#i will never post a weekly fic Again god bless

[lottiecrabie]

choose your own smut adventure. end – matty healy

previous. start.

Matty winces. “Right,” he nods. He straightens up and slides out of you slowly; you gasp at the feeling, already sore from the barest movement. Your cunt throbs around nothing, trying to adjust to the lack of him, as though he’d rearranged something in you, left you changed. Made for him, or at the very least constructed.

Matty’s eyes are firmly fixed down and you frown, sitting up to see what he’s staring at. His cum is leaking out of you, falling on the desk. He’s transfixed, licking his lips. “Sorry,” he says, vaguely flushing, though still doesn’t look away. 

You laugh. “You’re such a boy.”

“It’s hot!” He defends, but a laugh bubbles out of him all the same. There’s a dazed, euphoric atmosphere to this dorm room. A slight giddiness. You feel like a teenager again. 

Matty grabs his shirt from the floor, using it to clean at the wet mess between your thighs. You hiss when he rubs at your clit, oversensitive, and he gives you an apologetic look, wiping gentler. You grab his shoulders once he’s done, pouting at him comically. “But now what will you wear when you leave tomorrow?” 

“I can fit in one of your shirts.” You snort. 

You smack a kiss on his lips, then jump off the desk. You’re weak on your legs, a newborn fawn, and you must grip him just to stand still. You sniff; your nose wrinkles. “God, we need a shower. We reek.” 

“I think we’ll need a full-on exorcism to get rid of the smell in this room.” You make a sound of agreement. 

It really is a carnage; clothes everywhere, pillows and covers thrown around, papers and pens fallen soldiers at your feet. The bed even managed to scoot away from the wall, laying tilted, the scarf still tied around the bed frame. It’ll take a few hours just to organize everything correctly, and you’re too post-orgasm drunk to care. 

“Shower first. Then we can draw the pentagram.” 

“Always on that schedule,” he tsks. 

He walks you to the bathroom with minimal laughing at your shaky, penguin legs, though not zero. You give him a few glares, holding back very pointed comments on how it’s all his fault, mostly because they would just climb directly to his head and permeate that ego of his. 

The bathroom is a square, little thing, and the shower is even tinier. You’re practically chest to chest trying to fit both of you in the small cubicle. The shower sprays mostly on your back; Matty valiantly left you the prime spot under the shower head. While burning water falls on your shoulders, relaxing those sore muscles, Matty clings to you just to try and catch a few droplets. 

“Let me do your hair,” Matty says once you’ve washed off the stench of sex coating your bodies. You acquiesce, pointing him to the lavender shampoo on his side of the shower. 

You turn your back to him. Behind you, Matty gathers some shampoo. His fingers bury in your hair, delicately unraveling all the knots he’s created. He digs into your scalp, massaging it. You moan. Your head falls back, loose and slack. He really does have magic hands. 

“We gotta wash it off,” he whispers in your ear. You turn around again, grinning at him. He’s beautiful, warm and flushed, with water droplets falling down his eyelashes onto his cheeks. You want to kiss him, so you do. 

Matty bends your head back under the shower head. The shampoo washes off, leaving a faint aroma of lavender behind. When he’s done, his hands fall around your waist, holding you close, trapping you in the heat of his cocoon.

His fingers graze your back. A delicate, gentle drawing, more subconscious than a fixed thought. You shiver under his fingertips; tough, callused. Matty kisses your shoulder. You giggle, pressing your head into his. He straightens out to kiss your forehead next. 

“Was I a good teacher?” 

You grin up at him, scrunching your nose. “The best.” You flutter your eyelashes at him. “Was I a good student?”

“You were okay.” You gasp, slapping his shoulder. He laughs good-naturedly. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He grows serious, though still syrupy soft in the eyes. “You were the best.” Pride tingles up your limbs.

Your head falls on his shoulder. He draws circles on your spine, spinning around each bone, climbing up, then down. It’s all so right, so perfectly fitting; his fingers were meant to touch your skin. You know this deep in your bones. 

“Next time, I want to sit on your face,” you whisper, cheek squished on him. 

Matty laughs. He wraps around your waist, tightening. “Show me that list of yours. We’ll work through it.” 

You tilt your head up. “It’s long,” you trail meaningfully. “Might take us a few days.”

His grin drips on his face. “Perfect.” He leans in to kiss you, breathing, “It’s a date.”

[plasticfangtastic]

Of The Same Poisonous Ilk. Ch. 2

A Homelander fanfic

A/N: will try doing weekly post for this series, thank to all those who read this, all aplicable tw are put down here if I miss any plz let me know, long chapter ahead! previous chapter here:

Sypnosis: As if God himself had decided to play a prank on him, Homelander is finally blessed with a true equal... Himself... yet not quite the same.

R18+ Violence, gore, smut, selfcest, butchlander, homewell, discussion of sexualization of minors, Child abuse, Femlander, Multiverse shenanigans, Canon Divergent, Darkfic, 3some, Bi-Lander.

Chapter two

Gasping, his throat collapsing, her hand viciously gripping at his throat, his eyes rolling back and their hands in a deadlock.

He had no clue why she snapped so quickly.

Just before with sleepy eyes and groggy lips calling after a man whose named sounded like his own, she pulled, forcing their lips together, Joan devoured him madly, desperately, groaning loudly against his lips, gripping at his hair, her hands starved after him, as his own hand cradled her cheek he felt the damp on her cheeks, that sweet moment died out, she pushed him after trying to kill him, shivering like a wounded doe.

As she calmed down Homelander watched her in awe unsure of what game this woman was playing– why had she become so upset? He could feel his lips throbbing, bruised from the intensity of her kisses and wanting more, both left gasping, she clung to the blanket covering herself as she moved towards the corner, her hair wild and her cheeks bright red.

Homelander leaned forward on his elbows, he felt it again, electricity circulating in his body, feeling her leave had left him oddly vacant. He was falling into a spell, wanting… needing… itching to touch her, a primal craving consuming his desires, they both stared at each other unable to speak yet willing, filling the dark room with nothing but quiet breaths, their heartbeats slowing together.

“Disappointed?” he jokes, wanting to calm her down.

She sniffed, cleaning the tears still staining her cheeks.

“I am sorry.” She cried looking away from him. Homelander never said it but hearing it from her felt strange as if she wasn’t made for it– I… I won’t do it again… so don’t hate me.”

“Is alright… come here…” He stretched his hand– that Jon and you?” he asked nervously, tightening his jaw.

“No!! It wasn’t like that… I thought for a second he was still alive…”

She got closer to him, trembling horribly, afraid he would bite this time around, but Homelander didn’t do such thing, he wrapped his arms around her, feeling that electricity once more, her body fit so neatly against his own, her smell intoxicating– smelling of oats, milk and sunflowers like himself. Her body just the right temperature, her skin made his own crawl, touching her was the finest velvet, her hands just as soft as his own, she sobbed under his gentle embrace.

She held him as she cried lighty, it all remained a mystery to him– one he wanted to unravel. He had only fantasized about hugging himself as a small child…but receiving it now… it felt soothing… without the cringe and shame, this wasn’t that disgusting experience with Doppelganger either, this was him in a way– just better… She was a beautiful new thing, she was real and dependant of him. John and Joan felt the warmth of each other resting in the bed, falling asleep in each other's arms. She slept so soundly, his heart sounded just like Jon’s, in her dreams she saw him, on top of a big rock chewing on jerky, the sun hiding behind him as he watched the vast empty desert, no matter how much she wanted to sit by his side, her legs wouldn’t move.

Homelander awoke, he usually woke at the crack of dawn but for once he overslept, looking down to find the woman still wrapping him, he had slept in his suit which was unheard of but it was a fair trade-off… he had never slept holding another person for an entire night. Looking at this sweet thing he thought of himself at that age, Maeve would make love to him but she would be gone by morning, Madelyn never stayed for longer than an hour or two if he was lucky but now he had the full experience and he didn’t just felt spoiled– he felt light as he squeezed this coiled body around him, surprised that even his little Homie hadn’t ruined the moment, watching her in his arms as she held for dear life at his body– he only found comfort and nothing else, fixated with the song of her heartbeat, gently pushing her finding himself whining as he lets her go, watching her sleep soundly, he brushed her soft hair aside tucking her in. 

He had never once felt this relaxed in the morning– not without sex being involved somehow of course. He caressed her cheek in and let her sleep, he had one mission and that was to look at the contents of that phone.

Ashley bites at her nails, unsure of what to do, the rest of The Seven, Stan Edgar, the head of Crisis management and Dr. Park awaited for Homelander who was unusually late, the prospect that that female had killed him while they slept was being discussed psychically– and then the doors tragically opened up.

“Good morning! I see we’re having an important meeting” He said with genuine glee.

“I texted you three times this morning, sir.” Ashley whispered, taking her place by his shadow– we had one of analytics cracked her phone.”

“Could’ve just asked me– we got the same fingerprint.” he laughs lightly as he heads for his spot catchign Dr. park's attention–"So what brings such illustrious faces this morning.”

Stan raises his eyebrow, gesturing to the head of Crisis management.

“As Dr. Park already briefed the rest of your team, it has come to our attention that our surprise visitors are from another dimension and such ramifications well… long story short You and the rest of the Seven must ensure that our two visitors remain inside the tower, and away from the public.”

“So you invited Starlight?” Homelander chuckles– give it five seconds before she’s texting her boytoy at the FBSA!”

“I’m well aware of the irony… but in the event she does get out or Leaper… it would be a good idea to have a backup– as I was informed it appears that she’s your equal in a fight.”

He scoffs at the idea, taking a seat at the helm.

“If they can’t kill me what makes you think–

“You are to do whatever it takes to take her down, understood.”

Homelander said nothing, feeling the heavy stare of his boss, he would entertain him but he wouldn’t– Joan was worth something to him, there was only one of him, only one original Homelander... but afterall God had made Eve out of Adam's rib, he wouldn't insult the lesser God by throwing away a gift to his most perfect creation.

Starlight cleared her throat trying to calm the flames about to ignite.

“I’m certain that our guest might be reasonable and understanding– I mean she hasn’t attacked since yesterday, no?”

Homelander looked at the young blonde and bitterly nodded, Starlight could only hope this woman could kill their Homelander, in that fight she would put all her bets on her.

“She’s still asleep in my penthouse…” His ear picked the light snoring.

The older man looked rough, muscular and no nonsense, he turned the TV screens on-- each revealing their own stories.

Three stills of Homelander, of three versions of him– A tired one covered in scars and worn down by the sun trying to light a cigarette, a young man with longer hair holding the bottom half of a jaw, and a shirtless man, more muscle than body fat, covered in in a blue glowing liquid, his eyes glowing the same color.

Dr. park took to his side, touching his tablet.

“I don’t need to explain that this footage is highly sensitive– I was frankly blown away if I’m honest” 

He looked far too eager.

“We couldn’t access any of her social media accounts… well their versions of them… seems MySpace, Friendster and Douyin are the main sites, she also has a LINEs account, thus we were able to read her conversation currently we have someone from analytics transcribing”

A screen showed a snipped between Homelander and a man named J with a love heart emoji”

“Joan darling you will do the interview… is that or you post an apology video”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong!!”

“We know and we stand behind you, yet we can lose any more points– do you want people not to love you anymore?”

“alright…”

–… but her gallery well” He takes a deep breath throwing rapid looks at the head of the Seven, revealing there were hundreds and hundreds of Videos and thousands of pictures– our visitor decided to vlog her entire journey, taking multiple daily blogs and stopping only until she could find where or how to charge her phone based on the dates and breaks, I had one of the interns select a few highlight-reels but there’s no doubt this girl is… well…” He looks at Homelander feeling his throat shrink– a Homelander.”

Dr. Park fumbled a bit on the screen.

“We analyzed several of her videos and pictures to determine if they were some high-quality Deep Fakes but all videos came out as real” he said nervously.

One screen flipped thru different photos of Homelander, her in multiple Vough branded events, selfies at movie openings, smiling with Stan Edgar, a version of him that seemed friendly with her and a man that looked vaguely familiar to Homelander in a way he couldn't pinpoint, there were plenty of selfies advertising a make-up and skincare brand called “Homegirl”, a few risque poses here and there that made him blush and angry that he could hear the other men in the room react, for all purposes Homelander was no different than a social media influencer, one photo peeved at the supe, just a selfie with a pair of streamers and a cute sign saying thank you for 300 million Youtube subscribers alongside a diamond plaque.

“The videos were the most insightful.” he cleared his throat– she had kept quite extensive records… her phone battery life last 46 hours on one charge– this technology could revolutionize the world! we are certainly already copying for next year’s V-flip model” He said giddily.

Homelander leaned closer, all eyes focused on the screen. Annie already trying to figure out how she would tell Butcher that his worst nightmare had happened, Maeve clung to hope that this girl wasn’t anything like her ex and the other three were counting the seconds before the meeting would abruptly end, except for Noir who wasn’t entirely sure what was happening as this girl wasn’t Homelander… his only worry is that he had a Yoga class to attend and he might be late now– looking at those picture this person was far more sociable than his best friend.

The video played, Lady Homelander fixed her hair in an unseen mirror stuck in a grand room.

L.E.D lights glew soft blues, a large king size bed peek from the side and behind her a futuristic night sky, a handful of plants decorated a corner and a machine flew around spritzing the plants.

“Hi Guys!! Dunno when I'm posting this but it seems I'm in a little pickle…”she forced a smile but it broke quickly–… I dunno when I’ll be able to talk to you guys again, but it seems I’m in the future?” She took her phone and turned the camera around to the window. It was New York but miles taller, vehicles flew on invisible roads, roofs and balconies covered in greens and massive billboards projected themselves in glorious technicolor– I think I’m going to go insane… I’ve been here for three days and no sign of Leaper… I might be trapped here but I can feel him still here. I have to believe it!.”

The video cut to another scene, this time of Ashley– present one straightened herself unable to believe that in another dimension she would still be trapped in hell.

But this Ashley seemed… sexy, she had an air of confident and dreamy eyes to her, her make up metallic and perfect, her hair long and luscious, and her skin glowing, in her hand a glass of wine, she dressed in a intricate chiffon gown and pearls.

“So tell my audience a bit about yourself…” The Homelander voice whispered.

“I’m Wednesday. And I’ve been Wednesday for over ten years, used to be Monday but now am hump day– thank god! couldn't stand being Monday.” she said with a sultry tone– Monday always has to deal with his bad mood, best days are moi, Thursday and Saturday… altho I don’t like Saturday, she thinks we can be friends.” she seemed grossed out at the thought.

“You guys aren’t friends?”

“We don’t talk to each other outside the groupchat– y’know we ain't gonna let each other serve him the same meal twice, but we ain’t actually talking– it just makes things easier.”

“In what way?” She pressed– "I mean if all of you are his wives…”

“So we should be besties and bake pies together?” Ashley sounded disgusted– look I see him once a week, I get all I want, I live in a grand apartment and I haven’t aged a single day since he infected me with the V-Virus, can you believe I am sixty this year?” she laughed then took a sip of her ‘wine’.

“So it makes you happy?” She sounded sad.

“Why wouldn’t she?” That familiar voice creeped behind her, she turned the camera finding a suited man untying his blue tie by the entrance of the living room, Homelander didn’t expect the house to look like a scene from blade runner meets dune, walls so tall and the sepia lights coloured the skin of his mirror image a uneasy shade, this man younger perpetually trapped in his mid twenties at the latest, his hair swooped to the side and longer, the camera close enough to catch the sickly paleness of his skin behind the yellow tint and bright red eyes-- but not so by light but on their own, Ashley moved towards Homelander– hello my love, work finished early today… missed you.”

“Oh sweetie I missed you” She had jumped to his side wrapping her arms around his shoulders– come here tiger.” she chuckled into his lips.

Ashley eyes widen as  sexy Ashley kissed her Homelander, and had the camera lingered a second longer Homelander might’ve puked as the kiss was more than just passionate, the two basically humping on sight, nobody dared say a thing– a new video played, before the barf bags were distributed.

“Six wives? What’s the logic there Jonathan?” her voice annoyed.

“Sunday is a day of rest… I’m just a man I would die if I don't get some ‘me’ time” He chuckled, the young man sat in a thick leather armchair, plants around him and some marble statues to his side, everybody could’ve sworn it was the Venus de milo, a lot of paintings from the renaissance period adorned his presence- why does it bother you?”

He sounded younger, everything about him felt strange, like peeking into a fabricated memory, his skin had no wrinkles or hard lines but it was him… and it shouldn’t.

“Their names” she grumbled- the lack of them”

“Is easier than remembering their names” He smiled devilishly– is a joke don’t shoot. They don’t want to know each other… ask them! I just follow what my lovers like” he laughed lifting his hands defensively.

“Is hard to believe you and I are the same person… we don’t share anything.” she sounded exasperated.

“We share one thing and that's we are apex predators… you think of them as mud and I see cattle” She paced the camera to the dehydrated corpse by her foot– I get quite hungry after six days with my wives… and just for the record I do know their names… Victoria, Margaret, Ashleigh, Rebekah, Keneth and Kumiko… used to have a Klara and a Serge but they broke our rules.” He looked saddened by his own words.

He stood up picking up the dead corpse with ease, lifting its head to the gaping wound on his neck, he placed his empty cup beneath the wound watching a few drops fall.

“I miss Serge… his veal tasted like the sun kissing my skin once more.” Annie's mouth dropped– but I love them…”

“Do You? Or are you filling the empty void with sex?” The girl stood up and led the camera thru the art gallery into a massive painting of a young girl no more than 16 or 17, long wavy blonde hair, pale blue eyes and thin lips, on top of a cream marble fireplace, Homelander leaned closer he couldn’t mistake that teen for anybody else but Madelyn, but how?– or you just miss her?”

“Maybe I am still a little bit human… or not.” The man teleported beside her, never making a peep– She turned me… guess I still love her in a way.

“And she left you so you decided to get six wives to replace her?”

He chuckled, taking a silver box from a set of five by the fireplace, he opened the latch to reveal a beating heart, dried but it beat weakly, alive, the second the light touched it, strange strands made of sticky flesh began chasing after Joan, pale pink threads twirling and winding into a bleeding and sickly primitive appendage, growing rapidly, white fragments growing inside the threads, doubling in size every second it gets closer.

“She’s still here” he shut the box and the muscle wilted into a fine red dust– she’s not very talkative these days.”

“Can we see somebody else!!?” Homelander squirmed in his seat, feeling his cheeks reddened.

“Well is definitely not something of this world” Stan said, not hiding the sickly feeling in his stomach– but I was told there were two other subjects.”

The Deep had passed out with open eyes, the thought of being Homelander “wife” was horrific and had completely ignored the horror scene afterwards but A-Train nudged at him with a shit eating grin, he just watched the trio with a smile so big he would happily die.

The screen had paused on a woman that Homelander recognized, Rebecca… Ryan's mother-- Jonathan’s Rebekah. She looked so beautiful as she entered the grand room carrying a small infant in her arms wrapped in pink. 

The woman unfazed at the metal box in her husband’s hand.

The man began to picture his funeral, as he went to subject number two, he had already ordered the death of the analytics members who’ve seen this video.

The video played and this man looked far more exhausted than Homelander could’ve imagine, it almost looked like make up on him– he wore a Hawaiian shirt, his arm slightly muscular and a growing beard shadowed his face, his hair just growing from a recent buzz cut and the circles on his eyes inmensed as he made waffles.

“Youse gonna wear that shit all day?” he took a long puff of his cigarette– I got you clothes for a reason, mate.”

“Yeah! I just got these washed and I like the feeling… Either way, come on! give me content, you can just be an annoying hardass all the time! I’ll get demonetized!”

“You also want me to to put on a fucking monkey suit and dance like a fucking wanker?” His accent was so painfully Australian– now do ya want two or three for brekky?”

“One”

“Chookie” He slap her plate with three waffles– you need to eat…now take the fucking suit off.”

Her plate was jammed packed with waffles, bacon sausages and eggs, and she could do nothing as he slathered the bitch in maple syrup.

“Milo or coffee?”

“Milk is fine.”

That he didn’t argue, The man served a second plate and the camera poorly followed to the figure seating next to him, Annie’s mouth dropped soon followed by Homelander.

Sitting beside her was Butcher… slightly younger, his skin beaming, and his hair nicely combed in a similar fashion to Homelander’s, his face clean shaved and not a scar adorned his features, he looked admittedly handsome– had he not worn Homelander’s suit he wouldn’t find this so disturbing, he looked just like the first time they’ve met all those christmases ago, Homelander bit his cheek anxiously.

From the angle they could see his cape draped over his shoulders, a thick chain dangled on his chest, and a detailed eagle sculpture adorned his shoulder, red gloves sat by the breakfast table dividing Joan and the impostor.

She recorded him eating as he moaned on that first bite.

“Aww Cyanide this time! so tingly.” He said in a sweetened voice– surprise you hadn’t tried it before Butcher, darling.”

Johnny gave a defeated sigh and moved to the fridge, writing cyanide on a whiteboard.

“Nathan is going to be so disappointed…” he mumbled.

“So how long have you two been doing this… thing?” she sounded uncomfortable.

“Two years. Easier to kill the cunt if I kept him around… dunno why it had to be in my fucking apartment!!”

“Ryann’s school is closer to your place.”

As if on queue a young girl shouted from across the house, a little girl no more than 8 ran into the kitchen with her hair in messy pigtails.

“Daddy, I can't find my shoes!!”

Maeve and Annie exchanged panic looks, and Dr. Park sweating a litre under his jacket.

“Did ya check the laundry?” he said in a calm voice trying not to laugh at the mess on her hair– did dad try to do your hair again?”

“Hey she’s wiggly” Butcher said with a lightest english accent he could muster.

“He just sucks!” She giggled playfully.

“He's a stubby short of a six pack actually” both chuckle together.

This was Ryan, the face too similar not to be him, her hair a dark red but her eyes the same shape but black eyes. That expression made his chest tightened as he watched his copy calmly fixing the girl's hair as she nodded, the camera came back to Not-Butcher.

Homelander could do the math, this was Maeve's and Butcher's Ryan, Joan had said so last night and now he saw the product.

This one seemed so content too, both men stayed quiet until the girl was out of the room.

“So you two are raising the kid together while you let him figure out how to kill you?”

“Shocker I know!” he cleans his hand and steals a waffle off Joan’s plate– look one day me and the bin chicken over 'ere realize that we both cared about the kid, so begrudgingly we sat one arvo and agreed to this… altho this cunt over here thinks I'm his maid!”

“Last time I tried cooking you hit me with a rolling pin over some eggs!”

“You calcified them!”

The man smiled behind his hand as he took his cigarrete back into his mouth, Joan did nothing to stop the cameras as the fake-Homelander stood up after a couple bites, wrapping his arms on the shorter man, forcing a kiss on his temple and lips as the man stabbed at his neck with a dirty kitchen knife– to no success.

“I’ll be late today, Daddy” he said shamelessly.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you Park” Homelander's voice had no humor to it, his eyes glowing so bright the heat made Maeve's hair frizz out.

“Ah… what happens next!” he sounded panicked– just wait!!.”

As Johnny kissed the bastard back the air was vacuumed out the room, a fat persian cat clawed at the floorboards yowling, Johnny shouted “Horror!” and the fake-Homelander moved to catch the feline as the house was sucked into a vortex, standing before the vortex was Leaper, his hair messy and his expression dazed and angry, he made a small size portal by crossing his fingers together into Ryann’s bedroom her stuff toys spat back at the trio, the girl was flung straight into the mayor vortex, as Leaper grinned.

“Told ya I’ll get even you cheap fucking whore!” He jumped into the hole and before Fake-Homelander could say a thing the portal closed after him.

“This Leaper can still create portals, it seems he needs to make a formation with his hands to activate his powers– but it might just be a quirk, it is likely that once our guest wakes up he might be able to escape anywhere in New York or further” He said, sweating buckets.

He still destroyed the TV screen, causing everybody to get on edge.

“You think you can humiliate me?” he growled, red light clinging in his eyes.

“I don’t think that was Dr. Park's intention, Homelander” Stan said– his scientific curiosity got the best of him and I am certain that this situation won’t repeat itself, right?” He said in his trademark humorless tone– it’s also not you, I think everybody here can state that that man is merely a look-alike” Stan raised his hand towards his temple.

"Don't really look like you, sir!" Deep butted in-- he's balding and you have great hair, Homelander!"

"Couldn't tell, he's australian! like what the fuck!? right?" Said Ashley almost in a panic.

"He's gay tho" Maeve risked it staring at Annie as she died alive-- terrible taste in men too."

Homelander grumble, stroking his tired eyes.

“Sorry I had my assistant make the compilation, she must’ve made the mistake! She’ll be disposed of immediately!!” he blurted.

“I’ll do it myself” Homelander grumbled and the man whispered into the ear of the head of crisis management who wrote the name down and slipped it into Homelander’s hand.

The video had continued to play on the screen beside it unnoticed.

until shouting began.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!!??” His voice echoed in a run down building– "Do you have any idea whatchu did, Pendejo!!?”

The man was unseen but the camera got closer struggling to focus, catching the young man in front of him with more clarity. It was A-Train wearing a military uniform, a light blue scarf wrapped around his neck, his vest heavy and his gun resting before him, the man bit at his lip trying to hold back his emotions.

“You!” The man came out of obscurity, he wore a similar uniform, his sleeves rolled up pointing at him with small dark red gloves– I should kill you!”

The shit eating grin was spat back at A-Train from the rest of the room.

“Jon… Colonel, sir. I had to do it, otherwise those people would ‘ave died!”

“I Know you did the right thing!!” He spat back with a trembling hand– But you should’ve called for me!! God dammit Reggie– I made a promise to your brother! Don’t you dare make me break that promise!!” He cried catching the younger man forcing him closer– I promised I would bring you home… You could’ve died, Reggie… I can’t lose you man! I can’t lose another one of my brothers!”

He sobbed softly, trembling against the younger guy.

“I didn’t want you to die, Colonel… There’s no future for us if you ain’t around” he said stifling his tears, returning his hug.

“You’re too young to care about my future!!” he shouted back behind tears– "this war doesn’t need to lose anymore people, much less humanity’s future!”

He held the young man’s face, forcing him to look straight into his deep blue eyes.

“Don’t ever do that without me!” He said holding back a sob– thank you for saving those people, you did the right thing… those families are still together because of you, but had you failed…” He pushed him back into his arms– I don’t think I could've ever faced Nathaniel, I couldn’t face the rest of our squad.”

“Colonel.”

“My life belongs to all of you, is not precious. Is not like yours or the rest of y'all that’s the weight of being a leader. I will protect you.” he said firmly as the afternoon sun burned thru the cracks of the abandoned building.

“Jesus what a cry-baby” Homelander said with great indignation.

To the rest of the room, whose ears had picked up with great interest, watching this was as if they were seeing an oscar winner contender, if he could pull off that charade in front of them they would buy him the ballot votes themselves, but their eyes were glued to the screen trying to figure out what creature that was, to come to terms that there was a version of him that appear to be made good and they’d drawn the shit end of the stick.

The video cut abruptly to a new scene, Homelander seemed more disgusted at this overly dramatic display of brotherly love than the prior acts of homosexual behaviors while the rest of the room dream of a game of switcheroo– the scene was of Jon. Maeve mouth dropped slightly as she caught a glimpse of the tall man, he was bulky, pure muscle, maybe 6’2’’ or 6’ 3’’at least– that or A-Train was short as fuck in that universe. He had a charming genuine smile, with messy blonde hair, a patchy coloured beard decorated his sharpened jaw, and his arms qualified as weapons with how big and beefy they were.

His cheeks sunburn and his smile bright enough to light up a baseball stadium.

He laughed earnestly as an older black man spoke to him.

“So that’s what actually happened.” Said the black man.

“Que la Virgencita tenga piedad contigo, Earving.” Jon replied, shaking his head with a giggle still caught in his tongue– Dunno what am going to do with you uncle, but sure as hell am glad my mami ain’t around to hear you.”

“Grace loves me, my boy.” he snorts– "should've seen her back at her age” he pointed at the camera woman.

Homelander wished he was alone, just to hear Black Noir once more, his friend barely registered the scene, just staring at the unscarred face, his voice lively, and his hair all there, he was aged maybe twenty years older than the young man beside him on screen, but he had an unusual youthfulness to him.

Homelander relaxed transfixed on the interaction.

“So how did you get a medal of honor?”

“A ship holding refugees was ambushed. I had only gotten the V-Serum two months prior but in that moment I suddenly learned how to fly and well, long story short… I was left bruised but not a single person was lost that day.”

She kept the camera still on him, making sure to frame his biceps, the camera occasionally flickering lower, unsubtle voyeuristic at the man’s body as she “struggled” to keep the pace, not that his army rags helped with modesty, they were tight beneath that vest, a gun strapped to his hip.

“You care a lot about people?”

“I was given these powers to help people, don’t get to be selfish anymore– all I want is to make sure no kid grows up without their loved ones… I lost my sister in one of the attacks, left me two kids, and I can’t look at their faces while knowing the monsters that took her are still free and hurting people, not when I got these powers, if I had yours I could’ve ended this myself, I am sure of that.”

He sounded so bitterly wounded, Joan just let the camera linger on his eyes.

“Now with you around we can save more people! and I’ll do anything I can to help you find a way home as a thank you, Te lo prometo.”

She had blushed behind the camera as his hand petted her hair, freezing under his gruff hands.

“So what’s with the spanish?” Joan asked nervously– aren’t we American? Or do you just like speaking spanish?”

“I’m Mexican, silly” he said, thickening his accent jokingly– Well technically my parents are Americans hence why I sound American, but I was born and Raised in el De Efe, then left to the US when I turned eighteen.” He grinned– I wanted to go to the same army university as my dad, and I joined the army, served for twenty years and then this invasion started– by then borders began to mean very little… they needed bodies on the field, this whole army is composed of everybody still walking after those monsters came and took it all” He said angryly– Still a beaner tho”

She had ignored most of that.

“You had parents?”

“You don’t?”

“no…” Joan said quietly– I…”

“I’m so sorry…” he stopped walking, turning to face her, instinctively putting his hand on her shoulder with a deeply apologetic look on his face, something truly unseen in this boardroom– It couldn’t’ve been easy… my dad him and my mom were engaged when they made me– one night my dad went to get dinner and never came back. My mom learned the morning after that a drunk driver killed him… my dad was army and my mom worked for the government, she got a job at the mexican embassy because it paid well and my grandpa didn’t want anything to do with my mom” He said sadly– had a stepdad but all he did was drop my sister and that’s it.” 

“You close to your mom?” She asked meekly, feeling safe and small under his grip, her hand trembling slightly.

“Close? This boy calls his momma everyday” Earving blurts– is a miracle she isn’t here to tuck him to bed.”

“Uncle!”

The group walked in a destroyed city, smoke and ash permeated in the air, when the camera caught something strange, from a distance a beast roared from on top a cracked building, it was beautiful and awful– coated in pearlescent skin, horns and bone shaped its head like an orchid, it’s eyes small but plenty, its body slim but large, it was a dragon with wings twice its size, its mouth larger ripping into its throat as its chest illuminated and puffed, Jon eyes widen ordering everybody to take cover, as he took flight.

The alien dragon spat a killer lazer only stopped at the projectile man took to its throat.

Small creatures emerged, walking on leathery wing stilts, their markings gray and brown, they moved fast and hop– they were blood-thirsty, launching themselves in groups at every slow body on their path.

She tucked her phone in her tits, the last thing the camera took was Joan laser slicing the aliens.

“This is the last world that our guest visited… if she’s mistaken” Dr. Park let an image on screen linger, one of the alien beings corpse, it was bigger than a human, its head short but its appearance resembled a Tupuxuara, Jon opened its mouth to show rows of sharpened fangs and a bright glowing green tongue.

“These ones are foot soldiers, the big ones are tanks, there’s like 3 other types besides the actual brains.” Jon said, the man cleaned his hand– they would rather send these abused creatures than face us. I feel bad for these animals” His voice quivers– I don't think they’ve had a choice. It is not their fault… they shouldn’t be here… it should be those monsters fighting us” He turned the head to reveal a metal panel sticking out from healing skin around a peeled skull.

“We should kill him” The Deep spoke– I mean we might not be able to contain them.”

He stated the obvious while pointing at the alien, which was somethign to process later, the universe now seeemd so big to the fish talker.

Homelander leaned back.

“If she stays here then there would be two of me”  That was also a terrible outcome, aliens seemed like the sensible decision– we don’t know if our Super Villain could actually bring a horde of alien dragons to New York” he caught himself there thinking of how stupid but awesome it sounded– he obviously resents Joan”

Ashley cleared her throat.

“She’s marketable” Ashley said coldly– nobody gets to 300 millions subscribers without being charismatic, her camera work is impressive for being done with a phone, her selfie game is off the charts, she’s young, hot and has A-list powers… those tits will fly themselves off the shelves`` Even Stan had Ashley’s attention– A long lost sister… maybe your father had an affair or a secret family… we could make her…” She sheepishly looked at Homelander– your side-kick. Think of this: two siblings separated by a cruel joke of fate, suddenly reunited after spending years hiding her powers and then one day she comes to America in search of her long lost brother who just happens to be not just any Supe, but the greatest Superhero in the world!”

“Side-kick?”

Homelander scoffed at the idea then paused looking back at the screen.

He wanted to sit alone, to watch all the videos and paint a better picture of this woman, of those versions of him.

They all talked but all he saw was that man, who looked too perfect, he didn’t need a padded suit, painting greek sculture’s green with envy, his smile so big, so pretty, so strange, he was the true uncanny staring back at him, and that woman who was him, had cried after him, this is the body they had wanted of him, the personality the whole country thought he had, this was how the world thought Homelander was, if he was here instead of Joan, he would kill him, he wanted to rip his face off, to wear his face... they would love him if he looked like that, the suit so baggy around his body as he stared at that roided abomination.

He found himself taking the tablet off Dr. Park, not knowing when he had stood up, speeding through the video until one video caught his attention.

Some bonfire party, Joan wrapped around Jon’s arms dancing gleefully, somebody else held the camera, as she hid her blush and smiled awkwardly as the man taught her the moves, some Bobby Pollido classic played in the background.

He stood there until the screen cracked around his thumb.

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

I was going to actually post this before asks closed (didn’t get the chance), but Teddy Bear Anon, you are one of my favorite people and a magnificent creature. You get my vibe. 

About Bad canonically being Sapnap’s dad I feel like that has so much extra angst potential when we consider the rest of the found family. Like. Sapnap, Tommy, and Fundy all have dads who started with the best of intentions but for one reason or another ended up slowly becoming a danger to them. I imagine Tommy and Fundy one day showing up with a cake and telling Sapnap “We regretfully welcome you to the shit dad club” and Sapnap is torn between being upset still and laughing over the absurdity of the situation.

Bonus points if Tommy made the cake using a recipe book that Niki gave him, the last gift Niki ever gave to Tommy. Tommy was originally a really bad cook/baker but after the egg really started to take over he went full survivalist. Leaning to cook was necessary but learning to bake was something he did as a way to raise everyone’s spirits. He’s never gotten the flavor quite to match with Niki’s perfectly but everyone agrees he’s gotten pretty decent in terms of skills. He and Fundy in particular will sometimes just spend an entire day in silence baking and then quietly eat their creations while reflecting on the friends they’ve made and lost over the course of L'manberg’s lifetime. When the group got back to the past and Niki made cookies for Tommy and Fundy the pair very nearly started crying.

Tommy is in an interesting position as a character since he did commit a lot of minor crimes and acted as a general nuisance but he was also still a child. (A very traumatized one considering I canonize SMP Earth with its unlimited lives but even more wars. Including against God. Tommy fought God just let me have this.) He acknowledges the moments when he went over the line and has tried to apologize. In particular at some point before the egg fully takes over he pulls aside Jack and tells him that he’s sorry for the way he acted when he was still in exile, taking one of Jack’s lives and all. Jack and Niki in particular are an interesting subject to address and a painful one for immune!Tommy to think about when he sees younger Niki because the three never fully tossed out the hatchet but it was obvious in the eyes of someone like Sam that both of them were growing more and more hesitant to hurt Tommy. It was made worse by the fact neither were even marginally immune, and it didn’t take long for the egg to get to them.

He never stopped being chaotic. Tommy at his core is just that kind of person. He did, however, grow up enough to act in a more mature manner. Started to recognize what’s too much. In particular he became a lot less violent and willing to lash out after Sam Nook in essence reparented him. He’s still an absolute wild card of a person, which in the eyes of Sam and Sapnap is a good thing. For this au I think we should actually address Tommy having severe ptsd and during the building of his hotel/the early days of the egg before it becomes a noticeable threat it shows. He’s a lot more subdued. Shows of aggression all carry a kind of desperation and his typical jokes feel flat. Lashing out at people slowly becomes more of a defense mechanism to see if someone’s going to leave or betray him, to test the limits of how nice they’re willing to be. After all, nice people have only ever been nice to Tommy when they wanted something from him. His eyes, especially after L'manberg is blow sky high, are well and truly gray. The first time Tommy genuinely laughs after filling Sapnap’s room with chickens is considered celebration worthy to them. His pranks take on a more hermitcraft-esque feel to them which honestly makes them more funny.

By the time they get to the past Tommy has recovered, but he still carries the kind of maturity that like Teddy Bear mentioned is reminiscent of age swap Tommy. When he gets especially stressed though, Immune!Tommy will slip into moments where he acts as tired and done with the world as age swap Tommy. With that said, most of the time he just acts like a more mature Tommy. Nothing could ever completely erase his unique vibe which Ranboo has gone on record as describing “Willing to fight God deaf, blind, and backwards just to prove a point." 

Immune Fundy and Tommy get on really well once Fundy manages to catch up with the rest of the group. It gets to the point where everyone from the past is kinda shocked since smp Fundy and Tommy do not get along. At all. Literally the first night Fundy’s back someone goes to wake them up and they find Fundy asleep on top of Tommy which is a wild experience since this Tommy is a goliath who often refuses to take off his full Netherite max enchant armor. He really becomes a "looks like he could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll” kinda mans.

Also, yeah, this is Dream’s retirement arc. He is literally just sitting in the corner watching Tommy dote on his younger self and Tubbo before completely pile driving two of the most powerful people on the server straight into the dirt. At some point Tommy sits down with past Punz. He tells this Punz that their Punz died protecting him and Tubbo and that Tommy never got to properly thank their Punz so he’s going to thank this Punz. Tommy then gives Punz an entire stack of Netherite. If we’re gonna go ahead and agree on Phoenix Tommy then Tommy is fire proof, meaning he probably spent a large amount of time in the nether to avoid the egg crew and get rare supplies. Meaning he also probably did a lot of mining just to distract himself and it resulted in him being loaded. Tommy used to have a fear of tnt and explosives but he seems like the type of mad lad to say “exposure therapy” and make a massive cavern in the underbelly of the nether.

I think it would also be really interesting to dedicate like, a couple of chapters to other people’s perspectives. I kind of want to set the time they arrive in the past partway through the Pogtopia arc since I like mildly unhinged but not completely gone Wilbur. Plus then it also makes more sense for Techno to be there. Just prefer the aesthetic really. I want to have Wilbur see this version of Tommy and come to a sudden “oh” moment. I want to have a moment where Tubbo looks between his Tommy and this new Tommy, seeing himself nowhere to be found, and has enough what the fuck moments to become aggressively protective of his own Tommy. Especially if immune!Tommy ever admits to the past Tubbo why he is the way he is, what he faced under the thumb of the people he trusted. Which, out of everyone on the server, Tubbo would be the first one from the past to actively learn. 

I am fully on board with Tommy knowing how to sew. That should just automatically be canon in literally ever AU. Tommy for all intents and purposes is still Phil’s child for me. Survival runs in the family the same way that chaos does, so he’s got a ton of basic survival skills that he just doesn’t show off because it’s still Tommy. He would have been completely fine in exile if it wasn’t for Dream. Whenever someone ruins their clothes in the Immune group they automatically go to Tommy and at first the past versions are very confused (except for past Tommy and Tubbo obviously) and then Tommy’s just “Sapnap this is beyond ruined it can’t be saved, let me make you something new” and within a couple days he makes Sapnap a completely new outfit. Like maybe Sapnap fell into a lava pool because Blaze Sapnap Supremacy and his clothes are beyond saving and everyone is beyond baffled when Tommy just acts like this is a weekly occurrence. He’s memorized Sapnap’s measurements and style tastes and already had a new outfit in the works for him that Sapnap immediately adores upon it being presented to him. It takes about a week for past Eret to learn that Tommy stress sews new clothing and he cannot think of a better model. Eret has never had such a full closet. Eret has everything from three piece suits to ball gowns now. Eret lives in terror of the days where Tommy disappears god knows where with Fundy and the two reappear with a new wardrobe for the entire god damn server. 

Speaking of disappearing I really like the idea of part phoenix and part tanuki Tommy for a couple reasons. Being a Tanuki he’d have access to enough magic to hide his hybrid traits, which if they’ve been present for long enough would be a necessity to him. Additionally think about Fundy and Tommy building a den under Church Prime that slowly turns into a maze. Think about it. It starts off simple and then they both start digging more and it gets deeper and deeper and more complicate and the two just refer to it as their den and the only ones who are fully aware of the connotations of that word are Sam, Sapnap, and Ranboo who remember the absolute hell that was trying to navigate the original. Just Fundy and Tommy bonding over the fact they are literally the only creatures on this server that have this catacomb memorized and at the end of the catacomb is their saferoom which connects to rail way that the two spent a month straight on. It goes at least 25k blocks from spawn and it’s a final emergency resort in case they can’t stop the egg and the Immunes needs to regroup and essentially try again (if they keep bringing their younger selves with them then hopefully they’ll finally get an army large enough to stop this, but everyone really hopes it doesn’t come to that.)

I’m working on the first chapter of my fic right now actually if I’m gonna be honest and phoenix Tommy is absolutely without question canon to it but I’ve still been going back and forth on if I want him to be part tanuki as well or just blessed/favored by one like Teddy Bear mentioned. I’m also tucking away the whole thing about the magma blood for later use. Phoenix Tommy just makes sense. They used to call him Zombie Kid for a reason back on SMP Earth, he just literally does not die ever unless he decides he does.

~Snapdragon & Firefly

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Slippin’ Mickeys

Only 3 stories by Slippin’ Mickeys ended up at Gossamer, but she’s written many more stories than that. She’s also one of the few authors who posted numerous stories during the show’s original run and then again in the revival years. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here, including Last Chance Falls and Currahee. Big thanks to Slippin’ Mickeys for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I would say that it does and doesn't surprise me. It surprises me that anyone would want to read something I wrote all those years ago, (only in that I was an actual teenager at the time, and had no chops at all -- I've grown a lot as a writer, and honestly have trouble reading my old stuff because I would have made much different creative decisions now). But the fanfiction that came out of the original run of the show -- from almost day one -- was so rich and varied and a lot of it so well written that I am not the least bit surprised that people want to read it today. I go back and read old favorites often, and am always thrilled to find something that's new-to-me, even if it's 27 years old.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

The first thing I think about when I think about my fandom experience are the friends I made along the way. The X-Files came up with the internet, and there was a whole new way of connecting with people that liked the things that you liked. To this day, I am good friends with many people that I met through the show back in 1997-98. When the revival came about, I dove back in, and made new, more recent friendships that are just as rich. I love the show, but I also love the people I met along the way.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I first got into the show's online community on some random message board that I think I probably found through a Yahoo search one day in a computer lab on my university's campus. I connected with one woman from Greece named Fay that day, who invited me to join a group of women that chatted about the show after it aired on Monday nights. After the first time I hooked up with them, we talked almost daily via ICQ. Later, in the early aughts, I found the forums on Mighty Big TV/Television Without Pity, where some of the most intelligent discussion was going on. The forums were heavily moderated, and so they were always on topic, and it was just a smart, funny, great place to be.

Eventually, I started working for TWoP as both a writer and moderator (surprise! A lot of people don't know this because TWoP protected the identities of their mods so well, but I was the X-Files board mod after Jessica left!). It was my first paid writing gig and opened doors for me both professionally and personally. Two TWoP recappers were in my wedding!

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Fanfiction opened my eyes to storytelling as a medium. I'd obviously gone to school and read books, but it opened my eyes to words to could do and be. It was a heady time. There were stories of every stripe. Short, long, canon-compliant, AU, experimental, you name it. We had such gifted writers, too. To this day, I'd almost rather read a piece of well written fanfic than a good book. Fanfic made me want to be a storyteller myself.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

It was the 'ship. God bless the ship. My first episode was Never Again, but I didn't watch again until I was sitting with my college roommate freshman year and she was like "sorry, but I have to watch The X-Files on Sunday nights." That first episode was Redux. The next week was Redux II, and by then it was all over for me. The lengths Mulder and Scully would go to for each other? And the relationship wasn't even sexual? Here were two people who loved each other. Really loved each other. Selflessly. I was SO IN.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

At first, I started reading it. This was back when you could only watch the show in reruns or on those VHS tapes that were sold in three packs that had two eps on each tape (I still have the trading cards that came with them), so after I burned through the VHS options (of which there were few), and set my VCR to tape the weekly reruns on FX, I needed MORE. I found fanfic. And in fanfic, Mulder and Scully actually like, kissed and maybe even had sex! I read everything I could get my hands on. Pretty soon, I wanted to write it myself.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Things are tough these days. It's a hard world to live in, and politics aside, it just feels like everything is falling apart around us. When I first found the show, my life was in a bit of upheaval and I dove into the fandom to distract myself. I'm doing the same thing these days. When the show ended, I left the fandom and lived without it for about 15 years. But when the revival came (and really only after finishing season 11 -- season 10 didn't do much for me), I dove back in. I have quite a few more responsibilities these days, but when I can't watch the news anymore, I log on to XF Twitter (I use my fandom account far more than my IRL account) or Tumblr and get lost for a while. And most nights find me reading or writing fanfic before bed. When the world gets better (I'm cautiously optimistic) and the show has been off the air for years and years, will I leave again? Maybe. But for now, it's once again my happy place.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Nothing hardcore. The X-Files is my ride or die.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I do an occasional episode or movie rewatch. Not too often, but when I'm jonesing and have 45 free minutes, I'll put one on. But I'm writing fanfic again, and I get hit with inspiration at random and odd intervals, so it's safe to say I find myself thinking about Mulder and Scully probably more than is healthy.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

All the time. The old stuff, the new stuff, the good stuff. If I have five minutes and my kid is entertaining himself? I'll happy pull out an old favorite.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I'm reluctantly abstaining from this question, as I'm still active in the fandom and I know that naming favorites will hurt some feelings.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Of The Eight Winds is probably my favorite. I've had a lot of fun writing AU's lately. It's a nice creative outlet, taking our favorite agents and plunking them in a totally different world.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Do I! I have a whole ass queue. It's frankly irresponsible.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I was writing professionally before I had a baby, and I took years off to be a stay at home mom. Once my kiddo was finally in school full time, I started writing again. With the pandemic, that's for the most part on hold, as I just don't have the bandwidth to dedicate to professional work. Fanfic is easier to play with when you only have five minutes here or there, and it's also great exercise when it comes to plotting and prose, so I'm  sticking with fic for now. When the kiddos are all back in school, maybe I can start getting paid again.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I get a lot of prompts that I just adore. And honestly, a lot of times, I'll post a stupid picture or ridiculous prompt of my own on Twitter and get dared to write it. If the idea gets stuck in my craw, I generally have to exorcise the demon.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Bad Blood had just aired and I was obsessed with it. I wanted to pay homage to it, so took Mulder's "who slipped him the mickey?" quote and ran with it. Do I regret that? Sometimes.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My husband knows and is supportive. He's a working writer, so he supports my endeavors, though I know he wishes I were doing something I could monetize. But it makes me happy, and ultimately: happy wife, happy life and all that jazz.

The friends of mine that I've made through the fandom all know and are super supportive.

As for the rest, well... I have a nom de plume on purpose!

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

All my newest work is on AO3. My old stuff can be found on various archives. Like the truth... it's out there.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

I'd leave it with: we're a blessed fandom. The show we stan (even with the real stinkers, there's always something to love) keeps giving, the fellow fans are all some of the smartest, sweetest, and most dedicated people out there... we've been blessed for 25 years, and I don't see that stopping any time soon.

(Posted by Lilydale on August 11, 2020)

[todaydreambelieversfic]

Author Spotlight: Coffeegleek Day 3

Author : @coffeegleek​

How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

At least a few revisions. Then multiple editing passes, and even with my spouse as my proofreader for the past 25+ years, and doing more editing passes before posting to AO3, I still find annoying little typos, sometimes large ones.

If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

There was a crack fic I stopped writing years ago. It was a self-challenge during one of those tumblr trope challenges. I was trying to combine all of the tropes into the same fic as they were announced. It got zero traction though so I gave up. I'd love to go back and complete it, make it better. I had the whole thing outlined too.

What do you look for in a beta?

My spouse. We've been together for decades. He's been proofreading my original science fiction work and various fandoms' fanfics since before we were married. He even proofreads my Klaine smut and doesn't blink an eye. (He's a Glee fan too and on tumblr.) He knows what I'm trying to say when I can't find the right words and supplies them. He catches things I don't. What I love the most is for my original work, he's written his own fanfic. It's BAD. It truly is, but it's so heartfelt and earnest. He even came up with a soundtrack should I ever publish my sci-fi novel and the movie or show rights be bought. You really can't get a better beta than that. <3

There’s a number of friends on tumblr that I bounce ideas off of and who give me advice for topics they know far more about than me and google. I try to thank them in my fics.

If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I’m going to steal another author’s recent answer and say that I could never do someone else’s work justice. However, I would love to see the author’s ideas for their fics even if they couldn’t write a prequel or sequel.

I suck at remembering titles and author names. There were two political fics that I would love to read more of should their authors ever decide to write in those verses again. One was where Kurt and Blaine's dads were running for president and Kurt and Blaine were along for the ride, staying in the same hotels at time (where they first met,) having to do school remotely, having to be the perfect sons for the press and Blaine being fed up because his parents were conservative Republicans. Then there was another fic where Burt was president and Kurt was the First Son living in the White House, along with Finn, and it was hard to date when your every move is watched by the press.

Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I write AU, so canon is only a word often misspelled by me. :) Seriously though, I try to incorporate as many canon elements and characters into my AU fics as I can. It's the kind of AU I like to read as well. What draws me to read and write AUs is taking canon characters, putting them into a different setting, and seeing how they'll react. At their core, they still need to remain the same in principle and have many of the same traits. Like Kurt will always love fashion and be headstrong no matter what. Blaine is always going to have that spark within himself, no matter how depressed or oppressed he gets. Burt and Carole are always going to be loving and nurturing parents at heart. Even in fics where Burt isn't woke, there's a part of him that means well. (Not one of my own fics, but one I read a long time ago.) Different circumstances will change the canon characters and make them react in different ways though. Like, Kurt could end up more withdrawn and hide his love of fashion as a matter of survival and self preservation. He or Blaine could turn into "bad boys." Coach Beiste will always have a heart of gold. Miss Pillsbury will always have a problem with messes. Things like that. I know canon. Give me all the alternate universe versions of it and I will be a happy camper.

Talk about a review that made your day.

I haven't checked for reviews on my fics in ages (because I'm an insecure chicken) so I don't remember any specifically. I do remember there were many that made my day. There are those who take the time to review every chapter. Ones who write only a short note to thank me for writing the fic - both the angsty ones and the cracky fun ones. I love it when someone mentions something that no one else has that I was hoping someone would notice because I was proud of it. I'm not a popular author and don't get a lot of kudos or comments or reblogs compared to many. So each comment and kudos means a lot to me and I'd like to publicly thank every single person who wrote one or hit that kudos button.

Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I once got a troll who decided it was his job to complain that I had misspelled hors d'oeuvres in one sentence out of an entire verse where the word was written multiple times correctly. It was a series of Klaine Advent one shots for the Empty Nest verse. At first I was shocked and replied with an apology. Then I was, "F this. The person is a troll who didn't read any other part of the fic or verse, just this one quickly written one shot entry, and if all they had to say was that I'd misspelled a commonly misspelled word, then they aren't worth my time." I deleted the comment. There's concrit and trolling. It wasn't concrit.

What advice do you have for people just starting to write?

Have fun writing, even the hard stuff. Know that it's okay to take breaks. Try your best and know you'll get better the more you write and the more you read. Pronouns are your friend and free. Don't put, "I know this is going to suck, so whatever," in your fic description. We all suck at times. It's a part of writing. But if you want folks to read it, using that as your fic's summary isn't the way to go. Just my opinions, which won't even buy you a cup of coffee.

Which fic do you most like to discuss with other people? Why?  

I think it’s pretty obvious from all of my rambling that I enjoy talking about both of my series - Empty Nest verse and A Very Hallmark Christmas verse.  I'm not a popular author and I know my fics, especially the Empty Nest verse ones, aren’t everyone’s thing, so I never get to really discuss them except with friends that I bug to death in private and via long replies to comments on AO3. (You all are saints blessed by all of the good and patient gods.) I have so much to say about them - the process of writing them, the world building, research, and character decisions that went into every single one. I know they’re not perfect. I know the Empty Nest verse grew miles beyond the ficlette about Burt and Carole that it was meant to be. I know my sense of humor in the Hallmark verse isn’t everyone’s thing either. I still worked really hard on them and am glad that I did. Empty Nest let me release a lot of the fear and anxiety I had for my Hispanic and gay son after the 2016 election. The Hallmark ones were a needed break to put some humor into my life. If others enjoyed them, great. If folks want to know more, my inbox is always open.

What's one aspect of writing fic that gets you really excited?

Writing humor even if I'm the only one that finds it funny. As I said above, writing the Hallmark Christmas movie dialogue and plot and the actors as they were filming it was a blast. Writing the commercials was fun and exciting. In my angsty fics, knowing I wrote a good scene, line, or moment that brought out all the feels. That's more of “satisfaction of a job well done” than excited.

***

Check out Coffeegleek’s Fics

Humorous Spooky Drabbles -  Humorous drabbles to spookish type prompts based on a tumblr post called October Drabble Prompts #1 by hallofceleano. The parts in bold and italic are from those prompts. Characters include Kurt, Blaine, Burt, Carole, and Finn. All fun; only #4 has some mild angst. #4 is for snarkyhag and regarding #5 - I know next to nothing about Twilight and had to look up Taylor Lautner on imdb. The liberties I took are my own.

A Very Sloppy Christmas - lucy8675309 posted to tumblr a series of gifs with Kurt dressed up as an elf. It inspired me to write the following prompt, which CoffeeAddict80 encouraged me to write as a fic:

I now want a fic where real Santa’s elf!Kurt gets drunk and vents to Blaine about all the woes of working for Santa. He’s over 100 years old and the outfits are terrible. Why couldn’t they wear clothes like the elves did in that one movie? Drunk elf Kurt has no idea he’s venting to Santa’s son.

Bonus if he wakes up and realizes he just had a drunken one night stand. He isn’t sure who it was with. Only that he’s naked, the guy in the bed beside him is naked and showing off a really great ass. Then said guy turns over and after Kurt’s done staring at his dick, he looks at the guy’s face and realizes who it is.

It’s a Twisted World -  I decided to challenge myself by combining the posted 5 weekly Klaine AU Friday themes and adding another one of my own. So that means: Farm, Fairytale, Vintage (1900’s,) Super Powers, Zombie Apocalypse, and Harry Potter World Klaine with a splash of a fic idea I thought of while in the produce section of the grocery store. Each week, the story will continue, though each part stands alone. This is not a brilliant work of perfectly composed fan fiction. What it is, is fast-paced, cracky fun, with a large dose of innuendo. At least it had my son laughing his ass off. I hope y'all enjoy it too. :)

[chelsfic]

Devotions - WWDITS Fanfic - Nandor x Guillermo

Sequel to: Maybe One Day, My Love

WWDITS Masterlist

 A/N: Quick note to let you guys know that I have been writing up a storm, but I’ve posted many fics exclusively to AO3. It is just so much work to format every story for Tumblr. AO3 is such a superior place to read and write. So, check that out to see what you’ve missed. Thanks to @sinaesthete​ for beta reading this fic for me!

Summary: Following a death in the family, Guillermo goes to the park for his weekly "visit" with his ex-master. After two decades of distance and one-sided conversation, Nandor finally steps out of the shadows.

Warnings: Smut, Religious References, Parent Death

---

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.” -Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

It’s nightfall once again.

       Guillermo de la Cruz clutches a prayer card in his fist as he strides down the familiar path for the appointment he never misses. Not even tonight. 

       Puddles dot the paved lane; he carefully avoids them, not wishing to ruin his patent leather shoes. He’s still dressed in the clothes he wore to the funeral: a dark suit and tie that make him look somehow older and younger at the same time. Like a little boy dressed up in his father’s clothes. His rigid soles scuff against the cement. The scraping sound grounds him in time and place, pulling him back from the vision of the gleaming white casket heaped with flowers. 

       It’s early spring. The night is still chilly, but the park has begun to transform with the new season. Green shoots of grass peek out between moldy fallen leaves. Crocuses emerge in the flower beds that line the walk. The branches hanging overhead are heavy with verdant leaves whispering in the light breeze. Guillermo breathes in the damp, mildewy scent of new growth. Idly, he wonders if the funeral arrangements have started to wilt.

       He rounds the well-known turn in the path, finally arriving at his forgotten little alcove with its dilapidated bench. The wooden slats of the seat give way to his weight as he sits; the wood is soft and worn. He recalls the hard, polished church pews and decides that this is a much more suitable place for worship. The laminated prayer card bites into the tender flesh of his palm and he releases it, taking his hands from his pockets and letting them rest on the well-loved bench.

       Night sounds fill his ears: crickets murmuring in the grass, distant traffic rushing on the highway, gentle wind blowing through the trees. No matter how carefully he listens, holding his breath and keeping perfectly still, Guillermo will never hear his master’s approach until Nandor wishes it. Instead he begins his vigil, communing with the night, with this place, the setting for his devotions.

  “Let us pray...

I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever live and believe in me shall never die.”

       The priest’s words float back to him as if conjured by the night wind. Guillermo’s thoughts fix upon his lord. The one he’s worshiped since he was nineteen-years-old. He calls up Nandor’s image with ease, despite the years that have passed since actually seeing the vampire. Dark eyes ringed in fire, bottomless pits into which Guillermo has been falling for the last thirty-seven years. A body as cold and lethal as a winter’s night. Fangs that reap bloody sacrifices from his victims. Guillermo closes his eyes and Nandor is there before him--skin warm in the candlelight, lips relaxed in a rare smile, holding out his hand and beckoning Guillermo to come forward. In his vision, Nandor places his palm on the crest of Guillermo’s head in a blessing. 

  “Blessed are those who mourn,

For they will be comforted.”

       The snap of a twig announces him. Guillermo eyes snap open; he stares straight ahead into the trees on the other side of the nook. He senses Nandor in the darkness behind him, a guardian or a devil. Both. But he doesn’t turn to look, though every fiber of his being is attuned to his master’s cold presence; though he longs to lunge at him and hold him and never let him leave this place. That is not their arrangement. 

       Just this once, though, he wishes it could be different.

       Guillermo tries to speak; tries to perform their ritual as usual. But the words stick in his throat, congealing into a heavy lump that suffocates him. A shaky breath passes through his parted lips and becomes a sob. Suddenly there are tears spilling down his cheeks. He reaches into his pocket, removes the prayer card with Silvia de la Cruz’s beautiful portrait on it, and sets it on the seat beside him. 

       “She… died,” he explains in a shattered whisper, scrubbing furiously at his eyes with his fists. “Mi mam á . She’s gone, Nandor.” 

       For an instant the rest of the words stick in his throat: Guillermo’s not supposed to address him directly. That’s not part of their ritual. Now Nandor will leave; now he’ll never come back. But the grief soon scours away the fear of breaking their rules and Guillermo collapses down to his elbows, hanging his head and sobbing out his heartache and pain. 

       “It happened so s-suddenly, Nandor. I didn’t get to say good-bye or tell her I’m sorry.”

       Guillermo crosses his arms over his chest, hugging and rocking himself in a pitiful attempt to self-soothe. His sinuses are blocked; his face is flushed; his mouth tastes like bile and communion wafers and his t í a’s buñuelos. He’s desperate to get a hold himself, to salvage this evening somehow, but every time he nearly has the crying controlled his mind supplies him with a new torture. The stricken look on his amá’s face when he left home to work for Nandor. The smell of eggs and fresh tortillas in the morning. The sound of her clambering in the kitchen, cursing under breath. Her smile. Her hugs. The way she took him in, without questions, when he came back home covered in blood and hysterical after a decade of being a bad son. 

       Guillermo is so lost in memories, he almost misses the soft, hesitant touch on his shoulder. A hand--solid, strong, cold--closes around his shoulder and squeezes gently. Their first touch in twenty-six years. Guillermo’s breath stutters from his lungs. He freezes, terrified of breaking the fragile sanctity of this moment. He wavers on the threshold of action. Before he can summon the courage to cross it himself , Nandor does so  for him. The vampire’s hands are suddenly clutching, pawing at his shoulders and chest; clawed fingers dig into the expensive fabric of his suit jacket and haul him over the bench. He’s dragged through the spider-riddled bush and then all at once he’s in his master’s embrace. As if it hasn’t been decades since the last and first time they held each other. As if a whole lifetime of experience--sadness, joy, yearning, hope--hasn’t slipped through Guillermo’s mortal fingers. 

     Nandor wraps Guillermo up in his cape, the rich fabric and gold embroidery are clean and well-maintained. Guillermo finds himself wondering if Nandor has himself a new familiar, quickly deciding he doesn’t want to know. He buries his face in Nandor’s strong, broad chest and breathes him in. He smells like rose water, argan oil, and Tide To-Go Pens. He smells like warm candle wax and brassy, spilled blood. He smells like dust and animal pelts and frozen decay. He smells like home. 

  “And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”

       Guillermo never really left him, did he? Two decades spent building a human life, and with one simple embrace he is back on Staten Island, a nineteen-year-old boy knocking on a pagan god’s front door and offering himself in sacrifice.

     “Nandor,” he cries. It’s a plea, a demand, a tribute, a prayer. Once the name falls from his lips he can’t stop. “Nandor. Nandor. Nandor. Nandor. Nandor. Nan--”

       The vampire shushes him, bringing his hand up to cradle Guillermo’s head against his chest. That voice, rich and deep, rumbles through the fabric of the leather vest and into Guillermo’s tear-streaked cheek. “I am sorry, my Guillermo. Your mama… she was a good lady. She took care of you, kept you safe and happy after…” he trails off, clearing his throat uncomfortably. His arms tighten around Guillermo. “I am so very sorry.”

       Guillermo clings to him, hands fisting in the cape, tugging at the material until Nandor is forced to stoop down. Guillermo closes his eyes, terrified of opening them to find that this is all a dream. Some kind of religious vision that will dissipate in a cloud of smoke if he breaks the spell. Nandor���s face is so close, he can feel the vampire’s cool breath on his cheeks. Guillermo presses forward, nuzzling his face into the whiskers of Nandor’s beard, gasping at the soft caress of long hair against his face.

       “Is this real?” Guillermo whispers; his words are fragile, like moth’s wings fluttering through the air between them. “Master, is it really you?”

       “Who else would it be, Guillermo?” Nandor chides in the same old amused tone that Guillermo has preserved in his heart like dried flower petals between the pages of the family bible. “Who else but me? It’s always me, Guillermo.”

       Thumbs wipe away the salty, stinging tears from Guillermo’s cheeks and the human huffs out a sound that’s a laugh, a sob and a cry of joy all at once.

       “It’s always you, master,” he agrees and seconds later he feels the cool, miraculous brush of Nandor’s lips on his.

  “Almighty God, cleanse my heart and my lips that I may worthily proclaim your Gospel.”

       Guillermo’s eyes fly open. Dark hair and pale, luminous skin fill his vision. Arms--powerful, undeniable--wrap around his soft little human form. He melts into Nandor, all the strength in his limbs bleeding away until the vampire’s strong grip is the only thing keeping him from falling to his knees. He’s resplendent, overjoyed to give himself up to the predatory angel before him. 

     The grief--a hollow, aching hole in his chest--is still there. But with it is a new sensation, at once well-known and utterly novel: ecstasy, fulfillment, completion. To be united with Nandor finally, after decades of pining, feels unreal and yet meant to be. It’s everything he’s dreamed of and denied dreaming of for so long. 

       Nandor’s lips slide against his own, cool to the touch yet soft and welcoming. Nothing like the hard and forbidding marble he’d always imagined. Nandor’s mouth is pliant and giving; it’s not unlike kissing a mortal man… as if Nandor isn’t the untouchable celestial being of his dark dreams, but flesh and--yes--blood. Guillermo flicks out his tongue and traces his master’s full, pouting lower lip. Nandor opens his mouth at once, granting him the entry he seeks. How can this be happening? After a lifetime of longing and supplication?

       “Guillermo,” Nandor says his name like a plea, his lips brushing, the syllables melting into their kiss. “My Guillermo. You’re mine, still, aren’t you? Will you be mine?”

       Guillermo mouth molds to his master’s. Nandor’s beard drags against the soft skin of his chin and cheeks. He pulls himself away long enough to answer. “Yes, Nandor. I’m still yours. If you’ll still be mine. Oh, God , please tell me you’re mine, Nandor!”

       God. For the first time in eight centuries, Nandor feels no pain at the holy word. Instead it dribbles from Guillermo’s lips, melting into their kiss and tasting like sweet honey. Yes, he thinks, finally allowing his hands to roam down his human supplicant’s body. Yes, I am your god, little mortal. And you are mine.

       The words spark in the night air, a spell that will keep them safe so long as they don’t stop touching. “I’m yours, Guillermo. Forever.”

       They tumble to the earth, a tangle of grasping limbs, rolling hips and desperate, longing kisses. Nandor breaks their fall, landing in the dewy grass with a soft grunt and clutching Guillermo to his chest with reverent care. Guillermo is alight with sensation. Prayers fall from his lips, holy words that once would have sent his master hissing and flinching, but which now seem to feed him. 

       “Nandor, my god!” He pulses his pelvis with every repetition of the name. “God, I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

       Love . A word that should bring Nandor as much pain as the other and yet… Guillermo’s heartache, his abandon, his devotion have unlocked something inside of him. He lets himself free. His hands clench Guillermo’s backside and squeeze; he grinds their pelvises together in fervent desperation. Guillermo settles heavily on his chest, sinking his fingers into the vampire’s soft hair and raining kisses on his face. 

       “You will give yourself to me, won’t you?” Nandor whispers, an edge of uncertainty in his voice. “Finally?”

       The weight of ecstasy and sorrow on Guillermo’s soul leaves no room for the exasperation that he should rightfully feel at those words. As if Guillermo has not given himself to Nandor every day for his entire adult life. As if he wouldn’t have gladly killed to be in this position decades before. But here, in this holy place, in the communion of their bodies and souls, Guillermo doesn’t scoff. He presses a gentle, wet, lingering kiss to Nandor’s lips before answering. 

       “You already have me, Master.”

“ Take this... and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.”

       They lay Nandor’s cape out on the grass like a blanket. It’s almost completely dark in the shadowy undergrowth, but Guillermo still blushes as he shrugs off his suit coat and begins unbuttoning his shirt, aware of the vampire’s heightened senses. The darkness presses up against Guillermo’s eyeballs; he strains to see merely the faintest outline of Nandor’s powerful frame. His face is a dark blur except for his eyes. Nandor’s predator eyes drink in every bit of ambient light and reflect it back at Guillermo. They glow. Hallowed, fiery rings in the night.

       Guillermo is no longer a virgin. He feels a small, pitiful pang at the knowledge that he can’t give Nandor that part of himself. He’s slept with a few men over the years. But he’s never truly offered himself to any of them like he’s doing now. Guillermo takes off his shirt, his undershirt. He toes off his shoes and socks and undoes his belt. It’s cold and the cape is starting to absorb the dew and chill from the solid earth beneath, but he doesn’t shiver as he removes his pants and underwear. He lays on his back, nude, flushed, panting and achingly hard. He doesn’t feel the icy wind that raises goosebumps on his arms and hardens the pink tips of his nipples to little nubs. He is a sacrifice; an offering; a tribute. The cold can’t touch him now. Not with the fire of his lord’s eyes keeping him warm.

       Nandor’s hands paint ribbons of freezing flame on his skin. They brush lightly, teasingly across his belly, his chest, his thighs. The vampire drapes himself over Guillermo and the human realizes that he’s also undressed. They both gasp as their rigid, leaking erections bump against each other. Guillermo bucks his hips in uncontrolled desire and he feels Nandor sink his fingers into the ample flesh of his  thighs to hold him still. A huff of breathy amusement falls from the vampire’s lips. He grabs Guillermo up in another passionate kiss, nipping and licking his lips. A keening, vulnerable moan bubbles up from the vampire’s throat. He clutches Guillermo’s tender body against his cold,, cadaverous  frame. Tears--frigid and laced with blood-- fall down his cheeks and mingle with Guillermo’s. 

       “Guillermo!” Nandor gasps, pulling back. His hands trace patterns on the pulsing hot skin of Guillermo’s neck. The human waits and listens to his master’s labored breathing. A plea hangs in the air between them. “Will you give me this as well, Guillermo? Your blood?”

  “With faith in your love and mercy I eat your Body and drink your Blood.”

       For the first time, Guillermo wonders if Nandor comes here every week with the intention of offering worship just as he does.

       “Take it, Nandor,” he commands. His voice is strong, unwavering, loud in the solitude of their secluded grove. He reaches up blindly and takes Nandor’s face between his hands, guiding him down to the cradle of his neck until the vampire’s cool lips press against his skin. “Drink.”

       Nandor whispers something against Guillermo’s neck before biting down. The words are an unintelligible susurrous. He recognizes them as Al Quolanudarese. And though he’s incapable of parsing them, they feel like secret magic words. Words that finally pulverize the last brick in the wall between them. Guillermo knows their meaning in his bones, in his heart, in his soul.

       Nandor’s fangs pierce and bruise. His bite is brutal and honest. This is Nandor; no hiding, no subterfuge. He is violence and blood and frozen kisses. He is also the tender stroking of fingers along Guillermo’s tear-stained cheeks and the broken sob he makes an instant before the blood begins to flow. Guillermo’s eyes flutter shut and he fists his hands in the cape beneath him. Take me, take me, take me , he begs.

       Blood and body.

       He buries his hands in Nandor’s hair, cupping the crown of his head as nonsense prayers fall from his lips. He invokes every sacred symbol he knows. Nandor’s mouth; his tongue; his hands; his cock. The bedroom under the stairs. The candlelit crypt. The parking lot at the immigration office. The blood-stained robe from Celeste’s orgy. The ancestry reports. Wooden stakes and crucifixes. The claw-foot bathtub. Nandor’s hair oils. His coffin. Bubble gum and mason jars and flashcards and feather dusters and boot polish and ice chips and a portrait made from glitter: two men, impossibly hopeful, naive and in love.

       When Nandor finally retracts his fangs from Guillermo’s neck, he laps at the spilled blood, kissing the soft, torn skin with a grateful, remorseful, worshipful reverence. 

       “My Guillermo,” he cries over and over again, rocking his hips subconsciously and panting as their cocks slide against one another. When he draws up on his elbows Guillermo can see his blood marring those perfectly cruel lips and staining his full beard. His voice is thick with tears. “Your blood, Guillermo. It’s…”

       Guillermo nods, wiping Nandor’s cheeks even as his own tears fall into his hairline. “I know, Nandor. You’re mine now. Always.”

       The vampire bows his head, pressing his lips to Guillermo’s soft chest directly over his rapidly beating heart. “Your blood is rushing, Guillermo. So eager to give me your life.”

       Guillermo sighs, running his hands down the length of Nandor’s sides, squeezing his soft flanks and raising his hips to grind against him. 

       “And what are you eager to give me, Nandor?”

       Nandor brings his hand up to Guillermo’s neck and catches the blood that still flows there. He hovers over Guillermo, balancing on one elbow as he moves his other hand between them and slides his wet, bloody fingers into the cleft of Guillermo’s backside. Guillermo feels the slick of his lifeblood against his sensitive skin as Nandor’s fingers probe and press into his entrance. A shiver wracks his frame at the utter indecency, the absolute sacrilege. 

       “Fuck,” Guillermo hisses as the first finger breaches the tight ring of muscle and enters him. “God! Nandor, yes.”

       Nandor whimpers in gratitude at his human’s praise. He speaks absently, in the grips of religious ecstasy, “Let me show you, Guillermo. Please, let me show you.”

       Guillermo writhes and nods his head, arching his back as another finger joins the first. “Show me you love me, Nandor. Show me you fucking worship me.”

       A strangled growl fills the little grove and Nandor picks up the pace of his thrusting fingers, subtly rocking his erection against the tender skin of Guillermo’s thigh as he goes. His breath mingles with Guillermo’s as he leans in and presses their lips together in a slow, aching kiss. He inserts a third finger, stretching Guillermo out and swallowing the man’s groan.

       “Now, Nandor,” an echo of desperation and sorrow tinges his voice. Nandor scrambles to comply. He removes his fingers, kneeling between Guillermo’s spread legs and placing shaking hands on the insides of his generous thighs, steadying himself.  

       Nandor doesn’t speak, but the sound of his breathing might as well be a love letter. He’s panting, there’s a hitch in his breath, a tremor in his fingers. Guillermo feels the tip of him against his hole and he nearly sobs with relief and joy and loss and guilt and exasperation. Why now? After all these years? Why on the night of his mother’s funeral when he is ragged and raw? Why couldn’t they have had this when Guillermo was still young and so pitifully in love with Nandor that he was willing to tarnish his soul for the vampire’s convenience? He thinks these things with regret, with melancholy longing and wistfulness; but never with anger. 

       This is his Nandor and Guillermo will take him and cherish him until he is buried in the ground. Nandor presses forward, entering him inch by inch. Stars burst in Guillermo’s eyes and amidst the furious physical sensations, a feverish thought flits through his head. When Guillermo is dead he wants to be buried in this very spot, in the soil beneath their naked bodies, on the site of their long-delayed consummation. The idea should repulse him, or sadden him, but instead it just feels right. He pictures Nandor visiting his grave every Sunday for the rest of the time and cants his hips, taking the vampire deeper as the blood trickles from his neck and his cock smears precum onto his belly. 

       Their bodies move together in a rhythm that’s both familiar and wonderfully new. They cling, claw, grab and stroke. Nandor’s length fills Guillermo; the vampire’s fingers wrap around Guillermo’s rigid cock and pump him as he thrusts. The words that fall from their lips are a heady, nonsensical, sacred blend of Spanish, Al Quolanudarese and English. Love is only the beginning. This is yearning, devotion, allegiance, becoming, undoing, transforming. Nandor is god is Guillermo is Nandor. They are whole for the first time in their lives. 

       The climax takes them both at the same time. Guillermo sobs, fat tears rolling down his cheeks as Nandor roars above him. Nandor spills his plentiful vampiric seed inside of him as Guillermo’s cum shoots out in hot ropes that paint his and Nandor’s bellies. He lets his softening cock fall from Guillermo’s body as he collapses down, pillowing his head on Guillermo’s chest and gasping for air that he doesn’t need. Guillermo cards his fingers through his hair and weeps. 

       He’s crying for the boy he once was. The one who loved his amá and wanted to make her proud. The boy who fell in love with a demon. The boy who dreamed and hoped and prayed and was disappointed. He’s crying for Nandor, too, who has lived for centuries without ever allowing himself to acknowledge the soft animal of his own emotions. And he’s crying for his amá, whose heart he broke for a decade and who never, ever stopped believing in him even when he came home at the age of 30, jobless, soulless, and ruined.

       Nandor nuzzles his cheek against Guillermo’s sparsely-haired chest, pressing kisses into his sweat-slick skin and tracing patterns over his stomach with long, elegant fingers. 

       “I can hear your heartbeat, Guillermo,” he whispers. “Did you know I could always hear your heartbeat? It’s not usual. I mean, yes, of course vampires have super hearing, but we learn to tune all that out, you know? But never with you, my Guillermo. I listened to every beat of your little heart for eleven years. I was so afraid one day it would stop…”

       In the soft, sacred dark Guillermo can finally ask the question, “Then why didn’t you ever turn me? You could’ve had me forever, immortal. Why, Nandor?”

       Nandor sits up and his eyes glow as he looks down at Guillermo, a frown in his voice, “I didn’t want it to stop, Guillermo. I didn’t want to be the one to...make it stop.”

       Guillermo shuts his eyes and they are quiet for a long, long time. He holds Nandor in his arms. The chill of the night air finally affects him and he shivers once. Nandor grabs the edge of the cape and pulls it over Guillermo to shield him. They lay beside each other, touching, breathing, listening. Guillermo traces the outline of Nandor’s lips, letting his finger dip inside his mouth and feeling the sharp edge of his fangs. Nandor allows it. Of course he does. He could not deny Guillermo anything. Not in this place. Not anywhere else, either. The knowledge settles in his veins, flows through him like Guillermo’s blood.

       “Guillermo,” Nandor begins, drawing out the last syllable like he used to. “It is not too late…”

       It’s a statement and a question. Guillermo holds his breath, waiting for the vampire to elaborate, but Nandor remains silent. A moment later he feels Nandor’s cold skin pressed to his lips. There’s warmth there, too, borrowed from his body. He tastes blood as Nandor presses his wrist firmly to Guillermo’s mouth.

       “It’s not too late,” he repeats. 

“May this mingling of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, bring eternal life to us who receive it.”

[pebblysand]

[writing rant - on the monetisation of fanfiction]

a couple of months ago, when i updated my long fic, one of the people on the comments wrote to me the nicest possible review (one of the ones that you keep in your feel-good 'saved' emails - you know the ones), which, amongst other things also said: 'If I could pay you for this...believe me, I would.'

in the moment, i kind of smiled and laughed, and thanked the person for their kind words before moving on with my life. yet, since then, i have to admit that this sentence has kind of been living rent-free in my head. i think it is also because since diving back into fandom a few months ago, i've noticed something that kind of shocked me at first: more and more fanfiction writers seem to be monetising (or attempting to monetise) their craft.

now, back when i started writing fanfic, we wrote fanfic on ffnet and livejournal. it was accepted that thou shalt never (ever) charge money for your writing or else the author and their mean, angry lawyers will come after you for damages and you will die a slow and painful death. we wrote disclaimers at the start of all of our posts and thanked the gods every day when we did not get sued.

i have seen this change gradually over the years. first, in the mid 2010s, the disclaimers went. then, i noticed that people were getting 'tipped' for fanart, sometimes even charging commission. from what i understand (though, don't quote me on this, i'm not an ip lawyer and this post is not intended as legal advice), this is because the way the concept of fair use is framed under us law makes it easier to monetise fanart than it does fanfiction. maybe this is why visual artists came first on this trend. later still (and more recently) i've noticed fanfic writers, doing the same thing.

to be fully honest, the first thought i had when i saw this trend, considering the fear of god (and his lawyers) that was instilled in me in the past, was: how on earth is this even possible? (i'll come back to that in a bit). the second, though, was: fuck, i wish i had the guts to do that, lol.

because, yeah, i will admit, the idea of getting paid for writing what i love to write does appeal, to a certain extent. i won't lie. dear fanfiction writers who've tried to do that recently: i one hundred per cent get it.

looking back at the last fifteen years, i would say that for me, writing fanfiction has been (in terms of time commitment and energy consumed) the equivalent of having an on-and-off part time job. a job that i have held for one or two years at a time, then quit for a while, before coming back to it when i needed (wanted) it again. i obviously can't realistically give you a number re:the actual total of hours i have spent at this since i started out, but i can give you an idea. recently, i started clocking my hours out of interest and calculated that a chapter of my current long fic takes roughly between one hundred to two hundred hours to produce (and they're around 10,000 words). at that rate, i'm probably working 20 hours a week-ish? sometimes more, sometimes less? something as small as a three-sentence fic (like this for instance), takes roughly two/three hours. i'll be honest, i have cancelled plans to write fic. when i'm working on a long project, i do tend to organise my life to give myself the time to write, so i opt for socialising after work during the week rather than on weekends, as i've found this is when i write best. i won't lie: it is - for me (i know some people write quicker, bless them) - a huge time suck.

so, yeah, i understand, in the capitalist society we live in, wanting to make that time count. our world has unfortunately, repeatedly taught us that time is money and getting more does seem like a nice bonus (as long as you have an audience for your art that's willing to pay, obviously). after all, year after year, i've seen a lot of my friends try and monetise their passions as side hustles, with varying success. at first, glance, i look at the time i spend on writing fanfiction and think: man, i wish i could get a bit back from that too. i couldn't even draw a stick figure to save my life but i assume that the time commitment and energy put into that kind of work is roughly similar for visual fanartists as well. i thus very much understand the sentiment, both with fanart and fanfiction.

additionally, though i appreciate this is a bit tangential, the fact that fanfiction is free, i would argue, hinders its potential to be as representative as it could be. it's a bit sad because on the one hand, the fact that it is free makes it completely accessible to the masses but on the other, it makes fanfiction quite exclusive to rich, privileged people who can afford to spend the time and energy putting content out for free. if i spend this much time writing fanfiction, just because i like it and it makes me happy, it's because my full time job pays me enough to cover my bills. if it didn't, i probably would have to forgo writing and get a proper side gig. if you look at my periods of inactivity on ao3, those also kind of coincide with the times in my life when i had to have more things going on to put food on the table.

so, now, assuming that monetisation is a thing that, as a fic writer, one might want to look at, the next question is: how do you go about monetising it? obviously, the law hasn't changed since the days where we were all terrified of getting sued (although enforcement has been quite lax over the years) so it's more about finding workarounds around the law as it is, rather than actively seeking payment for fanart.

from what i've seen: two main solutions seem to exist.

first, there's the tipping/buy-me-coffee technique. as i understand it, this involves either setting up a page on one of the dedicated websites or just putting up your paypal account link on your tumblr posts. with these links, people can then send you however much money they want (however much money they can afford/think you deserve?) on a one-off basis. they're not actually paying for fanfic because there is no actual exchange of services, it's basically like them giving money to charity, except that charity is a fanfic writer/ fan artist whose work they enjoy.

there are two main issues i see with this: one, legally, i'm not sure how much ground this actually holds. assuming you're quite prolific/successful, if every time you're producing new content, you receive dozens of tips, although you're not actively charging for your fanart, making the argument that your content isn't what these people are actively paying for seems hard. imo, the fact that this method sort of holds is that realistically, you're going to make very little out of this. even if you're really good, you might make what? a couple hundred dollars. now, sure, that's a lot of money for a lot of people but in the grand scheme of things, no one sues anyone for such a low amount. as long as you're not making 'proper' money from it, it is highly unlikely that anyone would come after you.

this being said, the second issue, from my perspective, is that this is not in any way, shape or form, a reliable income. it also does not represent, at all, the cost of the time and investment actually put into said fanfiction (or fanart, i assume). for example: if you're going to tip someone who's worked on something for, say, fifty hours, ten dollars, that's very good of you, but that isn't going to be 'worth' their time. it is only worth their time if tipping is done at as scale, which imo is quite unlikely considering you're putting your content out for free anyway. there are kind souls who will tip you, but not that many, meaning that ultimately, you're not working for free anymore, but you're still working at a huge loss.

additionally, because this income is not even reliable on a monthly/weekly basis, it isn't something that anyone can actually rely on, even if only to fund their coffee habit. it's nice to have, don't get me wrong, but from my perspective, is the legal risk outlined above worth the trouble for the $20/30 tips i'd get every once in a while - not really. such low amounts also don't help diminish the class issue that i talked about earlier. again, if you're going to spend fifty hours on something, you might as well work a minimum wage job - even that will pay you more and will be dependable.

second, there's patreon (and patreon-like sites). here, the income is monthly, people pledge on a subscription basis, which does solve the last point above. it might not be much, but at least it's regular.

the main issue i see with patreon is that it is contingent on the author providing more services on top of what they already provide. in most cases, the author will keep putting their usual content out for free + provide their patreons (depending on tiers) with more content, specifically for them. this, to me, makes this scheme even less appealing than the previous one because a) if i can't provide fanfic to potential patreons (again, you can't sell fanfic), i'm not sure what on earth i could give them (original content? that's not really the same market) and b) that's even more work on my plate. honestly, considering the amount of time i already spend writing fanfic, i have neither the energy nor the willpower to provide extra content for an amount that, regardless, will probably pay me less than a part-time job would. again, you'd have to scale this (i.e. have enough patreons) to make it all worth your while, and even in very big fandoms, even for someone waaaaay more successful than me, i doubt it would be likely.

lastly, as a side note, both of these "methods" are solely accepted if they occur on tumblr/writer's own website, rather than on the writer's ao3 page/fic. there was a post going around explaining why that is (nutshell: it endangers ao3's status as a non-profit archive) but as with all things, i seem to have lost it. [if you do have the link to that post/know what i'm talking about, hit me up and i'll rectify this]. this, regardless, supposes driving traffic from wherever you post your fics towards tumblr/your own website which, again, decreases your chances of scaling this.

so, in the end, where does that leave us?

i think, at this point, we've kind of reached a crossroad. ultimately, i see two ways to look at this:

option one: if you believe that fanfiction writers should be paid for their art, you also probably agree that the methods outlined above, while they do offer some sort of solution, are less than ideal. the ideal solution (for this option) would obviously be to allow fanfiction authors to be properly paid for the publication of their work through 'normal' publishing/self-publishing deals, without the need for a licence from the author (bar - perhaps - the payment of royalties). that would create a proper 'market' for fanfiction, treating it as any other form of writing/art form. it would mean a complete overhaul of the laws currently in place, but why not? ultimately, in a democracy, laws are meant to be changeable.

this being said, though, while my personal knee jerk reaction would be to shout 'hurray!' at this solution, i do not actually think i want this. or, maybe, only part of me does. the part of me who has been writing fanfiction for free for fifteen years is like 'hey, yay, maybe i could get paid!'. but then, there is another part of me that would like, maybe, one day, to write more original fiction (i already do a bit, but not much). that part of me is feels frankly a bit icky about giving up her ip rights.

would i be comfortable with people writing fanfiction of my original work? hell yes. that would be the dream. imagine having your own ao3 fandom, omg. however, would i be comfortable with people profiting from writing fanfiction of my work? honestly, i'm not sure. to me, the answer to that is: it depends (how much time investment was put in? how original the concept is? etc.) which, in fact, kind of brings us back to the current concept of licensing. and yes, maybe the current frame imposed by copyright law has also shaped the way i view the concept of property, and maybe i should be more of a communist, free-for-all kind of person, but unfortunately, i'm not that revolutionary.

also, and slightly tangentially, i find it interesting how profiting from fanficition/fanart is seen as more acceptable i certain fandoms rather than in others. taking the hp fandom for instance, even prior to jkr expressing her views on transgender rights, i often read things like: 'ah, she's so rich anyway, she doesn't need the money.' now, that argument has not only gained traction but is also reinforced by: 'ah, she's the devil and i don't want to fund her. it'd rather give my money to fanfic authors/buy things on etsy.'

while i completely understand the sentiment and do not, in any way, shape or form, support jkr's views, i do find that argument quite problematic. if you set the precedent that because someone is too rich, or because they've expressed views you disagree with, you don't believe that they should be entitled to their own intellectual property rights, i do wonder: where does this stop? this being justified for jkr could lead to all sorts of small artists seeing other people stealing/profiting from their original work without authorisation. 'i don't pay you 'cause i disagree with you,' would then act as a justification, with i find highly unfair. the fact of the matter is: jkr created hp. knowing that, the choice of buying hp products, regardless of her opinions is completely and entirely yours, but buying the same stuff unlicensed, from people who are infringing on her copyrights seems, to me, very problematic as this could potentially be scaled to all artists. either we overhaul the entire copyright system or we don't, but making special cases is dangerous, in my humble opinion.

option two: we choose to preserve copyright law as it is, for the reasons outlined above. this means that most people will not get paid for the content they put out and that the few that do will operate on a very tight, legal rope, and work for tips that are a 'nice bonus' but not a proper pay. this sort of perpetuates the idea that fanfiction is 'less than' other art forms, because in our capitalist society, things that don't generate money (things often made by women, may i add) are not seen as being as valuable as things that do.

for me, personally, while getting paid to write fanfiction sounds lovely (and makes my bank account purr) in theory, i think i side to preserve the current system. as an artist, i think that intellectual property protects us and our concepts from being ripped off by others, including by big companies who might find it handy to steal a design, a quote, anything, without proper remuneration. this is even more important for smaller artists who wouldn't necessarily have the means to defend their craft otherwise.

this being said, i do appreciate that it depends on why you're writing fanfiction. i think that topic probably deserves a whole different post in its own right but ultimately, most people write fanfic because it's fun. we know it's for fun, and not for profit. and if that's the case, then we're okay to receive compliments, reblogs and sometimes, for some people a little bit of an awkward tip for our work. for me, fanfic has been a space to make friends, to get feedback, to learn and to experiment without the pressure of money being involved. that's why i don't particularly mind doing it for free, and wouldn't even bother setting up a patreon or tip-me jar. i love being able to do it just for the enjoyment of myself and my five followers (lol), without worrying about scaling it, or making it profitable. not every part of our lives, not every passion has to be profitable. as we say in ireland, you do it 'for the craic' and nothing else.

this, though, as i already said, also depends on your means and level of privilege. to me, writing for free is fantastic and a bloody relief - it means being able to do exactly what i want. original fiction writing is full of rules, and editors, and publishers. in fanfic, i can write whatever i feel like, and i'm willing to forgo a salary in exchange of that freedom. again, i have a full time job that covers my bills. this does mean, though, that i don't have as much time to dedicate to writing as i would like to.

and also, the thing is: i'm a small author. i happily write in my own little niche. bar that one comment, it is highly unlikely that anyone would actually want to pay me (or even tip me) for my content. but when you look at very successful people, like the author of all the young dudes, i could see how they'd want to get paid for their art, and why they'd feel differently.

bottom line for me is: the flaws of the current systems of remuneration combined with my strong belief in copyright law as a means to protect small, original creators, means that i don't really think it would be right for me to get paid for fanfic, even if i was the kind of person who had the market for it. whilst it would be nice, this very long rant has, hopefully, explained why.

[bangtanfancamp]

✨This or That!✨

Hello loves, I was tagged literal ages ago by @curly-bangtan (who is such a sweet human btw! Thank you for the tag :’) it’s impossibly sweet of you) and am in the backseat while road trippin so I’ve finally got some free time to fill this out! I’m so excited !! I love these things !so without further ado🙃 Lessss gooooo

• slow burn or love at first sight

I guess to clarify, I love an instant spark of attraction and a long treacherous road to resolution- while also being painfully obvious that there is attraction and also while being overtly flirty but no one has the emotional motor skills to just be upfront about it already

•fake dating or secret dating

Oh, 1,000,000% fake dating. It is one of the single greatest regrets of my life that no one has ever asked me to be their fake date or gf. Because I would have been F A N T A S T I C at it. But I guess I’ll never get to live out that pretend to real slowburn in real life after all.... also, secret dating can feel really sucky and isolating so I don’t recommend.

•enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers

Oh god, must I really pick between my children? My whole life it was best friends to lovers. Now that I am currently dating the guy who was my best friend, I really melt over the fiery tension of enemies to lovers ... GOD! it’s so satisfying!!! But I think best friends to lovers still has to squeak by just by an ounce. (I’m a softy at heart, what can I say?)

•oh no! There’s only one bed or long distance with correspondence

Oh far and away, the one bed trope! No contest. I also deeply regret that I haven’t figured out how to make myself attractive enough for someone to try to pull this one over on me. *sigh* well, what can you do? .... also, did a long distance relationship for...6.5 years? And yeah, if you’re a romantic like me- it is dreadfully unfulfilling, let me tell you.

•Hurt/comfort or Amnesia

Mother freaking amnesia A L W A Y S !!! Heck yes! Are there amnesia fics??? 🤭I’ve never found one! But I absolutely love this trope in stories and movies. One of my all time favorites- which AGAIN- has not had the decency to actually come to fulfillment in my real life: Like why has park Jimin never showed up spontaneously at one of my doctors appointments trying to convince me that we’ve been best friends who were secretly in love with other since we were 14 and we finally just got engaged or married a month ago and his life is incomplete without me but he’ll patiently wait for me to love him in return again in my own time but in the meantime, he’ll love me in any and every little way he can until I fall for him again? Huh? Where is it! .... was that too specific😅?

•Fantasy au or modern au

no contest. Give me medieval maidens and dragons any day. I live in modern day. Lemme tell you- she ain’t that special.

•mutual pining or domestic bliss

cue Schmidt from new girl-“I can do this AWL day, son- AWLLL DAY!!” Yessssss!!! Mutual pining is my crack! Give it to me! Always! Gimme it! (Why can’t I have the things that I want!) okay this is just a Schmidt quote/rant post now. ..... I really want to love domestic bliss. And some of the writers who are excellent at it absolutely take my breath away at how beautifully they romanticize the every day. But outside of their writing, I have no scope of how to conjure that wonder up on my own. It is a skill I deeply lack. In real life, I just wind up feeling like the bliss is boring- gimme some pining! Some angst! Some tension!!! Even if I do love me some fluff. Someone once I told me that I was in love with the idea of someone being in love with me. Gotta say, he’s not wrong.

•canon compliant or fix it fic

Honestly, I can’t say I’ve read very many of either. But I do like to see how people flex their creativity.

•alternate universe or future fic

My favorite tv show of all time is Fringe (god bless you, JJ Abrams). Your girl LOVES alternate timelines, multiple universes, flashpoint, paradox, butterfly/ripple effect- all of it!! Dear god, yes! Give it to me! (Also, every time I have a crush or dream that doesn’t work out, I comfort myself with the thought that somewhere out there, there’s an alternate timeline version of me that is happily existing with said boy or flourishing in said dream endeavor. It’s a tremendous source of comfort).

Although, I must say, in the comic realm, alternate universes can sometimes frustrate me- like genuinely, could we not just make the alpha timeline the most incredible one? Instead of the best relationships and plot threads never being actual canon?! Can we get it together??? Or are alternate timelines just the comic industry’s way of writing their own fix it fics, generations after the original protagonist has been painted into a corner. Also, how hard must that be? To write endlessly for the same character for 60+ years? We write one fic or a couple books for the same character... could you IMAGINE having to supply 60 years worth of consistent weekly or monthly context!!! Wild

•one shot or multi chapter

I prefer multi chapter because I prefer getting engrossed in an entire work/world. Usually I am left wanting with a well written one shot, because they’ve made it so real that I can’t stand not having more- so my greedy butt loves the feast of multi chapter so I can have as many delicious moments and details with these characters as possible.

I do however deeply admire the skill and brevity it takes to made a succinct one shot. @underthejoon and @kpopfanfictrash are both brilliant as heck at that. And it is admirable as all get out.

•kid fic or road trip fic

honestly, considering how much I swoon over men who are good with children in real life, and how much I look forward to being both pregnant and a mom one day, I really never get into kid or pregnancy fics. I just don’t? Don’t know why. But a road trip!???? Oh heck yes!!! 👏🏽Where 👏🏽do 👏🏽I 👏🏽sign 👏🏽up!!???👏🏽

•reincarnation or character death

Oh absolutely reincarnation. I love that. I blame sailor moon for that.....But also, I think it’s just very in line with my love of alternate universes and timelines. I love how everything is connected/weaves together and feels predestined in the best way. I’m a complete sucker for it

•arranged marriage or accidental marriage

Like @curly-bangtan I legit had no clue accidental marriage was a thing? Unless you count being drunk at Vegas and waking up with a ring or we’re on some Jacob and Leah/Rachel level ish (which is really and truly the WILDEST™️ story ever ya’ll) ..... but I love a good arranged marriage scenario. The tension/push pull and inevitable relenting is so fun. But will say though, why the heck do women always fight it? Like there’s literally a whole Kim taehyung or Kim Namjoon offering to voluntarily love you and you wanna whine about it???!?! How dare you

•high school romance or Middle Aged romance

This, again, one is a pretty firm, resolute one for me. I’ll take high school. I’ve always felt a little oddly uncomfortable with more mature™️ romance stories? Not sure why. But I think the really beautiful ones always hark back to the beauty of their feelings being refreshing like the innocence of their first love. I know I personally can over glorify youth, but I love coming of age romance (high school, college, twenties) and no one can stop me!!!! I will say though, I have a secret soft spot for the niche of story where people have loved the same person since they were young and the timing just never works out but they finally find each other when they’re older. (One day is like that, and film or movie, it will absolutely rip your heart out-my god, it’s beautiful)

•Time travel or isolated together

These are both freaking AMAZING! But if anything has been established in this post, I think it’s my deep love of alternate timeline/reincarnation/time travel stories. I think they’re all from the same cloth. I adore them (I just haven’t written one because I’m not sure I could do the subtlety of it any justice.) maybe one day. My favorite writers are rumored to have the same Myers’s Briggs type as me so maybe I too could someday have a fraction of their world building skill.

I 100% love both of these so neither is a loser. But give me isolated together AND one bed in the same fic???? Speakers blown

•neighbors or roommates

I have never had the pleasure of having an attractive neighbor, though I often pined for it. (I have a bomb idea for a neighbor Hobi fic though) I did have a cute neighborhood boy who occasionally cut the grass for us in high school. But that doesn’t really count.... anyway! I LOVE the idea of being roommates with an attractive boy!!! Like holy guac, can I please????? Cocktailing this trope makes me swoon harder than none other- best friends to lovers + roommates? Yes. Enemies to lovers + roommates? Holy heck. Soulmate au + roomates???? Hold my sweet tea. MUTUAL PINING AND ROOMATES!!!! Pregnant. Fantasy/magic au+ mutual pining + best friends to lovers + soulmate au + reincarnation + roommate au!?!?!?!! frickin dead in the streets, homie.

I cannot say enough how much I enjoy roomate au. In a serious conversation, I once legitimately told my current boyfriend that the idea of marriage freaks me out- but the idea of being best friend roomates with sexual tension sounds like a dream come true. God help me.

•sci fi or magic au

I love sci fi. Deeply. But I will never love logic more than magic. Ever. (All my infp’s! come join me in the comments. 🙈)

•body swap or gender bend

Body swap has always deeply intrigued me. Especially in film. But I’ve never seen it in a fic. I’ve always wanted somebody to be able to switch into my body to feel physically, mentally and emotionally like i do. The deepest level of empathy & jean grey telepathy if you ask me, even if the trope is generally used for comedy. But the idea of switching into a dudes body and having to deal with their anatomy low key freaks me the eff out. If I got stuck in jungkooks body, I don’t think I’d pee or shower for a week 🙈 sorry everybody. I was really sheltered ok? Please don’t come for me. Lol...... also, have never seen a gender bend fic. Not sure how that would work. Not my favorite idea.

•angst or crack

Angst is my crack.

Honestly though, if it’s well written, it doesn’t feel ‘angsty’- cuz that means whiny or clunky to me. Well written ‘angst’ just feels emotionally compelling, I think. My writing weirdly leans toward what I hope is real angst (I e solid, genuine conflict and not petulance), but when I seek out a read, I look for crack honestly.

• apocalyptic or mundane

I offer you one better- a love story of the beauty of the mundane amidst the apocalyptic.

*mic drop*

Seriously though, the setting provides enough tension usually. Especially if it’s zombie apocalyptic. Just let jungkook’s fingers delicately trace my palm and smile, sweet and lopsided at me in the candle light, while we hide away in our little bomb shelter that I’ve turned into a jungle garden to bring life into this wasteland a la secret life of arrietty. sigh. Maybe I need to write this....

My gosh!!! We made it to the end! That was so much fun! Thank you for tagging me, sweetness!💕✨ 🙂

I’ll add a tag list shortly- @laurelevermore @lamourche @bts-fantasy @urlocalkpoptrash @thedreaming-poet @kimcheeeeeeeeee @hayjeon @outrotearot7 @lorengarcia-yut @bts-luvvv @chicpalestinian @flyingchixenwing @glodenclosetau @space-mermaid-in-love @thiccasswonhoruinedmylife @minminslittlemonster

Copy and paste if you can. Or if you’re dealing with a piece of technological antiquity like me and it won’t let you, then screen record/screenshot it and pop back and forth between the tabs 😅(also Thanks for dealing with the completely unnecessary treatise I added beneath every bullet point. It was just so much for fun to explain WHY I chose each one than to just say yes/no. I’ve said it before, written brevity is just not my strong suit.)

[tossertozier]

you mentioned possibly doing a ben or mike writing guide.. would you.. be willing to post a mike one. i'm plotting a fic and im struggling to get my mans down?? also i think abt ur fics weekly bare minimum.

hi there!!! i did my best. i tried to not sound preachy or like a know it all bc y’all know i can barely write. i hope this is helpful in some way!! disclaimer of of course this is all just my opinion & there’s no wrong way to write, you’re the only person who can tell your story!!

[[MORE]]

i think the first really important decision you have to make as Person Writing Mike is his

family & background

-are both of his parents alive?

-if yes, what’s their relationship like?

-if no, who’s his primary caretaker? what’s their relationship like?

-if no, when did they die? did he cope well with it? what’s his relationship with their memory like?

these are really really where you gotta start to write mike imo. or any character! i think one thing stephen king is to be admired for is he doesn’t neglect the parent-child relationship as so many people who write youth do. your parents are the most important people in your life for a long time. i don’t think there’s a wrong or ooc way to answer the above questions tbh. canon has really left a wide open field for you to run amuck in.

(example: i’ve mentioned in the past that my & tfat mike being a small adult is no mistake and intentional. it’s a bit of a throwaway scene, but i mention in on pointe that mike’s parents are coming. it’s intentionally done there too. mike is goofier, more outgoing, more immature in general in that fic in the small bits he’s in & that’s all a response to his familial life. )

culture + friendships

after you answer those questions, important follow up questions are:

-are the losers his first set of friends?

-how much social exposure has he had?

-has he dated? who is he attracted to?

-who influences him? (celebrities, family, culturally)

-what are his cultural interests? what does he do in his free time? how would that impact how he interacts with the rest of the world?

again, no wrong way to answer these. i’ve seen a super broad spectrum of indirect answers to these questions. even thinking about where he might pick up patterns of speech can make him feel much more like a realized character. i’ve noticed some people dip fully into aave to an extent that doesn’t even seem logical in their character’s current situation & it can really seem like a caricature, but i think to write mike without any sense of aave at all is a little ?? too. just be cognizant of it is my only real advice here. it doesn’t so much matter as long as you don’t forget who mike is which next point

humor & personality

-what do you think he would find (shows, comedians, youtube videos) really funny?

-does he have something he quotes often? something he started saying ironically but never stopped?

man i know i’m all there’s no wrong way to write mike !! in this post but i will say real quick that i think mike is funny and i don’t really respect depictions of him where he’s not. i think this is where the movies really just fucked up. book mike drops some of the funniest lines of the book. and honest to god tip is to write out a scene as you feel the urge too, look away for five minutes, look back and give half of richie’s lines away. (or... dialogue.) this sounds like a joke but it was what i did when i first started writing & tfat

i’d always be like “n the funny part goes... to richie.” and thats a fandom inclination too. nooooo. avoid this trap. it doesn’t even make sense. have u ever been in a friend group where only one person... makes jokes? that’d be genuinely so weird. especially bc if you give the joke away to someone else, you can also build on it. amazing things start happening when u start thinking of the characters in flexible patterns. like for example, i almost always give absurdist humor to stan now. wholesome to ben.

mike’s humor is largely situational to me. solid comedic timing & he’s an observant person. sometimes i read back my own writing & have to change the pov bc richies making jokes about things he would never ever notice to make fun of. mike would. mike genuinely sees all. i think he’s just got one of the most analytical brain of the losers. & i think intelligence is subjective and people are smart in different ways but i think it’s foolish to write him as anything other than incredibly intelligent both academically and emotionally. he’s just a natural observer and pattern notice-er. which brings me to my next mike thing:

love & selflessness

i think the biggest part of mike being harder to flesh into a fully realized person is the fandom tendency to make him kind and nothing else. here’s mike. he’s nice. next. bc the book kind of points out his selflessness in his decisions and it makes itself one of his strongest character traits.

especially bc nice seems to trump him having any other emotions. ...no?

i believe in general, but ESPECIALLY in the case of mike, that kindness is a choice. it’s one i genuinely believe he’d make, over & over again. but a choice he makes. he gets annoyed with his friends being annoying like anyone else would. he gets hurt when he feels left out. he feels tired & anxious & hungry and all those other human things. sometimes he might not let it show outwardly, but there’s a difference between that and not giving him feelings at all.

people are selfish. it’s a defense mechanism. it’s to protect us. it’s not a bad thing. we think of how the world impacts ourselves first. we don’t always act upon those thoughts or voice them, but don’t forget to let mike have them. he doesn’t need to be happy for his friends all the time, or rooting for them or supportive. he should have his own things going on.

also. mike’s not a doormat. yes, he stays in derry. but those were life-death consequences for generations of children. it’s really not comparable to almost any decision mike would make in a pennywise free universe. yes, he made a sacrifice in the book but i don’t think he’d just lay himself down in any given universe to whatever fate wants to hand him. but this is where i end this topic bc i’m actually only barely beginning to get to this topic in my own fic!

it’s hard writing the losers young sometimes bc i do feel relationships are naturally a little unbalanced based on basic maturity levels as young people. sometimes friendships just are unbalanced bc of who people are at that time. everyone involved can still be good people in these relationships. it’s about growing together and learning how to be good friends to each other.

for example, in &tfat: certain losers are always checking in with others. others are really wrapped up in their own shit and don’t really notice what bothers the others. it would probably take a chart the size of a textbook to explain how i think this dynamic wholly pans out in full. and yeah, i think it grates on mike a little bit that he is always the checker and never the checkee.

but even when mike snaps, even when he gets upset, i always write it coming out of him with a lot of love. i genuinely think mike, regardless of experience in that fic, has the deepest understanding of love as its own concept and an understand of how exactly it rules his life and and his relationships. mike knows to feel strongly about something he has to care about it. there are lots of things he just doesn’t care about. in the book it’s stated he’s difficult to connect with as an adult. he’s distant. he’s focused on what he wants to focus on. i think mike is actually the most interesting when he becomes a little bit of a disaster man with very little time for what doesn’t interest him.

which last thing, dislikes & disinterests

-what annoys him?

-what makes him genuinely angry?

-what bores him to tears?

i always make jokes that i bring up the nastier parts of the losers bc i love nasty boys but thinking of things people don’t like is as much a part of them as the things they do.

for example, in &tfat, i write richie as making fun of “nerdy” things like anything you could find at comic con. i write bev as not giving a fuck about sports. bill doesn’t care about richie’s music tastes. eddie hates getting condescended to.

bc of the ... kind thing, mike’s one of the harder losers to do this with. i genuinely think mike would listen to any of his friends tell him about anything. & he knows, in return, they can’t say shit when he wants to ramble about history. but dislikes can also be super situational.

again, for example in & tfat: mike doesn’t like when his friends talk about college right now. no one is really being sensitive to him at all. he hates getting blamed for stuff that isn’t his fault, mostly bc it keeps happening.

anyway. i based a lot of my mike (mostly sense of humor and personality) off of a mix of real life friends of mine. it’s a luxury. i know. i’ve been blessed to have friends from literally all walks of life & for me borrowing little habits & quirks & sayings & jokes to slip into my fics and characters is my way of writing one massive love letter to those ive known. i hope i’ve helped you in some way anon. n if not.... don’t be sad i’m hardly one to take writing advice from anyway jandjxjx

overall, as i used to do often, i’d genuinely stop myself and say: is this a person, or a convenience for the plot? and if it was the latter, sigh, and get my backspace key ready.

[ariannjs]

MR. HAWK | A SasuSaku FanFic (One Shot)

For Day 1 (Far from Home) and Day 2 (Patterns) of SasuSaku Month 2019

Rating: K

Summary: Sarada has a specific routine every afternoon, but there was something different about today that caught her mother’s attention.

————

At first, Sakura thought everything was just like the usual – Sarada would go out upon waking from her afternoon nap to play in her treehouse, return inside the house happily to help her prepare dinner, and then eat dinner with her while rambling about her new discoveries for the day. It’s been like that for more than a week now, but today was quite different than expected.

A loud thud was heard from the front door while she was slicing some tomatoes in the kitchen, followed by stomps of little feet that were becoming louder as it approached her earshot. With a raised eyebrow, the Uchiha matriarch turned and caught a glimpse of her daughter’s scowling face as she ascended the stairs, avoiding the kitchen in the process.

Sakura could’ve opted to cook their meal first and then deal with her daughter later, but if there’s one thing she and her husband have become accustomed to, it’s having a positive ambiance while eating together for it was very rare for them to even be in the same table all at once. So after putting the knife down, she wiped her hands with a small towel and then made her way to her daughter’s bedroom.

“Sarada?” She knocked lightly, entering the room only after hearing the approval in her daughter’s small voice. “Is everything okay, sweetheart?”

But what she saw already confirmed the answer to that.

It was both amusing and heartbreaking to witness how her daughter was just stationary on her bed, with her arms crossed and a pout plastered on her face. Amusing because the sight was reminiscent of a young Sasuke, making her heart skip a beat for the reminder that indeed, she has married her childhood crush and this was her beloved child with him. On the other hand, it was heartbreaking because she has done everything that she could to keep Sarada happy and fulfilled; so seeing her like this now, Sakura knew she was ready to punch to the ends of the earth whoever or whatever was making her daughter lonely.

She sat beside Sarada on the bed, pushing some strands of her black locks away from her face. “Want to tell mama what’s wrong, Sarada?”

“Mr. Hawk never came.”

“Mister...hawk?” Okay, she was kidding. She wasn’t ready to punch a little bird to the ends of the earth.

“Yeah. I saw you meeting with him sometimes.”

Sakura could only blink at this, not sure if her six-year-old daughter was merely imagining things or she has already outsmarted her.

Sarada gave her a look as if she was supposed to understand things in a snap because she was actually the mom here. Then she added, “Whenever you meet with him, it’s either there’s a new letter from Papa or you’ve sent him one.”

Ah. So that’s Mr. Hawk, huh? The Uchiha matriarch stifled a laugh at the realization. She didn’t know that her daughter was a witness to her encounters with Sasuke’s hawk.

And for Sarada to give him a nickname? Ain’t that cute?

She cleared her throat before speaking again, “I see. Can you tell me why you’re expecting Mr. Hawk to come to you?”

Sarada bit her lip, and for a moment, she looked as if she was hesitating on something. Then, she hopped off the bed and tugged her mother’s wrist as she made her way outside her bedroom and towards their backyard.

Perplexed, Sakura simply followed Sarada’s footsteps, until they reached the tree house that Sasuke had built for their daughter a few years back.

With a glance, Sarada told her to climb up its small steps after her. And once her mom was already seated beside her in her play area, she bashfully handed her a small box that has no lid.

“What’s this, Sarada?”

“Uhm...I’ve seen you meet with Mr. Hawk at around four o’clock thrice before, so I…uh...I thought that when I leave something here for papa, Mr. Hawk would get my letters and bring them to wherever papa is.” Then she pointed to the box on her mother’s lap. “I’ve been leaving a letter daily, at first I was sad that he didn’t get my first few letters. So I thought that maybe Mr. Hawk only comes weekly, but it’s been nine days now and my letters were still untouched.” She pouted once more, looking away to blink back the tears that were now brimming her eyes. “He never came, mama.”

With a hand on her mouth, Sakura stared lovingly at her daughter and then to the box she was holding. She never realized how difficult it was for her daughter to not have her dad around. She wasn’t able to take into account that just as she was missing her husband, Sarada was surely missing her dad too.

The fact that she tried to reach out to him with her own means (and understanding of how summoning works) warmed her heart and made her convinced that from now on, she would tell Sarada when she would send letters to her father so she could write her own too, with the assurance that Mr. Hawk would come and deliver them to Sasuke.

Smiling, Sakura lifted her two fingers and gently tapped Sarada’s forehead, surprising her and getting her full attention. “Ne, Sarada, do you still want to send these letters to your papa?”

The sparkle in Sarada’s black orbs was enough to brighten her own day. Upon her daughter’s excited nod, her hand made the seals needed to summon the black bird that Sarada called Mr. Hawk. It was originally Sasuke’s summon only, but it eventually became hers as well, a result of their connection that was visible even to the hawk and the rest of their summons.

The feathered summon appeared beside them then, making Sarada’s eyes widen in amazement. “You came! Mama, you made Mr. Hawk appear!”

Sakura chuckled. “Yes, sweetheart. So, are you ready?”

Sarada was too thrilled as she nodded once more, staring in awe at her mother while she made quick hand seals that stored nine letters in a single scroll.

“Alright. Garu, please bring this to my darling husband.” Sakura attached the scroll to the hawk’s foot before turning to her daughter. “Why don’t you say goodbye to Mr. Hawk, Sarada?”

Slowly, Sarada reached out to touch the summon on its head and grinned widely when it leaned to her hand. “Bye, Mr. Hawk! Please bring my letters to my papa, okay?”

And then Mr. Hawk took off.

-

Miles away, Sasuke thought everything was just like the usual as he ventured to another unnamed forest in search for a spot where he could stay the night, but the familiar sound of a feathered animal made him look heavenward.

With a raised eyebrow, he waited for the hawk to land on his left shoulder before getting the scroll it was carrying. “Thank you,” he muttered, but the hawk didn’t leave as if it wanted to watch his reaction with the news he was about to receive.

This slightly made him nervous while unsealing the scroll. Did something happen to my family? Was Konoha attacked and Naruto wasn’t able to do anything about it?

He then furrowed his brows at the sight of nine colorful papers carefully folded in different shapes. He tilted his head to glance at the bird on his shoulder, as if asking where these came from because these were definitely not from Naruto nor Kakashi, and his wife was not childish anymore to send him some cute stuff.

Childish. Cute. And then it dawned on him.

With widened eyes, he opened the pink shuriken-shaped letter and what he saw made his heart burst:

Dear papa,

I miss you. I honesly don’t remember your face so much. Please know that I still love you even though you’re far away. I hope you teach me some ninja stuff when you come back.

With love,

Sarada

P.S. I’m not sure if Mr. Hawk would deliver this today but I finished writing it anyway. See you soon, papa!

After staring at the colored paper long enough, he gave the hawk another look, but this time, with a smile on his face. “Mr. Hawk, huh?”

And then Mr. Hawk took off.

————

July 2018 | AriannJS

————

This was a day late! But here’s my drabble combining the prompts for Day 1 & Day 2! It’s my first time joining SasuSaku Month and I hope you’ll enjoy my works! You could check my other fics here and on FF or AO3 with the username AriannJS.

It you like what I do, kindly consider supporting me on ko-fi or patreon. I’m also saving up for a special post-birthday trip this November so your support would mean a lot to me!♥️

Thanks & God bless!

– A

[tisfan]

My Opinion about Your Opinion

Or one published author’s poorly organized essay about why you should shut the fuck up with your “constructive criticism.”

I follow the 5 minute rule; if it's something that can be fixed in five minutes -- a typo or grammar mistake, or even getting the capital of North Dakota wrong, I'm open to that. It doesn’t mean I won’t be grouchy about it, if you call me out on something, but usually it’s just a mild sort of embarrassment that I left a word out, or used dishes instead of fishes. (I hate those kind of typos that your spellchecker doesn’t catch.)

But fic isn't a published work; most fic writers don't have a good beta, someone to proof it, and a year's worth of time between when they wrote it and when you're offering your criticism. Which as a published writer, you get at least some of that. I've been edited to hell and back in my published work. ( I'm both a fic writer and a professional, paid author and editor. )

And still, I've been shredded in Publisher's Weekly.  

And that's fine. I don't have access to that reviewer to say "wow, did you actually read the story, or are you just being a dick" and he doesn't have access to me. I read the review, but he's not, you know, in my living room or anything. He doesn't have my email, and under no circumstances do I consider him a friend

But with fic... You're not paying for it, it's a gift.

If you buy something in the store and you don't like it, leave a bad review, or take it back and get your money refunded. but if I give you cookies for Christmas, you don't get to say "oh, god, these are terrible" in my house and expect me to like you. 

(As a matter of fact, someone did that to me once, the girlfriend of one of my friends and I only gave her a box of cookies in the first place because she was his girlfriend. She proceeded to eat them, and complained about every single one of them, for one reason or another. Needless to say, she never got another gift from me again, AND SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SHOCKED BY THIS.)

I usually like my editors that I work with professionally. Their job, thankless as it is, is to make my story as good as it can be before publication. I have respect for professional reviewers, they do their jobs, even if I don't necessarily agree with them.

Fic readers are in a special niche. they have, in most cases, direct contact with the writers. If you throw a review on amazon saying you hate Twilight, Stephanie Meyers may or may not see it. (if she's smart and does what my publisher tells me to do, she not only hasn't seen it, she will never see it. Because Publishers KNOW that writers can't write when they're constantly being torn down by perfect strangers.) But most fic writers DO see your review, and they do have access to you. They haven't asked for your con-crit. They're giving you cookies, not asking you to spit it out in their trash can.

And here's the thing: the story is DONE and POSTED and your comment is out there for everyone else to see you being clever at their expense. (Even if you mean it in the nicest possible way .) What response is there? "Oh, sorry you hated it?" Do you expect them to "fix it" or "learn from it?" Or, are they just supposed to smile thinly and say "that's a very good thought, darling. I'm sure I'll give it every consideration, bless your heart."

You want the right to be able to criticize someone's story, but you want to be protected from the author's anger and hurt feelings from it.  

So, I guess the question is: What do you expect to happen with you "respectfully and politely" tell someone you don't like their story? Why is it unreasonable for them to be hurt? Why is your need to say something "constructive and not 100% positive" so desperately important that you have to moan that you're not allowed?

[theircrazyfandoms]

I read a LOT of fanfic and so I figured why not share the stories I enjoyed reading on a weekly bases. My goal is to (hopefully) post each Monday sharing the fics I enjoyed from multiple fandoms. These lists will not include every fic I read over the week but the ones I especially liked. (I might include fic I’m rereading but idk yet.)

So, I really got into The Untamed on Netflix a couple of months ago which lead me to watching the donghua before reading the book. After that, I discovered Heaven Official’s Blessing. In other words, I’ve gotten a little obsessed with these new worlds and fandoms and have been mainly reading fics from these two fandoms.

GRANDMASTER OF DEMONIC CULTIVATION (MO DAO ZU SHI)

🔹️ 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘾𝙍𝙐𝙀𝙇𝙏𝙔 𝙊𝙁 𝙁𝘼𝙏𝙀 [AO3] by 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣_𝙎𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 [AO3]

𝘗𝘈𝘐𝘙𝘐𝘕𝘎: Lan Zhan/Lan Wangji x Wei Ying/Wei Wuxian 𝘛𝘈𝘎𝘚: Complete | Teen | 1 Chapter | 15.7K Words | Soulmate AU

𝘚𝘜𝘔𝘔𝘈𝘙𝘠: “Wei Ying,” he manages, a breathy croak, and peers past his eyelashes to watch those Grey eyes widen. They swirl with more emotions than he can name at the moment- emotions that he has not seen in those eyes for years, and his heart aches further as he watches the other swallow visibly, trembling hands reaching up to tentatively hold his own outstretched one, though they pass through each other like the other is made of mist.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying breathes, and the shadows under his eyes darken as his face scrunches up, looking like he’s about to cry.

𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘔𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘚: I adore all different types of soulmate au’s and have never read one like this before. The idea is honestly really tragic because you can love someone your whole life and then you only find out when they die that they were not your soulmate. I would definitely love to read more fics with this type of soulmate au.

🔹️ 𝙁𝙊𝙍𝙏𝙐𝙉𝘼𝙏𝙀 [AO3] by 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣_𝙎𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 [AO3]

𝘗𝘈𝘐𝘙𝘐𝘕𝘎: Lan Zhan/Lan Wangji x Wei Ying/Wei Wuxian 𝘛𝘈𝘎𝘚: Complete | Teen | 1 Chapter | 9.8K Words | Soulmate AU | Suicide

𝘚𝘜𝘔𝘔𝘈𝘙𝘠: Lan Zhan learns several things that day. He learns that his soulmate has been injured on the shoulder- that, judging by his description, they have probably been bitten by a canine of some sort. He learns that his soulmate may not be living as sheltered life as preferred, considering that fact. And he learns the name for the emotion that had sent his heart into overdrive.

Lan Zhan learns that day that he does not like Fear at all.

𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘔𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘚: I actually read this fic after The Cruelty of Fate and didn’t realize for a while it was by the same author. One of the things I like the most is we get to see more of an inside to Lan Zhan’s emotions and feelings. This fic did make me fairly emotion though, especially when we get to the siege of the Burial Mounds. 

HEAVEN OFFICIAL’S BLESSING (TIAN GUAN CI FU)

🔹️ 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘽𝙐𝙏𝙏𝙀𝙍𝙁𝙇𝙔 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀𝙍𝙎 [AO3] by 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙬𝙖𝙮 [AO3] museawayfic  [Twitter]

𝘗𝘈𝘐𝘙𝘐𝘕𝘎: Hua Cheng/San Lang x Xie Lian 𝘛𝘈𝘎𝘚: Complete | Mature | 7 Chapters | 37K Words | Soulmate AU | Depression | Suicide

𝘚𝘜𝘔𝘔𝘈𝘙𝘠: By seventeen, Xie Lian has accepted not having a fated partner, only to feel the connection form the day of the God-Pleasing Festival. While he can’t understand a word of what the person writes at first, following Xie Lian’s ascension, San Lang becomes his most trusted confidant. No matter how many times Xie Lian asks to meet, however, San Lang refuses.

Years later, when war finally brings them face to face, the circumstances are tragic.

Banished to the mortal realm and cut off from San Lang, Xie Lian struggles to support his parents, gradually slipping into despair. San Lang’s spirit returns to him, refusing to leave the mortal realm while Xie Lian is in it. But after only a brief happiness together, the faceless ghost who destroyed his kingdom returns, taking San Lang from him again, and Xie Lian has to trust that their connection is strong enough to bring him back.

𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘔𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘚: I really enjoyed how the difference of Xie Lian and San Lang being soul mates makes to the overall story we already know. I especially love how we get to see San Lang comforting and supporting Xie Lian when he is going through a rough time.

🔹️ 𝙊𝙇𝘿 𝙁𝙍𝙄𝙀𝙉𝘿 [AO3] by 𝙝𝙮𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙢𝙤𝙮𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙞 [Tumblr] [AO3] [Twitter]

𝘗𝘈𝘐𝘙𝘐𝘕𝘎: Feng Xin x Mu Qing | Hua Cheng/San Lang x Xie Lian 𝘛𝘈𝘎𝘚: Complete | Mature | 3 Chapters | 34K Words | Suicide | Modern AU

𝘚𝘜𝘔𝘔𝘈𝘙𝘠: It had been a decade since Xie Lian passed on.

Feng Xin should’ve let the past stay in the past, but when he found out his old best friend’s house was going to be demolished after being on the market for so long with no buyers, he made a stupid decision. He actually bought the house. He knew it would come with baggage, but he didn’t realize the baggage would come in the form of ghosts.

𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘔𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘚: I had not ready any Feng Xin x Mu Qing fics until this one (even though I was mostly focused on hualian) and I actually kinda liked it. Anyways, this is an amazing modern au that did great job at keeping true to the characters. I also really enjoyed how we get to read about how Xie Lian is able to come to terms with everything that has happened to him and get his happy ending.

[jenoramaca]

Been trying to work on a wedding fic ...

I’ve been working on a wedding fic off an on for a little while now and I haven’t yet quite come up with something I feel like really works.  Here’s one bit I have.  

HARRY POTTER ENGAGED!

This reporter has recently learned of the engagement of the Savior of the Wizarding World, Harry Potter!  As you undoubtedly recall, young Mr Potter, the star of Britain’s Aurors, left the Ministry and our shores for the United States, settling in San Francisco, California where he is employed teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at a local Wizarding school.  By all accounts, he is a popular teacher with both the students and parents.  

“I’m not surprised he turned to teaching.  He was dead serious when we were doing Dumbledore’s Army—a real professional.  We all thought sure that he was going to teach as soon as Voldemort was gone, but he went for the Aurors,” says Zacharias Smith, a former classmate of the Chosen One.  

And who is the lucky girl, you ask?  Did some American get her hooks into our boy?  Have no fear for she’s none other than his best friend’s sister, and fellow Gryffindor Ginny Weasley!  This reporter was not able to get a reaction from Mr Potter’s best friend, Ron, but I did run into Parvati Patil in Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlor.  

“Oh, we all just knew that they were meant to be together,” she said.  “They used to spend hours snugged up together in the Gryffindor common room.”

Moments after speaking to Ms Patil, this reporter made the acquaintance of Flora Carrow, a Slytherin schoolmate of the affianced.  “Ginny Weasley?  Honestly, I think he could have done much better.  She was known as a bit of a strumpet in her school days, wasn’t she?  I know she got through an awful lot of boys.” 

Well, there you have it.  Ladies, consider all of your hearts broken because the Chosen One has made his choice.  Watch this space for more news about what will certainly be the wedding of the year, if not the century!

POTTER-WEASLEY LOVE NEST!  AND A ROCK TO GO WITH IT!

Hello again, dear readers!  Last month this reporter brought you news of Harry Potter’s engagement to Ginny Weasley and the news has certainly caught like wildfire!  Our office has been inundated by your owls and this reporter will do her best to answer all of your questions!  

First off, where are the happy couple going to live after the blessed event?  I have it on good authority that Mr Potter has put his considerable wealth to good use in purchasing a property in notoriously expensive San Francisco within sight of the the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge.  Nothing but the best for our two lovebirds!

And speaking of the best—a lot of you have been asking about one of the most important things—The Ring!  As you know, our Mr Potter is notoriously camera-shy, but lucky for us, Miss Weasley does not suffer from the same affliction!  A loyal reader was able to obtain this snap and sent it in to our office post haste!  In it you can clearly see a heart-shaped engagement ring on her finger!  This reporter estimates the size to be at least two carats.  Mr Potter certainly isn’t afraid to splash out where his fiancée is concerned!  

Who is the man Miss Weasley is with in that picture?  This reporter doesn’t know yet, but it’s safe to say that Miss Weasley prefers both brunets and blonds!

But what about the dress?  This reporter has been in contact with all of the best designers the Wizarding world has to offer and they all say that they are eagerly anticipating her owl.  This reporter was privy to several in-progress designs from Giacomo di Mare, designer of Astoria Malfoy’s (née Greengrass) wedding dress.  

“For the chosen of the Chosen One, it must be something spectacular and never-before seen that will echo through the ages!” he said.  This reporter must agree that di Mare seems to be on the right track.  If you’re reading this, Miss Weasley, he has our full endorsement!

That’s all I have space for right now, Dear Readers.  Please continue sending your owls with questions, tips and any information.  As always, we pay well!  Until next time!

***

“Well, I’m certainly glad to know that spotty Flora Carrow thinks you could have done a lot better than me,” Ginny said, throwing down the article clippings onto the coffee table in disgust.  

“Who’s she?” Harry asked, picking up the clippings Molly had sent with her latest letter.  He read the headlines, forehead creasing in dismay.  I’m going to have to set up some sort of perimeter, he thought. Can’t have long lenses peeking into our windows.

“Absolutely no one worth knowing.  Her surname should tell you all you need to know.  And I did not get through a lot of boys in school!  It was Michael and then Dean and then you!”  Ginny crossed her arms, fuming.  “That bitch.  She must still be ticked off at me because Slughorn invited me to the Slug Club before her and her creepy sister.”

Harry read over the short article, wincing at the use of “savior” and “chosen one”.  Well, that just reinforces my decision to leave all of that.  “Sorry, love.  At least we’re not over there, yeah?  It’s just going to get worse.”

Ginny looked at him and smiled, ruffling her fingers through his already untidy hair.  “I’ve never hid the fact that you are a lot of bother.”  She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder.  “Would you be upset if we spent Teddy’s school holidays here?  I know we’d talked about doing a split holiday.”

“That is no problem at all.  I want to spend enough time over there to get the flat sorted and pick up Teddy.  The less time in all of that madness the better.”  Harry looked at the picture in the second clipping.  It was clearly Ginny and Ben out for a customary post-class coffee.  He had evidently said something that made her laugh and he watched as she smiled and put her hand on Ben’s arm over and over, her engagement ring flashing in the sunlight.  A note in Molly’s hand said, “Who is this?”

“Brunets and blonds, eh?” Harry asked, turning his head to kiss the top of hers.

“And the occasional redhead,” she said leaning in to kiss him.  “I don’t discriminate.”

“Maybe I should owl in a tip to Witch Weekly, then?” Harry said, grinning at her scowl.

“Only if you want to find out how comfortable this sofa is for sleeping.”  She picked up the letter from Molly and started reading, ignoring him on purpose.  “Oh dear,” she groaned after a few minutes.

Harry turned his attention away from the article clippings, wondering just how they’d figured out he’d bought property here.  I might have to have a word with my solicitors.  “What?” he asked with some trepidation.

“Mum’s gone off the reservation.  I told her small and now she’s talking about all of these associated events.  The Ministry want to have a party for us.”

“No.”

“And she’s been contacted by St Mungos—they want to have some sort of reception as well.”

“No.”

“There’s a tradition of both a pre and post-wedding breakfast for the extended families … high teas, receptions …” she said, Harry sinking lower and lower into the sofa cushions until he’d nearly slithered to the floor.  “Oh dear, she’s even asking about hen parties and stag nights!”

Harry sat straight up.  “No, I am not having your mother arrange a stag night.”

“Oh my God,” Ginny said, clearly not having heard what he’d just said.  “McGonagall has offered Hogwarts for the venue.”

“What?” Harry said, taking the offered letter.  Minerva owled me as soon as she heard about your engagement, offering the use of Hogwarts for your wedding.  I can’t think of anyplace more appropriate for the two of you to be joined in marriage.  Just think how wonderful the Great Hall always looks at Christmas time!  

He passed the letter back to Ginny, all too easily envisioning Molly with her hands clasped to her chest and a beatific smile on her face at the thought of her only daughter getting married in the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  He felt a bit sick.  

“Harry, that would be amazing!” Ginny said, eyes shining.  “All decorated for Christmas, all of the floating candles—”

“Peeves flying in and out, hurling stink bombs at the guests.”

“Harry, don’t be such a wet blanket.  It’ll be wonderful!” 

Harry looked at Ginny’s excited expression and sighed.  “Fine.  But no Ministry party, one breakfast OR high tea and your mum has nothing to do with anything remotely resembling a stag night.”  He grunted as she dove at him, wrapping her arms around his midsection in a bear hug.   

“This is going to be amazing,” she said, sounding like someone who had dreamed of getting married in the Great Hall ever since she’d laid eyes on it.

[flakandforay]

Weekly Fanfic Recommendations: Best of 2017

so we have another year that is ending oh so soon. oh my, the year passed by so fast and honestly, i couldn't even keep up with everything as much lmao. bangtan has accomplished so much, and i could never have felt any more happier than i am now!!

honestly, the year was tough for me as i ended my junior college, taking my national exams and thinking about university but hey, the year has finally ended!! and i hope for it to end on a good note while i am actually sick whoops.

bangtan has achieved so much, numerous daesangs, with yoongi winning an award for producing, bangtan going to the AMAs with their US debut, winning at BBMAs, topping charts, with international collabs, i’ve never felt so happy and proud to support and stan them. 

but anyway, since a lovely anon requested for this, a best of 2017 fic rec to end the year, here it is!! it will consist of all member x y/n fics, will specify if they are one shots, series, or collab etc! these will be my all time-favs of this year! do enjoy~

side note: do check out my clearing link as i clear my bts official and fansite official items or check the selling post with the tag #fafsells~

note: some members have more fics than the other and it’s a pretty long list this time round so do check it out under the cut

lets start~

Seokjin

1) The Devil’s Dick

by @floralseokjin

oneshot but with the sequel of The Devil’s Return, another one shot 

demon au, devil au

( bless )

2) Dimple 

by @floralseokjin

one shot 

roommate au 

3) Off Limits

by @floralseokjin

completed series with 8 parts out

4) Fire & Desire

by @joonbird

ongoing series with 2 parts out 

fuckboy au 

5) 24/7 Marriage Counsellor

by @jimlingss

one shot 

part of the service series 

6) The Leather Loafers

by @jimlingss

one shot 

cinderella au 

( i died so hard )

7) Seaside Sabbatical 

by @jeonjagiya

oneshot 

fisherman au

part of the working man bangtan series 

8) Firetruck

by @jeonjagiya

one shot 

part of the call me mistress series 

9) How to lose a guy in 10 days

by @tayegi

ongoing series with part one out 

10) Eros

by @kpopfanfictrash

ongoing series with part one out and a prologue 

mythology au, royalty au 

11) Trick or Treat

by @beeguks

oneshot 

halloween au 

( shit this was so cute )

Yoongi 

1) Tsundere

by @chinnychimchim

one shot 

resident advisor au

( i died )

2) Mixtape

by @jungblue

one shot 

college au 

( bless )

3) Aquiver

by @floralseokjin

completed series with 8 parts out 

4) Run-In

by @silhouetted-beauty

ongoing series with 7 parts out 

mafia au 

5) Lover’s Paradox

by @taesthetes

one shot 

part of the police collab series with @gukstudio

( i died, because holly made an appearance )

6) Breakfast in Bed

by @joonbird

one shot 

ikea au 

part of the 9 one shot requests

7) Student Council Prez

by @jimlingss

completed series with 19 parts out 

high school au 

8) First-Date BAIT!

by @jimlingss

one shot 

part of the service series 

9) Listen Closely

by @avveh

one shot 

office au

10) Vanilla Ice-cream

by @jessikahathaway

one shot 

hybrid au 

11) Headphones

by @btsinned

one shot 

part of the hogwarts au series

12) Detention

by @bts-sinning

oneshot 

part of the teacher au series

13) Petname Babygirl

by @btsjeonjazz

ongoing series with 7 parts out 

sugar daddy au 

14) Favourite Colour: Black

by @btsjeonjazz

ongoing series with part one out 

underground au 

15) Petplay

by @btsjeonjazz

ongoing series with part one out 

16) Fortuitous 

by @knockknocksoosthere

one shot 

arranged marriage au 

part of the Bound Series, a collab between @kpopfanfictrash  and @knockknocksoosthere

17) Underworld

by @beeguks

one shot 

college au 

Hoseok

1) Heartbeat

by @joonbird

ongoing series with 6 parts out 

gang au 

( god bless ) 

2) The Breakup Bureau 

by @jimlingss

one shot 

part of the service series 

3) Beyond Reach 

by @jimlingss

completed series with 6 parts out 

( this is honestly one of my favourite pieces, please do give it a read ) 

ghost au, grim reaper au 

4) Perception, Misconceptions 

by @tayegi

ongoing series with 2 parts out 

5) Saudade

by @btsinned

one shot 

part of the hogwarts au series

6) Bygones of The Sun

by @taechubs

ongoing series with 4 parts out

7) I Feel It Coming

by @94hixtape

ongoing series with part one out 

werewolf au

8) Hex

by @bangtans-baby

one shot 

witch au, warlock au 

Namjoon

1) Ghost Messenger

by @jimlingss

one shot 

part of the service series 

2) Brass & Strings

by @jimlingss

ongoing series with part one out 

college au, music au 

3) River

by @jeonjagiya

one shot 

part of the call me mistress series 

4) Something in the Way

by @tayegi

ongoing series with 2 parts out 

5) Forest Child

by @btsinned

one shot 

part of the hogwarts au series 

5) Obligated

by @knockknocksoosthere

one shot 

arranged marriage au 

part of the Bound Series, a collab between @kpopfanfictrash  and @knockknocksoosthere

6) Yule Ball

by @beeguks

one shot 

hogwarts au

part of the hogwarts: bangtan’s school of romance and wizardry 

7) The Runaways

by @emboyz

ongoing series with 3 parts out 

nerd au 

8) Mission Bad Boy

by @oppamansae

completed series with 15 parts out 

Jimin

1) It’s okay, thats love

by @chinnychimchim

ongoing series with 5 parts out 

split personality au, psychiatrist au, water polo au

2) Wishbone

by @chinnychimchim

series with 3 parts out ( not too sure if its completed ) 

sugar daddy au 

3) Dress Code

by @chinnychimchim

one shot 

ceo au 

4) Blue Blood

by @joonbird

one shot 

royalty au 

part of the 9 one shot requests 

5) Heartbreak Insurance

by @jimlingss

one shot 

part of the service series au 

6) Devil’s Own Luck

by @jimlingss

one shot 

demon au 

7) The Secrets Trilogy

by @avveh

ongoing series with 2 parts out 

office au 

8) Mischievous Maintenance

by @jeonjagiya

one shot 

part of the working man bangtan series

maintenance technician au 

9) Lonely

by @btsinned

one shot 

part of the hogwarts au series 

10) Cordially, Jimin

by @kpopfanfictrash

one shot 

office au 

( i died at the emails )

Taehyung

1) Rent-A-Boyfriend

by @jimlingss

one shot 

part of the service series 

2) Elevator 

by @jiminisalier

one shot 

3) Stress Relief 

by @jiminisalier

one shot 

4) Princess

by @avveh

one shot 

variety show au, idol au 

5) Tasty Tryst

by @jeonjagiya

one shot 

part of the working man bangtan series

strawberry farmer au

6) Nerves

by @tayegi

one shot 

scientist au 

7) Tamer

by @btsinned

completed 2-shot with Not a Monster as part 2

part of the Hogwarts au series 

8) After Hours

by @bts-sinning

one shot 

part of the teacher au series 

9) Dichotomy

by @kpopfanfictrash

one shot 

part of the bound series, a collab between @kpopfanfictrash  and @knockknocksoosthere

10) Hippogriffs

by @beeguks

one shot 

hogwarts au 

part of the hogwarts: bangtan’s school of romance and wizardry

11) Between Us and Infinity 

by @taechubs

one shot 

soulmate au 

12) The One

by @taetae-tea

ongoing series with 4 parts out 

hybrid au 

Jungkook

1) Instant Gratification

by @chinnychimchim

ongoing series with 3 parts out 

fuckboy au, cheerleader au 

2) Victoria’s Secret

by @chinnychimchim

one shot 

crack fic ( im wheezing )

3) Punishment 

by @siranghae

one shot 

police au 

( bless ) 

4) New Rules

by @tayegi

ongoing series with 5 chapters out 

fratboy au 

5) I Will Not Lose

by @jimlingss

one shot 

magic au 

6) Date in a Box

by @jimlingss

one shot 

part of the service series 

7) A Piece of the Moonlight

by @jimlingss

one shot 

mulan au 

( my heart ached ) 

8) Room for Dessert

by @avveh

ongoing series with 3 parts out 

9) Ramen

by @jeonjagiya

ongoing series with 3 parts out 

part of the call me mistress series

10) Owner

by @jessikahathaway

ongoing series with 4 parts out

hybrid au 

11) Blabbering Curse

by @btsinned

one shot 

part of the hogwarts au series

12) Perverted Bunny Mask

by @btsinned

completed series with 13 parts, an epilogue and 3 extra notes

killer au 

( love it )

13) Prodigy

by @bts-sinning

one shot 

part of the teacher au series 

14) All I’ve Got

by @btsjeonjazz

ongoing series with 5 parts out

badboy au

15) Blackjack

by @kpopfanfictrash

ongoing series with 4 parts out 

mafia au 

16) Five Dates

by @kpopfanfictrash

one shot 

arranged marriage au 

part of the Bound Series, a collab between @kpopfanfictrash and @knockknocksoosthere

17) Laggard

by @beeguks

ongoing series with 3 parts out

18) Tantalizing

by @emboyz

completed series with 8 parts out 

19) Familiar but Unexpected

by @btsfanficss

one shot 

20) Scarlet Envy

by @goldenjulychild

ongoing series with part one out and prologue 

vampire au 

Multi-Member

1) Nude Wars

by @jungblue

a yoongi x y/n x jungkook fic 

ongoing series with part one out, frat au 

2) Guess Who

by @silhouetted-beauty

a taehyung x y/n x yoongi fic 

2 parts out ( not sure if completed or ongoing )

3) Indulge

by @bangtans-baby

a taehyung x y/n x hoseok fic 

one shot 

4) The Lovers

by @bangtans-baby

a jungkook x y/n x  jimin fic 

one shot 

5) Giving a Hand

by @jiminisalier

ot7 x y/n fic 

ongoing series with 14 parts out 

6) War Lords

by @avveh

a hoseok x y/n x namjoon fic 

ongoing series with part one out 

7) Raw

by @btsjeonjazz

a jimin x y/n x jungkook fic 

one shot 

halloween au 

8) Between otherworldly Creatures

by @btsjeonjazz

a taehyung x y/n x jimin fic

ongoing series with 2 parts out

9) Tension

by @kpopfanfictrash

a jimin x y/n x jungkook fic 

one shot 

10) Clothes

by @bangtans-baby

a hoseok x y/n x yoongi fic 

one shot 

11) In the Middle

by @emboyz

a taehyung x y/n x jimin fic 

one shot 

12) Lust and Limerence

by @btsfanficss

a taehyung x y/n x jungkook fic

ongoing series with part one out 

13) Reward

by @taetae-tea

one shot 

a taehyung x y/n x jungkook fic 

14) Worth It

by @btsiguess

one shot 

a namjoon x y/n x jimin fic 

Series

1) Bangtan University

by @kpopfanfictrash and @bread-jinie

a series that consists of one shots of member x y/n fics with an intro and epilogue 

again, happy new year !! wishing all of you a great 2018 ahead~

this is all for this fic rec, another one up soon~

[i-w-p-chan]

Miss- err, Mr. and Mr. Croft - Part 1/Last Revelation - I

Summary: Tsuna and Hayato find themselves in place of Lara Croft. Repeatedly.

Note: this fic is completed with 13 chapters and will be updated on weekly basis (unless I forget, because I'm currently incapable of keeping track of days). It will have a sequel, but there is no guarantee that it will be written and posted immediately after I finish posting this fic.

Important Author Note: Unless it is specified who says which part, the dialogue typically alternates between Tsuna and Hayato.

WARNINGS: OOC, Language (there is a lot of cursing), Violence, Indiscriminate Killing (Tomb Raider Typical Killing- applies to humans, animals, and mythical creatures), Dialogue Heavy, Set In The Tomb Raider Games 'Verses, So May Not Make A Whole Lot Of Sense If You Don't Know TR (unless you, like me, don't mind that), Collection of Snippets/Drabbles/Scenes Featuring Tsuna's And Hayato's Adventures In The TR Games, Beware Of Unexpected Mood Whiplashes, Ship Teasing, Slight BoyxBoy (why do I even warn about this anymore?), Platonic 5927 (To The EXTREEEEEEEME!), Snark, Badass Tsuna And Hayato, Badasses In Dresses, Perverted Swords, Cute Hammers, And As Always: Shameless Self-Indulgence/Ridiculousness.

Disclaimer: Don't own TR or KHR.  

.

Gokudera Hayato and Sawada Tsunayoshi were both seven years old when a bright light swept them up and deposited them in a world where they were both mistaken for a 'miss Croft', and no one seemed to realize that they existed or acknowledged their words and actions unless it fell in-line with what that 'miss Croft' would say or do.

.

The two weren't sure whether 'miss Croft' becoming an archeologist-slash-tomb raider was a blessing or a curse to their freedom to say or do what they want.

.

Last Revelation

.

"Hey, Hayato, why did we shrink from thirty to sixteen?"

"Beats me, Tsuna."

.

"Cool."

"Hayato, put that down."

"It's made of gold, I wonder if-"

"Hayato, it's a skull putitdownnow."

.

"Why are you freaking out about a golden skull when there are skele-"

"Don't. Mention. It."

.

"OH MY GOD!" Tsuna put a hand to his chest as he stared at the floor in front of him.

Hayato followed his path of sight, "Hmmm, I wonder how the spikes were worked into a system to-"

"STOP!"

"Tsuna, you keep interrupting me. It's not nice of you."

"It's not like you talk about nice things in the first place."

.

"Oh my god was that a wild boar?!"

"Tsuna, breathe, you've faced worse. Remember that pack of wolves on our first adventure?"

"At least we were armed back then!"

.

"Do I have to go to the other side? My clothes will get soaked. My shoes will get soaked! Walking while wearing soaked shoes is ugh."

"Fine, you big baby. I'll swim to the other side and get the bridge down."

"Thanks, Hayato; you're a life saver."

"Just stop acting like walking with soaked shoes is going to end your life; I remember when we swam with piranhas."

"Piranhas are not that bad. They are also delicious."

.

"Do you have to collect the skulls?"

"Yes, they are interesting. And I want to find out whether they are gold molded to look like a skull or a skull covered in gold."

"…"

"Don't look at me like that! You have no problem with yanking a backpack out of a skeleton's hand and using it for yourself."

"No comment."

.

"You sure can run fast."

"So what, Hayato? Would you have preferred that I casually stroll down the corridors while arrows are flying towards me?"

.

"He wants to race us to the Iris, huh?"

Tsuna and Hayato shared a smirk.

"Let's show this old man what we're made of."

.

Hayato breathed heavily after they reached the Iris.

"Damn, you really didn't hold back. If you hadn't dragged me by the hand, I'd have been left in the dust. What do you have there?" Hayato asked as he saw Tsuna stand up after he read the inscription on the stone in front of him.

"I don't think anyone who takes the Iris will be walking out of here alive."

"Really?"

"Well." Tsuna cocked his head towards Hayato, his lips were quirked in amusement, "We may need to exert a lot of effort to get the Iris and then get out."

Tsuna turned around to look towards the entrance, "Or some special fire power. But…"

That was when Von Croy came in.

.

"Damn, again. I kind of thought that you may try to help him out." Hayato raked a hand through his hair.

"He is an adult, responsible for himself and aware of the dangers. He had been warned, as well. It's not our fault that he didn't listen." Tsuna's eyes momentarily flashed orange, "We're not here to babysit him. In fact, according to our current physical age, he's supposed to be the minder. Now, Hayato, let's go."

Tsuna turned and walked off. Hayato whistled, it was not the first time that how firm Tsuna grew up to be surprised him.

.

"Oh, wow, we're thirty again. But where are we?"

"Let's explore and see. Though from the appearance of our guide, I can make a few guesses. What do you have on you?"

"Hmm, let me see-"

.

"Why," Tsuna started, looking at the shotgun Hayato picked up from the ground, incredulous, "Is there a perfectly working shotgun conveniently placed on the ground?"

"You'd think that after all the times we found perfectly functioning firearms, bullets, flares and other equipment in illogical places; you'd stop all the snarky, incredulous comments about the subject."

"Never!"

.

"Why are there shotgun shells in that dark corner up there?"

"Tsuna, stop."

.

"Goddamnit, Hayato! There is a spiked wheel rotating around! Focus!"

"Well, excuse me if I, an intellectual, want to know how the wheel was made and how it's functioning with rotating spikes that rotate in different directions and how it travels in-"

"HAYATO! FOCUS!"

.

"Did we just…"

"Get turned around? Yep."

"Dang it."

"At least we got a gun out of it."

"Speaking of which-"

"Tsuna, shut up."

.

"You think the blades will slice up and down again once we move forward?"

"Not sure. You're the guy with the terrifyingly accurate intuition, why are you asking me?"

"Do you want me to just drag you around all the time as I follow my intuition?"

"No…"

"But since you're asking, I don't think that the blades are going to move again."

"Okay."

"And Hayato?"

"Hmm?"

"Why do we always end up having this same conversation at some point during our adventures?"

"For the same reason we keep having that conversation about finding equipment in weird places, I'd bet."

.

"ALL of this is flammable? Great."

"What's the matter, Tsuna? It's flammable, shouldn't you be happy, Human-Flamethrower-san?"

"Pfffff, which one of us keeps making snarky comments again?"

.

"Ummm, where is he going?"

"And why is he leaving? Should we continue?"

"After we reached this far? Of course."

"I thought that you would be all for running off, color me surprised, Tsuna."

"Oh, hush you."

.

"That looks like a murder device."

"You're exaggerating."

"It's a spinning fan with wickedly sharp blades that have blades rotating at their ends. I'm exaggerating. Of course."

.

"Think we could take what's embedded in it?"

"How about we explore around first; I have a bad feeling about those pathways in the floor."

.

"The pathways lead towards the sarcophagi, I wonder why."

"I don't really want to know."

.

"It's red. Suspiciously red."

"C'mon Tsuna, where could they possibly get enough blood to run through the pathways as if it was water? Relax."

"What are those pools of red, then? They weren't there before. And the sarcophagi hold fucking mummies, Hayato."

"We are in ancient Egyptian ruins, Tsuna, why are you so surprised?"

.

"Oh great. We have to go past a mummy to continue on our way. Great. We should have run off with our guide."

"You're the one who suggested that we continue."

"Ugh. Don't remind me."

.

"Do you hear it?"

"How can I fucking not? Stop asking stupid questions."

"How can it even move? Ugh."

.

"Is that a mummy on the ground? Why is it not moving? Is it planning to surprise us when we least expect it?"

"Just go, Tsuna."

"Ohmygod it's getting up!"

"Go, Tsuna!"

.

"Did the room actually fucking rotate?!"

"How the fuck can they do that?"

.

"I can finally see the light."

"We're not done yet, Tsuna."

"Killjoy."

.

"Give me that." Hayato watched, mouth agape, as Tsuna yanked the shotgun from where it was strapped to Hayato's backpack and proceeded to shoot down their assailants.

It looked like someone wanted to vent.

As the last of their assailants fell down, Tsuna threw the shotgun back to Hayato and beckoned him over towards the jeep that was there. Hayato looked at the jeep, "We need the keys."

Tsuna brandished the keys in his hand as he sat in the driver's seat, "Hop in, Hayato."

Hayato took a moment to pray to every god he knew of to survive the trip with Tsuna behind the wheel, and then got in.

Tsuna put the keys in and started the car.

Tsuna floored it (for lack of a better term).

.

When Tsuna finally parked and got out, Hayato got out of the jeep on shaky legs and then collapsed to his knees. Hayato kissed the ground from relief.

"Oh, don't be a baby."

.

"Your insistence on jumping and climbing and dropping and crawling towards the weirdest, most unlikely places to find ammo and health packs, astounds me."

"Won't you ever shut up about it?"

"No."

.

"You get that one, I get this one?"

"Sure, Tsuna."

.

"So, what did you find?"

"A fucking shotgun."

"Heh."

"Shut up."

.

"I like this part of being a tomb raider."

"Yes, the exploration is nice."

"Until something pops up to attack you."

"Oh, hush."

.

"Holy shit! Is that a crocodile?!" Tsuna climbed to the highest point he could reach, Hayato brandished a shotgun in the face of the approaching crocodile.

"You had no problem with taking out the armed men before, but you're freaking out in front of a single crocodile that can't reach you after you climbed so high."

"Those men didn't have teeth so sharp that could tear me limb from limb!"

"Uh-huh."

"Just keep shooting!"

"Wow, you're so violent."

"Hayato!"

.

"Oh my god! We can walk on the water! How do you think that happened?"

"Maybe a special chemical mix? I haven't really paid enough attention; I was focusing on figuring out where to go next."

.

"Hayato! Don't jump down carelessly like that! There could have been one more crocodile waiting to take a bite out of you!"

"You have no problem in swimming with piranhas but you freak out about swimming with crocodiles?"

"What do you have against piranhas?!"

Hayato sighed.

.

End Part 1-1

Last Revelation - II