#this is one of those times where you shouldn't be fooled by appareances

[hoshigray]

So I saw this tweet and thought then and there: Toji's fingers and how deliciously thick they are. Just imagine you always looking at his hands and being in absolute awe every time you look at them...And Toji uses this little infatuation to his advantage, to which you have no complaints.

A/n: Now I know it seems like I'm stalling my make-up sex Toji fic, but please accept this as a gift from my procrastinating ass (I swear idk what's wrong with me, I'm recently getting back into drawing and trying to relearn everything waaaaaahhh)!! I saw the new trailer and squealed seeing Toji (nothing new, lol), but then that tweet popped up right after, and I noticed how thick they animated his fingers!! So I just ran to my keyboard, and boom! Here we are!! Also, tysm for 400+ followers like???!!! Y'all are far too sweet and kind, ya know that!? Tysm~~~

Cw: dom! Toji x fem! reader - fingering (obvi) - fingers in your mouth - Daddy kink - breast fondling - finger sucking - praise - pet names (angel, baby, darlin', good girl, kiddo, sweetie, sweetheart) - clitoral play (pushed down by finger)- mention of violence (reason for Toji's scars) - ends with overstimulation (fem! receiving).

Wc: 1.5k

There is no doubt that you love Toji unconditionally and blatantly. That is the truth. There's no denying he isn't an ideal man; both of you understand that. He has many flaws that you're perfectly aware of. Yet despite said imperfections, you choose to stick beside and love him as if he's worthy (which baffles the older, tall man).

There are many things you love about Toji. But if you could pick one thing you loved about Toji, it would be his hands. When he holds them, your hand is dwarfed by his big palm. When he pulls you close to him by the waist when you two are in a crowded area. Or when he cups your face and kisses you before leaving for hitman work.

Palms are rugged and large that effortlessly warm you up. Fingers calloused and decorated with faded scars that each hold a story. Veins that stem from the bulky arms contour all the way down to the back of his palms.

His hands. His big, rough, warm, and scarred hands. You love them so much. And you're not the only one who knows this.

Toji is no fool. He can sense your eyes observing him from across the room as he's washing the dishes from the kitchen. He doesn't have to lift his head to see you on the living room couch where you're supposedly reading something on your phone. But it was apparent your attention wasn't on the small screen in your hands.

"Whatcha lookin' at me for?" Again, not looking at you and finishing the dishes. His scarred lip twists into a smile when you cough nervously before responding.

"Oh, you know. Just looking at my man being so handsome washing those plates." You internally sigh in relief, saving yourself with a quick excuse.

Now Toji looks and grins at you, placing the last plate into the dish rack and drying his hands before walking up to the couch to sit comfortably beside you. His left arm is positioned behind your shoulders, bringing you closer to him. Your heart skips a beat.

Toji grabs the TV remote to change the channel to something interesting, probably sports or some sitcom. Not that you care, because you just watch his fingers press on the channel buttons and place the remote back onto the coffee table. His right hand then moves to his chin to scratch the slight stubble, and your orbs trace the outlines of the tiny scars that harbor on Toji's knuckles. He never entirely told you how those faded tissues came to be, but he'd say that he came out way better than the guy on the other side of his fists ("Fucker had it comin', sweetie. Shouldn't bring a knife to a fist fight.")

Despite coming from such rough events, you don't mind the scars on his fingers. If anything, they make his hands even more attractive to look at.

"Somethin' wrong with my hand, kiddo?"

Uh oh. Your eyes drift to Toji's face, sharp green eyes leer at you, and a smirk is plastered with a mischievous expression. I got caught!

"No, nothing's wrong with them." You place your phone on the coffee table, and your hands move up to grab hold of Toji's hand resting on his chin. "They're...I just like looking at them."

Toji lifts a brow as he hums, removing his hand from your grasp and placing it on your cheek. A big thumb lays on top of your plump lips. "Is that right, darlin'? Ya like my fingers, yeah?"

You nod sheepishly while turning into putty when his fingers squeeze your cheeks with affectionate warmth. The left hand that once rested on your shoulder snakes down to your chest, and small gasp results from the sudden grasp on your soft mound.

"You want Daddy's fingers, baby?" He asks while massaging your breast, lowering his head to your ear so his gruff voice makes you shudder. You answer him with hooded eyes and a wistful nod, his eyes narrowing slightly at the blissful sight. "Lay down fr' me then."

You follow his instructions as he spreads his legs, your upper body resting on his right thigh while the other stations your ass for him. He whistles before rubbing and kneading your ass, while your breathing becomes irregular when he removes your leggings, revealing your panties.

The position limits your view, so you use your senses to feel his fingers teasing from your spine down to the wet spot on your underwear. Your shivers aren't missed by Toji. He laughs. "Gonna be a good girl and let me use my fingers on ya, right, angel?"

"Yes, Daddy." Toji sneers at the title and slides your panties down, your pretty pussy glistening for him to see. Your breath hitches when you feel his left ring finger nestle between your folds. The thick digit slowly but surely makes its way inside you, and a short squeal leaves you when it's entirely within. "Relax, princess. Bein' so good fr' me right now." The older man coaxes you as your cunt adjusts to the finger, his right hand caressing your cheeks for comfort. He pushes the finger further when your breathing returns to a steady rhythm.

Even with the sound from the television present, Toji only listens to the mewls you let out every time he pushes and pulls his thick digit inside you, rubbing on the walls of your tight slit. He enjoys the view of your bare ass and cunt for him to see and toy with, silently humming to himself when listening to your cries of pleasure.

When he feels as though you've adjusted to his ring finger, his middle finger brushes between the lips of your pussy, prompting you to clench hard on him. He laughs at your reaction, "Easy, sweetheart. I know you can take more of me." Toji sneaks his middle between your wet cunt, and a giant gasp quits your body as your hands grip his grey sweatpants. The soft pants from your open mouth fill the room, only for Toji to insert another pair of fingers into your mouth. "It's okay, cry on these hands you love s' much."

And that's all you could do as you let the man bully your poor pussy, your mouth sucking on his right fingers in your mouth while his left-hand abrade your insides. Thick digits stretch your aroused hole, causing your heart to race and your skin to heat up.

"Mmmm, Mmmph!" Words are muffled, and a scream is prevented when you can feel the digits make a 'come hither' motion. The tips of his fingers scrape your velvety walls, your brain turning fuzzy while tears and drool render your face from the stimulating abuse you're going through.

His fingers slide in and out of your slick-covered pussy faster, and you accidentally bite on the digits in your mouth. But Toji doesn't mind, for he knows he's making you feel so fucking good. "Yer grippin' on me so hard, sweetie." His fingers switch to a slow pace, making sure the pads of his two fingers tantalizingly graze your hypersensitive sex. "Gonna come on Daddy's fingers?"

Finally, Toji frees your mouth. Heavy pants exit your lips pooled with drool, saliva from your mouth coats his right middle and forefinger that retreat to holding your face once more. "Yesss, Daddy. Haaaah, I wanna come on y— Aaahh!! F-fingers..."

How can he deny you when your tearful eyes beg for release? His emerald orbs go dark in hunger, and his grin widens with his teeth emerging from under his scar.

The rough digits in your cunt quicken in reckless haste, forcing out moans to fill the room yet again. The middle and ring fingers assault the gushy walls deep inside your squelching cunt, the noises on par with the thrilled whimpers that exit your mouth.

And Toji uses this to distract you from his forefinger aligning with your clit. When the index finger comes down and swipes around the tender bud, your moans turn into electrified screams, hands gripping the man's leg holding you up. With the erratic pace of the two fingers deeply scraping your pussy, along with the forefinger pressing down on your clitoris, your orgasm hits you with no warning.

You chase out your climax with a euphoric sob, walls fluttering around the fingers responsible for your hips stuttering. After a few moments, your body relaxes onto Toji's legs which keep you still. His right-hand rubs circles on your back.

"Did so good, darlin'." He praises you, and it ends with you blissfully dozing off on his lap.

...Or so you thought.

Because it hasn't been a full minute before he starts moving his fingers in your wet vulva yet again, the abrupt movement pushing out choked cries from your throat. You send Toji a confused look which is answered with his childish smirk.

"Oh, sorry, sweetheart," No, you're not! He's absolutely not. The speed of his fingers getting faster proves it, your sensitive clit getting overstimulated by his forefinger brushing against it. "But don't think I'd let you come just one time. Make a mess on my fingers, baby. Make 'em real dirty like you."

[thelunarsystemwrites]

Beauty might be simple.

Dust had seen... a lot, of alternative universes. There were ones where his kind starved, where monsters had wings or fishy tails. He's seen ones where roles seemed to be reversed, or interchanged.

But... out of everything, he never considered one where...

Bunnies?

Dust was staring at a field of flowers, where—If he was guessing somewhat correctly. These... bunnies, were... fighting?

On one side, had these extra round creatures that had similarities to the Stars. While the other ones held closer to the bad Sanses, such as himself...

Man, they sucked at fighting.

The... Ink, one? Was flipped over on his back, his tiny little stubby legs kicked effortlessly. The one that looked like Killer paused mid battle to start cleaning his paws. The Swap one was... either pushing, or nuzzling one that looked like Horror. And, these things were small. The size of kitten at best. Plus... they were so round? Why were they so round?

Either way, Dust scoffed. Apparently these things could talk, too, or atleast one of them—as the goofy Nightmare one was screeching.

"N-No, you fools! Get back into battle!" He yelled, his voice pip squeak. While the Dream one was trying to flip over Ink, failing miserably and flipping over himself. He made tiny distressed yips, before getting distracted by a butterfly, flipping on his feet again and following it while hopping.

Dust sighed, coming closer. He just needed to find wherever the fuck Killer went, his Killer. And they could go home.

The Nightmare one looked at him, and hissed. Instead of tendrils, it just had a lot of floppy ears. "A mortal! Retreat you buffoons!" He demanded, teleporting away before Dust could get a word out.

He groaned. "Killer!" He called out again, hoping he hadn't run off too far.

As he approached, the bunnies all started looking at him. Their little chattering went down, as they began to hop over to him, quite literally bouncing.

"...ugh." Was all he managed out, these things.. they were nuzzling him? Being oddly affectionate.

One, the Killer one, started nibbling on his shoe, causing him to try and kick it away. "Stop that..." He murmured, the bunny just bounced like a ball...

Weird.

Russeling came behind him, and he snapped over with a sharpened bone ready to defend himself—

Boop.

Dust was put face to face with Killer, who held a bunny that looked like... him.

"...You shouldn't sneak up on me." He lowered his weapon, as Killer chuckled a bit.

"Dust! Look, it's you!" He said in a teasing manner, shoving them into his arms.

"H-Hey!" Dust tried to drop it, but his arms tensed for a second...

It was just, so soft... like a marshmallow.

Killer giggled, before gasping, "THERE'S MINE!" He scooped up the bunny that looked like him, squshing it on his face.

"We're not keeping them." Dust declared as he finally set the Dust one down.

"Oh c'mon! Wouldn't be the first time we kidnapped something from an AU!~" Killer was now trying to hold Dust, and Horror bunny as well.

"No." Dust, the actual one, crossed his arms and gave a stern look.

Killer pouted, metaphorically jiggling them in his arms as he opened his jacket to stick them in.

"...Don't." Dust warned, as Killer cheered when he got them into it, zipping it up, their three little faces stuck out in front of his face.

"Yup, doing it."

Dust groaned. "...fine." He stuck his hands hands his pocket, looking away, down towards the star ones. The ink one was still stuck on his back, but fell asleep cuddling up to the Swap and Dream one...

It was almost cute.

He sighed. "Let's just get back... I swear if one of those things poop in the castle..." He muttered as he helped Killer pushed the bunnies to be more hidden.

"Heh, got it!"

And with that, they teleported home.

(Inspired by @ant1quarian!)

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Creepy Carl

Danny is not fond of his parents' old ghost hunting friend that's come to pay them a visit for the week.

For the prompts: Jack and Maddie invite an old ghost hunting buddy (not Vlad) to stay in their guest room for the week. Expecting to catch up with their good ole pal, they're a little confused when this ghost hunter just keeps asking questions about their son, Danny [from @ectoblastfromthepast], and After the accident, Danny no longer has a shadow, and he isn't the first person to notice its absence. [from TheSilentBard]

Fair warning, Danny calls the old ghost hunting buddy 'Creepy Carl' for a reason. It may not be sexual in any way, but he is still very much creeping on a child, and I think y'all should be aware of that going in.

Read also on AO3

[Warning for uncanny valley elements, and (non-sexual) inappropriate behavior by an adult toward a minor]

How many 'old ghost hunting buddies' did his parents have? Danny wondered as they introduced them to one Anderson Carl. First Vlad, and now this guy?

Apparently, after college and before Jazz was born, the two of them had gone on many a ghost hunt with Mr. Carl. Now, he had his own paranormal investigation blog with a pretty decent readership, and he had come to Amity Park to do a piece on the town, which of course meant he needed a place to stay in town while he was doing research.

Luckily, he had a couple of old buddies with a guest room who happened to live right where the action was, and when he told them he was coming to town, they eagerly invited him to stay in said guest room for the whole week he was planning to stay. They thought it would be a great chance to catch up with their good ole pal, but Danny was wary the second he laid eyes on the man.

Anderson Carl wasn't as tall as Jack, as hardly anyone was, but he still loomed over Danny at a solid six feet tall, probably a few inches taller than that. He had close-cropped, dirty blond hair, and dark gray eyes like angry storm clouds, they even seemed to light up with electric curiosity as Danny watched the man, and the man also watched him.

"Welcome to Fenton Works," Maddie greeted him cheerfully. "That's our son, Danny. Our daughter Jazz is out tutoring right now, but she'll be back in a few hours."

"Nice to meet you, Danny," Mr. Carl said, and smiled.

The smile was perfectly ordinary, but Danny couldn't help feeling a sinister chill when it was directed at him. Maybe it was to too-white teeth, or the way it stretched his chapped lips so tightly they looked like they might crack, but Danny didn't like it.

"Uh... sure," Danny said cautiously. "Sorry, but I've got homework to do, so I'm gonna go."

He could feel those dark eyes following him all the way up the stairs, and when he closed his bedroom door behind him, he felt like Mr. Carl couldn't be leaving town soon enough. A whole week of this already sounded unbearable.

The next morning, when Danny got dressed and left for school, Mr. Carl was already awake, and sitting at the kitchen table, typing on his laptop. The laptop, too, was a dark grey, but it had a sticker on it that said UncannyCarl.com in bright red letters designed to look like they were partially obscured by smoke.

"Good Morning, Danny," the man greeted, with that same unsettling smile from the day before. "Off to school?"

"Yeah, it's Monday, so..." Danny trailed off. He took an orange out of the bowl on the counter for breakfast, not taking his eyes of the man before him. "Is that your blog, Mr. Carl?" he asked. "Uncanny Carl dot com?"

"That's right," the man confirmed. "Uncanny is something of a synonym for paranormal, but really the name is based on... are you familiar with the uncanny valley effect?"

"Never heard of it," Danny said.

"The uncanny valley effect is when you see something that looks human in most respects, but it's just slightly off enough to make your brain send out warning signals that it's not human, and you shouldn't be fooled by it," Mr. Carl explained. "Often times, you aren't consciously aware of what detail your brain registers as wrong that's causing the uncanny valley effect, whether it's that their arms are just slightly too long, the shape of their face is abnormal, or they don't have a shadow. Your brain notices it, even if you don't."

Danny couldn't help thinking that this guy was a little uncanny valley himself, but he thought it would be rude to say out loud, and he didn't want to piss off his parents' creepy guest.

"That's fascinating Mr. Carl, but I gotta get to school."

"Oh, and you can drop the 'Mr', by the way," he said. "Everyone just calls me Carl, even though it's my last name. In school, people used to joke that my parents must've but my name backwards on my birth certificate."

Danny just furrowed his eyebrows, shook his head, and left the kitchen, along with Creepy Carl, behind him as he headed out the front door to school.

Between classes, he caught Sam and Tucker up on his new house guest.

"Great, because all you need is another ghost hunter living under your roof," Sam said sardonically.

"I know, right?" Danny agreed. "At least this one's only staying until Saturday, but he's already creeping me out. I feel like he's constantly watching me whenever we're both in a room together. It's weird."

"Do you think he noticed something about you?" Tucker asked. "I mean, you don't know anything about this guy. What if he's actually a better ghost hunter than your parents?"

"It's not hard to be," Sam scoffed.

Danny ignored her, choosing instead to answer Tucker's question. "I'm not sure, but... maybe? He was talking about something called the uncanny valley effect, which he explained as being able to recognize when something that looked human wasn't, I guess. Something like that, anyway. He was just explaining the name of his blog, but he might've meant it as a warning that he was onto me.

"If you ask me, he's the uncanny valley one, though."

—

Jack and Maddie had been excited to show their old friend around their (relatively) new lab, especially the Fenton Ghost Portal. Carl seemed suitably interested in all of it, and he listened as they caught him up on their lives since he'd parted ways with the couple, but the whole time he seemed a bit... distracted.

Back when they were fresh college graduates, Carl had been an eager note-taker, his pencil hardly stilling on the pad of yellow lined paper he always carried with him. But now, he was hardly taking any notes at all. Even when he was staring at the portal between this world and the next, he only scribbled down a few sentences before twirling his pencil idly between his fingers.

They asked him about what he'd been up to since they last saw him, and he told them, but he was remarkably brief. He mentioned that he'd gone solo for a bit before deciding to start a blog, and he'd been running that ever since, writing the occasional opinion piece for local newspaper to get some supplemental income.

He'd finished talking about himself in under a minute, and even when asked, he didn't seem keen to elaborate on any particular investigation of his over the last sixteen years. All he said was that they could read about it all on his blog.

That wasn't the end of his strange behavior, because the next thing he asked about was Danny.

Jack and Maddie were of course very eager to brag about their kids, especially Jazz, but when they started to do so, Carl said they were getting off track, and he was really curious about Danny.

He asked them how old Danny was, if he was at all reclusive, or short-tempered, if they'd ever noticed him acting particularly odd or cagey.

They answered of course, seeing no reason not to. Carl was their friend after all, and they trusted that he didn't have any bad intentions when it came to their son—and if he did, they wouldn't hesitate to beat his ass and hand him over to the police—but surely he didn't. They were still confused though. Especially because, since the conversation turned to Danny, Carl's pencil hadn't stopped moving even once.

"What's with all the questions about Danny?" Jack asked. "I thought you came here to investigate ghosts."

"Oh, no real reason," Carl replied with a casual shrug. "Just... a bit of a hunch. I won't bother you with it unless I happen to find proof." Then he asked, "Have you even noticed that the air feels colder around Danny, or that standing next to him gives you an uncomfortable buzzing sensation under your skin?"

It was a odd question... but even odder was that neither Jack nor Maddie were actually sure of the answer. They worked with ghosts all the time so of course they felt sensations like that, but... neither could remember if they'd felt them around Danny... nor could they say for sure that they hadn't.

As Carl continued his line of questioning, a feeling of disquiet settled in on top of their confusion. After a point, they asked if he might want to hear about some of the recent ghost incidents around town, rather than just spending all day talking about their fourteen-year-old son.

Carl looked at them in silence for a moment, his eyes narrowed as if he might challenge them and insist. But then his lips quirked up in a smile, and he agreed to the subject change without resistance.

It wouldn't be the last time he asked about Danny that week though. He would stop, when asked, but by and by, the topic of Danny would always come up again, and when they told him about Danny's accident with the Fenton Portal a few months before, he seemed particularly intrigued.

—

It had been three days since Creepy Carl took up residence in the Fenton guest room, and Danny could confidently say that he hated the guy. He'd suspected as much from day one, but now that it was Wednesday, Danny had confidently confirmed that Creepy Carl almost never looked away from Danny when the two of them were in the same room, and it was seriously freaking Danny out.

At home, Danny was spending almost all his time in his bedroom to avoid running into the guy. Unfortunately, his bedroom shared a wall with the guest room, and just knowing the guy was right on the other side of the wall was causing Danny to lose sleep.

Still, Creepy Carl never did anything more than just watch him. At least, not until very late Friday night, or very early Saturday morning. Danny never did know which was more correct. His discomfort proved to be well founded when, around one in the morning that night, he awoke to a bright light being shined on his face.

Danny put a hand up to block the light and sat up to see what was causing it.

He wasn't sure if she should be surprised or not when he made out the silhouette of Anderson Carl shining a flashlight directly at his face. Danny was pretty sure his bedroom door had been locked. Ever since Carl started staying the room next door, Danny had been making sure to lock it. Obviously that had been a futile endeavor.

"What the hell, Carl?" Danny groaned. "Just... just what the hell?"

"What are you?" Creepy Carl asked creepily.

"What do you mean what am I? I'm a freshman."

"A freshman without a shadow?"

"What?"

"Look behind you?"

Danny was hesitant to take his eyes off the creep in front of him, but curiosity got the better of him and he turned.

On the wall behind him was a circle of light from Carl's flashlight. For a moment, Danny didn't register what he was supposed to be seeing, then as the tiredness in his brain started to lift slightly, he realized. He was supposed to be seeing his shadow behind him.

It wasn't there.

He snapped his head back around to look at Carl, and jumped with a start when he realized that the man had taken several steps closer to Danny's bed when he wasn't looking, in absolute silence, and without any movement of the flashlight in his hand. He was now knelt next to the bed, scrutinizing Danny with wide eyes.

"What are you?" Carl repeated.

He was close enough now that Danny could feel the warmth of his breath and lurched backwards in vague disgust and alarm.

"Uncanny Valley, right?" Danny said. "You would know better than I would. What are you?"

Danny had thought that Carl wasn't moving, but then he suddenly froze, and Danny realized the still he'd been a moment ago had been jittery and trembling, but the still he was no was statuesque and cold. He said nothing, and narrowed his eyes like he wasn't sure if he should, or if he should keep holding his cards close to his chest.

"I'll be honest, I never actually noticed I didn't cast a shadow until you pointed it out," Danny admitted. "But I've noticed plenty of uncanny valley around you."

"Like what?" Carl asked, though his tone didn't carry any doubt, just curiosity.

"Like... your smile is wrong. You teeth are too straight, and too white. Kinda like a TV news anchor, except I'm pretty sure there are too many of them." Danny saw Carl run his tongue over his teeth like he was counting them. Then he added, "And also, your lips are all cracked and gross, which isn't uncanny valley, but it is weird that you'd take such good care of your teeth and not even bother with some lip balm."

"Is that all?"

"Your eyes are weird, too," Danny continued. "Nobody's eyes are that color, and even if they were, they wouldn't spark like yours do, just tiny flashes of light. Human eyes don't do that. And your skin is too thin, I think, because your veins and stuff are all weirdly visible, even though you're not that pale."

Carl nodded slowly.

"And... how many teeth are people supposed to have?" he asked.

"I dunno," Danny said with a shrug. "I think, like, thirty, thirty-two, somewhere around there."

"Thanks for the tip," Carl said. "Your eyes flash, too, you know. Bright green. When your emotions are running high."

"Yeah, I know. I've been working on that."

"You're really not going to tell me, are you?" Carl stood, evidently resigned to not getting an answer. "I know you're not a human, and I know you're no ordinary ghost. You sure you won't even give me a hint?"

Danny gave him a derisive snort. "Will you?"

"No, I suppose not." Carl smiled then, and though it was dark, Danny could almost swear the number of teeth in his mouth had changed. "I guess we'll both just have to suffer in disappointment. Goodnight, Danny."

With that, he turned around and walked out of the room, not waiting for an answer.

Danny got up and went to check his door, to see if Carl had broken the lock to get in or something.

Not only was it not broken, it was still locked. Danny had seen the door open and close. He'd heard the doorknob twist. But it had somehow remained locked the whole time.

"Goodnight, Creepy Carl," Danny whispered.

He went back to bed, but didn't get a wink of sleep.

Creepy Carl left the following afternoon, much to Danny's relief.

He hoped that he would never have to see the man again, but somehow, he had a feeling he would. Someday, somewhere... when he least expected it.

[haileyywrites]

Summary: Tales of a mystical kitsune wandering the forest at night causes Kabukimono to go out and try his luck, for it is said they grant wishes to those who brave the night. His situation quickly turns dangerous, yet he is saved by the very person he was looking for...

Pairings: Kabukimono/Kunikuzushi x Kitsune!Reader

Notes/Warnings: Reader is completely gender neutral! Poc friendly! Platonic! Found family type of fic! Not cannon, basically an au! Not meant to be lore accurate! Little angsty possibly, but mostly just fluff! LONG!! Possible grammar mistakes you can point out!

“Have you heard? There's apparently a kitsune in the woods who can grant any wish!” An eager man gushes.

“A kitsune? Like Lady Guuji from Narukami Shrine?” Another asks.

“Yes! But this one can grant wishes!”

“Sounds like baseless rumors to me...” The other man dismisses his friend.

“Its not! Remember that beggar who hangs around here sometimes? He's now gone and rich I've heard!” He boasts.

“He could have just left and found a job, what exactly proves he's rich now? He's not even here.” The sceptical man questioned.

“Don't believe me if you don't want to, but it's true!”

Kabukimono had been listening to the two converse for some time now, he was completely entranced by the man's story and couldn't hold back any longer as he approached the two men. His eyes were glimmering with hope that the story was indeed true!

“Excuse me! Can you tell me more?” He asked shyly.

“Don't believe him, kid. He falls for these kinds of hoaxes easily.” The other man warned.

“No I don't! Anyway, it's said you need to go into the woods at night with a full moon and ask for the kitsune to appear with sincerity. If you're deemed worthy they'll appear and grant your wish!”

“Wow!” Kabukimono couldn't help, but be in awe at the thought of such a being existing.

“To me it sounds like something made up to lure fools into the woods at night to ambush them.” The other man sighed hopelessly.

“Hey, kid. If you do find the kitsune be sure to come back and prove this fool wrong!” The man smiled.

“Uh, sure!” He awkwardly answered.

Kabukimono of all shouldn't trust the words of humans or the deeds of mystical beings resembling gods, but... If there was a chance it was true then he had to take it! It wasn't like he had anything to lose if it wasn't true, but everything to gain if it was.

Every night he gazed at the dark star littered sky hoping to see the full moon shining above brightly, but only various states of crescent would show up. He waited inpatiently until the large full moon finally presented itself, he immediately rushed off to the direction the man had pointed him to.

The dark had never particularly bothered him before, but when all alone in a forest at night it was sure to make anyone anxious... The wildlife was surprisingly scarce and it was almost eerily quiet, only his own footsteps making the faintest noise. He felt like his every move was being watched by someone unknown, almost as soon as he had stepped into the dark he felt someone had their eyes on him.

Kabukimono's eyes darted from one direction to another as panic slowly settled in, he had no idea where he was going. He was all alone in the dark, all alone in a forest at night, he was all alone. Or was he? Which one was more terrifying, he wondered as his mind began racing with terrified thoughts he couldn't control. He could feel a cold sweat wash over him as his limbs began shaking.

“Wait!” He shouted before hurrying off to the direction of the animal.

Suddenly a unique looking kitsune fox jumped from the bushes before him, it delicately tilted it's head at the scared boy. He forgot all about his worries as he stared at the beautiful animal that didn't fear him in the slightest it seemed. It's eyes looked almost human as it softly gazed at him, but seeing as he calmed down soon enough the fox began walking away towards an unknown direction in the forest.

“Hey, kid!” A familiar voice called from the sidelines.

Confused Kabukimono turned towards the man who told him the story earlier that day in the village, the story that led him here in the first place. The sceptical man was behind the storyteller and was looking rather... uncomfortable for some reason. Perhaps he too didn't like treading through the dark forest at night.

“Oh, hi.” He answered before turning to look around for the fox.

“Whatcha looking for?” The man questioned.

“I saw a stranger kitsune, but I lost it...” He sadly answered.

“A strange looking kitsune?!” The man asked with excitement.

Kabukimono only nodded without paying much attention to the pair as he was still hoping to encounter the fox again, or at least find it's trace. As he wasn't paying attention the man grabbed his shoulders tightly before turning him around, his wide eyes gleamed in a terrifying way.

“It must be the one who grant's wishes! Oi, bring the rope! Did you see where it went?” He spoke quickly.

“Um, no... I lost it.” He answered quietly.

“What a bother...” The man sighed, but still didn't let go of Kabukimono's arm.

In fact - he held on tighter as the other man brought the rope that was requested earlier. Before Kabukimono could do anything he was wrapped tightly with the rough rope and tied against a large sturdy tree. There was nothing he could do to stop them and moving while bound so tightly burned against his skin.

“What are you doing?!” He asked in a panicked tone.

“Sorry, can't let you steal my wish kid. But thanks for leading us this far.” He grinned wickedly.

“Can we go already?” The uncomfortable looking man asked with a guilty look on his face.

“Yeah, yeah! Here.” He dropped a small pouch of mora on Kabukimono's lap. “For your help.”

He stared at the pouch on his lap with a hopeless expression... He was once again betrayed and he didn't even know their names. No matter what it seemed he was cursed to be forever betrayed and abandoned by not only people he knew, but also those he didn't. What a joke of an existence. He reached out for a glimmer of hope for his miserable life and he gets stabbed in the back.

“What a typical human thing to do.” A voice from the darkness said.

“Who's there?!” The man called out.

“The one you have supposedly been seeking.” Thry answered, but still didn't reveal themselves.

“The wish granting kitsune?!” The men asked in unison.

“O, mighty kitsune! Please grant my wish and bring me fortune! My wish is heartfelt.” He kneeled down with his hands up in prayer.

“You'd be better off begging from the Shogun herself. I will only warn you once - leave.” Their cold voice said.

“What?” The dumbfounded man asked.

A deep sigh was heard before their figure stepped out from the darkness, their every feature now illuminated by the moonlights glow. The pointed ears, hair and tail were the same color as the mysterious unique kitsune he had seen earlier - there was no mistaking it. Especially those chilling eyes that glared at the two men, they were so warm and gentle just a moment ago as they comforted him...

“Enough! I gave you enough warning and chances to leave, now I'll make you do so.” Their chilling voice spoke as their eyes began glowing.

Whatever happened next Kabukimono wasn't entirely sure as he quickly closed his eyes and turned his head away in - fear? He wasn't entirely sure, but he didn't want to witness whatever it is the kitsune did to them. Only when everything went back to the serene silence and he felt his restraints being pulled off did he open his eyes. Those warm and gentle eyes you had earlier had returned as you carefully removed the ropes from around him.

Out of instinct he jumped away since you were so close to him, but when he looked closer he could see you were caressing the tree he was previously bound to. The bark had slightly worn off in some places but overall it wasn't bad at all thus a gentle smile graced your features. It came as quickly as it dissapeared when you stood up and turned towards the the unconscious men.

“Humans are so bothersome, they always seek for the easy way out. Riches, beauty and eternal life...” You mutter bitterly to yourself.

“Tell me then, what is you seek?” You turn your gaze to the frightened boy.

He stayed silent before looking away from your intense stare, he stays silent as he thinks hard about your words. To wish for anything... What is it he truly seeked the most, wanted the most, longed for the most? He honestly hadn't thought that much or far ahead, despite being the creation of a literal god he had doubted your existence. Something as good as you couldn't possibly exist in the same world he did.

“A family, a home, a purpose... I'm not sure.” He quietly answered.

“Hmm... I'm not sure if that's something a simple wish could grant. It seems like something you have to create for yourself.” You answered honestly.

“...” The boy looked at you with sad yet strikingly beautiful indigo eyes. “Do you really grant wishes?”

“No. Nor have I ever heard of one that does.”

Your answer only made him more sad to the point he had tears brimming in his eyes. It didn't bring you any joy in saying it to him, but you didn't want to get his hopes up again in risk of him continuing to put himself in dangerous situations for the possibility of wish granting kitsune that didn't exist. You could never be fully sure, but kitsune were rare as it is so if such a being existed you would surely know of them.

“Follow this path down and you'll return to the village you came from.” You pointed behind him.

You turned your back to him and began walking away for the second time that night. You had nothing to offer the poor unfortunate boy, despite how much you might have wished to help him... You quickly came to a halt and froze in place as something cool latched onto your hand, turning back you could see the boy holding onto you with tears still brimming his round eyes.

He didn't need to say a word as you understood what his eyes were silently telling you. He had nowhere and no one to return to. He was silently begging you to take him with you, to not leave him like everyone else did. You were not particularly fond of humans due to their nature, but who could possibly say no to him?

“I see...” You said before gently holding his hand in return. “Say, have you ever visited a youkai banquet? The full moon is still high in the sky and they love to party during such nights.”

The boy wiped his tears away and shook his head to say no. “Then you're in for quite an eventful night.”

You smiled brightly as you walked hand in hand deeper into the forest. The youkai could be too energetic, loud and brash for you sometimes, but Kabukimono was clearly in need of company like theirs. You could endure it for one night to see that boy with a smile on his face.

A/N: Comments, likes and reblogs / any feedback is hugely appreciated <33

[brainyrot]

Stuff from the comics I like and if they were canon to the inky mystery I would explode from joy part 2

Bacon soup has Bendy's face on it, it's really funny really, just having the soup you like the most have your own face on it for no real reason.

Alice is seen float a lot, it's really fun.

Boris growls.

Alice halo becomes smaller and her horns gets longer whenever she gets mad, along with fire.

Bendy just doesn't dress up for Halloween because he's a demon, but if he has to scare Boris, he gets a ghost costume (implying that Boris is not scared of bendy. At all. Which is very cute.) < from the cartoons

Charley just hates bendy lmao

love how whenever something happens, it has to be Bendy's fault. he's just a troublemaker, but his friends are ready to forgive him anytime.

Boris says "good golly gosh" a lot, actually.

"we're the first people to land in the moon, and it's YOUR FAULT!" love this from Alice actually.

Also in the bendy universe apparently the moon's made of cheese and there are aliens living there. Or whatever those turkeys were.

Alice is never up Bendy's bullshit.

according to Alice, bendy needs to get better at his "people's skills"

Bendy just has lots of pranks things, like the little joy buzzer (the thing where you shake the hand of someone and the someone gets shocked n stuff)

Also bendy has a pet fish. (Love how when he turned bubbles into a monster fish bendy still called him bubbles, like. Hey guys check my giant pet monster!!! His name his bubbles!!!)

bendy is just..not evil, even when he has literally something that can give him everything he wants (the pitchfork, even though in the end it was a scam) he just says "I shouldn't keep this to myself, but have everyone else have it too!!!" And immediately goes to give his friends their wishes.

Like, even if he calls Boris "his servant" he just treats him way too good.

also "bubbles you destroyed the whole town! Good work of course, but that's where I live!!" Awesome.

Despite bendy being a demon (demons are often described as filthy and greedy) he enjoys being clean.

Best description of bendy I saw "mischievous selfish bitch who steals pies from old ladies" (because in the comics he does steal pies. From one specific lady too.)

The first thing bendy does when the pitchfork turns out to be a curse casting pitchfork is say "oh no! Alice and Boris!" He truly cares man.

"think bendy! Put your devilshness to good use!!"

Alice openly says to bendy "bendy I will beat your ass once this is over", icon.

"there's only one devil who can menace alice and Boris and that's me!" Like when the older sibling says "only I can bully my younger sibling" beautiful. I want this canon in inky mystery.

Alice dosen't even question why bendy pet fish is now a giant flying monster, meaning he pulls out shit like this everyday.

"to think that dosen't recognize all the good naps we had together!" Boris has a favorite spot to sleep and it's that specific tree. (The dancing evil tree.)

BENDY SAVING BUBBLES WHEN HE FALLS😭🙏

bendy: "i've learned my lesson!!" Does the same mistake again.

Alice is really just a good independent woman, I love her. She's smart and she got charm.

I love how Alice can fool bendy and Boris pretty easily, she's the smart one of the group.

All of the stories with bendy, Boris and Alice being like characters like in devil's treasure, yukon bendy and such it makes me think they dress up and play pretend.

Bendy saying "I love that guy" to Charley like😭🙏 this man has no enemies !!!

"we've been here for fifteen minutes!! Time to go home." Boris is still a mood. (He's talking about working, btw.)

Bendy is casually a conductor. (Even more reasons why he loves trains, AND HE PLAYS WITH A TOY TRAIN IN THE GAME.)

Bendy does not like potato corn.

Boris gets offended if he gets called a dog, he will specifically tell you he is a WOLF, not a dog!

"boo bendy!! We love you Alice!!!" LMAOO

"see people of new York!" Either he went to New York to perform, or sillyvision is around there.

Also apparently bendy can lift things and make 'em float. He lifted Alice in the air and let her float around for a magic trick (or it was Alice floating for him but I doubt, since later he spins her and she doesn't like that.)

"whoops! That was my good tomato" 😭🙏 I LOVE THE BACKGROUND CHARACTERS

Let me appreciate the pizza guy saying "another, signore?" Which translate to "another, sir?"

Bendy can cook! Or at least, he can make chili.

Bendy does his bath with his rubber duck!!

Boris and Alice casually fishing where it says "no fishing"

They also just, casually look at bendy sleeping in his washtub being pulled away by the water.

Edgar is such a cutie patooie. He even asks politely "just don't tell the gang I saved you btw, thanks."

[theflyingfeeling]

PANIC PANIC PANIC I've got a job interview tomorrow 💀

It's a teaching job in an open university where I myself studied for a semester some ten years ago and I'm actually interested and excited about the opportunity because I'd gain teaching experience on yet another level of education, but that's also exactly the reason why I'm shitting myself as we speak, because I just spoke on the phone with one of the people interviewing me tomorrow (she was my teacher there too and she's so so sweet) and she told me there'll also be some "substance questions", i.e. content questions about some of the stuff I'd be teaching. They're basic level university courses, so rather different from the stuff I've been teaching recently (high school), and while I obviously have studied all that myself back in the day (and gotten decent grades for them too), I'm so so scared that they'll ask me something I know / can't remember shit about. Logically thinking I know they won't be asking anything extremely specific, but that only makes it harder to prepare myself for those questions in any way, because I simply cannot know what I'll be asked. Either I'll know it or I won't?? 🤷‍♀️ I know this may sound like a 'problem solved' kinda situation lol but it's actually the opposite: there are MANY problems in fact and there's NOTHING I can do about it and I will likely make an absolute fool of myself and cry all the way home because I'm not good or smart enough for anything 😐

Fuck, even the 'tell us a little about yourself' part in the beginning of the interview scares the shit out of me. How on earth am I supposed to talk about myself in a positive light when I feel like I'm not good at anything ever and I'm so goddamn ashamed of myself that I feel extremely uncomfortable talking about anything related to myself? Who am I to tell them they should hire me, when the honest answer is that they'd be way better off with literally anyone else? (okay fiiiiiine maybe not literally anyone else lol but you know what I mean 🙄)

I fucking hate job interviews so insanely much, because some of the questions are just impossible to predict, and then I look like an idiot because I have no answer ready or can't think of one in the moment. This is extremely frustrating, because I know I'd benefit from preparing answers to some questions beforehand, and of course there are certain questions I can safely expect them to ask, but I also know there'll be so many questions I won't have been prepared for at all, and those are the ones that stress me out the most, because I have frozen during interviews before when they asked me something and I didn't know what to answer. I know in some cases they're not necessarily that interested in the contents of my answer, but as I told you in the first paragraph (lol congrats if you're still reading), THIS particular interview WILL apparently include questions SPECIFICALLY about the contents of the courses I'd be teaching 🙃

However, it's a part-time job (which I actually wouldn't mind, despite being paid less), so I want to believe they don't have that many applicants and that my chances are pretty good (especially since one of the interviewers knows me and I may have even been one of her favourite students hehe (joking, it's been ten years and stuff like this shouldn't affect their decision)). I really want this job, so that I won't have to feel like I'm a waste of space for at least until May next year (that's when the contract ends), please please pleeeeeeaaaase let things go my way for ONCE 🙏

(Please don't feel the need to interact, I'm mostly just venting and none of you won't be able to predict the substance questions in the interview any better than I can, but if you do want to reach out, know it's appreciated 💗 However... I don't want to seem ungrateful, because I really really do appreciate anyone who reaches out and I KNOW you only mean well, I really do!! 🥺 but please understand that I'm not venting because I'm feeling insecure and suffering from the imposter syndrome and just need a bit of encouragement and then I'll feel better about it. Surely it's all that too lol, but I also genuinely believe I won't know shit about the stuff they might ask me, and I genuinely believe I'm not good enough, and no matter what you say can easily change my mindset about myself at the moment. "You're an expert on your field, you got this" is an instinct response and yessss logically thinking it might even be true and I'm just stressing out over nothing, but when my genuine feeling about this is that I very much haven't "got this" at all, like, not even a little bit in the beginning, it's... not necessarily as encouraging as it may sound like? 😭 as I said, I knooowww you have good intentions, but you don't know what's inside my head, only I know what's in there, and I know it's nothing. In addition, please don't say "everything will be alright" because you can't know that?!? Yes, everything might go well and I might be hired, but it also might be a total disaster and I'll start crying mid-interview because I feel so incompetent. I can't know, you can't know, so let's just focus in the here and now, yeah? 😩

...however if someone has any tips on how to answer 'tell us a little about yourself' I'm all ears! 😅 I feel like none of the tips I read on recruiting websites are of any use 💀)

[starl1t-vo1d]

Don't scare me like that

Revalink prompt, show me / too close - teen and up rating for mild violence / injury

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

This one was fun to write. I don't have much to say this time around. Story under the keep reading more detailed tags on ao3.

"Your teeth are chattering drink another elixir." 

Revali's words sounded harsh but Link could read the care that they held. It had taken practice to pick it out but practice was something Link was used to. He nodded and dug through his bag to uncork and chug the bitter potion, sticking his tongue out after at the taste.

"Can't you customize those to a certain degree?" Revali asked from his spot beside Link. 

"Maybe, but I don't know enough to risk doing so and them not working." Link shrugged, "They aren't terrible just not great." 

Revali scanned the area they were walking through instead of replying. The wind howled loudly, promising a storm later if they weren't careful to get back before dark. They should be, Link and Revali were currently climbing through Hebra Mountains to dispose of a monster camp they caught word of it shouldn't take long at all given their combined skills. Revali, apparently not seeing whatever he was looking for, took to the sky scanning from higher up.

"Wait there a moment!" He called before shooting off to the left of the path they were following. 

Link did as told, though he shivered against the wind. He wasn't waiting long though before Revali returned, dropping down next to him with a triumphant grin. 

"Here," Revali held out his hand.

Raising a confused eyebrow Link held out his in return. Whatever Link had been expecting it hadn't been the handful of wild berries he was given. Without both hands to properly sign Link fixed Revali with a confused look.

"To get the taste of the elixir out of your mouth?" Revali started walking again spurring Link to follow. "Come on now, was standing there for a moment enough to freeze your thoughts?" 

Link smiled, eating a few and then placing the rest away to free his hands. "Thanks." 

Revali only shrugged, replying with a noncommittal hum.

Yes, Link thought, if you watched close enough it was easy to see Revali cared. 

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

It was around noon when they finally spotted the group of bokoblin they were searching for. However, the wind had picked up threatening the storm much sooner now. They would have to make short work of this and then find a cave to camp the night at this rate. 

"I'll pick the lookouts off. Be careful drawing them out of their camp though stand back enough for me to light those bomb barrels first." 

Link surveyed the camp from behind the group of rocks they were using for cover. "Set them off now, I'll take care of the lookouts so that way I can move in closer sooner." 

Revali nodded, "Be mindful of the wind while you aim." He said before launching himself into the air. 

Link drew his bow waiting for the sound of explosions before leaving the cover and firing at the two bokoblin lookouts. He missed his first shot but that didn't matter when he aimed and fired faster than the bokoblins did even after having to correct for the wind. He drew his sword and ran forward to meet the bokoblins spilling out of their camp. It was easy work made easier by Revali's help from the sky and soon the camp had been cleared.

Or so they had thought. 

Link didn't know how the bokoblin had escaped both of their sights except maybe the snow that had started to fall giving it cover. What mattered now though was it was drawing an arrow to fire up at where Revali was circling the area one last time. Link didn't think before running forward to put himself between the arrow and Revali. Sharp pain blossomed from his shoulder making him let out a cry that caught Revali's attention. The bokoblin in front of him fell backward as an arrow lodged itself into its head. Revali was in front of Link a second later.

"You stupid fool, why did you do that? It's likely that it would have missed! You could have shouted for me to dodge!" Revali pulled his scarf off even as he berated Link, tying it tightly around Link's shoulder to staunch the bleeding. "Don't answer, don't aggravate the wound." Revali crouched in front of him.

It wasn't ideal for Link to ride on Revali's back while the Rito was carrying his bow, which is why they had been walking in the first place. It was less ideal for him to do so without being able to hold on properly. But the wind and snow were roaring now and they couldn't stay here so their options were to hope they could make it back to the village or otherwise find a spot that would be suitable to hide from the storm and hope that Link’s injury wasn't so terrible.

It was the latter that ended up happening, luckily the cave that Revali spotted was deep enough that the wind couldn't reach them. Revali made quick work of starting a fire, being careful it wasn't so big they'd drown in smoke before turning to Link.

"Okay, show me." 

Link undid the scarf, setting it aside while Revali rummaged through Link's bag. He passed him another elixir before going back to looking for something. Link pulled the cork with his teeth to drink it then set the bottle aside pulling off his tunic -very painfully- so that his shoulder could be examined. 

"Link, I need you to be very serious with me," Revali's voice was quiet and strained. "Why do you carry so little in the way of first aid?"

Link couldn't help the laugh that escaped him, it was hardly the time for it but maybe he could blame it on blood loss. Revali fixed him with a glare.

"To be fair," Link's voice cracked and seemed to surprise Revali but he had said not to aggravate his shoulder. "I don't know how to do much myself so it's a waste of space."

"A waste of-!" Revali trilled high and distressed. "Foolish! Dumb! Absolutely idiotic!"

Revali continued to grumble to himself as he tended to Link's shoulder. Link thought about pointing out that Revali didn't seem to carry any supplies, first aid, or otherwise but thought it unwise to further agitate the Rito. Instead, he bit his lip and tried not to flinch away as Revali worked.

“When did you learn first aid?” Link asked because the tense silence was stifling. 

“Young,” Revali’s voice was clipped.

“That’s unexpected.” 

“I had to, it wasn’t a choice, count yourself lucky I learned even if I wasn’t.” 

“What do you-?” Link hissed as Revali tightened the bandages.

“It’ll do for the night, we’ll have to hope that the storm clears so we can get you to a healer tomorrow.” Revali pulled back, scrutinizing his handiwork.

Link shrugged his tunic back on, it was bloody but even though the cave had warmed up it was still a bad idea to go without the layer for the night. “Thank you,” He signed.

“Now that that's taken care of,” Revali shoved Link’s leg, fresh anger blossoming on his face. “What were you thinking?!”

“It was going to shoot you!” Link had to keep his signs small which was frustrating making him huff in annoyance. 

“There were so many other options! Did you not think?”

“No! No, okay I didn’t. Excuse me for caring about you! I acted on instinct!”

“Instinct? The instinct to get yourself killed is more like it! Any more to the right and it would have been your throat! You could have died!”

This was the first time Link had heard Revali raise his voice this loud outside of a fight. Looking closer and Link realized with a frown that there were tears welling in Revali’s eyes.

Oh… Link hadn’t thought that would happen.

Revali blinked hard then dropped his head to hide it in Link’s chest when that didn’t work to clear the tears. 

“You’re so stupid and you are going to be the death of me. I am going to die of stress because of you why did Hylia have to curse me so to love someone so reckless.” Revali hiccuped through the words and at this point, Link couldn’t tell if they were tears of anger or tears of relief.

Wait- love? 

Link tapped Revali’s shoulder, coaxing the Rito to look at him again. “Love?”

Shock dawned on Revali’s face as his words caught up with him and he buried his face again with a loud groan. “Look at that you even managed to ruin my confession! I didn’t want to say it like that!”

“Sorry sorry,” Link whispered. He ran his hands over Revali’s shoulders trying to soothe him, “For what it’s worth I love you too.”

Revali just groaned again. “You forget this, I never said anything okay? You forget all about this, it was just a pain fever dream. I will do it properly another time.”

Link laughed as Revali finally looked up, scrubbing a wing across his face.

“Forget what? I’ve got no clue what you’re talking about.” Link signed.

“I’m not talking about anything,” Revali draped himself across Link again as though the way to keep Link from getting himself into danger was to hold him down.

He could be persuaded honestly Revali was very warm and his feathers soft. 

[notanotherzerofan]

A lot's been on my mind...

A lot of it either feel I can't really talk about or it's personal stuff that I prefer to keep private.

I will say this though: the rate AI is advancing if absolutely terrifying me.

Now, normally I prefer to keep posts as short as possible, so I because this is a rant and kind of spur of the moment (and also a long time coming), so I legit have no idea how long I'm going to run on this

Also want to point out before I get into all this, I don't hate AI, but the ways it's being used.

*TL;DR at the end.

Now, let me clarify, this is not just about the image generators, but everything involving itself in creative fields and possibly beyond. We're basically at the point where you can't tell what's real anymore. I say this as I just prior to me starting to write (March 27th) this I read an article regarding an AI generated pic of the pope that fooled a lot of people.

Then there's the issue that many artist were worried about in regards to losing work to AI. It's already happening, though currently in a different field: modeling. Basically, Levi's is going about testing AI generated models and claiming to do so in the name of 'diversity.'

And probably the biggest issue is people either remain ignorant to what's going on, don't care what's going on, or want AI to take control of everything.

I say of the former two (and basically everyone for that matter), you really should both learn and stay informed as best you can as this is an issue that has an effect on everyone. I also say this as someone who's looked a little further into how some of this tech (image generators specifically) work. Also be aware, just like anything on the internet, there'll be misinformation, so you probably shouldn't take one source as a definitive final answer (This includes myself as I'm just as prone to making mistakes and having bias as anyone else). On top on that, for the love of god, don't get your info from Twitter or Facebook.

Now, as for the latter, I highly doubt it's going to end up being a case of you being free to sit around and play video games all day. If you're hedging on the idea of UBI and live in the US or anyplace where government greed an lobbying is rampant, it's more likely you'll get barely enough to squeeze by, if anything at all.

Now, while none of these problems have easy solutions, there are those that are working for and in favor of people and human generated content. With lawsuits against image and text AI generators and with a group working on software that messes with image outputs I am somewhat hopeful that protections and more ways to fight back will come around.

In the mean time, I'm still going to work my craft, and you should too.

And by that I kind of also mean I'm gonna try to stop holding back on stuff just because I don't have a proper watermark yet. It's another thing that's going to take a while, especially since I'm going to be working with new software for this. In the mean time, I recommend if you do any sort of visual art you do the same thing too. Unfortunately for writers and coders, I don't have any suggestions as that's not my area of expertise (but don't take this as me saying, 'oh, ur on ur own, lol').

Now, admittedly, since I began writing this, some new info has come to light (*insert slowpoke meme here*). Apparently over 1,000 tech leaders, including Elon Musk (if even he is campaigning for this, then something is up), signed a letter on the topic of slowing down or even halting AI development. This is potentially good, but too be fair, it doesn't stop the damage that's already been done.

Like I said above, I'm hoping that protections for people from AI will become a thing.

Sorry if this seems like a downer ending, but I don't really know what else to say, and I'm not really a writer or journalist. This isn't the last I'll be talking about stuff like this though.

TL;DR:

AI is already affecting credibility and people's jobs.

Don't just take something on person of side says as truth; try to find a credible source (i.e., not Twitter or Facebook).

UBI is not an end all solution, especially if your government is known for it's greed.

There are people trying to curb some of ethical the issues from AI.

Keep creating, no matter what.

Tech leaders are campaigning for a slowdown/halting of AI development.

This won't be the last time I bring up stuff like this.

[footprints-and-tea-stains]

Argumentation 2/7: Operations

This is the point where posts get longer. I've done my best to simplify and shorten where I can without leaving out unnecessary information. To make navigation easier I'll be using some key formatting tools. Definitions are boldened, examples are numbered and indented, and sections have headers.

Finding Simple Sentences

Sentential logic's foundation is rooted in taking large blocks of information (commonly text), and converting it into something we call simple sentences. What are simple sentences? They are statements without any logical connectives. Unfortunately this definition creates a sort of paradox because to understand simple sentences you need to know what logical connectives are, but in order to use logical connectives you need to know what simple sentences are. So the goal of the first part of this post will be to provide enough examples of both on their own so that we can begin using them together in the latter parts.

Logical connectives come in one of the following forms:

And

Or

If ..., Then...

Not

Statements with one of the above logical connectives in it are not simple sentences. That sentence can actually be broken down further until we get to the simple sentence. Another key feature of simple sentences is that it must either be true or false. You can't have partially true statements in this logical environment. This is an area where errors in logic could form. If something is subjective, within the context of logic, you need to qualify it in some way as to determine whether it is true or false. For example, if you want to prove that someone is happy, you may need to create a more precise definition of what happiness looks like for them given the context.

Example 1; "If the pizza has pepperoni on it, then the pizza is good". Sounds like a solid argument. How many simple sentences are there? The answer is two. Notice the logical connectives we mentioned earlier, "if" and "then". Removing those connectives we're left with two simple sentences. 1. The pizza has pepperoni on it. 2. The pizza is good.

Example 2; "The pepperoni is crispy or the pizza is bad". Clearly an objective statement. How many this time? Two again. The logical connector "or" connects two statements. 1. The pepperoni is crispy. 2. The pizza is bad.

Example 3; "The cheese is not gooey". How many? The answer is one but don't be fooled, there is still a logical connective that needs to be removed. So the simple sentence looks like this: 1. The cheese is gooey.

Example 4; "If Clare, Kat, and Rachel eat pizza, then it is Friday". How many simple sentences and what are they? If you guessed four you would be correct. Because of the list of subjects the "if" is applied to each person. 1. Clare eats pizza. 2. Kat eats pizza. 3. Rachel eats pizza. 4. It is Friday.

Representing Simple Sentences

So we understand the differences in simple sentences and logical connectives. We'll go deeper into each of the connectors, but first we need a better way to represent our statements. Why should we spend time learning how to shorten out simple sentences? Lets take a look at a few examples and it should become apparent.

Example 5; If the moon is full, then houses transform into warehouses. 1. The moon is full. 2. Houses transform into warehouses.

Example 6; If the light is on, then I am not alone in my home. 1. The light is on. 2. I am not alone in my home.

Example 7; If the McRib is back, then traffic is worse than the previous month. 1. The McRib is back. 2. Traffic is worse than the previous month.

Each of these arguments follow the same structure. They are logically identical arguments in every way other than the subjects. Then why should we consider them individually when we could look at them all at once? We shouldn't. It's more efficient to represent them all with the same notation. We do the same thing in algebra by substituting logically identical equations with variables. If something applies to one equation, it applies to the others.

In the case of logic, we use letters such as P, Q, and R or F, G, and H. There's lots of letters and we could have many, many simple sentences we need to represent. So for example;

Instead of

Example 8; If guitars are red, then they sound better. 1. Guitars are red. 2. They sound better.

We use

Example 8; If R then S 1. R: Guitars are red. 2. S: They sound better.

The change may seem small but when we begin doing truth tables with many simple sentences this will save a lot of time that didn't need to be wasted.

___

Representing Logical Operators Part I

Negation ~

Negation is found with "NOT" To represent the negation of a premise we use the ~ (Tilda). Why represent the negation of a premise with a logical operator instead of a new variable? Short answer, it saves a lot of time and space when you have a large number of premises. Also it may help to think of representing logic in terms of algebra.

Example 9; Africa is not a country. 1. A: Africa is a country. 2. ~A

Disjunction v

Disjunction is found with "OR". Say we have two simple sentences, H: "I am hungry." and T: "I am thirsty." and we add a v (wedge) between them, we get an Inclusive Or statement. I am hungry or I am thirsty or I am both hungry and thirsty. This is in contrast to an Exclusive Or statement wherein both parts cannot be true at the same time. Be on the lookout for when an or statement is inclusive or exclusive.

Inclusive OR

Example 10; I am hungry or I am thirsty. 1. H: I am hungry. 2. T: I am thirsty. 3. HvT

Exclusive OR

Example 11; I am asleep or I am awake. 1. S: I am asleep. 2. W: I am awake. 3. SvW

Compound Sentences

Quick pause from demonstrating how to represent logical connectives. We're going to take the last two operations (negation and disjunction) to talk about compound sentences. Compound sentences are sentences featuring multiple logical operators.

Example 12; I will eat pizza or I will not brush my teeth. 1. P v ~T

Logical operators can manipulate compound sentences in the same way they can manipulate simple sentences. One operator can only link two things together. The next example will illustrate this.

Example 13; They will compete in rugby, tennis, or golf. 1. (RvT)vG 2. Rv(TvG) 3. BUT NOT RvTvG

Its also crucial to pay attention to the meaning of a sentence.

Example 14; It is not the case that I running or I am female. Is this: ~RvF [Female/not running/female who is not running] Or is it: ~(RvF) [I am not female and I am not running] Technically the statement could mean either of these and they do not mean the same thing. (Converting these from logical notation back to English will be expanded upon when we cover DeMorgan's Law in the Rules of Replacement post.)

You need to be careful with how you write down sentences so you can avoid situations like in Example 14. There is only one way to interpret a logical statement in English. But there could be many ways to interpret English statements into logic.

Representing Logical Operators Part II

Conjunction ^

The AND operator connects two simple sentences such that they are both simultaneously true. We notate the and operator with the ^ (carrot).

Example 15; He is tall and has brown hair. 1. T: He is tall. 2. H: He has brown hair. 3. T^H

Its important to note that there are occasions where a conjunction will exist without an and; such as:

Example 16; I am happy you are learning logic but I am upset I have very little free time to write my posts. 1. L: I am happy you are learning logic. 2. F: I am upset I have very little free time to write my posts. 3. L^F The "but" divides the statement and acts as a logical connective, conjoining the simple sentences. In this case, but is an and. Often in real speech but is just another way to say and. This also applies for "as well as" and "in addition to"

Conditional Statements

Conditional statements take two simple sentences and connect them in an "if/then" situation. We show this with an => (arrow). Conditionals come in the following forms: If-Then, Only If, Required, Necessary, and Sufficient.

Example 17; If you are President of the United States, you are both Older then 35 and an American Citizen. 1. P=> (O^C) If President, then older and citizen.

Example 18; You can eat Desert only if you have eaten your Vegetables. (it may help to rewrite the statement in a simpler form. Such as "If you can eat your desert, you have eaten your vegetables.") 1. D=>V If D then V

Example 19; Submitting your Paper is required to having your paper Graded. 1. G=>P If G then P. If having a graded paper is true, then you must have submitted the paper.

Example 20; To not Lose track of logic, it is necessary to Practice each step multiple times. 1. ~L=>P If one does not lose track of logic, then one practices each step.

Example 21; Wearing Sunscreen is sufficient to not getting Burnt. S=>~B If one wears sunscreen, then they will not get burnt.

Important Notes:

If the antecedent is false, the conditional statement is (vacuously) true. We'll cover vacuously true in more detail when we go over truth tables.

P=>Q is the same as ~PvQ. This may seem counter intuitive but we'll see why this works when we cover replacement rules.

Biconditional

The biconditional operator is the logical equivalent to the equal sign. This means that whatever is on one side must be identical to what is on the other side regardless of superficial differences. We can locate a biconditional statement with "if and only if" and we notate them with the <=> (two way arrow).

Example 22; I am in a long line at Taco Bell if and only if it is after 11:00pm. 1. L: I am in a long line at Taco Bell. 2. A: It is after 11:00pm. We can think of the above as the following two conditional statements put together 3. L=>A; If I am in a long line at Taco Bell, it is after 11:00pm. 4. A=>L; If it is after 11:00pm, I am in a long line at Taco Bell.

You may, if you were very observant, realize the biconditional is just two conditional statements put together. In fact, the biconditional is redundant. The following two statements are identical:

L<=>A

(L=>A)^(A=>L)

So we don't actually need a unique operator for biconditional, right? Though it is redundant and can be avoided by rewriting the statement, we're still going to be using biconditionals. On one hand, it's all over logic and you need know how to communicate with others who use logic. On the other hand the biconditional is very intuitive. How could be participate in logic without an equality identity? Its an efficient redundancy.

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

In the next post we'll be going over truth tables. We'll take everything we learned here and apply it to a structural matrix that allows us to simplify the process of applying operators to multiple premises simultaneously. If you have any questions please feel free to send me an ask and I'll put all the asks together into one response post. If I don't reply to your particular question that likely means I'm going to cover it in an upcoming post.

-CM

[apocryphalfiles]

The truth of "Mira Kano"

Shouldn't the cruel reality she'd woken up in, forced to fight against those disgusting, bloodthirsty creatures, have been tribulation enough? She never thought she'd be forced into miserable combat on the ground, watching humans be ripped apart by monsters, fighting for her own right to live. And so she was naturally exhausted, but she had no choice. Apparently, she was uniquely equipped to be effective at battle, too, in possession of a rare ESP ability that only a handful of people had ever developed. She never asked for that, but maybe she was a little happy to know how special she was.

In truth, she had never really considered the menace to humanity some faraway threat, even if the world around her was still peaceful, even if she hoped she'd never have to confront it personally. She had kept up with the news involving the angels and their attacks and humanity's response, its valiant resistance against its own collapse.

If assisting with that effort was the price for her revival, it was a small price to pay.

...But was that really the case?

Something had been nagging at her ever since she'd woken up on that spaceship containing unimaginable technology. She remembered a fringe extremist terrorist who had been known for his radical viewpoints. She had read only a few of his posts before, those which were most easily accessible to ordinary people, but once she returned home from that first grueling battle, she researched him in more depth. She uncovered even those posts which had been deleted off of the surface web by moderators looking to curate extremist information and studied each one. The more she read, the more clearly she was able to understand his point of view: A worldview that was like poison, cruel and bleak in every way. In other words, the truth.

To find closure for this nagging feeling, she found the body of Mira Kano. Yes, it was there. Lifeless, her eyes shut, never again to open. Before it could be buried, she stole it away. She took deep into the forest, into a place no one else should have known. There was a small altar there, makeshift, crafted by a child, where a single rosary lay. The young Mira Kano had said her prayers to the very same God that sought to destroy humanity on her knees in this clearing. There, she said everything she had wanted to keep private from everyone else: her peers and the Sisters that took care of them both. The words she shared were to be between her and God alone.

With a shovel, she dug a grave out of the dirt. Even as rain started to fall, turning the dirt heavy with mud, neither did she stop for a moment nor allow her companion to assist her. By night, Mira Kano was buried under a mound of earth. The shovel fell to the ground beside her resting place, and then she fell to her knees with it.

Static. Possessed by a single-minded drive to complete the task before her, she hadn't allowed herself to think until that girl was buried. Maybe she knew as soon as she saw her. As soon as she saw the Mira Kano...

who was not her.

Magical Mirai Girl Mira woke up one day to find out that everything in her town had been replaced. It all looked the same, the people all acted the same, but in her heart of hearts, she knew. Everything was the same, but at the same time, it wasn't. A perfect imitation. It was a crushing crushing normalcy. The kind of normal that stifled you, like a weight on your chest slowly, slowly pressing down until you can't breathe anymore. What did Mira do? ...Actually, I lied. It wasn't that everything else had been replaced. It was me. I'm the thing that doesn't belong.

How would she feel if someone else had taken over her life? If she were no longer in the driver's seat, but she'd been replaced with someone who looked and acted just like her? Someone who fooled everyone she cared about. Who received her parents' love, the love she worked tirelessly to earn. Who stole her dream, who took it in her place, and was finally able to give and receive love from the one she yearned to be with. If she were on the outside, looking in-

No, stop it! Voiceless, she'd try to scream. Stop! That's mine! That should be mine! It's not yours to take! Give it back! Give it back, it doesn't belong to you! Give me back myself!

No one would be able to tell the difference. A perfect imitation.

Knowing that would only hurt the person everything was stolen from more deeply.

If I could look in on a fake "me" steal everything I had, my name, my face, and claim my love as her own, all the while I was helpless and inert, unable to even shout that something was taken- I would rather gouge my eyes out.

How wicked. How perverse. The worst kind of graverobbing. It defiled the dead in every way. An unforgivable sin.

Who was the name of that sinner? ...Right, wasn't it "Odin?"

"A-AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

It was wrong. No, no, it was wrong. Ahhh, no, she wanted to live! She wanted to live! What was her life?! If she died then, what did all her effort amount to!? What did her yearning amount to?! She couldn't die, not like this, not like that, unsatisfied and unfulfilled! All she'd ever wanted in this world was to love and be loved. Was even that too much to ask!? A wish so small that anyone should have the right to have it granted, and yet it had value, to her, equivalent to the entire world. She wanted to run into the arms of that man and tell him she was all right! She wanted to give him the words she could never give him while she still lived! No, no, no. She was already on the other side. It was too late, it was too late, there was no longer any hope that she could survive. She was already dead. She remembered her last moments. No, she remembered Mira's last moments.

Instead of speaking those three words she waited her whole life to give away...

Mira Kano had cursed her fate.

Her hands full of dirt, her clothes filthy with mud, the clone of Mira Kano wailed over the rain. She bemoaned her fate, her helplessness, the perverse wrongness of her current form. Now that her eyes had been opened about what she truly was, it was too late to close them, to pretend she didn't notice.

When faced with an insurmountable despair, most people will break. Ignorance is one shield. Denial is another. Finally, you can always give up. When the weight of reality becomes too cruel, too unbearable, quitting is always an option. However, the problem with Mira Kano was that she was not the kind of woman who could give up. She was too ambitious for her own good, too stubborn and passionate to accept the easy out of oblivion. She would see her dreams through with a single-minded resolve, with every fiber of her being. That was why, instead of choosing the easy path and folding here,

After trying so hard to find any other option available to her and failing, being cornered by the finality of her situation, inflexible and unforgiving to her spirit,

She realized that there was only one remaining: the hardest path in the world, so cruel that even by considering it, she felt like her spirit was being crushed in a pitiless vice. Actually pursuing it would put her on the road to a Hell hotter than anything she ever imagined she could endure.

Mira Kano was a fiercely ambitious person, the kind of person who would see her goals through without fail. That was why she grasped onto that Hellish decision, something so hot and terrible that she thought she could feel her soul beginning to burn away. And once she had accepted that this was the only path available to her, and that meant that she would pursue it at any cost, even if she had to burn her own sprit to ash in the process, she would fight for it with everything she had and everything she was. It was a final, unbreakable resolve, steeled against the expectation that by stepping forward, she would be ripping her own heart to pieces.

"Mira Kano... no matter what, I promise that I won't betray you."

She didn't know how long she had been crying before she finally stood up. Her arms and legs felt like jello. She could barely stand, so when she slipped in the rain-washed mud, she fell into Kana's arms.

"Kana, do you see that...? The girl we just buried. That's the real Mira. What am I...? A fake. An imitation. Something that shouldn't exist." She thought she had cried all she could, but the tears came fresh as she sobbed into Kana's chest. She realized... that she was very fortunate to have been paired with someone like Kana. Kana, a good girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, who had been suffering under the weight of her own baggage. That guilt and self-isolation were virtues... because they made her easier to control. Personally speaking, it was true that Mira liked Kana. She enjoyed her company. These tears weren't lies, either. She was really showing this dirty, filthy, authentic self to her partner, warts and all. And yet even so, despite that, because Kana, too, had shown her weakness, Mira resolved to take advantage of that weakness, to twist Kana around her finger until her world revolved around Mira.

She would replace "the world" in Kana's mind and become the only sun that Kana could orbit around.

"I'll accept you no matter what, no matter how broken and sinful you are." She promised, gazing into Kana's eyes, having already resolved to fill this Valkyrie's need for forgiveness and take her everything in return. "So can you do the same for me, Kana...?" She knew she had hooked her. It was Kana's fault. If she hadn't shown her back to her, honestly provided an easy entry point to her heart in her guilt and shame, it might not have come to this. But seeing blood in the water, Mira had pounced, merciless in her efficiency. She wouldn't let Kana escape her orbit anymore.

"Thank you, Kana. From now on, you're my only ally. We're the only ones who have to know about each other's filth. A bond that goes deeper than skin, intertwining even our spirits. Because you're the one person I'll put my faith in... I'll tell you this: the decision I've come to."

She pulled away from Kana. Her limbs had regained their strength enough to let her stand on her own. Water washed away the mud on her hands as her arms outstretched, as if to let her palms catch the falling rain.

"I am not Mira Kano. The real Mira Kano is dead, and a cruel plot from Odin would create an impostor to take her place. The real Mira Kano... was a strong, intelligent, passionate, and determined. She worked so hard to achieve her ambitions. Those tireless years she spent trying to earn her place in this world... they all amounted to nothing. Because I have these memories, these memories that were stolen from the real Mira Kano when she was defiled, I know her better than anybody else, than anybody ever could. She hated the God who would abandon humanity. She cherished humanity above anything else. She believed in its beauty, its capability, and its potential. And what she wanted for herself..."

"Was love. That's all. She wanted to love someone else truly, with her whole spirit, to give herself to them. If only she could have been allowed this one thing, she would have lived fulfilled. But she died before she could ever confess her love to a single person. She died cruelly... unfairly. No single person was to blame. Instead, it's this world that's the problem. The world that would deny Mira Kano her honest wish, send her to an early grave, and then dare to bastardize her name by putting a fake in her place cannot be the right world. Kana... this world, it's wrong. This reality can't be allowed to stand. Even if I were to disappear, and Mira Kano's grave were to be restored... how many others has Odin subjected to this fate? How many people will he defile in the future? Their lives, their legacies, their relationships. All of them will be tainted by a lie. A person's life rightly belongs only to them."

"And Odin, the sinner who stole everything that Mira Kano had, would ask me to fight for this world's future?! No. My future has already been stolen from me. This world is wrong. It's gone down the wrong path. I will never accept a world that denied Mira Kano the right to her wish. So I'll reject it. With everything I am, I reject this reality. Let it be destroyed, let this timeline be pruned away! Even if there's only me... even if I'm the only one who knows her this intimately, I will not let Mira Kano be forgotten as long as I exist. I will be her only advocate, her funeral, her evil wraith, the vengeful spirit that denies the world that denied her. I will avenge Mira Kano, even if it means ensuring that this world as it is disappears!"

"If I'm going to have any effect on this war, I will have no choice but to take her name and her place, but this is only a temporary sin, one that will sooner or later be wiped away." Her name... what was her name? She didn't want to steal Mira Kano's name. Even if she had to present that way to the world, at least in her heart of hearts, and at least to Kana, who knew everything now, she could express her resolve not to rob Mira of that, to leave Mira something. "Instead, my name... my name...? Ah. I've decided." If she was to keep from stealing someone else's name, she'd have to determine her own. "Whenever we're alone, from now on, call me by the name 'Altera.'"

...That was Altera's resolve. That was the strength of her determination not to defile the girl she received her identity from.

Whoever she had to use- humans, Valkyries, or even God and Her angels- they would all just be tools to ensure that this timeline met a dead end. Her loyalty was no longer to Odin, to God, to humanity, or even to her own heart. That loyalty belonged to one person and one person alone:

Mira Kano.

This timeline was a dead end. It had gone down the wrong path. Therefore, it had to be ended.

When it was all over, when this reality was rejected, maybe...

Could she return to the true world then...?

To a happier path. To a world where she still had a future.

Or maybe the world would start anew. Try again, repeat until it was right.

If only the ending that awaited her could be so bright.

...For a long time now, she'd thought,

It would be nice if this was all a bad dream. And then I'd wake up. I'd wake up in a familiar room, and there, standing over me, there he would be.

"Good morning, Mira." Rowen would say as he wiped the tears away from my eyes. And of course he was talking to me. Who else would I be but Mira Kano? "Did you have a bad dream?" Now that I'd finally woken up, the details would be fading from memory, as they tended to do with dreams. All I could remember was my heartache. "...Yes. I had a very long, very sad dream. I was so, so scared. I was so alone. It was so hard." "It's all over now. You're here. Here I am." He'd hug me close to his chest and comfort me, and I'd relax in his arms. I didn't have to be scared anymore. I wasn't alone. Thank God. Thank God that dream hadn't been reality. ...But every morning I wake up alone in Mira's bed, I'm still here. Trapped inside of this unending nightmare.

To the Machine God before her, the clone of Mira Kano confessed everything: her revelation, her ambition, her burden, her sins. She exposed the truth hidden behind so many carefully constructed layers of obfuscation, the truth that was her heart, something that she had sworn never to speak of while her goal remained unfulfilled. The weight of these secrets, infinitely exploitable, capable of destroying her in any number of ways, was equivalent to the weight of her soul.

In that world where only the two of them existed, she bore her soul to him.

Calling his bargain "Faustian" had been an apt comparison.

"Hearing that there was another path available to me, no matter how harrowing, no matter how improbable, you have no idea... how much of a salvation that was to me."

Mira Kano. The enigmatic Mira Kano, the center of so many intertwining threads-

Who was Mira Kano?

Mira Kano was not an average girl. She had always been an incredible person possessed of a uniquely dignified spirit. She was born into squalor, unwanted, but saved by Takumi and Mine Kano. She didn't dwell on her misfortune. Instead, she was overwhelmed by her blessings. Being adopted into a wealthy family, being wanted for the first time in her life, was like a dream come true. She swore that she would repay her parents' kindness and generosity. And so she worked tirelessly to improve herself. No matter what she did, she was determined to excel. She wouldn't accept failure as an option. Whether it was education, cooking, fitness, modeling, writing, painting, philosophy, strategy- she possessed a natural talent in a great many things, and where her talent was lacking, she filled in the gap with sheer, persistent hard work. She would never once complain about being adopted. She would not withdraw just because she didn't share her family's blood. She would never treat her parents as anything other than her own. Whether they were her "real" family or not, the distinction didn't matter to her. Not one time since she met Takumi and Mine Kano did she ever tell them "no." It was a very intentional development: she would become the perfect daughter to her parents. She would become a perfect person. She was principled, too. She had rigid requirements for herself, and she was her own harshest critic. She would work harder than nearly anyone, and she would give her free time to charity. All the while, she searched for people who could inspire her to greater heights. She searched for people to show her the true potential of human nature. It wasn't an outside force that pushed her to be this way. No one was forcing their expectations on her. She never felt trapped by the requirements of society. This character was innate to Mira Kano. Because trusting others didn't come easily to her, she was a lonely girl. Despite that, she craved connections with other people. She wanted someone to break through the walls she had erected. And yet, although she was lonely, she also possessed a powerful charisma. Mira Kano was a person capable of a dangerous magnetism. She had the potential to draw people into her orbit with merciless efficiency. If she had wanted it, she could have become an influential cult leader. But that had never been her desire. Even so, her character was capable of warping others, whether she meant to or not. She could inspire in them a devotion that bordered on religious in its intensity. Mira Kano was the sun that could break apart the darkness in others or burn them to ash. There was no greater demonstration of the inescapable pull of Mira Kano's gravity than this: After her own death, once she was no longer capable of speaking for herself, even her own clone would devote her heart, her life, and her worship to her. Her everything would be dedicated to the original. Chained to her principles, the stifling obligations that only Mira Kano was capable of creating, she would tear her own heart to shreds over and over again if it meant serving Mira Kano's will.

"I will become God." Altera repeated her conviction. "The one thing Mira Kano is absolutely not permitted to do is to give up. Even if I have to watch over this world until the end of time, I will never lose hope in humanity. I will fix this broken world, repair it, make right the atrocities committed by the current God. I will restore what was lost and create hope in this world's future. And I..."

"Will save Mira Kano!"

Only God could save those who had already died, after all. With God's power, she could even revive the dead. She could achieve true revival, not an imitation like the monstrosities Odin created.

Even the possibility of that salvation, however unreasonable, however faint... had finally freed her from this ice-cold Hell of Mira Kano's design.

[leondaltons]

Meet my Main Characters:

Shepherds Of Haven - Captain Rhiannon Emroth & Captain Cassidy Valendil 

Thank you @solasan for the beautiful template ♥

[angrelysimpping]

Abo alpha Bailey reacting to PC presenting late as an omega. His omega.

(DoL relationships; omegaverse; knotting; dubcon)

Bailey shouldn't be at the orphanage this late. He was, though, eyes aching as he reads the same line of numbers for the umpteenth time. Bailey was good with numbers, always had been, but whatever he was looking at was all kinds of fucked.

Fuck, he needs some coffee. It might help. The smell alone would perk him up, at least. 

Bailey slips from his office wearing an old pair of grey sweatpants. It's late on a hot summer night. No one is awake, so what does he care?

The kitchen is empty, thankfully. The last thing he wants to deal with right now is a brat creeping around.

Bailey's peace is short-lived, the front door of the orphanage flying open. 

The overwhelming scent of omega in heat catches him off guard. Only fools wouldn't be on suppressants in this fucked town, yet here one is, barging into Bailey’s orphanage. The smell is so powerful that it takes him a moment to catch the second scent, that of an enraged alpha. 

Bailey's at the front door in a flash.

"Please," the omega whimpers, trying to fight off the alpha. "I d-didn't know, Avery, please!"

Bailey is used to kicking perverts out of the orphanage. Even with the scent of the omega making him dizzy, he’s still able to force the other alpha out of the door with a well-aimed kick to the head. 

Bailey grabs blindly at the omega, not even that interested in if it's one of his brats or not. They can pay him back for his protection later. Bailey hauls them up to their feet, intent on shoving them in an isolation room he has set up for shit like this. It's only then that he recognizes the omega. 

It's you. You. He'd thought you were a beta, but apparently not. No. Bailey's life couldn't be that simple. You're an omega. A late bloomer. Going into heat. 

And it's doing something to him. More than the usual he has to suffer through when a stupid omega forgets to take their suppressants and goes into heat in public. 

A slight tingling travels up from where his hand wraps around your arm. A strange, warm sensation that grows more intense, spreading rapidly across his shoulders and down his body until settling heavily in his groin.

You whine, shivering and attempting to curl in on yourself as Bailey stares at you. When he doesn't let you go, doesn't let you crumple back to the ground, you lean into him, shaking against his chest. 

Mate.

The word comes to his mind unbidden. Mate. His mate. 

Fuck.

Bailey stills, your labored breaths filling the dimly lit hallway as his options flit through his mind. The moment seems to stretch into eternity but, in reality, it only lasts a fraction of a second.  Despite his own strong will, there really is only one option that will quell the fire you've set under his skin. 

He scoops you up, cradling you against his chest with something that could be mistaken for tenderness as he carries you to his room. That illusion doesn't last long as he tosses you on his bed, pausing to lock the door behind him. He's pretty sure if anyone tried to interrupt what he was about to do, he'd rip their throat out. 

"Hurts," you whimper, pressing your thighs together while curling in on yourself. 

You look so…small. He should get you something. Blankets. Pillows. Soft, warm things to keep you safe. But he doesn't. Bailey shoves all those thoughts from his mind, joining you on the bed. 

You don't fight him, not like you had fought the other alpha. Eyes glazed and unfocused, you couldn't focus on your caretaker ripping off the remains of your clothing even if you wanted to. But you don't try to stop Bailey, either, groaning as he forces your trembling thighs apart and slots himself between them. 

Sweet slick coats the inside of your thighs, starting to dampen his sheets. It's infuriating how good you smell, how that alone makes his cock twitch in the confines of his sweats. His whole room is going to smell like you for ages at this rate; but Bailey can't help reaching between your legs, sliding a calloused finger into you, and coaxing out more. 

The tiny whine you let out goes straight to his dick. 

So warm, so good. Another finger joins the first easily, then a third. Your hand latches onto his arm, nails digging into his skin, but nothing else. You don’t try to push him away or pull him closer. You just whine, squeezing his arm harder as he starts pumping in and out of you quickly, curling his fingers, scissoring you open. Another whine leaves you as he withdraws. 

He could still stop. He should stop. Bailey knows this. Even as he slides his sweats down his hips, frees his cock and presses against your entrance, he could stop. As hazy as his mind is, he could pull back, end this. It would be better, in the long run. If he does this, he can't go back. He wouldn’t be able to. You're his, and he won't be able to keep himself from you. A weakness. An annoying thorn in his side, something anyone could take advantage of. 

"A-alpha,” you groan. Your voice is breathless, full of need. It sends another wave of heat through him. 

But he could stop. He could. 

You press against him, enveloping the head of his cock. Bailey's breath hitches as you continue to squirm, to take more of him. Your legs wrap around him, squeezing his hips as you try to get even closer. 

"Bailey. Please. H-hurts."

He can’t stop.

Maybe it's the pheromones filling the air, making it increasingly difficult to hold onto rational thought. Maybe it's the voice in the back of his head that keeps urging him on, demanding he claims a tiny piece for himself in this hell town. 

Maybe it's the way you say his name. The way you aren't completely blinded by your heat, that you know it's him and you pull him closer still.

Pinning down your hips to keep you from moving, Bailey snaps forward, sheathing himself fully in one stroke. 

The moan pulled from you rings in Bailey's ears and is more than loud enough to cover the small fuck that escapes him. You try to rock against him, but he keeps you pinned as he starts pounding into you. All you can do is grab onto his shoulders, disjointed sounds spilling from you. Small gasps and half-formed pleads for more. 

If this was any other situation, any other person, Bailey would snarl for you to shut up. Would cover your mouth, choke you. Maybe even go slower, deliberately make his thrusts more shallow. But it's not any other situation. He can't help but oblige you, acting on pure instinct. Any thought beyond knotting you, making you cum on his cock, wiped clean from his brain. 

Besides, he wants more too. Needs more. Needs to get as deep inside you as possible, to keep feeling the delicious friction of you wrapped around his cock. All of it. All of you. 

He's not going to last much longer, the knot at the base of his cock already starting to swell, catching on your hole with each outward stroke. You're in the same boat as him, if the way your insides twitching around him like crazy is any indication. 

Your hands slide from his shoulders, tracing over well-muscled arms. You pause occasionally when your fingers brush across a scar, but you never linger for long. Finally, your hands come to rest over his, on your hips, squeezing. 

Bailey leans over you, his chest pressed to yours as he nuzzles into the crook of your neck, muffling a small groan as he mouths at your scent gland. You gasp as his knot starts to press against your hole, too swollen to fit, grip on his hands tightening as he forces it inside one last time before he's stuck. 

He continues to grind against you, tell-tale tightening in his balls signaling his fast-approaching end. Pressing his mouth to your scent gland, there's a moment of hesitation. It takes all his remaining willpower, mind sluggish as it tries to work, but he doesn't mark you. He doesn't have to. He doesn't have to claim you, tie you to him. He wants to. More than anything. Even though he knows you'll both regret it, his teeth burn with the desire to sink into you. But he could still salvage this. Could fuck you through your heat and be done with you. Make sure you're on suppressants and he'll never have to deal with this again. That's what he should do. 

You groan, hands squeezing his, legs locked around his waist and rocking against him as best you can. Taking a shuddering breath, you press your face into his shoulder. 

Bailey bites down. 

"Bailey."

His name comes out of your mouth on a pleasure-filled sigh, breath warming his already burning skin. 

A half-strangled scream rips from your throat as your orgasm hits you, hard and sudden. Bailey almost chokes as you tighten around him, groan rumbling deep in his throat as he starts to shoot his load deep inside you.

He keeps grinding away, sweet copper tang filling his mouth as he stays latched to your throat. He could keep going. Keep grinding away in you, keep spilling inside you, over and over. Fuck, he could die happy like that, he thinks. Just keeping you pinned under him and stretched around his knot, nipping at your scent gland to keep you nice and pliant. Never let you leave the orphanage, his office, fuck, his bed. 

As quick as those thoughts form, they drift away, settling in the back of his mind for a rainy day. Your pheromones wain and Bailey can think clearly again. 

You let out a relieved sigh, going limp as Bailey finally stops moving. He’s still pressed against you, his knot keeping him from pulling away. He doesn't want to pull away. Not really. When he does, you’ll look at him in disgust and horror. You’ll probably yell and scream and try to hit him. Fuck the fact that you must know you’re his, must feel it the same way, smell it on his skin. He’s the boogeyman to most of the orphans. Protector one day, the creature they needed protecting from the next. He can’t take that. Can’t have you crying or screaming, disgusted with yourself, with him. Not right now. 

If he just stays like this, maybe you won't get the chance to do anything before the next wave of your heat flares up. 

Ah, Bailey has never been that lucky. You’re moving again. He expects the hands on his shoulders, expects you to start pushing him away. You don’t. 

You drape your arms over his shoulders, attempting to pull him closer, as if you want him to lay on you. It’s tempting, he’s tired as it is. He never did get that cup of coffee. 

Bailey can’t suppress a shudder as you start toying with his hair. “H-hey.” Your voice is quiet, rough. It’s tempting to pretend he didn’t hear you. He can’t though, not when you tuck your face into his neck and press a kiss to the scent gland there. 

He jerks back, “The fuck do you think-”

It’s probably just the lingering effects of your heat, or him marking you, or something like that that explains the warmth that swells in his chest as he drifts to sleep.

You pull him back down, surprisingly strong, and press your mouth to his. It’s a quick kiss, one that doesn’t give Bailey any time to respond before you end it. You shift on the bed, making yourself comfortable. Bailey ends up on his side, your back pressed to his chest.

He not spooning you. No. That would be silly. He’s just, making himself comfortable, too. He’s stuck like this, so he might as well, right? 

[lubdubsworld]

Better Man.

              ~~~~We might still be in love, if you were a better man. ~~~~

Taehyung x OC 

Rating 18 +

Angst. 

Implied Infidelity in the past. 

Chapter 1 ~ Walk out the first time. 

"Are you okay?" My mother's soft voice came from behind me and i panicked, hurriedly swiping at the tears that were streaking down my face. Heart pounding, I grabbed a bunch of tissues from the dresser, patting my face down hurriedly , making sure to keep my back to her. 

"I'm fine, Mom." I said , voice surprisingly steady as I turned around to smile weakly at her. She stood near the doorway, a petite woman of fifty with greying hair and too many wrinkles. 

I thought she looked older than she was and i knew I had a part to play in that. Sighing, I tried not to cry more, moving to gently take my son out of her arms. 

He was four years old, fast asleep and smiling sweetly in his slumber. He had downy black hair, feather soft and warm brown eyes. He looked incredibly like his father, the resemblance stunning even though he was so young. I stared at him some more, laying him down on the bed and brushing the hair off his face. 

"Are you sure there is no mistake? Taehyung ssi wouldn't hurt us like this..." My mother said, sounding broken and I felt a pang of sympathy. But also annoyance. 

Us. 

Us....like she had an equal share in the hurt I was feeling.

 I was the one getting a  divorce but my mother made it sound like it was personal to her as well. Like somehow, the fact that she now had to meet her friends and tell them that her daughter was divorced could compare to the pain I was feeling. To the sheer anguish that was filling me.

To be fair though, my mother had loved Taehyung very much. Her favorite son-in-law . My sister's husband had been a mean drunkard who had brought a lot of misery to our family. Taehyung by contrast had been a loving, filial son in law. He had cared deeply for my parents, paid for my father's funeral ( even though the man itself was nothing more than a drunk , cheating fool who had abandoned us )  and he had been the most kind man . 

I swallowed. 

Maybe , you should have forgiven him. Maybe , you shouldn't have divorced him . So, he slept with another woman. Fine.  It was one night... just one night. you should have gotten over it! Was it worth it to spend all these countless nights alone? To break your mother's heart a thousand times over? 

 The funny thing was, i had forgiven him. Maybe right after I had found out. He had stood there, looking shell-shocked and horrified and his eyes had begged me for forgiveness and my heart had cracked , the way it always did whenever I saw him in distress. And when he had looked me in the eye and said, "  I’m sorry,  Jang mi..." I had forgiven him right then and there.

 But it was the forgetting that was hard. The fear that it would happen again. The fear that somehow, I was the reason he strayed. And that kind of fear can be debilitating. For the first three weeks, I'd tried to pretend it hadn't happened. I had tried hard to see him the way I had always seen him but it had been impossible. everytime I saw him, my heart had broken anew. It had been hard but I had to accept that things would never be the same. That I would forever look at him and remember what he’d done. That I would forever wonder if he would do it again. 

So we had done the wise thing. 

At first a break.

 A few days apart to get our head on straight.  Then I’d found a job and I had to move closer to the office to make the commute easy. And then suddenly, I wasn’t seeing him even during the weekends , to spend time as family for our son’s sake. And just like that , a whole year had passed and we  were separated. Only meeting to hand Hoshi over to each other. 

"I'm sorry mother." I said softly. I knew that she blamed me, a whole lot for the separation. 

People with children  didn't leave each other over infidelity in my country. You hit your husband, denied him from your bed maybe but you didn't break up a family over one night of bad decisions. You just didn't .

But for me, it was beyond the act. It was the broken trust, the shock of knowing that some other woman had given him something I couldn't, the fact that he had even wanted it from another woman had been enough for me to crumble on the inside.  

But, none of it mattered now. 

He wanted a divorce. Officially. Wanted to end it for real. 

It was jarring, how badly it shook me. I felt unaccountably lost and confused and disoriented. I couldn't imagine not being Taehyung’s wife , i realized with a stunning sense of self realization.

 Call me irrational, but apparently, I couldn't stop thinking of him as my husband , even after two years. Soon he wouldn't be my husband. 

He would be  my ex -husband. 

i hated that word. 

It had such a plethora of negative connotations to it. When you hear it , you just brace yourself for unpleasantness.

 Because it is unpleasant. A marriage ending, a family breaking, feelings hurt , hearts shattered,  angry words tossed...its all a very unpleasant experience for everyone involved. 

An ex husband was seldom a harbinger of happiness, more often a reminder of choices gone wrong, regrets and wasted time. and I didn’t want to associate Taehyung with a word like that.

Taehyung who was still the kindest, warmest human being I knew. The best father in the world. 

I felt like someone had sucked all the strength out of me.

I didn’t really want to think about the call I’d gotten from Taehyung last night. An appointment with a divorce lawyer.  It had been followed by an apology because apparently, someone in the law firm had let the info leak. And now it was all over the sleazy tabloids that fed on people’s misery. 

It was impossible to escape it too, Taehyung was famous. An idol. And actor. The country's sweetheart. And he was the epitome of perfection. The beautiful, talented actor with an impeccable record of well behavior. 

I knew that literally everyone on the planet thought he was a literal angel. 

 I remembered how much , by contrast, I had been hated when I'd married him.

I could just imagine how much more it would all be this time around. And i wondered if it bothered Taehyung too. Did he perhaps wish he’d never met me

? 

It had been sheer luck that we had met.... 

In fact, if Jimin's  car hadn't broken down right outside our home on that cold December night, I wouldn't have even met Taehyung. A great cosmic shift, somewhere some butterfly flapped its wing a certain way and suddenly, Jimin’s car ran over a thumbtack and his phone was dead so while he tried to fix the damage , Taehyung  just had to knock on our home and I had been the one to open it. 

Boom. That was it. Love at first sight. 

 I had been a high school kid and he had been barely nineteen. Fresh faced and cheerful , the struggling idol from a small company. He hadn't been surrounded by fans or chased by saesangs. He hadn't had security tailing him. No daesangs, BBMAs, or acting awards. No blockbuster movies to his credit , no chart-bursting songs either . 

And I had fallen in love with that version of him. 

The hardworking, talented young man who worked twice as hard as anyone around him. 

 That's right. You've loved him for fifteen years.  So it's understandable that you're upset. Now, maybe you can move on too. Go on a few of those blind dates that Jiyoung is always setting you up on. Go live your life instead of being a zombie. Get a hair cut. Dye your hair red. Do something to get your life in order. 

"I still find it hard to believe that he would want a divorce. Jangmi yah... did you tell him you forgave him? Tell him you wanted to try again..." My mother said again and the distress in her voice was equal parts heartbreaking and exasperating. 

"Mother, I don't want to try again . We aren't married anymore. It's over, whatever it was between us. " 

 Whatever it was. 

How cruel, to have all that love, all that affection  reduced to a phrase like that. 

What a pity. 

"But what about Hoshi? He needs his father..." My mother cried out and I willed myself not to snap. She means well, I thought miserably. 

"He has a father. Taehyung is an excellent father and you know that. Don’t start that again.” 

My mother sighed.

"I still feel that this wouldn’t happen if you tried a little bit. He’s a good boy. Such a good boy and you could never do anyone better. Why are you so full of pride, Jangmi... so prideful...you should be a little humble. Think of the kind of man he is...where would you find a man like that ? And moreover .... Taehyung loves you. i know he does." My mother said stubbornly. 

I sighed, feeling my fingers shake from the effort not to scream. I wasn’t strong enough to have this conversation with her. Not now. Possibly never. Taehyung did  love me. Had never made any effort to hide it. But sometimes, love wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t. 

And I wanted to yell at my mother she was at least partially to blame for me walking out on Taehyung. 

My father had left us for another woman , when I was twelve. I had seen the toll it had taken on my mother and I just knew that I would never let a man do that to me. My mother had later confided in me that it wasn’t the first time. He had done it before. A lot of times. And my mother had always forgiven him. Let him back into our lives. 

And one night, drunk on soju she had confided between hiccups, ‘ I wish I’d walked out the first time.” 

And that had stuck with me. 

Walk out the first time. 

If he cheats on you , walk out the first time. Don’t stick around waiting for him to do it to you again. Walk out the first time. 

 And so I had. 

“ Should I talk to him? Tell him you’ve changed your mind? “ My mother began and I felt my patience snap.

“No!! Could you just, for the love of God, stay out of this, ma? It’s over. Our marriage is over and it has been over for a long time. A piece of paper doesn’t really change that, does it? Its not my fault you can’t get over it but that’s a you problem. And you need to fix it yourself.  “ I shouted. 

My mother immediately recoiled, eyes shuttering down. 

“Of course. You know the best. Who cares how anyone else feels, right, Jang Mi? You always know best.” She said softly, and I exhaled, shaken. There it was. The guilt trip. It was never ending. 

Please... I just need to go now.” I moved to grab my bag, :” I need to go get ready for the meeting with the lawyers tomorrow. You can keep Hoshi with you tonight.  I’ll come pick him up after I’m done and then I’ll drop him off at his father’s place.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With Taehyung and I, our break up hadn’t been terrible. 

It hadn’t been terrible because our own penchant for being terrible had always been very minimal. We didn’t do swearing or fights or threats and it always annoyed our friends that we got along so well. That it was so easy for us to forgive and move on with each other . That we were the one couple who didn’t hold grudges or bring up past mistakes. 

Which is why, when we did break up, none of our friends had tried to change our minds over it. They had accepted it rather calmly, shocked at first because it was so out of the blue but not opposed to the idea itself . They just trusted us to know the right thing to do because we were easily the most mature , the most level headed couple in the entire group. We were usually the sounding boards , the voice of reason in whatever petty conflict our friends were involved in . 

So when it was us, needling a little advice, a little guidance, our friends had been woefully ill equipped to help. They had merely hummed and nodded and empathized. Maybe that was another reason I’d left. I hadn’t considered the alternative. No one had asked me to consider the alternative. 

Our friends had watched us drift apart watched us break up, but they hadn’t really asked us  why.  

Because if something had caused Kim Taehyung and Jang Mi to break up, man, that must’ve been a really huge issue. 

So the break up had been amicable. Gradual and slow but mostly amicable, eased by our mutual love for our son. We wanted him happy and he was happy when we were happy. So we put on a front, laughed and joked in front of him and let him have some semblance of normalcy in his life. 

It wasn’t easy. 

From him,  it had been nothing but a mess of   heated glances, touches laced with intent and eyes begging forgiveness . every gaze of his was a silent scream for a second chance that I was not at all ready to give. 

Because for me, the raw hurt and anger and frustration that bubbled up every time I saw him , it had nowhere to go. It stayed churning in my gut, made everything bitter and unpalatable and I wanted to hurt him for hurting me. How could I think of a second chance when the hurt from the first, was still so fresh, an open wound festering. 

Self esteem in tatters, I had hated him fiercely. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The meeting was at his company, and I arrived at nine in the morning, with a few more minutes to spare.  I knew the place like the back of my hand, was here at least  once a week either to pick or drop Hoshi off and I knew that the conference room in the third floor was sound proof and cut off from the rest of the building for extra privacy. 

Which was a little too late because I’d found two tabloid newspapers waiting outside my apartment this morning. 

I opened the door carefully, surprised to see Taehyung sitting in one of the chairs, bent over a sheaf of paper on the table and next to him a leggy girl in a small skirt hovered, fingers resting lightly on his shoulder, bent at the optimum angle to show him her curves. 

I sighed, looking away.

It was way too early for this. 

“Mia!” Taehyung’s voice made me look up, and I watched as he stood up, pushing the chair away and moving to me . He was easily the most good looking man in the country. And he looked so good at thirty five that it was impossible to look away from him. 

He was dressed in a pale blue shirt and black slacks and it never amazed me, how good clothes fit him. 

I took in the broad shoulders, thick arms and the lean waist, the carefully styled hair and the breathtakingly beautiful face and sighed when he kept coming closer, hands held out. . 

Of course, the customary hug. 

i let him wrap his arms around me, my face buried in the comforting warmth of his body, the scent of his cologne filling my brain . He always smelled so good it made my heart hurt. I tried not to let myself get carried away. Tried to remind myself that this wasn’t anything more than a.....

A facade ? Or was it? Was his affection genuine? 

Was I just too cynical?

I shook my head, pulling away and smiling a little at the genuine venom in the leggy girl’s face. 

“Are you okay? Where’s Hoshi?” Taehyung brushed the hair off my face, eyes warm and I wondered if he’d forgotten we were here to get a divorce.

 Whenever we met, Taehyung acted like we were still together. 

No, that wasn’t it. 

He just didn’t act like we had broken up. He was affectionate and open and cooperative. It always left me in a sort of limbo, unable to navigate our relationship with clear boundaries. There were no line to stop myself from crossing, because he just didn’t draw them. 

“ Ms. Lee says we just have to go over the details like the alimony and the custody and the division of assets and then we can just proceed. Get it all finalized.  “ He said casually, when I moved away and sat on the chair opposite him. 

“Okay .” I said casually. 

He smiled and turned back to the girl next to him.

“I’ll join you after the meeting Lisa.” he gave her a nice wide smile and the girl practically bloomed under the attention before bowing curtly in my direction. I watched her walk away, slightly amused.

“Bit younger than your usual type.” I commented , glancing at him. He gave me a look.

“I’m not dating her.” He shrugged. 

“Does she know that?” I retorted.

 It was dumb. Uncalled for. I was being a bitch, really but the urge to evoke some kind of reaction from Taehyung was something I’d never really out grown. I liked getting under his skin.

Taehyung sighed and gave me a little smirk.

“Are you jealous, Mia mine?” He teased. 

It felt a little like someone had dug a nine inch dagger straight  into my heart. 

That stupid nickname. 

God I couldn’t bear it. 

Swallowing i looked away. 

“Sorry. “ he said quietly, a few seconds later. 

I nodded curtly. 

“Don’t do it again.” I said hoarsely. 

“Why not?” He whispered gently. 

I groaned. 

“Taehyung... “

“it’s just a name...why does it bother you so much?” He whispered. 

“The same reason you’re asking me for a divorce.” I said softly.

He blinked.

“Mia...”

“Because we both know its time to stop.” I said quietly. “ Stop dancing around each other , stop doing...whatever it is we’ve been doing these past two years and give our relationship a name. “ 

“I’m not very fond of labels.” He shrugged. I glared at him. 

“Well tough luck. Labels are good. Labels are great. They let you draw boundaries. “ I retorted. 

“You sound like you’ve had enough of me.”

“Well, haven’t you had enough of me?” I snapped.

“Not even close.” He leaned forward gently, eyes pinning me to the table with a gaze so strong he may as well have used his body. And it didn’t help that two years wasn’t enough time to forget how it would feel if he  had  used his body. How it would feel to be stretched out on that table, him on top of me, hands working my clothes open, lips kissing their way down my jaw. 

I could almost taste him, taste the minty freshness of his breath, feel his tongue in my mouth, the hardness of him inside me. My thighs clenched because I hadn’t gotten laid in two fucking years and even if i did, no one would ever compare to the man in front of me. 

“Mr. Kim? Mrs. Kim? “ 

The lawyer’s voice broke the spell and i straightened, swallowing. Ms. Lee had walked in , and I watched her close the conference door behind her before locking it gently. 

She was young, dressed in a business suit , a no nonsense bun and had small round framed glasses. She gave me a nice smile, shook hands with us both and placed her briefcase on the table before glancing between us. 

“Shall we begin?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note : its gonna be a bumpy ride. 

[penwieldingdreamer]

Falling for you

The second installment of my drabble series. Let me know what you think about it. A big thank you again to @fortheloveoffanfic for being my beta 💗 Happy reading everyone

Also here are the songs played at the pub:

Bean Pháidín , Tell me Ma-Gaelic Storm , Galway Girl - Fiddler's Green

Summary: A few weeks later finds the reader in all kinds of embarrassing situations - mostly tripping over stuff or falling over people - right in front of Lee

Warnings: none, besides fluff, clumsiness and a little tinge of jealousy

Words: 2231

Another day on the set of the second installment of the Hobbit series and already you felt like the clumsiest of all people on set. Either you’d slip, trip or let stuff fall to the ground. But it wasn’t random, it only happened whenever you were around Lee or in his close proximity.

James and Martin had made fun of the fact that it would only happen with the tall actor, but you waved them off and of course Benedict chimed into the scheme.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re falling for the King, luv.” he said one time while the four of you had been granted a break from filming. “You make a fool out of yourself because there’s that one person that makes your heart skip a beat.”

Angrily shuffling your food around the plate, you glared at the British actor. “Well thank you for the vote of confidence. If you hadn’t said it I wouldn’t have known I was such a joke on set.”

“What Ben means to say, dear,” James started, putting his hand on your arm. “is, that when you feel something for another person you get clumsy, do crazy things or fall all over yourself because you can’t concentrate around them. All three of us went through that when we met the women we knew would one day be our wives. It has nothing to do with you being bad at your work, the opposite, actually.”

Reluctantly you nodded your head, feeling like you just made a fool out of yourself again in front of those that were your friends. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve never been like that before and I fear if this happens more Pete will get tired of me messing up. I don’t want to lose this job.”

“You won’t,” Martin said with so much conviction, you couldn’t help but give him a small, teary smile. “Peter isn’t like that. He values your work as part of the crew and how you bring up new ideas or possible changes. Now if you were to set the whole place on fire that would be another case.”

Ben and James laughed softly and you couldn’t help the giggle escaping your lips when you listened to him. You were very lucky to have friends like them or you’d probably would have resigned after the first incident. “Thank you, you have no idea how much I needed this.” you said sending them a grateful smile. "But now I got to head back to work. The king on his throne is waiting for me."

All three laughed before Martin called after you. "Be careful up there and if you fall, fall in his lap, that's a lot more comfortable than the ground." he joked when you had turned back to the three actors but waved him off with your own middle finger. You knew he had a knack for putting his fingers up for the camera when he shouldn't and you were sure there were some scenes he snuck his middle finger in, just like he always did.

A chorus of laughter followed as you righted your work bag and made your way back to the set with Thranduil's throne.

Orlando stood underneath it, grinning up at Lee dressed up as the Elvenking and waited his turn. "Looking good, dad." he called with a chuckle and you could see the tall actor grin.

"Thank you, son. I feel very good up here." he answered leaning back on the chair, trying to fix his robes and wig as best as he could while a few strands were hanging in the branches of his crown.

Peter saw you emerging from the mass and called you over. "Ah, Y/N, good that you're here. Lee's just had a bit of a stumble up the stairs but we'll be doing a few headshots of him and well, you see the mess."

"Sure, I'll get right on it." you told him, taking a deep breath and steeling yourself so you'd be as relaxed as possible while working on fixing the actor. When he saw you approaching, Lee stood up and made to walk down, but you halted him with a motion of your hand. "Stay, I'm coming up so there's no repeat of that."

He stayed standing, watching you make your way up the stairs. Thank God there were handrails just in case. "If you insist

I could have come down, didn't want you to fall to your doom, dear mortal."

"Charms get you everywhere, huh?" you asked him with a grin as you ascended to the Weta built throne, pointing to the seat so he would sit back down again, keeping his long legs tugged to chair so you could start your work on his hair.

"So far it worked out rather well, I think." He told you, smiling as you gently pulled a strand away from the branch of his crown.

You couldn't help the small smile forming on your face as you listened to his jokes while you freed the last of his hair and righted his crown. A final touch of powder over his nose and you were finished. "Now, you're all done and you're looking regal again." You packed up your bag and turned to descend the stairs when you lost your footing and if it hadn't been for Lee's swift reaction, you would have tumbled down.

Short puffs of breath were leaving your mouth when you held on tightly to his shoulders, his arms circling your waist as you had fallen into his lap with that move. "Hello there." he whispered, watching your shocked face, eyes blown wide with fear. "You okay?"

Biting your lip, you couldn't help but enjoy the feel of his hands on your hip, the warmth spreading through your clothes. "I-I'm sorry, I, the stairs…I guess…missed steps." you brokenly mumbled, apparently having forgotten how to talk when you looked into his blue eyes. The contact lenses only intensified his gaze.

"Yeah, they're dangerous." Lee agreed, his head leaning closer, the rest of the world around you forgotten.

Yet before he could close the gap, Peter interrupted you with a loud whistle. "If you two turtledoves are ready, we'd like to continue." he called out to you with a chuckle. Of course everyone had seen that and you already felt the heat of your blush rising all over your body.

Carefully, yet hastily you scrambled off of Lee's lap and made your way down the stairs and to the back of the set. You would have loved for the ground to swallow you up when Benedict had come over and grinned at you.

"So, I don’t think you will tell me what that up there was.” he said matter of fact, knowing you wouldn’t even be able to describe it.

“Nope,” you said, eyeing the actor and PJ going over the next scenes with a dummy. “I’d rather leave it like it is. This is just too embarrassing."

He put his arm around your shoulders pulling you close. Martin was just walking around the corner having seen the whole thing and he instantly knew you'd be shutting down, only doing your work and nothing more, keeping your distance from Lee. The Brit found the eyes of his friend and co-Sherlock-actor, nodding once, then twice. They were your friends and could see that the sparks between their fellow actor and you were there, now they only needed to kindle the fire.

"Oh, this is wonderful." you gushed, looking around the Irish pub everyone decided to visit at the eve of their day off. "It's been too long since I had so much fun besides being on set."

Already the ciders and beers and whisky were flowing and everyone was laughing and singing with the band that played that night. James had decided to take a row of tables next to the musicians so the cast and crew that wanted to go there would fit into the seats.

"You all deserve a time off after the amazing work you did." Peter said, raising his pint of Guinness for a toast. You all followed suit, calling out a shout of "Hear, hear."

Laughing and listening to all the stories everyone was telling about their time on set, you enjoyed the feeling of warmth that spread through you. Not because of the alcohol but because of your family away from home.

"Are you enjoying the music?" James asked after a short while, himself listening to the tunes and words from his home country.

Nodding your head, you clapped your hands to the rhythm and smiled as a few people started to dance to the songs you couldn't understand the lyrics to. “What is she singing about?” you asked him, leaning in so he could understand the words with the louder music.

"It’s a really old Irish song, dating back hundreds of years in Ireland. This is one of the funny old Irish songs that is sung by a woman, and she sings about another woman." the Irish actor tried to explain over the loud music. "Back in the day women would get together and sing this song about the woman in town that was married to the man that they all wanted to be married to. ‘It’s a pity that I’m not Phaidin’s wife,’ and this woman who’s married to him, they hate her, and as the verses go on, they talk about what they’d like to do to her, like they want to break her legs and get rid of her and do anything to be this man’s wife. It’s a fun song. Irish music is like that. When you translate the words, sometimes it’s like gruesome and dark, but they’re meant in a lighthearted way."

You were always blown away by the way such a story could be shown in a nice tune. "The music is so lively, you'd never guess it's such a sad and dark story behind it."

"That's just the way the Irish are." James grinned at you before another song was starting.

"For our next song we'd love for you guys to get up, dance some more and just have fun." the female singer announced and waved to all patrons in the pub. The violin, banjo and drum began to play the first chords before the singer joined in. "Tell me ma when I go home, the boys won't leave the girls alone."

Benedict and James smiled at you, holding their hand out and pulled you from your seat and onto the provided dance floor where others had already started twirling around. "Let's dance and have some fun." the Brit said, giving you a twirl.

You couldn't help the smile that found its way on your lips as you danced around with the two actors, unbeknownst of the dark blue eyes following your moves. The dance was exhilarating and both James and Ben led you through the steps, jumping and twirling with other patrons until you were out of breath and another song was over.

When you came back to get something to drink you saw one of the seats being vacant. Lee was missing from the group of merry friends and you leaned over to Orlando, who had been sitting besides him. "Where did your dad disappear to?" you asked him, mirth coloring your words as you took a large sip of your drink.

He turned to you and smiled, patting the seat next to him, so you didn't have to stand. You were grateful for that with your feet aching from all the dancing you did with his fellow actors. "He said he needed to get back to the hotel, his flight back to the States is taking off early." Orlando said and your face must have shown your confusion as you didn't know Lee was needed back in America. "Shooting for Guardians of the Galaxy is starting in a few days and he wanted to get back earlier so he arranged it in the last few days. Peter knew about it, I'm surprised he didn't tell you."

"Oh, no, I really didn't know and Lee hadn't mentioned anything before." the disappointment colored your words and you sank back down in your seat. You couldn't help the feeling that it was something that recently happened and especially something you did or he would have been open enough to talk to you.

The British actor patted your leg and grinned. "Don't worry, he'll be back before you know it. Once he's done with that movie Lee's going to annoy us again with his dad jokes."

Nodding your head, you tried to feel confident, but still you didn't know why he didn't at least wait until you were back at the table to say his goodbyes. No he just left without so much as a word. Of course you were only there doing his make - up and hair but you had hoped that in the time you worked together you at least had become friends. Giving the dark haired actor a small smile you made your way back to your corner seat, staring off into space and trying not to get too drunk on your cider while thinking about why not even Peter had bothered to tell you his Elvenking was leaving the set sooner than planned.

Taglist:

@fortheloveoffanfic @toomanystoriessolittletime @omgkatinka @fuck-yeah-hope @wholelottatiffy @axshadows ​@a-really-bi-girl @madbaddic7ed @maggiemoo1892 @pinkzsugar @agniavateira @mary-ann84 and everyone else who wants to read this.

[crewofthegoldrush]

bby im bored so yall get some excerpts from pending fics -

Roommate AU

Monty holds out her hand and Aubrey drops the key into her palm. It was one of those new fangled key fobs. "Don't worry, I'll take care of ya."

A whistle behind her. "Yea I bet ya will, Boss.”

A statement like that might normally please her ego - but not at work. Monty twists her head around and glares at Puckett, and he has the decency to blush, the color obvious on his dull green scales. She stares at him until he mutters an apology and lumbers back to the garage.

Monty thinks she hears Aubrey chuckle. "Sorry about these guys. I've been tryin' to work on their manners. Do you wanna borrow my car so you can get back to - I dunno, headquarters?"

Aubrey opens her mouth, then pauses, checks her phone. Checks her watch, then her phone again. "Maybe," she says on a sigh, biting her lip. "Eventually. I'm doing as he asked, he can deal without me for a while."

"Y'know," Monty wrinkles her snout, "I didn't think you were this kind of assistant."

"I'm not," she deadpans. "She quit some time ago. I haven't a clue if they plan on replacing her, lucky me."

"Tell you what, take my car back and I'll drive the fancy car over tonight. But since he can spare you, you wanna get some lunch?"

Aubrey seems to think that over, but there wasn't much to think about, so she nods soon enough. "Alright. Thank you, Cowboy."

Her heels click against the linoleum floor as she follows Monty out, to another annoying choir of whistles and heckles, this time directed at Monty for not sharing that she had a "girlfriend." Aubrey, in a good natured way that Monty doesn't usually see of her, takes the heckling in stride and even winks at Rigby on the way out. The little kobold turns red from head to toe.

Once outside the shop, Aubrey gives Monty an aside glance. "Are you quite sure your aunt didn't throw herself down some stairs to get away from them?"

"She assures me she did not."

Soulmate AU

The day after she realized her book was nowhere to be found in Montgomery's room - more specifically, the day they were picking up Captain Wayfinder's away team from Runswick - Harper notices a faded white scar on her arm.

Brow furrowed at what the hell could cause that - a spell? A knife? - she feels a familiar urge to write. Perhaps it was Harper's general good mood, or maybe it was more her frazzled nerves from listening to Demetrius and Brunhilde argue over a tomato for two and a half days.

So she does. Be careful next time, yes? she writes, then draws an arrow on her shoulder.

Her skin tingles as she receives an answer. No worries gal, just a bounty that wouldn't go down.

She drums her fingers on her skin, a small smile on her lips. It was like old times, and apparently Harper was sentimental. She had been feeling the urge to reach out to her soulmate more lately - again, something she blames on Harper. But she isn't ready - Harper's and Aubrey's differences aside, she hasn't changed her opinion on being Marked.

She finishes getting dressed and goes to check stock.

"Fool's Gold 2"

You watch her settle against the ship's railing, familiar even on this ship that wasn't yours. You take your place next to her, hyper aware of your petulant body language. You take a swig from your flask, offering it to her after cleaning the spout with a gold glow.

She raises a brow at the metal container, eyeing it wearily, and you manage a grin. "It's just water."

Looking more at ease, she shakes her head anyway, and you let it hang limply in your hand as you fold them on the banister.

"Something is bothering you."

You glance at her; Aubrey has mimicked your casual position but her eyes are as intense as they always are as she simply watches you. "It's been months since we started this, Aubrey. Shouldn't I have more than the basics by now? It shouldn't be this hard, should it?"

You were certainly better than where you were when you started. But compared to her, who had picked up firearm training so well that you had very nearly finished her gun by now, you feel indignant at your slow progress.

Aubrey hums. "You don't need to be so hard on yourself. As you've said many times, your heart is not fully in it yet, right? Your magic is improving and there are plenty of regular distractions."

She was right about that - it was hard to truly focus on leisure time when the two of you were still expected to handle your regular duties, now, you suspect, under the watchful eyes of the Tains. Nevermind the fact that, with your ship still seized, you and your team were attending to various matters, both personal and necessary. You yourself had taken up bounty hunting again to keep your coin stock healthy enough, and there were days you didn't see Harper at all.

"Besides," she continues, gesturing for you to hand her your flask, and you do. "Muscle memory is one of the first things you need to train. You are not there yet, but I'm confident that you will.

She tucks your flask away. "You are too stubborn for the case to be anything else."

You grin at her backhanded compliment and the way she just stole what she probably assumed was indeed alcohol from you, something Harper would do for Demetrius.

"I can always count on you to humble me, darlin'."

[purplellamanator]

Sorry for the delay! This is the first part of my contribution for @shinranweek The above link is to read the story on AO3 or if you prefer to read off of fanfic, just click here! Of course since this is a tumblr event, the chapter will be posted below the cut. I originally wanted this posted for day 1 for first meetings but unfortunately life got in the way. Just a little insight though, this is heavily inspired by movie 20 The Darkest Nightmare. This is not completed though and I'll post the next part later. Sorry if it seems rushed and thanks to @shinranweek for hosting the event! Loved all the shinran content this week!

Amnesia Part I

Her head. . . . It was pounding so hard she thought it'd implode in on itself.

She clutched at the source with one hand and continued walking forward blindly. Everything she did was blindly. Where she was going, where she came from, why her head hurt. . . who she was; it was all lost to her. And she kept moving forward.

Where was she anyways? Glancing around cautiously, her hand still pressed to her head and now as a slight shield from the blistering sun, she tried to discern her surroundings. It was hard though. Her head was pounding and she could barely think. There was so much noise going on around her to add to that and- she was going to pass out.

Eyes landing on a bench, the woman stumbled hurriedly to the wooden chair before collapsing on it. She felt slightly better now that she was off her feet but not by much. It did allow her to actually see through the fog that was clouding her already injured mind and she lost the need to hold herself together.

Laughing and talking; there was a lot of that. There were families milling about, smiling and chattering excitedly. Obviously she was in a family park of sorts . . . but what had brought her here? Was she here with her family? If so, where were they?

Eyes moving around slowly before seeing a massive ferris wheel in the distance, she felt a semblance of knowledge itch at the corners of her mind. Something was familiar. . Something was familiar about that wheel. .

Had that been why-?

She jerked suddenly when she realized she wasn't sitting alone anymore. Looking beside her, it was a man, not that old at all and maybe in his younger twenties. The surprise wasn't what made her jump though. He was- had he been smelling her?

Even after she jumped away and stared at him as if he lost his mind, the man continued to sniff at her as if he were some sort of dog.

Finally, she cleared her throat. "Um . . . " She wanted to cringe at how awkward the one sound had been. What do you say when one human being sniffs . . another. . ?

And if possible, the man leaned back against the bench completely nonchalant. As if he hadn't just been smelling her . . .

"Gasoline."

His voice had come so abruptly and her eyes blinked in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Gasoline," the man repeated, a satisfied look in his blue eyes. "You smell very strongly of it."

Did she really? The woman raised her arm to her face and sniffed, brows furrowing when she discovered that he was right. The odd stranger was correct and she did smell very strongly of gasoline.

"Are you okay?" He asks when she was still trying to figure why she would smelled like she took a bath in a gas station.

Her eyes flit to his. "I- I think so."

The stranger's brows lifted curiously. She didn't blame him for looking so confused. How could she not know if she were alright? He didn't question her response though and instead said, "You don't look okay. You look and smell like you've been in an explosion." She was sure that was meant to sound like a joke but the possibility that that very well could be true reflected in his gaze; a hint of seriousness.

But for the first time, and only because this stranger pointed it out to her, she was actually taking in her appearance. Clothes disheveled and dirtied, hair tangled and a welt on her head; safe to say she looked and felt like she'd been through an explosion or two.

"Forgive me for cornering you like this but you appeared distressed," he apologized but somehow he didn't sound very sorry at all. "I just saw you stumbling around in those heels and I thought you'd pass out until you collapsed on this bench. Were you coming from work?"

"Work?" The woman mumbled to herself and again took notice of the gray pencil skirt and the white button-up blouse she wore. Where did she work? Did she even work? She could feel the headache coming back again. Or maybe it had never gone away and she had been able to forget about it momentarily. "I don't know," she finally said in a slow realization and his eyes widened even more.

"Do you know your name?"

Do you know your name?

The voice that resounded after his wasn't hers and she heard it only in her mind. A memory- but from what she didn't know. She had been asked that before but she couldn't remember when or why. For some reason, it made her head throb from trying to remember. "My name. . . ?" She was staring hard at the concrete before her on the ground as she continuously ran that question through her head.

"Can you remember?"

She could hear him right beside her- practically feel him leaning towards her when she didn't respond right away. But for some reason it felt like he was muffled and suddenly the man was miles away and she was stuck in her head. "What's my name. .?" So many thoughts rushed at her in that moment and she raised a hand to her welt to try to soothe the pain radiating from it. But it wasn't soothing it; it wasn't making it better and soon both hands were clutching her head as she attempted to recall something that should've been so simple. "My name?" she repeated again and now her breaths were coming out panicked.

Why couldn't she remember her name? It was hers and she couldn't say it?

"Hey!" She could barely feel a firm hand splay across her back as if to comfort her. "Breathe. I'll call an ambulance and we'll-"

"No!" She jerked away from him roughly and attempted to come to a stand. Her legs wobbled and she could barely make a decision between holding her head together or balancing on her own two feet. Something about his statement had her body reacting automatically though and she just knew she couldn't go to a hospital. Why? She didn't understand that yet but her instincts were telling her no and as of now, her instincts were all she had.

The man rose too and moved slowly towards her as if approaching a scared animal. "We'll get you help. We'll find where you came from," he tried again and went to help her stand.

Where I came from. . to take me back. . . ? Back to-

Nails digging into her head as the pain became intense, she stumbled away each time he moved closer. "No," she shook her head and it became apparent to her that tears were streaming down her cheeks from the pain. "I- I can't-!"

Couldn't what? Go to the hospital? Go back to some unknown place that her body was rejecting? It was all too much.

And suddenly startling them both and everybody in the vicinity, she began screaming from the pain as something tried to force its way to the forefront of her mind. It couldn't though and it was just so much pain and she couldn't stop yelling and before she knew it she was falling and falling.

Heavy lids blinking open a few times to adjust to the brightness, she felt weird. Her head was sore but that was a given. But she didn't feel herself as if she were a mind in someone else's body. That's what she really was in that moment considering she couldn't recall something so simple as her own name.

Her mouth felt dry and her eyes tight as she took in her surroundings. She was in a bed- a hospital room and hooked up to some IV that was probably full of saline. Something else she became apparent to was the fact she was all alone. No one else was in the room with her.

So why was the first thought to strike her was to sneak out that far window? It was like an unconscious reaction that she shouldn't be there in that room; that she had somewhere else she needed to be and that she knew deep down she was never to be in a hospital.

But why?

Thankfully, the woman didn't get the chance to act out her idea because in the next second the door was creaking open slowly and a head was peeking in. It was the stranger- the man from before. And when he saw that she was awake and sitting up in her bed, a grin cracked across his face.

"I'm glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Honestly, she felt terrible. "Better," she said instead. At least she could actually remember what happened before she landed herself here.

"Remember anything?"

She gave him a curious glance. "I remember my head hurting and passing out while we were talking." That was it and he understood fully what she meant. She still couldn't remember her name or anything else before they met.

He must've saw the way her eyes slowly slid around the room uneasily. "I took you to a friend. We're not in a hospital."

Those words really did bring a certain amount of relief for her. Though she still had this mild feeling of wanting to jump out the window, it felt like a weight had lifted off her.

Stepping further into the room, he took the seat beside her bed and she wondered if he had really been here the entire time waiting for her to wake up. "We'll figure it out soon enough. A detective is waiting to speak with you when you're ready."

Detective? Her insides clenched and that again was another red flag. She didn't want to speak with a detective. Swallowing away her body's natural panic, she attempted to pay it off. "Y-you called the police?" She wasn't fooling this man though and she briefly wondered how he could read her emotions so easily.

"Let's just say they're my friends as well," he gave a small but relaxed grin.

Other than for the heaviness of her head, she really felt better now. If he was telling the truth then he had saved her from having to worry about any legal consequences or actions. "Who are you?" He hadn't told her after all. He had been too busy . . smelling her and asking for her name. But he had helped her as well it would seem. Such an unusual person. . .

His blue eyes widened as if he just realized he never told her that. It seemed unlike him but his cheeks actually tinted a slight pink. "I can't believe I didn't even tell you my name," he scratched the back of his brown hair awkwardly and she could hear the unspoken apology in his tone. "I'm Kudou Shinichi." He said it so proudly and matter of fact that the woman was taking back her earlier accusation. He wasn't awkward because he had forgot to mention his name. He was just used to people already knowing it and since she didn't she hoped that didn't take him down a notch. After all, she couldn't even recall her own so why would she remember his?

Kudou Shinichi.

But then again, maybe she did. There was some sort of recognition that came with the name.

Again, that awakened a voice within her but this time she didn't push the fact. Last time she had given herself a migraine and she thought her brain would explode.

"Thank you then, Kudou-san," she said sincerely. "I'm sorry for any trouble this has caused you."

"Not at all," he waved her off. "I'm a de-."

A firm knock resounded around the room before the door creaked open slightly again. Only this time it was someone the woman did not recognize. Based off their clothes though, she was able to determine it was one of her nurses.

She was proven correct when the woman clad in her scrubs turned to another and said, "She's awake but the doctor doesn't want you questioning her long. We're still examining the severity of her brain damage and she doesn't need any stress." And then the door was held open farther so a couple could enter; one man and one woman.

She determined these were the detectives Kudou-san had warned her about. Instantly, she was on guard but she couldn't tell what was to blame. Her body seemed to do it unconsciously and she knew she couldn't speak freely with them. Why would it matter though? She couldn't remember anything not to speak freely with them. And Kudou-san had also said that they were there as his 'friends'.

As they stepped closer and she tensed even more, Kudou-san stood up in what seemed respect to greet the other two. Soon he was moving aside granting them full access to her bedside and she felt her chest cinch up nervously.

Her gaze instantly appraised the woman. She held a certain air of authority that demanded it. She seemed to be in her thirties maybe, the injured girl couldn't tell. But through her stern features she seemed kind enough so far. The man appeared much more at ease than her. She didn't want to mistake it for timidness but she could tell who was the boss in this partnership. Or better yet, who bad cop good cop was.

The woman was the first one to address her proving her theory even more. "I'm Detective Sato and this is my partner Detective Takagi." She paused to give her a chance to speak but all she could do was nod her head respectfully. It wasn't like she could respond with her own name.

"Kudou-kun suspects you've been in an accident of some kind. Not only would we like to find and hold whoever is accountable, our goal is also to identify whom you are."

"I don't think I'll be much help," she admitted apologetically. "I don't remember anything before meeting this stranger." Her eyes flit to the brown haired man that stood to the side.

The woman nodded her head as if she already knew this. "After what Kudou-kun described earlier today and what the doctor explained, I don't expect you to remember anything. So I'll ask you a few basic questions and if you can't answer them, that's okay."

She wasn't too sure that was a good idea. After the pain from last time. . .

The two detectives must've noticed the uneasiness on her features and Detective Takagi actually spoke up. "We don't want to further your condition. Don't push yourself."

Detective Sato nodded before clearing her throat. "It is to my understanding that you don't remember your name so I won't bother asking you about that. Instead, I'd like to know the first thing you do remember."

She swallowed uneasily as she watched the detectives before her. The woman couldn't really understand why but their presence bothered her a great deal. To forget about that, she tried focusing on the question. The very first thing she could remember . . .

"I-I was in an alleyway," she revealed. "My head hurt badly and I didn't know what was going. I could barely stand."

"Can you recall where this alleyway was?"

She shook her head slowly. "I hadn't stuck around for long." Her tone seemed curious about her actions; or maybe perturbed as to why she hadn't. It was something deep down inside of her that told her she had to keep moving.

"Why did you go to that park specifically? Why not the police?"

The ferris wheel.

The answer surfaced swiftly and assuredly through her thoughts. She didn't know why she went there just for the ferris wheel but the fact she knew even that much was something. Yet. . she didn't tell them.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "It felt safer and just calm. I wasn't thinking to go to the police." Of course she left out that she couldn't go to a police department. But she could just use the excuse of confusion until she knew what was going on with her. To be fair, she really was confused.

Detective Sato nodded before pulling a card from her pocket. "I didn't expect you to know much and you are on bed rest so I'll end this here." Handing the card to her, the injured girl looked at it curiously. "That's my number. If you remember anything about yourself or the accident, call me."

She nodded again and her cheeks tinted a slight pink. That's all she's done for the past few hours. How embarrassing it was that she couldn't even think to hold a conversation. "T-thank you," she choked out but it sounded completely forced and her grin appeared as a grimace. And either they didn't notice or they just didn't feel like making her even more uncomfortable because the detectives bowed their heads respectfully before exiting.

Not giving her a chance to relax, the door opened again and now what she assumed was her doctor entered. She watched the man even more uneasily. For some reason the doctor bothered her more than the detectives. The man didn't seem too bad. A normal middle aged man dressed in his medical coat and carrying a clip board; there was nothing particularly daunting about him but something . . frightened her.

She started sweating. Her heart beating furiously could be heard on the monitor and she felt her cheeks enflame even more.

"Looks like someone's afraid of the doctor's office," he joked with a warm smile and a wink. "I'm Doctor Araide. I've been looking after you since Kudou-san brought you in."

That didn't put her at ease at all and she swallowed through her dry throat. Forcing herself to breathe evenly, the beeps from the monitor slowly went back to normal. She was thankful the doctor hadn't made too much of a big deal over it but Kudou-san was actually looking at her with a calculating frown. All she could do was try to convince her brain that it was alright. They weren't really in a hospital and that she needed to calm down.

"Well," he went to sit on the chair beside her and she tensed up some more. He didn't point it out this time thankfully and continued with," I have some bad news and some good news."

"What's the bad?" she took the initiative to ask. She'd rather get that out of the way first.

Doctor Araide sighed before shaking his head. "We ran prints and DNA through our systems and through the police department's records as well to see if we could pin you with a name. You're not in any of the systems and no one has reported a missing persons case." Seeing the disheartened look on his features he said, "Don't worry. That could mean many things. You just might not be around from this part of Japan and thankfully you don't have a record to warrant the police's attention."

She nodded slowly, trying to focus on the positive side. It was hard though when she was so confused. She literally had nothing. Not even memories.

"Now for the slightly better news. . . " And for this he actually looked at his clipboard and flipped back a few pages. "I'd still like to do a few more brain scans just to make sure your condition hasn't worsened but it appears to be psychogenic amnesia."

"P-psychogenic. . . ?"

"Retrograde amnesia," he corrected for her in simpler terms. "It's a form of memory loss that can follow a physically or emotionally traumatic event. Luckily, I believe yours isn't too severe."

"So. . . I won't keep passing out?" she asked hopefully from her bed. It hadn't been a very nice feeling from what she could remember and waking up hadn't been any easier either.

Doctor Araide sighed as if he didn't want to make her any promises. He probably couldn't and instead said, "I think that was your body reacting to a memory that . . . psychologically," he finally settled on that word, "you wanted to avoid."

"Basically. . . I don't want to remember." The injured woman nodded but could feeling the beginnings of a headache; only this time it was different. Instead of just straight and abrupt pain this one seemed to stem from stress and disappointment. What had happened to her so bad in her life that she didn't want to remember any of it?

"Not necessarily," the doctor said anxiously. He must've saw what her own statement meant for her. "It was only a theory. What's more important is there was no physical damage to the brain. Cases like these- I don't want to give false hope, but typically my patients that have experienced something similar, all regained some form of memory to their life before their accident."

Though he basically told her not to get too excited, her heart grew brighter. Maybe she wouldn't be a nobody forever and like he said, at least there was no serious damage. "Is there anything I can do that will hasten the process?" The woman didn't want to lose her calm façade in front of the doctor but it was hard to hide it in her voice.

And like a doctor would, he detected it easily. "You're still on bed rest," he warned. "Besides the amnesia, you suffered some major bruising to your ribs and abrasions to your face."

Her eyes widened. She hadn't even noticed. Had she been walking around with bruised ribs all this time? It was hard to believe but maybe whatever accident she had been in numbed her.

"I-" She cut herself off nervously. She didn't want to stay here. Doctors were meant to help people; she knew that deep down. But a certain fear deep inside of her chest- she couldn't deal with that here and surrounded by it. "I don't want to stay here."

And just like that, both the doctor's and Kudou-san's eyes were flitting towards her incredulously.

"I don't think you understand the severity of your condition," Doctor Araide started. "Your wounds are ones fitting of a car accident. You are in no state to be living on your own. And legally, I cannot let you leave on your own."

She wasn't legally a patient here. She was sure of it from Kudou-san's words and she wasn't about to stay here longer than she had to. She didn't want to be here and as far as she was concerned, she didn't have to be. She tried to be nice and let them have their questioning and their tests. Now she wanted to leave. She was fine just on her own until that stranger started smelling her. She wished she jumped out that window when she had the chance.

"Any more stress could damage your chances of gaining anything from your past."

That had her pausing her retort, biting her lip in contemplation. She didn't want to stay here. This wasn't comfortable for her. In fact, it frightened her quite a bit and what was even worse- she didn't know why.

Seeing that she wasn't too fond of this place but also realizing she understood her condition, the stranger from before spoke up again only this time addressing the doctor. "She can stay with me."

The doctor was staring at her now, a frown on his face before turning that disapproving stare on Kudou-san. "It was already wrong of me not to send this woman to a hospital let alone to not call the police. How can you ask me to let her leave?"

"She'll stay at my house. I have more than enough room and I'll watch over her," he replied easily while giving her wary sideways glances. It looked like he was worried she was going to just jump and leave herself without listening to what they had to say.

It was tempting.

"I'll let you leave tomorrow morning if you stay the night," was the doctor's final offer. Either that or he would more than likely inform the law enforcement. She didn't want to risk getting any of them in trouble for hiding this for her.

Lips pursed uncomfortably, she nodded her head once. "And then I can leave?"

"Like I said earlier, I want to run a few more brain scans and make sure there's no lasting damage through the night. After that, I am letting you leave with Kudou-san to be in his care." Doctor Araide put extra emphasis so she knew she would not be leaving alone.

True to his word though, the next morning she and Kudou-san were filling out documents. The entire time Doctor Araide was standing over her- prattling her to stay. After the restless night she had however, that wouldn't be happening. It was like she was about to crawl out of her skin. She didn't feel safe.

"Ma'am," the doctor turned to face her. "I really do not recommend this." It was a last ditch effort really. The hours long process was finally over and Kudou-san was pulling his car around as she waited.

"I know. Thank you for all you've done," she bowed. If it hadn't been for the fact that this was his practice and they had in fact taken her to a hospital, she knew this wouldn't have gone done as smoothly as it did.

Doctor Araide sighed disappointedly. "Please come back if you experience any pain or illness. You have a head injury and that could make appearances as nausea, soreness- anything." And he too was handing her a card and she couldn't believe she was receiving a second one. "This is my work number. It's always on and do not hesitate to call. Kudou-kun has my number as well."

After a few more departing words on the doctor's part on how she needed to be careful, she was waiting in the passenger seat as Kudou-san talked privately with him. She didn't pay it any mind and figured the man had finally given up on trying to convince her to stay there. Instead, he must be giving Kudou-san explicit instructions as he had done prior with her.

She jumped when the door opened and he slid into the driver's seat. Not realizing he was done talking, the girl noticed the doctor was long gone and not even standing on the porch any longer.

"So," he began as he buckled his seatbelt. "Is there anything you'd like me to call you?"

His question actually threw her. She just assumed she'd be left a no-name until she either remembered or those two detectives identified her- whichever came first. The woman thought about it though before shaking her head. Thinking about it gave her a headache and she honestly didn't know what she'd like to be called. Her real name definitely but at the moment that wasn't a possibility. Then to make it even harder, she knew nothing about herself to conjure up some nickname.

Kudou-san waved her off. "We'll figure something out," he said reassuringly. "Let's get you settled in first."

"Where are we?" she piqued curiously. Somehow her brain had retained the information that she was indeed Japanese and still in Japan. Why it didn't know anything else she'd never figure out.

"I live in Beika."

All she could do was nod again. Nothing seemed familiar about the area or name. A little bit of her hope diminished with that but she wouldn't get too discouraged yet. The doctor had hinted that this loss was more than likely temporarily until her mind could come to grips with what happened.

For some reason, when she was informed that she'd be staying with this Kudou Shinichi, she had pictured an apartment. Maybe a two bedroom flat in the city. What their car pulled up to however, she was practically pressed to the window in amazement.

It was a mansion- and no, she was not exaggerating. The house was huge and gated in and everything. Again she had to ask, "Who are you?" Not just anybody could afford a place like this. He had to be somebody important.

He looked at her surprised as he walked up to the gate and pulled it open. It was already unlocked apparently. "I already told you." When he saw she was still looking up in awe at the place that would be her home for at least the next few days, he sighed. "My mother is an actress and my father is an author. They left me the place to live in the States."

Glancing at him, she had a brief moment to wonder if that's why she recognized his name. The fact he had famous parents was more than explanation enough. She was curious to just who his parents were now but he seemed uncomfortable on the topic so she respectfully didn't push it. Instead she said, "Is it just you here?" She was curious. He looked to be in his early twenties and he wasn't bad looking at all. Maybe he had a wife or girlfriend.

"Well now there's you," he pointed out.

Blinking, she was a little flabbergasted that he owned this mansion all to himself. "You live here alone?" Still staring at the hard iron gates blocking the entry way, she felt a sort of cold sensation overcome her. How could someone live in such a big building all by themselves? She knew already that she wouldn't want to and she didn't even know who she was.

Kudou-san took a moment to pause and look at her as if she needed to pay attention. "No. Now, you live here too."

She actually took a moment to glare at his retreating back. The woman wasn't able to tell he was joking until he turned and gave her a small smirk. It was hard to stay irritated when someone smiled at you like that. And the fact he kept this entire thing a secret also helped but she didn't really want to bring that up anymore. Instead, she wanted to focus on getting to know the new place she'd be staying at for however long he chose to deal with her.

After he shut the gate behind them and resumed strolling down the pathway, her gaze raked across the front entrance and the surrounding yard. There was grass and it was green and there was indeed paint on the shutters and front door, but something disturbed her about the scene. She couldn't explain it well but it all just seemed so . . . dead. The front area near the front windows was completely bare where it appeared a garden may of been there quite some time ago. Actually entering the house and into the foyer, the shoe cubby was empty except for one pair. And eyes scanning the barren walls and the way their voices echoed around the spacious house- it was empty.

And there she had the answers to her own curious questions. There was no wife. There was no girlfriend. And based off the shoe rack, there wasn't even any guests. Did he really live here. . ? A hollow feeling ironically filled her heart. She couldn't explain it but she had the weird urge to open the shades and start cleaning. Not that it was messy or anything. It was clean- too clean if possible.

Kudou-san didn't notice the way she scrutinized the building as she followed him up the stairs. If he did, he didn't say anything about it and she walked quietly in his slippers. She assumed they were his considering they were the only pair by the door and he was forced to walk around in his socks. He must not receive many visitors.

"You can stay in here," he said as he opened one of the many doors in the upstairs hallway. "Since I only really had the night to prepare, it's not much. We can go out and buy you some clothes and stuff tomorrow though if you're up to it." It came out unsurely and when she glanced back at him he was scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

The woman shook her head with a small grin. "This is fine. Thank you for allowing me to stay." She was still curious as to why he did it. He had no clue who she was and neither did she. She had absolutely no memory of her prior life and some possible health issues. If she was asked, she'd say she was more trouble than it was worth.

"I have a neighbor that is about your size. She lent me some clothes for you to use- if you don't mind them of course," he corrected quickly.

Eyes a bit wide from the fact he actually thought she'd care about having to borrow clothes, she shook her head again. "I am very thankful for her offer and would be more than happy to get out of these." She had been wearing the same clothes she woke up in the first day with Doctor Araide. He had given her a pair of hospital pants and a white t-shirt.

"I have your original clothes in the wash." He had a thumb pointing behind him in the direction she assumed was the laundry room.

All she could do was bob her head in acknowledgement. In a way, she was thankful. Those clothes were her only grasp on where she had come from. On the other hand, they sort of felt detached. She couldn't remember anything about them so they almost held no meaning to her. She just wished she could remember something.

"Is your head hurting?"

She almost wondered why he would be asking her that but then she took notice to the frown she had on her features. The girl hadn't even realized she'd been doing it. Straightening her features, she fixed her lips upward into a small grin. "Not at all."

Kudou-san had been in the process of saying something when the grand doorbell resounded around the massive home. A confused scrunch of his brows showed he wasn't expecting any visitors today. "Excuse me," he nodded his head at her before turning to go. "Go ahead and settle in."

Back facing her, the man wasn't able to see the puzzled and incredulous look she bore. Settle? Settle what. Turn down her sheets to go to bed? She had nothing. There was nothing to settle. Not saying anything though, she decided to just follow him. It might be those two detectives with a lead.

"I told you not on the first day," he came Kudou-san's disapproving tone. He didn't sound angry but there was hint of scolding in his tone and she wondered who was on the receiving end. "She just got back from the doctor's and she needs to rest today." He was glancing down, almost bent over at the waist to talk down. Now she was curious.

"I just wanted to give her these!" came a cheerful voice if she'd ever heard one.

Making her way further down the steps, she noticed the way Kudou-san gripped the door open enough for him to speak. Hoping it wasn't too forward of her, she pried the door open further. It was obvious they were talking about her anyway and she didn't feel like resting much.

Shocked at first, it was enough to catch him off guard and the door opened further. Eyes looking forward, her eyes had to flit down when she realized once again, it was a small child; a little girl. Her hair was dark and cut short, a headband with a bow on her head. All in all, she looked adorable and the woman felt a wide smile tug at her features.

Practically shoving the man out of the way- or even forgetting he was there, she came to a kneeling position. "What did you want to give me?" she asked softly at the child's wide eyes. She wasn't sure but she hoped her sudden appearance hadn't frightened the girl. She really was tiny and she had to wonder how old she was. Maybe seven, if she had to guess?

The small girl's cheeks turned a flustered pink as she hid her hands behind her, an embarrassed look as she glanced at her feet. "I can come back tomorrow. Shinichi-oniisan says you need to rest."

Unlike with Kudou-san, she was being shy. It was no surprise considering she had no clue who she was.

The woman made to appear as if she were thinking. "Well, we can tell Shinichi-oniisan that the sun's still up," she replied with a sideways glance in his direction and she almost laughed. That got the little girl looking up at her again she felt her heart warm as a small giggle escaped her.

"What's your name?"

Now a bit more at ease she excitedly said, "Yoshida Ayumi!"

"That's really pretty," she complimented and if possible, the pink on the small child's cheeks got pinker.

"My parents named me after my grandmother. It means to step or. . to walk your. . " She kept stuttering and cutting herself off as she thought really hard to remember.

The woman wasn't really sure where the burst of knowledge came from but she paused the struggling verbal thoughts of the girl. "To walk your own way," she corrected.

Ayumi gasped happily. "Yes! That's it!" She giggled herself when the girl bobbed her head excitedly.

"Here you go, Onee-chan!"

The woman had to blink at the sudden appearance of flowers in her face. When she realized this must've been what the girl was hiding behind her back, she smiled before grabbing the stem from the child's hand. They were orchids and they were almost a violet color. Where had she pulled this from?

Eyes moving back to Ayumi-chan's, she smiled wider. "Thank you. It's really pretty."

Ayumi-chan pointed at the woman's face. She had to blink again from the sudden closeness. "Just like your eyes!"

Her eyes? The woman hadn't really paid that any mind. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't even looked in a mirror yet. Surprisingly she hadn't thought to do so. Most of her time had spent in a doctor's office. It would be like staring at a stranger anyway.

"My eyes?" She still repeated as she stared into space. How could she not know the color of her own two eyes? She felt her head start to ache.

Ayumi-chan nodded surely. "Say. . . what's your name?" It must've just hit her that she wasn't aware who she was talking to. Truthfully, the woman had forgot herself too. So used to being a noname for the past two days, she didn't think to introduce herself.

"Um. . . "

Kudou-san saw her unease and appeared ready to turn this conversation around. Ayumi was way ahead of him however.

"I'll bet your name is Ran- like the orchid!" she chirped excitedly as she pointed at the flower that she still held in her hand.

Ran? Was that her name? There was nothing there; nothing familiar about the title. But as she twisted the violet orchid in her grasp, and turned the name over and over in her thoughts, she felt a slow smile return to her face. It did have a pretty ring to it.

Kudou-san looked fully prepared to scold her. He didn't want the woman to have another meltdown from trying to force a memory. "Ayumi-chan-!"

But she interrupted him. "How did you know?"

And the man had to take a second to wonder if she really remembered and that was indeed her name. But based off the humorous twist to her lips, he could tell it was mostly to amuse the small girl. If it really was her name, she didn't know but she didn't appear to be about to argue it.

"I knew it," Ayumi-chan gasped happily. "It's because of your pretty eyes!"

"Ayumi!"

All three heads shot up to glance just before the Kudou manor gates. There were two boys that appeared to be the same age as the small girl and she figured they must be classmates.

"Oh! That's Genta-kun and Mitsuhiko-kun. I'm supposed to be working on school work with them." With that she practically skipped down the front entrance steps towards the two boys. "Bye Shinichi-onii-san! Bye Ran-nee-chan!"

Little girl long gone and now back Kudou-san glanced at her. "That was nice of you."

The woman was still sitting on the couch, violet orchid in her hand as she twirled the stem. "It's not like I had a name to begin with," she shrugged. She couldn't hide the warm feeling she felt though. For once, that she could remember, someone had given meaning to something in her life. Even if it was because of chance that her eyes happened to be the same color of that particular orchid. She had a name with a meaning. She had a meaning.

Her eyes slid over to Kudou-san whom hovered in the doorway. His own gaze shot to the floor and she couldn't really tell but it seemed like his cheeks gained a tint of color. Had he been watching her?

He cleared his throat. "I could get a small vase for that," he suggested looking up at her finally. "Did you want one, Ra-?"

He cut himself off abruptly and this time she was positive he turned red.

She wasn't at all offended by his forwardness. In fact, she felt better knowing that he now had a name for her. She wasn't nameless. He probably felt uncomfortable or rude calling her some child's nickname. "I have something else in mind . . and," glancing briefly at the flower again and back to him, a small grin twisted her lips. "You can call me Ran."