#thought of this post again today. still an all timer

[loulou-land]

Bucktommy | post episode 8x09 and 8x10 prob | slight spoilers, fix-it | 1327 words

(Not 100% happy with this but I’m not gonna agonize over it. And I’m so sorry about any verb tense errors, tried writing in present tense and boy was that confusing. Probably messed up multiple times lol 😮‍💨)

It took some getting used to, living here now. 

No matter how many times Buck had stayed over, how many beers he’d nursed on the couch, how many mornings he’d sat at the kitchen table with Christopher, eating pancakes and how many times he’d cooked for Eddie and Chris in this very kitchen. Living here—calling it home—had been quite an adjustment. 

So much had happened since he moved in, Eddie leaving, the aftermath of Maddie’s kidnapping and the serial killer, that it had been hard to feel comfortable.

But it’s been a couple of weeks, and he thinks he’s starting to get the feel of it. Seeing some of his own decorations hang on the walls, his things spread out all through the house, claiming every corner. It’s definitely not Eddie’s anymore—it’s his. 

And yet, the house doesn’t feel like home. Buck doesn’t think anywhere will. 

Not when home had been a person. And he’d let him slip through his fingers. 

The thought catches him off guard, and he shakes it off before it can take root, pushing it into the far edges of his mind with the other things he refuses to acknowledge. 

Instead, he resorts to his usual way of working—ignoring—his feelings. By baking. 

Unfortunately, he’s also struggling with that at the moment. His new kitchen could use a major overhaul. 

Buck stands there, hands on his hips, surveying the mess of baking utensils and unfortunate lack of counter space with dismay. He sighs forlornly, shaking his head as he slides a batch of snickerdoodles into the oven. Ravi’s favorite. He’s switching over to their shift, stepping into Eddie’s place. 

His heart twinges at the fact, like it always does when he thinks of how Eddie and Christopher are thousands of miles away from him. But he lets it go, they’re where they need to be and it’s not like he’ll never see them again. 

And no one can replace his best friend, but Ravi’s awesome. Buck is excited to work with him again. 

He sets the timer, tidies up the kitchen and thinks about what to do next before deciding on an episode of Forged in Fire. It’s become his new obsession, and now that he has a house, he’s tempted to try forging for real. After all, Buck has discovered you can never have too many hobbies to keep the mind busy. Plus he’s a firefighter, so at least, he’s got the fire safety skills down. 

He’s just settling in on the couch when there’s a flurry of knocks at the door. 

What the hell. 

He’s not expecting anyone today. And certainly, not whoever’s trying to knock his door down. 

Buck rushes to the door and flings it open without checking the peephole. Only to immediately regret it. He would have liked a few extra seconds to prepare for who was on the other side. 

With growing horror, he realizes he probably looks a mess—flour dusted across his shirt, smudges of who-knows-what on his hands. Perfect. Just perfect. 

“T—Tommy?” 

Tommy looks…disheveled. Like he’s run his hands through his hair and pulled on it too many times. His expression goes through a rapid shift as he looks back at Buck—relief, confusion, apprehension, pain—before his features smooth out into something carefully blank. 

“You’re here,” he breathes, like he’s looking at something impossible.

“Uh…yeah.” Buck shifts on his feet. “I live here now.” 

“Oh.” 

Tommy’s face falls before he pastes on a smile. An incredibly fake one. It hurts Buck just looking at it. 

“You moved in with Eddie,” he says, and there’s something in his voice, like it doesn’t surprise him but still there’s hurt behind the statement. It makes Buck’s mind trip over itself. It doesn’t sit right. 

Buck takes a closer look at Tommy now, seeing the slump of his shoulders, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the tight press of his mouth. He looks like he hasn’t smiled in months. 

Actually, he looks…like Buck constantly feels on the inside since the breakup. 

For half a second, Buck feels vindicated. And then the thought settles uncomfortably in his gut, heavy and wrong. No matter how they ended, he never wanted Tommy to hurt. 

He must’ve been silent too long because Tommy inhales sharply, shifting back a step. 

“I should go.” 

He starts to turn, and Buck panics—sheer desperation trying to claw its way out of him—his hand shoots out before he can think better of it, fingers closing around Tommy’s wrist. His skin is warm beneath his palm. It's familiar in a way that makes something pull tight in his chest and his breath hitches. He lets go, already regretting the loss.

“Wait. Please.” Buck swallows hard, almost begging. “I…do live here. Shit, no. I mean, yes—Eddie left?” He cringes at the way it comes out like a question. 

Tommy frowns. “Are you asking me?” 

And god, Buck shouldn't have missed this. Tommy’s dry and biting remarks. But he did. He’s  missed everything about Tommy. 

“No. I meant…” He clears his throat, as he tries to organize his thoughts. “Eddie left for Texas. And well, I took over the rent for the house. It’s—It’s mine now.”

Tommy glances past Buck into the house, taking in some the still half-unpacked boxes stacked in a corner of the living room. His voice is quiet when he asks, “So you didn’t move in with Eddie?” as though he still needs to hear the answer from Buck’s lips. 

“No, definitely not.” Buck huffs out a laugh. 

And then it hits him. His pulse races. He’s talking to tommy. Standing in the doorway of his new place, having a conversation he never thought he’d get to have again. 

For all the times he’s imagined this, about what he’d say if he ever got the chance, he hadn’t believed it would actually happen. Now that it is happening, all the words he’d practiced in his head feel like nothing. Like they could never be enough to encompass the enormity of his feelings. 

But he does know one thing—Buck doesn't want this moment to end. 

“Were you looking for Eddie?” he asks, hoping Tommy will keep talking to him. 

Tommy hesitates before a determined look crosses his face. “I went to the loft.” 

Oh…oh.

“You…you did?” 

“I got there and you didn't answer the door. So I thought you were on shift. Waited a couple of hours, before one of your neighbors told me you’d moved out,” Tommy pauses, his voice going quiet. “They said you'd left LA.” 

Buck’s stomach twists in a flurry of nerves, mixed with something warm. Something that makes his heart pick up speed and his breath hitch. Tommy had gone looking for him. 

“You came to ask Eddie about me?” 

Tommy chuckles, embarrassed. “I didn't even stop to think. The next thing I knew, I was in my truck and making my way here.” 

Buck exhales sharply, the weight of the past couple of months pressing against his ribs. And suddenly, he wants. He wants so much to talk, to fix things, to get another chance at this. He’s still nervous, still scared he’ll be rejected. But he plows ahead anyways. 

“Do you—uh…” His voice wavers, but he pushes through. “Do you want to come in? Maybe continue talking?” He tries to keep the hope out of his voice, knows he failed. 

But he’s trying to be careful, not to push too hard. Because if Tommy leaves now, he doesn't know when, or if, he'll even get another chance like this. Doesn't know if he can take Tommy walking away from him again. 

Yet Tommy doesn’t look like he’s planning to leave. Not anymore. Since knocking on his door, something in him has softened. His shoulders are looser, his eyes brighter and his mouth has lost the tightness it had. His lips twitch into a small, hopeful smile. It's not his Tommy smile. But Buck thinks he can get it there. Wants the chance to try. 

“Yeah,” Tommy says, voice quiet but determined. “I’d like that.” 

Buck’s breath stutters for a second before he grins wide, stepping aside to let Tommy in. Into his house. And hopefully, back into his life.

[bluebirdsfeathers]

Cookies

Relationship: Wanda Maximoff x fem!reader

Summary: angst and fluff :) Reader tries to bake Wanda some cookies but her emotions bubble over when things don’t go to plan. Good thing Wanda is there to make it all better.

Tw: negative self talk, minor injury.

Word: 1k

A/n: i really wanted to post wayyy more this month but i ended up back in hospital again :/ i started writing this weeks ago but it’s finally done.

This week had been exhausting. With December arriving the deadlines for your assignments were drawing closer. You had several projects that would need turning in soon, most of which you hadn’t even looked at yet. The stress was mounting inside you and what wasn’t helping was the absence of your girlfriend. Wanda.

She’d been pulled away on a mission leaving you alone for the past few days. You missed her deeply. She had sent you a text about the most recent battle making your struggles pale in comparison. The safety of humanity vs an end of term paper wasn’t something even worth debating.

So you didn’t mention it. Besides she was coming home today so you spent the day cleaning; making sure Wanda could relax and put her feet up as soon as she got home to your shared apartment. You’d gone grocery shopping and picked up some fresh flowers as well as ingredients to bake her favourite double chocolate cookies.

As you scrubbed down the bathroom counters all you could think about was your work. An attempt was made to start a project but you didn’t get very far. All the staring at a blank word doc had done was give you a headache. You were so lost in thought of your earlier failure you hadn’t registered the kitchen timer going off.

“Fuck!” You said after checking the time seeing it had been two hours since you put the cookies in the oven. You hurried to the kitchen after smelling the burning. Stupidly you opened the oven door, momentarily blinding yourself as a cloud of smoke engulfed the room setting off the smoke alarm.

“No no no…” Wanda would be home soon and you’d ruined the surprise. Too busy thinking about your own problems. There wasn’t enough time nor did you have enough ingredients to bake another batch. Everything was going wrong today. You couldn’t do anything right. Frantically waving your hands about you tried to clear the smoke. The alarm yelled at you for your mistakes. Its noise stopped you from hearing the front door open.

“Y/n?!” Wanda rushed to the kitchen after seeing the smoke, worried something was on fire, but all she saw was you frantically waving your hands around. She smiled slightly before using her magic to clear the air.

You jumped and quickly spun around as you realized who was there. “W-Wanda!” Instinctively you reached for the tray of cremated cookies, wanting to hide the evidence but forgetting they would still be hot. The hot metal tray burnt your skin and you let out a paid cry.

“Baby no,” Wanda looked concerned as she hurried over to help, “shhhh it’s okay.” She took your hand in hers as she used her magic to heal you but the damage had been done. The small burn had opened the flood gates and weeks of stress began to pour out.

“Does it still hurt?” Wanda asked as you started to cry. You shook your head no. “Whats wrong baby… tell me.” You lean back on the kitchen counter sliding down to the floor. Wanda sits next to you.

You felt silly crying like this. Face red, eyes squeezed tight, loudly sobbing in front of your girlfriend. Frustrated and angry at yourself for not being able to function like everyone else. Wanda looked at you with nothing but concern. “Baby please tell me whats wrong. Are you hurt? Do you not feel well?”

“Just… college work,” you manage to squeeze some words past your sobs. “Been stressed…” You felt embarrassed telling Wanda you’re stressed. She just got back from a life threatening mission and here you are complaining about your stupid day to day life. What you were going through was nothing compared to the dangerous, life threatening, world ending—

“Hey! Your life isn’t stupid.” Wanda interrupts your thoughts catching you off guard.

“No mind reading!” You shot back after you realized what she was doing.

“Sorry baby,” She said guiltily, “but the other half of that deal is be honest with me. I know I was busy but you can still tell me if something wrong.” Wanda looked up at the attempt at cookies and back down at you. “You’re so selfless baby. You did all this for me even when you felt like this?”

You flop over onto your side and pull your legs to your chest, hiding your face. “Doesn’t matter I ruined it. I’m the worst girlfriend ever.”

Wanda laughs, “oh? You’re the worst girlfriend ever are you?”

“…yeah”

“I don’t know, i don’t think the worst girlfriend ever would clean the whole apartment top to bottom, buy fresh flowers and bake my favorite cookies all while dealing with so much else.” You sit back up and see Wanda staring at you with so much love in her eyes it makes you tear up all over again.

“I’m sorry…”

“Shhhh baby,” Wanda pulls you into a hug. “No more apologies. Let’s go cuddle on the couch. Let me take care of my favourite girl.” She pulls you up off the floor and carries you into the living room. You love how Wanda could effortlessly pick you up. It makes you feel so safe to be held in her arms. She sits down on the couch with you on her lap.

“I can make you cookies tomorrow promise.” You say getting comfortable and snuggling into your girlfriend.

“Okay but we’re going to make your favorite not mine, deal?” Wanda whispers in your ear as she rubs circles on your back.

“Deal.” After a stressful day you feel yourself relax against your girlfriend. Tomorrow would be better.

[mischievousprincess01]

Soap and Dagger

Chapter 1 : A Simple Request

* Originally posted on Ao3 on my account, MischievousPrincess*

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61920601

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

I’d always been one to call superstitious people idiots, but if I was going to start believing in omens, today might be the day. There had been a warm breeze on the tarmac and clear skies as I headed out this morning, but now, slate colored clouds threatened rain. April brought shitty weather everywhere, but London was worse than Virginia by a long shot.

Regardless, the streets were still packed with locals, umbrellas holstered in hand, ready to draw them at the first sign of the storm breaking. I kept my face pointed down, hands deep in my pockets, and the hood of my coat pulled over my head. Soggy shoes and wet hair wouldn’t deter me from a meeting like this, but it wouldn’t make me any happier about the last-minute airfare prices either. At least my heavy boots made me less uncomfortably hot in this climate than back home. But then there was the problem of traction on slick pavement. I shook my head softly as I neared the restaurant.

The Hare and Hound, what a pretentious-ass location. Of course he would suggest such a crowded, central spot for this. The sign above the door was gilded in gold, weather worn letters, and both of the street facing walls were covered in massive glass windows with annoyingly segmented panes. I was certain they’d be harder to see through once the rain really stared coming down around here. I rolled my eyes as myself and four others entered the loud pub at the same moment.

If Price wasn’t already here, I’d be pissed. He’d only been late to one of these things, over two years ago, but I didn’t forget easily. It was due to paperwork, or so he had claimed. The flare in his nostrils had said otherwise, but I wouldn’t bring it up today. Especially not when his message had come from an encrypted server and had been urgent, according to him. That either meant he was about to die or he needed something from me. Or maybe there was a secret third option that hadn’t crossed my mind, but that’d be a goddamn longshot.

I clocked him in a booth near the back of the place, his familiar frame dressed in the casual clothes I’d grown used to seeing him in. A glass of probably Guinness balanced between his hands while his eyes fell on the booth in front of him with purpose. Punctual and predictable as always, which meant he was safe from my ribbing, for now. But depending on what he said to me, maybe I would say something after all.

As I shrugged off my coat, I slid into the booth opposite him. He grinned warmly and I nodded. “Nice bar. Only one exit though. Worried I’ll run?”

Price shook his head and eyed me. “It’s good to see you too.” His warm accent hit my ears and it felt so familiar and nice, I was almost unaware of the teasing in his words. He was avoiding my bullshit already, too; not the best of signs for this. He placed a hand on the table and I stared down at it for a moment before meeting his gaze again.

“Yes, great. Why are we meeting in London with twelve hour’s notice?”

“Can’t we have five minutes to catch up first, Scuff?” he asked, disapproval in his tone.

“I’ll set a timer,” I retorted drily. “Fine. Why are you back civilian side?”

The corners of his eyes pinched as his lips quirked upward ever so slightly as I tried playing his game. “The team and I finished up a pretty important op. I thought they deserved a day or two off to celebrate.”

“Bravo team?”

He swallowed hard and shook his head curtly. “Not anymore.”

That was new. Or maybe not. With Price, it was hard to tell how much his high clearances would let him say. It wasn’t like we traded that kind of information anyway; we could both infer what crazy stuff the other got up to.

“You’re in one piece, so that bodes well,” I continued, wanting to ask, but even with the volume in this place, I wouldn’t dare.

“I am,” he said, taking a long drink.

“It is good to see you, old man,” I sighed, shifting in my seat as the words left my mouth.

He chuckled. “That looked like it hurt.”

“Don’t push your luck, Price.”

There was a lull between us as I struggled to find anything else to add that wasn’t some kind of digging as to why I was here. He checked his watch. “A minute and a half? Your people-skills are getting better every time I see you,” he muttered with an impish grin. I rolled my eyes as a whisper of a grin coated my lips. Finally though, he got to the point, much to my satisfaction. “I called you here to make a proposition.”

I reclined into my seat. “And what is that?”

“I got word yesterday of a situation that is outside the expertise of my team.”

That sounded about right. Anyone higher up seemed to have their ear to the ground and eyes in the sky at all times. I didn’t. That luxury wasn’t afforded to an informant like me. But I preferred looking at the here and now anyway; Price and my superiors could keep their outside intel for all I cared.

“Do you even sleep anymore?” I snorted

“By the looks of it, probably more than you.”

I rolled my eyes. “So, what is the mission, then?”

“Unfortunately that’s need to know. And as of right now, you don’t need to know.”

My brows furrowed. “Then why am I here?”

“To say yes to joining my team.”

I blinked a few times and let out a low whistle. “That’s ballsy. You called me here for an offer you could’ve made over email?”

“I wanted verbal confirmation. And unlike you, I’m not too proud to say I wanted to see how you were, in person.”

His soft spot for me would get him killed one of these days. That was why I narrowed my eyes at him as I took in his words. And perhaps my soft spot for him didn’t help matters either.

“That’s weak,” I murmured, shaking my head. But I cleared my throat and continued. “Really, I’m fine. And even if I wanted to say yes, you know my superiors would throw a fit.”

His smirk appeared as a challenge against my excuse. I should’ve known this man would’ve prepared for that. “I’ve already got a formal request drafted and ready to send as soon as you say the word.”

“Of course you do.”

“And your boss still owes me for a mission I helped with a few years back.”

I snorted softly. “Of course she does.”

There was a lull in conversation, the two of us simply looking at each other. I debated actually ordering a drink as he seemed set on finishing his. I studied the tarnished polish on the tabletop while mulling over the request.

“I’m not forcing you,” he finally said, leaning his forearm on the table.

“I know. You’re cornering me, which is worse.”

He chuckled warmly. “Ah, I’ve missed you, Null.”

I couldn’t help the small grin that swept across my lips for a moment. “Why do you want me so damn bad?”

The way his head tilted to the side, like it was all so obvious, had my ego purring. Goddamn him. “Because I don’t work with anyone but the best. Especially with what I am doing now. I can’t settle for anything less.”

“Say anything more and you’ll be smelling my shit for a month, brown-noser,” I smirked, but only for a moment. His own smile trailed off as he waited.

While I knew the ball was in my court on this, he wasn’t giving me much of a choice in the matter. Whether the desperation he was putting into this was real or fake didn’t matter as much as it should’ve; or would’ve had this been anyone else on the planet. But it was Captain Price, and he knew as well as I did what hoops I’d jump through to help him. That thought soured my mood as I answered, knowing this was what he knew would happen, the cocky bastard.

“I have some conditions.”

He wiped his mustache clean of beer as he smiled knowingly at me. “Name them.”

I blew a long breath out of my nose and sized him up. Setting my elbows on the table, I stated, “I’ll need files on my teammates and at least some sort of overview of what this situation is going to cover. And I want to know for how long.”

“It’s an infiltration and information recon mission. Shouldn’t be more than a week,” he replied smoothly.

“And my squad?”

He shook his head immediately. “Those reports are classified. But you can meet them. Tonight, in fact; they’ll be here in an hour or so.”

I leaned forward a bit more. “One day I’ll be a step ahead of you, you bastard.”

“And what a sorry day that’ll be,” he smirked. “But I can promise you, Scuff, I wouldn’t have these men on my team if they weren’t fully committed.”

Another heavy sigh fell from me. “They don’t know, do they?”

“Was planning on telling them tomorrow,” he said. I nodded, pursing my lips.

“So, just so we’re crystal clear, I have your blessing to have a chat with them tonight? My way?”

He inclined his head, a gleam in his eyes. This was why I tolerated the rest of his dumb games. The fact that he let me do my own work instead of just expecting me to believe him was refreshing. Even if I had already agreed to this secret mission of his, I at least had the agency to do my own checks and balances. No one else treated me so well. I wouldn’t be missing the opportunity.

“Talk to them, see if they’re worth their weight. See if you can see what I see in them,” he urged.

I shook my head for a moment before nodding. “Fine. Fine. But I’m grabbing one of those high top tables instead of this booth. Better vantage point.” And I was up out of the seat before he could respond. All he did was chuckle as I hopped up into the seat just as a rowdy group of girls decided to leave.

Neither of us looked at each other as the next forty five minutes ticked by, but we didn’t have to. Even though I had nearly nothing to go on, I knew what I would need for a mission like he had described. Thankfully I had packed ahead as if I had known what kind of spur-of-the-moment man Price could be, so I had most of my things at the secure base my organization held in London. I busied myself by nursing a stout while doodling on a napkin and pretending to scroll on my phone like a majority of the other people in the pub.

Only when Price headed outside did my eyes flick up toward the door. He hadn’t even told me how many men were on this task force of his. For all I knew, it could be two or twenty. It didn’t matter, though. I’d clock them all and he knew that, too. Hell, it was probably one of the other reasons he wanted me. If I was one thing to a fault, it was loyal. Only he knew it was out of necessity, not respect, though. I hoped his team were the same for their sake.

There were three of them who walked in with Price. The small number lent credence to his comment about only tapping the best of the best and I kept that in mind. Where I had expected to see the swagger of confidence, I only saw poise. They took up only as much space as they needed, with none of the bravado of younger, less seasoned recruits I’d had the displeasure of working with in the past. Even as they all sat at the bar, the only faux pas committed was by the tallest one of the group.

His baseball cap stayed squarely on his head, along with a black mask that covered the bottom half of his face. I could assume he wasn’t going to be drinking tonight. And by the way his head stayed on a constant swivel, I also guessed he was the covert op lead of the team. Not that his counterparts seemed any less aware of their surroundings, but the way his dark eyes kept passing over me and every other person here would have been chilling had it not been so familiar to me.

The next man, the one closest to Price, laughed as he elbowed the masked man and his smile seemed to pull his team in toward him. The stories Price had been able to tell me of his escapades were harrowing enough to know anyone working for him was scarred just like me. So for that man to still have a nugget of happiness that big inside him, he was either hiding something, or was actually that good of a person. I tended to believe the former.

Price tried to catch my eye but I looked down into my nearly empty glass instead. I didn’t need to watch him try and play mind games with me; I wanted eyes on his final man. The one with the little mohawk that made me want to snort in laughter.

How he thought that was a good hairstyle was beyond me, but maybe with a few good jokes I could spare myself of having to look at it for the rest of the week. Even with that ridiculous style choice, he was the last one who drew my eye. Not because he wasn’t interesting, but because his form was the most relaxed. One foot was propped on the crossbar of his stool while the other lazily hung, seemingly swinging absentmindedly as he watched his squad. When he turned to the side, granting me a view of his side profile, only laugh lines and an easy grin were displayed. He seemed to truly be soaking up Price’s opportunity for celebration.

Mohawk reached around Mask to clasp Smiles on the shoulder and let out a hearty laugh I could hear over the din of the pub. Something was tossed out in a Scottish accent before the four of them laughed together. In my mind, a picture was forming. Mohawk seemed like the even keel eldest, Mask took the role of perfectionist middle, and Smiles the youngest and most optimistic.

With that in mind, I tore my gaze away before Mask caught me looking. But even as I aimlessly tapped at my phone, I unfortunately had to admit to myself that they looked close, just like Price had said. However, I was still vindicated in my skepticism. Looks were almost always deceiving.

So when Price hurried out to take some call, I took the opportunity to move in. The last thing I needed was the old man fucking up my strategies. I left my coat at my table and slid off my chair, empty glass in hand. There was a space beside Mohawk and I sidled up there, waiting for the bartender to see me. But that was the last thing I was worried about as I eavesdropped. I mimicked studying the high-end bottles on the shelves as Mask rumbled out a low muttering I couldn’t catch.

“You know damn well we’re back at it tomorrow,” he said, loud enough I could hear him now.

“Tomorrow? Nah, mate. Tonight. You saw how fast he ran out of here,” Mohawk shrugged. He leaned back at the same time and accidentally bumped into my side with his back. I jumped and looked at him as he spun around to see who it was he’d run into.

“Sorry, ‘bout that, mate. I…” there was a soft pause as he laid eyes on me, but it was over fast. “I didn’t see you there.” His dark, thick eyebrows shot up as an apologetic expression took over his features.

“It’s alright, I kind of snuck up on you,” I said, putting on an easy smile. I’d thought about keeping my American accent, but decided to slip into a southern London one instead.

“Nonsense. I’ve got to be more aware of my surroundings,” he grinned. Wow, what a disarming smile it was. I returned it, trying to squint in a way that made me look charmed.

I turned a little more to the side to talk with him and watched as Mask went almost fully still. He was listening so intently to me; I was getting a two-for-one deal now. If I wasn’t on duty, I would’ve chuckled at just how protective he seemed to be already. Mohawk’s eyes stayed trained on mine as I gave him my full attention.

“So, what’s a Scotsman like you doing in a little place like this?” I asked.

He took a sip from his glass. “Ah, just a business trip.” A decent lie; delivered well, too.

I let my amusement show through as I replied, “I’ve never seen a businessman with a mohawk like that before.”

Smiles let out a bark of a laugh at the line, all the while Mask leaned forward slowly, his eyes narrowed at me. I kept my gaze turned to Mohawk, though, as if fully intending to lay on more lines. He chuckled a bit and his nostrils flared as he sized me up. He was aware I could play now.

“My company’s pretty lenient.”

I let my teeth show as I grinned back. “And they let you drink on a Sunday night with the lads? Lucky man, you are.”

He rested his arm against the bar top, seeming to settle into the conversation. But something about the way his shoulders tensed made me wonder if I was striking some nerve with my questions. That was all I needed to see to decide to keep pressing on that line.

“So, what amazing company is this, then? What do they do?” I asked, just as the bartender came over. He gestured to my glass and I nodded, passing it to him with a smile.

“It’s a subsidiary of a larger organization. We handle more specific dealings than the parent company,” he said, staying vague but maneuvering well. Quick with his words for a field ops guy. I was a little impressed.

“Like?” I pressed, the word long and drawn out as I leaned in.

“We’re on the HR side. Talent acquisition and whatnot,” Smiles butted in. I leaned over and gave him a wide grin.

“All three of you, then?”

He nodded, lies falling from him just as easily. I hated to admit it, but I was liking these three quite a bit. Or, maybe liking is a bit too strong, appreciating their game was more appropriate. “It’s the Lockheed company. They make heavy weapon parts, we hire the people who actually work there.”

My eyebrows shot up and I nodded, impressed. He had expertly spun a pretty airtight farce. It’d stop most other questions of a random girl at a bar, so I played that role.

I hummed, smirking softly. “An office filled with guys who look like you lot? Are they hiring?”

“Not at the moment,” Mask said, shutting that down hard.

I nodded, swallowing hard and letting out a soft chuckle. “Well, do any of you have a business card or anything?”

“Ah, not on us now,” Smiles said, looking more apologetic.

I turned my gaze back to Mohawk. “Maybe I could just get your number then?”

“Sorry, lass,” he said, his expression finally falling into one of seriousness, “we’re just looking to have a nice night out before we get back to work tomorrow. No time for anything else.”

I shrugged, looking him up and down once. “Your loss, mate. Have a good night, then. And bartender,” I waved, “their next round’s on me.” I grabbed my glass and sauntered back to my table, hopping back up into my chair as if nothing had happened at all.

Price walked back in a few moments later, but I didn’t look over to see how the three men reacted to his presence. I’d already gotten all I needed. For now, it seemed they were good enough to cover my ass if the need arose, and weren’t going to drool over me, seeing as I’d be the only woman within a decently large radius. I waited another good half hour before squaring up my tab, throwing on my coat, and walking into the downpour outside.

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

Hi! Okay, wow, posting on here is strange! I am super new to Tumblr, but I really wanna get into the communities on here. My need for more 141-lovers is insatiable and would just generally like to make more online friends.

If you know how to actually use this platform and would be gracious enough to point me toward how-to posts or help a girl out, I would be infinitely grateful! Also! If you want more of this fic, I’ll be posting it here, but it is also almost done over on Ao3. My username is at the top of the post.

Thank you for reading and not minding my formatting!

[tyinghershoe]

hey hey :) i love ur writing sm!! i was just wondering if u could do a small blurb or fluff fic of what its like to wake up with izuku, like i can just imagine his bed head and how cute and soft it would be

ੈ✩‧₊˚ Wishful Dreaming

Waking up next to Izuku was as soft as his morning kisses.

Pairing: Izuku Midoriya x reader

Genre: Fluff

check out my masterlist!

Izukus' blessing from the higher spirits came tangled in between blue-colored sheets. Everything he ever wanted was in the shape of a twin-sized mattress, and everything he ever needed slept on top of it. It was far too early in the morning, but still, the arms that intertwined with his own awakened him with nothing but patience and love. 

He knew that heaven existed between these four walls - that the only thing separating the boy from reality and divinity was the angel sleeping next to him. So he smiled as he kissed you good morning, something that is necessary when lying next to a beauty such as yourself. 

“Wake up.” He whispers as the softness he feels in his heart spilled in between every syllable. “We need to wake up.” 

Unfortunately for him, it was a Saturday, which meant that you’d do everything you can to stay under these covers for just a few more minutes. What’s the point of waking up and getting out of bed? You’d rather stay right here, wrapped up in him as he kissed you every 5 and a half minutes.

With a sigh, he slowly twists and turns so that he could see you at a better angle. If you’re going to be spending the rest of the morning in this nest, he should at least see you perfectly, this wasn’t hard to do though - you were perfect in every angle. 

After lounging around a moment - 11 minutes to be exact, or 2 kisses if you use that measurement -  you opened your eyes. Now it was you who felt lucky. 

A lazy little smile was the first thing you saw, then it was his eyes, then his dark green hair which was always a mystery to you. Green, untamed, and everywhere - That’s how he’d describe his bedhead. His curls stuck out in every which way, some darker than others as the sun made fun of his frizzy state. However, this was merely an illusion, your lover's hair was as soft as his touch (he thanks your strawberry-scented conditioner for that.) 

“Hi. Good morning y/n.” He blurbed lazily, words splattering into each other as his heart clenched at the sight in front of him. Dearest, he thought, You looked so beautiful. 

You replied with a simple hum, deciding that this moment would be better in your silence, his voice had the effect of putting you back to sleep anyways. He chuckled as he saw your eyelids slowly close and then jerk back open, it was clear that you were fighting the urge to get pulled back into your dreamlike state. He wouldn’t mind really, but he was feeling exceptionally selfish today, and he wanted to talk to his lover. 

“‘Zuku..” You began, “Please just 16 and a half more minutes.” - which means 3 more kisses, but he didn’t know about his unconscious habit that was kissing you in rhythm. 

Izuku sat still for a few seconds and then slowly pulled himself closer to you, thanking his twin-sized mattress for once again being the perfect size. “Only because you asked so nicely.” He sighed, and then he kissed your temple, starting the timer.

-

a/n. Hello, it's been a long time since I last visited this blog (half a year!). In all honesty, I didn't know time could move so fast, but I guess this blog is a reminder of that. Sorry everyone, things just caught up to me - but I'm writing again, so I hope to post frequently on this blog.

follow me on ao3! @tyinghershoe

[i-am-beckyu]

In the Hands of my Tormentor

Yelloooooo! Been a lil bit since I've posted any writing! Been a bit hard getting much written with life and work at the moment but I had this random g/t thought and ran with it to get this lil fic. So enjoy another random oc created for the purpose of this fic lol.

Premise: You've been transported to another world where giants see humans as lesser and have ended up the pet of a Count.

cw: Fear, fear of death, fatal scenes mentioned, panic, mentions of being eaten alive, death mentions (no one dies tho), anxiety, torture, manipulation. Just the opposite of what I usually post lol. wc: 2318

Terror. 

That’s all I could feel as I watched in horror as the giant noble scarfed down their meal. Giant fangs tearing through meat 100x my size, as if it was sliced bread. I forced myself to not react as I heard them swallow, knowing full well should they tire of me- their pet, I may very well be the next one sliding down that wretch’s throat. 

In this world, Giants didn’t see anything smaller than them as intelligent. If you were found, the lucky ones either died or were crushed between teeth as big as boulders like food. And if you think ‘How’s that lucky?! That’s horrid!’ Be glad you’re not the one being digested alive.

But even that was a mercy compared to my fate. 

Every day I tread the thin line of a tightrope; a timer hanging over my head. Forced to live life as a performance, every step perfect in order to please my Master.

“TWIRL!” He’d demand.

“JUMP!” He’d spit.

“SING!” He’d sneer- and I’d do it without hesitation or face death itself.

For as humiliating as it was, being ‘keep’ worthy; even for a derogatory laugh, it was better than being deemed useless and ready for brutal discarding. And with how little manic glee he’d been having with me lately, that may be sooner than not. For if I have no worth, what’s stopping them from doing away with me?

Tonight I was on display at another one of their dinner parties. Parties they threw more to show their class standing and possessions than for company. Sometimes I’d be in a cage forced to sing like a songbird, other times I’d be kept on the table with a ribbon clamped around my ankle to perform tricks or be petted by gloved fingers.

The guests would often have varying responses at my presence.

“Such a rare delicacy humans are and you're wasting it as a pet?”

“What a wretched little thing it is. Why not just eat it and be done?”

“As amusing as it is, why keep it around when it’s a better snack?”

After a while, you learn to tune out the loud voices. It’s just a reminder I’m only seen as food, insignificant, a pest. I only listen to the Master's voice. He’s the only one that matters. I sit just to his right today. The ribbon on my ankle is too tight, and I can feel the way my foot has started to go numb from the lack of blood flow. I look at it absentmindedly, the phantom pain of a blade forced against an angry scar, throbs against the ribbon. Strange I can’t feel my foot and yet still feel the pain of past escapes. I stopped trying a long time ago. Better to submit then endure his sick pleasures again.

I try not to think about the will I’ve given up; the life I’ve submitted to and try to listen to the giants conversing overhead.

Had it not been for the size difference and ignorance to the obvious, the giants were just like us. Take away all the power-hungry madness and torture of the little guy and the giants were just like humans if they were living in a medieval fantasy. Perhaps in another world, I would have been one of the guests…

“Dance, Human.” Master demands, and I stand and let my body move the way I know it pleases the giant. I don’t even think about the steps anymore, I just let myself move as if I were a robot programmed with the steps.

The giants above me laugh, clap and snicker. I know I’ve done my dance right. They’re all talking around the table, some whispering to each other with cruel gazes locked on my form. Others are spitting profanities at me and joking to my Master about making me do more tricks. 

There was only one giant that didn’t seem interested in my suffering. They sat at the opposite end of the table silently, and hadn’t moved much beyond drinking from their cup. I didn’t pay them much mind. One less giant drooling over me was a blessing. 

I let their voices blend together as I continued to move, the only voice I was listening for was my Masters, and I knew he was grinning ear to ear with all the attention on his greatest possession. 

His rare and desirable human.

“Now sing.” He says sickeningly sweet and my mouth obeys as I sing old scales used to warm up my voice whilst I continue to dance.

He never said I could stop.

I don’t know how long this continued for, the time always blurred together with every order and step at these events. All I know is the giants are enjoying it for the time being and all hungry eyes are on me. I will do as they want till I’m so desirable, that Master snatches me away- just teasing the lessers with what they can’t have. I can see the manic glee in their eyes at being so close to myself. I know what they want, and I scold my expression to not let the fear show on my face. 

My legs ached, but I pushed on; my voice wasting away from overuse. Everything was starting to burn from the effort it took to do both. I sang a long high note and began to spin, a bad combo but my brain was on autopilot. How much longer till I collapse?

“Stop.” Master demanded; my saving grace but not by much. I stopped immediately, finishing the pirouette and ceasing my song. I didn’t dare move despite my labored breathing, fully aware that the command wasn’t just for me, for in the corner of my eye I saw it. 

An outstretched white, gloved hand reached for me- and it was not my Masters.

That was all that was said before the ribbon around my ankle yanked me back, sending me tumbling forward as I was reeled in. I kept my head down, biting my tongue to stop myself from screaming as I felt the glazed wooden table burn against my hands and knees as I was dragged. My performance was done. And so was the fool of a giant that had tried to take me. 

Or so I thought.

Giants had tried to take me from Master before that was a given, but I was his snack (as he liked to remind me) and those that had tried to take what was his, had been dragged out shrieking. But this one had the room silent. Someone with a demanding presence other than my Master had the room freeze.

“So Ed,” 

“That’s Count Edwin, to you.” Master spat at the other Giant.

“May I remind you who the Duke is here, Count Edwin.” the Duke replied nonchalantly, taking a sip of his drink. I saw the way the Master's hand tensed at the notion. 

He was irritated. 

Very few had the nerve to undermine him and make it out unscathed. So far nothing had happened to this Duke, which made him a threat.

“I understand you invited me here tonight to make a deal.” The Duke asked.

“Yes, that’s correct.” The grit in the Master's voice confirmed my suspicions. He’d interrupted his showing off. They were treading on thin ice. 

“I wish to put a natural water irrigation system to my crops from the south river. The river in question however, borders the edge of your land and in order for me to utilize it, would require access to your land.”

“And you want me to allow your filthy hands access to my river.” The Duke remarked.

Master's hand tightened on his utensils. Whoever this man was really had the Giant getting into a tizzy, which was never good for me. For all the time that I’d been here, it was very rare that anyone dared to go up against Master, let alone insult him. I felt a slight sense of justice from the thought. Even if it would never be me to do it, at least someone would knock them off their high horse.

I couldn’t help but glance up to see what such a person looked like and was surprised by what I saw. It was the uninterested giant from before.

Just like their attitude, the Giants' features matched their blunt, cold attitude. Jet black, side swept hair and dressed in a navy blue velvet coat, adorned with gold trims and fine sapphires bigger than my head, the Duke- the most regal man I’d ever seen in all my life, was listening to my Master with an icy cold stone stare. 

The man seemed bored of this tedious exchange and I could tell their patience was beginning to run thin as my Master blabbered on and on about the Giants river.

I wondered how long the fire would build behind the Duke’s eyes before their tolerance met its peak, and would put my Master in their place. For once I was glad they paid me no mind.

“I have much gold to offer in return for the river and with the greater yields we would produce, I’m happy to offer 5% of the total harvest.” Master’s smile curled into a grin as they folded their hands. They did that whenever something they wanted was about to go their way.

I averted my gaze back to my feet at this. They always got mad when they caught me staring. How sad I knew what his tells were.

“While your offer is good Edwin, as a Duke with the amount of land I have, your offer is insignificant to me. Why give you access to my river when I produce five times the amount you yield in a year?”

Master lost his composure at that, clearly not expecting such a response. Unsurprising when he acts like a toddler who has never been told no. “Well yes but-” 

“If you expect me to share such a precious resource, I expect a greater sum.” The Duke cut him off. “Or an offer with something of rarity to actually compensate for the price. Something like…” 

No. No, he can’t mean…

The duke took a sip from his cup as if contemplating, but only a fool didn’t know he’d already made up his mind the second he set eyes on me.

“That human.”

The Duke slammed the cup down, hitting the table with a clink as my head shot up and snapped straight to the Duke, my worst fears confirmed reality. The Duke’s ice blue eyes bore into my small figure. If I thought my grubby Master was scary then the Duke was sheer terror. 

His eyes pierced my very soul pinning me in place, and I stared straight back, unable to hide the terror on my face despite the consequences. Though it could have just been adrenaline, I swear I saw their eyes soften when they noticed my expression change, though it did little to put me at ease. His presence was terrifying and it hit me then why the room was so quiet. Why Master was so mad he had no control over this Giant.

This was a man with power.

I knew if I was what it wanted, then no one would be stupid enough to say no twice. Everyone in the room knew what his eyes were locked on. 

“You want me to trade my human, for access to the river?” The Count replied as he dragged me closer, pulling me away from my terror. “That hardly seems fair seeing how incredibly rare and delightful they are. It’s just about bored me enough that I'm peckish. I love to break their spirits just enough that they’re kicking and screaming to the end.” 

At this, I was flung into the air with a yelp before the Count caught me in a harsh grip. I cried out in pain as he squeezed my ribs tight to the point I was sure they’d break.

“It would be a waste to let all this time go to not enjoy them myself.”

“It’s the human or nothing.” The Duke insisted. “You have nothing more that I want.”

I risked looking up at the Duke again, the fire in his eyes seemed to have tripled. “It’s as you said, humans are incredibly rare. Are they truly worth a yearly supply of better income?”

My Masters hand began to squeeze tighter around me and I’m only lucky that the air had been forced out of my lungs enough before I could scream. His anger being directed on the only thing he could control in the moment, only for the pressure to leave as quickly as it came and I found myself falling.

“Deal.” 

And that was the only warning I had before everything flashed a violent white. My whole body was in complete and utter agony and yet I couldn’t even scream. I could feel silent tears dripping down my face as my vision began to dance with black blurry spots. This is where I died.

Everything felt cold, until it wasn’t. 

I felt myself engulfed in pure warmth as careful hands moved and cradled my broken body. I could hear muffled voices shouting and moving before the slamming of a door ceased all else. Dark blobs broke in between the black and I knew deep down I was in the Duke’s hands, but the soft warmth they provided blurred all other judgment. I hadn’t been warm- truly warm since I’d been brought here, and yet somehow I was now at ease. 

Perhaps it was just my mind twisting the truth as a last mercy to let me die peacefully.

“Rest now,” A voice whispered over head as the world faded to black. “I’ve got you now.” 

Funny how my mind could create such a promise after so much pain…

✩₊˚.⋆⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆⋆⁺₊✧

Don't worry, the Duke's actually the good guy in this lol. I have it head cannoned that he fixes them all up and helps them get home.

I may write onto this, I might not who knows! The fact I've written in a different pov to me is wild though! Thank you to squishy, xyz and especially munchkin for beta reading this. (Seriously savior on my grammar qwp) Thank you if you read this far and I hope you enjoyed!!!!

Tag List Link here: @local-squishmallow @brick-a-doodle-do @justarandomsloth @veryfunkycheesecake @munchkin1156 @kayla-crazy-stuffs @da3dm @eiscreme135 @orchid-harmony @the-tiny-lurker @colossal-red @nobodywritingao3 @nata2343 @bad-author777 @crazyfoxgirl10 @guppybubbles

(also side note: other wips are still being written. I am aware JORNOS has not updated in months but it's not been forgotten <3)

[angelicbeaut]

Manifesting An Ex Back (Success Story + Advice! Long Post!)

Recently, I have been trying to apply the law and really distance myself from social media and loa accounts. For me personally, it is a lot of information at once and can be quite overwhelming, although I still enjoy reposting content I find to be helpful to my fellow manifestors. It has done wonders for me to allow myself to watch the law work, and today, I would like to share with you some things that helped me achieve one of my latest achievements, manifesting my ex back after 1 year of no contact. I hope this can help others to continue to be motivated. If you are interested, please read onward!

So, let's start by laying out the guidelines of how I view manifesting:

1. time does not matter. It has no control over if you can manifest anything, and in my head, it does not exist. I simply am unaffected by it, I know that I will have what I want regardless.

2. You are manifesting self. You are not going to get something, this is not a grocery shopping trip to purchase something. You got all the ingredients that you need at home, right in your beautiful mind. Do you have self? Then you have everything you need. Now, take it a step further, are you the "self" that has your ex partner back in your life, or the "self" that doesn't?

3. Everything is you pushed out / There is NO separation. Everything you believe is pushed out into your reality. Do you believe your ex hates you? Then they hate you. Booyah! Do you believe your ex loves you? Then they love you. There is no separation between you and them, there is no separation between you and any of your desires. All you must do is match your thoughts to that desire, and you will have what you want.

4. Persistence is Key. I remember when I first started my journey here, and I hated hearing this. It was like nails on a chalkboard. How long do I have to persist? Why? For what? This is why I will continue to stress that time does not exist, if you hyperfocus on the time passing on this planet, you will never get it. Because your focus is on time, not on your desire. Know that it is done, and it will be.

5. How it happens is none of your business. Read that again. You should not be focused on how am I gonna get to, what am I gonna do, how's it gonna happen. Who cares, quite frankly. Do you want your desire or not? Then want the desire, stop wanting for the in-between, it will happen in means you cannot even imagine. I promise you. It will be so out of the blue you won't even see it coming (more on that later).

6. Dominant thoughts manifest / robotic affirming. I used to believe this was bull, I'll be real. I won't sit here and act like I've always been a robotic affirming girly. However, it's sort of like vaunting but it's just one phrase. Changing your mindset can change your life. It starts by changing your dominant thoughts about your desire, or even about manifesting itself. The easiest way for me has been any time I get a negative thought, I turn on a 20 minute timer and I think or say my desire. It's like disciple. Whenever your teacher saw you disrupting class and they had you continuously write the same thing on the board, that was affirming. We were just too young to realize. Of course it sucks, but it taught us that we didn't want to end up in that position again. I robotically affirm because I don't wanna end up in a reality where I don't have what I want, it teaches me to keep my thoughts on my desire. It also dulls out the negative thoughts from rising, such as the continuous writing on the board dulls the child's want to continue the bad behavior.

My ex and I had officially stopped talking in Auguest of 2023. It was abrupt and feuled by arguments. We were both fed up with our own lives and we could no longer take care of each other. We ended on bad terms and I was in full belief he would never speak to me again and I wouldn't speak to him. I believed he hated me for a good while. But, in manifesting we have have to understand that nothing, and I mean NOTHING is set in stone. All we have is present and even that is ever changing. A simple change in perspective can open millions of possibilities.

Now, On to the Success Story Darling.

The first thing I did was process my anger. I hated him. The version of him that I was manifesting sucked, and I gave myself full right to feel that. You have the right to be angry and frustrated, emotions flow, so let them. Do not hold them, or you hold your state of being and solidify your reality for yourself. You are in complete control of everything, so process what you got going on before you do ANYTHING.

Second, I need you to have a funeral. I need you to kill the version of them that you created. Metaphorically, anyway. Let them pass away, forgive them, let them die from your reality. As a very emotional person who often feels like my emotions are very big and overwhelm me, I now use them to my benefit. I was crying like he had really gone away. Then I decided that a new him, the version of him that had learned from his mistakes, that had taken time to work on himself, the one that loves me, rose in his place.

I decided that I was open to meeting this new him, that I would meet him. That my experience would be completely different, that I would be refreshed. Every time I thought of him or had doubts, I would robotically affirm or sometimes even just tell myself, it is done. My main focus outside of this was changing myself, I changed what my definition of love was, I changed the way I loved myself, I changed the way I thought about myself, I continued to live my life. There is nothing to do, just be.

Before I knew it, Christmas was passing, and so was his birthday, it was the new year and then it was college graduation, and then it was summer. So much time had passed and I wasn't even thinking about it anymore. Of course the sneaking doubts would come but I would know it was done. If I didn't, I would say it was until I felt satisfied in my knowing.

Now, Let's get into how this started showing up in my reality and the final success. :)

1. Hearing his favorite songs/or songs we used to listen to

2. Discovering old music I listened to when I was with him. Like it would randomly show up in my playlist.

3. Dreams. Oh my god he was in my dreams, I was waking up like what is going on.

Remember that these are not your desire, they are manifestations of your ever-solidifying belief (imo) Do not accept it as the end until you get what you want.

The Success

Yesterday afternoon, I was scrolling on my phone, I wasn't thinking of anything really I was just enjoying making lists on Amazon (it's my thing, it's an addiction), and I saw a notification on cash app. I was thinking, oh did my mom send me money? Period! TELL ME WHY I OPEN MY PHONE TO SEE IT IS MY EX SAYING HE NEEDS TO REACH ME. I sat in a feeling of a full circle moment, and at that moment it all clicked. I had persisted. At this point I believed he was coming back and he did. Neither of us have much social media, I had changed my number, I had blocked him on most apps and so did he. I DID NOT EXPECT IT, I DID NOT KNOW THE MEANS AND YET IT HAPPENED. I send him my number and before I know it we are on the phone, he is repeating everything I said to myself, everything I wanted to hear. Even if I could not see the movement, it was always there.

He told me he had never stopped thinking about me, that he had cleaned himself up mentally and had started practicing meditation (again, didn't see that coming, he was not the type) and that he was sorry for everything. He said I was on his mind 24/7, the entire time I was affirming (no separation) he was feeling and thinking the same thing. He had tried finding any possible way to reach me, he was dreaming about me none stop. He prioritized his mental health, he focused on getting better, he became a better person, even though he admits that he is working tirelessly to become his best self for himself.

He said he wanted to see me, and now we are going on a vacation in the next comign months and he is taking me on a vacation to Disneyland on my birthday. Flights, hotels, excursions? Booked. He took out his laptop and immediately booked everything, literally. And we stayed on the phone all night until we got tired, and I just had to write this.

Please persist. Please keep trying. Please don't give up, you are so powerful, even when it seems like nothing is happening, something always is. Check your negative beliefs at the door, and get what you want. And if someone tells you that you can't manifest your ex or you shouldn't, I want you to remember who the god of your reality is. That's you right? Period! So go manifest!

Luv yall sm ♡

Che☆

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

update on the good omens grieving process

Hello hi yes maggots your mascot sacrificial goat here, none of your ominous bloody warnings prepared me for this. On the advice of one of you I took a break from tumblr today so I thought ah, yes, I shall not think about Good Omens during this time. Hahahaha bet. This is a long post, about a series of disturbing good omens moments that haunted me anyway. Proceed with caution.

It was nine hours away, out of which I slept through four.

During the first nap, it became clear how tumblr brainwashed me. You'll never guess what I dreamed of. If you said Good Omens the answer is no.

I dreamed that someone on the television was reading out an audiobook of a nature arts and crafts book I had as a kid. And there were six pages dedicated to praising Neil Gaiman.

So then in the dream I wrote a tumblr post about it saying, "I thought y'all were kidding about the whole Neil being in our falafel thing but goddamn he really is everywhere".

Then, still in the dream, I remembered I wasn't supposed to be on tumblr, so I tried to delete the Neil Gaiman falafel post. Instead tumblr fucking glitched and set the post to 'lo-fi mode'. I kept trying to delete it.

At this point my screen was covered with pop-ups of tumblr yelling at me and a goddamn timer counting down from 41,000 minutes. Tumblr informed me that their 'delete post' function is actually run by BitCoin.

Currently due to their skeleton staff and the fact that this hellsite is held together with washi-tape and queer trauma, they were having negotiations with BitCoin and so I could not delete my post. I tried again anyway and the entire site hung. Then I woke up. This is some @one-time-i-dreamt shit.

The only social interactions I had were with the two irl good omens fans I know, whom I informed that I had finished Good Omens.

One of them sent me an audio clip of him screeching about trauma and six months and children of divorce at the top of his voice.

The other one texted ASMIIII YOU'RE A CHILD OF DIVORCE HOW ARE YOU COPING WITH THE PAIN. Two hours into my tumblr break I was already facing withdrawal and I wanted to sob that's what the maggots call me but that would have led to them saying BECAUSE THAT'S YOUR FUCKING NAME and I didn't wanna descend there yet.

I then went on Amazon and tracked my good omens book package like a creep. I then went on the US Amazon to cry over all the Good Omens merch that I cannot buy and isn't available here.

I then went on Pinterest to look at Good Omens tumblr screenshots. It was all going well until I found a stupid fucking post that said the duration of the song playing in the Bentley during the final fifteen and the duration of the kiss are the same. So he was replaying the kiss in his head before stopping the music.

Naturally, this then made me cry over Crowley. Painfully.

I looked up Good Omens ambiences on Youtube and cleaned a whole half of my desk while an Aziraphale's bookshop ambience played with rain and shit and when the lockdown audio came I smiled again.

And now here I am. Back. In pain.

[dragon-susceptible]

Different Path Taken Ch11: Forgiveness

The second scene of this chapter is what was previously posted as a bonus scene between Skor and Runaan. The first part is that long-overdue talk for Andromeda and Rayla. Fun fact, once put together, they make the chapter exactly 3k words long.

Ram had forgiven her.  Skor had been soft with her ever since the Banther Lodge and her confrontation with the general, apparently considering that experience punishment enough for her lie.  Callisto seemed to be nonchalant about it all, treating Rayla like a team member again with no more guardedness than he used against all of them save for Skor and Runaan.

She had done something very brave and very selfless, and Andromeda just . . . 

Wanted to talk to her friend again.

It just still hurt.

“Rayla?” She asked as the princes settled down to bed and she saw the younger girl finish setting up her own tent. “Can I speak with you?”

Rayla looked startled at the request, her ears tilting back with surprise, and she had to tuck the braid Runaan had given her back behind one. “Now?” She asked.

“I mean, before you sleep.” Andromeda said, uncertain what else Rayla could be busy with at the moment, though she noticed now that her brows were furrowed and she seemed to be troubled. 

“Yeah.” Rayla took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Yeah, we can talk.  It - now’s fine.” 

Andromeda almost started at the very large presence she suddenly sensed beside her elbow as Runaan passed her.  She hadn’t noticed him get up from his tent entrance. “When you are finished,” He said lowly, “Come speak with me, Andromeda.” He looked over at Rayla. “I trust Ram has already informed you of his concerns?” 

His concerns?

Rayla nodded to her father, that troubled look back on her young face.

“Then you may come with her to discuss it or not as you wish.  I’m going to speak with Callisto and Skor before they go to bed.  Find me when you’re done.” Runaan directed the instruction back to Andromeda and slipped away to the other older assassins.

She would get the news out of him when she reported to him after, Andromeda supposed, and suppressed her curiosity for now to focus on Rayla.  She stepped away from her tent, where the princes were resting, and crossed the camp to sit on the rocks nearer Ram and Skor’s tents.  Rayla followed her and perched nearby.

“Rayla . . .” Andromeda trailed off, and rubbed her face tiredly before looking over at the girl. “You did something very brave today.” She said finally. “And I think it was wonderful of you, and I want to be so proud of you for doing it.”

Rayla shrank the longer she talked, and her ears were nearly held flat when she looked up over her knees at Andromeda. “But you’re still upset.”

“Yes.” Andromeda sighed, and adjusted her shorts so that the lines lined up with her tattoos again.

“I’m sorry.” Rayla said dejectedly. “I know I should have just killed that guard, but if I had, we never would have found the egg or started all this.  I don’t know what to think.  But I’m sorry I put us all in danger like that.  I just - I never thought about how afraid humans must be of dyin’, if they don’t know death like we do.”

Andromeda shook her head in frustration. “I’m not angry at you for not killing the soldier, Rayla.  That’s on Runaan for judging you ready when you weren’t.” She said flatly. “I’m angry that you lied about it.  If you just had told us the truth, we hadn’t taken our oath yet.  We weren’t on a timer.  We could have just waited for the next full moon when their guard eased a little, when we had more time to investigate the place; the dragons would have waited.  But you didn’t say anything, we discovered it from the soldier after we were already bound to the mission.  You were going to let us run right into a trap, Rayla!” She cried, spreading her hands. “It’s hard not to feel like you were just throwing our lives away because you didn’t want to face the consequences.”

Rayla flinched. “I didn’t mean to!” She protested. “I asked Runaan - I talked to him about what would happen if they knew we were comin’.  I didn’t know how t’ say it, because I should have been able to handle it, and I wasn’t.  I was ashamed!”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed that you had mercy, Rayla.” Andromeda said firmly, though the whole thing still sat bitterly in her chest. “You have a kind, selfless heart, and it’s what made you that little boy’s hero today.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  I just . . . It hurts that you lied to us.  What did you think we would do?  Did you really think we’d all just kill you?  That Runaan would let us kill you?”

Rayla looked down at the ground, ears pulled flat to her head. “He almost did.” She said softly. 

Andromeda blinked at her, taken aback by the statement.  She’d thought Rayla didn’t trust the rest of them, not Runaan. “What?”

“He said he wanted to speak for me, but he didn’t.” Rayla said, frowning at the ground. “If it doesn’t matter what my mistake led to, it doesn’t matter what he’s said since then.  I know how I feel about him, I know how he feels, but that didn’t matter then!  We weren’t-” She broke off and rested her face in her folded arms, just her eyes showing above them. “I didn’t want him t’be ashamed of me like my parents, an’ then, he didn’t even defend me, Callisto did, and I . . . I was scared, Andromeda.  I wasn’ afraid of dyin’, I was afraid that he hated me.”

Andromeda stared at her, and then looked over to where Runaan was talking quietly to Skor and Callisto.  She couldn’t imagine Runaan hating almost anyone, least of all Rayla. “Has he ever said anything to make you think he could?” She asked, shocked, but concerned nonetheless.

When Rayla didn’t answer right away she looked back, and the girl was picking at her own boots. “No.  It’s not his fault, it’s my parents.  I know they loved me - I thought they loved me.  But they left me for a duty they didn’t even believe in!  What am I supposed to think?  And if they didn’t, how can I expect Runaan to- to be anythin’ but my leader?” 

Her eyes were welling with tears and Andromeda’s heart went out to her despite her anger at the lie.  Oh.  Oh, this lie had nothing to do with the rest of them. “Rayla . . . you sweet child, Runaan loves you more than anything.  I know Skor suggested we kill you, but no one really expected Runaan to agree.  He didn’t.  We weren’t taking his opinion because we know what his judgment is like with you.  He would have defended you, love.  We knew that.”

For once Rayla didn’t even protest being called a child.  She wiped tears from her eyes and stared at the ground. “I’m sorry I lied.  You’re right, I should ha’ just come clean from the beginnin’, but I was so scared my failure would mean I’m just like them.  I couldn’t let that happen, an’ then I just got in too deep and it was too late.  I’m sorry.  I know I was wrong.” She hunched in on herself even further.

Oh, this poor girl.  Andromeda scrubbed her own face tiredly as she felt her own anger and frustration ease.  She was still hurt, but it made sense.  Rayla was only 15, this was her very first mission, and it was so emotionally charged for her.  If it weren’t for how poorly the village treated the children of Ghosts, and how this mission was meant to be a relatively easy strike for vengeance that would have spared her that shame, Andromeda would have thought Runaan foolish and selfish to bring her.  Of course it was going to lead to problems, if Rayla wasn’t quite ready, if she made any mistakes or hesitated even once.  She couldn’t blame the girl for being messed up by her complicated family situation.

“Rayla?”

“Andromeda?”

“I forgive you.” Andromeda said clearly, and watched as Rayla looked up at her in surprise. “I’m still hurt, and it will take time before I’m okay again.  I understand why you did it, but you still hurt me.  But I also see how much my pain matters to you, and I know you wouldn’t do it again.  You might not kill the next person, but you won’t lie about it, and that’s what I was really angry about.  So I forgive you.” 

Rayla gave her a shaky smile. “Thanks, Andromeda.  I dunno if I deserve it . . . but thank ye.  Still friends?” She asked hopefully.

“Yes.  Still friends.” Andromeda leaned over and hugged her, and Rayla clung to her like she was drowning for a moment.  Yes, still friends with Rayla, though she had a few choice words for Runaan.  He needed to know how his distance was fucking with his own child. “You’re a good kid, Rayla.” They just needed to remember how young she really was.  She was of age, with her horns fully grown and stained with their adult patterns, but she was still only 15, with all the turmoil that came with, and young enough to need guidance.  It was easy to forget sometimes when her skill and talent brought her toe-to-toe with Runaan already when they trained.

“I’ve missed ye.” Rayla confessed, still leaning on her shoulder.

“I’ve missed you too, Rayla.” Andromeda hugged her tighter for a moment and smiled at her after letting her go. “And - the others are right.  You did a very brave thing today saving the toad.  I’m proud of you too.”

Rayla gave her a real smile that time. “Thanks, Andromeda.”

Unfortunately, that was about when Andromeda remembered Runaan’s summons.  She glanced over to check where he was, and he was seated a little further from Skor and Callisto, obviously waiting for her.  She’d said what she really needed to say, she supposed. “Rest well, Rayla, when you do.” She settled on saying. “And I’m glad to be talking to you again.  I need to go talk to Runaan.”

“I’m comin’ with ye.  Now that the princes are asleep, I want to hear what he has to say about what Ram said.” Rayla unfolded herself, wiping her face clean, that troubled look back on her face.  Andromeda agreed, puzzled, and met Runaan near the other two, with Ram soon joining them to discuss the younger man’s suspicions.

Andromeda didn’t like the sound of them one bit, but Runaan cautioned against stressing too much and she tried to take comfort in this advice.  In the end, the others were all sent to bed with instructions to take what rest they could get.  Andromeda took the first watch, as the princes were in her tent tonight; she would wake Ram and take his tent later, and the rest of them would cycle through in that manner.  It didn’t escape her notice that Skor never left Callisto’s tent after settling them there, though, and she wondered how that would go when Ram went to wake him for his watch. 

Twenty years of this duty had made Runaan a light sleeper whenever he was outside the shelter of his home hollow - or his husband's arms - and he woke enough to be aware of it when Ram handed the night's watch over to Skor. He blinked through the darkness at them, confused for a moment. Since the addition of the children, they'd all been alternating tents; the princes stayed in the tent of the first watch, and they traded through the other five as the night went on. This time Skor showed his teeth at Ram for even ducking towards the tent he emerged from. Waking up a little further to look, it was clear enough as to why - he had been in Callisto's, and the wounded elf was still asleep inside.

As Skor went to sit on the watcher's perch and Ram obediently backed off and went to sleep in Skor's empty tent, Runaan sighed deep and low and pushed himself out of his bedroll. He needed to talk to his friend.

Skor was silent when Runaan sat down next to him, though he glanced over to acknowledge his approach.

“Callisto?” Runaan prompted softly.

Asleep. Skor signed.

Runaan raised an eyebrow at him. “Your throat?”

Shouting over the water.

“Ah.” Runaan shifted to face him, to see his hands better. “So. Callisto is worth holding a numbing spell over, but when I needed stitches a year ago . . .”

Skor rolled his eyes. “You were fine.” He signed pointedly.

“I am.” Runaan agreed, but tilted his head at his friend. “But that isn't why this was different.”

Skor didn't deny it, just cast his gaze back down from the tree to watch the occasional sign of the tracker they'd picked up over the course of the day. They had finally caught up a bit after night fell, though they weren't too daring getting closer.

Runaan watched him for a moment and then glanced back at the tent, which Skor had shut firmly behind him when he left it. He felt Skor's tension rise when he looked, and gave him another pointed look in response.

“Say what you want to say, Master of Blades.” Skor signed with a flat look through his hair.

Runaan sighed. “You are both very dear friends of mine.” He said softly. “I will not ask for details, because I do not want them if he comes to me. I will not be your go-between. But Skor, as your friend, I have to ask, are you happy?”

Skor looked at him sharply.

“You need connection so much more than he does.” Runaan met his gaze. “Are you certain you're happy with the distance he keeps?”

His friend blinked at him and then looked back at the tent, then at the forest. “You know me well, but he knows me better,” Skor replied carefully. “You are right that I need connection, but I have enough. He gives me the space to be who I am now. Yes, I am happy.”

“Even with the distance he keeps from you?”

Skor closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “He is afraid of leaving someone to grieve. I am afraid of leaving someone I love. We aren't . . . We both need time to change, before we can be more than this, Runaan.”

“You are already more than just friends, Skor. We all see it in how you care for each other.”

“I know.” Skor said, a bit sadly. “But committing is too dangerous for us both. We aren't you, Runaan, or Andromeda.”

It was somewhat true that he and Andromeda were the odd ones out. Most assassins married within the guild, fought and died together, or remained unmated until they had left it. The problem was that Runaan knew how dedicated both Skor and Callisto were to the guild, and knew in his sinking heart that neither would ever leave it. “Will you wait forever for him?” he asked softly. “If you had a chance to retire, to have the family you wanted when you were young-”

“That chance is long gone, Runaan. I lost that dream when I was sixteen.” Skor cut him off with a gesture, and touched his unmarked throat meaningfully. “Even if I left, had children, I would never be able to speak to them, tell them stories, sing them songs, the way I wanted to back then.”

“A voice is not a requirement for fatherhood, Skor.”

“No. But it was part of that dream. My hopes have changed, Runaan. Callisto is worth waiting for. If they are never ready, I will be all right, so long as I have them close to my heart.” He touched the braid that Runaan knew Callisto had placed in his hair. “Maybe one day, my friend. But not yet. We aren't ready.”

Runaan watched his face for a moment, seeing only sincerity, a bit of thoughtfulness, and sighed slowly. “I will not pry further. But things have not changed between you for nearly ten years, Skor. I truly hope you both find peace within yourselves, because watching you is beginning to be painful for me.”

Skor smirked at him broadly. “Now you know how everyone else felt when Ethari moved to the Silvergrove.”

Runaan rolled his eyes, but Skor wasn't done.

“And how Rayla feels whenever he shows to the training grounds with a new scar on his jaw from your horns.”

“Yes, yes.” Runaan's cheeks turned faintly pink under his tattoos and he cleared his throat. “I take your point.”

“Not as much as you take -”

“I'm not listening to this anymore.” Runaan pointedly looked away before Skor finished the sentence, and stood up from the branch. “I just wanted to check on you and this is how you betray me.”

When he looked back down, Skor's smile was a little more sincere. “Thank you, my friend. I am all right, I promise.”

“Good. Will you wake him for his turn on watch?”

“What do you take me for?”

“A man very much in love.” Runaan replied bluntly, and his heart ached at how Skor's smile faded a little and he looked away. “Wake me early for mine, if you insist on letting him sleep. Do not exhaust yourself for him.”

Skor nodded. “I will wake you.”

“Good night, Skor. Moon watch over you.”

Skor replied with an old, traditional sign that meant Moon watch over us all, and Runaan dropped down from the branch to return to his tent. While it comforted him that Skor seemed genuinely content with how things were, he still wished for a resolve to this dance his friends had been doing. They seemed all right, but it hadn’t escaped his notice that Skor never said he was happy. Callisto never did, either.

He couldn’t force them into it, though. He just hoped providing what little counsel he could would be enough.

[gremlintheslut]

Forever theirs

Redone

Chapters 4, 4.5 and 5

(i wanted to make up for missing 2 posts but i would of posted 4 and 4.5 together so heres 3 chapters)

Master list

Chapter 4 safe?

Finn thrusts in and out at an inhuman pace. I feel the coil in my stomach tighten for the 9th time today. We have been doing it like rabbits in my boss's office all day. Then I hear a timer go off. "home time baby girl" Balor utters against my neck and before I know it I'm in well... Somewhere else.

We're laying down on silk sheets, the place looks like a sex dungeon and my mind is going a million miles an hour. "calm down we're at my place" he says as he continues to fuck me. I nod my head and try to focus on how good I feel but the weird stomach feeling is back.

A part of me wants to tell him to stop or to take us to my house but nothing will come out of my mouth. The coil in my tummy finally breaks and I come undone for the 9th time. Next thing I know Finn is painting my walls with his seed. He pulls out and lay beside me. "I know I probably should have asked before I took us here but I think you will have a lot of fun here," he says and I look at all of the toys surrounding us.

I know what he says is true as my eyes lock onto a toy I recognize. "not today baby get some rest your gonna need it for tomorrow" he chuckles before getting up and returning a little while later with a washcloth.

After cleaning me up he kisses me and climbs into bed next to me. "I'll never take another client again" he whispers. I don't know what to say. Obviously he means not me included. I decide to stay silent and try to fall asleep. It's hard to ignore his previous words but after a few minutes, we fall asleep but I can't help but feel upset when I wake up.

I'm home. In my bed. Alone. He has left and I wonder if he tricked me into thinking he cared so he could fuck me and leave. His euphoric effects are quickly canceled out by anxiety and fear. My head is still foggy but I'm no where near happy. this has never happened so quickly before i never knew the euphoria could leave so fast. I Get ready for work and check the date to make sure it wasn't all a dream. it wasn't. All of it was real and I guess I'll find out if he really cares today.

He hasn't gone a single day without popping up and fucking me or at least trying to. When I get to work I'm shocked that my boss isn't waiting for me so she can ridicule me. Then I'm even more shocked to find out that everyone is looking for her.

The last time anyone heard from her was yesterday when I was in her office for half the day with the door locked. The only excuse I can think of is that she was screaming at me for violating the dress code and wouldn't let me flaunt myself around the office so I had to stay with her the whole day.

I told everyone that story and that she looked pale and she might be sick and being her normal bitchy self by ignoring everone. The whole day I can't stop thinking about what Finn said. He was sure she wouldn't be back soon. What did he say to her? What did he do? Those thoughts distract me for most of the day until I leave my desk to go to the bathroom. Usually, Finn would pop up and try to have a quickie in a stall but he doesn't.

He hasn't shown up at all today. Or maybe he has and I haven't noticed. No. I would know. he hates being ignored and he wouldn't leave me alone if I didn't notice he was there. Wait. He hates being ignored. This could just be pay back for not saying anything last night.

Then the tears fall as i think of how stupid i was to say yes. Then i know this isn't pay back. If he wasn't a liar than he woupd pop up to comfort me. He'd never want to make me this sad. I was right. He used me and now my boss is missing and people might think I did something to her. No one saw me or her leave. I am filled with anxiety, sadness, and confusion. I wipe the tears from my face and leave the bathroom.

Warning: omorashi(piss kink) there will be an alternate version after this

The second I sit back down I realize that I didn't pee and I need to go pretty badly. The office is full and everyone would notice if I got back up. I sit silently squeezing my thighs together. The need gets worse and worse but my shift is almost over and it is nowhere near an acceptable time to go back to the bathroom.

I might actually piss myself on the walk home. I check the time and I can finally leave. "hey y/n can you stay a little longer?!" I hear the co-worker that's covering for my boss call out. "no!" I reply quite loudly and scramble to the door.

I get out of the building and begin to run. Then I leak. A decent-sized wet patch is left on my panties and I'm forced to slow down. At this point, it's dribbling out of me and I hobble as fast as I can into the ally I use as a shortcut. Another spurt comes out and it goes down my legs.

Then I bump into someone knocking me down and making me lose control for a few seconds. I'm sure there's a wet patch on the butt of my skirt. "you alright there love?" I hear a very familiar voice say. One I've been wanting to hear all day but suddenly want to be left alone by.

He's been watching I know he has, he always does before he pops up. There's no way he doesn't know I'm about to piss myself. He grabs me by the arm and pulls me up. He is holding most of my body weight as my legs are shaking and I can't keep myself up. My face is red and I grab onto the wall with one hand and push Finn away with the other.

He lets me and steps aside as he watches me try not to release the liquid in my bladder in front of him. I keep trying to hobble down the ally with my hand pressed hard against my cunt eyes glued to the ground.

He creeps up behind me and grabs my right leg bringing my knee to chest height. I use both of my hands to hold myself. But he moves his hand from underneath my knee and replaces it with his inner elbow. Now both his hands are free he can restrain me properly. "no" I whimper out as I lose control again for a few seconds but I can barley gain control. There's a mini puddle growing beneath me.

I hear a chuckle in front of me and I look up. There are three people in front of us watching me piss myself slowly. 2 men and 1 woman. The woman gets up from the crate she was sitting on and walks towards me. She has a big grin on her face as she stares at my terrified one. She has sharp fangs and I know immediately she is Rhea. I take notice of the fact she's as pale as a ghost.

She puts her hand out and her fingers poke at my bulging bladder. Her smile widens her fangs more visible as she watches drops of piss go down my leg and into the puddle. I can hear the 2 men laughing at me but I'm too scared to look at them. I can hear Finn laughing at me too.

I squirm and whine as she puts more pressure on my bladder. I can tell they love what they see but I haven't gotten a single confirmation from Finn that I am safe. I think about my missing boss for a second before I'm brought back by the feeling and the tall woman's palm squeezing my bladder.

I lose control fully and for 2 whole minutes, I pissed and moaned at the relief. Whilst They all laugh at me.

Words-1408

Chapter 4.5 safe? Alt

Finn thrusts in and out at an inhuman pace. I feel the coil in my stomach tighten for the 9th time today. We have been doing it like rabbits in my boss's office all day. Then I hear a timer go off. "home time baby girl" Balor utters against my neck and before I know it I'm in well... Somewhere else.

We're laying down on silk sheets, the place looks like a sex dungeon and my mind is going a million miles an hour. "calm down we're at my place" he says as he continues to fuck me. I nod my head and try to focus on how good I feel but the weird stomach feeling is back.

A part of me wants to tell him to stop or to take us to my house but nothing will come out of my mouth. The coil in my tummy finally breaks and I come undone for the 9th time. Next thing I know Finn is painting my walls with his seed. He pulls out and lay beside me. "I know I probably should have asked before I took us here but I think you will have a lot of fun here," he says and I look at all of the toys surrounding us.

I know what he says is true as my eyes lock onto a toy I recognize. "not today baby get some rest your gonna need it for tomorrow" he chuckles before getting up and returning a little while later with a washcloth.

After cleaning me up he kisses me and climbs into bed next to me. "I'll never take another client again" he says. For a moment I'm shocked. Obviously he means me excluded. I don't know what to say so I jsut try to fall asleep. Of course it's hard to ignore his previous words but after a few minutes, we fall asleep but I can't help but feel upset when I wake up.

I'm home. In my bed. Alone. He has left and I wonder if he tricked me into thinking he cared so he fuck me and leave. The euphoric feeling he gave me is quickly canceled out by anxiety. My head us still foggy from it but I'm no where near happy. I never knew the euphoric feeling could leave so fast. I Get ready for work and check the date to make sure it wasn't all a dream it wasn't. All of it was real and I guess I'll find out if he really cares today. He hasn't gone a single day without popping up and fucking me or at least trying to.

When I get to work I'm shocked that my boss isn't waiting for me so she can ridicule me. Then I'm even more shocked to find out that everyone is looking for her. The last time anyone heard from her was yesterday when I was in her office for half the day with the door locked. The only excuse I can think of is that she was screaming at me for violating the dress code and wouldn't let me flaunt myself around the office so I had to stay with her the whole day.

I told everyone that story and that she looked pale and she might be sick. The whole day I can't stop thinking about what Finn said. He was sure she wouldn't be back soon? What did he say to her? What did he do? Those thoughts distract me for most of the day until I leave my desk to go to the bathroom.

Usually, Finn would pop up and try to have a quickie in a stall but he doesn't. He hasn't shown up at all today. Or maybe he has and I haven't noticed. No. I would know he hates being ignored and he wouldn't leave me alone if I didn't notice he was there. Wait. He hates being ignored. This could just be pay back for ignoring him last night. No if it was pay back he'd be watching and he'd pop up when he noticed how upset i was.

Then the tears fall. I was right. He used me and now my boss is missing and people might think I did something to her. No one saw me or her leave. I am filled with anxiety, sadness, and confusion. I wipe the tears from my face and leave the bathroom.

The day passes slowly. I finally get to go home. The walk is lonely and I keep getting the weird stomach feeling. I turn into the alleyway where all of this bullshit started and I fight off the urge to turn around and take the long way home. Then arms wrap around my waist. "miss me, princess?" the Irish voice reaches my ears and for a second I am happy before I remember everything about today.

I want to pry his hands off and slap him. Then a second set of hands rest on my shoulders. I look up and see a tall unfamiliar woman. "I have been dying to meet you, sweetheart," she says staring into my eyes and smiling. I can see fangs where 2 normal teeth should be and i know this is rhea. I feel one hand leave my shoulder but I am too afraid to look at what it's doing. 

A wet cloth is then placed over my mouth and I try to hold my breath. I feel lightheaded and I am forced to breathe in. Then I feel relaxed and weightless. My knees buckle and the 2 sets of arms catch me. I am slightly aware of 2 other people standing near us. I close my eyes and they dont open for a while.

Words-933

Chapter 5 unknown and uneasy

I wake up in a small dark room. It's cold but not freezing. I can feel eyes watching me but my body is so sore from sleeping on concrete I don't bother to look. I have been kidnapped. By a demon. of all things a demon. I can't leave. I probably never will.

"I know you awake," a deep voice says unlike Finn's from the corner. I turn my head and look at the man. He's tall as fuck and hairy too. if there was any chance of me getting out of here there isn't now. "what do you want?" I snap. There's no point in being nice they're going to kill me.

"Excuse you?" fangs on the top and bottom if his mouth show. he stares at me and I shrink back. The words 'I'm sorry' get so close to leaving my mouth but I stop them. He continues to stare at me expecting an apology. I turn my head away from his cold frightening eyes. He scoffs at me astonished that I had the nerve to not answer.

I hear him leave his spot in the corner. "let me rephrase that for you-" he grabs me by the hair pulling my sore limbs up. I grab at his hands and he swats me away with the other hand his slightly overly long nails scratching me. "apologize. or. regret. it." he says through his teeth. "I'm sorry" my voice wavers. "I won't say anything like that again." he drops me to the floor. "good bitch" I can hear the smile in his voice.

"This is how this is gonna work," he says grabbing my arm his nails scratching me again and pulling me up. He turns me to face him and he squats down in front of me. "you call me sir or daddy nothing fucking else got it?" he says sternly I nod my head. He grabs a hand full of my hair. "Got. it?!" he says louder. "yes" I squeak. He pulls harder. "yes who?!" he yells in my face and I flinch away. "yes sir" he lets go of my hair.

"you've met Finn properly, i guess you met Rhea but you still need to meet dom" he says "is rhea the woman I saw the other night?" He slaps me in the face. "that's not what you fucking call her you hear me?" he says. "yes sir" I repeat the same phrase from before. "you call her mommy, you call Finn master and you call dom Papi," he says and I nod my head to show him I'm listening.

"you can call any of us daddy we know you're into that," referring to the fact I'm a little. They must have been stalking me. They wouldn't have to for long before they figured it out but still. I can feel my face get hot and I look at the ground. They don't want to kill me. Do they?

I'm hesitant to ask. "sir?" "yes sweetheart?" my stomach churns at the nickname. "are you going to kill me?" I ask the question. He chuckles. "we don't want to. We really don't but, if you become a problem we can't just take you home" I look at the ground again. He puts 2 fingers under my chin and lifts my head. "we'll take good care of you" he says. Then he leans in and kisses me. I don't kiss back. I don't pull away I'm too scared to.

This is my life now. All the way until the end this is what it will be like. My eyes glass over with tears. When he pulls away he sees my fear and looks at me disappointed and seemingly disgusted. I try not to let the tears fall. I really do. But they fall. I cover my mouth with my hand as i begin to sob. But when Damian sees this he does something unexpected. He sits down, pulls me into his lap, and hugs me. HUGS. ME.

I'm sorry but what the actual fuck is going on. I cry harder and try to pull away. He holds me still and shush's me. Then the door opens.

Words-732

I know this is the shortest chapter yet sorry love ya-gremlin💞💋💗

[alyxmakesthings]

Over The City Chapter 3

Still nailing down how I want to post these on here but I will be posting the chapters to read below a cut from now on.

Summary: You’ve spent all week getting ready for tonight. You just hope you can find the turtles on your first try without too much fuss.

WARNING! Graphic depictions of violence in this chapter! I will put this up,‼️, at the start and it goes till pretty much the end. Also the use of the c-word in a derogatory manner.

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Raphael (TMNT)/Reader, Raphael (TMNT)/Original Female Character(s) Characters: Reader, Original Characters, Raphael (TMNT), Leonardo (TMNT), Donatello (TMNT), Michelangelo (TMNT) Additional Tags: Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reader-Insert, Fem OC Reader, Post-Movie: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2022), Aged-Up Character(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Human/Turtle Relationships (TMNT), Neurodivergent Reader, Slow Burn, Named Reader, no beta we die like gram-gram, Casey Jones sighting!

First thing Monday morning, as the Sun’s rays barely crawled through the city, you awake ready.

‘Can’t freeze like that again.’

Jumping straight out of bed you change into your workout clothes first thing, opting to put on compression shorts under your usual workout gear. They were supposed to have ‘moisture wicking whatever’ and with how much you planned on doing today you were gonna need it.

Thanks to being consumed in research you hadn’t thought too much about what could’ve happened that night.

They had saved your life and didn’t even know it.

The buzzing excitement from your plan to see them again would hopefully carry you through the gym.

Entering the kitchen you find that your mother had in fact come home at some point yesterday. You could hear her getting ready all the way out here and her bag now occupied its usual spot on the island.

Wanting to avoid dealing with; that. You throw some frozen breakfast in the microwave, staring down the timer like the seconds can go by faster. The noise from down the hall gets quieter as it gets closer to zero and before the beeping can alert her to you being up. You open the door.

A quick finger test confirms that it still has a chill but isn’t frozen. However the sounds had completely stopped so lamenting a cold breakfast you throw it together and sneak out the door.

The elevator ride up to the building’s gym is dead but when the doors open the bustle of the room hits you.

‘So early.’

Logically you knew you couldn’t be the only early bird in the world but the unusually high number of people being here so early, on a Monday. Was annoying.

The gym already had a slight air of sweat as you moved through finding a corner to do some warm up stretches. Avoiding the trainers on staff who were busy with other residents’ needs.

‘Perks of it being busy.’

Putting in an earbud and setting a playlist with more pep in its step. You move through the basics every PT here had you run everytime you came. Mostly just to say you did.

The peace you had found for yourself was shorter lived than you’d hoped as you found Manny making his way over.

‘Ah, hell.’

You usually had the drive to deal with Manny. Today however you really weren’t sure.

The dude was like a fucking dog with a bone and despite being younger than you, Manny often acted as if he had walked the Earth longer than Cartaphilus. Even being in a good mood didn’t make dealing with his ‘corn syrup’ voice that much easier.

“Hey Sera!” He calls to you and waves like you hadn’t already made eye contact, the most basic of social contracts.

“Oh Manny, hi.” You keep your tone even and light. After a lifetime of practice it was an easy feat and Manny continued his approach.

“Look at you sneaking in here.” You often wondered if his smile ever reached his eyes.

‘I came in the front door!’ SHOVING THAT DOWN.

“Uh, right. Sorry.” You remove your ear bud. He was always extra loud if you had it in even if you could hear him at his normal volume just fine. “I saw that y’all were busy and I didn’t want to be a bother.” A half truth. You didn’t want to be bothered, but here he was. Bothering you.

“It’s no worry we are all here to help after all.” Your mouth had a bad taste from the interaction already and with everyone else being busy. You knew you were about to be stuck with him.

‘Fuck.’

The rest of your morning in the gym blatantly fucking sucked. You were sure Manny was an energy vampire the way he sucked the fun out of everything. It was made worse than that, since in a form of payback for a seeming slight against him. Manny wouldn’t let you get to your allowed limits in the gym. Always cutting you short by putting his stupid gel stuck Ken-doll hair donned head in your space.

With breakfast growing further away and Manny having once again interrupted your flow on the stairs. You call it quits. He takes it upon himself to badger you all the way to the door about what to do, ‘post work out’ like you’d never done it before.

‘This fucking guy.’

Facing away from him you get away with an eye roll. “Thanks Manny! I appreciate your help today.”

‘LIAR.’

“It’s no problem.” He waves away something in his imagination using his hand before continuing. “Just don’t forget to get one of us in the future.” It was a clear and thinly veiled threat you had no choice but to accept.

“Of course. Sorry.” Your voice had fallen and he seemed satisfied. Finally leaving you alone.

Back in your apartment you first do a quick check to make sure you’re actually alone. Fuck Manny and his ‘post work out’ shit.

‘That was just a warm up.’

It was harder to reach your goals without the use of proper equipment but with the power of the internet. You figured you would be just fine.

The rest of your morning was hand walks, push-ups, planks, and fucking burpees because you apparently hated yourself.

‘A necessary evil.’

If your inner monologue could be less right. That would be great.

Taking a break at noon, because you collapsed. You decide a snack and a break would be a good idea. Muscles screaming as you push yourself up off the floor into a sitting position.

You give yourself a moment to stretch some of the soreness out of your legs. At least enough so they aren't jelly and you're able to walk to the kitchen for food.

The rest of the afternoon is going over all of the different self defense videos you had been using. The early oranges and pinks of the Sun beginning to set brought you to the fact that.

Well to put it nicely, you kinda stunk. The day's worth of shitty inconsistent working out. Still left a layer of sweat you could feel, everywhere.

The shower was relaxing and greatly soothed the hard worked muscles of your body. Hot water beating your back and shoulders lulling you into a standing sleep.

‘Tired…’

The thought didn't drift in out of nowhere. You didn't even stay up long enough to see if any one was home.

Food being the furthest thing from your mind. You opted for pj's and the comfort of your bed, crawling in for the night.

—

The rest of the week played out in a very similar manner.

Wake up.

Breakfast.

Gym.

MORE WORKING OUT.

Food.

Then ending with your bad replication of self defense moves.

Thursday you had been lucky enough to avoid Manny and got Agnes instead. The older woman was doing great for being almost seventy. She could run circles around most of the gym attendees and even some of the other trainers.

That being said, when Friday does arrive you wake up early as sin.

“Whyyyyyyyy?”

You hadn't planned on really working out today in order to avoid being too tired tonight. But clearly your body had other ideas. Waking up tired is a whole new layer of low.

So not being ready to face the world you take the comforter off the bed with you as you get up. The eiffel tower design warping around you as you settled into your desk chair.

Finally unplugging the device that had been high-jacking your desktop for nearly a week to enjoy yourself with something relaxing. You had been too preoccupied worrying to find the focus to do anything other than plan. So a day spent easing the lingering soreness that had yet to fade sounded amazing.

‘Can't do anything if you can't move.’

The internal you had a good point.

You'd worked hard after all. So taking a break today before you go out would be fine.

You lose track of time as your fingers dance over the WASD keys. The rhythmic clicking and game's BGM lulling you from time.

Until your stomach let out a deafening growl that drowned it all. You guessed you had skipped the normal coffee ritual so it made sense you were hungry so early.

Taking a break you retreat to the fridge and throw a tub of crazy leftovers your dad had brought home from a fancy dinner in the microwave. Texture be damned, you needed food.

Returning to your computer you continue playing in between bites. You burn through most of the day that way.

As the evening draws closer you decide to take a hot bath to work out the last little kinks in your muscles. Massaging as many muscle groups as you could reach. The tension not leaving completely but it still left you in better shape than you had been.

Plain jeans and a t-shirt are sat on the counter along with your underwear. You dress from the waist down pausing when you realize your error.

‘Bra.’

“Oops.” Leaving your bathroom with the shirt you open a drawer to grab the top most sports bra and a pair of socks.

You sit on the bed and kick the black chucks out from under the edge as you finish getting dressed.

You finish the ensemble off with a grey hoodie you had picked up from a thrift store not too long ago. The perfect ‘grey man’ outfit.

Going over to your shelf of old kung-fu DVDs you pull out a small wooden box from the back and open it. The knife inside was small and light, you barely felt its weight in your pocket as you dropped it alongside the paper you had there.

Double checking that the apartment was still empty, as it had been all day, you make your way out the door and down to the lobby. Taking advantage of the influx of people coming home at normal hours from their jobs you slip past Elsa. You both make eye contact on your way out the door but she is quickly pulled back to whatever conversation she was currently caught up in. Allowing you to slip away.

The building was in Chelsea and with it not being too far you decided to avoid public transport and just walk. Even if it was almost completely dark by the time you got there.

As you pass by some alleys that snaked between neighboring buildings you see what looks to be a huge vehicle. The giant thing looked as if it was out of an old sci-fi series, the taxi cab hat tied the whole thing into a perfect little NYC sandwich.

You were certain that even if you had lived here your whole life this place would still find ways to surprise you. This was certainly the weirdest city you had ever been to, period. Aliens invasions, Mutants, and evil-exes were never a problem for you before here.

Snapping a photo you continue on. “Please don’t be a boring stakeout.” You mumble the statement too low for anyone but yourself to hear, but the sudden noise you hear takes you by surprise.

Looking up to where the sound had come from you are greeted with the visage of a figure moving across the roof above.

Walking faster you finally make it to the street on the address. Spying your target you make sure the road is clear and without waiting for the light, you cross.

Whoever was jumping across the roofs had used a zipline to drop on the roof and you had seen at least two figures drop down. One of which seemed big enough to be the turtle that had seen you at Roman’s.

‘It has to be them.’

You try the front door. “Well I can’t say I didn’t try it.”

Making your way to a small alley between the buildings and finding the fire escape to the structure. Much to your chagrin the ladder is pulled up and out of your reach and this had to be the cleanest alley in all of NYC. A commotion comes from inside the building. Sounds echoing out from the upper floors.

“I have to get in there.” Not finding anything useful you continue around to the back where there was a much larger alley way.

Now you were greeted with delivery doors that weren’t in your street view research you had been conducting. A smaller door reading, ‘OFFICE’ also sat down in the dip made to enter the building.

Trying the handle on the office door proved to lead nowhere and the mesh on the window along with the blinds made it impossible to see inside.

You then go to the first of several dock doors and try to see if any of them could be open.

Gripping the handle firmly and squatting you pull up on the thing to no avail.

The next door responded similarly. So you move down again.

“C’mon.” You pull to find another one locked.

“Can I please?!” You grab the next door and pull hard, anger burning through you. To your surprise it gives way under your hands and starts to go up.

“Holy shit.” You let the door go after a firm shove, letting it raise the rest of the way allowing you to look around the dimly lit warehouse.

To your right is the office the external door led to. It was built with a shorter ceiling than the rest of the room and pulling your phone for its flashlight revealed more blinds and meshed up windows. Thanks to the internal door having its blinds raised you are able to make out some desks, of various levels of clutter, and a second internal door to the back of the warehouse.

The main empty space was littered with a few rolling tools carts and a couple of car lifts. Towards the back there were a few rows of shelves whose chockablock nature made it impossible to see through them.

‘Wonder what they do in here?’

Despite all of the car paraphernalia there wasn’t a single vehicle in here. The floor didn’t have the typical stains you expected to see in a garage. Taking a closer look at the equipment you now see that most of it seems brand new and maybe has never been used.

Wandering past a near mountain of poorly stacked crates you find the back of the warehouse has another office space along the back that looks far more bare than the previous one. The room only containing two empty desks and a singular folding chair.

The exploration is soon cut short as you suddenly hear a person approaching, further compounded by movement in the hall through the secondary office space.

‘Fuck!’

You slip away from the window hiding behind the long edge of the shelving row closest to you.

The heavy breathing sounded like a guy and peering around the corner of the wood and metal of the shelf you hid behind confirmed that suspicion.

What you weren’t expecting was for it to be Roman himself.

He looked a little haggard and blood stained the corner of his collar from where it ran down his face. He was breathing hard and staring down the hallway he had just emerged from thankfully not noticing you.

‘How the hell?’

You either had amazing luck or the Gods had finally had enough of your shit.

But it didn’t make any sense. The turtles were here. You knew that had to be them. So how did he get away again? An icy claw made its way up your spine.

‘He’s getting away again.’

Your heart starts beating faster as the lick of panic rises further.

‘That little eel slipped away again.’

Heat. An anger you could typically keep controlled rose so fast within you, that you couldn’t help yourself.

‘Not again.’

This wasn’t going to stand. Continuing to use the shelves as cover, the overstuffed nature in which they were filled greatly helped in the endeavor. Thanks to this you were able to slip back to the main area of the room to cut Roman off.

He stops when he sees you. the mixing emotions on his face leaving you more confident. You give him more than the once over from before checking to see if he had any obvious weapons. Despite him looking clean you keep your guard up.

He looks worse head on, grey suit dirty and the blood on his white undershirt was a long stain that didn't just stop at the collar. The flow from the injury on his head joined a river of blood from another cut on his brow. He looked tired, and you’re sure he knows that as well because he schools himself to now stare you down.

“I can’t let you leave here.” Your throat was dry and your heart pounded, leaving much to be desired from your delivery in your eyes. Your veins singing with fear, ready to move but being held in place as your mind raged.

His face doesn’t change much and he simply nods his head in response.

“I guess you’d think that, huh?” His tone was cold but saccharine. Condescending in ways you knew all too well. He goes to step wide to seemingly walk past you. You move in his way once more.

“I said you aren’t leaving.” You speak it firmer now. The screaming in your head calms some as you focus on your breathing, the claw of fear never leaving.

He stares you down more intently and moves a few more times to show his desire to pass you. You match him each time watching the frustrations grow.

Roman finally seems to let his patience wane as he straightens up to try and look larger, and begins to march right at you. You shift your weight to be better prepared to move in order to defend yourself.

Soon the moment comes.

He lunges for you and you evade even managing to throw a hit that just barely missed. Not giving him the chance to retaliate you pivot on your back foot to deflect his oncoming fist and land the first blow to his face.

The pain that shoots through your hand is dulled by the adrenaline but it still gets your attention.

‘Fuck that hurt.’

The pain must have shown on your face because Roman’s expression shifted further from rage and he scoffed at you. Putting distance between you both. He backs away and you shift to stay locked on to him but wiggle your hand to try and work out the on coming tension.

“Not used to landing hits?” His voice just seemed to egg you on and you could feel the more reasonable part of your brain being drowned out.

Even though most of what you had learned had been about defending from an attacker. You didn’t care anymore.

‘Fuck this guy.’

You bring your arms in close and lunge forward trying to land a series of quick jabs to his torso.

Roman is prepared and blocks or dodges most with only a few being able to find their mark. He’s right however. Each blow sends shocks through your arms that echo into the rest of your body. Another scoff from the man you were trying to use as a punching bag is about to send you back to throwing punches when your eyes lock onto Roman’s.

His face is one of confidence. He grabs an arm faster than you can react and spins you at first as if this was some fucked up dance and you were his partner. The suddenly spinning room causes you to miss that he was now charging you, delaying your motion to avoid the hit.

The blow lands on the arm you’re able to guard with and the pain from it sends you reeling as your stomach flips. Doing your best to avoid any further contact from his fists, you try to evade each incoming hit. You aren’t successful with all of them and even only taking a few has worn you down fast.

“Or taking them.” You can’t be sure what look you’re giving him but with a sneer he responds with. “What?” Roman’s voice brings a fresh fire to your chest, but.

‘You can’t beat him.’

The soreness in your muscles that had dulled from this morning but returned Despite your disadvantage, Roman had yet to pull a weapon on you so your knife stayed firmly in its place. To you right there was a rolling cart, hopefully full of tools, that you could see in your periphery.

The tussle between the both of you had positioned Roman in front of one of the car lifts. The voice in your head that once yelled to flee and run for the door was now joined by another urging you further into the building.

Unable to decide and needing time, your hands grasp the side of the cart as you then shove it with all your strength straight at Roman. Thankfully you put more weight behind it than he was expecting because the force knocks him back.

Taking advantage of him being on the ground you run for the shelving rows that hid you earlier sliding between them before Roman can get his bearings and see where you went.

His hissing curses came through gritted teeth and back here were harder to hear, but his enraged growl and the shuffling of his feet as he looked for you did. Crawling further down you pass some gaps on the bottom shelf where it wasn’t stuffed full.

The shuffling footsteps soon turned into a running charge and on the other side of the tall row you heard the sound of something hitting wood. The following creaking and tumble confirm your suspicions.

Crawling faster. The other end of the stacks are cut off as the haphazard pile of crates comes down at the end sealing you here as the shelving shielding you groaned in complaint. They wiggled above you but were hard to focus on when the sound of Roman’s fast approaching form now took your concentration.

Eyeing the gap you quickly crawl through to the other side and spy a space at the end with enough room to get out from between these things. You move quickly and quietly up and over the whole and splintered boxes alike ducking down in time to avoid being seen.

Taking a moment to steady yourself you find that the other interior office door is still accessible. The office that has an external door. Sure it was locked from the outside but there had to be a way to open it from in here.

You grasp the handle trying to pull as slowly as possible to remain quiet.

‘Open.’

It won’t move.

‘OPEN!’

You try again and again, continuing until you hear your breathing start to grow more elevated. You can hear Roman still sneaking around the back of the shop looking for you but he was heading in your direction.

Making your way back to the gap you attempt to climb over the destroyed boxes once more to try and sneak back between the rows of shelving.

The problem arrives when you feel your hood snag on something. With the ensuing noise you certainly weren’t going to stick around to check. Breaking into a sprint you hear the sound of charging footsteps heading from the back.

Next thing you know the sound of a loud bang is then followed up by the screech of twisting metals as the rows fall towards you. Taking a dive you barely avoid taking the full hit, only getting your legs caught while debris flies everywhere.

‼️

You use your free upper body to pull yourself from under the pile of wreckage ears ringing from the noise. You feel whatever you were caught on give way and think the feeling is accompanied by tearing fabric and a sting. The adrenaline burning through your veins distracts from such things as you only focus on how to get out.

‘Go!’

Finally getting to your feet you're only able to make it a short distance before being taken down to the shop floor by Roman. He’s covered in sweat, face red from either anger or exertion. Probably both.

“Why do you have to make things so damn difficult!?” Of course Roman is taking the time to berate you. He sits on your hips to keep you from moving and with the reality of the situation settling in.

You finally pull your knife.

The motion is swift and keen, drawing blood.

It isn’t enough to save you however.

Roman doesn’t give you the space you were hoping for. Instead doubling down and quickly pinning your arm to twist your hand before knocking the knife away.

“YOU LITTLE CUNT!” Roman’s face finally in view you can see that your blade had left a new heavily weeping cut across his right cheek up to his nose even. The blood from it ran down both sides of his face streaming rivulets of red.

He pulls back only to line up a hard punch to your ribs knocking the air from you. It sends you reeling for a moment and after some shallow breaths you soon feel Roman’s hands grasp around your neck, the look on his face pure rage.

“All you had to do was be good,” he grunts as you try to kick against him, “and be quiet.” You could feel the beginnings of your body complaining, the burning start of oxygen deprivation.

You try to claw at him. Rubbing useless nubs of fingernails down his arm, unable to reach the fresh wound on his face.

“I even told the boys you weren’t going to be an issue!” He shook you now, like being strangled wasn’t bad enough.

‘Fucking dick.’

The burn was growing worse and your fingers started to tingle.

Lights appeared on the glass outside getting your collective attention; but Roman didn’t stop.

The muscles of your chest respond to your body's growing need for oxygen by trying to pull air in.

However with the pathway closed you were just left with the pulling of your chest muscles as the world started to spin.

With the sounds of the world fading away you can’t tell what’s happening anymore.

The only time is the present.

The only thing to feel is the pain of what is most likely going to be your death.

‘I’m sorry Kellan.’

Before you slip into complete blackness however, the hands at your neck give.

Taking in what little air you can, you start to gain some sense back. Opening your eyes you are soon greeted by the image of Roman being flung off you.

Now what hovers about you looks to be a giant red arm, the air around the appendage buzzing with energy.

“FUCK THEM THE FUCK UP!” Roman’s voice was the last thing you heard before the gun fire started.

The arm above you dropped in front blocking the oncoming fire and was soon joined by its twin.

Covering your ears you don't notice when your space is soon occupied by another figure. A huge one at that, craning your neck to look up at him even as he knelt down beside you.

You knew who it was immediately. The images from that night in Roman's place were burned in your brain. He had seen you that night, and you had stared back. The hard edges and spikes of his shell were far more pronounced now that he was closer.

If he recognized you, he didn't show it, red masked face remaining unreadable to you at first. His attention left you and fell upon the gunmen at the dock doors, he was speaking into his wrist.

The words are drowned out by your hands and the gunfire, unable to determine what he’s saying or who he’s saying it to.

Twisting around to where you saw Roman knock your knife to you finally take your hands down to crawl over to grab it. The true noise of the room is nearly overwhelming. Before you can grab the blade you feel a strange hand try to grip your arm.

Not wanting to miss your chance to get your gift back you lunge to grab it and he back off.

The gun fire dwindles down, as they stop to reload. In the quieter air you can finally hear him.

“Relax!” He had raised his hands in front of himself. “I'm here to help.”

Realizing what he must have thought you pocket the blade. You try to speak up to clear the misunderstanding but before you can even make noise, a blue light appears beside the two of you.

Another turtle emerged from the light as it let off a few zaps into the air, this one supporting red facial stripes that were mostly hidden under a blue mask.

“Civilian transport!” Maybe it was due to his size but the lighter timber of his voice caught you off guard. He was still big, and he would easily be taller than you even if you were standing.

The arrival of a second mutant sent the bullets raining again.

He leans in close so you can hear him. “I’m going to pick you up, ok?!”

You nod, feeling too overwhelmed to speak at the current moment, and with the newly settling pain in your neck. That might not matter.

The turtle in blue then closed one apparent rip in space for another and scooped you up, your leg sending a jolt of pain to your spine.

“We’ve got ya.” “You’ll be ok.”

Their voices overlapped as they both spoke. The feeling of the portal over taking you in a warm static as the loud warehouse drops away.

[auroraknux]

If it is okay to ask a second time: 🤲, 🎉 and 🧠 for the fanfic game? (if not pls just ignore this ask ;) )

Oh that's totally fine! (Barely anyone is sending anything anyway.)

--

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

If it gets a decent amount of attention, I guess. Lots of views, comments, and/or bookmarks. (Warmth and Safety once got recommended twice in the same Twitter thread, so I'd definitely consider that a success lol.)

--

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

You didn't give me a character, so I'll just pick the Bros lol. I love the really common idea that Mario protected Luigi from bullies growing up. (The movie even seems to support this!)

--

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Sure! I considered posting something from the eel scene rewrite (which I can still do if someone asks!). But instead, here's a snippet from the post-movie fic where Luigi and Peach bond over cake and trauma.

Please remember that this is part of an unfinished draft, and will get revisions when/if it's finished.

(For a bit of context: Peach has baked before, but it's been a long time since then, and she's very rusty.)

--

The timer dinged, shaking her out of her thoughts. She nearly forgot to use potholders when taking the cake out of the oven. Fortunately, she remembered before she could burn herself.

After the cake had a chance to cool, she tried a bite of it. It was crumbly, and fell apart at her touch. She frowned. What had she done wrong?

"Hey."

She whipped around, karate hands at the ready.

Luigi put his hands up. "Sorry, sorry! Didn't mean to startle you."

Peach relaxed. "It's fine." She smiled. "What brings you here? Where's Mario?"

"Mario's at his therapy appointment, so I'm by myself today." Luigi scratched his hand. "I'm…bored, I guess."

Peach figured it was more than that. She had noticed how the two were almost never apart. Apparently it had been this way since they were young, but they had become especially clingy after their adventure. Luigi was probably feeling anxious by himself. She could use the company anyway.

"I tried baking a cake today. It came out a bit…bad."

Luigi inspected it. "Hmmm…yeah, it looks a bit dry."

"A bit" was quite the understatement.

He stroked his mustache. "You might've used too much flour, or too little butter and eggs."

"Oh, was that the problem?" Peach smiled, an idea coming to her. "I have enough ingredients left to try again. Maybe you could help me this time?"

Luigi's face lit up. "Sure!"

Peach did genuinely want his advice, but that wasn't the main reason for doing this. She knew Luigi needed a distraction right now, and this seemed like the best way to do it.

The two set to work on the cake (after scraping the remains of the other one into the garbage). Luigi showed her how to properly measure the ingredients, and gave her other advice every now and then. Before long, they had another cake in the oven.

"Thanks for the help," said Peach. "Where'd you learn all of this?"

"My Ma. I've helped her out in the kitchen lots of times. I've always paid close attention to what she does. I want to be able to cook for me and Mario when we someday get our own place."

Peach smiled. She thought it was sweet how the brothers intended to stay together, even as adults. While she'd been raised alongside other children, she'd never had any siblings of her own. She wondered what it was like to have a bond like Mario and Luigi's. To have someone that had been by your side since birth, who understood you like nobody else. She was almost jealous of what they had.

"Thanks for letting me hang out," said Luigi.

“Of course. You're welcome here any time.”

The timer dinged.

Luigi grabbed the pot holders. "I'll get it!"

He opened the oven. His cheery face suddenly changed to one of terror. He screamed and scrambled backwards, bumping into the counter.

[xxkr1sz]

Day 8

Intro: Happy December Everyone☃️Today was a WIN!! Especially food wise! It's been so busy today. Lots of cleaning, organising and taking things up and down the stairs. I got to see my younger siblings today which was nice 😁. I also saw an army helicopter flyby which was cool. I thought it was a jet at first because of how loud it was. The airport near me is mostly used by the military so I get to see some cool aviation now and then!

🎓 College: not much going on here for the weekend 😅 college is beginning to settle down now. Not many classes this week.

🥝 Food: my biggest struggle was a WINN!!! 🥂🍾. I did what I listed in the screenshot in my previous post and omg it worked wonders. And guess what.. I didn't snack on any food today! For breakfast I tried to listen to my body hunger rather than my mental hunger and just had a cup of tea ☕. For lunch I had a bowl of bran flakes and an apple 🍎 . For dinner I was at my dad's house so I had mashed potatoes, beans and sausages which was sooo good. I also had some diet coke and diet pepsi to stop me from munching away on snacks.

Hygiene: Not much! I went back to the moisturiser and it's all been good. Had a shower today too. I've got millions of peach fuzz on my face and I'm getting some dark hairs here and there. I kind of want to shave it off but I also don't wanna ruin any progress of growing a beard . Plus I don't know if my skin would be too happy just now going at it with a blade.

👟Exercise: I only got 11 mins into my treadmill then had to help my brother move pieces of a wardrobe and a mattress ect downstairs 😅 I was sweating after so I would say that counts lol. I did some housework today and was carrying stuff up and downstairs all day whilst sorting all my things so I've been on the go all day. I'd call today a win for being active 👍

☮️General: Okay so I felt a little guilty with how long I spent on Pokémon Shield yesterday. So in the morning I set an hour timer and got the urge to play it done with . I'm gonna do that again tomorrow since it was a win! 🎮. I'm still coping with the almond milk substitute. Its beginning to grow on me 😅 Now that we've cleared everything, I have a study room!! I'm gonna move some things into it tomorrow morning.

Improvements: Really just college. I'm really scared to face it just now and I don't know why. Most likely the fear of failure but hiding from it ain't gonna fix it

That's all today! Today was a big 9/10!! Thanks for reading :-)

[ayukaze]

MIMATO WEEK 2023 DAY 1 - "DIGIVICE"

FFN / AO3

Summary: After losing their partners, the Digidestined are learning to let go, they're learning to move on with their lives. But what throws them off track is the sudden revival of their Digivices in a way that none of them expected. The word partner has more than one meaning after all. If one is lost, maybe another will be found?

Notes: Post Kizuna, Soulmate AU

Chapters: 1/?

~~~~~ xxx~~~~~

To live every day with a gaping hole in your life was something that Yamato had now gotten used to.

His routine was simple, wake up, go to college, socialise after classes, come home and sleep, and when the sun rose the next day, rinse and repeat.

This is how things had been ever since Menoa Belluci was apprehended for her actions, ever since Gabumon stood next to him for one last time, before disappearing into a void that Yamato still hadn’t managed to break into. What he had learned from trying, however, was that life goes on despite everything else. Even if he and Taichi could not be there at the scene to resolve the issue of Digimon pouring into their world through random appearances of Digital Gate, someone else was ready to take their place.

Yamato, like many others, had finished playing a role in the grand scheme and had no choice but to accept the next act that awaited him, no matter how small and irrelevant it seemed in comparison.

So that’s what he did, lived life with the hope of making it to the end of the day, ignoring the emptiness that tugged at him from every direction, reminding him of the promise he had made, reminding him of the partner he had lost.

Somewhere along the line, it became difficult for him and Taichi to look each other in the eye after that final battle. Agumon and Gabumon had taken with them the phase of their lives where they depended on each other for everything. From catching up twice or thrice a week, their meetups happened once a month until the two became busy enough to let their get-togethers fizzle out of their schedules and turned them into an occasional message or a short phone call every few months.

Sora had lost Piyomon not soon after, deciding that that was the moment she needed to discover herself anew, moving on to immerse herself in her job and eventually losing touch with most of them. Jou had been the next one to lose Gomamon, he showed up to Yamato’s apartment at 2 AM, crying uncontrollably. Yamato sat with him all night as he sobbed, holding his hand throughout as he held his own tears back. A few months back, Koushiro informed everyone that the timer had appeared for him as well, but so far it was moving slowly so Tentomon was still around. Takeru, Hikari and the other kids were still very much actively trying to work towards solving any Digimon related problems that arose around the world. His brother was sweet enough to not let Patamon tag along when he came by to visit until Yamato told him it was okay to do so.

As crazily as they had been dropped into the Digital World and gotten used to having their partners next to them at all times, eventually, they got used to their disappearance as well. Yamato knew that if he ran into his younger self right now, the little boy would find it hard to believe that he could live every day of his life normally, smiling and laughing, knowing that there was a chance that Gabumon would never appear at his side again. That was probably the only thought that tugged at him the most, every time the idea that he could no longer face his younger self confidently would appear in his mind, Yamato would find it very difficult to look at himself in the mirror.

But, life goes on, and so did Yamato.

Today, he was out socialising after classes with his college friends, the part of his routine that he was always least interested in but could never get out of either. Most of the time the group would go to small izakayas where Yamato would sit cramped between two people he didn’t like, sipping on beer as slowly as possible to avoid getting drunk in front of his classmates. Sometimes he’d be dragged to mixer parties, as much as he tried to say no to these, he was told that the girls would not show up if he didn’t so for the sake of keeping up a good relationship with his classmates he’d allow himself to be showcased as a prize in front of girls he had no interest in. Wanting to try something fresh and new, today his college friends had decided that they would go for karaoke. As Yamato had kept his singing hobby under wraps from this group, he wasn’t looking forward to the night at all but was somewhat relieved to see that only a handful of people joined this escapade.

He was a little proud of himself for managing to avoid taking the mic up for a solo, so far he’d only joined in on choruses when everyone else was singing loudly too, and no one had noticed his bare minimum participation yet. The escape plan became very clear in Yamato’s mind, he’d stand up and join the hype for the next song, then pretend to be tired enough to be excused for the night without suspicion. He tapped his fingers against his knees impatiently, waiting for the two loudest members of the group to come back from the restroom with the hope that they’d pick some loud, rowdy song next which would get everyone in the room worked up for no reason.

Right on queue, the door to their booth opened and for a brief moment the dimly lit room was filled with white light before the two guys shut the door, their loud laughter drowning out the low notes of the ballad currently playing.

“You guys won’t believe what we just saw-”

“It’s so crazy!”

“There’s a girl in the booth next to ours-”

“A really hot girl by the way!”

“And she’s crying her eyes out, it’s insane really.”

Their loud exclamations were met with an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, Yamato was relieved that not everyone in this group thought that a girl in distress was something to laugh about. But as the two boys settled down, a few chuckles and shrugs were passed around their group, dismissing the information as irrelevant as the beginning notes of a preppy song filled the room. Yamato tried not to squirm in his seat as he forced a smile and nodded along to the music, fighting down the suffocating feeling that was trying to overwhelm him. He had planned to stay for one more song but he decided that now would be a good time to escape to the restroom and then come back after a few minutes to take his leave.

Raising his voice to be heard over the boys who were singing, Yamato informed the person sitting next to him that he’d be right back and quietly slipped out of the booth. Once in the empty hallway, he took a deep breath and made his way towards the restrooms. He dawdled around the bathroom stalls, scrolling on his phone and counting down the minutes until he’d need to go back and join the group. Although he hadn’t done much except sit around and fake nod to music he didn’t like, Yamato figured that by the time he got home, he’d be exhausted to the bone.

Deciding that a good ten minutes were more than enough time to go back and make an excuse about not feeling well, Yamato left the restroom and began to make his way back to the booth. When he passed by the booth right next to theirs, his feet automatically came to a halt. He hadn’t peeked inside, he wasn’t rude like his classmates, but something in his heart told him to take a few steps back and see if everything was okay in there. He knew that he wasn’t the best at comforting people, especially when they were crying, but if the person in there really did seem like they were in trouble, then the least he could do was inform the staff so they could come handle it. With that thought in his mind, Yamato confidently took a step back, leaning his head to glance through the large, oval-shaped window in the door.

As Yamato’s eyes landed on the occupant of the booth, his breath got caught in his throat.

His classmates hadn’t lied, the girl sitting inside was indeed crying terribly.

And it just so happened to be that that girl was Mimi Tachikawa.

A million questions raced around Yamato’s mind, should he go in, should he let her be, should he call someone else for help? Takeru would know exactly what to say and Sora would know exactly what to do, but Yamato was neither so at first all he could do was stare at the sight of a completely broken Mimi, fists balled at his side and feet frozen to the ground. He tried to reassure himself, that he didn’t know what had gone wrong, that this could be something personal like an argument with a friend or family member, or perhaps a bad breakup, in which case he really wouldn’t have anything worthwhile to say. It might be best to leave this to the experts, Yamato decided, pulling out his phone to drop a text to Sora. The two hadn’t talked in months but he was sure she would respond immediately out of her concern for Mimi’s well-being. He took a final peek into the booth, just to make sure he’d get all the details right before contacting Sora, and that’s when he noticed it.

Mimi was sitting with her hands clasped above her lap, clutching onto something loosely as she wept uncontrollably. When he moved closer to the door, it didn’t take him even a second to recognise the object in her hand.

She was holding onto her digivice, which once used to be as bright as a clear sky but now lay rusted and lifeless in her hands.

Yamato swallowed a nervous gulp, finally understanding what he was witnessing.

He slipped his phone back into his pants pocket and without hesitation stepped forward, opening the door so he could quietly enter Mimi’s booth. The sound of her crying rose above the music playing in the background. First, Yamato picked up the controller so he could turn off the music, and while setting it back down he noticed the mic that lay on the sofa across from Mimi. He clenched his jaw as an image of Palmon holding the mic and sitting in that dim karaoke booth with Mimi flickered into his mind. He shook his head in an attempt to keep his own emotions at bay before he gently sat down next to Mimi.

She was yet to notice his appearance in the room, when he looked at her face he saw that her eyes were squeezed shut as tears endlessly flowed down across her flushed cheeks, and the sight of her looking so crushed made his heart feel heavy. Her crying voice was also not easy for him to stomach, he was used to her chirpy tone even her slightly high-pitched whiny retorts, but these loud, guttural sobs were something he’d never have associated with Mimi. Being so close to her in this vulnerable state made his own pain resurface. He’d mastered the art of pushing down the numb emptiness he felt in his heart, but now suddenly he could see Gabumon sitting next to Palmon on the sofa across from them.

Yamato closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Now was not the time for him to be consumed by his own sadness, he was here to help Mimi get through this difficult moment.

With the feeble amount of courage that he could muster, he raised a hand and rested it softly on top of Mimi’s open palms. The effect was immediate, though she did not stop sobbing, Mimi did open her eyes wide as she turned to face him.

As surprised as she looked to find him next to her, when their eyes met it was as if everything that she had tried to hold back by herself burst out of her at once.

“She’s gone, she was right there and now she’s not, she’s gone- my best friend-”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Yamato squeezed her hands as he tried to maintain eye contact with her without shedding a tear or two of his own. Mimi darted her head around, looking at where Palmon must’ve been sitting and then back at him, caramel eyes filled with tears and grief as she attempted to make sense of the truth.

“My best friend.”

Mimi repeated those words in a hollow tone and Yamato nodded in response, even though her gaze was focused on the empty spot at the sofa across from them.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed after that, he sat there holding onto Mimi’s hands, making sure that she knew that she wasn’t alone. Even if her tears never stopped flowing across her cheeks, or her sobs never stopped echoing across the room, Yamato didn’t leave her side for even a second. It was all he could do really, he thought about saying encouraging shit like ‘it’ll get better’ or ‘you’ll get through this’ but dropped the idea as soon as it appeared in his mind because he knew the truth, it doesn’t get better so easily and nobody gets through this without feeling incomplete.

Mimi didn’t speak much and only stared ahead of herself in a daze. Once in a while, she’d squeeze his hand, maybe in an attempt to let him know that she was still here. He didn’t know if she appreciated his silence, or even his presence, since they’d never been close enough to bare their true feelings in front of the other like this. But he did know that if he’d turned around and walked away after seeing her in such a broken state, he would never have forgiven himself for it.

Which is why Yamato sat silently, almost as if he was a statue, awaiting any kind of signal from Mimi that would let him know that she was okay enough to leave. But it was the karaoke employee speaking through the intercom to inform them that the room’s usage rate was fulfilled, that brought Yamato’s feet back to the ground. With gritted teeth and a hardened jaw, he coaxed Mimi into standing up from her seat. Her footing was wobbly so he allowed her to hold onto his arms for stability. Looking around the room to check they weren’t leaving any of Mimi’s belongings behind, Yamato gently guided her out of the room even as a fresh batch of tears came rolling down her cheeks as she gave one last glance in the direction of where Palmon had stood last.

He was grateful that the employees they passed on their way out did not seem to bat an eyelid at the odd sight the two of them made, but his luck only lasted for so long. Once out on the street, the two received peculiar looks from the passers-by, with most of them directed at Yamato since he’d draped a protective arm around Mimi’s shoulders to ensure she wouldn’t walk into a busy street in her daze. He knew, however, that they wouldn’t be able to get too far like this, without some well-meaning stranger stopping them and enquiring about why Mimi looked so distressed. Spotting a brightly lit convenience store a few steps ahead, Yamato quickly led them to it, hoping to reduce any suspicion towards him if he talked with her in an easily accessible location.

“Mimi, which way is your home?” He tried to ask the question calmly, he didn’t want to burden her with more tiresome thoughts but knowing where they were supposed to go would make this whole ordeal so much more easier on him.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore,” she mumbled to herself, her eyes fixed on the pavement as she staggered for a moment before clutching onto his chest to keep herself standing straight.

“I can’t take you home if you don’t help me out here.” Yamato pleaded with her softly, hesitantly resting a hand on the small of her back to make sure she wouldn’t stumble again.

“I don’t care where you take me, it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore.”

Mimi spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper before she leaned her head against his chest and let her body go limp. While Yamato understood that the whole situation had drained her of all her strength, he’d still hoped that she would be able to stay upright till they reached her house. Instead, he was left having to get her on his back all by himself in the corner of a street without looking suspicious.

With great difficulty and after a few awkward eye contacts with passing strangers, Yamato managed to get Mimi safely tucked onto his back and began to make his way towards his apartment, which thankfully wasn’t a long walk from the neighbourhood they were in. He wasn’t sure if he should inform anyone that he was taking Mimi back to his place since she was in no state to get herself home safely because he had no clue if she still lived with her parents. He thought about checking with Takeru, but the whole conversation that that one question would lead to was something Yamato didn’t have any energy for presently.

So with the occasional huff and a few rest stops, Yamato managed to carry Mimi safely back to his small apartment. Once inside, he made straight for his room, glad about his neat freak tendencies since he could just lay Mimi down on his bed without a single worry. He tried his best to settle her on the mattress comfortably, arranging pillows behind her head, taking off her shoes delicately, and covering her with as many blankets as he could find. During all this, Mimi didn’t even flinch once, which in a way was a blessing since it made things less embarrassing.

After he was done bubble-wrapping her into comfort, Yamato glanced at her face. She looked like she had passed out from exhaustion, which was probably the case anyway. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks were tearstained and tinted pink, the tip of her nose was as red as a tomato, her lips were swollen too from being bitten at carelessly, and her hair lay dishevelled around her face, in other words, she looked like a complete mess.

Yet, the sight of her ignited something inside of Yamato.

He stood there for a few minutes, just staring at her.

He vaguely remembered the first time they’d met at school, he hadn’t paid her much attention at the time. It was only when they went to the Digital World, had he started to notice her.

He’d always liked how easily she managed to gel with Takeru, the youngest one in the group at first, and how she always spoke to him as a friend on the same level, not as somebody older who was trying to assert themselves onto him, something Yamato himself was guilty of at many occasions. He’d always liked how much she cared about everything and everyone, so much so that sometimes those feelings spilt into impulsive or brash actions, but her intentions always remained pure and he’d always noticed that.

There was no denying, that the two had drifted slightly apart as they grew older, with Mimi moving to America and only visiting them once in a while. He always found it difficult to strike up a conversation with her when she’d come back from the States, he felt that nothing about his life here would interest her much in comparison. After they graduated from high school, she did try her best to stay in touch with each of their friends individually, sometimes Yamato would receive a message at midnight asking him about how his day had gone, which always threw him off guard. Lately, he had been lacking in responding to even the shortest questions she sent in, but that hadn’t stopped her from trying.

Now that he stood in his room, watching her chest rise and fall in a slow, tired rhythm, he regretted putting off replying to her messages. Maybe if he’d kept in touch regularly, he might have known about her time with Palmon being limited. Not that knowing about this could have prepared him any better for handling the situation, but still, at least she would’ve known that she could count on him to get through this.

Instinctively, Yamato's hand reached forward and he brushed a few strands of her hair away from her forehead, leaning his face down so he could get a better look at hers.

It would be a while before he’d be able to forget the sight of her sobbing alone in that dimly lit karaoke booth, but he still hoped that tomorrow when she woke up, her face would have the budding hints of her usual brightness, because he really could do with some sunshine and happy smiles in his life.

Shaking his head at the ridiculous thought, Yamato walked out of his room, quietly shutting the door behind him. He eyed his cramped couch with contempt before sighing in defeat as he didn’t have a choice. He tried to rearrange the two cushions on the couch into a headrest for himself, however before he could lie down, a flicker at the corner of his eye caught his attention. Yamato surveyed his living room carefully, trying to find the object that had disrupted his concentration but nothing stood out for a while. After a few minutes, just as he was about to give up on the idea of finding anything, he saw a flicker of light on the shelf that took over the opposite side of his living room.

Abandoning the couch, Yamato stepped closer to the shelf as the light appeared for a brief moment before disappearing again. The shelf wasn’t cluttered, there were a few photo frames with his family and friends featured on them, some books and a succulent or two. The light had appeared in the centre, so that’s the direction he leaned closer in. In the middle of the shelf was the photo of him and the other kids from their very first adventure into the Digital World, next to it was the harmonica his father had gifted him that summer along with his battered and broken digivice. Not even one of these items was capable of making the light he’d witnessed, Yamato thought, maybe it was just a trick the nightlights from outside the window had played on his eyes. But just as this thought appeared in his mind, it happened once more, and this time he was able to witness the source.

Yamato had kept his digivice out in the open like this because he knew that it was nothing but a piece of memorabilia for him now. The digivice had laid unresponsive on this shelf since the day Gabumon had departed.

And yet, tonight was different.

The minute Yamato fixed his gaze on it, the digivice lit up intensely in a shade that he knew was not meant to represent either him or Gabumon.

Yamato stood frozen in his living room, eyes wide with shock as a bright green glow surrounded his digivice.

Slowly, the light around the digivice dimmed, but to Yamato’s surprise, the digivice that had been lying rusted for days now looked as alive as ever, the only catch?

It had turned completely green.

- x -

[fraeuleintaka]

Mind Chess (Logic Chess)

This is the 45th post in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Countdown: 36 days left until release!

Today's topic: Mind Chess!

I've already talked a little about Logic with another countdown post so I thought I'm also going to do a segment on Mind Chess (Logic Chess), the new mechanic introduced in Investigations 2.

To say it directly, this is by far my favourite gameplay mechanic in the entire AA series! I just love the entire concept and how it's used. While the other lawyer mechanics are fun as well they all have some kind of mystical (or near mystical) justification, a "superpower", that grants them lie-detecting abilities. I never particularly liked that because it was something they just inherently had to have (or get from someone else like Phoenix' magatama) to be able to solve their cases and it always resulted in plot holes (only the lies the plot wants them to get detected but they get lied to all the time and their abilities don't trigger). Miles' specific gameplay mechanic are both different because they don't have any mystical source, they're just his purely human abilities that he excels in. That not only makes Miles look more badass in comparison (he doesn't need any special "powers" to solve his cases) but also avoids creating unnecessary plot holes.

Mind Chess is a bit more elaborate than Logic and since they're used for completely different things they don't interfere with each other which is nice. Logic involves Miles combining pieces of information he has to reach new conclusions while Mind Chess is a way to get information from people or to convince them of something through simply talking to them. It's used when Miles has no evidence to argue with or people refuse to engage with him altogether. Mechanically, you get various conversation options and have to choose the correct ones depending on what information you have and how your opponent reacts. That means, which questions to ask, to pursue a line of questioning more relentlessly when needed or to back off a little when your opponent gets too defensive to get them to talk more. It's a simplified version to make it playable but I love how it's essentially Miles using established rhetoric methods to do "battle" on a purely verbal playing field. It's the perfect gameplay mechanic for him, to outsmart and corner people with nothing but his rhetoric skills, no evidence needed.

There is a timer running while you think about which answer to pick and it decreases significantly if you pick the wrong one. When it runs out though you only get about the same punishment as you'd get for presenting wrong evidence and have to restart the Mind Chess segment again so you'd hardly be able to go Game Over because of it. Honestly, the penalty for failing should be harsher (like an immediate Game Over when the timer runs out). Mind Chess itself is a lot of fun to play and the difficulty is balanced nicely so that you can always come to the correct answer when following the conversation and paying attention to the opponent's behaviour but it doesn't hold your hand or makes everything painfully obvious either. If you stay within the time limit even with some mistakes it feels like a nice challenge but the minuscule penalty failing the whole thing gives you makes it feel a little cheap. It's a minor issue, since the gameplay itself is still the right amount of challenging, but still. It's also a little disappointing that there's no unique failure dialogue for the various wrong answers Miles can give. Some of them are so wonderfully ridiculous that it'd be hilarious to see his opponents (and Miles himself) react to them!

The chess theming behind Mind Chess is more an aesthetic than really having much significance. It definitely has some similarities with chess in that Miles plans his moves and uses different strategies depending on what his opponent does but that's about it. It's visually stunning though! And I love how the amount of chess pieces is used to communicate how many defenses Miles must break through, that the last one is always the king and how Miles attacking with his own pieces is used as a visualisation of his verbal attacks. I really can't be mad at the chess imagery when these beautiful visuals are the result. Not to mention that it perfectly fits Miles' character to imagine intense verbal debates as chess games in his head, I totally believe he does that.

One last reason why Mind Chess is unquestionably my favourite attorney-specific gameplay mechanic is how versatile it is. It can be used as a simple "replacement testimony" when Miles has no evidence to present but it can also be used for so much more than that. As long as there's any kind of (verbal) conflict between the characters, no matter its nature, it can be turned into a Mind Chess segment. That gives it so many different and exciting ways in which it can be used. On top of that, every Mind Chess segment is new and unique depending on the opponent character because their personality shapes the way their segment works. To give some examples, Lotta's requires you to be and think quicker as her timer runs faster due to her lack of patience; Larry's mostly consists of just letting him talk as he can't help but run his mouth when you let him and Blaise' is a complete show of intimidation that you can barely get through. It works wonders to not only make the gameplay more varied and exciting but also build on the personalities of these characters. No other "gimmick" in the series manages this. After saying all of that I couldn't possibly go without mentioning Sebastian's segment in particular as it encapsulates everything I've said perfectly. It's peak Mind Chess performance and peak Ace Attorney in general. It's central to Sebastian's arc and one of the major reasons why it's so impressive. When you can say that about a new gameplay mechanic, you've done something extremely right.

[wirewitchviolet]

The Trouble With Dying in Horror Games

So as you could probably guess after posting a week ago that I'd just played most of the way through SOMA and planned to finish it today, I just did so. It's an excellent game, I'd highly recommend it, and I'd particularly like to sing its praises for mostly delivering on the horror end by throwing a lot of heady philosophical questions at you while forcing you to actually pay attention to everything going on, because you absolutely are not given any sort of map, compass, or current objective tracker. The one aspect of it that didn't so much click for me though was the monsters, and I'd like to share some thoughts on why, and how this is honestly one of the trickiest needles to thread in game design.

So the thing about horror games is that you want the player to feel, if not actually scared, a certain amount of tension, unease, disquiet, dread, etc. You don't want to keep that feeling mounting for the entirety of the game of course, you want to build build build build but then and release now and then, give a breather, and start building it up again. And while there ARE other ways of doing that (and again, the game that got me thinking about this is pretty good at making you stress over, frankly, roleplaying decisions), the most obvious and probably the most effective is making the player stress out over some sort of fail state, or as we call it in game design circles, death.

Problem is, dying releases tension.

This applies to any game really. When things are getting rough and it seems like you're about to die, yeah that's some great heart pounding high tension stuff, but then you miss that timer or take that hit or flub that dropped block or whatever and you're snapped back to the reality that oh right, this is just a game, and now you just have to try what you were doing again. And that's nice in a lot of situations, but in a horror game it's pretty much always going to throw things off because there is, again, this very particular sort of timing you want in the building and release and that early release can really screw with it. And generally, because really this is just how games work, you need to decide how far you want to roll the player's progress back to get back into that right rhythm.

Now personally, I'm a big fan of the golden age of horror games. Stuff from the earliest disc based systems, where not only are save points few and far between, but there's limitations on how many times you can save your game at all. Death had a hell of a lot more sting to it as a threat with games like that, and it also played super well with the first couple Resident Evil games and the way they make you sweat over all your resources in the long term by slow-drip-feeding you ammo and healing items into your very limited inventory. Now the downside to this of course is that you WILL, in all likelihood, die at some point where you have gone Some Time without saving, and while that leaves a good runway to reestablish the tension it's also, you know, super frustrating and you'll maybe want to step away from the game for a while to cool off.

Modern games though, with few exceptions, do not do save points anymore. They have fallen completely out of fashion, and the modern expectation is that every game will constantly be autosaving at very closely packed checkpoints, which is generally considered an evolution of the kindness of letting you save anywhere at any time, probably with zippy quick-save and quick-load buttons, which have kind of been back-ported to older games thanks to emulation and... honestly personally I hate this and that's a rant for another time, but I acknowledge that I am in the minority there. HOWEVER, this still really sucks for horror because we now have the tension break of death, with little to no sting following it, and we're then right back where we were, with no time for the tension to remount at all, and then whatever you died to is just an annoyance, especially if it happens again.

Now, SOMA is as much of a modern horror game as you can get. Like, you tell me something is a "modern horror" game, I'm immediately going to picture something with more or less this gameplay and frankly, something from this developer or someone trying to be like them, and sure enough, if you die you lose absolutely no progress at all. The checkpointing is so generous I swear I've actually MADE progress when dying, and it really hurts the ability for deadly things (by which I pretty much just mean monsters) to have the sort of impact they need. Which is a shame, because these are some pretty neat monsters! Every new one you encounter has a very distinct look and, in theory, a different rule you need to work out in order to avoid being killed. Here's one you need to keep from seeing you, one you need to avoid looking at, one you can't break eye contact with, one that won't kill you if you're perfectly still, etc. And that's neat.

But... I say "in theory" because I absolutely DID get through the game without figuring out the deal with half of them. Either I just booked it before they could reach me (which is great, actually, that keeps the tension if it feels like you're just barely staying ahead) or I just... ate the deaths which didn't even change my position but kicked the monster further down the hall. Which... yeah, nobody's happy with that.

Now, here I should point out that in this particular game this really isn't much of a problem at all because SOMA has like... 8 monsters total, give or take? It has much more cerebral ways to get under your skin, to the point where a lot of people say it'd be better not having monsters at all (and there's even an option to play it that way). I disagree though. They're fun designs, they have interesting patterns, and from both a perspective of story pacing and world building, it's quite important that we at least occasionally have some twisted monstrosities that may once have been human shuffling about in a menacing fashion. We just don't want the tension totally destroyed when they succeed in that menacing.

So how could we fix that? Well my go-to answer is "quit doing constant checkpointing, make me lose real progress so the stakes feel high and I'm really incentivized to work out the safe way past," and for a LOT of games, yeah, just do that. Here though, it's tricky, because a big part of why this game works as well as it does is that it's a bit mazey in its design with zero handholding, it doesn't have you collecting stuff, and aside from some chasey bits which are, again, great, there's no combat or action scenes really. You spend a lot of time stumbling around clueless and confused, picking up cool bits of world-building lore and familiarizing yourself with your surroundings enough to properly orient yourself and work out the path forward. If you die in the middle of that and get sent way back to the start of the area, you're not going to retrace those steps. You've seen those files you've worked out that mental map, you're going to get right back to where you were now, but now that monster is an annoyance not a threat.

So OK, if we can't restore tension after a death without sacrificing good stuff, what if we just avoid dying in the first place? I mean, that IS the ideal, really. You want to constantly be worried you're about to die, and then never have it happen. Tension builds constantly and only gets released when the designers want it released. This is tricky to accomplish though. You can literally just not put anything in that's actually going to lead to a death. Monsters that come charging and screaming up corridors but never reach you because a door slams shut or a walkway collapses or whatever, but that's a huge gamble because if the player notices even once that they weren't really in any danger, they now know death isn't a thing in this game, and the threat of it can no longer establish tension. The more fake-outs you do, the more likely they are to see behind that curtain.

OK, so, how about the monsters DO have the ability to kill you, but they rarely if ever will if you approach them smartly? This could work. Again, in our case in point, there's some trick to every monster, and if you know the trick, and can execute it, you're safe from that monster. It's still tense if there's some chance you might not use the survival strategy properly, we can still ratchet things up in a hurry by taking away the means to do what you need to at the climax of a given monster encounter, so things are still plenty tense, but the player has to be fairly incompetent to get killed, and hopefully they'll learn from it for the next attempt but be iffy on that. I do feel like this would work for SOMA and going in with outside knowledge of what does/doesn't cause each given thing in the game to come charging at you so that death is possible but rare would be ideal, BUT again the whole nature of this particular game not holding your hand and rewarding thorough exploration only with more details about exactly what the heck is going on and really pushing for isolation eliminates the easiest ways to clue that in-game. Unless of course it was dropping hints with the whole corpse black box recording deal and I was just too personally distracted to pick up on it. Again though, I'm just using this game as an example to discuss this in the abstract.

How about this though? What if we took dying to the same thing twice out of the equation? If this particular monster in this particular hallway kills you, you return to the last checkpoint, but when you get back to that hallway, the monster isn't there anymore. There's a risk of players treating this as an alternate solution to the problem of dealing with monsters and just face-tanking through the whole game, but you could mess with people's heads with it. If that monster isn't here, then where is it? Why isn't it here? Do we have diegetic respawns? Is the monster not here because it's off eating the corpse of the previous version of me? This feels like it's worth exploring.

Here's another one for you. Have softer fail states. SOMA actually does a bit of this in fact. When you die, sure, you get back up pretty much where you were standing, and it almost or literally does feel like monsters aren't so much trying to kill you as just giving you a big ol' bonk on the head as they pass, but it screws with your vision, and sometimes your ability to walk straight. I'm not going to lose progress from a death, but I am going to have a bad time if I get caught. That can work really well, and hell, in SOMA I took a lot of hits where I'm actually unclear if I just screwed up and got knocked out, or if we were just punctuating the end of a scene with me getting taken off guard and cold-cocked in cinematic fashion. There's a lot of ways you can play with this design space too. Maybe you get dragged off somewhere if you get jumped and have to work out where you even are when you wake up. Maybe you drop plot items when you get taken down like this, and have to track those back down when you're back on your feet (just, if you do this, be sure to make it a fail-forward sort of thing where you're just on a different path for a bit and people don't have to just do repetitive runs fishing keycards out of the sewer every time they get smacked by the monster they're stuck on or something).

How about some more variations on this? Every time something should kill you, fate gets altered by the weird artifact you're carrying. Maybe this is just fancy fluff for HP, or it's like the Gamecube Resident Evil Remake's survival items. Maybe sidekicks take the hits for you but then die forever, like Hellnight. Maybe you live but with a permanent injury (this is an idea I personally plan on taking somewhere when I get the time). So long as the player keeps moving forward after, these can all be really impactful partial fail states that don't break tension.

Anyway, this is all just stuff to consider if you ever end up designing a horror game... or just a game in general. But anyway, SOMA's great, definitely worth checking out.

Anyway if you'd like to seem me keep rambling about things, I honestly quite desperately need money to live, my patreon donations fell off a damn cliff this month. And if you want to see me stream more, OK, I'm going to try to make that a regular thing, monday nights, 8 PM.

[hananoami]

[ Deepspace Trial ] Open Orbit prog notes

An informal post on mobile to record some of my thoughts, events and open orbit progression from today.

Thank goodness for the hunting season event rn bc the double rewards drop for any bounty hunt made farming for crystals a little less miserable for up to 30x pulls. Dedicated a lot of stamina for this, but worth it.

Leveled up quite a few memories in order to progress in open orbit stages; currently working on getting [Your Fragrance] to 80 to help with stage 120B.

Finally cleared stage 110 after being stuck on it for weeks. Had to get [Hearts Within Reach] to lv.80 and swapped out a delta protocore for a Crit Rate one after leveling it up to +9. I finally got one from the core farm, even if the substats weren’t the most ideal. The extra crit rate was more helpful than the dmg to weakened one I was previously using. My play was really sloppy imo, but a clear is a clear. I didn’t expect it to end the way it did. See clear video for more detail.

After the hurdle of stage 110 I was able to keep progressing until my next challenge at 113. This stage required 6-emerald memories to match the protofield stellactrum?* it was a frenzied type battle. I leveled up [Close Feelings] from lv 50 to 60 and [Romantic Afternoon] from lv 60 to 70 to gain more ATK stats and used the Hunters Wand. It was easier to use that to damage the frenzy wanderer, even if I can’t focus target it. I just needed to make sure they were all at least grouped up together when I dropped my aoe.

Stage 117 required 6 violet to match the protofield stellactrum, but i opted to not have a perfect match in favor of using Sea God with my highest leveled Rafayel lunars. This was okay because it was a recharge beacon stage, so I just had to make sure the wanderers didn't get close enough to interrupt me.

Currently stuck on stage 120 with the epic bgm. Team 01 requires 6 emerald memories and team 02 requires 6 violet* memories to match protofield stellactrum. I’ve been using the hunters wand with Xavier, which is still a really close fight. Been progging with phantasma sands gun for Rafayel. I don’t have enough damage with around 2 and a half HP bars left by the time the timer runs out. Will make a more detailed post about this later. Currently working on leveling up memories.

I know there’s a spreadsheet out there that documents all the protofield stellactrum for the Deepspace trials, but I would like to keep one on hand here as well since this is my gaming blog. Will do that with source credit.

A special shout out to P-chan again for having faith and believing in me by saying we’re going all the way from stage 110 to 120 today. Because we did and honestly I wouldn’t have made it this far without their help and support. ♡ and appreciate u always. 🌸