#just because I know most of the available will be probably be shipping them I will also tag

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Return of the Inagrotten

This fic is also available on Wattpad or AO3, if you would prefer to read it elsewhere.

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@heya-there-friends Here’s to another fic—since I remember you mentioned that you wanted to be tagged in the future. Cheers!

If anyone else would like to be tagged on my fics, just let me know!

Further, you might be surprised to know I’ve referenced this fic before, in this post and in this post, and that it is no longer a one-shot but two chapters long.

Additional fun fact: Some of the fic’s narration was probably slightly influenced by how I sometimes feel like I’m watching a surreal play, as a passive observer in front of other humans when they interact.

NO CONTENT WARNINGS: The violence is largely canon-typical.

And now, without further ado—I hope excessive eye contact and almost nothing entertain you.

Summary:

Rafal becomes what he hates most to “save” Rhian at a steep cost—himself.

Or

Rafal puts on a grand “production” for Vulcan.

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CHAPTER I: Eclipses, Ellipses, and Lapses in Judgment:

Right as Vulcan and Rhian stepped into the shaded clearing from opposite sides, an inkblot-like portent appeared on the horizon. Neither of them noticed.

Rhian looked chary, eyes welling with tears that threatened to fall, as his substitute swaggered up to him. What had he agreed to? And why—why a Trial that could potentially endanger one of his charges. And all because he wouldn’t submit and roll over for a takeover by his once charming traitor.

And now, his Evers would see him risk losing everything to, to this—this impostor School Master, this great boor of a man whom he never should have trusted! And Rhian hadn’t even been granted the chance to parley much further with the vile opportunist the last time, due to Vulcan’s burgeoning popularity among Evil’s students.

But Good always wins, he told himself. Simple. His side would win. It had to. He’d known all along and always would. He’d seen Good win the last few tales.

But he had everything to lose, a darker voice of sharp-edged rationale joined the chorus in his head. His opponent had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

He did not feel any better. 

Swallowing bile and his pride, Rhian reached out to shake Vulcan’s hand when a tidal wave crashed onto the shores of Good, sloshing onto the lawn, dousing Rhian and everyone else, and forming a heavy fog.

Rhian dropped Vulcan’s hand like it had burnt him, and the two competitors froze as the fog began to subside, neither daring to move from where they were rooted in place.

Indeed, Rhian’s boots had already begun to sink into the grass, drowning in the muck. Muck! His white boots and swan-feather doublet would be soiled by muck!

He exhaled heavily. There was nothing he could do about it now.

The seawater chilled Rhian, dripping down from his collar, and his spine hurt, as if he had lost his balance and fallen—and yet, he didn’t feel afraid.

Vulcan on the other hand looked as if the living daylights had been knocked out of him, but shortly recovered.

Even the students backed up a bit, and some of the cowardly ones scattered away. Several remained and held their breaths, even the Nevers.

Rhian and Vulcan’s heads swung to the newly-arrived, amorphous… whatever-it-was, alien through the veil of fog.

It docked right before them, banging into the shoreline, as waves hauled it up and retreated, letting it skid further across the lawn, upturning sod and carving out a shallow trench.

It turned slightly, its long side facing everyone, and settled with a thud, halting just inches away from where Rhian and Vulcan watched.

It stood at an imposing height, a hulking block of pure onyx—upon closer inspection, a ship.

A ship that eclipsed them all with its broad starboard, its ever-darkening, looming shadow, that obliterated the sun, swallowed the students gathered around the warring pair, and eclipsed the clearing whole.

The ship stood still, as if watching for the School Master and his substitute’s next moves.

When no one moved, it lifted off the ground, levitating above the wet grass by about an ell.

Jaws dropped at the marvel, and more than a few students wondered if it would float higher or coast over their mute, little pates, and take off into the sky after this odd detour at the Schools as it surely had to be an unidentified flying object.

Instead, the ship righted itself, deftly rotating so its bow faced the clearing. It plunked down with half a hollow thump on the craggy, stone shore and half a squelch in the grass as it rocked and tipped forward marginally, mast angled, jutting out like a magician’s bow.

Cheeky, Rhian thought—assuming he were right in knowing what to expect from the vessel. Yet he still couldn’t stop his involuntary shaking.

It was the cold, wasn’t it? In response, his stomach lurched and roiled like the dark waters.

The ship boasted diaphanous, black sails and itself was rather solid-looking with an ebony hull, encrusted with sleek onyx and obsidian.

The clearing stood dead still, fragile. It was silent, except for the water lapping the shoreline with great, constant slaps. The only movement was the flapping of the sails, snapping, stiff against the cutting winds.

Would it leave? The students mused to themselves. Would it leave them be and return their daylight? Return them to delight in their sunshiny Ever picnics and resume their Never picket lines at the encampments?

No, it seemed.

Beyond them all, lighting split the sky, crisscrossing erratically, fracturing the silence like the shattering of glass—right on cue, as if orchestrated by a willing conductor.

Many students startled, already having anticipated the swell before a storm after such dreadful, broken silence.

Several more jumped and fled for their lives, hiking lengths on foot, as fast as mortally possible towards the cover of the treeline or Good.

They didn’t want to stay when everything fell to ruin, but Vulcan and Rhian remained firm despite the fog and the dark.

Rhian cringed. He couldn’t bear his own impotence. But he couldn’t do anything without assessing the threat at hand. Something or someone had changed the game.

Then, the last of the fog cleared, rolled away and swept to the side like the parting of theater curtains, as if creating an open channel for the bow of the great, anchored vessel.

The Inagrotten seemed to be commandeered by a boy nearly as alabaster-pale as his otherworldly crew.

Rhian squinted. He and Vulcan were forced to crane their necks up to meet the icy eyes of the visitor, unnerving eyes that skewered cleanly through Vulcan’s soul. Vulcan turned away, shaken, but did not flee.

Rafal? Or was he not—

Even in the supposed privacy of his own thoughts, Rhian faltered—his brother’s stare, it bore straight into him.

Yet Rafal looked as if he weren’t seeing. It was as if he were staring through, at the nothing beyond.

And after he’d been gone for so many months—it was approaching six months—Rhian knew. And—

He could only rub at his eyes and hope, hope that this sight, this apparition-like boy wasn’t a mirage, that this was his brother.

Rhian’s voice caught in his throat while Vulcan stared bemused at the Evil School Master, perhaps, a School Master no more.

He did… certainly, look as youthful as ever, Rhian assured himself. He had not aged. One less fear to harbor. They were still immortal. Probably.

But, the shadows carved into his face were deeper, like in his time apart from his twin, he’d seen a ghost or unspeakable, maritime horrors.

Yes—he seemed… rougher, somehow. He carried himself differently, standing there, at the bow, with a haunted look. His eyes seemed sunken, or perhaps it was the way the sun cast over him from above, the dark cast it produced, at his height far above the clearing, a clear-sighted gaze.

It was his usual hard-eyed countenance, the same as always… except not.

He was eerily still, more disarming than usual, creepier, Rhian dared think, as if he’d picked up the traits of his comrades, those creatures—from months at sea with them.

His movements, if any, were too languid, like his bodily systems had shut themselves down, constricted like ice. And he looked gaunt, veins and collarbone more prominent, and his face, angular, more so than ever, with those shadows lining his face, like he didn’t have a heart pumping blood left to speak of. Like he ran cold, colder than the rest, colder than ever, as a specter, a shade of his former self.

The iron stench of blood clung thick in the air, clung to Rafal’s strange, new garments.

Craning his neck even further upward at the barque, Rhian could’ve sworn his brother’s clothes smelt of blood, but he couldn’t see a trace of blood on them. Just, smears of—blue—a strange, deep, sapphire blue on his clothes, tinting spikes of his hair, a spray of the inky substance speckling his jawline and the side of his face, and streaks of blue on the… Night Crawlers, assembled in rough formation behind him.

By the Storian’s grace, were those real Night Crawlers? He’d never seen them outside of storybooks. It was like Rafal had dredged himself out of a storybook, out of the deep undersea, like a myth among myths.

Night Crawlers. Bad idea. Rhian winced and closed his eyes, starting to develop a migraine. Not Night Crawlers! Not Night Crawlers at Good!

Rhian would have concluded it was blood, but it couldn’t be, could it?

He opened his eyes in a flash. Yes, they were still there…

They flanked Rafal, falling behind him, like sentinels, even paler than their leader’s bloodless pallor, eyes ever-watching, roving, moving, momentarily eying him in his sodden doublet, spattered in muck, before sweeping from side to side, from person to person, as if in search for something more, or someone from the sparse crowd in particular.

All Rhian’s mind could grasp was the sensation of eyes, Vulcan’s glare, the Night Crawlers’—and his wet socks.

Then, finally, the last set of eyes flicked too-quickly over everyone in sight and once again settled on the restless pair below. Rafal’s.

But Rafal just as quickly lowered his gaze to a sash at his waist and then his black, cavalier boots.

Why yes! Rhian hadn’t noticed. His brother was shod with tall, new boots. It was a miracle in itself that Rafal wasn’t wearing the same, old boots as always. Albeit, these ones were rather scuffed and dripped blue ink.

Rafal tapped his foot impatiently, exhaled, as if waiting for something, then casually scraped one boot on the edge of the ebony deck, attempting to clean it off and dislodge a glop that had practically fused itself to Rafal’s sole.

Vulcan huffed and muttered, “Stupid snowman,” under his breath.

Rafal ignored the trespasser, and shook his booted foot tetchily until the indistinct gobbet of blue flew off his boot and smacked Vulcan in the bat tattoo, just missing the lout’s eye.

“Oops. Didn’t see you down there, peon,” Rafal breezed, blatantly lying. He swept his hand through his snow-white hair, cresting it with more of the blue from his hands without realizing it.

Rhian quelled his mysterious, rising sense of nausea. At what? The rich, blue stains that he thought should be laundered sooner rather than later?

If he hadn’t known any better, Rhian would’ve been sure that something smelt of rust, of blood. He had to be imagining things. He blinked at the Night Crawlers.

They stood motionless, stolid like statues.

Rhian frowned harder and realized that he had been frowning all along. And this new Rafal was slovenly! And blue!

Rhian glanced at the grisly gob sliding down Vulcan’s face as the man swatted at it blindly.

Squid ink, he decided, again, trying to set his nausea aside to no avail. Saliva coated his gullet. Rafal must have stepped on a squid. That was it. The substance was a squid with, with… ventricles. Ventricles? Wait.

The lurid, inky blob resembled some creature’s innards, Rhian reflected, sickened. Had Rafal—

About to burst from curiosity, Rhian started, “Wha—”

Rhian must’ve been addled. Rafal cut him off. “You must know, I have returned to reclaim my post,” he enunciated evenly, as if Vulcan were deaf or dumb, projecting his voice as if he were playing the lead role in a theater production.

Rhian shook his head vigorously, hand slicing the air at his neck, trying to signal to Rafal to stop talking in front of Vulcan!

Rafal paid his brother no heed and examined the blue underneath his ragged fingernails, having resumed tapping his foot on deck, stalling. He didn’t have a watch, but knew he had arrived on set early.

Even the birches stared at him accusingly as he looked out on everyone else.

Forget it.

Bah. Now he had to wait for everyone else to catch up, the blasted imbeciles. Nothing like—nevermind.

Vulcan fumed, his ears turning red, a pugnacious grimace crossing his face.

Right on schedule. Rafal nodded at him imperiously, eyes turned to slits, furtively glancing at the man’s ill-concealed pocket lump.

Placidly, Rafal rolled up his sleeves. He loathed this frilled tunic. It was too baggy, and therefore too impractical for his taste. How did the filthy, drunken idiots stumble around without catching themselves on their own cutlasses? The same critique went for the pantaloons—and the fussy sleeves easily soiled, but they were already soiled, so no matter. He could burn these ‘pirate’ clothes later and forget about the whole incident. Besides, his proceedings would be civilized, unlike those pests’ sorry excuse for discipline.

That was when the midday sun at last emerged and reached its summit. His next cue.

Finally. Rafal looked at it directly and smiled like a loon, frost-blue eyes glowing in the light.

Meanwhile, Rhian worried for his brother’s mental state as Vulcan grew more agitated. Why wasn’t he moving?

Rafal spared a glance at his incapacitated, seafaring crew. Unfortunate that they didn’t fare well under the sun. Now was not the time to lose composure—but it didn’t matter. They didn’t matter. Yet.

The Night Crawlers—all of them veiled in such a funereal way, decked in wide-brimmed hats—hissed, and others recoiled into their cloaks, blinded by the brilliance of Good’s lit glass castle.

Rafal observed Rhian’s feather-adorned clavicle rise up and down as he heaved great gulps of air, the fool practically navel-gazing, contemplating the blue-tinged muck of all things.

Coward, Rafal thought lightly, suppressing a sigh.

Rafal gave a subtle hand signal, dismissing the students, who responded to his gesture eagerly.

A few waved back gleefully like they had their heads screwed on the wrong way. Pah. Children.

They ran for their lives, no longer a captive audience. But he hadn’t truly done them a favor. He had other plans in store to sort out the bad, rotted-through apples later.

The others, the better-shielded Night Crawlers, clustered together, like a malignant pox, and grinned, revealing fanged-toothed smiles, stained blue, that gleamed like slivers of upended crescent moon.

They stared greedily at Vulcan.

Rafal shook his head slightly, not wanting to err, and kept his eyes fixed on Vulcan. Almost.

A few slumped, and the rest rearranged themselves idly, like predators evaluating prey.

Not yet.

⸻

CHAPTER II: Salutations, Immolations, and Confrontations:

Expectant, Rafal continued to peer down at them, his makeshift puppets, his brother and the enemy—as if he were sitting in an audience, awaiting a grand performance from the mezzanine.

Then, he took note of Vulcan, shaping up to be quite the aggressor, and his lip curled at the cur in disgust.

“Well. What is it that you are waiting for?” Rafal coaxed sibilantly. “Stage directions?”

Rhian turned back and discovered everyone but he and Vulcan had left the clearing. Not a single student in sight.

“Rhian, it’s your move. And the show must go on. How ever will you deal with this dastardly stranger? Or is he not a stranger at all?” Rafal mocked.

On cue, Rhian immediately flushed red. He had frozen in place, holding his right arm bent at his side the whole time, wrist hanging limp! His hand dropped to his side instantly. Rafal hadn’t known about the Trial agreement? And the handshake! Had he?

Rafal addressed his brother again. “What are you doing, Rhian? Something rash? Something you'll come to regret? I suppose it's almost prophetic that I returned when I did, or else, you'd let our School fall to ruins, wouldn't you?”

Vulcan inched forward to face Rafal, straining his neck, not that could’ve stepped any closer to the Inagrotten without plastering himself to the hull like a figurehead. “Hah! Cold, Evil Master back, Duckling?” he boomed. “What does Duckling do now? Evict Lord Vulcan?”

Rafal’s scowl deepened at the term of endearment. Duckling? What conversations had he not borne witness to? Forget it. He gritted his teeth, setting his jaw.

His head was already devolving into a cradle for a pulsing headache due to this Vulcan character slamming down on his last nerves like a guillotine. This was exactly why he hadn’t hired the man the first time.

He turned to Rhian. “You liked this numbskull?” he called out.

Rhian, who still seemed queasy, shrugged and gave a little, diffident smile.

‘Lord’ Vulcan sneered, maniacally whisked his hands around in the air, then feigned some sort of hideous mock-terror, all while his eyes rolled back into his skull so the whites showed.

It must be amateur hour, Rafal groused. What a poor man’s impression of a true Never. A pathetic final performance. And such low production value.

“Or, will brother save Duckling and Duckling’s fat cats?”

Fat cats?

Rafal quickly dismissed the aberrant image of Rhian with cats, and turned his back for just a moment.

Through rustling fabrics and veils, and low, slurred, susurrated murmurs that approximated speech, Rhian made out something like: “You’ll get your prize soon enough, after I deal with the trespasser and my brother. Just fall back, and I’ll do the talking as always.”

It was as if his brother meant to-to pacify these killers, these man-draining monsters.

But the Night Crawlers never posed the problem, Rafal well knew.

And, naturally, problems the first and the second were still watching him confer with his crew from below in the clearing.

The Night Crawlers shuffled around, rearranging themselves once more, skulking behind Rafal, chastened but petulant. Most slipped below deck, several adjusting their hats.

The intrepid few kept watch. One in particular, with his black-gloved hand, pulled out a silver pocket watch and flipped its face open before clapping it shut.

Rhian couldn’t puzzle out the strange sight. At least they weren’t swarming.

Just then, Rafal leapt down from the side of the ship and stalked over to face Vulcan, stopping at a spot a few yards away, looking blasé.

Not yet.

Vulcan shoved a hand into his pocket.

Not yet.

Vulcan made to attack, eyes probing Rafal, dagger gripped in hand.

Not yet.

Rhian’s eyes widened as he caught on. He opened his mouth, about to call out and warn his brother to move—

But Rafal, as if stone deaf, reached into the depths of his long, coal-black, wide-cuffed greatcoat, and tugged at something.

A collection of bone-dry matches that had once been wrapped up spilled out of his pocket onto the wet ground.

At last, he pulled out a white handkerchief, flecked with the barest hints of blue, and raised it skyward, dismissing his brother’s shouts, brushing off Rhian entirely.

With the handkerchief, a few more matches spilled out of his pocket, skittering into the path of Vulcan’s forthcoming advance.

Vulcan raised an eyebrow at the gesture.

Not yet.

The lowly cheat stepped forth to check the limits of Rafal’s surrender, or rather, his resistance to pain—completely insubordinate to the universal gesture Rafal had just executed. He wanted to test the so-called Evil School Master. School the coward himself.

Not yet.

Vulcan feinted once with the dagger.

Not yet.

Moored in place, Rafal did not move, did not flinch, his neutral expression unwavering and handkerchief tossed aside.

Twice.

Rhian gasped.

Not yet.

NO, Rafal mouthed to Rhian.

There. The viper slung the dagger, aiming for Rafal’s heart the third time.

Now.

The Good School Master valiantly intervened anyway… He took off and dove, but overcorrected, launching himself too far, and straight into a patch of muck to Rafal’s far right, the sludge blinding him.

Rafal, for his part and parcel, simply stepped aside, two paces to the left.

The dagger whizzed by.

Silence.

Then Vulcan roared with the vengeance of a thousand suns and thrust forward with the intent to clobber Rafal.

Hurry up, clod, Rafal carped.

Vulcan slipped on the wet grass, and careened forward, landing onto the scraggly bed of matches.

Rafal laughed and laughed until his stomach started to ache and flicked his wrist in Vulcan’s general direction, scorching him to death by white-hot incineration.

The kindling was meager but effectively fueled.

His proper pay-off! And Vulcan’s send-off! Good riddance! At last.

And all at half past twelve on the dot—praise Adela’s soul! He almost regretted killing her with questions.

Ashes cascaded to the ground, and blew off, carried away by a sorcery-induced wind.

Deceitful designs paired well with dishonorable foes.

Disoriented by the sound of the blast, the puissant odor of charred flesh, and his brother’s psychotic laughter, Rhian groped blindly and used Rafal’s fallen handkerchief to wipe at his eyes. What in the Woods—

Rhian blinked back acrid, grey tears.

Plumes of smoke, cinders still asmoulder, raining down from the sky, and the odd, new Rafal in pirate garb swam into Rhian’s vision—a Rafal curled in on himself, still convulsing with laughter, silent spasms racking his narrow frame, until he straightened up and inhaled deeply.

All that remained of Vulcan was one blackened, steaming tract of lawn.

Rafal sunk into a bow, arms outstretched behind him like a wide ‘V,’ like the wings of a tainted, blue swan, hair glinting brilliantly beneath the sun.

The Night Crawlers broke into rhythmless applause from their places.

And Rhian? Rhian gawped, sat in his puddle, almost catatonic with shock, spitting blades of grass, taking in the scorched clearing and… his brother, the actor.

That squid dye or whatever-it-was would never wash out, Rhian mourned without a second thought for his once-substitute.

The Evil School Master strolled further into the clearing, irreverently stepped over his would-be usurper’s spot, and strode past Rhian, greatcoat flagging. He left his Night Crawlers be on the Inagrotten, fixed his sleeves, and headed towards his School, towards Evil.

Dealing with everything else would be trifles.

He paused in his half victory lap, half impromptu inspection-to-be of student quarters, and glanced over his shoulder at Rhian—poor, feckless Rhian—still agape and paralyzed by shame and the prospect of his own mortality.

Rafal smirked. “Rhian? Now that our Schools, plural, it seems, are settled, why don’t we have a chat? You still have escapades to tell me about, to catch me up on what’s gone on while I was away, don’t you?”

Rhian gawked at Rafal vacantly.

Three…

Two…

One—

Rhian shook himself, wild, golden curls bobbing, and clambered to his feet.

His blue blur of a brother continued across the walkway to Evil.

Rhian gathered his wits about him and wisely decided not to mention the deadly Trial he’d been about to agree to. His soles suctioned up some of the muck and sod as he frantically chased after Rafal.

Before Evil’s raised portcullis, Rafal came to a dead halt, and looked back at Rhian sprinting across the clearing as it sank with the seawater. It’d have to be drained another day. A pity his brother couldn’t fly.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” He crossed the threshold and peered at Vulcan’s great hall. How garish. He’d have to alter all of it.

Rhian arrived, panting, doubled-over in front of Rafal.

Rafal waited for him to catch his breath. “Good.”

Righting himself, Rhian began to enter the dim antechamber, but Rafal held out a hand.

“Wipe your feet outside. I don’t want Vulcan underfoot,” he said pointedly. “And I don’t want his presence tracked anywhere near my castle, much less within it. Oh, and here’s a lesson: I take care against inviting strange men in.” He eyed Rhian’s now-drooping, feathered doublet. “Indeed, you’re rather strangely dressed, but today, I’ll make an exception. Just this once—knowing it won’t bring about ruin.”

Rhian sighed and obeyed.

Rafal hastened down the hall, and Rhian sped past his brother to face him.

“It’s not what you think! Vulcan was a temporary replacement—no, not a replacement!” Rhian rushed to correct himself. “No one could replace you! An inferior. An inferior figurehead—he occupied the position of Dean, originally! I never meant for him to campaign to become a School Master, but the students! It was them! The students were so taken with him that he snaked his way into their hearts and, and—” he rabbited on, “Or, Hell! It may be what you think, but I can explain!”

Rafal tilted his head, vaguely amused, and thought to himself that the situation was looking to be exactly what he thought had happened. He knew his brother well enough to guess that Rhian had succumbed to a misbegotten bout of infatuation. If not that, then Rhian had run afoul of the Rules in some way—that was for certain.

And Rafal knew better than even Rhian’s slip into old patterns from his taste of Seerdom. He’d had to wait around for Vulcan, to sufficiently irritate and thus, provoke him, so the cad struck first—all so Rhian wouldn’t blame him for an unlawful Attack.

That way, he’d just be parrying back—however disproportionately the man’s fate had turned out, it’d needed to be done. And besides, Rafal thought the scoundrel had deserved worse.

He also made a mental note to ask Rhian for the names of the Nevers who’d backed Vulcan, who’d favored a weak-willed imposter of a Never over him, those traitorous, little ingrates.

All the while, Rhian kept jabbering about strawberry salads, and Marialena, the conwoman, and bats.

Rafal shut his eyes and inhaled, trying to regain some semblance of sympathy for Rhian, but couldn’t take the prattling anymore. “Rhian.”

His brother jolted to attention, wide-eyed, like a scolded child.

Rafal sidestepped Rhian and continued down the hall, a purpose in his step. “I swear, not another word, or I swear I’ll sell you off to Bluebeard. At a discount,” Rafal deadpanned, a hint of mirth in his eyes.

Rhian gasped and spluttered, highly affronted. “N-No!”

Rafal bit back a smile and shook his head. “It’s that or a fair trade with the Night Crawlers for their services. Your pick. What will it be?”

“No,” Rhian held firm, glaring murderously at the back of his brother’s partly blue-clotted scalp.

Rafal swanned further down the hall. “Well—I doubted you’d assent to that. Proves you’ve got more than cats under that crown of yours. Fussy, fussy, in all your frippery, hmm? Regardless, if blue or piracy are what you’d want in a companion or savior, I suppose you’d best stay here, with the Night Crawlers and me,” he offered with mock-gallantry.

“JUST LISTEN TO ME!”

Rafal stopped abruptly on his course, and spun on his heels to face Rhian, wet boots screeching on the tiles, as if for mercy, his soles slapping down, echoing. “I already know most of what went on without me here.”

“Oh, really? For Storian’s sake! Why did I ever want you back?”

“Well, it’s what you once wanted, wasn’t it?” Rafal accused sharply. “You despaired when I left. And let’s just say: I’m never leaving you again, if this, this revolting disorder, is how you running the Schools by yourself is bound to turn out.”

“Fine! Good even!” Rhian agreed far too quickly with vestiges of vitriol. “That’s fair and absolutely fine with me! I’ll gladly put up with anything as long as you stay,” he vowed, attempting to appeal to Rafal’s Good side. He didn’t bother to consider that he’d presently rue the words he’d just spoken ere long.

Rafal grinned roguishly. He’d extracted all that he’d needed to proceed with his plans.

His pace became more brisk by the second as Rhian hurried to match his brother’s gait and racing mind. “Lovely. I suppose you won’t mind it if I make some changes. I’d thought I’d have a harder time convincing you, but it seems you won’t break your promise. That would be dishonorable. And Evil.”

Hostage to his word, Rhian swallowed his retort. Rafal would hold him to anything he said from here on out.

“Now, the first of the changes I plan to implement is a curriculum around discerning Good from Evil. With challenges. We’ll rank the classes from one through twenty. Disguises are far too prevalent these days, and I don’t trust you or your students to know any better. Besides, you are in need of remedial lessons.”

Rhian tried to interject, but Rafal held up a blue-stained hand to shut him down, and continued staunchly.

“Not only that—I require a moat. It’d be another line of defense against trespassers. Higher ground, too, of course. Also, a place to bury our dead.”

“What dead?”

“I don’t expect all the students to last long. The Evers almost expired under Vulcan’s reign, it seems to me, from the state of them, quivering like that, and the Nevers won’t last long under me. You can be sure now that some Nevers will perish—even once they’re out from under my regime—there are always failures in the tales, every now and then, no matter how well they’re trained. Ah, and let’s replace Humburg with fresh blood. I can imagine that dolt did nothing to stand against Vulcan, did he?”

Rhian’s eyes had grown wide now, and he was effectively silenced by shock.

“Also, I was thinking of a torture chamber,” Rafal added as if it were an afterthought.

His brother let out a questionable, strangled sound, but Rafal paid him and his antics no mind, and kept outlining his plans.

Rhian couldn’t expand his airways any further, but again, tried to steel himself, tried to marshal all his verve to contradict Rafal now. No, wait, what was he thinking? Opposing Rafal? He couldn’t! Not after Rafal promised to stay. Who knew if Evil upheld promises? Rhian himself certainly hadn’t, when he’d hired Vulcan against Rafal’s wishes that had been expressed long ago, and he was Good.

But before he ever got the chance to summon up the will to challenge Rafal, he lost his chance.

Rafal spoke up, “That should consolidate my power, don’t you think? It’s worked itself out neatly—the arrangement I have in mind. The Night Crawlers will be paid with the blood they’ll have drawn from our mutinous, young charges. No need to hire the Man-Wolves after all, at the high rates they’re demanding. It’ll all be self-contained, and we’ll spare fewer expenses in the long run.”

He continued on blithely as Rhian paled increasingly with every word, complexion turning bloodless.

Rhian swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat.

“And, remind me to replace that Marialena, won't you? I just know—ahem—suspect that she'll sow more chaos if we don't keep a close eye on her, and I'd rather get rid of the potential complication altogether. If we don't rid ourselves of her soon, she could cause a rift between us.”

No, Rhian thought tartly, lungs burning, the new Rafal was doing that all on his own.

“Fortunately, I’ve removed the other variables that could come between us,” Rafal assured himself, picking at the congealed, inky blue at his wrists. “And I know now: the best solution is the proactive one. We'll be far better off without her, trust me. All Seers are meddlers at their cores.”

Determined, Rafal nodded at his new vision for Evil and all that he had armed himself with for the future, and set his hands clasped behind him.

Rhian nodded along weakly, with a thin smile gracing his lips, following several paces away from Rafal’s heels, like a puppet tangled in wire, almost running to match Rafal’s ever-accelerating pace.

SLOW DOWN, Rhian desperately wanted to shout. Slow down with all these ‘improvements.’ But he couldn’t get overly excited over these matters—Rafal might call him ‘hysterical.’

He locked his jaw, numbly. It could always be worse.

Then, at last, the twin School Masters reached Evil’s rear entrance, which looked out onto the seaside beyond.

Huffing and florid-faced, Rhian leaned on the doorframe and coughed—what sort of Storian-ordained exercise had his brother done at sea?

He was glad his brother was back. Really. He was grateful to be alive, grateful they were both alive. Yet, he still feared the worst for Rafal's students.

But that was a problem for another day. Best to just give up for now.

Rhian plodded down the polished, black-granite steps, onto the ashen sand after Rafal, who stood facing the shoreline of the Savage Sea, and then, finally took in Rafal’s new attire as a whole, during his first moment of calm in hours.

He really did resemble a swashbuckler. In fact, Rhian almost didn’t recognize his brother. Almost.

Gone were fine, scholarly, gold-trimmed robes of days past, the olden days—an open, militaristic coat in their stead.

Gone were the starched, white shirts—now replaced with a poet’s shirt, no, a pirate’s shirt, loose-fitting, with flaccid sleeves, laced-up with string.

Gone were the crisp, pressed suits and triple-mantled cloaks. The iron-creased trousers and slim, elegant boots had been banished, replaced by pantaloons, tucked into high, bucket-top boots.

And for the first time, Rhian found he didn’t want a pirate. Not this pirate, setting the ‘ship’ the Storian had entrusted them with on a warpath. This one was more like the warden of a brig besides—keeping him prisoner! He just wanted the old Rafal back. His brother, the School Master, his equal.

But the new Rafal… this was the new Rafal… he was here to stay.

Rhian tried to clear his head.

The Inagrotten was docked at shore, no longer blighting the clearing in front of Good. How considerate of Rafal.

See? The new Rafal wasn’t that bad.

Rhian ambled down to the shore, where Rafal had dropped down to kneel with a twig in hand, black greatcoat splayed over the pale sand, like a flag of oncoming death… or a penitent’s mourning robes.

After his ordeal, Rhian thought he deserved at least one proper question, and yet… what changed? seemed… too complicated. He didn’t want to pry, if anything had gone wrong while Rafal was gone. Perhaps—“Rafal, why are you dressed like a pir—”

The twig snapped. “Not a word, Rhian,” his brother choked out drily with warning in his voice. “My old clothes had blood on them, this was all the Night Crawlers had, and that’s all. End of story.”

Rhian needn’t know about his brother’s recently-acquired status as a Woods-wide felon. Rafal inhaled shakily and returned to leaning over his sand drawing.

Rhian watched, silenced for a moment. “But—”

Rafal sat back on his heels. “Rhian. Nevermind all that. I’ve had a thought. Look.”

Rhian stared down at the twin swans Rafal had etched in the wet sand.

A School crest. And he was part of it.

Was this proof? That the new Rafal still cared about him?

Yet something still needled at Rhian. Leave it be. No more detective work. Rafal’s trip is done. It’s over, he urged himself.

It was low tide though. The tide drew in and washed the sketch away, forever.

But Rafal didn’t care about the sketch. Another thing of his was ruined. Probably broken. For all his spectacle and pride about being early, he had probably been too late. Rafal frowned, hands cold as death, now flattened against the sand.

The tide receded again.

He didn’t say anything for a long while, staring out at the waters, washing in and out, his eyes unfocused, seeing nothing but blue.

Rhian placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “O Captain—” he baited.

Rafal’s voice revived itself. “Shut it.”

But he smiled nonetheless, truly, and slowly rose to his feet.

Rhian looped his arm through Rafal’s and Rafal locked hands with his brother. One more thing he wouldn’t be caught dead losing.

The Good School Master leaned into the Evil one’s side for support, and the Evil brother slackened for once, tension draining from his muscles.

For now, Rhian was just glad to have his twin back. Safe and in one piece.

That was all that mattered in the End.

Right?

⸻

Note:

I think this fic probably has the most “understory,” compared to all the others I’ve written. But you know more than Rhian does as a narrator here.

More accurately, this fic could likely have been entitled: "Rafal Is Essentially a Primo Uomo, Murdered Three (3!) People, and Treats Rhian Harshly > 70% of the Time." Yet, I wanted the title to sound serious in tone, so ideas such as these had to be scrapped.

If anyone wanted to know, I referenced this short poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45474/o-captain-my-captain

Of course, it cannot be taken literally or in its original historical context, but the captain being cold and dead fits Rafal having hardened more inside lately, and become more deadened/more like the probable undead, like the Night Crawlers themselves.

It’s some sort of “heroism” at a personal price, I suppose. Had to be done.

I’d love to play the audience (and respond to) to any feedback you have—any thoughts, feelings, reactions, or concrit you have.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m always willing to elaborate!

Did anyone catch any of the other references I made? Anyone catch wind of my… implications?

I imagine that you’re probably wondering: What happened to James?

Rafal sealed the deal and allowed the Night Crawlers to kill James, but James’ death started off so harrowingly slowly that Rafal decided to intervene and “mercy-kill” him before the Night Crawlers got any further in their feasting. He couldn’t retract his orders. Not after he’d gone this far. Not after James was bleeding out beyond the point of no return. So he let it happen. All to get back to Rhian.

It’s the closest thing to a Face-Heel Turn Rafal could undergo, given that he’s already Evil/grey, I’d like to think, while not being completely amoral and having lost his mind.

Also, please be sure to correct me about anything, if I got anything wrong. I suspect I overly manipulated the setting to fit story purposes, if I did forget certain details.

⸻

Playlist:

“TICKING - SLOWED VERSION” - TIN

This one is like something emerging into your line of vision, gradually? At least the start of it conveys that. I thought it could mimic the beginning effects and the tension. Or slow, dawning horror.

“Darkness Falls” - UNSECRET, Cece And The Dark Hearts

Similar to the atmosphere.

“Natus Vincere” - Future Heroes

The title translates to “born to win.” Seems fated. Also, gives off a time-is-running-out and triumphant, overcome-it-all vibe.

“Future Heroine” - Ecca Vandal

Some lyrics, not all, fit, I thought. Admittedly, the tone doesn’t fit well.

“The Albatross” - Taylor Swift

These lines were particularly relevant (partly ironically with “angel”):

“Devils that you know / Raise worse hell than a stranger”

“Spread my wings like a parachute / I'm the albatross / I swept in at the rescue / The devil that you know / Looks now more like an angel”

“He’s a Pirate” - Klaus Badelt

“Haunted” - Taylor Swift

“i am not who i was" - Chance Peña

Potentially, some parts fit Rafal’s unwritten, internal monologue, to an extent.

“Behind the Sun” - Helgi Olegov

Strikes me as epilogue-esque music.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Hey uhhhhhh can I get some fic recs where post timeskip Sanji’s time on kamabakka leads to him having some actual character growth, unlearning some toxic masculinity and having a queer awakening or two?

[ruins-of-gods]

Something that I think Warhammer 40,000 storytellers miss sometimes is the sheer scale of their setting. I mean, don't get me wrong - I love the big, dramatic clashes, the characters you can buy in mini form and their convoluted, interwoven lore, the dramatic combats against unstoppable foes across a thousand ruined worlds. But that's the top of the setting, as it were - the most powerful beings in the universe, all fighting for supremacy. And at ground level, the level of the ordinary person, are so many other stories.

Did you know that a Lunar-class void cruiser has a crew of 95,000? Nearly a hundred thousand people, aboard a spaceship five kilometers long. A city, flying through outer space to wage war. Many of those people are proper trained soldiers, fresh from some academy or veterans of long, grueling campaigns, and many more are pressed into service, begrudgingly laying their lives at their Emperor's feet. But, unless the ship is currently actively involved in a really bloody campaign, most of those people were born aboard that ship. Most of their parents were born aboard it. And their grandparents. And their great-grandparents. Lineages stretching back centuries, so far that the original soldier who came aboard has been forgotten. A lot of those people probably know, on some level, that they're aboard a ship flying through space - but a lot of them probably don't, and I guarantee you almost none of them understand what that means. This ship is their world. To look out the window means madness so often that they avoid it - not that windows are readily available anyway. Most of them probably barely even understand that they're fighting. All they know is that when the readouts on their analog instruments display like so, when they hurry to obey the blared orders through the klaxon, the Emperor is pleased with them. They were born into that world. When they were children they did smaller tasks the adults couldn't. Their entire existence was winding metal corridors, laid out according to some archaic design, any logic that might dictate their layout long since degraded after millennia of ignorant maintenance, lit only by emergency lights that have long since become the default. They learned how to read an angle readout or how to relay an order perfectly the way another child might learn history or math. When they grew up, their service was flawless, born of pride and ignorance, and when they grew old and died, their legacy was remembered until it was forgotten. Many were killed in battle, but who cares? They gave their lives to the Emperor - a name whose meaning they don't understand, but whose importance they believe in wholeheartedly, all but synonymous with the commanding officers up above.

Sometimes, the klaxons sound a specific command, and every person on board who understands what it means feels a deep, awful dread as they run to their battle stations. They don't know what a warp jump is. They don't understand they're going from one place to another by the fastest way available. All they know is that, for a time, the ship dips into hell. The corridors go wrong. Things and people might not be where or what they were before. Daemons stalk the halls, and must be killed by any who can hold a lasgun. The overcrowded berths, the little nooks that families find for themselves - they are not private anymore. They are not safe. Things drift through the shift that do not care about the laws of physics, but that delight in killing and torturing human beings. Vast energies shake the ship and tear parts of it away - their home, their world, their existence, the biggest thing they can imagine, assaulted by something bigger. Is it the Emperor's punishment for failure? Is this what battle is? What's going on? They don't know, and no one who does can be bothered to tell them. The dread of those who have seen this before is even worse, because they don't know how long it will be. It might be just a few hours. It might be days, or weeks, or months, or years, or decades. It might be centuries, as the captain of the ship goes hunting daemons deep in the warp - the officers live that long, after all, and have little care for those who don't. There will be people born in hell, who spend their entire lives fighting from the day they can stand, and who die in hell, as old age and need catch up to them and they curl up in a corner to perish. To them, it isn't even hell. It's just the world. The world is death and pain and cruelty, an infinite metal box through which monsters stalk, and sometimes you must run to a battle station and do as you're ordered to do. And sometimes, as they reach forty or fifty or even a ripe old sixty, the ship drops out of the Warp, and, for the final years of their life, they are granted a life of relatively safe service better than anything they ever hoped to dream of.

Those are the kinds of stories I want to see more of. Super-soldiers fighting each other is cool, yes, but I want to see this universe explored. I want stories from the perspective of those that keep the Imperium going, or the aeldar, or the tyranids, or anyone, really. There's just so much potential in this setting. It deserves it.

[stu-dyingstudent]

Sakura Haruno fic recs: romance-centric

I, like many others, definitely enjoy a a good romance every so often. All of these recs are going to have the romantic development of the characters as the forefront of the story, so just because the fic includes a ship doesn't mean it will go on the list. That means, many of them might feel more on the slice of life side of the spectrum, but that's not the case for all!!

There is going to be a mix of ships here so if you're interested in one in specific then use the search feature!

Started: 2024.08.28

Last Updated: 2024.12.19

note: feel free to check out my master list which has a bunch of Sakura Haruno fic recs (all organized)!

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To Build a Home - RedPowder || ao3 || E || kakasaku || canon divergence || ongoing

Sakura and Kakashi are assigned a mission that will change the path of their lives forever.

Kakashi and Sakura are forced to marry on orders from the village and I know that description sounds dumb, but trust me when I say this fic is gold. I've always had a hard time with kakasaku fics because I feel the whole teacher/student thing gets swept under the rug too easily, but that's not the case here. Their past relationship from team 7 is a glaring shadow over their marriage and the guilt over the whole situation weighs heavy on Kakashi. This mission isn't easy for either of them and it takes a lot of pull and tug to ensure things don't completely blow up. To Build a Home is probably one of my favorite takes on this ship as the portrayal feels realistic and the character feel accurate to themselves. Just give it a go!

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Approaching Sun - ANerdInAllHerGlory || ffn || T || sasusaku || blank period || ongoing

After 2 years, Sasuke returns to the village where friends anxiously await him. Still troubled by the mysteries of Kaguya and his personal guilt, Sasuke is split between friends and his journey. Troubled by rising casualties and international dependence on her abilities, Sakura is torn between her love for Sasuke and her duty to her village.

Approaching Sun is probably one of the most realistic depictions of Sasuke and Sakura's relationship that I have read. This takes place during the blank period and references the novels, so it feels like an actual possibility of what went down. As much as I love them, I have a hard time believing that their relationship was smooth sailing and so I think this is an interesting take.

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The Fool - thekatthatbarks || ao3 || T || shikasaku || blank period || complete

Ino kicked at a pebble on the ground, her arms folded across her chest. “How long?” Shikamaru sighed and pulled the cigarette away from his lips. “The war." It was a lie somewhat. He’d liked her since they were kids but had simply ignored the budding crush expecting it to fade over time. It hadn’t and by the time the war came around, he accepted he would always carry it despite his increasing efforts to drop it. He’d tried drowning it in the river, burning it in a fire, covering it up with something else. But it was all to no avail. It stuck with him, always apart of him. “Have you ever told anyone? Chouji? Her?” "No."

I actually really like Shikamaru and Sakura as a pairing (or just working together in general); however, I haven't read much of them. The Fool was a great post-war read where with some meddling (curtesy of Ino) we get to watch the progression of their relationship into something more than friends.

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Nightmare in Red - Sariasprincy || ao3 || M || itasaku || non-massacre AU || complete

Haruno Sakura used to think the eyes were the windows to the soul, but after witnessing the horrors of the Sharingan firsthand, she's convinced they are the doors. It was pure chance that led Sakura to the discovery of the disease eating through Uchiha Itachi's lungs and now that she's aware, she knows she cannot just turn a blind eye. But how is she to treat the very man who tortured her while at the same time keep her nightmares from consuming her? That she doesn't know, but she knows she has to try, even if it nearly kills her in the end.

Itachi unintentionally captures Sakura in his mangekyou after being rolled into the hospital for her to heal. While Sakura tries to work through the impacts of the genjutsu she continues to work with him in an effort to cure him of the disease infecting his body. I actually really liked how the whole thing played out. Itachi's sickness was sort of a mystery in the original series and so I found it rather interesting to see what was done in regards to it. Anyway, I love their interactions and Shisui is (like always) a great character as well.

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Blind - ObsidianSickle || ffn || sasusaku || T || canon divergent || complete

It was almost time, Orochimaru was going to take his body as a vessel. He hated being used...he refused to be used. With that thought, he took the kunai in his hand and slashed across his eyes.

I won't lie, Sakura is pretty weak in Blind and the whole thing is super cheesy, but it's still an enjoyable read.

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Ghosts - ElegiesforShiva || ffn || sausaku || M || blank period || incomplete

In love and loss, it often comes back to family, and Team 7 had always been fated, hadn't they? Deny it as she may, Sakura finds her heart strung to them with an uncanny reverence and the weight of their ghosts. Sakura-centric. Heavy, heavy angst. Slow burn Sasusaku. Canon pairings. Lots of friendship feels. Eventual (consensual) lemon.

Ghosts is a pretty dark read where basically everyone is suffering. Sasuke and Sakura in specific have an especially hard time coping with their individual struggles yet they find comfort in each other. Check TWs before going in

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Home is Where the Heart is - DeepPoeticGirl || ffn || sasusaku || T || blank period || complete

And with every moment together, they get just a little closer, a little more comfortable with each other. Fall a little more in love. Post-war. Pre-epilogue.

This fic is actually adorable! Taking place during the black period we get to see how Sasuke and Sakura's relationship slowly progresses. If you've always wondered what their travels were like then definitely check this one out.

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In Times of Peace - SouthSideStory || ffn || sasusaku || M || blank period || canon divergent || complete

The war is over, and like Konoha, Team 7 has rebuilt itself from the ground up. Everything has changed, but Sasuke and Sakura remain much the same. Eleven years, she thinks, is a long time to be in love.

Sakura and Sasuke have like a secret relationship going on. Also, Sakura as a jonin sensei is so good!! I really wish that someone from the original cast actually went down that route, but whatever.

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Labyrinthine - FM_White || ao3 || itasaku || M || canon divergence || complete

ItaSaku (Post Uchiha Massacre) AU: Some things are destined to be. It just takes a couple of tries to get there.ItaSaku. Light KakaSaku.

I actually really liked how this was done as team 7 is still a family, Sasuke didn't lose his mind, Itachi picked a much more respectable path imo, and the characters are all adults.

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Only a Crush by Gingersoup || ao3 || kakasaku || M || canon divergent || complete

It was supposed to be an easy, fun night out. She never intended to wake up in her sensei's bed, half-naked and with no memory of what happened the night before! As she tries to unravel the mystery of that night, something sinister is growing beyond the walls of the Leaf Village... and what was only a crush spirals wildly out of control.

Sakura is unwillingly thrust into the world of illegal drugs, trafficking, and sex all while coming to terms with her new feelings regarding her former sensei. I typically don't like kakasaku, but I think this work is done tastefully well. The characters are both adults and the immorality of the relationship is not ignored, so be prepared for a lot of "we can't," "this is wrong," etc.. Anyway, Sakura is an absolute powerhouse and I thoroughly enjoyed the relationship between all of the different characters and villages!

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Dreaming's End - thepiedsniper || ao3 || T || kakasaku || canon divergence || complete

Sakura didn't avoid the Infinite Tsukuyomi with the others, and all the events that happened afterward were simply the product of her dream-state. When Sakura finally wakes up from years spent in her personal "paradise," she must to learn how to start again. Kakashi is there to help her. ~*~ (TWs for genjutsu-related unreality)

Basically, imagine the entirety of Boruto was Sakura's dream in Infinite Tsukuyomi. When Sakura manages to breakout during the war she's left to deal with serious ramifications of the life she just lived. She finds herself constantly questioning what's real and Kakashi tries to help her through it.

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Mamihlapinatapai - FM_White || ao3 || E || itasaku || canon divergence || ongoing

Mamihlapinatapai・Yagan. (n.) a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something they both desire, but which neither wants to begin In which Sakura tries her hardest to raise one hell of a rambunctious baby by herself, Sasuke is searching for something unknown, and Itachi is the uncle.

In another life where Itachi doesn't end up dying and instead tries his best to help Sakura raise his niece in Sasuke's absence. It's my head canon that everyone came together to help with Sarada just like they did for Kuranai, and so Mamihlapinatapi satisfies that thought for me. I like how Sasuke was criticized in this since as much as I understand the necessity of what he's doing, I also find it completely unfair to his wife and daughter. Itachi and Sakura form a great bond and it's all very domestic and just super fluffy all around, which I love.

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Louder than Words - SouthSideStory || ao3 || T || sasusaku || non-massacre AU || complete

Sakura hasn’t uttered a single word since the day her family died, but Sasuke is determined to hear her, one way or another. (No Uchiha massacre AU.)

Sakura gets taken in by the Uchiha family after Fugaku finds her on a mission. She's been mute ever since, but that doesn't stop her and Sasuke from forming a close bond.

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Snake Bound - shefalls || ao3 || E || sasusaku || canon divergence || complete

"You... took me with you." "That's what I said." "To Orochimaru. You took me with you, to Orochimaru." Sasuke nodded curtly and shoved the medical kit a little more insistently into her hands. Sakura accepted, and prayed to every known god that Orochimaru would ignore her existence. She should've known the gods don't listen. Now only on AO3. Sequel up.

What if Sasuke took Sakura with him like she asked? Snake Bound explores that idea and it's honestly a very uncomfortable read. Their relationship is based off of the isolation and dependency their new situation puts them in. All they really have is each other and the new bond that brings is not a healthy one.

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Armour-Sleeved Single Hit - thatdamnuchiha || ao3 || T || madasaku || time travel AU || one-shot complete

Sasuke always told Sakura she was weak. Even after she trained with Tsunade for years he only had eyes for Naruto whom he considered strong. She would forever be invisible to him no matter how many mountains she toppled.Being a member of Team Seven despite Sasuke’s refusal to acknowledge her meant she got herself into her fair share of sticky situations. Getting stuck a hundred odd years in the past had to take the cake though.But she was just a weak little girl and compared to the shinobi of old she’d be ridiculously pathetic. Sasuke had said she was weak to him – a modern day shinobi who hadn’t been forced into battle after battle like they did in the Warring Clans Era. Obviously she’d be nothing more than a spec of dirt in the eyes of the Founders.

Sakura manages to find herself in founding-era Konoha! While trying to prove that medical ninja are capable fighters she unknowingly gains the affection of Madara Uchiha. After all, the Uchiha find beauty in strength. Super cute read!

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Always You - alex-halcyon || ffn || T || kakasaku || age swap AU || complete

[AU. Age-swap] Kakashi x Sakura. From academy days to the third shinobi war and beyond, Kakashi and Sakura grow up and fall in love.

Basically, Sakura takes Rin's place on the old team 7. The progression between the character is quite interesting as it definitely isn't smooth sailing for Kakashi and Sakura. However, even through everything they find themselves drifting towards each other. Pretty cute imo.

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interim - stannide || ao3 || T || sasusaku || blank period || one-shot complete

Sasuke lives with Sakura in the weeks after the war.

Interim is such a wholesome read where Sasuke and Sakura rekindle their former relationship. Super fluffy

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Tozette || ao3 || T || sasusaku || blank period || one-shot complete

Sasuke is actually eighteen the first time he looks at Sakura and realises abruptly that he wants her.

I think we all know by now that Sasuke has always been attracted to strength, power, so why not when it comes to romance? Essentially, one day on a mission, Sasuke discovers he has a strength kink. Watching him continuously get flustered throughout the fic because of his admiration towards Sakura's strength is so entertaining. Really fun read

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the problem with how time works - MurderMittens || ao3 || E || kakasaku || generation swap AU || complete

"I don't remember you being this uncomfortable when Kakashi was nine and had a crush on you," Ino pointed out neutrally. "You thought it was flattering before." She moved to pour more wine into their glasses as Sakura exhaled sharply out of her nostrils. "Obviously! It was fucking cute when he was a kid! But now he's..." she trailed off, gesticulating feebly. Ino, taking pity on her, finished the sentence: "Now he's a stone cold hottie who looks and sounds like he'd murder the ever-loving shit out of your vagina."

Sakura and Kakashi's generations swap place and boy is it entertaining. With Naruto as his sensei, of course Kakashi has met Sakura. Now that she's back in the village after years, Kakashi decides to try his best to win her over.

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on still water - summersirius || ao3 || T || shisaku || canon divergence || complete

and sometimes, there are days without rain. —shisui/sakura

I'm actually devastated that the author decided to not pursue the plot line after about chapter 15 (it was so good too), but On Still Water is great nonetheless. Some really cute Shisui x Sakura moments

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never let 'em know your next move - MirrorImage003 || ao3 || T || itasaku || non-massacre AU || one-shot complete

six times itachi is surprised by sakura, and the one time he's surprised by his mother.

Sort of drabble style moments between Itachi and Sakura and it's honestly adorable.

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Hatsukoi - sparklyfaerie || ao3 || sasusaku || gen || non-massacre AU || complete

Sasuke leans away as the girl turns to him, and his mother doesn't need to be any closer to guess as to the expression on his face. The girl's body language changes in an instant, and Mikoto recognizes the posture of a little girl in love. It's kind of adorable.

Probably one of the cutest sasusaku fics I have read as Hatsukoi follows them from genin to marriage! It's told in multiple perspectives and it's full of tooth rotting fluff. You get to watch the slow progression of their relationship over time and how they grow even closer in Naruto's absence. Definitely read is you want something light!

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(oh, you'll probably go to heaven) please don't hang your head & cry - SafelyCapricious || ao3 || T || itasaku || time travel AU || one-shot complete

There’s no such thing as a good death. But Sakura faces her death without any regrets. Her dying is keeping her precious people safe — and that’s all she can ask for. So she dies with a smile, taking thousands of enemies with her. She wakes up and falls off the branch she’s laying on.

More of a pre-ship than anything actually romantic, so maybe this isn't the best for this list lmao.

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Ghost - twilightdazzle || ffn || M || sasusaku || canon divergence || complete

Sakura is officially declared missing on a Wednesday morning. Wednesday, what a stupid day to go missing. Of course, Sakura is the only person he knows that is annoying enough to interrupt the middle of the week like this.

Sakura goes missing and this fic is basically Sasuke slowly losing his mind over it. Ghost is honestly pretty darn touching and feels true to Sasuke's character. Everyone is concerned for Sakura and that doesn't exclude him despite how nonchalant he makes himself seem.

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Send me some recs if you have any to share! I'm generally fine with any ship as long as the story is good :)

[stubz]

Injuries and a ship invasion, no one dies

"Why do they let humans take care of our younglings? If it hadn't been for the coalition then it would've been another century till they realize our existence. Their senses have dulled to the point where its laughable that they are the dominating species of their planet. And lets not forget the fact that they're at constant war with each other over the most stupidest things, color of skin, where one lives, who they love, what they believe, etc."

"Calis stop it! Your being a xenophobe. And while some of that is true you should know by now that the humans care deeply for our children."

"I am simply being concerned parent who worries for their young's safety and well-being...we are in a dangerous area right now, the middle of a war zone, and it would make me feel safer if we had some others at the care centre till reinforcements arrive."

"Trust me my brightest, the humans will do everything they can to ensure the safety of our Dali...and knowing them they'll likely surprise you and live up to their reputation."

"...fine, fine, I apologize, you are right. The humans have surprised me so far, what's one more?"

.

..

...

....

"WHERE IS DALI?! WHERE IS MY YOUNGLING CAPTAIN!"

"Calis calm down! Your arm!"

"NO! YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME TO CALM DOWN WHEN ENEMY FORCES HAVE INVADED OUR SHIP AND NONE OF US CAN FIND OUR YOUNG!!"

"Calis, your hurt and so is your partner. Think of Gala, they need you right now."

"...Gala is hurt because they were looking for Dali. They got shot because they were heading to the centre...I have to find Dali. For Gala, Captain."

"I'm sure that Kim and Max are doing everything they can to keep them safe."

"With all do respect Captain, how could 2 unarmed humans survive what our force couldn't."

"...I don't know but its probably going to be one hell of a story we'll be telling for the ages. Now go get your arm treated. That's an order."

.

..

...

....

"WE FOUND THEM!"

"CAPTAIN WE FOUND THE YOUNGLINGS!"

"WE NEED A CRANK AND SEND EVERY AVAILABLE MEDIC!"

"oh great stars please no...nonononono DALI!" the Delzah rushed forward, breaking through the search party, only to be stopped by their captain.

"Calis...you have to let them do their job. We, we just have to hope." he could not help the hitch in his breath. Hoping, praying, that his own child was okay underneath the wreckage that was once the youngling care centre.

They fight and thrash until eventually grief overtakes them. They collapse into the captain's arms wailing.

"...what hope do I have that my child is alive under all that rubble. Captain...the only hope I have is that they died quick and that they are with the stars now..."

"Oh Calis..." he sobs. He knows it. There was hardly a chance that anyone was still alive underneath there. Only the strongest younglings who were from a strong species may survive and his child was not one of those few. They were strong but his child was like him...a runt, the joke of the family. Too small, too weak, too soft. She was surely dead...why couldn't it have been him?

"MAPA!"

"PAPA!"

One by one, children emerge from an opening made in the rubble, and at the front of them was Dali and a small feline like child.

"my glorious star" flinging themself from the Captain Calis dragged themself to meet Dali who leaped into their Mapa's arms.

The captain was not too far behind, running to his daughter and cradling her close. Words were not exchanged but Calis could feel the vibrations coming from their purrs.

"See...I told you they would be waiting..."

last to emerge from the rubble was the humans, carried out on stretchers. Only one was conscious. Glass glittered from their skin, dirt and dust blended with vibrant red blood, staining their white bandages, and a rebar was poking out of the unconscious one's side.

"You...got everyone right?"

"Yes, human Max."

"Good...that's good..." and finally did they lose consciousness.

.

..

...

....

"Apparently they covered the windows and hid the kids in the storage room, putting them to the farthest corner while they formed a human wall in front of the door.

When those quiznaking bastards couldn't break down the door they rigged the centre with explosives. Lucky for us the humans personally requested that the storage room be made durable for the equivalent of their disasters on earth so it held up decently well."

"But how did they get so injured?"

"Decently well, meaning the room wasn't completely stable. Eventually the walls started to give and the humans had to improvise by becoming the new pillars. They took shifts until they both had to hold up the weight for what the kids guess to be 3 hours...imagine holding up all of that weight until you were on your hands and knees with rebars, broken glass, and debris piercing into your body."

"...Gala said that Human Max nearly flatlined and Human Kim needed 2 liters of blood."

"You seem confused."

"...Humans are impressive but how did they do all of that? They were already injured and yet managed to hold up a collapsed ceiling for hours until help arrived, I thought they were completely average and even weaker than us."

"Apparently when their loved ones, especially children, are in danger they tap into their more primal instincts. Allowing them to withstand a shot to the side, a slab of concrete to the head, and hours of keeping a ceiling from collapsing until they know everyone is safe.

Heard a story of a human who died only after he saw his kids was safe from a fire."

"Looks like Gala was right. Humans have surprised me once again."

[radio-fmm]

You must live

What if Luffy and reader got out of Marineford with Ace?

Ace x reader

2.1k words, gn reader, SFW fluffy at the end

Depictions of war and injuries, happy ending!!! Idc idc, the most plot accurate thing I’ve ever written I guess if you haven’t catched up to marineford then don’t read, or do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I ain’t the boss of ya’

War

It had creeped up on you like a nightmare from which you cannot wake up, your heart thrumming in your chest as you repeat to yourself that nothing’s real, that it’ll past— But it doesn’t

You still remember how you got here, the fear after seeing Ace stomping out the deck just about to jump to his striker as he argued with your dad because you knew there was not stopping him, yet you plead

“Don’t do it” now you stood between his sizzling anger and the edge of the ship, arms immediately grabbing his as a cry for help

“I have to do this, you know I do… I can’t let that bastard step on my dad’s name” as you looked right into his gaze you could just feel there was something else, something he was trying to prove not to your dad, not to the crew or you but to himself— Like he had to be of use to deserve his place

“Then I’m going with you” never in your life you had spoken with such conviction; you run to the side of the deck to gather a backpack and quickly tossing some food that was left laying around before everyone had stopped to convince your stubborn lover and failed miserably

“NO!” in all your time with Ace you had never heard him raise his voice at you, but you gave it no mind, quickly scrabbling anything useful for the journey at your arms reach

“Yes” everyone stood frozen knowing better than to speak up, you and Ace were so painfully similar, stubbornness one of the qualities on that list

“I have to do this myself, I want you here where you’re safe” he tried to quickly reach for the backpack now all full and packed but to not avail since you were quicker to toss it on your shoulders and walked straight to his striker

“I can handle myself just fine. I am going because I want to, I am making that decision,”- the silence that followed your statement was seasoned with desperation from the man that was onto your toes -“If you think I’m letting you go by yourself you’re out of your mind Portgas���

His last name leaving your lips had him groaning, a warning to not question you since you had in fact already made your mind and there was not changing it— so stubborn

So you followed him, through the hot desserts of Alabasta, dangerous Marine base’s and infested seas; you would’ve followed him to the end of the world

Maybe that’s were you find yourself now— the love of your life chained about to be executed like his death had something to proof; his blood not one he choose but now being punished for it, the world had failed him even before he was born and it pains you that you didn’t know, that he didn’t tell you about all the self doubt, insecurities and regrets that blinded him, a lot of things now making sense as you recall some of his behavior even before you began to build your relationship— his search for a life worth living that now you and him wonder if he’ll ever get to taste. But you don’t hold it against him, how could you?

By your side stands his brother, a pirate you had met in your lovers journey that had doomed yourselves, a bright and brave pirate that now gives his life away for his big brother, even if there’s no more he can give he does. And you? The pain that aches your heart also aches your bones, one more hit and you’ll probably be gone but you don’t care, as Ace’s voice rattles trough the dead and screams of pain it gives you all the energy and all the will to continue

“Why is it now that my brother, my dad, the love of my life and my crew fight for me, is that I find myself wanting to live?”

His words are drowned by his tears and your own but you feel them to the core, clenching your fists as you make your way through the war unfolding. Marines, pirates and family all fight for the future, you? You just want Ace to live, then you’ll give yourself the luxury of thinking about the future— A future where he is in

You scream his name at the top of your lungs making his head jolt up looking for you from high above, even though a battle cry, your voice soothes him but it also terrifies him. He fears for your life, and if you may want to keep him in it now that you know his biggest secret— what do you think of him now?

His fears quickly fade as you scream once more

“YOU HAVE TO LIVE ACE”

He doesn’t deserve you- he thinks. You had stood by him through thick and thin. even now you could turn away from this war and start anew, yet you fight for him, body scarred, bullets and punches flying above your head but your eyes look for his, your voice chooses to call for his name and reassure him even amongst the chaos— He feels your love as it expands through his tired form, combusting

“I LOVE YOU ACE, WE ALL DO, THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE TO LIVE BECAUSE YOURE WORTH IT”

Luffy glances back at you, the widest smile you’ve ever seen painted on his features, he calls your name while one of his hands holds your shoulder in a tight grip as if trying to keep you on the here and now “We are getting Ace out of here I promise”

That is the last thing you hear before everything becomes a blur, but you hold the promise close because you know it was made with a honest and pure heart. The Marines desperate to win the war and execute your lover pounce over you like a wild animal thirsty for what they call justice, but this is just a masacre. You hold onto the idea that this may pass too, like everything does

Somehow you pull trough, how? You still can’t comprehend, probably out of your resilience alone. Helping Luffy up to uncuff Ace’s restraints knowing he’s the only one capable enough to set him free, and he lives up to his name shocking everyone as both brothers decent making the war hold its breath.

That’s when Ace finally can really see you, your face clear and your presence heavy in his heart— it’s like the first time he ever saw you, love is the only thing stirring around his stomach even in the middle of his own demise as you stand in front of him, there’s nothing more he wants than to kiss you senseless right now, cry as you hold him tight grateful you’re here

But this is not over

It might never be

Your feet move at the speed of light, Ace’s hand wrapped around yours in the tightest grip as if grounding him, while also keeping you safe and sound. You must’ve been thrilled, the love of your life free and by your side now, yet, this cruel world seemed to just hate him- forever cursed by the blood running through his veins

It dawns on you very quickly how getting out of this hell wouldn’t be easy, that you will have to leave people behind just to be free, and it pains you both to have to turn your backs on your captain, your dad. You see the distress trough Ace’s face as he escapes, his heart thrumming louder and louder but apparently not loud enough as he catches the voice of Akainu- one of the Marines admiral’s calling his dad weak, even as he dies for you all

He stops, so do you and as you turn to look for his gaze you catch that same glint that was the reason of this nightmare. Ace was angry, it bubbles on his being like it has done so many times before and you know there’s not changing the course of this— you feel hopeless

You stand terrified in the presence of the admiral, a ruthless man that kills in the name of justice but he’s no different to even the most evil criminals he has wiped from the seas. You are not a believer in any means, but you find yourself prying to anyone above that you’re not next on his list

Ace bites back, Akainu lures him as he continues to spit venom on the ones he loves, the symbol tattooed on Ace’s back nothing but reminding you of how far he can go- and he will now

Because he would never turn his back on the people he loves

It all happened so fast yet so slow; your lover hits the ground, red crimson puddle staining the hard floor as you panic. You turn to all directions as if looking for an answer, a miracle that would get you out of here alive

Then you see it, bright and burning at the heat of the sun— Akainu’s punch flies as it tries to burn Luffy like icarus.

The rubber boy that had flew too close to the sun trying to protect the person he loves most

And of course Ace is rushing to protect him

It’s selfish really, the way you’re only thinking about how to get yourself out of this. You want to run away from the war harmless, untouched; alongside the ones you love standing by your side with a future to think about the next morning. It fuels you; all the grief, pain and anger rises and you don’t know how or why— maybe it was the entity up above that heard your desperate pleas and pulled on the strings of destiny

But… You punch Ace

You punch him harder than you have ever punched before, launching both of your hurt bodies to the other side of the battlefield. Akainu’s fist wavers, enough to miss his actual target, his little brother who holds Ace’s life between his fingertips while it sets alight once again

Everything stills, even as you hit the floor hard, you must’ve passed out after all this torturous time fighting, but you hold onto the little sanity and energy you can

Ace is looking at you incredulous— a million emotions tug at him as he looks back between you and his brother. Is he relieved? Angry? Scared?. For a moment his strong morals crumble as his gaze meets yours; you’re tired, so so tired yet hopeful as you plead for him to change his ways eve if it is for just this once, because you’re a selfish bastard

You can’t really make up what he’s saying to you now, you don’t really care as you use all in you to muster

“You must live Ace”

Your body shuts down, limp crashing on Ace’s naked top half as he holds you desperately, both of you may still lay on the battlefield but you feel safe because you know he’ll listen to you— you know he’ll live

And he would never let you down

It’s cold, you can make out a continuous beep that follows the rhythm of your slow heartbeat. You try to adjust the uncomfortable position in which you lay on your back, but your body doesn’t respond not even your eyelids as you beg them to show you where you are— Were you dead? Safe? At the bottom of the sea?

Air slowly enters your lungs, allowing your tired body to settle, you open your eyes a little hesitant now, a gray metal ceiling greets you

Another breath gives you the courage to move, you don’t recognize any of the coroners that your eyes land on, the bed creeks making the cowboy hat by your bed that was still in the corner of your eye jolt up

There they were, those eyes you adored more than anything… and that you thought you’ll never see again. They are different now, puddled with grief yet softer

It was reliving how after your ears had ringed for so long, to listen to your name spoken so softly, so lovingly

“You’re here” Ace can’t even bring himself to touch you, afraid you may shatter and there was just so much he wanted to say, to do, yet he only thanks you

He sobs now, allowing his walls to fall right at your feet because who else could’ve done it if not you

Your scarred hands cup his freckled face tenderly “Ace… you lived”

What a silly thing to say, of course he lived

Why wouldn’t he live?

Masterlist

I just finished Marineford and omg I just had this looping in my mind, Ace is my favorite character I see a lot of myself in him. This was written in 3 sittings so I may consider writing a corrected/longer version of it if people are interested because I am a huge nerd and love writing takes on arcs and stuff. Anyway Portgas D Ace you would always be famous

[andy-wm]

AYS Behind the scenes: behind the paywall

Now that the Disney+ episodes are complete (sob), my attention is firmly fixed on my mailbox as I wait impatiently for the AYS photobook and QR code.

I was always going to buy the Jikook photobook, even though I doubt there will be much we haven't already seen in the episodes. But the inclusion of the QR code was the clincher.

I must admit, Hybe locking up the behind the scenes for AYS was not on my bingo sheet.

Making behind/additional clips available on Bangtan TV would have been more in line with their regular MO. We don't generally have to pay for what really amounts to outtakes.

Okay, yes, we have to pay for behind cuts of Run BTS, but the actual episodes are free. With everything else the behind clips are included when you buy the series (I'm thinking of BV, ITS, and concert boxed sets).

In fact I can't think of any other time a behind/ bonus clip hasn't been available to fans who pay for the main content.

Maybe it is because Hybe was only contracted to deliver 8 episodes to Disney+ and the price was fixed. Maybe they saw an easy way to make the series more profitable.

We know they will take any opportunity to lighten our wallets.

But I think there's more to it

Let's talk business:

If Hybe wanted to make money from this, having the sale point directly on Weverse would make more sense. That way anyone could buy it any time without having to buy the photobook as well. Even if they charged just a few $$ for these extra clips, the return could be substantial over time. Long tail products can be very lucrative and Hybe clearly knows this - they have heaps of old footage for sale on Weverse. Since they're hosting the content already, it makes sense to keep that 'buy now' button active and let the dollars trickle in.

So why reduce the potential pool of buyers? Why limit this to those who buy the photobook??

Well, let's consider who is going to buy the photobook?

Who is going to fork out US$28 plus postage for a keepsake of these two on their third honeymoon?

I doubt OT7 ARMYs would buy it. Even ARMYs who bias JM or JK - if they aren't part of the SGMB they probably don't want it either.

Solos sure as hell don't want it - they are probably wishing the whole thing never happened... sucks to be them haha

Who really wants to see these two living their best lives together?

We do!

And by we, I mean Jikook supporters.

People who want to see more of this:

and this

And this

We are the people who will buy this photobook (and probably never look at it more than once, let's be honest)

But let's get back to the topic at hand....

The photobook/behind combo seems like a chicken/egg situation to me.

Which came first - as a concept - the photobook or the behind clips?

Did they decide to offer a photobook, and then think of adding the extra footage to make it more appealing?

Or vice versa?

Did they decide to make the behind clips, and think of the photobook afterwards?

Hard to say, since behind clips have always been a thing and recently Hybe is putting out photobooks for everything.

But I think I have a fair idea

Consider the price point for this photobook - it's the same price as most of the others produced recently: +-US$28.

AYS photobook & behind is the same price as the Photo-Folios, Tae's Type 1 (magazine version) photobook, and the Beyond The Stage photobook

🗣 So they aren't charging any extra for the behind footage?

No, they aren't. They're basically giving it to the buyers of the photobook as a gift.

🗣 Could they be making money off it?

Yes, the could.

Long tail, remember?

Looking at the profit-making potential, it makes WAY more sense for Hybe to offer the behind footage on Weverse for a few meagre dollars and... wait for their ship to come in...

See what I did there? hahahhaha (laughing by myself)

They really aren't making any money off this!

how unlike Hybe...

So why go to the effort of setting up QR codes and putting it behind a paywall? It costs money to host content this way. They are in fact SPENDING money to bring us this footage.

Not only through the hosting costs there are also production costs to consider.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just freely share it with ARMY via Bangtan TV? Or not release it at all?

Yes, it would...

So there's only one logical answer...

Hybe has chosen to make the content available - but also make it just that little bit more difficult to access.

This whole exercise seems to be about releasing additional footage without releasing it to the general public. It's being shared specifically with those of us who support them.

Does that mean we'll see slightly more personal content?

Maybe it's a little more revealing of their undeniable bond and their hot chemistry...?

Whatever they contain, these behind clips are definitely for a limited audience - and purposefully so.

The only reason for it, that I can think of, is to safeguard Jimin and Jungkook from too much scrutiny and criticism - from within the fandom (unfortunately) and outside of it.

We will find out in a few days I guess.

In the meantime, I'm camped out by my mailbox

[olderthannetfic]

So, you mentioned low standards of research in podcasts. I don't listen to podcasts or watch a lot of videos about fandom analysis, but I have seen error corrections happening in the wild for what I have listened to, so I can only imagine how annoying it is when you know your shit.

Do you have any resources that come to mind as things everyone who likes fandom should be comfortable with, or specific essays on uniquely important fandoms (such as Sherlock Holmes or Star Trek) that everyone should read? Obviously the OTW resources are up there; what else?

Aside from resources, do you think there are any skills that are especially vital for getting to the bottom of fandom trends? Interview skills are probably pretty high up there.

Any pitfalls you see a lot of young fans falling into?

(I do a lot of fandom history research. It is the thing that gives me joy in fandom; other people like shipping or AUs, I like my little mini-anthropology sandbox and watching how ideas spread. I'm not necessarily good at it, but it's fun!)

--

Well... it's the usual things.

For example, a lot of fans claim to love fandom stats, but the ones that get passed around come from like three people. The people doing those stats, including me, don't usually have a statistics background, which doesn't automatically make them bad, but it really seems like people are just trusting anything with a pie chart.

We've recently seen people discover that those year-end AO3 ship stats have a seriously weird methodology. They don't show the thing their fans are actually trying to find out. People were pissed. But most of the time, they don't even bother asking what the methodology is or trying to do anything themselves.

There's far too much sitting back and waiting for some BNF to spoon feed one publicly-available information.

--

The big failings aren't usually the math itself but, of course, not knowing what question to ask, so it pertains to history research, not just stats.

You'll see a lot of stuff on shipping that looks at AO3 because AO3 shipping numbers are easy to pull... But AO3 shipping numbers don't just happen to be easy to pull: that is both an effect and a cause that is directly related to AO3's content. Someone interested in meta shouldn't be asking "What do AO3's numbers show?" as their first question. They should be asking "Why is this metadata available or not available and what does that mean on a sociological level?"

--

Thing two is the eternal I Have Apparently Never Heard of Anime problem. A fuckton of people theorizing about fandom trends seem to know fucking nothing about whole massive sectors of fandom or treat them as afterthoughts. This is okay if you're writing a history of Media Fandom. It is criminally stupid if you're trying to talk about what makes a piece of media have fic when another doesn't, what kinds of websites make fandoms take off, etc. Those kinds of broad questions need a broad understanding of what's out there.

It's not anime-specific, and I'm not asking for a high degree of knowledge.

I have routinely had people tell me that best friend ships and mystery/crime as a genre aren't popular, and that's why AO3 has this or that pattern... Meanwhile, buddy cops are the bedrock of oldschool slash fandom and make up basically all of the longest-running Western m/m fandoms that aren't Star Trek. CSI slop tends to have legions of future canon het shippers, and they make plenty of fanworks. It's just that some of this is more visible on FFN or older places, not AO3.

I'm always seeing things like someone speculating about how this and that anime fandom thing or bit of mid-00s FFN community drama led to this other thing on AO3, not realizing that AO3 came out of LJ Western fandom slash culture. To them, FFN is so central that it must be the main reference point, not the bajillion and one archives AO3 founders ran or Usenet or mailing lists or LJ.

I once saw someone asking on twitter about where a prominent Ranma fic might have been posted in the mid-90s. People claiming "My professor is an authority!" came out of the woodwork in droves to blither about K/S zines and then LJ. Not only was this entirely wrong, but the right answer was blindingly obvious if you knew enough to interpret the google results. I can only assume that the person tweeting had never heard of Usenet and didn't recognize the acronym for the big anime fanfic group that literally everything like this was first posted to.

I'm talking people insisting that fandom only goes for white characters when it's very obvious that fandom goes for majority leads who are not othered. All the bawwing in the world about "People assume anime characters are white" won't get rid of The Untamed or Kpop thirsters or whatever.

I'm talking sweeping pronouncements about gender and fanfic writers where the person hasn't even heard of FIMFiction or SpaceBattles or Dark Lord Potter cheesefests.

I've been in fandom for a long time, but I wasn't in all these parts, and I wasn't around for 80s zines. You don't need deep knowledge until you pick a research topic. But it's shocking how little shallow, broad knowledge a lot of people have when they're writing their Theory Of All Of Fandom History.

--

People are stupid as shit about survivorship bias, and fandom history is no exception. They're also dumb in the opposite direction, assuming that the thing they like now has always existed in this exact form.

For example, someone got mad at Fanlore for supposedly not documenting the history of f/f zines. Others have searched and searched for the zines of their old show they got into last year and are bewildered to not find any. The reality is that Fanlore editors are attempting to document every Media Fandom zine and have combed through old adzines looking for any mention of anything. Because of the methods of distribution—because it was expensive—small fandoms often had no zines at all.

Femslash fandom doesn't seem to have gotten enough critical mass to do much until Xena. The internet has really democratized things, but even the early internet was still somewhat in that old mindset where only certain popular things have a fandom. I think Yuletide itself, which started in 2003, really helped spread the idea of rare-but-existing fandoms being a thing. FFN and perhaps some other multifandom archives like Media Miner played a huge role.

Nowadays, we think of fic as just how you respond to media, any media, even if there are only two fics for that one car commercial, but that isn't how people saw things in every era—or at least it's not how fandom infrastructure worked. A lot of the time, the big hosting spots were single-fandom archives, often with restrictive content rules. Finding somewhere to post a m/m/f OT3 fic used to be hard. Never mind early zines when photocopiers didn't even exist yet and you had to sell out your print run of 500 to make a go of it.

All good research starts with a lot of preliminary investigation to figure out what you're even trying to look for.

Actually bothering to look for fans talking about their own history or casually chatting with your interview subjects before the formal interview will put a person miles ahead of many of the cringeworthy fandom ~papers~ I've seen.

The biggest mistake people make is going "Okay, these numbers aren't perfect, but some numbers are better than no numbers".

Bullshit.

As soon as there's a pie chart of the false numbers, everyone's brain turns off and they never look at the chart subtitle, never mind the research notes.

Bad numbers are often worse than no numbers.

Look at the logic behind the methodology first. Look at the social context. Basic understanding of human nature and familiarizing oneself with the shape and hangout locations of a community will get you most of the way there before you sit down for a specific interview or try to collect any specific numbers.

--

None of this is a fandom thing. Research is research. It's just that most people think "research" means watching a tiktok that the algorithm likes and were never taught how to evaluate a source for reliability.

Evaluating sources is a skill. I had explicit lessons on it in school. Lots of people don't, and that sucks.

Honestly, watching the more thoughtful debunking content on non-fandom topics, like Miniminuteman's stuff on pseudo-archaeology or Dan Olson's... everything, is a good window into critical thinking, and that's most of what's missing from bad fandom history.

--

But more than any of that, more is more. Not the crap stats, but the narrower, more personal accounts, the interviews. The more fans who investigate their little corner that isn't the same old AO3 site-wide "Why is there so much m/m?" ship stats or the same canned "Everything comes from K/S" history, the better.

What I object to is not amateur efforts but efforts that pull from the same small pool of data or that just reblog a tiny handful of supposed authorities.

--

If people are going to read just one thing... hmm... go try to look up a history of rec.arts.anime.creative, not because I think it's the most important fandom history out there but because it's at the nexus of things a lot of current fandom history work miss.

[saphronethaleph]

Task Failed Successfully

Senator Amidala closed the door to the Naboo senatorial office, and smiled.

“All right,” she said. “Knight Kenobi, Padawan Skywalker. I’m glad the two of you were available.”

“We are, of course, at the disposal of the Senate,” Obi-Wan said.

“And I can guess what the problem is,” Anakin added. “Can’t you, Master?”

“Of course, my young padawan,” Obi-Wan replied. “But what about if the Senator explains?”

“To put it simply, then,” the Senator said. “The Supreme Chancellor would like to know what in the galaxy the Kaminoans are talking about.”

Anakin blinked.

“You don’t know?” he asked. “He doesn’t know?”

“The Senate has some idea of some details, but at this point some or all of them could be incorrect,” Padme replied. “And the Chancellor wanted me to try and understand the specifics.��

“That… could be a problem,” Obi-Wan admitted. “Because the Council doesn’t have much idea either.”

“We were speaking with them for over an hour,” Anakin contributed. “Master is one of the better diplomats in the Jedi Order… we were actually told to try and find out who in the Senate might know what’s going on.”

Padme frowned, slightly. “You mean you were trying to find out if someone in the Senate had done this?” she asked. “But the army was ordered for the Jedi.”

“So we’ve been told,” Obi-Wan replied. “Obviously, it’s only been a few hours, but we haven’t been able to come to any conclusions – and, to put it bluntly, Senator, it could be that this army was ordered with the blame being placed on the Jedi in order to confuse the issue.”

Padme considered that.

“Possible, but I don’t think it’s likely,” she said. “Whoever ordered this army clearly had a reason behind what they were doing, we just don’t know what it is.”

“Which means we’re just going around in circles,” Anakin concluded.

“Perhaps, but simply hearing it from Padme has been useful,” Obi-Wan said. “I hope you’ll keep us informed if you learn anything?”

“Of course,” Padme smiled. “The two of you helped save my planet, Obi-Wan, Ani. You’re friends.”

“The Jedi Order teaches us to avoid attachment,” Anakin said, then grinned slightly. “But friends don’t count, right?”

“If friends did count, then I don’t think most of the Order would be very happy,” Obi-Wan replied.

“Yeah, true,” Anakin agreed. “I think Yoda still sends holocalls to his last padawan.”

“Is there something unusual about that?” Padme asked.

“It’s… more of Order business than anything,” Obi-Wan said. “My padawan really shouldn’t have passed on gossip like that. It’s not going to do him any good when it comes to whether he’ll be knighted.”

“Master,” Anakin complained. “You said I had nothing to worry about!”

“And you seem determined to prove me wrong,” Obi-Wan replied. “Perhaps you can prove me wrong about proving me wrong about that.”

Anakin’s lips moved.

“...okay?” he tried. “I’ll do my best, Master.”

“In that case, Anakin, I will have nothing to worry about,” Obi-Wan replied.

Padme smiled.

“So what are you going to do with the army, anyway?” she asked.

“That’s a very good question, but you should probably ask one of the members of the Council,” Obi-Wan replied.

“Master, everyone knows you’re going to be on the Council some time soon,” Anakin said.

“And I’m not one yet, and everyone doesn’t include me,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “But… really, that does depend on who and why there would be an order of over a million clones to fight for the Jedi. The only possibility I can think of is the Sith, but… why would the Sith order an army for the Jedi?”

“If it’s a Sith plot, do you have any chance of unravelling it?” Padme asked, worried. “You stopped whatever they were trying to do with Naboo.”

“Did we?” Obi-Wan asked.

“No, I mean you, specifically,” Padme replied. “And you, Anakin. The Droid Control Ship was key to whatever it was they were doing, and Obi-Wan killed a Sith.”

“And there’s been no sign of the other in a decade,” Obi-Wan said, thinking back to the Naboo crisis. “Though… now I come to think about that particular series of events, Senator, I do have to ask whether a specific member of the Senate was involved.”

“With the Sith?” Padme asked.

“There’s got to have been some Senators working with the Sith, back then,” Anakin pointed out.

“Perhaps, but that’s not what I mean,” Obi-Wan explained. “I mean the clone army. Because if there is anyone who could accidentally order an army, it is the junior Senator from Naboo.”

He turned, to direct something that was not quite a glare at Senator Binks. “Isn’t that right, Jar Jar?”

“Mesa not as bad as all dat,” Jar Jar protested. “Mesa been doing quite well for mesa self in the last ten years. Mesa has been takin’ classes on avoidin’ disaster and not bein’ clumsy.”

“Perhaps you have,” Obi-Wan said, relenting slightly. “But you must admit, Jar Jar, that certain events have given you a reputation it will take many years to live down yet.”

Jar Jar sighed.

“Mesa knows dat,” he admitted. “Theres-a all kinds of jokes about mesa. It seems like even when mesa floatin’ legislation, people makin’ jokes about waterfalls.”

Obi-Wan nodded, closing his eyes for a moment.

“I apologize, Jar Jar,” he said. “It’s easy for me to forget that you have to deal with that reputation all the time.”

“Yeah,” Jar Jar said.

“Speaking of which,” Anakin began. “Did anyone ever figure out how that happened? If they did, I missed it.”

“Mesa has said it over and over again,” Jar Jar protested. “Mesa was simply showin’ the bombad Chancellor-Elect the really pretty bits of Theed that mesa wasn’t sure that he’sa seen before, and mesa was wavin’ mesa hands around, and mesa… made a boopjak, big mistake.”

“The Chancellor-Elect fell three hundred and eighty metres,” Obi-Wan said. “Then he hit the ground, and exploded. It put something of a damper on the celebrations.”

“Jar Jar does know this,” Padme pointed out. “And he’s heard it over and over. He’s done his very best to put it behind him, and is as valued an ally of Chancellor Stonk as I am.”

“Hesa was a big supporter of rebuildin’ Naboo!” Jar Jar said, brightening as he rebounded in the way only he could. “Stonks even gone to the moon!”

“I heard about the colonization project of Ohma-D’un,” Anakin said, interested. “Do you think the terraforming equipment could be used to help make a planet less dry and sandy?”

He frowned. “Actually, Master… could we use the army for that? The only reason the Republic won’t do anything about Outer Rim slavery is that it would mean building an army, right?”

Padme looked interested, but frowned.

“We’d probably need to find where it came from, first,” she said. “But… I’ll definitely suggest it, Ani.”

She smiled. “Assuming the Senate gets any say in what to do with the army, of course.”

[eatommo]

Hotshot [c.f.99]

CW: Poly!batchxreader, group sex, exhibitionism, oral sex (m&f recieving), double penetration, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, vaginal and anal creampie, multiple partners, cumshots, anal sex, ass eating, spanking, praise, authority kink, cucking? kinda?, implied recording of sex, mention of weapons, mentions of aftercare, overstimulation, post season 7 pre omega, dom/sub dynamics, allusions to subspace, slight degradation, shower sex, mutual pining lots of kissing, no clonecest, liberties for hunter's tattoo, reader has hair long enough to pull, reader gets picked up and carried, i probably missed something let me know!

A/N: 5.6k of pure smut, absolutely no plot here. All mistakes are mine, repost and let me know what/if you like <3

As you climb the steps to the Marauder, something about this mission feels different.  It's been months since you've been away from the boys, and almost as long since you cared.  

Since running away from the clutches of the empire and charming your way aboard the ship you've become an asset to the team even in just your companionship, but it was also nice to have someone around who wasn't a clone.  It made it that much easier to do recon, and also that much easier to infiltrate a group because your face wasn't spread across every corner of the Empire. 

However, the longer you stayed with them, the more you valued what made them different.  You learned who to go to for help with blaster trouble, and even learned to overlook Crosshair’s slights during your target practice.  You’ve also learned that Hunter was sensitive to flowers and strong scents and that he had the best-smelling soap aboard the ship (and never seemed to mind when you used it). Tech, on the other hand, was always great at making you feel included, but was always, always going to double-check anything you did to the ship ‘just in case.’ Echo might've been one of the most interesting people to talk to, during his work with the 501st and the glory days of working alongside some of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy he saw many planets and cultures that you had only dreamed about.   Wrecker, well, he was a big softy despite his talent for demolitions and overall penchant for violence, he was the first to volunteer to take you out and stretch your legs in a nearby city and to help you bring home rations (and a sweet treat or two) for the rest of the crew, and has even carried you home from cantina trips a time or two. 

They were closer than any other troop you'd seen, all depending and working so tightly and neatly together you'd think that adding you to the mix would complicate things but all you seemed to do was fit in like sand in the desert.   You fell into a routine, they'd leave you at the ship during more dangerous jobs, typically with Echo or Tech at your side to assist with any repairs as you kept the inside of the ship in order, and kept a close eye on any equipment and prepping rations and meals as they became available. 

After a stop on Batuu, in which you fought every urge to procure a Loth cat, instead letting Crosshair buy you a long thin vibroblade to appease you.  “I haven't given up by the way.” You shout over your shoulder, as you settle into your seat before the others.  

“I've thought so.” Tech, his voice more amused than anything.  “Let us not berate the woman so that she uses that thing on us, shall we? We are cleared for takeoff.” Wrecker chuckles at the idea of you brandishing the thin blade to any of them.  You could hold your own for sure, but you were no ARC trooper. 

You settle aboard, staying seated until you reach the upper atmosphere, locking your cloak away with your blade, settling back into the seat near the cockpit, and resting your head against the wall.   

“If you need rest, my bunk is open,”  Wrecker whispers his words and his voice contradicting each other.  He's gruff but his speech is soft like he's afraid to startle you, he's cleaning his blaster but leans forward to speak softly to you. “It's still the biggest bunk.” He smiles and with his helmet in his lap, you can see the intense scaring over the side of his head, and your fingers twitch at your side begging to caress it.

“I'm fine thank you.”  You beam at him surprised by the crack in your voice and not wanting to seem ungrateful for the gesture.  “I’m quite content out here.”  Wrecker blushes, as if embarrassed he even brought it up.  

You can hear the audible judgemental breath of Crosshair even from your position behind his back, as he examines his rifle, something amiss and there's a thick tension in the room you can't quite place.  Glancing around as they settle in for take-off, none of them seem to want to meet your eyes.  

“I didn't expect you all to get so shy, I thought maybe you were starting to warm up to me.”   You let your voice trail off, a hint of a tease that cuts into the thick tension in the air for a brief moment. Before Hunter sharply stands up and lets his feet carry him towards you.  

Last night’s mission for Rex was messier than any of you had expected and used up the last of your bacta supply.  Hence the trip to Batuu, and what you thought was a tense conversation about purpose or authority between the group.  You’d overheard something about keeping secrets when you’d greeted them at the ship’s ramp and the pinched nerve in Hunter’s jaw encouraged you to keep your mouth shut.  Since the tension between each of them has been as taught and dangerous as a tightrope.  As the long-haired clone approached you, you sat straighter, already apologizing for being difficult before he cut you off. 

Leaning down until he is practically whispering in your ear, "We are programmed to be professional first and foremost. And we are not always so shy."

Just sharing your space with him has your body reacting to him, vibrating in both fear and a sneaking feeling of arousal.  His breath is hot and you turn to look into his dark brown eyes, eyes you should be so familiar with. “I am not an officer, I do not bite, and there's no reason to be formal.” the sentence comes out as a squeak, and you try to hide embarrassment flashing through your cheeks. 

He smiles, his voice dips lower but is so soft you swear you can feel his words caress your skin, “Easy hotshot, we might like a woman who bites.”

Oh, oh wow. We.

In an instant, everything and all your feelings about them shift and change.  You spent the last few rotations convincing yourself it was normal to feel bubbly around them, they'd saved you, and they were providing for you.  This feeling, the unmistakable pull of longing and need in the pit of your belly, would complicate things.  

Hunter stands and departs the conversation with an ease you envy.  You take a deep breath and compose yourself just to look up and see the rest of the crew watching you, like a wounded animal, you catch just a glimmer of a blush in Echo’s face.  

Rex mentioned they were a tight-knit group he seemed shocked you fell in line with them, but hell you didn't expect this.  Each of them is in their thoughts as you glance around the ship.  Echo and Tech are busying themselves with the controls, but you can see Echo worrying his lip, and Tech turning his head to glance at you every few moments as if wondering what will happen first.  Or rather who?  

Crosshair stares at you, blankly like he's trying to read every line in your smile or every wrinkle in your clothes, your eyes click together and he smiles like a lothcat with a womprat in his teeth. “You're not intimidated by us?”  It's almost as if he's as shocked as the fact itself,   there's a cutting edge to the statement like you should be, and then a corner of his mouth turns up. “You like being here,” he tests the statement as if tasting the fact on his tongue, “with all of us.”

You smirk, doing your best to match the heat in his stare, “I am grateful. I've never felt so important or wanted,” you swallow thickly letting the heat in your body you know Hunter can sense, speak for itself,   “At least, not yet.” You shift in your seat glancing up at Hunter who is glaring hungrily at your chest as if he could hear your heart leap in your chest with every passing moment.  

 You glance up to the stars ahead of the ship, Tech looks like he's preparing the ship to jump to light speed.  The return mission, at its worst, should only take a few days and even less of that is travel, normally you're not one for long lightspeed trips but this time you wonder if it will be too short.

The way the crew looks at you makes your skin tingle, not sure if you’ve ever been paid this much attention before.  As the ship lurches into hyperspace, you let your head lull back to catch Hunter's attention, peering up towards his face as your chin hovers just a foot away from his codpiece.  

Doing your best to keep your breath even, a part of you wishes to stand and kiss him, but this time it’s your turn to feel shy.  You stand, brushing your chest across Hunter’s’ and waltzing over to lean against the control panel of the ship and the two quieter clones on this ship.

The moment Tech realizes you’re moving towards him his posture is stuck straight, but Echo only leans slightly towards you as you pass your hand over his shoulder.  Standing at the front of the ship has only allowed them all to stare at you, your heart skips a beat.  You see Hunter’s eye twitch, he is reading you like a book.

“Well,” you speak slowly and eloquently, playing into their curiosity, “How should we pass the time?”

“Come here.” the room's attention snaps to Crosshair, whose red-hot gaze is marring into your skin. Silence falls over the craft as Crosshair lifts a hand and gestures toward his empty waiting lap.   Slowly, Echo, Tech, and Wrecker turn again towards you but Hunter stays strong locked into some silent dialogue with his brother.  

You feel as if it is entirely dangerous to cross the space between the two. Yet your feet carry you without worry, and neither of them breaks until their vision is obstructed by your body. You turn facing the softened expression in Hunter’s eyes, and slowly lower yourself onto Crosshair's lap.  

Placing your hands on his knees to steady yourself, you lean back until your head is resting on his chest and his breath is hot against the shell of your ear. “Good girl.” 

His whispers send shivers down your spine and Hunter sinks to his knees in front of you, as Cross removes your shirt from over your head and the rest of the Batch descends upon you like wolves.  

As Hunter’s face presses against the softness of your hip, Tech's teeth graze your neck and Wrecker's hands smooth over your nipples, you're overwhelmed at their strength.  These are battle-hardened soldiers, Crosshair runs a calloused finger down your spine, and you're reminded how soft you are.  Your skin is plush and comforts all of Hunter’s senses as the boys proceed to lose themselves upon you, you're reminded of the comfort they provide for you, a safety net you never knew you craved and the appetite you never knew could become so hungry.  

Your canvas pants are ripped down the leg by Wrecker and Hunter’s combined efforts, the sound almost drowned out by a collection of panting wanton noises, and the scraps hit the floor out of sight.  

Hunter noses across the top of your panties, letting his breath fan over the sensitive skin of your pussy as you feel Cross shift his hips and push his hard cock into your ass.  All of them are in full armor, save for the helmets, yet you lie strewn out before them slick pooling in your panties as they take turns pulling pleasure from your body like they serve no higher purpose.  

It's Wrecker who pulls himself from his flight suit first, and you can't remember ever having such a physical reaction to something like this before.  You reach out on instinct, fingers not wrapping completely around his girth and teasing the pink tip until it begins to leak into your palm.  He towers over your head as whimpers and shudders wrack through his body as though he's never been touched.  

You catch a glimpse of Echo, standing slightly off to the side, watching with his pupils fully dilated as he follows the path of Hunter’s mouth on your skin his face flush with crimson.  Tilting your head back you turn towards Crosshair and give him a deep kiss, letting him lick into your mouth feverishly. Hunter’s fingers trace over your seam delicately over the thin fabric of your panties as they grow transparent with your desire.  

Wrecker’s cock is thick and heavy in your hand, and you clench wantingly around nothing, his hips brush into your hand with a tenderness you long to experience. Crosshair snakes a hand up your chest and cradles the thin skin over your throat, chasing Tech’s glancing kisses away,  but taking the opportunity to encourage you to grind your hips against his cock.  

In a few mere movements, the men surrounding you have altered your state of mind and each passing touch coaxes you further into submission.  Tech shifts and lets his breath ghost over your nipples, you turn your head and catch Hunter in a deep kiss noting how different he tastes and feels against you. You let your thumb swipe over the leaking tip of Wrecker's cock, and fight the urge to stuff your fingers in your mouth to taste.  

Hunter breaks the kiss and steps away, letting Echo take his place between your legs but not before using his dagger to cut the hip of your undergarments and stuffing them into one of his pant pockets.  

You blush at the obscenity of it all, but it quickly soothed away but the cool metal of Echo’s headpiece brushing over your thighs. Wordlessly Crosshair adjusts the seat so your pussy is presented to Echo, leaning more onto your back and looking up at the boys devouring your form. 

His mouth is hot, licking softly over your clit as you relax with Crosshair stroking the pulse point in your neck.  You’re slick with arousal and he doesn’t hesitate to lick it up teasing your entrance with the tip of his tongue. 

You writhe, letting yourself melt against him, fighting to stay concentrated enough to play with Wrecker’s balls tugging and rolling them beneath your fingers.  Eager to pleasure every one of them.  

Echo’s glove ghosts over your sex, teasing your entrance with a digit, the leather smoothly gliding over your skin. Hunter and Tech each take to stroking down your thighs and holding them in place, “Easy, meshla, we will take good care of you.” 

Your mind is swimming, when did this start? Tech steps a hair closer to your face, tilting your jaw up with his free hand, and slips a finger past your lips. You suck lightly, sure to match the pace at which you’re stroking Wrecker.  You get a praising hum, and Tech surprisingly is the second to drop his pants and pull himself free. Stroking himself to the rhythm of you teasing him with a curl of your tongue.    

It's the tangled moan of you around Tech’s fingers that breaks Crosshair, his pants unbearably tight and each little movement of your hips making him clench his jaw to stave the noises that die in his throat.  He lifts you to your feet, and removes his pants, letting himself spring free.  You have to admit you expected the armor to be harder to take off. 

You stand on unsteady feet, in an attempt to turn your head towards Crosshair, Hunter captures your chin in two fingers locking your eyes together.  “Echo.” A chuckle reverberates between them, all seemingly on board with whatever plan this could be. Echo slides flat onto his back looking up at you and the rest of the boys.  The realization is enough to make you shiver. Your pussy clenches, still empty, but a dripping mess sticks your thighs together.  Hunter’s eyes are burning through your resolve, there’s an intensity you’d come to respect that now sends a spike of fear through you.  “Sit.”

You go to protest but are quickly shut down and you look around at the men surrounding you eagerly but patiently waiting for you to follow his instructions.  Swallowing thickly over the lump in your throat, you sink to your knees and hover a few inches from Echo’s waiting mouth.  From your knees they tower above you, all but Hunter free from their confines.  You get a good look at the three cocks, all weeping and swollen pink across their tip, beautifully complimenting the darker-tanned skin of their shaft.  

Each of them was different, which only slightly surprises you, Wrecker being the thickest, but both Tech and Crosshair meet him in length.  You can feel each breath from Echo’s mouth, knowing you're probably close to dripping across his chin. You lower slowly, afraid to hurt him, until he licks the seam of your entrance savoring the hot flesh and you seek his tongue sitting on his face in earnest.  His mouth brings welcome waves of pleasure as he suckles on your clit.  

They pump themselves slowly, enjoying the view of your tits bouncing with each shiver.   You start to move your hips in small circles while reaching to palm over Crosshair’s balls and stroking up over his shaft squeezing a bead of precome from the tip.  You open your mouth and glance between them, expecting to see some kind of hierarchy emerge but they take a half step toward you together.  

You opt for taking Tech into your mouth, but only because he's in the middle, letting yourself drool around him as you suck on the thick knot of his cock head, before turning and spitting the excess saliva onto Crosshair’s cock coating it with slick to make your fist glide against him nice and quickly. Tightening around the base and working more of those beautiful precum drips from his leaking tip.  

You snap back to Tech’s cock, tasting the sweat of his skin, and the desire for your body grows with each passing second as he throbs needfully in your mouth.  

Echo is teasing your clit with calculated movements of his tongue, licking around it in sharp purposeful circles, and sucking on it every few passes.  Enough to make your brain fuzz up each time his lips seal around you as Tech nudges the back of your throat to earn a gag.  

You pull off him again, this time gathering the drool in your mouth to cover as much of Wrecker's cock as you physically can.  His cock is so heavy it sways low on his hips thick and so hard your body is already aching for the sting that will accompany the stretch.  You use the thick spit to pump him slower, allowing yourself a moment to admire what has to be the largest you'll ever get the chance to worship. 

The slick sounds are broken with an “Atta girl.”  in the shape of a deep growl from Wrecker’s chest.  He reaches and gathers some drool from your chin and brushes it over your lip and you open instinctively, just as Echo uses his tongue to prod at your entrance.  His praise is as wholesome as his affection for you.

Hunter has taken a seat across from the rest of you, watching as if analyzing each movement of your legs as they quiver from the ravenous pleasure and your throat tightens around the length of Crosshair's shaft.  His thin fingers find purchase at the back of your neck, urging you to sputter around him and the sick squelch just barely audible beneath your moans. 

Echo swiftly plunges two fingers into your pussy, crooking them and stroking deliciously at your g-spot and forcing you to pull yourself away from Crosshair to let your head drop as you fight for composure.  “Let yourself enjoy it little one.  It won’t be your last.” Cross takes the tip of his cock and taps the tip to your tongue.  

You swear, body humming and teetering on the edge before losing yourself to one hellishly explosive orgasm.  It shocks you, body shaking and toes curling against the cool floor as your body burns in the aftershocks Echo works you through it with some tentative kisses to your entrance, and he encourages you to sit up so he can slide out from under you. 

So much of the room is spinning you don’t notice Tech sitting in front of you until you’re kissing him.  His tongue finds yours in a syrupy sweet and methodical kiss as you fight to catch your breath.  Wrecker moves behind you, running his rough hands down your back and palming the flesh of your ass, striking it with a loud slap.  

Tech swallows your gasp, pinching your nipples and pulling them as Wrecker bends you at the waist until you’re scrambling to your hands and knees sucking Tech into your mouth with a compliant and satisfied hum.  

Hunter speaks up, “Turn around.” The trance is broken for the briefest of seconds, and you don't have time to think before they’re turning you so you’re faced with Wrecker’s huge cock and Tech teases your entrance with the tip of his cock.  The passive command that Hunter has over all of you gives you goosebumps, his authority even stronger than the ache they share for you. 

You sink to your elbows, propping your ass up on display and practically begging for Tech to fuck you, pushing back onto the head of his cock, all while blinking away tears as Wrecker’s size makes your jaw ache.  The larger man splays his hand across the back of your head, inciting your thick moans as you work as much of him as you can fit. 

Tech’s hips pitch forward and he’s splitting you open in one fluid deep thrust until your ass is nestled against his hips and he grunts at the eager squeeze of your sex around him. You work your hips in sync with your head the drag of his cock along your walls is unlike anything you’ve ever felt.  He shifts from both knees to one, allowing a deeper thrust to kiss your cervix with a hiss of pain-laced pleasure.  He sets a pace, hips meeting yours in synchronous harmony, and the three of you get lost in each other's pleasure.  

You’re briefly aware of Crosshair stroking himself above you and Hunter is still watching with bated breath as you service his brothers, wondering if you’ll let each of them have a turn or if they’ll need to give you a break.  

Tech snakes a hand around to press a firm thumb against your clit, and a rush of fluid hits the floor of the cargo space that permeates his senses. The sickly sweet smell of your release coats his tongue and he chokes the head of his cock through his clothes to stop him from cumming before he even gets to touch you.  

Your vision is white, and you’re vaguely aware of the spend running down your thighs.  When Tech pulls himself free with a grunt you feel the hot ropes of his cum on your back you whine, feeling ashamed that you long for him to finish inside of you.  You clench around nothing and sit up to look at Wrecker who brushes a hair out of your face.  You kiss him, softly at first, unsure of his comfort with the taste of his precome in your mouth, but he growls and lifts you by your waist, licking into your mouth as he helps you hover over his cock.  

You take advantage of the break, wrapping your arms around his neck and taking the weight off your knees in favor of straddling him. Even in his lap, you’re looking up at him.  Letting gravity do some of the work, you adjust to let him prod at your entrance and sink slowly onto him, the slick warmth of your pussy a welcome substitute for your pretty mouth. 

His chest rumbles beneath yours, groaning as your pussy flutters around him.  You kiss him through a grimace, “Take your time.” He whispers against your mouth, low enough you’re not sure the others hear him.  Heart swelling at the compassion, you let him slowly rock his hips against you, easing his way into your heat and keeping his hands splayed across your hips to support you.  

It’s a slow process, each inch accompanied by breathless and muffled moans followed by kisses and words of endearment.  “You can take it mesh’la.” You’re nearly there, body so in tune with his every word you nearly forgot your showmanship. 

Crosshair is to your right, one hand gripping the base of his cock as precome dribbles and hangs just out of reach from your eager tongue, muttering something in a language you don’t understand. 

You swear you can feel the throb of Wrecker inside of you, and he presses his mouth to your forehead as he pistons his hips slowly angling your body in a way so that he’s moving you along his shaft effortlessly. 

Breathless and spent, you let him.  Being filled by him is almost overwhelming, each push and pull feeling like he's going to split you in half.   He mumbles and groans into your hairline, speaking nonsense in between bitten-off praise.  When his fingers find your clit you all but cry, shaking your head in protest, “Please- I can't.” 

It's Hunter that answers your cries, “You can.” His voice hoarse with need and restraint, “Be a good girl.” Your brow furrows, in concentration, tossing your head back in near agony at the overstimulation. 

Wrecker leans forward and presses his mouth to the column of your throat sucking on the thin skin and leaving a pink welt in his wake.  You feel as if you could explode, not able to hear the sounds of your screams as you shudder and writhe under his touch, against his skin and your body falls slack with the overwhelming pleasure. 

He lifts his face and you catch a pleased smile, like a loth-wolf with its prey in its teeth.  As he throbs and fucks his spend deep into your core.  They all see the muted smile tug at the corner of your mouth as Wrecker cums inside you.  

He holds you for a moment, kissing over the reddish blemish on your throat and waiting for you to make eye contact with him before slipping free with a tangled whimper from both of you.  

Wrecker wraps your legs around him and stands on sturdy legs, you cling to him, resting your cheek on his shoulder hyperaware of the wetness between your thighs. He sets you on Hunter's lap, in your euphoria, he’s lost his pants and sits still in a pair of soft cotton underwear, stark black against his tanned abdomen.  It’s now that you notice his tattoo, so familiar with the portion on his face you never notice how the tattoo bleeds across the entire left side of his body.  

The lines are both clean and elegant, highlighting the rich flawless tone of his figure.  Gorgeously broad shoulders with rippling cords of muscles supporting your cheek as you rest your head lazily and admire him.  Placing a lingering and exhausted kiss to the stretch of skin between his shoulder and neck and relishing the warmth of him against your sweat-soaked skin, in the extra cold air of a ship in hyperspace.  

He runs his fingers through your hair, scratching lightly and working every line of tension out of you over a few minutes.  You distantly hear the sound of the fresher’s shower being turned on.  Crosshair is gone, and you fear a pang of regret and pity. 

 Your breath is coming easier by the time, Hunter carries you towards the sound of the water.  Crosshair meets you both under the water’s spray refreshing your senses and soothing the ache of your muscles. You get settled on your feet between them, legs feeling like they’re made of sand, Hunter’s body is pressed tightly to your back, anchoring and steadying you as you greet Crosshair with an inviting kiss. 

He welcomes your touch, all but overtaking your space completely as you get pressed between the two of them and lost to the feeling of their bodies against yours, Hunter nestled into the small of your back and Crosshair’s cock leaking and purple with need against your belly.

The steam only adds to the dreamlike quality of it all, tendrils wafting off the ground and highlighting the sight of your ass pressed against him.  Hunter doesn’t want to hurt you, but each passing second without fucking you is making him lose his sanity.  As if he might just sink into the floor with the weight of his need crushing him entirely.  

He nibbles at your earlobe, earning a low whine from your chest.  You tilt your head in invitation for his affection, kissing up the column of your neck and tasting the water on your skin tangled with the smell of his brothers.  He makes eye contact with Crosshair, and they communicate silently as they spin you around and switch roles.  

Hunter licking into your mouth and letting his hand run down to your hip and pull you to him.  Expecting the press of Crosshair to your back, you’re startled when you feel the graze of his teeth on your ass.  His palms run over the smooth skin, kneading the flesh and watching it move in response to his touch.  

Crosshair splays a hand on the small of your back, urging you to lean forward.  You glance over your shoulder as he spreads you open and licks a stripe across your asshole. The feeling sends a shiver down your spine, you hear a chuckle as he presses the pad of his thumb into you and watches you with a hungry stare. 

Hunter distracts you, kissing you slowly and running his hands soothingly down your back as Crosshair preps you to take him until he’s working two fingers in and out of you and sucking a bruise into your hip to match the one adorning your throat.  

You nibble on Hunter’s lip, and bury your hands into his hair, tugging at the root living for the whimpers you get out of him.  Crosshair kisses his way up your spine, standing straight, and this time you see them.  There’s a small nod of agreement and both of them turn their full attention to you, “You gonna let us fuck you cyar’ika?”

 Without hesitation, you nod.  You’re not able to explain, how you were able to wrap your arms around Hunter as he hoisted you up his waist and you sank down onto his length.  Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was the way he demanded your submission through the tone of his voice.  No, you thought, it was the way he sounded like he was begging you, he commanded your attention but the way he used his authority had you believing that you, and what he asked of you, was the most important thing in the galaxy.  You wanted nothing more than to give him everything he asked for and more. 

They give you a moment, Hunter biting his lip as your cunt squeezes him like you haven’t already come three times already.  You throw an arm around Crosshair’s neck opening your legs just enough for him to slot himself against you and slowly push into you with the cant of his hips.  

He goes incredibly slow, sawing his hips back and forth and relishing in the feeling of Hunter’s cock also nestled deep inside you making you impossibly tighter and the friction of your walls against him.  

It feels like too much, pain and pleasure mixing in an enchanting cocktail of stimulation, yet still the familiar tug of an orgasm stirs in your belly.  You suppress a sob at the idea of coming for a fourth time around the both of them.  They hush you, nuzzling against you and pressing righteous and thankful kisses to your skin, “Look at you, pretty girl.” Crosshair’s voice is so low and drawn out that it takes every last shred of your concentration to hear what he’s saying, “You look so good taking everything we give you.” 

The inflection acts like a highlight reel, your body remembering along with your brain the feeling of being the center of attention during your first orgasm.  The complexity of your second. The white-hot stretch of Wrecker using and worshipping your body filling you to the brim during the aftershocks of your third.  Hunter whispers against the shell of your ear, “Good girl.” Reading the signs of your body and feeling the crest of your orgasm build around him, and pulling you over the edge with his praise. 

He presses his forehead to yours as he follows close behind, senses overwhelmed and fighting the bend to his knees as they buckle with the intensity of his climax.

Crosshair pumps into you from behind, lifting one of your legs slightly and changing the angle so he can thrust deeper grinding into you, and urging you to lean more heavily on him to keep the three of you from collapsing as he stills and spills into you. 

The three of you pant in silence, ragged breath lost in the noise of the water hitting the metal floor of the fresher, you wordlessly separate.  The endorphins running through your bloodstream turn your muscles' pain into a blissful ache you never want to forget. 

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

[On request, I wrote Tommy in the episode]

Tommy wasn't an EMT, and it looked like that was what was needed most after Athena had landed the plane. The woman whom he - how long had it been now? - had rescued from a sinking cruise ship. How did she always get herself into such absurd situations? In any case, he’d been on duty anyway when all available stations were called to the highway. Because an airplane was going to land there. The chances of this actually working were extremely slim in his opinion, but here they were, a quick triage and apparently hardly any seriously injured passengers later. 

There was orderly chaos, as always during a major operation, and Tommy was focused. So much so that he almost missed Evan running past him. The man half-turned as he ran, almost stumbled, caught himself again and stopped with his arms still flailing. 

“Tommy!”

It wasn't that big grin that made Tommy's heart beat faster, though it almost was – very blue eyes, tousled curls, those ultra-long legs, simply everything about the man was an eye-catcher. Evan in action was yet another special sight. He was brimming with adrenaline, radiating from within; he was exactly where he wanted to be, and that was extremely attractive. 

“She did it,” was all Tommy managed to say.

There were a lot of other things he could have said, of course, but most of them were inappropriate, and time was of the essence. The plane was smoking, it wasn't over yet. 

“She did,” Evan confirmed with that irresistible grin, with that gleam in his eyes that spoke of pride in someone he was very fond of. 

Tommy could only hope that one day he would be the cause for that gleam in Evan's eyes. Ever since he’d seen him smile for the first time, he’d wanted to be the one to turn his sweet pout into a smile. Even now, with all the commotion and smoldering danger still hanging over the people on the highway - not to mention the woman who was still in the cockpit - he couldn't help but cherish the warmth in his heart just by looking at Evan. He'd grown too soft, probably, but it wasn't a bad thing, that’s what life had told him. Life, and love. Though that was a word stored far back in his heart, at least for now. 

“I have to go, the cap... I mean Bobby…”

He was adorable, and this was not the time nor place to tell him, but Evan was Evan, he was a surprise box. He approached him, it almost looked like a leap; then he crushed his lips to Tommy's. It was the shortest and almost most violent kiss he had ever experienced, but that didn't matter. Tommy was so full of adrenaline himself, so close to saying it, but this time his mind would prevail over his heart because it was right. 

"Hurry up," he said, and Evan beamed again, turned and ran. 

Just before the plane, he turned around once more, grinned and waved briefly, then he disappeared from Tommy's field of vision. 

“Sweet, love at the workplace.”

Lucy - who shouldn't be here any more than he was, but couldn't help herself any more than he could - stood behind him, a mocking yet good-natured smile on her lips. 

“Heard you know your way around that,” Tommy grinned and left her standing there. 

A few hours later, the sun had already risen over LA, heralding another hot morning. Tommy lowered the blinds of his house to lock it out. He didn't mind sleeping during the day after a shift, but after this assignment it wasn't at all clear whether he’d be able to find rest soon. It wasn't every day that a plane landed on the highway. What you almost had to reckon with, however, were the numerous overstrained drivers who wedged into each other when the road was cleared, making it necessary to call out the emergency services again. 

Tommy was just thinking about whether he should have a coffee or just pull a pillow over his head when there was a knock. It was a frantic knock, urgent, and he sighed. What the hell…

“Gerrard is back,” Evan sputtered as soon as the door opened. The look on his face was... almost anxious. “He discharged himself from hospital and left us standing at attention at the end of shift.”

“What?” asked Tommy, slightly confused.

He opened the door wide, but Evan just stood there with a desperate look in his eyes.

“Tommy,” he said, and now Tommy was slightly worried. “You… you’ll never believe what he said.”

@supercalime

[allthedoorsareopennow]

Incomplete collection of Marius lore

suggestions for additions are welcome, but it MUST HAVE A SOURCE

overview 

He is the ship’s medic[1]/ship’s doctor[3], plays fiddle and has a mechanised right arm[1].

The ace of hearts card in his hat indicates he is asexual [18].

'He likes love, and love songs, and people in love' [18].

His own romantic inclination is unknown [18].

He knows some German words, but is not fluent [19].

Marius is not white [20].

backstory 

He is neither a baron nor a doctor[3][5]; ‘Baron’ is a corruption of his original name, Byron von Raum[2][5].

Marius has a sister called Dorothea, and they were raised by a single nonbinary parent. Marius doesn’t remember their name or face, and knows them only as Zeze[6].

It is strongly implied that Marius was not mechanised by Dr Carmilla [7].

Marius is 5’5 and very skinny. This is apparently because he came from a world that is ‘somewhat medieval in its nutrition levels’ and Marius was not a healthy child. [14]

He piloted a mecha called KISMET. She was 5-6 storeys tall and slightly insectoid, like a dragonfly or butterfly. [17]

‘The control pod’s entirely in the head, which allows the internal control rig to right itself like a ball bearing, keeping the pilot upright whether she’s standing on the ground, hovering, flying horizontally, banking sharply or even rolling.’ [17]

The mecha is not meelee-oriented. [17]

time with the mechanisms 

Drumbot Brian said that ‘given that we're immortal and don't need a doctor, it's the job we're most comfortable giving Marius, and it keeps him busy’ and also that he ‘frequently tries to psychoanalyze inanimate objects’ [5]

His mechanism was ‘probably botched’ and he has a ‘tenuous grasp on reality’[2] 

According to Jonny, he grew a beard presumably around 08/02/2014 ‘almost instantaneously, and without warning’ and was apparently ‘very upset’ and ‘said he’d been holding it in for decades and just that momentary lapse of concentration as I kneecapped him had ruined all his hard work’[8]

He once dressed up as the Toy Soldier for a halloween concert [9]

Drumbot Brian once responded to someone asking how the mechanisms were by describing marius as ‘mad’[10]

The Aurora describes Marius as ‘the broken doctor’ [16]

songs/albums

He had a planned lecture on the psyche of the olympians, but this was cancelled[11]

He helped Ashes install at a minimum the camera in Ulysses’ vault in UDAD, though he does not remember this[4]

Apparently, ‘Marius spent his time on Fort Galfridian sitting at the porthole for days staring into the sun because he didn't realise it was supposed to be unbearable, and now the Ghouls think he's some sort of prophet’ [12]

In The Bifrost Incident, Marius does not know where he got the violin - in fact, he doesn’t even realise he’s holding it until Lyf points it out [15]

death

Marius was always skeptical of the crew’s immortality and was less surprised to meet his end. ‘One day, at something of a loose end, he will decide to check on the octokittens. Unfortunately, the purring horde has not been fed in many decades, and devours him, head to toe, in 11.7 seconds.’ [13]

Jonny is implied to have already witnessed Marius’ death before the final concert; he says ‘11.7 seconds. At least, by my watch.’ [13]

In Marius’ death, tunes from ‘Blood and Whiskey’ and ‘Favoured Son’ can be heard [13].

meta information

In the Ulysses Dies at Dawn indiegogo fundraiser campaign, one of the donation perks is listed as 'Marius's Journals'. [21]

[1] Mechanisms Marius von Raum Available at: https://themechanisms.com/the-crew/marius-von-raum/ Last accessed: 11/01/24

[2] Young (2020) Future Projects: The Death of Byron von Raum (spoiler free) Available at: https://kofiyoung.com/2020/07/25/future-projects-the-death-of-byron-von-raum-spoiler-free/ Last accessed: 11/01/24

[3] Revenge of Spaceport Mahon

[4] Mechanisms Eskhatos Available at: https://themechanisms.com/fiction/eskhatos/ Last accessed: 11/01/24

[5] Below (2013) Why do immortals need a ship doctor? Available at:  https://www.tumblr.com/the-mechanisms/58736308596/why-do-immortals-need-a-ship-doctor-i-need-an Last accessed: 11/01/24

[6] Young (2023) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/neitherabaron/727612334921678848/holding-checklist-titled-qualities-to-kill Last accessed: 11/01/24

[7] Rasputina (2013) Where'd you folks pick up Marius and Raphiella? Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/the-mechanisms/58960694562/whered-you-folks-pick-up-marius-and-raphiella Last accessed: 11/01/24

[8] Sims (2014) Ingratitude Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/the-mechanisms/75995731661/ingratitude Last accessed: 11/01/24

[9] wickedacephotos (2013) The Mechanisms at The Cellar, 29 Oct 2013, for Halloween with Polar Patterns Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/wickedacephotos/65528149745/wickedacephotos-the-mechanisms-at-the-cellar Last accessed: 11/01/24

[10] Below (2013) Hooray for questions! Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/the-mechanisms/58734952128/i-apologize-that-i-didnt-ask-a-question-to-make Last accessed: 12/01/24

[11] The Mechanisms Ulysses Dies at Dawn Available at: https://themechanisms.bandcamp.com/album/ulysses-dies-at-dawn Last accessed: 12/01/24

[12] thedreadvampy (2020) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/thedreadvampy/624522490768736256/i-feel-like-i-should-clarify-because-it-does-at Last accessed: 12/01/24

[13] The Mechanisms (2020) Death to the Mechanisms Available at: https://themechanisms.bandcamp.com/album/death-to-the-mechanisms Last accessed: 12/01/24

[14] thedreadvampy (2020) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/thedreadvampy/630817295229468672/so-i-am-absolutely-going-to-go-draw-tim-with Last accessed: 12/01/24

[15] thedreadvampy (2020) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/thedreadvampy/631436135234699264/you-dont-need-to-awnser-this-because-i-am-lore Last accessed: 12/01/24

[16] themechanisms A Bedtime Story Available at: https://themechanisms.com/fiction/ghost-in-the-machine/ Last accessed: 06/03/24

[17] Young (2023) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/neitherabaron/708247931183153152 Last accessed: 11/04/24

[18] Young (2024) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/neitherabaron/754005393719640064 Last accessed: 22/06/24

[19] Young (2024) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/neitherabaron/759338848830554112 Last accessed: 20/08/24

[20] thedreadvampy (2020) Available at: https://www.tumblr.com/thedreadvampy/624109112212455424/ Last accessed: 17/11/24

[21] The Mechanisms (2013) The Mechanisms - 'Ulysses Dies At Dawn' Available at: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-mechanisms-ulysses-dies-at-dawn#/ Last accessed: 17/11/24

To add:

not yet added Marius’ dttm dialogue

may add more detail to what is contained in expert testimony

could probably add detail on things seen doing in photos, e.g. Marius playing rock paper scissors with TS. (are photoshoots canon? I assume so)

[3] missing a link

wow did I really miss pilchard. I will Get To It at some point maybe

fungus arm https://www.tumblr.com/neitherabaron/712149115253948416/

perhaps more backstory info from byron

https://x.com/neitherabaron/status/1231124594544783361?s=20

https://x.com/neitherabaron/status/1231604579529302018?s=20

https://www.tumblr.com/neitherabaron/744416410692993024

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fjKHR0astiU - video on how to do the marius dttm makeup

numbers are ordered mostly in when I added the source rather than order of appearance as I have moved things around a lot. as above this is very incomplete and I don’t have the willpower to update this now maybe I will later. I’m just uploading it now since someone wanted marius lore

[liloinkoink]

hey! i'm opening commissions for writing and editing!

if you don't recognize my URL, i'm driflew and skelew on ao3. my most popular current work is the Lamplight AU on skelew, which is the account i’ve been using the most recently, but i've got quite a few works around. take a look at those links for examples of my work and the tone/content i'm best at!

💀 slots:

i've not done this before and am testing it out, so to start i'm only going to have three writing comm slots. if all goes well, i'll probably open them again once i finish, but i don't have a timeframe for how long this will take

i'll also do three editing slots, but those might refresh sooner

💀 price:

writing comms, the rate i'm thinking is 5 cents a word.

(that's $5 for 100 words, $25 for 500 words, and $50 for 1000 words)

editing comms, the rate i'm thinking is $5 for every 1000 words read

💀 what i'll write:

for fandoms, i'm definitely open to write for third life, one piece, and magnus archives. i'd be willing to hear out other fandoms i'm familiar with, like blue exorcist or certain webcomics, but might refuse if i'm not as familiar

for content, you can assume i'm willing to write something similar in content or tone to anything i've already posted. i'll write fluff, angst, character death, and i'd be willing to talk about some amounts of horror / gore, certain romance/ships

if you have questions about specifics about what i'll write, just ask!

💀 what i won't write:

poetry, nsfw (i just don't have the skillset for it), super heavy gore, ships i'm not into (as a general rule i'm not interested in incest or adult/minor)

....pretty sure this wont come up but im not writing any academic essays for you people either

i also reserve the right to just say no because i don't want to

if you have questions about specifics about what i won't write, just ask!

💀 how this works (writing):

DM me here at @liloinkoink or over at @asexualzoro to let me know what you’re thinking. we can talk out the prompt you want written and figure out a word count range of the lowest and highest word count you want, and i’ll aim to fulfill your prompt within those numbers

💀 how this works (editing):

what i'm offering is help with both copy editing and content editing.

DM me here at @liloinkoink or over at @asexualzoro with a summary of the piece you want edited and what specifically you want help with, and i'll do my best to help! if you want content editing, i'll be sure to help with as much advice as i can

you can assume the rules about what i will and won't edit are roughly the same as what i will and won't write

💀 payment:

payment'll be handled through paypal invoice

i won't ask you to pay me anything until the piece is done. i won't give you the piece until you've paid me

if you want to be nice and throw me a bone, my kofi is driflew

💀 AVAILABLE SLOTS:

writing: open, 2/3 available!

editing: open, 3/3 available!

thanks for reading all this! ♥️

[chizups]

Enough of that boring realism for now! Behold, sinner, an angel!

Spent too much on this one just because I tried to figure out what tool works best for me as a liner. More than less I am pleased with this piece.

I also was fighting with myself over that hell of a neckline that became a boob window in the end, even though I tried to avoid it through several redesigns there's always next one. Not sure who lost in this situation lol.

In the mood to write some info about this fantasy. I understand that a ship like that is not everyone's cup of tea, BUT it's not for everyone, it's for ME :D

Behold once again: the info dump✨

***

How character came to be in the first place?

I was gifted Far Cry 6 with Collapse DLC and after playing through it, I had some things to say to Joseph. So I needed an avatar to channel my thoughts. Self insert is always an option, but at the moment I was tired of drawing myself and was not in the mood to make another sona. Besides an unusual looking interpretation of Joseph's mind called for some ethereal entity, not a sad bitch like me lol

I also at the moment was obsessed with playing Warframe (still is), design of my character is based on a frame with the same name - Wisp. Her whole theme is being ethereal and wispy, ghostly character, moving between the fabrics of reality, which works nice with The Bliss, I think. And she has no feet. I'm not sure why it became such a thing for me in this case, I just like this artistic choice, that's all.

Is this character a self insert?

Well, in the end not at all😂 Whatever I wanted to tell through her was taken by the wind it seems. When I started thinking about Blissed Wisp, her biography and their interactions with Joseph, I came to realization that she would be just as easily manipulated by him as so many other characters in the plot, therefore will not say a single word from what was intended to be said in the first place.

If character has to fight, what's their weapon of choice?

Blissed Wisp is a skilled fighter (was created to be) and can use any fire weapon available. However her angelic image in the Project of Eden's Gate limits her choices of weapon to hand to hand combat, which would really be a problem only for her opponents since she is much stronger that an average human being and can injure a person without putting effort into it. She has an option to display her divine power (which are based on warframe abilities as well) but burning people alive is not exactly her cup of tea, so she is restraining herself from using it as well. Blissed Wisp leans more into scaring her opponents - her unusual appearance is just enough to do that - or confuse them by pretending to be a ghostly apparition in the woods.

What song describes character and their partner/love interest?

Who is she? - I Monster

Wisp was a mute witness to Joseph's reflections for years, carefully looking through his thoughts and memories without him noticing. He wasn't the only one she was able to reach, but somehow became most fascinating one to her. For many years after she first spoke to him, Joseph wasn't able to even imagine her face, most probably because she was not allowing him to do that: unsure of how long their connection would last, she figured her appearance was unnecessary information for Joseph to know.

However after some time their established relationship and Seed's religiously charged attitude lead to him become strengthened in faith that he in his mind was talking to an angel or a deity, wishing to get closer to her someday and meet in person if possible, since he was aware that Wisp wasn't just a incorporeal entity (despite her name).

With that desire there were many times Joseph "called" her name in his prayers to engage in conversations.

Where does character live?

Many years was spent in the science facility. I already said before that Far Cry 5 and New Dawn with it's Bliss are two steps away from Outlast and SCP, so I figured making a lab rat of a character that got turned basically into cyborg wasn't really that long of a stretch, but you don't need to agree.

If Wisp arrives in Hope County in time closer to Far Cry 5 dates, her place of residence would be a run down church somewhere in Henbane River region. When she's not there, she is rolling across the bliss fields just genuinely enjoying her freedom under the sun.

She doesn't really hide and is no stranger to cultists in other regions, but in general avoids being seen by people that are not following Joseph's word.

If Wisp arrives in what's left of Hope County by the time of New Dawn, she sticks to New Eden's region, mostly by Joseph's side, helping him with whatever and protecting his people.

How does character handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

Frankly has no idea what mental health is, when it comes to her, trauma is not a word Wisp would use to describe her struggles, yet she is not just traumatized, but was trained for decades to believe that all the suffering she endured - mental and physical - is for the greater purpose that she might not even understand, but pain is inescapable.

However in case of other people, Blissed Wisp mostly understands the needlessness of their suffering, therefore when being a witness to people mental or physical struggles, she feels compassion and expresses it without doubts.

How do Seeds feel about the character?

As was said, obviously Joseph is a big fan. They have a long lasting connection that in some scenarios grows into kind of a romance between a mere man and a deity. Besides the fact that Joseph cherishes his relationship with Blissed Wisp, his Pride cannot help but make somewhat subtle advances towards her now and again in an attempt to strengthen his feeling of uniqueness and chosenness: a unique partner for The Chosen Son of God and Savior of Humanity sounds just right in his mind.

Jacob keeps his distance and is a bit afraid of the entity that Blissed Wisp appears to be in his eyes. Despite the fact that of all people her and Jacob could've find quite a few themes to talk about, he has a hard time to accept her existence, since none of his beliefs really implied the possibility of meeting something like Wisp at all. Of all heralds he is the one who is closed away from Wisp's influence and does not appreciate her in the mountains.

Faith is almost as big of a fan as Joseph, though she is not aware of Blissed Wisp's real nature and believes in her angelic origin, which is not surprising since girl is probably high most of the time. But then again, Wisp was able to insert herself into The Bliss, and that made girls grow closer to each other at least on that topic.

John Seed takes very little of this angelic bullshit, but keeps his mouth shut to appease Joseph first and foremost. He does not believe in Blissed Wisp being an angel, and in his eyes, if paranormal exists, she is a demon at best. However he is not nearly as closed as his older brother and is able to open his mind to Wisp in some cases.

Why this name?

Wisp is not the name of this woman, but the name of the entity she was designed to be. The purposes she was created for did not imply her having a name at all.

Blissed she became under Joseph's influence at Eden's Gate.

What people say about the character?

Though Blissed Wisp is not exactly hiding from people, the influence of Eden's Gate has spread so much, barely any person outside the project would be able to catch a glance of this unusual looking gal. But some did, and that made her into some sort of a local cryptid. Obviously not too many people believe that there is an actual angel roaming Hope County, but people talk there is some... thing.

Sharky was able not only see Blissed Wisp, but have a small chat with her as well and after that just calls her "Joseph's chick" absolutely ignoring her name.

[tgmsunmontue]

Season to Taste - 24/? WIP

Explicit Hangster - Celebrity Chef Bradley and Naval Aviator Jake Seresin who have a relationship spanning the globe before they realize how tightly bound they are to one another. Heading into this little world.

PROLOGUE/ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FORTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTYONE TWENTYTWO TWENTYTHREE

CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR

                He loses his temper much easier when he’s tired and he’s tired a lot the first year the restaurant is open. He knows the saying burning the candle at both ends, but he’s found some way to hollow himself out and also burn the candle from the middle as well. Of course he’s a hard worker, expects those around him to put in just as much and expects the best from them, but when Vi calls him a thoughtless and heartless bastard in Italian while the film crew are still rolling he knows he’s gone too far but his brain is so fried he doesn’t even know what it is he’s done wrong. He crashes for sixteen hours and then has to go and make several apologies. Especially to Vi.

…            …            …

                “This is Admiral Kerner.”

                “Hello Admiral, this is Bradley Bradshaw.”

                There’s a pause on the other end of the line and Bradley bites his lip. He has no idea if the man he called Uncle Sli growing up will remember him. It’s been over fifteen years since he left, and longer since he’s seen him or spoken to him. But he knows how to sweet talk people and enough people to get Slider’s work number.

                “Baby Goose?”

                “Yeah. Hi Uncle Sli… you do remember me huh?”

                “Holy shit… of course I remember you kid. And as if I could forget your face on my TV every time the misses puts it on when I’m home.”

                “Oh. Sorry?”

                “No. Don’t be sorry. It’s nice to see you doing so well. Wait. Why are you calling me?”

                “Uh, I’m really sorry to ask, but I sort of have a favor to ask. Maybe a couple of favors.”

                “Okay. So you’re calling me out of the blue, after not talking to me for years… What do you need?”

                “Uh. It’s probably available to family, I was just wondering if I could know when and where your ship will be calling into port and for how long."

                “Uh. Okay. That’s… all fine. It’s information I can share. Can I ask why?”

                “My, uh, my boyfriend I guess? He’s going to be on your ship for seven months.”

                “You have a boyfriend?”

                “Yeah. So if I could know when and where I might be able to see him, I’d really appreciate it…”

                “I’m helping you organize booty calls!”

                “Uh, yeah, sorry if that’s too – ”

                “Oh no, this is perfect. Your dad would be so proud. Using all the resources available to you so you can get your dick wet!”

                Bradley rolls his eyes and pulls a face, glad he can’t be seen. Because while he’s not wrong it’s not the only reason why Bradley wants to see Jake. He hasn’t heard things like this about his dad in a long time, not since he left Mav’s. He barely remembers his father, but considering his best friend was Maverick, Ice and Slider also considered him friends speaks enough to the joking kind of personality he can imagine him having, coupled with what his mom told him. He remembers warm laughter the most, along with music. Strong arms picking him up.

                “Also, it’s kind of romantic. Your dad was always doing sweet stuff for your mom, making the rest of us look bad.” Oh. He’s never heard that before. Never imagined what kind of partner his dad might have been like and he adds it to the little list he keeps tucked away in his head. “Of course, he was also a terrible flirt, ladies flocked to him. Lucky for the rest of us all he did was flirt and he’d send them our way.”

                Okay, maybe more than he wants or needs to know about his dad.

                “Yeah, anyway Uncle Slider, thank you so much for this. Let me know what I can do to repay you… maybe come and cook you and your wife dinner?”

                “Well, I wouldn’t say no to that, she’d kill me if she found out you’d offered and I turned it down. But I have to ask… does Ice not know about this boyfriend? He could have got you the same info.”

                “Yeah, I know, but… No. He doesn’t know. I kind of want to keep it on the down low for now. We’re only just starting out… Very early days.” God, he doesn’t want to say it’s literally only weeks old, can only imagine how crazy other people might think he is.

                “No no, wait, go back. You mean I know something before Ice? Not only that you have a boyfriend but that he’s a good Navy boy…”

                “Actually he’s one of your aviators,” Bradley says, because there’s no point in not sharing that information. As soon as he sends the care packages and asks Slider to deliver them, he’s going to know exactly who it is. Fuck. He really needs to give Jake a heads up.

                “Jesus kid. Seriously?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Wow. You really couldn’t escape even when you tried huh?”

                Bradley laughs, because yeah, he guesses it might look like that from the outside, but Jake’s career doesn’t actually matter to him, other than the fact that he’s now got the background niggling worry that he’s in a dangerous profession. He finds that there’s no longer any bitterness about not being an aviator himself.

                “Well, I didn’t exactly go seeking him out. Just happens to be what he does, and well… you’re right. I’m not above using any contacts I might have to keep an eye on him and keep him in some comforts of home.”

                Slider snorts at that.

                “I’ll send you all the dates and locations. Plans change of course, but I can keep you updated.”

                “Thanks. I’ll send you some cookies or biscotti next time I send a care package. You still partial to pistachios?”

                “Oh, this just gets better and better. Yeah kid, send me something to keep me on your good side. I am all open to bribery from you.”

                “Oh, there’s one more thing. He calls me Leo. Leonardo. We met in Italy and that’s how I introduced myself, he knows my name is really Bradley Bradshaw, and what happened to my dad, but uh, he’s either completely oblivious about who I am exactly, or he’s really good at pretending he has no idea. So uh… yeah.”

                “Right. Got it. So keep it on the down-low that you’re Bradley Bradshaw.”

                “No. Not really. Just don’t announce it over the PA system?”

                “Got ya.”

…            …            …

                “Lieutenant.”

                “Admiral Kerner sir.”

                “Relax son, I’m not here for work. Just. Turns out we have a mutual friend.”

                “Sir?”

                “Bradley Bradshaw.”

                “Oh! Leo.”

                “Ah. Yes. He did say you called him that. Anyway, I flew with his old man. Was at Top Gun when the training accident happened.”

                “Oh. Yeah. He told me about that. I didn’t realize he still knew people in the service.”

                “Oh, he knows a few,” Admiral Kerner says dryly and Jake wonders who else might pop out of the woodwork. “He was forced onto a different path, and while it might have worked out for the best there are still some deep hurts there.”

                Jake keeps his mouth shut.

                “Anyway, he sent me a care package, because I get mail more regularly. However he sent this to you, care of me. So. I’m now apparently his delivery man.”

                “I’m sorry sir, I’ll ask him not –”

                “It’s fine Lieutenant. He did ring and ask first. Just… he sounded happy. It was good to hear.”

                “Yes sir,” Jake says, not really sure how he can take part in this conversation safely, if this is somehow a weird sort of semi-shovel talk given the reference he made to knowing Leo’s dead father. Does he consider Leo a sort-of son?

                “Enjoy your care package. I know I’ll enjoy mine.”

                “Oh, yes. You too sir,” Jake says, suddenly understanding that Leo must have also sent Admiral Kerner something to his liking, and yeah, if it’s going to keep his CO happy then Jake’s all for it. He takes the package and nods his farewell as he watches Admiral Kerner stride away. He’s going to look up Bradshaw in the database, have a look at whatever Top Gun class Leo’s dad was in, because it might pop up again and he’d rather not be taken by surprise again. He suspects that the whole class might be keeping tabs on Leo, whether he knows about it or not.

                “Why was Admiral Kerner talking to you? What did you do?”

                “Phoenix. Always a pleasure. Why do you automatically assume I’ve done something?”

                “Because you’ve usually done something?”

                “Haha. No. He just, uh, introduced himself I guess. He flew with my boyfriend’s old man,” Jake says, rolling the word boyfriend around in his mouth, because that’s all he can think of calling Leo. He’s never had a boyfriend before, and he finds himself smiling at just the sweet gesture of Leo sending him a care package via the fucking Admiral of all people. Stupidly sweet.

                “You have a boyfriend?”

                “Yeah… You?”

                “More trouble than they’re worth.”

                “Not my one. He sent me a care package.”

                “Through Admiral Kerner?”

                “Yeah. You want to see what he sent me?

                “Do I want to?” Phoenix asks, pulling a face and Jake laughs, in too much of a good mood to get smart.

                “Live dangerously Trace. You might get lucky and I’ll share with you…”

                “Again, do I want that?”

                “He’s a chef. I know you have a sweet tooth.”

                “A chef? Well. Why didn’t you lead with that?”

                Then they’re opening the box, and there’s several carboard boxes, written on the top what they’ve got inside. Cranberry and pistachio cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. Almond and dark chocolate biscotti. Pistachio biscotti. He shouldn’t be surprised, Leo going overboard a little seems very on brand and he has to stop himself from just smiling so widely at the gesture. God, what did he do to deserve such a sweet man doing things like this for him? His sisters are definitely right to be envious.

                “Holy shit these are good…” Phoenix says, and he looks up to find she’s already opened one of the boxes to reveal a resealable plastic bag containing the baked goods. It’s the chocolate chip biscuits and he bites one, crunchy outside, chewy inside, milk chocolate chips and there’s so much sugar he thinks he hears his teeth squeak.

                “Yeah, they’re not bad.”

                “Not bad? These are like… crack.”

                “Hmm. Maybe I just need a glass of milk for the full experience.”

                “Does he sell these? Do you think he’d make me some? I’d suck his dick if he sent me cookies like this.”

                “Well, lucky for you I’m sharing.”

                “Are you sure? If these were mine I’d be hoarding them.”

                “They’re a little too sweet for me.”

                “Your boyfriend is a chef and you critique his cooking?”

                “Everyone has room for improvement Trace.”

                “Even you?”

                “Well, no. It’s hard to improve on perfection.”

                “Perfect asshole maybe…”

                “To your perfect bitch…”

                “What’s his name, this boyfriend of yours?”

                “Leo. Funny story actually. I met him in Italy years ago, like a decade. We… uh, exchanged names, then went our separate ways. Then I was home and there he was at the farmers market my sisters sell their stuff at…”

                “Wow. That’s actually kind of sweet and romantic and nothing like how I imagined your love story might go…”

                “Aw Trace, you imagined my love story?”

                “Yeah, usually it involved conjugal visits.”

                Jake laughs.

TWENTYFIVE

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole in this situation??

First of all I'm so sorry for bringing t/b discourse here but this has been so gd annoying I need help. And all this is is on twitter-retro etc.

I'm 100% here for switch please keep in mind. Idc what anyone else likes it's food I'll eat all of it. But this fandom. Oh this fandom. So here's the context, it's a anime show with a really popular almost canon mlm ship, one of them is crazy beautiful and the other one is a big muscular man. Naturally the fandom like the pretty man as bottom and the muscular man as top. Let's call this DC. Not all people tho and it's the problem.

See, there are some creators who hate the above dynamics so much they make the muscular man a woman, sometimes trans which is fine but they always babygirl him, call him wifey, use she/her pronouns, go all out to make the pretty man over the top masculine so he can be top while making the canon masculine man demure little wife. Note that they're both really tall but D has long hair so they always make him wear accessories to feminize him. I made friends with some authors who used to like switch, they wrote DC back then and they were so good. They were all into switch too. Over the years they became really hateful of DC dynamics and started to exclusively write CD, talk about CD only, rt CD art exclusively.

This is still fine, they're like 10 people out of thousands who don't care, and most people don't care. Until one day recently when I said it was better to ship switch. Those people started clowning me, saying it's their right to exclusively like whatever, write whatever, started ignoring how the show portrays them. They wrote literal threads detailing how to how use tags as if no one knows, shaded people who said they didn't care and would use whatever tags they liked. It got to a point I had to ask them to stop, they started saying I was harassing them and accused the fandom of harassing them on anon and ao3. When I said it Doesn't Matter they said it was racist to suggest that, telling me to block if I didn't like their posts. I could not make them understand how fetishistic it was, just because Japanese fans do this doesn't mean it's good or we have to follow? They somehow figured out who I was and blocked me, kicked me out of a server we were in together, so I lost mutuals and some followers too.

Then they started answering my asks unseriously like "I write CD to piss YOU off" "can't project on the twink like yall" and started insulting switch fans calling us hypocrits. There isn't much CD content to begin with how can I share more of those? Whatever is available they make it heteronormative like that. One of them deadass called me an asshole for "harassing" them just because I said it's rude to block people over t/b dynamics when no one is bothering anyone, because these people are always blocking anyone posting DC and making a bubble of CD only fans. This is bound to make them lose track of canon but who cares anymore. They keep complaining about being harassed for liking CD and yes some fans probably send anon hate but that doesn't mean any critic of CD is harassment?

Tell me how I'm the asshole here for suggesting they stop obsessing over t/b this much? How am I the asshole when I'm the one they all blocked and apparently I'm a bad guy because I followed some popular accounts who post DC and said some weird things about D which I didn't even know about.

What are these acronyms?