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leviathan-dee · 4 years ago

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Okay how about a drabble where Vergil motivates his female s/o who is struggling to do her assignments? Can be sfw or nsfw depending on the suitability of the topic and I may or may not having this motivation problem 😂

Aii!! I’m so sorry this took so long 😓 Tbh, I saw nsfw and took this as an opportunity to get my simp train going. So here goes, a lil bit of...

°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· 𝓢𝓹𝓲𝓬𝓮 °°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.·

Motivational Lessons

Vergil x Fem!Reader (NSFW)

Word Count: 1,613

Fumbling on an assignment that was due in less than a week was admittedly not how you wanted to spend your days off. You were surrounded by countless closed study books, dried out pens from their disuse, and an empty word document, a cursor blinking quizzically at your inactivity. It’s been almost three agonizing hours since you began your search for a drop of motivation. Alas, no such luck. Even the cup of tea that your partner brewed at the beginning of your session remained unmoved, the condensation on the mug dripping down to pool onto the blank papers.

You sighed, inadvertently drawing Vergil’s attention.

“You are troubled.” Without lifting his gaze from his beloved hardcover of poetry, he spoke, the comment blending between lines of a question and a statement. You sighed once more, carding your fingers through your hair.

“What gave you that idea?” Your slight burst of annoyance felt like whacking the hornet’s nest, however Vergil’s reply was more gentle and soft spoken than before.

“The lack of movement for the duration of your coursework. What gives, my sweet?”

“I just can’t get into the mindset. I think I’m too stressed with all that is going on.”

Snapping his book shut, he uncrossed his legs and tilted forward, directing his attention now completely to you. The pose he assumed was akin to a cat, ready to pounce on its prey. Perhaps you were imagining it, but the sudden mischievous glint in his eyes unnerved you just as much as his predatory pose.

“Perhaps you are in need of encouragement?”

“I’ll bite. What do you have in mind?” You swallowed thickly, anticipation building like a steady flow of water. Only time will tell if you would regret your words.

“Let me demonstrate.” Moving with a feline grace, his arm swayed in the opposite direction, guiding you to stand from your seat. Once you obeyed, he propped himself upon the cushioned surface, his stern expression morphing into a minuscule smirk.

“Sit,” he presented you his lap by patting his thigh, “you are tense. A prime reason as to why you simply cannot get anything done.”

With an incredulous expression, you gawked at the sudden change in his demeanour. Admittedly, it was a bad idea to disobey the devil, knowing your previous experiences containing punishments of the euphoric kind. You planted yourself comfortably upon his leg, feeling his arms securely tighten around your waist. His palms were warmer than usual. In fact, you noted that his gloves were off. Strange...

“Now focus on your assignment. Need I encourage you, I know exactly what to do.” The growl that rolled off his tongue caused a shiver to travel through every fiber of your being. A wickedness entirely indescribable churned deep within his gaze. It wasn’t often you experienced that; Vergil knew to reserve this part of him for special occasions.

Apparently, this was one such occasion.

The cursor continued blinking, it’s manner now seeming wary. You stared at it, wondering what words might flow from your already exhausted mind. There were so many jumbled thoughts. Some from the carnal closeness between you and your beloved, and very few were of the coursework itself. Vergil propped his chin upon your shoulder, breathing down your neck. Was this a warning? Or encouragement?

“Need I promote your thoughts? Or is your mind elsewhere?” As you expected, it was neither. This was a promise; an invitation. For both of your benefits.

You could feel a smirk ghost his lips, as his hands continued to rest on your waist possessively, their grip tightening to an almost uncomfortable pressure. Unsure of whether to begin your coursework, or to let fate take its course, your fingertips started their sluggish crawl across the keyboard. Vergil seemed to ease his grip, instead shifting to your right thigh, resting his warm palm on top of the plump surface. This made you suck in a breath between your teeth which only Vergil would notice. No matter how much you wanted him to simply have his way, this was a good opportunity to finish what you’ve started studying-wise.

…

After two paragraphs of constant erasing and rewriting, you sighed, irked at your own scattered mind. Evidently, Vergil watched your entire tirade at the keyboard. It was almost as interesting as a tumultuous nineteenth century drama. Every few words, he hummed in approval, reading and checking your text. However, your gusto seemed to slow to an almost complete stop. You could feel his mischievous smile once again grace his visage.

Bringing his palm up to cradle your chin from behind, he directed your vision behind you, his own smoldering gaze melting you from the inside.

“Is that it? You’re giving up, my sweet?”

“No, I just need a break-” You were cut off by a feathery caress at your loin, promoting whatever feverish thoughts that waited on the cusp of your mind. Instinctually, you leaned into the touch like a starved animal. Vergil seemed to enjoy your reaction, knowing full well that only his fingertips can encourage such a visceral response from your body.

“A break, you say? Let me assist you,” he purred in your ear, heated breath only intensifying the sensation of his digits running circles achingly close to your clothed core.

You couldn’t withhold your lewd mewls, letting them cascade out of your lungs as Vergil’s teeth began sinking into your bare shoulder, followed by promises of ecstasy in the form of trailing kisses upon your skin. His hands teased at your waistband, slipping beneath the fabric to find his goal. Your own fingers searched for purchase, not to lose yourself entirely to this hedonism. They found their way to the blue devil’s hair behind you, and encouraged his tongue to trek along the flesh of your shoulder.

A maelstrom of pleasure spread through you as Vergil’s hand began lavishing your folds with longing strokes. The sheer playful movements of his digits were teasing, daring you to release your tension all over them, there and then. It was almost shameful how easily he could elicit such a reaction from your body. How he forced these noises from you, the pressures of assignment life fading away into nothingness.

Approving hums vibrated within Vergil’s chest, resonating against your back, provoking the throbs deep in your core. You moaned in turn, giving him the greenlight to plunge into your heat with two digits. Admittedly, you were now certain this was his plan all along, usually wearing fingerless gloves even outside of combat. Besides, he seemed too eager to get you in this state.

That sneaky devil.

Nevertheless, that motion was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Your walls tensed instinctually around his fingers as they shamelessly pumped in and out. Vergil knew exactly the spot to caress, seeing how your frame arched itself to accommodate his own. God, he loved seeing you in this state; At his mercy.

“Y/N. You will finish this assignment, as I will finish you. Is that clear?” The sovereign tone with which Vergil spoke alone could send you spiralling over the edge. You nodded eagerly, desperate to release the tide of pleasure rocking against your swollen walls.

Observing your lethargic demeanor, and your eyes glazed over with depravity, the devil decided to send you into paroxysms of pleasure by focusing two hands on your heat. With one swirling your bud, and the other continuing its rhythmic movements inside you, his smug visage in the now blacked out screensaver of the monitor observed your near undone state.

“How are you feeling? Relaxed yet? Encouraged to do your studies? I won’t have you failing. Not in this state.” To your surprise, Vergil's smirk never faltered. His tongue continued to play upon your shoulder and neck as you encouraged his efforts with your incoherent cries.

“Vergil-'' Your fragmented moans, and the bucking of your hips against his working hands only prompted him to intensify his tirade. He left you kicking helplessly, trying to find an object to perch against with your legs, and swing your hips in any direction if only to lessen the overstimulation. Blank papers landed to the ground, and pencils and pens alike tumbled from the force of your pleasured kicks against the furniture. Even the untouched tea spluttered all over the desk, staining amber upon the surface of the paper beneath. But you didn't have a care in the world; right now your focus was on the endless waves of gratification you were bestowed upon by the blue devil.

All of your previous worries seemed to melt away. Even the stress of creeping deadlines and sleepless nights dissipated into a mere sliver of a memory. Your rippling muscles beneath Vergil's hands eased, his own limbs holding you in place as you fell limp from exhaustion on his lap. With a tender trail of kisses along your neck, and the last one behind your ear, he hummed and coiled his arms around your waist to pull you into a warm hug. You hummed in return.

"Was that encouragement enough? Or do I have to resume this motivational lesson?" Vergil purred in your ear, a hint of playfulness meandering in his voice.

"Hmm, I am still feeling a bit tense." You rolled your shoulders to accentuate your 'discomfort', expecting Vergil to react accordingly. And react he did, his immense strength scooping you into his arms from behind, your body weighing a feather on his frame. With proud steps and a teasing expression, he marched towards your bedroom, a saccharine smirk dancing on his lips.

"I was hoping you'd say that. You'll be writing books once I'm done with you, my sweet."

#devil may cry #vergil x reader #Vergil #dmc #leviathan-writes #request

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hopeassassin · 3 years ago

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Rally’s Scribbles in the Work

So after that lovely anon blew my mind away with their kind words and wonderful support, and because I keep telling you guys about my writing plans without actually giving you even a teensy little detail, I have decided to stop being coy and actually likely get your hopes up a bit by dilvulging small details and bits of plots of what is currently going on in my G-Drive.

This will be a brief recount of what I have currently baking in the AoMomo oven, so let’s dive right into it! Please note that the numbers are in no particular order - I just keep revisiting each of these stories and writing a bit more to them whenever I feel like it. So there’s no ranking and no importance, just a number to keep proper count.

1. “Knight of Renown” Dragons and Knighthood AU, based on that one AoMomo pic with Momo ithe Knight and Dragon Aomine that I reblogged a while back and I actually let me imagination go a bit too much in the tags. I ended up actually rather enjoying the premise I set up in the tags so I actually started writing that one out! Completion rate at about: 5%? I’d say? Less? :D

2. AoMomo Music AU - a dearly beloved project that I am pouring a lot of love and attentioin to. That’s why it’s coming along super slow. It’s been in the making since November and I chewed it and mulled through it so thoroughly that I’ve grinded to a halt with it. Intending for there to be 2 chapters, and I am at about 25-30% of chapter 1 currently ready currently. At the pace I’m going, it might be another full year before you actually get to see this bad boy up, but when you do, I’m sure you’ll see all the care and effort that went into making it perfect. Honestly, no joke here, I am intending for this to be one of my rare masterpieces in this tag. So I’m not gonna rush it!

3. AoMomo Car Accident AU where Daiki barely manages to save Satsuki from being run over by a hit-and-run and ends up being the one run over instead. This was my first piece of writing after coming back to AoMomo last summer and yet completion rate is a sad thing. I want it to be flawless, a perfectly agonizing, thrilling type of torturous read that gives you a great sense of relief by the end of it. Needless to say, the clusterfuck of negative feelings is a bit difficult to hold onto for a prolonged period of time and the work is coming along slowly. Planned at about 5 chapters, I have 2 complete ones and the 3rd one is at about ... 30%? Hopefully before this year’s whumptober, we’ll have a finished piece!

4. AoMomo bond character study, which went in a direction I did NOT expect nor intend. It was suppsoed to be an idea that you will see also listed below. But I started this one from their early childhood and somehow, instead of focusing on the kids and their bond and their weird interactions with each other and their first moments of realizing they are of opposite genders, it turned into something much too fun to let go of and the ideas for scenes just kept piling. It’s going to be a long one, very explorative and very in-depth character study on the bond between these two and how it changed over the years, and their first encounters with their sexuality inbetween (because that was really the main idea that I started with... xDDD;;;) Currently at 1 chapter complete, chapter 2 somewhere around 50-60% completion, and at least 6-7 chapters to come after that, soooo.... :’DDDD YEAH. THIS ONE AIN’T SEEING THE LIGHT OF DAY ANYTIME SOON.

5. AoMomo deciding to practice stuff on each other, because I am a sucker for this trope.THIS will be what the idea under previous number 4 was SUPPOSED to be like, but it instead spun out of control. So this one, under number 5, is going to be the smutty, idiots bumbling through physicality to discover that they actually have serious feelings for each other kind of piece. Chapters are planned at about at least 6-7 or so, but not my usual monstrocities! :D First we start with practice kissing, and we move our way up from there!

6. “The Evil of Humanity” AU - a dystopian futuristic kinda mecha AU, sort of an amalgamation of some of my favourite anime in the genre - a bit of NGE, a bit of Gurren-Lagann, a lot of Darling in the Franxx rewrite and improvement, in distinctly AoMomo colors. I poured a lot of thought and love into initial outline of main moments for this one, and I really hope to make it an epic, thrilling action/adventure with a big dash of romance kind of read! Chapters currently not even planned properly, because I need to sit down and consider this seriously. It will definitely be more than 10-15 though, and they will be my usual chapter lengths so.... likely no time soon. :D

7. Aomine Fanclub - I got a plot bunny some time ago and I shared it here and my friends were spurring me on with it, so I started trying it out a little more. I’ve written out like... maybe 30% of this one as well, but need to re-read and reconceptualize to get it back on track. The issue with this one is that I’m not really sure where I want to take it, thus it’s on the back burner at the moment.

8. KagaKuro AoMomo double-date kind of story, where Aomine is asking some curious questions of Taiga about going to America and pondering if any of his immediate friends know what Satsuki wants to do with her life. I’m really invested in this one but haven’t started properly writing it out yet beyond just sketching out the idea so I don’t forget it. (I’d say 1% complete here.) Really looking forward to using the idea of Kagami being super impressed with AoMomo perfect sync when playing as a team in arcade games!

9.Laws of Attraction Chapter 2 - You might be surprised at this, but I’m actually super invested in this one. Likely the reason why I am delaying so much working on it - I feel like all my great scene ideas are just too chaotic and I have a hard time starting the chapter flowing properly. I had like 4-5 false starts already and I’m feeling a bit skittish with picking it up. But I have such AMAZING concepts on where to take it after it revvs up the engine, so... Maybe sometime this year! Completion rate: 0% written, but at least about 30% ideas built up for the installment!

10. AoMomo college rooming together story - sort of an expansion on my fill for one of the prompts way back those years ago in AoMomo week. I really dig the concept and the trope of sharing spaces with someone you consider nothing more than a friend and then gradually learning to appreciate each other for something so much more. I am definitely doing this one some day, but not anytime soon, likely.

11. A random idea bit me the other day (read: a month ago) and I actually wrote out like... maybe 25% of it already as well. A random comment from Wakamatsu miffs Satsuki but then she realizes why he’s asking dumb questions and she comes to realize that something is wrong with the equation: either Dai-chan likes someone really close to them and she hasn’t realized, which is unlikely, or Dai-chan likes HER and is super blase about it in a way that betrays his feelings not at all, which is even more unlikely. Being a curious individual, she sets out to find which it is! Some hilarity should ensue but mostly just some mess-with-Dai-chan fun!

12. Touou summer training camp at the sea - progress is practically 0, I wanted to write a summery piece and set my mind on this, but nothing beyond has come to me, so I’m not forcing it.

13. AoMomo cultural festival fic in second year of high school (meaning something approx end of Oct -> beginning of Nov.) with Daiki being in a distinctly Haruhu Suzumiya role at that festival (has anyone even seen this anime? I adored that episode to freaking bits, man, it’s engraved upon my soul) and singing Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” and one more song just like Haruhi did. And Satsuki just beholding the phenomenon he becomes in no time flat while he lays bare his passion for life for all the student body to see. Shippiness will happen in private afterwards!

14. You Can Leave Your Hat On Chapter 2 - Probably like 2-3 years ago while I was still in the damn woodwork and wrestling with real life and adulting being crap, I remembered this AU premise and I got super hyped on the idea of Club Owner Dai-chan being a flirt with innocent Satsuki who got dragged to his joined and fell in love at first sight with his shenanigans. I’ve already played around for like 7k words with the second chapter of this but I’m still not where I want to be at, so it will take a while longer to flesh it out.

15. Idol Worship - a story that I promised my mate aricana some 6 years ago the premise for which I am super hyped for but not quite engaging with it yet. The idea was that Momoi finally starts gettiing the dates she has been pesting Kuroko for for years, and Daiki feeling terrible about beholding that, whilst Kise is being pestered by Horikita Mai for a date and instead ditches her with Daiki because he knows his former Teikou classmate is a huge fan of her. Mai-chan isn’t particularly happy but somehow ends up enjoying her time with Daiki and starts considering actually pursuing him instead of Kise when she sees what an interesting soul he is, with the torch that he’s carrying for some girl in his life he doesn’t really talk about but is evident from the little things he drops off as hits. AoMomo shenanigans will start to ensue properly when Satsuki realizes that Daiki is actually having a close female friend who is not her but is Horikita Mai instead, Dai-chan’s perfect woman, practically. She doesn’t take well to the news and has to grapple with why that is! And what to do with these newfound frustrating emotions!

16. Obstruction of Justice Chapter 3 - MAYBE SOME DAY, I WILL GET TO WRITING THIS. Last summer I inteded to do just that but instead, Wild Side of Justice was born. And it became a spin off of sorts on its own. ORZ. I WILL FINISH THIS SOME DAY, I do have some plans for it and I do have the desire to pursue them. I just need to be in the right headspace for it ahsjkfhkjaf

17. A PWP story of Kagami arriving early for a practice match at Touou and somehow walking in on AoMomo getting busy with each other in very unexpected and explicit ways that Kagami did not see headed his way. Because, we need more PWP in this fandom, honestly.

18. And since we DO need more PWP, recently when checking the 30 lemons community on LJ (shut up, I’m not ancient, YOU’RE ANCIENT) I was wondering how exactly a smut plot around the “Taken by the Faceless Stranger” could work for Aomomo and I came up with this Masquerade ball that they end up both attending because of their friends and meeting each other and hitting off fantastically just chatting the night and then banging in a niche in the long castle-like premise of the ball. :’DDDD Cuz it’s me and if I don’t have something like that in the works, you know i’m likely sick.

ALL OF THESE I am planning on eventually finishing one day. ONE DAY!

For now they are in various states of completion and in various stages of being cared for and improved on with more ideas added and fleshed out.

I am not joking when I say I am very invested in this fandom. I just have difficulty getting to writing out these ideas when I spend like 60% of my free time playing my mobile games. :D

So there you have it. I didn’t want to say anything about these because 1) I don’t want to get your hopes up. You Can Leave Your Hat On 2, for one, has been in the making for 3 years, very on-again-off-again kind of way, and I just... can’t do that to you guys. I have decided against posting any incomplete fics so I don’t torture you guys and my muse doesn’t abandom me forever for them. So when something is complete, it gets posted promptly for your viewing pleasure!

And 2) If I divulge too much of the story, I feel like my hype of it may disappear completely. Ehh, my muse is a willful creature, what can I tell you...

So let’s hope at least SOME of these get to see the light of day soon!

#my scribbles #here you have it #a rather complete list of incomplete AoMomo stuff I'd say #Rally's works in the making #tagged as:#AoMomo #because it's all AoMomo #sorry for spamming the main tag with nonsense #Kuroko no Basuke #will I ever finish any and all of these?#here's to hoping!#a little bit insider info from the kitchen #fanfiction #writing

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rupertgayesarchive · 3 years ago

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hey jenn...

so tell me about your plot planning process

oh chi i hate this question so much askfjajfakds

okay okay so i had to think about this because?? i don't do a lot of this consciously. have any of y'all looked at writing advice stuff and tried to make it work for you?? i keep trying and idk... i really tried to be the type of writer with like, outlines and bullet points, and usually i might have notes of some sort somewhere... it's all very much a 'trust the process' um. process. so here's stuff i do? in some semblance of order, but more like for your reading benefit than how it might actually happen.

first of all - i start with a concept (that fucks, obviously). considering the current spn fic i'm writing and the last longfic i wrote (marvel fandom) were both borne of that age old 'i read all the fics with this trope so now i have to write my own', i guess that's a pattern?

second, once i have the beginnings of like, a Thing I Want To Read Badly Enough That I Will Bite The Bullet And Write It Myself, how can i write it, considering like, who i am? for heard from your mother, a spn character getting sent back in time to fix things isn't a totally unique plot, but i am someone who 1. has not actually watched that much spn and 2. really enjoys the early seasons. so pretty quickly i started to think along the lines of 'writing a time travel fix it would require an in-depth knowledge of canon that i don't have past like, s3'. then my brain starts spinning off in all these other directions which leads to -

plot, i guess? by the time i put out the first chapter of heard from your mother i knew how cas got sent back in time, kinda sorta what would happen, and a rough idea of the ending, but no real sign posts. i think the main other thing i knew was that dean and cas end up together before the end of the fic, but even then, i didn't really know how. i also thought it would be a fun idea to give cas a cellphone that sends him anonymous messages as another draw/guide to the story. since pre-pilot was mostly focused on dean and cas meeting and getting together, a lot of energy was focused in trying to get them to be in the same place at the same time, bond, and eventually become an item. which also means -

what stories happen within the story? in any of my longer fics, there's usually an A/B plot going, which can shift and morph and intertwine as the story goes on. In heard from your mother, the A plot is probably dean and cas getting together, up until s1 starts, in which case it's the 'find dad' s1 plot, and the B plot throughout the fic is 'cas needs to figure out what he is and how he got where he is now'. there are shorter c plots (like offscreen stuff that happens with jess, bobby, pamela, etc.) but they're shorter lived.

another thing plot-wise that i don't consciously think of too much but is still important is payoff. these can be big or small, but this fic is SO goddamn long that it's good to idk, give the readers *something*. early in s0, this was dean and cas meeting up again after doing their own thing, like, yay! fun treat! good times! or another clue to what cas is (aka the RIBS chapter). some fun reveal, like seeing an old character pop up again, or maybe another emotional moment, like the resolution of the scarecrow episode rewrite, where dean finally comes out to sam. these are all moments that i personally really enjoyed writing, and if you're in this fic for the long haul, i imagine you're reading and going 'omg, finally!' or 'whoa, cool' - just something to make you pick your head up after however many words.

when i actually sit down to write a chapter, i kind of know where i want things to end up? like a lot of s0 was making sure certain characters met each other, s1 was more or less the same as the canon s1 with more focus on how the characters have grown/changed, and everything else is made up on the spot. like the hunts in s0 were made by me thinking: 'oh this monster got mentioned in an early season of spn, dean probably hunted that before. let's find a town for it to take place in, and maybe write it in a way that highlights one of his character flaws' very much an early monster of the week type of fic - creature story with an aesop somewhere inside that prompts dean (and usually cas) to confront something about themselves and hopefully push themselves closer together. we see this in the chapters dealing with the gillepsie family and the crocotta, probably the most obviously? i try not to beat anyone over the head with it. heard from your mother has a writing style that is sort of like 'here it is, you make sense of what people are thinking/feeling bc i'm not narrating that' which is very spn and male coded of me i think.

if i ever get stuck on how to approach something, i usually will put the fic down and listen to music or read something else, or i just talk out the ideas i have (to a lot of people on tumblr actually! thank you!!) a lot of my writing is latent and i just kind of let it happen. there are definitely deliberate choices for some things i do in this fic (i mentioned this with a previous ask about putting stuff in the plot that could help the characters from being backed into a corner later on), but heard from your mother is still something that to me is like 'this is a fun little story, watch me type away at my google doc and see what happens!'. like i take it seriously, i want people to enjoy it, but i want to enjoy writing it just as much.

i guess my writing is just: find what you want to read, figure out how you could write it taking into account your personal hangups, get it started, know kind of where you want to end up, and have fun figuring out the stuff in between (and leave some breadcrumbs in the middle there so if you end up way off base and you're already putting out chapters you can write your way out of it).

#also if it makes me laugh it's going in the fic :)#asks #writing #i really did start typin huh

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randomficsandshit · 4 years ago

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Jily Fic Rec Masterlist

*NONE OF THESE FICS ARE MINE*

Please do not forget. I have not written any of these. I’m simply recommending favorites of mine over the years. If you love something, send the author you love, not me :) and if any links don’t work, send me a message and I’ll see what I can do, this is a pretty old list

A Wizard Walks Into A Bar Word Count: 5k+

Contrary to popular belief, it's not always the man who does all the chasing.

Pepper Up, Peppermint Word Count: 3k+

Sixth year Lily is home, sick, at Christmas. Can a visit from her friends cheer her up?

Your Eyes Are Like Starlight Now Word Count: 1k+ “The first snow is magical, you can’t deny it,” and Lily grumbled, but she did have to agree. It was beautiful. Of course, that moment lasted exactly thirty seconds before James squashed a snowball into her face.

Sing A Reckless Serenade

Word Count: 7k+

After an almost minute of silence, she finally relents, “I need you guys to help me with a work thing.” A hefty pause. And then- “What kind of work thing?” James asks, warily. Lily takes a breath. It seemed like a brilliant idea last night, when she was more than three drinks under, but now in the light of day it just seems… pathetic. Still though, she needs help, and needs it soon, so she finds herself blurting out: “I need you to fake date me for a week.”

Three Swipes, You're Out

Word Count: 4k+

Part 1 of Shiver Me Tinders series

Sports star James Potter tries to pick Lily up on tinder. Lily Evans, a dedicated not sports fan is offended by the idea that someone thinks she wouldn't recognize James Potter's face. She laughs about it with her friends at a bar, until James Potter, who also frequents that bar, comes over to clarify that nope, he's on tinder, and he's definitely hitting on her.

Making Spirits Bright

Word Count: 2k+

Part 2 (final part) of Shiver Me Tinders series

She should have expected it to be hard, dating a celebrity, but somehow she and James make it work.

Air For Free

Word Count: 2k+

When you’re in the company of James Potter you almost forget about the world around you.

What Are You Doing On Christmas Eve?

Word Count: 13k+

"I kinda told them all I was already seeing someone." "Kinda?" Lily eyed him deceptively, "Who?" "You." Christmas, Fake Dating

Rekindling

Word Count: 7k+

He passes her the cardboard box and their fingers brush again only this time Lily doesn't pull away so quickly. This time Lily lingers, if only to be thrown back into another time when James was her everything. If he was willing, she'd let him be her everything again.

Isn’t It Obvious?

Word Count: 7k+

Rewrite of The Prince’s Tale except it’s James Potter

Meet The Potter’s

Word Count: 8k+

"we're having a water fight but your white shirt is see through now and I'm distracted? oops?"

Early Morning Toast Brigade

Word Count: 2k+

"Is that toast?" she said, catching sight of a plate of the stuff that sat on the floor, next to James's invisibility cloak, the wonders of which she had been introduced to the summer previous. "Nah," he replied. "It's regular bread, with a suntan." "What?" "A suntan," James repeated. "It's highly unlikely that you've ever experienced one first hand, being ginger and all, so I won't blame you if you don't know what it is." "Shut up. Where'd you get it?" "Oh, my skin is naturally sallow." "I'm talking about the toast, idiot." "Won it off Dumbledore in a duel." "James!"

Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Word Count: 8k+

There are those who claim that Lily Evans couldn't possibly love James Potter as much as he loves her - including, on occasion, James Potter himself - but they couldn't be more wrong if they claimed that the moon was made of cheese.

Mother Deer

Word Count: 7k+

Euphemia Potter is the unequivocal boss of everyone, including and most especially her son, and if the sweet, bright-eyed redhead who frequents her coffee shop doesn't know that yet, she's about to find out.

Hijacking

Word Count: 3k+

She isn't certain how it started, why it continues, or where her moral decency has gone, but sometime around February, James and Lily start hijacking each other's rounds in order to sneak off and shag in entirely inappropriate Hogwarts locales.

Elevator Love Song

Word Count: 15k+

James unexpectedly finds himself trapped in a dodgy apartment elevator with Lily Evans.

Try, Trial, and Try Again

Word Count: 6k+

Spell engineering has never been so complicated than when an afternoon of trying and trialing leaves James and Lily in an interesting position.

Questions And Answers

Word Count: 5k+

The simple question of whether or not they're dating doesn't exactly have a simple answer. Seventh Year Jily.

*Sunshine In My Eyes

Word Count: 93k+

Mr. and Mrs. Evans are killed when Lily's only a girl, and she's supposed to go to a home with her sister. Instead, a relative they didn't know they had comes to collect them, and introduces Lily to manners, magic, and a life that's just the slightest bit different from the life she was supposed to live. Or, an AU in which Minerva McGonagall raises Lily.

Key Limes

Word Count: 23k+

In which Academy Award winner Lily Evans discovers the periphery of internet fandom and the mysteries of Prince James’s gold star system.

Red Velvet Ribbon

Word Count: 7k+

Lily sighed and ran an agitated hand through her hair, all the while glancing up at the mistletoe in the doorway. Those spindly branches and little green leaves, all bundled up in a red velvet ribbon, so falsely innocent and romantically devious… Lily felt that old James Potter tingle shoot up her spine and – as custom would dictate – she couldn't shake it off. God damn Christmas.

Wishing You All A Good Evening

Word Count: 46k+

Despite his popularity on campus, James Potter has had a hard time getting the attention of one, Lily Evans. Lily's not impressed by him and his arrogance, but James is quite impressed with everything Lily does. After the blunder that was their first meeting, James is determined to change her mind and she's determined not to let him. College!AU

Meeting The Marauders

Word Count: 49k+

Or how Mr Evans was forced to spend Christmas with four raving lunatics, had his life turned upside down and was forced to make his precious daughter go on a date. (mostly like this one because I think it was clever doing the POV of Lily’s dad)

Another Damn Grocery Store Fic, Okay?

Word Count: 9k+

Lily runs her father's grocery store and the guy she remembers from her childhood moves back into town. Thanks to petals for the brilliant prompt -- "grocery store AU where Lily works the counter and he keeps buying things just to talk to her"

I Can’t Read Your Mind (Though I’m Trying All The Time)

Word Count: 40k+

The one where Lily is just trying to be a good friend by offering to be James's fake girlfriend for a weekend at the Potter Family Extravaganza. Really. Only, James just so happens to be in love with her, so this can't be any good for his health, and Lily is oblivious to the fact that this might not be so platonic for her, either.

Fate, Automobiles & Other Disasters

Word Count: 15k+

Lily is quite content owning her little flower shop and feuding with next door neighbor Sirius Black and his errant parking skills, until his best mate, Oscar-winning actor James Potter, moves in.

The Incident In The Library

Word Count: 3k+

Lily Evans has been distracted lately…and it’s all because of James Potter and his stupid, unbuttoned shirt. Hardly any fluff, but plenty of shirtless James for everybody.

I Think It’s About Old Friends

Word Count: 7k+

James and Lily, and seven years of Christmas.

Petalpocalypse

Word Count: 20k+

What do you get when you combine two classroom enemies, only one chemistry book, the blizzard of the decade, and drinking games? The tropiest Jily fic of all time!

I Love You (ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?)

Word Count: 21k+

He didn’t picture Lily wandering alone, he never imagined the dullness that seemed to overcome her usually vivacious eyes, never fantasized about the way she looked at him straight on and asked, “Want to do something stupid?”

He, apparently, was something stupid.

(Summer before seventh year, failed friends with benefits).

Quidditch Club

Word Count: 14k+

The first rule of Quidditch Club is 'no falling for a student's mum'. Jily AU. Single Mum AU. Smut if you squint.

59 notes · View notes

embarrassingresultofmyfreetime · 4 years ago

Text

2020 Masterlist

Here’s a list of all the fics I’ve posted this year! (Listed by category, then chronologically:)

Link to my ao3 where you can read all of these: embarrassingresultofmyfreetime

Currents wips:

And They Were Quarantine Mates

An old disease has resurfaced on Earth- one which most humans recover from but is permanently lethal to Time Lords.

Because of this, the Doctor stays on Earth to make sure her humans make it through okay.

And because of the Doctor, the Master- against his better judgement- also chooses to stay.

Reluctant to leave the safety of the Doctor's Tardis, the Doctor and the Master find plenty of ways to pass the time but it can be difficult to enjoy each other's company with so many things left unsaid.

Good thing they have plenty of time in isolation to work it out.

Word Count: Currently 88,172

Spyfall: Battle For Humanity

This is a little number I like to call: Roleswap AU with Dhawan!Doctor and Whittaker!Master

It's sort of a rewrite of Spyfall p2 but it's better.

Word Count: Currently 5,688 (will be about 12k when finished)

~~~

Main fics (completed):

Please Tell Me Why Do We Worry

Summary: After learning about the final loss of Gallifrey, the Doctor takes some time to grieve and finds herself with surprisingly mixed feelings about the whole ordeal.

To her surprise, a knock at her Tardis door soon reveals the Master not only alive, but in uncontrollable mental agony as he reveals that the Doctor's suffering has been amplifying his own emotions via their telepathic bond.

Note: (After so many kind and positive comments on this fic, I finally gained the confidence to start posting more! A huge thank you to so many people it means so, so much to me!)

Word Count: 5,068

Second Chances

When Graham finds a teleportation cube offering an all-expenses-paid vacation, he, Ryan, and Yaz take up the offer and give the seemingly-distant Doctor some time to herself.

After the events of Skyfall 1&2, the trust between the trio and a certain timelord is shaken. However, when their vacation quickly becomes a nightmare, it's up to the Doctor to bring about peace on an upsettingly familiar planet.

Note: (A rewrite/fix it of S11 episode Orphan 55)

Word Count: 7,130

All’s Fair In Love And War

Having escaped alive and alone, the Master dwells on his failure and uncertainty at what to do next.

Purely by accident, he runs into a version of the Doctor he's never met before and she gives him a much needed perspective on their relationship.

Word Count: 4,653

Truth and Reconciliation

“I... I destroyed a lot of things, but not this... trove of secrets. This is what started it all.”

Missing Scene where the Master goes to Gallifrey and discovers the truth of the timeless child for the first time + alternate ending to The Timeless Children episode

Word Count: 7,563

The Doctor Finally Gets Some Rest

(Ch2 update Missy pov)

The Doctor promised to guard Missy for 1000 years, but Missy doesn't mind returning the favor.

Word Count: 5,671

I Wouldn’t Wish It On My Best Enemy

"Just deserts appeared to finally be served for the Doctor. All her running had come to an end, all the lives she's taken or caused had finally been assigned a numerical value, and all the morals she had once believed in seemed to crumble to dust right before her eyes.

A life sentence.

She had JUST BEEN TOLD she would never die, and the first thing the universe does is give her a life sentence.

What kind of cruel joke is that?"

Basically: The Doctor reflects on herself while in prison, the Master rescues the Doctor and actually helps her, and idk read the tags

Word Count: 4,629

Brand New Reality

In an alternate timeline: The Master is killed in the Time War but the Doctor finds a way to salvage his oldest friend's mind by binding it to his Tardis and building him an android vessel as a way to interact with the physical world.

The Doctor also manages to save the Time Lords from their war- but he is still a renegade in their eyes. As punishment, the High Council uses the Doctor- and by extension the Master- as their personal diplomats/field agents.

The Master isn't too happy about being trapped on the Doctor's Tardis, the Doctor is fed up with being the equivalent of a dog on a leash to the Time Lords, so in a moment of anger and also pure luck- they break out from their world and end up on a parallel one with a very different version of their universe and very different versions of themselves.

(Shalka!Universe Doctor and Master meet their modern counterparts- the Thirteenth Doctor and Dhawan!Master)

Word Count: 10,148

The Imposter(s) Among Us

The Doctor has been searching the universe for the Master, but it's only when she takes a break to help a damaged space vessel that she runs directly into him!

The Doctor has a hundred and one things to ask him, but there's no time for any of that now. The ship is barely functional and if the mysterious murderer doesn't get to the Doctor first, then the trigger-happy crewmates might throw her out the airlock before the killer gets a chance.

Word Count: 12,655

My Dear, Doctor…

The Doctor investigates an anomaly to find that her previous self has stood up their oldest friend for the umpteenth time.

Confused as to why the Doctor can't recall ever receiving Missy's invitation in the first place, the Doctor goes searching for answers and ends up finding far more letters than just one…

Word Count: 6,657

~~~

Series:

And They Were Happy Au Parts 1-4:

Part 1: Dinner and a Show

All his lives, the Master had always believed that he and the Doctor could hold on for about the same amount of time. He always imagined that when they reached their last lives, they would both give all this up and spend their retirement years bickering and raising bees or whatever. The Master didn't particularly like bees, but he had always imagined that the Doctor did and as long as they were together, that was enough to satisfy him.

What he had discovered in the Matrix had proved his ideal endgame impossible.

The revelation that the Doctor was The Timeless Child meant that the Doctor would always live on. They would always evolve and survive no matter what happened. The Doctor would always race to people in need; and now, they would never have any reason to stop.

(AU where the reason the Master wanted the Doctor to kill them both in The Timeless Child is bc he's on his last life)

Word Count: 5,120

Part 2: Dinner and a Show One-Offs

"The Doctor did her best to space out her visits with O. For every couple adventures she had with her 'fam', she would stop by his home once or so. Sometimes she let months slip by, because she knew that the longer she waited, the less of O's limited time she used up.

She felt guilty to calculate it, but if O was already in his mid-thirties and he lived a full human life...

Suffice it to say, she wanted it to last for as long as possible. She had never had a situation as stable nor as safe as she now had with O. After everything they had both been through to get to this point, she refused to jeopardize a single moment.

For all the pain the Master had caused her, O was well worth the wait."

(By popular demand, a continuation of 'Dinner and a Show')

Word Count: 10,926

Part 3: Unjustifiable

O- having no recollection of his actions as 'The Master'- returns to being Earth's Horizon Watcher.

O is proud of his work and he cherishes the Doctor's frequent visits, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that she's been keeping more secrets about his past than he had theorized.

To make matters worse, the arrival of an advanced species of aliens on his doorstep brings with it a whole new plethora of problems. Something terrifying resurfaces when O hears they're searching for a Tardis and things go terribly wrong.

Word Count: 23,870

Part 4: Found Family

The Master finally gets around to seeing the universe in a more peaceful way and runs into a young woman looking for her father.

Word Count: 3,663 (Will possibly be updated at a later date, but complete for now)

~~~

Oneshots Inspired by others (specific inspiration in the beginning notes of each):

All Alone In The Dark

While heading back to Earth, the Doctor hears someone calling for her help.

She tracks it back to the Master- injured yet alive- and finds him trapped in his own head, reliving his last confrontation with The Time Lord Council before the destruction of Gallifrey.

Word Count: 1,926

You Again

The 10th Doctor and Missy each escape their last canon appearances believing that the other is dead for good.

So imagine their surprise when they run into each other at a party in the 1920's.

Word Count: 6,943

Sick Day

The Master has everything set up for his latest evil scheme but when he tracks down the Doctor, he realizes his best enemy is in no condition to fight. So the Master does what any good nemesis does and takes care of him.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Word Count: 2,807

Prompt: "Right now, I don't know if I want to kiss you or shove you off a bridge!" "Can I pick?"

The Master’s Tardis had traced the call seven minutes in advance to this exact time and location. He pushed open his Tardis door to find himself in front of some no name bar with graffiti scrawled on the side, situated in front of an empty ravine. He was on Earth, and there was probably a similarly ramshackled city around him, but he didn’t so much as spare it a glance.

The Master’s steps were determined, his jaw clenched, and his hands shaking despite his signature device in hand.

He had been on the other side of the universe, licking his wounds like any old villain would when disappointed by their latest nemesis showdown. It all made his blood boil to have caved so soon. To come back and HELP the Doctor.

The Doctor still had O’s number and her call was scheduled to be made in exactly seven minutes. A hysterical, agonizing call that begged the Master to intervene. He wasn’t sure what was worse, hearing the Doctor in so much despair, or the disappointment that hearing her in such agony somehow didn’t lessen his own.

Word Count: 2,410

The Beginning and The End

Prompt: First Doctor, Dhawan!Master, Gallifrey, and the dialogue: "I know my words mean close to nothing for you. But I do, in fact, love you very much."

Basically Theta (Academy Era Doctor) accidentally runs into the Master on a burning Gallifrey

Word Count: 4,499

Kisses Like That

The Doctor's never understood why humans enjoy kissing so much- but a certain, somewhat familiar woman piques his interest.

(Missy goes back in time to give 10 a lil kiss)

Word Count: 1,885

Spyvember 2020

Collection of short fics I did inspired by Spyvember prompts (from Tumblr)

Word Count: 15,506 (6 separate chapters)

~~~

Thank you to everyone who has inspired me, commented on my work, read any of my writing, and overall has just supported me in any way this year!! Thank you for keeping me motivated and helping me improve as a writer!

My best wishes to you in the new year! <3

#here's a version w a break for mobile users lol #otherwise its the same #doctor who #dw #doctor who fic #doctor who fanfic #thirteenth doctor #dhawan!master #dhawan master #yasmin khan #ryan sinclair #graham obrien #thoschei #spydoc

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winterysomnium · 5 years ago

Note

just realised i forgot the ship WangXian kiss print #18

slides in five months later hi hello I have answered the prompt even tho it took me like half a year I’m so sorry

it also wasn’t supposed to be this long but it sorta ran away from me and wherever your fic goes you gotta follow tbh lol. thank you so much for prompting! ♥ means so much to me.

AO3 link here

(tumblr kinda messed up the format so it might be easier to read on AO3 honestly)

—

the borders of you (untouched);WangXian; 5,900+ words;

Wei Ying creates a talisman that’s supposed to keep all the fierce corpses and beasts away. Problem is, it keeps away everyone, living people included. And worst of all? It’s not going away. (prompt 18:kisses where one person is sitting in the other’s lap)

—

It’s not that Wei Ying has messed up.

The ward works,works well, as it has kept Wen Ning about four feet away from him from everyangle and he hasn’t been able to break through the barrier, not even after theadded strain of several fierce corpses that have been roaming the remote villagefor days on end.

Therefore, his inscription can’t be incorrect in thatsense, no. It’s just … the ward works toowell, is the thing.

When the paper burned up and the hour mark has passed,Wen Ning is still unable to get anywhere nearer, bounced back against the invisiblebarrier like a stone, skipping across the surface of a lake. Not only that: noone else has been able to either. Notany of the villagers, their grateful bows directed towards the Lan juniors andtheir liquor bottles towards Wei Ying, not any of the juniors and not even LanShizui, increasingly worried the more the sun dips, low into the horizon.

At last, knowing that he must have made a mistake ortwo somewhere, Wei Ying watches as a birdcan’t sit on a branch when he stands underneath it, watches on as the curiouscat that has been sniffing at the robes of every unknown person, keeps pawing atthe barrier with a bit of irritation at the tip of her tail.

It isn’t trulyworrying Wei Ying yet. He can touch the liquor bottle and drink from it justfine, and some talismans were known to dissipate after half a night’s time at earliest.Maybe he added a stroke too many to his blueprint, strengthening and prolongingthe effect inadvertently.

He couldn’t have accidentally created a full on permanentbarrier, he knows that, because thereis no visible or spiritual writing anywhere on his clothes or his person andhis paper prototype has been ashes as soon as he surged his powers through itsform.

So he convinces the juniors to stay for dinner andsettle in for the night; it’s past everyone’s bedtime and the comforting scent ofsoup and roasting meat painfully flares the hunger in Wei Ying’s stomach,overriding any lasting thoughts of worry or anxious fears.

His mood doesdip slightly when he realizes he can’t truly share the table with anyone, thesweet taste of the sugar spun fruits souring in his mouth with every lonelybite. He’s gotten too used to this easy kind of company, to Lan Zhan’s quiet,steady presence, his fingers never too far from Wei Ying’s aid, from gettingtangled up with Wei Ying’s own. He’s gotten used to the bundle of juniors followinghim around during the classes he teaches (to Lan Qiren’s unending chagrin) andhe almost misses JingYi’s – a little tooloud – voice right next to his ear.

His exasperated huff must reach all the way across thetavern, because Lan Shizui stands as close as he can to his table now, hiseyebrows etched with something nervous and small. He pauses as he tests the wardonce more, with the tip of his shoe.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t head back right away,Senior Wei?” he asks, ever considerate and Wei Ying sees Lan WangJi’s teachingsfilling out A-Yuan’s shoulders, the chambers of his heart. It makes him missLan Zhan suddenly, with a pang of something sore, like swallowing a painfulgulp of water, feeling it travel all the way down his throat.

He rubs his sternum through his robes, the phantomfeeling making him feel silly (they’ve been gone for barely a day and a half) as he shakes his head.“There’s no point in leaving this late. We’ll arrive too late for breakfast ifwe do, anyway,” he reasons, but A-Yuan’s face stays cautious, eyebrows drawn. (He’stoo good of a child, honestly, Wei Ying thinks.)

“What if theward isn’t gone in the morning?” he asks and Wei Ying drinks another cup ofwine, just to dissipate the distant, cold restlessness stuck at the back of hisskull. There’s no need to be worried, yet.

But it must be a question that’s not just runningthrough Shizui’s mind, because the white robes of the juniors have gotten muchcloser now, JingYi’s questioning look clearly convicting him of eavesdropping,alongside with the others, craning their necks in a – fully inconspicuous –way.

Wei Ying feels a smile graze his face as he watchesthem quietly strain their ears, despite how obvious they are, how much he stillhas to teach them.

(Are they even trying to hide their curiosity at all?)

“Then it won’t matter if I find out here or in theJingshi,” he decides to come back to the question, answering it firmly, decisionmade.

(It’ll just worry Lan Zhan if they arrive and theeffects are not gone, he adds, for only his heart to hear.)

He gets up, brushing out his robes, stepping aroundthe table. Worrying Lan Zhan is one of the last things he ever wants to do.

Copying his movement, the juniors stand up from theirempty bowls and reserve a tired bow to the owner as they head up the stairs totheir bedrooms, quiet enough not to wake anyone else. Shizui and JingYi are thelast in line and they reluctantly look over at Wei Wuxian as he stands at theentrance of his own room, the dissatistified look on JingYi’s face so much morevisible than the slight crook of Shizui’s eyebrows, the corner of his lips.

JingYi opens his mouth, undoubtedly to argue Shizui’spoint again in a more, well, JingYiway, but Wei Ying is faster, interrupting him as soon as he takes in a slightlybigger breath.

“Go to bed. Worry about the report you’ll have towrite, if you want to think about something,” he tells them, with a smile thatis just a little bit too fond and after a moment of decision between arguingfurther and just letting it be for the night, they slowly step over thethreshold of their room, closing the door behind them, softly and slow. WeiYing lets himself collapse onto the single bed of his, a little too stiff underhis weight but clean and with thick covers and a pillow so soft it begs for himto stick his face in.

He really should take his own advice, he thinks as ayawn cracks through the bones of his jaw; his thoughts scattered across theheavy set of his mind. He thinks of Lan Zhan, of a symbol he might have torewrite on the talisman, of Lan Zhan’s chest rising and falling, the lullaby ofbeing there that he plays to Wei Yingevery night.

He doesn’t recall anything after that.

—

Wei Ying knows he’s stalling. He’s decided to stay inCaiyi Town for lunch, sending the juniors ahead and idling about the riverbank, picking all the deserted spots so as not to raise too much attention,twirling Chenqing and wondering just howhe’ll explain this to Lan Zhan so that his mouth and brows don’t curl into thatconcerned shape like they do whenever he does something detrimentally stupid,usually to himself.

He doesn’t get far beyond the edge of the town after hefinally starts up the journey up themountain when he spots him, the afternoon trailing across his robes, awakeningthe woven patterns as Lan WangJi walks towards him, regal and ethereal asalways; even more so with the sun gingerly touching his features between thetrees.

(The same sun feels suddenly way too warm on WeiYing’s own neck.)

“Lan Zhan!” He greets him, happily, despite theprevious moments of avoidance: something about this man just reassures him tothe deepest parts of his soul, calls him to be paid attention by.

Lan WangJi pauses, stands at the exact border of thecharm, tracing the unseen outlines with his eyes before he carefully extendshis fingers, the tips pressing against the ward.

“Wei Ying,” he answers, in a tone hard to describe:relief, concern, affection, each atthe tip of a different finger, a different note.

(Wei Ying’s heart is an instrument, lovingly played.)

“Don’t look so worried, Lan Zhan! My dearestHanGuangJun,” Wei Ying smiles and it’s never been so difficult to keep still,to keep away from that beautiful face in front of him, kissable and dear. “I’mperfectly fine, see? Aiya, the children must have been telling you all kinds ofgruesome stuff, haven’t they?” he twirls around just to show he can, thatthere’s nothing hurt or aching (besides his poor heart, trying to press itselfout of his ribcage, pulled towards Lan WangJi’s own).

Lan WangJi watches, a stern look slowly seeping intohis features, a sigh buried deep within his lungs. He’s not fooled and Wei Yingknows this, all too well.

“Shizui said no creature living or dead can get closeto you,” Lan WangJi answers and an aborted twitch of his arm belies the intentto hold, to try to defy the limits of whatever Wei Ying has created, despitethe impossibility of it all.

(It’s more painful than Wei Ying imagined it would be,if he’s honest with himself.)

(He’s not.)

He lets out a sigh, tracing the invention he’s stuckin through the air, each stroke a confident memory. “I must have strengthenedthe effect of the charm with a stroke too many somewhere. I already have a fewideas to try out,” he promises and while Lan WangJi still doesn’t look happy, probablythinking: how many have you tried already,unsuccessfully?, he nods anyway, aligns himself at Wei Ying’s side as closeas can be, always beside him, always a guardian of Wei Ying’s own.

“Let’s go back,” he says and the smile Wei Ying feelsblooming on his own face is positively hurting his cheeks. He grins, relieved. “Let’sgo home, Lan Zhan,” he agrees, pleased at the warm hue enveloping Lan WangJi’sears like little buds of flowers.

No touches needed for Lan Zhan’s ears to go warm, henotes, fondly amused.

(Thoroughly in love.)

—

Neither of them can sleep peacefully that night. LanWangJi forfeits his bed to sleep at the other side of the room, even when Wei Yinghimself protests profusely against it (to no avail).

If it’s the unfamiliar scenery of their empty bed orsimply being too far away from Lan WangJi himself he can’t tell, but not evenWei Ying’s usual bedtime can lull him to sleep. He misses the satisfied achesof a night well spent, of loving and being loved in Lan Zhan’s arms and feelingeach of his touches bitten into his skin; the only pain he’s currently feelingis the unpleasant twitch at his back as he slumps over the table, scribblingnonsense into his notes.

So maybe he hasmessed up. He’s studied every stroke’s direction and count on his blueprint,has corrected all the places he felt unsure about and yet, not one modificationhas worked one bit. He’s cast tens of reverse charms, trying to unweave the spellhe’s trapped himself in but nothing has changed: the space he’s isolated inhasn’t shrunk and not even one of the bunnies has been able to hop through tonibble at his robes (he’s been baiting them with carrots all evening so thatthey would actually get near enough to him, too).

Wei Ying doesn’t think he’s an impatient person. He’snot patient per se, either, but he’s able to withstand things. To persevere.He’s lived through enough to know that he’ll thrive in places others go to to becondemned and damned: he’ll root through the soil and he’ll rise like a lotusflower, crawling through to live, to resurface, to be plucked by Lan Zhan’skindness, by his heart.

Perhaps Wei Ying’s been spoiled. Spoiled by Lan Zhan’svery own hands and very own warmth: he simply doesn’t want to struggle anymore.He wants instead, yearns, he wantscomfort and softness and affection and he’s frustrated when it’s this close yetout of his reach altogether. It’s in the very room they share, in the robesthey store in the same place, in the kisses they wear on each other’s lips;they’re two strings bound together.

And now they’re like two parallel rivers, longing toget closer but held apart by earth itself, by soil and trees, the miles inbetween.

Wei Ying must have been worn down by Lan Zhan’s love,a stone sanded down to a grain, because he’s frustrated and unsettled, alonein a choice of his own making. But maybe it’s Lan Zhan’s fault too, just alittle bit, Wei Ying thinks, petulant. Just for all the ways he has indulgedWei Ying, spoiled him to pieces.

It’s completely unfair.

As if responding to his thoughts, Lan WangJi shiftsunder his blanket and his face turns towards Wei Ying’s, laid down on the table,the feeble cushion of own his arms. Lan WangJi’s still asleep and Wei Ying letsout a quiet huff, just to conquer the need to curse at his own stupid luck, thegrind of his frustration.

“Lan Zhan,” he whines, quietly, barely a sound underhis breath. “How unlucky is it of me to have you so near yet unable to touchyou at all? How miserable is this fate of ours, keeping us apart like this?Truly such rotten luck,” he complains, letting the childish words run theircourse, soothe the fear guarding the back of his throat.

He tiredly follows the slope of Lan WangJi’s nose withhis eyes, the bow of his mouth, the press of his chest, the dips and highs ofhis knuckles; falls asleep to the longing of a man dying at an empty well.

He wakes up confused and sleepy, thoughts still sunkenunder the syrupy pull of a dream, a blanket stolen from their bed slipping downhis shoulders as he raises his head and blinks: Lan WangJi is sits across fromhim, a cup of tea in hand.

“Lan Zhan, good morning,” Wei Ying, smiles, softly,but purses his lips upon noticing where he’s slept, confused. “Why am I sleepingon the table? And why are you sitting so far away and not right next to me?” heasks through a stretch and a yawn; what a strange morning it is. Usually Lan WangJinever lets him get away with falling asleep on the table or in the bathtub andalways carries him off, carries him right into their bed –

“Oh,” the memory falls on him like a bucket of water, cuttinghis stretch short. Lan WangJi simply pushes a steaming bowl across the table:the bowl inches closer over to where Wei Ying has pillowed his head on hisarms, but Lan WangJi’s own fingers cannot pass beyond the outer edge of hisnotes.

“Still here, huh,” Wei Ying comments and Lan WangJinods; pushes more insistently. It must be close to lunch time, the air insideof the Jingshi warm and fragrant, the afternoon outside inviting itself inwithin a soft breeze.

“Eat your breakfast,” Lan WangJi says, picking up hisown cup again, carefully adjusting his sleeve. Wei Ying accepts the hot bowl ofcongee, sipping at its contents and contemplates, grazing his lips across therim.

He vaguely feels fifteen again, waiting for Lan WangJito look his way, to pay attention to his whims.

“Lan Zhan. HanGuang-Jun. Did you throw this at me?” Hetouches the blanket after a moment between them stretches and laughs when LanWangJi nods, then looks at the papers strewn all over the table.

“Any progress?”

Wei Ying swallows another gulp of his congee and shakeshis head, supporting his chin with his palm. “There must be something I’m missing.Will you look at it as well for me?” He takes the papers and pushes them allthe way across and leans back, waits for Lan WangJi to accept them, follows hisface as he meticulously reads every line, studies every annotation and scribble.

His forehead ribbon is as immaculate as ever and WeiYing really wants to play with it, tug at the ends and mess up the linecrossing Lan WangJi’s forehead, hold it until all of its length is as warm asthe parts warmed by Lan WangJi’s skin.

It reminds him of the time he had a paper body,blowing Lan WangJi a kiss and crooking his ribbon, annoying Lan WangJi’s patience,when all of this between them was still unsure and hidden away.

“Lan Zhan, remember when I – wait,” Wei Ying stops, straighteningup, and Lan WangJi’s eyes flicker towards him, caught by the movement, sudden,a spring unleashed. “All this time, I’ve been trying to dispel the ward fromthe inside. But maybe it can only be reversed from the outside.” He taps his chin with a finger, already biting into histhumb. “I mean, this kind of thing doesn’t usually happen and therefore doesn’tneed to be specified, but I didspecify the outside protection so maybe I’ve only made it reversible from theoutside, as well.”

Lan WangJi opens his palm and waits for the freshlymade talisman to flutter his way, catching it smoothly between his fingers. “I’llcast it,” he nods.

“Mn, yeah. Thank you, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying smiles andthe hope swells in him like a tidal wave, like the breath you take in afterbeing submerged for minutes on end. The sound he lets out when the paper burnsout and Lan WangJi is still unable to touch him is almost pained, like all theweight of the failure dragged his heart down to his feet.

He lets out a frustrated growl instead and his headthuds against the table, nearly knocking his finished bowl of congee over.

Lan WangJi sighs too, quietly, almost like he forgotto breathe for a moment as well and just remembered, willed his lungs to let go.

“Are there more?”

Wei Ying looks up. “More reverse spells?”

“Mn.”

“I’ve written down a few.”

“I will try them as well.” Lan WangJi gathers up WeiYing’s notes again, copies down all of the talismans, no matter how minisculethe correction and uses them one by one, always pausing to test if it worked,relentlessly, without a second of complaint or anger, without losing hope.

How he’s so composed, so seemingly calm ruffles WeiYing’s feathers – he wants to ruffle Lan Zhan’s instead, but not like this, not in ways that hurt underneath: hewants to watch him flick all of them back into its place, not render him unableto fly.

Yet there’s this undeniable, irrational annoyance whenthe last talisman is gone and instead of offering alternatives, Lan WangJi proposesWei Ying should take a bath, Wei Ying’s inner robes the ones that he’s arrivedin yesterday, his hair tangled up around his ribbon in stubborn knots.

“A bath won’t solve anything,” he protests but LanWangJi’s already gotten up, leaving to fetch their bathtub and hot water,silently preparing it like he always does, like nothing’s different, payinglittle attention to Wei Ying’s protests beyond a glance.

Wei Ying keep sitting down at the table, as aprinciple, because there are more pressing matters than a dirty robe, like whyhe’s still not figured this out and why his notes aren’t clear to his own mind, why Lan Zhan’s fine with all of this, why is he notvisibly upset, why isn’t he angry with him for causing this mess.

Why, instead, he stands as close (far, far) as he can, beckoning him into the water.“Wei Ying,” he says and just stands there and watches him like Wei Ying’s the unreasonable one, theneedlessly annoyed child.

“Fine,” WeiYing huffs, giving in after a two minute stare down, jerkily taking off hisclothes right there at the table, notstomping across the room naked, plopping into the water with an unnecessarysplash.

The water presses into all of his tensed up musclesand it does clear his head as hedunks it under, refreshes parts of him he didn’t realize were this tired as hescrubs the remnants of travel and uncomfortable sleep off, decidedly notlooking Lan WangJi’s way.

He’s slowly getting unwound by the soft suds slippingoff his shoulder, the weight of his body that just always lifts when he’s inthe water, when he’s brought back to being small and never cold anymore: he canalmost feel Shijie’s careful fingers combing through his hair.

(He can almost feel Lan Zhan’s, even gentler,somehow.)

Wei Ying sighs.

He’s not sulking and he’s not feeling guilty for being petulant, for making things harder forthe one person who’s chosen every hardship just to be by his side, just toprotect what he’s already lost once before.

When he looks up, embarrassed at his own meltdown, LanWangJi is at his work table, two stacks of papers neatly pressed against eachother, one pile decidedly bigger than the second and Wei Ying’s hit with hownormal, how routine this feels: Lan Zhan grading reports as Wei Ying bathes,Wei Ying reaching over and helping when his cheeks are already pink and hisskin all scrubbed, commenting on the wonky calligraphy of one student, praisingthe neatness and detailed work of another’s next.

It’s still a long way until evening but Wei Yingshifts in the tub until he’s at the other side, wet fingers tapping at the edgeof the desk. “Let me help, Lan Zhan,” he offers, drying his hands and eventhough there’s the everlasting unnatural gap between them, it calms his heart,this quiet time of togetherness, this little piece of normalcy.

His irritation dissipates fully, sinking to the bottomof the bathwater, forsaken and ashamed.

—

Lan WangJi collects Wei Ying’s discarded clothes to bewashed, pausing at the threshold, holding the inner robe close, enclosed withinhis arms, wrinkled and worn. He lifts the cloth to his lips, inhales shakilyagainst the tightness of his pulse, the emotions knotting up his heart.

He stalls, allows himself this minute of longing, thisminute outburst of missing a person who’s standing right in front of you, sofamiliar yet strange, unreachable.

(He makes sure that Wei Ying doesn’t – that no one –sees.)

—

Another two nights pass and Wei Ying decides to stophiding in the Jingshi and doesn’t cancelhis late afternoon class like they’ve planned: he’s bored out of his mind.

(And he’s not getting any new ideas either, anyway.)

Lan WangJiwanted for them to head to the Library Pavilion right after breakfast buttruthfully, Wei Ying is going stir crazy, stuck at the table and riflingthrough notes close to two days in a row now. He needs some movement and aslovely as watching Lan WangJi is, he needs a change of scenery, too – and eventhough it’s not night, he can still teach the juniors a thing or two,especially when the sun beckons so sweetly and the news of a lone ghoul findingits way into a pond halfway to Caiyi Town has reached Gusu just days before.

(It reminds him of Yunmeng summer days, sticky and hot,with a bundle of juniors at his heels and Jiang Cheng scowling right next tohis side.)

It barely stings anymore, memories like this, so helets them pass, focuses on the uniform footsteps that follow in his wake.

“Who can tell me where we’re headed?”he turns aroundas he asks, pausing when the juniors seem to be hesitating on the cuff of the crossroad,not one disciple trying to answer his question or meeting his eyes.

He frowns. “What’s wrong with you all? Did someonespill chili powder into your breakfast?” he asks again, teasing, but his eyesnarrow when even A-Yuan shifts nervously. “Come on, spit it out. What’s thematter?” He tries for a gentler tone and unsurprisingly, it’s JingYi that stepsforward, a stubborn air to his stride.

“Why wasn’t HanGuang-Jun seeing us off today?” heaccuses, quickly, and some of the juniors nod their head along.

Wei Ying gapes.

“Huh?”

“HanGuang-Jun wasn’t –”

“I heard you, I heard you!” he interrupts, indisbelief.

No one makes a single move for what feels like anhour, no one starts laughing telling him he’s fallen for this elaborate prank,this gaggle of teens frowning upon him for not letting his husband see him off.

Okay. What’s trulygoing on?

“HanGuang-Jun hasbetter things to do than standing around watching people leave,” Wei Yingcounters, arms crossed in front of his chest. He’s never been faced with thejuniors’ disapproval like this and he’s as taken aback as he’s slightlyannoyed.

(Isn’t there a rule that says not to question yourelders about their love life or something?)

“But he always sees us off when we leave with SeniorWei,” a disciple interjects, quietly piping up from among the crowd. Thedisciples around him nod, gravely, as if they’re judges of a severe crime,ready to profess him guilty as charged.

(Wei Ying feels like he’s living through a rathersurreal dream.)

“Senior Wei, did you tell HanGuang-Jun we were leavingCloud Recesses?” Shizui asks then, kindly, with the smallest hint of hesitationthat tells Wei Ying he’s worried about something, troubled by the possibleanswer Wei Ying will give.

It softens Wei Ying’s temper, just a little bit.

“Aren’t you guys being a little too much? HanGuang-Junknows perfectly well I am teaching a class.” He doesn’t quite know Wei Ying has left Gusu, per se, true, but they’re goingbarely halfway to Caiyi Town. It doesn’t even count as a field trip.

“HanGuang-Jun always tells Senior Wei goodbye, nomatter how far we go!”

“That’s right!”

“Yeah!”

The disciples chime in and for once, Wei Ying almostregrets how openly him and Lan Zhan operate. Now even the kids think they areprivy to the details of their relationship, is it?

“We believe you didn’t tell him we were leaving CloudRecesses at all! Because the ward is still there and HanGuang-Jun wouldn’t behappy with you leaving in such a condition!” JingYi finishes for everyone andWei Ying has a moment of thorough disbelief at how transparent both his and LanZhan’s motives seem to be.

(And here he used to believe his husband was an enigmato anyone but Zewu-Jun.)

“You kids –”

“HanGuang-Jun has been really worried for Senior Wei!”

“Maybe we should head back?”

“Yeah!”

Wei Ying subtly pinches himself, making sure he trulyis not, in fact, stuck in a fever dream.

“Am I still with the obedient, quiet, good Landisciples? Or have they all been possessed?”He shakes his head, uncrossing hisarms to put them on his hips, authoritatively (he hopes).

“Now, everybody, listen up. Of course I told everyonewho needed to know where we are going. While I am objectively the safest I canbe in this state, it is you juniors we are worried about. So of course there’ssomeone who knows where we are. And I have signal flares with me in case we runinto more trouble than we can handle.” Not that it’s likely, if there truly isonly one or a couple of water ghouls – they should be perfectly capable oftaking care of a situation like that, even withouta supervising elder.

There’s a hum that sweeps through the crowd at that and with distinct relief upon nofurther protests being received, Wei Ying deems the problem settled, returningto his first, original question, repeating it just a tad louder to overpowerthe remaining echoes of suspicion and his own rattling surprise:

“Now, does really noone know where we’re headed?”

—

Naturally, Wei Ying cannot keep the children’soutburst to himself.

He’s sprawled on the ground with a cup full of wine andwith his stomach all warmed up by dinner, just spicy enough to redden hischeeks a little, just red enough to quicken his pulse (or is that all Lan Zhan,watching him so intently?)

So, naturally,Wei Ying complains, shaking his head after taking a generous, alcoholic sip. “Canyou believe the children accused me of not telling you I was leaving with themtoday? They were saying I didn’t let you tell me goodbye!”

“You didn’t,” Lan WangJi retorts, not disapprovingly,but his lips might be just a littlebit tighter, pursed the tiniest amount.

(Wei Ying wishes he could kiss them, kiss all of itoff.

Alas -)

“I told your Uncle,” he defends himself, belatedly andLan WangJi pauses as he refills his own cup of tea, herbal and scented aftermedicine, the fragrance bittersweet.

Wei Ying quickly raises his own cup, chasing the heavyscent from his throat. “And we didn’t go far! Not even as far as Caiyi Town,”he adds.

Lan WangJi takes his time with his answer, but after amoment he sighs, voice soft. “I still wish to tell you goodbye, no matter whereyou go or how long you will be gone for.” He’s talking carefully, as if he’steaching this, as if he’s intent on not being misunderstood.

It’s endearing as hell.

“That’s what the juniors said too,” Wei Ying responds,grumbling, despite the pounding of his heart.

How can any man resist a confession this sincere?

“And, well – I’m back now. Will you tell me welcomeback?” He grins. He means it as a tease, a way to change the subject of beingguilty of exactly of what he wasaccused of: but Lan Zhan’s just too good of a person, too good of a man to notdo it anyway.

“Mn. Welcome back, Wei Ying.”

God. Wei Ying’s insides hurt with how much he wants to touch him, devour him on the spot.He hurts with how much he just wants and wantsand how every time he’s being kept apart, it’s by his own doing, his ownfaults, his own actions, keeping him stranded in empty fields, in places thateat him alive.

“Lan Zhan! Iwas clearly teasing you!” he yelps and hides his flushed face behind the cup ofwine he’s emptied two times over by now; peeks over the edge.

Lan Zhan’s never letting him go.

“Mn. But greetings are polite. Wei Ying should saygoodbye properly next time, as well,” Lan WangJi says, tucking in what’s trulybothered him in such an efficient way Wei Ying just can’t help but feeladmonished and endeared – again – at the same time.

“Your notes say so, as well,” Lan WangJi adds and it’sa strange enough remark to tilt the world right into its axis again, away fromLan WangJi and words that Wei Ying can’t possibly fit all in, can’t keep all ofthem without an overflow.

(Lan WangJi is always so helpful, he truly is.)

“My notes?” Wei Ying shuffles through the – lessmessy now that Lan WangJi’s organized them – papers on the table, trying tofind what Lan WangJi means. Has he mentioned anything like that on them?

“Mn. Here. ‘Don’t forget to say goodbye.’” Lan WangJi’sfinger points to a corner of Wei Ying’s final page, underneath the finishedlayout of the ward.

Wei Ying’s heart stutters.

“… Lan… Zhan. Lan Zhan! ”He laughs, and stumbles,hastily getting up with a sudden buoyancy of hope, of a memory gasping for air.

“Of course it’s this simple!” He laughs again and his reliefcould span the universe, it’s so vast and deep. He claps and perfectlypronouncing, says: “Goodbye.” and even though he doesn’t feel any difference, inhis gut he knows: it worked. He knows because he’s remembered, he’s finally remembered and he curses his badmemory, curses working late into the night, half delirious and halfway todrunk, because it has finally bit him in the ass.

God, he really should listen to Lan Zhan more.

With a leap that might have sent all his notes flying,Wei Ying jumps into Lan WangJi’s arms, somehow already open and prepared tocatch him as he crashes into Lan WangJi’s lap heavily, kissing every inch ofLan WangJi’s cheeks and nose and temples, pecking his lips and holding onto him,desperately, holding onto the one anchor he has in this world.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he repeats after eachkiss, chanting the words into Lan WangJi’s skin and he knows, he knows there’s no I’m sorry’s and no thank you’s between them but he’s finewith breaking the rules; he’s kissing a thankyou right into Lan Zhan’s mouth.

Lan WangJi’s fingers tremble minutely against hisback, his heart is loud under Wei Ying’s palm and Wei Ying loves him too muchto just not kiss him some more, to press himself into every little space leftbetween them, no matter how small.

Of course he’duse something so simple to break the ward. Something anyone can do. It is a talisman meant for ordinary people in thefirst place, not for cultivators: the person can best decide themself whenthey’re safe. When they do, the talisman vanishes, without any other wards,without any spiritual energy necessary. Ofcourse he’d pick something he has felt so smart about only to forget aboutit right after.

Of course.

Lan WangJi’s palm slips under his outer robe, his lipsmessing all of Wei Ying’s thoughts up – they fall apart when Lan WangJi’sfingers cross his skin and push his hips forward, keeping Wei Ying incredibly –impossibly – close.

There’s a laughhe presses into Lan WangJi’s cheek, right next to his temple, there’s anotherone trapped in the crook of Lan WangJi’s neck, airy and soft.

I have missedyou, Lan WangJi says, in a crushingly gentle hold,bruising but tender; in a kiss tracing Wei Ying’s hair, his neck, the curl ofhis shoulder.

Wei Ying’s eyes sting.

He thinks he might never let Lan Zhan go.

(He thinks Lan Zhan wouldn’t mind it either, at all.)

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.”His fingers cup Lan WangJi’s face and he can’t help himself but push againstLan WangJi’s cheeks, pressing his fingers against Lan WangJi’s perfectlyimpeccable features. “Tell me, Lan Zhan: would you have stayed even if I’venever remembered how to get rid of this? Would you have gotten sick of mehaving our bed all to myself? Would you have finally gotten angry at me forruining something good? Would you have told me to leave?Would you have saidgoodbye and found someone else to –”

“Wei Ying,” Lan WangJi interrupts him; face still alittle smushed, held fully between Wei Ying’s palms, a frown hidden deep in hisvoice. “Stop talking nonsense,” he tells him, seriously, sincere.

There are tears falling off the precipice of WeiYing’s jaw, dropping onto his arms like heated wax, a melting sob curling up inhis throat. Lan WangJi stays still under his fingertips but his thumb brushes atear away from Wei Ying’s cheek, rests underneath, waits for more sadness todispel.

“I want you, wherever you are,” he says, simply and WeiYing doesn’t know why he was crying in the first place, why he continues tofeel tears slip past his cheeks but soon after, Lan WangJi’s mouth replaces histhumb, replaces the air on Wei Ying’s own lips and they don’t quite tumble intobed: they don’t really make it that far.

For once, Wei Ying doesn’t complain about it, at all.

#Anonymous #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mdzs #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #posting fic after half a year #wei ying has big dad energy #same as Lan WangJi #more tags on AO3 #long post

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shadowdianne · 6 years ago

Note

Sq prompt - one is scared of entering a relationship with the other as they are asexual and think the other won't like that.

First of all a couple of things. Thank you,anon, for the prompt. I truly hope you like it. Sorry for the wait on it; I dida few rewrites on this one. More than a few in fact Xd I also considered thepossibility of passing it to another author: I didn’t want to make it sound asI was writing something that I shouldn’t be writing. I truly hope that thissounds true and not as someone who isn’t ace trying to put their voice into itin a way that they shouldn’t.

I would also want to thank @yaminoendo forhelping me with this one. I didn’t want to either fall into tropes orpoorly-worded scenarios and his help shaped a lot of what I’ve written for thisone. So, Endo, you can be evil but you are surely the best evil one that’s outthere.

“This feelstrange.”

The wordsleft Emma softly, and she could almost swear she was able to see them, floatingabove both of her and Regina as they sat in the brunette’s couch. Afternoon lightwas already starting to dull outside; the once bright yellow muted orange that fellfrom the windows and she could feel the residual warmth touching her bent knee.At her side, legs tucked beneath her and one glass of cider being nursed intoher hands, Regina chuckled just as soft.

Thebrunette didn’t ask what “this” was Emma thinking about, she didn’t need it andthe blonde could feel an almost blush starting to burn the tips of her ears asshe stretched and picked up her own glass, almost empty but still cold to thetips of her fingers as she grasped it.

It wasstill strange, she thought, taking a sip of the drink before lowering it,letting her hands cradle it at her lap as she lolled her head back, hitting theback of the couch. The calmness she felt now paired up against the rage, thehurt, the guilt, she had felt after she had been told that Regina was back, theaftershocks of the magic that had united the realms more than telling enough.She hadn’t known what to do, where to go, who to talk to, and so she hadstarted to walk, a hasty call to Snow later and the promise that she would bethere for Hope in a few hours.

She didn’texactly remember how she had ended up in front of Regina’s house, the detailsof how a person now lived in what had almost transformed into a ghost-riddenhause, full of memories Emma wasn’t able to unpack, much more present than Emmawould have imagined it. And yet, despite the anxiousness she had felt coiling insideher stomach, she had knocked on the door. Once, twice, before Regina had openedit, eyes still gleaming purple and clothes fitting but not exactly, as she tooka step back, letting her enter without a word.

“You left!”

“You didn’t come with us.”

Screams hadquickly quieted down and then there had only been sobs and far too quietadmissions wrapped up in bursts of dirty white and purple, grey and gold.

“I hadnever considered the possibility.”

Regina’svoice was laced with sadness and Emma nodded at it, knowing that the same couldbe said for her own perception of what had happened in the foyer less than halfan hour ago; when Regina had cut the distance with a few sharp steps, a call toold days she had learnt to tuck and hide. But then, just as Regina had baredher teeth, readying herself, maybe, Emma’s mouth had betrayed her; pouringeverything out in a blast of emotions she had been blinded by it.

“I love you.”

And sothere they were, sitting in Regina’s couch, cider and space but not reallybetween them, tales of their time apart coloring the air; explanations of adivorce buzzing on Emma’s ears as she wriggled her ring-free fingers. She couldfeel Regina’s magic a few inches away, dripping almost out of the brunette andshe sucked on her breath; the instant reply Regina had given her after heradmission one that clung to her heart. The one that it was supposed to beprotected, the one that no one should be able to pluck out just as Henry’s was.

“Are wegoing to try…”

She wouldchuckle at herself at any other given moment, at the way she spoke. As if theirfeelings were a mere list of questions. This, them, had been happening for areally long time. Far too long.

Yet, Reginahumored her with a raise of her brow, one of her hands skimming up hershoulder, pulling the fabric of the jumper Emma wore until the blonde shivered,the pressure of Regina’s nails embedding themselves into memory.

“You cansay “dating” dear, I doubt anyone butme is going to hear.”

Emma letout a broken chuckle at this, at the way Regina smiled at her, still guardedbut far too soft. A mix, a strange one, of multiple personalities, almost allrecognizable and yet one that wasn’t. Emboldened perhaps by the way she couldsee herself on Regina’s eyes, sparkles coloring the brown, reflecting the dirtywhite she could feel building just beneath her skin, Emma grasped Regina’shand, interlacing her fingers with hers, lowering their hands so she couldwatch them, focus on them.

She had destroyedherself, a cold voice, one that sounded far too close to that had filled hercompletely during her dark one days, echoed in the back of her mind. She hadtaken every piece of her that made her her and shoved it all on a very tight space,confined within her mind. She had forgot how to breathe the moment she hadfinally crossed the portal, a far too heavy hand on her shoulders and regret alreadythreatening to spill out of herself. She would have never imagined that shewould be able to make amends. To look Regina in the eye. To tell her that she,at the end, was in love with her.

And yet.

When shespoke again her voice wasn’t as soft and her breathing was labored, nervesstarting to coil on her stomach as she considered the possibility of notspeaking at all; to remain mute.

But sheneeded to do it, a warmer voice whispered within her. For herself.

“Beforethat happens there is something I would like to tell you about.”

She still couldpretend that her worries were about something else entirely, she could stillsmile and move on, grasp the opportunity that Regina seemed eager to fall into;with still far too many conversations needing to happen, still far too manyexplanations hanging between them, born in the years they both had pretended tonot see when the other’s eyes lingered, unanswered admissions on their eyes. Yet,Regina eyed her silently, her skin warm and pulsing beneath her fingers andEmma shook her head, pushing herself, biting her own tongue, making herselfspeak.

What if,however, what if after everything…

She stoppedthat train of thought, thinking on Hope, on afternoons spent with her and thewoman she now has in front of her. Her magic reacted to the images, cracklingand scaping her skin, burying itself into Regina’s, a soft gasp escaping thebrunette’s lips as it happened.

“I’masexual.”

She hadlearnt over time that there never was a perfect moment to say it, but the word stillechoed clearly inside the room. Brown eyes traveling up from their hands totheir face, Regina halted, waiting. And while nothing had changed Emma couldfeel her skin prickling, as if she was about to combust, as if her very cellswere on fire, about to burst.

“It’s notthe first time I’ve said it out loud.” And it truly wasn’t but she still letout a lopsided smile, the kind of one that she always reserved for memoriesbrought from a time in that liminal space that existed on her mind before Henryhad knocked on her door, all uncomfortable truths and destiny written all overhis face. “It’s the first time in a really long time though. And…” She took adeep intake of breath.

She wasoverthinking this, everything. She had been doing so for the past few years;always weary, always on edge, always doubtful.

“I wanted…”She shook her head. “I needed you to know.”

Reginaexhaled and splayed her fingers over hers, their conjoined magic traveling uptheir forearms, flame-shaped currents that etched themselves into their skin. Emma’sbristling, Regina’s calming. Still tensing, Emma felt the familiar terror beginningto settle at the back of her mouth as silence stretched, a thousand ofdifferent explanations about to fall from her; a thousand other ways in whereshe could pretend or feign for Regina’s sake already taking form.

“Emma.” Theword was said in a gentle tone and Regina moved her hand up Emma’s arm, herfingers tickling whenever they grazed the inner side of her wrist, the softskin beneath her elbow.

“Have Iever done something that made you uncomfortable?”

Thequestion undid the blonde; at the quiet doubt but open look on the brunette’seyes; at the even quieter “stop” that seemed to slip through the cracks. She shouldn’tneed to pretend. She didn’t want to.

Smilingdespite her nerves, her memories recreated in a collage just behind her eyelidsas she blinked slowly, the blonde shook her head. Once, twice.

“No, never.”

Handtraveling further up, back to her shoulder, her neck, her cheek, Regina scootedcloser; something swimming on her eyes, the same kind of something Emma hadseen on her eyes back at the townline, back when Regina had almost scarifiedherself as the Chernabog charged: worry and guilt and love.

“And now?”

Her voicewas like satin and Emma breath hitched at it, at the way Regina kept eyeingher, the previous tension in the room gone and a strange sense of something,the same something that could have happened back at Robin’s apartment returningin full force.

“No.”

Nodding,the brunette moved forward, lowering her hand once more, grasping Emma’s and turningit, palm up, before kissing her skin there.

“Thank youfor telling me.”

Emma knewthere were other questions they would probably need to take further down theline, multiple other times in where she would feel about to come apart, but shenow felt drunk on the kiss, on Regina’s eyes on her. Not as someone in thewrong, but just as her, just Emma.

And shefound that she liked that. Very much.

#swan queen #SwanQueen #prompt #Anonymous

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neveralarch · 5 years ago

Note

ohhhh please do allez. star emoji

Allez is the fic that nearly fucking killed me, it was soooo frustrating. But successful in the end I think! Thank you for asking about it, apparently I desperately wanted to spill out the process behind writing it. Very long response under the cut, including a NSFW/adult excerpt from a previous version of the fic. If you have any questions about specific lines in the fic definitely lmk, bc I basically just yelled about writing here and very little about the actual plot or anything haha.

It's very weird for me to have a long fic or a series that I actually WANT to continue - usually I write a thing and then I'm done with it (and sometimes just done with the fandom altogether), which I know can be kind of frustrating to the readers who were hoping for more. But fencing fic is just like this WELL, I have all of this stuff from it I want to splash out on the pavement for people to look at, and it's been super fun to just invite those questions and prompts that people have and see if I can get anything out of the well for those.

Neery left a comment on Passe (the last main fic) that said in part "If you're taking prompts for this universe, I'd love to see more of Wheeljack's and Starscream's relationship, especially their first time (because you can't tell me Starscream wasn't a neurotic mess about it)." And I went YEAH and then hopped into chat with Dez ( @sauntervaguelydown ) and basically just banged out the whole plot while a) tipsy after a party and then b) the next morning in between refereeing at a fencing tournament. Which was probably a good set of states to be thinking about this fic.

At first I was thinking of this as a short five times fic, basically showing a set of sex failures followed by sex success, because I love bad sex becoming good sex in fic. But the more I thought about it the more serious it got, because it was so tangled up in my head with this idea of what 'good' sex actually is and who gets to decide if you're having good sex. This is a little TMI but I also became sexually active in the last couple years and I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what the difference between fantasy and physical desire is as a person who used to be and maybe still is on the ace spectrum somewhere. And (again) what the distinction is between 'good sex' and 'sex I want to have.' So the more I worked on this the more all of that started spilling onto the page.

I also felt a little uncertain about where I left Starscream and Wheeljack in the main fics. I think they can and will be happy, but the undercurrent in the series is that Starscream is still really hung up on Megatron while also recognizing how much Megatron fucked him over, while Wheeljack is furious at Megatron both for what he did to Starscream and for what he perceives Megatron to have done to fencing in general. Starscream's half of that undercurrent gets resolved in the main series, but Wheeljack's half doesn't and it felt like I needed to tackle that in Allez.

I figured this would be an easy fic to write even though I wanted it to be more serious because I knew exactly what the goals were and exactly what the plot was. And then I started writing it and walked straight into a wall. I wrote 2600 words from Starscream's pov, which was FUN but meant that Wheeljack was just... there. Hanging around and being a Good Boyfriend while Starscream panicked.

Starscream flashed a grin, trying to look like a confident mech-about-town who you could trust with your connectors. He could do this. It would be slow and soft and nice, everything you were supposed to do with your sweetspark. And it would feel amazing, because he liked Wheeljack and he wanted to be with him.

"Starscream?" Wheeljack was leaning back a little. "What's that look about?"

"Nothing." Starscream snapped his panel back, transforming his array so the plug was uppermost. "Just thinking about how much I want you."

Wheeljack's optics softened, and his panel opened. His own array transformed into the compatible configuration, plug below his socket. Frag, this was going to be good. Starscream wanted to shove Wheeljack down and slam their arrays together, or for Wheeljack to shove Starscream on his back and ride Starscream's plug until Starscream was begging for the reciprocal connection, desperate for charge.

But Starscream didn't do any of those things, because he was trying to do this right. Instead he leaned back and spread his legs, pulling Wheeljack in by his shoulder to rest between them. Wheeljack's optics were glistening as he eased forward, and they both gasped as their arrays met. The tips of their prongs breached their sockets, and that first tingle of charge was everything Starscream had wanted.

Wheeljack was careful, so careful as he pressed forward, micrometer by micrometer. The charge was a teasing tingle crawling from Starscream's array to the tips of his wings. Wheeljack leaned forward and kissed Starscream as they slipped a little closer together, and it was all perfectly dull.

No. Perfect, it was perfect. The charge wasn't supposed to come in rolling waves that nearly knocked you offline, and your partner wasn't supposed to wrestle you down to the berth while you tried to throw them off. This was the way good mechs fragged. Good mechs like Wheeljack, and like the mech Starscream was pretending to be.

"Starscream," murmured Wheeljack.

Starscream squeezed his optics shut and arched his back a little, forcing the connection deeper before he remembered that he was trying to let Wheeljack control the pace. Wheeljack's frame was hovering over Starscream's, not covering him. He was still modulating his charge to match the chaste little trickle Starscream was allowing through. His mask was still pressed against Starscream's lips. It was straight out of a romance holo.

It wasn't supposed to be boring.

"Starscream," said Wheeljack again. "Starscream, are you okay? I'm gonna disconnect."

"No!" Starscream tightened his grip on Wheeljack's shoulder.

"You're obviously not having a good time." Wheeljack pulled back, able to resist Starscream with his better leverage. "We don't have to connect, it's fine."

"It's not fine!" Starscream tried to tighten his socket to keep Wheeljack there, but Wheeljack's prongs were too thin and smooth for Starscream to catch. "I want to connect, I want to be with you."

"You are with me." Wheeljack laid a hand against Starscream's cheek and pulled their arrays apart. "You don't have to-"

"I hate you," hissed Starscream. "Why can't you just do it? Why can't you just show some bearings and let me worry about myself?"

You see? Fun to write but Wheeljack is just this thing for Starscream to react against.

I chatted with Dez about the problem and decided to rewrite the fic in Wheeljack pov so the exact source of Starscream's neuroticism would be more of a reveal and so I could get further into Wheeljack's head. I got a few hundred words into the new version and just COULD NOT do it, Wheeljack's voice felt all wrong, like I was writing Starscream again but putting Wheeljack's name on it. I talked to Dez about it AGAIN and finally hit on the idea of Wheeljack trying to feel his way through a relationship on trial and error (because Starscream is incapable of communicating) and the amazingly romantic gesture of flowcharts. After that I mostly had it. Until I hit the ending and slammed into ANOTHER wall and had to go back to Dez and be like. Please. Read this. Tell me how to be free.

Dez suggested Starscream and Wheeljack actually having A Conversation after they manage to have sex - basically that they had earned some emotional honesty after all that. This REALLY helped, and I managed to get it the rest of the way to the ending from here, although it took two more rewrites and a whole other ending scene. Total time from conception to post: about 6 weeks, which isn't that much except I felt like I was banging my head against it the entire time haha. And it took about five rewrites, which is two more than I usually do.

Thank god for Dez. I'm usually a pretty isolated writer? I ask for betas on big fics, but that's typically when I have a polished version or when 'm running up against a deadline. It's been really amazing to have someone to bounce fic ideas off of and to pass drafts back and forth with and just to complain when the struggle is getting especially real. I think I would've gotten really sick of this fic without Dez's help and enthusiasm. It probably wouldn't have gotten done at all. As it is, I'm really happy with how it all turned out :)

Some other little bits:

Allez means 'let's go' or 'go' and is also how you start each touch in a fencing bout if you're refereeing in the internation standard (ie French). English: on guard, ready, fence. French: en garde, pret, allez. It's also what French speakers will sometimes yell at a sabre fencer in between touches or while they're charging down the strip. I was thinking here that it's kind of fun to imagine Starscream and Wheeljack's friends shouting 'allez' at them, cheering them on but also hoping they'll get on with it already. Also, I kind of think of this fic as the beginning of a new set of fics - we're out of the main Megatron arc and into more slice of life stuff - so it felt appropriate as a new start to the bout.

When I originally conceived of the Attaque Composee series, I wanted it all to be T rated because I wanted it to be available to most readers and also if someone ever connects meatspace me with this series (a terrifying possibility) I don't really want the conversation to be 'hey I saw you wrote a robot fencing porn fic.' But I also REALLY wanted to write this story and I decided to just roll with it - it's easy to skip this one and read the rest of the series, and I've written plenty of other robot porn fics at this point.

Last thing: over nine fucking years ago I wrote a Scream of Shalka Doctor Who fic where the Master climbed over a table to yell at the Doctor, and my beta completely correctly pointed out that Shalka!Master isn't physically dramatic like that. I have a tendency toward overblown physical comedy and drama that I've had to rein in for years and it is SO RELAXING to be in a fandom where I can write Starscream standing on the berth, nearly falling over while shrieking at Wheeljack and everyone's reaction is 'yep. Yeah. He likes to be tall.'

Thank you for asking about this!!

#i'm trying to get this to format correctly LET'S SEE #memes #tf fencing fic #fanfiction written by me #commentary #asks!

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roaldseth · 6 years ago

Text

By Design

Type: Fanfiction (Digital Devil Saga 2), Gen. (Embryon & Lokapala)

Summary: A rewriting of the second half of scene no.7, Roland’s expositional cutscene, for a Universe Alteration. Due to the nature of rearrangement and addition, Roland’s base character is slightly altered.

Rating: Mature (Alcohol, Mild Language, Cannibalism mention.)

Word-Count: 1082 (w/Forward)

Foreward: “Thanks to us, you can go back to sitting on your asses all day,” Fred boasted as three silhouettes much taller than him followed behind through the open partition gate into the heart of the Underground City. Roland stood in opposition at the end of Lokapala’s setup alongside Adil who was muttering out some kind of barely verbal reaction in disbelief, but Roland remained silent, still, unnerved, yet attentive in awe of the grandeur, because he recognized each of them by their models and numbers: EM-00001, EM-00003, and EM-00005.

... ... ... ...

“Tell me, how did you learn of all this?”

Silence suspended as Roland examined each of the AIs’ expressions, the majority of them void, unreadable. The exception was Argilla—whom Roland had only known as “EM-00003” up until then—whose face was sour since the very beginning of his exposition.

Roland downed another drink to steady himself before he answered.

“I helped program Stage 1 of the Asura Project… and helped create the Embryon, too.”

Everyone else’s expression, except Adil’s behind him, altered accordingly to each individual’s character—even Fred. He had know his father and Roland had worked for the Karma Society, but naivety and lacking information made him assume they were merely technicians or something else less relevant. Then, Roland sighed in reaction to Gale’s sharpened stare.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“You’ve previously stated that Sera had created us. This produces a contradiction between two statements. How can you verify the information’s authenticity?”

“True,” Roland said as he rose from his seat, walking over to his desk, “Sera created the VR’s base source code, four models, and some other things.”—he glanced at Serph and Argilla in between shuffling through a drawer, realizing there was one of them missing aside from Cielo, “EM-00004,” who he and the Lokapala had secured earlier—“But, a team of developers was assigned to manipulate that reality. Do you think she would intentionally destroy her own paradise?”

Roland returned by placing an external hard drive and a DVD-ROM next to his laptop on the coffee table they all sat around.

“These disks… one contains a prototype of Stage 1; the other contains composite data of a complex electromagnetic wave pattern… It’s what turned you into demons.”

“You mentioned that you formed the Embryon…” Gale interjected.

“Fred’s father and I had plans to leave the Project and break away from the Society entirely. Tribe 96 was arranged with our ambitions in mind. You—the Embryon—were our way to study guerilla tactics right underneath the military’s nose.”

Adil let out a chuckled scoff underneath his breath behind them as to say ‘that did a fat lot of help,’ and tried to cover it up with a fake cough afterwards. Roland and Fred noticed it, but as Fred was busy peeking around to eye at the source, Roland continued with his speech unaffected.

“AI specifically for asymmetric warfare… The Lokapala and the Embryon were designed to be the same unit.”

The air thickened to the point where it would have been a surprise to any outlier that everyone was still able to breath, and as much as Roland was surprised as well, at least it was in his favor. Considering no one had been eaten yet, he thought the AI were taking the information far better than he initially thought they would upon being told that everything about them—their actions, judgments, and resolutions—were never truly their own decisions, but were by design, whether it be by the will of the Cyber Shaman or the Project’s development team.

“Why are you telling us this? What is it that you want?” Gale asked; his tone unchanged.

“An alliance… The military wasn’t needed to corrupt the Society. It was vile from the beginning. It doesn’t care about its members, only its goals. I want to help Sera like you do. Bring her here… …Without her, humanity doesn’t have much hope anyway.”

Roland drank from his glass for courage to insinuate the things he did not want to fully admit to; then when the Embryon thought he had finished his speech, the beginnings of a devilish smirk crawled across Roland’s mouth. It was its intent made manifest.

“But, without the Society… …humanity would be much better off. Don’t you think so, too?”

There was some silence for thought, but sitting with the noiseless reverberation of Roland’s tone, his inclination, unnerved Adil a little bit on the inside, so he annexed the benefits to the deal just in case having a mutual enemy was not enough to sway the AIs.

“We’ll give you the infiltration route and all necessary supplies.”

“While Cielo remains captive? Unacceptable. We need manpower.”

Just as Adil was about to bite back, Roland glanced over his shoulder and shook his head slightly once, so Adil got as far as opening his mouth without ever getting anything out besides a wordless noise. Roland paused for thought.

“What if I fight alongside you? Would you agree then?”

It was a good thing Adil was not smoking at the moment because if he were, the cigarette would have dropped from his mouth with ease. Fred’s expression might have mimicked Adil’s unintentionally, but it was because both of their sentiments were the same, genuine exclamation: “Roland!” If paralysis had not stuck him in that instant, Adil would have handed over the AI “Cielo” to them himself.

“Before Cielo joins us,” Roland continued, “I need to know we can work together. You guys are machines designed for war. Us?—We’re all just weak humans… If becoming a Tuner is what needs to be done, then so be it.”

“Why should we believe you?” Argilla exclaimed, “How do we know you’re not going to just sell us out?”

Everything inside Roland seemed to have vanished; no heart for blood, no lungs for air, no brain for thought. Yet, his skin was crawling on every inch of his body, bawling his fingers into fists and mauling his face. Then, a weighted, blackened mass cultivated inside Roland alongside the silence that followed. It was dread. And it kept growing, and growing, and growing, until it crushed him.

“If I fail you somehow, you can kill me. Is that fair?”

Gale and Serph exchanged a brief glance while Adil was off in their peripherals exclaiming “Think this through!” in disbelief to Roland who went unmoved upon waiting for the Embryon’s reply because his decision was set.

Gale turned back to face down Roland.

“Acceptable.”

... ... ... ...

Bonus (Outer-world dialogue changed to compensate for the Universe Alteration):

Roland: Don’t worry, I won’t sell you out. When I left the Karma Society two years ago… I never looked back. We have a liaison, but the rest of them aren’t as friendly to us.

* The “two years go,” along with the distinct usage of “I” instead of “we,” was strictly on purpose to line up with Greg’s death. The account of Greg’s death directly links to severing themselves from the Karma Society and the formation of the Lokapala. Here, although Greg formed the Lokapala, he never was its leader, and Roland had lead from the beginning in his stead and honor. “[Dying] for his men” related to him keeping silent about the names of the other Karma employees that left to align with the Lokapala.

Personal note: I imagine this exit out of the Society being similar to a when-Lucifer-was-cast-out-of-heaven kind of situation, taking “one-third of heaven’s angels” with him and such. This is also why Adil snort-scoffs in the fic, because he was Military before becoming Lokapala.

Roland’s guilt over Greg’s death is from him having saved his own skin by selling out Greg to the Karma Society (eluded in the dialogue “I turned my back on him.”) when they started realizing “unknown persons” started having ulterior motives and plans. Roland saying that he wouldn’t do the same to the Embryon would be his act of atonement, repentance, and ultimately acceptance of what he had done in the past. Alternatively: it could simply remain as survivor’s guilt, if the complex backstory is disregarded.

Extra Notes:

To follow up on Roland (and Greg) creating the Embryon, considering it was not talked about here: how Roland and Greg “purposefully” set up the core four (Serph, Heat, Argilla, Cielo) together was they began noticing a pattern when randomizers were set to distribute AI for tests: the four AI were always being “randomized” together. Roland and Greg knew enough to know they were obviously based off of employees (Serph, Heat, Argilla) and a previous failed Shaman (Cielo); knowing this, they figured they would be the least qualified to pick up military training—like the Lokapala—and prompted queues, ensuring the tribe. Gale was then enlisted directly after by “chance.”

Greg thought of the name “Embryon” from paralleling the World Egg (Cosmic Egg, Egg of the Universe, etc.) with the EGG, and that Tribe 96 is an early manifestation of developing the Lokapala, which he had also named. (One could guess that Greg was one for theology and mythology in DDS canon, so that’s why he gets the honor of naming both Embryon and Lokapala.)

#Digital Devil Saga #fanfiction #If anything #don't read the fic #read the notes about the UA at the end #I was writing them down like 'oh this is good...'#why was Roland just some random schmuck in canon?#I make these alternate versions of Roland #and wonder that if these were his canon version #would I still have liked him all the same?#I'm not sure #but something is telling me 'no.'#But this bolder Roland is something I'm feeling/needing right now

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westywrites · 6 years ago

Text

Story with Gods - Chp 7

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

This chapter needs some hardcore editing when I eventually rewrite this, but for now, this calm (and for some reason super political, damn it Sophia) little van ride is our pause after the doozy of chapter 6 (which I can’t link yet because I am away and don’t have my laptop.)

Also, if you haven't yet seen my giveaway, go take a look at my blog and the post! I would link it, but as I said, travels have me trapped on mobile

Tagging: @infinitelyblankpage @ratracechronicler (if you wish to added/removed from the tagging list for this WIP just let me know!)

EXCERPT: "It's a big hill, a foothill for the mountains, covered by a forest. It looks out at a human town. The hill itself is covered in the homes of gods, right now I can see lights on in the houses. Families home together for a calm and peaceful evening." The van started to descend. "It's so beautiful here, Sophia, especially once winter comes and snow covers the trees."

"It sounds wonderful." Sophia had this lovely picture in her mind of the hillside town. The others enjoyed her smile as they pulled into the only building on the hill that was still inhabited, the rest broken and abandoned because of the war.

"I could have sworn I heard something from here," one man said.

"This is about where we saw a light too," another man replied. It hadn't even occurred to Sophia that is was probably dark out and the realization that she would never see the stars again made her shudder.

"What was that?" The first man took a step towards Sophia. "I heard movement from just here somewhere."

"What if this wasn't just the girls and they have a Creep with them?" A woman spoke up. "We'll never find them."

"They can't hide forever, judging by the blood in the halls the girls are suffering a lot of blood loss." The first man took a few steps away. "We'll scour these woods until we hear them." All of the footsteps retreated, split directions and wandered off into the woods. They didn't move for a while, just sat as still and as quiet as they could.

"What did they mean by a Creep?" Sophia had grown tired of the silence. "And why didn't they see us?"

"Creep is a name they call gods like me. We are rebirths of various gods of stealth, thievery, things like that." Heidi shifted her weight on the leaves. "The reason they couldn't find us, despite standing close enough to touch, is because of my powers. I can camouflage myself and those around me so that as long as we don't move or make a sound we can't be found."

"That's really cool." Sophia numbly imagined all the useful applications of a power like that.

"You really think so?" Heidi sounded doubtful. "Most of the more powerful gods think it's basically cheap parlour tricks."

"It's really useful, like you just saved us all." Sophia nodded. "That's super cool." Her words were staccato and Sophia thought she sounded like an idiot.

There was a weird buzzing sound from by Heidi. "Ben's on his way," Heidi said a moment later. "They'll park the van in the closest clearing."

"How far is the closest clearing though?" Sophia could imagine trying to walk through the woods blind.

"Don't you worry about that," Heidi assured. "We always work in at least three, our other partner will be able to carry one of you." Within minutes Sophia could hear two sets of footsteps running through the woods. Her heartbeat rose, she hated not being able to see who was coming.

"We need to move now," Ben hissed. "we think the Soundies heard the van." Heidi cursed under her breath and they started to rustle around the leaves doing something.

"Hi, I'm here to help,” a kind voice said next to Sophia. The man gently picked her up, his arms were even warmer than Ben had been and a whole lot gentler. The man ran with the others, they hadn’t run for very long before they stopped.

"Heidi, we decided you have to drive," Ben said as Sophia heard the sound of a sliding van door.

"I hate driving the van,” Heidi complained.

"The girls need to be healed and you remember what happened last time I tried to drive." There was the sound of other doors opening and closing.

"I'm going to set you on the floor of the van now." The man did as he said before gently climbing in around her. "Let's go,” he told the others. The van started with a slight jerk and started to climb a hill.

"How can a van drive in the forest?" Sophia felt like an idiot for asking.

"This is my vehicle, it's kind of special. Right now we're climbing up to fly above the forest." The man put a hand on her knee. "But don't you worry about any of that, I need you to try your best to tell me what happened so I can help you and your friends."

Sophia curled into a ball in the corner and explained what happened. Every time she said one of their names the man would clarify to make sure he knew who was who. She could hear him moving around the van as she talked. Every so often there would be a flash of warmth from where he was.

"Can you tell me your name now?" The man asked from just in front of her. "I'm going to do a few things around your face, I just want you to tell me a bit about yourself."

"My name is Sophia Grader,” she began, her words felt like they belonged to someone else, someone who had died back in that room with Bob. "I'm seventeen and I was supposed to be going into grade 12." She just kept talking and he would respond sometimes with questions about herself. At first, it hurt when he touched her face but after a bit, it just felt numb.

"I had hoped..." The man muttered.

"You had hoped what?" She prompted him to continue.

"I had hoped that the damage wouldn't be directly to your eyes." He sighed. "I had thought we may be able to restore some or even all of your vision but..."

"The damage is directly to my eyes and I'm screwed to be blind for the rest of my life." Sophia shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. "Which means forever apparently."

"I was freaked out by the idea of immortality at first too." She heard him lean against the door beside her. "You get used to it."

"Where even are the seats in this van?" She stuck out her foot to see if she'd kick one.

"Smooth topic change." He laughed slightly. "Dani, the Hades rebirth, right? She's on the back seat. The rest of the seats are taken out so it's mostly open space. The other girl is on the ground."

"Her name is Olivia." Sophia curled back into a ball.

"Right sorry. I'm really bad with names." He paused. "Speaking of names I don't think I ever introduced myself. The name's Apollo, god of the sun, knowledge, poetry, music, healing, and all that."

"Wait like the real actual Apollo?" Sophia sat up straight in excitement.

"So far as I know there's no other god with my name." He paused awkwardly. "Oh right, um, I'm sticking out a hand for you to shake if you want."

"It is so amazing to meet you." She waved her hands through the air until she found his and shook it with both of hers. His hand was much smaller than she would’ve expected from a great god.

"We've got a long ride ahead of us, is there anything you'd like to talk about?" It was as if she could hear the warmth of the sun in his voice.

He was right, the ride was long. For Sophia, it seemed to last forever. They talked for most of it, about various things. Heidi and Ben would sometimes chime in from the front seat. The topic changed often, whenever it got to the subject of gods. Mostly they talked about music and listened to music on something similar to a smartphone that Apollo had in his pocket. Sophia laughed when she found that all it could do was play music and Apollo thought it was very advanced technology. The device could play any song that had ever been made, even if it had never been recorded, all it took was for someone present to know of the song. She showed them some of her favourite songs, most of which had simple tunes and meaningful lyrics that she knew Olivia would’ve called “hippy bullshit” or something like that. Prompted by a line in one of the songs the conversation shifted to politics.

"Look, I just think that something similar to elections are needed, and if both sides are saying no, it's probably because they know they wouldn't win." Sophia had been defending democracy against the others.

"But if you hold elections the majority gets to decide who is in charge, what if the person they choose is unqualified?" Ben asked.

"Only people who are qualified are eligible to run." Sophia shrugged. "It's simple."

"But it could result in some low-level god in charge of the higher level gods." Heidi seemed appalled by the idea.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again, this system of power or class, or whatever it is you have going on, is stupid." Sophia was very animated about the subject and throughout their discussion, she had almost hit Apollo multiple times. Her hands moved everywhere as she talked. "You guys are just as bad as humans for thinking different means unequal." Sophia's words caught as she finished the sentence, the idea that they were anything but human was still foreign to her, though at this point it was undeniable. "We're going to talk about something else now."

"Why do you keep changing the subject?" Apollo probed. "When it comes to anything about gods, in particular, you being a god, you change the topic completely."

"It doesn't matter." Her voice cracked, giving away her emotions.

"It's ok." He placed a hand on her knee. "Tell me why you're upset."

"It's weird, scary, I don't know. I just don't want to even think about it." She pushed his hand away. He left her alone after that and they fell silent. The rest of the ride - Sophia refused to call it a flight - felt even longer. It was sitting there that she realized that she couldn't go to sleep, she definitely wanted to, but it just wouldn't happen. She started to cry. Silent tears that she couldn't feel through the scars on her face.

"I can see the hill now," Heidi announced. "Sophia, you'd love what it used to be. Lights and parties all the time. All kinds of music and fun."

"Tell me what it looks like now," Sophia said softly.

"It's a big hill, a foothill for the mountains, covered by a forest. It looks out at a human town. The hill itself is covered in the homes of gods, right now I can see lights on in the houses. Families home together for a calm and peaceful evening." The van started to descend. "It's so beautiful here, Sophia, especially once winter comes and snow covers the trees."

Heidi and Ben carried Olivia and Dani, Apollo led Sophia by hand. She stumbled slightly as she walked on her own but they went slowly. Apollo explained that the building was essentially the hospital and headquarters. Every god who wasn't a resident of the town stayed in that building. At that moment it was only a small gathering of gods, most of Zeus's armies were spread across the Americas for safety. They walked through long hallways, their footsteps echoed against the tile. When they passed anyone they would fall silent and Sophia swore she felt them stare. Apollo carried her up a few flights of stairs and finally, they stopped.

"You all will be staying in these rooms for the time being." He led her into a room on the right. "This is room 107. There's a bed, an end table, and a dresser we will fill with clothes for you. There's also a small washroom in the back right corner should you ever want to wash yourself." He guided her to the bed and placed her hand on a button at the top. "Just press this whenever you need anything."

"Please don't leave me alone," she whispered.

"I have to, I have other things to do." He sighed and placed his hands on her shoulders. "You will be alright."

"I'm scared." Her voice could barely be heard and her hands shook and suddenly her head started to hurt. It felt like it was going to burst, like she was going to burst. Apollo yelled her name as she fell to the ground convulsing.

#west's words #writers on tumblr #writeblr #creative writing #spilled ink #original fiction #story with gods #sophia grader #minor characters #ben heidi and apollo are a fantastic trio #fun fact: one of my best friends is named heidi #but i named this character before i ever met her #odd right?#i swear they even have aspects of the same personality #so i somehow wrote my friend into my story when i didn't even know my friend yet?

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textsacc · 4 years ago

Text

prompt: i write all these stupid love songs about you and then i tear them from my journal and hide them away in a box with your name on the lid. maybe one day you’ll hear them. (unsenttextsuggestion)

its cute how she thinks she can hide things from me, yozora thinks as she mulls over the contents of the box. there's a scatter of ripped paper around her on the floor as she rummages through more litter in the container. it's painted black and gold, with a crescent sticker stuck on its lid. her kashiwazaki overlord was never one to stand by marking things with subtly.

of course she would've noticed it. her eyes ran through words on scrap pieces. the prose -- it's cute. like, sickly sweet kind of cute. some of the words come off sharper and aggressive, but in them yozora can still see the tenderness, light and pure and radiant, just as similar to the owner of the notes herself. she snorts at one, trying not to notice her flushed complexion as she stuffs it back in the box. it wasnt the first time she'd seen them; sometimes she’d liken herself to visit them, when she needed a bit of self-love in the quiet and dreary afternoons, her ego stretched thin by her mind’s loathing behaviour. needless to say, this definitely wouldn't be her last, either. yozora had already found herself addicted to her companion’s love.

haste made for waste, yozora tells herself, collecting the scatter and putting them back where they’d belonged. she only had so much time before her secret admirer got back, after all. lovely, she imagines, unable to help herself from stopping the compliment slipping through as her friend's image naturally came to mind. box in two hands, a slide stores the blonde's secret collection away, tucked neatly in a shelf found underneath her bedroom’s window sill. yozora’s delicate work made it seem as untouched and unremoved as it originally appeared to be. now all she had to do was soothe her burning cheeks, and everything would return to normal.

it was almost unfair how sincere her lyrics were. each rip torn at the papers' seams were unexpectedly fortunate, the lines yozora would craft from shifting them around forming neatly, new poetry crafted from fragments of another. something told yozora that her instructions were premeditated, but her gut instinct told her otherwise; after all, sena would never be this careful, the bumbling beast.

stupid cute idiot, she thinks, revising her friend's script again. she would know where the pieces would go, if she tried to pay attention to them. ink bled through paper, and remnants remained on their edges, blotted and broken. but it was way more fun to piece the phrases together to create something dastardly new. when she found herself done, it would be like a cacophony of memories, of all the times sena went through the song writing process, coming up with words and dreams that yozora herself could never admit to sharing. a symphonious torture, yes, that was what it would become, and a mischievous warm smile made its way to her lips. she was only lucky that her carefulness had gotten her this far in the past -- now, though, as she copied the words one by one into her book, she would have all the time in the world to peruse them to her own delight.

to say that her plan made her face red was... an understatement, now, in another frame of mind. after running through her notes line by line, a project she’d tended to almost every evening by now, yozora was surprised she couldn't even look the blonde in the face anymore. shed always had a problem with eye contact, that much she found herself sure, but even the best of her tricks couldnt help her as she’d turn her eyes away, even from the vague sight of her friend.

"you're acting really weird lately," sena observes one night at dinner. yozora thinks its funny how she’s invited to eat with the family unlike their previous servants. sort of like a housewife. "is everything alright? you know you can tell me anything on your mind."

yozora refuses. it was much too personal for them and for her. "it's none of your business," and she bites her tongue before she could say 'meat', glancing carefully at her love’s father. pegasus was never fond of that nickname, even though she thought it suited her princess just fine. "--but thank you." of course, she had to observe her manners. "i appreciate the offer."

a useless whimper, the girl puffing up her cheeks in retaliation. yozora fought the urge to smile.

the most recent entry, the most recent scatter of paper. she couldnt seriously have wrote that, could she? yozora could hardly believe it.

earlier, she'd made the mistake of matching them as the author had intended, before mixing them into pile. and just entertaining the possibility of those four lines, intent after another, was enough to send her under the covers even hours later, when her eyes weren't focused on pieces ahead of her. so brash, so unrestrained. wanting. yearning. how bashful it reduced her to, as her mind hummed over the words again, a repetitive melody she couldn't simply get rid of. she was only lucky sena rested upstairs and fell asleep early before she could be bothered to hunt for the servant today, as yozora holed herself up in her own little room. she needed isolation, she decides, foreseeing herself blushing red again, with equal intensity in the future.

if she was to continue her own project like this, she had to ensure more moments of privacy for herself.

no knocks, just the door opening. yozora counts her lucky stars (just one, and she was right in front of her) that she hadn't been singing just yet, merely playing a few chords. "i’m here to listen," sena announces, a cheeky smile on her face (too cute). her butler shifts her eyes away from the room's entrance, but scooches closer to the wall; a mistake, as it gives her friend some space on the bed to sit on.

"what're you playing?"

"nothing of importance," yozora shrugs off, not meeting sena's gaze, pretending to retune her instrument. she wondered if the girl would buy into her lie, turning the knob only slightly in her fib. but it didn't seem that way when she’d given her pet a good glance, the star’s brilliant beam shining back in her face.

yozora swallows a breath, looking up. "don't you have some studying to do? a game to get back to?"

"studying?"

the servant notices her momentary slip up, and for a moment yozora debates keeping herself still like a frightened animal. instead, she rolls her eyes, and that gets their conversation to pass over the mistake.

"ah, but the new title that came out earlier today--"

good. sena's attention had been grabbed. "it was just way shorter than i thought it was going to be! what a let down. and they didn't even include a cg for cecilia, but they put in two more for lisa?!"

the princess huffs and folds her arms. for a moment, yozora wondered how lovely it would be to pull her in close for comfort.

"oh no," she replied, resting on her guitar, words dripping with sarcasm. "its not like cecilia's the main character, or that she hasn’t been in any other title before or anything, thus having more screen time than any other character in the series." a miracle, it was, that she remembered the series elements at all.

"are you kidding me?"

her friend's eyes come alive with untold fury. yozora secretly wanted more.

"that should give them more reason to put more scenes with her in it! being in several games shows exactly how much we the fans like her!" by the sheets, sena pulls her fingers into a fist. "those cowards! i’d already gone to their forums and gave them a piece of my mind, though!"

"and so you're here to bother me instead?"

so long as she herself was being cold, the servant figured, it would be in due time before her mistress would leave her undisturbed.

"of course! i wouldn't want to miss what my best friend was up to these days!"

ugh. best friend.

"sorry, i dont know who that is," yozora mocks, wrist flapped off-handedly. "maybe you should check another room, for once. you'll find someone there."

"that's so mean!" (the telltale pout from sena. what a look.) "why cant you just take the compliment i give you?"

"compliment?"

her sideways glance appears more sly and dark than she'd wanted it, but the facade was entirely calculated; so yozora wouldn't be caught under scrutiny blushing like a lovestruck schoolgirl. that sinister aura was to mask her fluster. "you talk like its a privilege to be your friend."

"it is one!"

"more like a burden. come see me after you've grown up enough to take care of yourself."

of course, her servitude had always been a sore spot for sena, on the account that she wouldn't be seen as independent enough in the household. no, she didn't need to be to begin with, but now there was a reason for the star to hold some guilt. because it was yozora behind those duties now.

"i can do it just fine, thank you very much."

"you say that but you sure aren't showing it, meat," the butler remarks with a straightened back, fingers flicking at her guitar's strings. a strum. "try that again when you've found something else to do."

it turns out to be enough.

with a "hmph" and a toss of her hair (a soft wave of starlight, so pretty) sena gets off the bed and leaves.

wonderful. it would've been a perfect exit, except she forgot to close the door behind her.

again.

not that yozora minded getting up and chasing her beloved’s footsteps to shut it.

so, that song. that rearranged poem of scraps abandoned and hidden and lost.

well.

singing it had proved almost too tough to bear.

no matter how yozora found herself rearranging the letters, folding her notes' pages in half in an attempted rewrite, the thought of her unlikely confession had always bubbled up in a swarm up in her chest, bursting painfully against her lungs. and in those moments of frustration, she'd wanted to scream to the world in one chorus of finality, a head-spinning moment where she'd forget all her admirer's intentions behind it, just so she could put her emotions past herself, and wave off the project for having completed it so.

she couldn't, of course, without actually performing the piece live in front of her. a recording would be too insincere, and living through those seconds again in an editor was a nightmare that yozora had opted to spare herself from. it had to be done live, she persuaded herself, even after rational convincing just prior minutes before. at any moment now, her mistress would--

--footsteps trailed towards the entrance. then, the door swung open.

the concert hall was but sena's bedroom, and the guitarist had been unprepared to perform for an audience of just one. of course, changed out from her butler's outfit, the blonde did wonder what her best friend, off-duty, was doing in her room.

"yozora? what--"

the fingers the girl had on her strings were slow in shifting, underlining the tautness within its player.

"i-i was getting ready for something," yozora replies, finally turning around to greet her listener with a reddened face. there was no way for the star to have missed the guitar in her hands, cradled in a comforting hold in the girl's arms, and her digits never leaves its surface when she gestures towards the corridor using a shift of her head. "close the door behind you. i-it's not like this was meant for anybody else..."

in absolute curiosity and confusion, sena complied.

there had been a small space in her mistress' bedroom where a beanbag had been set aside. and though yozora often frequented it during her short breaks or moments of respite with her friend, so too would sena take advantage of its cushion just once, the duo shifting from the center of the room over to an open corner.

"o-okay, so what's this about...?"

"w-well, i..."

it was in a stammer that the vocalist lost her words. and in duress, she defaulted to some lines familiar, lines that would put her back into gear with the delivery of her performance.

after all, she couldn't afford to be worried about her lyrics, stolen as they were sorted through. not now.

"s-shut up and listen."

a gentle chord. fumbling of fingers on nylon, and a pacing of steps against the carpet, on the spot.

with one short breath, yozora parts her lips and allows the melody to flow through her, keeping her gaze shortsighted. vision blurred, the world spinning; it was how she imagined the leak of her emotions to feel, the room growing warmer with each sway of her torso, each swing of her head to one corner, then the next. her heart and her tempo were racing in unequal measures, the girl drawing out each line, keeping in mind to uphold the adagio of a ballad.

and all the while, she didn’t have to wonder if she was the only one burning up in embarassment. body language was all the performer needed to read with her star kept within sight; raised cheeks, lips hidden behind a fold of her palm, each major fidget was enough of a signal to yozora that, at the very least, her audience was captivated.

for those few minutes, the girl decides, that was all she had to be.

she doesn’t trip up on her lines as she once expected from herself. there’s something in her performance she falls back upon, hours of practice culminated in a single moment, supporting each harmonious line, every tremble of her chords in her throat as she forces notes through second by second. it gets easier the further she performs, and the moon finds herself smiling after a minute, somehow registering the majesty of her craft while she’s delivering it to its intended receipient. it’s cute. like, a sickly sweet kind of cute. her love nearly overflows as she churns out the lyrics, slow, smooth and simple, bubbles of joy tucked away at the back of her mouth, near threatening to rise and take over her words as giggles had she chosen to stop. that realization of how silly, how foolish, how honest and vulnerable her song and dance was making her-- it could’ve swallowed her up whole in midst of her performance.

but yozora is made of tougher material, and with a gentle tap and piviot of her feet upon wool, she stops, with one final hum and a prayer for her success behind closed eyes. there’s nothing but the sound of her guitar strings reverberating in the air for a few seconds; it’s only when the wait for a response gets too much to bear that the girl opens her eyes, to finally put sena into focus, sena, right, the love she was confessing to, the one she couldn’t pay attention to this whole time--

the world stops for a moment when their eyes meet, faces awash with crimson and heat. neither of them move, still as statues save for a couple of blinks. yozora is out of words -- she’d already used all of them in the song, eaten up every other resource of her brain to keep herself functioning in that heart-pounding, adrenaline-rushed moment -- and her grip relaxing on her instrument is a beckon for her other to say something, something.

her response comes in a lean backwards, into the bean bag, bloating it up to hold her when yozora can’t. there is a mix of fear, shock, joy and anger all at once in those eyes, eyes that the girl can’t help but continue looking into, despite the fact that she’d wanted so desperately to look away in that moment, just as she often did in most others. the words take sena another moment to form, and they trickle out as a whisper, “when... when did you find them?”

and the guitarist didn’t need to be asked twice about the star’s secret stash. “i’ve known of it for a while,” she replies, finally tearing her eyes off her admirer. there’s something lodged in her throat as she continues to speak, yozora trying not to stutter over her words. “h-honestly, you should try to hide that box better. it was easy to find it while i was cleaning up your room, you know?”

“the-- the curtains should’ve hid it...”

a low murmur, one that yozora barely catches. when sena rises, takes a few step to draw close to her servant, that drum beat grows louder in the performer’s ears. she spots a wavering frown from the blonde and a burning visage to match. delicate fingers, fragile and soft rest on the woodwork of the guitar, and they nearly meet yozora’s tight grips. she fights to steady her breathing, just as she sees her star struggling to justify her sudden approach.

“a-anyway, y-you sung them all wrong...! i-i honestly don’t know how you managed to jumble them up so bad, a-and the melody’s completely off-- the line delivery and everything--”

there was a part of yozora that had wanted to argue back, mention the amount of effort that she’d spent piecing together the broken puzzle pieces, solving a jigsaw that didn’t need to be solved. and on most days, in most circumstances, she would’ve opted for such a retort. but the graze of skin against her own and the trembles, the quaking from her mistress -- was sena offering to deliver the songs in their most primal nature, as she had originally intended?

that clamouring for her guitar seemed to be telling. it’s nearly violent the way yozora thrusts the part of entertainer onto her confessed, restraint audible from the way she hisses out her challenge, trying not to trip on language, “t-then you show me, i-if you want to pick at my creative genius that much.”

“m-mm,” sena responds, taking the instrument in tow, agitation simmering down to a quiet. “j-just watch.”

yozora shifts, retreats, almost hastens her steps as she makes her way to the throne of the audience. and sena checks the scale on the instrument, humming anxiously and pacing on the spot --

the moon wonders, after taking her seat, if that had been exactly how she’d looked just a few moments ago. she contemplates this while avoiding bringing to light that memory itself, leaning forward, watching her other prepare herself.

she doesn’t have expectations, didn’t come in with any the moment she stepped into the room. but listening to her star’s opening lines, it was difficult to say that yozora had been entranced by the confession. sure, a poet her mistress might’ve been, pen marked on paper, but when vocalized paired with a shaken melody, something felt off about the performance. in a way that was telling it needed refinement. in the same way her mistress had always been raw, pure, unabashedly passionate.

it takes the girl everything just to stop herself from laughing, realizing the truth of that adorable personality shining through against all things.

the way her angel, too, had opted to block out the world with a shut of her eyelids. static movements where yozora herself had gone with the flow, felt free -- no doubt lived in her head that it was like watching an amateur’s performance right before their debut, but even then she couldn’t fault her star for her unbridledness. it had been in the spur of the moment that she decided to forge an act together, after all. and line by line, yozora starts to put the pieces together once again, in a different order this time, each keynote with its phrase once disassembled now under reorganization in her memory as she listens. against her fingertips, she feels it, the soft texture of ripped edges worn from handling. a smile graces her face as she tunes in.

though her amusement had subsided, her embarassment -- and heartwarmth -- had not.

only when the last of the songs were complete did it strike yozora as odd, how they practically traded confessions and left themselves devoid of proper confirmation, of responses. it was enough for her expression to wry, eyes trying to match her near-lover’s own if only to convey this perplexity in the moment. when sena finally resumes her sights, yozora makes deer caught in headlights out of her.

“m-meat...”

“w-wh-what is it? j-just so you know, i-i’m not performing them again...”

the star might as well have been the sun by now, glowing so bright with feelings said -- yet bond unconfirmed. she breaks their matching gazes, throwing her own to the side, clutching the guitar with noticable effort in her embarassment. it almost brings yozora to smile again, as she rises, pacing forward; that instrument was hers, and she was to collect it, but she had something else she’d wanted to see if she could retrieve in that moment.

footsteps slow to a shuffle. folded arms. her heated visage was only reflecting her centerfold.

“y-your delivery could use some work, in my opinion.”

“h-huh?”

“b-but more importantly,” yozora hurries, and puts her hands on sena’s, if only to stop the rebuttals she knows would follow had she hesitated. their traded fevers only worked to dizzy the girl moreso than she already felt faint, the servant taking steady breaths in lieu of her mistress’ fraying composure. “-- t-that just means...”

“-- ...”

“...”

though a silence persisted between them, it was past a few seconds that sena nods, pulling her gaze up from the carpet. a hum.

“y-yeah. i... i love you too, yozora.”

now it’s the moon’s turn to tremble, finally falling, humbled by her beloved careful and precious words.

“... i-- i love you too. ...meat.”

#writing #soraniku

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marypsue · 7 years ago

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@blogg-saron Just remember: you asked for it.

Reincarnation Blues (95,096 words, published April 2, 2015, completed September 26, 2015)

This fic was the product of an idea that absolutely would not leave me alone. I’ve mentioned before that originally Rosa was the centre of the piece, with Ian as a supporting player and partner in crime in her bid to take over the world by being adorable and popular. Rosa Darling, Taylor Swift’s Evil Twin, crawled fully-formed out of the first time I heard Delta Rae’s ‘I Will Never Die’, at least two months before I ever wrote a word of Reincarnation Blues.

Ian didn’t actually have a name until I decided to write a short fic based on these characters who just wouldn’t get out of my head; he was a generic, grinning-evil Devil Went Down To Georgia reference with a fiddle but no name playing backup in Rosa’s band and lending her supernatural firepower when necessary. As originally conceived, he knew exactly who he’d been and used it to his full advantage. I decided on 'Ian’ after considering ‘Liam’ as a name that referenced ‘William’, but not as obviously as a ‘Bill’ or ‘Will’, and then deciding that would give the game away too soon. I also just plain didn’t like the name ‘Liam’ as much. It was only later that I found out that the man responsible for the absolutely stunning art direction on Gravity Falls is named Ian. And I just found out now, looking up Delta Rae to see when ‘I Will Never Die’ was released, that one of the band members is named Ian. This is...typical of the experience of writing this fic.

Mira came into the picture after I gave up on finishing the fic I was working on at the time before giving the RB characters free rein on my imagination, and decided to write just a short one-shot, just to introduce them. (Hah.) I’m not sure, exactly, when or why I ended up deciding that Ian shouldn’t have any knowledge of his previous incarnation (I think it was somewhere between Brown Bird’s ‘Blood of Angels’ and the short burst of Alex!Bill popularity), but it ended up being a good decision. It would’ve been around that time that I decided I needed to put him into Alcor’s path in order for his previous incarnation to come out, and that the best way to do that was to put him into the orbit of a Mizar. Deciding to have them date was purely a ‘hey, wouldn’t it be funny if...’, with an added touch of ‘oh man, Dipper would hate that’. Mira basically started out as an amalgamation of Mabel traits and fashion that I like, and a lot of her arguments with Dipper came out of my trying to figure out just what the heck was going on in her head. (Also, her social media presence is a little bit based on Manzi, who Alex was dating at the time, because I followed her on here for a short while before realising we had practically no interests in common and she posted a LOT of stuff that wasn’t cosplay. )

And now that the stage is set:

Chapter One

This began life as a one-shot that was meant to exorcise these characters from my head. Ninety-six thousand words later, we can all see how that turned out.

I wrote a good chunk of this chapter from Mira’s perspective, but it just wasn’t working, and I realised around the point where Dipper flips out that if I wanted to keep it as a short, I needed the readers to know whether Ian was really evil and scheming like Dipper suspected, or if he was just as clueless as Mira was. Now, I think I might have stuck with my original plan and left that ambiguous, because that would be a nice, tight little horror story. On the other hand, ninety-six thousand words later...

Given the opportunity to do a complete rewrite, though, I would adjust Mira and Ian’s introduction as a couple. Their first interactions seem really, really stilted and forced to me now.

Chapter Two

I actually wrote a short fic for the TAU blog based on a prompt about Ian and Dipper learning to tolerate each other and Ian pitching a show based on Dipper and Mabel’s experiences in Gravity Falls before I decided I was going to expand the, at the time, one-shot into a full multichapter fanfiction novel. It actually was part of what convinced me that I still had a lot of stories to tell about these characters, and that it should be expanded. That short fic also introduced Ian’s prosthetic eye, which he didn’t, at that point in Reincarnation Blues, have. I got to answer a couple of asks with axolotl gifs and feel like a real creative mastermind.

There were a couple times while I was writing the climax that I actually considered killing Ian off, because it seemed more likely with the state of each of the characters and also just so that the Toby plot could still work, but because I had made this short fic of events taking place after the events of RB and Ian was still alive in it, I decided that meant I’d made a tacit promise that he’d survive. I didn’t really want to kill him off anyway, so it made a good excuse when I was weighing my narrative options and they all seemed to be sliding towards Death.

A lot of this chapter was influenced by the surge of human!Bills in the fandom at the time, and especially of human!Bills (and human-shaped!Bills) who had flashy, obvious, fire-based powersets. I felt like Bill Cipher’s real power lay in misdirection - the flash and the fire, in canon, always only distracted the main characters from Bill’s real objectives, and, arguably, what he was really getting out of their interactions. To my way of thinking, it was far more likely that a human Bill Cipher would have some kind of mentally-based powerset, if they had a ‘powerset’ at all, and weren’t merely very quick cogitators who could think big and put themselves one step ahead of everyone around them. At the time, there were precious few authors and illustrators who seemed to have come to the same conclusion - none that I ran across, anyway. (There still aren’t, but the flood of billdip-based Cool Human Bills With Fire Powers seems to have slowed to a trickle.)

It also came in response to Toby, who was invented by the Transcendence AU’s very own Mod Z and exploded in popularity almost instantly. He was a sweetheart, a genuinely good, kind, little kid, who was facing enormous cosmic retribution for a millennia-long previous lifetime as a liar, monster, and snappy dresser. Toby is great, his creator manages to milk all the hilarious irony out of the situation, and there are some authors who’ve done really good and clever things with him. I’ve just never been all that interested in purely Good characters who just keep getting kicked in the teeth by a cruel world, and it struck me that Toby was the perfect setup for Bill to sneak in close to Dipper and do...something vicious. (I don’t think, at this point, that I knew exactly what Bill was planning to use Ian for, but I definitely knew that Bill was planning something, and it was going to blow up spectacularly in everyone’s faces.)

With those things in mind, I tried to imagine some realistic flaws or weaknesses that a near-omniscient, immortal demon forcibly bound to a decaying, imperceptive meatsack might potentially develop. Ian’s anxiety and nihilism(-lite?) and self-destructive tendencies all come from there. I settled on the feelings of insignificance and impermanence as the two major issues Ian had to face mostly because those were two things that Bill had never had to consider, would never have had to consider if he hadn’t ended up human himself, and would never have been able to satisfactorily reconcile with his own omniscience and indelible influence on human history/trail of destruction across several dimensions. It was not long after I settled on this and really committed to it (I believe it was a few chapters later than this, though) that Alex did a twitter Q&A where he talked to a fan with anxiety and...basically laid out that he suffered from very similar fears, and had developed very similar coping mechanisms to the ones I’d decided to give Ian. I initially only made Ian look like Alex for the sake of the joke, but as the fic progressed it became more and more clear to me that, by writing a version of a character who Alex Hirsch had once gotten in a ‘which character are you’ online personality quiz, I had inadvertently tapped a vein of similarity that was only gonna get wider.

If you’re reading this, Mr. Hirsch: I am so sorry, and I swear that I did not and do not stalk you. I know my icon of cartoon Dana Terrace kinda makes this harder to believe, but still.

Chapter Three

The first Mira-POV scene! Also the first appearance of Rosa!

I think this was the chapter that really cemented for me that I was doing this, that this 'short one-shot' was now a fully-fledged multichaptered fic and I was in it for the long haul. This is the first chapter that starts to set the plot in motion, and the first chapter where I really knew that there WAS an overarching plot thread and where, in a more specific sense, it was going. I believe this is also the chapter where the fic got its title (the previous two oneshots had been posted without titles).

...her punk-bluegrass act, the Savage Peace...

Oh yeah! I never mentioned these guys again. This was the duo that Ian and Rosa played together in, before Ian left to go into animation and Rosa went solo. The name is a riff on the Civil Wars, another excellent bluegrass duo who split up due to differences of opinion on their future direction. I love the Civil Wars.

I searched last.fm for 'punk bluegrass' after this chapter, because I had a very specific idea about what Rosa's music sounded like (like Delta Rae but with more electric guitar and bass, pretty much) and I wanted to see if anyone else had made it a reality. I did not find what I was looking for, but I did find Wood Spider, a band that plays bluegrass music with screamo vocals. I recommend 'Is It Strange?' because it is a very, very Ian song.

In case you hadn't noticed yet, a lot of the making of this fic was heavily influenced by music. I really need to make another playlist for it at some point.

Also, there's been some confusion amongst TAU peeps regarding Rosa's hair. I intended it to look like P!nk's blonde fauxhawk. Word Of God has spoken.

"He knows what I like and don't like, what matters to me, even things I don't tell him. He pays attention to what I say and do, and he remembers. He just does nice things for me sometimes when I'm least expecting it, and it's always exactly what I didn't even know I wanted."

This line was meant to show how Bill's 'ALWAYS WATCHING!' shtick might, under a very different set of circumstances and put to a different use, actually be a good thing. Post-Escape From Reality and Mabeland, it also takes on a vicious irony which I really appreciate. Successfully predicting what'll be ironic in the most painfully angsty way before canon even gets there: The Mary P. Sue Advantage!

I think this scene is where Mira actually coalesces into her own character for me, rather than 'a Mizar who is dating an r!Bill'. This is where she gets to show some of her own strengths and values, and to oppose and conflict with Dipper on her own terms, rather than because of Ian. I made a conscious effort to make sure this fic passed the Bechdel test, but I feel like even though this was a conversation with a dude, it was equally important in giving Mira a voice and an interior life separate from the men (well, okay, man and demon) in it. It also shows off the two sides of her - she's picked up a lot from Dipper, as evidenced by her nonchalance about cult-busting, but she's also still empathetic and compassionate, as shown by how she handles the kids. She's stuck between Dipper and humanity, and this is the first place where that's really shown, rather than talked about. It's one of my favourite scenes in the fic for exactly those reasons.

The last scene in this chapter is also where Mira and Ian start really feeling real to me as a couple, too. I really think this is just the chapter where I found my stride and all the pieces started to come together.

Chapter Four

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this chapter. It mostly exists to set the scene for what comes later, to get the reader more familiar with the characters, to set the cogs in motion. I am very pleased with Ian and Rosa’s friendship in the first couple scenes, though - I think it’s pretty natural.

Rosa looked up at him, her expression completely neutral. “Beale, I am goin’ to steal your girl.”

At the time I was writing this, there had been - I remember it as several, but it really must’ve been like, three - Gideon reincarnations (and preincarnations) in TAU who had gotten weirdly possessive about Mizars and had caused All Of The Plot in their respective fics by trying to make her their own. We’d also - if I recall correctly - received an ask basically proposing that Gideon’s soul would always do that, any time it came into contact with a Mizar’s, no matter what else might be going on. I...wasn’t a fan of that idea. I believe I’ve mentioned in a previous thing-where-I-talked-too-much-about-RB that Reincarnation Blues’ major theme is determinism versus individual identity. That was why I felt like this was the perfect place to kind of deconstruct that idea that there could be no r!Gideon who wasn’t an epic jerk. Right from the beginning, I intended for Rosa to get fixated on Mira, to set events in motion by doing a bunch of stuff that was beyond the pale to try to ‘steal’ her from Ian, and then to have to face the consequences of her actions. The goal was to see if she could grab a clue, if knowing what was going on and what she had done would give her a chance to look at her life, look at her choices, and make better ones the next time.

That’s right. I was redeeming Gideon before it was canon cool.

(There’s a whole lot I could get into about what I’m meaning when I say ‘redemption’ versus ‘apologism’, but...I won’t, here. Suffice it to say that I wouldn’t have wanted any kind of redemption plot for Gideon - or, indeed, any character, anywhere - that didn’t acknowledge that they started out in the wrong, and, though I usually disagree, I completely understand people not wanting to see certain villainous characters get a second chance.)

“... So - noose joke. Think that can ride, or are the censors gonna flip?"

I made a Mistake here. I was referencing the cut storyboards from Scary-oke where Dipper finds Ford’s ‘Zombie Survival Kit’ and all that’s in it is a noose. It was a suicide joke. (Well, I mean, suicide wasn’t the joke, but - well, whatever.) I should have referred to it as a suicide joke, or chosen a different deadly weapon. Instead, I referred to it as a ‘noose joke’ and it became a meme on the TAU blog, that Ian would be hiding nooses in the backgrounds of scenes all the time.

It was only, like, a month into this that I realised what the noose has historically, in the States, been a symbol for, and that without the context of a cut storyboard presented at a con (which might not necessarily be widely known) and then taken out of the context of a scene where the character is making storyboards (thereby removing the storyboard reference link)...yeah. I have to apologise for this one. Nobody has said anything to me about it, but in hindsight and with some consideration, I would word this differently if I were to rewrite the fic today.

I had a loooot of fun writing sleep-deprived Bill-like Ian here, and I hope to do more of it at some point.

Chapter Five

The introduction of Sun-mi! Sun-mi was a last-minute addition because I realised Mira had no female friends and panicked, and also because NWHS came out and I fell even harder in love with the character of the Author, and figured that tossing an r!Author (we didn’t at the time know that he was named Ford) into the mix with an r!Bill would be fun. This...is why Sun-mi’s role is small (though, I think, still important enough to justify her inclusion) - it was added to the plot post-outlining.

While I was writing Sun-mi, I was thinking of her with a voice much like April on Parks & Rec. This is not particularly relevant information to anything, I just see her as being very deadpan in that same way.

“So, not that one. How about Tam Lin?”

The mention of Tam Lin - one of the Child Ballads, in which a girl rescues her fairy lover on the night his soul is to be sent to hell as a tithe, and restores him to humanity, by holding him fast, and fearing him not - was a blatant nod to how the fic was going to end, and nobody picked up on it. It is also just a great, classic fiddle tune, though, and apparently it's not widely known that it's in the same time and key as St. Anne's Reel and so the two can be played together?

(I also answered a question about what each of the characters would have on their iPods, and said that Mira would have the Kerli song ‘Chemical’ on hers. If anyone had looked it up, they would have found out that it’s got a refrain that goes ‘This love is more than chemical’, which also directly references how the fic ends. I took every opportunity to hide spoilers for this fic in plain sight. It was so much fun.)

Stamped into the starry void around them like an artificial horizon was a massive ring, parallel lines glowing red like gashes cut into the dream to reveal an inferno on the other side. And between those lines, all around the horizon, burned familiar symbols.

Most of Ian’s nightmare is based on what I thought Bill’s experience of the Mystery Shack, from the mindscape, must have been like. This bit, though, is based entirely on a nightmare I had which involved Bill Cipher. I was practically contractually obligated to include it here.

Chapter Six

I have to preface any comments I make about this chapter with a disclaimer. Normally, I loathe miscommunication plots, especially ones where characters who ostensibly love and trust each other just flat-out refuse to listen to the other's explanation of a situation that looks bad. However, that's...exactly what I've written here.

I feel like the saving grace of this first scene is that, one, it doesn't constitute the entire plot, and two, it's more of a symptom of larger, deeper problems that they're having, rather than manufactured drama so that there can be some conflict and a tearful reunion in the third act. Sure, things end up hinging on Mira and Dipper trusting one another, but things are already strained between them, and this one miscommunication isn't the only problem they face, it's just the straw that broke the camel's back. Clearing up this one particular misunderstanding also doesn't magically solve all of their problems. I could, of course, be totally wrong and this miscommunication plot could be exactly as painful as every one I've ever seen on a made-for-TV romcom.

Had this whole thing been a colossal waste of time?

And here we see the product of Rosa's machinations! My thinking behind her slightly-absurd recruiting of Sun-mi to investigate Ian's past lives in an earlier chapter was that she thought that, any negative information Sun-mi turned up, she would share with Mira, and it wouldn't look like Rosa herself had deliberately sabotaged Ian and Mira's relationship, so she'd still have a shot with Mira. Devious.

(It occurs to me that both of the two characters who were the initial inspiration for RB started out as evil masterminds in concept, but ended up being sympathetic characters who got redemption arcs in the actual fic. There's some kind of irony about this.)

Trying to work out how the historical record might represent the Shack so far in the future was also a lot of fun. I know that the worldbuilding on this fic isn't sufficient for something that's meant to take place a full thousand years in the future, that the rate of change is so rapid that the society - and even the landscape - of the world Ian and Mira live in ought to be near-completely unrecognisable. On the other hand, I just wanted to write a fun story about character interactions, and I couldn't really set it any earlier or I'd risk 1) Dipper still having a clear thread of niblings around to anchor him, 2) things not having progressed far enough to actually have something like preincarnation testing, and 3) it being too early for Bill to have recovered from his 'defeat'.

(Also, I'm pretty sure that this, here, is the first use of the word 'preincarnation' in the TAU.)

He was still himself, more or less, he wasn't like Bill - !

Dipper is a little (or a lot) less human in this fic than in some of my others, but the thing is, he isn't really aware of that. This is the scene where it gets hammered home. It was a lot of fun constructing the scene where he eats Ian's nightmare so that it could be deconstructed here, to put all of the pieces of his real motivation and plans on display and show just how much like Bill's his modus operandi has become. (It also explains how he's able to get into Ian's head to offer the deal he does right at the end of the fic.)

Chapter Seven

aka "Shit, Meet Fan".

If you asked Dipper what seeing the future was like, he'd probably say it was like a beach.

I lifted this metaphor from Terry Pratchett's The Carpet People, a book which I strongly suggest for anyone who is interested in high fantasy, slightly deconstructed, and set among a race of teeny-tiny people living in the hairs of a carpet. He wrote it at seventeen and then came back and edited it as an adult. The result is...not quite A Terry Pratchett Book, but also not your average Extruded Fantasy Product Tolkien knockoff. He deploys the metaphor a little differently, and I can't remember how exactly he phrased things, but the concept of seeing possible futures as grains of sand on a beach came from him initially.

"I'm Alcor and I was wrong

I'm singing the Alcor Wrong Song..."

Dipper's apology is, of course, based on the Stan Wrong Song, which I thought was a nice touch to show that he was still thinking of Mira in terms of his life with Mabel in Gravity Falls. You gotta give the boy credit, though, he's trying.

I also think that Dipper will never be over his fear of puppets, partly because of Sock Opera, but also partly because we never got the Labyrinth episode. Until Dipper and Mabel have a siblinghood-affirming adventure in a giant, glittery maze with a mess of Muppets and a David Bowie guy, Dipper Pines will forever fear all puppetry.

"Well, we're all going to die."

Ian is really, really, profoundly bad at being comforting. (Unless you're worried about having embarrassed yourself or messed up your future, in which case, your ultimate insignificance in an eternal and uncaring universe and the inevitable certainty of your eventual complete eradication can sometimes be comforting.)

Ian hummed along as he turned on the faucet. "Dream a little dream of me..."

Annnnd here we go.

I decided that Ian would like folk and bluegrass music, partly because of the initial character concept and the Rosa connection, partly because I thought it was a genre that would remain resistant to introducing synthesised music even in the hypothetical future, partly because then I could make 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' jokes. I decided he should also be into jazz music mostly because of the incredible His Name Was Billy Mischief, which is probably one of my favourite GF fics of all time and also highly recommended for anybody who liked RB. The author's inclusion of 'Someone To Watch Over Me' was both inspired and led to me looking up more jazz music, which led to finding a surprising number of songs that could be easily read as referring to Bill. It's not jazz, but Alex's inclusion of 'We'll Meet Again' in the finale still made me kick my feet in vindicated glee.

This scene was in the works from chapter 2 onwards, and it's another of my favourites - I think with good reason. I've had a lot of feedback from people that this was the most viscerally effective scene in the whole fic, and somebody drew me fanart for it! It was a little challenging to get into initially, because I was so excited to write it and I had to restrain myself somewhat to keep it taut and tense and simmering, instead of just explosive from word one. I think - I hope - that it succeeded.

Chapter Eight

“I’ll be looking at the moon,

but I’ll be seeing...you!”

I found Billie Holiday's version of 'I'll Be Seeing You' somewhere around chapter three or four and I instantly knew I had to write this scene and use it as a backdrop. I'd love to see this on film; Mira looking through the empty apartment, the slight and subtle wrongnesses adding up as a sinister bass note slowly builds from under the song to nearly drown it out, only to vanish on the final line as the camera overlooks the sink abandoned in the middle of a task and the phone left docked on the wall, letting Billie's voice echo, alone, over the unnatural stillness, before the song ends and all is left in perfect, fragile, ominous silence -

Anyway. Sometimes my mind is unnecessarily cinematic, and sometimes I profoundly regret not being able to score and soundtrack my fics.

“Do y’all mind?” Rosa asked, holding her phone away from her head. “Can’t hear a word my friend’s sayin’.”

This scene was originally even longer and more obnoxious. I really wanted to give people a reason to like and root for Rosa. Okay, so I also thought it would be badass. Thankfully, I have long trained myself to sacrifice cool awesome character stuff when it needs to be sacrificed for the sake of the story.

Are you done laughing yet? No? Okay, I’ll give you a couple more minutes.

Please ignore literally everything I had to say about the wards, because it is all bullshit. I think I said that anything less than an SS-class demon would be bounced back from Mira's wards, and that Ian, once 'active', shattered one of them completely on his way out, but that Dipper could go past them without having any effect on them at all? Which would require him to, like, probably use his powers to recreate them after he passed through...? I don't know how any of that was supposed to work.

I am, however, very, very pleased about opening a scene with Dipper missing Mabel's absolute faith in him, and immediately taking it into Mira accusing Dipper of murdering her boyfriend because Dipper's just such a demon. Juxtaposition!

The 'highlight reel' is equally if not more bullshit than the wards. I think this chapter is where I just gave up on trying to give Dipper a balanced powerset and decided to just go with whatever best served the emotional, character-arc thread. Sometimes you just have to play to your strengths.

Dipper didn't like other people knowing things he didn't. ... If he wasn't that guy, then - well, what was he?

A good brother! A real scrapper with a heart of gold and a will of adamantium! A sarcastic little shit! Dipper's focus on being The Smart Guy getting deconstructed and his realising that that isn't the be-all end-all of who he is was a wonderful good awesome character arc, even if it ended up being kind of understated in comparison with some of the more in-your-face character development that, say, the Stans got. TAU kind of does a similar thing with Dipper's arc, giving him All The Knowledge but making it come at the price of his family, which makes him reconsider its value...but it doesn't address that particular thing in the same way as canon, so I can see Dipper still getting hung up on this even thousands of years later. (Also, there are a lot of interpretations that indicate he may be kind of mentally frozen at the age he 'died', which I kind of love and subscribe to.) Hence, this line!

(I bet Dipper haaaaaaates when, like, The Slang and memes change. He has all kinds of arcane knowledge, but just what exactly the kids are talking about when they say something that looks like a random combination of syllables is beyond even his eldritch comprehension, and he can't figure out the nuances of how the new words are used, and - argh.)

"I tried to set things up so you'd find out something awful about Ian and break up with him so I could date you instead!"

There was a beat.

"That's it?" Mira asked, carefully.

One, I personally still think this is hilarious.

Two, this is the thing about Gideon - in a world of supernatural, outsized threats, he's really quite mundane! His whole shtick is something that can and does happen in real life! And he's the second-worst antagonist in the whole show! I front-loaded the redemption arc in this fic and gave Rosa a little more self-awareness and a quicker leap to recognising that what she was doing was shitty, so how funny the mundanity of 'I want you to be my girlfriend and I don't care what you think' as compared to 'a literal demon is going to try to blow up the whole of reality' is can really shine, but, like...it's still terrible, and giving it outsized supernatural consequences doesn't make it worse or better than it is when it happens in reality. Do any of these words make sense? Who knows.

My one explicitly lesbian character in this fic being manipulative and predatory in her affections? Mmmmmmaybe not a choice I'd make again. But I do like how this storyline played out.

Chapter Nine

I'm still not entirely sure who knows what about Bill and why. That was another thing that I'd change, given a chance to do a rewrite - I'd solidly establish Bill's position in history, myth, and public consciousness in this particular future right up front. That way, it might actually make a lick of sense when the characters react to hearing his name when there's not...like...any evidence that they have any idea who the fuck he even is.

Don't set your stories in a future where magic has been real for a thousand years if you don't have a lot of experience or interest in worldbuilding, guys.

This is the chapter where Mira is just completely fucking done with absolutely everyone's shit, and I love it.

"...They used to have to take my pulse manually every time. ..."

I decided that Ian wreaks havoc with medical technology because his Ooo Weird Demon Soul Energy is, like, an actual electromagnetic weirdness that hangs around him. This is also why the viewscreen for the peephole goes all fuzzy on him in chapter seven and why, in some extracanonical material, he can't get his storyboard files from his tablet to talk to literally any other piece of technology. It's also why Rosa can tell his energy's 'weird' and why Mira's mom thinks his aura's like a hole.

"... Remember Paloma Heart?"

... "I don't."

I should have mentioned Paloma earlier. That's all.

Brown really did think that he had Ian figured out, that he knew Ian back to front, just because he knew Bill Cipher. ... He wasn't expecting Ian Thomas Beale.

Ian, here, is thinking he's making Brown nervous, making Brown think that he's up against some semi-omniscient, potentially-omnipotent extradimensional being who knows more than he does and can do more than he can, in hopes that Brown will get scared and angry and slip up, give away information that Ian doesn't actually have yet (like how Bill sent Ford that nightmare in the beginning of TLM that really had no purpose except to send Ford running scared for his defenses against Bill, and which also led to the brainwave-encryption machine being destroyed and Ford taking Dipper into his confidences and growing closer to him and ultimately seeding the rift between Dipper and Mabel that ends with Bill getting the rift...). Just how in control is Ian of his own actions here? Debatable, since what he ends up actually doing is getting Brown scared and angry enough and believing enough in Ian's 'powers' to, eventually, let Bill out. Oh, the irony.

Area 51! For someone who's never been big into aliens, I sure have put this dang place into a lot of fics.

(I also wanted to give Mira a chance to one-up Dipper in the Smart Guy department. And do something nice for Dipper. He deserves a bone thrown his way.)

Chapter Ten

Mira is one of the only people - if not THE only person - in this entire fic who has exactly zero ulterior motives. She does exactly what she means to, goes for exactly what she wants to, directly and without hesitation. I kind of love that about her, it's a breath of fresh air.

Here, however, it does probably make her immediate job a little harder.

"It just kills you, doesn't it?" he said ... "Not knowing?"

#getrektIan

I am unreasonably proud of the jet-skate Ladies of English Lit roller derby team as a method of mass destruction.

This scene originally had Dipper taunting Mira about killing mooks lead into the 'mooks' turning out to be magically mind-controlled people, which Mira found out very graphically and horribly when she wrenched the helmet off the guy who tried to choke her out to jam her fingers in his eyes and saw the sigil on his forehead - but that dragged me down a rabbit hole of Is Mira Actually A Good Person etc, and it was both too late to introduce this thread and would have muddled the plot. I might revisit the idea sometime, but then again, I might not.

Chapter Eleven

Janice!!! Janice is one of my favourite backgrounders and I almost wish I hadn't killed her off so quickly. Almost.

I have a boatload of headcanons about how the Society of the Blind Eye worked, how it was originally a secret society designed to stop Bill but Bill used Fiddleford to co-opt and disable it and then used Dipper to destroy it, most of which ended up finding a home in Raising Stakes. This is one of them. There's just no way, in-universe, that the Blind Eye is so deliberately similar to Bill's in design just by chance. (Out of universe, of course, it makes perfect sense for the gravi-team to maintain a consistent aesthetic, but still. My convoluted headcanons can still be supported by textual evidence!)

There was a circle in the middle of the room.

Goodbye, Ian. It was nice knowing you.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and his outstretched wings flickered with stars, surveillance footage, images of the fight that had just happened, an apple tree in a forest of pines, a blueprint, a wide-eyed alien-looking creature...

Dipper's wings flickering is meant to parallel Bill's face flickering in Dreamscaperers, and, like Bill's face flickering in Dreamscaperers, it contains spoilers! The surveillance footage refers to how he and Mira eventually find Ian (through the central control room, on a security tape), the apple tree in a forest of pines is a reference to Henry's antlers and his tree over his grave in Gravity Falls and also a metaphor for him being part of the Pines family, the blueprints refer to the wards on the structural components of the facility, and the alien's just a reference to the fact that it's Area Fifty-freakin'-one.

"For the love of - are you actually twelve?"

Nyahahaha.

I love the bounce castle. I love Mira and Dipper's dialogue immediately post-bounce-castle. I think I have Dipper rip the doors to the soul tree room off their hinges and then later have Mira say she should've closed them, whoops.

I have nothing particular to say about the last scene except that I'm very proud of how it turned out.

Chapter Twelve

The summer Ian had turned fourteen, one of the artists his mother represented had gone triple platinum, a record-breaking heatwave had hit the West Coast, and Ian had tried to kill himself.

I like this scene too. I like montages, bullshit experimental purpley prose, and expressing emotion through place. I also like that this nods to what they're trying to do to Ian - they can't bring Bill back proper, but they can dredge up all his memories, theoretically creating a powerless, more controllable human with all of Bill's borderline-infinite knowledge and no requirement of making a deal or dealing with demonic senses of humour to get at it. All of Ian's own memories bubbling to the surface is part flashback, part the spell dragging up something old and dead and long-buried and dislodging Ian's memories as it rises.

I also should've established Ian's father's death earlier, I think, though now that I'm staring it in the face again I don't dislike it as much as I did just considering it as a concept. I could've mentioned it more concretely earlier on, but bringing its full impact on Ian out here, where everything he's tried to forget is being dragged out of him and everything he is is being stripped bare, is not the worst narrative decision I've ever made.

The soul tree (or ‘tree of knowledge’, as Janice calls it, because haha, it bears apples and it’s a research project) is a product of me looking at what they’re doing to Ian and trying to work backwards, to see what kind of other things they might be doing to research souls, if this is how they decide to deal with Ian. It was also a nice opportunity for a great big hunk of angst, and a good excuse to give Dipper the powerup necessary for all the heavy magical lifting he’s going to have to do. Three for the price of one cool-looking plot device!

“We’re not going anywhere,” Brown said, taking his hand away from his earpiece. “We’ve still got -”

Janice gave him a pitying look. “It’s Alcor,” she said.

Janice is...probably a little bit of an Alcor fangirl. (Not the Twin Souls kind. The watches-doumentaries-about-serial-killers-on-her-days-off kind.) She is perfectly aware of, and starstruck by, the fact that he can kill her with barely a thought. She would just love to get him under a scalpel or energy blade of some description, but she’s also not a complete idiot. No one who’s ever tried to summon Alcor for anything like the kind of research she does has ever lived to tell the tale. She probably just has a wall of newspaper clippings all about Cool Shit Alcor Has Done.

“Wanna know what your future has in it?” ... He blinked, once, slowly, deliberately, and said, “Exactly three minutes!”

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also probably wouldn’t have worked if Ian hadn’t already played at being Bill for Brown earlier. BAM. PLOT.

Ian glanced over at the timer as Brown brandished the tablet. The last few seconds drained away just as Brown pressed a finger down on the screen.

The house from Ian’s nightmares crashed down around him.

This is another one that I can see as a scene, animated or filmed; the room beyond, the ‘real world’ with the circle and the magitech and the terrified people suddenly vanishing from Ian’s viewpoint when a wall drops in front of it, no, slams down in front of it, shaking snowglobes and pine-tree trucker hats off the shelves and putting huge cracks between the boards, settling slowly into place like it was just dropped by a tornado even as blue light starts to spill up through the floorboards and the cracks start to widen as gravity fights for every board and nail...

Man, I wish I could make the moving pictures. (Though I guess if I’d put my time and energy into learning to make the moving pictures, maybe I would know less about making the words go. And, like, I’ve managed to just blither some seven thousand words about Making The Words Go. So I might actually have some modicum of skill at that by now.)

Chapter Thirteen

Mira hadn’t said anything since they’d left the room where Henry’s soul had been imprisoned, and Dipper was starting to worry.

TAU’s creator and Mod Z mentioned to me after this chapter was posted that I could’ve held off naming Henry as the owner of the soul until Dipper is forced to admit it, out loud, to Mira, and I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t think of that before posting the chapter because it’s a great suggestion and would have been very effective.

“See, at least we just kill people.”

Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t get into the ‘moral dilemma of Mizar’ aspect in this one any more than I did.

“You’re my best friend, you know? And I don’t want to lose that.” She glanced down the hall, back the way they’d come. “But if this is going to work, then sooner or later, you’re going to have to trust me.”

WHOOOOA THESIS STATEMENT

Everything from Mira and Dipper breaking into the control room straight through to Mira landing in the hospital was pretty much written in one straight shot, without stopping. This was the part I'd been itching to write since, like, chapter two, and it was GREAT to finally have it all fall together. The reactions I got to Bill's appearance - even though I think everybody was kind of expecting it by the time we got to this part - were all awesome and priceless.

I do want to make sure it's clear - the whole Bit in Area 51 was set up to approximate the circumstances under which Dipper became demonized. We had 1) an enormous, elaborate spell being worked, 2) ancient spells in the foundation of the building which had been in place for more than a thousand years, 3) all of which were destroyed, releasing all that pent-up power while 4) demonic energy and knowledge was being forced through and into a fragile puny human with an intrinsic tie to the physical plane.

It seemed like it made sense at the time, okay.

"AND PUBERTY! REMIND ME TO GIVE THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS THAT DREAMED THAT ONE UP A SWIFT KICK IN THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!"

I love writing dialogue for Bill. That is all. Most of my favourite lines did actually make their way into the fic, but I still ended up having to scrap some that I really liked, just because I couldn't make the dialogue work with the plot and the other characters. A shame.

I honestly don't think I could be happier with how the scene with Bill in the centre of the circles with Mira turned out. Choreographing it was a bitch, though.

"Give Ian back, you son of a -"

"AH AH AH, LANGUAGE!" Bill interrupted, with a wink. "TRYING TO PRESERVE THAT Y-7 RATING HERE!"

this is my favourite fucking joke in the entire fic

can you imagine how much funnier it would've been if I actually had kept the entire fic Y-7 rated

"Why does everyone keep forgetting I'm Mizar?"

#getrektbill

Chapter Fourteen

I really don't have anything more to say about the rest of the scene in Area 51. I think the writing actually says exactly what I want it to say, how I want to say it. It all flowed easily and beautifully, and I barely had to edit it at all. I was and still am pleased as punch about how it came out.

Everything was floating.

This fucking scene, on the other hand.

I rewrote this entire scene from scratch no less than three times (and it was probably actually four). This scene was a righteous pain in my ass. I had one goal with it - I had to get Dipper to offer Ian the deal that would remove all outsiders' memories of Ian being an r!Bill, in exchange for eating all of the Bill-memories left in Ian's head. Usually, that's a good thing. Usually, knowing the purpose of a scene makes it pretty easy and straightforward to write.

This motherfucker, though. This scene was like pulling teeth. I'd get about halfway through Dipper explaining the deal to Ian and why it was important, and then I would just stop. I couldn't go any farther. It was like I was on the end of an imaginary rubber band of Actual Ability To Make The Words Go that I could stretch only so far, but no farther, and only with a great amount of struggle, before I'd be snapped back to the beginning and have to try to start again from there in a direction where maybe I could make it to the next scene before I ran to the end of my rubber band again. I tried over and over and over with no luck, no success, and no small amount of frustration.

I don't know what tipped me off to the fact that, one, I had to actually deal with the demons I'd pulled out of Ian's head, and two, there was so much more I could do with the mindscape than the literary equivalent of talking head panels, but once it clicked into place, it was like that imaginary rubber band just vanished and I wrote the whole thing all the way through in forty-five minutes without stopping. It also required minimal editing, and it is now one of my favourite scenes in the entire fic.

A little while after I finished this chapter, I saw a quote (from Clickhole, so obviously fake, but) attributed to Haruki Murakami, which basically said, "If you can set a scene in the basket of a hot-air balloon, do." It was a joke, of course, but I also, since writing this, think it's genuinely excellent advice.

Also, I managed to sneak in references to used-car-salesman!human!Bill, stylised-skinny-smirky-pretty-boy!human!Bill and how I felt he was kind of a caricature and a lot of versions of him that looked like that also flattened out the depth of the character, and to the apocalypse tapestry, which I actually don't think I've seen mentioned anywhere in the fandom since Escape From Reality aired! Huh. Too bad, it was cool.

Chapter Fifteen

...and the forest outside with all of its eyes is burning, burning -

I just really like this line, I don't know.

The news story about the Nordwext group that's playing when Ian wakes up for the first time is, one, yes, a reference to the Northwest family, and two, a callback to the girls in the factory who Dipper hadn't been able to help back in chapter five. This is him trying to do something that will actually help them and make a difference in their lives, instead of just lighting people on fire from inside out and getting them in trouble for summoning demons.

"... another such facility located under the former Ellens Air Force Base in Idaho."

Ellens Air Force Base is entirely fictional. It was invented for an episode of the X-Files, Deep Throat, where Mulder actually sees a UFO up close and personal (before having it wiped from his mind by the government). I couldn't resist.

I actually researched eye removal for this chapter. It took a lot of psyching up and then realising I could probably start with Wikipedia and click though to their sources without ever having to brave the minefield of Google Suggested Images.

He'd never seen this ring of trees (aspen? Birch?) in his life...

When I wrote this, I had the clearing where Gideon first summons Bill in mind. I also deliberately used descriptors, when Ian looks over and sees he's holding hands with himself, that could apply to either Ian or Bill.

"Oh, demons ... We can deal with demons."

I love Mira's parents.

Guess whooo put in a Twin Peaks reference without knowing basically anything about Twin Peaks!...okay, I could not pass up the opportunity. Besides, you know Ian watched Twin Pines at a formative age, and nearly flipped when he found out they were resurrecting it as Twin Pines: The Returnening.

He’s also a big fan (and friend) of Lauren Mephistopheles, but there is absolutely nothing that will make him actually watch more than ten minutes of Friendship is Prestidigitation. Sorry, Lauren. Some things are too terrifying even for an ex-demon in human skin.

And here we have the culmination of the Rosa Darling Redemption Arc! Ian telling her that Bill played all of them is, as she correctly deduces, a test - if she took the out as offered, played off her own responsibility, he’d know that he really couldn’t trust her to recognise what she’d done wrong and try to fix it. At that point, he probably would’ve had to ask Dipper to remove her memories, too. It’s a lucky thing for both of them that she got a clue!

“State-of-the-art prosthetic.” Rosa clasped her hands behind her back. “This model’s so new it’s not even on the market yet. Which, uh, would mean that technically you’d be part of a clinical trial -”

“A guinea pig,” Ian said, softly.

Just like Bill made Dipper into! I’m a genius.

“You’re not my father,” Ian says at last.

Ian’s father shrugs. “Does it matter, if I’m right?” He puts his glasses back on, light hitting the lenses just so that Ian can’t see his eyes. “Does any of this matter?”

Ian thinks.

“Yes,” he says.

Hi, my name is Mary, and I love Terry Pratchett’s writing.

“You know what,” Ian said, still looking up at the ceiling, at the hoist that dangled over the bed and the dark bulb in the reading lamp, “it’s been - three days? Four days? A couple days since we narrowly escaped death and you haven’t kissed me even once.”

“You haven’t kissed me either,” Mira said, with an affronted look, but there was a hint of laughter in her voice.

Remember how I said they started out forced and stilted? Yeah. I think that was just inexperience and a lack of familiarity with the characters. Let this be a lesson unto me: write the whole damn thing, then go back and rewrite the first, like, until it starts sounding natural again.

“Mira, don’t call me nerdface,” Alcor grumbled, coalescing out of the dark and fussing with his cufflinks.

“Okay, dorkbreath,” Mira agreed, just to hear Alcor’s long-suffering sigh.

Case in point.

Epilogue

Toby!

Everybody loves Toby. I guess I’m no exception. I am a sucker. Also I really wanted to show how the whole Ian thing affected Dipper’s relationship with Toby, while not actually causing it to deviate at all from what had already been established as TAU canon.

“Fragile neurological attachment, huh?” Dipper said, under his breath, and then, loud enough to hear, “Well, now you’ve got me.”

That’s all, folks!

Some more RB-related song recs, before I go:

- The Garden, by July Talk (This ain’t Johnny Carson/I got thoughts that ain’t my own/I’m talkin’ black souls dressed in red and things that I shoulda never known)

- I Run Roulette, by Boots (I’ve been tricked into a thousand different ways/to slide myself away right down the drain)

- Better Not Wake The Baby, by the Decemberists (make your moan of your lot in life, split your mind half-crazy/gouge your eyes with a butter knife)

- Tic Toc, by Mother Mother (the Sandman told me, there’s no use in listening)

and because shush, it’s a great song and I had it on repeat for writing a decent chunk of the middle bits

- Out Of The Woods, by Taylor Swift (but the monsters turned out to be just trees/when the sun came up you were lookin’ at me)

#chatter #reincarnation blues #holy hell why am I so long-winded and opinionated #blogg-saron

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