#I would give my ao3 username but I think my fics are the only ones in the ship tag on there so

[t00s1lly]

uhh i see u tagged my art, i appreciate it sm i like people going crazy abt what they think <33

also mentioned u draw nottemcop SHOW ME NOW 👀 /hj /nf

I WISH I drew NottemCop, but alas, I cannot draw. I write a fuckton of it tho, it's on my ao3 <3

And, hell yeas... As soon as I saw your art in the tag, I went insane & deranged, I had to let it be shown

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/767914734241628160/httpswwwtumblrcomolderthannetfic767056822358?source=share

This kind of person is why, after I had a manic episode after being gangraped two years ago and deleted one of my fics, I quit logging into that account, quit logging into all related socials, and made a new username on AO3 to write under. It doesn't matter what happens to cause it, if you delete something, you are evil. You are burning things down to hurt others and delight and entertain yourself. You are beyond redemption. Even though the anon they're replying to put the story back up, that's not good enough. You are not allowed to fuck up. Fucking up is an indicator of moral failing and reveals your truly vile, awful nature.

Mistakes are not tolerated. So once one is made, your only way out, the only way to ever be viewed as anything other than dogshit by readers, is to give up on the story. Don't reupload it, don't apologize, don't try to explain yourself. You've failed. There's no coming back from that. Any explanation will be taken to be a plea for attention and sympathy, a trap, a manipulation. Reuploading gives the content back but doesn't undo that you were vile, disgusting and twisted enough to fuck up once in the first place.

The only option, if you ever fuck up, is to make a whole new persona entirely and start over. As long as people like this are around, there's nothing else to be done. Apologies won't help. Apologies are manipulation in the eyes of the internet, where everyone is viewed as a potential enemy by default. You have to just give up on the story and walk away.

I'd love to reupload my old story and finish it. But people like this mean that if I do so, I'll end up being known online for being a manipulative asshole instead of a writer of a story.

The internet never forgets is a popular saying. The more accurate one would be that it never forgives.

--

Anon, yet again, these are strangers.

Yes, plenty of them are rude strangers. If it's going to hurt your mental health, don't re-upload the story.

But no, strangers do not know about the horrible things that happened to you. If they did know, they would probably think "Jeez, that's terrible!" and move on with their day.

Randos on the internet do not have a lot of emotional involvement with you, and that's a good thing.

And no, most people don't actually think in these histrionic terms. ~Eeeevil~ blah blah blah. This kind of black and white thinking and high drama is best taken up with a therapist, not my inbox.

[seakicker]

☆ My Next-Door Neighbor is an Annoying Older Woman Who Constantly Bothers Me

☆ between: college au!scaramouche x milf!reader

☆ synopsis: scaramouche insists he doesn’t want to fuck the milf living next door, but all his friends think he doth protest too much.

☆ word count: 10.5K words

☆ a/n: like with my venti x milf!reader fic over on ao3, this is supposed to give a sort of doujinshi vibe, hence the embarrassing title and the lunacy of some ideas like milf!reader going outside in a super sheer shirt. hopefully you feel the doujinshi vibe i was going for as i have a lot of fun trying to replicate the style, themes, and flow of doujinshis using only text!

☆ contents: fem + plus-sized reader (reader is explicitly described as chubby, busty, and taller than scaramouche), age gap obviously; scaramouche is a senior in college and reader is in her early 40s, degradation, a couple insults (such as scaramouche calling you a hag/loose/etc.), degradation, exhibitionism (scaramouche fucks you in front of a glass sliding door), sexual frustration, and unprotected sex + scaramouche pulls out

also posted to ao3 with the same title and under the same username!

Scaramouche has a problem.

Well, a problem slightly more irritating than the approximately nine hundred other problems he deals with on a daily basis. These issues include, but are not limited to, the consistent problems he has with the hot water heater in his apartment, his obnoxious group project teammate Ajax who insisted upon being the group’s leader despite his complete and utter lack of intellect, his annoying circle of friends that always seem to find ways to poke their noses into Scaramouche’s business, his frustratingly-dull history professor that always goes off on tangents completely unrelated to the class’ subject matter… and so on and so forth. It’s one issue after another; there’s always something when it comes to Scaramouche.

A matter more pressing than all of those other nine hundred issues put together, however, comes in the form of his next-door neighbor— you.

You’re a divorced woman in your early forties who lives by herself, works during the daytime while Scaramouche is on campus, and always seems to leave and return home at the same times he does. He moved in next door to you a few months ago at the start of his junior year, but you’ve never really gotten the chance to get to know him beyond the curt responses he gives you when you ask how he’s doing or what he did over the weekend. His coldness towards you doesn’t make too much sense— have you somehow offended him without knowing? You like to consider yourself a good neighbor: you don’t party (like a woman your age would ever do such a thing), you don’t blast loud music long into the night (or at all), you take good care of your things and avoid causing trouble for Scaramouche or your other neighbors, and you’re very, very tidy. When you’re in the mood to brag a little, you’ll say that you have the nicest balcony in the entire apartment complex.

…Avoid causing trouble for Scaramouche, huh? He’d beg to differ.

If Scaramouche has nine hundred problems in his life, then maybe it’d be more accurate to claim that you’re the cause of at least seven hundred of those problems rather than claiming that you’re one single, self-contained issue separate from all of those other problems. Maybe it’s the way you insist upon butting your way into his life and, in what must be your way of expressing it, “taking care” of him that irritates him more than anything else. Really, if he had to sum up your advances in one word, he’d have to go with aggravating.

At first, he bitterly wondered if you’re just some senile old hag using him as a replacement for your son, who’s surely moved out by now given your age. All you are is a woman looking to cure her empty nest syndrome by doting on someone her son’s age according to Scaramouche— he viewed your kindness as underhanded and delusional because he can take care of himself, you know. He’s an adult man living on his own; he knows how to navigate the trials and tribulations of young adulthood without some old lady insisting upon knocking on his door and gifting him home-cooked meals, bringing up his mail from the first-floor mailroom, or helping him with chores where you can. It’s not like Scaramouche would ever let you into his apartment, but that hasn’t stopped you from finding ways to help outside by sweeping outside his front door or washing the outside of his front window while he’s not home.

Okay, maybe it’s a little creepy to wash your neighbor’s windows without him asking you to help out, but it’s not like he’s going to do it. You would know— you had once waited a week to see if he’d clean up a spilled drink stain on the walkway in front of his door. As you expected, he never got around to it, so you happily cleaned it up on his behalf. Cleaning up for him doesn’t really put you out of your way either— whenever you sweep his doorway, it’s because you were already outside tidying up in front of your place; why not help out your neighbor in the process?

When you bring him meals you prepared yourself, it’s out of the goodness of your heart and because you can’t help but worry about a college boy’s diet— fast food, pizza, frozen microwave meals, and instant ramen don’t have all the nutrients a hardworking man needs. When you bring him his mail, it’s because he has a tendency to forget about it until his mailbox is, quite literally, overflowing. Whereas you check your mailbox every single day, Scaramouche seems to forget about his until the end of the week, which is certainly no way to live— what if he misses an important bill or notice? As a result, you took it upon yourself to check his mailbox for him whenever you go to retrieve your own mail.

Again, maybe it’s a little creepy to gather your neighbor’s mail, but it’s not like you’re hurting anyone, right? You certainly don’t root through his mail or open any of it. Even though Scaramouche rolls his eyes and mumbles a halfhearted little “thanks” every time you hand him his mail, he doesn’t really seem to mind. Despite his initial reluctance to accept any of it, he still eats the food you prepare for him if the empty containers he returns to you a few days later are any indication of that fact. You figure maybe he’s just a little shy or tired from his long day on campus— it does your heart well to know that he’s working so very hard.

On the flip side of things, Scaramouche considers your… activities a total inconvenience. He’ll admit that your meals taste very good— though he’d never say it to your face— but he doesn’t like feeling indebted to you or thinking that he owes you something even though you’ve told him multiple times that your favors don’t need any payback. You’re just happy to cook for someone other than yourself, you had told him once, confirming Scaramouche’s suspicion that you live alone. It’s not his fault you’re bored enough to make food for someone you barely know, so do you have to rope him into your wiles? He already has groceries and though he doesn’t really know how to cook, what’s wrong with having a bowl of cereal for dinner? It’s none of your business, is it?

Between your constant insistence on involving yourself in his life and the fact that he’s never seen anyone else leaving or entering your apartment, Scaramouche was able to correctly guess that you live alone… a realization that can’t help but annoy him. He figures that if you had someone, anyone else in your life like a spouse or another child living with you, you’d stop pestering him and stick to involving yourself in the lives of your family instead of your neighbor.

Would a pet do? Should he find some stray kitten and leave it on your doorstep? Is that what it’d take to make you mind your own business?

“Hey, Kuni, tell me about your little neighbor lady again,” Venti coos, accidentally knocking over his—thankfully— empty beer bottle when he leans forward to grab his phone. He’s drunk, but that barely makes a difference; he’d still make this request sober.

Glowering around the mouth of his own bottle, Scaramouche rolls his eyes in Venti’s general direction. “Why? If you want to know that hag so badly, go talk to her yourself.”

Venti busts out laughing, an action that his drunken body clearly can’t handle seeing as he falls sideways into Aether’s shoulder, making the latter grimace in response. Venti’s already a handful sober, but when he drinks… it takes the entire friend group to get him home and/or in bed safely. “Don’t threaten me with that, ‘cuz I really will do it— I’ll go steal your hot older girlfriend.”

Glaring up at him from his spot on the rug, Scaramouche has half a mind to shove that empty beer bottle into Venti’s eye for suggesting such a thing. Hey, wait a minute— why is Scaramouche the one sitting on the floor when this is his damn apartment?

“She’s not my fucking girlfriend,” he barks, turning to direct his glare at Kazuha too when he hears him chuckle.

“The more you deny it, the less convincing you are— you talk about her all the time, so I’m inclined to believe you really are dating,” Venti chirps, reaching for a bottle of beer that is most certainly not his.

“That’s mine,” Aether protests, watching as Venti takes a sip from his bottle anyways.

“Oops, my bad.” He doesn’t sound sincere.

“Well… get me another whenever you stand up.”

Venti waves his hand dismissively before redirecting his attention back to the more important matter at hand— Scaramouche’s complete and utter inability to just admit that he has the hots for his hot MILF of a neighbor and that any protest otherwise is a feeble attempt at hiding the truth.

“They say you’re attracted to things that make you mad,” Venti says. “…Cuteness aggression. Yeah. I saw a video about it once.”

“That’s not what cuteness aggression is, and ‘they’ say that you attract the things you fear,” Kazuha corrects him from his spot in the nearby armchair— again, why is Scaramouche the one sitting on the floor?— before he goes to take another hit off his blunt.

Venti repeats what Kazuha said in a nasally voice in an attempt to mock him, but the gesture only makes Kazuha chuckle again. It’ll be hard to draw any response more eloquent than a single laugh or a sigh out of him for the rest of the night— it’s a very, very stark difference from how he usually is.

“Why the fuck do I ever invite any of you over here?” Scaramouche sighs, taking a long swig from his own bottle. He doesn’t even really like the taste; it’s something Venti found on sale and decided to bring over, but Scaramouche has decided it’s better than spending his Friday night sober. Besides, it’ll take at least four more of these to deal with the impending conversation that he’s been trying so hard to pivot away from since Venti first brought it up.

“Because we’re best friends forever, next question. Why do you deny how much you wanna fuck your sexy neighbor, Kuni?” Venti asks again, pouting when Aether snatches the bottle Venti stole from him. “It’s super obvious. Xiao and Heizou agree with me, and I’m not just saying that because they’re not here tonight and can’t contest me on it. It’s true.”

Kazuha nods, and Aether simply shrugs. Christ alive, do they all think the same thing?

“And why on Earth do I— in theory— want to fuck her? She’s probably loose or something,” Scaramouche argues.

Venti busts out laughing again.

“It’s the opposite, really,” he starts, glancing between Aether and Kazuha when neither of them laugh along with him. “What, have you guys seriously never been with an older lady? They’re the best; the reason I know Kuni wants to get with that lady next door is because I got with the lady next door to me a couple months ago. It takes one to know one, or something. Trust me, Kuni, I know what you’re going through and we are seriously gonna get through this together.” Why is he making it sound like a relative died or something?

“They’re experienced,” Venti sighs longingly, blindly reaching out again for the bottle Aether’s holding, who moves it further away and out of Venti’s reach. “They feel really, really good. They actually know what they’re doing… sometimes the girls—and guys, mind you, I’ve gotten with plenty of both— our age clearly don’t know they’re supposed to be doing, but getting with somebody’s mom…”

“You’re gross!” Aether gasps, though his pink cheeks tell a different story.

“Not as gross as the guy who’s told us the same story about seeing his neighbor lady braless like four times now,” Venti replies, glancing over at Scaramouche with a grin. “Really left an impression on you, huh, Kuni?”

Just like that, Scaramouche finds himself instantly reminded of, well, the time he saw you braless first thing in the morning. A few months ago on some random Saturday morning, Scaramouche was out smoking a cigarette on his porch when you stepped outside to water the plants you keep on your balcony. There were so many of them: a small tomato plant, a pot overflowing with basil that you took to trimming after you finished watering everything, a couple of hanging baskets field with flowers, and a few other vegetable plants and potted succulents. More glaringly obvious than the abundance of plants occupying your balcony was your complete and utter shamelessness— even a quick glance in your direction was enough to draw Scaramouche’s attention to the distractingly sheer fabric of your white camisole.

It’s not like Scaramouche was actively staring at your tits— really, he wasn’t, he swears— because anyone would notice something that egregious. The low, low sweep of your camisole around your ample bust, your nipples beading up against the thin fabric, the constant fucking movement of the top as you shifted and bent over to water the plants sitting on the ground, moved, and walked, all of it. He complained to his friends about your complete and utter shamelessness— What kind of woman steps outside practically naked? he spat, much to the amusement of Venti, who had said that wearing a thin shirt does not, in fact, make one naked.

Worst of all, you had actually fucking caught Scaramouche staring, an action that made you grin wickedly and run your hands down the sides of your soft, plump body as if to try and draw his eyes down along with your hands. Instead, Scaramouche had only whipped his head to the other side, busying himself with tapping the ash off his cigarette as if it were the most important task he’d ever complete in his life. Jesus Christ, he was only staring because he couldn’t believe you’d be so shameless as to wear something like that outside, not because he was genuinely aroused by how low your camisole sat on your chest, how big your tits are, how soft they look…

He thinks he shuddered then, and he insisted to his friends that it was because of a sudden chilly breeze and absolutely nothing more. It was either that or because he was just so shocked by your display that a shiver went down his spine— he can’t even remember the exact reason he gave anymore.

Either way, none of them really believed him.

“Ah, he seems distracted,” Kazuha notes simply, raising a hand to point at Scaramouche before grinning. His words pull Scaramouche from his little daydream, and he groans at the realization that, yes, he spaced out remembering yet another instance of your abhorrent shamelessness and perversion.

“Spaced out thinking about cute MILF boobs, I get it,” Venti affirms, nodding. “Nobody gets that more than me. Not only that, but you’ve also, uh, ‘complained’ to us about seeing her in her swimsuit. Really, Kuni, it’s like you’re biding your time and waiting for her to take her clothes off so you can tell us about it.”

…That’s a story for another time. Scaramouche has had enough of thinking about you for one day; it’s bad enough that you brought him his mail today just mere moments before Venti, Kazuha, and Aether arrived to hang out— what if they saw you?— but to be reminded of the image of your tits underneath that pathetic excuse for a top…

He shakes his head and takes a long, long sip from his bottle.

“And they’re so soft, Kuni,” Venti says, slumping over further into Aether for support. “They feel like absolutely nothing else. I feel like firmness or perkiness or whatever is really, really overrated— the softness of a cute MILF’s boobs is unrivaled!”

“Can you not say things like that right into my ear?” Aether mumbles bashfully, making Venti laugh.

“Why? Am I gonna put the mental image of MILF boobs in your brain, too? Are we gonna become an entire friend group full of MILF chasers? That’d be hilarous. I already know about Xiao’s little crush on his English professor.”

Jesus, Scaramouche has got to steer this conversation somewhere else or he’ll go mad. “Anyways,” he beings, “Where is that pizza you ordered ages ago?”

“I thought Kazuha was taking care of it,” Aether remarks, glancing over at him. Kazuha goes to reply, but nothing comes out— yep, he’s gone for the night. He won’t be able to get out any more than four words max until morning.

As if the universe heard their request, the doorbell rings to signify the arrival of dinner. Before Scaramouche can go to pull himself up off the floor—he really should make Venti move; it’s his couch in his apartment— Venti’s already in the process of skipping towards the door. Aether takes the opportunity to kick his feet up over the other couch cushion, making Scaramouche wonder if the three of them formed some secret pact to ensure that he stays on the floor the entire evening.

However, what stands on the other side of the door is not, in fact, the pizza delivery boy. It’s you, aluminum foil-covered glass casserole dish in hand, leading Scaramouche to believe that while the universe did hear their request for food, the devil answered by sending you to his doorstep while he has three of his friends over.

“Oh! You’re not the pizza guy,” Venti beams, putting on his best ‘polite’ voice possible. Scaramouche groans and looks over towards his other two friends just so he doesn’t accidentally make eye contact with you, but neither Aether nor Kazuha look back at him. They’re looking at you.

Christ, he’ll never live this down. Not only do they know who you are, they now know what you look like.

“I’m not,” you giggle. “I live next door; I bring food to Scaramouche sometimes whenever I get a little too excited in the kitchen and make too much. I can’t eat the leftovers fast enough before they go bad, and I would hate to waste food, you know?”

“You can call him Kuni,” Venti offers. “We all do. It’s less of a mouthful, don’t you think?”

Scaramouche decides that Venti will be leaving his apartment in a body bag tonight.

His cheeks burn with equal parts humiliation and anger, and the realization that his friends’ teasing is only about to get worse now that they know who you are and what you look like more than motivates Scaramouche to devise a plot to kill the three of them.

After introducing yourself to Venti, he smiles and replies that “the pleasure is all his” when you tell him it’s nice to meet some of Scaramouche’s friends. Venti has half a mind to invite you inside for a moment, but he decides that’d be unnecessary— he figures he’s already done more than enough to inspire Scaramouche into action. If Scaramouche won’t act on his feelings himself, then maybe a little shove from his friends will help him along.

“That’s sweet of you!” Venti praises, taking the dish from your hands. “I’m glad Kuni’s eating properly these days. One time, he told us that the only thing he survived off of during finals week was a sleeve of Saltines and some peanut butter. You’re so kind, miss.”

You giggle sheepishly, a sound that Scaramouche would like to claim grates his ears. Miss? Can’t Venti see that you’re, well, old? “Well, I’m glad that he has such kind friends to support him. You all take care, okay? You too, Scara�� Kuni!” You call out past Venti’s shoulder, making both Aether and Kazuha chuckle.

After bidding farewell to the four in what has to be the most mortifying moment of Scaramouche’s entire life, you leave, allowing Venti to close the door behind you and make his way back to the others. “Those boobs are huge,” he sighs dreamily, looking up at the ceiling. “If I got suffocated between those, I would die a fully satisfied man.”

“Then go die,” Scaramouche mutters in agreement, cheeks still burning with humiliation. Why does the universe insist upon tormenting him so?

Eyeing the dish in Venti’s hands, Aether pipes up too “She cooks for you? Kuni, you have it so good.”

Scaramouche is amazed that, after all this time, his friends still find it in them to be jealous of him despite all of his attempts at framing you as annoying, invasive, and overbearing. Can’t they see that you’re doing this on purpose?! Scaramouche has half a mind to wonder if you’re psychic— what other explanation is there for your obnoxiously perfect timing? He asks about food and suddenly you appear on his doorstep, dish in hand as if you had heard him through the walls. There’s no way they’re that thin, are they?

Venti moves to set the dish down on the kitchen countertop before turning around to look Scaramouche square in the eye. “Kuni, I’m saying this because I respect you as my longtime friend,” he asserts, tone and gaze both deathly serious in a way that’s genuinely almost out of character for someone as flippant and carefree as Venti. “But you better fuck that lady the first chance you get because, if you don’t, I’m taking her for myself.” That should do it.

Scowling in response, Scaramouche crosses his arms over his chest and sighs bitterly. “Why would I stop you? I don’t care what you do with her. For the last fucking time, I’m not into her.” Despite his words, Scaramouche can’t deny that there’s something… unsettling about the idea of Venti getting with you. Does he really want to watch his friend take four A.M. booty calls in order to fuck the woman living right next door to him? Can Scaramouche truly stomach the idea of his friend fucking the brains out of someone just a few walls away from where he lives? It’s hard to put his finger on why, but something about Venti getting with Scaramouche’s neighbor, despite his insistence that there truly is nothing between the two of them, really, really irks him.

Well, it’s probably just because a lot of Venti’s behavior tends to irritate Scaramouche in the first place, right? Yeah, it’s probably just that. He doesn’t need to hear every last gritty detail of his friend’s sexual trysts.

That characteristically smug grin of his finds its way back to Venti’s face as he reaches over Aether’s shoulder and snatches his beer bottle again. “Fine, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. How about we forget the pizza and eat what she brought over?”

“Oh, I see now,” Kazuha interjects after having been silent for the past twenty minutes. He turns his phone around to show Scaramouche, Venti, and Aether the check-out screen on the pizza chain’s website. “It seems I failed actually submit the order; it was still waiting for me to pay.”

Scaramouche doesn’t have a hangover the next morning, a blessing he owes to the fact that he only ended up drinking two beers last night. He probably would’ve consumed more if he had the chance to, but Venti blew through the rest of the box quicker than the other three could try to stop him. It took both Kazuha and Aether supporting Venti’s hardly-conscious body to get him down the stairs to the parking lot so they can drive him home— there’s no way Venti would be able to safely get himself home amidst such an awful hangover.

As he pokes through his apartment scooping up empty beer bottles and stained paper plates to toss into a trash bag, the glass casserole dish sitting out on the kitchen counter catches Scaramouche’s eye. Save for a few scraps shoved into the rounded corners of the pan, it’s practically been picked clean— the four boys tore through it easily with Venti, Kazuha, and Aether all fawning over just how good a home-cooked meal tastes after months of campus cafeteria food, fast food, and instant ramen. Venti mentioned that there’s just something about a MILF’s cooking that makes it so much better, leading to a conversation about how, in Venti’s educated opinion, older women just do everything better: sex, cooking, cleaning, caretaking, all of it.

Scaramouche scoffs at the memory. “She’s nothing special,” he mutters to himself, still failing to understand Venti’s obsession with somebody he’s never even met until last night. Scaramouche is the one who’s actually been living next door to her for months now— as his friends know by now, he has plenty more to say about her than Venti does.

Shouldn’t he be the one to comment on things like the size of your bust, the softness of your legs, the plumpness of your ass and belly, and the flavor of your cooking? He’s the one who’s actually seen you lounging in tiny string bikinis by the apartment complex’s pool, watering the plants out on your balcony in a pair of shorts that certainly break publicly decency laws, and retrieving your mail in a shirt so thin he can make out the little bumps of your nipples up against the fabric.

“Christ, what am I thinking?” Scaramouche stops himself and second-guesses whether or not he’s actually hungover. There’s no way his sober mind would drift to thoughts of you, right? Clearly something must be wrong with him— he blames Venti for putting all these thoughts in his head with his never-ending discussion of what makes older women so utterly sexy.

He’s then reminded of what Venti told him right before they all sat down to eat your cooking: that if Scaramouche won’t hurry up and fuck his neighbor, Venti will do it for him. Even now, the idea still bothers him for reasons he just can’t quite put his finger on— Venti’s been with tons and tons of people; why does he want Scaramouche’s neighbor too? Can’t Venti see how awkward that would be?

Setting the trash bag down on the floor, Scaramouche takes to the sink to wash out the casserole dish you brought over for them last night. His mind concocts disgustingly vivid images of you as he scrubs at a particularly stubborn piece of dried cheese, and maybe he’d be shocked by how little effort he’s putting into warding those thoughts away if he weren’t so utterly immersed in them. His mind conjures up the image of you in that tiny black bikini he saw you wearing by the pool while he was out smoking on his balcony— he remembers the little number being so small that you had to readjust it every single time you simply sat up or lied down because every last motion was enough to threaten a nipslip. It makes him wonder if you dress like that on purpose or because you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that clothes and swimsuits you used to wear still fit you despite clear evidence otherwise— are you actively vying for the attention of any man who’ll give it to you, or are you brainless enough to throw something on without caring about how poorly or not it fits?

It’s probably a mix of both; you’re just that shameless.

Scaramouche grits his teeth at the mental image of you straddling him while adorned in that tiny little bikini that seems to only get tinier and tinier the longer he allows his imagination to run wild. Of all the fucking things to imagine you doing…

He pictures what you’d look like with your thick, plump thighs enveloping either side of his hips as you run your hands up and down your ample chest and soft stomach. God, he can see it all now: the little bumps of your nipples beading up against the thin fabric of your swimsuit, the soft hang of your tummy spilling over the tiny, flimsy string keeping your bottoms secured around your wide hips, the way your tits would bounce as you ride him…

“Something’s wrong with me,” he grumbles, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut. The clump of cheese he’d been scraping at finally separates from the pan, and he realizes that if he wants to rid you from his mind for good, he should take matters into his own hands before Venti does.

No, wait, this has nothing to do with Venti— this isn’t about staking claim over you before any of his friends can, this is solely about him finding ways to release the grip you have on him as if you’re some kind of wicked succubus. Scaramouche glances downwards after setting the dish aside to dry and, much to his chagrin, finds that the mere thought of you was enough to fucking get him hard. The eager press of his cock against the confines of his briefs moritifies him solely because of the very reason why he’s like this in the first place; how the fuck did the thought of you in a bikini so tiny your areolas peek around the sides reduce him to such a state? He’d like to believe that he’s only this hard because it’s been a while since he’s jerked off, but that would be an excuse less believable than any of the ones he’s ever given his friends.

He knows that he’s too dignified to jerk off to the thought of you— if he’s feeling horny, then surely he can find things more deserving of his attention than some hag next door. He refuses to give you that kind of satisfaction (despite the fact that you’d never even know unless he told you, so how could you be smug about it?), so he decides that an ice-cold shower is in order before venturing out to settle things with you.

After a shower so cold Scaramouche swears he saw his fingers begin to turn purple, he dries off, gets dressed in something other than the clothes he fell asleep in last night, grabs your clean casserole dish, and leaves to go to the one place he wouldn’t have ever imagined himself stepping foot in— your apartment. If this is what it takes to sever the connection between you and his mind…

God, this is going to be annoying, Scaramouche thinks as he knocks on your door using his foot, casserole dish supported safely by both of his hands. He feels the need to steel himself because he just knows you’ll answer the door in something sheer, skimpy, or some combination of the two and he needs to be ready for that.

Why? Are you hoping for that to happen, Kuni? Venti’s voice whispers from the back of Scaramouche’s mind.

He really is losing it.

“Good morning— oh, Kuni! This is a surprise,” you greet him upon opening the door, flashing him a smile so bright it nearly makes him cringe. Can you spare him the pleasantries so he can just get to the point?

Fucking Venti— why teach her that nickname? Turning his head to look at a faraway bird instead of you, Scaramouche scoffs. “I need to talk to you.” Straight to the point, emotionless, and rude, it’s all so in-character for your neighbor that you can’t help but giggle.

You grin wider. “Of course. Come in; I’ll put a pot of coffee on.”

Scaramouche waits until you’re a good few steps ahead of him before following you inside, glancing around the living room of your apartment as he makes his way to the kitchen table. Your apartment’s clean, impeccably so at that— every book on your bookshelf faces the same direction, the blanket draped over the back of your couch doesn’t have a single crease, and he can’t see even an ounce of dust on any inch of your tables and countertops.

He snorts a little. Rather than viewing the cleanliness as impressive or inspiring, he bitterly interprets it as a testament to your overabundance of free time and lack of other hobbies or pastimes.

“I’m not sure how strong you like your coffee, so I’ll just make it how I normally do,” you pipe up from the kitchen, pulling Scaramouche away from scrutinizing the titles of the books on your shelf. Restless Summer Nights? The Devil’s Mistress? They all sound like bargain bin erotica novels.

It was a mistake to direct his attention away from your novels and to you instead, he figures, because only now does he get a look at what you’re wearing— if one could even call that clothing. You’re dressed in something he wants to call a workout outfit, but anyone leaving the house in an outfit like that surely has goals other than simply exercising— they want to attract attention. A sports bra that sits so low on your chest that a single bounce on an exercise ball would expose you combines with a pair of spandex leggings so tight they reveal the lines of your panties to comprise your “workout outfit,” and to say that Scaramouche is mortified would be an understatement. He can’t help but find the combination of your manner of dress and your collection of novels completely pathetic.

And despite his apparent disgust… he’s been staring at you long enough to pick up the most minute details about your outfit. The indifferent passerby likely wouldn’t notice your pantylines— a certain amount of staring is required to actually notice them; they’re really not obvious from a quick glance. Actually, why can’t he stop looking at you? He writes it off as a simple morbid curiosity at how someone can be so completely and utterly shameless— one could almost liken his sick, cynical fascination with your ample curves and soft body to rubbernecking.

Scaramouche instead stares down into the cup of coffee you’ve set in front of him like it’s the most fascinating object in the entire world. He’s half-inclined to just close his eyes entirely, seeing as the slightest glimpse of your bust still occupies the uppermost part of his peripheral eyesight when you sit down in the chair opposite of him.

“So,” you start, sliding a porcelain dish with a small bowl of sugar cubes and a saucer of creamer his way. “What can I help you with? It’s rare for you to talk to me first, Kuni.”

He adds “drop that nickname” to his mental list of topics to bring up with you. Scaramouche plucks a few sugar cubes from the bowl before him and drops them into his coffee before absentmindedly stirring the liquid with a serving spoon.

“Last night,” He clears his throat. “Why did you come over to talk to V— to my friends?” Why are you always in my business? he really wants to ask, but he feels like you’ll start crying if he presses you too firmly.

And that’d just be obnoxious.

You giggle. “That makes it sound like I came over on purpose because I knew you had people over, and that’s not true. Haven’t we been in the habit of food delivery and acceptance for months now?” Scaramouche’s eyes follow yours to the squeaky-clean casserole dish he placed on your counter.

“I’m glad your friends seemed to enjoy the food just as much as you do,” you add sweetly, pursing your lips and blowing on your coffee to help it cool down.

“It was humiliating,” Scaramouche counters, a statement that prompts you to look up from your coffee and make eye contact with him. “They wouldn’t— they wouldn’t stop fucking talking about you after you left.”

Wait, that’s not the point here, is it? Surely Scaramouche’s main complaint isn’t that Venti practically sweet-talked you right into his bed, it’s that Scaramouche is tired of you invading his business and his space, right? He doesn’t care about Venti’s comments about your soft tits or your wide hips, he doesn’t care about Aether’s bashful confession that he exclusively jerks off to older women, he doesn’t care that he has competition because there’s nothing to compete over and he’s really, actually, truly angry that you always find a way to worm your way into his days and his mind and his free time and his wet dreams and his—

“Oh, I’m flattered,” you reply simply, sipping your coffee and smiling around the rim of the cup. “They’re such nice boys. I’m glad you have such sweet friends, dear.”

What’s warmer: the tips of Scaramouche’s ears or his untouched cup of coffee?

“That’s not— what? That’s not the point I’m making and you know that,” he grimaces, clearing his throat again. “My friends shouldn’t have to put up with a shameless old hag the way I have to.”

You set your cup down. “That’s not very nice. I look good for my age— that charming boy down at the corner mart always asks for my ID whenever I pick up some wine!”

Scaramouche rolls his eyes. “That’s his job. Anyways, I’m telling you to mind your own business.”

“Oh, is that all? Of course I can do that for you.” Your reply comes without a single skipped beat.

“I mean it, that means don’t touch my mail and— what?” Wait, there’s no way you’re making this this easy. A shameless, conniving, lustful, lewd seductress of a woman like you agreeing to just… fuck off at the first request? Scaramouche doesn’t buy it— this is just another phase of your plan to throw him off guard and pull the rug out from under him so you can sink your claws deeper and deeper into him.

“I like cooking for you and cleaning for you, and I was very happy to meet your friends yesterday, but if you want me to stop, of course I will,” you explain. “I wonder who’ll help me eat my leftovers now… your friend from last night gave me his phone number; does he like potato soup? I’m making that tonight.”

Scaramouche almost, almost feels a shiver tear down his spine. He’s starting to believe that Venti’s just as much an antagonist in this situation as you are.

“Why the fuck did you accept his number? Delete it,” he grumbles, crossing his arms and glaring over at you. His coffee’s surely gone cold by now, but that’s alright— he was never much of a coffee drinker anyways.

You shrug, a sly smile forming on your lips. “Oh, I don’t know. He was so sweet I didn’t want to say no… it’d give me someone new to talk to, if nothing else.” Why do you need to talk to Venti when he barely knows you and I’m right fucking here?

“It’s not like you talk to me much despite all my best efforts, Kuni,” you offer him the subtlest of pouts, an action that would look out of place on the face of a woman your age if you weren’t so… if you weren’t so…

Forget it, he’s not saying anything about you that could be interpreted as a compliment. “…Especially now that you and I have agreed to leave each other alone.”

Oh, Scaramouche doesn’t like this feeling. He hates feeling like a situation has spun out of his control, and that’s, unfortunately, exactly what he feels is happening here. You’ve agreed to his terms and you’ve promised to stay out of his way, so why does he feel so… angry?

Yeah, you must have some underhanded motive here. Why else would you be making this so… easy? That’s not like you at all— he was expecting you to fan your eyelashes, pout your lips, push your tits forward, and whimper that you’re sorry and that you’d love to keep talking to him, so will he please give you a second chance?

I’ll do anything, he was sure you’d say.

You clear your throat. “Well, is there anything else you’d like to discuss now? If not, I’ll get back to my yoga. It’s good to be active, right?”

What the hell? You’re ending the conversation? No way, no how— this ends on Scaramouche’s terms, not yours. Who do you think you are?

“No, that’s not it, actually,” he blurts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Staying out of my business means staying away from Venti— from any of my friends. Don’t talk to them, don’t text them, don’t— I don’t know. Don’t be around them.”

You smile a little wider. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sound jealous, Kuni.”

He scoffs, staring you directly in the eye as if to challenge you. “Seriously? Shit joke.”

Of all the adjectives you could have picked to describe him… “It’s just that the thought of you getting with Venti is nauseating, alright?”

You hum. “And why him specifically, hm? You had other friends over last night— are they single?” Jesus Christ, what is this, an interrogation? And where the hell are these sorts of questions coming from— did you already send Venti an invitation to hook up?

Sneering so hard his nose scrunches up, Scaramouche can’t help but feel appalled. “Did you decide I’m not good enough or something? Who do you think you are?”

You go silent.

Scaramouche, somehow, goes even quieter than silent when the weight of his words finally sets in. There it is— the culmination of your grand plan to humiliate, embarrass, and utterly demean him in your own home. You had this outcome planned from the start, didn’t you?

“I didn’t say that,” you stammer, attempting to correct yourself. “Why do you think I’ve been vying for your attention all this time? Of course I like you, Kuni.”

God, how you piss him off. Who do you think you are— some bashful schoolgirl confessing to her first crush?

“I know that I’m just an old woman and that you could certainly find a cute, young, perky college girl whenever you’d like to, but if you’d ever like me…”

Of course Scaramouche could get someone his age from one of his classes— he doesn’t need to settle for some loose old hag— and yet… the thought of you getting with anyone else, Venti or not, pisses him off in a way he can’t quite describe. Maybe he views himself as some kind of hero protecting everyone else from your shamelessness, maybe he views himself as the only one worthy of your attention as the one who has to put up with you the most, maybe he views you as someone actually, genuinely worth being with…

He sits up a little straighter. “You have no idea how obnoxious you are,” he mutters. “Taking up my time and attention even when you’re not around.”

“What a forked tongue,” you reply, leaning forward and, much to Scaramouche’s chagrin, pushing your breasts together with your hands. “You know that’s why I like you, right? Mean boys have always been my favorite— ever since high school.”

“You’re not worth the time,” he spits. So fucking annoying. So fucking shameless. What kind of woman your age behaves this way, anyway? So obnoxious, so pathetic, so intoxicating, so impossible-to-keep-out-of-his-mind—

“Venti sure seems to think I am,” you offer with a smug, self-satisfied smile as you rise from your seat. Hooking your thumbs up under the straps of your sports bra, you quickly snap the elastic fabric back against your shoulders to give your tits a little bounce, an action that, of course, does not go unnoticed. Slapping his hands down flat against the perfectly-ironed lacy tablecloth covering your dining room table and standing up so quickly he nearly knocks his knees against the table’s hardwood underside, Scaramouche laughs.

What a time to finally, finally accept that he has the hots for his neighbor— the same neighbor who’s supposedly the cause of so many of his bad days and sour moods. You’ve prompted many a disdainful mutter from Scaramouche after catching a glimpse of you through your drawn curtains, you’ve been the subject of many a snide comment made in the presence of his friends, and, most frustratingly of all, you’ve inspired countless, countless inappropriate thoughts that he cannot believe you’ve been the subject of.

And all it took was one of his friends hitting on you for him to realize that.

“Constantly flaunting a body like this,” he chides in a way that he wants to come off as insulting and condescending rather than sadistically flattering, but the little grin you offer in response gives him reason to believe you interpreted it as the latter. Seriously?

“Other boys your age seem to enjoy the flaunting,” you counter, slipping your thumbs into the waistband of your spandex leggings. As if to tease the act of pulling them all the way down your legs, you flip the fabric of your waistband over its seam to expose the majority of your soft lower belly.

Anger burns hot behind his pale cheeks. “Is this some kind of pathetic hobby of yours? Fucking guys half your age?”

“I like to consider it a lifestyle,” you reply, shimmying your leggings further and further down your thick thighs until your thong’s completely exposed. A black lace thong— how becoming of a nymphomanic like yourself. “I’m fine with trading experience for virility and stamina; do you know how many men my age finish in thirty seconds and call it there because they’re ‘just so tired’? College boys either go until they can’t hold themselves upright or until they have nothing left to pump into me.”

There’s that vulgar nature that’s both irritated and (subconciously) aroused him for months. He wants to believe that your disgusting nature doesn’t make his cock twitch, but the time for pretending has clearly passed. You don’t believe he finds you ugly or unappealing and neither does he anymore.

“And do you find this… lifestyle fulfilling?” Scaramouche challenges, grimacing at the pressure building in the frontside of his tight jeans.

You laugh. “Is that your way of saying you don’t? Are you a virgin, sweetheart?”

“Of course not. Just because some of us don’t fuck everything with two legs and a pulse doesn’t mean we’re virgins.” His clumsy escapades are none of your business— his high school girlfriend and that guy from the concert Venti dragged him to over the summer don’t concern you.

Bending forward to push your leggings down to your knees, you gaze up at Scaramouche through your eyelashes and giggle. “Don’t make it sound like I don’t savor every last cock or strap I ride. You could put every last one of them in front of me and I’d be able to tell you who they belong to with my eyes shut.”

Venti mentioned something about experience, didn’t he? What a sanitized way of calling older women complete and total whores.

The inferiority complex in Scaramouche wants to prove that he’s the best thing a whore like you will ever experience, that he can make you feel better than any of the other bumbling college morons he probably knows can, and that you’ll give up your ways of fucking everyone that looks at you in order to devote yourself to him and him alone. That’d be some nice payback for all the pain and humiliation you’ve subjected him to these past couple of months, right?

No, he has a better idea.

“If you want to show yourself off that badly,” Scaramouche huffs, doing his damndest to ignore the nearly-painful throbbing in his jeans. “Then I’m sure you’d be fine with doing it in front of that glass door, right?”

With your hands still bunched in the fabric of your leggings, you look back at the glass sliding door that leads to your balcony and bite your lip. It’s not likely anyone would actually see you— you and Scaramouche live on the third floor— but it’s still a possibility and an exciting thought nonetheless. Maybe you could give that nice redheaded quarterback boy you fucked a few months ago a nice show; he lives just across the parking lot in the building parallel to yours.

“Now who’s the deviant one? I’ve never fucked anywhere more public than a nightclub’s bathroom stall,” you tease, finally pushing your leggings all the way down and off your legs. He doesn’t believe you, but Christ, those thighs of yours look soft…

You accept his offer nonetheless and make your way over to the balcony door, your thong riding high on your wide hips and your hardened nipples pressing into the flimsy fabric of your pathetic excuse of a sports bra. “You’re helping me wipe off all the fingerprints afterwards,” you scold, inviting him over with a wiggle of your hips and a glance back over your shoulder.

Now, rationally, Scaramouche would never propose the idea of fucking in a place as public as right in front of an apartment complex parking lot. He’s never considered himself an exhbitionist and he’s always been somewhat obsessed with his image, and people who care about their image generally don’t have sex in the potential presence of others. Additionally, there’s probably something to be said about him potentially getting caught fucking the same woman he’s spent the better half of this past year complaining about, but the current irrational, horny, angry Scaramouche wouldn’t listen to better judgement or rationality anyways.

The relief that comes with unbuttoning his jeans and giving his almost painfully-hard cock room to breathe is so euphoric he can’t help but sigh, the throbbing in his crotch more aggravating than any pounding headache he’s ever experienced after an evening drinking with his friends.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” he laughs, incredulous. “To think the hag living next door to me is the reason I’m like this.” Jamming the weight of his bulge into the plumpness of your soft ass, Scaramouche seizes hold of your hips in both of his hands and gives the fat of your love handles a painful squeeze just to hear you suck the air in through your teeth.

“I thought you’d never come around, you know,” you breathe, beyond eager at the prospect of finally, finally getting to fuck the neighbor boy you’ve been actively working at breaking for months upon months now. A guy this mean, this arrogant, and this demeaning doesn’t come around that often, especially when so many of the guys you get with take the polite route by calling you “ma’am” and complimenting you over and over again— which certainly isn’t a bad thing, but cruel has always satisfied you in ways that kind cannot.

The height difference between the two of you means that Scaramouche has to stand up a little straighter than he normally does in order to press his hips against yours, a realization that’s only slightly humiliating. Granted, it could never compare to how humiliating it was for you to show up at his apartment in front of all his friends.

God, does it feel good to put you in your place.

“Spread,” Scaramouche mutters, knocking one of his feet against both of your ankles. He doesn’t tell you that he needs you to spread your legs so your hips will lower a bit, allowing him to reach them a little more easily since you’re a bit taller than he is.

You would tease him for skipping the foreplay and just jamming himself right into you, but you know that you’ve been plenty wet enough ever since your discussion with him first wandered to sex and masturbation. Well, that, and if you had to wait another minute to get the cock you’ve been so desperate for for so long now, you very well may go crazy. It’s taken months, but you can already tell that it was all so, so worth it.

Running his knuckles down the center of your thong, Scaramouche relishes in the smug satisfaction that comes with realizing that you’re wet. It’s equal parts arousing and equal parts pathetic— just how desperate are you for any cock you can get your hands on?

“You’ve already kept me waiting for months,” you say with a pout cast back at him from over your shoulder. “Why make me wait even longer when I’m right here?”

“Shameless and impatient,” he remarks with a frustrated huff. “Can’t you do something good with your life or yourself for once and just be quiet?”

As tempting as it is to make a teasing quip in return to only further rile up your angsty neighbor boy, a frenzied giggle is the only sound you can muster up when you feel the firm press of a cock against your clothed pussy. Even through your flimsy thong, you can tell that he’s hard, which is a reward in its own right. It’s what you’ve wanted to achieve since the very first time he caught you half-naked watering plants on your balcony— is it so wrong for you to want to rile up the cutie next door?

Scaramouche roughly yanks your thong down to hang around your lower thighs, leaving you entirely on display for him when you follow suit by tugging your sports bra up to your collarbone. The cool, smooth glass against your bare tits is an unfamiliar sensation, but it’s certainly not an unwelcome one— especially when you remember that anyone could look up from across the parking lot and get an eyeful of your bare tits squished up against the glass door.

“I wish I could watch you sink it in for the first time,” you hum, reaching down between your legs to part the outer lips of your cunt for him a little wider. “In front of a mirror or something maybe. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

Scaramouche rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because you’re the spitting image of the romantic type.” There’s no way you consider him the romantic type, is there? He’s not going to hold your hands and whisper in your ear about how cute you are, you know.

Damn it, you’ve got him actually wanting you more than he’s ever wanted you before— this makes all his filthy fantasies about taking you bent over your kitchen counter or being underneath you while you ride him into oblivion look like a cheap, budget porno from a video rental store. His desire has always been real—albeit subconscious, sure—but it feels so much more genuine now that it’s been realized.

“Don’t say a word about this to anyone,” he mumbles in a brief moment of humiliation, biting into his bottom lip as he finally, finally sinks the full length of his cock into you.

Jesus Christ, if there’s anything Venti’s ever been right about, it’s how good a mature pussy feels. You’re soaked all the way down to your inner thighs, you’re so warm Scaramouche nearly feels his knees give out from underneath him, and you squeeze him so well he can feel your pussy gripping the sensitive underside of his tip.

“Why not? I can invite your friend next time,” you propose, squealing with delight when Scaramouche slaps a hand down against the side of your ass. “Venti, right? It’d feel so good to have my ass used while you—“

“Just shut up,” he hisses bitterly, glaring at you hard enough to give himself a stress headache. “Don’t talk about other guys right now. Especially not ones I know.”

“You’re right, it’s rude to talk about other men when I have such a good one right here with me already,” you feign sympathy, pushing your hips back flat against the front of his thighs. “Oh, Kuni.”

There’s that damn nickname again. As much as he hates the idea of you using it to tease him or fluster him, he can’t deny the way his dick twitches whenever you coo it in that soft, sultry tone of yours. It’s like you were custom-made to gobble men up or something— just how many of his classmates have you fucked?

Oh, it doesn’t matter. Not when he knows he can establish himself as the best of the whole damn lot of them. Not when he knows that he gets the privilege of seeing you every single day and nobody, nobody else does. Not when he’s seen your cute nipples peeking at him through that tiny, flimsy pajama top he caught you in all those months ago. Not when he gets to peruse on over to your apartment whenever he wants because you’re right fucking there and nobody, nobody is physically closer to you than he is.

Jesus, this is all starting to sound like some kind of crush.

“How’s that?” Scaramouche taunts, slapping his hips against you so wildly the sound of skin smacking on skin almost drowns out his voice. He’d like to claim that this sort of pace is supposed to be punishing, and he’d be right if he were to say that, but he wants it hard and rough just as much as you surely do. He couldn’t stop his hips even if he wanted to because he knows there’s nothing he’s wanted to do more than fuck your brains out for months upon months now.

You don’t answer him, too preoccupied with relishing in the feeling of his cock pounding into you with everything he’s got. How befitting of Scaramouche to fuck you like he’s angry at you— if he could even claim to be mad anymore. The combined sensations of his hips hammering against yours, his fingernails digging into your soft, plump love handles, and his balls slapping against your ass on each thrust are all far too overwhelming to even attempt a reply.

“Seriously? You run your mouth for ages and now you shut up when I ask you a question?” You’re doing this on purpose— Jesus, you’re insatiable.

Your back arches when Scaramouche digs the tip of his cock into a particularly sensitive spot inside of you, a broken whine leaving your lips instead when you attempt to reply with a dirty quip. He laughs when he realizes what’s just happened— that’s certainly one way to get you to shut that filthy mouth of yours.

“I hope somebody’s watching you, actually,” he admits despite all the jealousy even a single mention of his friend stirred up in him. “That way they can see you’re not worth their time because you don’t value yourself whatsoever. Why would anyone want someone who’s happy to just give themselves away like this and get fucked in a place so public?”

Maybe that’s just a weird, roundabout way of saying I want someone to watch me fuck you so they know a whore like you has been whipped into shape and that you only want me now. Who’s to say?

“You don’t care about getting caught yourself?” You finally pipe up with a grin.

Scaramouche snorts. “Getting caught with the likes of you? I’d transfer universities.”

You pout. “Would I still get to see you?”

For whatever reason, the question catches him off guard. How many times does he need to remind you that you’re not his girlfriend, that you’re not some sweetheart with an innocent crush, that you’re just his fucking neighbor who just so happens to have a hot body and just so happens to feel so, so good around him like this and just so happens to be the subject of his wet dreams and fantasies and—

He’s only able to spit out one word. “Obnoxious.”

His hands reclaim a firm grasp on your ample hips before he takes to fucking into you at a whole new angle— one that’ll surely hit that spot that got you to shut the fuck up moments ago. Your hands clamor for anything you could possibly grab onto to steel yourself, but there’s nothing except for the cool, flat glass beneath your palms.

“Kuni,” you rasp in a broken voice, beyond impressed with his ability to have found your most sensitive spot and target it specially. Call it sheer dumb luck or a testament to how perfectly compatible your bodies are, it doesn’t matter. He won’t let up on it until you’ve collapsed— maybe it’ll be a nice change of pace from your partners being the ones to collapse after an evening with you.

With the task of finding something to hold onto having proven fruitless, you instead slip a hand back between your legs to rub at your clit. Scaramouche snickers at your apparent desperation to orgasm, but he’s not letting you off that easily.

“What a pathetic display,” he remarks, pounding into you so quickly you can barely register the full length of his cock before he’s pulling it all the way out of you again. With your legs trembling and your knees buckling, the possibility of actually collapsing underneath him is becoming increasingly likely— these wild, frenzied thrusts of his prove exactly why you’re so into college guys.

Looking down from the fuzzy reflection of your face in the glass, Scaramouche watches each sink of his cock into your tight, dripping cunt with all the intensity and attention of a virgin. It may as well be his first time— you feel so fucking good he’s starting to lose his train of thought. You take him all the way to the hilt on each thrust so easily that he’d absolutely call you a common whore if he were able to form even a single word.

Despite his inability to form a coherent sentence, Scaramouche finds that he has just enough rationality left to pull out mere seconds before coming all over the swell of your ass, his cock twitching in his hand as he bites back moans. Here he is, coming all over the soft ass of his obnoxious older neighbor lady after spending so many months convincing his friends that he does not, in fact, want to fuck her.

You laugh breathlessly, the hand between your legs still rubbing frantic circles over your clit as you attempt to reach your own orgasm as well. “What’s wrong with coming inside? I’m hurt.”

Scaramouche rolls his eyes. That’d be irresponsible.

“Well, that’s alright,” you chirp, standing upright and turning around to face him. “I can always wring it out of you myself, right?”

“You’re insatiable,” he replies, inching backwards towards the couch as you step forward in time with his footsteps.

“Pot, kettle. You’re still hard, Kuni.”

With the realization that he’ll need some kind of excuse to offer his friends when he inevitably returns to a slew of unread messages a few hours from now, he falls backwards onto the couch just before you make yourself comfortable in his lap.

Well, not that any of them have ever believed any vague, half-baked excuse Scaramouche gives.

[pisces-swirlix]

Payneland Fic Recs

There are some fics that I feel like don’t get talked about enough (or at all), so this is my attempt to give them more recognition! Even though nobody asked lol. Also, I don’t know the tumblr handles for like any of these authors, only their AO3 usernames, so sorry :(

love, in context B24-16 by experimentaldragonfire

Rating: General

Words: 19k

Status: Complete

“Archaeology student Edwin Payne didn't expect the chatty tourist at the excavation fence to become someone he couldn't imagine life without.”

Not gonna lie, I probably overlooked this one a few times, but I’m SO glad I finally read it. It was cute and emotional and damn, this pulled at my heartstrings SO hard. Seriously, there’s a beach date and a museum date and more than one scene where being soaked by the rain is involved. I binged the whole thing in one sitting.

The Manuscript of Real People by paraph

Rating: Mature

Words: 42k 64k

Status: In Progress

“Britain, 1976. Three years into boarding at Saint Hilarion's School, Edwin Paine is assigned Charles Rowland as a roommate.”

This one is pretty heavy. It’s not necessarily sad, but there’s a lot of violence and bullying and homophobia. However the plot really does pull you in, and it’s a really good slowburn. but like, slow slow.

The Case of the Couples Retreat by juliasfanart

Rating: Teen

Words: 17k 23k

Status: In Progress Complete!

“It should have been just another case for the Dead Boy Detective Agency - a pair of missing ghosts to find - if not for the fact that they had to investigate a luxury resort dedicated to couples counselling... for ghosts. And what better way for Edwin and Charles to infiltrate it than to pretend to be just another couple needing to revive their relationship?”

This one is like the opposite of the last one. No dark themes that I can think of, it’s fun and cute while also shining a pretty strong light on the emotions of the characters. This fic has me blushing and swinging my feet.

the notetaker’s ode by imnotcryingipromise

Rating: General

Works: 3k

Status: Complete

“In which Charles realises that Edwin’s notebook contains more than just information about escaping Hell.”

Fluff lovers, this one is for you. Edwin has some very cute things in his journal. Simple and sweet :)

More Night Stand by in_flux

Rating: Explicit

Words: 8k

Status: Complete

“The last person Charles would have expected to meet at a club is Edwin Payne. And they're both happy enough to leave together - with a little help from Niko.”

University AU (kind of). It’s got some pretty hot smut in here, but it also is very cute to see them both have these embarrassingly obvious crushes that the other isn’t picking up on while they both try to seem cool and casual. It’s technically done, but I’m holding on hope that the author will release more someday because this AU is awesome.

[nesaluvstherecoms]

𝐆𝐨𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐱.

ᴍᴀɪɴ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍ ᴄᴏʟᴏɴᴇʟ ᴍɪʟᴇꜱ Qᴜᴀʀɪᴛᴄʜ x ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍ ᴍᴀᴊᴏʀ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ꜰᴇᴍ. ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Y/N, a military prodigy, raised and trained in the Marine Corps, opens her eyes to a new life as a Recombinant. Her purpose is one and one only; being General Frances Ardmore’s right hand in taming the frontier in order to set up humanity’s future home on Pandora, including eliminating resisting natives. There’s only one problem; Y/N’s predecessor has never been on Pandora. Despite this challenge, Y/N seems to face a bigger issue. She’s surrounded by incompetent idiots. The biggest idiot in question seems to be someone among her own ranks. Miles Quaritch. Even with his rank as a Colonel, Quaritch still manages to screw up his biggest mission, ruining Y/N’s and Ardmore’s hard work in the process. With it being her job, Y/N has to find a way to go about this incompetent asshole, including dealing with his unchecked attitude, inability to successfully complete a single mission, impulsive decisions and his absolute lack of professionalism. Miles on the other hand wishes this damn woman would just die. She suddenly appeared one day, charmed Ardmore, got promoted to Major General, and now she thinks she can steal all the authority he had on base, run her rude ass mouth, give him shit about every single mission and boss him around like he’s her personal bitch? Who the fuck does she think she is? They both thought the natives would be their biggest enemies, but with each other among their own ranks, they’re starting to change their minds.

ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ ᴛᴀɢꜱ & ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: minors DNI, enemies to lovers, dark themes, warfare, guns, typical military violence, heavy sexual activity (smut), forced neural bond (tsaheylu), identity crisis, death, injuries, PTSD, etc.

ᴀᴅᴅɪᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ ɴᴏᴛᴇꜱ:

This is an enemies to lovers fic.

Y/N and Miles are both comfortable with engaging in sexual activities with the same gender.

Slow burn.

There are a lot of OCs because I needed more Marines and RDA personnel.

The male Na’vi in this fic have sheath folds because you cannot tell me those fuckers have their cocks out and their crotches are still flatter than my kitchen table.

For chapters with smut, dark themes or heavy triggers I will add warnings.

Recom logo header and dividers are mine, please credit if you use them.

This work is also on AO3, under the username: @nesaluvstherecoms

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐰. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐: 𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑: 𝐄𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐬

✮ ᴜɴɪᴛ ᴀʟᴘʜᴀ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇ�� ᴅᴀᴛᴀ ꜱʜᴇᴇᴛ ✮

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒: 𝐒𝐒𝐃𝐃

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓: 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔: 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕: 𝐆𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐀𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖: 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡

𝐼𝓃 𝓅𝓇𝑜𝑔𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈…

[usedtobethelegendcreator]

Okay, let’s try that again.

Hey, I’m TheLegendCreator. ’Sup, how’s it going. I’m 17, from Louisiana, and I really, really want people to talk to me. I write a lot, I draw even more, and I like writing analyses on Hazbin Hotel. Minor DNIs will not stop me, because frankly, I’ve seen worse. I’m autistic and have an anxiety disorder. High-functioning or low-functioning? Both. I’m the token cishet in this wild wonderland. I’m occasionally funny.

I’m in (and have been in) a lot of fandoms, so here’s a list:

Beyblade Burst

Encanto

Gravity Falls (pre-Book of Bill)

The Silmarillion

ATLA

Soul Eater

Hazbin Hotel

Noragami

If you’re ever doubting which one is currently my hyperfixation, just look at the banner. I update that.

I was only in the Soul Eater fandom for a couple weeks, so I never got around to writing anything for it.

I’m always open for requests and asks. Always. I like to joke that it’s my Wattpad training, but if you give me a prompt, I can usually whip something up in a week. I’ve been trying to sound more approachable about it, because I miss doing that. I love doing requests, whether it’s art or writing. But be warned—my writing is much better than my art. I’m getting better at it, but I’ve been told my art looks horrible.

My AO3 account is TheLegendCreator. That’s my username literally everywhere. I’m on Reddit, too. (Not anymore. Got perma-banned for posting pictures of myself having…fun. Because god forbid women do anything.)

My other account is @thelegendcreator. I no longer have access to it. (Now I do!) That’s where all of my Encanto stuff is. Go take a look if you want.

If you’ve been here a while, you might have heard of NOT-TLC. That’s Leah, my friend from school. She got me into Hazbin Hotel by showing me “Hell’s Greatest Dad”.

If you think you remember someone with my username on Wattpad—congratulations, you’ve found me! I had to delete my account there, but if you dig deep into the Beyblade Burst fandom, you’ll see me eventually.

I have quite a few favorite characters, so here’s a list. Yeah, another list. I swear I’m not usually this boring.

Alastor the Radio Demon

Bruno Madrigal

Ford Pines

Shu Kurenai

Zuko

Soul “Eater” Evans

Maedhros

Yato

The genre of fanfiction I write wildly varies, depending on the fandom. I don’t write smut often, but when I do, I make it filthy. I’m still trying to figure out what my ‘type’ is when it comes to favorite characters…so far the only consistent thing is that they’re guys.

I’m not a big fan of AUs, outside of Canon Divergence. Unless it’s Modern With Bending. Then I’ll French-kiss that fic, please and thank you.

And down below are some of my favorite people!

@captaintrips9

@walkingweirdmageddon

@thecrazyashley-blog

@diamondkat

@eggcats

@tardis-scooter

(EDIT, because apparently people need it:

I’m not excusing Alastor’s abusive behavior towards Husk. I’m just giving Alastor the overall “not as much of a jerk as you could have been” award. Let Husk be responsible for his actions, let Alastor be responsible for his, and leave me the fuck alone about it. I don’t have the time to slowly walk you all through how Husk’s actions as an Overlord were horrendous. Instead, take a moment to imagine what it would be like to have your soul gambled to an Overlord in the Hellaverse, then get back to me on how you still think Husk was the nicest sweetest kindest Overlord ever.)

(ONE MORE EDIT:

Now opening, @thelegendcreator-version3!)

[justratqueenthings]

I was going to write up a big list of JackieNat fic recs but AO3 went down so I'm gushing embarrassingly about my favourite JackieNat authors instead (my AO3 mutuals)

inthequietlight (I don't think they're on Tumblr):

Wonderful AUs. Like, super well thought out and full of life (even the zombie one lol) Their attention to detail is actually amazing. It frequently shocks me, seriously

Such sweet and complicated relationships between Jackie and Nat in all of them, and even Jackie's parents in a few. Strengths and weaknesses slot together so perfectly without dipping into codependency.

They've managed to write multiple OCs that I really care about too which is honestly wild

Warm and caring and slow building solid love, both platonic and romantic

@annoyedb101 tempi69 (such an amazing username):

They are so cruel, always hooking me into a fic and then doing it again and again. Demon Jackie, masc Jackie, situationship Jackie, ex wife Jackie. Seriously desperately need more

I don't know what it is about the way they write but it draws me in so hard. I'm barely stopping myself from begging for new chapters (I would never)

I even watched HotD so I could read one of their fics

Can't pin down a mood across all their fics, every one is so different!

@passionpita-taylorsversion passionpita (only put last because everyone should already know them):

All of their fics are like puzzles to me, pieces from the past constantly being slotted in to give context for the present, and clues for the future that are almost obvious in hindsight (I still miss most of them). "Drive it like you stole it babe" is seriously underappreciated and it's full of those

A thousand hints and callbacks and lore and references to tiny things that make paying full attention so rewarding.

Also it's completely unsurprising they're a published poet. I'm in love with the prose of their fics.

Melancholy, anxiety, dread, and brief windows of happiness that are all the more worth it

Hope this wasn't too weird? kinda hypomanic atm

[verbenaa]

Hi, I'm Chloe! I write both Astarion/Tav and Astarion/Reader fics! ⭒

I also post these works on my archive of our own account, under the username leadii. Feel free to follow along over there as well! Thank you so much for reading my fics, and I dearly hope you enjoy them!

♡ Please note that currently all works posted here contain some form of NSFW content. Minors, please do NOT read/interact! 18+ ONLY ♡

⋆⭒˚.⋆ updated 11/16/2024 ⋆⭒˚.⋆

✧· · ─── ·✧· ─── · ·✧

𝓂𝓊𝓁𝓉𝒾 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇

✧ to eden ao3

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: Rin lays there, her back against the grass as she stares resolutely up at the sky overhead, little drops of dew like tiny diamonds hanging heavy from blades of grass.

“I have nothing to say to you, just so you know.” She refuses to look over to the place where Astarion lays mere inches from her as she says the words, but it doesn’t stop her from moving her hand to rest it down in the small gap of space between their bodies. 

It’s an offering, if nothing else, though it is one Rin doesn’t know if he will take.

“Well then, I suppose it’s a good thing that you so rarely have anything worthwhile to say.” Astarion’s words carry his usual unaffected haughtiness that has her eyes rolling despite herself, a small huff of annoyance escaping her lips. 

But as she feels the coolness of his skin against her own, clever fingers intertwining with her delicate ones using only the slightest bit of movement she thinks that maybe, just maybe there can also be a little room for hope in whatever this thing between them is.

✧· · ─── ·✧· ─── · ·✧

In which Astarion and Rin learn how to bridge the gap, because maybe all that distance between them isn’t quite so large as they once thought.

A semi-retelling of events; focused on themes of learning trust, intimacy, and perhaps even love.

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8 | chapter 9

✧· · ─── ·✧· ─── · ·✧

𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉𝓈

✧ air so deep and sweet ao3

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: “You’re just utterly shameless, aren’t you?’ He tsks, “Seducing me away from my work like this." Astarion’s eyes rove your form laying beneath him in reverence, the silken strands of your hair spread like a halo around your face and your dress a mess around your waist.

✧ so that i may dream tonight ao3

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: It was a special torture to be unable to touch him, you decide. You want nothing more than to brush your fingers through his curls as you come, to caress the delicate point at the top of his ears, feel the smoothness of his skin on your fingertips.

It feels absolutely filthy, to be tied up like this, your pleasure left to Astarion’s will as you are powerless to simply lay in wait for whatever he has in store.

✧ venus in furs ao3

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: He’s always imagined you like this in his dreams, he thinks. Naked, dressed in rubies as red as the wine in your silver chalice, blood like pomegranate juice dripping from your lips, staining your mouth to match the red of your blood that colors his own.

✧ opus 4 (nothing compares to the sighs that fall from your lips) ao3

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: “Have I mentioned how absolutely divine you look, darling?”

“Well, you did make the gown.” Your hand tangles in his hair, pressing him closer as you arch into him. He buries his face into your chest, kissing and licking at the skin bared to him above the low neckline.

“It’s quite easy when you have such a lovely muse.”

✧ to bask in your warmth ao3

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: “I’m not the only one who would look lovely with ribbons around my wrists, you know.” Your eyes flick up to his own as you wet your lips at the thought—dear, sweet Astarion writhing below you with the same rosebud hue tracing his wrists to keep him pinned as he is able to do nothing but accept the love and pleasure you have to give him.

“Something you think about often, hm?” His lips quirk up in amusement, his eyes finding your own as he basks in the heat from your warm body tucked into his side, thinly veiled interest present in his gaze.

✧ silver and silk ao3

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: “And we, my dear, have some very urgent business to attend to.” His expression is nothing short of devilish as he practically pushes her inside of the tiny closet and shuts the door behind them both, only waiting a mere moment before wrapping his arms around her waist and lowering his lips to her neck.

“Urgent, Astarion?” She rolls her eyes despite the loosening of her limbs underneath the feeling of his lips kissing down over her collarbone, mouthing at the exposed cleavage of her breasts before he lowers himself to the floor in front of her.

✧· · ─── ·✧· ─── · ·✧

In which Astarion finds it in his heart to help Rin work off some of her frustrations in a variety of ways. 

for kinktober 2024

✧ all my dreaming is only put to shame ao3

𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇����: She’s on a particular fantasy, one involving Astarion and some ribbon wrapped elegantly around her body with a touch only he is capable of as he brings her to her peak again and again and praise falls from his lips, when footsteps near her tent.

Footsteps that Rin is far too lost in her imagination to hear—unguarded and terribly vulnerable—especially when said person does not want to be heard, sneaking through the night with every bit of their prowess.

Her lips open on a silent moan and she's so very near completion when a voice cuts through the night, the exact one she had been fantasizing about.

“Well, now this is quite a surprise.”

✧· · ─── ·✧· ─── · ·✧

In which Astarion walks in on a decidedly private moment, but finds a way to make the most of it.

for kinktober 2024

[simping4villains]

Here’s a part 2 of the Shigaraki oneshot I posted awhile back (since some of y’all were asking for it). I do have both parts posted on both my wattpadd and ao3 account under the same username (along with many other fics). I think i’m going to keep the story going, so check there for more regular updates! <3

~~~~~

Warning: Sexual content

It had been a couple of weeks since that night in Tomura's apartment. You'd been avoiding him, not responding to his texts and dodging his calls, but he started threatening to stop by your apartment or the elementary school you taught at to check on you, so you finally agreed to see him.

He asked you to meet up with him at the South entrance of the mall where you'd first met. He was wearing the same black hoodie he'd worn on that day. Originally, you had thought he was just introverted and anxious, but now you realized that he probably wore it in an attempt to hide his identity. He didn't want to be recognized in public and have the heroes called in.

God, what an idiot you'd been. You were too naive, too trusting. Now you were in too deep.

"Y/n," he smiled when he saw you. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

Neither were you.

"Of course. I'm sorry if it feels like i've been ignoring you lately, i've just been so busy with my students," you lied. "It's almost winter break."

Tomura had never shown any signs that he'd be violent toward you, but you still weren't sure what he was truly capable of. You'd tried to do research on him and his villain group, but the media didn't have a ton of information. It seemed like he hadn't had any sort of life before the league—not one that you could find, at least.

"It's alright," he said, though you weren't sure if he really believed you or not.

"So, what are we doing? Your text was pretty cryptic."

"I was thinking we could grab a drink and talk."

You were confused. You'd never known Tomura to have much of a taste for alcohol. "Um, I'm not so sure there are any bars in the mall."

"That's okay, I know a place." He turned and started walking down the sidewalk, glancing at you over his shoulder. "Come on."

Alarms were going off on your head. He wasn't giving you enough information. You didn't like not knowing where he was taking you. Then again, you weren't sure how he would react if you refused to follow him. What choice did you have but to play along?

He led you to a bus stop, which only made you feel even more unsettled. When the bud arrived, you took note that it was headed for the Kamino Ward. It wasn't a place you were very familiar with.

Walking through the streets, you tried to guess which bar Tomura was bringing you to, but he kept passing them by. Eventually, the streets became less lively and more deserted. Many of the buildings looked abandoned, including the one that he finally stopped in front of.

"Well, here it is."

"I don't understand, is it like a speak easy or something?"

He gave an amused laugh. "I guess you could say that."

He slipped through the boards that covered the busted door, urging you to follow him. Against your better judgment, you did. The room inside was battered and covered in dust.

"There's nothing here."

"It's downstairs."

You started to feel nauseous. Had his plan been to just kill you all along? Did he not think he could let you live now that you knew who he was?

"Tomura, it's getting late, maybe I should get going. I promised my aunt that I'd stop by tonight. I don't want her to worry."

It was another lie, but he didn't have to know that. You wanted him to think you had places to be, people who would notice if you didn't show up, didn't answer their texts and calls. Your aunt had met Tomura before, so she'd probably give his name to the police if you went missing.

Then again, what had the police been able to do to stop him up to this point?

His smile dropped. You'd never seen him look so hurt. "I knew it. You really are afraid of me."

"Tomura, that's not it at all."

"Then just trust me. Please. Don't leave yet."

You nodded. "Okay."

What else could you say? What else could you do? If he thought you were a flight risk, that might only cause him to kill you sooner.

The two of you crossed the room to a door, which he opened to reveal a closet. You braced for an impact, thinking maybe he would use your confusion as a means to distract you while he knocked you out. Instead, he reached out to the back wall of the closet and pushed it forward, revealing it to be a hidden door. Beyond it was a set of stairs that led to the basement. As soon as he revealed this secret entrance, he pulled a hand out of his pocket and put it over his face. It was part of his villain costume—you remembered the chills it gave you when you'd first seen it on that special news report.

You followed him down and were surprised to find that there really was a bar in the basement of this abandoned building. There were a few people in the room, but the person who caught your attention was the man standing behind the counter, polishing a glass. His body appeared to be made of smoke or something. He looked up at the two of you as you entered.

"Ah, young master Shigaraki, you've returned."

A man sitting at the bar in a skin-tight suit turned toward the two of you. "Yeah, and it looks like he brought a friend. Who the hell is this, boss?!"

The girl sitting beside him, who couldn't have been more than 17, tilted her head and smiled. "Is she a new recruit?"

Tomura shifted awkwardly. You could feel the way he tensed with embarrassment. "This is Y/n. We've been seeing each other for a while now and I thought it was time for her to meet you."

"The boss has a girlfriend? Get it, boss!"

The girl hopped off of the stool she'd been perched on, running over to circle around you and size you up. "What a cutie! I wonder what your blood tastes like?"

Tomura wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you against him in a protective manner. "Maybe this was a mistake."

The girl laughed. "Oh, don't worry, boss! We're going to be best friends." She beamed at you. "My name's Toga."

The man in the suit hopped up to join you all. "And I'm Jin. But my villain name is Twice because I can duplicate myself and make copies of other people! I don't know if i'm the real deal or just a clone!"

"Don't overwhelm her," Tomura warned, his eyes narrowing at them between the fingers of the hand he wore.

"Oh, no, we wouldn't want to scare her off," one of the other members piped up from the corner of the room, his tone sarcastic. "God knows how hard it is for you to get a date."

You hadn't noticed him before, which seemed shocking now that your gaze met his. His body was covered in what looked like burn scars and even from across the room you could tell he had the most piercing blue eyes you'd ever seen. His demeanor was fairly casual, but still conveyed that he wasn't someone you'd want to mess with. He was a bit terrifying.

Any embarrassment Tomura felt was quickly melting into rage. It seemed he and this other league member didn't get along too well. Despite whatever internal conflict you were facing, you couldn't help but feel bad for him in that moment. Your hand brushed the one he had on your waist, just long enough for him to understand that it had been on purpose and that you'd intended for it to comfort him.

"Just ignore him," Tomura mumbled. "It's what the rest of us do."

"So, what's your quirk?" Toga asked, trying to shift the attention away from the other man.

Twice cut you off before you could answer. "Are you going to join the league? You totally should!"

You looked between Toga and Twice. You had been ready for Tomura to kill you, but nothing could have prepared you for this. "Oh, I—"

"No," Tomura snapped. "She's just here to better understand our cause."

You could feel the silent rage radiating off of him. In his eyes, these two had crossed a line by inviting you to be a part of the league. If it was something you'd decided for yourself, he would have welcomed you with open arms, but he wanted to protect you, and he knew that you would be safest if the heroes never found out about you.

The man in the corner scoffed. "Of course she isn't joining the league. Look at her. She probably couldn't keep up with us."

Tomura's fingers dug into your hip. He was trying to hold himself back, to keep his composure. If this man had been insulting him, he could've just ignored it, or even come back with his own sarcastic retort, but when it came to you—well, it was harder for him to brush it off.

"Y/n," the man behind the bar called. "Come and sit. Would you like some tea? I've always got it ready for master Shigaraki."

"Tea would be lovely," you smiled, glad for someone to diffuse the sudden tension.

You took a seat at the bar, trying to ignore whatever lecture Tomura was giving Twice and Toga about the way they'd ambushed you. You wondered whether or not the other man would get a lecture too. He didn't seem like someone who would really listen. . . or care.

"Sorry about them," the man said as he pushed a cup of tea across the bar to you. "Some of the newer members are so full of charisma. And Dabi, well, he's. . ."

"It's alright. I'm sure they mean well," you replied, forcing a smile. "I didn't catch your name."

"It's Kurogiri."

"Kurogiri," you repeated. "How did you end up becoming a bar tender for the league of villains?"

He laughed. "I am not just a mere bartender. It is my job to keep Tomura Shigaraki safe. I am his sworn protector."

"I didn't think the leader of the league of villains would need protecting."

"There are plenty of people who want to see his downfall—heroes and villains alike. Most don't agree with his mission."

You were about to ask what his mission was when you felt three fingers gripping your shoulder, telling you that Tomura wanted to leave.

"Kurogiri, I'll be in my room if you need me. Come on, Y/n."

He led you through the bar and down a hallway, stopping at the very last door. His room at the league's hideout was smaller than the one in his apartment, and somehow even less decorated. It was very reminiscent of a college dorm, though he had a full-size bed. On his desk you noticed he had a photo strip of the two of you that you'd taken on one of your very first dates. Besides this, his desk was almost completely bare.

"I'm sorry about them," he said as he took a seat on the bed, removing the hand from his face and setting it on the nightstand. "Maybe bringing you here was a mistake after all." His fingers found their way to his neck, mindlessly scratching lines in familiar tracks.

You moved to sit beside him, gently pulling his hand away from his reddening skin to hold it palm-up in your lap. "Toga and Twice seemed nice."

"I just thought maybe if you met everyone then you would see that we aren't as bad as the heroes make us out to be. You'd see that you don't have to be afraid of me."

"I'm not afrai—"

"Stop," he said, his eyes pinching shut like the words pained him to hear. "I feel like you can barely look at me now. You think I wouldn't hesitate to kill you, that your death would be just as meaningless to me as those who have died as collateral—a small sacrifice for my cause."

You didn't know what to say. You had hoped you'd been convincing enough, but Tomura had seen through it. He could tell things had changed between you. Your heart was racing now, wondering what he would do.

He turned to you, his eyes soft and pleading. "I would never do anything to hurt you, y/n—and I would gladly kill anyone who tried. I couldn't forgive myself if anything happened to you."

You swallowed, searching his eyes for any sign of deception, but ultimately decided that this was the truth. He didn't bring you here to kill you, he just wanted you to understand him.

"Kurogiri mentioned that a lot of people don't agree with your 'mission.' What is it you're doing?"

"I want to destroy the world that we live in. You don't know what's going on, so you don't understand how wretched it really is. From the ashes, I'll build a new world—similar to what you believe ours to be."

You had never seen this side of him before. He sounded so. . . evil. "But why do you have to destroy things first? Why can't you just try to make things better?"

He shook his head, pulling his hand away from you. "Society is too far gone. There is no 'making things better' as it stands. We need a fresh start, and I can give it to us."

You nodded slowly, processing everything he was saying. "And what would this new world of yours look like?"

"No more heroes who are only after the pay and praise of a job well done. Just people. People allowed to live their lives without being forced to worship these corrupt imposters."

You thought of your mother, who had been a hero and had died saving others. Had she really been so bad? Had she done it for the wrong reasons? You'd be lying if you said there was never a time where you thought her sense of justice had been selfish. Because of it you had grown up without a mother, without a father, isolated from the rest of the world, discouraged from using and training your quirk. You often wondered how different your life might look now if she had picked a different, more sensible career path.

He continued when you didn't respond. "No one is born a villain, they're created—they're spit out and shunned by this cruel world one too many times. I just want to live in a world where everyone is equal, where no one is treated differently for their quirks."

"Well, I guess. . . I guess that doesn't seem so bad."

He smiled and rested his forehead against yours, bringing a hand up to cup your jaw. "I don't want to live in that world without you by my side. I really do love you."

You held your breath and closed your eyes, weighing everything that he'd said. The man you'd spent the past few months with, Tomu, was sweet, shy, caring. Tomura Shigaraki, the leader of the league of villains, had a reputation for being something else entirely—cold, ambitious, and merciless. Before, you couldn't have believed they really were the same person. Yet sitting here, listen to him speak, it all came together. And you hated yourself because, despite it all. . .

"I love you," you whispered, as if you were ashamed to say the words too loud, afraid that might somehow make them more real.

He pressed his lips to yours, winding his hand into your hair, always careful to keep at least one finger away from you. He'd missed you those past few weeks. He was worried he had lost you. He wanted you to know how much you meant to him—how much he needed you. He had been a mess without you, barely eating or sleeping. He would have fallen apart completely if you'd left. He needed you to know that.

"I thought i'd lost you," he whispered between kisses, his voice like a plea, begging you to keep proving him wrong.

Honestly, you'd thought he'd lost you, too. You had every intention of ending your relationship by avoiding him. Maybe it wasn't fair to do it that way given how long you'd been together, but after learning who he really was, you worried that if you met up with him to end things then he might overreact and become violent. You couldn't have predicted that seeing him would instead make you change your mind.

"I'm still here," you told him, feeling ashamed of yourself. What would Aunt Marci think if she knew you were in love with a villain?

He pulled you onto his lap so that you straddled him, wrapping his arms around your waist so you were caged to his chest. "Are you sure tou don't hate me?" He asked. "You aren't only here telling me the things I want to hear because you're afraid of me?"

You frowned. "I wish that were the case. It would make this all a lot easier."

"You don't want to want to be with me, right? To love me?"

"Right," you agreed, your voice barely audible. You were worried how he might react knowing you were so apprehensive.

His expression didn't change. He didn't erupt into a fit of anger. He brushed the tips of his fingers through your hair before ghosting them along your jaw. "Then i'll just have to keep giving you reasons to want me."

Your lips met again and you melted in his arms. He ran a hand up the back of your shirt, pressing four fingers into your back so that he held you closer. You gasped at his touch and he took the opportunity to catch your bottom lip between his teeth, lightly tugging at it. It was all a painful reminder that, despite everything, you still burned for him.

   You were so weak.

He guided you back on the bed, spreading himself over you and bending to trail feather-light kisses along your neck. "I want to prove that you don't have to be afraid of me," he whispered, his breath tickling your skin.

"How are you going to do that?"

His teeth grazed along your neck. "I'll show you how gentle I can be."

"Tomura, I've already seen that side of you."

He lifted his head from your neck to meet your gaze. He was smirking. God, he was so beautiful. "Not like this."

You didn't even realize he'd grabbed your shirt until it disintegrated around you, flitting away from your body and leaving you feeling vulnerable beneath him, guarded only by the thin lace bra you wore.

He ran his fingers along the edge of it, humming to himself. "Pretty. I don't want to ruin it."

You frowned. "You know, I really wish you wouldn't ruin any of my clothes."

That made him laugh. He thought you were cute when you were mad. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it upset you so much. I just like giving you reasons to wear mine instead."

"I don't have a problem with wearing yours, I just don't want to have to keep spending money on clothes that actually fit me just for you to make them disappear in seconds."

"That's fair." He pressed his lips to your chest before trailing soft kisses down your stomach, stopping at the waistband of your jeans. "But it really is so much quicker to decay them," he said as he fiddled with your belt and zipper.

You lifted your hips to help him guide your pants off of your legs. You were surprised when he dragged your panties along with them, exposing you to him. He ran the tips of his fingers down your thighs before settling between your legs. Your breath hitched at the sight alone.

He wove his arms under your legs so that he could grip your hips, pulling you closer to him. Your heart raced as you felt his breath against your core.

"Are you gonna make it?" He asked. "You're looking a bit flustered."

"Will you quit teasing me?"

He flashed a devilishly playful smile. "I'm not teasing you. I fully intend to give you everything you want. It's not my fault if you lack patience."

He placed a gentle kiss on your clit, the rough cracks of his lips creating enough friction to make your toes curl, but it was the soft warmth of his tongue against you that finally drew a moan from your throat. He hummed his satisfaction, which only added to the sensations as he continued exploring your heat with his mouth.

"Tomura, fuck. . ."

Your hand moved to grip his hair, needing something to ground you in reality as pleasure overtook your body and clouded your mind. His tongue moved faster against your clit, rushing you closer to your orgasm. It wasn't long before you completely fell apart, pulling at his hair and crying out his name. Once you'd gotten past the peak of your climax, he moved to lay next to you. He propped himself up on his elbow and lazily ran a few fingers through your hair.

"I'm surprised," you said.

"What do you mean?"

"No games."

"I told you."

"Maybe you aren't so evil after all," you joked.

He laughed, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you closer. "Don't tell the others."

"I dunno, you might have to buy my silence," you teased.

"What's your price?"

You snaked a hand behind his neck and pulled him into a kiss, hooking your leg over his hip at the same time so you could press his body against yours. He smirked against your lips, chuckling to himself.

You broke away from him. "What?"

"Was that your answer?"

You avoided the question, instead tugging at his shirt. "This isn't fair. I'm practically naked."

"So that's a yes?"

"Will you just shut up and take your clothes off?"

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head at you. "So impatient. We'll have to work on that."

Despite his chastisement, he listened. He pulled his clothes off and threw them next to yours on the floor before reaching behind you to unhook your bra. His hands covered your breasts, careful as always to keep at least one finger off of you. Then, he leaned into your chest and replaced one of your hands with his mouth, sucking bruises on your skin and flicking his tongue against your nipple.

You bit your lip, trying to contain a moan, not wanting to seem anymore desperate, but it just became a whimper in your throat. You felt him smile against your chest and move his free hand down to between your legs. You were so wet that he slid two fingers in you like it was nothing. He scissored them back and forth, stretching you out as he continued toying with your nipples. You couldn't contain yourself any longer. You tugged at his hair as you moaned his name.

"What is it, baby?" He asked.

You grabbed at his hip, trying to pull him closer to you.

"You want something?"

"Stop teasing me. You said no games."

He feigned a sudden realization. "Ohh, you want me in here?" He thrusted his fingers deeper into you, making sure to curl them over your g-spot and drag another moan from your throat.

"Fuck. Yes."

He kissed your forehead. "Of course, baby."

With the hand that was on your chest, he steadied himself on the bed, and with the other he lined his tip up with your entrance. There were no games. He didn't tease you, he didn't make you beg, he just eased himself in until you were completely filled. You arched against him and dug your nails into his shoulders, loving the feeling of him stretching you out.

"Am I good to move?" He asked after a moment, gently brushing his nose against yours.

You nodded.

He slowly pulled his hips back before sinking into you again, repeating the motion over and over until he found a good rhythm.

His movements were different this time. Before, he had seemed desperate, slamming into you at a rough pace. Now, his stokes were slow, controlled, passionate—like he was using his body to show you all of the things he couldn't say out loud. He was begging you to stay, to love him, to give him a chance to be the person you'd originally thought he was.

And despite all of the alarms going off in your head, you knew you would.

You could feel the knot building once more in the pit of your stomach. He was pushing you closer to the edge with each languid movement, and you could tell by his breathing that he was getting closer too.

At one point he paused and grabbed one of the pillows from the bed, lifting your hips and setting you back down on it. The new angle that it provided was absolutely euphoric. He reached deeper than before, rolling his hips so that he hit all of the right spots.

"Tomura," you moaned.

"Does that feel good, baby?"

"Yes."

"Are you close?"

You nodded.

"You wanna cum with me?"

"Please," you begged.

"I gonna count you down, alright?"

"Okay."

"Five."

He moved his hand between you.

"Four."

He started drawing quick circles over your clit with his thumb.

"Three."

You could feel your pleasure coiling tighter and tighter.

"T-fuck-two."

You dug your nails into his skin, arching against him.

"One."

You both fell apart, panting and moaning as you let your pleasure wash over you. He caught your lips in a sloppy kiss before moving down your neck, trying to cover every inch of your skin. He wanted you to understand how much he loved you—how much he worshipped you. He wouldn't let you go so easily.

The two of you cleaned up and Tomura gave you another sweatshirt to borrow since he'd decayed your shirt. There was no bathroom attached to his room, so you had to go down the hall. You hadn't taken more than two steps on your way back to his room when you heard a mocking voice.

"Ohhh, Tooomura," He said in a tone meant to mimic your own. "God, it's fucking pathetic."

You turned to see the man from before—the one who'd been a jerk to you in the bar—leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. Your cheeks felt hot—a combination of rage and embarrassment. Had he been listening in on you two?

"It's Dabi, right?" You asked. "Look, I don't know what the fuck your problem is, but will you just leave me the hell alone?"

He kicked off of the wall, closing the distance between you and getting in your face. "My problem is you. I've got big plans for my future and the league can help me see them through, but not if you're here. You're too much of a distraction. You'll just end up making Shigaraki soft—him and the rest of the league."

"I'm not trying to be a distraction," you insisted.

"Oh, please," he scoffed. "It's only a matter of time before you brainwash Shigaraki into thinking that what we're doing is pointless. Love is like a fucking poison."

He shoved past you and disappeared down the hallway. You must've seemed off when you got back to Tomura's room because a look of concern quickly spread across his face.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"Fine," you replied, clenching and unclenching your fists as you kept your gaze trained on the floor. You were trying to keep your anger from bubbling over and causing you to do something stupid. How could Dabi think you were bad for Tomu? You wouldn't make him soft. You wouldn't make him give up on the world he was trying to create—a world where everyone was equal. Why would you?

"Are you sure?"

You finally looked up at him. Your determination was radiating off of you as you announced: "I want to join the league."

[sheliesshattered]

Sylki fic: When She Sings She Sings Come Home

Loki/Sylvie, 3200 words. Post s02e06 fix-it, angst with a happy ending. Also available on AO3 under the same title and username.

--

When She Sings She Sings Come Home

Sylvie wakes with Loki’s voice in her ears.

It’s been months since she last saw him, striding out to the Loom to save the timelines. Winter has come and gone, here in this little corner of a branch that she’s made her home. Every day that’s passed, she’s half expected to turn around and see him standing there, like that night he appeared in the parking lot next to her truck. But for months, there’s been nothing but the absence of him, growing larger and more crystalline every day.

She wakes with his voice in her ears, singing that ridiculous song from the train on Lamentis.

To Sylvie, everybody! he’d said, grinning at her, not drunk only too full. She would give anything to see him smile like that again. She would give anything to see him again.

And it isn’t that she hasn’t looked. Of course she had. She’d barely gotten through a single shift at McDonald’s after leaving Mobius standing outside his variant’s house before she’d used He Who Remain’s TemPad to try to find Loki.

He wasn’t dead. She knows he isn’t dead. But he also isn’t anywhere. There are an infinite number of branches now, layers of reality twisting around each other into something larger, a shape she can almost see, almost recognize. But Loki isn’t on any of them. No matter where she searches, he remains just outside her grasp.

Sylvie goes to work, she drives her truck home, she listens to music at the record store, she checks in on Mobius, she tries to sleep. But everywhere is marked by Loki’s absence, and every moment is overlaid with the sound of him singing.

She can’t find Loki, but that song is a thread she can pull at. Where did he learn it? The words were almost Asgardian, but not quite. Something similar, a branch of the original. A variant. Because of course it was.

It’s not until she thinks to quietly spy on the New Asgard settlement in Norway, forty years on from her quiet life in Oklahoma, that she hears the language again. Norwegian.

Remember this place, she hears Odin say, in a memory that is not hers, rippling through the interwoven timelines because it is what she needs in this moment. Home.

She turns her back on New Asgard, on the man who is almost but not quite her brother, on the Valkyrie who will come to lead their people like the hero out of a saga that Sylvie had once wished she could become. She turns her back, and walks into this strange, beautiful land. Norway. One tiny place on one tiny planet in one insignificant branch of the ever-growing tree of time, where the syllables are shaped into words that resonate with Loki’s voice from so long ago.

Sylvie wanders into pubs, into taverns, into bars, into concerts. She hums the few notes that never leave her head, and hopes to find someone who knows the song.

Until, miraculously, one day, she does.

“It’s an old drinking song,” the bearded man at the bar tells her, gesturing with his beer. “It’s about taking the long way home, but knowing you’ll get there in the end.”

“Can you teach it to me?” Sylvie asks, unblinking, gaze trained on the stranger’s face.

“For that, I will need a lot more beer.”

So she buys him beers. She coaxes the song out of him. She buys rounds for the whole bar, until they are all singing it. They teach her the words in Norwegian, teach her to shape the vowels as carefully as any incantation, and then teach her the meaning behind the words.

In storm-black mountains, I wander alone

Over the glacier I make my way

In the apple garden stands the maiden fair

and sings, “When will you come home?”

“You, I think,” her drunk bearded acquaintance says to her, “you are the maiden fair.”

“And what if I am?” Sylvie asks, raising her chin, still dead-sober despite the bourbon clutched in her hand.

“Then you must sing for him to come home!”

“From an apple orchard, if you can manage it,” leers his friend next to him.

“Will it work?” she hears herself say.

“Of course it will work! Music is magic. Galdr, they used to call it, in the old religion. The power of your voice to shape reality.” The man is drunk, but his words tug at something in Sylvie’s memory, long buried. “Sing, and he will come home.”

“As simple as that?”

The bearded man laughs uproariously. “When has love ever been simple?” he demands jovially. “When has magic ever been easy? But that does not mean it is not worth trying. There is beauty in the trying. There is love in the longing.” He’s slurring his words, barely managing to stay atop his barstool.

But he’s not wrong.

I know what kind of god I need to be, Loki had said, tears shining in his eyes. For you. For all of us.

But Sylvie is a god, too, she reminds herself, as she tosses back her bourbon and turns her back on the little Norwegian town, with the northern lights rippling over head. She’s not the goddess of chaos anymore, and she hasn’t felt mischievous since she was a child.

But the goddess of galdr, yes, that perhaps is something she could be.

She returns to her little Oklahoma town, cloud cover obliterating the stars, and drives her truck to the record store. There’s only one song she wants to hear, only one voice to sing it, but music has been her comfort since she came to this place, and she cannot simply become the goddess of music-turned-into-magic because she wishes it to be so. Music has been her shield, her cocoon, her comfort these long lonely months. Now she must learn to form it into other shapes, into weapons and tools. Into a lighthouse, shining out into the vast dark of the multiverse.

She taught herself enchantment, while running for her life from one apocalypse to the next. She can teach herself galdr in this quiet little record shop in this quiet little town.

Sylvie slides the headphones into place, and lets the music move through her.

Oh, sweet nothin'

She ain't got nothin' at all

Oh, sweet nothin'

She ain't got nothin' at all

But what if she had something? What if she had the one person who would make all of this worth it?

I know what kind of god I need to be, she tells herself. For you, Loki.

She murmurs the words along with the music, infusing them with intent, with magic.

And for one fraction of an instant, she can see him.

He’s alone, on the throne he never wanted, surrounded by the threads of the multiverse, pulsing green as they grow and twist. There is nothing, nothing else, only Loki alone in that vast emptiness, in that expanse of everything that ever was or ever could be.

His eyes are dull, unfocused, far away. And then— a flicker of recognition, a spark of life—

Sylvie loses the connection.

She’s alone on the sofa in the back of the record shop, with Lou Reed singing in her ears.

He ain’t got nothing at all

She drives home. She tries to sleep. She keeps hearing Loki’s voice, keeps seeing him alone in that emptiness. She murmurs into the darkness— not quite a song, not quite a spell—

But trees dance and waterfalls stop

When she sings, she sings “come home”

There is a shape to the enormity of what Loki has done. There is an order to the way the branches of the multiverse wrap around each other. It is just outside her grasp, but Sylvie feels that if she could just see the shape of it, she might understand.

She might be able to reach him.

In storm-black mountains, I wander alone she whispers to the emptiness of her tiny apartment, in this tiny town, in this little branch of a timeline, one miniscule part of a greater whole, and falls asleep dreaming of trees dancing, of waterfalls stopping, of Loki taking her outside the flow of time to tell her that there was no other way to keep her safe.

Sylvie wakes with her own voice in her ears.

The song is coursing through her, jeg saler min ganger, and she can feel the magic at her fingertips, on the tip of her tongue, pushing at the insides of her ribs, swelling her lungs and begging to be released.

I know what kind of god I need to be.

She gets into her truck and drives. North and east, away from everything she knows, vaguely towards those northern lights dancing over the fjords, too far away to reach on roads such as these.

But once upon a time, when she was very young, there was another road. A rainbow road, the Bifrost, that could take her anywhere just like magic.

Every bit of magic she has now she has taught herself. And this, too, this song swelling in her chest, is magic of her own making.

There is beauty in the trying. There is love in the longing.

She drives past fields of wheat and fields of corn, through days and nights, with the glare of the sun or the pattering of the rain against the windshield. Sylvie drives and drives and drives, and keeps the song tucked away inside her, growing in fury like a hurricane in a bottle, like the storm that had raged outside the night they met.

She drives until the scent of apples wafts through the open windows of the truck, and then she pulls over, knowing this was her destination all along.

Iðunn, a childhood memory whispers, too long ago now to have any meaning at all. The apples of eternity.

Home she thinks, and then hears, from a memory not her own:

Asgard’s not a place, it’s a people.

This could be Asgard. Asgard is where our people stand.

Her brother’s voice. The voice of the man who had once raised her as his daughter. The family she lost and can never regain, no matter what shape the multiverse twists itself into. Words reaching across time, across branching timelines, to reach her here and now, because it is what she needs to hear.

Sylvie climbs out of her truck and walks into the apple orchard and doesn’t look back.

She walks until she can no longer see the road from between the trunks and branches. She walks until there is nothing but the smell of apples, the soil under foot, and the sky over head. She walks until the song finally bursts out of her, all of her desperation and loneliness flooding out of her lungs to shake the very air around her, in the shape of words that are his but also hers, now.

But trees dance and waterfalls stop

When she sings, she sings “come home”

In storm-black mountains, I wander alone

Over the glacier I make my way

In the apple garden stands the maiden fair

and sings, “When will you come home?”

But trees dance and waterfalls stop

When she sings, she sings “come home”

When she sings, she sings “come home”

When she sings, she sings “come home”

When she sings, she sings “come home!”

And then he is there, standing beside her in the sunshine and the scent of the apple orchard. Loki glances around at the trees dancing in the wind, his eyes bright, before his gaze snaps to hers.

“You’re here,” Sylvie croaks, her voice burned through with the force of the magic that poured out of her, the magic that’s brought Loki to her.

“No, not really,” he says, his eyes never still as they trace over her face. “I’m still there too. I’m sort of everywhere, really. It’s hard to explain.”

“Help me to understand,” she says before the words even have the chance to fade away. “You said you knew what kind of god you needed to be. You saved us, you saved everything, and then you disappeared. Make me understand.”

“I can’t, Sylvie,” Loki says gently, and there is a sorrow in his eyes deeper than oceans, more boundless than the vastness of space. “It’s been centuries for me. Lifetimes. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Enchant me, he had begged her once, standing in the McDonald’s parking lot in his ridiculous TVA uniform. You can see what I saw.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she tells him, raising her hands slowly towards his face, green magic flickering between her fingers. “Just let me see what you saw.”

“Sylvie,” he starts, and there are tears in his eyes again, like there were in that last moment before he turned his back on her to destroy the Loom.

“We’re the same, remember?” she says, and if her voice cracks it is only because of the abuse it’s suffered, only because of the magic that poured out through her vocal chords to shape reality to her desires. “You shouldn’t have to bear this burden alone, Loki,” she tells him, with as much tenderness as she can force into her ruined voice. “Let me understand.”

“It was the only way,” he says, as if in warning, but Sylvie cups his face in her hands before the tears can fall from his eyes.

Centuries. Lifetimes. The same day, over and over again. Reality unspooling, starting with Victor Timely and ending with her, again and again. Their fight in the Citadel at the end of time, relived hundreds of times, always with the same ending. Always the death of He Who Remains, and the unraveling of everything, failure after failure after failure.

And yet in all of them, she does not kiss him. And he cannot bring himself to kill her. Until only one choice remains.

I know what kind of god I need to be. For you.

Sylvie watches in Loki’s memory as the temporal radiation burns away his TVA uniform, as his magic replaces it with something older, something primal, something true. She watches as he grasps the decaying branches of the multiverse and breathes life into them, wills them to live, to be whole and part of a whole.

She watches as the branches twist around each other, each variation of the timeline finding support in its neighbors, building into something greater than the sum of every moment of every timeline that has ever existed.

She sees the shape of what Loki has done, the enormous, infinite tree dancing in the nothingness outside of time. Yggdrasil, the worldstree, green and glowing, alive and growing, all because Loki willed it so. To restore freewill and safeguard it forever. For all of us.

His hands cover hers and Loki gently pries her fingers away from his face. “Enough, Sylvie. Enough. I know what I’ve done.”

There are tears on her face, the apple-scented wind plucking at the wetness as she stands there, staring at Loki. Even without the enchantment, she can see him sitting on his throne, alone but for the infinite tree he tends.

“It was the only way?” she asks in the ruins of her voice. It is only when he folds his hands around hers that she realizes she is shaking, trembling like a leaf in the wind. Not like dancing. Like shattering, collapsing in on herself with the weight of what he’s done.

“No,” Loki admits. “There was one other way. I could have left He Who Remains in charge. I could have let the TVA go back to pruning the timelines. But I would have had to kill you. I would have had to kill you with my own hands, and watch as you died, and then betray everything you ever believed in. I lived every variation of every action I could possibly change, but not that one. Not that.”

“You don’t even know me,” Sylvie blurts out before the words have fully formed in her mind. All of this, to save her? She cannot, she cannot—

Loki’s expressive face twists, stung by her words, hurt in this moment even beyond the deep sorrow that he wears like a cloak. “Of course I know you,” he says, wounded, his gaze searching her face. “Like I’ve never known anyone. Sylvie, I lov—”

She surges up onto her toes and kisses him, there among the apple trees. She kisses him for what he’s done, for what he refused to do. She kisses him for the loneliness they have both known far too much of, she kisses him for coming when she sang for him to come home. She kisses him because there is nothing else she can do, because there was never any other way for her, either.

And Loki kisses her in return, with a desperation borne of years, centuries, lifetimes of facing this alone. He kisses her in the apple garden, as the trees dance and the waterfalls stand still. He is there, kissing her, but also somewhere else, far away and outside time, tending to the tree that he gave his life to save.

“I can’t stay,” he says when they finally part, pressing his forehead to hers, his hands cupping her jaw in an echo of how she had enchanted him moments before. “I want to stay, more than anything, Sylvie, but I can’t, I can’t.”

“I know,” she assures him, even as she clutches at his robes for fear he will disappear at any moment. “I know you can’t stay here with me,” she says, then takes a deep breath to steady her ragged voice, her thundering heart. “But you don’t have to be alone.”

Loki pulls away abruptly, only far enough to see her face, confusion pinching his features.

“We’re gods, you said,” Sylvie explains, tripping over her words, her voice trembling with the weight of what she has already done, the weight of what she plans to do. “We have a responsibility. That’s what you told me, in that ridiculous room full of pie. We can’t just give everyone freewill and then walk away.” She offers him a small smile, the best she can summon at the current moment. “You have to sustain Yggdrasil. But you don’t have to do it alone.”

“I did this for you,” he says, holding on to her as desperately as she is clutching at him. “So you could have a life. That’s what you said you wanted, to live.”

“It’s freewill, Loki,” she says, shaking her head. “You can’t just give it to everyone and then be surprised when I use it to choose to be with you. I know what kind of god I need to be. You taught me that. I won’t let you bear this burden alone. That’s the kind of god I choose to be.”

“I can’t let you sacrifice yourself for me—”

“The only sacrifice would be giving you up.”

He gazes at her for a long moment, his uncertainty slowly transforming, then sings softly, “I stormsvarte fjell, jeg vandrer alene,” and this time Sylvie understands the words. “Over isbreen tar jeg meg frem. I eplehagen står møyen den vene, og synger: ‘når kommer du hjem?’”

The apple orchard dissolves around them, replaced by the rippling greens and blues and purples of Yggdrasil, shimmering in the darkness outside of time.

“Home,” Sylvie says, and kisses him again.

[be-compromised]

Secret Santa 2024 Masterlist

Thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s holiday fic exchange, from writers to beta readers to all you lovely people who leave comments! With an especial shout out to our heroic pinch hitters, Cassie and Caiti <3

All gifts and authors have now been revealed, both on AO3 and on the masterlist (here and on DW). (If any tumblr usernames are incorrect or missing please just let me know any changed you'd like me to make.) You’re now free to post, share, and link to your gifts wherever you like! If you could in some way link back to the exchange or the community, to direct people to all of the other wonderful fics as well, that would be appreciated.

If you feel inspired to fill any other prompts, or create stocking fillers or non-participant fills, please feel free. These just won’t be included as part of the Secret Santa exchange or on the masterlists.

And just to note that this is the first time we’ve run the exchange (mostly) on AO3. Your feedback is very welcome!

From all your be_compromised mods, we hope you have a happy holiday season and wish you all the best for the new year! <3

Beautiful Disasters by Ultra for dreamerfound/fadedwings Teen and Up (help, understanding, baking); Clint Barton & Natasha Romanoff, Natasha Romanoff/James Barnes, minor Clint Barton/Laura Barton Summary: When Natasha needs help, she calls Clint for back up, but this isn't quite the mission he was expecting...

Beyond Binary by Chaed for @iriel3000 Mature (sex, post-apocalypse); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: To Clint, Natasha is everything... she is also the only thing left. (A closer look behind the scenes of What If…Ultron Won? S01E08)

Catastrophe by @firlalaith for @yourlocalalchemistress Teen and Up (nudity, shapeshifting); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff) Summary: Clint gets turned into a cat during a mission.

chaotic calls & familiar feelings by @cassiesinsanity for @paperairplanesopenwindows Teen and Up (mild sexual content); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Yelena Belova/Kate Bishop Summary: Clint and Natasha just want to enjoy their retirement. The Team has other ideas, especially when their new archer and spy continue to fight like cats & dogs.

Detour to a Christmas Kiss by @cassiesinsanity for @quidnunc-life Teen and Up (fluff); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: Somehow, Clint managed not to stare with his mouth hanging open when Natasha emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a fluffy white robe. Nor did he make a fool of himself when they met in the small sitting room an hour later. He even managed to be the perfect gentleman throughout dinner. No, the problem started when he asked her to dance between dinner and dessert.

I Bet On You by @iriel3000 for @poppypickle Teen and Up (fluff, protective Natasha, jealous Natasha, bad flirting, attempted seduction, mission fic); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: Clint and Natasha make a bet about who can seduce the other one first. Early SHIELD.

I think the pie distracted me by maddestofhatters for @heroofshield Teen and Up; Clint Barton & Natasha Romanoff Summary: “Nat, I’m serious, when you get back, you have to come here.”

“You don’t even remember the name of the place.” She deadpans.

“So what. I’m telling you, this apple pie is the best I’ve ever had.” To prove his point he shoves a large bite in his mouth. “And last time they kept bringing me slices. I honestly think I ate the whole thing.” He continues with a full mouth.

“Clint, please don’t chew in my ear.” Natasha chastises. “And you don’t think that’s a little weird. A random restaurant giving you a whole free pie?” He hears faint gunshots coming from the other line.

“Are you in the field right now? I thought the job was done?” Clint exclaims, completely ignoring Natasha’s question.

-Clint's convinced he's found the best restaurant ever, Natasha is not so sure

it's not christmas til somebody dies by @quidnunc-life for @cassiesinsanity Teen and Up (assassination attempts, but like in a flirty way); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: Natasha takes her target’s choice of bar as a personal affront. Of course, there aren’t many options to choose from, being as they’re in Washington, DC’s bizarrely small airport, and it’s three days before Christmas, so most of the actually good places to grab a drink are crammed full of harried parents and idiot Hill interns knocking their expensive square-edges suitcases into people. Also, to be fair, it’s not as though the corrupt senator she’s here to eliminate knows that this drink will be his last.

Lost in Shadows by @caiti-creative-corner for Chaed Teen and Up (drugs, spiked drinks); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: Clint planned to spend his evening sprawled on the couch, a game on the television, and maybe some pizza and beer to finish off the stereotypical guy’s night at home theme. That was his plan . . . that was not how his night ended up going.

Mission: Home for Christmas by @caiti-creative-corner for @inkvoices Teen and Up (Christmas fluff); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff/Kate Bishop, Barney Barton/Laura Barton Summary: Clint doesn't think he can make it home for the holidays, but his family and friends decided to do something about that. In other words, what happens when the strays he's collected over the years decide to save him this time around?

Our Flag Means Death & Guns by @heroofshield for @alphaflyer Gen (pirate AU); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: On the high seas, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov are an odd pair. But so is the crew of the Revenge.

Retreat by @alphaflyer for endlesstwanted Teen and Up (romantic fluff); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: Avenging takes its toll. Everybody is tuckered out and cranky; all Clint and Natasha want is a hot tub. Thor has a better answer: A field trip to Asgard.

the comfort that comes by @cloud--atlas for @caiti-creative-corner Teen and Up (werewolf AU, naked cuddling, non-sexual intimacy, possessive behaviour, fluff); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: It hadn’t actually been Clint’s mission that had been the long one. He’d only been away for four days. An Avengers call out; Doctor Doom in Hungary with Doombots and giant wasps and perhaps also sharks with lasers? She’s not entirely sure. As soon as Bruce had told her that the team had it under control, she had, uncharacteristically, stopped paying attention. In her defence, she’d been undercover in Madam Masque’s ludicrous crime syndicate for almost eighteen months with only Sharon and Sam as her non-villainous contacts and she’d really, really needed to just… watch cat videos and not think about anything important for at least three days. She’d missed Christmas – twice! She deserved cat videos.

She’d also needed to see Clint something fierce because it had been eighteen months – but… Doctor Doom. Giant Wasps. Sharks with lasers. And that’s fine! Stopping Doctor Doom is important. She gets that, she does. But… she’d wanted cuddles, okay? She’d really, really wanted cuddles.

the pull of the tide by @yourlocalalchemistress for @firlalaith Teen and Up (choose not to warn); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Kate Bishop/America Chavez, Steve Rogers/James Barnes, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts Summary: as a graduate student, clint met natasha on an island research station on the great barrier reef. when he catches a familiar flash of red hair almost a decade later, he feels bewilderment, nostalgia, and...is that hope? clintasha coral researcher/dolphin whisperer AU. 

Tumblr Dashed by @paperairplanesopenwindows for @cloud--atlas Mature (epistolary, celebrity AU, mentions of RPF shipping); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff/James Barnes, Clint Barton/James Barnes Summary: An archive of tumblr posts after the cult classic television show Avengers (2001-2004) finally became available on Netflix.

Two Hours And A Half by endlesstwanted for Ultra Teen and Up (non-sexual intimacy); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: Two times Natasha walked away from Clint, and one time she stayed by his side.

We’ll Go Dancing With Your Shadows by @poppypickle for maddestofhatters Teen and Up (karaoke); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Summary: “You should come out with us.”

Natasha is halfway out the door of the firing range when Barton says it. It sounds casual, like he’s tossing out an idea that just occurred to him. But there’s something in his tone – some vague undercurrent of purpose – that makes her feel certain this idea did not just occur to him. So she stops short and turns around slowly, one foot still inside the room and one foot out the door.

“Where’s out? And who’s us?”

Or, Clint helps Natasha adjust during her early SHIELD days.

Windows to the Soul by @inkvoices for @lostemotion Teen and Up (magical realism, Red Room); Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff/James Barnes Summary:They say that the eyes are windows to the soul. Most people, when they look into someone else’s eyes, can see at least what’s at the surface level.

Natasha learns that she might be turned into her worst fear - a soulless nightmare like the Winter Soldier - and chooses to run. Clint reads her soul on a rooftop in Berlin, sees the worst of her, and doesn't judge her for it.

[paternoster-secretsanta]

Paternoster Gang Drabble Exchange - FAQ

So, what is the Doctor Who Paternoster Gang Drabble Exchange?

It is, as the name suggests, a drabble exchange for Paternoster Gang drabbles.

Is this only for / relationships or are & relationships also allowed?

Both are allowed, just check they correspond with a person’s wishes!

What is a drabble?

Single Drabble: A drabble is a fic of 100 words exactly. AO3 and word processing programs don't always agree on the word count. As long as your fic is +/- three words of 100 it will be approved.

Double/Triple Drabble: A double drabble is a fic of 200 words and a triple drabble is 300 words.

How many prompts can I request?

You are required to add at least two prompts and can add up to ten.

How many relationships can I offer?

You can offer between one and five relationships for each of the prompts. You are required to offer at least two prompts and can offer up to ten.

How will assignments be matched?

Thanks in large part to ao3’s exchange algorithm, you will be matched on a minimum of one relationship. Please don't discuss your assignment in public before work reveals.

Should I fill in the 'Optional Details' section of my signup?

You must include your Do Not Wants (DNWs) in the optional details section. Only DNWs listed in the optional details section are enforceable by the mods. The rest of the optional details (likes/prompts/etc.) are optional and will help guide your creator and potentially spark inspiration. Writers are NOT forced to obey all your optional likes and prompts, but they must respect your DNWs!

What are Do Not Wants?

Do Not Wants or DNWs, are things the recipient absolutely does not want to receive in their gift (something that would ruin the gift for them). DNWs stated in the optional details area of the signup must be respected.

Are treats allowed?

Yes! Allowed and encouraged.

What are treats?

Treats are extra gifts you can give people in addition to your main assignment.

Do you need to be signed up to treat someone?

No, you can treat with abandon, as long as you adhere to the requesters DNWs.

What are the minimum requirements for treats?

Treats should conform to the requested formats: single drabble (100 words); double/triple drabble (200/300 words).

Is there a separate collection for treats?

No.

How do I post treats?

You go to the collection's dashboard and click "Post to collection". To gift something to someone, you must type their username/pseud in the "Gift this work to" field. Please also adhere to the DNWs for treats!

Help, I need more time!

If you think you might need an extension, please contact the mod as soon as you can. All extension requests must be made 24 hours before the deadline.

I can't finish my assignment, what should I do?

Please default on your ao3 assignments page as soon as possible if this is the case.

If you have any further questions, feel free to send me an ask or DM me!

[bleachbleachbleach]

For one of the fanfic memes :D :

2.How do you react to positive comments?

4. Post a screenshot of one of your favorite comments

15. What fic of yours would you most like to rewrite?

33. Which of your fic titles is your favorite?

Aahhh, thank you for these!! I didn't actually reblog this meme (just the responses someone gave me when I sent in an ask for theirs), but I will *happily* take the opportunity to play, anyway, any time! <333

2. How do you react to positive comments?

I do this for any comment or kudos/like I get, but: I’ll click through on the person’s username and look at their page and their fics (if applicable—usually it isn’t), profile, bookmarks, etc. to try to learn more about who they are (and perhaps find things for me to read, too).

I re-read the comment multiple times over the course of multiple days, maybe even a dozen times, depending on how much there is to take in, by which point I probably have portions of it memorized.

I reply to comments to say thank you and to revel in the opportunity to have a small blorbo and/or craft conversation with the person, because that’s what I wish fandom were like alllllll the time, but it’s actually mostly not. So I try to do as much as I can with the moment!

4. Post a screenshot of one of your favorite comments I’ll forego any comments I’ve received from anyone on Tumblr who might see this post, though I treasure them and love them dearly. <333 But a comment that’s stuck in mind wasn’t even a comment someone gave to me or wrote directed at me, or ever wrote a me-directed version of.

There used to be a fandom convention of having large anonymous forums where people would talk fandom together anonymously, including fanworks. (I guess the modern-day equivalent here is private Discord servers, which are even more inaccessible, rip.) These threads could be pretty brutal, because they were anonymous people addressing other anonymous people and not thinking about the author at all—but they could also be the most interesting, because it was clear people involved in the discussion were actively reading and interpreting and critiquing. They were really giving your work their time.

My thread for this particular fic was 50/50 in terms of positive/negative reactions, but this comment was the first one in the thread that was positive, and it’s stayed with me for over a decade now:

15. What fic of yours would you most like to rewrite? Having waded back through that comment thread, jesus, that one, I guess! But not really. I’d just write another fic (and have, in fact, gone one to write 13 more years of fics for those characters—when I wrote that one, I was a year or two into writing fics for them).

I feel like fics belong to their specific time and place, and end up being imbued so closely with whatever flavor my life is at the time and whatever experiential details of my life are staying with me that to rewrite would be a different fic, anyway. I remember those highways and those watermelon cookies and moving in the middle of writing this fic and sitting in a towering forest of cardboard boxes eating cereal straight out of the box because that’s the only food that was unpacked.

33. Which of your fic titles is your favorite? Fic titles are interesting, because they’re a piece of the fic that rarely has any use? I can’t refer to a fic by title and expect most people to know what I’m talking about, because that would require a general audience to have familiarity with my writing, or to have read it. So I usually just describe the fic rather than use its name, if occasion comes up to talk about it. So a fic title is at its most functional for me in the AO3 kudos email, where the litmus test is “do I know which fic this kudos is for, based on its title.” The answer is generally yes, even though I have a fic titled "Instructions" AND a fic titled "Instruction," and a fic titled "Gone Fishing" AND a fic titled "Gone Fishin’"… (In my defense... different randoms/different pseudonyms!!)

Even though I do it a lot I don’t really like it when I use titles of already-existing media, or song lyrics, or single-word titles, though often the referentiality is the point and why I liked the title enough to use it. I do really like double entendre titles. Going back through all my titles on AO3, this morning I’m really liking:

Clutch, Bite — because who doesn’t love VERBS, especially such visceral ones. But it’s the title of a fic about violent grief and also learning how to drive stick shift, so I love the additional reference to a clutch’s “bite point.”

Set and March — I’ve talked about this title before, but I like it because the fic is a tag to an episode titled “Game Night” and I think the title-play is clever, haha.

This is a ghost story / This is not a ghost story — These titles were just funny to me because they were two fairly unrelated fics I posted on the same day and they were both ghost stories.

That Were — which is a line from already-existing media, but it’s such a deep cut of a line I feel like it loops back around to original. I just like the the weird tense play and the fact that there’s no actual noun to be seen. (The full line is “the pearls that were his eyes” from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, lol.)

[crescentfool]

I noticed you're a Ryomina!!! How did you get into it? And do you have any good fanfics/doujinshi you can advice me to read? ANYTHING on Ryomina actually? I'm dying for anything about them!!! Thanks!!

yes!!! it's me!!! i'm ryomina fan (one of many)!!! thank you for visiting my askbox, i'll do my best to answer all of the questions because it always makes me happy to see that ryomina sparks joy for people! :D

...this got really long because i like linking to things, so i'm putting it under a read more (IM VERY NORMAL ABOUT THEM)

how did i get into it? i got into persona 3 around august 2021 through the movies- at the time my only experience with the persona series was with P5R / P5S / P5D. p3 was the one that interested me the most (i thought minato was very pretty + i caught wind that the themes of the game were very resonant with people). i picked the movies over the game because i'm a guy who plays games at a snails pace, haha.

admittedly, i did latch onto ryomina because of the scenes in the third and fourth movie (i have mentioned in the tags of this art i drew how much i felt like i was exploding and blasting off to the moon watching it).

but what really dug me into the ryomina hole (and what has kept me there) was thinking about how much ryoji encapsulates the themes of p3- and how interconnected his fate is with minato. i wrote some musings about their dynamic here, if you're interested!

tl;dr: what if we were both boys and we were mirror images of each other and i inherited your kindness and looks but god doomed our narrative even though we're soulmates

on ryomina fanworks recommendations:

regarding fics: i'm going to assume that you've probably read the fics that have the highest kudo ratings on them, so i won't really be listing those.

a personal favorite fic that i always hold close to my heart is Eurydice's Vow by crescentmoontea, which explores the idea of ryomina in p5r's third semester. this was the first fic i read about ryomina and it made me tear up lots...

i also think a lot about I Alone Await You by Nail_gun, literally scrumptious writing that captures the ryomina dynamic so so well. actually check out Nail_gun's other ryomina fics while you're at it too!

other fun fic i'm fond of: can't get my mind out of those memories (what were they?) by foxmulder_whereartthou. ryoji being homeless lives rent free in my head and it's all because of this fic. there's a bunch of other fun ryominas from the same author too (i still need to read them)

BkZa555 also has some fun AU scenarios if you're into that too, notably with Zagreus (P5-Setting, Ryoji focus) and The Definition of Insanity (TIME LOOP fuckery!), but they're currently ongoing.

these were some ones that came to my mind first- as i have the strongest recollection reading them. admittedly i haven't really been reading fic this year, so i don't have many recommendations from fic that came out this year. but if you're so inclined to let ryomina consume your soul, i definitely recommend giving the newer works in the ryomina tag a look-see and see if it strikes your fancy!

as a side note, i do have a few ryomina fics that i've bookmarked on my ao3 here, though i have to say that i'm not sure how well they hold up in terms of like... what i would seek out of a fic these days. but they made past me happy so i bookmarked them, LOL. it's kind of outdated (my collection of fic recs has my old username *disintegrates*).

regarding doujinshi: i have not read all the ryomina doujinshi available, but as a starting point, please take a look at this list from pandora-scans from livejournal!

notably, this is where you can find the strawberry-chan say good bye doujin- which features a small and cute comic from shuji sogabe (the p3/p4 manga artist), as well as other artists. the existence of this doujinshi is the funniest thing to me because it's like "HEY if you're wondering what the volume 8 cover is really gay it's because sogabe contributed to a ryomina doujin." this fact makes my head spin (positive). it explains a lot about the manga.

regarding persona side material:

i know you didn't ask for these but i thought that i mine as well list these too, since i feel that the side materials have some fun expansions on ryoji and minato's interactions. i haven't... watched/read all of these but, hey, i like to share these things!

for comic anthologies for the persona series (some of which have ryoji!). if you're interested in reading them, here's a scanlation index from maboroshi-no on tumblr. i don't think this is a comprehensive list, but i think it will be a great starting point!

for some translations of the persona 3 drama cds, check out imaginary-numbers on dreamwidth! ryoji and minato interactions can specifically be found in the persona 3 character drama cd vol. 1, and for the audio + english subs, you can watch this video on youtube:

and ohh the musical. ryoji singing and dancing gives me so much joy. i haven't watched the musical in it's entirety (only fragments), but here are some links that may be of interest to you:

Ao no Kakusei (The Blue Awakening), Sakuya version - playlist for the first p3 musical, translated by Phoenix Maiika.

Ao no Kakusei (The Blue Awakening), Kotone version - playlist for the femc version!! also translated by Phoenix Maiika on YouTube.

Persona 3: The Weird Masquerade (English Subtitles) - playlist by rumio!

P3 Weird Musical DVD & Soundtrack Booklet Scans by rumio_k - twitter thread that links to these funsies, if you don't have twitter, here's the publicly shared drive link.

god. these sure are a lot of links, huh? i hope you enjoy them- pick and choose whatever sounds most appealing! (if this overwhelmed you im sorry GKLHLDH i just like being very comprehensive in my answers about things so i got carried away).

and as a reminder, you (and anyone else reading) are always welcome to browse my tags/archive and reblog things from there anytime! i have... nearly 300 ryomina posts which, while mostly consists of art, has a few fics, meta, hcs, gifs, memes, and whatnot scattered about.

or browse the minato and ryoji tags too! there's.. nearly 1k minato. and 500 ish ryoji. and they're going to keep on growing because i can't stop being obsessed with archiving these things. god help me i am so deep in this hole called ryomina hell and now you're here too. welcome aboard!

there's always going to be a lot of fun ways to enjoy rotating ryomina around in one's brain, i think- they're a pairing with such fun symbolic imagery that is So Deep (to me) but ALSO they're immensely hilarious and weird guys (affectionate). so i love to share these things in hopes that it gives you joy too! they are the most couple ever (to me) (i'm biased)

thank you again for the ask! i hope it can satiate your need for more ryomina, and be a nice aide in exploring the p3 fanspace :)

[wesslan]

20 questions for writers

thank you @adelfie for the tag<3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

18! (and one hidden). i did not think it was that many??? thought it was 10 tops, lol

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

272,860

3. What fandoms do you write for?

batman, used to write some dsmp, but now im kinda eeh about it. i also (for some godforsaken reason) have a harry potter WIP thats been sitting in my docs for like two years that i kinda wanna finish, kinda not (jk r*wling suck my dick challenge)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

cards on the table

when in gotham: don’t drink the water

robin radio

o bury me not on the lone prairie

and their dreams they dreamed awake

5. Do you respond to comments?

i try!!!! the number overwhelms me sometimes, but i try to answer when i have the energy! :,)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

oh god, i mean… i pretty much only write happy/hopeful endings🤠 mayyyybe ‘you have (1) new message’? its not all the way angsty but it’s kind of?? angsty??

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

gee whizz buddy see above and take your pick, really

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i have gotten one (1) hate comment and i treasured it dearly until the person that posted it deleted it😭 other than that, nawt really. some people give unsolicited advice/critique, but thats about it

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope. not really my thing

10. Do you write crossovers?

again, not really my thing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of! sure hope it stays that way

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yesss!!! so cool! they asked permission, and now my fic exists in a whole other language!!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, and i think i’d be really awful at it. i cant say no to stuff, i cant keep deadlines, and i dont enjoy people being in the kitchen when i cook, so to speak

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

BAYBEY!! you KNOW i was a klance shipper first and a human second when i was like? 14? now tho? i’m shipping myself with sixteen hours of sleep and financial freedom. but also, deep in my heart,,,, charlie and carlisle from twilight. you could have been so beautiful.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

man at this point, who knows what i’ll finish. maybe instant repeater ‘99. i LOVE the concept and the world building. but also i kinda left the fandom,,,

16. What are your writing strengths?

people (including my interactive storytelling teacher) have told me im good at writing distinct characters/realistic dialogue! so i guess that! :,D

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

CONSISTENCY. finishing things. ending up hating what i’ve written like 3 months after it’s done.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

well,,, that’s what i always do. english is another language to me! cop out answer, lmao. but other than that, i guess i could be persuaded to write a few lines in spanish here and there. did study it for 7 years, after all.

overall, i thinks it pretty cool! as long as there is an ez translation somewhere, easy to understand without a translation, or if it’s not done in a way that bi/multilinguals absolutely would not speak B)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

oh god. percy jackson. it’s still out there somewhere. i forgot my username and password so i’ll prolly never find it (thank god) but yeah. it was solangelo bc i was closeted and emo.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

probably ‘mothman is real and he wants to kill me’. i had a lot of fun with it! i also really like ‘*cocks gun* manor’s haunted’ just because i based it off of the haunting of hill house which is like, one of the best books ever.

that was fun!!! thanks again for the tag! <3 i’m tagging whoever wants to do this, and also (no pressure) @quotidian-oblivion

puss å kram, skumbanan!!❤️

[mannatea]

All or Nothing, a Fire Emblem 7 fanfic

Words: 1,499 words Summary: Ostia is going to war. Pairing/Character: Oswin/Serra with mention of Hector/Florina and other characters. Extra Info: This was originally posted on January 18th, 2012 as “practice writing” and was 855 words long. Warnings: Mention of character death and the death of children. Rating: T Genre: Angst, romance

Thank you to @trash-god for the beta work again. MWAH!

Notes:

This story ranked #2 in the last “What should I rewrite?” poll, so after rewriting the winning story, I decided this one deserved its time in the sun.

Also, @serrafew took the time to comment on that poll to say they were rooting for this story, and that blew my mind, so this rewrite is for them (sorry, I don’t know what your AO3 username is to dedicate it properly)! What’s truly wild is that, even though they said they’d been searching for Serra/Oswin fic for years, it didn’t really click for me until I went to AO3 to check: there are literally zero ‘fics on AO3 for this couple. I thought they were just saying they were hoping to see new stuff for the first time in ages—not telling me that there just wasn’t anything at all! ☹

Then again, considering Sain/Fiora only has five stories in the tag on AO3, I shouldn’t be surprised.

The original version of this story garnered 7 whole reviews, which may not sound like a lot, but even in 2012 it was an unprecedentedly high number—especially for an uncommon ship. I tried to keep all of the original comments in mind when rewriting this.

Per the comments: Serra was very convincing and in character and the reality of the post-war world was excellent (some didn’t make it, communication failed), but the story needed a little more fleshing out emotionally to feel complete, and there were a couple of expository lines of dialogue that needed to go.

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As you can imagine, the original story was pretty bare bones and so in this rewrite I (once again) crafted a whole backstory for these characters and the life that they’ve been living since the war. It worked so well for “Waiting for the Rain” that doing the same thing here just felt natural.

The two biggest changes in this rewrite were:

There was a headhop from Oswin into Serra’s head right in the middle of the original story. This was intentionally done but made me feel batty on a reread (even though it did read as well-placed), so I switched the whole story into Oswin’s perspective.

The end of the story was originally Serra’s “Whatever would you and Lord Hector do without me?” line. A lot of reviewers mentioned how much they liked it so it felt bad to change, but the story changed too much to keep it in its original form. Instead, when Serra says this line it’s more subdued (almost a rhetorical question) and she follows it up with a question that helps echo the title of this story: “You know I will give it my all, don’t you?”

The original story felt a little meaningless from Oswin’s perspective; it was like he was there to deliver the bad news and listen to Serra be sad about how much she specifically has lost (and then we see that she just can’t take being left behind again and tells him how it’s going to be). While the foundation of their relationship felt pretty solid, and I love Serra-taking-charge in general, I knew I could do better in a rewrite by simply ensuring that one of the losses was something they ended up grieving together.

It's hard for me to explain what I think this added to the story, but I hope it made Oswin feel more compassionate and real, and that it made Serra and Oswin feel closer and more united. He understands some of her grief intimately and all the rest of it he witnessed in real time; he knows her parents abandoned her; he knows how she feels about being left behind and how she worries and this is what compels him to allow her to join him on the battlefield again.

Due to the backstory I concocted, I had the same problem I had with “Waiting for the Rain”: there were a few things I wanted to add to this story that I couldn’t find room for, and it was especially disappointing to not be able to find space to talk more about the loss of the children and how Serra and Oswin must have grieved (separately and together) or about the fact that Oswin should very well have been able to retire comfortably soon (at his age).

Alas.

The real tragedy here is in knowing the turn the war takes. Even if the two of them don’t die, we know they will be forced to grieve again soon.