#ill implement it in a fic

[cookiedough77]

is this anything

thinking about neurodivergent lukadrien

[three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat]

First chapter of bug wip is done, now to do the worst part: write a summary

[1800titz]

The one where Y/N and Harry are neighbors in an apartment complex, he's got a bunny called Snuggles, he makes softcore porn spanking people (it's a REALLY LOUD HOBBY), and Y/N has definitely called the police for a domestic disturbance next door.

HI FRIENDS. The council has spoken, so here is the first part of the lovingly-dubbed spanko fic. This series will be early access, so— parts go up on patreon first, then they come to tumblr 3-ish weeks later (but if you wanna get ahead, the second part is already up on patreon). Reader insert, emotionally a slowburn, and basically a garbage fire I'm pouring my deepest, darkest desire into as a coping mechanism :p If you liked TDIAG, you'll probably rock with this one. As always, feedback/reblogs massively appreciated <3 WEEEEEEEE okay bye

ᴄʜᴇᴄᴋ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ : ᴍᴀɪɴ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

CONTENT/WARNINGS: miss girl misconstruing consensual kink for domestic violence (oops)

WC: 7.8K

Harry’s face is the reason average men have developed a phenomenon called personality. 

Historically, it was faces like his, at the very least, that ignited adaptation— this wasn’t an overnight implementation, after all. Men don’t move that fast. There’s a long-lasting, brutally destructive record there, and a tale as old as time itself. Before charisma had to be manufactured in the absence of a devastating jawline, there was the high-cheekbone aristocracy, and its counterpart, what’s known today as the “he’s actually really nice” faction. The beauty privilege inventors; the bedroom-eye monarchy; the symmetrical syndicate of a resting smolder— 

And the rest of everyone else. 

Rumor has it that the first comedian was a man who watched another guy, who had eyes like wet chrysocolla and really broad shoulders, turn a casual glance into an entire bloodline’s origin story. Maybe the first poet sat next to a man wearing the skin of divine nepotism— and the only defense strategy was to pick up a hobby that spoke less in pretty, heart-shaped lips and more in words like love’s trembling hand doth trace its name upon thy skin. New seduction ritual: implemented.

Basically, the survival mechanism goes like this: if you’re competing with bone structure sculpted by an empyrean chisel, a mouth worthy of oil paintings and crumpled love letters, and the kinds of dimples that were engineered for the sole purpose of emotional damage (Cupid’s attempt; two, little exit wounds, the perfect pair of injustices parenthesizing his smile)…

And you’re lingering in the shadow of those attributes? Operating on a deficit? Well, then. There’s a little more work left to be put in. 

If you’re lucky, you’re tall, or you’re well endowed in the basement, or both. If you’re none of those things, you’re banking on a gift with a musical instrument, or you’re coping with the weight of your wallet. You’re getting into niche, esoteric interests you will impress upon every woman that steps foot into your orbit to stand out, or you’re polishing up your comedic abilities. The thing is, society has evolved to the point where this compensation is the foundation to procreation. The foundation to function. And the kind of men with faces like Harry, who got in line not once, but twice when God was handing out genetic privilege (the overachieved extra credit projects), just get to sit back and let the world unravel at their feet.

Men like Harry don’t need personalities because they already look interesting enough. When you’re the kind of pretty that inspires love songs and ill-advised tattoos, you don’t need wit, or pockets lined with green. It opens doors (and legs) with such minimal effort that it may as well be as simple as breathing. The quiet space in a room bends around you when you become the focal point by existing, incidentally magnetic. 

It’s pretty unfair, to say the very least.

Y/N only really registers it passing— in fleeting, peripheral moments when the space bends around him and her eyes glue, almost like an accident. A brief sighting here and there, like a rare animal caught between the trees— seen but not acknowledged, because staring starts to feel like stepping into something too raw, too deliberate.

He’s always moving. In motion, slipping past. Glimpses of wide shoulders cutting through the communal pool, water slicking over musculature in a smooth tide and then rivulets, droplets sticking against sun-warmed skin. A silhouette in the elevator at the end of the hall, head bowed. Sorting through crinkled envelopes between his massive hands with a ruckle between his brows.

He’s got the kind of face that suggests he should be gently perched on the edge of a marble fountain, carved in alabaster. A cherubic thing. Rosy-mouthed, haloed by damp curls that tuck around his ears in perfect, artistic disarray. The kind of beauty that feels vaguely mythological, like he should either be blessing crops or luring unbeknownst sailors to their deaths. A visage that belongs on domed Renaissance ceilings.

Y/N breathes. Her pulse feels like it’s rattling a little. It makes her head feel a little gooey when he’s stood in front of her. 

And here he is, holding a package in one hand, water still beading at his collarbone from a morning shower, damp curls dripping onto the fabric of a lived-in, vintage T-shirt. The tragic failure of modern existence is that a man like this— who should, by all logic, be strumming a lyre on the edge of a celestial fountain— has instead been doomed to wander the mundanities of the human condition. To swipe through his mail. To stand in front of her door and say things like “Think they swapped our mail again” in that perfectly unassuming, relaxed tone, like his very existence isn’t actively offensive to the concept of mediocrity.

His singular flaw? That one, teeny thing?

He’s a horrific neighbor. 

Abysmally inconsiderate, in fact. Maybe, one of the worst people Y/N has ever had the pleasure of sharing a paper-thin wall with.

The thing is, under all normal circumstances, eye candy is a desirable next door tenant, to catch those scarce glimpses of and swoon over. But Harry? He’s dangerous. An illusion gilded in beauty that sits in this achingly so, lazy way. It’s an excellent cover for someone who (based on volume alone) should be legally required to sublet a soundproof chamber instead of an apartment. Beauty privilege, remember?

Instead of spending his days spreading divine harmony and whispering sweet nothings into the ears of poets, her tragically beautiful neighbor has chosen a different calling. One that involves subjecting Y/N to an auditory experience that can only be described as an unholy, unprovoked act of sonic terrorism against anyone who possesses functioning ears.

While he may look like the patron saint of soft lighting and tasteful nudity, he lives like a man who has never once considered the presence of neighbors. Evidently, the universe operates on imbalance. 

It’s not surprising that he fucks. Nor is the frequency, given— everything. It would be more surprising if he didn’t, which, statistically, seems impossible. It is the sheer volume at which he fucks and the blatant disregard for customary noise ordinances.

Y/N has had the great misfortune of gaining intimate knowledge of Harry’s extracurricular activities through nothing but flagrantly inconspicuous, unsolicited proximity. She is now, against her will, deeply familiar with the sound of his bed frame against the wall. With the low, gravel-thick groan that spills out of him before everything goes quiet, the sharp gasp from whoever is tangled up in the sheets beneath him. The pornographic chainlink of yes, yes, yes, as if to lyricize the tempo of a wrought iron headboard ramming against hollow drywall. She’s a victim to secondhand moaning; a hostage to the unchecked libido of a man she’s not even screwing.

The young woman isn’t sure who he’s sleeping with, but based on the sounds, they either really, really like whatever feat of Olympian-endurance he’s performing on the other side of the wall, or they’re being held at gunpoint and doing an exceptional job of faking it. It’s loud. A predictable regularity. Enough to make her consider downloading white noise apps and investing in a stronger liquor cabinet.

And every morning, after nights filled with thumping and gypsum-dulled dirty talk— horny monologue hour, hardly softened by an overworked, underpaid layer of rental-grade plaster— and the occasional bass-heavy indie rock soundtrack, he leaves his apartment looking criminally rested. Peaceful. Unbothered by the absolute railing he has just put someone (and the walls) through.

For all his divine aesthetics, Harry fucks like he’s trying to earn a standing ovation. With the kind of dedication to performance that suggests he thinks there’s an awards committee waiting outside in the hallway to hand him a trophy when he’s done.

Y/N doesn’t know what’s worse— the rhythmic, wall-shaking thump of his bed frame, the low, muzzled stream of just incomprehensible enough to stay offensive murmurs, or the fact that he has the audacity to look well-rested when she sees him the next morning, while she lurches past him like a woman who’s been spiritually waterboarded by the full-scale resonance of his sex life.

Y/N has tried— earnestly tried— to ignore it. To mentally downgrade him from disruptively attractive to something more manageable, like guy-next-door cute. But Harry is simply too loud to be ignored.

And not just in volume— though, yes, he operates at a decibel that insinuates he believes “inside voice” is an urban legend. It's everything. The way he takes up space. The way he stretches his arms over his head and his shirt rides up, exposing a sliver of toned stomach like some kind of aesthetic oversight. The way his lips pull into a smirk when he's amused, a single dimple pressing into the smooth skin of his cheek.

The worst part? He doesn’t weaponize it. Just… exists, as if he entirely lacks self-awareness for the unrelenting power he yields with pure aesthetics. 

Perhaps the only thing more dangerous than his unregulated evolutionary favoritism is the lack of object permanence it causes. Inspires. Because at the end of the day, despite how polite, how deeply-gnarled in neighborly niceties, The Incident from last month still exists, but miraculously manages to melt into her every time she’s face to face with him. Like a static buzz settling into the way her composure thaws away.

His most notable sound pollution, to date, spilled in the form of audible rejection on a rain-drenched afternoon, dripping through the drywall in a dissent-rusted chain. Stop. No. Please. It was a voice she didn’t recognize. A voice trying to be firm but not entirely expecting to be listened to. It sounded so defeated, like a cry and then a high, sharp whine in response to whatever distinctly lower-pitched murmurs the insulation muzzled. All velvet-dipped tones swallowed by the structural integrity of a shoebox apartment.

Y/N is the last person to dig into others’ preferential depravities, nor does she have the mental bandwidth to file through the archives of a borderline stranger’s hedonisms, but her stomach had twisted up like one of those coiled, abstract sculptures that fits on a bookshelf, and she ended up on the couch with her cellphone tucked to her ear. 

Because it wasn’t just the kind of sound that prickled at her nape, but curdled deep in the belly of her, heavy and rotting. 

(“Um, hi, I think my neighbor is— hurting someone.”)

But the thing is, standing with her door cracked now, Y/N thinks there needs to be at least one, obnoxiously visible character flaw to remind her and offset the audacity of his aesthetics, because up close, it’s so much worse. 

Anything— an overinflated ego, a questionable tattoo, a personality cultivated exclusively from Joe Rogan podcasts. But no. Harry is polite— painfully so, armed with the clean-shaven jawline of a man who has never known an awkward phase and the kind of infuriatingly natural charm that makes all rationale and reason puddle off into awed oblivion. 

“Hey,” he says, cradling the package in one palm, curls wet, one rogue lock clinging to the crest of his cheekbone in a way that would look deeply artificial on anyone else. “Think they swapped our mail again.”

The level of allurement at which he functions should come with a warning label, so it’s a little tough to keep The Incident afloat when he just… waterlogs it with simple, blissfully unaware presence. In these types of situations, all that buoys is the vague, internal monologue reminding her that she’s been gawking wordlessly too long to be considered socially acceptable. 

Her taller neighbor (significantly taller; really, Y/N thinks— it’s as if he collected hallmarks like they were on conveniently timed clearance) blinks. He’s still holding the package out. Y/N blinks back. Batting her lashes shakes something, as if warding off gnats off in a plume of smoke. Slowly, she accepts the misdelivered offering, and unease creeps into the soft spot between her rib bones and her organs. 

Despite the way the man has embedded his existence so deeply into her thoughts— honestly, so much so that he may as well be paying rent (she should be getting compensated for the unpaid mental labor)— Y/N doesn’t actually know Harry.

She knows his name is Harry. H-A-R-R-y, always inscribed in all capitals, besides the cacographic tail end of the lowercase, curving Y. She’s given up on trying to understand why whoever the post office sends insists on treating their mailboxes like interchangeable suggestions rather than fixed addresses. She knows that their mail, through some act of bureaucratic sabotage, somehow manages to interchange between 9B and 9C with unsettling regularity.

She knows he fucks. A lot. So regularly that at this point, it’s practically a statistical impossibility that his celibacy record stands longer than a sparse handful of days. She knows that he wears the face of a misplaced effigy, with a halo’s worth of plausible deniability— the kind that should be mounted to an Italian plaza centerpiece, or live frescoed, immortalized on a high ceiling between Corinthian columns. She knows she called the police on him last month, so she needs to ball her resolve in her arms when it spills apart like unrolled toilet paper—

There is one truth Y/N must latch on and cling to in these tragically catastrophic stand-offs (probably… entirely one-sided, given that the opponent to her poor mettle and overactive nervous system is just… standing there, breathing, entirely oblivious of his innate talent to dilate pupils and cause momentary amnesia), and that truth is this: no superficially aesthetic veneer of deception can shell-up reality. 

And the reality is that Y/N does not know this man, and so no cherubic façade, neighborly niceties, or feigned self-unawareness can suppress that he may as well be an entirely different person behind closed doors. 

It’s months down the line that the irony will hit her— that yes, undeniably, Harry is almost a direct, walking contradiction behind the assumed sanctity of a closed door— that no pleasantries or seraphic, unassuming dimples can soften the obscenity of his pastimes. Hobbies include: vinyl collecting, long walks, and ensuring that an attitude adjustment sticks. But that’s months down the line, and right now?

Right now he’s just her obnoxiously loud neighbor that, according to probable cause (and the recording of the phone call she made to the emergency hotline, stored somewhere in the 911 archives), may or may not take no for an answer. Which is the biggest tragedy of all, in her opinion.

“Thanks.” There’s a little bite there to the word, there. Enough for him to clock it— for something to flicker along that lazily charming smile, like a gossamer-thin, bewildered film over the surface of his expression. 

Harry pauses, almost like he wants to say something (probably to acknowledge the awkwardly apparent dissonance going on), but then he just… doesn’t.

“Okay,” as the man breathes, the breadth of his shoulders swells up, thick muscle rising up under the cotton fabric (not quite pulled taut— not anywhere besides the span of his shoulders— but enough for the shape of his pebbled nipples to poke through the material). Y/N chews into the gummy-smooth skin along the inside of her cheek. Honestly, it’s unfairly disarming; his low voice, his stupid face, his hard nipples prodding through the tee. With his dewy meadow eyes glued onto her, her resolve wobbles like a flimsy stilt house on the coast in a hurricane. “Have a good one.”

He ducks his chin (a subtle period on the uncomfortable pause, a formal seal on his exit) at the young woman, still holding the parchment-wrapped package she’s been awarded as if solidified into a stone-encasement of the position. Y/N blinks. Harry turns. 

With a final glance toward his retreating back, the girl closes the door. As her fingers tighten around the package, her knuckles bleach from the strain. It’s either that or punch drywall, and quite frankly, she’s been paying too much in rent to consider remodeling and too many fees in the form of involuntary eavesdropping to afford a fracture in the (poorly constructed) noise barrier. She tucks the chainlink back onto its track as the door clicks shut and resigns herself to another unfortunate truth: Harry is so dangerously attractive that not only is she almost certainly going to think about this moment later, but she will be reminded, every time she’s shepherded into close proximity with him, that when God packages something up in 6 feet of limited-edition facial topography and artfully tousled curls, no amount of unsought aural pornography and creeping suspicion can stop a cosmic nepotism baby from dismantling her concentration. 

The last thing Harry expects from a disgruntled herd of bleary-eyed, sock-shuffling renters— a crowd caught somewhere between sleep-deprived and half-dead— is small talk. 

Half these people have a look that suggests they contemplated burning alive before choosing to evacuate, and the other half probably wish they decided to wear real pants to bed. Tonight, Harry falls into both categories. With the fire alarm still shrieking from the guts of the complex and the blinking glow of blue and red in the corner of a tar-black night, the briefs hitching high on his meaty thighs is almost… poetic. Cinematic, at the very least. Like a scene from an experimental indie film focused on the gradual dissolution of dignity.

The downy rabbit nestled in his arms, coiled more like a floccose ball than a living animal, is the sartorial maraschino cherry— it pulls the look together. Emergency Evacuation chic. He looks about as disheveled as the rest of the congregation; bedhead, sleep still dusting at his half-mast gaze, keyring slipped over his middle finger and his phone cradled in the same hand (though, Harry thinks wryly, no building-wide emergency couture quite tops the tighty-whitey socks-and-sandals combo that the guy up ahead of him is rocking). There’s sparse chatter going on all around him, a kind of background drone that fades into the wail, but he doesn’t have any intention to engage. Despite the unplanned slumber party and the potential opportunity to trauma-bond, he can’t really find it in him to start ice-breaking and sharing life stories. There’s a time and place to build community with your neighbors— half-dressed in a parking lot at three AM isn’t one of them. 

Instead, he stands in the midst of the mass, dead-silent as if still calibrating. It takes him a while to notice the young woman a few feet ahead of him— long enough that the cool air has settled over him in a coat. Her bathrobe wraps tight around her, cinched pink terry-cloth. He doesn’t recognize that she’s a familiar face until she turns enough for him to see her side profile, her phone screen casting light and painting shadows in the crease of her furrowed brow as she sniffs. Thumbing over the device, Y/N turns back over her shoulder. 

The longer he stands there, creaking into a more-awake rendition of himself as the faint chill cuts through the grogginess in his skull, the more the silence marinates into impatient restlessness. Stretching like old gum. She lingers in his periphery, shifting from foot to foot as if nursing the same restive itch. Once again, his neighbor twists to the side, rocking onto the balls of her feet and then back down onto her heels. A huff spills from her lips as she turns her phone off and tucks it up under her upper arm, crossing them. It’s not cold enough for the air to bloom with her breath, but the exasperation in it is audible. Maybe because he’s managed to seep closer. 

“—Wonder if someone just pulled it.”

At first, Y/N doesn’t acknowledge the statement, as if she doesn’t recognize the remark is directed at her. And then, the presence behind her— not pressing uncomfortably close, just distant enough to notice— has Y/N turning her head over her shoulder. She double-takes.

Harry’s in a new light. Still abysmal to her train of thought, already weak on its tracks given that the drowsiness from being rudely awoken in the middle of the night still has her lingering in a dull, cotton-wrapped awareness. But now, he’s a fraying shape; sleepy and half-nakedly soft. Hair a masterpiece of sleep deprivation— the typically styled ringlets on his head sit mussed; whatever shape (she assumes the usual— somewhere between windswept and enticingly intentional) existed yesterday has gone rogue, erased by his pillow. What’s left is a tousled disarray. He’s in another tee, once again pulled snugly over his shoulders, and he’s cradling what could be a live, fuzzy animal, but more resembles a balled fur stole, its potential face tucked into the nook between his muscly upper arm and his chest. Despite the ridiculous assortment of this particular wardrobe showcase, that’s not what catches her eye most. Y/N sucks in a breath. 

Considering a fair share of the evacuees around them teeter on the brink of public-indecency, it shouldn’t throw her guard off as much as it does, but all she can manage in such close proximity with Harry’s thighs is to blink wordlessly. It’s not necessarily his thighs so much as the way they’re denuded— not the way his trousers sit on them so much as their entire lack thereof. It’s the way his lower region is only covered up by a pair of jet-black briefs, clinging like a second skin, riding ridiculously high and ridiculously low. High enough that the only place her eyes can focus is the (chewy) musculature, slightly sun-bathed from all those hours spent in the residential pool, dusted with hair. Low enough that a sliver of skin peeks from between the waistband and hem of his shirt, hitched up just a touch on one side. Enough to hint at a sharp dip of a mostly concealed V, where muscle sinks in a hard line along bone. A tease of whatever workout routine he’s committed to. Beside the rigid line chiseled in there, an inked, leafy stem climbs (a set of mirrored layers that she’d observed on him, supine on a pool chaise). 

Basically, it’s the type of thing that should legally classify him as a walking thirst trap.

With the crowd sporting bedtime fashion, some covered only in the most legally vague sense of the word, it leaves Y/N wondering: if most of the people decided to haphazardly vacate their apartments by only tossing on the most minimal attire— if opting to add to their garb in any way— what did Harry add? Did he wear the cream-toned tee to bed? Just the Calvins? Both? Or was he entirely bare, only sloppily throwing on whatever was left discarded by the side of the bed? Does he sleep naked? 

With all these sordid thoughts clouding up the forefront of her mind like a thick plume of fog, she can’t find words through alphabet soup and the vague mental images of Harry’s bare skin tangled by sheets. To make it better, he’s just staring at her, like he’s expectantly waiting for her to respond. What was the question?

Y/N blinks again. “What?”

“The—“ Harry bobs his head towards the cluster of emergency vehicles, olive eyes oscillating to the apartment complex and back onto her, “fire alarm. I wonder if someone just pulled it.” 

If ever the universe was to humble Harry from a breathing renaissance painting, half-clothed and half-asleep would be the time. He could be knocked down to whatever status a man up front is bearing, clad in a questionably classy fusion of tragic, high-cut cotton underwear, socks, and suede, open-toed sandals. Somehow, though, it’s worse that his bedhead, for the most part, still leaves the tendrils curling in lazy, untamed waves. That his nakedly-beguiling thighs, strong and sculpted with muscle, look like they’re meant to pry knees wide. It’s mortifying—

“Then, they’d be an asshole,” she murmurs, her own gaze raking out and lingering on the building. The words come out clipped with exhaustion, and then that pause lingers again. 

Harry hums. She chances another glance at the furball curled to his chest. 

“Snuggles,” Harry supplies, raising one arm a tad from where it’s caged to support the animal. The motion is enough to jostle the thing, and it tucks its face out, twitching its nose. With careful precision, the man moves one hand out from the cradle— the one not clutching his keys and his phone (by the way, casually dwarfed by the sheer size of his palm and cupped, lengthy fingers) to skim his pointer along the Holland lop’s dangling ear. “He’s a bit delicate and has some strong opinions on sudden, loud noises. Not a fan of fire alarms, as it turns out.”

The young woman hums noncommittally, eyes snaking back off to the polychrome strobe. 

The last thing Harry expects from his neighbors during a mandatory, middle-of-the-night evacuation order are pleasantries. Between the slouched postures, the collective, dead-eyed aura of suffering, the general degree of resentment perfuming the air, and the visible internal debates over whether a hypothetical fire is worth enduring the cold, it’s safe to assume morale is at an all time low. Which brings him to his next point— there is, Harry suspects, something about him that fundamentally offends his neighbor.

Not inherently because she’s not talking to him. Naturally, the theory has no relevance to her lack of enthusiasm at the moment. 

There’s a clause to life that he learned as a little kid, an absolute truth that the motto “water off your back” was created around, and this clause is that not everyone will like you. There’s really no gentle way to chew on that one, but it’s a fact Harry has long come to terms with. Jealousy, misery, even a simple case of personalities repelling like mismatched magnets— all things that can cause someone to decide you’re just not their cup of tea. Incompatibility could very easily leave your existence grating someone down to the molecular level. And you can never please everyone— that’s another piece of that truth he had to gnaw on before he decided that he was going to spend the rest of his life marching to the beat of his own drum. 

Apparently, something about this tempo scrapes at some highly-sensitive nerve of hers like a dull knife on a chalkboard. 

It’s an intuition thing, really. There hasn’t so much been a sharp, substantial instance so much as there’s been instances. Little, creeping things; the way her eyes ward when he’s close, despite the way they hover; the tone she seems to reserve for him, not outwardly rude, but suspiciously close to some awkward admixture between tolerating jury duty and being held at gunpoint. There’s more, among those, too— the suspiciously long pauses that sit like preludes to every response she gives him. The way her gaze flickers off avoidantly. 

And those last two aren’t flustered mechanisms. 

Harry knows he is, according to conventional, societal standards, attractive. He’s no stranger to reflective surfaces, nor is he unaware of the way actual strangers look at him. Ogle. Gawk. 

It was a burgeoning metamorphosis he became acutely aware of between awkward kidhood and the place he’s at now. First, all lanky angles of uncertainty, only half-grown into his features, when his bones had made up their mind but the muscle and skin over them hadn’t quite decided what they wanted to be yet. Then, it was almost overnight. Everything began stretching into place and ubiquitously working in his favor. Eyes lingered, heads turned…

It’s safe to say he knows nervous girls. Boys. The lack of eye contact, or on the polar opposite hand, the blanking, empty stares and the silent beat as their response time glitches and their mouth tries (and fails) to keep up with a short-circuiting nervous system. Not everybody is able to stay the most suave version of themselves interacting with someone they find sexually attractive— his firsthand experience involves not only being on the receiving end, but on the giving end, as well. Granted, the aesthetics boost had given him a sense of confidence that buried his inhibitions down, so it’s been a long while since the last time he tripped over himself in front of someone that made his dick sit up and pay attention, but—

The thing is, Y/N doesn’t glance away like staring at him rapidly dissolves her thoughts in a static haze. She doesn’t take long pauses because she’s floundering over the next word. She doesn’t even look at him in a way that insinuates she’s worried he’ll nip her or something, she’s just so utterly…

Closed off. Disinterested. Like his presence is a jury duty evaluation and she’s wriggling in her seat, waiting to talk about her views on jury nullification. 

In fairness, it could very well be a me-not-you thing— the awkward shuffle through their interactions, the severe deficit of enthusiasm. Those communication patterns could very well be sound across the board… in another universe. There are footprints that lead him to the massive elephant in the room, and those footprints spell the vague shape of it didn’t used to be this way. 

Sure, Harry contemplates, if she was a miserably unpleasant person that holed up in her apartment with no interest in corresponding with another human being, he’d get it. If she’d given him the idea that something about him rattled her down to atoms the first time he ever said hello to her, he’d get it. But she used to smile. Coyly, almost, he’d go as far to say— one finger away from twirling a lock of hair around her pointer as she talked to him. The kind of simper that accompanies a giggle from a barista handing his drink over across the counter, eyes honed. She used to lean onto her door frame when he handed off a stack of envelopes that got misplaced into his mailbox, or hung back with her eyes wet and lively as she stood at his doorway and handed off a package. 

What’s more is that his history is marked by drawing more people in after he opens his mouth, than turning them away. He’s arguably likeable— not in an arrogantly self-absorbed way, but strictly based on track record. He’s befriended too many older ladies (who sparked up chatter with him in grocery stores unprompted, mostly), and gotten slipped too many drinks (on the house) from bartenders to believe otherwise. Generally, his existence tends to fall into the category of charming rather than grating.

When he considers all of this, his analysis only leads him to one conclusion— there is something about him that suddenly, fundamentally offends his neighbor. 

And it’s with this hypothesis that Harry clears his throat, hesitates, and prods, with just a moment of lull after she’s turned back away from him, “If I’m misreading this, feel free to tell me to piss off, but— did I do something?”

The young woman pivots back over her shoulder, blinking, almost as if she’d forgotten he was behind her at all. 

“…What?”

Harry shrugs. The motion coaxes Snuggles to lift his head again. “I don't expect us to be friends, but I also don't want to be the person you actively avoid in the hallway. If I've done something to make things weird, l'd rather fix it than pretend I don't notice." 

For a long second, Y/N doesn’t say anything. Just batting her lashes up at him, features lax, like she’s processing the earnest directness behind his words and letting them settle. And then her face twists. 

Ooh— okay. Ruckling brow bone, lips tugging down, the nearly incredulous burst of air she expels as she turns her prickling face away—

She scoffs, muttering something strangely close to, “can’t be serious,” under her breath, and Harry’s eyes pensively narrow just a smidge. Enough to be entirely imperceptible as he drinks in her body language. That’s an indicator, if Harry’s ever seen one. 

“You know what, Harry,” she says after a moment (now her arms are caging defensively, that’s an interesting touch), “…I just don’t really …appreciate how you treat women, to be honest.”

Of all the responses Harry had been anticipating, curiously honed on every word, that was— not the one. His dark canopy of lashes sweeps over his eyes as the admission lands and… knocks him off kilter, just a bit. His brows relax, then furrow up as he mulls the statement over, buffering. 

He sounds a little bewildered when he says, voice much more soft-spoken, “…Sorry?”

“You should be,” his neighbor tells him pointedly, her arms still crossed like a defensive barrier across her chest, “Hitting women is wrong. Very illegal for a reason, actually.”

At the mention, his head bobbles back a bit like he’s dodging a smack between the brows with the context-lacking declaration. He’s not quite sure he’s heard her right, eyebrows climbing and eyes widening almost comically. Right, okay. This is… a gross misunderstanding, he decides. When the realization hits him, truly hits him, his knee-jerk response is an incredulous laugh, which he muscles down. Instead, his appalled amusement trickles out like a little huff, corners of his strawberry mouth tugging up. Unfortunately, the reaction only seems to irritate her further, and her forehead crinkles up as her own eyebrows ascend in stunned disbelief. 

“You think there’s something funny about hitting a woman?” Y/N presses, eyes steeling into slits, her priorly indoor-voice rising a decibel. 

The volume of her statement (and the misleading content) has his otherwise mirthy expression falling into something far more serious. Full of comically flat, grievous denial, like a kid being scolded for spray-painting a concrete wall after being caught with the can in its hand.

“—No,” Harry shakes his head slowly, side to side, “Not at all.”

Cautiously, his gaze slips off to the corner, where a few tenants have turned over their shoulder to gauge the commotion. As the young woman’s head swivels to tail where his eye contact has meandered, Harry realizes that backpedaling is only going to become a feat of incredible verbal athleticism from here. Upon catching the other glimpses from the crowd, slowly turning back to their own conversations, Y/N makes a deadpan sound of amusement before she turns back to face him.

“Oh, what? You’re ashamed now that you’re being called out for it? Good,” she bites, shoulders teetering as she leans toward him and unfolds her arms, pointing her index finger into his direction scathingly, “You should be ashamed. It’s absolutely disgusting to put your hands on a woman.”

This is tragically weighed against Harry’s favor. Here he was, just a half-asleep evacuee, holding his rabbit, clad in only a pair of hardly decent briefs, contemplating whether he should Uber Eats tacos as soon as the emergency exit fiasco were to clear up (might as well, since he’s already awake). Somehow, he’s managed to morph from an unassuming extra to the perceived antagonist. 

No, Harry thinks— this wouldn’t be a disaster film; it’s a full blown, poorly-contrived drama with a plot twist even the supposed villain is caught off guard by. The curly-headed brunette chances another glance to the other side now, where more people have not only glimpsed over in brief acknowledgement, but have fully twisted their shoulders to observe the apparent scandal. As much as Harry wholeheartedly marches to the beat of his own drum, at this moment in time, his reputation is shaking in its boots and he’s reached a mental checkpoint called time for damage control.

Weaving sincerity into his tone and shaking his head placatingly as he steps forward— a subconscious attempt to coax her into lowering her volume— Harry tells her, “I don’t put my hands on anybody that doesn’t consent to it first.”

Her face scrunches up.

“I think,” his pink tongue slinks out to wet his lips, “maybe, there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“No, I really, really do,” Harry counters, ducking his chin into a nod. 

Instead of hearing him out, however, his neighbor, as if fueled by the internal calling to manually dismantle misogyny, one assumed violent criminal at a time, only raises her volume a little more. Exceeding the normal range, definitely steeping in public-humiliation-ritual territory. 

“I’m not misunderstanding,” Y/N bites, brows pinched like he’s personally offended her by even insinuating as much, “I have ears, just so you know, and I’ve heard a woman saying no, and please, and stop. So you can drop your good boy act, okay—“

Harry blinks. If not for the character defamation going on and the way Socks-and-Sandals raises his phone out of seemingly nowhere, pointing it into their direction as if there isn’t a potential fire to be filmed instead of all things, Harry would laugh. But there is, and the flash is on, weak along his peripheral edge—

“I know guys like you, I know your type,” Y/N declares, jabbing her finger against him again, this time so close to grazing the area along his chest, right between the tops of his pectorals, just over Snuggles, “and it’s gross that you think because you’re attractive you can walk all over everyone and do things like that to people, and you know what, next time maybe the cops won’t be so nice—”

Ah, nice. Another mystery resolved; one which involved a pair of men with guns in their holsters at his door performing a wellness check and an excruciatingly awkward clarification on impact play, consensual sadomasochism, and safewords. For weeks Harry wondered what had inspired a legal inquiry into his pastimes. Now, staring at the culprit— case dismissed— he can only blink before his brows wrinkle up. 

“You’re the one who called the police?” Harry murmurs, a note of soft incredulity soaking the phrase.  

“Any sane woman would call the police when she heard another woman being abused—“

“Abused?”

“Yes! Abused! And— and— honestly—“

Before Y/N can launch into another ruthlessly-curated, virtue-plated diatribe, Harry resituates the animal in his grip, unlocking his phone to the homescreen. Then, Safari. He thumbs over it with a careful determination seeding along his downturned, sculpted expression.

“I don’t know what form of assault would be worse,” Y/N chimes, hands climbing up in an exaggerated, universal symbol of exasperation before they fall back to her sides (as if she hadn’t even noticed his attention has been redirected to his phone), “but when someone says no, it means no.”

It only takes a second for her to register that his focus has been rerouted elsewhere, though. Her tone dips indignantly.

“Excuse me. I’m talking to you. And also, while we’re at it, you’re unbearably loud and an unmannerly neighbor—“

Harry turns his phone around. His expression is impressively flat, all things considered. Y/N pauses. 

“Typically,” Harry states as her eyes rake over the glowing screen, “I like to be wined and dined before I give a crash course on my preferences, but.”

The image stretched across the illuminated LED sits over her tired gaze as she absorbs it, pupils jittering as she reads, but through the lens of his own profile mirrored back, he can see the moment her righteously fueled demeanor chips. 

“I do, like, a… softcore porn type thing,” he admits. 

Still, her brows are kinked. Only now, in stupefied doubt. “I— what?”

It’s with a rotting sense of dread curdling in the pit of her tummy that it suddenly dawns on Y/N— the mortified realization that she has succumbed to a horrible misunderstanding. 

The website the tab is set on almost looks archaic, like a kitsch relic— repository archives of a porn blog from the early 2000s. Spankinggram. The page is set onto a profile, something called Rings&Paddles, and the squared image of an avatar slices through the garishly orange palette of the site’s logo. Her gaze sweeps over the vista; a man sitting down on an armless chair, thighs splayed, palm curled over a …hairbrush. 

The profile picture sunders off at the neck. It’s a faceless silhouette, but the miscellany of sketches cascading across a forearm and the distinctly chunky medley of rings are… enough—

“Consensually,” Harry— Rings&Paddles, Y/N recognizes, molten heat dripping along the crests of her cheekbones— adds, “No one is being abused.”

In retrospect, the only feasible option to survive this, Y/N decides, is to change her name and move to another state. 

Probably something short and vaguely melancholic, one of those names that would look intriguing in all lowercase. A quiet town. Somewhere coastal, maybe. West. No— north. As far north as geographically possible. Perhaps she could get a dog. An older, ratty boy from a shelter. Drive an old car that’s too big with a busted radio. She’ll pretend it’s a benefit, rather than an inconvenience, because she’ll be the fabricated kind of mystique that insufferably enjoys the quiet calm (and rainstorms). A rebranded, movie-clichè hipster, but not unbearable in real life—

“But I understand the concern,” her neighbor says, cutting through the haze as she contemplates what brand of cigarettes she’ll be taking up as a trait of her pseudo-identity. Against all odds, his tone is calm in an all-too-merciful kind of way, “You can look into… domestic discipline, if you’d like. If you wanted to understand a bit better. There’s loads of really good information on the internet.”

For a moment, Y/N deliberates burning alive. If there isn’t a fire licking up her department store drapes, she’s going to set one to avoid bearing the weight of this shame for the rest of her life. Granted, the heat sizzling at her face feels like a flame, enough, both at the way she’s just publicly kinkshamed an innocent man and at the mention of …domestic discipline.

She’s going to cry. 

They would be Virginia Slims.

“You— …what?”

The garbled confusion drenching her tone is almost laughable. She sounds it, too; voice pinched and deceptively close to trembling off into a sob. Y/N stares straight ahead, body locked in a fugue state of humiliation as the realization calcifies in real-time. Her shoulders have gone stiff and her spine rigid, posture squeezed somewhere between standing and catatonic. The scale of her miscalculation worms into her skull like a parasite that’ll chew her awake in the middle of the night, years down the line.

For the last month, Y/N has spent every interaction with Harry evasively toeing over eggshells. Floundering over the way his face was sculpted, rather than compromising the integral structure of their acquaintanceship. Somehow, a sleep cycle cut short and the ambiguous suggestion that he had picked up on her avoidant habits was all it had taken to not only slander his (apparently not safe for work) extracurriculars, but probably assure her foreseeable Amazon packages suddenly start going missing.

Now, with a semi-public declaration of his profile pressed out to her face and his name no longer being audibly smeared with accusations, Harry can appreciate the quiet sense of revelation. 

His neighbor, on the other hand, looks visibly wrecked. Her entire stance is pulled in tight, like she’s actively trying to make herself smaller, but it’s her face that really gives her away— the way it twists, fluctuating between wide-eyed horror and the dawning realization that she’s just detonated a social landmine at point-blank range. All heat-tinged and shame-doused, the young woman blinks up at him, doe-eyes rounded in apologetic appall and lips parted slightly like she’s still buffering. The combination of words that just left his mouth— softcore porn, domestic discipline, consensual— seem to be wrestling in her brain like tangled Christmas lights, none of them quite fitting together in a way that makes sense and glinters.

“I am sorry about the noise,” he tells her, shutting the phone off and nestling his arm back up under his pet, “I’ll make sure to keep it to a minimum from now on.”

Y/N wilts. With the phone no longer held out into her direction, the way she stays glued to the same spot on the cement— as if mortified into a motionless piece of stone— is ridiculous enough for him to gnaw into his cheek to chew back a bark of laughter. Despite all trials and tribulations, his coping mechanisms never fail. 

“You— oh my God,” Y/N whispers. She makes a sound that could be a vaguely pained noise or the byproduct of her soul seeping out of her body. “Oh my God.”

Harry blinks. 

“I called the police on you,” she tells him, utter dismay lacing the words together. 

“You did, yeah.”

Harry still remembers the blank expression varnished along the officer’s face— the kind of emotionally vacant stare reserved for department store mannequins. The echo of the distant, metaphysical NOPE that definitely rode along his brainstem the moment the curly-haired brunette mentioned “it’s a kink thing,” and the way his partner, hands allocated to his holster belt, started very obviously examining his own shoes. 

“I thought—“ Y/N stutters, her wobbling voice sounding squeezed from her trachea, “I thought—“

“You thought you were living next door to a criminal,” Harry supplies. When he tilts his head, a rogue curl flops over his forehead.  

Finally, the young woman moves, burying her face in her hands. This will haunt her, she thinks. Forever. 

From the corner of his eye, the man can tell that most of the tenants have gone back to their regularly scheduled repertoires of stalled misery. And despite the absolute PR mess her blunder has induced— his eyes wander over her, the way she’s cupping her face like she wants to melt into her own hands and seep off into the pavement— he feels oddly… bad. Not secondhand embarrassed (firsthand, definitely firsthand), but Y/N looks like she’s going to combust. It’s tragic, really. The kind of pitiful that makes him purse his mouth and stare down at her in contemplation.

“Honestly,” his voice cuts through the haze in her throbbing, hot skull, all even-toned sincerity (which is worse, so much worse), “if I was in your position, yeah? I’d do the same thing.”

The admission coaxes her into a horrified peer through the wedges between her fingers. The warmth pressed to her palms feels borderline pyrexic. 

“And if that were the case, you’d be the neighborhood hero. So.” He raises a shoulder nonchalantly.

Y/N doesn’t immediately respond. Instead, she soaks in the crime scene, doused in the blinking blue and red. 

“I’m not sure neighborhood hero is how I’ll be remembered,” the young woman finally answers, groaning through her hands, and then pressing her fingertips into her temples. 

Harry hums. Then, he sighs. “No, you’re right. I’d say misguided vigilante. I reckon it’s a bit better than violent felon, though.”

Y/N makes another sound. This one sounds a little more wounded.

Next part here

[acid-ixx]

a/n: i keep lying about taking a break yall 😭 i'm already writing the dialogues for chapter 4 for a&a. the grind is real but i don't have a set date on publishing it yet.

here's some spoilers/outlines for the chapter:

not the full scene for the meeting in the batcave, slight dialogues only (unsure)

stinky the cat by @oh-nowo-i-got-uwu is canon and will appear probably in the last scene

your meeting with jason todd after a nasty run-in with crooks

a bit more lore about your past (specifically the incident during your elementary years where alfred is the one who had to save you)

^ scenario above is crucial for your dialogues with jason

diary entry or entries depending on its importance, they talk more about the family, or a perspective from the reader from the times they were ignored by barbara, steph, cass and even duke (as they were not mentioned in the prequel) (unsure)

a big fucking argument with jason that leads you to nearly telling him that you'd rather off yourself than ever see your family again after (unsure about whether or not i would implement tim or bruce hearing about it through the comms)

jason's perspective about your past with him, how it affected your childhood, and his spiral into yandere-ism

where you soon will run off to, possible perspective of a love interest (unsure bec some want a canon love interest, others don't)

the entire family ordering jason to at least take a picture of you in your apartment/to stalk you right after your argument (ft. dialogues from your siblings and a look into their obsession)

a look into the future with possibly meeting selina kyle (unsure, but stinky is a crucial character for here if it would be written out)

more breakdowns ft. stinky who provides you more comfort than your family ever would

IMPORTANT NOTES !

— these are what i have settled with so far, ik i said i want to rest but i realized we'll be flying off to the province soon and i don't want to neglect this series like how the reader was neglected LMAO. anyways for the unsure parts pls do send in asks or comment if u guys want them to happen or not, i need inputs for them 😭

— expect a new series called army dreamers where it takes in the approach of soft yandere! dc overall and it's a hurt/comfort (loop) fic just to balance out the angst but i'm not sure when i would be posting it but it's a remastered version of my supposedly other series w/ a chronically ill reader. if u guys are interested in a synopsis or a basic summary then pls do tell!

[verysium]

『01』 呪術廻戦: jujutsu kaisen recs

五条悟: gojo satoru

i know you still think about the times we had by @saetoru

satoru will always comes when you call him, he just never thought you’d stop calling. notes: satoru is so desperate and pathetic here it is just delicious; has the right amount of angst to cause tension but a good ending to soothe my poor heart; traditional rich boy and disapproving mother/father scenario but implemented relatively well; miscommunication and feelings of inadequacy; reader realizing the extent to which satoru loves them

pretty eyes by @quirklessidiot

in which the right eye is mine and the left eye is yours and when we meet for the first time, you see your own eyes staring back at you. notes: takes tragic star-crossed lovers to a whole new level; riddled with parallels and symbolism; idea of illness and loving someone at their worst; right person, wrong time at its finest; fate being unnecessarily cruel; surprising moments of humor

minazuki by @quirklessidiot

In which Y/N L/N is placed under a union she has no choice but to partake for the sake of her survival. notes: this series needs to be scientifically studied; it is just that good; halfway in and i fell in love with the reader instead of gojo; strong and somewhat morally grey characters; dark themes around femininity in a patriarchal society but concept was executed flawlessly

21: only by @tenjiiku

“What do you want, Satoru?” You do not use his last name or any honorific to address him despite his age. He was older than you by a few years — but certainly did not act the part — so you do not think he deserves your respect. Your host father told you he does — something about his being from a prominent private school as an educator, which you cannot possibly fathom being the truth — but only in front of you is Satoru Gojo an inane, odd man with a need for clean, dry-cleaned clothes that, for some strange reason he has conjectured in his equally baffling mind, that only you can provide. He smiles at you, placing his cheek in his hand. “You.” notes: this fic embodies the duality between gojo and satoru; he is easy-going until he isn’t and you realize he actually has a considerable amount of depth; the plot twist did it for me; satoru being a loud-mouthed tease but secretly harboring feelings

soulswap by @orphxus (impxria)

this is where the evening splits in half, love or death. grab an end, pull hard, & make a wish. notes: short but realistically describes everything wrong with jujutsu society; poetic voice; gojo being serious for once; disillusionment and tragic hero archetype; being the strongest yet being unable to save anybody; geto would read this fic and feel seen

両面宿儺: ryomen sukuna

nocuous by @quirklessidiot

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? I knew how this was going to end but I’m still terribly hurt by it.” notes: the heian era setting is so complex and established even through dialogue and subtle description; reader strikes me as older and able to deal with sukuna’s chaotic nature; sukuna being an absolute menace is sending me; tragic angst but almost didn’t notice it due to how beautifully the images are presented

avīci by @rotpeach

Several years ago, Satoru Gojo was involved in the exorcism of a uniquely stubborn curse. The official report states that one of Ryomen Sukuna's fingers was recovered from the scene, and nothing else. Only the two of you know the truth. notes: gore, gore, and even more gore; boy was this fic a wild ride; imagine a work that condenses the ugliest and most revolting parts of human nature yet presents them so elegantly you start questioning the blurred lines of morality; cannibalism, violence, and love triangles; japanese mythology & folklore; heian period references; cursed spirit reader tries to grapple with the idea of self after being created for the sole purpose of serving others; themes of existentialism, identity crisis, obsession

[mangionebabymama]

BTM calling themselves the most level headed while they almost regularly diagnosis him with a new mental illness and get mad about people including actual lawyers affording him a chance to be presumed innocent and treat him like a true crime doc is crazy work ngl.

No mirror whatsoever, and if people find Luigi attractive, so what ? He is genuinely an attractive guy. People in his pre-famous life found him incredibly attractive to the point of making gcs about him so like 😭

RIGHTTTT because I haven’t heard the most positive reviews about their subreddit either. I guess some of them were disgusted after finding my account and reading that I had reblogged some headcanons—apparently, I “deserved to get locked up” for that. But I think they’d be real conflicted (maybe even have a stroke) if they knew I run a Tumblr where I write fic, dissect his case, and actively advocate that he’s innocent until proven guilty all at once.

Maybe they should blame Luigi for being the conventionally hot white guy, it ain’t our fault that there’s beauty standards that are implemented into our minds 😭 write him a letter and express how you wish he was ugly instead

[roccoparondi]

Psalm 51 (Goffredo Tedesco x Reader)

Summary: “Some people,” Scorsese has pointed out, “say it’s just a Catholic guilt, that’s all. But it’s still guilt. I don’t mean guilt from being late for Mass or for having sexual thoughts. No, I’m talking about guilt that comes from just being alive.” | AO3 Link

Note: Woman reader, but no other descriptors are used. Your chosen name (aka your "nun" name) is Margarita, but otherwise you're referred to as 'Sister' in this fic. (Not that this comes up directly, but you're a Carmelite Nun. They have high rates of experiencing visions, ecstasies, and raptures compared to other orders.)

Word count: 3k

Warnings: Misogyny, unspecified/undiagnosed mental illness, Catholic mysticism, guilt, masochism, toxic codependency. Descriptions of self-flagellation (I use the term "discipline" for the implement in the fic, which is more specific to the use of a cat o'nine tails type of thing for the Christian practice of mortification of the flesh.) Sexual content involving members of the clergy. Polycule with God?

Nightfall and its accompaniments disappointed you. It had for quite some time, but the emptiness felt paradoxically suffocating that humid summer night in particular, the heaviness of the air filling you with dread and nausea rather than the comfort and peace that encapsulated the rose-tinted memories of the faith of your youth. As a girl, nighttime was when you heard the voice of God the loudest, the rest of the world finally quiet. Felt His vivifying presence in the long, lonely hours. Those moments had become scarcer since you'd taken your vows.

But, for the second time in as many months, you could hear that incorporeal whisper beckoning you to Him, into communion, to carry out His will. Your body trembled with anticipation, heart and mind racing with urgency. As you grew more certain of His pull on that invisible thread inside of you that connected you so intimately, you could hardly keep your composure.

You refused supper, practically a sin to the Patriarch of Venice, who loudly protested, stabbing his fork in the air in your general direction, until you softly explained that you felt led by the Holy Spirit to fast and pray until morning. In all honesty, you had no appetite, and promptly excused yourself from his table.

His gaze burned a hole through your back as you hastily walked out of the dining room. The other sycophants who composed Tedesco's inner circle murmured among themselves about your leaving the meal so abruptly, but you knew well enough their conversations would shift back to the hot topic of the evening in a manner of moments, namely upcoming film festival. Despite yourselves, you all shamelessly speculated on what celebrities would dare make an appearance at the palace you called home, fearless enough to risk the press jumping to associate them with its radical Patriarch whether they agreed with him or not.

Quick, heavy footsteps echoing your own shouldn't have surprised you the way they did. The firm hand on your shoulder shouldn't have either, abruptly stopping you in your tracks and forcing you to turn around. The blotchiness in your Patriarch's cheeks betrayed either his anger at the perceived slight or the exertion from chasing after you, likely both.

You were his favorite. He made no secret of it, especially since his future no longer involved any chance at the papacy. In the weeks following the conclave, you'd heard his own rantings about Benitez—Innocent, now, with his soft-spoken, milquetoast homilies of peace and tolerance. Hardly the image of strength the Church needed as she struggled and gasped to survive in the modern world, one that shunned her, mistook her beauty for wickedness, her purity as something to be mocked. The Church survived so long because of its traditions, not in spite of it. There was simply no getting through to bleeding-heart Benitez. 

But you understood his concerns, empathized with his rantings and ravings. Your former Mother Superior had been eager to wash her hands of you because of it. Sent you to Venice to make you Tedesco’s problem. Except you were hardly that. Coming into the fold three days after he quit smoking, miraculously, you were one of the only people who didn’t irritate him during his bouts of nicotine withdrawals.

"What's this I hear about your request to serve elsewhere?" he demanded. "You'd leave the diocese, leave me?"

"I withdrew the request."

"What possessed you submit it in the first place?"

Your eyes widened at his confrontation, wracking your brain for an appropriate response until you finally managed to say, "At the time, I believed God was leading me away from the city and serving a secular mission. I thought He was calling me to be cloistered."

He raised an eyebrow. He saw right through you. Always could.

"When you left for the conclave, I assumed you would be in Rome, to stay. I saw no reason to remain in Venice without you as Patriarch," you confessed.

He sighed. "Rita—"

Upon taking your vows, you had chosen Margarita in honor of Saint Margaret. An early martyr of the church who may not have even existed in the first place, she resisted the powers that be, the ones that wanted to force her into marriage, to obeying the status quo. So unwavering was her faith, her tenacity, that prior to her execution, when Satan appeared as a dragon to devour her, the cross she so faithfully wore protected her, causing the beast such distress as to slay it. In choosing your name, you hoped to siphon St. Margaret's strength for yourself.

Some of the other nuns called you Margie. He wasn’t opposed to the clergy in Venetian palace giving each other nicknames, plenty of them called him Fredo, but he didn’t care for that nickname bestowed upon you in particular, displeasure evident on his face whenever he heard it. Margie was unrefined, almost too English. To him, you were Rita—‘Like Rita Hayworth,’ he had told you conspiratorially one evening, an amused twinkle in his eye when he noticed the bashfulness in yours.

Rita Hayworth. Not due to any particular physical resemblance, but what she represented—classic, sensual, befitting the way the two of you had perfected toeing the line of propriety over the years. Hours spent holed up in his office, lending your fluency in Latin to his personal crusades. Watching old movies together over a bottle of wine, the closest you'd ever had to a date—and to a break-up, when you expressed your opinion that the best depiction of Christ in cinema was 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew.' His eminence protested in near rage. Pasolini was a communist, a homosexual, everything the Church stood against. You countered that perhaps it meant the Church needed better artists.

"Rita," he repeated, "did you hear a word I said?"

"I'm sorry."

Your Patriarch grumbled to himself, taking a hit from his vape. As always, you resisted the urge to grimace, not at the habit, but the smell—strawberry, then. Juvenile and sickly sweet compared to the strong, heady aromas of amber cologne and rich incense, especially the latter if you managed to catch him not long after Mass ended, frankincense and myrrh clinging to his scarlet robes, so warm and inviting, an ache in your heart at not being able to embrace him, breathe him in and know you were exactly where you wanted to be.

"What's troubling you, then?" he pressed, taking your hands in his. "Tell me."

"I'm weak, your eminence. I beg God for strength, but I can't—I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And I leech what strength I have from you. That's not right, or fair."

"Women aren't made to carry the burdens of men, you know that."

"What I'm talking about is different. There's more I know I can do—that I'm meant to do, but it's out of reach for some reason. I can't help but feel you're having to make up for my inadequacy."

"Inadequacy?" he repeated, his voice rising in outrage, hands gripping yours more tightly. "Who put that nonsense in your head?"

Instead of answering, you lowered your eyes to your hands clasped in his—warm, safe, strong. You let out a shaky breath. There was no one in Venice whom you trusted more than the man standing in front of you, but you couldn't tell him. It'd be asking too much for him to believe you, let alone understand.

"What would I do without you? You're the only reason my Latin is passible. I learn best from a tutor worth paying attention to," he teased gently.

"You've improved so much since I came to Venice," you admitted, meeting his gaze with a smile.

"Come back and eat," he urged softly. "You can tell me more of your worries, then."

Worries. His use of the word pricked at you. Dismissive, feminine, as if you were some housewife pathetically worrying about what to make for dinner and not a woman crushed by the weight of her soul, or what it so glaringly lacked, to be more specific. If you were a bride of Christ, you couldn't help feel as though your heavenly betrothed wasn't fulfilling His duties as a husband. It made that night all the more important.

You shook your head. "I think I'll turn in for the evening."

His lips pressed in a thin line. Nevertheless, he nodded, releasing your hands from his.

But you caught his bejeweled hand in yours and brought it to your lips for a chaste kiss. "Thank you, Fredo."

He relented with fondness in his gaze. "You'll be the death of me."

You turned to depart, unable then to see him, the way he stared longingly after you, caressing the spot where your petal-soft lips pressed so gently against his hand.

Disappearing down a narrow hallway, then another, though you'd only been there on one prior occasion, your body led you exactly where He was calling you. A small, old chapel off of a lightly trodden annex. The first time you entered, the door groaned awake after years of not being used. It did so again when you reached the place, this time the old door creaked a tired greeting, as if expecting your reappearance.

The forgotten chapel afforded you all the privacy you could need, tucked away as it was, and you didn't bother to close the door behind you.

You breathed in the stale air, chilly despite the warm weather. No one had walked its floors since you last did, everything almost exactly as you left it that night, from the votive candles you snuffed out in haste to the drops of blood spilled on the marble floor, having dried from their fresh crimson to warm rust in your absence.

After making a sign of the cross, you walked up the narrow aisle, three sets of wooden pews on either side of you, to the bare altar. Practically collapsing before it, you gripped its edges, pressed your forehead against the cool stone and whispered, "Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Et exultavit spíritus meus in Deo salutari meo. Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae.”

Lifting your gaze to the crucifix on the wall, you rose. Four dozen votive candles lay in six neat rows at Christ’s feet. Taking great care at lighting each one, you used the opportunity to pray for His favor, the same He showed you last time you answered His intimate call to you.

To you.

A shiver ran down your spine upon lighting the last candle, your hand shaking when you set the taper down.

You needed to. You needed to. The itch you neglected demanded your attention, demanded claws to shred through it and satisfy.

Turning to the altar, you saw the discipline laying where you'd left it at the end of your prior excursion, exactly where you found it when you first entered the chapel all those weeks ago, when it was waiting there for you. Picking it up, your fingers brushed the worn tendrils, leather frayed, far from its glory days—like you, like the Church.

Gingerly laying it down on top of the altar, you rounded the stone slab, gaze fixed on the now illuminated crucifix as you pulled the bobby pins that kept your habit in place, allowing them to fall to the floor with a soft clatter. You removed your habit, the rest of your clothing, your robes, undergarments, shoes and socks all in a puddle at your feet. Only the gold cross that sat above your breasts remained when you reached for the implement before you.

A soft whimper fell from your lips when it first made contact with your bare back, already having healed from the last time. You'd lost yourself in it, hadn't noticed hours passed by the time you stopped, prostrate on the cold floor, blood tricking down your back. It didn’t even feel like a punishment. Perfectly on the cusp of sexual gratification and Christian suffering.

Your muscles ached as you scourged yourself with increasing intensity, desperate for that release, that connection, the warm bliss that came with being in God's perfect love. Your skin burned for it, back arched up toward heaven, the feeling you so desperately sought drawing you ever so nearer to Him.

"I love you," you cried out in a moan. "I love you so much."

Heat tore through your body as your skin finally broke, sending you to your knees, your cry of ecstasy echoing around you until Your Patriarch's voice cut into the fog of pain and pleasure you found yourself swimming in.

"Stop!" Tedesco demanded with a worry all too misguided. "For the love of God!"

You turned to him, chest heaving, eyes pleading, "That's why I'm here."

He closed the short distance between you, his hand squeezing your wrist until you dropped the discipline. "Where did you get this?" he demanded, kicking it lightly. His face was red, sweat dripping from his temple, curly, gray hair in slight disarray as if he'd been running his hands through his incessantly.

"The first time He called me to meet Him here, it was waiting for me. I felt no doubt or fear, just perfect confidence in knowing I was doing His will."

He balked in exasperation. "Despite what people say about us, we don’t want to send the Church back to some dark age."

"It isn't dark, Goffredo," you whispered, voice ringing with crazed ecstasy. "It's light, blinding light—the closest I've ever felt to seeing His face, to feeling the warmth of His presence."

"Does it have to be like this?"

"He asked me to. Who am I to deny Him?"

He took you in his arms, careful as he cradled you against his chest as if you'd fall apart if he weren't there to hold you together. You'd never felt stronger in your spirit, the weakness of your body hardly a concern when it failed you time and time again. Still, you couldn't help the affection you felt at his tenderness, just barely able to hear his whispering, to you, or to himself, comforting promises that you'd be okay, he'd make sure of it.

Some time passed before he moved you from his arms, taking a closer look at your back, the scars from those weeks prior, raised and stark against your unmarked flesh like bolts of lightning striking your skin, the dried blood from this night's excursion, the wound sticky with coagulated blood, still gently weeping a trickle down your back, a small puddle having pooled on the floor.

"You said this isn't the first time. When was it? Why didn't you come to me?" he asked.

"It was two months ago, when you left for the conclave. I didn't want you to go," you confessed, unable to stop yourself from telling anything but the truth while in this state of grace. "I didn't want you to become Pope and leave me. I knew I was selfish to think such a thing. That's when He called to me. I needed Him and He was there because He knows I'm weak. He loves me in spite of it."

"I would have taken you with me, Rita," he murmured against your skin, "to Rome, if it had been me, if it had been His will. You don't belong anywhere but by my side." He pressed his lips to your temple. "Look at you, you fall apart without me."

"Yes," you hissed, tensing at his touch momentarily, his fingers brushing your fresh wounds. "How did you find me here?"

"I followed you. I could tell something was different about you tonight."

You smiled, your eyes fluttering shut as he continued to berate you. At least he cared, misguided as he was. But he found you, and he stayed. That meant there was hope for him yet, that you could share this with him just as you wanted.

With confidence and joy you kissed him, trembling when he returned the gesture with as much passion, his lips on yours, a type of consummation that didn't fill you with the guilt you'd become so used to feeling with every thought, every action in your daily life that you so desperately sought relief from. It was good and right. You opened your mouth to receive him, allowed him to slip his tongue in your mouth, to taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

But it was too much for him. Overwhelming, maybe, as he pulled away from you abruptly, the flickering light of the votive candles betraying the fear and awe in his warm brown eyes.

"It's alright, Fredo," you assured him, placing a hand on his cheek, the gray hair of his beard soft against your fingertips. "It's alright because you understand Him, you love Him like I do."

He kissed you again, softly, reverently, bringing his lips to the tip of your nose and then your forehead.

Grunting, he grabbed your discarded robes off of the floor and began dressing you, taking care when pulling your garments over the raw skin on your back. He mumbled something about being too old to be hunting the floor for the bobby pins you so carelessly discarded on the ground. Nevertheless, when he placed your habit back on your head, he did so with the same concentration and reverence that he did when bestowing the statue of the Blessed Mother with her crown of flowers during her adoration Mass in the month of May.

He wiped the tears that had rolled down your cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. You didn't know when you had started crying.

"Who tended your wounds last time?" he asked.

"I did it myself."

He huffed. "No wonder they scarred over so badly."

"It doesn't matter. No one will see."

"Don't argue. You have no room to argue right now," he scolded, wagging his pointer finger in your face, rearing to berate you again until his expression softened and his hand came to rest on your shoulder. "I'll tend to you myself."

"You won't tell anyone?"

"No. No, of course not. This is between us. You and me."

"And God."

He nodded, brow furrowed, gaze resolute. "And God."

End note: I can't finish this without acknowledging the inspiration from The Devils (1971), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, the poem 'Conversation with Mary' by Gabrielle Bates, and the various writings of Saints John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. Anyway, I need a t-shirt that says 'I 🖤 self-flagellation' at this point.

Expect more of this kind of thing once I read Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity because I want to dig into this dynamic more, and I feel like this Reader is the type to think "we can do anything except have sex so we're not breaking our vows" which is hard for Tedesco, but toxic codependency true love prevails🖤

[honeybee2807]

I have this silly fic idea. Could go crack or serious.

So in this au, Ginny is more strict about the no sweet rule. She informs the prefects and head students to not allow her kids to eat even dessert.

James and Lily have friends who think Ginny is crazy so snuggles them sweets. The gryff prefects kind of turn a blind eye to it cuz they are both popular.

Poor Albus on the other hand, has incredibly strict prefects who don't like him much. In this au, he doesn't meet Scorp until they are adults(Scorp is homeschooled/goes to beaubatons).

Everytime he sneaks a plate of pumpkin pasty, the pumpkin pasty gets confiscated. He begs James and Lily for sweets but they are too possessive of them to give him one. He never experienced sweets/deserts except one time when he was six and he cherishes that memory. Two weeks after he burns the hogsmeade permission slip, he apologizes to his dad and gets another slip. Yayyy!!!!

Except..... Strict prefect follows him and doesn't allow him to buy a single sweet(this prefect is a goody two shoes who is kind of a snitch).

During his fourth year, he made it his ambition to experience the taste of sweets(and recollect the good memory of when he was six) somehow. So when he hears two muggleborns joking about the meme "Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies", Albus takes it seriously(Canonically, he's not exactly familiar with the concept of tattoos so obvi he wouldn't understand pop culture references). And vows to be a dark lord. He researches the history of dark lords and their strengths and weaknesses. He's a Slytherin. Surely he has the evil required to pull this off.

When he was in his fifth year, during the whole career discussion meeting with his head of house, he reveals that he plans to be a dark lord(His head of house is Slytherin. Surely she'll guide him to be evil).

The Slytherin head is incredibly concerned(despite what Albus thinks, Slytherin does NOT mean evil) but decides to amuse him and asks "And what's your agenda?"

Albus(having a shocked pickachu face): Dark Lords have agendas???

So Slytherin head doesn't take him seriously and doesn't inform his parents(which is a big mistake)

Over the summer, dude ends up making up an agenda: Take over the ministry and make it illegal to ban sweets for kids. And also give out unlimited sweets.

Albus is slightly insane in this fic due to having a lot of issues like bullying, Harry saying he wished Albus wasn't his son(in this fic no time travel, so their issues didn't get resolved) and the sweet ban did nothing to help those issues. He fixates a lot on sweets tho and lowkey despises Ginny.

Two ways this fic could go:

1. He anonymously terrorizes everyone(doesn't actually murder or torture anyone cuz Albus still has morals) making threats and being an overall troll.

If this is a crack fic, he "kidnaps" people(takes them to a grand place with tvs and the victims get to contact their loved ones in secret) and "tortures" them by giving them spicy food(buldak 2x spicy ramen to be specific) and no relief except water(that means no milk or ice cream which is way more effective). In the end, his victims kind of pity him and think Ginny went too far with the sugar ban(some think the dark lord idea is brill and pledge to him)

If this is a serious fic, he blackmails and makes death threats.

Ultimately, Harry and Co find out that Albus caused this huge mess and find out the reason why. Harry has this huge realization that parents shouldn't go banning sweets. Ron and Hermione finds Albus disturbed and mentally ill and thinks Ginny exaberated this. Ginny feels very guilty and they all hug it out.

2. This is purely a crack idea. He does all the cracky steps above but Harry and Co don't find him until it's too late. He meets Scorp and Scorp is a sweet addict so he likes the agenda. Albus adores Scorp a lot so Scorp becomes Albus' right hand man. They end up conquering the ministry and implement the rules. Everyone ends up getting diabetes.

I plan on writing a one shot on this. You think I should go on idea one or two? Should I go serious or crack?

If it's serious, it would be focused on mental health issues and eating disorders(if idea 2 happens Albus would start bingeing on sweets). If it's crack it would focus a lot on the humor.

Crack is much easier to write but serious seems very interesting imo.

[oplishin]

ObsessedVerse: 3, 8, and 30 👀

3. Did the idea change at all by the time the fic was complete?

for you'd think i was in love: the idea of a 3x winner's room had been floating in my head since november 2023, but i only started properly working on it in ??? may 2024, at which point the natural +1 of wrestlemania 40 was added.

for every detail you have ever told me: oh god. by the time i locked in to actually write this for sam (without whom this fic would Not exist), i knew exactly what it was going to be. HOWEVER, it is also contains a lot of old ideas. i had known vaguely that i wanted to visit codyseth @ survivor series since the middle of you'd think i was in love. there is an entire scrapped 3600 word smut scene in my google drive (it is Bad). i also had written the scene where cody watches seth's fcw match months before i started working on every detail (originally supposed to be for an ill-conceived codyseth anthology fic that didn't end up going anywhere).

8. Did you cut something out of the outline or an early draft? What was it and why did you decide to cut it?

you'd think i was in love: oh my god, i waffled back and forth on visiting survivor series before the wm 40 chapter for soooo long. i'm ultimately glad i decided not to, though you'd think i was in love is a more abrupt piece for it (because i really like every detail njfsdkfdk + what i had originally planned was Not Good).

every detail: there are a handful of scrapped scenes/snippets that i think are fun but either didn't fit into every detail's restrictive format or were a little too clunky. in my snippets for sam document they go!

30. Would you ever return to the story’s universe and write more?

yes. there's like... one and a half fics i know i want to eventually write for obsessed 'verse. i have like. 1/3 of a draft for the first one, but i'm running into some difficulties making the structure interesting. i had One fun idea, but its actual implementation was so annoying i haven't touched it in months andsfjdsjk

[mintywolf]

A Long Road Home - Page 82 Author's Notes

Page 82

I used myself as a pose model for this one and I am happy to report that it went about as well as you would expect with cats.

Laudna’s miniature Castle Whitestone originally appeared in Remember Us in a flashback, in which she has made a dollhouse out of a fruit crate and other odds and ends. The scene then leads into the consequences of her brief friendship with a child that until recently, we knew nothing about, just that Laudna had once been friends with a little girl who wasn’t afraid of her. Since we had such sparse information at the time I avoided going into detail about the girl or their friendship, just the aftermath of it (in the fic it is implied that Laudna was thought to be the little girl’s “imaginary friend,” until the adults in her life found out that she was real, and then suspected her of having ill intentions and her dolls of being tools of witchcraft) that led to her channeling Delilah’s power to kill someone for the first time.

Here it was supposed to be a slightly-abridged version of the same incident, combined with her learning that she wasn’t ever anything special to Delilah, and not chosen as a dinner guest or even as a vessel because of her magical abilities as she’d hoped. She was just convenient.

The script for this mini plot arc was, until very recently, as follows:

82 Panel 1: A long time ago, Laudna is fixing up a different house. She has built a dollhouse out of a fruit crate and is filling it with furniture made of odds and ends. Laudna looks the same age as ever but her mien is particularly childlike, suggesting she hasn't been dead for very long. She's wearing a pinafore dress. Panel 2: Looking closer, we can see that it's an approximation of a fine manor or castle, inhabited by a lord and lady and seven others made of clothespins. There's also a bear made out of a spool. Laudna: There you are, D. Home sweet home. Delilah: A good likeness, to be sure. You remember it well. Panel 3: She moves the dolls into the dining room, where a feast is laid out in miniature on dishes of acorn caps. Laudna: Delilah? Delilah: Yes, poppet? Laudna: Why did you invite me to that party? I mean . . . why me, specially? Panel 4: Laudna's shoulders droop as Delilah laughs. Delilah: Oh, darling girl. It was never about you at all. You were only ever a means to an end. Panel 5: Leaving the dolls inert at the table she lies down on the floor, limp with disappointment. Delilah: There, there. Don't sulk so. Your little friend should be along to play soon. Panel 6: Outside she sits on a swing she has made, looking forlorn and still a little sulky. Pâté is curled in her lap. Laudna: She's late. I hope nothing bad has happened. I hope she hasn't forgotten about me. Pâté: Naw, she wouldn't forgetcha. {heh} You're not an easy face to forget. 83 Panel 1: Hearing noises from the surrounding forest, she raises her head. Delilah: Be mindful, child. Someone is coming. Panel 2: It isn't whom she was expecting, but a group of three angry adults carrying torches and pitchforks and other implements of mob violence. Laudna gets up from the swing. Laudna: Oh . . . hello. May I -- may I help you? Panel 3: The mob leader, a well-muscled man in a blacksmith's apron, seizes her by the arm. Leader: So this is the “imaginary friend,” is it? Laudna: What? I think -- I think there's been a misunderstanding, I -- Leader: Speak, witch! What devilry have you done to our little girl? Laudna: We were -- we were just playing, she's my friend, I -- I -- is she all right? Panel 4: He throws her to the ground and pins her there with his boot. Leader: Search the place! Panel 5: A handful of clothespin dolls is flung to the ground near her face. Mob: Poppets! I'll wager she's been casting an ill-wish on us. Laudna: They're just -- they're just dolls! Oof. Panel 6: The blacksmith cuts her off with a stomp to her ribs. Leader: Burn it down! 84 Panel 1: With her arms wrapped around her head, Laudna consolingly strokes her own hair while Delilah speaks to her. Delilah: It's not fair, is it, dear heart? I did try to warn you that this is what comes of opening your heart to others. All that ever comes of trust is betrayal. Laudna: No, she wouldn't -- she wouldn't betray me. She's my friend! Delilah: Oh? Then how did these men know precisely where to find you? Panel 2: The mob leader grabs her by the hair and begins dragging her towards the burning cabin. Laudna tugs at his steely arm, trying in vain to free herself. Panel 3: A splotchy ring of grey starts out on his arm where she's touching it, dark veins snaking under his skin from her fingertips. Panel 4: As she screams in rage and pain and terror, a circle of necrotic energy spreads around her, withering all the surrounding plant life. Panel 5: She sits up. In a circle around her, everything -- the three men and all of the vegetation -- is as colorless and dead-looking as herself. Wildflowers are sprouting from her hair. She covers her mouth with her hands, so surprised to find herself the most alive thing in the vicinity that she can't tell whether to laugh or cry. Panel 6: Delilah: There, there. You're safe now. Laudna: I . . . I killed . . . all those men? Delilah: Yes. Laudna: I'm so sorry. I didn't -- I didn't mean to. Delilah: No, child. But you did. Panel 7: Laudna: Am I a murderer? Delilah: You are extraordinary. So much more than you ever could have been on your own.

Well, following the release of What Doesn’t Break this is now verifiably not what happened. I’m not planning to make any drastic revisions to my comic script based on the book (in particular I’m leaving the dinner party and what followed the way I already have it written, which is why Clothespin Grog here is . . . just one guy . . .) but since I’d really just included the mention of the little girl to ground the scene in something we knew had happened in Laudna’s past and since this plot arc is happening SO soon after the book came out I decided to just drop the mention of her at all and go in a different direction with the rest of this scene. (There is a slight nod to the book now in that one of the castle rooms is the parlor with the miniatures where Matilda and Delilah meet.)

The book did confirm something I’d hinted at in Remember Us and everything else I’ve written that touches on Laudna’s time before Gelvaan, the idea that her death and un-birth kind of reset her into a childlike mentality and she had to grow up again, this time being raised by Delilah. (The inclusion of Pâté as a live rat in the new version pushes this back even further than it was originally so she is at most only a few years dead here.)

The dollhouse was very fun to create! As it was described in Remember Us the miniatures are made out of salvaged odds and ends Laudna has collected. The dolls are clothespins (like we saw on her childhood bedroom floor back on page 24 as well as featured in her puppet show on Astoria’s guest pages). The castle itself is a crate she has painted white to emulate Castle Whitestone and the rooms depicted are the ones she has mentioned seeing. (The foyer, the dining room, a fancy bedroom, Delilah’s laboratory, and the miniatures gallery.) The bed is made of a chocolate box, the mirror is a monocle, the dressing table stool is the top of a cork, the pictures on the walls are postage stamps (featuring Zan Tal’Dorei, Aeor, and the Sun Tree) and advertisements framed in bottlecaps. The fireplace is made of pebbles, the plates are buttons, and the dining room chairs are the blades of a wooden folding fan. The chains in the laboratory are a broken necklace and the figurines are charms. The staircase banister is made of matchsticks.

Delilah’s face never being seen wasn’t something I had planned, the layout of the page she first appeared on just hid her eyes because I thought it was aesthetically interesting, but since her real identity being unknown to Imogen is a running theme in this chapter I decided to keep up the motif.

[readingstufffff]

Honey Eyes

TWD Story - Michonne x OC

Tw: Mentions of blood

I am inspired by @olive-enjoyer, who said there was a shortage of Michonne fics, and I wanted to change that.

So, here is that prologue for you.

Enjoy <3

———————————

Things had just begun to settle, and the group at the prison continued to grow. Despite the blood that had been spilled after the Governor initiated a war between the prison and Woodbury, the prison had finally started to feel like a home. Somewhere, they could finally build a good foundation to live in. 

At least that is what Hershel had reminded Rick of once the perimeter had been secured and the walls rebuilt.

Of course, Rick had separated himself from any role of leadership. He had help from Hershel when building the foundations for the planting system, and he had Carl by his side as they both learned how to regain the parts of themselves they had started to lose. 

As for the rest of the main group, they had focused on keeping things in line, which started with them creating a council. Sasha, Glenn, Michonne, Daryl, Carol, and Hershel were the main few in charge of the decision made in favor of the group. Like building the outdoor kitchen, the washing stations, the crop farm, when and who went on supply runs. 

Mainly consisting of Michonne choosing to leave, looking for the Governor and scavenging for supplies in the process, and Daryl who often chose who would be of the most optimal use depending on the needs of the group in that moment. 

Which leads back to the beginning of this new chapter in these characters' lives.

—------------------

The morning had begun like no other. Rick being the first one up as he relished in the feeling of the sun on his skin, the prison and its people slowly gaining consciousness and following the routine that had slowly started to implement itself into their lives, and Carl being one of the last few to emerge from his cell after spending the night reading the last batch of comics Michonne had brought for him. 

After everyone had their fill of deer meat during breakfast, that Daryl himself had killed and Carol had cooked, the council met in the prison’s library to discuss the next issue that had been brought to attention throughout the past few days. 

Hygiene.

It’s no surprise that most if not all of the people in the prison had no issue dealing with bad smells after the apocalypse happened, but having so many people so close together brought forth the thought of illness. How soon would the evasion of proper hygiene bring sickness to the people in the prison? And how can they stop that from happening?

They implemented the plan of fixing the showering system that the prison already had, but the only hole in this plan was that the pipes were broken, and many of the shower heads had already begun to rust. Leaving them useless, and this also led to the group requiring the tools and equipment to fix it. So, they hatched a plan that included Daryl and, by persuasion, Sasha, going out to the nearest hardware store. It wouldn’t take them the full day to make the run, but with the amount of supplies they needed to bring back, they decided to take a car and hopefully be back before nighttime. 

The two left and within the hour, reached the store. As they stepped out of the car and scoped the area looking for walkers, killing the ones that they did find, they went to clear the store. To their surprise, they found that the store had already been cleared, which led them to be on edge as they cautiously walked inside. Sasha signaled Daryl to split up, and they did to cover more ground and gain the advantage of surprising whoever was inside. If someone were inside. 

Daryl took the right side of the store. Swiftly weaving through the shelves keeping an eye out for anything that would give him an idea as to why a store like this would be clear of any threats, but still have everything someone would want to take, inside. 

He found traces of what to others might have looked like a walker roaming around the store and bumping into things, however to his trained eyes he clearly saw the traces of fresh blood droplets litering the floor. 

On the other side of the store, Sasha had been doing the same. Skillfully moving about the oddly tidy space, careful not to knock anything over, and looking for any signs of what could be a possible danger. Which she found none of, but instead she uncovered a small puddle of blood the size of her palm near the entrance of a red door. Had it not been fresh blood, she might have ignored it, but it was fresh, and that was unusual. So, she held her gun firmly with her dominant hand, while her other hand reached for the handle of the door. Sasha braced herself. Her mind rummaged through the endless possibilities of what could lie behind that red door, what it was that she would lay her eyes upon once she opened it. 

She took a deep breath, fixed her stance, and yanked the door open.

Nothing. Nothing had jumped out at her, confused and unable to see anything inside the dimly lit room, she took out her flashlight and took a step forward. It had just been an ordinary broom closet, but near the back, she could see the outline of a figure. Again, she raised her weapon and pressed forward, being attentive to her surroundings. That’s when she saw it. The culprit of the blood on the floor. 

She sighed, seeing the blood all over the body, and assuming they were dead, she took out her knife and approached the body. Raising it to the head, she prepared to kill it before it turned. 

Her body jolted and she fell back, landing on her ass, as the girl in front of her opened her eyes and lunged forward coughing. 

“Shit, Daryl!”

—————————————-

Im horrible at being consistent, but I’ve had this story planned out for a while so, I’ll try my absolute best to get it done.

Anyway…byeeee <3

[ladysomething]

Your advice about sex scenes is great, detailed and clear. Thank you! I have another question, it's more personal because I know it looks different for most writers, so I'm curious how it works for you. How do you usually write big works with many parts? How do you know which idea is worth turning into a (big) work, and which is only suitable for a one-shot or not suitable for implementation at all?

well the two answers kind of hand in hand! definitely read this post, because I think it will help you understand the background when one of the first things I have to understand is the second 'point' (the theme) of the fic before I figure out where it's going.

but I think for me, one the first questions is: am I interested enough in this topic to spend months (or years, in the case wygig) writing it? if the answer is no, it will either be short, or it won't exist. usually I can figure out an answer to that by writing some words down. if I write a couple pages and then never go back to it, that's pretty clear that I'm not interested. if I write a couple pages and then wake up in the middle of the night desperate to write more, well ... that means we're full go live baby.

I also take into consideration how much ideas I have in the initial inspiration. for example, for the hanahki fic I have, I have the base plot (hanahki, obvs), the point (living with chronic illness), but there's really only a couple actual ideas I have for what goes in the story (reveals, mutual understanding, sex lol). whereas if I think of, say .... mafia au, I immediately go ok so Charles is in x situation and he meets Max in x, and the ongoing mystery is x, and I HAVE to hit the one bed trope, and damn at some point there should totally be a road trip and also definitely Max has to protect Charles from some guy and maybe even kill him, but Charles ultimately has to get his hands dirty because in they end they will be mafia overlords!

so you see in that situation, that's immediately 100k, no question about it. sure, it could definitely be pared back, but there are enough ideas within the one concept to expand it out.

in terms of how that then becomes a fic with a lot of words and a lot of parts ... I would first start by taking those ideas above and arranging them into a logical order. that would usually be dot points.

so if we take mafia au, I might do something like:

Max and Charles meet in a bar and Charles kidnaps Max

Charles' brother has gone missing and he thinks Max is behind it/can solve it

Max indulges him, curious about Charles

as they start to solve the mystery of where Charles' brother is, Max discovers it goes deeper within his organisation and they go off grid together

roadtrip!

car crashes??? idk, but work in one bed!

deeper into solving - max discovers narrows down the options for the rat

they figure out where his brother is, and go undercover ... definitely someone in a rival mob who gets a little too handsy .... so obviously Max has to kill him :)

when they finally figure how to get to his brother, Charles kills someone

max kills the rat

they come back and get married yay

so it's minimal details, but like .... that's a lot of story. a LOT of story. depending on how intricate I think it's going to get, I would start to put more details down, maybe breaking the early plot points into chapters and then adding specific scenes as I think of them.

so yeah, that's the basics!

[starrynyxa]

7 or 8 🙂‍↕️ -nunki

haiii!! ill give you both :3

7) Recommend a fic that uses a trope you love.

i've got a dark alley and a bad idea about fucking my co-worker - sarcasmandships

Enemies to lovers! Big big fan of the peterick in this, every day I sit and wait by the window hoping for this fic to update just like a wife waiting for her husband to come home from war

8) Recommend a fic with an interesting premise/concept.

The End of the Beginning - BecausePlot

This one is rather old but when I first read it, I was blown away by it. The worldbuilding is genuinely so fascinating, I adored how the author implemented all the little tidbits of Minecraft gameplay into the universe. Unfortunately it's been left unfinished but still a very good read nonetheless!

[queerwolf79]

Dean Winchester and the Spellbinding (Literally) Senior Year

Title: Dean Winchester and the Spellbinding (Literally) Senior Year

Author: @queerwolfsstuff

Artist: @rezal-art

Link to Story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55897192/chapters/141938545

Link to Art Masterpost: https://www.tumblr.com/rezal-art/750715243331715072/art-masterpost-for-dean-winchester-and-the

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags: Supernatural/Harry Potter Crossover, Set During Year Four, Re-write of Goblet of Fire, Canon Divergent, Wizard Dean Winchester from Ilvermorny, Wizard Castiel from Durmstrang, First Kiss, Action/Adventure, Romantic Comedy, Krum Who?, Dean Winchester and Cedric Diggory Bromance, The Triwizard Tournament from a Spectator’s Perspective, Hermione Gets the Respect She Deserves, Satirical Commentary, Queer and Trans Friendly Hogwarts 

Summary:

Dean Winchester, a senior from Ilvermorny, a wizarding school in Massachusetts, will be the first American student to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as part of a newly implemented Foreign Exchange program. And what a year to do so! With the return of the ill-fated and once banned Triwizard Tournament, and an extended invitation to two other European wizarding schools, Dean is going to learn more than just Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts in his final year. There is something dastardly afoot! Someone has tampered with the Goblet of Fire, naming Harry Potter, an underaged, famous wizard as one of the Champions magically bound to compete in the dangerous tournament. What was supposed to be Dean’s coast year before college is soon going to test him more than a final exam ever could. With the help of some new friends, and a dark-haired, blue-eyed wizard with a Russian accent, Dean plans to find out what is really happening within the halls of Hogwarts.

Notes: Many thanks to the mods of the @cdrcrossoverbang and my amazing artist @rezal-art! This literally wouldn't have happened without you!

If you decide to give this fic a shot, I hope you enjoy it!

*As a gender non-conforming person, I want to say any and all research done was without use of official sources that would benefit the source creator.

[flurry-of-stars]

100 𝓕𝓸𝓵𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻 𝓒𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓫𝓻𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷

Hello, hello If you’re new here, I am currently celebrating reaching 100 followers! And to all my followers reading this, welcome, welcome! Make yourselves comfortable! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

So! For the celebration, I’m putting the decision into your hands! (´∀｀) Below I have six short descriptions of stories I have in the works right now. After the completion of chapter 5 of These Hollow Halls, I will focus my attention on the fic idea that gets the highest number of votes! Names are subjected to change as well as what themes may appear in the stories as I start the writing process! Some stories may be longer or shorter than others as well. If none are to your taste, I also have requests open if you want something more specific （＾ｖ＾） So without further adieu~ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ

Meant to be Yours

Obsessed Sigma x Reader “The Sky Casino. The place where fortunes are made and lost with the turn of a hand of cards. As the enigmatic general manager orchestrates the elegant dance of chance, his icy facade belies a twisted obsession with one of his own: a downtrodden worker seeking solace in the company of the flashing lights and the roll of a die. Unbeknownst to you, you’ve caught the eye of the general manager, who’s fiercely protective of what’s important to him. Behind his kind smile and gentle demeanour, he harbours a dark secret, his love for you driving him to unspeakable lengths just for you.”

Little Yellow Butterfly

Cult Leader/University student Fyodor x University student Reader

“After breaking up with the man you thought of as your saviour, you end up back under the oppressive hand of your tyrannical father’s control. University becomes your battleground for freedom. Forced into university against your control, you find solace and companionship in a senior student in your class, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. But beneath his charming facade and popularity lies a dark secret only those chosen learn of before they mysteriously disappear. Falling into Fyodor’s web of manipulation and deceit, you remain blissfully unaware of the true intentions this charming Russian has for you.”

Hall of Illusions

Nikolai Gogol x Spy Reader

“You have one job; infiltrate the Decay of Angels and figure out what their plan is before they can implement it. As an undercover agent for The Alabaster Veil, a covert team of Ability Users whose identities are a mystery to everyone, even other government special forces, you take on the name Piper and are initiated into the DOA as a general assistant. You befriend three of the other members but become particularly close Nikolai Gogol, the jester of the DOA. But when torn between your commitment to your country and your new blossoming relationship, what will you choose?”

My Love, Mine All Mine

Dad Sigma x Reader

“It’s the night you’ve spent the past two years waiting for. Your wedding night. But you’d be lying if you said you weren’t worried. Your new husband, Sigma, opted against going all the way with you until tonight and during your previous intimate encounters, he’s come across as rather…shy. Will this night really be as romantic and exciting as you’ve always imagined it will be?”

Echoes of Eternity

Fyodor Dostoyevsky x Reincarnated Reader

“The day of your wedding anniversary with Fyodor comes around; not for this incarnation, but for your very first incarnation. Feeling an overwhelming sense of love twisted with his bitterness and fear, he takes you out for the day to locations that stir a sense of familiarity within you."

Love you like a Love Song

Idol Nikolai x Idol Reader

“Now that the fashion show is done, you manage to sneak away from your overbearing manager under the lie of being ill so you can finally spend some romantic, one on one time with Nikolai in Paris. You would be more excited, but you can't shake the feeling of jealousy still lingering in your heart. As the green eyed monster in you starts to resurface, Nikolai finds a way to make your one desire come true.”

The poll will be open for one week! It will be linked here when posted! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧𝓟𝓸𝓵𝓵 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ Dividers by @/saradika

[forabeatofadrum]

Happy Sunday and thank you @nausikaaa for the tag. I am a bit ill and only got out of bed around 6pm because of it (oops?) but I had soup and I have put VHS Christmas Carols on as background (which is why I have been leaving VHSCCs song lyrics on @that-disabled-princess's posts) (RUNAAN WHERE'D YOU HAIR GOOOOOO?).

I am still writing the Class fic that I mentioned on Wednesday. I have implemented the changes I discussed in the WW post and I am writing! Wohoo! Let's see how far I'll go before hitting another brick wall. But for now, have six sentences of that:

It’s weird to think that a possible genocidal weapon is currently in Matteusz’s bedroom. And Charlie’s lost. He’s very lost. Ever since the Shadow Kin has defeated those weird petals, he’s been drifting. And, well, he is a prince from a royal family, and royal families have the tendency to shut down any doubts about their leadership. Based on everything Charlie’s said about duty and what not, Matteusz won’t be surprised if Charlie never stopped to think whether he is right.

Bonus line (because I like it):

How on Earth (ha!) did Matteusz get caught up in a huge, probably extremely complicated, otherworldly political conflict in his own home?

The (ha!) refers to the fact that Quill and Charlie are not from Earth, and yet they've brought their planet's conflict with them. Oh Matti.

And now, the weather: @quizasvivamos @coffeegleek @caramelcoffeeaddict @raenestee @tectonicduck 

@nightimedreamersworld @urban-sith @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @bookish-bogwitch @confused-bi-queer

@artsyunderstudy​ @facewithoutheart​ @shrekgogurt @rockitmans @bitbybitwrites 

@whatevertheweather @shame-is-a-wasted-emotion @esilher @kurtsascot @blackberrysummerblog 

@nightimedreamersghost @ivelovedhimthroughworse @thnxforknowingme @martsonmars

@special-bc-ur-part-of-it @larkral @cutestkilla​