#so now its being posted bc hes holding me at gunpoint saying everyone will see my shrimp colors

[paralien]

[katzuyas]

I was tagged for a few things still back in 2018, so let’s get these out here to have a clean slate for 2019 and tag some lovely peeps along the way!

tagged by @kazul9

to post the last sentence from a wip, and here it is!

" [...] You're free to get yourself a nice corner of the house and make those love notes come true."

this is from SSS which was supposed to be my christmas smut fic, but I got so busy I never managed to finish it in time for the holidays //sighs regretfully maybe next christmas!

WIP title meme game

tagged by @kanzaki19 and @and-then-yoi-happened

The Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Pick out the title that most intrigues you, or interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

Gardenia's Gathering of Roses

dazzle me with gold

believe in the heart, for tomorrow

samovar

SSS

Apollo (which I will probably never finish rip)

 as for one that intrigues me most... that would be probably dmwg but I won't share that bc it's been too long and I need to get back to writing it soon-ish, so instead have a little bit of Apollo, for the unsung fic that will never find its conclusion:

 Victor felt his mask slip on the sweat caking his face and a single thought had him reach back to untie the strings holding it in place. He was stopped halfway, though.

"Don't," hot mouth whispered into his ear and he'd listened, spellbound.

"You don't want to know who I am?" Victor turned his head to capture that mouth, but he'd missed, nuzzling against the soft velvet of the man's mask instead. "I want to know who you are, too. Will you tell me?"

Clumsy fingers sunk into Victor's hair, brushing through it, while amused dark eyes looked into his as if the man already knew. And he had, which should've spiked caution in Victor, but he was too far gone by that time to care about anything else other than the subtle quirk of the lips that he couldn't forget the taste of.

"Who could ever mistake you for anyone else, Victor?" the man asked, caressing Victor's jaw with his thumb in a way that made Victor lift his chin up like a puppy begging for scratches.

Teeth scraped over the column of his throat like a promise of something Victor desperately wanted with a force that surprised even himself. He swallowed hard, feeling how the man's lips caught on his Adam's apple as it moved, and blessing the second his eyes fell on the guy's ugly tie.

"I'm a little bit at a disadvantage here." Victor smiled, pushing his own hand into the man's hair: clumped with gel, messy, but no less divine. "You seem to know me, but I still don't know anything about you."

"You know I can dance," the man said. He gyrated his hips against Victor's as if to prove his point and Victor greedily pulled him closer. "You know how my body looks like under these clothes," the man was talking while they shifted against each other. "You know how my lips taste like."

Dark eyes looked at Victor, mischievous, and Victor was powerless against the force of his want. He dipped his head down and stole another kiss, a brief, short one, just enough to make him hungry for more.

"Your name," Victor begged, chasing after the man's lips when he swayed away with the music. "Just that. I promise I won't ask anything else."

There were fingers on Victor's tie, undoing the knot, undoing the buttons of his shirt, undoing his self-control. When he opened his mouth to ask once more, the man lifted the expensive fabric of Victor's Armani tie and wrapped it around his head, akin to his own, another crown on another god. Leaning closer, the man smooshed their cheeks together hard enough that their masks shifted. He laughed into Victor's ear, drunk on delight.

"Now we match," he told Victor while he completely ignored his question.

If it was a hint that he would get no answers from the man at all, Victor knew when to take it. He sighed quietly. Rubbing his nose into the side of the guy's head, he got a whiff of the distinct stink of alcohol and sweat, but that gave him absolutely no clues. Victor wrapped his arms around the body pressed so tightly against him that he could feel each breath and thrum of the heart beating to the music, which threatened to have swallowed them both if Victor hadn't allowed the man to steal all of his attention first.

He would've caved and given up on finding who the man was, content enough to have him for this one night of life and love, but the soft, barely audible words spoken into his jaw rejuvenated the hope inside him.

"I've dreamed of you all my life."

A simple sentence like that should've made him uneasy, should've made Victor step back and away, and run for the hills, but it didn't. It made him sway them to the music and say back:

"You've got me now."

And that was his mistake, it seemed.

The man pulled out of his embrace, eyes downcast and mouth a wry smile. Before Victor could take his words back, explain, correct himself, anything, there were lips on his own and then–

–he was gone.

The man disappeared into the mass of bodies around them like a ghost, like smoke into thin air, only leaving the memory of his lips against Victor's and an empty ache inside his heart. Which Victor was not about to take.

He tore through the crowd, only catching the sight of the ugly tie disappear behind another group of people. Victor knew he shouldn't, but something inside him called for the other man, urged him to follow him, and he was powerless to resist it... so he did it anyway. He tore his mask off, dropping it to the floor without a care, and without the obstacle to slow him down he caught him – right when the lighting in the club shifted, the vibrant colours playing off of the fear, regret and beautiful, striking longing in the man's dark eyes.

"Where are you going?" Victor asked, holding the other's wrist lightly enough that he could pull away if he truly wanted.

He didn't.

But he didn't answer either.

Simply turned his head away, the blue of his mask telling Victor how close he was to drowning in the ocean of his own despair.

"How am I supposed to find you again?" Victor asked once more. He wanted. He needed. Pleas–

"The whole point of a masquerade is to stay anonymous, isn't it?" the man said, finally looking at Victor again. He stepped closer, lifting his hand as if to touch Victor's face, but hesitated and let it drop. "You aren't."

Victor felt like his heart was being pierced by a thousand golden spears made up of all the medals he'd won over the years. Was his fame the reason? His media persona? His hand shook where he was still holding onto the man's wrist, but he refused to let go. Not until he tells him to.

"Is there really no chance I could change your mind?"

The man bit his lip, seemingly at a dissonance with himself, and then lurched forward to join their lips together in a kiss that was not only hinted with Victor's desperation, but also the man's own longing. Losing sense faster than he could control, Victor blinked dazedly when the man pulled away too soon. Dark eyes looked into Victor's with something sweet, something fragile, that Victor did not dare call adoration.

"If you can find me, you can try," the man said, his thumb swiping over the plush of Victor's bottom lip.

Swallowing hard, Victor spoke, aware of how his mouth moved around the man's finger. "But how? How do I find you?"

"You're Victor Nikiforov." The man smirked at him, confident, sexy, playful, and with complete faith in what he was saying, added: "If anyone can do it, it's you."

And Victor realized that this was another challenge that he was issued. To keep him on his toes, to make him work for it, to keep his interest going – and going it was. It was only right that to keep a god, he was to go to incredible lengths. Feeling his heart beat so much faster, Victor smiled.

He was ready for this.

First Sentences Game

tagged by @iwritebetterthanispeak

Rules: list the first lines of your last ten published stories. note if there are any patterns yourself and see if anyone else notices any! tag ten friends!

I'm going to go with ao3 only since those are the fics I actually do any sort of editing and concrete writing for, so let's go!

 A single rose, red like the setting sun that bleeds though the branches of a tree outside a window of a loveless man's house, by all means should look lonely. – from red, for love triumphant

If Yuuri wasn't so used to Phichit's phone going off constantly, he probably would've jumped when the thing came to life in his friends' hands. – from draped in your love, I breathe

"A little shorter in the back maybe," Victor says, looking into the mirror that Lucien is holding behind his head. – from thread your needle through my heart

Everyone knows who Victor Nikiforov is. – from dazzle me with gold

There's an elegant line to Victor's nape when he bows his head over the small piece of paper with jumps and combinations scrawled onto it in a confusing sequence of symbols that no one other than a figure skating junkie could decipher. – from pulchritudinous

"The Garden of Tears, they call it," the old healer says. – from Everlasting

"How about we just take the popular vote and give Yuuri his gold already?" Victor sighs as they all watch Yuuri Katsuki make his way around the ice before the start of his free skate. – from together, we're golden

There is nothing worse, Victor thinks as he shakes the already wheezing bottle of conditioner, than being empty. – from what living feels like

St. Petersburg is... dark. – from lighter, better, fuller

Standing at gunpoint in his own bathroom, of all places, with hands still under the lukewarm stream of tap water, Yuuri imagined there were worse ways to start the day. – from a black heart of gold

 the patterns I see are mostly in titles bc wow all the lowercase really got to me huh? lmao also very dramatic and almost all of them are from some song or another, so I'm very obvious in that department.

as for the actual first lines... I do tend to start my fics either in the middle of some action/scene/conversation or it's a statement of fact, which I then agree or disagree with and try to prove to the readers. the first one, I've found, definitely works better to get people involved faster!

I also tend to put the first names of the characters whose pov I use in the first line, if I can, to help people figure out whose voice to read with

these are all writing tags so I will tag you for all, one, or whichever of these you prefer! @accioharo, @belovedyuuri, @gabzjones, @louciferish, @lilithsins, @joeys-piano, @victuurikatsu, @dreaming-fireflies, @teekettle, and @postingpebbles

have fun, if you wish, and if not then feel free to forget this ever happened 😉 I hope you have an amazing, productive and inspiring new year!!! ❤️❤️❤️