#guys pls it’s so true

[fandomhopping]

[kalofi]

luffy and his brick shithouse boyfriend

[hinamie]

binding vow

[cynicallyneutral]

demon children

[loosethreadsofyoursoul]

i just spent my morning learning the 9-1-1 magnet theory lore and now i can’t see straight

[vinylattes]

Can we get on with this?

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS 5.02 (A Night Out with the Guys)

[vaguely-concerned]

sitting here with my head in my hands over just how much coalecroux is exactly tfgraves except tf incidentally happens to be a warlock alligator (a minor detail that changes surprisingly little overall tbh). I stand humbled once again before my own immense and unspeakable predictability

[ryllen]

Please read this by putting it through google translate image translation feature on phone and cry with me,

or i can summarize it to you

"Why does human help the weak?" [ You just do it automatically, don't u think? ] - Kalim [ I was taught to do so. ] - Deuce [ Helping others is a beautiful thing. ] - Rook [ It's a natural for the strong to help the weak. ] - Riddle

[ It's just human's instinct of wanting to survive together, is it not? ] - Trey Jade finds it weird, because in the sea, no thought will be given to the weak. The strongest will survive. Call it an ego on land if you want, but that is how it has always been in that big pool of deep never ending water.

Jade is a mermaid type who is rather sensitive when turned into human. Walking with legs feel like walking on knives for him. To counter that problem, he always had his transforming potion mixed with a lot amount of pain killers.

One time he started to feel pain on his feet, he refused to be helped as he is fixated of being a strong creature & not wanting to be positioned as something weak. When he finally let trey helped him, he kept asking if there's any compensation he had to pay for having Trey helped him. "It is just pure kindness for underclassman", Trey said. Having it not sitting right on him, Jade told Trey his secret about his human legs' sensitivity problem as a form of payment. "That's too much information for that price." "Such critical thing! I never tell anyone that information as it would endanger my life!" "So.., are you telling me because you trust me?"

"No. I am telling you because I want (to keep receiving) that pure goodwill from you, my senior."

"That's an unnatural & greedy remark from a benevolent Octavinelle's student. Such a bad boy, Jade." Trey touched Jade's face in soft scolding manner & it made the mermaid quietly flustered with feeling he never knew he could felt before. Finding Trey's affection dear to him, at some other time later, he pretended that his feet hurts. And he lied about not bringing any pain killers with him. Trey who was wary about lying Jade, used his magic to overwrite the pain on Jade's feet, so he could walk by himself. But Jade sulked. Because, rly, he just wants to be carried by Trey again. Sensing this, Trey gave in, and carried Jade on his back, pleasing him.

Jade then invited Trey to go to an abandoned castle. He asked him to dance with him.

"I want to look good in front of you. But I'm not good at dancing," Trey said.

"Good." Jade replied with a smile, happy with his awkwardness. "I am not familiar with human's dance either."

They started to dance. And flirted a little. "Your eye is like olive." (Typical TREY) And when they were about to kiss, 3 overblot ghosts broke in.

"'ll take responsibility" Jade said, instantly feeling responsible as he was the one who brought them there. He managed to defeat one of the ghost. But in the middle of battle, the usual pain started to seep in to Jade's feet. For real, this time. His legs gave out.

With 2 overblot ghosts left still, Trey put himself into the middle of the fight. "I don't have enough magic to both overwrite your pain & defeat these overblot ghosts at the same time. So, run away while I try to hold them back."

Jade started to think how unacceptable it is that he is protected by someone who is supposed to be weaker than him. He should have been the one protecting Trey as mermaid is a stronger being, however he is nothing but a hindrance right now. Trey would even win the fight if it was not because of him.

So Jade found a way. He made noise to get the overblot attention's. He directed them to him so he could take them out by letting the chandelier fall over all of them together, including him. He was so ready to be crushed & took all those responsibility with him.

But, of course, Trey can't have that! Trey saved Jade at the last minute. He pushed Jade away, so the chandelier missed him. But in consequence, Trey had his legs broken as they were the ones that got crushed by the chandelier, instead -- together with the remaining overblot ghosts.

Jade who still didn't realize the situation, said "... Oh. That's too unreasonable to suddenly jump in, under the chandelier and come..." "I can't help it."

Jade slowly turned his head.

"It's too easy to want to help the person you love." "...So let me help you out." The horror of the current situation finally creeped to Jade's face.

"T-TREY-SAN! TREY-SAN!!!!!!!"

[ What do i do now?? What do i do??? ]

"Go, return by yourself even without me..."

Jade started to think of all his options. Phone? out of range. Magic? Out of the question, he just realized that his magic gem is now broken. The only mirror to come back to the school was at the foot of the mountain, while the castle they were in was at the very top of it.

[ Carry this person on your back. ] The voice in his head said...

"Carry this person on my back--?" he turned his head, and suddenly imagined the path of 'knives' he had to step on to go back. Not alone even.., but together with this person. ...The additional weight surely would pressed his feet harder to the ground, causing even more pain.

Trembling from the thought of the pain, Jade thought... "This is bad..., I only have one more painkiller...."

He took out that single pain killer in his pocket, and put into his mouth, seemingly ready and prepared to walk, at least; a few steps back without pain. But no, he refused to do so. Trey is wounded. He must experience pain too right now. Lips-to-lips, he gave the wounded Trey the painkiller & let him swallow it.

"I'll help you now..." Jade said, repaying on Trey's deed & now walking back without painkiller, with his dear senior on his back.

His feet hurts. So badly that he started to bit his lips & let them bleed. The sudden thought of wild animals attacking them in this situation, made him shuddered.

Near them, he spotted a good running river.

...

[ I can just abandoned this person... and jump into the river. ...With that I can easily reach the foot of the mountain. ... With that, I can become a strong creature again, not the helpless one like what I am right now. ]

...

For a second Jade lost in thought of abandoning the weak like what the sea always taught him to do. But then, reminiscing how Trey carried him at that crucial time when he needed him to, he said to himself...

"No. That doesn't matter... "

"Because right now ..., I am helping him out of pure love."

And so, he kept enduring, until Idia who wandered at night to get his late night snack from the school's vending machine, found them who successfully came back, fainted at the hallway.

--

Time passed.

--

...

"Jade refuses to walk for awhile now." Floyd said, guiding Trey further inside to the longue. It might be because that event; so traumatic & painful, that Jade just wanted to forget entirely about walking all together. Or maybe it was out of guilt, for him being the reason that Trey had to be confined in the hospital room to recover & not being able to go anywhere. That's why, Jade isolated himself in the glass wall as a way to punish himself & share the same feeling with Trey.

"Sorry for the trouble." Trey replied, pushing his wheelchair with his hands.

"It's okay. It's Jade's own fault." Floyd replied, nonchalantly. Just like he always been. Oddly comforting, at the current situation. "Jade, sea turtle is here~~"

There he is. Jade, swimming in his mermaid form. Their eyes met. Seeing Trey sitting on a wheel chair, his eyes, glistened.

--

"So will your legs heal?" Jade was still in his mermaid form. He perched on surface of the longue's glass wall he was in, to talk to Trey.

"Yes."

"It's not just the bone fractures, right? It's also the ability to walk, right?"

"Of course."

...

Jade was relief. But he was still burdened with other feelings from the incident.

" --- IF I NEVER MET you, after graduating, I would have returned to the sea and keep being a strong creature forever....." "I am so scared and feeling so pathetic......."

...

Trey reminiscing the moment Jade carried him on his back, while enduring the tremendous pain on his feet, said, "You are...? At that time though, you looked like the strongest person in the world to me..." He patted Jade's head, consoling him.

Jade was relieved once again. " ... Trey-san ... " But it seems that this mermaid still has something in his mind...

"...When you risked your life, and let yourself be crushed under the chandelier..., was it all just because of the natural instinct inhabits in your body, OR-"

He didn't finish his question, and yet Trey answered. "It's because, I like you."

...

Jade proceeded to come out of the water, having his tail transformed to legs, once again after a long while. He approached Trey who sat there still with his immobilized legs.

"...I never thought I would ever need my legs again... He gazed Trey in the eyes. "But it is necessary...." "...There are a lot of things I want to do with you, with these legs..."

"...Many..."

And they both shared a kiss, which became the start of everything else.

[mo-ok]

Hey... hey mootie.... wanma draw hant and ziggy being besties if yuo want 😋😋😋 or just hant in general cause you do him so well I lvovw him sm OUGHHHHHH

the doki doki duo 😭😭😭🎤🎤🎤🎤

[fruutes]

She thinks she gets everything she wants bc of her +2 persuasion but the +4 intimidation probably helps..

[samandmaxsecretsanta]

Secret Santa complete! Thank you to all who participated, hope to see y'all soon, but for now! That's all folks :D

[speadrunner]

I hate that college work is preventing me from drawing but I NEED to share my idea of the Beasts (and other Cookies) as pro wrestlers because Burning Spice Cookie as Brock Lesnar is the most fitting and coolest thing and everyone needs to see my vision pls-

[yooniesim]

One day I will un-fuck my game... 💀🙏

[revasserium]

狐と蛍の物語 (the story of the fox and the firefly)

harrison; 4,064 words; fluff and angst a/n: for @violettduchess and @aquagirl1978's summer days, sultry nights event -- prompt "fireflies" (obviously); i'm also gonna say this counts for my 31 days of au prompt -- reincarnation!au; inspired by hotarubi no mori e and catheryn m valente's deathless and honestly, i'm so proud and happy with this one that i'd encourage you to read it even if you have no idea of the fandom/character. u__u i would love, love, love to know what you guys think!

once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there lived a girl who only danced to the firefly’s light and a fox who could tell nothing but lies.

01.

for as long as you can remember, there’s always been the wood. and it has always been behind your house, it’s leaves and branches foreboding in the winter wind, and somehow less so in the simmer of mid-summer afternoons, when the sunlight dappled light across the soft, forest floor. it isn’t a very large wood, but it’s a wood nevertheless, and deserves all the respect and fear afforded to bigger woods in faraway places. woods that warn of teeth and terrors, woods that hide both dreams and monsters.

you’d been wandering the wood from when you were a little girl, and to you, there’s not a single rock you don’t know, a single tree you haven’t tried to climb. and the forest knows you, as forests do the people who frequent them, and it welcomes you with open arms, it cradles you to its chest, whispers stories into your ears, carves itself open to show you it’s secrets —

“you’re late.”

you crinkle your nose at the familiar voice, letting out a huffing breath as you drop your picnic basket in the middle of the small, sun-lit clearing, taking your time with laying out the checked picnic blanket and two cups and saucers for tea, and finally, pulling out a tray of confections, covered by a thin, linen baking towel.

“no, i’m not! you just want me to think i am so i’ll give you more than half of the sweets.”

a boy settles over the picnic blanket, cocking his head at you before you narrow your eyes.

“well? isn’t that true?”

“ahh… i wonder if it is…” he says, but you can hear the grin in his voice, even through the material of his fox-faced mask, which, after a few more seconds of posturing, he pushes up onto his forehead. he shakes out his milk-tea hair and slates you a poison-ivy grin. you know that grin like you know the woods— and you know the woods like you know the backs of your own hands. better, even, you think sometimes.

because for as long as there’s been the woods, and as long as you have wandered it’s depths, the boy with the fox-faced mask has always been there.

“there were fresh strawberries at farmer’s market today,” you say, setting up the tea service as you nudge the opened picnic basket towards the boy with a foot. he peers in with wide, curious eyes before letting out a soft noise of contentment as he reaches in to pull out a slice of freshly baked strawberry cream cake.

“your grandmama makes the best pastries in the world,” he says, and there’s such sincerity in his voice that for a moment, you almost believe him.

but you nod and take the compliment in stride, “she sure does!”

he digs in with gusto even when you tut that the tea hasn’t steeped properly, but you laugh as he smears a large dollop of whipped cream across his cheeks. you point it out to him with a dainty finger, and as always, you fight the urge to reach over and wipe it off for him. instead, you hold yourself still and sigh as he finally gets to it, smudging a bit into his hair in the process.

“clumsy fox,” you giggle, pressing a hand up to your lips.

“picky girl,” he snipes back, but there’s that full, sated grin on his own lips as he leans back, his elbows propped up on the soft grasses of the clearing.

after a moment of pleasant silence during which the leaves sang on their trees and the grasses swayed beneath the breeze, the boy turns towards you.

“so. no dancing today?”

you turn your head towards him before casting your eyes up towards the still bright blue sky.

“you know it’s not time yet.”

the boy heaves a melodramatic sigh, sound much bigger and larger than his 14-year old body should be able to hold.

“ah… right, right — because you can —”

“— only dance by the fireflies’ light — yep!”

the boy regards you with an imperious sort of look before breaking into a fit of bright, open laughter.

“you’re the strangest girl i’ve ever met!”

“just you saying that tells me it’s not true,” you stick out your tongue at him, even as heat washes up into your cheeks.

the boy shrugs, lying back down on the picnic basket, “i don’t always have to lie, y��know.”

and it’s your turn to regard him with the imperious look, and, a the cock of a singular eyebrow, his lips tug into a lopsided grin. his eyes flash, the color of budding spring.

“liar,” you say, but you’re smiling too as you lie back down to watch the clouds pass.

he makes no sound to correct you.

02.

once, you’d asked him what his name is and he simply shook his head and said —

“call me whatever you’d like.”

“but i want to call you by your name.”

“what’s in a name anyway?”

“uhm… nothing’s in it but…” you’d frowned then, your eight year old mind spinning to try and catch up with this strange, strange question and this strange, strange boy.

“see? so why should it matter what my name is? just… call me whatever!”

but you’d only frowned hard enough for him to roll his eyes.

“fine then — uhm — what’s the name of the current prince?”

you’d blinked, “harry.”

“then call me that.”

“but is that your name?”

“well, now it is.”

you hadn’t been convinced but you liked it better than not calling him anything at all.

“harry, then,” you’d said, smiling. and the boy — harry — had smiled too, slipping his fox-faced mask back in place as he led you further into the forest.

03.

“y’know…” harry says, his voice light as the sun dips beneath the horizon line, leaving behind a blaze of reds and pinks. you turn your head, eyes catching on the shape of him, inked out against the dying light.

“you’re the only person i’ve ever met who’s wanted to be cursed.”

you take a long breath and turn your eyes back up to the bleeding sky.

“well. you’re cursed, and you seem just fine to me,” you try to keep your voice strong, resolute and steady. grandmama had always said that if you keep your voice strong, people are more willing to believe your words. you wonder if that’s why harry’s voice is always soft, always lilting, his words slippery as moss-covered stone.

“yeah, but you can’t even touch me,” he says, and for once, his voice is harsh, his words sharp and hard as broken glass.

“that’s okay though — once i get my own curse, i’ll be able to touch you, right?”

harry fights back the urge to turn, to take you by the shoulders and shake you till you push him away. he wants to scream, to howl at the moon like the mother wolves and the hungry cubs that live in the heart of the wood. he wants to run through the woods, crash into things, climb up the trees and shake off all their branching leaves.

but he can’t, and so he doesn’t.

instead, he turns to look at you and look at you and look at you.

he wonders if it’s a strange thing, to like looking at someone so much, to find something new about a face every single time it’s looked upon — the wisps of hair fallen loose to frame your face from the velvet ribbons holding it back, the curve of your button nose, the dip of your cupid’s bow. he wonders if this is a normal thing, the thick weight of it in this chest, the truth of his curse sitting heavy on his tongue.

“yeah… probably,” he says — and the lie is smooth as milk, sweet as just-spun sugar.

“good. then we won’t have long to wait, hm?”

04.

there’s a story, so you’ve been told, of a fox that lives in the woods — and the fox can tell nothing but lies, lest the truth cut open it’s throat. and when it bleeds, because even monsters bleed (oh especially monsters), it will bleed in blue and silver, which everyone knows is the color of magic.

“but why would telling the truth kill it?” you’d asked, your eyes wide and round as the full-bellied moon.

your grandmama had sighed, rocking you in her lap as the forest outside shivers and shakes with the steps and breaths of creatures unseen.

“that’s what curses do, my sweetest… they’re unfair things, they are. and they don’t like to make a lot of sense.”

and that had been that. she’d moved onto a nicer story, a sweeter story, a story that was not so much truth and mostly lies — because the truth, as your grandmama had said, is sharp and unfair and makes so very little sense.

lies are much, much the better for the makings of stories.

05.

he has never complimented you on your dancing, not even once — not in all the years you’ve been dancing for him, by the light of a million and one fireflies.

you’d been eight when you made the promise, it’s been ten years since then.

and at eighteen, you wonder how many more years it’ll be before the moon or the forest or whatever it is that chooses people to curse will take pity on you.

it’s just after sunset, and you’d just finished your customary sunday afternoon picnic. harry is sprawled out on the picnic blanket, his fox-faced mask lying in the soft, long grasses, an arm thrown over his eyes. you wonder if he’s asleep, though you don’t think you’ve ever seen him fall asleep, not in all the time you’ve known him.

“music, please…” you announce to the clearing, and after a long pause, as if the forest itself is coming to life, the wind picks up — the leaves rustle on their branches, the birds sweep up into a twitter wingbeats and song, the grasses around the clearing hish and hush the thrumming baseline to a music that only you and harry and the forest can hear.

slowly, harry pushes himself up, making a show of rubbing his eyes, and in the darkness you can only see the shape of him.

you don’t see the prickle of tears at the edge of his eyes as he wipes them away.

instead, you close your own eyes and wait.

and wait.

and then — at the first flicker of a firefly’s light, you lift your hands and start to dance.

06.

once, you’d asked him how he’d gotten cursed in the first place.

“it’s a long story,” he’d said.

“i’ve got a long time,” you countered.

he’d crinkled his nose, pursing his lips as the pair of you hopped over a narrow stream, him watching as you teetered on the edge of the water.

“hm… well, if you do something a ton of times in the wood… the wood decides that that’s all your good for, and it becomes your curse!”

you’d blinked up at him from over your shoulder, a soft smear of mud on your cheeks.

“oh… it’s that easy?”

“easy?”

“i mean, to get a curse.”

he’d narrowed his eyes, “why would you want a curse?”

you’d straightened up, pressing your palms down your rather sullied dress.

“because — you said that i can’t touch you cause i’m human, right?”

“uh-huh…” harry had nodded, uncertain of where your child-logic had taken you.

“but other cursed things can touch you, right? like the wolves and the shadows and the queen of ravens.”

harry bit his lips. but you seemed to have taken his silence for consent and happily skipped off further into the forest. he’d never corrected you even as he heaved another world-weary sigh and followed after you. because technically, you hadn’t been totally wrong.

and his curse was only that he couldn’t correct you.

07.

your mind wanders as you begin to dance, and these days, it’s been doing a lot of that — wandering. so your grandmama says that it’s a part of growing up — learning when to let your mind wander and when to reign it back in, hold it on a tighter leash and tell it to wander no more. it’s a blessing to be able to let your mind wander, and so you do.

it’s just that these days, you can’t help but notice that it’s less of wandering and more of… well, a straight-shot descent to a well-known destination. and you know from a whole childhood of actual wandering that if you know the way and you know what you’ll find at the end, then it’s not wandering at all.

it’s just going.

but still, you let your mind go where it wants, and lately, it’s been going and going and going... to harry.

harry and his soul-soft laughter, harry and his knife-edge smiles, harry and his loose, lethargic movements, unhurried and always so certain. back when you were both still children, he’d led you through the forest with nothing but his voice, spouting out random facts that were much too outlandish to be true, and later, when you were both a bit older (and you’d long since memorized every bit of forest there was to memorize), he’d walk alongside you in companionable silence.

you knew his favorite trees, his favorite flowers, his favorite birds and colors, his favorite season, his favorite sweet, his favorite fruit and so many others.

and still, it feels as if you don’t know him at all, even though you’re certain he knows everything there is to know about you.

except…

you spin out on the long grasses, the light of a million and one fireflies dancing across your skin, dancing with you, singing with you as the forest does. and above you, a crescent moon cuts a sinister smile into a lonely, starless night.

years later, you’d wonder if the night had known — if the wood had known (of course, of course it had known, because there are no secrets the woods do not know, no secrets the waning moon doesn’t keep from the sleeping earth), if the entire world had conspired against you and for you that night.

when you finish dancing and the last of the fireflies flicker down to rest on the long, soft grasses, you’re breathless with exertion, luminous with exaltation and drunk on the song of the forest and a million and one lightless stars.

in the middle of the clearing, harry is smiling, you can see it even from here, and for the first time since you’d danced for him the very first time, he brings his hands together and claps.

“that was… beautiful,” he says, and his voice is deeper now, supple and sweet with the night air.

“th-thanks! phew — i really think that might do it,” you say, plopping down on the picnic blanket next to him, spreading wide your arms and staring up at the velveteen sky above you.

08.

once, you’d been told another story, though you don’t quite recall who you’d heard it from. maybe your grandmama, and maybe the old man who sits in the village square after all the longest days of the year, smoking his pipe and telling his stories.

“do you know why the cursed forest creatures can’t touch humans?”

“why?” a village boy had asked before you had the chance to.

“because… if a cursed creature touches human flesh, the cursed creature will die.”

“oh…” you said, clutching your hands to your chest, and you’d never really thought about dying. because really, what ten year old in their right mind would? but you knew of the concept from when grandmama talked about grandpapa — how he was there one day and then the next day he just… wasn’t.

“he died in his sleep,” she’d said, a tone of sadness in her voice that you’d never heard there before and wished you’d never have to hear again, “it was the best way to go.”

you’d wondered then if there’s really such thing as a “best” way to go. wouldn't the “best” thing to be not going at all?

“then… do the cursed creatures get to live forever?” you asked, before the village boy could cut in.

the old man took a long sip from his pipe and blew out a few concentric rings of smokes before coughing and waving it all away.

“no… you see, if the cursed creatures get to pass on their curses, they’d get to be reincarnated into being a human once more.”

09.

“do you… really want to be cursed?” harry asks as the pair of you share in the silence after your dance.

you suck in a long breath before pushing yourself up to sit in front of him, careful to keep your knees from bumping his.

“of course i do! it’s… it’s what i’ve been trying to do since i was like — eight!”

“but… why?” and harry’s voice is small, smaller than you’ve ever heard it, even though now, his eighteen year old body should carry a much heavier, harder sound.

“because,” you say, resolute as you’d always been, “once i’m cursed, i’ll be able to touch you.”

“and why… is that so important to you?”

harry casts his eyes towards you; you catch his gaze with yours, holding it steady. and in that moment, you mind lets go of the story that the old man told you. because it was a long time ago, and the story was so, so far away. and sometimes, the mind chooses which truths it wants to listen to, which truths it wants to believe in.

sometimes, it chooses truths that don’t look like truths from the outside in, but from the inside out — they’re the truest things to ever be true.

like this one —

“because i want to touch you. because… it’s what i’ve wanted since i was a little girl. because… sometimes, i think i want to do more than touch you — sometimes —” your voice catches on a hitched breath, lost somewhere in your chest, somewhere between your heart and your throat.

but then, darkness descends over your vision and it takes you a long moment to realize that you’re staring at the inside of a mask, thin but solid — the fox-faced mask that harry always wears.

and then pressure, and warmth, right where the fox’s dagger-carved grin usually is, so close to your own lips you can feel the heat.

it holds for a long, long moment, and then it’s gone.

the light returns as harry tugs the mask from you, grinning that teasing, lopsided grin of his, though there’s something about it tonight that makes your heart seize.

“tell me, one more time…” he says, and his voice is jagged with something that sounds painful and true and so, so terrible.

“i — i want the curse…” you say, before you really realize what you’re saying, and it takes you a moment to realize that this too, is the truth.

“okay then… it’s yours.”

and he leans in to press his lips to yours.

the truth, harry realizes, is always bitter, and harsh, and much too sharp. when he pulls back, he presses his palms to yours and lets the moon wash the clearing in blue and silver. you gasp as you feel the magic creeping into your bones, tugging you under, dragging you through the cracks in the world even as harry is tugged away from you back to the world of the living.

“w-was this all a lie?” you ask, because inside you, your heart is fighting for it’s last few beats.

“no,” harry says, his voice is pained, and his expression even more so, because every truth he tells cuts him a little deeper, and he feels his throat constrict over the words, “your dance really was beautiful… and…”

he swallows hard, feeling the knife-edge of this one final truth slicing through him, sharp as moonlight, sweet as the lightless stars.

“i love you. please… don’t forget me.”

and already, you can feel the truth starting to hurt, starting to constrict inside you like a curse. but still, you force it from you as harry flickers and fades along with the light of a million and one firefly lights.

“i — i won’t.”

10.

“but how exactly do you transfer a curse?” the village boy asked, his voice loud and jarring.

the old man takes another long sip of his pipe, puffs out a few more smoke rings.

“through a kiss,” he said.

you blinked. a kiss?

“ew!” the village boy recoiled then, shrinking back from the thought of kissing — because that’s what children are taught to do at such grown-up concepts as kissing.

you, on the other hand, you stayed right where you are, but a frown has creased your tiny, child-like brow.

“and the trick,” the old man continues, his smile going wide and a little lascivious, “is getting someone who will take their curse willingly… to accept the kiss.”

01.

for as long as harry can remember, there has always been the wood. and in the wood, there’s always been a girl with a fox-painted mask who danced to the light of the fireflies.

once, when he’d gone exploring (even though his grandpapa had warned him time and time again about going into the wood by himself), he’d nearly run into her and she’d cocked her head when he’d fallen face-first near the bank of a tiny stream, smearing mud across his cheeks.

“you’re strange little boy,” the girl said — and she could be no more than his age, harry thinks.

“and you’re a weird little girl,” he counters, his eyes catching on the bright red of the fox’s painted mouth.

there is magic at work here, harry knows, though he doesn’t know what kind, and all he really wants is to explore the woods behind his house, to know all there is to know of the world, and perhaps — he thinks as you turn and make your way deeper into the forest — to one day hold the hand of the girl with the fox-faced mask.

but that’s a wish for another day, he decides as he follows after you, jogging to catch up and ask for your name.

“ah… what’s in name,” you say, you voice light and languid, even as he frowns, “you can call me whatever you like.”

02.

once, harry had asked his grandpapa what the truest feeling in the whole wide world is.

and his grandpapa had answered —

“that, harry, would be falling in love…”

“falling in love?”

“yes, my dear boy — and the thing about love is that it’s like a curse… but it’s also like a blessing.”

“but… how can a thing be a curse and a blessing?”

then, his grandpapa had smiled, a smile that is starlight and wolfsong and all the secrets the forest ever has to tell.

“because we are doomed to always, always fall in love, my boy — and it will always, always be like handing someone and knife and asking them to cut open your throat.”

[orcelito]

with some ppl following me here bc of my analysis posts, i figured i'd do a lil pinned post for my fics so you guys know what all this analysis is even for in the First place, SO!

my current main focus:

In the Next Life

a trimax vashwood time travel longfic where late trimax vash (aka as late as chapter 94) travels back in time to try to fix things. he's determined to change things, hopes to have a happy ending in this time, but still can't let go of his grief for what he lost in the time before (cough Wolfwood cough). currently a WIP, this is gonna be a Long One, so if ur into longfic this could be for u. just mind the spoilers lol

& i guess i can mention my other Trigun fic that ppl seem to like:

Sentido

it's complete! started as just a drabble piece to give myself practice with writing these characters. it's a 5 chapter character study for Vash, exploring the ways his inhumanity manifests in each of his senses. it is also very much an autism metaphor done by Yours Truly (someone who clearly has the 'tism) bc i just think autistic Vash is very good. set in tristamp events bc i wrote this before i finished trimax, but has a lot of trimax influence (especially in the last chapter). i'd say it's a tristamp/trimax fusion.

Also!

I have a vashwood discord server, good for chatting about vashwood or even just trigun in general. It's 18+ so please don't join if you're a minor, & there's also a no plantcest rule (bc we wanted a place where we wouldn't have to see it lol). If that sounds good to you, then feel free to dm me for an invite link!

[kylianwifey]

AWWW MY BOY MADE HIS DREAM COME TRUE