#surprise ficlet more like lmao

[oneforthemunny]

how you like them apples |cowboy!eddie munson x reader|

prompt: you surprise eddie with his favorite fall treat, and, oh, is he surprised.

since i'm feeling so fall, i decided to write a ficlet around my love cowboy!eddie. also follows the lore that sweet girl is not the best cook lmao. super fluffy. genuinely nothing but the sweetest fluff and love.

Your head turned at the rumble of the truck, moving slowly down the gravel driveway towards the house. Eddie always drove much slower than you, always on to you about speeding down the gravel, flinging it everywhere. 

The red truck’s bed was filled with lumber, left over from the recent renovations the Ives’ family had done to their new fence, just up the road- well, that’s what Eddie always said, it was more like a good ten miles away. Irvine Ives had called Eddie up last night, asked him if he wanted it before he took it to the junkyard. He knew Eddie was repairing a patch in the fence a Bronco he was training had kicked out. 

“Back so soon?” You grinned, pressing a hand over your brows to shield you from the September sun. Not as bright as it was in June, but still unforgiving in the middle of the day. 

“Yep, wasn’t much, but I think I got what I needed.” Eddie hummed, turning the key and killing the ignition, cigarette still lit between his fingers. “Think I got enough to patch it though. Just gonna need to repaint it since it’s not the same kinda wood.” 

Your brows raised, walking over towards the driver’s side, leaning in towards the window. “I can help you with that.” You hummed, breathing in the cloud of smoke he exhaled with a content sigh. “I love to paint.” 

Eddie grinned back at you, a soft crease in his dimples that made your body buzz with excitement. “Yeah? We can go to town tomorrow if I get this done. Pick out a color.” 

“That sounds like fun.” You beam. “I was going to say we need to go to the grocery anyways, so that works out.” You hum, a large brown bag catching your attention, nestled beside Eddie in the passenger seat. 

“What’s that?” You ask, leaning on the door to see. “Apples?” 

“Yeah, Mrs. Ives insisted I take a few. Said their trees were overflowin’ with ‘em.” Eddie nodded towards the bag, lightly tapping your hand to move, opening the truck’s door. “Figure I’d give a few to Medusa. Try to do something with the rest, maybe.” 

You nodded slowly, wheels in your mind already spinning with an idea. Eddie handed you the apples, cradling the bottom until you got your grip on the heavy bag. “‘M gonna go start on this. Try to get it done today.” 

“Ok,” You hummed, hugging the apples to your chest. “Have fun, baby.” 

Eddie snorted in laughter, head ducking down, stealing a quick kiss from you. “I shouldn’t be too long.” He looked back at you, eyes narrowing in suspicion as you simply nodded, pulling the screen door open and slipping in the kitchen. 

Normally, you’d offer to come help him, sit with him and talk about nothing in particular, and hand him the tools while he worked. Not this time. You didn’t seem mad, or upset- really, you seemed perfectly happy. Which left him a little suspicious. 

The clanging of a large, steel pot falling on the floor soothed his worries, left him grinning to himself in humor as he started off to the barn. 

“Sift? What does- like move it around?” You muttered, brows pinched in concentration that was teetering on annoyance. Your eyes squinted in concentration, trying to decipher the loopy, old school cursive on the faded, yellowed recipe card in front of you. 

The first time you found the recipe box, it was buried under piles of other things, lost in the mess that was Eddie’s bachelor pad before you moved in- really, before you were in his life. His Mamaw Munson’s recipes, all her best dishes, all in one tin box. He sat in the kitchen with you between his legs, he’d poured over each one, told you which ones were his favorite, sometimes even added a little anecdote that had you beaming with joy. 

“Oh, this one was one of my favorites, baby,” Eddie had said, eyes lighting as they scanned over the card. 

“Apple Cobbler. She’d bake it in this cast iron skillet so it’d stay hot, and we’d put vanilla ice cream over it- holy shit, it was so good.” Eddie swallowed his drool, he could practically taste it still. “She used to have an apple tree before it got blown away by this bad tornado one year. But she’d go and pick them every fall when they were ripe, and she’d always make it for us. It was my favorite thing.” 

Looking at the recipe in front of you, you could see why Eddie loved it so much. It did sound really good. 

It was just very complicated. 

“Take your peeled- shit,” You looked at the sliced apples, still with the skin on, in the bowl in front of you. “Why wouldn’t you say that before I added the other stuff, Mamaw?” You huffed, pulling the drawer open for the whittling knife. 

The kitchen was a disaster, sticky and flour filled, bowls piling high in the sink; and you hadn’t even gotten halfway through the recipe. Grabbing a handful of the butter and sugar rolled apples, you placed them on the counter’s free space, carefully carving around the edge where the skin was. 

This isn’t too bad, not taking as long as I thought it would, You thought to yourself, finally in a grove of cutting around the skin, tossing the apple back in the mixture. 

A smoky, sugary, thick smell alerted your senses on your last few apples. Turning, you saw the filling that was supposed to be simmering, now bubbling with thick, burnt globs in the pot. You grabbed the handle with a panic, shoving it to the free stove eye, turning the hot one off. 

The mixture, which was supposed to be a light caramel brown, was a deep dark molasses shade. You lifted the whisk, cringing at the toughness of the gooey substance. “It’s ok,” You shook your head lightly, looking at the clock. “That’s- whatever. It’ll bake and soften in the oven.” 

Pulling out the pan, you shoved the now skinless apples to the bottom, scraping the hardened filling mixture on top. The wooden spoon nearly broke trying to mix it in, sticking out of the cemented filling. 

You could see Eddie through the small window over the sink, down to the last stake in the fence, already beginning the wiring. He’d be done soon, this had to cook for forty-five minutes, and the kitchen was a disaster. 

“It’s fine, it’ll be fine.” You muttered to yourself, pouring the batter on top, not bothering to smooth it out like the instructions said- there was no time for that Mamaw. Instead, you slid it in the oven, turning the timer. 

Eddie came in just as you’d finished putting your last dish away. Your body surged with excited heat, smug that you might actually get away with your little surprise- well, as long as he didn’t go to the back porch, where the burnt filling was in the pan, cemented in. 

“Mm,” Eddie sniffed the air, sugary and a little… smoky? “Smells good in here, baby.” He gave you a dazzling smile, hoping you wouldn’t pick up the hesitancy in his tone. 

It was no secret that you weren’t exactly the best cook. Not that Eddie cared, but after you almost burnt the house down making lasagna, he was a little weary when you’d cook. 

“Does it?” Your eyes lit up, filled with excitement that he wouldn’t dare take from you. Whatever you’d made, no matter how charred or inedible it was, he’d scarf it down with a grin if it’d make you happy. Even if it gave him food poisoning like the chicken ala king did. 

“Yeah, what’re you makin’?” Eddie reached for the oven’s handle. 

You pushed it closed with a click of your tongue, smacking his hands away. “Don’t.” You shook your head. “It’s a surprise.” 

And you were true to your word. It certainly was a surprise. 

When you placed the concoction in front of Eddie, grinning so big, so proudly, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but grin back. “Wow, you, uh, you made this for me, sweetheart?” He smiled, eyeing the plate in front of him. 

“Yes,” You giggled, topping the runny dough on top with a scoop of ice cream. “You said it was your favorite, and when you brought the apples home, I just thought I’d surprise you.” You chirped, sliding him a spoon. “I followed your Mamaw’s recipe.”

“You spoil me, sweet thing. You know that?” Eddie smiled, heart swelling at the sentiment. You really did spoil him, were too good and too sweet to him- even if you’re cooking wasn’t as good. 

“Try it.” You sat next to him, bursting with excitement. “I know it won’t be as good as hers, but I think I did a good job on it.” 

Eddie looked down at the plate, swallowing the dread building in his throat. He dug his spoon, sawing it through the thick middle until it finally came out in a clean cut. Taking a large scoop of ice cream, hoping it would mask the flavor, he took a bite. 

“Is it good?” You leaned forward, eyes rounded in hopefulness, scanning his features eagerly. 

Eddie hummed, his teeth cemented together from the filling, sure his crown might pop out from the material. The filling was tough, the dough undercooked and lacked something that made it rise, but the apples were delicious- just like his Mamaw’s except…

“Oh,” Eddie winced before he could help it, finger digging in his mouth. He pulled out the hard thing that was wedged in his molar, turning it with a brow raised. “Is that- is that a seed?” 

Your face fell, looking at the seed back at Eddie. “Well, yeah, from the apples.” You said, heart skinning in your chest. “I didn’t- it didn’t say to take them out or anything, so I just left them in.”

Eddie swallowed, stomach turning lightly at the bite. “No, it’s- I mean, it’s good, baby. Some people take them out, but- no, this is, it’s really good.” He nodded, smiling at you gently. “‘S really good.” 

“Really?” You squeaked. “Better than the muffins?” 

“Yes,” Eddie said truthfully, whole heartedly. That was the truth, this was so much better than the mess that was the blueberry muffins. “So much better. This is really good, sweetheart. You really surprised me. Too sweet of ya to do this.” 

You squealed, hugging him tightly, legs straddling his waist in the chair, lips pressing kisses over his cheeks, his chin, his lips. Eddie’s arms wrapped around you, squeezing you into him, playfully nipping at your jaw to hear you squeal, before his lips caught yours, pulling you into a heated kiss. He’d eat all your burnt cobblers if it meant you’d be happy like this, if it made you this happy. 

[cha-melodius]

💜 + dealers choice on ship.

💜 surprise kiss / impulsive kiss (hellooooo and thank you, I originally thought of branching out but then did firstprince anyway lmao. read all the kiss ficlets)

“And the Oscar goes to… Henry Fox!”

For a moment, Henry just sits there, stunned. This wasn’t supposed to be his year; yes, he’d gotten a lot of critical acclaim for his role, but he was going up against lots of huge names. Acting legends, people who had been in the industry for ages. Honestly, Henry hadn’t been able to convince himself this was anything more than a courtesy nomination. Then again, he always did feel the shadow of his father looming large during these times. Alex always used to call him out on it, used to help him see that he was more than just his father’s son—ironic, considering their first meeting. Maybe that was part of it, that Alex was the only one he trusted to be totally honest with him.

But Henry hasn’t had that for the past year. Hasn’t had Alex. Who is, as last year’s winner, the person that’s just said his name up on stage. Christ, he has to go up there now and say something coherent, when the only thing he can think of is how much he misses the man standing up there, smiling at him. How much he regrets what happened last year that tore them apart, and how he can’t stop wondering if there’s any way to repair the damage. Just now, Alex doesn’t look mad at him, but then again, he is an exceptional actor.

There are four other actors Henry has to shake hands with before he reaches Alex—and his Oscar. Honestly the little gold man has nothing on the golden god standing before him in a burgundy velvet tux. Henry sticks his hand out, unsure, but Alex hauls him into a crushing hug, his lips close to Henry’s ear as he whispers, “I’m so fucking proud of you, H.”

Maybe Alex is a great actor, but Henry knows him, to his bones. Knows what he sounds like when he’s trying to hold back real emotion. Knows that Alex could have sent him off with a handshake or a slap on the back and no one would be any wiser. And Henry knows, in that split second, that what he’s going to do will make history.

Henry pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes, and he can see the moment where Alex realizes what he intends to do. He relaxes his grip, but Alex doesn’t withdraw, so Henry does what he should have done a year ago, in front of the entire theater and millions of live viewers: he draws Alex into a kiss. As Alex kisses him back, grinning into like he’s the one who’s just won an award, Henry knows that, whatever else happens tonight, this will be the only moment that matters to him.

The cheers from the audience are deafening.

[russelliv]

gewis [sleeping!george & filthy!lewis]

sooo here's the somno fic that i talked abt popping into my head when i wrote the other ficlet that i just posted. this is for the anon that also wanted this badly LMAO

hope yall enjoy and as always, i appreciate hearing ur thoughts on my brain worms :DD

CW: somnophilia, very much consensual (talked out of this scene)

Lewis kneels down behind George, who's asleep but arching his ass like a whore to anyone who can see him. Gladly, Lewis can keep George all to himself as he's asleep in Lewis' motorhome.

Lewis went back to his motorhome late, to no one's surprise, and while he was expecting George, his boyfri-...his teammate-turned-fuck-buddy, to be in his motorhome, Lewis didn't expect an amazing sight to greet him.

George, on his stomach, facing to the side, one leg arched up and one leg straight, enough for his pink, puffy hole to be presented right at Lewis.

Lewis could not help himself but kneel immediately behind him and let his eyes roam around George's gorgeous, pliant body.

Pretty, gorgeous George with soft skin, lithe back, perfect waist, and plump ass...All for Lewis to take.

Lewis exhales and brings a warm hand to lay upon George's back. He slowly drags his hand around his back and side until he arrives at George's round bottom.

"So so beautiful for me, sweetheart," Lewis whispers as he squeezes a cheek softly. "So perfect and ready for me."

Lewis removes his hand and lays both his hands on either side of George as he leans down and places soft kisses on George's shoulder. Lewis tracks George's back with soft kisses and soft words of praise.

As Lewis plants a tender kiss on George's lower back, George makes a little noise of satisfaction.

Lewis chuckles, "Yeah, sweetheart? Want me lower?", then he slides a little lower until he's eye level to George's hole.

Lewis drags his hands towards George's ass and grips tight to spread him open. "Shit, George," Lewis blurts out as the furl of George's hole gets exposed to the cold air. It clenches for one second, as if it knows the owner of George's hole is staring straight at it.

Lewis licks across his bottom lip before he hitches his nose upward, nuzzling straight where George's crack starts. He inhales George's clearly freshly-showered clean and natural scent and slides his nose down to breathe out against the hole.

George's arched leg unconsciously slides a little higher, exposing his hole more to Lewis. "Good boy, Georgie. So good for me, opening yourself up more," Lewis whispers against George's right cheek.

Lewis repositions himself. Makes sure that his fingers grip well onto the perfect ass he is gifted, by George, and finally, finally opens his mouth to lick a stripe up on Goerge's hole.

Lewis moans and licks across more, finding pleasure with the way his tongue slides on Georgie's hole, the one he owns.

Lewis grunts and shifts his hips to lay on the mattress. His cock is slowly hardening, keeps rolling his hips every time his tongue gets George more wet.

"You taste so sweet, baby," Lewis pants as he stops for a second to focus on grinding his hips down the bed. "Making me so hard for you even when you're asleep. Fuck."

Lewis sticks his tongue out and dives back in towards the shining, wet hole. He keeps his licks quick, but sopping wet with saliva. Digs his tongue in and out, back and forth, while making sure he's stretching George out well too.

As Lewis focuses on eating his treat, George moves to roll his hips under him and gives out a little moan of, "Lewis..."

Lewis responds in groaning against his hole and he tightens his hands on George's ass for a second, pulling his face away. He stares at the way the hole clenches and opens, looks at the way George's sides move quickly with every breath, and slides his gaze towards George's cherry pink face.

Quickly and desperate with a sudden urge, Lewis hauls himself up to his knees once more and immediately unbuttons his designer jeans and drags both the jeans and boxers half-way on his thighs. He pulls his hard cock out and tugs hard and quick.

"Georgie —fuck— baby, you're so pretty. So perfect, just made for me, George," Lewis pants as he jerks himself off with his right hand while his left hand lands a slap on George's left cheek.

George whimpers and his hips dips further into the bed. Encouraged, Lewis twists his hand on the upstroke and slides his thumb across his slit. "George...shit, gonna come on you, gonna paint your hole so well. Fucking whore, leaving yourself out here for anyone."

Lewis slaps George's left cheek again, "But it's not for anyone, is it? Yeah, it's only mine, sweetheart. Only for me, George." Lewis moans, loud and clear across his motorhome, maybe even loud enough for other drivers to know how George is only his. Sleeping George tries to keep up with his uncoordinated thrusts towards the bed, while his hands softly clench the pillow on either side of his head.

Lewis clenches his left hand on George's ass and keeps his hole exposed for Lewis' delight. "So dirty, George," Lewis tsks, "This is enough to keep you satisfied, right? Just getting off on what gives me pleasure, cause you're such a good boy."

Lewis lets go of George and his cock to plant his hands on George's side. Lewis shifts one more to lean his front against George's back, keeps his mouth near George's ear and keeps his cock warm, between George's ass.

"Good boy, George," Lewis whispers as he thrusts his cock against the sopping saliva-wet hole, which causes George to press down on the bed. Lewis continues his slow pushes, allowing George feel pleasure as he's asleep. "Can't believe you're mine, sweetheart."

Not really yours, the little voice in Lewis' head interjects. Lewis shakes his head, as if to forcefully remove the thought. He focuses back on pleasuring himself and George.

Lewis' hips starts becoming uncontrollable, chasing his high as the feeling of George's body becomes unbearable. Quick, wet sounds and panting from both men, one muffled by a pillow, fills the entire room.

"Fuck!" Lewis comes with a shout, painting George's ass full of white thickness. George's hips quickens by itself and freezes as his cock spurts out his own come, soiling the sheets. George deeply moans loud as he comes, still overcome with sleep even after Lewis' ministrations.

Lewis lazily tugs at his cock, letting come drip down slowly from his tip to George's hole. He sighs as he comes down from the high and lets his finger go through the mess he made.

Lewis chuckles as he plays with his filth on George's ass and indulges himself with letting a come-covered finger press against George's rim. He slips the tip of his finger, just to satisfy the little guy in him that wants George tainted of only him.

This gets George to flinch and finally slowly come back to consciousness. His eyes flutters as his body fills with wet, delicious, sensitive sensations. "Mmm...Lewis?" George sleepily asks as he tries to get in control of his body, in order to stretch.

Lewis leans down to place a soft kiss on George's cheek and brushes George's fallen hair on his temple, back to the top of his head.

"Good evening, baby."

[lauronk]

I was watching a movie (that one with natalie portman) and I got an Idea. A ficlet where joel is a professional hitman (or a retired one) and ellie is his daughter. She loves him, and he is devoted for her. He is wrapped around her little finger and he knows that.

What he doesn't tell her tho? he actually killed her father for his client. He only realized there was a baby in the house when it was too late. The truth eats him alive everyday, but he will never tell her. Never.

hi anon! thank you for this prompt, it fully latched into my brain and derailed the other stuff i had planned on working on lmao i hope you enjoy!

(this time baby) i’ll be bulletproof

length: ~2.6k words

tags: pov joel; joel & ellie; modern au; death/murder; brief mentions of blood; tess is alive; kidnapping; ellie’s whole life is a lie she just doesn’t know it; joel’s a hitman so what do you expect; joel’s also a great dad, what did you expect; no beta we die like david

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Gentle finger squeeze on the trigger. Exhale.

The target drops before he even realizes he’s been shot, a small pool of blood gathering on the carpet underneath his head. The man had been nice enough - not that he’d realized it - to leave his window open, so there wasn’t even the shattering of glass to alert anyone. He’d be found in an hour or so, when his wife returned home from her nail appointment, and by then, Joel would be long gone.

-

Sometimes he regretted the path he’d wound up on, the way his life had diverged from everything it should have been. Joel could look back and pinpoint exactly where the fork had occurred - his daughter, a victim of the wrong place at the wrong time, one man so bent on vengeance he didn’t care who he’d hurt in the process.

He had been the first one Joel had ever killed. Twenty years later, and he hadn’t stopped.

Only difference was, now he got paid for it, and handsomely at that.

-

The television is still on when Joel opens the front door, and he pauses, hand on the knob. It’s entirely too late for anyone else to still be awake, and he turns his head towards the dark hallway that branches off the living room towards the back of the house.

He makes sure he makes a fair amount of noise in the process of taking off his shoes and hanging up his keys. His pistol he secures in the safe over the fireplace, making sure it’s locked again before he slides the wall panel back in place. The TV he shuts off, and he pours a glass of water before finally making his way down the hall to the second door on the left.

“Ellie?” Joel knocks gently before pressing a hand against the door and nudging it open.

She gives an exaggerated deep breath, and Joel chuckles, stepping all the way into her room. He can make out the shape of her under her covers, curled on her side, a faint hint of moonlight trickling through the window.

The glass of water he deposits on her nightstand - he knows she’ll want it later - and lowers himself carefully to sit on her mattress near her hip. Her breathing picks up and then slows again, like she thinks he hasn’t already caught on.

“C’mon, baby,” Joel shakes her shoulder gently, his voice teasing. “I know you ain’t sleepin’.”

Ellie rolls over, blinking at him owlishly. She even brings a hand up to rub her eyes, widening them comically like she’s surprised to see him. “Dad?”

“TV didn’t shut off all the way,” Joel tells her helpfully, snorting when her hand immediately falls from her face and her head flops back dramatically on her pillow.

“Fuck.”

He tucks the comforter around her a little more tightly, brushing a stray piece of hair back from her forehead. “Yeah.” Her hand comes up and wraps around his wrist, squeezing gently. “You’re pretty busted, kiddo.”

Ellie shakes the hand holding his, waggling his arm around. “Why do I even still have a bedtime? I’m fourteen. Dina and Jesse don’t have bedtimes.”

He shakes his arm right back, eliciting a small giggle from her. “Dina and Jesse ain’t been caught sneakin’ out recently, have they? Maybe that’s got somethin’ to do with it, hmm?”

Ellie huffs, but she doesn’t argue. She had been busted after all, caught down at the neighborhood pool with some other kids by Marlene, the HOA president, and brought to his door dripping wet at one a.m. Bedtime and curfew had been reinstated after that, and Ellie had three more months of probation from him before it would be lifted.

It didn’t feel good to do - he’d struggled with punishing Sarah at all too - but it let him give free rein to some of his paranoia, gave him an excuse to keep her locked in the house a little more. It wouldn’t last forever - nor should it, Joel knew well and good that Ellie needed to go out and live her own life - but while she was still young enough, he’d shield her from everything he could.

Sarah hadn’t made it to fifteen - Joel was determined to see that Ellie did.

“Get some sleep, baby girl,” he tells her softly, brushing his fingers back and forth across her forehead in the way he knows will soothe her to sleep best. It’s worked since she was a baby, and sure enough her eyes are already drifting closed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Waffles?” Ellie mumbles, rolling on her side and burying her face into her pillow.

Joel smiles down at her, feeling that same tug behind his heart that he has every time since he first held her. “Yeah, baby, we’ll do waffles.”

This time, her breathing deepens out naturally, mouth falling slack, and Joel bends forward to press a kiss to her temple. “Dream somethin’ good,” he whispers, same as he does every night. He ain’t superstitious - can’t afford to be, in his line of work - but he’s always been afraid that the nights he hasn’t been around to tell her, she’ll have nightmares.

Joel shuts the door behind him, padding back through the living room to double check the locks on the doors and windows and set the alarm. When he’s sure they’re as secure as can be, he makes his way back down to his room. He can’t fight the urge to open Ellie’s door one more time and peek in on her; she hasn’t moved, not that he expected her to.

His own room is dark, blackout curtains preventing even a hint of moonlight coming in. He’d wanted to put the same curtains in Ellie’s room for safety, but she’d put her foot down - I need to see the fucking sun, Dad - and Joel had relented. Her room faced the backyard, and they had no neighbors on that side, just a tall fence with motion sensors spaced carefully along it.

Joel doesn’t bother with a lamp, instead making his way straight through to his bathroom and flicking on the light there. As always, he avoids the sight of his reflection, instead turning his back on the mirror and flipping the handle on the shower. He cranks it as hot as he’ll be able to stand and tugs off his clothes, tossing them into a small pile on the floor. He’ll have to do laundry in the morning, get the first load going before Ellie’s awake.

The bathroom is already filling with steam by the time Joel steps under the spray, the water immediately stinging his skin like a thousand small needles. It immediately starts to soothe the aches in his body though, and Joel turns slowly until it’s beating between his shoulder blades.

He’s getting too old for this. Fifty-six, with nearly twenty years of it under his belt. He’s still deadly, sure, one of the best to ever do it as Tess so frequently tells him.

But his recovery times are slower, his reflexes dulling. His already damaged hearing in his right ear is only getting worse.

He’s not far from being a liability - he knows what they do to liabilities.

And he’s got Ellie to think of.

Joel rotates again, sticks his head under the water and lets it sluice down over his face.

He’ll bring it up with Tess soon, Joel thinks. He doesn’t know what the protocol is here - few in his line of work live long enough for it to be a consideration - but they’ll work something out. Better for him to get out now, after a damn near perfect record, while he’s still got enough health and energy to spend with his daughter.

Better that than him getting old and slow, getting sloppy and getting caught.

He shuts the water off and tugs the towel around his waist. The rest of his evening routine he does by rote - dressing, brushing his teeth, turning down his bed - and by the time his head hits the pillow, Joel’s able to slip straight into sleep.

-

He doesn’t usually dream when he sleeps - a side effect, he’d guess, of the way he lives his life. Maybe there’d been nightmares at first, flashes of the lives he’d taken, faint remembrances. But those had stopped with enough time and blood, and his sleep became peaceful again.

Not this night, though.

-

The hallways stretching before him is dark and long, shadows stretching out like fingers, and Joel walks silently as close to the wall as he dares. The floor is less likely to squeak there, but too close to the wall and he’ll brush against a frame or hanging, send it crashing to the ground. Easiest way to get caught, if you’re stupid.

And Joel Miller ain’t stupid.

The first two rooms - a study and a guest room - are clear. Tonight’s unfortunate soul is a widower, a man whose increasingly large debts to Joel’s employer were beyond the point of repayment. Nothing left to do but put the man out of his misery, leave the murky back-end of liquidating the man’s assets to the techies. His only job was making it look natural.

The third room is the master, a four poster bed in the middle, the target in question asleep under the covers.

It’s almost absurdly easy, and Joel leaves the body behind with a mental note to ask Tess for something more challenging next time. He doesn’t know what it says about him that this murder felt boring, but he doesn’t bother dwelling on it.

This is who he is now.

Joel does a final check, sweeping the hall with a flashlight to make sure he left no trace. He’s just clicked the light off when he hears it - a muffled sound of some sort, coming from the only door he hasn’t checked.

Joel advances, feet light, and draws his pistol as he approaches the door, turn the knob slowly with a gloved hand. A faint beam of light meets his eyes, and Joel blinks, inhaling slowly to keep his heart rate low as his eyes adjust.

The sound echoes again, and Joel pushes the door open carefully, pausing when the hinges emit the faintest squeak. Nothing stirs inside, no other sound follows.

Might be a dog or cat, Joel reasons with himself. Wouldn’t be the first time.

After another moment of stillness, he nudges the door open further, eyes scanning back and forth over the room. Taking in the bookshelf, the night light, the tall dresser, the —

The crib against the wall.

Joel’s hand falls limp next to his side, pistol dangling from numb fingertips.

He doesn’t do parents. He’s made that clear to Tess and her bosses a thousand times over. He’ll kill just about anyone, but not if they’ve got kids, and especially not if those kids still live at home. Tess knows - she knows - that’s a hard line for him. So either he was lied to when given the file, or their intel had been bad and they hadn’t known.

But there is - a chubby hand lifts from the crib - there is a baby in the crib. A small, now orphaned child.

Joel orphaned them.

He tucks the pistol into the back of his jeans and takes a careful step closer. And then another, and another, until he’s right next to the crib, hands gripping the railing as he peers down.

Bright brown eyes are staring back up at him, chubby cheeks framing an open mouth. The blanket covering most of her body reads Ellie.

“Ellie,” Joel repeats softly. “‘s that your name?”

A chubby fist waves up at him as if in response.

He should leave. He needs to leave. The job’s done, and the longer he stays here the longer he risks getting caught or leaving behind a trail.

But Ellie is staring up at him from her crib, rosebud mouth opening and closing and little babbles escaping.

He should leave.

But instead Joel bends down, hands carefully scooping underneath her back until she’s cradled against his chest. She rests there easily, something like a contented sigh - if he thought babies could make such a noise - escaping her. The warmth of her against him has something in his chest fracturing, splintering, breaking wide open. All the pieces of him seem to realign, and without thought Joel bends down to pick up her blanket. There’s a nearly full diaper bag by the door, and Joel snags that too.

Ellie doesn’t stir against him as they exit the house through the back and Joel winds them through the trees lining the back of the property. He doesn’t have a car seat, he realizes. He’ll need to get one of those - for the time being Joel lowers himself to sit in the backseat of the car with Ellie still held against him.

He’ll call Tess, Joel decides, back of his finger stroking gently over Ellie’s cheek. She can come get him, get someone else to get his car out of here. She’ll be mad, probably more than a little freaked out, but it ain’t for her to worry about.

Ellie’s his.

She stretches a bit, a small fist making contact with his neck. Immediately Joel starts to rub her back, low voice murmuring in her ear.

“It’s okay, baby girl. I got you.”

-

Joel blinks awake, the familiar sight of his ceiling coming in to focus above him. He doesn’t dream about the night he found Ellie very often, but every time he does it’s as clear as if it had just happened.

A glance at the clock on his nightstand shows it’s nearing on eight, which means Ellie’ll probably be up soon.

He totes his laundry basket down the hall to the laundry room, hitting the power button on the coffee maker when he passes. He’ll get the laundry going, his coffee made, the waffle batter started. And then they can have breakfast together, figure out how they want to spend their Wednesday. It’s summer, so Ellie’s out of school, and he’s off for the day.

Joel strolls over to the window facing the backyard as he sips his coffee, waffle batter made and sitting in the fridge. He’d moved around a lot before Ellie - hazard of the job - but he’d wanted her to have stability, safety. It made it trickier, meant he could take fewer jobs, but he’d stashed up enough money to make that less of a concern.

Tess had predictably lost her shit when she’d found Joel in the back of his car, Ellie snoozing against Joel, but within a matter of hours he’d had a crib and enough supplies to last two weeks. Within three days he’d had a birth certificate listing a dead woman as Ellie’s mother and Joel as her father. Any trace of her in the target’s house had been swiftly and carefully eradicated.

And Ellie had never known about any of it. If Joel had his way, she never would.

A yawn from behind him has Joel turning around, smile spreading across his cheeks at the sight of Ellie shuffling across the living room towards him in her pajamas, hair tousled and eyes half-open. She all but collapses against him, head thunking against his chest as she yawns again.

“Waffles?”

Joel chuckles, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “C’mon, sleepyhead, let’s get you some waffles.”

There was nothing more important to Joel than his daughter. And nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her from learning the truth.

[self-spaghettification]

ok so i accidentally deleted the draft but a while back an anon asked me basically saying they had read Gone (are the Days) and wanted other good fanfic recs. and this was my response LMAO

hmm !! this may surprise you but i actually don’t consume that much fanfic. partially because i’m picky, partially bc i tend to consume content slowly or bounce around a lot, etc

i will say a general tip is to sort by bookmarks or kudos to get the good stuff and filter by specific tags as well! like i just read mage pride which is the top bookmarked item in the viravos tag and it was definitely worth the hype!!

if you enjoyed gone are the days,

you’d probably like the Professor Next Door by detectiphoenix (also a professor au but high school teachers!) besides that, here are some viravos fanfic i’ve enjoyed, off the top of my head:

(for context i’m not hyper into smut personally or try to find variety/creativity and i’m biased towards certain things lol but)

VIRAVOS FICS I LOVED <3

Mage Pride by luminiex - This is the top bookmarked fic in the viravos tag, and for good reason! While it is written after S2 and has more sympathetic Aaravos than in canon, it is still very well done in my opinion. I also love whatever it takes by them, it’s great if you don’t like smut too! Aaravos and Viren living together in this plane together lives rent free in my head 😭 I also love their fic where Aaravos gets to meet Viren’s family :)

Recidivism by indefensibleselfindulgence/ @iamalivenow - the viren characterization is everything, it takes place in s2 prison era, and it’s very humorous!

The Sound of His Voice by portmanteau_press - very very cool setup/worldbuilding concept i think

Constellation of the Heart by @yurayuramiharin - This fic is one of my absolute favorites and has inspired some of the art I’ve done as well! As someone who loves vintage & goth subculture & IS a baby bat in college I feel like I resonate with it really well! I love the taking of the worldbuilding of the dragon prince recontextualized in a college setting and the way Aaravos was actually an inspiration for Bowie & caused Viren to question his sexuality!! It’s so deliciously perfect but sadly unfinished, but I would say it’s still definitely worth the read! It doesn’t really end on a cliffhanger either, just one of the best burns ever 😁

Touch of a Star by @detectiphoenix - really unique take on what it’s like to touch Aaravos, I adore it sm and think about it everyday too. Fluffy S5 extrapolation/continuation

To Serve or Slaughter by beastlybrooke - viravos recontextualized as vampires like castlevania my other recent fixation? sign me up. it’s interesting how viren’s prejudice towards elves is recast as a prejudice towards vampires, and aaravos’s fight towards the elves and view towards humans i love it everything

honorary mention ficlets:

the stars they lie by rikku - this is short but i really like the way they incorporate virrow and mindgames, as well as enby aaravos :)

Checkmate by @thrandilf is also short and sweet but i adore it, i think about the alternate versions of the s5 trailer sm and even tried writing my own a few times but they never went that far but yeah i love it and they have other fics that are great too

respect his decision by @vestaldestroyer because aaravos didn’t have to revive viren s4 but he did and ughgghhghh while i don’t think he cares that much cause he might have just been using the revival as a way in with claudia and continuation of all that, there’s always that off chance and he doesn’t even realize how attached he is and love is just that huge when you’re that old and powerful, large enough to move mountains and yeah </3

i’d put my own can you stay by @self-spaghettification but that’d seem a bit unfair lol

—

there’s probably others i’ve yet to read or that are cool but i don’t remember or that have some good parts but are kind of iffy imo but those are the only ones i can think of off the top of my head i’m sorry </3

but i’ve also have been compiling a list of fic ratings on a google doc and uhh its not really sharable in any way, but a while ago I also had a website concept where people could share fic ratings like goodreads but for ao3 with some other site inspo in the mix that i spent a few hours sketching out the concept of but idk if i should share but yeah :)

[unspokenlly]

this ficlet involves: lactation, use of 'mommy/mommy kink, scara having mommy issues?? lmao fem!reader. i was totally not horny after seeing him in the trailer ahahahahahah

Plot: Wherein, Wanderer accidentally calls you mommy while sucking your lactating tits.

-

Squelching sounds resonated in your shared bedroom, earnestly sucking onto your nipples that was dripping with your essence. You hummed in pleasure, stroking the head of your lover as he pinched the other nipple causing you to exhale at his touch.

He licked and probbed at your perked nipples at it continued to seep your milk, before closing his lips in again to swallow every drip. You chuckled at how adorable he looked, you couldn't help but caress his head gently.

You adjusted yourself onto his lap, before moaning a quiet hum.

"Good boy.." You muttered when you felt him squeeze your other breast, as your milk drips down slowly. His face was focused, the haziness fogging hid face.

You didn't know if it was because he was drunk of your milk or something along the lines, but you didn't expect him to suddenly moan, "Mommy.." Your hand stopped caressing him as you looked down at him in surprise.

His sucking came to a pause, his eyes widening in shock at what he just said but recovered immediately as he attempts to get away from you in shame for what he had just said.

You didn't think much of what he said, nor did you react badly enough for you to feel disgusted by him. Instead, you placed one hand behind the back of his head to push him towards your chest.

Wanderer or Kuni, you called, glared up at you but you didn't get bothered by it. "Get off of me." You shook your head, "Don't be ashamed of what you called me now." He scoffed, his glare hardening like a stray cat glaring at his owner being subjected to unwilling affection.

"You didn't hear anything nor did I say anything." You rolled your eyes at him, "Come onn, it's alright..." You pat his head, returning his glare with an affection stare of your own.

"It can just be one of our bedroom secrets."

You pecked his forehead with your lips, before smiling down at him. He didn't utter anything else, as his glared shifted back to what he normally looks like.

Kuni leans in to suck your nipples once more, before sending you a warning glare. You teased him a bit.

"You should call me that again while you're sucking my tits~"

He clenched his teeth around your nipple, pulling it a bit for what you just said.

[shalomniscient]

Hello, first I would like to say that I hope you and yours can stay safe and take care during the holidays and that you have a merry thanksgiving.

That said, I also come bearing a gift as yet another shameless thirst has stricken me and left me plagued with both wonderous and terrible mental images.

This may be something I make into a ficlet on here and ao3, but for now I bestow it upon you.

P.S. NSFW Ahead, let the SS Thirst set sail.

You recall the maid cafe idea I sent you?

Imagine that the chief decides to surprise some of the Sinner women by dressing up as a maid and taking care of them, namely imagine the reaction of Rahu and Shalom when they return from an assignment to be greeted by the Chief wearing a maid outfit and waiting for them.

Imagine she has made them their favorite meal, drawn them a bath, with the chief helping them bathe, and even gives them a massage to help them relax, that said massage includes a 'happy ending' that leaves them a puddle of contented warmth as the reader asks them if they want anything else, maybe something tight and hot and wet?

Or maybe they would prefer something thick and hard, maybe made of cold plastic or maybe it is made of warm and pulsating flesh and is already dripping from the tip?

Or maybe they are spent already, and just want to bask in the comforting warmth of the chief's body and lay together in the bed and cuddle?

Some, such as Rahu and Zoya, would be all to eager to take the opportunity and have some more fun, while I can imagine others like Shalom are already spent and while they may like to play more, they enjoy the idea of resting a bit more.

For those that want to sleep and cuddle, they find themselves either lifted off their feet, Shalom swooning as she is cradled against the Chief's body, and tucked into bed beside the chief, their head nestles against their chest with the heartbeat of their beloved echoing in their ears as the chief lovingly coos at them and strokes their hair till they relax and drift into slumber.

For those that want to keep going, the chief smiles at them and guides them to the bedroom, where they begin to undress until they have all of their clothes neatly arranged on the ground around them as they take a naked dogeza position as they tell the Sinners that 'This Chief is all yours, please use them till you are satisfied.'

If Shalom had not been tired after the massage, then this is the point where she goes full body red, just as Rahu and many others would I imagine.

After all is said and done, the Chief and the sinner sleep like it is described above, with both falling into a deep slumber.

As you can probably tell, I don't do ideas halfway lol.

That said, take care and stay safe.

hey hey back at it again !! and merry thanksgiving to you too my liege :)

once more, holy fucking shit ??? love love love the domestic/fluffier side of this, especially pampering the sinners when they get back from a long mission 🥺🥺🥺 shalom my darling my beloved ,,,, she would SO appreciate coming home to you. just, the fact that she has one is so special to her already. so many years spent as a tool to only go from one problem to another, never able to find somewhere to rest and take this burden off her shoulders—until now. until you. she doesn’t need any particularly grand gestures either, just waiting for her in the living room so she can fall into your arms at the end of the day is good enough for her. her home has always been you, anyway—she’d follow you to oblivion and back. AND RAHU 🥺🥺🥺 sometimes rahu wld take a massage over sex im ngl, being a bodyguard is hard work, much less a soldier for p*aradeisos. a nice, warm bath would be so heavenly to her that sometimes she straight up falls asleep in the tub LMAO she’ll give you lazy but sincere kisses in thanks before flopping into bed and wrapping her arms around you, ever so protective even in sleep. dgsgdhshdgksh in conclusion, the intimacy of domesticity with ptn women (might offer more brainrot about this down the line…………. who knows)

side note to be 100% honest w you the maid stuff is kinda secondary to me in that it’s cool but i’m kinda neutral about it lol ?? BUT ur brainrot is still fun to pick apart and expand on my liege and i appreciate ur asks nonetheless :) take care !!

[sev-on-kamino]

Congrats again on your milestone celebration!!

I'm coming in hot with my ficlet request:

Jesse, indigo, so late at night it's already tomorrow, and I'll leave it up to you whether that means whore o'clock or not.

(Are you surprised by any of that lol)

Thank you so much, Beth!!! Lmao I’m definitely not surprised by any of this, right down to the Usagi gif 🤩 Let’s see what kind of trouble we can get into with Juicy Jesse in 7 sentences!

warnings: unprotected piv sex (protect yoself irl), and Jesse being Jesse 😎

Jesse is every impulse you’ve ever had come to life, and you come alive for him as soon as you hear his voice, especially that laugh; the laugh that preceded questionable decisions, and memories that you would replay over and over when he was out of reach.

He’s close now though, and you hold onto him fiercely, fighting sleep to spend as many conscious moments in his presence as you can, and he always makes it worth your while, pulling you into his lap and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist.

You can feel him, hard and eager, waiting to fill you with the memory of him, so there’s not a moment of your day where he’s not on your mind, so his claim to you can be renewed again; you feel the head of his cock pressing against your entrance, teasing and gathering up your slick.

Your breaths are shaky, as he presses into you, whispering how good you are for him, as your body stretches to accommodate him, causing you to tighten your grip on him and moan his name loud enough that your voice likely carries into the courtyard below, letting everyone know just how good Jesse is to you.

Despite your urging and whining, Jesse is working at his own pace, moving your body how he likes, teasing your clit with skilled fingers, and the more you beg and bite and kiss, leaving smudges of your deep indigo lipstick on his warm smooth skin the more determined he is to show you exactly what he’s capable of when he puts his mind to it.

You’re sure you’re going to lose your mind, as the pleasure of his touch electrifies your skin, leaving you desperate to release the pent up energy that threatens to consume you, but you needn’t have worried, as Jesse knows your body like he knows his own, and he knows just how long he can keep you like this before you break.

And oh how beautiful it is when you do, shattering like glass on duracrete when he mercifully leads you into the bliss you’ve been craving, while your walls squeeze his length, begging for him to claim you in the way only he can, and he does because you’re not the only one who needs memories to replay over and over when he’s out of reach.

taglist: @secondaryrealm @dystopicjumpsuit @iamburdened @sunshinesdaydream @dukeoftheblackstar @rexxdjarin @wolffegirlsunite @sleepingsun501 @starrylothcat @ladyzirkonia @wings-and-beskar @pb-jellybeans @clio3kantarella @staycalmandhugaclone @stardusthuntress @idontgetanysleep @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @anxiouspineapple99 @littlemissmanga @mandos-mind-trick @amorfista @kimiheartblade @freesia-writes @sinfulsalutations @523rdrebel @clonemedickix @multi-fan-dom-madness

[khaleesiofalicante]

Noorambles strikes again

As we all know, David is your own character. But how did you come to make him? Like what was the thought process, any inspo?

Why is he French? Why’s his name David? Where’d you get his last name from? Was David your rough draft and you ran with it, or was he originally something else? Like different name, nationality, and personality wise?

Out of everyone in the shadow verse, why’d you chose to write about max and make David a part of it ?

Funnily enough, David came out of nowhere.

Most of my other OCs (if not all of them) were born out of a lot of thought and workshopping.

David is what I call an accidental pregnancy lmao but he ended up being my favorite kid. I made a small reference to him when I was writing a ficlet on tumblr years ago and then he just never left my mind...

There wasn't a lot of inspo. David is honestly inspo for what I want to see in the real world. I wish there were more Davids out there.

But for some of your other questions:

He's French because I've always liked France. In school, I studied French history for two years (and yes I impressed my Uber Drivers in Paris by answering their questions lol). David's name came up absolutely randomly (like I said I picked a random name for that ficlet I wrote and I never changed it). But I was so so pleased to learn that the name actually means 'be loved'. HOW COOL IS THAT?

David's last name has a deeper meaning (which we'll learn later), but it was inspired by Claire Beauchamp - a character from the Outlander series whom I loved very much.

A lot didn't change about him in terms of the specific things you mentioned. He really is the original draft. But the David who is now isn't who I thought he'd be at the beginning. But that's the same for any original character I write. The more you write, the better you understand them. Like when I wrote him at first, I didn't think being a father would be an important part of his personality. But now it's kinda most of his personality. He loves his children more than anything and I can see how that came to be considering how he was realized and how much love he kept himself inside himself without having anyone to give it to. He never had any family so when he got one that he could love, he didn't hold back. Those are things I only realized later on. And that's the best part about writing OCs. They keep surprising you!

As for why I write about Mavid the most, I feel closest to them the most. In the same way, I feel and relate to Malec the most in the tsc universe. It's impossible to write about a ship if you don't understand its dynamics on a deep level. I kind of understand Max and David very very deeply - in a way I don't understand Rafael and Anjali or Lance and Theia. Maybe it's because individually as characters, Max and David, are more fleshed out in my brain than anyone else. I assume so anyway :)

[awkwardtickleetoo]

Blind Spot

hellooooo!! first ficlet that came from this post that’s finished, and i finished it in literally like 5 hours lmao so that’s pretty sick

shoutout @mushiewrites for titling this and helping me brainrot ideas for ALL the ficlets, you’re the realest 😔✊ anyway here’s wonderwall

lee!dream, ler!hannah, ler!sylvee, 1.6k words

enjoy!!

--

“Can you even see in that thing?” Sylvee asked curiously, tilting her head up at the taller man before tilting it to the side inquisitively to match her tone of voice. Dream turned his head to face her, squinting in order to make out her facial expression through the very awkward eye holes of the mask he wore. Her eyebrows pinched together, her mouth pulled to one side, and her hand was on her hip as her ankles crossed where she stood to pop said hip out– at least… he’s pretty sure that’s accurate?

“Uh…” He began, tilting his head back and forth as he tried to form a proper answer. “Kinda? It’s, like, hard to see clearly– like I can see forward enough to walk but I can’t see like…” Dream paused to gesture in a circle around him, moving slowly to be careful of hitting anything around him. “I can’t see, like, my peripherals that well. Or, like, above or below my eye line,” Dream finished his explanation, leaving one arm out to his side, and curling the other hand in to gesture to where his eyes were located inside the mask.

“Woah, really?” Sylvee asked, her eyebrows furrowing more as she tilted her head the opposite way at the reply.

“Doesn’t that get, like, super annoying, though?” Hannah asked as she turned back away from the mirror she’d been standing in front of to touch up her hair and makeup between panels, reaching up and smacking Dream’s elbow that was still in the air as she walked past, making him chuckle and look down at her before dropping both his arms back down to his sides.

“Well, I mean… yeah,” Dream agreed, making all three of them chuckle slightly. “But you get used to it after a while, I think. It's really only super annoying when you first put it on or if you bump into something.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Hannah replied with a nod, standing next to Sylvee in front of Dream.

“So, wait,” Sylvee began, taking a few steps to her left and lifting her hand up, holding her pointer finger near the side of the mask. “Can you see my hand right now? Like, just looking straight ahead.”

“Uh–“ Dream began, unsure of himself, straightening his back and trying to see how far his vision could go. “No? I can see– I can see your arm but only up to, like, here,” Dream said, lifting his finger and pointing slightly above Sylvee’s elbow. “After that it just, like… disappears.”

“Hm,” She hummed in thought, before suddenly flicking the forehead of the mask, making Dream jump and flinch back, bringing his hand up to cover the area.

“Ow! What the hell?!” He complained through surprised laughter, and Sylvee laughed with him, throwing her head back as she did so and pointing at him mockingly. As they both cooled back down, Hannah stepped in front of him again, closer this time.

“Wait, Dream,” She began, and he turned his head back to her again. “Keep looking straight!” She scolded, and he immediately tilted his head back up, holding his hands up in surrender. “Okay, can you see mine?”

“No,” He replied quickly, shaking his head. “I can’t even see where your arm is like I could with Sylvee’s.”

“Wait, really? You can’t see this at all?” She asked, and Dream watched her shoulder move from the very bottom of his line of vision, and he could only assume that meant she was moving her arm.

“Not at all,” He confirmed, putting his hands at his sides again.

“Interesting… So you wouldn’t be able to see me do this?” Hannah asked, and suddenly there were five nails scratching at his tummy over his hoodie, and he swore if he didn’t know where she was standing he would’ve head-butted Hannah square in the face with his quickly he gasped and doubled over.

“FUCK–“ He yelped, stumbling back away from her cruel hand and covering his tummy with one palm flat against it, his other hand extended out in front of him to stop her from repeating the action. “What the fuck, Hannah!”

“Oh, don’t even be like that, you KNOW you would’ve done the same if you had that good of an opportunity!” She defended, and he glanced up at her long enough to watch her cross her arms over her chest and take another step towards him. “Don’t, don’t do it again! Stay away, idiot–“ He protested, but was cut off by another gasp and jump that sent him back to a standing position when he felt a set of hands gently rest on his back and one on his arm.

“Wait, I wanna try too!” Sylvee joined in, walking around to be in front of Dream as well, pulling her hands away with her. Dream looked down at her and shook his head, expression pleading but impossible to see through the mask.

“No, do–“

“Keep looking up!” Sylvee scolded, reaching up and using her fingers gently placed under the button of the mask, roughly where his chin would be, to push his head back abruptly, causing him to lose his words for a moment. She kept her hand there, keeping his head tilted up even through his giddy, nervous giggles.

“Sylvee, no, we’re not trying anything, both of you just– just don’t–“ He continued, pressing both hands flat against his stomach to keep himself covered, but suddenly there was a hand on his side, squeezing twice before skittering nails up and down the area. “NO! Stohohop!” He giggled out, throwing his hands to the side to try to dislodge Sylvee’s, but all he got in return was her hand poking sporadically around his side, so quickly that he couldn’t find where she was at any point to stop her– especially without being able to see her. “STOP– stop, stohop, dohohon’t! Oh my gohohod, Syhylvehehee!” He whined through his laughter, and he managed to shake his head away from her hand so he could look down and collect himself. He stumbled backwards again, gasping and looking behind him when his butt hit something, realizing he was backed up against one of the booths in the waiting room. Then, the poking returned– two hands this time– and he realized how badly he had trapped himself. “Oh, nohoho!”

“That wasn’t really your smartest move, was it, Dream?” Sylvee teased gently, making Dream shake his head, squeezing his eyes shut behind the mask. He curled up slightly, doubling over the tiniest bit, and squealing loudly when another set of hands joined in the poking, all over his tummy and other side now.

“Hahahannahahah!” Dream managed through his laughter, his voice much higher than usual, curling his arms in towards his sides and still batting around aimlessly to try and push either of them away.

“This is so fun, why don’t we do this more often?” Sylvee asked nonchalantly, casually draping one arm over Dream’s shoulder and continuing her non-stop poking with the other hand.

“Shuhuhut uhuhup!”

“He’s probably soooo red under that mask, too, right, Dream?” Hannah asked, leaning in to direct her attention right at Dream’s face, making sure he could see her if his eyes were open beneath the mask. Even with the opaque material shielding his face, he still felt the need to whip his head around to look away from her, clamping his mouth shut to hide his giggles as much as he could.

“Mhm, and no one will know but the three of us!” Sylvee replied, placing one deliberate poke above the area of his hip bone, which made him yelp and flinch away from her. This, of course, only brought him closer to Hannah, who had intended to do the same thing, but due to his movement, ended up placing the poke just barely to the right of his belly button. This made him squeal even louder, and he curled his hands around himself and shook his head.

“OKAHAY! Okahahay, plehehease, stohohop! I’ve hahahad enohohough!” He whined, sliding down the booth he was leaning against until he was sat on the floor. Dramatically, he let himself go limp, dropping his head to the side until it landed against Hannah’s thigh, then doing the same with his opposite arm until it landed against Sylvee’s ankle. To push the dramatics even further, he put on his shakiest voice, pretending to cry, sniffling a few times. “You guys killed me. You’re gonna have to find a new teammate.” He faked a cough for dramatic effect, making both girls laugh at his ridiculousness. “Tell… tell Harvey… he was always my favorite…”

“Wow. I’m crushed, really,” Hannah replied through her laughter, making both Dream and Sylvee laugh further at her reply. “Come on, idiot. If you make us late for this event with your one-man acting production I will actually kill you.” She took a step away, reaching her hand down to help him up. He didn’t take it at first, so she made a grabby hand motion towards him, still getting nothing.

“Sylvee would save me. She cares about me,” He said with another sniffle, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No I wouldn’t. Now get up.” She flicked her head to the side, motioning for him to stand up, and he let out a dramatic sigh, reaching up to grab Hannah’s hand, before reaching his other one up to insinuate he wanted Sylvee to offer hers as well. “Oh my god. You’re so ridiculous,” She said fondly, but put her hand out anyway to help him up.

Dream brushed himself off, adjusting the mask on his head with the help of the other two, and all three of them made their way towards the arena their Twitch Rivals event was located in with smiles on their faces– no pun intended, of course.

[plothooksinc]

Tagged by @loadthebases

Turns out if I search by mentions I can find it immediately! I'm so clever. (And yet. I only just went "oh hey".)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22! I am not as prolific as some-- a lot of these are one shots. |D And most of them are ancient.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

475,671!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The fandoms I write for that are published are Rurouni Kenshin, Final Fantasy VII, and TMNT '03, '07, and ROTTMNT. Unpublished I also have One Piece, Tiger & Bunny, SPN, FFXIV, annnd The Untamed, most of these just being snippets etc etc. (And then RP is another bag entirely, writing in a different format-- you can include Blade of the Immortal that way.)

4. Top five fics by kudos?

It was only recently I managed to clock the 1000 mark, and I did it on two fics at once, lmao. Uhhh--

Underdark - 1089!

No Rest For The Weary - ....1089. (You guys really are neck and neck still.)

The Zaibatsu Project - 291

Some Rest For The Weary. As A Treat. - 221

Snowblind - 174

Not altogether that bad, considering Ruroken is such a dead fandom these days. /o/

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yup. Unless someone is leaving a whole stream of one word OMG/!!!!/EEEK in which I'll probably just answer the last one they left. I did go through a very long period where I did not because I was too tired, but I started again around the 2020 mark when I actually started reading fanfiction again. And started engaging, etc etc.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I write angsty endings? :|a 404 File Not Found. I think the closest I got was the tiny ficlet I wrote for Ruroken which was just Kenshin being depressed in the rain after Tomoe's death, and I'm not sure that really counts. That was like three paragraphs of "well my life sucks" lmao. It never made it to AO3. (It's on ff dot net still, though.)

...OH. But I can tell you which one's going to have the angstiest ending and that's The Legacy. Which given the last chapter I had finished with Raph holding onto his dead not!girlfriend, I would assume most readers are not gonna be surprised by this fact. (File Soon* To Be Found.)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Idk man I tend to angle for happy endings in general, so that is very hard to answer as it comes under YMMV - people have different views of happy endings, after all. Probably Underdark as the most distinct "Yes, everything is okay now" ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nah, not really. I did have one serial reviewer that reviewed every chapter of Tanabata Jasmine back in the day with a lot of backhanded compliments and condescending comments? And one person who started off reviewing Misconduct with "well my friend told me to read this" and two chapters later said "okay I'm bored now bye", but none of this is hate. The only actual "hate" I got given was not actually ...for me? I don't think? It was someone who literally said: Why did you delete your slave fics? BITCH!! And I'm like... I have not now nor will i ever write... one of those...? So yeah. Think they mistook me for another author or something. Maybe Kikide. EH. Not my division.

9. Do you write smut?

Nah.

10. Craziest crossover?

Zaibatsu Project is a Rurouni Kenshin/Cyberpunk 2020 crossover, so that's taking all your 19th century samurai types and ditching them wholesale into 2029 Tokyo. It's fun. Maybe one day I will even write more of it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Outright? I don't think so. Buuut I've certainly had people ping me in the past to tell me someone's lifted a chunk of it wholesale or "they've written Snowblind, only with smut!" or there was one person who wrote a BNHA fic which followed the same plot of Underdark complete with dialogue borrowed directly from the fic. That last one I contacted the author and they apologised and offered to take the fic down and I told them they could keep it up provided they credit me for the inspiration somewhere. I'm sure by now some AI has scraped my stuff, but largely I write in fandoms that don't get lifted and sold like others do. And honestly, the above examples are more kinda flattering than anything else.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I believe most of my longer works have been translated into Russian, at the very least. I found Tanabata Jasmine back in the day being re-released onto a Russian forum site and I had a lot of fun translating the site to read responses (and laugh a bit at the machine translations because they kept telling me the readers were legless). Underdark has for sure. I've also found Snowblind.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote a few pages of one with @shadowbends at one point! But we didn't get far in and we both got distracted with other projects. And I also wrote half a fic to set up the other half for an author, but she didn't end up going ahead. Alas. So.... kind of?

14. All time favourite ship?

I'm honestly not much of a shipper. I mean-- actually, I ship a lot of different pairings, but only kind of superficially for the most part? Like I really enjoy reading ships but I still vastly prefer gen. I will very rarely read an outright romance fic, there's gotta be a plot. (Or at the very least some interesting smut, god.) It's easier for me to point out ships that make me go UGH GOD NO rather than a preference. (In RP I'll ship a little more if the dynamics between our characters work out really well, but I still won't be crushed if nothing comes from it. This is a hard question for me to answer. I definitely don't have an all time favourite in this lukewarm pile of ships, that's for sure.)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Any of the WIPs that I have that I never bothered publishing have been abandoned. Anything I want to finish will get finished. It will just take some time. This is assuming I have a long life; I mean, if I'm scheduled to die, say, three years from now, the only thing that might get finished is Infinite Ricochet, lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Action scenes! /o/ Pacing and tension. The most common review I get is from people vibrating from delighted stress, lmao.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Connective tissue. I can get really bogged down in getting from A to B. You can really see it in the early days of a fic where I'm still writing set up and wondering how to scale up realistically to the things I really want to write. Once everything starts going wrong, it gets much easier, rofl.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Depends on context. Like many I started writing fanfic at the time people tried to pepper as much Japanese into their dialogue as possible for realism or brownie points or whathaveyou - you can see that in my first fic on ff dot net lmaooo. Don't do this. Not unless you have a foreign phrase that just loses its flavour when translated through to English. Or, alternatively, when you actually have a non-English character who keeps dropping into their own language, or some try hard teenager who keeps trying to show off how much Spanish they know, as an example. There are always reasons to do so and reasons it will work. But if you're just going "LOOK AT THE WORDS I KNOW"... I recommend not doing so, you will look back years later and go "oh god".

19. First fandom you wrote in?

....look, technically the first fandom I wrote in was Inspector Gadget self insert fic. But I was nine so I feel I should not be judged. /cough

First time I sat down to write an actual story that was based off a show was for the old Defenders of the Earth cartoon while I was ...15? And then when I moved out my one sofa chair was surrounded by notepads as I wrote out my first 1987 TMNT fanfic. I didn't know it was called fanfic back then. In fact I didn't know anyone else did it at all and I was just weird. Please understand that when I got onto the web proper in the late 90s and found fanfic sites I was over the moon.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

It's gotta be Underdark. That thing is its own island by now. It's closely followed by the more recent There Is No Gravy, which much like Underdark wrote itself and also ended up far longer than I intended. It was just fun. It was a soft warm hug for the Rise fandom, okay, I love it.

Thank you! This was fun to reminisce about tbh. :D

I tag: @calliopechild, @radishhqueen, and @bobtheacorn ♥ No pressure, have at it if you like

* please note that the author's definition of soon may vary to yours. She has 13 year breaks between chapters sometimes, after all.

[quill-pen]

I should be sleeping or at least in bed, but late-night creativity always seems to hit me hard. Probably because it's the time of day I can actually sit down and just write without being interrupted while everything and everyone else sleeps. I always regret it in the morning though. lmao--kill me!

Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a ficlet. I was just going to do another little conversation thing like I normally do, but then my mind said, "Ya know, this would be a fun little thing to write." So... I did. I went all out and did. And it was fun! Except it kept me up until nearly 1 am. Again. Oy....

Anyway--on with the ficlet!

Slight NSFW--I'm gonna go ahead and say 18+ and "Minors get lost" just to be safe.

Summary: A quick comparison of two of my favorite ships from my Scroogeverse: Tom and Addie and Ebenezer and Bess. Which couple wins? You decide!

Warnings: Surprise, surprise--most of these are for Ebeness: brief mention of body-shaming, groping, mention of genitals, dirty talking, lusty idiots in love--I'm surprised there isn't more. As of now, not edited.

Toddie Vs. Ebeness

Addie Shaw, soon to be Jenkins, leaned heavily against the front counter of Jenkins' Toys and Games, watching as the owner of the establishment and her fiancé, Tom Jenkins, checked the inventory on the shelves. Every so often, after he'd counted up the amount of a certain item, he would call out to her a number and item name and she would dutifully record it in the ledger beside the proper entry. They'd been at it for a little over an hour now, Tom working down the shelves away from the counter. Away from Addie.

Addie drummed the fingers of her left hand against the pages of the ledger book as she heavily rested her face in her right hand. She knew it was stupid, what she was feeling, but she couldn't help it; the further Tom moved away from her, the lonelier she felt. And why on earth should that have been? He was literally right there in the room with her--he wasn't even out of sight behind shelves yet! Still, silly as it was, she did feel lonely and there was no denying it. She couldn't reach out and touch him from here, couldn't feel his warmth, couldn't smell his cinnamony cologne that she loved so much. Addie let her gaze fall down to hold on the pretty silver ring on her ring finger. Now she understood what her cousin Bess meant when she spoke of true love: You didn't need to be next to them all the time, but, ye gods, did you ever want to be!

A brilliant idea suddenly came to the young woman's mind that caused her rosy lips to curl. It was a little bit more of a Bess thing to do, but it seemed like it could be fun. And Addie knew Tom wouldn't mind taking a break.

Gently slapping her hand against the ledger, Addie leaned even more heavily on the counter and sighed extra, extra loudly, making sure to make it sound dramatically forlorn. She thought she did a decent job.

It definitely worked, for Tom immediately stopped in his counting of the checkerboards and turned to look at her. "Is everything all right, Sugarplum-bum?" he asked, looking a tad bit concerned.

Addie met his eyes, looking innocently at him. "Yes," she answered.

"Only, that sigh sounded rather sad," Tom gently pressed further, his gentle brown eyes looking her over.

Addie bit back a smile. Bess was a genius! "Well, as it happens, I am just a tad melancholy," she replied, doing her best to keep the corners of her mouth from curving up.

Tom hopped off his ladder and moved towards her, looking even more worried. "Oh, yes? Might I ask why?"

Addie put on her best pout and puppy-dog eyes, and she must have done a commendable job because she could see an entirely new level of softness well up in her beau's eyes. She internally cheered and made a mental note to discuss her triumph with Bess later. "Well, if you must know, Sugarpie, it's because it's been an hour and five minutes since you last told me you loved me."

Surprise, realization, knowing, and playfulness all flashed through Tom's eyes in a wink. It was incredibly impressive, and Addie quietly wondered if that's what Ebenezer looked like whenever Bess pulled this stunt with him. "Oh, my!" Tom gasped, one hand flying up to cover his mouth, the other his heart. "Oh, I am so sorry, Peachfuzz, so very sorry indeed! Allow me to fix my mistake!" He swept behind the counter and wrapped the plump woman up in his arms, squeezing her tight as he spun her around.

Squealing with delight, Addie wrapped her arms around the man's neck. Then she found herself being lifted up and deposited on the countertop. She blushed pink and giggled as Tom came to stand in front of her, moving between her legs. She probably parted them for him a little bit easier than a lady should have, but she didn't care. They were practically married after all.

Wrapping his arms around her again, Tom stared into his love's shining hazel-nut eyes and smiled ever so lovingly and fondly at her. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I love you," he murmured. Another kiss to her temple. "I love you." Her other temple. "I love you." He smooched her cute button nose. "I love you." He peppered her cheeks. "IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou!"

Addie laughed, trying to push him away and duck out of the onslaught. "Tom-Tom, please! That's a little too much!"

"Ah, there's never such a thing as too much love, my sweet!" He kept up the assault of butterfly kisses all over her soft, round face before finally planting his lips on hers. Immediately everything slowed, the rest of the world falling away until they were the only two people in the universe.

Addie slowly slipped her hands up to cup Tom's jaw to hold him closer, her fingers curling around his delightfully prominent ears. She delighted at how the closely cropped curls of his 'chops tickled her palms. His thin 'stache scratched against her top lip just so, sending tingles throughout her body. The woman felt as though she were in her own personal Heaven, one that was filled with nothing but Thomas Aaron Jenkins. Not that there ever had been, but there wasn't a trace of doubt in Addie's mind--this was love. True love. And it was hers. It was theirs.

When the couple finally broke apart, Tom touched his forehead to Addie's and gazed deeply into her hazy eyes. "I love you, Adelaide Kathryn Shaw" he repeated, softly, slowly, with meaning in every letter and syllable. "With every bit of my soul, I love you. You make me the happiest man on Earth, and I will dedicate the rest of my life trying to make you the happiest woman on Earth."

Addie smiled adoringly at the man, his words touching her very soul and bringing the slightest burn of tears to her shining eyes. Growing up she'd always been the silly fat girl--too plump, too loud, too attention-seeking. Boys and young men had never looked at her as something to take seriously, never mind something to love or desire. But now here she was, a grown woman in love with an absolutely wonderful grown man who loved her back with all his might, listened to everything she had to say no matter how goofy, and wanted her to be his wife and mother of his children. Addie had never felt so special. Or so happy. "You do that already, Tom," she replied to the man. "You make me so happy, I hardly know what to do with myself."

Tom smirked. "Well, apparently, you're so happy, you stoop to your delightful cousin's manipulations in order to get a little extra affection out of me."

Addie giggled. "It worked, did it not?"

The swarthy man grinned and shook his head. "You Shaw women," he muttered, booping her nose with a finger, "deviants the lot of you. I've never seen more mischievous females."

"You love us and you know it."

"Yes. Mischievous and irresistible--a dangerous combination. Good thing I'm a man that's always liked a little danger."

Addie laughed as he surged back in to kiss her again.

➽───────────────❥➽───────────────❥

Ebenezer was adding up the family balance book for the month when the door of his study practically flew open. He took a brief second to look up and catch a glimpse of his wife before turning back to his numbers. "Hello, Darling," he greeted her.

With a melodramatic sigh, Bess leaned heavily against the doorpost and pressed the back of her right hand to her head. "Have you no heart, Ebenezer Charles Scrooge?!" she exclaimed, a theatrical vibrato in her voice.

Still adding up the balance, the reformed miser smirked at the woman's dramatics. Bess always claimed she couldn't stand theater, but the woman took such delight in performing melodrama it was hard to believe her. "Well," he answered, "I have a pulse; so judging from that, I believe I have heart--but I haven't been to the doctor for a good while, so I suppose I can't say with certainty."

"No!" Bess wailed, going full Shakespearean. "No, you haven't a heart! How can you?" She pushed off the doorpost and swept into the room. "How can a man profess to have a heart when he hasn't told his adoring and devoted wife 'I love you' since..." she paused and took a deep, shuddering breath, "... since breakfast hours ago! Oh! Oh, the humanity!" The American pressed a hand to her forehead again and the other to her heart and twirled about before "swooning" and collapsing onto the deep rust, chaise lounge across from his desk. She sobbed, stretching a foot dramatically towards the ceiling: "The humanity!"

That caused Ebenezer to roll his eyes and turn away from the balance book to pivot around in his chair and face the actress that was his wife. He smirked amusedly at her. "You never fail to take it up a notch, do you?" he remarked with a snort.

Bess peeked out of the corner of her eye at the silver-haired man and winked with an impish grin, before resuming character. "Oh, the misery! The despair of being a vibrant, vivacious woman trapped in a loveless marriage!"

"Well, you are most certainly a vibrant, vivacious woman, I'll give you that."

"How can I go on? Knowing that the man I love doesn't love me in return--how can I possibly be expected to go on?! Oh, I am a piteous being! A most wretched and lowly soul cast among the broken and downtrodden of this cold, cruel, heartless world! Oh, woe! Woe is me! Woe is me!" Bess threw herself fully across the lounge, leaning far back over the curved headrest so that she was nearly hanging upside down, a hand still pressed to her brow.

The sound of chuckling reached her ears, followed by a book snapping shut. Then there were footsteps lazily crossed the hardwood floor before the door shut. The sound of the lock turning was what caused the woman to snap her eyes open and sit up to look at her husband. The distinguished gentleman stood there beside the door, watching her intently, his eyes dark. A shiver instantly ran up Bess' spine. She watched carefully as he undid his cuffs and deftly rolled up his sleeves, revealing expanses of slender-built forearms covered in attractive salt-and-pepper hair. Defined, wiry muscles flexed beautifully beneath rosy skin, reminding her of the surprising power and strength those otherwise slender arms possessed: The strength to carry her all the way home from the market when she twisted her ankle; the strength to hold her up and pin her to a wall as he rutted into her until she screamed with ecstasy. Bess gulped, looking from Ebenezer's arms up to his leering face. A thrill shot straight through her down to the special space between her thighs that only Ebenezer knew and could affect so markedly. Instinctively she parted her legs a bit.

"Well, now," Ebenezer rumbled as he slowly trod towards her, fiddling with the last few rolls of his left cuff, "it would appear as though I've been a bad husband--neglectful in my duties and leaving my poor, poor wife to suffer for it."

Bess pouted out her bottom lip. "You have been neglectful," she grumped.

"I know, Sweetness."

"Very, very neglectful."

"I know."

"How am I supposed to know that you still love me when you go hours without telling me, Ebenezer?"

"I know, I know, and I'm so sorry, Bess. So very, very sorry." He knelt on the floor before her, (which was quite gallant to do, as he did not have the youngest knees anymore) and gazed up into her face. He smirked and it held a dangerous edge that matched the blackness of his eyes. "As I have been made aware of this... greatest of transgressions," Ebenezer said, his voice soft but dark, "I would very much like to try and alleviate it." He wrapped his arms around the woman's waist and drew her forward to him. "If only you would be so gracious as to let me, Dearest Wife." He trailed a hand languidly down Bess' long leg until he came to the very hem of her skirt. Moving his hand to touch her stockinged ankle, he traced his hand just as slowly back up under her skirt. His long fingers gently pressed into her flesh.

A squeak caught in Bess's throat as a goofy grin spread across her face along with a strawberry blush. Lord, the effect this devilish man had on her--she'd never get over it. And she never wanted to. "I-" she stopped and cleared her throat, "-I believe I could find it within me to be as such." She shivered at the temperature change on her lower legs as her lover slowly pushed her skirt up higher and higher.

Ebenezer smiled wolfishly. "Thank you, my darling. I am undoubtedly married to a saint of a woman." With his free hand, he took up one of hers and kissed her fingers. "I love you." He kissed her knuckles. "I love you." He kissed the back of her hand. "I love you." All the while, his hand beneath her skirt kept on its trek.

Bess tried to steady her breathing and shifted around to allow him more access as he progressed.

Ebenezer was kissing up her arm now, trailing his lips along its length until he reached her shoulder and pressed a firmer kiss there. "I love you," he whispered into her blouse. He turned his face to hers with devilishly glittering eyes and asked, "Is this making things better, my love?"

Bess shuddered a breath and nodded her head, unable to find her voice.

"But not quite enough is it? No, you went hours without hearing an 'I love you' from my lips--a few kisses will not suffice." He moved his head to the center of her chest and pressed a kiss to her clothed sternum, then a trail of them up over her collarbone and the column of her throat.

Bess moaned as his lips gently sucked at her sensitive skin, tilting her head back just slightly. Little twinges of pleasure sparked deep in her belly; heat pooled in her pelvis. How was it possible for anyone to be so good with their mouth all the damn time? She hadn't the time to consider that question as suddenly her man's lips were upon hers, claiming them fully. She leaned into it, tilting her head for a better angle and molding her fully lips to dance with his soft, smooth, slender ones. Without thinking she brought both her hands up to skim his shoulder and clutch at the back of his neck, one hand moving higher to twine into his soft, steely hair. A large hand squeezed her left knee ticklishly, and Bess squealed, allowing Ebenezer the perfect opportunity to plunder her mouth with his tongue. She moaned at the taste of him--he'd sucked on a peppermint recently-- and allowed him to push her deeper into the lounge. Before she knew it, she was lying back with her man stretched atop her and nestled comfortably between her legs. She had no complaints.

Finally, the kiss ended as both parties desperately needed more air than they could find through their nostrils. Hearts racing, lungs heaving, they gazed into each other's lusty, half-lidded eyes. Each party thought the other a spectacular vision with their flushed cheeks and glistening lips. They could have stayed in such a way forever and been content.

"I love you, Elizabeth Felicity Scrooge," Ebenezer rasped, voice as full of adoration and devotion as desire. It warmed Bess' very soul. "I love you so much, I don't believe I could ever voice it effectively to you." The man's lips curled into a delightfully wicked sneer as his once-slate-blue-now-black eyes gleamed with devilry. "Therefore, I believe I shall have to write it out with my tongue and fingers both on and in that delectable little quim of yours."

Bess was sure she could have burned to ashes on the spot with the heat that flared throughout her body. "Ebenezer!" she squeaked incredulously.

A dark, rumbling burr of a chuckle rolled up from deep in the Englishman's chest. "Oh, I love it when you say my name, She-Wolf," he snarled, touching his nose to hers as he glowered seductively into her eyes. He trailed his hand further up her thigh to find it bare and gave it an appreciative squeeze. Its mistress squealed, and he felt his pants grow ever more constrictive. "And I can't wait to hear you scream it again."

Taglist: @rom-e-o @oldmanlusting @the-house-of-auditore-frye @crimson-phantom-designs @purgratoriat @ofvampiirisms

[myulalie]

Myulalie's AO3 Wrapped

How many words have you written this year? 55 311

How many works did you publish this year? 21

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? It's Good to Belong (Sterek, Teen Wolf, T, 49k)

What work of yours has the most hits? Same fic x)

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? Same fic again, took my by surprise!

Favorite title you used: Outsmarting the Smartass

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? none

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? CaitVi (Arcane)

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? Same old honestly

What work was the quickest to write? Probably the 500 words ficlets for Shadowhunters

What work took you the longest to write? It's Good to Belong since it's a multichapter.

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? 49...

What’s your longest work of the year? It's Good to Belong, again x)

What’s your shortest work of the year? Pillows and Princesses (CaitVi, Arcane, T, 1k)

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? A lot lmao

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? First Kiss

Your favorite character to write this year? Caitlyn from Arcane

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? Alex Rider, although more because of the plot than because of him as a character x)

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? More Sterek I'd say

Which work of yours have you reread the most? Perhaps the Flings series (Caitvi, Arcane, E, 3,5k)

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 3,427

Which work has the most comments? It's Good to Belong

Did you do any collaborative works this year? Nope, although I took some prompts!

Did you write any gifts this year? Yeah! Sweet Amnesia (Yalex, Alex Rider, E, 4k), The Boy in the Ice (Yalex, Alex Rider, T, 4k), Salt Water (Yalex, Alex Rider, E, 4,6k) ad Stay (Sterek, Teen Wolf, T, 4k)

Did you receive any gifts this year? I received four in Shadowhunters and Alex Rider for various fandom events.

What’s your most common category? I have equal numbers of works for F/F and M/M this year ;)

What do you listen to while writing? Usually a playlist for the fic or the fandom I made with songs I like.

Favorite work you wrote this year? Obeisance (Malec, Shadowhunters, T, 3k)

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? I got several but let's go with "The sky sheds tears of blood tonight." and "They kiss before dawn;".

Biggest surprise while writing this year? Not exactly while writing but I accidentally drew The Lovers card as an example of tarot reading for my crush and it inspired a fic x)

[iridescentpull]

For the prompts: yellow 1 😊

《 here it is :)) took a while lmao 》

" I can't believe I just did that. "

Spiderman!Anthony AU / TW for violence

《 ficlet under cut ! 》

Anthony knew it was a bad idea for Ian to follow him. He should've told him no when his partner suggested the idea. But alas, he allowed it to happen.

And here he was, ten mind-controlled scientists with guns pointing at him while Ian sat in a chair, tied up and knife pressed against his neck. 

"Let him go, Doc." Anthony said, eyes not leaving the figure standing beside Ian. He tried to portray through his body that everything would be fine, but he could tell Ian was one second away from panicking. 

Doc Ock stayed still, smirk on his face. "You know the deal, Spider-Man." He said, knife running across Ian's cheek. His partner's blue eyes stared at the knife, trying his best not to make a sound. "Your life, for him." 

Anthony's eyes quickly scanned the room they were in, trying to find some way out. They were on the top floor of Doc Ock's lab, which meant that the drop to the street was over five hundred feet. His eyes glanced to the ceiling, where water sprinklers were placed sporadically. He noticed a cable loose on the floor from where they fought earlier. If he managed to activate the sprinklers, the electricity would conduct with the water and electrocute the ten scientists surrounding him- including Doc Ock. 

All he needed was to separate Doc Ock from Ian and he could work on his plan. 

"Fine." Spat out Anthony, raising his arms. He could see Ian's eyes widen, but he stayed quiet. Anthony glared at Doc Ock. "My life for him- let him go. Now."

Doc Ock's eyes grimaced, but dropped the knife. He moved his tentacles to untie Ian, who stayed frozen in his seat. Once he was untied, he stayed put- waiting for how this would play out. 

The doctor moved to stand in front of Anthony, grinning like a mad man. "So you choose to sacrifice your puny life over some useless person?" He asked, circling him. Anthony heard all of the gun's safety go off. Any moment now they would shoot. He just needed Doc Ock a bit more closer to the sprinklers. "You could join me; with your strength and my intelligence, we could rule the world." 

Anthony acted like he was thinking about it, before shrugging. "Sure, why not?" He lied, hand extending in front of him. "Wanna shake on it, good sir?" 

Doc Ock seemed pleasantly surprised, before standing in front of Anthony. Both men didn't notice Ian slowly grab a loose metal tube from the floor and slowly approach Doc Ock from behind. 

Doc Ock grinned. "Welcome to the partnership, Spider-Man." He said, shaking Anthony's hand with one of his tentacles. "We'll be doing amazing things."

Anthony tilted his head, as if he was thinking. "Hmmm, I changed my mind, sorry." He said, before quickly shooting a web and sticking it on the water tubes of the sprinklers, before pulling hard. 

Immediately, water sprinkled everyone. During those brief seconds everyone seemed to be processing what happened, Anthony webbed the cable from the floor and pulled it to the water. Just when the cable touched the puddle of water, electricity rang through it and electrocuted ten scientists. 

Doc Ock pulled, growling. "You bastard!" He screamed, tentacles pulling him up. "You'll pay!" He yelled, one of his tentacles rushing towards him to grab him, Anthony closed his eyes and prepared for the hit. 

Then a bang rang out before the sound of someone hitting the floor spooked Anthony. Said male opened his eyes just to see Ian holding a metal tube, breathing heavily as he stood with a leg on top of Doc Ock's unconscious body. 

"Ian?!" The taller said, surprised. 

Ian stared at the body in surprise. "I can't believe I just did that." He said, shaking. 

Anthony immediately moved to web the unconscious Doc Ock and scientists to the ground, while pulling the electric cable far from the water. Once he made sure all danger was safely secured, he turned to Ian, removing his mask.

"Dude, holy fuck." He said, holding onto Ian's shoulders. "How the fuck did you know where to hit him?"

Ian gaped, looking between the unconscious body and Anthony's eyes. "I- I saw the control panel in the back of his neck, and just hit him." A slow grin appeared on his face. "Holy shit I'm so cool." 

Anthony's head perked up at the sound of police sirens. He grabbed onto Ian's hand and pulled him to the broken window. "Okay okay, we gotta go!" He said, pulling Ian onto him and making sure he held him correctly. 

The brunet kept looking at Doc Ock's body. "I still can't believe I did that-"

"We'll talk about that later!" Anthony exclaimed, before jumping out the window and webbing them away just as the police broke into the lab. 

If the police heard the screams of a young adult getting farther- that's part of their imagination.

[queerofthedagger]

Writing Patterns

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

Thank you so much for tagging me @merlinemrys <3

I'm going to ignore drabbles/ficlets for this because I already know they have a pattern in the way that every single line just matters so much and I overthink them even more than the "normal" first lines lmao. That aside, I definitely like to jump right in, and would probably do making some of them a little punchier (the eternal, i cannot be concise to save my life fun times. sigh)

It’s supposed to be a simple deal. [Renegades, stranger things/steddie]

When the messenger relays that Gaius requests his presence, Arthur briefly contemplates ignoring the summon. [like there's hope in this story, bbc merlin/merthur]

When it comes right down to it, it's all Gimli's fault, at least if anyone were to ask Aragorn. [deep down rivers (I'll follow you), lotr/aralas]

I understand why you wouldn't have told me; you owe me a great many explanations, but I understand. [Crooked Trajectory, bbc merlin/merthur]

Merlin isn’t actually sure how it starts. [all the city lights on the water, bbc merlin/merthur]

Arthur comes to with the unsettling feeling of having been woken too soon. [watch all my bridges burn, bbc merlin/merthur]

It is a surprise to exactly no one when the first of their friends to get married are Leon and Mithian. [So Take Me Somewhere, bbc merlin/merthur]

It starts, as things in Eddie’s life often do, with him not thinking shit through. [Eat Your Heart Out, stranger things/steddie]

“God, I used to have such a crush on you,” Eddie says, all casual. [reeling through the midnight streets, stranger things/steddie]

Traditions, Merlin comes to understand early on, are a consistent thread in the tapestry that is Camelot. [darkness in the distance, bbc merlin/merthur]

No pressure tagging: @idlestories @emryses @thefollow-spot @prattery @conkers-thecosy @m-b-w @atlantablack and anyone else who'd like to, just say I tagged you! <3

[wild-magic-oops]

Possible ficlet prompt! Magic nerd boys, (endearing) Julian and Gale engage in a rather intense game of lanceboard until one of them is quite distracted by the other

You gave Julian more credit than he's due when it comes to lanceboard lmao

Strategizing wasn't Julian's forte, if he was being honest. He liked to talk his way out of problems, and if that failed - to fireball his way out of them. But he was also a firm believer that anything was fair in love and war. And what was a game of lanceboard with his husband Gale, if not both love and war?

Truth be told, he didn't expect to last quite that long. He's never been particularly into the game, much less considerably good at it. He strongly suspected Gale hasn't won yet simply because he had given Julian a fighting chance. A sweet gesture for sure. One that Julian would both be taking advantage of and rewarding.

Frankly said, he was done with the game. He pretended to still be considering his options thoroughly, when he slipped his foot out of its slipper and trailed it slowly up Gale's calf. With his peripheral vision he could see Gale perk up immediately, probably looking at him quizzically.

He paid it no mind, still faking intense strategizing, probably rather poorly. His foot traveled further up, and along Gale's inner thigh. He felt Gale spread his legs a bit to accommodate, which made him grin behind his hand.

With the new available space he could press the ball of his foot against the growing hardness of Gale's crotch. Perfect.

"Are you trying to win by distracting me?" Gale asked him with an amused smile, pupils already starting to blow with arousal.

Alright then, pretending time was over.

"No," Julian answered honestly then grinned at his lover, "I'm trying to win by making you yield."

That caught Gale by surprise a little, but it didn't last long. He laughed shortly, before it turned into a choked moan when Julian pressed and messaged the hardness under his foot.

It took a moment for Gale to recover. It took a lot more than that to take the words out of his mouth. Not that Julian was complaining. He loved listening to Gale's voice.

"Would that really be a victory though?" Gale asked.

"Yes, and a sweet one at that," Julian replied with a self-satisfied grin.

Gale couldn't argue with that, and by all means he probably didn't want to all that much. He had barely even reached for his king to lay it down in surrender, and Julian was already crawling under the table. Victory was sweet indeed, but Gale's moans were definitely sweeter. A game well-played in his opinion.