#i need to start properly tagging my stuff . too late to do that now

[aquaredhomestuckau]

panel edits based on an idea ive had cooped up in my head

[anystalker707]

i need you [1/2]

Pairing: Crocodile x [gender-neutral] Reader Summary: It's been a while since Crocodile last saw his partner, and they don't seem to be very happy. Tags: light angst / comfort / he's very sweet ok

oneshot for @gojo-mochi 's dilfcember event

MASTERLIST

PART TWO [AMAB READER VERSION]

PART TWO [AFAB READER VERSION]

          “There you are,” Crocodile exhaled, raising his eyebrows lightly without trying to hide his expression of tiredness. He’d been telling you to come to greet him properly ever since he got back home, eyes narrowing at your form by a doorway when he decided he was a little too tired to chase you around and waste energy in the way; he knew it from experience. He took a long drag from the cigar, letting the smoke burn his lungs before he slowly blew it out through his mouth—the room had wide windows, thankfully, quickly dispersing the smoke. It was a price to pay to be around him.

Despite the warmth in Crocodile’s eyes, you still stood there quietly for a moment with a discomfort twisting in your chest while something heaved under your eyes. It’d been quite a while since you’d seen him properly, counting the times he only showed up for a few minutes a day or late at night to leave early in the morning. He sat behind that massive desk with piles of paper stacked on it, which was a familiar sight you’d missed.

“Come on.” He patted his thigh, eyebrows furrowing a little as he nodded in encouragement, and maybe you’d ignored things for long enough now. He straightened his posture on the wide armchair once you sat on his thigh, humming in appreciation.

“That’s my good one.” His hand ran up and down your back a couple of times before it settled down around your waist.

There were a few wanted papers and documents with the Marine stamp before him on his desk, and Crocodile didn’t bother to close the folder because he didn’t have anything to hide from you. Either way, you weren’t interested in it either, running your eyes over the desk while he talked. He had just come back, and the desk was already full of stuff that demanded attention, which was supposed to be yours.

“Now, now,” Crocodile exhaled and reached over to the ashtray. The bright red sparkles of the cigar’s tip extinguished against the bottom of the ashtray, turning gray like the remaining in there and serving as a base for the now discarded cigar. “What’s gotten my doll feeling all blue?”

Rough fingertips pressed to your jaw in a light touch and turned your face toward him, allowing Crocodile to study your expression through half-lidded eyes; worry mixed with intrigue lingering in his gaze. His thumb ran across your cheek a couple of times, index finger under your chin to tilt your head up. Despite all of that, your eyes still focused on the painting that hung on the wall behind his chair.

“What can I do for you, hm?” Crocodile’s deep voice had a caring tone in it that always made you melt a little bit, even more so with those loving touches. It was quiet in the room—his office was wide but crumpled, with lavish carpets and curtains, while his regarded book collection also took great space, neatly organized on the shelves along with some items and photographs.

Your eyes finally met Crocodile’s, and despite the way your heart fluttered, the discomfort twisted inside your chest again, so your eyes immediately fell to the table once more. Something heaved inside you, compelling you to curl up in Crocodile’s lap.

A few theories of what bothered you swirled in Crocodile’s head, but he wasn’t sure what to believe, so he opted not to conclude anything for now. With a soft sigh, he opted to go for what he usually did, to comfort you. His fingers gently played with your hair before he started massaging your scalp gently, eventually rubbing the back of your neck soothingly. He was about to say something, but the words died in his throat the moment you started relaxing in his arms. 

That’s it, Crocodile mentally said, wrapping an arm around your waist to hug you closer to him while he rubbed circles into your back, letting your head rest against his chest. He did it for what felt like hours, and nothing ever felt like too much if it meant it was for you. All it brought was the relief to see you melt into his arms and slowly let go of whatever bothered you.

“My love,” he whispered, cupping your face to hold your head closer to his chest as he pressed a kiss to the top of it, and what he received in response pleased him. Your hands gently gripped his pullover vest while you nuzzled into his chest.

Crocodile let the silence sink in for a moment, shoulders relaxing as he felt you comfortable in his arms until the soft sound of sniffling cut through the peaceful atmosphere. His lips pressed together in a frown as he caressed your hair a little longer before pulling away just enough to take a look at your face.

“My love, what’s wrong?” The back of Crocodile’s fingers ran along your cheeks to catch your tears, but they were soon dismissed when you pressed your face to his chest instead, wetting the soft yarn of his top with your tears, but he couldn’t even bring himself into worrying about that. “Dearest,” he exhaled softly, voice laced with frustration as his hand tightened around your waist as if to anchor you to him because it was everything he could do, silent with his thoughts as he offered you what he could for now.

Crocodile’s eyes fixed on the papers on the desk without really paying attention to them, just choosing them as a spot to rest his eyes on while he tried to sort out his thoughts, which wasn’t easy. All the stress from the past weeks clouded his thoughts in a way only you could help him go back to a peaceful state of mind, but for now, he fought through the sharp headache that attacked his temples to focus on you. You were more important, after all. What would be of him without you?

Something brought Crocodile back to reality, but your cries were too incoherent to be comprehensible. He blinked a couple of times and looked down at you, relaxing his brow and his jaw. “Yes, my love? Can you repeat that for me?”

“...you, hm? Where were you?” You sniffled a little bit, gulping. “Did you get tired of me? Did I do something wrong? Why would you—” Cut off by a sob, you just gave up on talking and let out a groan of frustration instead.

Now, it started making more sense. A soft breath escaped Crocodile’s nose as the realization slowly set in, and he brought a hand up to his face, sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose and then ran his fingers along his eyebrows before his hand lowered to your cheek to tilt your head up. The sight of your teary eyes made his heart ache and guilt heave over his shoulders.

“Oh, dearest,” he breathed, shaking his head lightly. “I’m deeply sorry, you know how things can run out of control, and you also know that my love for you is never-ending. I would never think about leaving.” He adjusted you on his lap to kiss your forehead while wiping your tears away once more. “I long for you, but I also can’t involve you in problems either. I rather solve them first and then come back to m—”

“So what?” You sniffled, looking at him in the eyes. “So I have to suffer because you’re away? Sit and wait and…” You kept ranting, and Crocodile knew you didn’t mean it, he knew what spilled from your mouth resulted from the desperation of going so many days without him, from the hurt of the way your feelings and thoughts twisted during his absence, and he wished he’d been there before to comfort you before this mess had been created.

“I’m sorry, dearest,” Crocodile said softly, and he would try to talk and argue if you weren’t so caught up in emotions, so he just kissed your tears away, holding you close until the crying babbling turned into soft sobs, and you relaxed in his arms again.

There wasn’t a lot Crocodile could decipher in your muttering, but he could make out the whiny ‘I need you’ whispered next to his ear when your arms wrapped tightly around his neck. You clung to him tightly, making his emotions waver in ways he wished they wouldn’t, but he accepted the vulnerability you caused him. Loving someone had a price, and he wasn’t afraid of paying it if it meant having you.

“I’m here,” Crocodile whispered as he gently ran his hand up and down your back until your back wasn’t shuddering with sobs anymore. “That’s it, dearest,” he whispered as his fingers massaged the back of your neck. “I’m here for you now, and I won’t be leaving soon.”

“I don’t want you to ever leave,” your weak whimpers were muffled against his shoulder, and Crocodile sighed.

“We can talk about it later,” he breathed, knowing it was better to discuss it when both of you had your emotions in order rather than make empty promises for a momentary peace. “Come on,” he said as he shifted a little to hold you in his arms properly so that he could stand up, breath hitching a little as he kept you against his chest on his way out of the office. His paperwork wasn’t as important as you were. “Let’s relax for now, how about that? Have you eaten anything today?”

Your arms were still loosely wrapped around Crocodile’s neck, one of them looser so that you could bury your face into the crook of it, inhaling his scent to calm yourself down. Hesitantly, you shook your head, taking in a deep breath to brace yourself for the inevitable disappointment that would come from him. Your stomach churned again just at the thought of food, but maybe things would be fine now.

There, however, was no disappointment in Crocodile’s hum as he changed his route to the kitchen. “Then we must eat first. We can also take a shower, then go to sleep. How about that, hm? Will that help my sweetheart?”

Your heart fluttered at his words, and you nodded with a weak hum, sighing as you closed your eyes and let the tension go of your muscles.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

PART TWO [AMAB READER VERSION]

PART TWO [AFAB READER VERSION]

[witchajfics]

The Witching Hour: A Teen Wolf Rewrite

Hi! My name is AJ and I am an aspiring writer. This is my first ever work on this site, and one of my first ever written pieces, so please be kind! I always want to improve my writing and story so suggestions will be considered! :) I also don't know how to tag this properly, so if any are incorrect or if I should add more, let me know!! I will try to keep updates consistent, but I am a senior in high school, so please be patient! This work is just for fun and is just a silly little project I'm doing for my enjoyment, so if you don't like it, don't read it! I'm going to be dividing each episode into 2-3 parts, and I will be ATTEMPTING to go through the entire series and the movie. There will be multiple love interests that feature different tropes, etc. NOT BETA READ OR PERFECT BY ANY MEANS!!

I do not own Teen Wolf or any Teen Wolf properties, this is merely for fun, all characters from Teen Wolf belong to like Jeff Davis or the creators of the show thx bye

This work will be mostly canon-compliant and include many scenes from the show. However, some scenes will be cut, due to their lack of relevance to Anni. Direct quotes from the show will be used as this is a rewrite. Some stuff is also from the official transcript. Some time differences will change for the sake of the protagonist. For the sake of storytelling, Beacon Hills High is 8th-12th grade. Also, Lydia's involvement with the story and the characters (namely Stiles) will be altered to allow Anni to be involved. Don't worry she's still in! She will just be a minor/recurring character instead of a main one. My face claim for Anni is Samantha Logan (once she gets older), except she has green eyes. Now, without further ado, my Teen Wolf Rewrite!

Posted on AO3 Here

Wattpad

Season 1 Episode 1 (Part 1): Wolf Moon

Anni was going to scream. The short-tempered girl was currently trying to get her much needed beauty rest, but all she could hear was her brother’s stupid loud ass rock music. God, could these walls be any thinner? Anni thought, rubbing her eyes and shoving her face into her pillow. The song suddenly dissolved into a drum solo and Anni threw the pillow across her room in frustration, groaning loudly. Just as she was about to grace her darling brother with her fuming presence, the music stopped. Anni waits for a tick, standing next to her door frame, prepared for it to start again. Two minutes pass, and no sound is heard from Scott’s room. She lets out a relieved sigh and jumps headfirst back into her bed. Tucking herself under the blanket, she snuggles into her pillow, her eyes falling shut as she falls into unconsciousness…and then she hears the screams of two idiot teenage boys.

“God fucking dammit, Scott!” She screams, once again, tossing her poor pillow across the room. Stomping out of her room and down the stairs, she walks out onto her porch and sees her brother dearest and his partner in crime.

“Can you be a little mindful of others, for once, Scott? Maybe don’t blast your shitty ass rock music at 11 PM for ALL OTHER MEMBERS OF THIS HOUSEHOLD TO HEAR ?! Especially those whose room is right next to yours, and have extremely thin walls!” Anni growls in frustration, and then turns on Stiles who is still hanging upside down from the trellis, “And you…! This is not your house, Stiles. Why are you here?”

Scott opens his mouth to bite back at his little sister and defend his questionable music taste, but Stiles beats him to it.

“Look, I know it’s late, but you gotta hear this. I saw my dad leave twenty minutes ago. Dispatch called-they’re bringing in every officer from the Beacon Department, and even state police.”

Scott frowns, “For what?”

Stiles, looking way too excited for what he’s about to announce, reaches up to pull himself free of the trellis, landing on his feet in front of the McCall siblings.

“Two joggers found a body in the woods,” Stiles states, barely containing his glee.

Anni’s eyes widened in surprise, her mouth falling open slightly. Nothing ever happens in Beacon Hills. The last “major” crime that happened was some gas station getting robbed of 37 bags of flamin’ hot Cheetos two years ago. Scott continued to look confused.

“Wait, seriously?” Anni said as Scott asked, “What, a dead body?”

Anni rolled her eyes at her older brother’s stupidity, as Stiles reached up and leaned on the railing to look at Scott at eye level with a sarcastic expression.

“No, a body of water, Scott. Yes, dumbass, a dead body!” Stiles exclaimed as Scott looked a bit unnerved about this news while Stiles climbs over the railing to get onto the porch.

“Thank God I’m adopted,” Anni mumbles, as Scott shoots her a glare, and Stiles snorts.

Scott turns back to Stiles, his grip tightening on the baseball bat in his hand.

“You mean, like, murdered?” Scott said as Anni leaned against the porch railing next to him.

“Nobody knows yet. Just that it was a girl, probably in her twenties.”

“Hold on,” Anni began, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow, “If they found the body, then what are they looking for?”

Scott nods in agreement with his sister and looks back at Stiles who breaks into a grin.

“That’s the best part-they only found half.”

Anni pushes herself off the rail of the porch, standing up straight, her mind racing. No way she’ll be going to sleep now.

Scott still looks hesitant, but Stiles says, “We’re going,” in a tone that makes it clear that Scott doesn’t have a say in what happens next.

The two boys rush off the porch, heading in the direction of Stiles’ Jeep, about to climb into the car. Anni rushes after them, grabbing Scott’s arm.

“Wait! I’ll come too,” she says, trying to match the tone of finality Stiles had used with Scott before, to convince them to let her go.

“No,” both boys said immediately, without even a second thought or a glance at Anni.

Anni scoffs, grabbing onto the open window on the passenger side of the Jeep.

“Why not?! I wanna see the dead body too, ya know! You guys never let me come!” she huffs, examining how big the passenger window was and if she was fast enough to crawl into it without Scott throwing her out.

“It’s way too dangerous,” Stiles said, starting up the car, “And besides, you’re a little too young for this kind of action. You’re only 14.” Scott nods in agreement, attempting to pry Anni’s fingers off the open window.

“You guys are only two years older than me! And what kind of protection do you guys have that I don’t?! If there’s a murderer out there, you guys will get just as murdered as me!”

“Nuh-uh,” said Stiles, in a very mature way.

“Yuh-huh,” responded Anni, equally as mature.

The two went back and forth for a while, until Scott said, “Okay, that’s enough! Anni, you’re not coming! I’m not letting you go out into the woods in the middle of the night to hunt for a corpse. Pretty sure I would win Worst Big Brother of the Year if I did that.”

Anni huffed, clenching her hands into fists.

“Fine! If you won’t let me come then I’ll…I’ll tell Mom!”

Scott narrowed his eyes at Anni, looking her up and down.

“You wouldn’t.”

Anni attempts to hold his glare but loses the battle after a moment.

“Okay, fine, yeah, I won’t, but you guys suck!” Anni sighs, cursing herself for not being snitch.

Scott grins at Anni, patting her on the head, which she swats away.

“We’ll be back later tonight, or tomorrow morning. Go sleep!”

Anni shoots a withering glare at her brother and Stiles and says, “I hope you guys get lost in the woods and die.”

“Aw, America’s sweetheart, aren't you?” Stiles says sarcastically, pulling out of the driveway, as Scott laughs.

Anni flips him off, and stomps inside, closing the door behind her. She watches as the Jeep peels out of the driveway and drives down the street, making a left at the end of the road.

She sighs, bringing her hand up to run through her curls, and begins to walk up the stairs to her room. She enters, shuts the door, and then collapses on her bed. She stares at the ceiling for a moment, before rolling onto her side and facing the wall. Anni shuts her eyes, trying to fall asleep. Just as she is about to lose consciousness, her eyes fly open and begin to glow bright emerald green. Flashing images fill her vision. Stiles’ Jeep, Sheriff Stiliniski, Scott lying on the forest ground, flashlights, and what looks like a wolf, but…almost humanoid? Suddenly, the visions stop. Her eyes return to their normal shade of sage green, and Anni immediately reaches up to rub her eyes. What the actual fuck. Anni glances around her room for a few moments and then looks at the clock on her nightstand. Midnight it reads. I must be more sleep-deprived than I thought, Anni thinks. She lays back down, shutting her eyes. Alright, maybe 3rd time’s the charm. She takes a deep breath and lets the land of dreams take her for the night.

..

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep-!

Anni groans and swings her arm in the general direction of her bedside table until she hits the snooze button on her alarm clock. Without opening her eyes, she stretches and groans even louder. She sucks in a deep breath and sits up on her bed. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes sliding out of bed, and stumbles her way to the bathroom. Turning on the light, she faces the mirror, observing her morning reflection. Her curls were flying every which way, her under-eyes darkened with eye-bags, and sniff may need a shower. Anni glances at the clock on the wall, checking how much time she has before she needs to dash out the door. It reads 6:40. 20 minutes, Anni thought, okay, I can take a quick shower.

Anni quickly undresses, grabs her loofah, and all her hair products, and hops in the shower. She finishes quickly, drying off, and plugs in her diffuser. She teases her curls, letting them stay down, rather than do any intricate hairstyle. She squeezes the last of her toothpaste on her toothbrush, making a mental note to tell Scott to get more, and begins to brush. She peeks at the clock, the time being 6:55. She spits, puts her toothbrush back, and runs downstairs.

Anni rushes to the kitchen, looking for something to eat quickly. She opens the fridge and finds nothing, going to close the door until she sees something metal on the fridge door. She picks it up and sees that it’s Scott’s house keys. Rolling her eyes, she puts them in her pocket, opens the cabinet to grab a pop tart and scarf it down.

“SCOOOOOOTTT!” Anni yells, her mouth full of pop-tart, “LET’S GO WE’RE GONNA BE LATE!”

As Anni tugs her Docs on, Scott comes rushing down the stairs, tugging his shirt over his head. He grabs his bag and looks around wildly for his keys.

Anni turns, “Looking for your keys? I got them, let’s go,” and turns to open and walk out the door.

“I told you to stop touching my shit, Anni!” Scott grumbles, following after her and shutting the door behind him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted your keys cool, sire,” Anni says sarcastically, tossing the keys to Scott, who catches them at the last second.

“What are you talking about?” Scott asks, as the two walk to the side of the house to grab their bikes.

“You left your keys in the fridge from…whenever you came back,” Anni said, squinting at her brother suspiciously.

Scott blinked, “I did…? I didn’t even… never mind. Thanks, I guess.” He grabbed his bike handles, and began walking it to the pavement.

Anni furrowed her brows and grabbed her bike and did the same. As Scott was about to start pedaling, Anni put a hand on his arm to stop him.

“Okay, what’s your problem? What happened last night? Why are you so out of it?” she asked, stepping in front of his bike.

Scott shook his head, “Nothing. Nothing happened. I just got lost, that’s all.”

“‘I just got lost’? As in you were alone? Stiles left you?” Anni frowned, trying to meet Scott’s shifty eyes. “Hey, look at me! Tell me the truth. What the fuck is going on with you?!”

Scott swallowed and lifted his shirt, showing the white bandage covering the bite mark he received the previous night. “Stiles didn’t mean to leave me,” he said, “He got caught by his Dad and didn’t rat me out, so I just started to head home. But, I got lost, and then these deer ran out, and I fell, and something bit me, and…I don’t know. I’m just tired. And I feel weird.”

Anni’s face twisted in concern as she peered down at the bite mark, experimentally poking it. Scott hissed and slapped her hand away. “Sorry,” Anni said sheepishly, “Maybe you should get it checked out. What if you, like, got rabies or some shit?”

“Rabies?” Scott questioned, “I would be foaming at the mouth by now.”

“Well, I don’t know, man! I’m not a doctor! Maybe ask Deaton about it or something.”

“Deaton? My boss Deaton? He’s a vet, Anni. I’m not a dog!”

Anni smirked, “Could’ve fooled me. You sure do act like one. And smell like one too,” she said, playfully holding her nose, “Ugh! Take a shower or something, dude!”

Scott rolled his eyes, and shoved Anni to the side, beginning to pedal down the road. “Thanks for the two seconds of genuine concern,” he said sarcastically, “It was almost touching.”

Anni hopped on her bike and began following him as they started down towards their school.

“Hey! I’m still pissed at you, you know! I hate when you leave me out when you go off to do cool things! I like dead bodies too!” Anni huffs, glaring at her brother biking next to her.

“Oh, great, Stiles has finally rubbed off on you. Glad you like corpses, NiNi,” he grumbles, “And, oh, I’m sorry, did you want to get bitten by some freak animal in the woods? My bad, next time I’ll make sure you get that opportunity,” Scott says dryly.

The two continue bickering as they enter the school parking lot and leave their bikes at the bike rack. Scott takes his helmet off, and is about to argue back to Anni, when he’s hit with a car door from behind, stumbling forward slightly. He looks behind him, frowning, to see Jackson Whittemore in all his asshole glory. Anni peeks out from behind Scott to see who it is and rolls her eyes once she takes in the silver Porsche. She takes her helmet off, and rests it on her handlebars, stepping onto the sidewalk. Jackson steps out of his car, eyeing Scott, and slams his car door shut.

“Dude! Watch the paint job,” he says, shoulder-checking Scott, who sports an expression of bewilderment. Jackson looks to the right, and spots Anni. He looks her up and down and smirks, licking his lips. “Hey mini McCall,” he says, sauntering over to her, “How was your summer?” He grins and throws an arm around her shoulders.

Anni’s face morphs into disgust and pushes Jackson’s arm off of her. Scott steps forward, moving to defend his sister, but Anni puts her hand up to stop him, wanting to deal with it herself.

“It was much better before you got here,” Anni said dryly, shoulder-checking Jackson as she walked closer to the school entrance. Jackson quickly followed, glaring at Scott as he passed him, stepping in front of Anni, and forcing her to stop.

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be like that, babe,” he drawled, “You know I was just joking around with Scotty over there. A little friendly fire between teammates. Nothing to worry your pretty, little head about.” He smirked and patted her head. “C’mon, you doing anything after school today? I’ll take you for a ride, and then maybe…you could ride something else, huh?” he grinned.

Anni fixed Jackson with a glare that could kill God, while Scott looked straight-up murderous. “You’re disgusting,” Anni hissed, batting his hands away from her, “You’re an asshole and I’m not interested. Oh, wait, sorry. Do I need to dumb that down for you? I’ll spell it out for you,” she smirked, “N-O-T I-N-T-E-R-E-S-”

Cutting her off, Jackson huffed, “Fine. Be a bitch, what do I care? You just lost your chance.” He goes to say something else, but he’s called by one of his friends and stalks off.

Anni faces Scott again, and shivers in disgust. “God, I hate that guy!” she says, “I’ve never met someone as entitled as he is. It’s a talent.”

Scott nods in agreement, slinging his arm around his sister’s shoulders and walking them both toward Stiles. “You okay, though? Glad you handled it yourself, but I could’ve stepped in.”

“Yeah, I’m good. I just wanna move on at this point,” Anni says as the siblings approach Stiles, who is standing under a tree waiting for them. Scott nods, and Stiles walks his way over to them.

“Okay, let’s see this thing,” Stiles says, as Scott pulls up his shirt to show Stiles the bite mark which is covered in gauze and tape that has a small amount of blood leaking through. “Ooh,” he says, making a face, as he pokes the bandage.

“Woah!” Scott exclaims, flinching at his touch, “What is it with you two poking my wounds?”

“Wait,” Anni said, narrowing her gaze at the boys, “You told Stiles about what happened and not me? You just lent this information out to him, and I had to practically drag it out of you this morning!” Anni snaps, crossing her arms over her chest.

The two boys look at each other sheepishly, feeling slightly bad. Scott rubs his hand over his neck and says, “Well…I told him last night. And…you were asleep. So…”

Anni rolled her eyes at his shitty excuses and deep breathed. “Whatever, let’s just drop it. But, going forward, you need to tell me shit like this okay? Mom would kill me if I knew that you snuck out and you ended up with rabies.”

“Okay, for the last time, I don’t have rabies! And if I did happen to have it, I’d be thrilled to learn that your only concern would be getting grounded,” he snapped back, “Anyway, it was too dark to see much, but I’m pretty sure it was a wolf.”

Anni raised her brows, recalling the strange incident that happened the other night. The wolf…Scott alone in the forest…him falling…could it be…real? No. No, it can’t be. That’s impossible. It was probably her worry about her brother infecting her dreams or something…but she wasn’t exactly asleep then, was she? A scoff interrupted her thought, as she snapped her head up to Stiles who was looking at Scott in disbelief.

“A wolf bit you?” Stiles said incredulously.

“Uh-huh,” Scott said, raising an eyebrow at his friend’s strange reaction.

Stiles shakes his head and gives him a look that says he thinks Scott is being dense. Scott knows this look well, as he receives it frequently from both Stiles and his sister.

“No, not a chance,” Stiles said matter-of-factly.

“I heard a wolf howling,” Scott said confused.

“No, you didn’t,” Stiles scoffed, shaking his head. The trio started walking closer to the school entrance, as the bell was going to ring soon.

“What do you mean, ‘No, I didn’t?’ How do you know what I heard?” Scott said, frustrated.

“Because California doesn’t have wolves, okay? Not in, like, sixty years.”

The trio stop on the staircase as Scott and Stiles begin bickering again and Anni thinks about this new information. I guess if there are no wolves then…there’s no way what I saw could be true, right? I was probably just really, really sleep-deprived. Anni blinks out of her thoughts and focuses on the two boys in front of her.

“Well, if you don’t believe me about the wolf, then you’re definitely not gonna believe me about when I tell you I found the body,” Scott said, grinning at his best friend and sister.

Both Anni and Stiles jolt at this, whipping to face each other and exchanging a look in excitement. They both grab onto Scott’s arms, shaking him energetically.

“You-are you kidding me?” Stiles asked enthusiastically.

“No, man, I wish. I’m gonna have nightmares for a month.”

“Oh, god, that is freakin’ awesome! I mean, this is seriously gonna be the best thing that’s happened to this town since-” Stiles cuts himself off, as the Queen Bee Lydia Martin walks towards the trio. “-Since the birth of Lydia Martin. Hey, Lydia! You look-” Stiles once again cuts himself off as Lydia walks right past Stiles, completely oblivious to the fact that he is talking to her. “-Like you’re gonna ignore me…”

Anni and Scott attempt to hold in their laughter as their friend shoots and completely misses. “Someone should tell that girl that her boyfriend is flirting with other girls openly,” Anni said, exchanging a look with Scott.

Stiles whips around, grabbing Anni by the shoulders. “What? How do you know Jackson’s trying to cheat on Lydia?” he says as he slightly shakes Anni by her shoulders.

Anni lightly shoves Stiles’ hands off her shoulders with an amused expression on her face. “Uh, because he just tried to flirt with me,” Anni says matter-of-factly, “I obviously shot him down because he’s a disgusting pig, so I just feel bad for Lydia for having to put up with it. She could get any guy in the school, but for some reason, she chooses fucking Jackson Whittemore.”

Scott nods in agreement, but Stiles is left staring at Anni with his mouth agape. “Wait…Jackson Whittemore flirted with…you?” he asks incredulously.

“Um, yeah?” Anni said, confused at Stiles’ change in tone.

Stiles makes a face like he was physically hurt by Jackson’s actions. Anni continues to look confused at his reaction, as it seems to be more directed towards her than Lydia. She glances over at Scott who doesn’t seem to look confused at all. In fact, he looks like he knows something the other two don’t know at all… Anni opens her mouth to comment, but the bell rings and cuts her off. Stiles shakes his head like he was in a daze, and then looks toward Scott.

“You’re the cause of this, you know,” Stiles says to Scott, narrowing his eyes at him. The boy in question just rolls his eyes and begins leading his friend and sister into the building.

“Uh-huh,” Scott says, already beginning to tune Stiles out.

“Draggin’ me down to your nerd depths. I’m a nerd by association. I’ve been Scarlet-nerded by you,” Stiles says, almost walking into a pole.

Anni snorts and tugs Stiles away from the evil pole. The trio stops as they enter the building, each of them taking out their schedules. Scott and Stiles have English together first, while Anni has Algebra first.

“I’ll see you two later. I’ll be in the bleachers at your practice. Try not to eat shit!” Anni waves as she leaves, grinning at the two boys, who roll their eyes at her and leave for their class.

..

The lacrosse team has gathered on the lacrosse field, where the players are warming up by passing the ball back and forth as other students congregate in the bleachers to watch the team play. Anni climbs up to the middle of the bleachers, sitting in front of Lydia and a brown-haired girl. She places her bag down to take out her notebook and begins doing some homework. Lydia and the unknown girl chat quietly behind her.

Anni looks up briefly to survey the practice in front of her and notices Scott as the goalie. A smirk crosses her face and she shuts her notebook. Scott’s never played goalie. This will be fun to watch, she thought. She takes her phone out of her pocket and gets ready to record some grade-A blackmail material.

Anni looks to the line of players to see who’s up first. Noticing that it’s Jackson, Anni groans and shuts off her phone, too annoyed by him to even record. Behind her, she hears Lydia and the girl talk about Scott.

“Who is that?” the brown-haired girl asks, looking at her friend.

“Him? I’m not sure who he is. Why?” Lydia responds, twirling her hair around her finger disinterested.

Anni turns around to face the two and looks up at the girl with the brown hair. “He’s Scott,” she says, “He’s my brother. Scott McCall.”

The girl blushes at being heard, while Lydia is seemingly distracted with her nails. “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t talking bad about him, or anything,” the girl says, “I’m just new here. Trying to make some friends. He’s in my English class.”

Anni nods and smiles at the girl, “Cool. I’m Anni. Or, technically Anathema, but nobody calls me that.” She grins and reaches her hand up for the girl to shake.

The girl smiles back and shakes her hand, introducing herself, “I’m Allison. Everyone just calls me…Allison,” she says with a small smirk. Anni laughs and Allison grins. Anni moves up next to her and nudges her shoulder.

“I think they’re starting,” Anni says, jutting her chin in the direction of the field. Both girls turn to face the practice, watching the players with keen eyes. The assistant coach blows the whistle, and Jackson scoops up the ball with his crosse, preparing to throw it at the goal (or more like right into Scott.) Anni looks over at the goalie’s net and sees Scott having some sort of fit and covering his ears. She narrows her eyes in confusion making a move to stand up, but Jackson throws the first ball, hitting Scott right on his helmet. He falls back from the impact.

“Oooh…” Allison and Anni grimace, looking down at Scott in concern.

“Hey, way to catch with your face, McCall!” Jackson calls out, smirking as he walks to the back of the line. Anni rolls her eyes and flips Jackson off when he makes eye contact with her. Lydia huffs at this, fixing Anni with a glare that the girl willfully ignores. Anni reverts her vision to the main field as Scott stands up with a determined look on his face.

The next player tosses the ball towards him, and Scott catches it easily, to the point where he’s visibly stunned that he was able to do so. This sentiment is shared by the rest of his teammates, including Stiles, and his sister. Stiles lets out a little “Yeah!” and Anni whoops and claps. The second, third, fourth, and fifth shots are caught by Scott just as easily. Coach stares down at Scott with his mouth hanging wide open, unable to believe his eyes. Anni grins, clapping for her brother once more. Allison sends a small smile to Scott with a nod of her head, and even Lydia seems impressed by his skill.

“He seems like he’s pretty good,” Allison said, watching Scott intently.

“Yeah, very good,” Lydia responded truthfully, dropping her mean-girl act for a moment.

Anni grins at the two girl’s discussion, looking away from them and making eye contact with Scott. She mouths ‘nice one’, making him blush slightly, looking over at the two girls fawning over him. Scott is practically giddy as he bounces on the balls of his feet and smiles, which only makes Jackson more angry. Intent to take Scott down a peg so that he's back in the spotlight, he slams the top of his stick against the player who was set to practice his goals and ditches him in line. Scott tenses when he sees this and prepares for the worst.

“Oh, God…” Scott murmurs, tightening his hold on his stick nervously.

Jackson runs as fast as he can toward the goal and tosses the ball with all the force he can muster, but to Scott, the ball seems to be moving in slow motion, allowing him to catch it without hesitation. Anni, Stiles, and Lydia all jump up cheering for Scott.

“YEAHHHH!!” exclaimed Anni, clapping her hands and jumping up and down.

“WOOOO!” Lydia screamed, sparing a smug glance at Jackson, before continuing to cheer on Scott.

“THAT’S MY FRIEND!!!” Stiles screams, hopping around and waving his hands around.

Allison watches Scott with interest as he throws a back-shot at the assistant coach, who just barely catches it with his stick.

..

After practice, Stiles, Scott, and Anni return to the woods to attempt to find the top half of the body Scott had found the night before as well as the inhaler he dropped in the process. The trio are talking about the day’s practice as their feet get wet in the mud.

“I-I don't know what it was. It was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball. And that's not the only weird thing. I-I can hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things,” Scott said, ducking under a low-hanging branch, his tone concerned.

“Smell things? Like what?” Anni questioned, hopping over a deep puddle.

“Like the watermelon gum you have in your pocket.”

Anni makes a face as though she thinks Scott is crazy as she pats her back pockets. “I don’t even have any watermelon-” Anni cuts herself off as she pulls out a single piece of folded-up watermelon gum, just as Scott sensed. Scott raises both of his arms in an “I-Told-You-So” gesture.

Anni examines the piece of gum for a moment, before offering it to Stiles. He makes a face, “Ugh. How long has that been in your pocket?” Anni shrugs, waving it around again as a final offer. Stiles analyzes it for another second before shrugging his shoulders and sighing, accepting the piece. He unwraps it, shoving the piece in his mouth, and begins to obnoxiously chew.

“So all this started with the bite?” Stiles asked, making smacking noises with his mouth as he chewed the gum. Scott winced at the noises, almost like they were deafening to him. This seemed to go unnoticed by Stiles, but Anni cocked her head in confusion at his actions.

“What if it’s like an infection? Like, my body’s flooding with adrenaline before I go into shock or something?” Scott questioned nervously, running a hand through his hair.

“Pretty sure it doesn’t last a whole day, Scott,” Anni said dryly, looking at the forest floor closely in an attempt to find the missing inhaler.

Stiles gets a small smirk on his face before trying to make himself look as serious as possible, which Scott, who is walking in front of him, doesn't catch. “You know what? I actually think I’ve heard of this-it’s a specific type of infection.” Scott whips around, his eyes widening with concern. Anni rolled her eyes, knowing Stiles wasn’t being serious and sick of his antics.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, Yeah, I think it’s called lycanthropy.”

Scott, still not realizing that Stiles is messing with him, starts to panic. “What’s that? Is that bad?”

Stiles nods seriously, “Oh, yeah, it’s the worst. But only once a month.” Anni snorts at this, sneaking a glance at Stiles who sends a playful wink in her direction. Scott, too deep in his paranoia, doesn’t catch this.

“Once a month?” Scott asks, running through all the possible diseases his mother taught him about in his head.

“Mm-hmm. On the night of the full moon. Aroooo!” Stiles howls, as Anni bursts into laughter at the sight of Scott’s red and furious face. Scott shoves them both away, causing the two to laugh harder at his embarrassment.

“Hey, you’re the one who heard a wolf howling!” Anni called after him, as she and Stiles struggled to keep up with his pace.

Scott whipped around and leaned down to get into his little sister’s face, “Hey, there could be something seriously wrong with me!”

From above Anni’s head, Stiles says, “I know! You’re a Werewolf! Rawrrrr!!” Scott is not impressed by this joke, and Stiles’ demeanor becomes serious. “Okay, obviously I’m kidding. But, if you see me in shop class trying to melt all the silver I can find, it’s ‘cause Friday’s a full moon.”

Scott suddenly stops in his place, causing Anni to slam into him from behind. He doesn’t budge, and Anni reaches up to grip her nose, frowning in pain.

“No, I-I could have sworn this was it. I saw the body, the deer came running. I dropped my inhaler…” Scott looked around, peering behind trees and into the surrounding bushes.

“Maybe the killer moved the body?” Anni suggested, watching Scott scour around.

“If he did, I hope he left my inhaler. Those things are, like, eighty bucks.”

The trio is still looking around when suddenly, a man in his early twenties with pale skin, black hair, a black leather jacket, and a scowl appears in front of them.

“What are you doing here?” the man asks the trio gruffly, causing all three of them to jump back in surprise. The three of them visibly panicked, struggling to put together a response. Scott and Stiles subtly move in front of Anni, getting in between her and the strange man.

“Huh? This is private property,” the man growls, stepping forward, causing the trio to all take a step back.

“Uh, sorry, man, we didn’t know,” Stiles said as Anni and Scott nodded in agreement.

The man’s attention is focused on Scott, who picks up where Stiles left off to try and relieve the tension, “Yeah, we were just looking for something, but…” Scott was about to continue when the man glared at him, after which point Scott lost his nerve and dropped the subject, “Uh, forget it.”

Suddenly, the man tosses Scott's inhaler at him before turning and heading back the way he came without a word, giving Scott one last look and seemingly paying Stiles no attention whatsoever. Scott sighs and gets ready to turn back in the opposite direction. Anni hesitates a moment watching as the man walks off. He pauses and looks over his shoulder at Anni. The two make eye contact, and Anni’s brows furrow in confusion at the familiarity of his eyes. Before she can think much more about it, the man turns around and stalks off. Anni returns her attention to her brother and Stiles.

“Um…All right, come on. I gotta get to work,” Scott says, leading the trio back the way they came.

Stiles yanks Anni by the arm as he catches up to Scott, bouncing in excitement, “Dude, that was Derek Hale!” Scott looks at Stiles blankly, and Stiles’ expression becomes incredulous. “You remember, right? He’s only like a few years older than us.”

Scott frowns, “Remember what?”

“His family. They all burned to death in a fire, like, ten years ago,” Anni stated, rubbing her arm where Stiles had grabbed her. Scott looked both intrigued and concerned by this news.

“I wonder what he’s doing back…” he mused.

“Come on,” Stiles scoffed, grabbing his friends and walking them back to his Jeep. Scott, still looking toward where Derek headed out, slowly followed him.

..

Later that night, Anni was up late finishing up her homework at her desk. Her chin rested in the palm of her left hand, her right hand fiddling with the pencil she held between her fingers. She yawned, turning on her phone to check the time. Her clock read 10:43 PM. It’s late, she thought, I should head to bed. Don’t wanna have my weird sleep-deprivation visions again. Anni closed her textbook and grabbed her phone charger from her desk. She plugged her phone into the outlet by her nightstand, then stood up to go change and brush her teeth in the bathroom.

As she walked back into her room, she flicked off the light switch and crawled into bed, closing her eyes. Please, please, please let me go to sleep in peace. As she slowly drifted from the land of the awake, a bright light invaded her vision. Shit, no, no, NO, NO! Her eyes flew open, irises glowing an emerald green. Images flashed in her mind…a car with bright headlights…a high-pitched scream…banging on a glass door…a whimpering dog…a large wolf…and then, the visions faded. Her eyes returned to their normal color, as she caught her breath. What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

This is insane. This is the second time now, this can’t be a coincidence. Aaaarrrgh! Anni rubbed her eyes furiously and flopped back onto her bed. She stared at the cracks in her ceiling, debating what to do. I could call Mom…she’s a nurse, maybe she could help me? Or maybe she’d just send me to a shrink and they’d lock me up in the looney bin…Ugh. Anni thought of her other options: I could tell Scott? Or maybe even Stiles? I mean, Scott already thinks he’s a werewolf so…this can’t be too weird, right?

Anni sighed, closing her eyes and rolling onto her side. She attempts to think of more ideas, but she slowly begins to fall into a deep slumber…

[scribe-of-stories]

Get to Know Your Moots Writeblr Interview

Was poked by the wonderful co-writers of Sunset @sunset-a-story and @touloserlautrec. Go read their posts here and here!

On the Tumblr Writing Community

How long have you had your writing Tumblr/Writeblr? A short eternity (first post is mid 2022)

What led you to create it? Was very bored at work and wanted to share some recent stories. Also I had never tried social media before, it this looked like the most interesting place to try it.

What’s your favorite thing about the Writeblr community? Getting to see other people's imagination unfiltered. I've read plenty of great works before, but it was definitely an entertaining first to see the author later publicly say "this is my favorite little guy, can't wait till the next time he suffers."

What’s one thing you’d like your mutuals to know about you? I constantly feel like I'm bothering people and or feel self conscious when talking about me/my stuff, so bare with me hah.

Is there anything you’d like to see more of on your dash? Just some really unhinged stuff about y'alls stories. I want to open my phone and see someone discussing the seven major heresies dictated by some cabal of priests only to later realize "oh, this is someone's fever dream, not a history lesson".

What tips/advice do you have for someone who made a Writeblr today? Interact more, take up the offer of "open tags" on other people's posts. Also throw your ideas onto the table for other's to look at, we all seem to love just watching someone go off about something they love.

WIP it Good

Which Works-in-Progress (WIPs) or writing projects are you noodling about, lately? Been in a bit of a writing drought. Lexical is always getting worked on, more so the TTRPG stuff than any story right now though. I've had a few projects pop into my mind and leave over the past while. Have a cluster of characters I can't get out of my head, but no narrative or setting to properly put them into. A god of violence and the man that cut her out of himself, a cultish vampire philosopher and his favorite little guy (little guy has a knife). Surely something will come of this, or they'll continue to just exist in one-off stories in my own head. Amber Hill, specifically The Lawman, is still somewhere in here but it's been struggling to come out for a while. Been trying to find Lars' voice as a POV character.

How long have you been working on them? I've been working on something based in Lexical since mid 2022 (huh, exactly around I first posted here); the other guys are new and only a few months old at most.

Do you remember what inspired them/what got you started? Lexical is a can of worms. The short answer is that my irl DnD group wanted to play something more free form and creative leaning than what our 5e campaign was allowing, so I said fuck it and started homebrewing a system based in a world I have vague ideas about. The long answer is that Lexical is a sequel to a Pathfinder campaign titled "Demis", which was about fantasy super heroes. It was heavily inspired by My Hero, Worm, and inescapably Homestuck. So when it came time to make a whole new system for these same players I took some concepts that worked in Demis, applied some occult-adjacent philosophy I was/am into, and ended up with my years long passion project. Atem and Sadaf were born out of my growing need to explore violence as a concept, philosophy, and inescapable existential crisis. The Vampire and his thrall Ish spawned out of a desire to have a toxic romance to think about. And AmberHill was inspired by a desire to create something cozy and occulty. Ended up being SCP adjacent but maintained the idea of a small community that cares about itself.

How much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them? Lexical- not enough, I'm lucky I have at least some productive thoughts throughout the day. Atem- too much, his tired ass sat down in my head and I've been too polite to ask him to leave.

When someone asks the dreaded, “What do you write about,” question, what do you usually say? "Urban Fantasy with science fiction elements"

What do you want to say (if it’s different from what you do say)? "My dissertation on the semi-real building blocks of both physical and social reality, also wizards punching people."

Let’s Rotate Blorbos

Name any characters you created. We've got the original Lexical boy Samuel Smith, Atem and Sadaf who you've already heard of, Lars DuPont from Amberhill.

Who’s the most unhinged? Sadaf.

Who comes the most naturally for you to write? For whatever reason Samuel's self-loathing PI perspective just comes very natural and is maybe someone I should write more about.

Do you ever cringe at them? Nah

How much control do you feel you have over your characters? Depends, my mind does not wonder so much that I don't feel like I am ever not in control. But who I am able to focus on tends to be a matter of debate.

Do you enjoy people asking questions about your characters? Yes absolutely. Characters, worlds, magic systems; I'll rant about any of them given the chance.

On Writeblr Engagement

What makes you want to follow another Writeblr account? A combination of preferred genre (urban fantasy), shared interest (books/games/table top). Also if they have Scribe as part of their name it's just an auto follow.

Do your mutuals’ characters occupy space in your noodle? There's a few. The telepaths from Sunset and their many ways of being terrifying are the first that come to mind. Since I already mentioned the scribes I'll go ahead and tag @scribe-cas , @covenscribe and leave the rest of the tag open. Here is an empty template

[television-overload]

[FIC PREVIEW]

2023 NCIS/Tiva Christmas!

Here's the first scene of my upcoming Christmas fic! I'm hoping to have it finished by Christmas, of course. Let me know if you want to be tagged! It will also be posted to AO3 (ContentsPriceless).

I'm actually gonna edit this to take out anything mentioning Ducky's funeral, now that we know they'll cover that this season, so you get an ultra-rare pre-editing peek 😅

I'm sure I'll write a tribute fic at some point, maybe a fix it if we don't get cameos or at least a hefty mention of Tony and Ziva .

“Daddy, Daddy! I can see the glaciers!” Tali announced excitedly, her face pressed up against the small airplane window.

Tony DiNozzo smiled and peeked over her head of wavy brown hair to catch a glimpse of the snow-covered Alaskan wilderness below. “You remember what you learned about glaciers in school?” he prompted.

“Uh-huh! They’re like frozen rivers that move down the mountains!”

“Something like that,” Tony chuckled. “You’d better sit down and buckle up, Tals, we’ll be landing soon.”

The nine-year-old obeyed, sitting back in her seat where her legs didn’t quite touch the ground—though the way she’d been growing lately, it wouldn’t be long.

“Can I have your phone to take pictures?” Tali asked once she was properly buckled, the seatbelt tightened by her father until he deemed it sufficient.

With an exaggerated sigh, Tony fished the device out of his back pocket and handed it over. “Don’t take too many, we need to save some space for pictures of all the other cool stuff we see.”

With his daughter occupied, Tony turned his attention to the woman sitting in the aisle seat beside him.

“Hey, you doing alright?” he asked in a low voice, placing a hand on her knee.

She had been shifting uncomfortably for the last hour or so of their flight, unable to get positioned in a way that took the pressure off her back. They had broken up their journey from Paris with a day’s respite in New York City, where they were able to catch up with some of Tony’s extended family. Tali, in particular, loved seeing the sights and stuffing her face with giant slices of pizza. But still, it put a lot of strain on Ziva’s body.

“I am starting to rethink what a good idea it was to travel so extensively while pregnant,” she spoke with a grimace, rubbing her rounded belly in comforting circles.

Tony hummed in sympathy, his fingers finding her lower back and massaging there as best as he could in such a confined space. She sighed in relief, her head falling against his shoulder and her eyes drooping shut.

“In our defense, when we planned this trip, we didn’t know you’d be five months pregnant,” he said softly with a teasing lilt to his voice.

It was true. They had almost given up on the prospect of having another child, promising that if it didn’t happen before Tali turned ten, they would stop trying. But finally, after years of negative tests, they got their positive, and Tony and Ziva were overjoyed. Tali, too, was looking forward to having a baby brother or sister. The high pitched squeal she had emitted when they first broke the news proved to them that she would be the best big sister a kid could ask for, and she had slept with a copy of the ultrasound in a frame beside her bed ever since.

But when they first started planning this trip almost a year ago, they had not planned on an additional passenger in utero, which definitely complicated things a little. After Gibbs visited them in Paris for the holidays the year prior, they knew they wanted to be with family. That had been the first time they’d seen him since Ziva had finally been reunited with Tony and Tali, and there was a lot of joy to go around. Tali had taken to calling him Grampa Gibbs, and in almost no time at all, they were like two peas in a pod.

“I can’t wait to see everyone,” Ziva murmured, a small smile pulling at her lips. “I hear Jimmy is bringing Agent Knight.”

“I’m glad,” Tony said, “it will be good for him to have her there, I think.”

Although the shape of their makeshift family had changed a lot over the years, love was still at the heart of it, that was the only thing that mattered. They’d met Jessica Knight only once, at Ducky’s funeral a few months back, but the consensus was that she was a great match for Jimmy, and she seemed to get along with Victoria too.

It had been a reunion of sorts with everyone coming to pay their respects to the beloved M.E., even Abby who sadly wouldn’t be able to make it to Alaska this Christmas. This year would be strange, without Ducky there to verbosely share stories of Christmases of old. His warm smile and even warmer hugs would be greatly missed by all who knew him.

After a few more minutes, a voice came over the speaker instructing passengers to take their seats for landing, and Tony pressed a kiss to Ziva’s temple.

“You hear that?” he said, his lips brushing against her hair, “Only a little bit longer, hon.”

-.-.-

... to be continued

Tag list: @benedettabeby @earanemith @happygirl-0408 @hopeless-nostalgic @indestinatus @loudlooks @nicolem194 @putthekettleon @slippery-soapbox @tivafanfic @tonysziva

[just-antithings]

I found this rant in my notes from, like June of 2021. I have no idea what it was in response to, but I thought y'all might appreciate it, so here goes:

So, the anti-shipping movement is closely entwined with--although not identical to--the anti-kink movement. (Both are subsidiaries of the radfem poison that's been creeping through society and fandom as of late, but that's a discussion for another time.) For the uninitiated, anti-kinksters oppose basically any "unconventional" sexual activities such as BDSM, DDLG, furry stuff, and all sorts of other shit consenting adults do in their bedrooms (or sex dungeons).

Now, these fuckers are just wild to me. I think anti-shipping is bonkers, but I at least get the idea behind it: Namely, that people can be bullied out of--publicly, at least--shipping certain things. Making ship fic/art is a relatively niche hobby, and fandoms are ephemeral. So if you can make it socially unacceptable to write about Ship A for, say, five years, you may have eliminated that ship altogether. You don't need to keep doing it forever because a fandom's popularity will eventually wane.

Kink does not work this way. Sexual fetishes have existed for all of human history. Many of them are, if not innate, formed in early childhood. You can't keep people from being kinky. Even if the human race started over tomorrow with no memory of anything that came before, people would immediately start trying to find newer and weirder ways to fuck, because that's just sort of what people do.

So... what the fuck do anti-kinksters want, exactly? You can't stop people from having these desires. Do they want people to stop acting on these desires with other consenting adults? What possible good could that do anyone? How would you decide what counts as kink? How could you ever enforce that? Sure, there's always shame, but a) there's already a good deal of shame associated with many kinks b) if there's one thing I've learned from true crime podcasts, it's that somebody who's shamed for their sexual interests is one head injury away from being a serial killer.

Do they just want kinksters to stop making porn? I reiterate: Fucking why? You're an adult, you can hit the back button if you see something you don't like. I do it every single day. It's easy, I promise.

Of course, antis of every variety like to whinge about "the children." It will traumatize the children or make them vulnerable to pedophiles or whatever (which, holy shit, way to blame the victim). To which I say: Why the fuck are your kids in any position to see porn of any kind, and how is this anybody else's problem? Complaining that your kid saw porn on the internet is like complaining that you gave your kid enough money for a ticket, dropped them off at the theater alone, and returned to find out they'd watched an R-rated movie. Like, no shit, Sherlock, what did you think was going to happen?

Nobody made you give your kid internet access. Nobody made you fail to supervise them. Nobody made you be too lazy to set up parental controls, or forget to teach them basic internet safety protocols, or avoid giving them the talk and just hope their school would take care of it. That shit's on you. Maybe, depending on the circumstances, the platform your kid was using is at fault for not having good filtering, or the content creators were at fault for failing to tag stuff properly. At no point in the equation is it the fault of some random dude who just happens to be into balloons or raw pizza dough or whatever.

So... this was a very long rant about anti-kinksters that may not even belong here. In conclusion, parent your fucking kids.

[your-talos-is-problematic]

For the First Time In Forever, WIP Wednesday!!

I am being brave and starting it myself today 😟. I know I haven’t contributed in a long time, but I think I’m now at a moment where life has calmed down enough for me to want to write again. Until auditions, but that’s another whole can of worms. Tagging @skyrim-forever @trickstarbrave @throughtrialbyfire @friend-of-giants and anyone who sees this and wants to join!

No TES stuff rn but I do have some Baldur’s Gate writing! I actually finally got myself to write again because I had this whole scene out in my mind and told myself to just write it down before I forgot it. Being able to share the work in progress here was actually a big motivator too!

So, without further ado, here’s a scene that hasn’t happened yet in my playthrough, but oh well. Narrator is my Tav, Tilia- helpful information is that she’s a tiefling draconic soul sorcerer. Also there’s italics on her inner thoughts but those don’t copy-paste between notes app and tumblr properly.

I pushed open the door, stepped in, and stood waiting, silently, for the aging halfling shopkeeper to notice me.

After a few seconds, he looked up, his lightless eyes not making contact with mine, but drawing upwards to my horns. After a short sigh, he explained, “We don’t serve tieflings here,” in the cadence of a line he had said more times than he had the right to.

That’s to be expected. I responded with a smile. “Even me?”

Confusion and annoyance crossed his brow. “I don’t know who you are, girl, but I don’t need to. Devil-spawn aren’t-“

“Aren’t welcome? The number of times I’ve heard that. Tragically,” I said, realizing too late that he wouldn’t get the joke, “it’s exactly what I expected to hear from my own grandfather.”

There was a long, empty silence in the room after that. I eventually disrupted it by hopping up onto a table and curling my tail onto my knees, turning to watch the recognition dawning on his face.

He moved away from the counter to stand closer, still leaving me a wide berth, then brought his eyes up to mine. “You’re leaving. Now. GUARDS!” The two people, both armed and armored, who had been watching anxiously by the door, began to move towards me. It’s a good thing I’d thought of this- coming here alone was risky, so I’d remembered to keep a few spells on hand.

I pressed my fingertips together, pointing my hands in the direction of the two people but not releasing them. All three sets of eyes were trained on the tendrils of poisonous Weave held in my palms. Cloudkill was a bit strong of a choice, but for the sake of my pride, my mother’s heart, and my father’s nerves, I needed this to go correctly.

“It’s not very nice to attack your granddaughter. Now, can I continue my story, please?”Taking his [empty/fearful/annoyed? gaze] as a yes, I continued on, in my best impression of a bard.

“Yes! The little Zariel tiefling baby belonging to you, my good sir, miraculously managed to survive its abandonment. In fact, she- yes, your child is a she, even though you never knew her long enough to find out, lived long enough in Reithwin to meet a man. A tiefling man, no less, coming from a long line of people proud to be tieflings. She swept him off of his feet and they left for Elturel together.” I took a strategic breath, giving him time to recall the fate of that city- my best bet is that the high classes of Baldur’s Gate don’t think about what happened to us all that often. “Before everything went down with Avernus- she survived, no worries- they had a daughter.” Another pause- this time to let my green, scaly wings materialize and unfold. I slid my eyes away from the rest of the room and directly to his own. “A daughter born with the dragonblood that, as far as I know, comes from your side of the family! Isn’t that unbelievable?”

He’d been glued to my words since I brought out the wings, so I slid down from the table, landing face-to-face with him, and let the magic from the Cloudkill flow back into me. Up close, I could notice more details about him- he was definitely the right age to be my grandfather. More notably, there was a resemblance between us- the curly hair, and the nose shape that betrayed me as a descendant of halflings.

“What do you want, little girl?” His tone was exhausted, intentionally- he was deflecting. Nobody wants to hear about the child they abandoned, I suppose.

“I’m [23?]. And I want everything you know about the dragonblood. Then you never have to see me or my family again.”

“Fine. One of the sorcerers in the family wrote a book about it, I think. I’ll look for it.” He turned away, taking a few steps in the direction of the stairs.

“And I want a letter of apology to my mom, written and signed in your hand.”

His head snapped back in my direction, indignation on his face. “No.”

“Yes,” I said, with my best threatening smile. Last resort- Thamaturgy. I let lighting gently crackle across my horns and arms.

“My daughter doesn’t want to hear from me,” he responded.

“You haven’t seen your daughter since she was a day old and you left her in Reithwin. Don’t tell me what she’d want.” I knew this part was going to be hard, but I care about my mother.

[shit happens idk]

“Mhm. I’ll take those books. And I’ll be back tomorrow morning for the letter.” I turned

“Wait a second, girl.”

I turned. Come on. This was going exactly like I wanted it to. With a hint of anxiety in my voice, I asked, “What?”

“Who do I address the letter to?”

“[mom’s name that is some sort of positive quality or whatnot].”

“And you are?”

“Tilia of Tragedy.”

[she leaves]

Now I have to figure out how to get a letter to Waterdeep.

[adelarsims]

Simblr New Year's Resolution 2024

i was tagged by @pralinesims 💙

ok, so when i say resolutions, don't expect me to actually see all of it through. my resolutions aren't resolute, they're more like a desperate hope that one day i'll suddenly wake up a normal person who can accomplish things. with that clarified:

What's your Resolution for your Simblr?

i want to start posting my story about the morgyn's bloodline and vampires because it's so dark and cool and complicated and living in my head rent free for two years now

or i want to start posting my story about morgan and wolfgang and their families i also want to post this one-shot story about gunther that eats my brain ever since i saw the poem

i want to finish cc projects that i started and dropped because i want to run and hide crying the moment i encounter an imperfection in my work

i want to learn to create cas poses

or, if i'm being greedy, even animations, because i yearn for more sensual but non-sexual ww animations, like hugging and holding each other

i want to make a download page and character page

i want to learn to make specular maps for different types of shine because alpha channels scare me to death

What do you want from the Sims Franchise?

properly working disabilities! for example, i have two wheelchair users among my OCs, i would die for them to have chairs that they could use all the time. i want proper prosthetics, deafness, blindness, some most known neurodivergent traits

bands! i don't even ask for band managing and getting famous and all, i just need the option to play the same music together when a few people are playing instruments in one room, they don't have to be an actual band

a world that has slums, dirty, poor areas, trash and graffiti everywhere, rusty and broken shit

more gothy/punky/grungy clothes

more teen-centered and magic-centered packs because i want new clothes and maybe even furniture for my morgynverse and munchverse

very unrealistic at this point, but i would love to have a second teen age stage, so early teens and late teens could be different and have different activities and interests and way of communicating with others, because like… 13-14 yo are still playing barbies, 17-19 yo do a lot of adult stuff. i don't want my sims to miss out on any of that, and i want to be able to play it out that 13 and 18 yo brothers are worlds apart

a social centered pack whose gameplay isn't actually shallow, or maybe new social interactions that are usable outside of one niche pack and then never again

Any other New Years Resolutions?

i hope i wouldn't contribute to my steady health decline too much this year because i don't have money to deal with it. a painless 2024 would be nice, thank you.

and i want to start living by "better done than perfect". i understand that with my brain, just not my mind yet

i dunno who didn't do it yet because i'm late to hop on this train again, so if you want, please do

[cochineal-leviat]

Hello! Hi! I'm one of the invested reader in your most recent fic Gimmighoul for your thoughts? And also the one who's writing a fic vaguely inspired by it. (And also one that commented a lot, haha.)

You may recognize me by username (there's an extra 's' here but, eh, it's the same.) I decided to ask the questions I wanted to ask there because of, uh, anxiety issues.

So here are my questions:

1. Would you be okay with it if I were to use your character, Flore, in my story? It's most likely too late because I already started with the female MC, but I may write more Pokémon stuff in the future and I'd like to write it with a non-binary MC and I now have as a headcanon that, if there was an option to be non-binary, their default name would be Flore (like Juliana for the girl, and Florian for the boy). Also, if you're okay with it, would it be okay to alter a little bit their story and their taste? Like, they have Koraidon instead of Miraidon or they chose Sprigatito instead of Fuecoco as their starter. Or, they're fond of cute stuff instead of macabre stuff. Their personalities would most likely stay the same, but there would be slight alteration like that. Just like how people write Juliana or Florian: things changing depending of the person personal experience.

2. Next, I wanted to know if I should give you a shout out if I ever post my fic somewhat related to yours? Since you gave me the idea for the prompt, in a sense. Like, I would say the name of the fic that inspired me and your author's name and saying something like: "check out their stuff, they're great." I don't know if I should, because I'm, anyway, a way smaller author and my story will, probably, not even be remotly similar to yours. Furthermore, I'm a very strange person and I write the idea out of my mind with barely any filters. My works are tagged properly, at least, but, you know, not safe for work. You're a SFW author, so I'd understand if you'd like to not be associated with me in the slightest. However, since I would be the one doing the shoutout, it wouldn't be as bad as if you were to do it. If there's one thing I really dislike it's making people uncomfortable against their will. I'm a strange person, maybe a bit scary at first glance, but I'm not a creep. I do not approve of tricking people into seeing weird things. No need to worry, this fic I'm planning to write will be, at max, rated teens and up. I looked at your other stuff and you're more inclined toward family friendly and I respect that 100%. On my side, my taste change and my mind shifts every two months so my works are all over the place. (I wanted to explain that, because, you know, the internet can be wild sometimes and get to the most extreme conclusion.)

3. I forgot to ask: what are your preffered pronouns? I should have asked that first. Sorry if I'm indiscreet, but I just want to be safe. I assumed you were non-binary since you seem to like turning some character non-binary (by looking at your works). So, my brain default to they/them pronouns. Also, asking in case I need to give you a shout out. (And, in case you want to know too, I don't have preffered pronouns. Any is fine.)

Anyway, that's it! I know this is a lot, but I think those are important questions. Sorry if it was badly written, I have trouble to write my personal thoughts on paper; I write stories, not emails. Thank you for your time and I wish you the best of luck for whatever adventure you are currently on! ^_^ (Also, random compliment: I like your art. Especially the coloring. The way you use colors is magnifico!)

Ah! Good to see you, and what a nice lengthy ask. I will answer in kind to make things easier.

1 Go ahead! You can use Flore for your fics. I am over the moon that you want to write about them. But if you do, I would like you to please credit me. I put a lot of time and effort into writing them and their design, and it would hurt for them to be used without credit. But I am assured you will do that; if not, you would not be asking permission in the first place.

As for changing Miraidon to Koraidon and other story details - you have my permission! I don't sweat the small stuff. Flore likes cute things, too; it's usually overworn by their love of spooky stuff most of the time (they and Lacey geek out about cute Pokemon in most of their hangouts). And you can change their Pokemon to whatever team you have in mind. It will be like a fun alternate-universe version of them. It makes sense that OG Flore and your version of Flore differ, and I'm all up for seeing it!

2 You can give me a shout-out or not. I will leave it up to you. I gave you the prompt indirectly, but you don't have to mention me if it varies too much from the original. But again, as above, please credit me if you use Flore.

Being told I'm an SFW author is pretty funny! I suppose I am, even though I have written horror and creepy stuff before - it never needed a mature rating. I respect NSFW authors for being so brave. So ditto!

3. I use He/him, they/them pronouns. I go through life mostly as a guy, but I also feel non-binary, so you are not entirely wrong.

And don't cha worry! This is not poorly written at all. I can read that you are excited, and that is nice to know. Thank you very much for the well wishes (I will need them) and for complimenting my art. It's lovely of you.

Have a sketch of Flore as a farewell gift! I wish you an absolutely awesome day or night further!

[iviarellereads]

Wheel of Time full series spoiler thoughts on EOTW 29-38

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

It's really fun to look back at the stedding as, oh, this is literally a little piece of another dimension. It might've grown the local seeds and supported the local animals, but it is obviously disconnected from the local reality, to block the One Power and all.

So many references to Hawkwing sending armies across the sea, and yet nobody really believes it, or expects the Return.

The farmer gave Rand the dark, plain scarf… and then Rand wears it around his mouth… almost like a… black veil on this Aielman… OK that's a bit too much ellipsis for me to keep going but I had to squint and see if the words really meant what I thought they did.

In Play For Your Supper, one of the songs Rand names is "Coming Home From Tarwin's Gap", now how would a name like that have made it as far as the 2 Rivs?

Rand starts having little thoughts on the road that he can't quite track the source of. "Too late now." in Four Kings, for example. LTT starting to slip in. Or the taint madness, if you prefer that explanation for the hallucinations. Either way.

Ishy treating oblivion as a reward. Cute.

I feel kinda sneaky putting Mili Skane's name down in ch 33. It's kind of a spoiler, we're not told it, but I like tagging the characters that appear, for future searchability. If she ALSO appears later in the series, well, I wasn't lying about the Companion entry.

Almen Bunt reminded me that Elayne's kids could have a stronger claim to the throne than she did, because of the bloodliney shit Andoran nobles use to measure their kin-distance from the first queen, but only if everyone involved admitted Rand's lineage publicly. And, only because it was Rand's body that she conceived with.

Which gets me on to how weird and icky the Moridin body swap is, because besides everything else, we don't talk enough about how the Dark One resurrected Ishy as Moridin into somebody else's corpse, that body's original soul had his own family and life, and first the DO took it to punish Ishy with continued existence, and THEN Moridin and Rand swapped balefires and then bodies so Rand's in some completely random dude's face and genes.

(I only had about 5.5 hours of sleep last night as I write this, can you tell?)

At any rate, EOTW 34 cracks things wide open for any show-firstie who looks at the X-Ray feature or the episode credits. Episode 1x07 lists Tigraine Mantear instead of Shaiel, so when the first season was finished, seeing so many people go back and start reading the books and be like, well hold on now… That was precious and priceless to witness.

“The Queen is wed to the land,” Thom said as brightly colored balls danced in a circle, “but the Dragon . . . the Dragon is one with the land, and the land is one with the Dragon.” For this to appear here, with Almen Bunt, when his next appearance is just after Zen Rand emerges and the Dragon is one enough with the land to offer a bounty of apples from the orchard on Bunt's sister's farm… Same chapter, same day, still sleep deprived, and I need a moment to just sit in this feeling of beautiful symmetry.

No doubt I'll come back to it when the quote comes up, but: Thom was twice Morgase's age when they were together. Given the dates we have as long as the Fandom.wiki is properly sourced because I don't want to go doing extra digging in the Companion and stuff, that means that 14 years ago, Morgase was 27 and Thom somewhere in the 50-60 range, 55 being a solid guess, putting her at 41 and him at 68 around the start of the series. I'm still very, very glad the show agreed with me that there was no need of him being so old, especially when his love interests skew so young, Mo being the exception but she still looks young.

So much of chapter 36 is just "yep, setup." I daren't even start listing or we'll be here all day and this post will be much longer than I try to keep them, even for two-weekers when the first week's not quite long enough to justify a post. But the one that gets me is Rand finding it funny, the idea of him wanting to be a king, when he will end up the de facto ruler of a decent chunk of the Westlands.

37 and 38 do little in the way of setup but to continue setting up just how much Byar's gonna nurse that grudge for the next 12 books or two years. Well, that and finally showing Perrin's golden eyes. Mo asks if this was foretold, and well, we know it was… just not in a prophecy she'd have seen. Verin has, though.

I will say, I prefer how Egg and Perrin rescued themselves in the show, even if the wolf stuff maybe could have been moved forward into season 1 to make it make a little more sense to show-onlys.

And, do we think Mo was Warder-compelling Lan not to go after Nyn? Or just reminding him that it's out of character and out of keeping with his guiding principles? I'd like to think Mo treats Lan better, BUT she does hand off his bond to Myrelle without telling him later soooo…

[aroturier]

THIS OR THAT?

Dear me, someone actually tagged me in one of those questionaire things. This is a first--or at least a first time I spotted it. Thankyou @thatmysterywriter, for thinking of me...dunno how long ago you sent yours out into the ether but I'd only just seen it. Better late than never? Perhaps?

...anyway...

Historical or Futuristic

I currently only write for Kuroshitsuji so of course I only do historical. I'm not too interested in fururistic reading or writing. That said, I must confess I rarely pass up a Futurama or Star Trek marathon, but with Futurama, I think that's more about the comedy than the setting. Plus I have a bit of a crush on old Zoidberg.

Opening or Closing Chapter

Am I supposed to choose what I like or what I'm good at? If I'm choosing what I like, then I have to protest because how can you possibly have one without the other?

As for what I'm good at (or at least what comes easier--I don't think I ought to say what I am or am not good at, that's the reader's call), I need to get into a partnership like the one the authors of The Destroyer series had going. One guy would write the opening (this would be me,) and then the other guy would finish it. I feel like I've never properly written an ending to anything whereas i'm always thinking up beginnings. Maybe because like Professor Tolkein I'd rather live in my chosen imaginary worlds than write an ending and then have to exit the lands of my imagination and rejoin the mundane?

Light & Fluffy or Dark and Gritty

My taste in both writing and reading fluctuates depending on my mood, as can be seen in the variety of styles and kind of stories I create but I definitely have a strong bias for the dark and shockingly raw and gritty stuff.

When I write all I'm aiming to do is jerk a strong emotion of some kind out of my potential reader. I'm not too fussed exactly what emotion it is.

Animal Companion or Found Family

Goodness, I see no reason to choose. Kuroshitsuji is both a found family story and an animal companion tale, even though most of the animal companion element happens 'off camera' so to speak. We all love stories about the servants of the manor acting as a found family to each other, to the young master and even to the demon butler, though he fights it tooth and nail (or should that be fang and claw?) So...

'Both?'

'Both.'

(together)'Both.'

Horror or Romance

Again, I see no reason to choose. I'd rather be dead than caught reading one without the other.

Hard Magic or Soft Magic System

I'm not certain I understand the distinction here, but if it means sort of free-floating magic without definite laws or parameters then no, I wouldn't like that. If the opposite of that is what a hard magic system means then it has my vote.

Stand-Alone or Series

I take them however they come, the only thing I care about is that they are well-written. But if there is a whacking great series of books then so much the better. Of course more is better!

One project at a Time or Always Juggling 2+

I...almost don't now how to answer this. I don't think I'm a typical writer-if there is such a thing. I started out an artist but then my eyes went bad and I had to think up a new creative outlet. I never read fiction at all until somewhen well past my fiftieth year. I started writing fiction before I'd started reading any which is definitely strange.

At first I'd get a random little scene pop into my head, and I'd write it down and move on, always short things. then I started collecting scraps of ideas, pieces of ideas, things I saw in other places like books, TV, life, etc., and I'd collect them, occasionally working them into other things I was writing.

Always in the back of my mind I'd be thinking of a novel I'd like to write but never getting anything done on it. I write down lots of ideas, beginnings and scenes, but in the end the ones that really get written come on me like a fever or a thunder storm blowing through. I'll need to go write them down like right NOW or else they escape me. Writing down ideas rarely captures the essence of what I was wanting to capture or evoke in a given story. Only the ones that come over me like a case of the flu ever really get properly written up into proper stories so I guess it boils down to a one-at-a-time kind of writer. Should've just said that and have done.

One Award Winner or One Bestseller

Neither, actually. I really like writing for a small group of people to whom I can speak and share impressions and suggestions. Fan Fiction is perfect for this sort of thing. They are usually an appreciative audience and are working on the same skills I am. I'm not interested in fame or wide acclaim. Just a few friendly, honest voices is much better.

Fantasy or Sci-Fi

I think I'd prefer to read fantasy, and I suppose Kuroshitsuji fits into that category. But for TV viewing I think it's hard to beat those awful sci-fi movies of the '60's for a good laugh. God I miss sitting up late on Saturday nights watching Martians invade earth or Godzilla kicking Tokyo's ass again...

Character Description or Setting Description

Well of course the room means nothing without some people in it, so you must have both abilities in your writer's tool box.

If you're asking which I prefer, I don't prefer either. A writer who can write descriptions could, I'm sure write a good description of either one.

If you're asking which I like to do or excel at, I again don't have a preference. I do like describing both characters and settings over action scenes. I like writing fight scenes, but it didn't come to me naturally. I had to learn how.

I think if you're going to divvy up writers into categories, those ought to be Characterisation/Description writers or Action writers. Those are the two categories I think writers all fall into. Either they rip through the plot with a lot of action and lots of things happening in their stories, or they dwell on the emotions and feelings of characters. And usually (in my experience) a writer who is good at action will struggle a bit on the characterisation of his characters and the one who likes to dwell on the emotions of their characters will struggle a bit writing action.

I think I am more of the characterisation and description kind of writer by nature, and had to learn how to write action scenes like fights or battles.

First Draft or Final Draft

Often I struggle getting that first draft down on paper. Not always, mind you but sometimes it really is like pulling teeth for me. It reminds me I started life as an artist not a writer.

Once I've got that first draft down I absolutely love the editing process. I love it so much I go wandering around amongst the current writers in my chosen fandom begging them to put me to work on their stories. Pretty sure I'm so damned eager for it I come off like the giggling Undertaker and scare them off with my creepy begging. (Laughing) They don't realise I don't give a damn if they change anything I suggest, I just love to edit. I learn a lot from it too, looking things up to make sure my suggestions are correct.

Editing is a joy to me. Finding that perfect word, getting the punctuation just so...oh well.

People who might enjoy this? Dunno, so I'll just send it out to some familiar names. Don't feel obligated.

@lestatdesade

@thegildedacorn

@invisiblegargoyl

@apocalypticromantic666

[ahdok]

People pushing these tools keep talking about how they're "democratizing art" or "taking art from the elites who hoard all the creative work for themselves, and letting anyone take part" (both things I've been angrily told on twitter) These arguments often carry an undertone of deep resentment, like how artists (who often struggle to make enough money to feed themselves) have had it "too good" for years... Or maybe they wanted something drawn, and got mad when the artist wanted to get properly paid. ---- There's some problems. Firstly, there's an important distinction between professional paid art, and art as a hobby. These arguments often conflate the two in order to imply that the problems of one apply to the other. "Only rich, privileged people with thousands of hours of training are allowed to do art, you're not. Now with these tools you can do art too." Professional art is expensive, because the person making it has to make a living to survive. It's expensive because they put tens of thousands of (unpaid) hours of work into developing their skills and their style, and you're paying to access and make use of that training. It's expensive because materials are consumable. It's expensive because they're in demand and that's what their time is worth to them. You're not just paying for a product, you're paying for a professional to work for you. Drawing, sketching, painting... as hobbies however: These are some of the most accessible and approachable hobbies it's possible to have. You can draw if you have "something to draw with" and "something to draw on" - that's all you need. I started out sketching with cheap printer copy paper and a pencil that I borrowed from my workplace. Very few people are being gatekept from making art, it's never too late to start, and anyone telling you that you "can't" do art has an agenda. When you view art as a purely commercial product, where the value is only the sale price and the cost is only what you paid to get the work, you're ignoring the vast bulk of the artistic experience, the stuff that people actually get *out* of doing art - the journey and the process *matter*. ---- There's a saying that creativity is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration. Generative A.I. promises that you can skip the 99% part, and just skip straight to the finished product - The narrative they're selling is that the perspiration is valueless.

But... that's just not true. It's an easy narrative to sell to someone who doesn't do anything creative, if you just see the final product and a price tag, you might not realize how valuable the journey is. People who create or make for fun, or for a living know that the process of making a thing adds value, both for the work, and for the maker. Many artists and songwriters say that, as they work on a piece, the piece "tells them what it wants to be" - in the middle of the creative process, they can see potential and ideas they couldn't at the start, and if you let the work itself guide you, you can create something far better than you imagined. You learn more about yourself as a creator, and about the piece you're creating when you're in the middle of the process and you're adapting your ideas on the fly. I wanted to draw the character *this* way, but it looked a bit wrong, and I realized that *that* pose would make for a better image, so I changed it. I tweaked the clothing, I added elements to the background, I needed to change this facial expression... When you look at an artist timelapse, those revisions and changes weren't planned from the outset, they were born from the process. These moments grow you as an artist, you experiment, try different ideas, adapt as you go, and each piece teaches you something new about your creative process. You grow. You get better. You try something new next time. ---- In art circles, there's a lot of discussion around the idea of "finding your style" - new artists often find themselves studying and trying to replicate artists they like, but there comes a point where they want to create their own unique style or look. There are countless how-to and advice videos out there that try to teach you how to develop your own unique approach and visual style, your artistic signature, that quality that lets someone look at a piece of your work and go "I know who that artist is!" You see new ideas you like, try to incorporate those themes into your work, and there's a process of adapting both your own style and the new ideas so they work together - resulting in something different and new. The simple truth is... as you practice, you grow - and the artistic journey has no destination. It's not a problem to solve, it's a process to manage. ----- Making something is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, but the perspiration is the point.

[namelessmewmew]

Old Art Archive Part 1.

I want to keep this old art on this blog but not retag all the original posts, so going to do what I did for my sideblogs and delete the original posts but reupload them in batches with no tags except an archive tag. This also allows me to (even if I don't have the spoons right now, to add image descriptions to these at a later date).

Original captions under the cut.

I have like over 150 ocs that need refs/redesigns [and many in that 150 that whose design is only in my head] but I only seem to be able to make new characters right now so have this kitty! I have been thinking about tv heads alot lately but also really like kitty robots so kitty Tv Head, [They are also based a bit on a heart rate monitor, they might end up being like a walking heart monitor nurse in a hospital or something, I have alot of medical bots because I think thats cool.]

Felt like trying to give this girl digital colours and starting to figure out how this girl will be personality wise. Likely will have this girl be a graphic designer or an artist in some other regard.

The main form in the center is his preferred form, he is a from a shapeshifting species called Nederians/Nederans [not sure about that] and he is part of a group of Nederians/Nederans that theme themselves after sweets/sweet stuff.

Another guy in the same Group as Mallow [The marshmallow guy I posted earlier]. To clear possible confusion shes a guy. [Lesbians and other w|w using He/Him pronouns and Gay men and other m|m using She/Her pronouns is something that has been part of lgbt culture for quite a while!]

Just your local tired catdude [Been wanting a new icon for a while so here it is].

Vanilla + Strawberry icecream themed guy, Of course another one of the sugar group [want to come up with a better name but not sure what yet].

Orange Flavoured Soda themed guy. They are also a very bubbly dude [Yes literally as well]. I have like 3 more members of the sugar group [still need a better name] to draw some concepts for.

This guy was designed at a completely different time and originally was not meant to be part of the same group [sugar group] but decided to have them be a part of it. Instead on being based on a real food or sweet thing, they are based on a in universe food called Starbites  [Either Gum or Lollipops, haven't decided yet, that have starbust in them and are very fizzy]

I am not 100% on its colours [as well their design as a whole] but I just wanted to try to start to figure out how their design may work. It is meant to be different flavours of Gummy bears melted together.

She is meant to be based on chocolate as a whole [white, milk and dark] but She could also work as a Red Velvet or Dark Forest themed character maybe?

She is meant to be based on chocolate as a whole [white, milk and dark] but She could also work as a Red Velvet or Dark Forest themed character maybe?

Make make them into an oc, though might change their colours as its pretty monotone right now. Just a little gif and test how long it takes to make a simple piece like this with a very simple character design. 45 minutes this is based on a random game note I found on my 3DS.

Decided to change the expression and shade the main pic in her concept sheet because it did take me quite a bit to get it done [started it days ago but went into a very bleh feeling phrase again physically]. Im fairly certain Pup counts as a Sparklewolf? Might redesign their tail and add some more colourful markings idk. Love the way her colours look, its like a sunset [and dawn I think]. If the little faces on the side are confusing [I really cant tell if I properly bring the point across with just the drawings]: Top one is Pups being confused/not understanding something Middle is her not being about to concentrate and think as their are too many sources of noise [ I often have this issue ] Her fidgeting with a pop-it, its a really cool thing and has made going out for groceries something a bit less stressful.

Based on a white [and green and yellow greenish] pumpkins. I very much want to make more of these guys. Yeah I dont have much else to say, uh, I like her markings alot. My brain is veery tired so not many words.

Bunny Tv Head! With antenna ears as I just think making animal ears with tv antennas is cool. The magic electricity legs are also very bouncy [so they are also like springs].  My brain is still very tired so dont have anything of substance to say.

So Xe is a Ghost pony but Xe is also part fire? Idk might add more to this "species" if I can think of anything else. I really like xem colours. Adopted from and was originally by ItzAnnaDraws03 [on deviantart]

Very slight redesign [and first digital] concept for them.  Changed her a bit, because despite the fact I think its important to have gnc characters [including gnc transfem characters], there is also important to have well not gnc trans characters. [I dont know if I'm making sense, I guess what I'm saying yes transfem characters liking/being okay with /wanting facial hair is good but the opposite is also important and good]. Love the colours of their outfit, also I really like giving character dangly earrings.

[practically-an-x-man]

Get to know your fic writer asks! God there are SO many good questions in this one, forgive me for the large stack:

1, 4, 11, 19, 20, 26, 33, 35, 45, 51, 55, 69, 72, 77 [Catch and Release]

<3

oooooh my friend this is a FEAST of prompts you are sharing with me!! so excited to dive into this!!

(fair warning, this is... gonna be a long one)

<3

Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered fics?

Multi-chaptered! Partially because I have too many ideas for my own good, but mainly because the context of a character's relationship feels very important to me and I find it hard to capture that properly in just a oneshot. Even the oneshots I have written, at least so far, all connect in some way to a larger established storyline instead of being truly standalone.

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Reading (I do a lot of that), followed by periods of in-between where I can just let my brain marinate. For example, I just reread the first three Fablehaven books while on this band trip, and combined with entirely too much time spent staring out the window of a bus as we got from place to place, I already have an OC and a storyline cooked up for it.

If I need a smaller-dose burst of inspiration, like to get past the writer's block for a particular chapter, I'll go take my dogs for a nice long walk and let my mind wander for a bit.

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

This is admittedly a cop-out, but I have to skip this one for now. I haven't been at my computer in well over a week thanks to this trip, and most of the fics I've been reading lately have been from friends anyway (y'all are amazing writers and your fics were the first in my mind when I read this, but I want to stay neutral about this). Plus I've been up for over a full 24 hours at this point and I really don't have the energy for this question lol

19. What is the most-used tag on your ao3?

Fluff and Angst are tied, which is not a surprise in the slightest. I'm also not great at tagging stuff, so it all gets a little repetitive

20. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Music is definitely my biggest tie-in, it's everywhere. Fics/chapters titled after songs, music present in the fic, notable lyrics, you name it. Music is a huge part of my life, and it weaves into my writing almost everywhere I go.

Aside from that, I feel like there's a lot of queer and neurodivergency themes in my writing, for the same reason as the music: it's a big part of my life and my worldview, and that bleeds into my writing both intentionally and unintentionally.

Symbolism-wise, I think I work with mythology a lot, as well as themes of birds and flight.

26. Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Hm... that's a tough one. They're all pretty wild in their own way.

I'm inclined to say A Love Once New, just because that one's so long that a lot is contained within it, but it also follows a pretty standard X-Men type formula once you look past the length itself.

I think it's a tie between Smoke and Mirrors and Nom De Guerre, though. Those have some of my most dynamic characters, the most intense and unpredictable villains, a few good twists, and I don't rely on the plots of an established movie (Catch and Release is a good wild ride too, but a lot of that is just No Way Home itself coming into play). I think Desert Song will be pretty wild too, but we're too early into that one for me to reveal my secrets just yet ;)

33. Do you want to be published some day?

Yes! I actually started writing fanfic as a way to hone my skills in writing, with the eventual goal of having something published. I don't intend for writing to be my primary career, but there are definitely a couple ideas that I want to get out there, and I want to write them my way.

35. What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain? 

Show their humanity. Give the audience something to relate to. Show the audience a character of unfathomable darkness and they can't relate, at best you just spark a mild intrigue in the angst. But maybe that character does it all to save their younger sister - and you've struck empathy with every older sibling reading. Maybe that character has a favorite pastime, a childhood hobby, a pet, a personal quirk - and you've reached everyone in the audience who has that same quirk.

And once you've tapped into those points of connection, that's when you can play with something deeper than intrigue. It doesn't matter how much magic or power you give your supervillains; if the audience could encounter the same person, or better yet, become the same person through some twist of fate, that's a good villain.

45. Do you want to break your readers‘ heart or make them laugh?

Both. Sometimes at the same time (or at least I try).

51. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,087,068. I write a lot...

55. Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?

Ooh, tough one. I think of the canon characters, the Corinthian is my favorite to write. I love writing characters who are charming, and he fits that down to a tee. Plus, it's fun to explore his sense of morality (or lack thereof), since most of the other characters I write for trend towards the morally good. Billy/Four is a lot of fun too, namely in Desert Song - I can't quite articulate why, he's just a lot of fun to write.

Of my OCs, that's a little tougher. There's something unique that I love to write for each of them: Quinn's allegories on gender and disability, Jasper's empathic sense, Rae's bordering-on-foolhardy sense of justice, Katherine's link to mythology, I could keep going. That's partly how I keep myself motivated, really - I explore something new and different with each of them, and it's hard to choose one favorite.

I will say, though, writing Ophelia is a lot of fun. A lot of my characters are fairly spunky, since I like a good strong character to command the narrative, but Ophelia has something unique that makes her spunk a little different from the others. She genuinely doesn't care how she's perceived by others, and it results in some very fun, very daring interactions.

69. What work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

I mean... Behind the Scenes. AKA, the first fic I ever wrote and posted. I thought it was rough even then, which is why it went abandoned at 7 chapters, but I'm even more embarrassed about it now that I've grown as a writer. I don't look back at it often, but whenever I do, I'm just reminded of how wholeheartedly rough it is compared to what I write now. I really should delete it or orphan it or something, but I don't want to get rid of it until I've started a rewrite for it. Which might mean I never get rid of it. But embarrassing or not, I don't just want it to be gone - it's not my job to determine peoples' personal preferences, what if there's someone who actually likes it?

Don't read it. But it's there for the people who have read it, just in case.

72. What order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

Front to back, because I don't write the full thing before I post (I write it by-chapter and rotate my updates). Also, if I wrote my favorite scenes first, I'd probably end up with about as much writing as I have now... but it would go absolutely nowhere. Writing the gradual build, while it does get tedious at times, definitely helps me pull together a clean and unified final product.

77. Do you have a favorite scene you’ve written from [Catch and Release] story/chapter? 

I was really happy with some of the flashback sequences. Originally there were only supposed to be a few, to help guide Ophelia into her place in the story, but they went over really well and I just kept having ideas, so I kept it going.

I think my favorite is the one in Chapter 10, where Harry meets Olly under the bleachers shortly after her parents died. I feel like it really showed a lot of both Harry and Olly's character, and the darkness that had begun to spread in them even as they tried to offer each other support. There also was a good bit of foreshadowing of Harry as the New Goblin in that chapter, which I put a lot of thought into.

[thecherrygod]

/

[primofate]

2K Followers Event: Pancake and Waffle Cafe Masterlist

Nutella Waffles (overhearing and misunderstanding a conversation/situation) MODERN AU ANGST

Characters: Childe, Kazuha, Thoma, Albedo, Kaeya, Zhongli, fem!reader

Warnings: not proofread :D, cheating, fighting, insulting, misunderstanding (duh), pregnancy, sexual innuendos, implying sex, mentions of sex, still SFW though, of course I bent the lore since it’s an AU

Notes: I had trouble with this so I decided to make it a modern AU. That’s also why it took so long. I think my brain is starting to run dry XD I mean, there’s only so much situations/conversations I could think of that could be misunderstood. Still, enjoy!

Childe

"Ah, sorry, Y/N, I can’t walk you home today... Maybe tomorrow?” Childe smiled at you, scratching the back of his head, his school bag swung over his shoulder already. He looked like he was in a hurry. 

It’s been a few days like this and you really didn’t know what was happening. You asked him if he needed help with stuff at home or if he was having a hard time with his homework and if that’s why he was always rushing off. He would just give you the same smile and wave a hand. “It’s nothing like that,” and then off he’d go. 

The next day, as you walk towards his classroom during lunchtime you hear him and his friends talking before you even reach the classroom door. 

“Zoe is totally cute,” Childe says. The voice he uses is something that he’d never used on you before. You freeze in your tracks and try to listen in more. “Wow, she really is! Great job picking her!” one of his friends said and it sounded as if they’d hit Childe on the back as a congratulations. “Let me see, let me see,” another one says followed by a gasp. “Have you taken her out yet?” Childe laughs nervously and you know all too well without even looking at him that he’s probably scratching his head. “No, not yet,” 

“Does your girlfriend know yet?” Someone else asks.

And then you hear a laugh that’s all too mischievous. All too playful. All too heart-wrenching. “She doesn’t know!” and they continue to laugh.

You turn away and try your hardest not to let tears escape from your eyes. It felt as if you were being laughed at. Like everyone knew that he was cheating. Everyone except you. It doesn’t help that there was a Zoe in the other class too. The way his friends laughed made your cheeks heat up in embarrassment and the tears you were so desperately holding back to finally flow through.

You ended up staying in the washroom for the whole of lunch time, staying in a cubicle for an extra few minutes, late for the next class.

Somehow you didn’t expect Childe to still show up in your classroom to pick you up for the day and walk you home. You stare at him at the classroom door, your eyes had already gone back to their normal shade, but still glossy. He doesn’t notice, he has a big smile on his face that mocks you. Ridicules you. 

“Y/N! Let’s go together today!” Does he feel guilty? Is that why he finally agrees to walk home with you? Cause he’s had his fill of Zoe already? You don’t say a word and exit the classroom, going past him. Childe blinks, and turns to watch you walking away from him. “Y/N?”

He walks after you, and takes his place next to you. He touches the strap of your backpack, as usual, and says “I’ll take this--”

“I got it,” you reply curtly and move away from him. He’s dumbfounded, eyes still a little wide at your sudden coldness. Now he’s getting anxious. Did he do something wrong? “H-Hey...Y/N, are you mad because I didn’t walk home with you the past couple days? See, I was just--”

“I’m not that petty!” You nearly growl at him, holding his gaze for a few seconds before walking off again. Your eyes are starting to prickle with more tears. You just wanted to get home. As soon as you can. Away from him. You didn’t have the heart to break up with him face to face. You liked him too much, you knew you wouldn’t be able to do it while looking at his handsome face. 

Then, he snatches your wrist and pulls you back towards him. The school hallways are emptying out, there’s a few students walking by who ignore the two of you. “Then what’s the matter? I don’t like it when we fight. At least tell me what I did!” 

You wrench your wrist away from his and start sniffing. He stands there, shocked at where your tears are coming from. Until you start talking. “I heard you, during lunch time,” his eyebrows furrow. “Lunch...time?” He mumbles, not following. “When you were talking about your cute Zoe!” He doesn’t say anything for a moment and that only confirms your fears. 

He’d been looking at other girls, and probably wanting them.

“...Y/N, Zoe is...” Childe scratched his cheek, averting his eyes away. 

“I don’t wanna hear it,” you try to turn away, but he doesn’t let you and holds your shoulders with his hands, staring straight at you. “My dog,” You were crying at this point, and when you hear his next words your eyes narrow. “W-What?”

“Zoe is my new dog,” 

“B-But your friend asked if you took her out yet...”

“Yeah,” Childe tilted his head, “for a walk?” As you start to connect the dots he takes out his phone and shows you the picture of a cute miniature poodle, it had a collar and a silver tag on it that said “Zoe”. You thought that you might cry again at how cute she was but you just glare up at Childe. “Well, I didn’t tell you cause I was gunna surprise you. I’ve been going home early these days cause we had to go visit the pound a few times and finalize the papers and everything...” 

“I-Is that true? Is that all it is?” You sniff, now wiping your stupid tears away. Childe smiles down at you and takes your hands away from your face, replacing it with his, thumbing away the streaks of wetness. “Y/N, no one can ever replace you,” you sniff and let him dote on you. You’d been missing him for a while anyway. 

“...Well except Zoe, maybe Zoe can,” he’s clearly teasing you and you don’t hesitate to lift your fist and punch him on the shoulder, earning a small “Ow,” from him followed by a laugh. “I’m just kidding, how ‘bout you come over and visit her today? It’s only her second day home!”

Thoma

You’d made an appointment with your friend a long time ago. Just a quick lunch and catch up date. Thoma had graciously volunteered to drive you to the mall where you were meeting up with her.

“You sure you don’t need me to pick you up? It’s Saturday. I’m free,” he flashes you a smile, his eyes darting towards you only for a second before going back to the road. “I’ll be fine hun, I’ll take the bus home,” you reply to him.

Halfway through your journey he says that he needs to buy something from a convenience store, and so he parks the car properly and grabs his wallet. His phone is on the car phone stand and you pay no heed to it until a soft ‘ding’ makes you pick your head up to look at the screen. 

Your best friend’s name pops up, she’s messaged him and your blood runs cold.

“I’ll come over when Y/N’s gone,” the message read. Your heart is already at your throat, and you don’t know what to think. What is this make-believe situation that you’re suddenly in. Is this really happening? Your eyes dart upwards to look at the door of the convenience store. You could see Thoma was still looking at the shelves.

You gulp and you wonder what the right thing to do is. Invade his privacy and peek at his messages? Let it go? Confront him? Cry? Another ‘ding’ fills up the car.

“How long is she going to be out? The longer the better. So...” you couldn’t read the rest of the message, it being cut off but you were already spiraling down the hole of despair. How could he? Your sweet and loyal Thoma ended up going behind your back with your best friend. You thought you were going to be sick, you actually had to roll the windows of the car down to get some fresh air, just as Thoma came out of the convenience store door with a plastic bag. 

You couldn’t look at him. You couldn’t even be in the same space as him. You were going to cancel today with your friend, you didn’t think you’d be able to function properly. When he sat on the driver’s seat and saw you looking out the window, he didn’t think much of it and revved the engine up. “Ready hu--”

“Take me to my sister’s place,” Thoma blinked and turned to you, confused. “But, what about your lunch date today, dear?”

“I don’t feel like going. My sister’s place is nearby, just drop me off there,” Your hands were already typing a reply to the friend that you were about to stand up on, but you couldn’t even think of what to do or say. 

“Dear is everything okay?” He asked while backing the car up, arm outstretched to your side while he’s looking at the rear. He was appalled by your sudden mood change. You didn’t answer but he hears you sniff and he immediately stops the car again. “Y/N? What’s wrong?” He’s alarmed that you’re crying and he reaches to cup your chin and tilt it towards him but you move your face away from him. 

“Y/N?” he asked, the confusion in his voice is actually genuine and you can hear a bit of panic in it. “How long have you been seeing Aya?” you spit the words as if they’re poison and the car is quiet. You laugh bitterly. “I thought so, cat got your tongue, huh?” 

Thoma shook himself out of his confusion to say, “No, wait, I don’t know what you mean,” You scoff at him. You’re shocked at the amount of resentment you had, you trusted this man and yet this is what happens. “Yeah? Why is she sneaking into our house then?” You point at his phone, the screen is still lit up because of the messages and there were more coming in from your best friend. 

Thoma snatches the phone away from the stand and looks at it. Then, he deflates and slumps back on his seat. “Y/N, it’s not what you think,” You hate that line so much. You cross your arms and say, “Just drop me at my sister’s house,” 

“Y/N--”

“NOW!”

The drive was quiet. You didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to push you but didn’t want to drop you off to your sister’s without explaining as well. So, just before your sister’s block, he parks on the side and unbuckles his seat belt, then opens your side of the door. “Y/N, listen to me,” he’s rarely this assertive, but you still don’t listen. He’s blocking your escape path. 

“It’s your birthday today,” Thoma starts and you blink, completely forgetting about it. “Ayu is sneaking in our house while you’re gone because we were going to set up a surprise for you.” He says slowly, as if he’s talking to a child. Your eyes widen, and you relax in your seat. He gives you his phone and urges you, “Go on, Y/N, you know my passcode right? I don’t hide anything from you, you can read the rest,” 

You hesitate, but accept his offer and type it in. 

“How long is she going to be out? The longer the better. So we can set up the balloons,”

“I got the cake don’t forget the candles and lighter,”

Thoma picks up his other hand that had the white plastic bag from the convenience store, he picks up the two items from inside. Birthday candles. And a lighter. 

Your mouth opens, but you can’t say anything and you only bury your face in your hands out of shame. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry Thoma, I--” He manages to let out a laugh and kisses the top of your head. “I’m so stupid. I trust you, I really do, I just--” now you’re not sure if you’re crying out of relief or embarrassment. “I’m so sorry,” You can’t say anything else and he only kisses you on the forehead again.

“It’s alright, you can make it up to me by going on that lunch date, okay? You deserve the rest. You haven’t cancelled yet have you? Let’s freshen up at your sister’s place and I’ll send you to the mall,” 

You nod your head, small smile on your face. This was gunna be one story to tell in the future.

“Oh and it would help if you act surprised when you come home,” Thoma adds with a full laugh that you join in on. 

Kaeya

"So how are you and Y/N?”

It’d only been a couple of months of the two of you dating. Kaeya was handsome, gallant and he knew exactly what to say to people. It wasn’t a secret that he was quite popular in school. 

Little old you was just another girl in just another class.

“Good, I think,” Kaeya responds, you smile around the corner, hidden from sight, knowing that he was taking a juice box break with his friends. “It’s a little annoying though,” your smile drops and your head tilts sideways in question. “I can’t keep her away and she doesn’t even realize how annoying it is,” 

Keep me away? You think. Am I too clingy? You hear them exchange words a bit more, but none of the other words process in your head. Their laughter spurs you out of your thoughts and you return to your classroom dumbfounded. 

When the bell rang for dismissal you immediately packed and walked home by yourself. Kaeya was confused when he arrived at your classroom door, and found that you weren’t there anymore. “...Hey, did Y/N go home?” he asked one of your passing classmates. “Yeah, she went out pretty fast,”

Now he was worried. Did something happen at home? He takes his phone out as he’s out the school building, tapping your name and calling, only for the call to not even connect. His brows furrow but nonetheless, he goes home for today and types in a message for you.

“Hey, you okay? Talk to me if you need something,” 

The next day, when he usually waits outside your door for you to come out, he realizes that you’re a little late and further realizes that you weren’t going to come out. He wasn’t about to knock on your door, your parents didn’t know about him yet. 

He tries to call you again but he’s met with the same result as yesterday. He sighs and looks up at the sky while he’s walking. He hasn’t seen you for nearly a full day now, and he doesn’t realize how long a full day is until now. He just wants to see your smiling face again and he starts to wonder if he’d done something wrong. 

By lunchtime, he’s sprinting towards your classroom as soon as the bell rings, wondering if you were there. Indeed, finally, he spots you in your classroom and his shoulders slump in relief only to tense up again when he sees a guy in your class talking to you, and you, smiling happily. 

“Y/N,” he calls out to you, waving his hand. You look away from your conversation to him and he notices how your smile turns into a tight line on your face. His own smile drops, but you walk out of the classroom anyway and address him. “Yes?” He blinks down at your tone of voice. “U-Uh... Wanna have lunch together?” 

“...But it’s annoying that I’m clingy right?” The two of you unconsciously move away from the door to out in the hallway, so that you’re not blocking the way of people coming in and out. He narrows his eyes in confusion. Where is this coming from? “I--No, what do you mean? I never said that,” 

“Yesterday, you said you can’t keep me away and it’s annoying,” you averted your gaze, feeling your eyes start to water. Kaeya reels back a little, replaying things in his mind, trying to remember if he said something like that. And, with a light bulb moment, his face breaks into a grin and slight laughter. You glare up at him, “What? It’s funny?”

Kaeya places a hand on your shoulder and explains while smiling. “Y/N, you didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation, did you?”

---What really happened---

“It’s really annoying though. I can’t keep her away and she doesn’t even realize how annoying it is,” he sips on his juice box again.

One of his friends pipe up, “Dude that’s a little harsh,”

Kaeya blinks. Once, twice and thrice. Until it dawns on him. “Oh, no, I meant that I can’t keep her away from other people,” he grins and leans both his elbows on the windowsill. “She doesn’t realize that she’s super friendly, and other people like talking to her a lot. Whenever I go to her classroom she’s always talking to different people.”

His friends make a sound of understanding. “I wish I could just keep her to myself,” and continues sipping on his juice.

“That’s really cheesy, even for you, Kaeya,” one of his friends say and the lot of them starts laughing.

---That’s what really happened---

It was your turn to blink at him, confused. “S-So...”

Kaeya pats your head and smiles. “You can ask my friends if it makes you feel better,”

A small blush crosses your cheeks and you duck your head to hide it. It earns yet another chuckle from him. Your moment is interrupted by another guy who approaches the two of you. “Hey, Y/N, if you’re free, do you think you could help me out with this? I don’t really understand it,” 

Kaeya just looks at the guy and sighs, then turns to you again. “See what I mean?” to which you just goofily smile at. 

Kazuha 

“You saw what?”

Your hands freeze, holding the book you were reading open. The living room had gotten lively again, seeing as your little brother had come home from school. “I saw Kazuha with a girl,” 

You try to keep your face composed. It was a school day. You’d stayed home because you weren’t feeling too well. Your brother was saying it without a care in the world. He was just a grade schooler and telling you about the things he observed. He was looking through the fridge for something to drink. 

You didn’t ask more, but you were DYING to know more. Kazuha didn’t mention going anywhere today... You picked your phone up and wondered if you should ask him. Your phone had blown up this morning cause he didn’t see you at school and he was wondering if you were alright. 

But it seems that Kazuha himself was having a grand time too.

“So...T-The girl...Did they look close?”

Your little brother closes the fridge and looks at you while drinking from a milk carton. “Mm...They were holding each other...” You bit your lip as tingles run down your spine. They weren’t the good kind. It was the kind that you get when you watch horror movies and or a drama movie and a revelation had just happened. You were silent for a moment, but in your mind you were already thinking of how Kazuha looked with another girl. Holding each other? What did your brother mean? Like...hugging? Or...? But you couldn’t ask him about that, could you?!

You sighed out loud and slammed the book you were reading down on the table, just as your phone started ringing. “Kazuha,” you whispered under your breath and looked at your phone screen. Well...you believed in him, and you thought the best way to clear this up is to talk to him about it.

So, you grabbed your phone and retreated into your bedroom to talk to him. You picked up the call, “Kazu-kun?”

“Y/N,” he greeted. Even apart, his voice has this effect on you. Like he was really there and breathing into your ear, sending shivers down your spine. You were sure that you were blushing. “How are you? Are you feeling better?” His voice is smooth and calm and you melt into your bed. “Yeah, a little,”

“Could I come over later? I just want to check on you,” You smile into your phone and close your eyes. Kazuha could never do that to you, you think to yourself. But still, you really wanted to ask. “Of course, I don’t think my parents would mind...Hey,” you start, your fingers nervously drawing circles on your pillow. “My brother said he saw you...with a girl,”

There’s silence on the other line, and you can hear him shifting a little. “A...girl?” He repeats the question and you bite your lip. He sounds unsure and now you were unsure too. “Yeah, he said that you were holding on to each other...or something,” Again some silence, until he makes a sound of understanding.

“Ah, he must mean Sango,” there’s a little lilt to his voice, like he was happy and you were a little jealous. “Sango’s my cousin, she came to surprise me for my birthday week.” Kazuha laughs nervously and adds a little hesitantly. “She...uhm...would like to meet you actually, is it okay if I bring her over today?” 

Your heart sighs in relief, as do you and you don’t realize that you’ve done that out loud. In the next moment though, you smile and nod, even though he can’t see you. “Of course! Bring her over!” 

Albedo (More fluff than angst)

Cleaning at home was one of the things you did to get your mind off of things. Some people would call it tedious, but to you, it was sort of relaxing. It was something easy to do, you didn’t need much of your brain, just motor memory. Folding. Laundry. Ironing. Sweeping. Basic chores.

But when you clean up in the bedroom you shared with your boyfriend, and found a neatly wrapped present, red wrapping paper and blue ribbon tied on the top with a tag that said “To: Leila” you’re a little dumbfounded.

Who’s Leila? Is your first thought. Your second thought is, what’s inside? You hold the nicely wrapped box in your hand and turn it all over, trying to get some type of hint. A flash of doubt seeps into your mind but you shake it away. Albedo isn’t like that...Is he? He’s always so dedicated to his scientific research and sure he comes home late sometimes but he always makes it up to you on the weekends...

So who’s Leila? You ask yourself again. And why hasn’t he mentioned it to you? Why didn’t he ask YOU to wrap it? Menial tasks like these were usually passed on to you. You bite your thumb just thinking about it, but in the end just leave the present where you find it.

Later that night as you’re fixing dinner, you aren’t as bothered by the gift as when you first saw it. But it’s still there at the back of your mind and it resurfaces to the front when you hear the familiar keys rattle. Despite that, as he snakes his arms around your waist from behind you can’t help but smile and melt a little, pressing back against him as he leans over to kiss your cheek. “...Smells nice,” he simply mumbles and closes his eyes, enjoying the warmth of both you and your home.

“Welcome back,” you say, while closing the lid on the pot and turning around to give him a proper kiss on the lips. He hums into the kiss as a response and pulls you away from the stove. “How’s your day?” he asks you first and you smile, because your day is nearly the same time and time again. “Fine, I did find a little secret though...” you start and peek up at his beautiful eyes. 

He nods to ask you to continue. “A present, nicely wrapped. and it’s addressed to someone called Leila,” He looks down at you and you stare at him. A moment passes by before he takes his arms back and go into his thinking pose. “...Leila...?” he asks, eyes averting from your gaze. You wonder if he’s pretending. You wonder if he’s trying to make an excuse up. “...I don’t--” and then his eyebrows twitch. “Ah,” he says and drops his arms to his side.

“We were invited to a birthday party, remember? By a co-worker,” he tucks in strands of your hair as he talks. “It’s her daughter’s first birthday...I don’t care much for such things but you insisted it’d be alright to go.” he chuckles a little. “Her daughter’s name is Leila,” 

You make a sound of understanding. Suddenly your hesitant thoughts wither away. “Hmmm? You could’ve asked me to wrap the present,” Albedo pulls away from you and towards the fridge, wanting a glass of water. “The wrapping wasn’t done by me, it was the shop, free service,” and so it made more sense.

And although you want to ask more questions, like where he got it, when and what’s inside, you realize it’s such a trivial thing. It was not worth that much time. A gift is a gift, and you turn back to continue making dinner while making idle conversation with him. 

Zhongli (Warning: Suggestive) (but this is also my personal favourite... aha...)

“Zhongli?” You arrive home a little early today, dropping your keys at the front shelf. You don’t hear him anywhere and you shuffle around your living room for a while, looking at the letters for today. 

He was on a work from home arrangement today, and he would usually be in his office. You were quite sure that he would’ve come out to greet you though, if he heard you. He must be busy at the moment. 

You’d wanted to wash your hands as soon as you came home, and went for the guest washroom. When you open the door, your eyes land on something on the counter, next to the sink. This bathroom was always kept clean for visitors. You liked to host people once in a while, or just invite friends and you took pride in having them comfortable in your house.

Your eyes narrow as you go closer and your hands pick up a pregnancy test that was lying there. 

It was positive.

You put it back down and shudder a little. You don’t remember getting a pregnancy test. You bite your lip and look at yourself in the mirror. You’re already jumping to conclusions, and you can’t help it. Who the hell would leave a pregnancy test in YOUR guest bathroom? Zhongli didn’t mention anything...

You sigh a breath out and close the bathroom door behind you, taking your phone out to text your best friend.

“There’s a positive pregnancy test in our guest bathroom,”

After a moment, there’s a reply.

“OMG Are you preggers?!”

“No, it’s not mine,”

The next reply takes a moment more. “Oh, maybe ask him?” and you know that your friend hadn’t known what to reply at that moment. Because a random positive pregnancy test in your guest bathroom was NOT a good sign. To top it off, you didn’t announce to Zhongli that you were coming home early today.

Your perk up when you hear noise from the other room. You open the bathroom door slightly, and hear the unmistakable low voice of your fiance, coupled with...the voice of another woman. You close the bathroom door again, not bothering to lock it, and sit on the closed toilet seat. You’re sitting there with nothing in your mind, unable to think.

A few minutes later the voices are louder, they’ve moved to the living room, right outside the bathroom you were in. You tense up, and your jaw tightens. You don’t want to see them. You don’t want to hear them. For a moment you wish that you didn’t come home early, and just pretend this didn’t happen, but the door to the bathroom door opens, leaving you eye to eye with a woman you recognize.

Luna was a beautiful woman. Long cascading brown hair, they’re wavy and stops right at her waist. Doll-like blue eyes and a slender body. She sees you sitting there and you feel stupid, but she just breaks into a grin. “Y/N!” she grabs you by the wrist and pulls you out of the bathroom before you could even say anything. You’re numb, so you don’t respond to anything around you.

Zhongli turns around wide-eyed to see you standing there meekly, not meeting his gaze. He still goes to you though and asks curiously. “When did you come in? I didn’t hear you,” he places a hand on your arm while Luna releases you, but you still don’t look up and he wonders if something happened at your workplace to make you come home so early. “Luna and Childe stopped by,” Zhongli says, in at attempt to cheer you up. You look up, and only then did you realize that Childe was there too, talking animatedly to Luna. You tilt your head sideways, “They came with a surprise. Ah, but it’s not mine to tell,” 

That’s right... Luna and Childe had been together for a while and then it hits you when Luna shows you the same positive pregnancy test you saw on the counter, and announces that she’s pregnant. Your eyes are wide. You can’t tell if you’re more relieved that it wasn’t what you thought or more happy for your friends. You feel horrible about it but you manage to crack a smile and went along with the festivities. The more time passed the more you were able to enjoy their happiness and by the time they left, that was the only time you sighed and let your shoulders slump, exhausted.

“Is something the matter?” Zhongli asked. He noticed how your smiles were a tad bit forced. How you seemed to enjoy everything but also seemed to be on edge. You turn to him and shook your head. “It’s...stupid. It’s my mistake,” but he holds on to your waist and urges you to tell him.

And you tell him. How you came home and saw what you saw in the guest bathroom, what you thought it was and how you felt. The only thing you can feel now is embarrassment and shame. You couldn’t even feel happy for your friend. Zhongli only smiles and combs his hand through your hair. “It’s the normal reaction,” he reassures you, again trying to make you feel better. You only respond with your own hug but his next sentence makes you flustered, all thoughts of earlier gone as he whispers into your ear.

“Would you like your own positive pregnancy test?”

Taglist: @larkspyrr @rim0na @sweeti-pie @l3mon-mxshroom @hai-q-haikyuu @tkshoki @kyquu @kimbapsana @leefletter @hentaje @tempehlust @rinnesy @hallohun @softlybeloved @volleybloop @ssalamanderr @ben6ett @rytszk @guilixi @reiluvbot @mondstadts-favourite-traveler @xxcrowfeatherxx @b-trld @mkazuyuh @shittyeditsofwhatiwant @ayra2452008 @simpingover @soft-like-sunshine @lnrchii @scheophi @multifandomgeeks @sacredmouche @risasblog01 @mai-m4i @foxxtrot-116 @maple-leaaf @lucy-roo @bluepinkpink @myday6-studies @thraiaiscrying @missbuwan @the-one-that-lurks @adeptitao @xibrokensunriseix @ilovemyleftboob @marblesphere @allinduetimethefirst @nortdreww @jjsjjsjsjsjjsjjs @how-simpy @loltartaglia @minyoustar @sesetiger @Ghost1y-demon @lqvl3y @cysperia @candyqueen10 @ichigo-no-tsumi @omoriq @saving-for-xiao @trashykawasmilkbread @jjkclub @pearstears @seiiblue @midnightangelfox @korinkuu @heesocks @bobaducky @normalisthenewnorm @atasi-luna @callariri @milkypompon @fadinganchornight @coldstonecrematorium @probablybethere @qingxinteaa @hanachan_2481 @plumpkie @Ghost1yd3mon @idk-imjusthere @amigenshin @spirlimpo @hadesaedes @tsim-tsim @dilucragnvindrsgf @gahisb @yunaholics @that-one-air-collecter @allinduetime @albe4ove @berryqueue @give-xiao-almond-tofu @leafcaller @ninqat @mintyayu @luvmedaily @kiyokoshii @jendytub @thegayrubberducky @chuewi @bitandbytes @alatusorrow @midnightistyping @duskdawn052 @ventislatte @fishclaymore @jahnvi-d @justpeaxchy @tremmblingbling

Masterlist

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Taglist (Want to be notified when something new comes out? Sign up! I’ve added some other fandoms as well, so if you’re interested in those, fill in the form again!):

https://forms.gle/VZmJXQssHcv7YzQc6

Commissions are open on my kofi :) and there’s only a limited amount available. Make sure you read the description of what kind of commissions I do:

https://ko-fi.com/primofate

Also do check out @dgon218 and her shop!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/DGON218/shop?asc=u