#it was unexpected but so nice to see

[writeouswriter]

I love commenting on so called “older” fics because personally I have no actual semblance of the passage of time, if you commented on my fic from 2017, I’d be thrilled because in my mind, I wrote that baby last week, that’s nothing

[puppyeared]

Was nobody gonna warn me that I would fall a little bit in love with every character in Stardew

[niaevum]

.

[designernishiki]

I feel like I liked yakuza 5 a lot more than most people for some reason

[om0000]

There's no way roundabout was the first fic u read for woy, it was my first fic for woy too!!! Still one of the best I've read, in and out of the fandom :)

WE'RE SO TWINNING!!! i remember sorting by kudos or hits or smth n it was somewhere at the top n i read it first cuz i thought "this looks like the weirdest most batshit insane piece of text to ever curse this ao3 page. this better be funny" but then i started reading it n turns out its actually an absolute fire fic

[akkivee]

these making a comeback was not on my hypmic bingo card tbh

[tskumoyuuma]

RRR x Sanrio pin

[sabraeal]

Unexpected Complications, Chapter 5

[Read on AO3]

Obiyuki Trope Madness 2023 Championship: In Love With the Mark

The ballroom doesn’t so much spin as sway; the bob at the end of his heart’s pendulum, at the mercy of its heady beat. Obi screws his eyes shut, fingers gripping tight on the beam. All it’ll take is a few quick breaths and he’ll be able to walk right out of here. Just a running start to get him moving. This thing’s practically a paper cut, more bark to it than bite.

He levers himself to his feet, knees trembling under him, and oof, all right, maybe it’s not. Still not the worst injury he’s got on the job, though.

There’s a commotion down there now; not the delicate squeals of young ladies frightened by the unexpected, but the shouts of grown men. The kind that call out “Search the palace!” with authority, and waste no time adding, “I want to account for every inch.”

There’s inches a plenty up here, ones they’re going to find in short order once one of them remembers how to look up. Might take a while-- always does, in his experience-- but eventually some rookie’s going to get bored guarding a pile of glass, and glance up, wondering, just where did this come from anyway--?

And he better not be here when they do.

A feat easier said than done. One step nearly wobbles him right off the beam. That might make some new guy’s day down there, but Obi’s not about to launch any career other than his own. He crouches instead, working on all fours-- all threes, really, since he doesn’t want to mix up his insides with his outsides-- to the window he slunk through hardly an hour ago.

It’s higher than he remembers. His side burns as he stretches to catch the sill; it takes the generous application of his boots to some goddess’s face to get the momentum to pull him over, but he manages. One handed, even, balancing on the narrow leaden frame.

Torches leap to life in the distance before the strident shouts of the guard scatter them. Some start to poking along the perimeter-- the sort of creativity he expects from a bunch of knights, which is to say none-- but a decent group fans out into the royal forest, far enough apart that they need to call out to keep tabs, but too close to allow a slender spy to slip though. Or, at this rate, comfortably pass out in.

Well, damn. Looks like he won’t be biding his time in a tree branch this time, waiting for all this to blow over. The flat’s straight out; he’d have to make it across open ground and out one of these gates, and with his side like it is, he’ll be passed out long before and gate keeper could squint over his credentials. No, there’s no use in running, but where...?

There’s no time to let his thoughts settle into something like sense, not when he’s going to sway right off this sill any minute now. There’s risks to hiding right under the royal noses, but he’s got a shit hand, and the longer he waits to fold, the more likely it is he might lose his shirt with it. Or his head. 

But there’s not much for it. On anything more than a wheeze pain burns up his side, enough that he’s got to grit his teeth to keep his scream silent. He’s running out of options, and fast.

It’s a shallow breath that trembles through him, probing that wound like a sore tooth, but that’s all he needs. With all the coiled strength of his limbs behind him, Obi throws himself into the air, whole body stretched long--

And trusts his hands to catch him. They always do.

The stone is slick beneath his fingers, the worn soles of his boots sliding as he braces himself for every jump. It rained some time tonight, and even his sharp eyes struggling to gauge the range between rails. It’s not enough to slow him, but it takes effort, the kind that doesn’t leave him much in the way of thought. He just keeps reaching out and putting his feet beneath him, trusting his gut to guide him to safety.

A stupid idea, really. His gut’s what got him here in the first place. A fact he’s so conveniently forgot, right up until his feet skid to a stop. The library doors loom before him, dark behind their glass, and of course he’d lead himself here, of course. What better place to hide than the last one he felt safe?

It’d be nothing to turn away, to throw himself to the next balcony and hope for the best. But his knees tremble with the first step and stumble on the second. The third’s barely upright. He’s losing blood with abandon now.

His fingers dig into the meat of his side, a poor excuse for a bandage. This isn’t the worst place to lie low, he has to admit. There’s not a knight alive that’s going to look for an assassin amongst the stacks. Not until they’ve turned over every other stone first. That give him until morning, at least.

The lock’s a simple pin-and-tumbler-- more to keep the doors from blowing open in the wind rather to keep anyone out-- which is a good thing, since his fingers are half numb on the pick. Any more than jamming a pin in the lock and he would have spent the night bleeding out on the balcony. What a title that would have made for the evening edition.

Instead he’s put in the proper position for knowing just how plush the carpet is when it rises up to greet him. Not Viandese, of course-- couldn’t have plebs dirtying those precious piles with their slippers and shoes. But it’s fine enough for his purposes: lying flat on the floor and thinking about how he needs to get this damned side of his stitched.

Without the drumbeat of his heartbeat driving him, Obi can admit: the library might not have made the top of his list for hiding places, but there’s a logic to it. The way the shelves sweep from floor to ceiling, clustered with no little regard for the passage of natural light, there must be places that are dark even in the day. Even with a lantern, the windy warrens burrowed through the stacks had pressed in around him, so complex he doubted most guards could find their way in, let alone out. And despite the sprawl, it didn’t seem the hang out for high society, at least according to Sh--

Ah. His fingers clench around a shelf, trembling. That’s the last thing he needs to be thinking about.

A breath or two rolls him onto his back, and with a concerted-- yet ginger-- effort, gets his feet beneath him. It’s good he’s landed himself a place to lay low, but he can’t just lay here on the carpet until morning. Not unless he wants to take a few years off a librarians life and maybe add a few dir to their pay check.

“Obi?”

Air hisses through his teeth. Pain makes everyone a child, he knows, but he thought he’d lost the instinct for comfort a long time ago, on a night darker than this, on a rain-slick ledge that the blood would never wash free. But for him to hear her voice now--

“Obi.” Light sprays across his boots, dispelling the shadows as two soft slippers pad into view. “Is that...? Ah, I mean, are you all right?”

It’s reflex to look up. That’s a mistake too. He’s supposed to run, to hide himself from every set of eyes he can lest they give the guard something to work with, but--

But these ones are green. Not olive, the way most are, but a full, deep color, like jade or juniper. A thing he only knows because he’s spent the last few nights getting lost in them. Seems a waste to hide now that she’s looking back.

“Why, Miss.” He shifts his clutch to a casual lean, smile sliding onto his lips as easily as his hand slides over that inconvenient slice in his side. “What’s a girl like you doing out at this hour?”

That lantern of her might cast her face in shadow, but he can still make out the way she blinks. “I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I?”

“Got tired of your friend’s shindig.” He tries a shrug, only to abandon it halfway through. Some theatrics just aren’t worth the pain. “Wasn’t anyone there I wanted to talk to.”

Her head tilts, and that cascade of red shimmers like a river of fire. Oh, how he’d love to burn. “So you came to the library?”

“Sure.” His smile slant to a wicked smirk. “Had a good time when I was here last time, didn’t I?”

I might just be a trick of the light, but he could swear her cheeks pink just from that little tease. “But that wasn’t even when...”

Her lips press shut, but Obi doesn’t need her to speak to know what she meant to say. That wasn’t when we danced. That wasn’t when you tried to seduce me. That wasn’t when you ruined this.

His mouth twists, wry. If only she knew. “I know.”

There’s a pause, a silence. A breath where the lantern trembles and the shadows dance, a moment where not only her eyes are a mystery but her entire face hides from him. And then her hands reach out, steadying it. “You went to the ball dressed in that?”

Obi snorts. “Funny thing to say, considering what you wore last night. If you don’t think they’d let me through the door, I’m surprised you...”

It’s part of the bit for his gaze to drop, to drag up her from hem to hairline with all the charm of a chamberlain with a checklist and mark her wanting. But when he strays from the safe harbor above her shoulders, it’s...

It’s linen, woven finer than anything he’s has the pleasure of putting against his skin. Not stark white, like these fine young ladies would wear, but creamy and uncomplicated, the embroidery around the slim-fitting cuff done in a floss meant to give texture rather than color. There might be more above the cinched-waist-- more than likely, considering the fussy little placard of buttons running down to it, with the barely hint of a ruffle-- but he can’t see it beneath her thick shawl.

Hardly fashionable of her, the thing drawn over her thing shoulders the way the grannies in the market would. But then again, nightgowns typically weren’t meant to be seen.

“Ah, Miss...” Shirayuki’s never fit the look of a prince’s mistress, but now, now...she could be someone he knows. The girl from the market stall on the corner, or the barkeep’s daughter he sent off to the university up north. Someone only a step or two out of his reach, rather than a whole ocean. “So this is what you look like.”

Better not forget that it’s only an illusion.

It’s harder when she blushes like that, two pink spots riding high as kisses on her cheeks. “It is.” Her glance is almost shy when she says, “Is this how you--?”

She blinks. “Is that blood?”

Obi glances down, and oh, hm, looks like all that warm, fuzzy feeling might just be blood loss. “Ah, now Miss, it looks worse then it is.”

It shouldn’t excite him how stern a turn her mouth takes, nor how firmly she grips his wrist. “I think I’ll be the judge of that.”

Obi’s not typically one to protest when a lady takes him to her rooms, let alone her bed. But when Shirayuki sits him down on hers, hard enough his breath gasps out on a confused woof, he tries. Just this once. “I shouldn’t be here.”

He might not have bothered for all the attention she pays him, scurrying around her room with the same fervor as a squirrel uncovering its nuts in the spring. A bottle here, some thread there; everywhere has something more interesting than his single attempt to be decent.

“You’re a nice young girl,” he tells the ceiling, helplessly. “Woman, I mean. Wouldn’t do for you to be caught with a charming rogue like me behind closed doors. Maybe--”

“I wouldn’t have to be if you’d let me take you to the pharmacy,” she reminds him with the careful sort of politeness kind-hearted young girls like to use on boys so far in the dog house they have to dig themselves out. “Garrack’s a much better hand at this than I am, so if you’d like...?”

She gives him a meaningful glance over her shoulder, but he just clenches his jaw. “No pharmacy.”

A sigh saws out from between her lips, but she bustles over to him anyway, a small basket in hand. “If you would take off your shirt, please.”

The shame had been worked out of him long ago, but it doesn’t stop Obi from clutching at his shirt, whispering with all the dramatics of a widowed aunt, “Miss.”

She may give him that stern stare all she likes, but he sees the way her mouth twitches, trying to smooth away a smile. Or better yet, one of her smirks. “I can hardly help you if I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“You shouldn’t be helping me,” he reminds her. “A good girl would have left me right there on the carpet, or even--”

“Here.” She presses a cup between his hands, urging it toward his mouth. “Take this. It will help with the pain.”

He does it before he can even to think what’s in it. A pity, since the thing burns going down. “Ah, now that’s bitter.”

“Better a little discomfort now than what comes after. Now, this.” With an impatient lift of her brows, she tugs at the hem of his shirt, as if he might forget where it starts without a reminder. “Off, please.”

“Why, Miss, if you wanted to seduce me, you only need say--”

“Obi.” He blinks down, watching the outline of her bleed into the dim before settling out clear again. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” The word feels good in his mouth, so he tries it again. “Goood.”

The room’s been swaying for so long he hardly notices the change in its rock, in the way it hangs just a little bit to either side, like time stretches out between his heartbeats, and--

Obi squints at the cup, taking a sniff so deep of its contents it stings.

“Miss.” It’s a miracle that he gets the words out, considering how his lips are numb. “You drugged me.”

“Only a little.” His girl’s not even the slightest bit contrite. It’s terrible how much that works for him. “Just a finger or two of roka liquor. Maybe four.”

“That’s devious,” he hums, impressed. She isn’t, for her part; just heaves a sigh and steps in, coaxing the slick material up over his head with hardly any help. And, if Obi’s being honest, probably a fair share of hindering.

“You’ve put me at your mercy, Miss.” He giggles as the fabric tickles his chest, suddenly so sensitive. Well, always so sensitive, but more now. “Now what will you do--?”

“Lay down.” Tossing the shirt to the end of the bed, Shirayuki has plenty of hands to put on his chest and push-- deliciously firm, if he does say so himself, promising even-- straight to his back. “This isn’t going to be pleasant. But try not to pass out.”

A giggle bubbles out of him. “Don’t promise me a good time.”

Her lips part in a grimace. “Trust me, I’m not.”

“There, all done,” Shiryuki murmurs, pulling the last stitch tight. Or at least so he assumes; despite all her dire warnings, Obi can hardly feel a thing. Well, beside the way her hand’s pressed to his belly, keeping him on the mattress. “How does that feel?”

“Like you should keep touching me.”

It’s out before his teeth can snatch it back, and oh, she pulls that hand away like he’s made of fire.

“Ah, Miss!” He makes to sit up, but ah, looks like that roka liquor can’t cover the way his insides slosh around now that he’s been sewn shut. “Youch.”

“Obi!” Her hands cup his shoulders, supporting him as he sits. “You should really lay down. You lost a lot of blood, and the roka--”

“I’m fine.” It’s a lie; the room’s spinning and his stomach is two sailors short of a heave, but his hand wraps around her wrist, her warmth washing into him, and he can’t find it in him to mind. “I shouldn’t have-- I shouldn’t tease you like that. Already made you upset once.”

“I’m not...” Her lips press together, tantalizing. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”

A smart man walks away from the table while he’s winning, but Obi’s never been much of a gambler. His mouth opens, and it’s a roll of the dice to see if he’s ruined. “But I upset you last night. Talking to you like that.”

“I...” Her gaze skitters away from his, fixed to the lantern first, then her basket. Anywhere but him. “It’s not that. I just...I wasn’t expecting it.”

“From me?”

Pink floods her cheeks, and his lips itch from how much he wants to press them to it, to feel the heat against his mouth. “From anyone.”

“What?” A laugh hiccups out of him. “Not even your prince?”

Her hair sweeps across her shoulders. “I already told you, it wasn’t like that. We never...”

It would be stupid to push, to ask just what it was like, but well, tonight’s not the night for smarts, it seems. “Never...?”

Her hands flutter in her lap. “We only kissed. Just a few times. He never mentioned that he might...that he could...”

“Want you? How?” It’s the wrong answer, he knows it before she even flinches. “Sorry, I wasn’t...I didn’t mean to, er...”

“Ah, no, d-don’t be.” Her hands fly out, catching his. They’re soft, her calluses concentrated on the knuckles of her first two fingers, smooth as shells worn by the sea. It would be nice, if she left them there.  Forever, maybe. “I mean...not if you meant it.”

His fingers curl so tentatively around hers, encouraging them to stay. At least, he hopes so. “Would it...be all right if I did?”

Her chin lifts, and it’s not so much her smile that draws him in-- though it’s no small part, her mouth so soft and pink and just for him-- as the spark it lights in her eyes. “I already said it didn’t upset me.”

“Ah.” She’s so close his breath ruffles the lacework of her lashes, sending her flyaway scattering. “How encouraging.”

“I would...” Her fingers knit around his, nerves drawing her tendons tight. Good thing he’s still half numb; her little kitten grip might be painful otherwise. “...I would like it, if it were true.”

He doesn’t so much lean in as fall toward her, slowing his descent enough that when his lips first touch hers it’s nothing more than a brush, a whisper of skin against skin. It’s nothing, but already it’s too much, every bit of his skin left raw and aching from just that.

“I think,” he murmurs, close enough that each word makes its own kiss. Or at least enough of one to make the arousal sleeping in his gut shiver, threatening to turn over. “I could die happy.”

Ah, well. Hadn’t meant for that to slip out. That roka stuff is one hell of a drug.

Her hand scrubs up the undergrowth of his scalp, smile slanting to smirk when he sighs into her mouth. “Not just yet, please.”

There’s a tease at the tip of his tongue, a quick little quip that’s sure to make her laugh, but he never has the chance to find out, not when her mouth opens beneath his and swallows it whole. It’s a groan that falls out of him in its place, his fingers flying from his lap to grip her elbows, dragging her closer--

And he loses a minute. Or maybe only a few seconds. Hard to count when he can hardly catch his breath, the whole world spinning as Shirayuki steadies him with her smile.

And her hands too, if the grip on his shoulders is taken into account.

“Ah, careful.” She guides him back to the bed, more gently than she had before. Tender, even. “You should really lay down. Gets some rest.”

His fingers tangle in hers as they pull away. “Only if you stay with me.”

Those pretty eyes of her round, matching the set of her mouth. He can’t quite puzzle out why, not when he only--

Haah, those drugs have really done a number on him. “Ah, sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to--” proposition you again-- “Er, don’t mind me, rea--”

“Obi.” The mattress dips, and it’s only when he opens his eyes to see her perched there, smile practically incandescent, that he realizes he clenched them shut at all. “If you want me to, I will.”

“Ah...” A killer like him shouldn’t have the shame left to blush, but here he is, like some young lord tumbled by his first farm girl.

“To look after you,” she adds, her own cheeks a darker shade than pink. “Not for...other reasons.”

It’s habit for his lips to part in a grin, to let one brow hike heavenward as he drawls, “I don’t think I have enough blood to go around for other reasons right now, Miss.”

“Obi--”

“But, if you don’t mind...” Earnestness fits like another man’s glove, but he breathes into the stretch. “Please. Just for now.”

It’s the tiniest tug he gives that hand of hers, but she falls beside him, tucked into his shoulder. “For now.”

[gojo]

i just finished trimax and oh my god how am i going to function now

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: May 12

"Howlin' for You” by The Black Keys

[echo-s-land]

The way my father and aunt are both religious but in a total opposite way is insane

[babylion]

[blueish-bird]

sorry if I don’t remember your name or conversations/experiences or basic things about myself, every few weeks my brain gets factory reset and I have to relearn how to be alive

[diaryofellen]

[shallowseeker]

15x09 The Trap should have featured Emma W. and Andrea K. dancing in the ruins. Dean thinks maybe he’ll find Benny? Boom, enter Andrea and Emma who take a shine to Cas and wanna keep him.

Utter chaos!

Narrative symmetry! Dean-and-Jack shadow replacements, hello! And enticing Cas to stay ofc was always a crunchy theme.

[autumnrory]

thinking about how like, if ASP had written season 7 with the final four words she used in the revival, that would've been a bummer no matter what, not because you can't make it work getting pregnant that young, obviously the whole premise of the show is someone who did make it work even younger than that, but with a reboot, it COULD HAVE been a truly lovely moment to end on rory telling her mom she's pregnant instead of the shock and horror (lol i saw a gifset the other day and lauren really overplayed the shock, it's so dramatic sdkjfksj like rory is 32, even if her situation isn't ideal, it's not as huge as it might've been at 22) like....just thinking how it could've been a different story, sure, with the typical drama and struggles we see in gilmore girls, but an ending where the pregnancy is good news would've been so much better, to see that bonding moment, to see lorelai find out she's going to be a grandmother and the two of them basking in the joy.....ugh it makes me so sad that they did that to rory honestbhly