of things are out of compliance and that, uh, you need to stop working for wages immediately, return what you've earned, and that they'll be launching an investigation. And maybe deporting , you," she finished with a squeak.

Shit fucking damn.

This was...beyond bad. This was catastrophic. He had to admit, he hadn't paid much attention to the particulars of his visa, had let August--

August.

August had to be the one responsible for this. He had initially arranged the visa and Killian's immigration, had sped it along with his contact. And he had been the one disappointed when Killian stopped providing him information about Emma.

Well, it clearly hadn't taken him too long to undo the permissions he'd obtained for Killian. (God, had it even been on the up-and-up to begin with?)

He was reeling, nearly hyperventilating when he sucked in a long breath. Realizing he hadn't actually replied to Ariel, he tried to find the words. Coming up blank, dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

He felt a light pat on his shoulder and glanced up to find Ariel attempting to provide him with the awkward solace she felt capable of. He also caught sight of a glass of water, which he downed in one gulp. "Thank you, Ariel."

"Are...are you going to be okay?"

He shrugged and sighed. "I don't know, do I? But I should leave today, shouldn't I? I don't want to endanger anything or cause problems for anyone."

She twisted her hands together, clearly concerned. "Well, I'd talk to Cleo. She handles a lot of HR stuff and has some contacts of her own, so that might be the best route."

"Erm, I'm not sure she's all that fond of me," he replied.

"I don't think that will matter to her if she feels like you're a worthy cause," Ariel said, nodding and exiting his office.

Well, then.

&&&

Fuck, he was nervous. He wasn't sure what it was about Cleo, but something put him on the defensive and reminded him of the nuns at the Catholic school he'd attended as a wee lad, strict and disapproving of whatever she thought he was up to. (Truthfully, though, he hadn't been all that mischievous as a boy, not unless it involved Liam or one of the other boys insulting someone in his family.)

But here he stood, next to Cleo's open office door, hoping she wouldn't notice him dithering about in the hallway deciding whether or not to go in.

"Mr. Jones? Why are you still standing outside? Come in here and close the door," he heard in Cleo's authoritative, strong voice.

Ah well, no such luck then. He followed her bidding, entering the room quickly and closing the door behind him before sitting in the chair across from her.

How different this was from their first interview--he couldn't summon any of his trademark charm (smarm, an internal voice sounding suspiciously like Emma’s said) to hide behind. He didn't have the promise of so much as a flirtation with Emma to look forward to. Instead, all he had was an official-looking document telling him to stop working and threatening him with deportation. He had to say, the trade-off was not ideal.

"Well?" she said, an eyebrow raised rather imperiously.

Wordlessly, he handed her the letter Ariel had given him. He watched an array of emotions dance across her face as she read it--surprise, shock, dismay, something that looked a little like guilt, and finally, determination.

"Shit, Jones," she said.

He nodded in agreement. "I couldn't sum it up better myself."

"So...why bring this to me?" She tossed the letter onto her desk between them and crossed her arms as she stared at him expectantly.

"Ariel brought me this rather ghastly piece of communication and stopped me before I left. She said you're occasionally good at handling tricky situations like this," he said.

"You're looking for a quick fix, then?"

He shook his head. "As lovely as that would be, I'd be happy with an explanation and maybe a couple of possibilities about what I can do now."

Grudging respect was how he'd later describe the look on her face. She looked at him for nearly a full minute, seeming to weighing and considering him. He didn't look away from her. Finally, her face cleared and she nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever she'd found in their stare-down. "Honestly,” she said, “I'm not entirely sure what has happened to bring this about, but do you mind telling me a little about your perception of the situation?"

Killian gave her his rundown of the previous months, from August contacting him to how quickly he'd gotten leave to come over to Boston. He briefly mentioned that they'd had a falling-out, and that while it was not exactly personal, it wasn't entirely professional either.

Cleo listened impassively. "I know a lawyer who works in immigration, and she could probably help you get a stay on this, if that's what you want. It's not a permanent fix, but that'll probably take a while. We should also talk to Regina, she will want to know what’s happened and there might be something she can do to help. In the meantime, where are you in your projects?"

He offered her a grateful smile, feeling the tension in his shoulders dissipate some. "Well, my largest project is obviously editing Emma's new book. She's made some excellent progress, but we may have also had a row. And a complete end to our...more personal communication, actually."

That furtive, guilty look appeared again on Cleo’s face. "I might have heard something about that. I'll see what we can do, if you all decide you want to continue to work together professionally. We could probably get you a tourist visa and make you a contractor..."

He nodded at her, willing to follow any of her suggestions. She might intimidate the hell out of him, but there was something trustworthy and knowledgeable about her. "Whatever you think will work. And Cleo?"

"Hmm?" She was lost in thought, typing notes out quickly.

He smiled, a tiny shred of hope blooming in his chest. "Thank you."

&&&

He'd gone home at the end of his meeting with Cleo, called Robin, and started looking into his options for an attorney. Robin had been at work, but he'd offered his support, even if he couldn't do much. "Don't worry, mate, I won't arrest you...and fine, I'll see what I can do in terms of helping you out."

It was a couple more days before he received a summons from Regina. She wanted to meet with him along with August and Cleo. Cleo had texted him after he received the calendar request, told him he really had no way of proving August's involvement without making his life much more difficult, so they’d have to find another approach.

And he knew she had a point. So he went in for the meeting, on his guard and having absolutely zero clue about what to expect.

You could have knocked him over with a feather when he entered Regina's office to find her at her desk, with Cleo and August sitting together with Emma. Regina waved him in and Killian joined them on the couch.

"Er, hello," he said with a brief nod.

Regina rolled her eyes. "This isn't Alcoholic's Anonymous, Mr. Jones. Now that we're all here, we can discuss how to proceed with this immigration dilemma you've found yourself in."

A retort was hot on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back, especially when he saw the smug look on August's face and the cautionary one on Cleo's. Emma looked blank, uninterested. Her presence both bolstered him up and was like a vise squeezing his heart. She was so close, but she'd never seemed farther away.

He simply nodded again. "Well, shall we begin, then?"

A business-like façade fell over Regina's face again.  "Indeed. So, thanks to Cleo, it looks like we were able to get a stay of proceedings that would lead to your deportation while officials look over your documents and figure out if everything has been done properly," she said, nodding at Cleo.

Killian was extremely gratified to see the smirk fall off August's face. Emma looked up, clearly surprised.

Cleo just gave one single nod. "Yep. There's been a stay of that, and we got you a tourist visa. So, officially you're just here visiting, and we were able to get that to start from the date of issuance, fortunately, instead of it being retroactive. So we have about six months to figure this out."

"...but things do tend to move slowly when in comes to customs and immigration," Regina interjected, "so I'd like to get started today."

"First, I think we should really take a look at why Killian is here, and what he brings to the table," August said. "It might be easier to help you find a job back in the UK and just go with an American editor, or at least someone whose papers are in order."

"No!" Everyone turned, surprised to find Emma was the one to respond so vehemently.

Killian was honestly just surprised Emma had spoken at all, let alone in defense of him.

He tried very hard not to read into it.

Emma clenched her jaw and stared down everyone but him, her gaze lingering on August. "No. Killian isn't replaceable. He's been a great editor, and his help and input have been invaluable. Changing editors at this juncture would have a very negative effect on the quality of my book, which I think we can all agree would be a bad thing."

"Are you sure you're not allowing your personal attachments to cloud your judgment, Miss Swan?" asked Regina.

"I am," she said levelly, "given that we've ended our personal association."

Surprise shone in Regina's eyes, and then respect. "Very well. So we can all agree that Mr. Jones is important for this novel--"

"--but we need to figure out whether his work on other projects is up to par. Otherwise, why bother with anything other than telecommuting?"

Killian could swear he saw every woman in the room roll their eyes.

"Thank you for your interruption, Mr. Booth, and we'll take your input into account. I am rather curious as to why you suddenly seem so keen on shipping Mr. Jones back to London, when you're the one who advocated for bringing him on," said Regina with a sardonic lift of an eyebrow.

August had the decency to looked a little embarrassed, but he recovered quickly. "I'm just trying to do what's best for Mills & Booth, and that includes maintaining a team that can work smoothly together. Is that really happening?"

"Yes," Emma said fiercely, lying through the skin of her teeth.

Killian shot her a grateful look, which she acknowledged with a slight dip of her head. "Now that we've all established that we're professional adults, can we get on with some of the practicalities of the issue?" he asked.

Cleo snorted. "Agreed," she said.

Regina's mouth twisted into a smile. "That does seem to be the most efficient use of our time."

If August was bothered by this turn of events, he didn't show it. In fact, he looked beyond pleased, especially when the door to Regina's office burst open.

Even Regina looked shocked to see Cora Mills striding through the door, Ariel trailing behind her muttering her objections to the intrusion.

Cora Mills. She was a legend within the publishing world, having married the heir of a small publishing house and turning it into the juggernaut that was Royal Hearts publishing. It was primarily known for romance novels, but its forays into literary fiction were well-respected. She couldn't seem to step a foot wrong when it came to books, and most authors would kill for a chance to meet her.

She was also Regina's mother.

Killian wasn't entirely sure when the schism between the Mills women had happened, but it was common knowledge within the publishing world that they didn't get along. Regina had started her own competing publishing house, after all.

There was a long, tense silence before Cora finally spoke. "Hello, Regina. Your office is lovely, even if this is quite the collection of...professionals in it. Between the one in trouble with Immigration, the glorified beat cop, and the felon, I'm actually impressed Mills & Booth hasn't imploded already."

Emma moved quickly, but Killian was able to stop her before she took a swing at Cora Mills.

"I'd expect nothing less from an orphan of unknown parentage with a rap sheet," Cora sneered, brushing at her clothes where Emma had come close to grazing her.

At that point, Cleo had to hold back both him and Emma.

Regina stood and made her way over to the center of the room, her face grim and mouth in a line. "Mother, what do you want? Or did you just come here to insult me and mine?"

"No, I came here with a proposition."

"Ah," Regina said, giving nothing away.

"Regina--and August--you both know very well I have plenty of contacts that could help fix Mr. Jones' little tiff with the authorities. And I'd gladly help promote Miss Swan's novel, if that's something you think is a worthy cause," she said.

Regina's mouth tightened. "But what do get out of it? I've never known you to do a damn thing for free."

Cora's eyes gleamed. "I don't want anything but time with you, Regina. I've loathed being so cut off from my only child."

She snorted. "How sentimental of you, and it might be more believable if I hadn't just seen a plan Mr. Booth drew up granting you shares in Mills & Booth."

There was an audible gasp that came from either Emma or himself, he wasn't sure.

Cora's face twisted briefly before melting into a look of motherly concern. "That's just because I know how much an investment could help, and I'd get to see so much more of you."

Uncertainty crossed her face, but Regina crossed her arms. "Get out," she said. "And if you would kindly refrain from insulting my colleagues or bullying my assistant while you're on your way out, I'd appreciate it."

Cora schooled her features and nodded imperiously. "Very well. But just know your mother is here for you whenever you need me," she said.

She swept out, and silence reigned.

Finally, Regina cleared her throat. "Well, if that's done, can we just agree that we'll work on figuring out Mr. Jones' visa situation, while hiring him as a contractor to work exclusively on Miss Swan's project for now?"

Cleo, Emma, and Killian all nodded, none of them missing the distrustful glare Regina directed at August.

[rjcauthor]

How to Make a Living as an Indie Author

[Author Note: Originally published on my website in 2014. The basics remain the same.]

I thought about titling this post, "My Advice to Writers 2014 - 150,000 Books Later," [2018 Update - 1,000,000+ sold and counting] but it'd be disingenuous. I'm not speaking to all writers here. There are plenty of advice guides/blog posts for basic writers, for the hobbyist, for the person who wants to get their book queried and submitted, etc, etc.

I'm not really an expert in any of those fields, so why spend my day off writing a blog post about it? (Why spend my day off writing a blog post at all, honestly? Fuck if I know. I should be on the couch partaking of the last day of the Titanfall beta or rewatching a few of the Harry Potter movies on Blu-ray. Instead, I'm doing this. I must be mental.) Anyway, I'm writing this because I want to speak to a certain segment of the writing population, and that's the person who wants to make a living as an indie author.

I've written advice posts before, and a lot of them were filled with caveats that were designed to protect people's feelings and avoid controversy, and also protect my ass from anyone who might get upset. Let me get those out of the way ahead of time: I'm assuming if you're going to read further you're:

a) Looking to make a living as an indie author, and are unwilling to accept any other means of making a living long-term.

b) Are smart enough to decide after reading my advice if the methods I describe are a fit for you.

c) Are willing to work for 100 hours per week for a sustained period of time if that's what it takes.  

d) Are smart enough to know that I'm too busy to personally mentor anyone beyond this post. You're going to need to figure out the rest for yourself. Find some author friends, some like minded people you can talk to. It'll help a lot.  

(As an aside, my harsh words here in this post are going to be the least of the slings and arrows you'll have to deal with if you go down this road, so maybe take it as a warning to look for surer footing elsewhere.)

Some quick background:

In March of 2011 I had been in financial services for seven years. It wasn't going terribly well, and I was spending all my free time working on a story idea that was absolutely haunting me. It kept me up at night writing, and I was having my friends read it and waiting anxiously for their feedback. I loved it - loved writing it, loved hearing what they had to say about it, loved every part of it enough that I was forgoing all my other hobbies just to write.

That was a unique experience for me. I'd gotten a degree in Creative Writing with the intent of becoming a novelist, but gave up on that dream by the time graduation had rolled around. I hated writing after getting my degree, my love of it all ground out of me by years of being forced to write about subjects I did not give two fucks and a shit about. I'd started half a hundred novels from the time I was in fourth grade until college; after college I didn't write anything for eight years.

I had started writing again in the summer of 2010. I kept writing for a few months during that summer, in spite of everything that was going on - work demands, a toddler running around the house, a pregnant wife, a house that we were doing a ton of work on to sell, selling said house, moving in with my in-laws, and a hell of a lot more.

I wrote in spite of all of this. I wrote DURING all of this. I kept coming up with ideas to advance my plot, ideas for interactions between my characters, ideas, ideas and more ideas. I'd sit at work and write ideas down during meetings - whole chunks of scenes and dialogue. I was a financial services salesperson and trainer; I was supposed to be paying attention.

It got bad. I didn't care about my financial services business anymore, all I cared about was writing. So I started trying to figure out how to become a full-time writer, and looked into traditional publishing (which was the only game I had heard of back then). It wasn't a happy answer I came back with. The short version: Good fucking luck, kid, and don't quit your day job.

A little depressed, I put aside my writing for a few months and redoubled my efforts in financial services in preparation for the upcoming baby. By the time January rolled around, I was twice as frustrated, and I was back on the writing again. I looked for answers to the question of, "How do I become a full-time author?" again, and this time I found something different.

Self-publishing. Amanda Hocking. Joe Konrath. They told tales of copious sales, of massive amounts of money, and of working hard, but being in charge of your own destiny. I found a few other names like David Dalglish and B.V. Larson, and I started studying up to figure out how I could do just a fraction of what they were doing. It took me about a month or so to figure it all out, but I came up with a plan, and on March 5, 2011, I told my wife I wanted to quit financial services and stay home with the baby so I could write in every available moment.

I'll spare you the argument and say that eventually she went for it. So I stayed home with our youngest and wrote obsessively during naps and after bedtime, defraying daycare expenditures for the first year and releasing two books with a third finished by the end of the year. After that, we put both kids in daycare all-day, every-day and I started writing full-time as of January 1st, 2012. I was making a living by the end of September, just after my sixth book came out.

And here's what it took to do it.

1. Be calculating

Whenever I talk about what I do/did as an indie author, I inevitably hear people in the background say, "Ehh, he just got lucky, that's all."

To them I say: I planned for both failure and success, understanding that as long as I did not yield, I could work until some level of success was inevitable. Luck may have vaulted me to way above what I'd planned for, but I didn't count on it and it wasn't required to be able to making a living, which is what I wanted - and what I planned for.

I worked my ever-loving ass off in ways that no one ever saw, spent most of my off-hours in analysis, took mighty risks, gambled a lot of money, time and basically my entire future on my own success, and then watched things work ALMOST EXACTLY LIKE I PLANNED FOR IT TO BEFORE I EVEN FINISHED MY FIRST NOVEL.

You need to constantly assess the landscape by reading about your industry. You need to know about what's going on in the world of publishing, the world of craft, everything about your industry that you  can soak up. Even if it sounds stupid, even if you violently disagree with it, the time you spend learning these things can all weigh in the formulation of your game plan.

Watch the people who are doing it, and try to distill the common denominators of their success. I heard some motivational coach say, "Success leaves clues." No successful author is doing it exactly the same way, but a lot of them are doing similar things.  

A lot of people speak of planning like it's something you do once and forget about.

Are you fucking kidding me? Planning is an ongoing process. Like Sun-Tzu said, your plan ain't gonna survive contact with the enemy (pretty much everything is your enemy, btw, this publishing environment is like Australia) so you have to revise it constantly. Throw out what isn't working, make new plans, revise old ones. My overarching plan (strategy) was this:

i) Write a shitload of books

ii) Get them in people's hands somehow

iii) ?????*

iv) PROFIT!

*(Step iii is actually, "Get them to pay for the next ones.")

It's the little plans (the tactics) - how to get those steps done - that needed changing. And you must assess where you are CONSTANTLY. And it cannot get in the way of your writing. (Starting to see why obsession - #5 - is important?)

I had this basic strategy/plan when I came to my wife on that day in March, and frankly, the strategy hasn't changed in the (nearly) three years since. What has changed are the tactics - the little ways I carried out said plan. Back then the way you carried out ii was through 99 cent pricing. That no longer works the way it once did, so now it's permafree or box sets (or the nuclear option, permafree box sets). (See points #2 and #7).

Caveats/Pitfalls for Point #1:

a) You will need to spend your off hours studying this business the way a horny teenage boy studies every line of the pretty girl in front of him's body while he's bored in math class. (See point #5, re:obsession.) You will need to read articles, journals, blogs, books and possible advice scrawled on rest area bathroom walls. (Jenny - 867-5309 and other assorted bathroom stall wisdom is probably not going to help you, but collect it anyway. Better to have it than not.)

b) If you have no experience running a business of any kind, things will be more difficult for you. I don't know how much. I spent eight years running a business in financial services before taking on this responsibility, and it was like an internship that prepared me for being an indie author. I learned to manage my time, I learned about marketing and sales, about loss leaders, and about picking up the shovel and doing unpleasant work I didn't want to do in the name of staving off working for someone else. I hate the thought of working for someone else. It's a powerful motivator for me. If you don't have motivation to drive yourself, this is going to be tough for you.

2. Write fast

Ingredient number one in the souffle of success is hard work. But simple hard work is not enough; results are key here.

In fact, this is probably the biggest caveat to the whole equation, because if you can't write fast (and a lot of people can't, no shame in that) it might not work for you like it worked for me. I wrote 140,000 words of fiction in my evenings over the course of a couple months while I was still running my financial services business because I was so obsessed with the story I had to tell.  

Some things that *might* help you write faster - writing sprints of 15-60 minutes, reinforced by taking your laptop computer somewhere that has no internet/distractions or using an internet blocking program like Anti-Social or Freedom. Still, if you can't write fast enough to get out four books per year...again, this might not be the plan for you. I'm not dogging on you, I just know what it took for me to get to my present level of success, and I'm not sure what it will take below that level of output. Is it still possible? I'm sure it is. I just didn't plan that way so I can't really advise you.

Additional caveats/pitfalls of fast writing -

a) Make sure you have an error correction process in place. Spellcheck alone is not going to do it. Professional editing would be a great idea.You have to decide what your Quality Assurance process will be, but you need to have SOMETHING in place. Not every reader is turned off by tons of errors in a manuscript, but a lot of them are. These errors take away from your story. They're a distraction. You're fighting the wind instead of using it. Don't get me wrong, there's such a thing as TOO MUCH when it comes to time spent on error correction, but you need to find this balance for yourself.

b) You can write crap to get the words out, but you damned sure better edit/rewrite it until it's professional-grade. I can fix words on a page that suck, but I can't edit a blank page. Make sure your stories are good (See point #4), that they're engaging, that they keep the reader moving through. Get beta reader feedback to tell you where people are putting your books down and try to figure out WHY they're doing it. HINT: They may not know the reason why, exactly. Study craft to narrow it down.

3. Learn business

There's a lot of bullshit out there. Tons of it. Enough to fertilize the entire world. In your opinion, maybe this post is filled with it. It doesn't really bother me if that's what you think, because once I write this post, I'm done with it. I'm not an advice guru, I'm a full-time independent author who derives all his income from selling books, not writing advice posts. So if you don't like the material herein and think it's bullshit, you know what to do with it - fertilize something.

What does this have to do with business? Everything. If you're going to be a full-time independent author, you have to fill your time with things an indie author would do. You also have to develop a really exceptional bullshit filter. You need to seek WISDOM (publishing information) from a variety of sources and develop the DISCRETION (bullshit filter) to decide what to apply and what not to. Some of the things you decide not to apply may not be bullshit; they just may not be a fit for the direction you want to take your career.

For example, discounting. Lots of people run sales on books, run specials on books. I haven't done hardly any of this, with a couple recent exceptions. This particular strategy is NOT bullshit, it just doesn't fit for the direction I want to go with my career. It's a perfectly reasonable business plan that works, just not one I want to employ.

Another thing about business - if you're not able to understand basics of profit and loss, contracts and how they affect you, the concept and application of loss leaders, basics of time management - okay, this is going to be a problem. The indie authoring industry is a place of shifting sands, where things are changing rapidly and what worked yesterday isn't necessarily going to work tomorrow.

What else goes into the business end of things? Tracking sales, choosing vendors, figuring out your budget, figuring out how to grow top-line sales while improving the bottom line by controlling costs, and dealing with the ten thousand assorted land mines that could crop up on a daily basis. Other business activities could include trawling through the data on your bit.ly or smartURL links to determine where you sales are coming from, figuring out which the best venues are for adbuys (I have no comment on this) or networking with other writers and talking shop.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) This is probably the least clearly delineated subject in this post. The reason why is because I don't really know how fast you can learn what you need to know. Maybe you've already got all the business  experience you need to start with the basics. Maybe you have no business experience and are starting from scratch. I'm not even sure what all I've learned along the way from my previous career and how much it helped me, at least not in quantifiable terms. I just know it's helped a TON.

b) If you don't know anything about business, that doesn't mean it's GAME OVER, MAN. You can learn. I highly recommend constantly trying to assess your weaknesses and figuring out how to shore those up. A couple areas I think authors struggle with - Time Management/Procrastination and Self-Discipline. If you've got those areas down, good for you. A few books I think might help if you feel out of control or unsure are Kris Rusch's Freelancer's Survival Guide and Brian Tracy's Eat that Frog!  (which is a time management/priority setting book). Actually, I've read a lot of books by Brian Tracy and they've all helped. The Freelancer's Guide is a good starting point, though, for general business basics.

4. Learn your craft

I'm not talking about grammar and spelling. Spellcheck can save you in one of these regards. You do need some basic knowledge of sentence structure, syntax, etc, but a good editor can help you if you're close on that. Grammar and spelling aren't really elements of craft.

Here I'm talking about descriptions, narrative voice, all the components that allow you to take the reader from beginning to end without losing them. There are a LOT of pieces to this particular puzzle, and you'll spend a lifetime working on this if you're serious about it because there's always something new to learn. Still, some fundamentals:

a) Openings

b) Cliffhangers

c) Pacing

d) Character Voice and Setting

Classes on all these topics (and more) can be found online. Make sure you use your bullshit filter to determine whether the person you’re learning from is actually worth learning from.

If you can't afford classes, let me suggest you at least read heavily in these and other areas of craft. There are tons of books on craft from experts out there. I'll try and compile a list to place at the bottom of this post in the comments, but I don't have time for it right now.

Be deliberate, as Joe Konrath would say, considering how best to improve and giving all due thought to how you can employ what you've learned in your next work to make your writing better.  

All craft exercises boil down to one purpose and one alone: HOOK YOUR READER FROM THE FIRST WORD AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT FUCKING LET THEM GO UNTIL YOU'RE DONE.

Everything you learn in craft, from characterization to plotting to whatever is essentially boiled down to the essential storytelling skill of keeping them interested in what you're saying. Find the obstacles in your writing that are knocking people out of your work and shave the rough edges off them as fast as your peppy little fingers can figure out which keys to punch to do so.  

Some things that can help you build your audience - write in a series. Same characters when possible (not EXACTLY possible in romance to keep the same main characters book after book, but in mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, etc, you should do this). Can you build a career writing standalone novels? Yeah, but I don't know how to do it so go find someone who can instruct you in this manner. (see point #7 for more on the benefits of writing in a series.)

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) Your first million words is (probably) going to suck. I had an advantage here in that I've been writing books since grade school so I expelled a lot of these crappy words during my teens/early twenties the way White Castle hamburgers are expelled from your digestive tract - violently and messily, with much disgust from anyone who witnesses this spectacle.

b) Taken alongside the first caveat, realize that sometimes you're better off jumping series as your craft/ability to hold the reader improves. My first series did not take off the way my second series has (probably because the first book isn't as strongly written/well-crafted with hooks in the first as the second). It doesn't mean I abandoned my first series (in fact it's doing quite well now) but I did put it on the back-burner for the last couple years as I focused on the one that was paying my bills. The first book of my first series was...my first book. Ever. I was still learning to write a damned novel. My craft got stronger and my second series did much better.

5. Be obsessed

To quote Bree Bridges (half of the Kit Rocha writing duo of hilarity and awesomeness), "When I say it's possible to make money in publishing, I'm assuming you've tried the easier things like digging for pirate treasure."

This does not mean it's impossible. It does not mean you can't do it. It just means that if you're just looking to make a living, it's easier to get a job that works you 40 hours a week that allows you to shut off your brain afterward.

You CANNOT do that in self-publishing and expect to have it work. You will need to think about it all the time. Wanting to make your living telling stories has to be the thing you get up for in the morning and the thing you go to sleep at night thinking about.

I wanted to spend the rest of my life telling stories and getting paid for it. I wanted no boss, no schedule but that I set for myself, and I was willing to work 100 hours per week for myself so I didn't have to work 40 for someone else (thanks to L.T. Ryan for that quote).

6. Market

Lots of people have different definitions for this. I have only one - help people who are looking for a book like yours to find your damned book. You can call it visibility, you can call it discoverability, you can call it the gorram hillbilly rock for all the fucks I give on the subject.

How did I market? One way, and one way only, pretty much. I wrote in a series that had an overarching story, and I set my first book in said series to free. Permanently. That's right, you can read the first book in my two series for absolutely nothing in e-reader formats. (More on this in point #7.)

But wait, you say! It's now 2017 and that doesn't work anymore. Amazon has come along and killed the permafrees to death using an algorithm attached to a death ray.

Fine. What's the lowest possible price you can get as many of your books to? Do that and see how many copies you can give away. No, I don't care if you've got a ten book series and you're selling 9 for 99 cents in order to collect full price for that last one. If that's what it takes to move some fucking books, you'll find me there doing it, too. I will race you to the damned bottom, and I feel confident that I can whip the ass off most of the other people there because I'm obsessed, I'm a fast writer, and I have no problem with discounting ridiculous amounts of my backlist in order to get people to TRY - JUST TRY - my writing. I dare you not to read on.

And really, this is all marketing is. I'm trying to expose the readers who will LOVE my books to...MY BOOKS. Some will merely like them, but keep reading. Some readers will get caught up along the way and only somewhat enjoy my books. Maybe they'll read more, maybe not. A certain percentage will dislike my books. A certain percentage (hopefully small, if I've done my craft job correctly) will absolutely DESPISE my books and want to flame them in perpetuity with bad reviews and bad word of mouth. This number is baked into the cake of success, so get used to it. I want AS MANY OF THOSE HATERS to read my book as possible, because if they're reading it, so are the people who will love it.

Marketing is just finding ways to get those people exposed to your books. I don't do interviews, blog tours, (or blog posts, really), Twitter spamming, etc. I did it my way - permafree and having enough reviews to get the big sites like Pixel of Ink, E-reader News Today, Bookbub, Indie Book Bargains in the UK - to give me some signal boost so my books could go up the freebie charts. Kobo has given me a helping hand before as well, getting visibility on their site. I didn't ask for it, they just gave (and I'm grateful for it). Ultimately, though, none of these things would help me if I hadn't set the damned books free and gotten enough positive exposure to push them up to where people could find them.

Exposure. That's the magic word. And I don't mean the kind that gets you sent to jail for indecency, so put your pants back on. (Until you're a full-time writer, then pants are optional.)

7. Don't be afraid to give your work away for free

Between 11 April 2012 when I released my book Alone: The Girl in the Box, Book 1 and when I set it free in September 2012 some five months later, I sold 42 copies of it through all channels. In August I released books 2 and 3 in that series, ended up making four figures that month for the first time, five figures in November, and I've never even come close to a four-figure month since.

Would that have happened if I hadn't set Alone to permanently free? I doubt it. Sales weren't even moving in the right direction on it before I set it free to boost its exposure. The month before it went free it sold 3 copies. Since then it's been downloaded some 320,000 times for free and generated some 100,000+ paid sales for the rest of the series (almost all at $4.99 or the foreign equivalent).  

There are two ways to look at those numbers - the first is to say, MY GOD, YOU MISSED OUT ON 320,000 SALES, ARE YOU MAD?! The answer is no, not really, because I've probably only missed out on the 3 sales a month I'd have generated without the additional visibility brought on by Alone being free, and I traded it for a boatload of money in the form of subsequent sales. That's not even counting all the people who finish reading the Girl in the Box series and move on to the other books I've written, because there are those people, too. (And I love them. My truest fans.)

That's the second way to look at it. The thought that follows is, "if only I could give away MORE copies for free, I'd be able to push that paid number to 200k+ or 300k+." (Which I'm working on).

Let's talk about the emotion of this for a moment. It hurts to set your beloved book free. It's painful to drop it to a low price. But a recent survey of successful indie authors found that something like 85% of those making over $500k per year had at least one permafree. Look for commonalities, right?  

Whatever promotion hurts you the most will be most appealing to your readers. (That's according to one of the most awesome gurus of the indie movement, Edward W. Robertson.) I agree with that statement wholeheartedly, which is why this morning I started the process of setting my two biggest sellers - Untouched and Soulless, books 2 and 3 in my Girl in the Box series - to FREE. Why would I do that? Because I'm thinking even if I go from 3:1 freebie to sale ratio, if I could give away a million of those free (because of the added appeal of 3 BOOKS FOR FREE OMG DEAL) and it drops to a 5:1, I've still sold 200,000 more books. Boom.

It hurt when I set my first two books free, but it gets easier every time. And yes, it even hurt when I was selling a couple books a month, because I put blood, sweat and tears into those books, making them as good as I possibly could. However, their true value is not in the price on their cover; it's in how much money they're making for the author. After all, I'm not in this to make $10 per book; I'm in this to make a living. Free is just another tool in the toolbox for making that happen.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) Maybe your book isn't appealing to readers (NOTE: I DID NOT SAY YOUR BOOK SUCKS. Though it may. I don't rule that out, having not read your book. It may be sucking the balls of every donkey in the shire, for all I know. But maybe not.)

If this is the case, a few things will happen - once you get to about thirty reviews, you'll probablyknow it it's not appealing to readers because your review average will be low. What's low? If you're below 3.5 on 30 reviews on Amazon.com, it's not a good sign. (Caveat to the caveat: Whatever you do, don't read the reviews for your work on Goodreads. This will not be helpful to your career - or your mental health, in all probability. And definitely don't base any judgments about what to do in your career on Goodreads reviews. Goodreads reviews skew much lower than Amazon, and as far as I'm concerned, anything above 0.1 on Goodreads means I'm doing aight.)

Again, just to be plain, for bad reviews - does it mean your book SUCKS? No, not necessarily. It means that for whatever reason, it's not CONNECTING WITH READERS. Which is the name of the game to make a living. Creating pure and beautiful art is the province of people who don't have any outside concerns (and don't write genre fiction). Us lesser mortals (aka Genre writers) have to get by on the time, energy and money we have.

I would never tell you to base your career decisions on one or two reviews, but if you've got 30 reviews on Amazon and half of them are 1-stars...you're going to have a hell of time getting even a permafree enough exposure. It may be time to jump ship to another series, and possibly another pen name depending on how bad it looks.

Writers are terrible judges of their own work, and the authors who most need to be told their work sucks would still think it's awesome even if they're running a 1-star average on 5000 reviews while an author who writes amazing work tends to bash their own brains in because they got their first 1-star after 9 5-stars in a row. (Another point, which I'm going to say only once here - In the words of Troy McClure, "Get confident, stupid.")

b) Maybe you're in a genre that's not selling. Maybe it's awesome, but it's in a genre that Bookbub is ignoring. (Sorry, Bria!) That can happen. If you can, pick a popular genre. I'm not telling you to defile  your art (or whatever), but I was fortunate in that the stories I wanted to tell more or less fit into a reasonably decent-selling genre (Fantasy). If you write second-person POV octopus mysteries, your mileage won't just vary - it will suck. Even if your book is awesome.

8. Never stop learning

Things change rapidly.  If you're not constantly paying attention and reading industry blogs/keeping up with the goings on through some form of peer group with its ear to the ground, you will miss opportunities. You will miss landscape changes. These can be subtle (the slow death of Amazon Select - actually, know what what? That wasn't all that subtle) or obvious (I dunno. The caffeine is wearing off. Find an example on your own.) Either way, you'll lose out.

I had my plan, I had my basic strategy, and I started to make money in September 2012. I could have coasted, thinking I had my shit together. Instead, around October or November, I made an enormous change, one that felt like a pain in the ass to implement, but that has made enormous difference in my career.

I implemented a mailing list with links in the back of my books.

I didn't fully finish implementing this until February 2013 (and I kick myself for failing to do so) but HOLY CRAP does it make a different. If you're wondering what I'm talking about with a mailing list, go read THIS POST on Kboards by my friend SM Reine. I'll wait for you here until you get back. Make sure you read her follow-up posts as well, down the thread.

This single change is revolutionary. If you're waiting for your audience to come find you every time you release a book, you're basically throwing your baby into the waiting wolves of the Amazon algorithms. Want to make a bigger splash? Want to "game" the system? Get your damned fans to all buy your book at once. It'll make a bigger splash. If you have half a dozen cherry bombs and you light them one at a time, it's like launching a book with only social media to inform your audience. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop!

Get a mailing list together and send that puppy while you're informing your Facebook and Twitter, and it's like wrapping those cherry bombs together to create a stick of dynamite. It can help you push your new release up the genre list and garner you exposure for your entire series. "Oh, look, book #9 of this series looks interesting. I should go back and read book #1." Boom, you hooked a new reader. And best of all, once they sign up for your mailing list, they're added to the dynamite for future launches.

If you're going to go to the hard work of writing and releasing books for a living while you're trying to build an audience, don't be yutz by skipping the last steps to success. Find a way to make it easier for readers to hand you money. Make it simple for them to know you've got a new book out.

Don't get stuck in marketing like it's 2009 and you can just format a warm turd into a .mobi, price it at 99 cents and have an Amazon Bestseller. ( #1in the Fiction -> Fantasy -> Turds & Burglars category! Oops, sorry, they eliminated that category in the great 2013 category shuffle. Which you would know if you were paying attention.)

Never stop learning. Or you'll get your ass beaten by someone who's figured out something you haven't.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) Honestly, no matter how much you're learning, you're going to get caught flatfooted by big changes every now and again. Try and limit how often this happens by keeping your fingers on the pulse of the indie author world (and off other places - you will go blind, dammit, STOP THAT).

b) You're probably going to get your ass beaten by people anyway, so you might as well be a good sport about it. Be honest: from where you're sitting right now, if you were suddenly selling a million books per month at $2.99, would you be happy? What if you were selling that many but you were still #1,987 on your category's Author Ranking?

Put another way, who cares what your peers are doing if you're meeting your goals? Focus on you, because you can't control what others are doing, you can only learn from it and apply it to your own career if it fits.

9. Don't be afraid to fail BIG - and find a way to use it as a stepping stone for future success

My first year as an indie author (2011) I made $12.25. I actually earned more than that, but because of the limitations on how big your earnings need to be before they cut a check, that's all I made. I never cashed that check, and it's still sitting on my desk right now (which is how I knew the specific amount).

That's kind of a big failure, isn't it? Would you be happy earning that much for your year's labor? Whatever your answer (please say no), realize that I was expecting that, so I didn't get disappointed when it happened. The game I was playing was long term, and I was aiming more for growth than anything. I was excited when I went up to 25 sales in a month, and I didn't get all bummed out and pissed off and demotivated when I sagged the next month. New releases and promotions help push you up, but there's a natural sag given time.

Another "failure": I launched a book last month, a collection of short stories in my Sanctuary Series. Thus far it's sold 468 copies, and at a lower price than I usually price my work. Whoops. I wrote a short story collection in my lesser-selling series and it bombed. This isn't a huge surprise or anything, but it's a failure. I'm not going to go crying over it, but you can bet I'll think long and hard before I spend my time writing another short story collection.

Of course, here's the biggest one of all: Every month before I started making a living was a failure, really. It was a calculated failure, but it was a failure nonetheless. We were sinking money into daycare costs, losing time for me to go get a degree in something that would pay me (with an English degree and financial services experience, I don't have a great resume). I was willing to accept as many of those failures as it took to cross through to success. My wife, however, was not going to wait forever.

Every month (even now) I do an autopsy on my calendar. What did I do right this month? What did I do wrong? What can I improve? (I also track my wordcount, sales, and number of books presently for sale.) My entire career in finance ended up as a failure, but that doesn't mean I didn't take away a ton of salvage for use in this one.

Comb through your fuckups. Often times you'll learn more from those than your successes.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) When you start to see some success, don't be a fucking idiot and stop working. Work twice as hard, because now you know your strategy is doable. I worked even more in 2013 than I did in 2012 because now I was 100% sure I was on the right track. I'm going to see if I can beat what I did in 2013 this year.

b) I think this probably goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway in case any of you are morons): don't go into something TRYING to fail. Unless it's low risk/low loss. Assess the amount of time/energy/money you're going to sink into something before you commit to it if it's got a high failure rate. Don't waste your time doing stuff you're almost certain is doomed unless it's like five seconds of your time. And don't get bummed when it goes to shit, expect that in advance and be pleasantly surprised if you get anything out of it.

10. Keep writing

I think I'm exhausted and the caffeine is wearing off, so I'm going to make this as quick as I can. If you're the type of person who's easily discouraged, this is going to be tough on you. If you're the type of person who flits from job to job always looking for the "better deal" or the "next thing"...you're probably not going to have much success here, either. If you're not okay with spending ten hours per day hammering at your writing career on various fronts for a while without much of a vacation or break...I don't think I can help you. If you're not bursting with excitement at the stories you have inside that SIMPLY MUST BE TOLD, I'm not sure this career thing is going to be the right fit.

But if you're dedicated beyond the capacities of most humans, if you're obsessed, and you're smart, and you're willing to learn and do whatever it takes (on this side of the legal and ethical bounds please, you Frank Underwood, you) to build a backlist and get your books in front of people, you can make a living as an indie author. Will it be huge? Maybe. Will it be minimal? Maybe. I don't know. There's some definite variance in mileage between writers, but I've seen enough of them MAKE A LIVING to know it's possible if you approach it correctly and you're willing to work hard enough to make a one-armed paperhanger look idle.

Once you've got all these other points down, it's really down to you to keep writing. Keep putting books on your bookshelf. Take the hits that will come and do not stop tapping keys on that keyboard. I don't know how long it will take you to get there, I honestly don't. Personally, I didn't care how long it took. The eighteen months it took for me passed like nothing because I was having the time of my life.

This isn't the lottery; there's not just one winning ticket. There's really no luck involved either, just an obscene number of things that are outside your direct control. There are so many things you can do to  influence these events, though, and I've outlined as many of them for you as I could here. I probably missed some; I'm kinda tired by now, and it's my day off.

The bottom line is that if you *really* want to be a full-time indie author, I think you can do it. Will it be easy? FUCK NO. If you're looking for easy, scroll back to that paragraph with Jenny's phone number. This will be a lot of "nose to the grindstone."

But will it be worth it?

In every year of my financial services career, I interviewed people looking to hire them. I'd listen to their stories, hear them talk about their work lives. Every day I did that, I put myself in their shoes and imagined what my life would be like if I had their career. Sometimes I'd shudder, sometimes I'd wonder what it'd be like if I'd made the choice to do what they did. Sometimes I'd wish I had. A lot of times I wished I had. Especially when things got bad.

Since the day I started to write full-time, I have never once imagined myself as anything other than a writer. I have never wanted anyone else's life or job for my own, and I have never wanted to be anyone but me. I've maybe wanted to have other authors sales numbers if they're doing better than me, but I've never wanted to swap anything else.

I don't want to do anything else but what I'm doing. I love this gig. It's the best job I've ever had. Last year I went to England for a week to research a novel and meet some fans. Had one of the best times of my life. In January, it got damned cold here so I picked up and took the kids to Florida for a week to hang out with my parents and go to Disney. Sure, they just went last October, but you only live once, right? (I also wrote something like 12,000 words on a book while I was on "vacation" so...)

For me, it was worth it. It was everything I'd ever wanted and when I got here, it was everything I'd dreamed of plus more. I guess what I'm saying is, if you're the kind of person who wants it that badly, who's willing to do what it takes to do it, I hope this helps you.

Keep writing. That's the last key. Through the bad times, and the good - hopefully it'll mostly be good, but you better plan for the other. If you want it bad enough that you're willing to put in effort in these areas, you can do it. If you're hating every day of it, though, then it's probably not for you, and there's no shame in that.

What being a full-time indie author basically boils down to is that you keep writing, because you love it so much you can't stop. No caveats. No pitfalls. Just a love of writing that won't ever let you quit.

(Editor's Note: There is no editor and I'm sure this post is riddled with errors. Fuck off and go write, okay? I'm going to go play Titanfall.)