#wip: heartbeats carved in flesh

[altruistic-meme]

ABRAM HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT HOW THEYRE GONNA GET NATHANIEL OUT IN HEARTBEATS CARVED IN FLESH. WHETHER YOU HAVE THO CAN WE LIKE, STILL GET THEIR OCEAN TRIP AKZHAKDHS;;

HIII MILO <3<3

i definitely do NOT have that all planned out yet skhfshkf very likely it will lean closer to how Jean is gotten out of the Nest in canon though, since the situation is more similar to that

but YES!!! YES YOU CAN!!! it'll probably be like,,, an epilogue as opposed to part of the main story but!! they will get to go see the ocean some time after Nathaniel is out of the Nest. maybe over the Summer or the following Spring break :) (this is largely dependent on how long it actually takes them to get him out, but again i don't have... a plan... for that...)

[bucking-mustangs-with-wings]

Buck x Bucky Sorcerers vs Fae AU - WIP

I've got this one now in the works, as well as more for the Rodeo AU, my brain is fluttering back and forth between them atm, but I wanted to show a small bit of one of the scenes I'm working on for this. (Rough Draft).

The trees blurred in his peripheral, everything disappearing like the breath disappearing from his lungs, the panic pushing everything to the forefront. Just an adrenaline fuelled staccato beat thundering in his chest. Sweat beading at his brow.

Keep running. Just keep running, don't look back. Don't look back, or you're dead!

It was second nature to avoid the roots underfoot, the gnarled branches grabbing at the edges of his clothes and brushing his skin like long dead fingers trying to pull him down to the depths of hell. A cruel voice echoed in his head, that he was already there. He had already seen it. Hell was not far behind him, left in the debris littering familiar streets and captured under crumbled walls and burning in the flames of deliberate blue fire.

He could feel tears prick at the corners of his eyes, stinging and harsh. Could still feel the remnants of those flames licking at his skin. Could still hear the screams, anguished, terrified. Dead.

The sounds of magic, whirling like bullets past his ears still echoed in his skull, still kept their grip on his psych. It was as if he could still feel that dangerous energy in the air nipping at his heels like savage dogs, maws foaming with the need to watch him fall, clip his wings like a bird and send him tumbling down into the dirt.

"You can always tell, when that magic is about," his mother would always say, sitting in her chair at the dining table with a pair of knitting needles between her fingers, silver yarn spread over her lap and trailing off somewhere throughout the house. "It's like when a storm is coming, you can feel the shift in the air, the un-easiness settle in your stomach like you've swallowed iron weights. The hair on your arms stands on end like it's trying to sway away from it. You can taste it, on your tongue. You'll always know when it's close, Gale. When they're close. You'd do best to listen to what your instincts are telling you."

He tries to shake the image from his mind, vaulting himself over another moss covered root as thick as his arm. Of a familiar mouth, usually in a smile not unlike his own, now parted in shocked slack, crimson dripping from it's corners. An old, worn calloused hand with red painted nails outstretched in his direction, but still, lifeless. Eyes the same. Boring into his soul, frozen forever in an expression of pain and fear and emptiness. Nothing behind them. No light, no gleam. Just vacant and haunting and carved forever into the back of his mind like an etching in cement.

The air around him burned with every inhale, searing his over-worked lungs. His whole body was screaming at him to stop, that it couldn't take much more. It couldn't keep him going. It was on it's last legs, starved and exhausted and battered and bruised. Everything hurt.

A split second decision had him digging his heels into the soft forest floor, banking a hard left and flattening his back against a huge tree about three times his width. His shoulders heaved and shuddered, trying to draw in air, trying to keep his breath steady enough so that no un-necessary noise was made. The blood pumping through his terrified nervous system sounded like crashing ocean waves in his ears, his vision pulsing in and out with his heartbeat. He couldn't hear anything around him, could hardly see.

Squeezing his eyes closed, he kept his focus on the rhythm of his breath, palms squeezing, nails cutting into his flesh with enough force he was half expecting blood to drip between his fingers into the moss covered ground below.

His father's voice echoed in his head now, low and gruff but strong, serious and brave.

Controlling your breath can mean the difference between life and death out there, Gale. You control your breathing, you control your heart. They can sense your heartbeat, they have spells for that now. Shows them the echoes of it like damn fireworks. You don't want the wolves to hear you. Don't want them to see you. Or they'll empty those fireworks out of your chest and show it to you before they crush it under their boots.

Lifting his chin skyward, he focused what little eyesight he could properly see with with on the small sliver of blue sky peeking through the branches above his head. So plain and bare, normal. Completely oblivious to the horrible events taking place under it's enormous expanse. The more he stared, the more the roaring of his blood quieted in his skull, the more the incessant pulsing behind his eyes settled and he was able to take in the complete and utter silence that was enveloping the forest.

The thump-thump-thump buried deep in his sternum flowed more smoothly, but that hint of fear still had it's grips on him. Was still sinking it's teeth deep into his core like a splinter that would never be able to truly be plucked out.

If he could just get his bearings, could just sit for a moment, he could gather what few sensible thoughts were rattling around in his head and figure out where the hell we was supposed to go from here, what he was meant to do.

He could feel his legs trembling underneath him, his knees all but ready to give out and send him sinking down onto his haunches. He had to find somewhere safe. He had to find somewhere to rest for a few moments, a few hours if he was lucky enough.

He was just about to give in to his body's inconvenient exhaustion, let himself sit and allow his muscles and his still mildly racing heart to calm just that tad more, but the indistinct snapping of a branch far off to the right made every muscle in his overworked body freeze. His eyes shot down from the sky to stare straight ahead, his breathing caught in his throat, even though his lungs still protested at having their much needed supply of oxygen once again denied them fully.

But he couldn't let himself.

An acrid, sour taste crawled up his throat, coating his tongue like he'd just licked a copper penny, sparks dancing over his teeth and sending painful pulses through the very bone of his jaw. The fear quickly followed it again, his heartbeat beginning it's frantic and loud race and gripping his very soul like a cold blanket of electricity. He felt the sensation creep it's way through every cell, every vessel, every nerve. Like being submerged in freezing water.

Like a deer cornered by a wolf, he flickered his gaze down to his arms, held down by his sides.

Every hair was lifted and pointed skyward like they were trying to get away from something sinister.

"We got another one up ahead!"

[kinnbig]

First Lines Game

rules: post the first lines of your last 10 fics posted to ao3. (sort by date posted.) if you have less than 10, post what you have!

I was tagged by @giraffeter and @aikinn! thank you so much 💖

I only have 5 fics posted to ao3 so far (2 for KP and 3 for myen), so I'm gonna cheat a little bit and post some first lines of wips too 🥰

Chart Topper (Porsche/everyone) / Between Your Teeth (Porsche/Ken) (BTY is an alternate ending to chapter 1 of CT, so their opening lines are the same)

The job seems simple enough. Kinn is attending the extravagant housewarming event of the firstborn daughter of one of the Theerapanyakul family's oldest allies. It's an enormous event, the guest list extending to hundreds of friends, and allies, and friends of allies, and allies of friends; mostly, Porsche suspects, to show off just how much space there is to entertain guests in the sprawling property.

Let Me Live in Your Mind (King/Ram)

Ram feels the moment King falls asleep. His arms relax around Ram's body, the gentle rise-and-fall of his chest evening out against Ram's cheek, his heartbeat slowing to a gentle thrum beneath Ram's ear.

Hold Back (King/Ram)

King fights him all the way into the tent, but Ram guides him anyway. He's not going to leave him. Not like this.

Venus Flytrap (King/Ram)

The train journey home from his grandma's house is long and uneventful. King stares out of the window for most of the journey, watching the trees and wildflowers go by, streaking past the window in blurs of colour amongst the monotony of towns and houses and people. He admires the greens and yellows and earthy browns and tries not to think too much about Ram.

and that's everything I've published on ao3 so far! so here are some opening lines from the WIPs that currently have opening lines hehe -

Silver Clouds with Grey Linings (Big/Ken)

Big wakes to an inferno. There's heat, and there’s pain; pain like nothing he's ever felt before; pain that tears through his flesh, carves itself into his bones; pain that claws its way into the very root of his existence. It fills his lungs, choking him, burning him from the inside, too, like he's burning on the outside, like he's burning everywhere; and all at once, Big knows he's going to die.

[untitled] (Big/Ken)

As soon as they're alone, Ken slams him against the door, hard, pinning him in place with an arm across his chest.

Footnotes (one-sided Kinn/Big)

"Khun Kinn and I grew up together," Big tells the new recruit. It feels like a flippant, blasphemously trivial way of phrasing it; paradoxically both far too intimate and not nearly intimate enough to describe Big and Kinn's relationship.

Chart Topper chapter 4 (Big/Porsche)

"It’s not actually that surprising how often you've all kissed each other," Porsche says, looping around the room and topping up everyone's glasses, "considering how often we all seem to end up getting drunk."

🥰thank you again for tagging me! I'm tagging @tumsa , @cytharat , @kinnsporsche - I don't completely remember who's already done this so sorry if that's a double tag 🫣 and no pressure obviously!

[dlkardenal]

Resurrection - An excerpt

Hey there, traveler! Dar here a bit late for this week's Behind the Scalpel, with another excerpt from our WIP desert fantasy, introducing another character - the imprisoned djinn of wind, Zaira. Like for the last excerpt, feedback is very welcome, we'll working hard to smooth things to perfection so every tip is appreciated. This is the self-edited version which we will send to our editor when I've finished editing the whole WIP, so keep that in mind. Other than that, enjoy!

~: Resurrection :~

At first, only darkness and silence surrounded me. I felt locked in a tiny and terribly narrow place, which rhythmically grew and shrunk, all accompanied by an unknown yet strangely natural drumming. Dub-dub. Dub-dub. It came from somewhere in the middle, from a cage that rose and sank, letting the air flow in. I was in a cave, although I could not smell fungi, seaweed, or the mist of an underground stream-anything that would made it natural.

As much as I tried to keep my cool, the burdensome acumen of anger, despair, and fear overwhelmed me. I didn’t understand where I was, what I became or what should I do.

The drumming hastened with my panic, like a tiny bird trapped here with me. I screamed but fell silent right after that. My voice was unknown but I knew it was my own, and even that felt less strange than the hands I raised to my face unwillingly. They were graceful hands, exactly two, with five fingers each. I put them back next to me and tried to calm myself. With time I learned to control the flow of air, even stop it for a while, but it turned unpleasant, so I gave up trying and just let this weird prison do what it would on its own. I closed my eyes for the first time, but it felt natural. I hated how well it worked, how perfectly it suited me even when it was just a sluggish mound of muscles and bones.

You’ll remain there, locked in a prison of flesh for eternity. That’s your due to what you’ve done.

Maybe I’d have been better off if they’d just destroyed me. They had the power to do it, but they didn’t. I wasn’t sure which judgment was worse.

After a time, I stopped counting the heartbeats or my breath. My voice was gone, my mouth felt dry and the tongue inside it stuck to my palate. My stomach rumbled at first, then ached with a dull sensation, bur eventually even that faded. It differed greatly from what I was used to, but it was just as unbearable.

After storm knows how many days, I got bored. They gave me no instructions; I didn’t know if I was sentenced into this cave forever or I should leave. I thought someone would come to tell me, but it didn’t happen. It was just me and my increasingly unpleasant existence. Eternity was a long time, even longer lying still underground.

I tried to sit then stand up, bearing the waves of stabbing pain in my limbs with my teeth clenched. Touching the cold earth was a novelty, as was the ground-bound position, but the body knew exactly how it worked and didn’t fall. I put one leg in front of the other, walking step by step towards the only possible direction. The air became warmer; twilight replaced the darkness, and as I emerged the sun blinded me for a moment.

I was standing in a hole carved into a rock wall, with a staircase leading down. It wasn’t the only such crevice, but one of the largest. Beyond that, only sand and stone surrounded me. The wind blew through my hair—another oddity—and the black fabric that covered most of my body.

I walked down the stairs and into the desert. The heated stones burned my feet, but I kept walking forward without a flinch until fatigue overcame me. The strange weakness in my limbs spread across my body, causing me to stumble and collapse onto the sand without the strength to get up. A rock bruised my knee, revealing a leaking, red fluid–blood. I never had blood before.

I stood up again and continued my journey straight forward, not knowing where I was headed, stumbling after every few steps. I realized that moving this heavy, delicate mess required only my sheer will; the worse it got, the more will it needed, but I could always whip it forward.

After my umpteenth collapse, strong hands grabbed my burnt skin and lifted me from the sand. Someone held a canteen to my mouth, and I drank, for the first time in my life, just gulping from the lukewarm water.

“Enough, careful with that,” a firm voice said. “How on earth did you get here? No matter, we’ll take you to Kahlaran.”

Those were my first days as a human. That’s how I walked out from Zaira’s crypt.

[ellipsesarefun]

Three thousand years have passed since I outlined this. LMAO It was left in the WIP folder for three or five years and I finally finished it!!!! This concept has probably been done but I hope you enjoy this? You can read it here or on the link above.

Soul Perception has always been a useful tool for a meister. Maka had heard several anecdotes from her mother and her mother's friends on how it was done, and none of them came close to a general path in training their own perception. Perception manifests in several manners. Some people have a combination of soul perception types, and some only had one. Her mother's aunt had openly bragged once how she spotted a kishin with her hypersensitive sense of smell. A professor once explained his soul perception through the vibrations of the materials around him. Maka has yet to discover her type. 

 She had only discovered that her abilities awake during her subconscious: in her dreams. There are moments when she felt a crowd of people in her room, alight with a wondrous image of colors, vibrant and alive. It only lasted for a few seconds at best and rarely does she remember the visions, merely the strange feeling that bloomed in her body when she woke up, as though she was once submerged in an ocean of entities. 

 At this hour, she sets her plan into motion. Like any other night, the house empty and the front door's locked. Maka expects her dad to come back a week or so after his manwhoring excursions and she has less expectations of her mother visiting her after years of lost contact. She closes the door to her room and saunters over to her desk to place the text books she recently bought for her upcoming classes next week. Once finished, she crosses her legs on the bed, waiting for something. 

 Nothing. 

 She takes a deep breath and exhales. 

 Still nothing. 

 Maybe she was doing this the wrong way. She careens her head towards the window, eyeing the empty streets of Death City. Lifting her gaze towards the sky, Maka eyes the moon that laughs and mocks under its own jurisdiction. She rears her head back to where she can see the edge of her bed and closes her eyes. 

 Breathe in. Breathe out. 

 Still nothing. 

 The deep breathing exercise continues, however, and as the time ticks by, a strange feeling blooms within her.

   And then suddenly there was strong torrent of emotions. She could feel them, see them, spherically with a spectrum of colors, in shades of light and dark in each one of them. Her head spun around this panorama, dazzled by the immensity of her own perception. She instinctively reached out and took one in her hands. It was warm and when she held it against her chest, she could feel the synchronization of their heartbeats. She could feel him, whoever he was.

 “Soul Eater Evans.” She uttered his name. Once. And her senses placed all focus on him.

 Crimson. His pupils were crimson and he had soft, white-pillowed hair. How she knew, she’ll never know. Music flooded her ears, a deep, dark, symphony that clashed with those crimson eyes. Her senses fully locked in on him like there was a secret code between her and this mystery man. Without warning, she saw herself floating amidst a pitch black room, where a light was shown on the man named Soul Evans. Step by step, her heart thumping along, his fleshed phalanges swiftly danced from octave to octave, gradually increasing the pace of his symphony.

 And the music stopped. All at once, the void was flooded with bright, chandelier lights. She was standing in a middle of a room, the walls as white as his hair and curtains as the color of his eyes. Soft couches appeared in all corners in the room, and a door, revealed itself right at the very end from where the piano faced.

 It must be the exit.

 The man closed the piano and stood, turning his head at her while he did so. For a moment, no one spoke. In the silence, she took her time scrutinizing the boy. He seemed more of her age, born from a family of elite (as afar as her perception whispers answers in her mind). The boy, Soul, shuffled his feet about and fiddled with his piano fingers before she drew a large breath and took a step forward. The boy looked up from his hands with an unreadable expression.

 “So, you must be Soul.” She began. His eyes narrowed, mirroring her usual mistrust towards certain people.

 “How the hell do you know my name.” For boy born from elite, he certainly lacks such manners.

 “I… don’t know.” It wasn’t much of an answer, because how can she explain this perception to a mere stranger; a stranger who knows nothing of her kind, of her world. It did not appease the boy’s suspicions, only narrowed his eyes and his frown more prominently.

 “Is this… a dream?” He asked. Maka moved towards the couch and took a seat. She drew random swirls on the lush carpet, trying to keep her mind as calm as possible. There was no roundabout way in proceeding this dream-like state.

 “It must be.”

 And then suddenly, the room changed. Swirling her vision as the room expands and the walls, curtains and furniture fade away. A swarm of people in masques fade in and surround them, and a chandelier above lights a spot on the two of them.

 As the room finally stabilized, her gaze rests on Soul’s. She blinks, feeling her eyebrows touch her hairline, and elicits a gasp at swarm of people crowding in with masks on their faces. Her gaze trails down, speechless at the obsidian satin that fits through her hands to the ends of her forearms, and a dress that accompanies the same color hung until her knees. She turns to him again, teeth gnawing at the bottom of her lip.

 He smiles and offers his hand. “I don’t dance but, would you like to?”

 She lingers at the hand, tracing the scars on the palm, and wonders for a moment if it was best to decline. Her musing lasts for a second because she finds her hand reaching out to grasp his own. They were a scene in a play and there was something outside her control that pulls the strings.

 He pulls her in and at the same time she ushers herself towards him as she says, “I have two left feet, so you lead, ok?” A simple statement, as it is, but there was a ring of a bell; a moment of deja vu.

 She smiles, anyway, and it’s genuine. They share a look.

 “Yea sure. Whatever.”

 And a series of events happened at once. They dance, twirling around the ballroom as their conversation blooms along with their feelings.

 “I’m from Death City.”

 “Oh, I just arrived here. Ran away from home.”

 “Oh. My home left me and I had to find someplace else in Death City. But that was years ago.”

 They exchange small anecdotes of their lives, giggling over the randomest nonsense and sharing the deepest heartfelt experiences all in the same night. From the heated gazes of crimson and veridian, from the subtle grips on the shoulders and their hands, she feels her soul brush against Soul’s. There seemed to be a familiar vibe around him. Around them. As though they had done this some dreams ago, may a lifetime ago even.

 The Soul that she has come to learn now becomes tangible. Someone who grew up in a family with old royalty, with a weapon bloodline clandestine and forgotten among the family members. Someone who decided to carve his own future instead of the path built on his parent’s expectations. Someone who has a name, a face, with experiences. Someone she’d want to meet someday.

 This surreality baffles her, as she realizes that this came from her own Soul Perception. Just how masks she’s seen, how far her Soul Perception stretches and lapses, and the many times her soul merges with Soul’s… it’s bizarre. She wonders if this Soul right here might be her potential partner.

 It all ends however, for time is static and powers have their limits. The end begins where their dance stops. Gradually, she feels the energy ebbing away from her body. At the precipice, she finally slunks down, body almost hitting the floor, when Soul catches her in his arms. The walls rumble, and the people around them have cracks in their skin as though they were made of marble.

 She looks up at Soul and she finds a large crack on his face, through one of his eyes, past his nose, and at the edge of his jaw. She lifts a hand to it but falters midway as tiredness sweeps into her mind, begging her to stop the process. Everything else is falling apart as the shards of this dream fall apart into dust.

 “Look for me when this is over, okay?” Half of his face is gone and all that’s left are those dark crimson eyes.

 “Yea. Okay.”

 And then there was nothing.

   Maka wakes up to sunlight flooding her sheets and finds her body laid down on soft cushion. Groggily, she pushes herself out of bed and looks through the window where the laughing sun overcasts the entire Death City. Her memory rewinds to the events that occured the night before, and she can only nitpick those dark melodies, ballroom dances, and a person who goes by the name Soul.

 Soul Eater Evans.

 She’s finally able to tap in her memories of her Soul Perception. Although wary of how she’ll progress here on then, she’s a step ahead. Just needs a little more practice.

 The elated surreality from last night dwindled into planning out the tasks for today, and reviewing for tomorrow’s quiz. Today is the day unpartnered weapons and meisters meet and greet. She isn’t sure how it’ll go but there’s a small ounce of certainty that maybe she’ll find her partner there.

 But until then, she prepares herself for the day ahead of her.

[altruistic-meme]

welcome :]

woohoo. time for an actual like. intro post. let's go 👍 [ wonderful previous blog summary by @cozy-fish-crow <3 ]

hello, i'm Abram. or Acee, if you wanna use that. he/they, but generally speaking i don't mind any pronouns. i'm queer in basically every direction and i could explain what i mean but i'll just leave it there for now. currently i'm 22. i'm usamerican and from the south.

i am a very big fandom nerd. some of my biggest fandoms include: - Young Royals - All For the Game - Captive Prince - Bungo Stray Dogs - Haikyuu!! - Good Omens - Dan and Phil - Yuri!!! On Ice (dormant) + many, many more

i'm a fanfic author and you can find me on ao3 @ AmericanCanada i also crochet and occasionally i post about it. tag: #crochet

i draw occasionally -> @aceedoodles i have a sideblog for helpful/reference posts -> @forthesadadult

all personal posts are tagged #shh ac

i love asks so much please never hesitate to send me an ask, especially about my fandoms and/or my fics. i will think of you fondly for the rest of my life if you do.

my three idiots cats <3 JJ, Anka, and Blue (here is a helpful guide!)

okay that is all from me for now! have a fantastic day!

[ links to fanfictions + their tags below the cut! ]

FANFICTION ROUND-UP:

All For the Game:

(why is there) joy in this poison (WIP) tag: #(wit)jitp

for the hopes and the fears and the dreams tag: #(wit)jitp

go low (WIP) tag: #wip: go low

the scars are poems (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: the scars are poems

figurative ghosts (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: figurative ghosts

heartbeats carved in flesh

i said i wouldn't call, but i need you now

Young Royals:

I've Got You, Brother (WIP) tag: #wip: fuck he said a pronoun

Dare(d) To Do It (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: dare(d), #wip: parallels

Not Supposed To Know (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: nstk, #wip: parallels

swaying as the room burned down

LVOE.

we all need a soft place to fall

Captive Prince:

laurent stabs damen [name undecided] (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: laurent stabs damen

Carpe Noctem (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: carpe noctem

Bungo Stray Dogs:

blackhole time fuckery [name undecided] (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: blackhole time fuckery

Will You Be Mine? (No Sir) (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: will you be mine? (no sir)

it's a safehouse, right? (WIP, unpublished)

The Port Mafia Boss's Most Loyal Dog (WIP, unpublished) tag: #wip: loyal dog

what you can learn from a bowl of soup tag: #wip: torturing kunikida

- fics are linked where possible! - not all WIPs have been blogged about and thus not all of them have tags, but I will try to keep this list updated as i work on/post about them. - italicized fics are ones i consider to be "critical"; aka the fics that i am putting the most effort and care into writing, or my personal favorites - this is not a comprehensive list of every fic i have written, just the ones i felt like pointing at specifically! there are more fics on my ao3 account (such as all of my yoi fics) and there are also WIPs that aren't mentioned here. - i love questions i love questions sooo much please ask me about my fics i would love to talk about them PLEASE ASK-