#but coming back has somehow made me sadder?????

[frenchbreadandeggs]

The Other Variant of Her

pairing: Miguel O'Hara x Reader

summary: Out of nowhere, Gwen Stacy appeared on your Earth, inviting you to the Spider Society in Nueva York. As you reluctantly took her offer, you were shown the beauty of every spider person around HQ. Meeting the founder of the group, Miguel O’Hara. You never knew him, but it seems that he does.

gn!reader, also a spider person

cw. angst, soon.

After I watched ATSV, saw Miguel, I was like—why not make it more sadder? Also made this while I'm fucking writing a travel log for our project, action paper, and capstone. I SWEAR my obsession on writing fanfictions never ends. Gotta go so I can study for finals and defense this week. This was supposed to be a full fic and not by chapters but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Shit!”

You dodge at a car that was thrown in your way, quickly swinging yourself using your web towards a building to land on. As usual you do your superhero things around Kings, York New, beating up villains and chasing down thieves and criminals. But you sure do that this Doctor Octopus you’re fighting isn’t yours, you felt like it was not the doctor that kept chasing you down.

“Come back here you—!” he somehow glitched, a series of colors switched with his body for a split second before Doc Ock shrieked as the grip of his talons of his mechanical tentacles loosened on the blue brick walls, his body now falling.

Quickly, you shot a web on his chest, shooting another one to hold yourself from sliding towards the end of the building as you tried to pull Doc Ock. When he reached the top of the building, you grabbed him by the collar and dragged him on the concrete floor. Not wanting to risk him to go rampage again and destroy half of the city, you wrapped him up with webs, securing his mechanical tentacles on the wall.

He grunted, still recovering from his unusual glitching. You’re going to ask Doctor Strange about this later.

As you were going to bring Doc Ock to the wizard, a person stood in your way—or more like jumped out of nowhere and blocked your way. They wore a white spider suit with pink and black accents.

“Woah,” startled, you backed up, covering the still recovering Doc Ock, “I didn’t know there’s a comic con today—”

You were stopped by a strange tingling at the back of your head, you have spider senses, but this was different.

“Wha—don’t tell me you’re?”

“Holy—you look so cool!”

“What—”

“I’m Gwen Stacy, you are?” she reached her hand towards you after she took her mask off. Blonde short hair with pink dip-dye, the side of her head was shaved, blue eyes and eyebrow piercing. She seemed harmless even though you are still skeptical, but your guts said she is not a problem—and your gut is always right.

“SpiderSlinger.” you introduced yourself, taking Gwen’s hand and shaking it.

“So,” you started, “This is not a joke alright? Is there any cosplay going on somewhere here?”

She snorted, like what you said made no sense to her.

“No, I’m from another universe—I take care of anomalies like that Doc Ock you have there.” she pointed at your back, you looked back to see Doc Ock glitching.

You were not closed about the multiverse existing as Doctor Strange has already mentioned this to you. Though you did not expect for a person outside your universe to come and visit—let alone take care of a person who is not supposed to be in your world.

You looked at her, tilting your head at the side as you grabbed Doc Ock using your web shooter and slung him on your shoulders, unbothered by his weight. Lifts were helpful for you, “By yourself?”

Not too long you tagged along with Gwen, she has explained to you that she is in an elite group called Spider Society where they keep the multiverse from any threats and prevent it from collapsing. Very ambitious you think, the size of the multiverse was incomparable to your thoughts, knowing it is larger than what some people might think. On your way to HQ Gwen mentioned to you, she received a call from someone who’s named ‘Jessica Drew’. You minded your own business when Gwen started to respond to her watch with hushed words, you might have guessed that they were arguing. Gwen sounded pleading all of a sudden.

“Are you sure I’m allowed to go with you?” you asked her after she ended her call. Gwen nodded at you, her head seems like it is going to fall off her neck if she does not stop.

“Absolutely, I already notified them that you’re coming with me.” she handed you a blue wristband, “Here, to keep you from glitching.”

You took the wristband from her and wore it, “Thanks…?”

You have not experienced the ‘glitching’ she was telling you, so it might’ve been like Doc Ock’s situation earlier. Gwen tapped on her watch before a portal appeared in front of you. Your eyes widened in amazement, multiple neon-orange hexagons stood up from the dark but sparkling void—some looked like singular strands of web stretched across the portal, forming in some kind of path to who Spiderperson knows where.

“You got to do this?” Doc Ock still hanging on your shoulder, you pointed at the portal that was formed by Gwen’s watch.

Gwen laughed, smiling at you, not realizing she was showing her gap teeth, “Yeah, all the time.”

“Sick,” you said, still gaped at the portal, “should I…?” you looked at the Doc Ock on your shoulder then to Gwen.

“Oh, yeah definitely.”

With a lift, you pushed Doc Ock inside the portal, his unconscious body sucked into the portal’s abyss. Gwen then looked at you with a reassuring nod and went into the portal, following Doc Ock. You stared at the portal for a while, the city is fine for now since there were no attacks other than Ock—though you were unsure if this was the right idea.

You bit your lip.

“Fuck it she already announced my arrival, might as well go in now.”

Biting back the hesitation of not going in, you leaped into the portal leaving your worries for your city and jumped into the unknown.

You were thrown on the floor face flat on the smooth pavement, you grunted, muffling ‘I’m fine’ even though you know no one would care less. Surprisingly a hand grabbed your wrist and pulled you up to your feet.

“Thanks,” you said, patting the dust off your spider suit. You looked at the scenery around you.

And holy shit you could not believe your eyes at what you are looking at right now. Buildings were everywhere and each building had a bridge attached and led to another building. There were multiple pillars sticking out and attached on each building. That did not amazed you though, it was the massive fucking spiderpeople lounging at the area you are right now.

Not even a hundred were here. It might be thousands of different spider people and you’re one of them. You stared, still in shock at how much spider people are with you here. Taking a hold of Gwen, you gripped both of her shoulders and shook her.

“This is amazing…” you grinned at her, she mirrored yours.

Suddenly, you felt like you were forgetting someone.

Realization hits you, with high alert you asked Gwen, “Where’s Doc Ock?”

“I took care of him,” she placed a hand on your shoulder, giving you a reassuring look.

“Ok,” you took a relaxed exhale, “Well what you showed me was super amazing—very fucking cool—now I want to join—well if that is fine, it looks like y’all won’t be having understaffing for a long time though.”

“Oh—dang, then you should meet Mi—”

“Ooo who’s the newbie here Gwen?”

A distinct voice captured your attention, looking at your back you saw two spider people walking towards you and Gwen.

Pavitr Prabhakar and Hobie Browe were their names given to you in exchange for your Spider name. They were fun to be with, Hobie and Pavitr's shenanigans immediately started right after they met you. You met other spider people, them greeting you back gave you a tingling feeling inside you—maybe it's the fact that they are cool and decided to notice you.

Not for too long Pav said his goodbyes and went back to his Earth while Hobie tagged along when Gwen is guiding you to this ‘Miguel O’Hara’ person. She told you that he was the founder of Spider Society and may or may not have severe anger issues.

“The guy has FANGS?” you looked at Gwen with disbelief.

“Yup, heard that it paralyzes anyone he bites with it—with venom I suppose—obviously.”

She then turns at you, “Alright, we’ll be entering his office. I just hope he isn’t pissed off.”

“He is alway pissed, what do you mean?” Hobie interjected.

“You guys are scaring me—should I like—give him something so he won’t do…?” you wiggled your fingers, hoping they understand what you mean. Hobie just snorts, Gwen shakes her head and takes a grab of your wrists and pulls you with her.

“No, no need.”

The three of you entered a blue dimmed room. Hobie sat on one of the metal seats, watching the scene slowly unfold in front of him. There was a floating platform just above you and Gwen, both of you stood still. If you squint just a little there are yellow-orange colored monitors, cool, you thought, your world’s technology was below this Nueva York’s tech. There on the platform was a man’s back, broad shoulders and messy hair.

You are a patient person, but the platform was painfully slow.

Finally, the platform reached the floor, he did not turn around or anything but continued working on his devices.

“So this is the spider person you are talking about, Gwen?” he spoke with a husky voice. His attention was still on the screens, dragging his fingers on them as he spoke with Gwen.

“Yeah, they’re from Earth-14215. When I came there, they already took care of the anomaly.”

With a blink he was already in front of you, his body looming over you like a vulture. If you were not intimidated by him, you would admire the structure of his face—everything about him. 

His eyes rounded on you, inspecting you like you were prey. There was something bugging you, he felt…something that you could not comprehend.

His intense stare at you made you feel like you needed to remove your mask, so you did. Your hair looked perfectly fine even though you wore a tight mask. Looking at him with a toothy grin, “Hi, nice to meet you.”

At a moment you saw a glimpse of Miguel’s face in shock before turning his back at you. Did you scare him? Or maybe disappoint him? You sure hope not. You watched him walking back to his monitor, he called for someone named Lyla, in which in response a yellow woman appeared in thin air. He spoke to her, though you could not hear them talking.

Not knowing what to do, you turned to Gwen in which she just shrugged—not expecting the lack of emotion from Miguel. You walked towards Hobie and sat next to him, still amazed at him and all of those inconsistent art he has, he did tell you he does not believe in consistency.

You and Hobie started talking to each other, Gwen butting in afterwards. Hobie started talking about the consequence of industrial revolution, him not liking the prime minister—whom you do not know, another consequence about capitalism and it went on and on.

“Hey,” Miguel called, the three of you looking at him at the same time, “No—no the new one.”

You stood up and walked towards him, he tossed you something. You caught it, it looks like a watch of some sorts, similar to Gwen and Hobie and the other spider people have.

“That’s a goober—”

“A gizmo.” Lyla interrupted

“Whatever,” he tries to shoo the AI away from him but Lyla glitches to another place away from him, “that gadget gives you the ability to jump to a different universe. That’s it, I’ll give you instructions for your first mission…Welcome to the club.” he stared at you for a while, a kind of longing feeling from him vibed out you just shrugged it.

“Thanks!...Boss?”

He shook his head, then walked away from you, “Don’t call me that, it’s weird.”

“Huh, alright then. I’ll call you Miguel if that is fine with you.”

He did not respond.

Not bothered by his lack of response, you ran back to Gwen and Hobie, waving the ‘goober’ in your hand. Gwen smiled whilst Hobie greeted you ‘welcome to the spidey club’, it was never really your intention to join but it seems that you got in.

You’ll wait for the first mission Miguel will send you.

[barbarianprncess]

annabeth chase and her many losing dogs: an (incomplete) anthology

read on ao3

or

chapter one: a (brief) introduction to the game and it's players

She gives Cerberus her red rubber ball.

Because he’s a monster, but she doesn’t think he means to be.

Because he’s a lonely dog and she is lonely the same way. The kind that doesn’t know how lonely it is until a person shows up and reminds them. The kind that wishes to just be left in loneliness long enough for companionship to be forgotten altogether.

The ball will make him happy. He will destroy it within minutes, it will disappear after he does nothing but be himself.

(She does that sometimes too.)

First Round: Frederick Chase

Bet Type: Blind Faith; awarded via mass tradition.

Made with no experience. 

Trust given without the knowledge that trust must be earned. 

Annabeth is four years old and hungry. 

She hasn’t eaten since dinner last night. 

Dad is playing with his planes again. The fancy small piece ones that Annabeth is not allowed to touch, ‘not now, not ever.’ She’s not supposed to bother Dad when he plays with his planes. 

Plane time is Dad’s very special ‘by himself’ time. He’d explained a while ago that he has lots of very hard work to do, and then he has to take care of her which is even more lots of hard work,  and sometimes he needs his special ‘by himself’ time, because Annabeth is a big girl now who can read her books and not touch the sockets. 

(She wonders why he doesn’t do his special ‘by himself’ time when she’s taking her naps. That way they could have their together time when she’s awake.)

This would be fine, but she just ate the last of her super secret dad-is-in-his-study snack stash that she hides under her bed last week. 

She wants to go in and ask, but the last time she’d interrupted him, even though he smiled at her, his eyebrows got all scrunched up together. He was not happy to see her.

(Sometimes, she wonders if he ever is.)

Annabeth is really very hungry.

There are bananas on top of the fridge.

Annabeth creates a plan. 

The plan goes south almost immediately and she ends up dangling from the top of the white mountain with glass and bananas all over the ground. 

“Christ! Annabeth!” She is being yanked from her very small cliff and carried into the living room and Dad’s voice is very loud and his face is more than scrunched eyebrows and Annabeth is ashamed.

“What were you doing?”

“I was climbing on top of the fridge. I knocked over a vase.” 

That was the wrong answer because somehow his face gets even angrier. “Yes, I can see that. What were you thinking?”

“I wanted a banana. They were on top of the fridge.” 

He pinches his nose. That wasn’t the right answer either. “You just had breakfast.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You had the fruit circles.”

“That was yesterday.”

He hesitates. “Okay, well you did wake up late, you couldn’t have waited until it was time to eat lunch?”

The clock on the microwave says 4:13 pm. “It is lunch.” 

He looks at the clock. Closes his eyes. When he opens them, he still looks angry but not at her. His voice is much quieter. “Why didn’t you come get me?”

“Last time you got sad. You were in a groove, you said unless it was an emergency not to come in. I thought I could reach it.”

She watches his face change. His eyebrows are still scrunched up but his eyes get gentler and sadder all at once. He sits down on the couch and lifts her up into his lap. It’s been so long, she sits on his knees like he’s a chair. He turns her around in his arms. 

“You’re such a quiet kid, Annabeth. Sometimes I forget you're here.”

She doesn’t think he said it to make her sad, but it does anyway. Which is irritating because she didn’t do anything wrong and she feels bad anyway. 

“I was a quiet kid too.”

She doesn’t want to be quiet. She wants to scream. She wants to cry. She wants to hit him. She wants—

“I’m gonna clean up the glass and then we’ll have mac and cheese.”

She nods and lets herself be sat back on the couch.

Second Round: Ms. Helen (from Dad’s work)

Bet Type: Good Faith; awarded via proxy.

Made with no experience. 

Trust given without the knowledge that trust must be earned. 

The first time her father forgets to pick her up from daycare, she is too young to remember. She was also too young to remember the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th times. 

She remembers the sixth.

Ms. Helen, dad’s work friend that has come to dinner  every wednesday for four weeks, shows up at school wearing black yoga pants and a messy-on-purpose bun.

(The kind that always looks strange in the bathroom mirror when she tries it on her curls in the morning before they leave.)

She smiles at her teacher, tight and pinchy. She does that laugh/talk/sigh thing adults do when the words they're saying don’t really matter. And before Annabeth knows it, she's staring at the backseat of a minivan.

“What’s that?”

Ms. Helen raises an eyebrow. “The car seat?”

Annabeth nods but looks down. She said it like it was obvious. Annabeth knows obvious things.

“Don’t you sit in one of  these to come to daycare?” 

“No.”

“You just sit in the seat?”

“Yes.”

“You're too little. It’s not safe to sit by yourself.”

Annabeth doesn’t know what she's supposed to say. This happens a lot. Adults do this thing where they ask you a question that they want a specific answer to. Annabeth has developed a skill in which she can always tell when the truth is not what an adult wants to hear. It has, so far, been a pretty useless skill because she has yet to master the skill of knowing what it is that they actually want to hear. 

(Sometimes, she figures it out and tells the truth anyway. Those times she doesn’t really mind getting in trouble after.)

“Your father must’ve put you in one of these.”

Annabeth shrugs. Her talent has deduced that Helen does not want Annabeth to say that she has never been in one of those, and figures nonverbal is the safest option because she would like to go home.

Helen crouches down and gets way up close to Annabeth's face. Her grown-up face-paint is smudged around the corner of her left eye. She smells like dish soap. 

“I borrowed this from my friend when your father called, so we have to get you your own. From now on, you don’t get in a car without one of these. Understand?”  

Annabeth nods.

Helen is looking at her with something strange and sad in her smudged up eye. She takes a deep breath.

Annabeth crawls into the backseat and waits to be tied in.

Fourth Round: Thalia Grace, Grover Underwood & Luke Castellan

Bet Type: Calculated Risk; awarded to an individual after carefully evaluated outcomes

Made after a great loss, in which perceived benefits outweigh potential detriment. 

Trust earned after a win. 

Thalia is frowning at her. 

Annabeth hasn’t been with her and Luke for that long, but she knows that this is not cause for too much concern because she’s usually frowning. 

Luke is the one with the smiles, and the cuddles, and the soft spot for the helpless strays—dogs and girls alike.

Thalia is the one with the frowns. 

(Annabeth can tell she has a soft spot for Luke though.)

Before she can muster up the courage to ask, Luke beats her to it. “What’s up with you?”

“Her hair.” Thalia has a talent where she can frown and speak at the same time. Annabeth wants to learn how to do that.

Luke smiles at her before fixing his eyes on her puff. She gets that feeling in her stomach she used to get when her teachers asked her questions about her house, like she should be hiding behind her fathers legs. 

(The last time she tried, Helen had snatched her arm and told her she was being rude.)

“Her hair.” He repeats in a way that tells both Annabeth and Thalia he has no idea what the problem is.

Thalia ignores him, and scribbles something down on his arm. “I saw a beauty supply store down the road. I need you to figure out a way to get this stuff.”

Luke frowns over her shoulder. (Uh-oh.) “That’s gonna be a bit of a stretch.”

“So stretch.”

“Thals—,”

She looks up at him and her eyes are all intense like when she’s fighting a monster. “They weren’t combing her hair. I took the hair tie off and it’s staying put. She’s only been on the run for 3 days.” Thalia looks back down at her. “Right? That’s how long you were by yourself?”

“Yes.” Annabeth nods. One of her favorite parts about being with Luke and Thalia, is that the truth is always enough.

Thalia looks back at Luke with something in her eyes that’s even softer than when Luke sleeps. “They weren’t combing her hair.”

Luke nods, a new kind of frown. The one he had when they found her. “On it.”

He winks at Annabeth and tweaks her nose which makes her laugh. Then he’s gone and it’s just the two of them. 

Annabeth and Thalia have never been alone for that long before, except for bathroom trips and when Luke gets them snacks.

Annabeth knows it wasn’t Thalia’s idea for her to join the two of them. Annabeth doesn’t think she wanted to leave her there, but she knows Thalia liked it when it was just her and Luke.

She’s looking up at the sky muttering something angry in another language. “What’s Luke going to get?” 

Thalia considers her for a moment and then sits down leaning against the brick alleyway. “Some hair stuff. Basics.”

“I thought we only took risks for food.”

Thalia smiles a little and it makes Annabeth's chest feel fuzzy. 

“You’re a smart kid.” She pats the ground next to her and Annabeth goes to sit next to her. 

“My mother…had a bad time. Things that aren’t supposed to be hard for mortals were very hard for her. And sometimes that made her not very nice to me.” She pauses and Annabeth waits patiently, doesn’t dare speak a word.

“She couldn’t really take care of herself. So, she couldn’t really take care of me either. My hair is curly like yours. And hair like ours needs special attention. When you don’t give it the care it needs, it gets stuck like this.” She takes Annabeth's hand and brings it up to her head, lets her tug on one strand gently. 

“I like your hair a lot!”

“Thank you. I do too. But, it wasn’t my choice. My mother let my hair loc up so she didn’t have to comb it every day. You should get to decide whether you want your hair like this. Did you ask to have your hair up in a bun for that long?”

Annabeth could tell her how her Dad used to braid her hair on Sunday nights. How they would sit and listen to music and he would spray and comb and braid until she fell asleep on his leg. How when he and Helen got married, he suddenly had no time to do anything that Helen could do instead. How her slick, shiny, and smooth haired stepmother would wrinkle down at her curls, yank a brush through her head and tell her she was ‘impossible’. 

But, she doesn’t. She looks down at her shoes and doesn’t say anything at all.

Thalia, even smaller than before, says, “Your parents weren’t very nice to you either. Were they?”

She doesn’t answer. 

She doesn’t have to. 

‘You’re such a quiet kid, Annabeth.’ 

(When Luke gets back, he and Thalia spend three hours spraying and combing and braiding until Annabeths hair isn’t stuck anymore.)

(In a few months, a satyr named Grover will take them to camp. 

Thalia will not make it across the border.)

(Annabeth will refuse to let anyone touch her hair for a year.)

Final Round: Perseus Jackson

Bet Type: Wild Card; awarded to an individual that fails to qualify through conventional procedure.

Made with gut feelings, no logic, and excruciating human defiance. 

Trust is given without measure.

Annabeth's first thought when she sees him for the first time is, “He must be the one.”  

She’s sure of it. She says it out loud. Chiron tells her to hush, and she doesn’t even care. 

He's the one. 

She's not sure how she knows. She's waited for so long, seen so many campers. Many were far more promising than he is.

That's her second thought. He's skinnier than she thought ‘the one’ would be. Skinny and pale and more gangly limb than person.  

He’s blinking up towards them but his eyes are unfocused and hazy. That's her third thought. He's fading. They’ll have to carry him. 

‘Percy’ Chiron calls him. It’s a hero’s name. 

She wonders if whoever gave it to him knew he’d be the one too.

‘He’s the one.’, she thinks again. It feels strange and tingly in her head. 

Strange, but not false. 

Hello, Percy Jackson. It's nice to finally meet you.

[system-to-the-madness]

Cherry Blossom Break-Ups 🌸 Dazai Osamu x Reader

Pairing: Dazai Osamu x fem!Reader Genre: hurt/comfort Word Count: 1 457 Warnings: mentions of alcohol, talk of breaking up, mentions of wounds and blood (symbolically) Summary: Dazai only met with you to break up with you, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

Sakura Festival Masterlist - Masterlist

The air was tense. Not just from the impending thunderstorm that was brewing over your heads as you were sitting with your backs against the stem of a blooming cherry tree, shoulders almost touching, but also from the words you knew Dazai was holding back on. You had known today would come, and when he had asked you to meet out here, under that lone cherry tree with the view over the bay, you knew that this was it.

Really, maybe it was best this way.

Or at least that's what you kept telling yourself. Dazai had somehow seemed to have grown sadder in the past months, and you knew the time in which your presence brought him the comfort to keep the memories of the past at bay way over. Maybe he had grown used to you, the same way people started to grow used to the effect of alcohol, but with you there was no increase in the dosage.

This triggered the unwelcome thought that maybe he had only ever been with you because you made him feel better. Maybe your relationship had never been more than a bandage to wrap the wounds of his past. And now that the bandage was blood-soaked, it had gotten useless, and he was about to discard it. If your relationship really had never been more than that, then it would be better to end it.

But you didn't want him to end it!

You knew you should respect yourself more than that, but you knew it would break your heart. It had been foolish at best, stupid at worst, to allow him to pull you into this whirlwind of an affair. An affair that all too soon had turned serious enough to be a relationship, and him introducing you has his lover had only sealed that deal. And your stupid, little heart had fallen for those soft brown curls, those dark eyes that held both such joy and such pain. You should have held tighter onto your heart, but it had taken off, settling straight into Dazai's palm where it now patiently waited to be crushed.

At your side he suddenly groaned and stretched his arms over his head, his coat sleeves falling down to his elbows revealing his bandage-wrapped forearms. You had never seen him without those bandages. Part of you wondered if you should have asked him to take them off at some point, just to give him the feeling you wanted to reach deep into his heart. But you never had, out of respect for his boundaries.

"Just do it alread," you whispered, unable to take the silence any longer.

"I can't," Dazai replied, placing his hands down in his lap. "I really thought I could but… I can't." He kept his eyes trained on the horizon, blue, storm riddled waves meeting dark grey clouds. "I don't want to."

"You've drawn completely away from me, Osamu. You don't even hold me anymore at night and when you kiss me, it feels like you only do it as a chore, not because you want to. You brought us here to break up with me, so just do it."

Lightning cracked through the sky, followed by the deep rumbling of thunder. He still didn't meet your eyes.

"'s not a chore," he disagreed, but his voice barely carried over the wind. "you're right, I came here to break up with you but- I don't want to lose you. I… any relationship I've ever been in has been for no other purpose but my entertainment. I'm not prideful enough to deny that. But then I met you and I thought it would be just like that again. Another girl to share my meals with, to keep me warm at night. Yet it wasn't. And it scared me. Still does. And I thought I'd want to end it. But the more I think about it, the less I want to."

His voice carried over the wind picking up, tucking cherry petals from the trees and through the air like snow flakes. Another lightning flickered across the sky.

"I need you to understand the difference here. I can imagine what it would be like without you. It's not like I'm solemnly dependant on you, and I know you aren't on me. But I don't want to imagine it. I don't want to live without you anymore. But it's taken me to bring you out here to break up with you, to really understand that."

You turned you head away, unable to look at his averted eyes any longer. His words were brutally honest, cut small wounds into your heart, but you had a feeling they were the kinds of wounds you needed to heal. From the corner of your eyes you saw Dazai turn to you, but you refused to look at him.

"If you want to end things here, I understand. I'll even do you the favour of being the one to end things if that's what you need me to do. And I will do it, even though I don't want to."

You slightly shook your head. "I don't want you to, but Osamu-" turning to him, you momentarily forgot what you had wanted to say when you saw the emotions flickering in his eyes. Love, hope, sadness, despair, determination.

"Osamu," you repeated. "I don't want this to end, I love you and I know that we're still young, so much can still change, but for now I want to be with you. But we can't go on like we have in the past months! I can't constantly doubt your affections for me, whether my touch doesn't actually disgust you, whether I can hold a man like you. Every morning for the past few months I've woken up, thinking I had to be perfect, perfect clothes, perfect make up, perfect hair, perfect work just to earn my stay at your side-"

"My love," Dazai shook his head. "Why didn't you tell me you felt like this? It's true, I wasn't sure what I felt, but now I know. Now I know for sure. And I made my decision. I want to fight for you, for us. I want to be with you. Your touch," he took your hand in his. Your skin was cool from the spring storm stripping away the warmth from your hands, but his were warm and familiar. Lifting your hand up to his face, he nuzzled his cheek into your palm. "Your touch could never disgust me. It has never brought anything but comfort and an unrivalled feeling of safety. And it confused me because I've never known anything like that before. But I love you just like I love your touch and I'm no longer afraid to show or tell so. And I'm no longer afraid to feel so. I love you the way you are. The way you wake up in the morning, no make-up, no fancy clothes. I don't want a mask you put on; I want your authentic self. I want the weird ideas you sometimes get. I want the pranks you pull on me and Kunikida. I want your fears and your worries and all the emotions you consider bad and think you shouldn't feel. I want all of that just as I want your love, your joy, your laugh, your happiness. I want all of you… and that's quite selfish."

Slowly he dropped your hand back into your lap, but as he was about to let go, you grabbed hold of his hand.

"Then be selfish," you asked. "And I'll be selfish too. Because I want all of that from you too. I don't want things to end here. Just promise me, we'll get better at being with each other."

The wind caught Dazai's hair, ripping at it mercilessly as he stared at you with wide, brown eyes as if he was unable to believe you were willing to give the two of you another chance. Finally he nodded, the smile on his lips, faint, barely there, but you knew him well enough to know how relieved he was.

"We will get better," he nodded, placing his hand at your face, and pulling you in for a kiss. Soft, sweet, lingering. A kiss like you hadn't shared in weeks.

"Promise me, Osamu," you whispered against his lips. "Promise me we'll make this work."

Pink blossoms danced through the air as another lightning lit up the sky and the first drops of rain started to fall.

"I promise," Dazai replied, pulling away from your lips only long enough to phrase his answer before he leant back in, sealing his promise with a kiss.

And he never broke his promise.

[mello-bee]

Reasons why YOU should be suspicious of O'Connor

(contains spoilers to the princess event and slight Clarence's white day event) (it's also written from the prespective of an EN only player)

I believe O'Connor is in cahoots with Cael somehow and have alot of delusional reaching - that I and @smudgedvolt come up with in our secret lbc basement - to back me up

for one, he's the art TA for the school, and while Cael isn't the only art professor in the school, he was never specified to be anyone else's assistant, for all we know he may have been handpicked by Cael himself (i told you this had alot of delusional reaching)

he also just straight up didnt graduate, which is more of an indicator that Cael may have pulled some strings to get him to work in ST. Shelter

secondly, he's the only NPC that appears everywhere at all times on the map

he's the only NPC that does this as IL are the only ones that change location once per day, and NPCS like gerald and william are usually bound to where they are everyday

so how come he's the only one who can change location multiple times per day? and specifically going where YOU are?

what if he's specifically watching you?

he also gives MC alot of assignments,

Do you think he's maybe trying to keep her busy?

In his introduction, MC describes him as something that doesn't belong

it's not like its the first time she's seen tourists or older people at ST. Shelters?

later we learn that he was the council president, before he suddenly disappeared and came back unannounced

the only other people described by Clarence to have disappeared are MC and Cael and you obviously know what's up with them (this actually makes Clarence's relationship with MC a bit sadder bc this means he's used to people close to him like O'Connor suddenly disappearing without an explaination and this could be why he documented everything in his notebook)

and even if he didn't mean "fled" as in "disappeared", fled is still a strange choice of words, was he running away from something? someone?

he also seemed to know that she's missing points; he explains that, of course he knows as he was an art student as well, but would he be able to guess that she's behind all the other art students bc she missed a few activities?

unless he knew of her travelling to godheim at he start of the year

next is the list he made during princess event, i haven't played princess event myself though so forgive me if any of this is explained at some point but

he just??? made a list of all the paragons?? + william and two other guys??? lars ISN'T EVEN A STUDENT why on earth would he put him there??

after Heinrich's death, Clarence visited the lab to find it empty

Clarence ruled out Cael because he also disappeared, although Cael has freaky time travelling powers but we cant rule out the possibility of someone else helping him

O'Connor is the only NPC with a card higher than R

i can't be the only one who finds it weird that Some Weird Art Guy™ just has an SR while lore important NPCS like Amelia and Naledi's counterparts are stuck as Rs and Ns?

I was gonna talk about this scene and the "mysterious seller"

but it all got thrown out of the window, it turns out Cael was behind the account :(

although I can technically use this along with other points to point out how william is even MORE suspicious than O'Connor but thats a post for another day

[glittercake]

HIKING | AVIAN TELEPATHY | T | nwa | 900w | bird powers and shenanigans.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” Bucky says. 

They’re flat on their backs and snug in their sleeping bags. The fire crackles beside them and soft music plays from the tent. They’ve been quiet for a while, gazing up at all the bright stars in the night sky. Bucky slips his fingers between Sam’s and rolls his head to the side to look at him. 

Sam smiles, looks at Bucky too. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. No one ever has.” 

“Try me, honey,” Bucky says, squeezing Sam’s hand. At this point—and he’ll never admit it out loud—but he’s so far gone on this guy Sam could tell him the sky is green and the ocean’s made of glass and Bucky would say, ‘Yeah, sweetheart, it sure is.’

Sam still gives him a questioning look, considers it, and seems to decide against it multiple times before he finally sighs and looks at the heavens again. “Alright. What the hell, right?” He takes a deep breath, quickly looks at Bucky again, then says, “I can hear birds.” 

Bucky frowns. “Yeah, we’d be planning a trip to the ENT if you couldn’t, dollface.” 

“Nah. I mean, I can understand them. I know what they’re saying,” Sam says, staring straight ahead, face pulled in an apprehensive grimace. 

Bucky nudges Sam. “Alright, Wilson, if you didn’t wanna do pillow talk with me, you could have just said so.” 

“See.” Sam says. “Told you no one ever believes me.”

Bucky looks at Sam. He’s sort of smiling, but his voice isn’t teasing. He doesn’t have that mischievous glint in his eyes like when he calls Bucky a sugar daddy whenever he pays for lunch. This can’t be real, though? Right? Sam doesn’t have superpowers. Bucky would have known if Sam had superpowers. What the hell.

“You gotta be fucking with me right now.”

“I’m not.”

Bucky pushes up on his elbows and Sam looks at him, nothing but earnest.

“You understand birds? Since when?” 

Sam laughs. “Another unbelievable story—the night Riley died.” 

“Jesus Christ.” 

“I remember a flock nearby when he went down. Just passing through. I remember how they scattered with the impact. I was dropping too, trying to dive after him, but couldn’t see through the smoke. RPGs were still firing.” He looks at Bucky and smiles, a little sadder than before. “Somehow, I got to the ground safely. Someone told me when and where to land. Could only have been them.” 

It makes so much sense now that Bucky thinks about it. The way Sam owns the skies, the way he’s always right at home there. He knows every turn, every jump, every landing place before it happens as if he’s being guided, and Bucky guesses he has been. The birds have got his back up there, same way Bucky has it down here.

“They saved your life.” 

“Yeah. Couple of times since then, too.” Sam looks fond now, points upward to an owl in the treetops. “Those guys are shit talkers, though. Don’t believe anything they say.” 

Bucky snorts. He leans closer to Sam’s ear and kisses the lobe. Nuzzles his nose along Sam’s jaw. “Yeah? What’s he saying?”

“Says there’s a bear coming,” Sam huffs.

Bucky jerks away, heart beating rocketing, his arm gears whirring up a storm. “He said what?” 

Sam waves airily at the fat owl perched on a branch above them. “They love drama, Buck. It’s nothing.” 

Bucky’s more than a little panicked. He doesn’t exactly have spidey sense like Parker, but he knows danger when it’s nearby. 

“Uh. How sure are you?” 

“Come on.”

A stick cracks a few meters into the woods and the placid, nonchalant look on Sam’s face flips into sudden alarm. 

“Scale of one to ten, Sam!”

Sam looks up, glares at the owl. “Are you serious?” 

“What’s he saying?” Bucky starts just as a growl resounds their way.

“Yep, he’s serious! Alright get up! Up!” 

“Oh my god!” 

Sam drags Bucky up and toward the tent, tosses their left-over food away and zips the opening shut once they’re inside.

“Shit talkers, huh?” Bucky sneers. 

“Shh!” Sam says, practically in Bucky’s lap—which is not something Bucky’s complaining about at all but there’s a fucking bear in their campsite. 

“I can take a bear,” Bucky says, holding onto Sam as they watch an ominous shadow move about outside. Twigs and leaves crunch around them and sniffing sounds get closer and closer. 

“Shut up, Bucky.” 

“I can.” 

“You can’t take a bear!” Sam hisses and plasters his hand over Bucky’s mouth. “Now hush!”

Bucky resigns, but he’s already got a plan of action. 

Sam raises an eyebrow at him though, because he knows Bucky well enough by now to know he’ll still try to fight a bear. “We’re gonna wait it out is what we’re gonna do.”

“Hm,” Bucky shifts closer to Sam as the bear’s shadow recedes and the sniffing sounds become fainter. He slips his arm around Sam’s middle and kisses the back of his neck, then whispers, “I know of a few things two fellas can do while waiting out a bear in the woods.” 

Sam gives him an incredulous look that he probably deserves for trying his luck like at a time like this. Wasn’t the first attempt won’t be the last either. “Maybe when we ain’t about to get mauled, huh?”

“Well, what’s your friend up there saying? He gone?” 

Sam sighs. “Yeah. Says the bear’s by the river now.” 

Another twig snaps beside them. They jump and grip each other tight, cussing in panicked whispers.

“By the river, huh?!” Bucky sneers.

Sam shrugs. “Told you they’re shit talkers.”

To be continued in ‘Stuck in a tent’…

[stevengrant-enthusiast]

Drunken Confessions

note: Hello!1 I'm having brain rot and currently procrastinating on my research paper. and instead, I wrote this. This is the first fic I've ever written, so please be kind! Please excuse any grammatical mistakes (I wrote this at 2 am). I don't know if anyone will actually read the shit that I post here, but I'm just gonna use this blog as a creative outlet. Love ya'll and enjoy

SUMMARY: You are sad because of Jake Lockley. You are drunk. You tell him that you are sad in your drunk state. That's it.

Pairing: Jake Lockley x gn!Reader (Marc and Steven mentioned)

Rating: fluff! and angst?? Kissing. idk

Warnings: ***I DO NOT HAVE DID** Unrealistic depiction of DID. If I wrote something that is offense, please let me know and I'll fix it ASAP. mentions of alcohol. Established relationship. No use of y/n.

Word Count:900

♥ ♥ ♥

Drinking when sad is never a good idea. But when your friends drag you along their bar hopping adventures on a Saturday in London, you already knew that getting pissed drunk was inevitable even before the night began. 

Your shit attitude tonight didn’t arise from the fact that you were late to your work today or because your boss chewed you out for a mistake your co-worker made on a report, but rather something- or someone- else. Jake Lockley. 

It’s so stupid. You know Jake. He’s a night owl and your schedules don’t really match up. He didn’t mean for it to happen but you guys have just been out of sync lately. And before he knew it, it had almost been 2 weeks since you last saw each other. But as the days went on, you couldn’t help but feel that a piece of you was missing- like a black and empty void growing bigger and bigger everyday. 

You guessed that tonight (plus the alcohol) was the final straw, the tipping moment that sent you into a dizzy nightmare of paranoia. Or more realistically, your sobriety had left you along with your rationale and critical thinking skills, because by the end of the night, you had fallen into the deep conspiracy that Jake was avoiding you. He didn’t love you anymore and never wanted to see you again. 

And before you could clear your head of this catastrophe of a thought, you were at their doorstep. Still drunk and wobbly. 

Slowly, you give three knocks on the door and it opens almost immediately- it’s Jake. You figure (even in your drunken state) from his hat and tie that he is on his way out for the night shift as a cab driver. It’s Saturday night, so yeah. A lot of drunk strangers are probably looking for a ride back home at this hour. 

But right now, you see him. In his white shirt. A little scruff of a beard. You didn’t mean to cry, but you couldn’t help the tears that fell fervently at the beautiful sight of him. 

“Mi vida?! What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”

Of course his mind would go to that. But instead of answering, you just look at him with glassy eyes and a slight frown. His eyes are blown open with concern and his brows in a furrow. His hands are readily reaching out in a desperate attempt to comfort you.

You subside the tears for a moment to gather the courage to ask him the impending question that has been bothering you for the past couple hours.

“Jake.. Where have you been? I missed you..”

His face relaxes and tilts slightly up in realization. He pulls you inside the flat by the waist and holds you close. 

“Lo siento mi alma… I’ve been so busy lately. I’ve neglected you.”

Your heart breaks silently at his words. Here’s Jake, busting his ass on his job. Dealing with annoying drunks every night and coming home at the crack of dawn. And you’re selfishly centering yourself in his problems. You look up at him with a face somehow sadder than before.

“No, no. Don’t be sorry. you didn’t do anything wrong. I- I just thought you didn’t want to see me anymore. I’m sorry.”

“That's insane mi corazón, you know that. But I'm so sorry for making you feel that way. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“It's just.. just sometimes I'm too sensitive I guess. And.. I feel like I'm not there for you when you need my support or anything else.”

You choke on your words as they come up. In an attempt to fight the tears that are on the verge of spilling, you bite your lower lip and bury your face into his chest, soaking up his white shirt.

Jake gently cups your face in his big hands and tilts it to meet your gaze. He looks at you with his puppy dog eyes that kind of remind you of Steven. But unlike Steven, his look carries a sternness behind them. It's a bittersweet look, but it tells you that he's here for you. And he is serious about you.

“No. You’re perfect for me. You don't owe me anything. And I’ve missed you too, angel. so much.”

“I care about you Jake. I wanna know what you’re up to, y’know? I wanna hear about your day..”

“I know love. I’ll come out more often I swear. I guess I didn’t want to bother when you spend time with Steven or Marc.” 

Your heart swoons at him concerning over your relationship with the other moonboys. You love them all equally so so much. 

And the truth is, of course Jake missed you. Everything about you. But for him, just seeing you through the eyes of Marc and Steven was enough. The mere sight of you gave him all the strength he needed to go on about his day. He just forgot for a second that you also need him as well. The thought makes his heart warm and he smiles. 

“I wanna spend time with you too, dumbass!” you reply.

You both start laughing and before you know it, you’re kissing him. It's a little sloppy, given your state, but it's with earnest conviction. You kiss him like he’s water and you’re dying of dehydration on a blazing desert. It’s a kiss that’s gentle yet powerful, both parties so needy but cautious. It’s crazy. You didn’t know you were capable of giving and receiving so much love before meeting these three. And you thank the stars for letting their paths cross with yours. 

To your disliking, you part from his lips. 

“When do you have to leave?” you ask.

He checks his phone for the time.

“In thirty or forty minutes? Why?”

At his response, you crash your lips back onto his face and push him to the bedroom. 

♥ ♥ ♥

THANK YOU FOR READING. Maybe ill write a part two if I can gather the courage to write smut.. As of now, I can't do it without getting into a laughing fit all alone in my dorm, making me look like the JokerTM. (I think my roommates are worried).

[thedarkestgreys]

I don’t want you to miss me, it’s tearing me apart- fexi

a follow up to this one here! The fact that Lexi even let him cross the threshold of her moms house felt like more than Fezco could even hope for.

He was being completely honest when he told her that he hadn’t meant to disappear for so long. That night, when everything went to shit, they ain’t gotta whole lot of time to prep an exit plan with a dead body is chillin’ on the couch, you know what he’s saying?

They had fully expected the Feds to come knockin’ down their front door, only to be surprised as fuck when it was Laurie and her goon squad. In return for coverin’ the tracks of the misdeeds done at the O’Neill brothers home, they had to work off a favor for their supplier - simple enough. Fez had naively thought he and Ash would leave for two or three weeks - just enough time for everything to settle down - and then slip right back into their lives in East Highland when the work was done.

But nothin’ with Laurie was ever that easy, was it?

“She kept you in New York City for eight months?” Lexi asks incredulously as Fez finishes explainin’ what had gone on since the night he skipped town.

He rubs an anxious hand across his scar. “We was travelin’ up and down the East coast for a while, but yeah, mostly based out of New York City ma.”

Lexi’s fingers grip the edge of her moms sofa as she worries at her bottom lip with her teeth. “What exactly did she have you doing all that time?”

“Had us selling at universities mostly,” he replies, picking anxiously at a rip in his jeans. “All ‘em fancy ass ones you told me about last year? Buncha old money East coast motherfuckers attend those joints Lex, they got money to fuckin’ spare.”

Beside him, Lexi curls in on herself a little, planting her chin on her knees as she hums her acknowledgment.

“So like,” she starts, foot tapping anxiously on the couch cushion. “Why didn’t you try and reach out?”

Fezco heaves a sigh, falling back into the cushion behind him, eyes closed as he thinks about his answer. He has a lot of fuckin’ guilt attached to that one - ‘cause he knows he had avenues to do that exact thing - but the risk here outweighed the reward in his mind. If Laurie had found out he was in touch with Lexi… he don’t even wanna fuckin’ think about it.

“It didn’t feel right baby.” He finally settles on something that’s mostly the truth.

“But letting me think you were dead was fine?” Lexi snaps, the anxiety that had previously been in her voice giving way to anger. “Do you even know… did you even think about what I was fucking going through back here?”

Fez turns his head to face Lexi, her brown eyes brimming with tears. Quietly he reaches out his hand, finding hers where it’s still gripping the edge of the cushion for dear life, and wraps his fingers around hers.

“Course I fuckin’ did,” he responds hoarsly, watchin’ as a couple of tears manage to spill down Lexi’s cheeks. “Thought about you every fuckin’ day Lex, but talkin’ to you would have made it worse.”

“Made what worse?” Lexi cries, tears falling freely down her face now. “I would have been content knowing you were alive goddammit. Fezco, I would have taken missing you over thinking you were dead any day of the fucking week.”

Jesus fuckin’ Christ this conversation is somehow even harder than telling her everything that got them to this point. “Lexi. I had to put my head down and work my fuckin’ debt off to get back here, to get back to you. It woulda been harder to do if I was thinkin’ ‘bout how much I didn’t want you to miss me, but I promise that shit was tearin’ me up the whole damn time.”

Silence engulfs them then, Fezco soothing small circles over Lexi’s knuckles as she wipes furiously at her tears. It’s like a sadder, more heartbroken version of the night they watched Stand By Me. Fez doesn’t try to force a conversation, just allows Lexi to take all the time she needs to collect herself - he’s always been a patient man when it comes to the girl beside him.

Finally she clears her throat and he looks up to her. “Does showing up at my house mean you’re back? You said you didn’t know where else to go, and I have no idea what that means.”

Fez heaves a giant sigh, cause it would be hella nice if things were that fuckin’ easy. When they were told they had their leave to come back to Cali, he thought that was that, you know? Leave it up to fuckin’ Rue to screw things up for him even when she thought he was dead.

Yeah girl, I’m back. But um… things ain’t quite square with our supplier yet. New information got dumped on me while we were drivin’ back. Dropped Ash off at our new place and knew I needed to come talk to you.”

Lexi's eyes go wide and he knows he needs to continue.

“Issa ‘bout Rue.”

[murdocking]

„ᴛᴏ ꜱᴇᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ”

-a chishiya series ch4 ch6

masterlist

warnings + notes: sorry i took forever >< just mentions of alcohol and weed… idk what else tbh i made this at 3am lol bye

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪᴠᴇ

- THREE OF CLUBS

you’ve been tapping the heels of your feet onto the floor for nearly 30 minutes, replaying a rhythm you are unable to remember. to others, it just plays off as though you’re enjoying the party music that assaults your senses- but in actuality, you’re arguing with it. though you try, you cannot combat the obnoxious noise that shakes through your body.

“hey” his slightly raspy voice makes you jump, but chishiya seems as though he was aiming for that reaction.

“dont sneak up on me like that…” you’re holding your hand to your heart while he smirks, sitting on the beach chair beside you in front of the pool

“it was a perfect moment. what are you doing here? shouldn’t you be sleeping?” hes right, its still dark outside- and you’re not exactly thriving in the club areas. you’re not exactly sure why you’re not in your room either, or possibly exploring the resort.

“i just wanted to not be alone i suppose”. it seems sadder than it is, but you like the feeling of being alone, not being lonely. and if sitting by rabid beach members alleviates that loneliness- then you’ll welcome it gladly.

chishiya plays it off like he understands, but he honestly doesn’t. he thrives off of his own self, and he rarely can tolerate being around more than 3 people at once, let alone a crowd. to him, he has no benefit from being around others- especially if they’re overbearing like the majority of those in the beach. it just simply isnt his scene.

“if you say so.”

neither of you speak, simply sitting there beside each other as the wind blows tougher, and you can sense chishiya has ran back to the comfort of his own mind. its odd, he seems to always be in thought- but youre too freshly involved to get to ask him what it is he’s debating inside.

chishiya knows he’s ethically wrong for this, he took an oath to do no evil, yet here he was- sitting beside you as though he is your friend while mapping out an idea that will most likely get you killed for his own benefits. and he thinks he’ll start to take advantage of the things you’re opening up to him about. it doesn’t make him feel too good, but he stands up and looks at you before speaking

“come with me.”

chishiya leads you up a wounding tower of stairs, and you secretly wonder if he decided not to use the elevator just to make fun of you losing your breath over climbing up multiple stories. eventually, you hit the top of the stairs, and he forces open a metal door, leading straight to the roof.

“oh wow!” you’re impressed. the view from the roof is beautiful, and the people downstairs seem so small and little. from here, you can see the greenery attacking the city- and somehow it is comforting.

however, you get the feeling chishiya hasn’t led you up here to show off the new world to you. the air is tenser than before, and uncertainty runs deep inside of you.

he notices the atmosphere as well, and moves a bit closer to you to whisper, as though the people on the ground can hear his words.

“hatter will want to see what you’re capable of soon. i know your visa has days left, but he needs to know what you can bring to the table.”

“i didn’t know i needed to audition for some guy. and we had a game together, can’t you just vouch for me?” you’d rather not get thrown into another murderous game so quickly- you have only had such little time to recover mentally, and now you had to join another potential bloodbath? you don’t bother to look at chishiya, you’re already becoming absorbed by the mass possibilities of what this future game will present you with. he just observes you, noticing how you begin to bite on the inside of your cheek and cracking your knuckles in front of you.

the actions bother him, your anxious mood making him furrow his brows and gnaw on his lip, and after a long silence- chishiya betrays his own self by replying to you

“i’ll find a way to get us together when the day comes.” though the sentence is short, and the blonde immediately begins to walk away after speaking, you know in your own way that chishiya wants to give you his support.

the days leading up until your next game go by fast, and chishiya notices how uncharacteristic he begins to behave. he actively searches for you throughout the day, and with every small moment you learn more about him.

he tells you about how he mainly practices in a pediatric hospital, but strays from the conversation of his own younger memories. finding that you have a unique interest in reading, you both begin to venture for books within the conference rooms of the resort. you admit that your confidant helps you with the budding anxiety of the inevitable game- and you’ve been able to branch out to others as well. kuina has been a common late-night partner of yours, with her it feels as though you are meeting a friend in the true world. your conversations are light and airy, but you both connect on an emotional level as well with ease.

kuina has helped you to meet others as well- like the boy with the cap you saw in your last game, who’s name you’ve learned is tatta. with him, he seems to follow more of ann’s directions- you can’t blame him, she’s probably one of the least intimidating executives the beach has.

you can hear the horns and yelling downstairs, and you recognize it as the time for the late night games. soon after, there’s a knocking on your door. you don’t have to think about who it is, and you only pray that he managed to get you both in the hellsent game together.

when you open your door, chishiya’s face is unreadable. he observes you from under his white hood, zipper head grazing his lower sternum- and is that eyeliner…?

he just nods his head as a greeting, giving a low wave you as you mumble a “hi” and close the door behind you. you hid the bottom of your swimsuit with the sweatpants you had worn before, and an athletic jacket ontop. chishiya doesn’t wait for you, and starts to walk towards the elevator on your floor- speaking without bothering to look at you.

“i tried my best, tatta will be joining us.”

this is all he says to you, he doesn’t even reply to your thanks, simply staring forward at the elevator doors. you get a sense of deja vu from the experience.

if you thought the silence from your room to the lobby was killer, the ride to the game itself made you claustrophobic.

you could feel the alcoholism from the man sitting in the passenger seat, emanating from his breath and marinating into the roughened seats of the car. his loud guffaws while he told some falsified story of his previous games to the stoned girl that sat beside you in the backseat who simply egged on his already high ego. chishiya sits on your right side, but stares out the car window with his music playing- and tatta drives the car stiffly. you can read the nervousness in his eyes when he looks into the rear mirror and sees your face before quickly paying attention to the road once more.

you’re rather uncomfortable, shuffling more towards chishiya once the girl next to you begins to start talking with her hands- and making obscene motions. chishiya practically hugs the car door so you dont touch his shoulder, and you try your best not to. the air is stifling, and you just resort to closing your eyes while shaking your leg to try and calm yourself. you can faintly hear chishiya’s music that he’s been blasting in his ears, and try to focus on that instead of the drunk dude in the front talking about how he screwed some chick a day ago.

secretly, chishiya notices this- he sees how your leg starts to bounce to the rhythm of his old music, and your breaths have gone into harmony with his own. he simply just raises the volume more, ignoring the slight discomfort he begins to experience from the loudness.

when you arrive, the game arena simply seems like a recording studio. its when you grab a phone the counter, that you notice something is different. the phones are protected in casing- and the individual mic room has metal flooring and rusted metal walls. tatta stands beside you, following your line of sight and also seeing the thick metal hinges on the bottom of the other room, unlike the red carpet of the studio where you are directed into.

there are buttons and microphones lodged into the silver counter in the studio, a mesh cover sits over a thick, soundproof, glass window into the other room, joined by a thick metal door on the left.

the girl speaks, her hair moving upwards as she begins to clip it up. “is this going to be some sort of skill game? we doing karaoke here or something?” she laughs, and the drunken man shakes his head- quickly sobering up as compared to his behavior in the vehicle not too long ago.

“something’s up, that door is too thick for something as trivial as that.” he’s right, the door is to protect those in the room- or maybe , hold whatever is in the other room back.

GAME REGISTRATION CLOSED! THERE ARE FIVE PLAYERS, THE GAME WILL NOW BEGIN.

you can hardly pay attention, because the tiny arena begins to creek loudly- and as the feminine robotic voice continues her spoken instructions, you lift your head up to view the studio.

the recording room’s metal floor has begun to open up, and water rises to meet the hinges of the flooring. there is no light, just dark water in the opening of the floor.

DIFFICULTY: 3 OF CLUBS!

RULES: FIND THE CODES AND INPUT THEM INTO THE CORRECT ORDER. THE SET WILL BE FOUND UNDERWATER, AND THE ORDER IS WITHIN THE CONTROL STUDIO. YOU HAVE TWO CHANCES TO PUT THE CORRECT CODE ORDER IN. AT LEAST TWO PEOPLE MUST BE IN EACH ROOM AT ALL TIMES. AFTER 30 MINUTES, IF NEITHER ATTEMPT IS CORRECT, IT WILL BE A GAME OVER AND BOTH ROOMS WILL BE GASSED.

30 minutes to move in the dark? were these codes supposed to be divine messages from some guardian angel ?

chishiya wastes no time, quickly moving a swivel chair as the phones begin to count down from 5 minutes- 5minutes to decide who will be in each room.

he begins searching the room like a maniac- even though tatta shyly calls his name.

“chishiya… we need to uhm, figure out how this is going to work.” he simply lets out a gruff “uhuh” while tossing some old vinyls in a box to the floor.

“well nice to know youre helpful! now i’m not that great at swimming- i grew up on the countryside so i dont think im the best bet for this. how about you eh?” the drunk man nudges the younger lady- her eyes dizzy with a reply to his taller stature.

“well… i did middle school swim club … but that was before i moved away-“ he wastes no time, grabbing her wrist and forcefully dragging her towards the metal door despite her protests. “then you’re perfect for the job! who else?!” he scans the room, landing his gaze on you. “can you swim?”

theres about 2 minutes left on the countdown and you resist letting out a laugh in his face. “so are you determining people’s roles now? it seems like you’re just trying to deflect having a role in this altogether.” you say, avoiding answering his question.

he seems ticked off, sneering as he walks closer to you- making you look up at him but your stare doesn’t waver. “you know what, i recall someone saying this was hatter’s game run for you…” he eyes you, looking down at your body and back at your face “so who better to fill the empty spot than you..!”

you can feel your heart drop a little, but internally- you know you should’ve expected it. chishiya eyes you from the side of the room, subtly nodding his head and you know you’ve hit a wall.

the gravity of the situation doesn’t hit until the countdown ends, and the metal door slamming against the wall and locking shut isolates you and the other girl from the three men in the other room. it is silent, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot hear those in the control room.

the girl’s arm is shaking, and you’re not exactly confident in the abilities she has to carry this game to its end.

in front of the glass window, is a table with two headsets- and you hand the girl the other one. chishiya looks at you from his seat behind the control panel, eyes behind the mesh cover of the glass window. he has pity for you.

GAME START

[humming-pokemon-helpers]

“So, Vanilla, what have you been up to? You’ve been awfully quiet lately.”

Excellent question, person I made up in my head. I’ve been watching each and every one of the Pawmark Dash to Delibird Day movies released in The Year Of The Twin Dragons 2023. There are 42 of them, which deeply unsettles me.

But unfortunately I dedicated myself to the art of cataloguing Pawmark movies when I was a much sadder and lonelier Zorperson, and I’m too stubborn to quit now. (That, and they’re a guilty pleasure; sue me.)

So, below the cut is my ratings of some of them. About 10. Not all 42, I still have some semblance of a life. I did watch all of them though, so I guess if there's any Pawmark enthusiasts who really need to know my thoughts, you can send me an ask? Or you can ask me in-person. At my New Year's party. Which is still happening tomorrow. (Psst. Here's a link if you're interested: https://discord.gg/PkmkQEVF)

1. Celebi With You: Young career businesswoman comes back to her old hometown devoted to Delibird Day and nothing else. Grandpa asks her to take over the shop. She refuses because she has a career. Local childhood-friend-man in flannel gets sad. A Celebi takes her back in time to watch her grandparents’ romance as they open the shop. She changes her mind, gets with the male lead in a very rushed side plot, everyone’s happy.

This one’s a shaky 5/10. Points for not focusing the modern romance first and foremost, but it’s so sloppily done. There's no lead-up to the kiss. And I mean, it's Pawmark. There usually isn't. But give us some level of flirtation! Grandma and gramps are cute, though. Shame grandma’s dead for no reason other than “there must be at least one dead relative in a Pawmark movie”. Also, the CGI Celebi looks TERRIBLE. Like, eye-bleedingly so. That is an onion and a few pipe cleaner legs. I know they can’t get a real Celebi, but at least get a Ditto instead!

2. A Little Holiday Maschiff: The obligatory “turn your brain off and watch cute puppies” movie. Female lead recently lost her Stoutland. Somebody leaves a box of Maschiff puppies on her step in the winter cold. She takes them to the “hunk” at the Pokémon shelter, because she’s not ready to open her heart again, but the shelter’s on the brink of being shut down. They co-pup-parent and create a Delibird Day Pokémon Pageant to fundraise and save the shelter. Get in a fight because the male lead thinks she’s actually trying to get the shelter sold. They make up. They kiss. They adopt like 3 Maschiff puppies. The end.

8/10, but not because of the plot. The “fight” they have is absolutely idiotic. No, the reason I say 8/10 is because I can understand everything those little Maschiff have to say and their commentary is worth their weight in gold. Even if 90% of it is “Am I a good boy? Can I go for a walk after this? Why am I in a box again?”. So good. 4/10 for anybody who doesn’t understand Pokémon. At least the puppies are still cute to look at.

3. Snow Warning: Short summary here because it’s so generic. F!Lead gets caught in once-in-a-lifetime blizzard on her way home. Flight cancelled. Has to share a hotel room with smarmy male lead who looks down on her job as a novelist (and is also a wildly successful businessman). The two roadtrip their way down to F!Lead’s hometown so she can go see her sick dad. Grow a begrudging respect. Eventually they kiss for some reason. Also there’s a side-plot about how the guy actually pissed off an Abomasnow and caused the whole thing, but that wasn’t really interesting. ...Somehow. How do you mess that up?

2/10. The chemistry’s off. I get going for “you hate me so bad you want to kiss me” tension, but it really just comes off like the female lead ought to sock her "date" in the face already. Instead we get a weak “Sorry I called your books stupid. I read one page of your debut novel and it’s not. Can we kiss now?”. Yawn. Also, he never apologizes for the whole Abomasnow thing, which seems like a pretty massive oversight? If we're being realistic here, that's getting held over that man's head for at least a good five years.

4. Sawsbuck’s Greetings: A movie focused around the female lead, who runs a Sawsbuck farm that’s been passed down for generations, and the male lead, who kicks puppies for a living and wants to put a golf course there. But don’t worry, he learns after she makes a deal with him that if he stays on the farm for 30 days and doesn’t see the value of it, he can buy it. Because that’s how buying real estate works. The guy actually has some traumatic history with Pokémon that the saintly female lead helps him overcome. He cuts ties with his company, moves into the Sawsbuck farm, and they have the Pawmark Kiss.

3.5/10 for me. Not even the bored Sawsbuck save this (they are so, so bored). There’s no interesting side characters anywhere! No life! Also, I will say it once again: love does not heal trauma. They try to make it seem like this man goes from erring 50 feet away from “those horrid beasts” to snuggling up with a Deerling in the early AM all thanks to a woman's love. That is not how that works. Get therapy. (I say this knowing full well I would not be as critical if it were gay. Know your biases, folks.)

5. The Chingling Ring: This is one of their “Deli-Day Wedding” movies. A sequel to last year’s “The Chingling Sing”. Female lead gets cold feet about marrying male lead. They nearly break up to all of their friends’ constant dismay. But the woman's Chimecho works with her fiance to gather 25 Chingling to show her 25 places all key to her relationship with her soon-to-be husband. Of course he’s waiting at the 25th, they kiss, make up, happy wedding, baby at the end of it.

Surprisingly, a 6.5/10. The concept is a decent one, if only they didn’t have to stick to 25 arcdamn places instead of… five? Even 12, if you’re looking for something holiday-like but smaller. Each place gets no focus at all, because of course they don’t. It’s an 80-minute movie! The gesture is really romantic though. Chingling are so so adorable. And the male lead is genuinely sympathetic throughout. Just… agh, the rush. Also, do we always need a baby at the end of the wedding ones?

6. Special Delivery: Sort of a mystery movie, on the first female lead's side. (Yes, 1/2!) She, a detective, starts receiving mysterious gifts via Delibird from a ‘secret admirer’. Determined to figure out more, she goes on a hunt through the specifics of the gifts, the places they’re ordered from, and even tracks a Delibird itself. Along the way, she keeps confiding in her best friend, the second lead, about the situation. First lead thinks it's from her coworker, but no, it's a red herring. Lo and behold, it turns out the gifts are secretly coming from... the second lead! There’s a decent coming out/confession scene, which is a compliment for a film studio where movies are produced in 5 weeks. Pawmark Kiss. End film. (Too soon.)

I promise this is not just my lesbian bias (it is), but 7/10. The two leads truly understand the power of pining. Of yearning! …The gift situation is so blatantly obvious that it very much feels like the movie spins its wheels for a while, though. I feel like they were trying to have a twist, because the male lead's pretty heavily marketed, but he also falls flat as a character other than "hey, he's there, and he probably likes you". As a result, though, I thought I was going insane for thinking the leads had chemistry for the first 50 minutes until this film fully vindicated me, something that is incredibly rare with a Pawmark movie. They’d better make a sequel. That’s up-front about its being gay, and at least halfway decent.

7. Deck The Royal Halls: What would Pawmark be without its annual foreign prince movie. This time from the made-up kingdom of “Britain”. Where are they even pulling these names from now? Bog-standard, except the two leads also have to work together to handle the King getting possessed by the legendary Calyrex along the way. Because apparently the “old family heirloom” Hometown Female Lead brings as a gift to His Highness is actually its crown. Anyways, Calyrex demands the two of them get married in the name of the kingdom. They waver on this in some royal courtship, get into a fight, and eventually agree. Happily ever after.

4.5/10: This movie is so cluttered. There’s no good justification for why the female lead is there, why her family has this ancient treasure, and why it is so absolutely crucial she marry The Prince. Calyrex’s VA is very funny during the possession scenes though. So the movie gets an extra point. Calyrex trying to give Mr. Prince Guy a confession pep talk is genuinely one of the better written comedy bits I’ve seen on the channel in a while. Shame the CGI for Calyrex is... not very good. There's no way its head is that big.

8. A Champion Chrismas: So this is what they've had Champion Leon up to since he lost his title. The Battle Tower and paying him to take part in mass-produced rom-coms. Anyways, unfortunately for the female lead, who is absolutely trying her best, this movie is entirely about Leon--or Levi, and how the self-insert (AKA, female lead) saves him from his battling slump when he comes home for the holiday season to his totally-not-Postwick small town with his totally-not-Hop little brother. (who is, actually, played by Hop Laventon. How did they get all of these people???) Anyways, the female lead shows Le-whoever the "joy of Delibird Day" again, they kiss, Le-guy wins a big championship match with his Charizard for her and shouts her out on live TV.

6/10, purely because it's fun to see how non-acting celebrities deal with acting. Also, this is 100% somebody's Leon x Reader fanfiction that got brought to Pawmark's writing room and approved without a second thought. I love that for whoever that was. (Though pretending that definitely isn't Leon and he totally isn't dating Raihan is a bit ingenuous.) Anyways, the writing sucks. The poor heroine is the epitome of a self-insert, for very obvious reasons. But I will admit, I can see why Leon has so many fangirls. He's great at playing that sort of "charming, down to earth" guy. His little brother's pretty good at acting too! Even if he really got shoved to the side for the sake of the love plot. Always seems to be the case for that poor kid...

9. Operation: Present: A movie about... Santa from the future? I think somebody saw Iron Bundle and ran away with it a bit too much. (Also, they have a real Iron Bundle there. This scares me.) Anyways, in this movie, Santa's son appears in front of a social media "influencer" with an Iron Bundle and tells her that if she doesn't convince the world Santa is real, they'll fall into a dark timeline...? I'm so lost as to who wrote this. Is this still Pawmark? I guess it's tangentially Delibird Day-related. Anyways, these two go on a... social media campaign... to spark belief in Santa. Livestreams, Chatters, anything a 60-year-old exec believes is part of social media usage, it's there. But actually, Ms. Influencer doesn't even believe in Santa herself, so they get in this big fight, until Santa's Son gets this notification that Christmas is saved or whatever. They make up. They kiss. I am so lost.

2/10, I am relatively sure this movie was made by drawing ideas out of a hat? And shoving them together? So it's a time-travel, social-media, robot-Delibird, Santa's son, romance movie? Why did they not pick an angle. Any one of those could have worked as an angle. As it is, I feel like I'm going insane even trying to describe the plot. ...And yet I feel as though I know several people this could happen to. Such is the reality of our multiverse.

10. Don't Have A Bird: Okay, they clearly used all of their ideas on the last movie. Because this one is about a woman who works at an Unfezant tip line. As in, a tip line on how to cook Unfezant at the holidays. (Which feels more like a Thanksgiving movie, but I digress!) And a man. Who is trying to cook an Unfezant. That's... the entire plot. The whole thing. Though the woman is also secretly romancing the man in real life! ...And on... the Unfezant tip line. That feels like a blatant violation of phone line policy, but what do I know! The Unfezant Guy feels betrayed by this until The Unfezant Girl brings by a perfect Unfezant, and the day is saved. Hooray.

1.5/10. Who wrote this. Who approved this. Why is it about an arcdamn Unfezant Tip Line. How far down do you have to dig for this idea. Who in the writing room called in to figure out how to unfuck their completely dry, flavorless Unfezant, and thought "You know what would be romantic?" On the bright side, absolutely none of the actors take this movie seriously, thus warranting an extra .5 points. They earned it. Nothing else did. (//Mod note. Based on a real fucking Hallmark movie.)

[creepycombo]

Nayeon analysis post

I know Nayeon was such a morally bankrupt character and is so easy to hate, but I just can't help but think there was more to her character that we just never got to see.

She really comes off as being from one of those rich families that never actually had time to care for her, and threw money at her as a way to keep her entertained rather than actually engaging with her during her upbringing.

Thus, she never learned respect, was rarely ever told no, and was subsequently incredibly lonely during most of her childhood because she lacked the self-awareness to understand that her actions and attitude were the reason she didn't have/couldn't keep friends.

Even sadder than that, she likely relies on the fact that she has money to keep people around...

Which is why she despised Gyeong su so much...

She already sees herself as being higher than Gyeong su purely because of his status, and so seeing someone she looks down on somehow be more popular than her pissed her off bigtime, because it made her look inward on herself.

She always subconsciously knew that the reason no one liked her was because of her awful personality, but could never admit it to herself because she's incapable of thinking she could ever be in the wrong or even emotionally mature enough to take the necessary steps to better herself.

So, she takes her frustrations of loneliness out on him instead...

Nayeon knows that everyone favours Gyeong su over her and it fucks her up inside. So, she gets back at him by calling him names to make him feel bad because he makes her feel bad.

When she asked the group, "Why's Gyeong su better than me?" She meant it with her full being.

[noroi1000]

Araaaaaaaaa

Thanks for including me in the event. love ❤️ u

Can I request Gojo x wife reader angst but with happy ending ? I know it is very long so u can write it when u r free , in two parts maybe

Gojo at a very young age was married to reader yn who was the clan leader of Yk a very powerful clan . She had immense cursed energy and could break gojo 's infinity and she had a third eye which she would appear on her forehead while fighting. It was like a counter to Gojo's six eyes. They were introduced to each other in their first year and Gojo really grew to love her. Btw Nanami was her platonic best friend

But when reader and Gojo were finally married they got unstoppable. The higher ups could not control Gojo not could his clan bcoz reader protected him . They were too Powerful together

So Gojo clan made a plan. In yn's meal they would put cursed medicines everyday that would harm her third eye and since the third eye was a connection to her brain it slowly slowly like a slow poison damaged yn 's memory

It also made her weak . The clan puts their final plan where they send yn to fight a curse but the slow poison reacts that her third eye starts hurting and she collapses and loses her memory even b4 fighting ( they knew that in a direct fight she would kick their ass). The curse was a yandere lover of yn name Tristian who took use of yn lost memory and told her that she is his gf and he lives with yn in another country

it has been 3 yrs and Gojo is still searching for yn. His clan forced him to marry another girl but he refused because he still loves her. She tried seducing him but he threatened her that he would kill her if she even came near. He is verydepressed .Once Shoko brings an injured girl to his house nd Gojo recognises his wife. He puts her to sleep and cuddles him. Reader feeling familiar warmth snuggles him and Gojo can't stop kissing him. But when she wakes up she can't remember him and says that she has a bf. Gojo is hurt but asks her what she knows about herself and she is blank. He asks him if Tristian ever told her about her third eye and her powers and she is confused. So she trusts Gojo and stays with him because somehow she feels a connection

Gojo would bring his students who have only heard of yn and who thought it was just a rumor , show her old memories like take her to dates at familiar places, talk about the mole on her butt and inner thighs, train her so she can regain her memory.

He would cuddle her to sleep , kiss her and comfort her when she gets unclear dreams of her memories. When the clan tried to throw her away he bashed at them telling that she is her wife and if anyone touches her he would kill them . He took her to the beach where he made her wear her very first bikini so she could remember how they played in ocean for hrs but she still couldn't remember. She had lost her extroverted self and would stay quiet, confused and weak as compared to the extroverted, strong and fierce yn. Gojo got sadder but he still wasn't going to give up

Tristian comes back with Geto to fight Yk the jjk0 war and use yn. Yn still hasn't gotten her memory back so Gojo afraid of losing her locks her in Shoko's room and goes to fight . Shoko injects her some medicine and that opens her third eye that was being controlled which made yn lose her memory. She runs to fight with the curses and they won and later runs to Gojo. Gojo could not stop crying after killing Geto but when yn comes to comfort him and calls him Toru while hugging him he is shocked and she tells him how she remembered everything. Gojo carries her in his arms and teleports to their bedroom where they spend the whole night experiencing intimacy of how much they missed each other

I'm starting to write it now.

My face when I see the number of requests in my inbox is - 🥹

It will be around 4-5k words

[did-system-did]

Long Thoughts

I feel like a ghost of who I used to be.

I thought the more effort I put into healing, processing, accepting, and integrating the less I would have to deal with the symptoms of DiD. The less I would have to worry about being different.

Somehow with age, its gotten harder. I thought it would be the opposite. I idealized a future where I could just be one, have a better memory, and retain information better. I wanted that future so badly. Maybe its still possible and I'm just prematurely discouraged, but it was so much easier B.D (before discovery).

Yeah, it was chaotic and embarrassing and all the things you can imagine from an unknowingly traumatized little girl. It was easier back then to just write off my behavior as being weird. I was just the weird, rambunctious, unpredictable little girl, pre-teen, teenager, young woman. And truthfully, I found comfort in the idea that everyone lived that way.

Leaving the emotional distress aspect out of it, I thought everyone had multiple voices and memory gaps and drastic identity changes and internal conflict with identity. So I just lived my life. I was more unstable, but I was significantly happier even through the manic/depressive episodes. It was easier to write it off as "this is just part of life!". My system worked for me.

Finding out that I'm separate from the internal family that raised me was terrifying, embarrassing, yet liberating. Terrifying because the voices I came to be familiar with weren't a norm like i thought, embarrassing because i realized the horrible, mean, weird, chaotic things i've done around people wasnt a dream but actually real life; and liberating because i spent years trying to understand the complex experience i was having and finally cracked the surface.

It was an intense discovery.

Months and a couple years later i was extremely motivated to get to the bottom of my disorder, come to terms with what happened to me, and grow as an individual. Being aware of switches was harder than being unaware, because the latter meant that those days or memories were processed as dreams or separate from reality so i have nothing to worry about. Now knowing that I'm being ripped out of my mind and body made me more erratic when it came to time and how i spent it. I wanted to prevent switches so i could live my life more.

Almost 4 years A.D, i feel... defeated. I have lived my life a certain way since childhood filled with switching, beautiful chaos, and recklessness. It was full of rambunctious people taking care of me, laughing with me, helping me with tests, saying jokes only we can hear, talking to me out loud while i wear headphones walking home from school, protecting me, and just making me feel like someone was there for me. Although it was a confusing time, i was happy. My system made me happy.

That's something i have never admit to anyone, not even my husband who is in full support and knowledge of my disorder. But growing up and until discovery, my system was one whom i, for the most part, could trust.

It's just harder now. When you're a kid theres more freedom for weird behavior, but at 24 years old i would be called crazy.

I'm not crazy, im traumatized. I'm severely torn apart and my brain led the otherwise impossible task of gluing me back together. I spent time in psych wards and crisis houses. I lived in my car and got fired from jobs. I struggle heavily because the way my brain formed itself to live isnt one that fits where i am anymore. And yet, I still need them to feel like myself.

Its painful to accept that because for so long I just wanted to be me. But I'm seeing now that its already been done. This is my brain. This isnt the type of disorder you can medicate away. My brain put itself together in this way to survive and the more i try to make my days quiet and free from my system, the sadder I've become.

This is my sign to take a different approach and be more accepting of the system who helped save my life.

It'll be hard, but i want to be happy.

[workingforitallthetime]

well this sure is 1.5K of f/f gavin/seamus, isn't it

-

“That girl was flirting with you.” Gavin flops backwards onto her bed.

“Who?” Seamus is at the mirror scrubbing a wipe along the line of her eyelid. She folds the cloth over, looking for a clean spot between streaks of the eyeshadow that made her eyes look even bigger and darker and sadder than usual.

“The lacrosse one.” Long blonde hair, longer legs. Taller than Seamus. Or Gavin.

“She wasn’t flirting with me.” Seamus tosses her makeup wipe toward the trash can. “She’s one of the ones who saran-wrapped Kienan’s moped.”

“She held your hair back at the water fountain.” In the dorm lobby, completely unprompted, as everyone filtered in from a Saturday of parties and meandered their way toward the elevators. “She was absolutely flirting with you.”

Seamus squirts toner onto a cotton pad. “You’ve held my hair back.”

“While you were puking,” Gavin protests.

Seamus gestures like Gavin’s just proved her point, but it’s not the same thing. Holding your friend’s hair back while they puke is just helping. Holding Seamus’s hair back at the water fountain — gathering up all those thick dark curls, letting your fingers brush the back of her neck— that’s flirting. Which is why Gavin’s never tried that with Seamus.

Seamus leans into the mirror, carefully blotting her face. “Just because every girl flirts with you doesn’t mean they’re flirting with me.”

Gavin doesn’t even try to argue the first half of the point. But even if Seamus doesn’t have Gavin’s brand of adorable butch magic, the kind that beguiles queers and converts straight girls, plenty of girls ought to be into the busty Irish barmaid vibe that Seamus has going. “Doesn’t mean they’re not, either.”

Seamus makes a skeptical noise and shakes a nearly empty tube of something over her palm, trying to expel the contents.

Gavin’s suddenly conscious of her own nighttime routine: considerably easier, and already completed. Teeth brushed, sports bra tossed over her chair, jeans and crop top replaced with boxers and an old t-shirt. Done.

She repositions her pillow behind her head. “Would you ever?” she asks Seamus, while Seamus is distracted with the sad empty wheeze of whatever skin care product she’s after.

Somehow it’s never occurred to her to ask. Gavin always figured Seamus would tell her if she ever had anything to say. Gavin hadn’t had any hesitation about telling Seamus, pugnaciously spitting out I’m gay while they were stickhandling in Seamus’s driveway six years ago, using Seamus’s momentary confusion to swat the puck out from under her.

Seamus suddenly gives up on the tube in her hand, tossing it into the garbage can with a clunk. She rummages through her basket and comes up with dental floss instead. “Yeaaaaah…” The syllable draws out uncertainly as Seamus pulls a length of floss out of its case. She doesn’t sound unsure about the answer. She sounds more unsure about sharing it with Gavin. “I never have.” She leans in close to the mirror and works the floss between her molars with precise movements. “I don’t think I’d know how.”

“It’s easy,” Gavin scoffs. “You’ve kissed guys, you can kiss a girl.” Although Gavin’s not 100 percent sure how far Seamus has gone with guys, even. Seamus never told her about anyone in the picture while she was at the program. And from what Gavin’s seen this year, guys don’t really seem to… stick. They’ll be around for a few weeks — a study partner, a coffee date, a string of notifs superimposed over Seamus’s lockscreen photo of her and Gavin at U18 worlds — and then gone without explanation. Seamus never looks too upset. Gavin never asks.

Seamus flicks the used floss into the trash can and turns to face Gavin. “It seems pretty different.”

Gavin can’t remember whether the Team USA shirt Seamus is wearing is hers or Gavin’s. Same with the faded Florida Alliance t-shirt Gavin’s wearing. Now that they share a dorm room it’s pretty much stopped mattering. Seamus keeps sneaking her laundry into Gavin’s basket and Gavin keeps letting her get away with it. “I could teach you.”

Seamus looks away so quickly it’s almost a flinch. “You would?”

“Yeah, sure.” It’s not like Seamus would be the first straight girl who’s learned the ropes from Gavin. It feels a little more… high stakes, maybe… with Seamus, but why should it? What good is a gay best friend if she can’t teach you how to hook up with a girl? Gavin can do a little gay mentoring, equip Seamus to kiss whoever she wants. Anybody at all. Just… like, hopefully not anybody from the lacrosse team. Or anybody else tall and blonde. Gavin swings her feet over the edge of the bed and sits up. “C’mere.”

“Like now?” Seamus shifts her weight uncertainly from one bare foot to the other under the hems of her pajama pants.

Gavin pats the mattress next to her. “Yeah, now.”

“Can we at least…” Seamus goes for the light switch without finishing her question. Gavin lets her. As Seamus’s feet whisper across the floor in the darkened room, she wonders what Seamus doesn’t want her to see.

Her eyes adjust as Seamus perches on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked under her so she can face Gavin. It feels familiar. They could be eight years old, in Gavin’s bedroom in Florida, crunching wintergreen lifesavers to watch the sparks. They could be fifteen, in a hotel room at a minor hockey tournament, Seamus trying to draw lip liner on Gavin for the awards banquet. Eighteen’s not so different. It’s not so different to see Seamus’s face, bare and vulnerable, when she closes her eyes as Gavin leans in to kiss her.

Gavin’s ready to show off a little, but isn’t she always. She tucks a finger under Seamus’s chin and tilts her face upward into Gavin’s best entry-level kiss, warm and slow and searching, the kind that usually makes straight girls forget they came to the party hoping to blow Adam or Rutger.

It doesn’t quite work on Seamus. Her lips are soft, but she’s so tense Gavin can feel her grinding her teeth.

Gavin pulls back. “Relax.”

Seamus sucks in a deep breath like she’s been putting it off while Gavin was kissing her. “Sorry.” She covers her mouth with the back of her hand. “You don’t have to…”

“Oh yes I do,” Gavin says, murderously. Now she’s determined. She’s going to win the… well, whatever it is, she’s going to win it. She’s going to get Seamus started off right on whatever fucking journey she’s headed on. She grips Seamus’s shoulder loosely and gives her a little shake. “Just, like, breathe, okay?”

Seamus nods quickly. “Okay.”

Something about the smallness of her voice burrows underneath Gavin’s bravado. She takes Seamus’s face between her hands, and it’s like she’s holding all of it, all thirteen years of shared history twined together like a French braid, cradled in her palms. “Okay,” Gavin echoes, softer, and brings their lips together.

She doesn’t bother taking it easy this time. Just goes in mean and hungry, but that’s nothing Seamus doesn’t already know about her. Seamus finally relaxes, mouth falling open soft and easy, when Gavin catches her bottom lip between her teeth. Maybe because it’s exactly what she’d expect from Gavin.

Gavin lets one hand drift down the line of Seamus’s neck and trail along her collarbone. She traces a fingertip over Seamus’s shoulder along the line of her bra strap, just a little tease to build on when Gavin decides where she wants to take this.

Seamus leans into the kiss. Gavin can feel the catch in her breath, the yearning angle of her head as she follows Gavin’s mouth. But as Gavin’s hands wander, Seamus’s hands sit uselessly in her lap. “Touch me,” Gavin murmurs against Seamus’s lips, punctuating it with a stinging kiss.

After a breath, Seamus carefully settles one hand at Gavin’s side, just above the waistband of her boxers. Gavin twines a hand in Seamus’s hair—god, all that hair, thick and dark and cloaking a pocket of pure heat against Seamus’s neck—so she can hold Seamus in place, lick deeper inside of her. Her skin feels raw, hypersensitive, anticipating Seamus’s touch.

Seamus’s hand stays tentatively at her waist. More like she’s steadying herself than touching Gavin.

Gavin breaks off the kiss. “Okay…”

Seamus immediately drops her hand, as if they’re all done here.

“Hold on.” Gavin crosses her arms and strips her t-shirt over her head in one seamless motion. Her nipples tighten with the sudden coolness, the awareness of exposure. “You have to actually touch me.” She tries to level Seamus with a challenging stare.

It misses the mark. Seamus’s eyes are elsewhere, looking at Gavin’s tits like she’s never seen them before. Gavin can’t quite read her expression in the dark. Maybe cautious. Maybe hungry.

She cups Seamus’s hand in her own and lifts it to her breast. “Here.” Gavin waits a moment before withdrawing her own hand, wondering if Seamus can feel her heartbeat quickening. Seamus looks up at her, eyes so dark that Gavin might drown in them. She doesn’t pull away when Gavin releases her, shifting her hand instead so that Gavin’s breast fits in the curve of her palm.

“Oh.” Seamus barely breathes it. She brushes her thumb over the tip of Gavin’s nipple, feather-light.

Heat ripples out from the touch and pools in Gavin’s belly. She closes her eyes and arches into Seamus’s hand. “Yeah, there.”

[silvercaptain24]

Okay! It's a little long but definitely let me know what you think of it!

When Link was really young he lost his father, like he couldn't even remember so it was him and his mother. His mother died when he was still a child, so Link grew up on the streets as an orphan. As he grew older, he grew more sympathetic to the kids living on the streets and vowed that he would protect them from the harsh life that he has lived (always on the verge of death). So when he was old enough (though he tried getting in early several times) he enlisted himself in the military and used as many rupees as he could spare for the orphan kids.

Not long after the war starts. He meets the other Links of course (I'm thinking of actually incorporating this somehow in my Scrambled Links AU, though we might not have pirate wars ;-;), especially the Fierce Hero, the first out of all of them. While the other heroes are kinda meh with Fierce (since all of them have completed their adventures), Fierce kind of became the adopted father of Wars, especially because they both look similar and technically it's Fierce's fault that Cia is on a rampage because in Fierce Hero's time Cia was in love with the Fierce hero before Hylia had made Cia the watcher over the balance of the Triforce because [redacted].

During the war he meets this merchant and his daughter, Kelynn. Now she is important because Link falls in love with her because she's the first person to ever treat him as a person. Not a street rat, not a soldier, not even as the hero of Hyrule or the negatives that come with that. Just a regular, human being.

The war eventually ends; the Links go back to their times and the Fierce Hero... well, haven't figured out his ending yet. Link just probably keeps his mask with him.

Now even though I've always been a huge Zelink shipper, I went a different direction just to see what non-Zelink relationship is like, so in this Link and Zelda just has friendship. Zelda did fancy Link, but with her being a queen and with the war still leaving a bad taste in people's mouths, she found it wiser not to go pursuing a relationship with him. After all, Link had fallen for Kelynn.

So it's no surprised that Link and Kelynn eventually settled down and got married together. And of course had a family, but not without a few hiccups. Their firstborn had some complications and was born with half of his right arm missing. One of their daughters gets sick a lot, and with Link always going out because of his position as the captain of the guard so he doesn't see his family a lot. He will die a tragic death of course, but that won't be for another few years down the line, not at least until his son has time to shine being a one-armed soldier :3

Also to mention, with him never really growing up without a father is kind of the context behind that argument comic I made the other day. Link doesn't know how to behave around a father-figure, and Fierce Hero really also doesn't know how to be a father because... well... he never got to see his child grow up.

Well.

That’s a lot sadder than I thought it was gonna be.

[driftward]

It was a nice party. Madam Commander both enjoyed herself and was sadder than usual. They played games. I still do not think that Madam Commander has figured out that I can help her with those. I have tried to make suggestions as such in the past. She said it would be cheating and has not paid attention to me on the topic since. The Adept made a cake. The Crystalficer and the Marine were there, and the Leftenant and the Chirurgeon she is courting stopped by, too. When the party is done, she asked me to stay behind. It is not often she does not take me with her to places. She vanished into the river and went far away. I can still sense her, of course, though I no longer feel her. Her and the Archon both, always. I thought about returning to my storage crystal and resting. I could follow her up the river and find the soulwell in her codex and manifest there. She bade me stay however. So instead I crawl into the soul armature. It is shaped like me, though I find it uncomfortable. But it has a soulwell that will hold me, and I can use it to fly, so it will do. I work its wings a bit, and decide to check over her atelier while she is gone.

She is alive. I hope she is okay.

~*~

Zoissette looked up at the symbol of Halone, caught in the ceiling of the cavern as it was. It was quiet here. Only the faint echoes of the cave whispered to her, but they had nothing of import to say.

Neither did she, really.

She took the shield off her back, and held it in front of her, looking it over. It was clean, unmarred, in good repair. A sturdy and reliable shield. This one had lasted her some many moons. Even with the modifications she had made to it, to allow for a spellcasting focus just in front of the arm brace. And the engraved geometry she had inlaid upon its front, to better help her arcanistry.

It was a good shield.

She lowered it to rest it on the ground in front of her, her hands on top to hold it steady. And then she looked up once more.

“Blessed Fury, Halone of the Divine,” she began.

“I know I did not need to come here. Like, here here. But, I did. I think it feels more meaningful this way. I guess. That I am here.”

The lodestone, predictably, did not answer.

“I’m, uhm, I am not sure how to say what I want to say. I can feel the words. You know? But I am finding it hard to get them to form. But I think I have to say something.

And what I want to say is that. When last we met. You embraced me. And… you called me worthy. You said I was worthy. And I want to thank you for that. It was very kind of you to say so.”

Zoissette blinked a few times, and reached up a hand to wipe some water away from her eyes. It’d freeze out here if she left it too long.

“I think my friends think so, too. They are… unbelievably nice. And maybe that is the problem? I just… I do not believe. I do not feel worthy. Of them, or of you.”

Zoissette looked down at the top of her field, and drummed her fingers on it, and considered her words.

“I mean, I should be clear, I do believe, uhm, in you. Sort of. I think I did before we met. I think, I believe more, now that we have met. I do more, now. You are not exactly what I expected. Not what I imagined. But I believe in who I met. It was … inspiring? To be in your presence? To experience your splendor? Uhm. But, no. That was not it, was it.”

She fidgeted. The caverns were quiet. Her mind was not.

“No, meeting you is not what kindled my belief. It was what came after. Finding out more about who and what you are. To find that you have a lodestone to return to, an unchanging core that has stood for … well, not forever, but for many ages. But that also you change to be a reflection of us. Of mankind. Finding that out somehow made you more real. I guess. What I am trying to say, is I do believe in you, still.”

The words flowed, and she was aware she was babbling, and she wanted to keep talking, she wished there was more to say, but there was not. And so the torrent slowed to a stop, and she stood there in the cavern.

“I - I think I too have a core that does not really change. There are parts of me that just do not change. And maybe I am always trying to meet the expectations of what others need of me. Like you do. And maybe I am not quite real. Like you are. Partly real. Physical. Attainable. But also just stories and myths and you became what we needed you to be and I think maybe I try to do the same thing.”

Zoissette shifted her weight from foot to foot, and looked down at the ground uncomfortably.

“It is the right thing, right? That is - that is what I am supposed to do. Be useful. Be useful, be good. Succor for those in need, a hand to lift, a bulwark that protects. I just… I am sorry. Despite your words, despite my beliefs. I still, I just, I just do not feel worthy. I do not think I ever have. Maybe I never will. Maybe I just - maybe I just - maybe I just can’t. Maybe I can not.”

Zoissette buried her chin in her chest, and took a deep breath in, and tried to let it out slow, but her breath came out shuddery and ragged. Slowly she lowered herself to one knee, leaning on her shield, holding it up almost as much as it was holding her up.

Almost hiding behind it.

“I do not know why I am like this. I wish I knew why I was like this. Maybe I just - Maybe I just have yet to find a way to be worthy.”

She sighed, and took several long moments for herself before continuing.

“Thank you for trying to tell me, though. It means a lot to me. And for talking to us. I know it probably has nothing to do with us and everything to do with what has happened, but… I appreciate it anyroad.”

Long minutes passed. The cavern echoed with the faint sounds of the soft pops and cracks of ice, ever shifting with the passage of the time, but ever still despite that.

Zoissette pushed herself up to her feet, and looked to the symbol of Halone in the lodestone, before briefly bowing her head and lightly tapping her chest in respect.

“I promise to keep trying, though.” she said.

She returned her shield to her back, and quietly left.

Nobody was there to see.

[siriuslytproblem28]

can't believe i forgot to update the fact that i finished art heist, baby! a few days ago :(

cw: spoilers for ahb!

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i had the ending spoiled for me, sorta, via TikTok, though i had guesses that reggie would be the one to die due to the constant foreshadowing in the text. but though calloused, I'm a hopeless romantic, so i still delluded myself into thinking something might actually be ok.

the ending was sooo bittersweet, the sweet part coming especially from the fact that this girlie is a brazilian girlie and we're basically never mentioned, unless is to utterly represent the country as a lawless land, or a crazy jungle filled with uncivilized and savage people (basically, with racist colonial and imperialist lens).

but although i cried a lot during reg's death scene, i have to admit i thought it would be sadder. don't get me wrong, it was so heartbreaking, but i think that after crimson rivers, my idea of sad just became so unbearably gigantic that it's probably concerning.

as i did, by accident in crimson rivers, a specific scene became etched with the soundtrack that was playing, and somehow fit perfectly: in cr, epiphany by taylor started playing when monty was dying in effie's arms, and back then, i misunderstood the lyric "watch you breathing, watch you breathing out" for "watch you bleeding, watch you bleeding out". tbh both fit, but my listening just made it even sm sadder and engraved in my memory. in ahb!, as well, i bet on losing dogs starts playing at reggie's death, and especially one line fell SOO beautifully over the text, that now I don't seem to remember, but it will stay with me no nonetheless.

anyways, beautiful fic, liked the characterization pretty well, though i have to admit i doubted pete untill the end, probably as some kind of ptsd from literally every single marauder fic AND original hp books 🤡

absolutely loved the dorlene there

but my highlight HAS TO GO to rosekiller

i had never really read a fic that had it, though i guessed i would enjoy the ship, and idk if it was specifically otrtbs take on those two characters, but i simply adored every single scene, line, literally everything about them. they were sooo funny and unhinged, but also laced with angst and it's just the perfect combination for me. it made me actually want to seek out specific fics where they are the main couple.

okay I'm gonna go back to reading ch 2 of my new giant marauder fic project, that i just started today ( it's desintegration) and I'll be back tomorrow to assess my first impressions, as always

i also want to review ahb! in depth, cause rn i really have to read bc i should actually just go to bed, but i need to address how much reading about so much art made my little heart warm up (i draw and paint, but had kind of a fallout with it all after i dropped out of a visual arts college course) so it was really nice to have the nerdy art discussion sprinkled on the fic.