#also working on a oneshot that has nothing to do with the challenge

[bcdrawsandwrites]

[ID: The first image Psychonauts fanfic banner on a black-to-gray gradient background. On the left in white text it says “Prompt #4: Rescue Mission” On the right is a pink animated figment of a thought bubble, inside which is a donut with frosting and sprinkles.

The second image is a Bad Things Happen Bingo card. Various prompts are marked with a half-brain (prompt requested but not filled) or full-brain (prompt requested and finished) symbol, while the “Rescue Mission” prompt specifically is marked with a full brain symbol. /end ID]

Okay so I hate the way Tumblr crops these so I’m putting the banner above the bingo card. I hope that’s okay, @badthingshappenbingo ​! (also I promise the figment in the banner makes sense for the fic)

I am currently NO LONGER OPEN FOR REQUESTS. I have enough to work on to get a bingo! I MAY decide to reopen prompts later if I want to keep going after finishing these fics, but for now, requests are closed!

This request comes from @echoing-interests​! Hope you liked my take on this. \o/; Thanks to @jaywings​ and @of-science-and-stars​ for beta-reading!

Prompt: Rescue Mission Characters: Sasha Nein, Milla Vodello, and Razputin Aquato Warnings: None

---~~~---

Status report. Dustpan?

Listening to conversations at the water coolers, darling.

Have you gathered the intel?

No, just gossip. It's quite juicy, but I'm keeping an ear out for our target. What about you, Shoehorn?

Searching the trash bins. Sasha flipped through another folder in the file cabinet. The Gastronauts are still terrible at... recycling, so this is taking longer than expected. Eggbeater?

I'm still wondering why we have to use our code names when we're talking through telepathy.

Because the devices Egg Carton gave us to counteract the disruptive waves the Gastronauts put around their base are still experimental, and we don't know that they aren't listening in.

...Are there really devices that can listen in on psychic thoughts?

We don't know yet, darling.

Do you not recall our briefing?

I uh... Raz's mental voice faltered. I... was kinda so excited that we were infiltrating an enemy base that I... forgot to listen.

Sasha's brow furrowed, and he let out a hum. It's a good thing this isn't a more serious mission, or you would be in danger.

Sorry.

Darling, do you at least remember our goal?

Oh! Yeah, got that one. Find the blue—wait! We weren't supposed to relay that over telepathy, were we?

Correct. Can you relay your position?

Affirmative. I'm still in the air vents and looking for the office, as instructed. Over.

Let's resume. Let me know if you find anything.

With that, Sasha TK'd another stack of papers out from the filing cabinet, quickly sorting through them, his eyes darting over the dates. Annoyingly they seemed to jump from January, to March, to November, to May of last year. Either they never referenced their files or they just didn't care how disorganized they were, and he wasn't sure which was worse. Frowning, he slid the papers back into their places and moved onto the next drawer. This went on for some time—there were a grand total of ten filing cabinets in this forsaken clerk's office with four drawers each. This combined with how awful the Gastronauts' bookkeeping was certainly did not make it easy for Sasha to find what he'd been looking for.

At the very least he had a bit of time—this clerk, he'd discovered, liked to take his sweet time with his lunch break, sometimes taking longer than the time allotted. Plus, if their telepathy was intercepted, then whoever tried to investigate them would be looking in the wrong places. Typically for something like this they would've used encrypted telepathy, but Raz had yet to learn it, and the agent that usually taught it was out on a lengthy mission, so they had to fall back on simpler methods. This, at least, was something Raz had no trouble with.

Eggbeater is quite enthusiastic, isn't he? came Milla's voice over telepathy. It was a message sent to him alone, a familiar psychic whisper.

Yes, but his enthusiasm can be a bit... misplaced at times. Finding this stack only had papers from three or four years ago, he sighed and moved on. He needs to pay attention during briefings.

He'll get the hang of things soon, Shoehorn.

I'm sure you're right. Stooping down, he opened the last drawer to find it only had one folder within. He TK'd out its contents, looking them over. Eyebrows raising, he put a hand to his temple. I've only found worthless things here.

That's terrible! We'll have to move on, then, Milla replied with an excitement that did not match her coded words.

Sasha smiled, waiting for Raz's equally-enthusiastic response. As he quickly folded the paper and shoved it into his jacket, however, no reply came. Eggbeater? he asked. Please confirm you received the message announcing my failure.

Perhaps he's forgetting things again, Milla suggested.

Frowning, Sasha sent a stronger signal. Eggbeater? Respond.

His telepathy was met with the almost-physical thud of psychic energy striking against a barrier. Sucking in a breath, Sasha straightened his back. Dustpan, send a message to Eggbeater immediately.

Several heartbeats later, Milla sent an uncharacteristically quiet response: His signal was... blocked.

Change mission objectives immediately. Retreat to base.

Instead of heading for the exit, however, Sasha scanned the darkened office he'd been sneaking around in. Its owner had been out to lunch, but... He hurried up to the desk, spotted a pen, and put his hand on it before shutting his eyes.

Immediately his view was replaced with that of a half-eaten plate of french fries and ranch dressing. (Eugh.) With a subtle suggestion he made the person look up, granting him a better view of what appeared to be a cafeteria. Several other workers were milling about, chatting with each other and eating food. With a few quick uses of clairvoyance, he jumped from person to person, taking a moment to listen to their thoughts.

Ugh, that report is due tonight, gonna have to work overtime.

Can't believe they caught that listening device! That took months to plant.

Man, why are the fries always cold?

While Sasha could feel the anxiety tugging at his mind at finding no information on Raz's whereabouts, at the very least none of these people were aware that there were intruders, meaning that perhaps only a few people had found Raz. The fewer people they had to deal with, the better.

Finally he caught someone that was heading out of the room, and CV'd into her. Meanwhile an encrypted message reached him, and he quickly untangled it: Sasha, have you found anything?

He replied with an encrypted message of his own: I'm currently employing use of clairvoyance to check around the base. A note on the listening device we found in the Motherlobe, but nothing on Razputin.

I'm searching for ripples as we speak. This shouldn't take long.

Yet even now it already felt like they were taking too long. The woman whose head he'd hopped into was walking to the restroom, so he moved from her to a man that was exiting the men's room and striding down another hallway. This one only had a stack of paperwork on his mind, so he jumped from him and over into a person lingering in the doorway of an office. There was nothing of note in there other than a very tired worker holding his head in his hands while the woman in the doorway rambled about the latest football game. The man at the desk finally raised his head. "Rhonda, I know, I know we lost. Man, I can't believe I stayed up to watch that mess." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm so tired I think I'm hearing things—I swear I heard a kid in here earlier."

Sasha gave a start.

Sasha, Milla's encrypted voice came over telepathy. I've got something.

I may have as well.

"Seriously, like, did Jakob bring his kid in again?"

"Nah, we would've heard from Morter if he did."

"True..."

Quickly Sasha compelled the woman in the doorway to glance out into the hall, and from there, jumped into a different person's head through another open door. Some people here may have heard Raz's voice, he replied quickly. I may be close to where he was taken. He took a moment to listen in on the worker's thoughts, and upon finding only an extreme longing for donuts, he jumped to the next worker he could spot. What have you found?

I may have pinpointed where Raz was taken. Raz's signal is blocked entirely, but I've found a man who's very intently focused on a child, in a storage room...

Sasha's stomach dropped, his mind racing to several different conclusions, none of them positive. Perhaps a secret interrogation room, he thought frantically, compelling the man he'd jumped into to glance around the hallway. Sure enough, he spotted a storage room, but the door was shut. Frustration gnawing at his astral consciousness, he tried to send a subliminal urge to the man to grab some files that had definitely been put in that particular storage room.

What? the man thought. Where'd that come from? That one doesn't even have files in it, that's in the one on the second floor.

Gritting his teeth, Sasha sent another subtle signal: Someone left a very important file in there and it will get lost if I do not grab it.

...Oh yeah, Elliot dropped his report in there last time. Ugh.

With a sigh, the man fished in his pocket for a key before moving to open the door.

"Uh-uuhhhh hang on, occupied!" a frantic voice came from inside, followed by a lot of scrambling and clanking.

"Wha'd'you mean, 'occupied'?" the man outside asked. "You're in the device storage, Morter, not the bathroom!"

"Look I'm—I'm conducting something in here, okay?"

"Conducting... what, exactly?"

"An... interview?"

The man outside groaned. "Man, why don't you interview applicants in your office? What've you got one for if you're just—"

"R-Rhonda wouldn't shut up."

"...Ah, got it." Sighing, he shook his head. "Look, did Elliot leave his report in there?"

"I... oh. Huh, he did."

"Just hand it to me, and I'll leave you and the new guy alone, okay?"

"R-right."

Sasha readied himself, and the second the door cracked open, he jumped into the man—Morter's, apparently—head. Sure enough, once the man turned around he found himself staring at a dimly-lit room with shelves and shelves of boxes and strange devices he didn't have time to analyze.

And in the middle of the room was a metal chair, with Raz sitting on it, bound and gagged, a look of fear and worry in his eyes. The counter-device Otto had provided him with was sitting on the floor a distance off, too far away to properly block the disruptive waves around the building. He jumped into Raz's head, taking a quick read of his thoughts.

Oh no, oh no, please don't come back here, this isn't good...!

He'd seen enough.

Don’t worry, Eggbeater, we’re on our way.

Without waiting for a response, Sasha yanked his consciousness back to his own body, shutting his eyes against the dizziness it brought. He pressed a hand to his temple, fingers digging in so hard they hurt. I've found him. He's in danger.

There was silence on Milla's end for a moment. When she replied, her mental voice was cold. We've known the Gastronauts could do questionable things... but placing a child in danger...

There's no time to waste.

Nothing more needed to be said. Sasha levitated up into the ceiling vent he'd initially come out of, closing it behind himself and crawling through. He'd come to this place a number of times for routine missions, but he was less familiar with the location of the device storage. He'd seen the cafeteria before, so if he could remember where that was from his current position, and build a mental map of where he'd gone to find the door to storage...

It wasn't the first time he'd had to do something like this, yet for once he was having trouble focusing; the longer he took to do this, the more likely it was that Raz could get hurt. How he was being hurt, he wasn't sure, and not knowing only worried him more.

A hand—one that wasn't truly there—gently rested on his shoulder before squeezing it. Sasha, Milla said, and he shook his head, bringing himself back into focus. Silently he crawled through the vents, heading in a direction just west of the cafeteria. Milla, meanwhile, was disguised as a Gastronaut herself, and navigating the building below him, moving over to where she'd felt the waves. Sasha could feel the frustration bubbling on her end when an actual Gastronauts agent stopped her to ask some questions, but he moved on, heading closer and closer to the storage room.

A wailing noise, distorted through the vents, made the hair on his neck stand on end.

It was coming in the direction of the storage.

Sasha was over the vent cover in moments, and with a single psi-blast knocked it off its screws and sent it crashing to the ground. He followed seconds later, landing a bit more roughly than usual, one hand to his temple. On the opposite side of the room, Milla slammed the door open, her presence filling the doorway.

Both of them stood partially crouched, one hand to their temple... until they took in the sight before them.

Raz was still sitting on the chair, no longer gagged, while the man that Sasha had caught a glimpse of earlier was now lying on the floor, hands covering his face as he sobbed. Between them sat Raz's Psycho-Portal. Upon seeing Sasha and Milla barging into the room, Raz whipped his head around, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Oh! Hi, guys!"

Slowly Sasha and Milla straightened their backs, lowering their hands as they both stared at him.

"...Razputin. What."

Raz shrugged sheepishly. "I felt your CV earlier, but I was kinda preoccupied with helping Morter, and I was also really worried that his coworker would come in here and see us. Which, speaking of—Milla, can you shut that door?"

Blinking, Milla stepped into the room and shut the door softly behind her. "Who's... Morter?"

"ME!" the man on the floor cried, scrubbing the snot and tears from his face.

"But don't worry! We've got it all settled now. D'you mind untying me, though? I was gonna ask Morter, but..." He lowered his voice to a stage whisper, "I think he's kinda having a moment right now."

Sasha felt oddly lightheaded as he stepped up to Raz, using telekinesis to untie the ropes that bound him. "So you're not hurt?"

"I feel a little stiff now that you mention it," Raz said as he hopped down. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his legs. "I think I can walk it off, though."

"We... may have caused a bit of commotion," Milla remarked, glancing back toward the door. "I think we should take our leave."

"Already?" Frowning, Raz snatched up his Psycho-Portal, hurried over to Morter, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, I gotta go. Sorry I couldn't stay longer. But you're gonna stand up to Jakob from now on, right?"

Morter raised himself up onto his knees, scrubbing at his face again. "Y-yes!" he sobbed. "I will!"

"Great! Glad to hear it." Giving him a positive thump on the back, Raz stood up straight and hurried over to Sasha. "Are we heading back through the vents?"

"...Yes."

"Okay, got it. See you later, Morter!" He paused. "Please don't rat us out to your bosses, okay?"

"I-I—I won't!"

"Thanks!" Grinning, Raz hopped up onto his levitation ball and bounced up into the vent. Sasha and Milla exchanged bewildered glances before following.

Once they were out of the building and heading back to where they'd arranged for Oleander to pick them up, Milla finally spoke up: "So... can you tell us what happened in there?"

With a wince, Raz ducked his head. "Yeah, so, I kinda got caught..." Then his head shot back up, and he held up his hands. "But it's okay! 'Cuz Morter took me into that storage room—he wanted to interrogate me, I think, but I saw he was all stressed out, and I asked him about what was wrong, and he talked about how he's this office worker and this one agent keeps bullying him and dumping all this work on him and making him watch his kid at work, and... I kinda... asked if he'd like me to take a look around in here." He tapped on his head. "He was actually kinda curious about how we do that kinda stuff, so he agreed, and... I... kinda helped him sort things out from there." Raz paused, then screwed up his face. "His mental world was a daycare."

Sasha laughed, quite a bit louder than he'd intended, and Milla and Raz stared at him. "That's... quite remarkable, Razputin."

"You think so?" Raz smiled, only for his face to fall as he glanced aside. "I was... kinda worried that I wasn't doing as well on this mission, especially since I missed so much of the briefing."

Milla stooped down closer to him to give him a grin. "You did amazing, darling!"

"Awesome! Man, for a bit there I was worried we weren't gonna pull that mission off."

"Well, about that..." Frowning, Sasha pulled the paperwork he'd found out of his jacket. "I did find the new employee paperwork, but we weren't able to secure the blueprints for their newest device."

"...Oh, yeah! Almost forgot. I did get taken to device storage, so at one point while Morter's back was turned..." Glancing over his shoulder, Raz TK'd a rolled-up sheet of paper out of his backpack.

Sasha and Milla exchanged glances, both of them giving a relieved smile as they looked back down at Raz.

"You really are something, Agent Aquato."

[skrrts]

older, wiser & hotter than ever (oneshot)

✧ gn!reader x song mingi ✧ genre: non idol, slice of life, dating, fluff ✧ word count: 2,1k

Mingi didn’t anticipate spending his 25th birthday stuck at an airport because your flight home was canceled at the last minute. There isn't much you can do about it but it doesn't mean you won't make sure it's a birthday to remember in your own little silly ways.

a/n: i wanted to write something short and cute for his birthday. no special warnings. queued it to be posted at Korean midnight hour.

“I am really sorry we have no better news for you, but due to the weather, there won’t be any flights until morning, once the fog has cleared. However, your rescheduled flight at nine should leave as planned,” the woman apologized again, and you hurried to smile.

“Of course, I understand. Thank you so much for the help,” you offered a polite nod and turned around. After the most amazing week in Los Angeles, it seemed not all plans were meant to work out. Of course, everyone else frowned a bit when Mingi announced with a playful grin how you managed to plan your vacation so that you’d land and return home at the moment of midnight, him stepping out of the airplane as his birthday began. There was a bit of a romantic idea to see it as a symbol of stepping into the second half of his twenties.

Mingi was quite emotional about it; the idea of letting go of his youth was challenging, and you knew it was his way of dealing with it. Now the two of you were sitting at the airport, your flight was canceled because of bad weather, and neither of you had enough cash left to book another hotel to be a bit more comfortable.

Mingi was obviously disappointed. He always failed to hide it, as much as he hurried to smile when he saw you, his hand reaching out to pull you onto his lap.

“I take it they told you there is nothing they can do about it, and we have to please be understanding, while also reminding us that bad weather will not be a reason for the travel company to give us a refund.”

You laughed when he changed his voice, trying to sound like one of those travel agents. You curled your arm around his neck and placed a short kiss on his lips.

“Something like that. I guess we’re stuck here until tomorrow. At least you’ve got a great story to tell — just add a little more action and tension, like thousands of tourists stranded in Los Angeles, scenes close to a battle.”

It was nice to see his features form into his iconic smile: “Don’t forget about the aliens, then.”

The two of you laughed, and he sighed, allowing his chin to rest on your shoulder. “I wouldn’t mind, though, if we suddenly found a black credit card and could spend the night in one of those big, fancy airport hotels. That would be nice. We totally deserve that, don’t we?”

The idea of a large bed instead of the uncomfortable seating areas of the airport was certainly more tempting.

“Absolutely. Speaking of sleep, though, it’s getting late. While we’ll make it back home with half a day of delay, you still should rest a bit.” You ruffled his hair. “Don’t want to start your special day being all tired.”

Mingi pouted and looked at you before giving in. “Fine, but only with my favorite pillow. Let’s move to one of those corner sitting areas, then I can relax against the wall and you can lean against me.”

You nodded and took his hand, Mingi taking care of the luggage you shared with his free hand as you carefully made your way through the upset crowds of passengers, as you weren’t the only ones affected by this. At least you managed to find a more private spot quickly, a small sitting corner far from the ticket counters.

Once the bag was securely stored, Mingi got comfortable, opening his arms wide for you. You snuggled into his embrace, and his arms held you tightly, your head against his cheek as you listened to his heartbeat.

“This was a really fun vacation, even if it ends like this,” your boyfriend noted after a while, his voice sleepy but content. “I never thought I’d come here until you just said we’re gonna do it. The food was really good, and I will have to save up properly next time. Then, I can buy one of those fancy jackets, maybe some cool shoes to go along with it. I’ll wear both at the water restaurant, with some sunglasses, and flash you a smile so you fall madly in love with me, and we walk into the sunset.”

As you listened to him, you couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, Mingi, you already are the coolest and hottest person to me, and while maybe your clothes aren't the big brands, you look amazing in every photo we took.”

As your head tilted a little to look at him, your gazes met, and he smiled lazily but happily. “I have the most stunning and gorgeous person by my side, just making sure I always live up to it.”

He always would have your heart and silly admiration; there was nothing special needed, but you knew Mingi was stubborn, and you did not want to tell him not to aim for something important to him.

“Said person would not mind a good night kiss.”

This time you were the one to pout your lips and grin, mumbling something about how you learned from the best, and you kissed. Your hand rested against his warm cheek as you slowly gave him a gentle shove to relax back.

“Time for that nap. We do not want to miss that late flight because of being too tired,” you teased, but Mingi yawned. Unlike you, he drifted off within minutes, and while you fell into a soft kind of slumber, it was not deep. You just could not see yourself sleeping at an airport at all, eventually ending up just watching passengers pass by, many leaving as it got dark and likely booking some hotel to spend the night there rather than here.

You pulled out your phone and checked the time; it was about an hour left to the eighth of August back at home. This was not how you planned it, but improvising was one of your strengths. You gave your boyfriend a gentle shove.

“Mingi, are you awake? I really need to use the bathroom.”

It took a moment, but eventually, Mingi stirred and gave you a small nod, a big hand ruffling through your hair.

“I’m awake, go ahead.” His husky, sleepy voice was nice — you always loved to hear it.

“I’ll be back soon,” you promised. A quick kiss was placed on his cheek before you got up and grabbed your bag. The truth was you had a few other intentions, a plan made on the spot, finding one of the many restaurants and bakeries at the airport. This one was a little smaller and seemed more personal.

When you approached the woman and asked for the favor, she seemed amused but offered a kind smile.

“That’s no problem if you say the flavor does not matter. We have a few smaller cakes. Would you like a ‘Happy Birthday’ with a name or an age, maybe?”

There was a hint of color on your cheeks: “Actually, I was thinking this?”

You had seen a few of those cakes on Pinterest when searching for ideas for Mingi’s birthday for the small celebration you two had planned for the weekend with friends.

The woman laughed, followed by her co-worker who also glanced at it: “That we can do as well. We just finished a new row of cakes, so give us twenty minutes and it should be done.”

You clapped your hands together: “Thank you very much.”

The woman smiled, and you sat down on one of the free chairs, dropping Mingi a message that you were hungry, and decided to grab some food on the way back, just so he wouldn’t be worried about where you went.

He answered within a moment with a few kissing emojis, so you were relieved to see he was doing okay.

The past few years with him had been some of the best. You loved how reckless he could be while also just embracing his cuteness when everyone else often thought of him as a guy who was a little mysterious and hard to figure out. If anything, Mingi always felt easy to read; the longer you two were together, the fewer the occasions where he would try and hide his feelings from you, something you honored by doing the same.

“Here you go,” the woman handed you a small box, and you opened it, giving it a glance before smiling.

“This is perfect, thank you!” The cake really was small, but that was perfect; wasting food was not an option, and you wouldn’t be able to take any on the flight.

“We hope even with this weather, he has a nice birthday.” The woman winked and gifted you two bottles of coffee for free.

When you slowly returned to your seats, Mingi looked like a lost puppy, his head going left and right to see just where you had been.

“You didn’t think I was running away, did you?” you teased softly as he looked at you, his face brightening up right away.

“Of course not, you just were gone for some time,” he replied, and his gaze wandered to the box in your hand. You offered one of the bottles to him; it was late for coffee, but he did not seem to question it after the two of you just had a nap.

“Well,” you started, looking at him. “I know this day was meant to be special, and we’re about to spend half of it on an airplane instead, but I don’t think that means it has to be any less amazing. After all, it is your day, and how could it not be?”

Look at you being all sappy! At least there was a blush, and he rubbed a hand over his neck.

“Yah, what’s this all about?”

Two minutes until midnight at home.

You smiled, leaning over to unzip the bag and pulling out something you managed to sneak in without him noticing when you packed. The branding on it already made his face surprised.

The two of you went to this one store; they sold really unique pieces of denim jackets, each one of a kind, but the prices were a little steep. So when Mingi tried on the same one four times but sighed because of the price tag, ultimately leaving it behind while talking about just how nice it had been for days, you knew this was it. You went back and bought it.

“Seriously?” Mingi looked like you gifted him a car rather than a jacket when he pulled it out and looked at it like it was the most stunning piece of clothing.

“You loved it so much, and you look good in it, so when I said I wanted to buy some souvenirs, I actually went back to the store. It is your birthday, so no notes about the price! You just owe me to wear it plenty and tell everyone how amazing I am,” you teased, and he pulled it on, right over his hoodie.

“This is the best — you are the best!” He pulled you closer, kissing you deeply. It took a bit of effort not to just lean in and let him pull you over. The hour changed, and you smiled into the kiss.

“Happy Birthday, Song Mingi,” you whispered. Mingi was smiling brightly.

“Thank you. Oof, I love you so much!”

You laughed and finally offered the box to him.

“Well, I hope with a new age comes great hunger. Every birthday should start with a cake. Candles will have to wait for the other one at home, but until then, here you go.”

Mingi grinned: “Is that so? Ah, okay then!”

He accepted it and opened the box slowly, greeted by the text you requested.

‘Older, Wiser, and Hotter than Ever.’

Getting older was scary but also exciting, and you couldn’t wait to see where Mingi was going from here. You were happy to be the one by his side.

“I cannot deny I get older and hotter. I am pretty hot, am I not?” he grinned, and you rolled your eyes, smirking.

“Fine, I admit it.”

“ I will make sure it becomes a daily thing. I don’t promise to get any wiser, but the rest, leave it to me. You won’t regret it.”

Mingi kissed you again, and this time, you just allowed yourself to melt a little more.

Yeah, you were more than content to let him impress you, day by day, for the rest of your life, and all it would take was for you two to be yourselves and be together.

The world stopped, just for you, as thousands of passengers rushed through the busy airport.

[ox-imagines]

Tokyo Debunker as Romance Tropes

Feel free to ask me to write a longer imagine/oneshot for any of these!

Pt. 6 | Mortkranken

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 7

Yuri - Academic Rivals

No one makes your blood boil like Isami Yuri does. He’s your only peer who can match and outdo you, your only peer as dedicated to his work as you are to yours, and he always looks gorgeous doing it. He absolutely infuriates you. He knows he infuriates you, and he enjoys it. That cold, insidious glint in his eyes and his victorious, slightly manic smirk every time he gets under your skin just makes it worse; you hate feeling like you’re losing control of your temper in front of him, giving him more ammo, but you can’t help it when he stares you down like that. The tension between the two of you every time you interact is almost palpable. Then, the end of the semester rolls around and come to find out the two of you have no classes together. Your life and studies can return to normal and you can exist in peace. Except… it’s actually boring. There’s no one to catch any flaws in your work and call you out on it, no one to challenge you to do your best, you’re simply at the top of your classes with no one to threaten that position. It makes it seem a whole lot less worthwhile. You find yourself subconsciously seeking him out, searching for the scheming glitter of his sea-colored eyes, the gleam of his aqua hair, in the hallways and the dining hall and the parking lot. Without him, there’s no motivation to be at the top of your game, without him there’s no point. You don’t end up seeing him around, but one day, he finds you instead. You feel someone grab you from behind, dragging you around a corner, and you turn to find Yuri with his hair a bit tousled and his eyes crazed, but in a different way than usual. Like he’s the bothered one now rather than how you’re used to him enjoying your suffering. He’s agitated in a way you’ve never seen him, backing you against the wall, and while you still felt the usual tension between the two of you, this time it felt different somehow. As if the tension was actually a good thing.

“Everyone here is pitiful. Everyone but you. I can’t even begin to say how much I hate admitting this, but I need you.”

Jiro - Lab Partners

You don’t know Jiro well when you’re partnered in lab. It happens simply by coincidence. Neither of you knew anyone in the class, and you each took a seat at opposite sides of an empty table. No one else sat there, therefore, the two of you got partnered. Jiro isn’t exactly the easiest person to get to know either, letting you know quite bluntly that he feels your questions are too personal (even if it’s just small talk about his interests or hobbies). He’s also a bit off-putting: he’s very tall, and very quiet, and just a bit awkward. Despite that, despite knowing nothing about what he enjoys or is like outside of class, you only grow more curious, and each lab assignment has you feeling a bit closer to him. Then again, you have to be quite physically close to him to dissect a pig fetus together, for example. His arm pressed against yours is surprisingly a bit warmer than you’d expected, and over the scent of formaldehyde you can make out tones of a crisp, subtle cologne on him. He really looks quite nice up close like this, the slope of his nose giving him a pretty profile and his usually tired eyes focused intently on his incisions; his eyelashes were enviously long and dark, too. You swear you feel him staring at you the same way sometimes when you aren’t looking, but you suppose you can’t be sure. One afternoon, the two of you meet in the lab outside of class hours to collect time-sensitive data on some bacteria cultures you were working with. You realize it’s the first time the two of you have been truly alone together, let alone with the only light in the room coming through the windows as the sun begins to sink and from the opened sample fridge throwing an incandescent glow. As he retrieves your samples, the obnoxious fridge lighting seems to cast a pallor over his generally wearied expression, but as he pulls back and closes the door the sun hits the side of his face, dappled through the leaves outside but making him seem to glow, lighting up his crimson eye that it touched and making it gleam as if it were on fire. From the sunlight in your eye and the way he was looking at you, you could guess he was experiencing a similar phenomenon to yours.

“The sun’s in my eye. I’m gonna collect the data and then we should get out of here before it’s dark out. I haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

[bad268]

kimi x toto wolffs daughter like fluff of their families and how they reacted and how they treat kimi

+ can you do a kimi antonelli oneshot where the reader is Toto and Susie's daughter and its when Kimi came to watch Jack's race (if you know what I mean) and him and reader are already together but it's just all adorable.

thank you!!

I've Never Lost (Andrea Kimi Antonelli X Wolff! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/F2/F3

Requested: Clearly (I combined these two, hope yall don't mind)

Warnings: None

POV: Second Person (You/your)

W.C. 1191

Summary: What started as a family outing has turned into a bet, and Kimi doesn't lose.

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

Ever since you were teenagers, it was a tradition to go out karting with your family. It was standard procedure to go karting during the off-season or non-race weekends. Granted, you were never a driver, but once you started dating Kimi, he said he would drive you around the tracks. Before you and Kimi started dating, you would just watch Jack and your parents race, but now, you were finally able to join in the fun.

It was the middle of summer break, and Kimi was leading the F2 championship and ready to sign a contract with Mercedes for 2026. It was time for your regularly scheduled karting competition. 

This was the first time Kimi was going to be joining. You had told him before that you wanted to race with your family, so he made sure he would be able to go out with you and get to know your family as your family and not his boss. 

“I’m gonna win,” Jack boasted as he led the way into the karting track. Your mom and dad laughed, following hand-in-hand behind him. You and Kimi were just behind Jack, chasing him toward the entrance of the track. “I’m gonna bet you and Kimi and Papa and Mama because I’m the best.”

“I bet you are, Jacky,” You laughed as you caught up behind him and threw him over your shoulder. Kimi fell back a little as he chuckled at your antics with your brother. He knew this was what you two were like, but it was always funny seeing it in person. It only happened a few times around the paddock since you two were more conscious of your images in front of so many cameras, but in the track in the middle of nowhere, you two were free to be as rambunctious as you wanted.

Jack and your parents never complained. You didn’t have the most normal childhood with growing up surrounded by fast cars that could kill you. You had nothing holding you back out here, and Jack loved to mess around with his older sibling.

“You better not go easy,” Toto chucked as he and Susie walked passed Kimi who had stopped and watched you spin Jack around upside down from your shoulders. How he got in that position, nobody knows. Kimi’s attention snapped over to Toto at that moment in confusion at first before he continued his advice. “They’ll both be mad if they find out you went easy. They’re both extremely competitive. And this is Y/n’s first time in a kart after some time, so you should make it memorable.”

“You won’t be mad if we win?” Kimi countered with a smirk. He had grown up around Toto and Susie enough to view them as second parents, but he also had to remember they were his bosses. However, right now is a family outing, not a work event. It was everyone for themselves.

“You say that like your double seater is going to beat three single seaters,” Susie laughed when she came back into the conversation with passes for everyone to get on the track. “But go ahead and think you still stand a chance.”

“Oh bring it on,” Kimi challenged as he held his hand out for her to shake, “Why don’t we place a bet? Loser buys dessert?”

“Just you and me or if any of us beat you two?” Susie teased before agreeing.

“I’ll take my chances with all three of you,” Kimi replied with a smirk since he couldn’t keep a straight face. He gestured down to his outstretched hand again, “So, do we have a deal?”

“Consider it made,” Susie responded as she shook his hand before handing him the two passes for you and him to get the kart. Kimi turned around to see you and Jack still messing about, so he went over to tell you what was going on.

“Jack, come over here,” Toto called, causing you to almost drop him, but you gently set him down on his back on the asphalt. Jack jumped up and ran over to Toto, thinking something was wrong. “We need to strategize.” Toto and Susie then took Jack down to the track and started planning for how they were going to win.

“Did we do something wrong?” You asked as you walked in step with Kimi and took your pass to show the marshals.

“No, but I made a bet with your parents, so they need to strategize,” Kimi explained as he threw an arm around your shoulder while you sat trackside until the session before you were finished. 

“You? Made a bet? With my parents? Your bosses? Willingly? Who are you?” You joked as you placed the back of your hand on his forehead, checking for a temperature. “You don’t have a temperature. Are you sure you’re fine?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” He chuckled, pushing your hand away from his forehead and instead held it against his cheek. “You always say to let loose around them more. I’m just taking your advice.”

“You’re learning, I’m impressed,” You teased, moving your finger to tap his nose. “Next, you’ll be rough-housing with Jack and me.”

“I think I’ll stick with things that don’t hurt me,” Kimi scoffed with a smile as he pulled you closer into his chest while you watched the karts go around.

“Oh, and bets don’t hurt your pockets? I see how it is, rich man,” You joked as you leaned your entire body weight into him. “Do I at least get to know what the bet is before the race?”

“Loser buys dessert after,” Kimi chuckled.

“We’re in a double seater, dummy!” You exclaimed in shock. “They’re gonna be so much quicker than us! You made a bet you know you’d lose!”

“One, you underestimate my driving ability. Two, you think that wasn’t the point? Think how much harder Jack will try to win knowing there’s something at stake,” Kimi explained, and your jaw dropped. This reverse psychology was going to win your brother over in a heartbeat. “Plus, I know Jack and your parents are insanely competitive. I know you. They’re gonna do anything and everything to win, and it’ll be a real race.”

“You are crazy, but I love it,” You whispered as you left a kiss on his cheek before standing up and moving to the karts. You two put on your helmets and everyone took their places in their karts. Jack looked back at you and Kimi and signaled that he was going to catch you. Right as you sat down, you looked up at Kimi, who was still adjusting his helmet. “We’re not going easy on them though, right?”

“No never,” Kimi answered quickly as he took his seat in the driver’s seat. He fiddled with the seat and wheel for a second before the look in his eyes told you exactly what he was thinking. “This is technically a championship, and I’ve never lost. Buckle up because you’re not breaking my streak.”

You tightened your belts and braced yourself. This was the best (and only) way to get back onto the track.

~~~~~

© BAD268 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[chronically-ghosted]

remember that, uhhhhh, post that announced, i am definitely absolutely without a doubt going to be more of a presence on tumblr??

turns out i'm really bad at announcements.

this year has been one for the books - good and bad. every day i come home switching from work brain to strategic brain and the only time i have to unwind is 20 minutes right before bed where i put a hot pad on my throbbing eyes and lay eagle-spread under the covers.

suffice it to say, there's not really a whole lot of room for creativity left to write the fics i wanna write. and it looks like that might be the case for a while...

so, in the interest of setting expectations (and finally admitting to myself i can't do all the things), i probably won't post any new fics - chapters or oneshots - until next year. This means all of my fics, including Lover, Share Your Road, are on hiatus. but this does not mean i won't finish them ever - i cannot tell you how excited i am to continue LSYR in particular - but i feel like it's only fair to all of you to be honest about a potential release date.

if you wanna unfollow, i totally understand. i will still be reblogging things and signal boosting challenges and sharing the fics i love. there are so many talented people in this fandom and i will do my best to promote them all! my ask box will remain open, so feel free to come yell about me being a lazy lay-about - no hard feelings. i am also more than happy to share my discord with anyone who wants it - again i can't promise i will respond immediately but i will do my very best!

and before anyone asks - this has nothing to do with the recent drama in the fandom. i literally had no idea any of it was going on until this morning when i woke up to so many notifications i thought someone died! nothing more to say on that other than be liberal with your block button, write what you want to write, and surround yourself with people who will protect your peace.

i really, really hate to do this, but i can't keep pretending i can nightblog like i used to. i am very appreciative to be surrounded by lovely people who have made me such a better writer, a better friend, and a better person 🤍 that's all for now, folks!

tagging a few beloveds below:

@perotovar @sp00kymulderr @toomanytookas @futuraa-free @schnarfer @itsokbbygrl @swiftispunk @mothandpidgeon @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @covetyou @joelsgreenflannel @freelancearsonist @ghotifishreads @maggiemayhemnj @sin-djarin @morallyinept @iamskyereads @survivingandenduring @doscharolastras @smokeinherperfume

[fushiglow]

Hello glow!!! Thank you for another lovely satosugu work! :)

I absolutely love how real and tangible your writing is - seeing them start with different states of being turned on and building together really paints such a lovely picture of what intimacy is without the expectation of a perfect start-stop :) 3 cheers to realistic sexual dynamics!

Also, I think that your link at the end of your post goes to Violent Delights instead - but maybe that's just an issue on my end!

Thank you so much for this lovely feedback (and the heads up about the link), I can't tell you how much your words cheered me on Friday! They came at a time I really needed to hear them so, if you don't mind, I'm going to use this ask as an opportunity to say a few things about my writing and why I do what I do — no obligation to respond!

Quite honestly, I have been feeling a little anxious about how I'm perceived as a writer recently. When Over the Threshold started gathering some steam in January, I only had five published works on AO3 posted over the course of six months. By the end of August, I'll have 18 published works for Jujutsu Kaisen, 16 of which will be complete. I have never been this productive in a fandom before!

A lot of the reason for that is because I'm finally learning how to work with my AuDHD brain. I love writing, I really do, and I'm constantly excited by the possibilities that reside within my brain. I have more ideas than I have time or hands to write them, but I want to explore as many of those ideas as possible. In the past, I would have forced myself to stick to the thing that I was "supposed" to write, rather than following the burst of inspiration and writing the thing that I "wanted" to write. To no one's surprise, that usually meant I ended up writing nothing at all.

I'm someone who seeks out challenges, and all the fics I've published in 2024 have been experimental in some way. Come Get Your Honey was a challenge in extended metaphor. Balance was a challenge in seamlessly blending two very different universes. Mailman AU was a challenge in format. Violent Delights was a challenge in pushing myself to new and uncomfortable places. Thunder was a challenge in encapsulating an entire world and history within a single motif without ever actually seeing that world and history.

I'm really proud of every single one of those works, as well as the speed I've written them at. I've published 92k words on AO3 already this year and written far more, so I feel like I can no longer justifiably call myself a slow writer. However, all the works mentioned above have artistic merit in the more traditional sense — i.e. they're not smut.

At the time of writing this, three of my five most recent works contain sexual content with varying degrees of explicitness, and it's hard to escape that pervasive (and flawed) idea that smut is "less serious" as a form of writing. Even writing smut in the first place has been a slow process of overcoming some of my own biases. However, sex is part of the spectrum of human experiences, and it's also deeply political. Whenever I explore it in my writing, you can be sure that I always have that at the forefront of my mind. That's why these works, too, have represented something new and challenging and exciting for me.

Discreet Delivery was the first piece containing explicit sexual content that I ever shared publicly and, with how rife top/bottom discourse is in this fandom (most of which is based on heteronormative ideals that I vehemently disagree with), I really wanted to make a statement straight out of the gate. I'm very proud of how I managed to weave a switch/vers narrative into a oneshot, and the feedback on it was wonderful.

Headroom, however, presented a very different kind of challenge. It was extremely difficult to write, because it doesn't follow the beats of a traditional sex scene. There's no satisfaction for Satoru nor for the readers, and that made it tricky to keep it engaging. I was also very nervous about showing a different side of these beloved AU characters and establishing a new dynamic between them while incorporating some of the broader themes from Over the Threshold.

Finally, Tell Me I'm Pretty was pure subversion, writing Suguru in particular in a way I've never seen before to challenge expectations about "roles" in sex. It meant I had no blueprint to work from, but I'm not interested in reproducing the same dynamics I've read a thousand times. However, that also means that I felt very anxious about how people would receive this fic — especially on GeGo Day.

The truth is, everything I write I write for myself first and foremost, but it's hard to keep sight of that when you're blessed with an engaged audience. This is a huge reason why updates to Over the Threshold take time. This fic is deeply important and deeply personal to me, but its growing popularity adds a pressure that I don't want to influence my writing. I feel a constant underlying need to outdo myself with every new fic and chapter I post, but that's unrealistic and unachievable.

Obviously, I want readers to enjoy what I write, but I know the moment I start writing for other people is the moment my writing suffers. That's the main reason why I'm reluctant to put anything behind a paywall, even if I feel frustrated with the way fanfics are casually consumed on the internet. Readers occasionally make demands of me without any respect for my time and effort and creative vision, and sometimes I look at what I've written and think, "Am I really going to give that away for free?". However, asking for anything beyond tips would change the game for me. Enjoying my writing is far more valuable to me, at least at this point in time.

All of this is to say: I really loved writing Tell Me I'm Pretty. I had a blast with it — until it came time to post, at which point I suddenly felt full of self-doubt. For you to appear in my inbox and tell me that you appreciated the realism of the intimacy in this fic? I couldn't have asked for anything more, thank you so much ♥️

TL;DR, I write for myself, but god, it's the best feeling in the world when readers resonate with my writing. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to let me know. I love you all to the moon and back!

[xodahafez]

thank you tagging me 🥹❤️ @cindle-writes

"Self-rec time! What are your favorite five fics that you've written and why? After replying to this ask, feel free to pass on to five other writers to spread the love. 💗"

Tagging: @shyinsunlight @alenablack @chaos-bear @xenomorphology-ao3 <3

______

I have 14 works but only 5 on display on ao3 so I will go thru the 5 ones I have 😭

1. sandpaper kisses, paper cut bliss (Harry/Voldemort, E, WIP, 32k words)

The first fic I've written which isn't cracky or a romcom. It's my fav so far bc I've always wanted to read about a fic with Voldemort who is manipulative, but in a much more softer way.

Harry’s PTSD symptoms manifest in a much more violent and explosive manner, which has been a challenge for me to write but that’s also why it’s kinda fun too.

2. down to get the friction on (Harry/Tom, E, oneshot, 7.6k words)

A funny pwp (but still with some plot and backstory) in which Harry stalks Tom all the way to Albania and finds him working there as a stripper.

This is the first work I’ve written exploring tropes like feminisation, cross dressing, and an obsessive Harry. Bonus: Tom is ticklish.

3. Let The Light In (Harry/Leta Lestrange, T, WIP, 1.3k words)

This is my first rare pairs + crossover fic and easily one of my favs.

It’s fluffy and heartwarming. I’m trying to challenge my writing boundaries so I’ll be exploring redemption and survivor’s guilt here a lot. I think there are a lot of parallels between Leta and Harry, in the sense that they offer themselves up as sacrifices for protecting others (amongst many others).

Although Leta dies in canon, in this, she’s transported around 100 years forward in time right after Grindelwald kills her.

4. Love on the Brain (Harry/Tom, E, WIP, 6.2k words)

This is the second Veela Tom/V I've written. I’m very excited for it bc it's a romcom (guys did I say I like romcoms??) in which Tom tries to court his mate, Harry, who wants nothing to do with him.

I like all things fluffy and happy so this is exactly what this’ll be. Bonus: time travel… twice.

5. Veela’s Vengeance (Harry/Voldemort, E, complete, 33k words)

Although I’m no longer this work’s biggest fan because the plot and writing style just don’t resonate with me anymore, it’s still special to me because it was the first tomarrymort I wrote.

I liked the power dynamics in this because Harry has a lot of control and influence over Voldemort due to him being his mate, and he uses that without hesitation. It was fun writing Harry toy around with Voldemort’s sanity, and Voldemort being helplessly lovesick over Harry.

[maaikeatthefullmoon]

This week I have mostly been reading...

Jun 10-16th, 2024

It’s that time again! Here’s what I’ve been poring over this week!

Completed works I've read this week:

The Art of Letting Go by NekHen Rated E – By the same author as Rough Enough For Love, this is an unfinished work but ends in a satisfying place. Reading through the comments, it would appear that the author has passed away, which is absolutely horrendous and so, so incredibly sad. Much like REFL, this is a Soft Dom A/Sub C story. This narrative is so incredibly soft, gentle, and well thought out, I think it’ll be one I will read again and again. There is a great deal of subtle psychology behind it and explores a great deal of trauma within the dynamic. The ‘soft’ aspect is truly soft, unlike some other stories. I cannot recommend this fic enough.

Impromptu Collab by @mrghostrat Rated E – A standalone PWP oneshot within the And They Were Streamers AU universe. It was hot. It was smutty. It was gratuitous. Everything I love. I needed a ATWS fix and this was just perfect. 10/10, no notes.

Angel-Centered Therapy Through a Multicultural Lens: An Integrative Approach by Nnm Rated G – This should have been under my WIPs but due to it’s very occasional updates, I accidentally left it off. This is the companion fic to one of the Big GO classic fics: Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach. This time it is Aziraphale who gets therapy, and it goes just about as well as you might expect. I read Demonology in one go, whereas I’ve been reading this fic as it came out, and I think it’s definitely better read in one continuous flow. The tags are absolutely amazing, as well.

WIPs which have updated this week (which I devour as soon as I get the update!)

There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out by @phoen1xr0se Rated M - A is a researcher (puffins!), C is a lighthouse keeper on the island where A has run away to to escape his problems and do his research. The author has recently spent a week studying puffins - which is the ultimate dedication, if you ask me. Ch 10/26 posted so far

Find The Light by @klikandtuna Rated E - Headmaster A and Rockstar C. The story teases out a fraught history between them whilst keeping a tension between them in the modern day. Ch 12/15 posted so far

Under The Summer Stars by @pannotbread Rated E - This wonderful fic has taught me more about physics than school ever did (mostly because I never did any physics, but...well). A & C have to share their time at an observatory because there is Only One Telescope. Not only will you learn about astrophysics, astrobiology, and astroecology, you'll also read some of the most poetically, beautifully written masturbation scenes I've ever seen. *ahem* Ch 8/13 posted so far

Poetry Carved In Flesh by @fellandcrow Rated E – Tattoo enthusiast A becomes a fan of tattooist C’s work, but doesn’t have any tattoos himself. C convinces him to get tattoos…but due to distance, A can’t get any work done by C. Until C comes to see him. This fic has GORGEOUS artwork, and speaks to my tattoo-obsessed soul. It’s an A-falls-first-C-falls-harder story, which is always fun. It also features ghostrat’s Nice and Accurate fandom. Ch 7/16 posted so far

But, soft! by @on1occasionfork Rated M – This delightful human AU features cats! Two cats!! Both A & C have cats, A’s cat breaks in to C’s flat to be with his cat. This leads to A & C meeting and getting closer, and of course pining commences. It’s so lovely. And sweet. And fluffy. A wonderful story if you’re looking for a soft, fluffy, slow burn. Ch 12/30 posted so far.

Exodus_2 by @tismrot Rated E – Human AU set in a dystopian future. The summary says it best, really: Ezra studies programming at the University of ha-Gan. He’s as determined as he is damaged, as fastidious as he is precise, and likes to believe he'll stop at nothing to achieve his goals. His beliefs are challenged when a new student appears late to the first Ethics module lecture - and his life is changed forever. It's the future, it's dystopian, it's cyber and it's punk. It's political, grimy and slick with tears, lube and chemical snot. TW: Sex, drugs, trauma. Ch 31/35 posted so far

Free by well, me: imposterssyndrome Rated E - A & C meet (again?) in an acute mental health ward after both having had mental health crises. A runs a bookshop but is very much under his parents' control. C has been homeless since childhood and has struggled his entire life. They do not trust each other when they first meet, but feel strangely drawn to one another all the same. Where will this lead them? This is a passion piece for me. There is a lot of lived experience in it, and extensive research from both professionals and peers. It has been a real journey for me to write it, and as I'm coming closer to the end it's becoming very emotional for me. Ch 55/57 posted so far

Want to see more recs? This is last week's list.

[librarylexicon]

20 Questions for Writers

EDIT: Now with question 17!

Tagged by @cuephrase (ty bb!!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

32 (that are attached to my account).

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

283,405. I very nearly posted 100,000 of them last year, and only noticed when I looked at my stats in January. If I'd known, I would have posted something else to get it over that line!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Right now, just Batman, but in the past I've written for Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, Little Men, Tintin and a handful of other fandoms. I have a Road to Avonlea fic tentatively in the works, and might return to any of these fandoms if inspiration strikes.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All the Corners That Are Left is an outlier in my stats because it has more than three times as many kudos as the runner-up. It's an exchange fic that was my first foray into posting Batfam fics, and I liked writing it so much that it actually sparked a loose series of Post-Crisis oneshots, currently called Corners.

Family Crisis is my beloved canon divergence AU of War Games. It's the first fic I started writing for Batman, and I'm so happy that people are reading it. It's very comics-oriented, but still easy to follow without having touched a comic (imo).

Harry Potter and the Time-Turner is the first multichapter fic I ever wrote and completed, back when I was in my early teens. I won't reread it, lest I die of cringe, but I'm bemusedly grateful that it still gets hits and kudos.

Home Assignment is a Dick whump fic I drafted quite a while ago, and finally had an opportunity to finish and publish when I signed up for a Dick Grayson event. I had fun playing around with unreliable narration in this one!

In Retrospect is a HP fic that was written for a challenge where I was given five prompts and a week to produce five one-shots. I chose to make mine interconnected missing scenes set during and after Deathly Hallows, and particularly like how Painfully Abnormal turned out.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! It's a habit that's carried over from my fanfiction.net days, and I receive a manageable amount of comments, so I try to respond to every one. (The only reason I might not is when someone leaves a string of comments that are all very brief. In that instance, I tend to reply to the final comment only.) I adore reading and replying to comments! 🫶

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I've always been an angst lover. The Last Enemy, one of my oldest fics, ends with (canonical) apparent character death, and For the Sake of Our Son ends with both main characters (canonically) dying. How fun!

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Other than a shipfic that's now anonymous, I don't know! I tend to go for uplifting or satisfying endings without necessarily aiming for happy ones (although I rarely have unhappy endings). Maybe You Know I Love You? I do also have a handful of Batman ficlets that I recently wrote for a zine, and there's definitely fluff among them.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I think I got some on fanfiction.net back in the day, but the most hate I've received that I can remember is people being salty about a couple of fics I began when I was a teenager and never finished. I'm sorry, but it's been almost a decade! Yes, you can and should resist the urge to tell me that you don't respect authors who abandon fics!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope!

10. Do you write crossovers?

While I've toyed with quite a few crossover ideas over the years, I've only published one, which is a Rise of the Guardians and Peter Pan one-shot called Lost Boy.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I can't recall any specific instances, but many of my fics have been on the internet for a long time, so they've definitely been scraped for knockoff sites, if nothing else.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, three times! Harry Potter and the Time-Turner has been translated into French, Shirley Not has been translated into German and At Home, They Call Me Tintin has been translated into Chinese. (Links to these translations are in my fanfic masterlist on Dreamwidth.)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I'm open to the idea! I'd have to really know the other author and get over my control freak tendencies, though...

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I don't ship much (to the point where I have plenty of NOTPs), but I do love TimSteph, and I have soft spots for DickBabs and BatCat (Bruce/Selina) as well. All-time favourite, though? That would have to be Anne and Gilbert from the Anne of Green Gables series.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

Before the War(drobe). Narnia fandom, I really want to return to you someday, but I have a couple things to do first!

16. What are your writing strengths?

My most positive comments almost always mention characterisation. I also think I write dialogue pretty well. In my mind, well-written dialogue is essential to good characterisation.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Even though I write about characters who are superheroes, I rarely write about them BEING superheroes, because I struggle with action scenes. Also description, but I like to think I've grown better at it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don't like to use non-Latin characters in my fics for readability reasons, and I don't like to include dialogue in another language if I don't know the language. So, when my characters speak a language other than English, I either just use an English translation with a dialogue attribution (e.g. She said in Spanish) or just use the attribution without the dialogue, depending on whether or not the POV character understands the language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter! I wrote for it before I knew what fanfic was. I also joined the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum on fanfiction.net back in the day, which led to my most prolific ficwriting period.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

My favourite fics tend to be my most recent ones, because they're the ones I've spent the most time on and am most proud of. I can never pick one of anything (as you've probably noticed), so my current favourites are:

Family Crisis – longtime labour of love and Bruce character study

All the Corners That Are Left – Dick character study feat. Jason

Flight Mode – Tim character study feat. Bruce

Phew, that was a lot of questions! I think a lot of people have already been tagged 😅

Scrolling through my mutuals and no-pressure tagging @silverwhittlingknife @geevesthevieve @batrachised @freyafrida and @silent-silver-slip and any other fic writers who see this! 🫶

[drivinmeinsane]

Birthday Boy

※ Officer K x Joi ※

{ masterlist } ※ { ao3 }

※ Summary: Officer K does not often find himself surprised. He was made to be clearheaded and adaptable, able to get a read on most situations at a glance. Joi is a true wildcard in his life. She elicits feelings from him that he never could have predicted. As a result, he finds himself floundering in the wake of an unexpected gesture.

※ Rating: T for canon typical themes and implied violence. 

※ Content/Tags: Emotional Hurt, Implied Reoccurring Sexual Abuse by a Supervisor, Pre-Canon, Identity Issues

※ Word count: 3,838

※ Status: Oneshot/Complete

※ Author's Notes: Happy 43rd birthday to the man whose acting performances have resulted in characters that have bewitched me. I'd be living a very different, arguably less enjoyable, life if it were not for them.

A lingering chill permeates the room. No sunlight could ever dream of reaching down into the bowels of the LAPD headquarters to cast its rays inside the timeworn host. She devours her supplicants into her gullet each shift, only letting them free once they’ve completed their mandated labors for the greater good. Every cell has its function in the body. Officer KD6-3.7 supposes that his usage inside of the closest thing he’s ever had to a mother is done under buzzing, sterile lights and in out of the way corners, not amongst the rest of the cells that make up the innards. He is not interlinked with them. Will never be interlinked. His reward for his service is to be examined like a biopsy slide following the times he is sent outside of the internal workings to act as a neutralizer to infection. He is left undisturbed if the findings are benign, fully exorcised from the body if determined cancerous

The glare from the light on the desk is challenging the screen in front of him for which of them is going to give him the bigger headache. When he presses his forehead against his knuckles to try to elevate the building pressure, he is only reminded of how tired he is. His eyes are strained and feel as though they have been filled with sand. The replicant has been holed up in this subterranean room for hour after hour while he sifts through the backlog of evidence that had been allowed to pile up from other officers. Processing and cataloging are not amongst his favorite activities, but the monotonous tasks are a welcome alternative to chasing down a wanted fugitive in the outskirts of the city. It would have been especially brutal in this unseasonably cold weather. The mixture of snow and acid rain plaguing the city was ankle deep in many places, aggressively hungry and not reacting to the rock salt. This morning, it had piled back up again and he was left to fight every step of the way to the parking garage where he kept his work provided spinner. His boots were nearly sucked off his feet more than once during the predawn trek. His socks have been uncomfortably soaked through ever since. 

Sliding another piece of evidence under the desk mounted camera to be scanned into the database, he questions exactly what it is that his madam was hoping he would find down here by assigning him this duty. When he had stood in her office this morning, eyes more intent on watching the sun rising over the city’s horizon through the window than on her, he had acknowledged her remarks about the likely possibility of finding a new lead amongst the undocumented items. With no older models on the docket to retire, K was put to work processing information faster than any organic could ever have any hope of doing. There has been nothing out of the ordinary as far as he has been able to tell. He is beginning to be sure that she put him down here in order to save herself the hassle of paperwork. Keeping him from being underfoot in the bullpen is a wise strategy to cut costs. The presence of skinners reduces the quality and efficacy of work performance in non-replicant employees. It is also easy to extract your pound of flesh from someone who has been ordered not to engage in retaliation against fellow LAPD employees. All in all, it is better if he goes unnoticed and forgotten while on duty. 

Eyes up and to the left, he casts a glance at the clock. Just under half an hour left until he can leave the precinct. That is unless his madam makes him stay late. The replicant allows himself a groan as he rises to his feet in order to put away the evidence cluttering the desk. The muscles in his back are stiff from inactivity, He was not made to sit for long stretches of time. Once he is finished tidying the workspace and powers down the electronics, he pulls his coat from its position over the back of the chair that has been bearing the weight of his body since he settled into a routine hours ago. He folds the bundle of laminated cloth over his arm for safekeeping. The building is heated on the more trafficked levels and does not necessitate more layers than his thick, long sleeved shirt. He does not bother to turn off the lights when he exits the room. They will shut off on their own if they do not sense movement. Convenient.

He needs to brief Lieutenant Joshi on his findings, or lack thereof. Failure to report to his madam leads to unwanted results if she feels snubbed by his lack of consideration. The last time that he made her feel that way, she had made her displeasure clear by arriving at his apartment and drinking herself into believing that he was attractive. She had started drunkenly groping at his stomach and thighs while he had to sit beside her on the narrow couch and take it like a good dog. He had been spared from anything more invasive by the sound of an empty bottle shattering against his graffitied front door. Joshi had remembered herself, realized what it was that she was coming onto, and sobered up enough to put a halt to her attentions. She had cracked a joke about the replicant leading her on before she excused herself. He had been fortunate that time and took her leering interpretation of the situation with an impassive face. He had learned very early on to turn Joi off when he heard the lieutenant at the door. He did not enjoy her questions about why he silently let his madam use him as she wished. 

There is no baseline test today, and K is grateful that he does not need to sit through the interrogation. His job is laced with enough hazards without worrying that it will not be a rogue replicant that retires him, but his own employer. In the depths of himself where he shoves down everything that he does not wish to acknowledge, he envies the older models for having the free will to run and seek their own fates. He despises being sent to drag their dreams crashing back down to Earth. 

He does not take the elevator. It does not offer easy escape from hateful hands should he be cornered by someone with an active vendetta against what he is. Instead, he makes the arduous climb up the flights of stairs between the general evidence storage room and the floor that harbors his madam’s office. One small comfort lies in that the roof will be just overhead, his spinner easily accessible.

K knocks after reaching Joshi’s office. He stands, patiently waiting for the woman to look up from the screens in front of her. While he waits, he thinks about how he, as on most mornings, had not wanted to get out of bed. Joi seems more real when he is lost in the space between dreaming and waking. It is easier to convince himself that her presence in the bed beside him is tangible, that the layer of padding serving as the mattress for his fold-down cot is indented and contoured to the curves of her body.

After several long moments, Lieutenant Joshi finally registers his presence and beckons him into the room. He does not close the door behind him. Subconsciously, he is trying to leave himself an exit, even if he will never take the out. He is a good dog. Loyal to the bitter end.

“What did you find?” She asks him, irritation lacing unwittingly through her voice. She is still upset over the other night and it is casting a shadow over each of their shared interactions.

“Nandez turned in some old photo scans. Might be worth looking into ID’ing the individuals in them. They could be part of the resistance movement.”

Her expression tightens and she waves a dismissive hand at him. “Go on home.”

"Yes, madam,” he tells her, ducking his head in a subservient goodbye.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Keeping his stare low and focused on the slurry of snow and runoff prohibits him from locking eyes on the brilliantly projected advertisements that try to entice passing pedestrians into shallow interactions. He does not like to think about the DiJi units. It draws his relationship with Joi into the daylight, the playacting at domesticity exposed for being just that. K would rather not contemplate what she is and what he is. What they are. It makes his existence less palatable. 

The conditions on the streets have the stairwell teeming with more than just the building’s residents. He wades through the jostling mass of bodies as he ascends the eighty stories to the floor that contains his unit. They do not let him pass undisturbed. Grasping hands reach out and take hold wherever they can. He lets them paw at his body, ignores the venom being spat at him in a dozen languages. Word spreads faster than any disease. The crowd is aware of what he is and what he represents. He is too numbed by it all to care. There is no point in resisting.

The broken glass outside his door crunches underneath his boots. It will stay there until someone other than the replicant clears it away. The shards serve as a deterrent to the artists that like to decorate the door and the wall that it is set in. He stopped scrubbing away the graffiti months ago. More would just appear in its place, and maybe he can pretend that it helps Joshi remember what he is when she graces him with her company outside of work hours. The disgust might keep her hands off of him.

K finds the right angle for his hand on the sensor lock and wastes no time in letting himself into the apartment once the latch clicks free. He does not turn his back on the hallway as he shuts the door. Learning from that error had been a hard lesson. He does not believe any of his newer neighbors would be so bold as to try teaching him another, but it never pays to neglect precautions. As his madam was fond of reminding him, he had not been a cheap acquisition.

Once inside, he begins his after work routine. He turns on Joi’s in-home emanator so that he can start pretending. No music today. K retraces his steps back to the entryway and shrugs off his coat. He hangs it up on the peg by the door. His eyes catch on the old model number stamped down the back of the green cloth. Not his. From another replicant.

“K? Is that you? I didn’t hear you come in.” Joi’s artificial voice is a soothing balm on a burn. 

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’ll be louder next time.” He forces himself to sound happy, slipping into the role of the old fashioned husband arriving home from a hard day in the office.

Joi laughs and starts clattering around in the kitchen. He hears what sounds like the oven opening and shutting. “It’s an important day, you know.“

“What’s the occasion?” He unzips his sodden boots and puts them under his coat by the door. He peels his socks off too for good measure. They should have been removed and replaced with dry ones hours ago.

“Go get cleaned up. I’ll tell you when you’re out.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says amicably and retreats to the bathroom.

He undresses himself with steady hands, not letting himself hiss when his still chilled skin comes in contact with the air of the unheated apartment. The bureau was magnanimous enough by providing housing for something like him. That magnanimity, however, did not guarantee safety or warmth. He is merely grateful to not be shoved into a storage closet at the end of each shift. 

The movement of pulling his shirt over his head causes pain to bite into his senses. In trying to get ready for his shower, he had strained the glued laceration across his chest. It cut through a bed of mottled bruising from an accident he had earlier in the week. A replicant on his retirement list had punched him hard enough in the sternum that his skin had split open from the force. He still couldn’t draw in a full breath without it catching in his lungs. He had not informed his madam. He had not wanted his paycheck docked, not when he was on the cusp of being able to afford Joi’s anniversary present

He folds his clothes and puts them on the concrete shelf placed in the wall. K will be putting them back on shortly once he is dry. A second day’s use can be wrung out of them before they need to be cleaned. He does not want to wear out the fabric prematurely. His woven shirt is real cotton. 

Scrubbing a toothbrush over his teeth once he is fully stripped down, he avoids himself in the mirror. He does not want to be reminded that other replicants wear his face. He has not yet come across another Nexus 9 of the same make but he knows that he will someday. 

“How was your work?” Joi calls from the other room. She is setting a timer. He can hear it clicking as she adjusts it. He wonders what she is making for dinner.

“It was easy. Just desk duty. How was your day?”

“I’ve been busy. I’ve been waiting for you,” she tells him warmly.

The replicant smiles around his toothbrush before taking it out of his mouth. He spits into the sink, does not bother to rinse. He crosses the few feet to the shower and braces himself for the torrent once he is situated under the metal halo. He tries to not flinch when the water hits him. It stings for the five seconds it runs. His platelet jelly survives the downpour, his injury does not reopen. It is a small mercy.

He dries off and redresses before retrieving his boots from the front door. The tile is cold against the bottoms of his feet even though his socks. He hates the feeling of it about as much as he allows himself to hate anything. There are bad memories associated with the sensation. Real ones. Not implants.

The dinner he makes himself is the same as always when he eats in. Prefab noodles with powdered grubs as a protein source. It is nothing special, only meant to keep him functional. Joi is a much better cook than he is. She is mostly silent while he prepares the meal, though he can still hear the sounds of her moving around in the main room, heels clicking against the floor. She does not often go barefoot either. 

He almost asks her if she wants a drink but refrains. He wants to save it for the hard days. The ones where he comes back to his apartment with the unacknowledged wish that he had been the one retired at the hands of someone not all that different than him. Replicant snuffing out replicant. He fills his whiskey glass with water from a bottle instead before taking his meal to the table. He sits down facing the window as he does every night. Across the street, his more distant neighbors, a couple, are dancing together. The taller of the two women lifts her companion into a raised twirl. He muses if Joi has picked her spontaneous urges to dance from observing them.

“Here’s your dinner. I’m sorry it’s a little late, babysweet,” she apologizes as she comes from the kitchen to set the bowl she’s carrying over his. It clips though, steam rising off of it. It looks like a pre-blackout recipe. Something fresh he would never be able to acquire outside of a fantasy.

“You didn’t need to fuss,” he reassures, pausing, “What is it, darling?”

The telltale static tingle of her projected form is the first clue that she is wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind. His spine almost itches from where she presses into him. He is almost relieved that she does not have a physical form. The weight of her arm across his wounded chest would be difficult to bear without giving away traces of discomfort.

“Potato soup with freshly picked herbs.”

“Well, honey. It looks wonderful. Thank you,” he tells her. He feels the ghost of her mouth brush against his cheek before she flits away, more wishful thinking on his part than actual sensation.

He eats his protein noodles and tries to imagine what the soup would taste like if it were real. He has no real frame of reference. He had read about cream once. The book had described it as thickly coating the tongue in a wealth of rich tasting fats, almost pillowy in the mouth. All together, it would be earthy and fragrant. Decadent.

Once he is done eating, he stands and takes his dishes to the kitchen. He puts them into the refresher where they get restored to usable status in seconds. The projection of the now empty soup bowl fades away the moment his back is to the table. His chores done for the day, he embarks on the rest of his post-work routine. 

Joi is on the couch, enthralled in some sort of textile project when he passes by her to stand at the table housing some of his possessions. He picks out a cigarette from the box and is putting it between his lips when his wife flickers to his side, hand already raised towards his face.

“Do you want your surprise now?”

He had forgotten about their fleeting small talk that had taken place a while ago. Joi had neglected to follow up after his shower to explain exactly what was so special about today. K does not recall any occasion that would prompt the extra hints of attention she has been trying to bestow on him since he came home, but he indulges her all the same. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

He allows her to light his cigarette with a fingertip. The concentration of light generates a spark on the end and he takes a slow, even pull to encourage it to catch. It does. He savors the lungful of tobacco, ignoring the pinching in his chest. Smoking is a part of his small collection of vices. It makes him feel more human.

Relaxed, he turns around and comes to an abrupt halt. Briefly frozen as he takes in the sight in front of him. Joi is standing by the table, a smile on her face. She is holding a small cake in her hands. Chocolate with candied dots sprinkled over the top. It reads ‘Happy Birthday K’ in neat lettering, blue on brown. Lit candles are casting a wavering glow over her face. The cake looks homemade, messy. Real.

“What’s this?” he asks. He’s hoarse, blindsided. The cigarette in his mouth nearly slips free as he tries to process the surprise. 

“It’s a birthday cake for your birthday.” Joi sounds proud of herself.

He remembers having to input a date when he set her up for the first time. He should have known something like this would occur. He supplied the date carved on the underside of the wooden horse in his memories. October 6th, It was not his wakening date. That would be November 12th, but it had felt… right to have that nod to his nonexistent childhood. It better sold the dream his false memories hinted at.

“I was never born.” It slips out intentionally, but it is the truth all the same. He does not possess a soul. He was never drawn from the warmth of a mother’s body.

The DiJi's face falls for a moment, processing the bitterness in his voice. She had miscalculated and upset him. He feels regret at her reaction. She looks back up at him. A smile spreads earnestly across her face.

“Let’s pretend,” she says hopefully. She is echoing something back that he has said to her before. He swallows hard. He has to hold onto this. He has to maintain the idea that he has something approaching a baseline of normality in his existence. Humans have birthdays and if he wants to be treated as a human within the confines of his home, then he needs to accept this moment.

“Alright, honey, let’s pretend.” 

He tries to not think about sliding free of the bag that he had been grown in. Like a baby bird hatched from an egg, he had been left, dazed and trembling, to make sense of the world on an impersonal tile floor. The drainage grates had cut into his newly exposed flesh. He remembers the sensation of his pseudo placental fluids drying on his skin. He thought his bones would shatter into pieces from how hard he was shivering.

Loneliness and biting cold were his first real sensations in the world. He wonders if they will be his last. Would that not be poetic? Wet, frozen, and afraid all on his own. Beginning and end like the boards encasing the pages of a book. The first warmth he received was a towel thrown impatiently on top of him. Joshi’s eyes were not fond. They did not yet contain the clouded heat they would eventually come to hold in the dark hours of the day.

With burdened steps, he follows Joi to the table and sits back down in the purple chair. He braces himself in his seat. He feels weak in a way he has never felt before. She places the cake in front of him, breezing her hand over his arm before she withdraws from his space. 

“Make a wish,” she encourages, launching into a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. It is an uncomfortable experience, sitting there while trying to look content for her. He does not want to see that disappointed look on her face again.

Silent, the replicant leans forward and ‘blows’ out the candles. They extinguish, smoke trailing towards the ceiling. Even in his artificial memories, he did not experience any birthday celebrations. The orphanage in which he grew up did not provide them. He and the other children were used in place of sophisticated machinery. You do not celebrate the aging of tools. The countless hours spent sorting scrap in the outbuildings come to mind. Their hands had been chilled to stiff, waxy things, almost too cold to bleed when nicked by a sharp edge. Their breath had turned to frost in the air. Their eyes had clicked like marbles rattling in their skulls. None of them knew their ages. 

“What did you wish for?” Joi’s voice breaks into his reminiscing.

“You know I can't tell you that or it won’t come true.”

[whatstruthgottodowithit]

Boy Trouble

Fandom: Full House

Pairing: N/A

Characters: Female Reader, Jesse Katsopolis, Danny Tanner, Joey Gladstone, DJ Tanner, Stephanie Tanner, Michelle Tanner, Nicky Katsopolis, Alex Katsopolis, Original Male Character

Word Count: 2930 // Rating: Teen & Up

Summary: Jesse tries to navigate boy troubles

Tags/ Warnings: Controlling Behaviour, Teenage Romance, Implied SA, Kissing Without Consent, Ex-Boyfriends, Arguing, Angst, Jesse's the uncle we all need, Family Dinners, Stalking, Requested Fic, Requests

Notes: working my way through requests. they're closed until post halloween challenge

updated 8/23

REQUEST

@ancis93 Heya! I read your oneshots with Jessi (Full house) a while ago. Also, I see it was a while ago and now you're writing more for Elvis, but I hope it's ok to write a request for Jessie...it's that Danny has another daughter (older than DJ) who's being bullied by an ex-boyfriend, the whole he tries to call her for weeks, waits for her outside the school, tries to bribe her to give him another chance, but she keeps saying a clear "NO". She became so desperate that she distanced herself from her sisters, Joey, her father, and even the uncle she looked up to and relied on the most. Her sudden change kept Jessie awake, so he decided to find out what was going on and why his sweet niece wasn't as cheerful as before

‘Hey Y/N, Nick’s on the phone for you,’ Jesse said holding the phone out in his hand towards his niece. She was standing at the kitchen island having just made a sandwich. She looked up at him a flash of panic across her face for a moment before it fell back into a neutral position. 

‘Take a message, I’m busy,’ she said with a quick smile before she headed to the door. 

‘But-’ Jesse started but she cut him off as she ducked out into the lounge.

‘Sorry gotta study!’ she said. And with that, she was gone. Jesse sighed and placed the phone back to his ear. 

‘Sorry bud,’ he said, ‘she’s just left.’ 

‘Where’s she gone?’ Nick said bitterly. 

‘Uh, I think she’s studying at her friend Anna’s,’ Jesse said. He didn’t know why he lied. He could have told him that she had refused to take his call. But he didn’t. After all, he didn’t know why Y/N didn’t want to speak to her boyfriend. Boy drama was never something he longed to get involved in. But if she was dodging his calls she had her reasons. And Jesse was a good uncle, he knew not to land her in hot water. 

‘Well, when she gets back tell her to call me?’ Nick said and before he could reply Jesse heard the phone slam on the other end. 

He sighed and placed the receiver back onto its slot just as the backdoor opened and in spilt Becky, Nicky, Alex, Michelle and Steph. 

‘Hey guys,’ he said as his sons plodded towards him. 

‘Hi daddy,’ they said in unison. 

‘Hey Beck, girls,’ Jesse said as his wife followed their path and leaned in to give her husband a kiss. 

‘Hey,’ she said, ‘what you up to?’

‘Nothing,’ Jesse said as he scooped up the boys, one on each hip, ‘well apart from being Y/N’s secretary.’ 

‘Huh?’ Becky said. 

‘Nick called and she’s screening,’ he said simply. 

‘Again?’ Steph said as she took a seat at the dining room table. Michelle took a seat next to her. 

‘This has happened before?’ Jesse asked a worried feeling coming into his gut. 

‘Yeah,’ Steph said nonplussed, ‘he’s been calling all week and she’s barely answered.’ 

‘How do you know?’ Becky asked eyeing the blonde who immediately went still. 

‘You hear a lot from the bedroom across the hall,’ Steph said. 

‘Yeah, or when you have a glass pressed up to the door of it,’ Michelle said.

‘Steph that’s not very nice,’ Becky chastised. 

‘It was only once or twice,’ Steph said defensively. 

‘Yeah, the other ninety-nine we both did it,’ Michelle said earning a scowl from her sister. 

‘Well maybe from now on you should just focus on what’s happening in your own room. Don’t you think Jess?’ Becky said. She reached a hand to stroke Nicky’s hair as she passed by Jesse and the twins headed to start unpacking the groceries she had brought in. Jesse was still holding the boys but he was barely listening to the conversation. His mind was on his eldest niece. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know why Steph’s words had bounced around inside his brain so much. Something was up. He knew it. 

‘Jess?’ Becky said snapping him back to reality. 

‘What? Oh yeah,’ Jesse said non-comittally, hoping his response was the correct one. 

‘Thanks,’ Becky said with a roll of her eyes, ‘now how about you actually listen to me and take the boys upstairs to get them ready for DJ’s party tonight?’ 

‘Sure thing honey,’ he said. 

‘And girls why don’t you head up too?’ Becky asked earning a chorus of ‘okay aunt Becky’ from the two blondes. 

‘Come on boys let's go get you looking spiffy huh?’ Jesse said as he headed towards the back stairs. He placed them down when they hit the landing, allowing them to run full pelt towards the attic. Though as he got down the hall he heard talking. It was on the other side of a door granted but his interest was piqued. He crept quietly along the hall towards Y/N and DJ’s bedroom door. And quietly as he could he placed his ear up against the wood. 

‘I can’t…because I can’t…well, I didn’t tell him to’ he heard her say. She was on the phone, ‘because I…no…it’s DJ’s party…I promised and I already said…okay fine.’ 

Jesse pulled back as he heard the click of the phone being put back in its place. His heart thudded a little harder but he didn’t know if it was because he was doing something he shouldn’t or because of how sad his niece sounded with whoever she was speaking to. His intuition was right, something was wrong, but just as he went to put his hand on the doorknob so he could speak to her he heard the twins yell for him. He jumped, startled at the intrusion, but quickly made up for it by jogging towards where they were waiting for him at the door to the attic. 

✵✵✵

‘And just a water for me please,’ Danny said. The waitress nodded and disappeared towards the bar with their complete drinks order. They were in a fancy new restaurant in downtown San Francisco a place that DJ had begged her dad to take her to for her birthday though the ambience of the restaurant was brought down a peg or two by the Tanner rabble. Even more so as Michelle, the twins, and Joey were having a competition to see who could keep their ‘walrus tusk straws’ in their mouth the longest. 

‘Danny this place is really nice,’ Becky said swivelling her head around to take it all in. 

‘Yeah, well it would be if bonehead here would stop leading the children astray,’ Jesse said smacking Joey upside the head. 

‘It was all DJ’s choosing,’ Danny said. 

‘Well it’s very nice,’ Becky smiled. 

‘I think the appeal was more that the cute guy from her biology class is a bus boy here right Deej?’ Kimmy said earning herself a dig in the ribs from her pal. 

‘Oh is that right,’ Danny said raising his eyebrows. 

‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,’ DJ said blushing a little. 

‘So why is he right over there?’ Kimmy asked openly pointing at a cute teenage boy standing near a table that had clearly just been vacated. 

‘Kimmy!’ DJ said yanking her friend's hand down, her blush now capturing her entire face. 

‘Well whatever the motive I say good choice,’ Joey said. 

‘Here, here. Though I have to admit the idea of another one of my daughters heading out into the wide world of dating doesn’t thrill me. I mean pretty soon you’ll be just like this one,’ he said throwing his arm around the shoulder of his eldest daughter who was sitting beside him, ‘a boyfriend. Prepping for your SATs, headed off to college, right Y/N?’

Y/N didn’t respond. Her fingers were gently fiddling with the napkin in front of her and she was looking at the table seemingly unaware that ten pairs of eyes were staring at her. 

‘Y/N?’ Jesse said pulling her to reality. 

‘Huh?’ she said looking up. 

‘I was just saying how you’re all growing up,’ Danny said. 

‘Yeah, I guess,’ she said. 

‘Woah,’ Jesse said, ‘tone down your excitement. Wouldn’t want to get us kicked out.’

‘Am I meant to be excited about some overrated restaurant?’ 

‘Now come on,’ Danny said, ‘it’s DJ’s birthday don’t be a spoilsport.’ 

‘I’m not being anything,’ Y/N said bitterly.

‘You’re being a little harsh Y/N,’ Joey said.

‘It’s not my fault I didn’t even want to come tonight,’ Y/N snapped. 

‘Hey, lose the attitude,’ Danny said warningly. 

‘Or what? I won’t get to sit in this lousy restaurant that DJ only picked so she could ogle a 10th grader? What a shame,’ she said. 

‘Why we came here isn’t the point. The point is it’s your sister’s birthday and she deserves to have a nice evening. Not one ruined by you being mean and miserable,’ Danny said. 

‘Fine,’ Y/N said standing up, ‘I’ll not ruin your evening anymore.’

And then she strutted away from the table towards the restrooms leaving an awkward silence in the air. 

‘Should I?’ Becky said standing up until she felt a hand on her arm pulling her back down. Jesse. 

‘I think it’s best if we let her cool off,’ Jesse said. 

‘Yeah, Jess is right,’ Danny agreed. Jesse nodded at him. As the conversation started back up, mostly apologising to DJ, Jesse thought about his niece’s outburst. It was odd. Out of character. She was never off with her family and she and DJ were closer than anything which meant her outburst was even more strange. He decided to let it go for a minute but he was definitely going to find out what was the matter. 

 ✵✵✵

Jesse couldn’t sleep. Becky didn’t seem to be having the same dilemma as she snored lightly beside him in the bed. But he couldn’t sleep. After Y/N’s outburst, the party continued. She returned to the table with a tiny apology to her sister and dad but she still didn’t seem to be engaging in the festivities along with everyone else. They ate, drank, and even sang happy birthday to the guest of honour with the rest of the restaurant which much to DJ’s mortification included the cute bus boy. They’d headed back home stuffed, got the boys into bed and followed soon after but Jesse couldn’t drift off. After an aeon of lying there, eyes open, he decided it was fruitless to keep trying and that the only thing that was going to help was to see if Y/N was awake. 

He slipped out of the bed and padded to the door, checking to make sure he hadn't woken his wife before he headed down the stairs to the level Y/N’s room was on. The door was open when he got to it and as he peered inside he found DJ sleeping soundly in her bed but Y/N’s bed was empty. Curious, he headed down the backstairs to see if she was in the kitchen. His foot hadn’t even hit the linoleum when he heard it. 

The tones were hushed, careful not to wake anyone, but the words were definitely indicative of an argument. 

‘Is that why you got him to lie to me?’ a male voice said. Jesse crept along the kitchen floor, hovering next to the basement stairs. The back door was open and whoever it was was on the porch. 

‘I didn’t ask him to lie,’ another voice said, Y/N. 

‘Bullshit,’ the voice replied. He recognised it now. Nick. 

‘It’s true,’ she said. 

‘You’re just saying that. He blew me off because you were busy getting ready for your date,’ he sneered. 

‘I told you it was DJ’s birthday,’ she said, her voice sounding different. More delicate. Vulnerable. 

‘What kinda kid goes to Chez Rouge for their birthday,’ he spat, ‘you were on a date. Jason Carmichael saw you.’ 

‘I was with my family,’ she reasoned, ‘anyway what would it matter? We’re not a couple anymore.’ 

‘Because of one stupid kiss? I told you I was sorry,’ he said. 

‘You kissed someone else! I don’t want to date someone who cheats on me,’ she said a little louder now. Jesse’s heart was thumping. Rage was filling his whole body. That little bastard. 

‘You’re not gonna throw away everything we have because of one stupid thing,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to let you.’ 

It was followed by some grunting and a creak of the floorboards on the porch but without a visual Jesse didn’t know what was happening. Until he heard, ‘no, Nick…stop.’

‘You want this I know you do,’ Nick said quietly. Jesse whipped around the corner, pulling the door open all the way. Nick leapt backwards away from Y/N who was pressed up against the wall her arms still squashed against her as she realised she no longer needed to hold them up. 

‘Jess,’ she squeaked. 

‘You heard her,’ he said his jaw set. 

‘Jesse, man,’ Nick said rubbing the back of his neck. 

‘I’m not your man. And my niece is not your girlfriend,’ he said, ‘not if she doesn't want to be.’ 

‘We were just having a little disagreement-’ Nick started. 

‘Oh I heard enough,’ Jesse said.

‘Jesse I’m sorry,’ Y/N started. In the soft night light, he could see tears glazing over her eyes.

‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry about,’ he said with a glare at the boy on his porch before he added, ‘are you okay?’ 

‘I’m fine,’ she said though her voice was a little shaky. 

‘Then go inside,’ Jesse said. Y/N nodded, dropping her gaze so she didn’t look at the boy watching her as she slipped past her uncle and into the house. 

‘Look I’m gonna go,’ Nick said but he was stopped as Jesse grabbed the back of his collar wrenching him back so hard he hit the wall with a thud. He looked up, wide-eyed at the man looming over him. They weren’t too dissimilar in height and though he was skinny Jesse was sure that the kid could throw a punch if it came down to it. But Jesse didn’t care. 

‘Actually, you're gonna listen to me,’ Jesse said. Nick went to interrupt but Jesse didn't give him time as he said, ‘that girl in there is worth twenty of you. And I’m sorry that you don’t realise that. I know she really liked you. But you messed it up. You did it. Not her. And she’s made her decision not to keep you around. And I don’t care if you don’t like it. I don’t care if you want her back. That’s not your call. And if you ever try and make her do something that she doesn’t want to do know that I will find out. And maybe I’ll do the same to you.’ 

And before the younger boy could say anything Jesse grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him away as he walked inside the house and slammed the back door shut. Y/N was waiting for him in the kitchen, chewing nervously on the sleeve of her cardigan. 

‘Is he gone?’ she asked. Jesse nodded. 

‘Yeah, I sent him packing,’ Jesse said. Y/N nodded. 

‘Thanks, Uncle Jesse,’ she said. 

‘Anytime,’ Jesse said, ‘though I’m gonna need the full story.’ 

‘Do I have to?’ she sighed. 

‘My teenage niece is acting completely unlike herself and I find her out on the porch arguing with some guy at two am? Yeah, I think so,’ he said sitting down at the kitchen table and gesturing for her to follow. She did so, sitting on a chair beside him as she pushed her hair out of her face. 

‘He kissed someone else,’ she said.

‘That part I got,’ Jesse said. Y/N bit her lip, unsure but Jesse simply gestured for her to continue, ‘so I dumped him. But he wouldn’t let it go. He was following me all over school begging for me to get back together with him. He kept phoning the house. And I kept telling him no over and over but…’

‘He didn’t get the memo?’ Jesse said. 

‘He kept saying I was using this as an excuse. That I wanted him to kiss someone else because I wanted to date Stu Lasseter. I told him that wasn’t true but he kept saying I was..’ Y/N faded. She didn’t want to repeat the horrible things he had said to her. Not to Jesse. He’d flip she was sure of it, ‘well just not nice stuff. So that’s when I went to screening his calls. But that didn’t work. Before we went to dinner he rang and I answered accidentally. He said he knew I was going on a date and I was just lying about DJ’s dinner,’ she said. 

‘Ah,’ Jesse said, ‘is that why you were upset at dinner.’

‘Yeah,’ she nodded, ‘I was super harsh on Deej and I shouldn't have been.’

‘I’m sure she’ll understand,’ Jesse said placing his hand on her knee. 

‘I hope so. I was a horrible big sister today,’ she sighed.  The pair said nothing for a moment. Until Jesse continued. 

‘What happened then?’ he asked. 

‘He came over. He waited till you were all in bed and threw stones at my window. I couldn’t ignore him…he said he was going to wake the whole house up so I came downstairs,’ she shrugged. 

‘You should’ve come and got one of us,’ Jesse sighed, ‘do you know how dangerous it could’ve been?’

‘I know,’ she said sadly, ‘I guess I just didn’t want to upset any of you.’

‘I only came down here because I couldn’t sleep from worrying about you,’ Jesse said, ‘Y/N you can try to stop us from worrying as much as you want but we’re  always going to.’ 

‘I know,’ she said, ‘sorry uncle Jesse.’ 

‘It’s okay. Just promise me one thing?’ he said. She looked up at him expectantly, ‘next time you’re going through something you’ll tell us?’ 

‘Promise,’ she said leaning in and wrapping her arms around his neck. He looped one arm around her back and pulled her to him. As she pulled back she smiled at him and said, ‘I love you Uncle Jesse.’ 

‘Love you too kiddo.’

[furbygoblinxiv]

So I made a quick oneshot (and accompanying sketch) to get back into the swing of Writing Things, which I've called The Quest For Monster Energy. Featuring three peak lords (tired doctor Mu Qingfang, eccentric brew master Zhang Qingyan, and definitely-not-suspicious logistician Shang Qinghua) coming together to make an energy drink concoction akin to Monster Energy in order to stay awake and complete their tasks.

(I definitely lifted the brewing peak lord name and the beast keeping peak name from this @/tossawary post: https://tossawary.tumblr.com/post/649140398750580736/im-sorry-this-feels-real-weird-but-i-love because Convenience and they've said it's fine before)

Nothing with shipping, nothing explicit or mature, just 4k words of "what if a Victorian child got a hold of monster energy" vibes:

Mu Qingfang had a quest, and once a month, there was a meeting to try to fulfill it.

Shang Qinghua, punctual as ever, was the first to arrive at Mu Qingfang's leisure house right at dusk. With as much time as he spent in the clinic or his personal lab, it was the least used – and thus least cluttered – of the small group's houses. The disciples who cleaned it twice a day were there more than he was, some weeks.

"Shang-shixiong, it is a pleasure as always," Mu Qingfang greeted as the other man sat down and began to unload various small pouches onto the table, next to where Mu Qingfang had already set an assortment of jars. One package had blood splatter on it, which Mu Qingfang ignored. "Has that pain reliever this one sent over worked well for you?"

Shang Qinghua flexed his wrist as he set the last package down, showing off his mobility. "Worked like a charm! No more stiffness or carpal tunnel here!" He grinned, which in the dim lighting, gave an almost menacing appearance when paired with his eye bags and mustache. "How late do you wanna bet Zhang-shimei gets here?"

Zhang Qingyan, lord of the Zui Xian peak of brewing and alchemists, had an unfortunate tendency to lose track of time. She wasn't often intentionally late (ignoring occasions where she was being petty, at least), Mu Qingfang just knew first hand that her laboratory had many small timers yet no overall time keeper. She once claimed that it was just a distraction, whatever that meant.

"I suppose it depends on if she had another chemical explosion," Mu Qingfang responded. "And if she decides to stick around afterwards and clean it, or if she just delegated it onto-"

"HELLOOOO!" Came a cry as the door slammed open, cutting the doctor off.

Zhang Qingyan, one for less propriety than even Shang Qinghua at times, made her grand appearance as if the entire front half of her body was not covered in soot and her hair was not burnt at the ends. Mu Qingfang was only a little shocked she wasn't fully covered, and also wasn't showing up even later. He’d almost call this early for her.

"Sorry I'm a bit late, there was an explosion in the lab again and I had to assign disciples to sort out the mess before I could arrive," she explained as she dropped into her spot at the table and began removing bottles from her bag. "It was necessary to work until the last moment to ensure I was fully prepared for this meeting." With a grin, she removed the last, and largest bottle from her bag. It had a glowing orange liquid in it.

"How are your disciples?" Mu Qingfang inquired politely, though he couldn't tear his eyes away from the strange glow of the bottles that she was sorting on the table.

"The same as always, I suppose! The younger ones have broken a record this year on glass vial breaks, and I caught one of my inner disciples in the middle of a challenge to lick acid yesterday, so they're coming along nicely." She had an eccentric yet caring attitude towards her disciples. If asked, Mu Qingfang knew she'd say she's proud of their tenacity and willingness to test new things. It's part of why she tended to try out new experimental potions on herself as opposed to them the way her predecessor had.

Mu Qingfang wished his lack of student experiments were for the same reason, but his was less out of compassion and more because he couldn’t seem to keep the same group of inner disciples for a long enough period of time to even try to experiment on them. It would be a valuable learning experience for them! They loved being the experimenter, but an important part of being a medic was fully understanding the effects of things! Unfortunately, the moment he thought to ask who would like to test out experimental medicines or new qi blocking techniques, half of them would leave the mountains for personal study or to become an assistant to a specialized peak elder instead. His head disciple refused to even potentially be taken out of commission after lasting this long, and the outer disciples had learned to avoid him when he spent too long on his research.

It was fine, he was okay with going through official channels for human experiments, the slower ones that disciples could opt into for experience. And when that wasn’t an option, well, then he turned to personal experimentation.

"Are they still making a game of sneaking into the alcohol storage cellar?" Shang Qinghua asked, as if he had never done that as a disciple with only Mu Qingfang as an accidental witness. He would have gotten away unseen had Mu Qingfang not been sent there on a dare by his shixiongs for the same purpose.

"With those talismans and arrays that Shang-shixiong helped me with, the new challenge is just finding the cellar in the first place." With a dramatic eye roll, she finally finished sorting the bottles the way she liked. "And you'd be surprised how much that's deterred them."

Shang Qinghua shook his head. "Kids these days know nothing of sleuthing and sneaking," he declared, Zhang Qingyan nodding along.

Mu Qingfang just wished that disciples would stop getting black out drunk and falling off their swords before they even had fully developed brains.

"Enough about the children though!" Zhang Qingyan said. "They're cleaning up the results of my latest and greatest creation! This should act as the perfect base for our concoction," she said, dramatically gesturing to the literal glowing bottle in front of her. "These other bottles are other chemicals and potions that may complement the mixture well. What have you all brought to the table?"

Mu Qingfang gestured to the jars of herbs and small monster parts in front of him. "Since last month, my experiments have shown that Leeching Three Eyed Serpent eyeballs have positive effects on energy and awareness. As well as that, some variants of the herbs I have been cultivating in my gardens have shown enhanced energy signatures when paired with the selectively bred tea leaves this one has been growing."

The other two nodded, both unphased by the strange contents of the jars for entirely separate reasons, so he continued. "This one, however, is still unsure as to whether the presence of the serpent eyes will have an averse or negating effect on the tea like the Sleepless Rhino Explosive Boar horns did last month."

All three of them shuddered at just the thought of that meeting.

Shang Qinghua was up next, and he unloaded an assortment of small items from his pouches as he explained them. "After some talks with a merchant contact, he willingly parted with a stack of talismans designed to keep the victim awake long enough to be tortured." He paused, waiting for any outcry at the torture mention, before he went on and clarified, "I definitely didn't blackmail him for them."

Mu Qingfang, well aware of Shang Qinghua's questionable habits and tendencies by now, simply nodded and stroked his mustache in thought. His shixiong may be shady in his business dealings, but he brought great financial benefits to the sect, and didn't seem to have it in him to betray them. He was a good man, Mu Qingfang wasn't worried. Zhang Qingyan, meanwhile, didn't even seem to pick up on there being anything wrong with what the other man said, instead inspecting the markings on a talisman she took from him.

Moving onto the next pouch, the logistician pulled out a strange trinket, a small blue object with sharp edges. "This, from what I understand from my, uh, readings, is an Everwaking Star Fragment. If this is the object from legend, then it's said that it can dissolve in any liquid, and whoever drinks it is cursed to never sleep again. The last bearer of it, however, was asleep when I found it, next to them and not on their clothing of course, because I would never pickpocket someone who fell asleep poisoned or drunk at a bar. I’m not sure if they had used any of it before then."

Zhang Qingyan's eyes lit up at that, and she snatched it from his hands before he could even protest. "So if the entire thing dissolves in liquid, then what about one small portion of it? Could taking off just the corner of one spike cause eternal wakefulness for just a few days?!" She brought the object up to her eye level as she excitedly murmured to herself about the possibilities.

Of course she was too distracted to pick up on the implication of their shixiong pick-pocketing a drunk person, but again, he was a good guy, and that was none of Mu Qingfang's business.

Shang Qinghua wrapped up his presentation with his usual offerings of vitality enhancing incense sticks (which Mu Qingfang suspected he got from succubi) and what Shang Qinghua called "ground up coffee beans" that he got from trade in the south, but insisted were lackluster alone.

"Should we use Mu-shidi's strongly brewed tea as the base, or Zhang-shimei's great creation?"

Zhang Qingyan thought for a second, staring at the orange glowing bottle in front of her. "The tea. This stuff is pretty strong on its own, and will need to be diluted so that it doesn't automatically stop our hearts or melt our golden cores!"

Mu Qingfang poured the specially brewed tea into a container in the center of the table, and their experiments began.

Once a month, the peak lords from three of the most overworked peaks got together for a late night meeting. Their goal? Create a concoction that gives the drinker both wakefulness and energy to keep going and complete their mountain long list of duties and obligations.

Shang Qinghua called it a quest for the "Monster Energy Drink", which seemed like a fitting name in Mu Qingfang's opinion.

It had started a few years ago, with the doctor approaching the alchemist for something to enhance the tea he already took to keep himself awake for days on end. Things had snowballed when he had accidentally served it to the logistician after helping repair a broken leg. From there, an alliance was born.

Mu Qingfang was a doctor. He knew that it was important to maintain one's body, and that rest and rejuvenation were vital to keeping one's mind sharp. He said as such to Liu Qingge every time the man crashed into the clinic. But Mu Qingfang was also the head doctor of a peak of learning medics, peak lord on a mountain of reckless disciples (and peak lords), in a region of land where people were constantly getting infected or sick.

As much as he knew rest was important, he knew that sometimes, working and saving lives was even more important.

And thus: monstrous energy drink.

Adding the glowing orange liquid into the tea, even just a few drops of it, made the tea go from a dull brown to a glowing dark green. As Zhang Qingyan used her spare potions to work out the right consistency, Mu Qingfang removed some of the monster eyes from a jar and ground it up in his mortar and pestle, and Shang Qinghua attached the energy talisman to the side of the experiment container and dropped a few ground coffee beans in. A moment later, he lit one of the incense sticks and fanned the smoke into the container for a moment before extinguishing it.

After adding the crushed eye to the mixture, it became a brighter shade of green. And when Zhang Qingyan chipped off a corner of Everwaking Star Fragment into the mix, the glow began to pulse.

Having added all they wished to add, and the liquid having not exploded on them yet, they stared at their pulsing creation in awe. Mu Qingfang felt like they had created a forbidden substance.

"That genuinely looks radioactive" Shang Qinghua muttered to himself, like that was a word that made sense. "If a disciple drank this, they'd probably never close their eyes again."

"If a disciple got their hands on this, they would either qi deviate on the spot or enter a coma with their eyes frozen open," Mu Qingfang replied to the only part he actually understood. He couldn’t even begin to fathom how he’d treat that level of…poisoning? in his clinic beyond drastic measures.

"Well, we added all we planned to this beauty and didn't stop to test it along the way, so who knows if it's safe," Zhang Qingyan said as she scooped an empty bottle into the container. Shang Qinghua’s bagged eyes went wide at the sight of the bottle in her hand having the same bright green pulsing glow as the source potion.

"Zhang-shimei, I'm not sure you should-" Mu Qingfang tried to warn, but as always at these meetings, his warnings were not enough to stop the brewmaster from closing her eyes and taking a swig from her glowing bottle.

Shang Qinghua, who usually had pretty controlled (if extreme) facial expressions, seemed to mirror Mu Qingfang's open shock and horror at the move.

A full body shudder racked through Zhang Qingyan, and her eyes flew open with a start. Her vision was unfocused, but then her expression slowly raised to an almost unhinged grin as she stared at the bottle in front of her. Her breathing had noticeably sped up, both audible and from how her shoulders heaved with the motion.

"Boys," she started, not removing her hazy eyes from what she clearly considered her magnum opus. "Prepare to never need to sleep again."

She raised a hand to wipe away at her lip, and already it was shaking so badly that she had trouble aiming for her face.

Mu Qingfang reached for the notepad he kept in his pocket, and recorded down what had been added to the mixture and the immediate side effects. He made sure to note down the violent shaking and lack of focus it had brought his fellow peak lord with three lines under it, and an arrow for good measure.

Shang Qinghua also noticed the quivering. "Oh. Hm. Well, I can't have hands that shake that badly, or I'm gonna have some trouble filing our taxes," he said, laughing as if that were a joke. He pulled some melon seeds out from a bag in his pocket and began to snack and think.

Mu Qingfang was also thinking. There must be an herb or something in this house strong enough to make an impact in this hellish drink they created, one that could stabilize hands and make the sudden onset of energy less overwhelming.

Zhang Qingyan likely was not thinking of solutions, as she was clearly too busy acclimating to the energy rush to think at the moment.

Hand paused halfway to his mouth, Shang Qinghua got an idea. "Mu-shidi, didn't you work with Lin-shimei to make a calming supplement for some raging beasts on Xi Jiao a week or so ago?" He asked, despite having organized the material transfer and thus knowing the answer.

Lin Qingpen, of the agricultural peak Min Nong, was a major help with Mu Qingfang's herb gardens. While her peak covered all kinds of vegetation as opposed to Qian Cao's medicinal focus, her affinity towards plants made it possible for Mu Qingfang to selectively breed for specific attributes of his herbs and plants in the first place.

Reaching into one of the main spacial pouches that he kept on his person, the doctor pulled out the package with Lin Qingpen's note of well wishes still attached. "Shang-shixiong is correct, and this one does in fact have some left over."

Shang Qinghua's eyes lit up at the sight of the pouch, and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he smiled. The gesture, for some reason, reminded Mu Qingfang of the over the top villains of the plays he used to watch as a child.

He has been planning on using this powder for experimenting on calming herbal remedies for troubled patients, but he can always request more from Lin Qingpen tomorrow. Mixing a pinch of it into a cup of water, he handed the cup to a still shaking Zhang Qingyan, who downed it without question and only minimal spilling.

"She's got more guts than I do," Shang Qinghua admitted, as if one's guts has anything to do with this experiment process beyond likely being damaged.

After downing the herbs strong enough to calm a rampaging Fire Tailed Dragon Horse down, the effects were almost as fast as those from the initial potion were. Her hands stopped shaking as badly, and her breathing slowed down. A few moments later, her eyes regained focus.

Eventually, she was in a normal enough state that it wouldn't be malpractice if Mu Qingfang needed to perform surgery while under this drink's effects.

"Oh yeah, it definitely needed something to act as a counterbalance, good call," she said as Mu Qingfang recorded the side effects down. "One of you should probably try it with the Restful Temperament leaves mixed in beforehand so we know if those should be taken separately or not."

There was a brief moment of uncomfortable eye contact between himself and Shang Qinghua. The doctor knew that, as suspicious as his business dealings and as often as his physical injuries, the man across from him at the table was a coward. Light glistened off of his face in a way that Mu Qingfang swore was dripping sweat, but he had no way to confirm since the light of the candles and the glowing energy drink were rather low. It was kind of pathetic to watch, in a way.

Sighing, he took an empty bottle from Zhang Qingyan's side of the table and scooped his own helping of the concoction. Dropping a hearty pinch of Restful Temperament Leaves into the bottle, he mixed it for a moment as he tried to wrap his head around what he was about to do. At least it caused no visible changes to the already strange looking drink…

Stored in a hidden pouch against his breast were a handful of incredibly rare panacea style substances that fully cured the body of any curse or poison that may be contaminating it. It didn't work on injuries, and the peak lord only used them for what he deemed catastrophic level emergencies.

He wondered if drinking a glowing liquid in the name of science and staying awake counted as an emergency.

"Oh come on Mu-shixiong, don't back out now," Zhang Qingyan crowed with an almost predatory smile, sensing his weakness. "We've definitely drank way worse drinks at this same table before, right Shang-shixiong?!" She leaned over and elbowed the logistics peak lord, who looked like one more strong elbow to the side would knock him down for good. The other man nodded with a nervous looking smile, still staring at the glowing creations before him.

Staring at the ominous elixir in front of him, he let out a sigh. He couldn't believe he was sometimes referred to as the most responsible of the peak lords.

He took a drink from the bottle.

The first thing he had to note: it tasted abhorrent. He knew it wouldn't be pleasant, given the mix of random plants and monster parts that had been added, but this was leagues worse than even his worst expectations. Despite having a strong stomach, he fought off the urge to throw up and demand to know what Zhang Qingyan had put into the base potion.

Instead, he forced it down with a grimace and mentally mapped every place in the leisure house that stored medicine to help soothe stomach issues. He could have sworn he felt it bubbling all the way down, despite its lack of bubbles, and felt his veins and bloodstream light up as if electrocuted. The fact that Zhang Qingyan had downed this with a straight face was both terrifying and impressive.

Luckily, his mind stayed as sharp as ever, and his hands had no notable shake to them. He made sure to note down these effects and mix some of the Restful Temperament Leaves into the base container of the substance.

"That seems to be as good of a balance as we are going to get," Mu Qingfang announced to both of the peak lords watching him in anticipation and dread.

Zhang Qingyan let out a cheer and took another swig from her Restful-temperament-free bottle, immediately causing her hands to start shaking again.

Shang Qinghua let out a sigh of relief as he bottled his own share of the energy granting monstrosity they had just created. With a quick sip, he muttered “tastes almost like actual monster energy” while shuddering. "Of course, we'll have to keep in touch about potential side effects," he said louder, staring at his bottle and likely calculating ways to market, mass produce, and sell it off if it didn't cause deadly effects.

Mu Qingfang knew that Zhang Qingyan had some pretty strong hangover cure potions that she had amplified, and that Shang Qinghua had poison curing artifacts from grateful trade partners. If there truly were adverse effects, they should be fine, but it'd be important to note for the next time they made an experiment or if Shang Qinghua decided to sell it.

Zhang Qingyan bottled the rest of the container and divided it up between the three of them. "Well boys, barring any unknown side effects, I think we just stumbled across the perfect energy drink." She declared.

Mu Qingfang knew better though. He knew they would find even better energy and sleep alternatives before the month was over. "Same time next month?"

The other two, stashing away their personal bottles, started to pack their things. "Oh yeah, this was just the prototype," Zhang Qingyan laughed as she stood from the table. "Improvements can always be made, we can't be falling asleep during next month’s Immortal Alliance Conference, after all!"

Shang Qinghua let out what may be a nervous laugh as he agreed, but Mu Qingfang was sure it was just the lack of sleep getting to him.

"If we don't see each other again, I'll see you all at the immortal alliance conference," he promised, with affirmations from the other two as they made their way out into the night.

With pleasant calls of farewell made and his leisure house evacuated, Mu Qingfang stared down at the concoction in front of him.

He was a doctor, he knew how important sleep was, and how vital it was to not drink random glowing potions of haphazard mixes of items. And he knew that, as an immortal, he didn't truly need to sleep. But he did need to focus, and he did have work to do.

He took a second swig from the bottle and stood, clearing everything else off of the table. He had the feeling some emergency would be calling him to the clinic any minute now, despite it being well into the night. It had been too calm for too long, which typically meant trouble on Qian Cao.

Extinguishing the lights, Mu Qingfang headed off into the night. His exit left nothing behind save the energy drink, alone and glowing on his table, a soft pulsing light beckoning to any unfortunate disciples who may see it come morning.

[mamaz00m]

So. Plans for the future. Let’s talk about it.

Going back through this fic and finally writing the last chapter opened the floodgates for me, in a way. As I said in my last post, I’d been wondering about what Gabe and Eli in the future would be like, what their lives would look like. I wrote a glimpse into their future back in 2019 in A Name of My Own. But I still feel like there’s more to uncover, more to learn, to discover.

Finishing Raise Hell felt monumental for me. When I completed the last chapter, I sat staring at the final line for fifteen minutes, asking myself if I could do this—if I could finally publish it. If I was ready for this all to be over. Because this fic had started out as a coping mechanism for me. When I’d began writing it, I identified pretty heavily with Eli—like I wanted so desperately to have someone come rescue me. Someone who knew how to care for me while also pushing me to be my best in ways that felt challenging, but not scary. Weirdly, it felt difficult to essentially ‘let go’ of that time in my life, that version of me.

Weirder, still, is the fact that just like Eli, I essentially got exactly what I wanted. I moved in with my best friend. We’ve built a life together. I’m happy, and I’m finally beginning to thrive instead of just survive. I clicked publish. I decided to let go of the 24 year old version of me.

And by the next day, (nearly) 34 year old me had an idea for a second Gabeli story—a road map unfurled in my mind, the journey these two men could take stretching out before me. I have the notes written down for a second story, ready to begin writing.

What does this mean for RH?

For Raise Hell as it currently exists? Probably nothing.

In its current form, Raise Hell has a few problems—tense-shifting, for one, a couple Boosh/Mint Royale references that would need changed if I were to publish it. I have copy/pasted the whole of the fic into my favorite writing program and am slowly combing through it, fixing the problems with tenses, formatting it, etc. I do have plans to eventually get it up for sale in its new form (with a couple extra scenes included), but that’s in the future. If you loved it, I’d download it now so that you’ll always have access to it in its original form because it might not remain forever on AO3.

What is Heaven & Earth?

The sequel I’m planning for Raise Hell. It will be set roughly two years after the conclusion of RH and will follow one major plot and two minor subplots as we follow the boys further into their relationship.

We’ll see how Jen, Ben, and Kat are doing and we’ll find out more about Spuds, James, and Alan, too.

We’ll uncover more insights about Gabe’s past and his parents, and we’ll see some things from Eli’s past get wrapped up as well.

Will you be posting H&E to AO3?

Yes! Any Gabeli stuff I work on will be posted to AO3 first and then be made available in other formats, reconfigured, improved, etc. later.

What is Hereafter?

The long and short of it is I don’t know yet! Coming back to finish a fic (and then go on to continue it) for what appears to be a dead fandom is a…weird experience, to say the least. I’m convinced at this point that I’m only continuing this for my own benefit at this point, but I think I’m fine with that.

I think once I’ve finished with H&E, the picture will become clearer for Hereafter. Or Hereafter may become just a collection of oneshots only on AO3—random snapshots of Gabe and Eli’s lives at different points. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when the time comes.

So. That’s it for the updates for now.

Thanks again.

<3

[cr1ms0nesp3ra-ac3]

Part 3: DAY 03

( Sleep Token Lyric Challenge by @a-s-levynn )

This ain't gonna be art for now..

yet.

But instead! An oc's sibling angst oneshot,but before you must start.. warnings ↓

{ TW/TRIGGER WARNINGS:

Implied kidnapping

Mentions of Dysfunctional Family and Implied Abuse(such as either mental, emotional and physical.)

Mentions of Death ( which includes characters who are my ocs, also um parent death. )

Implied Panic Attacks

Mentions of Nightmares

Styles of Anxiety and Paranoia

And Mental Heath mentioned.}

( Btw, just to let you know that this is only my oc lore and my interpretation canon lore to ST, and no this is not canon in real life that they will be having a new band member. I just had to clarify just in case fore' I had to block someone who had said it. )

That will be a first POV of this lore I will be working btw.. and with that!

Let us begin..

an Ascensionism inspired angst oneshot.

Undercut: ↓

[ August 3, 2023 took place of-

Las Vegas, the REDACTED Residence on a streetown. ]

There is no way, no way that the brother that I always love..

now went missing.

I can't be all alone! NOT LIKE THIS!!

Not without my brother like that!! How am I supposed to keep on waiting since he told me that secret?!

...But none of that matters anyway, my sisters were still nicer to me.. though I- can notice that they felt tired.

I see why..

All was starting with worry when Jasmine tried to call Ace, over and over again but there is no response.

Til now.. Hell broke loose when She and Nora began to argue outside of my room during 8:14 PM after Nora returned from working at Starbucks.. I didn't like that, when I began to just hearing that Ace haven't responded her calls.

I didn't believe her at first.. til I tried calling him too.

No responses.

Yet it's the same thing when I tried and tried again. But again, all nothing but silence.

Now I feel scared, scared if my brother was either snatched by someone, or is it because he was busy? But what I am now officially dealing with is that.. well—

I didn't want the broken family we used to had unto from return, Jasmine began to feel tired, feel workaholic, and yet anger is inside because she'll do what it takes to find Ace.. She now works for the detective after she had to quit her job for being a gardener, but Nora and I were worried, but we also didn't want to interrupt her.. and so, we had no choice.

We had to leave her and move somewhere so that she won't hurt us again.

Like our own mother and grandfather from before.

I remember Father and Auntie trying to protect us from them, not until they died from a terrible accident.. yet we're the only three left, the Siblings.

[ August 8, 2023, 10:38 PM.. 4 weeks later after. ]

My own sense of anxiety and paranoia began to spread as I was just lying still on my bed, staring at the celling from midnight. Reflecting it like a shadow shuddering behind the celling fan.. and yet I was shaking from only fear. Because of fear, only just fear and nothing else.

I can't help but feel nothing as a fragile doll, but I don't want them to know..

...There was a nightmare I had, 3 weeks ago at 11:11 PM.

I didn't even want to mention it but it was so scary... Scary but at first, me and Ace were just playing around at the neighborhood, I didn't realize that something happened. Then I stopped, in confusion.. and now scared, as I just saw my brother being held from blue strings, for me, I was forced to watch him get dragged away by... those 5 red eyes.

Yes, those 5 red eyes... I'm not sure what that was. But it scared me.

I was supposed to run up to my brother, reaching him, trying to save him from whatever is trying to get him.

But darkness nor light either tried to stop me, as I got greeted by an...archangel entity–like demi-god, it looked like a woman but not like that in my own eyes.

This demi-god I first saw has 5 eyes, white silvered skin, glowing red color, 3 wings, a black veil dressed and dried dark brown medium-like hair, while staring at my brother who is now in strings like a puppet doll. There was someone controlling him..

I was too frozen when staring at...whoever is hunting my dreams, the expression was blank, blank at first but there is a smile to the lips.. she slowly placed a finger on her lips to keep me quiet, I don't know what to do now but to nod despite my paranoia and fear beginning to rise up.

Then she proceeded to leave like a floating angel, when I tried to get up and shouted at my brother's name to make him "respond"..

I now woke up, shaking and shivering what I just witness.

It was someone, someone who was actually the one who took my brother away from me. And yet I...hated that nightmare. I really do.

Then weeks later, I always pretended that everything is okay to my sister Nora, she was suspicious at first but she always just shrugged and just..let that slide, thank god.

I was this lucky enough that I began to had an panic attack when I was home alone, lucky me didn't have the security cameras at our new home.. Wonder how Jasmine is okay but who knows...

I feel she is no longer the first older sister I loved now. She has changed.

But what that reminds me... Ace is a journalist, he is trying to research about that "Sleep" God he tells me and my sisters' stories about. Every now and then.

Until realization hits me...

Did it just..

.....Was it the one who took Ace?

..Did it, or she actually did?

Or is just my anxiety trying and making me feel delusional?

And yet I hate it.

I hated it so much that I can't help but cry quietly and softly in fear and anxiety mixing together from my brain and body, I tend to cover it with under my own pillow and my blanket.

This is really all my fault for keeping a lot of secrets, it must have been. Because before the week he went missing, he told me about something of him wanting to be a new bandmate of that band we all loved.

I just wish I could stay with Ace.

I just wish I couldn't keep his secrets but I just can't do it, ..bitter consequences will hit me if I say the truth to the ones I know.

This will be the bitter deception I will be forced to live on for now. And it cannot make me feel safe. Nor to set me free from the tragic and sadness that I've been through.

....But maybe.... just— m-maybe..

If you are really safe for me, or you feel comfort for being safe to whoever snatched you, dear brother..

Will you come home?

[autisticwriterblog]

I was tagged by @pintsizeninja. Thanks for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2345. That's what happens when you've been posting since 2016 and don't study or have a job for health reasons so you've got nothing better to do than write fic. 😂

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

2,682,156 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently it's Alan Wake and Control, with occasional dips into Dishonored and sports anime like Haikyuu.

4. Top five fics by kudos

All of these are old (like over 6 years old) and I'm not that proud of most of them (especially the HP one because fuck it). But they're popular for some reason, so here they are!

Healer - My Hero Academia

The Boggart - Harry Potter

NSFW OTP Challenge: Erasermic - My Hero Academia

"Keep breathing." - My Hero Academia

The Date - My Hero Academia

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try my best to, because I really appreciate every comment I get.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Let's stick with Remedyverse fics for this question. In that case... I'll pick:

Five Times Ilmo Hugged his Brother (and the Time he Didn’t) - because for spoiler reasons, we all know why Ilmo doesn't hug Jaakko at the end. It's otherwise a fluffy or hurt/comfort fic until the end and then bam! Angst!

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, sticking with just my Remedy stuff... let's go with:

The First Step is Always the Hardest - from my Ahti/Norman series.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have done in the past, to the point I've needed to block them on ao3. Just the other day, I got a transphobic hate comment on an old fic. Luckily, it hasn't happened with my current fandoms.

9. Do you write smut?

Quite often, yeah.

10. Craziest crossover?

It's more an AU than a proper crossover, but recently I wrote an Alan Wake fic set in a Zero Escape AU.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times, yeah. It was super flattering to be approached with the offer to translate my fics!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, and I'm not sure I'd want to.

14. All time favourite ship?

All time? Hmm... let's go with my faves for my current fandoms, plus a few I've written a lot for in the past/think about a lot:

Ahti/Norman MacDonald - Alan Wake (my incredibly niche rarepair that I love a lot)

Jesse Faden/Emily Pope - Control

Amity Blight/Luz Noceda - The Owl House

Micah Bell/Arthur Morgan - Red Dead Redemption (I like enemies-to-lovers and redeeming utterly hateful characters lol)

Kozume Kenma/Hinata Shouyou - Haikyuu

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I've got a half-written oneshot for Critical Role somewhere in my drafts that I never finished. It's about a character getting hit with the Feeblemind spell and the others looking after him.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm good at dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I really struggle with fight scenes.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

If the character drops dialogue in a different language in canon, it only makes sense to do it in fic too. Case in point: the amount of Finnish idioms and swear words I've learned because of Ahti.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

This would've been way back in 2012 when I was 13. On fanfiction.net, I posted (really cringy) fics about The A-Team.

Although, techinically, the first time I wrote a fic was when I was 6. I didn't know other people did it and I certainly didn't share it. But I've got an old story (and illustrations) in a notebook from like 2005 when I wrote about Charlie and Lola, a British kid's show.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Just sticking with Remdyverse again... currently I'd choose:

Episode - part of my autistic Odin series. It's angsty, but also has lots of protectiveness from Tor and Bob being a good friend. i just really like writing about the Old Gods at the moment and I'm especially proud of this one.

Tagging: @quailfence, @koskela-knights, @taniushka12, @hamyheikki and anyone else who wants to do this!

[lilypadlys]

Domestic December Day 1 - Cooking Together

The oven breaks so Dew lends Cumulus a hand, and his fire magic, so she can bake cookies. This idea has been rolling around in my head for a bit and this was the perfect excuse to finally write it. Now I want cookies…

So excited to be doing my first fic writing challenge/event! Since it's my first time, free time is limited, and I just wanted to have fun with this, I gave myself no word minimums for any of these. Some will be decent sized oneshots and other will be much shorter drabbles and headcanons.

I plan to have something for all 31 days but we'll see how that goes. The plan is all SFW and no smut this time around. Just a bunch of sweet domestic fluff. Prompt list by @comp-lady See prompt list here

600 words of Cumulus/Dew fluff below the cut or on AO3

Cumulus hums while she works, using an ice cream scoop to form the cookie dough she’d made into rounds before setting them on parchment paper lined sheets. With winter approaching, she’d been in a baking mood. She decided to use the day to try out a spice cookie recipe she’d found in one of the cook books in the library

“So, set the oven to 350 degrees…” She says to herself checking the recipe. “And let them bake for fifteen minutes. Okay!”

She reaches over the stove to the digital time display and presses the button to set the oven to preheat. And nothing happens. She presses it again, this time with more force. Still nothing.

“Huh.”

After further inspection, the oven light also fails to switch on, much less the heating coils.

“Is it a power issue?”

The time still lights up, perpetually two minutes behind, but the oven stubbornly refuses to heat. Shrugging, Cumulus prepares to slide the cookie sheets into the freezer. The dough balls will keep and she can bake them once the oven’s fixed. Failing that, they can just eat the cookie dough raw. The eggs were pasteurized and the ghoul’s have stomachs of steel. It should be fine.

She’s interrupted by Dew entering the kitchen.

“Whatcha making Lus? Smells good in here.”

She sighs. “I was making cookies but the oven isn’t working. I think it might be broken.”

Dew frowns in sympathy but suddenly his eyes light up. “What if we-”

“Oh no!” She interrupts. “We are not letting Swiss try to fix it. Not after last time. He still owes me a new hair dryer.”

Dew chuffs and rolls his eyes. “Satan no. I was thinking, what if we use fire magic?”

“Huh.” Cumulus considers. “Maybe. But you couldn’t just roast them. They’d burn. They need evenly distributed heat over a length of time.”

“Use your magic to spread the heat around? Distribute the warm air?”

“Oh! That might work.”

The two ghouls get to work, setting the test sheet over a raised cooling rack. Dew heats his hands and places one just below the cookie sheet and the other right above. He waves his hands back and forth a little to distribute the heat as Cumulus manipulates the warmed air to hover around the cookies.

To their delight, it works. It’s not perfect. It takes a while and involves a lot of guessing. A closed system would be more efficient and certainly easier. Regardless, they’re too excited to care. At the end, Dew risks a little open flame over the top, just to gently toast the edges and get them golden brown and crispy

Once the cookies seem fully cooked, Cumulus quickly cools them with a breezier gust of air. She picks a cookie up and breaks it in half, inspecting the inside. It looks done. She takes an experimental bite and hums in satisfaction.

“Good?” Dew asks.

She replies by handing him the other half. He accepts, taking a bite. His blissful grin soon matches the one on Cumulus’ face. The cookies are packed with pecans and cinnamon, and sprinkled with brown sugar that has since caramelized on the tops of the cookies. The edges are crisp but the insides manage to be soft with the pecans adding the occasional crunch. In short, they’re amazing.

“Lus, these are great.” Dew says around a mouth full of cookie.

“Thank you! Let's get the rest baked so we can bring them to the others.”

Dew’s smile turns into a pout. “Noooo…”

“What? Why not? You want to eat the cookie dough?”

“No,” He puffs out his bottom lip a little. “I don’t want to share.” He grabs another cookie possessively, causing Cumulus to giggle.

“Help me with these and as soon as the oven is fixed, I’ll make a batch just for you.”

“Okay.” His grin returns. “Deal.”