#i literally just can’t remember what was going on there and the lapse of knowledge is…. irking me

[rewritingcanon]

wrt: the poll, I look at it as it being both.

In Snape's Worst Memory we see a clear act of James and Sirius bullying Snape. It's also necessary for James's character, to see him at his shittiest while believing himself so righteous and Lily rejecting him, so that we realize that later he grew and changed and Lily married him.

But in Prince's Tale we get more context from Snape and Lily's conversations (plus other characters words) and we see that the general relationship is mutual hatred and rivalry, with Snape reciprocating with self-made lethal spells and trying to know their secrets and get Remus expelled, among other revelations.

So I see it as the general overall dynamic being rivalry, but it also including separate instances of bullying and other nastiness.

but didn’t snape only start reciprocating once they were older? because then you can argue that he was pushed into self defence. at least that’s what i’ve been hearing from other people lol

and is there an actual incident where snape used a super violent spell like sectumsempra on james? i think snape lashed out and cut his face but i thought that was when the marauders were ganging up on him? idk can’t remember much of what happened though

[spaceman-earthgirl]

Ava isn’t surprised when Beatrice finds her. 

She’s not hiding, she’s in her own room after all, waiting and wondering if she’s making the right decision in hiding her true plan from Beatrice, wondering how mad Beatrice is going to be once it’s all over and she realises what she’s done.

But as soon as she sees Beatrice in the doorway, she knows she’s made the right decision, knows she’ll do anything to keep Beatrice safe.

She tucks the letter that she’d been writing away, it’s not for now, it’s for Beatrice to read after, so hopefully she can understand why Ava made the decision that she did.

Beatrice is silent as she walks into the room, doesn’t say anything as she takes a seat on the bed beside Ava, takes a seat on her side of the bed, or at least it was Beatrice’s side of the bed, back in Switzerland.

That all seems like a lifetime ago now.

She wishes they could go back, just for a little while, for it to be just the two of them, with their home and their jobs and Ava slowly breaking down Beatrice’s walls the more time they spent together.

“Are you ready?” Beatrice asks, finally breaking the silence.

Ava turns to her, has avoided looking this long, because she’s both scared that she’ll tell Beatrice her actual plan, and scared she’ll never be able to look away again.

She meets Beatrice’s gaze and all she feels is calm though, a sense certainty and determination, all wrapped up in love and once again, she’s confident in her decision.

What she’s going to do later will save the world, and it will keep Beatrice safe, it’ll keep her family safe, and that’s all that matters.

Ava nods. “We’re going to kick Adriel’s ass.”

“Language,” Beatrice chides, but there is no heat behind the reprimand, only a fond smile that makes Ava’s heart ache.

She wishes they had more time.

But they don’t, so she’s going to make the most of the little time they have left.

They lapse into silence again, but this time Ava just watches Beatrice, takes in every small detail, memorises them all, from the freckles scattered across her cheeks to the curve of her smile to the knowledge that Beatrice is the first person to truly understand and see her.

She wants to remember everything.

It’s because she’s watching Beatrice so intently, that she notices the way Beatrice’s eyes fall to her mouth.

Read the rest under the cut or on ao3

It’s not the first time she’s caught Beatrice looking at her lips, far from it. She’s noticed Beatrice looking before, of course she has, she’s pretty sure everyone in Switzerland had picked up on their feelings for each other (yes, Ava definitely looked at Beatrice’s mouth on more than one occasion too), and she’s pretty sure everyone here has figured it out as well.

Beatrice’s eyes hold on Ava’s lips, and Ava feels like she’s on fire.

This might be her last chance with Beatrice, and the letter explains how she feels, but maybe she should be brave and tell Beatrice how she feels in person too.

“It’s okay, you know?” Ava says, causing Beatrice to startle. Ava smiles, it’s not often something surprises Beatrice.

Beatrice frowns. “What’s okay?”

“Wanting to kiss a girl, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Beatrice freezes, Ava can literally see her catch her breath, eyes suddenly wider with panic as she looks away.

“Bea,” Ava says, voice soft. She reaches out, lays a hand over Beatrice’s fidgeting ones. “I promise, it’s okay.”

Beatrice turns back to her after a long moment, eyes still wide with fear, voice quiet when she speaks. “And what about if I wanted to kiss you?”

Ava smiles, lifts her hand, lets her thumb soothe over Beatrice’s cheek. “That’s okay, too.”

Beatrice holds her gaze for a long time before her eyes dart down again and Ava waits, lets her be the one to make the first move, if that’s what she wants.

And she does, Beatrice leans forward, and then Ava can’t wait anymore. She leans in and meets Beatrice halfway, their mouths pressing together in what Ava is pretty sure is the best kiss ever. Not just for her, but for anyone, because she’s not sure how a kiss could be better than this, not when Beatrice is the one kissing her.

Ava sinks into the contact, lets herself feel it all. Beatrice’s lips against hers, the way their noses brush together as the kiss, the hand that reaches up to cup her neck. She feels it all, memorises everything.

She never wants it to end.

Since she got the halo and came back to life, all of her best moments have involved Beatrice, and this is one of her favourite.

“Ava,” Beatrice sighs into the kiss and though Beatrice doesn’t say the actual words, Ava hears it. She’s not the only one who’s fallen in love.

They break apart, but they don’t go far, their foreheads pressed together. Ava can feel Beatrice’s breath against her mouth and the only thing that stops her from kissing Beatrice again is the words she wants to say first.

“I lo-“

“Ava?”

They both startle apart at the interruption and turn to find Mother Superion in the doorway. Mother Superion freezes, eyes darting between them both, and what she’s obviously walked in on.

“I can come back?” Mother Superion says, already backing out of the room, and it forces Ava into action.

“No, it’s okay, we were just-“

“I know what you were doing,” Mother Superion cuts in. It’s obvious now she’s trying not to smile.

Ava has no reason to hide how she’s feeling though so she grins. She just kissed the love of her life, she’s happy, okay?

“Yeah, well…” Ava’s eyes glance back to Beatrice, who has gone completely red. It’s cute.

“I should go.” Beatrice stands abruptly, cutting Ava off. Not that she was even sure where that sentence was going anyway. “Make sure the others are ready.”

Ava catches her hand before she can leave, gives her fingers a quick squeeze. “I’ll see you soon?”

Beatrice nods with a smile and Ava’s heart fills. “Soon.”

“Should I ask?” Mother Superion asks, head nodding towards the door Beatrice just left through.

Ava smiles as she shakes her head, the sword in Mother Superion’s hand reminding her once again what this day will bring.

Today is probably going to end badly, for her anyway, but at least she got to have this with Beatrice. At least Beatrice knows how she feels, even if Ava didn’t quite get to say it out loud. And at least Beatrice knows there’s nothing wrong with her feelings either.

Ava’s sad it’s nearly over, but at least she got a second chance at life, at least she’s able to do something important with what time she has left, and at least she’ll be able to save the people she loves.

[noonegetsleftbehind]

This is a headcanon that I have been meaning to type up for some time because I feel it is very integral to Chris in anything post RE6 and I have a verse write up coming that will focus a lot more on this in greater detail in order to be able to play this out more in depth.

In Edonia on Christmas Eve when he lost all of Alpha Team to Carla except for Piers, Chris fell and hit his head hard. I mean really hard. You can hear that crack and see the impact and just know that that was enough to fuck a man up. You see him lose consciousness and you’re treated to the knowledge that somehow Piers Nivans managed to fight off several BOW on his own while guarding Chris and dragging his significantly larger and dead weight ass out of there to safety.

As we know that Chris was suffering from some pretty hefty amnesia through all of 6 and you’re filled in that Piers searched for 3 months for Chris after he just up and left the hospital. Now... Think about how badly he literally cracked his skull in Edonia. He’s lucky he didn’t die let alone is functioning at all. An impact like that didn’t just give him a little bit of amnesia, a bump on the head and a concussion... That right there was a straight up real bad nasty traumatic brain injury that did some damage combined with the fact he went into some pretty fierce alcoholism in his amnesia state. That would also do its own damage. Also factor in the fact that he just yeeted himself out of the hospital and evaded treatment and care that he probably desperately needed after that TBI. Another factor at play is Piers and Claire are basically the only ones that even know what happened to Chris and Piers is dead so... Nobody even knows how badly he hurt himself and how much he suffered/continues to suffer.

Chris doesn’t even allow himself any time to recover. He goes right back into Redfield mode. Sure, he starts to regain memories, but an injury like that had to have done more damage than he ever lets on and short circuits the hell out of him and I don’t think enough attention is truly paid to that.

After 6, Chris still struggles with a lot of memory loss. Sometimes in the middle of things he short circuits a little and has to bring himself back into the moment. He forgets a lot of things and struggles with short term memory. His vision suffers a little from it and he struggles with blurry vision along with blackouts in his vision sometimes. It’s not enough to completely hinder him, but he does rely a lot more heavily on his contacts and/or glasses. He also suffers from headaches that can range from mild to straight up debilitating. He has a lot of night terrors/flashbacks not just from the TBI, but from years worth of PTSD, but they come a lot more frequently after the TBI. He has lapses in a lot of his memory from the time around his accident in Edonia despite him recalling a lot of it - there are still a lot of gaps that he just can’t get back. He remembers virtually nothing of his time just wandering around not knowing who the hell he was and drinking his life away.

There’s whole ass months worth of his life that are just blacked out and gone from him. He can have good days and bad days with his memory. The man is exhausted and really going through it at all times and he never lets on to people that there’s even a problem. Most don’t even think anything of the fact that he maybe tells you something about a dozen times like he’s never told you before. They just think he’s terrible at talking and interacting because he’s so focused on work. While it’s true that his major focus is always on his work, he honestly doesn’t remember that he’s told you that story about his early days in the BSAA 10 times before.

The truth is, he should have retired post 6 and he knows it, but won’t admit it. When Piers died for the BSAA and he made it out alive, Chris made an unspoken promise. He would keep fighting for Piers and because he had to. At that point, he honestly sees it that he has no choice but to keep going. He just keeps pushing himself and will until he takes his last breath. He can’t afford letting anyone know what he’s really going through because he hasn’t really been able to let anyone that close. On the off chance that someone does get close to him, then they’d absolutely know something was up just from being close to him and around him. That’s something that he would address and cross on a basis that depends on who he’s close to/in a relationship with.

Even with Claire who he is arguably closest to than anyone else, he will attempt to play it off like it’s nothing and he’s fine, because in his mind he has to be. He knows there’s not much he can do and he won’t stand for being seen as vulnerable or unfit to do his job because it’s too important to him even if he’s burnt out and tired as all fuck by the time 8 comes around. He’s still tied to keep going after Ethan’s final words to him are to look after Rose. He takes that seriously and it’s my honest headcanon that he keeps going and looking after her/protecting her until his dying breath because Ethan asked him to and Chris keeps his fucking promises. He honors those he has lost so hard. Chris doesn’t outwardly seem like it, but he wears his heart on his sleeve and puts literally everyone else before him. He’d give his life in a heartbeat if it meant saving or bringing back anyone that he cares about.

[teddy06writes]

A Night In Las Vegas

requested by this anon: “I had the BEST idea: CC!Quackity came up with the idea of his Las Nevadas character arc after going to Las Vegas and meeting Reader there. Maybe one night the reader decides to go and twitch and finds quackity doing a lore stream and the reader is like: no way, it’s the guy I met in Vegas.”

{I love this concept, sorry it took so long for me to get out}

Quackity x reader

trigger warnings: some swears

premise: after getting ditched by your friends on the last night of your long weekend in vegas you run into a very interesting guy who doesn’t hesitate to befriend you. But what happens months later when he still seems to be running circles in your mind?

{covid don’t exist here, no sir}

{for the sake of the story, readers favorite color is blue, if its not, either pretend it is, or get over it}

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10:34pm

“You can’t just- you can’t kick me out!” You yelled. 

Your bestfriend laughed, “Just find somewhere to go for a few hours! Me and Hunter want alone time!” 

“A few fucking hours!?! Seriously?!” But your duffle bag had already been thrown at your feet, and the hotel door room was swinging closed, muffled giggles coming from inside.

Groaning, you picked up your bag, where were you supposed to go now? 

“Not that I was like- listening in or anything- but damn that sucks.” 

You jumped turning to see a man with black hair sticking out of his beanie standing in front of the door diagonal from yours. 

“Uh- yeah. Last night in Vegas and I get ditched for a random hook up,” You scoffed, “I should’ve known it would happen.” 

“That’s not cool, uh- I’m Alex.” He stepped forward, offering his hand. 

Somewhat reluctantly, you shook his hand, “(y/n).” 

He nodded, “I was going to head out for a late night wander, find something to do-, preferably away from all the hookups that seem to be happing around us right now. If you want to come.” 

You glanced around, “Seriously?” 

“Oh- god that did sound kinda creepy didn’t it,” Alex scrubbed a hand over his face, “Sorry- I- you can just forget about this then-” 

“No! I mean- You don’t seem like a rapist or anything. I’ll come with.” 

He grinned, “Poggers, you can, leave that, in my room, if you want. Just seems like a pain to lug around everywhere.” 

You bit your lip, “Leaving my belongings in a strangers room while I go with said stranger to find something interesting to do, sure- why not?”

~~

10:57pm

Somehow, you found yourself wandering out of the hotel lobby, and onto the crowded streets along side Alex. 

“So.... whats your favorite color?” He asked as you walked.

You laughed, “What?” 

“We’re like, total strangers- it was a question, to get to know you.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. 

“Oh, well-” before you could finish your sentence, there was a large amount of gasps and yells from the crowd in front of you.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked quietly. 

You craned your neck to look over the crowd, gasping, “The water show! With the fountains outside of Caesar’s Palace!” You grabbed his hand, tugging him with you to push through the crowd, “This was the whole reason I agreed to this trip- but we never got to it!” 

You shoved your way through the crowd until you got to the front, pressing against the barrier to watch the fountain display. 

“Holy shit.” You heard him mutter from beside you. 

You grinned, “It’s impressive right?” 

“Imagine the coding it would take to get those things to stay on time.” 

~~

11:27pm 

After the show had ended, you had kept wandering for a while, up the strip, asking various questions back and forth. 

You had found out that he was a Minecraft youtuber and a law student, though you’d had to admit, you weren’t too knowledgeable on either that subject. 

Now you were both staring up at the Dave and Busters sign, “This is a good idea right?” 

He nodded, “Definitely. Come on, I’d bet I could beat you at skee ball!” 

Laughing, you followed him into the building, and up the stairs toward the arcade entrance, “Your on!” 

After buying the credit cards for access to the games, you grabbed his hand, dragging him over to the skee ball lanes. 

“Lets go!” He shouted, a few minutes later, upon realizing your score was a total of 10 points behind his, “I’m popping off!”

You laughed, “Okay, what game’s next?” 

Nearly an hour later, you had both run out of credits, and laughing, made you way up to the prize area. 

“Do you think its possible to compile our tickets?” He asked. 

“Why?” 

You followed his pointing finger to the large stuffed dragons sitting on one shelf. 

“We need him.” You said immediately.

After picking out a bright red dragon, you began to argue over the name as you made your way to the counter. 

“What about Carl?” You suggested. 

He shook his head, “I have a friend named Karl.” 

“How ‘bout........ Phil?” 

“I also know a Phil.” 

“Hmmmm, what about Sebastian?” 

“He doesn’t look like a Sebastian!” 

You frowned, “Well do you have any ideas then?” 

Alex thought for a moment, “Albert.” 

You looked down at the dragon, “Albert it is.” 

At the counter Alex convinced the reluctant worker to allow you to use both the cards credit totals, and then you went happily on your way out of the building, stopping to take a picture of Albert in front of the sign, which Alex posted to twitter with the comment of, “Look at our son!” 

You’d staid mostly out of frame, but he managed to get about half of your side, since you were the one holding Albert. 

“Do you think any pf the buffets are still open?” Alex asked. 

“I hope so, I’m starving.” You giggled. 

~~ 12:06am

The buffet was somewhat deserted, and you and Alex had grabbed seats in one of the corners after getting plates full of food.

Albert sat on the table between you as you talked. 

“So it’s roleplay- but in Minecraft?” You asked, barley holding back a laugh.

He nodded, chuckling, “It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s like- huge. Especially since technically I’m getting back into the main lore now, with the whole project: vegas thing.” 

“Project Vegas?” You asked. 

He nodded again, “My character, he’s been through almost everything that's happened, and everything always ends to blow up in his face, literally sometimes. He’s built contries from the ground up- as stupid as that sounds- but they always fail, but this one won’t fail.

“I’m partnering with another guy on the server to set up a whole economy, he’s making a bank, and I’m making- well I’m making my own Vegas.” 

You took a sip of your drink, “What’s it going to be called?” 

“I haven’t figured it out yet,” He admitted, “I wanted to just call it Las Vegas but the names already taken.”

With a chuckle you shifted in your seat, “What about....- what about Las Nevada's?” 

He laughed, “I like that.” 

“Tell me more about this server then, I still don’t understand the story.” 

With another chuckle he launched into the story, “Well, it all started when this guy called Wilbur Soot decided he wanted to start a nation....”

~~ 3:18am

“Blue.” 

You were back at the hotel now, still with Quackity, sitting out on the balcony of his room. Some how, you had ended up having some slightly deep talk about life and death and a million other things before lapsing into silence, simply watching the blinking lights of the city. 

“What?” He asked softly. 

“You asked me my favorite color, ten minutes after we met. It’s blue- that's my favorite color.” You shivered against a cold breeze. 

Alex shifted minutely closer, “Why?” 

You shrugged, “It can be so many things. Deep and dark and mysterious but also light like the summer sky and filled with hope. There’s a million shades from happiness to anger, and to everyone it could mean something else.” 

“I like that.” He said quietly. 

~~

7:04am

You yawned, rubbing sleep out of your eyes as the car drew closer to the airport.

Alex tapped on the steering wheel in time with the music, quietly humming along. 

“Oh, I see my friend, they actually waited for me.” You said as the car pulled up to the curb. 

“How considerate.” He chuckled, climbing out of the car. 

You followed suit, retrieving your duffle bag from the back seat. 

“Well, it was cool knowing you Alex.” You said. 

“Likewise.” 

Before you started to walk away you remembered, and quickly turned back to where he was standing, pulling Albert out of your bag, “Here, he’s yours. You spent more tickets on him than I did.” 

He shook his head, “Keep him. I give you full custody of our son.” 

“Oh- okay... bye then.” 

You barley made it a few steps before he was quickly catching up to you, grabbing your arm and spinning you to press his lips on yours. 

“Good luck with your shitty friends.” He breathed, before hurrying back to his car, leaving you flustered and running to catch up to your friend. 

~~

One and A Half Months later

It had been over a month since the Vegas trip, but you still hadn’t gotten Alex out of your head. 

You had clicked, on some level, and the late night conversation you had shared seemed to keep you thinking about him.

Now, you scrolled aimlessly through twitter, checking the trending tags until you came across one called “LAS NEVADAS” 

Now that piqued your interest, and clicking on it, you found posts of people live tweeting an event- no a live stream. And not just any live stream- a Minecraft stream.

Quickly you opened a new tab, pulling up twitch as fast as you could. 

What was the name of his channel? Oh god why did you forget?

Returning to twitter you searched until you found a link, following it to a new twitch tab. 

And there he was. 

The boy who had been doing laps around your mind was actually there, talking to another character. 

“Look Sam, you and me, we could control everything. I need the bank to help fund Las Nevada’s, we can be partners.” 

You sat, watching the stream, enthralled. 

Once it had ended, you still could hardly believe you found him, quickly following another link back to his twitter and opening a direct message. 

Y/n: Um, this is awkward, idk if you remeber this, but we met in vegas, about a month ago, and I had no idea how to find you until the stream today

quackityHQ: uh, hi? 

qusckityHQ: proof?

Quickly you sent him the picture you had taken of him with Albert, 

y/n: uhhh, bam, proof? 

y/n: our son is sitting on my head board right now

quackityHQ: holy shit

[august-anon]

Tickle Monster

sequel to Tickletober 2020 Day 13 - “Wake Up!”

---

Someone on ao3 asked about a sequel to that fic literally in October of 2020, and mentioned it again in Jan of this year, and I’m finally posting this. I am so sorry this took ages, whoever you were, I hope you enjoy this lol

---

Fandom: Gravity Falls

Ship(s): Gen!!!!!!

Characters (lee/ler): Lee!Ford,Mabel,Dipper,Stan, Ler!Ford,Mabel,Dipper,Stan

Word Count: 1720 words

Summary: Dipper and Mabel complete their mission, distracting Great Uncle Ford, with flying colors. Unfortunately for them (and for Stan), Ford knows how to fight back.

[ao3 link]

ALSO: warnings for some light angst in the beginning because apparently i can’t write Ford as not angsty lol

------------------------------------

Ford sighed as he watched Stanley go, that lost, desperate look still in his eyes. He really didn’t know what to do to help him at this point, and that hurt more than Ford had been prepared for.

It seemed that he just kept failing people.

He started this whole thing. He came to Gravity Falls in the first place. He brought Bill into this world. He was foolish and naive and power-hungry enough to listen to Bill’s lies. He built the portal Bill wanted, not considering the dangers. And he failed to protect his family, Stan especially.

And now his own brother could barely remember him.

Ford forced himself out of his thoughts as he moved toward the refrigerator. He said he’d make breakfast, so that’s what he’d do. Eggs could be easy enough, maybe even omelettes? Or perhaps pancakes, they were probably easy, right? They were just flour and eggs… and maybe they had some sugar in them? He’d figure it out.

He let out a bitter smile as happy, childish laughter rang out from the attic. Stan was a far better great-uncle than he was, even with his lapses in memory. It wasn’t really all that surprising to Ford.

Ford hadn’t really made all that much effort to be good with the kids, after all. Yet another failure of his.

He continued to struggle with breakfast, his bowl of pancake batter looking more like foaming grey sludge than anything edible. It seemed his multitudes of knowledge didn’t extend to cooking. He was debating starting over, maybe trying to actually find a recipe somewhere in this old shack, when he heard tiny footsteps thundering down the stairs.

“Great Uncle Ford!” Twin voices rang out.

Ford turned away from the counter, plastering a smile on his face that was probably more of a grimace. Dipper and Mabel slid into the kitchen on socked feet, giddy and giggling. A far cry from the tear-streaked faces he saw when he checked on them at night, making sure they were still there and alive, and finding them curled together in one of their tiny twin beds, clearly shaken by nightmares.

“Hello, kids,” he said. “You’re rather awake for the early hour.”

Mabel gave him a mischievous grin. “We’ve been tasked with distracting you.”

Ford furrowed his brow. “What--”

The two launched themselves at him and Ford’s eyes went wide in shock. He reached out to catch them so that they wouldn’t slip and hit the floor (tile floor and heads did not mix, Ford remembered that well from tussling with Stanley back in the day), but in doing so he overbalanced himself, toppling backwards and taking the kids down with him.

Before he could even begin to process what had just happened, and just what Mabel had meant by distracting him, he had two tiny bodies on top of him, pressing him into the tile. They had matching devilish grins focused on him, and Ford wondered what the hell Stanley had told them, and whether or not he needed to get up and run.

“Grunkle Stan told us about a monster that you might not have in your journals,” Dipper said, leaning forward.

Ford scrunched his face up in confusion. Was this just a distraction, as they said, or was Dipper telling the truth? Just as he opened his mouth to ask for clarification, Mabel leaned forward as well.

“Yeah, yeah! It’s such a cool monster, too! You know what it is?”

Ford shook his head, playing along. “No, what is this monster?” Perhaps if he placated them, he could get back to making breakfast before Stanley came back down and saw his pitiful progress.

Dipper and Mable exchanged an evil glance and grinned down at him. They raised their hands, fingers shaped in claws and wiggling wildly, and Ford felt a spark of recognition run through him. His eyes widened before they even answered.

“The Tickle Monster!” They shouted in unison.

And then, before he could even blink or think to defend himself, he had four tiny hands wiggling into all sorts of sensitive places. Ford tossed his head back against the tile and snickered quietly, trying to keep the worst of his laughter in. He couldn’t let two children best him!

But Mabel’s fingernails were wreaking havoc on the nerves of his ribs and neck, and Dipper’s fingertips digging into his sides and stomach weren’t serving him much better. He forgot how uncoordinated he got when he was tickled, not having been subjected to it since before Stanley got kicked out when they were younger. His hands were flailing everywhere, unable to latch onto either twin and save himself from their playful torture.

“No no no, you’re doing it all wrong,” a voice called out from the entryway. 

Ford felt a mix of dread, excitement, and anticipation fill his belly when he saw Stanley standing there. It only grew when he saw the spark of recognition in his eyes as he stalked closer.

“You gotta do it like this,” Stanley told the kids, and unceremoniously stuffed his hands into Ford’s armpits, scribbling away.

Ford howled, curling in on himself as best he could with two almost-teens still sitting on top of him and Stan looming over top of them all. He cackled madly and he could feel the tears building up in his eyes the longer the playful torment went on. It was so embarrassing, so humiliating, so…

Fun.

It felt kind of nice to let loose and laugh like he was, something he hadn’t done in a long time. The fingers driving him insane left him with no chance to overthink things as he usually did. All he could do was laugh and squirm and gasp for air.

The tickling abruptly halted and Ford sucked in a much-needed breath. He was naive to think it was over, however, because Stanley only grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head before grinning at the kids. A nervous, playful, fluttering feeling filled his stomach, and he shot a look down at the kids.

“Have at it,” Stanley said.

Dipper and Mabel laughed before darting forward, burying their hands into his armpits. Ford was lost to his hysteria once more, only this time it was worse. His hands were pinned, he could even pretend like he was trying to defend himself from their dancing fingers, and he was too weak from laughter to tug his hands back.

Just when Ford was finally reaching his limit, he tilted his head back and made teary eye-contact with Stanley. Stanley gave him a smirk and a wink before releasing his wrists and setting Ford free.

Ford shot up, still laughing, and tackled Dipper and Mabel to the ground, careful to cushion their fall and avoid any injuries.

“Do you know what’s even worse than a Tickle Monster?” He asked, voice hoarse from the laughter his vocal cords were no longer used to.

Dipper and Mabel were giggling and squirming, clearly having picked up on where this was going, but neither made an attempt to escape. They shook their heads.

Ford raised his hands, fingers curled threateningly into claws, just as they had done to him. “A six-fingered Tickle Monster.”

Dipper and Mable squealed as his hands darted forward, the two soon lost to childish shrieks and cackles as he tickled away. The wide grin still hadn’t left Ford’s lips, even as his cheeks and eyes began to dry from his own mirthful tears. He even let out a few more chuckles at particularly silly sounds the kids made.

Maybe he wasn’t such a failure with them, after all.

But there was still one thing missing from their morning full of laughter. Ford turned around, slowing his ticklish assault on the kids, searching out Stanley. He stood at the counter, a new mixing bowl in front of him, making something that looked a lot closer to pancake batter than Ford’s attempt was.

Oh well, can’t win them all.

“Don’t think you’re off the hook,” Ford growled playfully.

Stanley froze, his body tense, and he slowly turned around to face Ford, a nervous smile spreading across his lips. His hands were raised in surrender, and he looked ready to bolt at any moment.

“You were just so sad this morning,” Stanley tried to reason with him, “I thought the kids could help cheer you up.”

Ford raised an eyebrow. “If I remember correctly, you were rather melancholy earlier, as well.”

They stared each other down, trapped in their little stand-off as Dipper and Mabel giggled quietly behind Ford. Then, Stanley tried to bolt, but Ford was much faster, the two of them crashing to the floor in no time. He quickly got Stanley pinned underneath him.

“Any last words?”

Stanley scowled (though Ford could see the amusement dancing in his eyes, so he wasn’t too worried), but Ford never actually gave him the chance to speak. He dug his fingers in, skittering around with no rhyme or reason as he mentally catalogued Stanely’s tickle spots. Eventually, he settled on Stanley’s ribs, the left side, the second rib from the top (that always used to get him screaming), as well as the little patch of skin on the right side on Stanley’s stomach, just a couple inches under his ribcage (that always used to get him begging for mercy). Stanley yelled and burst out into wild laughter, shoving at Ford’s hands but being too weak to stop him.

“You little--” Stanley started to yell through his laughter, but Ford cut him off.

“Ah ah ah, there are children present, Stanley.”

Stanley only cackled louder. Though that could have also been due to the fact that Ford had upped his tickling.

But speak of the devil and he shall appear, for the kids chose that moment to again make themselves known. Dipper attached himself to Ford’s back, shoving his hands into Ford’s armpits and clumsily tickling away. Mabel, on the other hand, launched herself into Stanley’s chest and started scribbling away at his stomach and sides.

Alright, Ford thought. The kids want a tickle fight? I’ll give them a tickle fight. And he dove back into the fray.

Needless to say, breakfast soon became brunch and the Shack was filled with laughter for a long time to come.

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Summary of the new dates

🍒Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for dates which have not been released in English servers!🍒

I received an ask regarding what’s in Gavin’s Surprise Date, which is part of this collection:

I’ll be translating them properly eventually, but only in mid-July because I still need to clear the dates that came out earlier 😂

In the meantime, if you’re really curious, I’ve created bullet-point summaries for the dates! They barely include dialogue and I cut out certain parts of the plot, but they’re still pretty substantial.

Update: Full date translations are up! You can find them in my masterlist :>

BEFORE WE BEGIN, I should temper your expectations - in this collection, MC and the boys are still getting to know each other. It’s a huge leap backwards in their relationship, so don’t be surprised if they don’t seem as close as we’re used to!

Gavin’s Surprise Date

MC and Gavin agreed to meet in a cafe to discuss work-related issues

While MC is waiting, Gavin calls and tells her an accident cropped up so he would be late

MC feels uneasy, but it gets worse when she overhears two ladies, who just entered the café, talking about a “tall and handsome man” protecting a small boy who was being bullied

Hmm sounds like Gavin

MC goes out to find him, and sees Gavin pummelling the daylight out of the bullies

[Cue the CG]

After the bullies run for their lives, Gavin takes her to an elderly woman’s house. But not before nagging at how dangerous it was for MC to be at the scene

The elderly woman is the grandmother of the boy who got bullied

Precious little boy sees Birdcop as his role-model

The elderly woman thanks them with something called “糖人” – it’s a sugar-molded candy on a stick

After they leave, they decide to sit on a bench to eat the sweet before it melts, but one part of the bench is wet

Gavin, always the gentleman, offers to stand so she can sit

MC feels bad so she convinces him to sit anyway

So they squish together on the bench

She laughs at how Gavin is utterly destroyed because he doesn’t know how to eat the sweet

Blushy Gavin makes an appearance

MC finds it interesting that she saw many sides of Gavin today - a fierce Gavin during the fight, a tender and respectful Gavin when they visited the elderly woman and the boy, and the Gavin who can’t eat a sweet properly

It’s a peaceful evening

The end

🍒

Lucien’s Seminar Date

Brace yourselves

MC prepares to attend a “Children’s First-Aid Knowledge Seminar” in school

Lucien is the guest speaker

She arrives early, goes to the library, and sees Lucien is sleeping so she sits in front of him and quietly observes

He wakes up eventually and they head to the seminar together

Cute innocent kids!

Lucien gives the cute innocent kids their first existential crisis!

He tells them about how life is a complicated question in which we gain the answers as we grow older...

After that, MC and Lucien teach the kids how to do CPR

No, they don’t kiss. He brought a dummy model.

And then he dives into an angsty dialogue about death…

All the children start bawling

Lucien gets out a first-aid kit and we dive into another angsty dialogue about how birth, maturity, aging, and death are all part of life…

The children calm down because Lucien’s voice is smooth

Then he takes out sweets from his angst-filled pocket and hands them out to the children, including MC

[Cue the CG]

After the children leave, Lucien dives into yet another angsty dialogue about how humans are constrained by the rules of life and death…

MC gets sad because she thinks about her dad

Lucien hugs her in a platonic manner and pats her back

Lucien says his usual cryptic stuff

“Having someone to miss is a happy thing.”

MC gets curious about Lucien

The end

🍒

Kiro’s Sweet Date

To prepare for an upcoming shoot, Kiro needs to build up more muscles

He invites MC to train together with him

Kiro’s logic: Just as they eat tidbits together, they should suffer together as well

As they work out and chat, MC realizes that Kiro is much more hardworking and dedicated to his work than she thought

“When I think about my fans and about how I decided to take this path, I will keep persevering no matter what. I have to do it.”

The shoot arrives, and MC finds out that the theme is sweets

MC thinks it’s going to be all cutesy and innocent

But she’s in for a big surprise.

“Could you be… slightly sexier?” says the photographer

[Cue the CG]

Kiro licks cream off his finger instead of using a tissue like a regular person

MC turns into a blushy mess

After the shoot and interview are over, Kiro splits the cake with MC as an award for their strict training regimen

The end

🍒

Victor’s Warm Date

MC and Victor have gone overseas for a business exchange program. Goldman was supposed to accompany Victor, but couldn’t make it due to plot convenience

There’s a heavy snowfall. The road is blocked so they’re stuck at the meeting location

Remember, these dates are happening when MC and the guys are still getting to know each other

So the Victor in this date is pretty merciless with his remarks, and isn’t as tender or close to MC as we’re used to

They decide to walk out to the main road in the mini blizzard so they can board the car

MC and Victor each carry an umbrella

But both MC and the umbrella are weak so Victor gives up and literally bundles her up in his coat instead

In the car, MC thinks about how Victor actually has a soft side -gasp what a surprise-

After MC returns to her hotel room, she discovers she forgot to pass Victor a document

When she visits Victor, MC literally pauses to enjoy the view of a messy haired Victor with his top buttons not functioning the way they should

Victor tells her to wait inside while he pores over the documents

He also pours her tea after she sneezes

Victor sent his coat (the one he bundled MC up in just now) to be washed, so MC gets worried about his health

She runs back to her room to get the Bunny Blanket™

After some cute banter, she sets her inner Shaw loose and boldly drapes the blanket over Victor

Victor acts on reflex at the suddenness of her action and accidentally pulls MC onto his fine c h e s t

“You are very bold”, Victor says

They lapse into a comfortable silence and MC ogles at Victor just like how we all ogle at the CG

[Cue the CG]

“What are you looking at?”

“At you… I mean, the snowy scenery outside the window!”

Victor hears it

“You’re looking at it so seriously. You must really like this snowy scene.”

The end

[purplesunrisefanfic]

Sub!Abby/Dom!Nora Headcannons

Warnings:

Warning for lifestyle BDSM and sexually explicit content. There’s swearing and some use of a sexist slur (but only between two women for kinky name-calling reasons.) Body piercing and the strain of working as medic are mentioned. So are sub/Dom drop. There is some switching. Also, I do get increasingly gooey and hurt/comfort near the end.

Some of these got sexied up by @pinkchubbiebunnie in her post on this subject so they may look familiar ❤️

As usual no read more because the Tumblr app and Timblr mobile site SUCK. Apologies.

Now let’s get kinky:

Abby is envy about how Nora can always seem so cool and confident while she is just dripping mess so often.

Even more so because Nora can just naturally and breezily go from talking to Abby normally to talking like she owns her (coz she does) and back again as other people enter and leave earshot while Abby is always unsubtly clearing her throat whenever someone walks in.

In fact, she’s so scared she’ll accidentally call Nora Sir in front of someone else one day that she has literally planned exactly how she will make it out to be a joke just in case she needs to save face.

Abby envies this even more because she knows that Nora isn’t any less prone to feeling insecure or having lapses in confidence than she is, she’s just way better at hiding it.

Even when she really wants to fight back or be a brat, Abby just physically cannot, like her muscles just melt or rebel at even the idea of defying Nora because they know who they belong to.

Abby sometimes tries to avoid getting patched up by Nora especially if it’s not in private bc she knows she’ll be in trouble if there’s any signs she was reckless.

She feels torn about that though because even while she’s getting the look of “You know what a bad girl you’ve been and you know you are gonna pay for it” she still feels so soothed by Nora’s touch.

But Abby’s efforts to control who treats her make no difference anyhow because Nora knows exactly what she’s up to even though she doesn’t let on. Nora only lets Abby get patched up by someone else if Abby’s injuries are way minor.

The other medics figure that’s just a regular protective gf thing, which it totally is as well but it’s also about being possessive over who might be involved in any lasting/permanent marks on what’s hers.

Being in control with Abby soothes some of Nora’s work-related traumas. Her opinion as a medic is held in high regard for the most part but some soldiers are just too stubborn with medical advice. It can be pretty rough on Nora when she knows a patient of hers isn’t going to listen, no matter what she says, and will go back out too early and sometimes wind up returning dead or dying. So it’s really soothing that when it comes to the person she loves most in the world, she doesn’t have these worries.

Nora makes Abby do menial manual things quite a lot, she’s actually ambivalent about making Abby do this kinda stuff, or at least she would be ambivalent about it if it wasn’t so blatant that Abby loves just being treated like her grunt muscle.

They’re actually pretty much the same intelligence-wise, but Abby simps for how much medical and hospital logistics knowledge Nora has and just has warm fuzzies getting to be her trained pet taking orders and knowing there’s well-planned logistics but not knowing herself what they are. It’s like the opposite of being a soldier and needing to be observant, she can just be switched-off eye candy trusting in someone else.

Needless to say, Nora loves said eye candy. Abby doesn’t get to wear too much in their apartment unless it’s really cold.

She’d never admit it, but Nora low-key wants Abby to call her Daddy and hates that with what happened to Jerry she can’t ever see herself risking bringing that up with Abby.

She resents that even more bc she (correctly) feels sure that Abby would’ve absolutely loved that.

Abby can always tell, even in a busy place, whether it’s Nora or someone else snapping their fingers.

When Nora snaps her fingers, the rest of the world disappears. Like instant subspace, Abby could be next to clicker and forget all about it instant.

Nora gives the subtlest, carefully considered hints of underlying affection while seemingly objectifying Abby and it’s just exactly what her pet beefcake needs to feel that undercurrent of love while she gets off on being used.

Abby spends that much time on her knees that she sometimes forgets that Nora isn’t actually taller than her.

And not just on her knees eating Nora out (though she does that a lot) but just generally kneeling like a good girl for Sir.

Abby would physically drool over the idea of wearing a collar 24/7 if she thought about it for too long. Nora would physically drool if she looked at Abby wearing a collar for too long.

Abby is free to masturbate alone when she wants to but she’s not allowed to orgasm from it. She’s never broken that rule and she’d actually be upset if she somehow did come with Nora’s permission.

She worries it might be a little messed-up to feel this way but Nora really enjoys knowing that she’s only partner that has made Abby orgasm. Sorry not sorry Owen, you did not seem good in bed.

Abby ends up being such a good girl that Nora decides to start giving her regular maintenance punishments because Abby doesn’t like to go too long without one.

Nora is near constantly torn between how much she enjoys Abby fingers inside her versus how much she enjoys seeing the intense pining when she doesn’t let Abby do that for a while.

That’s Nora’s favourite problem to have.

Remember the Abby’s hair + rope bondage fantasy? Yeah, Nora is a pro at that.

Nora uses Abby’s braid like a leash, and tells Abby that wherever she is, anytime her hair is braided then she’s basically wearing her leash.

Abby tries so hard not to think about that on patrol, but if there isn’t any actual danger to keep her busy, she sometimes can’t help but think about it.

Abby keeps an eye out for suitable jewellery, and if she ever found some she would love for Nora to pierce her navel or one of her nipples.

When Nora gets Dom-drop Abby carries Nora in her arms so she can hold her tight and feel her strength while she tells her how much she loves her and loves their relationship. Nora feels kinda weightless with the way Abby holds her and it’s so reassuring.

When Abby gets sub-drop Nora wraps herself around Abby from behind, skin-to-skin, and leans her face in next to Abby’s. She strokes her neck and whispers praise.

They don’t switch often because they’re pretty full-on lifestyle but when they have a kind of switchy playtime sometimes where Abby gets to run riot with all her brute force strength, picking Nora up, pining her down, manhandling her. She undresses her roughly then mocks Nora for “thinking you’re always in charge when the truth is I could take you down in an instant,” then picks her up by her shoulders and holds her there so her arms and legs dangle in the air, just wanting to prove that she’s powerless. Abby enjoys getting her own back by embarrassing Nora for once, and she likes to hold their faces very close so she can spot the slight changes in the hue of her skin when she makes Nora blush. “You thought you could hide your blushes from me? I know you too well for that, darling. That pretty face of yours can’t keep any secrets from me. No more than the rest of your body. I don’t even need to look or touch to know that you’ll dripping wet for me by now. That little sting of shame burning your cheeks always makes you a needy little bitch, doesn’t it?”

When they’re having those switchy scenes, Nora gets off on denial. No-one is really sure if it’s a power play that intensifies Abby’s status as (temporary) Dom because she edges and torments Nora but never lets her come, or whether it’s actually the opposite, intensifying their background dynamic because in that respect Abby gets a lot less power when she plays Dom.

Either way, Nora finishes up blissfully satisfied about her lack of satisfaction. Even more so because the next time they play, Nora back as Dom and Abby back remembering that all the muscles in the world won’t stop her from being Nora’s little bitch, she’ll make Abby plead to be allowed to give Sir an orgasm.

Abby begs harder than she ever does for her own orgasms.

A fact with makes Nora feel like a goddess, whilst also being so much fun to rub Abby’s nose in.

“Aww listen to little Abby beg just to please me. She likes to think she’s so strong with all that time in the gym. But no amount of time keeping up that facade will change the reality, Abigail. Deep down, you’re no big, strong brute, just a helpless little girl. My helpless ickle pet, so desperate for approval you’d do anything to please me, wouldn’t you?”

Abby melts then admits Nora is right.

Then Nora tells Abby only one of them of them gets to come tonight and makes Abby decide who it is.

She always chooses Nora.

And never regrets it.

And in amongst all kink of it, that makes Nora feel so nurtured.

Fair warning: this is where it becomes obvious that FEELINGS are my ultimate kink onto which all other kinks collapse...

Yeah, there’s that intense thing where it’s like the way a sub can adore you and nurtures you that makes it so much easier to be strong and tough than it would otherwise be, and dealing with everything in that world and all the injuries Nora and having to be strong with all the horrors, it’s like it’s easier for Nora to be strong in all the ways she needs to just to live that life.

They like doing little things to look after each other because they both know the feeling where they are assumed to be super tough and don’t need to be nurtured but ofc they need and deserve softness.

This ship makes me wish I had the words to explain how all the kinky stuff is low-key so soft imo.

Abby doesn’t get into much trouble but one way she sometimes does is being too much of an overprotective gf when other people are involved.

Oh and Dom or not, Nora is still little spoon and sleeps 1000% better for it.

Hope y’all liked these. AMA (esp anything kinky) about Abby/Nora or Abby/Ellie or other ships I ship because I have the feels.

[summonerscenarios]

You know how in the Genocider Chapter MC has the option to literally kiss 8 characters? I wonder what would happen if they find out that MC did kiss everyone after feeling special?

‘MC being thirsty backfires horribly all this and more at 1′

Honestly I did wonder if any of them would bring it up to the MC at one point even if it was just a passing comment - who knows maybe we still will? Honestly I suck writing anything remotely sad or angsty but here we go~!

------------

Toji

Toji feels as though he shouldn’t be surprised when he finds out what happened with the other summoners and your allies - after all you haven’t exactly had the best track record taking up numerous opportunities to shamelessly flirt with most of the people you’ve met/clashed with. And yet even then he still finds himself shocked to learn just how many people you ended up kissing back then and though he thinks to just shake the kiss the two of you shared as merely a lapse in judgment he ends up confronting you about it. Regardless of whether you actually remember all of the kisses or if those memories disappeared with your ‘other selves’ he’s still really miffed. Toji’s confession wasn’t one that he made lightly, especially given the circumstances in which it came about, and going from kind-of enemies to someone he trusted enough to confide his true thoughts to makes you a special exception. He tries to keep his emotions in check so you won’t know how badly this affects him, but expect a long and rather intense lecture to find out if your kiss actually meant anything or if it was just because you could. He’s gonna be simmering for the next couple of days over it regardless of how amicably or argumentatively this confrontation ends and will likely avoid being around you or the other summoners for a while - be prepared to give him some space until he’s ready to start coming back around again depending on how convinced he is by your discussion.

Ophion

I feel out of all of them Ophion would likely take the news the most in stride. For what it’s worth he knows that his spouse isn’t one to be tied down for very long from what we’ve learned, be it physically or when it comes to the people they pursue an interest in. Naturally there is still a part of him displeased by the notion that you’ve shared such moments of intimacy with others however there’s about half of them that can be rationalized off as necessary for establishing the hierarchy in the game (he’s reaching real hard with that though let’s be honest) and for the others he knows that they simply don’t hold a candle to himself. He’s aware that this current Ophion is yet to be seen as good enough in your eyes, and will use this as yet another means to solidify this way of thinking despite whatever you end up telling him when the truth comes about - hell it doesn’t even matter if you remember all of the other ’you’s memories or not. To him, Ophion will end up seeing this as just another challenge for him to prove to you that he is the only one worthy of your entirety, and will just end up ramping up his attempts to convey this newfound determination to you. Expect him to be a lot more expressive both physically as well as with the assets at his disposal - this is a challenge that Ophion will not back down from and will not take lightly so good luck preparing for that once he’s set his sights on his goal.

Ryota

Ryota probably ends up taking it the worst. The conversation that the two of you had leading up to the kiss and the kiss itself meant so much to him - it made him feel special to you in a way that he hadn’t felt before and that was something that he never thought he would actually have since he believed it was just something for others to experience. Ryota might not actually confront you about it; he’s anxious about bringing this up to you for a reason that he doesn’t fully understand so don’t be surprised when he attempts to smile it off and forget about it and go back to the way things were before. He won’t bring it up to you unless you’re the one who ends up actually telling him, but if you guys do talk about it? Yikes. You’ll be hard pressed to be able to look this boy in the eye after he asks you if it’s true because the way that he says it and the look in his eyes almost as if he’s begging you to say that it was just a joke and not actually what happened - it’s gonna hurt real bad. You can see him physically deflate upon learning what happened, even more so if you don’t remember, but he will try to have a serious talk with you about the kisses. Ryota won’t want this to come between you; the two of you are thick as thieves and if he can the two of you will just try to move past it and go on from there. He’s hurt but some part in his heart is holding onto the hope that the kiss between the two of you actually really meant at least something to you, that it was different from the others even though he doesn’t have the confidence to outright ask you that himself.

Zabaniyya

Zabaniyya sees himself as merely a tool for your use in the grand scheme of things; it is the role in which he devoted himself to you and only shifts should you so will it. Not only this but he’s not necessarily forthcoming with his emotions on certain matters so as a result you would think that he wouldn’t even bat an eye to the knowledge that you kissed numerous others during the events of chapter 8, and for the most part you would be right. He feels as though it’s not something for him to talk about and keeps a grounded perspective on it when compared to the reactions of some of the others as he rationalizes the kiss as a means to establish rank within the game with little personal connection as some might think. It’s something that he won’t bring up again and doesn’t see the need to either. That being said though Zabaniyya can’t seem to stop himself from dwelling on the event during quiet moments on his own. He remembers the kiss you shared, the momentary hesitation followed by acceptance and more heated passion than he will perhaps allow himself to admit; during these times he wonders what you experienced with the others. How did you feel? Were you content with it? Why did you decide to kiss all of them? For Ophion, Oniwaka and Arc he understands the perceived necessity but for the Summoners it’s a different matter. He can’t explain why but he’s often left with an indescribable feeling in the pit of his stomach when he’s had these moments of reflection that stays with him for some time afterwards.

Kengo

Kengo’s not sure what to make of it when he finds out about the others that you kissed. He second guesses a lot of what actually happened that day and ends up going through it in his head a couple times before he lets his frustration about it get the better of him. If it was only the other Summoners that you’d kissed sure he’d be kinda jealous but he wouldn’t exactly mind it either, but the fact that it was more than that really rubs him the wrong way and if it isn’t from you directly that he learns this from he’s gonna be pretty pissed about it. Naturally Kengo brings it up to you and asks what the big idea was, saying what you did to him and then going off and kissing the others and without even trusting him enough to actually let him know about it after. Kengo will want to cool off after the confrontation or at the very least distract himself so he’ll go and pour his focus into his training to work off a lot of what he’s feeling - words aren’t his strong suit and he’s angry that he can’t properly express to you the kinds of questions he wants answered. Out of the Summoners he’s the one that actually goes to the others to ask what went on if only to hear it for himself and finds himself emotionally split about it. He just ends up kind of assuming that the kiss was just an adrenaline filled spur of the moment where you were just happy that you guys were alive and let it get the better of you. Sure he can’t really say the same about what you said but people say all kinds of things after having such a close brush with the end of Tokyo right? The next time they bring it up Kengo decides that he just wants to put it on the back burner - he’s sure that he can just brush it off and that’s the end of it. So why won’t that damn tightening in his chest stop already?

Oniwaka

Oniwaka is pissed and hurt and there’s gonna be no easy way to go about this one at all. He warned you about the kind of trouble you’d end up getting wrapped up in if you took things like this too far as well as the kind of people you need to look out for (Kengo) so the fact that you kissed multiple people including that idiot makes him feel as though you completely disregarded both what he said and his feelings, and it ended up causing catastrophe just like he said. He gets so angry that it’s honestly intimidating but that’s because he’s just so torn up about finding out and he just wants whatever answers you’ve got. He opened up parts of himself to you that only you have seen and touched and felt so you going and doing that with others so seemingly oblivious to how what you’re doing is affecting those around you pierces deeper than a weapon could. Oniwaka is definitely the jealous type so mixing that with a potential heartbreak is really not a pleasant mix and the two of you WILL get into an argument about it - doesn’t matter how calm or patient you are, an argument is unfortunately inevitable. Keeping emotions in check ain’t exactly his forte especially when it comes to you so tensions will be high on both sides the whole time since you don’t really have a leg to stand on in this situation - a lot of whatever you say is gonna hurt him regardless of how gently you try to put it and he’s gonna end up storming away to nurse his wounds and seriously think over what’s happened. If you guys want to move past this you’re going to have to seek him out to do so - Oniwaka’s going to keep his distance even if he genuinely wants things to be resolved and getting to him is only going to be the first step.

Shiro

Given that Shiro has the most explicit romantic feelings it should come as a surprise to no one that it devastates him when he finds out about you kissing the others. Similar to Kengo while he would’ve been cut up about the fact that you kissed the other Summoners he would have taken it better than what actually happened. He’s got questions; a lot of them, and he makes such known when he asks if the two of you can sit down and talk through what actually happened during that battle with the Genociders. Shiro holds himself together pretty well the whole time even though you can tell that he’s not taking it well - he’s taking long pauses between speech, biting back his words and some points and holding his book in his lap tight enough his knuckles are turning white keeping his emotions in check while trying to keep himself focused on hearing your side of what happened. The biggest question is where the two of you stand in all of this - what exactly did that kiss mean to you if anything? What made it different from the other ones you kissed? Where are the two of you going from here in terms of a relationship. If it is something that you actively want to pursue then this is your time to put all those cards on the table because Shiro wants at least some kind of closure on these feelings even if they’ve all come into the forefront in such less than ideal circumstances. After the two of you have this conversations it’s still going to take a bit of time for Shiro to think things over - it’s not as though he can just forget that it happened and honestly he doesn’t want to .

Arc

Despite the hinted pasts the two of you may have shared in previous loops Arc has most notably the most neutral response to the chaos that ends up ensuing once it all comes to light. They don’t necessarily have as close of a bond to you as the Summoners and the other guilds, going from enemies to allies fast enough to make anyone’s head reel at the quickness of it all. Arc’s honestly more surprised seeing the others react and gives you some time to talk to them all before they decide to bring it up to you. At the time the two of you were still learning about one another and still are now however even they can see the situation that you’ve put yourself in and will point that it probably wasn’t the smartest decision on your part out to you because it’s something that you need to hear whether you like it or not. Emotions can be fickle things and when people get attached in situations like this it can get really messy. In regards to Arc’s reaction to the kiss you two shared it mostly depends on when this information comes to light. Right after chapter 8 and Arc is mostly indifferent about it - with so much to deal with it feels as though this is the least of their concerns; however if this is discovered later on once the two of you have grown significantly closer then they’re uncomfortable with the fact that it took this long for the two of you to actually talk about those kisses and if they still mean anything to you after everything.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Hello! I'm pretty sure I saw you mention a while ago that you were disappointed by confessions of the fox, would you mind explaining why? I've seen mostly good things about it myself. If I misremembered then I'm sorry and I hope you have a good day :))

I think this is one of my less popular opinions. And I understand - we so rarely get historical fiction with trans folk as the titular character (indeed, we rarely get any fiction what that). So I get people’s desire to laud it. 

For me though? It fundamentally didn’t work as a book. As a story.  

Let me count the ways. (Apologies in advance for the length of this.)

First: If you’re trans-ing someone who was historically cis instead of seeking to find a real, historical trans or gender-nonconforming person, I have questions. 

Most of the questions can be summed up as: Why? 

I struggle with historical fiction that takes a cis person and re-imagines them as trans as if there aren’t already literal historical, real trans people out there whose stories can be told. It smacks as (unintended, well meaning) erasure of lived experiences. 

Jack Sheppard, to the best of our knowledge, was a cis dude. There were trans folk in London in the 1710s and ‘20s. You might have to dig a bit for them, but they’re there. Because trans folk have always been there. 

Second: Characterisation 

This is more personal taste, but I found Jack and his girlfriend Bess to be inexcusably boring. How a trans, thief and gaolbreaker in 1720s gin-soaked London can be written as boring is anyone’s guess. But he was. 

Jack had no real personality and I found his story to be uninteresting. Oh, he’s the world’s best thief and gaolbreaker, that’s nice. But on its own it isn’t enough.

He had few to no faults. Childhood trauma isn’t a personality. Nor is being trans. And the author relies heavily on gender + occupation (thief-ness) to equal personality. So it falls very flat.  

Bess, his girlfriend, is a mixed-race sex worker from the Fens (even though actual real-Bess was from Edgeware). She seems to only exist to demonstrate that Jack is good at sex. She also veers a little into the Mystical Woman of Colour Healer Who Aids The White Person on their Journey of Self Discovery trope. 

Neither Bess nor Jack undergo any real change in the book. They exist in a weird stasis and experience no development, despite living through some harrowing things. They’re wooden dolls who move through the story without really engaging with, or being influenced by, the things around them. 

The other “main” character is a modern Academic who “found” this supposed “manuscript” of Jack’s life and is annotating it. His story unfolds in the foot notes and it’s just so messy if not a bit contrived. It didn’t make sense. I think the author was trying to convey that the Academic was in a sort of dystopian future, but if that’s the case it didn’t work. And if that’s not the case, the entire inclusion of the Academic’s story served only to annoy and take me out of the reading experience. 

E.g. There’s a scene where the Academic is being taken to task by the Dean for playing stupid games on his phone during office hours and like honey, lapsed-historian/academic here, trust me the Dean doesn’t give a fuck what you do during your office hours so long as you’re in your office and students can come bother you about their poor marks. 

The manuscript is supposedly being sought after by this pharmaceutical company for nefarious reasons that never struck me as being entirely realistic/believable. Also, the university was spying on this non-tenured, slightly useless Academic as if he somehow mattered? Which made zero sense. Anyway, it was stupid and should have been ripped out of the final version. OR changed substantially. 

Jonathan Wild, the thief taker (main antagonist to Jack), is probably the only interesting person. 

Third: Lack of Follow Through, or, the Fabulism Was Not Used Well 

The book tries to blend in some fabulism to the world by giving Jack the ability to “hear” the thoughts of inanimate objects. This could have been fun and gone to some interesting places, but it failed to deliver. 

I personally found the shoe-horning in of “capitalism commodifies everything” to be sloppy and heavy handed. It was done with little grace and didn’t sit right given that we are dealing with the early modern period. Yes, you can use the past to critique our modern woes, but do it intelligently. Don’t slap modern points of view and understandings of things onto the past and expect them to make sense. 

Anyway, Jack spends the book hearing inanimate objects talk to him, asking him to “free” them, or something. And uh .. .it doesn’t go anywhere interesting after that. 

Also the correlation one can draw from these objects to, you know, slaves, is uncomfortable. Especially as it’s the cargo of the EIC ships that Jack hears. I don’t think it’s intended in any sort of malicious way, but the allusion is there and I always found it to be distinctly uncomfortable. 

Fourth: Misuse of Marxist Theory, or, More Heavy Handed Moralizing that Annoyed the Dear Reader because it wasn’t subtle and, more importantly, it wasn’t done intelligently. 

So, the author is an academic - studies 18th century lit. Which is readily apparent as his Academic (self-insert) character is, I believe, supposed to be a historian and uh ... you can tell that the author doesn’t know enough to wing that. E.g. How he interprets some of the laws and customs of the time. Instead of understanding the social, economic and, most importantly, environmental issues that gave birth to laws like “the corporation of the city of London owns the streets so you can’t muckrake” he chooses to understand them through a very 21st century lens (and a Marxist one at that. I know I’m perhaps a bit uncool for this, but I find the application of Marxist theory to the early modern period to be ... not useful). 

Do you know why, mid/late 17th century London passed these municipal laws? Because of the god damn fucking plague you numb nut. You absolute buffoon. It had nothing to do with “oh the City/government is evil and wants to own you” it had to do with the fact that no one cleaned the goddamn street. So the city took over doing it. 

Prior to this, in London, you were supposed to keep the street in front of your building clear of waste, debris, refuse etc. No one did this, of course. I live where it’s cold and snows a lot and people can barely shovel the 2 sq ft of sidewalk in front of their driveway in the winter. I dread the idea of an average homeowner being expected to keep the street clear and clean. 

Anyway, guess what dirty streets attract? Vermin. Guess what comes with vermin? Plague. Guess what happened in 1665/66? The great plague of London! 

17th century England might not have understood germ theory, but they did understand correlation. (Also, the population of London was doubling at the back half of the 17th century and streets needed to be reliably cleared for through-traffic reasons etc. etc.) 

ugh, sorry, that one in particular drove me up the wall. Not everything is a capitalist conspiracy. Especially when we’re talking about municipal by-laws from the 17th century. 

And I understand the temptation to read a lot of modern interpretation of words like “corporation” and “company” onto bodies that used these same words in 17th and 18th centuries. But the weight, meaning and connotation of “the worshipful company of merchant adventurers” is different from, I don’t know, “the tech company google” or whatever. The early 18th century is when we start seeing the birth of the stock market, of “venture companies” (i.e. merchant adventure companies), of a lot of the language and proto-iterations of what will grow to be economic institutions of our time. But it doesn’t mean they’re the same and that difference is important. Because Jack Sheppard is a man living in 1720 he’s not going to be having our modern 21st century critiques of capitalism because his engagement with the economic systems of his time would have been radically different to our own experiences. 

Fifth:  Unbelievable Top Surgery & Recovery 

So, Jack gets top surgery. In 1720s fever-ridden London. While quarantining in a brothel. 

And he lived! No infection! No tearing! He was up and about in a matter of days. I don’t remember if his nipples survived the operation or not but somehow Jack did. Without anesthetics! Or you know, any concept of hygiene. 

His Mystical Girlfriend Who Exists to Show How Good Jack is at Sex is also somehow Magically Very Literate and also Magically a Surgeon? and performs this surgery on Jack in the middle of a plague. 

The entire ordeal was so poorly handled in terms of believability that I literally set the book down and said “what the fucking fuck” to the empty room then drank wine before finishing the chapter. 

An aside, it is funny thinking about the quarantine chapters at this point. I read COTF when it first came out a few years ago. Sweet summer children, we none of us had any idea how to write quarantine scenes. 

That reminds me: the entire quarantine thing was presented as the government trying to control movement and take away people’s rights etc. instead of a very normal, typical response that cities had been enacting since 1350. Samuel Pepys, who lived through the 1665/66 epidemic, barely even notes the restrictions. He’s like just “hmmm I’d love to go to the pub but I also don’t want to die. so. *shrug*” 

At the time of the author’s writing, most of us in the western world had no idea how normal and day-to-day disease was for our ancestors and yes, sometimes there would be crackdowns to try and curb it if an epidemic hit. That was part and parcel of life. So again, Jack and Bess wouldn’t be like “ooooh we’re 21st century slightly libertarian lefitsts who think the government is doing this to control us and for nefarious purposes”. Much more likely, they would have been like Pepys and viewed it as nuisance, albeit a necessary one. 

Sixth: Overall Lack of Realism 

I think I’ve noted the big moments where I was like “no one in the early 18th century would think that I’m pretty certain”. This isn’t to say people didn’t grouse, complain about London government (and the king etc.), critique or question the world they lived in. They absolutely did! Regularly. With great verve and gusto, if the broadsheets are anything to go by. But their critiques, their complaints, suggestions for bettering life, are not the same as ours. Because how could they be? They lived in a different world, were responding to specific things, grew up hearing and believing certain things etc. 

Jack, aside from having minimal to no character, really did read like a modern slightly-libertarian leftist who was plunked into a novel that takes place three hundred years ago. 

In addition to unrealistic political views, his understanding of body, gender, sexuality and identity also read as incredibly modern. Now this is harder, because we have so few extant sources from that time on those who lived non-gender conforming lives, and from their point of view, so yes creative imagining and interpretation is the rule of the day for writing that. 

But, we do know how in general the average person engaged and understood gender and sexuality and that would, naturally, inform anyone whose experience was different. And that base line of “probably what a typical cis Englishman or woman felt about their body and identity” wasn’t present. At all. 

Indeed, gender engagement at that time was interesting. The concept of the body, the role of the physical body, how it was interpreted is absolutely fascinating and the author could have done some really cool things with that. But he didn’t. He went for slapping a modern interpretation onto the past. 

At this point, write a dystopian novel and make Jack a fictional character. That probably would have gone over better, for me at least. The conceit can remain the same: It’s the year 4056 and an Academic found a manuscript from the year 3045 when the Dystopia Was a Thing - and go from there. 

--- 

I think part of what made this very popular and why people seem so taken with it is that it reads smart. It reads like someone who has immersed themselves in that world etc. because of the slang and language used. 

Yet, for me, as someone who has studied this period extensively, especially queerness in London in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it read flat and unrealistic. 

I was initially very enthused when I started it. There are some posts to that effect on my blog. But it very quickly went south. It tries very hard to be Radical and Smart and Subversive and Critiquing Everything and so I think it fails at the fundamental thing it should be doing: telling a good story. 

(Note: The book does try and address racism in London at this time. It also felt a bit forced. And Jack seemed to have no prejudices or preconceived notions about Indian and Black folk which isn’t realistic. Like, it might make him #Problematic but my dude, you’re writing a man born in 1702. He’s going to have some iffy views. That can be challenged! Absolutely. But they still would have existed.) 

---

Thank you for the ask! I again apologize for the length of the reply. 

[this-haunting-hunger]

fic: don’t take this haunting home

Wei Ying lives with many ghosts. It's usually not a problem. He used to be one himself, after all. However, ghosts have one glaring fault, and it is this: they are, by definition, people who refuse to stay completely dead.

And as far as Wei Ying is concerned, some dead people should stay that way.

Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four

Content: angst, mild violence, ghosts

Pairing: Wangxian

Length: 4400

read on ao3

//

There are crowds of ghosts living around Wei Ying.

Some only come when called, some stay at his command, but most are transients. There and then gone, attracted by the promise of what they could have been and repulsed by what he tells them they are. He knows some of them by name. Others, by the sounds of their screams, the way their blood had splattered, the last bitter words they’d spat or whimpered. Others, worse company still, Wei Ying knows by their laugh or their love, by their hopes and fears, by their dreams and tears. He doesn’t remember most of those who visit, you understand. But when they come haunting, he knows them all the same.

This presents something of a problem, given that he himself is a ghost, albeit of the still-breathing variety. Lan Zhan might have scowled at Wei Ying if he ever described himself as such aloud, but it’s one of those truths that suit silence more than sound, anyways. A knowledge that keeps itself company better than company ever could. No need to bother the Chief Cultivator with such whimsical thoughts.

Even if the Chief Cultivator is one of the leading experts on soothing spirits and corpses and essentially everything not-quite-dead-enough in between.

His fingers tighten around Chenqing, rigid against the silky black wood, and the lilting melody he’s playing falters. Wei Ying makes himself breathe; makes himself smile at the dirty wall of the empty temple he’s currently seated in. The trick works, like so many of his tricks do. He relaxes, loosens his hand, smooths his thumb against the flute instead. An apology to an old friend. Then he keeps playing.

Lan Zhan will be annoyed that Wei Ying went on this night hunt without him, but given what he suspects he’s dealing with, there are worse things than an annoyed Twin Jade. Off the top of his head, a dead one. Or worse than dead. (That was just a casual example. Certainly not something he’s thought about again and again and again and –)

Pausing now, pulling Chenqing slightly away and uncrossing his legs, rearranging his black and red robes, Wei Ying smiles even wider. He’s learned so much since their early years of attending the Gusu Lan Sect’s indoctrination sessions, but truth be told, he’s known how to smother his worries for longer than that. Fidgeting and smirking are excellent, day-exclusive antidotes to anything that could (and might and would and did) keep him up at night.

He lets go of thoughts of Lan Zhan as he gets a tighter grip on his focus. Closes his eyes and, bringing Chenqing back to his lips, resumes the song even as he rids himself of his wards.

The ghosts rush in when he beckons with his music. They press against his ears with their echoes, almost but not quite drowning out the flute. Most, polite by now, only murmur, to each other or themselves. Others, newer or simply more resentful, more inclined to disturb and powerful enough to manage it, are shrieking or wailing, sobbing or swearing. Not in literal words: he can’t commune with them in that way without Empathy or Inquiry. But they can impart sensations, feelings, flashes of memories that whirl across his mind, and he has become better at understanding the dizzying array of impressions the more he’s practiced demonic cultivation. There are many ghosts here, smothering him with the weight of their soul-cemented grief and rage. The sheer level of turbulent emotion – so much emotion – is a muddied current, sweeping around him and threatening to drag him to the depths that these spirits have already reached. That he reached, once before.

Some of them hate him. He can’t blame them. What right does he have to the oxygen flowing through these lungs? Wei Ying has been in this body for several years now, and yet, sometimes, he still feels like an intruder, as if his soul slipped through a crack and never could find the way out. Sometimes, he wonders – fears – that Mo Xuanyu’s invitation was not an invitation, but a cry for help. A trust offered and then betrayed. If only he had known how to refuse. How to stop hearing the summons. How to forget the offer like he had forgotten so much else. If only –

Communing with spirits wasn’t so hard. Taking in another deep breath, keeping the melody steady, Wei Ying gently rejects the accusations being flung at him. Smiles in the face of all the hatred. Not now, he tells the hordes of hungry ghosts. Not yet. I’ll answer for my crimes, for the crimes of everyone, later, but not now.

He is searching for one spirit in particular. One obstinate soul that eludes his reaching power, slips across fingertips and is gone in a flash of heat so intense it feels like melting. This ghost came to his attention only recently, and for all of his knowledge, Wei Ying doesn’t know if that’s because it just chose to reveal itself to him, or if it only found him in the last few weeks. He hopes it’s the latter. If it has been following him for longer, without him being aware of it… well, he’s mostly decent while alone.

(While he’s with Lan Zhan is another story entirely, but no ghosts could penetrate the wards he has placed around their dwelling.)

Refusing to be distracted by that tantalizing thought, he offers, I just want to talk. When there is no response, he says it out loud, around his flute. “I just want to talk. Just a little exchange of information. No tricks, I promise.” Some of the gathered spirits murmur, but no one comes forward. He could command them to find the one he is looking for. To drag it before him. But if it is who he suspects, that could very well be a mistake. He’s familiar enough with those, but not so much that he wants to make more.

Pouting, eyes still closed, Wei Ying lets Chenqing fall limply into his lap, crosses his arms. “Yah, stalker!” he calls. “It’s not fair if you get an eyeful whenever I’m doing anything, and I get nothing in return! Have you no shame? No pride? Are you so ugly you’ve nothing to show me?”

The teasing gets no more of a reply than a flicker of amusement through some of the friendlier spirits surrounding him, and he opens his eyes. Gaze slipping by the congregation of ashy-black, wispy figures and skipping through the ruins of the temple, he brings up a finger to tap thoughtfully against his nose. He’s sure this decrepit building belonged to the Wens, long before the Sunshot Campaign was a seed in the minds of any of the Sects. Conversation with the townsfolk a short distance from here, who had only moved in during the last decade or so, had confirmed it. The temple had been obliterated when the seed bloomed and the fatal fruit was reaped, but it had been beloved by one of their offshoot clans, a place where cultivators and normal folk alike mingled.

With a sudden, stiff movement, Wei Ying springs to his feet. After shaking out his limbs with a few exaggerated moans and limbering himself with even more exaggerated stretching, he begins to wander through the building, followed by a billowing escort of barely-perceptible spirits. It is not a large temple, but he thinks it was once well built and well cared for. There are shattered pieces of frescoes and statues throughout, many painted in long-faded colours, but the fragments he can make out suggest pride of craftsmanship and ownership. Now, dust covers everything, and anything of value has been snatched by greedy fingers. It may as well be a graveyard.

“Ah, it’s such a shame,” Wei Ying comments as he comes to the main hall, just as demolished as the rest. Ghosts are more raucous company than some (and one in particular, with a pretty headband and prettier lips that are altogether too good at pressing together), and many of those here are lonely; they are eager to be heard, in whatever form that takes. Though he knows none of them by name, and they don’t know him, they crowd closer, resonating with his pitying declaration and clamoring to tell their stories. Until the spirit he wants appears, Wei Ying is in no hurry, and sometimes listening is enough to ease those lingering on the border to their final rest.

It’s the least he can do.

The loudest are the saddest and angriest. Many are soldiers or cultivators who died by the sword when the forces of the Qinghe Nie, Lanling Jin, and Yunmeng Jiang Sects took this area and annihilated all who resisted. (And some, the ghosts convey frantically, who did not.) Still others, with their houses and fields burned, died of starvation, their souls screaming their hunger even now. None perished in this building, but, a focal point in life, it has become a focal point in death, too, a place for familiarity when resentment trapped hapless souls and caged them from going further.

Sooner rather than later, he is going to have to ask Lan Zhan to come here and play Rest. It should have been done a long time ago – years and years ago – and Wei Ying only hopes the resentment hasn’t grown too powerful for the lapse.

I am sorry for what happened. It was not just, Wei Ying tells them, the words too heavy to give voice to, and most are grateful to receive his compassion. He wishes he could leave it at that. Let them be soothed by sympathy. But there is a sudden scent in the air, one that’s been plaguing him for weeks now, the ozone reek of discharged electricity. It’s so strong he’s almost surprised that there are no clouds in the sky, no lightning bolts hurling into the ground. So, Wei Ying wishes he could leave them all alone, but he is too good at doing hard things to let a simple wish stop him. He continues, idly twirling Chenqing as he strolls across the hall and out a crumbling archway into what might have once been an enclosed garden, long overgrown. “It’s not really their fault that you died, though. The soldiers who came here, I mean.”

The reaction is immediate. It feels like constricting, like water being sucked out of a bay before a tsunami, like thunder in the distance. An oppressive warning. Not quite dangerous – but it could become deadly. He holds up his hands in appeal to the audience only he can see. The villagers would probably start lighting torches if they saw him wandering about and talking to himself, so it’s lucky they stay away from here. “Think about it. Who began the war? Who gave the first insult? Surely you have all heard of the atrocities the Wen Sect committed, long before the others retaliated.”

Some are too far gone to heed him. They buzz angrily, jarred and jarring in their rejection, and their vehement antagonism stabs into his temples, threatening to spin the world off its axis. That’s fine. The trick to dealing with that is a simple one; Wei Ying’s world hasn’t been on its axis for a very long time now.

He brings Chenqing up, plays a few calming notes. It would be better if no one but the one he’s hunting attacked him. Or none of them did, but Wei Ying isn’t quite as much of an optimist as he pretends to be. He’s been trying to draw the spirit into a conversation for weeks now, whenever he catches a hint of lightning on a breeze or the not-his memory of pressure constricts his throat. (Dancing around Lan Zhan’s blank faced suspicion each time the Chief Cultivator catches him talking to thin air has been a hectic mix of fun and stressful.) His attempts at making contact have been in vain. If even presenting himself at this temple didn’t evoke a response, where the spirit should be most comfortable (unless Wei Ying is wrong about who it is, which would be embarrassing), he can only imagine that the entity’s intentions aren’t entirely peaceful. Given who it might be, they may in fact be the exact opposite of entirely peaceful.  

Which is a shame, because he’s actually beginning to enjoy himself here. This outdoor space is quite pretty, blue and purple wildflowers doted throughout the thicker tangles of green, and his music suits the abandoned atmosphere of the area. There are fractured stone columns here and there, broken by overly enthusiastic purgers, holding up nothing now, but he imagines the temple had some kind of pavilion for enjoying the outdoors in the shade. A long gone comfort, but one that could be brought back with a bit of work. This is the sort of place that welcomes visitors but asks no one to extend their stay. His kind of place.

Eventually he finds what is either a worn bench or a toppled statue, half conquered by the overgrowth, and, after dusting it off, he takes a seat, leans back, and props himself up on his elbows.

If he weren’t communing with a bunch of livid spirits, this would almost feel like one of his informal teaching sessions with the juniors. “Yes, it was the Wen Sect who started all of this. The insults, the degradation, the murders, the puppets… who could stand by when such injustice was going on? I’m sure very few of you knew what Wen Ruohan was doing. You’re all decent people, aren’t you?”

That’s a joke, coming from him, but it settles them down a little, makes them less defensive. All well and good, and still no stronger sign of the presence he’s searching for. Well, he has always said that patience was meant to be tested. “Those that did know, though…” Wei Ying looks around, arches an eyebrow in a chiding expression. Only vaguely wonders if he’s pushing things a little too far. “They’re to blame for all of this. They could have stopped Ruohan if they’d chosen. Cowards, sycophants, bootlickers… they’re the reason for all of your deaths. For all of the death. They –”

The man was, in life, an imperturbable individual, but death does things to a person, things more significant than just stopping the heart. Wei Ying doesn’t know what the final trigger is – the place, the accusation, or maybe the spirit just loses its patience with their game of cat-and-mouse – but regardless, one moment he’s having a delightful garden chat.

The next he’s been heaved off the bench and thrown across the enclosed space, to crash into one of the taller columns with a strangled, “Umph!” while heat and an ozone stench invade his senses.

Wei Ying lands – hard – on his hands and knees, the breath fleeing from his lungs as though it’s finally realized it doesn’t belong there. Wheezing, blood a coppery coating at the back of his throat, he clutches his flute a bit too hard and tries not to regret how differently this fight would have gone in a different life. No time for what-ifs – only time for enthusiastically trying not to pass out from the impact his head had made with the pillar. He doesn’t manage to do more than get unsteadily to his feet before he’s slammed into again, the force too fast and distorted to get a good look at the spirit attacking him.

This time he’s not flung as far, and he lands in a bush – a distinct improvement. Sprawled in the plant, several pointy bits jabbing him in the back, Wei Ying yanks his sleeve off a particularly malevolent twig and jerks Chenqing up. He’s aware of the thing rushing forward – of a pulsing, fragmented, confused rage – of a disconcerting emptiness where the other ghosts were just moments before – (of static anxiety, an old companion) – of Chenqing’s smooth warmth under his fingers as he begins to play –

Of time, pretending to come to a sudden, violent halt.

Just an illusion. With the spirit abruptly suspended before him, caught up in the invisible threads of power cast out from his flute, Wei Ying has a disjointed moment where the overwhelming emotions from his attacker bleed through his vision, painting everything in reds and golds. Anger and anger and not-anger, something he can’t understand, something like the tempered steel of Suibian, flexible and resilient, yet so sharp it could slice a careless wielder.

The spirit is vaguely man-shaped, all blurred edges and flaring shadows. He can’t force it to assume a more distinct form; the mere effort of keeping it still is enough to have sweat pouring down Wei Ying’s skin, sticky between his fingers as he performs a tune that has by now become second nature. This spirit isn’t the most powerful he’s ever encountered, but it comes rudely close. It’s not surprising, exactly, but he’s won this battle before. Maybe he got just a little overconfident.

Lan Zhan is going to be really furious with me, Wei Ying thinks cheerfully, all the better to drown any second-thoughts about not bringing the other man. Because, really, bringing his lover into this specific kind of danger just wasn’t an option.  

He won’t be able to suppress his opponent through Chenqing alone. That much becomes obvious as their stalemate draws on and Wei Ying’s mouth and lips begin to dry. He changes his tune, literally. Broadens it, with only a twinge of guilt. The appeal – a command, really – sings through the air, as pointed as any sword, and begins to draw on several of the ghosts that had scattered when the more powerful spirit revealed itself. He only calls to the angriest, the most formidable in their own right; no point in subjecting the souls of peasants to this demonic contest of wills.

They come, but only reluctantly. More reluctantly than he expected. Harnessing dark spirits for violence is rarely difficult, given that they already want to commit harm. Hell, half of the battle is usually keeping them directed and contained, not getting them to fight at all. Yet these ghosts need to be chided by Chenqing’s stern voice, prodded to do as bidden. Is it fear? Wei Ying doubts that. Very few spirits have maintained their hold on life enough to fear losing it even more.

Regardless, they can only drag their feet (metaphorically speaking), not reject his orders entirely. Before too long, he has all of them sparring with the other spirit, colliding with it and ripping off chunks of smoke-like substances that dissipate into the air as though they were never there. The assault is enough to let Wei Ying heave himself off the (very flattened) bush and, in a quick scramble, begin to search his robe for a few specific talismans.

All the while, the passions of the ghosts haven’t abated. Actually, they’re thunderous, almost a physical pressure wreaking havoc against his thoughts, crushing them into the here and now and nothing else. He can’t understand why fury isn’t the most prevalent emotion of this fight. He can’t understand why the aggressive spirit hasn’t torn apart at least a couple of his minions yet – or done worse. No time for speculation. There’s just the music, pulling his power from him with reckless abandon and carrying his will out in waves that distort the air and exhort his servants to greater efforts.  

His pulse is pounding in his throat, an unpleasant counterpoint to the rhythm his fingers are tapping on Chenqing. Fatigue is a grey murkiness that makes each controlled breath a little more rattling than it should have been, makes every thought just a bit too slow, a bit too hazy. Not for the first time, he wishes Mo Xuanyu had spent a little less time on impeccable face makeup and a little more on his cultivation. Or at least cardio.

Of course, Wei Ying could probably have spent a little less time drinking and a little more time training, so he supposes he should graciously let the man off the hook.

Shoving his power against the spirit is like pushing against a mountain or trying to convince Jiang Cheng to change his mind: a lot of gross sweating and no satisfactory payoff. Or at least, it is until, with a jolt of energy that Wei Ying feels as an agonizing shock straight through his muscle and bones, all the way to his core, the fierce spirit does something to one of its opponents. One that’s latched on and refusing to be shaken off. Some kind of implosion ripples across the other ghost, and there is a screeching wail, cut brutally short, and then… nothing. Wei Ying’s servant is just – gone.

He is concentrating too hard to be able to fully see what happened, but still – he knows. Or remembers. Remembers something he never actually saw happen, but remembers all the same. And abruptly the fear is there, a stranger this time, acidic in his mouth, and the shadow of words he never said come unbidden to his tongue, words like please, no and I’ll do anything and stop, stop, stop. There’s no room amidst the horrified realization for anything like contempt, but somewhere in the groping dread is a tingling empathy, a sour sympathy for things long finished and dead.

He hasn’t ever blamed Jiang Cheng for his fear before, but now Wei Ying’s understanding isn’t just nestled patiently in the core he used to own; it’s throbbing in his heart, coursing through his veins, forcing every artery to personally acknowledge the wrenching terror. His jaw is aching, he realizes numbly, but can’t stop clenching his teeth until a strained sob almost cracks them in its attempt to escape. That startles him, yanks him viciously out of a torture he never experienced, and he slams back into himself and awareness of his surroundings so hard that it practically winds him. With a gasp, Wei Ying flings up his arms, a reflexive attempt to protect himself from –

Nothing.

People have called him lucky before. Blessed. With good looks and a sparkling personality, sure, but he’s never been able to look back on his life and concede that luck had much of a place in it after his adolescence. Now, though…

There really isn’t another word to describe it. While he had been distracted (Wen Qing had mentioned something about possible triggers, but that had been in another body, another life, so why the hell had it carried over to–) Chenqing had clattered to the ground, the music grinding to a halt. With the goad gone, the spirits he’d yoked to his will – the ones still left – had faltered, gone from raging to ragtag in the span of seconds. They’re wandering adrift now, though none of them have left. By rights, they should have turned on him. And if not them, then his enemy should have taken the opportunity to finish what it started.

Lucky indeed.

The spirit is still standing in front of Wei Ying, and of it’s own free will it’s taken on a much clearer form. A distinct face, distinct features, an almost distinct wardrobe. Distinct hands, big and partially covered by fingerless gloves, the kind that remind Wei Ying of an age when holding a sword hilt meant cutting through muscle and bone as if they belonged to monsters. The spirit is currently staring at its hands like it expects them to sprout claws.

It – he – slowly curls his fingers, until they’re formed into shaking fists, and then he looks up. Not at Wei Ying. At the other spirits. “I am sorry,” he says, or projects, or offers, and regardless of how he does it, they understand. Wei Ying can feel the waves of sorrow, of grief, of acceptance. The fury is still there, a frigid undercurrent compared to the warmth of this – this –

What is this? It feels like a reunion, like a meeting between friends or family long parted. The way he stares at the other ghosts, the stream of recognition that links them all, the guilt that has his features crumpling as if he just murdered…

Oh. Oh.

It’s not as if Wei Ying has never used the dearly departed against their loved ones. He has. It’s just that he’s never done it accidentally before. Coming here hadn’t been about that, hadn’t even crossed his mind. He’d thought it might draw the spirit out and had forgotten in the process that stone walls and a ceiling don’t make a home. It’s the people who manage that. The people and the soup.

His heart lurches at a rebuke that hasn’t dulled despite how long it’s been. Regret, grief, and guilt are all excellent whetstones, and besides, it hasn’t really been so long for him. Wei Ying feels too sharp, like anything or anyone could be cut by the edge of his shame, and it makes him restive, anxious. He stoops, picks up Chenqing from the ground with silken-soft gentleness, just in case the flute somehow shatters against his jagged margins.

The motion attracts the spirit, but when he looks towards Wei Ying, there’s no spike of rage coming from the restless ghost. The guilt of what he just did has smothered it, and Wei Ying doesn’t think he’ll ever understand the dead man more than he does right in this moment.

He’s not even wary anymore. It’s as if the echo of Jiang Cheng’s fear was too big, too reverberating, its aftershocks clearing his chest of anything too light to resist. Hollowed out, Wei Ying can’t manage to feel much of anything at all. Or maybe that’s just – himself. He’s already been parted with one core. Why should a second threat, against an admittedly shabbier core, be viewed as worse than the first?

Gathering up his black sleeves and linking his hands together, Wei Ying bows to his opponent. Maybe holds it a bit too long, dips a bit too low, making respect into a mockery, but he can’t stop himself. His concern for the safety of Lan Zhan, of the juniors – and especially of Jiang Cheng – has been his sole focus for the last few weeks of investigation into this spirit’s background. However, confronted with a slightly clouded face that suits his slightly clouded recollection, Wei Ying has to acknowledge something that crackles, ugly and vengeful, just below his lips, frozen into a smile.

If he could have chosen to meet anyone from his past life, ascended to the Heavens or buried in Hell, Wen Zhuliu would probably have been close to last on the list.    

[7-wonders]

Naked & Afraid

Summary: You finally (unwillingly, like everything else that’s happened to you since that night in the parking lot) meet your father-in-law in what is arguably some of the weirdest circumstances you’ve ever dealt with.

Word Count: 3734

A/N: What, Claire finally updated Mad Love? Hell must’ve frozen over and pigs are surely flying! Feedback is always appreciated (even the h8ers; bring it on hunny I’m always up for a throwdown), and if you liked this chapter I would love if you would reblog and/or leave me a comment!

Read Mad Love (part one) HERE | Read Totally F***ed (part two) HERE | Read The Isle of Flightless Birds (part three) HERE | Read A Hard Day’s Night (part four) HERE | Read Pour One Out (part five) HERE | Read Where Angels Fear to Tread (part six) HERE

Every single thing about Michael Langdon and the life that he lives is the epitome of luxury, so it comes as no surprise that the en suite bathroom that has been deemed yours is just as opulent as everything else you’ve seen. After an incredibly long week that’s seemed to stretch for months, the large, ornate bathtub is the only thing on your mind. After Michael cut dinner short tonight, an issue with the Cooperative requiring his attention, you found yourself sitting on your bed and trying to figure out what to do with an unexpected free evening. Your head is still spinning after everything that’s happened in the past couple of days, and a long bath is where you tend to do your best thinking and decompressing. Today, especially, there’s a lot to think about.

The sound of rushing water fills the bathroom and echoes off of the large granite walls (who has granite walls?). Sticking your hand under the steady stream, you fiddle with the knob for a few moments before finding your ideal temperature. The bathtub starts to fill quickly, and you pour a generous amount of some fragrant lavender bubble bath into the water. You sit back on the balls of your feet, waiting for the bath to fill to your desired depth before rushing to turn it off. Glancing one last time to make sure you remembered to lock the door, you yank your clothes off of your body before sinking into the bath.

You sigh audibly once the hot water covers your body, the heat immediately going to work at relaxing your muscles. Relaxing against the back of the porcelain tub, you turn your phone on to play some music and stare up at the ceiling. There’s a chandelier, because of course there is. Although the signature black is prevalent throughout the room, you’re pleased to see some accents of purple and silver as well. Your thoughts, which can never just remain on one topic for an extended period of time, quickly shift to what’s happened yesterday and today.

The major thing is, of course, the kiss that you shared with Michael mere hours ago. More specifically, why the hell did you reciprocate the kiss? He certainly didn’t use his magic on you; even if you didn’t know what magic felt like when it was used on you now, the stern warning that you would beat his ass scared him enough to not even consider it. But, it’s not as if you like him. At best, you’re starting to tolerate him. That doesn’t mean you’ve ever thought about kissing him before, no matter how soft his lips actually are.

Maybe it was a lapse in judgement? Or maybe drunk (Y/N) was still lurking in the darkest recesses of your mind, just waiting for a moment to come out and screw everything up. A single kiss does not equal attraction of any kind. Michael’s arrogant, nosy, doesn’t understand boundaries, is the literal Antichrist and, to top it off, kidnapped you to be his unwilling bride. But at the same time, he obviously didn’t have a very loving or normal childhood, and he’s been used as a puppet by so many: Ms. Mead, the Satanists, his father. You don’t empathize with him, or even excuse his actions due to what he’s gone through. You do, however, understand why he acts the way that he does; maybe that makes all the difference.

You don’t remember falling asleep, but it’s obvious that you did. One moment, you’re relaxing in a bathtub and pondering how weird your life has gotten, and then you blink and you’re here. Well, wherever ‘here’ is. Everything’s dark, as if you’re standing outside in an empty field with no sign of stars, the moon, or any lights. Your eyes take a minute to adjust, but even then you’re still unable to see any sign of life. Although you can’t see anything, you can feel that something, or someone, is here with you.

The hair on your arms prickles, goosebumps rising as you feel a pair of piercing eyes watching you. The worst part, though, is that you can’t tell which direction they’re looking at you from. Just when you turn around to try and catch them, the feeling’s from behind you. It’s everywhere: Your back, your arms, your side, your face. At times it feels like you’re nose to nose with this entity, even though there’s nothing there. Your breathing picks up, nervously coming out in visible puffs as you wrap your arms around yourself. Looking down suddenly, you’re grateful that you’re not still naked in this dream (or vision, or premonition). You’re wearing the same clothes that you were wearing earlier today, almost as if you had dressed yourself while asleep.

As far as you can tell, you’re alone. That is, until you’re not. You spin around in a slow circle one last time, shrieking loudly when you come face to face with a man. A small smile has his pink lips upturned, showing his amusement at your fear. He’s tall, tall enough that his neck is bent in order to look at you. His unruly black hair somehow manages to look like he styled it that way, and his hazel eyes seem to flicker and crackle with sparks. You stumble backwards, desperate to put some space between you and this stranger. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, reminding you of how Michael looks when he smells your fear in the air.

“Who are you?” Your voice, although you attempt to sound strong, comes out shaky and hesitant.

“I am known by many different names, and I possess many different faces.” He quips, taking one long step closer to you. “Mmm, but of course you would not recognize me as I am now, right, sweet (Y/N)?”

“How do you know my name?”

He doesn’t answer. In a split second, he’s changed from the man with the mop of black hair to a tall man with brown hair and brown eyes, a trimmed beard on his face. If it weren’t for the same sparks in his eyes, you would have thought it was a completely different person.

“Does this not work for you, either?” His form changes again, to that of a teenage boy in an ill-fitting sweater and ratty jeans. His blond hair hasn’t been combed in a while, but he has the same brown eyes as that of the man before him.

“Stop doing this!” You snap, half-tempted to smack him.

“Oh, but I think you will quite enjoy this next form.” Suddenly, Michael stands before you. It looks just like the Michael you know, except for those eyes. Michael’s eyes, the real Michael’s eyes, lack that odd flame in them that this person has.

“Change back.” You say through gritted teeth. You’re not sure why the sight of him makes you feel so odd, but it does.

“You are no fun at all.” He sighs, reverting back to the original form that you first saw him in.

“I’m going to ask you this one more time. Who. Are. You?” Your hands are balled into fists at your sides, and you can feel your nails digging into the calloused flesh there.

“‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’” He quips. It sounds familiar, what he’s saying, but you have no clue where you would have heard something like this before. “Why did you react the way that you did when I assumed the image of my son?”

“Your son? Who’s your…” You trail off upon realizing the only person that he could possibly be referring to as his son. He smirks, knowing that you’re hoping with every fiber of your being that he’s not who you think he is.

“Such a smart woman you are, (Y/N).” His voice drips with the same saccharine that tempted Eve when she stood at that lonely tree in the Garden of Eden, listening to the lies of the serpent as he whispered in her ear that the Forbidden Fruit would provide her the same knowledge that God himself possessed. “Surely you have heard some of my names. Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Lucifer--” he cuts himself off, and the grin that he shoots your way has you shuddering at the mere sight of it, “--Satan.”

“You can’t be, I--how am I here?” There’s so much about this situation that’s wrong, but for some reason your mind latches onto the sheer absurdity of waking up in an actual hellscape.

“My dear, I’m the Devil. A mere parlor trick is all it took to get you into my domain.” He spreads his arms wide, proud of the desolate landscape that stretches ahead for miles and miles.

“I’m not your ‘dear.’” You retort, eyes widening when you realize that you just sassed Satan himself. Instead of stealing your soul and banishing you to the Ninth Circle of Hell, which is what you’re expecting, he stares at you for a moment before laughing loudly.

“See, everytime I think that I chose the wrong mortal to be my son’s companion, you prove to me that I made the correct choice.” He seems proud of himself, standing tall and with his chest out.

“You ruined my life with your ‘choice.’”

Satan’s face falls, and he takes another step closer to you. “I have given you the opportunity to be great!”

“You stole my free will!”

“Thanks to me, you will rule the New World side-by-side with Michael. You are the missing link to bring about our plans for the Apocalypse. My son, as I am sure you have noticed, is all too human. I blame his mother; gentle, impassioned Vivien did not pass many things down to Michael, but she did manage to give the boy an overly caring heart. He needs someone to fulfill his heart’s desires, and who better than the one who was handpicked for him?”

“The Apocalypse,” you scoff, choosing to ignore the last part of his spiel for now as you look the Devil right in the eyes. “Why do you even want to bring about the Apocalypse? Once everyone’s dead, there’s no more new souls for you to torture.”

“Hell is not just made up of the souls of the damned, (Y/N). Legions of demons, swarms of locusts and scorpions, plagues that mankind has long since forgotten. My domain shall no longer be restricted just to Hell. Instead, Hell, and all of her beasts, will wreak havoc upon the Earth.”

“You want to kill billions of people, just so that you and your buddies can get your jollies?”

“Chaos and disorder are what keeps the world running. I am merely trying to make sure that only those who can survive the most chaotic of situations will populate the New World. Which, might I remind you, you shall have a hand in ruling.”

“I don’t want your fucking crown or kingdom.”

You go to whirl around, hoping that there will be some door that you missed when you first woke up here, but you’re faced again with Satan. When you try to back away from him, a ring of flames encircles both of you, effectively trapping you with him. He snatches your wrist, and your eyes widen at the sharp talons digging into your skin.

“Did your mother never teach you that gratitude is a virtue?” His voice comes out as a thunder, shaking the very ground that you stand on.

You really should tone down the sass and backtalk, but you can’t help it when a man as arrogant as any you’ve ever met stands mere inches away. “That’s really rich, coming from the literal Devil.”

“You foolish, insolent little girl. You have no idea what I am capable of.”

Your heart pounds in your chest as he loosens his grip on your wrist, allowing you to snatch your extremity back from him. You rub the skin, visibly marked and bleeding in areas where the talons pierced through, as gently as possible while trying to gain some feeling back into your tingling hand.

“I embody the seven deadly sins,” he continues. “I can become your greatest desire…”

You haven’t been looking at him while attending to your wrist, but your movements stop at the sudden change of voice when he reaches the end of his sentence. Moving your eyes slowly upwards, you let out a harsh breath when you’re greeted with Michael’s smirking face. The Michael doppelgänger slowly walks towards you, lifting a chilly hand up to your face and caressing your cheek.

“Don’t touch me.” You mutter, unable to look away from his cerulean eyes.

“C’mon, (Y/N),” even his mocking tone sounds just like the Michael that you know, “don’t play coy with me. I can see into the deepest parts of your soul. That purity that you try so furiously to embody, tinted black in some areas. You desire me, even though you hate to admit it.”

“I don’t.”

“Liar.” He whispers, breath ghosting across your face while he moves even closer to yours. “The very essence of your being calls out for me, just as I call out for you. We were created for each other. No matter how much you try and fight it, we belong to each other. Soon enough, your mind will give into what your soul already knows.”

“Stop it!” You shout, shoving him away from you.

Satan goes stumbling back, caught off-guard by your sudden attack and nearly topping into the flames. When he rights himself again, he has a devil’s grin plastered across his original face.

“As I was saying, I can become your greatest desire, but I can also transform into your worst nightmare.”

He starts to shift and change, body convulsing as bones grow from out of nowhere. Satan’s no longer a man, although was the title of ‘man’ ever one that could be bestowed upon him? Instead, he’s a horrific, imposing creature with multiple heads that almost looks like some sort of dragon.

“‘And I saw a beast coming out of the sea,’” he bellows, all of the heads combining their voices to form a roar that has you clapping your hands over your ears. “‘It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.’”

Vaguely, you realize that the heads are quoting some part of the Book of Revelation, but you don’t have time to wonder about if the Devil has the Bible memorized when the heads of the beast unhinge their jaws, showing off their gaping maws and the dim glow of fire being conjured from deep in their belly. As the heads start to lower towards you, you drop to your knees and let out a blood curdling shriek.

Michael senses your panic before he hears your terrified screams. He springs up from his plush leather chair in his office, abruptly ending the phone call he was just on with a couple of world leaders. Your screams permeate the air, Michael’s heart pounding in terror at what you could possibly be experiencing right now. In his mind, there’s no time to waste. He blasts the bathroom door open the moment that it comes into view, hoping that you’ll forgive him for barging in on you while you’re nude.

Your subconscious, which Satan had pulled into Hell the moment your eyes slipped closed for longer than a second, had jolted back into your body upon sensing your imminent demise. In your panic, you had slipped under the water, inhaling mouthfuls of it as your lungs tried to breathe normally again. Your hands cling to the lip of the tub, almost like you’re worried that something will swim up from the depths of the bath and attempt to drag you back under. Alternating between screaming and coughing up the water that has invaded your lungs, your eyes remain clenched tight.

Michael reaches for you before his mind can start to think about the repercussions of doing so, arms slipping under your body and pulling you out of the water. His suit is soaking wet now, but he doesn’t care. He’s never seen you like this before, so terror-stricken that you can’t even open your eyes, and it shakes him to his core. You thrash against his firm chest, sure that Satan has shifted back and captured you in hell. It’s only when you hear his frantically calm reassurances that your body stops writhing.

“Hey, you’re okay, it’s fine. I’m here, nothing can hurt you.” He soothes you, waiting patiently for your eyes to flutter open.

“Michael? It’s...it’s actually you, right?” Your voice is meek in a way that he’s never heard before.

“Why wouldn’t it be me?” Your eyes fill with tears at the memory, and you shake your head before burying your face in his chest, sobs wracking your body. “What happened to you?”

The only sounds you make are the small whimpers that slip past the barrier of your mouth, floating to Michael’s ears. His fingers go to your back, freezing when he remembers that you’re naked. Hesitantly, he grabs a towel and wraps you in it, though you’re still too shocked to even care. Michael holds you tightly against him, rubbing circles on your back and listening to your heart to make sure it evens out. It takes a while, but it slowly manages to go to a rate that wouldn’t have an Apple Watch alerting its owner of a possible heart attack.

“(Y/N), is it okay if I get you dressed?” If your head wasn’t pressed against his chest, he wouldn’t even be aware that you had nodded in response to his request, the movement was so small.

Michael can tell that the steady metronome of his heart is calming to you, so he remains silent while he runs another towel through your hair. He’s gentle with you, almost like you’re a wisp of smoke he’s managed to capture in his hands; one wrong movement, and you’ll disappear. He helps to tug the black nightdress over your head, looking up at the ceiling while he inches it down past your thighs until you’re modest. A wave of his bejeweled hand makes the bathtub start to drain, the sound of the water level receding helping to fill the silence of the bathroom.

You’re exhausted, although you’re not sure if it’s from the near-drowning that still has your lungs feeling like they’re burning or the fact that Satan literally had you in Hell with him. When Michael picks you up in his arms, you don’t even bother to protest what he’s doing. The covers of your bed have already been turned down, likely the work of a maid slipping in while you were first in the bathroom. Michael sets you down amongst the plush pillows and starts to pull the blankets up around you, but stops when you grab his hand.

“It was Satan.” You mutter, tired eyes gazing up to see his panicked reaction.

“What?”

“Lay down with me.” Patting the spot on the bed next to you, Michael slowly slips his shoes off before sliding in next to you. You smile slightly at how he still respects your space, fingers just barely brushing against yours in an effort to not piss you off. “I must have fallen asleep while I was taking a bath. It felt like I only blinked, and suddenly I was in this pitch black landscape…”

You tell him everything about the confrontation with his father, only leaving out the part where Satan accused Michael of being your greatest desire. He listens intently throughout your entire story, saving all of his comments for after you’re finished.

“Why did he show himself to you?” Michael mutters, almost as if he’s talking to himself.

“Does he normally not do that?”

“I’ve never actually seen him before. My father has an...odd way of communicating with me, and that usually involves some sort of visions or rituals. I don’t understand why you’re--” he cuts himself off, jaw tightening while he lets out a sigh. “--he’s not pleased with either of us.”

“He couldn’t just have a friendly conversation with you instead of dragging me to Hell?”

“This was intended to be a message that would resonate with both of us. Would you have taken me seriously if he had spoken to me during a ritual?”

“You already know I wouldn’t.”

“Then what better way to voice his displeasure than by getting the skeptic, the unwilling second part of this equation, to be the messenger?”

“I don’t understand why he’s not pleased, though. I married you. Isn’t that enough?”

Michael grimaces. “You’re far more headstrong than he thought you would be. I think, when my father was picking a bride for me, he imagined that she would be this demure little thing who faithfully worshipped Satan and had already accrued a body count by her eighteenth birthday. You are almost the exact opposite of that, and it infuriates him. Any wrench in our plans means more time that’s wasted.”

“What you order on Amazon versus what shows up.” You joke, chuckling when Michael stifles a smile. “C’mon, that was funny!”

“It’s time for you to get some rest, (Y/N).” Michael reminds you, stroking your damp hair back from your face. His clothes are no longer wet, and you briefly wonder if he used his magic to dry them before nerves seize your stomach.

“Wait! Please don’t leave me.” You plead, gripping his arm tightly with both of yours. Michael looks concerned, and you sigh. “I’m scared that he’ll get me again if I fall asleep.”

Michael’s arms wrap around you, securing you against his chest. That steady rhythm that makes up his heartbeat starts to calm you again, and you use the sound to ground yourself.

“I won’t let him anywhere near you, I promise.” You can’t be too sure, considering how fast you drift off, but it feels like he lays a kiss to your forehead.

Michael keeps his promise, remaining with you until long after you’re asleep. When his own eyes start to slip closed, he allows himself to fall asleep next to you, protecting you no matter what.

Tag List: @sammythankyou @girlycakepops @ultragibbycentralworld @sebastianshoe @nana15774 @queencocoakimmie @lichellaw @grim-adventures58 @dandycandy75 @trimbooohgodplsnoooo @alexcornerblogthethird @everything-is-awesomesauce @ccodyfern @jimmlangdon @dolceandchalamet @omgsuperstarg @queenie435 @dextergirl12345 @americanhorrorstudies @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26 @coloursunlimited @punkysouls @kahhlo @storminmytwistedmind @1-800-bitchcraft @langdonsdemon @langdonslove @carousallie @cuddletothecake @born-on-stgeorges-day @mega-combusken @michaelsapostle @babyloutattoo89 @divinelangdon @venusxxlangdon @idespac @hexqueensupreme @hecohansen31 @rocketgirl2410 @gold-dragon-slayer 

[quincywillows]

hi maggie! congrats on finishing the first draft of quincy willows! hope you don't mind but i was actually hoping on getting some writing advice. do you have any tips on how to write a change of scene? i struggle a lot when i'm writing a scene and the next one is supposed to be some time after, even if it's on a new chapter. i don't want to be all "and a few days later...". i guess that what i'm asking is for tips on how to make smooth transitions. thanks in advance!

hi there writing friend!! so sorry it took me literally like three weeks to answer this -- i’ve been chewing on it because i want to give you like a good helpful answer and sometimes the brain is just Not Cooperating, you know? lmao. but i think i can tackle it now!

so i think the biggest tip in this sort of case is actually more a mental state than anything to do with your actual writing. i think we as writer’s can get very precious and obsessive about our own work and we then end up overthinking everything (including, as you’re asking about, transitions). believe me, i feel this kind of thing too and know exactly what you’re talking about. however, i think part of the key is sort of training yourself to remember that readers are smarter than we think they are. in fact, we ourselves are readers more often than not! so think about it -- do you spend a lot of time while reading a work of fiction stuck on transitions between time? do you find yourself overthinking the way other writer’s transition? i won’t assume for you, of course, but i would bet you’re far less critical of this sort of thing when you’re reading rather than writing it for yourself, which is totally natural but perhaps can help you not worry so much about it in your own work. readers are smart -- if you lead and at least give some semblance of the passage of time in your story, they will follow!!

in terms of ways to open sections rather than just sort of focusing on how much time has passed, i think i tend to gravitate towards snappy sort of declarative sentences. they’re usually one-liners, and they hone in on the specific emotion or action that is happening in that moment in time. it orients the reader to this new time we’re focusing on, without (ideally) drawing so much attention to the transition.

pulling from all the lonely people, here are a few examples of ways to signal the passing of time without literally stating the obvious (these are between sections, emphasis added):

Riley has never liked talking about herself. But it’s a new day, in a new place. She’s in a place where she can breathe again, light with the knowledge of it and waiting for her enigma boy to wake up so they can greet a new day. All that considered, talking about herself doesn’t seem like such a tall order.

And so she does.

...

Riley doesn’t even realize how long she chats with Rachel, ingesting another cup of decaf and watching the sun rise to its full height and beam across the green lawn outside the window. As the conversation stretches on the rapport between them becomes comfortable, effortless. She learns quickly how funny her host is and can’t help but laugh loudly, only remembering to stay quiet for Lucas’s sake the first couple of times.

that’s an example of just a few hours passing, without being overly specific about it. it’s signaled through imagery, an action occurring (the drinking of coffee and conversation), and even the mention but indistinct passage of time. 

let me grab a larger jump in time or a different method. atlp isn’t the best example for this, since it really is quite linear and doesn’t have many time jumps since it’s taking course in the span of about three weeks (lmao @ me), so i pulled this one from helpless:

It’s humiliating, how much of those crumbled up scraps of paper are dedicated to musings over a boy who he won’t even talk to. Being a student at AAA is challenging, but being a perfectionist, internally dramatic gay freshman with crippling anxiety is its own level of hell.

...

Asher doesn’t even consider the notion of their paths ever crossing until it’s forced upon him, thanks to an accidental lapse in judgment with the most unpredictable character to enter his life since stepping into the halls of Adams two weeks earlier.

in that case, i think the passage of time is sort of vaguely alluded to just in like... the logical passing of time LMAO but then the time change (two weeks earlier) is tacked on at the end, so it doesn’t feel as noticeable. also the focus (the terror and wonder of meeting dylan orlando lol) is on what asher is feeling rather than the literal passage of time. does that make sense?

HOWEVER, i really do think it’s okay to kick off with a passage of time, especially if the time passing is not that far apart. even just searching for examples in my work for this ask, i realize i do it myself quite often. i.e., in helpless just one transition later:

Their teacher gets back to his feet before Lucas can respond either way, leaving him even more uncertain than before. Asher growls and slaps the back of his snapback, causing Lucas to snort before turning it into a cough into his elbow.

Every day, Asher becomes more and more certain he’s not going to survive four years.

...

After a couple of days of existing in a constant state of dread, Asher begins to relax when Lucas’s vague playful threat doesn’t seem to hold any water. Sure, he feels like the title character in a slasher flick and that any time he turns the corner his friend is going to be standing there with a knife in the form of forced interaction, but that moment never comes and eventually Asher has to conclude that Lucas was only teasing him.

so if you’ve read my work, i guarantee you’ve seen me do this too and it probably didn’t jump out to you then. am i right? i really do think it comes back to that notion of just being more critical of your own writing than reading others, so it may be less of a problem than you think it is.

but if you do feel concerned about it, then hopefully some of my tips above might help in some way! i think the most important thing to think about is what other things are changing with the passage of time (feelings!!, thoughts, actions, etc.) that can disguise the signal of it without it just feeling outright. hopefully that makes sense.

happy writing!! sending good creative vibes your way, and thanks for your patience :)

[lesbian-rob1n]

the waves are crashing down on you and me (i’ll see you on the other side)

A/N: WARNING!!! Spoilers for stranger things season 3. Do not read this if you haven’t seen the whole season. Or do, but don’t whinge to me later. Cross posted to AO3

It’s quiet here, in the endless darkness.

Billy finally feels like he can just rest.

He’s so tired, he doesn’t remember ever being this tired before and he feels his body grow heavy, like he’s going to sink into the ground and stay here forever.

‘Good’ he thinks to himself. It’s the first thought that has been solely his own in over a week. There’s no growling, roaring monster in his head. In his body.

He’s faintly aware of water, he can feel it, lapping around him. He smells the ocean and he feels like he’s floating in the darkness.

He’s about to slip into the easy embrace of sleep when ahead of him in the blackness, a figure materialises. Blonde hair, a white dress with blue and red flowers, yellow sandals covered in sand.

His mom.

He tries to call out to her, but she doesn’t hear him.

He briefly wonders if he’s dead, and if this is purgatory.

It’s comforting, to know that if it is, he wasn’t instantaneously earmarked for hell. He thinks of max, her panicked, tear stained face his last memory.

He almost wishes his last memory was of Steve, but he doubts that would be any less painful.

His eyelids are growing heavy again, and he’s about to slip away.

Then a wave crashes into him and everything changes.

Again.

——————————————

He takes a huge shuddering breath in, or as much of one as he can. His chest hurts.

It’s fucking bright, a stark contrast to the calm easy darkness. Shapes and shadows move hazily above his head and he struggles to focus, to place himself amid the brightness and the flurry of activity that is registering dimly at the edges of his mind.

There’s an obnoxious beeping sound to his right, and something stuck to him. Multiple somethings. He starts trying to disentangle himself, but he doesn’t even get the first thing off before he feels something cold rush into his veins and the world goes blurry again.

———————————————

He doesn’t wake up in the dark place again.

Instead he wakes up in a dimly lit hospital room.

The first thing he’s aware of is how much fucking pain he’s in. It’s somehow worse than all the beatings Neil had ever given him and he goes rigid with the effort of trying not to scream.

The second thing he becomes aware of is the mop of red hair, slumped over on the edge of his bed.

Max.

His fingers reach for her, except they don’t quite feel like his own, it’s like they’re disconnected from the rest of his body, or maybe he’s disconnected from the rest of his body. But he manages to clumsily tap her on the head - not quite the gesture he was aiming for but he can only do so much - until she stirs, blinking sleepily at him until a big grin spreads over her face and she launches herself at him, hugging him as best she can while weeping hysterically about how he had died.

Well shit. He thinks as he slowly brings the hand without an IV in it up to rest on her upper back, to feel the hitching gasps of her breath as her tears slide down her cheeks and onto his neck.

Her relief and sadness crashes over him like waves.

It’s something else, learning that you had actually died and been brought back to life - never mind what he thinks now was a near death experience. He takes his own shuddering breath as Max finally pulls away.

He’s alive.

He’s not quite sure what to do with that information, or how to feel about it.

Death had been nice, from what he’d seen. It was peaceful and quiet. His mom had been there. No Neil to beat him to a pulp, no mask of hyper sexuality to keep in place. He’d felt like he was able to let all of that go and just rest for the first time in so long. The loss of it almost makes him want to cry.

A nurse comes in to give him pain killers- her name tag reads Doris- she’s no nonsense, but not unkind as she checks his vitals and shines a light in his eyes, tutting at him when he instinctively squints at the glare. She explains his laundry list of injuries, three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a head injury, internal bleeding, it goes on and on. They’d kept him sedated for three days, trying to give his body a chance to heal.

He and Max stay silent as she scratches down her notes in his file, he has questions he wants to ask his sister, but he knows better than to ask them now, with anyone else in the room.

Finally Doris leaves, after showing him how to use the call button and asking Max if she’d like anything from the cafeteria and Billy breathes a small sigh of relief.

“Is-“ his voice is hoarse and scratchy from disuse and he has to swallow thickly a few times before he tries again. “Is everyone okay?”

The pained look of sadness on Max’s face is enough to send a chill through him as she shakes her head sadly. “Hopper, he uh, he didn’t make it. The Russians had some kind of generator thing under the mall, trying to open the gate to the upside down, he died shutting it off.”

Billy feels his heart sink and they lapse into silence again as Max sniffles quietly, he knows she was friends with Hopper’s kid. It’s bad enough that Heather and her parents had died at his hands, and he feels the guilt like the teeth of the shadow monster, ripping into his flesh at the knowledge that Hopper has lost his life too.

“Russians?” He asks, when he can bring himself to speak again. “The Upside Down? Is that where that thing came from?”

Max nods like she’s relieved to think and talk about something other than death, and launches into an explanation that he struggles to follow through the haze of pain killers, he’s definitely going to have to ask her to explain it again when he’s not drugged out of his mind.

There’s a gentle knock on the door and Max stops mid sentence as they both look over to see who’s there. It’s Steve, his face a stunning array of black and blue. Billy hopes to god that he didn’t do that, not again. Not to Steve.

“Hey—” Steve says, his eyes as wide as saucers as he takes in Billy’s new found state of consciousness, carding his fingers through his hair.

Max stifles a giggle, and both of their gazes snap to her.

“Max, I’m here to take you home.” Steve says, rolling his eyes as Max opens her mouth to argue with him. “No, it’s raining again and I’m not letting you skate home, and you know you can’t stay here.”

Billy gets the distinct impression that this argument has happened before, as he watches Max gather her things in a huff. She pauses before she leaves, leaning down to hug him again.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Billy.” She whispers as her thin fingers clutch at his hospital gown. And then she’s gone, slipping past Steve with a promise that she’ll be back tomorrow. Steve asks her to wait for him near the elevators.

Steve doesn’t move from the doorway, Billy can feel his gaze lingering, and he meets it as best he can.

“You just gonna stand there, pretty boy?” He drawls, his speech going pain killers slurred. Something blooms in his chest as he watches Steve duck his head, a blush rising on his cheeks as he steps into the room.

“You look like shit.” Steve says with a small smile, as he sits in the same chair Max had been in a moment ago.

Billy snorts and looks at him again. “So do you.”

Then his hand is reaching out, his fingers ghosting over Steve’s cheekbone, skirting the edge of his black eye.

“Did I-?” He can’t bring himself to finish and swallows thickly as Steve’s eyes flutter shut and he just barely leans into his touch.

“No.” Steve murmurs. “It wasn’t you.”

Jesus Christ he’s fucking pretty. Billy thinks to himself as he allows his hand to fully cup Steve’s cheek in a way he would never have done if he were sober and hadn’t had a literal near death experience just days ago.

“You’re fucking pretty, Harrington.” The words flow out of him like the ocean going out with the tide and he looks at Steve with heavy eyes. These drugs must be something else if they’ve got him saying all these things he definitely should not be saying.

But Steve doesn’t seem to mind, he just smiles sad and soft and shakes his head, letting Billy’s hand fall away from his face and back onto the bed, next to his own.

Billy briefly thinks Steve is going to say something, but he doesn’t. And Billy can’t fight the pull of sleep anymore.

Just as he’s about to go under he feels a hand brush his, and a quiet voice echoing what Max had said to him minutes ago.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Billy.”

[leonawriter]

The Smell of Coffee and Bandages

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Bungo Stray Dogs

Pairings: Chuuya/Dazai, pre-relationship.

Summary: Chuuya works as a barista at a coffee shop, and sure it's something he's bored doing, but he's good at it. And then some guy in way too many bandages walks in and ruins his day.

Notes: Entirely inspired by me complaining with my friends over how there are coffee shop AUs in every fandom, but so many of these things (as well as most other mundane AUs) leave out the very things that I see as being the most interesting about the characters.

So, this is more like a mix between a 'mundane' AU, and a canon divergence of probably well over a decade ago.

...

Life could be worse, or at least that's what Chuuya thinks to himself as he makes yet another cafe latte. He's lost count, and it's only mid-morning. If he's honest - which, given he has to not drive the customers away, he can't be - he's bored as hell and can't wait to get free of this.

But still, things could be worse than a boring, stepping-stone job he's going to get out of and be only too happy to leave behind him as soon as he can. Although it's best not thought about why, when it's his ability to control gravity that's keeping the coffee shop afloat. 

Quite literally floating, to the discomfort of some who've either never seen an Ability being used before, or never seen his Ability being used before. A few of his old classmates had even given him strange looks, having only seen him floating pens and pencils in plain view before, if he could help it.

So, he busies himself with his work, mind half on the monotony and people watching, half on about a dozen other things he's hoping to be doing, making mental notes of what name goes to who, wondering if any of the people waiting in line had Abilities of their own.

It wasn't like there were that many of them, after all. Just enough that the general public knew they existed. Enough that there'd been laws enacted, to make sure those with Abilities had the same rights as anyone else - like people thinking it'd be just fine to do things just because they weren't like them-

A cup gets passed to him by the new trainee who's manning the tills, as well as the order; it only takes a moment, the actions ones he could do in his sleep by now, and then he's calling out the name written on the cup, and...

He blinks, taken aback just for a moment, because most normal people just don't have that many bandages everywhere. Chuuya can't see much more than the fact that they disappear into the guy's clothes like that, but, all the same. It's kind of concerning.

Bandages Guy - "Dazai", if that's the guy who's waiting for his coffee - smiles, though, as if there's nothing wrong with this picture at all and also as if he doesn't look like he's just escaped from a hospital ward.

Chuuya reaches out, coffee in hand, to pass it over, and that's where everything goes wrong.

...

First, he doesn't really notice anything, other than the fact that his fingers are brushing against Bandages Guy's in just that sort of way that's kind of awkward.

A moment later, and sure, the guy's got his coffee, but by then, Chuuya isn't really paying attention to that.

The sound of a great many things suddenly crashing to the ground as gravity - for a split second, just long enough - took hold once more, was deafening.

For a moment he just stands there, confused, because he's been doing this for so long he knows a simple lapse in concentration won't phase his grip on his Ability, so what-

How-?

...

It's about this time that Bandages Guy - or, as Chuuya is going to start calling him very soon, The Asshole - starts to laugh. It'd probably be a nice laugh, one he'd want to listen to, if it weren't for the fact that right now it's aimed at him, and the entire cafe is filled with the smell of coffee, and he's starting to wonder, and yet it can't be, the world can't be that cruel... can it?

"Oh!" Then again, by the expression on The Asshole's face, maybe it can. "So it was you who was keeping everything up like that! I had no idea!"

Chuuya leans forward, furious with the knowledge of knowing how much he's going to have to clean up, how much is coming out of his salary, and how much time is going to be wasted, and all because, if he's right, because of this person.

"Bullshit," he says, breaking his customer service face just for this one man, who barely even blinks at the anger directed at him, "what was it you just did?"

"Did? All I did was take my coffee," he says, as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Bullshit, Chuuya wants to say again, especially because the Asshole is smiling again. "Although, perhaps I would have been more careful had I known that you were the one with the amazing Ability. Or, you could wear gloves!"

Chuuya might not have that level of intuitive smarts of some people he'd heard of, but even he could read between the lines.

"You caused this, didn't you. You-"

"Now, now, you're in front of so many people, you don't want to give your shop a bad name, do you? But since I helped cause this, I'll help you clean up!"

He span around, turning away from the Bandaged Asshole and barks orders in his role as Assistant Manager for his subordinates to get the mops and buckets and cloths out to clean up the complete and utter mess, and only once he's done that, does he turn back around to face the customer-turned-disaster instigator.

"No. No way. You're going to stay at least five feet away from me at all times while I'm working. Understood?"

"Does that not count for when you're not working, then?"

Chuuya opens his mouth, and closes it again.

No, just... no. Don't give in to the temptation to deck a customer in the face. You're a trained martial artist. Asshole or not, he's obviously already beat up enough, even if it obviously hasn't taught him anything.

Aside from which, it'd be counter-productive in the extreme, since then everything Chuuya had started to fix using his Ability would then be ruined again.

And the Asshole, this Dazai, was still just stood there, holding his coffee, smiling, even though like everything and everyone else in the shop now, he was smelling strongly of coffee from everything that had spilled.

...

C. Oda.

.

Dazai walks out of Yokohama Port Coffee with a smile still on his face, and waves sheepishly over at the man who'd arrived earlier, ordered his coffee earlier, and had been waiting, as well as watching everything go down.

"Don't look at me like that," he whined, "it really was an accident. Besides, like I told him, I didn't really know that it was him."

The older man shook his head.

"Really."

They continued walking a little way, and Dazai took a sip of his coffee, making a satisfied expression at the taste of it. It really was good coffee.

"I may have had my suspicions," he admitted. Which was tantamount, with Dazai, to a full confession that the entire scenario had been planned from the start.

"You do realise he's never going to let you back in there again, don't you."

Which would be an actual shame, he thinks, even though he did know before that it was a possibility. Who knew the short barista who needed gravity manipulation just to get at the harder-to-reach tools of his trade and who just did his job oh so nicely most of the time, bit back like that?

So many amazing, fascinating, and overall fun reactions.

"Awww, but Odasaku, we hardly even know each other, he only said he wouldn't let me near him in working hours!"

"Dazai, whatever you're thinking..."

"...Yes?"

"....Be careful, at least? You I can understand, but I don't want to get kicked out of everywhere too just for associating with you."

"Right, right!" There's a pause in conversation and train of thought both while they cross the road. It takes a few paces on the pavement again before Dazai remembers what he was going to say. "I really do want to talk to him again, though. An Ability like that... who knows, maybe in another life we'd have known each other in some other way... ah! Hey, hey, maybe you should add something like that into your book?"

Odasaku sighs, still looking straight ahead, and says, "Maybe."

A maybe like that most likely meant probably not, Dazai, but it wasn't an outright no either, and just like with the Barista from earlier who was cute when he was angry, all small and red and full of temper, Dazai would take what he could get.

Although, maybe he should wait a while to let things settle down before going back.

[kusunogatari]

[ Frozen Flames and Shadowed Lights || Chapter Six ] [ @yukaikokoro @abyssaldespair ] [ Hatake Kakashi, Kottakawa Kumiko ] [ Blood, gore, animal death ] [ Verse: Divine Light ] [ Previous || Next ]

After a night of fitful rest, Kakashi rises with the sun - even after a few months off from his life on the road, old habits die hard. With the same efficiency and care, he repacks his few removed belongings into his saddlebags, ready to haul them down from the inn room to the stable beyond. Today, it seems, his real journey begins. With Kumiko now joining him, and the first landmark left behind...the rest seems to loom before him, the trail she traced upon the map fresh in his mind.

Once Kumiko rises and does the same, they take their leave, thanks given to the innkeep as they cross to the stalls. Drawing up the cinch on his gelding, Kakashi can’t help a perked brow at his companion’s mount. “Quite the beast you’ve got,” he notes.

Glancing over, Kumiko gives a soft snort. “He’s rather fancy, isn’t he? It comes with the rank...and he’s the horse I’ve come to trust most. He bore me down here...so I’m sure he can make the return trip, and then some. The horses from the north are just as tough as everything else born above the snow lines.”

“I don’t doubt it. He’s a magnificent animal.”

“Thank you.” Kumiko nods to his own. “Something tells me you’ve quite the bond with yours as well.”

“Aye. I’d probably keel over if someone could tell me the miles we’ve covered together.” He gives the gelding a pat on the neck. “There’s few places he hasn’t taken me across the continent. He’s even helped with a few contracts.”

“Oh really?”

“Let’s just say he’s a lot less skittish than most equines you’d meet.”

Small talk over, the pair mount up, carefully navigating through the streets as not to trample anyone. Already the main roads are bustling, and it takes longer than Kakashi expected to finally make it back out onto the open road.

“So,” Kumiko then begins, reins held loosely in one hand. “Seeing as we’re to spend at least a few weeks together, is there anything I should know about the infamous vom berech?”

“...before I answer that, mind telling me what that means?” Berech he’s heard before, and he...vaguely knows the term’s meaning. “Suigin called me the same.”

“It’s, well…” A pause to think how to explain. “Berech is a bit of a catch-all term for those who are both el’tahl, and el’ven. Typically it’s attributed to halfbloods or quarterbloods, but the more literal translation from old tongue is ‘between’. Not much of the first language remains - when the lands were divided and cultures began to branch out, it was lost and splintered. Then Common was made of a mish-mash of many languages. But you can still find bits and pieces.”

“And the ‘vom’? What’s that mean?”

“It, er…” A hesitation. “It sort of means…‘something created from nothing’…? Or perhaps ‘created’ is enough. I think Suigin was referring to the fact that your ven comes from something originally outside your body.”

“Ah...that makes sense.” Kakashi heaves a small sigh. “...well, I suppose that ties into your question, so maybe I’ll loop back around to it, eh?”

“I don’t mean to pry - don’t think I’ll wrestle from you what you won’t want to tell.”

At that, he gives a dry smile. “Even if you tried, I’d doubt you’d succeed,” he assures her. Still, he lapses into silence, thinking where to begin. “...I was born in a large city in the old Igni lands. Both of my parents, to my knowledge, were simple el’tahl folks. My mother died when I was very young - I remember little of her. And my father was part of the city guard. He raised me for a few years, but took his own life after an incident that brought shame to the family.”

Kumiko’s eyes widen. “...I’m sorry.”

“...it was a long time ago. From there, I was taken into the barracks early and started training to follow his career. When I was young, I made a few el’ven friends. Rin was one, and...Obito was the other. The one who gave me this,” he adds, gesturing to his vermillion eye. “Rin’s family is mostly terra mages, but she branched out into flora, and worked in an apothecary shop raising plants and making medicines. Obito was berech igni, an orphan from a large clan that was like the ruling class of the city. The three of us were always running around, sticking our noses into trouble. And then, of course...there was the time it finally went wrong.

“We were outside the city a ways, looking for new specimens of plant for Rin to start cultivating, and then there was a ruckus nearby. Rin insisted we go look, and we found a group of mage hunters attacking a lux mage. Rin know what she was in a moment, and insisted we help. Where Rin went, Obito followed, so...we joined the fray. It was a fairly even struggle, but I got clipped in the eye by a blade. Things started going downhill, and then suddenly...they all vanished. Rin later theorized the mage used the rest of her strength to send them through time portals. But...she’d acted a little too late.”

Pain shadows Kakashi’s face, and Kumiko glances aside. “...Obito had been run through just as they disappeared. And with so little ven left, the lux mage couldn’t save him. So instead...she asked if he’d give me an eye to replace the one I’d lost. Obito agreed, and she managed to perform the transplant before she…” A fade to silence. “...Obito passed not long after. We buried her, having no idea what funeral rites lux mages’ culture entails. But we knew Obito’s clan would want him back.

“Before she died, the mage told us to take a ‘treasure’ she had hidden in the hollowed tree at the edge of the clearing. And that treasure...turned out to be Ryū.”

“What?! So...that woman was…?”

“Her mother. Rin and I took her with us...Rin reported Obito’s death to the igni mages, and they went to fetch him, cremate him as is their way. But I was afraid to stay in the city. I thought they’d see my eye, and assume I’d killed Obito to take it. After all...there were no hunter bodies - they’d all disappeared. All that was left was his corpse, and the signs of a struggle. And Rin had concerns about the igni clan getting their hands on Ryū. So...we fled. For a while we stuck to the road, and it was while traveling we found out Obito’s eye changed me enough to let me use some igni ven. It scared me, at first...so when Rin found a little village to hide Ryū in, I decided to leave. I didn’t want to bring them trouble, or hurt them on accident before I trained how to use my new power. Instead, I started doing contracts. Mostly killing pests...which led to beasts. I was making a decent living, and then...a few months ago, Rin found me and told me all Ryū was up to, trying to remake the Summit. So I came back, let her wrangle me into being her advisor, and...now, here we are. And here she’s not…”

“...we’re going to get her back,” Kumiko affirms, tone sure. “...I guess now I know why you were so distraught. She means more to you than I realized, like family...I’m sorry if I came across as aloof to that fact.”

Kakashi waves a hand. “No harm done.” A pause, and then a glance. “...so? What about you, lady Kumiko?”

Snorting at the title, Kumiko thinks for a moment. “I was born an only child to the main family within my clan: Tamotsu and Yuka Kottakawa. As ours is the strongest, we were chosen to act as leaders within the realm of Glaciris. That mantle fell to my father from his, and to me when the time came. But, while he has trained and groomed me to be his successor...he and I have vastly different ideals for our lands, and our people.”

There’s a light sigh. “...my father agrees with the old ways. Of being cold, and cut off from the rest of the continent. His pride holds us to a different standard, and insists we tend to our own affairs, and our affairs only. While he is content to rule at a distance...I cannot keep myself so far from my people.” A warm smile blooms across her face. “More than once, I snuck from the manor and wandered the city. I wanted to see the people and places I would come to lead. And that was...when…”

Kumiko’s features darken. “...when Nori was assigned to me. When my father realized there was no holding me back, he instead insisted I be protected when I went. But I would not stand for that. Instead, I had Nori train me how to fight...how to survive. While I had been trained in the beginnings of channeling ven, I wanted to know how to wield a blade. What if my element was taken from me? I had to have another skill to rely on. All of that, as I walked the streets of my city, made me realize...I would never be as my father is. As he wants me to be. He holds himself far and away from our people, but that is not a road I can take. I want to warm them to me, as I seek to warm them to the world. I want to inspire unity both within our lands, and beyond them. El’tahl and el’ven alike...I want them to trust me. To have faith in me. When they began approaching me on our walks, I knew it was my destiny.

“So, I doubled down on my studies. Threw myself into learning all I would need to know, and becoming embroiled in the politics of the north. And it was that dedication that saw me chosen as the representative of Glaciris for the new Summit.”

Kakashi watches as Kumiko smiles to herself - it’s more than clear her words are fully backed by actions and intentions. “...my people have much to learn, and far to go...but I will not give up on them. I will lead them to a brighter future.”

The hunter gives a curl of his own lips, chuckling. “It’s quite the sight to imagine, you learning your swordplay and butting heads with your father. True, a leader cannot be everywhere, cannot know everyone...but I think I prefer your method to his.” A thoughtful pause. “...I’ve never known anyone from the north well, so I’ve no judgment to make. But if your actions are half so strong as your words, I’ll wager you meet your goals.”

“I hope so, Kakashi.”

From there, their journey fades into a companionable silence broken by random quips. But with so many miles and hours to go, most pass with little interruption. The plains of the heartland soon overrun with trees, and the path lines with dense forest, shaded as the afternoon ages. For a time, the ride is pleasant...but the pair’s keen senses soon realize something is...amiss.

It’s quiet.

Too quiet.

Glancing to one another in a silent bid to be on guard, they both startle as a ruckus sounds a ways down the road. Both horses jolt, dancing in the dirt as their riders work to soothe them.

“Easy,” Kakashi murmurs, calming the gelding to a snorting standstill. Something sounded like...snapping wood? Almost as if a tree had fallen, but...there’s no wind. Nor any wagon tracks to suggest someone out to fell them.

“What do you suppose that was?” Kumiko asks quietly, reassuring her stallion as he huffs a breath.

“I can’t say for sure...but it stinks of trouble,” he replies, brow furrowing. “For now, I think it’s best we get off the road. Circle around to the other side and keep our eyes peeled.”

“Agreed.”

Dismounting, they instead lead their hoses to the left, abandoning the path and carefully stalking through the trees. The tall trunks and broad canopies mean little light for undergrowth. Nice in that it makes it easier to see...but also to be seen.

A few minutes of silence eventually give way to growing noise. Another silent agreement, the pair tethering their horses in a thicket before creeping onward alone. Peering around a turn in the road from behind a fallen log, they both tense at what they see.

A wagon, goods splayed all over the road, is completely overturned. Nearby, an ox lies dead, neck clearly broken. The other is still tethered to the cart...and atop it, tearing into flesh with a wicked beak...is a gryphon.

“Twelve above,” Kumiko whispers.

“Guess that explains the noise we heard…what in the hells is it doing so close to town…?”

“...wait…” Patting Kakashi’s arm, she points. “...look!”

Cowering under the splintered wreckage of his cart, the driver is somehow still alive, currently unnoticed as the beast occupies itself with his livestock.

“...well I’ll be damned.”

“We have to do something!”

Sighing curtly, Kakashi nods. “...all right...can you create an ice wall?”

“A small one, probably. There should be enough moisture for me to draw from.”

“Good...when I give the signal, make a wall between the gryph and the cart. Use that to get him out of there, and back here into the trees. With those wings and that bulk, the gryphon won’t want to follow. I’ll be a distraction.”

“Will you kill it?”

Kakashi considers the wreckage. “...the cart’s not worth saving, and the oxen will spoil before they can be used. I doubt much of his merchandise is whole, either. I could just leave it to finish up the mess, but…” He drags a hand down his face. “...it’s too close to town. And now that it knows it can find easy prey on the road, it’ll just strike again.”

“...can you kill it?”

“Only one way to find out.” Before she can argue, he vaults over the log and heads toward the road, posture crouched and pace quick. 

Swearing lightly under her breath, Kumiko follows, remaining hidden behind a trunk and awaiting Kakashi’s signal.

Making it to the cart, Kakashi taps the driver, who flinches with a yelp. Slapping a hand over his face, the hunter makes a curt gesture for silence. 

Above them, the creature pauses...and then returns to its feast.

“My companion will come for you,” Kakashi whispers. “When she does, follow her back into the trees, and stay down. I’ll take care of the beast.”

“Oh, Twelve bless you sir - bless you!”

Sighing at the unnecessary noise, Kakashi peeks around, then waves back to Kumiko.

In a sprint, she gestures to the path before her. Water condenses from the air and the nearby forest, cooling at her urging and forming an icy barricade.

Squawking, the gryphon flutters in surprise as Kakashi runs out the other side. 

“Oi! This way, bird brain!” he calls, sending a stream of fire from a palm into the creature’s face.

A shrill shriek cuts through the air, rattling Kakashi’s brain with the sound. Teeth grit, he watches Kumiko reach the cart, dragging out the driver and dashing back for cover.

Okay, good…

Summoning more ven, he directs dual jets to the wagon, the dried wood catching like tinder. Smoke billows up from the wreckage, and the beast shies from it with an angry cry.

Drawing his sword with a twirl, Kakashi squares off against his new quarry. Seems to be a young male, juvenile...not as big or strong as an adult, but more limber, and faster. No wonder he took an easy meal where he could. Odds are, he’s been having trouble hunting regular prey on his own. Also why he’s so close to town: likely driven out of any other established territories.

“Sorry friend, but you’re too dangerous to leave here,” Kakashi murmurs, watching as the beast crouches with a hiss. Bird talons dig into the dirt for a steadying grip...and then with a lunge, it leaps across the gap, beak wide open.

Tucking and rolling to one side, Kakashi makes to loose more flames...but the element sparks and flickers. What?! Out already?! But I -?

A screech gives him just enough warning to dodge again, trying to land a hit with his flailing blade. It grazes along a rear leg, blood arcing as the gryphon screams. Hardly deadly, but...it might slow it down.

Beyond the treeline, Kumiko settles the cart driver in their previous hiding place. “Stay here, don’t move, and don’t make any sound.” Accepting his shaking nod, she turns on a heel and sprints back to the road, watching as Kakashi dances with his foe. The cart is aflame, belching black smoke as the pair strike and dodge. Assessing the situation, her eyes narrow as she notices Kakashi seem to lag.

...he didn’t instruct for her to interfere, but…

Determined, she closes some of the distance before kneeling, palms planted to the ground. Ven bleeds into the earth, looking for something…

Aha!

With a growing roar, she struggles to drag up the water from beneath the ground, the liquid seeping up and following her command. As the gryphon moves her way, she begins firing shards of ice. The sharp projectiles earn a shriek as they cut through feathers and into flesh, garnering the beast’s attention to her, instead.

“Kumiko!” Kakashi shouts in warning.

Unphased, she slides under as the monster pounces, water shadowing her arms and rippling. Almost as if time slows, she raises her limbs as the hybrid’s underbelly glides over her...and with a thrust of energy, the element strikes forward, hardening into condensed ice that spears through into its abdomen.

A strangled cry of pain sounds, the beast landing in a heap as Kumiko comes to a stop. Panting, she struggles back to her feet...but it’s clear the fight is over.

Kakashi stares with widened, mismatched eyes.

...he...was not expecting that.

“...we should end its misery,” she then murmurs, wiping the sweat from her brow.

“...aye.” Closing the gap, Kakashi - wary of the talons - drives his blade up behind a foreleg, and into the beast’s heart. It gives a dying bleat of pain...and then goes limp.

Silence...save for the crackling of cart wood.

Withdrawing his sword, Kakashi cleans the gore from it before sheathing it, looking to the beast somberly. “Well...a life for a life, I suppose.”

“You were right - it’s far too close to town. Just a matter of time before a human fell prey,” Kumiko agrees, a hand upon his shoulder. “But...what shall we do with the driver? He has no way to the next city without his wagon.”

“And we’ve no time to backtrack,” the hunter muses. “I’d rather not take him with us for a week to the town beyond, either.”

“My...my good sir? And lady?”

The pair turn, and Kumiko’s expression flattens. “I told you to remain where I left you!”

Flinching, the salesman replies, “I...yes - I-I know. But I heard things go quiet, so…?”

“It’s dead,” Kakashi confirms, sensing his question. “You’re safe...though your goods are forfeit.”

“That’s no matter in the face of my life! You have my eternal thanks, good people. I...I have no coin on my person, but -?”

Kakashi shakes his head, raising a hand. “I wasn’t hired. There’s no price. Besides...it needed to be done.”

“Please, may...may I have your names?”

“Kakashi Hatake. And the lady is Kumiko Kottakawa.”

Bowing and bowing, the man finally dares to step into the road, skirting the carcass nervously. “Please, I hail from the town just south. If you should ever pass by again, seek out the Oakheart Trader! I’ll gladly settle the debt then! I insist!”

“It will be some weeks before we head that direction again,” Kumiko warns. “But your honor is appreciated. I’m afraid we’ve pressing business - we cannot take you back to town…?”

“Oh, fret not! I passed a patrol on my way out - they will surely soon about-face and find me, for I doubt the smoke will go unnoticed for long. I’m certain there will be help before sundown! You have done more than enough, kind sir and lady. Thank you, thank you!”

A bit unnerved at the praise, Kakashi just gives an awkward nod...then reaches to his side, unbuckling the dagger he took from the Luxerian armory. “Here. It may not save you from a beast of this ilk, but...I’ll not leave you undefended. And it should sell for some to help amend for your losses.”

Eyes wide at the pristine dagger, the man only becomes all the more reverent. “Your generosity, sir...it knows no bounds…!”

Trying to wave him off, Kakashi offers, “Stay in the treeline, and with your back to a tree. Wait for that patrol, and be sure to report all you saw.”

“I will, thank you! Safe travels, lord and lady!”

As the pair move to retrieve their horses, Kumiko gives a small snicker. “I think you’ve an adoring fan, Kakashi. Something tells me if you ever enter that shop, he’ll never let you leave!”

“Best leave that to you, then...after all, you were the one to strike the deciding blow.”

She waves the sentiment aside. “We worked together. Call it even.”

“As you wish.”

     Aaand with that, we officially enter non-thread territory! We started this scene, but Kakashi bailed on me and blog stuff changed before it finished. I am...NOT the best at fight scenes, obviously xD Tbh it feels a little short, but...oh well. It’s mostly just a filler fight and an event for these two to bond a bit more!

[kriskebob-blog]

Day 2: In which the real challenge is, can she keep it to one post this time?

Hello again friends. I have buddies who have been writing partners with me over many years, some spanning back to freshman year of high school. Any of them can tell you that I tend to provide a LOT of background information and context when telling a story. If you’ve made it with me this far, you too are now beginning to understand my verbose tendencies. But I’m really going to try to keep Day 2 contained to a single and readable blog post. Let’s see if I can pull it off. 

To my pleasant surprise, I sprang out of bed at my 6am alarm with no problem in spite of going to bed a bit late. I was excited to get this burrito bake thrown together and ready for Sam. Since I had prepped all the components the previous night, it didn’t take much time at all to assemble the burritos. I did have to get out the bullet to crush up some pumpkin seeds, which Dr. G advised me would make for a pleasant crunchy topping. I winced as I hit the pulse button a few times, hoping I wasn’t waking Sam. 

Once more I was assembling wraps. Here’s how they looked before I folded them over: 

Please note I prepped them literally on my stovetop because I HAVE NO COUNTER SPACE. 

Anyhow. They were definitely super full but since they only needed to be gently folded over and then placed seam side down, I got them into the baking dish no problem. Topped them with a few scoops of salsa and the pumpkin seeds and into the oven they went. Once they were out, they also got topped with some avocado. 

Here’s a few pics of the finished product. Please forgive the fact that I know nothing about photography, especially food photography. Like, does the rule of thirds still apply? I’m thinking no...

I proudly told Sam breakfast was ready and we devoured these. And... I have to say... it needed salt! Does this Dr. Gregor guy really know what he’s talking about? I couldn’t help but wonder. Sure, he knows about medicine and nutrition and stuff, but food needs salt, and nutritional yeast is a pretty unconvincing substitute on the palate. Hmmm. I decided I might have to do some further digging on this guy and his philosophy. I’d bought his cookbook pretty impulsively, after all. Don’t get me wrong - there were a lot of tasty things going on in this recipe, but I definitely felt like it needed more seasoning. Even a bit of hot pepper flakes or something would probably have helped distract my mouth from the lack of sodium it’d become so accustomed to. 

Sam went on his way to work and I settled in to relax with some trashy TV for a few hours. I felt like I’d earned it after all my running around yesterday, dang it! (Parents everywhere roll their eyes... I know, I know.) I got hungry around 10:40 and ate a banana and felt like I deserved an award for my healthy choice. When lunchtime rolled around, I didn’t really feel like assembling another wrap and we had a lot of shredded lettuce left over, so I put the chickpea mixture on top of that and had a salad instead. I realize I never actually commented on how the curry chickpea wraps came out last night. They were delicious! The sweetness of the apples and raisins helped distract me from the lack of salt, hah. Honestly a really nice combination of textures and flavors, and easy to make. I’d make it again.. probably with more salt but anywho...

Lunch was over and this was around the time I’d normally indulge in some chocolatey granola. I could feel the craving for chocolate kicking in, hard. Alright. Time to put together these no-bake brownies. This was another recipe that was super simple so long as you had a food processor or some kind of chopper - you literally just pulsed chopped walnuts with a handful of pitted dates, then added in a bunch of cocoa powder, and boom. “Brownies.” Dr. G. advised I use parchment paper to press this rather crumbly mixture into a square baking dish, so that it wouldn’t stick to my fingers as I evened it out. Worked like a charm. I pressed some chopped pecans into the surface, covered the pan in foil, and put it in the fridge. Dr. G. said it would need an hour to set before eating. Sigh. That was a long time to wait when I wanted chocolate now. I settled for some strawberries instead for the time being and began looking at the recipes I’d be cooking that night for dinner.

And thank goodness I did, because there were several things I needed to start prepping early. I would be making zoodles with a cashew cream sauce, which meant I needed to put the raw cashews in water ASAP so they’d have enough time to soak before dinner. Took two seconds, but you can see that you need to really plan out your meals and read the recipes well in advance if you’re going to cook this way. I also would need 1.5 cups of homemade vegetable stock or  water. Okay, I definitely didn’t want water in place of that much stock. I flipped to the vegetable stock recipe. It looked very simple to throw together, but it would need an hour and a half to simmer. I looked at the clock. About 1:20. I could’ve started it then, but I really wanted to get to the library. 

See, I’d done a little research after lunch. I wanted more detail about Dr. G’s nutritional philosophy than this cookbook alone could offer me. Nikki had told me about the book he’d written and I had seen it on Amazon. But I didn’t really want to pay for it, and also I wanted it now. It wasn’t available at my local library, but luckily a quick search of their databases revealed that the next town over had it. 

I drove on over to Tolland Public Library, feeling like an interloper with my Vernon library card, but it didn’t matter. I walked out triumphant and more surprised than I should have been at how huge the book actually was. I got home and got to work on throwing the veggie stock together.

This is before I added parsley and some other seasonings, but you get the idea. Took probably ten minutes tops to throw together. I set it to simmer and settled into my armchair to start reading Dr. G’s book. 

I was hooked. A professional sharing their expert knowledge on the science behind living a longer and healthier life is like catnip to me. I was thoroughly bummed by this part, though: To see what effect an increase in meat consumption might have on disease rates, researchers studied lapsed vegetarians. People who once ate vegetarian diets but then started to eat meat at least once a week experienced a 146 percent increase in odds of heart disease, a 152 percent increase in stroke, a 166 percent increase in diabetes, and a 231 percent increase in odds for weight gain. During the twelve years after the transition from vegetarian to omnivore, meat-eating was associated with a 3.6 year decrease in life expectancy. 

Damn it, Dr. G. You’re telling me I can’t eat a burger even once a week without being way more likely to die a prolonged and terrible death one day?? I hemmed and hawed as I read on. Eventually my stock was ready to take off the burner and cool. The next step was to put it in the blender and liquefy it. It made so much I actually had to do this part in batches. Dr. G. also directs you to take out a small amount and mix in 2 tablespoons of miso, which helps add some sodium but in a healthier way, since soy is good for you or whatever. Awesome. My stock was done. I put that away and went back to reading for a little while. 

Alright, still with me? We’re almost there! Just gotta get through dinner. According to Dr. G’s meal plan, this dinner should contain two parts: a huge salad, and also the zoodles with the cashew cream sauce. I honestly wasn’t sure where to start and decided to make the cashew cream sauce first. It was pretty easy - mostly ingredients I already had on hand at this point, such as the stock, blended lemon, yeast, miso, etc. I just had to chop up half an avocado and toss it in and boom, I had my cashew-cream sauce. The next part of this dish was to spiralize the zucchini and steam it lightly. Once that was done, you would combine it with the cashew sauce and some chopped grape tomatoes in one big pot just long enough to heat it through. “Avocado-cashew alfredo” is what Dr. G called it. He also suggested you sprinkle it with “nutty parm” when it was done. Turns out nutty parm is a big heaping handful of nutritional yeast blended with a few handful of nuts. It does not taste nearly as good as actual parmesan cheese, but you knew that already, didn’t you? 

The salad was pretty simple too. Chop up a bunch of lettuce, mix in some baby spinach, some shredded carrot, more grape tomato, etc. The only part that took any extra work was making the dressing. I was really skeptical of the dressing because it had no oil in it. Just water. As a woman who married into an Italian-American family, the lack of love for EVOO in this book hurts my heart a little. But again, no half-measures! The dressing’s base consisted of water.... and then you add raw garlic, yeast, some almond butter, blended lemon, our old friend miso, fresh parsley, turmeric, the savory spice blend, and “salt free stone-ground mustard”. I don’t know what magical land Dr. Gregor lives in where he can purchase salt-free condiments - I stopped at the health food store on my way back from the library and even their condiments still have some salt. I just used the coarse-ground mustard I already had on hand. Finally, the salad also called for a healthy sprinkling of hemp hearts. 

Here are the finished products:

The verdict? Delicious!! Both dishes! I think it helped that I used normal-people mustard for the dressing, and I also added a healthy sprinkling of red pepper flakes to the zucchini dish while it was heating through. And honestly, apart from having to make the stock and be sure to remember to soak the raw cashews early in the day, this really didn’t take more work than a lot of other veggie-forward dishes I’ve made from omnivore recipe books. Less, even, because I didn’t have to worry about handling or cooking meat safely. 

I warned Sam about 5 times that there was dessert “but not like, a normal dessert. Don’t get too excited. It’s a healthy one.” We each took a tiny brownie square (Dr. G advised cutting the already small pan into 16 “brownies”... hilarious) and munched on it, eyeing one another as our respective brownies crumbled between our fingers. “Well?” I asked. “It tastes healthy,” he nodded. “Ha. Sorry,” I said. “No, it’s not bad. I do actually like it, but it’s kind of hard to eat without an egg to hold it all together,” he told me. I’d have to agree. 

And that’s a wrap on Day 2, guys! Since I didn’t have my lascivious FRIENDS luring me out of my healthy haven with their Cheetos and Harry Potter games (love you Tina :* ) I was able to grab some unsalted peanuts when I got my late night snack craving, and that was that. A day of fully whole-foods, plant-based eating, and it wasn’t that hard at all honestly. See you on the Day 3 post! 

 Gadget rec of the day: A spiralizer! You can get one for like 20 bucks on Amazon and turn vegetables into long ribbons that can almost trick you into thinking you’re eating a tasty bowl of pasta. 

Music rec of the day: “Entropy” by Grimes