#oops that rewrite got entirely too long

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

Get To Know Your Moots Writeblr Interview

Tagged by @ink-flavored (here) to do this event created by @davycoquette (question template here)! Thanks to both of you.

To anyone seeing this, consider yourself tagged in addition to @sunset-a-story @touloserlautrec @sarahlizziewrites @k--havok @thatndginger @oliolioxenfreewrites @the-scaredy-crow @words-after-midnight @space-writes @vacantgodling @jezifster @ghostpoetics @lacependragon @xenascribbles @afoolandathief @drawnecromancy @the-ace-of-wrath

[ID: A thin border divider showing a sliver of a golden sky streaked by rain clouds above a dark blue sea.]

ON THE TUMBLR WRITING COMMUNITY

How long have you had your writing Tumblr/Writeblr?

Since, like, 2020? Somewhere thereabouts.

What led you to create it?

Wanting to connect with writers/readers outside of Ao3 (it's just not set up for conversations outside of comment threads). And wanting to raise my characters up like baby Simba at the start of The Lion King for more of the Internet to behold.

What’s your favorite thing about the Writeblr community?

It's about the connection. 🤌 Plenty of writing communities, both on and offline, focus on critique or getting something published. Which can be great, if it's what you're after. But I think having others who genuinely cheer you on and let you ramble is just as important to helping writers through the often messy process of creating.

What’s one thing you’d like your mutuals to know about you?

I can be a bit shy or slow to interact, but once I'm invited in I'll haunt follow your blog or writing even if I'm not constantly saying anything.

Is there anything you’d like to see more of on your dash?

People talking about what they love, in published work and with writeblr stuff. A lot of the time I read or watch something because of the way others talk about it. That includes your own writing!

What tips/advice do you have for someone who made a Writeblr today?

Be patient, manage your expectations, and focus on having some fun. There's no algorithm here and even less clout. Writers can and do build audiences on Tumblr, but it's uniquely suited to allow us to experiment and be weird too.

WIP IT GOOD

Which Works-in-Progress (WIPs) or writing projects are you noodling about, lately?

I'm rewriting Apophenia, a novel about a supernatural researcher enduring the worst assignment of his life. A lot of my other projects are set in the same world.

How long have you been working on them?

Over five years now, I think! I'm slow.

Do you remember what inspired them/what got you started?

The Chocolate Box event on Ao3! The prompt was for a human captured by a vampire, but I wound up creating an entire world and series. Oops.

How much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them?

If I'm not thinking about these characters it's only because I'm dead.

When someone asks the dreaded, “What do you write about,” question, what do you usually say?

Gay vampire trash.

What do you want to say (if it’s different from what you do say)?

I write about characters who struggle towards community, compassion, and being better people despite a) their flaws, and b) the world burning down around them. I hope that it gives me the courage to continue doing the same.

LET’S ROTATE BLORBOS

Name any characters you created.

I'll direct you to some mood boards/intros even: Isaac Soto Márquez, Renato Faria Dimas, Dorian St-Ange, Kinslayer, Elfy Bosques-Rodriguez, Ankaris the Memory Salesman, Fior the Master Transcriber, Vess the Collector. And here's a comic sans presentation for Apophenia.

Who’s the most unhinged?

Outwardly? Any of my necromancers. They come in a wide variety of styles, from Motley sewing patches of skin onto itself, to Acacius of Antioch who drapes his bejeweled and gilded bones in black veils. Each also has an, um, unique view of (un)life, the body, and ethics. Views which could come across as unhinged.

Who comes the most naturally for you to write?

At this point Isaac Soto, the protagonist of Apophenia. We do share a few similarities, but mostly I've just been writing him for years now.

Do you ever cringe at them?

At my characters or their antics? I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

How much control do you feel you have over your characters?

They do frequently just spring ideas and actions on me, but I have the ultimate say in what makes it onto the page. Same with having the power/responsibility of changing something I realize isn't working, is insensitive, etc.

Do you enjoy people asking questions about your characters?

Always and forever, yes. 💜 Send me asks, comment in the tags or on Ao3, shriek in reblogs, replies, or a dm. It doesn't matter how--I love whenever someone is curious or interested enough to ask something about my fictional creations.

ON WRITEBLR ENGAGEMENT

What makes you want to follow another Writeblr account?

Sometimes it's based on vibes, sometimes I really like the sound of their stories. I appreciate a sense of whimsy and/or humor especially. And someone who likes spooky as well as fantasy stuff.

What makes you decide against following?

Two things: A) Their intro already has, like, 80+ notes (though the vibe/story will override this), and B) lots of posts hating on things/trends/people. I don't mean venting or sometimes ranting, which is everyone's right. I mean someone's whole brand is ridicule or just immediately seeing the bad in everything. Which is still their right. It's also mine to avoid it, and I think this is mutually beneficial. Thankfully, though, this experience has been very rare for me on writeblr.

Do you interact with non-mutuals often?

I try to. I'll reblog, read, comment, take an open tag, whatever when I have the energy. I mean, how else do writers get readers? It takes people who might not know you personally talking about your work a lot of the time.

Do your mutuals’ characters occupy space in your noodle?

I am absorbing the essence of your blorbos as we speak, making them an eternal part of me.

[autumnapricot]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers! Spread the self-love 💞 because I love your fics <333

ohh, thank you 🥰🫶🏼

(warning: major yapping incoming. no seriously.)

[1] will o‘ the wisps

quite obviously, lol! this story just has a special place in my heart, for the fact that i‘ve had the ground idea for so long, all the details that went into it that for most part probably even went unnoticed to the readers but were so important for me personally, the planning of things, the way i had like a list of the details and easter eggs and everything. also, the name (not to toot my own horn) but i truly had the biggest *oooohhh!!!* moment when i found this title for the story and it just fit so so perfectly. the vibe when i wrote it. yeah, just a lot of love. also it‘s my most „hit“ fic i‘ve ever written and wow, i would have never ever imagined to get this reaction to my writing, ever. like i saw the fics from other brilliant amazing writers in the fandom that‘d get 1-3k kudos and i was like what the hell, that‘s crazy much. and then wotw hit +1k kudos and i was (still am) mindblown by that because imagine 1k people irl telling you they love what you wrote? insane. and all your guys comments and asks and i‘ve gotten some of the greatest comments eeeveron this fic, like, just wow. i write for myself because i just have these ideas and words and stories in my head that i need to get out and one day decided to upload because i thought maybe a few people would perhaps like it, have a little joy with it, but of course validation is always amazing and nice, so this reception is mindblowing for me. also i now kind of wish i could rewrite some parts of the story, do some plots more or different or just write differently, but i always hate kinda hate my fics after a while and think i could have done better. but still, so much love for this fic <3

[2] friday night; i‘m in love

just for the vibe of this fic, it‘s my second fave :)) i remember i had such a good time writing this—it was the first time i went to a park to write and i stayed in that park for hours and just…wrote. this fic. and the song makes up the whole vibe of that time of that summer when i wrote this, so. just vibey. reminds me of good times but also somehow bad times. i got a comment that said „so this is what loneliness feels like“ and for someone reason that has stuck with me a hell of a lot.

[3] shores of forgiveness

this is not f1 but motogp, which is a rather little fandom on ao3 and at times idk what possessed me to write this, but, for some reason i do like it? idek. i don‘t even ‚ship‘ rosquez because oh my god, what a fucking mess that „relationship“ or well, that whole..thing..is. but that‘s somehow exactly what i love about them because fuck me that shit hurts and i lived through the split of worlds!! 2015 sepang. the press conference before? marc’s face? i wanna crumple like a leaf in the wind and to be carried away by them so fast that not even any fleeting emotions would ever graze me again. the coldness of 2016. 2018 argentina?? bro what a time to be alive (not!!). you need to know the whole rosquez lore to understand because my god. it hurts too good. literally as of this week’s events…imagine your childhood idol and absolute hero and later friend and now arch-nemesis still going on podcasts t.e.n. years later and still shit-talking you into the ground about how you’re the worst person to have ever lived and the worst thing to happen to this sport and entire nations hate you and and and!! well, ANYWAY, back to it: i don‘t remember the whole thing anymore actually. but still third! byee (fun fact: i have a rosquez playlist that literally consists of songs to scream in the car in anger and heartbreak, and it‘s my kinda therapy oops. as you can see, i am very invested in them still)

[4] but if it ain‘t you (it‘s a lie)

idk. sometimes i forget about this fic oops. but i do like it, i like me some soft besotted absolutely gone in-love alpha charles and cutie-patootie omega max. i don‘t even like the smut of this. actually why am putting this on fourth?🤣 buuttt i also remember the car rides where i listened to the song and then just randomly sat down, wrote this in one sitting, done. i think i wrote this at work even. well well well

[5] now, i am become death

listen. liiisten. i don‘t even remember writing this whole thing. literally two weeks ago i randomly looked through my works, saw this, halted, and was like—who wrote this? me?? when, where??? when did these words ever spook my mind? i reread it and yk what, it‘s fifth. no clue what‘s going on but hey. swords and blood!

anyway waaay too many thoughts, i’m so sorry, thank you! 🩵🤍

[therottenkingsreckoning]

We're back with another one! Went through several agonizing rewrites here, stressing probably more than necessary that things all flow well and feels hit like they're supposed to. But finally, the whole extra long beast of a chapter is finished.

I'll put some stuff down below this like I did earlier- except this time, it's a link to the B Dylan Hollis recipe video I had in mind when Frank is talking about cake (a recipe I'd still love to try out myself) and the drawings of Apple the houpa I made ages ago.

Anyway, enough rambling. Fanfic ahoy!

Little Flame, chapter 7

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was one thing for Eddie to be nervous. After all, his mate and child were on the line if anything happened. But it was another thing entirely when the other neighbors starting treating Frank the same way.

"Oop, watch your head there!" Howdy called out, passing by them with armfuls of boxes. Frank had been helping out around the bodega lately, a way of repaying the stolen test which had over time morphed into a biweekly half-job. It was also a chance for the two to hang out, since they otherwise wouldn't have done.

"I'm just saying, you should give it a chance," Frank said, continuing where he'd left off in both sweeping and conversation. "Beans add a nice richness you don't get from the regular stuff."

"But in a cake? Really? Apple, move outta the way." Howdy nudged the houpa with his foot, earning little more than a mrrp? in response. "If ya ask me, it sounds like the cravings might be getting to your head right now."

Frank huffed. "This was before I'd gotten pregnant, so I highly doubt that would've had an affect on my taste."

"Heh, if ya say so," Howdy replied, beginning to unpack the first box of the stack he'd set down beside him.

Frank would've responded further, they already knew what to say. Unfortunately though, the now awake cat-horse that was Howdy's pet had deemed his broom a suitable plaything, clamping the bristles between his hooves & teeth with considerable force.

"Nggh ...God, it's no use trying to get anything done around this animal!" he scoffed, ceding the tool to its new rightful owner. "Why do you even still keep him here?"

"Hey now, you heard what Ember said, he can't be released into the wild. And I've caught you snuggling this big dork several times, so don't try to claim you don't like him too." A lower hand grabbed the scientist's arm as they were reaching for a box, the taller shaking his head firmly. "Uh uh, no heavy lifting for you Mr. Mom."

Frank let out a noise of frustration as he realized what Howdy was saying. "Oh come on, not you too! It's like I suddenly can't do anything anymore!"

"Sorry fella, I just couldn't live with myself if you got hurt. Not to mention Eddie would probably have my head for it." The caterpillar shrugged his shoulders in succession. "Matter of fact, I can probably take care of the rest here if you wanna get going. It's been great, but I'm sure you've got stuff you wanna do."

Frank took the offer, begrudgingly. Howdy was wrong, he didn't really have anything better to do with his time. But they'd certainly not be made to sit uselessly inside the shop! No, he'd go see what Julie was up to.

Outside was nice, the weather warm and a little windy. the sounds of birds and bugs made gentle music on Frank's ears, and he felt their spirits lifted as he walked along the path. No sense in letting it get to me now, they thought. He's wrong, but I'll let him be wrong. I've got a day to enjoy.

They passed by Barbie's house, the dog herself just stepping out when she noticed him and raised a paw in friendly greeting. "Hey there Frank, you heading to Julie's house?"

"Indeed I am," Frank answered simply.

"I'll go with ya then!" she said cheerfully, not waiting for an answer as she strode up beside the grey. "Got a book I was gonna return to her anyway."

Frank let out a heavy, dramatic sigh and kept walking. "Alright, but if you get too annoying I'll go somewhere else."

In truth it was mostly just for show, and he suspected she knew that too. They'd gotten along well in recent months, her frequent visits to Julie's house meaning the two had had plenty of time to get to know each other better. And Frank was grateful for a distraction in any case, as she rambled cheerfully about everything and nothing.

"...he's got paints set aside for that, mixed the batches up himself" she chuckled, wiggling her fingers for emphasis. "Doesn't want me dippin' my big ol' mitts into the good stuff."

Frank nodded. "Suppose that does make sense. There's much less oil paint, and it really isn't meant f-"

"SHH!"

Words and walking stopped short as one of those same big hands swept out to catch him. "There's something up ahead," the dog growled, all cheerfulness gone as her ears perked and eyes narrowed to scan the treeline. Frank looked around himself, feeling a growing fear creep into the pit of their stomach until-

A squirrel darted from between the lower branches of a tree, running swiftly past them to the other side of the road. "Phew, thought it was somethin' big," Barbie said, releasing the iron grip she'd had on the smaller's shoulders.

Frank wriggled out of her grasp and frowned. "You're really getting this worked up over squirrels?" He scoffed, arms folded.

Sheepishly, she shrugged. "Can't really help it, sorry. I guess it's some kinda instinct that tells me I need to keep ya safe. Especially right now, with uhh...things bein' the way that they are."

"You mean my pregnancy."

"...yeah."

Frank grumbled, pinching the bridge of their nose. "I don't need you protecting me Barbara, I can handle all this on my own."

Barbie opened her mouth to protest further, but a glare from the other shut her down quickly. "Yeah, fine I won't bug ya about it," she sighed. Then grinning, added, "Don't suppose you mind bugs though."

Frank groaned out loud. My God, this was the worst one yet! Barbie gladly took the victory as a sign to press further, the two subconciously falling into familiar rhythms of grump and jokester until they were suddenly right outside a familiar pink dwelling.

Unsurprisingly, Julie was the middle of planning a game when they arrived, marking hopscotch squares out with chalk. "Frank!! and Barbie too!" She squealed excitedly upon seeing her friends, jumping to her feet and giving both of them a warm hug. Still on the ground, Sally laughed softly and waved a hello. "Already done with your work at the bodega dear?"

"Yes, well, he allowed me to leave early," Frank said with a roll of his eyes, sitting down beside her on the dirt. "We had a bit of a disagreement over my current capabilities."

"Oh, I'm sure he's simply worried for you darling," Sally reassured, "We all are."

Frank sighed. The condescension was beginning to get annoying, but he didn't want to ruin things with an argument when they'd just arrived. For your friends, for Julie, he thought, mentally gritting his teeth as he silently picked up another of the hula hoops the star was inexplicably wrapping in colorful tape.

Next to them, Julie was explaining the rules of her new game. "So if it lands on heads, you gotta run around the neighborhood before they catch you."

"Ough, might wanna lay off the runnin' right now," said Barbie. " 'S at least two of us who can't do much of that."

Frank turned to look at her. It was quite clear she was referring to themselves, yet he rationalized- not an unfair proclamation. It's true, I can't really run too far now without getting winded. No need to get worked up...

Julie seemed to consider it, a worrying look of worry starting to creep over the monster's features. "Oh that is true, we gotta be careful with Frank right now! Don't wanna hurt the baby."

Frank's heart sank. Oh no. Not her. They could handle the others, could pretend their opinions didn't matter to him. But Julie... "You don't need to..." he started.

"Better take out the ball-throwing too in that case!" Sally interrupted. "Maybe even these hula hoops, they could hit someone's stomach pretty hard if you spin them fast."

"That's..."

"Perfect thinking!" Julie proclaimed, already pulling her her notes to make amendments. "No running, no throwing..."

"Julie please," Frank begged, increasingly upset.

It fell on deaf ears. The three were talking as though he wasn't even there, oblivious to the building whine of stress & overstimulated rage happening inches away.

"Take out-"

"Better change-"

"Really for the best that we-"

"STOP IT!!!" Frank screamed, jumping up to his feet and throwing the hoop somewhere off into the distance. Their breath was ragged, his eyes burned so badly with tears that they didn't dare open them. "Why don't you trust me to do anything right now???? Why are you treating me this way?!?"

Dead silence filled the air, even the sounds of nature seemingly stunned by his outburst. All that was there was the rustling wind and his heavy breathing, through gritted teeth and shaking hands. Julie gently touched their arm, but he smacked it away, not wanting touch or care right now. "And you especially Julie! I thought you of all people would understand."

"Frank I'm-"

"Shut up," he huffed, already marching away. "Just shut up."

Frank felt so sick, and tired, and angry. Why was everyone like this right now? Just because he was pregnant, he was suddenly unable to throw a ball, or lift a box, or do anything he could've done five months ago? "It's like all they care about is you," he snarled, poking at their belly, "I'm just a vessel."

A sudden splash, and wetness seeped into his sock. As though this awful, awful day couldn't get any worse, he'd stepped into a puddle. But maybe it was the anger twisting their mind around- it felt good now. A puddle's full of awful germs they wouldn't want me touching. Shame if I...

SPLASH! his other foot stomped down hard into the mud, sending water flying up onto his trousers. SPLASH SPLASH! they danced and kicked around in it, somehow reveling right now in how awful it felt, how forbidden.

"I'm doing things! I might hurt myself!" He sang out loud to no one, grabbing a nearby tree branch and pulling. "Won't somebody stop me?!" It snapped, and he tumbled back into the dirt, giggling manically as they stood up and swung it back into the trunk like a sword. Then again, and again as the rage turned to violence and then into tears. Frank sank into the dirt, breathing hard as he sobbed.

"Are you ok?"

Frank opened his eyes to a familiar blue swirl above them, its owner giving them a look of confusion. "Go away," the taller sniffled angrily. Last thing he needed was people caring.

"Ok," Wally answered simply with a shrug, already turning around to start walking away. In that moment, with just how completely messed up this whole day had been, it was this simple lack of concern that struck Frank's heart all of a sudden. "Come back," he sniffled, sitting up. And Wally did.

"You're not worried about me?"

Wally raised a non-existent eyebrow. "Well yeah, if you're crying in the dirt and hitting things I'll be concerned."

"But you don't think I'm...less capable? Just because of my being pregnant?"

Things seemed to click for the demon then, sitting down next to Frank. "Who told you that? No- I mean I've never been pregnant, but as far as I know that doesn't mean you can't do things."

"Exactly! But everyone acts like I suddenly can't, or I shouldn't in case...something happens, I guess. I don't know." Frank gripped on to the broken branch, picking away at its bark as they spoke. "First Eddie being too scared of letting me climb, then at Howdy's when he wouldn't let me lift the boxes, those I could sort of understand. But then Barbie, then Sally and even Julie..." he trailed off.

Wally seemed to think. "You want me to tell them to knock it off?" he offered. "If they won't listen to you, maybe they'll listen to me instead."

"Tch," Frank hissed. "That's the whole problem though. They won't listen to me! It's...it's like I don't even matter, my feelings don't matter, and all that's important is-"

"Frank..."

Frank and Wally both looked over to see their friends standing in the road. Julie, Sally, Barbie, and Eddie still breathing slightly hard from running towards the sound of his partner's yelling.

"Hello friends," Wally spoke, his usually cheerful greeting tinged right now with the slightest anger. "Frank was telling me about how you haven't been treating them very well."

"I'm sorry," Julie sobbed, quite visibly shocked & heartbroken. "I had no idea it would upset you that much."

"You would've if you'd listened!" Frank retorted. "I was trying to tell you, and you kept talking over me."

"We...we were only trying to help..." Sally piped up nervously, then winced at the glare shot her way. "Right, you're right though. It is... your baby, we shouldn't overstep your bounds like that."

Eddie slowly approached Frank, gently helping them back to his feet. "I guess...we're all just real excited for that right now," he said. "We wanna make sure that things go right."

"That doesn't mean-" Wally started, but Frank cut him off with a gentle wave. "It's ok, I can handle it." And now that things were fully out in the open, now that his blood had settled down from its boiling point, he could.

They sighed. "I know you mean well, but... it hurts. I'm still me! I can still do things! I promise I'm not as fragile as you think, even right now. I just...I need you all to trust me, and if something truly feels like it's a risk, I'll let you know, ok?"

Julie hugged him gently, checking first he was comfortable with touch right now. "I'm a terrible friend," she said. "I'm sorry."

"You're not, I promise." Frank squeezed her tight. All anger gone, he felt so tired in her arms, and glad to have those arms back to hold. "We're all new to this thing, and you're trying your best. Just...don't do it again, ok?"

They all nodded, still shuffling awkwardly. "Hey," the grey offered with a weak smile. "How about this? You let me pick all the rules for the next game."

"Ok!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[walnutcookie]

Can you tell us more about Hazelnut? :0

I find her very interesting and I kinda want to know more about her :3

OHHH BOY HAZELNUT.... I havent thought about her in a hot second honestly !! heres what i have for her but it may change as ive been slowly rewriting my fanon.... Thank you so much for this ask!!! :333

she is almonds mother :] Visited pure vanilla kingdom for work stuff and ended up growing very very close with the king himself and they got married within a few years. Hazelnut moved into the castle and became the queen of pure vanilla kingdom🎉🎉her and PV started to drift apart though - mostly due to how busy PV was with his kingdom - and hazelnut was frustrated with the entire system and how the responsibility of their kid mainly fell on her. they got divorced and hazelnut took almond back to parfaedia with her since she would rather the kid be raised by an actual Parental figure rather than all of pvs assistants (pv wanted to avoid conflict and didnt have the guts to argue with any of this)

hazelnut and almond were more like friends than mother and daughter really. she was pretty relaxed when it came to rules, of course she had limits - shes a cop, after all - but as long as almond wasnt doing anything Illegal or super dangerous she had a good amount of freedom. Maybe a little too much freedom FJSJHFJKSD she defiently watched movies that were too mature for her at the time and such. hazelnut LOVED to talk to almond about allllll the shit that annoyed her, ESPECIALLY the pv kingdom and since almond didnt visit pv very often she started to think more negatively abt him than anything. A lot of the time when she did visit pv was still very busy with his kingdom and while he did make sure to set aside time to spend with almond he wasnt able to dedicate the whole time to her so all of the exaggerated things that hazelnut told almond were confirmed in her head :'] Hazelnut basically just. Used her daughter as her own personal therapist a lot of the time and almond had to just chill with that until she was in her 20s....

which is when hazelnut died ! She was stabbed through the chest with a sugar crystal by my oc blueberry scone </3 scone was only 15 at the time and was running through the streets in a panic for. honestly some unspecified reason ive never been satisfied with her lore but it was always something about a loved one being harmed in an accident at parfaedia institute. Hazelnut came off pretty rough and spooked her really bad and in a panic she shot a spell back and made it way too powerful which killed her instantly oops!!!!

Scone kept running and eventually was brought in (and manipulated) by dark enchantress which lead to her becoming a cookie of darkness. meanwhile almond found out about her mothers death on the news when she was out working and her main reaction was rage. Why did her mom have to be killed Why did she have to be left alone to navigate her early adult life Why was her best friend latte moving away at the same time. to become a WIZARD of all things, the very thing that killed her mom. this specifically lead to a big falling out between almond and latte and they stopped talking to each other for decades (only met again after latte moved back to parfaedia 20ish years later!! i hc they acted like they didnt know each other during the light the beacon cutscenes because they were still pretty bitter about the fight, almond especailly)

almond had a pretty rough time after that, she refused help from her father who learned about hazelnut and tried to offer her a place to stay but after all of the opinions shes already formed PLUS her mind was all scrambled from grief and panic she literally shredded the letter he sent. She still blames her father for not helping her during this time though </3 and shortly after he reached out the dark flour war happened and the pv kingdom crumbled anyways soooo.... probably a good thing that almond didnt go

Hazelnut is a ghost who lives in my cookiesonas haunted mansion now :]

thats really all i have for her, thank you so much again for this ask!!! Im probably going to rewrite this a lot someday because this lore is like 3 years old at this point JFSDJHJDSFH

[stealingpotatoes]

EVERYONE GREAT NEWS REWRITE ANON RETURNED AND BLESSED US W MORE! i'll copy & paste the rest of the asks under the cut ⬇️ it's pretty long but worth the read (ive left my own notes in pink)

[continued from screenshot] We didn’t come up with a new name for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo but we did come up with a new arc and I put him in a traditional Alderaanian cape in the concept art sketches because he deserves to be an Organa (potes notes: YES!!!). I also gave him a lightning scar instead of a lightsaber scar because it made a bit more sense.

Our general plan was that yes, he’s still evil, at least a bit. His parents and uncle are awe-inspiring war heroes as well as being incredibly busy making sure the entire Galaxy doesn’t collapse in on itself in the power vacuum left behind by the Empire. Luke is part of a humanitarian aid/Geneva Convention type wing of the New Republic and Kylo finds himself both feeling like he lacks the means to prove himself and like they’re not doing enough to squash the threat of insurgence - which is still a clear threat and there have been multiple attempts on his mother’s life that have left the family scared. He absorbs certain parts of his mother and father’s political conduct; Leia’s willingness to fight for what’s right and Han’s general impulsiveness.

Anyway keep that in mind. He makes a stupid bid to try and prove himself by trying to fight off a whole imperial remnant cell alone “Just like the Jedi used to do.” and ends up going completely missing. Tl/dr: he’s super close to death and the big bad of the movie steps in to save him, teaching him what he always wanted to learn - how to fight and defend the people you love rather than focusing on connection to the force. Kylo doesn’t see the significance of that side of things, both because his parents don’t have an interest in it and because he’s grown up with tales of the daring exploits of Master Luke taking on ten people at once and chopping robots to bits. He just wants to make people proud of him. (OHHH THIS IS SO GOOD SO SO MUCH BETTER)

He’s pretty young when this happens too, and eventually his mind is twisted to believe that the only way to keep everyone safe is dictatorship. He’s grown up in a long, slow, difficult democracy with constant political unrest and everyone’s described how powerful and stable the Empire was his whole life - doesn’t matter that they were talking about how cool it was that they beat it. He still absorbed all that. (THIS IS SUCH A GOOD CHARACTER MOTIVATION and also great setup for themes/discussions on radicalisation and its like poetry it rhymes w anakin's fall omg)

Anyway, flash forward to the time of the films. He’s not a Sith, he can’t manage to push himself that far into the dark side. But he wants to be. He’s got a complex about it, he’s obsessed with getting stronger because then maybe they’ll be proud of me. He loses his first fight with Rey, not because she’s strong in the force at this point, but because he’s trained himself to the point of exhaustion after being reprimanded for a minor failure in interrogating Poe. He can barely move and he’s on the verge of fainting when they corner him in fact. He’s practically addicted to the pain of overtraining himself because that pain is what connects him to the dark side. (GOOD FIX!! 10/10 writing omg)

When Rey actually becomes a more formidable opponent in the force, he asks her “Who trained you?” and she tells him it was Han, not knowing the blow this is going to strike. This gets in his head. Badly. Han never understood the force when he was a kid, and was still not the best at being emotionally vulnerable (he was a great dad! But he was still the man who said “I know.” to “I love you.” (oop yep ok see ur point LOL)). Kylo isn’t to know that Han was FORCED to overcome this stuff through a brief stay in absolute hell. He asks what she can possibly have that he doesn’t, how is she better than him? And when he lashes out at Rey, telling her about the Han he knew, she doesn’t believe him and calls him a liar and a terrible son. This fight (which takes place on water) ends up with Rey almost drowning as Kylo throws a massive force tantrum, and Kylo having a breakdown under the sea in a force air bubble after the fight is over.

I think I’ll do a couple more asks because this one has been super long! I’m sorry if this was a chore to read I just thought I’d share if you liked the last one hah.

--------------------------------------------------

Rewrite anon again! I’m sorry if this is getting tedious!

We had a general plan for Kylo Ren’s redemption where Rey would be in danger of falling to the dark side by the end of the second film (IM LISTENING), and Kylo would already be on the path to questioning things after some hard hitting blows

Death of Luke (his master) (;-;)

Rey was trained by and kind of adopted by Han and has become the galaxy’s beacon of hope. Maybe it is all on him. And she loves Han so much that it’s hard for his new master to twist the facts on him anymore.

The third film would be a fucked up family reunion type bit where Kylo begs for forgiveness and him and Han set off to try and save Rey together. (YESSSSSSS!!! omg this is everything to me holy shit)

Thanks for the listen! I hope these aren’t too annoying. (IM LOVING IT)

---------------------------------------

Rewrite anon again (sorry). Wanted to mention Leia, Poe and Finn.

Leia is dealing with a massive insurgence threat which is why she sends Rey (galaxy’s last hope) away with Han (good at hiding. Also the only person she could both trust and spare).

Finn and Poe both comment a lot on how Rey’s galactic significance makes her blind to people’s lives. The New Order might keep her alive because she’s valuable, and Kylo might listen to her, but Finn and Poe are both canon fodder to both Kylo and the New Order. Hierarchy of lives and all that. (oooo yes that'd be such a fun like... counterpoint to the whole Skywalker Saga & fate-destiny-soap-opera)

Poe used to be a fighter pilot but is now more of a political leader and provides a necessary voice in the senate to backwater outer rim planets. He’s Leia’s political mentor (i assume you meant mentee/student?) with none of her royal manners and all of her intensity.

Finn isn’t exactly a clone, but he is grown in a lab. He’s more of a super-soldier than a clone, designed at the genetic level to be basically eugenics’ perfect man. (puts on my CATWS stan hat im listening) He becomes a field agent/espionage/sabotage type guy after defecting from the New Order because he doesn’t want to be involved in active combat any more, even though it’s hardwired into him and he has to fight it the whole way. Luke takes a liking to Finn before his death and teaches him about the importance of forging your own identity first before you start to think about where you’ve come from.

Hope you like the ideas lol we had a lot.

------------------------------------------------

Final (?) ask from rewrite anon maybe. It’s about Han because we did kinda just make the Han movies I realise.

Han saves Rey from pirates after she finally cheats herself offworld for the first time and finds herself overwhelmed. After losing Kylo to the New Order he has long since realised his shortcomings in parenting and while he works up the courage to reach out to his son, he uses Rey kind of like a do-over child. (...healthy!)

Han ends up stuck with Rey after Luke’s death and with Leia pinned down on all sides, and as well as trying to give her super DIY teaching, he realises she can talk to Luke. Understandably this hits him like a truck while he’s grieving his friend, and him and Luke have a kind of Haymitch and Katniss communicating-without-communicating relationship. Han can’t see or hear Luke, but he knows when Luke’s trying to use timing to tell him something. (AGH I LOVE THISSSSSSSSSSS YES using a THG comparison makes me love it even more)

Han also survives until the end of the films. Harrison Ford would hate me for this he wants that guy to die so bad but no the smuggler from the fuck end of nowhere with no cosmic significance, no nothing, just the power of love and a gun makes it to the end. The survivor’s guilt is insane. (ohh LOVE THATTT!!! ESPECIALLY W UR EARLIER THING OF FINN N POE SEEING THEMSELVES AS CANON FODDER WITHOUT A GALACTIC DESTINY)

Hope you enjoyed reading these and that they weren’t too much of a bore. Maybe I’ll write some of this stuff down if people like it. (EVERYONE TELL ANON HOW MUCH YOU LIKE THIS RIGHT NOW)

---------------------------------------------------------

Rewrite anon again (sorry)

Rey does of course lose her hand (fair, as is tradition) and she replaces it with a shitload of gadgets massively egged on by Han and Chewie. I think she’d have a special glove for it kind of like the equalist gloves in LOK. (SICK!)

Would also be great to have a ‘jedi’ protagonist who is even less aware of standard practice than Luke and will try definitely illegal moves like changing the length of the blade mid fight or kicking sand in your opponent’s eyes. (LMAO amazing omg)

---------------------------------------- (that was the last ask)

Me and my friend had some fun trying to rewrite the sequel trilogy a while ago and I think the best idea we had was Luke dies and Han and Rey get stranded on some nowhere planet where he has to haphazardly attempt to teach her years of jedi training in like a week entirely by reading out of Luke’s notes (somehow even worse than Luke’s extremely DIY training in the OT).

This isn’t at all based on the ‘Han has the force’ theory it’s literally just crabby atheist old man Han Solo and his dead best friend’s religious texts that are totally useless to him vs the world.

i LOVE that, disney needs to get you two rewriting the sequels STAT

(commission info // tip jar!)

[kattythingz]

6, 9, and 15 or the bunny gets it 🔪 🐰

Is the bunny named KARMA? BECAUSE SHE'S IMMORTAL IN THAT CASE, BITCH.

Anyway, since you asked I guess

6. Make a sampler plate! Which three fics should a first-time reader of yours read first?

Oh, real funny. Kat can't write short works so she'll struggle with this question—I see your ass Jinx. JOKES ON YOU, I HAVE AN EASY LIST THOUGH.

care for a death? - my darling favorite child of an au. My edling Hades au. This one-shot is only 2k and honestly an odd one out next to all my other longfic works, buuut, it's super cute and loosely establishes the grounds for a more extensive au if anyone's interested in further exploring it (in the 14k sequel hehe). I'd like to think I characterized edling very well with their new backstories in mind! And there's not nearly enough flustered Ling content in the world.

Reliable Conclusion - yet another edling pride and joy of mine! This time a Monkie Kid au, and this one actually follows my more "canon" take on edling (or, well, Ed), so this can serve as a very nice appetizer to my characterization of them in Crown. I also put a lot of effort into the bg world-building and the casting! It has a nice blend of romantic (well, queerplatonic to me) and platonic too, with edling and greedling respectively! I also finally take a crack at my guilty pleasure of Ed & Lust being besties too~ 03 my beloved you were SO real for redeeming her. All in all this fic captures a ton of my trademarks!

Falling Impressions - last but not least RIVALSHIPPING! Yes, yes, I do write outside of edling from time to time, and Yugi/Kaiba are esp a love of mine. This fic was written before I completely fell into longfics, so it's also a shorter work, but it's cute and captures some of my favorite tropes of gruff characters softening for their loved ones! Which is... quite the common trope that I find myself writing. Ehe.

9. Oops! Your entire fic repository has to be permanently deleted, but you can pick three to remain. Which three fics are you saving and why?

Well, first, I'd need to cry—but after that!

A Crown with Gems and Gold - yeah, OBV my edling magnum opus is going on this list. Crown is my first (published) fic to breach 100k and SO much heart and soul went into it, from the rewriting of the plot to the established relationship to the blessed whump; this fic has been a goddamn test of my love, for better or worse. But by god if I don't adore it to pieces. It has all the tropes I love and it's so shamelessly catered to ME. It's truly my pride and joy. I dunno where I'd be without it, considering I've spent the better part of a year now cracking at it.

We'll Be a Sweet Disaster - this fic is def one of my lesser known ones but it means THE ENTIRE WORLD TO ME, OKAY. Stalia is one of my favorite ships to this day and this fic specifically was my first successful crack at a longfic canon rewrite, one of my favorite genres. S4 of Teen Wolf was particularly my favorite because of Stalia and I just. I love them so much. And I'm honestly still so proud of the work I did here, even if it's notably older in terms of writing style.

Apple of Your Eye - yet another canon rewrite, this time of sk8! This one is esp dear to me tho because I finally got to write a darkfic for the first time. And by god was it SO FUN. I was honestly afraid that I'd overdone it with the dark aspects in this fic, but so many people commented on loving it FOR those aspects and I just. I've never felt that much love and support on a fic of mine before, honestly. It boosted my confidence by MILES and ultimately pushed me to pursue my other guilty pleasures! It was soooo worth slaving through Ramadan for it.

15. Which three fics were sleeper hits?

Okay so how I understood "sleeper hit" was as a fic that unexpectedly got popular, or took a while before it abruptly skyrocketed. That being said:

Apple of Your Eye - THIS FIC, HOLY SHIT. I posted it back in 2023 long after the sk8 hype had died down honestly, and given the prompt of the fic (a roleswap with Reki as Adam's object of obsession rather than Langa), I wasn't expecting it to get popular either. I felt lucky that I'd get even 2k hits or any comments at all. As of its stats today, it has 13k hits and. Way more comments and bookmarks than I can even wrap my head around. Idek how this happened tbh, like did someone just go around reccing the fic?? Was sk8 experiencing a resurgence I didn't know of? Either way, this fic continues to top my yearly fic stats.

What Sort of Imminent Threat - now this one. This one I had even LESS expectations for because—it's a fic about a musical, ffs. Who's gonna read that? Not many, at first! I wrote this fic loooong before the Ocean Saga (3rd out of 9) even released, so reception was predicably low at the start. But then. Then the UNDERWORLD SAGA happened. And the fic really exploded then, because ig we all needed collective sanctuary from the angst that was that goddamn saga. And then everything after was just pure trauma after trauma so. I'm not surprised when the numbers spike anymore lmao.

Mother(ghost) of Mine - THIS fic is the one I'm still most skeptical and embarrassed by, buuuut, yeah, I wrote this DP fic all the way back in 2020—and it was painfully self-indulgent. Like, in a way I was still anxious about, even as I was posting the fic. It didn't help my expectations that this fic was just. A series of fluffy one-shots. No real plot to be seen (which is most certainly not my brand anymore, and I find myself bored of that genre in fact). And yet, somehow, to this day, I am still getting comments and hits and the numbers just keep racking up. Not that I'm complaining, ofc, but it's just... extremely bizarre. Esp given the DP fandom tends to favor soul-crushing angst instead of fluff lmao. And this oddball is in fact my most popular fic still today. (Crown is looking to top it soon tho 👀.)

[kuschelkissen]

The urge to "woke-ify*" rewrite my old stories and OCs...

*as in adding some queer relationships, getting a bit more diverse with body types and skin colours, etc...

Just me rambling and trying to sort my thoughts, probably long post, so... under cut. Feel free to scroll past, it's mostly for me anyway.

So... when I was about 20 years younger, I wrote this story about a group of 8 teenagers going on your average fantasy journey to find a magical item to destroy The Bad Guy (TM), and in the end, I had 4 (straight) couples. 5 if I include the random side characters along the way.

Aaand they all... well. I was a teenager in a predominantly white town in Germany (there was one black girl in the entire school and a few muslims that were tad darker than the rest of us, if at all), my main interest were anime and let's just say, the characters reflect that.

Old, old art:

Over time, I did some redesigns here and there, giving my green haired elf some actual useful armour, for example, and darkening the skin of some of the characters a bit, too, even if not significantly.

The other day I thought I'd try to play around with some body types, wondering where I could go with this crew. It was more playing around with 3D models in Clip Studio, because I was too tired to look for actual references, so don't judge these sketches, they are merely a base idea for me to work with than anything else... (plus it's digital and I just... I can't. Idk why but I just can't work digitally =__=)

Looking at these now with not tired eyes and mind I'm like... yeah, this has lots of room for improvement, lol. But I have a clear vision in mind, we will see if I can manage to bring that down to paper! (Wish me luck).

Apart from the appearances, I kinda want to go into their dynamics/relationships.

I think, my green haired elf girl (Alayses) would probably end up nonbinary if I wrote her today. She got mistaken as a guy more than once (... as far as I remember. It's been a while lol) and I always wanted her to have an androgynous look (though I never really succeeded with that). If I go this route, I'll have to have a deeper look into German neo pronouns, which will be a whole different problem.

I probably won't tear apart all the couples, because I just love too many of them. But... >_> I guess <_< I'll make a "Fanfavourite*" canon.

*as in... my friends from school who used to read my shitty stories and came up with side-ships lol. It's a bit sad that I barely have contact with any of them anymore, would love to see their reactions.

I mean... I even DREW them together for one of my friends. Can as well just make it canon.

And these two already had something going on in my head back then lol sadly they were just side characters and one of them is dead oops.

Apart from that, Tari will probably end up alone or maybe dead, and Leera... who knows, maybe she elopes with one of the side characters (or ends up alone, too, like she originally should have.)

The thing about all of this is...

IF I go this route, I'll have to rewrite everything. Which probably won't happen for a long time, so it will be all in my head once again.

I wish I could go back to having all that freetime I had when I was younger... freetime and energy, but alas...

[burst-of-iridescent]

1, 15 and 30!

1. What made you start shipping Zutara?

the first moment i noticed something between them was "i'll save you from the pirates", but i didn't think that much of it until the siege of the north and the iconic "you rise with the moon, i rise with the sun" line. that entire fight made me realize how similar zuko and katara were, and the amazing symbolism they had. and when the crystal catacombs scene happened, it was so goddamn intimate and emotional that i really thought holy shit they're actually going there they’re going to be canon and the rest of book 3 up until literally 10 minutes before the ending just made me more and more certain i was right (poor 2021 ana really had so much hope lmfao).

so looking back on it i would say the waterbending scroll was the first spark but their fight in the siege of the north is probably the moment i started shipping them, and then the crystal catacombs absolutely solidified them as a ship for me.

15. What do you think would have happened if Katara and Zuko hadn't been interrupted in the catacombs?

a lot of kissing no i wish, lol. realistically speaking? zuko would have stopped katara before she actually began to heal him, probably a little frantic because now that he's confronted with the reality of actually losing the scar, he doesn't know if he wants to, or who he'll be without it.

his reaction would probably clue katara into the fact that the scar is more than just the nasty consequence of some everyday training accident, and she'd gently try to probe, maybe asking what the scar means to zuko. given the time, i can even see zuko opening up to her about the agni kai, and why he chased the avatar for so long.

the betrayal still happens, partly because i think that’s what solidifies zutara as such a narratively significant and emotional ship, and also because i think this betrayal would add more complexity to both katara and zuko. in canon, i doubt that katara understood why zuko betrayed them, but in this alternate version she might actually see why zuko does what he does (though she'd still be rightfully pissed at him for it) which would add more depth to her anger.

and as for zuko, as much as katara's compassion would touch him, he likely still wasn't at the stage to accept that his father was abusive and didn't actually love him. talking about the agni kai would probably have made it even more of a raw wound, and when azula offered the chance to earn ozai's love, it would've hit too close to home for him to refuse.

30. If you could rewrite one episode of A:TLA, which would it be?

i would happily throw half of book 3 out the window lmao, especially the finale (only the zutara moments have rights). but since it's a four parter, i'm going to go with the headband instead.

what an absolutely wasted episode. this was the perfect opportunity to actually show us the fire nation before the war, and kuzon and aang's friendship, but instead we got a dance party in a cave. i would've rewritten this episode to be similar to the king of omashu, cutting between multiple flashbacks to pre war fire nation with kuzon and aang, and the present fire nation to juxtapose what the war has done to the fire nation civilians.

this also would've been a great episode to introduce both opposition to the war within the fire nation, and the idea that the air nomads weren't entirely exterminated. aang still goes to school, eagerly looking forward to it because he remembers how much fun it was with kuzon, and is shocked to see how much it has changed.

he meets kuzon's great grandchildren and is invited to their home, where he overhears their parents quietly grumble about fire lord ozai sending more troops to the front lines. when he returns to school the next day, the history lesson proceeds as it did in canon, except this time aang learns that the general in charge of wiping out much of the air nomads was kuzon's father, and that kuzon grew up to become a decorated military general just like him.

shocked and grieved, aang runs off. he approaches one of the spots he used to go to with kuzon and begins to cry. there is a flashback to kuzon and aang at the same spot, mere weeks before the fire nation launches its attack and shortly after aang learns he's the avatar. he sobs to kuzon about how he doesn't know how to do this, and kuzon hugs him and promises that he will always be there for him.

cut back to the present, where kuzon's great grandson approaches aang just like his grandfather did so long ago. he tries to comfort aang, and admits quietly that he always feels sad when he hears about the air nomads too, because he used to hear stories of them from his granddad. then, so casually that it's clear he doesn't think it's important, he mentions the one and only time kuzon brought up aang. how kuzon whispered on his deathbed, almost delirious, that aang would come back and someone had to tell him he wasn't alone.

aang, incredibly confused, asks what kuzon meant by that. but they're interrupted then and brought back to class (the dance party can still be held here, cutting the awkward scene of katara dressing up as aang's mother, and the weird kat/aang dance). as the gaang flies off at the end, we pan back to kuzon's family's house. the camera catches on his granddaughter, who has grey eyes and tucks a necklace suspiciously similar to aang's back beneath her shirt.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

about to write a rap poem about how horribly customers treat fast food employees for poetry class tomorrow lol

[inquisimer]

happy Friday Mer!! how about "i don’t want to understand, i want you to stay." for Cullen/Lavellan? 👀

oops I got on a roll with the Cullen & Neria at the Circle vibes this week apaprently😂

This is a scene I've had spinning in my head for a bit: Neria & Anders' escape from Kinloch Hold. I'll probably end up rewriting it to a certain extent, but I like the Vibes™

for @dadrunkwriting

wc: 1430

At first, he assumed he must be dreaming, or hallucinating at worst.

All the mages knew the risks, the consequences of even setting a foot slightly out of line. Tranquility and execution were always just a Knight Commander’s breath away and none dared take any action against the status quo, much less try something as daring as an escape.

Until they did.

The night air was frigid; the usual double shift was lessened to only one so they could save half of the crew the time it would take to warm their faces and regain feeling in their extremities. And since none of the senior knights wanted the worst midnight shift, their greenest recruit was on it, watching speechless as two figures descended the tower walls and sprinted for a boat that shouldn’t have been beached on the island.

With that thought, Cullen finally spurred into action. As long as he focused on the boat and not the people, he could keep his head. The boat wasn’t cleared and approved for docking; locate the owner, issue a citation, collect the fee for illegal docking—as long as that was his process, he wouldn’t have to think too closely about the fate of any rogue mages who were swept up in the consequences.

He jogged from the path of his rounds toward the mages and their craft, doing his best to inject the confidence and swagger of those he’d idolized in Honnleath. He almost succeeded—until the clouds parted and a slice of moonlight fell across the mages clambering into the boat.

Neria.

And Anders behind her, already in the boat. It was hardly a surprise to see him—they’d practically drilled his name and portrait into Cullen’s brain, what with his track record of escapes. But as far as he knew, the mage had always attempted those feats alone. But there was no mistaking that long, sleek braid, or the large eyes, glowing green like a cat’s in the darkness.

His breath caught in his throat and for a moment, he doubted. He knew her—there’d been stolen moments in the library, arguing over chest strategy, ‘supervisory’ visits to the greenhouse—they were friends, or so he thought, or perhaps just as close as friends could be when one held inextricable power over the other’s entire life. Still, whatever the complications, he’d never expected she would be capable or even want to do something like this.

Instead of freezing him, that shock shuttered away any empathy he might have had and he called out in a harsh, unforgiving voice. “Stop!”

Whether instinct, or simply the product of a lifetime within Circle walls, Neria actually did stop; he could practically see the lines of tension shaking her shoulders. Her partner, on the other hand, did no such thing. With the experience—and knowing the consequence—of six escape attempts, he moved with a renewed urgency, clasping one hand around Neria’s wrist in an attempt to jolt her back to action. A gesture from his other arm sent a blast of air into the side of the boat, prepping it for departure.

“I said, stop.” Cullen’s steel-bound hand fell heavy on Neria’s shoulder. In his periphery he could hear Anders cursing, registered that the mage’s eyes were darting between them, as if debating whether Neria was worth sacrificing his window to escape. He wouldn’t have to choose, however, as Neria surged back to life with the first contact of Cullen’s gauntlet against her cloak. She spun to face him, ducking out of his grasp with an agility he wouldn’t have expected. Her eyes glowed, reflecting the moonlight like a cat’s, but they were also alight with a passion and desperation he’d never seen.

That was…not good. His lips parted and he fought to calm his thundering heart.

“Please, Neria.” He didn’t want to beg, but there was far too much pleading in his voice for it to be anything else. He pushed back the visor on his helmet so she could see the honest clarity behind his words. “Come back inside. We can explain to Greagoir and Irving—it’s your first infraction, they won’t be harsh. Please, don’t do this. Don’t—“

Don’t make me do this.

Rather than softening at his plea, Neria’s expression grew even stonier and she all but spat her refusal at his feet.

“My first infraction? Do you even hear yourself?” She threw back the hood of her cloak and he could see that her ears were twitching as they only did when her temper flared. “I’ve spent my whole life on this island. It is not an infraction to want to see more of the world.”

“They’ll catch you” —his voice broke and he stopped, flexing one fist to regain control— “They’ll kill you, Neria. One way or another.”

“You’ll kill me,” she hissed, looking pointedly at the sword emblem blazed across his chest. The distance between them doubled in that moment, as the moonlight seemed to catch the gold threading on her mage robes and he felt the separation of their roles more keenly than he ever had. “You’re one of them, Cullen. Whatever we pretended—you always have been.”

“Ria, we need to—“

“I know.” She bit the words over her shoulder, never really looking away from Cullen. Every line of her body was tensed like a bowstring, as though she were holding herself back from shaking by sheer willpower alone. She met his eyes, properly, and he could see the determination and purpose driving her to this end.

Protocol was clear. They were to be apprehended and brought before the Knight-Commander, their crimes detailed and their sentence handed down. A mage such as Anders—proven dangerous and uncontrollable—was sure to go under the brand. And with the tensions stemming from Uldred’s dissatisfaction with Irving’s leadership, it was entirely possible that Neria would suffer the same fate, as nothing more than an example.

Cullen knew his duty, his responsibility. But he also knew his heart and his conscience, better than his superiors might like. If he thought he could convince Neria to leave without her friend, he would do it in a heartbeat and feel no guilt in the aftermath. But he knew her well enough to know that she would sooner surrender herself to the mercy of the Order than leave Anders to their lack of mercy.

“I’m not saying I don’t understand,” he offered, trying to sound empathetic rather than selfish as his motives were. “But…you’ll be persecuted, marked with apostacy. There must be something we can do, we can figure it out—if you stay.”

“The only thing I want is my freedom,” she said. “And it is the only thing I cannot have if I stay. The Circle is as unchanging and endless as its namesake.”

“Please, Cullen.” Her whisper formed a misty cloud before her face. “Please.”

He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, at war with himself. They’d warned of this in training, between swordplay drills and recitations of the Chant. Mages were manipulative and charismatic, they said, willing to play on any emotion to escape the rightful oversight of the Templars. But it was hard to see Neria—his silly, protective, thoughtful friend—as anything less than benign.

“Go.” The word was out of his mouth before he could think about it any further. There would be time for doubt and regret later, when she wasn’t halfway in a boat, begging for her freedom to his face. Time, while he was lying to the Knight-Commander about what he’d done, to wonder if he’d been right or wrong. For now, there was no one around but him; they’d entrusted this rotation to his judgment; this was the call he made.

He expected them to flee immediately. Indeed, the boat scraped against wet sand as Anders pushed it the rest of the way into the water. What he didn’t expect was a featherlight touch on either side of his helmet. Neria removed the offending article and pressed it into his hands. He could smell the starch and floral detergent she pressed into her cloak, all the more potent for how he kept his eyes clenched shut.

She brushed her lips across his cheek, blazing a trail of fire in stark contrast to the night’s bleak iciness. Her breath was hot against his ear, though it hitched as if she had been about to say something and thought better of it.

“Thank you, el’u,” she murmured.

Her warmth vanished from his side, and they were gone.

[vyladromeave]

hi!! i absolutely love your takes on mcd, especially what you said about it inverting classic fantasy tropes while still very much being a fantasy series. what’s your take on garroth’s betrayal? personally i love that it happened, but the way we got there (the whole jealousy thing) was really weird, and just never felt like great writing. what would you have done? i personally would have brought more of the jury into the situation (and into the whole series, frankly, cause i love them), specifically lillian, who i feel like would have made an excellent spy. but what do you think would get garroth to betray them?

YES exactly. Like the fact that Garroth, the big classic knight in shining armor, is the one who ends up betraying them? Its perfect its incredible and it HURTS in the best way since he's been there by Aphmau since the beginning. Garroths betrayal is a really strong moment narratively, but why it happens and how they resolve it is... less lol. Mostly because they push the jealousy angle really really REALLY hard which liiike... while we've seen that he's a jealous person, I don't think he'd be the type to turn a blind eye to Phoenix Drop's war efforts and side with the person escalating things because of it.

(Ok post-writing edit this got so so long im sorry. I have a lot of feelings about Garroth as a character actually oops. just warning you ahead of time. also there's a readmore now.)

Theres a couple different angles i feel like you COULD go with instead. You're right in involving Lillian in things more for sure, because she actually was involved quite a bit originally, but the series did a really bad job of showing it. But it could be argued even in the original series that Garroth betrayed the others less because of his jealousy, and more because he felt like he was being lied to/left out/replaced by Aphmau. And while I feel like thats at least a more valid reason to betray the group, it also feels less strong narratively? Garroth's betrayal is strongest narratively when it's entirely his choice, and the Lied To By Aphmau angle only works when it's something he's being manipulated into believing by Lillian and Zane, therefore making it more of a misunderstanding than anything. And thats definitely not as fun.

The problem relies in being able to balance everything. Lillian and Zane working with him and manipulating him definitely should be a contributing factor to his betrayal, but it also still needs to ultimately be his choice and not something that can be cleared up with just a couple words. It needs to result in doing some truly terrible actions of his own volition, but also needs to leave him in a place where he can still be properly redeemed later. It needs to be something he would realistically choose for himself, and not something like jealousy blown way out of proportion, so building off a different flaw of his character would probably be a better choice, but what? and how?

I don't want to get too far into how I would handle it just because well. thats going to be going into my own rewrite lol, and i dont want to spoil it. but i will say that an angle of Garroth that people dont really cover well is how much of a coward he can be, especially when it comes to his own family. He's very scared of his father and the threat of O'khasis looming over his head. He doesn't want to see the people and places he cares about destroyed because of his own inaction, but is also too scared to confront O'khasis directly, meaning as long as he runs away from them people are going to get hurt around him regardless. And while we retroactively know that Phoenix Drop does ultimately overcome the threat of O'khasis, in the moments leading up to that war...

Well. Like. hold on. ok. lets look at this from Garroth's perspective.

Garroth has very personal experience with O’khasis, Garte, and Zane. He knows how they run things and he knows they won’t stop until they get what they want. He also knows that O'khasis' military force is much greater than Phoenix Drops. They sent a fraction of it to the battle and Aphmau had to scrape together forces from every single one of her allies to be able to even moderately match it (and it's likely that if they hadn't found Nicole in time and Scaleswind hadn't pulled out that Aphmau still wouldn't have won). He knows that even if, by some miracle, they manage to win the battle, they won't win the war. That O'khasis has the power to keep this going as long as they want, which is not something Phoenix Drop and their allies can afford. If his brother comes along and says hey, I can ensure your friends safety if you play along with me... If it seems like Zane is genuinely trying to help him and make amends with him, even after all their time apart... If the engagement really seems like the only option for peace, and if following Zane is the only way to get to that point safely... well. It kindof becomes this conflict of Garroth's fear vs his confidence in Aphmau, knowing that as long as he sticks with her things will only get harder to handle. And then being given the option to just have it all stop...

On top of all this, Garroth is shown time and time again to be a very compassionate and merciful person (which is another reason why the vengeance/jealousy angle doesn't work at all). I believe it's Laurance who comments on how this has been turned against him as a weakness before, Garroth is unable to fully stop Zenix when he threatens the village and likely won't be able to stop him in the future because he cares about Zenix too much. I think extending this mercy to Zane as well isn't something too out of left field for him, especially given that they're brothers and Garroth did kindof... leave him to handle Garte alone when he faked his death and ran. And Especially if teaming up with him does lead to the end of the war, because there's no way he can stand just watching the village continue to fall apart around him if he refuses. And if Garroth has to hurt the people he cares about a little in order to ensure that they will never be hurt by O'khasis again, well... Its a difficult choice. But it's one that I think he would definitely take under the right pressure.

(And as a sidenote, I do definitely want to bring the jury further into my rewrite as well, though they'd definitely need a lot more buildup to be able to start properly including them earlier. But also I'm not sure if putting a bunch of them into the S1 finale is the right option for me, again because that requires a lot more time and buildup for something that I think at this point would work better as the whole "looming threat who might be called in next if Garroth doesn't work with Zane instead" deal. Like you can't call in the whole force right away, two of them have already technically been called in to deal with the situation (Katelyn and Lillian) and thats already a lot. And I think I'd like to leave some of them as S2 problems to deal with, as I definitely want to get into Garte as taking up a more threatening role in S2, and control of the jury would probably fall to him with Zane missing. That's just me personally though more jury inclusion in general is always a good thing. I just gotta figure out exactly where and how to work them in ahdjfsgjhkdsfjgh)

[rivalsforlife]

Do you have anything you wished was different from Ace Attorney canon?

Hello I'm finally slowly starting to get around to answering some of these! Sorry for the wait.

Uh this ask got super long so a basic summary of it: narumitsu being canon in a well-written way would be nice even though I don't think it would ever happen, I stand by not bringing back Phoenix as a main protagonist in DD, and I'd also want to rewrite all of SOJ so that Apollo goes to Khura'in in place of Phoenix, to have more interesting character stuff going on.

So the longer answer is this:

Aside from some of the actually problematic stuff that I don't feel qualified to talk about, story-wise, I answered a sort of similar question about a year ago here. I have changed my opinions a little bit since then, particularly with regards to the canonicity of narumitsu... because while I do love narumitsu I feel like I don't trust Ace Attorney to actually do it properly. After all if this past November has taught us anything "making a ship canon" could actually be quite undesirable and I have no desire to see Phoenix and/or Edgeworth sent to superhell. (I literally know nothing else about supernatural sorry about that.)

If capcom were somehow able to make narumitsu canon but in an unobtrusive way and as a natural progression of the storyline, like oh hey, the court record profile for Miles Edgeworth's Obligatory Last-Case Appearance has Phoenix mention they're dating, and maybe there's a few lines suggesting they live with each other, but it's not like... taking the entire story to force them together and otherwise does not change the way they interact with each other and butcher one or both of their characterizations in the process? I'd definitely be happy about that. Not gonna lie even if they made narumitsu canon in the most terrible way possible I'd have a "holy shit I can't believe they did that it's the best day of my life" kind of moment before I could think about it critically. But I honestly see no chance of them ever actually making narumitsu canon, so that's quite unrealistic to hope for anyways.

Aside from that in that other ask I talked about basically the premise of an Apollo trilogy and not bringing back Phoenix as the main protagonist in DD, and I still stand by that, buuut in my other ask I did touch on making SOJ a different game where Apollo goes to Khura'in instead of Phoenix - and you know what I'm going to take some time to actually talk about my dream version of SOJ because there were a lot of little things about the one we got that I didn't like. And it's going to be very long. So it's under a cut.

SO yeah I talked about it a bit in the other ask. I think that Phoenix going to Khura'in is a rather weak idea both externally and in-universe. In one of the interviews, too lazy to find which one, Phoenix basically goes to Khura'in because the writers couldn't figure out how to challenge him anymore. ... And then they don't actually challenge him at all. Because oh well now we're going to this new country where they KILL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS WHO LOSE and then it's supposed to be *shocking* that Phoenix would risk his life for a kid or his best friend. you know the guy who ran across a burning bridge to save his best friend. you know the guy who got punched in the face, nearly killed by the mafia, and tazed trying to save his clients. This doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. His whole travel in Khura'in doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. Basically the only reason he's there is to see Maya - Maya who theoretically would be returning home in about two weeks. Maya who was still in her training for two more weeks when Phoenix visited so he wouldn't be able to see her anyways. ... And in the meantime Trucy had the biggest show of her life that was going to be on TV and Phoenix wasn't there for it. And of course Phoenix didn't return home after Trucy was accused of murder (yes he couldn't be there for the trial, but he definitely could have for the emotional support afterwards) and instead just sits for two weeks in Khura'in doing literally nothing after Ahlbi's trial.

(And yes I know about the anime prologue that has Phoenix think Maya's in danger... but that's not strictly canon since it's never mentioned in game, isn't technically a part of the game, and even still, why wouldn't he go home after knowing that Maya's safe and that Trucy had been ACCUSED OF MURDER. Honestly that's what makes me angriest about this whole thing is that it makes Phoenix out to be a terrible dad. We really don't need any more takes like that, especially not from canon.)

And what about Apollo, you may ask? Well, given case 5 of SOJ, Apollo actually has a personal link to Khura'in and ends up staying there afterwards... after being there for like a day or two. I should note here that it has been a while since I went through SOJ in its entirety so I am fuzzy on many of the details. But both through what I remember and some conversations with people who actually played the game recently, the motivation for Apollo to actually stay in Khura'in isn't that great. It mainly seemed like guilt about his dead dad who he hadn't been in contact with for years and had completely written off until a few days ago but oh he died and then went to go visit him so... better take up the law office!

If Apollo had gone to Khura'in in place of Phoenix and spent more time there, reconnecting with his childhood home and actually getting passionate seeing how corrupt the legal system is there (even though we have a corrupt legal system at home) and being driven to fix it, that would make for a stronger story, I think. The Khura'in plot is more personally focused around Apollo than it is Phoenix. Phoenix's connection to Khura'in is through Maya, but Maya doesn't really have much of a connection to it aside from "it's where spirit channeling is from and she trains there". But Apollo, I guess, grew up there. So it's so strange to me that they force all of Apollo's connection to Khura'in in the last case while Phoenix is running around doing who-knows-what for the rest of the game. Phoenix spends more time getting to know the state of Khura'in and the Defiant Dragons and case 3's whole thing but he isn't the one who in the end decides to sit down and fix it; that's all on Apollo. It almost feels like they forced one of the two plots in to everything. And it was probably conceived as a Phoenix story that they needed to fit Apollo into last minute because oops he's supposed to be a protagonist too.

Some other strengths to Apollo going to Khura'in include that it would shake up the character dynamics a bit. Instead of Phoenix defending Maya, it's Apollo defending Maya, and that's a particularly interesting thing to look at in the context of Khura'in's "we kill defense attorneys" system. Of course, Phoenix would risk his life to save Maya, 100%, every time. But what about Apollo, who hasn't met Maya, who only knows her as "Mr. Wright's former assistant" - would he risk his life for her? And I feel like Maya would argue more against him defending her because of that. "We're strangers, you don't know me, you don't have to risk your life defending me." (Sidenote that I was always upset that Maya didn't protest much when Phoenix offered to defend her, knowing his life was at risk - sure she knows him better and knows he's always been able to get her out of these situations, but at the same time, the fact that there was no "what about your daughter?" conversation sucks. I really wish SOJ wouldn't have like. completely forgotten about the phoenix-trucy father-daughterisms.)

Let's say Apollo goes to Khura'in. Phoenix stays at home. Phoenix gets a call from Apollo that's basically "uhh hi Mr. Wright you know your friend Maya, she's been arrested for murder, if I defend her and I lose we're both dead," then you can tie in to that moment in 6-2 where Phoenix (who can't make it in time for the trial!) believes in Apollo and his skills as an attorney, not just to save Maya's life, but also his own. It ties in a bit more to the overall challenge of defending someone at the risk of your own life. Again, Phoenix would have very few hesitations, if any, risking his life to defend Maya. Apollo may have more defending a stranger at the risk of his own life.

Then if you can actually have Apollo and Maya talk together that would be neat - Maya can tell him embarrassing stories about Phoenix's rookie days, for instance. Their dynamic would be quite a bit different from Phoenix and Maya's, and that would be an interesting thing to see, unlike what we have in SOJ where all of Maya's substantial interactions are with characters she already knows or brand new characters.

(It would also be pretty neat to know more spirit channeling politics and dive in more to Maya's perspective on Khura'in and also her role as upcoming Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique and where she plans to lead the village in the future and also reconcile with her family's bloody legacy, but I'm not quite sure how to fit that in right now.)

And how about Phoenix, back home in Japanifornia? Evidently he'd end up being in charge of defending Trucy. Now, I did love the siblingsisms in canon 6-2, but I feel like there is still potential for Phoenix defending Trucy. All of Apollo Justice has a bunch of good moments between Apollo and Trucy, and she's co-counsel on all his trials, but we've never had any substantial Phoenix and Trucy investigation or co-counsel moments. I feel like AU 6-2 would be a great opportunity to dive more into Phoenix and Trucy's relationship and how it may have changed after Phoenix got his badge back. Plus, Phoenix being "the only one who knows how she really feels on the inside", he'd have unique insider knowledge into some of the Gramarye stuff that comes up in the case and Trucy's personal connection to the Gramaryes, which Apollo knows a bit of, but Phoenix knows more of. ... Or at least, should know more of, given that he raised Trucy for nine years at this point and they're very close, and Phoenix knows her better than anyone else does, even if capcom has forgotten this.

... Of course having Athena defend the case would also be great because more Athena spotlight is never a bad thing, but it's hard to come up with a reason why Phoenix wouldn't be there to defend her. And doing more switcheroos in terms of role in the plot is a bit beyond the scope of what I have in mind right now. Sorry Athena.

Aside from that, Athena still gets Storyteller, Apollo still heads Turnabout Revolution, and Phoenix still gets the DLC case. Apollo stays in Khura'in in the end with a bit more to his motivations. Rather than it just being about carrying on Dhurke's legacy, it's also something Apollo is passionate about after all he witnessed here. While we're at it I'd still rework a lot of Turnabout Revolution to make it so that Phoenix genuinely believes in Atishon because that makes for sooo much more interesting of a plot and actual character development on Phoenix's part than "Maya was kidnapped again and Phoenix is only wrong when he has no other choice", but that'd require some more detail and this post is long enough already.

And in terms of other details that need to be sorted out, there's the question of why Apollo would need to go to Khura'in in the first place. I'd probably say something to do with Dhurke. Maybe he comes back a bit earlier - actually alive, maybe, though crossing borders would be a bit of a challenge, or he reaches out to Apollo remotely somehow and Apollo goes to yell in his face about abandoning him (or at least that's what he thinks he wants.) Then we could have some more Dhurke and Apollo bonding time, potentially? Idk, if you switch up Phoenix and Apollo you're pretty much writing a whole new game and obviously I have not worked out all the details, but I think if Capcom had tried to go with this route from the outset they'd have a stronger game. At least stronger character motivations.

So... yeah. Those are my opinions. If you read through this whole thing I'm very impressed because it got very long!

[kiyoominous]

wishes (sakusa kiyoomi)

synopsis: sakusa doesn’t like making wishes, apparently they’re too childish. but he finds himself wishing that he never met you. 

pairing: sakusa kiyoomi/reader

warnings: major character death, mention of hospitals

genre: angst, fluff if you squint, established relationship

a/n: i was listening to a lot of mitski when i wrote this :D click here for a youtube playlist to possibly listen to while you read!!!!! cross posted to ao3! 

Sakusa wishes he never met you. 

He’s never been one to invest in wishes. It makes sense with someone as no-nonsense, as practical, as logical as him. But life tends to push your boundaries and opinions and now he’s a believer, to his dismay.

He wishes he never said hello. He wishes his eyes never found yours. He wishes that he never sat next to you in high school and he definitely wishes he never asked to borrow a pencil. 

“Of course!” you beamed brightly at him. Somehow, in amongst the sunny day, the smile on your face blinded him more than the light spilling into the classroom. But he didn’t mind. 

Perhaps he got lost in the radiance of your face because he didn’t see the pastel pink mechanical pencil that was waving in front of him. He nervously snatched it from your hands and muttered a ‘thank you’ before quickly returning to his workbook. 

He returned home that day, the gleaming image of you embossed in his mind. Reaching into his book bag, he found the mechanical pencil sitting right at the bottom of it. Oops. 

The next day, he ran to your desk to dutifully hand your pencil back. It was slightly embarrassing to think that he was so consumed by your glow that he forgot to return what he borrowed. He had never felt himself stand more uprightly as he loomed over your seated form, graphite stick in hand. 

“You can keep it, Sakusa. We’re friends now, right?” 

Friends? The most he’d let himself call you was his classmate but sure, being friends sounded nice too. 

He wishes he never let you speak to him, your intelligent words spilling like a fountain. He wishes he never heard you muse about language, culture, volleyball, anything really.  He wishes he never heard the sound of your voice. 

You were rambling on about something, Sakusa didn’t exactly remember what. Of course he was listening, it’d be rude of him not to. But he found himself tuning into the melodious noise of your voice rather than the words spill from your lips. He couldn’t help it, you had a way with his ears. 

“Sakusa, are you listening to me?” you teased. The aforementioned boy nodded fervently but the sudden spring from his slouched form into a more poised position told you otherwise. 

“You were talking about Latin or something.” he drawled lazily. You eyes widen in mock disbelief. 

“Is that all you remember? Are you that bad of a listener?” 

“Maybe you’re just boring.” 

A moment of stunned silence and then a gasp.

“You are going to regret that, Mister Top Three in Japan.” 

Sakusa felt a fist push into his arm. The sensation of the punch was so feather light so he thought that there was nothing to regret. Maybe he could get used to this. But not yet. It was too soon to think about a relationship. Or even holding hands. 

He wishes he never looped his arms around your waist. He wishes he never soaked in the warmth of your embrace. He wishes he’d never been so close to you that the smell of your laundry detergent lingered in his nose. 

First dates were nerve wracking. Sakusa thought it was ridiculous to feel so high-strung about dating, to feel nervous and shy and anxious. It’s just an outing, how bad could it really be? It’s a shame that he started to understand now instead of before all of this. 

His hands were sweaty, his chest was pounding and his knees were wobbling. Really, his damn knees? All of this because the thought of having to touch you once in his life was sprinting through the back of his mind. 

He knew you weren’t expecting him to kiss you at the end of the date. You were aware — and respectful — of his boundaries. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t feeling peer pressured by every romcom he had reluctantly watched with Komori to let his fingers brush against yours while you walked side by side. 

It didn’t help that he wanted to do that either. 

A gentle tap on his shoulder and you were staring up at him with puppy eyes he couldn’t resist. He hesitated before daintily wrapped his fingers around yours, pulling your intertwined hands into his pocket. It felt warm. You were warm. And now his body was warm. But it wasn’t warm enough, he wanted to hug you. 

Wait, what? Pardon?!

With that, Sakusa felt his hand slip out of yours in favour of wrapping his strong arms around your figure, engulfing himself in your heat. Even with the biting cold, he thought that he didn’t need the jacket over his shoulders to keep him cozy. You were enough to set his heart ablaze, to let that fire warm up his entire body.  

“Sakusa…” you gasped. Guess you were both just as surprised. He muttered something under his breath and you begged to hear it again. 

“Call me Kiyoomi, please.” he repeated. 

He inhaled the winter air and felt the bitter cold fly into his nose. He also noted the scent of fresh laundry detergent wafting amongst the chilly wind. Was he really letting himself be this close to you, so close that he knew the brand of detergent your mother used? 

His agenda against physical contact nagged him but he didn’t care. Your touch was something he’d sacrifice his comfort for. 

He wishes you never occupied his mind, he wishes you never meant so much to him, he wishes that he never loved you. He wishes that he never loved you because loving you brought him here, in his bed alone. 

You were supposed to be there with him. 

It was a shame that he loved loving you. He loved everything that you brought into his life. Your laugh, your smile, your terrible jokes. But he wishes he never let himself feel so comfortable with you that you knew him like the back on your hand. If he had just kept his damn mouth shut, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much when you weren’t around anymore. 

It hurt so much to see you writhing in pain when he got home from practice. The second he saw you collapsed on the floor, his mind hyper focused on you and you alone. His usual shower session was ignored in favour of you.

It hurt so much to drive you to the hospital, to even think about your body lying on a stretcher or in an operating room. Sakusa ran through one too many red lights but he didn’t notice. He didn’t care. All that was running through his head was to step on the pedal, steer the wheel and make sure you came out of there alive. 

Five torturous hours later and he learnt that you weren’t going to be breathing he saw you next. 

It hurt so much to lower your casket into the ground, you face to never see the world again. His family, your family and all of your friends passed by, long hugs and pitiful apologies in tow. Everyone thinks that performative sympathy is going to help with the grief. It doesn’t. 

Now you aren’t around to massage his back after a long day of practice, to listen to him whine about his teammates, to be the shoulder he leans on when he cries. Now Sakusa lies in bed alone, the bed you used to share with him, tightly grasping onto a pillow that he wishes could be you instead. He misses you. 

He misses you. 

He misses you. 

The first few months were agonising. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Not even cleaning the house or playing volleyball or eating his comfort foods. You brightened even the dullest tasks in the world and now everything felt so bleak. It still does. The world around Sakusa felt so boring that he swore his vision lost its colour. 

It took a miracle and the combined efforts of Komori and the Black Jackals to even get him out of his room. 

He got better. After six months of a depressive episode, he pulled himself back into volleyball again. He had to, it was at least one thing he could do in your memory. Days and weeks and months passed and Sakusa saw his beloved sport as a distraction, as a safe haven from the absence of you. If he could, he’d distract himself with the real you instead. 

The eventual push back into society didn’t mean that Sakusa was okay by any means. Some nights were easier, practice would tire him out so much that he’d be knocked out the second his body hit the mattress. Some nights proved to be not-as-easy, the sting of your passing pressed down on him like a weighted blanket. An unwanted weighted blanket. 

Tonight is not one of those easier nights. 

There’s an ache in his chest that he can’t shake off and there’s a rock in his heart that’s sinking it to the floor and there’s just so much pain coursing though his body. He’s never felt so sore before. 

He hates feeling this sore. 

A tingle rises in his chest and eyes and he knows he wants to cry but the water doesn’t fall. All he can do is heave heavy breaths and weep. Why does he have to live without you? Why? Breaking up with you would’ve been a breeze compared to your death, he thinks. 

It’s been a year since his loss. He knows that he’s allowed to grieve for however long he needs but some voice in his brain whispers that he should be over it by now. Sakusa wishes that he’s not in so much pain, that his suffering wasn’t there to begin with, that you weren’t in his life to make him feel this tortured. But perhaps instead of wishing to rewrite the past, he should wish to be okay. He should wish that the memory of you doesn’t pain him anymore. He should wish that he can power through this without you because that’s what you’d want. 

And so he does. He sits upright in his bed, closing his eyes in meditative thought. 

I wish that this’ll be over soon. 

I wish that I can return back to my life. 

I wish that I’ll be okay.

So there’s not much of a likelihood that his wishes will be granted. So what? At the very least, he can finally feel the ache in his limbs and the tension in his shoulders and the tug of his heart slowly beginning to vanish. 

He’s going to be okay.

[love-fireflysong]

Oh shit, completely forgot to type this up last night oops. So here is a late WIP Wednesday update from me lol. Though for those who saw my post the other day, unfortunately I’ve been having problems writing my fic because I’m not sure if I want to continue with it being a good old chrashley fluff piece, or switch it up and make it a climbing chrash one instead. Will switching it to climbing chrash require me to rewrite anything I’ve already done? Oddly enough no, so let me know if you want to see some fluffy chrashley or climbing chrash in your future! Anyways, here’s an excerpt from the fic in question:

The two of them had barely been able to pass the look out point when it started snowing. That itself hadn't been too strange, they were on a mountain in the middle of winter after all, but it hadn't taken long for the weather to worsen. A short ten minutes later the wind had picked up from it's low drum above the trees to a sharp whistle, and in yet another ten the snow had switched from it's soft, atmospheric heavy flakes to something else entirely. The snow being blown into Ashley's face was now small and biting, where every flake that hit the bare skin was like ice cold needles being shoved directly into her pores. The snow storm hadn't reached blizzard levels of thickness just yet—the small pinpricks of light from that the Washington's had hung on the trees to mark the trail were still clearly visible thankfully—but she really didn't want to still be outside just in case it did. Thankfully, the cabin itself was only another fifteen or so minutes away.

Chris's hand was tight in hers, and for once Ashley couldn't allow herself to dwell on the fact that she was holding his hand. It wasn't like there was anything romantic about the touch anyways, she couldn't even feel him through the thick gloves both were wearing. They were quite literally only doing so because both were worried that the other might accidentally wander off and freeze to death in the storm instead.

Assuming that they didn't walk off one of the nearby cliffs first of course.

And as for my not-so-little cross-stitch project, got so much work done on it holy shit. Could have done even more work if I had been able to sew on Monday, but I couldn’t remember what episode i had left off on when I last watched my show like a year and a half ago but alas. Just gotta finish off the small amount of arm that that graveler has on the page, and then work on that farfetch’d that’s smack dab in the middle there. Then it’s just the thin small line on the left, then I can finally move on the to top third of the page! Making progress baby!

[snarkwrites]

ssw | juice ortiz ; when he can't go any deeper | m

Notes:

Okay so here's the thing.. This is a bit of a glimpse into the future / what if for a fic I'm about to start writing.. well, re-writing. Despite me knowing jack fuckall about strip clubs / exotic dancing / how to describe someone giving or getting a lapdance or pole work, I got the idea to have Hazel working two nights a week in a club, idk why.. Anyway.. The idea wouldn't leave me alone so here we are, loves.

Also.. I'm no longer just dipping my toes in the filth pool anymore. I went all in with this, oops rip. If anyone wants me to actually write the fic I have in mind for this... Pls.. I beg.. LMK.

Prompts:

taken from either [ HERE ] or [ HERE ] give or take. It could be one or the other or a mix of both at my own choosing.

kiss me up against the wall // moan my name as you come // when he can't go any deeper. - those were all the inspiration / prompts for this.

Fandom / Character:

Sons Of Anarchy / Juice Ortiz x Teller Morrow!OFC, Hazel

Fics Hazel can be found in:

None..Yet.

** the one I've used her in is being discontinued to do a rewrite.**

Warnings:

No minors, full stop. There is NSFW / adult content ahead. If you're underage, this was not meant for you -nor should you be reading this. If you choose to stick around after my warnings, this is strictly a you thing and it's not my problem or fault.

If you choose to go on and read this, these are the things present you need to be aware of: stripper!ofc - I admit.. I really am not too sure on how strip clubs operate, so.. if I'm wrong, sorry. lap dancing. thigh riding. body fluids tw. unprotected sex. That's pretty much it.

Tagging:

@brithedemonspawn

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@kyleoreillysknee

@sassymox

@twistnet

Other Stuff:

[ ABOUT MY WRITING | TAG LIST DOC - IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED, THAT IS. | FANDOMS I WRITE FOR]

I swear I wanted to melt into the floor when I happened to glance out in the crowd and see Juice Ortiz sitting in the back with his eyes glued to the stage. I froze where I stood behind the curtain peering out and for a good five seconds, I heavily contemplated just bolting out the back door of the club.

But if I did that, I’d be out of the killer tips I’ve been told I could get dancing at this place. I wouldn’t have an outlet to express myself freely, either.

,, I had to know this would happen sooner or later. Charming is a small town and the guys from Samcro do come to this club. Even taking the audition and showing up tonight was me, taking a huge risk… So I had to know this would’ve happened at some point if I actually get the gig.” the thought came and I took three deep breaths. The hope was that I’d center myself.

Spoiler alert… it did not happen.

But I did catch sight of a brunette wig. And I convinced myself that between the wig and the dim lighting and the fact that Juice was so far away from the front of the club where I’d be dancing on the stage, he wouldn’t figure it out.

I’d just finished putting on the wig when the club owner cleared his throat and nodded to the curtains in front of me. “You’re up, kid. Do this right and Tuesdays and Thursdays are yours. Fuck it up and you can forget ever getting a chance to try again.”

I scoffed at him for a second or two but he stared me down, humorless.

My favorite Motley Crue song began to play and I stepped through the curtain. Out onto the stage and just as I did, I happened to see that prick AJ Weston and the guy who bought one of the shops downtown making their way to the table right in front of me.

My stomach dropped.

Those cold and emotionless eyes locked on me and he smirked. Nodding to me and leaning in to the shop owner. His best buddy or whatever. I don’t try and keep up with whose pissed off my father day by day, so I didn’t exactly know names.

All I did know was that for whatever reason, my mother’s scared to death of AJ Weston. She thinks she hides it, but she doesn’t. And my mother is not a woman who scares easily.

Suddenly, my biggest worry wasn’t Juice sitting in the back of the club anymore. It was the prick sitting right in front of the stage. I strutted out on the stage, not bothering to make eye contact with AJ Weston, no matter how hard I could feel him staring at me, willing me to do so. I tore off the cropped leather jacket I wore over my favorite red lace bra and after twirling it in the air a time or two, I tossed it onto the stage, hitting the floor. Writhing. Arching my back and crawling around, whipping my hair around to the song playing. I kept away from the center of the stage because I did not want to lock eyes with AJ Weston. I literally had zero desire.

The crowd was starting to get into it. I started to feel that rush like I used to feel when I danced in Las Vegas. I completely forgot about AJ Weston, thankfully. And what started off as a bumpy dance got smoother. Even more so when I found myself searching the crowd. Finding Juice in the back and locking eyes with him. That seemed to cut out a lot of my nervousness.

My hands drifted down my body, and I caught myself pretending they weren’t my hands but Juice’s. Just the thought of him feeling me up, his hands pinning my hands over my head. Pressing into me. The way he’d feel strained against those baggy jeans when he bucked against me in the heat of the moment. I used my dirty mind to fuel the dance. Letting my hands wander down to the waistband of my leather pants, working them down.

The crowd was really getting vocal now. They usually do when the clothing starts to actually come off. My stomach fluttered nervously when I locked eyes with Juice in the back of the club and I actually saw the way what I was doing on stage was affecting him.

He sat up a little straighter in his seat. Spread his legs a little. Squirming around. He nursed a glass of whiskey and his eyes wandered up and down my body slowly. When I hit the floor and started to writhe around, my back arching and my ass up in the air, he bit his lip. Watching intently. Rubbing his chin in thought.

Out towards the front of the club, right in front of me, I heard AJ swearing. Laughing out loud. I wanted to strangle the asshole, especially when he really got started with all his stupid filthy commentary as if he were mocking me, as if he were somehow better than this place even though he was willingly sitting here, of his own volition… But I went back to blocking him out. Focusing all my attention on Juice all over again instead.

Imagining what I’d do if I truly had half the nerve. What I’d let him do to me if I weren’t so damn afraid of falling in love with a Samcro man.

Because if I were going to love one, I’d choose him. Hands down. If I were ever to settle, I’d want to settle with Juice Ortiz.

My song was nearing an end. My dance was slowing down. I made my way up the pole again, grinding it as I inched up it. Slowly. Seductively as I could... Eyes locked on Juice the entire time as I flipped myself upside down and started to wind around the pole, spinning slowly with my arm outstretched as the other arm gripped the pole to hold myself. And just before the official end of my song, I dropped to the ground, crawling away from the pole. Towards the front of the stage, bolder. Getting closer in the hopes I could at least get a little better look at Juice’s face because I was dying to see the expression on it right now.

I smirked in his direction and gave a teasing wink as I pulled myself off the floor and slunk towards the red velvet curtain separating the back of the club from the front.

“Stormy Knight, ladies and gentlemen. If anyone wants the VIP experience, find Vinnie.” the announcer called out over the rowdy crowd. I was just about to reach for the doorknob on the door that lead into the dressing room when a throat cleared behind me.

“Not bad, kid. If you can bring that every single Tuesday and Thursday, gigs yours.” the club owner was standing there, smirking. He almost looked like he felt bad for doubting me in the first place. He added casually, “Had three guys come to me about VIP dances. I usually leave all that to my girls to work out. That’s extra dough in your pocket, makes no difference to me. I know half of ya have extra mouths to feed.”

I eyed him, my mouth falling open.

“Three guys? Like.. altogether?”

“No, no.. Two were together. One was by himself. Belonged to one of the MCs. Just do me a favor and at least attempt to obey club rules, kid. Don’t go gettin knocked up on the clock.” the man laughed and I took a deep breath.

At best, I figured that the biker in question was probably one of the Mayans I’d seen sitting towards the middle of the club.

I was pretty damn sure I knew exactly who the two men were and after mulling it over because it seemed as if my new boss was awaiting a decision from me, I decided I wanted no part of the risk of having to give AJ Weston and his slimy friend a private show.

“I’ll take the biker tonight, man. I’m not feelin up to a three way.”

The owner nodded and mused thoughtfully, “Good idea, kid.. That one guy out of the two of ‘em looked like his elevator didn’t go all the way to the top floor. I’ll go get your biker and bring him back. You got room 3. That was Gina’s old room.” before walking away, disappearing out into the front of the club again.

“Please god… at least let it be the J.D Pardo look alike if it’s one of the Mayans.” I muttered to myself, not daring to get my hopes up that it’d be Juice.

A throat cleared from behind me. I nearly shit myself when I heard Tig Trager mumble with a laugh, “Okay Ortiz. Go get your girl.” before walking away. I did not dare turn around until I knew Tig was long gone.

“Stormy, huh? That’s one hell of a name, baby girl.” he mused aloud.

I turned around slowly. Found myself body to body with him. He was staring down at me intently, licking his lips. Chuckling as he shook his head and leaned in a little closer to whisper, “Does daddy know you dance, Hazelynn? Because if he’d been here… Seen all that…” he fanned himself and gave me a teasing smirk.

My mouth dropped open.

“How? How’d you know?” I stammered out.

“I saw your car parked outside… Life pro tip, princess.. If you wanna keep this a secret, I’d suggest parking around back. Or catching a ride. Because your car? Kind of hard to forget.” Juice’s hand settled on my hip and he pulled me just a little closer. His eyes dipped down, settling on my lips, a quiet groan coming when his intent stare made me lick my lips and fidget a little.. Melting against him a little before I could stop myself from doing it. Giving a sheepish laugh as I glanced up at him.

“Your secret’s safe with me. Relax.” he chuckled. He must have felt how tense my body was as I pressed against him. I let out a shaky breath. Parts of me wanted to ask the logical question, if he came here a lot, but also, at the same time parts of me definitely didn’t want to know. Those parts of me knew that if I did ask and he said he did, I’d get just a little jealous. Because it already happened whenever I’d see him at the bar and he’d have Croweaters flocking to him.

“Guess I owe you a VIP.” I teased gently, nodding towards the door with the gold star and the black number 3 painted on it. I reached down, grabbing hold of his hand, starting to lead him in the direction of the room.

“If you don’t wanna do this…” Juice frowned slightly and acted like he was going to walk away, but I stopped him. Made him look at me.

“It’s fine. It’s part of the job.” I gave him a reassuring smile as I opened the door to the room, stepping inside. Letting him step inside.

He closed the door behind him and we found ourselves body to body all over again. He muttered quietly, “Confession… I saw that Weston asshole and his idiot friend talking to the owner about a VIP dance with you so I went over and offered more money.”

Between the goofy little shit eating grin he gave me as he said it and the fact that he did that because he knows the guy creeps me right the fuck out, I was blown away. Before I could stop myself, I rose to tiptoe, gently pressing my lips against the corner of his mouth. “You’re an actual angel come to Earth, sir. You have definitely earned that dance.” I muttered softly as I pulled back to look up at him.

He bit his lip and my eyes followed the movement helplessly.

If I thought I was making myself wet on stage with my own dirty imagination, it was nothing compared to how wet I got when I locked eyes with him and realized that he was fully aware that I’d been staring at his mouth like a proper idiot.

I stepped close to him again and placed my palm on the front of his cutte, gently shoving him so that he settled in the chair right behind him.

Right away, his hands went to my hips. I lowered my hands, pushing his hands back down as I shook my head. “No touching. Club rules, Juice.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, sorry.” he gave an awkward laugh and I giggled softly. Sinking down into his lap slowly.

Maybe I was slightly exaggerating out in the hallway when I told him I could do this and made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal. The second I settled in his lap and started to grind against it, I could feel myself dripping just a little more. I rose up slightly and he sucked in a breath. His knuckles went white with the way he was gripping the arms of the chair. His eyes were absolutely glued to me and I smirked. Teasing a little. Acting as if I’d take off the cropped leather jacket over my bra only to pull it back up.

The third time I did this, he growled quietly. Bucked himself against me. When I whimpered and grinded myself down harder against his lap, he muttered in a heated whisper, “You feel what you’re doing to me right now, baby girl?”

Oh. I felt it alright. The way he strained at his jeans, cock still twitching and growing harder and harder. The little friction I was allowing myself wasn’t enough. My cunt was throbbing and I was getting so wet that I was pretty sure when I finished giving him his lapdance the poor guy was going to have a wet spot on his jeans.

“Mhm.” I answered in a daze, leaning in so that my lips brushed against the shell of his ear and my tits rubbed right against him. He whimpered and bucked into me all over again and when I slipped out of his lap, he frowned. I hit my knees, parting his legs. Staring up at him from where I kneeled on the floor and he shifted in his seat, gripping the arms of the chair tighter when I started to rise up. Swaying my hips side to side. Leaning in. Rubbing against him as much as I could get away with. Oh, I was definitely using this little VIP dance he paid for as an excuse to do as much touching and teasing as I thought I could get away with.

All those urges to touch him I normally kept at bay were finally being allowed free reign and it felt so good.

I settled on his lap again. He let out a long and shaky breath and we locked eyes. He was staring at me like he wanted to ask me something or he wanted to say something but he wasn’t sure how.

“What’s up?” I asked quietly.

“Nothin, it’s nothin.” he said it quickly. Too quick. I gripped his cutte and pulled him in closer. My mouth inching dangerously close to his as I muttered against it, “Whatever you want to say, say it. Trust me. I can handle it.”

“Okay, you asked for it.” he muttered. After a second or two of staring at his lap, he looked up at me again and asked quietly, “Did you wanna dance for me?”

“I got the owner to come get you, didn’t I?” my heart was beating faster. I thought it’d jump right out of my chest. I did my best to play as cool and casual as I could but every single part of me wanted to tell him that dancing was not all I wanted to do for him.

“I know that… what I mean is.. Forget it.” he went quiet. Looked down again and I gripped his jaw, making him look up at my face. “Eyes up here, Ortiz.” I teased gently, my smile falling away when I saw the serious and somber look in his eyes. I scooted away a little, an attempt to give him some space. Settling myself over his thigh instead of fully positioned on his lap as I had been.

“Talk to me.” the words left my mouth in a whimper as I pressed myself right against his thigh, rocking my throbbing sex back and forth over it. Getting wetter and wetter with each second that passed. And the ache. Oh god, the ache. I was on the brink of frustrated tears. And I couldn’t break down, I couldn’t act anything less than totally professional, because this was my night job and I was on the clock but God.. did I ever want to.

He spread his legs wider and took a deep breath. Trying not to touch me, but I could tell with the way he kept raising his hands only to put them back down on the arm rests of the velvet covered chair he sat in that he wanted nothing more than to do that very thing.

And the thought of those hands on me had me flooded in a split second. If there was any doubt before that I’d leave a wet spot behind on his jeans at the end of this dance, there wasn’t going to be by the time it was over.

Anticipation and desire had my stomach coiled tightly. I wanted, more than anything, to be able to pick up with this back home… Behind closed doors. Just him and I.

But I knew that tonight was most likely just going to be an awkward little secret. Kept between two friends. And it bothered me, because I wanted so much more than that but I was afraid to cross lines and let myself have that… I doubted it was even an option anyway because I just didn’t think Juice even saw me like that.

Sure, we flirted now and then, but nothing ever came of it.

God, did I want it to.

This heavy tension seemed to settle in all around us and I picked up on it. Juice groaned quietly, and after he nearly broke the no touch rule again and very nearly reached out to grab hold of my ass and rock me against his thigh faster, I leaned in.. Pressed against him as I continued to grind against his leg and muttered against his ear, “Most guys put their arms behind their head… Til they’re used to not being allowed to touch.. They get verbal too…” my words hitching in my throat, rushing out over each other breathlessly.

He raised his hands, locking them behind his head. Sprawling back against the chair. It seemed to help ease the tension built in his body too, because I felt him sort of melting into the chair a little and I smiled.

“C’mon.. Tell me what you want me to do.” I coaxed, fixing my eyes on him and biting my lip when I immediately found myself getting sucked far too deep into his gaze.

“Touch yourself.” he muttered. Raising up a little. Leaning forward. “Touch yourself for me, baby girl… Like you were when you were dancin out front.”

I let my hands wander.

They were shaking slightly and I just hoped to God that it wasn’t noticed.

Juice took a few shaky breaths and bucked a little in the seat. “Come closer.. Get on my lap.”

I moved so that I was straddling his lap and the way his cock strained against his jeans and I tried to stop myself, but as I started to rock myself back and forth over it, I whimpered quietly. My breath caught in my throat a time or two and my heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to beat out of my chest.

“I normally don’t buy dances if I come here.” he muttered quietly, shattering through my own current internal struggle.

Knowing this relaxed me a little. It was obvious he didn’t just going off the way he acted, but.. I still wondered. Some guys like to pretend it’s their first lap dance because it gets them going.

I’m not here to judge anyone.

I mean.. I have a good paying day job as a legal assistant and here I am.. Dancing two nights a week whenever I can find a club to take me just so I have some form of release.. Just so I can feel intimacy that for whatever reason, I tend to deny myself in reality.

I almost asked him why, but I remembered what he told me out in the hallway about outbidding AJ because he knew the guy scared me. And I stopped myself, even though parts of me hoped there was more to it than that.

My hands moved over my chest and I rocked myself over him faster. My breath catching in my throat as I felt myself rushing straight into an orgasm I’d been trying like hell to hold back the whole time we’d been in the VIP room.

I could feel my body burning up under his gaze and he leaned in again. Muttered breathlessly against my ear, “If you’re nervous..”

“It’s fine.” I pretended to brush it off. I acted as chill about doing this for him as I possibly could.

“Turn away.. I wanna watch you movin from behind, baby girl.” he muttered. The request caught me by surprise a little, but I kind of realized that he was doing it more for me than for himself.

I did what he asked, turning in his lap so that I faced away. My eyes caught his in the reflection of the mirrored wall in front of us. As I started to rock my ass over his bulge, he growled quietly. Bucking himself up into me. Biting his lip as he did it three more times. Muttered in a lust filled daze “Fuck yeah, baby girl.. Work that ass.”

Just the way he said it had me dripping all over again.

“Faster.” he panted, bucking himself up into me all over again. Harder.

I tried not to, but I found myself imagining that he was taking me from behind. A fist full of my hair and my tits pressed right against the mirrored wall in front of us. And I rocked myself back and forth over his cock, pressing down even harder. Moving even faster. Almost close to a blinding orgasm.

“Fuck.” I swore quietly.

Juice sat up in the chair. Pressing his chest into my back. Muttering against my ear, “ Did you wanna dance for me like this?”

“Juice, I told you already.” my head fell back and my eyes fluttered open and shut. I squeezed my tits and rolled my hips faster. My breath came in short pants because I was so close to an orgasm that I was throbbing. He was leaning in again to whisper. “What I mean is if this wasn’t your job.. And it was just me and you… Would you wanna..” he rocked himself against me all over again. Harder. With more urgency as he swore under his breath and muttered that if I kept it up, he was going to come all over himself.

“ Turn around facin me.” he panted, his lips brushing against my ear and sending a shiver rushing through me. I turned back around in his lap to face him. Raising up a little. Teasing him by putting my tits at level with his mouth. Squeezing them together before lowering my hand. Toying with the waistband of my leather pants. Teasing him like I’d take them off.

“ Tease.” he pouted up at me.

“ That’s kind of what you’re paying me for right now, Juice.” I gave a soft laugh as I tucked a finger beneath his chin. Pulling his mouth dangerously close to mine. He licked his lips in anticipation and when he did, his tongue brushed right against my mouth. I whimpered helplessly.

And I just barely kept myself from exploding.

“You’re tensin up on me, Haze… Somethin wrong?” Juice asked quietly.

Looking at me as if he were bracing himself for something bad to be said.

By this point, I was so caught up in the moment, in the way it felt to grind myself against his cock and get out all these long denied urges to touch him to my hearts content.. It slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Honestly? I’m a breath away from coming and this never.. Ever… happens to me when I’m givin a private dance.” my words came in a breathless rush and as soon as I realized what I’d just said, I lost my groove for a second or two. Slowing down. Trying to pull myself together.

Hoping to God that I didn’t just make things awkward for him and I in the future because I’d rather have him as a friend than not have him at all.

His mouth opened and closed and his hands gripped the arm rests again. Tighter.

“Do you know how hard it is for me? Feelin you dancin on my cock like this? Knowin I.. Knowin that this is probably as close as I’m ever gonna get? Fuck… If I were ever lucky enough to have you all to myself, baby girl...”

His words caught me by surprise. My heart fluttered a little and I swallowed hard. Going still in his lap just to stare at him.

The lights getting brighter and the music in the room going quiet had both of us jumping apart. I realized that probably meant my time in the room was done and before I could give myself a chance to back out, I slipped off his lap and held out my hand to him.

“ C’mon.”

He eyed my hand and took hold of it, standing. I practically drug him out of the room and then down the hall. Out the door and into the back lot behind the club. Once the door was shut behind us, I started to pace in front of him. Just trying to put it all together.

Torn between continuing to fight what I felt for him and caving in.

When he stepped in front of me and placed his hands on my upper arms, staring down into my eyes intently, something in me snapped and before I could stop myself, I had his back pressed against the door of the building. My hands caught his, holding them over his head as I rose up slightly and crashed my mouth against his mouth.

Devouring. Hungry.

At first, he didn’t really react. But when the shock cleared and he realized what I was doing, he came alive. I melted against him and he growled into my mouth, deepening the kiss. Teeth latching onto my bottom lip and tugging until I felt it starting to bruise. I let his hands go and they were all over me. Settling on my ass. Rocking me up against him and making me whimper and dig my fingers into his shoulders. I couldn’t melt into him any more if I tried. I was so exhausted from trying to hold back in more ways than one at this point that my filter was totally shot. I rocked myself against him clumsily, a begging and needy whine filling the space between our mouths as the kiss broke when I just couldn’t hold it back.

“Do you know why I almost got off giving you a lap dance? Do you know what you do to me, Juice? I.. I tried so hard not to fall for you and yet.. Here I am.”

He blinked in shock. For a few seconds we stared at each other, panting for our next breath. Neither of us saying a word.

Then he bent and scooped me up. Started to carry me towards the end of the alley where he’d parked his Dyna Glide.

I didn’t do or say anything to try to stop him. I didn’t want to.

I’m so tired of keeping him at arms length. I’m tired of fighting the way I feel.

He sat me on the back of his bike and I grabbed hold of the front of his vest, pulling him down. Pulling his mouth down against mine all over again because I just.. I was needy. I craved him on this level I couldn’t even begin to get my head around.

His bike came to a stop in front of his apartment building and he got off. Scooping me up all over again. Stopping just outside the doors leading into the building to grope and kiss me. Letting his lips stray down the side of my neck. Sucking a mark deep into my skin. I clung to him and begged breathlessly, “Juice, please..”

Neither of us was really stopping to think. I didn’t want to.

I wanted him.

More importantly, I wanted to be with him. And tonight just proved to me that I couldn’t fight it anymore.

The whole time he was trying to unlock his apartment door, he kept fumbling with the keys. Rutting right against me. Stopping to kiss or touch me. When he finally got it unlocked, he stepped through the door and stepped over to the couch. Tossing me down onto it gently. Following close behind. Pressing himself down into me and snapping his hips against mine, making me whimper. My whimper echoing off the walls of the quiet room. I reached down between us, tugging at the hem of his white t shirt and he rose up, pulling off his vest and tossing it at a chair nearby. Then pulling his shirt off and tossing it too. It settled on the floor in front of the chair. Then he was pulling me up. Tearing my bra away and tossing it out into the room. My hands lowered, tugging at the waistband of his jeans and he bit his lip. Gazing at me for a second or two with this look of lust and adoration in his eyes. Savoring the moment and what was about to happen.

Because it’s been building for a while, apparently. I just focused so damn hard on keeping myself from caving in and letting myself have what I wanted, with him, that somehow, I missed all the signs.

“Baby, c’mon.” I begged.

The term of endearment slipped out.

He gave me that little smirk. Rubbed his chin in thought as he let his eyes wander.

He worked his way down my body, using his body to part my legs. He worked my leather pants down my legs and I kicked them free at my ankles.

His fingers caught in the thin strap of my panties and they came away with a quiet tear. I tried to get him out of his pants again and he lowered my hands. Slipping off the sofa. I watched intently as he teased me, pouting about it. Begging.

I needed him buried inside me. Fucking me. Slow. Deep. All night long.

His pants fell to his ankles and he kicked off his boots and then kicked his pants free from his legs. When he dropped his boxers, I swallowed hard as my eyes settled on the way his cock stood at attention once it was free from fabric. He was pressing himself down into me all over again.

His mouth roaming over my tits. Tongue teasing my nipples as my back arched away from the sofa and I rocked myself against him. His free hand settled between us, circling his thick cock. Teasing it between my folds and making me shiver and cling to him. Try to rock myself against him urgently.

And then he buried his cock inside me. Shallow at first. Going still to let me adjust to him. I felt like I was being split in two and the feeling had me whining. Nipping at his chest, at any patch of skin I could get my mouth on just so I could muffle the way I wanted to scream his name at the top of my lungs.

I rocked into him clumsily and he growled quietly. His hands going down to my hips. Holding them still as he started to pound me harder. Deeper. So deep he couldn’t go any deeper. When he bottomed out, I dragged my nails down his back.

“Not yet, baby girl. C’mon, hold out just a little longer for me.” Juice coaxed breathlessly as his hips crashed against me with a bruising pace. I begged for release, on the verge of tears. The more I begged, the more he’d slow down. Stop to kiss me or leave marks on me. Torture.

Slow, steady and deep torture.

“You gonna moan my name when you cum?” he questioned, slamming his cock deep into my womb. Going still and capturing my mouth in a deep and passionate kiss. “ God. You’re so.” he panted, snapping his hips against mine, cock pistoning in and out of me with steady deep thrusts, “So fuckin wet I can barely stay in. Fuck. Shit. Shiiiit, baby girl. I wanna cum so bad.”

“Juice! Ah, -ah fuck. Right there.” my back arched away from the couch and my orgasm ripped through me, leaving me weak and dazed, clinging to him as I tried desperately to keep up with his pace, spent. Dripping. My walls vising his cock and clenched around it. Tears flooding my eyes because holy fuck, all I’ve wanted for the entire time was to finally be allowed to let go.

Juice stared down at me from above, a soft gaze. He caught a tear as it made a black trail down my cheek. Chuckling quietly. Going still to pepper kisses soft against my mouth and then trail them down the front of my throat. When he started to move again, he muttered against my lips softly, “It’s okay, baby girl. I got you. I’m right here.” as he pistoned in and out, the wet sloshing sounds accompanying each thrust he made seeming to make him move just a little faster. His hands were all over me and all I could really do was lie there, pinned beneath him. Whimpering his name as I tried to come down from the high. Stare up at him softly as my mind spun, replaying every single thing that led us here, to this exact moment.

“Oh fuck. Fuck baby girl. You want it?” his hips stammered, smashing against mine in a bruising pace and his words were swallowed by another hungry kiss and I nodded. Just when I thought he couldn’t get any deeper, he did. Striking against my throbbing g-spot a time or two and growling, biting. Locking his lips against my neck and sucking yet another big,deep mark into soft flesh. The warmth of his release flooded me, making me whimper. Overfilling me, because I could feel the excess slowly leak down. Puddle beneath me on the sofa.. I bucked my hips against him greedily trying to take it all because I wanted it. I needed it. I craved him so badly I couldn’t have put it to words if I tried. He leaned into me heavily, panting for his next breath. Spent. A fine sheen of sweat gathered on our bodies. I grabbed hold of his face and pulled his mouth against mine. Our foreheads pressed together and he muttered quietly, “Mine?”

“Yours.” it shocked me when the word bubbled out. It shocked me because a, I was saying it and b, I meant it. With everything in me. As soon as I said it, he gave me a soft and lazy grin. Pressing his lips to my forehead. He collapsed onto the couch settling behind me. Pulling me on top of him.

Quiet little soft kisses. Caressing my face as he stared up at me and caught sight of one of the bigger marks he left on my throat, grimacing as he chuckled about it quietly.

“Fuck me. Baby, that was amazing...” I groaned out in a daze, making him laugh and gaze up at me. “Give me an hour, babe.” he teased…

“Careful. I might take you up on that.” I teased back, melting against his body. Letting his arms wrap around me and hold me tight.

[perriewinklenerdie]

Do no harm (Ethan x MC)

Open Heart, Ethan Ramsey x MC

A/N:  Hi guys! How are we doing? We got some info this chapter, huh? Not everything was what we expected (yes, Louise, I'm looking at your 'reasons' for leaving), but the chapter, while it definitely could have been better (especially LIs heading in the direction of a committed relationship instead of pulling away, since, you know, MC just almost died? ffs?), but it did have some sort of a nice balance of humor, romance (a bit, i'll give you that pb), medical cases and serious issues. My brain tried to think of a rewrite, but as soon as the chapter ended, my attention was pulled towards the idea of a certain conversation that could potentially happen between C and Louise (I don't see pb doing it, but who knows, it's pb). So here we are :D

I struggled a bit with what was supposed to happen in this conversation, simply because I didn’t want to overstep or make light of what the situation was. This is what I came up with, I hope I didn’t screw up too badly.

Summary: Some time after Louise moved to the rehab clinic, Claire decides to visit her and talk to her alone.

Enjoy! <3

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„You want to do what?” Ethan sighed, leaning against the wall on the far end of the diagnostics office, his arms folded across his chest. Claire smiled timidly, taking a hesitant step in his direction, throwing a quick look over her shoulder to make sure they were truly alone.

“I want to borrow your car.”

“And just why would you need it?” he asked, observing how she stumbled over the explanations. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to drive his car; she’s done that before, so he knew she’d be safe. “If you need to pick something up, I can drive you.”

“I know, but the store closes in thirty minutes and we can’t both leave the hospital for that long. I’d go by bus, but the books are incredibly heavy. I’ll be back before you know it, I promise.”

His eyes focus on her, on the way she shifts her weight from her right to her left foot, anxiousness rolling off her in waves. Shaking his head, he fished out his car keys from his pocket, handing them to her.

“Please, be careful.” He muttered when the skin of their hands brushed against each other, sending a lone spark up his arm. Claire nodded, a mischievous grin appearing on her face when she dove towards him, kissing him on the lips briefly before retreating quickly, as though she only then remembered their own rule.

“Oops.” She winked at him, then walked out of the office in a great hurry, giving him no time to respond, but plenty of time to process what had happened. With a grin that made him look like a fool, he walked over to the desk and picked up one of the charts, reluctantly going back to work.

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Books that Claire mentioned to Ethan had a very specific name. Louise Ramsey. And they just so happened to be in a driving distance, on the path that she dimly remembered from the trip they took not that long ago. She parked the car and turned the engine off, taking a moment to breathe in and out. It wasn’t too late to back out, Ethan’s words ringing in her ear like a warning.

No. She came there for a reason.

The same lady greeted her at the reception, smiling at her insecurely when she remembered how both Ethan and Claire threatened to make the facility close down if they even so much as thought about mistreating their patients.

“How can I help you?” the woman asked, her back a bit straighter. Claire stepped towards the counter, feeling a bit out of place.

“I’m here to see Louise Ramsey?” her voice shook only for a split second and she prayed that the receptionist didn’t notice.

“What’s your name, if I may ask?”

“Clarissa Herondale.”

Nodding, the woman smiled and turned towards the book she had on the desk, checking something that Claire couldn’t possibly know. A moment later she excused herself, picking up the phone and disappearing behind the door leading to the back room, leaving Claire alone with her thoughts. Hesitation began to drip into her mind. She no longer knew if she was doing the right thing. What if she didn’t want to talk to her? What if Ethan got mad at her?

She didn’t have more time to overthink everything, because at this exact moment the receptionist came back, smiling warmly at her. “Please, follow me.”

A short walk along an even shorter hall left her standing in the threshold of Louise’s room, by which point she was left alone. Ethan’s Mother was sitting on her bed, looking out the window in deep contemplation, an open book in her lap. Claire cleared her throat to gain her attention.

“Ms. Ramsey?” she called out, taking a hesitant step and then waiting for the invitation. If she didn’t want to see her, this was the moment she could tell her to go to hell. But that didn’t happen.

Louise’s face lit up in a smile, clearly happy that someone visited her, but surprised that it was her. Closing the book and setting it aside, she sat up. “Dr. Herondale! Please, do come in.”

Claire walked over to her slowly before, finally, sitting down on the chair by the bed. The older woman watched her every move, like she was analyzing her based on the way her feet worked. Sitting a close distance away from one another, Claire could almost see how Louise’s brain tried to work out the situation. She didn’t blame her; the only times they saw each other, besides that one time at the store, was with Ethan by her side. Now, they were alone, and that, if nothing else, was an entirely new territory for both of them.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Louise asked, smiling at the woman that she knew for a fact, held an important place in her son’s life. Ethan most likely didn’t know that she knew, but it was impossible for her not to notice how he acted around the young doctor. If there wasn’t anything between them now, there definitely would be something between them in the future.

“I wanted to check in on you, see how you are settling in.” Claire responded with an unreadable expression. Not giving too much information, prompting questions.

“Does Ethan know you’re here?”

“No. He doesn’t.”

That surprised Louise. In the blank face of Dr. Herondale, she could suddenly see wild determination, like she was on a mission and she’s just found the purpose of it. Her entire posture changed into a straighter and more serious one, but right as the blonde opened her mouth to speak, her gaze turned soft, like she was thinking about something she felt deeply for. It didn’t take a genius to know exactly what, or more specifically, who the young doctor what thinking about.

“You care about him. Ethan. You two are together.” Louise added things up, coming to the only logical conclusion. The blush that immediately appeared on Claire’s cheeks only proved her theory to be correct. “He cares about you too, though I’m sure you already know that. He’s got that look in his eyes.”

Claire let her gaze fall onto her shoes, unsure how she should proceed. They were extremally careful around the hospital, but outside, that caution was nonexistent. For Louise to put the pieces together that fast, it meant that they were either entirely obvious or just so taken with each other that no amount of plotting could hide it.

“Alan thinks so too, by the way.” Louise continued, smiling knowingly at the young woman in front of her. Deciding that she’s made her point clear, she moved back to the subject at hand. “I’m so happy that you came to see me. Ethan visited two days ago, and Alan is here almost every day, but it’s nice to see a new face for a change.”

“I know Ethan visited you. He, uh, he asked me to come with him.” Claire twisted her fingers nervously, confirming further what the older woman already knew.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought that you two should have the opportunity to talk alone, so I stayed in the car.”

Louise nodded in understanding, the silence falling between the two women like an itchy blanket that made you more uncomfortable with each passing minute. Something didn’t add up about the situation they were in currently, and someone had to break the ice.

“Why are you here, Dr. Herondale?” she asked, watching the doctor with curiosity. She knew that Ethan didn’t send her there, otherwise he would have known about it. Something else was at play here. Claire’s face morphed from looking mildly unsure to troubled in a matter of seconds.

“One way or another, Ethan is a big part of my life.” she began explaining, unsure how much of her relationship should she let Louise know about. “I’ve been by his side when he learned that you wanted to talk to him again. He was with me that day when we ran into each other in the store.” Louise’s face twisted at the memory of the day she met Claire for the first time, not knowing who she was at the time. “I was with him when you came to the hospital. I don’t want to talk about your reasons for leaving, or about what happened while you were gone. I don’t want you to tell me anything about that, because it’s not me you should be telling that to. It’s Ethan and Mr. Ramsey that should hear it. If Ethan decides that he wants me to know about it, he’ll tell me himself, when he feels ready.”

As she finished the sentence, Claire felt out of breath. Louise’s eyes hardly left hers, observing her with intensity that kicked the air out of her lungs; like she knew something and was waiting for Claire to confirm it. Shaking her head, Ethan’s Mother spoke once more.

“If you’re not here to find out the truth about anything, then why are you here? Without Ethan even knowing?”

The blonde doctor cleared her throat, taking a deep breath to steady and remind herself that this is what she came there for in the first place. “I want… need to hear you say that you won’t hurt him again.” her voice was filled with desperation and the fierce protectiveness was evident in the way she spoke. “He’s been through enough, he doesn’t deserve to fall apart again.”

Louise watched the woman in front of her, speaking about her son with the depth of emotion that made her own heart ache. She’s wasted so many years while being away, hurting him beyond belief, but to see him have someone who wants to take care of him made her smile in relief. He had someone that smoothed out his rough edges and parted the clouds in the sky when they appeared. It’s all she could ever want for him.

“I’ve spent the last ten years thinking how to apologize and wishing I had enough courage to do so.” She tried to assure the younger woman, to no avail it seemed, as the next words that rang in the room were accompanied by a shake of the head that made blonde locks flow gently. Her voice, however, was stern and determined.

“Not what I asked for, Ms. Ramsey.”

“I promise I’m not here to hurt him. That’s the last thing I want.” Louise tried again, knowing that she would have to uncover all the thoughts she had hidden within her mind. “Even if he lets me see only a fraction of who he is, that will be enough.”

Claire considered what was said, then nodded slowly. Her shoulders fell in relief, her face breaking out in a fleeting insecure smile. “I’ve never been that person, to threaten others. Having said that, though, be warned.” She leaned forward a bit, schooling her expression into a serious one again. “If you hurt him, or Alan, you’re going to regret it. Are we clear?”

“Crystal, Dr. Herondale.” With a serious tone, the older woman nodded, understanding that the younger one wasn’t kidding. Claire breathed out deeply, clearly thankful that it was over. She glanced at the clock, her eyes widening in slight horror.

“I really have to go. I took a break from work, and while my boss doesn’t have a problem with that, I should get back to my patients.” She smiled as she said that, shaking her head in mock obviousness. “I promised Ethan I’d be back quickly, and I want to talk to him before my shift picks up again.”

As she stood up from her seat and turned towards the door, Louise spoke up again. “I hope we can talk more, some other time.”

“We’ll see.” Looking over her shoulder, the blonde allowed herself a hint of a melancholic smile. “Take care of yourself.”

-----------

Ethan was waiting for her to return in the same place she left him two hours prior. Sat on the couch with an article in his hand, he greeted her with a smile that got wider with every step she took towards him. She handed him the keys, standing in front of him in a safe distance. They didn’t say anything at first, the wordless atmosphere eventually getting cut short by Ethan.

“How’s Louise?” he muttered, looking up at her just in time to register her surprise, followed immediately by guilt. His knee nudged hers to reassure her that he wasn’t mad or upset. “The receptionist called me. The only people authorized to visit her are my Dad and I.” he clarified, making her face light up in understanding.

“So, you knew? And you didn’t stop me?”

“I believed you would tell me anyway. Though, I must say, I’m curious about the reason for your trip.” Ethan explained, wrapping one arm around her hips to pull her closer to him. She fell onto the couch with a giggle, trying to break her fall with her hands.

“She’s okay; a bit surprised that I was the one to walk through the door, as you can probably imagine.” She smiled at how a fraction of stress left his body at her words. “I wanted to hear her say it. That she wouldn’t cause you more pain.” Claire told him, muttering after looking at him in silence for a while. Ethan’s gaze softened at her words. “I even threatened her.” she recalled in disbelief, unsure how she managed to do it, given how unlike her it was.

“Is that so?” his smile grew wider, his eyes sneaking a look at the hall outside the office before he allowed himself to display his affection towards her. “My fierce ‘whatever-we-want-to-be’.” He whispered, inching closer to her. Them being in the hospital was the only thing that kept him from moving her into his lap. Instead, he stroked her calf with his foot, the corners of his lips rising higher.

“I don’t think she expected that.”

“I didn’t either.” He nudged her shoulder with his own teasingly. She scoffed, focusing her gaze at him with a mix of seriousness and playfulness.

“Hey, I feel protective of my ‘whatever-we-want-to-be’, okay? No one is hurting you on my watch.” Claire grinned happily, leaning into his touch when he brushed her hair behind her shoulder and kissed her forehead. Ethan smiled to himself at the feeling of warmth that flooded his chest, three words rising to the surface in his mind and almost falling from his lips.

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