#also there are no fics of them on ao3 I did a tag search and nothing came up so I guess I’m the first

[samandmaxfanatic]

THIS!!!

please PLEASE learn how to tag your fanfics. Don’t tag fluff when it’s angst, don’t tag smut when it’s fluff and please don’t tag characters that ARENT EVEN MENTIONED IN THE FIC!!!!

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[pipermca]

New AO3 Tag Wrangling Policy and the Transformers Fandom

Edit in the event people come back to the original post: Please do not email AO3 about this issue. See their response about this issue!

(This is a long one, folks, but I think it's important.)

A new tag-wrangling policy on AO3 has the potential to create some massive confusion and chaos in the Transformers fanfic community, with regards to fandom tags. There is a Reddit post about it here with a focus on anime fandoms, but I want to give some concrete examples for the Transformers fandom on why we DO NOT WANT this, and why I think it's a horrible idea.

The Problem

Basically, AO3 is looking to get rid of the "All Media Types" fandom tag across the board, either by dismantling them or just not maintaining them. The Transformers - All Media Types tag has been an all-purpose tag that you could select when your story doesn't fall into any one specific continuity. Additionally, all most (see below) TF continuities on AO3 are considered a subtag of the Transformers - All Media Types tag. For example, if you look at the link above for all works in the All Media Types tag, you will see fics that are also tagged ONLY with Transformers: Animated, because it falls under the All Media Types tag.

One exception: With the upcoming Transformers: One movie coming out imminently, there will likely be a big influx of stories tagged with Transformers: One. In fact, there are several already. However, it hasn't been linked to the larger Transformers - All Media Types tag yet. I wasn't worrying about it though, because I know these things can take time.

With information about this new tagging policy, however, I'm now wondering whether it'll EVER get linked to the All Media Types tag. If that happens, and when more continuities are developed in the coming years (since you know Hasbro loves creating new universes) this has the potential to cause massive confusion when looking for stories to read.

Searching for Stories with the New Tagging System

So let's say the All Media Types fandom tag isn't accurate anymore, because it no longer includes ALL of the continuities (such as TF:One). You will need to include ALL the Transformers continuities when browsing for TF fics.

How many tags is that? Well, here are all of the tags currently listed under the Transformers - All Media Types tag:

Note that this doesn't include Transformers: One since it hasn't been categorized yet.

You will potentially have to have 40 or more different fandom tags in your search, just in case the author tagged their story with something you weren't expecting.

This massively decreases the findability of a story.

Tagging with the New System

The email response from the Tag Wrangling group (see the linked Reddit post above) seems to be a bit flip in the response to the user's concern. "...encourages creators to tag with the media they intend."

While I appreciate what they are attempting to do, this policy change feels like a solution in search of a problem, especially in larger fandoms with multiple continuities, versions, and media types that are all cross-pollinated in both canon and fanon. While I'm focusing on Transformers fandom, imagine a creator in the DC comic universe writing a story that incorporates bits and pieces from a dozen different reboots.

For example, let's say that I am writing a fic about Ratchet. I am using the setting of the original G1 episodes, but I also am using the characterization of him as a bit of an old man grump. That characterization originated in the Animated continuity, but I want to incorporate bits of pieces of his other characterizations as well (old friend of Optimus from TFP, Ratchet ran a faction-free clinic like he did in the War for Cybertron series, he's got a Decepticon boyfriend like in IDW1 - or maybe even Cyberverse, etc.)

With this new tagging structure, I might potentially have to tag the story with ALL of those continuities. So instead of just slapping down the "All Media Types" tag (and maybe one other fandom tag that matches the characters as best I can), I'll have to analyze my story and try to figure out how best to tag for the characters I used.

And what if you're doing a completely AU version of the story? For example, a humanformers story, or merformers? Using the All Media Types tag along with a Alternate Universe - Human or Alternate Universe - Mermaid tag worked perfectly, since you weren't writing the story to fit into one specific continuity. But now, that might not be an option.

What To Do??

The first thing I would suggest is to contact AO3 (using the Feedback and Support page) and let them know (nicely) that you think this is a horrible idea. Give them some examples on how you use the All Media Types tag to find stories to read, or to help you tag a story. People outside of the Transformers fandom don't always appreciate how absolutely tangled the continuities can be with each other, and providing examples might help them see why this would be a really messy change.

Readers: Be aware that when you are looking in the All Media Types tag, it will no longer show newer continuities. And if AO3 starts dismantling that tag like they suggested they are doing, be aware that some stories won't show up in that tag like they used to. You can also create and then bookmark a custom search page that includes all 40+ continuities. REALLY annoying, but it's a workaround.

Writers: Until they start dismantling the All Media Types tag, ALWAYS ALWAYS tag your stories using Transformers - All Media Types... Especially for newer continuities. This will be especially important if you are writing a Transformers: One story. Right now, anyone who is only browsing the All Media Types tag will not see a story tagged only with Transformers: One. Make sure you're aware of how tags work and how they can affect the visibility and findability of your story.

Epilogue

Ugh. That's a lot of words for a long-weekend Saturday. And maybe I'm overreacting a tiny bit. But my work involves information architecture, and this change just absolutely baffles me. It's almost as though they want to make it harder to find stories. Considering that AO3 won a Hugo partially because of its fantastic tagging system, this change seems like AO3 is doing its best to shoot itself in the foot.

When you have a square hole, a round hole, and a rectangular hole… Yeah, you DO want each peg to go in the "right" hole. But if all of the pegs fit in the square hole, who cares? You got the job done.

I love you @ao3org, but please reconsider this change... Especially for IPs that are as old and are as varied as Transformers.

[emily-mooon]

Either I’m a genius or insane for coming up with the crack ship of Young Neil and Stacey Pilgrim.

[starlightguh]

The Sharpest Tongue

Word count: 2,822

Summary: What if the stone Sylus won hadn't been the right one to send him and MC home to Linkon? As MC struggles to learn the local language, she finds herself the subject of the other warriors in the clan. Too bad it seems like Sylus has the sharper tongue amongst them all.

Tags: Cunnilingus, Grasslands AU, Jealous!Sylus

A/N: This is a bit shorter than I had planned, but I wanted to write something for the grasslands AU and saw someone mention we needed more jealousy grassland stories, so here you go! 100% transparency, I could not find anything on Talanian language, so I used Mongolian words, I'm not familiar with the language so if there are mistakes, I apologize!! I hope you enjoy nonetheless. Find this fic on Ao3 as well!

The Khan had given Sylus the bright red stone for his victory in the battle against the best warriors in the clan. My worries weren’t for nothing as there wasn’t any trace of meta flux emanating from it. No matter how hard either of us tried, we couldn’t resonate with it.

So we were stuck in the grasslands.

For someone who should have been happy due to our victory, both me and Sylus held somber faces around the celebratory fires and festivities. I could feel his red eyes staring at my downcast face as he reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.

“We’ll just keep searching kitten…As long as we’re together we can keep looking for a way to return home.”

I inhaled deeply and nodded silently as I turned to look at him, his expression was really soft and full of apology. I wanted to go home badly. But…Sylus had a point, wallowing won’t do anything. We’ll just make a plan to find a way back to Linkon.

I steeled myself by fixing my slouched posture and closing my eyes to take deep breaths. After a few moments I opened my eyes and smiled at Sylus, “Well I guess now is the time to embrace the nomad lifestyle…Until we find our way back home that is.”

Sylus stands, my eyes lingering on his distracting buff physique as he holds out his hand.

“Let’s not weep and try to make the most of our time together, hm? Shavanika.”

His baritone voice stirs an excitement in my belly as I take his hand and he begins to twirl me to the rhythm of the festive music the villagers are playing by the campfire. I feel the beads in my hair slap my cheeks as I spin around the orange hues of the warm flames near me. For a brief while as me and Sylus danced around the flames, my anxieties had drifted away. I was grateful to have him by my side and ease my worries.

My bare feet feel unsteady as I haphazardly try to follow the rhythm of an unfamiliar tune, but the warm and strong arms of the silver-haired warrior in front of me hold me steady. I smile and laugh at Sylus’ serious expression as we dance and lose ourselves to a night full of joy.

—————————

After the festival, we packed up and moved to travel alongside the rest of the villagers. Me and Sylus agreed we would adapt to our surroundings of the people around us as we tried to find any clues about a way home.

I was not the fastest learner, but I did get a few things down, the women taught me duties I was expected to help with, from herding livestock, sewing, cooking, and laundry, I was slowly earning my place amongst the others. However, I was struggling with learning the language. I could pick up a few words here and there, but I couldn’t really understand or communicate as properly as I would like.

Then there was Sylus, he was a polyglot so picking up the language wasn’t difficult for him. He must have been fluent only after a solid two weeks of study. I was envious, but also grateful since I relied on his help a lot to learn and understand.

The warriors happily accepted Sylus, he easily fit in and would help them with hunts for resources as well as military strategies and ideas. The Khan favored him a lot and Tara told me whispers of them wanting to promote Sylus to a general title.

While we hadn’t been traveling with our clan for more than a month, we easily slipped into our roles quickly. And now it seems we quickly have found ourselves involved in more politics than we would like.

It was like any other day, I was riding my cream-colored stallion through the grassy fields trying to get the flock of sheep on the right path. I called out the different sounds and commands I was taught while keeping a stead-fast pace on horseback.

My hunter's instincts kicked in as I noticed one sheep was away from the herd, and upon further investigation, it was being hunted by a hungry coyote.

“Shit,” I hissed to myself and acted quickly as I grabbed a rope from my satchel. As the coyote pounced, I lassoed it and used my strength to pull him away from the sheep.

I was heaving and sweaty as I just lifted the clueless sheep back to the herd. As I was getting back on my horse, I heard some whistles call out to me. I glanced around and noticed a group of four warriors walking up and cooing at me.

I didn’t really recognize them, I only knew they were of the same clan since their chest guards had the same color ropes that Sylus wore. The men spoke to me in Talanian, but I could only pick out words like ‘strong’ and ‘brave.’

“I uh…am not familiar with the language yet, chlaarai .”

They seemed to just smile as one made a comment to the group in Talanian, they laughed and just waved goodbye toward me as they rode off.

I didn’t think much of this encounter until the next day.

We had set up camps deep in the Northern Grasslands, orange was taking over the skies as the dawn broke. I was hanging clothes I had just washed in the river on a clothesline outside one of the elder's yurts.

Behind me I heard the sharp tongue of Talanian, I glanced and noted those same big warriors from the other day were talking. I had paid them no mind as I did my duties.

Suddenly I heard the sharp thuds of angry footsteps behind me and a strong pair of arms wrapped themselves around my waist. I glanced up and saw a very pissed-off Sylus glaring off in the direction of the four other men.

He yelled at them in Talanian and growled when the other men responded in what I could only assume was a taunt. Sylus let go of my waist and marched up to one of the men and grabbed him by his leathers. People started to gather to watch the rowdy commotion.

I turned and saw Tarna and sighed in relief since she could explain what was going on, “Hey, Tarna….What exactly is happening?” I asked her urgently as it sounded like the men were raising their voices.

“Well…It seems the Khan’s second son Gansu said something about your er….” She paused and looked shy when translating what was said, “birthing hips, and how he wanted you as a wife to bear his children.”

I stood frozen as it all clicked into place. I looked over at Sylus who was still arguing with them, a scowl marred on his face.

“Sylus came in and said they shouldn’t speak about you that way that you were his beloved. Gansu told him that it didn’t matter to him unless you two were wedded or you were pregnant.”

“Seriously?!? If he’s the son of a Khan he can marry whoever he wants. Why would he want me?”

Tarna shook her head at me, “That’s why Sylus is arguing, he says that you are with him and will never have anyone else’s children.”

The arrogant Gansu held a smirk as he practically hissed at Sylus, a dark expression glazed over Sylus’ face. I’ve only ever caught glimpses of Sylus angry, but never this murderous.

“What did he say?” I asked Tarna, my voice full of worry. I could feel the icy chill of Sylus’ anger even from a distance.

“Gansu just said ‘well whoever takes it keeps it’ as a threat… I think you should go over and stop Sylus, if he gets in a fight with the Khan’s son they could severely punish him,” Tarna warned me.

I nodded and without a second thought, I ran up behind Sylus and gently placed my hand on his lower back. His tense body seemed to ease up a bit at my touch as I tried my hardest to speak in Talanian.

“ Amarkhan bai….S-Shavanika …” Fight not, beloved . These were the only words I could best make out with my limited knowledge.

Silently he grabbed my hand and glared down Gansu as he turned to walk away with me. I felt his grip on my hand tighten as Gansu and his men still taunted behind us. We began walking off towards our yurt and it wasn’t until we were a safe distance away I had to whimper to Sylus.

“Your grip is too tight it hurts,” I cried.

He seemed to snap out of his trance and he softened his grip and rubbed his large thumb soothingly across my hand, “Sorry sweetie… I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“I don’t exactly know what was said, but Tarna translated some of what you guys were saying. I didn’t realize the Khan’s son and his friends saw me herding sheep yesterday.”

“The Talanian language is very harsh, most of the words are very direct. The disgusting words from the Khan’s second son really got under my skin is all… Why didn’t you tell me you ran into him yesterday?”

“I didn’t think it was important… Also, I hardly saw you yesterday,” I sigh, “You came back to our tent pretty late… Are you sure you weren’t up practicing Talanian with the other village girls?” I hiss a bit. While the Khan’s son may be chasing my skirts, I can’t ignore the fact that all the girls of the village have been trying their hardest to catch Sylus’ eye.

Sylus stopped in his tracks and growled he turned to me and looked down with a sharp gaze, “How many times do I need to express to you I’m not interested in the other village girls?”

I match his glare and put my hands on my hips, “And how many times do I have to tell you I can handle myself, the Khan’s son doesn’t scare me. I’ll just refuse him.”

Sylus tsked his lips and leaned down to lift me up on his shoulder.

“Hey! Put me down!”

“No. It seems like I need to practice Talanian with the only village girl who matters to me,” he says sharply. He gives my butt a playful smack as I’m hoisted over his shoulder, my face in the direction of his backside.

I smack his butt back and he just chuckles, “You’re not getting out of this one Shavanika, so simmer down kitten.”

When he strutted into our tiny little yurt and set me down, his red eyes shined with a mixture of excitement and mischief. His hand remained on my waist as he spoke in a low and seductive tone.

My back arched at the feeling of his hands trailing down my waist and gathering my skirts up in his large rough palms. He set his other palm in the dip on my hip as he stared at me with almost an appraising look in his eye. “Let’s start with the lesson…What did that man call these?”

His left dominant hand was under my skirt caressing my thigh, I let out a shaky breath as I closed my eyes and tried to remember the foreign words spoken earlier.

“T-Toro? Kha-?” I sputtered out as his palm found its way to one of my bare-asscheeks. He squeezed it and tsked his lips as he brought his face closer to mine and he spoke lowly.

“Torkah Khongo,” the purr in his voice did nothing but further my arousal. I was being engulfed by the dominant energy Sylus was putting out. It didn’t take very much for me to become putty in his strong hands.

His other hand reached under my skirt as well and without further notice, the lengthy skirt that usually met my ankles were now scrunched up at my waist. Underwear wasn’t a common thing within the tribe, so I had been forced to forgo that luxury and be commando under my lengthy traditional clothing. I think for a situation such as a lustful Sylus, it was beneficial to be as naked as possible.

“Do you know what the translation is?” He quirked a brow.

“B-Birthing Hips?”

“Mhmm,” there was a slight growl to his response, “he said that you had the birthing hips to bear him many sons.” Sylus gripped my hips in a tightening grip. “Too bad for him these hips are miniikh.”

Sylus dropped to his knees in a squat as his mouth bit a part of my inner thigh, his hands rubbing the bare skin before him. “Do you know the translation?”

His mouth placed hot and wet kisses in my inner thigh, teasing me by being so close to where I actually wanted his mouth. I gasped out an answer as he was torturing me with kisses, “M-Mine?”

“Good girl, seems like you do know more than I thought,” he whispers breathlessly, “Let me reward you.”

He then licked my dripping slit, I let out a whimper in surprise.

“Tell me, who do these hips belong to?” He asked as he pulled away from licking my heat.

“Y-You.”

He smacked my thigh at my answer, “Ah-Ah-Ah, in Talanian sweetie.”

“ Ta,” I moaned out as he suckled on my sensitive pearl.

With a pop of his lips, he pulled away and smirked, “Hmm that’s a good answer, but I have a better one. Repeat after me: Nökhör .”

The pronunciation of the word feels strange as I try my best to repeat it, “noct-core?”

Sylus just shakes his head and repeats it slower for me, when I finally pronounce it right he rewards me by entering one of his fingers into my dripping center.

“Keep saying it sweetie, practice makes perfect,” he chuckles and his mouth finds my center again as he slowly devours me.

With his finger slowly pumping me and his greedy tongue flickering on my sensitive folds, my voice is nothing but a loud and needy whine of this new word he’s taught me and I haven’t a clue what it means. All I know is Sylus likes it as he happily groans into my dripping cunt.

“Louder. I want the whole tribe to hear you scream it, so everyone knows we belong to each other and no one else,” his lower face is dripping in my essence and his red eyes have a bit of a manic and desperate look as I look down on him.

“Sylus….” I lose my mind as he now has three fingers in me and the mouth of a sinner as he loudly slurps at my folds with his sharp tongue.

Ecstasy and euphoria wash over me as I come on his face with that new and unfamiliar word on my tongue. My knees shake and nearly give out, but Sylus stands and lifts me up so my legs are wrapped around his middle.

I lean my head forward as I pant into his ear, “What’s the translation of that word.”

He laughs as he rubs my back while I come down from my high, “Why, it’s my future title…It means ‘husband.’”

“Sylus! How bold of you to assume!”

He frowned at this and glared at me, “I'm not assuming anything, but unless you want to be the wife of the Khan’s son, then you must be mine…I can’t protect you from the leaders otherwise.”

I blush, “I-It’s just so embarrassing….I never thought about marriage.”

He smirks a bit, “Well I'm glad I can change your mind, at least while we’re here. Linkon has a very different culture from the grasslands, and we can talk about a proper marriage when we return home. Deal?”

“Fine but you’re not knocking me up while I'm here,” I huff at him as he lays me down on our pelts and strips off the rest of his clothes.

“I make no promises, but I’ll do my best. You’re just too tempting, Shavanika.”

“Only for you my Nökhör.”

That night Sylus made me scream so loud that the Khan’s son did nothing but glare daggers as Sylus confidently walked through the village the next day I, on the other hand, was forced to stay in bed due to my wobbly knees. When I finally returned to my duties after a day's rest, the other girls just giggled as they saw me.

Tarna translated a message for me that the elders are happy for whatever blessings me and Sylus marriage may bring, but to keep it to ourselves at night. I was horrified and embarrassed, while Sylus walked around as the proud warrior both in the grasslands and in the bedroom.

The strongest warrior and the sharpest tongue will always come out on top I suppose.

~fin~

Translation guide:

Shavanika - Beloved

Chlaarai - Sorry

Amarkhan bai - Fight not

Torkah Khongo - Birthing Hips

Miniikh - Mine

Ta - You

Nökhör - Husband

[celestie0]

hi friends, i won’t be posting or updating any of my works for an indefinite period n will be on hiatus from this blog as well.

i’ve unlisted kickoff & ihm on ao3 (haven’t deleted, they’ve just been made private) and i’ve unpinned my masterlist here on tumblr (again nothing’s been deleted so you could probably find the chapters if you searched my tags)

but the reason i did that is because i don’t want any new readers finding my works during my hiatus because i don’t want to potentially upset more people in the event that, during this hiatus, i decide that i would no longer like to write my fics

that would be an insanely sad decision to make. i put so much thought into my stories not because i am trying to make them entertaining, but it’s because they genuinely mean so much to me and are cathartic in ways i can’t describe. i have spent a great majority of my life self negating for the sake of others, and so writing was just a form of expression where i could talk about all the things i’ve suppressed over the years - anxiety, career stress, financial stress, avoidance, depression, loss, coming of age, navigating love, etc

but lately, and i do think it’s been a build up of just some careless words from a handful of people over the months, i find myself steering towards a practice of writing that is no longer asking the question “how can i put as much of myself in this piece as possible?” but rather “how can i make sure people won’t criticize this…i feel awful that it doesn’t have what they want it to have…other creators are doing xyz, should i be doing that too?…i’m just scared to share this”

not exactly sure when that shift in headspace began, but as of right now, it’s as strong as ever. and i understand that those questions may seem irrational, and i just have to try to not focus on the feeling, n i wish i was someone that could compartmentalize those thoughts better, but here’s the thing — the whole reason i started expressing myself through writing in the first place was because i’ve spent my whole life compartmentalizing. it would feel so ironic & untrue to the lessons i’ve learned in this journey if i just chose to “suck this up” and continue pushing forward until i reach a point of burnout simply because i don’t want to upset anyone

i’m really sorry i couldn’t focus on the positive. especially with all the insane n incredible amount of love n support i’ve received for my works. i’ve said this time n time again but when i started posting kickoff to ao3 back in january of this year, i had NO idea it would be this loved by so many people…i was like ok can’t wait to interact w these four readers for the rest of the year…and then BAM, i find myself fully sobbing after each chapter update because i was so touched by all the sweet n kind words. i don’t want this decision to come off in a way that makes it seems like i don’t love u guys sm or that i’m ungrateful — i’ve always taken pride in respecting my audience. even for a simple hobby, i try to put effort into my works. i proofread, i plan out, i edit in length, all because i am, well, for one, i’m a bit of a perfectionist LOL but also i think there’s a great deal of honor in respecting an audience that gives you their time n attention

but i already am struggling in my life to focus on the positive. medicine has been such an incredibly daunting career to pursue, i’m honestly only doing slightly better now because i’m just filled with relief that i got into med school to begin with lol it’s still surreal to me, so the stress has been kinda manageable so far on that sense of optimism, but dear god the shit i went through to get here…and the shit i know i still face ahead of me. i spend all of my serotonin on trying to stay positive in the face of my responsibilities. so all of this time i’ve spent trying to stay positive for the sake of my stories too has just left me with so much exhaustion — i just don’t see why posting my works should be anything less than fun and endlessly exciting when it’s a hobby that’s supposed to help me thru the actual brunt of life.

anyways, i’m getting a little carried away here. all this to say, i just need to take time away from posting my works so i can see writing as something for myself n not for others again. i don’t want the thoughts swimming in my head to be thoughts of anxiety over people potentially criticizing me n my creative decisions. i want the thoughts in my head to once again be positive, excited, and nurturing towards my stories. i don’t see how i can accomplish that at this point unless i start writing for myself once more, and not for others

i still have a great deal of passion to write, which is why i haven’t formally taken down my works. i anticipate that i may be able to come back in the future to share my writing again. but as of right now, i just want to heal the relationship that i have with this hobby, and i feel like that’s gotta happen in private (lmfao it sounds like im tryna freak my writing)

i’m sorry that i turned off my asks n my replies, i know so many of u care about me n want to support me n i just am beyond thankful. i don’t anticipate this is a forever goodbye, but i do just need some time rn away from all of this.

hope u all have a happy time!! and take care of yourselves :) much love

- ellie

[leighsartworks216]

My Love Mine All Mine

Zayne x gn!Reader

The day I stop addressing my traumas through silly little fics is the day I lose all whimsy. Also, fuck Astra. I fist fought him behind the Lowe's just so Zayne could say "I love you" because it's what he deserves!!

Title named after "My Love Mine All Mine" by Mitski

Warnings: kissing, declarations of love, references to past mental/emotional abuse, communication, blushing

Word Count: 978

Main Masterlist

Love and Deepspace Masterlist

AO3

Tag List Form

“I love you.”

You blink dumbly at Zayne’s blushing face. He’s doing his best not to turn his head away. Distracting himself by looking at your cheek cradled in his hand.

He gathered up all this effort, just to tell you he loves you. Your heart stutters in your chest, for more reasons than just his confession.

“I… I’m sorry,” you whisper out. He blinks at you as you scoot away from him, retracting his hand quickly.

He frowns. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?” He subtly closes his hand in his lap, feeling for some hint of ice that he may not have noticed. But all he feels is his palm, as warm and smooth as ever.

You shake your head. God, why this? Why right now? Why couldn’t you have worked up the courage to mention it sooner? This had to be karma nipping it in the bud for you. You groan, hiding your face in your hands. Your cheeks burn with embarrassment.

“No, no, I’m okay, Zayne. It’s-” You sigh. That beautiful blushing face of his put to waste because of your stupid hang up. “It’s not you, I swear. And it’s not…” It hurts trying to admit this to him in such a roundabout way.

“Talk to me,” he implores you. He hesitates before reaching out to gently pull your hands from your face. “It’s not…?”

You hold his hands, searching for solace in the care they give to you. The first time you held his hand, you were surprised by how soft they were. The only rough spots were small calluses built up over time from using a pen and a scalpel, and the scars on the back. You messily trace them, mindlessly seeking out every imperfection.

“It’s not… unrequited.”

He wishes you’d look him in the eyes. “But?”

You squeeze his hands tighter.

“You don’t have to tell me right now if you don’t want to.”

“No, I- You should know. I kept meaning to tell you, but every time we get together, I just get so swept up in everything.” You intertwine your fingers with one of his hands and bring his knuckles up to your lips.

It should be so easy to spill your guts out to him, but the blade cutting open your abdomen still hurts the same, regardless of who you do it for.

It takes you a few false starts, before you’re finally able to piece together what you want to say. “I have a hard time saying… saying it back. No matter who it is, I just… can’t. My ex would force me to say it back. Every night. Whenever they wanted it. So now trying to say it, even if I really, really mean it and really, really want to… it feels like I’m being forced to all over again.”

Zayne sighs softly. He gently pries his hand from yours and cups your cheek, guiding your face to finally look at him. His eyes are so soft. Green and hazel irises full of warmth and understanding. “Thank you for telling me.” His face turns serious, but not angry. Never angry, not for something like this. “Listen to me: I will never force you to say it back. We can find other ways to communicate it to each other.”

You let yourself relax. He’s not mad. He’s not going to demand the words from you. He’s not your ex. He’s your boyfriend. Your incredible boyfriend.

You lean your face into his palm. He smiles softly and happily accepts your trust.

“Like what?” you ask.

“Well, if speaking it is difficult, maybe you’d be more receptive to something physical?” He lifts your hand from your lap, turning it over so your palm faces the ceiling. He delicately traces shapes into your awaiting palm. It’s a familiar pattern, one he’s traced into your skin nearly every time you’re together, whether that be your hand, your hip, or even your leg.

You watch with a slight frown. “But you do that all the time.”

“Mhm.”

Your eyes shoot up to his when the meaning clicks. He’s looking at your cheeks again, blush heating up his ears. You’re sure you’re no better.

“Then… what if I do this?”

He watches as you reach forward and brush his hair from his eyes. He sighs softly as your fingers trail down his cheek to hold his jaw. You run your thumb just under his bottom lip. It takes all his effort not to shiver.

“Or… this.” You drag your thumb along his lip now, pulling it down slightly. He leans toward it without thinking, eyes half-lidded and breath hitching in his throat. He pulls you forward to close the gap you made before.

Watching him give into your touch like this is nothing short of addicting. Every time you caress his cheek, touch his chin - it’s like all his rational thoughts are thrown straight out the window.

There’s no space on the couch between you any more. You’re seconds away from climbing into his lap. His hand rests on your hip, a silent encouragement to keep going.

“Or…”

You lean forward and press your forehead to his. Your noses brush together. Air passes in quiet gasps in the few centimeters left. Pink spans across both his cheeks. It’s one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen. To think you were so scared of wasting it earlier, when he would be honored to share his exposed feelings with you all the time like this.

“This…?”

Your lips touch. It’s delicate, chaste, quick. Zayne’s breath shudders with emotion. You don’t get the chance to pull away. His hand on your cheek draws you in, over and over again. Lips move with barely restrained passion. A silent exclamation that puts your heart at ease.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

---

Tag List:

@the-golden-jhope @deepzombieyouth @huen1ngk41 @armycaratlover

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

Hellooo 👋🏼 I love your blog! I’ve always came to it whenever I’m looking for a new fic to read. But I am currently looking for a lost fic. I read it more than 5 years ago on ao3. I’m pretty sure it was one of the first docs I ever read of Sterek. I don’t think anything of the hale fire ended up happening. But, stiles and Scott are roommates and they live in the apartment next to Derek and Laura. They all know each other and hang out, stiles and Scott know Laura and Derek are werewolves as well (I’m not sure if Scott was one). But you don’t really see anyone else, it’s just these four. Stiles ends up going to an antique shop and finds these little wooden wolf figurines and takes them home. After that he essentially has powers being caused from them. And everytime him and Derek do anything like touching or kissing it makes stuff float around them and I know in one scene there in a bar and they start kissing and it makes the lights explode. Towards the end of the fic stiles ends up feeling like the wolf figures forced Derek to want to be with him. But Derek confirms that no they did not and he indeed had the feelings to begin with. Thats all i remember. I’ve been searching certain tags with filters but to no avail. Thanks for any help 😊

This is one of my faves.

Gravity's Got Nothing on You by zosofi

(11/11 I 83,979 I Explicit I Sterek)

“Three weeks,” Derek says.

“Still don’t want to,” Stiles says.

“I’ll pay you,” Derek says, and that… that has Stiles interested. Alf’s Antique’s may be a great job, but it’s not a high-paying job, and half of Stiles’s tuition is coming from financial aid, so…

“How much,” Stiles asks, “are we talking here? Because I know your family, dude. And it’ll be kind of awkward after.“

“My family thinks you’re some sort of fucking gift to the world,” Derek seethes, like he’s jealous, “they’ll probably be pissed at me when we break it off, so don’t worry about that. Five hundred bucks.”

“A thousand,” Stiles says, because screw ethics. Also, the Hale family is loaded. Derek can deal.

[trialsofapollo-fanfiction]

The Hub

Why make this blog? To give us ToA fans easier access to fics that are strictly based on The Trials of Apollo!

The ToA Ao3 tag isn’t as bad as it once was, but it’s still incredibly frustrating to shuffle through fics that have nothing to do with our favorite books, so this is what this blog is for!

Who made this blog? Hi, I’m @firealder2005, though you may also know me as @apollosgiftofprophecy or Alder!

How are you doing this? With lots and lots of painstaking time. I work on this in my spare time between college, family, extracurriculars, and other hobbies of mine.

What will I find here? Anything ToA!

What qualifies as ToA? A few things;

Takes place during ToA/is directly influenced by ToA (ie, deals with aftermath of ToA)

Apollo-focused/plays a main part

Focuses on ToA-centric characters (ie, Meg or Lavinia)

Expands on past characters (ie, Reyna, Jason) and their lives due to ToA

What about minor ToA characters? They count too! Chiara, Damien, Valentina, Paolo, ect are all included, and more!

What does “anything” mean? Anything. Meaning, there may be ships you don’t like, but still qualify as ToA, so make sure your filter is on so you can enjoy your scroll! Everything is tagged appropriately.

What about fics that aren’t ToA-friendly? I will be skipping those. In my own personal perusal of the tag, I have come across some fics that are rather unflattering to our series, so I will not be adding them here.

What fics are those? This includes fics that make Apollo homophobic (wtf), ignores the characters’ development, has tags that is negative towards ToA, or denies ToA’s existence entirely. I am using my own judgment on this matter, so if you feel I have made a mistake, shoot me an ask!

What about crossovers? I have crossovers tagged accordingly!

How did you tag? I’ll have a guide below the cut!

Any Questions? Send them in!

Did I miss a fic? Send an ask and advocate for its addition to the masses! (Will not be taking any at the moment, since I’m still putting it all together)

Just come here to hate? Will not be entertaining.

Tags

Searching by Character

Type in a character’s name (ie, #leo valdez, #pjo ares)

Searching by (Relation)Ship

Type in ship name (ie, #pipabeth) OR a relationship tag (ie, #sunflower siblings, #triumvirate holdings)

Poly ships are tagged with #polyamory and #poly ship

If you have an idea for a ship/relationship tag, let me know and I will do my best to accommodate it!

Searching by Rating

Type in rating (ie, #gen, #teen, #mature, #explicit)

Searching by Book

Type in book name (ie, #the burning maze, #the tower of nero)

Crossovers

Type in #crossover to see the full selection.

Type in fandom-specific tag for a specific fandom (ie, #supernatural, #marvel)

Will update as needed. All fics are posted with their fic descriptions and ratings. Filter preferences accordingly.

[olderthannetfic]

I thought it would be interesting to see if I could easily determine which ships had the most works updated in 2023.

It turned out to be fairly easy, though a little time consuming. I think these results should be reasonably accurate.

Some points to note:

I did this on my own account, and I have like 2 people muted. So I am capturing the effects of archive-locked works, but my numbers might be off by one or two works due to muting.

Works updated in 2023 is a number that constantly changes as works are deleted or updated again in 2024.

I didn't scrape the entire archive or anything like that, so it's possible I missed a ship that would bump one of these down below 100. I'd take the last few at the bottom there with a grain of salt. But I think we can be reasonably sure the top ones are accurate and that the kinds of numbers that we see at the bottom there (eighteen hundred plus works updated in 2023) are about where the cutoff will be even if we find a ship I missed.

--

As for how I did this, I went to the category tags and the rating tags, filtered for updating in 2023, then excluded ships in the sidebar till I got to 130-150 ships excluded. I also grabbed ships that are big in general from tag search, which you can use to find all relationship canonicals, ordered by frequency.

I combined those lists of ships, cleaned off the works numbers, and generated a list without duplicates. That got me three hundred and something (yes, they were mostly duplicates). I generated the relevant AO3 URLs, opened them in batches with Open Multiple URLs, and copied the works totals into a spreadsheet. Not as tidy as using a script but honestly pretty easy if you know a few spreadsheet formulas to clean up data.

The key here is that if you're only going for pretty good and not accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt, all you need to do is generate a list of likely ships, then check them.

It's possible that there's some much-updated ship that is so evenly spread across these various other tags that it just missed showing up in the sidebar. Hopefully, grabbing more than just the top 100 avoided this problem.

This method also doesn't take into account backdated works. If a whole archive was imported in 2023 but all backdated, there could be some ship that didn't have new works but where AO3 users experience in 2023 was of an influx of content.

I also did this just now, in late March/early April, so some 2023 works have inevitably been deleted or updated again. So the exact work counts don't represent the experience of using AO3 throughout 2023. A fandom active in early 2023 might not have much updating in early 2024, while a fandom active in late 2023 would. This could demote the latter a few places in the rankings since I didn't grab numbers on January 1st.

Even if a person scraped AO3 every day or was monkeying around in the databases, you also have to ask what conceptual answer you're after. Is it works a user could have read at some point during 2023, whether they were deleted by the year's end or not? Is it new-to-AO3 works or only newly-created ones, not including imported archives? Does it matter if the works are fic? If they're in English? What about accidental double-uploads or translations of a single work?

I hope this makes it clear why a definitive ranking is not actually possible.

However, despite these drawbacks, I am confident that the rankings above accurately represent the broad trends on AO3 in 2023. Just don't get too fixated on whether a ship should be at number 73 or number 74.

And, of course, I excluded these from the top 100:

Original Character(s)/Original Character(s) - 20,026

Minor or Background Relationship(s) - 16,187

No Romantic Relationship(s) - 8,052

Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s) - 7,195

Original Male Character/Original Male Character - 6,283

Other Relationship Tags to Be Added - 5,618

Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s) - 3,990

Original Character(s) & Original Character(s) - 3,210

Here's a spreadsheet if you want to see the actual numbers not as a shitty screencap. I left the next few below 100 for context.

[milkywayhou]

Do you have an Ao3 and/or links to the konig fanfics?

Oh!! Hello! I'm sorry I took long time to answer. You can find many König fanfic in 'König x reader' tag or König's tags in general.

But if you asked me did I have any favorite fanfic of König in Ao3, then I will gladly tell you *inhale*

MDNI! because the fanfic I'm going to share are kinda nsfw!!

But first enjoy this art I made based on the first fanfic I'm going to insert *giggling and burying myself in shame*

Alright!!! The first fanfic is *drums rolls*

1. Trapper, Keeper by @/tinypandacakes

link:

LET ME START BY HOW I REALLY LOVE THIS FANFIC!!?!?! I really love the pacing and the slow burn is *chef's kiss* I also love the thrilling atmosphere and the mystery 👀

Also I love how the reader narrated their thoughts, it makes us understand her better and can feel the feeling she's been through.

AND THEIR KÖNIG?!! MANNNN!! He sure give us an icky feeling but still make us think "I want this man so bad :(" You don't know what his motivation to the reader and that was make him an interesting character

I really recommend you to read it if you're into dark romance! and please support the author 💖

2. Die Zeit mit dir war schön by @/MangoGuy

I.. yeah, I'm a sucker for childhood friend troupe hahah.

The fact I run straight to my sister just so I can borrow her Ao3 account when I realized I don't see this fic in my search bar is enough to answer how desperate I love this fic.

Like Trapper,Keeper fic, this one make you feels like you're in the story! I also love how reader relationship with people around them. It feels like I can be related to them hahaha. The plot was really simple and easy to follow.

I really recommend you to read this if you want something light reading

[our-sin]

Sleep deprived rant incoming-

I’m watching merlin for the umpteenth time and there’s something i noticed. In the gayest show to ever gay (and this is compared to so many other shows that i watch) not once have i ever heard talk of these two:

And i don’t mean the two thugs from the tavern pretending to be Sir Ethan and Sir Oswald, i mean them before they were killed.

I will admit i’m not deep into the Merlin fandom, i mainly just follow the merthur tag and like the occasional post. They could have been talked about by someone at some point, I have no clue. All I know is i searched Ao3 and only found seven fics with Oswald in them and nine with Ethan, only one of which had them together and that was for a threesome with Merlin.

Anyway I think it’s pretty darn clear that these two were in a relationship. They were both traveling together -two knights from separate houses given the fact that they both had differing crests- with a single servant accompanying them with one larger tent in the back and two other smaller ones, one which was occupied by the servant that was with them. When they were attacked sir ethan’s first concern was also sir oswald when he was downed.

When Dagger and Ebor arrived in the two knights place they were show to the same room and Merlin brought up a single chest containing both men’s luggage. Given the conversation and what was said i don’t think there was another room set up for Sir Ethan, also the fact that Arthur clearly had no clue who this man was or about his impending arrival in camelot, it made it seem like he was staying in the room but again they had been replaced at this point so who knows. Both swords were kept in the one room. I’m sure Ebor -disguised as Sir Ethan- was in the same room as Dagger considered his unkempt state and the fact that he was there when Dagger was throwing knives at Merlin when it had probably taken a minute for Gwaine to get there even if he was moving as fast as he could (Merlin did say he had to travel up seven flights of stairs to get from the square to Sir Oswald’s room after all).

Now i could be wrong about this. Whenever the room was brought up they called it ‘Sir Oswald’s chambers’. Sir Oswald also clearly held a higher status than Ethan, so maybe it was some sort of protection detail or something but if that was the case why would there have only been Sir Ethan and the one servant at the camp -i would think there would be others there as well if Sir Oswald was in that high of standing that there would be additional knights along the journey for his protection.

Again i could be wrong, my knowledge of hierarchy and knights and stuff isn’t the greatest. But i think in one of the gayest shows to ever exist -and considering how often knights were historically in secret same sex relationships- it is highly likely these two were together.

[katsukikisses]

birds of a feather: chapter three [hawks x reader]

chapter summary: sixth grade is a year of changes. you and keigo learn a few things about yourselves as you prepare to enter junior high.

also, by popular demand (aka 6 people), i have made a playlist for birds of a feather. it's a wip so if you guys have any songs you think would suit this fic then please leave a comment or send in an ask with the song name, and i will add it!

chapter tags: childhood friends trope; alternating povs; feelings realizations; discussion of japanese honorific speech. this is a helpful article on the intricacies of honorifics if you are interested.

cw: obligatory mean girl steal-ur-man character; socioeconomic differences?; toomie not showing up for keigo's graduation

prefer to read on ao3? here!

prev. chapter | table of contents | next chapter

“When we were younger, We didn't know how it would be, We were the dumb, the wild, the free." — Conan Gray, Little League

“Hey, Keigo-kun, what are you wearing to the graduation ceremony?”

“I bet he’ll be wearing a hakama, since he’s traditional like that. Aren’t you, Keigo-kun?”

“At least tell us what color, Keigo-kun! Maybe we’ll match.” 

That last comment was enough to stir you from your nap. With immense effort, you lifted your head from its comfortable position on your desk and sat up straight. A bleary glance at the clock told you that there were only a few minutes left before class started, causing you to sigh—no point in going back to sleep, now. 

Vengefully, you turned towards the commotion that had awoken you, and, unsurprisingly, found your best friend at the center of it. Keigo sat at his desk at the far end of the room, surrounded by a gaggle of girls. They leaned against the windowsills and surrounding desks, getting as close as possible without overstepping boundaries. The boldest of the group, a girl named Miyake Aito, was perched on Keigo’s desk, legs swinging beneath her. When you heard her giggle at the other girls’ teasing, you realized that she’d been the one to inquire about matching outfits. Unbidden, a frown spread across your face. 

“I’m not sure yet, Miyake-san” Keigo was saying, smiling amiably. “I don’t want to be the only one in traditional wear.”

The girls were quick to assure him that No, there will definitely be others, and began to complain about how guys didn’t want to wear hakamas anymore. Keigo listened to them politely, nodding at the appropriate times, but subtly attempted to peer around their bodies. You realized, belatedly, that he was searching for you. How did he even know I’d woken up? Sometimes, it was like he had a sixth sense for all things YN-related. 

Keigo's golden eyes finally found yours and narrowed at your sleep-addled appearance. You stuck your tongue out at him in return. For a moment, the two of you remained in your little bubble, silently communicating across the room. 

Aito quickly picked up on the blonde's distraction, though, and followed his line of sight. When she realized he was looking at you, she began waving at you excitedly. 

“LN-chan!” she grinned at you. “You’re finally up! Come join us.”

The other girls agreed, enthusiastically beckoning you over. Face heating up at the attention (and at the mention of your mid-morning nap), you rose from your seat and made your way over. You stopped at the edge of the group, but Aito reached out and pulled you to her side. Her long, wavy hair, which she wore over her shoulder, tickled your bare arm. 

“Um, what’s up?” you asked, attempting to sound casual. You’d never really spoken to Aito or her friends, so the sudden proximity was a little startling. 

“We’re trying to get Keigo to wear a hakama for the graduation ceremony,” Aito pouted, as if his refusal aggrieved her personally. “Help us convince him, LN-chan!”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d be any help,” you said, looking down at the boy in question. Keigo still had that demure smile on his face, but the subtle twitches of his lips betrayed his amusement. “He’s a real free spirit.”

Aito laughed, tightening her hold around you. “But YN-chan, a hakama would totally suit him, right? Given his whole traditional thing.” 

A few of the girls around you hummed in agreement. You looked questioningly at her. 

“His traditional thing?”

“You know, the way he uses san for everyone, and how he never calls anyone by their first name. Like, I’m Miyake-san,” Aito gestured to herself, and then to the other girls. “And she’s Nonaka-san, and she’s Kudo-san…”

And then she faced you, tilting her head curiously. “And even though you guys are close, he still calls you LN-san, doesn’t he?”

“I guess so,” you shrugged, meeting Keigo’s eye once more. Aito didn’t need to know that, outside of school, you were just YN and Keigo to each other. You’d dubbed him “Keigo-kun” practically the first time you spoke, and shortly thereafter dropped the honorific entirely. The blonde, on the other hand, took much longer to disregard formalities, and for the first six months of your friendship he exclusively addressed you as LN-san. The only exception was when your parents were around, in which case you became LN-chan and they were the sans. It took the three of you a year of insisting that he call you YN, and they oba-san and oji-san, for him to finally do so.

At school, though, Keigo still referred to you as LN-san. You didn't quite understand why until his mom overheard him call you by your given name a few months ago. Her expression had twisted into one of deep displeasure—not quite disappointment, or any other emotion one might show when their child didn’t behave. It was more like…fear. 

She’d yelled at Keigo, then, and made him apologize to you. You know better than that, she’d admonished him, We don’t talk to others like that. You remember frantically insisting he get up from his bow, alarmed and close to tears yourself. Somehow, you couldn’t help but feel that the whole thing was all your fault.

(Many months later, you worked up the courage to ask Keigo about it—why he was so proper all the time and why his mom yelled at him. Why it was okay for you to call him Keigo but not okay for him to call you YN.

He’d simply replied, “Because I’m a hybrid.”)

Shaking the memory from your mind, you realized you’d zoned out while Aito continued talking. She didn’t look happy with your noncommittal answer, and had let go of your arm in favor of turning back towards Keigo. 

“Well, if you won’t wear a hakama to be traditional,” she sighed, twirling a stray lock of hair around her finger. “Then you should at least do it for LN-chan. She’d love to see you in traditional wear.”

At this, the other girls snickered. Your face heated—you were sure you were being laughed at, but you just didn’t know for what. 

Keigo raised his eyebrows impassively. “I don’t know what you mean, Miyake-san.”

Aito leaned towards him. From her position on his desk, she could look directly down at him. “I think,” she giggled, “we all know what I mean.”

“Why don’t you tell me, then,” he returned coolly. 

A conspiratorial grin spread across Aito’s face. She had really nice teeth, you noticed offhandedly. While other kids’ mouths were still shackled in metal and rubber bands, her’s was already blindingly white and straight. 

“I mean,” Aito began, “We all know that LN-chan—”

She was cut off by the ring of the school bell, signaling the end of the period. Students immediately began taking their seats, and the teacher walked in, frowning when she saw your group gathered by the window. 

“Miyake-san, it’s quite rude to sit on someone else’s desk,” she chided, “Everyone, please return your seats. Goodness, you all are about to enter junior high, and you still can’t be ready for class on time.” 

Aito slid off the desk, mumbling an apology to your teacher and Keigo. The other girls hurriedly returned to their desks, and you began heading back to your side of the classroom. You were stopped, however, by a hand wrapping around your wrist. You looked back to see Aito at your arm, that same smile on her face. She tugged on you lightly, learning over to whisper in your ear. 

“We all know,” she giggled, “that you like Keigo-kun.”

“What about this one, YN? The blue is very pretty.” 

“No, I already wear blue on my uniform everyday.”

“Okay, then how about this one? You can’t go wrong with black.”

“No, it’s too somber. What am I, going to a funeral?”

“Alright, then, what about a two piece—”

“No!” you jumped up, shoving away the skirt your mom was dangling in front of your face. “Two pieces are for little kids—I’m literally entering junior high!”

“Right,” your mom said, “So…you’re a little kid.”

Groaning, you sank back into the plush changing room chair. Across from you, your mother exasperatedly flopped down in her own chair. The mall was blessedly empty today; otherwise, shoppers would’ve gotten a front-row seat to LN Akemi having a breakdown over formalwear.  

“Why are you making this so difficult,” your mother wailed, half-heartedly flinging a blouse at you. It landed a few feet short of your chair, on a different shirt you’d rejected. “You usually love shopping with me.”

That was true—shopping with your mother was one of the rare times where the two of you weren’t bickering and actually got along. No, for a few peaceful hours every weekend, you were united by gossip, cute clothes, and her credit card. 

“I know, I’m sorry,” you sighed, “I guess I’m just nervous about graduation.”

Your mother pushed herself up one her elbows and peered at you. “I thought you said it was just a ‘lame event’ that you ‘didn’t care about.”

You winced at your harsh words being thrown back at you. “Well, that was before…”

“Before what?”

“Umm,” you said intelligently, “Before I realized how important this milestone actually is?”

Your mother narrowed her eyes at you. You averted your gaze. 

Truth be told, it was still just a lame event that you didn’t care about. An elementary school graduation was not a great cause for celebration, in your opinion, especially since everyone would be heading to the same junior high. Still, considering recent developments, you wanted to put some effort into your outfit…

At the thought of the incident, you groaned again and shoved your face into your hands. It’d been the source of all your agony this past week, rendering you incapable of enjoying a simple shopping trip with your mom. Ever since Aiko had put that stupid thought into your head—

We all know that you like Keigo-kun. 

Well, of course you liked Keigo, you huffed internally—he was your best friend! Ever since that fateful stormy afternoon in the second grade, the two of you had been inseparable. You hung out everyday, either watching lame superhero shows at your place or playing video games based on said lame superhero shows at his. You shared every thought with him (even the stupid ones, like when you thought Algeria was in South America) and he was the first person you turned to when you needed support. You enjoyed his company better than anyone else in the universe, and when you thought of your future you couldn’t imagine it without him. So yes, you did like Keigo, because all best friends liked each other. 

But, you knew that wasn’t what Aito meant. She meant that you like-liked him, in the way that many of the kids in your class had begun to: holding hands at recess, bumping shoulders on the walk home. Calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. Like-liked, in the way that best friends totally shouldn’t like each other. 

So did you?

You dragged your hands down your face, choosing to ignore your own question. Peeking through your fingers, you saw that your mom had left her chair to go back to shopping. She was shifting through the racks of dresses, her wedding ring glinting noticeably as she moved. The sight of it made you think about your parents’ own marriage. They liked—no, loved—each other, didn’t they? 

You tried to think if they did any of the things the couples in your class did, but came up empty. Your father didn’t like to hold your mother’s hand because he claimed it was always “unbearably sweaty”, and you think your mother would push your father into the street if he tried to bump shoulders with her. You couldn’t even remember the last time they called each other by “husband” and “wife”, preferring more intimate nicknames like “the old ball and chain” and “my trophy husband”. 

But…they showed that they liked each other in other ways. Your dad always fixed your mom a cup of coffee in the morning, no matter how late he was for his own job, because she claimed he was the only one who could make it right; and your mother never complained when she had to pick your father up from the bar, merely laughing about how he couldn’t hold his liquor. They always made time to watch “their” show together, and seemed to be in a constant competition of who could complete more of the others’ chores. So maybe it wasn’t the type of like you were used to seeing among your classmates—but it was undeniably there. 

And what about Keigo, a small, insistent voice in your head brought up, Do you see yourself “liking” him? 

You furrowed your brow, imagining the two of you in your parents’ positions. Him making you a cup of coffee, you wrangling his tipsy form into the car. Watching old Endeavor re-runs and doing chores together in a sage-colored house. And, in the way that you parents often did, leaning over to press your lips to his— 

“Okay, you cannot find anything wrong with this one,” your mother dropped a dress on your lap, snapping you out of your thoughts. You hoped she didn’t notice the way you flushed. “It’s not blue, or black, or a two-piece, or anything else you might possibly have an issue with. At least try it on.” 

Not wanting to get into another argument, you reluctantly agreed, figuring it would be no different than the others. But once you had the dress on, you couldn’t help but agree with your mother—there was nothing you could find wrong with it. It was cut from a soft, ruby-red fabric, billowing elegantly at your waist and stopping just below the knees. It struck the perfect balance between the elementary-school-innocence you were leaving behind and the mature junior high student you were about to become. 

Akemi watched you scrutinize the dress in the changing room mirror, flinging the folds this way and that—but she knew you were already sold. She’d known it the moment she spotted the dress, because it was the exact same shade of red as a certain hybrid’s feathers. 

Stifling a smirk, she opened her wallet. You could be so predictable sometimes. 

“Psst, Keigo.”

The blonde ignored the whisper, valiantly focusing on the principal’s speech. When he didn’t respond, he felt your finger begin to prod him in the back. 

“Keigo! I know you can hear me.” 

The prodding intensified. After a few moments, Keigo couldn’t take it anymore. Subtly angling his head to look behind him, he flashed you an annoyed look. 

“What?” he hissed. The two of you, alongside all the other sixth graders, were currently gathered in the school auditorium for the graduation ceremony. The students were lined up in neat rows across the stage while the principal gave a speech at the podium. With her back to the students, she remained unaware of any impropriety, but the teachers and parents in the audience had a perfect view of their actions. Plus, with Keigo standing in the front row and you in the back, it was much harder for him to get away with talking. 

“Isn’t this so boring?” you grinned at him. Keigo could feel his eye twitching—you risked getting in trouble to tell him that? He ignored you, turning back to the principal, but a hand in his suit jacket yanked him back. 

“I said I’m bored!” you whispered indignantly. “Entertain me!”

Keigo sighed. A glance at the audience told him that no teachers were watching him, and the principal was still droning on with her speech. Subtly, he shuffled backward until he dropped out of his row and squeezed into yours. The boy who'd previously been standing by you looked peeved by the intrusion, but Keigo couldn’t be bothered with apologizing. 

“What can I do to cure your boredom, m’lady,” Keigo deadpanned. 

You clapped your hands gleefully. “Well, first, let’s decide on where we want to eat after this. My parents want to go to that seafood restaurant—you know, the one on Main Street? But it’s been so popular recently, I feel like we’ll definitely see classmates who are also celebrating…”

Keigo zoned out as you described the horror of running into someone you’d just bid goodbye to. He typically loved listening to you ramble, but right now he was finding it immensely difficult to focus. Every word you spoke was enunciated with a dramatic fling of your hands, causing your dress to flutter mesmerizingly. His eyes tracked the fabric’s movements obsessively; for some reason, seeing you in red made Keigo feel all warm and gooey inside. 

“…so that’s what I’m thinking. Does that sound good?”

He blinked as he realized you’d concluded your story, dinner plans interjected somewhere in there. 

“Yeah, sure,” he said, hoping he didn’t just accidentally commit to a Michelin-star restaurant. He knew your family liked to dine at the finer places in Fukuoka, having been invited to many such outings before, but his mom would kill him if he ever accepted. It’s bad enough that I let them feed you every day, she bemoaned often, The least we could do is let them think we have inexpensive taste. With today being his graduation, though, and the fact that she couldn't be there to celebrate him herself, she had made an exception. 

Reminded of his mom's absence, Keigo wistfully turned towards the audience. He knew, logically, that she couldn’t dictate her work schedule; yet, selfishly, he wished she was here to see him graduate. 

“I’m sorry that your mom couldn’t come to this,” you said softly, noticing his sullen gaze. Keigo merely hummed in response—he’d long stopped being shocked by your mind-reading capabilities. Sometimes, he thought you were a hybrid in disguise; there was no other explanation for how you could pick up the smallest shifts in his mood and know the perfect thing to say each time. 

The principal was nearing the end of her speech now, if the generic verses about changing the world and shooting for the stars were any indication. Keigo grew restless as she droned on, eager to shed his formal wear; his suit jacket was uncomfortably small and scratchy, and the wing-slits darned into the back were constricting painfully around his feathers. He always thought the worst part about having wings was the fact that he couldn’t loan clothes—holes had to be put in anything he wore. As a result, his mom usually sprung for thinner shirts and sweaters, made from materials that were easy to sew through. His only option this time, it appeared, was a kids-size tuxedo.

Keigo stifled a laugh as he remembered Miyake's reaction to his cheap, ill-fitting suit. The girl had been chatting excitedly with her friends when she spotted him, her expression immediately twisting into one of deep distaste. She’d quickly exchanged it for a cute pout, though. 

“Keigo-kun,” she admonished, “I thought we agreed you’d wear a hakama!”

We did nothing of that sort, he wanted to say, but merely smiled placatingly at her instead. “What, do I look that bad in this suit?”

An eager chorus of Nos and Of course nots! rang back at him from Miyake’s friends. The girl herself still looked miffed, tugging unhappily on the sleeves of her red kimono. Keigo could tell that it was expensive from the detailed embroidery and silk skirts, and he wondered what it would be like to wear something that well-made. 

“I wanted to match with you, though…” Miyake looked up shyly at him through her eyelashes. He held back a snort, and was thankfully saved from answering by the arrival of their teacher. He didn’t even know how he could get out of that one… 

Cheering from the audience drew Keigo out of his memories, and he belatedly realized that the principal had concluded her speech. His classmates were laughing excitedly, and you were shaking his arm like a madwoman. 

“We did it!” you screamed, “We graduated!”

Keigo laughed—where was the girl who insisted graduation was lame just last week? Still, your enthusiasm was infectious, and he couldn’t help but smile as you jumped up and down in joy. 

For the second time that day, Keigo could feel his heart beating erratically. He really should get that checked out.

Next Chapter (coming soon!)

author's note: i told y'all that things were heating up 🤭 i hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter-- please feel free to let me know what you thought in the comments :) i can't wait to see our beloved YN and keigo in junior high!

in case y'all missed it: fic playlist!

[elposting]

A Brief History of Elder McKinley's Fanon Name

(And all the earliest uses I could find of it)

I was inspired to do this by @killedbytelephones recent question as to why McKinley's fanon name is Connor (as I've been wondering the same thing since I first joined the fandom).

@bomhistorian commented on the post explaining it originated from a fanfiction that was popular early on in the show's run.

So, I started at AO3 and sorted by oldest under The Book of Mormon - 2011 tag. I found this fic (uploaded on November 11, 2012) on the first page, the first fic on the archive I could find using the name "Connor" for Elder McKinley. The other fics that had already been posted to AO3 at this point either did not have McKinley in them, or referred to him as "Ryan" (earliest use dated June 20, 2011) or "Sean" (earliest use dated May 19, 2012).

I was curious if anyone in the comments had commented about this being the earliest use of Connor as McKinley's first name and lo and behold! Starlightandpinot commented in 2018 asking if this was the first instance- author of the fic, deliarium, replied, saying the name had already been popularized on both fanfiction.net and tumblr.

I started on FFN, sorting by oldest under the Book of Mormon tag. The oldest fic on there, Turn It Off (July 20, 2011), used the name Ryan- this is an upload of the same fic crossposted by the author to AO3 on July 21, 2011.

Side note: another author on FFN, rainbowfish22, wrote a majority of the last page of the BOM tag on ffn- none of them gave any name to McKinley (just referring to him as Elder McKinley, however they did give Elder Poptarts the name Christopher in this fic from August 3, 2011. I want to say this is the earliest instance of Elder Poptarts being called Chris/Christopher. Furthermore, on the next page of fics, author TrapezoidalGreenOnes uses this name, Christopher, in their fic Turn it Off on August 4, 2011. Elder McKinley is still unnamed in this fic.

On August 5, 2011 author blottedpen23 upload their fic In Africa where they refer to Elder McKinley as Connor- the earliest instance on FFN of this name being used. I wasn't fully convinced this is where the name Connor originated from, however, so I moved my search to Tumblr.

Side note: On July 3, 2011 tumblr user @turnit0ff posted this fic, where Elder McKinley's name is Ryan- I believe this is the very first instance of the name Ryan being used for Elder McKinley!

On July 16, 2011 tumblr user @rhythmthlef posted this fic. This is the very first post under the #elder mckinley tag that uses the name Connor for him. However, they credit it as a sequel to user sunshinegirl22's fic, who's blog has been deleted since. So, I googled around to try to find an archive of the fic. A livejournal blog titled bomfanfic came up, which archived, you guessed it, book of mormon fanfiction. I couldn't find the specific sunshinegirl22 fic Rhythm's tumblr post was referring to, but the LJ blog had archived another one of sunshinegirl22's fics: Dear Steve, posted on July 11, 2011 (which did not name Elder McKinley in it).

I was still curious, so I continued clicking around the LJ blog and found this fic by kmagz, also archived on July 11, 2011, which used the name Connor for Elder McKinley. Kmagz did not appear to have a LJ, but at some point he had a tumblr (however it has since been deleted). I checked the wayback machine for archives of both kmagz's tumblr and sunshinegirl22's tumblr, but neither have seemed to been archived.

I have no idea when the archived fics from July 11, 2011 were actually written, but I'll assume it was likely sometime in July 2011 (from the tumblr post that sequels sunshinegirl22's fic).

Another fic was uploaded by @slinkychesterisnowanarchiv-blog1 referring to McKinley as Connor (this time spelt Conner) just two hours after @rhythmthlef's SG22 sequel fic was uploaded onto tumblr. SlinkyChester may have seen Rhythm's fic and written theirs right after (using the same name), but I think it's more likely this name already existed in Kmagz's fic archived from July 11 (which I think must have been popular on tumblr before the blog was later deleted).

Side note: Two of the other fics archived on the LJ blog on July 11 referred to McKinley as "Alexander" and "Iain". The rest of the fics archived on that day either do not include or do not name McKinley. I think this also suggests/supports Kmagz's fic was the first to use Connor. (at least the first we have proof of existing.)

Here's the first fanart I could find referring to McKinley as Connor.

In a later @rhythmthlef fic from September 14, 2011, she refers to McKinley as Iain (spelled Ian this time).

---

TL;DR I think it was a combination of fanfictions using the name Connor for McKinley that just made it catch on (and along the way people just accepted it as canon unaware it was a fan name). These fics beat out/became more popular than the ones referring to McKinley as Ryan or Sean or Alexander or Ian/Iain. As far as my knowledge goes right now, I believe kmagz came up with Connor in a now deleted fic from July 2011.

UPDATE (also in reblogs): @rhythmthlef was so kind as to add more insight and answer a question I had!! Turns out sunshinegirl22 was actually the first person to use the name Connor for Elder McKinley (I’m assuming in a fic also from July 2011, maybe June?) but everyone say thank you sunshinegirl22! 🫶🫶 maybe we’ll even find the original fic some day! :-D

[luxcuriousao3]

Dove: A Zombie Ghost Story (Chapter Seven)

Summary: He didn’t want to let his little dove go. He wanted to hold her close, feel her warmth and smell her sweetness. He wanted her softness and light for himself. She made the days of his cursed existence so much easier to bear. She gave him purpose, she gave him happiness with every bright smile and light touch. She was giving him his humanity back—he could feel it, his emotions less dulled each day, his mind clearer. He didn't know how to let her go, and return back to the way things used to be. He didn't know if he could. Word Count: 3426 Warnings: still no smut (but Ghost has explicit thoughts again), mentioned past child abuse, mentioned animal death (a zombie's gotta eat), Johnny continues to haunt the narrative (I almost feel like he should get his own character tag at this point, he talks so goddamn much in Ghost's head) Notes: Triple asterisk (***) denotes a POV change as usual, dash asterisk dash (-*-) is a time skip but not a POV change. I still have no beta for this fic so all SPAG and consistency errors are my own, feel free to point them out. AO3, Masterlist

After emptying the remains of the water cooler into a bottle found in the kitchen, Ghost and his dove resumed their methodical search of the town for supplies.

It was a small town, though larger than a village. Ghost knew they wouldn't have the time to search each and every house—right now, he was guiding Lelia to any spots that looked like they might have the essentials. More water, mostly, but also a map of their surroundings. He wanted to find somewhere that his dove could safely nest for the winter, and a town wasn't it. Other survivors would undoubtedly come through looking for supplies of their own—and with only being a day's drive at most from the military base she’d escaped from, Ghost knew those survivors likely wouldn't be friendly.

It did make him wonder, though. What would happen if they did come across a group of good people who were willing to take Lelia in? There was no way he would be welcome to join as well, he knew. He would probably be killed on the spot, unwilling to fight back and risk her getting caught in the crossfire.

He knew what he should do, if they ran into other people: Watch them for a few days, get a sense of if they were the right sort. If they were, lead Lelia to them, and disappear so they could find her. Trail them afterwards to make sure she was accepted, safe, and happy… and then let her go. Let her be with other humans, where she belonged, and not stuck with a monster like him.

He knew that was what he should do. He just didn't think he had the strength to.

He didn’t want to let his little dove go. He wanted to hold her close, feel her warmth and smell her sweetness. He wanted her softness and light for himself. She made the days of his cursed existence so much easier to bear. She gave him purpose, she gave him happiness with every bright smile and light touch. She was giving him his humanity back—he could feel it, his emotions less dulled each day, his mind clearer. He didn't know how to let her go, and return back to the way things used to be. He didn't know if he could.

So, telling himself that it was what was safest for her and only lying a little bit, he prepared her for a journey to somewhere more isolated.

They didn’t find a map that day or the next—no one kept printed maps or even atlases anymore, it seemed, far too reliant on technology—but they did find a long, designer puffer coat that Lelia squealed over happily, as well as a few cases of water bottles. Ghost, who had been loaded up like a pack mule, was relieved to discover a little red wagon in the garage of the house they holed up in on the third night. His dove was so chronically malnutritioned that she couldn't even carry the pack of canned food without needing to stop and rest every half hour—but he couldn’t afford to be bogged down by supplies incase of an attack. The wagon was the perfect solution—he’d drag it along behind him and could easily drop the handle and move to protect Lelia if need be.

Around four days since he’d last eaten, Ghost found himself sniffing her far more than he was comfortable with. So he kept his distance until nighttime, and then repeated his pantomime show of telling her to lock her door and barricade herself inside the room with her supplies. She understood what was happening this time and obeyed without protest, simply telling him to be safe.

When he came back an hour later, she was ready with the dusty toothbrush and tube of toothpaste they’d taken from the house with the water cooler. She even used some water from one of the bottles they’d found—despite his protests—to gently clean his face and hands. It was the most she’d touched him since the last time she’d scrubbed his teeth—though not the first time since. She tended to walk closer to him now, enough that their hands brushed every so often. He’d stopped wearing his gloves entirely, just to be able to feel it a little better. Sometimes she grabbed onto his arm, too, when she saw something that scared her—which was often—or something that she was excited about—which was rare. It was nice. It was better than nice. It was wonderful. Every second of physical contact with her was heaven. It had been hard, keeping her at arm’s length today, but necessary. And now he would make up for it by letting her clean him, which was arguably even better, if a little embarrassing. But he would embarrass himself a thousand times over if it meant he got to feel her touch.

“There’s blood under your mask,” his dove said suddenly, her fingers slipping under the bottom edge of it. He tensed, reaching up to lightly grab her wrist, stopping her from taking it off. He looked horrifying enough with the mask on—if she saw what was beneath it, he knew he would take over staring in her nightmares from whoever Andrew—and God did he want to rip that fucker apart every time her heard her beg him for mercy in her sleep—was.

“Still won’t let me clean under it?” His dove asked, pouting. He just stared back at her, unable to be swayed, not on this. She sighed, but let it go. “Fine. But you have to clean it, then, because the blood starts to smell if you leave it there.”

He grumbled, but accepted the rag from her, releasing her wrist so she could turn around. He removed his cracked mask, looking in the mirror—trying not to flinch at the disgusting sight that greeted him—and carefully, clumsily cleaned up the little bit of rabbit blood that had snuck up towards his nose. He was lucky he still had a nose, he reminded himself.

Once he was finished and his mask firmly back on, he groaned quietly, and his dove faced him again with a smile, toothbrush at the ready.

Five minutes later—he was disappointed it didn't take as long this time, but he supposed that meant the first cleaning had worked—he was spitting toothpaste into the dirty sink, mouth tasting aggressively of mint.

“What did you eat tonight?”

Ghost looked back at Lelia, surprised by the question. Why was she asking? Was she worried he’d eaten a human?

“I had a can of peaches,” she continued, wiping her hands off on one of the dusty towels hanging on the back of the door. “I’d been trying to save that one for a special occasion, but I couldn't resist anymore. I miss sweets.”

His confusion—and slight hurt—faded when he realized she was just doing what she always did: filling the silence with chatter. It was one of the things he appreciated the most about her, after so long with only the groans of the other undead and his own thoughts for company. Although sometimes, he half expected her rambling to be thick with an indecipherable Scottish accent.

Ghost tried to make a bunny rabbit with his fingers, but his dove stared at him blankly. He huffed and then held up two fingers behind her head so she could see them in the mirror. Bunny ears.

“You ate a bunny?!” She exclaimed, horrified. “But— but they’re so cute!”

Ghost just looked at her, shrugging his stiff shoulders. It was the first thing he’d found, and he’d been trying to get back to Lelia as quickly as possible. Cuteness wasn’t a factor he took into consideration when it came to what he ate. Though if it was, it would explain why she was so tempting to him.

“Aye, tha’s a good’un,” Johnny’s voice said in his head. “Yer cute too, an’ I’d still eat ye. Eat yer sweet li’l cunny—”

He immediately shut that thought down. He wondered if the real Johnny was as much of a pervert as the one in his head, or if it was all just Ghost.

“Did you at least make sure it didn't suffer?”

Ghost focused on his dove again, and was alarmed to see that her big brown eyes were wet and wide, her bottom lip trembling. He groaned, his own eyes widening—as much as they could, at least—and he instinctively reached out to try and comfort her. But he stopped short of actually touching her, his hands hovering awkwardly over her shoulders. She was still looking up at him with that wounded expression, and he would have done just about anything to make it go away, so he nodded quickly. The rabbit had barely had time to register what was happening before he’d snapped its neck. At the time, he hadn’t done it out of mercy, but simple practicality—his meal couldn't run away if it was dead—but he couldn't have told his dove that even if he’d wanted to. Which he very much did not.

“Good,” Lelia said, relieved. She still looked sad, but not as much like she was about to burst into tears, now. Ghost let his hands fall back to his sides. “That’s good... I’m sorry. I know you need to eat, I don’t mean to make you feel guilty for that, I just… my first ever pet—my first ever friend, truly—was a little mummy bunny. She lived in the garden on our estate—that was my favorite place to play—and I found her after Father had refused to get me a pet for the dozenth time. I must have made him quite cross, since he struck me right across the face, rather than give me a spanking like usual. It was certainly more effective, though. I didn’t dare ask again. Which is why I was so pleased to find my little Serafina—that’s what I named her—that I helped her raise her babies until they were big enough to go out on their own. I’d bring them food and nesting materials, and I sat guard over them all day, everyday to make sure no foxes came to eat them. It was bittersweet, when I found the nest empty. I was happy they had all made it to adulthood, but I was so sad to see them go…”

The look in her eyes was distant, though not quite as much as it had been when they’d found the leather jacket. It had scared him, that day, just seeing her go suddenly unresponsive as tears began to stream down her face. There were no tears this time, for which he was glad, but his undead heart still ached a bit at her words. Clearly, despite growing up in the lap of luxury, she had been a lonely child, with parents not fit to raise a sensitive little dove like her.

Ghost groaned quietly and lightly bumped his hand against hers, the way she sometimes did when they were walking, trying to ground her the only way he could. He wanted to pull her into a hug, to feel her soft, warm body against his, but he knew that would be crossing a line.

The bit of contact seemed to do the trick, though, her gaze focusing on him again as she smiled once more.

It didn't quite reach her eyes.

***

It was approaching three weeks since Lelia's escape from Andrew, and a little under two since she and Simon had arrived in the abandoned town, when they finally located a map.

It was in the house Ghost had chosen for them to stay in that night. There was a study, nearly untouched, and Lelia had taken the opportunity to explore the packed bookshelves. She missed her own collection very much—she hadn’t been allowed to bring it with her, once she’d gotten married. The only book she’d been able to sneak away was the hand-bound collection of Russian poetry her governess, Ulyana, had given her years ago. The stern old woman was the only person Lelia had confessed her love of poetry to. Ulyana had scoffed and called her a fool girl, but that was just how she was, so she didn’t take it too personally. Especially when she found the book on her nightstand a few days later.

Lelia still had it, kept tucked carefully in her pocket at all times. It had become a notebook, of sorts, where she wrote all her own poems, as well as copied down some of her favorite English ones. But it was more than that. It was the only evidence she had that someone had ever truly cared about her.

Ulyana hadn’t loved her, Lelia knew that. She would have rather been with her own family, raising her own children back in Russia. Lelia didn't understand that when she was little, but she did now. Even still, Ulyana had been more of a mother to her than Lelia’s own.

Lelia shook herself from her thoughts, peeking up from her new copy of Pride & Prejudice to look at Simon. He was standing at the desk, the map spread out in front of him, growling quietly to himself. She was familiar enough with his array of noises by now to know that he was frustrated.

“Is everything okay?” She asked softly. Simon’s head jerked up, jaw wobbling, and then his gaze darted away, his shoulders hunching slightly. Her brows furrowed in concern, and she stood up from the cozy office chair she’d curled up in, setting aside her book and crossing over to him. She laid a hand on his forearm, trying to get him to look at her again. “What’s wrong?”

To her surprise, Simon pulled away. He never pulled away from her touch—seemed to crave it, in fact, if the way his eyes slipped closed and he got all relaxed whenever she brushed his teeth was any indication—and she figured it was because he was relieved he wasn’t alone anymore. She didn’t know how long he’d been a conscious zombie, but any time spent as one had to have been hell. So when she’d noticed the way he always leaned into her hands when she cleaned him, she’d made a conscious effort to initiate more contact between them. Nothing too big—just a brush of their hands here or grabbing his arm to get his attention there—but little gestures that she hoped reminded him that he wasn’t alone anymore.

So the fact that he was denying himself the comfort he so clearly got from it? She knew something must really be bothering him.

“Simon,” she said, quiet but firm. “Talk to me.”

Simon looked back at her sharply, growling as he gestured at his broken jaw. She crossed her arms over her chest and raised a brow at him. He knew what she’d meant. They’d gotten quite adept at communicating without speaking, over the last few weeks.

Her zombie glared at her for a moment longer before grumbling in defeat and shoving the map away from him, wordlessly naming it as the problem. She frowned, bringing it back towards them and smoothing it out as she began to guess at the specifics.

“Is the map of the wrong area?” She asked. Simon shook his head. She tried again.

“Is it outdated?” Another head shake.

“Are you having trouble reading it?”

A long pause, and then Simon nodded, avoiding looking at her. It took a moment for her to recognize the emotion in his lowered gaze, the tightness around his eyes and the hunch of his shoulders. Shame.

“I have a hard time reading maps too,” she said, quick to reassure him, hating that he was feeling down about himself. He’d done so much for her—he was the reason she was alive. She was beyond grateful for him. “Even Google maps. I always ended up lost when I tried to use it.”

Her words seemed to have the opposite of their intended effect, though, as he just grew more agitated, stomping away from the desk and lashing out. He punched one of the bookshelves with a terrifying growl, cracking the wood and sending several flying to the ground. Lelia let out an alarmed noise, flinching violently as she instinctively stepped back and raised her arms to protect her head. Andrew had stopped caring about not hitting her face not long after the world ended. There was no need to keep up appearances anymore, after all.

But no angry blows came her way, and after a moment, she looked up to find Simon sitting on the ground, staring at an open book, jaw quivering where it hung as he tried and failed to speak the words in front of him, the only sounds escaping him being choked off gurgles. Slowly, hesitantly, Lelia approached. As she drew closer, she noticed the minute trembling of his shoulders, and the tremor in his hands as his fingers traced the letters of the first word on the page, over and over again. Lelia realized two things in that moment.

Simon wasn’t having trouble reading the map. He couldn’t read the map. He couldn’t read.

And, much more importantly to her, he was crying.

His cloudy eyes were bone dry, but the noises he made and the way he shook was hauntingly familiar. Lelia’s heart broke, and she lowered herself down beside him before wrapping her arms around him.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, hugging him tightly. He dropped the book and turned towards her, his own large arms encircling her waist as he buried his face in her neck. Perhaps she should have been afraid. He was a zombie, and although he’d not eaten her yet, he’d admitted to thinking about it when he got hungry—and he hadn’t hunted in a few days, now. Yet she pulled him close, perfectly poised to take a chunk out her neck and feast on her flesh as she bled out. But Simon was crying, and what kind of friend would she be if she didn’t try to comfort him, after everything he’d done for her?

Lelia wasn’t sure how long she held Simon, petting his hair soothingly as he fell apart in her arms. Long enough that her body grew stiff, her bum aching from sitting on the hardwood floor. Long enough that the sun had set entirely, leaving the room in total darkness. Long enough that drool had gathered in her zombie’s mouth and dribbled out, wetting her skin and the collar of her shirt. A little even dripped inside, down her chest.

She didn’t care about any of that. All that mattered to her was being there for Simon when he needed her, like he was always there for her.

Finally, Simon sniffed deeply and then quickly pulled away, letting go of her and moving back, putting space between them. She let him, but only because she recognized the sniff as a sign that she was starting to look a little too tasty to him. He, on the other hand, looked embarrassed, and he actually groaned and buried his face in his hands when he noticed the dark splotch on her shirt. It was an entirely human gesture, and she felt her heart squeeze in her chest. Not for the first time, she found herself wondering what Simon had looked like before, back when he was alive…

“I know you need to go find something to eat,” she spoke, shaking the thought from her mind.  “So we’ll figure out the map in the morning, alright? Between the two of us, we should be able to find a way to make sense of it.”

She smiled at him when he looked up at her, and had to resist the urge to hug him again. He still looked so unsure, like a little boy afraid of being rejected—it was a jarring expression on him. Simon always knew what to do, and was always so confident about it, too. She’d seen him scare off dozens of zombies and rip apart just as many without blinking an eye. And yet here and now, in front of no one but her, he was scared. He was vulnerable.

She felt honored that he was showing that part of him to her.

“Goodnight, Simon,” she said quietly, standing up and brushing her fingers against his shoulder as she passed him, unable to help herself. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And then she was gone, leaving the study and disappearing into the room she’d chosen for the night.

[nerdragenewvegas]

Recently (as my followers would have seen) I had an encounter with someone who ended up admitting to keeping at least three Ao3 accounts active where they were not just taking fics posted to tumblr and posting them to Ao3 as their own, but fully posing as the writers.

This person would create an Ao3 account using the name of a writer who only posts on tumblr and then proceed to copy/paste and publish that writer's fics to those accounts. They did not, at any point, disclose on Ao3 that these accounts were for reposting fics, nor did they obtain anyone's permission to do so.

When I discovered this (by accident) and tagged one of the original writers when this person was abusing me for something unrelated, their response was to threaten to kill me (lmao ok babe.) They then proceeded to admit to all three accounts being accounts made for plagiarising people's fic from tumblr, but then admitted to an additional three accounts I didn't even know about yet. If you're super curious there's screenshots etc on my blog if you dig a little back.

If you are a fic writer who primarily uses tumblr and is not active on Ao3 or does not use Ao3, please check Ao3 occasionally to see if someone has stolen your work.

Search your username if it's a different one, look for keywords or key phrases, you can even use google to search through Ao3 as that might make it a bit easier to find specific sentences that Ao3's search function might come up blank on. These people take advantage of the fact that for whatever reason, Ao3 isn't your playground.

(This is also worth doing with Wattpad as well, I've had a few of mine reposted there, which was crazy because the one stolen the most is a pretty well known one within that community and most of the comments was just people calling them out lmao.)

Fanfic or not, that writing is yours. You worked hard on it. It's your work and the only payment fic writers get is credit and appreciation from readers. Don't let someone steal the one fucking thing you get from this.