#last time i didn't include the full fic under the cut but i think i'm gonna start doing that lmao

[reds-skull]

Fic recs - oneshots (part 3)

ALRIGHT I'm hoping this is the last oneshot post, since there are a lot of other fics I wanna recommend that don't fall in this category.

This post is like 5x longer than the other ones just because I wanted to finish all of my current oneshot recs and otherwise it will take like 3 more posts. So beware there are a lot more under the cut.

If you're new here, these are all sfw oneshots:

i've dug two graves for us, my dear. by eddie_dxaz - Johnny gets buried alive.

Scotch-Soaked Lips by FreeToWriteForMe - Ghost watches Soap while the team is in a bar.

I owe the hat man money and I don't want to see him by Louffox - Ghost gets drugged and hallucinates while Soap tries to keep both of them alive.

Painting the snow red by Faolamb - Ghost is a wraith and Soap werewolf. Soap loses control and Ghost calls him back.

Mild as May by lambstew4you - Ghost and Soap are on a mission, and they have a talk by the campfire.

Hell or High Water by lambstew4you - Soap gets kidnapped and put in a sensory deprivation tank. He is rescued, but the damage is already done.

Daylight Through The Fog by WeirdTin - Ghost is afraid of letting people in. Soap just wants to love every scar.

i never said i'd be alright (just thought i could hold myself together) by TheLastTheosaurus - Ghost gets injured on a mission with Soap. Without exfil in sight, he hides it. Despite his efforts Soap finds out.

Breathe in, Hold it by Hedgehog_kun - Simon and Johnny are in a relationship. Life is good, for once. But one night Soap comes home angry and drunk, and Ghost can't help but freeze.

How it started, how it's going by Nuria123 - The fic where Ghost thinks he and Soap are already dating (5+1).

heat death by eggtimelads - Soap and Ghost spend an afternoon fending off this relentless heat [relatable tbh].

note to self: drink in moderation by eggtimelads - Ghost gets drunk, does a little pining out loud, and gets his reputation ruined while also getting a boyfriend.

Absolutely by ElizaStyx - 5 times Soap confesses to Ghost in a language he thought Ghost didn't understand, and one time he knows full well Ghost does.

the shroud is made of linen by stars_boy - In which Ghost is interrupted while watching the sunrise.

Lets Go Stargazing For Real Next Time by Trouble_13 - Ghost thought they were getting somewhere, but it feels like they have to restart all over again.

Lonely Hearts Club by Wheezing_Joe - Soap and Rudy accidentally start fake dating. Ghost and Alejandro aren't too pleased with it [this is ghostsoap and alerudy, so it's twice as good]

Night Has Always Pushed Up Day by Sillililli - Ghost gets injured and is stuck in a hospital, when they bring in a blind Soap. They're forced to share a room.

dying all the way back to the root by Magpie (QuickSilverFox3) - Soap is separated from Ghost, but Ghost can still hear his voice. He just needs to find him before someone else does.

i fear you will know me but most of all i fear i will never know you by rocketnintendo - Soap hides the extent of his injuries. Ghost finds out and is gentle.

My Heart Leapt From Me by Macabre_Flower - A pipe bursts above Soap's bed in the middle of the night. Ghost offers to help.

Palimpsest by Blackbird_flyaway - Ghost loses all memory from the last 3 years, including all memory of Soap.

The way his feet strike the earth by Blackbird_flyaway - Soap puts on a blindfold and gets kissed as part of a drinking game only it becomes a lot more than that.

i need you to hurt me back instead by TheLastTheosaurus - 5 times Ghost needed a hug, and the one time his got one.

Figure Study by 002405 - Ghost asks Soap to draw him like one of his French girls. Things devolve from there.

love me despite by TheLastTheosaurus - Ghost needs rest. Soap helps him get it.

no better version i could pretend to be tonight by TheLastTheosaurus - Soap can't sleep. he goes to Ghost.

Wash your mouth out with soap by Red_Clegane [the one and only] - Soap is reminded how he got his call sign and Ghost helps him put the pieces back together.

sunday morning (rain is falling) by wellyesbutactuallyno - Soap wants to learn more about Ghost. Ghost lets him.

The Haircut by thevalesofanduin - Soap's hair is too long. Ghost helps him cut it.

On the nights you feel outnumbered (I'll be out there, somewhere) by Brigadier - Ghost feels more irritable than usual and gets involved in a bar fight.

I want to crack open your ribs and crawl in the space left behind (Je veux me lover au creux de ton creur et ne jamais repartir) by flaminpumpkin - Simon ends up having to drag his drunk sergeant back to base and finds himself in a sticky situation because he's too smitten with the man.

Bloody Delirium by GnawingAtMyEyes - Soap gets gravely injured and suffers from blood loss delirium.

Tell Me a Secret by resonatingkitty - Ghost asked Soap to tell him a secret one evening at a bar and what Soap tells him is not what he expected to hear.

Never Hide This (From Me Again) by resonatingkitty - during a mission, Soap gets nicked and doesn't report it to Ghost. Ghost doesn't take it well.

Bruised Peach by Phiunzirus - After their latest mission, Soap's right arm looks like a bruised peach. What happens when Ghost accidentally grabs it a bit too hard?

Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again (it's been a long, long time) by Angelicasdean - Soap's been home for weeks now, but he's still missing the last piece of the puzzle. Thankfully, it's scheduled to return today.

Forbidden by eddie_dxaz - Ghost comes to terms with his feelings for Soap and tries to fight them. Unsuccessfully.

The Maskmaker by ElizaStyx - Soap finds Ghost working on a new mask.

Cat Dad by ElizaStyx - One day a little kitten appears at the 141 HQ and Soap falls in love. Too bad the kitty only likes Ghost.

Blind date with a book by Nuria123 - Ghost is a famous anonymous writer and Soap loves his books. They fall in love.

Recovery by Nuria123 - Soap and Ghost meet after being medically discharged at a rehab facility. Soap volunteers and Ghost is newly admitted. [this is one of the few fics to make me actually sob hard it's so extremely good]

can't keep johnny down by Wheezing_Joe - Soap loses commes on a mission and presumed dead. After finding his way back to base he's surprised by how much he's been missed.

red woven confessions by wayfaredsoldier - Soap got he and Ghost wishing bracelets in an attempt to grow closer to him and got far more than he expected.

made a bed with apathy (years worth of dust and neglect) by aetherealmoss - Soap gets triggered by someone who looks too much like his painful past, and Ghost is there to help him through it [TW SA, rape and child abuse on this one]

Safe With Me by Wixiany - Soap who is in an abusive relationship befriends Ghost when he moved into the neighborhood. His boyfriend accuses them of cheating and Ghost is blocked for several days until Soap shows up in the middle of the night.

snuffed by crown_twist - Johnny really, really doesn't like cigarettes. Ghost didn't know.

Choice by achievement_hunteresss - Shepherd captures the 141. He offers them a deal. He will let the other person go unharmed, if you shoot yourself in front of them.

tags by achievement_hunteresss - Soap asks for help with detangling his dogtags. Ghost accidentally unburies Simon.

Precipice by Islenthatur - Soap dies and has to choose (dw it's surprisingly not mcd)

Coven (Scheherazade) by basgijr - Ghost can't sway an overwhelming feeling that something isn't right. Soap is a werewolf that stinks of wet dog and also love (Ghost is a vampire). [this one I found from a Tumblr post that I lost]

sullen by rottin - Sparring goes a little wrong.

Lessen the Load by Hammy1o1 - Price had to talk Ghost down from suicide a few times. Things change when Soap joins the taskforce. [obviously TW for suicide]

Aaaand that's all of them! And my god there's a lot. Next post I'm considering giving a list of writers I like (aka have a lot of fics that I like so I save their name instead of individual fics), which will be one post since there's not too many. After that we can finally get to the longer fics!

[lov3m3darling]

Apple of my Eye (Obsessed!Wally Darling x Short!Reader) Pt. 3

Oh boy, here I go writing again >:3

Anyways, to everyone who has supported this or left a nice comment, just know I would die for you 💙

After this, I'm thinking of writing something for Howdy. There isn't nearly enough fics on here about our favorite bug boi 💚🐛 it might just be some HCs but I gotta do something for him cause now I ALSO have a lil crush on him ;-; he's so tall and he's got all those arms for huggin! I kinda also wanna make an OC to ship with him. I was thinking maybe a snail who works at the Bugdega with him. I just really like snails, I have 2 of them as pets 🐌❤️

Anyway, on with this fic. Enjoyyy!

!!!(TW: obsessive behaviors, jealousy, eye imagery)!!!

💙🍎💛🍎💙🍎💛🍎💙🍎💛🍎💙🍎💛🍎💙

The next day, you got up with more enthusiasm than usual. You decided on a nice light breakfast of (fav fruit) so you could save your appetite for lunch with Wally.

Oh boy, there you went thinking about him again...

After last night, you couldn't seem to get him out of your mind. Even when you finally managed to fall asleep, you dreamt of him.

Dreams of more dates, of gentle kisses as you watched the sunset, of cuddles and movies and snacks under a cozy blanket...

What was happening to you? You were positive you'd never been so lovesick before...

It was even hard for you wait until lunchtime that day. Instead of your usual hobbies to pass the time, you found yourself staring at the clock and fidgeting. You tried to keep yourself busy, but couldn't seem to focus on any of the books or tv shows you tried to watch. It all just came back to the agonizingly slow ticking of the clock on the wall.

But finally...FINALLY it was time to start getting ready, and you practically jumped off the couch to get started.

Eventually you stood in your kitchen, waiting for Wally to arrive. Not a hair out of place, not a single wrinkle in your clothing, and not a clue what you would do when he actually showed up. Wally always seemed to fluster you, and you didn't want to be fumbling over yourself on a date with him, of all things! What would he think?!

Your anxious thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Taking a deep breath, you made your way as gracefully as possible to the door to answer it.

And there he was. Wearing a red suit and holding a very colorful bouquet of flowers in his hands, he smiled at you with that calm expression he always seemed to have.

"(Y/n), you look..."

Oh heavens...there it was again, that warmth within him. You looked absolutely, positively, wonderfully....

"Perfect..." he breathed, his eyes taking in your full form. He realized after a few beats that he was staring, and shifted his eyes up to your blushing face instead.

You shyly looked down at your shoes and squirmed under his gaze.

"Ah, golly...stop it or I'll melt. You look breathtaking in a suit too, Wally..."

You could absolutely cut the romantic tension with a knife at this point, it hung so heavily in the air. Suddenly, Wally remembered the flowers.

"Oh, I got you these! I can't lie, they were Barnaby's suggestion...I don't know much about dates. I've never been on one before"

He held them out to you, and you took them catefully, your fingers brushing his for a moment. You glanced at each other and then bashfully looked away again.

"They're gorgeous! I-I better get them in a vase so they last a long time! I'll only be a moment.."

Wally came in to wait while you rummaged in the kitchen cabinet for a nice vase to put your flowers in.

Looking around your living room, he noticed a few pictures hung up of you with some people he didn't recognize...including a man you seemed particularly close with.

His eye twitched.

"Say, (y/n), who are these fine folks in these pictures with you?"

"Hm? Oh! Those are some of my friends back home!"

thisisyourhome

"Yeah, shame I can't see them as much anymore. But we still call often!"

don'ttalktothem

You came back to the living room, having found a suitable vase for the flowers and displayed them on your kitchen table. You noticed Wally looking at one picture in particular and smiled.

"Ah, that's me and my cousin! That was a fun summer..."

Suddenly, the anger clouding Wally's mind evaporated. He realized his stare was about to break the glass of the picture frame, and he looked away, straightening his tie and smiling at you.

"Well, I'm sure living here will give you plenty new memories to hang on the wall"

You nodded.

"I'm sure it will, too. Hey, I'll grab my camera and maybe you and I can take one!"

A picture with him? To hang on your wall?

Though Wally had no heart, he was almost positive he felt one skip a beat in his chest as he thought about you displaying him among your closest friends and family. Was he really that important to you?

He watched you pack your camera away in the basket, and picked it up before you could. You looked up at him questioningly, but he just smiled and offered you his arm.

"I'll carry it. Come on, there's a lot to see!"

Wally brought you all around town, pointing out spots of interest and naming off which neighbors lived in which houses. Several of them were outside as you went by, and you got to meet them finally.

Julie was absolutely ecstatic to meet you! She gave you a lovely yellow flower from her garden and offered to come over and do your hair one day.

Frank was cold at first, but when you complimented his bowtie and expressed interest in the book he was reading, he warmed up and said you could come by for book discussion and tea anytime.

Alternatively, Barnaby was warm immediately! He was proud to see his best buddy on a date with such a pretty and polite new neighbor, and he told you some of his best jokes. And it was nice to meet the guy who gave Wally all that date advice!

Howdy was outside sweeping when you came by, and shook your hand with 2 of his. When he learned of your plans to have a picnic, he gave you a couple of the cookies he had just gotten in stock. On the house! And told you to come by the shop anytime you needed anything.

Eddie wasn't at the post office, but you did cross paths later on your walk. He tipped his hat and introduced himself, but seemed to get distracted when he spotted Frank catching butterflies across the street, and quickly excused himself, stumbling over his own feet on the way. You asked Wally what was up with him, and he chuckled.

"Eddie and Frank are...well...fond of each other"

"Ohh!" you said as it finally clicked in your mind.

"They are cute together, aren't they?"

You looked at Wally shyly.

"Cuter than us?"

His face flushed bright red.

"Nothing is cuter than you, dearest~ Why, you're the loveliest thing I've ever laid eyes on~"

You giggled teasingly, but felt his arm wrap around your waist as you continued on your walk. Your face grew warm for the millionth time since you met him, but you managed to at least lean your head against his shoulder in return.

Eventually, you arrived at the picnic spot. It was shady and private and the grass was soft.

"This is where I like to paint sometimes. I love Home and the neighbors and all...but sometimes quiet and solitude is nice as well"

You nodded as you grabbed the blanket from the basket and spread it out.

"That makes sense. I like my alone time too, but...for some reason I never need a break from you, Wally" you admitted, looking away shyly.

He was silent for a beat, then chuckled and plopped down onto the blanket. You moved to sit across from him, but he unexpectedly took your hands and guided you to sit in his lap. He kissed your hands and gazed up at you like you were the most divine thing he had ever seen.

Because you were.

"I could never get tired of you either. You've given my life meaning again"

Your eyes widened and sparkled at his words. You were speechless until one of his hands came up to caress your cheek. You leaned into his hand, and he smiled.

"Could I..?"

"Oh, please do.."

And he did.

Warmth spread through your body, right to your very soul. Everything around the two of you seemed to fade away until even the chirping of the birds was fuzzy and distant. You weren't sure how long the kiss lasted, but when Wally did pull away, he sighed.

"If you aren't mine after this, I'll surely die.."

You smiled, leaning your forehead against his.

"Looks like the show must go on, Mr. Darling"

A giddy grin spread across his face and he attacked your face and neck with joyful kisses.

When you two were finished kissing and flirting, you decided to finally have your lunch. There were a few apple-based dishes, but to Wally's surprise, he liked everything! He had always been a picky eater; rarely trying new things and only eating when he absolutely had to, but soon he found a whole new world of foods he liked. Sandwiches, cookies, watermelon...they were all delightful! Who knew!

Of course, he only took bites when you weren't looking. He wasn't ready to tell you how he ate yet, and he didn't want to scare you off. So instead, he would lift the food to his mouth before blinking, just to seem more realistic.

But you were too dazed from all the kisses and your new boyfriend to notice or care.

Boyfriend...oh, the thought made you shudder with excitement! And he was so sweet and marvelous, you never wanted your time with him to end. You'd never met anyone you didn't eventually need space from, but you were positive you would be quite content to sit on this blanket under this tree with him forever, holding hands and making jokes and eating yummy food...

But eventually, the sun started to go down and it was time to pack up. Wally helped you put everything away, and suddenly you spotted your camera at the bottom of the basket.

"Oh, hey! Let's take that picture before we go"

Wally seemed excited for it, and pulled you back into his lap. You took several pictures; your faces together smiling, your lips to his cheek, making bunny ears over the top of his pompadour, and a few kissing ones. You made sure to snap two of each so he could have one, then tucked your camera away in the basket again. You spread out the photos on the blanket at smiled at him.

While you waited for them to develop, you both laid down to watch the clouds.

"Ooh! That one looks like a flower!" you exclaimed, pointing to it. Wally hummed in agreement.

"I think that one is a car"

"What? No way, it looks like a banana! And so do you!" You said, sitting up and poking his face where his nose would be.

"How's that?"

"I don't know! ...you're yellow?"

"Ha ha ha...(y/n) you're very imaginative. One of the things I love about you"

You blushed.

"Well...I love your laugh"

"I love your smile"

"I love your hair"

"I love your cooking"

"I love you"

Silence. You slapped your hand over your mouth and sat straight up, refusing to look at him. Where did that come from?! Nervously, you waited for him to say something. Anything.

"...please say it again"

Slowly, you turned to look at him. He was sitting up now, too, and his eyes were wide.

"I..I love..you...and maybe that's weird or wrong! I just met you yesterday! So it's crazy, but I...I love you, Wally"

"(Y/n) you are just...the absolute most.."

There were hearts in his eyes as he grabbed your shoulders and kissed you yet again, smiling against your lips.

"I love you too"

...

"Oh hey, the photos are done"

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Welp. What a date, huh? ☺️ little less yandere in this part, but part 4 will have plenty. I wanted to establish that it's not just some random obsession, he's genuinely in love with you and you feel the same.

Should make yandere dynamic...interesting.

As always, more to come ❤️🍎

[heyitschartic]

hi! I saw u recommended artist formerly known as bonesaw, do u have any other worm fic recs? bonesaw is my fav character but god I am so desperate to read good worm fics in general

I have been sitting on this ask for a very long time thinking about it. I've been in this fandom so fucking long that fics have just started to pile on top of each other in my head, so I think the best thing to do is just to recc every single thing I can think of at this moment and give my reason why. There's a lot of good fics out there buried under all the trash! This is going to be a long one, so I'll cut it off here so you don't have to scroll down past all my bullshit. In no specific order...

I have a post here going over some of my favorite authors and the works they produced, so I won't redo what I said there. I think for every one of them, you should definitely check out everything they've done because it is just fucking amazing writing. Most of their stories live in my head rent free at all times, even the stuff I didn't post in that thread.

Glowspider is one of the people I should have included on that list. Her writing is just wonderful, though I'd recc her Pact stuff just as eagerly as her Worm stuff. Lady Tremaine at the Kitchen Table just hits in all the worst ways. For Worm though, Valleyxandria, a story about Valley-girl Alexandria obviously, and Golf Morning, Gold Morning retold as a golf match, are some fucking killer stories. Some of the funniest written. It's Cold Out There Every Day was easily my favorite fic for last year, a story about Missy stuck in a time loop, and still holds my heart in a death grip. BROCKTON is a Riverdale/Worm fusion and oh my god does Glows just nail everything with this.

K800 is another amazing author and no I'm not biased shut up. She's a great writer who has put out a ton of stuff, both Otherverse and Worm. Luz Mala is a great story about an ex-villain on the run in Argentia. Wonderful story and criminally underliked. Forward is the canon-compliant story about Taylor post-gm trying to get better. It's lovely, rips at your heartstrings, and is one of the only good portrayals of how Taylor would be after Gold Morning. Bitter But Sweet is the fandoms only coffeeshop AU and it is wonderful. The name suits it perfectly and Taylor is very gay. Soliloquy is a story based off one of mine (not biased), Taylor who was in the S9 reconnecting with the clone that was made of her during Gold Morning. Very cute, very sad, all that good shit.

Hopeful Penguin fucking PUMPS out words, I don't know how the man does it, and it's all good too, some type of devil contract. He has so many I would recc, but to not fill up the page, I'll give some short ones. Def check out: Flare, a post-gm Taylor dropped in the New York Behemoth fight. It definitely nails a really good from-the-ground look at it. High Soaring Above a perfect look at the life of Hannah Washington before Brockton Bay. Balestra, a love story in the style of This is How You Lose The Time War between Alexandria and Rebecca.

Harbin wisely left this dustbowl fandom, but they are one of the greats. Their snippet thread is wonderful and full of so many great ideas (I love the one about Bakuda switching out with her normal-earth counterpart), but to focus on their stories. Cutting Ties is Taylor with Jack Slash's power. Really well written, interesting concept, but it does do the Rune redemption thing (something the author wishes they hadn't gone with). I still recc it because it's just really good. Overhaul is about Taylor with Sphere's powers, struggling with her tinkering and her disability. Scour is about Taylor with Shatterbird's powers wandering through the desert after she triggered. Very thoughtful, I love it.

Omega_93 needs to post more because all of their works bring joy to my heart. Timeslip is a story about a Taylor clone waking up during the Teacher raid in ward. The reunion between Taylor and the Undersiders is just <3 and all the hints at what's going on behind the scenes intrigues me horribly. See is a short story about Bonesaw in Twig and I think it nails Riley. Just this fucked up girl trying to figure out how to even slightly act like a normal human. Finally, Larva is about a clone of Taylor joining Breakthrough. Just a really fun idea with great execution.

Redcoat Officer has written so many amazing stories, most focusing on original characters too. Ghost in the Flesh is a runaway hit about Sonnie from Love, Death and Robots joining Faultline's Crew. Finished and fantastic! Nightcrawler is an OC story about a Case 53 in Seattle. Finally, for those begging for more Undersiders he made Good People, a Shadowrun cross where the entire worm world is made into the Shadow run world (the shadow verse?) Very fun crime, great writing, and I love how the worlds are integrated!

Discreet is an author that it just shocks me how many fucking amazing stories they've written, banger after banger. It Starts With One is their most famous fic for a reason. A very political story about Alexandria and Skitter fighting it out over Capitalism. A Word is another beautiful story about Taylor with a version of Jack Slash's power. It's a beautiful story about writing and language and being understood. Lost Cat, Please Help is a great story about a case 53 being found far after Gold Morning ended. Really love the main character. The Girl in the Room is an interactive story and I won't say a word, it speaks for itself. Finally One-Sided Rival, a story about Sophia after Gold Morning and how she deals. All amazing.

God this is getting long, only individual stories from now on.

Rank is the Worm story. If you're going to read anything, read this. it's a story about Carrie Kobayashi, a refugee from Japan after Leviathan, joining the PRT and making her way in San Fransisco. It's a fucking behemoth of a story, going all the way from 2004 to Gold Morning and fuck it uses its words well. It covers so much shit, the main character is fantastic, and it is one of the best works someone could create from Worm. PLEASE read this.

Something else to definitely check out is the Parahumans Zine. It's long, it's wonderful, and it covers so many different stories and ideas. A fuckton of love was put into this thing by so many different people and it shows. The little weld article, about a kid saying how Weld inspired him is something I still think about from time to time. Oh my god I love this piece of work.

Bubbles Always Pop is a bittersweet story about Bakuda, who she was and how she got there. It kills me reading it. Some people say it's better without the epilogue, but for me, it would be hard to handle it without.

Throttle is a story about Taylor who turns into a car. It is a fucking insane ride (appropriate I suppose) about burnout Taylor and her best friend Bitch. It scratches that itch for bad bitch stories, I wish there was more.

We Appreciate Power is an insane story. A peggy sue where Emma gets sent back to before Taylor triggers and does her best to stop Taylor from doing it and become as bad a bitch as possible to prove how much better she is.

This is cheating cause it's a snip thread, but Quantum Prompts has some of my favorite snips in this whole fandom. One More and For That Girl make me cry every time I read them.

Just One More Thing, Mr Anders is the story about Columbo taking out Max Anders. The author has a snip thread that is hit or miss(still might wanna check it out, some good stuff there), but this story is a definite hit. Nails Columbo's whole vibe and watching Anders bring himself down is incredibly enjoyable.

In Golden Armour is a love story between Lisa Wilbourn and an OC. I love this romance so much and Corey is wonderful. Definitely one of the better, if not the best, love stories out there.

Voracity is a Case 53 quest about a fun and frightening girl figuring out her place in the world. Cirrata is a delight and her personality just makes you want to see what she does next.

By the same author, Rein is a story about Taylor able to summon Taylor (based off Fate stuff, I don't know that though). It nails the voices of Taylor from four different times in her life and really plays into a lot of fun stuff that would come up in this scenario.

Mixed Feelings is a fabulous story about Astrid, a gay girl born into the Empire dealing with her feelings, her past from a horrible father, and her look towards a future. It can be a very heavy read. This story is a main stay in the fandom, been updating forever, and it's always a joy to see it.

East of Eden, god what a fucking trip of a story. Eden dies and rebirths herself as Taylor Hebert. Shit just gets wilder from there. It seems like a cracky premise, but it plays it so well, managing to make it through the end of the world and end on an upbeat note. I love this story and I hope you do too <3

From the same author, The Countess is perhaps the story I should have recommended first. A Count of Monte Cristo fusion that...well listen, you hear that premise and it manages to mesh the worlds together into a beautiful tapestry. God it's just so wonderful and the kind of thing I'm begging for more of.

City of Salt is a wild story told from a bunch of different viewpoints about Brockton after Behemoth hits instead of Leviathan. It has beautiful artwork, covers so many interesting threadlines, and has an insane companion fic about three Echidna Taylor clones in the Wards.

Agent of Cauldron is the sort of fic we need a lot more of. It fleshes out the worm world in a ton of ways, builds on what Cauldron is and adds so many new and interesting characters. This story is wild and I'd recommend it just to see what they added.

Tabloid was one of the original greats by one of the best artists in the fandom, long gone for better pastures. It follows a cape paparazzi and they are a joy of a main character and the art work is amazing too. A definite read.

Dragon Unbound is another oldie but a goldie. The Dragon that Defiant created in the Epilogue gets free and goes to live her own life. Really fun and entertaining. The sort of thing that should be recommended more.

Diary of a Professional Knockoff about a dorky girl who writes cape fanfiction and finds herself joining the PRT as an intern. Fun antics with social anxiety and tinkertech.

Alright, there are tons more I could post about but this thread is wayyyyyyy too long as it is. Besides, that should leave you thousands of things to read through in the meantime.

[darkscaleswriter]

⭐️⭐️ *Tosses stars at you for the ask game*

(ask for a director’s cut on any of my fics!)

!!! thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble :D

SO for Write Our Names in the Wet Concrete, which I just updated a couple days ago so it's still very much on the mind, I have many many feelings about casey junior (as I'm sure anyone can tell lol I'm not subtle). specifically, I have many feelings about his relationship with his mom, bad future!cassandra jones.

I know there was some stuff from the rottmnt crew on the former bird site or something (?) about how cassandra died when casey was pretty young and he was mostly raised by future leo, but I personally do not subscribe to that. not for his backstory in wonitwc, at least. as much as i love dad leo, it's important to me that he's just as much a jones as he is a hamato, especially given that he uses the jones last name.

anyway, many thoughts about the wonitwc iteration of bad future!cassandra jones under the cut, bc i uh. definitely rambled haha ^.^

(also, important note: a lot of my characterization and backstory for cassandra is probably inspired - both consciously and not - by the mean teen fighting machines fic series by @radishhqueen, which is an absolutely incredible character exploration series for april and cassandra that made me fall in love with cassandra jones as a character. please go read it if you have a chance, it's SO good!!!)

so in wonitwc, after cassandra found casey as a baby and decided to raise him, she fully committed. it definitely wasn't an easy decision to take a step back from field work, but a baby is a 24/7 job, and the shift to handling the more organizational/admin side of the growing resistance (as mentioned in chapter 10) helped her feel less like she was costing the group by making others fight in her place. she never regretted that decision, but I think there were a few times she came close. maybe when a mission party would come back having lost someone because they didn't have enough eyes, maybe when a scout never returned after running into a trap that she knew she could've spotted.

as a parent, i think that cassandra was, honestly, not too different from what we see of her in the show lol. a bit more even-keeled with age, but still wholeheartedly committed to everything she put her mind to and not shy about it, which is why i find it extremely funny that casey somehow turned out a Good Kid (TM) who listens to authority (mostly) and respects his elders (unless theyre wrong). he's definitely got moments when his temper breaks, like when he yells at teen leo in the movie, but on the whole, his brand of feral is less… loud, i guess. not sure that's the best way to describe it but it's all my brain is coming up with right now haha.

part of casey's comparatively calmer personality can probably be attributed to the turtles and april, who also played large parts in raising him, but it's not like they're chill either. the final movie opening didn't get to really show this, but in the storyboards for a previous version of the movie's opening, it's shown that future leo has still retained a lot of teen leo's goofiness, though it's hard to say how much of that is performative. at any rate, i interpreted that as showing that the turtles were still themselves in the bad future, at least in some small part.

speaking of the turtles!! my general headcanon is that they and april informally adopt cassandra as family at some point in the future, and joke that she's a distant cousin since the hamato clan started as an offshoot of the foot clan. they get very emotional when cassandra decides to include "hamato" as part of casey junior's full name, which is a real whiplash moment from their reactions when she told them she was going to name him directly after herself lmao. anyway, casey junior grows up knowing that he's a part of the hamato clan, in name and spirit if not by blood.

cassandra was definitely grateful for the help raising casey junior, too. i don't think she ever really considered herself a single parent - raising casey was very much a team effort, even if she was his primary caregiver. cassandra is the only person that casey ever used a parental title for, though. i think she first started teaching casey to address the others by their titles out of ingrained tradition (foot clan was traditional in an oddly random assortment of ways lol) but then let him keep doing it bc it was funny. this does not help casey's Good Kid (TM) image haha.

cassandra's feelings on becoming a hamato, meanwhile, are initially mixed. on one hand, nothing brings people together like an external threat that's in the process of ending the world, so she's bonded a lot with the remaining members of the hamato clan in the apocalypse. on the other hand, she was still in the midst of finding herself after leaving the foot clan when the apocalypse hit, and the invasion triggered by her former cult definitely did not help with that. especially not when she had to put down the krang-infected foot brute and foot lieutenant. i debated taking that out, since it got darker than i expected, but it felt fitting for the tone of the chapter, so. sorry, cassandra :P

i think that cassandra's relationship with her sensei's was very much a "it didn't change anything, but it matters that the love was there" situation. they did terrible things, but they were her only family for a long time, and they cared about her. i don't think she ever fully reconciled with that. there's a reason she never really talked about them to casey junior, besides the fact that reminding people in the apocalypse that she was a former member of the clan that started said apocalypse by summoning the krang would've been a terrible idea.

but. there were times, especially when casey was little, that cassandra would catch herself wishing she could show him off to her senseis. the brute would let casey ride around on his shoulders while the lieutenant would teach him how to fold perfect origami. in another world, maybe those would've been casey junior's eccentric grandpas, visiting on alternate weekends to spoil him. fighting splinter for the position of "favorite grandparent," lol.

maybe something like that could happen far in the future of wonitwc, depending on how things go. we'll see!

[kolyyanas]

my last situationship was yet another instance of being betrayed by a pink haired girl who said she cared about me and then abandoned me so if anyone needs me ill be bashing my head in with a rock

sighs. im gonna just rant under the cut about it bc im sad and drunk lmao

so the last relationship/situationship (i'm reluctant to call it an actual relationship because both of the other people involved insist that we were never actually together and we never put a label on anything, which is...sort of true) happened between march and july of this year.

i had gotten back into a book series that i really enjoyed when i was in high school and started writing fic for it. one of my mutuals on twitter who i'd been friends with for a long time was also a fan of this series and we started talking a lot, both about fic and just about our lives. eventually i realized i had feelings for him and told him, and he said that he had an irl girlfriend but he was polyamorous and felt the potential for something with me involved.

i ended up meeting a bunch of his friends (who are all wonderful people and we still hang out and talk over discord) and his gf. thinking back i don't think she liked me from the start, but i really wanted this whole situation to work so i overlooked a lot of the red flags. i started to like her too, and eventually all three of us would talk regularly about our days at work and school (as i was still in classes at the time), about writing, about their d&d campaign and the theater stuff i was doing, just about anything.

we started flirting shortly afterward, but neither of them would flirt with me where anyone else would see or hear it. i was kind of the friend group's best kept secret. and i was so desperate for someone who wanted me that i was willing to put up with that, with the two of them getting to be together and open and proud, while i stayed silent whenever the two of them would flirt in public.

i didn't want to be left out--it was by no means a choice. it was actually the thing that made me relapse in both my eating disorder and self harm for the first time in three years. literally, every day i would be an afterthought to them and my only response was "how can i change so they want me? how can i be better?"

eventually we started sexting and being more intimate (idk that feels like a weird way to talk about just sending nudes and getting off over the phone) and at first, it felt really good. at first, it felt like both of them really liked me, and wanted me, including for sexual reasons but not only for my body, and that made me kind of brush over the issues with it.

at the same time, they still refused to publically acknowledge that i played any part in any kind of relationship with them. at best it was frustrating and lonely, and at worst i felt used and betrayed. it honestly felt like they only kept me around for when they wanted to flirt or get off with someone else, and i wasn't afforded any of the other aspects of a relationship at all, even while they both told me that there was a chance for all three of us to be together.

shit hit the fan when i went to visit them at the end of june. i got back from university in the middle of the month, was home for about a week, and then flew to visit them, and things were weird right off the bat. gf seemed weirdly and suddenly distant toward me even though things had been completely normal up until i got off the plane, and this continued for the next four to five days of me being there. my mutual was really caring towards both of us, and tried to include me in a lot of stuff, but i think i went literally all of those six nights falling off of our shared mattress while the two of them cuddled. i remember three distinct nights where i had full-blown panic attacks and neither of them noticed (or if they did notice they didn't do anything or acknowledge it at all.)

at one point we stayed over at a friend's house for a d&d session and in the morning we planned to go to a pride parade in a bigger city nearby. during this sleepover a lot of us were drinking and even though i had been trying not to drink as much, i ended up getting wasted and breaking down over gf not liking me and treating me like i wasn't there for the entire trip up to that point.

my mutual reassured me and told me that she didn't hate me, her behavior was just because she has bpd and she cant control it. which was a shitty excuse and one that i didn't really buy. it was literally the only reasoning either of them offered for the way that i was treated and i hated knowing that they were lying to me (even if it wasn't on purpose) about why things were so weird.

that night i ended up sleeping on the couch, alone, and neither of them bothered to ask if i wanted to go to bed upstairs with them. neither of them even really talked to me after having that conversation mentioned above. i ended up drinking enough to black out and when i woke up i was still on the couch, still alone, and still had a jug of malibu in front of me, so i was like "fuck it" and got drunk again at 8 in the morning before the pride event. this was also the day that i started using harder drugs again.

not a single person in our friend group noticed i was high. all of them knew about my history with drugs, and not a single one of them figured out i was on something that wasn't alcohol. for the entire day. I'm pretty sure they still don't know.

the pride parade was in a pretty big city and the group mostly tried to stick together, but mutual and gf ended up separating from the group pretty quickly and often left me specifically behind with no warning. they wouldn't answer their phones when i texted or called and eventually i resigned myself to hanging out with our other friends, which was actually pretty fun (and i was off my ass, which made everything better tbh.) when the event ended, we spent around three hours looking for mutual's car because none of us could remember where we had parked. he ended up having a panic attack and gf stayed behind to calm him down while me and our other two friends who had ridden together walked around ten blocks (in total space-wise) trying to find his car. eventually we found it and went back to our friend's place where we had been staying.

we kind of got into a fight at that point because they asked if i was okay with doing something else with the group and i told them that i didn't really care, and it wasn't like i or my opinion was important to them, if the way they had been treating me was any indication. this led to a very roundabout discussion that threw around a lot of buzzwords and shit about bpd, and "boundaries," and "we never put a label on anything," etc. basically all bullshit.

gf proceeds to tell me that she was actually never into me, and only acted like she was because she thought it would make mutual happy. mutual says that he does still have feelings for me but his gf is his first priority and he's not willing to split his attention between both of us if the two of us arent also together. so basically i get broken up with by two different people for two different reasons at the same time. while i am over 2000 miles away from home and they are the only people i know anywhere close to there. they both insist we can stay friends and all that and im like sure, okay, whatever, we're all good. and we have stayed friends. we arent as close as we were before, but we still talk and text and send memes and shit.

the fucked up bit is that ive started to doubt things about myself because they're similar to things about gf. both of us have bpd (hers was treated carefully while mine was dismissed) we have a lot of the same interests, kin a lot of the same characters, etc. i catch myself wondering what made her lovable and me disposable. honestly it might have something to do with the fact that im visibly trans and she's not, even though all three of us identify under some kind of non-cis label. i feel like i can't dye my hair now, even though I've been planning to do it for months, because it would just be another thing that im "copying" about her.

tldr i am never trusting someone who says they have feelings for me again, and i am REALLY not trusting people who are poly and already partnered when they say that they like me. this three month situationship genuinely fucked up my perception of love and what is okay in relationships so much and i am still trying to pick up the pieces .

[clearbun]

look at that, I'm capable of making a half decent pinned post!

artist, writer, and crafter (with too little time in the day for anything)

we absolutely love getting asks and dms, we don't bite! we just have extreme anxiety that makes replying a little harder than it is for most people <3 patience means a lot

main fandoms: Fullmetal Alchemist, Persona 5, Danganronpa (especially SDR2), Ace Attorney, One Piece (still watching pre-timeskip I'll catch up one day 🙏), and lots of other things that I don't want to spam space with, if you've seen us rb stuff related to it we're probably brainrotting over it at some point!

Links:

@and-im-fine writing blog! I post bits of wips here, and eventually links to finished fics too <3

@living-avarice other writing blog specifically for my Greed Lives AU longfic

Greed Character Playlist: YouTube Music / Spotify I add to it every so often and have lots of fun with it so you should go listen <3

we use the tag #dol-talks for most of our general talky posts, "#my art" for our art, and #vent-ish for vents and complaining

system related info under cut:

We're The Aerie, a fictive-heavy DID system! chances are if we've shown that we're into something, we've probably split an alter from it at some point (aka the "I know we joke about having the entire cast of fullmetal alchemist in here, but we really don't need to keep splitting guys from there whenever we're stressed it's ok" system)

some of the alters you might see around:

🪙 Greed (he/him, old because. homunculus. but maturity wise around my 30s probably): the host with the most, that's me! <333 I love talking to people so much and need attention to survive pretty please send me things it makes me so happy <3 I'm the one who runs the writing blogs! I love making content about my source so much <3 oh you can also call me Dol, it's both a "normal" alt name for me and our general name right now (but if you don't specify you're talking to me I'll assume you're talking to us as a whole)

🦾 Ed (he/him, late teens): co-host! bit of a mixed source because I fused with a fragment from the last host at some point (Greed note: he wasn't fronting at all before I started typing his thing, he didn't trust me to do it LMAO)

🤍 Kim (he/she, 34): ex-persecutor, part time gatekeeper, full time diseased

🃏 Ren (he/him, 19): caretaker for our littles and teens, he has a hard time using words and normally talks with emojis and pictures! he absolutely loves people

🖍️ (little): not including her name for now, but we reblog things with #🖍️ when they're meant for her! if you send us things you think she might like you'd win gold stars in so many peoples books

...and more! we'll at least use emoji signoffs if not names too if it's someone specific talking and they want to identify themself <3 feel free to send asks for anyone you see unless they specifically say they don't want it!

[melanieph321]

I'm baaaack, with another Lichantony fic!! *Warning +18*

Summary - Lisandro is struggling with his emotions towards Antony and decides to confess them to him in a bizarre encounter in the men's bathroom at a fancy restaurant in Amsterdam.

Enjoy! 😉

It was getting difficult, really fucking difficult. I've tried to keep my distance but our friendship seemed to have grown somehow. We were no longer just teammates but I don't think we ever were "just" teammates.

Antony is getting very bold with me and I don't like that. There was one incident in the Ajax gym not too long ago when I was doing my biceps routine in front of the mirror. I was on my last rep when he came up behind me, asking if I needed him to spot me. As I felt his touch underneath my arm I snapped and threw the dumbells on the ground, making it echo throughout the entire gym.

"What the hell Antony!" I stood, face flustered. Antony was clearly taken back. I didn't mean to raise my voice at him like I did but he couldn't just...? What was he thinking when...? To be honest I don't know what I was feeling in that precise moment, luckily some of the other players heard us and came to see what was going on.

"Forgive me Licha." Antony said, holding his hands up in defense. I hate myself for making him think that I would hurt him. I could never.

"I didn't mean to interrupt your routine."

"Just don't walk up on me like that again." I muttured.

I tried to distance myself from Antony even more after that incident in the gym and although he gave me the space I needed, he kept on greeting me with that boyish smile of his, as if I was deserving of his attention, I wasn't. That's why I've come to the conclusion to make my confession to Antony after the team dinner we were having tonight. We were celebrating David Neres twentieth birthday and with that I'll make my confession to Antony. The fact that I can't stand his face and that he should keep his distance from now on.

The team went on with the dinner. We were dining at some fancy restaurant in Amsterdam. The club stood for the bill so everyone was getting a bit carried away with the alcohol, myself included.

"Hey Neres, have you seen Antony?"

Around midnight the restaurant cleared the tables in order to make room for a dancefloor. A live band was playing all the hits and the quiet dinner had turned into a full blown party.

"Won't you leave him alone Martinez." Neres said, slightly tipsy with his tounge. "Antony hasn't done anything to you, still you treat him like shit."

"I just want to talk to him." I insisted. Whilst everyone kept busy on the dancfloor I figured that this would be a great time to make my confession. Neres, although reluctant pointed me in the direction of the bathroom. I charged towards the men's stall with one objective in mind, however, as I swung the door open, I found Antony in a bizarre position on his knees, with his head poking in up under the bathroom sink.

"Whatta hell are you doing?

Antony raised his head, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of me.

"Licha?"

Ugh, I cursed the cold shiver that ran down my spine when he said my name.

"I...I think I dropped my earing." He chuckled.

"You think or you know?" I said sternly. Antony must have noticed the stiffness in my voice as his eyebrows furrowed in response. "You're drunk" He said and made an effort to get back on his feet.

I must admit that I had had a few beers during dinner. Just enough alcohol to give me the courage to carry out this confession. "I'm here to tell you something." I said, leaning my body against the marble sink.

"Yeah and what is that?"

I knew that I was in trouble when he asked me this. I had rehearsed a speach prior to arriving to the restaurant. But it had all been wiped away at the sight of Antony in the bathroom, on his knees.

"I have a confession." I said, putting a hand to my mouth in order to clear my throat.

"What confession?" Antony said, raising his dark brows. He had a cut through one of them like some kind of wanna be gangster.

"Would you just shut up for a sec so I can remember what it was about." It didn't help that there was a twitch in the corner of Antony's mouth. As if he found the situation, me being a complete idiot, amusing.

"I don't have all night Licha." He said, now a full fledged smile on his face . As if he knew that he was the cause of the idiocy that was myself and my anxious behavior towards him.

"I have a confession to make and that is that I think your face is stupid and that you should stay the hell away from me from now on."

"Licha." Something softened in Antony expression, making him step forward towards me.

"Don't touch me." I said and slapped his stretching hand away. The hurt on his expression made me want to smash the bathroom mirror behind me. I didn't mean to be so rough, but he just kept making feel some type of way that made my emotions feel so out of my control.

"Licha your drunk, I should get you some water."

"Don't leave."

Antony was on his way out, passing me to get to the door. I caught a firm grip around his wrist and that's when I knew what my confession really meant.

Antony had paused to look at me with wide eyes as time stood still. There was a full blown party going on outside in the restaurant but where we were time stood still.

"Licha let me go."

Those words seemed to carve a hole in my chest but of course I listened. I could never hurt him, ever.

"Just don't leave." I pleaded and to my surprise Antony nodded his head.

"Just tell me why you followed me into the bathroom? What you came here to say?"

I sighed and took a step away from the sink, position myself in the center of the room. "It's not so much as what I wanted to say to you. It's more about what I'm stopping myself from doing to you."

"W...what exactly is it that you would like to do to me?" Antony asked, his Adam's apple moving in his throat as he swallowed nervously.

I looked up to see him stand with his back pressed against the wall, perhaps wanting to escape from me. I wouldn't blame him.

"Licha, please look at me."

I had gone to lower my head again but with out the sense of Antony rushing towards me, his hand brushing my chin.

"I said don't..." I had gone to grab his wrists again, ready to push him off me for being bold enough to touch me in this state. However I froze, froze at the sight of Antony so beautiful underneath the dimmee bathroom light.

"Licha you can confess to me. I won't be angry or leave."

We stood so close, his body pressed to mine. My true confession Is that I feared what it would do to me if we ever got to standing this close, with our backs pressed against the wall, legs spread and faces inches apart.

"Licha." He whispered, but by then I was pushing him towards one of the stalls. The door flung open flew violently against the wall. Kissing Antony was nothing of what I had imagined and trust me I had let myself imagine it a few times.

"Fuck." I sighed. I felt so out of control, loving it for some reason. Antony's hands went to unbutton my shirt whilst I kissed his neck and sucked his earlobe. The soft whimpers that left his mouth had my dick twitching in my pants. I was already so hard for him and afraid that when he finally got done unbuttoning my shirt it would be to late.

"Turn around." I spoke into the warm skin in the crook of his neck.

"Let me do you first." He said, raising his head to look at me with his glossy eyes. But as his eager hands went to cup my groin I almost folded on him, right then and there.

"I said turn around." I groaned.

I admit that I was a bit aggressive about it, turning him over myself. I made him spread his legs and bend his back over, with his hands supporting themselves against the toilet seat. I went to unbuckle his belt, letting his pants along with his underwear fall down to his ankles.

"You ready for me?" I asked. He answered with a hand caressing the firm grip I had around his waist. And within the first few pumps I felt devoured by him, so out of control with myself. I wanted that feeling to last forever. My hands went to grip each side of the bathroom stall walls. My nuckles turned white as I kept in pumping myself against him. However he took it mercilessly, pressing himself against me, wanting me to enter him deeper.

"Fuck, fuck." I said as the feeling grew in the pits of my abdomen. My hands went to grip his waist again just to keep him steady. I shameless released myself inside of him before the two of us collapse against one another.

"I don't know what you're doing to me Antony." I had him in my arms, breathing heavily. "And I'm not planning on stopping it either, not anymore. That is my confession."

[cboffshore]

Questions, questions... May I ask you to explain some of the motifs in IICT(OSC)? Such as tea and heat, what was their inspiration? What were your intentions in using them? Feel free to write a mini essay on this, I am your demanding creative writing teacher (I enjoy reading your thoughts :3)

Yes, absolutely! This one's going under the cut just like the last one I discussed, because Spoilers and Long.

I briefly mentioned the tea motif in a previous fun facts post, but I'll go over it again here (mostly because I'm too lazy to look it up and link back, but also because you KNOW I love to talk). The tea thing is specifically inspired by an old Skybound activity/storybook of dubious canon status, where Wu gets some fabulous digs in and we learn that Nadakhan apparently smells like tea because of being stuck in the teapot for so long. Again, the canon status is a hot mess, but it's such a fun little detail! So I decided to use it. The tea symbolism ties in with the wine that appears in c5, as well as the general appearance of water, and comprises a little scale I like to call the Nadakhan Influence Scale, which works like this:

When water appears as a beverage (which only occurs in Coughing up Feathers, but was something I was able to retroactively work with) or as a general mention, Nya's pretty much in control; Nadakhan has no bearing on the scene, or on what Nya's doing. This link should be obvious given her whole elemental schtick, and is at its strongest when Nya's unconscious in the prologue and the rain attacks Nadakhan before he can get the bracelet off. For the retroactive Coughing Up Feathers appearance, that means the glass of water on the nightstand wasn't drugged. Nya's anxiety got the better of her, so she made the decision not to mess with it. In IICT(OSC), the bathroom is Nya's refuge, and is her only free access to water.

When tea appears, usually as a beverage or just as a sensory detail, that means Nadakhan is indirectly influencing the scene - that is, he isn't actually there, or Nya can't see him if he is. Tea appearing on the trays is a pretty straightforward thing - he's deciding what gets delivered to her, and on a grander scale is shaping her entire existence down to the smallest detail he can, including what she's drinking with breakfast. Tea is also implicated with the scent detail when Nya is blindfolded during the escort scene, then used as a weapon against Not-Landon - both times that Nadakhan is driving the action, but invisible (by way of blindfold or shapeshifting). It's worth noting for that last one that Nadakhan anticipated that she'd try to use something on that tray as a weapon. Depending on how stupid you like your 'khan, feel free to decide if he wanted her to use the tea or not. I like to think he didn't - he expected her to go for the knife - but what matters with this is that tea appears in a prank he designed.

When wine appears, again as either a literal object or just a sensory detail, that means Nadakhan is in full control of how the situation begins, at least as far as Nya's concerned. He's actually not in too much of this fic, so the wine mentions are few: once in the nightmare sequence, where Nya notes that the air tastes like it, and then again as a recurring object and plot device in the chess sequence, which he planned down to the letter. This is an homage to a lot of Skybound fanwork, where everyone seems to agree that it's wine. It's also based on the fact that there appears to be a globe bar cart thing in the e60 dinner scene, plus the line about plundering a case of cider in e61. Given that evidence, I'm willing to make that jump - it makes sense that it's alcohol. (Sidenote, as a hard cider enjoyer myself, I do have to wonder if you can infuse that with fiddlehead fern, or if that would even be good. Back on track!) Note that I said wine indicates that Nadakhan's in control of how things start; both appearances ultimately end in Nya saying, "this bitch handsy, YEET!" and doing something he genuinely does not expect.

The wine thing actually segues nicely into the importance of heat - after all, the wine is mulled. Fun fact, that was a direct result of me panicking and trying to think about the most overbearing beverage I've ever had so I could describe the scent accurately. I've never actually had mulled wine, but I have had undiluted IKEA VINTERSAGA glögg directly from the bottle, which is apparently supposed to be mixed with wine and heated. Also: it's really strong on its own. I felt like I was drinking cough syrup. (Protip: sparkling water with a good pour of VINTERSAGA is great!) Anyway, that unpleasant experience is what made me choose mulled wine, and then I worked backwards incorporating heat to work up to it.

I didn't get to go into quite as much detail in IICT(OSC) as I wanted to with the heat thing, but my initial plan (and an undercurrent inference that still made it in and is a fully valid reading) was to have the cold be deliberate on Nadakhan's part. While I don't believe that Nadakhan fully viewed Nya as Delara (except for his early-season misconception that she was just Delara reincarnate), I do believe that - at least for a while - he was trying to soften her up, or just mess with her, to make the whole wedding plot easier on himself. That's where the heat thing began. The basic idea is that, by plunging Nya into a freezing, uncomfortable environment and making himself the only consistent source of heat (for example: supplying hot meals, having access to the fireplace tools, and of course the mulled wine near the end), he intended to quite literally make her warm up to him. In short: maybe she'd go for it if he makes it clear that cooperating with him is the only way she can be physically comfortable here. The bathroom stuff ended up overriding that a bit, but still works - maybe letting her have a little heat now and then makes her want it more. You don't stay warm for too insanely long after a bath, especially not if you walk into an icy room right after.

Adding onto that - the original ending of IICT(OSC), after Nya rebels with the hook toss thing, actually had Nadakhan vindictively extinguish the fire and forcibly take her robe off (nightgown's still there! we're not getting weird! don't make me get out the spray bottle!) before leaving her to pass out. There was a cryptic comment about him hearing that possession is cold and wanting her to be used to that in advance that I lost, and I kind of miss it, but I do like what I ended up with. I think the final version of the ending gets his slipping frustration across nicely, but I do wish I'd been able to highlight the heat thing a little more without it being clunky. (I tried. It didn't work.) I'm really glad you asked about heat specifically, because it means I did get it across on some level. Yay!

Anyway, thanks for the ask!

[kimium]

I know I already answered some asks about my fics for 2023, but I wrote a review for my fics last year, so I'm doing it again this year. Let's get started! All the data comes from my AO3 statistics. All the rest is under a cut because it's long!

My Fic Review for 2023

Statistic Stuff

My "Top Five" fics by hits:

Just a Normal Citizen (Not a Dimension Traveler) - Twisted Wonderland

Daydreams - Twisted Wonderland

Stay where you are - Twisted Wonderland

Setting the Scene - Twisted Wonderland

Broken Kitchen - Twisted Wonderland

My most bookmarked fic: Just a Normal Citizen (Not a Dimension Traveler)

How many words I wrote in 2023: 235,377

Question Stuff

What was the most surprising thing about writing in 2023?

I think the most surprising thing about this year was the amount of Twisted Wonderland fics I wrote. While I got into the game in 2022, it wasn't until this year you can see it dominate my fanfics. Writing for a new fandom is always a gamble. Just because I get into a new fandom doesn't always mean I write fanfics for it, but Twisted Wonderland won the gamble ahaha.

2. What was the most enjoyable to write?

The most enjoyable thing to write this year was my Platonic Yandere AU. The idea of all the NRC cast deciding to silently keep Yuu from going home haunted my mind for months. Bringing it to life was fun and I'm so happy that others like this idea too.

3. Which fic is the most underrated?

I know I've already talked about my poor Fire Emblem fic Divine Intervention being underrated and I still stand by this answer. However, I'm adding another story to this answer. I also think that Energy Drinks (SDR2) is underrated and I'd love to see more love to that story.

4. Which fic(s) had something "cut" or had an idea that never happened?

-I had more violent scenes in mind for Just a Normal Citizen (Not a Dimension Traveler), particularly with Jade/Floyd as well as Leona, but those never happened. Mostly because all the cast decided to keep their illegal activities "secret" from Yuu. Those scenes may still happen later in the story.

-Yuu's reveal of coming from another dimension had other versions that just couldn't happen. All of them a little too dramatic so they were scrapped. I'm happy where it landed though.

-In Dorm Exchange I was also going to write some of the exchange part, but I never got around to it and focused on the deciding process.

-In Late Night Snack I originally wanted Yuu and Vil's conversation to be a little more confrontational. That didn't pan out and I'm happier for it.

5. Which fic did you want to write but didn't get around to?

-I wanted to write a fic where established Vil/Rook high key flirt with other characters that they're attracted to. The main candidate for this is Trey but other characters include: Jack, Cater, Deuce, Ace, and of course Yuu. Though I think I get enough Vil/Rook flirting with Yuu in other fics ahaha.

-For my Platonic Yandere AU I have ideas for where Grim falls on the scale of "Keep Yuu in Twisted Wonderland". I don't know if I'd write a full separate fic, but the idea could appear in another fic in Yuu's perspective. Also, I have more ideas for this AU so stay tuned.

-Said this in an ask before but I want to write another instalment in my Kitsune!Komaeda and Human Hajime fic series.

-Briefly thought about writing another Dr. Stone fic because of Season Three and rereading the manga.

-I still have a silly JJK/SK8 the Infinity fic sitting in my WIPs that I'd like to write for the laughs.

6. Any WIPs that never got published?

I have two main ones. First, I have a story about Malleus who normally eats lunch alone (if not accompanied by Lilia, Silver, or Sebek) and Kalim deciding that can't happen and Malleus needs to eat with him and his friends. I didn't finish this because at the time I was writing a LOT of food in my fics and felt it was very repetitive.

Next, I have a story of Lilia finding Silver and the process of raising Silver as his son. I didn't finish this mostly because that's when Book 7 dropped in Japan and my story would 100% contradict canon and I hate when I do that.

7. Share a snippet from a WIP fic?

Here is a snippet from Malleus eating lunch alone and Kalim deciding this cannot happen. Fic title in my WIPs is "Homemade Lunches".

"Deciding on his sandwich first, Malleus reached to pick it up when a blur of warm crème and red flashed towards him. A beat later and Kalim plopped down beside Malleus, angling himself so the trunk of the tree slightly hid him. Kalim warmly smiled before pressing a single finger to his lips, the universal sign of “be quiet”, and watched as a few Scarabia members ran past him, their footsteps frantic. When they passed and didn’t return Kalim exhaled audibly.

If Malleus were asked to describe Kalim, he’d say Kalim was like a desert breeze that morphed into human form so it could dance and sing with abandon. Wherever Kalim went warmth followed him, like the taste of chili powder, cinnamon, cloves, and other spices Malleus vaguely remembered from souvenirs Lilia had brought back. Kalim’s warmth always lingered on the tongue before dancing its way down into the heart."

8. Which fic was the one you were most "excited" to write?

I was most excited to write The smell of bleach for @m34gs as part of our Sort of Saw AU. At that point the story idea had only been scattered in ask answers, our DMs, and over phone calls. Bringing our conversations together into a single fic was so exciting! Honestly, this entire AU excites me so much!

Anyways, here is my little review. I hope you enjoyed reading it! And if you have anything you want me to expand on, feel free to send an ask!

[umbreix]

Hey, so ever since reading that last chapter of A Single Moment, I've been thinking; with how witches seem to be handled in the fic, would it be a stretch to say that all magical girls have at least the POTENTIAL to become plural?

FANTASTIC question! I think in general you could make the argument that yes, they could. Rather than portraying Witches solely as some kind of force or some kind of manifestation of a person's despair, we've loved to lean into them as more fully formed- something that could be seen as an alter.

I've decided to write a bunch of thoughts on the topic, some of which will have some minor spoilers so I'm putting it under a cut. (However, I don't think what I say will actually be that much of a surprise to the readers so...)

So first, a lot of context. When ASM was in the initial stages of being written I didn't actually intend for Haruka to be plural. Instead I was exploring the complexities of PMMM's magic and the boundary between Magical Girl and Witch. "Morgana", as initially written, was Haruka's Witch who had semi-awakened due to specific circumstances.

But then my cowriter hit me over the head with the one-two punch of "You're writing these characters as plural" and "YOU are plural" so we started really exploring those ideas directly throughout the story.

Now I'm not going to make any sweeping statements on the nature of the soul- There are people who can say things much more insightful then I- But there is certainly consideration to be made regarding how Magical Girls' souls (their self) are disconnected from their bodies. That's a disconnect between the self and the body that reflects things that I myself have felt. And that can be taken in a bunch of different lenses including that of plurality.

Further than that is the themes of Witches and Doppeling. What truly caught my interest was the moments in Oriko and Different Story where Sotria and Candeloro confront Oriko and Mami respectively, both of which manifest as younger versions of themselves due to the insecurities they are representing and targetting. It's something I touched on in Witching Hour by having Oktavia appear as the Sayaka at Kyosuke's first concert.

Something we are absolutely exploring more and more (especially as the timeline flashbacks progress) is the influence that the Witches have on their Magical Girls. Candeloro, for example, will both enable a lot of Mami's bad habits while equally pushing her towards the things that she needs in life.

From the way that we are writing it, the extent to which a Magical Girl and a Witch are seperate is kind of a case by case basis. Some might be almost indistinguishable and some might be notably seperate. And in some cases it may be due to the length of time someone has been a Magical Girl and how much Grief they've currently accumulated.

I truly love to write situations in which Witches do have their own wants and desires, where there is some sort of agency and their own agenda. It's incredibly fun to write and there are at least a few occurences throughout the fic where people will converse with their own Witches (and scenes like how Morgana spoke with Ophelia).

Speaking of, Morgana is fascinating because of how direct she makes the thematic elements of a seperation between Magical Girl and Witch. Morgana is textually the body's Witch, but due to various factors she's developed into a full alter which is absolutely delightful to write. Some alters in systems can have specific roles and it is interesting to ground something fantastical (Magic) into the scientific (Morgana being a holder for it).

Honestly it wouldn't be a surprise to me if more Magical Girls are plural. Both because of the younger kids that Kyubey has contracted with and the general state of some of the people who make contracts.

I mean... look at Yuma's homelife. If anything's gonna cause a split...

Finally, there's a fact about Haruka that hasn't yet come up in the fic and won't for a while so I will mention it here. Haruka isn't plural because of her magic. She thinks that she is because the first time that she became aware she was part of a system was linked to a magical event. The actual most significant source of trauma that lead to their plurality was an incident at a young age which Haruka has absolutely no memories of.

Overall I can't quite say whether all of them have the potential to given how the brain forms and such. But with magic and with a seperate manifestation of you that can sometimes speak to you... Honestly, who knows.

[subconwell]

Title: In Locomotion Characters: The Snatcher & The Conductor Description: In order to get his Death Wish plans off the ground, the Snatcher is going to need the Conductor to make his dreams a reality. It’s more difficult than he bargained for. Word Count: 1689

I just think the dynamic between the Snatcher and the Conductor is neat. My future fics are probably going to feature them if I’m being honest. You can read it either here on AO3 or below the cut!

If you enjoy it, please feel free to leave a comment/kudos on AO3! I’d really appreciate it.

“Hellooooo there!” Snatcher waves to the bird that’s driving the train. He seems more annoyed than startled. “Nice place you got here! Can’t tell what sort of thing you were going with this, but I digress.” He clasps his hands together, grinning more than usual. “Listen, I vaguely know of you, you might’ve heard of me, so let’s talk!”

Now, Snatcher’s not normally the type to come barging in and asking for their cooperation—trapping them in by force is more his style—but considering everyone he needs won’t set foot in his forest any time soon, he has to improvise.

The Conductor looks over his shoulder, and then immediately turns back to his work. “Those good fer nothin’ owls were supposed to keep people from coming in while I’m working. Look, I have no idea who ye could possibly be, so it can’t be that important.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate, because I know all about you!”

“Wish ye didn’t,” he mumbles. “Guess that’s what happens when ye run the only train on the planet, so I’m nae surprised.”

“You run a train? How interesting! I thought this was all just for show—”

“Can’t ye see I’m busy here?” Putting the train on autopilot for the time being, the Conductor swivels his chair, face to face with the sudden intruder on his train. He crosses his arms, visibly annoyed. Most who encounter him tend to fear his appearance and unsettling voice, but not this guy, apparently. “If all yer goin’ to do is make idle chit chat, then get out!”

“I won’t be long,” Snatcher says, making his way over to the other. “I just have a deal for you.” He probably should’ve started with that off the bat with him. The kid did say that he has a temper.

“What? That’s all?” The bird’s not impressed. “I never asked fer one, so I’m not interested. Get off me train.”

Okay! Maybe this will be a bit more difficult than he thought. “Not even willing to hear me out?”

“Yer as suspicious as they come. I got nae reason to trust ye.” The Conductor sighs, turning his chair back to the control panel. “Go on, be on yer way now.”

Unfortunately for the Conductor, it’s going to take a lot more than a rejection to get Snatcher out of his way. He needs this guy to make this Death Wish plan a reality, and he’s not going to leave without his soul. “I don’t think you understand,” the ghost says. Grabbing the back of the Conductor’s chair, forcing it to a stop after a few rotations. “I wasn’t giving you the option of saying no to me.”

The bird huffs, trying to drive off the dizziness he just experienced. “If ye aren’t outta here in the next few seconds, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Snatcher picks the other up by the neck of his collar, hoisting him up so they’re seeing eye to eye. “What can you possibly— ”

Perhaps he should’ve seen this coming. Provoke a wild animal enough, and it’ll bare its teeth. In this case, the “wild animal” is a bright yellow bird, and the teeth is his knife that’s sticking out of Snatcher. He feels absolutely nothing from the knife itself, but he does feel overwhelming satisfaction seeing the Conductor’s smug look change to that of shock.

He’s not going anywhere unless he does what Snatcher tells him to.

“Are you done?” With his free hand, he pulls the knife out, tossing it over his shoulder. “I’m very surprised you couldn’t tell that I can’t be hurt that easily, but I guess I overestimated you. Sorry about that!”

“Ugh.” The Conductor is resigned to his fate. “Tell me what ye want since yer insisting on it, peck neck.”

That’s the closest Snatcher is going to get to a ‘you beat me,’ which isn’t as satisfying as it could be, but he’ll take it. It’s been fun knocking him down a few pegs regardless! He drops the bird on the ground. “Now that I finally have your undivided attention,” he says, “I can bring this out!”

Behold, one of Snatcher’s signature contracts, with a pen to match! “Since you’ve been so difficult, I’m almost tempted to just take your soul right here and now! But I’ll be nice since I need every part of you for this.”

“I work in entertainment,” the Conductor says, “I don’t have a soul.”

“You would think, but no, you fortunately have one. I checked!”

“How the peck—”

The Snatcher puts a hand on the other’s shoulder, who slaps it off immediately. “How I go about my business isn’t your concern. I’d be more worried about reading the terms and conditions of what you’re agreeing to if I were you.”

“I can’t read if ye can’t be quiet,” he grumbles, grabbing the piece of paper and skimming through the document. After getting halfway through, he looks up. “What, so ye need me to do yer dirty work? And fer what?”

“Not exactly. Keep reading.”

It’s hard to convince someone to thoroughly read through a legal document if they don’t want to. Snatcher knows from experience about those types—they go through it as fast as possible, only pay attention to what benefits them, get the transaction over with, and don’t realize how badly they’ve been screwed over in the process. Suffice to say, they’re his favorite kinds of people to make a deal with, and the Conductor seems to fit that category perfectly.

His face lights up. “Award 42?” He sounds almost in disbelief. “How would ye…?”

Snatcher smiles. “I have my ways.”

To be fair, it’s not too hard for him to figure out what a person’s deepest desires are—that, and the very kid that he’s trying to torment really thinks the conversations she has with him are purely banter. She’s been enlightening him about the very adventures he wants to twist around for his own gain, hoping to finally get the revenge he’s been seeking from her all this time. Promising the Mafia Boss a body, promising Mustache Girl he’ll rid her island of the Mafia, and what did he plan on promising the Conductor?

Award 42.

It’s all he could talk about when he was attempting to kill Hat Kid, according to her. Snatcher figured he’d be able to reignite the Conductor’s murderous rage with that particular carrot dangling in front of him. Luckily, the wording is vague enough that he can get away with only partially fulfilling his end of the deal. Once all is said and done, he’s going to hand off the award to him, and nothing else. No fanfare. No change in the actual history of the awards. He’ll have the award, just like he promised, but it won’t truly be his to claim.

With the Conductor the way that he is, Snatcher anticipates the fallout to be catastrophic. He’ll take care of it when the time comes.

“Yer not kidding? Ye really mean it?”

“Sure do!” Snatcher nods, his grin only growing the more he speaks. “It’s as it says. Sign your body and soul away to me to use for the time being, and I’ll give you an award for your troubles, no strings attached. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!”

The Conductor already has the pen in hand, but he stops short of putting it to the paper. He looks up at the Snatcher. “Who’s going to take care of me train, then?”

“Don’t worry yourself about that,” he says. He has no real plans for that part, he’ll probably try and get a minion to make sure it doesn’t crash or something like that. “It says that in the contract, doesn’t it? If the train is destroyed in any way in your absence, the deal’s off! It’s pretty simple.”

He hesitates. The pen’s in his hand, he’s looking at the document, and to be perfectly honest, it’s not clear what the Conductor is going to do. There’s something he finds fascinating about how unpredictable this man can be—at least that’s something he can use to his advantage while he technically owns the rights to him.

“So, what’s it gonna be?”

“What, sign or let ye kill me? Yer not giving me much of an option!”

“Then why the hesitation?”

“It’s.” The Conductor pauses. He’s trying to search for something, but he’s at a loss. It’s not something he wants to put into words, but Snatcher’s all too familiar with it: no longer being in control. Inhaling sharply after some silence, he says, “It’s nothing.”

Without ceremony, he signs it, the contract disappearing before his eyes before he’s gotten the chance to fully take in what he’s done. “Hey, don’t be so glum, chum!” Snatcher cheerfully sings out. “You’re getting Award 42 at the end of all of this! Don’t forget!”

“Aye, how can I?” Taking his hat off, his runs his hand through the feathers that sit atop his head. “Look, I know ye need me, but I can’t go along with it just yet.”

“I know,” Snatcher replies. “I still need to make arrangements with your future coworker! Pretty sure you know him.”

“My…” It dawns on him. “Ye didn’t—!!”

“Oops! Looks like I’m needed elsewhere!” He didn’t actually have anywhere else to be, but he’s not exactly looking to get stabbed again. “Smell ya later!”

As he was leaving, he could still hear bits and pieces of the fit the Conductor started to throw. Sitting back in his chair at home, Snatcher can finally relax! At least, that’s what he wants to do. All he can think about at the moment is how much of a pain it’s going to be to have to be around that piece of work. Maybe he can get him and DJ Grooves to cooperate if they’re able to hurt each other too? Heck if he knows!

He better not be going through all of this trouble just to have the kid live through it all. That would be the worst. Oh well, he’ll meet that situation when if he comes to it.

[millenialfanfictionaddiction]

Go Go Let's Go! Let's Go! Dateko! (Pt 3)

⚠️THIS FIC IS 18+ NSFW, MINORS DNI ⚠️

Warnings: angst, swearing, fluff, smut mentioned

Word count: 7,000 +

You wake up the next morning fully exhausted.

After yet another round before you both cooked dinner, you ended dinner with Takuro fucking you against the wall as you gushed around his cock.

You hadn't fucked that much since you were in your early 20s. And for a man in his late 40s, Takuros stamina was unmatched.

It took you an hour to pack up and leave because he had to fuck you again in the bedroom and on the couch.

"I seriously can't get enough of you" He says as he walks you to your car.

"Well we will definitely be having more sleep overs very soon" you say as he kisses you.

"Dont leave" he says, hugging you tightly "Please stay"

"Taku I can't Kenji will be home soon" you say as you places kisses on his neck.

"When are we going to tell him Y/N? He deserves to know" Takuro said

He was right. Kenji needed to know.  The last thing you wanted was to lie to your son,

"I'll talk to him tonight ok" you say as Takuro smiles at you and kisses you goodbye.

You arrive home grabbing your bag from the car. You hope Kenji isn't home yet as you approach your house. You see a light on.

fuck

You open the door and walk in.

"Hi Kenji, sorry I'm late. I was at grandma and gran-" you say as you look up to see your son glaring at you.

"Kenji are you ok?" You say with concern on your face.

"Oh I don't know mom. How would you feel if you saw your mother kiss your coach in public?" He says as your eyes widen.

"Thought I was going to grab some snacks but turns out I got a whole ass meal in the form of my mother making out with my volleyball coach! What in the actual fuck mom? How long? How long have you been lying to me?" He screams at you as you shutter back

You've never seen your son so angry as he is right now.

"It's one thing for you to come to out games Mom but for you to date my coach?? Seriously mom that's too far" Kenji screams at you as you stand there absorbing it all.

"I mean Jesus Christ mom! You couldn't go an date some other random man! Why can't you just get your own life! Instead you have to fuck my coach! I hate you!" He screams as he stomps to his room slamming his door.

You can't say anything. You're completely frozen.

He hated you. The words swarmed your mind over and over 

Had you going out with Takurō really affected Kenji this much? You feel your eyes begin to swell as tears began to roll down your cheeks. You turn, slowly moving to your room as you feel the tears begin to fall faster.

You didn't sleep much that night. Not at all really. You couldn't believe you broke you child's trust like that. You hated yourself and hated that you made him so uncomfortable. 

 You had to talk to Takuro. You sent him an early text at 5am as you made your way to the kitchen. You noticed Kenji's door was still closed ad you made coffee and fruit to take to your room. You return to a message asking to meet you before morning practice.

You get dressed and leave the house without a sound. You try to be as quiet as you can be as to not disturb your sleeping kid. I've already messed up his life enough I don't want to mess up his sleep you say to yourself as you get in your car and drive to the school. It's 6:00am by the time you arrive. Takurō is already waiting for you.

You get out of your car as he notices the tears spilling from your eyes.

"Y/N what's wrong is everything ok?" He rushes to you and pulls you into a hug. Your tears completely drowning out everything, including the preying eyes of a certain 2nd year manager as she approaches the side of the school.

 Mai stops when she sees you and the coach. She hears you crying and backs up next to the gym to listen.

"I'm sorry Takuro but I can't keep seeing you" you say as yu look at him with tears streaming down your face.

"I don’t understand Y/N I thought-" Takuro says concerned

"Kenji found out about our dates. Apparently he saw us with a few members of the team. He was really upset and told me I need to stay out of his school life" you say as your tears begin to flow quicker.

Takuro pulls you into a hug. He doesn't want you to be upset

"Y/N let me talk to him please I want to be with you" Takuro says as he pulls away placing his hand under your chin.

"Takuro no please he already hates me enough. I can't lose my son. He's right I should have never pryed in his life. I'm so sorry Takuro. I really like you but I can't do this to Kenji" you say as you back up to gave him.

Takuro is devastated to say the least. The women he cares so deeply for is forced to make a choice because he had crossed the line between parent and coach.

"No Y/N, it's my fault. I'm sorry that this happened. I don't blame you. If anything this is my fault. I should have been more responsible. You are Kenji's mom and I'm his coach. It was inappropriate" he says as he looks down.

Somehow it hurt even more to hear Takuro say those words. You knew he cared for you but he was trying to take the burden of your son's blame off of you.

Meanwhile Mai is both crying and furious. 

Could Kenji really be this big of an ass?

"Thank you for supporting the boys Y/N. It was a pleasure" Takuro says as he waves to you turning to walk towards the gym.

You get in your car as you start to drive home. The tears consistently rolling down your cheeks. You park the car as you completely lose your cool. You start beating on the steering wheel screaming and crying as you let all your pent up emotions out.

you're neighbors probably think your insane

After 15 minutes you walk in the house, noticing Kenji's door is open. You decide to leave him be as you make your way to your room still sniffling from your car melt down. 

You walk into your room and lay down. You've already called out of work for the day as you feel like you just mentally can't do it. You lay in bed as you feel the emotions take over again.

Meanwhile Kenji arrives at school. He's still mad about his discovery of yours and his coaches relationship. He can't believe you would do such a thing to him. To invade his personal life like that.

Coach doesn't say anything though out practice. Kenji figures his mom already has him in her side through this whole ordeal. Why wouldn't he be?

"Mai can you tell coach we need to get the jerseys altered" Kenji says to Mai as she watches coach look to Kenji and walk out of the gym.

"Tell him yourself" Mai says snarkily as she turns away.

"Mai just do it" Kenji says "i’m not in the mood today"

"Why because you’re ashamed you made your mom cry" Mai yells as the team stops.

Mai looks at Kenji and she's pissed.

"You know you have the sweetest kindest mom in the entire world and she's happy. But you can't have that can you Kenji because you're a massive ass" Mai screams.

Kenji is heated. He doesn't know how Mai found out but he isn't going to take being yelled at.

"Mai you have no idea what you're even talking about so just butt out" Kenji screams at her and Aone walks in from of Mai forming a protective barrier.

"It's ok Aone. I'm not scared of Kenji" she says as steps in front of Aone "you know what I saw this morning Kenji? I saw your mom and coach in the parking lot. And your mom was crying. Like hard core crying telling coach that she couldn't see him anymore."

Mai is shouting at Kenji as Kenji just stares.

You were really crying? And worse is he caused it? 

"You know Kenji your mom goes out of her way to do everything for this team! Coach shows interest in her and she likes him back and suddenly its an attack on you?" Mai is screaming at this point, tears flowing down her face.

The team watches in shock. They have never seen Mai this angry before.

"Newsflash asshole you're mom is allowed to be happy! She told coach she couldn't see him anymore because of you! She told him she didn't want to hurt YOU KENJI. Your mom is heartbroken and she's worried because he son is upset because she's happy? Give me a fucking break!" Mai screams one last time as she turns to walk out of the gym, slamming the door behind her.

The boys stand in silence. Kenji is shocked.

you really liked coach that much and you really cared enough about him to ruin whatever you and coach had going on?

The team turns as they shake their heads in disbelief at Kenji, even Aone shows emotion.

"You are the only one who sees an issue here Kenji" he speaks as he walks back to join the team.

Kenji walks out of the gym doors as he slides down the outer walls. He really was being an ass. He didn't care about your feelings only his own personal standings as the captain of the iron wall.

He got up walking to the coaches office. He knocks as Takuro directs him to enter.

Takuro looks up at Kenji and back to his paperwork. He doesn't sound good. He sounds like he's upset.

"Yes Futakuchi" Takuro chokes out.

Kenji clears his throat "do you really care about her?"

Takuro looks up from his work spinning around his in chair.

"I do but she made it clear that you come first. As a good mother should. You are really lucky to have her. She cares for your very deeply and she loves you so very much" he says she he swivels around facing his work with his arms resting in his desk as his hands lean against his forehead

"I see" he says as he crosses his arms in front of his chest "then I guess I owe you both an apology".

Takuro turns in his chair to see a soft smiling Kenji as a smile slowly appears on his face. 

The day seems to drag on. It's only 4pm but it feels like you've been in bed for days. You decide to get up and shower, planning to make dinner before Kenji comes home. He might not want to speak with you but you're still his mother.

You shower and walk to the kitchen to prepare dinner. You start to sniffle again as you try not to let it go into a full blown cry session. You hear the door open as you continue to cut up vegetables.

You don't hear anything as you look up to see your tall son leaning against the door frame to the kitchen with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

You smile lightly as you try not to cry more. The tears seem to flow no matter how hard you try to control them.

"Mom" Kenji says in a sweet voice.

You look up smiling at him as you wipe your tears "Oh hi sweetheart how was practice?"

He frowns walking over to you as he hugs you from behind. No longer being able to control the tears you turn around hugging your son as you crying into his shoulder.

"Kenji I'm so sorry. Please forgive me! I didn't mean to ruin your life. I just got excited and-" you say as your tears continue to wet his date tech tracksuit.

"Mom stop ok" Kenji says as he pulls away placing hands on your shoulders.

"Mom I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I was a complete ass to you. I didn't even listen to your side of the story" he says as he looks at you ashamed "you've done so much for me and I ruined your happiness."

"It's ok baby I overstepped my boundaries. I'm sorry" you say as you hug him.

"Mai told me what happened with you and coach" Kenji said sweetly as he looks at your shocked face.

"M-Mai was there" you say as your eyes widen.

"Yeah and I'm glad she was. She told me what happened. She told me you told coach you couldn't see him" Kenji said looking down at you.

"It's ok Kenj. Coach was ok with it. He understood you came first" you say sweetly.

"Well Im not ok with it" Kenji says as he pulls away from you walking towards your front door. He opens the door for someone as your eyes widen.

"T-Takuro?" you say as you place your hands over your mouth.

"Hi Y/N" he says as he goes to hug you. You hug him back as you cry into this shoulder.

"Shh it's ok Y/N" he says as you break from the hug.

"Kenji?" you say questioningly to your son

"Mom I realized your happiness is more important than my reputation" he says as he looks at both you and coach.

"Kenji" you say as you start to cry yet again going to hug your son "you're really ok with this?"

"Yeah mom. I'm happy if your happy. Now go get ready. Coach is taking you out on a date or whatever" he says as he rolls his eyes and waves his hand walking go his room.

"Really" you say as you run back to Takuro and he chuckles. "Yes sweetheart" he says as he leans down the kiss you.

"God I'm never going to get use to this" Kenji says as he closes his bedroom door.

You both laugh as you deepen the kiss with the man of your affections.

*2 days later*

"Oh Ms. Futakuchi! It's so nice to see you" Obara shouts as Kenji rolls his eyes walking the complete other way as you and Takuro stroll into practice hand in hand.

"Thank you! It's nice to see you too" you smile.

"I see Mai got through to Kenji" Obara smirks as the rest of the team laughs.

"Alright time for laps" Kenji screams clapping his hands together trying to avoid the inevitable

"Wait what did Mai say?" You look at Kenji as he hides his face then to coach who starts laughing.

Mai was looking down at the floor, softly smiling.

"Well our sweet Mai laid in hard to ole Kenji. She told him he was being an ass and told him that you deserved the world" he says as he grabs your waist.

"Mai" you say as your mouth gapes and your eyes sparkle "Thank you!"

You run to hug her as she hugs you back.

"Marry this one Kenji! I like her a lot more than I like you" you snicker as you turn to leave practice.

Kenji just smiles as you walk hand in hand with Coach out of the gym.

"Whatever you say mom. Whatever you say"

[apocalypticpsiboys]

This is a playlist for the Earthbound AU "Everlasting Night"! Includes songs that fit the vibe of Giygas' darkened world as well as some songs for the main protags!

The songs I gave the boys reflect things that happen to them in the AU as well as popular music during their time/their tastes in music!

Hope you all enjoy!! <3

--- --- ---

E V E R L A S T I N G N I G H T

Through the Valley // The Last of Us Part II (Ellie Cover) "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And I fear no evil 'Cause I'm blind to it all. And my mind, my gun they comfort me. Because I know I'll kill my enemies when they come."

Last Day Under the Sun // Volbeat "Nobody really knows, How many years went by, The lion left it’s home, and now he’s good and fine Another day will come, full of light and desire."

Bein' Friends // Mother 1 Soundtrack (Catherine Warwick) "When you're lookin' for someone you can rely on, Don't you ever doubt me. I'll be there someway, somehow. That's what bein' friends is about."

--- --- ---

Ness - "The Bane of Giygas"

Smells Like Teen Spirit // Nirvana "With the lights out, it's less dangerous Here we are now, entertain us I feel stupid and contagious Here we are now, entertain us"

Unity // Shinedown "Put your hands in the air If you hear me out there I've been looking for you day and night Shine a light in the dark Let me see where you are 'Cause I'm not gonna leave you behind"

The Otherside // Red Sun Rising "How long how, long can you carry this note? How low, how low can we keep digging this hole? Until we come out on the other side"

Lucas - "The Boy Cursed to Wander Dimensions"

"We Miss You" Love Theme // Mother 3 Soundtrack "If I call, if he hears, He will turn towards me, free from his fears. Shine on one dear child, one so very small, One who carries on alone, strong after all."

Deja Vu // The World Ends With You Soundtrack "Where did we meet before just like this I know your smile Your voice just like that You talk to me and I smile right back I don't believe in fantasy."

Get Up // Shinedown "If you were ever in doubt Don't sell yourself short, you might be bulletproof Hard to move mountains when you're paralyzed But you gotta try."

Ninten - "A Light in the Dark"

Here Comes the Sun // The Beatles “Little Darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter, Little Darling, it feels like years since it’s been here, Here comes the sun, Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right”

Under Your Scars // Godsmack “Do we make sense? I think we do, in spite of everything we’ve been through, oh and you say black and I say white, it’s not about who’s wrong so long as it feels right, don’t think those stars won’t align, under your scars, I pray you’re like a shooting star in the rain, you’re everything that feels like home to me, yeah.”

Blitzkrieg Bop // Ramones "Hey ho, let's go Shoot 'em in the back now What they want, I don't know They're all revved up and ready to go"

Claus - "Giygas' Last Hope"

Ghost // Badflower "I tried it like before and this time I made a deep cut I thought about my friends and the way I didn't give enough And I shoulda told my mother "mom, I love you" like a good son But this life is overwhelming and I'm ready for the next one"

Emotionless // Red Sun Rising "With lips closed and eyes sealed You're sculpture with a pulse I wanna capture your essence and keep it here forever little one And I feel good about you not telling anyone"

Through the Ghost // Shinedown "All the perfect moments are wrong All the precious pieces are gone Everything that mattered is just A city of dust Covering both of us"

BONUS SONGS!!! (These appear in the Everlasting Night fic!)

Pollyanna (I Believe in You) - Mother Soundtrack "You may say I'm a fool feelin' the way that I do You can call me Pollyanna, say I'm crazy as a loon I believe in silver linings And that's why I believe in you"

Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd "If I leave here tomorrow Would you still remember me? For I must be traveling on now 'Cause there's too many places I've got to see."

Sweet Child o Mine - Guns n' Roses "She's got a smile that it seems to me Reminds me of childhood memories Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky Now and then when I see her face She takes me away to that special place And if I stare too long, I'd probably break down and cry"

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

Their Doll 8

Let me in

B.Barnes x Reader, S.Rogers x Stark!Reader

series synopsis:  y/n Stark, all records of her non existent, and yet Hydra still find her. When she is kidnapped by a certain super-soldier and no one believes her, she finds herself searching for unexpected familiarity in her not-so-distant past.

Series Warnings: smut, violence, torture, swearing

Chapter Summary: y/n gets emotional

Warnings: swearing, feelings

A/n: The timeline in this has been altered, as there I things I wanted to include but I also wanted this fic to follow the storyline/timeline of Winter Soldier and Civil war.So for purposes of this fanfic, Peter Parker was discovered by Tony at a much younger age - when he was bitten - and has been an intern with him since, almost like a protégée.(For the purposes of this story Peter was bitten much younger too - more like when he was 9 or ten rather than 14/15)

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Life at the tower was...tiring, to say the least. During my free time I often found myself in the gym, lobbing knives at a target and trying my hardest not to biting one in Steve's chest every time he would correct my technique. When I wasn't trying to murder the avenger in cold blood, I was usually dragged into things by the other: briefings and debriefing for missions I'd never go on, my dad's parties, group training sessions and study periods with Bruce in his labs to name a few.

But for now, I was huddled in my rooms - fresh out of a hot shower after a brutal two hour training session and four mile run with Natasha - curled up on my bed and attempting to catch up on a few of the films I'd missed. But the exhaustion and drowsiness clouded my eyes, the noise from the TV merely in the background as I felt my eyes growing heavier by the second.

A sharp knock at the door snapped my out of my lowsey state, the people movie across the screen simple a blur of colour as my eyes darted past the tv and over to the door.

"Mr Stark is waiting at your door. Would you like me to let him in?" FRIDAY's evenly calm voice chimed, making me groan and mumble a 'no' into my pillows. The last person I wanted to see right now was my dad.

"Come on kid, let me in." My dad called from the other side of the door, and I could practically hear him roll his eyes and shake his head when I stayed silent. When he spoke again, it wasn't directed at me. "FRIDAY, override command and open the door."

"Wait! That's hardly fair!" I whined like a five year old, groaning again when the door swung open and my dad stood on the other side, quite clearly just as exhausted as I was.

"Get used to it, kiddo. Life isn't fair." Tony chided, walking over to my bed. I tried to shuffle away slightly when I felt the bed dip, my dad perching on the edge as his eyes scanned over the room. "I see you haven't decorated yet." He commented casually, as if nothing had ever happened between us.

"Yeah, well, I thought It'd be a shame to spend so much time on something when you're probably waiting to kick me out anyway." I mumbled, refusing to look at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you, y/n? Ever since you got back you've been-"

"Acting different?" I cut in, and when Tony simply swallowed thickly I nodded. "Funny that, seeing as I was kidnapped and tortured for three years. Not to mention made to kill people for another year after that."

"Y/n I'm sorry..."

"But you're not! You can't be, otherwise you'd actually have tried to save me, rather than leaving me to rot!" My voice cracked, tears pricked at my eyes and I now sat up straight in my bed, facing my dad but not looking him in the eye. "And you can't change that, you can't go back in the past and fix your mistake. And trying to fix it now sure as hell won't work, so I suggest you leave before I'm tempted to use you as my target for my training session tomorrow." I raised my voice, eyes now keeping his captive as the tears rolled freely down my cheeks.

"Oh, kid, they broke you." Tony murmured, cupping my cheek with his hand, eyes swimming with sorrow. Sorrow that I didn't want.

"You can't fix me either, because I'm not broken!" I said harsher now, voice only getting louder. "I don't need to be fixed..." I trailed off, voice barely above a whisper Joe as my eyes broke the contact, averting to my lap as the tears dropped onto the bed sheets.

That's how I found myself in my fathers arms, face pressed against his shoulder as the sobs made my body shake, hiccups escaping me as I tried to speak.

"A-all I needed W-was my D-dad, and yo- you took him f-from me!" I wailed, hands clutching my dad's shirt and his arms wrapped protectively around my shoulder, hands rubbing circles over my back soothingly.

"I know, kiddo. I'm sorry."

...

"Who is that?" Clint frowned, staring at the pictures scattered over the table in front of Natasha and Steve as they studied them deeply,  brows creased in thought.

"Our newest pain in the ass." Tony answered for them, slapping a thick folder down in front of Clint as he said so. The marksman was quick to pick it up, flicking through the documents, news stories and information sheets greedily.

"The...winter soldier?" He asked, looking at the three superheroes in front of him as if they'd gone mad. "But he's a ghost story!"

"I've seen him. Been shot by him, actually." Nat said, an sadistically proud smirk forming on her lips with her last words, almost as if it were an achievement.

"We're trying to find out more about him, maybe that way we can beat him." Steve explained, sitting back in his chair with crossed arms as he huffed in defeat, sick to death with staring at the same five pictures all morning.

Y/n walked in, a skip in her step as she crossed the room to Tony.

"Morning, dad." She greeted, placing a quick kiss to his cheek and heading over to the cupboard to grab a mug. Clint and Natasha frowned in confusion, looking between the two as if they'd witnessed pigs fly.

Tony shrugged, y/n too preoccupied with making herself a coffee to notice the avengers' reactions. When her coffee was done, y/n swiped her mug from under the machine and sipped happily, letting out a content sigh before wandering over to stand behind Natasha.

"What are you working on?" She asked, peering over the spy's shoulder to get a glimpse of the pictures.

A loud smash crashed through the room, Tony's eyes widening in shock and Natasha jumping from her seat in order to not get covered in spilt coffee. Y/n stood paralysed, eyes never leaving the photo in front of her as she started at the Soldier. Steve frowned deeply, studying the girl as her eyes glossed over with with what seemed to be...sadness.

Clint was already at her side, a comforting hand on her shoulder as they all asked y/n what had happened and if she was alright. It was like a constant ringing in her ear interrupted their words before they reached her ears, and y/n suddenly felt nauseous as she starred at the bright red star on the soldier's arm, his long and messy dark hair shrouding his face and his leather clad, muscular body. Only his cerulean blue eyes could be seen, the rest of his face covered in a black mask she didn't usually see him in.

"I-I need some air." She stuttered, stumbling blindly out of the room and down the stairs, tipping over a few steps from the bottom and tumbling down the last few. She quickly pulled herself to her feet, hearing still ringing and vision offset, hazy, as she scrambled for the double glass doors. Luckily they already stood open, so she flew through them and out into the busy streets of New York.

Y/n found herself colliding will someone almost instantly, angry shouts of 'hey, watch it!' And 'look where the fuck you're going, kid!' Being called after her like a chorus as she pushed through the bustling people.

She finally stopped, dropping to her knees and simply staring straight ahead, no intended subject in her line of vision as she tried to comprehend the-the grief, at seeing the a soldier's face again.

It had only been two weeks, and yet two weeks without him, his touch, his scent - it felt like an eternity to y/n now. She hasn't registered what her feeling meant for him before, liking him beyond a source of comfort had just felt...wrong, after all he'd done, and yet y/n couldn't deny it.

She was in love with the Winter Soldier, and she didn't even know his name.

...

I wasn't aware of when someone had found me, nor of how they got me back to the tower or even how I was now stood staring blankly out of the window that stood next to my bed. I gazed longingly, almost as if I stared long enough, hard enough, he'd appear.

But of course he wouldn't, he was probably half way across the world, knowing HYDRA. A soft knock on my door and my head was turning, facing my visitor with a look of pure grief and want. Desperate, unhinged want that could eat you up from inside out and you'd still feel it.

"Hey, y/n. Can I talk to you for a moment?" Nat asked tentatively, clearing trying to to disturb my shaken up state. I nodded, offering a small smile which she returned as I now faced her. She walked up to me, talking my hands him hers and playing with the as she spoke, eyes kind and full of understanding.

"There's a mission, and we want you to go." She said calmly, almost as if the mere thought of it would send me into some kind of heart attack.

"Okay," I begun, eyes flitting down to the floor before back up again. "What is it? Aren't you scared that I'm still HYDRA and all I'd do is stab someone in the back?"

"Not exactly." Nat informed me with a smile, amusement glinting in her eyes at my assumption. "For starters, we all trust you, well maybe not steve - but everyone else does." Nat and I both laughed slightly. "And I think you wouldn't have it any other way it to go on the mission yourself." Nat finished.

"How come?" I asked, brow raised.

"There's been a lead..." she started. "On the winter soldier. We thought you might want to help check it out, possibly capture him. Your powers may be the best chance we have a detaining someone as strong as him." Nat spoke. "And if we can detain him.."

"We can save him." I finished.

"Exactly."

[cquackity]

hello thes! i am here to talk about another one of your aus/fics.if that is ok with you of course. this time the questions will be about your tnt duo au/ideas/fics (you aid u had 2000+ words. u can just pick one)

HI MYE!!! well. i actually have around 20,000 or so words of various tntduo fics. the problem is i half finish everything or scrap shit because i'm hypercritical 💀 but i'll tell you about the one i have the most for so far!!! its called Sober to Death, i've got about 8.1k words, and is quackity centric (like most shit i write). putting my rambling under a cut

so it takes place almost directly after slime's death. wilbur comes across an absolutely heartbroken and desolate quackity, who at the time assumes he will be dying shortly - believing this due to sam's lie that dream is out of prison, and possibly coming for las nevadas. i wrote it with the "last night on earth" trope in mind. the two end up getting absolutely trashed together and do a bunch of silly shit. including having a burger cook off, getting married in 15 minutes a la las vegas style, getting into a fistfight, having at least 3 mental breakdowns each, and then to top it all off they break into philza minecraft's alcohol stash. few scenes in between that i'm really excited to write too, i have a few more ideas. and then they wake up in the morning incredibly hungover and... well i won't spoil the ending. it was my favorite part to write, maybe my favorite thing i've wrote for any dsmp shit period. i do genuinely mean to finish this one at the very least, it's kind of my personal love letter to these two characters i adore. if that makes sense? it's named after my favorite song i've gotta complete it. actually i'm going to sit down and write more rn because reading it made me remember how much i genuinely love this fic. my wilbur characterization could use some work tho i think. maybe i'll ask holly for some tips on that. and i'm not sure if i'm going to make it just one huge chapter or what i'm doing with it, but either way!!! it's very dear to me. here's a super short snippet that i guess is sorta shareable. it's not beta read and is largely unedited. so i'm riding on the hope nobody but you has read this far 💀formatting don't fail me now so help me god

-

He was living with a sword to his throat, an arrow constantly knocked pointed at his heart. Wounds from where his previous lovers and friends, now gone from his life, had festered for far too long. Quackity was unsure how he could be better in a world so fucked. One that was designed to strip away his humanity and attachments. But Slime would at least want him to try. That was Slime's legacy, greater than if he had taken charge of Las Nevadas - showing Quackity that goodness still existed. Or did it, now that Slime was-

 

Wilbur snapped his fingers in front of Quackity’s face, cutting off his thoughs. "Hello?" 

"Shit. I think I'm hitting the sad drunk point." Quackity rubbed his face, trying to shove his heart away.

"You think? It's too bad we don't have tequila." Quackity screwed up his face at the thought, but Wilbur continued on. "Only alcohol that's an upper, didn't you know?"

"I didn't." It was a lie - Schlatt had said the same exact thing to him, almost word for word. It was one of the first nights they'd shared together. Before Wilbur could keep going on, Quackity stood, tired of the liquor talk. It wasn't that Schlatt and Wilbur were comparable as people – he just didn't want to fucking hear it anymore. Quackity stumbled through overgrown grass, bottle in one hand, to the edge of L'manberg's crater. There he peered out over the edge, enjoying the slight breeze that flitted across his face. 

She was beautiful, waterfalls cascading over the edge shimmering under the full moon. Every single time he'd come back there was another dangling piece of moss, green taking over the previous barren crater. From here he could see birds resting on the flag pole, chattering amongst themselves. Fish and frogs created ripples in the water that had pooled at the bottom, hopping up to eat the fireflies that dotted the surface. L'manberg's grave was thriving, more peaceful than it had ever been. The sight was heart-wrenching still, even after all this time. 

Quackity hadn’t realized how close to the edge he’d gotten until hands grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him back. He fell in the dirt with a loud oof, hitting his funny bone on the way down. 

[thedreamparadox]

HI, OK so, it was mentioned in your last NiGHTS fic that there aren't Mareish words to distinguish tastes from each other. This got me thinkin about a bunch of other stuff, like do they have a word for love? Words relating to things like art and music?

I hadn't put a ton of thought into it before now lol. I tried to do some language building for Mareish but I kinda burnt out on it real quick after trying to figure out what the rough original name meanings for NiGHTS, Jackle, Reala, and Wizeman would be (they're all kind of pretentious, Jackle's is either respectful or derogatory based on pitch accent I think? I'll dig up my notes for the rambling). So I'm gonna fire off a bunch of brainstorming off the top of my head now.

This rambling got really long between the brainstorming and me finding my notes, so things under the cut.

There probably isn't a word for love considering Maren (as far as I headcanon them) are all extremely aro ace across the board and don't have romantic relationships at all (all Maren are siblings by my worldbuilding, and human and Maren are so fundamentally differently brained that a romantic relationship cross species would never happen or even remotely work out), but also Wizeman is a big jerk and probably wouldn't create a species that actually understood the concept of non-romantic love or familial love. There's probably something akin to an approximation of "I like you" in terms of a favor/preference for interacting with someone, or something akin to adding an "affectionate/fond" modifier when using someone's name. None of the Maren love dear old dad so the closest they get on the parental love terminology spectrum is probably just respect since Wizeman kind of went evil genius, army of monsters mode. NiGHTS' use of Reala's nickname (Ree), according to my notes, translates to "sibling (affectionate)" (but specifically for Reala since it uses shortened name sounds) if the emphasis is on the "e" sounds, but "sibling (derogatory/sarcastic/exasperated)" if the emphasis is on the hard "r" sound.

Maren definitely have plenty of words for colors considering how colorful Maren designs can be. Not entirely sure they have words for art, but considering Puffy's level design they might have a word for "captured image" that would be used for an approximation of either painting or photograph. A lot of little things that Maren gain interest in are done very much behind Wizeman's back because he really doesn't pay too much attention to most of the Seconds unless they're screwing up really hard, or even the Firsts so long as they don't get caught slacking.

They definitely don't have any words for music, though. Maren weren't designed to do anything recreationally, Wizeman just didn't know how to create mindless sentient entities, so interests in things developed for individual Maren over time. They've definitely got a word for the Nightopian language that might, at a stretch, be used in place for the word "music" considering the Nightopian language is definitely musical (I looked into solresol before, which is a music based conlang, but I have zero understanding of how it works, but the Nightopian language is probably something akin to that where different note combinations and different pitches mean different things, but the language is likely highly simplified), but nothing else. They've probably got a word for "bell" considering alarm clocks and bells that chime the hour, inconveniently waking up humans, but no other instruments.

Some more linguistics ramblings as I dig through my notes while I've got the thing open and I'm full on just worldbuilding dumping lol.

Mareish is made up of non-word sounds in addition to word-sounds, including animal noises, cat hissing, meows, roars, and so on. Not all Maren are able to pronounce all non-word sounds, and third levels can't pronounce word-sounds at all, so humans would have a hell of a time learning all of the language just by ear not even counting on how impossible some of the sounds are for humans to pronounce

"Ideya" is a natively Mareish word, but no other better word exists for it, so everyone, even the Dream Guides, use it

Maren by the modern day in the fic timeline use human languages over Mareish because NiGHTS started a trend and Wizeman gave up on trying to stop it after enough years of insistent language use

Mareish does not contain any actual swears, but has enoguh sounds that are close enough to being swears to count

There's a pitch accent component which is used to convey tone (derogatory vs affectionate, for example)

Dual tone syllables - aka two sounds at once - are rarely used, but are a thing and very formal. Humans can't pronounce this (though there are apparently people that can sing two pitches at once? most humans can't do that though)

The are a truly miserable amount of consonant cluster words with few to no vowels

Approximate Maren name translations! Because they're in my notes.

NiGHTS' and Reala's names both mean "Great First, Hand of the Master," voiced as a dual tone, only found in their names and Wizeman's name. NiGHTS' name means "Cruelty of Dreams" while Reala's means "Cruelty of Reality," reflecting their respective preferred hunting styles (deception vs violence). The title of "General" is added on with a sound close to a growl, followed by a bow of respect.

Jackel's name is hell to pronounce due to being full of consonant clusters with a repeated k glotal stop (k'k'k'k') in it, the opening "J" sound pitch implying making the name mean "the mad" or "the brilliant."

Wizeman's name is just a huge list of titles starting with "God of Nightmares" and going on from there. Wizeman is actually the name the Dream Guides use and it stuck.

And one last bit of language before I stop rambling on this post. When the dual tone is eliminated from the pronunciation from a name, it implies either disrespect (NiGHTS doubly so implying this by calling Wizeman by his Guide-given name only after their rebellion) or a lack of formality depending on the context. Reala does it in NiD era out of spite, NiGHTS does it out of a desire to be formal.