#but they were a little... embarrassed

[the12thnightproject]

Chapter 10: Lessons in Larceny Only a mischievous kitsune could turn a lockpicking lesson into an innuendo fest.

Mitsuhide x OC; Hideyoshi x MC (Mai)

All Chapters Archived on Ao3 

Logline - With Mai, Hideyoshi, and Aki missing, Mitsuhide and Katsuko reluctantly team up. Disguised as a merchant and his concubine, can they outsmart the man known as the God of Deceit?

“What do you think of my gift?” Mitsuhide gestured to his former personal quarters, which now sported a few feminine touches – a low table filled with cosmetics, a rack displaying the recently purchased peach kimono, and a delicate tapestry.

What it did not contain - a window.

With Sho next to me, oohing and aahing over the surprise gift, I could not tell him exactly what I thought about his room switching gambit. “I am overwhelmed, Master Kyubei.”

“After all, with your new wardrobe arriving soon, I believe you should have more space.” He paused and then his Kyubei disguise was marred by a smile that was pure Mitsuhide tease. “Perhaps some might say I’m spoiling you, but this is what you deserve.”

More space… ha!

The new room did not appear any larger than the previous one. In fact, it seemed smaller, with the smell of sandalwood and cinnamon pervading every corner. It would be like sharing a room with his ghost – or astral projection (not that I believed something like that was possible, although if it had been possible, I completely believe Mitsuhide could and would practice it). Crowded in, with no means of escape. Now that Mitsuhide slept directly under my old window, in the room closest to the stairway, I would not be able to sneak out in the night without waking him up.

The curtailed freedom on my end resulted in curtailed conversation for him, as I gave him the silent treatment for a few days, and our meals devolved into me glaring at him while he devoured a series of increasingly disgusting smelling meals.

(It’s possible that he didn’t consider eating in uncomfortable silence a loss).

Whatever he did while the sun was up, I had no idea. While I suffered days of beauty regimens (apparently my skin needed ‘help’ and my hands were ‘hopeless’) under the guidance of sweet but uninteresting Sho, he would, in that long dark wig, disappear in the morning and not reappear until it was time for Sho to return to the house she shared with her mother and siblings. I couldn’t leave the house with her, in case she was a spy for Shojumaru, nor could I leave her alone for the same reason.

Needless to say, the whole beauty routine was mind-numbingly dull. I had never enjoyed the twenty-first century version, and the Sengoku stuff was even worse. Thankfully, the merchant class that I would be moving about in didn’t conform to the aristocratic customs of shaving off their eyebrows and blackening their teeth.

So when after five days of repetitive afternoons and silent evenings, the first of my outfits was delivered, I was nearly tempted to kiss it in relief, even though it was pale pink. At least it meant that Mitsuhide would take me out.

Somewhere.

Anywhere…

“…the meeting of the Kaigoshu?” I was impressed in spite of myself. “How did you manage to get an invitation to that?” Even Francisco, who had been based in Sakai for several years, hadn’t managed to break through that barrier (or maybe he had, but didn’t realize what it was).

“Another spice merchant owes me a lot of money.” That was all he had to say about the matter. Gambling was illegal, so I was left to wonder what the spice merchant had done to get in Mitsuhide’s debt. Potentially that fell into the ‘you don’t want to know’ category.

“And you’re permitted to bring me?” Sounded fishy. I doubted that anyone else would bring a courtesan to what amounted to a city council meeting.

“I am certain you’re aware of the concept ‘it is better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.’” It was the night prior to the meeting, and rather than go back to my room to sulk, I had allowed my curiosity to get the better of me and had followed Mitsuhide into his office. “In my observations, it appears to be your primary mode of operation.”

“I’m familiar.” I could not deny that I’d found myself asking for forgiveness a lot.

From the look he gave me, Mitsuhide had expected that answer. “Not that it would make any difference in this particular situation, for Kyubei is not the type to ask for either permission or forgiveness.”

Yeah. I’d figured. “Do you have a particular plan? Or is this simply for reconnaissance?” Maybe he already had a theory to test out. Who knows? I wasn’t in the loop.

“Oh my, I see you’re talking to me again. Did we get bored with the silent treatment?” He didn’t look at me when he asked, preferring instead to unroll a scroll of paper, and read (or pretend to read) it.

“I’m talking to a co-conspirator about a mission. As soon as we get those details figured out, then you will become invisible to me once again.” Well, he probably hadn’t been invisible since birth, but I would give it my best shot. “So? Plan? Generalized snooping?”

He put down the scroll and sighed – theatrically, so I am sure he didn’t mean it. “If you can wander amongst the Portuguese merchants and listen to their conversations, that will allow me to concentrate on the Japanese ones.” He didn’t mention Shojumaru specifically, but I figured the man had to be at the top of our suspect list.

Ok. Cool. Was that so difficult to tell me? “And if it looks like you’ve gotten into trouble, I should create a diversion so we don’t have to fight our way out? Not that I couldn’t fight if you need me to.”

“Dear me, are you questioning my competence? I will not get into trouble.” He picked up the scroll again and I am certain he was just using it to shield himself from me.

I took no offense. I was just happy that I was finally going to be permitted to do something. Well. Tomorrow I would be doing something. Tonight… I couldn’t face another night staring at the windowless walls of my new room.

It wasn’t until my third circuit of the office that I realized I was pacing.

Mitsuhide glanced up and distracted me from my walkabout. “Is there a reason for your prowling? One would have thought that you went through here thoroughly the other night.”

“The other night I was looking for something in particular.” I paused in front of a neat display of musical instruments – a flute, a koto, and a biwa – arranged neatly among some Noh masks – had these, like the furniture and décor, belonged to the previous tenant? They looked too exquisite to belong to whomever had painted the walls red and black, and owned that gruesome screen in my former bedroom. Something told me that these were Mitsuhide’s, although I couldn’t back that up with any evidence. Just… a feeling. “Now, I’m just looking.”

He finally put the scroll down. “Any competent spy ought to be able to perform both at the same time.” He motioned me over to his desk, opened the drawer for like… three seconds… and then slammed it shut again. “What is in the drawer, brat?”

Oh.

A game.

A puzzle game.

I love this stuff. “A pot of ink, a spare brush, three locks – probably Chinese in origin, a roll of paper, and not my letter, which you really should return to me.”

He raised one eyebrow. Ok now you’re just rubbing it in that you can do that and I can’t. Then he opened the drawer again and peered inside. “You missed four items.” He pulled them out of the drawer as he named them. “A small clump of dust… a crumb of… mm… is that dried rice?” He popped it in his mouth and bit down on it (and… ew). “Still unknown. And a set of lock picks.” He held up a few metal rods of varying lengths and thickness.

Oooh. Lock picks. That was interesting. I wondered if he could show me how to…

He derailed my thought by asking, “what does this combination of items tell you?”

“That the desk is commonly used by a thief who writes a lot of letters and rarely dusts? Particularly a correspondence thief who also has a cast iron stomach.” I sent him a look of contrived innocence along with the snark.

“Consider the order of the items in the drawer. The placement shows that the locks were used more recently than the paper.” He laid them next to each other on the desk. They were all rectangular shaped padlocks, one with kanji characters written across it, although I suspected it was Chinese, not Japanese, simply because most locks in this era were made in China. “You do appear to be interested in these – considering brushing up on your burglary skills?”

Hey, a girl’s gotta have a parachute.

“Aki says no knowledge is ever wasted.” Show me. Show me. Show me.

The eyebrow went up again. It was getting a workout tonight. “Yes… you are indeed uncharacteristically fixated on these. Dare I suggest a lesson in larceny?”

I mimicked his bored tone. “Why yes, I believe I would find that a pleasant interlude.”

Aaaand of course he took my wording and ran with it. “Oh my. If it’s a pleasant interlude you want…”

Walked right into that one.

He smirked and patted the cushion next to him. “Sit down. Observe. It’s simply a matter of sliding a shaft,” he held up one of the metal rods, “into a tight chamber, and finessing it until you gain entry.”

That totally deserved an eyeroll, so I provided it, but I did want to acquire this skill, so I sat where indicated and waited for him to begin.

“A very eager pupil indeed.” He set the three locks in front of me. The one with the kanji opened by combination, and would be impossible to pick, but the other two were keyed locks, with the keys already resting inside the locks.

“The bolt is spring-held in place by its shape, wider at one end than the other. The key is generally used to push the spring open.” He pulled one of the keys out, fastened the lock, then slid the key back in. “Listen to the sound it makes when it hits the spring.”

Click.

“However, the process is easier to feel than it is to explain.” He locked the lock and handed me the key and the pick. “First unlock it with the key but slowly. Get used to how the motion feels when the key presses on the interior sides to free the bolt.”

I have in fact unlocked locks with keys before, even these antique (though not at the moment antique) rectangular ones. Unlike modern padlocks, which rely on rotation, the locks used in this time require a bit of force to open, especially if the pin sticks – which it did in this case. In the end, I had to jam my palm against it to exert enough pressure on the key.

“Some things do require a bit of sensitivity.” He locked the lock and returned it to me. “Try with one slow, smooth stroke. Caress the inside of the lock.”

Seriously?

I side-eyed that one, and received from him a look of such theatrical innocence that I’m surprised the Gods didn’t smite him for it. Great. And I’m sure that if I called out his wording, I would be the one accused of having a dirty mind. Fine. I returned my attention to the lock and put the square key back inside, trying to pay attention to the moment the key depressed the spring enough for the lock to disengage.

Click.

“Now the keys to these locks vary somewhat in shape.” He held up the key I had just used which was basically a square tube. Then he showed me the other key, which was two horizontal double bend curves, running parallel with about a quarter of a centimeter between them. “They operate in the same fashion – to compact the spring on the other end.” He returned the curved key to the other lock and the bolt disengaged. “As you have no doubt already surmised, if you want to go about opening locks, it’s impossible to carry with you the number of appropriately shaped keys in which to do so. Hence, these.” He lifted up two of the two metal rods.

Returning to the original lock, he inserted one of the picks on the left side of the square keyhole and pushed it all the way through. Then the other pick on the right. With a minimal amount of wiggling, the bolt slid out.

Hm, that seemed almost too easy. I repeated his actions on the lock…

Click.

… it was literally that easy. “I don’t understand. What’s the point?”

“There’s a reason why most people carry their most important valuables on their person, or hire armed guards.” Mitsuhide handed me the other keyed lock, the one with the curved hole. “Although this one should take slightly more effort.”

In seconds I had the other lock open.

“Of course, it’s also true that most people – most honest people - don’t expect to encounter a lock, or they find themselves unexpectedly in chains. So, one must improvise.” He pulled two of the sticks from my hair. Of course, my hair immediately jenga’d into total entropy. He relocked the locks and gave me back the hairsticks. “Try it with these.”

I blew my hair out of my eyes and got to work. With the wooden hairsticks, it was a bit more difficult – I was afraid to put too much pressure on them because –

Snap!

“Damn.”

“Such language.” The tone was teasing, but I got the sense he really did not appreciate me swearing.

With half of my hair stick now wedged in the lock there wasn’t much else I could do. Reluctantly, I turned the lock back over to Mitsuhide who shook it until the reminder of the stick fell out. He silently handed it back over to me. I suppose he didn’t want a souvenir of #lockpickfail.

“Now this one.” He held up the combination lock. It had five rotating barrels, each with four kanji characters on them. “There is no key, it will open when you arrange the letters in the correct order.”

Yes. I had gathered that part of it. “So it’s a matter of trial and error until I hit the correct combination?” Math has never been my strength. I knew there was a formula for figuring out how many possible combinations there would be, but I didn’t know what that formula was, and to be honest, I wouldn’t be able to do that sort of calculation in my head anyway. I had a feeling the answer would be in the realm of ‘reallybigion.’

“Hm. You could try that.” Mitsuhide waved to a cushion on the other side of the room. “Over there.”

Yeah, I don’t want to sit next to you all night either.

I took the lock to the indicated spot and proceeded to try and solve the combination.

About twenty minutes later (just a guess, no clocks in the Sengoku), when I realized that the job was made more difficult because the barrels were slippery, Mitsuhide’s voice interrupted my concentration. “Did I fail to mention that you likely will not have enough time to go through all the potential combinations before you are interrupted, or your prison cell floods, or you are executed at dawn?”

“Why yes, I believe you did fail to mention that.” Dammit, I had lost my place.

“Or even,” Mitsuhide oozed over to my side, “in addition to being chained to a wall, it’s completely dark in the cell… or you’re wearing a blindfold.”

That was all the warning I got before the world turned pink. Figures he’d put a pink blindfold on me. “Hey! Ask permission before you do something like that.”

I reached up to remove the blindfold but was immediately distracted by Mitushide, who seated himself directly behind me. He reached around my waist and put his hands on top of mine. His breath tickled my neck, and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat pounded against my back. It was like being enveloped in the essence of him, surrounded by cinnamon and sandalwood, and Mitsuhide.

He adjusted my grip on the lock. “Can you feel the tension on the bolt?”

I could, in fact, feel tension everywhere.

His heartrate had picked up slightly.

Or maybe that was mine. We were so close together it was impossible to tell any longer.

Resolutely I ignored that (pretty sure he was trying to distract me on purpose) and concentrated on the barrels of the lock.

“Keep the pressure on the bolt.” He placed my index finger on the underside of the bolt. “Now, can you feel as I turn the barrel the moment when it becomes slightly looser?”

I held my breath – why, I don’t know, it wasn’t necessary – ignored the pounding in my ears, and concentrated on the barrel he was turning. He was right – there was a moment when the were less pressure on the bolt.  “There!”

“Very good. Now, the next one. Keep the tension level even but slide your finger to the next barrel. Feel the pressure while I slowly twist it.” His voice rasped in my ear. Had he lowered his tone to a sensual purr just to further distract me?

Well, it won’t work, sir. I concentrated on the tension in the lock and not the curious breathlessness that was building inside me. Not on that buzzing that was traveling along every nerve ending. Not on the way certain muscles had tightened. “There!”

“Good. You might have a talent for more than chaos.” He moved on to the third one, and again, I identified the spot relatively easily. “For this one, you rotate the barrel. Slow, even speed.”

Those cool calloused fingers guided mine across the rough bronze surface of the lock, placing my thumb and pointer finger on the fourth barrel. “Don’t forget to keep pressure on the bolt. You don’t want to undo all the work by releasing prematurely.”

Carefully, I twisted the barrel, trying by feel to reach the place that would loosen the bolt another degree. In one sense it was not unlike when Aki had taught me how to listen to the wind when I was practicing archery. And yet in another, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. All my focus was inward, as only the tiniest shift would alert—

There! Without checking with Mitsuhide, I moved on to the final barrel. He made a faint hum of approval, so I knew I had been correct.

That approving hm reverberated through me, fizzing, celebratory.

But not yet. I had one more piece to decode.

My hands almost were too small for the lock, because in order to establish the final placement of the last barrel, I had to keep the pressure on the bolt and make sure none of the previous tumblers slipped out of place. I wanted to speed through, to hurry, but that would be the worst possible strategy. I bit the inside of my cheek for control, did my best to keep from trembling.  If I messed it up now and had to start over, I would scream in frustration.

“Slowly, stay steady. You’re almost there.” Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed Mitsuhide was nearly as breathless as I was.

As soon as the final barrel was in the correct position, the bolt disengaged with a –

Snap

It shot out of the lock…

… and it clattered to the floor.

Finally, I let go of all the air that had damned up in my lungs.

Mitsuhide backed away from me in that instant. By the time I had ripped the blindfold off, he’d beamed himself back to his desk, put the lock back together and rescrambled the barrels. “Practice. With your eyes closed, because I don’t have another lock.” He handed me the lock.

I jumped to my feet. “Um, yeah. Great idea. I think I’ll go do that in my room.”

“Mm, yes, the quiet of your room would be advisable.” The smile he gave me had dialed the wicked up to eleven. “You do appear to be rather overstimulated.”

I didn’t exactly run out of there. But it felt like I did, especially as I thought I heard Mitsuhide’s laughter follow me out the door.

@bestbryn

@selenacosmic

@mllorei

@tele86

@lyds323

@akitsuneswife

[pirateprincessjess]

I had a coworker a few years ago that thought “transgender” was an offensive term.

One day he heard someone refer to me as trans and he said “woah! Trans is a slur! When you’re at work you need to use a more respectful term, like sissy, or I will report you to HR”

I appreciate so much that he was willing to come to my defense, but lol he had that backwards.

He had heard that the T-slur was offensive and just assumed that “Trans” and “Transgender” were different forms of the T-Slur.

[why-the-heck-not]

me, a responsible being, working on the coding project as I should vs. me, a dysfunctional shithead, getting distracted by reading about brains (once aGAIN damnit (it's my favorite "I need to study my field but bc I should do that it's an impossible unthinkable feat now, so I'm reading about something else to fool my brain I'm still being productive"-topic))

[killjoy-toast]

As the #1 one Mary Poppins truther, I legally had no other choice

[marielism]

daniil gives me insaaaane “has a little sister” vibes

[seafoamsol]

Hey, different post than usual, but this is just a PSA for people who may follow or have purchased anything from @/kagebros, or are looking to join any of the zines run by them @/allsparkzines. They have a history (and present) of tracing for profit.

I don’t think this one requires an overlay. It’s a trace of the yolopark bumblebee shockwave model kit promotional image, as a “sketch”.

Which they changed, once people noticed it! Changed most of it. They traced a different promotional image for the gun, which remained largely the same, even in the final piece (right).

Their matching Optimus Prime poster is a trace of the still from a [ Paramount promo video ], 36 seconds in.

There are several other examples that I can’t fit into this post without making it overly long, but if you have purchased or have been gifted anything from them, there is a chance it has been traced.

Regarding tracing as a tool:

Go hogwild! Trace all you want! Tracing is a very useful tool for learning shapes and forms, but like any other tool, it’s only useful if you use it correctly. The ultimate goal of tracing is to understand. It’s training wheels. Just don’t hide and lie about it, because as soon as you do, it becomes plagiarism.

Even within the finished versions of the Shockwave poster, it’s still clear where parts have been traced or copied without understanding. It’s a shame, because transformers as a franchise having so many toys makes it very easy to make references!

Here's an example of how I use them:

Luckily for me, the Cybertron toys and models are more or less exactly the same. I don't own the toys, so I have two images from a [ toy reviewer ] on top. Many angles to help me understand exactly what's happening. Granted, I could just ask my friend who does own the toy for him in the same pose, but tracing over that directly would make it too stiff and it wouldn't mesh with my style.

TL;DR: Kage traces, blindly and without disclosure, for profit.

[erinwantstowrite]

personally i think the trope of "said something i wasn't supposed to while high on pain meds at the hospital" only works if it's smth actually incomprehensible. down with this trope. that and the whole "speaking out loud but the narrator doesn't know they are" trope. you should legally have to tag that i think. i know this usually happens for characters that would never admit something otherwise but actually there are a billion reasons someone would admit something they wouldn't otherwise. for example: someone else has a bomb-

[rox-of-iu]

(i made these back in Dec 2023 but forgot to post them. but i still like them so here they go)

anyway these are character sketches/concepts for a fic As the incense burns, which is basically Misadventures of PIDW late-game Mu Qingfang

((pardon the scrap paper, most of them were just side doodles from next to my notes lol))

some more scraps under cut ↓

these are silly goofy doodles which do not correlate with the overall vibe of the fic (with some exceptions) but i am not making fun of the fic dont worry the author gave me explicit permission to make these :) (lol)

[bluegarners]

soccer mom bruce wayne except its batman driving like crazy all across gotham bc he and dick have plans to do patrol as soon as dick is out of school, but first he has to go talk to gordon about a tip gcpd got last night, and then he has to go check on a recorder he hid in an area known for black mask associates to linger, and then when he picks dick up, they have to go back to the manor bc bruce forgot to bring electrolytes and snacks with him, so alfred is running to the car to hand them off through the window and dick is still adjusting his mask, and that's when bruce realizes dick isn't wearing his knee pads even though he knows they're going to be jumping off a lot of rooftops tonight so they have to take another minute to find dick's knee pads while he chugs a gatorade, and then finally they peel out of the cave and do patrol and bruce sits very heavily on the edge of a building while he watches dick jeer at a couple crooks with his blue stained mouth

[almea]

"Did we miss anything?"

Bonus: When your gay pining was so obnoxious that even Juniper looks excited about you kissing

[piningpercussionist]

As densely packed as I could tolerate making it- Roxie doodles! (Vast majority of these are from several weeks ago I'm not gonna lie,,)

[mstormcloud]

I think applying tropes commonly found in Sonadow fics to other sonic ships is very funny

Like today I saw the cute posts by Blu-ish about how hedgehogs circle and headbutt eachother when courting and how Sonic and Shadow would do that and I agree.

However I think the implication that mobian hedgehogs do this is HILARIOUS when applied to ships that only involve one hedgehog.

Like Silver starts circling around Espio one day and lightly shoving him with his hip or his shoulder and Espio is like: ???? What are you doing??

Or even Blazamy like- Amy keeps circling Blaze and the less Blaze reciprocates Amy does it more to try to get Blaze to react. Blaze eventually just tries to politely tell Amy to stop cause it’s hard to hold conversation while she’s moving all around.

But later Blaze talks to Silver and is like: “I have no idea what she is trying to do…perhaps she is finding a weakness in my stance? Should I fear her hunting me for sport???”

And Silver is like: uh. Well. I think she’s hitting on you? It’s a hedgehog thing.

And Blaze just freaks out because WHAT DO YOU MEAN AMY WAS FLIRTING WITH HER

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Didn't catch anything this time but there were some nice photos with interesting poses taken!

[starrysharks]

i am the cattt just chillin outt but in the night she's all i think aboutttt

[backpackingspace]

Okay but consider post Canon over protective Athena who is sick to death of her most devout being raped.

Athena sticking close to the whole family and promising penelope that she'll keep a close eye on odysseus the first time he has to go into the market and penelope can't go with him. (She was going to go anyway. She's never actually going to let any of them out of her sight ever again. And it's an easy promise to her dearest weaver who seems so distressed to have odysseus leaving her side.)

Athena fully manifesting in the market when someone grabs odysseus with godly flashes of snakes and owls and the drums of war to scream /release him/ (odysseus is feeling indulgent for both his patron and his wife it's so cute that they're this worried it's not like he couldn't defend himself just fine. Especially from whatever poor fuck just grabbed him who definitely doesn't deserve a goddess screaming in his face. Hes trying so hard not to laugh if he did athena would send him flying.)

Athena telling all the other gods that yes she knows odysseus is the favorite barbie doll she choose him well after all and to back the fuck off if any of them bother him again they will have made an enemy of her.

Athena disguising odysseus only as an old beggar from here on out instead of an irresistibly tall and handsome man. Because she saw how uncomfortable nausicaa's attention made him.

[ramadebuzunar]

accidentally conditioned myself into being horny for one of my plushies 😵‍💫