#And it's almost like this setting doesn't speak English in the first place

[nowimjustastranger]

Hello.

I am the one who asked about doing a crossover between stcmo and "You Look Like Yourself ...".

I've written a fanfiction inspired by your AUs, it's called "A chance in a billion" if you'd like to read it.

Here's the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62071840

Still love your writing.

To avoid any confusion, this work is an AU of two of my AU's mashed together and is therefore not canon to StCMO or TASB lore!

Starting off by confirming that, considering Ford 419"3 gets to other dimensions via wormholes (which travel through both space and time), it is entirely plausible that Ford 419"3 could stumble across his significantly younger twin brother in the multiverse.

The very first paragraph just really sucker punches you, especially when it's obvious that Stan is coping with humor. It sets the tone perfectly and establishes Stan's character all within a few lines of inner dialogue. The next few paragraphs give a great look into how Stan wound up in the multiverse as well as Stan and Ford's dynamic, which is clearly strained.

The fact that Stan had a gut feeling about Ford 419"3 is a nice nod to the bond between Stans and Fords, who are bound together by the universe itself to maintain balance. And Stan just straight up ditching his current Ford to go investigate Ford 419"3 is hilarious because yeah, he absolutely would.

Ugh, how soft Ford 419"3 is with Stan is everything to me, indulging him in a scan just because Stan asked him to. Ford 419"3 is a paper man for Stans, no backbone to be seen lol. And the reveal! The way Ford 419"3 just fucking freezes, which of course Stan takes as a negative reaction. The poor bby. I love how Ford 419"3 is so effortlessly gentle even when he's having and internal crisis, catching Stan's wrist in an easily breakable hold- I gdhofxzdhzzhhdgcj I'm totally normal about it, clearly.

Not possessive Ford interrupting their heartfelt reunion, lmao. Love that shit. The immediate switch from sweet and soft to deadly and homicidal is near-instant for Ford 419"3. He's extremely proficient at both close and long range combat, having trained and altered his body to better accomplish his mission. I'd even argue that, between 419"3 Ford's combat experience, body enhancements, and his ability to see into the future, he's one of the most dangerous Fords in the multiverse.

Lee to the rescue! Lee is basically the human embodiment of a chill pill. Dude has calming Ford 419"3 down to an art form, lol. I love seeing their closeness from an outsider's perspective, especially in situations where you get to see that closeness. It doesn't get much better than Ford 419"3 abruptly shifting gears and scrambling to get Lee out of the danger zone when he fearlessly puts himself between two pissed off Fords.

I'm weirdly saddened by the fact that Stan has to announce himself to the Ford he's traveling with when he touches him (and is clearly worried about being hit), but that's probably because I'm so used to Lee and Ford 419"3, who would recognize each other's touch even half dead. I'm cackling about Stan being unceremoniously hauled away though, that's top tier comedy right there.

Lee taking the lead because the Fords are currently useless in their posturing is my Roman empire. Lee is smart and resourceful, able to navigate almost any situation you throw him in.

I theorize that the Ford's aren't speaking English because they're saying some vile shit to each other and don't want Stan and Lee to overhear, lmao.

The way Lee claps back to "Scarry" with "Kiddo" made me laugh, that's so him.

Pissy Ford is being pissy, surprise surprise. Way to stalk off without even using your own scanner to confirm that you are, in fact, leaving Stan with his twin and not just some random Ford. A+ big brothering right there. Smartest dumbass alive lol.

Best believe Ford 419"3 knows that Lee's gonna be insecure about his place in Ford's life now that he found his original brother. Lee is likely to distance himself with the intention of letting the two reconnect, trying to brace himself for (in his eyes) the inevitable separation between him and Ford 419"3. There's no reason to keep Lee around anymore after all, right? Wrong bro. So wrong. Ford's got two younger brothers now as far as he's concerned.

Everything about their interaction in the nest makes me so warm and fuzzy, Stan's finally getting the contact and care that he craves. I am a puddle, your honor. I eagerly look forward to more! I'll be re-reading this often, I can already tell. Thank you for writing this!!!

[timeturner-jay]

If you give characters from fantasy settings that decidedly don't speak English in the first place (and it only appears as English to us, the audience, for our own convenience) a Southern USA accent just because they're farmers or from a rural area, expect me to glare at you in weary exasperation.

[opbackgrounds]

This scene with Sanji is one of his most important moments in the series, and in my opinion also one of the most difficult passages in the manga to interpret, because to completely understand it you have to look at the manga holistically rather than this scene by itself.

The big question that needs answered is why does Oda let Zoro "win" here by having him be the sacrifice instead of Sanji. Both are equally willing and both are identified much later on as the Wings of the Pirate King, implying that they have similar importance (although vastly different roles) within the Straw Hat crew.

If we go back to Sanji's introduction on the Baratie, his big flaw was that he lacked the "spear of spirit" to pursue his dream. Since he's been a boy he's wanted to find the All Blue, but even when he had the opportunity to go after that dream he chose to stay on the Baratie out of a feeling of obligation to Zeff. Sanji put the continued existence of the restaurant over his own life, something Luffy rightfully called him out for at the time, and even at the end of the arc had to be pushed away by Zeff and the other chefs before he finally set sail for good.

On Drum, Sanji once again almost died protecting Nami and Luffy during the avalanche, resulting in a broken back that required surgury from Dr. Kureha. Luffy again calls him out (note the English translation here isn't entirely accurate, see here for a breakdown), and with his power there's a good chance Luffy could have gotten them all out of trouble without all the dramatics by Sanji.

Something similar happens on Skypiea, when Sanji puts himself in the way of Enel so that Usopp and Nami can be saved. This case is perhaps more justifiable given the extreme situation they were in, but nonetheless he was still quick to throw his life away.

Then on Enies Lobby Nami--while not criticizing his chivalry--calls out Sanji for simply not running away from Kalifa, instead just accepting that he's going to get the shit beat out of him, and possibly die.

So there's a pattern of self-destructive behavior. Sanji repeatedly puts his life on the line when he doesn't need to in order to preserve the lives and dreams of the people he loves. Even him constantly simping over Nami and Robin falls a little into this category, because if either of them told him to take a long walk off a short pier I have no doubt he'd comply. It's that same extreme willingness to sacrifice anything and everything for the people he cares for that we see in Baby 5, except Sanji was fortunate enough to not be surrounded by people that encourage these worst impulses of self-destructive behavior. As he says here in Thriller Bark, he's just the cook. Luffy can always just find someone else.

(The glory of Whole Cake Island being Sanji realizing, no, Luffy can't, and he won't).

And it is finally on WCI that get to the heart of why Sanji is like this with yet another episode of putting his own dreams and happiness aside for the sake of others, and not until Wano that we finally see him take the first steps toward asking others for help instead of passionately throwing his life away when he doesn’t need to.

When Zoro first offered his head to Kuma, the prominence of his dream was first and foremost. Notice that Sanji never mentions the All Blue. One Piece is a series that places the pursuit of one's own ambition above all else, even if that ambition is selfish. Sanji hasn't yet learned to be selfish, so Zoro knocks him out and ends up being the one to accept Luffy's pain. Sacrifice isn't sacrifice if the person doesn't value what they're giving up, and right now Sanji clearly doesn't value his own life compared to the rest of the crew.

Next chapter Oda will speak through Brook to confirm that Sanji's willingness to give himself up wasn't foolish or stupid. It's just that he's missing a piece of the puzzle, and that's not something he'll have for a long time yet.

[profundcherrylady]

SINGLE DAD!SAE ITOSHI

A/N: This isn't my usual content, but I was thinking about this scenario and I had huge baby fever so I couldn't NOT write it. I love Sae too much y'all. Also sorry for any spelling mistakes english ain't my first language.

Warnings: Mentions of death and grieving, Sae tries forcing his daughter to either eat her vegetables or go to school hungry (he doesn't go through with it)(this is a very brief scene but it could still be triggering to some people). STILL MOSTLY FLUFF I SWEAR.

Contents: Sae being a girl dad fr, y'all can't change my mind on this one, also Rin being an uncle. That's pretty much it. A little ooc (Rin mostly)

"Papaaaa" Mao complained, her voice echoing across the house and making Sae drop the dishes he was washing and walk across the house into her room to see what was going on... this time. Although he had a pretty good idea given her recent tantrums.

"Can't sleep?" he inquired, but he knew the answer as soon as she saw her curling up in her little bed and pouting, her doe teal eyes looking up to him as if to give him pity. "No, Mao, you cannot come sleep in my room."

"Why not?!"

"You've already been sleeping there all week... come on, you're a big girl, you can sleep on your own room."

"But I wanna be with you..." he sighed. It had seemed she had inherited his stubbornness, because sometimes it felt like there was just no way of making her change her mind when she was set on something. He leaned against the door a little, thinking about what to say that may change her mind.

"I know I was away for a while the last couple of weeks and I understand you missed me, but I can't have this conversation with you every single night."

"Why do you go away in the first place..."

"You know why, I have to for work." he countered, "And do not ask me why I can't bring you along, we've talked about this countless of times before. I don't go away for fun. If I bring you with me, you'll want to go everywhere with me and then you'll get fussy and mad because I'll be working all the time, or worse, you'll get bored to death in the hotel. Believe me, staying here is best for you when I go on business trips."

"But I just wanna be with you!!" his eye almost twitched in annoyance at the sight; he knew that tone of voice all too well. It was another tantrum coming his way, but still, he tried to remain calm for her sake.

"You're with me now."

"So can I sleep in your room?"

"No." then she threatened to start crying. He let out a low, defeated huff, holding back the urge to roll his eyes. She just wasn't giving up, was she? Pushing himself off the doorframe, he looked back at her before speaking. "Fine. Come on."

"This is the last time." he knew damn well that was a fat lie, but he still had to at least pretend to be firm. She would grow up to be a spoiled child otherwise, or at least that's what he was used to tell himself.

The little girl beamed, quickly jumping out of bed and running towards her father. She hopped with her arms up towards him asking to be carried, to which he complied. He wrapped his arms around her small frame and lifted her up, watching as she clung onto him as if he just came back from war or something. Could he really blame her, though? She had lost her mother and he was away all the time; it would be strange if she wasn't feeling lonely.

"Papa, sing me a song." Sae reconsidered his life decisions for a moment there, not gonna lie, but how could he honestly say no to those pleading eyes?

"Fine..." he sighed, his voice soft and low as he began humming whatever song he could think of on the top of his head. Still keeping a secure hold on her, Sae began rocking his daughter to further lure her to sleep. He held her with one arm so that he could close the door of her room, the soft click assuring him that everything was in order, and then started walking a few steps towards his.

By this point, little Mao was sound asleep on his arms, and he almost chuckled at the thought of his daughter refusing to sleep until she was with him. He carefully opened the door a few meters away and walked quitely to the bed, trying his best to not wake up the sleeping child on his arms, and set her down to rest. Once tucked in and comfortable, he let out a sigh of relief. Finally, the brat was asleep and he could be at peace. She could be so clingly and energetic sometimes... not that he cared that much, even though her restlessness was exhausting, it showed that she felt safe and loved enough to be her enthusiastic self around him without any regrets.

It was weird to him, like an unfamiliar sense of pride that surged at the sight of her young daughter bouncing around and playing endlessly. He would often look at her and think about how different her personality was from his, and how much it reminded him of her mother. Sae tried not to though, as he despised comparing his daughter to his late wife over and over again, but sometimes he just couldn't help it. From the way she smiled to the color of her hair... they were just so alike each other. He still kept all the memories from her close to his heart, which in a way made him feel guilty. Sae knew just how much his daughter yearned for a maternal figure; someone to talk to and educate her about girly stuff that he may not understand. He would watch her staring at the other kids with their moms and act like it really wasn't a big deal to avoid making him feel like he wasn't enough, but Sae knew better. It was obvious to him that his daughter absolutely adored him, and he was sure she thought he was enough, but he also knew that she missed having a mom. She missed her mom. He missed her mom too.

Normally he would avoid talking about it. It had been hard enough trying to explain to this small child that her mom wasn't coming home that night, or ever, let alone process his own grief at the loss of the only woman he once loved. If he cried, he had to do it when his daughter wasn't looking, because the last thing he needed to add to his worries was worrying his daughter to the point of avoiding everything that may set off a bad mood on him. It wasn't her fault, he just felt his heart break everytime he took her home and she pointed at a framed picture of her mom exclaiming 'Mama!' Or 'Hey mama', 'I'm back, mama', 'Miss you, mama'. He would hold back his tears and take a deep breath whenever she tried asking if she could visit her mom in the place she was at (as he initially had told her it was a place where she couldn't come back), having to explain carefully that she couldn't. She would get mad and ask why a bunch of times, but he didn't have the heart to tell her 'She's dead' straight up. He really tried to just give her an excuse like that she was sleeping forever or something, as if she was in the sleeping beauty, but then she just began asking if a true love kiss from him would wake her up. She was a child, after all, and she hadn't quite grassped the concept of death yet.

He let himself watch her sleep for a few moments, sinking in the stillness of the night. Taking care of a young child made this moments rare, and he treasured whatever rest he could get. He reached out to the nightstand and picked up the heater remote, pressing a couple of buttons to turn it on a bit; just enough to keep the room warm, as he knew nights at that time of the year could become fairly cold and he didn't want his daughter getting sick. And as expected, she got very evidently more comfortable as the room became warmer, falling into a deeper state of sleep. She had only carried her favorite bunny plushie from her room to hold onto and apparently that was all she needed to fall asleep. He plopped himself onto the bed as well and fell asleep almost instantly from the exhaustion of the day, not even caring about closing the door or the half-washed dishes he left on the sink or even the fact that he hadn't even changed his clothes. He was DONE for the day.

Although, the next day he most definitely regretted it.

He had to wake up early and finish cleaning all the mess his daughter had left throughout the day, plus now he had to make breakfast, wake her up and get her to school. Sae was a rather organized person and he would normally not find himself in this type of situation, but it seemed like ever since he became a father he was running short of time for everything no matter how much he tried to plan in advance.

"Morning." Sae greeted his still somewhat sleepy child as she yawned and climbed the chair infront of her to eat. "Slept well?"

"Mhm..." Mao mumbled, rubbing her eyes with one arm while she still clung to her favorite plushie with the other. He placed a plate on the table for her and then one for him, along with his usual morning coffee and the only damned brand of juice that she liked for some reason and that he had to drive for an hour to buy.

"Come on, eat. You have preschool today."

"Can't I skip? It's snowing so muuuuch." the kid dropped her head onto the table and sighed, clearly displeased about going to school.

"Apparently it's not snowing enough to cancel your classes. Now, please, eat."

He watched intently as his daughter took a close look at the food, pouting and feeling now rather down since she wasn't allowed to skip school. She took a couple of bites of her breakfast and she had a few sips of her juice, then she pushed her plate a little to indicate she was done.

"Thanks for the food." she was about to get off the table when she was interrupted by her father's stern voice.

"Not so fast. There is no way you're full with just that."

"Yeah I am..." such an obvious lie.

"Why aren't you eating? And I want the truth."

She pouted, AGAIN, before reluctantly giving an answer.

"It has green peppers on it..." and there you have it; this was the real challenge of Sae's day.

"I told you, they're good for you."

"But they're gross! Can I eat something else please?" this is Sae's life now. Even winning a soccer match was easier than getting his daughter to eat her vegetables.

"Mao, I spent a lot of time making breakfast for you, can you please finish your food? You still need to get ready to go to school. I don't have any time to make you more breakfeast; I have to go work."

"But... I really don't like them... please?" that was the last straw for him. He didn't mean to sound cruel, but he was tired and didn't know what else to say.

"Mao Itoshi, you're staying on this table until the last bite of food on your plate is GONE. If you don't, you'll go to school hungry and I'm not making you anything else after I pick you up. You are eating this one way or another." he almost instantly regretted the harsh tone of voice he had used, as he saw his kid's eyes begin watering. He passed his hands through his face in exasperation, took a deep breath, and walked around the table to pick her up. He exhaled, trying his best to remain calm before speaking to her again, as he could feel Mao's tears on his clothes and the little shudders she made at the effort to hold back tears. Sae patted and passed his fingers through his daughter's hair in a poor attempt to soothe her, but the damage was already done. She was holding thay bunny plush in her arms like a lifeline. "Sorry, okay? I didn't mean to be so hard on you. I woke up early to make your breakfast and you just took a few bites of it... I got frustrated, but that wasn't a reason to force you to eat something you don't like. I'm just saying, green peppers aren't the end of the world; they can be tasty."

"I guess I can eat them..." he sighed.

"No, you'll just be eating them out of guilt. You shouldn't do things you don't want to just because you're afraid of someone's bad mood." he thought for a moment. Mao eating the green peppers wasn't the ideal result now, she was hurt and vulnerable and that would only teach her that she should fear and comply which wouldn't end well on the long run... still, he did spend his time making her breakfast and didn't want it to go to waste. "Tell you what. I'll eat the green peppers for today, if you promise you'll at least try them next time, and I'll find another recipe to try to make them taste better. Sound good?" she nodded, still hiding her face from him by pressing it against his clothes. "Good. Now, I really don't have more time to make you more breakfast, so let's pick out the stuff you don't like just this once, and only this one time. I seriously need you to try to learn to eat your vegetables."

"...'kay."

"Let's hurry then; you still need to get ready for school."

Sae for sure was missing having some help on the raising of his daughter. He would never admit it though, he would try and pretend parenting was the easiest thing in the world when in reality he was fighting for his life everyday trying to shape this little human into a good person, and refraining from helping her while she failed at tying her shoe countless of times before admiting she didn't know how to do it (this is why he only buys her velcro).

He left the tiny sparkling pink shoes on the ground as he heard the doorbell, then looked at the clock hanging from the wall nearby. 8:14am, who in the world was it this early? Sae indicated his daughter to stay still on the couch before walking towards the door, and right after seeing the face on the other side he furrowed his eyebrows in surprise.

"Rin? What are you doing here?" his little brother then proceeded to push him aside and step inside as if it were his own house.

"Move, I didn't come here for you." his eyes traveled the room and eventually fell on the little girl sitting on the couch, and in a blink of an eye he had lifted the little girl up and hugged her tightly. Despite her surprise, she could obviously recognize her only favorite uncle.

To everyone's surprise, Rin absolutely adored his niece. Sure he had problems with his older brother but he didn't have to take it out on an innocent child that had done nothing to him. Besides, she was so adorable and bubbly and so NOT like Sae. Rin sometimes would stare at her in amazement, wondering how it was possible that this was truly Sae's spawn; yet the teal eyes and lower lashes were unmistakable. She was an Itoshi alright.

"Umclw Rwin!" her voice came out muffled, as she was currently being burried on his chest, but the sentiment was there.

"What are you doing here?" Sae was straight to the point, not caring about his cold tone of voice this time. And he says he doesn't have favorites.

"I just came back from my morning run." the younger Itoshi explained, still not looking at him in the eye. "Thought I'd stop by to say hello."

"To her."

"Yes, I didn't want to talk to your pathetic-"

"Language."

"Shut up."

"Don't hug her when you're still sweaty and gross, she just took a bath." he continued scolding Rin, earning a groan of frustration from him.

"Your dad is so annoying." his niece giggled at the obvious beef between his dad and uncle. She didn't really understand it but it was funny from her point of view. "Such lukewarm rules he has."

"Lukewarm!" she repeated.

"Rin, stop teaching her those words. Mao, say bye to your uncle; we have to get you to school."

"Awwwwww, can he come with?"

"Fine, whatever will get you to actually go to school. Rin, let's go."

"Don't boss me around." he complained, walking with his niece on his arms towards the door and setting her down. "Let's put on our shoes, shall we?" he took the shoes Sae had set down earlier and helped the kid put them on with ease. Of course, he had dealt with this countless of times before. Sae had the bad habit of using him as a free nanny for whenever he had to travel, which was often.

"Uncle Rin, how do you go running with all this snow? It's so cold!"

"When you run, you sweat and then it doesn't feel so cold." he finished tying the kid's shoelaces and took her by the hand, then Sae picked up a scarf wrapped it carefully around her neck.

"Don't take it off." he warned, watching as she began squirming to get away from the scratchy scarf. "It's cold out, I don't want you getting sick."

"Okay, papa." he gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before taking her free hand and not so subtly making Rin let go of her as he finally opened the front door. They were quickly hit by the cold winter air, and Mao shuddered a little at the sudden change in temperature.

Stil, Sae made sure his hand was holding hers tight and that she kept herself on his field of vision. There would be someday in the future where she wouldn't need him to hold her hand; he had to treasure these moments and not let her go while he still could.

[maretinelli]

A SURPRISE OF LOVE

Daryl Dixon X fem!reader

Summary: Where Daryl's wife goes on a patrol and arrives all injured, but during the exams Daryl discovers another member.

Words: 1.7K+

Warnings: Blood, bruises, TWD characters, pregnancy, Daryl daddy, and happy ending.

Author: English is not my first language, I apologize for any mistakes that may be made. Second, I love Daryl and I wanted him to be the father of my children. That's it!!

MASTERLIST

Things weren't going well in Alexandria, the Kingdom, and the Hilltop. With the arrival of the Whisperers, it seemed like everything had turned upside down again.

But giving up wasn't something they really wanted to do. They would fight as many times as it took to keep everyone they loved safe.

"I'll go with you," Daryl says, approaching his wife near the Hilltop gates.

Y/n turns around quickly at the man's voice.

"No, you don't need to. I'm just going to take a look at the neighborhood I saw nearby, there might be some supplies to share with Alexandria and Reino." S/n says without worries and smiles.

"I'll go with you," Daryl says again as he asks someone to reach for his bow.

Y/n turns to her husband and holds back a smile.

"Hey, I'll be fine out there by myself. If that's what you're worried about. We've been through so much, one round isn't going to hurt anyone."

•

•

•

Minutes, hours passed. And still no sign of S/n arriving at the community again.

Daryl knew where this place she was going to was, they found out together.

"Did you see if S/n arrived? She left a few hours ago and hasn't shown any signs of life until now" Daryl asks Carol, who was on patrol at that time.

"No. Since I've been here, no one has come or gone." Carol says. "Maybe Connie or Rosita could have seen her. Has it been long since she left?"

"About 4 hours. And the place she said is close, there's no reason for it taking so long" Daryl says a little harshly, but inside he was eating himself up with fear of losing his wife.

"Oh... Do you want me to go ask Connie if she saw S/n?"

"No, no. I'll go look for her." Daryl leaves.

from where he was and goes looking for a dog and equipment to leave the community.

Carol starts to worry too. Y/n had been with them since the quarry, the girl who had now become a woman was a great friend, partner and companion of Carol. If she had to say it, Carol would say that Y/n was her best friend.

Daryl walks to the armory to gear up, while Carol returns to her guard post.

The sun was almost setting, but the heat it gave off was almost hellish. Carol wiped the sweat from her forehead when she heard the other guards shout that someone was approaching.

"Open up!! Open up, it's Y/N!!" Carol screams.

When they opened the gates, Carol came across a woman covered in blood. Her hair was half out of her ponytail, her boots were untied, and there was blood all over her body.

"Y/n!!" Carol throws what she has in her hands and runs to the woman. "Oh my God..."

That blood wasn't zombie's, it was all hers.

There was a deep cut on the right side of the woman's stomach. A lot of blood was gushing out.

"Carol..." Y/n said softly, as her legs felt weak.

The blonde-haired woman holds S/n so she doesn't fall to the ground.

"Were you bitten? Y/N, were you bitten?" Carol asks in desperation.

Y/n tries to speak but she feels very weak due to the blood loss. She just shakes her head negatively.

Which made Carol's heart calm down a little.

"I...I..." Y/n tries to say something, but everything around her started to turn black and blurry. "Carol...my...I'm pregnant...five weeks" she says in a whisper before fainting in Carol's arms.

Carol is in ecstasy for a few seconds, until Daryl's voice snaps her out of her trance.

"S/NNN!!"

•

•

•

3 days later...

After Daryl got to where Y/n and Carol were, they quickly took her so Enid could evaluate her and give a diagnosis as quickly as possible.

At the moment, S/n was lying on a bed in the makeshift infirmary, which was now run by Enid.

Little by little, the Dixon Woman slowly opened her eyes, getting used to the sunlight after a few days of sleeping.

"Good morning, flower of the day" She hears Enid's voice beside her.

Y/n still tries to adjust her eyes to the brightness.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Daryl asked me to open the curtains all the way. He told me you love waking up to sunlight, I thought it would help." Enid says smiling, as she walks over to the window to close it.

Y/n smiles as she imagines Daryl saying that.

"Good morning," S/n says smiling, trying to sit up in bed. But she winces in pain. "Aw, aw..."

"Hey, hey. I'll help you," Enid says, approaching the woman to help her get ready on the bed. "I put some stitches in your belly. Can you tell me what happened? So I can put it in the medical record."

Y/n grimaces in pain, but nods.

"I was attacked by a horde of zombies. I had to jump over a wall to save myself, but there was some barbed wire. I kind of got tangled up..." She says with a half smile.

"Oh yeah, it kind of got tangled up" Enid smiles at Y/n, as she turns to get some more medicine for Y/n. "Well, let me give you a summary of what I did here for you in those days that you slept."

"How many days was I out?"

"Three days"

"Wow..."

"Yes... Well, after Carol and her husband brought you here, I stopped the wound, gave you some medicine to ease the pain, put in some stitches, and went to check on the baby. Carol said that you..."

"Oh shit..." S/n leans back and puts her hand on her head, tears starting to fall.

"Oh no, you didn't know? I'm sorry, I thought..."

"No, no...I knew...I know about the baby. It's been a while now." S/n looks at Enid with tears in her eyes.

"Congratulations" Enid says happily.

Y/n starts to cry softly, while looking at Enid.

"Oh no...I take back the congratulations?" Enid didn't know what to do.

"No, no," Y/n laughed through her tears. "I'm glad I did. But I haven't told Daryl yet... damn, Daryl... Does he know?"

"I told you...I didn't know you hadn't told him, if I had known I would have left it alone" Enid starts talking quickly.

"It's okay, Enid. It's okay..." Y/n agrees with a smile. "It's just that he and I have only talked about it two or three times. He must be in shock, that's all..."

"Look...if that was your concern. Whenever he comes, he asks about the baby first, how the vital signs are and everything" Enid says with love in her eyes.

Y/n chokes back a little more tears, just imagining her tough husband asking about her little baby. She smiles.

"Serious?"

"Yes. For those three days he slept next to you, and in the middle of the night when I came to give him his intravenous medication, I saw him looking at the ultrasound photo. Maybe he's not that shocked after all." She smiles at Y/n.

Y/n smiles too.

Seconds later, they heard the infirmary door open. It was the archer entering.

Seeing Y/n awake, a breath of relief was released from Daryl's lungs, and a few tears could be gathering in his eyes.

"He came back later, you must be doing some tests," he says awkwardly. Y/n holds back a smile.

"Oh, no, no. We were just shooting the breeze. I have to go out anyway," Enid says, looking between Daryl and Y/N. "I'll be back later to see you guys." Enid looks at Y/N, and she nods.

As they pass Daryl, Enid gives him a friendly smile and closes the infirmary door, so they have more privacy.

Daryl approaches Y/n, who begins to shed some silent tears.

"I thought I was going to lose you"

You

You

You...

For the first time, Y/n heard Daryl talk about his baby.

That was the end, Y/n started to shed tears from her eyes and sob. Covering her eyes with her hands, Daryl approaches her wife and wraps her in a hug. Shedding a few tears as well.

"It's okay...it's okay," Daryl says quietly.

"No. I'm sorry, Daryl...I'm sorry." Y/n's voice was muffled due to her crying and her hands on her face.

"Hey, hey. Why the apologies?" He stands up, holding his wife's hands affectionately, so she can look at him.

"The baby. I knew about the baby for about 3 weeks and I didn't tell you. I know we didn't talk about it much, and I was scared."

"Afraid of what, doll?" Daryl says worriedly.

"That's nonsense to say." Y/n shakes her head. "But I was afraid you wouldn't want him." She looks at Daryl. He can feel his heart break.

"Honey, I would never do that. We may have talked about it once or twice, but never. NEVER. I would let you or the baby go through terrible things. I want him, I really want that peanut" he says all cute at the end, which made Y/n smile at the part where he gave the baby a nickname already. "I may have some fears about being a father, but that's not why I'm going to reject him. I'll do my best, and I know you will too" he hugs Y/n again.

"You're making me cry again," she said smiling as she snuggled closer to her husband.

"Just promise me one thing. You'll never go out alone again."

Y/n nods.

"I don't want to lose you. Or the baby. Please."

"Okay," Y/n sniffs. "But look, I got supplies for the communities," she pulls out of the hug a little and smiles.

"Shut up, woman. You almost died," Daryl says with his somewhat harsh affection, making Y/n smile.

"Okay. I'll stop messing around with this." She says, getting ready in bed.

Silence reigns between the two, a comfortable silence between them. While Daryl held his wife's hand and caressed it.

"I have something to show you"

"But already? Our baby hasn't even been born and you're already like this?" S/n teases, smiling sideways.

Daryl just snorts and rolls his eyes.

"You are impossible"

"Yeah. I am." S/n says laughing, but stops when she feels a pain. "Don't make me laugh."

Daryl smiles and then reaches into his pants pocket, pulling out a small piece of paper.

"Here, Enid gave this to me after she assessed the baby. I knew about him right then." Daryl hands over a picture of their ultrasound.

"Look there," S/n said, wiping away some tears of emotion. "Our baby."

"Peanut"

"Oh sure, peanut." She looks at the picture a little longer, before turning to her husband. "Sorry again for not telling you about the peanut sooner."

"It's okay now. We'll be okay, the three of us."

"I heard I'm going to be an aunt?" Carol walks into the infirmary, making Y/n and Daryl smile.

"Yes!!" Y/n says excitedly.

Author: I love reading Daryl a father of babies🤯😫

[i-trash-about-things]

a.n.: I can't believe this took me 6 freaking months to write. It definitely doesn't live up for the hype, but for some reason the words just wouldn't flow. In the mean time, I graduated! Actually went to prom! It kinda sucked, I really don't see the hype behind it!

Anyway, enjoy– and thank you for the patience to those that were interested in this story. If you're still interested by the end of this part– well, you'll know for yourself if there will be more lol ;)

Part 1!

Multiple perspectives (3rd and 1st person); Henderson!Reader; GN!Reader; use of Y/N; Billy Hargrove Survived (but he isn't a racist piece of shit); Everyone might be OOC, sorry lol; swearing; light violence; mostly fluff; English is not my first language! Sorry if something doesn’t make sense :p; no beta, we die like Vecna should’ve

4.5k words.

Third Time's The Charm.

Dustin’s day has been good, in his less than humble opinion.

School sucked the same as always, but hey! Everything other than that was actually pretty awesome!

His older sibling popping by on a whim wasn’t a rare occasion, far from it. When they first moved to college, he cried the whole day thinking he would only see them on Christmas, and now it’s like they never moved in the first place!

Well, maybe it’s because of the Upside Down thing and how they almost died about a million times in the last 4 years, but Dustin liked to believe it’s because they just love him very very much.

But, one thing actually did change.

Eddie.

“Dustin, my man, my favorite nerd, what a sight to the sore eye you are right now!”

Speak of the devil.

Him and Eddie have known each other for a while. I mean, how could he not when the metal-head has been his sibling's best friend for almost all his life?

And with the time to get used to each other, plus Dustin’s natural attentiveness and attention to detail, he can read this guy like the cheap rip-off comic of spider-man he is.

Eddie wants something.

“Is that a new upgrade to your walkie? Dude, that looks sick, what does it do?”

“Nothing, it’s just a normal radio actually.”

“Oh.”

A snort leaves his nose. Dustin shakes his head, setting the walkie talkie on the library table before looking up to his friend.

“You really aren’t subtle, my friend.”

“First things first: how dare you. Secondly-” Eddie pushes the nearest chair back, giving him enough space to sit on the old table. The notebook under him crinkles, but he just pushes it aside, clearly in too much of a rush to care about a random person’s notes. “I need your help.”

“If it’s about the whipped cream on Lucas’ backpack and his basketball shoes, it’s too late. The operation is already in motion.”

“Operation- wait, did you put whipped cream on Sinclair’s shoes?”

“What? No I didn’t. You didn’t hear that from me.”

“Mhm.” Eddie just sends Dustin a look, raising an eyebrow with just a very done expression on his eyes, before shaking his head. “You know what, I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear anything.”

He leans closer, likes he’s about to tell the biggest secret of his life. The notes beneath his butt crumble further.

“It’s about your sibling.”

“Y/N? What they have to do with anything?”

“I’m gonna ask 'em to prom.”

If Dustin were drinking something, he would’ve done a spit take right now.

“WHAT?!”

“SHHHH!” The other school library attendees shush him, all glaring in their direction. Dustin flushes a little, curling into himself, but Eddie doesn’t even flinch.

“I want to take your older sibling to prom, Henderson. Like, real bad.”

“Dude!”

“What?!”

“That’s my sibling!”

“And my best friend! So??”

“So–” Dustin sputters. How does he even respond to that?!

Don’t get him wrong, of all the people he could’ve picked to compete for your hand, Eddie would always be his champion. His two favorite people??? Sign him up!

Doesn’t mean his into it, tho!

“Why?!”

“What do you mean ‘why’?! You’ve ever met ‘em?! They're the coolest most beautiful, and funniest person I’ve ever known! Why wouldn’t I want to take them to prom?”

“No, not that- why the change? I thought you wanted to go with Chrissy??”

That gets a reaction out of him.

Eddie flinches, looking away. He passes a hand through his hair, half hiding himself beneath the brown curls.

“Chrissy… She’s…”

Dustin does not like the hesitation. The kid crosses his arms over his chest, squinting up at Eddie with distrust.

“Look, I’m all for you going after my big sibling–”

“Really? That wasn’t what it looked like two seconds ago.”

Dustin squints further, frowning, and Eddie groans.

“Just keep going.”

“As I was saying, I don’t mind you taking my big sibling to prom… If you actually mean it.”

It’s his turn to frown, a mirror of Dustin’s expression, but in confusion and a little bit of offense.

“What? Why wouldn’t I mean it?”

“You were just drooling over Chrissy, like, two days ago! I get you getting rejected, but don’t use them as a rebound, dude!”

“What?!”

“SHHHHH!” Strike two, the people around them shush them both again. Dustin doesn’t flinch this time, both him and Eddie a bit too enthralled in the topic at hand.

“How could you say that?! You know how much I care about Y/N!”

“I know that, but I also know how much they cares about you.”

“What does that has to do with anything?”

“Uh- Literally everything? What, you think you can just go and ask them all willy nilly to go to prom with you like it’s no big deal, and they won’t feel like it’s a big deal? Thye care, dude! What you say matters to them!”

Something in that makes Eddie pause, breath hitching on the tip of his tongue. He knew that, of course… Didn’t he?

His mind flashes back to the three years ago, just in the middle of prom season.

“Y/N Henderson, you did not–”

“Oh but I did! I did, despite it all!”

Eddie feels the bright afternoon sun on his back, the ever warming spring air making his hair and their hair flutter in the wind.

Today has been a weird day. His friends all seemed either jittery or smug, like they know something he doesn’t, a joke he didn’t get the punchline yet.

But the weirdest thing? His best friend wasn’t waiting for him by his parking spot.

At the end of class, he found a pretty envelope on his locker, attached to it a blue little flower– one of the few he recognizes. Forget-me-not’s.

“6 years sure go by fast. We’ve been through a lot in that time, didn’t we? And we will go through a lot more shit, knowing us like I do.

I was hoping you’d indulge me on a little game, just for old times sake.

Check the supply closet closest to you.”

From then on, he went on a surprisingly elaborate scavenger hunt. Passing through closets, to bathrooms, even checking in with his friends when the little clues told him to. Surely enough, each one handed him a new letter, and each one had a soft and excited smile on their lips.

After a good half hour of running around the school like a headless chicken, Eddie had accumulated enough clues to fill both his pockets and enough flowers for a small bouquet. The last letter sits on his hand as he dashes around the halls, a big smile on his lips.

“Ok, I promise this is the last one– for real this time, I swear.

This had been a rough year on you, but I was hoping to send it off with a bang. One last middle finger to the world before I have to leave you behind to fend for yourself in the lion’s den.

So, Edward Munson, meet me by the woods, in our usual spot.”

“Henderson, you absolute maniac!” Eddie all but jumps over the picnic table, practically throwing himself on his best friends arms. They don't even blink, only opening up and holding him. Firm, steady and warm. Their laughter feels like electricity and care all at once over his skin, and he breaks into goosebumps.

“Did you like it? Had any fun?”

“Hell yeah I did! How long have you been planning this, dude?!”

“Ah, who cares about that?” They flick their wrist, like trying to get rid of an annoying fly. Eddie’s way too used to their dismissive and nonchalant nature at this point, so he just laughs and hugs them close again.

“Jesus Christ, Henderson, what did I ever do to deserve you?”

He can’t see, but their smile softens. The hold on him tightens, and they buries their face into the mess of his hair.

“You’re you. That’s more than enough.”

After a beat, they finally pull away from the other. Eddie doesn’t even questions at their dazed gaze, used to it at this point, even if he never truly knew the reason behind it. He squeezes their shoulders, still a little incredulous at the situation. Taking his little moment of silence as an opportunity, Y/N steps back and takes one last flower from their pocket. It’s a little bit beaten up after being squashed in the hug, but it makes Eddie’s heart feel tight anyway.

“Look, I know this hasn’t been an easy year for you. You’ve been through a lot of shit, dealing with shitheads like Carver and Hagan, and that you didn’t graduate, but… But I wanted to make the end a good memory, you know? Eat junk food, dress fancy for once in our lives, pretend that we’re the protagonists for once, you know?”

They take a deep breath, eyes locked on the little flower on their hand. It’s impossible to lift their head and finally gaze into the eyes of their best friend. The love of their life.

Bah, call 'em dramatic. They're already way too deep into this cheesy bullshit to care.

“So. Eddie. Eds. Angel. Would… You, maybe… Like to… Gotopromwithme??”

Well that was smooth.

Still, it doesn’t seem like he cares about their awkward stumbling.

Instead, he just pulls them into one more hug, laughing like a maniac.

“Yes! Of course I’d like to, you dumbass! You’re my best friend!”

And those words make their heart races and breaks, all at once.

They let the little blue flower fall to the ground, unbothered by the numbness on their fingertips.

“I know. You’re my best friend too, Eds.”

Eddie shakes his head, locks brushing against his nose at the intensity. This is a crisis for another time.

“I know, believe me. But I’m telling the truth! I don’t care about Chrissy, I legitimately want them to be my date!”

Dustin raises an eyebrow, feeling the genuine longing in Eddie’s tone. It’s a surprising match to his siblings, every time they talks about Eddie. That lingering bitter-sweetness in the end of the sentence, the longing in each and every word. He’s heard them rant and ramble, on and on, about the metal-head more time than Dustin feels like counting, he knows that tone. It’s a perfect match.

So, he sighs, leaning his head back against the library’s chair to the point his cap almost falls off.

“Fine, I’ll help.”

“Yes!”

“SHHHHH!”

…

Today was… Weird.

Maybe it was the way the sun was beating down my face, too hot for a spring day, maybe it was the fact that the 7-11 I passed by didn’t have my favorite slushy flavor, but something just seemed… A little off today. Like someone just tilted the world a little bit to the left.

I take a long drag from the cigarette between my lips, watching the shining sun from my spot by my car. Sitting beside me is none other than Billy Hargrove, the same glare up at the sky as mine.

It’s always funny hanging out with Billy by the school’s grounds. We used to beat each other up in this same parking lot, about two years ago! And now look at us, sharing a can of coke beneath the spring sky like two dads waiting for their kids after football practice.

“I can hear your brain about to cook up some weird shit to say, Henderson. Please keep it to yourself.”

I don’t even blink at his harsh tone, putting a sugary sweet expression and leaning to lay my head on his shoulder.

“Awn, I know you love my commentary.”

He’s quick to brush me off, with not nearly as much strength as he used to a few years ago.

“I’d rather hear the screams of children.”

All I can do is snort, laughing slightly before taking a sip of the can between us.

Billy is one of the only people acting somewhat normal today, same snarky responses that once made me lunge for his throat and same pissed off frown.

He’s also one of the few people I trust the most, funnily enough. What can I say, he’s seen the worst in me and somehow still sticks around- probably because I’ve seen the worst in him too, but still. Maybe that trust is what made me press the halfway burnt cigarette into the ground and turn to look back at him.

“Hey, dude?”

“Hm.”

“Is it just me or is everyone kinda off today?”

And to my surprise, he doesn’t immediately respond. Instead, he raised his own cigarette to his lips, taking a long and deep drag.

“Nope, just you.”

“Pfft, weird, something tells me your lying?”

“Something? What, like voices in your head? Damn, I knew you were crazy, Henderson, but this is new ground.”

“Billy.”

“… Hmph.”

He stuffs his hands in his jeans pockets, sunglasses tilting down just enough to see the look he sends me. I shake my head and he relaxes. There’s a small pause after that. He flicks the cigarette ash off, before glancing to me again.

“Look, it’s nothing you have to worry about, ok?”

I can’t help but chuckle at his words, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Last time you said that, you were possessed by a god damned spider monster thing.”

“Yeah, but this time I’m not. So chill out.”

Isn’t he sweet?

I chew on the inside of my cheek, breathing in slowly before letting out a long long sigh.

“Fine.” A pause. But then I turn to look at him again, with the most serious expression I can. “But if you are possessed again-”

“Fuck off.”

“Pfft-”

The loud ringing of the school bell quickly brings our attention back to the front doors of Hawkins High. Like clockwork, they open and the sea of teenagers roll out, flooding the parking lot. My eyes drift between faces, looking for any sign of my favorite club, but the first thing I catch is a familiar cap and a mess of red hair.

Dustin immediately runs up to me, his cap hitting me on his attempt at a dive hug. Max is not so far from him, but instead of the affection attack she just flips Billy the bird… which he quickly reciprocates, smirking.

The two types of siblings.

“Hey, Junior.” The sarcastic and rougher edge to my voice quickly melts off, turning to the normally sweeter and more relaxed tone reserved only for my little brother. Dustin immediately turns to me, smiling like he always does- but, of course, there’s something off.

“Hello there, older sibling figure.”

… ok.

I just let out a chuckle, a little weirded out. See? It can’t be just me, everyone’s acting all skittish for some reason. Did I miss the memo?

Max pushes Dustin’s cap over his eyes before he has the chance open his mouth again, her eyes literally screaming for him to shut up. Then, she turns to me.

“If he hurts you, tell me. I’ll kick his ass.”

“… What???”

The hell’s going on?

Dustin clears his throat, pushing his hat back and sending Max a half hearted glare.

“As I was about to say- Eddie told me to give you this.”

From the depths of his many pockets, he pulls a… letter? A note, better said, scribbled in a chicken scratch of a writing I know way too well.

Before I can open it, he quickly pulls me so I look at him again.

“I’m gonna catch a ride with Max today I’ll see you later ok bye-”

And he practically drags Max to Billy’s car… which she weirdly let’s him do. I look back at the blonde next to me… and he doesn’t even blink at the interaction, stepping on the rests of his cigarette before turning away from me without a word.

What…. the hell.

As the familiar camaro drives off the parking lot, leaving me to my lonesome by my truck, I glance down at the note in my hands. Crumpled notebook paper, with the little bits used to wrap around the spiral still attached, and that familiar handwriting.

After a huff of amusement, I open up the letter.

“Greetings, dear adventurer! It is I, Eddie the Pardoned (we really need to workshop that title).

This is your formal request to join in on an adventure through the ever changing land of Hawkins High school. Walk across the mighty and dangerous hallways where jocks once slammed our faces into lockers, or traverse into the terrifying lands we call the gym showers!

Follow the riddles and clues, and if you’re lucky, the gates of a whole new adventure shall open to those with brave and worthy hearts.

Good luck.”

“Dramatic dork.” I mumble beneath my breath, but the smile on my lips can only be described as disgustingly smitten.

I look over the note again, flipping it between my fingers. Surely enough, more writing in the back.

“Those who trail my path are the best liars, but also the most emotional of artists. The many nights you’ve spent between my walls, you were never quite yourself. Oh, wow, he really wasn’t kidding on making riddles, huh?”

I can’t help but let out a chuckle, raising my eyes from the paper in my hands and looking around the parking lot. There’s a lot of people walking around right now, most speeding to get home after a long long Friday, but my eyes don’t catch a single hint of anyone using the familiar Hellfire shirt. Which is definitely weird, they’re normally the first ones to leave the school. Still, no sign of Jeff, or Bryan, or Gareth, much less Ed.

I look back down to the riddle.

“The many nights you’ve spent between my walls” So it’s a place, then? One I’ve been before, if Eddie isn’t being a little shit and using “you” because he thinks it sounds better.

“Those who trail my path are the greatest liars, but most emotional of artists.” Greatest liars? And most emotional of artists. Well, if it’s a place, related to art, then the art room? But then why the lying?

“You weren’t quite yourself.” Wasn’t… quite myself. Hm.

A place, probably one at school since I doubt he would’ve gone so extra as to go around the entire city, related to art and lying. “Wasn’t quite yourself.”

…

Wait, the drama club?

Art of lying- could he mean acting? A room related to acting in which I’ve been to before.

The drama club, at D&D nights!

My feet are moving before my brain is, crumpled up note being carefully stuffed into my pants pockets.

…

Not far…

“The bird has taken flight, over.”

“Dustin, will you stop with the codenames?! Just- Just get into position! Over!”

…

How many damn riddles can this man write??? I must’ve collected more than twelve by now!

There’s a small collection of notes in my left hand, my pockets too filled up to stuff any more of them without damaging. My shoes squeak against the floors of the mostly empty school, echoing in my ears as I run from room to room, classroom to classroom.

I swear, If this is some sort of elaborate prank, I’m going to kick Eddie’s ass until Halloween comes.

I let out a groan leaning down to reach another, stuck beneath my– well, not mine, it hasn’t been mine since I graduated– seat at the iconic Hellfire Club lunch table. When I turn to the back, I’m surprised to see there isn’t a riddle this time, no little set of verses to greet me. So, after a small hum of interest, I fold it open.

“If you’ve reached this point of your quest, fair knight, I’m proud to tell you your prize awaits you! (Because I’m not like SOME people who do FAKE OUTS THREE TIMES IN A ROLL)

All that’s left is for you to come and get it. Your king awaits in our usual spot.”

-E.M.

“Pfft– my king?” I can barely pay attention to the soft laugh that leaves my lips, chest too warm and filled with cotton to notice. Dork.

Still, I just set the note with the rest, walking to the nearest exit with a smile on my lips.

I’m still have no idea what Eddie is planning with all of this. Despite the dozen plus notes, he hasn’t gave me a single of hint for the reason of this scavenger… Hunt.

…wait.

I mean, it’s not– it’s not possible, right?

He was talking about inviting Chrissy less than a week ago!

Nah, nah, yeah, it’s not… He wouldn’t. Not me, anyway.

…

Well I just made myself sad.

A groan leaves my lips as I shake my head, hair flowing around with the motion before bouncing and stopping, strands sticking to my eyelashes. Enough with the self pity. I’m better than this. Whatever it is that Eddie has planned to me is going to be awesome.

The hallways echoes with my steps, the sound of my combat boots squeaking in the shiny tile flooring being the only sound as I leave the school. It’s late afternoon at this point, the sun starting to set as everything is painted golden. The walk through the woods is longer than I remember, the late spring wind ruffling through my clothes. After a while, I’m reaching the clearing…

And there’s no one here…?

“Eddie?” I spin in place, looking in between the trees for any sign of the silhouette I know better than my own. It’s quiet here, with the exception of the singing birds and early crickets. I stuff my hands in my pockets, and my brows twitch in worry. “Did I take too long…?”

When I pull them back, one of them holds the last hint. It’s impossible to be anywhere else– he literally said our usual spot, and this is it, isn’t it? Unless my first suspicion was right, and he really meant to spread these around the town– wait, no, then why would he set them up around school? What am I m–

“BOO– OW!”

“EDDIE?!”

My knuckles sting, heart beating louder than a drum as I stare at my fallen best friend, cradling his own face. Immediately I reach for him, falling to my knees by his side.

“Jesus Christ, Munson, you scared the shit out of me! I’m so sorry– Oh, god dammit, sweetheart, c’mere, c'mere… Let me see…” I gently tug his hands from his face, touches practically feather light and with as much care as I can channel. He laughs all the while, completely unbothered by the forming bruise on his cheek.

“Jesus Christ, Henderson– You pack quite the punch! Holy crap, I think you dislocated my jaw–”

“Stop saying shit like that, you’ll manifest it.” I chuckle under my breath (but do check his jaw, making sure everything is in place and I didn’t punch one of his teeth in.). “Why the hell you sneaked up on me like that? What thought process made you think that was a good idea??”

“I don’t know!” He laughs, falling limp on the grass while looking up at me. His smile is almost dopey, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he said he just got baked. He doesn’t smell like weed, tho. Just smoke and cologne, the one that makes me wish I could bury my nose into his neck and just live there. “I thought it’d be a good idea? All I needed to do was distract you for a little while!”

“Distract me?” I snort, brows tilting in a playful frown. “From what?”

“Shit–” And at the sound of my brother’s cursing, I lift my eyes from my best friend’s face.

What do I find if not the rest of the Hellfire club, haphazardly stacked on each other’s shoulders putting up a huge banner on the branches of the nearest threes. Jeff has Mike on his shoulders, while Bryan has Justin– and Lucas and Gareth watch a few steps away, clearly trying to not bring attention to themselves as I turn to them.

“Michael, if you ruin my jacket with your dirty ass shoes–”

“I’m trying not to! Stop moving!”

“Guys! Guys, I’m gonna fall! BRYAN–”

“You’re not gonna fall, Dustbin– stop being a pussy and just tie the goddamn thing.”

“What the hell…?” I mumble, even more confused than when I found the kids sneaking Eleven into Mike’s basement.

Eddie doesn’t answer me with anything but a cackle, getting up to his feet and jogging up to the rest of the club. His grin is so wide his dimples are lost between smile lines, brown eyes shining in the late afternoon sun that warms my skin and cheeks. He skids to a stop under the banner, not even waiting to check if it’s tied up properly before tugging the bottom and unrolling it.

‘COME DITCH PROM WITH THIS FREAK?’

And the arrows badly painted on the bottom point directly at him, that turns around to beam my way with his smile brighter than the sun.

…

I don’t know if the guys have fallen silent or if I just gone deaf, but I don’t have the mental power to look. It’s like the whole world turned… quiet.

My heart can’t seem to choose between skipping beats or skidding to stop. I can feel my skin tingling, my knuckles going from stinging to burning. As does the back of my neck and the bottom of my gut.

I read the words, over and over again, shocked…

“Is this…” My tongue feels like it’s knotted, tied and shipped to the other side of the country. No words could ever describe– whatever the hell I’m feeling right now. “Are you… Is– Are you for real??”

“Yeah.” He chuckles, the warm orange lighting almost making it look like his cheeks are dyed a soft red. His smile is confident, almost cocky and playful as he looks down at me. “As real as a I can be.”

My mouth feels drier than a desert, and I swallow harshly. I can’t turn my eyes from him, like I’m transfixed… which, in someways, I am.

He has hypnotized me, a puppet on his strings.

I feel starstruck.

Eddie takes my silent as a go ahead, because after standing under the banner for a second, he slowly walks to me again. For some reason, I don’t even think to get back on my feet until he’s almost right in front of me, his head obscuring the sun as if he’s the only star I need.

“Henderson,” He says, the smirk on his lips almost sheepish. “I’ve got to apologize. I’ve been… kind of a shit best friend for the last couple years. You’ve been my paladin, my white knight, the voice of reason when I wasn’t thinking and I didn’t even thank you properly.”

He extends his hand, the black stone in his ring finger catching the sunlight from his smile.

“So let me make it up to you… Will you let me take you with me to not-prom?”

My throat closes up, my eyes sting, but my smile is as bright as the moon.

“Yeah, I will.”

And I take his hand, letting him pull me to my feet.

taglist! @eddiesgirlforever @plk-18 thx for the support and the patience!! :D

[goosewriting]

Hi!! Hope you're doing good, this is for the prompt request, raph with number 10 on color blue (miscellaneous), where reader lives near where the turtles live (not in the sewers lol), and everytime he goes on a mission or just walk close to their house, he starts to crush on them, so when his brothers found out they try to perform a date, but since raph is some shy, it doesn't go as planned (even that reader is really charmed by raph personality and in some time they start to crush on raph too and more time later they start a relationship), sorry if is really long, just some fluff for the raph boi <33, I really love your writing and i hope you do good, thanks for your time and also that if you don't feel like doing this you can pass for it, don't worry :)) (forgot to mention thst this is situated after the kraang situation so reader don't get a little freaked out about raph)

A very special mission (rottmnt Raph x reader)

prompt 10: "Abort mission, I repeat abort mission.” “What? Abort what mission? All you were doing was introducing yourself to your neighbor?” “Yeah, and they’re too attractive. I can never speak to them again.”

summary: Raph gets a crush on reader and April sets up a meeting.

relationship: Rise!Raph x GN reader

warnings: none, fluff!

word count: ~910

A/N: i have to admit this one was one of the more difficult ones for me, it’s been in my wips for so long! i ended up changing the dialogue slightly to fit the scenario better. hope you still like it!!<3

(english is not my first language. constructive criticism and grammar corrections are very appreciated!)

— — —

It had been around 3 weeks since the Krang invasion and the city was recovering slowly but surely. Many buildings that had been destroyed by the aliens were almost done being rebuilt. With every day that passed there were less and less construction sites and scaffoldings to be seen.

After the invasion, the everyday routine resumed fairly quickly. You kept going to class and your part-time job as always. But lately you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were being watched. You tried to shrug it off and went on your way.

Above you on a roof, from within the shadows, a certain ninja was keeping an eye on you.

Raph had been watching you for some time now. Because of the repairs after New York’s partial destruction, the turtle brothers had to change their patrol route, and that’s when he had spotted you talking to your friends on the street.

It had been like love at first sight for Raph. Ever since seeing you that day, he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Even after the repairs were done and he could have gone back to their normal route, he’d always make a quick escapade to your street, hoping to see you.

One night he was escorting you home from afar (unbeknownst to you) after work, and you ran into April on the street. You two greeted each other like you were friends and had a quick chat, then went along your way.

The next day, Raph basically interrogated April about you. It turned out you had actually been friends for a long time, but you had moved away for some years, and now came back. She just hadn’t had the time to catch up with you yet and introduce everyone.

Hearing this, and knowing that Raph had a massive crush on you, the other turtles all but begged April to set you up with him somehow. It didn’t take much convincing at all, because she was actually planning on doing so sooner or later. She was convinced you’d get along really well, with all of them.

So when April asked you if you were up to meeting a friend of hers, you said yes. You were kinda intrigued at how mysterious everything was about the meet-up. She wouldn’t tell you much about this person other than his and his brothers’ names, and that he was a really good guy.

You were told to wait on a street that wasn’t busy at night-time. If April hadn’t been there waiting with you, you would have had second thoughts about meeting a stranger in a deserted place like this. But she was confident that you’d like her friend, so you waited expectantly.

The turtles were waiting on a rooftop across the street, and Raph was half-way down the fire escapes when he suddenly stopped. He clenched and unclenched his fists in annoyance at himself, trying to calm down his pounding heart. Isn’t this what he had been waiting for for weeks? To finally meet you face to face and talk to you? All his pining came down to a boil within him, evaporating immediately, leaving him only with uncertainty.

Looking around, you turned to look at either side of the road, your form illuminated by a streetlamp. Raph’s breath hitched when he noticed that you had actually chosen a nice outfit to come out here; it wasn’t your usual clothes you wore to go to work and back.

You had dressed up for him and he was too much of a coward to go say hello.

With a groan, he buried his face into his hands.

April was starting to wonder why Raph was taking so long. She gave you an apologetic look and was about to contact him with her turtle comm, when it beeped in her pocket.

"Abort mission, I repeat abort mission” came a voice through the device.

“What? Abort what mission, Raph?” said someone else. “All you were gonna do was introduce yourself to April’s friend?”

“Yeah Leo, and they’re too attractive. I’ll never be able to speak to them.”

What Raph had forgotten was that April was also connected to their call, so you had heard everything.

Heat rised to your cheeks at Raph’s comment. But you did like his voice, it was kind. So with a sudden burst of confidence, you took April’s device from her hands just as she was about to reply (probably reprimanding him about leaving you out here when he wouldn’t even show up).

“C’mon Raph” you called to him, then switched to a more flirtatious tone. “Let me see you… I don’t bite.”

You heard a clatter somewhere on the building near you, where Raph was holding onto the railing for dear life after almost falling down, face as red as his bandana.

– – –

Bonus: (a couple of weeks later, after you two started dating)

“Hey, remember when you were too scared to come meet me for the first time that night?” you asked Raph with a playful tone, lightly jabbing your elbow into his side.

“Ugh, yes” he responded, looking to the side for a second with flushed cheeks. “I was scared out of my shell to be honest… I still don't entirely understand how I managed to snatch you but I'm glad I did.”

You merely smirked at him. He sighed.

“You’ll never let me live that down, will you?”

“Heh, nope” you said, leaning up to place a smooch on the tip of this beak.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

If Light hadn't fucked up with the Lind L. Taylor thing, do you think L would still have been able to figure out where Light was? I've always considered that moment to be the most damning fuck up on Light's end.

That's the thing, L already knew Kira was almost certainly in Japan.

Light's first victim was only broadcast on Japanese media in the Japanese language. More, as Light went on his initial murder spree, while he did have many international victims, he likely had several victims who were only broadcast in Japanese media or else much less well-known outside Japan. This is in part why the Japanese are the first to really notice Kira and give him a name on Death Note 4-chan.

Now, it's possible Light might not have been Japanese. He could have been simply staying in Japan during that time to be able to look up these criminals as well as fluent enough in Japanese to get by but it's more likely that he does live in Japan and speaks Japanese because he is Japanese.

L canonically states that this was why he broadcast in Japan in the Kanto region first: he was almost entirely certain Kira was in Japan and Kanto having the largest population was as good a place to start as any.

L didn't really need the Lind L. Taylor stunt to narrow Light down to Japan. In fact, the stunt could have gone very wrong for him very easily. Light might not have spoken English fluently enough to understand the broadcast (what it was broadcast in to give the illusion of being an international broadcast), Light might not have been watching TV at the moment of the broadcast, or Light could have simply decided not to kill Lind L. Taylor.

That said, if it didn't work out, L doesn't really lose anything. He can save face by claiming it was to rattle Kira and goad him into doing something stupid later on, it also sows doubt of Kira with the public and assures them that someone is on the case. L would just wave his hand and say, "Anyway, uh, let's start our investigation in Japan" and then continue with where he left off in canon.

(As a reminder, from there, Light started fucking with the police and tipped his hand so as to eliminate L as a rival: making it clear that Kira had access to police records that are not available to the public. That's how L was able to narrow it down to family members of Japanese police which is where he brought in the American FBI (who he can somehow send out internationally, when that's a domestic agency, but whatever L).)

The reason L does it though is not just to prove Kira's in Japan and likely in Kanto (which is nice but that's still millions of people to sift through). It's to prove to the public that Kira is a human driven by emotions and malice, it's to rattle Kira wherever he is, and it's to prove to Interpol that this weird guy who refuses to show his face anywhere is in fact the man for the job (as Interpol was generally dubious about involving L as he's... not popular for understandable reasons).

Now, typical L, he sets up a man's public execution on live television in what feels like a Black Mirror episode with the justification "he was going to die anyway" to just prove a point he already could have proven otherwise but that's just what L does.

I do agree it's Light's biggest fuck up, however, it's also very telling that it actually changes absolutely nothing had he not fucked up. He just felt like a really angry idiot for a moment there and L got put on the top of his death list.

[ocrpsearch]

hi! i'm, f, 22. looking for 21+ yr old literate creative minds in the mood for something horror-filled, something dark and angsty/anguish-y! gritty psychological!! toxic, destructive, no good dynamics!! on the run with no concern about who strays in their path!!

!!!!!!!!!!!! (almost) any thing !!!!!!!!!!!!

I have some plots of my own, but would love to brainstorm something new. all I ask is to not come to me with detective, zombie* apocalypse, or vampire plots </3

✱i'm open to any gender pairing! oc x oc. ✱spiciness welcomed. ~15/85 smut/plot ratio. plz nothing real nasty. ✱minimal triggers, lets discuss in DMs.

the two plots below is what i'm itching to do. but I have an array of other dark plots in an amino blog. happy to direct you to browse them!

. . .

cult, horror/supernatural | any x any

premise takes places before the turn of the century (1900s? 2000s? 2100?). we play as pre-established cult members, who are well acquainted and very much embrace the ways of the organization. their doctrine states that all members are to quit their worldly jobs and live off of the land on remote communal compound in the desert. from sunrise to sunset, they are tasked to perform a number of rituals to appease their god(s). ( can get as dead dove-y as you'd like! )

after roleplaying out their routine for a bit to set the tone, we can introduce a new recruit, X, to the family. they have to go through some bizarre, torturous ritual to be initiated. but they never tap out -- they pass, and are accepted with open arms.

as they settle into the family, our characters grow suspicious of X and their true motives in joining. real world manifestations plague the compound because of X's impure intent, subtle at first.

intensity increasing as X steadily manipulates the cult leader to stray from their doctrine in a multitude of ways and then ultimately convinces them participate in human sacrifice.

but what do our charas do about it? from here the plot can diverge into many different avenues! I have a few ideas of my own!

. . .

piracy, action, supernatural(?), experimentation violence | g x g

premise takes place in 1690, the chaos of piracy destructfully plaguing Western Europe. it was a popular profession because the high-risk high-rewards of the game was enticing to most young men of boring coastal towns. but for women, unless they had a decent father or a brother that stuck around, they were recruited for servitude or [to work the late night docks, if you will]

our characters got pushed out their homes because they were unmarried at undesirable ages and generated no income. they were left no choice but to dedicate themselves to a predatory brothel that service the small port town's visitors.

OR instead of a brothel, we could make them be indentured servants to a cruel scientist/witch that performs inhumane experiments on them. ( keeping the science relevant to 1600s-1700s grasp of medicine )

one of our characters proposes after awhile when their final straw has been broken to escape their situation. their options? venture into the mainlands, or test their luck with the open seas?

but their curiosities wondered after each continual night of their humanity being stripped from them, to what extent was it really that dangerous?

how will the girls plan their escape, how and to what lengths will they go to defeminate themselves to blend in with the crew,

and ultimately how far will they survive in this pirate lifestyle?

. . .

but also… an offhand request, but if you have any lethally cruel criminal oc and want to rp out their crimes, hmu :eyes: (dw, no uwusoftsub type shi)

. . .

if you've made it this far, but aren't feeling these two specific plots, i gotchu. happy to brainstorm! work with me to keep it interesting!

✱need a partner who doesn't mind playing throwaway characters or major side characters when relevant, won't be all the time. ✱don't be afraid to speak your mind on any plot adjustments, criticisms, anything! ✱please be proficient in english, roleplay in the third person, with great grammar and proper capitalization. ✱i write in the range of 150-3,000 words per reply, so NO one liners. ✱a MINIMUM of one paragraph (5+ sentences) per reply. don't make the minimum a habit, please. ✱be alright with reply times spanning from 2-5 days!!! ✱plot on tumblr, roleplay on discord only.

✱will contact through likes!

interact and the poster will reach out!

[solarishashernoseinabook]

Solaris reads Murder as a Second Language, by Joan Hess (2013)

So yeah, this was the book I made the poll about. As this is a murder mystery I'm liveblogging, it's very likely I'll spoil the killer for you. Block the tag "solaris reads murder as a second language" if you don't want spoilers.

Murder as a Second Language is the 19th book in the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the first book by Joan Hess I've read. Last year I listened to about 30 minutes of the audiobook before DNF'ing it because of how trashy the first couple chapters were. Well, now I'm back, and we're going to see how bad the rest of it is.

MAASL picks up shortly after our main character Claire, long-time local business owner, has married Deputy Chief Peter Rosen, and just before she packs her daughter Caron off to college. To get into the college she wants, Caron has to spend the summer doing volunteer work, and Claire - now faced with the possibility of spare time - decides to volunteer as well. When a murder happens in town, Claire and Peter team up to solve the case.

Well, let's see what I've gotten myself into...

[Transcript: "Inez found thsi really cool place where we can volunteer to teach English as a second language to foreigners. It's like four hours a week, and we arrange our own schedules. I figure that if we're there from eleven to noon, we'll have plenty of time to go to the lake and the mall." /end]

Just setting up some background here. Caron has picked fairly easy volunteer work that gives her plenty of time to still enjoy summer, and only really has to devote 40 odd hours to it. As far as last-minute requirements to get into college go, Caron has it pretty damn easy.

Or maybe not. See, she has to attend a training session and...

[Transcript: "Yeah," Caron muttered. "The training session was interminable. The teacher basically read aloud from the manual while we followed along, like we were illiterate. We broke for pizza and then listened to her drone on for another four hours. After that, the executive director, some pompous guy named Gregory Whistler, came in and thanked us for volunteering. I was so thrilled that I almost woke up."

"Then it got worse," Inez said. "The program director, who's Japanese and looks like she's a teenager, told us that because of the shortage of volunteers in the summer we would each get four students - and meet with them twice a week for an hour."

"For a total of Eight Hours." Caron's sigh evolved into an agonized moan. "We have to call them and find a time that's mutually convenient. It could be six in the morning or four in the afternoon. We may never make it to the lake." /end]

How heartbreaking! Caron, on the cusp of adulthood, faces a fraction of the responsibilities she will face in a year when she goes off to college! Her life is truly difficult (sarcasm)

[Transcript: "And I," Caron said, rolling her eyes, "have to tutor an old lady from Poland, a Chinese man, an Iranian woman, and a woman from Russia. How am I supposed to call them on the phone? They don't speak English. Like I speak Polish, Chinese, Russian, and whatever they speak in Iran. This is a nightmare, and I think we ought to just quit now. I say we set up a lemonade stand and donate the proceeds to some charity." /end]

And it gets worse (heavy sarcasm)! Did you know that people who need to learn English as a second language don't speak English perfectly? Caron is right to throw away the chance to go to a good college over this (heavy sarcasm)

Anyway, all is saved, because Claire promises to volunteer as well and take some of their students off their hands so Caron doesn't give up and go to the local community college instead. Personally I'd say a good parent would make their child take responsibility for themselves, but what do I know. This post is getting long, so check the reblogs for how well that works out for everyone

[desultory-novice]

Bonus Talk: Storycrafting for Noir and Apologies

So, I keep thinking how funny it is how this whole thing started. I had a chain of ideas at dinner one night: "What if the Master Crown really WAS trying to transform Magolor into Dark Matter? Would he be 'Dark Matter Wizard?' But then, what was Swordsman before he was Swordsman? Hmm. There is that one piece of human concept art he has... and you know...maybe it's the retro anime look or the fact that this series doesn't have hardly any humans in it but he looks just enough like Adeleine that one could think they're related-..."

Back then, "Noir" didn't really exist. I just drew up a quick sketch in Adeleine's notebook that I hope looked recognizably like the human DM concept art. He wasn't in color but given Dark Matter's palette, he probably would have had dark hair, and poring through the wiki - I found at least one Dark Matter incarnation with a purple eye. I also had Ado drop a line that her brother was "bad at making friends" because of that one JP guide and that was IT.

But then... I thought it was sad to draw this poor guy only to kill him off in the backstory without even fleshing out what he looked like (and I was afraid Adeleine's pencil sketch made him look blond XD) so I drew up a quick color pic of him, rendering Swordsman's gear as a normal scarf and coat. Before thecrashman said anything, I hadn't even considered the two of them as living on Shiver Star!

As soon as he said that though, everything started to come together...Now DMS was an overprotective brother taking care of his little sister in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Of course he was. No wonder he couldn't bond with anyone. He was straining under the weight of his responsibilities. He's older. He's supposed to be the protector, so he could never bring himself to tell his kid sister about the things he was going through. He focused on her joy to his own exclusion. A destructive pattern. A fatal flaw for this tragedy.

Twitter readers asked after the first comic how Adeleine's brother even became Dark Matter Swordsman, some suggesting perhaps it was because he died in battle against Zero? I thought a big human-led global effort against Zero and Dark Matter seemed too complicated in scope, so my solution was to go back to where this idea started: he would be the same as Magolor - looped in by a bad ancient artifact that parasitized him before he knew what was happening. Only he doesn't have a Kirby to save him...

At this point, I had to give him a name. I wanted something French-sounding, so he sounded good alongside Adeleine, and remembering the origin of Adeleine's name, I thought to choose something in FL-ese. I combed the lyrics of "Welcome to the New World" back and forth in both English and Japanese. (I was lucky as the song is sung as a one-to-one Japanese audio cypher and I speak Japanese.)

It wasn't easy though. I wanted a "strong" word but almost everything in there was about food or naps. XD I finally found a phrase in the Japanese lyrics, "邪魔できない"/"unable to be interrupted"/"unstoppable" and matched it to FL-ese.

Noruruwa. Sounds kinda like "Noir." And with Dark Matter being "Matiere Noire" in French, well, it seemed all too perfect...!

The rest all flowed pretty naturally from there. If our setting is Shiver Star and Shiver Star exists at the same time as the New World, and it resembles our Earth's globe while the New World doesn't, perhaps Shiver is an "abandoned earth"? One with an angry, betrayed populace and two kids doomed by birth to die a cold, miserable death in a place utterly neglected by the rest of humanity.

Now "Noir" had a good reason to seek out the power that would be his undoing. While I'm at it, why not tell the story of how Adeleine gets her brush? That's magical(?) too. It's no Drawcia's Paintbrush, but neither is Dark Matter Blade equal to Galaxia. So now, we've got the idea for "off-brand artifacts" - found in an abandoned exhibit, perhaps? Maybe Noir wants to get Adeleine a present? He grabs the sword on the way out without even thinking because...it's a dangerous world out and he's got a young sibling to look after.

(Although, similar to the Master Crown, it's hard to say whether it was originally entirely his choice to pick it up...or the sword's.)

But wait, why do the artifacts do the bad things they do? Now that I'd introduced the New World into this story, I had Fecto Elfilis/ID-F86 on the table. The concept that the Shiver Starians were sooo angry at the New Worlders when for all we knew, the New Worlders weren't even ALIVE anymore made me think, "Do we really expect powerful, angry psychic Elfilis was passive that entire time? While they were being tortured? What if...they sabotaged everything?"

I'd already speculated that Elfilis and Void are two of a pair, and you can trace their offshots throughout the entirety of Kirby lore. (If you buy into my Galactic Nova is based on Fecto Elfilis theory.) And seriously, at least half those artifacts have led to serious tragedy. Now, we had a reason for Noir to be doomed by the narrative.

I do HC that everyone who has ever had their soul consumed by an Ancient Artifact had some red in their ledger - and so, I conceived of some for Noir. I didn't and don't ever want to write/draw a "humans are a disease" story, which is why 99~100% of anything "bad" implied to be going on in their lives on Shiver Star is entirely background. That was purposeful for several reasons. One was simply to demonstrate the degrees to which Noir was protecting Adeleine. He would build up more stress and more pain and more trauma while she remains the same throughout. Two is I just didn't want to go into detail about what wretched scenario would force Noir to take another person's life, but it is still a part of his character history.

(I write Kirby fan comics after all! I try to stay within the bounds of what I consider acceptable content to show. Best I can ^^; )

Noir was also just pushed to the brink, despairing in his life and the world around him. He wanted more than anything to escape this life. Of course, Artifacts have this funny way of twisting your wishes in the WORST way. (Screams of joy > screams of pain.) So Noir's artifact transforms itself into a collar he can't remove, with an unspoken time limit to do anything his newfound power could do for him - at the end of which, his body and soul become forfeit to the darkness. Now he has lost all escape routes. Even death only delivers him to a fate of serving Zero, robbed of independent thought and choice and memories of the one bright thing in his life.

Adeleine...

Adeleine still needed to escape though. She has to get to Popstar. This was the most complicated part for me to logic out. In the end, I went with the simplest, quickest, and most brutal method of getting that done. Quietly imply that Noir, resigned to his fate, killed as many people as it took to secure Adeleine safe passage off the planet and then lied to her about everything with a gentle smile.

Perhaps it's because the Dark Matter Blade has affected his mind and dulled any emotional responses the normally gentle (if sharp-tongued) Noir would have to harming people (as again, artifacts tend to twist people in the worst possible ways; Noir is verbally abrasive but his nature is defensive. Now he has only violence to rely on to get his wish) but I also think the look of calmness on his face throughout "Brightest Star", in spite of the blood on his hands, is because he's just honestly happy - relieved, for once in his life - to have at least saved Adeleine. He was already consigned to hell, doomed from a simple mistake born from the desire to do good; to protect. (*) But Adeleine doesn't have to carry either his mistakes or his sins.

His was a character who took everyone onto himself. And he succeeded at that. His and Adeleine's past and their traumas will be buried underneath the unending snowfall of Shiver Star...

...Adeleine departs and Noir dies, his human body dissolved into Dark Matter, rising up into the aether right as the first flakes of snow began their long task of erasing all that has happened...

-

Rest now, Noir...

...it's The Swordsman's turn.

-

-

-

-

(*) I consider Dark Matter Swordsman be in a very small group with Joronia and Max Haltmann as the only sympathetic characters to be permanently dead In Kirby canon. Which is another reason why I crafted Noir's story explicitly to resemble theirs. We had a pair of (potential) lovers whose story ends in tragedy and a father and daughter tragedy but no siblings whose story has ended tragically. By fanon, that's arguably Swordsman and Gooey, but that just made him more fit to be this story's tragic brother figure...

In which case, Noir basically HAD to be someone who had a simple wish (to keep his only family safe) ran afoul of an ancient artifact almost by accident in the midst of trying to do good and suffers an inevitable, horrifying physical and mental transformation that would end with his only option for salvation to be put out of his misery...

Curse you, Dream Land 2! :cries:

[Apologies AU]  “Apologies”  “One Sneeze”  “Summer”  “A Walk in the Snow”  “The Swordsman” “Wonderful Gift” "Damnation" "Salvation" "Unstoppable" "Brightest Star"

[Bonus Illust] “Ugly Scarf”  [Bonus Illust] "That's...Funny..." [Bonus Illust] "Full Regalia" (DMS "Gijinka") [Bonus Illust] "Was I A Good Brother?" [You Are Here] [Bonus Illust] "You Won't Win..." [Relevant] “Vestige” (script-only)

[Bonus Text] Noir Facts!

[Dark Matter Painter AU] "It wasn't supposed to go this way...!" "You're a good knight!" "The Body Remembers"

[desceros]

I gotta know, gotta ask- HOW do you write the way that you do?? How does one get to that point? I've been wanting to write fanfics for awhile now, but I don't know where to start, and just... do you have any advice at all for beginners? Because you're like... really good at what you do!!

thank you so much!! that's really kind of you to say :') as for beginner tips hmmmm let's see... i'll give some specific fandom tips, then some general writing tips to kind of mix it up for you!

read/watch/etc the media carefully: specifically i mean to watch it not as a viewer, but as someone with an eye on character. pay attention to the way characters talk. what words do they use? what do they say when they're surprised? angry? sad? tired? do they change their words based on who they're talking to or where they are?

read fanworks that exist already: whenever i plan on writing for a new fandom, i'll go over to ao3 and read a few fan works. then, i take note. what are some common tropes i see? what did this author do that i liked? what did this author do that made their version of this character feel off to me? is this a fandom that likes one-shots or chaptered fics? (though you certainly don't have to see these as a rule; for example, i write long one-shots regardless of what everyone else does, just bc that's what i enjoy writing the most!) this'll help you get your writing voice in your head.

write!!!!: don't worry about writing something you're going to publish just yet. in fact, explicitly tell yourself that you're Not going to publish anything yet. but start writing. to get a prompt, you can 1) go to random word generator, get a verb, and write your character doing that verb; 2) go to one of the myriad of prompt tumblrs, a few of my favorites i have linked here; 3) pick a line of dialogue from the show that sticks out in your mind and have it be the first line of dialogue for something completely different; 4) go over to tvtropes and hit random trope until you find something that inspires a fic. then, write it! focus on getting it finished. remember, you're not publishing it, so it doesn't matter how "good" it is. just that it's finished. then, once you feel confident that you have their voice down in your head, you can start writing stuff to be published. that takes ALL the pressure off your first few attempts!

study up on basic grammar: so the thing that's really going to set you apart from other authors at first glance is your grammar. do you know to vs too vs two? their vs they're vs there? effect vs affect? breath vs breathe? lose vs loose? do you put your punctuation in the correct place? do you have proper spacing for your paragraphs? do you change paragraphs for each speaker, or do you have multiple people speaking in the same paragraph? these are things that will grind at a reader's opinion of your skill, such that even if you have an amazing story, they will hit their tolerated limit and back out. the grammarly blog is a really good resource, and if you have a specific question (e.g. "how do i punctuate dialogue?" "what is the correct spacing for an em-dash?" "), you can just google it and get the answer. this will increase your skills—and thus your confidence—immensely.

learn some cool words: so, disclaimer, i used to read the dictionary when i was a kid. i don't recommend that. but what you should do is get dictionary.com word of the day in your email, and also just. go to a thesaurus and look up words. see what other words orbit the ones you know. the more words you know, the greater your toolbox in painting a picture for your readers. you can also achieve this by reading a lot, both inside and outside of the genre that you're looking to write, which i also recommend.

***give it time!***: i just turned 33, and i started writing when i was in kindergarten when i finished everything on the bookshelf and wanted something new to read. so it's been almost exactly thirty years that i've been writing. i have an english minor with an emphasis in creative writing. with a few exceptions when my wrist is unhappy with me, i write at least 500-ish words every day. i've participated in national novel writing month almost every year since 2008. i write a lot, and i've been writing for a very long time. everything that you see me post is the culmination of all of that. being creative is like a muscle; the more you do it, the more consistently you do it, the easier it gets and the more cool shit you can do. but it's really hard in the beginning. you don't start deadlifting 400 lbs, and you don't look at someone who is deadlifting 400 lbs and think wow why can't i do that?! i must just not be very good i should give up because i'm never going to be able to do that :( no!!! that person has spent years getting to that point. and, if you start now and work consistently, little by little, someday you'll deadlift 400 lbs and you'll be like. wow!! look at me!! i did that!! writing is the same thing. start now, allow yourself to be a beginner, enjoy being a beginner (because wow, how fun is it learning something new?!), and just work a little bit every day until you look up and see what you're capable of!!

[animehouse-moe]

Welcome To Demon School, Iruma-Kun! Volume 2: Into The Fire

I can't give Kodansha enough praise for (specifically) how they're handling Iruma-kun. I was worried when they announced it as single volumes, but the breakneck release schedule of every 2 months is great. There's a massive backlog of volumes, which means English readers get Iruma at an incredibly fast pace! Either way, it means the second volume's released and there's plenty to talk about with it!

Right away, NIshi's malleable style pulls me right back into Iruma-Kun. I love how fluid and expressive these designs are, how different a character can look from one page to the next. It feels so right with how all over the place Iruma-Kun is.

Similarly, the approach to "action", if you can really call it action, appears early on and works great with the overall style of the manga. Typically speaking, I'm more a fan of storyboarded action (where you see its progression and movement through paneling), but there's a good few exceptions like Iruma-kun, where I do enjoy the more pose based appeal. For it to work though, you need to be really good at expressing entire scenes with a single panel, and I'd say Nishi pulls it off quite well.

Now, you'd think when you're reading content you've already watched (at least once), and from almost 4 years ago now, that some of the comedy might wear thin. Nope. In fact, it's almost the opposite, as plenty of these moments end up feeling nostalgic, like Iruma's appearance by carriage (graciously announced by Opera). It's a bit challenging to explain, but with the unique life only found in the manga, and the differences due to restrictions and approach, the humor doesn't feel worn or thin in any spots.

Of course, it's not all comedy, this is still an impactful shounen for younger audiences, so they throw in pieces like this here and there. I really enjoy how wildly characters are able to swing between their more demonic side, and the more human one. Also, I'm a sucker for negative space with emotional realizations like this. Iruma's worried about being outed as a human, but his friends are worried about why he's feeling down. It's really endearing, and I like that they're able to so easily alleviate Iruma's worries. Anyways, the purpose of the negative space here is to show what Iruma's focused/centered on in this moment, that being Azz-Kun and Clara. But yeah, Iruma-Kun vol. 2 is still, unsurprisingly, checking every possible box it can.

I know I already said that the humor was well received in this volume, but it just works so well with Nishi's approach to movement. The posing and character design and the perceived delay between the two actions is just perfect. It's such great humor.

It takes quite a while, but there's also things in the manga that are inferior to the anime. Truthfully though, what can you do? The manga does nothing wrong with it's wonderful art, but the absence of color really hinders it in comparison. And that's mostly where the anime succeeds. Where there's set limitations, such as not having access to color or movement and the like, the anime picks up on what the manga wants, and brings out the best in it.

Also, it's in this volume that we get our first look at Ameri! I'm a massive fan of her character in the anime, so I was super excited to get a glance at her in the manga, and I wasn't disappointed. Her character design in the manga is super interesting, and actually leaves me somewhat disappointed with the anime's interpretation. Here, Ameri's design has something more.... well almost sultry to it, and it all comes from the eyes. I was super surprised to see how different it makes Ameri feel, but I'm completely for it.

Of course, our cute and Shoujo-obsessed Ameri still exists and is absolutely adorable, but first, this page. Nishi's posing and sense of movement through single panels is just something else, and I love how creative they get with perspective and field of view to really bring out the most in these panels.

Anyways, cute Ameri! I can never get enough of her like this.

I just love how responsive Nishi's character designs and art style are, I can't get enough. How the shading and line art change based on mood or appeal for example with this panel of Ameri. Her hair is usually shaded much darker, and her eyes much sharper, but here they're both the inverse of that to draw the cuteness out of her design. I just love it, I love how fluid Iruma-Kun is as a manga so, so much. (regular shaded Ameri below to show the difference as well)

And just to end it off, Azz-Kun and Clara sneaking around following Iruma.

I'm not exactly the target demographic for a shounen manga that focuses on friendship, doing well in school, respecting adults, and so on and so forth, but I hold it very dear nonetheless. Maybe because it's something that makes me feel younger than I am while reading it, maybe because it's just simply well done on all fronts, maybe something else entirely. But whatever it is, I'm so incredibly happy to be able to have and own each and every volume of this story now that it's been licensed.

[buttercupyellow]

wonka's city

idk man i just find it interesting knowing stuff about the setting so, some observations i made of the city in wonka (i made another post about the actual filming locations, which are mostly bath, oxford and lyme regis, but this is talking abt the fictional city).

the first visible bit of the city is this hilltop and a bigass mountain to the left.

port seems to be p green with lots of house looking buildings heading up the mountain.

big breakwater/harbour wall that curves round. city gets posher the higher up the hill u get, and that looks like a castle on the hilltop we saw earlier.

fancy old gate on the main road into town, and a load of fuck off big mountains in the back.

the port's lighthouse is at the end of the breakwater (fun fact, this doesn't exist irl).

map of the main square with all its restaurants. willy knew brandino's and la parisienne without being able to read, so supposedly their p famous (willy later poses as a waiter at Cafe Heinrich). they're also the two restaurants closest to st benedict's cathedral. theres two big arches either side of the main square, one has a clocktower bell with two statues (one banging the other on the head with a frying pan) that come out cuckoo clock style. the left arch or street seems to be called sichelbrucke (translate says this means sickle bridge?) and the street to the right says "straßenbahn haltestelle" meaning "tram stop" i think.

in the middle you've got the fountain, and opposite st benedict's is the galerie gourmet: slugworth's shop is in the top right, with fickelgruber on his left and prodnose on the right. willy's shop is bottom left corner.

irl this is on the edge of a park, so i assume it's the same for this city. a big row of columns holding up the road above it next to a river. there's a lot of rivers in this part of the city (scrubitt and bleacher's territory, and probably the poor sector of the city).

scrubitt's is right next to a river and looks mostly residential.

the galerie gourmet is just barely visible from scrubitt's.

map of the zoo that i can barely see ↑ i think the black, vaguely L shaped building on the left is where the giraffe house is?

the zoo seems to be p far away from the galerie gourmet, even further than scrubitt's.

there's also the library but that's got nothing connecting it to any other part of the city really so..

the languages also seems a bit odd as i can't place which is it's main written one? there's a lot of german (entritt, giraffenhaus, straßenbahn haltestelle, etc) and a mix of italian and french. not a lot of english despite it being based on an english book, with a 90% english cast, filmed almost exclusively in england? not a criticism, just a curiosity - where is this meant to set, if it's the same country that the very english abacus crunch lives in? my gut says england but theres so much german and the only part of england i've been to that had multiple languages was wales, and can you believe it, the other language was welsh.

my best guess is that it's a (fictional) city in northern england that has a large german speaking population.

basically its a big (northern english?) city with massive mountains behind it & a cool port & a large german population.

[oltammefru]

Let's talk about the Surging Waves 15 version of the IS3 Ending 3 bossfight, because it's kind of really interesting. Personally I think it's a pretty great fight, but the way in which it is great almost feels like unintentional or an accident and it's kind of baffling.

First off, the bossfight is really restrictive in what you can do; there are only 2 strats for it that are even remotely consistent:

Bursting Skadi down before she transforms.

Cancelling her transformation with a properly timed Weedy S3 blast, and either repeat this, or use the extra time its bought to you set up and burst Skadi down.

This is because if you let her transform the fight is basically just over unless you have either Fincatcher's Shawl or an extremely fucking buffed up Yato2 that can revert her to singer form (and even then you still have to set up and try to kill her again).

Nonetheless I think the D15 Skadi fight is a very interesting fight even if it's incredibly restrictive because it has one of the most interesting bossfight mechanics in the game.:

That's right, i'm talking about Tear Spawn Manipulation. Other than one element of randomness that you can ignore if you play right, the tiles that Skadi spawns tears on is deterministic.

Each time she spawns a tear, it'll spawn on the (unoccupied) melee tile with the most number of units within the 8 tiles surrounding it. If there are multiple tied tiles, it'll pick one of them at random but you can avoid that by making sure there's only 1 tile with the most number of operators surrounding it. (I'm not 100% sure if "units" is "operators + non-invincible units like summons" or "units" in general although I'd think its the former. PRTS says "units" but doesn't clarify.)

This one of the coolest fucking bossfight mechanics HG has ever cooked up. It forces you to pay attention to your positioning extremely carefully, because every one of them affects how the fights play out. There's a ton of room for smart play here where you place down an aoe medic and then tear spawn location manipulate both the tears to be within range of the AoE medic, or you manipulate a tear to a specific location so you can deploy a DPS unit to sit on the tear and deal damage to Skadi. In my opinion, this mechanic alone turns the D15 Skadi fight from "not very good and quite one dimensional" to "damn this fight kind of Fucks." The fight still forces you to burst Skadi down (unless you're Weedy gaming), but it makes the whole process of trying to figure out how to optimally do that with your team and building your enable to enable it to be so incredibly interesting. And the thing is:

They never tell you this anywhere. This mechanic is not documented anywhere in game. I have not been able to find a single English language source that states that this mechanic is a thing that exists. It does! And it's really neat and I think genuinely one of the coolest things they've done in a bossfight anywhere. But they don't ever bother to inform you about this. I think it's probably pretty likely that less than 0.1% of the English speaking playerbase knows about this? Like you designed (maybe accidentally?) an incredibly banger fight but didn't bother to tell about the thing that makes it as good as it? It's baffling.

[discordiansamba]

POV: You are a detective. You've just been handed a case. A kid with no ID on him and no memories was found in some remote desert town. It's now your job to find out who he is and where he came from.

You start by actually meeting the kid. The first thing you're struck by is his eyes. They're a shade of blue-violet you've never seen before. His skin is pale, a sharp contrast to his black hair, long enough that he keeps it braided. He can't be any older than fourteen, though no one knows for sure how old he is.

He does not remember his name.

In addition to the head wound that likely caused his amnesia in the first place, he also has three broken ribs and a dislocated arm. Even more concerning is the presence of several older scars- a large scar on his right shoulder and a set of three scars on his lower left torso, that if you didn't know any better, you'd say looked like claw marks.

He doesn't seem to speak English that well. No one seems to have established what his first language is yet. But he understands enough that you manage to ask him a few questions- not that he can tell you anything. The kid's memories are gone gone.

You turn to his belongings. He was wearing what looks to be some kind of strange armor when he was found, like nothing you've ever seen before. The knife he was carrying is weird too- there's some kind of mark on the hilt that almost seems to glow. He knows nothing about either of them, but seems to think the knife is important somehow.

You spend the next few days going over every missing persons case in the area from the last fourteen years. You find nothing that comes close to matching the kid's description, and no one has reported a child missing recently. If you didn't know any better, it was like the kid didn't exist before now.

But that can't be, right?