#it just makes so so much sense for dusk to be showing this kind of interest in laudna | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yutarot · 9 days ago

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the forbidden fruit. — req by anon

genre: vampire!jaehyun x reader

warnings: mentions of death

wc: 2.7k

notes; i enjoyed writing this so much, thank u for the request!!

synopsis: your quiet life shatters the night you meet jaehyun—a dark, mysterious stranger who emerges only at dusk. you’re drawn to the intrigue of his haunted character, unaware he’s a centuries-old vampire, burdened by a past he longs to escape. though he tries to keep his distance, jaehyun can’t resist the warmth he finds in you. just as your connection deepens, a even darker rival appears, threatening to reveal jaehyun’s secret and tear you apart. now, you must decide: confront the darkness surrounding you both or risk losing a love that transcends life and death.

you never knew why, but he has always intrigued you. having recently moved back to your hometown to look after your late grandmother’s bookshop, you spend each day stacking books and listening to the crackling wire of her old radio. the weather always seemed to be an abundance of mist, the town nestled between dark forests and ancient mountains. but you never thought you would find love here, especially not with the mysterious, reserved, and almost cold man who lurked between the bookshelves every day before you closed.

at first, it didn’t bother you; you get regulars all the time. but there was something about his quiet intensity, always finding him lurking in the shadows, emerging only when the sun dipped below the horizon. it was strangely magnetic.

so that leads you to now, having to close the store early in order to accommodate some of your grandmother’s old friends. somehow lacking any kind of fear, you walk through the shelves in search of any lingering customers.

that’s where you find him, brooding yet strikingly handsome, holding a copy of twilight in his left hand, gently flicking through the pages with his right. almost immediately, he senses your presence. but he doesn’t look up, instead keeping his eyes trained on the page as he speaks to you.

“you know, i’ve always wondered what the apple on the cover represents,” he says, his voice shockingly gentle. “some say it shows their forbidden love, like the apple from genesis, morally wrong yet intriguingly good.” he puts down the book, slowly lifting his eyes to you. “but i think it’s more than that. i think it shows edward’s desire, his temptation,” he walks towards you, slowly, “his want.”

he stops in front of you, looking down at your expression of confusion.

“what about you? what do you think it shows?”

you’re quiet for a moment. “i think that edward is the forbidden fruit. he’s the bad decision she makes, he’s the sin.”

he smiles at your answer. “i’ve never looked at it that way before.”

gaining confidence, you reply. “meyer quoted genesis in the beginning of the book, but i don’t think it’s the romance that was forbidden. it was him.”

“you really know your stuff,” he replies.

“you’ve read all the books in here?” you say jokingly, but his answer catches you by surprise.

“just about.”

“what?” you laugh, “that would take, like, centuries.”

his eyes darken, jaw clenching. “something like that.”

you didn’t see him for a few weeks after that. he had vanished, completely and utterly removed from your life but, never, from your mind.

he was all you could think about. every passing day you searched for him between the darkness of the bookshelves, his dark hair, his tall frame, but you never found him.

that was until the day you decided to leave the bookshop. you don’t usually leave to go on walks, but amidst the autumn breeze, you needed a break from the essence of old paper and ink.

the leaves crunching beneath your feet and the frost nibbling at your cheeks, you find comfort in the environment around you. it was dusk, your favorite grey color of the sky setting a backdrop for the orange hue of the trees. walking past a frozen lake, you take in the sights, scanning your eyes around to take it all in.

suddenly, you feel a chill arise along your skin.

you aren’t alone.

you turn frantically, feeling the presence of someone moving around you, but your movements quickly betray you as you stumble on your feet, falling backward.

processing what just happened, you stay seated, the urge to get up and leave mysteriously absent.

something—someone—is making you stay.

and that becomes immediately clear the moment you hear his voice.

“yn ln.” it’s the man from the bookshop.

you’re taken aback. “how do you know my name?”

“i’m not stupid.”

“what?”

“you were watching me in that bookstore, ever since the first day i visited, and now your heart aches at my absence. do you wish to explain?”

your heart races as you watch his jaw clench. explain? your mind whirs in circles. in all honesty, you have no idea.

but he’s right. your heart does ache.

he continues, “i was away.” he offers his hand to help you up. “on a trip.” you take his hand.

immediately, the chill you felt before returns. his hand is cold, lacking all and any warmth. it was as if he were sucked dry of life, completely and utterly soulless.

you gain balance on your feet before you speak up.

“who are you?”

that singular question seems to dull his senses, the smile on his face wiped clean.

“who am i?” he repeats, eyes darkening like they did in the bookshop. he thinks for a moment before continuing, “walk with me.”

and so you do. you walk with him. stride after stride, he tells you about his life, about growing up in the neighboring town, about his mother who passed giving birth to him, and about his friends back in his hometown. you listen, not only to his stories but to his voice. it’s soothing, gentle, and something tells you that you’ll wish to hear more of it. but you notice there are important details missing; there’s something he’s not telling you.

when you both reach your bookstore again, he halts, signaling he’s dropping you off.

you walk to the door, but remembering your heartache at his former absence, you call out to him.

“when will i see you again… uh…” you pause, his name unknown to you.

“jaehyun.” he smiles, “and you will see me when you need me. it only takes patience, love.”

with that, you smile back, turning to put the key in the lock. but when you turn back to wave him goodbye, he’s gone, the place where he stood now only a puddle of brown leaves, encased in frost and the scent of the tall, dark stranger you now know as jaehyun.

in the weeks that followed, you saw him more frequently. each time he came into the bookshop, you would pass him a smile, and he would sit, engrossed in the worlds of the books he’s reading. each day you would talk about your shared interests, and each day your curiosity grew. you wanted to know everything about this man. it wasn’t just his looks that intrigued you; there was something aurally magnetic about him. the way he looked at you, like you were something he couldn’t have but desperately wanted. you wished to uncover why.

he had just picked up an edition of crime and punishment by dostoevsky when you come over to him, a warm mug of tea in your hands.

“i brought you this; you must be cold.”

he looks between the tea and you, a polite refusal in his eyes.

“…or not.”

he chuckles at your ability to read him. no one else has ever been able to do that to him. no one, until he met you.

jaehyun doesn’t come back for the books; he’s read every book in this little town bookstore. yet, each night, he finds himself at the front door, hoping for a chance to see you.

he doesn’t want to see you, he doesn’t want to talk to you.

but he needs it.

he folds the book over in one hand, leaning back in the soft, green velvet armchair you’ve placed in the corner of the bookshop.

he speaks, surprising you again with the softness of his voice. “i think it’s interesting.”

your brow twists in confusion before he continues.

“raskolnikov seems alienated from society, no matter what he does or how he does it.”

you listen intently.

“yes, he’s a murderer. but even before then, it was always his pride that separated him. it’s fascinating.”

“you enjoy literature a lot, don’t you?” you say.

he laughs. “a little. why else do you think i’m in here so often?”

a secret part of you was hoping for another reason for him to be here. but your mind was its own fantasy, unrealistic and yet completely tempting.

“you’re different from all the rest of my customers,” you reply.

this makes jaehyun’s face contort into an expression you’ve never seen him wear before: hope.

“how so?”

“i’m not entirely sure.”

your breath catches, caged by the fear of him suspecting the feelings that linger. but it’s almost as if he can hear your heart, beating in your chest. because you’re sure that he knows.

your conversation is abruptly interrupted when you hear the bell to the bookstore door ring, signaling that you’ve got a new customer.

“i should probably go and… yeah… enjoy the book!” you say to jaehyun, who laughs at the way you so easily panic over the tiniest situations. from an outsider, it would seem that someone had walked in with the intention of blowing the place up with the way that you reacted.

as you turn the corner to approach the customer, the chilling feeling you felt at the lake begins to fade into you. it makes you wonder if you were wrong about it, presuming it was just something you felt around jaehyun, but it made no sense. you’re walking away from him.

interrupted again from your thoughts, you arrive at the door, the customers back to you.

you reach up to tap him on the shoulder.

“hello, how can i hel-“

his hand covers your mouth.

“save the talking for when you need it.” the stranger whispers, as you push his hand away.

that was rude, you think to yourself.

the stranger continues. “im looking for… something.”

“what is it? maybe i can help you? it is my store..”

“hmmm. it’s about 300 years old, pretty.. local..”

you furrow your brows. 300 years?

“well, sir that could be anything. gullivers travels, candide, paradise lost?”

his eyes glimmer with amusement. “no, no, none of those. i’ll just have a look around myself.”

confused but albeit very annoyed by the man’s lack of respect, you allow him to look for himself. and you find yourself on your way back to where jaehyun is sitting.

only when you get there.

jaehyun is gone.

but the book remains on the green velvet armchair, open on its final page. you read the words in which had been underlined.

‘They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.’

you threw the book back down, the final sentence echoing over and over in your mind.

your heartache, his cold demeanour. it was as if you both needed each-other for the simple aspect of life.

startling you, you hear a bang across the other side of the bookshop.

you turn on your heel, pushing the thought of jaehyun to the back of your mind as you waver your way through the shelves. but your attempt to disregard your thoughts of him is soon in vain as you find him, holding the stranger by his collar against the shelf. jaehyuns eyes are the darkest you’ve ever seen them, his skin the palest it’s ever been. and his teeth.

you gasp to yourself, clutching your chest and trying to hold yourself up against the bookshelf.

you don’t recognise him, but he looks more like himself than he ever has.

his head turns in your direction and immediately his visage returns to normal, the stranger he’s holding removing jaehyuns grasp on him, chuckling to himself with a smirk.

your mind is spinning.

“so this is why you haven’t come home.” the stranger says to jaehyun.

his words from before come back to you. ‘hmmm. it’s about 300 years old, pretty.. local..’

he wasn’t talking about a book. he was talking about jaehyun.

you have nothing to say, nothing to feel or even think.

but the unease you felt about him before, seemingly has vanished.

everything you had been questioning. everything you were unsure of, has been answered.

the stranger continues, “i knew there was a reason. but i never would have suspected this.”

jaehyuns fists clench, knowing he can’t do anything with you here.

“your choice.” the stranger says to jaehyun before turning to you. “and by the way, pretty, im jungwoo.” he winks, before walking out the door and vanishing soon after.

you stay completely, and utterly still. jaehyuns eyes are only on you. he can’t tell what your thinking and it drives him utterly insane.

“are you okay?” he asks, stepping closer to you.

you should flinch, you should tell him to get out.

but you can’t.

you nod, slowly and indefinitely.

“i didn’t want this to happen,” he says, walking closer, slowly as to not scare you, “but you..”

you look up at him.

jaehyun holds a hand out to push a strand of hair from your face, gently. “you’ve done something to me.”

your eyes widen. but you can’t help but nod, a silent yet powerful indication of the way your feeling. but you know now that he can hear your heart, he can hear the reaction he has on you. he knows it’s not fear. it’s love.

he looks between both of your eyes, soaking in the feeling of being able to breathe in the same air as you. his hand finds your cheek and he leans down, everything is so slow, so gentle.

but before his lips could find yours. he stops himself, his brows crunching as if he’s in pain, hurt by having to let you go like this.

your eyes are full of questions. “why did you-“

“i can’t.” he says, sternly. “i can’t kiss you.”

“why not?”

his jaw clenches, his hand remaining softly on your face.

“i have a choice to make. this only makes that so much harder.”

“what choice?”

he gulps. you’ve never seen him nervous.

“either, i return to my family.” his hand brushes through your hair, reluctantly, and he pulls it away just as he states his next words. “or he tells my father.”

“what will happen if he told your father?”

he looks down, pain on his features.

“he’ll kill you.”

that’s when you realise. the forbidden fruit. it’s what he feels for you, what you feel for him, thats the sin.

‘but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die.’

he disappears, vanishes into nothing, as you stand, warmth returning to the air around you.

you let him go.

the next few weeks are tiresome. he hasn’t left your mind, and you haven’t left his. pain envelopes you everytime you think of him, soaring through your memories like dust in a cloud of wind.

in attempts to clear your head, you decide to take a walk again. the fog is heavier this evening, weaving through the trees and laying around the lake as if it were a blanket, soft and comforting.

you listen to the birds, melancholically singing away at eachother. but it only reminds you of your loneliness.

you long for him, mind and soul.

riddled by the effects of the winter air, the breeze makes you shiver. but when the cold doesn’t let up, the feeling oddly familiar, you turn.

there he is. standing before you, a tormented expression of a tortured soul, resting on his features.

this time, you walk to him. this time, you’re completely certain.

you stand before him.

“id rather die in the arms of certainty than to live without a chance.” you breathe, watching him intently.

but he only smiles, searching in your eyes. and at last, he presses his lips to yours.

he’s soft, yet firm.

he shouldn’t want you, he shouldn’t need you. but he does.

for if you died, it would be for this moment.

‘even more, i had never meant to love him. one thing i truly knew–knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest–was how love gave someone the power to break you.’ — stephenie meyer, twilight.

#nct #nct 127 #nct fanfic #jaehyun #jaehyun x reader #jeong jaehyun #jaehyun fanfic #angst #jaehyun angst #nct angst #vampire au

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toxicanonymity · 1 year ago

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fires (prologue)

1650, Joel Miller x f!reader

A/N: optionally before: Aches, Thoughts, and ✨Needs. started as lore, thanks for asking @thesummerpetrichor 🖤 POV changes. SUMMARY: You meet Joel, start traveling with him, and sexual tension ebbs and flows before you lose your sleeping bag. WARNINGS: I8+, fluff, sexual tension, arousal, brief jacking off.

You were the last of your group, trying to make your way to Jackson to find a family member. When Joel first found you trying to read a map, you were skittish and didn't want to tell him where you were trying to go. He asked if you needed anything and you said no, even though you couldn't sleep at night because you were so scared, and you were starving. You declined his help and quickly went on your way. You ran into him a couple more times after that, and he was polite but kept a respectful distance.

One night when you were trying and failing to make a fire, he came up and offered his help. You initially told him it was fine, no thank you. Then he spared your pride by saying, "No sense in both of us makin' a fire if we can share one." He felt bad for you. You didn't tell him much about yourself, but when he told you even the dryest, shortest version of his story--lost a daughter, nothing left here, headed west--your walls came down. You camped together that night, kind of, like 20 ft apart. You felt a strange mix of comfort and nervousness having him close by. You left early in the morning so you wouldn't have to talk to him. You were feeling shy.

The next day, you stumbled on infected. Joel showed up out of nowhere and barked orders at you, telling you to "get down!" then "behind me, now!" He sniped them off like it was nothing before they got close enough to touch you. You were shaken of course. He got you somewhere safe, then said it'd be safer if the two of you traveled together. He was disturbed that you didn’t even have any weapons left. That night, you didn't know if it was just the effect of everything that happened (his yelling echoed in your head), but you had a feeling in your tummy whenever he spoke, whenever the fire would catch the silver of his beard. You couldn’t take your eyes off his biceps, either. You didn’t register it as attraction right away. It never occurred to you that you could be attracted to someone that old.

The daily dynamic was outwardly platonic but that effect of his voice, his face, his muscles, that never went away. It only got stronger. He was strong, and handsome, he looked out for you. You didn’t talk much, but you got to know a little more about each other like your shared destination and the relatives you were hoping to find.

–

The turning point was when you encountered infected together one evening around dusk, and it was a much closer call than the first incident. After sniping them off, Joel hugged you and quickly got you to safety, reassuring you, “you’re okay, sweetie, i got you.” He made a fire as soon as you found a good place. He felt guilty that he hadn't already set up camp for the night before this happened. It was too dark to still be walking.

By the fire light, he examined you for bites, and continued to reassure you. “Shhhh, it’s okay, you’re safe.” He seemed to be reassuring himself, too. He looked at your arms and the back of your neck. Then he glanced at your torso and got awkward.

“ I don’t–i don't gotta look, but if ya want– if ya wanna look at yourself," he gestured toward his own torso, "uh, it might be a good idea.”

“Do you mind doing it?” You tearfully asked him.

“Oh, uh. . . darlin’, I–” He wouldn’t meet your eyes.

“Please? I wanna know I’m okay.”

After a long pause, he said “Okay, sweetie.”

You wanted to be sure you weren’t bit, so you could have peace of mind and get to sleep. He was hesitant about it, gently lifting your shirt, which gave you butterflies. Then you started to take it off entirely, and he swallowed and looked away for a moment. You didn’t miss the way his eyes lingered on your breasts with a different gaze. He turned you around by curling his thick fingers around your back and nudging you toward him to rotate. "Turn around a sec," he murmured lowly. That was the spark. The gentle nudge of his fingers made your skin feel ten degrees hotter. The crackle of the fire loudly filled the heated silence of the moment as he checked out the skin on your back.

You asked him to look at your legs. He pulled up your pants legs one at a time as far as they would go to check your calves and ankles. Your heart raced as his fingers skimmed your skin when he rolled each pants legs up. In the fire light you watched his face and it was the closest you seen him. His facial lines and marks made him look like an action hero. His eyes were deep and thoughtful.

He rolled down your pants legs and said beyond that you were probably okay, since your pants weren't ripped. There was a new heartbeat between your legs. The buzz of his innocent touch lingered on your skin all night. That's when you admitted to yourself that you had a crush on him. You caught yourself feeling a little disappointed he didn't take down your pants earlier.

—--

At first, Joel saw you as just a girl. The injustice of you having to make it on your own dominated his view of you. He also saw you as a liability. The fact that you wouldn't accept his help at first meant he had to keep track of you as well as any danger. If you perished and he could've done something to stop it, it would eat him up. He didn't know how many more deaths he could carry with him.

Then he got to know you, and you were the first person to make him smile in... he didn't know how long. Despite the world around you, you still delighted in the smallest things and it was infectious. He began to smile to himself if he saw something he thought you might like. Your face lit up at certain plants and flowers. You were someone special to protect at all costs. As you opened up, hearing about your life who you lost started to make you seem a little older, like someone he could actually relate to.

Then, that night when he was checking your skin by the fire, he was faced with the hard evidence of what it meant for him that you were a woman, or what it could mean. What what men and women often became together, and what could become of your duo. It wasn't just the curves of your body in the flickering fire light, it was the way you looked at him darkly as your tears faded. He knew that look well, but hadn't seen it in a long time. He started getting hard and discreetly adjusted himself. You probably weren't even aware of what he could see on your face, so he didn't want to read anything into it in terms of intent. But that look... He couldn't get that look out of his head, and the feeling of your soft skin wouldn't leave his rough fingertips.

He talked to you a little differently after that night. No more asking you what you learned and liked in school. Long silences were more frequent but remained comfortable. During certain silences, he found himself thinking more about whether you had boyfriends and what you did with them. He tried not to pry, but one day he asked.

You told him you didn't have much of a chance to experience any of that, and a long silence ensued. He was afraid anything he said (“sorry”? “that's too bad"?) might sound perverted, and he didn't want you to shut down on him.�� His heart swelled at a passing thought that he could be your first everything, and he pushed it away, feeling strange about your age and embarrassed at the thought. But that same night, by the fire he saw that look in your eyes again. And then, after saying good night, his thoughts returned.

He thought about the possibilities, and his heart swelled again, and his cock swelled, too, and it wouldn't go away. He held his stiff manhood, and it throbbed in his hand. Soon enough he was quietly spitting in the same hand, trying to make small movements and control his breathing. He forced himself to think of other women, past experiences, but his mind always returned to you with your hands on it, or your mouth, or just the way you smiled, but mostly that look, burned in his eyes. When he came with the softest grunt, he imagined your chest all shiny with his cum.

Something in him was waking up from a long slumber, and he didn't like it. It was a distraction. He knew if he fed the beast it wouldn't leave, so he put it out of his mind and tried not to indulge the urge again.

Just a few days later, you encountered a hostile group and lost your sleeping bag. He slept on the dirt and let you have his bag to yourself, but the whole time, you felt cold and weird. After a couple nights of that, you told him there was no sense in him being on the dirt when there was room in the bag and you were cold.

The first time he got hard against you, you didn’t flinch or move away. He did, but you didn't. You didn't flinch the next time either, although you did take a deep breath. He said sorry and asked if you were okay, and you said yes. He figured it didn’t bother you, and there was no need to further address it.

There was nothing he could do about it anyway.

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Continue to smut: Aches, Thoughts, and Needs.

Thank you for reading, love you guys.

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#joel miller x reader #joel miller fluff #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #toxicanonymity ☠️#joel miller x virgin!reader #joel miller smut #tlou fanfiction

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fanfictionsworld · 1 year ago

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Things in L/n,Michaelis and Faustus household that just make sense

I have been thinking about this for a long time so lets get into it.

Spider webs for Clauds spiders which by the way are everywhere.

Three pet cats which Sebastian found on the street,whcih y/n and Claude told that he should wash since he found them on the streets.He was deeply offended by you since you sided with Claude on this one.You just simply told him that you do not what flees or any type of disease they might carry,and reminded him that your just as much a cat person as is he.

Dancing shows that Claude owns which are always by the door.

Picture of three of you at the amusement park on which you look happy and both of them look like they wanna kill each other.

A first aid kit for when you hurt your self or bump into the doors,wall,wardrobes,etc.Which is very concerning.

A cabinet just for you favorite snacks,drinks,sweets,etc.

Five bedrooms in the house.

One is Sebastians for his free time which is petting the cats.

One for Claude for his knitting and for his spiders.

One for you when you just can not deal with them,there is also a bag of sault in your room for times when you mad at them and you draw a line which they can not pass unless you remove.

One big room for three of you which consistes of a very large bed with five pillows and blanket made of silk,two sofas,book shelfs,a gramophone,one big wardrobe,rug with spider and crow prints,one large mahogany desk filled with your work and there work and a fire place.

The fifth room is for the cats which you insisted on having because your jealous that they spend to much time with him which Sebastian teases' you about relentlessly.

Two bathrooms with large tubs,botells of your favourite shampoo,thooth brushes,hair brush the best kind,pads,for some reason condoms,skin care products of the highst caulitly,large mirror above the sink decorated in the Victorian style.

A large sittingroom with a coffiee table,all sort's of your favorite flowers,beautiful curtness made from the finest matirials,a very long sofa with a two armchairs and a few fluffy blankets which you three use mostly you when its cold,a big screen television and under it is a very large fire place.

Beautiful garden with lots of fruit and vegetables which Sebastian and Claude planted them selfs,they love when they have fresh ingredients cooking you the finest meals with them.

Small table with a few chairs and lounge chairs when you wanna sun tan.

Kitchen consistes of a large oven a small table with four chairs,a pantry which they keep all sorts of spices,flower,suger,vegertables,fruit,etc.

Large refrigerator for oil,meat,milk,yougrt,chesse,egss,etc.

And at last a front porch with a very comfortable bench and a table where in the dusk you three sit as you talk about anything and everything.

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stars-n-spice · 5 months ago

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Clone OCs: Dusk Company

I made these guys waaay back in March (?) of last year and for some reason never posted them here-

Randomly I decided to go back to them because I think I stopped working on them simply because I couldn't decide on a name for the group/color scheme but I got ideas and the time/motivation to digitalize my initial doodles, so introducing members of Dusk Company!

Dusk Company specializes in (surprise, surprise) stealth missions, thriving in the darkness and all of that. They're great to have when you need a retrieval or assassination mission done! Still working on their Jedis though.

Check out Dawn Company as well!

Close ups and brief Introductions under the cut!

Commander Milo:

- Just thought it would be a neat name - Mom Friend (Squad jokingly calls him 'Commander Mom-lo") - 2W1 on Enneagram - Constantly stressed and worried over his men (it's a wonder he doesn't already have gray hairs) - A very good listener - Hanging on by a thread guys please do not push him, he is one really bad mission away from completely snapping

Captain Eclipse:

- Eclipse because of night and also because he likes to 'eclipse' people and show off whenever he can - He's like subconsciously a show off though, he doesn't really mean to, it just happens - 3W2 on Enneagram - Has a tough time talking about his feelings and likes to pretend nothing is wrong and will laugh anything off - On a completely unrelated note, totally having nothing to do with all his bottled up feelings, but does someone want to hold him tenderly? He just wants to be held. - Incredibly stubborn to the point where it's almost reckless; has cheated death probably four times now

Ranger:

- Just thought it would be a cool name - Sharpshooter - Mute, uses sign language to communicate - Tongue piercing and eyebrow slit just because - Cool older vod kind of guy; will give you candy before dinner and won't tell your parents kind of guy - 6W5 on Enneagram - Really great at keeping secrets - One of the more reasonable clones in the Company and keeps the others out of trouble (if only they'd listen and take his advice)

Chip:

- Got his name because he's a technology buff - Was born with a mutation in his eyes for some reason and now needs cybernetics (like Wolffe) to see - Has orange tattoos just because why not? - 4W3 on the Enneagram - Doesn't like to talk much and will talk when needed (so he gets along with Ranger pretty well) - Eyes give him an advantage in the dark (sees a little better than his brothers) - Eyes are also reflective when you shine a light on them in the dark and this has scared a few of his brothers shitless as a result

Clicks + Buttons:

- A set, do not separate - Clicks has a nervous tic that causes him to make a 'clicking' noise, hence the name - Buttons likes to push buttons, both in a literal and metaphorical sense - Buttons is their pilot (he's not a great one but in his defense they haven't died from a crash landing yet) - Clicks is a 6W5 - Buttons is a 7W6 - Fives and Echo type of dynamic (Clicks is the only one who can tolerate Buttons) - Dye each other's hair

Tats:

- Clone Medic - Got his name because of all his tattoos and because he's the one to go to to get them done (he's got a ready steady hand) - Really chill kind of guy, has an incredible amount of patience - 9W8 on Enneagram - Keeps the Company together (is usually the voice of reason outside of Ranger) - Whattaman wattaman; knows how to treat people right - Extensive hair care routine

ARC Trooper Shark:

- Thinks sharks are cool (pretend there's sharks in Star Wars) + used to bite people as a cadet - Are his teeth sharpened? Maybe. - Not much of a conversationalist; mainly speaks in grumbles, growls, and groans - 3W4 on the Enneagram - Usually grumpy and tired (he's gotta put up with all the other knuckleheads of his company) - Honestly has no idea how to interact with others in a normal way - Is a little off-putting but I swear he's trying his best. Maybe.

ARC Trooper Leo:

- No real reason why he's named Leo, just thought it was a cool clone name - He's an ARC trooper and sometimes people question how and why - A little cocky and stuck-up but means well - Loves his time off (don't ask him what he does during it) - 7W8 on Enneagram - Dyes his hair that color; tends to dye it different browns/reds at a time - Got clawed by a juvenile Nexu once (hence facial scars)

#tcw #star wars #the clone wars #clone wars #clone ocs #ocs #original characters #tbb #star wars oc #sw ocs #clone oc #clone troopers #dawn company #if you saw this before shhh no you didn't

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the-hilda-librarians-wife · 8 months ago

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Not to be a big fat nerd but I’ve been thinking so much about Johanna’s relationship to a body she doesn’t understand growing up. Her medical records say her blood is O-, but that’s because it has none of the usual membrane proteins that would allow it to be classified into the ABO or the Rh systems; her ears are pointier than any other kid in her class’s, but that’s gotta be genetic, right? Like those genes that make it so the lobe is stuck or loose? But she can’t know, her auntie is the only family she has and she insists she doesn’t feel comfortable showing her ears, for some reason. Many of her classmates say they’re allergic to polen, but she doesn’t get it! How come, she only feels awesome when she’s in nature. She does feel her throat tighten sometimes, though, and her skin break out in rashes. But that’s only ever when she eats red meat (and beans, too, but only if she drinks orange juice along with it. It never made a lot of sense to her) or touched something with rust in it. She feels the most alert at dawn and dusk; thats kind of odd, most people her age feel groggy at school in the early mornings. But everyone has different circadian rhythms, she supposes.

She grows up, and gets pregnant; her obgyn is worried, her body is giving signs of rejecting the fetus, it’s producing antibodies against it. Johanna is horrified. Her aunt only chuckles and says her mother had something similar, she gives Johanna a homemade herbal tea and an amulet and all the symptoms disappear. The problem goes undiagnosed. They test the child’s blood,right after the c section (the pregnancy had been too freaky, the gynecologist didn’t want to risk a normal birth). Her results came back O- as well, but how is this possible? The father is an AB+, after all. Doesn’t matter. It’s not the doctor’s business if she’s cheating — but it is their business if the baby’s blood test was mistaken and the Rh- mother came into contact with Rh+ blood. That’s what they say when they connect a bag of anti Rh+ antibodies to her IV access. Better to be safe than to risk fetal erythroblastosis next time she has a kid. They explain this to her, and it makes no sense — she isn’t cheating. But the doctors don’t seem to be willing to listen to her, just like they aren’t willing to believe that blue hair runs in the family. They call the hospital’s social worker to talk to her; maybe she’s drunk, maybe there’s a reason she lies so much. She walks away from that hospital angry and frustrated.

Her daughter doesn’t have her pointy ears. But the allergy to iron, she seems to have inherited. She just hid it better, behind the explanation of a vegan diet. Neither of them ever suffered from the low blood iron. No blood test ever says her daughter is Rh positive, but she knows Anders’ was, she knows it. Is that even possible? She looks it up, finds out it is, actually, if he was a heterozygous positive. But nothing justifies her being O, it should have been A or B. Has Johanna done that herself? Single-handedly bent the actual rules of genetics and made it so it’d be harder for her daughter to get blood, should she ever need it? Sounds unlikely, but it’s not, really, right? Many people have O- blood. And autoimmune conditions. And allergy to iron. It’s normal. It’s all normal. She isn’t special. She’s not in danger. But isn’t there something you’re forgetting? Isn’t there something you’re forgetting? Isn’t there something you’re forgetting?

#this got. longer than planned.#i've been rotating that drawing of Sadie's in my head like a microwave. u know the one #GOD imagine if she took a genetic test #‘congratulations! you are half Norwegian and half something so unknown and terrifying our lab technician quit her job’#I wrote this real quick. really hoping I didn’t say anything stupid egsjgsjshd #Johanna hilda #Hilda the series #Hilda netflix #Hilda s3

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sjofn-lofnsdottr · 6 months ago

Note

Hey! I love your gposes, and I was wondering if you had any tips on how to get better at making them.

Oh, thank you! You're kind to say so!

I'm gonna approach this like you're super new to it, so I'm sorry if I'm telling you shit you already know! And if you have other questions about something specific, you can DM me if you like, I don't mind. Honestly, that goes for anyone reading this!

I can sense this is going to be stupid long, so I'm also gonna hide a bunch of it behind a cut.

So starting off with vanilla gpose advice, in a general sense I'd say play around with lighting a lot. I usually try to get at least some light spilling onto people from the side (ideally where a light source would be anyway) in order to give them more definition. I know there's gpose lighting tutorials out there that can probably explain it so much better than I can (like this one? maybe?), but it really makes such a huge difference overall. Even when you're taking a picture outside in the sun, a little bit of extra lighting can make stuff look more interesting.

(I might be a little biased, I was a theatrical electrician for a while. I think lighting is neat.)

Another vanilla-applicable thing I'd say is get really, really, really embarrassingly familiar with the in-game emotes, and practice your timing for when you want to freeze them. And don't forget that the 'expression' emotes will override an emote's usual face, which can change the vibe in some fun ways:

And the third piece of vanilla gpose advice I'd give is to mess around with the filters the game has on the 'general settings' tab. Honestly, you've probably done this, but mess around with ALL the things in the gpose menu. Push every button, waggle every slider, just to see what they do.

I'm currently loitering at an art party, so let me show you a little bit what I mean.

So to start, I go into gpose and see what's what. I let all the background people stop facing the camera, and move the camera a bit to an angle I like. I'm sitting in a corner, which is going to mess with the camera more than usual, but in this case, it's messing with it in a way I like, getting me nice and close to Dusk:

Dusk could stand to look friendlier, right? So I head to the emotes tab in the menu, and pick 'beam' for his expression, because it's the smile I like best on him:

Still kinda bleh. Things look a touch murky, and flatter than I like. Before I do ANYTHING with the lighting though, I go here:

And then I save the hell out of the camera position. Saving the camera position has saved me so much pain. This is because placing lights in gpose requires you moving the camera, since they drop exactly where your camera is. But I like this angle, and I don't want to lose it. So I save it! It'll also save lighting settings, which I find handy occasionally, but not nearly as often (it's a lifesaver when I accidentally hit the hotkey that turns off lights though).

I've taken a lot of pictures in this venue, and the pink/white color scheme is uh ... tricky for me, sometimes. But on the upside, white walls and floors bounce light really well! For this picture, I think I want some light coming from the left of the frame to give Dusk slightly more interesting shadows, and a blue light much further away and above to soften the harshness of the white and pink:

My next step is to use the gpose-provided color filters to see if there's anything I like, just in case:

Bright 1 is one I've wound up using a lot, even though it ruins my eyes and makes everything look dark as hell once I come out of gpose.

Now, the white coming from the left is hitting Dusk pretty much exactly how I want it to, but it's lighting up his moogle sundae more than I'd prefer. The way I usually deal with this is using the 'limb darkening' slider. What it does is darken the edge of the picture, to varying degrees. It even has different colors, although I use black pretty much always:

I only used one tick, but it's made me much happier about the sundae! My one complaint now is that I had to turn off depth of field in order to keep Dusk from being blurry (it's a slider, but by the time Dusk looked focus, it might as well have been shut off anyway), but it's something I can live with for a vanilla gpose.

I have reShade installed though, so let's mess with that for fun. I tend to stick to presets that don't stray too far from what the game itself does unless I'm doing dumb vampire artsy things:

But honestly, in this case I don't think it was really necessary.

As for getting better with crimes, I would again stress getting familiar with the game's emotes and attack animations, because they are often a fantastic starting point to modify into something you're wanting to see. Also, this sounds weird (probably) but when I first started out, I did a lot of throw away pictures that no one besides my Discord knitting circle will ever see because everyone is naked in them. I did this for two reasons. Wait, no, three:

I was high when this idea came to me and therefore I lacked my usual shame.

Clothes clipping was driving me crazy and I wasn't good enough to handle it yet. Stripping everyone naked took that out of the equation, so I could focus on actually moving the dollies in peace.

However! It also meant I couldn't depend on clothes to mask some of my worst shortcut sins as far as moving limbs and what it did to their joints went. This meant I got a lot better at knowing how to move the dollies I was working with in the way the models want to be moved and still look right.

Obviously a saner thing to do would be ~beach pictures~ with everyone in swimsuits. Good thing Dawntrail is coming!

Some of the things I learned during this naked process:

While I try to make a pose look good from multiple angles, because I rarely know what angle I'm going to ACTUALLY want until stuff is at least roughed in, if I know for absolute certain I'm only going to take it from one particular angle, it is best for one's sanity to make sure it looks good from that angle and ignore everything you can't see otherwise.

If you ARE taking more than one angle of the same pose, it is not a crime to make little adjustments after you change the angle! This is extra true when you're doing something like a kiss, because noses are the worst. Go ahead and nudge something that looked right from Angle A but a little off from Angle B. No one will know your dark secret.

Somewhat related, sometimes little tweaks are really all you need! This is especially true when it comes to faces. Try not to overthink what you're doing too much.

Very often, if you want to move, say, an arm from position A to position B, you should start by adjusting the clavicle and work your way down. At first this was kinda slow and annoying and required a bunch of passes, but it resulted in way more natural looking results without asking people to politely ignore wonky elbows and such. Like everything else in the world, this gets a lot faster with practice and is 1000% worth getting halfway decent at.

Hands are the devil, but they also really make or break a pose for me a lot of the time. The more natural you can make hands and fingers look when touching something, the better, I feel. On the whole, I find FFXIV hands are a lot better at gentle-looking touches than rough-looking ones, but that may be my own limitations talking here. Spend time just messing with hands to get familiar with them, just like the rest of the skeleton. Eventually it'll start to get easier and easier to move stuff to where you want it without having to do a million little adjustments on the way to where you're aiming (I'm down to about half a million these days).

Eye contact is fucking hard too. I try to get the models to do as much of the work for me as possible as I go into gpose. For example, I'll make sure Dusk has Farron targeted, so he'll already looking down at him, but most of the time I'm going to be moving their heads or bodies too much for that eye contact to still look right. The way I usually do it is put the camera behind the person being looked at, and then make that person disappear and adjust the looker's eyes from there. Then I check from the angle I actually want to shoot from and make tiny adjustments to make it look more 'correct' to my eyes. Sometimes when I post Camera A/Camera B angles? It's because the eye contact only looked right from those angles no matter what I did and I'm making you all just have to deal with it.

Double check everything! It's easy to rough something in and then go blind to it being not-quite-right.

It takes me about 5 minutes to stop noticing nakedness because I am too busy swearing about elezen necks or something.

Once you start letting your dolls wear clothes and armor again, you have to start thinking about clipping and physics and such, which will also take practice, but I feel like people on the whole are a lot more subconsciously forgiving about that, because we all play this game and we all got trained to ignore a certain amount of clothes being weird because of it (this goes for most clipping, really). Which is good! I try to minimize clipping without actually having to touch any of the clothing bones if at all possible and only really mess with those if I absolutely have to because, say, the entire tail of Dusk's coat is clipping through the chair he's sitting on.

I suppose that's another thing, sometimes ... sometimes a glam is just a nightmare to work around and you just wear something else.

I hope this was ... helpful at all, I know it's long but hopefully not full of shit you knew already, or overwhelming to read. But I wanted to say more than just 'practice,' since that's hard to do if you don't even know what you should be practicing! And again, if you have a more specific question (or follow up questions?), definitely send a DM or something!

#ask and i will answer #long post #gpose

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achaotichuman · 7 months ago

Text

Hedonism

Welcome back for day three of Tamlin Week, today's prompt I went with both. Prompts- Flower language, and Mates. Though I used them quite loosely in this fiction.

This oneshot is focusing around Tamlin reconciling with his feelings about Lucien and taking action finally to attempt to fix what he has lost. He has never been good with words, and much less any kind of relationship. But for Lucien he will try. For Lucien he has to try.

You can read on Ao3 or below the cut!

Warning- Explicit Mature Content.

The sun was on the edge of the horizon, a few minutes from slipping below the line of the glittering sea when Tamlin landed in Day. The white marble, sandstone and gold gleamed in the dusk light. A smatter of pinks and yellows smeared over the picturesque city. His own golden hair gleamed in the light. The gold in his eyes like spots of sunlight as he looked upon the Palace of gems and carved marble.

The guards standing as sentries either side of the large gilded doors shared a glance. Neither showing any signs of recognition when they looked upon the disgraced High Lord. The disappointment of his father, and his father before him. It was a sigh of relief to for once not be seen as the Lord of the Spring Lands.

Tonight he had braided his hair with forget-me-nots, marigolds and bluebells. Spilling down the plain white shirt he wore. A simple beige coat overtop, and black pants. Daggers nowhere to be seen tonight, only a leather satchel slung over his chest. Gripping the leather strap tightly, he lowered his head and looked through his long, blond eyelashes at the guards. Walking slowly up the stairs.

“Your business here?” The one on the left, a male dressed in armour from head to toe, but with a peek of dark gold hair underneath his helmet.

“I am here to see the Lord Lucien Van- SpellCleaver.” Tamlin corrected himself quickly.

The guards both scrutinised him. But ultimately didn’t seem to think he was lying. Lucien had spies and sources scattered all throughout Prythian, it wasn’t an unlikely story that he was one of those.

One guard called for an escort to take Tamlin into the Palace. Two new guards flanking him as he was led through winding hallways covered in finary. With statues of females and males lounging amongst their own nakedness, and art of swirling colours hanging from the pristine walls.

Thesan’s Palace was grander, but Day held a hedonistic, lightly charged sense of finary. That Tamlin didn’t feel he belonged in. Lucien certainly did, the male was the definition of hedonistic.

With scarlet hair that fell in thick, shiny waves over his shoulders, spilling down his back. Gleaming dark skin that glowed in afternoon sunlight. Amber eyes that shone with tame wickedness, even that scar added a hint of cruelty that only added to roughen his sharp appearance. Making him appear like a freshly sharpened blade.

With a build made to wield weapons with effortless grace it was no wonder he resembled one. Tamlin looked down at the rolled out carpet across the tiled floors. All swirling gold and white.

He was a smear of mud in an otherwise perfect painting. He shouldn’t have come here tonight.

Eventually they faced a large dark oak door. Silence rang through the world, and Tamlin’s hand twitched. The servant, with fluttering wings and dark skin, who had been his escort, knocked three times in rapid succession.

“Enter.” A muffled voice called, and Tamlin’s heart throbbed against his ribcage. He knew that voice so, so well.

The delicate wrist of the Day Faery opened the golden handle, and the door swung open. Letting Tamlin take in the dappled sunshine breathing through the large open windows of the office. It was simple, simpler than the rest of the grand palace, but just as tasteful. With white lounges and dark wood furniture. And every wall that was not a window was a display case for dozens, if not hundreds of books.

Lucien didn’t look up from his desk, as he scribbled away at writing some kind of letter. His slender fingers stained with black ink. A smudge under his eye, and on his cheek. His hair was held back by a red satin band. And he wore a long loose red silk robe with swirls of gold, open over his chest.

“What is it?” Lucien asked, not looking up.

“You have a visitor, my Lord.” The servant said, bowing low.

“I do-” Lucien cut himself short as he finally looked up.

“Everyone leave.” Lucien ordered, standing up to reveal the loose knot at his waist.

In a second, the guards and servant scattered out, the door clicking shut behind Tamlin. His heart thundering as Lucien stepped away from behind his desk, robe swishing with every movement. His long hair fluttered behind him, strands of wine red hair glowing dark in the dying sunlight. He stared at Tamin, those glowering amber eyes not looking at his face but rather fixated on the flowers in his hair.

“Tamlin.” Lucien said, as he made his way to a white lounge. Effortlessly draping himself over the blankets tossed lazily across it. A blank expression in his face, but his eyes revealed the true expanse of emotions hiding behind his false indifference, “What brings you from the South to the Solar Courts.”

“Are we really playing this game?” Tamlin asked with a cocked eyebrow, truly his hands began to tremble, so he folded them behind his back. Lucien’s eyes darted to the motion as a cruel smile slipped over his face, he knew, the bastard always knew.

“Yes we are.” Lucien murmured, “You ensured it the last time I was in Spring. That we were back to these games.”

The last time Tamlin had laid eyes on Lucien. When they had fought so ferociously, both losing themselves to suppressed anger and the trauma they desperately hid from the eyes of others. Lucien had spat venomous words that in hindsight Tamlin knew he hadn’t meant. But in the moment, they had struck true.

His magic had lost control once again. Falling prey to the insane beast writhing within him. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d done it all the same. Lucien had left with bruises and cuts, the most prominent of them all a blackened eye.��

Tamlin had run for him, but Lucien was gone with tears in his eyes before he could get a word out.

“I didn’t mean it.” Tamlin whispered softly, "Truly I didn’t.”

“Doesn’t matter though does it?” Lucien hissed, “I know you can’t control your magic Tamlin, it wasn’t about the injury. For fuck’s sake, I broke your arm once on accident during sparring. But fucking Cauldron on earth and Mother in sky, I apologised right after.”

Tamlin kept his mouth shut and his eyes forward. Taking everything he said.

“You’ve taken two years Tamlin, two fucking years. Two years of me thinking everything we had was truly thrown away, and now you come here thinking you can make it alright with an apology?” Lucien stood, gracefully smooth, that scarlet silk caressing his naked skin underneath.

He said nothing, just waiting, waiting as Lucien watched him with those cunning, sharp eyes. Staring him down like he was deciding whether to ask him to leave or to punch him in the face. Neither Tamlin would have hated him for.

Lucien waited for his response too, and when it was clear Tamlin wasn’t saying anything. He stalked forward. Head high and eyes locked in on green. The sun’s rays disappearing behind the horizon.

Tamlin’s eyes trailed up and down Lucien, “Is it thrown away?”

For once during this entire conversation, Lucien looked at a loss for words. As if he had practised this encounter a hundred times over in the mirror, like Tamlin wasn’t following the script he had out, “What?”

“Is it thrown away? Is everything we used to be just,” Tamlin made a flitting gesture, “Gone.”

Silence echoed like thunder through the room. The room began to darken, as the sun was almost fully set. The pinks it left behind slowly dimming and giving way to deep purple and endless midnight blue.

“I don’t know.” Lucien whispered.

Tamlin didn’t know either, he just knew he had to make this right. One way or another. Find someway to fix this. There was hope, Lucien hadn’t thrown him out yet, he was standing right in front of him. Telling him off as he had done for years.

In those burning amber eyes, there was want. Lucien had waited for this day, so there must be some part of him that wanted it.

And Tamlin needed to take advantage of the opportunity he had. To rekindle what they had lost, what in part had been taken from them, and in part he had neglected.

But there were no words that he had that could fix this. No magic he possessed that could rebuild their relationship right this second.

So Tamlin instead said something he knew Lucien would want to hear anyway, “The bar down in Summer is closing.”

Lucien blinked at him, surprised once more, Tamlin put the cherry on top, “It’s their last night open, they have a deal going. Three shots for the price of one.”

That bar was owned by two Lords who had moved to working in Tarquin’s Court. Tamlin had known them as long as he had been of drinking age. And knew they had a large supply of cheap alcohol that needed getting rid of quickly.

There was a heartbeat of silence, followed by another.

Lucien turned on his heel and headed for a door that when it swung open, revealed his sleeping quarters. He slammed the door shut and Tamlin flinched, blinking at the door.

A grin curled on his lips as Tamlin counted in his head.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

The door swung open again and Lucien was fully dressed. Simple and mostly plain. A billowing white shirt with black pants. A golden drop hung from one ear, and a simple necklace with a blood red ruby dangled around his throat.

“Off we go.” Lucien said, already heading for the door.

And Tamlin was quick to follow.

Disappearing from Day, they left the rich smells and salaciously, tasteful erotic air behind. Exchanging it for one of loud ruckus, the reek of cheap alcohol, and smoke thick air.

Tamlin didn’t bat an eye as he walked from the old, chipped away street just on the outskirts of the Summer Court into the small half-broken door of the bar sitting like a hole in the line of old, old buildings. But from the corner of his eye, he watched Lucien’s back suddenly straighten, his face souring as his nose scrunched and his eyes narrowed.

This, this felt more like him. Dirty, depraved and awful. A stain on the floor. It wasn’t Lucien though. May have been what he felt like years ago, but now as he had been reunited with his mother, with his brothers. And brought to a place that he clicked like the last piece of a puzzle, it wasn’t him any longer.

It didn’t stop him though, from walking beside Tamlin into the crowded, roaring bar.

The Lords of this place had neglected it for a while, leaving it all to be run by the two managers in charge. Once they made their way up the imperial ladder, they were finally closing it down. In all honesty the place was overrun by criminals, and should have been shut down ages ago.

But the drunk violence, the selfish greed all around, the haze of drugs outlawed by the Court they were in and the unrestricted amount of drinks that poured from the bar, was something Tamlin needed to be able to forget. He knew it was disgusting. He knew he was partially hated by it. But he was a selfish man and that much he could admit.

Lucien wasn’t though, which was why he seemed so out of place.

But one thing was for sure. In the depraved darkness of this place, there was only a hunger for something to forget the days before and the days to come. To give in to the young of the night and let the swirling midnight haze sweep through the mind. As such, the formal resentment between High and Lesser Fae slipped away in this place. Turning a mix of cliques. Either those looking for a good fight to work out the tension of their work day, or those looking for a good fuck to work out their unmet need for pleasure.

So Tamlin and Lucien elbowed their way through both High and Lesser Fae. Until they found two thankfully empty seats right at the bar counter.

Both quickly stole away a place, and let their heavy selves rest against the countertop. The bartender looked up to see them. A lesser faery named Laurel, with white wings that were tinted pink at the edges. She had pale pink skin and an arrangement of flowers falling from her white hair. Despite the loveliness of her appearance. Laurel was also tall, taller than Tamlin, and stronger than him too. He knew that only because of the time he had drunkenly pushed a male down against the bartop and sucked him off on the spot. That night Laurel had to pick him and the male up and throw them outside.

She saw them and waved with a big grin on her face. In a second she had three shots poured out and all were in front of them in a second.

“Tam, long time no see.” She yelled over the crowd.

“Good to see you too, Laurel!” He told her back, he then clasped Lucien’s shoulder and asked, “You remember Lu, right?”

“Yeah, course I remember Lucy.” She smiled at Lucien who waved back.

“Yell out when you want more drinks, boys, there's plenty more that needs to go.” She said, then her eyes went to two males getting too rough at a table, “I gotta go sort that out, safe drinking!”

Tamlin laughed as he watched her brace a hand on the counter and swing herself over. Running to separate the two.

As Tamlin turned around, he saw Lucien pick up the small glass, the clear liquor staring up at him. He knocked it back and winced as he did. But quickly took up the next. Tamlin grabbed his own before Lucien got too carried away.

They said nothing as they waited for Laurel to be done dealing with the bastards fighting. She hopped back over the counter and wordlessly poured them more, before getting back to her own job, the next three were gone in a moment and this time Tamlin took two shots and Lucien one.

Slowly, the bar began to quiet down. Turning to a buzz around them as the alcohol began to take effect. Laurel had scared the shit out of the noisiest of the lot, so everyone began to return to their own drinking and hiding in the corners away from her cunning eyes for a quick handjob.

“So…” Tamlin started, he knew they needed to talk, but he didn’t know how to approach it.

“Let’s play a drinking game.” Lucien stated, Tamlin blinked.

Slowly, the blond breathed out, “Okay, what’s the game?”

Lucien lifted his empty shot glass to grab Laurel’s eye, and waited until she poured another three before disappearing again.

“We talk about this.” He said, “And anytime one of us lies, sugarcoats it, or otherwise tries to hide what we think. You have to take a shot.”

This was dangerous. This was so, so dangerous.

But if they didn’t do something, Tamlin was going to lose him forever anyway, so.

Fuck it.

“Okay.”

“Good, I’ll go first. I hate that I ever met you.”

Tamlin gritted his teeth, as his eyes gleamed. But it wasn’t hatred that curled in his gut, rather a fire that began to stoke itself up and up.

So that’s how they were to play.

Fine.

“I hate that I ever met you.”

A growl loosened from behind the Day Heir’s teeth, “I hate that I learned to care for you at all.”

“I hate that I loved you enough to take you in.”

Lucien gripped the counter, “I hate that I loved you enough to defend you in front of Amarantha.”

“I hate you for going even though I told you time and time again it was a bad idea. That wouldn’t keep your mouth shut.” Tamlin carved a line in the counter with his claw, leaning back on the stool.

“I hate you for coming after me right before I could finally let you go.” Lucien said, staring into the old chipping wood.

“I hate that I didn’t force you to the continent when Amarantha struck.” Tamlin whispered.

Lucien swallowed, “I would never have gone. And if you forced me it would have made me hate loving you more.”

“We are a tragedy, and it’s all my fault.” Tamlin breathed out.

“No, it’s not.” The redhead told him, “It’s not all your fault.”

“Every scar you have is because of me, I mutilated you.” Tamlin told him.

“No.” As soon as the word slipped from his mouth, Lucien reached over and took a shot. Throwing his head back, the red of his hair all slipped down his back. Throat bobbing as he swallowed. He slammed the glass back onto the counter and wiped his mouth aggressively, “Every scar I have is because of you. And it’s because of how much I fucking love you.”

“I hate you because I can’t fucking hate you!” Tamlin yelled, grinding his teeth together and squeezing his eyes shut so tightly they pulsed with pain.

“Well I hate you because no matter what, I can’t forget who you were to me. You are everything in me. You’re twisted around me, I can’t even look at a fucking tree without thinking of you!” Lucien stood up to look at him.

“I hate there was nothing I could do.” A tear spilled down over Tamlin’s face, “I hate that no matter what, no matter who tells the story, there were so many times where there was nothing else I could do. I already begged Amarantha to spare you, I already tried to get you away from your brothers. I couldn’t stop what she did to your eye.”

Lucien whispered, “I hate that I couldn’t make it all stop. I hate that I couldn’t help you.”

“I hate that I made it so hard for you.” Tamlin murmured back, “I hate that in the end you even stopped yelling at me. You used to do that everyday.”

For once, a smile slipped over Lucien’s face. One pure and real and genuine.

“We haven’t lost it all.” Lucien said, sitting back down, “We aren’t all gone.”

“What else can we do?” Tamlin asked.

Lucien didn’t respond as he took another shot. Tamlin followed suit. As he did his head spun and the light in his eyes swam.

Then he felt a pair of hot hands on his shoulders, making him turn to face Lucien. The male seemed closer than before. As if he had moved his chair across to be nearer.

“I remember your hair.” Lucien whispered into the space between them, “I remember how much you liked me brushing it, or braiding it, or weaving flowers into it.”

He was silent then, as his index finger lifted to curl a fallen lock of blond strands around it.

“I remember your skin.” Tamlin told him, “I remember each and every mark and freckle. And how you shiver when I run my finger down your neck like this.”

Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the longing for his friend back, or even the repressed sexual need. Perhaps all three. Either way, Tamlin boldly moved his hand, trailing his fingers down from Lucien’s jaw, over the sensitive flesh of his dark throat, as expected, as he touched, Lucien shuddered. His soft, supple skin prickling underneath his fingertips.

Tamlin stopped at the edge of his collar. Then let his hand fall away, before he rasped, “I remember that night right here, when I took you on the counter and we got thrown out because of it.”

Lucien’s breath was sucked from him, as his pretty face, all flushed pink from alcohol. Darkening in colour as he too remembered that night.

Because Lucien was the male Tamlin sucked off that night. Too many drinks in, laughing and grabbing at each other. Getting hot and riled up. Lucien’s hot hands had slid over his shirt, eventually finding underneath the fabric. Tamlin’s mouth pressed into his neck, and large hands went up and down his thighs. Both had come to some kind of agreement not long before, that they explore the parts of them they had never been able to before. The parts that made them stare a little too long at the training sentries, the parts they had been told time and time again to hide in shame.

Then, they had gone further in their explorations than ever before. Lucien’s hands found his chest and started groping him while whispering every dirty thought that went through his pretty head. And Tamlin lost his mind.

In a haze of what must have been stupidity, drunkenness and pure lust. He pushed Lucien back onto the bartop, Lucien’s nimble fingers had unlaced his trousers in a second to spare them from being ripped by Tamlin’s claws.

Tamlin’s body, running entirely on lust, had moved quicker than his thoughts. His head had gone down, and before he could even process his own actions, silky skin pierced his lips and flooded his mouth. Filling his throat as his eyes had rolled back. Lucien’s head had thrown back, moaning as he grabbed Tamlin’s hair and fucked up into his mouth.

After being thrown out, they hadn’t talked of that day again, but Tamlin had never forgotten it. And from the wide-eyed look on Lucien’s face, he hadn’t forgotten it either.

“Tamlin.” Lucien released his breath so carefully slow. Holding onto his control as much as he could.

“Yes?” Tamlin ducked his head, pressing his lips to the same spot he had all those decades ago.

“Mm, fuck.” Lucien bit his lip as his head tipped to the side.

This was so dangerous. They shouldn’t be doing this. After everything that had gone down they shouldn’t be doing this.

It just made Tamlin want it more.

He pressed a gentle kiss to Lucien’s skin. Before his tongue darted out and drew a line up to his jaw, before he bit into his skin. A sudden noise left Lucien’s throat, and those hot fucking hands moved. Lucien pulled Tamlin’s shirt out of his pants and immediately went under. Sliding up his skin and finding his nipples. Rolling the stiff buds between his fingers, pinching roughly. Tamlin groaned into his neck and bit down on the fleshy part of his neck and shoulder, harder than he meant too. Causing Lucien to squeeze his eyes shut as he suddenly jolted and moaned.

One of his hands started groping Tamlin, while the other tugged his hard nipple. Leaning close to Tamlin’s ear, he whispered, “I remember how you moaned like a bitch when I did this.”

Suddenly, Lucien bit the tip of Tamlin’s very, very sensitive ear, and the blond Faery cried out. Trying to muffle himself on Lucien's shoulder. His hands went to Lucien’s thick thighs and started squeezing the hard muscles there. As he mouthed at his neck.

Lucien licked up and down along the point of his ear, teasing the skin with his talented tongue. All the while his fucking fingers played with his nipples, hands occasionally swapping sides, one to grope, one to toy with the buds.

“I hate how fucking hot you are.” Lucien breathed out.

“That’s a lie.” Tamlin pointed out with a grin, “Take a shot.”

Lucien leaned back a little, regarding Tamlin with a fox’s smile, “Wicked.”

“Not as much as you.” Tamlin replied.

Lucien licked his lips, as he slid his hands out. Making Tamlin shiver at the loss of contact. Moving to quickly lean over the counter, he snatched the bottle of alcohol from where Laurel had briefly left it to deal with another rowdy crowd. Lucien poured himself a shot. Then slowly brought it to his lips. Watching Tamlin over the rim as he took the liquor in his mouth, and swallowed. His pretty throat bobbing up and down as the contents of his glass were drained away.

The fox kept his eye contact as he put the glass down, the second his fingers were away from it. Tamlin was on him.

Pushing off his own seat, he practically climbed into Lucien’s lap in his desperation to get those hot lips on his own. Grabbing his face, their mouths met. Both moaned into each other. Lucien grabbed the back of Tamlin’s head with one hand, then slipped his other back up his shirt. At the same time he started pinching and groping again, he pulled the High lord’s hair hard.

Tamlin whimpered into Lucien’s mouth, as he slipped Lucien his tongue. Causing the male to groan and pull his hair harder, the flowers falling out as his braid came undone.

His hair had grown wildly longer since they had last been together. As it untangled it fell down to his thighs. Lucien smiled against him as he slipped his hand underneath all that hair and held onto the base of Tamlin’s neck.

Tamlin grabbed a fistful of pretty red hair, desperately needing something to hold onto, to anchor himself. Biting down on Lucien’s bottom lip, then sucking the flesh.

As his skin grew hotter and hotter he felt something hard pressing against his own growing bulge. Tamlin moaned as he started grinding his covered cock against Lucien’s. Making the younger hiss as he held Tanlin tighter, pushing them harder together.

They pulled back enough that both could catch a breath, Tamlin breathed out, half-dazed and barely able to form a coherent thought except for one, “Fuck me.”

“Fuck yes.” Lucien said quickly.

“Get. Out.” Tamlin and Lucien were quickly torn from their lust induced trance as they snapped their gaze around to see Laurel glaring so horribly at them.

Tamlin was half about to ignore her, when Lucien grabbed the back of his thighs, and lifted him off the chair as he stood. Tamlin quickly wrapped his arms around the back of his neck, and Lucien shouted an apology as they both stumbled out to the entrance.

Lucien was strong, strong enough to give Tamlin a good fight, and it seemed he had only gotten stronger. Of course, Tamlin also knew he was a lot lighter, having been living off of scraps every couple of days for two years.

Getting out into the darkness, the warmth of Summer was sticky all around them, despite the sun having gone down at least an hour ago.

Tamlin grabbed Lucien’s hair, kissing him sloppily as they both grinded and panted against each other, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Lucien forced his mouth away and stared up with glazed eyes. For a moment, their spinning worlds came to a sudden stop as they looked into each other and for the first time in a lot longer than just two years, they truly saw into the other. Saw them for who they were and every broken piece underneath.

Tamlin cupped Lucien’s face with both his hands, at the same time Lucien squeezed his thighs harder.

In that second, in that moment of stillness, Tamlin realised one thing.

They had seen each other at their absolute worst. Broken, destroyed, taken apart and forced to keep going. They had scraped through life by each other’s side for so long. The bond they had ran deeper than just the friendship they showed. It was a deep understanding of what the other had been through, something that no one else in their life understood. Something they all never would.

But they knew. In their small world, Tamlin and Lucien knew. Better than anyone else ever could.

“I’m sorry.” Tamlin whispered, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I know.” Lucien whispered back, before pressing such a sweet and gentle kiss to his lips.

In a second, they were in Summer, and the next rich smells and charged air were filling Tamlin’s lungs once more as they winnowed to Day.

Their lips crashed together once more. And Tamlin moaned as Lucien gently set him down on the floor again. Immediately their hands started roaming, desperate to get underneath each other’s layers.

As Tamlin tried to pull Lucien’s shirt off, considering simply ripping it. Lucien grabbed both his wrists and held them together as he dragged him back into his bedroom.

Tamlin barely got time to look around. Just noticing the blinds were thrown open, the doors to a balcony open, allowing in the soft night breeze. The bed was covered in a myriad of soft pillows, red and gold silks. Then Lucien was shoving him back onto the bed. Tamlin pulled his wrists free, but Lucien crawled up after him, as Tamlin pulled himself back, until he was amongst the pillows.

Lucien pushed himself on top of Tamlin. Both thighs bracketed around his own. The Heir of Day, then grabbed both Tamlin’s wrists and pinned them above his head. Tamlin squirmed at the restraint but Lucien whispered, “Be a good boy and stay still.”

“Fuck, Lucien-”

“Wanna get fucked tonight?” He asked with a cruel tint to his voice, “Stay still.”

Tamlin huffed, blowing out his cheeks, but obeying and keeping his hands above his head. Lucien smiled, looking down at Tamlin like he was proud, “Good boy.”

“Fuck,” Tamlin said, whole body turning red as arousal shot through his body like poison.

Lucien’s hands left Tamlin’s, and the area was left feeling cold, which Tamlin fought to not whine over. Before his attention was quickly captured by something else.

Lucien’s hands went to his belt, quickly undoing it and pulling out the leather. Then he leaned back over Tamlin and grabbed his wrists once more. In a few seconds, he skillfully locked Tamlin’s wrists together. Tamlin couldn’t help the whine that left his throat when he felt the leather tighten on his skin.

“Good boy.” Lucien whispered again, sitting back as he looked down at Tamlin. Restrained, flushed and panting.

“Are you just going to sit there all night?” Tamlin taunted, “Or are you going to do something?”

Lucien laughed, “Oh really? You want me to do something Tam?”

Frustration welled in Tamlin’s chest and at the same time his heart leapt at the familiarity in the nickname, “Yes, god, please.”

A grin curled on Lucien’s face as he then snapped his fingers, and in a second the rumpled dishevelled clothes plastered to Tamlin’s skin were reduced to ash from flames. It didn’t hurt in the slightest, only a light tingle of sudden warmth danced across his body.

Now completely open and exposed to the midnight chill. Tamlin’s skin prickled, as his nipples began to ache from lack of attention, and at the same time blood rushed down and his cock began to throb in time with his heartbeat. Even still, he tried to not move as Lucien observed him.

Amber eyes dark in the minimal light. Lucien slid his tongue over his lips before he moved one hand up. His fingers circling Tamlin’s left nipple, making Tamlin squeeze his eyes shut, and bite down on his tongue.

“So pretty,” Lucien breathed, as those damning fingers pinched the bud. Rolling it gently.

Tamlin couldn’t stop as his back arched. Eyes rolling back at receiving the attention he so desperately craved, he moaned as his mouth fell open.

“And responsive.” Lucien noted, watching like a predator.

“Fucking… Mother dammit.” Tamlin managed to say, even as he was losing himself to each and every touch.

All of a sudden, Lucien took away his hand and it took Tamlin biting his inner cheek hard enough he nearly drew blood to not whine.

“Alright, I’ve had my fun, I’ll fuck you now.” Lucien announced as he reached over to a nearby nightstand.

“Finally.” Tamlin said, head pushing back into the pillow behind him.

Lucien opened the first drawer, and reached in, pulling out a clear glass cork top bottle of thick oil. He moved and sat back on his heels as he easily opened the bottle.

“Spread your legs,” He ordered as he poured out the thick liquid onto his fingers.

Tamlin was quick to obey this time. Watching with poorly contained excitement as Lucien put the bottle back on the nightstand and slipped his fingers between his open thighs. Pressing one digit against his hole, Tamlin sucked in a harsh breath that followed Lucien murmuring, “Good boy, you’re doing so well.”

Tamlin cursed under his breath again, body beginning to throb as fire climbed higher and higher in his core. Lucien pushed his finger in further, gently exploring, as Tamlin wrapped his legs around his waist. Needing to hold onto him in some way.

Clicking his tongue in disapproval, Lucien grabbed one of his thighs and forcefully spread his legs open, keeping them wide set as he smoothly thrusted his finger in and out.

“You can take a little more.” Lucien whispered into the darkness between them. The words were nearly lost to Tamlin, his mind altered by pleasure and alcohol.

Lucien pressed another finger inside, working it in slowly, until he was thrusting his two fingers in and out. Followed by three, working quicker and quicker as his own desperation built.

Tamlin was a moaning mess below him, gasping for breath, and moving his hips as Lucien spread his fingers, the searing stretch making his hips jut up and his back arch.

“Fuck, Lucien.” Tamlin moaned.

“So fucking tight.” Lucien mumbled, seemingly lost in a daze, Tamlin didn’t know whether he was talking to him or to himself.

Either way, Tamlin felt himself go redder as that fire built. Then Lucien twisted and curled his fingers and brushed some spot inside him that made his toes curl as he cried out. Pulling at his restraints, he bucked back against Lucien’s fingers, desperate for him to hit that spot again.

Leaning down over him, Lucien pressed his lips to Tamlin’s. The blond males/’s eyes went wide, his tension causing Lucien to quickly back track, but before he could get too far away. Tamlin wrapped his arms around his neck and crashed their lips together again. Laughing into his mouth, Lucien snaked the hand not fingering Tamlin open, around to the back of his neck. Holding onto him tightly.

Eventually Tamlin got impatient. As they pulled away to gasp for breath, a string of saliva connecting their lips, he said, “Hurry up.”

Lucien, dazed, flushed and panting, just nodded. Falling to the same need crashing over them. Pleasure pulsed in hot waves through both their bodies, rolling through their cores as Lucien finally dragged his trousers over his hips. Grabbing both of Tamlin’s knees he pushed them up until he was able to push the tip of his hard, weeping cock to the High lord’s slickened entrance.

The red head crashed over Tamlin again, kissing him desperately as he sank in. Wrapped in each other, limbs like knots. Kissing, sucking and moaning. Tamlin arched up, and Lucien wrapped his arms around his back, pressing them together. Sliding in until he bottomed out. They remained still for a moment, catching their breath as Tamlin adjusted to the feel.

His chest rising and falling rapidly, Tamlin felt the strands of Lucien’s scarlet hair tickle his throat as he looked up. Opening his green eyes, Tamlin looked up to see Lucien not looking down at him but rather at the open window.

“What are you-” Tamlin turned his head, and his breath hitched as his eyes went wide.

The balstrode, the doors, climbing into the room like roots stretching out, where dozens of vines of bleeding hearts, flowering pink. Tamlin looked back up at Lucien who had turned to stare at him.

Something wet like warm rain fell down the side of his eye and soaked the sheets below. Lucien whispered something that may have been his name but Tamlin couldn’t hear it properly to know. He just knew that the red head leaned down and pressed their lips together. This kiss wasn’t frantic or heady. Steady and chaste. Though setting his body as fire just as much, if not more.

No words were spoken, Tamlin was glad for it, if he did speak he might break from the thick emotion surrounding them. Clouding his thoughts till they were a jumbled mess of memories and guilt.

He wanted to just.. Float away from his body forever.

Lucien seemed to think something similar, he didn’t even try to open his mouth to talk. But he did press another kiss to his lips. Then to his cheek, then down his neck.

He pulled out just to the tip, then sank back in again. And all at once Tamlin was lost to bliss.

The sun woke him up, warm and rich like golden syrup. It spread over his skin, casting him in the glow. Tamlin blinked against the rays. Shifting slightly as he tucked his foot back under the covers, freezing from being out. He sighed in content into the mass of chest his face was buried in. His arms around Lucien’s waist, and his around Tamlin’s back.

Head rolling back, Tamlin started to untangle their legs carefully to stretch out the sore muscles. In the jostling somewhere, Lucien awoke. Tamlin watched as the male slowly came back to consciousness, amber eyes dimmed from sleep but growing brighter as the sun came up. The gold turning to something like liquid sunlight. Tamlin half smiled at the sight, for a moment basking in the glory of waking up like this. No matter how dirty the sheets were and how messy their skin was. This didn’t compare to anything.

“Morning.” Tamlin rasped, his throat a little sore. All at once a headache popped in his skull and he groaned. It wasn’t too bad, but enough that he wanted a tonic for it.

“Morning.” Lucien repeated. Pulling himself away from Tamlin, who nearly whined at the loss.

Sitting up on the bed, propping himself against the headboard, Lucien looked down at Tamlin, “We going to talk about this?”

“What’s there to talk about?” Tamlin replied, half-dismissively.

Lucien just raised an eyebrow and Tamlin folded.

“I don’t want to lose you.” The golden male admitted, “it’s been torment not having you there at all.”

“You never lost me, Tam.” Lucien told him, “Never.”

“I fucked us up though.” He said.

Luien shrugged, “A lot of what happened was circumstance and… other’s actions. But yeah, you did fuck a lot up.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Tamlin asked, “What do I need to do to get you back?”

Lucien smiled at the sheets over his lap, “Look at us Tam, you have me back.”

“I don’t deserve it though.”

“We both don’t deserve a lot. Besides,” Lucien looked over to the High lord, “You’ve more than paid the price. What other rock bottom could I ask you to hit?”

Shuffling up, Tamlin leaned against the headboard. Staring at the opposite wall.

“There’s a lot of shit both of us need to deal with, Tam. We don’t have to get it all done in one morning.” Lucien reminded him.

“I wish we could. I wish I could.” He whispered.

Lucien reached out, his fingers brushing over Tamlin’s knuckles, before tangling their fingers together, “But we can’t, so we'll take it all one step at a time.”

Tamlin closed his eyes as he smiled, “One step at a time.”

Lucien hummed and rested his head on Tamlin’s shoulder.

In that sacred, holy moment, something heavy and hateful just seemed to… disappear. Like all it took to get rid of it was the words they exchanged.

Tamlin knew it was deeper than that. That last night they had reverted back to who they were before all this, just for a moment. He knew more than anyone they couldn’t live off that high forever. He had tried that with Feyre, and now look where it got him.

His free hand moved to gently thread through waves of crimson.

He’d take advantage of this, they’d both been living off of the high of pleasure for far too long. Now they would build something stronger than ever before, something that would withstand the test of time, magical bonds, evil Queen and Kings.

They’d make something built off of love. Not from hedonistic highs.

“Bleeding hearts right?” Lucien murmured.

“Hm?” Tamlin questioned, then Lucien pointed him once more in the direction of those flowering plants.

Tamlin groaned and flopped down, causing Lucien to fall atop him. They both laughed suddenly. Lucien giggled, burying his face into Tamlin’s shoulder.

Tamlin threw an arm over his eyes so he didn’t have to look at Lucien’s face.

“What do they mean again?” Lucien mockingly questioned, “Wasn’t it… passionate love, and romance?”

Tamlin rolled his eyes, but moved them so Lucien’s head was laying on his bicep. And Tamlin’s fingers threaded through his hair once more, “Yes, and it can mean unrequited love and a broken heart.”

Lucien’s teasing smirk faded away into something like awe, his eyes beginning to line with tears. Tamlin smiled softly, his thumb reaching out to brush them away from his eyes.

His fingers shinny with the drops, Tamlin held his hand between them, and whispered, “Then there’s camellias for love, adoration, longing, devotion and care.”

As he whispered the words, a pretty, perfect, pink camellia flower grew from the palm of his hand. Lucien’s eyes went wide with wonder, once again filling with tears that dripped down his face and onto the petals of the new bloom.

Tamlin leaned over and brushed a kiss to his forehead, “I will try, I promise.”

“I love you.” Lucien whispered.

“I love you.” Tamlin whispered back. As Lucien wrapped his hands around Tamlin’s holding the camellia and pressed their mouth together.

Like young blooms in spring, unfurling the cold, misty mornings. Something rich and golden. Filled with immeasurable hedonistic pleasure, filled them both to the brim, spilling over like the wine of a glass. It ran over them like roots and vines held desperately to what they clung too. Like new plants finding their way into life.

A perfect melding of hearts intertwined. Heavy, rich and luscious, with young, airy and abloom.

Something so opposite, yet sliding together so easily.

The mating bond did not ‘snap’ as the many stories went. It bloomed.

@tamlinweek

#acotar #pro tamlin #tamlin #lucien vanserra #pro lucien vanserra #tamcien #tamlin x lucien vanserra #acotar au #acotar headcanons #tamlinweek2024 #tamlinweek

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ryctone · 8 months ago

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Me before: You know, I don't really wanna make Pumpkin Scone canon to the Custard Guard universe bc it would make stuff complicated :/

Me now: *Creates extensive lore about her*

Sighs.

Anyway, here are the girlies; Pumpkin Scone Cookie and Angel Fruitcake Cookie! (+Dusk Wyvern) :

- Both Pumpkin Scone and Angel Fruitcake attend Casserole Academy, a school in the Crème Republic (bc I doubt the Paladin Academy is the ONLY school there, I would be very concerned if that were the case /LH), it does teach magic, not as complex as the Parfaedia Institute but it does the job.

- I would say they're around 17-18 years old.

- Pumpkin Scone is Pumpkin and Clotted Cream's daughter. She keeps to herself a lot and can't take a lot of social cues often, being homeschooled most of her life due to her parents fear of everyone discovering she can use dark magic... Many cookies found out anyway when she entered her current school so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯. She wants to become an book author and the reason she's studying is to get a degree and not much for the magic aspect of the school. Pumpkin Scone is often casted out by the other students for wielding dark magic, despite her type of the magic not being malicious.

- Angel Fruitcake is a distant relative of Elder Sablé from her mother's side and started living at House Sablé after an incident that caused her parents death as a baby; is technically under the care of Sablé's niece (Lady Sweet Bun) but this one just leaves the maids to take care of her and simply views Angel as another way to take over as matriarch of the House. Is very optimistic and has good sense of leadership, popular amongst the other students for being related to an Elder of the Convocation but wants to be seen as her own cookie. Wants to be a musician and knows how to play many instruments, from the cello to the flute, even if Lady Sweet Bun doesn't approve of her dream.

- Both are best friends

(Friends-to-Lovers trope go brrrrr /hj).

- Pumpkin Scone owns a wyvern companion called Dusk, who is a really rare kind and slightly bigger than a normal wyvern; found him as an egg when she was younger and had been inseparable ever since. He's a bit mischievous with a playful nature, chomps on cookies' heads when he takes a liking to them but means no harm, it's just the way he shows friendship.

And that's all! I care em very much,,

#my art #fake sprite #my ocs #cookie run #oc #cookie run kingdom #cookie run oc #Custard Guard!Pumpkin Cream #Pumpkin Scone Cookie #Angel Fruitcake Cookie #Dusk Wyvern

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everybody-loves-purdy · 2 months ago

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The thing is, they've really narrowed it down to 3 (arguably 2 because I genuinely don't think at any point have they honestly considered making it mothwing its just that shes the medicine cat and the only well established character so inherently important to this narrative about riverclan from a med apprentice's pov) options, and while there's a timeline out there where I could believe Frostpaw to bwcome leader... it really doesn't feel like this is it?

She's so far not showing ANY leader qualities in this, the final book, where you would think that's what they would do after she's gone on so many journeys. They had all of last book where they didn't seem to really know what to do to also establish it. And last book instead actually spent time... reestablishing her as a medicine cat? Unless this book throws out everything they've established so far and wastes her journey and has riverclan themselves choose her in a moment of bravery, I don't see her becoming leader.

The only realistic out of left field pick at this point is Dusk, though, and she is shown to be extra old and conservative, but I can see them pulling a character arc out of nowhere for her in this book since we haven't spent much time with her but have established her as existing.

I don't know if Icewing going away was so they could establish her as a character in ivypool's heart to make people root for her more and they just didn't think of the timeline, but I do think the preview has established this last book is likely going to be fast paced. (But they say the cats are only going to be gone a few days idk if thats another miscommunication between authors or setting up for the clans to worry about them not returning) or if it was to remove her from the picture? I think she'll be deputy if nothing else. I think she's the cat that they want us to think will be picked but the journey feels like it's removing her as an option.

I think that prologue, if the last chapter of last book didn't, and the comments about him so far have thoroughly established they arent gonna pull anything to say splashtail is the best option her just had to get over a bumpy beginning, though. Thats not actions they typically let cats recover from and theyre already saying he's just evil.

And the rest of riverclan have become the scared masses so unless a cat suddenly rises drom their rank I think all riverclan cats stoll in camp are being dismissed as options. Theyve certainly made sure it feels like frostpaw would never choose them evern if someone stood out among them with her even getting mad at the cats who got exciled for not standing up sooner.

Yeah I don't know, either this book's pacing is going to be insane and ignoring prior character development to get frostpaw where she needs to be, a mess to get icewing back in time, or to just pull a name out of a hat. It really feels like... they were super excited to make it impossible to guess until it happens but in the process have just straight up elliminated every option.

So I'm rooting for owlnose to get a second chance cause he feels as viable as anyone else at this point. Erins did their best to establish options but did even better at eliminating them as options and its entirely up in the air until we get to the choice on page.

It's by far my one major criticism of this arc, I feel like with 6 books either the options should have a stronger foundation for their possibility or we should already have such a strong idea its just a matter of showing them off by defeating splashtail at this point. It feels like they retroactively wasted the last book that was kind of filler in all honesty not doing this.

(And like i know you feel strongly about frostpaw being the winner but honestly itnfeels less like its because it makes sense as an option and more that there are no otherboptions as I said, imo)

This is a really good analysis on the whole thing.

I think the best way to explain my main reasoning behind Frostpaw becoming leader is through hope and also the quote

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Frostpaw is my number one leadership candidate largely because of a lack of better or eligible candidates. Icewing is close second but that is reliant on her being back from her Ivypool’s Heart quest in decent time. I do hope she becomes deputy at least though. Duskfur being antagonistic in the first half of the arc holds her back for me, although there is still time for that to be addressed and solved. And I really think Mothwing would be very unhappy with having to get nine lives and become leader and always have to answer to StarClan.

I think so far Frostpaw has shown herself to be suitably courageous and able to stand up for what she believes is right. She just hasn’t had many moments of displaying leadership yet, but she did organise the group at the start of Star, so I’m hoping, if she is to become leader, Star is used to establish her ability to take charge and actually lead cats prior to this. Maybe then and only then would Riverstar was maybe like “yeah I want you to be leader, I was just waiting for you to be ready”

I think it would be cool if she was always destined for leadership in her clan but her mother took a sledgehammer to that destiny and now Frostpaw has to develop these qualities quicker than she ever should have under normal circumstances in order to fulfil that destiny. But this is just purely a hopeful theory/idea and not at all established in the books thus far.

Like you say this whole thing is more of just “ok who is actually somewhat likely to become leader” rather than picking out a stand out candidate. Except Icewing of course, but again like you say, it looks like Star is going to move very quickly so I doubt she will get back in time, I saw someone calculate that the Ivypool’s Heart crew are gone about a moon. Which seems like a very long time. I feel like she could pop back up right at the end potentially, but I wouldn’t want her just to stroll in and get leadership almost immediately by default, I would want her to prove herself first.

#asc spoilers #star spoilers #ivypool’s heart spoilers #warrior cats spoilers #anonymous

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angelwithdemonictendencies · 2 days ago

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i won't chew you up the way i do all lovely things; my teeth lose their bite around you, i have other things going on.

no one thinks we'll work out; part one.

5.1k. no warnings! a little talk about family and anxiety and the horror that is workshopping writing in an academic environment.

(a/n: sick of me yet, favorites? here's the first part of another fun longer thing i've been working on. it is very much inspired by jack eichel and his weirdness (i was so uncreative with names it was crazy). i don't really get why he is so interesting to me, maybe this whole project was a way of trying to figure that out. regardless, here you have jack and victoria. jack is a professional hockey player (shocking, i know), and victoria is a poet getting her mfa. i actually wrote this meet-cute scene right before my frat jh86 one, so they look a little similar (but this is the original). there is so much more where this came from, and i promise it will start to make more sense as the world continues to grow and you see the vision. victoria is very special to me, as is her freak brother cosmo and their friends. i can't wait for you all to see where this is going - i've written some scenes for further on in this story that are some of my favorite works i've ever written. thank you for giving me a shot! and showing up for me! i'll keep showing up for you as long as you'll have me, i promise. yes, i named the dog after qh43. much love to you and your snakes. breathe easy).

this was victoria baines’s favorite time of day. this time, dusk, maybe twilight, when the sun sank in the sky, like the darker-tinted air couldn’t support the glutted weight of it all, when the oranges and pinks and burnt yellows were scorched into blackberry purples and maple-tree reds.

it was her favorite time because it was when classes were done for the day, when the traffic-ridden trek was over, at least until tomorrow. it was when there was not much else to do besides take quinton, her flamboyant senior dalmatian, for a walk.

quinton was high-maintenance, though, had been since he was a puppy, always silently demanding the high-end food from the shelves of the pet section in target, always whining softly when he was not afforded direct attention, so of course he insisted on being walked in the gated community just adjacent to where Victoria lived with her family, even though it wasn’t technically allowed. consequently, that’s what victoria was doing - walking down the much nicer, cleaner sidewalk at a tantalizingly slow pace, so as not to aggravate quinton’s stiff joints.

tonight’s beautiful dusk, though, was a little lost on victoria. The colors didn’t soothe her as they typically did, the rhythm of the walk didn’t feel like a lullaby. this walk felt like more of a death march, maybe a walk down the aisle towards a cursed marriage, each step one second closer to some inevitable doom.

it was her own fault, and victoria knew it. that whole day, she could not stop thinking about her workshop the following day, when the members of her creative writing cohort would tear into her poetry like starving vultures to a carcass. they would, inevitably, forget how scary and vulnerable it felt to present your work in this way, or, if they didn’t forget, they would view it as an act of justice, like if they had to be torn apart the week before, they should, at the very least, finally get to do some of the tearing.

victoria’s head was cloudy with worry, already muddled with defensiveness and anxiety. maybe, this is why she didn’t immediately register the presence to her side, which appeared to be some kind of officer on a bike. not quite a police officer, perhaps a sheriff?

when he spoke, victoria jumped a bit, the sound of another voice besides the one in her head like the shock of a defibrillator jolt. “miss,” the officer began, with the kind of confidence and authority that comes only with the recitation of a memorized script, “are you a community resident?”

the truthful answer was a resounding no. quinton’s cataract-misted eyes seem to gaze disappointedly up at her, like he knew the answer, like he was just an innocent bystander to her malevolent crime. still, while their twilight stroll did technically constitute trespassing, it had never felt that way, ever since victoria had started coming here at the beginning of her school year. these sidewalks were for members of this gated community only, but there was an opening next to the gate, just big enough for her and her dog to slip through, so the powers that be couldn’t possibly have taken that rule that seriously. if this guy really cared, wouldn’t he be in the security booth by the gate, anyway, not roaming around on a bike?

victoria squinted at the officer, whose stitched-on name tag read officer jeb, quickly decided that any officer known by their first name was probably not one to worry too much about. “i am,” she responded, trying to urge a sense of easiness and certainty into her voice. she suddenly felt fairly tired, like the weight of the day was only just beginning to pull at her legs, stretching them like taffy. victoria was twenty-three, but she felt much younger standing in front of this officer, in her yoga pants and furry boots, in her t-shirt from a 5k that she ran in high school.

she could tell from the twitch of his mustached mouth that jeb wasn’t buying it, and then she realized that it was a pretty small community, only a few twists and turns down the street before one made it to the other gate. it was quite possible that he knew all the residents by name. victoria looked down at quinton for help, but his judging glare offered no solace.

“which number?” officer jeb asked, reaching for a pad of paper in his shirt pocket, clicking a pen. his tone wasn’t accusing, not really, but his resignation was almost worse, like he would hear whatever excuse she had for him, but only to make her feel better, not because he was really contemplating the veracity of it.

victoria was about to make something up, maybe add a few digits to the house she was looking at, just to the left of jeb’s giant head, but the gravelly roll of recycling bin wheels against a driveway drew her attention backwards, behind where she was standing. by the looks of jeb’s straightening posture and the clearing of his throat, she wasn’t the only one whose attention had wandered. quinton was now laying down on the sidewalk like it was nothing but a living room rug.

“what’s goin’ on here, oj?”

the man rolling his recycling bin to the bottom of his driveway had one of the weirdest voices victoria has ever heard. she thought for a moment that she could probably analyze it critically in an entire collection of poetry and still not completely nail the line it towed between arrogant and self-conscious, between goofy and serious.

“good evening, mr. easton,” jeb said, and victoria was almost surprised that he responded to oj. jeb shifted on the seat of his bike, adjusted the pens clipped onto his pocket. victoria narrowed her eyes. did jeb really care that much about what this resident guy thought? “just doing the daily trespassing check. making sure everyone’s accounted for, and all.”

the rolling sound stopped, and then the newcomer was right next to victoria, close enough that she could really get a good look at him. if his voice was weird, his appearance was just downright odd, she decided, not quite knowing what evidence to cite to support such a conclusion. he had a tall, broad build, the kind that made victoria think that he walked with a sense of mobility and ease, so unlike her own tense shoulders and achy knees. his complexion was so pale that it was almost pink in the light, and his blond hair was so curly it looked kind of like a wig, so tightly wound victoria was sure it held some kind of spring force. with all that, together, he should have been shy, or at least aware of his oddness, but his stance was nothing but composed, cool like the funniest kid in middle school science class, like the best basketball player on the girl’s varsity team.

“are they?” mr. easton asked, but there was an air to his tone like he was kidding, like he was making some joke that he didn’t need anyone else to be in on.

“what?” jeb asked.

“are they all accounted for?”

victoria was skeptical, still deciding what to make of mr. easton, but quinton seemed to like him enough, picking up his heavy head and placing it down again on top of the man’s slide-covered foot. mr. easton didn’t react, like he didn't notice the old dog’s weight leaning on him.

jeb cleared his throat. “well, yes,” he said, before making eye contact with victoria, again. “what number did you say again, miss?”

victoria opened her mouth to speak, but was promptly cut off.

“this one's with me, oj,” came that voice from beside her, practically pulpy with confidence. “you have a good night now. with great power, great responsibility, you know how it goes.”

effectively dismissed, jeb still didn’t look convinced, but he rode off anyways, having proclaimed well wishes, leaving only victoria and the man whose foot had become a pillow for quinton.

only when jeb was entirely out of earshot did victoria fully turn to face him. “thanks for that,” she said, simply. head on, he looked a little older than she was, maybe by five or so years. she could see it in the corners of his eyes, the top of his forehead, his spine.

he hummed, leaning slightly onto the large green bin next to him. the lean didn’t appear to be comfortable, victoria noticed, instead coming across more as a learned habit. his elbow jutted into the hard plastic with all of the gracefulness of a beginner’s punch. “i’m jack,” he said, sticking out his hand. victoria wasn’t sure why it mattered, it wasn’t as if she would see this man again. it wasn’t like they would become best friends, like he would even remember her name if told him.

even so, she just replied, “victoria,” while slotting her delicate palm against his rough one. “my friends call me tori.” she shook his hand for too long, because she was wondering what would possess her to say such a thing, to offer such information to this stranger. she shook his hand for too long, then dropped it like it had burned her, clearing her throat as she did so. she gestured to quinton’s spotted torso. “and this is quinton.”

jack didn’t appear phased by victoria’s stiffness, only swiftly bending at the knee so he could scratch quinton’s head. “hey, bud,” he said softly, and victoria thought about disclosing to him that quinton was deaf, but decided against it.

“how’d you know i wasn’t a resident?” victoria asked, almost hesitant to pull his shock-blue gaze to her again.

jack was still bent down when he spoke again, waving in the direction of the gate. “saw you come in through the side,” he said, almost amused, moreso observant. “and pretty much all of my neighbors are families with young kids or elderly couples.”

victoria sort of wanted to stay here, to ask him something. like why he acted so casual and cool when he obviously noticed small things, or maybe why he was dragging his recycling out when trash day wasn’t for three more days.

but the sky was growing darker, and quinton was exhausted. “well, thanks,” she said, and then realized she had already said that. “we, uh, should be going.”

“bye, quinty,” jack said, giving quinton’s head one more rub before pushing back up to full height with a grunt. he nodded to victoria, his gaze heavy on her frame, before he turned to walk back up his driveway. “see you around, yeah, vic?”

victoria blinked, stayed completely still for a good moment before finally shaking herself loose and turning away, too. no one had ever, not in her twenty-three years of living, called her that. it made her sound like a retired motorcycle gang member, someone with a smoking problem, someone whose voice was rough and raspy not just from tobacco but from experience.

and yet, victoria noticed, as she slipped back through the side of the gate and onto the main road, pulling her black-and-white spotted bag of sand behind her, she didn’t really seem to mind.

the following morning started as an especially chaotic one, because it was something sinister that victoria would be late to her own workshop. but her mom had been called into work a few hours earlier than she originally anticipated, so the task of getting her younger brother, cosmo, to school on time had fallen to her. cosmo had never been the most diligent or time-conscious, either, so victoria had waited in the car for maybe fifteen minutes before cosmo finally emerged from the front door with a bowl of cereal in hand, his eyes droopy with sleep.

“yeah, no worries,” victoria said as she pushed the passenger door open for her brother, “not like I have anywhere to be, or anything.”

cosmo shrugged a bony shoulder, yawned, revealing a flash of braces even though he was a senior in high school. “looney tunes can wait, no?” he said, referring to her writing workshop cohort. he’d given them the moniker as soon as victoria had told a story at the dinner table about how one of her classmates had written a short story that seemed to have the exact same plot as a specific roadrunner and coyote cartoon.

“yeah, well, i’m getting workshopped today,” victoria said, practically grimacing, as she pulled away from the house. “so i kinda’ need to be there.”

cosmo chewed loudly. “are you doing the one about quinton’s alter ego?” he asked, around his spoon. “love that one.”

a couple of weeks ago, victoria had written a short poem about an old detective with salt-and-pepper hair with a taste for the finer things, inspired by their family dog. she wished she could present something like that to her class, but she figured it didn’t achieve the kind of emotional depth her cohort would be craving, the kind of vulnerability they’d be foaming at the mouth for.

“are you wearing that to school?” victoria said instead, changing the subject to cosmo’s outfit of choice, dress shoes and slacks paired with a faded hoodie under an old rugby jersey.

“yeah, you’re right,” cosmo said, nodding. “they probably won’t let me wear the hat.”

victoria hadn’t even noticed the beanie, figured it was the least of his worries, but cosmo always did have a flair for the dramatic, not really a tendency towards the normal.

pulling up to the brockton regional high school always made victoria a little homesick even though she lived at home. the drop off line reeked of a time when things felt a little more predictable, even if they were scary. things were a different kind of scary, now, in her final year of the brockton university mfa program, the kind of scary you associate with standing on the high dive at a public pool.

victoria dropped cosmo off in the designated area. “aren’t you ever gonna get your license?” she asked as her brother drank the milk from his cereal bowl, then set it down on the console of the car with a musical clatter.

“as soon as the freeways get less scary,” he said, plainly, without a hint of urgency. he smiled at her. “good luck with your poems, tori.”

as much as driving him was an inconvenience, as much as it sucked that she was going to be late, the sentiment struck victoria straight in the heart, made her feel like she wasn’t alone for a second. “thanks, cos,” she said, before motioning to her upper lip, making a short swipe.

cosmo mirrored it, effectively wiping the milk from his mouth.

“cos, we’re late for calc,” came an approaching voice, slow and lazy.

“yeah, yeah, give me a sec, web.”

hunter webber, the tall redhead who was cosmo’s best friend, slung an arm around cosmo’s shoulders, then peered into the open window of victoria’s van.

“oh, good morning, tori,” hunter said, a wide, alert smile on his first-period-tired face. “don’t you look lovely today?”

“have fun in calc, guys,” victoria said, ignoring one of the blatantly flirtatious comments that she had been facing from hunter since his freshman year, when his family had first moved to town.

cosmo elbowed his friend. “it’s workshop day,” he said, giving hunter a look, nodding towards his sister.

understanding lit up hunter’s unserious gaze. “i hope your true genius and intellect shine as bright as the stars,” he said, in such a tone that had cosmo rolling his eyes and dragging his friend away by the arm. “they’re fools if they don’t appreciate your artistic expression!”

“have a good day!” victoria called out the open window before pulling away from the curb and beginning the short drive to her workshop.

it had been something of a miracle that victoria had been accepted into brockton’s prestigious mfa program. the setup on paper was so perfect it had worried her when she’d first been admitted - the school being so close to her home, so she could help her mom out with cosmo, make sure the dog was taken care of and there was dinner on the table. that, combined with all the financial help she received that allow her to attend. she had pinched herself all throughout her first year, wondering if it was still real.

it was such a miracle, though, that victoria never took what she had here for granted. she tried to maintain that optimistic attitude when she stepped into the small classroom that the creative writing department used for workshops, found all seven of her cohort members already there and already looking at her.

“sorry i'm late,” she said, making to take her seat and pull her papers from her school bag. velma, one of her two actual friends in the group, began a slow and sarcastic clap, which made victoria smile, despite it all.

“nice of you to join us,” sean, her other friend, called from his designated seat at the far end of the table, just enough of a distance away to be awkward for everyone else.

mr. joseph, the director of their cohort, a tall, wide man with gray hair and thin-rimmed glasses, cleared his throat. “miss baines, you understand how important punctuality is to the function of our workshop.”

he had a peculiar way of speaking, always a statement, never leaving any space for question or doubt on the receiving end.

“yes, i do,” victoria said, passing out printed pages to her classmates. she wasn’t going to apologize again, she had already done that. “family difficulties this morning.”

mr. joseph had never seemed to really understand what she meant when she said that, but he let it rest, for now.

as soon as victoria took her seat next to velma, they began with her first poem, reading it aloud verse for verse.

the creative writing mfa program was so small and competitive that victoria was only one of two poets in the program. the other was jeffrey, who experimented with format and rhyme scheme way more than victoria did. jeffrey also tended to write about death way more than she did, preferring the existential and abstract to her real and everyday.

there were more novelists in the group, including twins samira and aman, who tended towards science-fiction and fantasy, respectively, and dot, who wrote some of the most tooth-rottingly sweet romance victoria had ever come across. velma worked with longer-form fiction, too, while the rest of the group typically wrote shorter pieces, including sean’s comedy-laced contemporary fiction and sofia’s jarring snapshot-style stories.

it was a small group with diverse interests, writing styles, backgrounds, and personalities, which always made workshops interesting. last week had been dot’s turn, and she’d appeared particularly aloof while jeffery attacked the genre of romance as a whole and samira failed to grasp dot’s long, drawn out plot structure. dot hadn’t taken a single note for the whole two hours. “thank you for all your advice,” she had said, as everyone packed up, “so helpful.”

the only person who seemed to like victoria’s first poem was sean. even velma didn’t appear to get it, a mass of gory description and bloody adjectives detailing the act of getting ready for an undergrad night out.

“what were you trying to say with this?” jeffery asked her, and victoria had to fight back a face. “i’m trying to get the essence out of this, but it’s hiding from me. it’s shy, evasive.”

it’s a poem, victoria wanted to say, it doesn’t hide, but she knows it would be coming from a place of defensiveness.

the second one doesn’t go much better, even though mr. joseph seems to appreciate the ironic sonnet structure paired with the modern commentary on technology. the last one is alright, though, by far the poem that went down the smoothest with the group. dot loved the flowery imagery, velma thought the tragic love story was “wicked,” and sean found the musical rhythm “witty and playful.”

victoria tried not to dwell on jeffery’s cutting remarks about emotional insecurity, elusive meaning, and confusing word choice. she just packed up her notes and thanked everyone at the end.

“we’ll meet one-on-one on friday, miss baines?” mr. joseph said, to which sean whistled, the way he always did when one of his classmates and director had this exact interaction, complete with identical dialogue.

“sounds good,” victoria said, the drag of heavy wooden chairs thunderous as the students made their way out of the room.

“i can’t wait to read more of your collection,” dot said, slow and soft, on her way out, her red backpack slung onto one soft shoulder. it was genuine enough to make victoria blush, a little.

“thanks, dot,” she said, “see you next week?”

dot murmured her goodbye as velma and sean flanked victoria on her way through the doorway.

“safe for another month and a half,” velma said, bumping her hip against victoria’s side.

victoria made a relieved wipe of imaginary sweat from her forehead. “thank god,” she said. “i’ll need at least that much time to recover from jeffrey’s insistence on the shyness of my writing.”

“good ol’ jeff,” sean mused, giving a theatrical sigh. “one day he’ll grow a real-life heart.”

“maybe then i’ll be able to bear his poems,” velma snarked, making victoria laugh.

“what’re you guys up to now?” victoria asked, pushing open the doors into the parking lot.

sean glanced at his non-existent watch. “i'm ta-ing in ten,” he said, “intro to conflict and antagonism.”

“sounds like my biography,” velma quipped. “i have a date that i am a fashionable twenty minutes late for.”

sean’s face scrunched up. “you scheduled a date for the middle of our workshop?”

“yeah,” velma said, turning to the bike rack to which she had locked up her manual scooter.

velma was a bit of a serial dater, had been on more first dates than victoria could properly conceptualize. “is this one with that bio phd candidate?” she asked.

velma shook her head, waved her off. “that one told me he loved me after two dates,” she said, “this one is with that pretty studio art mfa, the one with the split-dyed hair.”

sean snapped his fingers. “i told you bio guy was weird,” he said, “i knew it.”

“until next time, knuckleheads,” velma said, scootering off with a salute.

sean blew out a breath. “i actually do need to go,” he said, looking especially defeated, groaning slightly. “these kids are such a pain, and three-quarters of them couldn’t give less of a shit, and the prof takes a million years to respond to my texts.”

“but some of them do care, and you’re being paid, and you’re a champion of the creative youth,” victoria countered, sending him off towards the english department building with a gentle pat on the shoulder. “have fun!”

victoria had a few errands to run before making the drive home - the grocery store, namely, as it was hunter’s birthday on friday and she always baked for birthdays, but also the target downtown for more ruled paper and dog treats.

when she got home, her mom wasn’t back yet, but she could hear cosmo upstairs, his eighties rock music blasting through the walls. he’d texted her earlier that hunter was giving him a ride home from school after band practice.

once she had greeted quinton and changed out of her day clothes, victoria made a box of mac and cheese for dinner, leaving the rest on the stove for cosmo and her mom. she ate alone at the kitchen counter, a book flipped open in one hand and her fork in the other.

like clockwork, when quinton started whining, she leashed him up and began their daily evening walk.

“what do you think, q-ball?” she asked his deaf ears when the two of them reached the gate. “should we push our luck?”

in answer, quinton strode through the side of the entrance, so victoria had no choice but to follow. as they walked, phrases and pieces of poetry would come to her in her head, as they often did at times when she had no means of writing them down, fragments of description about the sky or the clouds or someone’s wilting daffodils or the kind of person one has to be to live in a luxury complex and still let the paint chip on their door.

“chip, chip, chip,” victoria was mumbling to herself, trying to evoke some bit of artistic genius, staring at her barely moving feet, visions of woodpeckers and burly workmen with ice-picks in her mind.

“hungry, vic?”

victoria looked up to find jack, seated in an adirondack chair out in his front yard, just next to some kind of pen-like enclosure. There appeared to be some small, snorting dog running around inside of it. she ignored his question. “what is that?” she said, nodding towards the wire pen.

“this guy?” he asked, “that’s walter. getting all his energy out post-dinner.”

“you don’t take him for a walk?” she asked, almost confused, her brow slightly scrunched.

jack shook his head twice, blew out a breath as if imagining the peril of such a situation. “walt can’t stand a leash. drives him nuts.”

victoria just hummed. jack rubbed at the back of his neck, his elbow sticking up, making his bicep tense and release.

“why don’t you bring quinty over here? the two gentlemen should probably meet,” jack said, nodding towards the wire enclosure. even from a bit of a distance, victoria could see the hope existed in his eyes, poorly hidden behind a veil of coolness, like seeing a comet stream across the sky behind designer sunglasses.

victoria didn’t really believe this to be true, but she quickly discovered that her feet were moving forward anyways, of their own volition. at the motion, walter noticed quinton and started to bark, a shrill sound, and victoria winced at the sharpness.

“knock that off, walt,” jack scolded, opening the fenced entrance so quinton could amble into the enclosure. victoria clipped off his leash, watching warily as walter sprinted in circles around the disinterested senior. an empty leash in her hand, victoria’s fingers twitched without anything to do.

she looked up at jack, and the poet stumbled, because the sun made his mis-matched appearance beautiful in a way she hadn’t truly appreciated the first time they met. she had noticed it, but this was different, the kind of appreciation you feel in your ears, every bit as destabilizing. the light dripped from his brow, then down his nose, highlighting his sharp bone structure and impossibly light eyes. she blinked at him, words and phrases flashing across her mind like asteroid blasts.

jack was quiet for a moment, and victoria got the feeling he was actively and mercifully letting her stare. “so, what’d you get up to today?” he asked, eventually, turning to face her.

victoria swallowed. she had never been especially good at talking to strangers, making new friends, and definitely not outside of a school setting. school, where all of the typical talking points are lying right there in front of everyone, ripe for the taking. “it was my turn for workshop today,” she said, then sucked on her teeth.

“what’s workshop?” jack asked, completely pleasant, “is that like a job? like a mechanic, or something?”

victoria shook her head, casting her gaze on the dogs so she didn’t have to face the overwhelming weight of jack’s attention head on. “i, uh, i’m an mfa student at brockton,” she said, “for poetry. and workshop is when the group reads your work and gives you feedback.”

“sounds scary,” jack said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts.

“it is,” victoria said, too fast, almost cutting him off, because it was scary, and she wished more people in her life would see that.

in an instant, something flashed in jack’s gaze, and it gave victoria goosebumps. “how’d it go, then?” he continued.

victoria shrugged. “‘bout as well as can be expected.”

“you’re a poet, you said?”

she shrugged, again. “a student. i write poetry.”

“what do you write about?”

victoria meets his eyes again, tries to make out if he’s making fun of her. no one really tended to take her seriously, if they’d made it this far into this conversation. there was nothing snarky in his eyes, though, only curiosity. he spoke with the easiness of a person who grew up with eyes on them, almost media-trained. “real life, mostly,” she said, twisting the sole of her shoe slowly into the ground.

“plenty of material,” jack said, nodding, like he understood. “i’d love to read some of your stuff.”

victoria squinted at him. “you would?”

“oh, yeah,” he affirmed, and victoria again couldn’t find any semblance of a joke in his words. “been getting dumber as the season goes on, swear it. need to get into reading.”

victoria wanted to ask what he meant by season, but she was sort of uncomfortable with the fact that this almost-stranger said that he wanted to read her poems, even more uncomfortable that he seemed to mean it.

“think you could bring me something next time you’re walking by?” he paused, shifting on his feet. “only if you’re comfortable, ‘course.”

she was anything but, but somehow victoria found herself nodding. “sure,” she said, softly. she pushed her long brown hair behind her ears.

jack smiled, and it hit her in the chest, a bullet, a knife, a balm. his imperfect teeth, one noticeably chipped, seemed to glow with genuineness. “you’re the best, vic,” he said. there was that nickname again. it made her blush.

“i told you everyone calls me tori, right?” she said.

jack shrugged. “you told me your friends call you tori,” he clarified. “gotta earn it, right?”

when walter grew tired of terrorizing quinton, when he was all leashed and ready to go, jack only bent down again, a motion that suggested a swift kind of agility. “bye, bud,” he said, scratching quinton’s head. “get home safe, alright?”

victoria gave him an awkward wave that made her feel like her limbs weren’t connected to her body. jack didn’t seem to mind, though, returning it with a smile that pulled at the corner of his lips. some time over the course of being around jack, the chip, chip, chip in victoria’ head had phased into a chipped tooth. victoria hated how telling it was that there was a fully formed verse in her head by the time she got home.

fin. (until the next part).

#hockey #nhl #nhl fic #hockey fic #oc #creative writing #writing #jack eichel #vegas golden knights

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uhbasicallyjustmilex · 1 year ago

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ARCTIC MONKEYS 25/06/23

okay now that i've had some time to (slightly) emotionally and physically recover from yesterday, i need to flail about the highlights:

1) meeting one of my absolute favourite humans who i would never have got to know if it hadn't been for this little corner of tumblr - and then getting to share the excitement/nerves/elation/exhaustion rollercoaster of seeing am with them was just - there aren't even words for it. so special 💖

2) learning how to navigate rain ponchos

3) impulse buying too much merch (but also not regretting it. the glasgow tour poster is going to be the first thing going on my wall in my new flat)

4) the mirrorball starting to twirl just before they all came onstage and sending the colours of the afternoon sun everywhere

5) the sheer rush of the moment they all walked onstage together (also that was pretty much the only time i got to glimpse nick and matt at all 💔 from where i was standing i could mostly only see alex and jamie)

6) seeing alex a few metres away in real life after months of looking at his beautiful, dorky little expressions in photos/videos was surreal in the best possible way- there's just something so different about the way you get a sense of someone's energy when you're in the same space with them?? and as someone who's endlessly interested in people, i'm fascinated by how alex simultaneously gives off really reserved, self-contained vibes at the same time as being such a dynamic and captivating performer - like he’s so good at tapping into emotions without letting them be a door into how he’s actually feeling (if that makes any sense, my post-gig brain is not very articulate) i guess that all very much makes sense with all the stuff he's said about personas/performing, but it was still so interesting to get to really feel that sense of his presence in live time. he's definitely very much in control but in a very understated kind of way

7) a bunch of birds circling overhead on one side of the crowd, alex seeing them and dramatically declaring 'release the rest of the birds'

8) me and the lovely human i went with turning to each other with expressions of sheer joy when the opening bars of crying lightning were played (and don't sit down. and four stars. and arabella. and - you get the picture. getting to share the sheer delight of your favourite songs being played is just the loveliest feeling 💗)

9) alex doing a quirky little 'ha ha' laugh in the middle of body paint

10) mirrorball coinciding with the most beautiful pink dusk and half moon just above the stage, and getting to witness alex’s piano playing at the start of it

11) body paint. just. body paint. i think my soul left my body.

12) how much energy and enthusiasm alex seemed to have throughout the set - especially after the last week or so it was just the loveliest thing to see him messing about and having fun. and his voice sounded SO good. how anyone manages to sing like that (let alone sound like that less than a week after cancelling shows due to laryngitis) is an absolute mystery to me

13) alex's theatrical hand gestures for crying lightning (the one for gobstopper was a particular favourite)

14) hearing 505 when dusk has just fallen and you can see the smudged moon behind the deep indigo clouds is the only way anyone should ever hear 505

15) alex and matt having a giggle about something mid set

16) obviously i was aware of how stupidly talented they all are - but there's something about seeing it unfold in front of you in real time that makes it really hit you. the sound wasn't great where i was for some of the time so i don't feel like i got the best audio sense of everything, but i was just so struck in particular by matt on the drums and also alex with his guitar playing. i feel like when i'm just listening to their records i'm so busy listening to alex's voice that i forget how incredible a guitar player he is and - wow. just. yeah. it honestly took my breath away.

17) getting the distinct impression that it provides alex with a sense of amusement to deliberately do that thing where he sings the lyrics at slightly different speeds to trip the crowd up

18) even though i ended up being in significant pain for the second half of the set and had to go find somewhere a little further back where i could lean against the railings (chronic pain conditions and standing for 6+ hours apparently isn't the best mix), nothing could dull how magical it was hearing all the tracks from the car that they played closer to the end. standing there in the dusk and feeling so much about everything is something i'll never forget. it truly brought home to me so poignantly everything about why am's music means so much to me and how much love i have for them 💜

19) being in the exact line of direction alex blew kisses to at the end

20) the hazy post-gig walking in the dark under lit up green trees with the lovely human i went with and our conversations about am and creativity and the courage of sharing music 💖

#i'm honestly still processing the fact that it really happened #it was amazing #though i'm trying not to be frustrated with myself for my chronic pain kicking in when they were on #i had a couple of songs where i was like 'why can't i just enjoy this like a normal person'#but then the music took over and brought me back to myself #so yes #i wish i'd been feeling amazing for all of it #but it was still amazing even if i wasn't feeling amazing for every second of it #and i'm so so happy i went and got to share it with such an amazing human #💜#i’ve been swinging between riding a high and post gig blues all day so forgive me if any of this is incoherent #also #i know these photos are blurry as hell but i’d still appreciate it if people don’t repost them without my permission #arctic monkeys #alex turner #matt helders #jamie cook #nick o'malley #am glasgow 2023 #lulu posts

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therizino-ao3 · 1 year ago

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Hermit Horror Week 2023

Day two: Environment

Summary: xB wants to support his friend, but there’s something about his base that feels wrong. He can’t bring himself to leave, no matter how much he knows he should.

Read on ao3

Contains: unreliable narrator, a character being non-consensually drugged (implied + in a magical way), loss of free will (strongly implied), panic attacks, fairy folklore, suffocation mention, weird time shenanigans

“So dude, have you seen my base yet?”

xB looks up from the diamonds he’d been counting, “Hmm? No, I haven’t. You’re doing like, mushrooms or something, right?” So far, his and Hypno’s business has been doing great. They’ve been getting quite a few sales lately, to say nothing of the IOU collection they’re racking up. They’re making bank.

“Yep! Like a mushroom forest, mystical land kinda thing,” Hypno takes the diamonds xB hands him, “You should totally see it! I’ve finished the main mushroom and a bunch of decoration around the place, it looks so cool.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m happy to head over now, if you want?”

They head over there by foot, instead of by elytra. It’s… a little weird, but xB doesn’t mind, he thinks Hypno wants to show off the custom lamps he’s made for the path. It’s quite atmospheric, he’ll admit, with the towering dark oaks letting only small puddles of sunshine hit the ground, and the glowing fungi beckoning them forward. It’s magical.

They seem to walk for ages, wandering down the twisting path. At one point, xB turns around, just to see what’s behind them. There’s nothing. It’s pure black, no sign of the pretty little lamps they just passed. xB swivels back to Hypno, about to voice his concerns, but Hypno starts talking about dye farms and making concrete and xB just kind of forgets about it. It’s not too much of a concern, anyway. The further in they go, the more xB realises how safe it is. Like, initially he was super concerned of a creeper crawling out from the forest, with how dark it was outside the path, but he actually hasn’t seen a single creature other than them. He can’t even hear the birds sing here. Hypno must have done some mad mob-proofing.

Eventually, the trees open out and he looks at Hypno’s hard work and instantly his stomach drops. His mind is screaming at him to get out. He needs to leave. His heart is thundering. His eyes squeeze closed. Then, he feels Hypno’s comforting hand on his shoulder and it’s all okay. He blinks a little and looks up at his friend.

“Is everything alright xB?” he’s frowning.

“Yeah, I’m just- I felt on the verge of a panic attack for a second there but, now it’s all gone,” his face feels a bit wet, is he crying?

“Are you sure? We can go back if you’d like, I don’t want to continue if you’re hurt,” Hypno looks concerned.

“No, no, it’s all fine. It might be like, hay fever from all these mushroom spores,” he says. As he says it, he knows it makes absolutely no sense, but he wants Hypno to stop worrying.

“Alright,” Hypno seems to buy it, his tone becoming more playful, “You know, you can just admit you’re jealous of how cool my base is, xB!”

“I am not jealous, we all know, out of the two of us, I got the cooler base. M’kay?” he smiles, feeling a bit better. They’ve crossed over a barrier of tiny mushrooms in front of the path, seeming to circle around the whole area. Inside, there’s a field of beautiful light green grass, home to all sorts of fungi Hypno’s been cultivating. They’re mainly red and white, with some brown, but they’re in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Throughout the area, there are fairy lights and lanterns and fireflies and they all glow in the darkening dusk sky. When they left Horse Head Farms, it was mid-morning, xB remembers. It’s funny how fast time passes.

Most of the mushrooms seem decorative, but the larger ones have been made into buildings. There are cute little doors carved into the trunks and signs that say things like “Storage” or “Farms”. One particularly thick and pretty mushroom has been decorated a lot, he assumes it must have been Hypno’s starter base.

“I can’t believe you’re living in Smurf village, dude,” xB giggles.

Hypno punches his arm, “This is not a Smurf village! It’s a fairy realm. Get it right, xB.”

xB’s mouth feels dry. He knows that word. Fairy. Right now, he can’t think of what it means. He nods. He looks at the giant mushroom in the centre of the base.

It’s obviously the centrepiece, towering over every other mushroom. It’s incredibly beautiful. Hypno leads them to the front entrance. xB feels sick looking up at the gills of the mushroom. He can almost imagine the microscopic spores floating down, filling their mouths, suffocating them. Spore particles would probably be good to add, the movement would make the build more dynamic. He’ll tell Hypno later. Hypno drags xB into his home. The wooden staircase looks very nice, Hypno’s done a pretty good job on the spiral. They run up it together. The air smells sweet, almost sickly. After a very short tour, they come back outside - Hypno hasn’t finished the interiors yet. He’s surprised he was allowed to leave, he thought Hypno would trap him there forever, not that he’d mind.

Hypno is looking at him, “So what do you think of my base, xB?”

xB thinks. He thinks about the amazing lights and the vibrant colours and the magical aura. He thinks about Hypno, who’s one of his best friends, who has worked so hard on this base, who xB would do anything he asks him to do. That’s weird, he’s able to realise. He likes Hypno but Hypno is also sometimes very annoying, and other times, xB just likes to mess with him. He wouldn’t do everything Hypno wants. He thinks about all the people willingly signing their IOUs. Is xB willingly answering Hypno’s question? Not that he has any choice, he has to answer it regardless. He wonders if Hypno’s human. He always assumed he was, not having any visible non-human traits, but sometimes the signs are more subtle. He’s thinking too hard.

“Hmm, it’s alright,” he says, “My base is still better.”

#i'm sick so sorry if this one is a lil worse than usual #i know the prose is weird anyway lol #xb (under hypno's control): i am still better than you #i had so many ideas of different bases I could do for this one #but I decided Hypno S8 because I never see anyone talk about how he lived in a mushroom base the same season he stole souls #cmon... the potential #hermithorrorweek2023 #hermitcraft #hermitcraft fic #fanfic #xbcrafted #hypnotizd #horse head farms #unreliable narrators #panic attack #brief but I'm tagging it #therizino writes

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the-moth-from-elsewhere · 11 months ago

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OKAY HERE’S MY OC LORE

because apparently it’s relevant now?-

Let’s start in early November with gangle blog.

I, new to tumblr and not wanting to try and get in on something I had assumed had been going on for a long time and didn’t want to seem like an intruder, made the least intrusive character possible. This was also about the time where the “canon character” blogs were having some issues with the oc blogs, due to Tiger.

So I made Easton West.

He’s just a guy on lunch break who found the circus’s computer and can’t really do anything but interact via Developer console. No angst, just a guy who likes sandwiches. He befriended Gangle pretty quick. I also had him show up occasionally on Sun blog, iirc. He’s shy, he has no friends, but he cares a lot for people and always wants the best for those he cares for. He’s pretty “sunshine child”, but can be serious and assertive.

Then Gangle’s Ferris wheel/hammer anon plot started. And Jax DIED. And Easton was trying to save Jax and barely failed, and Gangle was in danger and soidjeieidjdie it was a messsssssss

Easton augments the computer with more monitors and PC’s and such, so he can actually affect things.

This is about the point where I threw my inhibitions out the window and gave Easton depression. This will come up later, and it became very severe over time. So tw for that.

At this point, Easton is friends with both Gangle and Sun, but due to the Ferris wheel stuff, he actually probably ended up befriending sun more.

Time for a new character. Easton mentions a coworker of his, after Sun tells him that he needs help running this thing. Sun tells him to find her, and thus we are introduced to Northa South.

Northa, like Easton, is shy and has no friends. She’s kind of a doormat, and doesn’t have a family because the foster system sucks and thus BAM childhood of inconsistency and physical…uh…ab—e. Not fun.

They hit it off instantly, and have a very sweet dynamic of “oh my gosh you’re amazing and I will give you all the affection”. While Easton is somewhat more protective, they’re pretty much on equal footing dynamic-wise.

Yes, they fall in love and start dating.

Before that, though, we introduce Dusk. Basically, Sun checks the heck out at one point and Easton saves everyone by bringing her back, but it’s a glitchy mess. Due to this, post-northa, they make a “backup plan” just in case the sun leaves. Northa being a graphic designer and Easton a coder, they can accomplish much more together than they would apart, and it shows with Dusk.

Dusk is the backup plan, a third celestial. She is summoned when Sun leaves again, and is just a sweetheart. Buuuut people don’t really like her because she accidentally adopts Sun’s tiny paper crane (who is named BlueJay now) and is…just…not Sun.

Easton and Northa attempt to help her, and are some of the best friends she has.

…And then Gangle dies.

…And thus the angst begins anew!

Northa and Easton kind of…crack from stress. Northa puts on the headset. Easton follows suit, but leaves behind a few things, including creating Dusk’s domain and the “Encyclopedia Poetica Circo”, a comprehensive and updating collection of files, functions, mechanics, character sheets, art, code, staff files, etc. for the circus and the company he worked for.

So, who are these two now? The Lord and Lady of Compass Manor, in Dusk’s domain. Dusk’s domain functions as an alternate, dream-esque dimension where logic runs on “what makes sense for the character/emotions?” (Ex: when someone is depressed, oftentimes it will begin to rain.) Each area runs on symbolism (Ex: Northeast’s area is symbolic of and thus will evoke the associated feelings of their innocent, genuine love.)

Dusk is very grieved. Sun shows up, drama, and meets a girl from Candleton named Alpenglow, who symbolizes the excitement of adventure. Uuunfortunately, after snapping at the amnesiac Lord and Lady, she leaves Alpen in the depression forest (“the Depths”) to die by accident, which traumatizes the already abandonment-issues-ridden child. Alpen is saved by Dusk and Sigil, who seem to be friends now, although Dusk had to magically lobotomize Insanity first. They end up on better terms later.

Sun calls up Easton’s ex, Lattia Tudor, and her business partner/best friend, Lonn Gitud. They’re here now.

Alpen quickly befriends and is adopted by Silhou, although Sun also still kinda adopted her it’s complex Sun and Silhou haven’t had the interaction where they deal with that yet

sun is missing, Dusk and sigil are looking for her.

…

…You’re probably realizing that there’s a character or two that I haven’t mentioned.

Meet Kit.

Kit is an 16 year old inter dimensional magical girl and one of two bits of madoka crossover we’ve had.

Kit started out as a five second joke character named Tea Anon, who had a conversation with a semi-dead Hammer in the void about tea.

Tea anon was SUPPOSED to just be my sona wearing anon glasses, thus why our personalities are somewhat similar, but she ended up as her own character with her own angst and motivations over time.

Tea anon ends up as Hammer’s…like, only friend. Also, Origami gets roped into this. They’re a team! Awwww…. Sure hope nothing goes wrong here.

they fight Kirsten, aka H.N. Elly, a witch from canon, who ends up being one of Tea’s old teammates. They end on good terms.

Hammer eventually…gets very very intoxicated, and Ori disappears. So Tea is on her own.

She witches out. And takes off the anon glasses, and thus her disguise as Tea anon. Her name is Kitsune and she wished to save those she loved, but failed. Her old teammates are witches or dead, her new teammates are gone, awww frick.

She and hammer have an emotional conversation, where Kit says she believes he is a good person, genuinely, because he cares about changing. She extends him a handshake. He does not shake her hand.

He proposes to chaos, and Kit as the eldritch horror she is crashes the wedding against her will, the grief-hungry witch side wanting to cause as much horror as possible. Generally, the inhuman monster is called Aite, the Odd Fox Witch.

hammer gets Kit back by the power of hugs and friendship. Awww.

Ori returns! But her friends have a concussion (hammer) and a gunshot wound (kit) sooo not fun. They’re in Pyxel’s care.

ORIGAMI LORE YEAH

Bob witches out while fighting Kit and kills her, leaving only her grief seed behind…sad.

that’s where we are rn lol

there’s your notes, @copper-ichor

(And there’s that essay I mentioned, @nymn-taoc)

sorry for the tags lol

#Oc lore #infodump #tadc oc #lol what am I doing

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immoralimmortals · 7 months ago

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A Song With Ten Names

Chapter 4: It's Not the End of the World

Chapter 1 ☆ Next chapter

Summary of chapter: A new normal comes into play for the two Akatsuki and their associate, though changes are on the horizon- for better or for worse.

Please regard the notes and warnings of chapter 1 if you have not read it already. The song for this chapter is It's Not the End of the World (Even As We Know It) by Faded Paper Figures as both breaks and in-universe, lyrics not entirely complete or in order.

While I'm not a huge fan of the "only girl in the group" trope, I also have eyes that can see, and Konan in her own is a wonderful character with lots of depth.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Yeah, it's hard but it's not the end of the world

Even as we know it

Yeah, it's so hard but it's not the end of the world

Even as we know it

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

What kind of life is this to lead?

For now, it’s one worth having. The traveler has a roof, job security (?), and a reason to live. She got the gig at the bar, the one in the new village closest to the house she found in the woods, though it’s quite the hike. She resides there now, along with those two guys, sometimes. “As long as our objectives are within range,” the masked one explained to her, “We’ll return.” When inquired about what will happen when it’s not, if she’ll go with them, he shrugged.

“Dunno. We’ll see.”

Hence the more dubious status of her job security.

But! While she has this...it’s going ok. There’s stability in making a routine: The day is her own, which is to say, she quickly had to find out how to not be bored. The fear of losing her livelihood and getting on Kakuzu’s bad side is enough motivation to fill it with practice. Wielding her old musical skills is like sharpening a rusty sword; she’s not sure if it’s actually up to par, but as long as it doesn’t need to go up against a real blade-- an actual performer showing up-- it seems to impress just enough. It was only ever a hobby before, but...she’d be lying if in some way this wasn’t her dreams come true.

Minus the serial killers, or whatever they are. They won’t really tell her. But she can make that work!

Besides practice, there’s the matter of meals. Kakuzu goes against his word (probably figured it’d save him the headache) and gives an allowance. It’s less her choice, though, and more “here is exactly the cost of these things I pre-selected for you at this storefront.” But! She won’t starve again. For that, she’s grateful.

Hidan rolls his eyes sometimes and throws either a bag, container, or the food itself that he probably stole right at her, making sure every single time it is in front of Kakuzu. The traveler doesn’t need much intuition to sense a bit of spite or competition, so she simply thanks Hidan and says little to question how the arrangement should be; let them argue between themselves. She’s not super interested in getting in the middle.

Boy can they argue, though.

That’s the next part of the routine, really, when they arrive-- typically before sunset or just after dusk. They’re as different as different can be. Practical vs spiritual. Pragmatic vs excessive. Money vs prayer. The only thing they can agree on, apparently, is that things are taking way too fucking long and that is the fault of the other. Threats to kill and end it all happen often- especially on Kakuzu’s end, which surprises her based on how Hidan’s religion is literally, explicitly about killing, and she learns to be wary of the silence just as much-- the pressure building before someone throws a punch. She learns to either shut her ears and pretend to be busy or simply arrange that she’ll be in her “room” when they walk through the door. Maybe she’s over thinking it, though; if they’ve hit each other, it’s not been in front of her.

The sight of conflict bothers her more than the violence itself, to be honest.

Even in the world the traveler had before, the name of the game was to make herself as little of a nuisance as possible. This new unfamiliarity and constant impending doom? It’s compounding that aspect of her like a voice in a megaphone. And here she thought she had made progress! The fact that Kakuzu stated the house was perfect because “it’s free, private, and easy to surveillance” puts a weight on her shoulders whenever she leaves on her own for meals. She nearly gave herself a heart attack making eye contact with someone watering her flowers. She swallowed, pretended she is simply going about her day, and as soon as they looked away, she circled back and left. Her caretakers are bounty hunters, at minimum; what happens to her if some asshole is pissed at THEM and sees HER in association? But she knows the answer to her situation already. If you don’t like it, just leave.

But she prefers a devil she knows.

There’s another good side, though-- Hidan is never short of conversation. She isn’t entirely sure his expectations of her and what he’s going to get out of it, but clearly he aches for a listening ear, talking on and on as any seasoned scholar could (with the mouth of a sailor drunk in a ditch). The corner of his lips even seems to twitch up, on occasion, as his follower engages the scripture. He’s disciplined only in his religion, yes, but he’s not half-assing that, praying most any time he’s not speaking with the pendant to his face. What an enigma Hidan is to her, multitudes of thoughts and attitudes and ideals somehow making one man so sure about the universe. It tampers down the fact he prods her about when she wants to “go out for some heathen slaughter again.”

Does she know he’ll defend that attentiveness to bloodshed? Not yet.

When night falls is when she earns her keep, slinging a guitar over her back and being escorted by the two Akatsuki in a beeline to her corner of the low-lit business. It’s as chill as a performance job can be, and she’s content whether or not she’s acknowledged. Once or twice a night, someone will approach her. If it’s just talk, she’ll light up like the sun. If it’s more, she’s experienced that if she can get them to accept a polite denial, that’s better than her bouncers getting to them. It doesn’t help that Hidan is always RIGHT there, same spot every time, just as the first. Sometimes he’ll watch at her, but most of the time he looks bored, dangling his glass from his fingertips, either closing his eyes or looking angry he can’t fall asleep. But it’s a sin to mistake his disinterest for laziness, that tongue of his a dagger if someone bothers her just a little too long or gets a little too close. Kakuzu, however, always stays distant, perhaps judging how well this is working out, if she warrants this much of his time for a couple of bills. Neither belong with this scene, so they typically don’t engage anyone on their own volition. She begins to thank them for their time, but neither like being accused of kindness, so it’s a habit not kept.

At the end of each shift as it’s time to close the bar, the performer always wave politely to the staff and tells them to be safe heading home. They say “you too”, eventually. Her management is more dangerous than any bump in the night, boogeyman in the shadows. Is she safe when she gets home? There’s always a bit too much hesitance before she assures yes.

Some of the weight their red clouds carry starts to stick in her brain, after a couple of worried murmurs and frantic shouts about them. Kind of dampers the gig that someone more or less walked in, demanded a job for her, and she got it based on their own merit. But no one has made a big deal of it yet, the Akatsuki themselves even brushing it off somehow. The locals start to have more ease, but she’ll never be rid of the visitors passing through that try to pull the metaphorical fire alarm.

Ah well. The motto the traveler abides by, even long before this, was that to be embarrassed is to be known. To be known is to be embarrassed. If she’s anxious all the time, regardless of what she does, might as well try to be authentic.

There she finds relief in her “gimmick”-- the traveler from a strange, distant land. No, not even just from Hoshigakure-- that’s her actual cover story if it’s time to get serious-- but being exactly from where she really is from with enough vague words to escape being too specific. When she puts on her little show, she’s not just an out-of-place weirdo anymore. In the moment, she’s THE weirdo and she’s THRIVING for it, just as she always wanted and never thought possible. This “cover” is kept up eagerly, innocently, performative, in such a way that everyone really eats it up, finds it endearing-- adorable even. The woman sings of fairy tales and regrets with a smile on her face. Who would ever accuse her of telling the truth?

That’s why she dares to keep her few original affects, no matter how overly colorful. At first Kakuzu questioned them but depriving the performer of them left her so goddamn self-conscious to have it pointed out that he begrudgingly allowed it. When it rains and the two Akatsuki wear their hats, she brings out her own from her messenger bag, to match. It’s a light straw with pink ribbon tied in a bow with long tails. Her bag is even in theme, too, shaped like a folded love letter with a heart seal on the back. There’s no doubt that, sincerely, the two men are the only way no one messes with her since she is so purposefully demure and strange, unless of course the mistake is made of not recognizing their cloaks. It’s rare to see them, but there’s even a pair of literal rose tinted glasses in that strapped envelope. Is she a mockery of something? If so...what? While both men wonder, neither care to ask.

Indeed, whimsy is down to her bones, floating in curled strands of hair and in the way she sticks her boots far out to emphasize each step. Each individual leaf is capable of captivating her, every silky thread of the spider and every flower that can hug its petals around her nose. Her eyes glitter with wonder until the second you remind her she exists in front of other people.

Indeed, over time, life somehow becomes good. It takes a while, but eventually she accidentally bargains up on those trips for lunch. “Sure, you’re a regular patron now! How about some bread to go with your soup?”

The woman with the garden will tell her hello now and she’ll say it back. She can even take a smile on the street, faces becoming recognizable in the transition of vulnerable nights to guarded days. Her stomach is fuller and so are hopes. After all, she always wanted to be a storyteller. Always tried to convey to people in her life what certain words other wrote really can mean. No writer, teller. That’s all she’s doing, trying to pass feelings along in the music that’s kept her alive. Emotion is what she has, not elegance. This is the one strength she will admit to.

In turn, the “weirder” music must be kept under wraps, no matter the pang of their memory, only picking songs she finds either innocuous or passable enough to what she perceives these people to know here. Entirely relatable subjects-- even if one has to stretch-- with the foreign concept here and there explained away as world-building. She saves the fun ones for when she practices, when she thinks herself alone; she’s seen Hidan give her a “what the fuck” face hard enough to shame her into not doing it in front of them again. Of course the shinobi catch it anyways, Kakuzu thinking it’s just more of these odd fantasies while Hidan furrows his brow till it hurts.

“The hell is she singing about?”

“Nonsense. That’s what they all are anyway,” Kakuzu convinces himself. Hidan grunts.

“Jashin make sense of this for me,” he half prays.

So she begins to be a little more bold in her personal life, but not by much. Still a small mouse, at worst a kitten hissing in fear, but getting better. Persona on or off, it’s hard to take her seriously unless you actually LISTEN to her. One side of her is apologetic to even breathe. The other side in rose-tinted glasses is more interested in hearing your interpretation, your expression change, rather than what she may actually be saying for herself.

She loves questions. She loves reactions. Who cares what’s true or not? Who cares if tomorrow isn’t a guarantee? This is what existence is.

That’s been decided by the night a spellbinding set of orange eyes sit across the table.

“Takara...” That’s the name Kakuzu gave her, after the performer waffled to pick her own.

The songbird raises her head, having not introduced herself to this woman yet. Idly, she plays some chords on the piano, filling the silence as she holds back her voice. The stranger doesn’t smile, pulling a strand of periwinkle hair behind her ear.

“I’ve heard of you.”

The piano player gives more time to slide her gaze over and evaluate this person; no, she’s not familiar. “Takara’s” face brightens. “R-really?” She’s never been recognized beyond the usual patrons before. The woman neither nods nor affirms with her voice, just tilts her head forward and to the side with hooded eyes.

“You’re from a place of legends,” the patron recalls, emotionless. “Somewhere with no proof of it besides your songs.”

The performer bobs her head side to side in a bit of a playful confirmation. “Seems to be the case...Haven’t found another person from there,” she adds with an undercurrent of somberness.

“What’s it like there?”

As rehearsed, the player breathes in and out, and she sort of tells the truth. “It’s hard to describe your whole universe. There’s a bit of everything. Of course there is! But...I can say what there’s a bit more or less of, compared to here. There’s more noise. There’s more light-- so much we say it pollutes the night sky.” Though indoors, a wistful gaze becomes fixed upward. Hoshigakure...that’s supposed to be the village hidden in the stars. How can there be more than the ones she already gets to see now?

“We know so much about the heavens, but the layperson hardly gets to see it-- as it really is. A select few are chosen and trained to go beyond the clouds and pollution to see it firsthand. We’ve had a handful of people walk on the moon!”

Semi-consciously, she drifts into playing the Nocturn op.9. No.2 by Chopin. The patron can’t help but find it befitting, sweetness drifting into something in memory, an old mirror foggy with stardust. It’s getting late; the barkeep is cleaning the glasses, trying unsuccessfully to listen to a conversation.

“THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE!?”

Kakuzu eyes glare, glittering like daggers in the moonlit rain as he and a figure stand some meters away towards the outskirts of the forest. This means nothing to Hidan, of course, who folds his arms as he sits on the steps outside the bar. The newcomer smiles with half a face, the other half not moving as the white one’s lips move.

“Simply curious.” White Zetsu’s voice is nearly saccharine; Hidan loathes it. The mouth somehow keeps still while a deeper voice speaks. “This assignment has gone long past the expected perimeters.”

While Hidan is irreverent, Kakuzu is obedient-- but childish he is not and will not take scolding lying down. “Supplementing income,” he returns, not asking for forgiveness.

“I have a hard time believing you,” Black Zetsu retorts. Kakuzu doesn’t flinch.

“The books are there to prove it.”

“...She does sing very nicely…” the softer voice defends, though the other won’t back down. “We must think critically about this,” he instructs. The Akatsuki’s treasurer exhales.

“If the command is to abandon this—”

Before his partner can go batshit over Kakuzu relenting- rolling over so EASILY like a dog- the mouthless voice continues.

“That's not the issue." Then gentler voice returns, tongue slick with mischief. "What if she’s telling the truth?”

A simple question met with baffled reactions, a shocked pause in between.

“...Will you get the hell out of here already?” Hidan’s arm sweeps in front of him in a grand “shoo”ing motion. Silently, Kakuzu can’t help but agree; at this point Zetsu is clearly just fucking around, bouncing childish ideas back at them in jest. But from past experience, just after the punchline is when the plant-man would take his leave. Indeed, it’s even more unnerving that now he doesn’t move an inch.

“I’d like to make a request.”

By this point, the angel has made it to the front row, leg folded over her thigh with full, unflinching attention on the homemade musician. Takara can’t ignore how it makes her heart race, the high of controlling the narrative and of being in the graces of someone so gorgeous. As such, she smiles and nods eagerly to the proposal. The intent of Konan’s statements will become starkly clear later: the precision of it, the delicacy.

“Play for me...a song I will never understand.”

The meaning of this is obvious, in a way; they had spent the last half hour in a hyperbolic game of ping-pong in this conversation, a back and forth about what being foreign really means. The execution, however, is the real problem. Days and weeks of mulling over the appropriateness of lyrics has made it apparent how thin the line is, how gray the concept of being incomprehensible. Everything will have a twinge of relatability. What’s so different between here and there?

Takara bites the inside of her lip. Perhaps she should think of the reasons why she left.

The humming comes first, as she often does, while she spins upon her seat to pick up her second instrument; this one is going to be a bit strange to relay only on the acoustic guitar, as its so percussion-heavy in her memory. She rolls her shoulders a couple of times and then drifts into the inexplicable absurdity of Americana, consumerism, and chaos.

Glass ceilings falling on you

Like the blessings of a choice when it's the only way

Last night I thought I saw you

With a drink, and friends, you said you go there everyday

Then I hear you say

There’s a depth to it, a brevity she didn’t allow before. If it was her watching herself, she’d call it being a theater kid.

Wicked television screen, Rockefeller energy

Politician guarantee, stupid corporate synergy

MSNBC jerks, messing with the young Turks

Yogi hippiography, sell us immortality

Democratic fail safe

Money gets you in the game

It’s a rompous way to end the shift, letting loose and feeling her grief seep out her pores like sweat until her fingertips hurt on the grit of the strings. This nonsense doesn’t exist for her anymore! She’s never been normal, no one WILL ever be normal. She’ll never again need to pretend normal is real while the world burns around her. She finally gets to scream it out.

Yeah, it's so hard but it's not the end of the world

Even as we know it

Unapologetic about the truth, even though no one here will get what it means without living it. It might make up for the social awkwardness of all this jargon, all these buzz words that she doesn’t need to know anymore.

Kiss and tell apocalypse, psycho-pharmacologists

Target demographic lies, revolution improvised

Artificial bleeding heart, superficial work of art

Conjure up the word of God, complicated voter fraud

Buddha-heads will save the day, calculate the DNA

Mindless droning, human rights

Shoppers camping overnight

The world's a business power-play

Money gets you in the game

MONEY GETS YOU IN THE GAME

In a weird way, she got exactly what she wanted when she died, but that part will stay a secret to even herself, let alone anyone in this dreamland. This lady doesn’t need to know; Hidan and Kakuzu don’t need to know.

...But it’s getting late, now. Where are those two, anyway? The barkeep points to the exit, and so she goes, politely excusing herself as orange eyes bore into the back of her skull.

The atmosphere is thicker than fog. Teeth clench in Hidan’s jaw, and Kakuzu’s glance no longer goes through her but stops right where she stands. An amalgamation of two men and a venus flytrap envelopes her attention; she could swear he barely licked his lips as she walked in.

“There you are,” a dreadful voice speaks seemingly from thin air. A shadow falls on Takara’s shoulder as the patron walks by wordlessly to the creature.

“Wait, Konan, how did we not see you-?!” Hidan sputters. Takara blinks.

“...Hold on. You guys know each other?”

Kakuzu won’t even indulge the question, so the blue-haired lady answers herself, approaching Zetsu and retrieving her cloak from his hands, a matching set of black and red clouds just as he drapes around himself.

Oh.

...Shit.

Her eyes can’t keep off of the one as black and white as the piano, but no one explains anything about him. He’s just a fact of reality, an everyday occurrence for these people. He is as pleasant-- and normal-- as any other gentleman. As Konan mutely joins the stance of four Akatsuki looking down one girl, Zetsu greets her with a smile that looks like fangs sanded back down.

“Our leader wishes to speak with you.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Good gods abandoning you

Like a pain that fades when it's no longer in your way

No collective dreams to guide you

Have another drink, I think you'll be here everyday

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

One can only wonder how long a watchful eye had followed along if it lives in the trees. The plant-man sinks in and out of bark like a bend in reality itself, reappearing only after the long, pained walk where Konan guided their path. There’s no more joy in the performer anymore. She wants to hold someone’s hand, but she’s left alone, folding and unfolding her own in anxiety until she’s worried they might rub raw. An illusion breaks as Konan approaches an over-sized oak and apparates an arch of pure darkness, causing Takara to fall backwards and shriek. Hidan ends up catching her. While a chiding is expected, she instead receives a whisper.

“Listen," he murmurs into her ear, "Fuckers are all talk. Don’t let ‘em get to ya, okay?”

How serious he’s being scares her more than anything else.

She’s helpless but to look over her shoulder as Konan escorts her inside the black hole. Hidan is helpless but to look on as he’s dictated by Zetsu to stay and Kakuzu to obey. The Jashinist frowns at the empty space where she was.

Why is he upset? That’s what Kakuzu asks. If anything, it’s him that should be, the fate of her income uncertain. Hidan doesn’t know the answer to that, so he spits in the opposite direction and tells him to shut up.

Inside this tree, there he sits, the king with a wood knot for a throne. Though his hair is the color of fire, it’s the eyes that rule her attention, circles upon a purple like the depths of space. He too wears the cloak. Her blood turns to ice and she freezes in place, but there’s little to fear-- at least right now. No, the leader has planned this out. Honey will suit this one better than water. It isn’t a matter of breaking this one open; there’s a precision, a delicacy that’s necessary. She’s more like...a puzzle that needs to be coaxed into revealing all its pieces. The possibilities- or even more so, the unimaginable- leave too much at stake.

“We are the Akatsuki.” The man’s voice is as regal as his presence. He sits above her, distantly...but not necessarily unkindly. “Under my command are the most elite of shinobi, those who have defected their station in light of the truth. The truth…” he repeats, spirals narrowing. “We’ve observed the truth about you.”

“But...that’s just—”

Konan watches silently in the corner of her eye as the man moves an index over his lips, urging Takara hush. The performer knows now that her patron was evaluating just how convincing her outlandishness was.

“You’ve hid in plain sight,” the leader continues. “Made due with what you had. All I ask now is…”

Her breath hitches, and abruptly she’s convinced this is somehow the end. But as her eyes squeeze shut, a death-cold hand holds her cheek, and they open just as soon. The man with many piercings seems to look upon her as one does an injured animal.

“...Share your suffering with us. Among comrades who don’t belong.”

His ring-wearing hand retracts, leaving her speechless. Pain allows the air to stagnate with her confusion before he elaborates, now on her level.

“We misfits who will bring the world to peace. Shinobi or otherwise, a power beyond infinite knowledge sent you here. I want to help you. I want your help.”

“I’m beseeching you: explain how you got here.”

She remembers the sound of the ocean and the sand under her palms. The man’s confidant sends a silent warning with her expression as she sees the girl begin to slip to the edge of composure, tears threatening to fall. The leader exhales softly.

“I’m expanding the tasks that my members took liberty upon. You will remain with us. Vulnerability should be no sin.”

The two Akatsuki wait in patience, their offer like God reaching down from heaven. But she doesn’t believe in God anymore. This benevolence surrounds an exchange, and the traveler is too afraid to ask what she must give. Briefly, she imagines continuing this life as she has, just without the two bounty hunters. She tries to focus on how fun and kind and fulfilling it can be, but those target eyes pin her in place as she imagines familiar faces twisting into sneers, jeers, and nightmares as soon as she has to stand on her own two feet. Then she feels hunger. Cold. And being alone again.

The answer to the proposal can only be a yes. Her head dips in submission, and she shouldn’t be surprised when he raises it again. His fingers are like ice. “Everything will be as it should.”

A threat and a promise.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Unfortunately, life goes on

However bent and badly drawn

Unfortunately, life goes on

However bent and badly

Bent and badly

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

#akatsuki x reader #hidan x reader #kakuzu x reader #songfic #aswtn fic #konan x reader #pain x reader #its not zetsu x reader yet hes just There atm #god im so gay for konan tho

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