#very lose grasp of his character aha

[aintitfierce]

what do you think makes your oc unique? what qualities do you and your oc have in common? what makes you and your oc different? does your oc have any quirks or habits?

some OC asks | accepting

what do you think makes your oc unique?

well, i’ve certainly gathered that his speaking style makes him stick out laughs in truth, i don’t delve too deeply into the fandomless OC side of things, so i haven’t seen very many OCs in general, but especially not many who are gods. monsters, creatures, Unknowable Entities, yes, and that might be splitting hairs thinking emoji

i think his place as an ancient but comically minor god is kind of unique. he has no tragic fall from grace in his backstory, either— he was always this minor from birth. there’s no suspicious memory loss; he wasn’t booted out of a more coveted position by another god or something. he is just very Small and Old

i do feel that he has probably a lot of familiar characterization tropes (tho what character doesn’t?) but i also hope maybe in combinations that make him feel Unique, aha. he’s vain and selfish and thinks himself much more clever than he is, and has been shown as much many times in the past and still never learns his lesson. his specific brand of immortality is Unnatural even among his fellow gods

what qualities do you and your oc have in common?

well we’re both babies when it comes to the potential for pain, i’ll tell you that much lmao in my case it turns out despite that i seem to have a high tolerance for pain, it’s just the Anxiety of anticipating it that gets to me hhh. in vanya’s case, i feel like his tolerance is also probably Low, and he will cry pitifully if you cut his nail a little too close to the quick u_u;

never mind that he badgered you into cutting it for him in the first place, how could you do this to him

what makes you and your oc different?

i honestly don’t know that we have a lot in common, tbh laughs one of the most glaring differences probably is that he is utterly focused on himself and his own wants, to the point that the outside world really only plays into things when it has something he Wants. he’s fickle and scattered and. well. i’m not Usually like that ghhfie

i’m a stubborn thing, and very patient, and i tend to continue on trying to methodically and meticulously Solve something long after i probably should have given up the ghost lmao vanya can be stubborn and patient, when obtaining what he wants at that time calls for it, but he’s also likely to lose interest before seeing it through thinking emoji

does your oc have any quirks or habits?

does his speaking style count? i know i already mentioned it once but it is part of what makes him fun for me to write ghhfieo i once referred to him as ‘grammatically-challenged’ but the truth is he is absolutely capable of constructing “normal” sentences. he doesn’t refer to himself in the third person bc his grasp of language is Iffy but bc constantly reminding everyone who and what he is feels more important, more satisfying. and he can’t refer to himself as ‘the pretty vanya creature’ and then use ‘I’ bc people will think the pretty vanya creature is Someone Else and that would kill him rip

he’s an emotional creature, and he uses made-up words (or made-up forms of real words) and rearranges sentences in order to make them feel more urgent or Pretty to him (hence why he also tends to neglect contractions). he uses words like “biggestly” and “thrump” bc they make sense to him and convey what he intends them to while making use of his relatively limited vocab thinking emoji

[intheticklecloset]

Villainous Ways (My Hero Academia)

One Shot

Remember how a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I’d written something different that I was really happy with but I couldn’t post it yet because we were in the middle of the 12 Days? Well...this is it! I wanted to experiment a little with Shigaraki because I love him so much as a character, and this is what I came up with. I personally really like this one! Keep in mind, though, that as it was purely experimental I DO NOT think I can write any more fics for the MHA villains at the moment, so please don’t ask! I can’t do it justice right now, but maybe one day! The next fics I release will be filled requests, so keep an eye out for those. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy a break with the villains!

~

The way Tomura Shigaraki scratched at his neck drove Himiko Toga nuts.

It wasn’t the fact that he did it that bothered her. She was plenty familiar with pain and if Shigaraki wanted to irritate his skin by constantly scratching at it like that, that was his business. What bothered her about it was how often he did it. All the time, it felt like, when he was thinking out loud or frustrated at the heroes or just bored, he’d scratch at his neck and mutter to himself and it was simply driving her up the wall.

Finally, one night, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Those blasted heroes think they’re so high and mighty,” Shigaraki grumbled, reaching up to scratch yet again. “They think just because they have big, flashy quirks—”

“Stop it, Tomura!” Toga snapped, getting to her feet, pushing her barstool to the ground in the process.

Shigaraki paused and looked at her. “Stop what? I’m just stating the facts. You know them as well as I do.”

“I don’t care about that,” Toga replied with a sigh. She curled her fingers and hovered them over her neck in a phantom imitation of what he’d just been doing. “It’s this. You scratching your neck all the time. You’ve got to stop; it’s irritating.”

He was silent for a moment. He lowered his scratching hand so it lay on the bar. “What does it matter to you if I do it or not?”

“It doesn’t. If you want to rip up your skin you can be my guest.” Toga narrowed her eyes at him. “Just don’t do it around me. It drives me crazy to see you doing it all the time.”

Shigaraki shrugged and began scratching again. “I don’t care if it bothers you. What drives you insane is your problem.”

Toga took a step toward him. “I’m warning you, Tomura. I’ll make you stop if I have to.”

He chuckled and finally turned to look at her fully. “And how, exactly, do you intend to do that? Have you forgotten about my quirk?”

Crap. For a split second, she had forgotten. But then she smiled sweetly at him and advanced even further. “Aw, but you won’t use it on me, will you, Tomura? You need me.”

“You are easily replaced.”

“You don’t mean that.” She was right in front of him now, standing before him while he remained seated on his barstool, one hand still on his neck. “This is your last warning. Stop doing that in front of me, or I’ll make you stop.”

Even behind the hand covering his face, she could tell he was smirking. “I’d love to see you try.”

Toga shrugged, then stepped forward and enveloped him in a hug.

Thrown entirely off-guard, Shigaraki froze where he was, one hand still near his neck while the other lay on the bar beside him. He frowned. “Toga. What are you doing?” Then all of a sudden he felt a sharp zing of…something…shoot down his spine, making him arch his back and – to his horror – let out a tiny giggle. “W-What?!”

She giggled, too, and murmured in his ear, “Aw. Are you ticklish, Tomura?”

Ticklish?

NO.

“Get off me,” he demanded, moving to push her away with the palms of his hands so as not to hurt her, but only managing to arch further into her grasp when she kneaded the back of his ribs. “N-No! Don’t do that! Toga!”

“I warned you, didn’t I?” Toga teased into his ear. He squirmed in her grip but was going nowhere fast. She was surprisingly strong when she wanted to be. “Now. Stop scratching your neck when I’m in the room, or I’ll tickle you until you’re begging me for mercy.”

Shigaraki growled. “I never beg.”

“Liar.” Toga pressed into his ribs again, smirking at the whine and violent jolt she got in response. “We’ve all heard you talk to your master. You begged him plenty. I can make you beg now.”

Shigaraki was stuck. He couldn’t push her away without hurting her – and despite his bold claims from before, he did actually need her around – but he didn’t want to admit defeat over something as stupid as this. That left him with only one option.

“Well? What’s it going to be?”

He growled again. At least she couldn’t see his face.

“Bring it on. I’m not sensitive enough to be brought down by someone like you.”

“No?” Toga dug in without warning, drilling her fingers into his ribs from behind, grinning in satisfaction when he spasmed and yelped, grabbing onto the bar for dear life. “I don’t know. You seem plenty ticklish to me.”

“S-Shut up! I’m n-not – no!” Shigaraki tried to slide off the barstool, but in a flash Toga was shoving him back so he was pinned between her and the bar, with nowhere to go and no way to grab onto it anymore. He instinctively tried to push her away, having to force himself not to use his full strength against her. “Stop! I-I’m not…I’m juhuhust a little…s-sensitihive!”

Toga smirked and released him from her tickly hug, only to dig into his ribs from the front. This time he actually giggled, though it sounded choked and forced, like he was trying to cover it up as a weird coughing fit.

“What’s the matter, Tomura? Don’t like being called ticklish?” she teased him, keeping him trapped against the bar anytime he tried to get away from her assault.

“I-I’m not!” he insisted, despite his obvious grunting chuckles and attempts to push her away or slide off the barstool.

“You are.” She shoved her hands into his underarms and dug like she was mining for gold, and Shigaraki squealed and shot his arms to his sides automatically, only trapping her hands where they were as she tickled him mercilessly.

“S-Stohohop! Toga, I-I’m not t-t-tihihi-gah!” He tried kicking her now, but she merely dodged his leg and stepped closer to him to shorten his range.

“That wasn’t very nice.” She grabbed onto his thighs and dug in there. “I think I deserve an apology.”

“W-Wait! Wahahahahahait, nohohohoho!” Finally the dam burst and Shigaraki laughed openly, not trying to fight it anymore. He doubled over, helpless as she attacked what appeared to her to be his worst spot yet. “Stahahahahahahap! Togahahahahaha!”

“You stop scratching your neck, and I’ll let you go.”

“Fihihihihihihihine! You wihihihin, curse you! I’ll stohohohohop!”

“And you need to apologize for trying to kick me.”

“Whahahahahahat?” He shook his head. “Nohohohoho way, you desheheherved that!”

Toga shrugged and found a super sensitive spot with her thumbs, drilling with deadly precision into his thighs closer to his hips.

Shigaraki tossed his head back and shrieked. “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA FINE!! FINE, OKAHAHAY, I’M SOHOHOHOHOHORRY!! STOP IT!!”

“And,” Toga beamed at her inevitable victory, leaning into his ear again, “you have to admit you’re ticklish. Ticklish, not sensitive.”

“TOGA YOU BIHIHIHI-AAAAAAHHH!!!” Shigaraki’s curse was cut off by her digging in with relentless meticulousness, searching for that one spot that would make him lose all sense of self-control and only allow him to think of self-preservation. “FINEFINEFINESTOHOHOOOOOOP!! I’M TIHIHIHIHIHIHICKLISH, OKAY?! I’M TICKLISH NOW STAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAP!!”

Smiling wide, Toga finally released him and stepped back, watching him as he gasped for air and shakily clung to the bar so as not to fall over. “There! That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Y-You…you dare to attack your leader?” Shigaraki growled once more, trying to regain his bearings and appear menacing at the same time. “If I didn’t need you for our plans, I would—”

“Aha! You do need me! You said so yourself!”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, with a long sigh, he turned his back on her. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Toga smirked and went back to her own seat. “I’m a villain, Tomura. I promise to be nothing but evil.”

“Curse you.”

“Happy to be of service.”

[pressedinthepages]

Wager

Fandom: The Witcher

Pairing: Geralt/Jaskier

Rating: T

Masterlist

a/n: reader request: [Hello! What about Geralt being smug about his win streak in Gwent and Jaskier- who Geralt doesn’t know plays- decides to do something about it. ] I may have...gone all in on the Gwent here, folks.

also thanks to @sometimesiwrite​ for being a wonderful beta :)

(There is a link on my page where you can be added to my taglist :D)

Warnings: fluff, ~yearning~, Gwent

Two idiots play a game.

    Geralt, with a flick of his wrist and a smirk of the brow, placed his final card on the table. Yrden. Reset the power of all units on a row. Devastating for his opponent, who had their Scoiatel units racking up boosts and vitality throughout the entire final round. No longer did their cards carry values of 30, 35, and 60. Oh no, they were returned to their original powers of 2, 4, and 5. The final score? Geralt had 38, and his opponent hung their head in defeat with 16.

    Geralt took a swig of his ale as his opponent gathered his cards before tossing him a coin from across the table. “You played well.”

    His opponent grimaced, rising to his feet. “Yeah, sure. That Yrden card is broken, it’s too powerful.”

    Geralt squinted, crossing his legs beneath the table. “It’s not broken, you just need to learn to anticipate it. Don’t line up all of your high power cards in a row.”

    The man rolled his eyes as he left, Geralt blinking in surprise. Ah well, he thought, some people just don’t want to learn.

    Geralt motioned to the barkeep for another drink, flicking the coin in the air and catching it repeatedly. But suddenly, instead of the cool metal landing solidly in his hand, it was snatched from the air and held between two slender fingers just out of Geralt’s reach.

    “You win this for me?” Jaskier tilted his head with a smile, toothy and bright. 

    Geralt grunted as his new ale was set before him, crossing his arms over his chest petulantly. “Gwent. It’s been a good night.”

    “A glass of red wine for me, sweet thing,” Jaskier crooned at the barkeep, and she blushed her way back to the counter. “You’re quite fond of the game.”

    Geralt hummed, fiddling with a torn edge on one of his cards. It was one of the first that he collected, a Redanian Archer. Fragile, but powerful with the right defense. “It’s...nice,” he murmured, “to just relax for a night.”

    Jaskier didn’t even acknowledge the wine when it was set before him, his eyes trained solely on Geralt. “Would you play me?”

    Geralt actually laughed at that, the bastard. “Do you even have a deck?”

    “I will have you know, dear Witcher,” Jaskier patted the pockets of his doublet and trousers frantically, “that it is damned near impossible to travel across the Continent without amassing a wonderful collection of Gwent cards. I quite like my current deck, it has a lot of...character.”

    Geralt smirked, shuffling all of his cards back into his deck. “What will I get when I win?”

    “How very presumptuous, Ger-Aha!” Jaskier exclaimed, yanking out a vibrant purple pouch from the inner pocket of his doublet. “Terrible form really, dear heart, to assume you would best me so easily.”

    Geralt shrugged, drawing the top ten cards from his deck. He took a generous gulp of his ale as he looked over his hand. Nothing stellar, but he could work with it. 

    Jaskier shuffled his own deck, flicking the cards back and forth in an effort to ensure the most efficient spread. “Alright. IF you win, my Witcher, you may have anything. Whatever first pops into your mind, it is yours. Same for me, if I find myself victorious. Deal?”

    Jaskier’s eyes, so bright and blue and shining with mischief, caught Geralt off guard. He nodded and watched Jaskier deal himself ten cards as well. He traded two out, shuffling them back into the deck before holding Geralt’s hard-earned coin out in the palm of his hand. “Heads or tails?”

    Geralt glanced at his own hand and found that he doesn’t really mind whether he went first or second. “Tails.”

    Jaskier smiled and spun the coin into the air before it clattered back onto the table, heads-up. “Then I suppose I will go first.”

    And this is where, dear reader, things took a turn. 

    Geralt felt like he had whiplash throughout the entire first round. Thanks to the first card that Jaskier played, every subsequent card was near impervious thanks to the additional 2 armor provided. As soon as Geralt realized that he was bound to lose the first round he played a card with Resilience in an effort to secure the second. But then, Jaskier played Queen of the Night, instantly purifying his Vandergrift and rendering him useless. 

    And then, the next card from Jaskier’s hand, was that-

    “Wait, hang on. Eskel has a Gwent card?” Geralt blinked, reaching for the card on the table. 

    “Oh yes, he’s a lovely one. He boosts himself by one every. Single. Turn.” Jaskier polished off the remainder of his wine with a flourish, resting his chin on his hand and waiting for Geralt’s next turn. Geralt sighed and did some mental math before placing a Tridam Infantry. Next turn, he could place a Temerian Drummer, and there would be enough turns left for those two to damage Jaskier’s cards enou-

    “I think I’ll pass now, darling.” Jaskier smiled, folding his three remaining cards into his hand. Jaskier currently had a score of 23, while Geralt had 11. Shit. 

    Geralt sighed, folding his own cards into his hand. “Pass.” He knew that if he tried to outscore Jaskier on this turn, he’d only barely make a higher value, and it would put him an extra card short in the final round. 

    Jaskier smirked, drawing another three cards and motioning for Geralt to do the same. They cleared the board into their respective graveyards, and Jaskier perused his cards. 

    “Pass, dear.”

    Geralt hummed, cursing himself on the spot. It was an easy tactic, one that would leave him with two less cards than Jask in the final round. Well, at least I didn’t push it.

    And then Geralt was faced with another hard decision. His hand now only held valuable cards, and he’d have to waste one to win this round. Fuck. 

    He put down his Roche: Merciless, hating every moment of it. Damn, that’s a good card.

    Jaskier’s smirk only grew as Geralt then slid the card to the graveyard, each of them drawing three cards each once more. 

    Once again, Jaskier’s deck baffled Geralt. He started with Villentretenmerth, which cost Geralt his Donimir of Troy. Somehow, miraculously, as Geralt played his last card, he could see himself pulling away with the win. He had two Kaedweni Revenants, as well as a Vivienne: Oriole that had been boosted to 12. That put him at 18, and Jaskier was only at 10. Geralt couldn’t realistically see him closing that gap with his final card. 

    “Odd deck you have there, Jaskier,” Geralt finished off his own ale. 

    “Yes, it does have a bit of spice, hmm?” Jaskier frowned, scratching at the stubble on his chin. His hair flopped over his forehead and something in Geralt’s gut really wanted to reach out and push it back, to feel his hair between his fingers. Geralt shook the thoughts off, his toes bouncing inside his boot. 

    “You know, I think I may have saved the best card for last.” Jaskier sighed as he set the card in the melee row. Geralt: Professional. Damage an enemy unit by 3. If its power was a multiple of 3, destroy it instead. 

    Geralt’s stomach plummeted as Jaskier took his 12 power Oriole and sent it to the graveyard, his brain spinning with the math. Jaskier: 13, Geralt: 6. 

    “What the hell was that, Jaskier?” Geralt asked, breathless. Jaskier stood and held out his hand, waiting patiently for a final shake. Geralt gave it to him while his mind played catch-up, trying desperately to comprehend how his bard had beaten him so thoroughly at his own game. And, wait a minute, when did I start thinking of him as *my* bard?

    They collected their cards and returned to their shared room, Geralt still silently stunned. 

    “Well,” Jaskier clasped his hands together before shucking off his doublet, “I would like to claim my prize.”

    Geralt looked over at Jaskier, his chemise undone and a blush creeping up the solid line of his chest. His eyes had a nervous air about them, and his fingers flexed at his sides. 

    Jaskier closed the distance between them, standing just shy of Geralt’s grasp. “What would you have asked for if you had won?” 

    Geralt glanced down to Jaskier’s lips, finding them pink and plump and yearning for his own. “I-I would’ve asked...for you.”

    Jaskier bit his lip and slunk his hand up around Geralt’s neck. “Oh, Geralt. You have me. Always have, and always will.”

    Geralt pressed into Jaskier’s hand at the nape of his neck. “And you, Jask? What do you choose for your prize?”

    Jaskier smiled, his eyes watering the smallest bit. “You.”

    Geralt sighed as Jaskier’s lips pressed against his, warm and wet and so perfect that his knees felt close to buckling. He braced himself on Jaskier’s hips, his hands fisting into the delicate fabric of his chemise with fervor. Jaskier’s tongue licked into his mouth and Geralt moaned into him. Jaskier tasted of wine and flowers and summer and Geralt was intoxicated. 

    Jaskier parted first, resting his forehead on Geralt’s as he caught his breath. “Well,” he panted, “if I had known it would be this easy I would’ve taken up Gwent ages ago.”

    Geralt chuckled, pulling Jaskier back in for another kiss. For he feared that he would never be sated, not when Jaskier was right there with Geralt as his prize.

[evolsinner]

⊱┊7

with the moment past {definitely not mentally}, i make my way to the lounge.

“hey, rosé?”

i see him seated on a 3 seat sofa.

a, i hope he didn’t see the way i shaved my hair down there into a love heart... b, he def saw my boobies!!

“y~yes, mr killian?”

“you hungry or something? i can order you some pizza.”

hell, i’m famished, can’t remember the last time i ate.

“no, aha…”

“you sure?”

“actually, yeah, i am, a little... sorry if that’s an inconvenience.”

“no, not at all! don’t be silly. i’m starving.”

i restrict a smile.

“here,” he shifts to the side, patting the middle seat, “make yourself comfortable. i’ll order some now.”

i place his hoody on the armrest and sit on the other end instead; don’t have it in me to sit right next to him. we would be like idk touching and whatnot. amongst the remote and his wallet, he grabs his phone from the middle seat, dialling a number.

“pineapple on pizza?” he faces me, holding the phone to his ear.

i fucking love pineapple on pizza.

“100%,” i reply confidently.

he grins.

i have just found my soulmate.

i admire how laid back he looks: his white untucked dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal thick veins and a dark tan, tie tossed on the table. is this how every male teacher looks after work?

‘cause, yummy!

“takeaway. one large vegetarian and one large hawaiian...with extra pineapple, please,” sir glances at me adorably. “cheers, sweetheart,” he hangs up after giving his number and address for the order. “should be here in 40 mins,” he informs me, “catch,” and tosses the remote at me. “pick a movie. make it a good one. i’m gonna go freshen up quickly.”

can i come?

-ˋˏ ༻🍷༺ ˎˊ-

i struggle to find a goddamn movie!

sir’s phone vibrates and i look across at it. why does that thing be buzzing and ringing all the time? i mean... hmm… i lean all the way back, peeping down the hallway. i listen to see if the shower is still on.

🚿pshhshhshhshhshhshh

oh good, it’s still on. i sneakily pick up his orange google pixel 4 xl mobile phone. okay, let’s see, what’s his passcode? says his pin contains at least four digits. hmm...

1 2 3 4

incorrect pin entered

4 3 2 1

incorrect pin entered

6 9 6 9

incorrect pin entered

his birth year, maybe?

1 9 8 1

incorrect pin entered

it’s definitely mine, then.

2 0 0 0

try again in 30 seconds

fuck, what is it?!

now i’m adamant.

a while later, i listen for the shower again. no sound. fuck me! i also haven’t even picked a movie yet! i grasp the remote and quickly flip through the movies. in ‘newly added’ a film that goes by the name ‘barefoot’ {2014} appears. this’ll do. i haphazardly click on it, put his phone back in the middle seat and swiftly bring my knees up on the sofa.

bathroom door opens and mr killian returns, setting himself down.

and ohhhh boy, oh jesus h. christ, he is wearing grey sweatpants. grey. sweatpants. oh my goddddddd!!!!

🎵dun da daaaaa! dunda dunda da dun dadada oo oo oooooo dun da da

i cringe, really should have skipped the first 10 mins or something.

sir looks at me with an amused expression, “just started?”

i nod, embarrassed.

then he cracks up a little, “how long did it take for you to pick a film?”

“i paused it, was waiting for you.”

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

“alrighty then,” he slumps down, letting me get away with the white lie. “this better be good or else you’re held accountable.”

the professional teacher’s vibe is disappearing and transforming into a perky one.

he’s wearing a loose t~shirt with long sleeves and it’s even rolled up. his hair is damp and floppy, making him so much more attractive. he runs his hands through it, flipping it back as the stray droplets of water roll down his neck. i would gladly lick them off for him if he doesn’t mind...

“why’s my phone locked for 60 minutes?”

“huh?” i snap out of my daydream.

“my phone, why’s it locked?”

*ding dong.*

“maybe...you put the wrong password in?”

“pretty sure i didn’t, and you’re the only other person in this house, no?”

*ding dong!*

“aha..ha,” i giggle nervously.

“does it look like i’m laughing?” he asks me condescendingly.

my smile disappears.

*ding dong! ding dong! ding dong! ding dong!*

“ight, i’m coming!!” sir shouts, grabbing his wallet. “..jesus christ, break my damn doorbell, will you..” he mutters under his breath angrily.

bit hot...

-ˋˏ ༻🍷༺ ˎˊ-

i only ate 2 slices of pizza so i wouldn’t look like a fat bitch in front of sir. he, however, didn’t even eat any. so much for being ‘starving’. he was just casually watching me eat. i could feel his eyes on me each time i took a bite and the odd olive or pineapple went rolling down into my lap. it was so awkward!

we’re halfway through the movie and i felt the need to say something because jay, the character, was such a jerk.

“i mean, it’s actually rather heartbreaking. daisy was locked away for most of, if not, her whole life. and now she is finally free, finally able to experience the pleasures of the real world. she put all of her trust in him and he abandoned her. that’s so not cool.”

as i’m analysing the film, i feel his eyes analysing me.

“well, you can’t blame him,” sir counterattacks. “jay had his own life, his own problems to deal with. she was just another added problem to that.”

“then he should’ve led her back to the hospital again instead of taking her on this joyride purely for his own greed.”

“remember, she chose to take part.”

“he was being selfish.”

“he was lending her a hand.”

“which is what ultimately made her fall in love with him in the first place,” i state like a full stop.

sir’s whole face just speaks wow. “so why didn’t you do my analysis homework then, huh?”

“because it’s boring,” i look him boldly in the eyes, his slicked back hair has me feelin’ oozy and woozy.

“oh, it’s boring?” he emphasises, raising his eyebrows. “is that so?”

“yup,” i purse my lips.

“what was it again?” he grabs my arm, pulling me into his lap. “‘boring’, did you say?”

i’m trying to escape and he’s trying to hold me still. gradually, our laughter dies out and we become aware, so much more aware.

“got some on your mouth,” he says in the heat of the moment, running his thumb over my bottom lip.

there was definitely no pizza sauce or whatever on my mouth, but i play my part. somehow, his thumb finds its way inside my mouth and i instinctively wrap my tongue around it. his green eyes glimmer like shiny marbles as he watches me

suck

on his

thumb.

i feel pressure underneath me, something building up in stiffness. i shift his hand away, glancing down and then back up again. his marble eyes, they just look at me. look through me.

no way in hell did i imagine this moment to actually happen. i mean, most of us girls had these insane crushes on teachers, but never did i think it’d unravel like this.

he firmly places his hand on my lower backside and pushes me closer to himself. “what, you scared now?” he whispers, dominance combined with confidence, topped off with lust.

i gulp, trying to sound brave, “and why would i be scared?”

“you should be,” he replies.

i am lost for words. this kind of intimidation is seductive. all i wanna do is kiss him! though i won’t make the same mistake of glancing at his lips twice.

he speaks in a soft tone, “has anyone ever told you how captivating your~”

“my eyes are?” i finish his cliché line off for him.

“...your lips,” he corrects, casting his gaze down at them.

i bite my bottom lip, flustered for acting like a smartass.

“you know, on some occasions, i’ve noticed that you bite your lip when you’re nervous. it’s cute,” he grins, “i like it more than i should,” and waits patiently for me to fall into his devilish trap.

believe me when i say i’m trying goddamn hard to not sink my teeth into my flesh! which is why i replace it with a mere innocent gulp.

“but on most occasions, you gulp,” he says as i’m gulping.

he removes the hair from my neck.

i get hella anxious, hella aroused so i..

“nuh~uh,” he shakes his head and pulls my bottom lip down with the pad of his thumb. “‘nough biting from you, sweetheart. those are mine to bite now.”

am i dreaming right now?

i try to reposition myself by moving a little back so that i’m not directly on him. as i do this, his erection rubs further into me and i slightly moan kinda too evidently. my eyes open super wide and i instantly shut my mouth. it surprises me that it doesn’t faze him one bit.

“your t~t~thing is p~poking me..” i gesture with my eyes to his manhood.

his orbs shine like someone has stabbed an apocalyptic emerald sunset multiple times. it’s glorifying. magical. the stuff dreams are made from. and instead, he pushes me further down onto his sculpture. he leans his head in, his mouth millimetres away from mine.

“and do you like it?” he questions seriously.

our noses touch, our lips brush...

“answer the question.”

“yes,” i squeak. “i like it.”

i try to remain as calm as possible, but it’s impossible due to the nerves causing havoc inside me, particularly the nerves between my thighs. i don’t know what to focus on. that mouth? his eyes? or down below...

“may i let something be known, luv?” sir requests politely.

i nod.

“i can see your tits...through that shirt...” he whispers sexily.

my breath hitches up.

kiss me! why won’t he kiss me? just fucking kiss me! shit, it’s impossible not to look. i give in and look at his lips. the corners curve slightly into a wayward grin. i see... he wants me to initiate it.

welp, sorry, no can do, mister.

he literally places my bottom lip between his teeth and lightly tugs at it, his breaths hitting my mouth like rose petals. this act is enormously enticing, but i know he’s teasing me.

my turn.

i purposely grind in his lap and he suppresses a hoarse groan. then he scoffs. very conceited. he’s so gonna lose. i keep my lips impossibly close to his for when he forfeits which should be right about...now.

he shakes his head smugly.

i frown, pouting.

he half~smiles adorably.

fine, i have a better idea. one he doesn’t see cumming coming.

i lift away the waistband of my borrowed sweatpants and grip his hand. his body automatically tenses up. i can feel him getting harder from just the thoughts i’m giving him. i bring his hand closer to me. he’s losing and it’s hella entertaining to watch.

unexpectedly, a phone goes off and i jump in fright. i rapidly get off him and he returns to his usual, rigid ways. he aggressively clears his throat before answering that stupid device.

whilst pacing up and down and holding his forehead, he stares at me intently like i’m that fucking maths problem again!

[rakuyokoyo]

Chapter 285 Spoilers/TBE Spoilers

Days like today, I wish I just sucked it up and published TBE last year. Maybe then I could’ve caught up to where BNHA is at right now (though highkey doubt).

Note: major BNHA manga spoilers, major TBE spoilers

I’ve briefly mentioned a few times about how amazing it was to sometimes see ideas I’ve come up with years beforehand become canon by pure coincidence. In just One Piece alone, an idea that I came up with around a decade ago when I first started Romance Dawn actually showed up with Momonosuke and Trafalgar Law. At first I was thrilled and excited because even though the nuances were slightly different, the main ideas were EXACTLY the same and I’ll point them out once we hit those moments in Romance Dawn.

Something I did not really expect, however, was this to happen with BNHA.

One of the reasons why I love this story from a writer’s standpoint is that I’ve never been able to accurately guess what would happen next in BNHA. The ironic thing is, the one point of the plot I wanted to add but didn’t know how ended up matching with Horikoshi’s idea.

Basically, Kana is a character that mirrors the origin trio in many ways. With Todoroki, their views on family and Quirks foil each other, and I love writing about the two because there’s always something so comforting about they way they’re there for each other. With Hawks, he and Kana see Quirks as both a gift and a curse, and their different philosophies of the hero world is (in my opinion) what makes their love so sad and lonely.

Midoriya’s a bit of a basket case for me because he doesn’t foil quite as cleanly as Todoroki, Hawks, or Bakugo, but rather than having perfect foils and parallels, Midoriya is just someone that becomes important to Kana in every aspect of her life. His relationship with others, his sense of self-sacrifice and heroism, and his determination to be the best and not let his Quirklessness stop him from becoming a hero is a major source of inspiration for Kana. He gives her a purpose, something that’s so important for people like her who’s never even thought or desired a future.

And then we have Bakugo. I always have trouble writing about Midoriya, but for the longest time, I had nothing that I wanted to write about when it came to Bakugo. Todoroki, Midoriya, Hawks covered all the grounds for Kana and then some, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit him in. 

But as I developed Kana’s character as well as her backstory, the Overhaul arc became a major turning point for her and it became very clear to me how Bakugo could fit into Kana’s life.

This wasn’t intentional, but rather than focusing on the past which is how Kana parallels with Midoriya, Todoroki, and Hawks, Bakugo and Kana also grapple with their present and the future, and I realized how many similar things Bakugo and Kana actually go through. Post-Kamino arc they’re forced to become quite close due to something devastating happening to Kana. And then... chapter 285 leaks came out today.

Basically, once Bakugo and Kana become close, Kana gets a premonition from one of the main antagonists—an OC named Eve who has the power to see the future with multiple restrictions. Unlike Nighteye’s Quirk, Eve’s Quirk shows a possible future. Whether it’s a very likely or very unlikely future depends on how many times her mirror shows that future, and unlike Nighteye’s, Eve’s future predictions can be changed. Its major weakness is that the future in the mirror may not always be accurate (and no one knows how likely or unlikely it’ll be), but it’s advantage is that if there is a bad future, everyone can take precautions to stop it. Eve is a pretty unique antagonist (after all, how can she ever lose if she knows what will happen in the future?) and there’s a few more restrictions on her Quirk, but this is the main idea.

I intended Eve to show Kana a premonition of Bakugo dying, but I had no idea where to include it. When this arc started and I saw a city about to potentially get destroyed, I thought ‘aha! This is the perfect place to squeeze my original scene in!’

Little did I know Horikoshi would ACTUALLY do it in the arc I intended to! I’ve included three excerpts from three different chapters below.

—

This chapter was written on August 23, 2019, a year before Chapter 285 was leaked. The title is Beginnings of Endings.

Note: some spoiler names/titles/plot will be omitted with an (omitted).

“(omitted)” She snapped, azure eyes vibrant like those of a fire’s. “Dealing with the (omitted) was my problem anyways! Stop sticking your nose into it!”

“Hah?!” He cried, standing up with fists clenched to his sides. “You’re the one who’s being a dumbass about this! The white-haired brat said it, didn’t she? Her futures are reversible if we make an effort!”

Kana gritted her teeth, drawing a fist back. “Shut up!”

(omitted)

“And?” He asked weakly. “What was going on?”

Kana shook her head. “I don’t know. But there was so much debris around us—probably the aftermath of a battle. You were bleeding out in my arms. I-I don’t know if I’d tried Overdrive and it didn’t work, but your wounds just looked so fatal…”

“Did I say anything?” Bakugo asked, crimson irises locked into azure.

“(omitted)” Kana said quietly.

The two continued to look at each other silently for a few seconds, Kana with tears continuing to fall slowly, while Bakugo gave her a quiet, passive gaze.

(omitted)

Dim, grey eyes flashed, engulfing him in light. When it disappeared, he realized that he was seeing the aftermath of a battlefield. Crumbled buildings scattered debris everywhere, but it was almost deathly silent compared to how loud the actual fight must’ve been.

“Bakugo!” He heard Kana’s cry. The girl ran towards a bloodied body in the centre of it all. She was wearing a white shirt with her usual thin ribbon and maroon skirt. Her hair hung loosely below her shoulders, and her skin looked marred and injured.

—

This excerpt is from a different chapter called Where Hands Cannot Reach, written on September 10th, 2020 (two weeks ago).

She suddenly stood up and began to run, much to the shock of Tokoyami and Dark shadow. “Kana!”

“GO!” She screamed, forcing herself to face them. “Go and get help! Do whatever—whatever you can to save him!”

“They’re too far, Kana-chan,” Dark Shadow said. “You’re the only medical support around—”

“If I don’t go, Bakugo will die,” she screamed, shaking her head in despair. “Kei—Hawks might have a chance if you can find anyone else.”

“Bakugo will?” Tokoyami said, eyes widening. “Why... how do you know that?”

Dark Shadow looked down at the hero in his partner’s arms with worry. “But his wings—”

“Focus on his life first and not his Quirk!” Kana cried, reaching into her inner pocket and throwing a glass vial towards Tokoyami who caught it with disbelief. “I don’t know if that’s enough—it probably isn’t, but I need to find Bakugo and Midoriya first. That… that should at least keep him alive. Try to get to Momo if you can—she knows basic first aid.”

Kana sprinted, tears rolling down pale cheeks as she tried to grasp her bearings. Bakugo had been surrounded by rubble in Eve’s vision, which likely meant that he was close to Shigaraki.

—

And finally, an excerpt from The Ending We’ll Write, which was written on July 4th, 2020.

“(omitted)” Kana mumbled, looking at the ground awkwardly at the entrance to his room. Her toes dug into the floor and her fingers fiddled around, cloudy azure pupils averting his gaze. The boy stood up from his bed and reached for the gauntlets on the desk, tightening them around his wrists with a quiet click.

“What do you want, (omitted)?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Kana’s mind immediately quickened with the answers. What do I want? I don’t know. I think I saw a future where you die—today—so I want you to stay home. But I know you won’t do that. I want to be able to come home tonight. Eat shabu shabu or sukiyaki with everyone at the end of tonight with all of our limbs attached. I want this to not be the end for us because there’s still so many things I want to talk to you about, and I haven’t even thanked you or repaid you for everything—

“(omitted)?”

His voice was quieter and without the exasperated irritation that usually came from calling her name.

Why are you looking at me like that? She thought, carmine clashing with azure. Don’t look at me like that. Like you’re the one worried about me.

“If you have something to say, spit it out,” he said, the usual coarseness returning to his voice. “Get rid of that pathetic look, as if we’ve lost already.”

Kana bit back a scowl. “I can’t help but worry sometimes, okay?”

He gazed at her quietly. “How many people do you think we’ll lose today?”

“I don’t know,” Kana said softly, “but what are the chances of no one getting hurt and no one dying? Probably slim to none.”

—

I had to hide so much but I hope this can somehow show what I was trying to do. When this arc first started, I saw it as the perfect chance to include Eve’s premonitions, but I’ve written a lot about it even before this arc ever started. And now to see Eve’s premonition (that I intended on it not being true anyways) actually come to life is sort of insane for me.

To be honest, this premonition was supposed to be a bit more about Hawks and Kana, as the second excerpt shows her decision to abandon Hawks to save Bakugo. But hey, if Horikoshi is going to make Eve’s future canon, I’ll run with it.

I highly, highly doubt Bakugo’s injured (much less dead), but it’s just enough angst for me to work with. Seeing my ideas collide in One Piece was frustrating because I wasn’t able to use my ideas (for a hint and some spoilers, something about Momonosuke was supposed to be Falco’s, and something about Law was supposed to be Amare’s), but this time, I was actually able to integrate my plot and what I wanted from Bakugo almost seamlessly into TBE, so I’m absolutely thrilled.

No updates planned at the moment. I’m just having fun writing all these crazy chapters in TBE! Maybe more things will match up in the future.

-Koyo-

[rayneyroses]

" It's getting crowded. Here, hold my hand" Can I request that one about a platonic interaction of Miu with Ouma or Saihara (Your choice) ? Its fine if you can't do that though, thanks in advance

🌹 Send me a Soft Sentence Starter for a drabble! 🌹Characters: Iruma Miu, Saihara ShuichiWord Count: 666 (you bet)Note: Iruma isn’t on my list of muses. I still wrote this. So now you’re obligated to tell me if I did okay or not hdbfads She’s a softie. 

“Ah, it’s getting crowded… here, hold my hand.” 

Saihara was going to regret that decision immediately.

An endless stream of passengers crowded the busy streets of Akiba, Tokyo’s heart of electronics that offered any tech you could desire. On a quest to find a very specific object that Iruma hadn’t named, simply described in her roundabout way, they were going to spend hours here searching. The chattering of people and the uncomfortable lack of space were things he disliked. So as to not lose his friend…

“Y-your hand…? Hiyeehhh…” Iruma let out a shuddering exhale as her arms squished her breasts together, her fingers curled in delight and a pink blush crept on her cheeks. Was that a trail of sweat rolling down her…?

“…alright, I take it back.”

“N-now wait just a second! You can’t dump me now, Sobhara!”

As expected. Befuddled, she dropped the act and nervously grasped Saihara’s hand. Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted her biting her bottom lip, yet he chose not to comment. It was a little embarrassing now that he thought about it, even though he had asked her out of good intentions. They had known each other for a few years and he knew what it was like to lose each other in a crowd. He’d hate to do that to her - both because he knew she’d dislike it and because he wouldn’t hear the last of it.

“…your hand’s sweaty. What are you waiting for, huh? Gorgeous golden brains Iruma Miu- fucking dammit!”

Before she could say anything else, Saihara grimaced and started pulling her along through the crowd. So many voices and moving faces, music buzzing from countless shops and ads ringing in the background. It was uncomfortable and he subconsciously squeezed her hand. 

“…”

Iruma’s eyes were fixated on different hard drives as she twirled a strand of strawberry blonde hair around her fingers. 

No, he was sure of it. She had squeezed back, just once, instead of commenting on what he did. 

Over the time they had spent together, he learned that she was far more delicate than she liked to admit. Saihara had come to appreciate that. 

“Is the thing you’re looking for here? I, ah, I can’t find it.”

“…no, it’s not”, she huffed and dropped her hair to point at him, thinking. “Y’know, Sighhara, I didn’t even tell you what this shit’s for, right? Aren’t ya gonna ask? Tch, rude.”

“But I did!”, Saihara blurted out before he had time to think about it. “Wasn’t it to… increase the power of the processor you’re using to-”

“Aha! The power I’m using to pump up the performance of my bursting hot invention, Put-it-in-while-you-sleep, hiyaha! Wow, you remembered… if you make this trip worth my while, there’s gonna be a reward.”

“I-I think I don’t want it, Iruma-san. If it’s not here, then let’s move on.”

She wanted to upgrade her invention that let you study while you’re asleep. It sounded silly when she had first told him about it. But the real reason was far more formidable than he would have initially expected. Iruma definitely was beyond mad, but still a genius.

You don’t get it. A big-boobed genius like me has to work day and night or the world would be in pieces! If you gotta pull an all nighter to get your fucking work done, stop getting your panties in a twist and try it. Ruining your beauty sleep over unhealthy habits is gonna turn you ugly when you hit the twenties, Shithara. 

He decided he’d support his friend. The longer they walked through the streets of Akiba, the more comfortable he grew with the warmth in his hand. Saihara gave her another gentle squeeze.When she squeezed back, a shade of pink dusted her cheeks. But the corners of her mouth were curling upward, giddy as it made her. Having a friend to support her in what she’s passionate about, it truly made her happy.

[guesswho-mp3]

[ Lady Luck ]

Au: twoface!baekhyun | Pairing: character x reader | Warning: language, death, gore/body horror, sexual references | Rating: 16+ | Word Count: 1.6k

This is: Visage One | Visage Two

“Rough day?” A light voice questioned. Baekhyun could feel the pent up tension in his body ease, his shoulders slightly slumping as he turned around while loosening his tie. The last of his worries left him, like waves flowing from shore, ebbing away at the sight of her leaning against the hallway.

“The worst,” he mumbled, hands circling her waist, nuzzling against her neck to inhale her scent. “There’s enough as it is, trying to clean up the G.C.P.D with the corruption scandals pouring in and Moon isn’t complying. The Gazette is more interested in my dating life than my plans for the future and I just have to smile and wave like an idiot. Did you know that they started calling me Two Face down at the precinct?”

“Oh my poor baby,” she dramatically sighed, laughing in admiration when he raised his head to reveal a pout. She thumbed at his bottom lip and his hand fell to her ass, giving it a light squeeze. Arcing her eyebrow at him he just hummed, taking her thumb into his mouth, wet tongue lapping at the digit. She grasped his tie and started pulling him towards their shared bedroom.

“Come on then, Mr. Hahm. Let me see what I can do to make it better.”

When he came to the world was blurry, the only clear sensation he could feel was a splitting pain on the left side of his head. His right hand crept up to pick at the bandages on his face, starting to peel the edges back.

“Uh uh uh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you boy-o.” Baekhyun’s neck snapped in the direction of the voice, neck straining to the far left in order to be able to look out of his right eye.

The Crown Prince of Crime sat in the cushy hospital chair in the corner of the room, dressed in a white nurse’s uniform. The reaction was immediate, a coarse yell for help escaping his throat as his body jerked back and forth, the burning of his limbs too great to actually get up.

“Scream all you want. I shot the doctor and the police are running around like headless chickens at the Court House. They’re not coming.” The clown’s voice was unemotional, the lackadaisical way in which he said his words even more terrifying.

He kept still even after five minutes of watching Baekhyun struggling to lift himself up, frustrated yells and curses leaving his lips, a cracked image of the sophisticated and put together DA candidate that graced Gotham News. He was thoroughly enjoying this. He knew the Bat wouldn’t, and that thought made him laugh.

The attorney finally quieted seeing as the clown had yet to do anything. He leaned back in the bed, his right eye still furrowed at the figure in the corner.

“Why are you here?” Baekhyun accused, his right nostril flaring. The burn tape that covered half of his face still didn’t stop the wince at the burn of his torn cheek tendon stretching.

“To see you of course. Now I’ve done a lot of bad things to a lot of good people, but I have to admit, I think I really outdid myself on this one.” A proud smile strained his visage, his eyes slightly glazing over.

Baekhyun scoffed. “So what, you’ve come here to mock me?” He could feel an angry tear forming in his waterline, turning his head at the last second so the clown wouldn’t see it, he couldn’t give the madman the satisfaction. But it didn’t go unnoticed as he’d hoped, snake tongue passing over red stained lips at the sight of the liquid pain. If only his Lady Luck were here. Baekhyun didn’t see what happened to her after the attack.

White hot fury engorged Baekhyun’s pupil as he scrutinized the Joker, body trembling. “Wait. Where is she? What did you do to her?.”

Joker abruptly rose from the chair, like a marionette brought to attention, and got up close to Baekhyun, leaning in as if telling him a secret. “Oh, you don’t know?” He chuckled, a humorless, caustic sound.

“She's dead.”

The air was knocked out of Baekhyun’s lungs, the unshed tears forming a hurricane as he wailed and twisted in the hospital bed. The desperation he felt was mutating into something else. It was growing claws and gnashing teeth. His psyche was cracking like concrete, straight down the middle, his heart shattering along with it. He wanted blood. His paralyzed state prevented him from seizing a hold of the clown who just raised his hands up and backed away in mock surrender, his own figure buckling under the crazed cackles that wracked his body. This was going so well.

“I get it you know ehehe, it must be difficult to lose your other half. Especially aha, when it was y-your ahaha,” he wheezed,” prettier one.” Baekhyun felt like he was in hell, the previous screams reduced to a mixture of helpless sobs and infuriated growls, as if his soul were being split in two. Rage, earth-quaking, blind vengeance overcame him.

The Joker wasn’t done though. He had to push him, make him his pawn, his raving mad dog.

“May I ask a question?” He took the severe glare and snarling he received as his sign to continue. “You were squirming in your sleep, like you were having a very pleasant dream.” The grin that appeared on his face was predatory. He came closer from the foot of the bed, fingers skipping along Baekhyun’s left leg.

”Though I wonder, with the acid dripping down your body can your little friend still…” His eyes trailed down the blanket, whistling like a bird while raising his pointer finger up. In a sudden show of strength, Baekhyun grabbed the jester by the collar, pulling him eye level, seething at him, foaming at the mouth.

“Ok ok, aha, touchy subject, though I’m sure nobody is going to touch that anytime soon,” he tittered. “Especially since, oh what’s her face—”

Baekhyun barked out her name, spittle flying from his mouth and onto the corner of the clown’s, who licked up the drop before he continued, “Yes right, especially since she kicked the bucket. But that’s not important. Look, I wanna help you, Hahm.”

“Help us?” He grunted, skeptical at how the madman’s switch. His right eye roved across the clown, voice suddenly hushed, eye wide and desperate, “You want to help me?”

“Yes, help you. Listen, Baek, I may have pulled the trigger, but Batman and the Commisioner loaded the gun,” he said in a comic lilt. “You put your trust in a corrupt order. Am I right? You put your trust in the Bat, of all vermin, and where did that get you? A dead girlfriend and a fucked up face?” The Joker’s hand ghosted over the bandage.

Traitors, a voice spat. We have to make them pay. Punish them.

But they promised. They deserve a fair trial.

Deserve? The pigs deserve a bullet in their heads after what happened. They promised to protect you. But they just screwed us over. They screwed her over. Now we’ve lost everything because of them.

But they really tried—

Tried? Tried?! Give the Bat a gold fucking star than, get on your knees and blow Moon to thank him for the brilliant job he did. After that you can go tell the love of our life to go fuck herself and spit on her grave.

Oh God, please stop, don’t mention her. She didn’t deserve to die. It’s not fair. Baekhyun hit the left side of his head as he sobbed, a wet squelch being released from under the surgical tape with each bout of pressure.

Joker just watched on, transfixed, as Gotham’s White Knight started cracking, one part of him maliciously attacking and the other cowering. Two identities forming, one a tiny show poodle, charming and gentile. The other a rabid rottweiler, eyes rolling and teeth gnashing. The madness was being let loose. That acid must’ve really done a number on him. And boy was he gonna run with it.

“Doesn’t it ever bother you that Batman is always the one that crosses the line but never seems to lose anything?” Baekhyun bristled.

Joker pulled a gun out of the waistband of his nurse uniform, placing it in Baehyun’s hand and wrapping his fingers around it. “With life so merciless, the only thing that will forever remain faithful is chaos. Ok? Chaos is clean. Pure. Chaos doesn’t play favorites. It just kills and spares. Life. Death. Balanced. It’s fair. ”

“Fair?” Baekhyun trembled, weighing the glock in his grip.

“Yes,” the devil falsely soothed, voice grating and sinister. He lightly stroked the bandage on Baekhyun’s head, “Now are you just gonna let them get away with it? After what happened to her?”

The monster was back, rearing its ugly head. “No,” he snarled, fingers grasping the metal hilt, thumbing at the hammer, “we’re not.” He used his other hand to rip off the bandage, hissing as some pieces of skin went with it, flinging specks of blood onto the pillow.

“I’m glad you see it my way. It’s time to turn over a new leaf in this city. After all, like your slogan says,” Joker grabbed a mirror from the bedside table, turning it towards the fallen attorney.

He saw gnarled oozing skin. Part of his cheekbone and mandible were uncovered from stringy red muscle, surrounded by crusted and flaking gray skin. Patches of hair were singed off and one side of his mouth was curled in, revealing pearly white teeth hidden behind cheek tendon. Something flashed in his dead eye, nearly hanging out from the socket, the Joker staring back at his twisted grin in the smoke and tar of his clouded orb. There was a hunger there. Cereberus waiting to be let off the leash with an appetite for anarchy— to watch cities burn and symbols to fall. The Dark Knight to fall.

“The new face of Gotham, is Baekhyun Hahm.”

[yukiwrites]

Morgan, Comparing

Thank you for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse! This one was so much fun to write askdjlkasd Morgan will be the death of those three someday!

Summary: Morgan, now Linfan, has gotten used to travelling with the people from this Valla world, already considering them her companions. Even so, or perhaps because of that, she couldn’t help but feel as though she were meeting some of the same people of Ylisse in this world, but in another form entirely...

Commission info HERE and HERE!

_______________________________

Morgan had already felt at home amidst her newest companions during the war against the invisble-y, purple-y things -- they were something related to something that Azura tried her best to explain at least five times, but it honestly all went over Morgan's head.

Of course, she would most likely understand if she actually applied herself to it; or if her Father were the one to explain it to her, but as it stands, she just wanted to take things on her own pace. She had found her brother and pulled his ear like their Mother wanted, so there would be no problem in enjoying herself for a bit, right?

She was way too excited to be around so many new people and fighting such interesting enemies! All of that alongside her brother and her friends, as well! New and old!

Think about it! A male manakete (although Nowi did mention knowing one or two, but since Morgan had never met them, they didn't exist to her) with short ears and wriggly fingers in dragon form, able to stop a dragon-slaying sword. A water-controling dancer with next to no magical ability who uses the power of a floating pendant to instill her comrades to fight harder on the battlefield.

Not only one but three legendary swords wielded by a grumpier, blonde and royal Frederick, a shorter and hairier version of Walhart and the male manakete! Not to mention a legendary tome and a bow! This world was AMAZING in every sense of the word!

On her way to deliver her daily report to Corrin's tent regarding her patrol of the perimeter, Linfan wore huge grin on her face by just thinking about all of the awesome stuff this world had to offer. Her mind in the clouds, she bumped into something oddly fluffy right at the entrance of Corrin's tent: a... cleavage?

"Whoops! Lady Camilla! Thanks for the save." Linfan giggled after the nohrian princess caught her lest she fell on the ground after their bumping. "Visiting Lord Corrin?"

"You are very welcome, darling," the eldest princess smiled softly, lingering one hand over Linfan's shoulder. "And yes, I am... Though I must admit I am rather worried..." she took her free hand to her cheek, a dark cloud shadowing her brow. "Say... is that the report of your patrol, my dear?"

Oh, I wonder what this nagging feeling is...? Where did i see that dark look before... Linfan squinted at the beautiful princess' face, trying to discern what was it that bothered her.

Noticing how the young woman had once again flew into her own mind while gazing upon herself, Camilla giggled then patted Linfan's shoulder so as to guide her away from Corrin's tent. "My dear, why don't we have this conversation over there? I do not wish for my darling Corrin to be disturbed more than necessary..."

"Huh?" Linfan blinked as she saw the report she had been carrying slipped out of her hands into Camilla's -- smoothly so! How did she DO that? Was she secretly a ninja? Wow, that world had to be the best thing ever! But, wait- "uh, but he asked me to give it to him even if there were nothing out of ordinary-"

Camilla took her index finger to her lips, "that will be our little secret, hm? Dear Corrin has been much too stressed lately and only just now I managed to coax him to take a little nap." She giggled adorably, but her eyes were covered in a dark shadow. "Truly regrettable that I had to resort to a... calming kind of tea for that to happen."

Nagging feeling, nagging feeling, nagging feeling... Morgan couldn't hide her surprised yet scrutinizing expression, her brain working at its full capacity to be able to discern the origin of that insistent prickling at the back of her mind to think about where Lady Camilla was taking her to.

From a nearby corner, Laslow had just about finished helping a maid carry some supplies into a tent -- let us not mention how he was drenched in cold water due to the maid's... vehement refusal of his advances -- and caught a glimpse of Morgan being led through camp by none other than princess Camilla herself.

"Linfan?" He raised one eyebrow, taking it upon himself to tail the unusual duo.

Somehow, the air around Lady Camilla at that moment made the retainer unable to approach as he normally did -- and to think that Morgan was (happily?) chatting with her despite all that only meant that his childhood friend was still as oblivious as always to the world around her. Following from behind tents and barrels, Laslow watched how Camilla never lost her grip on Linfan's shoulder, a somehow uneasy feeling grasping his chest. He felt the visceral urge to go grab Odin immediately, but was afraid to lose sight of the two of them while he did so.

What to do... what to do...

"Oh, they went inside the- huh? The mess hall?" He whispered to himself, popping his head out of the flying banner he had badly concealed himself against. "No, wait, they went into the kitchen attached to it... Must follow!"

"Ugh, creeper, much? What're you doing following people by attempting to hide as lamely as that?" Selena scoffed beside him, as though she had been there the whole time.

"WAUGH!" Laslow jumped out of his skin. "Selena! D-don't scare me like that, I almost- wait, no time to waste, come with me!" He pulled his friend by the arm, tip-toeing as fast as he could towards the mess tent.

"Wh- hey, I didn't agree to-"

"Lady Camilla just took Linfan here!" He whispered-yelled, making a shushing gesture.

Selena slapped one hand over her mouth lest she gasped loudly in surprise. "What does Lady Camilla want with Linfan-"

"Let's find out-" Laslow whispered back, peeking inside the tent.

"What're looking for again, Lady Camilla?" Morgan asked joyfully, scavenging sacks and barrels alike, mostly for the fun of it since she didn't know what the thing Camilla wanted look like.

"It is a pear-shaped, grape-sized vegetable, my dear. You are a treasure for volunteering to help me look for it." Camilla's voice sounded a bit distant for the observing duo right outside, but they could feel the lack of mirth coming from it, which made them shiver.

Linfan frowned slightly, stopping her search to look up in wonder. "Huh? Did I volunteer...?" She searched her memory for the exact time that happened, but then shrugged. "Oh, well! I'm here helping now, and that's what matters! Pear-shaped, grape-sized, got it!"

"Don't go helping people without asking what it's for, you dimwit!" Selena said behind her teeth from outside. "If I remember correctly, that vegetable..."

"... Is used in a lot of soups, yeah." Odin replied, kneeling beside their friends as though he had always been there.

Selena's twintails and the entirety of Laslow's hair went up in surprise, but they managed to only yell inside their minds. "Odin?! Since when-"

"I saw you two sneaking about and thought it'd be fun to join, but then I saw it was about Linfan so I just stayed quiet." He replied with a serious expression, oblivious to the dark air around the nohrian princess right inside. "What's going on?"

Laslow opened his mouth to reply, but Selena slapped it shut for Morgan had started to speak.

"There! Is this it, Lady Camilla? The box was squashed under a big sack; no wonder you couldn't find it!" Linfan raised a medium-sized chest overhead, twirling around to the princess.

Camilla's mood shifted so quickly it was as though the cloud had never been there. "You are a treasure, dear Linfan! That is exactly it!" She smiled gracefully, taking the chest with rather ease from Linfan's hands. "Thank you so much for your help, my dear! Now I can finally cook up an invigorating soup for my darling Corrin. I will beat down his exhaustion by nurturing him in every way possible!"

Realization hit Linfan as strong and sudden as a slap on the face. "AHA!" She unabashedly pointed at Camilla after doing the 'I see' gesture. "That's what's been bothering me all the time! How could I have been so blind?!"

"Whatever do you mean, my dear?" Camilla placed the chest over a nearby crate, tilting her head to the side. Linfan placed her hands akimbo, proud at her discovery.

"That alluring cleavage; carefully cared-for hairstyle, the use of mixtures for the sake of others... And that care for your prince's health and well-being... The dark femininity of Tharja and devotion of Frederick! It's like someone mashed them together, put them on a wyvern and gave them a crown: Ta-da, princess Camilla!"

"F-FATHER?!" Laslow tripped over Odin, falling inside the tent.

"You idi-wahh!" Tangling her limbs on both fallen comrades, Selena rolled atop of them both, making the situation similar to a human rockslide.

"Heehee! What an amusing bunch you four are! Selena, my dear, are you quite alright?" Camilla threw her head back in laughter, extending one hand to help her retainer up. "Are those the characters from a story you three are well-acquainted with, dear?" She asked Linfan without even turning to her.

"Huh? No, they're from bac-mmmph!" She lifted her index to explain, but Odin had managed to tackle his sister in time, slamming her mouth shut with his hand.

"HOW PERCEPTIVE OF MY LADY! HAHA! That it exactly it! No wonder you are the cleverest, most beautiful and adored first princess of Nohr! None could compare! Now, if you’ll excuse us!" He laughed loudly, taking a step towards the exit with each word.

"Hold it, dearies."

Three words out of Camilla's mouth and the entire tent froze over, almost literally.

"Now, you four will help me with this soup, will you not? I need it done before Corrin wakes up from his little nap..."

Odin, Selena and Laslow breathed out in relief. Linfan struggled to speak under her brother's grip. What was that about? She was complimenting Camilla, you know! The beauty and shrewdness of one coupled with the strength and loyalty of the other! The perfect mash!

[izupie]

Green’s Your Colour

Izuocha - Izuku Midoriya x Ochako Uraraka (My Hero Academia)

Words: 2,166

Tags: Fluff, Aged-up Characters, Awkward Flirting

AO3 Link: [xXx]

Note: This is super indulgent. I just really wanted to write something really fluffy. The prompt was kindly given to me from Satellite_Vi from the Izuocha Discord Server and I ran away with it ahaaa. 

It’s set in the same universe as Saw This. Thought of You - so they are both super awkward and hormonal. It’s great

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

Izuku placed a nervous hand over his pocket, relief slowing down the racing of his heart when he felt the tiny pouch hidden within. He was torn so violently between wanting to hand it over and never taking it out of its hiding place, that he didn’t catch what Ochako said until she repeated his name twice.

“Ah! S-Sorry Ochako, I um...” He stuttered apologetically, snatching his hand away from his pocket as if she might guess what was in there.

“Hmm, you’ve been kind of distracted today Deku, are you okay?” She tilted her head to one side, her brown eyes shining with concern.

Guilt lanced through him when he realised she had noticed his divided attention. They were supposed to be on a date and he was having an inner battle over a tiny unassuming pouch in his pocket. He hadn’t intended for her to notice, or to worry over him.

“Fine!” He lied too quickly.

She seemed unconvinced and narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and he shifted a little in his seat under her gaze, realising once again how terrible he was at lying - even at nineteen years old.

Ochako was wearing a cream coloured blouse over a light pink coloured skirt, with a pair of black combat boots and black fingerless gloves, so she looked even cuter than ever, but still ready to beat up any villain she came across. By pure coincidence they’d matched their outfits well, since he was wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, khaki coloured baggy cargo pants (tucked into his favourite shoes) and a light pink tie. Ochako had laughed at the state of his tie again, but when he’d offered for her to re-tie it for him, she’d smiled affectionately and said, no she wanted to leave it how he always did them.

The café they were sat in was fairly small and homely, with only a handful of tables squeezed into the room, all laid out for two. It was a popular spot for couples. Not that they were officially a couple yet...

Ochako suddenly groaned and hung her head. “Ohh, I just called you Deku again didn’t I… Sorry!”

He was so grateful for the change in topic that his words came out in a rush, “You did, but it’s no problem, don’t feel bad. I didn’t even notice! I’m so used to you calling me Deku - I really don’t mind... I-I like the way it sounds when you say it.” He added shyly, his honesty tumbling out of him before he could stop it.

Ochako brightened back up, a blush lightly dusting her cheeks, and let out a relieved breath, “I’m kind of glad actually. I’ve been trying hard to remember, but it’s such a cute name that I just look at you and think ‘Deku’!” She clapped her hands together on the last word.

Izuku felt his heart leap at the sight of her pretty smile and her earnest, kind words, and he waved his hands furiously in the air.

“You- you really think that?” He blurted, wishing he could cope better with his nerves and the emotional punches she gave to his chest. He’d promised himself he would try harder to be able to talk to her more easily and stop getting so worked up (sometimes in more ways than one), but he still didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it.

Ever since they’d reconnected on his birthday, when she’d showed up unexpectedly at his door, he was constantly reminded of how two years spent so deep (too deep, if he was being honest) in his hero work had left him woefully inexperienced at anything romantic. Which was especially concerning because he knew he wanted to ask Ochako out properly more than anything - to be his girlfriend - but he didn’t really know the first thing about girls, love, or romantic feelings, he just knew that he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And it wasn’t just about the latent teenage hormones that had decided to drive him crazy; he knew he loved her.

Izuku didn’t realise he’d been staring at her until she glanced up at him, and she laughed nervously. “What?” She asked with a smile and a tiny tilt of her head. Her hair bounced whenever she moved.

This was his chance.

So far he’d been nothing but a distracted, flustered mess, but he knew he just needed a bit of courage and he could hand over the little pouch in his pocket and surprise her. If he could fight villains daily, then surely, he could do this. The worst that could happen is that she wouldn’t like it... right? They’d already admitted their feelings for each other, but this seemed like something a bit more solid than just saying his feelings out loud. It was more real? Like a true, tangible admission. Deep down he knew she was kind enough to like any gift he gave her, even if she didn’t want to officially be his girlfriend, but for some reason that knowledge just didn’t make it any easier to do... Izuku took a deep breath, telling himself he was over-thinking things again as usual, and looked up at her across the table.

“Ochako I-”

“Two orders of strawberry shortcake!” A waitress’s sing-song voice announced over him, as she placed two decorative dishes on their table. “Please enjoy!” She gave them an efficient smile, bowed, and then whisked away, her skirt twirling in her haste.

“Thank you!” Ochako replied gratefully.

Izuku gripped the table hard, trying to resist smacking his head into his hands; nearly overwhelmed by the moment being interrupted and his indecisive agony being prolonged.

“Sorry, were you about to say something?” Ochako asked him, rummaging in her handbag and completely unaware of his inner turmoil.

“O-Oh- uh- just that I couldn’t wait for my cake - and then it arrived!” Izuku stumbled over his words, but he forced an easy smile and laughed, and that seemed to put Ochako at ease.

She finally pulled her phone out of her bag triumphantly (with a little ‘Aha!’) and flipped it on its side to take a picture of her cake. Even Izuku had to admit that it was impressive to look at; two heart shaped golden cakey layers with a thick division of cream and fresh strawberries between them, more cream and strawberries on top, and a little heart shaped cookie on the side. Even the plates they sat on were heart shaped. He had worried that this café might be a little overboard on the cheesy stuff, but Ochako looked so impressed with everything that he was glad he’d chosen to have their date there after all.

“It’s so cute! Right, Deku?” She chirped.

Not as cute as you.

“Yeah… It’s…”

Not. As. Cute. As. You.

His mind yelled at him to say it, but his heart galloped in his chest and his throat tightened until he was sure that any words that came out would just be a strangled screech.

Why wasn’t he any good at this?!

Izuku decided to take a different approach, knowing it was the only way to overcome his obstacles. Even if that obstacle was simply his own inability to flirt with the girl he wanted to be his girlfriend... He rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants, then reached over and grasped her hands, even though they were still gripping her phone, and locked his gaze with hers.

“The very cutest.” He stated with as much feeling as he could put into words, hands tight around hers, hoping she would understand.

He wasn’t talking about the cake.

Ochako blushed hard as she understood what he meant; the redness blooming strongly across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and her hands tugged against his slightly as if she was fighting the impulse to hide behind them. He knew that feeling.

“Th-Th-That’s...” She squeaked, as unused to his flirting as he was.

Izuku felt boldened by his ability to make her flustered, so he finally reached into his pocket and pulled out the little pink pouch he’d hidden in there that morning, his heart thudding wildly in his chest.

“I wanted to give you this as soon as we met up, but now is better than never, right?” He smiled through his nerves. Taking a small breath and remembering his hero training, Izuku channelled the confidence he felt during his work and when he was using his quirk, to open up Ochako’s hands from where they still hovered over the middle of the table, and he gently removed her phone from them and placed the pouch in her upturned palms.

She looked up at him almost with confusion, her blush still darkening her cheeks, but curiosity lighted her eyes.

“Open it,” Izuku encouraged with a nervous chuckle, even though he felt a little bit sick from the tightness of his chest.

Ochako pinched her fingers inside and gently pulled out a thin black cord with a solid piece of dark green jade at the end, cut and polished into the shape of a heart. She gasped and pulled it closer to her, moving it in the light and running a finger pad over the smooth stone.

“It’s so pretty!” She enthused. “Oh, thank you so much! Gods it must have been so expensive, you shouldn’t have spent all that money on me. It’s so lovely,” she gushed, flashing the brightest smile at him she had. “The colour reminds me of you.”

Izuku felt his heart hammer faster. “W-Well, actually, I... That’s why I bought it.”

“Hm?”

“It’s a- a metaphor. It’s,” he swallowed down his nerves, “it’s my colour and it’s a heart, right? So...”

Izuku reached over the table again and enfolded her hands and the necklace in his.

“It’s like it’s my heart. So that means you’ll always have it with you.” He continued softly, while her eyes widened. “You’ve always had it. And you always will, if you want it?” He added in a slightly smaller voice, uncertainty creeping in. “Would you go out with me, Ochako? Uh- properly I mean, not just ‘out’ on dates and things- like as my girlfriend.”

Oh, no. He was losing it. Where had his confidence gone?

Ochako blinked, her gaze darting between their hands and his green, green eyes, then she finally squeaked an “Eh?” and her palms snatched away from him this time, flying up to slam onto her red cheeks with an audible slapping sound.

Izuku panicked when she began to lift from her seat.

He stood up so fast that his chair clattered backwards to the floor, but he reached out and gripped the bottom of her blouse, his thumb brushing against the soft skin of her stomach, and he pulled her gently down. The noise and his touch snapped her attention to the accidental use of her quirk and her lack of gravity, and she touched her finger pads together quickly, dropping the remaining few inches back into her seat.

They both let out a breath.

A waitress began to approach them in concern, but Izuku flashed her an apologetic smile as he straightened his chair and sat down, while Ochako hid her face even deeper in her hands, making sure to poke her pinky finger outwards from touching her skin. The waitress gave a little giggle as she left them to it.

“How?” Ochako’s muffled voice finally said, spoken through the hands that were still covering her face.

“How?” Izuku repeated in confusion, while his nerves settled into a cold pool of dread at the bottom of his stomach.

Ochako finally let her hands fall away and Izuku felt a jolt of something sweet and raw and loving stab through his chest. Tears were shining in her eyes, and she wore the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen on her; it made her cheeks pull up into a roundness that made her eyes half close. A blush still heavily stained the skin there, but it just added to her cuteness. She looked down at the necklace she held delicately and ran a thumb over its smooth surface again.

“How do you think of these things?” She clarified, her voice thick with emotion.

Izuku laughed nervously in response, still concerned that she’d not replied to his question.

She nodded her head rapidly. “Of- Of course I’ll be your girlfriend, Deku! I-” Ochako nearly yelled, getting cut off by Izuku abandoning his chair again and crossing around the table to lift her from her seat and into his arms.

One of the customers whistled.

She laughed with total glee and returned the tight embrace, nuzzling her nose into his shoulder.

“But only if you’ll be my boyfriend?” She offered playfully.

“I’ll be the best!” He promised, desperately trying to hide his tears from his new girlfriend.

(He was sure she knew he’d be crying anyway.)

“I’ll keep your heart safe with me always.”

[ofdesperationis]

i want the k // tbh this boy deserves to be killed

▓ ┊❛ ★ —–  ‘ kay?    /   @lieshed

                              ♡   10: — Oxygen Deprivation ♡

                                              Her lips retain an impeccable smile as she  hovers over the so-called occultist. both hands gently placed on each of his shoulders as her head rests on top  of her right hand.  slightly  (   -ever  so-   )  slightly, her nails start to find the rim of his  oh-so-adorable scarf.     really ?   OUYEKUN !!   — your fashion sense  stinks.  who even wears scarfs on a hot summer day? not to mention the material !  — YUCK ! &  to  think you were  acquainted with the SHSL FASHIONISTA — !  uwhaa . . .  you put the title of ‘  friends ’ to shame.  really, even the seams aren’t straight and so many loose threads.  ah, she’s getting distracted by the existence of a revolting scarf. 

                           she scoffs at him. the current state he’s in, to be more precise.  really, oyuekun! you always had a habit of involving yourself into things that have nothing to do with you. that’s why you’ve always been so — — HELPFUL  & not to mention entertaining. ah, but good things must end, right? hm, don’t worry she’ll miss you & all your silly lil white lies! ( you’ll always have a special place in her heart. )  her nails grasp each and every thread as she shares a smile — it’s not like he’ll be able to see it, but whatever.    (   pull & Pull   )   ❛   mou ~ ♬ ouyekun ! why so silent?~ ♪ ara ara, isn’t the reality of the situation breathtaking! you’re practically drowning in this state of despair, right~? ne, ouyekun — why did you  BETRAY  your precious classmates? were you thinking of playing the hero? “ I have to warn them of Enoshimachan ” right, right? Upupupup~!  ❜  her smile only enlarges; stretched from eye to eye. awe, look at him, frightened to the point of being paralyzed! aha — 

        She reels him in, closer & closer to her. She can feel every stiffness in his body, how his muscles clench up, how his breath hitches & most of all how his eyes are strained & glued at the sight before him. the sight of his classmates ( who were hopelessly happy & full of smiles  just~this~morning~! ) now lay on the ground bloodied & still; uwhaa such a despairing sight~! She could have let them join her senpai’s in spreading despair, but — One group of chumps is enough already. besides Oyuekun’s classmates didn’t hold nearly enough capacity for despair as her upperclassmen did. not to mention the major reason they are alive is to join Kamukurasenpai as his beloved friends~ aha. still ——   (   pull & pull   )     ❛  no no, you didn’t betray them~ you  KILLED them !  you knew the dangers of providing them hope, right~ yet you encouraged  them, supported  them & Deceived them~ ♡ hehe. I get it, I get it. you wanted them to die a more memorable death right? a death so despairing that any sort of hope that clung to their hearts was ripped out & stomped on, right? That’s why you —

                                              LURED THEM INTO THE DEVIL’S LAIR~ ♡                                                             ( & betrayed & killed them  )

              uwhaa~ I can’t imagine the despair they must’ve expierenced~ to be betrayed by the very person who gave you hope, constantly motivated you & then ultimately incapacitated you, robbed you of the pitiful sense of freedom  & tainted  that string of hope he provided for you~ aha~ ouyekun you yearn for despair so, so much,  even if  you deny it~ no, the fact that you are denying it, means you are already in despair~ hehe.  ❜  (   slowly; as a snake wrapping itself around its prey’s neck  /   she pulls the scarf ever so slowly.  )  She feels him struggling hopelessly; taking in deep intakes of breath. honestly, he can’t even fight~ what a mess.ara, ara. he’s even more of a mess that pathetic  mitaraikun~ at least, he struggled a bit, it was satisfying to watch as he kept digging his own grave — very much so.    (   & she tightens her grip on the scarf. little by little~   ) 

             Smile~ Smile~smile~    ❛  ne, ouyekun~ what’s with the long face?  G — eez! relax a bit~ after all, we are friends, right?  ❜  (  pull. )   ❛ you are just like me~ your heart aches for despair! that’s why you can’t help but give into this feeling~  aha. the despair you are feeling must be amazing right~? you want more right~? you want to feel the eyes of your trusting friends to lace with suspicion, doubt, anger, hatred & despair, right? You WANT despair. you want others to drown in this feeling of despair right~    ❜     she feels him gasping for air; struggling.  (   don’t worry, Don’t worry. She makes sure not to pull too hard; we don’t want to hear a CRACK  now do we?   )   ❛  upupupup!! sorry, sorry~ but you won’t be able to witness that, after all — when most of hope’s peak is eradicated by the reserve course; they are going to put on a huge show or the entire world.  Of course, there will be a few exceptions from the main course buuut you didn’t make the cut sorry, tee hee~ ♡ hmm. lemme guess: you are thinking of the old days right? where you smiled with all your friends? where hope was alive~ are you asking yourself “ how did it come to this~?"

                                            GET REAL & GROW UP ! ! !  ❜  — — her voice (   even if it’s just as sweet as before   ) turns into something more fierce.  ❛    no matter how long you wish for this to be a dream — a miracle like that won’t happen!  kyahh isn’t it despairing~ ?  awe too bad!    ❜  even though his body lays still an unmoving; she knows he is still alive, she knows he is on the verge of losing consciousness, she knows that this is the end.  

Ah~ are you HOPING for a savior to jump in? to give you a good end~?to beat the bad guy & save the day? upupupupup — Sorry, but this storyhas already passed the point of climax. So no heros are going to changethis hopeless tale. but is it really that bad~? Aren’t endings like this moreexciting & interesting? An ending that is gray & filled to the brim with despair.Besides who would come to save a mere side character ———–—!the real plot hasn’t begun yet sweethear~ ♡

[foxcroft-rpg-blog]

Congratulations, Kathryn! Wow, your application just made Neil feel so real. Reading it over, I felt like I was there with Neil, Adam and Willa. I felt like Neil was someone I knew. You built on his character in a way that just made sense, and you have a great grasp of potential plots for him. I’m so excited to see you write more for him.

Thanks again for applying! Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the masterlist as soon as you can. Welcome to Foxcroft!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name: Kathryn

Age: 19

Preferred pronouns: she/her

Time zone: GMT

Activity: so I’ll be active pretty much all the time until the 18th April, when I go back to uni and activity would go down somewhat (until I come back in early June). it’s an intense term even for Oxford because I have exams at the end of May/start of June, but I feel like I would still be able to see to replies before then - writing would be a really nice study break too, so I’d be dedicated to keeping on track of those! I might struggle to keep up OOC though.

Anything else?: nothing from me! :)

IN CHARACTER

Full name: Neil Monroe

Date of birth:

30th October Mischief Night. That’s what they celebrate on his birthday, and not without bitterness does he see how apt that is. Scorpio sun, Pisces moon. ‘You have a charismatic presence and a lot of willpower, but there are periods when you simply want to get out of the world. You may experience depression and mood swings. You are able to take on the feel of your surroundings. You comprehend things others are unable to. You are tuned-in, aware, and have an ability to sense things. You know innately the difference between right or wrong and no one ever has to tell you.” (x)

How long have they been in Foxcroft:

Neil has lived in Foxcroft all his life, except for the couple of nights he spent in the cheap motel at the edge of the purple cornfield one town over, when he decided that twelve was old enough to emancipate himself from his mother. Same house, same peeling paint, same scorched and sick-stained carpet. The poor end of town, at the fringe of swamp and suburbia, where the smells of the marsh are ripe and tang and the windows are always fogged up and the only cars that pass by are joyrides. Broken porch swing out front, blackened panels left charred from when his dad tried to set their house on fire. Home sweet home. (He’s been more accustomed to sofas over the last few years: Hazel’s living room, when her parents allowed it, or her bed, playing with her curls, with his palms all scraped from the tree he’d climb to get in when they didn’t. Willa’s window seat, a couple of nights a week, his legs folded up at awkward angles and the wind-chimes outside tinkling him awake. Adam’s guest room, once his parents moved out and the manor was theirs, playing golf indoors and never drawing back the curtains, losing all sense of time and liking it that way. Adam’s bed, a lot of the time, especially after Hazel died. Shivering even though it was warm there, shaking and trying to cry quietly, only settling down once he felt his friend’s arms around him. That bed was cold, now. There was no room for him there.)

Sexuality:

I’m going to go with bisexual. I think he consciously feels mostly attracted to girls, but just through writing that last answer I also feel like, whether he’s acknowledged it or not, he and Adam were a bit more intimate than friends usually are: nothing articulated, always just silent gestures, moments… maybe just because of the grief, they thought, but still. Take the vibe of lazy, day-drunk Sundays, skipping school together to go skinny dipping in the swamp, climbing into the Sweetwater Church organ loft at midnight, throwing stones up at Willa’s window and getting chased off by her father, collapsing under a lamppost in fits of giggles. The odd sloppy drunken kiss, fingertips on the other’s cheek, but none of it is real, right? Just warm. Like holding onto each other on the worst nights, when the buzz wears off and they remember what they’ve lost.

FC change: n/a

MORE

How do you interpret this character’s personality? How will you portray them? Include two weaknesses and two strengths.

I don’t think I could write about Neil’s personality as if it were a constant: grief brings out different traits, so it’s best to start before all the tragedy. Growing up, Neil was the classic case of the smart kid whose potential was extinguished by his bad background, only Foxcroft didn’t have that inspirational teacher who saw through his tardiness, his falling asleep in class, the coffee-ring and ash-stained sheets he wrote his homework on. But Neil was always very sharp, shrewd, perceptive: he would look at someone and understand them, or at least invent their character in his head. He knew how to read people and how to act around them, depending on the amount of liquor on their breath or whether there was a glass within their arm’s reach ripe for the throwing.

He used that skill, that insight, whenever he was asking for change, or pleading with Mr Rivers down the street to pay him to mow the lawn that he’d only just come round to mow two days before. He was the son of a depressive alcoholic mother and a father who snapped one day selling insurance over the phone, drove his car into a school bus and died in jail two years later. His self-reliance, then, was another strength, one which he cast off like an old coat the moment he found friends who held out their hands for him to hold – now that those hands are stiff and cold and dead, he needs to rediscover that self-reliance, but he’s struggling.

Besides the shrewd intelligence, the self-reliance, and the daring pluck that allowed him to steal, Neil’s other strength was perhaps most integral to his survival: his capacity to imagine, to dream, to conjure, to escape. His ghost stories were always the most chilling, his jokes the most elaborate, his impressions of late-night talk show hosts (his mother, passed out by ten o’clock, never sent him to bed) the most biting. He’d hidden his father’s guitar in the airing cupboard so that his mother couldn’t pawn it, and had played it so much since that he no longer thought of his dad when he touched the frets. There was something almost magnetic about Neil, when he was at his best: endearing, riddling, infuriating and charming.

He was far from the plucky urchin who enjoyed unbridled freedom, though, and from an early age suffered from a distrust of all authority which manifested in insolence: shrugging off the principal’s threats to contact his mother, flipping a middle finger at the police officers he ran away from. Leaving town every few weeks, only coming back when his legs shook from the hunger, not heaven, that he’d found on the open road. Not allowing many near, until Willa, and even then taking a long time to open up and reveal his hand. Worse were the bouts of melancholy, the hopelessness, the desperation he’d feel, the emptiness that a night around a fire with his friends and a bottle of whiskey could only fill temporarily. His moodiness, the unpredictable nature of his intense emotions: getting worked up over a harmless joke, overly defensive over the pettiest thing. Hazel had been the balm to that, the constant that he could cling to when he was caught in the tempests, and when she died the tempests died with her, and he was left with only the flat, mute, empty sea. Somehow, his friends found, that was worse: he’d lost his vigour, his spark.

Now, with Adam gone too, he’s lost everything. He can’t remember what’s real and what he’s imagined, and some days he doesn’t even know if he’s real himself. He’s quiet and his eyes are red-rimmed, ringed with dark circles. He spends a lot of time at the banks of the swamp, daring himself to walk in there and not walk back out again. He wonders whether they walked in, noble and courageous to the last, or if they were pushed. He wonders whether he was the one that pushed them.

How did this character react to the death of Hazel Abrams? Adam Foxcroft?

oh lol he was totally fine about it :) next question? ha hahaha ah aha haha no okay

What happens to the moon when the sun dies? After all, the moon’s only light is a reflection of the sun it chases. A sunny yellow bicycle, reported missing. She was found, drowned. She was drowned in the swamp. Somebody drowned her in the swamp and he lost all sense of taste for weeks after. His tongue was powerless when it wasn’t wrapping around her name, trying to think of a joke, a line, a sweet nothing to whisper. Whispers. Nobody spoke to him at a normal volume anymore, everything a murmur, a pigeon-coo. Even quieter whispers, too, whispers under their breath, he looks terrible, broken, hollow. Hollow. The tree-hollow they’d kept love-notes in, the trunk beneath it they’d carved their initials into after a picnic at the creek. He’d been carved out when she died, a whole chunk of him skinned off and buried with her. His friends had hidden his pocket knife and Adam had visited him every morning with coffee for breakfast. They didn’t drink, or talk. But he’d started to heal after a while. His smile wasn’t the same, his wit not as biting, but he moved his lips and opened his mouth and gave it all a try, anyway, even if just to appease Willa. The three of them stood at the edge of the earth together, one missing, but three still left to look over the precipice like the four always had. Their howls into the night were more like bleated cries, now, their knees skinnier and their eyes duller, but still they howled.

Then he woke up one night and Adam was dead. Adam was dead. He asked the police officer to repeat herself, he was dreaming. He was dreaming and Adam was dead. You know this already, don’t you, because we think you killed him. Adam is dead and you did it, didn’t you? He was the one you’d been holding onto, after Hazel, but maybe you held too tightly or maybe you were high but now he’s low, low down in the soil because he’s dead and you killed him. He’s been dead for two months and where have you been? Where have you been, son? Your mother is on a drip in the county hospital, they pumped the liquor out of her stomach and she’s just about hanging on. That’s where she is, but where have you been? Your buddy and your girlfriend have ended up in the dirt you come from, but where have you been? How do you not know? How do you not remember? Do you remember killing Adam Foxcroft? Don’t raise your voice at us. We have the right to restrain you. Has he suffered a mental break? We can’t hold him on this, it’s not enough. We have to let him go. One last thing, then. One more question. Did you kill Hazel, too?

How do they see the town and its people? Think about the different groups of people and prejudices the town holds about them.

Although Neil grew up in the southern end of town, where the nearby swamps bred misfits and the shared stench fostered a sort of camaraderie of outcasts, he didn’t feel like he belonged there. Nor did he belong to the suburbs, or the business district of the town centre, even though the latter was where he spent most of his time once his dad had been put away and his mom had put herself away with drink. The early days of begging and busking he’d done had garnered him a nickname among the proprietors in town: Oliver Twist, said affectionately at first with a fistful of dollars, but as the years went on it wasn’t so cute, and Oliver became a menace, a loiterer, a dirty-faced criminal.

He saw right through the churchgoers: the same people who would turn their noses up at his rotting shoes and moth-eaten sweaters as he lay on a bench on a Saturday night and looked at the stars with glassy eyes would all fall into rank Sunday morning and preach about saving the poor. He had little love for the long arm of the law, too, though thankfully his legs were longer, and they carried him out of that arm’s reach most of the time. He has even less love for the Foxcroft P.D. now, as he finds himself trapped in their web, jostled into a corner like a stray dog, about to be administered a fatal shot. They’ve finally got Monroe, they think, and they’re relishing it.

The other good people of Foxcroft are pleased too, he knows, as they watch him walk into the station with their beady eyes and mutter about time behind their papers. Even the good kids, the ones he never understood, the ones who might’ve liked him if they’d given him a chance, if they’d heard his jokes or let him sing them a song; even they want to see him gone. He’d tried to run away even before all of this, skipping to the next town over with a PB&J wrapped in newspaper in his pocket, not even through with puberty but already aware that there was no room for him in Foxcroft. The tragedy was, though, that in those nights in the cornfield Neil came to understand that there was no room for him anywhere: people of his ilk had two options, and his parents had shown him as much. Be locked up in jail, or lock yourself away inside. He knows which one the town and its people want for him, but when he sits on the hill and looks up at the moon with silent silver tears on his cheeks, all he wants is to be free.

For non-human characters: What does this character know about what they’ve become? Have they had any experiences that made them aware that weren’t exactly human? Elaborate.

I guess the first thing to address is the gaping hole in Neil’s memory. He knows that the lapse started on the night of the eclipse, but he doesn’t yet understand its significance: for now, the eclipse just equals the last time he saw his best friend alive. He has no idea what could’ve led him to forget two months’ worth of his life: the police are pushing him pretty fervently along the drugs line, but he’s never been much of a user – he can’t afford it. They softened a little once they’d ruled that out, telling him that those who are suffering from trauma can often will entire years out of their memories, that maybe something had triggered him which had caused him to do the same. They weren’t too soft, though, he realised: their idea of a possible trigger for such a memory loss was the murder of his best friend by his own hands. Then they turned to the bloodied hands he’d been found with, and they mused on the idea of a cult. Vulnerable kid, out in the wilderness alone to clear his head, picks one wrong car to hitchhike in… They pitched these theories to him like plots to a cheap horror movie, and none of them fit.

He hasn’t realised that, in the month or so he’s been back, his mood has been waxing and waning in pace with the lunar cycle. He doesn’t see the correlation between the thin sliver of a crescent moon and his cold fever, his physical weakness, the ache in his joints and his shaking hands. He just blames the cigarettes. He has noticed one thing, though, just recently. A mark on his body that is foreign, a mark he doesn’t remember having before Adam died. He spotted it in the mirror after he finally got to shower, after the police had taken samples of the blood on his body and he was allowed to wash it off at home. The ghost of a pale crescent etched high up on his left side, under his collarbone, small and sinister. He touched it, and it felt cold even though the water washing over him was scalding hot. He couldn’t remember getting it done. He couldn’t remember anything.

When he touched it, he could feel his heart beating; he remembered feeling it racing when he was with Hazel, when he was with Adam. He remembered how their hearts were still, but when he touched the crescent on his chest he felt his own heart still pumping, bitter and stoic. The strength in his body gave out and he sank to his knees, keeled over in the shower, back arched and chest shuddering with sobs. He saw the blood on his hands again, the blood which didn’t belong to him, and he scrubbed at his palms with his knuckles until they were red raw for real. He stayed in the shower with his head in his hands until the water ran cold, but still he didn’t feel clean.

Please include 1-2 possible plots you see for this character. The first cluster of plots I think we need for Neil deal with the short-term, and focus on his role in the investigation as it is right now. I want to see tense encounters with Murphy, visits and investigations which aren’t perhaps all above board, or compliant with official procedure: Murphy’s so close to pinning it on Neil and burying the truth that I think he’ll be getting desperate, and I want to see real threatening tension there between them. I also think Levi is important in this regard, and I’d love to cook up some sort of exposé on the Monroe family (it’s perfect for the paper: a crazy, jailed, dead father; drunken, depressive, hospitalised mother; and their inevitably criminal, sociopathic, murderous son) and play that out with Neil and Levi: I think Levi would be really important in telling Neil’s redemption story, too, if that ever comes, so developing their relationship would be very interesting. Amelia is crucial to short-term plots as well as the longer-term burn: we’ll have to tease out an excruciating process of trust, but I want there to come a point where Neil gets to look Amelia in the eye and tell her how he really felt about her brother, and I feel like when that point comes, she’ll believe his innocence, and maybe they can develop a good bond. Because of his role in the murder case, I think it’d be quite easy for Neil to be believably cast out by a lot of characters, and it’s unlikely that he’d push to make connections at this point, so I’ll be on the lookout for ways to engage him with people in circles that he isn’t already involved in. (Cassidy and Summer and the other ‘good kids’ are an interesting case, for example. I wonder, does anyone in the town not think he did it? Or at least pity him nonetheless? I’d be keen to work on a plot related to that, but I think a crucial figure in ‘saving’ him is obviously Willa. The rebuilding of their relationship would be very important in the long-term.) Working on the slow enmity-to-friendship of him and Cherry is another plot I’d be keen to develop. I’ve also been doing some thinking about Shae, and thought it would be cool if one day either they bump into each other and get talking about it - at the bar, maybe, on neighbouring barstools - or Neil just straight up approaches her, and basically he asks Shae to try and read his mind to go digging for answers, to help him un-block his memory, to find the truth, etc. He’s skeptical and reluctant at first, probably, but there’s lots of potential there! I also really, really want to throw him and Valerie together, and Jonah. The fact that they know they’re responsible for at least one of the deaths, of his girlfriend at that, and that now he’s likely going down for both murders – a conversation between them would honestly be squirm-worthy and I want it now. I also want to develop a plot between himself and Dominic - they might have never met before, but maybe they meet whilst both grieving down in the swamps. They get to talking, and they realise how well the other knew Hazel and how little they were aware of it until that point, and voilá - tension.

WRITING SAMPLE

The round white mouth of the interrogation lamp burned full like the moon outside the station, its hot electric hum causing his skin to prickle. The officer had stepped out, undoubtedly in an attempt to rustle his nerves, to leave him with his thoughts in the hope that they’d bubble up so much he’d end up squealing. As if they didn’t already shriek in his skull. Neil’s fingers were shaking, as he sat silently at the table, and he patted his chest for the cigarette box they’d confiscated as he’d come in. Muscle memory. He was good with that: sirens mean run, fists mean duck, bottle-clink means grit your teeth and try to read the newscaster’s lips over the shouting. Oliver Twist, they’d called him, the cherubic thief you can’t help but forgive. Little did they know that Oliver would grow up, and his angel face would become gaunt and his eyes dull, and suddenly his skinny hips and bruised knees would be repulsive, and instead of smiled at he’d be spat on and instead of hand-outs, he’d get handcuffs. On his way in that night he’d been marched past the same officer who’d sat in his patrol car silently six years back, watching the store owner pummel a minor for shoplifting a frozen pizza and some Band-Aids. He’d been photographed for the mugshots by the same officer who’d visited the house after his dad’s arrest, who’d reviled his mother, sneering, to his face: Surname sure does suit her, doesn’t it? Monroe. Blonde hair, bit of a looker, popular with the fellas. Wonder what she’s got rattling in the bathroom cabinets. Daring Neil to hit him, daring him to commit an arrestable offence right then and there, just so they could pack him up for good. Over his dead body, he’d thought: it had turned out to be over Adam’s, instead. He’d never really been able to grow much facial hair, but stubble had ghosted his sallow cheeks when they found him. ‘Like a terrible ghost’, the old Mr and Mrs had described him in their story for the papers: Neil’s reappearance had given them enough dinner-party material for a lifetime. He felt like a ghost, too, a wailing phantom lurking about in the streets of a town which just wanted him gone. He was even living in a ghost house, empty of its owners, bills piling up by the door. He hadn’t gone to visit his mother in the hospital yet. It was almost as though, in his head, she’d died too. Some days he wondered why he hadn’t died himself already. Was he staying alive for the next microwave quesadilla, the next pack of cigarettes? He used to own his poverty like it was interesting, playing the role of the jaded stray too old for his years, too clever for his own good. All that cleverness – the biting remarks, the Sartre aphorisms he’d picked up from a documentary soundtracked by his mother’s snores – was useless now. All the blasé bitterness in the world couldn’t save him, nor help him pick up the pieces which lay around him in ruins.

He’d tried to weave the tapestry together a thousand times, just like the police officers who sat opposite him and attempted to do the same with their questions, their scribbles, their murmurs. None of it made sense, though, almost as if there were a thread missing which condemned the whole thing to fall apart. A missing piece in the story, a missing chapter in the timeline: for him, it was missing months. He needed to make sense of it all, needed to understand as much as he’d craved all those years to be understood. He still craved that now, as he stared into the cup of bad coffee the officer had left him with and tried to find the answer in its black stillness: where have I been? Who am I now? Where the hell am I going?

EXTRA [THIS SECTION WILL NOT INFLUENCE ACCEPTANCE]

How would you feel about this character dying?:

kill him !!!! kill him now !! but no in all seriousness, I’d be okay with him dying and, to be completely honest, I feel like he’s marked himself for death already anyway. my aim in plotting will be to bring him back from that edge with the help of other characters, but if the future turns of events obscure that goal, or if someone takes it upon themselves to kill him themselves, I’d be totally chill with that. it makes a lot of sense for Neil not to make it out of this mess alive, tbh, as much as he’s my baby and I’d hope he does.

Why did you choose this character?:

I’ve played a lot of characters with internal struggles and woes and worries before, but Neil has this darker edge to him which I wanted to explore as a writer. He’s a bit more of a wild target, too (chaotic neutral, I think?) where I’m more familiar with the lawful neutrals and goods. And, of course, there’s a lot of meaty plot to get through with him, and a lot of things to straighten out with regards to his friends, identity, and his role in the case, all of which I’m really excited to bite into.

Extras:

I have a mock blog for him here, though it’s somewhat sparse, but my pinterest board for him conveys a bit more. I’ve also made a playlist of songs that either relate to him or actually feature in his story throughout the years - there are little notes besides each in the description that should explain that more fully.

How did you find us?: through a friend referral!

p.s.: finally, thank you so much for reading all of this !!! I know my app was hideously too long and overblown but I hope you liked it

[millennium-hearts]

Prelude

 “Don’t look for me, Odion. That’s an order. Do you hear me…?” The dim light from the torches barely made Marik’s features out. His eyes were lost under the shadow of his hair. And his voice was hollow, empty, and as steely as his bike collection dust and webs. A man standing before him, broad, a head taller than him, and stoic, seemed to have been taken back by the comment.

“But Master Marik,” the voice began, lost by the other’s command. It was deathly still in the small antechamber they stood in. Just barely could one make out the friezes of an ancient life long since pass. The hieroglyphics relieved into the wall, like eavesdropping flies, caught the shadows of the flame. Here, not even dust motes circled the air. It was a cold and stagnant as death.

And its main contributor to turning it into anything but that had suddenly become the newest feature of its assembly of those lost in time. “Odion, I didn’t ask for your opinion,” the other coldly, curtly spoke in a low, detached voice. “I won’t say it again….” The boy moved robotically past his older brother, shocked and standing still.  

As the lord of the Ishtar clan left, abandoning once again the confines of his shadowy prison, the deep resonance of soft sobbing slowly ebbed in the air. Marik never even noticed it as he strode blankly out from the room, but as the fiery torches behind him began to fade away, so did the small, distinct of a man’s broken tears and a very quiet “yes, Master Marik.”

The expanse of the Egyptian dunes stretched on in an infinite dream.  The barely half moon stood in the center of the deep sky, casting a bright, eerie blue glow across everything the tomb keeper could have seen. Marik pulled his Rare Hunter robes closer against his neck as the chill of the desert night began to nip at his bronze skin. His violet eyes looked out to the horizon, of dunes cresting as he made distance away from the Valley of Kings, but the deep shadows of the sandy waves and the pale blue of the moonlight gave him no sense of awe or appreciation, not even annoyance from having to walk up the mound. He drifted, like a ghost, losing all sense of self-purpose.

For days untold, he felt his heart slowly fade as loss overcame him in the chambers of his tomb-y home. Who knew how long he had been suffering. The days of frantically making unanswered phone calls and being blocked by his friends online had shifted his afternoons of singing loudly and through incoherent songs by Usher to becoming an unmovable, irritable mound that not even Odion could rouse. The sensations of his heart came less and less, and eventually it felt like it stopped altogether.

The tears, once unending, the panicked outreach, it all became reduced to nothing.

Marik had been standing on the crest of a magnificent dune, staring up at the moon glowing above, for ten minutes without any recollection of time. For him, it had never even happened. The only thing he noticed was how his fingers were growing numb.

A day had passed, and the moon was beginning to rise again. The sun had thrashed and beat down on the tomb keeper, and Marik now stumbled aimlessly, dehydrated, exhausted. As his body protested, he grunted weakly as his legs gave out on him. His face, plastered into the sand which stuck to his radiating skin, looked blankly at the curve and shadowy waves of the ocean of sand. He felt so weak, but it wasn’t that he cared. Who cared if he just gave up and stayed here forever? Better question- why should HE care if he decided to give up now? The world would find better abs, after all, P90X existed and cross-fit was becoming a thing. In the world of anime characters, hot people were aplenty. Who cared about one fucked up, failed tomb keeper? Who cared about one lonely boy? There were no fan girls here to follow him to die in the expanse of the desert. If he was going to die- he didn’t even care.

It didn’t matter.

The sand he sank into clung to his face tighter as small, barely detectable tears fell from his eyes. In the middle of the gods forsaken land, collapsed and alone in his desolation, Marik’s face began to scrunch up. He moved his exhausted, fried body into a curled “C” shape, unknowingly sobbing in his despair.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter.

And Bakura was gone. It’s not like Thiefshipping mattered.

Marik began to wail, overwrought by his grief. Grabbing fistfuls of his robe and sand, he crawled along the dune, screaming, choking, sputtering in his weak, nasally voice. Marik’s body shook, too exhausted from the months and months of neglect via depression and afflicted by heat exhaustion. His heart seized, squeezing tightly, stealing the breath from his chest. Sputtering and collapsing, rolling onto his back, Marik grasped at his hair and screamed out Bakura’s name.

The rod by his side glowed. As if by command, the eye of Anubis radiated a terrific gold light. Marik never even noticed a change, wailing like a banshee, until the sensations of his hot, weak body began to fade.  After what seemed to be hours of crying to him, which were merely minutes, Marik opened his sun scorched, bleary, violet eyes, to gradually make out the swirling mists of black, darkly tainted magenta, and rich purples circling overhead.

“Ah… ha ha….” The Shadow Realm. Of course, he would end up in the Shadow Realm. Of course, this would be the place he would be to die. Marik snorted. Was he really going to die here? Marik began to giggle. What a fucking joke. But then again, that’s all his life was. He was, after all, just an abridged character. His life was a joke. And this was the punchline. Marik tilted his head back and began to laugh. Clutching the still glowing rod, he lost himself to it, laughing, becoming delirious, losing himself to the irony of it all.

“Aha-!! Ahahahah-!! Ahahahahahah!!! AhahHAHAHAH- AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” As the swirls of mist prevailed around him, Marik slowly began to stand up, his head tilted back, his laughing roaring, his hair beginning to stand on end, and an eye just like the one on his rod starting to glow on his forehead. His body began to contort, his muscles clenching, his veins throbbing, his eyes glazing over.

“Yes… Just the punch line…” he said, looking down at his rod. He began to smirk menacingly at the golden, cursed artifact. “So how about we go say ‘hi’ to our comedian? I’m sure Bakura has been in need of some hugs.”

“After all… It’s been AGES. AHAHAHHAHAH- AHAHAHAHAHAH- AHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!”

[fic-dreamin]

3.0 out of 5 stars Let's Hope the Next Safehold Sequence Is Tighter

4.0 out of 5 stars Barely a four star... A "concluding chapter" in the Safehold series, with Charis expanding its advantage, and the "Mother Church" feeling the increasing pressure.The book's end was extremely rushed -- the last 20% or so felt incomplete, explanations missing and/or necessary conversations dropped.Beginning with the Empire's naval attack on Dohlar's capital, extending to Siddarmark battles (or absence thereof), and to Zion's turmoil itself, the "rush to finish" was obvious. The main components were presented, but how things actually came about -- Thirsk's rise-to-power, what actually happened to the Temple forces in Siddarmark, and the details of the Temple turmoil -- it felt like pieces were missing, and plot devices used to bring the book to a rapid conclusion.Of course, actually providing all the necessary detail would probably have resulted in a 1000 page book! Personally, I don't mind the author's verbosity as long as the conversations, explanations, etc actually have relevance to the story. Within this book there was some unnecessary inclusions along with several instances of things drawn out much too far.All-in-all, a (somewhat) unexpected ending to a small degree, but ending enough to finally let us get on to the next stage. Let's hope for at least a "beginning of the middle", else I doubt I'll live long enough for Weber to conclude this series... Go to Amazon

3.0 out of 5 stars Read if you like the series, but manage your expectations. This is probably a 2.5 stars book for me. It has one major accomplishment, but you have to suffer through some difficult delivery to get there.As book 9 in the series, maybe there wasn't much more to cover. I tend to focus on character development and dialog when reading, and this book felt very, very dull in that regard. For the protagonists, it was 765 pages of people agreeing with one another. For the Antagonists, they are painted as incompetent and uninteresting. The battle descriptions feel like filler, whereas those scenes were methods of character and plot development earlier in the series. I could skip entire swaths of battle-rich text (which I did, at times), as I knew none of the developments would contribute to the overall plot direction. I couldn't bring myself to care about Sergeant "too many Y's in his name", because we would never see him again (dead or not).It also loses about a half-star for failing to address at least some portion of the several outstanding plot devices in the series. As such, I feel about 100 pages of this book could be combined with 50 pages of book 8 to create a novella that accomplished just as much as those two books did.If there is a book 10, I don't think it will make it to the top of my reading list. Go to Amazon

3.0 out of 5 stars Peezhhh, Owht (Safeholdian for "Peace, Out.") After Nine Books, the Ending is an Armistice. Sigh. Well, I appreciate Mr. Weber's wide-ranging imagination and his impressive grasp of military strategy, both of which he demonstrates in bringing to a close the world war on a world, "Safehold," that he "built" in nine books. I thank him for many, many hours of enjoyment over the years. At this point, however, I feel the need to step off the Weber Train. I just cannot hang in there for 800 page books with repetitive dialogue and casts of thousands (in this book, many of the hundreds of characters also bear two names -- their aristocratic titles and their family names -- after a while I neither remembered nor cared who "Green Valley" or "Rainbow Waters" were when they were at home). I was excited when I read that this was the last of the Safehold books -- aha!, I thought, we'll learn what's under the Temple! And if Langhorne and the gang are still alive (even if in self-aware android form)! And how the Safeholdians will fight the alien Gbaba!So . . . no. We didn't learn any of this. Nine books and it ended in . . . an Armistice. I guess I could have gotten fired up that Super Villain Jasper Clinton (can't remember how to spell it in the insanely frustrating alternate-spelling) finally got his . . . but he just seemed like a cardboard cutout many books ago. So I was holding out for the big reveal. Not to be had. Just cannot re-up for more pages of meetings, more characters "snorting" in amusement (they all snort), more omniscient super-robots, and so many named characters that the author couldn't even provide a glossary for this last one.Peace, out. (Or, in Safeholdian, "Peezhhh Owht." Go to Amazon