#but an AU of an existing idea I've written is fine

[robininthelabyrinth]

I'm suffering from the worst jetlag of my life and also severe writer's block. Can people suggest some ideas (preferably in reply to this post, but asks are also OK if you want to stay anon), preferably involving LQR, NMJ, WRH or SMS?

[sacredsorceress]

Scars / Logan Howlett

pairing: dofp!logan howlett x mutant!reader summary: every person has a soulmate. after settling in the future that he saved, logan starts to consider his next mission when a suspicious mark appears on him. word count: 3.2k a/n: good ol'fashioned soulmate AU. this is the first actual fic i've written in a long time so please have some grace. reblogs and replies are super appreciated! warnings: general mentions of logan's past, scars, self-doubt, alcoholism, reader smokes a cigar, mentions of razors, scars, wounds, two uses of y/n

logan masterlist | inbox | full masterlist

It had been a week since Logan woke up in his healed timeline.

For most people, the change would have been dramatic. But Logan was far unlike most people. The initial dreamlike state he was in when he first walked through the mansion- seeing the ghosts he had once known returned to the flesh, unscathed- quickly subsided. Logan had always been a man thrown onto a new path- how he lived life constantly changing to best fit his interests. Now, with his newfound peace he found the most complicated mission of all: what to do with the life he was now free to live?

Even before the sentinels, the battles, the wars- he had always been a man on the run. He was solo, strategic, concise. For a man who was gifted with infinite regeneration, he had solely concerned himself with staying alive. He ate for sustenance, sought shelter for safety, and nursed a bottle to find enough peace of mind to sleep at night.

The professor had once told him that for a person to reach self-actualization they first had to have all of their needs met. Logan had scoffed at the time, assuring the professor that he knew himself just fine. But now, with his problems so solved that they had ceased to ever exist, he wondered if maybe the professor was right.

Who was he? Where did he go from here?

The answer was found in the form of a scar on his hand.

"Well, everything seems to be just fine."

Logan scoffed at the blue man in front of him

"Well it's not." Logan said. "Check again."

Two days after he had come back, a large, circular scar had appeared on the palms of each of his hands. When they hadn't disappeared after two minutes, he rushed to the bathroom and nicked himself with his razor, watching as the wound healed with only blood dripping down his scruff as a remanent of it. Thirty minutes after that he found himself in the lab with Hank, Jean, and the Professor hypothesizing his miraculous marks.

"Logan, the tests came back clear." Jean assured him, leaning against the wall. "Maybe it's time to consider that it's something else."

Logan quirked his head towards her.

"I haven't had a scar in over two hundred years," he reminded her, his voice laced with irony. "I get not one, but two and you... what? Think it's a coincidence?"

Before Jean had a chance at rebuttal, the professor moved to face Logan.

"That's not what Jean's inferring, Logan." Charles reminded him. "We're simply asking that you consider other options. Less... dire options. It could, after all, be a good thing."

"Yeah?" Logan scoffed. "Like what?"

A silence hung in the air.

When Logan had first come to them with news of his scar, the thought had been on all three of their minds. Still, there were a plethora of things that could have caused that. Though, when the tests came back clear and his skin continued to heal from all sorts of abrasions, it felt as if there was only one answer for his seemingly magical scars.

However, none of them were keen on sharing this diagnosis with Logan. One wondered whether he'd handle the idea of his body failing him over fated love.

Hank was the first to speak up.

"Like a soulmate."

Oh that was rich, Logan thought.

Logan wasn't unfamiliar with the idea of soulmates.

Around the time that two fated lovers were destined to meet, there would be a sign for each of them. In some cases they were eyes changing colors, feeling the other's pain, finding their names everywhere they looked. In other cases they were new birthmarks, tattoos, scars.

In some way, the two were inextricably connected.

In his long life he had seen others experience it dozens if not hundreds of times. When the first thirty years of his life rolled around with no one, Logan accepted that he was one of the outliers. He considered it for the best and by now, with everything that he had gone through, the concept of soulmates almost seemed like an old wives' tale.

Logan glanced at their faces. When he realized they were serious, a deep laugh escaped from his gut. There was a lack of light in his eyes that admitted his insincerity.

"So I disappear for a few decades and you all start believing in fairytales?" Logan pulled the needles from his arm, the heart rate monitor going flat as he did. "What a bunch of bullshit."

Jean laid her hand against his chest, urging him back into the seat.

"Logan." She soothed him. "This is a good thing. Scott and I-"

Oh this was real rich.

"Scott and you are... what, huh?" Logan urged. "Soulmates?"

Logan scoffed, swiping Jean's hand from his chest.

"Bet you're so happy with your 'soulmate' and that's why you lead me on, huh? That it? You're happy?" He taunted, a dark laugh escaping him once more. "Spare me-"

"Logan, that's enough!"

The professor's voice echoed against the linoleum walls of the lab, reverberating off of the medical equipment throughout.

"If you want to wallow in your own self-deprivation, be my guest, but spare the rest of us your grief." Charles continued. "I think it would be best if you go back to your quarters and consider the future the universe has offered you."

The energy in the air was thick.

Jean and Hank avoided Logan’s eye contact while the professor’s nearly burned a whole through him.

Accepting defeat, Logan threw his hands up in the air and pushed himself out of his metal chair.

“Fine.”

Soulmates. Logan thought. Who would believe in a thing like that?

-

"It's a pleasure to see you again."

The atmosphere in the mansion was a stark contrast to the lab Charles had been in days before.

Now the school day had commenced: children skipping from class to class, students chatting with their friends in the hallway, teachers grabbing coffee between lessons. Amidst the organized chaos, Charles had arranged to meet you in the foyer: the replacement history teacher for Logan's class.

"You too, professor." You smiled, reaching out your hand. "I was so glad to hear from you."

Your hand hung in the air briefly, awaiting his return. Charles examined it for a moment- a twinkle in his eye- before taking it. His thumbs brushed against the newfound scars between your knuckles as he did.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you didn't always have these scars, did you, Y/n?" Charles asked.

You had not.

You had woken with them a few days before. Despite your powers rooted in chaos magic, it wasn't uncommon for blemishes or wounds to etch themselves into your skin. However, you often knew why. These marks, scars, were not faint, but instead quite profound. Three thick, healed over wounds patched together like a stitch on the back of each of your hands.

"No professor."

He closed his eyes, a soft smile gracing his lips. Though you knew he wished to ask more questions, the moment was broken by Logan.

"Ah, the man himself." Charles beamed. "Logan, I'd like you to meet Y/n. She'll be covering your class."

You had seen your fair share of news stories about the Wolverine. Who hadn't? Though the television had never prepared you for just how tall, or broad he was.

"It's nice to meet you, Logan."

"You too." He nodded, taking your hand.

His hand lingered in yours for a moment. Charles cleared his throat.

"We were just discussing the most peculiar scar on Y/n's hand." Charles said. "Appeared just a few days ago out of nowhere."

Charles nodded his head in the direction of your hand, leading Logan to squint. As if a light bulb had gone off over his head, Logan glanced between Charles and yourself and with your hand still in his, he turned it examine the back.

Three scars between your knuckles. Right where his own claws would be.

Though he liked to imagine himself as the patron of remaining suave, Logan's eyebrows shot up at the recognition. He traced his view from your hands, up your torso, to your face where you eyed him questioningly.

He thought back to the way that he woke up in the seventies, wrapped in the arms of another woman. If times had been different and Logan hadn't undergone all the so-called character development in the last forty years, he was sure that a face like yours would have gotten him in a lot of trouble. You were beautiful, and your demeanor highlighted your strength.

Your face radiated kindness, warmth and most of all, sincerity- a trait that was difficult to come by in a trade such as his.

But then Logan recalled that this wasn't the seventies and you weren't at some bar leading him on the entire night: your hand was in his and, according to everyone else, he was yours.

The idea almost couldn't register in Logan's brain.

"Interesting, isn't it, Logan?" Charles asked, breaking the silence. "Almost identical to where your claws are, hmm?"

Oh the professor thought he was quite funny.

Logan pulled his hand back from your grasp and shook his head.

"Not that easy, Charles." Logan commented before turning to you, a spiteful tone in his voice. "See you around, bub."

Before you had the chance to open your mouth, you watched as Logan stomped down the nearest hallway, his boots squeaking against the floorboards as he did. His fists clenched and released at his sides as he disappeared from view.

His reaction had come so far from left field that if it hadn't given you whiplash, it would have hurt your ego. Instead you turned back to the professor.

"Was it something I said?" You asked.

The professor shook his head, patting your hand gently.

"Logan's quite a complicated man." He assured you. "I'm sure you'll come to know that more than the rest of us. Now, to your classroom..."

Glancing over your shoulder to the void-like hallway that Logan went down, you considered the professor's words.

-

A storm had taken over the mansion by nightfall.

As you padded down the wood panelled hallways, the lightbulbs shook in their glass with each thunder clap- wind swatting at the window panes every few seconds. The pitter patter of the raindrops, although harsh, was comforting. It was almost as if the mansion had been engulfed by the storm, trapping everyone inside, while consequently making the outside world feel a thousand miles away.

When you found Logan's door, tucked in at the end of the hallway, you knocked.

"Yep."

The weight of the door fell against the palm of your hands as you pushed it open.

Logan's room was dark. The only light in the space had been from the embers of the cigar that hung in his mouth, cradled between his thumb and forefinger. Despite the darkness, you could make out his figure sitting at his desk chair by the window, feet kicked up on the sill.

Logan only gave you a quick glance over his shoulder before turning back to the view.

"What d'you want?"

His voice was thick and rough around the edges.

"I came for your textbooks." You replied, tiptoeing against his floorboards. "The professor said you'd have them."

The hand of his that held the cigar waved around. Minuscule ashes fell to the floor as your eyes remained trained on the light and the faint glow of the moon that illuminated the side of his face.

"Be my guest," he said. "Don’t have a clue where they are."

The professor had given you the lowdown when he saw your scars.

Charles told you that despite everything that you had learned- the history that you had known- the Wolverine you'd meet was not the same person. He was a man from a different time with far different, darker memories and enough baggage to weigh down dozens.

Amidst the silence, you cleared your throat.

"Must be hard to wake up in someone else's life."

By now you had reached his desk, your fingertips tracing the lines in the dark, lacquered wood.

You could smell him and the cigar from this distance- aftershave mixed with smoke.

"The professor tell you that?"

"Mhm."

The chair creaked as Logan flicked his hand towards the window, ushering you to come closer.

Watching your step in the dark, you maneuvered around the furniture and sat beside Logan on his desk- pushing loose papers to the side.

"He give you his whole spiel on soulmates too?" He asked, eyes trained on the rain outside.

Soulmates.

Now that was the last thing you expected to come from the Wolverine's mouth.

You'd heard of them more times than you could count. You once wondered whether every repetitive coincidence was a sign that your person was coming. But, when that never happened, you lost hope.

Who got to tell you who you belonged to anyway?

Leaning over, you gingerly took the cigar from his grasp and replaced it with your own fingers. Sitting back into the desk as lightening struck a tree in the distance, you took a puff.

"So that's what the scars on my hands were all about," You thought aloud.

The window fogged as you let the smoke leave from your mouth in a breathy sigh.

Logan tapped his fingers on his thighs, counting the seconds between a lightening strike and its consecutive rumble of thunder.

"Listen, I'm no prince charming if that's what you came here looking for."

Logan's chair creaked again as he leaned back in his seat. His arm draped against the desk as he met your gaze.

You chuckled and held out his cigar, offering it back to him.

"I came here looking for textbooks." You laughed. "You're the one who keeps talking about soulmates. I think you're more of a romantic than you let on.”

His fingers brushed against yours as he took the cigar back into his own hand. Another lightning strike met the ground in the distance, a clap of thunder following moments afterwards.

"You don't buy it?" Logan quirked his eyebrow. It was a teasing question, one he was curious to hear your answer to.

You shrugged.

"I don't think the universe gets to tell me who to love," you said. "If I fall in love with you it's because I love you, Logan. Not because some mark told me to. I just think of it as... a little shove in the right direction.”

The corner of his mouth quirked into a smile for the first time.

"A shove?"

"Like a... blind date." You finished. "Ever been on one of those?"

A congested laugh escaped him.

"Sweetheart, do I look like the type of guy to go on a blind date?"

You bit the inside of your cheek at the name.

Rolling your eyes, you swatted at his arm. You wouldn't admit how much it hurt your knuckles to do so. You'd have to make a mental note to remember his adamantium skeleton.

"Gosh, you're cocky!"

Logan shrugged, "You're the one who likes it apparently."

You felt yourself grow hot at his accusation.

Even though he had a mark signalling his future affection for you, you couldn't help but feel embarrassed by Logan's knowledge of yours. You felt like a child who's crush had just been exposed to the whole class. Was he noting ever glance that you gave him? The way you didn't move when his arm brushed against yours?

A brief pause hung in the air until another thunder clap reverberated against the walls.

"So what's your mark?" You asked.

Logan shoved the cigar into the corner of his mouth. The biting motion forced him to flex his jaw in a way that you would refuse to admit made you start to realize that maybe the universe was right.

And that maybe his cockiness was justified.

He laid out his hands for you. The room was still dark, making the ability to discern the details of his scar impossible. Taking Logan's hands in yours, you summoned your magic into your hands, watching as they glowed gold.

Logan had two large, circular scars imprinted into his palms. It was a clear indicator of your own magical power that surged from your hands.

It left a feeling you couldn't describe in your chest to know that someone else was marked for you. They were destined for you. To be with you. You had a future written together before the two of you had met. Even if he rejected you, there was a sign etched into his skin that bound the two of you together in some fateful way.

Gently, you traced your fingertips against the mark, feeling the warmth that radiated from his palms.

When your eyes flicked upwards, you noticed how close the two of you were now sitting. You could feel his warm breath against your lips as the lingering smell of the cigar drifted up your nose.

Although he wouldn’t admit it, Logan was enchanted by the energy radiating from you. Whether people hated or loved him, his ability got a lot of talk. In his mind though, he would never be a hero. He was just some guy who got lucky.

You, though? He didn’t need you to tell him that you were an Omega level mutant. Logan had heard about you from the professor: you could cast spells, read minds, reconfigure reality- to name a few. You didn't need a reason to fight for what's right, you just did. Again, and again, and again. Even here, now, you were picking up Logan's history class when he knew very well you could be on the other side of the world sipping pina coladas if you wanted.

What the hell was the universe thinking putting you with him?

Logan admired the reflection of the magic on your cheeks and the way your eyes stayed trained on his palms. Your touch was so gentle he could have sworn he was in a distant dream until your eyes met his.

The two of you stared at each other for a moment, gaze locked.

Then another clap of thunder shook the mansion.

You quickly leaned back, pulling your hands from Logan's touch.

"I should... I should go." You said, pushing yourself off of Logan's desk. "It's getting late and I have my first class in the morning."

Logan leaned back in his seat. He said nothing but eyes remained fixed on your form as you made your way towards the door.

Looking back at him with your hand on the knob you made a mental note to remember the image of him with his feet kicked back on the window as he smoked his cigar.

A soft smile remained.

"Good night, Logan."

When you didn't leave immediately, he nodded.

"Night, sweetheart."

Mustering up the courage to shoot him one last smile, you pulled open the door and stepped outside.

Now, Logan didn't know how much he believed in soulmates, but he could be inclined to consider that it was one good wingman.

Leaning back in his seat, Logan sighed and closed his eyes, letting himself drown out his worries with the sound of the rain.

a/n: my inbox is open for more requests! thank you for the request @welcometochilis585

[halfagone]

Thank you! So this next one is a risky just a DP x DC au. Basically, Dani joins the young Justice and constantly gushes about her father Danny, with her bragging about his achievements and causing both the YJ team and the league as a whole extremely curious about him (especially Batman). When Dani finally decides to introduce them to him, they were not expecting an 18 year old who’s already ruling the realms despite his young age. Naturally, shenanigans ensue from there. What do you think?

Hmm... *strokes non-existent goatee* Now this is an AU I don't usually do... (I have a threshold for angst, as I like to call it, for any given story, and I wonder if this would've passed the threshold) I think for best comical effect Danny shouldn't be super mature like he is in, say... Off With the Demon's Head, where we see a similar father-daughter kind of dynamic between Danny and Ellie. That way the YJ and JL are all the more shocked when they realize that this is the guy Ellie's been talking about all along. Also if Ellie and Danny are only, like, four years apart so Danny's 18 and Ellie's 14 and they call each other father and daughter that would be hilarious XDD

I have been extremely picky about my Ghost King AUs recently, however, so I don't know how I would go about this. There are so many fics with this concept, I've written a number of fics with it too, and not all of them really do it for me anymore? I don't know if I just feel burnt out from the idea thanks to oversaturation or what, so I don't know what I could do for you on this idea. But! I can have a really funny exchange/reveal. >:D

---

Ellie, otherwise known as Phantom ("The Second," Ellie would always tut. "It's Phantom the Second, and don't you forget it."), hopped around excitedly as they stood at the zeta tubes, waiting for her apparent father to arrive. More than a few of them were shifting around on anxious feet, wondering how this meeting would go. Ellie had never held back on boasting about her father, and well. Could you blame them for being intimidated? Even just a little? Many of them hadn't gotten the privilege of seeing his exploits themselves, but they had seen the ripple effect across the world nonetheless. It was nothing to scoff at.

Oh gosh, they were totally going to blow this, weren't they?

Batman remained as stern as ever, even though he was just as curious and intrigued by the stories Ellie had shared. What concerned him the most at the moment, however, was how Ellie had told them to wait here, at the zeta tubes, when Batman was sure that no outsiders should be able to enter the base without the assistance of-

Before he could even finish that thought, there was a blinding ripple of light concentrated around a seam in the fabric of time and space itself. Many of them had to shield or close their eyes to protect their sight from the glare, and when the light finally abated they looked back to see a figure floating above the ground. A ebony black crown floated about their head, wisps of black fire smoking from its gemstones. A thick black coat was thrown over one shoulder, lined with a shock of white fur. It hid the royal regalia underneath, but the quality of it could not be understated.

The mop of white hair couldn't hide the toxic green eyes, no matter the fringe that laid atop of it. Those eyes were piercing, staring into their souls without mercy. More than one of them swallowed; that was fine, only the Supers could hear them... Right?

When the figure laid their eyes on Ellie, they smiled, revealing fanged, glittering white teeth.

"Dad!" Ellie shouted with excitement, floating off the ground without realizing it.

In another flash of bright light, the intimidating figure was then replaced with a young teenager, whose black hair floated gently as they touched down on the ground. Bright green had turned into calm blue, and the royal garb had been replaced with... an uni hoodie with tattered jeans?

"Hi, baby! How are you?" The teenager exclaimed as Ellie threw herself into his arms. "Is it okay if we have McDonald's for dinner? Uh, there was an accident in the kitchen again."

"Don't tell me you and Pa blew something up again," Ellie groaned with exasperation.

"Don't be ridiculous, me and your mom did this time," Ellie's father remarked with nervous laughter. Ellie shook her head at his antics. It was then that the unknown teenager turned to them. "Oh hi! You guys must be the Justice League, and... Young Justice? I hope that's correct? Ellie's told us a lot about you guys. Has she been good? How much collateral damage has she caused?"

"She burned down a lab the other day," Superman commented distantly, his shock overwhelming him.

The teenager gasped, turning back to Ellie. "You did? Aw, I'm so proud of you." He pulled her into another hug, making the younger girl giggle in happiness.

Meanwhile, everyone else couldn't help but stare. What the actual what just happened?

[gigglemugger]

The Naked and the Blind (or The Ballad of Meg Halsey).

Fandom: Re-Animator (Movies - Combs), Herbert West - Reanimator - H.P. Lovecraft.

Pairing: Herbert West/Meg Halsey

Rating: Explicit, or at the very least Mature.

Archive Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence.

Synopsis:

"Meg Halsey had a problem. In fact, she had several problems, the first of which, she acknowledges while looking at her semi empty living room, is that she can't afford to live alone anymore. The second one is that she doesn't wanna go back to her daddy's house again. This would be an inconceivable notion to her thirteen year old self, even her sixteen year old self, but at twenty five, she'd really choose living under the bridge first. Ok. Maybe not that." Meg Halsey is perfect: Beautiful, accomplished, a bright future doctor. She escaped her hometown and moved to New York, where she likely would have stayed forever. After her mother dies, though, she is forced to move back to Arkham and face everything she wanted to leave behind. --- A.K.A I made a tumblr post about how Crampton/Combs are romantically involved in all of their collabs, got replies and decided to write down a suggestion of "what if Meg was the protagonist, not Dan?" Also I did the cop-out summary thing and pasted the first paragraph of the fic. It's highway robbery. Criminal (I'm sorry).

Thanks to @resonanteye and @sugarsweetnightmareee for helping me shape this up in the replies!

Word Count: Multi Chapter, so far 2,561 published, 19,701 written at the time of publication.

Chapter Count: 1/? (likely 9).

AO3 Tags: I uhhh......... I have no idea what I made it started with one tumblr post then one reply and here we are, I included other works by Lovecraft here and rounded Arkham up and then ran, Character Study, In a way, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Dan Cain, he doesn't exist, Danbert shippers cry I get it, Canon-Typical Violence, Animal Death, Eventual Romance, Slow Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Eventual Smut?, maybe? - Freeform, this fic is an affront to god just like herbert's reagent, Not Beta Read.

Language: English.

CW: Meg went through some trauma. Dead parents, dead cat. She also helps kill her dad later on, considering, so. It's a heavy fic, but if you liked the movie you'll be fine.

AO3 link.

AO3 Notes (yes, they're huge, bear with me): This is an AU about Meg Halsey. I always wanted to write this because in every single Combs/Crampton collaboration, they play lovers (Castle Freak, From Beyond, the Evil Clergyman) EXCEPT FOR in Reanimator, so I made a tumblr post saying I'd like to explore a Meg/Herbert thing solely because of that (and I've only seen it being done one other time, which made me wanna take a personal shot at it). This post was WAY more popular than I expected (it didn't hit the hundreds, but it hit like 20+ notes when I expected like 1 and it being a comment of "are you insane?" with nothing else), so I decided to take it seriously. Then someone suggested I make a version where Meg is the main character, no Dan, no nothing and I thought that was a really interesting idea and ran with it.  I made several notes (like four pages) about Meg's character and realized that she’s an amazing, incredibly accomplished ball of air. They made her have good instincts, a good brain, be helpful, be sweet, and then gave her zero personality. This isn’t her movie, so the first thing I did in this AU was scramble around with her brains and give her a will to live for something. The second thing I did was to scramble around with her brains enough so she’d have ambition.  The third one was to scramble around with her brains enough she’d have a crush on West—who is her equal here. I'm not saying this relationship won't go into some toxic patterns, but so does Danbert, though I understand the implications. It's more like a double edged sword, though.  When I say this is an AU, I mean it’s an AU for sure. I changed a lot of plot points, and switched things around, because it turns out that having Meg as a protag changes a lot on its own. I personally think that Herbert liked Dan for three reasons: He was beautiful, smart and incredibly gullible. Here he likes Meg because she's smart, ambitious and much more like him than others would think. She doesn't take bullshit, though. Scenes are maintained but go different directions, etc. Meg also went through trauma and transformation, which will be unpacked, and though she externally acts like the Meg we know, most of the time, she's not. She had like a Veronica Mars esque transformation, minus the REAL TRAGEDIES of Veronica Mars.  I decided to name this a ballad cause I always name things ballads and start with the definition of the word cause I’m pretentious and like to make it seem as if it’s not ‘cause of the ballad of John and Yoko. In this case, though, I decided to just call it the ballad of Meg Halsey, instead of the ballad of Herbert and Meg, or Halsey and West, because this fanfic is very much about Meg��she deserves it.  The Naked and the Blind comes from that line from Every Me Every You by Placebo (like the naked leads the blind, I know I’m selfish, I’m unkind). It felt fitting. I also included two characters of Lovecraft lore which will be useful throughout the fic (and possible sequel in which I take the bones of bride of reanimator and completely reshape it), Asenath Waite and Edward Derby, from The Thing on the Doorstep. I also mention the Pickmans, Necronomicons, all of that. I think I'm going to use Welsey as a ship name for now, though I'm sure someone else somewhere in the world has already come up with a ship name for them. I also named the Playlist I made for them this. Very normal behavior.  I have seven chapters written, almost at the end of the fic as a whole, and I’ll try to upload one every Monday. We’ll see.

1. Sucker love is heaven sent.

Meg Halsey had a problem. In fact, she had several problems, the first of which, she acknowledges while looking at her semi empty living room, is that she can't afford to live alone anymore. The second one is that she doesn't wanna go back to her daddy's house again. This would be an inconceivable notion to her thirteen year old self, even her sixteen year old self, but at twenty five, she'd really choose living under the bridge first. Ok. Maybe not that.

Here's a picture of Meg Halsey's life one year ago: A happy medical student in New York, with her own room and roommate at one of the dorm houses. Not a sorority girl like her mother gushed about her being when she was twelve, but still friendly towards everyone. Her hair was a little shorter, less gruffy, definitely bobbed, and she probably looked serene. Medical students aren't by definition serene, but she hadn't majorly fucked up. She got high grades, was the second best in her class which was full of men, and she was proud of herself.

Then her mother died. The rest was probably history, or easily deductible.

Savings had existed, but living in Arkham was more expensive than she remembered. Her dad wanted to pay for the house, but she refused because she knew what that entailed. He also wanted her to move back with him, but that would also mean other things: You don't need to pay rent, but you'll have to cook, clean, take care of affairs and be your mother. She was shocked he hadn't sent for her when she was dying, but then it had been so fast that maybe he didn't have the time.

“Don't worry daddy, it's OK,” she had said with a smile, eyeing the wine. She couldn't drink in front of him unless it was a special occasion, like a thirteen year old. “I'm just gonna have to find a roommate.”

It had been a week ago, at that house that smelled of death. Wood, carpets of history, several footprints of doctors, her mother and all the versions of herself.

I wish I could have that drink…

“Hmm…” Yes. The characteristic Dean Halsey “Hm.” The same he had for his employees when he needed to convince them of something. Here we go… “I'm not sure it's safe for you to invite a stranger into your house, Meggie.”

“I had a stranger in my house, remember? My roommate in college.” A nice girl, who never got into trouble, she had told her mother in her semi-weekly calls, which was a lie. Becca was a protester who was always in and out of jail because of fights with the cops. Still, that meant Meg had quiet nights to study, or contemplate the lights on in places that hadn't been Arkham.

“I still don't know about that, sweetheart. Maybe you should move back in for a while…”

“Are you alright, honey?” Her mother's voice resonated in her head. Last phone call before disaster. She remembered the clothes she had been wearing: Light sweater, jeans, boots. A Meg Halsey classic. She remembered it was raining and that two people went behind her, two guys, talking. There was a light breeze from the door and they were gone.

“I'm alright, mom. You?”

“Meg,” Dr. Harrod said. Hospital. Residence. Meg was holding onto her scalpel too tightly. “Maybe you need a break.”

“I'm fine.”

Another picture of Meg Halsey’s life: Prodigy. Brilliant. Bright smile, beautiful blue eyes. She was a perfect specimen of what you would call a girl: Polite, traditional, good. She never stayed out past eight, she never went with boys that much, she never strayed from her studies. She wanted to be whatever her dad thought was best, whatever her mother thought would make her proud.

Meg had goals and ambitions, sure, but she also wanted other things. She watched her parents at the table, while cutting her meat. They were always smiling, laughing easily. All of it. She wanted it all. She even thought she had met a boy, her last high school boyfriend, traditional all the way, very nice and Christian upper middle class. Then…

The television was on, showing the news and Meg bit her lip. She looked at her nails, looked at the carpet and then at her cat, roaming around. “I'm not even going to have money to feed you at this rate,” she said when her beloved Rufus came to her lap. She put her face on his back gently. “God…”

Not turning back to the house, she'd have to find a roommate, one that she wouldn't be afraid would murder her in her sleep. Maybe she needed some coffee. Maybe she needed a million dollars.

She looked at the clock on the wall, the one that looked like Felix the cat, which she had in her bedroom at ten. The eyes went back and forth, freaking her mother out. It still had the stain of when she tried to paint it pink with glitter nail polish. Most importantly, it told her it was almost time to leave. Harrod would be going up and down looking for her and she had morgue duty, which was surely a lot for her muscles and she didn't look forward to it—morgue duty being that now it was the norm that someone else other than the attending intern doctor take the body downstairs, after an incident occurred (no more was mentioned about such an incident).

She wouldn't let her colleagues say she was using her status as the Dean's daughter to get out of good honest work.

However, she would have to look at Hill… He was always there testing his weird pen…

“Ouch!” She shrieked, looking at her hand and seeing the blood. “Oh, Rufus, get off!” Rufus did so, apparently understanding he shouldn't bite her and that she'd be rightfully pissed. She had to admit it was effective in bringing her back to the scene, though. It was a documentary which aired now, about a fishing town with a strange, rare disease. She had heard about it, and should be more interested considering, but frankly all she wanted was that coffee and a shower.

It was a pleasant afternoon in Arkham, her birth city. A strange city to be brought up in, with a deep history of the occult, but with a pristine, ivy league college in the form of the Miskatonic University. Meg stepped out of her car, chilly. She was wearing boots, a sweater and her hair was up. It was getting longer. Her dad almost went insane when she wanted to leave Arkham for New York, especially for medicine if she so insisted on studying that.

“A more womanly course would be interesting…”

“What's more womanly than curing people? Than being a healer?” Her mother waved her hand.

“I'm just not sure, Meg. Your dad thinks the same… Maybe it'd be best…”

“Would you have gone if you could? If you could do anything, would you? I can. I wanna go to New York.”

Every time in the past few months that she felt the air of the hospital wafting on her, sterilized and reminiscent of all the times she went to visit her dad, it was sort of like defeat. Not that she'd let that bring her down. She did go to New York after all. It was temporary, just until her dad got back on her feet.

Until he met someone, Becca said. A hot, pretty new thing to screw.

“Halsey,” Harrod said, standing by reception. Was she waiting? “Right on time. You need to go to 106, now. A patient just died, you need to take her down.”

At least she wasn't the one who killed her. Hooray for small miracles.

Scrubs became her, she thought—not that having vain thoughts was her hallmark—but they were not better than suits by a mile. She felt extremely underdressed in a second, walking into the morgue, at least compared to the austere, small man checking the beakers.

“Meg?” The man raised his head. The second man, being the corpse, stayed thankfully very still. “What are you doing here?”

“Pushing a body?” She laughed a little, to make things light, but she knew she had been busted. A few years ago it'd be unprecedented to go behind his back on anything, but now... Besides, it wasn't drugs, it was just a dead guy for Christ's sake.

He looked concerned right away.

“You're too small to be doing this kind of work. You'll kill yourself.”

“Honestly daddy—” she could feel the ears of the stranger perking up at that. Great going, Meg. Tell every single stranger about it. “It's fine. I can do it.” He paused and pursed his lips.

“Certainly one of your classmates…”

“I said I'm alright,” she smiled a little towards him, to mitigate any disrespect, before turning her attention completely to the left. “Who are you?” The small man looked up from a tag in one of the corpses.

“Oh, don't mind me. I'm sure I don't wanna interrupt family.” Her dad wouldn't pick up on the sarcasm, Meg knew, but she did. Her shoulders tensed, her eyes narrowed.

“Nonsense,” Dean Halsey began, well humored. “Mr. West, I'd like to introduce you to the most brilliant medical student in this room…” She looked away.

“Stop it, dad,” Meg smiled her brightest smile to hide her discomfort, as usual. West smiled back, in contempt.

“Oh, does she have a name?”

“I'm Megan. Halsey.” She didn't bother stretching her hand, she didn't wanna touch him.

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Halsey.” I don't think so.

“West just came from Switzerland. He was doing independent research for Dr. Gruber, before he died.” Meg knew the story, heard it through the grapevine, but no one knew any details.

Gruber was a brilliant doctor, though. She had read his most recent paper on brain death, and all the other ones he wrote a lot in New York. A page turner, Gruber—by medical paper standards, at least.

“So, you studied death?” She asked. His ears perked up again.

“Yes, I have.” Well dressed, prim and curt. Fun. I'll love having him in class.

“Alan,” a third voice filled the place, coming from the adjacent room, the one where he no doubt had been procuring a corpse from. Meg involuntarily twisted her nose and pretended she had an itch. She stopped on his feet. “Nice to see you down here, Ms. Halsey.”

“Well I'm glad, cause here I am, every Tuesday.” Next time tell him when you go out to do your laundry.

“Definitely more than your father comes down here. We haven't been seeing him in a while.”

“I was just showing our newest student, Herbert West here, the not-so-grand-tour.” He always made that joke when he brought people down. Meg saw him do it at least twice and heard about it four other ones. “This should interest you, Carl. He worked with Hans Gruber.” While her dad introduced Hill, and all of his prowess to get research grants somehow, probably with that freaky pen he carried, Meg was thinking briefly about how was Herbert West working for Gruber, fully, even as a student.

“I know your work Dr. Hill. Quite well.” Meg raised her head. “Your theory on the location of the will in the brain is… Interesting, though derivative of Dr. Gruber's research in the early 70s.”

She knew that. She needed a dictionary to read his most obscure work, but German and English were similar enough, she got by.

“So derivative, in fact, that in Europe it's considered plagiarized. And your support of the 12 minute limit on the life of the brain stem after death…”

“...Six to twelve minutes, Mr…?”

Meg wanted to leave.

“West. Herbert West. Frankly, Dr… Hill? Your work on brain death is outdated.”

“Carl,” her dad interrupted and Meg looked away from the scene. Frankly, Hill gave her the creeps, sort of, and seeing him that angry was unpleasant. Suck it up, ok? You know him since you were at least twelve, it's fine.

You were always soft.

“...Megan and I would love it if you came to dinner.” Wait what?

“What?” She repeated out loud. Herbert turned his bright hazel, poisonous eyes towards her. She straightened her back. “I'm sorry, dinner? When?

“Thursday,” West answered for the others. He put his hands on his hips. “Maybe pushing bodies around really isn't for someone as small as you, Ms. Halsey.”

“I'm fine.”

“You might kill yourself.”

“Dad, dinner, Thursday? I'm not sure I can make it.”

What else are you gonna do? Your friends don't talk to you anymore since you left for New York to hang out with feminists, artists, and bohemians, leaving them here with babies and husbands.

“Well, I'm sure you'll make an exception,” Hill said, looking straight at her. “A lovely, amazing student such as yourself should take some time off every now and then. Celebrate.” She hated when he looked straight at her. She could feel her dad and West observing in the sidelines.

“Sure,” Meg found herself saying, hands tight against the steel of the gurney, knuckles turning white. “I'll cook.”

You'll what?!

“Fantastic,” Hill finished, looking at Herbert next. “I'll see you in class, mr. West. Ms. Halsey.” He nodded his head and she smiled, closing her eyes.

Both Hill and her father left in what seemed to be a dream sequence, no doubt discussing the grant, and the autopsy room was silent once again.

Her head was throbbing. The walls and floors were gray, there was a corpse rotting in their midst, Meg took a deep breath—chemical and invigorating somehow.

“I take it you don't like Dr. Hill either.” She looked at West, whose eyes still shone. He approached her, footsteps echoing out. “How did you know I was studying death?”

“I'm a doctor, Mr. West. I read,” she released the gurney, feeling tired for the meal she'd have to cook, on top of studying. There was a beat before she could stop herself from asking “What happened between you and dr. Gruber?”

“What do you mean?” A slight twitch, a small movement of the lips. “Dr. Gruber had a lab accident that I was unfortunately too late to prevent.”

“I heard he was in his office when he died.” Another twitch.

“I'm sure you heard it wrong, with all due respect ms. Halsey.”

Chemical smells, corpses rotting, the smell of something burning—Hill's pen no doubt left crisp black flesh behind, and he did it on enough people in the morgue proper that it got to where she was. She looked at West for almost long enough she'd probably have his exact face and pose at that moment committed to memory, forever.

He looked at her, waiting for something to happen.

Her hands hurt from grasping the gurney for so long.

“I'm not doing so great, sweetie…” She had said. Two men talking behind her. Her dad and Hill were gone. West was there.

“I'm sorry I asked,” Meg finally gathered, headache suddenly subsiding, like it never was. “Sorry for your loss, he must have been a wonderful mentor.” West bowed slightly and Meg did the same before turning around and going through the doors.

[biginkyboyo13]

Hello I am here to Wreck it Ralph au brainrot again, teehee

Zamn, I'm back here again.

I really love seeing people's interpretations of a redemption arc for Turbo, those are always fun, he is a silly guy (who committed countless ethical crimes). I have not read every single fanfic (and I do not plan to, oh god there would be too many), but I've read a few and boy do I love seeing creative people do their thing, hell yeah!

Be cringe, be free. Make those aus, create those ocs, make silly fanfics and amazing fanart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, here's my ramblings on a stupid au

What if they both existed?

What if you could have Turbo and King Candy and they both had their own redemption of sorts? That would be kinda neat I think....anyways, I thought too hard about this, so here we go, epic transition-

----------------------------------owo--------

A virus has settled itself in the depths of Sugar Rush's code room. It should be completely obvious where it came from, who caused it.

Somehow, this virus escapes the code room, hellbent on learning all it can before assimilation. Just because it's a virus, doesn't mean it's mindless after all.

Maybe it already knew about Turbo, seeing as it was probably formed because of him. Did he intend that? Probably not, but you can't expect Turbo to think about the consequences of his actions, that is literally the only thing he's incapable of doing.

People who die outside of their game are never gone. Not fully. Have they been destroyed and reduced to 1s and 0s? Yeah. But they aren't gone. They've become part of the fabric of the game, a whisper, barely a memory. But, they could be plucked out of that ocean of data.

A virus is dangerous on its own. A virus who knows how death works (or doesn't work) is even more dangerous. Point being, the virus decides it wants to have a little fun and bring back Cybug King Candy. Not to let him live, not at all. Instead, the virus is doing what it does best, and infects the host, ripping the original out and taking its place. Where does King Candy go? Between this monster's claws, where it tries to tear him apart. All it does, though, is literally tear him apart. There's two of them now, oh god.

Now you have Turbo and King Candy, and they are probably not too happy about being brought back, extracted, split in half, and probably almost assimilated into the virus.

Maybe Vanellope and Ralph were feeling especially nice that day, or maybe they were acting on instinct because there's now a much, much bigger threat, but perhaps they save these two numbskulls.

And now, they have two very, very, very big problems on their hands. There is a rogue virus in the arcade, and Turbo/King Candy are alive.

Here's some extra small ideas I had

- I think this would take place a couple years in the future. Assuming this is a universe where arcades didn't go out of business, everyone is still doing just fine.

- Debatable if Fix it Felix Jr. is still plugged in. Old game, all that. I wouldn't just immediately say it's been unplugged, but that's on my mind a little bit (they all live in Vanellope's castle, someone's got to)

- Turbo and King Candy are still total dickwads. Turbo is a brat, King Candy is also a brat. I think when separated they would clash immensely. Turbo took all the whiny, childish parts with him, as those were likely his to begin with. King Candy kept the happy, cheery, mass manipulator side.

- I will never acknowledge the sequel, Ralph is still the fun uncle/father figure for Vanellope, and Vanellope doesn't want to leave Sugar Rush. Also, Felix and Calhoun ftw

That's literally all I have rn, I haven't thought super hard about this yet, it's not great I know

That's my edgy, angsty au beginning. Will I ever do something with it? I have no clue! Perhaps it will be written on Ao3. That, or it's just gonna exist here and that's cool I think.

Anyways byyyyyye

[chuuyrr]

I saw the baby fushiguro ask box open and I got so excited! I’ve read every fic you put out (crossover or jkk world) and I can’t stop coming back to reread them!

Feel free to ignore this request because it probably gets tiring writing for that more than Gojo! Reader, but what if, and hear me out, baby fushiguro reader tried to go to the Bungo Stray Dogs universe, but accidentally ended up in the Beast! AU. If you haven’t read the Beast! AU, that’s perfectly fine! Like I said feel free to ignore this

Alternative idea though, baby fushiguro meets the hunting dogs (in honor of season four coming out in a few months)

As a fellow student, make sure you’re taking care of yourself and prioritizing your health, both physical and mental. If you don’t, you’ll make baby fushiguro reader upset (and we don’t want that). Have a great day!

scarlet witch! baby fushiguro! reader goes to BEAST! AU of bsd

jujutsu kaisen x reader x bungo stray dogs

masterlist of the series

╰➤ CW(s): major spoilers for bungo stray dog's beast manga, angst & the most detailed shit i've written in a long while that i have also may or may not have cried to while writing : )

╰➤ PAIRING(s): platonic! bungo stray dogs x child! reader

╰➤ SONG SUGGESTION(s): good parts by le serrafim

before you read: hi, in case you're new, you're megumi's younger half-sibling, and while you don't have cursed energy, you do have scarlet witch's powers and abilities! aside from that, as a special scarlet witch variant, you also have the ability to travel across the multiverse. how chaotic! furthermore, like your half-brother megumi, you are being cared for by gojo satoru, who also serves as your adoptive father. for more info, please see the masterlist.

being a multiversal being of sorts, you were aware of the vast range of universes that existed. however, you've never been to this particular alternative universe of bsd before, not until now. you made use of your dimensional travel ability and ripped through the seams of reality to see dazai and the others.

as usual when you entered the red portal you conjured, you were greeted with the ever familiar streets and atmosphere of yokohama. you immediately ran towards the reddish-brown brick building, climbing the stairs until you reached the fourth floor, and twisted and pushed the door open.

however, as soon as you stepped inside, you were immediately greeted by naomi who was near the door, carrying a stack of paper. you smiled and immediately wrapped your tiny arms around her to greet her, "naomi-nee!"

naomi's eyes widened, gasping softly in surprise at you and nearly dropping her papers, "h-hi?"

just as naomi was about to question you, you released her and ran deeper inside, only to find dazai missing. in fact, kyouka and atsushi were also gone, but what you discovered made you pale. your eyes widened as you stared at the familiar tall man with dark brown eyes, short reddish-brown hair, and a beige brown coat.

"odasaku-san?" you muttered, blinking.

before you could respond further, you felt a hand pat your head, prompting you to look up and notice kunikida staring down at you.

"what are you doing here, kid? how did you get in here?" he asked you with furrowed brows.

"uncle kunikida!" you exclaimed, gently removing his hand from your head and approaching him to hug his legs.

"me? an u-uncle?!" kunikida stammered in embarrassment with a bright red blush spreading across his face as he gazed down at you with wide eyes.

"since when did you become an uncle, kunikida-kun?" that was ranpo's voice.

turning around, you, kunikida, and odasaku saw ranpo, junichiro, yosano, kenji, and, to your surprise, akutagawa himself entering the office.

"i-i don't know this kid!" kunikida exclaimed, motioning at you, causing you to make a puzzled noise and tilt your head to the side, "she just appeared and hugged me!"

"you... don't remember me?" you asked, frowning as you looked up at kunikida.

"certainly not, kid," kunikida sighed, adjusting his glasses as he turned to the others.

you then cast a glance at akutagawa, and you can't help but be perplexed. what exactly is he doing here with odasaku? he appeared to be different. instead of the usual terrifying stoic expression on his face. he just simply had a blank expression on his face and was dressed in a gray overcoat, a black button-up, gray suspenders and tie, and dark calf-length pinstripe trousers that reminded you of both dazai and atsushi. for some reason, akutagawa appeared less agitated, or tamer, than usual

"aku-nii?" you muttered, blinking as you turned back to odasaku, "what's going on? why are aku-nii and odasaku-san here?"

"how do you know our names?" akutagawa questioned you, stiffening up at your words.

"akutagawa's right, who are you?" naomi nodded in agreement as she asked you next.

"i'm fushiguro [name]. i've come here before.. you guys know me.. should know me.." you explained, releasing kunikida's pant leg as you fiddled with your fingers, "but you guys don't.."

"are you saying we've met before?" yosano asked softly, tilting her head at you and placing a hand on her hip.

"yes! dazai-nii brought me here with sushi-nii and uncle kunikida!" you nodded, eliciting gasps and surprised looks from everyone in the room.

"who's 'dazai?'"

at that moment, a pierce of gray fabric had made its way towards you, but your reflexes kicked in and your eyes glowed red as red psionics held it in mid-air, much to everyone's surprise, preventing it from touching you.

"you're an ability user," junichiro gasped.

"where's dazai-nii?" you asked this time, your brow furrowed as you let go of the gray fabric that had shot out of akutagawa's coat, "why is he not here? why don't you like him?"

"I asked first, kid. who is he?" akutagawa grew irritated as he sent more tendrils of fabric from his coat towards you, but this time, odasaku had blocked each of them, standing protectively in front of you.

"akutagawa, that's not how you interrogate a child," oda exclaimed, using the metal ruler he stole from kunikida's desk to block akutagawa's attacks on you.

"dazai-nii is my dazai-nii. he was the one who protected me together with uncle kunikida when i saved sushi-nii from the bad guys!" you answered, getting annoyed as well as the red glow in your eyes dissipated.

"where's dazai-nii, odasaku-san? and why are you here? you're.. you're supposed to be..." you frowned as you looked up at oda, taking a hold of his pant leg and tugging at it.

"supposed to be what?" oda held a concerned yet confused look towards you.

you couldn't even mention it to him. instead, your lips trembled as tears streamed down your cheeks. he was supposed to be no longer alive. you were going to say that, but you couldn't. akutagawa is also not supposed to be at the agency. it's as if he took the place of atsushi. in fact, if you think about it, odasaku replaced dazai and kyouka was out of the picture.

"o-oh no! h-hey, kid! d-don't cry!" junichiro waved his hands in the air, "hey!"

"kid?" odasaku asked, watching you clench the fabric of his pant leg as you teared up.

everything was getting to you. what was going on here? why didn't they recognize you? why were they acting this way when you mentioned dazai? you didn't understand it at all.

"i want dazai-nii! where is dazai-nii?" you cried out, releasing a repulsive red energy created by your psionics. it shook the entire building and nearly sent everyone flying away from you, similar to a shockwave and earthquake.

as everyone shielded themselves and clung to strudy office furniture. ranpo took advantage of the situation by placing his glasses on the bridge of his nose with his free hand before staring at you, and that's when he realized what was going on.

"the one you're looking for is in the port mafia headquarters," ranpo exclaimed, dissipating the immense psionic energy in the air and reducing your cries to sniffling.

"he's there?" you asked, your tantrums subsiding as you cast a hopeful glance at him.

"yes, he's there," ranpo nodded firmly at you.

without another word, you activated your red psionics once more, but this time you used it to increase your speed as you approached the door. you fled the armed detective agency's office, with akutagawa chasing after you, but he was stopped by odasaku and ranpo blocking the door.

"what are you doing? the kid's escaped and they're heading straight to port mafia!" thrashed akutagawa in odasaku's hold.

"that kid wasn't lying when she said she knew all of us. she's someone from another universe who has seen and met our other selves from another universe," ranpo explained.

"alternate universe?" everyone chorused.

"that kid was either that "dazai's" younger sibling or someone close to dazai in the universe she's familiar with, which is why she was looking for him here," ranpo continued, folding his arms, "and if we didn't let her go, she would have most definitely destroyed the building and the entire area. her ability, whatever it is, it's dangerous."

as the detectives were left to mull over you and the existence of the multiverse, you made your way to the port mafia headquarters; a black building that towered over yokohama's ritziest neighborhood, which you were already familiar with. you were quickly stopped by the mafia's subordinates, men in black.

"oi, get out of here! this isn't a place for a child!" one of them yelled, shoving you away.

you ignored them and continued running inside. you yelped in terror, occasionally using your red psionics to boost your speed, but it was draining you as you ran away from the men in black who were chasing you. you closed your eyes and concentrated on feeling and sensing dazai. ranpo said he should be here, and you believe him. he must be here. he has to.

you opened your eyes again as you ran across a fancy high-pile rug fit for a throne room, eventually reaching the corridor after struggling to escape the men in black.

you had gotten a few bruises and scrapes along the way as they were able to catch up to you and snatch you in some cases before fleeing because you were tired. you came to a halt in front of a sturdy double door and realized you were getting close.

you turned around to see the men in black approaching you and yelling at you to stop. "dazai-nii! please open up! it's me, [name]!" you yelled as you returned to the door.

"this is not a place for kids! the boss will be furious when he finds you here, brat!" you cried out in agony as one of them finally caught up to you and grabbed your arm, lifting you in the air and gripping you tightly.

"no! no! dazai-nii, help me!" you cried, tears streaming down your cheeks as you squirmed.

"shut up, brat!" they scowled as another yanked on your hair roughly, "quit your yapping!"

finally, the solid doors that had been closed earlier burst open, revealing a large office with every one of a kind high-end oddity from candlesticks to the desk in the center of the office. the floor and ceiling were black, and it didn't take long for the presence of death to fill the atmosphere when a furious voice boomed,

"LET HER GO AT ONCE, NOW."

when the men in black let you go, you fell to the ground with a thud, whimpering in pain as you fell on your side. you looked up and froze as you saw the men groaning in pain as they were surrounded by a red glow caused by a familiar ginger-haired young man. before you could react, you were suddenly whisked into someone's arms, but it wasn't rough; in fact, you were handled with care.

as you realized who was carrying you, your eyes widened. you recognized his unkempt brown hair and features, but they were bandaged, especially one of his eye. it was dazai, but something was wrong. there was something sinister was emanating from him. his tone was so venomous that it made you tremble.

"i told you to let her go, not drop her. pathetic. you all know what happens next, right? to subordinates who disobey my orders?" he scoffed, gritting his teeth in rage as he drew you closer to his embrace and turned to the other, "get rid of them, chuuya," he said.

"got it, boss," the ginger-haired mafioso nodded before using gravity manipulation on the men in black chasing you to get them all out of your sight as the doors closed, leaving you alone with dazai.

the icy cold tension in the air immediately dissipated. you looked up at the brunet, whose glare had softened as he faced you.

"[name]-chan.." dazai murmured, reaching out his hand to cup your cheek, "it's really you.. you're here.. finally here.."

"dazai-nii..." you found yourself tearing up as you returned his gaze. with that, you burst into tears, causing him to panic a little.

"[name]-chan! it's okay. it's okay, little bella," he said as you buried your face in his neck and gripped the fabric of his clothes. he then rubbed shapes on your back to calm you down, saying, "shhh, they won't hurt you anymore. you're safe now, i promise."

"y-you remember me.. dazai-nii.." you cried out.

"of course i do," dazai's lips curved into a smile as he held you, cradling you, "how could i not?"

"uncle ranpo, uncle kunikida, and the others don't remember me," you explained to dazai, sniffling, "a-also.. odasaku-san and aku-nii were there too, but they don't remember me either.."

when you looked at him, there was an indecipherable expression on his face as his smile faded into a frown. dazai looked down at you, almost lost for words, but before you could open your mouth to speak again, he beat you to it.

"[name]-chan, would you like to go eat lunch with me outside?" your eyes widened slightly as you looked at him puzzledly.

however, you were hungry and exhausted, so something to eat sounded appealing. you nodded, which brought back dazai's smile. just as dazai was about to put you down, he noticed some bruises and scrapes on you, which caused him to come to a halt.

"you're hurt." dazai's eyes, or rather, eye, widened, "fuck, are you alright? are you hurt anywhere else, [name]-chan?"

"no!" you immediately shook your head and waved your hands in the air, "i-i'm okay, really!"

"those bastards deserved what's coming for them. they shouldn't have hurt you," dazai mumbled angrily, clicking his tongue in annoyance, but not towards you.

"huh? what are you talking about, dazai-nii?" you quipped, tilting your head in confusion.

"nothing!" dazai exclaimed with a smile, the dark glaze across his eyes gone, "let me just patch you up and then we'll go out for lunch, okay [name]-chan?" you nodded your head.

dazai sat you on the top of his desk while he called someone from his black phone to come over. it wasn't long before a man dressed similarly to auntie shoko from your house arrived. you quickly recognized him as a doctor and allowed him to treat your bruises and scrapes under the supervision of dazai, and speaking of dazai, you couldn't help but notice how he was staring intently, as if he was waiting for the said man to make one wrong move and he'll beat him up or something.

fortunately, the doctor treated you well and left after bandaging you and acknowledging dazai. with that, you felt much better and more at ease knowing that you had been treated.

"are you ready to go?" dazai inquired, ruffling your hair and softly chuckling. "i guess we kind of match now, too, since your arms have bandages."

"mhm!" you nodded your head as you hummed.

dazai assisted you in getting down from his desk and extended his hand to you, which you gladly accepted. you could see a genuine smile on dazai's face as he peered down at you. he squeezed your much smaller hand with his larger hand almost childishly and innocently.

as you walked down the corridor where you had been chased earlier, you realized that the office you had been to was supposed to be mori's and remembered how you used to play and draw with elise there. mori and elise were nowhere to be found and it made you curious.

as you recognized some of the men in black, you followed dazai and immediately hid behind him, hiding yourself in his long coat. this made dazai reach out for you, saying softly, "hey, hey! it's okay," seeing how scared you were, "they're not going to hurt you. i promise."

dazai thought it was a cute yet nostalgic gesture. with him remembering himself in the canon world, the one you were familiar with, he was reminded of how you gripped him and hid behind his coat when he first met you.

you reluctantly took his hand in yours and squeezed it, but you stayed close to him. you didn't like being chased and yanked away again. dazai's brow furrowed, and his gaze darted towards his subordinates for a moment, glaring, already making a mental note to make sure he gives them a warning so they would never think of hurting you again. you were scared and even tried to deny that you were hurt earlier, and dazai found it unacceptable.

"i got you, [name]-chan. i'm right here with you," dazai reassured you softly as he led you out of the headquarters, squeezing your hand back as a form of comfort.

the port mafia was taken aback as they witnessed their normally intimidating boss soften around you. just who the hell were you, and what did you do to their leader? they had never seen him switch up so quickly before.

outside, you and dazai got into a black car, and to your surprise, dazai had asked the driver to take you to your favorite restaurant in the city—the one he had taken you to before when he heard your stomach growl, much to kunikida protests of him being an irresponsible adult for using you as an excuse to slack off.

when you arrived at the restaurant, you both took a seat at a table, and as soon as the menus were handed to you, dazai asked, "is omurice your order, [name]-chan?"

your eyes widened slightly, but you nodded your head and smiled, "yeah! that one!"

"the little lady will have omurice, and I'll have a plain black coffee," dazai instructed the waiter.

"you must be hungry after getting here," dazai said again after the waiter took your orders.

"yeah.. a little," you nodded your head, a pout on your lips as you rested your chin on your arms, which were flat on the table. "and i had to run too from those scary men in black.."

"i'm so sorry about that, [name]-chan. i'll make sure it doesn't happen again," dazai smiled as he outstretched his hand and gently grasped your hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

after that, you became quiet. you had so many questions in your head. something was strange about dazai right now. he was unique. he had this horrible vibe about him. you weren't going to lie, you were a little scared, especially after hearing his murmur and seeing the dark glaze over his eyes earlier.

"is there something wrong, [name]-chan?" dazai inquired, watching your brow furrow as you stared at him, almost deep in thought.

"well, um... it's just that.." you scrunched your brow, not knowing where to begin.

"you're probably wondering why i recognize you and the others don't—that's one of your concerns right now, correct, [name]-chan?" dazai stared at you for a second, blinking before taking a deep breath and sighing.

"this world is just one of many others," dazai explained further, "and of all people, you should know, right? you're fushiguro [name]-chan. you're someone capable of traveling across the multiverse with your reality warping powers, which i can't even nullify."

your eyes widened as you realized what had happened. it was no surprise that the armed detective agency hadn't recognized you earlier, or that akutagawa and odasaku were present but not dazai or atsushi and kyouka. this world was an alternate universe, just like the others you'd visited, with a much older version of yourself as an example. bacause the multiverse is so vast, dazai's world would have alternate universes that similarly to yours.

"but.. if you're not in the armed detective agency with uncle kunikida.. and odasaku-san and aku-nii are there.." you muttered, putting two and two together, "that means they don't know you the same way they don't know me because you're.. you're.."

you closed your mouth. you got your answer the moment you discovered elise and mori missing, as well as the office looking a little different earlier, with dazai wearing the same exact clothes as mori.

"ever the clever little bella. you're not wrong, [name]-chan," dazai exclaimed, intertwining his hands on the table and smiling at you.

"but, why?" you furrowed your brows.

"because it's the only way, [name]-chan," dazai replied as the waiter arrived to bring you your omurice and his black coffee.

"i don't understand.." you exclaimed, frowning at dazai, "what do you mean?"

at first, dazai looked around. fortunately, there were no customers and the waiter had already left, which you found odd, but with that, he returned his attention to you.

"as i previously stated, this world is just one of many, but this world, this is the only one where odasaku lives, [name]-chan."

your eyes widened at the revelation and dropped the spoon you had just picked up.

"you know him. you've seen odasaku's ghost. you even had him and my other self reunite, even if it was only for a brief moment with your power," dazai continued, "and i saw it through my other self's memories."

so he already knows about you in this alternate universe, long before you arrived here. alright, you were getting a little scared now.

"i succeeded the previous boss to gain the advantage, to dedicate my life to protect what could have been," dazai stated calmly as he sipped his coffee, "honestly, i was surprised that you'd come here. i never would have thought, but either way, i'm grateful. this is also one of my universes that doesn't have you."

as dazai grasped your hand, you found yourself crying. you quickly had got a vision of what was going to happen to him because your emotions were amplifying your chaos magic. dazai planned to jump off a building. as you regained your composure, you drew your hand away, panting softly for air to calm yourself down.

"[name]-chan?" dazai stared at you with a baffled look, prompting him to reach out his hand to you to wipe your tears away.

you shook your head and continued to eat the omurice dazai had given you after wiping your tears. dazai frowned but didn't say anything. he just knew you saw something, and he hopes it wasn't about the book with his plan on set, because him knowing three or more people knew would destabilize this world. dazai let you eat your food and paid the bill when you were done. you and dazai got on the black car again, and the ride was quiet, even awkward.

dazai felt guilty seeing your eyes glassy with tears and slightly puffy from crying.

"[name]-chan, would you like to go to the park?"

dazai knows his canon self and his other variants, so it's no surprise that he knew you, and from his canon self's memories, he knows how much you liked to play outside and run, in addition to liking omurice and [favorite food]. dazai has the advantage because he has the book. he can make things work, at least in the best way he knows how. for the time being, what you saw with your witch abilities was the furthest thing from his mind. dazai wished to see you smile and be happy.

when he asked you the question, your eyes seem to light up. as you fiddled with your fingers, you slowly nodded your head. dazai smiled at this and asked the driver to take you to the nearest park in the city.

it was the same one you recognized when you and dazai were dropped and left the car. the same breeze, trees, and ambiance. the only difference was that you weren't with your usual dazai.

"so, what would you like to do first? wanna play zoomies? swing?" dazai questioned, crouching down at your height and ruffling your hair.

"zoomies," just as dazai had expected.

when you ran across the park with dazai—this dazai—it didn't take long for you to start smiling. he'd like to think that being with children was simple. it wouldn't take long for one to smile and laugh as if they hadn't cried or something if you knew how to play the right cards with them. you had so much fun running around and getting to know dazai that you openly suggested what to do next.

"dazai-nii! let's play on the swing next!" you exclaimed, running towards him and excitedly wrapping your tiny arms around his legs.

"alright, alright, little belladonna," dazai chuckled softly at his, giving you a gentle pat on the head, "i'll push you on the swing, okay?"

you spent the entire day with dazai, doing everything from zoomies to swings to slides. dazai's favorite part of the day was you playing with the slides because every time you slid down, he would catch you and pick you up in his arms, just loving the adorable smile and giggle you'd have afterwards. to see you so happy was just nostalgic and music to his ears.

you became tired at the end of the day, and dazai couldn't help but melt when you tugged on his pant leg and made grabby hands for him to pick you up. "up-up.." you said, exhausted.

"come here, [name]-chan," dazai grabbed you and cradled you in his arms, his heart melting as you wrapped your tiny arms around his neck and snuggled up against him. "is little bella tired from playing all day?" he cooed at you.

"mhm..." you nodded tiredly, pressing your face against his neck as you clung to him.

"let's go back, okay?" dazai patted the back of your head as he gently cradled you, "i got you, [name]-chan, feel free to sleep."

as dazai was carrying you to the car, you clenched the fabric of his collar, causing him to hum at you, "hmm? yes, [name]-chan?"

"please don't leave," you muttered quietly, now clutching his fabric even more tightly, almost desperately, as dazai could tell.

"i'm not leaving you, [name]-chan; we're going back to the headquarters together," dazai explained, chuckling at your clinginess.

"no.." you whined softly, "don't go ever."

dazai came to a halt, blinking in confusion. what did you mean when you said he was leaving? he was deep in thought when you spoke up again, saying exactly what he was thinking.

"i don't want you to die, dazai-nii."

dazai had heard you say it before, but it was to his other self, back in the canon world when he got hurt and you went out of your way, risking your life, to get to him at all costs as soon as kunikida mentioned it, even if it meant coming across port mafia.

nonetheless, it caused dazai to freeze. even if you weren't his little sister, niece, or family in this alternate universe, you still thought of him as your "dazai-nii" and cared about him.

you were too kind for your own good.

it made him even more guilty.

"i can't promise you that, [name]-chan," dazai muttered sadly, clutching you tightly in his arms, tears streaming down his cheeks, "which is why i want you to stay here. i'll take care of you like my other self did. you won't have to worry about anything because no one will ever hurt you, and no one from your world will either."

"i can't be with you forever. i have a home to go back to," you said, looking him in the eyes, "but the only way i can promise to be with you is for you to promise me that you won't go. i'll come back to you as many times as i can now that i found you!"

"[name]-chan.." dazai's gaze softened.

"i promise i'll save you, so you won't have to jump off and leave! i'll save this world if i have to even!" you exclaimed determinedly, your eyes glowing red, "i don't know exactly why or how you're doing it, but you're still my dazai-nii, and i know how much odasaku-san means to you."

"but, [name]-chan, i can only do so much," dazai exclaimed. he sounded as if he was about to cry. "odasaku and i are never meant to be together on the same side, but if anything, he deserves to be on the good, so he can become a writer, and me? i have to be on the bad, and the worst as possible.."

"don't you wanna see his works? see him achieve his dreams?" you asked.

"i do, [name]-chan," dazai nodded.

"then, promise me, dazai-nii. you won't ever be alone again," you flashed him a close-eyed smile as you cupped his face in your tiny hands, "i'll come back to you and help you the best i can with my wiggly-woos magic. after all, i did promise odasaku to look after my dazai-nii, so i'll save you. you're still my dazai-nii, even here!"

fresh, hot tears welled up in dazai's eyes and streamed down his face, unable to be held back. he hasn't had anyone in a long time. this world was very different from the canon world, where he had the armed detective agency and people like atsushi. even with chuuya, atsushi, and kyouka by his side, he was alone. this dazai had become so numb from witnessing odasaku's fate from across the vast universes that he had forgotten what love was like and how warm it felt.

had his prayers been heard by the universe? could it even be the book? is that why it brought you here to him by connecting the physical and outside worlds? was it not by chance at all?

but, in any case, he loved the feeling of being loved—of having a family of sorts, whether you were his little sister, niece, or daughter.

dazai remembered seeing one of his other selves as your biological father, another as your uncle, and you as his younger sister. he remembered being so envious of seeing his other selves happy despite the fact that they didn't have odasaku because of you, and dazai loved you in all those universes.

"thank you, [name]-chan," dazai whispered in your ear, hugging you tight as you heard him sniffle, "please save me.. save me too."

[ author's notes ! just to clarify one thing, no, you don't know about the book, you just know that BEAST! dazai knows you from the CANON! dazai's memories, and the fact certain universes existed wherein it had you.

the reason for this has something to do with the knowledge of the book. if three or more people would know, the world would be destabilized. this is also the reason why your witch abilities made you see the end, and not the whole picture.

the reason BEAST! dazai wants you to stay because he has no one. he might be the port mafia boss with chuuya as his right hand man, but he's still alone and also because his universe is one of the few where you weren't in it :( ]

[vala-dreams]

Daniel Masters AU

So this is brought to you by a fever dream at 6 in the morning. In this au, one Vlad Plasmius partakes in the noble and completely not illegal act of cradle robbing. And by cradle robbing I mean kidnapping toddler Danny because he is a batty old ghost with a family obsession and no morals. (I've decided to change his obsession from maddie to family. No I don't take criticism)

Vlad kidnaps Danny with the intention of turning him into a halfa too.......the only problem is that the portal he's trying to make isn't functional. yet. So in the meanwhile he's gotta juggle making the portal and taking care of Danny in his Wisconsin manor.

This leads to many shenanigans, sleepless and tired Vlad who has no idea how to take care of children + one baby Danny = c h a o s

A year passes by and finally, the portal is up and working and the big moment finally comes. Vlad places Danny as gently as he can, into the portal and turns it on.

.

Except he doesn't.

He can't

Because all he can see as his index finger hovers over the button are cold linoleum tiles of a hospital. Harsh florescence of lights overhead. Faces of people he doesn't know, covered by surgical masks. All he can hear are the squeaking of stretcher wheels, the beeping of monitors, muffled voices he cannot understand.

All he can feel is fire.

....

The next thing he knows, little Daniel is in his arms again.

His feet are lead, unmoving. His arms are steel, wrapped securely around Daniel's still slumbering form. And that's how they stay all afternoon, in front of the empty portal.

Thats fine. In the end, he cannot do it. That's fine. Daniel doesn't have to be a halfa to be his son. Little badger was his the moment he was born. Jack would never be a factor. Maddie would never be a factor. They wouldn't even be in the equation.

(And isn't that exactly what they deserve? They left him. They left him to burn and they never looked back they laughed as fire licked at his heels they left him they left him they lef-)

-------------------------------------------------

They never figured out what happened to their Danny. Years and years of missing posters and sleepless nights and tears and research– it was like he never existed.

The only clue to what might've happened to their boy was a single splatter of ectoplasm on the floor

They would find their son. Or they would die trying.

-------------------------------------------------

One fine sunday night, one Daniel Masters stumbles into a secret basement in his house.

........................................................................................................................................................

There's gonna be updates on this cayse I'm sleep deprived rn and it's not as well written as I wish it could be.

This started out as crack and kinda got serious and I'd like ro establish that Vlad isn't going to be a "good" character. He is narcissistic, self serving, controlling and deliberately keeps things from Danny. He basically just ignores the fact that he stole Danny and tries to convince himself that Danny is his. His ghostly nature only makes it worse.

However, he does genuinely love Danny. Not when he first kidnapped him, at that time he only cared about hurting jack and maddie and fulfilling his family obsession. But over the course of the year he spends with Danny, he starts to care for him. Their relationship will eventually be fixed. It'll probably never be okay but Vlad will do anything it takes for him to not hurt Danny anymore. He will find a way to be better. And even if no amount of apologies will make up for what he did, he will still apologize.

The Fentons aren't going to be good either. They have very fixed views on ghosts and it's only increased due to the cradle robbing. They are even more ruthless and cold. They throw themselves into their research even more. Danny is absolutely terrified of them. And they're completely convinced that Danny stole their kid. (Will elaborate later) But they too will learn eventually.

Jazz grows up with her parents constantly working on their ghost research and projects, and she doesn't really believe in it. She grows up with the faint memory of a brother she doesn't know. And even though he parents love her, she wishes that they could let go.

Sam and Tucker will be explored in later posts

@little-pondhead I did a thing

[pillowspace]

I need to bother you for y/n design advice. Since my clone au is the first one I've really had that's mine, I don't really know what to do to make them more like. Approachable as a y/n? And your designs are so cool and distinct from each other so

help? any advice? 🙃

Something that might help is literally just scrolling through photos of people. That can range from fashion to just completely normal stock photos. It can make you go "oh, I forgot that clothing item even existed. I could use a variation of that." You can also keep in mind not only what would look nice, but what your character would want to wear.

I can walk through how each of them were designed if it gives you an idea of what I do at all

ADAD Y/N - my default design will always be a sweater. I love drawing sweaters. They're fun. If I think I can give a sweater, I will. Also, due to their "companion" characters being Sun and Moon, the colours I work with are red, yellow, and blue. So I just decide where I want that red, yellow, and blue to go, and what colour I want more of than the other. You'll see they all follow that line of thinking except for CSD

HD Y/N - it's wintertime!! This means I get to play with a scarf and jacket. Also a good time for a bit of floof, which is always fun to use. The fluff on the boots were intended to be similar to the way the DCA has bells on their shoes, so sometimes you can look to what the DCA has for inspiration. I felt that they needed a colour contrast from Sun and Moon that still went along with them well, so the jacket was made cyan. A lot of colour usage is just me going "what will look fine next to Sun and Moon?" OH, and I didn't use earmuffs even though I wanted to, because HD Y/N relies on their hearing. They wouldn't want to wear anything that could muffle that

CSD Y/N - can't go the red yellow blue route, this is a medieval peasant, so I shall combine colours. Can't combine red and blue, that's purple, and purple is typically for royalty if I'm not mistaken. I could combine yellow and blue for a dull green however. I will also google image search medieval clothing for inspiration

Pre Loops Y/N - out of curiosity, I googled "daycare worker" for this. Why are they literally all wearing the same exact kind of jacket sweater thing in every image...? Whatever, I'll have Y/N wear that, sure. I also looked up colour palettes, picked the nicest one, and adjusted the colours to my liking. This character is tidy, so they will have plenty of details that show they care about their appearance (brushes hair, puts on hat, buttons the middle of their jacket, wears a belt, tucks in shirt, tied shoes, well-written name.) The inner shirt will remain a slightly darker orange so that it can still work with Mid Loops's darker colours

Mid Loops Y/N - darker colours to fit better with their new character. More disheveled to show a lack of concern for their appearance. (Messy hair, doesn't bother with hat, unshaven facial hair, unbuttoned jacket, no belt, untucked shirt, untied lace, hastily scribbled name.)

Post Loops Y/N - what would this character want? Maybe they like to grow out their hair to feel the change. Maybe they've forgotten why they even bothered shaving, and like the hairs now. Maybe they want a large and floofy jacket because it's comforting. And to show the tiredness of this character, there is predominantly dark blue with the only red being much darker than previously, making the colours more relaxing.

[saltyr3mix]

Damien headcanons Damien headcanons ! !

I saw the user name and new exactly what you were going to ask lol.

I'm agian under the assumption your looking for the same thing I did with Winnie and Sara? If you guys want like cannon head cannons. Let me know! But for now I like that format of just comparison.

so. Damiens not my favorite guy. I have said some maybe regrettable things about him in fits if anger because I struggle with writing him. But there are a few au's, not many unfortunately, where I don't mind him as much. This list will likely be shorter than the other two.

to learn from the tragedies : he's gonna show up at some point. Haven't decided if it's in book one or two yet. But the vision here right? Oliver has like, imprints of memories. Damien doesn't have any memories of the previous timeline. Lewis and the Twins no everything. Oliver starts gushing about this guy he saw and they immediately know who it is and encourages Oliver to go reach out to him. Mean while Oliver is like, "what the hell all I did was see him in the store I don't even know his name! How am I supposed to contact him!? How do you all know who is!??"

"Not many people have a singular purple eye, dude."

"that was real?..... I thought it was like cosplay or something."

"nope he can see ghosts."

"I'm suddenly a lot less interested-"

"no no no you haveeeee to talk to him! Just....trust us. We'd never lie to you!"<------ has active lied to his face 6 times today about how bad the future actually was too experience.

So yeah! Television is an end game ship for tlfft. Hopefully it will get introduced soon.

Shattered Dreams: I mean he had some cool moments. But wasn't really thought out like at all. I thought giving him a prosthetic arm was cool! I don't know why I did but I did that. This fic was written before season two and so a lot of Damiens character had yet to be explained so I took him in my own very poor direction and had no idea what u was doing with him the entire time.

I will make them create my world: ooooo this ones fun. How do I explain this with out spoilers. He's a very background character in the twins centered chapter. But I've tossed around the idea of making him more prominent as a sort of antagonist? But I'm not sure if it would work. I have so so so many ideas for this chapter and I haven't finalized an ending for it but it could be anywhere from Damien and Oliver getting married happily with nothing wrong and them being completely ok and the horror focusing more on how the world moves on and is completely fine in your absence. Or we could mess everything up and have them die or twisted into toys in the horror of another world taking over and contortioning your loved ones into freaks of nature with out you being able to stop it. Either way Damiens safety is entirely dependent on which brand of eldritch existential horror I feel like giving the twins that day.

This happens in a lot of my fics actually-

Buried masks: ok. This is going to be hard to hear for some people. Damien. Never gets taken my Sara. She actually hates him. She goes out of her way not to interact or associate with him. The only time she acknowledges his existence is if Oliver is talking about him or like hes unavoidably right in front of her. She's crazy buts she's not a jerk. Anyway she hates him because he stepped in and took her job as Oliver's support system. She doesn't like sharing. She has this whole concept with saving people and wanting to be their angel and their light and their support. To the point she will force people into a position to rely on her so she can feel like she's helping them. When her best friend turns to someone else for that help? She is not happy about it. She traits with the same way, but needs him to help keep lewis under her control.

Oliver, as much as she loves him and hates that Damien also cares for him. Still feels confident that he would turn to her first. And thats all she needs. To be his savior.

So she doesn't drag him into it. He and Damien actually get to go out and enjoy the rest of their lives together. As long as Oliver keeps looking to Sara for guidance he won't be affected. She can help him with out all the added psychological torture!

That is unless. In the same vein wiatt is dragged down to control lewis.....she needs his help in calming and swaying over some....other members.

This was supposed to be about Damien. uh oh. Can you tell I like this au a lot?

On a less cryptic lore heavy note. Yeah Damien is our main outside the basement perspective. He's running all the cases trying to find the evidence and he actually does solve something that saves a lot of people!!! He followed all the clues and cracked open a terrible terrible story. But the victims in that story weren't his friends.

Steven universe au: I kind of made a post earlier explaining all of his lore today. But! If your looking for more I'd very happy send you over to Danger/Theater who loves Su!Damien very very much and could probably come up with some more head cannons or content for you.

Superhero au: where to fucking start. He was speficly designed to be the main character of this au. It was supposed to center around him.

And then they're were other opportunities involving human experimentation and angst and twins and like- come on those are my favorite tropes I had to indulge a little bit!..... Although maybe I did just actually completely switch the angle of the spot light-

STILL!!!! if consider him the core of the au. Maybe not the main character at times but everything comes back and ties back to his actions. He sort of has a lot of control over everything and so when he makes a decision the entire plot shifts with that. Even when not in focus when he decides he's going to start bothering Error on patrols that caused a whole chain of reactions that lead to Errors eventual spiral and breakdown and him finding out all the shit that's been happening and it's Ghost that comes back and takes him out of it.

And all that yapping barely actually talks about his character ok- so. I want to see HLTBM!Sara and Superhero! Damien get in a moral debate with one amoy. Cause they stand for a lot of the same things. Character was out through something very very traumatic and that manifested in ways that hurt a lot of people with out them really wanting it to. But of course there's the gray area with Sara knowing full well shocking and kidnapping people isnt very nice. And Ghost being just a straight up serial killer, homicidal, villain for the first half of the fic. Unlike Sara though Damien does get improvement. Although I personally won't call it redemption on my own morals. But he stops killing people pretty quickly once Oliver brings it up.

L to Hayden west who got in Damiens way before Oliver could bring that up.

But yeah superhero au Damien is very special to me. He's the only version of Damien i don't Loath writing, in fact I look forward to it! He's so fun!!!

this was still all very vague but I've said do much- shoot me another ask if you want more about just him because I could write essays on that man.

One shots/you will live until I die: die die die die die die . I'm sure Danger has screen shots some where of the things I've said about this man. Do you know? Do you know how fast I could have gotten any of these types of fics done. If I wrote him out?! Do you know how many times I had to go through and re-write singular lines for him!? Have I beef with this fictional character you can't even comprehend.

Buttttttttt in the end. I guess he turned out....... Ok-ish? i still want to light every scene with him in it on fire but it's not because of how he's written. UTS BECAUSE IF HIW LONG IT TOOK TO WRITE-

deep breaths. I really hope you enjoy them because when I say I dedicated an entire week to a single scene with him in it. I'm not kidding. It killed me.

For the most part I do what I always do with those fics and stick to cannon, which was the mistake, I only like Damien when he's evil and deranged. Cannon Damien does not match my writings level of freak.

maze au: he doesn't get to be cool. Sorry. Your man gets to be a sleep deprived, paid, stalker of Oliver while he's in the maze. Damien works for the maze and helps give reports on his assigned constant, Oliver! Who's actually really endearing and kind of cute .

Thinking about having him a vaguely similar role to ash and me like THE watcher, the clearing has to keep dealing with. Norman is already a Plant but like Starr doesn't actually trust him. So yeah Damien is the wall man. People just see him around on the walls and pretend that they didn't!

Maybe he'll come down and say hello today! Probably not.

The more I think about it I want to make him a half demon to. But not like full half demon. Like he has shaper nails and teeth and is scary good at seeing in the dark and can hear any whisper. But has absolutely no strength or speed or physical traits. He's a loser.

Oc au: umghhhhhfrgcadg so i play Damien. And I do really really bad at it. Cause I try to follow cannon and we've addressed that issue. Currently he's dealing with a ton of survivors guilt because he and Oliver were the only ones to make it out of the facility collapse alive. Both the kids he brought with him died, both to his own advice.

He told Shroud to stay put. And he told hunter to run. Not great for either of them.

There was a point he beat the shit out of Sara! That was fun! Their.....siblings in this au? Or at least very heavily implied that they are. And so they just started scraping.

Poor Vianca though. God if I was better at playing him maybe they could have had a cool sibling dynamic. But alas it just came of as very very awkward because for most of her lore I was playing her, Sara and damien, who all would have been siblings but I did it so bad at yeah- there are some reasons why this au is called the secret au. It's the silly one where I don't think about it like a writer just a Creator and im not supposed to care how pretty the final result is if I had fun. And I did have fun! But when it comes to Damien things just get messy.

THATS IT. IM DONE!!! THIS SHOULD NOT BE THIS LONG!!!! I DID UT BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE SHORTER!!! ITS NOT!!!! BUT I DID IT ANYWAY SO HA! I WIN!!!

[velvetwyrme]

So OG Sans can play the trombone, Underfell! Sans plays a trumpet according to his creator. Do you think any of the other au skeletons play instruments? Part of me wants Swap! Papyrus to play the drums solely so he can make the ba dum tss sound. Other other half of me wants to give him an electric keyboard that is always set to the silly sound effects setting like duck quacks and dogs barking.

Ooooo that's a good question!!! 👀!!!!!!! I have many many thoughts on this and have settled on exactly 0 of them!! (I have multiple opposing headcanons and simply pick and choose whatever I think is funniest/most interesting for the situation)

ONE of them is "all the Sanses play brass wind instruments, and all the Papyri play percussion or strings" (One of the bits in the Papyrus QnA also reinforced this for me)

I love love love the idea of Swap!Pap playing drums!! He also strikes me as a guitar guy tbh (*pointedly looks away from the Bard in Flipping Fate*) I feel like he's also the most likely to own a kazoo or a ukelele though. Maybe even an omatone.

... Funny you mention using a keyboard for silly sounds! In a deleted scene from EOVD, Swapfell!Papyrus has a soundboard lmao. I can also see him playing a cello or bass... (or at least, for the way I write him.) Speaking of the way I write him- I've also made reference to him being a trombone player for a one off gag lol. Bwuuu.

In the same vein of "things I've written about/gestured at before", but I don't think classic Pap ever settles on an instrument. He tries out a bunch but never ends up playing one more than any other. So in a way I can see him with any and all instruments lol.

If sticking by the Sans=Brass rule, I feel like Swap!Sans and Swapfell!Sans would have either a saxophone (more like saxobone) or a tuba. Either combination works in my mind. If not sticking by that rule, I could see Swapfell!Sans playing a string instrument maybe? Or a clarinet lol. Swap!Sans also strikes me as a trumpet guy, if you don't mind overlaps.

Underfell!Papyrus ... I like to think he plays piano :] In contrast to the existing discussions about where the piano falls on the scale between percussion and strings; any instrument is a percussion instrument if you hit it hard enough.

Additionally. I think he was taught to play piano by UF!dyne and you can pry this headcanon from my cold dead hands !!!!!!!

Also as a bonus, I think Horror!Pap would play the harp. No particular reason, I just like the visual of it lol. Horror!Sans probably just... stopped playing his trombone, and after getting his head injury either picks it up again or resorts to humming/tapping along instead because fine motor control is harder for him :p

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Looking for opinions:

If someone leaves a comment, hoping to inspire a creator to update, is that manipulative?

Please note the comment would only be praise for the creation, and never mentioning anything about waiting for an update

This is a debate I'm having with a friend

I think as long as the comment is solely about what has already been posted and does not in any way insinuate/ask/reference what may or may not be to come, it's fine. Saying that you loved it, that you enjoyed reading it, reacting to something the author put in--that's all fine and good.

The moment you put something in about 'the next chapter' or 'an update' or anything at all that you did not read or does not already exist, that's where the walls start to go up.

Especially since authors can't read your mind over the internet! (Or in general but I have more confidence in the former than the latter.) You have no idea how someone is going to receive your words, intentions be damned.

I don't think it's inherently manipulative to leave a comment. I don't think leaving a comment and hoping it reignites the author's passion for the story is manipulative, so long as you do not reference an update in any way, shape, or form. I've had people leave comments or drop asks that make me want to go back to aus I'd written off as completed. I've also had way too many people going 'part 2!!! part 3!!! you can't leave it like this!!!' and hey that really doesn't make me want to write more of it.

TL:DR; no, it is not manipulative to comment and hope for a continuation, so long as you do not mention said hope in the actual comment itself. Comments should be about what the author has already decided to share, not what you want them to give you next.

[gryphonlover]

Curious about the guidemarks au 👀

Guidemarks AU - Main

This is one of my biggest projects so far, if not the biggest. It even has its own Scrivener project, unlike my other stuff. I've been working on it for months, and there are still a lot of things that need straightened out or fixed before I can start posting it. This is going to be a very long post, but like I said, it's a very big project.

It's kind of a mish-mash of a few different things, but I'll do my best to explain it. The setting is basically a modern version of Hyrule, an urban fantasy modeled after Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and of course the guidemarks themselves, which are kind of the point of the AU in the first place.

Every setting you see in the LoZ fits into the geography I'm configuring, which has some obvious problems. The Great Sea, for example, was never meant to exist alongside Hyrule and New Hyrule at the same time. This and trying to reconcile all the timelines makes me want to bash my head against the wall sometimes, but it's going to be worth it when I'm done.

Speaking of the timelines, everyone's backstories will be fairly accurate to the games, since the same people, places, and magic exist in this AU. However, I'm still planning on writing everyone's backstories anyway because I'm not letting all that planning go to waste, it'll be fun to give all the games that classic Percy Jackson and the Olympians flavor, and I want to be able to give more context for everyone's guidemarks.

The guidemarks is actually where I started with this whole thing. I was originally going to write a soulmates AU, but I've never had much of an interest in romance stories (I usually ship at random for random reasons and have minimal attachments to ships anyway), and I could have written a platonic version, but that's been done before, and I wanted to write something that everyone could relate to regardless of how they feel about different types of relationships. I love reading soulmate AUs, and yeah relationships are very important to people, but I sort of wanted to screw around with the idea of finding true love or finding the right person. So I decided I'd keep the idea of soulmarks, except instead of pointing you towards the most important relationship(s) in your life, it would guide you to the moments of crucial self-determination in your life and the moments that would ultimately change your life and who you become. So you still can have the equivalent of a soulmate, but it's not about matchmaking anymore.

It still needs some fine-tuning because there are one or two details I'm really thinking over, but overall I'm very happy with how it's turning out, even if it is taking approximately forever and a half.

So now that you've suffered through reading my entire info dump, here's a piece of the little bit I've actually written down so far:

Then the scent of blood hit his nose, jolting him at least partially back to reality. He lurched backwards, pawing the airbag out of his face, to be met with the familiar taste of blood dribbling down his face from his nose. That wasn't exactly great, but it could be worse. A quick mental check and he concluded that he'd gotten off lucky. He was stiff and sore, but the worst of it seemed to be concentrated in his neck and face. Whiplash and some bruises, if he had to guess. He sorted himself out, stiffly emerging from the vehicle to carefully stretch out his limbs and evaluate how bad the damage was.

[sequencefairy]

Writing Wrap-Up 2023

It is, once again, the end of the year! I wrote a lot!

First of all, I have officially published all my original stuff written for Space Fruit Press on Amazon Kindle under my penname, so if you enjoy my fic, I would love to encourage you to check out my original stuff, too, since all those dollars help me on the journey to doing that full time instead of having a full time job that really cuts into my fangirl time.

In addition to what is available on Amazon, there is another anthology of work coming from the press, and I will have a story in it! I need to write it, but it will exist. I'm very excited about this story, as well.

From a fanfic perspective, I have published only three things this year:

And I Was Never Afraid of the Dark (Oh, the Weapon You Made of My Heart) - shyan, wip, unfinished, 9.4k, demon!shane

Shane pulls Ryan out of Hell at 3:37 on a Tuesday afternoon. He’s not looking at his watch at the time, but he infers the time later after he’s finally managed to get up off the desert floor, and has hauled them both back to the car he’d parked in the lot at the trailhead a little over a week ago. Ryan’s a deadweight in Shane’s grip, head lolling back against Shane’s shoulder and body limp and unhelpful in Shane’s arms. His eyes are closed.

My Rivers Tilt Towards You - geraskier, fae!jaskier, 29k, strangers to friends to lovers, canon-divergent au

Geralt pushes the door open one-handed. As it creaks, announcing his presence, Jaskier looks up from the long table he’s sitting at. There’s a mug of something at the bard’s elbow and his songbook is open in front of him. “Geralt,” he says in greeting, and for a moment, Geralt is sure that the bard’s eyes shine in the dark, reflective like his own. He blinks, and the moment passes. Jaskier’s mouth curves into a smile. “Is it done, then?”

Coax the Cold Right Out of Me - shyan, complete, 4.1k, vampire!shane, established relationship

“Shane,” Ryan says, insistent, eyes gleaming in the dark. Shane lets his eyes fall shut, and sighs. The little red and white cooler they usually bring on shoots got left behind at the hotel, an hour and a half away in Jackson. “I’ll be fine,” he says, not looking at Ryan, and ignoring the ache in his gums. He’s gone longer without, he can make it through one shoot and then the drive back before being sated. “You don’t have to be.”

(more rambling under the cut)

So I spent too long making this, but whatever. Let's have fun with infographics, baby!

Anyway, interesting look at the last couple of years for me! I have clearly been in a quality over quantity place regarding wordcounts + things published over the last few years.

I have, over the past couple of years, been feeling like my writing has changed quite a lot, both in terms of what I am interested in writing, and also what I am interested in publishing both to AO3 and as original work.

I think there's also probably something in here about the fall out from the pandemic, as well as something about the fact that I've been medicated for the ADHD for a year now, and I've had to learn how to write in a way that is not an unhealthy coping mechanism and instead as something I do for fun, as a hobby that I enjoy.

What I have been producing lately, in 2023, is some of my favourite writing I've ever done, and I feel like I really levelled up this year in terms of tackling themes and ideas that the me of 2021 wouldn't have even imagined was possible.

With that said, the other fun comparison across years is this one:

Clearly, when you only publish three things in a year, it skews your stats, but I do also think that My Rivers was definitely a thing I needed to finish and write in order to become the person who is currently sitting on about 70k or so of active WIP for a different fandom altogether.

I adore, always, all the love that my shyan fic gets, this fandom is demonstrative in a way that no other fandom has ever been for me, and I've made the best kind of friends in this fandom. Even if I never publish another shyan fic ever (which I am certainly not saying is the case), I still treasure every single one of these fics which allowed me to meet people who've become extremely fucking important to me.

In addition to published fic, of course, the other thing to talk about is all that stuff I'm sitting on that hasn't been published (yet).

These are the seven most active of my WIPs. I am desiring to publish Moonlight on Broken Glass before the end of December, but since I'm the porn and instead of writing it, I keep going back to refine other parts of it, I have some doubts in my ability to get a draft done in the next few days.

All together, that's about 82k of wip, in various states of done that I'm working on. So, really, this year, I've written like, well over 100k, which is always my quiet goal going into any given year.

I don't have anything else to say about this, but I had fun making these little pictures and looking at all my wips. It was, all told, a good year for writing, even if it started off kinda slow.

[rarepairronpa]

an ideal date

The people are yelling, copycats of her beloved and crude. Nothing like them, nothing like the real thing. Imitating both her beloved and their group, but inferior to both. Not worth her time. She ignores the screaming, ignores the pleas. People in pain are everywhere. That never changed from the start. She, chosen and holy for it, could only shake her head in disgust and a little pity. She ignores their cries, clutching her phone as she turned up her headphones. (Blocking out them begging for help like they ignored her.) Junko’s voice, bright and peppy and out of place, comes through like music on the other side. “Mikan-senpai, Mikan-senpai, aren’t you excited?!” They squealed, and Mikan smiled fondly. “Of course,” she murmured into her headphone’s subpar mic. “I’m with you, after all.” - Mikan and Junko hunt down her past bullies. [Dangan WLWeek day 5: The Tragedy/Ship With A Trans Headcanon.]

Junkan for day 5 of @danggirlronpa 's WLWeek! This is actually an idea I've had for a long time- Junkan hunting down Mikan's past bullies. I originally wanted to write it for my BNHA/DR crossover (with Izuku tagging along), buuut I don't think it'll work for the already established timeline of that work, so I had to scrap the idea. Still! I was super fond of the idea of it, that when I saw the prompt "Tragedy", my mind immediately went to that. This is Junkan, so they are an unhealthy relationship in this, BUT they're also very sappy and cute, in a morbid way- so I think people who like fluffy Junkan might like this one too, along with people who like the more toxic yuri aspect. It is ultimately unhealthy, because Junko is encouraging Mikan to be her worst self, buuuut there's definitely moments in it that I go, "oh, that's sweet". It has layers! Is what I'm saying! Sometimes what makes toxic relationships so hard to get out of is that they have moments of tenderness and genuine love.

This one is also, obviously, a no brainwashing video AU. I leave Chiaki's fate ambiguous; whether she's dead, never existed as human Chiaki, or is a Remnant that will eventually betray them isn't... known in this. I feel like any could be applicable, so go crazy with whatever interpretation you want. I don't go into detail how Mikan became a despair, either, just that it's not through brainwashing. I also mention that she knew about Yasuke- in my head, she had him kinda had a Greg and Pearl (from Steven Universe) dynamic. Which she thinks she's "won", as Yasuke was killed by Junko.

As for Junko, they're nonbinary in this- I'd say close to a demigirl, though she's never defined it. They use she/they pronouns and feminine terms such as "girlfriend". I explain it a bit in my notes. If she doesn't read as feminine aligned enough, I will be willing to edit it to make this more clear.

Also- there's no actual graphic torture in this. Because. I didn't want to write that for a fun ship week. And that would also involve a lot of OCs to fill out Mikan's bullies. It's more of a lead up to Mikan finding her past bullies than her actually confronting them. So, if you're faint of heart, you'll still probably be fine with this one as it's mainly implication.

Over all, this is my favorite of what I've written for this week (with my first day nanamiki one being my second favorite). It has a concept I've been wanting to do for ages, mentions of Yasuke and Mikan knowing each other (which I eat up), and has nonbinary Junko, a headcanon I love. I also think the Junkan has a nice mix of being both disturbing and cute. So, if you're going to read any of what I've written for this week, I definitely recommend this one!

[lenny-rambles]

About nothing in particular, a bit of Zolu in general, and some fics here and there

Holy smokes, I've had a week. In between exams, my cat getting lost, more exams and work I haven't got the time to actually ramble about anything, which is pretty sad (to me).

HOWEVER.

This doesn't mean to suggest I didn't read anything at all. Oh no, you'd be greatly mistaken to assume that's the case. I devoured a lot of fics this week, in an attempt to release stress because my house was also inhospitable for some days. So, I decided to read and re-read some fics, because that's how I deal with my problems (that is to say, I don't).

It's very interesting to see how their relationship's been depicted through the years! Like, one of my favorite tags for them is "Devotion" (because that's SO them), and the tag's got 60 works, barely. And it was first used in 2019, for a romance fic. That's barely any time at all in OP time! I don't know why though, maybe everyone knew it but struggled to put it into words (like them). As in, everyone would assume right out of the bat that that's their dynamic. Or maybe not! You can never know with fandoms, the fact that Agenda Piece exists still surprises me.

Also, I've grown the habit of reading through an author's works rather than just searching with tags. Like, if there's a fic I really liked I'll go into their profile and read more. And almost every time they have more! It's always a thrill when they have like old works, it comes to show how much they've improved, and how their characterization also evolves with them!

One of my favorite examples of this, that I discovered this week, is the series Fantastic Idiots And Where To Find Them.

Title: Fantastic Idiots and Where To Find Them (series)

Author: Mir4le

Relevant Tags: magic school AU, ASL brothers (my beloved), Law, Zoro, first person POV, on going, maybe there are ships maybe not

Now, disclaimer from me. No one here's endorsing the terf's work as in "go read her stories, they are good", because they aren't. And giving her money in anyway is terrible (in my humble opinion), she poses a lot of terrible ideas for both Trans and Feminism Activism. I hate the woman, and her story is not even that good. She holds A LOT of unethical and incorrect social theories (like eugenics, ew) in her books, AND REFUSES to reconsider or anything. She thrives in the attention she gets from that, I'm sure. Sadly, nostalgia is a bitch, and her books where probably the first I read entirely in english, and through piracy, so I still have some sort of appreciation for them, as terrible works of fiction as they are.

The good news is that the setting is so unbelievably generic that you could say "generic witch society" and that would do just fine, so that's what I'm doing. It's a generic witch society boarding school AU. Ah, the thing. The fic's written in first person POV (sighs), so if that's no your cup of tea you should stay away. The narration improves, the POV never stops being first person. I'm not exactly a fan of first person POV, but I was looking for fic with Law in them, so I picked it up.

Now, the first few chapters where... an experience. They were the author's first work, and you could tell. I don't mean anything mean with that, it's just Difficult to pin the POV for me, so I struggled a bit. Nevertheless, the prompt was interesting enough to keep me going, even if I kinda rushed through some stuff (sorry). It was also noticeable how much the author liked the characters, and the story, even early on, so that also kept me going. Rarely a story loved that much doesn't improve on quality, both because the strive to be better for the story and all the practice they get by putting it out in the first place. So congrats and thank you to the author for your work, it paid off.

Now, another thing about the fic, I'm not exactly what you'd describe a Law fan. I like his story, it was OP most angsty backstory for a while in my opinion (before Kuma, oh Kuma), so that just drew me in. Sadly, it didn't get me like I wanted to. Maybe it's because I binged the anime in an unholy amount of time (another day I'll talk about that) but by the time we got the why of Law, I just wanted Dressrosa to be done. So while I appreciate his character, the anime just made me want to get over with it. All of that to say that I usually avoid fics with Law, because I just don't like him that much. But I stayed. For the potential this had.

And my staying paid off!!!! It was awesome to see another take on ASL, and adding Law to the mix, not through Luffy, but Ace and Sabo was Not something I was expecting! It is also one of the key factors as to why the fic is so entertaining, you keep trying to imagine how the relationships in canon will translate to the setting. I got a lot of them wrong, it keeps you guessing, I love it. The way it shows Law involuntarily warming up to Ace and Sabo is so good. It feels a lot like something 11 y/o Law would write in his diary, it's cute.

Plot-wise it isn't that strong in the first installment (even the author said so), so you are really looking out for character interactions rather than worldbuilding. So it delivers on that, a bit chopped here and there, but by the time you get to the final chapters (there are like, 5) it's way more dynamic.

Ah, I've run out of juice, all right speedrun.

The whole thing, plot and narration improves a lot. Getting to a point in the most recent chapters where I can say that the author nailed down at least Zoro's and Ace's POV to the t, I can't say for Law though, not my area of expertise.

Surprising to no one, I like the Zoro POV chapters best, because we get Strawhat crew, and Luffy and Zoro, and I really like them.

I like the professors and classes they teach they teach. Who is which head of house and all that, nice, very in character.

Whitebeard's kids are a thing here, and I love it, they are fantastic.

Oh, Robin in particular has a lot going for her in the fic, you should also stay for her, if you are a fellow Robin fan.

The shenanigans are AU typical, that's not bad at all, I like how much emphasis they give to pranks and all.

CORAZON IS ALIVE AND WELL, more beautiful things.

Idk, I wish I could tell you more but I kinda read the whole thing for the experience and enjoyed it a lot. Even if it's unfinished.

Oh well, I guess that's it.

Also, "When All the Embers Die" also updated, as well as the other Zoro fic from the same author. And "Treasures for your Treasure (The Pearls Pale in Your Eyes)" ALSO updated, a Zoro update (thanks author) to say the least. I might say some things, I might not, probably I will, once I'm out of this hell hole called midterms.

Anyways, if you read this far thank you very much. Please read the fics mentioned above, even if it's for the experience, they are wonderful stories.

[toxinoire]

I've written stuff here...but those are simply ideas.

My ACTUAL Heathers AU however is a fantasy (as in, powers, magic, magic creatures, kingdoms) and they're adults in an oppressed kingdom.

This still needs some fine tuning so I'm not posting much about it yet.

But here's a glimpse.

~~~~~~~~

Powers:

Heather Chandler- Levitation and Radiation Waves (any kind of radiation waves)

Heather Duke- Illusions (as much as she wants) and Shield Type Force Field

Heather McNamara- Lightning (thunderstorm level lightning) and Super Speed

Veronica Sawyer- Ghost Like Abilities (as in, can pass through walls, be invisible, float and teleport)

Betty Finn- Super Stregnth and Magnetism (like Magneto ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ)

Martha Dunnstock- Healing (Self Explanatory) and Enhanced Eyesight

JD- Wind (as in, cyclone and tornado level winds) and Lazer Eyes

~~~~~~~

"Whatcha reading?" Asked Heather McNamara.

"Oh, it's a book called 'A Dramatic Tradegy" by the author Ron. It's a love story and all, but it's clearly also about corruption and systematic oppression. It addresses the very problems our kingdom has." Answered Heather Duke.

"Ooh sounds interesting." Said Heather McNamara.

"Elaborate more, would you?" Said Heather Chandler.

Heather Duke flipped through pages while keeping her index finger im between the pages she was reading. "Hold on, let me read a passage from the book...ah."

"The only reason why "heroes" and "villains" exist is because of this system...the inhumane and empathetic societal expectations everyone has planted in their minds in a harmful, toxic and traumatic way. If one were take away these parts of a societal system, keep traditions yet not force it upon anyone, it would lead to more peace. Less stone hearted people, less trauma, less reasons to want to do anything bad. Terrible people are inevitable everywhere, yet anyone allowing a terrible person to continue unpunished is worse."

"Okay damn..." Said Heather Chandler.

"That book will be banned eventually." Said a voice near them. They turn to the source. It's a woman in blue, currently throwing away a cigarette. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you. I just believe it would be."

"Why is that?" Asked Heather Chandler.

"Familiar with those moments Royal Guards just ransack the houses in a town? They usually leave with these specific books." Said the woman, pointing at Heather Duke's book. "The ones written by the author Ron."

"How so?"

"Hmm..." The woman scanned the people around them, and saw what would explain it for her. "Ah. Look over there. That man is reading another book written by that author. 'Cast Out The Devils.' And over there is Travis Fermont, a member of the royal court. Watch."

Heather, Heather and Heather's eyes widened as they see Travis snatch the book from the man's hand, presumably after seeing who the author is; the author leaves their name on the cover very largely; read something from the book, yell at the man, rip the book apart, say something to the royal guards near him and then...

The man gets killed.

"In a few days, the royal guards will ransack every house and book store to find the copies of that book and burn them. It's only a matter of time before A Dramatic Tradegy meets the same fate." Said the woman, who's lighting another cigarette. "It's quite obvious that the author has it out for the king, his cronies at court and...any form of corruption and systematic oppression. It's why any book written by that author is banned, or will be banned."

"What the fuck..." Said Heather McNamara.

The woman sighed. "I know. Pretty fucked up."

"At least they won't find her books, she keeps them crazily hidden, even we don't know where it is." Said Heather Chandler.

"I'd rather NOT have people know what I've been reading."

"Relatable." Said the woman in blue with a chuckled.

Heather Duke checked her watch. "This has been quite the informative conversation, but we should go."

"Oh yeah, we still have work to do." Said Heather McNamara.

"Alright. See you guys around."

Before leaving, Heather Chandler turns back to her. "By the way, what's your name?"

The woman smiled. "Veronica. Veronica Sawyer."