#I have been wanting to resume story posts so badly but haven’t been able to sit up for like a week

[aheathen-conceivably]

oh if you're still taking sims then venessa jeong in 1920s or catarina lynx in 1960s

Hey Nonny, dear! These are SO good. I’ll add them to the list but I won’t lie to you, no promises I’ll get them done. I’ve been dealing with some chronic back pain that makes it painful to sit for really any period of time (RIP to using my PC) but also just makes my brain real ~foggy~

I’m definitely on the up and up so I’ve got them on the to-do list, but if I do manage to finally sit and play, I may work on some story posts instead. My apologies to you and anyone else who sent me one, I got a little over ambitious by posting that.

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Eidolon 11 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary:  AU: What started off as the result of a simple act of rebellion ends up causing his life to spin out of control. How will young Danny cope with the results as well as a past that has a strange habit of coming back to haunt him.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, kidnapping, and various other things

Parings: hints of Danny/Sam much later on

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr

11: Alternative Paths

The police officers told him they needed to ask him a few questions. What they forgot to mention was he would be locked in a small, remarkably bare room for five hours with a police officer who was dead set in viewing him as a suspect. Danny had never been more relieved to get out of a room before in his life. Yeah, he understood family members needed to be questioned due to the statistics surrounding such crimes, but seriously! Did someone as scrawny as him really look like he could have hurt Winston that badly without getting any sort of injury in the process?

However, he couldn't really blame them for being suspicious, especially when it came to his whereabouts the previous night. How do you rationally explain you were chased by a murderous robot-ghost-thing? The obvious answer was to avoid the topic all together. He hoped he was convincing enough when he said he and his friends had taken a walk in the evening and returned to Sam's house to watch some movies. He specifically avoided mentioning the park. There was no telling what the officers would think if they learned he might have been around when it got torn up. He was actually kind of surprised no one in the precinct had mentioned it.

A few times during his interview, he had nervously flattened his bangs a few times, hoping to hide the cut he had suddenly remembered getting at the beginning of his terrifying adventure. The officer interviewing him had noticed the motion, which caused him to leave it alone the rest of the time he was in the room. Surprisingly, Danny wasn't asked about it. A little wary after he was finished and allowed to exit the room, he touched the spot only to find smooth skin. It took a lot of self-control to not dash to a reflective surface and examine his forehead. There was no use in making the officers more suspicious. As weird as a missing cut was he could wait until he got home to check.

Scratch that… he could check after he found a place to stay for a while. As he was about to exit the station, an older officer kindly reminded him of the fact his house was currently considered a crime scene. After apologizing for a lack of effort from the staff for trying to contact his family and promising to personally look into it in the morning, he directed Danny to a nearby phone situated at the front desk.

Danny was a little surprised at the kind attitude of the officer as he had been dealing with a special type of dick for the past several hours, but it was a nice change. Shaking his head a little, he moved to the phone to call Sam, praying she was still awake as it was approaching midnight. Both of his friends told him they wanted an update, but with it being late and he being emotionally, physically, and mentally drained, the only topic he wanted to discuss involved where he would be staying for the night.

As he was dialing her number, the door to the station opened and a tall man strolled in. The newcomer was tall and rather thin. He wore a clean black business suit which appeared to be expertly cared for and rather expensive. Gray hair had been slicked back into a neat ponytail, and calculating cold blue eyes surveyed his surroundings. Danny dropped the phone in surprise as he realized the man in front of him was the one and only Vlad Masters.

The sound from the phone brought him to Masters' attention, causing the man to adopt an unsettling grin. "Why here you are! I've been looking all over for you!" The tone of his voice and his expression adopted a semblance of concern, but it did not reach his eyes. "I was so worried after I found out what happened to Winston. My condolences, but I'm glad you're safe and sound."

"Don't talk about Winston like he's dead!" Danny snapped. "Look, can you just go away? If you haven't realized, it's been a pretty bad day for me, and I don't feel like talking to you right now."

"Of course. How inconsiderate of me. After everything you've been through today, you must be exhausted. Come, I'll make sure you're well taken care of."

It took Danny a moment to grasp the implications of Vlad's statement. "Wait… what? There's no way I'm going with you!"

"Poor boy, you must be more tired than you realize." The businessman pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a dramatic sigh. "Don't you remember? It was determined that you would be placed into my care if anything were to happen to Winston."

"That's news to me!"

"Excuse me, but what exactly is going on here?" The sound of the officer's voice made him jump. He had forgotten there was another soul in the room. However, he couldn't be more relieved. Being in the room alone with the businessman was an unnerving thought. It was even more relieving when he realized the officer seemed to be equally suspicious.

In a truly professional manner, Vlad introduced himself and explained his relationship to Danny as well as his involvement in the custody battle. Again, he mentioned how he was now to act as a guardian in Winston's stead.

"I already told you, I'm not going anywhere with you!" Danny growled as he glared at the man. Something was very wrong with the picture. Winston didn't trust Vlad, and there was no way he would let him fall into the billionaire's hands.

"You have to forgive the boy. We had a little spat the last time we saw each other, and I'm afraid he hasn't forgiven me," Vlad apologetically explained to the officer.

"Spat? You broke into my house?"

Before Vlad could respond, the officer held up his hand to halt the brewing argument. "Mr. Masters, do you have some sort of proof you can take the boy?" Vlad's expression quickly changed from shocked to insulted as the officer spoke. "Surely a man of your standing can understand our position. With the way Mr. Wolfe was attacked, we cannot rule anyone out as a potential suspect. With you being involved in a custody battle and Danny's status as a minor, we are rather uncomfortable sending him on his way like this. I'm also fairly certain you weren't notified of the situation…" The officer's eyes narrowed as he appraised the man. "Which leads me to wonder how you found out."

"One of my staff members was going to drop off some papers at the house when she saw the police cars and asked what happened" Vlad explained with an impatient air. "But that's not important right now…"

As he watched Vlad begin to argue with the officer, Danny couldn't help but feel a rush of gratitude. For whatever reason, the officer did not seem to believe Vlad's story and generally seemed concerned for his wellbeing.

Everything seemed to be going in his favor when Danny was nearly bowled over by a sudden blast of cold air rushed by him. Startled, he started looking around to find some possible source… and open window, a vent, something to explain it. While he tried to wrack his brains for some other answer when the normal explanations were ruled out, he noticed the officer stumble slightly. He didn't think anything of it until the man rubbed his forehead and excused himself for a moment.

Rather unsettled by the officer's display and being left alone with Vlad, Danny moved back to the phone to attempt to resume his call. Though he was able to reach Sam's house this time, a presumed butler answered and informed him that "Miss Samantha is asleep and no longer taking calls for the night." While Danny was pretty sure it was a lie, he went with it and asked the man to give a message to her when he could.

Displeased by the turn of events, he was about to try calling Tucker when the officer returned to the room. Something did not seem right as he looked at him. The man's posture seemed stiff, and his eyes were unfocused and reddish. Wait… Danny blinked and rubbed his eyes before checking again. The man's eyes were actually red! Weren't they brown before?

"Sorry for the inconvenience." The officer's voice had an unusual mechanical quality to it… almost as if the words he was saying weren't actually his. He held up a document of some sorts as he spoke again. "It seems like someone did verify this earlier, but just forgot to place it somewhere it could be found."

"Does this mean everything's in order?" Vlad asked with a voice filled with hardly concealed delight.

"Yes. You can take the boy. We'll be in touch within the next few days to let you know how Wolfe is doing."

"Splendid! Come on my boy, it's time to go!"

Danny backed away as Vlad beckoned to him, nearly tripping over the desk in the process. His mind was screaming all sorts of warnings at him. The entire situation felt wrong, but he had no idea how to escape it. Vlad was blocking his way to the front door, and he doubted the few officers left in the building would appreciate a desperate search for the rear exit.

"What did you do to him?" he demanded as his eyes darted between both men before he pointed at Vlad. He knew he probably wasn't going to get an answer, but he hoped he could stall the man long enough to come up with some sort of plan.

"Pardon me? Whatever do you mean?"

"Y-you know what I mean!" While he tried to keep the anger in his voice, it was quickly giving way to panic. Vlad kept moving towards him wearing an increasingly predatory expression which was really creeping him out. Strangely, the thought of accidently falling through the wall crossed his mind. Unsettling as it was, it was a far better situation than the one he was currently in. "The officer's not acting right!"

Vlad replied, but his words were drowned out as a strange coldness started to seep into his body, quickly filling every aspect. He tried to escape, thinking it was somehow tied to where he was standing, but his legs wouldn't respond. They felt heavy and strangely detached; his arms were beginning to feel the same way. He tried to yell out without any success. He soon realized his mind was being pushed further away from the sensations of his body and into something like a dark crevasse to be stored and forgotten.

But the coldness was not finished. It briefly brushed against his mind and seemed to whisper in an almost familiar voice, "Relax… It'll be safer for you and me if you do…"

Danny's last conscious thought before the darkness completely took him was to wonder if he was ever going to wake up.

….

When he came to, Danny found himself lying on his back and staring at an unfamiliar white ceiling. His mind felt groggy and his body heavy. Though he wasn't sure, he felt as if he had been asleep for quite some time. Sitting up, he tried to remember how he got where he was… only, he didn't know where that might be.

Looking around, he realized something wasn't right. The room he was in was rather large. It was a bedroom, not much different from Sam's, only it didn't have any posters or the same dark decorations. In fact, the room was mostly white save for some wooden furniture. Even the four-poster bed he was sitting on had a white comforter and curtains. The only real decoration in the room was a painting on the wall directly across from him which seemed to show military conquest with… a paranormal influence. It was rather grotesques.

The blank room gave him an uneasy feeling. Although it definitely wasn't, it gave him the feeling he was in a jail of sorts. Unnerved, he slowly got up and moved to the room's single window. After moving the curtains aside, he cursed as he realized the glass was heavily frosted, preventing him from seeing any scenery. His next move was to try the door, but it was locked.

After a panicked few minutes trying everything he could think of to attempt to open the door, he placed his back against the door and slid down it. What was he going to do? The better question was what was going to happen to him? With the room being blank, it gave him no indication of what he should expect. He should, he supposed, be thankful for it, but the wait might be too much for him to handle. What was the old adage? The suspense is worse than the actual event? He really hoped that wouldn't be the case.

xxxxxx

The sound of one of her parents calling for her to come into the downstairs wafted through the room, however, Sam was dead set on ignoring the summons. There were far more important things on her mind than dealing with whatever new 'daughter improvement project' they had come up with.

She was incredibly worried about her friend who neither she nor Tucker had heard from in a little over two days. At first she thought it might be due to being overwhelmed by suddenly finding out the man who raised him had been severely attacked and/or the police being jerks, but a call earlier in the day really concerned her.

She had been thinking about calling the police in the morning (while skipping class due to a feigned illness), however they beat her to the punch. Around eleven, she had received a call from one of the detectives asking her if she had heard from Danny. She told him no right before demanding to know what was wrong. Though it took a little bit of coaxing (and a reminder of her parents' influences), the officer admitted they had no idea where the boy was. He disappeared after his interview with another officer, and though they hated to admit it, after failing to contact him or anyone else who might have the boy, he was being labeled as a missing person. Her immediate response was to insult the competence of him and the rest of the force as the boy had gone missing from underneath their noses, but after she calmed down a bit, she promised to help in whatever way she could.

Sam sat down on her large purple clad bed and stared up at one of the posters on the ceiling as she tried to understand the situation. Her friend, who seemed to attract terrible and odd events, was now missing. Danny had tried to contact her the night he disappeared, but her family had forbidden her from further calls when she had returned home that night after they learned about the attack on Winston. Somehow, they had gotten the notion whatever had harmed Winston could attack her if she continued to talk to Danny. Though it was kind of nice to know they cared, they had taken it way overbroad.

But what was strange about the situation was there was no security image of Danny leaving the precinct. The officer had explained to her they had installed cameras a while back after someone had tried to break in to the office in an attempt to steal their guns. Due to safely concerns, they regularly had them checked, but the night Danny disappeared, they had a major malfunction. There was an image of him entering the entrance area, but after a few minutes, the image distorted so badly they could not make heads or tails of it. It also seemed to return to normal rather suddenly after a while, but Danny was long gone by then.

A look at the clock told her she was going to have to wait a while before she could contact Tucker. Unlike her, he had been forced to go to school. She had no idea if he already knew Danny was missing, but no matter what, he was going to help her try to find him. Tucker was the probably the only person in town who could possibly get an image off of the damaged security tape, and the only other person (besides her) who Danny had trusted with his issues. They had to try and do what they could to help him.

…

"So, any luck?" Sam asked the boy currently sitting on her rug surrounded by any number of other electronic equipment. He had been staring at the screen of his PDA with an intense look for quite some time.

She had managed to contact Tucker mere moments after he was finished with his classes for the day and explained the situation. After freaking out a bit, he told her he would be over soon after he made a quick stop. He arrived about forty minutes later looking more determined than he had ever seen him while carrying a bookbag filled to the brim with tech supplies she had never seen before. After asking if he needed anything, Tucker quickly went to work with his task.

"…Whoever did this to this footage is really good…" he eventually replied after a few more minutes of silence.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked hesitantly. It was rare to hear such a tone in Tucker's voice when it came to technology. He could usually work his way around a system in a few seconds, minutes if it was more complicated, but this was really causing him problems.

"It's hard to explain… Usually, people just modify existing images when they don't something seen, but this guy actually managed to replace some of the footage with an error screen…"

"So… it's gone… Like completely, gone? You can't trace it or anything?" There was no way for her to hide the hint of panic in her voice. If Tucker couldn't bring up anything, no one could… which meant they weren't going to have anything to use to find Danny.

A small laugh escaped Tucker, which caused her to stare at the boy. "Jeez, Sam, you shouldn't think so little of me. Who do you think I am? This guy, though good, made a small mistake. I guess he got interrupted or something because he started just covering up the image after a while instead of changing it. To most people, it's nearly impossible to catch, but it's there. Just give me a little bit of time…."

"A little bit of time?" Sam repeated as she watched him frantically work with his PDA. "How long are we talking about?"

He hit a few more buttons on the screen before he looked up and smiled. "Does 'now' work for you?"

"Tucker, you're amazing!"

"I know, I know. But it's nice to have my fans remind me."

Sam pulled down his hat in response as she sat next to him on the floor. "Anyways, do you have the entire footage?"

"I couldn't get part of it due to the replacement… but it looks like a little less than half was just modified…. So, let's see what no one wanted us to find…." He pressed a button on the screen and a fuzzy image began to appear. On the footage, they could see Danny backing away from someone standing near the door. It was difficult to make out, but judging from Danny's posture, he did not seem to be happy to see the person. After a little bit, Danny stopped retreating and followed the unknown man out the door.

Without any prodding, Tucker tried to see if he could clear the image a little or at least clear up the image of the suspect. After frantically trying several different techniques, he sighed and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. According to him, even though the person had changed methods, they were still able to damage the rest of the footage.

"I'll continue to work with it when I get home," he promised. "This is going to require some big guns for me to get something useful out of this. But don't worry; I'm not going to give up. After he saved our lives, I think this is the least I can do for him."

…..

Tucker had been booted from the house as soon as Sam's parents caught him being there. Thinking back, she was a little surprised he had managed to sneak past them in the first place since they were particularly good at catching people going up to her room. They had punished her in response by having her stay in her room for the rest of the night, which didn't bother her in the least bit.

Around seven in the evening she received a call on her cell. Noticing the number, she picked it up as quickly as possible, hoping her parents didn't hear it ringing. "Did you find anything?" she asked the caller as a form of greeting. The caller's reply was spoken too quickly and frantically for her to understand. "Whoa, slow down Tucker! I can't understand you!"

"Sam… it's worse than we thought!" came his panicked reply. "I managed to identify who was in the police station with Danny."

"Yeah? Well, who was it?"

"It was… Vlad Masters…."

Sam barely registered the phone slipping from her fingers and landing on the floor. How could she be so stupid? She knew that man had an interest in getting hold of Danny and should be the first logical suspect, but she didn't realize he would have stooped so low.

Angry with herself, she reached down to grab her phone so she could calm a frantic Tucker but stopped midway as a thought crossed her mind. How were they going to be able to get Danny back from a man who had mastered in lies with an unimaginable fortune to back him up?

=============================================================

I just wanted to point out that the way these officers are depicted is due to experience. The ones in the borough where I grew up were usually nice, but if they had it in their minds you did something wrong, you could be treated like trash. But at the same time, they're the reason why my childhood bully wasn't excepted into the NFL - they slapped him with assault charges when he decided to get into a fight while he was in college. I have mixed feelings. The officers from the neighboring borough were wonderful.

[ghost-in-the-hella]

NTTWIO: the story so far...

It’s that time again! ...Finally. 

It’s been about eight months (eight fucking months!?) since I posted the final chapter of Act I of Now That the World is Over. The good news is that I spent that time writing a complete rough draft of Act II, so although a number of chapters will need extensive reworking none of its 16 chapters will need to be written from scratch. In other words, it won’t be eight months before I post chapter 2. 

Since it’s been such a long gap between postings, I’m here to provide a brief recap for the first 10 chapters (all of Act I) for those who want to dive into Act II without having to reread the whole thing. Naturally, there will be heavy spoilers for all of Act I, so I’m posting the summaries below the cut so that those who haven’t read the story at all yet don’t get it spoiled for them.

Welcome to the Spoiler Zone.

1.1: October 11, 2013. Max chooses Chloe and lets the storm take the town. Exhausted from all that her body and mind have endured over the past few days, Max is vulnerable to the extreme weather conditions and becomes stricken with the onset of hypothermia. Chloe breaks into the lighthouse and shelters her through the rest of the storm. It’s a little bit awkward but a whole lot better than dying from hypothermia.

1.2: In the aftermath of the storm, Chloe goes down the hill to get emergency supplies from her truck, leaving Max to rest in the lighthouse. When she finds the truck, it doesn’t seem badly damaged but she can’t get it to start. Unable to carry her entire so-called “zombie preparedness kit,” Chloe retrieves a few vital supplies: food, water, a flashlight, and dry clothes. When she pulls out Rachel’s spare clothes from the kit, she has a breakdown.

1.3: Max wakes up while Chloe’s still down the hill, explores the downstairs room of the lighthouse, and reminisces a bit about their childhood adventures. Chloe returns with provisions and gets epic hugs. Max changes into the clothes she brings her, then realizes they belonged to Rachel when Chloe becomes uncomfortable and distressed. They talk through some difficult feelings, then Chloe changes into her own backup clothes. She insists on Max staying inside the lighthouse, not wanting her to see the state of affairs outside.

1.4: Chloe cops a smoke and surveys the ruins of Arcadia Bay from the broken-off top of the lighthouse while Max rests downstairs. Max scares the ever-loving crap out of her by coming up to join her. When she reaches the part of the stairs where they were broken by the storm, Max seems deeply confused and begins to step into the gap where the stairs used to be, thereby scaring the ever-loving crap out of Chloe once again. Chloe pulls her to safety. Max thinks Chloe’s out of her mind. Chloe thinks Max is out of hers. On top of the lighthouse, Max finally witnesses the carnage of their hometown. She gets frustrated when she attempts to describe the strange sensation she feels in the wake of the storm and Chloe doesn’t understand. Chloe observes that there apparently aren’t any first responders or any other signs of human life below them. They return to the bottom of the lighthouse and go to sleep.

And so ends Day One. 

1.5: October 12, 2013. Max wakes up snuggling with Chloe on the floor of the lighthouse. She drags herself out of “bed” and changes out of her borrowed Rachel-clothes into her dry-enough Max-clothes, only to be interrupted by Chloe having a nightmare. Chloe attempts to prevent Max from going with her to fix her truck down the hill, but Max insists on going with her. Upon leaving the lighthouse, Max is confronted by the remains of the shack outside the door and the fact that reality is not what it seems. The shack appears to her to exist simultaneously in different moments of time, both collapsed and unharmed. Max attempts to touch the structure and experiences a profound instability and disorientation. She is only wrenched back to reality when Chloe is able to pull her away. When Max tells her what she experienced, Chloe attempts once more to convince Max to stay behind in the lighthouse until she recovers. She is unsuccessful.

1.6: Chloe works on repairing the truck while Max dozes in the front seat. After accidentally waking Max, Chloe turns on her emergency radio and is shocked and relieved when she’s able to receive signals from the outside world (even if it’s inane pop music). Max lapses into reminiscing about Chloe from a different timeline, causing the present Chloe to feel both jealous and melancholy. Max starts joking with her to lighten the mood, which works well until Chloe asks her to pass her some duct tape, accidentally triggering a massive panic attack/PTSD flashback. Chloe talks her down. Max rests a bit more until she’s sufficiently recovered, then they pack up some supplies and head back up to the lighthouse, hand-in-hand so that Chloe can keep an eye on her. 

1.7: October 13, 2013. Max and Chloe return down the hill so that Chloe can continue repairing her truck. Max puts on the emergency radio and finds a news station. Much to her consternation, the news says nothing at all about the tragedy in Arcadia Bay. Chloe insists on changing the station to play music so she can dance while she works. Chloe successfully manages to get her truck to turn on (yay!), but it’s very low on gas (boo!). She decides to turn over an upside down car in the parking lot so that she can siphon its gas, and when Max voices her concern that Chloe will hurt herself Chloe temporarily believes that she hurt herself already and Max had to rewind it away. Max confesses that she hasn’t even attempted to rewind anything since the storm. Chloe is unable to flip the car, so she MacGyvers a solution to allow her to siphon gas from the upturned vehicle. Chloe wants to celebrate her victory and persuades Max to dance with her. Max can’t suppress her feelings anymore and…

1.8: They kiss! Finally! A lot. Unfortunately, the euphoria doesn’t last long, as Chloe gets too much in her own head when she notices she’s left dirty handprints on Max. Chloe ends up launching herself into a massive panic attack because she thinks she’s unworthy to touch Max and has somehow manipulated Max into doing something not in her best interest (Max disagrees). She stumbles off to the shore, leaving a very confused (and very grease-stained) Max by the truck, and attempts to clean off her filthy hands. Obsessively. Until they bleed. She manages to talk herself down from her panic attack and self-harm and goes for a swim in the bay, riding the waves. Max comes for her when she’s tired herself out and they talk, though mostly they dance around the important things. Chloe does own up to some measure of self-harming behavior, which is progress. They agree to return to the lighthouse for one last night and to hit the road together in the morning. As Chloe follows Max back to the truck, she’s struck by memories of Rachel - one sweet, and one corpse-foul - and has to pause to be sick, though she keeps it hidden from Max.

1.9: They return to the lighthouse for their final evening there. Max waxes a bit nostalgic about their brief stay as she washes up as best she can. She’s concerned about Chloe’s freaked out behavior after they made out by the truck earlier, but she’s comforted by the filthy handprints Chloe left all over Max’s face and clothes in the moment as proof of her affection. While Chloe takes her turn getting cleaned up and changed, Max starts packing up in preparation for leaving in the morning. She starts to freak out at the enormity of the damage she’s caused by choosing Chloe over Arcadia Bay, and Chloe diverts her panic by asking Max to help bandage her damaged hands, indulging in reminiscences of their childhood, and joking around (complete with tickle fight). They go to bed, and when Max has trouble settling down Chloe tells her a bedtime story until they both fall asleep.

1.10: October 14, 2013. Max and Chloe hit the road! Sort of. They load up the truck and venture out onto the debris-strewn roads of Arcadia Bay. Chloe is concerned by Max’s dazed state as it becomes apparent that, as at the lighthouse, what Max sees and what Chloe sees aren’t quite the same thing. Chloe distracts her by talking about food and what they should do when they make it out of town. Max suggests that the logical thing to do is to head for Seattle and her parents, at least in the short term, and Chloe tries not to show that she dreads being reunited with Max’s parents. Max asks Chloe if she wants to look for Joyce before they leave town, and Chloe adamantly refuses. She tells Max that autopilot Max told her what would happen to the diner, that they had tried and failed to convince Joyce to stay home, and that she herself saw the explosion from the lighthouse during the storm. As they resume making plans, Max abruptly tells Chloe to stop the truck. When she does so, Max starts walking urgently toward someone or something moving in the woods that Chloe can’t quite make out. By the time Chloe is close enough to see what’s happening, Max is already reaching out to touch the mysterious figure. Chloe is too far away to protect her as Max collapses into a silent heap.

On to Act II: Sleepwalkers!

[ikesenrambles]

on his knees (nsfw)

Ikemen Sengoku - Sanada Yukimura

Thank you everyone that’s been supporting me even though I haven’t posted lately. I promise that I’m still working on the requests - recently, it’s been hard to keep myself together though I’m trying. I’ll explain more about it in another post. For now, please enjoy this kinky little fic I wrote.

I hope that it satisfies and isn’t too out-of-character... to be honest, I’m not sure if Yuki would ever do something like this, but a kink is a kink & I couldn’t help but indulge. If there’s anything I can improve on, please let me know (but please be gentle). I’m always looking to improve my writing, and I appreciate your feedback~ I really do notice every like and reblog, and I love to read your comments. ♡

If you enjoy my work, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi, ikesenrambles. I don’t have much spending money for Ikesen since I’m saving my paychecks to cover college. Supporting me on Ko-Fi would mean that I have pocket money for the little things that bring me joy, like Ikesen. I would be able to buy premium routes, which in turn means that I can learn more about the warlords & write even better stories for you to enjoy. ♡

The following is NSFW and kinky (*pet play).

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

Teasing. Taunting. Your hands trail down his chest, fingertips just barely brushing against his skin. He holds his breath, waiting. Wanting. You wrap your pretty little fingers around the chain that clangs against his bare chest, tracing a circle around the buckle that confines his neck in a dog collar. He gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down slowly in anticipation. You tug him forward with the leash, choking him slightly as you pull him closer. He gasps sharply, panting as he catches his breath. “How cute,” you whisper tenderly, grabbing his chin and tilting it toward you so that you can look into his desperate eyes staring helplessly into yours. “I want to see all of you now. Won’t you show off for me?”

Yukimura blushes and looks away, embarrassed. How could he have gotten himself into this predicament? On display before you, there’s nowhere for him to hide. Somehow the outfit you’ve dressed him in feels even more revealing than being completely naked. You reach forward with a delicate hand, adjusting the wolf ears you’ve clipped to his soft, brown hair. Leaning back in your chair, you admire your handiwork with a thoughtful sigh: the pink and white striped knee socks were a lovely feminine touch. He looks so precious like that.

“Um…” he murmurs, unsure of himself under the desirous heat of your gaze. His legs shake, knees turning inward like a misbehaving puppy waiting for a punishment. Your lips curl upward in a sweet smile as he bites his lower lip shyly, his face flushing as you scrutinize him, looking him over expectantly as he struggles and squirms trying to muster up the courage to expose himself, to remove his hands from between his legs and show you just how much your incessant teasing had affected him.

You click your tongue impatiently. “Now, now, be a good boy…” you tease. Your voice is endearing, gentle. But it’s not without an edge. The sly grin on your lips implies a much darker desire... You lower your voice, leaning close to hotly whisper in his ear: “Don’t make me ask twice.” A shiver runs up his spine at once; he shudders as you pull away, the ache between his thighs growing hotter still.

He nods slowly… ah, since when was he so subservient? It’s so... humiliating... and yet, Yukimura can’t bring himself to say no. He’s too captivated by the lustful glimmer in your eyes to refuse you. Instead, he moves his hands out of the way, his fingers trembling as he pulls them away. He can’t bring himself to look you in the eyes… not when you’re about to see how turned on he is by the idea of being at your disposal.

Your eyes light up as he exposes himself. You reach for him, stroking him once, twice, just enough to get his blood flowing. He makes a muffled sound of desire, twisting and turning under your touch and hiding his blushing face as you tease him. When you stop so soon after you’d started, his eyes widen, disappointment all too apparent on his face as he stares at you, dumbfounded.

“Turn around for me,” you instruct him. “Let me see the rest of you.”

It’s too embarrassing… but he obliges. You cup his behind, stroking a cheek sweetly with the side of your fingers… then your palm goes down hard and heavy against his flesh, the slapping of his skin reverberating throughout the empty room. He stifles a painful grunt, bending forward slightly at the force of your hit.

“It didn’t hurt too much, did it?” you coo against his ear, wrapping your arms around his waist and toying with him with one hand, the other still squeezing his rear. He shakes his head no, but the way he flinches when you lift your hand at him once more proves otherwise. “Aww,” you murmur playfully, placing small, baby kisses against the nape of his neck as you rub the reddening mark on his behind, massaging it with your fingertips to soothe the pain. Then, nibbling on his earlobe, you tell him: “Get on your knees and spread your cheeks.”

Your command startles him so much that he can’t even suppress a sharp sound of surprise; he jumps at the tickle of your hot breath against his neck, even more at the biting poignancy and straightforwardness of your words. He’s nervous and yet excited, afraid and yet aroused. To his own surprise, he finds himself nodding without so much as a question, getting on his knees for you and easing his thighs apart with a shaky sigh as he clutches his cheeks and holds them open for you. The compromising position makes him blush from the tips of his ears to the nape of his neck, his skin growing hot all over as he feels you tease his hole first with your finger. “A-ah…”

He waits patiently, nails digging into the flesh of his behind as he anxiously anticipates your next move. Face down, ass up, he’s ignorant to what you are preparing him for. You squeeze a bottle of lube and rub the gel into him, the cold, wetness of it making him shudder and tighten his grip. He wants to ask you what you’re doing but knows better not to question his master.

A subtle probe against his hole makes him choke out a gasp only for him to yelp sharply as that dull sensation turns to pulsing pain searing through his body as you push the foreign object deeper and deeper inside him, stretching him in a way he’d never been stretched before. “Ng--!” he cries out, burying his flushed face into the futon.

“Does it feel okay?” you murmur gently, reassuringly running your hand along the side of his thigh as his body shakes uncontrollably, his hole contracting and expanding desperately as it tries to accommodate whatever you’d just inserted inside him. “Can we continue?” you ask in a soft and loving voice, waiting for his consent.

He gasps, panting, struggling to catch his breath. Twisting. Turning. He’s throbbing, muscles tightening. Beads of sweat have begun to form at his temples, leaving strands of hair slicked to his forehead. “It’s… so weird…” he whispers in an unsure voice, clenching his hands into fists. He’s scrunching up his nose like he doesn’t enjoy it one bit, but he’s yet to tell you to stop. You wait for him patiently, stroking his hair tenderly as he stammers on his own spit trying to explain himself.

Witchcraft or what, there’s no denying it... no matter how much he’d like to tell you that you’re being so perverted... that it just doesn’t feel good... he can’t because it does. It feels so good. Your fingers... and then the plug... it just fills him up so right and there’s no hiding it when the pleasure is written all over his face. He wants it so badly. He wants you so badly. After a few more breaths, he braces himself and nods willingly for you to resume.

“Such a good boy for me…” You squeeze his rear once more, your touch delicate. “Weird but good, right?” you ask him teasingly, running your hands through his hair.

He glances back at you with this desperate look in his eyes, like he knows you know what he wants to say, and he’s too ashamed to admit it outright but it feels so right, even if it feels so wrong at the same time.

“Speak up, puppy,” you say harshly, spanking him suddenly on the behind. His back arches as he yelps loudly, lips quivering as his fingertips helplessly grasp the futon beneath him. His body burns where your hand left abrasions on his skin but leaves him tingling with desire. “Look, now you’re my good little puppy,” you tease him, kneading the soreness away once more before playfully tugging on the tail now suspended between his legs from the butt plug. You pull lightly, but the plug remains firmly lodged inside of him; one final try and it escapes him with a wet pop, slick and sticky with lube still.

Your fingers wrap around him from behind. The sweet caress of your hand against where he’s most sensitive makes his mouth part in a breathless plea as you rub the tip, coaxing your name to fall from his lips with each agonizingly slow stroke. “A-ah… h-ha...” he whimpers, breath hitching in his throat each time you stop and tease him. When you quicken your pace abruptly without warning, your hand moving hard and fast, he falls over onto his forearms with a sharp gasp, shallowly panting as the sound of slapping skin fills the air. “Uh--!” The searing heat, the friction of your hand on his shaft, makes him cry out in pleasure and pain. Still, you show no signs of stopping. “P-p-please--!” he begs you for more, a sweating, stuttering mess as droplets of precum collect on your hand, that pearlescent liquid dripping from the slick head onto the mat below.

“Use your words,” you warn him, slowing down again. His eyes are filled with panic as if he’s afraid you’re about to stop completely. His hand grips your wrist tightly, urging you with fervent need in his eyes to handle him again.

“I’m so close…” he chokes out helplessly. Teardrops are forming in the corners of his eyes. His eyes are now darkened with despair. He wants - he needs - he craves - your touch.

His lips are quivering. Lustful, puckered lips pouting, trembling, reddened from biting back moans. His voice is faltering. Falling apart at your fingertips. Fumbling for the syllables, for the words, for the sentence that will convince you to finish him off. With bated breath, he begs you, “Don’t stop yet…”

Your lips curl upward in a knowing smile, your eyebrow raised cynically. “You didn’t say please,” you whisper, letting go of him. He latches onto your arm firmly. But it’s no use, is it? You’ve already made up your mind.

“Wait--come back!” he blurts out impatiently with a frustrated huff as you begin to get up. “I--... need you.” It’s not until he’s said the words that he realizes he’s made yet another mistake. His eyes widen as you stop in your tracks and turn to face him once more, tilting his chin up so that he’s looking into your eyes. His gaze wavers just slightly as he reconsiders his behavior.

“Talking back?” you ask him with a dramatized gasp. “There’s that naughty little puppy I know,” you scold him, clicking your tongue teasingly once more. “Don’t you know? Bad boys ought to be punished.”

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

@lazarustrashpit @ikesenhell @caitea-ward @mexicancarolina @uesugi-akechi-please @kyyshi​ @jennacat84 @spicy-porcupine Thank you for encouraging me to write this fic~ It started out as Yuki in knee socks with wolf ears and a tail and y’all encouraged my imagination to run wild from there by throwing in your own ideas with mine! And @mythiica ... thank you for supporting me endlessly these past few weeks, for beta reading this fic, and for helping me get out of my own head

Also tagging @paulieshore and @ceres-zephyr as promised! Thank for reading my fics~ I hope you enjoy!!

If you would like to be tagged in the next fic, please let me know! Also, please specify if you’d prefer to be tagged in NSFW fics, SFW fics, or both!

[devil-kindred]

The First Meeting

Pairing: Jade Morgan/Sam Porter Bridges

Warning(s): minor character death(s), implied/referenced suicide, suicide mention

Summary: Jade Morgan is assigned as an assistant for Sam following a tragic event in her past. Neither of them are exactly receptive to the idea but they'll make do, and perhaps, somewhere down the line, a friendship will bloom. A friendship that might become something more... if they let it. 

WC: 1,958⎟1/1 ⎟part one of the ‘connection’ series⎟find it on ao3

*please heed the warnings. content is minimal but I don’t want anyone to read something that might upset them*

Sam steps off the elevator with a breath of relief, wanting nothing more after the last delivery than to rest up in his private room and be left alone. He makes his way down the hall and enters the doorway expecting the room to be empty... but finds a woman standing inside instead. He can't tell much about her or why she's there in the first place. Only that she's small, wearing standard issue Bridges clothing that hangs loose on her body, and that she has light brown hair. Something about her posture seems... odd and were he feeling sociable, he'd ask if she were okay. Instead, he speaks up to get her attention and, hopefully, to get her out of the room.

“Private room.”

The girl turns with such rapid speed that she sends the end of her loose ponytail flying over her shoulder to smack her in the face. She pays little mind, merely moves her hair out of her face and stares wide-eyed with her emerald gaze fixated on him in a mix of both relief and wariness.

“Means it’s private.” Sam strides past the woman, unhooking BB and placing it in the built-in holder on the shelf. “How’d you get in here anyway?”

“Die-Hardman let me in.” She says cautiously, gaze darting from him to BB to the door and back again. “He thought you’d be here already, I guess.”

“Who’re you?”

“Oh, right.” She claps her hands together, then fiddles with her ponytail. “Jade Morgan. I’d, uh, offer to shake hands but I’ve been warned that you’re not a fan of physical contact.”

“You gonna explain why you’re here?”

“I’ve been assigned to you as your assistant.” When Sam stares blankly, Jade rushes on. “You still get all the credit for the deliveries, of course. As well as picking what jobs you take on. I’m just here to accompany you and assist with any and all deliveries.”

“I don’t need an assistant.”

“Should you come across any lost cargo you want to deliver but are unable to carry, I’ll be there to handle it for you and to also offer assistance with terrain traversal.” Her gaze flicks up to his, then rapidly away again. “I... am aware the situation is less than ideal, but given that I have no way of telling Bridges no... this is what I have to do.”

“What, they don’t trust you on your own?”

“It’s more like I don’t… do well. Alone. Haven’t for a long time, but that’s a long story.” She rocks back on her heels, gaze flicking again to BB’s pod⏤ where the baby stares with a quizzical expression. “That being said, I’ll get out of your room. Given that, you know, it’s your private room.” She laughs nervously, rubbing a hand over her forehead. “Of course you know that. I’ll just be right outside whenever you’re ready to go.”

Just as she reaches the door, it slides open and Die-Hardman walks in.

“Sam, I see you’ve met Morgan.”

“I was just leaving, Mr. Hardman.”

“So soon?” he questions, standing just inside the doorway. “I assume Morgan has told you of her assignment?”

“She did.” Sam answers gruffly, his hands on the buckles of his suit. “Don’t need an assistant.”

“Sam⏤”

“If I gotta take her along, then fine. Need some time to myself though.”

“Very well. Morgan and I will leave you to it. Come find her at the package terminal when you’re ready.” Hardman turns his gaze to Jade and inclines his head. “Morgan, get ready and head to the terminal.”

“Yes, sir.” She exits the room, slipping past Die-Hardman and disappearing from view.

“Thought she didn’t do well alone?”

“She doesn’t. Hence why she’s working with you.” He turns and steps out the door, leaving Sam with these parting words. “Thought you should see for yourself, if you’re going to utilize her and help restore Bridges. Head to the terminal whenever you’re ready. She’ll be waiting.”

-

“Guess we better head out, BB.” After taking a short rest, Sam suits up again and heads for the elevator⏤ plugging in BB on the ascent. “Time to see what all Hardman’s fuss was about.”

The elevator ascends with a mechanical whir and when it breaches the top level, Sam is wholly unprepared for what he finds. Jade Morgan looking deathly pale, trembling, and looking as if she’ll pass out any moment as she paces a short path just beyond the terminal.

“Hey.”

Jade jumps at the sound of his voice before dashing back to the terminal, stopping just short of Sam. 

“Give me a few minutes to pick up the jobs. Then we’ll head out.”

She nods and he watches from the edge of his gaze, noting that his proximity seems to ease her symptoms. Color returns to her face, the trembling subsides, and she begins to look as much at ease as anyone in the post-stranding world can be. Strange, but he doesn’t think too much on it. Just assumes that must be what Die-Hardman had been talking about and moves on. After gathering and arranging the packages for his loadout, he turns to Jade.

“Let’s get a move on.”

“Right.” She follows closely behind him as they exit the processing center.

-

“Hardman said you don’t do well alone.”

“No.”

“Said it was a long story.”

“It is.” A gentle sigh as she takes a lost parcel from Sam to help manage the weight. “It’s not a happy story either… but I guess we have nothing but time between now and the way station. If you’re interested.”

“Doesn’t matter much to me.” He readjusts his rig and stands. “You wanna tell me about, you can. Like you said, nothing but time.”

Sam and Jade continue onwards in relative silence, slogging through rivers and crossing rocky terrain, with Jade dashing away to grab lost packages as he sights them. BB stays quiet and little happens along their journey as they slowly make their way further and further from Central Knot City. It’s around the half-way point, however, that Jade finally breaks the silence.

“DOOMS level three.”

“Huh?”

“The reason I don’t do well alone. Well, part of it anyways.”  She pauses as they survey the next body of water, scanning the shoreline for the best way across. “I… I was part of a Medical team about four years ago. We were on our way to a way station quite a good distance out and on a rather short time-limit. There were five of us. Three men, two women.”

“C’mon.” He says as he beckons her further downriver. “I take it something went wrong?”

“Yes.” She picks her way carefully along the shore, doing her best to mirror his movements. “Problem was, we were up in the cliffs with no discernible way down that would get us were we needed to be. So, given that we were on a time-limit and most of the team was getting apprehensive about completing it on time, I had the bright idea to try and find a shortcut.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Ideally, no.”

“So what happened?”

“… I found us a shortcut, but I misjudged the distance. If I’d been thinking I would’ve used climbing gear, but I was so desperate to find us a solution that I just went for it.” She waits as Sam wades into the water, following shortly after. “The shortcut required us to navigate the outcroppings going down the side of the cliff and, as you can probably guess, they were farther away than I thought. I got hurt. Badly.”

“Porters get hurt all the time. Fall damage is more common than people think. You misjudge distance, try to go down a slope to fast, run outta rope, and so on. Not to mention BTs.”

She flinches and it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You had a run-in with a bunch of BTs.”

“No,” she says softly. “Not me.”

There’s another brief stretch of silence as she grabs another two parcels and Sam doesn’t push her further on her story. It isn’t until they reach a cliffside that she resumes her tale.

“Like I said, I got hurt. I wasn’t going to be able to continue on with team without resting up for a while. Most of the team wanted to push on ahead even though I couldn’t continue on. May, the other woman on the team, offered to stay behind since the rest of them wanted to go on to complete the delivery.” Jade’s voice is tinged with sorrow as they trek onwards, steep terrain looming in the distance just past another cliffside. “So, May stayed behind with me and the rest pushed on. Their names were Nick, Dan, and Luke. They were almost to the way station, could see it from where they were looming above them in the distance. They were so close.”

“They didn’t make it.”

“No. They… got caught in timefall as they were scaling the cliff. Luke tried to run when the BTs appeared and fell down the cliffs. Nick tried to grab him and fell over with him… and Dan… was killed by the BTs.” Her voice breaks, but she continues. “Dan was May’s boyfriend. She lugged me back to the city after the rest of the team took off⏤ figured the closer we were the sooner I’d be able to heal up and we could get back to work. We didn’t find out what had happened to the rest of the team until days later when a report was filed on the missing cargo and they questioned May on what had happened.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” she laughs, bitterly. “that about sums it up. She quit taking jobs for a while and I was out of commission until I healed up. A few months passed and I get a job request with the stipulation that May also be on the delivery run. In the end… I handed the package over to another porter who completed the delivery for me.”

“That’s it? What about May?”

“The reason another porter ended up with the parcel… is because May set me up. She blamed me for everything that happened. Took me out to the middle of nowhere and pulled a gun. I thought she was going to shoot me… but she did something worse. She said that I was the reason our team died and that I should have to suffer the way Dan did.” She looks down, gaze firmly set on the rocks at their feet. “She killed herself. We were nowhere near an incinerator and I didn’t have any way to dispose of her remains⏤ not that I had enough capacity at the time to do so to begin with. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t cremate her and I was out there all alone… BTs started closing in after that and I… left. I left her there. I didn’t want to. I just couldn’t do anything. … and that’s why I don’t do well alone. DOOMS gave me autophobia and then everything with May… I can’t do jobs on my own. Which is why I was assigned to you and that’s why I can’t say no to Bridges when they give me orders.”

“⏤as wrong.”

“What?”

“That girl was wrong.” Sam answers gruffly, thunking a ladder against the cliffside. “Not your fault they got caught in the timefall. You didn’t tell them to push on. They wanted to go on. They made the choice. Timefall and BTs were just bad luck.” He turns to face her, one hand on the ladder. “You’re stuck with me now. C’mon, we’ve got work to do.” 

Jade climbs the ladder after him, his words soothing the turmoil in her mind… if only a little.

[likethetailofacomet]

Stuck on Band-Aid Brand

A/N: moving right along through the #ChaosQueen’s wip word challenges. this one made me giggle. and it’s cute. for once I am posting fluff on a friday instead of hurting drake and claire or infecting the es crew with zombieism. mark this day on the calendar. anywho, enjoy this bit if silliness. you especially, @sleepwalkingelite.

Pairings: Ben x Rachael, Seth x Emma

Word Count: 2,540

Prompt: from @ooo-barff-ooo

Rachael flopped down into the cushions. The long, rectangular couch was askew, diagonally placed in her new living room, surrounded by boxes and other pieces of furniture. Seth and Emma had just left after helping her haul all of her stuff up into the freight elevator. Emma had, much to her relief, finished filming the running scenes for Finisher: The Katherine Switzer Story, so she was no longer sore and stiff with every step she took, and instead was using her new muscles to try to out-do Seth for who could carry more boxes.

“You kidding me, Iowa? No contest!” Seth scoffed, bending at the knees to lift the box marked “Dishes”.

“We’ll see who’s kidding when I beat you up the stairs with this,” she cocked an eyebrow at him challengingly and bent to lift a box marked “Towels” before taking off, her long legs turning over quickly as she headed for the stairwell.

Seth chuckled as he watched her go, her ponytail swinging in the sunshine. “You have no intention of racing her, do you?” Rachael asked with an amused quirk of her lips, slinging two duffle bags over her shoulders and grabbing a plastic crate containing two houseplants.

“None at all,” he said with a grin as he winked at her and headed towards the front door of her new building. He adjusted the box in his arms and opened the door for her and the two of them grabbed an elevator to the tenth floor. “So,” Seth turned to her once the large brass doors had slid closed and the lights started dinging off the floors they passed. “Excited?” he asked, knowing that she was.

A genuine smile lit up her whole face as she nodded enthusiastically. “You have no idea,” she answered, although she knew that he did have some idea. She and Emma had been friends since college, meaning that Seth, even though he’d only met her in person about two years ago, knew quite a lot about the woman standing next to him. He knew that it had been her dream to move to the Golden State for years. She loved the sunshine and the temperature, loved the beach and the breeze, had favorite restaurants and bars from the dozen or so times that she had visited. He knew that recently she’d had even more of a reason to want to make the move.

She and Ben had been keeping up with a long distance relationship ever since the night of the Golden Globes when they'd made things official inside the pillow fort she'd insisted that they erect. It had been hard, especially since Rachael quickly put the kibosh on his weekly flights back and forth to see her while he was filming in Europe- “It’s just a huge waste of money, Ben, normal people don’t fly across the Atlantic once a week to get coffee,” she’d told him, delicately of course as she knew he was just happy to get the chance to spend time with her. She was too, but she hated the idea of them needing to be so extravagant just to make their relationship work. “We can do this, really do this, I mean,” she’d told him at the airport after their week together during awards season. She was heading back home to Ohio and he was staying put to start work on his next role, and they were both a little nervous about not knowing when they’d see one another again, especially as things were still so new.

“How can you be so sure?” He’d asked her, a faint hint of sadness in his usually cheerful voice. He had his arm around her as they sat in one of the hard backed benches at the airport, waiting for her flight to be called.

Rachael smiled at him and brushed her fingertips across his forehead, sweeping some hair out of his onyx eyes. It had grown long again, like she loved, and she hated not knowing when she’d get to run her hands through it again, but she knew that she would and that’s what she was choosing to focus on. She kissed the tip of his nose and as she leaned back to speak she saw the way his smile made his nose crinkle and that tiny little involuntary reaction made her certain of her next words. “I can be so sure,” she began, dropping her hand to his knee, “because I know there’s no way I’m letting you go, and I know you’re not a quitter. I trust you, and I know myself, and,” she shrugged, a smile on her lips despite the missing him that had already settled in her heart, “and I just... some things you just know, Ben, and this is one of those things.”

He tilted his head to the side. The smile started in his eyes but quickly spread to the rest of his face. “You’re right. I’m not a quitter. And even if I was,” he leaned his forehead against hers, “I’d have to be a quitter AND a fool to quit on you. I,” he was interrupted by the overhead announcement calling her flight, and he sighed, standing and extending his hand to help her up. “That’s you, love.” He’d walked her as far as he could and left her with a sweet, slow kiss that she’d feel on her lips for days. “Have a safe flight, call me as soon as you land…I miss you already.” She’d boarded the plane without looking back because to do so would have been to sabotage the plan, would have sent her right back to his arms, and she needed the plan to work.

The plan being kicking some ass at her current job to beef up her resume enough to go and snag that dream job of hers. She needed a reason to move to California that wasn’t Ben, and for that she needed this job. She’d been secretly wanting and wishing for it for years, only letting Emma know how badly she really wanted it, and exactly 4 months to the day from the last time she saw him, she got to call him with the news that she was going to be the new Director of Marketing for the L.A. Angels, and would need to move to Los Angeles ASAP. It had been a rough couple of months for both of them, despite Rachael’s insistence that a little struggle up front would strengthen them in the long run, and despite Ben agreeing, being apart from the only one you wanted to see every day was tough. But now, for at least most of the year, they'd be in the same city, and she couldn’t have been happier to have all of the pieces of her life fall into place. Dream job, check. Dream Guy, check. Living in the same town as her best friend, check.

It was now roughly 7pm and they'd started moving at 9 that morning. She marveled at how much stuff she actually had. Nothing like a cross country move to prove to yourself that you need to purge your t- shirt collection, she thought, although at the same time she knew that those t- shirts were precious mementos from road trips and concerts, baseball games and other events, and she'd never really part with them. The sun was setting outside her window but the air coming in was still warm- ah, she thought, California living at last. She smiled as she remembered his text from that morning, apologizing for not being able to help with the move due to his shooting schedule, but assuring her that he'd be there as soon as he could to celebrate and help her feel more at home. He’d asked her to call him once Seth and Emma had cleared out, promising that he’d answer if he could. She was exhausted and hungry and verging on cranky, but she knew that would all disappear as soon as she heard his voice. She dialed his number hoping beyond hope that he’d be able to answer, and on the third ring she got her wish. Sort of.

“He-“ he sucked in a breath that sounded painful, “Hello? Rach?”

She sat up fully alert at the tone of his voice. “Ben? What’s wrong?”

A halfhearted chuckle came through the speaker and then another wincing sound. “Sorry, can’t really talk right now, love. Had a little mishap on set, getting bandaged up as we speak. But- ah- I’m through for the day, so I’ll be leaving here as soon as this is done and I’ll come right over.”

They’d ended the call but it hadn’t made her feel any better. From what she had heard from him about this new project, he was doing a handful of his own stunt work which had made her nervous, and now it seemed she had good reason. She suddenly got a second wind from the adrenaline of worrying, so she tried to keep busy with unpacking until she heard from him again or until he showed up, but it was no use. She couldn’t stop wondering what had happened and how bad it was. Haven’t seen him in four months and the day I get here he’s hurt. What kind of luck is that? She paced around with her phone in her hand texting Emma to ask all manner of questions about what could go wrong on set, what kind of injury it could be, and just looking for some comfort. I’m sure it’s nothing too bad, Rach, he was on set not at the hospital, right?

Rachael groaned. She hadn’t even thought about the possibility of him needing to go to the hospital. HOSPITAL???? No, on set…I THINK!?! OMG. She responded. She was just about to try to call him again when there was a buzz from her intercom telling her that there was someone at the door. She practically flew to the speaker to answer it, catching her foot on a box and stumbling noisily, letting out an audible, “Ouch! Damnit!” She hopped back to balance and pressed the button to let him in, tapping her leg nervously until he reached her floor and she head a knock. When she did, her fingers flew to unlock the bolts and she flung the door open, eyes wide and breath held. “Ben!” she gasped as he entered and her eyes roved all over him. She grabbed his hand and lifted his arm, turning it over to look for any sign of injury but, confusingly, not seeing anything. No cast, no visible stiches, he wasn’t in a sling. “Ben,” she said again, this time a little less frantically, “what happened? Are you…you said you were hurt…” she wrapped her arms around his waist carefully, not wanting to squeeze too tight in case there was something she was missing.

He smiled down at her and reached behind him to capture her hands in both of his. “Hey, calm down, love, it’s alright. I told you it was a minor mishap,” he said soothingly before he bent down to kiss her, and she momentarily forgot how worried she’d been, completely enraptured by the kiss she’d been missing. When they broke apart he ran his hands up and down her arms. His dark eyes looked tired from a long day but they twinkled when he looked at her and she couldn’t help but feel a pleasant shiver run through her to see that look in his eyes. “God, I missed you,” he said softly.

“I missed you too,” she said dreamily, almost in disbelief that he was there and she had moved and this wasn’t just a quick visit but an everyday possibility. But she shook her head, remembering the painful hiss she’d heard from him on the phone. “But what happened? I was worried, you sounded…” she bit her lip. “It sounded like you were in pain and…”

He made a sheepish face, cheeks pulling up and causing the corners of his eyes to crinkle as he shrugged one shoulder and let go of her hands. “Well,” he held up the arm that she hadn’t inspected, and for a second she still didn’t quite understand. There were no bruises, no scratches, nothing. “I told you it was minor,” he said as her eyes finally found the 2” x 2” adhesive square covering his elbow. “It really…” he looked away, almost embarrassed, “it was really silly, actually. I uh…well, there’s no way to say this and come off looking cool, but I tripped and fell and scraped up my elbow, and…Rach can you say something?”

Her eyes went wide. “THAT?” She gaped at him, blinking, and grabbed his arm to look closer. She fixed him with a look, eyes squinted and lips pressed together.

“Yes?” he grimaced realizing far too late that he’d caused her to worry far too much.

“Benjamin Thomas Barnes!” She pulled back from him and her nostrils flared. “THAT!” she pointed at his elbow, “is a BAND-AID! You said bandage and I thought…”

“I know…I’m just now seeing my poor word choice…but,” he ventured a smile, “in all fairness, Band-Aid is a brand. They are technically called bandages…even the box says-“

“I DON’T CARE WHAT THE BOX SAYS!”

“Darling, I haven’t seen you in way too long…” he watched as she visibly softened at the word darling, some of the steam coming from her ears dissipating, and was glad that at least this time he’d chosen the right word. “I’d rather not be screamed at for a piece of sticky plastic if it’s all the same to you.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Well,” she said, clearly trying to stay mad but clearly failing, “well, I’d rather I didn’t spend the last hour and a half panicking,” she said, scrolling through her texts with Emma to show him. She shook her head as a small laugh finally fell from her lips. “But really…I’m just glad you’re okay. And you’re here.” She wrapped her arms around him again and this time didn’t hold back on the squeeze. She felt his arms come around her, too, feeling a bit bulkier than their last hug. That stunt work and the subsequent necessary workout regimen was certainly working out for him.

“Me too,” he sighed into her hair. “I’m so glad you’re here, and you’re here to stay.” His face was still pressed into her hair and she could feel him smile as he spoke. “And you’re mine.”

“I sure am,” she said before pulling away to look up at her. “And as such, I’m gonna need you to comply and call these,” she pointed at his elbow, “Band-aids from now on, you know, to avoid giving me a heart attack again. Deal?”

“Deal, but only because it’s you.” He grinned, his white teeth flashing and that mischievous look in his eye that could only mean one thing. “But I bet our friends would agree with me.”

Rachael rolled her eyes. “Seth. You mean Seth. Seth will agree with anything if he thinks it’s a) funny or b) funny. So, yeah, safe to say you’re right. But we’ll test that theory tomorrow, huh? Tonight I’d rather just…” she sighed and trailed off.

“Yeah,” he said, that smile back and growing, “Me too.”

. . . . .

Tags: @sleepwalkingelite @ooo-barff-ooo @zaffrenotes @brightpinkpeppercorn @kellypenac

[fourteenacross]

OKay, so what is the backstory of the drowning story?

Haha, whenever people ask for the backstory that I allude to in tags, I always feel guilty, like I’m cheating you out of a full story, even though I know for a fact I’ll never write it.

(Also, this is how shit like the ghosthunters happens--imagine this post, but each of the major events outlined in it is a full fic. That is what happened with the ghosthunters.)

I got another commentary request that I might tackle tomorrow, as I spent most of today running errands and cleaning and then typing this up /o\

As a refresher, this is what we’re talking about, here.

So a lot of it is just want Alex laid out in that story–Alex came to America and didn’t know a single other person. There’s no Ned leading the way in this world, it’s just Alex alone in New York. John is his assigned roommate and pretty quickly figures out that Alex doesn’t know anyone in New York at all and doesn’t really seem to have any family. But he likes Alex immediately, so he makes it his secret duty to look out for Alex during the first few months at Columbia and make sure he isn’t lonely or lost or overwhelmed.

They become practically inseparable in about five minutes flat and spend the first semester doing everything together and going everywhere together. It’s too much of a hassle for John to go home for Thanksgiving, so they stay in the dorms and have their own little Friendsgiving with other friends who can’t get home for whatever reason. And when the semester break rolls around and John realizes that Alex doesn’t have anywhere to go, he calls his dad and begs for him to allow Alex to come spend the break with him.

(This is the first, “You know, if he’s your boyfriend, you can just say so” conversation of many.)

Alex resists initially, especially when he finds out that the Laurenses haven’t done Christmas at home since John’s brother died, and instead rent a house in Colorado and go skiing, which is all too bougie for Alex to even contemplate, but John is persuasive and it’s easier to give in than to deal with both John’s puppy dog eyes AND the puppy dog eyes of all their friends when they find out Alex doesn’t have any plans for the break.

So they go out to Colorado after the semester ends and Alex meets John’s family and the Mannings and deals with “Oooo, is this your ~*~boyfriend~*~?” from both Martha Laurens and Mattie Manning, which John shuts up immediately because after spending a crazy couple days traveling with Alex, he’s starting to realize that his absent oh hey my roommate is cute has turned into a tiny little crush that he’s sure he’ll get over soon, but Mattie knows him better than anyone and keeps giving him these looks.

Christmas is much less awkward than Alex had feared it would be, knowing that John’s father is a somewhat conservative Congressman, (though it could be worse, he could be a Republican instead of an Independent) but they end up having a lot of really good conversations about economics and law and the direction of the government. John’s siblings are all pretty cool and the Mannings are funny and kind and Mattie has a million weird stories about John. On New Year’s Eve, John kisses him on the cheek and he blames his flush on the champagne, even though he’s self-aware enough to know that he’s kind of been nursing a tiny crush on John, probably just because he’s sweet and gorgeous and smart and rich.

After New Year’s, Alex flies back to New York instead of to South Carolina for the last two weeks of their break–he’s imposed on the Laurens family enough. But those last two weeks are boring as hell. He reads his books for the next semester and gets into fights on Twitter and texts John nonstop and doesn’t really pause to wonder why he’s so twitchy and weird on his own, when he used to revel in it.

They go through the next four years in roughly the same way. As John says in the story, he starts to think over the summer between freshman and sophomore year that his feelings might be more than a crush and then in the fall, a few weeks into the start of sophomore year, Alex gets pneumonia. It hits him hard–he’s in bed and delirious for a few days, running a crazy fever, and even once his fever breaks he’s so exhausted he can hardly stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. John takes care of him, helps him sit up and eat and shower, fetches prescriptions for him, collections his work from his professors. He’s happy to do it, even, happy to cancel his social plans to stay in and bundle Alex up in blankets and watch Netflix with him until he falls asleep.

So John’s got these feelings happening, but Alex is oblivious. He starts dating Eliza in the fall and John can’t begrudge him that. John hasn’t figured out how to say anything to Alex and if he even should, and Eliza is really sweet and funny and John genuinely likes spending time with her. It helps that she’s also very aware of how important John and Alex are to each other and doesn’t try to stop or change that–she invites John places with them and understands that Alex and John have certain traditions and things that she doesn’t try and interfere with.

And then, about eighteen months later in the second half of their junior year, when John has just about resigned himself to being a happy best man at Alex and Eliza’s wedding, there start to be these whispers that Alex is up to something, that there’s something ~*~untoward~*~ happening with one of his TAs. John doesn’t believe them at first–Alex is always either with John, with Eliza, in class, or with one of his professors. But then, a couple of weeks later, John gets out of class to find that Alex has posted a ridiculously long piece on his blog refuting claims that he’d been passing his TA James Reynolds money to change grades, when really he had been sleeping with Reynolds’ girlfriend and paying him off to keep him from telling everyone.

Eliza is heartbroken and angry and miserable, John is heartbroken and miserable, and Alex just doesn’t understand how he could let this get out of hand so badly–he had finally gotten everything in his life to the point where he was happy and successful and optimistic about his future and he had to go and fuck it up and now no one is speaking to him at all.

Except John.

Which, John’s got his own conflicted shit going on. He’s pissed as hell at Alex, but he’s still Alex, and he’s so sad and John promised him he’s always be there for him and…it’s not like, the worst thing anyone has ever done. He low-key feels like he’s betraying Eliza by sticking by Alex, but Eliza promises him when he takes her out for a drink a couple weeks after the whole fiasco that she’s not holding it against him and she wouldn’t expect him to drop Alex and she’s never totally understood their relationship, but she knows it’s not the sort of thing you can really walk away from.

Alex spends most of the summer alone in the city at an internship and he spends the last couple weeks in South Carolina with John and his family, who don’t know what happened and don’t ask any questions. It’s a nice reprieve before going back to school for senior year, where he’s still kind of a social pariah. The first half of the year is a lot like the first half of freshman year–Alex and John spend all their time alone together. At this point, they’ve both caught feelings, though they still think they’re alone in that, so it’s not as depressing as it may have been otherwise. A little before Christmas break, when John texts Eliza to see when she’s free to get a coffee and exchange Christmas presents, she surprises him by inviting him and Alex both to her Christmas party. That sort of smooths things over and paves the way for people to accept Alex again. He starts getting invited places when school resumes in January and things slowly slide back into normal as the anxiety of graduation and the nostalgia of earlier years starts to sneak up on folks.

Alex and John are both accepted into the same law school, so it makes sense for them to get an apartment together. Their college friends are sort of scattered–Eliza’s back to Albany, Laf is back in France, Herc is all over the place, so they’re back to just the two of them again. Alex starts dating around a little, and John would like to do that to get his mind off of being around Alex all the time, but he’s out of his mind miserable in law school. Exhausted all the time, stressed beyond belief, anxiety attacks, can’t focus, etc. After pushing through his first year barely able to get out of bed by the end of it, Alex quietly suggests that he maybe…he should take a break? He asks John what he’s going to law school to accomplish and John admits he’s just going because it’s what his father wanted for him. Alex tells him that’s not really a good enough reason.

So John spends the summer soul searching and at the end of it, he tells his father he’s dropping out of law school. Things are tense, but Alex stands by him through it and helps him figure out what he does want to do, at least for the time being. Henry is in a slightly better mood by Christmas, and he and John mutually agree to stop arguing over it, making a much more relaxed Christmas for all. Alex has to read through most of it to keep up with his classes and some extra stuff he’s taken on, but John sits with him whenever he’s not doing family things or out skiing. He kisses Alex on the cheek on New Year’s for the fifth year in a row, and for at least the fourth year in a row, he curses himself for not having the guts to kiss him on the mouth.

They zip through the next few years like that. Alex nearly makes himself sick working through 2L and 3L, racking up internship hours and winning clerkships. He has one disastrous relationship with a dude who wants everything to stay casual because he’s not out to all his social circle and it ends with Alex discovering he had a girlfriend the whole time and denies ever having met Alex, let alone dating him, when confronted. (Alex sends flowers and a bottle of wine to Eliza after that, and she only figures out the connection after asking John if there was a reason for it.)

John tries on several different jobs for size, mostly living off his trustfund as he tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life. He goes on a lot of first dates and a very small number of second dates. He starts doing freelance design and illustration as a way to feel like he’s bringing some kind of money in and ends up really liking it, in conjunction with some part-time volunteer work at the first organization he worked at after he quit law school. He spends most of his free time home, though, because when Alex has a free night or weekend, he usually just wants to stay in the house where it’s quiet and watch movies.

Alex passes the bar and gets a job that he hates. He’s stubborn and tries to stick it out, but he ends up getting laid off right before Christmas. It’s a blessing in disguise, but it feels like not only a failure, but the first academic/professional failure he’s ever had. He almost doesn’t come to Colorado, he’s so depressed, but John forces him and even though he spends the whole trip moping, it kind of feels good to mope around these people who are sort of almost his family now. Everyone is super sympathetic. John’s father is outraged on his behalf and offers to pull some strings and get him another job, but Alex refuses. Just knowing that Henry would do that for him--especially after those first few years of not even being sure Henry liked him all that much--makes him feel pretty good. (He still doesn’t 100% forgive him for how shitty he was to John over his grades and quitting law school and how much pressure he puts on him, but he’s pretty good at compartmentalizing.)

It doesn’t take him long to find another job, though, thanks to his old mentor reaching out to wish him a Merry Christmas and ask if he wants to get a cup of coffee in the new year. And, you know, things are great after that--he loves his new job, he’s doing good work, he’s getting paid really well, John is happy and working, they love their apartment, they have a great social circle...the only thing missing is that he still hasn’t worked up the nerve to tell John how he feels. At this point, it’s been years--he’s used to it.

John, too, feels like being stupid in love with Alex from the sidelines is just how life is, now. And life is good, so why mess with that? Even though every time he kisses Alex on the cheek or falls asleep with his head on Alex’s shoulder or finds himself relaying a dumb cute thing that Alex did to his father or siblings and then immediately following it up with a reminder that he and Alex definitely aren’t dating, he feels that sad tug in his chest.

And then it’s another Christmas, another trip to Colorado, another year of promising his family that Alex isn’t his boyfriend and sharing a room and being hyperaware of the fact that the only non-Laurens and -Manning attendees of these Christmases are people’s significant others. When Christmas morning rolls around, they all gather together to eat breakfast, waiting on Martha’s boyfriend to arrive so they can exchange gifts. Mattie’s brother Fred suggests an impromptu game of ice hockey to kill time while waiting and John figures, why not? What’s the worst that could happen?

[yourlocalyorozuya]

If you could get your wish granted one day...?

Pairing: Soraru/Mafumafu

Rating: M+ SUPER HOT OH LORD

A03 Link

[[STORY UNDER CUT OH LOOOORD]]

If you could get your wish granted one day, what price would you be willing to pay?

An Utaite fanfiction

I wish it was still April Fools.

...

Yes this is an April Fool's fic. "10 days late?" You're asking me?

Friend, time is an illusion, death is upon us and my uploading schedule is the real joke of this entire fic. It was actually supposed to be me uploading 2 fics in one day but this works too tbh

Anyway, if you're still here, might as well deliver!

If you could get your wish granted one day, what price would you be willing to pay?

An Utaite fanfiction

“This is terrible!” 

“What?” 

“Terrible!” Mafumafu says, “The title is so long, it can barely even be crammed into the post title!” 

“Don’t you mean fanfiction title?” Soraru replies, frowning, “Then again, it depends on the site where it’s posted.”

“It’s still long either way! It’s so long, we had to cut it to cram it short in both! We made it into an awkward looking question!”

“It looks like something you’d ask for Truth or Dare.” Soraru concedes, “Then again, it’s not like this fic is going to be taken seriously. It’ll probably go for 3 notes/kudos/likes, like usual.” 

“Yeah. I mean no! Isn’t that bad?! Shouldn’t we try to entertain as many people as possible?? Isn’t the the whole point of a story in the first place?!”

“Of a TV show, maybe. I don’t know about books...or fanfictions...in any case, the M rating should be enough to draw more than 3 readers in, right?”

“Anyway, we can’t really do that with you acting like that!”

“...? What’s wrong with how I act?” 

“You have all the enthusiasm of burnt ashes! We can’t engage the audience like this!!”

“...??? Isn’t this how I usually sound though?” 

“That’ll appeal to the Soraru fangirls for sure, but we need to bring in as many people as possible! We can only get so many ikemen fans, you know!”

“Exactly how do you want me to act then?!”

“It’d be nice if I could get an ounce of emotion in there...and hasn’t this format gotten confusing?!”

“Why? What do you mean???”

“First of all, this is entirely dialogue-based and no-one can tell who’s even talking any more!” 

“Isn’t this how fanfictions are written though?”

“It’s too confusing!! Much too confusing! It’d be easier if we did-”

Mafumafu: Something like this! 

Soraru: Eh?

Mafumafu: The ever-popular radio format!

Soraru: Are we seriously doing the radio transcripts?! Isn’t this for something like sexting fics or something? 

Mafumafu: -puts hand on heart- What kind of fanfictions have you been reading Soraru-san?!

Soraru: You’re even putting your gestures in this format now?! Why has this become Hikikomoranai Radio all of a sudden??!

Mafumafu: It’s what we’re most known for!

Soraru: This and not the songs we’ve made?!

M: Anyway, we have an April Fools fanfiction to write in!

S: Our names are already being shortened, geez. Are they that hard to write?

M: Usually, when we do April Fools’, we have one thing we turn to.

M: So naturally, we’re going to be girls again!

S: Y’know that changing our icons to girl versions of ourselves and posting as girls isn’t really crossdressing right?

M: We sung as girls though!

S: That’s entirely different from crossdressing! 

M: We’ve crossdressed before!

S: You have, I haven’t!

M: I mean, I did but that’s entirely different!

S: How exactly is that different?!

M: I never said we were crossdressing, Soraru-san!

S: You said we’d be girls though?

M: Eheheee, I did! 

M: -holds up really strange looking rock-

S: Okay, I can see that thanks, we don’t need the gesture thing!

M: But our audience does Soraru-san.

S: Mrgh.

M: And don’t interrupt, please! Now, this is a magical stone!

M: And it transforms us into our inner selves!

S: ....

S: Mafumafu-kun, I’ve always had my doubts...

M: Eh? 

S: I’ve had my doubts...ever since we did that song. But...

M: Eh??? Why are you talking in keigo all of a sudden???

S: You really are a Chuuni aren’t you? 

M: EH? 

S: I’ve had my suspicions, but really it’s come to this!! How can I ever associate with someone who actually thinks he’s a ruler of darkness and will take over the world-

M: Soraru-san??

S: I...I alWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE JOKING IS THIS TRUE HOW

M: Soraru-san!

S: Yes? 

M: Y-you calmed down from that rant fast. And hey, listen to me first!

S: Fine, okay.

M: Look, this stone is a magical relic...stop making faces. 

S: Okay, okay.

M: And all we have to do is touch it and we transform into magical girls!

S: And I’m lost. 

M: Eh, that was a flawless explanation!

S: You said we...transform into our inner selves! How are our inner selves magical girls?? We’re boys!

M: Inside every person is a magical girl! Even boys!

S: The hell???

M: Just trust me and touuuuch it already! 

S: Geez okay, okay already!

M: Ready? Ah, Soraru-san, put your whole palm on it, not just a couple of fingers! That’s not enough!!

S: Do you even realize how that...-sigh- Fine.

M: Okay, now we’re transforming!

M: Please feel free to imagine any kind of transformation music that you want during the transition!

S: Like from PM**. 

M: Or from Ma*io!

S: Or even from the Ga*ette. Or One OK Ro*k.

M: Soraru-san, that last one was too obvious! We won’t be able to avoid copyright! This fic wil be taken down!! And then the author will be too lazy to upload it again!!!

S: Since when did this become Gin****?

S: And hey! Don’t we have songs of our own they can use!?

M: Oh, yeah. Good point.

S: In any case, just get on with it already!

M: Okay!

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

                                Magical transformation sequence!!

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

Mafumafu: By the power of the void, the darkest phase of the moon!

Mafu-oh: I am the lady of darkness and war! Mafuyu, the goddess of the moon at your call!

Mafuyu: ...

Mafuyu: Uwah, even my voice changed! This is so cool! Soraru-san!!

Mafuyu: ..? Soraru-san? 

Soraru-?: ...

Mafuyu: Ah, Soraru-san?! You’re a...prettier girl than I thought you would be! Wow! 

Soraru(?): ....

Mafuyu: Soraru-san? Is something wrong?

Soraru(??): ...ing.

Soraru(??): This is...embarrassing...

Mafuyu: Gasp!

Soraru(idk): ?!

Mafuyu: Even Soraru-san’s voice is cute! In fact it’s too cute! I’m almost creeped out by it!

Creep-aru: H-how cruel, Mafuyu-chan!

Mafuyu: MAFUYU-CHAN?!???? EH

Who are you and what have you done with Soraru: Please don’t make fun of me!

Mafuyu: ??!?!?!?? Soraru-san?

Nani the kuso-ru: Eh?

Mafuyu: Soraru...chan??

The f is happening-ru: What is it, Mafuyu-chan?

Mafuyu: Keigo again!? Also something really weird is happening to your name tags!!

-whistles innocently- Soraru(?): Ah..that. I-If Mafuyu-chan is having a cute name then I’d like a cute name too!

Soraru(?): Please call me Soraruko!  

Aight then, Soraruko: I’m um...i-it’s so embarrassing when I say it out loud!!

Mafuyu: Wh-

Mafuyu: Weird! Too weird!!

Soraruko: Eh?!

A Suddenly Shouting Mafuyu: WhY HAS SORARU-SAN TURNED INTO A TSUNDERE

Soraruko: Ma-Mafuyu-chan!?

Mafuyu: Not even a tsundere!! A Deredere?! Wh-this is too much of an attitude change!

Soraruko: Mafuyu-chan, please calm down! Your chair!! You’re going to fall out of your chair!!!

Mafuyu: Ah! 

-sound of loud objects-

R.I.P nerds.

Soraruko: H-hey! Don’t kill us off just yet!!

Damn.

Soraruko: You don’t want to write this that badly?! Ah!! Mafuyu-chan, are you okay?!

Mafuyu: Ah...is that you, god?

Soraruko: A-aaaaaah, Mafuyu-chan!! It’s too early to go up to heaven!! D-don’t go!

Mafuyu: Ah...are you an angel? Are they welcoming me into hell finally? 

Soraruko: Mafuyu-chan, that’s the wrong place!

Mafuyu: Eh, Soraruko? Wow...your hands are really soft?? 

Soraruko: Eh!?

Mafuyu: It’s kind..of...weird. 

Soraruko: Ma-Mafuyu-chan!

Mafuyu: See, Soraru-san would have immediately called me creepy or pushed me away! What is this?!

Soraruko: ...I-is that so?

Mafuyu: Eh?

Soraruko: I-is that your type after all, Mafuyu-chan?!

Mafuyu: EH 

Soraruko: I-I thought you were joking! Are you really a hardcore M?!

Mafuyu: I’m an S!

Soraruko: That’s the part that you take offence to?!

Mafuyu: Anyway, this is too weird! I’m going to leave and post some updates on twitter, okay?

Soraruko: W-wait, Mafuyu-chan!

-Hurried footsteps and the slam of a door-

Soraruko: Ahh, she left. I can’t do this all alone, Mafuyu-chan...

Soraruko: ....

Soraruko: So that’s her type huh...

Soraruko: If...that’s what it takes then-

You’re going to be an M? You??

Soraruko: Is that really so surprising? 

Well, yes? 

Soraruko: You’re the writer right? You should know exactly what I’m capable of. 

Soraruko: -polite smile-

...

So the april fools’ twist is that you’re a yandere? 

Soraruko: No, it’s this entire pointless fanfiction. 

Good point. 

Soraruko: ...You can end this now. 

Alright, alright, geez. 

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...

well yeah that’s it man 

sorry about this i’ll resume my attempt of quality uploads after this fic so if you’re a new reader i hope the cringe didnt scare you off

...

well they’re all probably gone by the halfway mark eh

so yeah, if you’re still here mad props to you friend

and thanks for reading my poor attempt at humor! 

See ya! :D

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[flauntpage]

The Puzzling Case of Marco Estrada

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

Over an 11-start span beginning with a nine-run shellacking in Texas in May of 2007, Roy Halladay pitched to a 6.35 ERA. Over that span he gave up 92 hits in 66.2 innings, while striking out just 37.

I still remember being at the third game of that stretch vividly. Halladay had given up nine in Texas, eight more (seven earned) in his next start against Boston, but seemed to have righted the ship, twirling seven innings of six-hit shutout ball against the White Sox. Then: kablammo! He imploded again, lasting just 3.1 innings against the Rays (then still called the Devil Rays), giving up eight runs (seven earned) again, surrendering 12 hits to just 23 batters faced.

Fans streamed to the exits, and I ended up sneaking down into preposterously good seats for the rest of the game—which was a huge stroke of luck, as the Jays came back to win with an incredible six-run ninth inning that ended with Tim Corcoran (the Rays' fourth pitcher of the frame) walking Aaron Hill with the bases loaded to score Matt Stairs as the winning run.

I wrote about the crazy win but also something else that happened that day: the fact that Halladay got booed.

Oh, I'm sure that those who did it would claim that they were just "booing the situation," sending a message to a manager with a slow hook, or some such nonsense, but I was there. I heard it. It happened. And it was about as vicious as I can remember hearing the crowd get toward Halladay—or, at the very least, the post-reinvention version of Halladay that had arrived five seasons prior, in 2002.

Joe Carter talks to VICE about his 1993 World Series walk-off homer

Halladay the great. Halladay, in the middle of what likely will be a Hall of Fame career. In the middle of his run of six straight top five Cy Young award finishes. Getting booed by his own fans. And, in a vacuum, based only on the way he pitched that day and in two of his previous three starts, probably even deserving it.

That strange stretch in the middle of his incredible career seems as inexplicable now as it did then. And just as quickly as it came, it went. Halladay resumed being Halladay, pitching to a 2.75 ERA over the final 14 starts of 2007, then winning 20 games and posting nearly 7 WAR the following season.

I've thought about this stretch and those boos more than a few times lately, as I've grappled—along with most Jays fans—with the way Marco Estrada's 2017 season has gone.

There aren't a lot of similarities between Estrada and Halladay. Marco doesn't have Doc's pedigree, his size, his fastball, or his lengthy track record of success. But until a couple weeks ago, few would have argued against the notion that he's been the Blue Jays' best and most consistent pitcher over the last three seasons. And then, just like the good doctor, inexplicably, he hit a trough.

Had there been as much publicly available data back then as there is now, maybe we could have diagnosed Halladay's struggles with more than a shrug of our shoulders. As for Estrada, while there aren't really any smoking guns to be found in the data, there are a few things we can see that might indicate where the problem is. And, unfortunately for Marco and for Jays fans, they all seem to revolve around his bread-and-butter pitch: his changeup.

Photo by Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

FanGraphs provides us with data for what they call "pitch values"—an advanced stat that, in their words, "attempts to answer the question, 'How well has a batter/pitcher performed against/using a certain pitch?'" You can read about the math involved here, if you really want to, but essentially what their calculations produce is a number that shows us how effective a particular pitch has been. And this all mostly passes the smell test, as in 2015 and 2016 Estrada's change up graded out as one of the most effective in the league—among qualified starters, at least. Last year, for example, only Kyle Hendricks and David Price got more total value out of their changeups, and even on a per-pitch basis, Estrada was in the top ten in the league.

The numbers for 2015 tell a very similar story. The ones for 2017 sure don't, though!

Estrada has had one of the least effective changeups so far this year, ranking 63rd in total value among the 70 qualified starters who've thrown the pitch. In the month of June, the "pitch value" of his changeup is dead last.

FanGraphs would be quick to caution here that these values aren't predictive, and don't say much about the actual quality of the pitch. They are simply "a reflection of what happened, not necessarily a method to explain why something happened." Still, the results are troubling, especially given how important the pitch is to Estrada, and how important Estrada is to the Jays. And we can see that he's well aware that the pitch has been a problem for him, as he threw his lowest percentage of changeups all season in his most recent start.

This gives us a place to start looking, and wondering. At Brooks Baseball, we can see tables and graphs of all kinds of data on Estrada's changeup, but it's not always easy to know what a whole lot of it means. For example, the first thing to jump out at me was the graph below of Estrada's horizontal release point. Here we're looking at where Estrada has released the ball, on the horizontal axis, since the beginning of the 2015 season. In his last few starts, beginning on May 17 against Texas, we see a subtle but quite noticeable shift.

Where he's been releasing the ball lately isn't too far off where he was at the end of the 2015 season, but it's quite different than last year or early on this year, and it coincides with the period where Estrada was most badly getting his ass handed to him.

Image via Brooks Baseball

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately!—the shift here doesn't coincide with much of a change in his vertical release point, which suggests that he's not changing his arm angle or suffering from fatigue or anything physical that might be causing the difference—it looks more like Estrada has made a slight move on the rubber toward first base.

Is that enough to have caused his changeup to have taken a huge step backward? There are surely better folks than I at interpreting this kind of stuff, but… uh… I doubt it. Especially given the fact that his changeup problems have been there all season, at least according to FanGraphs' calculations, and really have only been highlighted by the disastrous stretch he just went through—and may well still be in.

In fact, the success batters have had against his changeup may mean something is amiss with his fastball—which he certainly doesn't seem to be locating well, as compared to last year—allowing them to sit on the changeup. Or maybe he's been tipping his pitches and the Jays haven't yet figured out how.

For his part, at least publicly, Estrada seems as stumped as we all are.

He issued an uncharacteristically high number of walks in his last start, a decent-enough outing against the Royals, and according to the pitch values his performance with the changeup was worse than all but two starts this season. Yet it still felt like a step in the right direction. At the very least, he made it through seven innings for the first time in a month, and the just the fourth time all season.

It feels like he can only go up from here. Like it's only a matter of time before "good Marco"—the one Jays fans have been so thrilled with and so fallen in love with over the last three seasons—will show up and, like Doc Halladay before him, make us all forget about this little blip.

That is the thing we'd all like to believe, at least. Estrada has had such a great run and it's been so fun to watch him baffle batters and suppress solid contact in ways that pitchers simply aren't supposed to be able to do that it feels much too soon to have to wonder whether his incredible changeup and his rising "cue ball" fastball always had a limited shelf life.

Estrada is a free agent at the end of this season. He's potentially a great trade candidate for the Jays, should they decide to become sellers by the end of next month, and is sporting the best strikeout rate of his career. He's also potentially an extension candidate—a guy who seemed to genuinely like being here when he signed on for two years at the end of 2015, and who fans would love to see be here for a very long time. But only if he figures out just what the hell has been going on these last several starts, and finds a way through it.

You've gotta hope that he can, even if you can't quite figure out how he got here in the first place.

The Puzzling Case of Marco Estrada published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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The Puzzling Case of Marco Estrada

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

Over an 11-start span beginning with a nine-run shellacking in Texas in May of 2007, Roy Halladay pitched to a 6.35 ERA. Over that span he gave up 92 hits in 66.2 innings, while striking out just 37.

I still remember being at the third game of that stretch vividly. Halladay had given up nine in Texas, eight more (seven earned) in his next start against Boston, but seemed to have righted the ship, twirling seven innings of six-hit shutout ball against the White Sox. Then: kablammo! He imploded again, lasting just 3.1 innings against the Rays (then still called the Devil Rays), giving up eight runs (seven earned) again, surrendering 12 hits to just 23 batters faced.

Fans streamed to the exits, and I ended up sneaking down into preposterously good seats for the rest of the game—which was a huge stroke of luck, as the Jays came back to win with an incredible six-run ninth inning that ended with Tim Corcoran (the Rays' fourth pitcher of the frame) walking Aaron Hill with the bases loaded to score Matt Stairs as the winning run.

I wrote about the crazy win but also something else that happened that day: the fact that Halladay got booed.

Oh, I'm sure that those who did it would claim that they were just "booing the situation," sending a message to a manager with a slow hook, or some such nonsense, but I was there. I heard it. It happened. And it was about as vicious as I can remember hearing the crowd get toward Halladay—or, at the very least, the post-reinvention version of Halladay that had arrived five seasons prior, in 2002.

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Halladay the great. Halladay, in the middle of what likely will be a Hall of Fame career. In the middle of his run of six straight top five Cy Young award finishes. Getting booed by his own fans. And, in a vacuum, based only on the way he pitched that day and in two of his previous three starts, probably even deserving it.

That strange stretch in the middle of his incredible career seems as inexplicable now as it did then. And just as quickly as it came, it went. Halladay resumed being Halladay, pitching to a 2.75 ERA over the final 14 starts of 2007, then winning 20 games and posting nearly 7 WAR the following season.

I've thought about this stretch and those boos more than a few times lately, as I've grappled—along with most Jays fans—with the way Marco Estrada's 2017 season has gone.

There aren't a lot of similarities between Estrada and Halladay. Marco doesn't have Doc's pedigree, his size, his fastball, or his lengthy track record of success. But until a couple weeks ago, few would have argued against the notion that he's been the Blue Jays' best and most consistent pitcher over the last three seasons. And then, just like the good doctor, inexplicably, he hit a trough.

Had there been as much publicly available data back then as there is now, maybe we could have diagnosed Halladay's struggles with more than a shrug of our shoulders. As for Estrada, while there aren't really any smoking guns to be found in the data, there are a few things we can see that might indicate where the problem is. And, unfortunately for Marco and for Jays fans, they all seem to revolve around his bread-and-butter pitch: his changeup.

Photo by Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

FanGraphs provides us with data for what they call "pitch values"—an advanced stat that, in their words, "attempts to answer the question, 'How well has a batter/pitcher performed against/using a certain pitch?'" You can read about the math involved here, if you really want to, but essentially what their calculations produce is a number that shows us how effective a particular pitch has been. And this all mostly passes the smell test, as in 2015 and 2016 Estrada's change up graded out as one of the most effective in the league—among qualified starters, at least. Last year, for example, only Kyle Hendricks and David Price got more total value out of their changeups, and even on a per-pitch basis, Estrada was in the top ten in the league.

The numbers for 2015 tell a very similar story. The ones for 2017 sure don't, though!

Estrada has had one of the least effective changeups so far this year, ranking 63rd in total value among the 70 qualified starters who've thrown the pitch. In the month of June, the "pitch value" of his changeup is dead last.

FanGraphs would be quick to caution here that these values aren't predictive, and don't say much about the actual quality of the pitch. They are simply "a reflection of what happened, not necessarily a method to explain why something happened." Still, the results are troubling, especially given how important the pitch is to Estrada, and how important Estrada is to the Jays. And we can see that he's well aware that the pitch has been a problem for him, as he threw his lowest percentage of changeups all season in his most recent start.

This gives us a place to start looking, and wondering. At Brooks Baseball, we can see tables and graphs of all kinds of data on Estrada's changeup, but it's not always easy to know what a whole lot of it means. For example, the first thing to jump out at me was the graph below of Estrada's horizontal release point. Here we're looking at where Estrada has released the ball, on the horizontal axis, since the beginning of the 2015 season. In his last few starts, beginning on May 17 against Texas, we see a subtle but quite noticeable shift.

Where he's been releasing the ball lately isn't too far off where he was at the end of the 2015 season, but it's quite different than last year or early on this year, and it coincides with the period where Estrada was most badly getting his ass handed to him.

Image via Brooks Baseball

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately!—the shift here doesn't coincide with much of a change in his vertical release point, which suggests that he's not changing his arm angle or suffering from fatigue or anything physical that might be causing the difference—it looks more like Estrada has made a slight move on the rubber toward first base.

Is that enough to have caused his changeup to have taken a huge step backward? There are surely better folks than I at interpreting this kind of stuff, but… uh… I doubt it. Especially given the fact that his changeup problems have been there all season, at least according to FanGraphs' calculations, and really have only been highlighted by the disastrous stretch he just went through—and may well still be in.

In fact, the success batters have had against his changeup may mean something is amiss with his fastball—which he certainly doesn't seem to be locating well, as compared to last year—allowing them to sit on the changeup. Or maybe he's been tipping his pitches and the Jays haven't yet figured out how.

For his part, at least publicly, Estrada seems as stumped as we all are.

He issued an uncharacteristically high number of walks in his last start, a decent-enough outing against the Royals, and according to the pitch values his performance with the changeup was worse than all but two starts this season. Yet it still felt like a step in the right direction. At the very least, he made it through seven innings for the first time in a month, and the just the fourth time all season.

It feels like he can only go up from here. Like it's only a matter of time before "good Marco"—the one Jays fans have been so thrilled with and so fallen in love with over the last three seasons—will show up and, like Doc Halladay before him, make us all forget about this little blip.

That is the thing we'd all like to believe, at least. Estrada has had such a great run and it's been so fun to watch him baffle batters and suppress solid contact in ways that pitchers simply aren't supposed to be able to do that it feels much too soon to have to wonder whether his incredible changeup and his rising "cue ball" fastball always had a limited shelf life.

Estrada is a free agent at the end of this season. He's potentially a great trade candidate for the Jays, should they decide to become sellers by the end of next month, and is sporting the best strikeout rate of his career. He's also potentially an extension candidate—a guy who seemed to genuinely like being here when he signed on for two years at the end of 2015, and who fans would love to see be here for a very long time. But only if he figures out just what the hell has been going on these last several starts, and finds a way through it.

You've gotta hope that he can, even if you can't quite figure out how he got here in the first place.

The Puzzling Case of Marco Estrada published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv