#Forced myself to just make silly little doodles though
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nekrosmos · 1 day ago
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May I offer you some NikPrice doodles in these trying times
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writingforfishes · 2 months ago
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worm when uhh. yeah.
iirc one of your fics mentioned Otto having been with people possessing various sexual organs. were they also of various genders or is that not solidified
in my brain atty is men only but Otto seems like he'd have been Resident Bi Slut in his late teens/early-mid 20s. attraction can be fluid tho so maybe even if he was, that could've changed since then.
also uh if they both have backstories somewhat, is there a story to how they met and got together? the proposal and wedding preparations? wedding day maybe..
cuz like I've read All of them and it's like slice of life ottocus, early relationship stage/kink confession ottocus, honeymoon, sick otto, roleplay, Mark's party, hiatus, atty's birthday (probably not the exact order chronologically but I think that's the post order since the first one?)
obvi this is like kinkfic stuff so I don't expect any overarching plot or something but you gave Otto so much trauma there has to be more dots to connect between then and "the beginning"
I think at some point it was said that they had mutual friends and Mark introduced them. beyond that....? 👀
n I doodled some silly Atticus frames after reading the newest one 😭😭 (they're just so funny 💔 I had to produce that visual) do u want
errr hopefully whenever u read this u had a good sleep beforehand (watch me already be awake by then 💀) and manifesting u and ur friends being ok soon!! yeeting healing and peaceful energy at y'all smh.. fr tho once everybody's good u should all go get tea or cupcakes or somethin
imma go pretend to sleep but actually draw and dissociate for like an hour until I pass out byeeeee
@worm-writes-hicfics
This must've sent when you opened the page up, because I JUST got it!
Oh, Otto is bi as hell. You're right on the money with that.
(Just erased a lot of text because it's more trauma that isn't really helpful to the question.)
He went a little wild in college. (Definitely Bi slut era.) He never finished his degree. Peek alcoholic life so lots of Stuff (tm).
He is still on the asexual spectrum (grey/demi). Having a kink that is related to arousal would probably make sex fun, I would assume! (Though I don't relate, personally. It's been interesting to write from that perspective and I'm probably doing not-so-well on it, but I'm trying!) But, like he told Atty in one story, a relationship based primarily on sex never worked out for him.
As far as Atticus, they actually have been physically attracted to all genders, but they haven't really had much romantic attraction. I don't think it would've mattered at all what gender (or nongender) a person was. They are also asexual in the same way I am, so they haven't had any experience with sex by the time they met Otto. (But plenty of experience with masturbation and knowledge of their own body.)
(Try and imagine THAT vulnerability as they say they want to masturbate on his couch to his hiccups!!)
They doubted they had romantic attraction as well before Otto and still have doubts about being completely romantic. They would probably fussily identify as demiromantic if they were forced to define it.
I think the stories have been mostly masc focused because, for some reason, I enjoy experiencing hiccups in masc identifying and presenting people more than femme. I think I would also enjoy hiccups in nonbinary or non-gendered people, I just haven't experienced that, yet. (That I know of.)
I, myself, find femme just as attractive as masc beyond the kink. (femme and masc identified by societal gender roles, of course) And I find nonbinary energy and non-gendered energy attractive as well! I find PEOPLE attractive. (I know, I'm pulling a Schitt's Creek David moment with that, sans sex. I would QPR with anyone, honestly.)
The story of how they met is a work in progress. I think Mark was a lead detective on a case based around a series of robberies.
Atticus was one of several renters in an apartment complex where a bunch of robberies took place on the same day. During the interview Atticus mentioned that in addition to some valuables being taken whoever the idiot was who robbed them knocked a mantel clock, a family heirloom, off where it was sitting as they left. Ever since, the clock hadn't worked right.
Atty was more pissed off about the clock than the TV and laptop. Mark happened to "know a guy" and that's the short story of how they met. I might flesh it out a little more at some point. We'll see. No hiccup content, though.
I'm trying to remember what I had ultimately decided for the proposal. I had a thought of it at one point. I need to come back to it with something else because whatever I thought of didn't stick in the lore. It was probably incredibly adorable though. Something like Atticus giving Otto a poem to read over and get his opinion on and the last line being "Will you marry me?" or some cheesy shit like that. You know, something to make you scream "OMG, I hate this so much! Augh why?!! I love them!!"
I might try to workshop that a little more and see what I come up with. I honestly don't even know which one of them actually proposed.
I will say, expect inconsistencies in the stories, for sure. I was initially writing them as a one-off so, much like a pilot to a series is inadequate in predicting the tone of a show once it's picked up, the first few stories were me just realizing I was actually crafting characters that might last a few more times and have deeper story potential.
I should probably explore Atticus' base friend group in addition to Otto's. Otto's is basically Mark, Ralph (Mark's detective partner), Alice (Mark's wife), Margie, Cindy, and Jana (Mark's Ex). I do think Atticus knew of Cindy previous to meeting Otto, but I don't think they were friends.
I guess because Otto was based around a character and his friends are based on other characters in the same show, I sort of borrowed from that so much that I neglected to give Atticus a proper social group.
I mean, this is kink fic so...it's not necessary but...it might be interesting to explore.
I WANT ALL ARTS YES PLEASE!
Ahem.
Yes, that would be nice.
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Greetings and Salutations, everyone! Allow me to properly introduce myself.
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My name is Zeisty King — aka the random individual behind this silly little blog! I mainly go by just Zeisty, though (seeing as I treat the "King" part as a surname).
My main goal for this blog is to doodle Siffrin from In Stars and Time (as well as other characters sometimes) so I can get used to a new tablet and set up, while also having fun with it!! Hence why I named this blog the way I did and why I don't mind calling the art I post here "messy," especially considering half of them are sketches anyway!
I may make mistakes from time to time and some results may be wonky, but that's okay! It's all a part of the learning process!! And is not limited to forgetting how anatomy works; I put two hands on the wrong way in one post once and I have to accept the fact I did that.
REOCCURRING GIMMICK BLOG TAGS:
#main blog to gimmick blog — anything from my main blog that I've reblogged to this one! I don't think I'll do it a whole lot, but I just wanted to let you know that happens and that they may contain spoilers when it does.
#not quite a daily — on occasion, doodles that don't count as a daily (but are still silly enough to be shown off on this blog) will be posted here! I don't think I'll do it too much, but don't be surprised if you see any doodles that aren't dailies from time to time.
#personal reblog — anything I've reblogged from myself once, twice or even thrice! I sometimes do it to make sure you haven't missed a post from me, or if I have something else to say about it.
#siffrin gimmick blog asks — as of posting this introduction this week, this is a new one! These are any questions you lovely folks wanna send in through this blog's askbox, and that I've answered.
#siffrin gimmick blog doodles — self explanatory! These are any drawings/doodles I've made for this blog, dailies or otherwise! I aim post here every day, though I sometimes won't on account of my memory or out of respect for certain events. Or if I need a break. I am only one goober, after all.
#siffrin gimmick blog rambles — any thoughts I need to say or anything I need to inform you will be under this tag! They won't contain art, so this one and any others like it are the exceptions.
#siffrin gimmick blog suggestions — got any suggestions for me to draw? Along with the ask tag, this is a new one as of this week! Any ideas you have for me to draw will be slotted under this tag! Be careful not to send in any spoilers, as I refuse to draw them six days of the week.
#siffrin gimmick blogs angsty sundays — this is the only time I'll intentionally post spoilery, angsty and/or serious art! I'll make sure to tag them as such so you can avoid them. I just wanted to give you a little head's up that I'll also reblog spoilers and tag them as well. :3
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
-My main blog is @electrozeistyking! You can find me reblogging my gimmick blog doodles there, along with any other stuff I drew not meant for this one (and stuff other people made)!! It's not exclusively ISAT stuff though, obviously.
-I swear quite a bit and do not tag them when I do. It'd probably be a hassle for me if I did, so if you're not cool with that, feel free to block this blog! You absolutely don't have to interact if you don't want to. I will tag other serious stuff/triggers, though! (Except this post, seeing as it's the introduction and it's important folks don't miss it. Sorry!)
-I'm not guaranteed to accept every suggestion or answer every ask sent my way. In the case of suggestions, there is a chance I won't be inspired enough to draw it for you; in the case of asks, I might not know what to say. And other possible reasons, if they ever happen to come up.
-I see every ask sent my way, so please try not to send the exact same Ask/Suggestion more than once! I promise I'm either formulating a response, figuring out how to draw your suggestion, or I was forced to delete it (in regards to the following note).
-I don't want this blog to overshadow you, so I'll unfortunately have to force myself to delete your ask if it has nothing to do with this blog in particular or ISAT. That's why I recommend you send it into my main blog instead!
That's it for now! Thanks for reading, and for hanging around this blog with me! :D
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ikoarts · 10 months ago
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October 2023 Art
for some reason i wrote a novel under the cut, for those of u actually reading, thank u for being so patient x
vvv dates + info under the cut vvv
1 - 03/10/2023 : another of my faves of last year, was trying to get better at drawing trainz, so just Edward and Toby hanging out, displaying the duality of old men x
2 - 04/10/2023 : got a new puter! one of the first things i set to doing after getting set up was to draw a Ru, of course, it was also just me trying to get used to the new MS paint..... it feels very odd
3, 4, 5 - 06/10/2023 : part 1 of redrawing random pics i have of Edward on my phone with my human version of him, this was really fun tbh, and the third here is one of my fave drawings of the year probs.. like sir.. those look heavy... what big uhh.. Glasses.. you have
6, 7, 8 - 07/10/2023 : part 2! i think i just like drawing his face... dare i say this train is cunty or will that get me exiled
9 - 08/10/2023 : something stupid i thought of and couldn't get out of my head for days so had to draw it..... little johnny from oingo boingo's only a lad, doing what he does best, fantasising about radios he wants oh so bad and running people down with a boyish craving for blood.. based on that 1 meme of the guy driving and thinking of a thing then making that insane face
10 - 09/10/2023 : based on that 1 silly vargskelethor song (that could not be less specific), had Shed 17 on the brain and was reminded of the milk song where the skeleton comes out.. thomarse dank 2 much milk and died..
11, 12 - 10/10/2023 : chooshada again :333 first a little doodle on my phone bc i was wondering about her livery, i do think she'd have originally been NER apple green but then painted NWR colours, butttt with a twist... coz i can do whatever i like... the twist is just that she's painted dark blue rather than a sky blue, coz its more her colour x
ALSO MS paint shada, wanted to draw her more uh, idk, detailed ig, idk i love this one, it also served as more train practice
13 - 13/10/2023 : previous one, but with COLOUR!! not much 2 say other than that shes very cute
14 - 18/10/2023 : saw a tweet abt old photos of engine crews posing with their crashed locos and how the NWR crews would do that, made me think of how, if Toni was (choo)shada's driver, she'd do that.. probably x .. very like her to slay in the midst of a terrible accident
15 - 22/10/2023 : predictably, i have some playlists for the ttte engines, one for Diesel which is notable here, so uhh, i have the scrapped song from the lorax "biggering" in there, bc i see it as like a Duck vs Diesel song, ik im surpassing several layers of cringe here but hear me out ok... i drew this at 2am coz i couldn't stop thinking of Duck lecturing Diesel
16, 17, 18 - 25/10/2023 : speaking of playlists, think i was listening to my Robin one here, and felt like drawing him, i have "the land of make believe" in there, which ive always found to be an oddly haunting song, so this is semi based on that, though that wouldn't be apparent if i hadn't just told u x .. this looks like vent art but tis not i was just having fun
also tiny chooshada, i was in the middle of writing something which i have literally Just remembered now and i was writing a scene where Ru is stuck between some characters who shes not looking forward to working with bc they're about to bicker the whole fuckin time and one of them thinks shes a dick, so i drew her being sad that shes forced to work with morons..... and speak of the devil, 3rd drawing is here with 2 of the aforementioned morons :D i think D+D take a liking to her, they're just a little obnoxious (love them for that)
19 - 27/10/2023 : a quick(ish) digital thing of Chooshada again that i did on the side of another project, more engine drawing practice he he, she'll be out of proportion and lacking detail but really it was just to not be too hard on myself about that, it did help i think to understand how to draw her more, plus just look at her lil face... also she has a number here, doesn't mean much other than 8 being her lucky number, other than 11, like those are just her numbers, suppose i could have it be 1188 to ref her bday, idfk x
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queen0fm0nsterz · 11 months ago
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I saw you post about Seafarers, but to me, your finest work will always be Fifteen Notes to You, reread all of it the other day and... yeah, it still hits like a fucking bullet train.
I genuinely don't think it's possible to capture Mono's descent into insanity better than you did here. It reminds me a little of The Last Weekend from the anthology Inside no.9, in that, you know, both from the story itself and the context it exists in, that it won't have a happy ending, but the humanization of the characters just forces you to cling to hope that something will go right. But that rarely, if ever, happens in The Nowhere.
FNTY... Now THAT'S a name I haven't heard in years...
Thank you so much!!!! I'm super grateful to see folks still enjoy my old stories :)it seems to be the general consensus even among my friends that FNTY is the best complete fic I've put out. Reading thru the comments, I remember one of a person who told me that it made them cry - and the comment made ME cry LMAOOOOOOO😭
I'm very proud of it myself as it was not only my first published fic, but my first multichaptered fic I ever completed as well. Though I am a slow writer (SEAFARERS CHAPTER 5 IS IN THE WORKS😭), for FNTY it was never because I had excessive trouble figuring out what to put on paper - especially never when in regards to the letters themselves. The most troubling parts were the in betweens, funnily enough.
Mono and Thin Man come very naturally to me when writing. I think it may be because I tend to interpret them as having very big feelings... like myself, I guess. And since the story itself is short, I suppose that I managed to make the thing itself feel like there are many big feelings in a tiny box. I will admit I got emotional myself a couple of times... then went on to edit like nothing was wrong LMAOOOO like this is how I looked writing and then editing vvv
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For Seafarers, the emotional payoff has yet to come, and it will be different -- considering we have World's Most Emotionally Constipated Woman and Our Strongest Soldier (the PTSD has yet to hit because she's still actively experiencing the horrors) as the protagonists this time.
Six and the Lady are both considerably harder to write for me. I had my chance to write the Big Feeler at the very beginning because the stakes there were skyrocketing from the getgo, but now things have gotten considerably more... silent. The feelings are there but they're all kept in. OUGHHHHHHHHH
I also can't wait to introduce more stuff; I've been writing down concepts for shadow magic and powers, how the Maw works, the various things the Lady of the Maw has to look after to keep it afloat... and the Ladies. Look, I'll say that I'm really happy with what I'm doing with Teapot and Rascal. And with Teapot in general. I really like the characterization I pulled out of my ass LMAOOOOOO and the DESIGN... ok so I'm willing to share a couple of the Teapot's I've doodled
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(She's genuinely very silly [read: sick in the head]... i gave all the Ladies some nice additional details because. Ik the point is that they all look very similar but I love designing outfits fuck it this is MY au i do what I want)
So right now I have a suspicion that Seafarers will hit better when it's finished and can be read from beginning to end. Since it's longer (I plan it to be... around 15 chapters? A bit longer if the events require it to be.), there will be more time to let the stuff brew until it reaches its climax as intended.
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vaguely-concerned · 3 months ago
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zeblue sketch dump
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here we go! :) this will go long because I Love them
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I personally think of Blue’s glasses as less of the conventional nerd kind, more of the insufferable tech bro vibe. He IS a nerd but he’s also a scammer trying to get you to think it’s a sound financial investment to buy his cryptocurrency
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God I wish I was more interested in/better at drawing clothes and fashion, because the idea of Blue wearing Aava hand-me-downs is one of the greatest mental images I’ve ever incepted myself with and I don’t think I can ever do it justice. + obligatory blue's dumbass jester my beloved
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The Most important version of fullly armoured knight zero that I unforgivably forgot to include in my original post
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Introducing Nephili ‘Neph’ Ax-Vel, one of the Force-sensitive kids that I invented for my ever-fixed mark ‘verse! Featuring an omwati redesign because the idea behind the species seemed so cool and yet what little art there is looks like uh… just humans with 80s hair and that was Not It for me. 
She is incredibly interested in technology and is showing signs of integrating her connection to the Force in that, exactly as Aava was so interested to see someone do! However (the monkey’s paw curls for Aava) Blue is her absolute favorite adult in the whole world, for unknowable reasons. (It probably comes down to them having some ineffable yet powerful autism2autism communication going on; he is surprisingly non-awful with her.)   
She’s also the only one of the kids small and literally bird-boned enough for Blue to be able to carry. (Dar-Yen — who even as a little babby 10 year old besalisk is pretty solid — once made a bet with his BFF that Blue would catch him if he jumped into his arms, Brooklyn 99 meme style. This experiment ended with several bruised ribs on all sides and a stern talking to. To this day the kids argue over whether Blue at least tried to catch him before they both went down like matching sacks of potatoes, or was just trying to save his cup of caf. Reader, I think you know in your heart what the truth is there.)
Before Aava and Zero started trading off haircutting duty, Blue’s hair got pretty long, which Neph took as prime free ‘I’ll braid your hair!!!’ real estate. 
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Feared lethal assassin Agent Zero play fighting with the kids and dramatically pretending to fall to their combined might is something that can actually be so personal (is so personal I guess considering I made it up for myself lol). It is partially just to be an uncle-shaped jungle gym, but also a way to sneakily train them in working as a group the way he used to when running with a pack in his youth  
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*blue voice* but why did theseus seduce ariadne though. Why did he not put the moves on the minotaur instead. This seems like the more obvious and productive cause of action long-term (and I have no other horny reason to think this)
*affectionate Zero voice* you’re insane (and extremely gay) but alright I’ll be insane along with you
(I could imagine this being a real in-universe statue that got commisioned and that they'd pose for fdskajfa Zero has gone through all the stages of grief long ago when it comes to what Blue does to his libido and has arrived at the perfect Zen of 'this will awaken something in me. and that's chill we live and learn about ourselves')
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:') they
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(Slightly older?) Neph and Blue, and some Zeros I doodled as a means to cling on to my sanity while stuck on a train for a couple of hours. Aava is right he handsome
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important information being exchanged (the fact that blue specifically calls the hired killer he employs pretty... I will never be over it what is wrong with him)
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The silly stupid little arms-wide-open-in-welcome doodle of Blue in this might be my favorite thing I’ve ever drawn. He really saw bae, went :) , and it fills me with such simple delight
(there’s also a Zero looking sad on this page of my sketchbook that didn’t make it in here, but that’s the context lol)
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k00294140 · 8 months ago
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Painting mirror :)
I've discussed this idea beforr on this Tumblr and I really really liked it. While doing my artists research I came across this piece by Louis Wain of a mirror painting of cats here's the painting.
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I thought the idea of painting ona mirror was brilliant and could really well translate to my project idea. I thought I could paint my own car onta mirror and have many people take pictures with it to represent the cat "moving" frm person to person. As if the cat is constantly changing places and meeting new people. I though it was a really silly idea and really blends into hoe I want this project to feel. Silly and childish. I also took a lot of inspiration from Vanessa Stockard Her design if her little cat " Kevin " inspired me to draw a more simplistic version of a cat which I find myself doodling a lot. ( I will end up posting those later)
I ended up walking around Limerick searching for a mirror from many charity shops. I love finding little hidden gems in chariety shops and I ended up finding this little ceramics cat in the very Charity shop that I ended up finding the mirror!
Here's the little guy. I also really loved te little raccoon next to him. I imagine them being friends like an unlikely friendship!
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After finding said mirror I sort of just jumped right into it full force. I did make a little sketch beforehand on a piece of paper just to know what shape this cat should be in. I really wanted this cat to look similar to my first paintings I did during the first week of painting. My little movement cats. This is them but moving in a different way. Instead of stuck in motion the cat is moving from person to person.
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I used acrylic paint for the entire thing and here's the progress shots and final piece!
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I ended up leaving this near the sign in sheets for the 1st years on the 1st floor with the note you can see. I was really happy to have many people respond and take pictures with my mirror so I truly thank EVERYONE who took part in any way <333
The process was very very enjoyable. I really felt like I could let loose. Which to me was unexpected because I felt like I would've been more worried of messing up on a mirror but it's was really the opposite. The paint went on very smoothely and it wasn't as patchy as I expected it to be. I only needed to do one coat of paint, however only some spots needed an extra touch up. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to do this. While working on this piece I had a meeting with Fiona. She really helped me figure out exactly how my project is connecting itself through out my disciplines. The way it's connecting is definitely my Mark making. The swirls. The stars. The lines the dots it's all present throughout all my work and as Fiona has said it's rather childish similar to the whole idea of my project which it's cats being silly and mischievous.
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demonslayedher · 2 years ago
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can we see a colored drawing of your avatar or can you tell us what are its colors? is it called the same as you?
If you are referring to Fanfic Monster, she is based my inner ogre-ish self whom I've known for many years but my current way of drawing her is inspired by Nobuo-kun, the doodled little boy who asks Gotouge-sensei questions in the Taisho Secrets of Volume 11. She has been called this name ever since my first draft of I&H, which I wrote in ten very obsessive days.
Fanfic Monster is all colors; this makes her appear stark white with black outlines. If you look closely in the shadows, it's a myriad of colors like the skin of a soap bubble.
If you referring to my KnY-sona I developed as a joke while I was having fun with the Shonen Jump character generator (which sadly no longer appears to be live) and the "What Breath Should You Practice" quiz in the first fanbook, then...
I did have one colored version of the Corp member version, although I didn't have a colored pencil with a satisfyingly dark brown for the hair. It was colored very simply for cutting a new joke at my own expense for the Nichirin blade, which was designed in response to that Ask about what my own blade would look like. You can use that as a base, just squint and imagine a more chocolatey shade of brown. As for eyes, greenish-brownish-hazelish? There's a Kakushi in episode 1 of the Swordsmith Village arc who has a pretty and muted shade of green for eyes, I like those. Skin is pale, she is prone to low-blood pressure. Also, thanks to this Ask, my crow has more personality now too. As for the demon version, I don't have a colored version and was going to let that fall more blonde (because who doesn't want to have fun as a blonde once or twice?), but I was very flattered to receive a congratulatory drawing of my demon self from @avocodas. Since then I adopted the headcanon of black hair for her, because who doesn't want to have fun with jet black hair once or twice? But the other it hit me, this is KnY, I can even more fun!! And I've wished I could try deep magenta on my ends and let it fade to a champagne pink, so!!! To get the best of a couple different worlds, my demon self has shiny black hair!! The shiny parts up higher are a deep magenta, and the ends are a champagne pink!
The eyes are two-tone, so... white on the outside, but let's say the same muted shade of green for the centers, but with some magenta fading around the edges of the circle. That won't clash at all, I'm sure.
Outfit? I don't know. She'd probably work in a handful of different colors.
Keep reading below for more silly headcanons! (Though if I were to start from scratch making a KnY-sona, I'd probably make myself a Kakushi, they're cool and get to have a wide variety of skills, including all the research that got compiled into the fanbooks, ufufu.)
Demon Slayer Version! --Buri/Buriko is very serious. Very, very serious. So serious it's silly. --As a recap, she felt the call to slay demons because it is a noble purpose, and admired Flower Breath. However, she has a forceful and ungraceful style and wound up lopping all the heads off the flowers in her Cultivator's garden. Her kind and patience Cultivator suggested she switch to Wind Breath but gave her a bright and flowery haori anyway. Buri/Buriko lives in shame for having failed Flower Breath so badly, but her screaming and growling swordsmanship has suited Wind Breath well. --She uses a naginata. This would be a difficult weapon to hide in Taisho, which is why it is designed to be in two parts that quickly screw together, and one part is collapsible. One night while stopped by the Taisho Police and questioned for her weapon, she replied very seriously, "it's for gym class." They said, "you don't look like a high school girl." She replied, "I'm the teacher." "The... English teacher?" "The gym teacher." They gave up and let her go. --Buri tends to work alone, being so serious hasn't given her many friendships among the Corp because she doesn't relax around anyone. She doesn't deserve to show her face around Flower Breath users, after all. (No one cares. She's admired from a far for seeming demure but then people are shocked to see how wrathful her Wind Breath is. She has no calm in a fight, that's all.) --This lack of calm is her downfall. Although it's not usually the case that demon blood accidentally getting into a wound would cause a human to turn into a demon, but this happened this time. In her haste, she didn't put her naginata together property and the staff broke off, putting her in a close-range fight. She was injured to the point of probably dying anyway but she defeated the demon, and it fell on top of her, splat. Muzan, somewhere miles away, was vaguely aware and thought, "did I just make another Breath user into a demon? Eh, whatever," and then he promptly forgot about her.
Demon Version! --Demon!Buri/Buriko has no recollection of being human, but she maintains a very strong interest and admiration for the Corp. She's kind of like an obsessive fangirl. --But she's also so silly, it's serious. She ruthlessly makes fun of the Corp too. --She loves eating Corp members, they're her favorite. The more amazing their hard work, the more she just wants to eat them up! --When she's hungry she draws silly pictures poking fun at the Corp as bait. It's so cute how easily provoked they are! --However, this stems from her own perfection goals and ideals for the swordsman she wanted to become. If someone says something that hits a little too close to what she's sensitive about that, that's when she gets serious and loses her appetite. --According to the original canon of this self-insert, she dies of fangirling over an encounter with the Flame Pillar.
And here's some old doodles of Fanfic Monster:
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That list, by the way, is here.
Fun Fact: It's my thing to change the lyric "Fashion Monster" to "Fanfic Monster" while singing Kyary Pamyu Pamyu at karaoke.
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startanewdream · 3 years ago
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Hiya, Mah! Please, if you feel like it, could you write something with: "9. “I’m too sober for this.” “You don’t even drink.” “Maybe I should start.”? For whichever ship you want to :)
Hi! 💓
For you I wrote a missing moment with my all-time favourite Sixth Year Pining Harry. Hope you enjoy this moment and thank you so much for joining this silly game :)
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Harry registers the heavy scent of flowers even before he notices it’s Ginny who sat next to him on the couch. He flinches, not wanting her to be so near him, though it’s all for the wrong reasons.
It’s really hard to pretend he isn’t crazy about her when she is so close, wonderful perfume in the air, so near that he wonders how it would be to turn towards her and see her eyes sparkling with a surprise for a second as he would lean even closer, and then Harry would close his eyes and…
She has a boyfriend, stop it. She is not interested.
That thought never makes his dreams go away, though.
‘Ugh,’ Ginny complains, pressing her temples and Harry almost offers to replace her hands. He could massage her, that would be a friendly thing, right? Not really, he admits. ‘I’m too sober for this.’
She frees one hand to indicate everything around her. Fred and George are sitting together at another couch, face troubled after being reprimanded by their father; Mrs Weasley is crying in the kitchen, her husband holding her; Bill and Fleur are close by the Christmas tree, and Harry thinks Fleur is being very accomplished in easing Bill’s worries, so he turns his eyes away quickly.
Harry isn’t sure what’s upsetting Ginny more, but he knows he is the reason Christmas spirit is so low.
‘You don’t even drink,’ he notices grimly.
‘Maybe I should start.’ She opens one eye. ‘Do you think Mum would notice if I went to the liquor cabinet?’
‘Do you have one?’
‘No, probably not. Or else Fred and George would have discovered it already.’
‘They are of age. I’m sure they can provide you with some firewhiskey.’
‘Harry, Harry.’ Now she opens both eyes, looking more relaxed as she watches him with something close to amusement. ‘Shouldn’t you be talking me out of my underage drinking?’
He can’t help his smile. ‘I know that the easiest way to convince you to do anything  is to forbid you.’
Ginny laughs. It’s not her brightest laugh, not with the mood still sober in the house—the Minister’s visit weighted them all—, but it’s nice all the same and it warms Harry more than the eggnog he drank.
‘You know me too well, Harry.’
He looks away carefully now. He noticed her, all right, but he doesn’t want her to see how much. It’s certainly more than reasonable for friends.
‘Better than most,’ she adds, somewhat heavier now, and Harry watches her again. Ginny is looking at the lights of the Christmas tree thoughtfully, seeming to even ignore her brother snogging her fiance next to it.
‘Got a problem?’
She blinks, snapping out of something. ‘Problem? No, I—’ she shakes her head. ‘Never mind, today was just a mess.’
‘I know. I’m really sorry.’
Ginny frowns. ‘Sorry for what?’
Harry sighs, glancing guiltily in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Well, Percy and the Minister—’
‘No one forced Percy to be a git, Harry,’ she says, somewhat more like herself suddenly. ‘He came here as the Minister’s lapdog because he wanted to.’
‘If it weren’t for me, he would still—’
‘Still be blissfully ignorant that You-Know-Who returned?’ she asks forcefully. ‘Find another stupid reason to betray his family?’
‘Yes,’ he agrees, sad. ‘But it wouldn’t be me.’
She shakes her head. ‘Stop it. Really. It’s his choices, and you’re not responsible for them.’
Harry doesn’t answer, stealing another glance to the kitchen. He can hear a sniffle coming from there.
‘No one blames you, Harry, especially not Mum.’
He looks back at her, almost smiling. ‘Sometimes it's like you are reading my mind.'
And then he wonders if it wouldn't just be easy if that was the case; if Ginny could just see how he feels about her, how she is so bright and how much... How much she visits his dreams.
Maybe it's good she can't read him that well.
'I know you too,' she answers calmly. 'If you are not blaming yourself for something, you call it a bad day.'
'I can not blame myself… some days.'
She raises her fist, holding an imaginary cup.
'To only blaming yourself for things that are under your control,' Ginny declares, and Harry toasts playfully with her.
Ginny blinks, taking a deep breath, then she picks up a book that was standing on the coffee table in front of them, flipping through it. Harry notices all pages are blank.
'It's a sketchbook,' she says, knowing he is looking. 'Dean gave me for Christmas.'
'Oh.' A weight drops in his stomach, unpleasant. 'Nice.'
'Yeah, I told him I wished I could draw like him and he thought I could begin…'
She looks a little troubled at the book and Harry suddenly knows what's on her mind.
'It's just a sketchbook. Nothing else.'
'I… I know.' Ginny sighs. 'Blame ourselves only for what we can control, right?'
'Right.' He smiles. As jealous as he feels about Dean giving her a Christmas gift, he decides that making her feel better is more important. 'What are you going to draw?'
Ginny grins as if unable to resist his joyfulness. 'Oh, I don't know. Nothing probably. When I said I wished I could draw like him it was more wishful thinking, not that I really wanted to do it. I am no artist.'
Harry indicates the room, so bright with the paper decoration she had spent hours doing. 'I don't know, decoration is stylish here.'
'Thanks,' she laughs, not really taking him seriously. 'Well, I can't draw still. I have no patience for it.'
'Then let's not draw.' He looks around until he finds a quill and ink. 'Doodle. Write a short story.'
'I could write a poem,' she says, just a really teasing, a blush coming to her cheeks.
Heat creeps upon his neck too.
'You are good with rhymes,' he whispers.
There is a moment of silence, and Harry feels Ginny's eyes over him as if she is trying to assess if he is messing with her or, somehow, really complimenting her for her valentine's card from years ago.
Again, he almost wishes she could read her mind.
Then she lets out a sigh, placing the quill over the first page of the sketchbook and drawing a grid. She draws a cross at the middle of it, watching the ink dry before offering him the quill.
'Your turn.'
Their hands brush when he goes to pick the quill and for a moment, three very short and very long seconds, their eyes meet. Maybe she can read his mind after all, because her eyes are sparkling, a blazing look on them, and she has to know how he feels about her because he is sure he is matching her gaze. The same longing, the same emotions, the same urge to just lean in and…
They blink at the same time. Harry draws the nought anywhere, not really paying attention, but Ginny ends up allowing a draw.
At the end of the game, she looks at their art, that silly game of noughts and crosses that is the only thing in the sketchbook, a satisfied smile on her lips as if that's the kind of thing she wants to fill those pages with.
Harry wonders if she wants to fill pages with him too.
'Another match?'
Harry can't refuse her.
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Please join me in this birthday special (asking for a prompt! Let me see your work too! 😍)
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monstersandmaw · 4 years ago
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Male vampire x male character - Part Three (nsfw)
Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.
This is going to be a four-parter, folks! And here's 3866 words of Part Three for you. Angst ahoy, but you know me, ok, so trust me. Here we meet Alec's little brother, and you'll find out why Sebastien was so jumpy and weird about the Twayblade name.
Part One, Part Two
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Alec’s ‘one night stand’ with Sebastien turned into a whole month of of ‘one-night-stands’, and culminated in Sebastien asking him to dinner the following weekend - a pattern which repeated itself every weekend after that.
Sure, the sex was probably the most incredible sex that Alec had ever experienced in his entire life, but what he came to enjoy even more was the time they spent over meals and cups of tea in the intervening time, talking about everything from history to politics to video games and books and everything else besides. Sebastien talked about literature a lot, and Alec sketched him and illustrated his conversations while he spoke.
“You could really make something of yourself with talent like that,” Sebastien had murmured once as Alec had doodled a quick rendition of the Victory of Samothrace on the back of a coffee shop receipt one afternoon in the park.
“Meh,” he shrugged without looking up. “I’d like to, but I’ve got a steady job now, you know? I’m not going to throw it all away just because some gallery might take my work and I might make something of a name for myself, you know?”
Sebastien sighed. “Talent is such an overused word, and great art is rarely based on raw talent alone, but with your dedication over the years, you’ve really honed what natural abilities you have into something exceptional, Alec. I think you should make a go of it at least.”
Alec had flushed, and Sebastien had been distracted by the rising colour his cheeks long enough to abandon that train of thought in favour of kissing him silly on a park bench, and Alec hadn’t much minded.
At an Iranian restaurant near Alec’s place one Friday, four weeks after Halloween, Sebastien leaned on his elbow and popped a fragrant and decadent zoolbia into his mouth, and Alec watched, oddly fixated by the way his fingers held the little fried treat. His eyes, dark and warm and inviting, blinked slowly and he offered Alec a slow-dawning smile that stole his breath.
“We should go to the museum again,” Alec he blurted, thinking back three days when they’d spent their lunchtime meandering around the Italian Renaissance gallery together.
“Mmm?” he asked, licking his fingers in a way that made Alec’s jeans tighten and his throat close.
“Yeah,” he croaked. “I mean, I know you’re not sick of me waxing endlessly about quattrocento art just yet…” he said, sipping his delicious cup of tea and trying not to choke on it as Sebastien’s ankle skimmed up his leg beneath the table.
“No,” Sebastien admitted. “You’re right. I’m not.”
With the bill paid by Sebastien this time, after Alec had bought them lunch the previous day, the two of them left the cosy warmth of the restaurant and stepped out into a bitter November night. “Oh fuck it’s cold,” Alec swore immediately, drawing up the collar of his coat.
“You want to head home?” Sebastien asked, a hand on the small of his back.
Unconsciously, Alec leaned into it and smiled up at him. They’d not yet been to Alec’s apartment, and he found himself more and more reluctant to let Sebastien in now that he’d seen the stunning penthouse that he called home. “If you’re sure? I think your wardrobe has more square footage than my entire place though…”
“Alec,” he purred, taking Alec’s hand in his and squeezing his fingers. “I —”
“—You’re freezing,” he commented, interrupting whatever Sebastien had been about to say.
“I don't tend to run hot,” he conceded, “But neither do I feel the cold much. I’d like to see your home, and you have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
He leaned in close and kissed the junction of Alec’s jaw and neck for a moment, his lips lingering, tongue just lapping at his skin and sending shivers down Alec’s whole body, shorting out his brain for a heartbeat or six. Sebastien raked his teeth over Alec’s pounding pulse point and he went still, frozen in a paroxysm of pleasure and, oddly, a strange thrill of fear he couldn’t quite place. Instead of pulling away when he recovered himself, however, he tilted his head further to one side, offering himself to Sebastien’s mouth, and the other man moaned decadently, deepening his attentions.
Sebastien’s hands found Alec’s belt and he tugged him sharply closer so that their hips met. Alec tried not to grind himself against Sebastien — they were still on a public street for goodness’ sake — but desire was washing through him in pulsing waves and it was becoming harder and harder to think rationally. That wasn’t the only thing that was becoming hard either, and he let out a harsh grunt before forcing himself to step back with a sheepish grin.
When he looked up at Sebastien, he found that the slightly taller man had frozen and was breathing hard, eyes closed, lips pursed together as though restraining himself from something.
“You ok?”
“Fine,” Sebastien hissed, still not opening his eyes.
Alec frowned. Sebastien looked like he was in pain of all things. “You sure? You look —”
“I’m fine!” he snapped through a clenched jaw. “Let’s go. You’re right. It is cold.”
The short walk to Alec’s apartment passed in tense silence, with Sebastien keeping his eyes locked downwards on the pavement, though he did deign to hold Alec’s hand. He couldn’t help wondering if perhaps he’d pushed things too far in public, given how proper Sebastien tended to be, but then again, Sebastien was the one who had deepened the gesture by practically mauling at his neck for three minutes straight back then.
Alec’s apartment building wasn’t fancy at all, and it certainly didn’t have a doorman, and once they’d stumbled in through the hallway with the busted light fitting in the ceiling, Alec smashed the elevator call button only to find it dull and non-responsive. “Damn,” he cursed. “Out of order again. Stairs?”
“If needs be,” Sebastien said with a gracious smile.
“This would never happen over at Buckingham Palace,” he quipped back, and Sebastien cracked a smile at Alec’s silly nickname for his apartment block.
“Exercise will shake all that dinner down,” he conceded.
Alec twitched his eyebrows in agreement and held the door open to the stairwell for him. As he passed by in the confined space, Sebastien stopped and leaned in, taking Alec’s jaw in his cool hands and kissing him gently, reverently, on the lips.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I was rude back then.”
Alec shrugged, feeling awkward at the sheer, heartfelt tenderness in the gesture.
“I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”
“I like it when you’re rougher with me,” he smirked. “You should know that after a month of fucking me senseless.”
As if Alec’s words had hit him like a sledgehammer to the nuts, Sebastien rolled his eyes and grimaced, but he did laugh. “You do seem to like a firm hand, granted,” he said. “Let’s get upstairs shall we? Before I take you right here, and I’m not sure how sanitary this situation is…”
Alec needed no more encouragement, and he didn’t even get to give Sebastien the fleeting, one-minute tour of his tiny flat before the man was on him, kissing him blind and backing him into a wall hard enough to knock the wind from him. Sebastien came alive in moments like that, when he could kiss him and lavish attention on Alec, and the latter was not about to stop him.
It wasn’t long before Sebastien’s wandering lips found Alec’s neck again, and as Alec gasped, fists balled into Sebastien’s shirt collar, he felt the sharp prick of teeth quickly followed by the generous suck of a love bite in the making. His knees went weak and he nearly staggered as a huge rush of endorphins swam through his mind, leaving him limp and wobbly all over. Well, almost everywhere.
“I want you,” he gasped, and Sebastien lost no time in locating the tiny bedroom and tossing him onto the bed, stripping them both with startlingly attractive efficiency. Alec barely managed to yank a bottle of lube and a box of condoms from his top drawer before Sebastien was spreading his legs and laving his tongue up over the curve of his balls.
“Oh fuck me,” Alec exclaimed as Sebastien’s slick finger slid into him and he hissed at the intrusion. A moment later, he was lying with his head flung back into the pillows while Sebastien slid a second inside him and began to do just that with his fingers until Alec was finally ready — and more than desperate — for Sebastien’s cock.
Sebastien had a beautiful body, all lean, corded muscle and slender lines, and as he got more and more aroused, his deep olive skin seemed to glow almost supernaturally. He was perfection incarnate. Bernini couldn’t have carved him, even if he’d been given a lifetime to try. Alec was no Bernini but he’d still love to sculpt him.
Sebastien chuckled sweetly and crooked his finger, sending a jolt of searing pleasure through Alec so hard his vision whited out for a moment and his back arched. “I’m flattered,” Sebastien murmured, placing open-mouthed, messy kisses down Alec’s leg as he spontaneously bent that knee up.
“Shit, I said that out loud…” he laughed, still vague and giddy with the sensations sparking under his skin.
“Mmm,” he smiled, lowering his face to Alec’s inner thigh and kissing fervently all up his leg to the crease of his thigh and hips before smoothing his leg back down onto the bed. His breath fanned out across Alec’s sensitive skin and he quivered and bucked, causing Sebastien’s curled finger to brush his prostate again and he yelled.
“Please…”
Moments later, Sebastien entered him at last and stilled, allowing him to adjust to the new intrusion.
When he fucked him like this, Sebastien seemed to take on a new energy, becoming something almost more primal, and Alec lived for it. The expression on his face as he closed his eyes and simply enjoyed the heat of Alec’s body closing around him, taking him, drawing him in, was something he would never get used to, no matter how many times it happened. He was certain of it.
“You’re so tight,” Sebastien grunted, easily shifting Alec’s hips up a degree or two and adjusting his own angle so that he could thrust into his prostrate with every stroke.
Alec’s words failed him as immense pleasure ripped through him, building and building. “You’re gonna make me come if you keep that up,” he barely managed to grunt as Sebastien somehow picked up the pace and began to pound into him with renewed vigour. The man seemed utterly devoted to Alec’s pleasure, as if it was the only thing driving him.
With an utterly inhuman snarl, Sebastien opened his mouth and whispered, “Come for me.”
The sheer weight of command in his voice tore through Alec and he came instantly, untouched, painting his torso with ropes of his release and wrenching Sebastien’s own orgasm from him by sheer force a second after.
Sebastien curled forwards with a hiss, hips spasming as he released, and his lips found Alec’s neck again, and then his collarbone. In the daze of his own peak, Alec thought he saw a flash of red in Sebastien’s eyes again, but he was out of sight too quickly for him to believe what he’d seen. Instead, he found Sebastien kissing his hammering pulse while he finished. Finally going still, Sebastien slumped atop him, breathing hard, his white-blond hair spilling everywhere and tickling Alec’s stubble. He was too tired to care though.
When he woke, hours later, he realised groggily that it must be the middle of the night. Sebastien was curled up beside him, obviously having found the tiny bathroom to clean up, and he was now spread out beside him on his small, lumpy mattress as if this were a palace and he a prince, not some tiny, shitty apartment in the rough bit of town.
Something about the way Sebastien slept still freaked Alec the fuck out. He didn’t seem to be breathing, and when he had laid his palm on Sebastien’s chest on their first night together, the man had gasped and jolted awake like the living dead, sucking in air like he’d been underwater for hours. This time, he refrained from touching him, and instead stared at his inhuman beauty. There wasn’t a mark or scar or freckle on him, and his darkly tanned body spread out over the white sheets like a bronze sculpture arranged in a gallery for the adoration of thousands. And yet he chose Alec to be his only supplicant. Something lurched in his chest and he smiled bashfully, blushing, although there was no one to witness it.
Awake, Sebastien looked maybe thirty, thirty five years old, but asleep, he looked far younger; closer to eighteen or nineteen perhaps, with an innocence around his white-lashed eyes and the natural downward curl of his beautiful lips.
Unable to resist touching him completely, Alec kissed him and rolled over, drawing the duvet up around his ears and sinking back into a deep, dreamless sleep. His whole body felt heavy and satiated in a way he’d never experienced before with anyone. Something clenched in his heart; this felt right somehow.
But nothing is fated to last forever, is it?
Alec stirred groggily, unwillingly, the next morning, becoming aware of a rapid-fire knocking on the apartment door. Grunting, he kicked back the covers and fished for a pair of boxers and a shirt from the floor beside the bed. Sebastien slept on, apparently not having moved at all since the previous evening. Did he have sleep apnoea or something? It was something he’d have to bring up after he’d sorted whatever this was. It wasn’t natural for a man to sleep like that.
Like the dead.
“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” he grumbled, stumbling across the apartment and peering though the peephole in the door. Twitching back in surprise, he opened it. “Theo?”
His little brother’s bright, sunny grin beamed back at him. “Hey bro,” he chuckled jovially, stepping in as if he owned the place and shooting him a cheeky look back over his shoulder. “Brunch?”
“Brunch?” Alec frowned. “Since when do you do ‘brunch’? And since when is it brunchtime anyway?” He glanced at the clock in the kitchen and his eyebrows rose. It was well past eleven o’clock.
“Late night, I see,” Theo snickered, eyeing Sebastien’s shirt which was still on the floor outside the bedroom door, currently ajar from Alec’s hasty exit.
“Shut up.”
Theo’s grin doubled and his blue eyes glittered. Like Alec, he had the unusual combination of dark hair and blue eyes, and like Alec he could be described as ‘roguish’ at times. Now though, it bordered on downright Puckish. Looking not his actual twenty-one years but somewhere closer to sixteen, Theo shook his head.
“Brother mine, when will you —” he snorted but then stopped and his expression fell, shattering from playful to horrified in a heartbeat before he rapidly attempted to cover it by turning towards the bedroom. “Is he still here?” he whispered.
“Yeah, so keep the jokes to a minimum, would you?” Alec snarled. “What did you want anyway?”
But Theo had changed completely. Gone was the ebullient Labrador puppy and instead a tense, alert, wary young man stood before him.
“What the fuck’s wrong?” Alec hissed, heartbeat ticking faster like an over-wound clock.
And Theo spun and then froze as the door to the bedroom opened and Sebastien appeared on the threshold.
Theo’s lip curled into an ugly snarl and Sebastien regraded him steadily, apparently unfazed by the unexpected hostility.
“The younger Twayblade, I assume,” he said with such ice in his usually warm tone that it shook Alec into stunned silence. “Well, this is unexpected.”
“You’re shitting me,” Theo whispered, horror thickening his tone.
Alec blinked and looked from Sebastien to his little brother and back again. Never in all his years of dating men had he felt so uneasy around a family member. “What’s going on…?” he finally croaked.
“That’s what — who — you’re sleeping with?” Theo practically spat out.
Cold, defensive vitriol bubbled up inside him and he might actually have lunged for his brother had Sebastien not crossed the room in three rapid strides and laid a gentle hand on his forearm. “I take my leave,” he said quickly.
“Not so fast, fang-face,” Theo sneered and Sebastien froze. “Get away from my brother.”
“Or what?” Sebastien said in the quietest and steadiest of voices.
“What the fuck is going on!” Alec blurted into the tense silence that followed Sebastien’s taunt.
The other two blinked, and Sebastien sighed. He met Alec’s eye as he asked, “You really didn’t know at all, did you?”
“Know what?” Alec snapped, rage rolling through him. “Do you two know each other or something? What am I missing here?”
“I think this is a family matter that you need to work out between you,” Sebastien said, voice still tinged with frost. “Alec, you know where to reach me if you decide to continue what we’ve shared this past month.” And with that, he turned and walked from the apartment.
“Wait, stop!” Alec yelled after him, but he was gone down the stairwell and Theo was at his side, tugging him back into the apartment. “Fucking explain yourself!” he snapped, rounding on his brother.
“You’d… better sit down.”
“No. Tell me what’s going on. Right now.”
Theo stared him down, meeting blazing sapphire stare with blazing sapphire stare. “Sit. Down.”
The tone of his voice shocked Alec into doing exactly that, and he sank numbly down onto the saggy old couch in the living room without a word.
What followed next was like something from a movie.
“The Twayblades are an ancient family of monster hunters,” Theo said gently. “Father’s not in the military. Well, he is, but it’s not a normal unit or anything. That’s just a cover.”
“And mother?” he asked mechanically, the information-dump that Theo had just heaped upon him not sinking in, but floating like scum on the surface of his churning mind.
“She’s one too. And Ellie.”
“Ellie hunts… monsters?” he asked. “Like… what… the Boogeyman? Bigfoot?” Incredulity made his tone flippant, but something in the calm sincerity of his brother’s eyes told him it was true, no matter how stupid it sounded.
“Dracula…?” Theo added darkly.
“Dracula.” And then the penny dropped. “Wait. ‘Fang-face’. You’re saying you think my boyfriend is a vampire?”
Theo levelled him with a look from where he was leaning against the windowsill, arms folded over his chest in a manner eerily reminiscent of his big brother.
Now as Alec regarded him, he saw the harsh young man that this little kid had become. The puppy fat had melted into a steel jaw and a hard gaze, and his body seemed coiled for action at any moment. He had the body of a soldier, Alec realised with plunging horror. He knew Theo worked out — he was apparently a personal trainer and nutritional coach for celebrities in London, but even that seemed to have been a lie after what he’d just learned. Apparently the Twayblades actually hunted monsters — he and their parents and their older sister Ellie. Alec and Angie had been left out because they were apparently not ‘hunter material’ whatever that meant. Maybe it meant he was a monster fucker instead. He almost laughed.
“Theo, come on… I can’t believe any of this,” Alec said, leaning back into the sofa and pressing the heels of his palms to his aching eyeballs. All he’d wanted to do this morning was to wake up and maybe have Sebastien fuck him into the mattress a few times before breakfast until he was wrung out and softly buzzing like they had every weekend for the last month.
Now he was having some bizarre fairytale forced at him and he was supposed to believe it like it was some kind of sick joke. But he did believe it, and that was what scared him most of all. It wasn’t a joke. Theo showed him videos his father and he had captured on some of their ‘hunts’, exterminating a poltergeist here and eradicating a revenant there, and in the end Theo phoned their father on speaker, opening without preamble, “Dad, Alec’s dating a vampire.”
“Do you have proof?” was their father’s instant, chilling response. No ‘I'm sorry, what did you say, son?’ or ‘What’s all this nonsense?’. No. He went straight to the heart of it. With a stake.
“Just walked past the sucker leaving the flat.”
“Ancient?”
“No, thank goodness. Maybe just a century at most?”
“Can you eliminate him without alerting Alec?” their father asked, at which point Alec’s heart cracked.
He leapt to his feet and blurted, “Fucking what?”
After a heartbeat of silence, their father sighed. “Unfortunate. I had hoped to keep you and Angela out of this.”
“You’re telling me it’s all real?”  he asked, goggling at Theo who held the phone out on speaker between them like it was a live grenade. “You’re all insane!”
“Tell me something, son,” his father said flatly. “Have his eyes ever flared red during a moment of passion? Does he seem to fixate on your neck? Do you find yourself willing to do as he wishes without question?”
Theo interjected quickly, “He’s not compelled. His eyes are clear.”
“Well, that’s something at least,” their father scoffed. “Theo, you know what you have to do. Kill it.”
“‘It’?” Alec shot, eyes bulging, and Theo did have the grace to cringe. “Kill it? You’re going to kill him? He’s a lecturer at the university, Theo. You can’t just fucking kill him?!”
“He might be under the guild rules…” Theo said. “He might be a blood bank user, not a live-feeder… I’ll look into it first.”
Alec’s knees turned to water but he kept himself upright through sheer force of will.
“Fine. But don’t hesitate. And don’t make concessions just because Alec might be compromised.”
Theo nodded and hung up without farewell. “Look, Alec,” he grimaced. “I’m… I’m sorry, ok? I didn’t come here to —”
“— to kill my boyfriend?” he growled, taking a step towards his little brother. To his credit, Theo did actually take half a step back in the face of Alec’s confused, hurt, betrayed ire, holding his hand palm-up.
“No. I came here to see if you wanted to grab lunch, but —”
“—Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out!” he roared, jabbing his index finger at the door and pulling out his phone.
Theo surprised him by nodding and leaving, shutting the door behind him with a click and leaving Alec standing in the centre of the living room, chest heaving, phone in hand, ears ringing.
As his brother’s footsteps disappeared down the stairwell, he unlocked his phone and dialled Sebastien’s number.
Three rings in, Sebastien answered.
“It it true?” Alec asked without preamble.
After a long inhale, Sebastien answered. “…Yes.”
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Sorry for the cliffie!! More soon, but it’ll hit Patreon first, then Tumblr. Don’t let me forget, either!
Part Four
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I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me  know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!
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burgerrat · 4 years ago
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Some dumb misc. ideas and shit for Martin because I genuinely grew to love this character my brain is very grateful
(TW-ish? Some of these weird little ideas get a bit too self-projecting/angsty at the end)
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Since it's almost 1 AM I think this is the perfect time for vampire sharing-
I feel like Martin would own a cooking book to attempt to prepare new dishes, mostly to surprise himself at how they could turn out to be like.
I like to think he enjoys drawing, though he has a fascination to draw vampires from the movies, even though he finds their lore to be ridiculous, he always avoids that because if Cuda came across them, he's done. Nosferatu drawing the occult? This must ONLY mean this is an attempt for a ritual.
And that is why Martin mainly doodles and paints flowers. He'd usually sit on a field or garden, wherever he spots a pretty flower, and just sits down and proceeds to doodle it down. If he likes how it turns out, that'll become a fully colored & shaded piece!
As much as he loves the Halloween festivities, he tries to avoid celebrating that too, again, because of Cuda's beliefs. Though, if he could, he'd be very eager and happy to dress up as good ol' count Dracula and demand for sweets at a stranger's door.
Christmas is another holiday he enjoys! The colorful lights outside of a house, along with those little figures in gardens that have lights on as well just leave him all sparkly-eyed each time, he even might have gotten over someone's garden just to poke and admire the iluminated figure of Santa Claus and his Reindeer just sitting there for decoration, or just looking up and giggling at those silly decorations of Santa on a ladder going up someone's window. He particularly enjoys taking a walk around town at night during the Christmas holiday, so he gets to see all those dim and happy lights coming from each house.
Not exactly wholesome but he might climb up someone's roof and just sit there and pretend he's part of the house or something because he just feels Welcomed and happy by those Christmas lights, he gets a little sad when he has to force himself to leave due to the time or bad weather and just shoots up one last glance inside the house to see where the Christmas tree is before going on his merry way.
Also- the boy loves himself some candycanes. He'll stick two of them up his top lip and pretend they're elongated, colorful fangs.
He makes gifts for himself since he doesn't have many other people or friends to do that with. He very much wishes to, though. Sometimes he might even come up with some imaginary friend, although he ends up forgetting about them due to work here and there and when he remembers, he either doesn't recall how they were like or what their full name was :(
I feel like Martin has abandonment issues, although he neglects that. If he grows close to someone, he unironically gets really clingy but tries (desperately) to hide it, and just ignore it. He often doubts a lot of what he does though since he doesn't want to come off as more touch-starved than he appears. If that person leaves him, he will want to go after them, he will want to hug them tight and cry out about how much he's begging for them not to leave, but he neglects his impulses, and would just watch the other leave before he just walks away himself.
Spoilers: depending on how 'deep' of a connection he had with this person, he'll either rant about it to the radio host on the phone, or he'll sit in his bed and cry about what he must've done wrong while hugging a pillow and pretending it's that person.
I don't really....feel like assuming whatever mental issues he might have going on, it doesn't really sit right with me for some reason, it's not the same kind of thing like when I do it for Billy Lenz. I guess it's mostly because of how much I see myself in him, I'm scared to end up believing what I say about him is true about me as well, so, no. I will attempt not to talk much about his mental health condition/s, but I will interpret his feelings and emotional episodes he might have experienced in his life.
Martin often holds back in tears and tries distracting himself, either by fumbling with his hands, a toy, or even just by going out and eating something. He often has these teary episodes when thinking about being held gently by someone else, someone he'd wish he could spend his life with, or when the thought of hurting or scaring a person he cares for with his vampire-ish side creeps through, resulting in abandonment again.
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many-gay-magpies · 4 years ago
Text
{The Red Wall}
---
In my house, there is a red wall.
It was there when we moved in— a stark contrast against all the other walls in the house, all monochrome shades of beiges, taupes, and greys, achingly plain compared to the blood red wall separating the kitchen and dining room.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with plain— plain was good, my mother said. Like a blank canvas. Nothing much clashed with beige. There was quite a lot, however, that could clash with red.
My mother always talked about painting over the wall; Making it something teal or blue-ish and all the surrounding walls a warmer shade of beige. She talked about it often, every night after work, but she never did.
One day, one of my mother's friends came over, one who worked in magic; The kind of magic that still exists in the smallest ways yet no one believes that it does, too stuck on it being fantasy. He came to visit; Said there was some negative energy in the house— something leftover, like the remnants of something which didn't cause harm any longer. And as he spoke, I couldn't help but glance at the red wall.
There was something jarring about it. It felt like more than just it's blood red-ness stark against the muted greige of the room, more than just the way my mother would always highlight it, when talking about what in the house she would paint, when she wasn't so tired from work anymore.
Sometimes my parents would go on errands, and I would be alone in the house— I was old enough, they trust me and I trust myself. If it's in the mornings (or any time when I'm hungry, really), I'll heat up something from the fridge or freezer, leftovers or one of those bland meals the school gives us which I shower too much in salt or pepper.
One of those nights, when I was alone, I found myself stopping beside the wall, looking up at it silently for a few minutes. Something slightly enthralling about it.
"Hello," I said to the wall; Then felt incredibly stupid about it right after and longed to bash my head into it out of shame.
It's okay, I rationalized with myself— No one is home. No one saw you say 'hello' to a completely inanimate wall. Just pretend you were joking around and you'll be fine.
That night, I dreamt of a voice, whispering a 'hello' into my ears as sweet as honey.
The wall began to grow on my mother after a time. Me, too; My father, who was colorblind and not too focussed on such things as wall color anyway, never gave it much thought. My mother and I agreed that the deep bloody burgundy was a sort of nice color, and it went well with all the various ornaments we had stacked against it, the golden-stained buffet and the bronze-edged mirror and the little teal candle holder made of abalone.
Although any time I mentioned liking the wall, becoming accustomed to it, she would simply say, "No, I do want to paint it, soon. We should paint it, soon." But there was less force in her voice each time.
Another time I looked at the wall and said 'hi', quietly, in my mind— No one could hear me, then. Just myself; And even then I could play it off as another one of those stray, silly little thoughts I liked having.
That night I slept better than I had the whole month. Perhaps red walls like to be talked to.
On another one of those alone nights, I was sitting at the dining room table, eating, when I noticed a change in the wall. It was smooth— smooth all over. It shined, not like paint, not like it had, because dry paint wasn't supposed to shine, to shimmer like that.
The wall was rippling; Like a sideways lake someone had dipped a finger in, like a sheer veil over a bride's face, like deep red silk in the wind. And then just as it had resembles water, out from the water came a hand, then a face and then long, silky red hair the same as the color of the wall and then a whole person after that.
I wasn't as surprised as I probably should have been, by the woman of blood and porcelain and ebony black eyes that had just emerged from the red wall.
"Hello," I said, again, and she smiled; a melancholic sort of thing, on lips more rosy pink than bloody red. There were little red teardrops beneath her eyes; Like teardrops painted onto a clown's face with face paint.
"Hello." Honey-sweet, like in my dream.
"Why are you here?"
"To protect," she said simply.
"What from?"
She shook her head. "In time," She said. So I nodded. In time. It made sense.
I said nothing more and neither did she. She stayed, leaning out of the wall, for a while, before slipping away; The red slowly turning from a rippling mirror texture back into solid paint, back into nothing much surprising or unordinary, aside from the starkness of blood-coloring against boring beige.
Curiosity of the red woman plagued me for more than a week, so one night in the middle of the night I crept downstairs in my pajamas, pulled up one of the dining chairs to the red wall and sat in it with my knees up to my chest. I drew little things into the dark red paint, little hearts and swirls and doodles of eyes I could see with nothing but my fingertips.
Again the wall changed from paint to ripples, and again she came from it, pushing through the red like silk curtains.
It was hard to see her, in the dark— I hadn't turned on any lights. But still her skin illuminated under the palest bit of moonlight coming in from the outside window.
"What do you protect from?" I asked, leaning the side of my head against the wall.
"Nothing," she said quietly. "Nothing, now."
I nodded; Understanding in some way I wasn't entirely sure of, but didn't protest.
"Is whatever it was you protected from... gone?"
I thought I saw her nod in the dark. I may have. Nonetheless she spoke no more. I wondered if she had a limit, on what words she could speak per night; Or if she simply got tired after saying a few.
I didn't mind the silence that followed, though. Words could be tiring.
The woman came down to sit atop the gold-stained buffet. Her knees were pressed to her chest, like mine, her arms wrapped around them. I thought she looked smaller, in the dark. Less powerful, more childlike.
That in itself felt like a powerful thing.
"Goodbye," I found myself whispering, when she slipped back beneath her watery curtains again. Then I went up and slipped drowsily between my own.
"My mom is going to paint this wall," I said to her, the next time I saw her.
The woman rested dangling above the doorway between the kitchen and dining room that night— sitting atop the doorframe as if it, in it's white-painted glory, didn't have the same rippling effects as the blood red wall she had emerged from. It probably didn't; acting more like a chair of sorts, from which her porcelain legs swung to and fro beneath her, little drips of red falling from her dress and disappearing the second they hit the floor.
"Oh," she said, and I thought she looked sort of sad.
"Will you go away, when she does?" I asked her.
A nod. I found myself a bit sad about it too, somehow; about this being who was looking more and more like a young girl and yes like a woman as the nights passed by, or perhaps that was just my changing perception of her.
"Oh," I answered, quiet, because I still wasn't entirely sure what to say to a girl that had come out of a wall. "Well," I was again sitting in one of the kitchen chairs with my knees to my chest, but still at the table, this time, and facing the white doorway she dangled from. "She probably won't do it for a while. She's tired. From work. So, you'll... stay here a little longer."
A soft smile came to her rosy lips, "That's good."
I learned more things, in time. I learned that the people who owned the house before us had been trying to protect themselves from something, and created her for the purpose; I learned that when they moved, they had just left her there, like a family leaving a puppy behind in an alleyway when they no longer wanted to care for it.
Of course, I knew things were much more complicated than that. A red-clothed protector spirit was quite a bit different from an abandoned puppy. Sometimes, though— sometimes I looked into her eyes and I wasn't as convinced.
The next week, she told me she didn't want to leave.
I tried to think of ways to get my mother not to paint over the red wall, or ways to delay it, at least; although her work exhaustion did that pretty well on it's own. But when it came down to it, the wall would be painted, one way or another, and I, a person vastly avoidant of any form of confrontation, had no way of stopping it.
"It's okay," she said in a whisper one night, like all the others, us both sitting in the dining room together, me in my pajamas and her sitting on the doorframe in her red gown. "It's okay, I can go. I'm not needed here anymore." I'm useless.
Some days, when I had presentations for class, or when would lay awake at night, anxiety pulsing in my veins about every possible situation, I would be overcome with this feeling of warmth; of red.
Weeks passed. The red wall became a staple of comfort, like a deep burgundy blanket draping over me and snuffing out all the little candleflames of doubt, not really a medication for the anxiety but something that made the weight a little lighter, the thoughts a little more bearable when they would get so bad I couldn't breath. I would sit, and I would talk, with this protector in the wall who didn't have a name, who was like a lost puppy, a newborn child thrust into the world for a purpose that was so quickly pulled out from under her.
She started appearing less; not coming out of the wall to sit with me as much as she had, although sometimes I still saw a ripple, a faint sheen that was more than paint. I would still sit and talk, be it aloud or in my head, to the red wall; maybe hoping for something to respond again.
I began to wonder if I was a little crazy. Maybe I had imagined it all. Maybe I only dreamt the softer voice that told me 'thank you' and 'goodnight' after I closed my eyes. Maybe I was, indeed, mad.
Although I began to think that maybe that was her exact motivation, when summer came and my mother painted over the red with pastel-y teal and I wasn't as sad about it as I could have been.
---
In my room, there is a red wall.
It was painted a month ago— covering the wall behind the head of my bed, a stark contrast against the creamy beige surrounding although it is nice, somehow, too. It feels like a blanket; snuffing out the light from the windows in front of and behind me when it gets to bright, holding me in warmth when the winter gets frigid and we don't bother to direct the heater up onto my floor of the house because I've always preferred to sleep in the cold.
My mother was curious, at first, about my request to paint a wall red, as red had never been one of my favorite colors, but she didn't protest— and so now, in my room, there is a red wall.
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kythed · 4 years ago
Text
when we were young
oikawa tooru x reader
author’s note: this is pretty angsty! Read at your own risk :’)
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--
You looked just as he remembered you, but more… vivid, if that made any sense. Your hair was more lustrous, your eyes glimmered brightly under the ballroom lights. Had your lips always been so soft and pink? Had you always looked so good in white? Had you always been this beautiful?
As he stared at you from across the floor, loosely cradling a stemmed glass of prosecco in one hand and wiping the sweat on the palm of the other, you laughed. He couldn’t hear you over the chatter of the crowd, but nonetheless your giggle resounded in his mind as if it were being projected by a sound system. You used to laugh at his jokes that way. You used to smile at him the way you smiled at someone else now. He had an old picture of you grinning like that back in his apartment in Argentina, tucked in between the books on his shelf-- he couldn’t bear to have it out in the open, reminding him of what he let go, but he also couldn’t bring himself to throw it away.
God, he wished he could take a picture of you now. He hadn’t seen you that happy in ages. You were still laughing, playfully gripping someone’s arm and tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. In the last days of his relationship with you, you had been so… gray. So lifeless. So different from the girl he’d fallen in love with as a second year high school student.
He’d come to realize it was his fault, of course. He hadn’t been treating you like you deserved. If he could turn back time, though… he would never have let you leave his side. He would never have let any of your tears go unwiped, never let you struggle on your own while he wrapped himself in his own problems and refused to face the reality of your unhappiness. He would have treasured you.
He recalled one evening back in high school. The two of you were deeply in love, as in love as one can be at eighteen years old. The night air was cold and biting, but seeing you wrapped up in his coat made him feel so warm inside. April in Miyagi was always lovely, but he thought it had never been as lovely as it had been that night, with you dancing in between the streetlamps and tugging on his sleeve to dance with you. There was no music but your laughter and no dance floor but the gravel road. You danced until you were breathless, and he smiled softly at your flushed cheeks and mussed hair and kissed you under a flurry of sakura petals. It was as close to movie magic as he could have ever possibly imagined. You were better than perfect, sweeter than fiction. So why, why had he let you go?
He had been so selfish. You had invested so constantly into him, supported him unconditionally, accepted his shortcomings and failures, and in return, he had gotten bored. At least, that’s what he had told you. He cringed as he remembered that last day. You’d looked up into his face, unshed tears glimmering on your lower lash line, nervously chewing on your inner cheek.
“Tooru,” you whispered. “You’ve been so distant. I… am I doing something wrong?”
He’d looked down at you coldly, and it felt like a shard of metal lodged itself in his chest but he let the words fall from his lips anyways: “I’m just bored of you.”
You flinched as if you’d been slapped, and the last thing he’d heard from you was “Goodbye, Oikawa” as you grabbed your book bag and left.
He hadn’t really been bored of you. You’d remained as spontaneous as the day he first met you, fresh as a daisy and enthusiastic as a puppy the entire year and a half he dated you. But you were always so honest, always so straightforward… it forced him to confront himself, to own up to his actions, and that’s what he began to hate. He began to hate himself. He couldn’t stand you continuing to look up to him when he couldn’t see himself as anything but a failure. You would never let him wallow in his self pity and spoil him like all the other girls did. You would try to pick him up, clean his face and help him improve. And he knew that’s what he really needed. He knew he didn’t need someone to stroke his ego and carry him when he was weak, he needed someone to teach him to save himself.
Seeing his weaknesses so plainly bothered him. So he pushed you away… he just never imagined you would stay away. Half of him was still waiting for you to come back, to knock on his door and shove a new book you thought he would enjoy into his hand, or to go rifle through his fridge for a snack. And even now, five years after graduation, after he joined Club Atletico San Juan and moved across the globe, a tiny part of his heart still belonged to you.
He had been surprised, to say the least, when he found the invitation in his mail. To Oikawa Tooru. You have been invited to celebrate the union of (L/N) (F/N) and Iwaizumi Hajime. Please RSVP to secure a seat. At the bottom of the invitation, you’d drawn a little smiley face. He could tell it was you who had drawn it because you’d doodled the same one in the margins of his homework countless times before during study dates. That little face taunted him, laughed at his regret. He deserved it.
Now, he watched you slow dance with his best friend in the middle of the floor, staring lovingly into your new husband’s eyes while he murmured into your ear. Had you ever looked at Oikawa that tenderly? Had you ever cupped the back of his neck so gently? He wasn’t sure. Probably not. It had been Iwaizumi who comforted you after Oikawa had cast you aside so cruelly, and it had been Iwaizumi you’d sworn loyalty to thenceforth. Oikawa had known you and Iwaizumi were together, but he hadn’t known it was so serious. Briefly, he imagined what it would be like to be in Iwa’s place right now, holding your body flush against his, inhaling the scent of your hair.
God, he needed to dance with you. Just once more, he needed to dance with you like he did that night under the sakura tree.
The song segued into another, and you and Iwaizumi stepped off the dance floor as another couple took your place. Oikawa placed his glass on the table, stood up, and moved across the room swiftly until he stood just feet behind you and Iwaizumi.
He cleared his throat. “Congratulations to the happy couple.”
You turned and Oikawa swore he saw a breath catch in your throat as you gazed at him unblinkingly, lips slightly parted. Suddenly, your face broke into a broad smile.
“Tooru!” You leaned forward and enveloped him in a tight embrace. Oikawa froze briefly before wrapping his arms around you lightly-- you hadn’t called him by his first name in ages and you hadn’t hugged him for even longer. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Glad I could come,” he said with a terse smile. He turned to Iwaizumi and clapped him on the back goodnaturedly. “Iwa-chan! Look at you! A married man, finally. Never thought I’d live to see the day.”
Iwaizumi gave a rare smile. “Nice to see you too, Shittykawa.”
“Still gotta bully me after all these years, huh?” joked Oikawa, even though he felt his heart breaking to pieces. He turned back to you, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Hey, listen, I know it’s your wedding and all, but I was wondering… could I have this dance?”
Your eyes widened just barely and you turned to Iwaizumi, who nodded.
“Go ahead, darling,” he said. “I have to go greet some of my relatives anyways. Just find me when you’re done.”
He gave Oikawa one last pat on the back before slipping into the crowd.
Gently, Oikawa took your hand and led you onto the floor, resting his hands on your waist. You rested yours on his shoulders, and he felt his muscles relax at your touch. The two of you swayed slowly to the music, a song he didn’t know.
Everybody loves the things you do
From the way you talk, to the way you move
“You look lovely, (L/N),” he said quietly. “Or should I say Iwaizumi-san?”
“Oh, call me (F/N),” you said, smiling. “I think we owe each other at least that.”
Oikawa smiled back sadly. He spun you around and caught you in his arms. “Yeah, at least.”
Everybody here is watching you
‘Cause you feel like home, you’re like a dream come true
You laughed that beautiful, beautiful laugh of yours. To him, it sounded like all his favorite songs wrapped up in one. God, he’d missed you.
But if by chance you’re here alone
Can I have a moment before I go
“This reminds me of when we were young,” you said softly, as you returned to swaying to the beat. “That night--”
“Under the sakura tree,” Oikawa finished. “Yeah, I remember.” I dream about it every other night.
“Yeah, that night,” you said, smiling fondly at the memory. “I had a lot of fun. I think we had just gotten out of a late night viewing of some silly romantic movie. You said you hated it, but I noticed you wiping tears away during that one kiss scene.”
Cause I’ve been by myself all night long
Hoping you’re someone I used to know
“Ah, I’d forgotten we’d even watched a movie that night.” Oikawa pulled you a little closer. “I only remember how cute you looked in my jacket.”
“It was two sizes too large,” you said, leaning into him. “But it was certainly warm.”
Let me photograph you in this light
In case this is the last time that we might
Be exactly like we were before we realized
“You’ve changed your perfume,” he said, suddenly. “I like this one better.”
“You still remember the perfume I used to wear?” You raised an eyebrow. “You creep.”
We were sad of getting old, it made us restless
Oikawa laughed-- a real laugh, not a fake one. “How could I not? You sprayed it on all the sweatshirts you borrowed.”
“I needed to give you something to remember me by,” you teased. Oikawa mumbled something unintelligible.
“What was that?”
“I said,” Oikawa breathed. “I could never forget you, (F/N).”
You still look like a movie
You still sound like a song
You swallowed thickly, heat crawling up your cheeks and old wounds throbbing. “Tooru…”
“I know, I know,” he said with a small smile. “It’s your wedding. I’m not here to win you back, and I’m glad you’re happy with Iwa-chan. Just… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
My God, this reminds me
“I forgive you, Tooru,” you said, burying your face in his chest before the tears spilled over. “I forgive you.”
Of when we were young
The song ended, fading into some generic jazzy tune. You and Oikawa stopped dancing, but you still stood there in the middle of the floor, staring at one another.
“You should tend to the rest of your guests,” Oikawa said finally, and you nodded. “Thanks for the dance.”
You squeezed his hand one last time, and turned to leave, but he didn’t let go. You looked back over your shoulder. “Tooru?”
“(F/N)...” Oikawa took out his phone. “Can we take a picture?”
You laughed. “Always so sentimental. Of course we can.”
The two of you posed for the selfie, and for once, Oikawa didn’t make some stupid face or stick out his tongue. He smiled and snapped the picture before tucking his phone away again. “Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Tooru,” you said. It was the same thing you said all those years ago, but this time it was warmer, kinder.
“Goodbye, (F/N).”
---
When he got back to Argentina, Oikawa took out the picture of you he had stowed in his bookshelf. He looked at it one last time, drinking in your youthful beauty. Then he threw it away. He didn’t need that one anymore.
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tsukikento · 5 years ago
Text
Empathetic Ch. 7
Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader
Summary: After your mom, the number 1 hero in America, gets offered a teaching position at U.A., you two pack up your things and head to Musutafu, Japan to start a new life. Pressure for you in America was at an all-time high, and now you're in Japan, where almost no one knows you, or your family's past.
This tale starts on your first day of class where your new teacher decides the best way for you to fit in is to fight against the strongest person in your class: Bakugou Katsuki.
Warnings/Genre: This piece will feature some angst and reference to an abusive parent, if you are ever worried about other tw’s feel free to send me an ask and I will let you know. There will also be fluff, slight angst, pining, and slowburn.
A/N: This is also posted on ao3 under @allie_win. I’m transferring it over here, pls let me know if you like it! I love your comments! Just a note that any italics means thoughts.
(series masterlist)
~~
The next day everything started off fairly smoothly which was a great change to the chaotic afternoon yesterday. You started the day off waking up at sunrise and going on your typical run before going to shower and getting ready for the day. It was relieving that you were able to spend this time with yourself, only crossing paths with a few of your classmates.
That day, you happened to walk with Iida to class because you left early and he caught up to you due to his speed.
The polite boy stopped to walk with you and complimented you on your performance yesterday, making a comment about how he wished to see you in action and possibly even battle against you. At that, you sheepishly laughed and told him you specifically stayed away from him because of his advantage over you.
When you arrived at the classroom, Iida excused himself and began working on some classwork while you found yourself doodling on a sticky note. The drawing was similar to the one you were sketching last night, except instead of Nyikang in the gorgeous costume, it was you.
Ever since last night, you’ve been thinking about your actual hero costume in comparison to Nyikang’s. Throughout this process, you continuously tried to justify changing your hero costume. Additionally, it made you debate the healthiness of being afraid to change your costume and disappoint your family.
Once again, you bit your lip, your habit getting worse over these last few days, and continued to work on the sketch. It was nowhere near perfect, but that just encouraged you to keep working.
When class started, you crumpled up the sticky note you had been drawing on and started focusing on the discussion about yesterday’s game.
As the average day continued to drag on, a few other teachers came into the classroom to teach their respective subjects.
All of them mentioned yesterday.
All of them congratulated your team.
All of them made eye contact with you as if silently calling you out.
Now, Aizawa was standing in front of the class, telling you all to go to lunch.
By this time, you were quite hungry, and so, you walked up to Ashido’s desk as a few people got up and began exiting. “Hurry up! Let’s get Hagakure and go, I’m so hungry!” You complained, rubbing your stomach to emphasize your want or delicious food.
“Actually,” Mina smiled widely and sneakily pointed to Hagakure walking with Ojirou out of the classroom. “They made a lunch date yesterday during the game.” She whispered to you, so no one else could hear.
“So it’s just us?” You asked as Ashido grabbed her phone out of her bag and stood up.
“Actually,” Ashido started, once again grinning. Before she could finish her statement, Kirishima came up from behind and wrapped his arm around the pink girl’s shoulders.
“She’s eating with us,” Kirishima finished, gesturing with his thumb to Kaminari, Sero, and Bakugou. “You are welcome to join though.”
In all honesty, although you were tired from the previous day, you would love to sit with them. They were all so kind and humorous and made you feel so accepted. It would be the best way to relax.
Well, that would be true if Bakugou wasn’t included in that group.
Not that Bakugou was annoying you or making you miserable. He was just unpredictable and made your heart pound in your chest. You wanted a day with no stress, and Bakugou was a source of stress for you without him even knowing it.
“Sure,” You replied, knowing it would be rude to say no.
It’s only 45 minutes. What could go wrong?
~~
Not even 10 minutes later, you were a blushing mess.
After sitting down with your plate of scrumptious food, Kaminari and Sero began bombarding you question after question.
“Is it true that American quirks are weaker than Japanese ones?” Kaminari asked, before you had a chance to start eating.
“No, that’s a dumb rumor.” You rolled your eyes and looked at your blond friend, “Duh.” You grabbed a french fry and popped it into your mouth in an attempt to soothe your grumbling stomach.
Before you even swallowed that bit of food, Sero inquired, “Do you think your mom could beat Endeavor in a fight?”
You took a moment to think over the question before replying, “Yes, his quirk is at a disadvantage against her’s.” You grabbed another french fry and eyed the tempting sandwich that was next to your fries.
“Why do Americans eat so much?” Kaminari asked.
You looked up to look Kaminari in the eyes. Was that a personal comment? His eyes seemed innocent and unaware. Nah, there’s no way. “Capitalism? I don’t know,” You replied before taking a swig of your water. At this point, you were already over these questions and your empty stomach was not helping to calm your annoyance.
“What’s ka-pi-tah-whatever?” Kirishima added.
You hadn’t realized you said ‘capitalism’ in English. Your face went red in embarrassment and you completely forgot about your stomach, “I don't know the word in Japanese, sorry!”
Everyone chuckled in response, making your face turn just a bit pinker.
However, that wasn’t even your ‘blushing mess’ moment.
“Speaking of America,” Ashido began after the laughter died down, “you said you saw us in the sports festival. Is Japanese heroism popular there?”
“Um, a little bit,” You replied, biting your lip in thought. “Some people are really into it, and others just watch it to see the cool tricks. The U.A. sports festival happens at basically the opposite time of year in comparison to American hero competitions. So, a lot of people like to watch because they miss the hero competition.”
“If you watch us, then are there favorites? Like, I saw an article in the magazine that was about up-and-coming student heroes and was basically a rank for some really popular students,” Kaminari said.
You had just taken a bite of your sandwich and were trying to swallow quickly, but before you could reply, Sero shoved his friend teasingly.
“That’s a Japanese magazine, idiot! Why would Americans rank Japanese students?”
“I was just asking!” Kaminari defended.
“Well, it was a dumb question!” Sero replied.
“You’re a dumb question!”
“Shut up, dumba--”
“We do rank some hero students,” You interrupted Sero before anything more idiotic cold happen.
“Really?” Sero and Kaminari both replied, the brunette looking surprised and the blond looking excited at the prospect.
“Uh, yeah…” You replied, wondering if telling them that was worse than just keeping silent and letting them bicker.
“Are we ranked?” Kaminari asked.
You bit your lip and debated how to respond. “Kind of?” Everyone looked to you and waited for your explanation. You attempted to swallow the lump in your throat before talking, “There are different categories for the rankings, but they are childish. Like, they would be titled: ‘Top Ten Cutest Japanese Hero Students’. It’s all done by teen magazines so they aren’t realistic for how heroes are actually ranked.”
“Well?” Sero replied.
“Well, what?” You asked.
“They want to know if they are ranked in the top 10,” Ashido whispered to you.
“Oh, no, they aren’t,” you said.
Ashido laughed loudly as Kaminari and Sero expressed their sadness by fake crying loudly in the middle of the cafeteria.
Bakugou kicked them under the chair and they promptly shut up.
In all honesty, you weren’t keen on talking about this pole. Your friend from school had forced you to vote and you chose Bakugou on a whim. Additionally, you had trouble keeping your mouth shut when you were nervous. You took in a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare yourself for your habit of blabbering on.
“Don’t feel bad, first years never make it,” You comforted them as they quietly weep on each other.
“Really?” They both asked in unison again.
“Well, yeah,” You paused for a moment, debating whether or not to say this next part, “Except Todoroki. He got 1st place last year.” This fact could either be your blabbering habit or just the perfect thing to say to keep the conversation interesting.
Everyone, including Bakugou, shot up at that.
“What?!”
You scratched the back of your head sheepishly as the five people in front of you stared as if silently asking you to explain yourself.
Maybe I should have kept that to myself, you thought as your classmates continued to stare.
“It’s not like it matters, the poll is silly and not even accurate, the guys that won weren’t even who I--nevermind.” You quickly ate a few more fries to stop yourself from talking as the people around you contemplated the information they were given.
That was a close one…
“Todoroki always wins with girls, it's not fair,” Kaminari sighed.
“Well, can you blame him? Todoroki is cute,” Ashido replied.
Kirishima, now with red cheeks that matched his hair, interjected in the conversation, “You think he’s cute?”
“Um,” Ashido mumbled as she looked towards the ceiling; her face somehow got even pinker, “Conventionally he is cute.”
“I think you guys are forgetting something,” Bakugou grumbled, grabbing everyone’s attention. He had his eyes closed and his feet propped up onto the table, similar to how he acted during class.
“What?” Kaminari inquired.
Bakugou pushed himself up and opened his eyes to look straight at you. He had a smirk on his face and a glint in his eyes that you didn’t quite understand. Your heart beat faster as you wondered if he realized your mistake. “She said it's not accurate. That implies that--”
“Y/L/N-kun likes someone!” Ashido interrupted.
Shit.
Your face became much redder than before and the heat from your embarrassment radiated in the room. Suddenly, your armpits were sweaty and you genuinely debated running out of the room.
It’s not like you had a crush at this point, but Bakugou definitely made you queasy in a way that resembles a crush.
Everyone stared at you with curious faces, as if you would blurt out who it was you liked, but there was no way that would happen.
“That’s ridiculous!” You replied. You bit your lip before speaking carefully, “I just said it wasn’t accurate because it's little girls voting and is nowhere near a well thought out ranking.”
“Did you vote?” Kirishima asked.
Just fucking stop talking you idiot, you begged yourself. Don’t make yourself look like even more of an idiot.
“Um, my friend made me,” You mumbled as you looked down at your food, avoiding the eyes of your friends.
Kaminari grinned and got closer to you. “Who did you vote for?”
You chuckled bashfully and looked quickly over to Bakugou, who was the person you had voted for. He was once again lazily sitting with his feet up on the cafeteria table. His arms were crossed and his eyes were like slits as he stared at you.
You looked away from Bakugou as abruptly as you had looked at him, flustering even more.
Does he care about whether or not I like someone?
You bit your lip and looked down at your food once again. You debated whether or not you should take out your earbuds. First, you would have to figure out how to take them out without anyone noticing. Next, you would be immediately flooded with the thoughts of the whole cafeteria. It would take a moment to hone in on Bakugou and you weren’t sure how strong your quirk was after yesterday.
It wasn’t worth it, especially because the answer might be bad.
You bit your bottom lip and encouraged yourself to finally respond, “That’s none of your business.”
“What?” Kaminari exclaimed. “Can’t you just tell us if it was one of us?”
There is no way that is happening. “It wasn’t,” You lied through your teeth.
“You know what?” Sero interjected, “I bet she voted for Todoroki.”
“Oh yeah!” Kaminari replied. “That’s why she won’t tell us! She doesn’t wanna seem like an idiot because she called the poll dumb.”
Although they were ultimately just teasing you, their words irked you slightly because of the sentiment. You knew that they really hoped it was one of them, that was clear. As up-and-coming young heroes, the job is often more important than your social life, and that definitely impacts your love life too. You tend to only hang out with other heroes because that is just who you are around.
Regardless of the teasing and disappointed looks that Sero and Kaminari shared, this reality was much better than the one where Bakugou learned that you actually voted for him. And so, you kept quiet as Mina jumped to your defense, claiming that it makes sense I would vote for Shouto considering how cool and handsome he was at the festival. That then led Kirishima to say that he was also equally cool and more manly than Todoroki at the sports festival.
All the while, you finally stuffed your face with your lunch, completely unaware of the red eyes glaring at you.
~~
After lunch, the conversation about America and hero rankings died down, everyone now focusing on Ectoplasm and his lecture on calculating high-value exponents without a calculator.
From there, Present Mic came in to lecture on English. He passed out a new vocabulary sheet, which didn’t really mean anything to you because of your fluency in English. Although this period of the class ran fairly smoothly, Present Mic did occasionally start a conversation with you in English to show off his skills.
By the end of class, you finished the English homework assignment within only a few minutes and Present Mic left with a more than awkward joke.
Quickly, you packed up your things and met Ashido and Hagakure to walk back to class. During this time, the three of you chatted about Hagakure’s lunch date.
“I swear he likes you, you should just confess already,” Ashido whispered so no one else could overhear.
“Shut up!” Hagakure playfully pushed her friend away which barely moved Mina.
The three of you continued to chat away, you not talking nearly as much as the other two. However, the walk home was still fun. When you got home, you all placed your jackets on your respective coat racks and took off your shoes. Hagakure and Ashido went to grab a snack while you excused yourself with the excuse of needing to do homework.
Honestly, you were ahead on your homework and could definitely spend some time relaxing with the girls. However, all day, you had been thinking about your hero costume and craved drawing up a design for a new costume. Furthermore, the stress of lunch made you want to destress by fantasizing about the perfect hero costume.
Relieved, you entered your room, took off your school uniform, and changed into your hero uniform. You then spent the next few minutes analyzing and critiquing everything you hated about it. On a piece of paper, you jotted down all your ideas to change the hero costume.
After what seemed like half an hour, you sat down at your desk and began sketching out a similar sketch to the one you made in class. The costume featured loose pants that tightened at your shins only to be wrapped in armor. Your top had armor wrapped around your waist as well but left your chest loose to help with mobility. Additionally, on top of your shoulder were two curved spikes, mainly just for fashion.
It seemed like so long ago since you started drawing this costume. You had gone through multiple papers, with two of them being filled completely with notes on what you wanted to be featured in this new costume.
You bit your lips in concentration, finding all the flaws you could in your less than pretty drawing. You were not the best artist and it didn’t help that you were struggling to contemplate all the changes you wanted.
Maybe I’m going to need more help with this costume than I think.
Defeated, you opened your computer and searched for local costume designers. You found a few options and were getting more into your research on the person you would most likely be paying hundreds of dollars to before you heard a small gurgling sound.
It was your stomach.
You looked at the clock on your computer and saw that it was half-past eight.
“Holy shit,” You whispered in shock as you thought back to the literal hours you spent on fixing your costume. You had barely achieved anything on top of that. Nevertheless, you closed your laptop and changed into a different outfit before making your way downstairs to hopefully find some food.
As you came downstairs and walked into the kitchen, you noted that Kirishima, Mina, and Bakugou were all sitting in the living room. Kirishima and Mina were both watching a movie on someone’s laptop while Bakugou more or less just stared at his phone the whole time.
It looked like they were on a date and dragged Bakugou along because they didn’t want to admit it was a date. As you walked past them and stared at the scene, you paid no attention to what was in front of you and ended up walking right into the dining table.
“Fuck!” You groaned as you grabbed your side to try and soothe the aching pain.
The sounds of the movie stopped and you looked up to see all three people looking at you.
“Are you okay?” Mina asked as she stood up. “Let me grab you an ice pack.”
“Nah, I’m good,” You responded. “I just wasn’t paying attention.” You chuckled to try and lighten the mood.
Tentatively, Ashido sat back down in her seat. “Where have you been all day, anyway?” She asked after it seemed like you recovered enough.
“Oh, I just got distracted upstairs. I didn’t realize how late it was, so I was gonna grab some food,” You replied.
“There’s no dinner left,” Kirishima sheepishly explained as you made your way to the kitchen.
“And we are kind of low on food,” Mina added while you looked through the fridge and cabinets.
You hummed in response and rummaged through every cabinet. After taking a look around, you realized all the food you all had would result in you having to cook. You bit your lip, fully aware that you were too lazy to cook anything.
Maybe I should go get some food. There is a convenient store right next to the campus.
You walked to the coat rack and grabbed your coat off the hanger. “I’m gonna go to the convenience store to get some food, just some instant noodles or something,” You explained to the three other people downstairs.
“What?” Mina interrupted as you opened the door. “This late? I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
You bent down to slip on your shoes before standing up again. You shrugged to the two people actually paying attention to you. “I’m hungry and don’t wanna cook.”
“Bakugou can cook!” Mina exclaimed while putting her hand on his shoulder
“Shut up,” He grumbled while shrugging her hand off him. “I don’t want to cook.”
“Well, hey!” Kirishima exclaimed as he jumped over the back of the couch to meet up with you. “I can’t let a young lady walk around at night without a manly guy to protect her.” He grinned at you and slid on his coat and shoes.
Honestly, it felt great that someone would be coming with you because you would be walking around an area you weren’t quite familiar with yet.
Suddenly, Bakugou stood up and made his way to you.
“You coming, bro?” Kirishima asked. “Damn, must be j--”
“Shut up,” Bakugou barked, “If you’re going then so am I.”  Silently, Bakugou put on his sweater and shoes while Kirishima chuckled and patted his friend on the back.
“Wait!” Ashido exclaimed. “I don’t wanna be left out,” She said as she walked around the couch to meet you at the door. “We don’t have any movie snacks anyways.” She quickly slipped on her shoes and cheetah print coat. She grinned happily at Kirishima who matched her cheery face with his own.
Even though you were now a group of four, Bakugou did not bring you much comfort and seeing the lovey-dovey Ashido and Kirishima blushing at each other made you feel like a third wheel.
“Let’s hurry. I’m tired,” Bakugou groaned as he put his phone away and opened the door.
“Of course you’re tired, you are usually in bed by now,” Kirishima laughed as you followed behind Bakugou.
Mina exited after you. “Bakugou,” She began, “I don’t know how you fall asleep so early and then also wake up so late, almost at noon.”
That brief conversation sparked an interest in you. Not only had you seen Bakugou up late just a couple days ago, but he also thought about how precious that alone time was for him. If not only for a moment, Bakugou looked towards you before looking forward again.
If you weren’t looking at him, you would not have noticed. However, you were lucky enough to be looking at him and smart enough to know that he was also thinking about that night.
“That’s none of your business,” Bakugou finally replied, his voice eerily quiet yet agitated, as Kirishima closed the door.
Kirishima just laughed as a result and Ashido shrugged at you. You shrugged back, nonetheless curious about Bakugou’s sleep schedule.
Silently, you followed the other four throughout campus. As you walked, a pattern formed where Kirishima and Ashido were walking upfront with you and Bakugou trailing behind. The silence between you and Bakugou was rather awkward and you spent most of your time observing the couple in front of you.
You knew they weren’t dating, but a stranger may just think they were in a relationship. The only thing that someone would notice that could make an argument for them not being a couple was the nervousness, blushing, and lack of PDA. Nonetheless, they still had their hands all over each other and were flirting nonstop.
“It’s gross isn’t it?”
You looked to your left at the sound of Bakugou speaking to you. “Uhh,” You looked away from the fierce red eyes to look at the couple again. Ashido had just teasingly shoved Kirishima while laughing incredibly loud at one of his jokes. “I guess so. I don’t really mind.”
Bakugou scoffed. “You probably don’t mind because you just met them.”
You gave Bakugou a puzzled face, silently asking him to elaborate.
“They’ve known each other since middle school and have been acting like this since the end of our first year,” Bakugou responded. Although you didn’t purposefully try to analyze Bakugou’s voice, you noted his rough, coarse, and tired voice.
I bet he has no clue how attractive he is. Big muscles, deep voice, and messy hair that falls in front of his tired, piercing, red eyes.
You bit your lip and forced yourself to focus back on the conversation. “Ah,” You replied. “It’s just like that sometimes, “You shrugged your shoulders as you spoke, “Hagakure and Ojiro are the same way.”
The conversation died for a moment as you finally made your way off campus and started the trek to the store nearby.
“Who?!” Bakugou finally barked as if he actually took the time to try and remember who they were.
You rolled your eyes and laughed, remembering when Kirishima had to call everyone by a certain nickname. “I think you know them by the invisible girl and tail guy.”
“Ugh, those two?” Bakugou groaned. “They’ve been like that since day one. So bland and boring.”
“Bland and boring?” You repeated, scoffing at the wording. “What does that even mean?”
“They should just date if they want to, it doesn’t matter,” Bakugou groaned.
“Why doesn’t it matter?” You questioned him.
Bakugou looked at you before looking back ahead. After a moment, he mumbled, “Nevermind.”
Apparently, that was his cue to end the conversation, and you decided not to try and push your luck at the moment.
However, that gave yourself some time back to your own thoughts, specifically your thoughts regarding your hero costume. You had made a mental list of all the costume designers you found and liked. The list included their names, average pricing, and specialties. If you were to hire someone to help you with your costume design, you were most definitely going to be thorough in picking someone you could work well with.
Soon enough, your group arrived at the convenience store and brought you out of your deep thoughts. You quickly made your way inside to grab snacks and food. You looked through the large selection of meals and instant noodles, not quite sure what to pick. Asian convenience stores were much more diverse and impressive compared to American stores. Because of this, you didn’t quite know what to pick. Comparatively, Ashido and Kirishima flew through the isles, grabbing a plethora of foods without even having to cautiously look at the label.
This was one of the few times you felt silly. You did not speak perfect Japanese, and you had to meticulously read everything on the box to make sure you knew what you were eating. You felt bad that you might hold up the group and you were tempted to just grab something and suffer the possible consequences.
“Here.”
You looked up to see Bakugou handing you a large package of noodles. You curiously took the box and started reading it.
“Don’t bother. It has more veggies than other ramen and is the right amount of spice for food this late,” Bakugou mumbled as he grabbed himself a box too. However, his box had more red on it and you assumed it was spicier.
“Thanks,” You quietly replied. It was nice of Bakugou to grab food for you, preemptively knowing exactly what you were looking for. You brushed the thought away, telling yourself it was more likely that he was doing this because he wanted to be home as soon as possible.
Bakugou nonchalantly hummed in response before looking around the store, his head peeking just over the shelves. “We need some other stuff too.”
Or maybe not. Maybe Bakugou was once again making you a meal, ensuring that you were eating well.
No, don’t read too much into this. Bakugou isn’t a relationship person and you aren’t in the best place to be in a relationship.
Silently, you followed Bakugou around the store as he grabbed a package of strawberries, which he practically threw at you, and some pre-baked tofu. He also grabbed a small package of seaweed and two drinks.
You continued to follow Bakugou around the store and up to the counter. He dropped everything on the counter and you also placed your package of noodles and strawberries on the counter. The older lady working at the counter smiled politely as she scanned everything placed on the counter.
Although you were rather clueless about why Bakugou was being kind and once again making sure you ate well, you were able to recover once you saw Bakugou grab out his wallet.
“No, no, no,” You interrupted and pulled out your own wallet, and the cash you had.
Bakugou looked at you as if you were crazy and you used that moment to push enough money forward to pay for the meal.
The cashier chuckled sweetly and accepted your cash. Bakugou groaned and leaned back on his foot, upset that you were paying.
It’s for the best, you thought as the cashier leaned forward to place the change in your hand.
“You two are such a cute couple,” She whispered to only you as she placed your change into your hand.
Just as quickly as she spoke, she pushed herself back to being upright and began bagging the food.
While completely red, you looked to Bakugou to see if he heard her comment. “What?” He groaned as he glared at you.
“Nothing,” You mumbled back and looked down to place the money back into your wallet.
Bakugou grabbed the bag of food from the woman and you bowed to say thank you, before following behind Bakugou to exit the building.
Outside, Kirishima and Ashido waited for you two with a bag of their own snacks and smiles on their faces.
“Y/L/N-kun,” Ashido yelled as she ran up to you, pulling you out of your trance. Ashido grabbed your arm and whispered to you, “Come walk with me!”
159 notes · View notes
lutrain2020 · 4 years ago
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Meet the Creator!
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Introducing: Squido!
Commission:  I haven't and don't really intend to. I don't want to take anyone's hard-earned money. Just ask me to draw things and there's a good chance I will.
Social Media:  Tumblr: @sky-squido​ AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_squido/pseuds/sky_squido
Tell us a little bit about yourself!
Call me Squido! I love to draw and write but I'm also super extraverted and I love interacting with humans so always feel free to chat with me! Aside from drawing and writing, I just love being outside and have a tumblr sideblog dedicated exclusively to nature photos I take. I love mountains, the ocean, the sky, and just about everything else in this beautiful world of ours! If you ever feel like having an internet stranger give you a thousand word rant, ask me why my favorite color is blue and you will not be disappointed!
What got you into creating? what inspires you to keep creating?
I've been drawing for as long as I can remember and can't seem to stop, though I take long breaks sometimes I always seem to come back to it again. I try not to have anything in mind when I draw, but to start sketching and let the drawing happen. Sometimes I find that what I'm trying to draw is not what my drawing wants to be (if that makes any sense) and change what I'm making halfway through. It makes drawing a really relaxing and carefree therapeutic experience! Writing is different. I've always enjoyed writing, but I didn't write much and never shared my writing with anyone because I thought it was super pretentious. It wasn't until entering High School and joining the literature club and making a deal with a friend that we'd share our writing with each other that I actually gained any sort of confidence in my ability and sought to improve it. Being in that club and sharing my pieces at the open mics was a really encouraging experience! I invite everyone to share their writing, even if it's with some random internet stranger (I'm open anytime!) if they're unsure of their abilities. A little encouragement goes a long way! Now that I'm on Discord, ao3, and tumblr, I receive so much more feedback than I ever have before! It's been super encouraging! What inspires me most is definitely nature. Even if my ideas aren't directly related to the outdoors, I get my best ideas there. Fandoms are also a great idea generator. The sheer volume of headcanons and prompts is enough to make me dizzy with ideas!
What's your creative process like?
I love sketching. My favorite thing about drawing digitally is that I can sketch as much as I like and never worry about wasting materials! Often times my sketches turn themselves into drawings without permission and other times they stubbornly remain sketches for all eternity. I always dive right in because I have no patience and the idea I started out with generally isn't that great but in the process of pursuing it, it spirals out of control and sometimes the idea gets better and sometimes it gets worse but I just kinda roll with it. Creating is a really chill process for me and while I regularly scream stuff like "I'M DRAWING ON THE WRONG LAYER NONONONONONO" or "NO HECK FRICK SHOOT IT SMUDGED HECK HECK GET THE ERASER QUICK," the creative process is a great way for me to unwind. I'm the same way about writing. I never plan or outline and just kind of roll with things. I mean I generally have the basic jist in mind, but I try to not have a plan so I can keep the story driven by the characters and not force them into acting the way I wanted them to in the outline I made hours or even days ago. Creating is my opportunity to break free so I don't really see what good a plan or outline does me. I'm a pretty spontaneous person!
What kind of mediums do you like to use?
I like to take pictures, but it's not really my main focus. I've been mostly digitally drawing—I use my iPad Pro and Procreate—but lately I've been pencil sketching with just your average everyday mechanical pencil (I'd forgotten how nice the texture of paper was! Clearly I spent too much time drawing on my iPad!). I have these Stabilio chalk pastels I love to pieces, but have also spent a great deal of time with watercolors. Digital is my primary medium currently, though.
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Is there a specific scene wrote that you are particularly proud of?
"Sky’s golden scales are glowing with reflected light from the sun while beneath them, the same pulsing blue in her mane runs like a river as her very skin is alive with electricity. The sun’s beginning to dip, fading through the color wheel from yellow to deep orange to scarlet and the world is bathed in watercolor and hue shifted through the rainbow until all that was blue becomes red. This new alien world begins to darken as red fades to deep purple-pink, the clouds catching last vestiges of gold in their pillowy folds, yet Sky continues rippling with lighting, the bright blue flowing like blood through her veins and the gold shimmering in the eerie azure glow. We weave through the winds and zephyrs and I close my eyes and let the breeze caress my hair and when I reopen them, I’m standing back on the ground again in a world long since darkened by night. I place my hand over my beating heart where Sky is still laughing with joy and smile because once you’ve awakened your dragon, you don’t need wings to fly anymore."
Is there someone who inspires you and your writing or art?
Every fanartist and fanfic writer that posts their stuff online is an inspiration to me. Even if their stuff isn't very good—especially if it isn't very good—it's a huge testament to the courage of the creator and their bravery in expressing themself! I sat on fanfic and fanart for years and never shared it and here were kids half my age putting out art that was their first experiment in a new medium and a little shaky but it was still out there and they were still being supported by the community and that really inspired me to reach out and stop lurking in fandom and actually get involved!
is there something that you struggled with that made you grow as a creator?
I feel like everyone has these periods where they were just gaining confidence in their artistic ability but suddenly everything they make is trash and they're not happy with any of it and they feel so down and worthless and "where did all of my hard-earned ability go? Will I ever get it back?" I think this is a pretty common experience and when I find myself there, I find it most helpful to share what I make anyway, even if I hate it, with someone who I know will give it to me straight because they'll point out the deeper problems—the root of the issue—that I hadn't even noticed and I can use that information to grow as an artist. Bad pieces are just as valuable as good ones. There was also a time where I had a lot of trouble developing a style. I did a lot of experimenting and never found anything I liked. What happened is I just kept drawing and whatever popped out eventually evolved into my style. I used to get frustrated that I couldn't draw anything without a reference, but after years and years of using references and drawing some of the same things over and over again, you won't need the references anymore. I mean, they're great and you should always feel free to use them, but over time, you won't need to look up a picture of every little thing you try to doodle.
What got you into writing or art?
My silly twitchy fingers can't ever seem to stop drawing! Same with writing. Words and ideas follow me around, little plot bunnies pestering me until they get written down somewhere. I was greatly inspired by the works of C.S. Lewis in my writing, especially his Cosmic Trilogy. My art style was aided by Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist, which was a valuable stepping stone in developing my own style. Other than that, it was my own insatiable desire to MAKE THINGS that spurred me onwards. I don't think I could stop if I tried!
What's your favorite part of the creative process?
After you've got that first paragraph and you've found a flow and you've got a topic and you just GO. I get into the zone and the story starts happening on its own and I'm not an author anymore, I'm just a channel between the world of the piece and the page. That's my favorite. I love watching things take shape. I love shading a sketch for these same reasons. The whole drawing comes together and becomes A Thing and it's the most exciting time to be a creator. Something else inside you has taken over and you're just along for the ride. I have no idea if my experiences are common at all but this is what it's like for me!
What's your least favorite part of the creative process?
EDITING. I HAVE ZERO PATIENCE. THE THING IS DONE. WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP LOOKING AT IT. CAN I POST IT YET. This leaves me with a lot of holes in what I make and I can't do a very clean, super detailed drawing unless it's for an art class and I'm forced to keep working on it. I have a terrible habit of never proofreading my things!
What's your favorite type of scene to write?
AAH hard question! I love writing description and places where I can really let my inner 19th century romantic be unleashed but I also love a good emotional moment between two characters. Something tense. I like fight scenes, but I try to keep them brief and interesting. Sometimes I find scenes where I have no idea what's going on and I try to avoid that, but it's really hard sometimes.
What's the hardest for you to create?
I have so much trouble with endings. I can generally figure something out, but there's always a moment of panic before the end like "heck I wrote everything I wanted how do I wrap this up????" That's probably a byproduct of me planning nothing XD I sometimes have trouble with characterization and making sure everyone acts the way they actually would. The hardest part is continuing after you have an "oh heck what do I do now" moment that breaks you out of your zone and all of your ideas and plot threads turn invisible or evaporate or go wherever it is they go when you're looking for them.
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What's your favorite genre to write?
ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST. Wellll... scratch that. I love something adventure-y and plot driven with a lot of really meaningful character interactions. I've always had trouble putting my writing into genres, but I guess that kind of speaks for itself in a way.
What fandoms do you enjoy creating for?
Linked Universe is the fandom I have created and posted the most for by a LONG SHOT. I found LU shortly after making my tumblr and I joined the Discord shortly thereafter. Since then, it has been nonstop inspiration and creativity for me! I tend to get sucked into one fandom and it consumes me for a few months before I silently drift out of it and never think about it again. LU is the fandom I've been the most active in EVER though—and it's still going—so there's a good chance I'm never getting off this ride.
What's the work you are most proud of?
AAAAAAAAAAH MY BABIES. okay um here's the first and only fanfic I've ever posted anywhere but I'm really happy with: https://sky-squido.tumblr.com/post/618964544219463680/turn-back-time-a-linked-universe-fanfic I have a lot of other pieces kicking about, but they're not fandom so I haven't shared them yet. I probably will after I touch them up a bit.
Do you have any fics inspired by real life stories?
Not really? I don't really know where my ideas come from to be honest!
Where do you post your finished works?
my tumblr. I tag stuff #squido writes and #squido draws so you can find them easily. I also put them on the discord but they get lost in the stream of other works pretty quickly so stick to my tumblr. I also have an ao3 now! https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_squido
If you have any fun stories about the pieces you made, please do share!
Turn Back Time was actually live written in the Discord, but entirely unplanned and in the #angst channel! It was just a headcanon but then I started describing it and like 2 hours and 5k words later I'm sitting in the Discord like "what just happened??"
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tcheschirewrites · 4 years ago
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Hey, are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Have you ever? And what was your experience like? I'm considering it but I feel so intimidated because I know I won't be able to commit to it wholeheartedly. Lowering my expectations and pacing myself would seem like the perfect solution but work kills my creative brain cells by the seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of November I've only written half of page of alien language. Any advice? Also does Nano have to be a new project?
Oh man, Nano. I’m well familiar with Nano, and I’ve participated a few times (to varying degrees of success). This got very long, so I’m putting a cut.
The first time I attempted Nano was in 2006 for my novel Seerking. I had heard about it from a friend who was in an LJRP I was in, and she encouraged me to try it. I was still in high school at the time, and very frankly I did not have the dedication necessary to complete it. I got a lot of worldbuilding complete, but very little writing. I got about two pages of prose, and three notebooks of character and setting history, as well as a fairly detailed outline. I still have all of this.
The second time I attempted was in 2009, for a story that is based heavily on the Iron&Wine song ‘Boy With a Coin’. I got a little bit further, but I got stuck in a few places. I think it’s because my idea was bigger than my life experience, and I also got stuck in a lot of small details. Additionally, my first Word document (where I got about two chapters in?) was destroyed when my laptop’s hard drive just straight gave up on life - I did buck up and rewrite quite a bit, though it didn’t sing quite the same notes, and I have this handwritten copy still. (It’s possible I tried again with this same project the year after? I don’t remember tbvh)
My third attempt was in 2011, about a goverment operative and a faun. This one I got the furthest, and I still have the original handwritten draft and the typed copy. I pantsed this one, 100%. To this day, I still don’t know how this story ends, but I’d love to attempt a rewrite someday.
Then, unfortunately, from around 2012 until Fall of last year, I stopped writing period. I was in a real bad situation, and just didn’t have the energy for anything, let alone a novel. My most recent experience with Nano as an organization was Camp Nano, which is a much looser structure, and it is in May and July. Rather than the hard and fast 50k, you set your own goal when you announce your project.
I can understand your hesitance to participate, honestly. Nano is a beast of a project – to reach the minimum goal of 50k in the 30 allotted days, you have to produce 1667 words of new content every single day. This is approximately 3 pages, maybe a little more – which is a lot when you’re already stressed! And if you miss a day you have to adjust your daily totals for every following day, and the pressure starts to mount! It’s a lot, even if it is only meant to be a neat little challenge (mostly, I’ll cover benefits a bit later).
Now, my recommendations are going to follow two paths: planning, and pantsing. If you are naturally a planner – that is, you like having rough outlines, refined outlines, you like having character data, history, etc – then I recommend you have as much of your novel planned ahead of time before November 1st hits. Whatever notes or files you need to have set aside before you begin writing those first words, have them ready – read over them, refine them, and have them memorized front to back so that you know what your story is meant to be. If you are a natural planner, and you have not done this by today’s date (it’s 30 October where I am), then I do not recommend participating this year because it will stress you the fuck out and you might even make yourself sick.
The other popular option is called pantsing – essentially, you have a rough idea, and you’re flying by the seat of your pants. (This is literally what it is called on the Nano website, by the by – there are badges for it and everything.) If you are a pantser, then I still recommend a little preparation, but of a wildly different degree and type: find your story’s ambiance. If you are a pantser, think about what sparked the idea for your story? Try to put yourself back in the place (emotionally or physically) where you had the most intense version of the idea, and hang onto that feeling with both hands. This is incredibly important, because it will allow you to harken back to that feeling without chasing the high of first being hit by that feeling. If you are a pantser, focus heavily on the feelings you want to evoke with your story, and let your heart guide you.
Now the third option (I know what I said, I lied all right) is if you are a combination planner-pantser; you don’t want to have the rigidity of the outline, but you also like having a little bit of structure, or at least a direction to go in. If you are a combination planner-pantser, I recommend doing very soft preparation for yourself in the week leading up to Nano. So things like building yourself a playlist, maybe doodle what your main looks like in your head, or small details like character names and short dossiers. If you’re able, I recommend coming up with an ending, so you know what the end-goal looks like and you are able to track your story’s completion in your head.
For all three, I would recommend deciding ahead of time how you want to write your novel – are you going to type it up in a word processor (please make so many backups, do not live the heartache that I had to)? Are you going old school and hand writing it? Are you feeling like a boss that day and maybe want to dictate it into an app on your phone? Pick one, and make a dedicated space for your novel. You can mix them up, certainly, but make sure that you are able to consolidate effectively or you’re going to stress yourself out.
Now, you asked whether or not it has to be a “new” project. There are actually a few answers to this, depending on what you mean. Now, if we are to assume that “new” strictly means a brand new, fresh idea that you have just come up with specifically for National Novel Writer’s Month 2020, then the answer is no; it does not. Back in the day, there were a few purists that insisted you had to have a designated project every year, but like most purists, they’re just being assholes about it.
As a matter of fact, it does not even have to be a brand new project that you have not written any words for at all – however, if you do have an idea that you have already written for, you are not permitted to use any of your previous word count toward your goal. This is definitely a no-no. Personally, I’ve tried this, and I found it rough – I liked having the designated project, and I liked the buildup to it.
If you have, though, an idea that you’ve worked over and you are simply ready to start putting words on a page, this, I think, is Nano’s sweet spot.
Now, I know most of this 1000+ answer has been cautioning and reminders that Nano is tough – because, well, it is. It is a huge undertaking, and I feel like every participant has their horror stories to tell about their experience. But I want to reassure you that it isn’t 100% a hard slog to a dreary end; there are so many tools that Nano themselves provide you, as well as user-run communities and workshops, and even some benefits after the fact. These are the things I want to wrap this post up with.
Firstly, no matter how tired or stressed you are, if you register for nanowrimo.org, you’ll begin receiving daily emails from published authors and past participants. These range from silly and tedious, to incredibly comforting. My favorite one, which I cannot remember a lot of specifics from, was from a man who detailed his experience and reassured everyone that the work doesn’t have to be good – it just has to be 50k words. That’s it. You can have typos and errors all over the place, plot holes of all shapes and sizes, and a main character who doesn’t make any sense at all; it doesn’t matter, because the point of the event is simply to finish. Neil Gaiman has also said a time or two that your first draft’s only purpose is to exist. Just get the words out; you can fix them later.
Additionally, when you are completing your profile, you can enter in your location and there are designated forums for participants in your area. In the past, there have been meetups for group-writes and workshops as well, though I imagine they will be more along the lines of Discord calls this year. If you are a social person who needs a pair of eyes to help you work through a scene, Nano’s got your back. They will also send you statistics for your area for the average word count, daily word count, past winners, etcetera. It can sometimes feel like you are very alone during this difficult project, but a lot of these things bring a very human element to the event.
Finally, what comes after you have completed. A lot of these benefits are newer than my time, but I browsed through them when I did my Camp Project. When you complete the goal in the allotted time, you get a neat little badge for your webpage and a printable certificate for the immediate boost of dopamine. But you will also get discounts to some neat shit, like different word processing applications (I got 50% off of Scrivener when I finished Camp), as well as things like The Great Courses, discounts in the swag store, etc. But more than that, there are partnering websites who want to help you on the road to being published. Wattpad is in this group, but I believe also big name publishers (I might have seen Penguin on there at one point) are willing to work with winners to get their works distributed.
All that said, I recommend every writer attempt Nano at least once in their writing career. Even if I personally have not done so stellar in the past, it is a fantastic learning experience for all of the work that goes into producing a novel from start to finish – it forces you to know your limits, and sometimes to overcome them. I don’t think I will be participating this year – I have so many side projects that I want to get done, but I will very likely drop everything to do it next year. I have two novels that are real roughly built up that I could do for this, though, and I would love the dedicated time to spend on them.
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